\n<\/p>\n
An all-party parliamentary group is calling for everyone to be given the right to go wild camping and swimming across our green and pleasant land (and, I suppose our blue and hopefully non-besewaged waters). Apparently we only have the right to roam across 8% of England at the moment, a situation that strikes me as so perfectly us that it should be submitted to the Unesco intangible cultural heritage list immediately if not sooner.<\/p>\n
But anything to do with land rights and rules in this sceptic isle always throws up a delight or two \u2013 usually around the vision always conjured of furious, red-faced owners shouting impotently at paddling peasants (or, should your mood or Norman ancestry prefer, shooting at them non-impotently with the family\u2019s Holland & Holland). Born and raised in Catford, I was 30 before I realised that people owned the countryside \u2013 that fields could be rented like flats and vegetation could have a landlord. The idea that you can own a tree still blows my mind.<\/p>\n
Obviously, as a pleb, I fully support the push to give us access to the wonders of the remaining 92% of the place that is still forbidden to us. Not least because as a kind of reverse Dick Whittington I sort of think there must be gold lining the hedgerows and things. All I would ask is that when the rights to wild camping and swimming are bestowed, they are accompanied by stringent legislation against people talking about it. Enjoy your activities by all means. But do not make it 92% of your personality and conversation. You know what I mean, and you know who you are. Think on.<\/p>\n
The Tenth at the Mandarin Oriental Hyde Park has opened a luxury postpartum retreat for new mothers. You can check in for up to a month to get 24\/7 access to therapy sessions, massages, lactation guidance, reflexology and more (the more includes yoni steaming, as if you\u2019re letting anything near there ever again. I presume it\u2019s offered as a joke in order to test how your pelvic floor is recovering when you laugh). It\u2019s almost enough to make me want another baby. Or it would be if I just had the \u00a31,795 a night minimum it costs.<\/p>\n
You used to get a week in normal hospital after a normal birth, you know. Yes, even the most plebeian (it\u2019s turning out to be a useful word this week) vagina and womb \u2013 the latter recovering, lest we forget, from a wound the size of a dinner plate left by the placenta bidding adieu – were considered worthy of recuperation. I wonder what that was like. For at least 1,795 reasons, I will never know.<\/p>\n
<\/span>\u2018So, if we just move slowly backwards, blend in with the forest, we can make a run for it. Where do you want to start your new life? I think I\u2019m going for Aylsham.\u2019 I showed my 14-year-old son a cassette tape once. He didn\u2019t know what was going on. I explained. Songs. A finite number. Until it self-destructed in a \u201ccassette player\u201d. Sober burial or, if a \u201cmix tape\u201d from a beloved, entry into a keepsake box for your mother to throw out when you went to university. Or to the shops if she was in a particularly manic menopausal decluttering mood.<\/p>\n Joke\u2019s on him though, because they are poised to make a comeback. This time incorporating tape developed by Chinese researchers that uses DNA to hold data. A 100mm strip could store 36 petabytes, which is up to 7bn songs in old money. No word yet on whether your old sound system will play it or a pencil through the spoolie bits will straighten out the chewed bits, but I have a feeling our time is coming again. The old ways shall be restored and those with mastery of them shall be revered as gods instead of pitied and subjected to another paean of overly-detailed praise of Silksong. Oh yes.<\/p>\n My favourite genetic and de-extinction research company Colossal Biosciences (motto: Never Knowingly Undernamed) is back in the news! In March it announced the creation of a woolly mouse that re-opens the way to the woolly mammoth. In April it reckoned it was about to bring back dire wolves. And now? Now it\u2019s dodos! That\u2019s the big one, guys. Metaphorically speaking. Obviously mammoths probably have the edge in literal terms.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.<\/span><\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Still! Leaving aside the objections of bitter cynics who say the company likes to announce its supposed breakthroughs in ridiculously overhyped terms, it\u2019s great news. Colossal (we are on first name terms now) says it has succeeded in growing pigeon primordial germ cells for the first time! Need I say more? Oh. Well, OK \u2013 these are the precursors to sperm and eggs and when they have succeeded in making those too, they have gene-edited chickens raring to go as surrogates for dodo 2.0s.<\/p>\n Boring people are citing such work as \u201ca moral hazard\u201d and de-extinction projects as \u201cdangerous\u201d distractions from efforts prevent new extinctions. To them I say \u2013 it\u2019s OK. DNA storage is going to obviate the need for electricity-gobbling data processors so we\u2019ve got some slack in the system again. Bring on the dodos, the dire wolves and the woolly anythings! Haven\u2019t we earned some fun at last?<\/p>\n <\/span>\u2018Cheer up, being pope isn\u2019t that bad.\u2019 <\/span> Photograph: Vatican media handout\/EPA<\/p>\n I have a busy weekend coming up. I have to counsel a dozen companies through the loss of my custom. At the beginning of the week I fulfilled a new year resolution (before November \u2013 a personal record, please send flowers and congratulatory telegrams to the usual address) and went through my finances, pruning subscriptions, switching insurance providers and all the deathly but ultimately worthwhile rest of it. Now all I have to do is respond to the offers, plangent emails, emotionally blackmailing voicemails and other blandishments the rejected parties have sent since and all will be well. And cheaper. I might have enough for a night at the Mandarin. 14 years post-partum is still post-partum, you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Monday An all-party parliamentary group is calling for everyone to be given the right to go wild camping and swimming across our green and pleasant land (and, I suppose our blue and hopefully non-besewaged waters). Apparently we only have the right to roam across 8% of England at the moment, a situation that strikes me<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22433,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[13755,8573,13756,1165,8577,1007,10546,365],"class_list":{"0":"post-22432","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-cassette","9":"tag-digested","10":"tag-dodo","11":"tag-lucy","12":"tag-mangan","13":"tag-return","14":"tag-tape","15":"tag-week"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/span> Photograph: Yui Mok\/PA<\/p>\nWednesday<\/h2>\n
Thursday<\/h2>\n
Friday<\/h2>\n