Speaker 1: So if you could just explain why you think you
Speaker 1: should work here at wank Spangle Industries, that would be
Speaker 1: That would be great.
Speaker 2: I've seen the work that you've put out, and I
Speaker 2: think I'd be a great asset to the tea.
Speaker 1: Do you think that you can help bring some of
Speaker 1: the core deliverables out into the light rather than sort
Speaker 1: of floating around them and pulling from the back.
Speaker 2: I think generally in my life and career, I usually
Speaker 2: find that doubling down and hitting the KPIs is a
Speaker 2: solid effort. Going into Q two, I think it's important
Speaker 2: that we all not just pick off the low hanging fruit,
Speaker 2: but really drive home, hit those KPIs, hit our goals,
Speaker 2: and be strategic with our thinking.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to circle back to something you mentioned
Speaker 1: there which you mentioned Q two. So are you referring
Speaker 1: to the calendar year Q two or referring to the
Speaker 1: financial year Q two? Because which one of those are
Speaker 1: referring to helps us define what your priorities are in
Speaker 1: any decision making dynamic.
Speaker 2: I'm a numbers man. We're driven by the financials, We're
Speaker 2: guided by the data, but we don't always fill it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, numbers man, the numbers speak, sales. First sales
Speaker 2: is the fire of any real business. I just want
Speaker 2: to hit the ground running and get this thing done.
Speaker 1: And if you're listening and you're wondering, what one of
Speaker 1: those laptop jobs where you work in finance, marketing, sales
Speaker 1: and you have to spend a lot of time making
Speaker 1: graphs from spreadsheets, that's what it's like. Apparently, I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people out there just doing that
Speaker 1: full time.
Speaker 2: Maybe we should just put a pin in this and
Speaker 2: you amy you the scrum master for this. You know
Speaker 2: that's a job. That's a job you basically just sitting
Speaker 2: in meetings that could have been emails and write words up.
Speaker 1: I do know somebody who's got their LinkedIn title is
Speaker 1: fuckwit Wrangler. Yeah, they're work in quite a senior industry
Speaker 1: as well. They've got security clearance.
Speaker 2: Interesting.
Speaker 1: So how are you, little callum? You're back from your advent,
Speaker 1: I say, little callum, I think you're thirty eight now,
Speaker 1: aren't you.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm exhausted generally. I think i'm mental age.
Speaker 2: I'm about seventy four. Yeah, on a good day.
Speaker 1: What's the red wine to caffeine ratio in your body?
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 2: But you don't like that Wolf of Wall Street thing
Speaker 2: where he says, like all these different drugs, the you know,
Speaker 2: uppers and downers.
Speaker 1: I love.
Speaker 2: I'm slowly I'm working my way to the downers because
Speaker 2: we're it's half seven at night and we're you know,
Speaker 2: we're recording a podcast on a Tuesday. It's been a
Speaker 2: long day. It's always a long day.
Speaker 1: I think you make them long days. I think you
Speaker 1: sort of lengthen out the days. You get at least
Speaker 1: twenty eight hours work and activity out of any day.
Speaker 2: So I got up this morning for regular morning, kids
Speaker 2: to school, all that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: Your kids to the right school. You didn't just take
Speaker 1: some kids to way school. Oh it's a good point.
Speaker 1: I didn't check. You just snatched some kids off the
Speaker 1: high street and drop them off outside. Eaton.
Speaker 2: No, I got my kids ready for the school that
Speaker 2: they attend, which was good. Did all that electrician came
Speaker 2: to the house. We ordered two new lampshades that match.
Speaker 2: So it's been an absolute getting. So it comes for
Speaker 2: insurance and we've got two lights over the kitchen island
Speaker 2: and they were like, well, why are we replacing two?
Speaker 2: It's because you can't have one blue one and one
Speaker 2: orange one. Can you when there's two lights over that?
Speaker 2: I didn't swear, but that was basically the conversation was like,
Speaker 2: because they.
Speaker 1: Are repair, sure, God, look at it, man.
Speaker 2: One of them is broke. Why am I justifying this
Speaker 2: to you? One of them is broke, the other one
Speaker 2: is not broken. But you can't just replace one when
Speaker 2: they are repair. That's like saying you've stained one of
Speaker 2: your trouser legs, replace one of them and we'll cut
Speaker 2: it in half and sew it together. It doesn't work,
Speaker 2: you idiot. So we did that. So anyway, I was
Speaker 2: busy fixing a toilet. Jesus, I just realized how terrible
Speaker 2: it sounds. I was fixing a toilet. I was playing
Speaker 2: amateur plumber. The man asked me how long I'd been
Speaker 2: a plumber. I told him seven minutes. And shortly after,
Speaker 2: while I was down unconnecting a flexi hose from the toilet,
Speaker 2: he was busy smashing his head into the new light
Speaker 2: lamp shade, which then shattered all over the kitchen floor.
Speaker 2: So he had to go to next to get a
Speaker 2: new light fitting, which they didn't do, and the other
Speaker 2: light fitting that he was due to fit. Didn't work,
Speaker 2: so he returned the whole lot. And that's pretty much
Speaker 2: been the theme of the day.
Speaker 1: This kitchen restoration of yours, which was all an insurance job.
Speaker 1: Was that a leaky pipe?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Somewhere on plumbing that I didn't do, which is
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful that it's plumbing I didn't do.
Speaker 1: I don't think you're ever allowed to say anything to
Speaker 1: me ever again about the fact that I do all
Speaker 1: my own work on the house and the cars and everything.
Speaker 1: Because he's coming along to my point of view on
Speaker 1: this that all trades are now mostly unreliable.
Speaker 2: I reckon what is that law? Is it Parkinson's law,
Speaker 2: the sort of eighty twenty rule.
Speaker 1: I'm a bit shaky on that one.
Speaker 2: I think, wow, that was that was a good joke.
Speaker 2: It's a good joke. I think twenty percent of trades
Speaker 2: people that I've ever hired have been good, and the
Speaker 2: rest have the rest. I think this is your one job,
Speaker 2: and I could do it better than you. That's not
Speaker 2: to say that I'm great at it. That's to say
Speaker 2: that they're terrible at it. I've had I've had plumbers
Speaker 2: do terrible things. I've had electricians I've had I've had
Speaker 2: black smoke up walls, and you think, oh my god,
Speaker 2: this is your job, this is what you're meant to
Speaker 2: be good at. Like, yeah, yeah, it is a wonder
Speaker 2: how people get on in life.
Speaker 1: There is this parito prido prido principle, which is the
Speaker 1: eighty twenty rules sort of of everything is caused by
Speaker 1: twenty percent.
Speaker 2: Parato's law, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not my law or not the Piedo law, not
Speaker 1: the parido law, or it's the parido parito parrito. This
Speaker 1: is riveting content anyway, Burrito's law, Burrito's law, thank you,
Speaker 1: Yes we have. I think you get that with trades
Speaker 1: to a degree as well, where sort of twenty percent
Speaker 1: of people who are good get most of the work
Speaker 1: and the other eighty percent of the people you use
Speaker 1: once or they only get contract jobs for insurance companies
Speaker 1: or howarding authorities or things like that, where the work
Speaker 1: just has to be done, it doesn't have to be done. Well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I think I'm in I'm in
Speaker 2: that category. So I've just hired I've just hired a
Speaker 2: carpenter to come and fix the skirting that you could
Speaker 2: probably call a cab from one side of the skirting
Speaker 2: to the other, the gap is just enormous.
Speaker 1: Was that the one, the one they tried to tell
Speaker 1: you only came in length of one meter or something
Speaker 1: like that.
Speaker 2: I think he said that it did come in three minutes,
Speaker 2: but they couldn't get it in the van, so they
Speaker 2: picked And then they tried to tell me that you
Speaker 2: have to get skirting that's made to measure, and then
Speaker 2: we rung the kitchen company and the kitchen company said
Speaker 2: that doesn't exist. So and then the building company told
Speaker 2: me that this person was sent out to put it
Speaker 2: right and that's the sort of thing they do every day.
Speaker 2: Apart from he admitted that he'd never done it before
Speaker 2: in his life. And he'd also still had the blade
Speaker 2: on that was blunt from the last time he cut
Speaker 2: the lengths, so that was interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and keen listeners may have noticed that there's only
Speaker 1: two of us on this podcast. You haven't got the
Speaker 1: sort of I don't really know how to describe his voice.
Speaker 1: Read ready revert. Yeah, we haven't got Richard Nigas here
Speaker 1: because it is the week of the by election, so
Speaker 1: he is somewhere in the whatever. The rural version of
Speaker 1: the reform Bonker is briefing some potentially going to be counselors,
Speaker 1: and I know we normally do this sort of Oh
Speaker 1: he's off, you know, judging rear of the year or something.
Speaker 1: I think he actually is out briefing reform people tonight.
Speaker 1: So in my head I'm picturing it like that scene
Speaker 1: from Downfall that gets turned into a meme where it's
Speaker 1: sort of Hitler and the generals shouting in put whatever
Speaker 1: sub title is over it. If anybody in the in
Speaker 1: the audience wants to make that meme for me, please
Speaker 1: do and we will share it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be good. What's what will be the peak
Speaker 2: point that Hitler objects in the meme how much environmental
Speaker 2: policy is going to cost them? Where he froze his
Speaker 2: glasses down.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Greens are taking over Cambridgeshire and that's sort
Speaker 1: of it comes into the border of Suffolk and Norfolk,
Speaker 1: just on the edge. Ah.
Speaker 2: But anyway, I will say, what did I put? Education
Speaker 2: is key. I might not be a man that is
Speaker 2: pro reform, but anyone that's willing to educate themselves and
Speaker 2: listen to someone as knowledgeable as Richard digis about the environment,
Speaker 2: farming and all the things He does know quite a
Speaker 2: lot about fair play. If you can get to the
Speaker 2: you can get to a point where you're properly informed
Speaker 2: by practitioners and people that are actually in the countryside
Speaker 2: doing the things, then and fair enough, I'd vote negus.
Speaker 1: And on the off chance that we do actually have
Speaker 1: some counselors listening, I know we do have some politicians
Speaker 1: who listen. But you've got you know, you're going to
Speaker 1: be a new counselor or into a new seat, you know,
Speaker 1: come after Thursday, which it sounds like quite a lot
Speaker 1: of people are going to be in that position of
Speaker 1: local power for the first time, whichever party you're in,
Speaker 1: if you're there for the first time, or even if
Speaker 1: you're being re elected on your first day, Assume you
Speaker 1: know nothing. Assume all of your core beliefs about how
Speaker 1: the world works and how people will do things if
Speaker 1: you give them this chance or take this away from them,
Speaker 1: assume that's all wrong, and go and try and find
Speaker 1: out as much information as you can to find out
Speaker 1: what's actually happening on the ground for the people who
Speaker 1: live in your area. Please God, go and do that.
Speaker 2: Great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a that's a pilarate political broadcast. On behalf
Speaker 1: of the Please God, let it stop, parties, Just do something.
Speaker 2: Fix a bloody road.
Speaker 1: I just care about the roads at the moment. I
Speaker 1: don't go anywhere. I mean if with my leg well,
Speaker 1: I get chauffeur to places, I get driven around two places.
Speaker 2: I think you need one of them, like scooters, them
Speaker 2: little rude boy scooters, little bike snatches spike.
Speaker 1: It has been suggested to me that I am eligible
Speaker 1: for a blue badge, but I haven't done it yet yet.
Speaker 1: I think that'd be a step too far.
Speaker 2: My missus Nan has a blue badge, and she thinks
Speaker 2: that it sort of gives her the right to park
Speaker 2: basically anywhere. Not it's not restricted the disabled places. She
Speaker 2: will think, no, just park out the front. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that's how I got a blue badge.
Speaker 2: She just thinks that it's like it's like like when
Speaker 2: cops commander a vehicle in a in a police thing.
Speaker 2: She just thinks she can just do anything, just like
Speaker 2: there's no rules because she's got the blue badge. Power mad.
Speaker 1: In a brief moment of sensibility within this pretty odd
Speaker 1: podcast episode, already something that has happened over what getting
Speaker 1: on for six weeks by the time you've heard this,
Speaker 1: since I couldn't get out of the way of a
Speaker 1: tree quickly enough, I was already pretty sympathetic to those
Speaker 1: with different physical needs and different ability to move around
Speaker 1: the country and interacting with everything from pensions and DWP
Speaker 1: and just going through the NHS system and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It is crap everything everything. There is so much friction
Speaker 1: put there, even in the places that are meant to
Speaker 1: be for people who should be getting help from the states,
Speaker 1: from the government, from these things that we pay our
Speaker 1: taxes to do. And I'm sure there are lots of
Speaker 1: people listening who either in that position, or have been
Speaker 1: in that position, or have family members in that position,
Speaker 1: who know about the friction that I'm talking about. And
Speaker 1: just like I think everyone should spend at least six
Speaker 1: months in their in their sort of late teens early twenties,
Speaker 1: working in a service industry where you have to be
Speaker 1: on minimum wage, dealing with requests from the public, I
Speaker 1: think everyone should spend at least two months being physically
Speaker 1: differently abled, because it's a really interesting experience, and it
Speaker 1: will if you weren't sympathetic before, bloody hell, you will
Speaker 1: be afterwards.
Speaker 2: So how are you going to enforce that sort of
Speaker 2: with a mallet and a sledgehammer. Yeah, like misery, start
Speaker 2: with all the people that owe you money first and
Speaker 2: then can.
Speaker 1: Not take too long. He's another one this month. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it said it's not a good time for small rural businesses.
Speaker 1: It turns out I think April has been a bit
Speaker 1: hard for quite a few people.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I had a call today from somebody that essentially
Speaker 2: said the same, so that I've not had a you know,
Speaker 2: it's not been a busy start to the year, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, mate, we're in May. This is it's near
Speaker 2: the years like most of the way in. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: have to say I have had a I have had
Speaker 2: a busy one.
Speaker 1: Yes, you've been. You've been out doing things in the
Speaker 1: public with people, haven't you.
Speaker 2: I've done I've done so many things in the last
Speaker 2: like six weeks since we did a when we went
Speaker 2: to Avonmouth and had a wild adventure. Yes, we did
Speaker 2: doing drone stuff. Well you did the drone stuff. Basically,
Speaker 2: you did all the work. I just took a few
Speaker 2: pretty pictures and then and then spent my life editing,
Speaker 2: which is horrible. But the editing side of things that
Speaker 2: takes so long to get all of that done, probably
Speaker 2: done like four days on our thing. And then I've
Speaker 2: done things with like uh, investor relations and making videos
Speaker 2: for people raising money and stuff like that. And at
Speaker 2: one point the the after effects templates that you provided
Speaker 2: me with so lovingly had to be changed, and I
Speaker 2: had to work out what an expression meant in Russian,
Speaker 2: so I had to go into the little code template.
Speaker 2: Thank god for AI. Because I went into the code
Speaker 2: template using an alphabet that I'm not familiar with.
Speaker 1: It goes the other way as well, and try.
Speaker 2: And work out how to change these templates because I
Speaker 2: did not have any time or the ability to do it.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I've taken some jobs that are slightly out
Speaker 2: of the comfort zone made the magic happen.
Speaker 1: But I think, yeah, that's something for particularly your world
Speaker 1: that doesn't get necessarily picked up on because you get
Speaker 1: asked to do random media jobs, random marketing jobs. So
Speaker 1: it's not just turning up with a camera and pointing
Speaker 1: at and making the things look pretty. It's where it goes,
Speaker 1: how it gets shown to the public, and even down
Speaker 1: to creating taking video files and turning it into a
Speaker 1: really sexy little adverse or an edit or something. There
Speaker 1: are so many layers all the way down.
Speaker 2: I think the key is where it goes, so that
Speaker 2: they come up with an idea and then they take
Speaker 2: it to places that, like you just don't know how
Speaker 2: to do. It goes so far beyond what you're you
Speaker 2: Suddenly you're like, ah, okay, you actually you need a
Speaker 2: folly artist, someone that makes sound effects specifically for this thing.
Speaker 2: Or ah, what you're looking for is you know, an
Speaker 2: animator or a graphic designer or or something, and you
Speaker 2: can fudge your way through most things if you have
Speaker 2: some level of competence. But yeah, it gets it's a
Speaker 2: bit crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and small business owners as well. This is turning
Speaker 1: into an episode of the Mullet. But small business owners
Speaker 1: often have because you're their media guy, you get asked
Speaker 1: to do everything. So it's a bit like being the
Speaker 1: sort of older teenage grandson of tech illiterate people who
Speaker 1: grew up during the war and you have to program
Speaker 1: the video for them. This the text, Yeah tech got.
Speaker 2: A camera, you can fix my printer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the problem is you know how to fix a
Speaker 1: printer though, don't you know?
Speaker 2: That's really annoying that you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we've got two things we said we were
Speaker 1: going to talk about in this episode. We were going
Speaker 1: to talk about first, your trip over to the very
Speaker 1: middle of England and I think it actually is the
Speaker 1: very middle of England to do the National Gamekeeper's Organization
Speaker 1: and your general meeting and their awards ceremony evening which
Speaker 1: was at lunchtime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and we had a jolly old adventure. It was
Speaker 2: actually tell us what we're going to talk about. Second,
Speaker 2: because it all becomes relevant.
Speaker 1: So the second is you were attended, like I think
Speaker 1: about three quarters of the field sports world have now
Speaker 1: the y Morelands Matter event up in Cutherston Moore with
Speaker 1: Conservation Communication Emily Graham's organization.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is two things that you have great
Speaker 2: experience doing that I have experienced for the first time
Speaker 2: because you went last year. You did an excellent episode.
Speaker 2: I intentionally didn't listen back to the episode just because
Speaker 2: I wanted to try and keep it real fresh. And yeah,
Speaker 2: I think it would be quite interesting to compare our
Speaker 2: experiences against each other.
Speaker 1: So let's go for the gamekeepers one first. So I've
Speaker 1: done the photos there for about four years now with
Speaker 1: Amy and that sort of evolved because the venue is
Speaker 1: not an easy one for photography, is it. No, No,
Speaker 1: it's explain the issue.
Speaker 2: Well. The best thing is I got your pasion. I
Speaker 2: could see exactly what the what the horrible things were
Speaker 2: and how I might overcome them. Because if I had
Speaker 2: just been dropped in that, I would have been like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, what's the issue. All the curtains everything's black,
Speaker 2: So the curtains to black. The walls are black. Everything's black.
Speaker 2: There's lights from above, and all the lights from above
Speaker 2: are they're all scattered around, and they're all everyone's evenly lit.
Speaker 2: Not well, but they're evenly lit. So there's no dynamic
Speaker 2: in any way, shape or form. It's all very flat.
Speaker 1: It'd be sort of perfect lighting for a cutting plant
Speaker 1: handling meat where you wanted to make sure that you
Speaker 1: could see the cut of the meat accurately, and you
Speaker 1: didn't have any shadows. Not for creative photography.
Speaker 2: No, No, for making creative stuff, for making people look interesting,
Speaker 2: it was not there. Also, everybody's wearing green and tweed.
Speaker 2: So if you don't know who Jeff Garrett is, he's
Speaker 2: a man with a sort of a big.
Speaker 1: Rushy mustache, weapons grade mustache.
Speaker 2: It's a fantastic mustache and it's sort of.
Speaker 1: Like, oh, was firstborn has arrived in shots? Hello, Hi,
Speaker 1: hello small child? How are you? Have you been to
Speaker 1: school today?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Did he take you to the correct school? Or did
Speaker 1: he take you to the wrong school?
Speaker 2: Correct? Go every day to correct every days. We're just
Speaker 2: talking about how to solve the crisis in the Middle East.
Speaker 2: What's your thoughts?
Speaker 1: I know, Welcome back to Britain's premiere rural podcast. So
Speaker 1: Jeff Garrett and his weapons grave mustache?
Speaker 2: Was there?
Speaker 1: Was he on stage speaking?
Speaker 2: He was not, but I was. I thought I saw
Speaker 2: him about eight times and it just happened to be
Speaker 2: another gamekeeper. It just looks like Jeff Garrett, I know
Speaker 2: the one you mean as well? Yeah, that one, and
Speaker 2: then the other one, and then there's that other one,
Speaker 2: and then and then there's the other one that looks
Speaker 2: just to say.
Speaker 1: So, I think there's only about twelve different molds and
Speaker 1: pattern types for gamekeepers.
Speaker 2: If you play the game of Guess who and they
Speaker 2: were all gamekeepers, you'd only have like, yeah, five baby,
Speaker 2: you'd say, is he got a a stash? And then
Speaker 2: you'd be like yeah, and then you wouldn't put anything down,
Speaker 2: you wouldn't hear any.
Speaker 1: Does he have the features of a Mustarlid has a
Speaker 1: really keen eye, and it looks like he's a bit vicious.
Speaker 2: Does he look like he likes badgers? No?
Speaker 1: Click click.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But did you enjoy being there? Because you were there
Speaker 1: with basically the some of the finest gamekeepers in the
Speaker 1: land and all of the people who are charged with
Speaker 1: making sure that they still have a career, did you
Speaker 1: find it interesting?
Speaker 2: Not only were they, the people there absolutely great and
Speaker 2: the food they managed to put on an entire menu
Speaker 2: of game, everything from Partridge pheasants in what was it,
Speaker 2: Mordor Conference Center, So like this is like outdoor, this
Speaker 2: is catering in a regular a regular place, and they
Speaker 2: managed to put an entire menu of game on for
Speaker 2: everyone as their lunch phenomenal. The food was excellent because
Speaker 2: obviously they've got probably the best recipes out there. The
Speaker 2: food was excellent, and I've just when they said lunch
Speaker 2: is going to be served, I was fully expecting the
Speaker 2: standard fare that you would get at any conference center
Speaker 2: and it was all game. So a fair play to
Speaker 2: them for being able to pull that off. That was
Speaker 2: a stroke of genius. But right, that was a diversion
Speaker 2: the people that the people are the gamekeepers, but we
Speaker 2: all know that they're all boots on the ground conservationists
Speaker 2: and they I don't think no one stays in it
Speaker 2: for the money. No one stays in it for much
Speaker 2: other than they are just keepers of the land. They
Speaker 2: are the people that try and make sure that the
Speaker 2: habitat is good for nature, and that's what they love
Speaker 2: doing as much as as much as the shooting, or
Speaker 2: if not more so being without. Those people really interesting
Speaker 2: and the talks that were given were also quite interesting.
Speaker 2: You had a GWC guy, a GWCT guy. What was
Speaker 2: his name, doctor.
Speaker 1: Denny.
Speaker 2: I should Simon Denny. Simon Denny, that's the one as
Speaker 2: in the Denny Report. What's the Denny Report.
Speaker 1: Denny Report was a fantastic report into the basically morelands
Speaker 1: and keeper morelands and all sorts of factors from the
Speaker 1: conservation outcomes through to the economy through to wildfire management.
Speaker 1: And it's a it's a very carefully put together piece
Speaker 1: that shows the value of gamekeepers in managed upland environments.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, I think we should we should get him on.
Speaker 2: There was some seriously interesting factoids and one of them.
Speaker 2: I don't even know if this is true, all right,
Speaker 2: if I heard it right.
Speaker 1: So let's frame frame it. Not that Simon Denny stood
Speaker 1: up there and lied, but whether you were paying attention.
Speaker 2: I mean, both of those are possibly true. And I'm
Speaker 2: not sure you can possibly do me for libel for saying.
Speaker 1: That that's that guest opportunity gone. Okay, carry on.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure I heard that R. A. F. Hontington
Speaker 2: in Suffolk had like a massive amount of nesting curlws
Speaker 2: in and it's unmanaged land, like they don't do anything
Speaker 2: on it. Oh, it might not be true, but I
Speaker 2: thought it was Waddington. I thought it was Hontington. So
Speaker 2: another another interesting thing was the Country Food Trust. Do
Speaker 2: you know about the Country Food Trust?
Speaker 1: I do know about the Country Food Trust, but tell
Speaker 1: the listeners about the Country Food Trust.
Speaker 2: The Country Food Trust is some some this might not
Speaker 2: be trust. Vibe Cody, this is like Vibe podcasting. We're
Speaker 2: just we're just trying to.
Speaker 1: Get through your head and you're not sure if it's
Speaker 1: a memory or if it's an imagination. Though, aren't you
Speaker 1: pretty much talk about the True Food Trust?
Speaker 2: So the Country Food Trust is paying people like twenty
Speaker 2: quid for a munth jack, so the price is extremely good.
Speaker 2: They've got people that believe in They've managed to rally
Speaker 2: together people that believe in the Country Food Trust and
Speaker 2: specifically what's her name, SJ. SJ. Hunt. Yeah, I'm going
Speaker 2: to say that that might not be true, but I
Speaker 2: think it's No, it's s J. Hunt. So people believe
Speaker 2: in her. And the idea is she gets deer stalkers
Speaker 2: to go out take as many as they can and
Speaker 2: then makes them into meals to feed people that are
Speaker 2: just in need of a good protein rich meal and
Speaker 2: it's delicious. So at some point she's even making them
Speaker 2: as like ready meals that you can just add water
Speaker 2: too and stuff like that, and they're being shipped out
Speaker 2: to frontline, but they're also being made for people, you know,
Speaker 2: instead of if you go to a food bank, it's
Speaker 2: most of the food that gets left at food bank
Speaker 2: it's just processed rubbish. So actually having lean, good protein
Speaker 2: for people that need that are in food poverty is
Speaker 2: a really important thing. And if you can take a
Speaker 2: deer that is something that was going to be a
Speaker 2: net positive for the environment and then turn it into
Speaker 2: protein that people need it's solving such a good problem.
Speaker 2: It sounds like it's the sort of philanthropy that more
Speaker 2: people should be doing.
Speaker 1: They are a fantastic organization. So they've been on my
Speaker 1: hit list for as guests for quite a while. But
Speaker 1: often they are quite busy because they're doing a hell
Speaker 1: of a lot all the way through the year. But
Speaker 1: they're a they're not a shooting organization. They're not a
Speaker 1: shooting business. They are a food poverty charity. And they,
Speaker 1: as you say, they take game, whether it's the feathered
Speaker 1: or the third variety, but it's the it's either the
Speaker 1: byproduct of land management or the by product of commercial
Speaker 1: shoots or even non commercial shoots. But it's a way
Speaker 1: just like you know, our friend Hugo Campbell Hill does
Speaker 1: with his business, or Leon Challis Davis, who is our
Speaker 1: first guest, was talking about well over a year ago,
Speaker 1: getting it into the food chain. But the way that
Speaker 1: the Country Food Trust to it is they take it
Speaker 1: via food banks. And one of the you mentioned that
Speaker 1: the meal pouch things they do fun. Yes, they are
Speaker 1: like ready meal packs.
Speaker 2: They do venison bolinnaise that's in like a full foil
Speaker 2: pack and apparently they get reheated by people on the
Speaker 2: front line of Ukraine and stuff like that. It's fantastic.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of the stuff, the way they
Speaker 1: prepare it means that it has a year shelf life,
Speaker 1: which is another problem for food banks. It's can you
Speaker 1: you can get food in, but can you get it
Speaker 1: to people while it's still saleable and they're healthy.
Speaker 2: Well, they said the refrigeration for food banks was a
Speaker 2: massive problem.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, so these are shelf stable, aren't they.
Speaker 1: They're just they don't need Yeah, they don't need refrigeration,
Speaker 1: so you haven't got that cost.
Speaker 2: And obviously that's that's the venison and like you said,
Speaker 2: the feathered as well. So they're working with they're coming
Speaker 2: out with all sorts of ideas. They're innovating, truly innovating
Speaker 2: in the space, and they're trying to do things where
Speaker 2: they're putting like carts in refrigerated carts so people can
Speaker 2: drop off peasants and partridges and things like that. I
Speaker 2: think there's a slight cost to the to the shoot,
Speaker 2: but that is what they're doing. Like, if people haven't
Speaker 2: gotten outlet for their game, I mean, what better way
Speaker 2: than to give it to charities and people in need,
Speaker 2: and there was actually statistics about how people were actually
Speaker 2: protein deficient in There was certain people that were protein
Speaker 2: deficient in the UK, and we should not be having that,
Speaker 2: should we.
Speaker 1: There's the cheapest calories to access sometimes the ones that
Speaker 1: are worse for you, and getting getting protein, getting good
Speaker 1: lean protein is very expensive if you have to buy
Speaker 1: it over the counter, but there are I meanwhile, there
Speaker 1: are there is food going to waste in other blazers.
Speaker 1: So bringing anything that brings the two together, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: And they also do the big Homeless Center packs. I
Speaker 1: think they do like a two ki low foil wrapped
Speaker 1: things so you can then do bulk meals for people
Speaker 1: as well, so I know they work with a lot
Speaker 1: of homeless charities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's it's an incredible, incredible thing.
Speaker 1: Yep, So future guests there for the Country Food Trust.
Speaker 1: Anything else that stood out from the gamekeepers apart from
Speaker 1: the mustaches and maybe something about curing, it's.
Speaker 2: Just how rowdy they were after that. They're all drinking
Speaker 2: Jaeger barbs and skittle bombs and yeah, it just that
Speaker 2: did not happen. They all just went home in the
Speaker 2: in their four y fours in their pickup trucks and
Speaker 2: had a really good time.
Speaker 1: Is it the most tweed you've ever seen at an
Speaker 1: awards ceremony?
Speaker 2: I was quite a lot of tweed. I was hoping
Speaker 2: there wouldn't be lit candors, just in case, because it
Speaker 2: could have all gone up, and what with everything being
Speaker 2: curtains and tweed, could have been a real fire hazard.
Speaker 1: I think tweeds fireproof.
Speaker 2: And do you know how I got paid? It just
Speaker 2: gave me a handful of fifties and shook my hand
Speaker 2: all of them. It's great.
Speaker 1: Did just stand so awkwardly at one side with a
Speaker 1: beaming grin on your face? They are lined up? Yeah.
Speaker 2: I took a brace hope.
Speaker 1: To get paid for the first year, the first year
Speaker 1: when I did it, because they weren't sort of sure
Speaker 1: how much you were paying me. I won't mention who
Speaker 1: he is, but he's still in that position. He went,
Speaker 1: hang on, I've got some stuff in my pocket. Here.
Speaker 1: He just gave me whatever was in my pocket and
Speaker 1: the better jackets, and that was it. So it was.
Speaker 1: It wasn't too far off. Brace. Some link nearly gave
Speaker 1: me his train tickets. Oh I need that to get
Speaker 1: back home. So the very day after you went all
Speaker 1: the way north. It's not the long the furthest North
Speaker 1: you've been in a long time in Scotland, don't you.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I went cold Stream last year, but
Speaker 2: I haven't and then I went York at Christmas. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I think that's probably the furthest North in a in
Speaker 2: a long while, the.
Speaker 1: Further north than York for a Newcastle Newcastle latitude, don't you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, not quite, not
Speaker 2: quite Scotland.
Speaker 1: But it's so want to get So this is the
Speaker 1: why Morlands Matter events. So last year we went amy
Speaker 1: and I went to one. There was the first one
Speaker 1: we invited to, and then I was asked back to
Speaker 1: go to a super special one which was down at Archegarftel,
Speaker 1: which was the one that DEFRA were going to be at,
Speaker 1: which I sort of alluded to last year, but it's
Speaker 1: been so long now I can talk about it and
Speaker 1: sort of that was the end of my involvement with them,
Speaker 1: but I know they were trying to formalize the organization,
Speaker 1: so it was it conservation Communication.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's the that's their brand, I suppose.
Speaker 1: Well, I think that there there are social enterprises. Now
Speaker 1: there are a community interest company. So it's I think
Speaker 1: it's Emily Graham in charge of it now, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: So, but Emily Graham was was heading up a lot
Speaker 2: of it, and so was Tarquin Millington Drake are.
Speaker 1: The human what three words? Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah? You actually it's actually a porterloo just outside of Scumthorpe.
Speaker 2: If you put that into if you put that into
Speaker 2: what h No, I did it. It was so hard
Speaker 2: for me to get there. I actually had to ask
Speaker 2: for what three words? And the the the drive in,
Speaker 2: I don't think I've ever seen quite so much wildlife
Speaker 2: on a road in my life. I had to stop
Speaker 2: at once with a live It was just roadkill, that's
Speaker 2: the funny thing. So I drove in and there's a
Speaker 2: black grouse in the road straight away and they're not
Speaker 2: very common, so I scared one of those up, which
Speaker 2: I was like, cool, chick that off the list. I
Speaker 2: could probably turn around and go up.
Speaker 1: Now you jumping out of jumping out of the hour
Speaker 1: really got kicking a black grouse out of the road
Speaker 1: and getting back in.
Speaker 2: Well, No, what I did do is I got a
Speaker 2: bit further on and I was late, obviously because that's
Speaker 2: what I do. Yeah, I'm it's on Brown. I left.
Speaker 2: I left with like an hour extra and I got
Speaker 2: to where was we I was on the phone to you,
Speaker 2: weren't I, and you said, every single road is is
Speaker 2: currently Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like an overwatch look on Google Maps, at
Speaker 1: your traffic, at your traffic ahead of you going, you
Speaker 1: may as well just sort of pull over and give up. Now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I went to Greg's and got a
Speaker 2: flat white. Yeah, it was about an hour. It was
Speaker 2: about an hour extra on top so everyone by the
Speaker 2: time I got there, everyone was already digging into lunch
Speaker 2: and I was sort of like, oh, embarrassingly, but yeah,
Speaker 2: soz so I put up. And then there's just two
Speaker 2: mallards and they just abandoned their last chick in the
Speaker 2: middle of the road, so I had to I had
Speaker 2: to stop. I thought they're just awful parents. I had
Speaker 2: to stop and then pick this little chick up because
Speaker 2: I thought it's going to get nabbed. In like two seconds.
Speaker 2: I had to pick it up and then put it
Speaker 2: on the right side of the wall for the where
Speaker 2: the mallards were, and it was no way it could
Speaker 2: get out. I don't know how it was stuck on
Speaker 2: the road as well. I'm not sure what they what
Speaker 2: they've done to it, but yeah, so I had to
Speaker 2: save a mallard. And then eventually I got to the
Speaker 2: thing and I'd seen I'd seen a countless curlyw I'd
Speaker 2: seen a black grouse, I see ducks, lap wings, everything,
Speaker 2: And that was in the middle of the day, so
Speaker 2: not a known time for wildlife and birds. And then yeah,
Speaker 2: what a place. What an incredible place?
Speaker 1: Because it's to describe the scene, because I think when
Speaker 1: I went last year, we sort of weren't meant to
Speaker 1: talk about where it was, but it's now Viscount Ridley
Speaker 1: has won an award for Cotherston More. I think you
Speaker 1: could probably started talking about which one it is. But
Speaker 1: you're driving along sort of a dead end road which
Speaker 1: has got a couple of farms off to one side,
Speaker 1: but sort of on this crest of a hill above
Speaker 1: a reservoir with just views out across all this moorland,
Speaker 1: aren't you, And then you end up at this very
Speaker 1: nice grouse lodge part way along the shore of the reservoir. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you get sort of ushered in for it was quite
Speaker 1: a nice meal, isn't it. You sort of start off
Speaker 1: with some with some fantastic dining.
Speaker 2: I had a very generous red wine lasagna and there
Speaker 2: was plenty of red wine in it. It was so good,
Speaker 2: so good. I was like, I was easy to get
Speaker 2: just thinking the richness of this is unreal. That is, like,
Speaker 2: there's enough to get about ten people drunk in there
Speaker 2: and it was brilliant. Yeah, great food. And then I
Speaker 2: didn't really know what to expect, but you get you
Speaker 2: get hit with a massive question and an introduction, so
Speaker 2: it's not like an icebreaker, it's like, introduce yourself and also,
Speaker 2: please tell us how you solve the crisis in the
Speaker 2: Middle East. Go. So the question that was asked as
Speaker 2: a kind of it was about five questions in one.
Speaker 2: It's basically, how do you get the message of shooting, conservation,
Speaker 2: habitat loss and everything in between? And how do you
Speaker 2: get the people on one side and the other to
Speaker 2: engage with each other for the benefit of nature and wildlife?
Speaker 2: And I think the left filled point is also and
Speaker 2: for shooting. It's not the primary focus, but it's quite
Speaker 2: clear it is is pro shooting while also being definitely
Speaker 2: pro nature. So it's yeah, it's clear that they want
Speaker 2: the grosse shooting to continue, but it's also about how
Speaker 2: to show the positive work that the gamekeepers, the people
Speaker 2: that manage the land, and how that all works together,
Speaker 2: so it's not just an us and them. The objective
Speaker 2: is to make sure it's not us and them.
Speaker 1: So it's because I think part of the point of
Speaker 1: the whole thing is that you're looking at a landscape
Speaker 1: that exists because of the management of it. So there
Speaker 1: are two full time keepers, three full time keepers on
Speaker 1: the moorland, plus all the associated things with that. You know,
Speaker 1: they need someone to live, so they've got houses that
Speaker 1: they get, vehicles, all the costs of doing that, so
Speaker 1: there are there's quite a significant cost to managing that
Speaker 1: much land, and particularly upland, which means you can only
Speaker 1: sort of drive to the edge of it and you
Speaker 1: have to walk into anywhere. That whole thing makes a loss.
Speaker 1: It makes a financial loss every year, even with running
Speaker 1: a commercial grouse shoot. So the grouse shooting is the
Speaker 1: funding model for the work that carries on all the
Speaker 1: way through year. And because of red grouse are a
Speaker 1: wild species, they're not like most commercial shoots are in
Speaker 1: the lowlands, so you're not released, you're not releasing reared
Speaker 1: birds like pheasant and partridge and things like that. You're
Speaker 1: the red grouse are living there. They are living there
Speaker 1: all year round, and what you have to do in
Speaker 1: order to have a shoot there is create or maintain
Speaker 1: the right conditions for them. So low numbers of predators,
Speaker 1: including foxes, mustarlids, things like that, good habitat for them,
Speaker 1: good food sources, good water sources, and space because they
Speaker 1: need a lot of space. So you're sort of farming
Speaker 1: grouse but without putting any extra grouse on the ground.
Speaker 1: But the second order effect of doing that is you've
Speaker 1: got all these other species that also need those conditions
Speaker 1: to survive, like lap wing, curly red shanks, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So all these other things that would very much like
Speaker 1: to live in a place that doesn't have many predators,
Speaker 1: has lots of food, has lots of space, has lots
Speaker 1: of doesn't have much disturbance. They go in there and go, oh,
Speaker 1: this is cracking. We'll stay here. Yeah. So you've got
Speaker 1: all these things happening in the same place, but you've
Speaker 1: got the conservation bit, and then it's funded by grouse shooting,
Speaker 1: and that's the I don't think they're very good at
Speaker 1: taking that clear necessarily in the event that's my Maybe
Speaker 1: they've changed it this.
Speaker 2: Year, Uh was was it clear? I think so. At
Speaker 2: one point we went to a to the lunch hut
Speaker 2: and we met the keeper and the keepers saying about
Speaker 2: about trapping stokes and that how they they get quite
Speaker 2: a few every year and that tends to be a
Speaker 2: big thing that enables a lot of the birds to
Speaker 2: keep nesting. And he was quite he was quite clear
Speaker 2: of what they what they do in order to to
Speaker 2: maintain this habitat and to increase it for biodiversity. And
Speaker 2: I think everyone kept chiming in because we had people
Speaker 2: from all sides of the spectrum at the at the event.
Speaker 1: That's the shoot, that's the sort of the political spectrum,
Speaker 1: not the not our spectrum.
Speaker 2: I think most of us are now, all the photographers,
Speaker 2: if they've got a pair of bins and they go, oh, curly,
Speaker 2: you fascinating, you could probably you know, I hazard a
Speaker 2: guess I'd flip a coin at it. What spectrum they're on?
Speaker 2: And I'm with you, all right there with you me.
Speaker 2: What was it the meme I sent you the other day?
Speaker 2: It's it's always are you.
Speaker 1: Very careful now? Describing which one.
Speaker 2: It's always are you autistic? And not? Thank you for
Speaker 2: pointing out that that was a buzzard from three hundred
Speaker 2: yards away? Why is it that? Is it anyway?
Speaker 1: All sorts of people from across the spectrum.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so so I think it was. It was clear
Speaker 2: that it was funded by shooting, and shooting is the
Speaker 2: thing that makes that happen. But actually, Matt, Matt Ridley,
Speaker 2: the chat that runs the gap, he he's probably never
Speaker 2: been cause no one's ever said that about him ever,
Speaker 2: But yeah, Matt Ridley, he actually pays for his own shooting.
Speaker 2: So it's quite it's quite clear that Matt sits in
Speaker 2: a point where he does like the shooting. I think
Speaker 2: he might like bird watching more, and he might like
Speaker 2: the whole keepering and bird watching more than he does
Speaker 2: the shooting itself. So yeah, if he can find a
Speaker 2: vehicle that can fund such a project, he's there to
Speaker 2: do it. And I would say to anyone that's sort
Speaker 2: of anti shooting, you need to go to a place
Speaker 2: like that and experience it and and just see how
Speaker 2: much these people genuinely care. And it's a shame that
Speaker 2: it gets bundled in with other kinds of shooting that
Speaker 2: people that don't care, And it almost doesn't matter that
Speaker 2: you get people that might go grouse shooting that don't
Speaker 2: care about the conservation. I'm not justifying the actions, but
Speaker 2: it also doesn't matter that there's people there. The reality
Speaker 2: is they're paying the money and the results and the
Speaker 2: outcomes are a positive impact on the environment and the habitat, biodiversity,
Speaker 2: the whole shebang. So yeah, it is interesting. I'm tempted
Speaker 2: to invite some of my more anti friends or people
Speaker 2: that work for RSPB or something like that and see
Speaker 2: if I can get them to come to something like that,
Speaker 2: because think it would be a real eye opener for
Speaker 2: them and they could ask the difficult questions and they
Speaker 2: get an honest answer. That's the important thing about these events.
Speaker 1: I think this is something that shooting but also land management,
Speaker 1: so I'm including forestry in that farming. There are lots
Speaker 1: of very good communicators in there, and lots of people
Speaker 1: doing a great job, and we've had them on the show,
Speaker 1: but overall those people aren't particularly good at showing the
Speaker 1: good that comes from what they do or you know. Instead,
Speaker 1: the focus comes on to arguing with people who tell
Speaker 1: them they're doing wrong, whereas almost if you ignore those
Speaker 1: people and only talk about the good of what you
Speaker 1: do and say that, Okay, this is how this system works.
Speaker 1: This thing happens because of this, and this is a
Speaker 1: good thing because of this, this and this, But it
Speaker 1: always gets overlaid with yeah, but look what the RSPB
Speaker 1: are doing over there. They've got you know, they're terrible.
Speaker 1: If you just say no, we've got the best outcome,
Speaker 1: we are the best, we do this, we do that,
Speaker 1: and don't knock anyone else down, you might have a
Speaker 1: better result with the public. And I think that's sort
Speaker 1: of where the events like the Why Mornan's better events
Speaker 1: they give they have the opportunity to do that at
Speaker 1: least even if it's like a small scale, because what
Speaker 1: they were like ten people there on the event eight people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'd say it was about ten. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So you've got ten people out there to go
Speaker 1: and see all of those things and see for themselves
Speaker 1: and see the proof on the ground, which is what
Speaker 1: those events are great for at scale. Do you think
Speaker 1: it translates over do you think like, are you're going
Speaker 1: to go and tell well, you're telling about five thousand
Speaker 1: people about it now, but I think our five thousand
Speaker 1: people are already sold.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is the risk. Hopefully there's people out there
Speaker 2: that sit on the fence and they don't know this stuff.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I just I think we just need to
Speaker 2: make it clear that these people don't get paid by
Speaker 2: something you may or may not agree with, that they
Speaker 2: are making positive outcomes and have good a good impact
Speaker 2: on on what they do. Although there was an interesting
Speaker 2: debate and I don't know how how deep we get
Speaker 2: into this, and I know absolutely nothing about it, but
Speaker 2: the subject of heather burning just kept coming up and
Speaker 2: up and on. Chap kept citing that he'd heard it
Speaker 2: both ways, that it was good in some ways, that
Speaker 2: it was bad and it's not. Really I don't think
Speaker 2: anybody has the answer whether it's good or bad, but yeah, wow,
Speaker 2: it depends. It depends. So some people say it's bad
Speaker 2: for biodiversity because you're effectively burning down pieces of heather,
Speaker 2: which is the what is heather? Heather is just a
Speaker 2: plant shrub everywhere on moorland, almost a lot of places
Speaker 2: that offers basically offers insects and stuff, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: really offer a great deal of habitat for ground nesting
Speaker 2: birds and other such things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a woody shrub that grows about knee high
Speaker 1: and a little bit higher if you let it. But
Speaker 1: it can be managed annually or managed back down to
Speaker 1: zero almost, and then you get new shoots coming up,
Speaker 1: and the new shoots are very springy and green.
Speaker 2: And.
Speaker 1: It can provide cover and habitat when it's at the
Speaker 1: woody stage, but it also becomes a huge fire risk.
Speaker 1: And then when it's at the young springy stage, you've
Speaker 1: got the very young stuff coming out. Those shoots are
Speaker 1: what the grouse eats, but also other ground nesting birds
Speaker 1: and some ground nesting birds prefer the open space that's
Speaker 1: left behind after what would have been a wildfire came through.
Speaker 1: And then in more recent times is sort of the
Speaker 1: man made management. But it's a big it's cutting.
Speaker 2: It's cutting it, and there's very strict rules of how
Speaker 2: you cut it and burning it is that.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, you burn it in place, so you can
Speaker 1: mow it is one of the options. So that's how
Speaker 1: a lot of morlands have gone over to managing. They
Speaker 1: mow strips, so you mow through the woody stems and
Speaker 1: you've got strips left of not quite bare soil, but
Speaker 1: it goes back down to a very low level and
Speaker 1: then you get the young shoots coming up the range
Speaker 1: of hills that's I can see from the house here.
Speaker 1: They get covered in stripes. It looks like one of
Speaker 1: those sort of modern young person's haircuts where they have
Speaker 1: random stripes just cut in all over their hair. You
Speaker 1: get all these random stripes all over Morland, which are
Speaker 1: there as a way of getting rid of the woody
Speaker 1: stems and getting younger shoots coming up. This is a
Speaker 1: very poor explanation, but you'll do burning was the older
Speaker 1: way of doing it. If you do it in the
Speaker 1: right way, you get a cool burn versus a hot burn.
Speaker 1: And this is something I have seen, don't know, it's
Speaker 1: something that does need looking at, because a cool burn
Speaker 1: is you just take the stuff off the top and
Speaker 1: everything at ground level is left untouched. And there's some
Speaker 1: great demonstration videos of this. And again this is one
Speaker 1: of those areas where if they did this on the
Speaker 1: BBC on a national flagship TV show, you get the
Speaker 1: point across. But because it's on some gamekeepers' Instagram account,
Speaker 1: no one sees it. Where they put a mars bar
Speaker 1: down on the ground and do a burn over the
Speaker 1: top and then pick up the mars bar and the
Speaker 1: marsbar still hard. Or another one where somebody put their
Speaker 1: phone down and just with the camera on filming and
Speaker 1: the burn went over the top and it just takes
Speaker 1: the very light woody stems off the top and leaves
Speaker 1: behind the wet stuff that's lower down, So you only
Speaker 1: burn a small amount at time, and you get this
Speaker 1: young regeneration coming up. It's very much like what I
Speaker 1: do in a woodland with copper sinc. So where we
Speaker 1: cut down hazels back down to the stump and let
Speaker 1: the young growth come back up. It's a rotational management.
Speaker 1: One of the things that was suggested and then pretty
Speaker 1: much adopted by the wildlife trusts and other organizations like
Speaker 1: the RSPB that took over the management of some older
Speaker 1: grouse malls and other moorlands was they went for the
Speaker 1: rewetting idea, which is where you stop water draining off
Speaker 1: the moorland, which good to a degree because a lot
Speaker 1: of effort was put in in the nineteenth and twentieth
Speaker 1: century to drain the moorlands and make them nice and dry,
Speaker 1: and just wet them instead, and then you get lots
Speaker 1: of shrubby growth on top, and then you a few
Speaker 1: bits for the young growth. The problem is that when
Speaker 1: you do get a fire eventually, as happened last week
Speaker 1: at time of recording on National Trust Ground in the
Speaker 1: Peak district near the Snake Pass, when it does burn,
Speaker 1: it's got a lot of fuel and it burns out
Speaker 1: huge areas and burns right down and you get a
Speaker 1: hot burn and it does burn down into the soil.
Speaker 1: I don't think how it started yet. It's possibly barbecue,
Speaker 1: possibly campfire, something like that.
Speaker 2: It could be anything, yeah, but it doesn't really matter.
Speaker 2: Like they can start with almost anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It could be a piece of glass that lenses
Speaker 1: through and you get from the sunlight and you get
Speaker 1: a hot spot. But it doesn't really matter. The point
Speaker 1: is that eventually you will always get a fire in
Speaker 1: these places. Yeah, if there's a lot of material there
Speaker 1: to burn, the fire will burn very very deep and
Speaker 1: burn right down into the seed bank. That's on the moorlands.
Speaker 1: And that happened on a on a mountain not far
Speaker 1: from here a few years ago at the Hale True Paths,
Speaker 1: where it's still barren five or six years later. In
Speaker 1: places because nothing is yeah, nothing's come up because it
Speaker 1: burnt right the way down to the seed bank and
Speaker 1: right the way down through the organic soil.
Speaker 2: How long could that take to feasibly come back.
Speaker 1: Well, it's what will come back, because what will come
Speaker 1: back might be all the seeds that are blown in
Speaker 1: from elsewhere. So it might not go it might become
Speaker 1: green again, and it is becoming green, but it might
Speaker 1: just become all the other moorland grasses instead of the
Speaker 1: heather moorland that was there before, or it might be
Speaker 1: lots of bracken. When you change a landscape, you might
Speaker 1: not be changing it. It might be changing it into
Speaker 1: something else. Yeah, And just I suppose better or worse
Speaker 1: as a human term, isn't it? You know, it's it's
Speaker 1: our judgment.
Speaker 2: But it's moreland, isn't it? Yeah? Isn't especially. So one
Speaker 2: of the interesting factoids that I got was obviously they
Speaker 2: used to burn back places, so the sheep had areas
Speaker 2: to graze. So apparently you can carbon date bits of
Speaker 2: burning in the soil back to six thousand years ago,
Speaker 2: So it's it's not a new thing to be burning
Speaker 2: burning this stuff back.
Speaker 1: No, And that's another thing that sort of became this
Speaker 1: presumption that everything, all areas of Upland were all heavily
Speaker 1: wooded and then we cut them down and then replaced
Speaker 1: the trees with sheep. But somebody was burning heather there
Speaker 1: six thousand years ago, so some bits of it must
Speaker 1: have been open.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I did ask what the what
Speaker 2: the other side wants ultimately to happen to a zero burn.
Speaker 2: One interesting thing is that the heather sometimes does grow
Speaker 2: up to a point where it kind of falls over
Speaker 2: and then it creates car of area. But I think
Speaker 2: we can see that when when there's areas that are
Speaker 2: open that the ground nesting birds are are doing really
Speaker 2: well with it. So yeah, I don't know what the
Speaker 2: answer is, but it was an interesting debate, and I
Speaker 2: have so much to learn on the subject that I
Speaker 2: know nothing about it really.
Speaker 1: And then you had the big event early on the
Speaker 1: on the second day, you went to the leck.
Speaker 2: I went to the lek. That's what that's kind of,
Speaker 2: that's sort of what you're there for. That's what they
Speaker 2: that's what the cell is.
Speaker 1: That's where I told you to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because you get to see the leg What is
Speaker 2: a what is a lek? I I've described it as
Speaker 2: just a load of birds dancing. Yeah, so that the
Speaker 2: black grouse basically they're kind of having a scrap, but
Speaker 2: they're not really, they're basically just dancing. But then they
Speaker 2: do get a bit a bit verbal at times and
Speaker 2: they do start having a having a scrap and start
Speaker 2: scratching each other, and it is actually quite fierce. You
Speaker 2: can hear some some feather on feather action and it's
Speaker 2: audibly quite an assault really that they have on each
Speaker 2: other when they're when they're battling the mails. But just
Speaker 2: what I found fascinating it it's the whole, the whole. Firstly,
Speaker 2: the environment. Okay, the environment is like being on a
Speaker 2: different planet. Doesn't feel like you're on Earth. You're sort
Speaker 2: of looking over and it's just this sort of shrubby wasteland.
Speaker 2: Sounds horrible, but there's nothing really there. It is just
Speaker 2: like it's just a shrubby, hilly, endless environment. There's like
Speaker 2: no trees on the skyline. It's just shrubs for and
Speaker 2: it's sort of it's only broken up by the sunrise
Speaker 2: because there's nothing but the sunrise coming up. You come
Speaker 2: out before I was out of that. I think we
Speaker 2: left at four o'clock or half four in the morning,
Speaker 2: and the sun just graces the sky and all the
Speaker 2: shrubs suddenly get back lit and it's all golden and
Speaker 2: there's goldens and greens, and the sky is really clear,
Speaker 2: and you've just got these these birds in front of
Speaker 2: you that are just doing the strangest behavior you've ever seen.
Speaker 2: You sort of you have this thing in your head
Speaker 2: that the males are just fighting for just being like
Speaker 2: testosterone fueled males. It feels you default to a place
Speaker 2: like rutting stags, where it's like one against the other,
Speaker 2: just fighting each other. When you witness it, it's nothing
Speaker 2: like it. It's these males are doing this little dance
Speaker 2: and all they're trying to do is get the approval
Speaker 2: of the female. And it's not it's not man versus man,
Speaker 2: and then they get the female. It's it's almost as
Speaker 2: if who can dance the best, who looks the best,
Speaker 2: whose gene paul feels the strongest, and then the females
Speaker 2: have to select the male. It's not it's not who's
Speaker 2: the strongest, it's basically who impresses the female the best
Speaker 2: and who looks like they're the they're the alpha, who's
Speaker 2: the kingpin? It felt like a nightclub.
Speaker 1: If you're going, if you were going to liken this
Speaker 1: to an ethics nightclub, which one would it be.
Speaker 2: It would be Destiny Liquid, Yeah, it'd be liquid Harlowtown
Speaker 2: dance floor to two vks, two vks in one in
Speaker 2: each hand, dancing probably like acon, yeah, yeah, maybe a
Speaker 2: bit of Rhianna.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's it's not.
Speaker 2: It's just a it's just a bizarre thing. So that
Speaker 2: the Hens they there's just all these blokes knocking around
Speaker 2: in the middle, doing their little dance and occasionally aving
Speaker 2: a scrap, and then there's there's no there's not even
Speaker 2: a there's not even a hen bird around. They're just
Speaker 2: doing this. That's that's their thing. And then somehow, while
Speaker 2: they're puffed up, and also they exhale. When they exhale,
Speaker 2: even though it wasn't cold, you can see their breath.
Speaker 2: They're that they're that tense and they're that worked up
Speaker 2: about this that their body is literally boiling hot and
Speaker 2: exhaling warm air from themselves. So it's clearly like a
Speaker 2: very a very intense, quite stressful thing for them to do.
Speaker 2: It's not like it is fueled with like pure aggression,
Speaker 2: so they're doing this, and from like two hundred yards away,
Speaker 2: suddenly a bird will, a hen will just come over
Speaker 2: the horizon and you haven't seen it at all, and
Speaker 2: you're looking and these birds are like doing a little circle,
Speaker 2: all puffed out, and they've spotted this hen bird from
Speaker 2: two hundred meters away, and they just start doing this
Speaker 2: dance where they just like flick up and they jump up,
Speaker 2: and then all of a sudden, it just the body
Speaker 2: languages all change and they all just start flicking up
Speaker 2: and they all get excited and they jump in the air.
Speaker 2: And it's mad how they can see you through see
Speaker 2: a head bird come in from that far away. And
Speaker 2: then she just spends between that. You might have like
Speaker 2: five six, seven, eight hens all on in a little
Speaker 2: circle and they'll just spin around and they're just slowly
Speaker 2: waiting for the right black grouse that's done all the
Speaker 2: maneuvers perfectly. And then and then she's like, yeah, gone,
Speaker 2: you could have some. And I think there was something bizarre,
Speaker 2: like one of them will get like fifty percent, then
Speaker 2: like number two will get like thirty percent, and number
Speaker 2: three might get ten percent, number four might get ten percent,
Speaker 2: and then the rest will just get nothing, they'll never
Speaker 2: get a chance some of some of them die without
Speaker 2: ever getting a chance to mate. And usually it goes
Speaker 2: like first years you've got no child, second years, no chance,
Speaker 2: third year you might be in with a with an outside,
Speaker 2: and then like four years you get a chance. So
Speaker 2: it's like it really is a continuation of the gene
Speaker 2: pool where the female select the ones that do this
Speaker 2: this flamboyant dancing. It's fascinating to watch. It's unbelievable experience.
Speaker 2: I have to say, it's probably one of the most
Speaker 2: amazing things I've ever seen in my life.
Speaker 1: Good. It's one of those it's like it's not a
Speaker 1: it's not something I was to say, not even from
Speaker 1: this country, but even from it feels like you're watching
Speaker 1: something completely otherworldly whilst it whilst you've got the miss
Speaker 1: and the sunrise coming up, and there's fifteen humans all
Speaker 1: pointing at it, but no one's talking, no one's and
Speaker 1: everyone's just absorbed in this thing that's taking what two
Speaker 1: hours you sat there for?
Speaker 2: So you have the rule was you have to wait
Speaker 2: until the last female leaves so you don't disturb them
Speaker 2: from from copulating.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this was something that used to take place
Speaker 1: used to be able to find this in every county
Speaker 1: in England and Wales.
Speaker 2: I know, unbelieve, wasn't it.
Speaker 1: And this, you know, all those little bits of heathlands
Speaker 1: that we've lost and all these open areas you would
Speaker 1: have got you would have had black grouse doing this,
Speaker 1: and it just people talk about, you know, we've we've
Speaker 1: lost h we've lost we have we have lost some things,
Speaker 1: and this is one of those things where the only
Speaker 1: places to find it now in abundance are on these
Speaker 1: keeperd grouse malls, which when you compare it to you
Speaker 1: again the hills here there are there would have been
Speaker 1: people out this spring looking at that. We have black
Speaker 1: grouse here, but not very many of them. And you
Speaker 1: had what how many black grouse cocks were you looking at?
Speaker 2: I think in to we had I think it was
Speaker 2: something between twenty something in front of me twenty five
Speaker 2: and then there was sort of ye, it was sixteen
Speaker 2: hens or something. We worked out that roughly what we
Speaker 2: had in front of us at that one point was
Speaker 2: about five percent of the population of the black grouse
Speaker 2: in the UK, right in front of us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and up here if they found five, they'd be amazed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but this is the area that gets huge amounts of fund.
Speaker 2: How much have they spent for five black grouse?
Speaker 1: And when you consider the places where they are trying
Speaker 1: to restore this species, but they're just getting nothing off
Speaker 1: the ground because the management isn't being done in the
Speaker 1: same way. Whereas if you took these places that looked
Speaker 1: like a grouse more and manage them like a grouse more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: even if you didn't do the grouse shooting bit and
Speaker 1: just found the found the money from elsewhere, eventually you
Speaker 1: should have the same outcome as you have on a
Speaker 1: grouse more. It's not that Matt Ridley and vikat Ridley. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's not blessed by God to have a certain amount
Speaker 1: of black grouse on his moorland. It's because people under
Speaker 1: his under his employee have done the work and then
Speaker 1: now he has them there and all the other birds
Speaker 1: curly weighed waders, lapp wings Yeah what lappings are waders?
Speaker 1: But you know what I mean. So, I think the events,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to remember the figures Tarkun gave us for
Speaker 1: the podcast last year, but I think it's something like
Speaker 1: three thousand pounds per event or they are about I
Speaker 1: think it was like twelve pounds to run four events,
Speaker 1: so that's about three what's three thousand an event, which
Speaker 1: is an expensive do, particularly when you know they're not
Speaker 1: renting the lodge. I think they get the lodge for free.
Speaker 1: I think food is a big cost. And then I
Speaker 1: don't know what. There's sort of there some book materials
Speaker 1: you get tarquin and Emily's photo books after the Why Ball.
Speaker 2: And Matter's book. I haven't actually sort of looked for
Speaker 2: a couple of pictures, but I mean I had a
Speaker 2: chance to look. I actually got to go with Tarquin
Speaker 2: in in the car to do like a little phototour.
Speaker 2: It was so much fun. I've never seen a man
Speaker 2: have a So I think he's got cannon R one
Speaker 2: and a six hundred bill prime, which is very expensive.
Speaker 2: You can google the price of that if you like.
Speaker 2: That was it was an expensive It was an expensive
Speaker 2: bit of kit. And he's got it on a mount
Speaker 2: on the side of his car and he's driving down
Speaker 2: the track, not fast, but he's driving down not a road,
Speaker 2: a track with it mounted on a man Frotto head
Speaker 2: over the side of a car. And I took some
Speaker 2: video of it because I felt like putting an Instagram
Speaker 2: reel that said something like, you know, I want to
Speaker 2: trust like this man trusts this this mount because that
Speaker 2: was that was a thing to see. But yeah, we
Speaker 2: saw like shorted ours, We saw Stipe and we went
Speaker 2: and had a little adventure taking photos. It was really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's all those events there. I think they're
Speaker 1: currently privately funded as well. I think Takin through his
Speaker 1: I don't know, he's a fishing he's a shooting agent.
Speaker 1: I think is his day job. So he sort of
Speaker 1: sells shooting days and fishing days. So I think he
Speaker 1: got some contact through there to give him money for
Speaker 1: these events to you know, to sort of further the
Speaker 1: cause of conservation. And so I think, I know he's
Speaker 1: trying to raise money for more before Christmas, so hopefully
Speaker 1: were successful in that. I know there were some various
Speaker 1: opportunities there to get more money into it. So I
Speaker 1: don't know. I hopefully these events will continue and they'll
Speaker 1: carry on because I know a lot of work goes
Speaker 1: into it, and it's a hell of a lot of work.
Speaker 1: But I don't know if it also has to hit
Speaker 1: a wider audience, and maybe there's a there's the mass
Speaker 1: public version you can do as well.
Speaker 2: Oh the other thing as well that we haven't really
Speaker 2: touched on is Emie Graham was just explaining about how
Speaker 2: much the Grouse shooting means just to just to the
Speaker 2: local economy and the people that live there. There was
Speaker 2: a thing about cab drivers making a living out of
Speaker 2: just basically ferrying people to and from train stations and whatnot,
Speaker 2: and how they're basically employed mostly due to the tourism
Speaker 2: in the area. And then you had the obvious mental
Speaker 2: health benefits and the pubs and restaurants and stuff that
Speaker 2: benefit from people coming in spending some cash in what
Speaker 2: is quite it would be generally a rural poor community
Speaker 2: and if it wasn't for people going beating and shooting,
Speaker 2: and there wouldn't be much to do and there wouldn't
Speaker 2: be much money in the area. So it was the
Speaker 2: stories that were told were quite poignant and really hit
Speaker 2: home how having activities, shooting activities in an area like
Speaker 2: that means so much to those people in that area.
Speaker 2: But I will say that's also the excuse that so
Speaker 2: many people use to justify shooting, and a lot of
Speaker 2: times it just isn't true. Like a few guns that
Speaker 2: probably stop off at like Greg's along the services to
Speaker 2: grab a coffee and a sausage roll isn't the same
Speaker 2: as supporting a rural community in some way quite remote,
Speaker 2: so to paint, I really hate the argument that shooting
Speaker 2: supports communities and does so much positive good. And if
Speaker 2: you ban if you ban this, it's what was it?
Speaker 2: Three billion is the figure that's always thrown around shooting
Speaker 2: provides three billions to hospitality and like it does in
Speaker 2: some places, but that's not not allowed to use that
Speaker 2: if it doesn't, because they do who everyone does.
Speaker 1: It's with some irony. I think that was how Tarquin
Speaker 1: first heard about us because Emily one of our very
Speaker 1: very first episodes years ago, Emily sort of I think
Speaker 1: she even wrote in or left a comment saying that
Speaker 1: she took something with what I said about basically saying
Speaker 1: that saying, you know, telling her point of view of
Speaker 1: the value it has to weird al I think she is.
Speaker 1: And then the shooting there. But my point in return
Speaker 1: is basically the same thing as yours. It does in
Speaker 1: some places, not everywhere, and it's not also equally felt
Speaker 1: in those places. So if you are attached to shooting
Speaker 1: or attached to hospitality, that serves shooting, you do well
Speaker 1: from it, but if you just happen to live there
Speaker 1: and you're not in that economy, then it doesn't. And
Speaker 1: in fact, it might actually take something away from your community,
Speaker 1: because a lot of the economy is actually a geared
Speaker 1: towards the shoot because those places, those places rely on it.
Speaker 1: So a balance has to be struck and just blindly
Speaker 1: saying oh no, we support this many billions of things,
Speaker 1: you have to be a little bit more honest than
Speaker 1: that because everyone else can see through it. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think in rara areas the social side of going
Speaker 2: beating and actually even for me, like taking my son
Speaker 2: out beating just a great thing. He absolutely loves a
Speaker 2: sense of community, meeting the same people the time. There's
Speaker 2: not many other than my family, and there's not many
Speaker 2: times that I can take him somewhere and he meets
Speaker 2: the same people over and over again and gets to
Speaker 2: know them. And and yeah, I think shooting is a
Speaker 2: net positive for everyone usually. Yeah, but you can't use
Speaker 2: it as a as a one size fits all. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: we do loads for the local environment, but really it's
Speaker 2: just city city boys coming in and spending no money
Speaker 2: at all, having a jolly old day shooting, spend spending
Speaker 2: a fortune on their shooting, and then all of that
Speaker 2: money stays exactly in the hands of those set amount
Speaker 2: of people and then they go home.
Speaker 1: And that's the Yeah, that's pretty much my my stance
Speaker 1: on it as well. With maybe with a layer of
Speaker 1: those two things that you have to be better at
Speaker 1: her talking to the general public about the good things
Speaker 1: you do and not getting stuck in wars with people
Speaker 1: all the time. And maybe don't be complacent. Don't be
Speaker 1: complacent just because Baskus say, no, you know, it's worth
Speaker 1: this much to the economy, it's fantastic. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: It might get banned anyway, it might get taken away
Speaker 1: anyway if the public doesn't find a value in it.
Speaker 1: So you can't just say, oh no, we provide this
Speaker 1: much to the local area. Okay, what if the majority
Speaker 1: of people still don't like you. You have to win
Speaker 1: the wider pr war if you want people to find
Speaker 1: your thing valuable. Because I want to keep shooting and
Speaker 1: I want shooting to carry on in a good and
Speaker 1: ethical way. So well, I'm very very concerned that too
Speaker 1: much complacency will kill it.
Speaker 2: You know, Well, Chacolin's Basically, his original question was essentially like,
Speaker 2: how do we get people to open up conversations where
Speaker 2: we're talking about the positives and we're working towards a
Speaker 2: common goal. And actually the answer was holding events. Like
Speaker 2: why I'm all than matters. It's about it's doing this podcast.
Speaker 2: It's about engaging with people and telling the stories of
Speaker 2: how we find it and that is how people learn.
Speaker 2: It's about going to reform counselors and telling them how
Speaker 2: a hedge works. It's educating all of these.
Speaker 1: People in front of the hedge going see that that's
Speaker 1: something right.
Speaker 2: Next, this is a browse line, mister Nigas. The event.
Speaker 2: The event ended at eight o'clock. This is a brows line.
Speaker 2: The bloody mant jack, they're coming. Do you think a nightingale?
Speaker 2: Do you think a nightingale with nest in that? No,
Speaker 2: mister Nigas, make it stop. Yeah, I hope he's having
Speaker 2: a wonderful time.
Speaker 1: We'll see if he returns next week. Right, I think
Speaker 1: we should do the after show.
Speaker 2: Let's do it. Thank you and thank you Charquin and
Speaker 2: Emily for hosting me. It was a fun time. And
Speaker 2: thank you the n c O and all the people
Speaker 2: that look like Jeff Garrett Bye Bye,