Hannah Montana Rocks ....

Sometimes, as a parent you are asked to perform great sacrifices for your children.  Sometimes, parent / child bonding means sitting beside each other ... saying nothing.  Keres ... (its Fijian, don’t ask) ... is the scariest five year old girl on earth.  I really try to say no to her, but can’t.  Her interests include style, fashion, singing, fairies, princesses, getting her photo taken and telling her father what to do.  

To incorporate most of the aforementioned - she told me to watch her heroine in ‘Hannah Montana: The Movie’ last night ... but to be quiet for its entire duration. I duly obliged.

Now this isn’t quite the sacrifice you might imagine.  The TV series has to be one of the best written children’s programmes I’ve seen (I’m being serious for a change!) and the absolute comic genius of Jackson (Miley/Hannah’s brother) is a wonder..... Have I just admitted I like Hannah Montana? .... let’s move on quickly.

I need to explain that the gist of the entire plot for every episode (and hence the film) is that Miley is a plain, normal girl but can put on a blond wig and become Hannah Montana - the most phenomenal teen music sensation in the world ... no one notices the facial similarities ... just the hair colour.  

The movie involves Miley/Hannah returning to her home town in Tennessee. She has become more Hannah than Miley and is a bit pretentious.  She meets a boy with lots of hair.  The boy is salt of the earth.  He has been given a chance to start farming by Miley’s grandma.  If he does up the chicken coup, he can sell the eggs (yes ... the farming ladder has reached mainstream ... I knew it would).  Miley doesn’t understand.  He says you have to start somewhere and that its all about “the climb”.  He stole this from me .... as in - its all in the struggle - but as he has more hair than me and the film was made before I thought of this - I’ll let him off ..... She is working on a song.  He says its OK, but his main criticism is that its not about anything.

In the end, she has let 'barnet boy' down by lying to him.  She does up the chicken coup to say sorry.  She plays a concert in her home town as Hannah but when she sees the boy with the hair style [who by now has grown a huge hat] ... she can’t continue.  She takes off the wig and sings the song she was working on, as her true “Miley self” ... this time its about something ... its about first generation farming ... its about life ... its about the process, not the result ...  its about “The Climb”. The coiffured egg seller boy smiles ... so does Miley ... [sigh].  

Please listen intently to the lyrics ... raise your arms ... sway them from side to side .... and enjoy (without smiling):

The End.  

Keres tells me to stop crying ... I try to do what I am told.  

Who would have thought Miley Cyrus would be the siren for the farming ladder and first generation farmers.  I think we've just found a new theme tune .... watch out, my next karaoke victims .... especially as its in completely the wrong key for a bass baritone!!!

Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em ....

I see this job in the paper.  £25k p.a. ... 21 hours per week ... really positive and proactive role which could seriously move Scotland’s rural economy forward .... even with me involved.  SRDP applications (my consultancy bread and butter) look as if they will be the equivalent of urinating into a strong south westerly next year; I might have a lot less sheep aswell and then there is always the threat of caravan living again.  All in all, £25k for half a week looks a sensible strategic move.

I apply at the last minute, juggling a SRDP deadline on the same day. 

I get an interview.  We have to do a presentation on one of the many subjects I know nothing about (its a long list). I do some research and even talk to someone about it.

The interview goes well.  They are very nice.  I do however talk about the Rural Leadership course I did in 2009 and describe the moment when we had an American Rural Policy guru giving his opinion on our individual presentations ....  I blurt out that he “touched” me (I might explain this one day).  Fortunately, they obviously don’t assume it was in the physical sense .... phew.

They phone me again.  Lambing and Nuffield commitments are a concern but they seem keen.

Get a call today, offering me the job ...  Back of the Net!! .... We review the terms and conditions ... get to the pay.  “So if its £25,000 pro rata” .... [pause, my end] .... PRO RATA! .... that’s half what I was thinking ... I consider just accepting the job to avoid embarrassment but manage to substitute this by saying “sorry” 34 times in 2 minutes.

Note to self: read the damn advert properly before applying for a job.

It wasn’t THE most embarrassing moment I’ve had to endure in my life ... but its a brand new entry in my top forty.

FREEEEEDOOOMMM!

It was Saturday night. The conference had ended. A massive 14.285714% (every little helps) of 2010 scholars had stayed for the final night.  Though this number didn’t include “groupies”.  As the lonely Scot I felt some pressure to make suggestions .... what did I come up with?  Scottish folk music!  Albeit semi-acoustic. Being “cool” is so over-rated, you know.

The Scotsman Lounge is my favourite pub in Edinburgh. More a Spit Only pub as they think Sawdust is for girls.  We could have gone to the trendy bars or the student pubs with Irish names ... but the Scotsman is part of Scotland many visitors don’t see .... or at least see and live to tell the tale.

Bearing in mind the guests were Sassenachs, I’m sure they felt comfortable and welcome with the dominant display above the bar:

Its from the Declaration of Arbroath, that declared Scottish Independence from England in 1320 .... we take a while to let go, north of the border! The two piece band played their own songs about love lost and the solace of alcohol.  When I first started going it was all about the protest song ... about oppression, injustice, the struggle, the fight, the revolution and the socialist way.  William Wallace, Robert the Bruce, the Jacobites, the Highland Clearances, the love of this country .... our country.  The oppressors were usually the English or the landowners .... or worse still, the English landowners.  A high proportion of my good friends are English - and some even own land - but when I used to step into the Scotsman there was a fever that took hold.  The thought of truth being repressed, compassion being discarded and justice being suffocated, does that to a man and makes you sing louder.  

This is mere history ... it just happened to involve the English (sorry) but the bottom line is ... all this anger involves the lust of some for wealth and therefore the lust for land. It’s not just the Scots and the English, its a common theme throughout the world with a few notable variations.

This culture permeates rural society a millennium on. People used to fight and die for land in the UK, so at least there’s been some form of progress.  Yet land still brings out a certain avarice in folk.  There is a significant minority of farmers that would rather farm 1000 acres at a loss, than 100 acres at a profit.  Land is emotional, it can become a fever, having more land is often the most important priority in a farmer’s brain.

This culture resists any temperance on who can own land, it gives rich approval to taxation breaks for land ownership, and, most importantly, it prevents trust in new (and even existing) ways to lease land.  After a 1,000 years - despite all the singing - land is still guarded warily and possessively.  Some people really want it, some people really want to keep it ..... nothing has changed.

This is the culture that saturates our soil .... to change it, seems impossible.  But there is hope - I reckon there is a reason why the two piece sing no longer of protest and prefer the more important things in life - love and good times. 11 years ago the Scottish Parliament opened and I have sensed a shift in culture since.  Scotland had a voice again, its destiny was partly in its ownership, we as a people had a bit of hope and pride.  It gave us an opportunity to make our own decisions.  I feel we love the English a bit more as a nation now because they were, in many respects, unselfish by helping Holyrood happen.

If not a bit more love, then at least a bit more unselfishness, a bit less fever, a bit more trust - from both sides of the land question - would go a long way to letting go of the past .... forgiving and forgetting .... and - for first generation farmers - walking on with hope in our hearts.

We've Only Got 12 Minutes to Save the World ....

And so they came ... to a place known as Edinburgh, birth place of Michael the Strange, son to Doreen the Nag.  Guided by the almighty Stones, they arrived. 

This was the location of the Nuffield conference.  2009 scholars each do their 12 minute talk.  We drink beer, but only after dark. I talk to some very interesting individuals.  A few people laugh at my jokes (.... and my flies weren’t even undone). 

The talks are intriguing.  There are some really good ones.  I imagine doing mine next year. I nip out to purchase additional underpants.  Later, I picture getting asked an aggressive question.  I nip out to get more handkerchiefs.  Then, I worry about what to say and envisage myself getting all emotional.  I nip out to pick up extra valium.

What struck me were the good ones.  One chap was a natural orator, used no notes that I could see and was incredibly lucid.  One guy was clever, original, with a wit so sharp you had to say “ouch”.  Another though was probably the most entertaining.  He talked on a controversial subject but was very funny and unconventional.  I heard later that his talk split opinion - a few were disapproving.  Apparently it wasn’t serious enough!!  I guess this disappoints me but maybe this is my first brush with stuffiness and as such it is a navigation point.  I might bring my target of 24 jokes in 12 minutes down in slight compromise ... and even incorporate at least one fact.

I noticed many were really professional, they were very controlled emotionally ... this is obviously a sensible thing.  I panic about when its my turn ... I think of embarrassment and a weird hybrid of Gwyneth Paltrow at the Oscars and Kevin Keegan getting mad with Sir Alex ... expressed through a 12 minute talk format about first generation farmers .... I’m nipping out again - and this time, I’m buying in bulk.

Two Missed Meals from Revolution ....

It is 2030. Simon Cowell is Prime Minister, elected via the red button on everyone’s remote .... Ant and Dec stay in No11 and manage the nation’s finances in an amusing, laddish way .... most importantly, Scotland have just won the Rugby World Cup .... again (its getting embarrassing now).  I am still writing this blog and have now managed to attract 12 followers ... though of these, two have fallen into deep comas due to reading too much dull and weird internet content.      

The price of land has reached £100,000 per acre.  The UK sheep flock has reduced from 15,000,000 to 650 (and they are all mine .... still on seasonal lets).  Land is owned primarily by merchant bankers, horsey folk and businessmen, not of UK domicile. As a result of the land price, agricultural rents need to be £3,000 per acre but profits on that acre are still only around £100.  In most sectors we have to import 95% of what our population consumes (but most worryingly, 100% of all Kebabs).  All fertiliser and oil are China’s by international law and we have to make do with used chip fat ... luckily everyone is force-fed chips now to ensure their early demise, so that pension costs are kept low.

Liquid farm subsidy has been invented so land “users” / subsidy junkies can just administer it directly through intramuscular injection and thus save bank charges.  The last farm tenancy awarded was in 2015 and people refer to it with the same deference as the last person to be hanged.  There are a few people trying their best to produce food but mostly land has become a great way of 1) retaining wealth - with the help of fiscal policy (Ant and Dec are quite happy with this as they own most of Northumberland) - and 2) having REALLY big gardens.

But all is not well.  For it was foretold by the Great Sayer in the year of our Lord, 2009 that there would be a Perfect Storm in 2030. Formerly know as John Beddington, the Great Sayer was taken as an idol by a ragged band of agrarian militants. He foretold what has now happened: that the increasing world population  - now standing at 10 billion - would mean a whole series of other events would come together: water shortages; energy shortages and .... food shortages.  The smelly, ragged militants argued that land should be accessible to those who want to farm, innovate and drive efficient production ... they weren’t the same people as the merchant bankers, horsey folk and businessmen, not of UK domicile .... daaa!  No one listened. Agriculture stagnated and declined. The Great Sayer was last seen, wearing placards predicting the end of the world, drinking meths and shouting a lot, at Kings Cross Station.  

In 2012 the crack band of agrarian militants were sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit (and for words, they couldn’t spell properly or put in the right order). These men promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade to the rural underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as shepherds of fortune. [OK I plagiarised this bit].

But the foretelling has come to pass.  Due to a comprehensive transport strike by the damned French there is no food ... at all ... not even the nut based chocolates in the Quality Street tins.  No one had any breakfast today (apart from those that had once bought a packet of All Bran and then thought better of it) and everyone has had to miss lunch too.  Shops are being looted, cars set alight and we march toward Holyrood and Westminster with revolution in our hearts and just a little All Bran in our bellies (the latter does necessitate longer “rest” stops than normal).

I’ve sent this message via my new time machine, Blogspot application - I wish I had it before.  You need to contact the militants, you need to tell them to try harder this time, they shouldn’t get self-conscious about boring people.  It may seem dull and unimportant all this, merit based progression and the importance of land accessibility, waffle ... but one day .... this day, in 2030 ... when revolution looms and Simon Cowell’s life is in danger ... it will be the most important thing in the world. 

Good luck .... you’ll need it.  Lots of love and hugs

Michael (3 year old trapped in a 61 year old body) xoxo

The Michael O'Clock News ...

22nd of September. I’ve had better days.  Occasionally you get a 16 hour period where you stumble upon whatever the collective noun is for .... lots of crap news:

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Imaginary blog video of a newscast from 22.9.2010

Announcer 

(patronising, slightly cynical, mid atlantic tone)

“And now on Channel Blanche its the Michael O’Clock News where events of little consequence are reported over-dramatically”:... 

[Cue dramatic, drum-based music combined with cool visual graphics of sheep] ... 

DONG (this represents a bell chime and not a rude word)....   

[cut to serious man with a serious hairstyle, and an even more serious voice] .... 

Newsreader with the Hair

(impressively theatrical)

“Michael ... [coughs whilst blurting the word Plonker] ... said to be devastated after been given notice on his grazing” ... [cut to picture of Michael making a funny face] .... 

DONG .... 

[you don’t want to know the rest - its irrelevant, slightly dull and caravan related]

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I think that had potential but didn’t fulfill (or even half-fill) it.  Anyway, bottom line is I have to be off all the grass I have ... every last blade ... by next Spring. Not because I am a cad or a bounder (... this time, at least) but just because the landlord wants to farm it himself now.  His consultant has been nagging him that he needs to concentrate more on his farming operation .... his consultant is some “plonker” called Michael Blanche! He’s been really good to me, he’s given me five years and I have proceeded to build a flock of an ok size and feather my warm and cozy comfort zone with super-soft downy material.

So now I need to go round Land Agent’s ... buy a cap and make sure I doff it ... and try to understand that my sheep flock isn’t of any concern or importance to anyone else other than me.  I need to make some phone calls, introduce myself, try and find persuasive chat from somewhere and charm pants off people.  Its uncomfortable though.  I’ve been on places where I was a couple of pounds lighter in the flesh department between arriving and leaving.  I’ve been on places where the feudal system is stronger now than it was in the days of William of Orange.  I’ve been on places where my tongue was bitten every day and I spoke with a lisp for months afterwards.  Renting land is just business; my sheep are just passion.  Its not a good mix - when practicality meets passion there is usually only one winner.   

Being given notice may be the best or the worst thing to happen.  I could get more ground, more control, more security. Yet there is the very credible possibility of not finding grass at all; finding grass but not at a price I can make a worthwhile profit; or finding too little grass. I might get a 6 month let and have to go through the process all over again and bi-annually thereafter thus maintaining a constant state of desparation.  I may have to sell all the sheep or a large proportion of them .... and thus sell the dream to the highest bidder in a market place full of wide awake people.  

This position represents a defining paradox in my study ... I have to take sides in my thinking at some point and support one attitude or another:  is it the system’s fault I find it really difficult to get land .... or, is it mine?  I’ve noticed that since returning from Australia and New Zealand where every success and failure was attributed to the individual (and any other reasoning is blatant whinging), that I’ve been sucked back in to this British culture of blaming the system. Land is incredibly difficult to obtain for a price that you are able to grow a business without subsidy.  Control is minimal. Length of term is pitiful. You can be dropped on a whim. It causes frustration and I understand where this culture has come from ... its not illogical.  But first generation farming is all in the struggle.  Struggle is good because it makes you better.  Getting into farming should be hard .... but it also needs to be possible.  That’s the fine line.

Obviously if I fail - its the system’s fault ... if I succeed - its all down to me!  Place your bets please, ladies and gentlemen, place your bets.

Birds - I'll never understand them ....

Day 2. Somewhere in Devon.  I’ve been adopted by a very nice family, who feel sorry for me.  They feed me organic chicken and duck confit.  They give me Jack Daniels ..... straight. They put up with my inane chat despite having a very long to-do-list.  They let me do a few easy jobs that I make difficult; which in the end would have been easier to do themselves. There are a lot of birds, making a lot of incoherent noises.

I’m at Higher Fingle Farm, home of the Amiss family .... all seven of them.  They are so nice I get kind of emotional just thinking about them and their kindness.  Rona Amiss is a Nuffield Scholar too, one of the brethren that knows the secret handshake and the code words (OK the last bit is just an attempt to make it sound mysterious).  Both her and her husband, Nevil, are the kind of humble people that I warm to.  Before I visited - Rona’s portrayal of their business was modest and self-deprecating. This made me feel comfortable as I have a great deal to be modest and self-deprecating about.

As a team, however, Nevil and Rona have built an incredibly impressive business from very little.  They are Country Living/Waitrose Gold Medal winners; suppliers to Duchy Originals and thus best mates with Prince Chaz; their daughter, Elsa, has been on Blue Peter and the Alan Titchmarsh Show for the Duck Egg business she set up.  They have more awards than anyone I have ever known.

Their farm is only 57 acres yet they are both full time and progressing. They employ two men full time, more part time. The keys to having this kind farm business on just 57 acres are 1) intensive enterprises - ducks and duck eggs; 2) added value - the ducks are branded, organic, killed and butchered on the premises, some sold retail; 3) marketing; 4) profiting from their expertise (they have another business that contracts out organic broiler chicken production); 5) more marketing and 6) even more marketing with sugar on top.

Apart from their resourcefulness, I was most amazed at their marketing (as you may have guessed already). Most Thursdays I put some lambs in my trailer, drive to Stirling, drop them off (whilst trying too hard to bond with the yardsmen), get a coffee and a sausage roll, then drive back.  Sometimes I phone later to ask what they made. That’s it ... that’s my marketing.  It seems that half Rona and Nevil’s business is marketing .... and 99% of their reasons for getting to where they are.  They could have still had the brilliant products but they had to be marketed and that meant actually doing deals and selling as opposed to opening a trailer door in Stirling.

Nevil took me on a tour of Higher Fingle .... we saw ducks, sheep, cattle and the butchery. Rona took me on a tour of Devon .... we saw chickens .... more chickens ... and cute little ducklings.  I suspect I had my jaw open most of the time.  This poultry job amazes me.  We met a man that probably made close to £50k profit off 38 acres (more in the good times) and got planning permission for a beautiful house, because of his profitability.  Intensity of production means intensity though.  There is always a threat of stress because there is always a threat - broken contracts, grain price spikes, over-supply, poor end price.  Poultry is heading into difficult times and threats loom large.  

I headed back to Scotland with clucks and quacks ringing in my ears. Intensity of production ... its still the way forward but I’ll need to do more than open trailer doors.