James Baldwin was a very smart guy. For the purpose of this blog post, the key insight is from a January 1962 New York Times column, in which he wrote "not everything that can be faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." And so on to the UK climate... Continue Reading →
Newsflash! Old coot finds new coot
Second 4hr30m+ yomp today. Same distance (basically to Stafford and back), but carrying an extra house brick (in a back pack) this time. Will increase the distance, and the weight. In future will make sure to be carrying enough water (today ah depended upon the kindness of strangers...) Anyhoos, right at the end, just as... Continue Reading →
Homo Sapiens Rectiens – or “you hairless apes are assholes”
I just had a letter in the FT, about John Carpenter's "Starman". It made me realise there is a film season to be done about sci-fi films and novels about how "we" appear to intrstellar visitors. Novelistically you could go for War of the Worlds, where (as HG Wells says the Martians are merely doing... Continue Reading →
Letter #10 in the FT!! On John Carpenter’s Starman and homo sapiens as asshole…
Whoop!! My tenth letter published in the FT (mostly they are on climate, but also Tom Lehrer etc, and with a roughly 50% success rate of submit-appear). https://www.ft.com/content/bdf57e59-aba0-4f81-ae5c-872bbcd3c9ec In his letter (April 30) responding to Anjana Ahuja’s column about the now fixed Voyager 1 (“Rejoice! Voyager 1 is back from the dead”, Opinion, April 26),... Continue Reading →
Podcast recommendations given and sought. Climate, energy, psychoanalysis, film noir etc
Have gotten back into the habit of long (3 to 4 hour plus) walks along the canal, feeding moorhens, ducks, swans and now even geese. There's only so much talking to himself a man can do (into a dictaphone), so podcasts have become the Way Forward. Below are some recommendations from me, but also I... Continue Reading →
Compulsory (institutional) optimism – or “from straws in the wind to dust in the wind”
I just read an article on a newspaper website about a New Politics that is apparently coming. The article came recommended by people I (still) respect, and was written by a commentator who is sincere, diligent and intelligent. And you know where this is going.... The article was, if not actually pants, then, well, pants-adjacent.... Continue Reading →
Will you marram me? Of “grassroots” and the need for commitment mechanisms.
Marram. This is a new word to me, thanks to Sarah Moss, in her rather excellent 2018 work Ghost Wall. According to Wikipedia... Ammophila (synonymous with Psamma P. Beauv.) is a genus of flowering plants consisting of two or three very similar species of grasses. The common names for these grasses include marram grass, bent... Continue Reading →
Book! Carbon Capture and Storage in the United Kingdom: History, Policies and Politics
This book (title is self-explanatory) has just come out. You can see table of contents etc (and buy it!) here. The history of CCS is (imho) both fascinating and important. CCS has a lot longer history than many of its advocates (and opponents) understand. This book is not the final word on the subject, but... Continue Reading →
Top bantz about writing to your MP…
This is good. Maybe you can try writing to your MP, but there doesn’t really seem to be much point doing that unless you happen to collect headed paper with some rote spiel dismissing your concerns printed on it. Props to Tom Whyman - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/18/britain-diy-tickets-illnesses-services-society See also Viable Democracy by Michael Margolis
Three quotes about how bureaucrats see (and shape) the world…
So, have recently read two books - Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe (I wish I'd read this when I was protesting about Newbury in 1996!) and The Last of the Country House Murders by Emma Tennant (very weird, in a good way. Kind of a cross over between The Year of the Sex... Continue Reading →
marchudson.net 