CountrySlide

Just how prepared for an apocalyptic event are Richard Prideaux and Callum McInerney-Riley?In light of the recent government push to ready the country for a 3-day disruption, the guys compare notes on readiness within their households.What starts as an audit of food, water, power and medicine rapidly becomes Schrödinger's generator, catastrophic sat-nav dependence, industrial quantities of baby wipes, home-grown quinoa, riverbank tomatoes and an increasingly unnecessary discussion about who would make the best emergency meal.Happy hundredth episode.CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.You can contact us by email on: [email protected]  Edited and Produced by Amy Green.Useful linksSideCountrySupport SideCountry on PatreonUK Government: Be Ready for emergenciesNational Cyber Security Centre: Smart devices in the homeParks Canada: The Franklin ExpeditionRay Dalio: Principles for Dealing with the Changing World Order DISCLAIMERViews are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.

With the guys otherwise engaged, Amy Green is joined by George Browne and Nick Adams for another entirely controlled discussion of rural Britain...maybe.Amy has been wandering erratically through the woods freaking people out. This leads, naturally, into whether horse logging is genuinely low impact or occasionally just a bit twee, Nick's free-jazz approach to planting trees, and George explains zen lawn mowing.  There are also dads trying to understand Instagram and "A1", the alarming circularity of feeding chicken to salmon and fish to chickens, 3D-printed vegan salmon that looks like it came out of Minecraft, and Nick's plan to play pool for 12 hours to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. Still technically a countryside podcast. CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.  Useful links:Support SideCountry on PatreonCountrySlide on SideCountrySponsor Nick's Pool MarathonBritish Horse LoggersWildFish: Off The TableDISCLAIMERViews are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.

Richard P is joined by George Browne and Nick Adams for an unusually representative cross-section of the British countryside: a lazy wood botherer, an aesthetically elevated writing wrangler and an angry man who stares at trees.George arrives bearing the signs of time spent butchering a Muntjac deer, Nick has celebrated turning another year over 40 by removing the roof from his shed just before heavy rain, and Richard has discovered that decades of questionable drainage decisions have created a sump beneath his house.Elsewhere there are Highland cows taking over British homeware, barn owls, Grand Designs Grey, forestry mistakes that may outlive the forester, the agricultural equivalent of the middle of Lidl, giant catering packs, pickled eggs in bags of crisps and a dog apparently capable of opening a packet more carefully than most humans.CountrySlide is a podcast that looks at farming, conservation and life in the British countryside.You can contact us by email on: [email protected]  Edited and Produced by Amy Green. DISCLAIMERViews are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.

This week, Callum follows Richard Negus on another side quest, this time to Barkway Literary Festival, where Richard has somehow been entrusted with explaining hedges to a live audience.Before they get anywhere near the subject there are M&M riders, Gemma Collins, a broken heating system, an increasingly judgmental dog and a collection of male wasps apparently spending their final days getting drunk on ivy.Eventually Callum McInerney-Riley asks the fairly fundamental question: what actually is a hedge layer?Richard explains why hedgelaying is almost as old as farming itself, how cutting and laying a hedge encourages new growth at the base, and why something that can initially look suspiciously like a wildlife crime can become considerably better habitat within a couple of years.From there, the conversation broadens into the role of working farmland in nature recovery, why conservation has to work for the farm as well as the wildlife, and Richard's defence of farmers and gamekeepers whose work often involves managing both habitat and predators.All recorded in front of an actual literary festival audience, before Richard wanders off to sign copies of Words from the Hedge and discovers that bringing a pen might have been useful.Useful links:Support SideCountry on PatreonBarkway Literary FestivalWords from the Hedge by Richard NegusNational Hedgelaying SocietyHigh Suffolk Farm Cluster: Patrick Barker on nature-friendly farmingSideCountryDISCLAIMERViews are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.

Harvest Festival is here, which gets Richard Negus and Callum McInerney-Riley wondering whether any of us actually know what is in season anymore.After an opening involving harvest hymns, Sunday school, Sandhurst church services and the possibility of a religious denomination based around lager, they eventually get onto food.Why can you buy asparagus and strawberries all year round? Have supermarkets disconnected us from the seasons? And why aren't we better at celebrating the particular foods grown in particular places, rather than simply importing the same things whenever we fancy them?There is a December blackberry cheesecake, the defence of the Sunday roast, memories of proper British food and some fairly unpleasant processed food from childhood. Richard remembers bedrooms full of stored apples, they discuss pickling and preserving gluts, and eventually conclude that the easiest gateway into eating British may simply be a full English breakfast.Richard also has details of the Big Breckland Breakfast in aid of rural mental health charity YANA.Useful links:SideCountrySideCountry Network on PatreonBig Breckland BreakfastYANA: Rural Mental Health SupportBritish Food FortnightDISCLAIMERViews are those of individual speakers and do not necessarily represent SideCountry, its presenters, contributors, partners or sponsors. For general information and entertainment only. Laws, seasons, access and guidance change; check official sources, obtain permission and act within your competence.