I DID have a laugh this week after new research has shown that seagulls in Aberdeen are becoming angrier because of their diet consisting of thrown away chips and ice-cream!

I can fully attest that a diet of chips and ice-cream doesn’t do much for humans either given the antics of a handful of NAYFC members in Blackpool last weekend.

However, I can also report that the fragile ecosystem in the South Atlantic islands of South Georgia has been restored after a 10-year project to rid the islands of rats and mice which had arrived there in whaling ships.

A system of rat baiting, trapping and finally using specially trained sniffer dogs dubbed Team Rat, have been used to get rid of the rodents which had been feasting on birds eggs from the British protectorate.

Love is on the air

BBC 2’s ‘Love in the Countryside’ – which aired on Wednesday night – is hotting-up and becoming quite spicy!

This week’s episode had the rural singletons inviting not just one of their prospective partners back to their farms, but three and the move definitely livened things up and it’s quite apparent who is cut out for country life and who is not.

Dairy farmers, bluff Yorkshireman, Pete, and charming Lancastrian, Ed, both have eyes for glamorous Francesca, but is she really cut out for love on the farm?

“It’s a really strange situation to be in,” she says. A real Battle of the Roses. Can’t wait for next week!

SNP and DNA

ACROSS The Raider’s desk this week came a missive about DNA and SNP.
But if, like me, you thought that the DNA of the SNP was quite simple – it had a saltire running through it – then think again.

For this SNP is actually ‘single nucleotide polymorphism’ testing, which is a much more comprehensive test than most others and is being introduced by the British Charolais Cattle Society to back up its pedigree register.

It uses a chip which the hair, tissue or semen samples are tested on and produces 50,000 gene markers and for the purposes of parentage analysis molre than 200 are used. 

Wonder if we did do a DNA test on the entire SNP membership what the results would be – maybe we’re all vikings, or Germans?