From an email received today, July 28 2005"I really do not know how you have found the time and enthusiasm to keep Warmwell going for so long unaided. I have always found it a mine of information and, since the only paper I ever read is the Farmers Guardian(!), have found myself quite dependent on your news. It seems to select all the bits I would have read if I had taken loads of newspapers.
On the strength of my saving all those pounds on rubbish newspapers I will send a donation .. and do hope that others will do the same.
The appalling ignorance of DEFRA is mind blowing, I am sure you have heard the very latest:
DEFRA employee, told a Single Payment enquirer asking if they was any differentiation between horses and ponies - "Don't worry your ponies will grow into horses" You probably read this in Farmers Guardian.
Just add this to "What breed of cattle is 'ditto'....?"
" When did you purchase the homebred heifer?"
"Is your bull and male or a female?" .... no hope at all that there is someone there who knows what they are doing.I do understand that the pay for DEFRA staff is not great - but add to this all the perks of working for the Government and the index linked pension .....
".....The very latest insult comes in the form of an extremely expensively produced magazine from the Rural Development Service entitled Options for Change Your Farm Your Business Your Future in which, under Livestock Farmers, comes the suggestion that everyone should get a 9 - 5 job as well.
Even to the extent of suggesting employment you could take up.
(My husband suggests this is the Government Version of Private Eye) I have written to the Farmers Guardian with some suggestions - I wonder if they will print it!
Do they think animals only calve at night - get sick at night - can you make silage at night - Vets bills wouldn't look too good - night time calls only!!
How can anyone make any difference to this awful mess of the world that has been created - now a third world war - with an enemy you cannot identify and do not know where they are coming from.
Bliar still says the appalling state of Irag, where they are apparently not even counting the dead, has nothing to do with it. All the innocent Asians will suffer in one way or another .
I heard of two waiting for a taxi at Kings Cross station where taxi after taxi refused to pick them up until they waved, shouting, "Please let us in we are Hindus"
There is a poster in Notting Hill Tube Station which reads if you are coloured and carrying a rucksack - do not RUN.
Very glad I am old! But I worry for children and grandchildren..."