Speaker 1: Say it again.
Speaker 2: When I was a child, I was home alone, which
Speaker 2: is always dangerous.
Speaker 1: I've seen that film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this was like, rather than hurting other people,
Speaker 2: I hurt myself. I rolled a pellet of toilet paper
Speaker 2: up so it fitted into the breach of my one
Speaker 2: seven seven Diana air rifle, and I was trying to
Speaker 2: shoot flies with it, and the ballistics weren't all that hot.
Speaker 2: So I thought, for some reason, and I know not why,
Speaker 2: Let's see what happens if I shoot my own big toe.
Speaker 2: So the range from the end of a Diana one
Speaker 2: seven seven air rifle from a thirteen year old sort
Speaker 2: of hand holding it from the sort of hip position
Speaker 2: to a big toe is actually quite close. And I
Speaker 2: pressed the trigger at flip me. It hurt so lessen
Speaker 2: to any any anyone listening. Don't shoot yourself in the
Speaker 2: foot with a nineteen fifty zero air rifle with some
Speaker 2: Kleenex shoved in it. It's just plastic service.
Speaker 3: It's a very extended idiom, but I think it's normally
Speaker 3: abbreviated don't shoot yourself in the foot.
Speaker 4: In his defense, he was trying to get sent home
Speaker 4: from the front back to Blakey.
Speaker 2: Yes, poor old Tommy Nigas had to stag on once
Speaker 2: again holding the horses for the office of class and if.
Speaker 3: You were young, I don't know, Normandy or something the
Speaker 3: First World Western Front.
Speaker 4: Can we one day do the episode where Callum says
Speaker 4: the things he knows about history, but we tried to
Speaker 4: work out the order in which he knows them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, cool?
Speaker 1: That king wasn't there? This is the first one?
Speaker 3: Nry one, two three, Henry the eighth was is the
Speaker 3: more recent one?
Speaker 2: Isn't he? Have you heard the room the higher number?
Speaker 2: And I don't agree the rumor that when they released
Speaker 2: the film The Madness of King George, that they had
Speaker 2: to for American release. It was originally called The Madness
Speaker 2: of King George the Third Right, and they had to
Speaker 2: change it to the Madness of King George because the
Speaker 2: American audience wanted to know where episodes two and one were.
Speaker 2: It sounds plausible enough to do.
Speaker 3: You know that McDonald's were the ones that won the
Speaker 3: race because Burger King did a higher fraction of beef
Speaker 3: patty for the same amount of money, but to the
Speaker 3: Americans that a quarter pounder seemed like more, even though
Speaker 3: that's not how fractions work. So yeah, I get this
Speaker 3: in marketing stuff all the time.
Speaker 1: When people suggest things.
Speaker 3: I'm like, you're assuming that most of your audience is bright,
Speaker 3: and I have to tell you they are not. They
Speaker 3: need it spoon fed to them like they are a baby.
Speaker 3: And even then some might slip through the cracks.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The number of things that you buy which
Speaker 2: are clearly for cleaning bathrooms and it's got do not
Speaker 2: drink written on there. You have to have to come
Speaker 2: to the conclusion that at some point somebody has drunk
Speaker 2: this thing called toilet Duck or you know the I
Speaker 2: don't know, bog Buster, and they have drunk this thing.
Speaker 4: And the cleaning products in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I know bog Buster, that well known brand.
Speaker 3: I'd buy Richard Nigus's signature bog Buster Lifeguard.
Speaker 2: Yes, they would be very good.
Speaker 1: That brings us round to this week's sponsor.
Speaker 3: Use the code bog Buster to ten for ten percent
Speaker 3: of on your dex purchase by an industrial pack of ten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you bend if you want to, right anyway, Look,
Speaker 2: let's get on with the show. I want to know
Speaker 2: because you see, whilst you were preparing your large glass
Speaker 2: of Coca cola, there cat diet Richard was telling me
Speaker 2: that he had a good wildlife story. So what have
Speaker 2: you been up to this week, Richard, and what wildlife
Speaker 2: did it involve?
Speaker 4: Well, Richard, this week, I'd quite like to have been
Speaker 4: on the sort of a nineteen eighties nineteen ninety Blue
Speaker 4: Peter program.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Janet ellis have been two like a stoked.
Speaker 4: Well, there's an image for everyone at home. I'm down
Speaker 4: to one crutch now, so I can hop around off road,
Speaker 4: which means I can go and visit all the things
Speaker 4: that I've been neglecting. And there's our bit of woodland
Speaker 4: where we run our wild food and wild food sort
Speaker 4: of cookery quarters. Our next one is in July because
Speaker 4: we've had to push them back a bit. So I
Speaker 4: had to go and visit the Hot Smoker. So the
Speaker 4: Hot Smoker, as you may remember for previous episodes, is
Speaker 4: big wooden box upon them upon stilts. So I went
Speaker 4: to visit it last week and you sort of get
Speaker 4: her at an uninched door and open it and there
Speaker 4: was a very confused looking mouse living at the bottom
Speaker 4: of it, and sort of it stopped and stared at me.
Speaker 4: So to this mouse, it would have been like if
Speaker 4: I just went up to your house now and opened
Speaker 4: up the side fit just pulled it all open, and
Speaker 4: there's this huge thing staring at you, and it sort
Speaker 4: of scuttled off to somewhere else. And then I looked
Speaker 4: up and realized there's a wasp nest at the top.
Speaker 4: So I thought we'd have to deal with one species
Speaker 4: at a time, although my friend did suggest that we
Speaker 4: I tell the wasps that the mice are invading their territory,
Speaker 4: and tell the mice that the wasps are invading theirs,
Speaker 4: and let them sort each other out. So I went
Speaker 4: back a few days later. So I just trying to
Speaker 4: empty all this thing out, because there's all the shelves
Speaker 4: and the racking and the thermometers in there, and we keep
Speaker 4: kindling in there for because it's the driest place in
Speaker 4: the woods, so we keep kindling in there in the
Speaker 4: winter in case you want to start a fire quickly.
Speaker 4: And that's sort of in this big paper bag. So
Speaker 4: I cleared all the bottom pit out I couldn't find any
Speaker 4: mouse ness clear the top bit, couldn't find anything. So
Speaker 4: I sorted, I pulled the bag of kindling out and
Speaker 4: as I'm stood there, I've put my crutch down. I'm
Speaker 4: sort of balancing on the one good leg, and somebody
Speaker 4: else is doing some other tasks somewhere nearby. And I'd
Speaker 4: opened this big paper feed sack and put my hand
Speaker 4: in it and feel something warm and wriggling, and I
Speaker 4: realized the mice have made their home in this feedsack.
Speaker 4: And that's the point. About six mice all erupted from
Speaker 4: the bag at the same time and sort of wrad
Speaker 4: up my arms, onto my head, head and all over
Speaker 4: the place. And as my friend who is at camp
Speaker 4: described it, he said, it looked like you were a
Speaker 4: wizard casting fireballs, but instead of fireballs, you were firing
Speaker 4: mice off in different while screaming. So the mice are
Speaker 4: no longer in the smoker cabinet, and you can throw
Speaker 4: a mouse quite a long way when you're in a panic.
Speaker 4: It turns out, I'm sure they're all okay.
Speaker 2: It's probably a sport in America, the honest mouse tossing
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 4: You did tweezers for that.
Speaker 3: Don't get how tough you are, but if a rat
Speaker 3: or a mouse comes at you, it's very unpleasant. It's unnerving.
Speaker 3: No no one should be like, oh, that's okay. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they're quick and also quite repulsive. They're not They're not
Speaker 3: nice things you want close to you.
Speaker 1: Even a little.
Speaker 3: Mouse are quite keen on mice, but just anything rodent
Speaker 3: e coming at you not great.
Speaker 2: Have you never had a pet from nature? When I
Speaker 2: was young, I was obsessed with I'd catch phil voles
Speaker 2: and contain those quite easily. Wood mice were fnickitty little
Speaker 2: things you could put them. I had a large sort
Speaker 2: of empty obviously not with water in fish tank, and
Speaker 2: I put wood mice in there, but they really didn't
Speaker 2: Richard Nugas, Yes, exactly swim your blighters, but they they were.
Speaker 2: But I had a jackdaw, a crow, numerous grass snakes,
Speaker 2: all sorts of things that I sort of would find.
Speaker 2: I always wanted a weasel because I know that a
Speaker 2: friend of mine had a tame fox, and he said,
Speaker 2: if you get them when they're cubs and they're still black,
Speaker 2: then they're tameable. Once i've turned red, that's it. There
Speaker 2: there are fox and they don't want to be tamed.
Speaker 2: And you'll had a pet badger as well. But he said, oh,
Speaker 2: I think you can do it. Weasels, he said, they're
Speaker 2: just like a ferret, and I.
Speaker 1: Tried passing this law onto you.
Speaker 2: So I tried. I tried. It's just chut GPT. I
Speaker 2: just tried finding weasel nests and never managed to find
Speaker 2: one that had a sort of attamable age. And my
Speaker 2: dog used to hunt them out, and you could find
Speaker 2: a weasel nest fair easy in a hedge, but never
Speaker 2: managed to find them when they weren't sort of little
Speaker 2: pink griggly things.
Speaker 1: How does one go about finding a weasel.
Speaker 2: Nest hedge bottoms? Largely that's where they will have a
Speaker 2: nest up up north, they nest in dry stone walls,
Speaker 2: but we'd have them in a hedge bottom and they'll
Speaker 2: sort of go into little hollows in in sort of
Speaker 2: rotten old bit of howthorn, and they have them in there.
Speaker 2: Dog that was absolutely mustard hunting weasels, and with Mark
Speaker 2: where one was terrier, I called skip and you could
Speaker 2: rely up on it and then you'd sort of have
Speaker 2: a bit of foot around and then you'd find this
Speaker 2: a little load of pink that worms basically, and then
Speaker 2: and then you go but that's too young. I've never
Speaker 2: managed to find them when they were just baby enough.
Speaker 2: So I could snaffle one and time tame it. It's
Speaker 2: one of my It's one of my great if you
Speaker 2: know regrets in life is I never had a tame weasel.
Speaker 3: Well maybe at a live show, we'll let you recount
Speaker 3: that story and then we'll give you a but he's
Speaker 3: here with us tonight.
Speaker 2: Whiskers is here yay? Or you have a weasel caram Yeah.
Speaker 2: So if anyone has one of our listeners has got
Speaker 2: a young weasel, that they.
Speaker 3: Please send it to rich Nigs number one, windsor Castle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I go under my other name of the King. Yes.
Speaker 2: So what have you done this week? You have? You
Speaker 2: been covered in mice and wasps? Callum.
Speaker 3: I was gonna I was going to give you my
Speaker 3: story of my favorite wild pet. I kept a slow
Speaker 3: worm because it looked like it wasn't doing too well,
Speaker 3: so I kept it in.
Speaker 1: Just like a tank.
Speaker 3: I knew something that had like a reptile tank and
Speaker 3: stuck it in there and then just kept feeding it
Speaker 3: worms and slugs and odd bits, and it did quite
Speaker 3: well for a long time, and then eventually I did
Speaker 3: release it back into the wild. I kept it for
Speaker 3: a long old time and it seemed to do pretty well.
Speaker 3: It quite liked it in its little little thing. I
Speaker 3: just had it in the living room knocking about.
Speaker 2: Didn't have a little smile on their face, but like
Speaker 2: I found. And I was up in Weirdale the other week.
Speaker 2: I found a common lizard up there and it looked
Speaker 2: at me, and I looked it in and this funny
Speaker 2: little smile on its face, and I thought, oh, it's
Speaker 2: the exact same smile that you see on a slow
Speaker 2: worm when you unsurprising lipless grin. It's got fair. Do
Speaker 2: you know that's interesting that? Actually? So do you find
Speaker 2: slow worms about anymore?
Speaker 3: No, there used to be one place it used to
Speaker 3: be actually full of them.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen a slow one for years.
Speaker 2: I've not seen a slow worm. I've not seen grass
Speaker 2: snakes about as much. I'm seeing adders, you know, it
Speaker 2: seems to be. And I went up onto a grouse
Speaker 2: moll the other day and I found a common lizard.
Speaker 2: The my pals, the keeper up there, sent me a
Speaker 2: picture of you just lifted up a water drinker that
Speaker 2: he's got up there, and a press though there's a
Speaker 2: slow worm under it. He got bitten by an adder
Speaker 2: last year he found three basking on there. Note that
Speaker 2: this place is crawling with reptiles up there, bearing in
Speaker 2: mind that this was on a piece of heather which
Speaker 2: we were on, which they've burnt two years ago. So
Speaker 2: if you read all the narrative, apparently one of the
Speaker 2: reasons why we've got to stop mirburn is because it
Speaker 2: kills all these adders and slow worms and other assorted reptiles.
Speaker 2: And the only place I've seen reptiles in profusion is
Speaker 2: up on a grouse more where they have just recently
Speaker 2: done merburn. So either someone's telling this porky pies or
Speaker 2: or it doesn't kill stuff. I don't know. It's very
Speaker 2: peculiar at.
Speaker 4: Well, maybe it's the thing about upward mobility within the
Speaker 4: class system, because you've got your fewer common lizards, but
Speaker 4: presumably they've all moved out to Suffolk to become middle
Speaker 4: class lists middle classes.
Speaker 2: We don't really have middle class here. We don't have them.
Speaker 2: We have sort of drop say that again, yeah, we
Speaker 2: don't have middle class people here. We have drop out hippie.
Speaker 4: You're in an orangeury.
Speaker 2: This is my study. Middle class people don't have studies.
Speaker 2: It's the wholey handed working class. How much ikea furniture
Speaker 2: is in your house? Do you know what a turkey
Speaker 2: twizzler is. I know what a pheasant twizzler is. I
Speaker 2: don't have any Ikea furniture. No, we used to have
Speaker 2: Ikea furniture case.
Speaker 1: But no further questions.
Speaker 2: You're it's it's my nineteenth wedding anniversary today. And I'm
Speaker 2: of the firm belief that basically, you get rid of
Speaker 2: all your Ikea furniture after your seventh wedding anniversary because
Speaker 2: by seven years, the chances are you're probably going to
Speaker 2: stay married, so you might as well get stuff you
Speaker 2: both like, right, Whereas if you're going to go and
Speaker 2: wait for that first six years of marriage, you know,
Speaker 2: you might go think ass is a stupid idea. So
Speaker 2: if you bought Ikea, it doesn't matter, because you're not
Speaker 2: going to go and feel, you know that emotionally attached
Speaker 2: to a dining room table, which is called a flack
Speaker 2: blad or something.
Speaker 4: You're telling it. It took you onto your nearly eighth
Speaker 4: wedding anniversary before you were sure about Claire. Is that
Speaker 4: what you're saying?
Speaker 2: No, No, no, that is not what that sounds like.
Speaker 4: That's what he said, didn't he? Come on?
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure that's exactly what he said.
Speaker 2: Ed ya, If I did say that, edit that out immediately,
Speaker 2: because I want to see the twentieth wedding anniversary?
Speaker 1: What is twenty years?
Speaker 2: Isn't?
Speaker 1: Doesn't it get more and more disappointing.
Speaker 3: Like it's like tin, It's like an old Chris packet,
Speaker 3: you know, armpacket of fags or something.
Speaker 4: What you get injected with adamantium. You're just your broke
Speaker 4: bones don't break anymore.
Speaker 2: My I believe that the nineteenth Wedding Anniversary is bronze.
Speaker 1: You are correct, it is bronze.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I did check a week or so ago,
Speaker 2: thinking should I get something bronze? I think no, So
Speaker 2: I took a lunch in the Angel embarrass and Edmonds instead.
Speaker 2: So that was that was nicer.
Speaker 4: This is fascinating glimpses into the way you live your
Speaker 4: life and your decision making process. That's why, that's why
Speaker 4: I keep coming back week after week.
Speaker 1: There's so much every every just every decisions.
Speaker 2: Who wouldn't like to go for lunch in a beautiful
Speaker 2: old Georgian hotel you know where Dickens wrote the Pickwick
Speaker 2: papers and Martin Chuzzlewit and yeah, I mean it's great
Speaker 2: or would you like to have this random object from
Speaker 2: bronze because some marketing man from some good company who
Speaker 2: sells stuff to people who who do wedding anniversary gifts. No,
Speaker 2: I'm not bowing down to you. What is what do
Speaker 2: you have to buy for your twentieth What's what's the
Speaker 2: twentieth wedding anniversary gift? Them?
Speaker 1: You've got here china or porcelain.
Speaker 2: Okay, that'd be nice for a potter to give us
Speaker 2: that this is made by someone else.
Speaker 4: Who gives some china clay dig out the pits of
Speaker 4: toxicity Cornwall.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to say that'd be nice here we're
Speaker 2: going to We're going to Cornwall. That nice. Yes, I've
Speaker 2: booked us in on a mining trip. That'd be fun. Ye,
Speaker 2: common Canum. So other than taming slowworms, have you done
Speaker 2: anything contemporarily?
Speaker 3: I visited the County of Suffolk this week. We went
Speaker 3: back to right near Hadley, a little bit with the Marquis.
Speaker 1: Delightful food.
Speaker 3: I've enjoyed the sun if you've if you've seen it
Speaker 3: in the sky, it's been pretty.
Speaker 4: You were taking photos of women and bikinis at the pool.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: It wasn't intentional, but some people, some people caught my
Speaker 3: Instagram story and a few people commented on something that
Speaker 3: was in the background, which I had no idea about.
Speaker 3: It was it was a lady's buttocks, and a few
Speaker 3: people commented on it, and I just I just commented
Speaker 3: back one for the fans.
Speaker 1: So I mean, yeah, have.
Speaker 2: You ever have you ever inadvertently taken a photograph when
Speaker 2: you realize that somebody either famous or not famous, is
Speaker 2: doing something in the background and go, oh dear, that's
Speaker 2: a lawsuit waiting to happen. You ever taken a shot
Speaker 2: when Yeah, so many.
Speaker 3: I've got a hard drive full of loads of stuff,
Speaker 3: like celebrities doing things they shouldn't do, just people in
Speaker 3: high places doing things, not like career ending anything terrible,
Speaker 3: but like, if you've done your job job properly, people
Speaker 3: relax to a point that they will show you behind
Speaker 3: the curtain. And if they show you behind the curtain,
Speaker 3: that could be yeah, taken out of context, but you
Speaker 3: know that's that's that's the job, really cha to make
Speaker 3: people chill out and yeah and do those sorts of
Speaker 3: things cool.
Speaker 4: Then there's also the photos where that person was doing
Speaker 4: something that they thought was absolutely okay, But because they didn't,
Speaker 4: you know, you weren't socially aware or anything like that,
Speaker 4: you decided yourself, for the sake of their reputation to
Speaker 4: not share it or not edit that one.
Speaker 3: I mean, some people, like some people that you know
Speaker 3: and respect, they'll do things and you're like, it's like
Speaker 3: your first day on the planet and you've only just
Speaker 3: worked out that you've got hands and like to do things,
Speaker 3: and you think like you're idolized by people. People think
Speaker 3: you're the best, and you're not actually able to function
Speaker 3: like a regular human being, and you sort of it. Really,
Speaker 3: you do have the option to spoil the illusion of
Speaker 3: a lot of people.
Speaker 2: Agreed. I mean, I was telling Richard, I'm currently reading
Speaker 2: middle Land by Rory Stewart, and when Rory's Stewart was
Speaker 2: going for the leader of the Conservative Party, they decided
Speaker 2: to do these head to head things in a studio
Speaker 2: and they'd clearly said, right, well, how are going to work.
Speaker 2: This is going to get the camera to pan on
Speaker 2: each of your faces. You've got a whole eye contact
Speaker 2: with the camera for five seconds, and it's going to
Speaker 2: pan from left to right, and so you've got Boris
Speaker 2: Johnson you've got uh, Theresa May, You've got Angela led
Speaker 2: Some and Michael Gove, and here is Rory Stewart and
Speaker 2: most of them they look slightly uncomfortable because suddenly I'm
Speaker 2: to stare into the camera and hold that contact and
Speaker 2: don't say anything but Rory Stewart's face. It is like, literally,
Speaker 2: they'd said, make yourself look like the least likely person
Speaker 2: who is shouldn't even lead a group of cub scouts
Speaker 2: into not a tying contest because he pulls this bizarre gun.
Speaker 2: And it was exactly like I say, no one, no
Speaker 2: one had actually explained to him, when you look at
Speaker 2: some thing, make a facial expression that doesn't make it
Speaker 2: look like a serial killer. It was. And he did
Speaker 2: actually write in a book say I think I lost
Speaker 2: my chance in that five second step. So yes, it
Speaker 2: is something that the people need to perhaps be aware
Speaker 2: of if they are going to be in the public eye,
Speaker 2: what you do with your hands and what you do
Speaker 2: with your face.
Speaker 4: Being able to practice a good neutral facial expression that
Speaker 4: would work for any occasion, you know, funeral day, in court,
Speaker 4: middle of an orgasm, whatever it would work for, you know,
Speaker 4: the same sort of facial expression that's just that's just
Speaker 4: all the way through. I think that's a talent. I
Speaker 4: think it's something to teach you at the right public school.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, Yeah, speaking so many ways.
Speaker 4: Yes, or Jeremy Clarkson went to a public school.
Speaker 2: He went to rep that I believe.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: And as we record this on Tuesday, the twenty sixth
Speaker 4: of May, we're kind of overwhelmed by news stories about
Speaker 4: how crap Farmfest was. Yeah, if you believe all the
Speaker 4: new stories. So I think we should talk about that
Speaker 4: for a bit. So did either of you know it
Speaker 4: was on? That's the first question.
Speaker 2: No, to be perfect, it was something that sort of
Speaker 2: flashed up on my Funny enough. The only reason I
Speaker 2: knew it was on was because the no Farmers, No
Speaker 2: Food WhatsApp group has got some sort of high profileish
Speaker 2: farmers and they were saying, you going to this thing?
Speaker 2: Have you been asked for this? Have you been asked
Speaker 2: to this? What thing? And they went all this and
Speaker 2: it went back up the thread thirty sort of days before,
Speaker 2: and so no, I wasn't aware. I only was really
Speaker 2: aware that it was on when all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: my farm Fest exactly. I think that was the problem
Speaker 2: I was. I was only aware that farm Fest had
Speaker 2: been on when I suddenly saw these very irate stareholders
Speaker 2: saying that they were either packing up a day early,
Speaker 2: or they were or they were wanting their money back,
Speaker 2: or they would ruin their business or something like that.
Speaker 3: A good summation of what farming is actually like, Yeah,
Speaker 3: exactly what an immersive experience could you get? You know,
Speaker 3: the promise the world deliver nothing, really hard time, probably
Speaker 3: exhausted and financially.
Speaker 2: There you go. You have had the real farming experience. No,
Speaker 2: I mean tell me more. Have you actually sort of
Speaker 2: looked into this?
Speaker 4: Yes, I have, because you know, sometimes just enough things
Speaker 4: passed by your little viewport of life and you think,
Speaker 4: I'm going to look at this because it's interesting.
Speaker 2: I was today.
Speaker 4: I spoke to two or three people who were there
Speaker 4: as traders, two or three people who were there as punters,
Speaker 4: and a couple of people.
Speaker 1: Is this investigative journalism?
Speaker 4: It's all here saying this is the thing I'm not.
Speaker 4: I'm not Guy Adams off of the Daily Mail. You know,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to do a proper job and actually
Speaker 4: come with sources and references.
Speaker 2: But you spoke to people I spoke to people.
Speaker 4: But yeah, but I could say my my postman says this,
Speaker 4: you know, so the great I think it was great
Speaker 4: British farm Fest and it's it was this weekend just gone.
Speaker 4: It was a Stoneley Park in Warwickshire, and it was
Speaker 4: organized by well the sort of the function below the
Speaker 4: headline was Stable Events, so they're the same people who
Speaker 4: do the game fare and a few other things. I
Speaker 4: want to preface this, all of this, possibly for the
Speaker 4: sake of our solicitors, by saying that this is this
Speaker 4: is all sort of you know, reporting what has been said. Yeah,
Speaker 4: any any coincidental likeness of the people or events is incidents.
Speaker 1: And my sources are trust me, bright ahead.
Speaker 2: It's not.
Speaker 4: I've got some WhatsApp voice notes that people have sent
Speaker 4: me about it. So it looks all the stuff in
Speaker 4: the papers at the moment and the news about it
Speaker 4: is there are a load of annoyed traders about the
Speaker 4: who said that it was either poorly organized, or there
Speaker 4: was no football, or nobody can get to the bit
Speaker 4: of the event where they were, or it was very expensive.
Speaker 4: They didn't say sell anything. A few people left early
Speaker 4: and they sort of took to social media to say
Speaker 4: why they were leaving. You can look that up for yourself.
Speaker 4: It's all over whichever social media platform you're on. So
Speaker 4: I'm going to piece the other now as far as
Speaker 4: I can tell what happened, because it's the first time
Speaker 4: the event's been run. It was branded with Team Clarkson,
Speaker 4: with Jeremy clarks and Clarkson's Farms, so everyone who is
Speaker 4: now effectively a character on the Clarkson's Farms TV show,
Speaker 4: So Jeremy Clarkson, Lisa Cheerful, Charlie Gerald, all of these.
Speaker 4: Of course, they were all there in one degree or another,
Speaker 4: and they were there in all the marketing for it
Speaker 4: as well, and it had Hawkstone there and everything like that,
Speaker 4: and it was the Great British Farmfest. One I think
Speaker 4: has happened is that it was touted to the public
Speaker 4: as a festival music festival sort of thing because of
Speaker 4: the bands there.
Speaker 3: Like Alex Shames from Blair, Sophie Elis and Grouvermada on
Speaker 3: stage in this series, so there was some of that.
Speaker 4: It's the late nineties basically there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the late nineties, early two thousands, and it was
Speaker 5: sort of put together as a festival for the public,
Speaker 5: but it looks like it was sold to the traders
Speaker 5: as being more like the game Fair, which is.
Speaker 4: More like agricultural show shopping event, and the marketing maybe
Speaker 4: I have no idea if it's good or not because
Speaker 4: I knew about it weeks ago, but were kind of
Speaker 4: in this space. But loads of people I know who
Speaker 4: were also in the space had no idea what it
Speaker 4: was on. No, it seems like a lot of their
Speaker 4: marketing went via they approached agricultural influencers to be ambassadors
Speaker 4: for the show. And I've always got this theory that
Speaker 4: because somebody has a lot of following on Instagram or
Speaker 4: TikTok or wherever, it does not mean it will translate
Speaker 4: anyway into sales of a physical product or a service,
Speaker 4: because what people follow that person for is the stuff
Speaker 4: they do on social media, not to pay thirty quid
Speaker 4: or sixty quid and drive to Warwickshire for a day
Speaker 4: in the sun.
Speaker 2: Could not agree more.
Speaker 4: So you have that issue. And then if you look
Speaker 4: at what a few of the traders say they were
Speaker 4: approached at other shows and say just earlier in the
Speaker 4: year to say, oh, well, do you know Jeremy Clarkson
Speaker 4: is doing his own farming show. It's going to be
Speaker 4: at Stoneley Park. Why didn't you come here?
Speaker 2: It is?
Speaker 4: Here's the bill for two grand for a pitch or thereabouts.
Speaker 4: As always with these events, the pitch fees vary depending
Speaker 4: whether you're on a corner, whether you've got a double slow,
Speaker 4: a single slot, wherever you are. So people are quoting
Speaker 4: anything between the cost of between two to ten grand,
Speaker 4: but some people are sort of bundling in.
Speaker 2: Staff costs and all of that.
Speaker 4: It looks like people who were there pretty happy with
Speaker 4: it overall as a festival if you're a punter, and
Speaker 4: people who were there as traders, either food or retail,
Speaker 4: feel like they were the missold or they sold too
Speaker 4: many trader slots. And I think one of our food contacts,
Speaker 4: and I won't say who it is, but they spoke
Speaker 4: to a few of their friends who were there and
Speaker 4: basically you would have sold about two hundred items if
Speaker 4: you spread the attendance evenly between the food traders, which
Speaker 4: is not enough to make back your costs, even at
Speaker 4: festival prices where people are charging fifteen quid for a
Speaker 4: baked potato.
Speaker 3: This is it though, like fifteen quid for I mean,
Speaker 3: I'm sure there's people that sell coal's beers, probably didn't
Speaker 3: do like the Hawkstone lager tent, probably wasn't struggling to
Speaker 3: get people to spend their money. But if you're selling
Speaker 3: fifteen pounds baked potatoes on one of the hottest day
Speaker 3: of the year, I'm sure you would struggle.
Speaker 4: And there's one that a lot of people are picking
Speaker 4: up on is effectively a pet food company selling twenty
Speaker 4: five kilo bags of dog food, which is not a
Speaker 4: great seller at a festival. But you've got to You've
Speaker 4: effectively got to do a march across dry fields to
Speaker 4: get there. What you're going to do? Turn around, go,
Speaker 4: then come back.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine murder on the dance floor with you
Speaker 3: with your twenty five kilos?
Speaker 2: I mean, I have to say I've only got some
Speaker 2: experiences of some of the events that Claire has been
Speaker 2: to selling her pottery this year, that this time last
Speaker 2: year sales were up and she was sold at and
Speaker 2: that we saw similar footfall, similar sort of demographic. It's
Speaker 2: not that people aren't going to events. I just think
Speaker 2: people are drawing their horns in slightly and so therefore
Speaker 2: buying that thing that you don't necessarily need but you
Speaker 2: might want you might not buy their I know people
Speaker 2: sort of specifically with the game fair. They say, I'm
Speaker 2: saving the money because I'm going to go and buy
Speaker 2: something at the game fair because I'm bound to get
Speaker 2: a good discount deal. I don't know whether you do
Speaker 2: or you don't there, but you know you've got all
Speaker 2: those things on. You bought three guns at.
Speaker 4: The game pair over the years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, So, I mean, I think any new events,
Speaker 2: just because it's got the magic fairy dust of Clarkson
Speaker 2: over it does not necessarily mean it's going to be
Speaker 2: a success. Clarkson's Farm hasn't been on the telly for
Speaker 2: a couple of months, so therefore it's not that hot
Speaker 2: and fresh in the minds of some many. And I'll
Speaker 2: tell you one thing the Suffolk Show last year, they
Speaker 2: realized that sales were down and there was a very
Speaker 2: large potato buying firm who makes frozen potatoes, probably the
Speaker 2: most famous one, was going to sponsor one of the areas,
Speaker 2: the Farming Live demonstration area, and they pulled out quite
Speaker 2: last minute dot Com and it really put the Suffolk
Speaker 2: Show in show organizing terms, quite on the back foot,
Speaker 2: and the chairman of the Suffolk Agricultural Association was talking
Speaker 2: about this over dinner and his daughter said, you ought
Speaker 2: to get spud Man in now spud Man for me.
Speaker 2: I've soo never heard of him, but this guy's got
Speaker 2: got a million plus followers on Instagram TikTok, and he
Speaker 2: bought his baked potato wagont and the Suffolk Show reported
Speaker 2: that ticket sales went up when he said I am
Speaker 2: going there by thirteen percent one three percent, just because
Speaker 2: they gave him the prime pitch right next to the
Speaker 2: farmer does it. And he went on, he did his thing.
Speaker 2: He absolutely performed for the cameras. He gave more selfies
Speaker 2: than flipping you can shake a stick at, and he
Speaker 2: did brilliantly. So I think if you're going to rely
Speaker 2: upon influencers to help your marketing, you have to have
Speaker 2: someone who has got a vested interest in the success
Speaker 2: of the event. So when spud Man travels from wherever
Speaker 2: it is he's from in his thing with his pink
Speaker 2: Mohican and people want to go that, then that makes
Speaker 2: a difference. Just because you've got someone who wears a
Speaker 2: ridgeline fleece and shakes a fist at people, or you're
Speaker 2: an influence. The same thing with the game fare, just
Speaker 2: to some who Rayne Henrietta in large sunglasses and a
Speaker 2: silly hat or some Ponzi knob in a you know
Speaker 2: in who wears breeks to bed is not necessarily going
Speaker 2: to get you more foot Yes, no, that's you. You
Speaker 2: can't knowing to be able to take your trousers off
Speaker 2: since the legs, Yeah, that's why you're still wearing them.
Speaker 2: But I think that the power and influence of the
Speaker 2: influencer is greatly, greatly overrated, and you've got to choose it,
Speaker 2: and you need someone like spud Man to make that
Speaker 2: serious football. Thirteen percent upturning ticket sales is the difference
Speaker 2: between the Suffolk Show being a financial success or not.
Speaker 2: You know, just having a couple of people putting on saying, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm off to farm fest. Ain't it going to be great?
Speaker 2: And then I'm going to cuddle a lamb? It ain't enough.
Speaker 2: I don't think. I think that's to misunderstand.
Speaker 4: This is proof that you weren't You were actually paying
Speaker 4: attention to your wife today and you weren't looking at
Speaker 4: the news or your emails. Because the man was there.
Speaker 4: He was one of the people saying that he didn't
Speaker 4: have a great first day and the day was okay,
Speaker 4: but that was one of the things that drew the
Speaker 4: attention to it. Okay, but it is. So I've got
Speaker 4: this theory about the whole thing. But I always go
Speaker 4: for a cockup over conspiracy on anything.
Speaker 1: I like that. That's a good, good phrase.
Speaker 4: Yeah, if any commercial event, and I've never really put
Speaker 4: on those kind of like festival type of events, but
Speaker 4: I've been safety coordinator for them, and I've used to
Speaker 4: do big multi day mountain ultra hard Bastard triathlons and
Speaker 4: organize those. They are expensive and they are hell on
Speaker 4: earth whilst you're organizing it. For the event team and
Speaker 4: the marketing team before it is chaos. It's you know,
Speaker 4: a best well organized chaos, but it's still chaos. It's
Speaker 4: really really hard to put an event on, and it's
Speaker 4: getting harder because everything's costing more and the insurance alone
Speaker 4: for these events.
Speaker 2: Now is huge.
Speaker 4: So getting the event running and it happening is great.
Speaker 4: If you are a trader and you say I want
Speaker 4: to come to this thing and I'll give you a
Speaker 4: couple of grand from a pitch, they're going to say
Speaker 4: yes because they've got to cover their cart. So I
Speaker 4: think a lot of traders went there expect it's because
Speaker 4: it was Clarkson. It was basically going to be like
Speaker 4: sort of the retreat from Moscow. It was just going
Speaker 4: to be people stumbling past their stand waiting to give
Speaker 4: them money, whereas actually they were there to go and
Speaker 4: see Jeremy Clarkson and Sophielli Speckster. So you've got that element.
Speaker 4: You've got people sort of obsessed with the Clarkson brand
Speaker 4: because Clarkson has been as we've all said, Clarkson has
Speaker 4: been great for farming, but Clarkson is also a huge
Speaker 4: brand within his own right. And as Callum said, you
Speaker 4: know you've got Hawks and Lago and the beer is there.
Speaker 4: There's this weird thing that I've heard other people say
Speaker 4: before this that when Hawks and Lager turns up at
Speaker 4: an event that is basically the majority of the sales
Speaker 4: of beer or cider, it makes it very very hard.
Speaker 4: Then if you're a local brewer or cider producer who
Speaker 4: went at an event when the whole when you're next
Speaker 4: to the Hawks and lagat stands because you're not going
Speaker 4: to sell anything unless people can't be asked a queue
Speaker 4: for hawks them.
Speaker 2: No, what you're going to say now, that stuff, the
Speaker 2: organizers stuff is shit? Drink mine. Yeah, it's not easy,
Speaker 2: is it. It's a new event as well, it's a
Speaker 2: new event. I mean, I've never been to any event.
Speaker 2: I went to a lovely book event in a beautiful
Speaker 2: location and they were disappointed by the turnout. But I said, well,
Speaker 2: you're going to have to see this through because what
Speaker 2: will happen now is the X number of thousands who
Speaker 2: came will say what a lovely thing it was, and
Speaker 2: they'll probably going to say, do you know it wasn't
Speaker 2: too crowded, And then next year that means that there'll
Speaker 2: be another four families who have listened in or so
Speaker 2: we better go to that because it's not too crowded,
Speaker 2: and then before you know, it always busy. You know,
Speaker 2: I sympathize because anyone who makes their living by going
Speaker 2: to events and retail is always a challenge, and particularly
Speaker 2: if you're selling pair of s goods. You know, it's
Speaker 2: not like you pack up your burgers back in the
Speaker 2: van and so world didn't sell that many, you know,
Speaker 2: that's lost stock.
Speaker 4: I'm going to make my final prediction, so next month
Speaker 4: is the next when the next season of Clarkson's Farm
Speaker 4: comes out. But that was filmed some of it over
Speaker 4: a year ago, because you've always got their delay in
Speaker 4: production and things. Every season of Clarkson's Farm so far
Speaker 4: has had some sort of race to the finish thing
Speaker 4: for the last episode or somewhere towards the end. So
Speaker 4: it was getting a farmer shop ready and then getting
Speaker 4: the restaurant red pop up restaurants and then the pub
Speaker 4: and stuff like that, So that seems to be a
Speaker 4: thing they quite like doing. I'm going to put my
Speaker 4: prediction that the race of the finish this was can
Speaker 4: we get a festival for farmers half a ground?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: They had to make that bit of it work for
Speaker 4: the show. That's I don't know for sure, but I'm getting.
Speaker 2: Talking of Jeff d One. I wonder what county because
Speaker 2: this is important, Countyss do you think registered the largest
Speaker 2: number of counts in the gw CT's Big Farmland Bird
Speaker 2: count Callum, would you like to guess which county provided
Speaker 2: the most number of counts this year?
Speaker 1: Is it Suffolk?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's Suffolk. The jeopardy is at an end. Thank god,
Speaker 2: we have beaten Norfolk finally three years. There is of
Speaker 2: always a three way race between Suffolk, Norfolk and Lincolnshire,
Speaker 2: and for a large number of years now those damn
Speaker 2: six fingered beasts from the wrong side of the Waveny
Speaker 2: have beaten us.
Speaker 1: Wait told me, for what do.
Speaker 3: You We've done one in the very cold winter's creg
Speaker 3: one in the snow we did.
Speaker 2: We did on the snow. So yeah, it's done basically
Speaker 2: the winter count. So it's in February. It takes this
Speaker 2: long to collate all the data. So they basically take
Speaker 2: all the reports that have come in and they then
Speaker 2: go and I'm not an ecologists, so they sort of
Speaker 2: filter out all the dross ones. They filter other people
Speaker 2: who are clearly just put yeah I saw three million
Speaker 2: gray partridges up on top of me Island, maryl to
Speaker 2: shoot one of these grat partridges, please go to exactly. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's it, exactly. They also filter I think the repeats
Speaker 2: arm and they get it so that they clean the
Speaker 2: data up so they know what they've got and so
Speaker 2: the results are in for this year's So the one
Speaker 2: that was done this winter, the results have now come out.
Speaker 3: So g GWCT have had their advocus and they've they've
Speaker 3: sat and worked.
Speaker 1: Out and the results are in.
Speaker 2: Paul Jana Colony, who is a lovely, lovely young lady's
Speaker 2: expert on bees and insects and things she has. She's
Speaker 2: the science and communicator. She wish she could have done.
Speaker 2: She had probably gone and put them, or one of
Speaker 2: them at least would have ended up on a little
Speaker 2: pin board, because she's just got this tray of insects
Speaker 2: with pins to the backs that she shows people. And
Speaker 2: there's lots of Latin names. But Jane has collated all
Speaker 2: this and she is now communicating the information out there.
Speaker 2: And the good news is that Suffolk came first, Norfolk second,
Speaker 2: Lincoln Sheer third. So in Suffolk there are one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty nine individual farms gave a count one hundred
Speaker 2: and one in Norfolk and sixty two in Lincoln.
Speaker 3: And what on what was the interesting insight? So is
Speaker 3: it like, is it like four hours or something? You
Speaker 3: sit and count how many an out?
Speaker 1: Is it out?
Speaker 3: All? Right?
Speaker 1: An hour?
Speaker 3: You set out and you count how many birds you
Speaker 3: can see?
Speaker 2: In that they saw thirty four individual species on the
Speaker 2: red listed were spotted encountered over this. They were in
Speaker 2: total one two hundred and one counts done across the UK.
Speaker 2: A total number of birds counted was two hundred and
Speaker 2: seventy five thousand and twenty four and that was over
Speaker 2: a coverage of two hundred and ninety two thousand, eight
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty eight hectares of total. So it's that's
Speaker 2: a fair old wacker land which they have done this
Speaker 2: count over.
Speaker 4: You know, it's proper farm science when it says.
Speaker 2: Hectare, Yeah, exactly, yeah, not acre.
Speaker 1: How do we how do we find the results?
Speaker 4: It was in the show notes, but by the time
Speaker 4: this comes out, we've got a link in the show note.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's how it works. That's how it works
Speaker 2: in the modern world. Callum, that's how it works. Mate.
Speaker 2: See the interesting thing I do would say one thing,
Speaker 2: sixty seven percent of the participants are in an agri
Speaker 2: environment scheme. So therefore that what that does show is
Speaker 2: that you are still and it is a problem that
Speaker 2: we have is that those who do the most have
Speaker 2: already embraced the thing, not you know, So what do
Speaker 2: you think about this, Richard? Well, I was going there.
Speaker 4: That's kind of picking up on the same point because
Speaker 4: the fact that it's the gw CT count kind of
Speaker 4: self select doesn't it, because it's you're not going to
Speaker 4: get mister scumtastic dirtiest farm in the veil, which decorates
Speaker 4: the hedges with silent brap and decides that slurry is
Speaker 4: the top dressing for every surface on Earth. They're not
Speaker 4: going to be in this, and no one it's unlikely
Speaker 4: anyone's going to be going to their farm to do this,
Speaker 4: So it's is skewed. But I don't think think in
Speaker 4: a negative way towards better farms that have better habitats.
Speaker 4: So you're going to see a greater diversity of species
Speaker 4: in there, and it's more likely because of the GWCT
Speaker 4: being pretty much the only the only conservation organization that
Speaker 4: is openly in favor of selective predator control, you're going
Speaker 4: to get better outcomes in those places because that's what
Speaker 4: you get on land with predator control, so you're always
Speaker 4: it's always going to be better results there. But that's good,
Speaker 4: but it's sort of when the other organizations come with
Speaker 4: their data instead, because today was when the RSPB said, look,
Speaker 4: every raptor's ever has been killed by a gamekeeper, and
Speaker 4: the BBC really helped out by putting an interactive map
Speaker 4: on their website that showed you where you're nearest. Raptor
Speaker 4: has been killed. Completely unbiased reporting. But that's those two
Speaker 4: sets of data don't meet in the middle, because one
Speaker 4: is appealing to the public and saying everything's crap, and
Speaker 4: one's talking to people who are already doing good on
Speaker 4: the land or support it saying look, it's doing good.
Speaker 4: And finding the messaging to fit in between is hard.
Speaker 4: But I'd rather go with the gw CT data than
Speaker 4: the look, everything's crap, we need your money data.
Speaker 2: Yes, you know. Yeah, it's a very sensible point. And
Speaker 2: I think one of the biggest challenges the gw CT
Speaker 2: will always have is that they are so frequently preaching
Speaker 2: to the choir. Is that they are people who like you,
Speaker 2: say that they are doing that. They have embraced this
Speaker 2: idea of stewardship, and that's therefore so sometimes the data
Speaker 2: is skewed. But I also think it's a ridiculously cynical thing.
Speaker 2: And once again I'm going to point the fingers straight
Speaker 2: at the RSPB's communications team because they gave Mark no
Speaker 2: ours the day. The RSPB gave him the days, so
Speaker 2: that he on the launch day those of us who
Speaker 2: are invited to go to to Loddington where it was
Speaker 2: launched this year. They the RSPB, they invited Mark. They
Speaker 2: gave him a sort of a special reward for award
Speaker 2: rather for his his work on behalf of the Turtle Dove.
Speaker 2: They they gave me the second prize of a bag
Speaker 2: of bird food, which was very kind of de mice
Speaker 2: of eating it. Probably some of your mates, I have
Speaker 2: to say, Richard, but you know, and he gave a
Speaker 2: fantastic walk and talk for people. Because his ear is
Speaker 2: infallible and he'll be he was sort of telling us
Speaker 2: what he could hear that others couldn't. And you know,
Speaker 2: you can't see stuff because of that time year in
Speaker 2: the winter, you're not seeing so much display. So he
Speaker 2: was telling all that stuff. So and what are they do.
Speaker 2: They decide to go and give a set of data.
Speaker 2: And what really pisses me off about the RSPB thing
Speaker 2: is that this comes off the back of some rather
Speaker 2: fatuous statement that Becky Spate, the RSPB's chief executive, has done.
Speaker 2: She sell things that this government could do to make
Speaker 2: things better, and her point four was to get tougher
Speaker 2: on wildlife crime, and she then went into something about
Speaker 2: raptor persecution. Well, the three leading most prosecuted and most
Speaker 2: prevalent wildlife crimes are not raptor persecution. The first one
Speaker 2: is illegal hair coursing and poaching, the second one is
Speaker 2: a river pollution and fisheries pollution, and the third one
Speaker 2: slightly escapes me and I we've got nothing to do
Speaker 2: with frigging raptors. So they almost when the GWCT want
Speaker 2: to put out this story, this is the big farmland
Speaker 2: bird count, And yes, I think you're quite right, Richard.
Speaker 2: You can go and criticize it, because like all poles
Speaker 2: and all data, there is flaws in it. But it
Speaker 2: was something where the RSPB and the GWCT came together
Speaker 2: at its launch and they decided to go and put
Speaker 2: this fatuous thing out, and their bodies at the BBC
Speaker 2: go and lap it up like a tame kitten. And
Speaker 2: you think you're never going to see nature recovery because
Speaker 2: there are complete blens in the communications team at the
Speaker 2: RSPB who if they if they can't get a story
Speaker 2: out there, they'll just fabricate one so that they can
Speaker 2: go and steal some headlines it's just childish.
Speaker 4: Or omit crucial details like the most recent one with
Speaker 4: an injured raptor that they were saying was found on
Speaker 4: a moorland. Yes, it was found on a moorland by
Speaker 4: the gamekeeper who took it through the vet.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly. That's missed out of the story. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: but you know this is he will.
Speaker 4: Be the worst criminal ever if he took the evidence
Speaker 4: of his crime to the vet.
Speaker 2: I don't know what's happened here. It's just fell out
Speaker 2: the sky, you know, Yes, I mean it's it's.
Speaker 4: Not saneously exploded.
Speaker 2: Do you know? The big farmland bird count is something
Speaker 2: that if you did get more data, you did get
Speaker 2: more people. There needs to be more of an incentive
Speaker 2: possibly for more people to go and do it. And
Speaker 2: let's be perfectly honest, a lot of farmers they genuinely
Speaker 2: can't be asked. You know, they don't care.
Speaker 1: Do you think they all know the birds?
Speaker 2: No, they don't car. I know some one of the
Speaker 2: one of the great things this year that got together
Speaker 2: with Perdix and so what they're able to literally do
Speaker 2: because there are a little lot of little brown jobs.
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of people wouldn't know a linit.
Speaker 2: They would not immediately go and say, oh, there's a linet,
Speaker 2: and you know, and you're looking at a lot of
Speaker 2: the hen's species. They are little brown jobs. They you
Speaker 2: don't know. I mean, are you going to be able
Speaker 2: to spot a garden warbler immediately? I can when it sings.
Speaker 2: I can't. When the thing is just sat there on
Speaker 2: a hedge, I wouldn't. No, no, it's a warbler, I think,
Speaker 2: you know, and I'm a bit of a of a
Speaker 2: birder and so yeah, but they got through with that.
Speaker 2: So what they were able to do was that they
Speaker 2: were would basically say, little brand thing, describe it. And
Speaker 2: then that's why it took a bit longer to go
Speaker 2: and collate all the data because they were basically putting
Speaker 2: these amateurish, ham fisted descriptions. This apparently've got fifty three
Speaker 2: dodos in Hertfordshire at the moment, which is you know,
Speaker 2: from a mister c mc and Ernie Riley.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm looking forward to the point where AI can
Speaker 3: help with this kind of stuff because this is actually
Speaker 3: very informative and I think there will be a point
Speaker 3: where you could do something. Maybe it's like supplementary feeding
Speaker 3: or it's like Merlin, but it is not always accurate,
Speaker 3: but it's it's somewhat.
Speaker 2: I think it's accurate enough though, wouldn't it be?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is enough.
Speaker 3: So you know, a bit of visual, a little bit
Speaker 3: of visual, a little bit of.
Speaker 1: A little bit of audio.
Speaker 3: And you could get a very clear picture without people
Speaker 3: actually being out. So that would be a very positive
Speaker 3: use of AI. And I think something you can use
Speaker 3: these tools for conservation and positive good.
Speaker 2: I know that what Perdicts have done is that they
Speaker 2: have developed something for counting Bob white quail in America,
Speaker 2: and they are trying to count covey numbers of Bob
Speaker 2: White quail. And they use a pseudonym for some yes, exactly,
Speaker 2: and it sounds like a sort of minor assassin, doesn't
Speaker 2: he Bob white quail. It just comes in a detective exactly.
Speaker 2: But anyway, what they use is they use sound detection
Speaker 2: and AI tells you it plots how many they think
Speaker 2: are in this covey, by the by the volume that's
Speaker 2: coming through. So I think they're using it, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure that things that GWCT have got Perdix on board.
Speaker 2: I think they're one of the few people actually in
Speaker 2: our world who knows what AI means other than artificial insemination.
Speaker 3: Some of it, it's probably quite easy to tell. Some
Speaker 3: of the like the volumes of certain birds are probably
Speaker 3: quite quite easy to know.
Speaker 1: If it's a lot of them, like black grouse, you.
Speaker 3: Can you can. There's noise, and it amplifies the more
Speaker 3: there are, and the more females are, the more it amplifies.
Speaker 3: I mean, it'd probably be quite easy to to plot that,
Speaker 3: and things like I always remember the the Gadwell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds like the intro to the Beastie Boys.
Speaker 3: So like when you hear that from from far away,
Speaker 3: you know that there's usually a lot of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all together having a little sing song to get.
Speaker 4: Someone from Perdix On. We actually and I know we
Speaker 4: do actually have listeners there and Sparsholt and the close
Speaker 4: relationship between them. We know the listeners and I've got
Speaker 4: their cards that's on my desk, and I meant to
Speaker 4: get them on as a guest last year and I
Speaker 4: still haven't done it.
Speaker 2: Yes, we could get joke. Well, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 2: We'll we'll door step Jody when we go to the
Speaker 2: game fair and just going. So we're going to interview
Speaker 2: you and then no, not after.
Speaker 4: The last time when Callum spilt a pint on their stand.
Speaker 2: Did you you were? You were?
Speaker 4: You were chatting up women in the back end pretending
Speaker 4: to interview them.
Speaker 1: Oh back end? Wow? Quite frankly, I resent the accusation.
Speaker 4: I had to interrupt your interview because somebody wanted a
Speaker 4: book signing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, isn't it just in Lifestyles of the
Speaker 2: rich and the famous. It's ridiculous, isn't it. My mother
Speaker 2: actually told me this, She said, you're famous, my dear,
Speaker 2: And I said, why is that? I was speaking to
Speaker 2: a lady at the mid Suffolk Light Railway and she
Speaker 2: knew your book when there we go, Hey, what more
Speaker 2: could you want? If you make it in the Mid
Speaker 2: Suffolk Light Railway Steam Exhibition nineteen forties, think what more
Speaker 2: can you do? And she works with models right anyway,
Speaker 2: So we have done today the was it terrible or
Speaker 2: was it not terrible? Farm Fest? And we have done
Speaker 2: the big farmland bird count where soft came out on top,
Speaker 2: as did the starling, lapwing, fieldfare and linen, which were
Speaker 2: the most seen red listed species. I would just like
Speaker 2: to have my own brag. I've got some starlings now
Speaker 2: nesting in the roof of the house. And the other
Speaker 2: day it was what's today Tuesday. On Thursday of last week,
Speaker 2: I had feeding in my garden. I had a turtle dove,
Speaker 2: I had a collar dove, I had a stock dove,
Speaker 2: and I had a wood pigeon. So I had all.
Speaker 4: The doves larger drink like drink all.
Speaker 2: In one little spot together, and I sort of thought,
Speaker 2: very very quietly, I tried to get my phone out
Speaker 2: to go and take a photograph of it, and by
Speaker 2: the time I got around, there were just like two
Speaker 2: fat pigeons staring at it and going, rah, mate, thanks
Speaker 2: the turtle dove food. It's very nice, thanks mate, you know.
Speaker 2: And that was it. All the others are buggered off.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I haven't got the talent that Callum would
Speaker 2: have got them all in the same frame, but not me.
Speaker 2: No good place to wrap it up.
Speaker 4: And we're going to the after show. And to take
Speaker 4: us through to the after show, Callum is going to
Speaker 4: make the noise of a great white eagle being fed
Speaker 4: into a wood chipper free