3 11 APRIL 2024 GOOD NEWS IN BRIEF This week’s uplifting stories from Anna Shepard Photographs: Olivia Brabbs, Matt Austin, Luke MacGregor/RHS The robot guide dog Blind people can face years of waiting to be assigned a guide dog, but now an AI version is stepping up to the job. Robbie the RoboGuide is a robot guide dog developed by the University of Glasgow to help blind people move freely around, using sensors that map surroundings. Robbie also understands speech, which means the fourlegged bot can provide verbal responses. Artist’s legacy The 86-year-old artist Norman Ackroyd (below) has launched a foundation to help young creatives fund their studies. It will o er grants of £10,000 a year to three or four visual art or music students for the duration of their course. Candidates will be chosen based on merit and need. Having bene ted from a scholarship to fund his own studies, Norman says he wants to help others progress their creative careers. A mobile meat smoker, an insect farm, robotics company and a beekeepers’ association have all won space to develop their businesses on estates in Hampshire and Fife thanks to an annual competition. Pitch Up! searches for sustainable land-based businesses to join circular communities and was launched in 2021 by 2,500-acre Kingsclere Estates in Hampshire. Successful applicants don’t need to own or rent land – often a prohibitive factor for new farmers. “Our goal is to have a diverse mix of enterprises operating o the land and using each other’s by-product or waste,” explains Tim May (above), founder of Kingsclere Estates. The Roaming Smoker will serve slow-cooked organic ‘old’ dairy beef from The Roaming Dairy (a mobile milking parlour on the Hampshire estate) at festivals this summer. Smith Robotics design and build sensors to monitor biodiversity, soil quality and tree health and will use the space to test new tech. The Balcaskie Estate in East Neuk, Scotland, selected an insect farm producing feedstock for pets alongside Fife Beekeepers Association, which will teach apiary on site. Other estates are invited to join the 2024 scheme, with the competition window running from 1-30 November. Anna-Marie Julyan BRINGING NEW FARMERS INTO THE LOOP 80% That’s how much of the population lives in towns and cities, which is adding to a spike in house plants. Meeting the demand, the Royal Horticultural Society is gearing up for its rst Urban Show at The Depot, a former railway warehouse in Manchester, from 18-21 April. “In recent years, there’s been a gardening boom and we believe more young people living in urban areas are now growing plants,” says RHS shows director Helena Pettit. “The show aims to demonstrate that anyone can be a gardener.” There will be installations, workshops and talks and demonstrations from experts, hosted by broadcaster and in uencer Michael Perry. Nurseries will also o er plants suitable for urban environments. Going nuts to find pistachio perfection The humble pistachio is breaking free from its shell, with eateries across the country churning it into ice cream, frothing it into co ees and generally making it the star of the show. Tiktokers have gone nuts for the pistachio latte at trendy chain Blank Street Co ee, while Instagrammers are blitzing kernels with condensed milk for a rich pistachio spread. “It’s time pistachio was celebrated,” says Deborah Du Vernay, who runs The Flat Baker in Manchester with partner Matheus. The café is known as the ‘home of the pistachio croissant’ because of its speciality – a buttery pastry filled with pistachio and white chocolate cream (above). This May, the pair plan to put on a pistachio festival, with the whole month dedicated to desserts filled with you-know-what. “We call pistachio ‘green gold’ in Sicily, where I’m from,” adds food blogger Francesca Cipolla, who searches for the best pistachio-based dishes in London on Instagram (@pistachioinlondon). Highlights include Capilungo, a new Italian cafe and bakery in Covent Garden, which o ers pistachio pasticciotto (a shortcrust tart filled with cream) and pistachio hot chocolate. And Speciality Cafètiere in Hackney makes spectacular bombolone (Italian doughnuts) filled with rich pistachio gelato. The flavour is a classic on the continent – but Swoon Gelato’s version (below) is said to be the best in the UK, available in Bristol, Bath, Oxford and Cardi . Darlish Ice Cream o ers exciting Middle Eastern combinations, including orange blossom and pistachio. With shops in St Albans, Harpenden and, as of this month, London’s Spitalfields – its famous pistachio-filled baklava ice cream sandwich is not to be missed. See waitrose.com/recipes for inspiring sweet and savoury pistachio ideas. And there are also some great options available in store, including Lizi’s Passion Fruit & Pistachio Granola (SAVE 1/3 £2.65/400g, was £4.20, o er ends 23 April). Sarah Barratt The good life History is good for your brain and it’s also a mood booster, a study by Historic England and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has found. It shows that the closer you live to heritage sites, the happier you are likely to be. Using a formula designed by the Treasury, the study put a value on this bene t, which revealed that living close to such sites can improve quality of life to the value of £515 a year. Cheese champions Waitrose has been crowned Champion Retailer at the 2024 British Cheese Awards for its Duchy Organic Witheridge in Hay – produced exclusively for the supermarket by Oxfordshire’s Nettlebed Creamery and available on cheese counters. Other awards for Waitrose cheeses at the March event included golds for No.1 Cornish Yarg, No.1 Mature Wookey Hole Cheddar and Davidstow Cornish Cheddar Vintage.
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