Latest news with #RichardWaters
Daily Mail
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Swimming like Vikings or sleeping like cavemen, ruling the tennis court and romping with royals: when it comes to non-fiction...We've Got Your Summer Reading Sorted!
How To Sleep Like A Caveman by Merijn van de Laar (William Collins £20, 304pp) What is worse than being sunburnt, all your clothes smelling of suncream, and finding sand in every crevice? Being sunburnt, all your clothes smelling of suncream, finding sand in every crevice... and not being able to sleep. Happily, Merijn van de Laar can provide the solution to this holiday nightmare: be more caveman. Discover all the ways our forebears got it right (sleeping when tired, rather than when they thought they should, for example) and the fascinating fact that, until the enforced working routines of the Industrial Revolution, people didn't really experience insomnia. KS Swimming With The Viking Of Skye Richard Waters (Aurum £17.99, 256pp) When Richard Waters discovered his Viking lineage in a DNA test he decided to plunge himself into one of the less violent traditions of his ancestors: cold-water swimming. Diagnosed with Parkinson's in his early 40s, he finds unparalleled relief for his physical and mental health in the chilly waters of the Highlands. In this moving book Waters swims us through the rockpools, waterfalls and coves of Skye, as well as introducing us to a man as hardy as the Norsemen who conquered the island so many centuries ago. JCD No Filters by Christie Watson and Rowan Egberongbe (Chatto & Windus £14.99, 192pp) Having a teen in the house all summer might feel daunting but this book is an insightful, if tough, read for any struggling parent. When Christie Watson's 16-year-old daughter Rowan was refusing to speak to her, she had to learn a whole different means of communicating. What began as a daily Snapchat message evolved into a new-found closeness. This engaging book sheds light on the boggling number of mental health issues faced by today's teenagers, many of which most parents know little about. KS John & Paul by Ian Leslie (Faber & Faber £25, 432pp) Music history is full of relationships that crash and burn in a cacophony of vicious headlines, backstabbing and (if we're lucky) a revenge song or two – Sonny and Cher, ABBA and perhaps the most spectacular break-up of them all, John and Paul. This spellbinding biography of the two men behind The Beatles takes you through the dizzying highs and crashing lows of their 13-year bromance and the break-up that changed the course of music forever. JCD How Not To Be A Political Wife by Sarah Vine (HarperElement £20, 320pp) As a Mail columnist and former political wife, Vine is a force to be reckoned with – no wonder her memoir sent shockwaves through British politics. She gives us a fascinating insight into being raised by a narcissistic father, her 20-year marriage to Michael Gove as he rose from Tory MP to Cabinet minister and prime ministerial contender, and the explosive end to her friendship with Samantha Cameron. Funny and heartwarming, this is a revealing, and riveting, look behind the scenes of the personal politics of Westminster. KS Going Nuclear by Tim Gregory (Bodley Head £25, 384pp) For most of us, nuclear means mushroom clouds, Chernobyl and Mr Burns. Certainly, something to be afraid of, not welcomed. However, in this delightful book by nuclear scientist and apologist Dr Tim Gregory, we are urged to reframe our relationship with nuclear power or face extinction. He peppers his convincing argument with surprisingly enchanting anecdotes from the glowing history of nuclear power. JCD The Warrior by Christopher Clarey (John Murray £22, 368pp) This is the first year since 2004 that the King of Clay has not graced Paris's Roland Garros with his presence. Christopher Clarey's comprehensive biography of Rafael Nadal's career takes us from his early days in Majorca being coached by his Uncle Toni to his dominance as part of the big three alongside Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic, proving himself as one of the greatest players of all time. Rafa's humility and sportsmanship shine in this glowing portrait that also abounds with wider tennis trivia. KS The Slow Road North by Rosie Schaap (Mariner £20, 272pp) When Rosie Schapp found herself a widow at 39, she didn't know where to turn. Eventually, she decided to pack up her troubles, and her flat in New York, to travel through Europe. Still weighed down by grief, a chance conversation with a stranger in Belfast somehow lightened her sorrow. Before long she had traded the hustle and bustle of the Big Apple for a Georgian cottage in Glenarm, Northern Ireland. This gentle memoir shows how her new friends and neighbours helped dig her out of her grief and made her capable of love again. JCD Queen James by Gareth Russell (William Collins £25, 496pp) Not many wives would be pleased to hear that their husband had embarked upon an affair with someone much younger who was said to possess 'the finest legs in Christendom'. She might be doubly irritated to discover that these fabulous legs belonged to a man. However, Queen Anne, wife of King James I, was delighted. Anything to keep temperamental James happy. This is just one of the fantastic tales in this royal romp through the treacherous and flagrantly gay court of King James I. JCD Shaolin Spirit by Shi Heng Yi (Particular Books £25, 288pp) If the 'cultivation of vitality and strength' appeals to you this summer, be prepared to push 'physical and mental limits you will never have encountered before'. Or at least that is the promise of Shaolin Master Shi Heng Yi. Through his meditative practices that reconnect the mind and body, you can tap in to a 1,500-year-old way of life to discover more energy and greater peace of mind. Although you might not be able to bend a spear by pressing down on the pointed end with your throat, as Shi Heng Yi himself can, by September. KS Story Of A Murder by Hallie Rubenhold (Doubleday £25, 512pp) More often than not, True Crime is more gory than fiction, and that is certainly the case with the tale of Dr Crippen. Medical fraudster, terrible husband and murderer – is there anything this man can't do? Rubenhold chooses to focus on the women in the doctor's life: the wife he murdered, music-hall starlet Belle Elmore, and his typist and lover Ethel Le Neve. Not one for those with a weak stomach, this uncovers a dark side to humanity that many will find fascinating. KS Dave & Me by Lili Myers (Ebury Spotlight £22, 304pp) The Hairy Bikers, made up of Dave Myers and Si King, were hugely loved as much for their humour and camaraderie as their cooking. When Dave died last year after suffering from cancer, 46,000 bikers drove from London to Barrow-in-Furness in tribute to him. Now his widow, Lili, gives an emotive and intimate account of the love and life they shared for 20 years. KS Allies At War by Tim Bouverie (Bodley Head £25, 688pp) Defeating the Nazis required the UK to make strange bedfellows. An otherwise inconceivable alliance had to be hastily made with Stalin, while even the 'special relationship' with America was fraught with difficulty and ended up costing Britain an awful lot of money to maintain. This glorious book alters the focus of the war and reveals that navigating the many traps and pitfalls in the shifting diplomatic sands imposed by friends and allies was almost harder than actually confronting the enemy. JCD Affairs by Juliet Rosenfeld (Bluebird £20, 288pp) Do you fancy a clandestine summer fling? You're not alone. As Juliet Rosenfeld reveals, one in five of us will have an affair at some point. Putting her psychotherapist skills to good use, Rosenfeld takes us through five different adulterous scenarios and examines what pushes people to commit this greatest of relationship sins. Not a guide for cheaters, but this book might help you spot one... KS The Buried City by Gabriel Zuchtriegel (Hodder £22, 256pp) If you're heading for a scorcher in the Italian sun, spare a thought for the poor people of Pompeii. There was no sun cream strong enough or sun hat wide enough to protect them from the fiery heat that pummelled their city into oblivion. The city, frozen in time, is still bursting with undiscovered secrets and at the helm of these discoveries is Zuchtriegel, director of the Pompeii archaeological park. This is an unparalleled tour through a city that has fascinated and bewildered us for 2,000 years. JCD The Ageless Brain by Dale Bredesen (Vermilion £22, 384pp) It is never too early to start looking after your brain's health. In clear steps Dr Dale Bredesen explains exactly how to keep your brain just as sharp at 100 as it was at 20. From actions as simple as maintaining your oral hygiene or completing a daily sudoku, to learning a new language and cutting out sugar – there are so many things we can all do to retain our cognitive function. KS Source Code by Bill Gates Allen Lane £25, 336pp How do you become the richest man in the world? In this memoir of his early years, Bill Gates makes it seem easy. Key ingredients include cleverness, awkwardness with a sprinkling of ferocity, and most importantly of all, a reliance on the beneficence of adults. Turns out a tragic backstory certainly isn't necessary. Bill Gates, King of Nerds, was even popular at school! JCD The Light Of Day by Christopher Stephens (Headline £20, 400pp) 'Sir, we are homosexuals…'. So began the letter that scandalised Britain in 1960. This criminal confession (homosexuality wasn't decriminalised until 1967) was sent to several newspapers and signed 'Roger Butler'. This is the story of the heroism and fierce battles fought by the first man in England to choose to publicly come out. The author, while still at university, befriended the aged Butler and has faithfully and beautifully told the story of this extraordinary man. JCD
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Yahoo
The 5 Most Controversial Trophy Bucks in Recent History
As the whitetail deer hunting industry has grown through the decades, so too have the controversies. Record bucks get poached and then shared on social media as legitimate trophies. Hunters shoot high-fence deer and enter them into free-range big buck contests. And even the relatively boring world of deer scoring can get upended over differences in opinion. What follows is a short list of the most controversial bucks and the biggest hunting scandals in recent history. What all of these cases have in common is a truly gigantic deer, and then, sadly, lots of discord within the hunting community. This 49-point buck was said to have been killed free-range in Wisconsin during the muzzleloader season. With a net score of 306, it would have become the state record nontypical. The giant buck was displayed at the 2025 Open Season Deer and Turkey Expo in Wisconsin Dells in March and, not long after, the controversy began. Critics argued the buck had been a pen-raised deer that was being passed off as a wild buck. As evidence they pointed to the mount's bleach-white antlers and unbroken tines. As of our most recent reporting on this story in April, neither the Wisconsin Buck and Bear Club nor the hunter (who was identified on the score sheet as Richard Waters) have publicly addressed the criticism. Waters reportedly signed an affidavit with WBBC saying the buck was a free-range whitetail, and that he shot it with a muzzleloader near Harrisville in Marquette County. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources opened an investigation into the buck, a DNR spokesperson told Outdoor Life last month. Read the full story here. A Virginia man received a sentence of six months in jail and lost hunting privileges for 24 years after he poached a famous buck out of an urban cemetery. The buck — known as 'The Hollywood Buck' for its habit of hanging around the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond — was a giant nontypical. It had been videoed and photographed countless times by locals and professional photographers. After poaching the deer, Jason Waters submitted photos to a popular Facebook hunting page called Star City Whitetails, claiming he'd killed the deer in Prince Edward County, which is about 70 miles from the Hollywood Cemetery. When Star City published the photos, the post blew up almost immediately. Dozens of people identified the deer as the Hollywood buck by its unmistakable antlers. Social media sleuths also discovered Walters had poached at least two other deer from the cemetery. After a thorough investigation, he was arrested and charged with trespassing, failing to check and tag a deer, at least one earn a buck violation, illegal possession of wildlife, and littering. Read the full story here. In December one of the boldest and most outrageous poaching cases came to a close. CJ Alexander of Willmington, Ohio, was sentenced to 90 days in jail and fined a total of $43,000 dollars after he poached an absolutely giant buck in 2023. Alexander's charges included: one felony count each of theft by deception and tampering with evidence, and 12 misdemeanors related to hunting violations, falsification, jacklighting, and the sale of wildlife parts. Back in December 2023 Alexander claimed he had killed a 200-plus-inch buck (which would have been one of the biggest typicals ever taken in Ohio) with a borrowed crossbow while hunting his sister's 9-acre property in Clinton County. But soon rumors swirled that another hunter had the buck on trail camera, on the same day that Alexander claims he killed it — and the camera was located several miles away. And even after a formal investigation began, Alexander stuck with his story, responding to criticism on social media, and even accused DNR officers of attempting to frame him. Public court records obtained by Outdoor Life's news editor Dac Collins detail how investigators used cell phone records to unravel Alexander's offenses. Text messages and GPS location data prove that Alexander targeted and killed the 18-point buck on private land where he knowingly did not have permission to hunt. He recovered the illegally harvested deer with an accomplice and staged photos on his sister's property so he could profit off the deer and mislead investigators. 'I'm gonna get offered stupid money for this deer head babe … Like buying house type money … This deer is gonna make us money,' Alexander texted his fiance Carissa Weisenberger on Oct. 17, 2023, before killing the deer. Read the full story here. In 2006, Wisconsin deer hunter Johnny King shot what some folks believe is the true world-record typical whitetail. King was posted up on a family deer drive when the massive buck was pushed his way. He shot the buck with his .30-30, using open sights. In fact, he shot several times, and so did his cousin, and they ended up putting a slug through the buck's rack (which was eventually repaired). When they recovered the deer, they found it was a massive 6X6 with an inside spread over 21 inches. Initially a Boone and Crockett scorer grossed the rack in the 220s and gave it a net typical score of more than 215 points, which means it would have surpassed Milo Hanson's current world record typical buck scoring 213⅝ inches. The measurer warned King, however, that the buck's broken rack would need to be panel scored by the B&C for record consideration. The buck was eventually panel-scored, and while the broken rack was not an issue, the B&C panel decided the deer should be scored as a 5X5 with abnormal G3s. After much controversy and petitioning, the rack was eventually panel-scored again — and again B&C considered it a typical 5X5, scoring it at only 180 typical points. In 2012 the B&C issued a press release on the Johnny King Buck stating, 'The panel determined the third tine on the right antler arises from the inside edge of the top of the main beam, and also arises partially from the base of an adjoining point, thus establishing it as an abnormal point. With this confirmation, two of the rack's tines must be classified as abnormal points resulting in an entry score well below the current World's Record.' Another B&C article states: 'On the King buck, the right G2 has been ruled normal, the projection on the anterior edge of the G2 is not a G3 and does not have a common base point; it is an abnormal point because its base comes out of the webbing where the G2 point meets the main beam. As a result, the tine on the opposite side that roughly correlates is thus an unmatched non-symmetry point and is therefore an abnormal point. This moves the total of the lengths of both these tines to the difference column, dropping its typical Boone and Crockett Score to 180 points. With this change, it makes more sense to enter this deer as a non-typical at a score of roughly 217 points.' But still many within the whitetail world (including Deer & Deer Hunting contributor Duncan Dobie) think the King Buck is the rightful world record. They argue that B&C adopted the 'common base' scoring methodology only after the King buck was killed, but then applied those rules to its rack years later. Read Dobie's column, 'The Real Reasons Why the King Buck Isn't #1.' The single most controversial and mysterious whitetail story of all time is that of the Mitch Rompola Buck. As the story goes, in 1998 the experienced deer hunter shot an enormous typical whitetail buck in Grand Traverse County, Michigan, that reportedly scored 216⅝ inches net. That score would have put it ahead of the Hanson buck in the record books. According to veteran outdoor writer Richard P. Smith, who has covered the Rompola buck from the very beginning, the rack had an inside spread of an astounding 30⅜ inches. Both main beam antlers were more than 32 inches in length. Even the largest trophy whitetail antlers typically end up with main beam measurements less than 30 inches. For reference, the Hanson buck had main-beam measurements of 28⅜ and 28⅛. In fact, the rack was so wide, with antlers stretching outward instead of upward, that people believed it to be a fraud. Plus many people simply believed that Northern Michigan could not grow a wild deer with a rack that size. The fact that Rompola never officially submitted the buck's score to the Boone & Crockett club only adds fuel to the controversy. Detractors claim this is proof that the trophy rack isn't legit. It's important to note that the Rompola buck was scored by a panel of three 'Commemorative Bucks of Michigan' measurers, one of whom was a B&C scorer as well. None of them found anything suspicious about the rack, according to Smith. But still, when Rompola started doing radio and magazine interviews he was met with all kinds of criticism and backlash, claiming his deer was a fake. So, if it was real, why didn't he just submit it to the B&C and be done with it? 'He knew what he accomplished and that was good enough for him,' Smith wrote in an Outdoor Life article about the Rompola buck. 'What had been a highlight of his hunting career was turning into a soap opera, with Rompola painted as the villain by those who never saw the deer or the antlers and didn't know much, if anything, about it. Rompola didn't feel he had to prove anything to anybody. He got tired of dealing with false claims and negative comments about the deer and his own character, and said, 'The hell with it!'' Eventually, Rompola signed a legal agreement with representatives of Milo Hanson's existing world-record which stated that Rompola would not enter the deer into the records and would not claim that his deer was a world record — since doing so would devalue the Hanson buck. Just like with all things about the Rompola buck, there are two ways for skeptics to interpret this fact. Maybe Rompola signed the agreement with Hanson because he knew his deer was a fraud. Or maybe Hanson's representatives went through the trouble to create a legal agreement because they believed Rompola's buck was legit. And since Rompola had no intention of entering it as a record anyway, there was no reason not to sign the agreement. Since then Rompola and that incredibly wide rack have all but vanished from the public eye.
