The Times - UK (2022-04-09)

28 Saturday April 9 2022 | the times

Comment

Jim Dixon Nature Notebook

avoid hare culling and consider

whether the loss of hares is a price

worth paying for their shoots. It’s

extraordinary that a mammal with a

population so low and vulnerable

remains unprotected.

Toxic soup in our water

I

t’s the time of year when the

reckoning takes place as the

Environment Agency publishes

data on sewage spills into rivers for

ten water companies. In 2019, 372,533

spills spewed sewage for 2.7 million

hours. In early spring, when rivers are

full and cool, the sewage outflow is

strongly diluted so harm may seem

less obvious. As the season progresses,

water flows decline, temperatures

increase and life in a river can be

devastated by concentrated sewage.

In this toxic soup there are artificial

pollutants, including the endocrine-

disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that

may originate in disinfectants,

pesticides and cosmetics. EDCs can

harm the glands that secrete

hormones in animals. Harmful effects

have been found in water snails,

freshwater mussels and fish. Of

30,000 chemicals commonly in use,

nearly 1,000 are EDCs and it seems

our water companies are still flushing

them wantonly into our rivers.

@jimdixonwriter

— raising them in winter and

reducing them from spring onwards

— and organises common grazing as

has been done since Saxon times.

Natural England, which manages the

site with the Court Leet, welcomes

visitors who come to see the

meadow’s purple sheen of fritillary

flowers. If you visit, please stick to the

well-marked trails so that these early

flowers can stretch above the meadow

and kiss the sky, their purple haze

giving pleasure until the end of time.

Hare restorer needed

T

here’s some good news tinged

with concern for Peak District

mountain hares, England’s only

population of this upland relative of

farmland brown hares. Carlos

Bedson, a researcher at Manchester

Metropolitan University, has spent

five years tracking hares on the Peak

District moors. Commoner in

Scandinavia and Scotland, the

English hares are outliers at the edge

of the range and may be more

vulnerable to environmental change.

The good news is that the study

estimates the population at 3,500,

about the same as the last reliable

estimate from 2002, although keepers

argue this may be an underestimate.

The population is stable but the

survey found hare numbers declining

in some areas and growing in others.

On moorland where vegetation has

been restored by the partnership

efforts of Moors for the Future, there

is food and cover for hares as

moorland grasses and heathers have

re-established on peat soils degraded

by historic fires, overgrazing and air

pollution. On intensively managed

and burnt grouse moors, agriculturally

improved grasslands and remaining

areas of bare peat, the hares are less

common. On well-managed moors

the population is likely to be

productive of young hares, but on

badly managed moors productivity is

lower than required to replace adults.

In addition to restoring more

moorland, grouse moor managers

need to look hard at moor burning,

one of the best places in England to

see wild snake’s head fritillaries, the

distinctive purple-checked bell-

shaped flowers that hang from

sinuous stems up to a foot high.

Fritillaries flower early, getting

away before competitive grasses and

meadow-herbs, and March and April

are good times to see them. There

were thousands in flower and plenty

more stems unfurling from the mat of

meadow vegetation. In a few weeks,

more than a million and a half of the

nodding heads will be in bloom. The

19th-century agricultural reformer,

Philip Pusey, was a great enthusiast

for water meadows. As winter

torrents splay into sluggish flashes

they deposit nutritious minerals

gathered in the headwaters of rivers

and give protection

from frosts to the

meadow soil, helping

grasses and herbs to get

an early-season start.

What was once

cutting-edge farming is

today essential

management of floods

and good for wildlife too.

Cricklade is the first town on

the Thames where Wiltshire

chalk meets the Cotswolds. Its

meadows are an ancient

source of flood prevention, the

steward of the historic Court

Leet still manages water levels

T

he last time I visited

Cricklade’s North Meadow

in the top corner of

Wiltshire, I left with ringing

wet feet and toes I could

barely feel. On that February day the

100 acres of meadow was under a

shallow covering of floods from

the Thames. Only a

foot deep, the

inundation was

above the brim

of my

wellingtons and

so as I followed

the path that

crossed the

meadows my feet got

wetter and colder.

On my return last

week, winter floods had

subsided and the

meadows were beginning

to show the flush of spring

growth. North Meadow is

Purple haze

is one of

the year’s

early treats

dd

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m

a

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The nodding heads of the wild snake’s

head fritillary are common in April

An 87 million dollar house? I’ve seen better

You don’t get much for that in Beverly Hills... and it isn’t as nice as Attenborough’s home or as wild as Gaddafi’s tent

infamous Hand of God and Best

Goal Ever quarter-final in Mexico at

the 1986 World Cup. Having sworn

he would never sell the shirt, Hodge

is now, er, selling the shirt. The

expected auction price is £4 million.

All Hodge did 36 years ago so as to

be £4 million richer 36 years later

was to manfully swallow his

disappointment after the game, go

into the victorious Argentinian

dressing room, approach the cheaty

little genius, and ask “Can I have

your shirt please, mate?” probably

not in Spanish. Diego, generous to a

fault, agreed.

It’s a fabulous example of the

benefits of being cheeky: if you don’t

ask, you don’t get. I wish I’d had the

bottle to ask for a souvenir from all

those celebs I’ve dropped in on down

the years. Or maybe just nicked

one instead.

Fat chance

I’

ve been railing against the BMI

method of deciding a healthy

weight for years. “But it doesn’t

take any account of muscle!” I’d

protest to my wife, as yet another

online calculation spewed out the

remorseless verdict that I’m

borderline overweight/obese.

“Muscle weighs more than fat! It’s

such a blunt instrument! BMI would

tell Maro Itoje he’s a lardass!” etc.

And now, finally, the authorities

have relented and admitted BMI

is flawed. Instead, they’ve gone

old-school and suggested you get a

tape measure and, providing your

waist is less than half your height,

you’re fine. I’m 70 inches tall and my

waist is... well, it’s more than 35

inches, that’s for sure. Be careful

what you wish for.

the road could afford “five Ferraris”.

“Oh yeah Jim, who’s he then?” “Eric

bloody Clapton.” At Hugh Fearnley-

Whittingstall’s cosy River Cottage in

Dorset, I ate too much breakfast and

was sick in his upstairs loo.

As for politicians, Tony Blair’s

Sedgefield house was bustling with

family energy and low-level chaos, as

was David Cameron’s in Notting Hill.

George Osborne tried to pretend he

didn’t have three cars at his

constituency residence in Cheshire.

Peter Hain insisted on playing me

Tracy Chapman in Neath. Sandra

Howard, wife of Michael, put on a

smashing spread for visiting hacks

in Folkestone during the 2005

election, most of it expertly polished

off by Adam Boulton. Colonel

Gaddafi’s tent in the Libyan desert

was wild.

And the nicest home? Why, Sir

David Attenborough’s in Richmond

of course, sunlit and stocked with

mementoes of his glittering career.

His daughter brought tea and cake

and we watched a preview of his

upcoming series. I have rarely been

happier. Give me that over an

$85 million Californian trophy

mansion any day.

Shirt of God

M

ention of framed shirts brings

me to Steve Hodge, the

journeyman England

midfielder who managed to score

Diego Maradona’s shirt after the

often and berate her husband in

Glaswegian. The great man visibly

quailed in her presence.

I’ve been to Jonny Wilkinson’s

home in Northumberland and the

one in the hills above Toulon. Both,

like the man, were admirably

humble. In other examples of the

property reflecting the occupant,

Michael Barrymore’s London house

before his ill-fated move to Essex

was dark, doomy, full of secrets.

Russell Brand’s Hampstead terrace

was pure bachelor pad, all hot tub

and hidden speakers.

Jim Davidson’s Surrey pile, once

owned by Oliver Reed, had a pond

full of koi carp and a drive full of

Jags. Jim, the classic sad funnyman,

moaned about the fish and

complained that his neighbour up

D

id you see Mark

Wahlberg’s place, up for

sale in Beverly Hills? It’s

got pretty much the full

monty of celeb palace

comforts: pool, guest house, home

theatre, gym, 30,500sq ft of living

space. Mark wants $87.5 million,

which even with all those add-ons

sounds a bit punchy to me.

Then again, my knowledge of the

LA property market may be a bit out

of date. It’s almost 30 years since,

while interviewing Rod Stewart at

his gated lair in Beverly Hills, he

bemoaned having to choose between

a swimming pool and a tennis court,

when across the way Eddie Van

Halen had both.

Rod’s attic was given over entirely

to his model railway, a scoop I can

claim to have broken to the world.

We bumped into Rachel Hunter,

wearing very little, on the stairs. “Is

your train set really your favourite

hobby, Rod?” I asked. “OK, maybe

not my absolute favourite,” he

conceded, ogling his then wife.

The home visit is the holy grail of

the celebrity interviewer: you learn

so much. Bruce Springsteen’s place in

New Jersey, fans will be pleased to

discover, is done out tastefully in

Shaker style; there are books on

Cadillacs, Chevrolets and Woody

Guthrie on the shelves, big Stars and

Stripes hanging on the garage. PJ

O’Rourke’s home deep in the forests

of New Hampshire was enviably

book-lined and comfy. Prince’s HQ

in Minneapolis was echoey,

minimalist, more suited to a techy

head office on a light-industrial

estate. Except there was a lot of

purple.

David Copperfield’s cavern in Las

Vegas felt make-believe, appropriate

for a magician. His people kept

promising that Claudia Schiffer, his

then partner and frankly of more

interest than him to the European

press, was in the next room and

about to appear. But she never did.

British celebrities tend to have less

ostentatious taste than Americans,

with the exception of young

footballers. Jamie Vardy’s former

house (he and the lovely Rebekah

have since moved) near Melton

Mowbray was typical: massive tellies

everywhere; bride and groom

wedding outfits on display in the

lounge; man cave with framed shirts,

pool table, bar and gaming zone.

Older, pre-Premier League players

have surprisingly normal, albeit

middle-class, villas like Alan

Hansen’s in Southport.

Older ex-pros are even more

modest. Sir Alex Ferguson’s gaff in

Wilmslow was smart, yet smallish for

a multimillionaire, his only

indulgence a snooker room complete

with a carpet in Ferguson clan

tartan. He also had a decent wine

cellar, to be fair. Lady Ferguson

would interrupt our chat every so

Jim Davidson’s pile had

a pond full of koi carp

and a drive full of Jags

Rod Stewart had to make the hard

choice between pool and tennis court

Rob er t

Crampton

Blair’s house bustled

with family energy

and low-level chaos