If you ever wanted a small example of the interaction of national, local and hyperlocal news, ponder the recent discovery of a strain of foot and mouth disease in a beef fattening herd, just down the road from us in Surrey. It could be ten, a hundred, or a thousand miles away. It means little to a rural commuter like me. But to Tim, the pig man, the progress of foot and mouth is financial life and death.

This corner of southeastern England has more orchards than livestock, but every morning I pass a few cows, sheep and pigs on the way from my bucolic dormitory to the train station. Of fly strike (especially bad this year, says Tim) and all the many horrors of husbandry, I remain ignorant.

For the past week or so Tim has been using some of our brambled, thistled and neglected acreage to fatten up his free range pigs. We’ve wandered up most evenings to give the pigs some windfalls. They like apples. But actually, they’re pigs and would probably tuck in to a rubber boot with as much gusto as a Pippin or a Bramley.

This week Tim would have sent some off to the abattoir, but on Friday night the “ministry” put a halt to all livestock movements.

Tim saw the television pictures of the infected herd and noted that they appeared to be in the early stages. He used to work for the ministry, and has heard bits and pieces about the progress of the investigation.

So now he is waiting, fingers crossed, his livelihood precariously balanced. He follows the news, he taps his sources, and his pigs and their snouts keep ploughing our briar patch into mud – fattening for the plate, or for the cull.