Bah humbug!

Charles Dickens may have coined the phrase “Bah, humbug!” via the mouth of Ebenezer Scrooge, of Christmas Carol fame, but what’s a humbug? In the slang of Dickens’s era, it meant anyone or anything silly, stupid, or bothersome, qualities unfairly ascribed to a kind of stag beetle (Lucanus cervus), Britain’s largest beetle, called “humbug” in some English dialects.

New noble chafer find in Kent flagged up on Today programme

Anita Burrough, Traditional Orchard Project officer who, along with Steve Oram, discovered the noble chafer in Kent, years after it was thought to have become locally extinct, was interviewed on the Radio 4 Today programme this morning. Listen by clicking 06:30-07:00 on the link below: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/