Grantchester Meadows

In Cambridgeshire there is a golf course which is completely organic. You'll have to forgive me, I missed the name of the course, but there was a report about it on Five Live the other day. I emailed the station to ask if they could send me the name, but ... . Anyway, the point about this is that it demonstrates the extent to which golf developments are being planned in a way that they have strong environmental elements. The course itself has separate meadows for flowers and birds, while a river attracts numerous types of wild fowl. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has been involved in the planning of the course, and the representative from the RSPB said that, though golf courses can be harmful to the environment, managed correctly there is no reason why courses cannot co-exist happily with nature.

Instinctively, I'm inclined to believe this. A development that just ploughs up habitats unthinkingly is no good, and this may well have been the case in the past: one thinks of all the conversion of unproductive agricultural land in Britain that was turned over to golfers. Yet, why shouldn't the two make for environmental bedfellows? In the Cambridgeshire case, the golfers themselves are said to be all in favour because of the ambience created, while apparently the Royal and Ancient now have firm environmental management policies.

One says all this in connection with courses in Mallorca, especially those in the planning or to be developed, such as the one in Muro about which there has been such a protracted environmental hoo-hah. Things have gone pretty quiet on the Son Bosc development front, but the Gobby lobby have had its latest objection rejected, one that centred on a less-than-favourable report by its own people being ignored by the environment ministry.

I have never understood why there has been such a fuss, other than the fact that the course might turn out to be a white elephant. From an environmental point of view, it surely can be made to work. Perhaps the Muro developers should be talking to those in Cambridgeshire who are making it work.


Continuing Columbus
And ever more on the Columbus story, and once again thanks to Dom for his feedback on this. There is a blog site - http://www.medievalnews.blogspot.com - which would be good for any of you who might have a general interest in history, but specifically it ran a thing on 26 October entitled "Scholar casts doubt on claims that Columbus was a Catalan". This reports views of a Dr. Diana Gilliland Wright who questions the significance of a particular form of punctuation used by Columbus and said to be indicative of Catalan of the time. She says that this was used elsewhere, for instance by the Venetians who were of course Italian, even if Venice is some distance from Genoa. Moreover, she says that spelling at that time was "fluid", which does to a degree support my own view that Columbus could very easily have acquired a "polyglot tongue" especially if his written works were grafted onto what was effectively a blank canvas as native Genoese did not have a written language as such.


Light Up The Sky
'Tis that time of the year. There is even a Bonfire Night tomorrow night at the Mallorca Cricket Club ("the island's premier ex-pat community family event , it says: why do they spell expat with a hyphen; it's one word). But note that it is Bonfire Night, not Guy Fawkes. We've stopped having guys. We don't burn effigies. Or do we? Somewhere in Surrey, they put Jordan to the flame yesterday. What a splendid idea, all that silicone exploding, while a touch of satire, rather like the giant heads in Mallorca at fiesta time, are often satirical representations of local politicians and others. Makes me think. Who would I burn? A couple of clients I can think of could do with a good dousing. Who would you burn? Step forward - probably - Gordon and any number of MPs, but otherwise ... ?


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - The Police, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYZQYui8Svc. Today's title - well, don't know that it is Grantchester, but it'll do. Two questions - who was the poet who wrote about Grantchester - "stands the church clock at ten to three" - and which band did something with this title?

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