Innholdsfortegnelse for 8-Feb-2023 i Country Life

Victoria is the lead facilitator of the medical-technologies global programme at BioPhorum and is engaged to Christophe Gailly de Taurines, Knight Commander of the Order of Merit of St Joseph of Tuscany, whom she will marry at home, Newbold Pacey Hall, Warwickshire, in June. She is the daughter of Geoffrey and Iona Ludlow of Hythe, Kent, and follows in the footsteps of her grandmother Miss Ann Toler-Aylward and her aunt Miss Amelia Fisher, who appeared on the Frontispiece on January 23, 1953, and October 13, 1983, respectively.…

Quiz of the week 1) Which marine mammal found in British waters is also known as ‘puffing pig’? 2) Who wrote Agnes Grey? 3) Which is England’s smallest town, complete with mayor and town hall? 4) The name of which common flower derives from ‘day’s eye’, for its habit of opening in the morning and closing at night? 5) How many kings named Edward have ruled over at least a portion of England since the 9th century? Word of the week Jugulate (verb) To kill, usually by cutting the throat 100 years ago in COUNTRY LIFE February 10, 1923 AN ideal place to begin a collection of rhododendrons is an oak or birch coppice, or even an old orchard. The old idea that peat was a necessity in their…

ONE of the many generous—and desperately needed—acts of financial support made possible by the cultural recovery monies during the pandemic was a £3.7 million grant from the Cultural Assets Fund (administered by the National Heritage Memorial Fund) to the Historic Chapels Trust (HCT) in July last year. The full significance of this has only recently come to Athena’s attention and appears to have received almost no notice in a public sense: it makes possible the effective dissolution of this organisation and the ordered hand-over of its assets. The HCT was founded in 1993 as a by-product of a sea change in the attitude of non-conformists towards their chapels. These buildings hitherto enjoyed ecclesiastical exemption from the secular planning system but—unlike the Church of England—non-conformists operated no formal system to regulate…

Did you know? A herd of some 30 Bagot goats goes ‘on tour’ in Norfolk, keeping habitat under control on estates and farms, with some of them spending the summer on the cliffs at Cromer, where they restrict vegetation THE striking Bagot goat has a romantic history, possibly the longest of all British goats. One theory of the breed’s origination is that the black-and-white beasts were brought back during the Crusades and presented by Richard II to Sir John Bagot in appreciation of some good hunting on his Blithfield estate in Staffordshire—the goats were first documented here in 1389. Members of the Bagot family have remained associated with the breed ever since; two goats feature either side of a shield in the family coat of arms. Another idea, gained from…

IMAGINE, for a moment, a world without measurements. No miles or kilometres; no grams or ounces; no inches, litres, fathoms or furlongs. A world where height, weight, depth, volume, area and length are essentially incalculable. The thought seems faintly ludicrous. Our current units of measurement have become so ingrained in daily life that they almost seem to have existed since the dawn of time. But not only is each one the product of human invention, each one also has a story behind it. This is the central premise behind The Curious History of Weights & Measures, a new book by author Claire Cock-Starkey. It tells the tale of how we’ve used measurements to impose order onto the world around us. Nautical miles, altimeters, measuring jugs, those little increments on old…

A prize of £25 in book tokens will be awarded for the first correct solution opened. Solutions must reach Crossword No 4766, Country Life, 121–141 Westbourne Terrace, Paddington, London, W2 6JR, by Tuesday, February 14. UK entrants only ACROSS 5 Container for white wine? (4) 7 New printout man finds insignificant (11) 9 Politician dipping into beer? Enough! (5) 10 Exaggerate about body politic (9) 11 Echo on channel (7) 12 Hint that gratuity is being withheld (3-3) 14 Old coin I examine for monk or nun (10) 17 Main phases oddly producing skill on the ocean (10) 20 Husband leaves sheltered port for leafy glade (6) 22 Address officers initially share (7) 23 Italian patriot: man lacking hair, do we hear? (9) 24 Ancient language the French can put…

OCCASIONALLY, one is asked, why a career in journalism? It’s easy to splutter the usual clichés: ‘speaking truth to power’ and ‘an interest in people and their stories’. Often, the real truth is simpler: for some of us—and perhaps farmers, builders and mechanics as well—it’s about not having to put on a suit every day, iron a shirt and spend money on nice ties. Good news, then, from the Jockey Club, which announced last week that dress codes are out at its 15 racecourses. No more enforced jackets and ties for the National. Feel free to watch the Gold Cup in a pair of jeans and Crocs. Chuck a baseball cap in the air when a winner comes in. It would be easy to deride such a decision as yet…

SELDOM has a novel dealt with the task of writing for a living more convincingly than New Grub Street. Although the book- and magazine-publishing industries are much changed today, the literary types who populate the novel remain recognisable more than 130 years later. Modern hacks complain about the impact of the internet and declining print sales on work security and income, but Gissing’s uncompromising tale reminds us that the trade has long been in a state of flux. Grub Street (once a London street, now in the area of Milton Street, north of the Barbican) became synonymous in the 17th century with impoverished scribblers. Some 100 years later, Dr Johnson described it as a place ‘much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries and temporary poems’. However, Gissing’s revival of…

THE orange doesn’t immediately strike one as the most sybaritic of fruits. Too brash, too bold, too, well, orange. It lacks the peach’s luscious curves and the strawberry’s plump, come-hither allure. Grapes can be dangled above lips of louche, lascivious lovers and cherries gorged with a frisky wink, but the orange is wilfully, resolutely unsexy, thick woollen tights rather than silken stockings, more half-time snack than good-time minx. Shakespeare, in Much Ado About Nothing, even goes as far as to associate it with the green-eyed monster. Count Claudio, described by Beatrice as ‘neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well’ is a ‘civil count, civil as an orange, and something of that jealous complexion’. Civil as an orange, eh? Hardly complimentary, although the Stratford scribe was referring with his pun…

TO some, RFE may stand for Radio Free Europe. In bridge parlance, it stands for Routine For an Expert. Take this pair of slams from the European Team Championships in Funchal, Madeira. On our first deal, Geir Helgemo of Norway made light work of the excellent grand slam. How would you play Seven Spades on the four of Spades lead? You might be tempted to run the opening lead to your Ace-ten, catering to an opponent holding Knave-low-low-low. Don’t be! No way does an opponent have Knave-low-low-low—West would hardly sacrifice his natural winner by leading from that holding—nor would he lead a singleton Spade. Those (few) declarers who played low from dummy could no longer succeed. They now had to use a picture from dummy to ruff the third Heart…

Rooting out hidden gems THE Threatened Plant of the Year competition is underway, Plant Heritage has announced, and those with a love of gardening, plants or flowers have been asked to scour their own green spaces for ‘hidden gems’ that could become 2023’s winner. The competition is seeking ‘unusual, rare, or special cultivars’ that are not currently commercially available, and are named cultivars that have been sold or grown in the UK or Ireland prior to 2013. Last year’s winner was Paeonia ‘Gleam of Light’, which was discovered in the garden of Roz Cooper. ‘Roz’s garden was the only recorded location of this type of peony, which is one of the reasons it won,’ says Vicki Cooke, conservation manager at Plant Heritage. ‘Thanks to her ongoing care, its future…

IN the countryside, where you know your neighbours, there are always those you don’t quite take to. It’s not that there’s necessarily anything specific, nor that they’ve actually done you down, it’s just that if there’s a slightly sharp way of doing things, a clever wheeze for avoiding paying or a good excuse for getting out of contributing, there’s always one. Most people do their best, mucking in when necessary, and can be relied upon when the churchyard needs tidying, the poppy collection requires more helpers or a child has to be picked up from school. But there are also those who are never there when there’s something to be done or someone to be helped. It’s the same with politicians. There are some whom you know will always do…

AS the US writer Nora Ephron wrote in the movie Heartburn, ‘If you’re looking for monogamy, you’d better marry a swan’. Some species of bird do, indeed, pair for life, yet other species—including most songbirds—are ‘socially monogamous’. This means that, although they will form a pair for the entire breeding season, to help one another raise their young, the male (and, often, also the female) may also sneak off and try to mate with other birds. In the male’s case, this strategy is likely to mean he will have more offspring—even if he might never see some of them. For the female, mating with two or three males does not increase the number of chicks she can have, as she will still lay the same number of eggs. However, by…

WHEN Giles Redman launched Corston to eliminate the headache that faces anyone planning a lighting project, his instinct was to distinguish between decorative lighting and architectural. The two do very different things; decorative lights, such as table lamps, floor lamps and pendants, don’t merely illuminate a space with a warm, often low-level glow, they also create mood and interest, as well as lending symmetry and focal points to a scheme when required. In many cases, its manufacture requires craftsmanship that might otherwise have disappeared and materials that would otherwise rarely see the light of day, such as gilt, alabaster and bronze. Lighting, it seems, is an area where less is definitely more As well as creating an extensive range of artfully designed door furniture, hooks, locks, latches, sockets and…

THE revolutionary Florentine artist Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi, otherwise known as Donatello, is popularly considered to be the greatest Italian Renaissance sculptor of all time. He invented techniques that set sculptural practice on a new path and influenced his successors, including the peerless Michelangelo. His interest in portraiture saw him create empathetic figures based on careful observation of antique Roman statues. He introduced the use of low-relief ‘flattened’ carving (rilievo schiacciato), allowing him to achieve greater drama and apparent depth in his work. And he designed beautiful works of art in multiple materials, including marble, bronze, terracotta and wood. To him we owe the creation of the first freestanding nude male statue since antiquity—the extraordinary bronze David, alive with contrapposto. It may be said of this man that…

HERE I am standing in our home field getting soaked yet again. I am wearing pyjamas, wellies and the first hat I grabbed as I came out, my Great-Uncle Martin’s giant pith helmet, a sort of wearable umbrella, if a shameful reminder of my family’s colonial past. Cosmo, our bichon frisé, and Elsa, our blue whippet, are doing their best to squeeze themselves between my legs in the mistaken belief that they will be drier. Despite having not been outside since late last night, they are obstinately refusing to relieve themselves. That is the thing about dogs: a complete absence of pretence and a strict adherence to Matthew 5:37, i.e. their yea is yea and their nay, especially in lashing rain, is nay. They certainly have no need of my…