YouTube - Happy Mondays "Step On": ""
OK its a crap video and they can't mime for cotton but what a great song
Monday 31 December 2007
Friday 28 December 2007
YouTube - Siouxsie and the Banshees Hong Kong Garden
YouTube - Siouxsie and the Banshees Hong Kong Garden
I know my New Resolution was to stop posting songs to this blog and stick with being serious- but hey, I~ couldn't help myself- comes from watching movies
I know my New Resolution was to stop posting songs to this blog and stick with being serious- but hey, I~ couldn't help myself- comes from watching movies
Pete’s 10 Green New Years’ Resolutions for 2008
Green guilt is racking the nation, we should be doing something, we know we should but we never get time. New Year is the time to make a plan, says naturalchoices editor Peter Shield. Here is my list of New Year’s resolutions to try and make 2008 more enjoyable and productive than 2007.
1. Make more plans. So much of what I don’t get done is because I don’t plan it well enough. DIY projects get halted because that crucial widget is sitting in a closed shop and then forgotten about, planting projects get held up for more research which never gets done. 2008 is the year for advanced planning, and finishing each project step by step.
2. Make time- so much of what I planned for 2007 didn’t happen not because of lack of intent but lack of space to do it. So this year I am determined to take time to make time- that requires a little planning, doing weekly or 10 day menus so that one trip to the organic co-op shop and the market every 10 days or so is sufficient.
3. Make more food. 2007 was the first year of the vegetable patch. In 2008 we are going to move into full production. The best way to eat seasonally is to grow your own. My copy of Charles Dowding’s, ‘Organic Gardening: The Natural No Dig Way’ is going to get a good hammering- as is my back doing all that digging getting the beds ready to be no dig in the future. A green gym and green food solution all in one.
4. Make more drinks. An early Christmas present this year was a juicer- partly inspired by reading Great Brands:innocent, a history of the innocent fruit drinks company. Already the pear and apple trees have been planted, a few kiwis need to be added to pump up that vitamin C level. Could I also grow ginger this year? Last year’s mint was a bit of disaster, this year I am going to pack the kitchen garden with a range of mints and herbs to dry and make tea.
5. Make more meals. Snacking and eating on the run is a lazy, wasteful, and no fun way to eat. So in 2008 its making soup for a week, make sure each meal feeds into the next, so cold potatoes left over from dinner are the base of the tortilla for tomorrow, the remaining veg are used to make a stock. Most importantly it is also about taking time to eat with friends and neighbours, solve the problems of the world and have a good laugh. The collective knowledge about the farm and what is possible is not held in books but in the experience of the neighbours, meals time is the ideal time to unlock those secrets.
6. Make more compost. Recycling is good, re-using is even better, this year it is time to experiment with more than the simple recipe of everything goes into one bin and rots. Grape must – the remains after the winemakers have finished weaving their magic, horse muck, and if Caroline gets her way as she will, maybe a couple of our own donkeys will all be added to the mix this year. Also as an ex media guy I still have an addiction to the printed media- so will also experiment with shredded news print and cardboard. The glossy newsprint of The Economist will have to remain as a fire lighter as all that coloured ink won’t decompose very well- there is something strangely satisfying about watching all that free –market nonsense going up in smoke anyway.
7. Make more water- well actually not even with the most advanced chemistry can I do this but what I can do is capture more water with guttering and butts, also 80% of the water that gets sprayed in the garden is lost to evaporation before it reaches the roots. So with some empty mineral water bottles and some good African knowledge picked up from the East African organic producers website I will be installing a system to get the water direct to the roots. (For those interested you put a pin prick hole in the bottle top, cut off the bottom to the required depth and then bury the bottle upside down in the beds, instead of watering the whole bed you just fill up the up turned bottle and let it drip through to the roots). In the house a new shower is going in with a aerating head to reduce the amount of water used in the shower, similar heads are going on the taps. Grey washing up water is reused with the high tech assistance of a bowl to flush the loo.
8. Make more brain cells- again a bit of a physical impossibility, but maybe make the ones I have work more. This greener lifestyle is very technology heavy, as well as biology heavy- whether it is understanding the way water works its way through soil to creating the perfect soil conditions for a wide range of plants, how solar and wind systems work, to pickling and preserving produce- and of course this year the alembic for making lavender oil. Even trees are incredibly complex things when it comes to maintaining a sustainable wood supply. This year will be the year to go on courses, from organic agriculture for the olive and lavender planting, to essential oil making, and the one I have been talking about for 12 months- how to make organic soaps.
9. Make more networks. No matter how I flog the limited matter between my ears there is always some one somewhere who has forgotten more this morning that I have ever learnt on any subject under the sun. The key is to know who they are, how to find them and then once they have been identified and located how to gently tease the necessary information out of them. Actics.com, the Ethical Business Network, Ethical Junction, the Green Building Forums, Google Groups, Ethical Directory, Permaculture magazine, the Soil Association, off-grid.net – the list of networks goes on and on. The key to successfully using networks however is to give as much as you ask, if not more. 2008 is the year for feeding all that has been learnt so far and taking advice from people who are much further along the road. To this end I promise to put useful things on my blog and not just great tracks from Youtube.
10. Make Do. This Christmas has really brought home how little extra I actually need- the most useful present I received was a strap on head lamp- means that I can read in bed until the Photo Voltaic system is up and running, and see where I am going when run away from wild boar leaving my hands free to wave in the air in a panicky manner. Seriously if I remember not to chain saw in my best clothes and cover them in oil soaked saw dust then there is very little outside of building and gardening materials I really need in 2008.
Peter Shield is the editor of NaturalChoices, he lives in the Languedoc and is busy trying to renovate an old domaine and 56 acres of land into an organic lavender farm with a small olive grove. He is hoping to launch ethicalreading.com as a book review site to run alongside www.naturalchoices.co.uk in 2008. He has been talking about launching Ethical Investment News as a website for 12 months, 2008 will see if anything actually happens on that front- don’t hold your breath.
His useless blog can be found at http://editor-naturalchoices.blogspot.com/
1. Make more plans. So much of what I don’t get done is because I don’t plan it well enough. DIY projects get halted because that crucial widget is sitting in a closed shop and then forgotten about, planting projects get held up for more research which never gets done. 2008 is the year for advanced planning, and finishing each project step by step.
2. Make time- so much of what I planned for 2007 didn’t happen not because of lack of intent but lack of space to do it. So this year I am determined to take time to make time- that requires a little planning, doing weekly or 10 day menus so that one trip to the organic co-op shop and the market every 10 days or so is sufficient.
3. Make more food. 2007 was the first year of the vegetable patch. In 2008 we are going to move into full production. The best way to eat seasonally is to grow your own. My copy of Charles Dowding’s, ‘Organic Gardening: The Natural No Dig Way’ is going to get a good hammering- as is my back doing all that digging getting the beds ready to be no dig in the future. A green gym and green food solution all in one.
4. Make more drinks. An early Christmas present this year was a juicer- partly inspired by reading Great Brands:innocent, a history of the innocent fruit drinks company. Already the pear and apple trees have been planted, a few kiwis need to be added to pump up that vitamin C level. Could I also grow ginger this year? Last year’s mint was a bit of disaster, this year I am going to pack the kitchen garden with a range of mints and herbs to dry and make tea.
5. Make more meals. Snacking and eating on the run is a lazy, wasteful, and no fun way to eat. So in 2008 its making soup for a week, make sure each meal feeds into the next, so cold potatoes left over from dinner are the base of the tortilla for tomorrow, the remaining veg are used to make a stock. Most importantly it is also about taking time to eat with friends and neighbours, solve the problems of the world and have a good laugh. The collective knowledge about the farm and what is possible is not held in books but in the experience of the neighbours, meals time is the ideal time to unlock those secrets.
6. Make more compost. Recycling is good, re-using is even better, this year it is time to experiment with more than the simple recipe of everything goes into one bin and rots. Grape must – the remains after the winemakers have finished weaving their magic, horse muck, and if Caroline gets her way as she will, maybe a couple of our own donkeys will all be added to the mix this year. Also as an ex media guy I still have an addiction to the printed media- so will also experiment with shredded news print and cardboard. The glossy newsprint of The Economist will have to remain as a fire lighter as all that coloured ink won’t decompose very well- there is something strangely satisfying about watching all that free –market nonsense going up in smoke anyway.
7. Make more water- well actually not even with the most advanced chemistry can I do this but what I can do is capture more water with guttering and butts, also 80% of the water that gets sprayed in the garden is lost to evaporation before it reaches the roots. So with some empty mineral water bottles and some good African knowledge picked up from the East African organic producers website I will be installing a system to get the water direct to the roots. (For those interested you put a pin prick hole in the bottle top, cut off the bottom to the required depth and then bury the bottle upside down in the beds, instead of watering the whole bed you just fill up the up turned bottle and let it drip through to the roots). In the house a new shower is going in with a aerating head to reduce the amount of water used in the shower, similar heads are going on the taps. Grey washing up water is reused with the high tech assistance of a bowl to flush the loo.
8. Make more brain cells- again a bit of a physical impossibility, but maybe make the ones I have work more. This greener lifestyle is very technology heavy, as well as biology heavy- whether it is understanding the way water works its way through soil to creating the perfect soil conditions for a wide range of plants, how solar and wind systems work, to pickling and preserving produce- and of course this year the alembic for making lavender oil. Even trees are incredibly complex things when it comes to maintaining a sustainable wood supply. This year will be the year to go on courses, from organic agriculture for the olive and lavender planting, to essential oil making, and the one I have been talking about for 12 months- how to make organic soaps.
9. Make more networks. No matter how I flog the limited matter between my ears there is always some one somewhere who has forgotten more this morning that I have ever learnt on any subject under the sun. The key is to know who they are, how to find them and then once they have been identified and located how to gently tease the necessary information out of them. Actics.com, the Ethical Business Network, Ethical Junction, the Green Building Forums, Google Groups, Ethical Directory, Permaculture magazine, the Soil Association, off-grid.net – the list of networks goes on and on. The key to successfully using networks however is to give as much as you ask, if not more. 2008 is the year for feeding all that has been learnt so far and taking advice from people who are much further along the road. To this end I promise to put useful things on my blog and not just great tracks from Youtube.
10. Make Do. This Christmas has really brought home how little extra I actually need- the most useful present I received was a strap on head lamp- means that I can read in bed until the Photo Voltaic system is up and running, and see where I am going when run away from wild boar leaving my hands free to wave in the air in a panicky manner. Seriously if I remember not to chain saw in my best clothes and cover them in oil soaked saw dust then there is very little outside of building and gardening materials I really need in 2008.
Peter Shield is the editor of NaturalChoices, he lives in the Languedoc and is busy trying to renovate an old domaine and 56 acres of land into an organic lavender farm with a small olive grove. He is hoping to launch ethicalreading.com as a book review site to run alongside www.naturalchoices.co.uk in 2008. He has been talking about launching Ethical Investment News as a website for 12 months, 2008 will see if anything actually happens on that front- don’t hold your breath.
His useless blog can be found at http://editor-naturalchoices.blogspot.com/
Thursday 20 December 2007
Ken Loach on Respect Renewal
Vidéos MySpaceTV : \ken Loach par RTV Media Productions: "\ken Loach
Ajouter à mon profil | Plus de Vidéos"
\ken Loach
Ajouter à mon profil | Plus de Vidéos
Ken Loach up beat on the non-SWP Respect rump
Ajouter à mon profil | Plus de Vidéos"
\ken Loach
Ajouter à mon profil | Plus de Vidéos
Ken Loach up beat on the non-SWP Respect rump
Friday 14 December 2007
Bean Sprouts
Bean Sprouts
Great little blog about working on living green without the domestic budget of Sheherazade Goldsmith. For me blogs like this disprove the oft quoted 'fact' that green living is only for the rich, in fact it kind of proves the inverse, the middle class buy themselves green by ensuring they buy organic, fairtrade food and drink, expensive organic clothes et al. In fact all they are doing is swapping one form of market consumerism for another, albeit one with a smaller footprint, and some social justice outcomes.
What this cash rich approach to greenery doesn't do however is confront the fact that it is the very market that is at the root cause of the problem, climate change is a market failure to use the economist's term, shifting from one form of consumerism to another more benign form does not challenge the underlying problem.
Basically you can't buy yourself a greener lifestyle, it is a lifestyle not a fashion statement, and that means changing the way we live, reduce not replace is the order of the day, make not manufacture.
In essence if we take time to look after the little things- like the garden, make our own soap- buy second hand, re-use and if we have to throw away recycle- all these little things make a small dint in the big problem.
In a society where people are time poor and money rich it is impossible to hid the fact that at its heart we have created a soulless culture. Not that I am religious, what I mean by soul I suppose is community values, ethics if your want. When Thatcher said, 'There is no such thing as society', she may not have been describing the society at the time, just look at the incredible sense of community that operated during the miners strike, but she was certainly describing the objective of her economic policies. By alienating people from those around them, isolating individuals and couples in their hermetically sealed struggle to buy their houses, buy a better car, pore money into private pension schemes, have a private health scheme, modern economic and social policies have ripped the heart out our sense of community.
It should therefore be no surprise that when people search for alternatives they are plunging along individualistic routes, by changing their shopping habits, or for that matter 'down sizing' like we have by using our economic power to buy a place in the South of France and opt out of the rate race.
And of course it is these individual responses which grab the media headlines, why? Well because those who write the articles, and read the broadsheets, come from the same middle class culture as those opting for a consumerist approach to greenery. Or the rash step of down sizing. ( Most down sizers rapidly find that the life dreamed of on a rainy day over looking the Thames fails to materialize and rather rapidly up size again in my experience).
However running parallel to this high profile economy there is another culture all together, it isn’t a new economy launched in the 80s like modern ‘greenery’, its been there since there was a peasantry and was transported to towns with industrialization. Its hard to remember that the first large scale organized ‘ethical consumers’ where actually the Rochdale Pioneers not the Richmond dandies. Make do, re-use, hand me downs, the vegetable plot were and are a part of life for those who are unemployed or low paid. The carbon food print of the less well off in economic terms is minute compared to the middle classes, the sense of community on council estates is still much stronger than those of the leafy suburbs.
A green lifestyle doesn’t involve wearing Kyochi jeans, and eating Marks and Spencer’s organic, it involves growing your own, bartering with the neighbours, hand me downs and hown brewing. It is about parties not discos, picnics on the allotment not dinners in restaurants. Most importantly it is about the sense of empowerment that comes from community and not from a bank account.
Thus ends the rant.
Great little blog about working on living green without the domestic budget of Sheherazade Goldsmith. For me blogs like this disprove the oft quoted 'fact' that green living is only for the rich, in fact it kind of proves the inverse, the middle class buy themselves green by ensuring they buy organic, fairtrade food and drink, expensive organic clothes et al. In fact all they are doing is swapping one form of market consumerism for another, albeit one with a smaller footprint, and some social justice outcomes.
What this cash rich approach to greenery doesn't do however is confront the fact that it is the very market that is at the root cause of the problem, climate change is a market failure to use the economist's term, shifting from one form of consumerism to another more benign form does not challenge the underlying problem.
Basically you can't buy yourself a greener lifestyle, it is a lifestyle not a fashion statement, and that means changing the way we live, reduce not replace is the order of the day, make not manufacture.
In essence if we take time to look after the little things- like the garden, make our own soap- buy second hand, re-use and if we have to throw away recycle- all these little things make a small dint in the big problem.
In a society where people are time poor and money rich it is impossible to hid the fact that at its heart we have created a soulless culture. Not that I am religious, what I mean by soul I suppose is community values, ethics if your want. When Thatcher said, 'There is no such thing as society', she may not have been describing the society at the time, just look at the incredible sense of community that operated during the miners strike, but she was certainly describing the objective of her economic policies. By alienating people from those around them, isolating individuals and couples in their hermetically sealed struggle to buy their houses, buy a better car, pore money into private pension schemes, have a private health scheme, modern economic and social policies have ripped the heart out our sense of community.
It should therefore be no surprise that when people search for alternatives they are plunging along individualistic routes, by changing their shopping habits, or for that matter 'down sizing' like we have by using our economic power to buy a place in the South of France and opt out of the rate race.
And of course it is these individual responses which grab the media headlines, why? Well because those who write the articles, and read the broadsheets, come from the same middle class culture as those opting for a consumerist approach to greenery. Or the rash step of down sizing. ( Most down sizers rapidly find that the life dreamed of on a rainy day over looking the Thames fails to materialize and rather rapidly up size again in my experience).
However running parallel to this high profile economy there is another culture all together, it isn’t a new economy launched in the 80s like modern ‘greenery’, its been there since there was a peasantry and was transported to towns with industrialization. Its hard to remember that the first large scale organized ‘ethical consumers’ where actually the Rochdale Pioneers not the Richmond dandies. Make do, re-use, hand me downs, the vegetable plot were and are a part of life for those who are unemployed or low paid. The carbon food print of the less well off in economic terms is minute compared to the middle classes, the sense of community on council estates is still much stronger than those of the leafy suburbs.
A green lifestyle doesn’t involve wearing Kyochi jeans, and eating Marks and Spencer’s organic, it involves growing your own, bartering with the neighbours, hand me downs and hown brewing. It is about parties not discos, picnics on the allotment not dinners in restaurants. Most importantly it is about the sense of empowerment that comes from community and not from a bank account.
Thus ends the rant.
Thursday 13 December 2007
YouTube - UB40 - Sing our own song (Free Mandela Concert)
YouTube - UB40 - Sing our own song (Free Mandela Concert)
Remember this? First time I got to hob nob with the stars,albeit in the VIP bar- then had to listen to this song every night for five weeks as we walked from Glasgow to London on the Nelson Freedom March
Remember this? First time I got to hob nob with the stars,albeit in the VIP bar- then had to listen to this song every night for five weeks as we walked from Glasgow to London on the Nelson Freedom March
Wednesday 12 December 2007
YouTube - Red State Update: Obama, Cheney Cousins?
YouTube - Red State Update: Obama, Cheney Cousins?
Don't quite know how to take these two - but they do make me laugh
Don't quite know how to take these two - but they do make me laugh
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