No. 30 Five Ways to Spot a Farmer

It seems that if you want success on this internet thing – and accepting that success is the one true way I’ll get my campaign to eliminate change and bring down the internet to the widest audience – then your blog has to have at least one list of some sort or another.

Well seeing as this is Not What it Used to Be it would be apt for me to come up with a list regarding something you don’t see a lot of anymore. I chose that rarest of beast (in this day and age), the humble farmer.

There was a time when you couldn’t spit in the street without hitting at least one passing farmer. Nowadays you can walk for miles and not set eyes on a single specimen of the carrot-crunching country folk.

So what might be the reason for this? Did a particularly harsh winter wipe out the entire crop of new farmers? Has a virulent strain of bluetongue confined them all to bed? Are they reacting to the credit crunch by staying at home and counting their money? One can only hypothesise on the real reason for the lack of farmer action in the news, on the television, and in the street.

So as way of a public service, mainly for those who may not know what this most timid of beasts is, I offer the 5 Ways to Spot a Farmer.

1. There are two breeds of farmer to be on the lookout for. These are the common or garden farmer which is the most prevalent species in the British Isles; and, of course, the Gentleman farmer. Distinctive markings include flat caps, waxer jackets, and wellington boots. The Gentleman farmer can easily be distinguished by a higher pitched call and a green hue to said boots.

Both are extremely anti-social creatures and therefore unsuitable for handling by children or the inexperienced farmer-spotter.

2. If you suspect somebody of being a farmer, one way to make absolutely sure is to engage the beast in conversation. The farmer will quickly give himself away when he launches into an earbending of Titanic proportions regarding the price of fuel. Despite getting his diesel cheaper than your normal tax-paying member of the public, it is in the farmer’s nature to feel hard done by, and he’ll forever be on the lookout for something new to moan about.

Warning: Engaging a farmer in conversation is a technique best suited to the advanced farmer spotter only. The casual/ curious spotter should avoid such extreme measures unless supervised by a more experienced spotter or supremely confident in their own ability to successfully extricate themselves from said conversation.

3. There’s nothing a farmer likes better than polluting the atmosphere, hence their dissatisfaction with the cheap fuel not being free. Fortunately, this offers a splendid way for a seasoned farmer spotter to catch sight of his quarry. Just look for a plume of thick black smoke eating its way into the atmosphere, usually in the direction of the countryside. Follow the smoke to its source and if it’s not a burning barn (a countryside tradition where a farmer raises funds via insurance companies) then there’s a very solid chance it will be a farmer tearing about his land in his 4×4 or some piece of environmentally unsound farming plant. Be wary of getting too close, as a farmer who decides that you’re trespassing on his land is well within his rights to run you over.

4. A farmer has very little time for non-farmers. He will also have very little time for fellow farmers. A farmer will see everybody as a threat, a natural defence due to their dwindling numbers. Therefore you can often find a farmer stood solitary in the middle of his field, shouting, abusing, and swearing at what to the layman might seem like nobody, but is in fact the rest of the world.

It is imperative that a safe distance is kept from a farmer in this mode, and under no circumstances return to a raging farmer if you happen to be the one responsible for lighting his blue touchpaper. Just because a farmer appears to have fizzled out, it doesn’t make him safe!

5. Finally, you can generally recognise a farmer by the amount of bleating coming from his immediate vicinity. This, however, is not due to newborn lambs or any other manner of livestock. It is, in fact, the farmer and his farmer friends moaning about how hard up they all are.

Hope that’s of some help. You have been warned.

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