Recent research has shown that a lack of exposure to the countryside and more rural environments may have led to a vast increase in allergies. I really do wonder sometimes why it takes highly qualified scientists to spend years researching what, to me, is just plain old fashioned common sense!

Forgive me for this extremely short and hastily written article but this is an emergency “mission of mercy”. Many of us here in the UK are concerned about government plans to set in motion a badger cull due to a major epidemic of bovine tuberculosis which is supposedly spread from the migration of badgers.

I think most of us are aware April 2012 marked the centenary of the fateful night when the RMS Titanic sank. We know the story – this was a huge cruise ship which was professed to be unsinkable. It was, at the time, an extraordinary achievement – a modern, well fitted out ship which was designed to provided accommodation for a diverse range of passengers from the rich and famous, through the middle classes, to the lowly workers and their families who had saved avidly for months from their meagre income in order to travel to pastures new lookng for a better quality of life.