The Working Class Movement Library is a fantastic place (does precisely what it says on the tin). It's in Salford, about 20 minutes cycle from where I currently live with one wife, three cats and several thousand (10? 15?) books. Last June I went on a bit of an archive binge at the WCML, tracking... Continue Reading →
Let's start with an under-rated tweet. https://twitter.com/marcsrhudson/status/1483901631615971345 Yeah, that's me half an hour ago and I would already struggle to tell you how I came across Sayer 1992. Oh, wait, it was the 2003 paper on Regional Development Agencies and Clusters (reading it for The Job). We are pattern-making machines. We see causation when there... Continue Reading →
'A Blueprint for Survival,' the first big eco-manifesto, is 50. Below I explore where it came from, how it was received and why its lessons still matter - as part of the "All Our Yesterdays" project. See the full report on which this guest post below is based here. On Thursday 13th January 1972 the... Continue Reading →
Most of my videos are rough as a badger's arse. This one, this is rougher. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGdF1Vcl1Ag Here's a version of the transcript I was stumbling over... Hello, This video will tell you a little bit about the entwining of climate and energy policies between 2000 and 2009 in the UK. There’s a story about what... Continue Reading →
There are people still around in Manchester who have been campaigning - with decency and diligence - for decades. Some of them were involved in the Manchester Wildlife Group, which had a wonderful newsletter called the Magpie. The editor, Ian Brown, very kindly gave me all his copies, which I've turned into pdfs and uploaded... Continue Reading →
First half of last year I lost a load of weight. I'd come back from a trip to Australia having regained almost a third of what I'd been working hard to lose. On December 28th 2020 I was at 138kg. On May 30th 2021, just before another trip to Oz, I was down at 113.5kg.... Continue Reading →
As an Australian, it kinda sorta gives me a small amount of pleasure to write the following sentence “England lost the Ashes in a record time of 12 days.” To those in the know, these are (mildly) surprising words. To normal people (i.e. not “cricket tragics”) they will ask two pertinent questions - “what are... Continue Reading →
Had a super-useful meeting today with various people. One of the outcomes was that I am going to put the rest of The Magpie online (with permission of its editor, Ian Brown). Here's a link to the pdf of issue 34, Spring 1995. The rest will follow, two a day, until they're all done... You... Continue Reading →
We've all been there (or been it) - the tinpot little dictator who wants to enforce the One True Way of Thinking about issue x or y or z, and the dictator's followers and enablers enthusiastically enforcing that OTWOT in order to a) prove their reliability and b) suppress any doubts they may have c)... Continue Reading →
There's a new edited volume, "Our Extractive Age: Expressions of Violence and Resistance," which I can heartily recommend (and thanks to Earthscan for sending me a hard copy). The wonderful New Books Network let me interview the editors as a podcast, and have also given permission for a transcript (which the interviewees have lightly edited/changed)... Continue Reading →
