A controversial project to reintroduce sea eagles to southern England has been scrapped in the first of the government budget cuts to impact on the natural environment.

The majestic predators have been successfully reintroduced into the Scottish islands, after being driven to extinction in Britain nearly a century ago. But this morning Natural England, the Government's wildlife agency, will announce that it is pulling out of a long-running scheme to bring back a breeding population of the birds to the coastline of Suffolk.

Ministers have made clear to Natural England that the £900,000 the project was expected to cost over six years will not be forthcoming. However, there is more to the decision than that.

The plan to bring back Britain's biggest birds of prey – they have eight-foot wingspans – to coastal East Anglia has been extremely unpopular with some of the region's farmers and landowners, who have feared for the safety of their livestock, and the decision to scrap it has been taken by Jim Paice, the Conservative Agriculture Minister, who is himself an East Anglian farmer.

Natural England officials and biologists, from the top down, are extremely disappointed at the cancellation of what they saw as a wonderful addition to England's bird life, much along the lines of the successful reintroduction of the red kite in the 1990s. They had just received the results of a feasibility study showing the re-establishment of a sea eagle population in Suffolk was possible, and were about to embark on a public consultation exercise about the scheme.

Also unhappy is the agency's partner in the project, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. "We are very disappointed, because this is a great project, and we think most people in Suffolk are behind it," said Mark Avery, the RSPB's conservation director. "Many Suffolk businesses would benefit from the increased tourism revenue these birds would bring.

"We are also afraid that this is just the first of many damaging cuts that will impact on the natural environment over the next weeks and months."

The sea eagle, Haliaeetus albicilla, also known as the white-tailed eagle, once bred all over Britain from the Isle of Wight to the Shetlands. It is much more of a lowland and coastal bird than the golden eagle of the Scottish Highlands. But it had been persecuted to extinction in England by the 19th century and retreated to a last stronghold in the Hebrides, where Victorian collectors further hunted it until it disappeared. The last nest was seen in 1916; the last native British sea eagle was shot, on Skye, two years later.

However, in 1975 a reintroduction scheme was begun with young birds from Norway being released on the island of Rum, and several years later the first breeding took place on the Isle of Mull. There are now more than 30 breeding pairs, which are a considerable tourist attraction in some places, as the birds are a spectacular sight. They mainly feed on carrion, fish and small mammals but they occasionally also take lambs.

The Natural England scheme intended to reintroduce the birds on the area of mixed heath, forest and farmland of the Suffolk coast known as the Sandlings, centring on the RSPB flagship reserve of Minsmere. The plan envisaged bringing young birds from Poland to Suffolk at the rate of 20 a year for five years, beginning in 2011.

Dr Avery said he did not think farmers' fears of livestock losses were justified. "This bird is not seen as a pest elsewhere in Europe, where it is very common,"

drive from www.independent.co.uk

The admission that you write a blog shouldn't be one that's accompanied by a great deal of soul-searching, any more than "I play golf" or "I like cake" would be. But the blogger's lot is not necessarily a happy one. They're pilloried by much of the traditional media for supposedly devaluing the written word. The political establishment resents their freewheeling, unspinnable vigour. Those unconvinced about the value of the web as a platform for ideas regard them with suspicion, imagining them as self-promoting at best, narcissistic at worst, while those whose lives are inextricably woven with the internet are deeply aware that "blogging" doesn't guarantee quality any more than "cooking" does. Because, in just over a decade, blogging has morphed from a niche activity, a thrilling self-publishing opportunity, into the biggest creative splurge the world has ever seen. Tens of millions of bloggers shovel many more millions of blog posts on to an already unstable data mountain every day of the week; the vast majority of those are incoherent, repetitive, self-indulgent, crass or simply boring. But the amount of good stuff is still overwhelming – certainly more in a day than you'd ever be able to read in a year. There's compelling storytelling, incisive comment, rousing calls to action. Socially, politically and commercially, blogging is a potent force, well on the way to becoming as powerful as the traditional media, while utterly unencumbered by the latter's affiliations, obligations and traditions. And yet, while "I write" has a certain nobility to it, "I blog" certainly doesn't. The two, as acts, are essentially indistinguishable, but "blog" is seen as a four-letter word.

The inherent hideousness of the word doesn't help. If it were more attractive, if it were "flah" or "sool", it might not be spat out with such contempt by its detractors. It evolved in the late 1990s from the term "web log", a collection of links to other websites with added commentary that appeared in the now-familiar reverse-chronological order. During 1999, "we" disappeared from "web log", while we embraced the way it simplified web publishing; until that point, updating a site had been a laborious, manual, error-prone process. But blogging now lent itself to the publication of more varied content – not least online diaries, which were already prevalent on the web but now found their more natural home in the (brace yourselves) blogosphere. You could visit a website, see the most recent post, click through to the comments or scroll down for older material. Today, this procedure seems like second nature to many, but at the turn of the century, it felt like a revolution. And to create, no knowledge of HTML or ownership of expensive software was necessary; you just had to type and click. Anyone could do it, and anyone did.

Nowadays, that revolution has splintered into so many varied formats that the word "blog" has become almost meaningless. You certainly can't define a blog by the way it looks; the vast majority of websites that have been built in the past five or six years are sitting on top of a blog-style content-management system. In essence, blogs are the web, and today we find ourselves contributing to them without even thinking. Anyone sharing stuff with their friends on Facebook, be it notes, status updates, photos or other media, is – whether they'd care to admit it or not – blogging. Microblogging services such as Twitter, "tumblelog" services (which hark back to the original idea of the web log) such as Tumblr or Posterous – they all make sharing of content, either yours or someone else's, ridiculously easy. As a result, it's also impossible to define a blog in terms of content; many would say that the average blog features someone prattling on about their tedious summer holiday – and that may be true, but it does a massive disservice to a huge number of talented writers. Saying "I don't like blogs" is as manifestly absurd as saying "I don't like books".

drive from www.independent.co.uk

A well-dressed couple are picking their way through a grimy car park by a plumbers' merchant in Peckham, south London. "This is an industrial car park," says the woman, correctly. "Are you sure we should be here, darling?"

"No, I'm not, damn it," frets her partner. "But it's somewhere around here."

"This bloody burger van," says the woman, "had better be worth it."

The pair of foodies have travelled out of their comfort zone to make a long trek to The Meat Wagon, a burger van – but not like the ones you may know, selling mashed-up cow's anus, breadcrumbs and blood, defrosted and fried in dirty old oil. This is a different story all together: burgers from The Meat Wagon have their fat calculated to the closest percentage point. Ingredients are sourced from London's best producers and don't contain a single item that hasn't been researched, adapted and tasted repeatedly by the chef before serving. Their maker tried more than a thousand types of cheese before settling on one and has crossed continents to work out the science behind the perfect bun.

The £5 burgers are causing a sensation in food blogs. The influential Willeatformoney. blogspot.com says the elusive Peckham burger "blows all the competition out of the water" and Cheesenbiscuits.blogspot.com, voted one of the top 10 blogs in the country, describes The Meat Wagon's offerings as "a monumental achievement". News of the burger van's cult has even hit America with – Ahamburgertoday.com, the bible of meat sandwiches, praising "the slightly nutty and impossibly juicy meat". More promising still, these burgers could be a sign of a new wave of British food. After years in the gutter, there are the beginnings of a serious street food revolution in this country.

But back to our burger-van Blumenthal. The Meat Wagon owner is Yianni Papoutsis. A half-Greek boy from deepest Norwood, with no professional kitchen experience at all, he makes an unlikely burger expert but Papoutsis is obsessed.

Perched on a packing crate, he's delighted to expound on his ingredients. "We use 28-day aged prime chuck steak," he says. "It is well hung and then freshly minced each morning, quite thickly so you still get texture. It only lasts a day – we make meatloaf or chilli with any left after that. With the increased surface area [taken up by a burger], the meat leaches out so much blood that you don't get the same juiciness. You cannot serve a rare-ish burger with mince that's over a day old."

The Meat Wagon tried out patties that were 20 per cent fat – the level of most gourmet burgers – but with their coarse-ground mince and rare burgers, there were concerns about fat globules, so in conjunction with a butcher, they began experimenting. Trimming away, mincing and cooking until they found the perfect fat level – about 15 per cent.

The meat is only the start of the intricate calculations. The bread for the buns is an ongoing experiment. After months of research in America, Papoutsis found his desired bun. He disregarded the possibility of a brioche, which is favoured by upmarket restaurant burgers, as it fell apart after the first bite. He's been working with a local baker for about a year to create the ideal roll. They use a mild, sweet sourdough which works to cut through the richness of the cheese – and Papoutsis keeps daily tabs on it. "I tell [my baker] how the finished product works and he changes the steam-to-weight ratios and things like that," says Papoutsis. "The ones today are a tiny bit too soft."

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Cloaking devices helped Doctor Who's Tardis blend in, allowed the toothy on-screen Predator to elude Arnold Schwarze-negger, and let Klingon Birds of Prey slalom around Captain Kirk's photon torpedoes.

But how many people know that British scientists discovered the beginnings of real-life cloaking technology 10 years ago? Imperial College London's senior theoretical physicist, John Pendry, is widely credited with having invented "metamaterials" – tiny substances that could one day bend light around themselves, conferring invisibility. The technology has applications in medicine, security, and construction.

And are you aware of self-driving cars? How about electronic GPs in your bedroom? Self-mending metal for your Audi or Kawasaki that could cut down on the trips to the garage?

In October, the Government's comprehensive spending review is set to slash science funding by 25 per cent, mothballing thousands of research projects across the country. This will be a huge shame, because the sector is involved in some of the most interesting endeavours in the world: everything from the CERN project, home to the Large Hadron Collider, to Isis, the Oxfordshire research facility used to help design the wings of the Airbus A380 aircraft.

The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), one of the scientific public-funding bodies facing cuts, spearheads everything from Pendry's research to the potentially labour-saving wizardry of self- healing materials. It hopes the ingeniousness-per-pound of its spending – which currently totals £800m a year across the physical sciences – could help blunt the long-term impact of the Government's fiscal guillotine. "The British have a long record of being inventive and coming up with novel ideas, many of which have led the world," says Professor Dave Delpy, the EPSRC's chief executive. "We are moving into an increasingly competitive period for scientific discovery, and Britain needs to maintain its position."

Bespoke gifts enticing to consumers, home-based health monitoring and crowd-sourcing weather information all fall under Delpy's financial aegis. He maintains they will all one day help the public and should continue to capture people's imagination. Here is a taster of some of his most enticing areas of research.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Having exported The Office to six countries, including the US and Israel, Ricky Gervais has set himself an even bigger challenge: translating the dreary mundanity of life in a Slough paper merchants for viewers in the People's Republic of China.

The UK version of the show introduced David Brent – a self-proclaimed philosopher, philanthropist and musical equal to Texas – to a worldwide audience, and he has since been reinvented as Michael Scott (US), Gilles Triquet (France) and even David Gervais (Canada) as the sitcom spread across the globe.

It appears the actor to play the Chinese Brent is yet to be chosen, but he will have his work cut out if he is to give the role the same resonance among the country's 1.3bn population as Gervais did in the UK.

The original sitcom, which was first broadcast in the UK in 2001, has been sold to some 70 territories around the world by BBC Worldwide.

Gervais and his co-writer, Stephen Merchant, are currently working on a series called An Idiot Abroad with long time collaborator/victim Karl Pilkington, which sees the hapless former radio producer and alleged possessor of a notably spherical head sent around the globe in a bid to broaden his mind.

In a blogpost yesterday, Gervais revealed that he had "amazing news".

"We are about to start work on developing a Chinese 'The Office'. How cool is that?," he wrote, adding: "I'm worried they will pull out when they see the first episode of An Idiot Abroad though."

Given that media outlets in China operate under tight state control, the level of Gervais and Merchant's involvement could be smaller than that it has been in other incarnations, although one suspects David Brent's broad alignment with the philosophy of 90s pop artist Des'ree – "Money don't make my world go round, I'm reaching out to a higher ground" – would fit fairly well with the convictions of the Central People's Government.

The Office ran for two series in the UK, ending in December 2003 with two Christmas specials.

It won numerous awards, including Baftas for best sitcom and best comedy performance (for Gervais as Brent) three years in a row and two Golden Globes in 2004. Gervais and Merchant went on to write and star in the sitcom Extras.

Earlier this year it was announced the pair had begun working on a new sitcom – a study of the day-to-day frustrations of a "showbiz dwarf" called Life's Too Short.

drive from www.guardian.co.uk

Animal feed imported from South America for the UK's meat and dairy industry is causing the destruction of tropical rainforests and increasing greenhouse gas emissions, a new study reveals.

Friends of the Earth said half the soy imported to the UK to feed livestock could be replaced – with home-grown alternatives such as oil seed rape, sunflower seeds or beans, and grazing on grass and clover – at a lower environmental cost.

FoE is calling on the government to use EU subsidies to reward farmers who use environmentally friendly practices, such as grazing animals at a low density and on uplands. The campaign group also wants to see farmers paid a fair price by supermarkets for producing quality meat, and says consumers should be encouraged to reduce their intake of meat and dairy – with the emphasis on less, but higher-quality food.

According to its report, Pastures New, a reliance on soy imported from South America is leading to forests and grasslands being cleared for soy plantations, or for beef ranching which has in turn been displaced by other soy farms.

Sandra Bell, senior food campaigner at Friends of the Earth, said: "Many people choose British milk and meat without realising that animals in our farms munch on feed produced by destroying wildlife and rainforests in South America.

"Animals should be born, bred and fed British – but pressure from supermarkets and biased EU subsidies force farmers to rely on damaging imports. The government must listen to growing calls for it to restore a thriving meat and dairy sector by helping farmers switch to planet-friendly practices."

According to a 2008 report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, livestock contributes 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, through changes in land use as well as gases from the animals themselves.

The Friends of the Earth study suggested half the soy imported for animal feed into the UK could be replaced with home-grown alternatives which would use around 8% of the country's arable land.

Less intensive grazing on UK land helps store carbon in the soil and boost wildlife, while growing protein crops can fix nitrogen in the ground, reducing the need for chemical fertiliser.

But low prices for soy, the financial risk of switching crops and a lack of incentives for the greener alternatives to intensive farming stand in the way of a move towards more environmentally friendly animal feeds, the report said.

Friends of the Earth said uplands farmers, whose land is suitable only for grazing, not for growing crops, did not get adequate support from the government.

The organisation claimed EU support for intensive livestock farming was worth £700m while the new subsidies for uplands farmers were worth only £25m. Subsidies for growing protein crops such as peas are set to end in 2012.

drive from www.guardian.co.uk

Turkish cooking is all about sun-drenched, strong and confident flavours – the cuisine of a country that is warm for most of the year. Olive oil is used liberally, as are lemon juice, herbs, chillies and spices. These are tastes that fill your mouth with both texture and flavour. It is food to eat at this time of year – bold and earthy but undeniably clean and fresh – and these dishes make the most of the wonderful herbs that are once again beginning to grow in the garden.
The warmth of the spices in this dish are counterbalanced by the lemon juice and mint. Make it in advance if you like, as it is almost better when reheated – just add the rice upon reheating.

Serves 4

4 lamb shanks, trimmed of all fat
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
1 tsp extra-virgin olive oil
2 red onions, peeled and finely sliced
2 small green chillies, deseeded and chopped
1 tsp fennel seeds
2 sticks of cinnamon
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
3 carrots, peeled and chopped into generous pieces
3 fresh bay leaves
1 litre/13/4 pints chicken stock
150g/5oz short-grain rice
A pinch of salt
1 bunch of mint, leaves only
The juice of half a lemon

Season the meat generously. Place a large pan on a medium heat and add a tablespoon of oil. When the oil is hot, add the lamb and brown well all over. This will take about 15 minutes. Remove the shanks and set aside in a warm place. Pour off any fat from the pan, turn down the heat slightly and add the onions, spices, garlic, carrots and bay. Cook gently, stirring now and then, until the onions are soft. Return the meat to the pan, pour over the stock, place a lid on and turn the heat to low. Cook very gently for an hour and a half. Check now and then to ensure the liquid has not evaporated too much; if it has, add a little water, return the lid and continue cooking. Add the rice and cook for 20 minutes more; it should retain a little bite. Taste, and adjust the seasoning; a good pinch of salt brings out all the spicy flavours. Then add the mint, squeeze over the lemon juice and serve. '

drive from www.independent.co.uk

Gentle, sweet and soft in flavour, young, "wet" garlic is around now. Its flavour so delicate and its smell almost imperceptible when slowly cooked, it can be eaten just on its own. Roasted alongside shallots, it is lovely on toast – the cloves are not divided as they are in older bulbs, and the taste is no stronger than poached leeks.

In all the recipes here, the garlic has been roasted in the same way. It is the best way I have found to cook it so that it remains whole and sweet. It is important that the garlic is completely covered by the liquid, or it will oxidize and take on a blue tinge.

12 heads of garlic
500ml/17fl oz fresh chicken stock
200ml/7fl oz verjuice or white wine
1 bunch of thyme
2 fresh bay leaves
Salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas4. Wash the garlic heads and slice off two inches of their stem. Place on a roasting tin and pour over the stock and wine. Scatter over the thyme and bay leaves and season with salt and pepper. Cover loosely with foil and roast on the middle shelf of the oven for 40 minutes. The garlic should remain whole but will be soft. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Rabbit with new-season garlic, artichokes and white beans

Farmed rabbit, which I prefer, has a very mild flavour. It works best with flavours that are equally as mild so the meat is not overpowered. Artichokes are in season, so it's lovely to use them as often as possible.

Serves 4-6

1 rabbit (ask your butcher to prepare it for you. It should be cut into sixths: 2 hind legs, 2 forearms and the saddle, divided into 2)

2 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion, sliced finely
4 fresh bay leaves
1 bunch of rosemary
1 tbsp fennel seeds, roasted and crushed
500ml/17fl oz dry white wine
600ml/1 pint rabbit or chicken stock
6 globe artichokes, hearts only
12 heads of roasted garlic
200g/7oz cooked white beans, such as cannellini
2 tbsp crème fraîche
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

Season the rabbit generously all over. Place a heavy-based pan over a medium heat, add the olive oil. When the oil is warm, add the rabbit pieces and brown well – this will take about 10 minutes; once brown, remove the rabbit from the pan and set aside. Add the onion, bay leaves, rosemary and fennel seeds to the pan and turn the heat to low. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring from time to time. The onion should be very soft. Season with a pinch of salt and return the rabbit to the pan.

Pour over the wine and turn the heat to high. Allow the wine to bubble and reduce by a third. Then turn the heat to low once more and ladle in the stock. Cover with a lid and cook over a low heat for an hour. Add the prepared artichokes, garlic and white beans and cook for a further 20 minutes, by which time the rabbit should be very tender and the artichokes retaining just the smallest bite.

Arrange the rabbit and vegetables on a large, warm plate. Turn the heat to high and reduce the sauce for five minutes – just to thicken and intensify the flavour. Stir in the crème fraîche, adjust the seasoning and spoon over the rabbit. Serve immediately.

drive from www.independent.co.uk

I have noticed a certain leather dress by a certain British high-street shop being promoted in every single magazine. Why? It looks to me like a very boring beige leather dress and, at that price, would probably be very sweaty.

Charlotte, by email

But that, Charlotte, is because you belong to Team Pragmatism. Team Pragmatism looks at a bit of sweaty, plasticky, frankly icky bit of quasi-leather from the high street and thinks, "Man, actual skins are a bit ew-some enough; versions made on the cheap doubtless come with the risk of chronic eczema. And seeing as I do not earn my living as a human advertisment for a sausage company, I don't think I will buy a beige leather dress, thanks all the same."

Team Fashion, however, looks at this same dress and goes, "My God, what a fabulously clever take on this season's Céline collection. And the fact that the British high street has copied it just confirms the unquestionable importance of this label. Will I buy this high-street version? Don't be ridiculous, darling, I'm obviously going to blag the proper designer one from the PR. Applause all round!"

Now, this might sound like an easy sneer at the fashion world and that is because it is. But that does not mean that Team Fashion is not an enjoyable place to visit some of the time. Hanging out with Team Fashion gives you a whole new perspective on life, a quieter, simpler one, one where you look at news stories about elections and think not, "Hmm, what are the policies here?" but "My God, that politician really does do fantastic things with her lace cuffs. So Givenchy!"

And there is nothing wrong with this, just as there is nothing necessarily wrong with, say, buying a season ticket for your football club. It's all a question of balance. So just as when you're on holiday for more than 10 days you begin to think that not getting precise deckchair you want in the morning is a crisis of national-famine proportions, so if you hang out with Team Fashion for too long you begin to look at naff beige leather dresses and see them as exciting reflections on the new era's take on minimalism. Like I said, it's a simpler, quieter, even sweeter view of the world, but everyone has to come home sometimes.

Apparently, pointy-toed kitten heels are "back". A joke, surely?

Sarah, by email

It's a funny one, this. You see, I came of age when pointy-toed kitten heels were considered quite the most flattering footwear a woman could sport. And in fact, I once owned a pair myself in an attempt to look like a proper grown-up for my first day of work, stifling my natural inclination for the round-toed shoe because, in days of yore, they were seen as infantile fashion that, when worn on someone over the age of 12, bordered on offensive.

So it is both deeply satisfying and deeply ironic that you, Sarah – if we are to take you as a representative of the public – are asking me – as a representative of me – to defend pointy-toed kitten heels. Really, it's like coming to Jesus to justify Judaism: I gave the old-school way of things a go myself, I didn't like it, I ploughed my own furrow and everyone followed in my wake (eventually) and, unlike Jesus, I didn't have to die to make my point.

But enough of me and my similarities to Jesus; let's talk about pointy-toed kitten heels. These are, as you say, back. This is because fashion works by making the heretofore unpopular popular, and when that becomes too popular, it becomes unpopular again, and so on. It's like recycling, without any obvious benefits to the environment. So when people from Team Pragmatism (see above) sneer about how fashion trends are just about rehashing previous decades and surely one day there will be nothing left to rehash and fashion will eat itself, they are the only people who look foolish. There is always something left to rehash, because there's always something that most people currently don't want to wear and probably don't own any more. Thus, after 10 years of the world copying me and wearing very flat or very high round toes, my mission has proven to be too successful and now, to look original, you have to believe what Grazia says and wear pointy-toed kitten heels. As Alanis Morissette – another item from the 1990s remainder pile doubtless due for a rehash – would say, isn't it ironic?

drive from www.independent.co.uk