Oyster farming has been banned by the Duchy of Cornwall and the Woodland Trust have created a map of Tree Equity Scores for urban areas….what else could we possibly talk about this week? Expect a non-linear thought from Richard P involving kings and we hear about Richard N’s favourite writers and Callum’s experience at a sports ball event thing…apparently the blue team won.
CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.You can contact us by email on: contact@countryslide.co.uk
Edited and Produced by Amy Green.
This transcript was generated using AI and may contain minor errors.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Pistachio things are delicious.
Richard Negus: Dad, just stop it. Look, we haven't said grace yet, Callum. You're there munching away on. You do you, hon. Cornish. Look, anyway, look, the good ones amongst us will say grace. For good times past, for our past, for horse and hound, and each fox found, for days of sport, champagne and port, for rod and gun, for rain and sun. for partridge and pigeon, pintail and widgeon, hound and horn, each dewy morn, for wild salmon and chalk stream, cider, beer and village green, for country pubs, thank God above, for England's beauty and Christian duty, for every pint and every plateful, may the good Lord make us truly grateful. Amen.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Decent.
Richard Prideaux: How lovely. That was the very night.
Richard Negus: Are you spiritually refreshed after that? Are you ready to carry on munching away on your corner shop pistachio sticks, Callum?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Always. He's given me the sustenance I need to get through.
Richard Prideaux: Presumably, if they updated that grace now, there'd have to be sort of a stanza about digging out cubs whilst being filmed by a communist who's whacked out on Triple SIs. Triple SIs? No, SSRIs, which is a drug, not the legal designation for forever.
Richard Negus: Oh, well, we're doing well, aren't we? A small wine. Honestly, I'm absolutely off my nut on Triple SIs. Actually, a lot of people who have Triple SI woods on their farms or estates or land are absolutely off they're not anyway because it does the head in because it's much more challenging to manage them well when it's a triple SI than when it's not. So, you know, there you go. It's a lesson to us all. Don't do triple SIs kids.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Triple SI is just say no.
Richard Negus: Just say no.
Richard Prideaux: Quite. I recommend this show to people, you know, and then every time I do, they go, oh, I'll start with this one. No, don't start with it. I'll do this one. No, don't do this one. I don't know how to get people started on the show. What is the gateway drug for Country Slide?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Horse episode. And if they can handle it, then they can stay.
Richard Prideaux: Leslie Dolphin, maybe?
Richard Negus: It's probably something to be fair. But that is it. Is this a bit like, day one when you join the army, they absolutely beast the \*\*\*\* off you. You're going, what on earth am I doing here? This is crazy. Why have I joined this affair? Put them straight in with Leslie Dolphin and see if they are, you know, made of the stern stuff that we require from our listeners.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: The baptism of fire.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Love it.
Richard Prideaux: Anyway, what have you been up to, Richard? Have you been outside or have you been doing stupid book things?
Richard Negus: No, I've been largely doing stupid book things. I did yesterday go and talk to...
Callum Mcinerney Riley: The Third Reich about why the curlew is a good...
Richard Prideaux: He's evolved on, he's trying to bring back the next one.
Richard Negus: It wasn't quite like that. It was more, I went to speak to some school children. Layston Primary School and then at the Old Valley Academy, which is the secondary school in Layston. And I talked to them about hedges and things that live in hedges. And then when I spoke to the guys, girls in the senior schools, they foolishly asked me how to write about landscape and the countryside because they've got a project on that.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Who did you refer them to?
Richard Negus: Do you know, interestingly, I took a selection of books because what I wanted to do was say that, you know, if you just read one about the countryside, nature and landscape, then you're missing a trick. So I took a selection of books by authors who I rate, and that was ranging from Henry Williamson through to Patrick Galbraith, Patrick Laurie. Who else did I take with me?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I'd say you always talk lovingly about Patrick Laurie.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: From what I get from you, I think he seems like your favourite. Am I right?
Richard Negus: Him and Williamson, actually, because both are completely, slightly broken men in two different ways. Patrick Laurie, I haven't met. I talk to him and correspond with him via e-mail every once in a while. And I think he's a character who I believe he lost a child and it was heartbreaking, heart wrenching for him. And I think that also people who live in geographically very challenging places because they are stark and harsh. I think that they are possibly made slightly up and down in their psyche and you can read that through everything that he writes. There is a melancholy through him and I find the melancholy as well of Henry Williamson always very poignant. because he was broken by the First World War. And yes, he turned into a raving fascist, but there was a reason why he turned into a raving fascist because he was so determined that there would be no more war. He thought that was the only way out of it. And I find their writing beautiful, fascinating, whatnot. So I found myself in front of a bunch of school children saying, yeah, read these, the work of these is beautiful, but you know, I'm not held responsible.
Richard Prideaux: I think we should point out that Henry Williamson is the older author from a time gone by was a fascist in World War One. Patrick Laurie is a farmer in South West Scotland.
Richard Negus: Yeah, Oh, yeah. Patrick Laurie's not a fascist.
Richard Prideaux: No, I just wanted to make that separation clear.
Richard Negus: No, But I think both of them are driven to things because of personal trauma and the fact that they are so close to the natural world, which tends you to be rather fatalistic, I suppose. And yeah, you're right, Callum. I do. I think he's a wonderful man and he writes brilliantly and I hope he does come out with a second book.
Richard Prideaux: But Henry Williamson, presumably, because I think he's dead.
Richard Negus: Well, yes, he is, but he lived, funny enough, I just went to the Co-op, which is right opposite where Henry Williamson lived. No, he lived opposite the Co-op in Bottersdale. So, you know, it's It's quite amazing. Well, you think this village here that was where down the road for me is where you can buy a four pack of Stella is where Basil Brown, he who on Earth Sutton Who and Henry Williamson both lived and they lived there at the same time. So can you imagine the guy who on Earth Sutton Who and Henry Williamson lived in the same village at the same time. I mean, that is ridiculous and it's a nondescript little old place. And rather funny is that Bottersdale also has a pub called the Greyhound and the sign on the Greyhound is a Springer Spaniel. So, you know, what's not to like? That's just Suffolk as they come, innit?
Richard Prideaux: Was he as autistic, Basil Brown, as the way he was portrayed in that film off of Netflix?
Richard Negus: Do you know?
Richard Prideaux: They were clearly portraying him in a certain neurodiverse light, weren't they?
Richard Negus: Interesting. Fines paid him, didn't he? Great fines. I don't think so. I think that actually, from what I'm told, was that basically he was a digger and so therefore he was a person who dug holes and if he wasn't digging holes for sort of in inverted commas buried treasure. He probably would have been digging holes to go fencing or something like that. So therefore he was just a good old boy. I mean, they had to teach Ray Fiennes to speak with a Suffolk accent because he, although Fiennes is Jake Fiennes's brother, is that he, you know, and both are from, actually from Norfolk, both of them have lost it to such a degree that you don't hear it. So they had to get this bloke called Charlie Haylock to teach them. Although I was told in delighted tones by somebody from Charlie Haylock came up in a conversation. You go, well, you know, he goes and teaches all these old boys to go and speak Suffolk. He goes, Ian, even from Suffolk originally, which in Suffolk, it means you are damned. If you went from Suffolk originally, you're a thoroughner. Anyway, that's what I've been up to, talking to kids.
Richard Prideaux: And speaking of neurodiversity and digging holes, you probably shouldn't be. Callum, what have you been up to? You're not allowed to mention anything to do with AI. We've already decided that.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: You'll have to forgive my AI seizures that I've had this week.
Richard Prideaux: I've been on the phone with you for an hour today talking about AM. Really? We don't need any more. Oh no.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It's been good chat. Been good chat.
Richard Prideaux: Well, I'm technically his employee at the moment.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, staff of two and one of them is not really me. I'm not allowed to talk about it. And it's really difficult not to talk about it because we've been doing some real fun things.
Richard Negus: Why are you not allowed to?
Richard Prideaux: I've banned him because it's boring.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It's not boring.
Richard Prideaux: Talk about real things out there in the natural world.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Talk about real things. Do you know what I did? I went and photographed the FA Cup final.
Richard Prideaux: There we go. That's the thing. That's real.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: That was a real thing. What an experience to be at an FA Cup final at Wembley. It's, a mad place to find yourself in. The thing I love about photography is you really don't know what next week could hold for you. Like, you could be rocking up to a baron's house to photograph his collection of toenail clippings and then the next week you're at an FA Cup final and the next week, you're doing lawnmower racing. It's just the maddest stuff. But yeah, FA Cup final, never done anything quite like it. Not really geared up for it as much as I should be. But my brief was basically to show the ambiance and the cool stuff and the fans loving it. So I nailed it and it was really good and the clients love it.
Richard Prideaux: Right, so let's do a quiz now. Which teams were playing, Callum?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: The blue ones.
Richard Prideaux: Yep.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: There was the blue ones, the dark blue one and the light blue one. And you know me because I'm a big sports fan. My favourite thing about large sporting events is that usually the river banks are a lot quieter.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: But you know, go sports. Go sports.
Richard Prideaux: Is football the round one? Is that the round one?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, you're thinking of the hand eggs, the other one. Oh, and I also ended up photographing Maro Intoja, the England rug captain.
Richard Negus: That's Maro Itoje. Maro Itoje. Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Callum needs subtitles.
Richard Negus: And what sort of dog did he have? Callum, did he have a dog?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: He had a little spaniel. a little black spaniel that somebody sort of gave him. And that was the biggest smile we had all day. As soon as someone handed him a dog, he was a spaniel specifically. He was loving it. So he loved it. But yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Were you aware of the quite large protests happening elsewhere in the city on the same day as the FA Cup final? Was that completely?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I was limiting the racist epicentre of the UK at present and getting the very train line that runs from the hotel that they've been setting fireworks outside and probably put your council tax up by another 100 quid a month. Yes, I was aware and they closed the central line and I had to get a replacement bus service which took me an hour extra on top of my journey. I was very aware there was quite a few people on my train that were that were draped in flags.
Richard Negus: Right.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So yeah, there was there was things happening, but I don't think it was that. I'm not sure if it's sort of left versus right, but I don't think there was that big a turnout. What's his name? Johnny, Johnny Four Names, whatever he's called.
Richard Negus: Oh, Rob Tommy, Rob Robbie Tomlinson.
Richard Prideaux: Stuart's inquiry.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Stuart Lexicon Tomlinson, that fella, he put out that it was like 3 million people. But then at one point, someone's got a sparse gathering of people on Parliament Square. So I'm not sure which one to believe.
Richard Negus: Well, there are the reports vary. I mean, he said there were 3 million, which just sounds like a big number to him. I think he's gone to the same school of counting that Donald Trump and Diane Abbott went to, but the original count by the Metropolitan Police was 60,000, and then they went up to between 100 to 150,000. Now, I was on the countryside march back when the countryside march was, and they know that was effective. Yeah, brilliant, wasn't it? Four 100 and fifty-six 1000 people marched on that because they actually had counters, so they, so they could actually go and say, This is the weight of numbers, and as Richard says, Well, that was effective. It was a good day out, maybe. Yeah, that was good fun. You know, so hunting went, the post offices got closed. You know, everything that we marched for still got either banned or shut. But I think a weight of numbers that there is a, it's funny, I don't like marches and protests and things like that. I just think that they're largely, for anything. I just think that when you're protesting, yes, you're making your voice heard, but ultimately you're either going to go, oh look, I don't think anyone's gone, gosh, there's a lot of people there, I'm going to go and join them. I think what either happens is you go, you bloody idiot, you're getting in my way. And I remember when I was on that countryside march, some bloke, you know, in a sort of urban dress, he went, oi, he goes, get off my land. And I thought, actually, that's very clever, because all of a sudden I'm walking up the mall and we're all sort of looking a bit starry eyed and struck because We're in London. And he said, get off my lap. as in, what are you doing in my manner, you \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*. And I thought, yeah, actually, that's true. So most people, you either \*\*\*\* \*\*\* or you inconvenience. You enrage some people who've got the opposite opinion. And do you go and say, oh, yeah, I'm now inspired to that? I don't think so. I mean, it's, I don't know. What do you think, Richard? Is a march any use?
Richard Prideaux: I don't know. It's like I always urge people towards the political and democratic process, even though I think it is now completely pointless. It's sort of it's the shittest process we have, but it's the only process we have. So you have that. But I think marches work to a degree. I just don't like well, this conversation we're having now, you can't say for certain how many people were there. I don't entirely trust anyone reporting from it, either unofficially or officially, because every kind of reporting has an agenda to it now as well, including despite having them as clients, the police would agree because it's part of community cohesion is to make sure that you portray a certain message. So we can't know what happened or what order it happened and what was ignored and what was focused on because at the end of the day, it's all human biased decisions. So I think if you wanted to go and you wanted to do it safely and legally, you should go. But I also don't think that it is the only option open to you, And I don't think also you can make some assumptions about why people are there, because you could have picked any 10 people there and probably got 12 different answers about exactly which issues drove them there on that day. I think the only thing is with this, that we're kind of at a political point. at the moment, which is a bit like the Brexit vote. The Brexit vote wasn't really about Europe, it was about people felt, they weren't really interested in sort of exactly the trade arrangements between here and Europe and freedom of movement and that kind of thing. They had, we'd have 30 odd years of every news outlet saying, Europe would let us do this and the government quite happily going along with it, whichever government flavour it was. So when eventually you say, there's this big thing in Europe that prevents us doing things, do you want to get out of it? Everyone went, yeah, let's change it. Well, half the country did. And it wasn't really about the issue that was being voted on. I think that's kind of what's happening now. Particularly, people want to change. It's very difficult, I think, if you're a political party, most of them at the moment to say, you know, see those people over there, they're complete amateurs and idiots and brand new and they've never done anything in the political sphere. You should listen to me because no matter which party I'm from, if I've been in the political establishment for over the last 10 years, I've probably things up quite royally for you because all of them have.
Richard Negus: But I realise why it's up and I won't up like the other ones because I'm better. Yeah, it's quite true.
Richard Prideaux: Nadine Dorries at the moment saying that the online harms bill, because now it's affecting reform, should be repealed, even though she was the one who actually did a soft rap, I think, was part of her promo campaign for it.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Anyway, we should probably have some sort of go back to a full on monarchy instead.
Richard Negus: Yes, that's the way that's the way. So, basically, you watched a football match between two blue teams.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Go Sports.
Richard Negus: Go Blue Team. Yes, exactly. So there we go.
Richard Prideaux: Speaking of a monarchy, let's talk about oysters.
Richard Negus: Oysters, yes, absolutely.
Richard Prideaux: There'll be a link to this out in the show notes, people, but I would like to draw your eye. Imagine a sort of, you're hovering over the UK, you're up there at very high altitude. Look down to the bottom left, sort of the bit that's not quite the good bit, which is Cornwall, but the bit before, which is Devon, isn't quite as good as Cornwall. But it's better than Somerset, we can all agree on that.
Richard Negus: But it does do the right thing with a cream tea. Am I correcting that they put? They put cream on first, then the jam. That's the better thing about Devon. Is that right, Richard? That won't create any sham.
Richard Prideaux: I actually do agree with that the Devon way is better, but if I say that in Cornwall, I'll be shocked.
Richard Negus: He's been gone for so long. Right, anyway, back to oysters. Yes, go on.
Richard Prideaux: So you go down to the River Avon, and then all the way down, there's a place called Bantham. And at Bantham, a man called Tim Edwards was farming oysters. and it's on the Dutchy Cornwall land and the estate that owns the riverbed there and they said, no, you're not allowed to farm oysters here anymore because he was farming Pacific oysters, not our native oysters. And they can be sort of farmed in the intertidal zone. You have these big cage things. They've got them on the Menai Straits up here in North Wales and you farm them there and they are So they're triploid, so they're effectively the sterile. And it's meant to be that there is no effect on the habitat from the farming, but they do escape and they spread to other places. They break off and you get all sorts of things, but they don't reproduce.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: What's different about them?
Richard Prideaux: They're from the other side of the world.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, foreign.
Richard Prideaux: It is the American signal crayfish compared to our native brown. That's what it is, except without the predation and the disease.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Do they look different? Or do they look? All right, okay. So one's like a standard white, the oyster we all know and love. And then what do these look like?
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, so native oysters, I suppose you call them more squish, they're flatter, whereas the Pacific oysters are big and jagged of the sort of size of your hand.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Oh, right, okay.
Richard Prideaux: But he's been told he's not allowed to farm them anymore because they're a non-native.
Richard Negus: Okay.
Richard Prideaux: Which is interesting. So on paper, not doing any harm, but the reason the Duchies say they've given him is that they are non-native, which I find very, very interesting.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So I assume they're going to stop pheasant shooting.
Richard Prideaux: Well.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: And there'll be no more muntjac and grey squirrels will all go.
Richard Prideaux: Pheasant shooting starts with pheasant farming to a degree.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Of course, the native British pheasant.
Richard Prideaux: Is it a narrow wedge? because they are native but non-native.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: A French partridge, that'll obviously, that'll stick around, of course.
Richard Negus: To be fair, where Sandringham is, they are no longer allowed to put pheasants down. But I think more to the point is that they, let's think about their farming. They are actually farming and I can assure you that on Dutchy land, They have not all got on their farms native breed cattle and sheep. So therefore it's a bit oxymoronic. So is it bad to, I mean, okay, so what's the downsides, ecologically speaking, of having a triploid, i.e. something that can't actually spread? What is the downside of having a a sterile non-native species being farmed, which is still as a bivalve is cleaning the water there because that's how they do it. They filter it through so they make that estuary cleaner. Is it any better or worse than if you had a native oyster? And can you farm? native oysters? I don't know. I see, I'm going off to do some exploration about oyster farming and I haven't yet been, so I know nothing about oyster farming. Is it possible, Richard, do you know? Could you put a native oyster?
Richard Prideaux: I think you probably, it was technically possible. It might not be economically viable and it might, but farming native species is a hard one anyway.
Richard Negus: Yes.
Richard Prideaux: Because then you've got the harvesting. Because you can propagate them, but then you've got to harvest them. Obviously, sometimes it's the harvesting bit that needs a license than any shellfish. Most often you need a license or you have a sort of a limit of what you can do. Pacific Oysters are classed as invasive. Not making it invasive. So like rhododendron, like, well, weirdly here on the North Wales coast, Sea Buckthorn, which sort of the coastal version of...
Richard Negus: Really.
Richard Prideaux: Is classed as an invasive. It's native to the UK, but not really native to North Wales. You've got it on your side of the country.
Richard Negus: Yes, it's very Eastern.
Richard Prideaux: But they've it's classed as an it's invasive on sand dunes, particularly here, because it was planted in people's gardens and things, and it colonised the sand dunes right next to it.
Richard Negus: OK.
Richard Prideaux: I think that's sort of the argument. It's an invasive non-native. It's like, so somebody looking at it might go, hang on, that person's farming Japanese knotweed. We should probably not have him do that. But it's a bit of a, I don't know, it's a bit of a shame that this one little thing.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I smell a rat. I want to know what the actual reason is, because that sounds to me like a classic just say that excuse.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I just, I can't see. Someone must have got the idea and thought, well, if we're going to say that, there's a lot of things we do that aren't native and don't align with that thought process. But clearly they didn't.
Richard Prideaux: And there's a whole point with this that is that there is the official statement we've got here from the Duchy. Presumably they pass it down the left-hand side to the press officer. But the Duchy of Cornwall has a long-standing commitment to responsible land and marine management. By phasing out Pacific oysters in our estuaries, we are acting responsibly in line with direct discussions with marine conservation. I don't know why that's making a noise, sorry. Marine conservation societies, government policy and our own environmental stewardship commitments. We have been in conversation with all of our license holders on this topic since 2023 and will remain willing to work together, support native oyster farming and other forms of environmentally responsible aquaculture. Now, I wonder whether this is the only guy that does this and he's the one that's kicked off and gone to the news or is it that lots of others have and he is the only one? I don't know, but it just seems like a very interesting thing that the non-native part of it of a commercial activity has been picked on. for this. So watch that space, I would say, with the royal properties as we sort of change over from Charlie to William.
Richard Negus: Well, okay, we do know because it was announced in the press that the Prince of Wales is currently selling off, I believe, 1/5 of the assets or is liquidating 1/5 of the assets of the Duchy. so that he can increase housing and nature recovery on Duchy land. Now that is an across the board, quite a broad brushstroke. Now it perhaps should be explained that the Duchy of Cornwall exists because when Prince Edward, i.e. the son of the Queen Victoria because she clung on to life for such a long while that he was, basically he's more or less impoverished because, and he had to keep going to mum for money. And so when he became the king, he said no more. will the Prince of Wales have to go and go on bended knees. So the Duchy of Cornwall and as a private income was gifted to each Prince of Wales in perpetuity. And let's be honest, the Princes of Wales have been pre-switched on cookies, but particularly And when we say cookies, I mean, who doesn't think of the Duchy original biscuit? The king, as he now is, when he was the Prince of Wales, he made the Duchy this amazingly effective thing. And I believe that William, the Prince of Wales, now is his own man and he's doing his own thing. So if he is trying to liquidate assets, is it actually that he said, well, you don't fit into my plans for basically my business that I have got in trust until young Prince George becomes the next Prince of Wales. So perhaps he thinks he is. I mean, it may be that they're trying to window dress a bit of always on non-native species. And if he's saying that, look, we don't mind you farming bivalves here, but we want you to do native ones, which probably I presume would be muscles, then crack on. But we're not having you going and doing something which potentially could be ruinous to wider native biodiversity. And there is a precedent when you think about signal crayfish that they have been disastrous. You think about salmon farming, that's been disastrous. I would actually say that in typical palace fashion, they've tried to window dress something which is utterly correct. And some poor chap who has been earning his living has suddenly been put out of a job. But because his boss is the Prince of Wales, he gets the whinge about it publicly and people feel sorry for him. Yet the countless numbers of farmers who have been put in utter penury because of this shower of a government are all called toffs. So in a way, I actually feel that I'm not a monarchist at all, obviously, as you can tell. I feel that probably the Prince of Wales has done the right thing because he has said, do you know what? This isn't right. We can do this a better way. But there's always somebody that when you change something who gets the \*\*\*\*\*\* end of the stick, unfortunately, it's that poor oyster farmer in Devon. That's my view.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, I sort of agree with that. But overall, I think I prefer sort of a feudal or sort of a monarchic system because the person might make crap decisions, but at least they have to live with them in that with their people in that job for life. Whereas A politician sort of incompetently makes a decision because it makes people think they'll like him. And then he or her sods off after four years to a guaranteed job somewhere else.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: To go and talk about those for 150 grand for the hour.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah. Edward the 7th as well. Interesting chap. You know, possibly impoverished because he spent most of his time \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* his way around Northern Europe. Yeah, What a way to go though. famously had a chair made for him so he could have sex for two women at once.
Richard Negus: Pleasuring chair.
Richard Prideaux: Yes, French cabinet makers, Soubrier, made it for him. So go and look up Edward the Seventh's love chair. It's quite an interesting piece.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, I've just... You know, like how Nikola Tesla used to, he never wrote things down because he used to think of the design in his head and basically fully build it out. I'm just trying to think without Googling it. Everybody sit there in your head. We'll just take a second. We'll just take a deep breath and just imagine a chair in the particular shape which would allow a person to make love to two women at once with, I assume, one genital organ.
Richard Negus: No, that's why it didn't work like that. He used something other than his primary genital organ. He used other extremities. Even though my hands, look at my hands. Look at this flushed, reddened face. Look at my toes. They could all be used.
Richard Prideaux: Would you rather you didn't without nails?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I thought because your background was so white is why your face had gone so pink, but your hands are also now white. So that means that your face, well, no, maybe the inside.
Richard Negus: No, the insides are. The outsides are all wonky, aren't they?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I checked the other week. I did a hex match to your face. I think in a farrow and ball colour you were Nancy's Knickerbockers, which is just a slightly off of a rose.
Richard Prideaux: Nancy's Knickerbockers.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: You were like a nice sort of not nearly a crimson pink.
Richard Negus: Boiled lobster. Yeah. Interestingly, just to point back on your thing, in the actually the news story, not the \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* chair. No, not the \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* chair. Back on to what you were talking about. Colchester oysters are grown and massive conservation efforts are actively restoring their natural wild populations in marine conservation zones. So therefore, down in Essex, they are Colchester oysters, they are actually using the native ones. Because if you think about it, oysters used to be so prevalent and common that they were the working man's food. They beef and oyster pie and things like that were Cockney's food. They were used to. Look at the Thames. It's still full.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: All the shore. It's full of oysters. I went to Mersey Island for a little day trip a couple of weeks ago. really nice down there. And there's just, you go along the little foreshore bit and there's oysters everywhere.
Richard Negus: Crunching over oysters. Yeah. And it was, it was a thing that there was the working man's food. And it was quite funny that how they're now considered the business. Oh yeah, that was.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Lobster was originally used as a fertiliser.
Richard Negus: Maine lobster was basically when the main lobster became a thing because I'm very clever businessman thought, what have we got a lot of oysters? Because they would spoil, wasn't it? Yeah, that's it. So they were catching was a by-product. And they went, what are we going to do with these? I know what we'll do. We'll tell all the people who don't come from around here before the days of social media and everyone knowing what was going on because you only got to Google it. He said, oh, there's this really rare thing called the main lobster. And I went, really? Okay. Yeah. And it's like really expensive. Really? it'd be a bit like saying, look, I've got this stuff called \*\*\* \*\*\*\* to all the cat owners. They go, what, \*\*\* \*\*\*\*? And he goes, oh, yes, brilliant. You want to have \*\*\* \*\*\*\* put it in your garden. It'd be brilliant for this stuff. And you believe it because it's something that you haven't seen. And if you come from the Midwest, this idea that there is when refrigeration first came out and you sold it that. But Back to your oyster thing, I think that there must be a hats off in a way, although I feel sorry for any farmer or any business person who has built up a business and say, yeah, absolutely, go ahead, that's great because you're doing loads of employment and all that, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden somebody goes and says, no, you can't do it. But let's be honest, it's exactly the same as being a coal miner. It's exactly the self same as being a person who is a professional hunt servant. And it's probably the way things are going, the way that it's going to be being a professional gamekeeper. Some knob head somewhere has decided we don't want you to do this. And so therefore they legislate against it, give it a bit of window dressing, but it's all good for the environment. But because it happens to be this particular instance, it's the next in line to the throne. the individual who's being put out of a job is being made to be this individual who let's feel sorry for him. So I think that's the story.
Richard Prideaux: I remember we used to go to other countries and sort of colour them in pink and have them as ours and tell people they're not allowed to have that job there managing that land anymore. We were told that was wrong. We're not allowed to do that, but it's okay to do it here. Anyway, talking of decolonising the curriculum, what's this thing about trees, Richard?
Richard Negus: Do you know?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Segway of the century.
Richard Negus: The tree equity score, right? And so I followed this thing, the tech.
Richard Prideaux: I've paid all off all my debt, so I've got a good one of those now.
Richard Negus: Yeah, tree equity score. It does sound like an advert actually on GB News, doesn't it? On GB News, they have the funniest adverts ever. It's basically people who listen to GB News and they really like it. And then they go, I know what we'll do. We'll advertise on GB News and they're going to say, are we going to be able to sell this thing on GB News? I don't care. I'm just going to do it anyway. But tree equity score does sound like that. It sounds like something you'll get a free Parker pen just if you go and inquire. Anyway, do you know what? I'm going to tell you this. I have no bloody idea what the tree equity score is because I have tried to navigate their stupid system. But I have a sneaky feeling that it's a bit like Cat Frampton's Pete map of doom. In other words, I think it's a load of old cobblers because I think it's something to do with a national standard in each UK country to help make the case for investment in areas with greatest need. I think by investment they mean planting more trees because.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Are places that aren't green enough.
Richard Negus: Yeah. So in other words, what they're trying to do is they are desperately trying to go and put trees everywhere.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So how have they blocked out? What is it like by the kilometer or is it like town or is it region?
Richard Negus: You're supposed to put in your home address and then it will tell you what your score is. Now, I think it's largely, as far as I can see, basically urban areas of telling how many trees are there and how many, in their opinion, one tree. I do not get at all how this thing works, because as soon as you come out of an urban area, it stops. So I believe, Richard, you haven't got a tree equity score. Is that correct?
Richard Prideaux: I've been told I haven't got a tree equity score. I am looking out of the window of the office and I can see about 70 trees. Yes, half of which I planted.
Richard Negus: I haven't got a tree equity score either, probably because the internet might have been blocked out courtesy of the oak tree that is shading me at the moment. I don't know. But the long and the short of it seems to be that what it's doing is this arbitrary thing that if you haven't got lots of trees, then somehow it's really bad. Now, I noticed that one of the things, if you go on this map, and you zoom down to London, right, is that obviously, oh, that's terrible. London hasn't got enough trees. But that's a load of old pony because in history, London was a big march.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: London's got lots of plane trees everywhere.
Richard Negus: Yeah, of course it has. But it's also, oh no, they don't like plane trees. I heard someone.
Richard Prideaux: Smells like Edward the 7th chair.
Richard Negus: I heard someone whinge about that. was because I tell you it was it was that buffoon Ben Goldsmith he was saying that all plane trees should no plant more plane trees the London plane you say oh they're a foreign hybrid now But I mean, this is a foreign hybrid that.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So it's the driver, but I wouldn't send him back.
Richard Negus: Well, I'll tell you what, a foreign hybrid that's from 1640 or something like that, I think, was when they produced this tree and that it sucks in more carbon and can live with pollution and it's wonderful. But he didn't like it because it produced some pollen. that apparently gave him asthma. They call it Chelsea lung, which probably highlights the thing.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: But anyway, back to the London plane also does miraculous things. When it gets hot, when it gets hot, it actually Instead of getting that heat, what's it called? The heat shock.
Richard Negus: Yeah, where jettisons branch.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It evaporates more water and actually calls the city down. So it has a net positive. It doesn't get the heat shock and close down and drop all its leaves by like the end of July.
Richard Negus: You absolutely make the point. Yet this is the same Ben Goldsmith that thinks that species that went extinct because they were incompatible with modern Britain should be reintroduced, but a species that more or less evolved, courtesy of the fact that it could live with our polluted cities, he thinks should be got rid of. So there we go. This is the one more thing.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Get rid of them and we'll all go back to the London smog, like the good old days.
Richard Negus: Yeah, the good old days, and we can all feel really bad about ourselves.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Not only can we not hear our electric cars, but we'll be hit by them because the London streets will be thick.
Richard Negus: Yeah, exactly. But as far as I can tell, what this is, yet another stick to beat us with to say that we must plant more trees. Now, the one thing I will say, I have been up last week where I spoke to you from up in the Dales. First of all, I was in Wensleydale and Swaledale, and then I went up to Weirdale.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Weirdale sounds the only place that actually sounds like it could exist. The other ones.
Richard Negus: But they're all places where if you let loose these freaks who want to plant trees everywhere, much the same as where Richard lives, and they said, let's plant trees in the uplands because that's where they should be. I saw marks there of when that trees haven't been in our landscape for such a long while that a lot of these places have forgotten what trees should be. And so therefore I think that the Woodland Trust, who I do have time for, but stop making stupid \*\*\*\* like tree equity scores because it's exactly the same as what Cat Frampton told us about that pathetic carbon peat map thing. that Natural England produced is it's just bunkum. It's trying to dictate in some, dressing something up with a wash of green that they're going to take over your lives and destroy you. That's as far as I can see of it, Richard.
Richard Prideaux: Can I? I've got a quite a dispiriting rant to go on for this. I'm going to let Callum do his. What do you think, Callum?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I'm just looking two places near me. I've got the full 100 tree score.
Richard Prideaux: We do live in an arboretum, don't you?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: We're mighty close to Epping Forest, but yeah.
Richard Negus: Exactly that. Surrey, Surrey is still the most wooded county in England. I mean, Surrey, for pity's sakes. It's because, and why is it the most wooded county? Because the soil is so \*\*\*\* there that you couldn't really use it for farming. And Hertfordshire was a joke because if you look, read Sense and Sensibility, isn't it? Where they're based in Hertfordshire, they were considered bumpkins because they lived there. And again, it was this rural enclave. It was full of trees because why? Well, you couldn't farm anything there. So therefore I had no prosperity. So we'll put nut trees on. But they used to in Surrey before it became Stockbroker Belt when the steam engines put in, you grew nut trees on there. So it's the most wooded county in Britain because basically you plant trees with a land is \*\*\*\*. So there you go.
Richard Prideaux: Okay, so what's your take on this, Callum?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I mean, we don't we like, don't we like numbers? Don't we like, I know this might not inform Yeah, you got, there is probably quite a bit of \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* but I can see if I look in my general vicinity, I can see areas which look like they could do with a few more trees. So I'm always.
Richard Prideaux: Is it the middle of the A6?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Well, I mean, what's going to do well in certain places? Also, sometimes I think when you managed. So at the moment, we seem to have a large amount of wildlife that has nested and built nests in places that is not compatible with sustaining wildlife. So last week was all the goslings have been eaten by the fox. Two days ago, I saw 10 chicks off of some mallards and they're all gone now, all 10. The coot had a chick yesterday. I haven't been back down the pond, but I'm saying so far, so far we've had three goslings and 10 mallard chicks. They're all gone. So I assume that the coot chicks probably going to fall foul the same fate, but they're a bit, they're a little bit smarter and a bit craftier. The goslins are just stupid. They're up on the side and they're just, they're easy pickings. I'm really surprised that the mallards, all of the chicks were gone within a day. And I'm hopeful that the coot chick might come through. But Also, the missus had a run in the other day where she found a mallard egg in the road and the two mallards going off because there was cars all up on the side of where the school is. So planting trees and encouraging wildlife in places and areas where it can't really sustain wildlife, it's a bit of a \*\*\*\* idea, isn't it?
Richard Prideaux: Are you ready to?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, unleash. I'm going to say. Unleash the rat. My too long didn't read is I like numbers and if numbers inform good decisions that you can use the data to plant more trees, I think net positive. I like it. I like the numbers. I like that it can inform good decision making with practitioners, and I will caveat this, with practitioners in the countryside that actually know what they're talking about. Not just, your score is 60, let's make it 90.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: And then I also think that you need to make sure that you encourage wildlife and trees and plant things in places that can sustain actual wildlife because it's pointless having clutches and clutches of ducks and chicks and birds and stuff if they're all going to get eaten by apex predators in the wrong places and poorly managed land. Okay, Prido, go.
Richard Prideaux: Right, to tell this story properly, I have to go back to the Spanish Civil War. No. Okay, there's three levels. There's 3 levels to this. One is that there's this perception that we've cut down all the trees and we don't have any trees. In 1950, Britain's tree cover was 6%. Now it's about 13 and it's probably actually a bit more because we're still not very good at mapping it. And that really doesn't include hedgerows, doesn't include all the other stuff. So about 13%. So we've over doubled in the last 75 years. And that's the bit that everyone's been paying attention to as well. The thing that really lost us our tree cover was the Industrial Revolution and the First World War. Those 2 events dropped our tree cover right down because we turned the trees into the things that we were going to burn or build stuff out of or used to prop up the trenches whilst we gave Jerry a good hiding. Quite right too. Yes. So in about 1750, tree cover was about 10 to 12%, because we don't really know, because having to go off old maps and things. But we've basically restored ourselves to before the massive deforestation event of British civilization over the last 2,000 years. So we've done very, very well at recovering our trees. Now there's an argument to be said that a giant Sitka plantation, even though it's a great tree farm, isn't great for everything, but we're there in terms of tree numbers, we've got it. But that's not, most people don't know that because if you look at any of the stats or any of the commentary, there's no, we've cut all the trees down, but there's loads. So you have that. You've got the thing that Callum pointed out that trees in urban areas don't really work. Trees in parks work well, but a random tree in the middle of a sort of, at the edge of a road junction or something like that, Most people decided they didn't want it there because, it got in the way of the prams and the roots lifted the tarmac and the leaves came down on people's cars and all the sap. And particularly when you look at black poplars and the female black poplars, all the sap from there dropped onto people's cars and were sticky and they didn't like that so they cut them down. Branches fall off, they get cut down. I mean, there are huge crews of virus.
Richard Negus: They break legs, Richard, don't they?
Richard Prideaux: Yes, exactly. there's huge crews of arborists who do quite a good, have quite a good living all across London, just constantly pollarding and pruning London plane trees in the back gardens of people's houses. So people don't tend to want trees in towns en masse. Individuals do, but actually when it comes down to it, they don't want them, the private landowners don't want them and the council really don't want them. So you have that. The third thing is the Woodland Trust are a charity. But all charities, all social enterprises, all of these things that have to compete for grant money and for donations, you are incentivised, not in some sort of crafty nudge, nudge, wink, wink, you know, we all know the real score here, Way. No, literally in the grant applications, you're incentivised to have public support for what you do. you also need to find a problem to solve. You don't get grant money for just doing a good thing. You have to identify this is a huge problem and all the local community, whatever, support us solving this problem missed the lottery, can I have 1.5 million to solve this problem? Now that mindset is built into the grant applications, you can't get around it. It's also there in the mindset of most charities and that the structure because that's the main funding model, which means when you look at RSPB, RSPCA, any RS, whatever you wanted, Woodland Trust, Wildlife Trust, any charity that evolves sort of land or wildlife, all of the problems now have to be about people's access to that thing because you have to say to people, a bit like the Right to Roam campaign, you don't have access to that thing, but if we get money or you give us money or you give us support, you get that thing. Weirdly, I'm waiting, I was waiting for the first charity to say, the people of Birmingham and Coventry don't have ready access to a coastline, so what we're going to do is charge the Bristol Channel further up so that they're within 5 miles of the coast.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: You can only improve things.
Richard Prideaux: Quite. It would get rid of most of Warwickshire, but you don't get coast equity scores, do you? Where you say the people of Lincolnshire, or Leicester, well actually Lincolnshire is not bad, but Leicestershire say, have low coast equity because they're a long way from the coast. If you're in the middle of a town where there aren't many trees anyway, you are going to have a low tree equity, but that's where most of the people are. So it's a very clever thing the Woodland Trusts have done here, which is they said, That thing that you are guaranteed to not have access to, we need to solve and we'll solve that by you giving us money or us getting money from other people. They also get to go to funders and say, here's a huge problem, evidenced by the fact, look at all these people and people in the inner city are often, they have lower income, they don't own their own houses, they don't own huge property. I think there's a stat on the Woodland Trust website that says, wealthy neighbourhoods are 2.3 times more likely to have trees nearby, but they're including rural areas as wealthy neighbourhoods. Well, this is the old thing about rural poor people don't exist because they still have to spend a lot of money to live. The whole thing is a myth. The whole thing is a fake, but it is a fake that is designed by the charity system and the social enterprise system. I know this because I've been a trustee of a charity. I work with charities. I've been on the other side of this funding. And this is not just, it's not just like the death repeat map, although that's a very good simile. It's also the same game that the RSPB are playing with what they said about moorlands today and the wildfire and the smoke and things like that saying it's actually it's grouse moors and that's why they need to be licensed. Well, In Wales we have one grouse moor and it's the size of a postage stamp. But we have lots of wildfires too. But that must be sheep farmers instead. But that's a different campaign. It's not this week's campaign. This week it's grouse moors. So you have an incentivization to find a problem and tell the wider community this is your problem and we can solve it for you if we get this thing. So Tree equity is a marvellous piece because it's a problem that can never be solved and really for most cases actually it's a problem that's already been solved because we've doubled our tree cover. So I'm actually quite impressed with them. It's begrudgingly. You look at it and go, That's quite good. It's like the it's like the Nazis overcoming the Maginot line, by just giving all the giving all the soldiers speed and making sure they didn't stop. You go, Well, it's probably not a good thing, but actually it's quite a good strategy.
Richard Negus: Do you think that, I mean, I've got a sneaking, I've got a sneaking like?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I let Claude do my thinking.
Richard Negus: I've got a sneaking like for the Woodland Trust because I think that there is. 80% of them have got an admirable aim. I don't like the fact that they think the woods should just be planted and they stay in perpetuity untouched because that's just bonkers because that's not what woods in Britain are about. But do you think, as you've explained it there, Richard, that the Woodland Trust thought When they set about, they say, ha ha, here's an old cash cow that I'm going to milk till she's dry. Or do you think that they're almost so determined that their own farts don't stink that they actually believe all this shizzle?
Richard Prideaux: Different people. There's a marketing arm for all these charities and the larger charities, which is basically, marketing and fundraising is what they need before they've planted a tree, before they've given a tree pack out or whatever. You need to get the money in. They are quite shrewd generally. They know the score. They know what's happening. You have then lots of people working on the ground, volunteers, conservationists, stuff like that. They're all people who I do think to one degree or another, earnestly believe in the mission. And they know it's not perfect what they're trying to achieve with their charity, but they believe in that mission. And they'll get behind it because they've never seen the fundraising side of things. And then you have people who are being paid the executive level and they sort of, they've seen both sides of it. They go, sod it, I'm 47. I'll just hang on with all the pension.
Richard Negus: Yes. Probably true. And I'm sure that is the case because I mean, most of the people you think Callum, you've met Mark Nowers and what a wonderful chap he is. I met Dave from the Lake and Heath Fen Reserve and you would not meet a better man. You know, they're at Lake and Heath Fen. They have quite literally been the saviour of the inland bittern and the crane lives because of these people. are you going to say, well, that's going to inspire me to go and join the RSPB? No, because I can only think of those individuals who are the slightly cynical marketeers and senior executives who are either intentionally or I don't know, not by perhaps not wholly by Machiavellian intent, but they are detrimental to the countryside and to wider wildlife because they are using the countryside and wild wildlife as a tool and a machine to achieve their goal, which is ultimately to keep their organisation going. So perhaps you think then, Richard, that the tree equity, whatever it's bloody called, is largely just a very clever marketing tool to keep Woodland Trust relevant.
Richard Prideaux: We're talking about it.
Richard Negus: Yeah, and there you go.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: We always say about negative, negative news stories and stuff make better publicity. But you can spin, you can spin both narratives on this. You can put this, put the success stories of anyone that's got a good score, thanks to the Woodland Trust. Then they can also pick out areas with a 60 score out of 100 or whatever it is, and then say, look how terrible these places are. Without help, we can do this. And this is how we get funding. The average in the area is 10 times more than this. And, you know, this is what we can do. So they're able to spin up good storytelling to get funding out of prices, which is my cynical marketing view. Tis ever last.
Richard Prideaux: There's quite a good alignment there, isn't there? Because it makes you think that if there's a good tree equity score, it must be the Woodland Trust that did it. Not only a private landowner or any farmer or epic forest. The foresters. Just before we finish, I think it's good that we highlight that our team of patrons and our loyal fans who support us and give us a bit of extra money and pay their they're sort of, they're buying their place in heaven, aren't they, by giving it three quid a month. They are some of the most intelligent people on Earth as well, as evidenced by our WhatsApp chat.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: There's a few crown eaters, though.
Richard Negus: Well, they obviously. Let's move the forestry people to one side and let them go and play with the Play-Doh. Stop eating it, Nick. No, it's not sweeties. Play-Doh. But yes, I would like to actually, because it may not have escaped your attention, that there is a by-election about to happen in the sort of Wigan area and Saint Andy of Burnham of the North. is going to be shuffled in who they think will get it. And he is standing against a young man who is an erstwhile Royal Engineer, NHS worker, and now plumber, who may sound like a Labour candidate, but no, he's the reform candidate against it. So it's a sort of head to head \*\*\*\* on who's the most northern of it all. And Ness, who is one of our most loyal and long-standing patrons, came up with this immortal line. It's the maker or break a field by-election.
Richard Prideaux: Yes.
Richard Negus: Maker or break a field. Well done, Ness.
Richard Prideaux: We're including this as a sort of a time stamp to make sure that it's properly recorded. So that was on Tuesday the 19th of May. That was first postmarked. It's a bit like The gap tooth tip wizard, I think for...
Richard Negus: Blansky.
Richard Prideaux: What was it? Walter \*\*\*\*\*.
Richard Negus: Walter \*\*\*\*\*. Yeah. So you've now got it's maker or break a field for...
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Is it like when Thatcher died and the headline was the lady's not returning?
Richard Prideaux: Somebody even sat on that for a while.
Richard Negus: Yeah. Do you know what? I miss her.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Boys, it's time.
Richard Negus: I've got the headline. Go on.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I'll be waiting for it for that long.
Richard Prideaux: On to the after show.
Richard Negus: Goodbye.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Pistachio things are delicious.
Richard Negus: Dad, just stop it. Look, we haven't said grace yet, Callum. You're there munching away on. You do you, hon. Cornish. Look, anyway, look, the good ones amongst us will say grace. For good times past, for our past, for horse and hound, and each fox found, for days of sport, champagne and port, for rod and gun, for rain and sun. for partridge and pigeon, pintail and widgeon, hound and horn, each dewy morn, for wild salmon and chalk stream, cider, beer and village green, for country pubs, thank God above, for England's beauty and Christian duty, for every pint and every plateful, may the good Lord make us truly grateful. Amen.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Decent.
Richard Prideaux: How lovely. That was the very night.
Richard Negus: Are you spiritually refreshed after that? Are you ready to carry on munching away on your corner shop pistachio sticks, Callum?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Always. He's given me the sustenance I need to get through.
Richard Prideaux: Presumably, if they updated that grace now, there'd have to be sort of a stanza about digging out cubs whilst being filmed by a communist who's whacked out on Triple SIs. Triple SIs? No, SSRIs, which is a drug, not the legal designation for forever.
Richard Negus: Oh, well, we're doing well, aren't we? A small wine. Honestly, I'm absolutely off my nut on Triple SIs. Actually, a lot of people who have Triple SI woods on their farms or estates or land are absolutely off they're not anyway because it does the head in because it's much more challenging to manage them well when it's a triple SI than when it's not. So, you know, there you go. It's a lesson to us all. Don't do triple SIs kids.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Triple SI is just say no.
Richard Negus: Just say no.
Richard Prideaux: Quite. I recommend this show to people, you know, and then every time I do, they go, oh, I'll start with this one. No, don't start with it. I'll do this one. No, don't do this one. I don't know how to get people started on the show. What is the gateway drug for Country Slide?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Horse episode. And if they can handle it, then they can stay.
Richard Prideaux: Leslie Dolphin, maybe?
Richard Negus: It's probably something to be fair. But that is it. Is this a bit like, day one when you join the army, they absolutely beast the \*\*\*\* off you. You're going, what on earth am I doing here? This is crazy. Why have I joined this affair? Put them straight in with Leslie Dolphin and see if they are, you know, made of the stern stuff that we require from our listeners.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: The baptism of fire.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Love it.
Richard Prideaux: Anyway, what have you been up to, Richard? Have you been outside or have you been doing stupid book things?
Richard Negus: No, I've been largely doing stupid book things. I did yesterday go and talk to...
Callum Mcinerney Riley: The Third Reich about why the curlew is a good...
Richard Prideaux: He's evolved on, he's trying to bring back the next one.
Richard Negus: It wasn't quite like that. It was more, I went to speak to some school children. Layston Primary School and then at the Old Valley Academy, which is the secondary school in Layston. And I talked to them about hedges and things that live in hedges. And then when I spoke to the guys, girls in the senior schools, they foolishly asked me how to write about landscape and the countryside because they've got a project on that.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Who did you refer them to?
Richard Negus: Do you know, interestingly, I took a selection of books because what I wanted to do was say that, you know, if you just read one about the countryside, nature and landscape, then you're missing a trick. So I took a selection of books by authors who I rate, and that was ranging from Henry Williamson through to Patrick Galbraith, Patrick Laurie. Who else did I take with me?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I'd say you always talk lovingly about Patrick Laurie.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: From what I get from you, I think he seems like your favourite. Am I right?
Richard Negus: Him and Williamson, actually, because both are completely, slightly broken men in two different ways. Patrick Laurie, I haven't met. I talk to him and correspond with him via e-mail every once in a while. And I think he's a character who I believe he lost a child and it was heartbreaking, heart wrenching for him. And I think that also people who live in geographically very challenging places because they are stark and harsh. I think that they are possibly made slightly up and down in their psyche and you can read that through everything that he writes. There is a melancholy through him and I find the melancholy as well of Henry Williamson always very poignant. because he was broken by the First World War. And yes, he turned into a raving fascist, but there was a reason why he turned into a raving fascist because he was so determined that there would be no more war. He thought that was the only way out of it. And I find their writing beautiful, fascinating, whatnot. So I found myself in front of a bunch of school children saying, yeah, read these, the work of these is beautiful, but you know, I'm not held responsible.
Richard Prideaux: I think we should point out that Henry Williamson is the older author from a time gone by was a fascist in World War One. Patrick Laurie is a farmer in South West Scotland.
Richard Negus: Yeah, Oh, yeah. Patrick Laurie's not a fascist.
Richard Prideaux: No, I just wanted to make that separation clear.
Richard Negus: No, But I think both of them are driven to things because of personal trauma and the fact that they are so close to the natural world, which tends you to be rather fatalistic, I suppose. And yeah, you're right, Callum. I do. I think he's a wonderful man and he writes brilliantly and I hope he does come out with a second book.
Richard Prideaux: But Henry Williamson, presumably, because I think he's dead.
Richard Negus: Well, yes, he is, but he lived, funny enough, I just went to the Co-op, which is right opposite where Henry Williamson lived. No, he lived opposite the Co-op in Bottersdale. So, you know, it's It's quite amazing. Well, you think this village here that was where down the road for me is where you can buy a four pack of Stella is where Basil Brown, he who on Earth Sutton Who and Henry Williamson both lived and they lived there at the same time. So can you imagine the guy who on Earth Sutton Who and Henry Williamson lived in the same village at the same time. I mean, that is ridiculous and it's a nondescript little old place. And rather funny is that Bottersdale also has a pub called the Greyhound and the sign on the Greyhound is a Springer Spaniel. So, you know, what's not to like? That's just Suffolk as they come, innit?
Richard Prideaux: Was he as autistic, Basil Brown, as the way he was portrayed in that film off of Netflix?
Richard Negus: Do you know?
Richard Prideaux: They were clearly portraying him in a certain neurodiverse light, weren't they?
Richard Negus: Interesting. Fines paid him, didn't he? Great fines. I don't think so. I think that actually, from what I'm told, was that basically he was a digger and so therefore he was a person who dug holes and if he wasn't digging holes for sort of in inverted commas buried treasure. He probably would have been digging holes to go fencing or something like that. So therefore he was just a good old boy. I mean, they had to teach Ray Fiennes to speak with a Suffolk accent because he, although Fiennes is Jake Fiennes's brother, is that he, you know, and both are from, actually from Norfolk, both of them have lost it to such a degree that you don't hear it. So they had to get this bloke called Charlie Haylock to teach them. Although I was told in delighted tones by somebody from Charlie Haylock came up in a conversation. You go, well, you know, he goes and teaches all these old boys to go and speak Suffolk. He goes, Ian, even from Suffolk originally, which in Suffolk, it means you are damned. If you went from Suffolk originally, you're a thoroughner. Anyway, that's what I've been up to, talking to kids.
Richard Prideaux: And speaking of neurodiversity and digging holes, you probably shouldn't be. Callum, what have you been up to? You're not allowed to mention anything to do with AI. We've already decided that.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: You'll have to forgive my AI seizures that I've had this week.
Richard Prideaux: I've been on the phone with you for an hour today talking about AM. Really? We don't need any more. Oh no.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It's been good chat. Been good chat.
Richard Prideaux: Well, I'm technically his employee at the moment.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, staff of two and one of them is not really me. I'm not allowed to talk about it. And it's really difficult not to talk about it because we've been doing some real fun things.
Richard Negus: Why are you not allowed to?
Richard Prideaux: I've banned him because it's boring.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It's not boring.
Richard Prideaux: Talk about real things out there in the natural world.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Talk about real things. Do you know what I did? I went and photographed the FA Cup final.
Richard Prideaux: There we go. That's the thing. That's real.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: That was a real thing. What an experience to be at an FA Cup final at Wembley. It's, a mad place to find yourself in. The thing I love about photography is you really don't know what next week could hold for you. Like, you could be rocking up to a baron's house to photograph his collection of toenail clippings and then the next week you're at an FA Cup final and the next week, you're doing lawnmower racing. It's just the maddest stuff. But yeah, FA Cup final, never done anything quite like it. Not really geared up for it as much as I should be. But my brief was basically to show the ambiance and the cool stuff and the fans loving it. So I nailed it and it was really good and the clients love it.
Richard Prideaux: Right, so let's do a quiz now. Which teams were playing, Callum?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: The blue ones.
Richard Prideaux: Yep.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: There was the blue ones, the dark blue one and the light blue one. And you know me because I'm a big sports fan. My favourite thing about large sporting events is that usually the river banks are a lot quieter.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: But you know, go sports. Go sports.
Richard Prideaux: Is football the round one? Is that the round one?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, you're thinking of the hand eggs, the other one. Oh, and I also ended up photographing Maro Intoja, the England rug captain.
Richard Negus: That's Maro Itoje. Maro Itoje. Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Callum needs subtitles.
Richard Negus: And what sort of dog did he have? Callum, did he have a dog?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: He had a little spaniel. a little black spaniel that somebody sort of gave him. And that was the biggest smile we had all day. As soon as someone handed him a dog, he was a spaniel specifically. He was loving it. So he loved it. But yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Were you aware of the quite large protests happening elsewhere in the city on the same day as the FA Cup final? Was that completely?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I was limiting the racist epicentre of the UK at present and getting the very train line that runs from the hotel that they've been setting fireworks outside and probably put your council tax up by another 100 quid a month. Yes, I was aware and they closed the central line and I had to get a replacement bus service which took me an hour extra on top of my journey. I was very aware there was quite a few people on my train that were that were draped in flags.
Richard Negus: Right.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So yeah, there was there was things happening, but I don't think it was that. I'm not sure if it's sort of left versus right, but I don't think there was that big a turnout. What's his name? Johnny, Johnny Four Names, whatever he's called.
Richard Negus: Oh, Rob Tommy, Rob Robbie Tomlinson.
Richard Prideaux: Stuart's inquiry.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Stuart Lexicon Tomlinson, that fella, he put out that it was like 3 million people. But then at one point, someone's got a sparse gathering of people on Parliament Square. So I'm not sure which one to believe.
Richard Negus: Well, there are the reports vary. I mean, he said there were 3 million, which just sounds like a big number to him. I think he's gone to the same school of counting that Donald Trump and Diane Abbott went to, but the original count by the Metropolitan Police was 60,000, and then they went up to between 100 to 150,000. Now, I was on the countryside march back when the countryside march was, and they know that was effective. Yeah, brilliant, wasn't it? Four 100 and fifty-six 1000 people marched on that because they actually had counters, so they, so they could actually go and say, This is the weight of numbers, and as Richard says, Well, that was effective. It was a good day out, maybe. Yeah, that was good fun. You know, so hunting went, the post offices got closed. You know, everything that we marched for still got either banned or shut. But I think a weight of numbers that there is a, it's funny, I don't like marches and protests and things like that. I just think that they're largely, for anything. I just think that when you're protesting, yes, you're making your voice heard, but ultimately you're either going to go, oh look, I don't think anyone's gone, gosh, there's a lot of people there, I'm going to go and join them. I think what either happens is you go, you bloody idiot, you're getting in my way. And I remember when I was on that countryside march, some bloke, you know, in a sort of urban dress, he went, oi, he goes, get off my land. And I thought, actually, that's very clever, because all of a sudden I'm walking up the mall and we're all sort of looking a bit starry eyed and struck because We're in London. And he said, get off my lap. as in, what are you doing in my manner, you \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*. And I thought, yeah, actually, that's true. So most people, you either \*\*\*\* \*\*\* or you inconvenience. You enrage some people who've got the opposite opinion. And do you go and say, oh, yeah, I'm now inspired to that? I don't think so. I mean, it's, I don't know. What do you think, Richard? Is a march any use?
Richard Prideaux: I don't know. It's like I always urge people towards the political and democratic process, even though I think it is now completely pointless. It's sort of it's the shittest process we have, but it's the only process we have. So you have that. But I think marches work to a degree. I just don't like well, this conversation we're having now, you can't say for certain how many people were there. I don't entirely trust anyone reporting from it, either unofficially or officially, because every kind of reporting has an agenda to it now as well, including despite having them as clients, the police would agree because it's part of community cohesion is to make sure that you portray a certain message. So we can't know what happened or what order it happened and what was ignored and what was focused on because at the end of the day, it's all human biased decisions. So I think if you wanted to go and you wanted to do it safely and legally, you should go. But I also don't think that it is the only option open to you, And I don't think also you can make some assumptions about why people are there, because you could have picked any 10 people there and probably got 12 different answers about exactly which issues drove them there on that day. I think the only thing is with this, that we're kind of at a political point. at the moment, which is a bit like the Brexit vote. The Brexit vote wasn't really about Europe, it was about people felt, they weren't really interested in sort of exactly the trade arrangements between here and Europe and freedom of movement and that kind of thing. They had, we'd have 30 odd years of every news outlet saying, Europe would let us do this and the government quite happily going along with it, whichever government flavour it was. So when eventually you say, there's this big thing in Europe that prevents us doing things, do you want to get out of it? Everyone went, yeah, let's change it. Well, half the country did. And it wasn't really about the issue that was being voted on. I think that's kind of what's happening now. Particularly, people want to change. It's very difficult, I think, if you're a political party, most of them at the moment to say, you know, see those people over there, they're complete amateurs and idiots and brand new and they've never done anything in the political sphere. You should listen to me because no matter which party I'm from, if I've been in the political establishment for over the last 10 years, I've probably things up quite royally for you because all of them have.
Richard Negus: But I realise why it's up and I won't up like the other ones because I'm better. Yeah, it's quite true.
Richard Prideaux: Nadine Dorries at the moment saying that the online harms bill, because now it's affecting reform, should be repealed, even though she was the one who actually did a soft rap, I think, was part of her promo campaign for it.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Richard Prideaux: Anyway, we should probably have some sort of go back to a full on monarchy instead.
Richard Negus: Yes, that's the way that's the way. So, basically, you watched a football match between two blue teams.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Go Sports.
Richard Negus: Go Blue Team. Yes, exactly. So there we go.
Richard Prideaux: Speaking of a monarchy, let's talk about oysters.
Richard Negus: Oysters, yes, absolutely.
Richard Prideaux: There'll be a link to this out in the show notes, people, but I would like to draw your eye. Imagine a sort of, you're hovering over the UK, you're up there at very high altitude. Look down to the bottom left, sort of the bit that's not quite the good bit, which is Cornwall, but the bit before, which is Devon, isn't quite as good as Cornwall. But it's better than Somerset, we can all agree on that.
Richard Negus: But it does do the right thing with a cream tea. Am I correcting that they put? They put cream on first, then the jam. That's the better thing about Devon. Is that right, Richard? That won't create any sham.
Richard Prideaux: I actually do agree with that the Devon way is better, but if I say that in Cornwall, I'll be shocked.
Richard Negus: He's been gone for so long. Right, anyway, back to oysters. Yes, go on.
Richard Prideaux: So you go down to the River Avon, and then all the way down, there's a place called Bantham. And at Bantham, a man called Tim Edwards was farming oysters. and it's on the Dutchy Cornwall land and the estate that owns the riverbed there and they said, no, you're not allowed to farm oysters here anymore because he was farming Pacific oysters, not our native oysters. And they can be sort of farmed in the intertidal zone. You have these big cage things. They've got them on the Menai Straits up here in North Wales and you farm them there and they are So they're triploid, so they're effectively the sterile. And it's meant to be that there is no effect on the habitat from the farming, but they do escape and they spread to other places. They break off and you get all sorts of things, but they don't reproduce.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: What's different about them?
Richard Prideaux: They're from the other side of the world.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, foreign.
Richard Prideaux: It is the American signal crayfish compared to our native brown. That's what it is, except without the predation and the disease.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Do they look different? Or do they look? All right, okay. So one's like a standard white, the oyster we all know and love. And then what do these look like?
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, so native oysters, I suppose you call them more squish, they're flatter, whereas the Pacific oysters are big and jagged of the sort of size of your hand.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Oh, right, okay.
Richard Prideaux: But he's been told he's not allowed to farm them anymore because they're a non-native.
Richard Negus: Okay.
Richard Prideaux: Which is interesting. So on paper, not doing any harm, but the reason the Duchies say they've given him is that they are non-native, which I find very, very interesting.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So I assume they're going to stop pheasant shooting.
Richard Prideaux: Well.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: And there'll be no more muntjac and grey squirrels will all go.
Richard Prideaux: Pheasant shooting starts with pheasant farming to a degree.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Of course, the native British pheasant.
Richard Prideaux: Is it a narrow wedge? because they are native but non-native.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: A French partridge, that'll obviously, that'll stick around, of course.
Richard Negus: To be fair, where Sandringham is, they are no longer allowed to put pheasants down. But I think more to the point is that they, let's think about their farming. They are actually farming and I can assure you that on Dutchy land, They have not all got on their farms native breed cattle and sheep. So therefore it's a bit oxymoronic. So is it bad to, I mean, okay, so what's the downsides, ecologically speaking, of having a triploid, i.e. something that can't actually spread? What is the downside of having a a sterile non-native species being farmed, which is still as a bivalve is cleaning the water there because that's how they do it. They filter it through so they make that estuary cleaner. Is it any better or worse than if you had a native oyster? And can you farm? native oysters? I don't know. I see, I'm going off to do some exploration about oyster farming and I haven't yet been, so I know nothing about oyster farming. Is it possible, Richard, do you know? Could you put a native oyster?
Richard Prideaux: I think you probably, it was technically possible. It might not be economically viable and it might, but farming native species is a hard one anyway.
Richard Negus: Yes.
Richard Prideaux: Because then you've got the harvesting. Because you can propagate them, but then you've got to harvest them. Obviously, sometimes it's the harvesting bit that needs a license than any shellfish. Most often you need a license or you have a sort of a limit of what you can do. Pacific Oysters are classed as invasive. Not making it invasive. So like rhododendron, like, well, weirdly here on the North Wales coast, Sea Buckthorn, which sort of the coastal version of...
Richard Negus: Really.
Richard Prideaux: Is classed as an invasive. It's native to the UK, but not really native to North Wales. You've got it on your side of the country.
Richard Negus: Yes, it's very Eastern.
Richard Prideaux: But they've it's classed as an it's invasive on sand dunes, particularly here, because it was planted in people's gardens and things, and it colonised the sand dunes right next to it.
Richard Negus: OK.
Richard Prideaux: I think that's sort of the argument. It's an invasive non-native. It's like, so somebody looking at it might go, hang on, that person's farming Japanese knotweed. We should probably not have him do that. But it's a bit of a, I don't know, it's a bit of a shame that this one little thing.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I smell a rat. I want to know what the actual reason is, because that sounds to me like a classic just say that excuse.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I just, I can't see. Someone must have got the idea and thought, well, if we're going to say that, there's a lot of things we do that aren't native and don't align with that thought process. But clearly they didn't.
Richard Prideaux: And there's a whole point with this that is that there is the official statement we've got here from the Duchy. Presumably they pass it down the left-hand side to the press officer. But the Duchy of Cornwall has a long-standing commitment to responsible land and marine management. By phasing out Pacific oysters in our estuaries, we are acting responsibly in line with direct discussions with marine conservation. I don't know why that's making a noise, sorry. Marine conservation societies, government policy and our own environmental stewardship commitments. We have been in conversation with all of our license holders on this topic since 2023 and will remain willing to work together, support native oyster farming and other forms of environmentally responsible aquaculture. Now, I wonder whether this is the only guy that does this and he's the one that's kicked off and gone to the news or is it that lots of others have and he is the only one? I don't know, but it just seems like a very interesting thing that the non-native part of it of a commercial activity has been picked on. for this. So watch that space, I would say, with the royal properties as we sort of change over from Charlie to William.
Richard Negus: Well, okay, we do know because it was announced in the press that the Prince of Wales is currently selling off, I believe, 1/5 of the assets or is liquidating 1/5 of the assets of the Duchy. so that he can increase housing and nature recovery on Duchy land. Now that is an across the board, quite a broad brushstroke. Now it perhaps should be explained that the Duchy of Cornwall exists because when Prince Edward, i.e. the son of the Queen Victoria because she clung on to life for such a long while that he was, basically he's more or less impoverished because, and he had to keep going to mum for money. And so when he became the king, he said no more. will the Prince of Wales have to go and go on bended knees. So the Duchy of Cornwall and as a private income was gifted to each Prince of Wales in perpetuity. And let's be honest, the Princes of Wales have been pre-switched on cookies, but particularly And when we say cookies, I mean, who doesn't think of the Duchy original biscuit? The king, as he now is, when he was the Prince of Wales, he made the Duchy this amazingly effective thing. And I believe that William, the Prince of Wales, now is his own man and he's doing his own thing. So if he is trying to liquidate assets, is it actually that he said, well, you don't fit into my plans for basically my business that I have got in trust until young Prince George becomes the next Prince of Wales. So perhaps he thinks he is. I mean, it may be that they're trying to window dress a bit of always on non-native species. And if he's saying that, look, we don't mind you farming bivalves here, but we want you to do native ones, which probably I presume would be muscles, then crack on. But we're not having you going and doing something which potentially could be ruinous to wider native biodiversity. And there is a precedent when you think about signal crayfish that they have been disastrous. You think about salmon farming, that's been disastrous. I would actually say that in typical palace fashion, they've tried to window dress something which is utterly correct. And some poor chap who has been earning his living has suddenly been put out of a job. But because his boss is the Prince of Wales, he gets the whinge about it publicly and people feel sorry for him. Yet the countless numbers of farmers who have been put in utter penury because of this shower of a government are all called toffs. So in a way, I actually feel that I'm not a monarchist at all, obviously, as you can tell. I feel that probably the Prince of Wales has done the right thing because he has said, do you know what? This isn't right. We can do this a better way. But there's always somebody that when you change something who gets the \*\*\*\*\*\* end of the stick, unfortunately, it's that poor oyster farmer in Devon. That's my view.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah, I sort of agree with that. But overall, I think I prefer sort of a feudal or sort of a monarchic system because the person might make crap decisions, but at least they have to live with them in that with their people in that job for life. Whereas A politician sort of incompetently makes a decision because it makes people think they'll like him. And then he or her sods off after four years to a guaranteed job somewhere else.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: To go and talk about those for 150 grand for the hour.
Richard Prideaux: Yeah. Edward the 7th as well. Interesting chap. You know, possibly impoverished because he spent most of his time \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* his way around Northern Europe. Yeah, What a way to go though. famously had a chair made for him so he could have sex for two women at once.
Richard Negus: Pleasuring chair.
Richard Prideaux: Yes, French cabinet makers, Soubrier, made it for him. So go and look up Edward the Seventh's love chair. It's quite an interesting piece.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, I've just... You know, like how Nikola Tesla used to, he never wrote things down because he used to think of the design in his head and basically fully build it out. I'm just trying to think without Googling it. Everybody sit there in your head. We'll just take a second. We'll just take a deep breath and just imagine a chair in the particular shape which would allow a person to make love to two women at once with, I assume, one genital organ.
Richard Negus: No, that's why it didn't work like that. He used something other than his primary genital organ. He used other extremities. Even though my hands, look at my hands. Look at this flushed, reddened face. Look at my toes. They could all be used.
Richard Prideaux: Would you rather you didn't without nails?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I thought because your background was so white is why your face had gone so pink, but your hands are also now white. So that means that your face, well, no, maybe the inside.
Richard Negus: No, the insides are. The outsides are all wonky, aren't they?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I checked the other week. I did a hex match to your face. I think in a farrow and ball colour you were Nancy's Knickerbockers, which is just a slightly off of a rose.
Richard Prideaux: Nancy's Knickerbockers.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: You were like a nice sort of not nearly a crimson pink.
Richard Negus: Boiled lobster. Yeah. Interestingly, just to point back on your thing, in the actually the news story, not the \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* chair. No, not the \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* chair. Back on to what you were talking about. Colchester oysters are grown and massive conservation efforts are actively restoring their natural wild populations in marine conservation zones. So therefore, down in Essex, they are Colchester oysters, they are actually using the native ones. Because if you think about it, oysters used to be so prevalent and common that they were the working man's food. They beef and oyster pie and things like that were Cockney's food. They were used to. Look at the Thames. It's still full.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: All the shore. It's full of oysters. I went to Mersey Island for a little day trip a couple of weeks ago. really nice down there. And there's just, you go along the little foreshore bit and there's oysters everywhere.
Richard Negus: Crunching over oysters. Yeah. And it was, it was a thing that there was the working man's food. And it was quite funny that how they're now considered the business. Oh yeah, that was.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Lobster was originally used as a fertiliser.
Richard Negus: Maine lobster was basically when the main lobster became a thing because I'm very clever businessman thought, what have we got a lot of oysters? Because they would spoil, wasn't it? Yeah, that's it. So they were catching was a by-product. And they went, what are we going to do with these? I know what we'll do. We'll tell all the people who don't come from around here before the days of social media and everyone knowing what was going on because you only got to Google it. He said, oh, there's this really rare thing called the main lobster. And I went, really? Okay. Yeah. And it's like really expensive. Really? it'd be a bit like saying, look, I've got this stuff called \*\*\* \*\*\*\* to all the cat owners. They go, what, \*\*\* \*\*\*\*? And he goes, oh, yes, brilliant. You want to have \*\*\* \*\*\*\* put it in your garden. It'd be brilliant for this stuff. And you believe it because it's something that you haven't seen. And if you come from the Midwest, this idea that there is when refrigeration first came out and you sold it that. But Back to your oyster thing, I think that there must be a hats off in a way, although I feel sorry for any farmer or any business person who has built up a business and say, yeah, absolutely, go ahead, that's great because you're doing loads of employment and all that, blah, blah, blah. And then all of a sudden somebody goes and says, no, you can't do it. But let's be honest, it's exactly the same as being a coal miner. It's exactly the self same as being a person who is a professional hunt servant. And it's probably the way things are going, the way that it's going to be being a professional gamekeeper. Some knob head somewhere has decided we don't want you to do this. And so therefore they legislate against it, give it a bit of window dressing, but it's all good for the environment. But because it happens to be this particular instance, it's the next in line to the throne. the individual who's being put out of a job is being made to be this individual who let's feel sorry for him. So I think that's the story.
Richard Prideaux: I remember we used to go to other countries and sort of colour them in pink and have them as ours and tell people they're not allowed to have that job there managing that land anymore. We were told that was wrong. We're not allowed to do that, but it's okay to do it here. Anyway, talking of decolonising the curriculum, what's this thing about trees, Richard?
Richard Negus: Do you know?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Segway of the century.
Richard Negus: The tree equity score, right? And so I followed this thing, the tech.
Richard Prideaux: I've paid all off all my debt, so I've got a good one of those now.
Richard Negus: Yeah, tree equity score. It does sound like an advert actually on GB News, doesn't it? On GB News, they have the funniest adverts ever. It's basically people who listen to GB News and they really like it. And then they go, I know what we'll do. We'll advertise on GB News and they're going to say, are we going to be able to sell this thing on GB News? I don't care. I'm just going to do it anyway. But tree equity score does sound like that. It sounds like something you'll get a free Parker pen just if you go and inquire. Anyway, do you know what? I'm going to tell you this. I have no bloody idea what the tree equity score is because I have tried to navigate their stupid system. But I have a sneaky feeling that it's a bit like Cat Frampton's Pete map of doom. In other words, I think it's a load of old cobblers because I think it's something to do with a national standard in each UK country to help make the case for investment in areas with greatest need. I think by investment they mean planting more trees because.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Are places that aren't green enough.
Richard Negus: Yeah. So in other words, what they're trying to do is they are desperately trying to go and put trees everywhere.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So how have they blocked out? What is it like by the kilometer or is it like town or is it region?
Richard Negus: You're supposed to put in your home address and then it will tell you what your score is. Now, I think it's largely, as far as I can see, basically urban areas of telling how many trees are there and how many, in their opinion, one tree. I do not get at all how this thing works, because as soon as you come out of an urban area, it stops. So I believe, Richard, you haven't got a tree equity score. Is that correct?
Richard Prideaux: I've been told I haven't got a tree equity score. I am looking out of the window of the office and I can see about 70 trees. Yes, half of which I planted.
Richard Negus: I haven't got a tree equity score either, probably because the internet might have been blocked out courtesy of the oak tree that is shading me at the moment. I don't know. But the long and the short of it seems to be that what it's doing is this arbitrary thing that if you haven't got lots of trees, then somehow it's really bad. Now, I noticed that one of the things, if you go on this map, and you zoom down to London, right, is that obviously, oh, that's terrible. London hasn't got enough trees. But that's a load of old pony because in history, London was a big march.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: London's got lots of plane trees everywhere.
Richard Negus: Yeah, of course it has. But it's also, oh no, they don't like plane trees. I heard someone.
Richard Prideaux: Smells like Edward the 7th chair.
Richard Negus: I heard someone whinge about that. was because I tell you it was it was that buffoon Ben Goldsmith he was saying that all plane trees should no plant more plane trees the London plane you say oh they're a foreign hybrid now But I mean, this is a foreign hybrid that.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: So it's the driver, but I wouldn't send him back.
Richard Negus: Well, I'll tell you what, a foreign hybrid that's from 1640 or something like that, I think, was when they produced this tree and that it sucks in more carbon and can live with pollution and it's wonderful. But he didn't like it because it produced some pollen. that apparently gave him asthma. They call it Chelsea lung, which probably highlights the thing.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: But anyway, back to the London plane also does miraculous things. When it gets hot, when it gets hot, it actually Instead of getting that heat, what's it called? The heat shock.
Richard Negus: Yeah, where jettisons branch.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: It evaporates more water and actually calls the city down. So it has a net positive. It doesn't get the heat shock and close down and drop all its leaves by like the end of July.
Richard Negus: You absolutely make the point. Yet this is the same Ben Goldsmith that thinks that species that went extinct because they were incompatible with modern Britain should be reintroduced, but a species that more or less evolved, courtesy of the fact that it could live with our polluted cities, he thinks should be got rid of. So there we go. This is the one more thing.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Get rid of them and we'll all go back to the London smog, like the good old days.
Richard Negus: Yeah, the good old days, and we can all feel really bad about ourselves.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Not only can we not hear our electric cars, but we'll be hit by them because the London streets will be thick.
Richard Negus: Yeah, exactly. But as far as I can tell, what this is, yet another stick to beat us with to say that we must plant more trees. Now, the one thing I will say, I have been up last week where I spoke to you from up in the Dales. First of all, I was in Wensleydale and Swaledale, and then I went up to Weirdale.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Weirdale sounds the only place that actually sounds like it could exist. The other ones.
Richard Negus: But they're all places where if you let loose these freaks who want to plant trees everywhere, much the same as where Richard lives, and they said, let's plant trees in the uplands because that's where they should be. I saw marks there of when that trees haven't been in our landscape for such a long while that a lot of these places have forgotten what trees should be. And so therefore I think that the Woodland Trust, who I do have time for, but stop making stupid \*\*\*\* like tree equity scores because it's exactly the same as what Cat Frampton told us about that pathetic carbon peat map thing. that Natural England produced is it's just bunkum. It's trying to dictate in some, dressing something up with a wash of green that they're going to take over your lives and destroy you. That's as far as I can see of it, Richard.
Richard Prideaux: Can I? I've got a quite a dispiriting rant to go on for this. I'm going to let Callum do his. What do you think, Callum?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I'm just looking two places near me. I've got the full 100 tree score.
Richard Prideaux: We do live in an arboretum, don't you?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: We're mighty close to Epping Forest, but yeah.
Richard Negus: Exactly that. Surrey, Surrey is still the most wooded county in England. I mean, Surrey, for pity's sakes. It's because, and why is it the most wooded county? Because the soil is so \*\*\*\* there that you couldn't really use it for farming. And Hertfordshire was a joke because if you look, read Sense and Sensibility, isn't it? Where they're based in Hertfordshire, they were considered bumpkins because they lived there. And again, it was this rural enclave. It was full of trees because why? Well, you couldn't farm anything there. So therefore I had no prosperity. So we'll put nut trees on. But they used to in Surrey before it became Stockbroker Belt when the steam engines put in, you grew nut trees on there. So it's the most wooded county in Britain because basically you plant trees with a land is \*\*\*\*. So there you go.
Richard Prideaux: Okay, so what's your take on this, Callum?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I mean, we don't we like, don't we like numbers? Don't we like, I know this might not inform Yeah, you got, there is probably quite a bit of \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* but I can see if I look in my general vicinity, I can see areas which look like they could do with a few more trees. So I'm always.
Richard Prideaux: Is it the middle of the A6?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Well, I mean, what's going to do well in certain places? Also, sometimes I think when you managed. So at the moment, we seem to have a large amount of wildlife that has nested and built nests in places that is not compatible with sustaining wildlife. So last week was all the goslings have been eaten by the fox. Two days ago, I saw 10 chicks off of some mallards and they're all gone now, all 10. The coot had a chick yesterday. I haven't been back down the pond, but I'm saying so far, so far we've had three goslings and 10 mallard chicks. They're all gone. So I assume that the coot chicks probably going to fall foul the same fate, but they're a bit, they're a little bit smarter and a bit craftier. The goslins are just stupid. They're up on the side and they're just, they're easy pickings. I'm really surprised that the mallards, all of the chicks were gone within a day. And I'm hopeful that the coot chick might come through. But Also, the missus had a run in the other day where she found a mallard egg in the road and the two mallards going off because there was cars all up on the side of where the school is. So planting trees and encouraging wildlife in places and areas where it can't really sustain wildlife, it's a bit of a \*\*\*\* idea, isn't it?
Richard Prideaux: Are you ready to?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Yeah, unleash. I'm going to say. Unleash the rat. My too long didn't read is I like numbers and if numbers inform good decisions that you can use the data to plant more trees, I think net positive. I like it. I like the numbers. I like that it can inform good decision making with practitioners, and I will caveat this, with practitioners in the countryside that actually know what they're talking about. Not just, your score is 60, let's make it 90.
Richard Negus: Yeah.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: And then I also think that you need to make sure that you encourage wildlife and trees and plant things in places that can sustain actual wildlife because it's pointless having clutches and clutches of ducks and chicks and birds and stuff if they're all going to get eaten by apex predators in the wrong places and poorly managed land. Okay, Prido, go.
Richard Prideaux: Right, to tell this story properly, I have to go back to the Spanish Civil War. No. Okay, there's three levels. There's 3 levels to this. One is that there's this perception that we've cut down all the trees and we don't have any trees. In 1950, Britain's tree cover was 6%. Now it's about 13 and it's probably actually a bit more because we're still not very good at mapping it. And that really doesn't include hedgerows, doesn't include all the other stuff. So about 13%. So we've over doubled in the last 75 years. And that's the bit that everyone's been paying attention to as well. The thing that really lost us our tree cover was the Industrial Revolution and the First World War. Those 2 events dropped our tree cover right down because we turned the trees into the things that we were going to burn or build stuff out of or used to prop up the trenches whilst we gave Jerry a good hiding. Quite right too. Yes. So in about 1750, tree cover was about 10 to 12%, because we don't really know, because having to go off old maps and things. But we've basically restored ourselves to before the massive deforestation event of British civilization over the last 2,000 years. So we've done very, very well at recovering our trees. Now there's an argument to be said that a giant Sitka plantation, even though it's a great tree farm, isn't great for everything, but we're there in terms of tree numbers, we've got it. But that's not, most people don't know that because if you look at any of the stats or any of the commentary, there's no, we've cut all the trees down, but there's loads. So you have that. You've got the thing that Callum pointed out that trees in urban areas don't really work. Trees in parks work well, but a random tree in the middle of a sort of, at the edge of a road junction or something like that, Most people decided they didn't want it there because, it got in the way of the prams and the roots lifted the tarmac and the leaves came down on people's cars and all the sap. And particularly when you look at black poplars and the female black poplars, all the sap from there dropped onto people's cars and were sticky and they didn't like that so they cut them down. Branches fall off, they get cut down. I mean, there are huge crews of virus.
Richard Negus: They break legs, Richard, don't they?
Richard Prideaux: Yes, exactly. there's huge crews of arborists who do quite a good, have quite a good living all across London, just constantly pollarding and pruning London plane trees in the back gardens of people's houses. So people don't tend to want trees in towns en masse. Individuals do, but actually when it comes down to it, they don't want them, the private landowners don't want them and the council really don't want them. So you have that. The third thing is the Woodland Trust are a charity. But all charities, all social enterprises, all of these things that have to compete for grant money and for donations, you are incentivised, not in some sort of crafty nudge, nudge, wink, wink, you know, we all know the real score here, Way. No, literally in the grant applications, you're incentivised to have public support for what you do. you also need to find a problem to solve. You don't get grant money for just doing a good thing. You have to identify this is a huge problem and all the local community, whatever, support us solving this problem missed the lottery, can I have 1.5 million to solve this problem? Now that mindset is built into the grant applications, you can't get around it. It's also there in the mindset of most charities and that the structure because that's the main funding model, which means when you look at RSPB, RSPCA, any RS, whatever you wanted, Woodland Trust, Wildlife Trust, any charity that evolves sort of land or wildlife, all of the problems now have to be about people's access to that thing because you have to say to people, a bit like the Right to Roam campaign, you don't have access to that thing, but if we get money or you give us money or you give us support, you get that thing. Weirdly, I'm waiting, I was waiting for the first charity to say, the people of Birmingham and Coventry don't have ready access to a coastline, so what we're going to do is charge the Bristol Channel further up so that they're within 5 miles of the coast.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: You can only improve things.
Richard Prideaux: Quite. It would get rid of most of Warwickshire, but you don't get coast equity scores, do you? Where you say the people of Lincolnshire, or Leicester, well actually Lincolnshire is not bad, but Leicestershire say, have low coast equity because they're a long way from the coast. If you're in the middle of a town where there aren't many trees anyway, you are going to have a low tree equity, but that's where most of the people are. So it's a very clever thing the Woodland Trusts have done here, which is they said, That thing that you are guaranteed to not have access to, we need to solve and we'll solve that by you giving us money or us getting money from other people. They also get to go to funders and say, here's a huge problem, evidenced by the fact, look at all these people and people in the inner city are often, they have lower income, they don't own their own houses, they don't own huge property. I think there's a stat on the Woodland Trust website that says, wealthy neighbourhoods are 2.3 times more likely to have trees nearby, but they're including rural areas as wealthy neighbourhoods. Well, this is the old thing about rural poor people don't exist because they still have to spend a lot of money to live. The whole thing is a myth. The whole thing is a fake, but it is a fake that is designed by the charity system and the social enterprise system. I know this because I've been a trustee of a charity. I work with charities. I've been on the other side of this funding. And this is not just, it's not just like the death repeat map, although that's a very good simile. It's also the same game that the RSPB are playing with what they said about moorlands today and the wildfire and the smoke and things like that saying it's actually it's grouse moors and that's why they need to be licensed. Well, In Wales we have one grouse moor and it's the size of a postage stamp. But we have lots of wildfires too. But that must be sheep farmers instead. But that's a different campaign. It's not this week's campaign. This week it's grouse moors. So you have an incentivization to find a problem and tell the wider community this is your problem and we can solve it for you if we get this thing. So Tree equity is a marvellous piece because it's a problem that can never be solved and really for most cases actually it's a problem that's already been solved because we've doubled our tree cover. So I'm actually quite impressed with them. It's begrudgingly. You look at it and go, That's quite good. It's like the it's like the Nazis overcoming the Maginot line, by just giving all the giving all the soldiers speed and making sure they didn't stop. You go, Well, it's probably not a good thing, but actually it's quite a good strategy.
Richard Negus: Do you think that, I mean, I've got a sneaking, I've got a sneaking like?
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I let Claude do my thinking.
Richard Negus: I've got a sneaking like for the Woodland Trust because I think that there is. 80% of them have got an admirable aim. I don't like the fact that they think the woods should just be planted and they stay in perpetuity untouched because that's just bonkers because that's not what woods in Britain are about. But do you think, as you've explained it there, Richard, that the Woodland Trust thought When they set about, they say, ha ha, here's an old cash cow that I'm going to milk till she's dry. Or do you think that they're almost so determined that their own farts don't stink that they actually believe all this shizzle?
Richard Prideaux: Different people. There's a marketing arm for all these charities and the larger charities, which is basically, marketing and fundraising is what they need before they've planted a tree, before they've given a tree pack out or whatever. You need to get the money in. They are quite shrewd generally. They know the score. They know what's happening. You have then lots of people working on the ground, volunteers, conservationists, stuff like that. They're all people who I do think to one degree or another, earnestly believe in the mission. And they know it's not perfect what they're trying to achieve with their charity, but they believe in that mission. And they'll get behind it because they've never seen the fundraising side of things. And then you have people who are being paid the executive level and they sort of, they've seen both sides of it. They go, sod it, I'm 47. I'll just hang on with all the pension.
Richard Negus: Yes. Probably true. And I'm sure that is the case because I mean, most of the people you think Callum, you've met Mark Nowers and what a wonderful chap he is. I met Dave from the Lake and Heath Fen Reserve and you would not meet a better man. You know, they're at Lake and Heath Fen. They have quite literally been the saviour of the inland bittern and the crane lives because of these people. are you going to say, well, that's going to inspire me to go and join the RSPB? No, because I can only think of those individuals who are the slightly cynical marketeers and senior executives who are either intentionally or I don't know, not by perhaps not wholly by Machiavellian intent, but they are detrimental to the countryside and to wider wildlife because they are using the countryside and wild wildlife as a tool and a machine to achieve their goal, which is ultimately to keep their organisation going. So perhaps you think then, Richard, that the tree equity, whatever it's bloody called, is largely just a very clever marketing tool to keep Woodland Trust relevant.
Richard Prideaux: We're talking about it.
Richard Negus: Yeah, and there you go.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: We always say about negative, negative news stories and stuff make better publicity. But you can spin, you can spin both narratives on this. You can put this, put the success stories of anyone that's got a good score, thanks to the Woodland Trust. Then they can also pick out areas with a 60 score out of 100 or whatever it is, and then say, look how terrible these places are. Without help, we can do this. And this is how we get funding. The average in the area is 10 times more than this. And, you know, this is what we can do. So they're able to spin up good storytelling to get funding out of prices, which is my cynical marketing view. Tis ever last.
Richard Prideaux: There's quite a good alignment there, isn't there? Because it makes you think that if there's a good tree equity score, it must be the Woodland Trust that did it. Not only a private landowner or any farmer or epic forest. The foresters. Just before we finish, I think it's good that we highlight that our team of patrons and our loyal fans who support us and give us a bit of extra money and pay their they're sort of, they're buying their place in heaven, aren't they, by giving it three quid a month. They are some of the most intelligent people on Earth as well, as evidenced by our WhatsApp chat.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: There's a few crown eaters, though.
Richard Negus: Well, they obviously. Let's move the forestry people to one side and let them go and play with the Play-Doh. Stop eating it, Nick. No, it's not sweeties. Play-Doh. But yes, I would like to actually, because it may not have escaped your attention, that there is a by-election about to happen in the sort of Wigan area and Saint Andy of Burnham of the North. is going to be shuffled in who they think will get it. And he is standing against a young man who is an erstwhile Royal Engineer, NHS worker, and now plumber, who may sound like a Labour candidate, but no, he's the reform candidate against it. So it's a sort of head to head \*\*\*\* on who's the most northern of it all. And Ness, who is one of our most loyal and long-standing patrons, came up with this immortal line. It's the maker or break a field by-election.
Richard Prideaux: Yes.
Richard Negus: Maker or break a field. Well done, Ness.
Richard Prideaux: We're including this as a sort of a time stamp to make sure that it's properly recorded. So that was on Tuesday the 19th of May. That was first postmarked. It's a bit like The gap tooth tip wizard, I think for...
Richard Negus: Blansky.
Richard Prideaux: What was it? Walter \*\*\*\*\*.
Richard Negus: Walter \*\*\*\*\*. Yeah. So you've now got it's maker or break a field for...
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Is it like when Thatcher died and the headline was the lady's not returning?
Richard Prideaux: Somebody even sat on that for a while.
Richard Negus: Yeah. Do you know what? I miss her.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: Boys, it's time.
Richard Negus: I've got the headline. Go on.
Callum Mcinerney Riley: I'll be waiting for it for that long.
Richard Prideaux: On to the after show.
Richard Negus: Goodbye.