Despite all the TV interest in the auctions so far this year, there’s not been a lot in the newspapers. A bit in the local papers around Tenbury – good coverage of the Mistletoe Festival in the Tenbury Advertiser (though not yet in their online ed), but ousted by Worcester Christmas celebrations in Worcester News. And apparently I made the front page of the Shropshire Star on 27th Nov – but I’ve not seen that, only this rather unlikely explanation (‘the birds have eaten them all’) for the lack of holly berries this year. Why not just admit it’s been a poor year for holly berries?
Not much in the nationals. The Daily Mail promised a piece on buying mistletoe online last weekend – but that came to nothing. The Daily Telegraph sent their photographer to this week’s auction (see pic) but I don’t think they used a pic, apart from in their online edition, (scroll through to the 8th image) and that’s credited to the Reuters man, so I’m a bit confused.
But the Telegraph have run a piece on how to grow your own, and it’s not a bad piece either, resisting the usual rubbish about cutting nicks in the bark and instead telling it like it really is, and how to plant it like the birds do. As Stan Yapp likes to say ‘ the birds are the professionals [at planting mistletoe], we are just the amateurs’.