Bill Bryson for CPRE

[Nemesis]

Guardian this morning:

Have to agree with Adam (actually have to anyhow or I'd get that 'acid tongue'...

 

[Nemesis]

Help if I put the link really:

http://environment.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,,2072209,00.html




"He's an absolute saint, I'm sorry but he is," said Adam Wilkinson, the frequently acid-tongued secretary of the conservation society Save. "He is just a hugely motivated, generous person, with a deep care for his adopted country. It's that thing of the outsider's eye - he sees our faults and problems more clearly, and the good things as well, and he's right about it all."

If the 80-year-old CPRE ever was about admiring fluffy lambkins gambolling on the greensward, those days are long gone. The organisation is deeply involved in intensely political issues, including urban sprawl, affordable rural housing, pressure on green belts, noise and light pollution, and the loss of village post offices, pubs and shops.

"I think he's a fantastic choice at CPRE," Mr Wilkinson said. "They do some really quality work, and increasingly not just on rural issues but touching on urban problems as well. They are dealing with very important areas, and he is just the man for the job."

 

[plumbers mate]

Someone with a background other than the middle-class, middle-englander is perfect. He has no baggage of the point-to-pointing society to carry with him.

 

[Nemesis]

He's a lovely bloke too. And he has my GWR best enamel badge and hope he treasures it always.

 

[Penners]

he has my GWR best enamel badge

Did you win that in the Brownies?

When you look around the Roman bath complex in Bath, your electronic handset gives you a choice of the "standard" commentary, or one by BB. I heartily recommend the latter - it's much more relaxed, unpatronising and interesting.

 

[Nemesis]

I bought it - and he admired it... and I gave it to him. I hope he wears it sometimes, it was my personal Span Four crusade badge!

He is a very, very nice and generous and funny man. It's all true.

 

[Nemesis]

The news (and the acid tongue...) seems to have reached Canada:

http://www.quillandquire.com/blog/index.php/2007/05/08/bill-bryson-v-british-litterbugs/

 

[Penners]

Bill Bryson for PM*, I say.


* Prime Minister, that is, not Plumbers Mate. I understand the latter position is not about to be vacated.