Apparently, Nature Writing is the new rock’n’roll. I’m certain it is strong enough to withstand such trivialisation but it’s bloody irritating when an art-form that you love and one that you are attempting to understand gets dumbed down for the sake of an ‘angle’.

Said story appears in the Times today, and it’s one that we took part in. It isn’t that it’s a bad piece – quite the opposite in fact. The author is the well regarded Alan Franks and his conversation with the highly influential and provocative pair of Richard Mabey and Iain Sinclair is enjoyable but too short. It’s a real shame what was obviously a good story had to get dressed up as something deemed ‘more exciting’ in order to make it palatable. Seeing a picture of Alex James is always enough to make the heart sink, seeing one side by side with quotes from you is positively mortifying.

Really, it shouldn’t have been a surprise. I think we knew this was going to be the case when they asked us to take a guitar and a fishing rod along to the photo-shoot. Ah well, at least we’ve still got the old rock’n’roll.