Allotment Watch: January
27 January 2012 // Allotment Watch
January is a month of bitterly cold days, end of year blues and little in the way of harvest. That’s why I am in Costa Rica! Here the foliage is lush and the fruit is literally falling to ground, begging to be eaten. Even the wooden fence posts are resurrected in time, sprouting new leaves and new life. (more…)
First Aid Kit Competition Winners
27 January 2012 // competition //Music
The First Aid Kit competition on last weeks newsletter proved to be incredibly popular. In fact, the words Third Man Records (the correct answer btw) were still being cleared from the in-box this morning. The names of the winners have now been picked from the deerstalker and we can announce that copies of, The Lion’s Roar, the great new record from First Aid Kit will be going to:
Stephen Clark, Katherine Harrington and Martin Schori. Congratulations.
As regular readers will know I’m really fond of the record and this review of the album by Erik Thompson on The Line of Best Fit sums it up pretty nicely I reckon. (JB)
Pint by the River: Green Jack Brewery Mahseer IPA – 5%
by Ben McCormick
Ah, the legendary mahseer. Member of the carp family found in the rivers and sometimes lakes of northern India, Nepal and other parts of southern Asia. Famed for its almost brutal strength and ability to strip line off a reel quicker than you can say Jack Robinson, the mahseer is prized by anglers the world over.
When you think of a mahseer, images of baking heat, shimmering sunlight glistening off silvery rivers and harsh, rocky river banks flow mesmerically through the mind. Thoughts of grappling with a reel, straining the butt of the rod against your belly, faffing with the clutch and being giddy with excitement when you hook into one; all these are conjured up by even a passing mention of mahseer.
So when I heard Green Jack Brewery, based in Lowestoft, had an IPA named after this terrific fish, the hope was there that I’d stumble upon a beer of similarly legendary status. When I was bought a bottle in the office ‘Secret Santa’ (with a long yearned-for 10 pairs of black socks), it was clearly a blatant case of kismet. (more…)
Antidote Live
25 January 2012 // An Antidote To Indifference //Arcadia //Events
Last night, at Hampstead’s finest watering hole The Stag, Andrews of Arcadia put together an evening’s entertainment in support of the latest issue of An Antidote to Indifference. It was fantastic – a packed house on one of the most miserable days of the year.
A Doe, A Deer
by Ben Myers
Summer in Yorkshire arrived for four days last Easter and then disappeared behind a curtain of rain. All my plans for being outdoors were jettisoned in favour of staying at my desk writing a new book, punctuated only by daily trudges through mud and mulch. I treat these walks as one-man marches conducted to an internal military beat. Sometimes they last for three miles, sometimes six. But I walk everyday. It is the best preparation for writing. It staves off anxiety. Keeps you trim. Makes you engage with the non-digital world. Once a week or so I fall over and in the last twelve months I’ve torn through two pairs of (over-priced / over-rated, brand name) wellies and a new pair of Dr Martens. (more…)
Chris Watson Watch
24 January 2012 // Chris Watson Watch //Radio
Nature – episode 5 – Emma Turner, A Life In The Reeds
First broadcast today on BBC Radio 4, and now on the iPlayer.
Press release:
In 1911 a photograph of young Bittern in the nest taken by Emma Turner proved that Bitterns were breeding again in Norfolk having been driven to extinction in Britain in the late 1800s. Using extracts from her book, ‘Broadland Birds’, this programme tells the remarkable story of Emma Turner a pioneer of bird photography (1866-1940); who spent some 20 years at Hickling Broad in Norfolk, where she lived on a houseboat she designed named ‘Water Rail’ (after the first photograph she took in the Broadlands) and in a hut on a tiny island amongst the reeds (which became known as Turner’s island). After meeting and being inspired by Richard Kearton (who along with his brother Cherry Kearton was one of earliest wildlife photographers) she decided to take up wildlife photography and to document all the Broadland birds. (more…)
Tonight – For One Night Only!
24 January 2012 // An Antidote To Indifference //Events
Tickets on the door.
Robert Macfarlane on Bookclub, September 2009
Here’s a coincidence: On the day that a copy of the new Robert Macfarlane book arrived at the office, I stumble upon this archive recording of him discussing his previous book, The Wild Places, with James Naughtie on Radio 4′s Bookclub programme. The show can be listened to on the iPlayer HERE.
The new book, The Old Ways, is published by Hamish Hamilton on 7 June.
Caught by the Reaper
Words & picture by Charles Rangeley Wilson.
Christmas Eve brought Moby Dick to the coast of North Norfolk: a fifty-five foot sperm whale washed onto the beach within yards of a public car park and access path in Old Hunstanton. The decomposing corpse of Moby – Ahab may have been inside it – soon became a ghoulish tourist attraction. The resort’s cafe’s and restaurants had never known it so busy in mid-winter. The owner of the car park is said to have done rather nicely, and even a Chinese Restaurant miles away on the road north to … “the only east coast resort that faces west” … reported a brisk trade in crispy duck thanks to the presence of a dead whale. It seems that even in the digital age we need our sea monsters. (more…)
R & B on the River Thames
Rivers & Boats & Rhythm & Blues: on BBC Radio 4 this evening, the first in a series of 15 minute radio documentaries going out under the banner, Kenneth Cranham On The Water. The subject this week is Eel Pie Island, 1964. Home then to the young faces of the burgeoning British R & B scene, and (fellow anglers take note) now the favoured hang out of the best dressed fish in the river, the perch. I kid you not these fish are the dandies.
