Speaker 1: It's football.
Speaker 2: The round one yeah, it's what they call an America
Speaker 2: thacker soccer ball.
Speaker 3: And the other one you're thinking of his hand egg,
Speaker 3: which is that that long one?
Speaker 1: Well, that's that actual sport.
Speaker 2: Yes, the gentleman's game. I was rather worried to see that.
Speaker 2: I was watching the Gallagher Premiership Final between Northampton Saints
Speaker 2: and Exeter Chiefs and even they stopped for hydration breaks.
Speaker 2: Who the hell stops for a hydration break?
Speaker 3: I stopped for a hydration break.
Speaker 2: Well, that's called going to the pub? Is it is
Speaker 2: strong with that?
Speaker 1: I stopped for Hedgehogs.
Speaker 3: That's a T shirt.
Speaker 2: We're no longer Pride and I sat in the wood
Speaker 2: and you sat in your Garrett Callum, So you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's quite bizarre that only this Richard, who I've
Speaker 2: spent a huge amount of time with over you know,
Speaker 2: seventy two hours with Prideau.
Speaker 1: How was it for you, Weatherspoony?
Speaker 2: Yeah it was good. Well, I enjoyed myself. He was.
Speaker 2: He was sounder than I expected, I'll be honest, I
Speaker 2: expected when he emerged from his very dangerous looking truck
Speaker 2: to sort of come hobbling towards me a bit like
Speaker 2: mad Eye Moody from the Harry Potter films. Yet he
Speaker 2: was disappointingly sound, which shows he's still got some young
Speaker 2: and vitmum vigor left in him. Is it that?
Speaker 3: Or is he just putting it on?
Speaker 2: Well, it's probably that to be fair.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he didn't have a stick, which did worry me.
Speaker 2: I imagined he would have a stick that he would
Speaker 2: have made himself, like his age.
Speaker 3: Two hundred years exactly. He probably feels like it.
Speaker 2: Not really a stick as such, a staff I see
Speaker 2: Richard Moore as a staff man. He would have a
Speaker 2: staff which could help him to walk or could be
Speaker 2: utilized as a weapon, you know, if any any given opportunity.
Speaker 1: I do think we should bring back sort of the
Speaker 1: blackthorn cudgel as an everyday carry item.
Speaker 2: Isn't there some sort of day carry in Ireland? They
Speaker 2: have fighting sticks, don't they? Shes and which I mean
Speaker 2: are basically dangerous weapons.
Speaker 3: But Hurley, so they're pretty good at fighting with those
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: If you, if.
Speaker 3: You ever see them, get get involved.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah, Actually I got a phone call from
Speaker 2: a chap in Ireland who I know, asking if I
Speaker 2: could help him sawce some ash trees for to make
Speaker 2: early sticks. But it seems to be that actually how
Speaker 2: you have to cut these ash is a little bit complicated.
Speaker 2: Most of the forestry professionals I spoke to when I
Speaker 2: don't want to do that.
Speaker 3: Why cricket cricket bats willow yet, Hurley's or ash? What?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 3: Properties?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, look, England has got it
Speaker 2: nailed when it comes to cricket bats, because I think
Speaker 2: it's about ninety eight percent of all cricket bats are
Speaker 2: made from English willow. And the irishally got the same
Speaker 2: problem as us with ash, and I don't know as
Speaker 2: to weather. I would have thought it's probably the lightness
Speaker 2: of the of the ash that probably would make a
Speaker 2: hurly stick. But having only ever watched it drunk on TV,
Speaker 2: I think twice and just thinking that looks like, oh
Speaker 2: is it absolutely great? What is madness? Who on earth
Speaker 2: would want to play hurling? It is, basically, you know,
Speaker 2: to my English eyes, is a cross between well, just
Speaker 2: a full stand up fight hockey and fighting hockey fight
Speaker 2: and the bits of rubb be thrown in it's ats
Speaker 2: and the madness madness crazy people, you know.
Speaker 1: So I think the sticks are ash because it's the narrower,
Speaker 1: so they have to have some sort of the same
Speaker 1: sort of density as and flexibility, but the more like
Speaker 1: a tool handle, so you know, you get some axe
Speaker 1: handles and tall handles are ash. So that's probably why,
Speaker 1: because it's sort of a length width ratio thing going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes sense. But how you have to seem
Speaker 2: to cut them is basically simulate the beaver and you
Speaker 2: make a.
Speaker 5: Sort of say simulate, simulate, not just stimulate, no, no,
Speaker 5: simulate the beaver and you make your selling cut.
Speaker 2: So you're digging with your saw right down into the
Speaker 2: stump in a sort of well like a beaver would
Speaker 2: sort of cut it out, and it looks like a
Speaker 2: complete recipe for destroying your chain and bar and probably
Speaker 2: landing a tree on you, which, sorry Richard, that is
Speaker 2: is obviously and it's probably is that too soon.
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a trigger triggering thing for me
Speaker 1: now trigger warning.
Speaker 2: Sorry, yes, any road, What are we going to talk
Speaker 2: about today? Because you know, it's it's football day to day,
Speaker 2: isn't it. It is football day.
Speaker 1: It's Tuesday. Just for everyone's sort of sense of time
Speaker 1: and space, although.
Speaker 3: Not not a really really really important football day, just
Speaker 3: a jolly football day. So England game tonight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean so anyway, so what are we going
Speaker 2: to talk about today?
Speaker 1: Well, we're not allowed really to talk about the very
Speaker 1: recent Wigan coup sort of now we have a new leader.
Speaker 1: So that's boring and we're not going to that's.
Speaker 2: Dull, and it's dull because we have no idea what's
Speaker 2: coming up the track. So therefore, goodbye kids, Starmer, Hello
Speaker 2: Andy Burnham. Let's see what comes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I just of all the times to do it,
Speaker 4: just randomly, just felt like it randomly start the week,
Speaker 4: I'll go, you know, crumbled under zero pressure but didn't
Speaker 4: crumble under actual pressure.
Speaker 2: Fantastic, what a guy, I know, asterly bizarre. But anyway,
Speaker 2: he's gone, goodbye, you will not be missed, So onto
Speaker 2: more important things.
Speaker 1: Yes, have any of you been threatened with prosecution by
Speaker 1: the Environment Agency this week?
Speaker 3: Not this week?
Speaker 1: Not this week?
Speaker 2: No, I mean you'd have to be surely you know,
Speaker 2: a great polluter or something to get prosecuted by the
Speaker 2: Environment Agency, wouldn't you.
Speaker 1: You'd think so, wouldn't you. So yes, who's going to
Speaker 1: say it?
Speaker 3: The man formerly in our nearly in our new year's
Speaker 3: honors list, but not in the in the good bit.
Speaker 3: In the good bit, Paul Pousland is in the news
Speaker 3: this week and everywhere I go, I see a picture
Speaker 3: of Paul Pousland and he's used like, you know, like
Speaker 3: the Daily Mail said that says that freedom of speech
Speaker 3: is no longer around. And you know, you come out
Speaker 3: against I don't know, uh, you know, people doing bad
Speaker 3: things and then you go to jail for saying anything. Yes,
Speaker 3: well that's what Paul Powsland is currently being flouted as
Speaker 3: someone that cleans up the river and now he's going
Speaker 3: to go to jail. But they really like to miss
Speaker 3: out all of the all of the finer details. And
Speaker 3: some people go for it, but some people turn around
Speaker 3: and say he should be given a medal. He's a
Speaker 3: great guy. And I'm kind of one of them that's
Speaker 3: still routing for Paul. I can't quite put him into
Speaker 3: the camp of a terrible person. So can you explain,
Speaker 3: one of the richards, what actually happened the incident that
Speaker 3: has led to all of this. The man constantly cleaning
Speaker 3: up the river roading that runs for the River Roading
Speaker 3: Trust is what he runs. Yeah, give me some give
Speaker 3: me some background, because I don't actually know that much
Speaker 3: about the chat. Give me some background first, Who is
Speaker 3: this guy and what does he do?
Speaker 1: So he first came across my radar when I started
Speaker 1: doing what is always the most useful thing to do
Speaker 1: with your time, which is arguing with strangers on the internet.
Speaker 1: Love that always solves everything. So I think it was
Speaker 1: one that we were talking about right to Rome last
Speaker 1: year or something like that. That's when the first sort
Speaker 1: of came across him. Because he's quite into the right
Speaker 1: to roam side of things as well, it seems. But
Speaker 1: Paul Powersland, he is a barrister. I think he's founder
Speaker 1: of Lawyers for Nature or something like that as well.
Speaker 1: But he's he's very much an environmental campaigner and as
Speaker 1: you say he's I think he's a trustee or chair
Speaker 1: of the River Roading Trust, which is a they're not
Speaker 1: a charity, they're charitably incorporated or instituted organization a c IO.
Speaker 1: So it's a sort of a hybrid between a charity
Speaker 1: and a business.
Speaker 3: And they say that the River Roading is London's longest river,
Speaker 3: is what they what they say, It runs quite it
Speaker 3: runs through.
Speaker 1: What about the teen a long way Wow, I.
Speaker 3: Don't know that's what that's what the words mean.
Speaker 6: That lasted London too, Yeah, but I don't think it's
Speaker 6: the longest really cool so old father roading then, right,
Speaker 6: So okay, so mister Powsland does that.
Speaker 2: Runs this charity which is obviously not for profit gov
Speaker 2: and what's he done?
Speaker 1: So various things at various times. So it was just
Speaker 1: in a fous Channel four documentary which was about sort
Speaker 1: of gorilla cleaning up of riverbanks because various organizations and
Speaker 1: landowners are not doing their due diligence of keeping the
Speaker 1: river banks clear and free of litter and things like that.
Speaker 1: A few people took exception to him in that particular
Speaker 1: incident because well, for one, no one was wearing any
Speaker 1: of the PPE or required PPE for doing the work
Speaker 1: they were doing there. So a few of our forestry
Speaker 1: and landscaping contractor fans of the podcast stopped eating crayons
Speaker 1: for five seconds and got on there to point out
Speaker 1: that actually there's a whole world of PPE and legislation
Speaker 1: for using these tools in these places, which is one
Speaker 1: of the things. But there I took more of an
Speaker 1: exception to can.
Speaker 3: I blind rank the argument for PPE? I mean, if
Speaker 3: you're going to be doing gorilla clean up pp A,
Speaker 3: sure it it's important you can.
Speaker 2: You can if you want to do it yourself. You know,
Speaker 2: if you want to put yourself in danger, put it
Speaker 2: this way. If you choose to go and drink toilet duck,
Speaker 2: then absolutely fine. But if you take a group of
Speaker 2: individuals out and you say I'm going to take you
Speaker 2: on I don't know, a pub tour of Burris and
Speaker 2: Edmunds and say that I've decided not to take you
Speaker 2: on a pub tour but here have this instead, and
Speaker 2: you start feeding them toilet duck and then they all
Speaker 2: end up dead, then yeah, it's your responsibility. Okay, So Richard,
Speaker 2: tell me more, Tell me more. Because you run a
Speaker 2: sea I see.
Speaker 3: Was her responsible for a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you are getting volunteers to come out
Speaker 1: onto an activity or a thing that you're doing as
Speaker 1: an organization, so like a charity, like a CIO, something
Speaker 1: that is sort of a legally structured organization, you have
Speaker 1: what is known as a duty of care. So you
Speaker 1: are responsible for the some of the safety and well
Speaker 1: being of people doing the things that you're asking them
Speaker 1: to do. So come alonger support to this organization. We're
Speaker 1: doing good by saying if you come here to do
Speaker 1: this thing, you're doing good. You can't just say, well,
Speaker 1: you're all adults. If you fall over and break your leg,
Speaker 1: that's your problem. If you're saying what you need to
Speaker 1: do is climb up over this fence, down this rickety
Speaker 1: ladder onto this unstable bit of bank, sift through the
Speaker 1: needles and broken glass and things like that, and try
Speaker 1: not to stab yourself. If anything happens to one of
Speaker 1: those volunteers, the fault lies partially with the person orizing
Speaker 1: the activity. And this is not just something I've made
Speaker 1: a part of the top of my head. This is
Speaker 1: how every wildlife trust has to organize their volunteer days
Speaker 1: or or the RSPB or something like that, and we
Speaker 1: have to do it with our organization. And I think
Speaker 1: we were talking about this the other day, Calum, and
Speaker 1: you found something from the Anglers Association.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So there is cases of people dying on work parties.
Speaker 3: There's been a couple. One of them was I think
Speaker 3: someone was using a chainsaw and a limb of a
Speaker 3: tree fell on a guy and killed him. And they
Speaker 3: got quite a big fine, but effectively he's turned up
Speaker 3: on something out of out of wanting to help restore
Speaker 3: the river or whatever it was, or I think it
Speaker 3: was probably a lake to clear the lake that he's fishing,
Speaker 3: And yeah, unfortunately this person's lost their life and obviously
Speaker 3: wasn't wearing appropriate safety equipment. So yeah, I get it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it depends what they were doing. But I suppose if
Speaker 3: they're using heavy machinery and chainsaws and it's.
Speaker 2: Not even that callum is that? Is that the whole
Speaker 2: point of why he wants to and you know, hats after.
Speaker 2: I think when we gave him his New Year's honor,
Speaker 2: he said that, well, I said, because I nominated him
Speaker 2: for it, was that Actually what he's doing is admirable.
Speaker 2: But I mean, the holes challenge with the river roading
Speaker 2: is the fact that it is a very urban river
Speaker 2: and the stretch which he's on is owned by a
Speaker 2: private entity that the ripe Haarian rights are right now.
Speaker 2: In a communication with him via X, I did say, well,
Speaker 2: did you ask the owners if you could gain access?
Speaker 2: And his reply he wasn't. Yes I did, and they
Speaker 2: said no, he said, I wrote to them saying that
Speaker 2: they could give us as in the river Roading's trust
Speaker 2: the rights to this river. They could basically give us
Speaker 2: this this river. So he didn't actually say can I
Speaker 2: go in and clean it up? He just said give
Speaker 2: it to me, and unsurprisingly the owners went, sorry, you
Speaker 2: want me to give you a large bank of river
Speaker 2: frontage in London? No, because you know, I mean, you
Speaker 2: buy a shed in London and it costs you know,
Speaker 2: you buy Euston Park estate for that, So unsurprising they
Speaker 2: said no. So I don't actually know what the score
Speaker 2: is when it comes to the riparian rights the banks
Speaker 2: of it. He clearly has been in communication with him.
Speaker 2: But because they said no, we're not going to give
Speaker 2: you this, he took the hump. So he just went
Speaker 2: out and did some gorilla citizen, you know, good neighborly stuff.
Speaker 2: But he got a load of people and as Richard said,
Speaker 2: you know that's where the problem comes. And is it
Speaker 2: a big issue Richard, I mean, is it something that
Speaker 2: actually is a big No?
Speaker 1: Note the thing sort of there is not necessarily the
Speaker 1: massive issue getting volunteers to do something dangerous. It's more
Speaker 1: of a moral issue, and you're getting people to do
Speaker 1: things based on your on goodwill of the activity rather
Speaker 1: than your safety for them. And also you're sidestepping a
Speaker 1: lot of the stuff that you could do at other
Speaker 1: organizations that achieved similar aims elsewhere. Do like when you
Speaker 1: came last week, we drove past one of the woodlands
Speaker 1: by management managing it for well over ten years now.
Speaker 1: That cost me a pound a year in rent because
Speaker 1: I went to the landowner who's absentee, not that they
Speaker 1: live a long way away, and I said, can I
Speaker 1: manage this woodland in order to run my courses, but
Speaker 1: I'll take on all the responsibility of managing the footpaths,
Speaker 1: keeping the trees safety comes down on a neighbor's fence,
Speaker 1: I'll deal with it, yeah, which is a substantial amount
Speaker 1: of work. And they went, yeah, yeah, find as long
Speaker 1: as you take on that liability and so you could
Speaker 1: get access to things if you took on some of
Speaker 1: the responsibility of that landowner that they have to do.
Speaker 1: So there's that aspect. But the thing that's got him
Speaker 1: in that Paul Powersland is in trouble with now is
Speaker 1: whether it was after that documentary or whether that kicked
Speaker 1: it off. I don't know. The Environment Agency have sent
Speaker 1: him with sort of a notice of impossible Prosecution trying
Speaker 1: to find exact wording here, which is it's carrying out
Speaker 1: an investigation. But it's because the volunteers under the River
Speaker 1: Roading Trust they removed rubbish from the river, but then
Speaker 1: they placed it at the sort of the corner of
Speaker 1: the river, and the Environment Agency said, well, you're just
Speaker 1: dumping rubbish in a different place. He also rented a
Speaker 1: mini digger or a digger and removed silt from parts
Speaker 1: of the river as well, which I think is the
Speaker 1: really important bit because there are some weird rules around
Speaker 1: removing silk from rivers and how much metrid you take
Speaker 1: it from. Because it's effectively the equivalent of building an
Speaker 1: illegal building in the water, it's sort of treated in
Speaker 1: the same way by the Environment Agency. So it's actually
Speaker 1: quite a serious thing, and it's sort of a trip
Speaker 1: where Paul Powerslander's hit. I don't know whether he knew
Speaker 1: about it or not, but he's a barrister so probably did.
Speaker 2: I don't think he probably did, because funnily enough, on
Speaker 2: my way back from you, I went to Herefordshire and
Speaker 2: I met with a wonderful chap called Robert Denny, who
Speaker 2: ran a thing called the River Mono Trust and The
Speaker 2: River Mono is a fantastic river that rises up in
Speaker 2: the Black Mountains and then flows through the Welsh borders Herefordshire.
Speaker 2: What have you now? To recover the River Mono meant
Speaker 2: a huge number of hoops had to be dealt with,
Speaker 2: and there were all sorts of river mending that they did,
Speaker 2: and it started off as the River mon Angler's Trust
Speaker 2: and then became the River Mono Trust. So it wasn't
Speaker 2: just an angling centric thing, but that was the target,
Speaker 2: was to try and recover the wild brown trout of
Speaker 2: the River Mono and the hoops that they had to
Speaker 2: jump through, but also the goodwill and sanction that they
Speaker 2: had to get of not only the Environment Agency, but
Speaker 2: a catalogue of other organizations for exactly the reason you say, Richard,
Speaker 2: is that if you are going to alter flow and
Speaker 2: you're going to remove sedemon, you're going to create reds
Speaker 2: of gravel for trout to spawn in. You're going to
Speaker 2: remove silt. They had a lot of silting issues there
Speaker 2: because farming practices had chained, They had too many cattle
Speaker 2: drinking from the river. All these things, these things fundamentally
Speaker 2: change the nature of a river. And I think the
Speaker 2: reality is is that Pousland was involved with that utterly
Speaker 2: fatuous book called something like I don't know, wildlife Guardian,
Speaker 2: some old tosh that a load of right to roam
Speaker 2: people wild service, that was it. Whether they are trying
Speaker 2: to go and advise people that if you see some
Speaker 2: natural disaster type thing, you know that, you see some
Speaker 2: rubbish just trespass, it'll be absolutely fine. Or you see
Speaker 2: something you don't like or you think is wrong, go
Speaker 2: and sort it out. And I would argue that Powsland
Speaker 2: may have a huge amount of passion interest and care
Speaker 2: for that river, but his knowledge of river mending is
Speaker 2: open to debate. What time of year was this just
Speaker 2: recently last couple of couple of weeks, so.
Speaker 3: We're hitting water temperatures hit peak, so fish are spawning. Yeah,
Speaker 3: So to be getting a mini digger down and to
Speaker 3: be disturbing seal and the whole of the downstream to
Speaker 3: be covered in seal is horrendous for spawning fish because
Speaker 3: the biomass that is locked into the bottom of the
Speaker 3: river bed is then released into that and that can
Speaker 3: cause things like algae blooms and if we get if
Speaker 3: we get rain like we just had like last night
Speaker 3: in the South, horrendous rain, Algae blooms pop up, the
Speaker 3: rain hits the water, the algae takes the oxygen with
Speaker 3: the water, oxygen crashes. All the fish died downstream. Yes,
Speaker 3: happened hundreds of times. I mean, be surprised if oxygen
Speaker 3: hasn't crashed in the last days since since a big storm.
Speaker 3: So he could actually be causing genuine, huge environmental impact
Speaker 3: by disturbing sill and getting a mini digger on it,
Speaker 3: like really bad, really bad.
Speaker 1: I al would think that the best place to get
Speaker 1: commentary on anything is again from strangers on the Internet podcast.
Speaker 1: But you know, when we were doing some research for this,
Speaker 1: talking to a few of the Country Slide patrons, they
Speaker 1: were sending in bits they were sort of found and
Speaker 1: there was some interesting comments over on Reddit, which, if
Speaker 1: you're not a millennial, it's sort of like an Internet
Speaker 1: forum which is inhabited by some of the weirdest people
Speaker 1: on Earth.
Speaker 3: Village it's a village notice board.
Speaker 1: Smeared with extrement. Yes, just as a point of fact,
Speaker 1: he won't face any legal issues from the litterpicking. He's
Speaker 1: in the shit for deciding to be like Alan titch
Speaker 1: Marsh and Charlie Dimmer can go all ground force on
Speaker 1: the river and turn it into some kind of water feature.
Speaker 1: The EA seem like they haven't been doing enough here.
Speaker 1: Thames Water as usual have been dumping sewage like absolute bastards.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean some rank amateurs can just starting
Speaker 1: it all up as well, just because they've watched a
Speaker 1: few episodes of The Really Wild Show and read a
Speaker 1: George Mombia book that's from a cruddle.
Speaker 3: Well dad cradle.
Speaker 1: There's some interesting other commentary around it which is a
Speaker 1: bit left field, or I should I say right wing,
Speaker 1: because there's this whole right wing libertarian movement which is
Speaker 1: transatlantic now because it's everyone here who doesn't like the
Speaker 1: government and all of the Americans who don't like government
Speaker 1: or the idea of royalty and they think we have
Speaker 1: to do whatever King Child says and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: There's a whole subset and you can go and find
Speaker 1: it on wherever you get your Internet. Nonsense from of
Speaker 1: right wing libertarians who've never heard of Paul Powers or
Speaker 1: any of these issues. The first time they've seen it
Speaker 1: is they've seen a news story which says local man
Speaker 1: fined by government for picking up litter on his river
Speaker 1: and this is some kind of governmental overreach at every level.
Speaker 1: And this is some poor man forced to take action
Speaker 1: because the local town wouldn't. And it's very it's interesting
Speaker 1: watching incredibly right wing people supporting a man who I
Speaker 1: think is probably incredibly left wing.
Speaker 3: Is this is what I this is what I've been
Speaker 3: getting on my Facebook. It's all all right wing libertarian stuff.
Speaker 2: Now listen, I've got a very funny one when it
Speaker 2: comes to complete nutters, rivers and just odd balls. And
Speaker 2: this was an absolute gem that came up from Patrick Barkham,
Speaker 2: the head environment correspondent for The Guardian. And I know
Speaker 2: it's easy to pick on the Guardian and you shouldn't
Speaker 2: do it, but I'm going to do it anyway. Now
Speaker 2: he's written a story here and I'm just going to
Speaker 2: read you the opening path from this. What does a
Speaker 2: kestrel make of the dog sniffing in the long grass below?
Speaker 2: Why does an exhausted salmon pause before a weird How
Speaker 2: will an otter experience the rumble of a passing train?
Speaker 2: Now that's a very valid question. You know, what does
Speaker 2: nature think of the intrusion of human beings? And would
Speaker 2: you ask in this circumstance a kestrel, an otter or
Speaker 2: a salmon. No, what they decided to do was get
Speaker 2: some well meaning but completely batshit mental people to pretend
Speaker 2: to be kestrels, salmon and otters and live was this boomtown.
Speaker 2: God knows what they're doing anyway. Basically, these nutjobs decided
Speaker 2: to go to and go on a river in Somerset
Speaker 2: called the River Tone and pretend to be otters, salmon
Speaker 2: and kestrels and see how try to see through the
Speaker 2: eyes of it. And I read this piece with growing incredulity, going,
Speaker 2: this is absolutely bonkers.
Speaker 3: Sure you went on the onion.
Speaker 2: Until I read the bloke who's actually organizing this. It's
Speaker 2: basically an ex squadie. Yeah, and he's managed to go
Speaker 2: and he's called what's his name, Phil Tovey, the director
Speaker 2: of Nature Eccentric Approaches at ASRA. Whatever ASRA is, I
Speaker 2: really don't know. Is some an acronym which probably is
Speaker 2: in another c I see. And former soldier said the
Speaker 2: testimonies they received e the people from as Otter, as
Speaker 2: kestrel and as Sam and others were rather like civilians
Speaker 2: caught in a war zone who struggled to find food
Speaker 2: safety your shelter, and I thought, I'm actually smelling where
Speaker 2: this is coming from. Basically, this is a dude who
Speaker 2: is ex army, right, And what he's done is, you think,
Speaker 2: how can I milk the teat of the muppet. I know,
Speaker 2: I'll get them to pretend to be salmon otters and
Speaker 2: kestrals and just laugh at them while they're go c
Speaker 2: and try flapping around on the bank and then sort
Speaker 2: of you know, trying to open up fresh water muscles
Speaker 2: with their little paws and shit like that. And he's
Speaker 2: probably getting paid two hundred and fifty notes a day
Speaker 2: per person for all this shit, and he is going, yes,
Speaker 2: I think that's really good, mate, Yeah, brilliant. And then
Speaker 2: he's going back to the pub, right, and he's going,
Speaker 2: you will not believe what I managed to get him
Speaker 2: to do this time. You know, it's it's brilliant because
Speaker 2: with one of these individuals actually said I think it
Speaker 2: was the one who wanted to be who was pretending
Speaker 2: to be an otter, and it's rather amusing. She comes
Speaker 2: out with an absolutely brilliant line, which was the whole
Speaker 2: point was not to go out and see an otter,
Speaker 2: but to be in the world as if you had
Speaker 2: taken that imaginative leap into otter hood and see what
Speaker 2: hatterhood otter hood. Yes, she said, I'd never thought about
Speaker 2: where I needed to do a pooh before. You know,
Speaker 2: this is brilliant. I mean, it's an absolute genius thing. You, Richard,
Speaker 2: have been absolutely cocking this up. You're teaching people to
Speaker 2: go out and how to lay a hedge and coppice
Speaker 2: of wood. What you should have done. It's just gone
Speaker 2: and say climb that tree. You're a nut hatch now
Speaker 2: and you boom. You know. Don't teach all that practical
Speaker 2: stuff that might be of actual use in conservation. Just
Speaker 2: get people to pretend to be a shrew and charge
Speaker 2: them through the nose for it. We've done this wrong
Speaker 2: for years now, Thank you Guardian. There is nothing that
Speaker 2: makes me feel better about life than reading a Patrick
Speaker 2: Barkham column about someone worrying about where they might shiit.
Speaker 1: To like an otter. This is in the same category
Speaker 1: as those people who go on nature back to nature,
Speaker 1: rewild the mind, retreats, and what they do is do
Speaker 1: a lot of yogurt and green tea. Yeah, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want to rewild JEREMIAA go back to nature.
Speaker 1: Let's go and work in a spruce block for a week.
Speaker 1: To spend a lot of time in nature. You'll also
Speaker 1: see a lot of weird things and meets of interesting
Speaker 1: people and rewild your mind. You'll go very wild, almost
Speaker 1: feral in fact, if you sort of worked in forestry
Speaker 1: for a week.
Speaker 3: Crayons.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's not Lucas aid in that bottle, but.
Speaker 3: There's truckish champagne.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this is something that annoys me immensely. Is
Speaker 1: are you ready?
Speaker 2: Long list?
Speaker 1: There's a whole set of people now who run course
Speaker 1: and businesses and organizations that do these connect to nature
Speaker 1: things which I which go in several different directions. One
Speaker 1: they do sort of as rich as outline there, and
Speaker 1: they do it through art and performative dance. And actually
Speaker 1: I've seen that here in Wales. One of the latest
Speaker 1: Curlew projects they had drumming circles as part of the
Speaker 1: Curlew Awareness project. I mean presumably drumming was to raise
Speaker 1: money to buy some two four three rounds to shoot
Speaker 1: a fox with. It's presumably what they're doing to actually
Speaker 1: help the curlew. But no, they were just doing drumming
Speaker 1: circle sessions funded as part of the Curlew Project. So
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff annoys me at a cellular level,
Speaker 1: But then you've got these back to hunter gatherer mindset. Wait,
Speaker 1: I'm trying not to mention the names of any businesses
Speaker 1: here because I don't want to get sued, and I've
Speaker 1: got to meet these people. They'll take you as sort
Speaker 1: of take you to a conn off a block or
Speaker 1: a wood block for a week without your phone, and
Speaker 1: then other people who actually do work on a land
Speaker 1: will come and bring things to them or manage it
Speaker 1: out of the rest of the time. But while they're there,
Speaker 1: they'll take a lot of hippies from London or mid
Speaker 1: thirties yoga women and they'll go out and sort of
Speaker 1: live under a shelter made of twigs and leaves and
Speaker 1: then butcher a deer and then spent through some sunrise
Speaker 1: yoga sessions and things like that, which is all sold
Speaker 1: as reconnecting you back to nature, which I kind of
Speaker 1: get in that if you spend a lot of time
Speaker 1: doing things in the outdoor in nature, your brain does
Speaker 1: change and you do see the world differently. But you
Speaker 1: could also do that by spending a week doing coppice management,
Speaker 1: or by doing practical conservation or something like that, something
Speaker 1: that's actually outside of yourself, any of these things where
Speaker 1: it's you do this thing and just by doing that thing,
Speaker 1: you are connecting to nature or you're helping nature. No
Speaker 1: you're not. That's just helping yourself. That's just self indulgent wank.
Speaker 1: What you need to do is like the is the
Speaker 1: fight club version of reconnecting and rewilding yourself, which is
Speaker 1: taking yourself into somewhere and doing voluntary hardship because that
Speaker 1: resets your brain, and then do some good whilst you're
Speaker 1: doing it, like some habitat restoration or other conservation. Weirdly,
Speaker 1: Paul Powersland's think if you did it properly and set
Speaker 1: it up properly and took all due care and did
Speaker 1: things like that, you could actually make that something that
Speaker 1: reconnects people to nature and rewilds their mind. But you've
Speaker 1: also got to make sure you've got a permit from
Speaker 1: the bloody ea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, probably not meddling, just have it. I think
Speaker 3: the environmental stuff is what the only thing that I
Speaker 3: really get a permit from me A yeah, but the
Speaker 3: environmental stuff, and you know, potentially damaging nest habitat or
Speaker 3: spreading Japanese not weed, or whatever it is that you
Speaker 3: could be doing. Or so I think a plan, having
Speaker 3: a plan Powsland's plan would be would be good. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I get, I get what you're saying. I completely get
Speaker 3: what you're saying.
Speaker 2: I suppose the thing is, Callum, is that what you've
Speaker 2: got with him is because his whole thing is about
Speaker 2: the land ownership is terrible if it's the people who
Speaker 2: currently own land, and therefore.
Speaker 1: Which him are you talking about Paul thousand?
Speaker 2: So therefore what he's he's saying is that I live here,
Speaker 2: I've got a sense of place, I love this place.
Speaker 2: Therefore I have a right to do it. That's the
Speaker 2: whole right to rown mindset is that they are leaving
Speaker 2: rights you know it.
Speaker 3: And also, I mean, the people that do have the
Speaker 3: rights over it are absolutely taking the piss by dumping.
Speaker 3: So even by him making a sort of quite punk
Speaker 3: rock statement of there of you know, I'll do what
Speaker 3: I want. When when he someone says, well you can't
Speaker 3: do what you want, he just points the finger and says,
Speaker 3: we let them do what they want. So the point
Speaker 3: is still made. He still makes a very good point.
Speaker 2: Exactly he makes it makes a point, but he also
Speaker 2: in the same time pisses all over us who actually
Speaker 2: do stuff the right way. And I guess, like you said,
Speaker 2: it's a punk rock mindset, is that you know I
Speaker 2: won't do what you tell me. I have to say.
Speaker 2: There is a very funny other thing that Patrick Barkham
Speaker 2: has written. He's done some mega stuff, not intentionally, it's
Speaker 2: just by accident. He also he's also gone on one
Speaker 2: which is quite amusing, is that he gave the story
Speaker 2: to Rad jief Sial, the Home Affairs editor of The Guardian,
Speaker 2: is that apparently therapy ferrits in kept in UK's lone
Speaker 2: largest child prison have been co opted in quotes here
Speaker 2: by managers to kill rats and I quote resulting in
Speaker 2: a bloody incident and concerns over child and animal welfare.
Speaker 2: So therefore it then goes into a lengthy thing saying
Speaker 2: that basically what the old screws did was that they
Speaker 2: set these ferrets which are basically played with by these
Speaker 2: naughty kids who are locked up in what we used
Speaker 2: to call borstal back in my day.
Speaker 1: And we don't call child prison now now it's not
Speaker 1: the term Now they said, could juvenile correctional center or
Speaker 1: something like that, isn't it child prison?
Speaker 2: They use them to basically bolt some rats, and then
Speaker 2: the war dos stomped on them. Now, I bet you
Speaker 2: those kids who were banged up in Chokey were absolutely
Speaker 2: loving this, because there's nothing better than going ratting. I mean,
Speaker 2: I do hasten to add.
Speaker 3: Introducing introducing juvenile correction center children to field sports. I
Speaker 3: reckon I could get a shooting Times piece out of that.
Speaker 2: The next generation of gamekeeper that is definitely Patrick Galbraithia
Speaker 2: a shooting Times get inside a juvenile correctional facility and go.
Speaker 3: Rats some terriers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so anyway they do that, they go on for
Speaker 2: absolutely sentences after sentences. How terrible it is that the
Speaker 2: warders are basically going ratting with ferrets and then they're
Speaker 2: stamping on the rats, right, And then eventually they come
Speaker 2: around to it and say, oh yeah, it might be
Speaker 2: actually a little bit of an issue, the fact that
Speaker 2: our prison system is overrun with rats. You know, that's
Speaker 2: literally sort of oh yeah, and there's also quite a
Speaker 2: few rats in the prison. That's not the thing that
Speaker 2: worries them. It's the fact that they may have disturbed
Speaker 2: these kids by killing rats.
Speaker 3: Has probably a few of them in there for that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean there's almost a thing in here
Speaker 2: about misappropriation of funds. That they're using a ferret for
Speaker 2: something which it's not supposed to be used for. It
Speaker 2: is supposed to be a thing that they cuddle, not
Speaker 2: the fact it's an absolutely voracious predator that wants to
Speaker 2: go out and kill things like rats. But there we go.
Speaker 2: You know, some of the Guardian is quite literally the
Speaker 2: gift that keeps on giving?
Speaker 1: Are we farling that away under? They don't understand our
Speaker 1: country ways, yes, even though it's in a prison, but
Speaker 1: don't understand our custodial ways.
Speaker 2: They generally don't. It's utterly bizarre. Imagine that bollocking people
Speaker 2: for using a ferret like ferrets are supposed to be
Speaker 2: used for. It's wonderful, isn't it.
Speaker 1: I'd actually quite like that I have on my record
Speaker 1: inappropriate use of a ferret.
Speaker 2: Have you have you ever actually got told offer in
Speaker 2: appropriate use of a ferret? Because I have that back
Speaker 2: when I was at school. I where is this going?
Speaker 2: I'm glad, he said.
Speaker 1: I refused to believe he went to school.
Speaker 2: I was entered for the public house entered at public school.
Speaker 2: I was entered for the house public speaking competition, and
Speaker 2: then I thought, you know, all these other guys were
Speaker 2: going to do all this proper stuff. So I thought,
Speaker 2: I'm actually going to take my ferrets in and I'm
Speaker 2: going to talk about ferrets and ferreting and the need
Speaker 2: for controlling rabbits as we used to have back in
Speaker 2: the eighties, with two ferrets in my hands. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a classic.
Speaker 1: And you'd say you're not autistic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna say, oh my god, this is my ferrets.
Speaker 2: These are my ferrets. So that I mean, look, I'll
Speaker 2: tell you what I'm going to cut to. The most
Speaker 2: important thing is I actually won the House public speaking
Speaker 2: competition and I got a book token for it, which
Speaker 2: of more at the end of the story. Anyway, because
Speaker 2: unfortunately the house public speaking competition was after lunch, I
Speaker 2: obviously had to take them into school. So I bought
Speaker 2: my ferret box in and I had double biology, I remember,
Speaker 2: before lunch, and I'd put the ferret box in a
Speaker 2: little cupboard underneath these very old fashioned sort of science
Speaker 2: that's out gas taps and all that new lara on
Speaker 2: and there was a I put them in there. No,
Speaker 2: the teacher was none the wiser, and it was all
Speaker 2: fantastic until there was suddenly a loud squealing sound from
Speaker 2: over on my right, and my ferrets had got out
Speaker 2: of the carrying box and they had made their way
Speaker 2: through the little gaps where the gas tap pipes came through,
Speaker 2: and they'd gone all the way to the end. They
Speaker 2: had then gone on a little bit of an adventure.
Speaker 2: They'd climbed up and they discovered that there were gerbils
Speaker 2: in a fish tank, obviously a dry fish tank with
Speaker 2: sort of sawdust and stuff in there, and they thought,
Speaker 2: let's go and kill them.
Speaker 7: And so they then went in and then merrily killed
Speaker 7: these gerbils, and the squealing was the sound of a
Speaker 7: ferrets fangs going through the skull of the head.
Speaker 2: Of a gerbil. Now my biology master wasn't that happy.
Speaker 2: He was pretty irate about it. He was, bizarrely for
Speaker 2: a teacher at the school like mine, he was very
Speaker 2: left wing. And he then berated me because he said,
Speaker 2: this was literally what happened when we went hunting, is
Speaker 2: that we just went willy nilly anywhere, killing what we liked.
Speaker 2: But thankfully he didn't confiscate my ferrets, so I was
Speaker 2: able to go through and do it. But anyway, so
Speaker 2: I won the house public speaking competition, which is very good.
Speaker 2: And whenever you won any of these classes, you were
Speaker 2: given a book token which you then had to go
Speaker 2: to the bookshop in town by your book and then
Speaker 2: give it to your housemaster, who gave it to the
Speaker 2: head master. The when it was speech day and you
Speaker 2: were given your prizes for various things, he presented you
Speaker 2: with the various books, and ken House who was our
Speaker 2: head master, he was presenting other complete works of Shakespeare
Speaker 2: for Anthony Handen for excellence in English, and we have Dystevskis,
Speaker 2: and he was going through all these absolute literary tones.
Speaker 2: And he goes and how public speaking prize goes to
Speaker 2: Richard Nigus and his book is Lurchers and Long Dogs
Speaker 2: by Colonel Ted Walsh. God disgust on his face as
Speaker 2: one of the boys of his school went up to
Speaker 2: proudly get with a the public speaking thing with two
Speaker 2: ferrets in his hands, and he was being given Lurchers
Speaker 2: and Long Dogs by Colonel E. G. Walsh, a Pikey's
Speaker 2: dog for a man with pikey habits. It was absolutely superb.
Speaker 2: I loved the look of disgust on his face and
Speaker 2: that was more or less my last middle digit to
Speaker 2: the world of education. Fantastic.
Speaker 3: You know, Richard Nigas is the Paul Powsland of public school.
Speaker 1: Is when we make a sort of a monument to
Speaker 1: Richard when he dies in the next few years and
Speaker 1: put him up somewhere in that church that's just down
Speaker 1: the road from his cottage. We carve it in stone.
Speaker 1: I want him to be represented with a ferret in
Speaker 1: one hand and a bill hook in the other. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: just sort of standing there.
Speaker 3: With a lercher by side.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So there we are. That's the main show. We're
Speaker 1: heading on into the after show, where we're going to
Speaker 1: tell all the stories that we're not allowed to tell
Speaker 1: in the real world.
Speaker 2: Bye, good bye everyone, goodbye could musically bo