Latest news with #Firth
Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Small business owner makes massive impact after starting forest preservation foundation with late wife: 'Patience, humility, and a unique long-term view'
A business owner and nonprofit founder is working to preserve Pennsylvania's forests tree by tree. By buying up forested land and engaging in sustainable logging practices, he's already helped save several thousand acres. Troy Firth has proven his commitment to forest preservation for more than 50 years. Since 1971, he's owned and managed Firth Maple Products, located in the northwest part of the state and relying on forests to produce lumber and maple syrup. He founded the Foundation for Sustainable Forests in 2004 with his late wife, Lynn. The nonprofit operates as a land trust, protecting more than 3,700 acres of Pennsylvania woods via direct ownership and conservation easements, according to the foundation. "The mission is to keep forested land forested," Firth told Lancaster Farming, a regional farm newspaper for the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic United States. "That's why the foundation exists." Both the nonprofit and the business practice sustainable logging methods, including horse logging. Firth Maple Products says this causes less damage to the forests than modern machinery, preventing soil compaction, erosion, and harm to tree roots lying just beneath the topsoil. The benefits of preserving forests are clear, chief among them a healthier environment for humans. Not only do trees help purify the air by absorbing heat-trapping carbon dioxide, producing oxygen as well, but they're also the source of many medicines on the market. There's yet another way in which protecting forests can help safeguard health across species. Since woodlands serve as important habitats for animals that might otherwise be forced into dangerous proximity with human activity, preserving these ecosystems can help reduce dangerous human-wildlife interactions that can cause injuries and spread disease. The recipient of the 2024 Leopold Conservation Award, Firth has long been recognized for his work in forestry and conservation. Previously, he has received the Pennsylvania Tree Farmer of the Year Award, the Forest Conservation Stewardship Award, and numerous other honors, per the nonprofit WeConservePA. Firth's influence and impact on Pennsylvania's forestry industry are evident in how his peers and colleagues talk about him. "Troy has taught me to truly think about what 'perpetuity' means to a piece of land," Annie Socci, the foundation's executive director, told WeConservePA. Do you think America does a good job of protecting its natural beauty? Definitely Only in some areas No way I'm not sure Click your choice to see results and speak your mind. "The lifespan of a forest, if cared for, is far greater than any of us. In the woods, Troy thinks and manages on a time scale that matches that of both the forest ecosystem and the Foundation for Sustainable Forests as an organization. To do so takes patience, humility, and a unique long-term view." Join our free newsletter for good news and useful tips, and don't miss this cool list of easy ways to help yourself while helping the planet.
Scotsman
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen review: 'an extraordinary first novel'
Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Like all the best adventure stories, Michael Pedersen's debut novel Muckle Flugga begins with a map. It's a map of an imagined island at the far northern tip of Shetland; a small island complete with lighthouse, bothy for accommodating visitors, cliffs, caves, coves, and also unexpected gardens, and wild places. It's to this island that the book's central character, a young Edinburgh writer and artist called Firth, makes what he intends to be a final journey, after he abruptly cancels his planned suicide off the Forth Bridge. He is inspired to live a little more by a visit - as he dangles from the ironwork - from a passing gannet; the bird reminds him of a promise he once made to his old seafaring grandfather - who used to tell tales of Muckle Flugga - that he would go there and paint a gannet for him. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Shaun Murawski | Shaun Murawski So it is that Firth arrives on the island, inhabited only by the fierce widowed lighthouse keeper and his gentle 19-year-old son Ouse; and begins a physical, emotional and psychological journey so vivid, intense, and fiercely tragic-comic that it often threatens to take the breath away. Indeed Firth himself seems to spend much of his time gasping for air, as he is overwhelmed by rain and seawater, pitched by the swaying hammock in his bothy into the bath that sits beneath it, attacked by the ravenous sea birds known as bonxies, or - most significantly - increasingly heart-struck by the beauty, wisdom and genius of the boy Ouse, a quiet lad relentlessly bullied by his distraught father since his mother's death, yet nonetheless filled with an inner poise and creative energy that enables him to survive his father's rages, and even to continue to love him. Until now, Michael Pedersen has been known primarily as a poet; currently Edinburgh's Makar, he has published three powerful collections of poems, as well as his acclaimed 2022 memoir Boy Friends, a study of love and friendship inspired by the death of his friend Scott Hutchison, of the indie band Frightened Rabbit. In Muckle Flugga, though, he delivers an extraordinary first novel, that takes a fairly simple narrative arc - despairing hero travels to a far place, where he rediscovers the will to live and love - and packs it with the most audacious forms of strangeness, including a weird, tangential relationship with the normal timelines of human history. It is difficult to know, on Muckle Flugga, whether we are in an internet-free past where a demented solo lighthouse keeper might avoid the attention of the authorities, in a disintegrating future where such systems are breaking down, or in a parallel reality altogether, where past and future collide in Firth's tormented, whisky-fuelled dreams. What is clear, through, is that Firth's time on the island reconnects him with the natural world in ways that are both comically emphatic and unbelievably rich in brilliant and rotting detail; and that that encounter with the physical extremes of life on Muckle Flugga has nothing to do with 'escape' from Firth's previous city life, and everything to do with a new recognition of the reality on which all life rests. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad For all its geographical distance, Muckle Flugga is intensely linked to the wider world in myriad ways that race and dance through Pedersen's story. There is the lighthouse lamp itself, and its intense connection to the lives of the ships and sailors whom it guides to safety, all filtered through the disturbed but energetic mind of The Father, who tends the light with fanatical dedication. There is the great library Firth discovers on the island, tenderly cared for by Ouse, and rich with stories and histories from across the globe. And there is that strand of Scottish history that links islands and maps and lighthouses through the Edinburgh family of Lighthouse Stevensons, builders of the Muckle Flugga light; and their rebel son Robert Louis Stevenson, the magical storytelling creator of the best loved of all treasure islands, who appears on Muckle Flugga as Ouse's familiar spirit and guardian angel. Stevenson, of course, is also the author of The Strange Case of Dr, Jekyll and Mr. Hyde; and it's difficult not to see autobiographical elements both in Pedersen's self-mocking account of the briefly fashionable Edinburgh writer in flight from the shallowness of his world, and in his portrait of the strength, steady sweetness and sheer creative genius of Ouse, who designs and makes the most beautiful woollen artefacts Firth has ever seen. Pedersen's first novel, in other words, is as rich in meanings and resonances as a gorgeous painting laden with significant detail. And all of its threads and strands are transformed and re-energised by the brilliant refracting lenses of Pedersen's prose; sometimes tumbling over itself in haste and over-exuberance, sometimes glinting in perfection, but always conjuring up vital new realities, just when we need them most.
New York Post
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Colin Firth reveals truth about iconic ‘Pride and Prejudice' wet shirt scene
Long before the bodice-ripping antics of Bridgerton, there was Colin Firth emerging wet-shirted from a lake in the 1995 BBC miniseries Pride And Prejudice. The famed encounter saw Elizabeth Bennet (Jennifer Ehle) getting hot and bothered at the sight of the brooding Mr Darcy (Firth) in his damp undergarments. It also marked a turning point for Jane Austen adaptations, which had previously relied on chaste looks and witty repartee for romantic tension. That two-minute scene has become part of TV folklore, leading to Firth's now infamous white shirt selling at auction for $50,000 last year. Colin Firth emerged wet-shirted from a lake in the 1995 BBC miniseries Pride And Prejudice in a now-iconic scene. BBC Only, according to Firth, it never actually happened. Talking about his sexy stint as Mr Darcy, the British actor revealed he never went swimming in his britches and undershirt. And the perceived Austen peepshow was all down to the magic of television (and the wishful thinking of viewers). 'The shirt was barely soggy or clingy or any of the things it's mythologized to be,' a bemused Firth has said. 'They have even got me coming out of a lake, which I know I never did, and that got voted the most memorable moment in television history: the thing that never happened!' Nonetheless, the wet shirt device was used again in season two of Bridgerton when Jonathan Bailey's character paraded his rippling muscles after an icy dip. And Firth himself would pay homage to the career-making scene in Love Actually, when his lovelorn character falls for his Portuguese maid after she (and he) dive into a lake to save his manuscript. Colin Firth poses for photographers upon arrival for the premiere of the film 'Empire of Light' during the 2022 London Film Festival in London, Wednesday, Oct. 12, 2022 Scott Garfitt/Invision/AP The 1995 retelling of Jane Austen's famed novel proved period dramas could be sexy and draw a crowd, inspiring author Helen Fielding to pen her own adaptation of Pride And Prejudice, Bridget Jones's Diary – which would, of course, also feature Firth as a modern Mark Darcy when adapted for the screen. Having already inspired countless film and television series – the best of which being the 1940 Oscar-winning version starring Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier, and 2005's coupling of Keira Knightley and Matthew Macfadyen – producers are taking the plunge on Pride And Prejudice again. This time, Everything I Know About Love author and one-time Made In Chelsea story producer Dolly Alderton is bringing her unique perspective to Austen's 1813 novel with Emma Corrin (who won a Golden Globe playing a young Princess Diana in The Crown) as Elizabeth and Slow Horses' Jack Lowden as the new Darcy. Rounding out the cast is Oscar-winner Olivia Colman as the social-climbing Mrs Bennet. 'Once in a generation, a group of people get to retell this wonderful story and I feel very lucky that I get to be part of it,' Alderton said. 'Jane Austen's Pride And Prejudice is the blueprint for romantic comedy – it has been a joy to delve back into its pages to find both familiar and fresh ways of bringing this beloved book to life.'
Yahoo
23-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Decision over new bar deferred until summer
A decision over an application for a new bar in a North Yorkshire seaside town that would serve alcohol until 01:00 seven days a week has been deferred. Harry Firth, who plans to open Harry's Bar in Murray Street, Filey, wanted permission to serve daily from 09:00 and to play live and recorded music. He said the business would be "very family-oriented", with the sale of alcohol "ancillary" to that. But North Yorkshire councillors said the proposal was not detailed enough and deferred a final decision over the application until later this year. A meeting of North Yorkshire Council's licensing committee, at Scarborough Town Hall on Tuesday, heard concerns had been raised about the level of detail around seating plans, smoking areas and fire risk assessments, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) said. Filey Town Council lodged an objection and said music from the bar might disturb people in the nearby Memorial Gardens, where various acts of remembrance take place. Mr Firth volunteered additional conditions restricting music. However, Councillor Tim Grogan, who chairs the committee, said insufficient detail had been given and a decision on the application was deferred until 10 June. Mr Firth was told to redraft the plan to more accurately represent his "vision for Harry's Bar", taking into consideration the Memorial Gardens, seating and live music arrangements and a plan for smoking, as well as a fire service plan. He said he was "a little bit disappointed" by the deferral, because he had hoped to open by June. Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North. Local Democracy Reporting Service Residents' fears over bar's late opening plan
BBC News
23-04-2025
- Business
- BBC News
Decision over plans for new bar in Filey deferred until summer
A decision over an application for a new bar in a North Yorkshire seaside town that would serve alcohol until 01:00 seven days a week has been Firth, who plans to open Harry's Bar in Murray Street, Filey, wanted permission to serve daily from 09:00 and to play live and recorded said the business would be "very family-oriented", with the sale of alcohol "ancillary" to North Yorkshire councillors said the proposal was not detailed enough and deferred a final decision over the application until later this year. A meeting of North Yorkshire Council's licensing committee, at Scarborough Town Hall on Tuesday, heard concerns had been raised about the level of detail around seating plans, smoking areas and fire risk assessments, the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) Town Council lodged an objection and said music from the bar might disturb people in the nearby Memorial Gardens, where various acts of remembrance take Firth volunteered additional conditions restricting Councillor Tim Grogan, who chairs the committee, said insufficient detail had been given and a decision on the application was deferred until 10 Firth was told to redraft the plan to more accurately represent his "vision for Harry's Bar", taking into consideration the Memorial Gardens, seating and live music arrangements and a plan for smoking, as well as a fire service said he was "a little bit disappointed" by the deferral, because he had hoped to open by to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
