The Beauty in the Beast

Events

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The Beauty in the Beast is now most definitely launched – but things keep happening to stop me getting back to work! I am about to head up to BBC Oxford to be a guest on the Jo Thoenes show … wonder if I will get away with any rude jokes this time?

Then, on Sunday, my first real outing with THE NEW TALK … I did a rehearsal at my launch event last Saturday which went really well and thanks to the creative and delicately framed feedback, I am happy to make some substantial changes. But Sunday, the 13th May, is the first festival, the Swindon Festival of Literature. I did a show on this day of the festival a few years ago – the Children and Families open day – and it was great fun. The venue, Lower Shaw Farm, is worth a visit, even without the presence of me and my stories of gentle eccentricities of my fellow wildlife lovers. Continue reading →

Dragonflies and Fred Macaulay

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What a good combination! I really enjoy being on Fred Macaulay’s BBC Scotland Radio show – over the years I have been accorded the title of ‘eco-worrrier’ – and last time I was signed off as the ‘conscience of Macaulay and Co.’ So it was a delight to be let loose for 15 minutes on the show – you can still hear it here for another 6 days – go to 41:45 and then I begin. Somehow I let slip a rather rude joke … but kept talking so people did not have too much time to dwell upon it.

And then – today we have the wonderful British Dragonfly Society giving my book a nice plug on the front of their website. It is a shame that this beautiful animal did not win as it would have made for a brilliant tattoo!

What next? Well I have recorded interviews with BBC Hereford and Worcester and also with BBC Kent – I am a guest on BBC Oxford next week – and for any Oxford folk, I will be at the East Oxford Farmers Market on Saturday – selling The Beauty in the Beast to those who queue for bread and vegetables.

More to follow as it follows…. hope you are enjoying the new website.

Nearly there …

Hugh Warwick 2 Comments

I am so close to nearly having the website up and running in the manner that I want it to be that I am unable to hold off … mainly because it has material on it about which I am rather proud. You will see that the url has changed – and that now this is all at www.urchin.info – which site also has the podcasts that go with my new book, a gallery of photographs (some of which are related to the book (and which will be working soon, I hope)), a smattering of articles I found online and my events page … just wondering whether I should start to put WI talks in there as well! Continue reading →

Badgers and Bats

Hugh Warwick 2 Comments

Okay – an experiment. Or a warning!

Things are going to be changing around here in the next month or so, my new website is being built to arrive in time for the launch of my new book, The Beauty in the Beast (published by Simon and Schuster at the end of April). And part of this new website will be a little additional bit to go with the book – I recorded all of the interviews with my wonderful animal advocates, and am now in the process of editing them into short pieces … so not only will you be able to read about these amazing people, you will be able to hear them too. Continue reading →

Lacto-free

Hugh Warwick 14 Comments

First – thank you for the many people who took time to read through the last post and the many many comments. I was surprised at the depth of feeling and hope that I have not re-started any once forgotten problems.

Reading through what has been written, I think I have a better handle on my position. Or at least a way of expressing it:

  • No wild animals should ever be taken from the wild and kept as a pet.
  • I think that hedgehogs, of whatever species, belong in the wild.
  • Pet hedgehogs (African species, possibly hybrids, and possibly subject to 10 or 20 generations of captivity) are unable to be returned to the wild.
  • The welfare of any hedgehogs that are kept in captivity should be paramount.
  • Breeding hedgehogs for profit is likely to lead to a reduction of the quality of conditions in which hedgehogs are kept.
  • If you are going to look after a pet hedgehog then please use this position to help promote the really important issues surrounding the well-being of ‘real’ hedgehogs out in the wild.
  • ‘They are just so cute’ is NOT reason enough to keep an animal in captivity (these are not animated teddy-bears). Continue reading →

Tat2!

Hugh Warwick 1 Comment

I have come to the end of my mid-life crisis. It has taken two years, but I have finally made it. I have also come to the end of the active writing part of my new book – The Beauty in the Beast. It will be published by Simon & Schuster in May next year – and I have just had a sneak preview of the cover, which has left me quivering with excitement … I will check with the publishers, but if I am allowed to share it with you, I will.

But the end of my mid-life crisis … it began in November 2009 when I did three things for the first and last time. I did my first and last stand-up comedy. I did my first and last 5 Rhythms dance class and I got my first and last tattoo.

All fine, you might think, no fast women and loose cars. But the plan had been to keep it to that month. Oh, what a failure … so … I have been trying, with some degree of success, to make people laugh, defining my new hedgehog lecture as ecological standup; I have been dancing with the wonderful Chloe de Sousa ever since and … and on last Thursday I travelled to Leeds to get my second, and most definitely LAST, tattoo.

The first, and last, tattoo was of a hedgehog as part of extInked – about which I have written before. This final tattoo is the culmination of The Beauty in the Beast – a book that has taken me on a year long journey around the animal obsessives of Britain. I have been meeting people very like myself, with passions for other species – so I met the adder man of Norfolk, the mid-Wales badger man, the water vole woman of Shropshire and the otter woman of Devon. Fifteen people in total were tasked with trying to seduce me away from the hedgehog – and the winning species, well, I agreed that I would show my commitment by getting that animal permanently tattooed on my body.

And here it is, the wonderful Ink vs Steel‘s Simon Caves had been so impressed with extInked that he offered to ink me up for free. I think I am possibly the only person in a tweed jacket to have entered their premises, but they made me feel at home and this is the film I managed to shoot … an indication either of my extreme fortitude under the assault of the needle, or the lack of nerve endings in that part of my leg.

Here endeth my mid-life crisis … no more tattoos … almost definitely no more tattoos … but if I did, just as an exercise, hypothetically speaking … what should I have next?