Latest news with #JohnKeats
The Guardian
4 hours ago
- Climate
- The Guardian
Early ripening of berries in UK shows nature is under stress, say experts
Autumn is the 'season of mists and mellow fruitfulness', according to the poet John Keats – but anyone hoping for a glut of blackberries this September may be sorely disappointed. In many parts of the UK brambles have been bursting with fruit since mid-summer, with some now bearing only shrivelled berries. And it is not the only hallmark of autumn that appears to have come early: trees are dropping their leaves, apples are ripe and acorns are hitting the ground. But with temperatures still high, experts say this is not simply a case of an early fall. Instead, they say, nature is under stress. England has just had its fourth heatwave of the summer, with temperatures reaching up to 33.4C, and five areas of the country are in drought. 'A lot of what we're seeing has been caused by a very hot and very dry spring and summer, it's been one of the driest periods on record,' said Kathryn Brown, the director of climate change and evidence at the Wildlife Trusts. 'So it feels like autumn has come early, but it's due to the natural environment reacting to that very extreme spring and summer, which is not average conditions that our species are adapted to in terms of seasonal cycles.' Brown said some birch and poplar trees had already turned brown and were losing their leaves, while in her own garden acorns were already falling from oak trees. 'Trees will set seed [earlier] as a reaction to stress, because they're trying to employ an insurance strategy,' she said. There have also been warnings about trees suddenly dropping branches. While the cause of this phenomenon is not clear, it often occurs after a prolonged period of dry weather. According to the Met Office's State of the UK Climate report, climate changes are causing shifts in many biological events in the UK. Prof Tim Sparks, a co-author of the report, noted that plants and insects were becoming active earlier in the year. Sparks said earlier fruit ripening was a result of higher temperatures, with shrivelled blackberries arising because of a lack of water. 'Leaf drop is also a water issue; it's not autumn in the sense it's not the end of the growing season if we get more rain,' he said. While trees are dropping their leaves because of drought, Sparks said a warmer climate would generally be expected to result in trees holding on to their leaves for longer. Together with earlier fruit ripening, he said, that would result in a longer autumn. While shifts in the timing of natural events can be discombobulating for humans, the ramifications could be serious for wildlife. As Brown points out, birds such as blackbirds tend to predominantly eat insects in the spring and summer and feed these to their chicks when they are breeding. 'But in the autumn, they switch to seeds and berries and fruits like blackberries. And if they've already come and gone, there's going to be a food gap in the autumn,' she said. Brown said this had serious implications for animals trying to get ready for winter, when food is scarce. 'It's very hard to predict what the exact impacts are going to be for different species, but it is very worrying, because the seasonal cycle is completely out of whack at the moment and our wildlife is not adapted to that, so it's definitely much more chaotic for them,' she said. Farmers are also coming to terms with unpredictable weather. While the National Farmers' Union said farmers and growers around the country were facing a varied picture in terms of crop yields this year, Rachel Hallos, its vice-president, said the increasing extreme weather was affecting farmers' ability to produce food. 'Although parts of the country have seen some rainfall, and farmers are no strangers to unpredictable weather, the extremes this year have been unprecedented,' she said. 'Last year's harvest was marked by heavy rain; this year, it's the lack of it. These fluctuations of drought and flood are becoming more pronounced and more regular.' Hallos said food security must be a national priority and she called for the government to support farmers and growers to build resilience, stressing that investment was needed in climate adaptation and resilient crop varieties as well as water infrastructure. Hallos's concerns are supported by data from the Met Office, which has revealed winters are getting wetter and temperature extremes have increased, becoming more frequent and more intense. This June was the warmest ever recorded in England and the second warmest for the UK since records began in 1884. Brown said a key concern was that the current conditions were occurring with global warming at about 1.5C above preindustrial levels, yet higher levels of warming were expected. 'That's what really worries me is seeing the impacts now at this relatively low level of warming where things are already getting really stressed, and thinking about what's this going to be like in five years or 10 years, or even next year,' she said. 'It's quite hard to predict, but it doesn't look very hopeful.'
Economic Times
2 days ago
- General
- Economic Times
Happy stability
In his celebrated poem, Happy Insensibility, John Keats is inspired by a tree whose inability to remember the past helps it to power through a cold winter and to retain its ingrained capability to sprout new leaves and blossom into a lush green tree. The tree is not capable of remembering its past accomplishments of being full of leaves, which have been lost in the cold winter. All that it does is make itself capable of enduring and surviving through the ongoing winter and at the right time, when spring comes, it breaks through with its inherent capability of becoming a green tree again. In the yogic pose of Vrikshasan, Tree Pose, we stand on one leg with another leg bent and resting on the thigh. We then fold our hands and raise them high above our head. The pose builds our balance, stability and strength. Practitioners of the Tree pose would know that this balance and stability is directly proportional to the stability of thoughts while doing the pose. If you practise the pose along with other people, and your mind tells you to do this pose better or longer than others, then you will lose balance. If there are thoughts cluttering your mind, you will lose stability. That is why this pose is more difficult with eyes closed than with eyes open. A calm, quiet and self-focused mind are preconditions to achieving a steady Tree Pose. Through trees, nature teaches us to forget the past, deal with the present and strive for future. Through the Tree Pose, we learn to be calm, stable, balanced and strong. (Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of Elevate your knowledge and leadership skills at a cost cheaper than your daily tea. Tariffs, tantrums, and tech: How Trump's trade drama is keeping Indian IT on tenterhooks How IDBI banker landed plush Delhi properties in Amtek's INR33k crore skimming Good, bad, ugly: How will higher ethanol in petrol play out for you? As big fat Indian wedding slims to budget, Manyavar loses lustre Regulatory gray area makes investing in LVMH, BP tough For Indian retail Logistics sector: Be tactical in the face of head & tailwinds; 6 logistics stocks with an upside potential of over 30% Just hold a good business for the long term, irrespective of the noise; ignore the cap. 13 stocks with an upside potential of up to 51% Stock picks of the week: 5 stocks with consistent score improvement and return potential of more than 25% in 1 year
The Guardian
11-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Poem of the week: Autumn by Vidyan Ravinthiran
Autumn (after John Keats) The fallen yellow leaves now oftener flare red. Embers. Blown-up chilli-flakes. The burning of the library at Jaffna. Foreign dead about to break the spell of here and now. Phantasms steal into the peaceful lives we seem to have earned, telling tales about what happened to them, not us, and in a tongue I never learned. This is my garden, my spade of blood meal and from our kitchen the time-travelling smell of chicken curry floats to Walden Pond. – A swooping cardinal like a struck match. Above the fence mosquitoes eddy like opinion, crazed by a patch, of red-pink light into giddy scribbling on the air. There is no need to be ashamed. I see you there and keep alive the thought of meeting one day brightly after the next. Black mustard seed thrums in the sauce, the sky falls asleep; where feelings come from or may leap across and through and to no one can say. Tsunami-hit, shoved over at a tilt, they've left the bashed old kovil's god-thronged tower standing tallish, beyond the new one built to face, this time, becalm, the ocean's power … Our autumn clouds are a far-quarried rubble to which the changing light does spicy things. To sing, to fly, migrate, are curious verbs; beauty, like happiness, frailly reliable, has nothing to do with why there are wings, why birds build nests and sing their songs, or why barbed wire's besotted with its barbs. Contemporary poetry collections often fall into one of two dominant categories. One kind travels thoughtfully, claiming spaces in an unfamiliar elsewhere, the other stays at home, revisiting and refining material that's more familiar. Avidyā, Vidyan Ravinthiran's latest, represents for me the exploratory kind, a tour that skirts the flames of history in a relaxed almost self-effacing manner. This is especially true of Autumn. The subtitle's qualification after slyly denotes the time and distance between the two poems. Keats wrote his ode To Autumn on 19 September 1819. The England-born Sri Lankan poet is writing more than two centuries later; since Keats's time Sri Lanka has been colonised by the British, granted independence, endured civil war and seen terrible reprisals against the Tamil Tigers for their armed struggle for independence. The autumnal redness the poem evokes soon turns to fire. A rhythm of stops and starts underlines the threat: 'The fallen yellow leaves now oftener / flare red. Embers. Blown-up chilli-flakes. / The burning of the library at Jaffna.' Keats, reading over the poet's shoulder, might remember Peterloo (critics have found that massacre in his ode's possible subtext of 'surveillance') and realise that the 21st century poet is also witness to less than 'mellow fruitfulness'. Autumn soon reveals the violent biblioclasm of 1981 when Jaffna Public Library, one of the biggest libraries in Asia and a major Tamil cultural centre, was burned down by a mob that included police and paramilitaries. But it isn't books and buildings alone that have been destroyed. The shapes emerging from the poet's past become the 'foreign dead', the 'phantasms' that 'steal / into the peaceful lives we seem to have earned.' Those phantasms give their version of events ('telling tales'), further distancing the poet by speaking 'in a tongue I never learned'. The ensuing jump of imagery, from the 'garden' declared his own, to the necessary 'spade of blood meal' is effectively plotted. Danger is diffused by the magic, humour and resistance found in cookery. In many cultures, families and societies come together to eat 'grief food'. The instant 'chilli-flakes' evoked earlier are an acknowledgment of cultural compromises. Then a further unexpected move occurs: 'and from our kitchen the time-travelling smell / of chicken curry floats to Walden Pond'. There's no abruptness; the translation from the poet's garden where he now lives in the US to Thoreau's retreat is amused, peaceable, sensuous. Choosing, as Keats chose, the subversively 11-lined stanza, Ravinthiran further complicates its balance. A clearcut, almost emphatically rhymed ABAB quatrain evolves into the looser assembly of seven lines whose rhymes may sound out less distinctly. Stanza two introduces a brilliant short film of the cardinal's swoop and the responsive movement of mosquitoes that 'eddy / like opinion.' That nicely poised, concrete-abstract simile is followed by the rather more Keatsian image of the insects 'scribbling on the air'. Keats's poem always addresses Autumn. Who is Ravinthiran addressing with 'There is no need / to be ashamed'? The tone sounds loving, even lover-like, with its note of future expectation. But perhaps the 'you' is the poem, or the poet courting his muse? 'You' might also be the 'phantasms' who have helplessly spoken in a strange 'tongue'. Ravinthiran's poetic 'courtship' is oblique, questioning, almost shy: 'where feelings come from or may leap / across and through and to no one can say.' Those monosyllables form little uneven stepping stones in a swashing river. After that, the picture enlarges dramatically with the tsunami of 2004, the Dravidian temple, 'the old kovil's god-thronged tower' and the defensive new-build. These lines extend history and still find it dangerous. Conflict is suggested: the sunset's clouds are 'a far-quarried rubble' and there may be no comfort in the assertion that 'the light does spicy things' to them. Open-winged birds of possibility still circle. The conflation of truth and beauty is gently queried: the beauty of birds is mechanism, the poet says, as he hooks the reader sharply down to earth with the marriage of 'verbs' and 'barbs'. The personification of barbed wire as a narcissist fixes in a single line the worst of human nature. A tyrannical border splices the garden, its fragrances and reconciliations. Those barbs may presage a deeper colour of autumnal red.
The Herald Scotland
22-06-2025
- Business
- The Herald Scotland
Family sells famed Scottish hotel where Romantics stayed
We revealed the sale of the hotel, visited by Dorothy Wordsworth and John Keats, this week. The hotel is renowned. (Image: Cornerstone Business Agents) The inn, which has operated since 1780, was also a regular stop-off point for Queen Victoria. The Cairndow Stagecoach Inn on the shore of Loch Fyne is described as one of the Highlands' oldest coaching inns. Cornerstone Business Agents said: 'We are delighted to have concluded the sale of the Cairndow Stagecoach Inn on behalf of the Fraser family.' Read the full story here Scottish business which worked on Liverpool FC's Anfield eyes growth Derek Pierce of J&D Pierce. (Image: Mike Wilkinson) One of Scotland's largest structural steel fabricators, which has worked on projects including the redevelopment of Glasgow Queen Street railway station and Liverpool FC's Anfield stadium, is gearing up for major expansion as it celebrates its 50th anniversary. J&D Pierce Contracts, based at Glengarnock in Ayrshire and 80%-owned by Swedish investment group Storskogen, expects annual turnover to rise towards £200 million as it capitalises on 'growth in key sectors including data centres, distribution hubs, distilleries, stadia and arenas, transport infrastructure, and the social and supply chain requirements related to renewable energy'. Accounts filed with Companies House last July show the turnover of J&D Pierce Contracts was £103.8 million in the year to December 31, 2023. Read Ian McConnell's story here BUSINESS INSIGHT 📈 Premier Inn bosses upbeat as hotels planned for Edinburgh Whitbread's Premier Inn portfolio spans hundreds of hotels in the UK and Germany. (Image: PA) Whitbread underlined the challenges facing the hotel sector today as it reported Premier Inn UK sales had dipped in the first quarter, with London showing a sharper decline than other parts of the country.
Times
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
Shakespeare signature shows his London was as bureaucratic as ours
You might have seen his plays, read his sonnets, visited Stratford-upon-Avon or the Globe theatre and paid all manner of homage to William Shakespeare, but you will never get closer to the man himself than this. On the bottom of an old property deed usually stored in the stacks of the London Archives is one of only six surviving examples of the Bard's signature, which is about to be shown in public. The rare document — part of Shakespeare in London, opening on June 30 — will be on display alongside other artefacts that illustrate the capital at the time of the playwright and the impact he had on other writers down the years, including the poet John Keats. 'It's been really exciting to pull this together — the material doesn't get displayed that often,' said Sharon Tuff, the collections and engagement manager at the London Archives. 'We want to show Shakespeare's impact, but also life in London in his times.' Compared with a modern equivalent, the property deed looks very grand and is written in flowing hand on a large piece of parchment. It details a property in Blackfriars, within walking distance of the Globe and Blackfriars theatres, which Shakespeare appears to have bought as an investment with some associates. At the bottom, above an attached seal, is Shakespeare's signature, written in 1613, three years before his death. The 'William' is clear to read though the 'Shakespeare' is rather squished, suggesting that he, like many of us, was familiar with trying to squeeze a name into a small box on a form. The location of the house he purchased is not clear; it was close to Puddle Wharf, or what is now St Andrew's Hill, but the building would have been destroyed in the Great Fire of London in 1666. • Hereford letter hints at new twist in drama of Shakespeare's wife The archives, which belong to the City of London Corporation, are displaying other items to flesh out the capital's Shakespeare connections. Most striking is the Civitas Londinum, a 1560s map; the archives's version is one of only three extant copies. It shows a capital at turns both strange and recognisable to us today. The city of the map is enveloped by the old London Wall, beyond which lie fields. To the west, buildings creep down 'Fleate Streate' towards Westminster. To a modern eye, names like 'More Gate' and 'Holburne' read like a Tube map in need of proofreading. Some landmarks are recognisable, albeit in a very different form. 'Charing Crosse' stands in the middle of a roundabout, while St Paul's Cathedral is there in its pre-Great Fire form, without its spire. London Bridge, meanwhile, is packed with buildings. Other places of note on the map have faded from prominence or vanished altogether. Christchurch Greyfriars survives only as a ruin of the Blitz today, but the original church dominated the 16th-century landscape. South of the river there were arenas near where the modern-day Globe now stands, used for the baiting of bears and bulls. • Meet Shakespeare the Shoreditch hipster, as his astonishing lost theatre is unveiled That may well have been the world Shakespeare knew, but his impact on the capital only grew down the centuries. The display also includes a facsimile of his First Folio owned and annotated by John Keats. The copy is filled with the poet's marginalia and underlining. He was particularly interested in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry IV Part 1, Troilus and Cressida, Romeo and Juliet and King Lear. Some of his notes are lengthy, and the plays even inspired him to jot down the odd verse on some blank paper. Yet Shakespeare's signature is the box-office draw for this display, which will run until September. Tuff says it is a 'relatable' document, showing Shakespeare engaging with the bureaucracy we know well even today. • Unearthed book proves Shakespeare 'cribbed from Dante' The clerk who drew up the document had a less-than-perfectionist approach, which we may also find familiar. For instance, a large section of the parchment has been simply crossed out. 'He made a mistake,' Tuff said. 'He isn't going to rewrite it all. He's just scored it through.'
