Catching The Rain

When is a knotweed a weed?

The Daily Mail is today reporting “Attack of the super weed hits Olympics” and suggesting that clearing 10 acres of this pesky little plant could cost £70 million.  They go on to say:

Surveyors have discovered that the aggressive weed has taken over 10 acres of the proposed sites for the velodrome and aquatic centre in Stratford.

I wonder how much that surveyor (oh, sorry, surveyors - it took more than one of them!) was being paid to identify it, when someone with the most basic of botanical skills would have known what it is.  And given the suggestion that its presence on the site is some new discovery, just when did it magically appear?

Specialists can charge up to £40,000 to clear only six square yards of ground affected by the weed, which has been called the most invasive plant in Britain.

The logic in the assumption that this means it will be £70m to clear the lot is beyond me.  Answers on a postcard please….

Got a problem? Blame global warming!

I hesitate to post this, seeing as the subject of global warming is clearly a serious one, but if nothing else it shows how the politicians and headline writers grab hold of things and twist them to their own ends. In fact I have just remembered that I posted something similar myself back in October 2006. But this list - Got a problem? Blame global warming! - knocks the socks off my feeble attempt! Here are a few of my personal favourites….

• better beer
• Earth lopsided
• extinctions (human, civilisation, logic, Inuit, smallest butterfly, cod, ladybirds, bats, pandas, pikas, polar bears, pigmy possums, gorillas, koalas, walrus, whales, frogs, toads, turtles, orang-utan, elephants, tigers, plants, salmon, trout, wild flowers, woodlice, penguins, a million species, half of all animal and plant species, less, not polar bears)

And that’s just three points out of about a hundred in the full list

Just what is Yorkshire forced indoor rhubarb?

Well, I knew the answer to that one as posed on the BBC website, but I confess I’d never heard of the Lincolnshire Rhubarb Triangle. Any Bermuda connections? Or do you think they’re just trying to trade off the name?

I want one - Peter Callesen art

I stumbled across some wonderful paper cut-out works of art by Peter Callesen. There are many that are botanically inspired, with my favourites being the framed pieces with cut-outs of apples, leaves and petals - go to the page ‘Framed A4 Papercut’ and scroll down through them. Some of the ones with little people in them are also really great.

Simple, but brilliant.