Thanks to Sascha Pare and LiveScience Online for the Headline.
Basically the Chinese have ecologically engineered a forest around a desert that was increasingly getting drier and windswept and increasing the area of desertfication in the direction of human habitation.
In 1978 the plan to grow trees around the margins of the Taklamakan and Gobi deserts in order to stop s desertification in it’s tracks and it seems to be working. The desert is being transformed into a carbon sink by planting (and looking after )more than 66 billion trees around it’s edges and the plan is to continue this process until 2050.There is some evidence it is working , however, there is concern that it has not stopped the famous sand storms in the area. Still it is I think it is a positive ecological story.
AI generated image of trees being grown at the edge of a dessert.
Thanks to Maddy Bull and BBC Online News for the Headline.
A seed planted many years ago, between 1809 and 1815 by Mary Ann Brailsford which grew into a tree, the fruit of which was discovered by Henry Merryweather fifty years later.
The garden in which the tree stood was then owned by Mathew Bramley. It’s seedlings became the progenitor of the Bramely Apple, which we know and love today and is seen now on many supermarket shelves . Mary Ann Brailsford’s tree is therefore very significant and ideally it would be lovely for it’s location and health to be preserved.
The cottages and land that the tree is on is now owned by Nottingham Trent University and they have done a sterling job in keeping Mary’s tree alive as it has being diagnosed with incurable honey fungus, but the land does not suit the University’s future plans
If the land is sold the worry is that the tree and it’s location will be lost which in modern day land development is a distinct probability
Is it worth saving or should we accept that it would be a good idea to preserve it’s D.N.A in the Royal Horticultural Society’s massive store of plants and maybe grow a healthy tree to remember Mary, Henry and William’s contribution to apple posterity and have the tree located somewhere that people can visit it. Watch this space.
Thanks to Matt Simpson , Reporter Oxfordshire News Online for the Headline
The tea room at Grey’s Court in the Chiltern Hills at Rotherfield Greys closed on Sunday afternoon(February 8th) suddenly and unexpectedly without the normal chalk on a white blackboard explaining what was happening and if the Cafe will reopen anytime soon.
Thanks to the probing for information by the intrepid Oxfordshire News the Management of the National Trust site have said the closure of the “Cow Shed Tea Room” was to make some “improvements and upgrades”to the very popular watering shed. The fact that it had to close early on Sunday I think means something broke suddenly and the spare parts have to come from the Czech Republic by Donkey Courier. Hence the delay. Though in true NT speak, everything is under control.
The very positive Management message from the National Trust is that they look forward to welcoming you back shortly , though they can’t confirm a date yet.
Thanks to Gem O’Reilly and Amy Clarke and BBC News Online for the Headline.
Gorne Wood is listed as protected Metropolitan Open Land containing 500 year old trees and endangered species.
AA Homes who currently own the land and have no planning permission to build houses on it thus the value of the land is not the £3million that they are asking but probably closer to the £60 ,000 that the local people have offered to take it off their hands and regain the space for them to enjoy which they have been unable to do for the last 25 years as various owners have sealed it off and let it go to waste.( probably helping the endangered species thrive).
I hope common sense prevails, London needs it’s green spaces whether or not Big Government tries to classify them as grey spaces, giving unscrupulous developers the opportunity to sell off the land with the promise of Housebuilding Profits.
It’s London today and the rest of the Country tomorrow, unscrupulous developers are everywhere, we are just not looking at our existing housing stock, it’s just build, build build and once it’s gone it’s gone. The infrastructure, the pollution and the decimation of nature is a long lasting legacy .
It seems like the World has gone crazy when a Human Rights Director has to resign from his position of 10 years due to a report that details human rights abuses in Palestine. Seems someone has got very sensitive about saying the Palestinians have a right to return to the areas that they were forced to leave.
What happened to the Human Right to Live and let Live? I think some of these Human Rights people spend too much time in Committee meetings.
Thanks to Seb Cheer of BBC News Online for the Headline
Salmon is expensive and it doesn’t go on trees, you can buy it from any supermarket and it usually says the Country of Origin, although sometimes it says of EU Origin, or it is packed in the UK and to be truthful North Atlantic Prawns could be from the Bering Sea and the Trawler had widened it’s trawl area to ensure a successful catch. They might be artic prawns because really without googling would you have known where the Bering see is? You do?Well clever ol’ you!
I was once in Waitrose and someone asked where the Bering sea was , I’m sure the chap said , oh yes they’re from North of the North Atlantic. Anyway I bet Artic prawns are juicier.
However if you say it’s Scottish then it better be” “Scottish”, definitely not Norwegian as the men who represented themselves as “Purveyors” of Scottish Salmon got into trouble with the Law and their main customer Aldi stopped using them and they went bankrupt and still have to appear in court. Hence the Headline News.
I don’t buy salmon, well maybe tinned salmon at Christmas ( heaven knows where that comes from), but I love those crunch sock-eye bones that almost melt in your mouth , a full on calcium crunch capable of stopping osteoperosis in it’s tracks. The bone crunching makes me feel like I’m Queen of the Jungle and once you’ve mixed it in a bowl with mayonnaise and plenty of black pepper even if there was the odd bit of sea lice in it you wouldn’t notice. Extra protein.
In truth it’s really Salmon farms that bother me, the pictures of sea lice on the farmed Salmon’s gills and the fact that they can’t swim half way around the World like a proper Salmon just puts me off. So although I buy a lot of fresh fruit and veg from Aldi( great if you use it up quickly ), I have never bought their cuts of fresh salmon , largely because of the pictures of sea lice. So smugly I can look at the other shoppers and think.
“Not me(we’ll forget about the tinned salmon)” and smile at them as I think to myself “Hhhmmn it might be from Norway. Have you seen those internet pictures.”
Still once this Headline spreads I bet the “Scottish Salmon” sales in Aldi dive, and my harmless thoughts about Sea Lice will pale into insignificance as people will have made their own minds up. The damage is done.
Thanks to Brittany Miller of the Independent Bulletin Online.
A brand of frozen fruit juice ” Minute Maid ” which was first introduced in 1946 is being discontinued, consumers will no longer be able to purchase it as Coca- Cola, the owner now of “Minute Maid”, has decided due to declining sales and competition from other drink products that they will stop producing it.
I’m sad to see that name Coca-Cola, as it seems to be a pattern with them to close down businesses that consumers are fond of. In the UK , there was a chain of Coffee Shops called Costa Coffee, and they used to be very good. Now due to lack of investment and poor management since Coca-Cola took them over in 2019 they certainly don’t seem as popular and of good quality as they used to be. I suspect they will go the same way as “Minute Maid”. It’s just another erosion of choice.
Thanks to CNN World News and Jomana Karadsheh and Nadeen Ebrahim for the Headline
I just find it extremely frustrating that Big Government’s like Iran feel the need to imprison people who speak out against them.
Narges Mohammadi represents freedom of speech and the human rights of people all over the World. She is one clear voice and now she feels her only option is to starve herself to death because it is her only option to be heard.
I worry that the conditions that she and other political prisoners are being detained in are appalling, does she feel now she has no option as she is being so badly treated?
Big Government is a bullying Government.
A viscious bully who cannot stand any criticism or anyone having a different thought or opinion from them. By their very nature they cannot rationalise their standpoint so they have to shut down anyone who disagrees .
They are authoritarian but weak minded, in this case hiding behind religious doctrine which over many centuries and it seems today has been used by bullies to subjugate others who wish to live their lives in Peace and Harmony.
I wish Narges Mohammadi well and hope that she is allowed to live and thrive, it is I fear a forlorn hope.
Thanks to BBC Online News and Maia Davies for the Headline.
Aw it’s gone now, painted over in white by the man who originally did the restoration. It attracted hordes of people into the Chapel of the Basilica of St Lawrence in Lucina, unfortunately for purely secular reasons and not to practice their religious beliefs.
The fresco itself was fairly modern,and it’s retouching lead to it having an almost photographic resemblance to the Italian PM Giorgia Meloni in full angel mode. Bless the Italian PM , she found it very amusing and quipped that she was “no angel”
Of course the chap who did the “retouching” denied it was deliberate and persisted in his story that the resemblance was just a coincidence. The Cardinal in charge and the Church Hierarchy thought differently and more or less said that it was bringing the Church unwanted attention. So it is gone.
Thanks to Nottingham City Council taking a Company called H35 (Housing Plus 35) to Court to ensure that they comply with the essential safety and management standards required for running housing for multi-occupational (HMO) properties of which H35 run about 70 in the local area, HMO properties nationally will now have to comply to the Housing Standards rules.
It was Nottingham and their Safer Housing Team that took the lead on this and it will now apply Nationally , that any company running a multi- occupational housing network must comply to Housing standards that keep people safe and able to live in suitable conditions.
The said Company, H35 claimed that their Company only needs to comply with the Financial Conduct Authority being a mutual benefit cooperative society and thus fulfilling it’s statutory housing requirements by being registered with the FCA.
How the Law let H35 hide behind this ridiculous claim that the FCA would know or care about their standard of housing is beyond belief seeing as the Council fined H35 nearly £30,000 for breaches and the Council had to appeal to establish the argument that H35 needed to comply with statutory Housing Regulations . They won the case and I believe that people will be safer and better housed because of it. Well done Nottingham!
thenotsomightyom 