Four adorable meerkat pups born at Blair Drummond Safari Park settling into surroundings
The four meerkat pups - born on May 10 to parents Cardi B and Biggie at Blair Drummond Safari Park near Stirling - are starting to "show a bit of character".
Four meerkat pups born at Blair Drummond Safari Park are starting to "show a bit of character" as they settle into their new home. The quartet, born on May 10 to parents Cardi B and Biggie, represent the third litter for the pair since they joined the park in 2022.
Born blind, deaf and almost hairless, the one-month-old pups have now opened their eyes and begun exploring their surroundings. Meerkats, known for their social nature, live in close-knit groups called mobs that collectively raise their young.
Carolyn Booth, Pets Farm Team Leader at Blair Drummond, said: "The pups are just starting to find their feet and show a bit of character – it's a brilliant stage to watch.
"They're getting more confident by the day, and the rest of the mob has really stepped up to help raise them. It's a real family effort."
The young meerkats have started nibbling on solid food, following the adults around and honing their digging skills.
Just last month, an endangered giraffe has arrived at the safari park in a bid to boost breeding.
Noinin, a seven-year-old female Rothschild's giraffe, was welcomed to the park on Thursday, May 1. The 16-foot tall mammal was transported from Fota Wildlife Park in County Cork, Ireland, first by ferry to Holyhead, Wales, followed by a 337-mile road journey north.
She is set to be introduced to fellow Rothschild's giraffe Sifa, who came to Blair Drummond in 2023 as part of the European Endangered Species Programme. The aim is to create genetic diversity in the breeding programme.
The species has seen a dramatic population decline of 30% since the 1980s, with less than 2,000 remaining in the wild, according to zoologists.
The new arrival will be integrated into the park's giraffe herd as part of a carefully managed breeding programme aimed at supporting the survival of the species, and will live in a mixed species habitat.
Noinin and Sifa are hoped to contribute to preserving genetic diversity and ensuring the long-term survival of Rothschild's giraffes.
Kristine Fennessy Alexander, animal collection manager at Blair Drummond, expressed the safari park's excitement at its latest addition.
She said: 'We're thrilled to welcome Noinin to the park.
'Rothschild's giraffes are facing significant challenges in the wild, and breeding programmes like this one are essential in helping secure the future of the species.
'Noinin has already begun exploring her new surroundings, and we are excited for her and Sifa to hopefully form a successful breeding pair.'
The safari park opened in May 1970, and is currently home to over 300 animals, many of which are able to roam freely.
Its animals include the African elephant, Barbary macaque monkeys, meerkats and the Siberian tiger.
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Telegraph
2 days ago
- Telegraph
Lady Rothschild interview: ‘I'm proud to have been a Page 3 girl'
Loretta Rothschild is contemplating the term 'trophy wife'. As a former Page 3 model who married Nat Rothschild, heir to the centuries-old European banking dynasty, she's grown used to the tabloid sobriquet. 'I've been described as worse things,' she laughs. 'But on Page 3 – honestly, I really want to make this clear: I'm so proud to have been a Page 3 girl and I will always celebrate that achievement.' This is the first time Lady Rothschild, to use her official title, has ever given a proper, sit-down interview. Until this point, the billionaire couple, who married in the Swiss ski resort of Klosters in 2016, had not even made it public that they have a son – whose name and age she has requested I withhold. Why such secrecy, when her only child will one day become the 6th Baron Rothschild, inheriting a vast wealth that has made the family one of the most famous in the world? 'There are downsides,' the 34-year-old admits. To being a Rothschild? 'No, to being in the press,' she caveats. 'I've had photographers turn up outside my sister's home and at my mum's… I've always said I won't talk about my son until he is 18 years old and then he can decide for himself.' Which goes some way to explaining why Rothschild boasts a Burke's Peerage entry – but not a Wikipedia one. So far, any articles that have been written about her have tended to be of the Essex girl/arm candy variety. One praised her 'fantastic figure, great boobs, small waist, good bum, and long, chestnut hair', while another described her as 'looking gorgeous in black undies, stockings and suspenders'. That rather tawdry narrative is set to change, with the publication of Finding Grace, Rothschild's page-turning first novel, which is already on Goodreads' list of the hottest debuts of 2025. Described as a 'gripping and emotional love story exploring grief, motherhood and an explosive secret', the book chronicles the lives of Tom and Honor – a husband and wife torn apart by a shocking event. The Tell Me Lies author Carola Lovering has said it 'feels like a movie… with characters and scenes that explode off the page' – and plaudits have been flowing in from bestselling authors including Plum Sykes, Julia Whelan and Imogen Edward-Jones. The American writer, Jodi Picoult, who has sold more than 40 million books, enthused: 'Loretta Rothschild's debut novel has one of the best first chapter cliffhangers ever…and then it just keeps getting better.' As we meet at the offices of Rothschild's publicist in central London, I find the budding novelist dressed casually in a pair of blue Levi's and black ribbed Cos jumper – with her navy Habsburg military-style blazer hanging over a nearby chair. Although she was born in Essex, and brought up by her mother Sue, an East Ender who encouraged Loretta and her older sister Olivia into child modelling, there isn't a false eyelash or fake fingernail in sight. Instead, the well-spoken Rothschild, who as far as I can tell is wearing no make-up at all, exudes the kind of wholesome, natural beauty that Page 3 girls were famous for before The Sun discontinued the topless photography in 2015, after more than 44 years. 'There were not a lot of us,' she recalls, her piercing blue eyes staring straight into mine. 'And we were all natural. The images weren't airbrushed or touched up or anything like that. It was a very comfortable environment. I mean, at the time, I didn't think of it as a career or anything like that. It was just great to be able to earn my own money and support myself. But I was probably never very good at it, because my head was somewhere else. You know, I was always away with the fairies, whatever I was doing.' Alison Webster, the paper's official Page 3 photographer, remembers her rather differently, once describing 'Elle', as she was known to fans back then, as 'a bright girl who was sure of herself and always in control'. She adds: 'And she was ambitious. We'd sit with a glass of wine after a day's shoot and she'd tell me she wanted to make something more of herself. And I always felt that she would.' After appearing in The Sun and modelling under her real name Loretta Basey, Rothschild went on to date the comedian Steve Coogan, who she met during a cover shoot for the now defunct lads' mag, Loaded. He was guest-editing in the guise of his alter-ego Alan Partridge and, in one photograph, was snapped cupping her breasts in his hands. The couple lived together at his home near Lewes, East Sussex, before breaking up in 2014. The actor's 2015 autobiography Easily Distracted thanks 'Loretta for making me laugh with her gentle mockery, and for her love'. The pair remain friends. 'I mean, I adore Steve, I really do,' insists Rothschild. 'We had a great relationship. You know, nearly five years of my life.' But it was Eton-educated Rothschild, 53, who ultimately stole her heart. Not that it was love at first sight – far from it, in fact. Denouncing as 'nonsense' reports that the couple met while Loretta was working for a private jet company, she explains: 'We'd been friends for quite a long time. I wish there was some romantic story but my husband's pretty straightforward. I think we were on a dog walk and he said: 'I want you to be my girlfriend.' I can't quite remember but I think I replied: 'What, no dinner?' or something like that. We were ambling along and I was very much sort of covered in mud. 'I didn't become his girlfriend in that moment. We were friends, and we continued to be friends, even after the 'I want you to be my girlfriend'. He was very nervous all the time around me – very shy. And it took me a few years to fall in love with him. 'When it was just us, he could be quite quiet, but he came to life with his friends, when there were other people around. When I really started to fancy him was when he started to be very funny. Nat is so funny, to the point where sometimes I can't breathe.' I ask if she was worried about the 19-year age gap – or, more importantly, the weight of the Rothschild name. Describing the former member of Oxford University's notorious Bullingdon Club as 'the least kind of society person I know', she adds: 'I can't even think of him in that way. He's not a snob. Nat's Nat. He comes into your life, and that's it, he's in. That's the blessing. That's why I probably never felt like I was in a certain world because Nat is someone I deeply admire for the way he walks through the world. He's very, very true to himself. There's never a moment where a façade is up. He is totally authentic, 100 per cent of the time. And that's very attractive.' After marrying at an intimate ceremony in the Swiss Alps nine years ago, the pair then held a second wedding reception at Stowell Park, Nat's parents' sprawling estate near Pewsey, Wiltshire. But the groom did not invite his father Jacob to the wedding and they remained estranged until his death, aged 87, last year. The former investment banker and hereditary peer would tell friends their strained relationship was similar to that of the King and Prince Harry. Nat's mother, Serena, a thoroughbred-racehorse owner, did not attend either, although the pair remained close until her death in 2019, aged 83. Reluctant to comment on the family feud, Rothschild insists she 'wasn't ever worried' about what she was marrying into – or indeed how she might be treated as an 'outsider'. 'I just had no idea. I probably made some terrible mistakes, seemingly to some people, and would ask questions I probably shouldn't have asked, but Nat and I just got on so well that we were in our own world. I was never intimidated by anything. I think after Page 3, if any negativity came my way, I just thought, well, that's your view, but I can't control what other people think of me. I'm never going to please everyone. So if I can please my mum or Nat or the people that answer the phone every day and really know me, then that feels nice to me.' The couple live quite a nomadic lifestyle – with a superyacht and homes in London, Wiltshire, Los Angeles and Klosters. They are currently spending most of their time at another home, in Italy. Estimates of Nat's wealth range between £1 billion and £40 billion following his father's death. Yet Loretta insists that she remains rooted 'in the principles that my mum really nailed into me', adding: 'There's two things in life I cannot stand. One of them is snobbery about anything, and the other is intentional cruelty towards others. Cruelty and snobbery are just non-starters for me.' Like Nat, she is estranged from her father – Phillip, an accountant and a former treasurer of UKIP and the Brexit party. The couple appear to be much closer to her family than the wider Rothschild clan. She explains: 'You know, our family chat (group) consists of me, Nat, my mum and my immediate family. He's very much in the Essex chat group. At recent Christmases I've enjoyed watching just how much Nat loves my mum. The whole thing is so small. I don't honestly think about 'the family'. Do I feel like someone's wife? No, Nat sort of has to get on with us!' And if she ever gets any ideas above her station, she's brought back down to earth by her sister. 'I would sometimes call Liv and say: 'You don't understand what's just happened to me' and she'd be like: 'Yeah, can you babysit tonight?' 'When I react, I react as an Essex girl. I mean, I wish I didn't sometimes but that is fundamentally who I am. I've worked really hard to do what I have – whether it's Page 3 or my book. When I look at that – I achieved that and I want to carry on achieving things.' Despite being 'appalling at school', and later being diagnosed with dyslexia, she developed a passion for literature. 'School was tough,' she admits of her all-girls, private secondary education, saying she preferred the mixed state primary school she attended when she was younger. She adds: 'The teachers would all say: 'She's in her own world', which was absolutely correct. 'I left school, went to college for a bit and did a year at Manchester Metropolitan but, on reflection, I should never have gone to university. I was always walking around with characters in my head, making up stories – I didn't realise that other people didn't do that.' When the Covid lockdown happened, Rothschild began 'devouring everything I could find about writing novels'. She cites Noel Coward's Blithe Spirit, William Boyd's Any Human Heart, Alan Hollinghurst's The Line of Beauty and Max Porter's Grief is the Thing with Feathers as inspirations, alongside writers including Saki and Somerset Maugham. 'I started to learn why some novels work and why some don't. And then Honor [the book's main character] kind of came into my head. She was this very vocal voice and I couldn't do anything without her voicing an opinion. It was like she was suddenly there.' The book, she admits, is essentially a series of love stories. 'It's a love story, but it's also about paternal love, platonic love, unexpected love, past loves, and how they are intertwined.' She's a romantic, then? 'I think I am. I think that falling in love, that freefall of infatuation is so quick and so rarely experienced that it's the most dangerous. At that moment, you're at your most vulnerable.' I wonder if she worried about the book being branded 'chick lit' when actually the 'first chapter cliffhanger' Picoult referenced makes it more in the vein of Gone Girl or The Girl on a Train. 'I like the fact that I've written a love story. I've written something that is considered a romance. So chick lit, for me… if I am in any way in that kind of window or associated with those authors, I would be thrilled. Those books are so fantastic – they're popular and have a fan base that will queue around the block for them.' She adds, 'It's strange that that is something that isn't celebrated in the right way, or dismissed when those authors are writing about really important subjects. It's just snobbery.' She did every online writing masterclass she could find during lockdown and then attended a creative writing course in LA for a year. 'I'm quite methodical. I've got a lot of ideas but I needed some structure. I needed to find a style that suited me.' Finding a publishing deal was, she admits, 'terrifying'. Acknowledging that most people will assume she only got the book published because of her husband, she says: 'I never really said to people, I'm going to do this thing. I said, hey, I've done this thing – it already exists, here it is. Because I remember, back in my 20s, mentioning to one person that I want to write – and they sort of gave me this face. So I thought, 'I'm not going to do that.' Don't tell people what you're planning to do – just tell them what you've done. 'I had quite a lot of naivety about it in the sense that I was so excited I finished this thing. But my first thought was: will it even get read? In the few weeks before we sent it out, I reread the first few chapters and thought, this is terrible, why am I doing this?' Just 72 hours after the draft was sent out to UK and US publishers, St Martin's Press, based in New York, replied. 'I remember it exactly,' smiles Rothschild. 'I opened my email and they came back and said, 'We want it, and we want the next one as well', so it ended up being a two-book deal. But in England, there were a lot of rejections. It certainly didn't happen because of my surname. That doesn't really happen, unless you're a Tolstoy! Actually writing a book and getting it published is bloody hard.' Admitting she did 'drive my husband a bit mad' with the whole process, she says: 'He was extremely supportive, to be fair, bringing me endless cups of tea. He was always up for it.' Rothschild would get up at the crack of dawn and write before anyone else had woken up. 'I felt like that time was so precious, when the whole house was quiet. I'd get three hours of writing in.' There is now rarely a day that goes by when she doesn't write something, and she is already halfway through her second book. Naturally, her mother Sue remains her biggest fan. 'My mum is so proud of every breath I take. Before she'd even read anything, I was already one of the Brontë sisters to her.' Reader, she may have married him – but when it comes to this Page 3 girl turned published author – it's probably best not to judge the book by its cover.
Daily Record
3 days ago
- Daily Record
Last chance to watch award winning crime comedy with 'best actor out there' for free
Fans have just days to watch it before it's taken down BBC viewers have a limited time left to stream a highly-rated crime comedy film for free. BlacKkKlansman is currently accessible on the BBC iPlayer at no extra charge. However, it's set to be taken off the platform on July 8 as announced by the broadcaster. This means that, as of now, movie enthusiasts have less than a fortnight to take advantage of this opportunity. The film narrates the story of Ron Stallworth, an African-American detective who sets out to infiltrate his town's local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, a white supremacist hate group. The storyline is based on real events and the autobiography of the actual Ron Stallworth, a black police officer who managed to infiltrate a chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. In the film, Stallworth is played by John David Washington, known for his roles in Tenet and The Creator and also being the son of Denzel Washington. Adam Driver portrays a fellow detective assisting Stallworth with his mission, while Topher Grace plays the role of David Duke, who was the grand master wizard of the Ku Klux Klan during that period, reports Birmingham Live. Despite its historical roots, some scenes are dramatised for impact and deviate from absolute accuracy. Nonetheless, director Spike Lee received accolades from both fans and critics for his handling of such a topic. When it first premiered in 2018, one critic described it as: "Lee's most purely entertaining film since Inside Man in 2006, BlacKkKlansman has a timeliness that taps into an imperative national conversation." Another critic agreed, noting: "Blackkklansman helps Spike Lee finally land in the Best Director field where he deserved a place years ago." Although the film did secure an Oscar for Lee, the recognition came in the Best Adapted Screenplay category rather than for directing. Reflecting on the impact of the film, one viewer observed: "An all time great movie on American history and its future. A terrific plot and acting I can't say much more then this. It is a must watch for anyone that likes films about the evils in the world. Not so much as a eye widener as much as a of a jaw dropper. Just fantastic". The central performances were also lauded by another viewer, who praised: "John David Washington is possibly the best actor out right now. His father has an aura that steals any scene and role, but John's range is phenomenal. He has the ability to make you forget who he is in the character, but love the character. He and Adam driver work so well together. Great movie." Further acclaim for the film came from another individual who commented: "BlacKkKlansman masterfully blends biting satire with powerful social commentary, delivering a gripping and thought-provoking narrative that is both entertaining and deeply resonant."
Spectator
5 days ago
- Spectator
The vicious genius of Adam Curtis
In an interview back in 2021, Adam Curtis explained that most political journalists couldn't understand his films because they aren't interested in music. Having known a fair few political journalists, I can say with some certainty that he was right. Most politically motivated types are – not to be unkind, but it's true – total losers. This cuts across left and right, all ideologies and tendencies, from Toryism to anarchism to Islamism and back: whatever you believe, if you believe it too strongly you were probably a weirdo at school. The other kids went out clubbing; you stayed at home, drawing pictures of Lenin or von Mises on your satchel. The other kids were in bands, you were in a reading group. When political freaks grow up a bit they often get very performatively into social binge-drinking, as if to prove a point, but it's all hollow. The joy isn't there. There are important things about the world that will always be closed off to the political obsessive, because political obsessives don't understand music. Adam Curtis considers himself to be a political journalist, and he definitely used to be one. His BBC documentaries from the 1990s and 2000s are thorny and thematically dense attempts to grapple with the condition of the present. Pandora's Box (1992) was about how human reason bumps up against the inherent messiness of reality, and how projects for rationally governing the world end up collapsing into bizarre forms of unreason. Over six episodes, Curtis talks about von Neumann's game theory, Milton Friedman's Chicago school of economics, Kwame Nkrumah's dream of African self-sufficiency, the cult of Taylorism and how it overrode Marxism in the early Soviet Union, nuclear physics, insecticides, and the way our social biases are repackaged for us in the form of a supposedly neutral science. There are a lot of words in there. Plenty of interviews with experts and significant figures, but also Curtis's clipped, precise narration, set to a collage of footage dug out of the BBC archive. Street scenes, offices, factories, politicians getting out of cars, but sometimes more abstract shots of industrial infrastructure and spaceships exploding in the sky. According to Curtis, most of that footage was there because he needed to finish the film on time and couldn't find anything else. But since then, this stuff has become his stock in trade. You know you're watching an Adam Curtis film when you hear someone talking about how plans to rationally control society fell apart to a Burial track and lots of black-and-white archive footage of people dancing at Butlin's. He was convinced he was simply illustrating his ideas. But this was a fantasy. In fact, he was unleashing forces that he could neither control nor understand. And then something strange happened. His style has become very easy to parody, which might be why Curtis has spent the last few years steadily paring it down. Shifty is his most abstract, imagistic film yet. His narration has now vanished entirely; instead, there are a series of sparse title cards that flash up over the archive footage, saying things like 'The Concept Of Privatisation Had Been Invented By The Nazis' or 'Underneath There Was Nothing.' All in all, over five episodes and five-and-three-quarter hours, Adam Curtis gives us significantly fewer of his own words than are contained in this review. They are sparse and stony, less like an argument than propaganda signs glowing in the night. The story he tells with them is – if you've seen any of his previous work – a familiar one. Every episode begins with the same words. 'There come moments in societies when the foundations of power begin to move. When that happens things become SHIFTY.' In Britain, that moment came at the end of the 20th century. Before Thatcher, Britain was about strong communities, solidarity, labour unions, and a productive industrial base. But during the Thatcher and Blair eras, all of that was emptied out, and we became a society of cynical, self-interested individuals, trapped in a fantasy of the past, and led by politicians who no longer believed in anything at all. This story is not necessarily untrue, but it's also not really groundbreaking. To the extent that this country does still have a unifying national myth, it's this one – about how Thatcherism tore all our unifying national myths apart. But it doesn't really matter, because Curtis is doing something different to ordinary political journalism. His constant rummage through the BBC's archives has yielded a lot of good stuff, and he has a real vicious genius for putting it together. At the start of the very first scene, we see Jimmy Savile ushering a group of angelic blond children into Thatcher's office. Once they're inside he gives a chortling thumbs-up to the camera, and then closes the door. Alongside the stories of monetarism and shots of fox hunters riding in front of huge hazy steelworks, there are weirder threads. A dog owner is concerned that their pet seems to have spontaneously switched sex. At the London Zoo, which can no longer rely on state financing, zookeepers now have to be personable and cheerful, play-acting for a public who have become the only source of income. A kid plays with the effects pedal on his guitar. A woman shows off her designer handbags. In the planning meetings for the Millennium Dome, they try to pin down the values of modern Britain, but discover that they don't really have any. In the 'Spirit Zone,' instead of endorsing any particular religion, they've decided to fill the room with fog and write the words 'How shall I live?' on the wall. They're very proud of it. 'I think the question 'how shall I live?' is anything but banal. In fact, I think it's the biggest single question, probably, that's begged in the entire dome.' None of this really coalesces into a single point, but trying to make things coalesce into a single point is part of the rationalist, sense-making project Curtis has been critiquing his entire career. Our world is shifty now, and things will not make sense. You won't understand them with facts, but music. There's far less actual music here than in any of Curtis's previous films. Instead of Kanye or Nine Inch Nails or Aphex Twin, a lot of the shots of decaying industry are set to the sounds of static or howling wind. But music is one of the threads here. In one episode, we're introduced to the Farlight CMI digital sampler, a machine that can take any sound, convert it into data, and digitally reproduce it. The first song to be recorded entirely using samples was 'Relax' by Frankie Goes to Hollywood, which is then banned from the BBC for being too flagrantly gay, but it's already self-replicating around the world. People start using the Farlight CMI to switch out samples in the track and create their own remixes. Which is, of course, what Curtis is also doing. Later, we meet a bedroom producer called DJ Fingers, playing around with turntables in his south London home. 'Basically you're just making music out of other people's records. You know the record inside out when you're cutting up this break.' Once again Curtis has found a vision of himself in the archives. But it's not exactly celebratory. He was one of the first people to point out that in recent decades newness seems to have vanished from the world: we just repeat old fashions, old music, old fantasies about how to live. What does it mean, then, when one of our greatest and most popular documentarians does nothing but rearrange the past? At the end of the final episode, there's a kind of Adam Curtis auto-parody, of the type I just did above. A Bowie song, paired with clips from old films. 'Will People Come Together As They Did In The Past And Fight Back?' his stark title cards ask. 'Or Is This Just Another Feedback Loop Of Nostalgia? Repeating Back Sounds Dreams And Images Of The Past, Which Is The Way The System Controls You, And Is The Way This Series Was Made.'
