Wild life | 27 February 2008

Only this column would persuade me to get up at 6.30 on a Sunday morning. Six-thirty! In my other life I pore over the collected works of the 18th-century writer Dr Johnson, who constantly struggled to persuade himself out of bed before noon. He liked the idea of early rising, and each New Year resolved that he would get out of bed by eight, but the bustle of life needed to be in full swing before he could face up to that ‘consciousness of being’ which mornings bring and he would very soon succumb to his incurable laggardliness. The powers that be at Radio Four will have none of that and, no doubt believing that all true nature-lovers must be of the cheerful, up-at-dawn variety, insist on scheduling one of my favourite programmes, Living World, first thing on Sunday. So it was kettles at dawn in my foxy south-west suburb as the lemony-pink light of a February morning crept across the back garden.