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Scottish Sun
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scottish Sun
We woke up with a Banksy mural on our house… it's cost us over £400k and cursed our lives – he's an uncaring a**ehole
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) GERT and Garry Coutts were at home in North London when they had a strange call from the tenant renting their house in Lowestoft, Suffolk. Hearing that scaffolding had been erected overnight, they assumed that the council was fixing the chimney. Sign up for Scottish Sun newsletter Sign up 12 Gert and Garry woke up to find a Banksy mural on the side of the house they owned Credit: Alamy 12 The seagull mural was the largest work yet by the anonymous street artist Credit: Oliv3r Drone Photography/ 12 The artwork ended up leaving the couple seriously out of pocket Credit: Supplied By the following morning it had disappeared to reveal a giant seagull, some 14ft in size, painted on the end of the wall of the house. It was the largest work ever done by the famous yet anonymous street artist, Banksy. In the foreground he had placed a real skip which had strips of insulation in it that resembled chips. The piece, which appeared in August 2021, attracted worldwide attention with hundreds of people flocking to the site, some putting their young children in the skip that the gull was dive-bombing, to take photographs. With talk of the art work being worth £3million, the stunned couple wondered what to do next. But instead of making them a fortune, the street art has caused them years of anguish left them seriously out of pocket. It eventually cost them in excess of £400,000 to have it removed and put in storage and they continue to fork out £3,000 a month to keep it there in the hope of eventually finding a buyer. 'It's not a seagull, it's an albatross!' says an angry Gert. 'At first you think you are gifted by Banksy but you are actually not.' Their extraordinary story and that of another seaside home owner in Margate, Kent, are told in the BBC Sounds podcast The Banksy Story: When Banksy Comes to Town, presented by James Peak. BANKING IN Moment new Banksy artwork is hauled away by council workers in high-vis jackets 'I didn't know what to think or what to do when I first saw it,' says Gert. Amidst all the commotion, the local council decided to act and asked the couple's permission to place a huge Perspex screen over the seagull. 'But it started hanging off because the wind got under it,' says Gert. 'The council then contacted us saying it could be dangerous to the public if it fell off and that we needed to replace it. I said, 'Surely it's your problem.' "They wanted to put a preservation order on it and we would be liable for the upkeep of the artwork at a cost of £40,000 a year. So, there you go Banksy. Does he realise what the consequences are of his art work - or does he care?' Depressed and sick The co-owner of Gert and Garry's house, Rod, managed to arrangea loan to get the wall removed. In a huge undertaking, the 16-tonne structure was lifted off by crane overnight. 12 The seagull artwork quickly become a popular spot for tourists and locals to pose for photos Credit: PA 12 It cost in excess of £400,000 to remove and store the artwork Credit: Oliv3r Drone Photography/ 12 Only the internal walls of the house were left when the mural was removed Credit: Andrew Styczynski After all costs were factored in, including road closure, it was an eye-watering sum in excess of £400,000. But while experts usually value the price of a Banksy artwork in the millions, the reality of selling it on is very different as the unfortunate trio soon discovered. All the auction houses they approached turn down the offer to try to sell it leaving Gert, Garry and Rod to pay £3,000 a month to keep it stored in a climate controlled-warehouse - and ruing the day Banksy came to town. 'I'm completely depressed and sick about it,' says Garry. 'I've done everything I can, tried to do the right things, and me and my wife have just had the p**s taken out of us. I'm so angry about what has gone on because of that a**ehole Banksy. It's as simple as that.' Rod adds: 'Banksy does these things without thought of the consequences – or doesn't give a damn about the consequences." To us he's an uncaring, unthinking person who has had a massive detrimental impact Rod 'He might say, just paint over it if you don't want it but if we did that the public would say, 'How dare you destroy such a phenomenal piece of art?' "We can't win. To us he's an uncaring, unthinking person who has had a massive detrimental impact. "It would have been great if we had got together and worked out how to get the artwork to remain in the public domain and, okay, we may want a little bit of money on top of that, but he has never come forward.' Repeat offender A similar tale happened to homeowner Sam, at her property in Margate. 'I was in bed on a miserable February morning when I checked my phone and there was a message from my tenant at the house, saying, 'Sam, we need to talk,'' she recalls. 'She added a picture of the house with a Banksy on it.' The work released on February 14, 2023 was called Valentine's Day Mascara and featured a painting of a 50s-style housewife wearing an apron and yellow washing-up gloves. With a missing front tooth and a swollen eye, she appears to have pushed her abusive husband into a real-life discarded freezer in front of the painting, with his protruding legs painted on the wall behind. 12 Banksy's "Valentine's Day Mascara" made use of rubbish that had been left in the street Credit: Reuters 12 A perspex screen was eventually placed over the artwork Credit: Getty Other real items included a frying pan at her feet with splashes of red on it, indicating it to be the bloodied murder weapon, an empty beer bottle and a broken white plastic garden chair. Intriguingly, Sam works with domestic abuse charities, suggesting that the siting may not have been a coincidence. 'I am Kent born and bred and have a long association with Margate. I used to go on holiday there,' says Sam. 'There are two sides to Margate that I know – those who don't have much money and who are really struggling on benefits, and the arty side with people from London who have gone there to capitalise on the property market. 12 "For me, as a social entrepreneur, I believe there are ways to do good and make money. So, I wanted this to do as much good for as many people as we could. "I thought we could use the art work to raise money for the domestic abuse charity, Oasis, in Margate. It would be great for the charity and for the town. 'The first thing I did was to Google, 'What do you do when you wake up with a Banksy on your wall?' I thought it would definitely provide the answers, step-by-step. But it said nothing. Despite all the money and the palaver and the global attention, he [Banksy] is just a vandal Sam 'So, I thought, right, I need to contact the council and find an art gallery that can advise me. "The first one I rang didn't really seem to get it, the second one was Red Eight and the guy who answered the phone said, 'We'll be there within an hour.'' But the problem for the town was that Banksy had decided to do this work in the style of fly-tipped junk – something the council had been criticised for not getting to grips with. Embarrassed by the public attention, council workmen were sent to remove the freezer and the other 'rubbish', leaving behind a by-now meaningless woman and disembodied pair of legs on the wall. Public pressure The public ridicule prompted a quick U-turn and they replaced the freezer but the frying pan had been lost in the rubbish tip. Red Eight chief executive Julian managed to track down the person who had pinched the three-legged chair and had to pay over the odds for its return. With the piece obviously so vulnerable, Julian and Sam went into partnership to have the wall removed for over £200,000 and placed on public exhibition at the Dreamland complex in Margate – along with the freezer and upturned chair – where they are hoping to one day find a buyer. 12 The cost of removing the mural came to more than £200,000 Credit: Chris Eades 12 The artwork now sits on display in Margate's Dreamland complex Credit: PA 12 Fortunately the fridge and chair were returned Credit: The Sun - Jane Matthews 'It's cost more than the house is worth! That's the bizarre thing,' says Sam. 'Somehow this has been gifted to us as our responsibility. The people of Margate also had a huge vested interest in it and that was really big pressure. "There's no precedent and it's easy to look back with hindsight but at the time you are very quickly making decisions on things you don't really understand or know anything about. "Despite all the money and the palaver and the global attention, he [Banksy] is just a vandal.' Rod, who has shared similar grief and expense with the 'Lowestoft Seagull,' shares Sam's despair. 'There's a certain amount of hypocrisy on Bankys's part,' he says. 'He does all these street art works, gets a massive amount of publicity for it, which boosts the price of his art work, but he's saying the people on whom he has imposed the artworks can't have anything. "They've got to live with the cost and the emotional disturbance. 'It's clearly very difficult to sell 16 tonnes of brick and a skip.' We have contacted Banksy's representatives for comment.
The Irish Sun
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Irish Sun
We woke up with a Banksy mural on our house… it's cost us over £400k and cursed our lives – he's an uncaring a**ehole
Loading the GERT and Garry Coutts were at home in North London when they had a strange call from the tenant renting their house in Lowestoft, Suffolk. Hearing that scaffolding had been erected overnight, they assumed that the council was fixing the chimney. 12 Gert and Garry woke up to find a Banksy mural on the side of the house they owned Credit: Alamy 12 The seagull mural was the largest work yet by the anonymous street artist Credit: Oliv3r Drone Photography/ 12 The artwork ended up leaving the couple seriously out of pocket Credit: Supplied By the following morning it had disappeared to reveal a giant seagull, some 14ft in size, painted on the end of the wall of the house. It was the largest work ever done by the famous yet anonymous street artist, In the foreground he had placed a real skip which had strips of insulation in it that resembled chips. With talk of the art work being worth £3million, the stunned couple wondered what to do next. But instead of making them a fortune, the street art has caused them years of anguish left them seriously out of pocket. It eventually 'It's not a seagull, it's an albatross!' says an angry Gert. Most read in The Sun 'At first you think you are gifted by Banksy but you are actually not.' Their extraordinary story and that of another seaside home owner in Margate, Kent, are told in the BBC Sounds podcast The Banksy Story: When Banksy Comes to Town, presented by James Peak. BANKING IN Moment new Banksy artwork is hauled away by council workers in high-vis jackets 'I didn't know what to think or what to do when I first saw it,' says Gert. Amidst all the commotion, the local council decided to act and asked the couple's permission to place a huge Perspex screen over the seagull. 'But it started hanging off because the wind got under it,' says Gert. 'The council then contacted us saying it could be dangerous to the public if it fell off and that we needed to replace it. I said, 'Surely it's your problem.' "They wanted to put a preservation order on it and we would be liable for the upkeep of the artwork at a cost of £40,000 a year. So, there you go Banksy. Does he realise what the consequences are of his art work - or does he care?' Depressed and sick The co-owner of Gert and Garry's house, Rod, managed to arrangea loan to get the wall removed. In a huge undertaking, the 16-tonne structure was lifted off by crane overnight. 12 The seagull artwork quickly become a popular spot for tourists and locals to pose for photos Credit: PA 12 It cost in excess of £400,000 to remove and store the artwork Credit: Oliv3r Drone Photography/ 12 Only the internal walls of the house were left when the mural was removed Credit: Andrew Styczynski After all costs were factored in, including road closure, it was an eye-watering sum in excess of £400,000. But while experts usually value the price of a Banksy artwork in the millions, the reality of selling it on is very different as the unfortunate trio soon discovered. All the auction houses they approached turn down the offer to try to sell it leaving Gert, Garry and Rod to pay £3,000 a month to keep it stored in a climate controlled-warehouse - and ruing the day 'I'm completely depressed and sick about it,' says Garry. 'I've done everything I can, tried to do the right things, and me and my wife have just had the p**s taken out of us. I'm so angry about what has gone on because of that a**ehole Banksy. It's as simple as that.' Rod adds: 'Banksy does these things without thought of the consequences – or doesn't give a damn about the consequences." To us he's an uncaring, unthinking person who has had a massive detrimental impact Rod 'He might say, just paint over it if you don't want it but if we did that the public would say, 'How dare you destroy such a phenomenal piece of art?' "We can't win. To us he's an uncaring, unthinking person who has had a massive detrimental impact. "It would have been great if we had got together and worked out how to get the artwork to remain in the public domain and, okay, we may want a little bit of money on top of that, but he has never come forward.' Repeat offender A similar tale happened to homeowner Sam, at her property in Margate. 'I was in bed on a miserable February morning when I checked my phone and there was a message from my tenant at the house, saying, 'Sam, we need to talk,'' she recalls. 'She added a picture of the house with a Banksy on it.' The work released on February 14, 2023 was called With a missing front tooth and a swollen eye, she appears to have pushed her abusive husband into a real-life discarded freezer in front of the painting, with his protruding legs painted on the wall behind. 12 Banksy's "Valentine's Day Mascara" made use of rubbish that had been left in the street Credit: Reuters 12 A perspex screen was eventually placed over the artwork Credit: Getty Other real items included a frying pan at her feet with splashes of red on it, indicating it to be the bloodied murder weapon, an empty beer bottle and a broken white plastic garden chair. Intriguingly, Sam works with domestic abuse charities, suggesting that the siting may not have been a coincidence. 'I am Kent born and bred and have a long association with Margate. I used to go on holiday there,' says Sam. 'There are two sides to Margate that I know – those who don't have much money and who are really struggling on benefits, and the arty side with people from London who have gone there to capitalise on the property market. 12 "For me, as a social entrepreneur, I believe there are ways to do good and make money. So, I wanted this to do as much good for as many people as we could. "I thought we could use the art work to raise money for the domestic abuse charity, Oasis, in Margate. It would be great for the charity and for the town. 'The first thing I did was to Google, 'What do you do when you wake up with a Banksy on your wall?' I thought it would definitely provide the answers, step-by-step. But it said nothing. Despite all the money and the palaver and the global attention, he [Banksy] is just a vandal Sam 'So, I thought, right, I need to contact the council and find an art gallery that can advise me. "The first one I rang didn't really seem to get it, the second one was Red Eight and the guy who answered the phone said, 'We'll be there within an hour.'' But the problem for the town was that Banksy had decided to do this work in the style of fly-tipped junk – something the council had been criticised for not getting to grips with. Embarrassed by the public attention, Public pressure The public ridicule prompted a quick U-turn and they replaced the freezer but the frying pan had been lost in the rubbish tip. Red Eight chief executive Julian managed to track down the person who had pinched the three-legged chair and had to pay over the odds for its return. With the piece obviously so vulnerable, Julian and Sam went into partnership to have the wall removed for over £200,000 and 12 The cost of removing the mural came to more than £200,000 Credit: Chris Eades 12 The artwork now sits on display in Margate's Dreamland complex Credit: PA 12 Fortunately the fridge and chair were returned Credit: The Sun - Jane Matthews 'It's cost more than the house is worth! That's the bizarre thing,' says Sam. 'Somehow this has been gifted to us as our responsibility. The people of Margate also had a huge vested interest in it and that was really big pressure. "There's no precedent and it's easy to look back with hindsight but at the time you are very quickly making decisions on things you don't really understand or know anything about. "Despite all the money and the palaver and the global attention, he [Banksy] is just a vandal.' Rod, who has shared similar grief and expense with the 'Lowestoft Seagull,' shares Sam's despair. 'There's a certain amount of hypocrisy on Bankys's part,' he says. 'He does all these street art works, gets a massive amount of publicity for it, which boosts the price of his art work, but he's saying the people on whom he has imposed the artworks can't have anything. "They've got to live with the cost and the emotional disturbance. Read more on the Irish Sun 'It's clearly very difficult to sell 16 tonnes of brick and a skip.' We have contacted Banksy's representatives for comment. What to do when Banksy comes to town Opinions differ on whether waking up to a Banksy mural on your home is a blessing or a curse, so what should you do if you find yourself the unwitting host of the street art? 'It's very much a seller's market and so I would suggest acting quickly if you want to capitalise on the situation,' Julia Bell, art advisor and founder of Parapluie, told Tatler. 'You could also separate the artwork from the property and conduct a separate sale transaction. If you wish for the mural to remain on your property, you will need to take steps to protect it. 'You could also seek a preservation order from your local council, but there are conditional costs incurred by doing so.' Steph Warren – the only person ever to work for Banksy without signing his non-disclosure agreement - told the first series of the BBC Podcast that situation is crucial for much of his art. 'With Banksy, where he puts the art is fundamental," she says. "Remove the work from the precise place on the streets that he put it, and the work instantly loses its power. Context is everything." Now the owner of street-art gallery Stelladore in St Leonards, also believes painting over the work is better than tearing out walls. 'Rather than it costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, buy a five litre tub of emulsion and paint over it,' she says. 'These things are not meant to be removed and stored. They are supposed to be looked at, admired, photographed and painted over.'
The Sun
17-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Sun
We woke up with a Banksy mural on our house… it's cost us over £400k and cursed our lives – he's an uncaring a**ehole
Loading the Elevenlabs Text to Speech AudioNative Player... GERT and Garry Coutts were at home in North London when they had a strange call from the tenant renting their house in Lowestoft, Suffolk. Hearing that scaffolding had been erected overnight, they assumed that the council was fixing the chimney. 12 12 By the following morning it had disappeared to reveal a giant seagull, some 14ft in size, painted on the end of the wall of the house. It was the largest work ever done by the famous yet anonymous street artist, Banksy. In the foreground he had placed a real skip which had strips of insulation in it that resembled chips. The piece, which appeared in August 2021, attracted worldwide attention with hundreds of people flocking to the site, some putting their young children in the skip that the gull was dive-bombing, to take photographs. With talk of the art work being worth £3million, the stunned couple wondered what to do next. But instead of making them a fortune, the street art has caused them years of anguish left them seriously out of pocket. It eventually cost them in excess of £400,000 to have it removed and put in storage and they continue to fork out £3,000 a month to keep it there in the hope of eventually finding a buyer. 'It's not a seagull, it's an albatross!' says an angry Gert. 'At first you think you are gifted by Banksy but you are actually not.' Their extraordinary story and that of another seaside home owner in Margate, Kent, are told in the BBC Sounds podcast The Banksy Story: When Banksy Comes to Town, presented by James Peak. BANKING IN Moment new Banksy artwork is hauled away by council workers in high-vis jackets 'I didn't know what to think or what to do when I first saw it,' says Gert. Amidst all the commotion, the local council decided to act and asked the couple's permission to place a huge Perspex screen over the seagull. 'But it started hanging off because the wind got under it,' says Gert. 'The council then contacted us saying it could be dangerous to the public if it fell off and that we needed to replace it. I said, 'Surely it's your problem.' "They wanted to put a preservation order on it and we would be liable for the upkeep of the artwork at a cost of £40,000 a year. So, there you go Banksy. Does he realise what the consequences are of his art work - or does he care?' Depressed and sick The co-owner of Gert and Garry's house, Rod, managed to arrangea loan to get the wall removed. In a huge undertaking, the 16-tonne structure was lifted off by crane overnight. 12 12 12 After all costs were factored in, including road closure, it was an eye-watering sum in excess of £400,000. But while experts usually value the price of a Banksy artwork in the millions, the reality of selling it on is very different as the unfortunate trio soon discovered. All the auction houses they approached turn down the offer to try to sell it leaving Gert, Garry and Rod to pay £3,000 a month to keep it stored in a climate controlled-warehouse - and ruing the day Banksy came to town. 'I'm completely depressed and sick about it,' says Garry. 'I've done everything I can, tried to do the right things, and me and my wife have just had the p**s taken out of us. I'm so angry about what has gone on because of that a**ehole Banksy. It's as simple as that.' Rod adds: 'Banksy does these things without thought of the consequences – or doesn't give a damn about the consequences." To us he's an uncaring, unthinking person who has had a massive detrimental impact Rod 'He might say, just paint over it if you don't want it but if we did that the public would say, 'How dare you destroy such a phenomenal piece of art?' "We can't win. To us he's an uncaring, unthinking person who has had a massive detrimental impact. "It would have been great if we had got together and worked out how to get the artwork to remain in the public domain and, okay, we may want a little bit of money on top of that, but he has never come forward.' Repeat offender A similar tale happened to homeowner Sam, at her property in Margate. 'I was in bed on a miserable February morning when I checked my phone and there was a message from my tenant at the house, saying, 'Sam, we need to talk,'' she recalls. 'She added a picture of the house with a Banksy on it.' The work released on February 14, 2023 was called Valentine's Day Mascara and featured a painting of a 50s-style housewife wearing an apron and yellow washing-up gloves. With a missing front tooth and a swollen eye, she appears to have pushed her abusive husband into a real-life discarded freezer in front of the painting, with his protruding legs painted on the wall behind. 12 12 Other real items included a frying pan at her feet with splashes of red on it, indicating it to be the bloodied murder weapon, an empty beer bottle and a broken white plastic garden chair. Intriguingly, Sam works with domestic abuse charities, suggesting that the siting may not have been a coincidence. 'I am Kent born and bred and have a long association with Margate. I used to go on holiday there,' says Sam. 'There are two sides to Margate that I know – those who don't have much money and who are really struggling on benefits, and the arty side with people from London who have gone there to capitalise on the property market. "For me, as a social entrepreneur, I believe there are ways to do good and make money. So, I wanted this to do as much good for as many people as we could. "I thought we could use the art work to raise money for the domestic abuse charity, Oasis, in Margate. It would be great for the charity and for the town. 'The first thing I did was to Google, 'What do you do when you wake up with a Banksy on your wall?' I thought it would definitely provide the answers, step-by-step. But it said nothing. 'So, I thought, right, I need to contact the council and find an art gallery that can advise me. "The first one I rang didn't really seem to get it, the second one was Red Eight and the guy who answered the phone said, 'We'll be there within an hour.'' But the problem for the town was that Banksy had decided to do this work in the style of fly-tipped junk – something the council had been criticised for not getting to grips with. Embarrassed by the public attention, council workmen were sent to remove the freezer and the other 'rubbish', leaving behind a by-now meaningless woman and disembodied pair of legs on the wall. Public pressure The public ridicule prompted a quick U-turn and they replaced the freezer but the frying pan had been lost in the rubbish tip. Red Eight chief executive Julian managed to track down the person who had pinched the three-legged chair and had to pay over the odds for its return. With the piece obviously so vulnerable, Julian and Sam went into partnership to have the wall removed for over £200,000 and placed on public exhibition at the Dreamland complex in Margate – along with the freezer and upturned chair – where they are hoping to one day find a buyer. What to do when Banksy comes to town Opinions differ on whether waking up to a Banksy mural on your home is a blessing or a curse, so what should you do if you find yourself the unwitting host of the street art? 'It's very much a seller's market and so I would suggest acting quickly if you want to capitalise on the situation,' Julia Bell, art advisor and founder of Parapluie, told Tatler. 'You could also separate the artwork from the property and conduct a separate sale transaction. If you wish for the mural to remain on your property, you will need to take steps to protect it. 'You could also seek a preservation order from your local council, but there are conditional costs incurred by doing so.' Steph Warren – the only person ever to work for Banksy without signing his non-disclosure agreement - told the first series of the BBC Podcast that situation is crucial for much of his art. 'With Banksy, where he puts the art is fundamental," she says. "Remove the work from the precise place on the streets that he put it, and the work instantly loses its power. Context is everything." Now the owner of street-art gallery Stelladore in St Leonards, also believes painting over the work is better than tearing out walls. 'Rather than it costing hundreds of thousands of pounds, buy a five litre tub of emulsion and paint over it,' she says. 'These things are not meant to be removed and stored. They are supposed to be looked at, admired, photographed and painted over.' 'It's cost more than the house is worth! That's the bizarre thing,' says Sam. 'Somehow this has been gifted to us as our responsibility. The people of Margate also had a huge vested interest in it and that was really big pressure. "There's no precedent and it's easy to look back with hindsight but at the time you are very quickly making decisions on things you don't really understand or know anything about. "Despite all the money and the palaver and the global attention, he [Banksy] is just a vandal.' Rod, who has shared similar grief and expense with the 'Lowestoft Seagull,' shares Sam's despair. 'There's a certain amount of hypocrisy on Bankys's part,' he says. 'He does all these street art works, gets a massive amount of publicity for it, which boosts the price of his art work, but he's saying the people on whom he has imposed the artworks can't have anything. "They've got to live with the cost and the emotional disturbance. 'It's clearly very difficult to sell 16 tonnes of brick and a skip.' We have contacted Banksy's representatives for comment. 12 12 12
The Guardian
02-04-2025
- Science
- The Guardian
An elusive worm: the Salinella is shrouded in mystery
Last February, with colleagues Gert and Philipp and my daughter Francesca, I made the long journey to an unremarkable city called Río Cuarto, east of the Argentinian Andes. We went in search of a worm of unusual distinction. Why a worm? As humans, we naturally love the animals that are most familiar. But from a zoologist's point of view, the vertebrates, from mammals and birds to frogs and fish, can be seen as variations on a single theme. We all have a head at one end (with skull, eyes and jaws); in the middle, a couple of pairs of limbs (a goldfish's fins, or your arms and legs); and, holding all this together, a backbone ending in a tail. If animals were modes of transport, the vertebrates we are so obsessed with would be the countless makes, varieties and colours of cars. But the invertebrates, and most especially the many kinds of worms, would be planes, submarines, unicycles, hot air balloons, space hoppers, jetpacks and roller skates. The true diversity of animal life, and much of the story of animal evolution, lies among these worms. The particular worm we were looking for may be the least known animal ever recorded. A 19th-century German zoologist called Johannes Frenzel is the only person ever to have seen it. He named it Salinella – little salt dweller – but its rarity is not its biggest USP. According to Frenzel, Salinella is the oldest and simplest of all living animals. The sole survivor of an ancient staging post on the road leading from amoebas and algae to earthworms, butterflies and humans. For someone (like me) interested in the beginnings of the animal kingdom, Salinella is a kind of time machine. To study Salinella's simple body, its genes and its true relationship to other animals, would be to step through a portal to a time 600m years ago when animals were first inventing themselves. There is one last thing you need to know about Salinella (hopefully, preparing you for the less than triumphant result of our expedition): Frenzel's account of how he found it may be the hardest to follow and most chaotic set of instructions you will ever read in a scientific paper: the worst treasure map in the world. Frenzel was given a sample of salty soil by a colleague, Wilhelm 'Guillermo' Bodenbender in the 1890s. The sample's origin is noted simply as 'from the salt pans in the Río Cuarto region'. Frenzel added a little tap water to his sample but reports that a little iodine had also 'got into it', as if by accident. The precious sample was left for several weeks on a sunny windowsill, where, the lid apparently loose, 'dust and sand, dead flies etc had … fallen in abundantly'. Reading this protocol, the actual source of the worm Frenzel found is entirely opaque – was it in the salt from the salt pans or in the soil? Where were the samples even collected? Did it just blow in through the window on a dead fly? The vagueness of Frenzel's instructions meant our trip was taken much more in hope than expectation of success. But the lure of rediscovering the very lowliest of lowly worms was irresistible. Argentina was wonderful, Buenos Aires glamorous and cool, the interior of the country hot, dusty and endlessly flat. After two weeks, perhaps our most useful discovery was just how hard it was going to be to find the source of Bodenbender's salty soil sample. The past 130 years have seen a landscape transformed from boundless Pampas to equally endless fields of soya, alfalfa and maize. But the insights into the origins of the animal kingdom that might come from this amazing worm are so tantalising that we will keep looking. Max Telford is the Jodrell professor of zoology and comparative anatomy at UCL and the author of The Tree of Life Between 24 March and 2 April, as part of our invertebrate of the year competition, we will be profiling a shortlist of 10 of the invertebrates chosen by readers and selected by our wildlife writers from more than 2,500 nominations. The voting for our 2025 invertebrate of the year will run from midday on Wednesday 2 April until midday on Friday 4 April, and the winner will be announced on Monday 7 April
Yahoo
21-03-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
The 'family' club led by a Champions League winner
A non-league football player-manager says he knows how influential he can be at the club as he brings Champions League experience to the Kent lower leagues. As a teenager Ben Greenhalgh took home a Champions League medal with Inter Milan but now plies his trade with eighth-tier side Margate FC. The former Maidstone and Dartford midfielder says he aims to "go in, put my most into it and hope the club succeeds". He says: "There's a lot of special things about non-league. I think it's a bit more real because you know the fans, and you know how influential you can be to that club." Greenhalgh was 17 when he featured on Sky's Football's Next Star, and won a year's contract at Inter Milan. First team manager Jose Mourinho took an interest in the academy, which meant he often trained with the first team in a year that they won the treble. He travelled with the squad to Madrid, alongside the likes of Wesley Sneijder, Javier Zanetti, and Samuel Eto'o, and they beat Bayern Munich 2-0 in the Champions League final. It's a story celebrated by Margate fans, who have a song about him, singing "Champions League, he's won that too, now he's at Margate, playing in blue." Formed in 1896, Margate FC benefits from the rock'n'roll backing of The Libertines, who sponsor the club's shirts and own a hotel in the area. Links with The Libertines mean the shirts' appeal goes well beyond Margate fans, with kitman Frankie Empsom saying: "It's a godsend for a non-league club like ourselves, something like the sales of the shirt eases the costs paid out for the running of the club." Frankie looks after the kits for seven teams who play at Margate, using two washing machines which he calls Gert and Daisy. He said: "The fact they play in a white kit away can be a nightmare." The club plays in the Isthmian League South East, the eight tier of English football, and is described as "family-orientated", Frankie's sister, Maggie, says. Alongside Frankie, Maggie sells the programmes, and her daughter, Terry, is famous at the club for banging her drum on the sidelines. Terry went to her first game in 1978 when her uncle Frankie was supposed to be babysitting. Maggie joked: "I never should've let him babysit." Terry has only missed four games in the last 13 years, most recently when she started a new job at a nearby care home, which you can see from the club's Hartsdown ground. "They can hear me from there so they know when it's matchday. "I said when I started I'll work all the hours you want but not a Saturday or a Tuesday night," she said. Asked why she does it, she said: "It's almost like therapy, because if you've had a bad week and can get all the angst out by cheering the lads on, it's very cathartic." Follow BBC Kent on Facebook, on X, and on Instagram. Send your story ideas to southeasttoday@ or WhatsApp us on 08081 002250. Project set up by football club to help homeless The Libertines sponsor football team Margate FC
