Peat-Fest event in Liskeard aims to celebrate peatland heritage
"From Somerset and Dorset, Dartmoor and Exmoor down to Cornwall, people of all ages will be invited to experience the power of peatlands and celebrate why they are so special in a series of public events," the organisers said.
Project manager and director Naomi Wright said she was finding new and creative ways to encourage people to love their peat landscapes."Peatlands do so much to improve our air and water quality, reduce flooding, and improve wildlife. "We hope by the end of this Peat-Fest, more people will care for our precious peatlands," she said."I'm really looking forward to young people and their older peers, families and interested individuals being together on Sunday, finding inspiration and learning from our peatlands."People are asked to book a free place via the website.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
BBC News
9 minutes ago
- BBC News
Stevenage woman gives unwanted Plushies a new lease of life
A card-shop owner says she wants people to "see cuddly toys in a different light" after launching a scheme to smarten up second-hand Sorrell, 58, was inspired to start the Preloved Plushy Project at her Stevenage shop Cardies after noticing how many were being discarded."I was seeing some going to charity shops, and because they were marked or grubby, the charity shops couldn't do anything with them and had to throw them away," she said."I'm a big recycler and upcycler, so I'm keen to find a new love-life for lots of things – one man's rubbish is another man's treasure," she told the BBC. She explained her secret to restoring the toys so they looked nearly-new."A lot of people make the mistake that they just wash the teddy bear, and it gets all matted," Ms Sorrell said."I wash it and leave it to dry thoroughly, and then use [a] brush to bring it back to fluffiness."I've got labradors, and there's a specific dog brush with very fine pins that teases the undercoat."It's a slicker brush and it does a similar thing with the cuddly toys. Of course, I don't use the same brush that I use on my dog!" Ms Sorrell explained that she had already been able to match up donations with keen owners."We had a couple of lads come in and their mum said they were looking for Super Mario characters," she said."There was a giant sack of washed toys we hadn't sorted, so we rummaged through it and found two Super Marios. They went away very happy!"Another lady tagged them on social media, saying she worked with young people and one would be thrilled to have an Eeyore toy."Funnily enough, an Eeyore appeared the next day in one of our bags, as if by magic."Ms Sorrell hopes people beyond Stevenage will start doing the same thing to prolong the life of soft toys."I'm keen that other people should take this idea up and see cuddly toys in a different light," she said."It's also just presenting them differently – rather than a box of sad-looking teddies in the corner – [to] make them look appealing." Follow Beds, Herts and Bucks news on BBC Sounds, Facebook, Instagram and X.
The Guardian
41 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Sam Neill's 20 best roles – sorted!
Scientists, farmers, spies, cops, priests, the devil incarnate: is there any role Sam Neill can't play? The New Zealand actor has been delivering cracking performances for more than four decades and, after returning to screens in Untamed and the third season of The Twelve, shows no signs of slowing down. Here are his 20 all-time greatest performances. This is the Neill performance that'll make you think: hot damn, he could've made a great James Bond. In this UK TV series he plays a Russian spy who works for the Brits; he is a devil with the ladies; and he scrubs up great in a tux: tick tick tick. The show is adapted from Robin Bruce Lockhart's 1967 book Ace of Spies, and its titular character based on Sidney Reilly, a real-life spy who was executed by the Soviets in 1925. It couldn't have been easy to hold your own against Sean Connery. But in John McTiernan's deep sea blockbuster, Neill delivers a thoroughly engrossing supporting performance as Vasily Borodin, the second-in-command to Connery's Capt Marko Ramius, a Soviet who defects to the US. Borodin is pragmatic and process-driven but embroiled in dangerously volatile circumstances. In this glamorous and racy series set in 16th-century England, Neill plays Henry VIII's most trusted adviser, Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. He's a man of the cloth, who clearly enjoys being referred to as 'your eminence', but is also a cunning and calculating powerbroker who doesn't like getting his hands dirty. Staying on the king's good side is easier said than done, as is surviving in this world; let's just say Wolsey doesn't appear in the second season. Everybody brings their A game to Warwick Thornton's sumptuously shot neo-western, one of the greatest Australian films of the century to date. Neill plays a preacher, Fred Smith, who's a little pious but walks the walk – following Bryan Brown's sergeant on his mission to track down an Aboriginal man accused of murder (Hamilton Morris) because 'I want to see him come back alive'. It's not a huge performance but it's beautifully balanced. Tender yet tough. Rob Sitch's pleasant historical drama is based on the true story of the Parkes Observatory, which helped Nasa track and broadcast Apollo 11's voyage to the moon. Neill plays Cliff, the observatory's mild-mannered but intensely focused director. It's a warm, fully rounded performance that takes an avuncular tone, complete with a face-stretching smile and pipe hanging from his mouth. Initially Neill's character in Jane Campion's Palme d'Or-winning masterpiece seems relatively fair-minded, playing the new husband of Holly Hunter's famously mute protagonist, Ada. That changes in the final act, when he violently responds to discovering Ada's love affair with a retired sailor (Harvey Keitel), tipping the film into nightmarish terrain. It's broodingly dark and poetic, and all the performances are great. The ol' vampire villain is given a modern, corporate makeover in the Spierig brothers' revisionist genre movie, in which Neill plays Charles Bromley, the chief executive of the largest supplier of blood in the US. In this world, most humans have become vamps, leading to a massive blood shortage that Bromley's determined to exploit. Neill gives him a monstrously large impact, with an air of menacing sophistication. In one memorable scene he elegantly quaffs a lovely glass of red – and no, it's not wine. In this classic Australian black comedy Neill plays Carl, a manchild who sleeps in late, rarely washes his clothes (he rarely washes anything) and lives in a grubby broken-down house. He does, however, scrub up pretty well in a black leather jacket. The plot kicks into gear when Carl – a two-bit chef at a dingy club – accidentally kills a drug dealer and sets off a gangland war. Neill makes him a little blase and aloof, and pitiable in some ways – but he is also his own worst enemy. An adult Damien Thorn is a role that could so easily have tipped into evil cartoonishness. But Neill is devilishly good in The Omen's second sequel, imbuing the protagonist with a disquietingly calm and serpentine presence. Thorn's smile stretches a little too wide, and something funny's going on with his eyes; he seems to look through people. The film can be a little goofy, stuffed to the gills with talk of prophecies and end times, but it builds a genuinely creepy psychological space. Gillian Armstrong's superb adaptation of Miles Franklin's classic feminist novel is centred around Judy Davis's great performance as the bull-headed protagonist Sybylla Melvyn, an aspiring author who dreams of something greater than a rural life as a wife. Her primary love interest is Neill's Harry Beecham: a man of the world with a polite, dignified way about him that takes on extra layers as the role deepens. Harry is swoon-worthy but Sybylla is no pushover, twice rejecting his hand in marriage. What a spunky wizard! Neill cuts a charismatic presence as the lead in this two-part miniseries about the mythic middle ages magician, giving the role dramatic weight but also leaning into the story's fairytale-like elements. The special effects of course have dated but the production holds up surprisingly well, with an appealingly old-timey spirit of adventure. Sign up to Saved for Later Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips after newsletter promotion Critics have never been kind to Paul Anderson's gruesome sci-fi about a team of astronauts who land on a ship that haunts people with their deepest fears, but it's a cracking movie. Neill's role as the ship's designer, Dr William Weir, begins in geeky scientist mode but becomes a berserk reinvention of the mad scientist trope. 'Where we're going, we won't need eyes to see,' says Weir, around the time he literally opens the gates of hell. Good times. Cranked to 11? Dowsed in petrol, then set on fire? No string of words, however sensational, can capture the balls-to-the-wall spirit of Neill's ghoulish performance in Andrzej Żuławski's cult classic. Nor the qualities of the film itself – a bizarre combination of relationship drama and Grand Guignol spectacle. Neill plays Mark, a spy who returns home to West Berlin and discovers that his wife (Isabelle Adjani) wants a divorce; it might have something to do with a bedroom kink involving an tentacled alien. Neill has never been more huggable than in Jeremy Sims' remake of the Icelandic drama of the same name, in which he stars as Colin, a hardy and empathetic sheep farmer. He really, really loves his flock, though such affection does not extend to his crotchety brother Les (Michael Caton), who lives next door. The pair haven't spoken in years but that might change when a rare disease infects their animals. Titled A Cry in the Dark outside Australia and New Zealand, Fred Schepisi's drama about the trial of Lindy and Michael Chamberlain arrived in Australian cinemas with white-hot topicality, just six weeks after their convictions for murdering their daughter Azaria were quashed. Both lead performances are hauntingly powerful, with Neill starring opposite Meryl Streep as Michael, a holier-than-thou pastor who questions his faith when the trial puts them through the wringer. Cillian Murphy's gangster Tommy Shelby and his gang of 'Peaky Blinders' find themselves in an existential fight for survival when Neill's hotshot chief inspector Maj Campbell arrives in town, sent from Belfast to clean up the streets and retrieve stolen weapons. It's a deliciously entertaining performance with plenty of chest-thumping dialogue, and sizzling chemistry with Murphy. Who could forget Neill's palaeontologist, Dr Alan Grant, gawking at a Brachiosaurus while John Williamson's beautiful score swells? This moment from Jurassic Park demonstrates how special effects can evoke wonder, rather than just fill the frame with bling. There are a couple of other scientist characters in the Jurassic Park franchise but it was Grant who got his own film (Jurassic Park 3). For a large chunk of Phillip Noyce's white-knuckle thriller, Neill's navy officer John is alone on a sinking ship, with nobody to share the frame with or bounce off. It's a role that required emotional and physical intensity. The calm-under-fire John tries his darndest to stay alive and return to his wife (Nicole Kidman), who's alone on their yacht with a psychotic stranger (Billy Zane). The film is pacy as hell; there's a real electrical charge to it. Taika Waititi's beloved New Zealand comedy unforgettably paired on-the-run young delinquent Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) with Neill's cranky foster uncle Hector. Neill goes whole hog on the grumpy old man shtick – smoking, grunting and firing off fun lines like, 'You ever worked on a farm before, are you just ornamental?' The stoic Hector, who always looks as though he's had too much to drink, may not want our love, but by god, he got it. John Carpenter's sensationally loud and Lovecraftian horror movie features a brilliant, wall-rattling performance from Neill, who perfectly drives the human elements of this long under-appreciated film. He plays John Trent, an insurance investigator convinced that a mass hysteria event surrounding the release of a new horror novel is a PR trick. The hardened cynic who becomes a true believer is a classic trajectory, and our man runs with it to hell and back, the protagonist's sanity erupting like a burst blood vessel. So good.
Daily Mail
4 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Jo Whiley reveals the iconic star who left her feeling 'tiny and stupid' during an 'unpleasant' interview
Jo Whiley has opened up about the celebrity interview that left her feeling 'tiny and stupid'. Speaking on her Dig It podcast, Jo, 60, said that her confidence took a major knock after an interaction with Eminem and Dr Dre when asked if she had ever been starstruck during an interview. Jo said: 'I remember interviewing Eminem and Dr Dre one time and that was horrible. I'd interviewed Eminem when he was very young and he was very shy and polite. 'He kept calling me "ma'am" all the time and he was really, really sweet and humble. 'Then a couple of years later he came back on the show but with Dr Dre and the fame had happened and he was just this other creature altogether. 'They were just so playful with me - and can I just say they made me feel so tiny and so stupid.' While Jo thought that Eminem, now 52, was 'really sweet and humble' when she first interviewed him, she did not have such a pleasant experience when he was joined by Dr Dre Jo admitted that the interview was overall 'a really unpleasant experience' as she and her co-host Zoe Bell, 46, opened up about being starstruck by celebs. The revelation comes after Jo opened up about battling anxiety at the height of her DJing career in the 90s. She told Woman's Health: 'I remember doing one gig and I was just so scared, I thought I can't go on like this. This is ridiculous. 'It's ruining my life because I'm just such a ball of anxiety. 'But then I realised how happy it was making people when I do these gigs and that was a game changer.' Jo then took the opportunity to speak out against the culture of 'lad mags' - lifestyle magazines from the 90s and early noughties aimed at men and typically featuring a woman also in her underwear. The BBC presenter said: 'There was so much objectification and judgement of women and their bodies. 'It was a ludicrous time to be a woman, but I just kept my head down and weathered the storm.' Jo hasn't just candidly spoken about experiencing anxiety, she has also opened up about battling it during the menopause to Women's Health. Referencing Davina McCall's campaign to get women talking more about the menopause, she said she 'really lost' herself at the time. She said that the gym and fitness are ultimately what got her through that challenging time in her life. Jo said: 'I cried all the time. 'I mean, I cry a lot anyway but I cried all the time. 'I just felt very weak, and going to the gym and getting myself strong has played a really, really big part in helping me be the person I am today. It really saved me.'
