1. Now on twitter at mattapple1
Best people following so far are Ben Fogle. The TV fop tweets: “Cor. Just chased four burglers [sic] from my garden while they were trying to break in to my house. Police everywhere.”
Alys Fowler tweets: “One-Armed Farmer Reveals The Most Over-Looked Secret That Grows You Mouth-Watering Organic Tomatoes http://gurlx.com/uei”
Ben Goldacre tweets: “I have been writing about this since 2000 and 3: nice to see govt and Daily Mail catch up tho http://bit.ly/7hgiwG”
Landscape man Matthew Wilson tweets: “To [sic] snowy Lincolnshire to film the first day of the second series of 'Landscape Man'. V exciting, if a little parky.”
Cleve West tweets: “Rained here during the night...ice skating anyone?”
Guerrilla gardener Richard Reynolds tweets: “More guerrilla Christmas tree decorating reported in the Daily Telegraph with a picture from Wimbledon Common. http://tinyurl.com/ybem8rv
I attempted to start a Rage Against the Machine style Christmas viral campaign to fill the media with pics of guerrilla garlanded (can you see what I did there) street trees. Very few of the gardening media tarts took any notice. Oh well, maybe a sleeper for next year.
2. This is some of my feedback from guerrilla garlanding requests: Huh, fat chance around here. A couple of years ago Weston Super Mare took down their tree because they couldn’t stop it being vandalized. Obviously to have done anything about the vandals would have infringed their human liberties so this was the only course open to the council. The preferable alternative of stringing the little thugs up to the top of the tree as a substitute for the fairy could be seen as politically incorrect, however since the fairy is usually female (even in Weston) such an action could be seen as a welcome blow for sexual equality. Please could you get a ruling from Harriet Harman on this.
Also... Why not go and decorate one yourselves, and film it? Make a great fun video, plus could go viral...
3. Monty Don has been hard at work listing what gardening gifts to buy. All men like a blade apparently. http://alturl.com/fuvf
4. Lookalikes: HTA's David Gwyther and 'my name is' Michael Caine.
5. A six-foot Christmas tree which a couple planted in their garden in 1979 has reached 50 foot tall, according to reports http://alturl.com/dcc3. Avril and Christopher Rowlands bought the pine tree, which they only expected to grow to ten feet tall, from a garden centre for £6 in 1979, making it a garden bargain. After becoming a focal point of the village - Inkberrow, Worchester [sic] - the eye-catching tree has been attracting visitors from around the world.
5. http://alturl.com/ckbz
Some new stats on building over back gardens, a story that has been dead during the housebuilding recession.
6. http://alturl.com/95do
Sister mag Regen goes on about ministerial departments paying too much for plants.
7. Talking of politicians, Peter Mandelson said: “If you ask me where in 15 or 20 years’ time I’d like to be, it will be probably on a farm somewhere close to the land, getting up early in the morning. I want to be able to grow my own food. Look after my own farm animals, worry about the weather and get the timing of my harvest right.”
8. And Michael Heseltine says he blames himself for explosion in the number of magpies there are in the UK now because of his 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act making it illegal to cull ‘nuisance birds’ without a licence. Parakeets are in for the reverse fate with new laws to allow their shooting.
9. Eden Project is organising another Big Lunch on 18.7.10. Maybe garden centres will cash in more this time as consultant John Connel suggested they might have in 2009, when one million had street parties to celebrate homegrown/local/community etc.
10. Kirstie Allsopp. A mole tells me her director kept repeating ‘more chat’ when filming Homemade Christmas. Kirstie says she was too tired to talk. She’d be nice really if not knackered, says my mole.
11. Diarmuid Gavin is on Celebrity Come Dine With Me Christmas Special on 22/12 C4 8.30pm with David Gest, Sherrie Hewson and Hannah Waterman. Daily Telegraph associate Tim Richardson asked where is he now in recent DT annual gardening review, naming DG as a ‘faller’ in his trends chart. Well, he will get more viewers for this than any gardening programme in 2009. Except Chelsea Flower Show, where DG is due to return in 2010.
12. Maxine Hardcastle claims in court she has been attached by former Playboy glamour model Louise Glover. http://alturl.com/tfv2. Maxine is the daughter of ‘19’ musician Paul Hardcastle, one of the two number one artists I have interviewed. The other is Kim Wilde. Where is she now? Merry Xmas everyone!
