When I was a kid, seeing a badger was a bit of a rarity. When Country Life's boss, Mark Hedges, was a kid, it was even rarer: his dad once stopped the car to let little Mark and his family take a look at a badger who'd been hit by a car, since they'd never set eyes on one before.
Years of extensive protection for badgers means that they're far more numerous — great news for badgers, but much less good news for hedgehogs and cattle farmers. They're far more easily spotted than they once were.
One place where you'll *really* see badgers easily is, apparently, St Leonards-on-Sea. The Sussex seaside town is home to a host of Eurasian badgers who happily toddle round the streets, feasting on scraps left out for them, prompting photographer Ian Wood to set up a hide to see if he could snap some photos of them.
Naturally, he set that hide up across the road from some Banksy-inspired badger street art.
Ian's effort paid off in fine style when one of the badgers didn't just stop nearby, but even paused to take a look at his Ganster Badger doppelganger. The resulting picture has just earned Ian the People's Choice award in the Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. See www.nhm.ac.uk/wpy/peoples-choice to see more of the shortlisted pictures.
Quiz of the Day...
...has moved into its own little story, with buttons, and pictures, and all sorts of fun bits, whcih we're published every weeknight at 5pm. Give it a whirl.
Interesting times
The Bank of England trimmed interest rates on Thursday in a move that looks — at least in part — designed to boost the property market ahead of the impending Stamp Duty increase coming in April.
That said, a slight trim in interest rates won't do that much. At the moment, first-time buyers pay no stamp duty when buying a home worth £425,000; come April they will be paying £6,250.
And the savings they'll make on interest rates? Should they put down £50,000 and borrow £375,000, that 0.25% equates to about £50 a month. At that rate it'd take just over ten years to recoup the six grand. Ouch.
Lifestyles of the rich and famous
We've no idea how Architectural Digest persuades so many big names to show them around their homes, and stick the resulting videos on social media. But they do, and it's fascinating as you'll find out in this one with Sienna Miller. In which she casually drops the news that she just decided to buy it, more or less on a whim, when she was 25., proving that not all first-time buyers are worried about interest rates and Stamp Duty.
'The 20th century Tarzan, a party animal swarmed under by supermodels, rock stars and the rest'
If you haven't yet read Christopher Wallace's piece on the incredible life of photographer Peter Beard, go and do it now.
We'll wait...
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See? We told you it was worth it.
A day in the life of Peter Beard.
That's it for this week — we're back on Monday!
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A £15m Kensington penthouse with a Mediterranean-style ‘garden in the sky’Arranged over the fifth and sixth floors of a Victorian mansion block, the immaculate apartment has views that stretch as far as Battersea Power Station.
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Curious Questions: Pruning roses in winter has become the norm, but why do we do it – and should we?More roses die from over-pruning than any other cause so what’s the reasoning underpinning this horticultural habit?
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'A big opportunity for a small, crowded and beautiful country': Fiona Reynolds on how the Land Use Framework can make Britain betterThe Government’s Land Use Framework should be viewed as an opportunity to be smarter with our land, but conflicts need to be resolved along the way says Fiona Reynolds, chair of the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission.
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Dawn Chorus: A river comes to life, more mews is good mews, and the new 400-mile electric VolvoRivers now have the legal right to flow, and to not be full of pollution. It's about time.
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Dawn Chorus: The perfect job for incurable romantics, Britain's rudest roads, woodland workshops and spring in CornwallLiving on a near-deserted island, and getting paid for the privilege? No wonder tens of thousands of people were keen.
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That hammering you hear? It's actually the sound of SpringWoodpeckers are guardians of ancient broad-leaved woodlands, busy ecosystem engineers and keen consumers of ant porridge.
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Curious Questions: Will the real Welsh daffodil please stand upFor generations, patriotic Welshmen and women have pinned a daffodil to their lapels to celebrate St David’s Day, says David Jones, but most are unaware that there is a separate species unique to the country.
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Simon Jenkins: 1,000 miles of giant pylons 'would be the most intrusive invasion of the nation’s rural landscape since the Second World War'The Government’s plan to cover the countryside in ugly pylons with seemingly no regard for aesthetics must be vigorously challenged
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Nobody has ever been able to figure out just how long Britain's coastline is. Here's why.Welcome to the Coastline Paradox, where trying to find an accurate answer is more of a hindrance than a help.
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Why are humpback whales flocking to the UK?Humpback whales are typically infrequent visitors to the Cornish coast, but this year they've been spotted in increasing numbers in the South-West, the Isles of Scilly and as far up the Channel as Sussex.
