This is from Telegraph. Also on Twitter now.
1. Went to All-Party Gardening & Horticulture Group annual reception in Parliament last night.
Talked to Alan Titchmarsh. He told me: “I’m doing some gardening programmes for the BBC early next year that will be transmitted in a year’s time. But I’m not going to be doing Gardener’s World. There’s no truth in the rumours.” The BBC has delayed the announcement until the end of this week. Titch later embraced Tommy Walsh. A Groundforce reunion? Leads me to think where are they now-Tommy-Dansand promos and white van man insurance ads. Matt James-lecturer in Falmouth. Charlie Dimmock-Meridian TV slots, Portugese holiday home and retirement home promos. I could go on.
2. Titch’s two top gags, both introduced by “I was on my way to a literary festival in Yorkshire. [AT asking directions] Do you know Bradford turnoff? Local cloth cap: I should do, I married her.
In Huddersfield to a man in pub. Is Huddersfield twinned with anywhere? No, but I think it’s got a suicide pact with Ilkley. A version of the late comedian Linda Smith’s old gag on Erith and Dagenham.
3. Talking of BBC, backlash against Tree O’Clock. Beeb has spent £96,000 on whips for the world record planting attempt on 5 December promoted by Kate Humble on Autumnwatch. Anti-BBC papers such as Mail and Telegraph loved the tale. TaxPayers’ Alliance got angry about the waste of the cash, plus the £57,500 spent on Dig In seeds given out to TV watching gardeners this summer. But the comments on the web stories tended to say BBc money is better spent on trees than Jonathon Woss (yes Mail readers wrote Woss).
4. Back at Parliament, Royal National Rose Society says Butterfly World/Future Gardens nicked their carpark and wouldn’t give people directions to the RNRS garden, which attracted 8,500 visitors this year-they suggest that was more than FG.
5. No sign of under-fire MPs at APPHG such as regular attendees Andrew Dismore, who claimed a second home five miles from his constituency and Christopher Fraser, who is ‘stepping down’ at the next election. A Scottish hack rang me the other day to ask me what happened to former APGGH chair David Marshall. Marshall resigned as an MP and went to NZ after getting depression following exposure of employment of his family when an MP.
6. Quote of the week: “If gardening makes him so angry all the time, maybe he should get another hobby.” Who about whom?
7. Next best quote (how not to write from the Spectator): “The artful disposition of tulips in a garden is often problematic, anyway, since it can be difficult to make ramrod-straight flowering stems look at home in a lax setting, but it becomes downright impossible if the tulips that do survive to flower again are so random in their colours.”
8. Lia Leendertz upped her game last week on Guardian website possibly stung into action by criticism of the boring piece she wrote last week in Guardian mag. Former HW colleague Lia wrote about using human manure on the garden. What bodily emission or fluid next? Who will go there?
9. Talking to someone at APHG event about Countryfile. Apparently BBC is doing a kids’ version. They suggested it could be called: a – Kidsfile. B. Childrenfile. C. Paedofile.
10. I’m starting an easy guide to journalism. I think there is a need. Part one-avoid cliché (see number six-ramrod straight is hackneyed and tiresome for readers). Part two: defamation-malicious and false statements. Often end up in court cases. Part three: Plagiarism: stealing stories. Part four: Copyright infringement. Using material without consent. More next time.
11. Talked to Nicholas Marshall of Wyevale at APHGG event for the first time in a while - building bridges (that’s my new thing since parents got flooded out in Cumbria). Marshall said Hilary Benn going on about tree cover in UK doubling since 1919 was not so good because most of the extra 5 per cent was conifer plantations. Not bad for carbon-bad for biodiversity though.
12. Spoke to GIMA’s Neil Gow at APHGG. He said I had it in for the garden centre industry. A brave lone voice. Incidentally, Gow says his Xmas tree prices are going down this year. Most are going up by £5 because of lack of imports cos of euro. It’s in the papers.
13. Also spoke to Myles Bremner of Garden Organic about redundancies at the charity. He said they were in the admin dept. Just in time for Xmas etc. Webbs garden centre has taken over the retail side. Admin is being outsourced. Bremner kept doing that irritating thing that they teach in media training – asking you what you think when you ask them a question.
14. Talked to landscaper Paul Cowell at APHG. Cowell was on TV last week telling viewers that rogue traders were rife in landscaping and needed to be dealt with. I wrote the story for HW. A comment on our website: “Here is the OFT link that covers this in a little more detail and brings in into prospective. http://www.oft.gov.uk/news/press/2009/134-09 Tarmacing and paving had \(954), nearly a third of the complaints. I do however have to question if these should all be labelled as landscapers?"
Most landscapers I speak to say they are doing more and more hard landscaping. Any views? Other than it’s not us. Or obfuscation.
15. Went to a book launch of at Potterton Books in Sloane Square area last week. Met Rob Cassy, who is not just writing a novel, but a trilogy! Also went to Stewarts garden centre in Christchurch. Built bridges with Martin Stewart who was tending his own reindeer. And to New Forest Garden Plants in Hants. Alpine wars, the Jekka effect, the euro-it was all there.
16. I was going to run my popular garden awards this month but Martyn Cox has got in first. Thankfully I have won many nominations.
