Chris Packham and Simon Reeve gave us two excellent television programmes last night.
The first one was with Simon Reeves, an author and tv presenter, we always try to catch his travel documentaries as he journeys to the not-so-well known parts of the world and the programme last night on the coffee industry in Vietnam was excellent.
This programme was first shown on January 20th, 2014 on BBC 2. This World.
The French introduced the coffee bean into Vietnam when they governed it in the 1800's and it is due to this that Hanoi has the legacy of its' coffee culture and the thousands of cafes.
But it is since the end of the Vietnam war in 1975 that the Communist Government have expanded its' growth into an enormously valuable industry.
Huge numbers of people from the northern part of the country were given free land - two hectares - if they would relocate themselves to the southern part of the country.
However, they grow Robusta, the bean used in the making of Instant Coffee, it is a low grade variety and although it has brought huge wealth to a few people and, certainly a better standard of living to the people who are the actual growers, it does not earn the same amount of money as Arabica beans, the type used throughout the world for cappuccino or expresso coffee.
The programme is certainly worth watching.
The second BBC 2 documentary we watched was with Chris Packham.
He journeyed to Sumatra twenty years ago and took several photos of a small group belonging to a tribe of hunter-gatherers, including a photo of a young girl. He never knew her name and they have had no contact since.
She was a member of the Orang Rimba tribe who live in the rainforest jungle.
Chris is a conservation expert and twenty years later after taking the photo, he wondered whether she and her group of hunter-gathers were still alive or whether they have been forced out due to the destruction of Sumatra's rainforests in order to plant millions of hectares of, mostly, Palm trees for their oil.
He flew to Sumatra and reconnected with the people that he had travelled with last time and heard dreadful news, that some of group he had met and photographed had been killed in a massacre.
Had she been killed? No one knew her face. It seemed as it he would never know what happened to her and the rest of the group.
Then a visit to another group, living in a very small part of the rainforest that has been designated as a National Park, gave them a lead.
There was another group of Orang living outside the park who came from the same area as the original group.
The camera team drive to meet them and show them the photos and there was an immediate recognition of the young girl. "Yes, we know her, she is Bunga, she's the sister in law of one of our group, she is married and has three children".
Chris and his small team drive to the area and find the group with which Bunga now lives. Both of her parents and her brother and sister were killed in the massacre.
There is the relief of finding her alive but it is touched with sadness, her group is not able to sustain their traditional lives by eating wild vegetables such as cassava and the jungle fruits.
Fish have all but disappeared from the streams and rivers due to high usage of fertilisers and the rainforest flora and fauna have all gone.. never to return.
They now live amongst the very trees that caused the destruction of their natural habitat, the Sumatra rainforests, but there was one thing that really spoke to us.. she was wearing a digital watch.
We're incredibly grateful to Simon Reeve and Chris Packham for their books and documentaries and, of course, to Sir David Attenborough whose programme 'The Blue Planet 2' on the world's oceans was magnificent.
With that, Dear Readers, we have to start our day. We've eaten eggs, drunk tea, she's tapped this post and will get on with figuring how I can squeeze my body through this tiny gap and munch her papers.
Ah Ha.. I did it! But, unfortunately, before Beaky could do any damage, she looked up as there was an ominous silence and saw.. no red bum!
Man, she was up and over to the cupboard in a flash and before I knew it, I was on the outside of the cupboard again with the dreaded finger being waved in front of poor ole Beaky!
Sneaky wench, she then up-ended a metal file tray, stuffed it onto the top of the shelf and propped the door back up again. Boring.. very boring.
Never mind, she will be going out at some point, soon I trust, and I can either doze or find some other naughty thing to do whilst she is out.
GeeGee Parrot.
January 29th, 2018.
PostScript: Bill and Constance's birthday.
The first one was with Simon Reeves, an author and tv presenter, we always try to catch his travel documentaries as he journeys to the not-so-well known parts of the world and the programme last night on the coffee industry in Vietnam was excellent.
This programme was first shown on January 20th, 2014 on BBC 2. This World.
The French introduced the coffee bean into Vietnam when they governed it in the 1800's and it is due to this that Hanoi has the legacy of its' coffee culture and the thousands of cafes.
But it is since the end of the Vietnam war in 1975 that the Communist Government have expanded its' growth into an enormously valuable industry.
Huge numbers of people from the northern part of the country were given free land - two hectares - if they would relocate themselves to the southern part of the country.
However, they grow Robusta, the bean used in the making of Instant Coffee, it is a low grade variety and although it has brought huge wealth to a few people and, certainly a better standard of living to the people who are the actual growers, it does not earn the same amount of money as Arabica beans, the type used throughout the world for cappuccino or expresso coffee.
The programme is certainly worth watching.
The second BBC 2 documentary we watched was with Chris Packham.
He journeyed to Sumatra twenty years ago and took several photos of a small group belonging to a tribe of hunter-gatherers, including a photo of a young girl. He never knew her name and they have had no contact since.
She was a member of the Orang Rimba tribe who live in the rainforest jungle.
Chris is a conservation expert and twenty years later after taking the photo, he wondered whether she and her group of hunter-gathers were still alive or whether they have been forced out due to the destruction of Sumatra's rainforests in order to plant millions of hectares of, mostly, Palm trees for their oil.
He flew to Sumatra and reconnected with the people that he had travelled with last time and heard dreadful news, that some of group he had met and photographed had been killed in a massacre.
Had she been killed? No one knew her face. It seemed as it he would never know what happened to her and the rest of the group.
Then a visit to another group, living in a very small part of the rainforest that has been designated as a National Park, gave them a lead.
There was another group of Orang living outside the park who came from the same area as the original group.
The camera team drive to meet them and show them the photos and there was an immediate recognition of the young girl. "Yes, we know her, she is Bunga, she's the sister in law of one of our group, she is married and has three children".
Chris and his small team drive to the area and find the group with which Bunga now lives. Both of her parents and her brother and sister were killed in the massacre.
There is the relief of finding her alive but it is touched with sadness, her group is not able to sustain their traditional lives by eating wild vegetables such as cassava and the jungle fruits.
Fish have all but disappeared from the streams and rivers due to high usage of fertilisers and the rainforest flora and fauna have all gone.. never to return.
They now live amongst the very trees that caused the destruction of their natural habitat, the Sumatra rainforests, but there was one thing that really spoke to us.. she was wearing a digital watch.
We're incredibly grateful to Simon Reeve and Chris Packham for their books and documentaries and, of course, to Sir David Attenborough whose programme 'The Blue Planet 2' on the world's oceans was magnificent.
With that, Dear Readers, we have to start our day. We've eaten eggs, drunk tea, she's tapped this post and will get on with figuring how I can squeeze my body through this tiny gap and munch her papers.
Ah Ha.. I did it! But, unfortunately, before Beaky could do any damage, she looked up as there was an ominous silence and saw.. no red bum!
Man, she was up and over to the cupboard in a flash and before I knew it, I was on the outside of the cupboard again with the dreaded finger being waved in front of poor ole Beaky!
Sneaky wench, she then up-ended a metal file tray, stuffed it onto the top of the shelf and propped the door back up again. Boring.. very boring.
Never mind, she will be going out at some point, soon I trust, and I can either doze or find some other naughty thing to do whilst she is out.
GeeGee Parrot.
January 29th, 2018.
PostScript: Bill and Constance's birthday.
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