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8 November 2023updated 09 Nov 2023 8:43am

This England: Refreshing data

This column – which, though named after a line in Shakespeare’s “Richard II”, refers to the whole of Britain – has run in the NS since 1934.

By New Statesman

Workers returning to the office and socialising after pandemic lockdowns helped lead to a 15 per cent surge in deodorant sales, according to Unilever, the maker of Dove, Rexona and Impulse.

Guardian (Barbara Bain)

Case dis-sniffed

The naturalist Chris Packham did not commit a criminal offence when he sniffed goshawk chicks on television because he was behaving in a “purely instinctive” way, police have concluded.

The BBC Springwatch and Earth presenter was reported to police after he appeared on The One Show inspecting three of the birds of prey in the New Forest this summer.

It was feared that the “sniffing incident” amounted to a “disturbance” of the wild chicks – goshawks are a protected species – because they were out of their nests.

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Packham welcomed the police decision and accused the field sports lobby of targeting him and wasting police time.

“The anonymous idiot who made this ludicrous and vindictive complaint should be sorry that even a nanosecond of police time was wasted,” he said.
Telegraph (Kate McIntosh)

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Snail mail fail

Snails have been causing havoc in a Devon village by munching on the locals’ post. The molluscs have been eating the glue that holds envelopes together in a postbox in Lewdown for more than a year.

The Royal Mail said it is against any policy to “exterminate them with pellets or by other means”. The village has a Post Office that can be used instead.

In Marazion, Cornwall, hungry snails closed down two postboxes temporarily.
Metro (Richard Fearn)

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[See also: Everyone hates the critic]

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This article appears in the 08 Nov 2023 issue of the New Statesman, The Age of Fury