The older one gets, the easier it is to become confused. Events of the last week or so have thrown all sense of order and logic into disarray.
On the one hand we have the eco-warriors telling us that we have only a few years to save the earth, and on the other hand we have scientists telling us that we reduce our life expectancy if we eat more than one rasher of bacon and one egg per week!
I am no scientist but have worked it out in a nano-second that if we all live longer the planet will in a very short time be over populated and resemble something akin to Westminster Bridge with a hoard of hairy faced activists in occupation, with nothing to do but spray CFC gasses everywhere and sing and dance like lunatics on a drug fuelled ego-trip.
We should in fact be eating more bacon and more eggs because the manure left behind by the pigs and hens will be required to replace expensive artificial fertilisers, most important in the cultivation of green and other crops which that hoard of numb skulls seem so keen on consuming in exclusivity.
How privileged one must be to be able to shirk any notion of work or use to humanity, while blaming the rest of us who work at least nine to five to provide the majority with something to consume. Do any of these pathetic activists wear clothes? How many of them are too lazy to cook the fruits of the earth rather than have takeaways delivered to their doorstep? How many of them go on the lash over the whole weekend which keeps the lights blazing until dawn and the police and ambulance services up all night? I read that one of the main protesters of this latest riot had a wake up call after she had stuffed a load of chemicals up her nose! Well, chemicals don’t grow on trees.
As mentioned before, activism is becoming the new norm and is without doubt being whipped up by the far left. School kids are currently being brainwashed into thinking they can save the earth by short-term disruption rather than long-term education and employment. Which reminds me – the Marxist party are nearly running out of bribes to lure the gullible young into their ranks and are proposing a four day week. Odd isn’t it, when work to rule consistently keeps our productivity rates in the relegation zone! The up-side of course is that the newly elected company of flying pickets will at least get three days rest a week from their very productive work.
There is good news however. On Wednesday 17 April on Good Morning Britain, the programme did a piece on the shocking increase in knife crime. ITV gave considerable air-time to a black man, who was obviously well integrated into community activity and he admitted that the problem was not the lack of policemen on the streets, but the enormous lack of father figures and male family role models in the ethnic population. Alleluia! At last somebody has found the guts to identify the problem and air their views on the national media. Needless to say, the BBC have not shown similar fortitude, given that they are frightened to say boo to a goose in the full knowledge that most geese have a legal eagle on their pay roll.
Easter was a great success, with the weather playing an important part. Management spent hours in the garden tidying up the flower beds and shrubberies, while I spent hours keeping out of the way! I did though make time to attend the vegetable patch and plant three rows of early potatoes and pick armfuls of sprouting broccoli. Sunday lunch was provided by our daughter who cooked a rolled shoulder of hogget and it was superb.
On the farming front, the sheep trade is still buoyant and as numbers dwindle, the prospects look even better. On the chalk downs, the weather has not been kind to us so I have had to sell as stores some Kent Wethers, which since October have turned over at least £30 per head. The beef trade remains in the doldrums, however prices are going to improve very soon as the supply of yarded cattle shortens and abattoirs again have to compete for stock. Pork, as usual, is still very cheap and far better value than an avocado flown in from the other side of the world! But on the other side of the world China has lost a third of its breeding stock to swine fever, so prices will also improve.
Management, myself and some friends who are very good with a paint brush are off to Brittany in May, so I will not be able to write an article for the June edition. Luckily our small farm with the sheep, hens, dogs and cats will be left in the capable hands of our friend Nigel, who runs the place far more efficiently than I do. Au Revoir!