Chelsea 2008

The RHS Chelsea Flower Show 2008 on BBC2 all this week is unmissable. This year there is a new attraction, Alan Titchmarsh’s quite extraordinary facial topiary. What he was thinking when shaving his sideburns can only be imagined.

Early summer birdwatching

After the heat of the week before last, we have had four days or so of rain. Driving home late Friday afternoon, after two days in the centre of Bristol, the countryside south of Exeter was green and wet, and the roadside verges lost in cow parsley. The early purple orchids have replaced the primroses, and the steep slopes of the Teign Valley are blurred by trees in full leaf.

I am never quite sure when spring ends and summer begins in this part of Devon, but this weekend it feels that we are on the cusp. As I write this post, Caroline is sitting listening to bird calls on the RSBP website (if you haven’t tried it you should), to fix the sounds in her mind. With the start of summer, it is increasingly hard to watch birds in the tree canopy, but you can still hear them. Walking through Yarner Wood a fortnight ago, the pied flycatchers were easy to spot, but tomorrow when we hope to get out again, it will be harder: deeper shadow and thickening leaf cover. This year we are determined to raise our bird watching game, and learn to identify them by song.

Late April we were in Wales, staying outside Brecon and mixing walking and birdwatching, and since then, and much closer to home, we have been in Yarner Wood (pied flycatchers and ravens), by the Hennock reservoirs (blackcaps and great crested grebes) and out on the northern moor (red grouse and ravens).

The highlight in Wales was climbing Pen y Fan, highest of the Beacons. We started from the Upper Neuadd Reservoir and climbed easily in hazy sun along the old Roman road.

At the gate at Bwlch ar y Fan, we turned left to Cribyn, the tops lost in low cloud. We heard, before we saw, a group of a dozen or so young men, loud and raucous, first on the path down from Fan y Big, and then coming up fast behind us. By this time they were quieter. Each had a pack, though not a Bergen, so we weren’t sure whether they were squaddies or a college trip.

They passed us easily (the speed of the young) and as they did, their two instructors (we met them on Cribyn, and learnt they were junior leaders) were not even puffing. It was somewhat different for us, but we finally reached the top of Pen y Fan, the final stage up the steep stone pitched path reminding us of Snowdon last year. Sunlight, and ravens in the sky.

We were back in Wales, walking with ravens.

Whither the legal profession?

A stellar panel at the University of Exeter’s symposium last Monday on A Hippocratic Oath for Lawyers: Stephen Sedley, Tony Pinching, Andrew Phillips, Andrew Holroyd (the President of the Law Society), Robin Tolson (leader of the Western Circuit), Kim Economides and an introductory paper by Julius Rocca, putting the proposition in context.

The question was raised in Kim Economides’ letter to the Times,

“Should there not be some kind of Hippocratic Oath for lawyers so that, in future, lawyers’ commitment to justice and the rule of law is more than purely rhetorical?”

An excellent event, academic and professional argument at its best, and a lot to think about; and yet, sadly, very few in the audience (and no truth in the rumour that the minute size of the wine glasses the University uses for entertainment puts people off!). Does the profession care enough? The answer it seems is not enough to want to take part in evenings such as this.

The eponymous Mr Balls

I am still chuckling at David Cameron’s joke, reported by Boulton & Co, and then picked up by James Forsyth in his excellent Coffee House post, Mocking Balls

“Ed Balls is the man with the most appropriate surname since Thomas Crapper invented the lavatory.”

Jacques Rogge and his history of China

It was hard to believe the report by Roger Blitz in the Weekend FT about Jacques Rogge

Like most sportsmen, politics barely featured in his upbringing. The 65-year-old Belgian combined a career as an orthopaedic surgeon with an aptitude for yachting that took him to three successive Olympics.

Reading the rest of the article, it seems that he probably passed on history as well,

“It took us 200 years to evolve from the French Revolution. China started in 1949. At that time it was a country of famine, epidemics, floods and civil war. It had no economy, no health care, no education system and there was 600m of them,” he says. “They had to build that and it was a bumpy road. We all know that there were abuses under Mao and the Cultural Revolution was not a nice period. But gradually, steadily, over 60 years, they evolved, and they were able to introduce a lot of changes.”

Back in 1949, Mr Rogge pointed out, the UK was a colonial power. So too were Belgium, France and Portugal, “with all the abuse attached to colonial powers. It was only 40 years ago that we gave liberty to the colonies. Let’s be a little bit more modest”. China may not be a role model in the west, Mr Rogge concedes, but “we owe China to give them time”.

It is hard whether to know whether to laugh or cry.