Plus our property of the day and the quiz.
A memory you’ll never forget
A wedding is a very special day, I’m told. A celebration of love, of union, and so on. Usually assisted with lots of drinks and nice food and some pictures to keep and treasure forever. I always wonder how long people keep their wedding photos and if they do ever look at them in later life? Well, if my wedding photos looked like these, I imagine I would look at them every day.
Andri Tei won the Couple Portrait award with this shot. Credit: IWPOTY Awards 2024
These are winning entries from this year’s International Wedding Photographer of the Year awards, which has been won by Bettina Vass of Iceland with this shot of Mauli & Christian inside an ice cave.
Wedding photography is not easy work, as our very own Millie Pilkington has told us on the Country Life Podcast. It’s great to see the talents of wedding photographers getting recognition, and if anything these pictures show great creative artists at work.
This image, taken by Ben Lane of Tinted Photography, won the Engagement Session prize. Credit: IWPOTY Awards 2024
The wedding photography industry is just brimming with excitingly talented photographers,’ says curator Luke Simon. ‘The 8th International Wedding Photographer of the Year Awards highlights to us just the tip of the iceberg. We’re grateful that this year is the largest to date and we had a 50% increase in the number of photographers submitting entries, and a 25% increase in the number of entries overall.’
We’re already looking forward to next year.
Quiz of the day
1) The French mal de mer refers to what ailment?
2) Who wrote Gulliver’s Travels?
3) A Nebuchadnezzar of wine contains the equivalent of how many standard bottles?
4) What does an onomast study?
5) What colour is the mineral malachite?
Fishy business
Credit: Getty
What is the purpose of a law if you do not choose to enforce it? That was the question asked by conservation charity WildFish of Ofwat, the Environment Agency and Defra with regards to pollution entering English rivers.
Their complaint was upheld by the Office of Environmental Protection in a ruling yesterday, which found that Ofwat, Defra and the EA have all failed to implement the law on sewage treatment, and have therefore allowed water companies to pollute our rivers unlawfully for years.
‘What the OEP’s announcement has clarified is that much of the storm sewage pollution that is plaguing English rivers would not be occurring had Government and regulators done their jobs properly,’ says Guy Linley-Adams, in-house solicitor at WildFish. ‘Storm sewage pollution should have been — and must now be — brought to an end under 30-year-old statutory and regulatory obligations.’
Mr Linley-Adams went on to say that the ‘unlawful’ permits given to water companies should be reviewed ‘urgently’.
The ruling dates back to 2021, when WildFish, formerly known as Salmon & Trout Conservation, made a complaint to the OEP, which announced that it would be investigating. The OEP then announced in 2023 that there was likely a case to answer, saying that ‘there may have been failures to comply with environmental law by all three of the public authorities’. The ruling by the OEP has made it clear that all three bodies must now enforce the law against water companies.
‘WildFish and its legal team will now be watching extremely closely what the Government, the Environment Agency and Ofwat now collectively say and do to bring the current illegality to a rapid end.’ says Nick Measham, WildFish CEO.
‘This widespread law breaking by water companies must be dealt with.’
A house of god
Barrow Court near Bristol.
‘Barrow Court is a home that demands — and deserves — superlatives,’ writes Digital Editor Toby Keel. His enthusiasm is backed up by agents Fine and Country, who have described the property as an ‘architectural and historical landmark of exceptional grandeur’ where ‘history, elegance and luxury converge’. Ooh la la. This former Benedictine convent or nunnery is now a nine-bedroom house. We recommend taking a look.
From Lego houses to mushroom gin and everything in between
James May. Good bloke.
They say to never meet your heroes, but I met one (albeit virtually) on Monday. I grew up watching Top Gear as a kid, and while I always enjoyed the musings of Jeremy Clarkson and Richard Hammond on cars, James May was always my favourite of the three. I was very lucky that he agreed to come on the Country Life podcast to chat about his work in TV (which is far more than just cars), as well as talking about his new gin brand and his pub in Wiltshire. He’s a most interesting person, and extremely lovely, and has opinions on everything from parsnips to the North Pole and whether luggage should have wheels or not. Tune in and have a listen here.
That’s all for today, we’ll be back tomorrow
Quiz answers
1) Sea sickness
2) Jonathan Swift
3) 20
4) Names
5) Green
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