Someone asked the other day what I would like for Christmas and my reply, somewhat tongue in cheek, was “world peace?” Their response was immediate and stinging, “How tacky” they said. Suitably rebuffed I offered some more mundane Christmas wishes such as people paying their bills on time, or the health of family and friends etc. But these are hopes that are constant throughout the year. What we really hope for at Christmas and New Year is a profound change in our lives or the lives of those close to us, and world peace is not really that tacky is it? – impossible perhaps, but not tacky. Another year goes by and the value of our thoughts and wishes is even more dictated by what is fashionable, what is cool, and most importantly, what is not naive or tacky. Unfortunately, aspiring to something so apparently hopeless has been branded as passé and boring, and yes – downright dull. It’s about as bad as dressing shoddily enough to be nabbed by Trini and Suzanna and paraded in front of millions of television viewers as a second class citizen who hasn’t conformed to the western corporate image. Well I’m going to break with the new tradition and be tacky and hope for a world my children will want to live in. So, dear Father Christmas, top of my list is world peace and if Rudolph’s Union doesn’t allow him to deliver that, I’ll go for a DVD player. At least then I won’t have to watch the lack of world peace on television, I can choose a good film instead – and live in hope it has a happy ending.

“The best thing ever to come from Number 10”, is how one person described the boot of Jonny Wilkinson, after his last minute drop goal won the rugby World Cup for England last week. ‘England has won the World Cup’. Now there’s a sentence with a nice ring to it. That would be right up there with ‘Your children are wonderful’ and ‘Here’s the money I owe you’.
Much was made of the weather in Sydney having an affect on the outcome of the game, as a lot of rain should have favoured England. There was a lot of rain, and yes it probably did. However it looks as though the great British pastime of discussing the weather may be in for a change. The news from the University of Leeds is that researchers are aiming to unlock the secrets of the weather, bringing forecasters one step closer to an ability to predict exactly where, when and how much rain is going to fall. The research team will measure the size and shape of ice crystals in the clouds from a specially equipped aircraft and using a formula based on the numbers of ice crystals, hope to more accurately determine the vagaries of our weather patterns. Apart from spoiling William Hill’s odds on sporting fixtures, where teams or an individual’s performances are affected by the weather, it could spell the end of conversation as we know it. In the meantime, just in case it can’t be said for a while, let’s say it one more time. England has won the World Cup. And no one is complaining about the weather.

Students at the University of Exeter played a role in a piece of research recently that earned the researcher a Queen’s Prize. The prize, an annual award established in 1965 by Queen Elizabeth II, for research excellence in the field of English studies, went to Ruth-Maria Roth, a student of English language and literature at the University of Bonn. In preparing her dissertation on women’s use of swear words, Ruth-Maria interviewed more than 200 British students of both sexes to see how they would react to insults. She found that, although the male respondents hit back at hostile remarks more frequently than their fellow women students, those women who did go on the verbal counterattack tended to be far more hard-hitting and didn’t shrink from swearing. It’s unlikely the students were asked their opinion on the introduction of an increase in tuition fees, but they were confronted with eight different insult situations and asked to formulate how they would respond in each case. According to Ruth-Maria’s research, when a woman does choose to go on the offensive she doesn’t hold back. A quarter of women students came up with astounding language in their counter-insults. Worryingly, Roth’s supervisor at Bonn University’s English Department, Professor Dr. Klaus P. Schneider, commented that it was ‘the best paper ever to have landed on my desk’. Not least, he added, because the subject of ‘insults’ had so far been completely ignored in linguistics. Who’d have thought it?

“I want to carry on doing the job until the job’s done”, said the current Prime Minister, Tony Blair, recently – alluding to the fact that he has no plans to stand aside for anyone. It doesn’t take a scholar to figure out that the job of running a country is never ‘done’, and since the job is a constant, it’s more a matter of whether it’s done well or not done well. Whatever the outcome of Tony’s attempts to enjoy a third term, his philosophy, indeed the New Labour culture of bullying their way past anyone that disagrees with them, has left many feeling ‘done in’. A colleague once pointed out that there is little difference between this and previous governments. No matter what the party, he suggested, they will bully their policies through. New Labour simply does it blatantly, whereas others have been a little more subtle – ‘underhand’ was actually the word he used. Tony Blair, who at times has looked like a frightened rabbit in the glare of car headlights whilst on the international stage, is having to take closer heed of the domestic agenda in the run up to the Labour Party Conference. Many rural voters will be simply stunned if he survives another term but what is the alternative? And what legacy and influence is he stamping onto a generation’s thinking? I chatted to a 13-year old schoolboy recently who had aspirations toward a political career. I asked him who he admired and whose philosophy he felt would influence his policies if he did get ‘the big job’. His answer? Enoch Powell.

Isn’t progress a wonderful thing? Much of it makes us want to go back to how things were. The latest heatwave has many discussing global warming and the book reviewed on page 43 doesn’t bode particularly well for our future. However there is good news for cockroaches! Apart from being around long before man, dinosaur or indeed anything on earth, they are also the most likely to survive the worst catastrophes thrown at the planet, and recent findings from Russian scientists should make them even happier. By applying DNA-diagnostics, the researchers have rectified an error in cockroach classification. According to new data, the German cockroach (Blatta germanica) and oriental cockroach (Blatta orientalis), belong to different families! They must be very pleased. Whilst the happy family cockroach is resilient to temperature change, agriculture isn’t. Politicians may battle over who should supply what and where, but it looks as though nature will decide where its grown. A recent report by the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre in Brussels, showed that a prolonged drought was causing drastic changes in agricultural output, especially in southern Europe. Yields have risen in northern Europe, which has not been affected by drought while southern areas affected by water shortage may, in the future, be unable to support agriculture at all. The threat of water wars is perhaps not so distant – not that this will bother cockroaches much.

August is here and as usual a radical change comes over the countryside. School’s out and countless visitors descend on the towns, villages, beaches and rural areas of the South West. The feel of the local environment changes. For many, the next few months will make or break their businesses for the year and every new face on the horizon is a welcome one. For local farmers and producers, it is a time to show at local country events like the Honiton, Melplash and Dorchester Shows. These shows are also a major opportunity for those not familiar with the countryside to see and meet some of the people who look after and make a living from it. Holidaying members of Parliament and government officials will, of course, be working hard to learn more about what happens outside the city walls – hopefully looking closely at the real results of policies and initiatives implemented before and after the foot and mouth crisis. But when the shows are over, the trailers have gone home and the livestock is back on the farm, will the battle between countryside and city re-commence? Whilst the review of the Common Agricultural Policy may represent one of the most fundamental changes to European farm policy for many years, and while much debate continues on the role of farming and subsidies, one thing is certain – in the years to come there are likely to be even fewer people working in traditional farming, and tourists will probably look for more Disney than country, in country shows.