Latest news with #SamJones
BBC News
8 hours ago
- General
- BBC News
Gloucestershire cheese rolling prize is served to rough sleepers
A wheel of Double Gloucester won in the annual traditional cheese rolling races in Gloucestershire is to be served up to rough sleepers in north Ava Sender Logan, 20, managed to bag the 7lb (3kg) cheese in the women's race last month by tumbling down the almost vertical Cooper's Hill in London student, who has donated her "delicious" prize to the Refugee Community Kitchen, said she is "really happy people can try it".Sam Jones, the charity's co-founder, said: "We are deeply indebted to Ava for putting her life and limbs on the line to get the cheese." The Refugee Community Kitchen supports displaced people in northern France and homeless people in London and Edinburgh. Miss Sender Logan, who volunteers for the kitchen, said donating her prize cheese was a "full-circle moment". "It's really sweet," she said."The cheese has travelled from Gloucestershire to Oxford to London to the kitchen."The biochemistry student, who was the fastest down the 1:2 gradient, said she did not remember most of her downhill journey, and was stunned when she won."I was trying to hold my head, stay on my feet as much as I could, but there's only so much you can do," she said."I was bruised, I was battered but there were no broken bones." The charity, set up by four friends in 2015, has served thousands of meals in London and Calais over the last 10 Jones said up to 90 people in and round Archway in London will be able to "scoff" on the winning cheese wheel."It's a really nice kind of full circle to have the cheese that rolled down the hill, the Double Gloucester that's going into a cauliflower and broccoli cheese that's going out to the street," he said."It really fills us full of joy and satisfaction to be able to do that." The Gloucestershire cheese-rolling races have been held for centuries and are thought to have their roots in a heathen festival to celebrate the return of Hill's is one of Gloucestershire's steepest slopes. The cheese can reach speeds of up to 70mph as it is chased downhill by the year, there were seven races in all, two of them in memory of former cheese rolling winners who have since died.
Wales Online
6 days ago
- General
- Wales Online
'This fast-growing grass seed repaired my lawn in a couple of weeks'
'This fast-growing grass seed repaired my lawn in a couple of weeks' My grass had become a bit of a state over the winter, so I was desperate to sort it out Before and after pictures of my lawn (Image: Sam Jones ) I'm a keen gardener. Definitely not Alan Titchmarsh levels, but I like to keep my outdoor slice of paradise looking in good nick. So I was dismayed to discover the absolute havoc winter wreaked on my lawn. Add in a project that involved me digging up half the garden and having to shift a load of topsoil, and it was in a bit of a state. After taking a look at the price of turf and gulping, I turned to grass seed, only to be delighted with the results - and how quickly the lawn is looking back to normal. Combing through the reviews of the tidal wave of options, it's really difficult to know where to start. I settled on the Pronto Seed Premium Grass Seed, which comes in a 1.4kg box and is priced at £14.49 on Amazon. Said to be "fast acting and hardwearing" it sounded good to me, so I decided to give it a whirl. With the usual Amazon Prime speediness, it arrived the next day and I set to work sowing it. Pronto Seed Premium Grass Seed £14.49 Amazon Buy Now on Amazon Product Description The grass seed helped to restore my lawn back to its best This wasn't my first rodeo when it comes to rejuvenating the lawn, so I made sure to use a fork to disturb the compacted soil a bit and mixed the seed with some compost to ensure the best chance of success. Similarly, we'd had a pretty dry spell with next to no rain, so I made sure to keep the seed watered with a hosepipe, and to my delight, after just over a week the seed began shooting up. There was no stopping it once those green shoots started appearing and within a matter of days after that it was really making an impact, with the grass almost back to normal after just over two weeks. The product description claims it works within 7-14 days, something I've found to be true, while it promises "lush, green coverage in no time", a statement that's also stood up in my experience. The only downside I've discovered is how it's grown in some of the shadier parts. There's a beautiful acer tree in my garden that's stunning but also sort of takes over a bit and hogs a lot of the sunlight. How the grass looks now As such, it means there are a couple of spots that spend much of the day in the shade. It's noticeable in these areas that the seed hasn't grown as well, and while it has sprouted, the grass definitely isn't as thick here, so it's worth considering if your garden has shady areas. Specific shade-tolerated grass seed is also available, like the Gro-Sure Shady Lawn Seed that's priced at £9 at Wickes. That particular seed is designed to thrive in drier, shady conditions. It also has a clever blue coating that helps to keep birds away and nourishes the seed, while the pack features a handy built in easy to use seed applicator. As I've already mentioned, there's a whole variety of grass seed out there. One product worth flagging if you have a dog is the Pegdev Pet Friendly Grass Seed (£17.20) at B&Q. Promising "fewer bare patches", the seed is said to be "low maintenance" and has "rapid recovery from pet damage". Regularly watering the seed was essential Other shoppers also seem to be very happy with the Pronto seed. One said: "I used this Pronto Seed to overseed some patchy areas in my garden, and the results were impressive. Within a week, I noticed new grass sprouting, and by two weeks, the lawn looked much fuller and healthier." Article continues below Another wasn't quite as impressed, giving three stars: "I had high hopes for this grass seed, but the results were just OK. The germination rate was decent, but it took longer than expected for the grass to fill in." But a different shopper was delighted, adding: "I recently purchased Pronto Seed Grass Seed to rejuvenate my lawn, and I am thrilled with the results! After carefully preparing my garden and ensuring the right conditions for growth, I can confidently say that this product has exceeded my expectations in delivering a lush, green lawn."
Telegraph
29-03-2025
- Telegraph
No, it will never be ethical to use animals for fun on holiday
I was once a fool who rode an elephant. Knowing what I do now about the industry, it is one of the most shameful things I've ever done. As a then 18-year-old backpacker in Thailand, I do remember swaying on its back, feeling not quite right about it; but naively, I assumed it was OK since it was so popular back then, and selfishly, I just wanted to be as close as possible to this magnificent beast. So I appreciate the temptation – ironically, particularly among animal-lovers – to gravitate towards interactions with exotic species while travelling. But in this day and age, it is simply inexcusable. No, it can never be ethical to ride a mammal for fun, nor to swim with a confined sea creature or pose for a photo with a zoo inmate, for that matter. How would you like it if an army of aliens, far more intelligent humans, descended upon Earth, rounded us up, muzzled us, and kept us behind bars only to be wheeled out and mounted for entertainment? Or, if that sounds too obscure a notion, would you hire out your beloved dog or cat for several hours a day to be prodded and toyed with by strangers just for a bit of extra cash? No? Well then. There are so many reasons we should be severing our long-standing association with animals as for-profit amusement. We've been jailing and enslaving them right from the start of humanity, and it is, in my opinion, a ghastly trait that needs to be left in the past. For a start, it is dangerous for tourists to be snuggling up to wild animals, even those that are sold as 'domesticated' (which often means drugged or beaten into submission). Earlier this year, a 22-year-old Spanish traveller was gored to death by an elephant in Thailand, and she wasn't even riding it; merely helping to give it a bath. Blanca Ojanguren García was washing the animal at the Koh Yao Elephant Care Centre when it sank its tusk into her, with experts telling the Clarín newspaper that the elephant had likely become stressed due to the pressure of living and interacting with tourists outside of its ecosystem. On its website, the elephant centre says it is committed to 'providing responsible and ethical interactions with elephants' and that it does not 'control' or 'use a hook on our elephants'. According to data from the Thai department of national parks, there have been at least 227 deaths in the country caused by elephant attacks in the past 12 years, including 39 fatalities in 2024 alone. On one hand, I have seen vast improvements in awareness since I was a teenager. You only have to look at the worldwide outrage triggered earlier this month when American influencer Sam Jones posted an idiotic video of herself snatching a baby wombat from its mother in Australia, and faced the full wrath of the internet and a withering condemnation from the Australian Prime Minister. Documentaries like Blackfish, the 2013 film that exposed the dark side to SeaWorld – a company that for decades exploited whales and dolphins performing tricks in glorified swimming pools – have been pivotal, too, in changing public perception. SeaWorld responded by announcing that it would upgrade its theme parks and enlarge its tanks – but the damage was done, and almost every major UK tour operator, from TripAdvisor to Virgin Holidays and British Airways Holidays, stopped selling tickets to their parks in protest. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has been particularly aggressive in its efforts to get more travel companies to boycott what it calls 'abusement parks'. The charity's vice president of programmes Elisa Allen tells Telegraph Travel: 'Jet2holidays recently cut ties with cruel marine parks, Airbnb ditched camel and horse rides at the Giza pyramids, where animals are routinely whipped, and Easyjet has stopped promoting all activities for which captive animals are used for 'entertainment' or tourist transport. 'After watching PETA's exposés, which show how animals are beaten, starved, covered in sores and quite literally worked to death, responsible companies can no longer turn a blind eye to their suffering. Yet, while the tide is turning, TUI remains a disgraceful outlier as it is the last major UK travel provider to still sell tickets to marine parks.' TUI did not respond to Telegraph Travel 's request for comment. We also spoke to Humane World for Animals, which heralds victories too. Last year, for example, Australia's Gold Coast theme park Dreamworld brought an end to all direct human interactions with tigers. In the UK, after much campaigning, our nation introduced the Animal Welfare (Sentience) Bill, which – as if weren't already blindingly obvious – recognises them as sentient beings and aims to ensure their welfare is considered in policy decisions, including restrictions on activities that involve direct interactions with wild animals. Still, however, zoos (which I've railed against in the past and shall forever more) continue to prosper in the UK and abroad. In the US, nearly 1,000 exhibitors offer public encounters with wild animals; a number that nearly doubled between 2019 and 2021. In South Africa, there are more than twice the number of lions suffering in captivity as part of attractions such as 'cub-petting' than remain there in the wild. And SeaWorld, having seemingly fallen from its previous popularity levels in the West, has instead been expanding into the Middle East, having launched a new £1 billion 'mega development' in Abu Dhabi in 2023. Progress has been made, but there is a long way to go. So if you encounter what looks like a grey area when it comes to an enticing animal interaction on your next holiday – whether that be a donkey ride in Blackpool or a dolphin high-five in the Caribbean – ask yourself the following: 'If I was this creature, would I want to be involved in this?' Or even, 'if I owned this animal myself, would I rent it out to tourists?' If the answer to either is no, then you've found your stance.
The Guardian
18-03-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
The impact of Trump 2.0 on Australia is evidence of how American we suddenly aren't
Australians have found the behaviour of our American cousins challenging of late. Cultural differences yawn as wide as the Pacific between us. We were not sad to see 'the baby wombat grabber' go. The first mistake made by Montana-based tourist Sam Jones, Online Influencer, was to snatch a joey from its mother at night. Her second mistake was to sway the frightened creature in front of some gormless chucklehead who filmed her – giggling – and to upload the footage to the internet. Her video roared across local social media like measles after an RFK Jr confirmation. Australians united in vim; there were headlines, mass petitions and demands for her deportation. Last month, the killing of up to 10 wombats in the Victorian town of Venus Bay was crueller and more disgusting but did not obsess the discourse. Was it because Jones created a handy audio-visual to publicise her marsupial-monstering nitwittery that she faced such clamouring scorn? Or did Sam Jones' most relevant mistake to Australians lie in being a chaotic dickhead … while American? The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, finds himself weeks out from an election navigating – as the modern leader must – the capricious behaviour of the nuclear-armed chaotic dickhead Americans re-elected as their president. Australians may have hoped our image as a floating zoo at the end of the world with cube-shitting mammals may have spared us Trump's Make America Like the Start of the Great Depression Again tariffs policy but, unusually, luck has failed us. Steel and aluminium exports will be hit with a 25% tariff, beef may be next – while our largest export to the United States turns out to be vaccines and related products and hahahahaha, dear Christ but doom is certain. Given Annexing Canada is both an active Trump policy and so insane it wasn't even suggested in Project 2025, Australian leadership must deftly manage an evolving geopolitical economic reality that most closely resembles a bus driver on an eight-day coke bender who has just locked his passengers in the vehicle to joyride through a minefield with a rabbit in his pants. Albanese's colleague Ed Husic called Trump's tariffs against Australia 'a dog act' – he was deployed, one surmises, because he's minister for science, so Trump's GOP can't acknowledge he exists. Resisting temptation to retaliate (with a tariff on 'your stupid face', perhaps?), Albanese described Trump's move as 'unfriendly'. Within 24 hours, he suggested wombat-botherer Sam Jones go Fafo with some crocodiles. Maybe there was something on his mind. Still, you'd rather be him than Peter Dutton, whose notoriously underdeveloped judgment muscle was exerted in praise for Trump as a 'big thinker' barely a month and US$4tn-since-wiped-from-US-stock-valuations ago. Beyond Trump's splatterfest of the world economy and therefore your super balance (medicate before you look), the overwhelming impact of Trump 2.0 on Australians is evidence of how American we suddenly aren't. Our two countries share a history as outposts of brutal British imperialism and the legacy of the coloniser's language, yet at key points in our twinned story, our decisions have diverged. America received entrepreneurial puritans while Australia's criminal class settler-colonists banged by the beach. America chose revolution from Britain, Australia the slow path of reform. America's structuralised slavery ended only after violent civil war. Australia's historical exploitation of enslaved people was limited and ended through the efforts of a nascent labour movement, if one motivated by racist 'they take our jobs' attitudes of the time. The differences weren't overwhelming when we were both liberal democratic states, fighting together for freedom in the first and second world wars … but does America, like, even do that any more? Generations of migration and cultural reckoning (or non-reckoning) with local Indigenous cultures have since mobilised our societies towards different values that Trump's extremity underlines. The deep polarisation he cheerleads confronts Australia's 'go along to get along' culture of compromise; his conservative policing of other people's behaviour meets our 'each to their own' tolerant shrug. Rather than the competitive individualism Trump personifies, Australian 'mateship' persists as a virtue rooted in deep camaraderie, mutual support and egalitarian friendship, forged in the recognition on this burning, flooding, even-the-baby-wombats-hate-you land; you depend on each other, or you die. So while citizens of this sparser, less-dramatic country stay enthralled by the many US entertainment products we consume, it's the very visibility of American culture to us that affirms our alienation from it. The internet may 'speak American' but in the wake of Americans complaining online about healthcare, struggling through a mismanaged disaster or mourning another mass shooting, Australian pity speaks back in a register between 'how can you let this happen?!' and self-satisfied relief. Cultural relationships are timely for Australia to consider. As Trump forsakes old alliances, the world realigns. The EU tightens its bonds, Canada grows closer to Europe; could we? China seeks out new spheres of influence. Outer rim figures from the Australian Labor party are suggesting the old Commonwealth relationships are worth re-formalising. In the scenario of nations obliged to choose between authoritarian allies, do we feel more secure with a peace-through-trade partner or a peace-through-rage-tweeting-and-Diet-Coke one? At least you know what you don't want, baby wombat. It's narcissistic and reckless, and it's causing us distress. And everyone wants it gone, before the damage gets worse. Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist
Yahoo
17-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
American who snatched wombat says ‘thousands threatened my life'
(NewsNation) — American influencer Sam Jones, who left Australia amid outrage from its political leaders and others, says her life was threatened for taking a baby wombat away from its mother and posting it on social media. Jones received the ire of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke, with the former suggesting she try doing that to a baby crocodile. Wildlife groups also criticized Jones and raised concerns that the joey may never have gotten back to its mother after Jones initially ran away to show off the animal for a video. Jones apologized in a post to her Instagram account, adding that her life was threatened as a result of the now-deleted video going viral. American draws Australian PM's ire after snatching wombat 'I stopped to ensure they got off the road safely and didn't get hit,' Jones wrote. 'I was concerned it may have been sick or injured, and made a snap judgement to pick up the joey and see if this was the case. 'I ran, not to rip the joey away from its mother, but from fear she might attack me… I have done a great deal of reflection on this situation and have realized that I did not handle this situation as best as I should have. 'My only intent was to prevent these amazing animals from being hit … I have learned from this situation, and am truly sorry for the distress I have caused.' Jones also added that she did not undertake the sequence of events for social media clout. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
