planet impiazzi

March 28, 2006 - 16:38
Originally uploaded by Hugo*.

Paintballing with a difference, courtesy of Hugo.

cannery row
Originally uploaded by northern green pixie.

Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
Written in 1945, but as fresh as today's beer! This is a warm, beautifully written novel, direct but poetic prose that captures character, evokes landscape and atmosphere, full of a wry humour that celebrates humanity, recognising the positive among hardship and adversity. It is a hymn to community, and a marvellous book that has one of the best opening sentences I can remember reading. Steinbeck's observations on the lives of his fascinating array of characters is wonderfully relevant, 60 years after writing - I loved the line about how "no one ever uses a rowing machine"!

Did you see ‘It's not easy being green’ on BBC2 last night? What a load of upper middle-class irrelevant eco-twaddle. Where, pray, on my urban, Victorian terraced house, am I going to put a water-wheel? This programme has absolutely nothing to do with being green; it is just more lifestyle wank that contributes fuck all to any practical sustainability debate. And I’m not at all impressed that the BBC sees fit to spend my TV licence fee on such trite whimsy.

Now I've got that off my chest, let's have a look at government policy. I read in the Guardian about the UK failure to meet emissions targets.
“[Margaret Beckett] blamed recent rises in carbon emissions on economic growth and increased energy prices which forced power generators to switch from gas to more polluting coal. "We need a national effort to meet these goals and complement government action. People can look at their own behaviour and how they can support us."
???? The excuse government constantly uses in order to avoid doing stuff is that we can’t restrict economic growth. Gordon wouldn’t do anything about aviation & fuel duty because of that – yet now they say we haven’t met targets because of economic growth!!! Come on, what is wrong with you???

foetus
Originally uploaded by Gonzale.

More photos from the French demonstrations, from a different photographer. Look at Gonzale's work.

March 18, 2006 - 18:36
Originally uploaded by Hugo*.

I came across an excellent set of photos on Flickr of the recent demonstrations in Paris against the new employment law backed by French PM Dominique de Villepin. This will create a new form of two-year contract (the infamous CPE, First Employment Contract) for under-26-year-olds which employers can break off at any time without explanation. AS the photographer, Hugo, explains "The protests of March 18th, all across the country, were joined not only by students but by their families. Unfortunately, as is too often the case, the end of the day was spoiled by 100 to 150 "casseurs" (lit. "breakers", hooligans) who provoked the riot police throwing bottles, stones and finally burning down a car.

On March 23rd, a university and college students demonstration turned even more violent, with various cars and shops burnt, protesters and photographers assaulted and robbed, and the Invalides turned into a battlefield.

After the unrest and riots in the suburbs last year, this is reflecting the growing uneasiness and despair of the youth about the lack of opportunities, and their desillusion towards the politicians.

More than 20% of 18 to 25-year-olds are unemployed (double the national average) and among the poorest communities, it reaches 40%. Half of France's universities are now under some form of strike or occupation."

Have a look at Hugo's photos.

the historian
Originally uploaded by northern green pixie.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

This reads like an historical guide book. It is absolutely stuffed with historical detail about Eastern Europe - Turkey, Hungary, Romania (and Bulgaria, but I'd given up by the then). On the back there is a quote from the Observer that says "Kostova is a whiz at storytelling and narrative pace"; well, I don't know what book that reviewer was reading, but that description is a million miles from my view of The Historian. The book plods. Kostova would be great at writing chunks for guide books, telling about the history of cities and buildings - I certainly learned a lot about the Ottoman Empire, and medieval wars in Eastern Europe. But as for narrative pace & storytelling - definitely not. I stuck with this weighty tome through 480 pages (out of 704) and then I could bear it no longer. I got to the point where I really didn't care whether the characters found Dracula's tomb, or whether they escaped the vampires that were following them around. I forced myself to read the last couple of chapters (after skipping several) but couldn't rekindle any interest even then.

Rainbow Cats!!
Originally uploaded by v í ? ? § ™.

Found this very weird photo for Furry Friday. Its grey and rainy again here in Leeds, so a bit of strangeness is welcome. I think.

Springtime
Originally uploaded by bokchoyboy.

Its been a pretty grey day here in Leeds - so I borrowed some colour from Flickr.

Strangers by Taichi Yamada
I can’t remember the last time I read a ghost story! I was given this as a birthday present. Beautifully presented – the cover photo is intriguing and atmospheric, the slim tome is a sparsely written tale set in Tokyo. Unlike Murakami’s writing, Yamada’s includes no incidental detail. What you get here is the basic story, little else, told in the first person by a 48-year old writer who has just divorced his wife, and is re-examining his life. One day he takes a trip to the area in which he lived as a child, and things start to get a bit spooky. I found the first two-thirds of the book to be compelling and absorbing, and I liked the straightforward style, but then it seems to me that the author started to get bored, because the final third seems rushed and rather clichéd. The last few pages were actually quite disappointing, and didn’t measure up to my expectations.

Are you a cyclist? I'm not - I'm much happier on foot than trusting my co-ordination to wheels & steering. Of course, I might cycle if the facilities were better. Like these cycle lanes perhaps?

This is from last winter. Now I can do this photo blogging thing again I'll have to start using my camera again.

I'm up and running at Flickr now - and can blog photos from it. How cool is that?

Apologies to my fellow Bookcrossers who put up with my grumbling at the Leeds Meetup last night. I was definitely off kilter. I complained about the quality of books on offer (well, they were rather poor – lots of squishy romances, and 1970s dross). I suggested that the people who were feeling cold & were huddled up in their coats were suffering only because they kept their home central heating too high. And then I had a rant about supermarkets destroying small-scale producers and the environment. While there was no doubt an element of truth in my gripes, there wasn’t much tact.

Anyway.

Have a look at the Easy Climate Change website. Excellent stuff, great links.

Some great photos at Flickr. I’m 'northern green pixie' – but haven’t had chance to upload any photos yet. I’ll put some up when I can. In the meantime, browsing the site is a very easy way of passing the time. I particularly liked ladyloneranger’s photo of a patch of jewel weed. The greenery is very welcome on a grey March day.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
I think this has to be my favourite Murakami novel so far. A surreal rites of passage, this takes a tradition of a young man experiencing a period of time alone in a wilderness setting to attain adulthood. Here, 15 year old ‘Kafka’ runs away from the home he has shared with his father. Ostensibly, he is searching for independence, but as the story unfolds we realise that his mother had left him when he was a small child, and his search is really to discover himself and to maybe fill the gap that she has left in his life.
In typical Murakami style, there are many loose ends in the book that don’t get tied up – so if you like closure in your reading, this is not the book for you. Alongside Kafka’s story, there is the tale of Nakata, an old man who talks with cats, and had a strange experience as a child that wiped his memory and left him unable to read, write, or communicate well with people. Their stories are undoubtedly related, but it’s hard to say exactly how. Both, I suppose, have one foot in a shared alternative reality.
This novel entertained, absorbed and challenged me, being well written, and always surprising. I never quite knew what would happen when I turned the page. The protagonists were likeable, so my interest in their adventures was maintained.
If you like a book that’s a little off the wall, then go for it.


Now, Northern Green Gathering - we had a mini meeting on Sunday, but since the only people there were the 4 of us who had gone to meet the farmer the week before, there wasn't a great deal we could get on with. We haven't confirmed the site hire yet, because the person with the farmer's phone number spent most of the previous week skiing in France. No comment. Anyway, I'd had a chat with one of the others earlier in the week about my thoughts on rubbish, and he very sensibly pointed out that a) folk get drunk and leave their beer cans/wine bottles all over the place, so expecting them to keep track of their rubbish and take it away with them is nigh on impossible. Fair point. And b) if you make folk take everything away with them, lots of them will merely dump the rubbish in the nearest lay-by, or in the first bin they pass after leaving the site. So a sensible compromise seems to be to only provide facilities for recyclable waste, and have people take their landfill rubbish (if they bring any) home with them. Much more realisitic, I think. At least we can tell people that in advance so they can choose carefully what they bring with them. Anyway, the event is a long way from happening yet. We aren't even over the firest hurdle of booking the site, so I don't intend to waste too much energy on it at the moment.

For those of you who don't know, Northern Green Gathering was a 5 day annual camp that ran from 1998-2002 on a site near Pontefract in West Yorkshire . I was on the organising team in 2000, 2001 and 2002. We took ’03 off because we needed a break, but in ’04 and ’05 we couldn’t find a suitable site, so the event didn’t happen. By this year I was beginning to think that NGG was never going to happen again – many of the organisers had moved on to other things, other places. I started looking at getting involved with Climate Camp instead.

But on Sunday a group of us took a drive up through the Yorkshire Dales to meet a farmer, and have a look at a potential Gathering site. It was a lovely day, blue sky, snow covered hills, and the site was beautiful. The farmer seems quite keen, and we are all feeling quite excited at the prospect of having an event this summer. In fact my head has been a-buzz ever since, full of ideas and possibilities.

Since the last Northern Green Gathering in 2002, the environmental agenda has become much more mainstream. It’s no longer considered odd to recycle, buy renewable energy, or question where our food is coming from. In a way, that makes it easier for us, and we might attract a wider range of people to the event. Climate Camp seems to be focused much more on activists – they are including direct action as part of the camp and, I think, intend to launch actions from their site. NGG, while always welcoming activists, and hosting workshops and campaigns, has tried not to be too ‘niche’ in that respect, trying instead to include ordinary folk – preaching to the converted is easy - raising awareness has always been our aim.

I’m thinking that it would be good to do an event that focuses on reducing environmental impact – ‘R.E.I.N it in’ – Reduce Environmental Impact Now, or Reining in Climate Change, something along those lines. I had a chat with someone the other week (about Climate Camp) and she said she thought they should be looking at survival skills training, because climate change is too far advanced to be stopped. Perhaps she’s right, but really I reckon we need to make major lifestyle changes, to live as carbon-neutrally as we can – even if climate change is out of control, low impact living would be a good start to learning how to survive beyond peak oil (Reining in consumption?). So I would like to have people coming to NGG and assessing their own impact, offering them the information they need to change the way they live.

One thing I’d really like to do – though I don’t know if it is achievable – is to have no rubbish facilities on site, apart from composting. I would like to make everyone take all their rubbish home with them. Clearing up rubbish has always been one of the biggest headaches of the event, even though we always made a big deal about recycling. But people produce an incredible amount of rubbish when they are sitting in a field for 5 days. If we make it clear in all the advance publicity that there will be no rubbish facilities, and encourage people to bring minimal packaging with them, tell them in advance that they will have to take it all away with them…it should be a good way of raising people’s awareness about waste, making them take responsibility for their impact.

We are meeting on Sunday to discuss the possibilities, and to share the photos of the site with the folk who didn’t come on the visit at the weekend. So watch this space!

Light on Snow by Anita Shreve didn’t take long, nor was it particularly challenging or stimulating. I wouldn’t say it was dull, or poorly written – it was ok – but it just wasn’t really my kind of book. It’s set in New Hampshire, over a couple of weeks in December. Twelve year old Nicky lives with her father; her mother and baby sister died two years earlier in a car accident, and her father has wrapped himself up in grief since then, leaving Nicky to occupy herself in their remote house with books, painting and worrying about her dad. Then one day, while walking in the woods, the pair find an abandoned baby. The novel examines the effect this has on their relationship, highlighting Nicky’s desperation to interact with the people that the incident brings into their lives. The writing is neat and concise, the story understated, gentle and quite moving. But overall rather ordinary.

Back in the real world, the British government have decided not to approve a proposed wind farm in the Lake District. The Guardian reports that minister Malcolm Wicks said:
"Tackling global warming is critical but we must also nurture the immediate environment and wildlife. This is at the crux of the debate over wind energy. On this occasion, we agree with the independent inspector that the impact on landscape and recreation would outweigh the benefits in terms of reducing carbon emissions."
Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace, said: "Any government that wants to expand airports and turn down windfarms is simply not fit to govern. It's hard to believe that the nuclear industry has not played some role in this. Climate change will ravage beautiful areas like the Lake District. I hope those responsible will be willing to explain to future generations how they played their part in allowing the savage grip of global warming to trash the countryside and claim hundreds of thousands of lives."

I have heard arguments against wind farms and I know that building them does cause some environmental damage. But not nearly as much as climate change will. And for nowhere near as long as nuclear power will. This is madness.

You scored as Earth-Child. You're a very peaceful person who has very strong beliefs. Others see you as spiritual, and you really are. You see magic as a resource to be used wisely. The earth really is your mother, and you'll remain close to her as long as you live. New Age Hippie 100% Earth-Child 100% One Intelectual Individual 88% Original Hippie 63% Pothead 38% Not a Hippie 13% What type of hippie are you? created with QuizFarm.com