Naturalist Chris Packham has asked TV viewers to look the other way, put their fingers in their ears, while the UK records 50,000 new coronavirus cases, in one day. Rather than focus on doom and gloom, he has asked us to frolic through fields, towards the sunlit uplands of the Blue Remembered Hills, of Yesteryore.
A spokeswoman for the Big Butterfly Count said: ‘Concentrate on all the pretty colours. A delicate butterfly. That’s it. Lovely. Go to your happy place. Oh, look a rainbow! Whiskers on kittens. Marmalade on toast. Breath in. Breath out’.
The group were quick to emphasis that we should not be counting moths, as ‘no one likes them’. Instead, if we just keep counting the sheep, I mean butterflies, we will soon drift off into a peaceful sleep, as opposed to Covid’s eternal rest.
‘Just enjoy the butterflies and ignore the Covid. The beautiful butterflies…which, incidentally, are all dying out due to climate change’.