In an idle moment last night whilst simultaneously watching the snooker and browsing Twitter I asked the important question of our time. Does anyone have a favourite agricultural equipment? This was totally random but it was amazing how many people responded – all blokes.

Rob immediately came back and said “David Brown tractor” as his dad used to build them. That’s cool especially as it turns out David Brown used to own Aston Martin (hence DB5) and Lagonda. I wonder how many gears that tractor has.

I thought plough had a certain earthiness to it. Note the video at the bottom of this post was taken in October 2010 just outside Lincoln (England) at the World Ploughing Championships. Check it out and note the O2 LTE upload medium.

Jon went for scythe which I agreed has

a certain dangerous beauty to it and that sickles are certainly for girls being a much lighter implement. Rob, whose house is coming along nicely by the way with the software now mostly working, volunteered that sickles might also be used by long haired Gallic druids. I knew he can’t have been referring to me as I don’t have long hair.

Joe came up with chainsaw. Definitely a blokey tool I said and not suitable for use by the fairer sex (or anyone else without suitable training and protective clothing come to think of it – v dangerous – also I know I know – ok it’s ok for women to use too).

Rob, who was by now on a bit of a roll, then chipped in with the observation that chainsaws were more aggro-culture than agriculture? (& polytunnel 4 agrowculture?) to groans all round.

At this point I suggested that I should write a blog post on tractor technology which I would research at next month’s Lincolnshire Show – a great day out. Rob suggested I should check out the “Deuterium”. I wondered whether Deuterium was radioactive but apparently it isn’t very though it might be quite heavy.

Andrew then chipped in with “mattock” which in his world doubles-up as a term of abuse 🙂 Then finally, after I had hit the hay (!) Neil came in with “high voltage cattle prod” which again can be dangerous in the wrong hands. In fact I’m sure all these implements can be dangerous if not used properly so before you go out and try any of them make sure you are using the right safety gear.

I’ll look out for the Deuterium at the Lincolnshire show and report back.

Here’s the vid I mentioned earlier. It is a 298MB file that took only 8 minutes to upload from the Fuel Bar cafe at the Piazza in Covent Garden Market – I was getting 9Megs down and up there. Quality.

That’s all folks…