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Lovehoney sponsors Aphrodite-themed ‘pleasure garden’ full of flowers associated with love and sex
It is one of the most prestigious events of the UK social calendar, but the great and good attending Chelsea flower show may be in for a shock this year as the Royal Horticultural Society unveils a sex-themed garden sponsored by a company that sells vibrators.
Lovehoney, a sex toy company, is sponsoring an Aphrodite-themed “pleasure garden” full of flowers and plants associated with love and sex.
Chelseaflowershow will be held at the Royal Hospital Gardens from 19 to 23 May.
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Landowner disputes, coastal erosion and disused ferry hindering completion of King Charles III England coast path
The longest managed coastal walking route in the world has been opened by the king at the Seven Sisters cliff walk.
However, large parts of the King Charles III England coast path are still closed to the public after objections from landowners, fears about coastal erosion and a disused ferry.
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Move will put national security and lives overseas at risk, critics say, as overall UK aid budget is slashed to 0.3% of gross national income
Climate aid to developing countries from the UK will be cut by about 14% to roughly £2bn a year under government plans, in a move critics said would put national security and lives overseas at risk.
The move follows bitter rows with the Treasury, which wanted deeper cuts owing to pressure on spending resulting from the war in Iran.
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Conservation can be hard work. But not when it comes to helping these little orange and brown beauties
You’ve almost certainly seen gatekeeper butterflies, even if you don’t know them by name. The gatekeeper is, says naturalist and butterfly enthusiast Matthew Oates, “a charming butterfly; a charming meditation of soft oranges and browns”. Traditionally found in the “scrub edges” (the borders between grassland and woods) and at hedge margins, they are frequently seen in suburban and urban areas, near garden gates (hence their name) and at the base of shrubs. The gatekeeper is in no hurry, so you’ll get to enjoy it. “It doesn’t dash about at great speed,” says Oates. “It flops around; both males and females bask a lot.” As a bonus, Oates adds, gatekeeper males are “extremely polite to each other”, unlike lots of other butterflies, which are highly territorial. “They’re gentlemen.”
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Iran war has increased gas price, with effects on UK energy bills that could be avoided, Common Wealth says
Household energy bills could be reduced by up to £203 a year by stopping expensive fossil gas setting the price of energy in the UK, according to a report.
Under the existing system, gas – the most expensive form of electricity production in the UK system – set the price of energy 85% of the time in 2024 in the UK, even though it generates only about a quarter of Britain’s electricity.
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Trillions of insects embark, largely unnoticed, on epic journeys every year across mountain ranges, deserts and seas, and it is only now, as their numbers suffer huge declines, that scientists are tracking their movements
On a cloudless sunny day in October 1950, ornithologists Elizabeth and David Lack stood on a mountain pass in the Pyrenees and observed a once-in-a-lifetime spectacle – clouds of migrating insects.
Up to 500 butterflies were fluttering past them every hour through the 2,200m-high Puerto de Bujaruelo mountain pass on the French-Spanish border. By mid-afternoon dragonflies were skimming through, outnumbering the butterflies by 10 to one. The spaces between were filled with thousands of tiny flies.
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Puffins, guillemots and razorbills are being washed up dead or dying on Europe’s Atlantic coast in what scientists call a ‘wreck’
Thousands of seabirds – mostly puffins, but also many guillemots and razorbills – are being washed up dead or dying on the Atlantic coasts of western Europe, in what scientists call a “wreck”.
This year’s events, the consequence of a series of severe storms during the late autumn and winter, are the worst since 2014, when as many as 54,000 birds were found stranded. Of these, well over half – between 30,000 and 34,000 – were puffins.
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Birdsville and Bedourie locals are used to being trapped by flooding – but if they run out of Tim Tams and chocolate, ‘that’s a big problem’
To many city dwellers, becoming trapped for weeks where you live would be a terrifying prospect. Not so for the remote outback towns of Birdsville and Bedourie on the edge of the Munga-Thirri Simpson desert. Five weeks after flooding cut off roads into the towns, the residents’ biggest complaint is that the local store is down to two flavours of chips.
Since early February, the rural Queensland communities which border both the Northern Territory and South Australia have only been accessible by plane. Flooding has turned the orange outback green-blue and, with further heavy rainfall and flooding forecast in the coming days, the dirt roads aren’t expected to open for another month.
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Perhaps the biggest surprise is that it tricks ants into moving its seeds with a scent that mimics their larvae
Plants are superb at enticing animals to pollinate their flowers or carry off their seeds. But one plant co-opts an astonishing combination of fire, bees and ants to mastermind its reproduction.
The South African Natal crocus, Apodolirion buchananii, has a gloriously bright white flower that emerges from the ground before its leaves appear in early spring. But the flower only blooms shortly after fire breaks out naturally in its native grasslands, leaving it standing like a beacon among the blackened grass to help lure bee pollinators, with an irresistible sweet scent that wafts through the air.
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As the hit travelogue about the worlds beneath us becomes a film, its maker takes us on a voyage through Las Vegas storm drains and the caves of Yucatán – via Goatchurch Cavern in the bowels of Somerset
Just off the B3134 in Somerset is a portal to the underworld. The smaller of two openings to Goatchurch Cavern, it’s called the Tradesman’s Entrance – and through it I am squeezing. After tumbling on my bum over damp smooth rock, lacerating a jumpsuit in the process, I venture down and down, sometimes crawling, sometimes standing upright, trying to find footholds in the dark.
I’m here with film-maker Robert Petit, so he can show me something of what he’s been experiencing for the past five years, on his way to making an endearingly poetic documentary film called Underland, which riffs on nature-writer Robert Macfarlane’s bestselling 2019 subterranean travelogue of the same name. We’re heading 100ft underground to the Boulder Chamber where, over sugary snacks, I will quiz him about his obsession.
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