Foxes, badgers, moles all get the chop for humans to remain Top Dog, the Apex Predator

Thanks, Margaret, for replying.  Yes, please forward to farmers and any others for their comments - for and against.

I feel that far too much killing goes on in our countryside, especially of foxes, badgers and moles, so that we can dominate the living world with our sheep and dairy cattle to give us the very cheapest meat and milk, regardless of ethics and nature and the long term consequences from ailing life support systems.

On the 24 April, one young farmer I stopped on his tractor told me something about mole bacteria getting into soil that then grows grass that is eaten by cows and harms them in some way.  The woman in the village shop told me that the village supports all their farmers and would not criticise them in any way.  Orton is for farmers, depends on farmers and whatever they want must go.

The fact that we humans are ourselves part of nature and must respect nature out of sheer self-interest, is of no bearing on the fact that we must do everything necessary to maintain farmers' incomes and livelihoods, whatever the long term repercussions.  No wonder the UK is one of the most nature depleted nations in the world and, as the climate emergency continues to worsen, has only marginal influence on decision making.

The King, David Attenborough, Chris Packham and George Monbiot might have something to say on this subject!

Best wishes

Mole killings prized and paraded

 Mole killings prized and paraded for tourists to admire - courtesy of Cumbrian farmers.

There were 32 of them all lined up so neatly like Roman crucifixions along the side of the road! But this was on the side of an important circular footpath well promoted in a walk leaflet to the Orton Victoria Jubilee Monument!

Diane Abbott is now added to the list of anti-Semites

I've read and re-read your letter and that from Diane Abbott but still feel that such a "clumsy" and "stupid" letter should not have resulted in her expulsion from the Labour party when she has such an amazing track record in fighting all the wrong kind of "isms" in her political career.  

I still can't get my head round Abbott, Livingstone and Corbyn being anti-Semitic.  But, I suppose, that is because I am one.  I am definitely one as I understand the point that Abbott was making in playing up how her ancestors suffered 300 years of racist slavery by my ancestors.  That is truly shocking and I apologise and want reparations of some kind from our government/King Charles no 3.  It is comparable to the holocaust but, by degree, one is worse in the league table of horrors of man's inhumanity to man than the other.

On Monday evening, Iain Dale of LBC was thinking out loud that because Diane Abbott is now an anti-Semite he should, perhaps, no longer have her on his programme as an invited guest.

SOME QUOTES:

"Home Office statistics published last year also show Jews are five times more likely to suffer hate crimes than any other religious group."

"Well, her comments were clumsy, but that is not the reason for her banishment. They were looking for any excuse to get rid of her. It could just as well have been for wearing odd earrings, saying good morning to Caroline Lucas, or stepping on her cat's tail.  Why not an open debate about racism to clarify things instead?"  (friend, Bob Whitehead)

"Between 1525 and 1866, in the entire history of the slave trade to the New World, according to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, 12.5 million Africans were shipped to the New World. 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage, disembarking in North America, the Caribbean and South America."

I remain incensed that even lovely Clun farmers despatch wonderful moles so cruelly, without even animal euthanasia.  What is the matter with us humans?

On Inverclyde, anti-Semitism and moles

You have such a beautiful home and I much enjoyed talking to you about our two families, Scotland, politics and much else.

On politics, I was aghast, yesterday at Keir Starmer taking the Labour whip away from Diane Abbott for simply expressing a point of view that should be heard and not punished, I think.  There are degrees of racism, of course, although not one minority group wants to be downgraded from suffering racism to suffering only prejudice and discrimination!  Starmer acted out of all proportion over first a former and, for me, a highly respected Labour leader who was correct in what he said and, now over Abbott.  But, what do you think?  I'm not the best person to pontificate, however, because I have also been called an anti-Semite by former Labour and Dudley North MP, Ian Austin, so perhaps I should be whipped, hung, drawn and quartered into obedience, too.

On the day I left where the car was parked, I took the bus to Johnston, a second, electric bus this time, from there to Largs for lunch in Wetherspoons; a third from Largs, via Gourock to Port Glasgow to get my final bus to Kilmacolm with a slow walk back to the car.  The locals were a great help in doing a wonderful bus tour and all for £8.40 to cover the two zones.  What a beautiful library and community centre in Kilmacolm, too that I was not expecting at all!

Another day saw me walk along the Clyde cycle-walkway from Central Station to the Science Centre and, on another day, I cycled the Greenock Cut that I had never heard of until you told me, John about the regional park and their very fine Visitors' Centre.

The exhibition in the centre was about the 1827 engineering response to what was their equivalent of our climate emergency today. Their economic growth/greed led to misery, disease, death but one wealthy man, Robert Thom got it sorted for that Clydebank town. But, it only enabled yet more growth/greed at the expense of nature!

I got home last night after my final night at the Westmorland Hotel, Tebay and a very slow circular walk only to come across these moles hung out to dry near to where two major paths cross at Orton, Cumbria.​

 32 moles hung out to dry.jpg

​Have you ever seen anything like it?  Cumbrian farmers killing not just foxes and badgers but, moles, too!  Have they not heard of animal euthanasia if they really have to be slaughtered, that I doubt?

I hope my tendon will have healed to get some more hills visited in the Southern Uplands in the summer!

Many thanks for everything and very best wishes