Tag Archives: The Guardian

Jim Perrin, the ‘Guardian’ Country Diarist for Wales, is a Wanted Man

‘Melangell’ (JP?) commented on The Guardian Country Diary thread, 18/10/2010: ‘Set those diarists world-wandering a bit more often, I say, reporting back from wherever they like in the global village.’ This response was to a diary entry from Papua New Guinea which was posted by Mark Cocker (and close friend of Jim Perrin), an ornithologist with an international reputation whose diaries, since 1988, have been consistently outstanding: perhaps he had been there recently in the course of his research.

Was ‘Melangell’ (JP?) perhaps trying with this comment to exert some influence? It would certainly be to Jim Perrin’s advantage…

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Is Jim Perrin now writing as ‘DrudwyBranwen’?

We said in the previous post that Jim Perrin writes for the Guardian as a Country Diarist. Although he is English he is paid by them to be  ‘THE Country Diarist for Wales’! It is a mystery that they do not ask someone who is Welsh…

Visiting Wales in 2013 to deliver ‘The William Condry Memorial Lecture’  was another English diarist, Mark Cocker, who has himself on occasion posted diary entries from Wales; he is renowned both as an ornithologist and author and the details of his remarkable career may be found on-line. He lives in Norfolk and his diary entries are mostly posted from that part of the country. They are finely observed and written in an unpretentious, painterly style with here and there highlights and memorable colour. Continue reading →

Pearls before swine?

It may be imagined how irked Jim Perrin was to read the adverse comments which followed, one by one, his latest Guardian Country Diary entry about wild boar in Ariège, 23/05/2014. How, we wonder, could he have restrained himself from writing his usual retaliatory remarks? ‘Dendros’, in particular, was ironically critical — and, to judge by the response, apparently woundingly — of the author’s style.

Such criticism was not to be borne; could not be tolerated without redress; and as, presumably, the irritation mounted this most precious author — perceiving the words in his ‘lyrically-lovely-mode’ of writing, to be so many Pearls Before Swine of a different kind — found the impulse to respond to be irresistible… This is a logical interpretation. Continue reading →