AND SO now the worm turns!

After months of saying eating meat is bad for you, the general press this week leapt on the headline that eating meat is actually good for you!

As well as the Norwegian Prime Minister virtually telling his fellow Scandinavians to fill up on red meat, a new survey of 12 trials across 54,000 people has arrived at the fact that there was no ‘greater statistically significant risk of heart disease, cancer or diabetes’ from eating meat three or four days a week.

Unusually, this has brought some balance to the argument. Maybe a balanced diet is the way after all ... well we all could have told them that!

No signal? No problem

WE all like to have better ‘connectivity’? But do we?

An owner of a rural ‘digital detox’ B and B is fighting her local council over phone mast upgrades which would remove her relative exclusivity as an ‘off grid’ business.

Sarah Redman, at Creeside Farm, in South-west Scotland, is lobbying to have the land around her farm protected as an official offline black spot to boost off-grid tourism.

She has asked her local authority to prevent the introduction of 3G, 4G and 5G networks in the area so that customers, who enjoy staying at her remote hut to get away from the plights of modern technology, will come back time and again.

Despite most rural residents pleading for better connectivity in the countryside, Ms Redman is lobbying South Ayrshire Council to keep her land as a ‘black spot,’ so that her customers will be unable to access social media or the internet.

Ms Redman said her business was particularly popular with millennials, who flock to her phone-free shepherd’s hut retreat more than any other generation. “The fact we don’t have wi-fi or reliable signal at our Shepherd’s Hut B and B is a big selling point,” she said.

Light relief

AT THE red meat industry crisis meeting in Thainstone this week, there was at least some light relief from the heavy duty discussion, from well-known Borders farmer, Robert Neil.

While answering a question about teaching children about ‘real’ agriculture, he said that he once introduced a field of spring barley to visiting kids as ‘a crop which was going to produce your national drink.’

One of the little cherubs piped up: “Oh jings [he might actually have been a bit more express-ful than that!] a field full of Irn Bru!”

And, on breeding useful traits into beef cattle, to some applause, he said: “The main worry for me is that the genetics of the human race is knackered – we’ve stopped breeding common sense.” Many a true word spoken in jest.

But maybe the sobering quote of the night came from an audience member: “Vegans can’t change the world – but farmers can!”