Cornwall

Down here in west Cornwall, the days are long and summer is on the wing. Like the Tories in Scotland, the tiny population of Cornish choughs continue to defy extinction, clinging on like crazy with their little red feet, simply refusing to die out. Six nests with chicks have been monitored this year, while the birds themselves enjoy a higher level of security and protection than a Russian mafioso. I am dying to see one, forever scanning the cliffs with my binoculars, trying and failing not to be a holiday cliché. Middle-aged woman in Breton top, bakes her own bread and stares at the sea for hours on end. Chough

Mousehole is a charming name; it is almost a charming place. It is a fishing village on Mount’s Bay, Cornwall, beyond the railway line, which stops at Penzance, in an improbable shed; I love that what begins at Paddington, the most grandiose and insane of London stations, ends in a shed. The Spanish invaded Mousehole in 1595 but Drake’s fleet came from Plymouth and chased them away; nothing so interesting has happened since; just fishing, tourism and decline. Now there are galleries and restaurants and what the Cornish call ‘incomers’ buying cottages, in which they place ornamental fishing nets after painting everything white. (For something more ‘authentic’, you can visit

Oh dear. I think I may have inadvertently contributed to the dissolution of Great Britain. I’m not claiming sole responsibility. In due course, when the blame game begins, I’ll play second fiddle to the party leaders, Gordon Brown, Eddie Izzard and successive generations of carpet-bagging aristocrats. Nevertheless, when the rise and fall of the British Isles is written, I’ll be deserving of a minor footnote. I’m talking, of course, about the imminent secession of Wales from the United Kingdom. I say ‘imminent’, but it’s contingent upon a ‘yes’ vote in next week’s Scottish referendum, which isn’t yet a foregone conclusion. But I don’t see how a referendum on the future

As a rule, I tend not to frequent places where there is a sign on the door saying ‘no sharps’. But I thought I would make an exception for the Eden Project. Surely, I thought, as we walked from the ‘Banana’ car park to the ticket office, they must mean sharps as in penknives, or something. The number of people in the queue wearing sandals made from reconstituted tyre rubber was a further warning sign but I chose to ignore it. As we stood amid the rainbow-striped cardigan-wearing clientele and their brightly dyed hairstyles, the builder had a look on his face that said: ‘I think we’ve wandered into the

Just when I was beginning to think I’d had enough, I was offered a free week in a caravan. I took it like a shot, threw a few shirts in the boot of the car, and buggered off down to Cornwall. I arrived in darkness and couldn’t find the electricity switch. But I was so tired I simply climbed into a sleeping bag by the light of my phone and fell asleep. I was woken by sunshine and the cawing of rooks. At this caravan, there is no internet, no phone signal for miles, no telly, no radio. And the air I swear is soporific. It was like crawling out

If you haven’t scuffled you haven’t lived, and our local scuffle is the best of the best. A scuffle is a sort of off-road bumper cars in 4x4s, and it’s one of the highlights of the summer. Our car, The Scuffle Pig, was on her third outing this year. We thought she’d been dealt a fatal blow in 2011, when a foolish friend encouraged a fellow scuffler to get her out of a dip by ramming her. The back windscreen was smashed, and I had to leap out and strip my then 12-year-old stepson down to his underpants in front of numerous spectators in order to get rid of the

Having given the matter careful consideration, I have decided that I do not agree with councillor Colin Brewer’s suggestion that disabled children should be ‘put down’ after birth, perhaps in the manner of a farmer smashing a deformed newly born lamb against a wall, as he helpfully put it. ‘You can’t have lambs wandering around with two heads or five legs, can you?’ Colin asked, presumably rhetorically. Colin is a councillor in Wadebridge East, Cornwall, and does not come across as the fullest pasty in the lunchbox. It would not surprise me if some wag has already made the rather bad-taste point to him that if his proposal were adopted,