Innholdsfortegnelse for 12-Jan-2022 i Country Life

Quiz of the week 1) Into which sea does the River Tay flow? 2) How many sides does a trapezium have? 3) Which fictional masked hero was aided by Tonto? 4) What is measured in amperes? 5) Which Prime Minister turned down the title of Duke of London? Word of the week Hippocras (noun) A medieval mulled wine flavoured with spices Time to buy Splashes of Early Sunshine Let in the Sun ½ Pint Mug, £22, Emma Bridgewater (www.emmabridgewater.co.uk) Heavy Twill Overshirt in Stone, £125, Fera (www.feragb.com) The Tennis Ball Thief needlepoint tapestry kit, £72, Jolly Red (01460 281111; www.jollyred.co.uk) Riddle me this With my help, you can see through walls. What am I? ‘People were always sorry. Sorry they had done what they had done, sorry they were doing…

WHAT a joy in the midst of our preparations for Christmas—staking amaryllis and deciding just how many miniature off-white poinsettias were present at the original crib—to read, in the vicar’s copy of your Christmas edition (December 15/22, 2021), both the informative article on traditional St Stephen’s Day customs (‘On the feast of Stephen’) and Jack Watkins’s thoughtful piece describing the Christianity of T. S. Eliot (above; Britain’s Greatest Masterpieces, ‘Journey of the Magi’). Eliot was churchwarden here at St Stephen’s, Gloucester Road, for 25 years and remains (at least when the curate is preaching) an ‘austere’ inspiration on our earthly pilgrimages. The clergy here are both great bird-lovers, so no wren need fear Boxing Day, but I hope the great poet is pleased to know that the gin still flows.…

Evelyn Waugh (left, 1903–66) was the son of a publisher. Educated at Lancing College, West Sussex, and Hertford College, Oxford, he made an immediate splash with his first novel Decline and Fall in 1928, which drew on his experiences as a schoolmaster in north Wales. A Roman Catholic convert after the collapse of his first marriage, his second novel, Vile Bodies, as funny as Decline and Fall, although with a shambolic storyline, made great play with the Bright Young People of Mayfair and captured their cadences (‘too, too shy-making', and so on) and the gossipy, trivial lives they led. Waugh was a member of this set, although, given his comparatively modest family background, also an outsider. For all the brilliance of these novels and Scoop, Waugh wanted to develop a…

Subtle beauty Acclaimed director, set and costume designer Patrick Kinmonth drew on skills and experience gained in theatre to create the Venetian Damask fabric and wallpaper collection for Chelsea Textiles. The wallpaper, shown here in in Cinder Blue, £215 per 10m roll, is designed to capture some of the subtle beauty of sunlight on a faded silk damask on a palace wall (020–7584 5544; www.chelseatextiles.com) Good find Promising a treasure trove of antiques, art and commissioned furniture editions, Our Shop is the latest venture by interior-design studio Albion Nord. Founders Ottalie Stride, Camilla Clarke, Anthony Kooperman and Ben Johnson have a shared eye for special pieces, so expect distinctive and eclectic finds, from classic to contemporary and plenty in between (07834 711945; www.albion-nord.com) Prints charming New brand Dado Atelier brings…

Things are a bit thin for the bird population at present, so we should look out for them. Keep their feeders replete, if need be on a daily basis and, if frost and snow come, put out fresh supplies in handy places. There are ways of limiting types of feed to types of bird, but don't forget that the dunnock and others feed on the crumbs from the rich man's table and the robin could do with a pile of mealworms. Make sure the ice is broken on the water in the bird bath. Admire the seasonal visitors: fieldfares, redwings, waxwings.…

THE first addition to Kew’s vital plant species list for 2022 is Uvariopsis dicaprio, a ylang-ylang tree of the Ebo Forest, one of the largest intact rainforests in Cameroon and, yes, it is named for the actor Leonardo DiCaprio, in honour of his environmental efforts for the area. With its bunches of glossy yellow-green flowers, the tree is already critically endangered because its habitat is unprotected, a reminder of the importance of Kew’s mission to name and, where possible, protect species all around the world before they become extinct. ‘It’s easy to assume that we know all of the plant and fungi species on our planet,’ explains Dr Martin Cheek, senior researcher in RBG Kew’s Africa team. ‘But, in most parts of the tropics, identification of plants is still a…

IT is almost a month since the winter solstice, but Nature remains sitting in the waiting room for spring to arrive. Only the plucky little shoots of snowdrops that, in a few days, will announce the resurrection of the new year in all their bridal finery hint at what is to come. Early January can be gloomy, yet it is the perfect time to experience the wonder of dawn and dusk. This week, the sun will conveniently rise shortly after 8am and disappear over the horizon just after 4pm, offering that most magical of opportunities for a walk in twilight. Dawn, dusk, sunrise, sunset and twilight all refer to different moments in the day, but, together, they provide a special magic that holds great importance in many religions; it’s a…

Silky, luxuriant charm Cocodrilo, Malbec, Mendoza, Argentina 2019. £9.99, Aldi, alc 14% Made by Viña Cobos, from cool, high-altitude vineyards, this Malbec has been available since summer 2020, but is still drinking beautifully-if you're not already a fan of its silky, luxuriant charms (and great price), then get in quick. Full-bodied and intense blackberry and damson flavours and vibrant natural acidity. Online only. A bone-dry blend Marks & Spencer, Rosé, Côtes de Provence St-Victoire, France 2020. £12, Marks & Spencer, Ocado, alc 12.5% Rosé is not just for summer. A bone-dry blend of Grenache, Syrah and Cinsault, this has nice grip from fruit tannins and crisp lemon acidity to support creamy redcurrant and peach fruit. In store or via Ocado. Orange, blossom and tea Steitz, Orange, Rheinhessen, Germany…

‘Ingenious, satirical, extremely funny’ ‘Times Literary Supplement’ ‘I like Waugh best when he remains within his own territory, which I take to be the circles radiating outwards–not too far–from the lunch-table of Lady Metroland’ Desmond Shawe-Taylor in the ‘New Statesman’ ‘Scoop… almost the last in the sequence of anarchic fantasies which had so endeared Waugh to his large British audiences and American coterie’ Martin Stannard in ‘Evelyn Waugh: The Early Years 1903–1939’ ‘A common little man… who happens to have written one or two moderately amusing novels’ Duff Cooper’s description (delivered to his face) of Waugh. Algernon Stitch in ‘Scoop’ is partly based on Cooper ‘A writer of Evelyn’s quality leaves us an estate to walk through: we discover unappreciated vistas, paths which are left for our discovery at the…

‘I remember the touch of things: the brittle harshness of barn straw, the warm softness of September hay. They all come to mind, make me wonder how so many things—not scent, not sight, not taste, nor sound—are stored within my head: my father’s cheek late in the day, rough with stubble, the coldness of my mother’s hands— she would come in from the dairy, silently, thrust her fingers down my collar, extract a cry. But that is sound not touch. Sense the softness of a hen’s wing, moss on a dry-stone wall, a long-haired collie, stretched cat, the harshness of a pig’s back, crumbled slate on a quarry tip, the rasp of a calf’s tongue, the pain of a fist of gorse. And there are many things remembered wordless: lichen…

THE final notes of the overture to Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro end triumphantly, but, as applause ripples through the Opera Holland Park audience, there is a loud, prolonged squawk. Figaro and Susanna’s appraisal of their soon-to-be marital quarters is interrupted by hecklers from a nearby horse-chestnut tree. It appears the parakeets are not fans of opera comic. For some, the birds’ calls—the occasional peacock also makes its presence known—enhance the charming setting at the former London home of the Earl of Ilchester, but others rattle at the penetrating squalls. They’re not only in Holland Park: ring-necked parakeets have made themselves well and truly at home across London, with colonies now spreading throughout England and beyond; there have even been recent sightings in Scotland. But how did these gregarious green…

PITY poor mutton. The dowdy, tallow-scented great aunt to lamb’s spring-scented youth. Whereas one giggles and gambols, all sweetly pulchritudinous vigour, the other clumps about in hobnail boots, scowling and tut-tutting, the very picture of Victorian gloom. It doesn’t help that mutton, in popular parlance at least, has a less than salubrious past. Shakespeare’s ‘laced mutton’ was a prostitute. In the 16th century, the word was a euphemism for a lady of loose morals. By the 20th century, to ‘hawk one’s mutton’ was to, well, you know what I mean. As for ‘mutton dressed as lamb’, when James Joyce, in Ulysses, introduced that term, it was the final nail in the mutton coffin. However, for the past few centuries, mutton was every bit the equal of beef, adored for its…

JEWELLERY is a sentimental thing, holding talismanic qualities. There is a fashion for initials on everything, from bags to phone cases and stationery, and I love the idea of wearing someone’s name or initials around your neck, wrist or finger, keeping them close at all times. Try layering up names of children, pets, loved ones or even a word that gives a bit of strength for testing times—artistic typography looks very chic indeed and can be shown off or, equally, kept hidden.…

An attempt to gain scientific accuracy without losing the attractive appearance of the flowers was Keble Martin's explanation of his approach to compiling individual sketches into the richly detailed colour plates that made The Concise British Flora in Colour an instant success and a benchmark for subsequent publications. His genius encompassed an ability to arrange closely related specimens without any appearance of repetition, often using shape and growing habit to animate and vary his compositions. In different plates, fragile stems of rock speedwell, Veronica fruticans, curl like the branches of a menorah, contrasting with the thrusting flower spikes and blade-like leaves of water speedwell, V. anagallisaquatica. A bold stem of ash leaves contrasts with flimsier trails of the seldom-seen gentian relative Centaurium scilloides, the perennial centaury; elsewhere, the bottle-brush head…

LEPIDOPTERISTS and lovers of Nature can now enjoy access to William Jones’s seminal Icones— a catalogue of 1,600 finely detailed paintings of some 760 butterfly and moth species created between 1780 and 1800, which, despite its intricacy and scientific importance, was never published. The sole manuscript has been preserved at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and is now reproduced for the first time. As well as 1,600 illustrations, the beautifully produced Iconotypes: A Compendium of Butterflies and Moths includes expert essays, modern maps and contextual commentary from entomologist, taxonomist and author Richard I. Vane-Wright (£65, Thames & Hudson).…

THE January pleasure of using new and well-chosen Christmas presents has been tempered this year by the challenge of reconciling myself to perhaps the single most irritating gift of my recollection. Correctly identifying the delight that one |of the children takes in performing to the household at large, a generous aunt found a toy microphone with an attached speaker and a choice of special sound effects. When in use, the speaker also lights up in lurid red. It is, in short, a noisy, intrusive and supremely portable possession and—for the child in question—a delightful tool of persecution. In the past, objects of this kind required batteries, which helped ration their use, but this one can be easily charged. So, in the dying days of the holidays we have been regaled…

Cruising through life Q My husband and I are planning to go on a cruise with Cunard, but he is reluctant to buy (or hire) a formal suit for the so-called Gala Evenings. In fact, over 50 years of married life, I have never seen him in a suit—even at our wedding! I know Cunard has its rules, but why should we have to adhere to outdated protocol? Manners maketh man, not clothes. J. B., Derbyshire A Indeed, why should we have to do anything? Why queue for five hours when you could barge straight to the front? Why pay for a house when you could break into any you fancy and claim squatters’ rights? Why cook a Sunday roast when chicken nuggets are so much quicker? Because, my dear…

Balm for the soul IT’S -10˚C. I have just come in from feeding six horses and breaking the ice on their water buckets. I am old and cold, but when I reached for my Christmas present—your magazine—it made me feel good and warmed my soul. The snow and Arctic air that has settled over usually balmy Vancouver is the latest indignity we have had to endure in the past two years. We lost horses to colic and old age, then Covid descended, followed by wildfires in the summer, historic flooding in the fall and now a deep freeze. I am diving into COUNTRY LIFE in front of the fire for a little escapism, where nothing is cheap and tawdry, the animals are all healthy and I can dream of a…

ATHENA nearly choked on her moussaka when she heard the Metropolitan Museum in New York, US, announce that it will remove the Sackler name from the seven galleries that acknowledge the family’s generous donations—about $50 million—to that institution. If you are unfamiliar with them, the Sacklers are a dynasty of pharmaceutical billionaires whose most well-known product, OxyContin, a pain-treating opioid, has been implicated in the deaths of tens of thousands. Great philanthropists on both sides of the Atlantic—British benefactions include gifts to the V&A Museum and the Serpentine Gallery —some members of the family have been memorably described as ‘drug dealers in nice suits and dresses’. To Athena, their fall from public grace is the most salient example of a huge and perhaps irreversible shift in not only the governance,…

TO select Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop as his masterpiece is like barging into an exhibition of Constable landscapes and pointing emphatically at The Hay Wain, when every inch of wall is decked with compositions of multi-layered beauty. How can Decline and Fall, its comic absurdity owing as much to the economy of Waugh’s prose as to its unlikely story, or the tragedy of A Handful of Dust, be passed over? More readers might plump for the romantic Brideshead Revisited, but what about the late-Waugh pathos of The Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold? ‘The satire this time is at the expense of the journalistic world, which the author had experienced first hand’ Scoop is chosen not because it is superior to any of these. It is partly because it marks a return to…

THE end of 2021 brought more sadness than joy. On top of everything else, a number of my friends learned they had serious cancers: nothing to do with Covid, but it made a tough end to an already difficult year. Heart full, I am walking with a recently bereaved friend on a Pilgrim Route, identified and promoted by the British Pilgrimage Trust (www.britishpilgrimage.org), an organisation that embraces many of the things I love best: churches, cathedrals and sacred sites, long walks and beautiful places and thoughts. Our 15-mile pilgrimage is a day’s walk from Tewkesbury Abbey to Gloucester Cathedral and, although it’s possible to follow the River Severn the whole way, the route diverges from the river to take in some special places, adding to our sense of wonderment at…

• ‘Reading the submissions took me on a journey around Britain, with a diverse range of voices exploring and celebrating the countryside, past and present. The quality was incredibly impressive, but Mr Darbishire's poem stood out because it sparked such a visceral response- I felt as if I was there with him, catching minnows or holding a handful of gorse' Mark Hedges, COUNTRY LIFE Editor • ‘Exploring memory can be tricky territory for a poet, as, all too often, it can become clichéd. However, Mr Darbishire's poem brings distant experiences back to life through a series of beautifully rendered, delicately handled reflections. The power of the poem builds as he layers on detail, giving the reader just enough information, without ever over-egging it' Tim Relf, poet and novelist • ‘With…

• The earliest sighting of a wild ring-necked parakeet in the UK was in 1855, when one was spotted in Norfolk • Ring-necked parakeets, as are all birds, are protected in the wild under the Wildlife and Countryside Act. The species can be controlled under licence where there is evidence of a threat to native species, damage to crops or for air-safety purposes • Media coverage of ‘parrot fever’, a rare, but potentially fatal disease, may have caused an increase of releases in the 1950s • The case of the parakeet is not an isolated one. ‘There are issues in freshwater areas where terrapins have been released and established,' says RSPB Scotland's Paul Walton. The import of red-eared sliders was banned in 1997, due to concerns about the numbers of…

IT’S deepest winter and beastly cold—January is a depressing month. All one’s efforts are concentrated upon survival. There is nothing to be gained from a ‘good winter walk’ except pneumonia and bronchitis. And making a jolly bonfire will put you in trouble with the anti-pollution police. The only acceptable activity is to re-read your old gardening books and plan for the future. That means staying indoors and dreaming of spring. Hearty journalists bat on about coloured stems and old cotoneaster berries, but both are better seen from inside the house. That’s the vantage point from which to admire winter jasmine and the first yellow aconites, too, although they are never enough to satisfy the true plant-lover’s thirst for flowers. Some of our friends get through the worst of winter by…

ON our first deal this week, you have reached a skinny Six Spades with only half the pack of high-card points. Plan the play on the King of Clubs lead. Given East is marked with the Ace of Clubs (because of West’s top-of-a-sequence lead), assume the King of Hearts is with West (East bid weakly, West strongly). Ruff the Club lead and cash the Ace-King of Spades, West discarding a Club. One possibility is to cross to the Ace of Hearts and lead back to the ten. This will be successful if East holds the Knave and at most two other Hearts (for the Knave will fall under the Queen, promoting the nine for two Diamond discards from dummy). But isn’t it more likely East will have the longer Hearts—West…

I HAVE had a happy time playing with my best Christmas present: a skip we originally rented for a week, but which they came to collect in a vehicle that was too big, so is still here. We are clearing out a shed to make room for a lathe that was dumped on—given to—our son by his godfather. The godfather and his wife delivered the lathe with such undisguised joy that I felt we’d spread a little bit of seasonal cheer right there and then. At the moment, it’s on end next to two pillar drills that also seem to have found their way here. I have literally no idea where from or why. I chuck out the lidless teapots, ancient paperwork, a traffic cone that came with the house…