Londoner's Diary: Dig in and help build a hedgehog superhighway

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18 October 2016

A PRICKLY problem for London: where have all the hedgehogs gone? The lovable creatures have experienced a steep decline in their inner-city population in recent years, eventually finding something of a mini-ghetto in north London. But now even that sanctuary is at risk. Historian Tom Holland, however, is fighting to instigate TfH: Transport for Hedgehogs.

There are fewer than 50 of the spiky but sweet mammals living in a small pocket of Regent’s Park, hemmed in by roads. Their existence has been threatened further by local construction work on HS2. With the safety of human cyclists helped by bike-specific lanes, is it time to introduce a hedgehog alternative?

“Hedgehogs, like all foraging animals, can only thrive when they have the opportunity to roam far and wide,” Holland told The Londoner. “That is why, in London, there is an urgent need to link up the city’s green spaces with a network of hedgehog superhighways. We are not talking Crossrail here. Everyone can help. Let’s get London’s hedgehogs moving!”

Discussions have begun between Holland and the London Wildlife Trust about how to create routes to other green spaces such as Green Park and Hyde Park, which have no hedgehogs. It requires the creation of sunken mini-roads and could call on locals to cut trenches through their undergrowth.

Local nature-lover Stanley Johnson is sure to get out his shovel. “It is not just people we are talking about here,” he said previously. “We must hope that London Zoo and others will strike a blow for the wonderful Regent’s Park, hedgehogs included.” One hopes that landowners in between the parks will also pitch in and dig for victory for Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and her future generations.

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Another day, another political dad joke. Yesterday former Chancellor George Osborne, who is making his presence felt Stateside at a research foundation, tweeted his plans. “Speaking today at the Hoover Institute in Stanford on why the West must fight back in defence of free markets & open societies, or risk a dangerous vacuum.” Good gag, George. We’re told that his new book, which he is currently writing, is not a comedy.

Feminist fight doesn’t end with Mrs May

THERESA May was at the InterContinental London Park Lane yesterday for the Women of the Year Awards. But for Women’s Equality Party founder Catherine Mayer, having a woman in the top job doesn’t mean the feminist cause has been won. “One of the sillier things people said when Theresa May was made PM was ‘job done, you can go home now’,” she told us. “We have, in the entire world, 17 elected heads of state. That’s out of 144 full and impartial democracies. And of those 144 democracies quite a few have a Prime Minister and a President, so when you calculate it, around nine per cent of elected leaders are female.

“So I’m afraid the job isn’t done.”

The ‘crime’ of being called Mr Useful

In the hit book Love, Nina, former north London nanny Nina Stibbe wrote of her employment under London Review of Books editor Mary-Kay Wilmers and her interactions with playwright neighbour Alan Bennett, pictured. But by the time the TV adaptation made it to the screen Bennett was gone, replaced by a Scottish poet. Stibbe implied in an interview that Bennett had objected to his depiction, and now his new book, Keeping On Keeping On, reveals he found her portrait of him misleading.

“Read the proof copy of Nina Stibbe’s diary,” he wrote in June 2013, with the entry released in the latest edition of his notebooks. “It’s fresh and droll, with Nina’s personality coming through. Sam and Will [Wilmers’s sons] are funny (and funny together), as is Mary-Kay. I, on the other hand, am solid, dependable and dull, my contributions full of good sense; I am said to be good at mending bikes (not true) and at diagnosing malfunctioning electrical appliances (not true).”

One might wonder why Bennett is concerned at being described as more useful than he is but it’s about ego. “None of this I mind,” he adds. “Though it is painful to be even so light-heartedly misremembered. I am the voice of reason, something of which I’ve never hitherto been accused.” Will Stibbe’s next work present Bennett as someone who can take a compliment?

FT journos battle it out

IF YOU see generals marching in south London, fear not: it may only be a Financial Times team- building exercise. Yesterday afternoon the paper’s political correspondent, Kate Allen, spotted a call to action on the office bulletin board and posted it on Twitter. “Anybody up for doing battle re-enactments locally at lunchtime?” the flyer reads.

“I’ve spoken to the park keeper at Mint Street Park (towards Elephant and Castle) and I have permission to stage battles there once a month... Depending on numbers I was thinking we could start with the Battle of El Alamein,” the poster, authorship currently unknown, reads. Considering the FT’s Japanese ownership, at least they didn’t opt for the Battle of Kohima.

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Another day, another political dad joke. Yesterday former Chancellor George Osborne, who is making his presence felt Stateside at a research foundation, tweeted his plans. “Speaking today at the Hoover Institute in Stanford on why the West must fight back in defence of free markets & open societies, or risk a dangerous vacuum.” Good gag, George. We’re told that his new book, which he is currently writing, is not a comedy.

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A TOAST to womanhood at the Red Magazine Women of the Year Awards last night at the Skylon Bar. Guests included psychotherapist Philippa Perry, joined by husband Grayson. “The advice I’d give to women is take yourself seriously. And big up other women. Men are good at bigging up themselves.” Is her husband supportive? “He’s very good,” she smiled. “Yes, we’re a seamless whole!” Grayson added.

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Pop goes Camilla at the Groucho

TO THE Groucho last night, where singer Camilla Kerslake briefly ditched her classical roots to launch her single, Little Red. She used the evening to showcase two up-and-coming acts too but talk also turned to legend Bob Dylan, who has apparently proved so elusive to the Nobel committee that officials have been unable to get in touch with him concerning his Literature Prize. “Dylan is incredibly understated,” Kerslake said. “He doesn’t need to do it, he knows who he is. I’m sure he’s very grateful but he doesn’t need to make a big deal of it. It’s about time, though. I don’t know how he hasn’t been recognised sooner.”

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Airbnb of the day: Bran Castle in Transylvania, inspiration for Bram Stoker’s Dracula, is to host overnight visitors for the first time since 1948 on Halloween. Pack the garlic.

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