I’m a Londoner born and bred. A rare breed in the capital which has become a melting pot of “diversity”. While I was growing up my mother ensured that my tones remained dulcet by sending me to speech and drama lessons. Every now and again the proper Sarf London accent comes out, but only when […]
April 11, 2011
It’s an image that would stir emotion in even the most hardened of hearts. What on earth would possess someone to do this to another living organism? This photograph was printed in yesterday’s UK newspaper News of the World, and is a clear example of man’s capacity to harm in the most primitive way. I […]
April 1, 2011
I would love to take credit for this headline and this story, but I can’t! A great piece in The Sun newspaper, about scientists giving gorillas at Port Lympne Wild Animal Park in Kent a new toy. Animal behaviour experts handed out iPads to five great apes in an experiment to test cognition and to keep […]
March 12, 2011
This week I was mortified to see just how much my electric bill has gone up. It’s a utility I know I can’t live without, but it makes me so cross that certain companies are hiking up their prices even when they’ve earned a bumper profit in the recession. Electricity is something I think we […]
March 7, 2011
A half-century ago, more than three-quarters of Indonesia, was blanketed in plush tropical rainforest. But today it’s a different story; the growing demand to feed the world with pulp, paper and more recently palm oil (which is used in everything from lipstick and soap to “clean-burning” fuel) has seen half those trees destroyed leaving the organtuan […]
March 1, 2011
The bushmeat trade in Europe made the headlines in June after researchers revealed that more than 270 tonnes pass through Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris a year. The study published in the journal, Conservation Letters, was the first of its kind. Now there’s growing concern that chimpanzee meat is allegedly being sold in underground bushmeat markets in […]
February 14, 2011
She’s an ageing red-head, who’s had three “husbands” and four kids, but Nénette’s life is far from fulfilled. Unlike most Parisian women her age, she is not a lady of leisure, she is in fact a prisoner in her own home. The 40-year orangutan is the subject of the latest documentary by Nicolas Philibert, famed for […]
February 7, 2011
Since 1996, one hundred and forty park rangers have been killed by rebel militia, for trying to protect Virunga National Park and the species within it. According to the charity, the Gorilla Organization, the park has suffered more ranger deaths than any other protected area in the world and in recent weeks the violence has escalated due […]
January 13, 2011
Tomorrow is my birthday and it’s true that the years seem to speed up as I get older. How did I get to be this age? (21 again in case you’re wondering). When the Northerner asked me what I wanted for my birthday I was remarkably restrained, and told him a nice day with a […]
May 19, 2011
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