Our shed and all it contains

Katzanzakis wrote 'Να αγαπάς την ευθύνη. Να λες: Εγώ μονάχος μου έχω χρέος να σώσω τη γης. Άμα δε σωθεί εγώ θα φταίω' 'Love responsibility. Say: It is my duty, and mine alone, to save the earth. If it is not saved, then I alone am to blame.' Arundhati Roy - my heroine - is especially good on wealth made through plunder in alliance with bribed governments.

'Capitalism’s real “grave-diggers” may end up being its own delusional Cardinals, who have turned ideology into faith. Despite their strategic brilliance, they seem to have trouble grasping a simple fact: Capitalism is destroying the planet. The two old tricks that dug it out of past crises -War and Shopping - simply will not work.' 

Alternatives to state-market collaboration are many. They are diverse; less visible for being, like bacilli or viruses, small. Wander through work associated with Elinor Ostrom:

 ...contemporary research on the outcomes of diverse institutional arrangements for governing common-pool resources (CPRs) and public goods of multiple scale builds on classical economic theory while developing new theory to explain phenomena that do not fit in a dichotomous world of 'the market' and 'the state.' Scholars are slowly shifting from positing simple systems to using more complex frameworks, theories, and models to understand the diversity of puzzles and problems facing humans interacting in contemporary societies...

Ostrom challenges widespread scepticism about community self-organisation in managing common pool resources (CPR) - 'game theory' and the 'tragedy of the commons'. Both paradigms suggest people can't be trusted; that either the market or the state or, in Roy's analysis, state-market collaboration, are essential antidotes to the chaos that is inevitable if people are allowed to self-organise. All of us educated by The Lord of the Flies are nearly right. Our hope lies in the dream that they-we are not absolutely right. Ostrom and her colleagues at Indiana, but also quite separate researchers, have analysed cases of failure, semi-failure, partial success and success from all over the world in governing common pool resources. Shared learning and diffusion of that learning is beginning to upset the traditional model of rich-to-poor aid. We 'rich' have much to learn from cases of self-organisation driven by the pressure to survive -invented and sustained in poorer countries. Seek out examples to move away from looking only to state or market, capitalism or communism.
I should have avoided the word 'allowed' in the context of 'self-organisation'. Even as they may promote it (Big Society for example) governments and corporations will undermine it in the way Roy describes, with seduction and - if forced - violence, preceded and accompanied by subtle and relentless spin. (a mild example: central-local double-speak in the case of UK local government by my friend and colleague Chris Game)
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An email just received  an abstract I submitted for an academic conference in Minneapolis next September:

Thank you for your submission in response to the call for papers for the upcoming Creating Public Value in a Multi-Sector, Shared-Power World conference. We received a remarkable response to the call, with many strong papers.  After careful review... (at this point I know it's not good news)...by faculty advisers from a variety of fields, we regret to inform you that your paper was not selected for inclusion. However, we hope your interest in the creation of public value will inspire you to attend the conference September 20-22, 2012 in Minneapolis, MN, USA. You can access the conference website and registration information here. Thank you again for your interest and your commitment to the study of public value in a multi-sector, shared-power world.  Kind Regards, John Bryson, Ph.D. McKnight Presidential Professor of Planning and Public Affairs

When it comes to applying for jobs, submitting papers or a thousand other endeavours I assume anything from a 10-1 failure rate upwards.  This doesn't mean I'm not miserable, vexed and chagrined - switching between 'sour grapes' excuses to myself and recognition my abstract wasn't interesting enough:

PROBING THE HEART OF DEMOCRACY WITH VIDEO...In the working conversations between politicians and administrators in government, values, whether as means or ends, are seldom spoken directly. Research access to such conversations...though a popular focus of fictional drama, is problematic. Since the 1980s, Baddeley has been refining methods for exploring how local government politicians and managers work together at what Weber called the greatest source of tension in the modern social order − the relationship between democracy and bureaucracy...As the methodology has been refined, it becomes easier to record the way values are embroidered into conversations about what is technically, legally and financially workable. Film has the benefit of recording verbal, non-verbal and para-linguistic exchanges, allowing minute examination of their dynamic. While film provides no special guarantee of unique authenticity, (the) methodology determines a contract between researcher and participants and their future audience which frames, for further investigation, an exchange between them that is always going to be a performance – but one that the participants are prepared to have presented for analysis as part of the value to which those involved in a public relationship of government...are committed. 

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Friday morning Lin drove us south-west 70 miles down the M5, M50 to Ross-on-Wye...

Ross-on-Wye on the way to Lydbrook

...and on to Lydbrook six miles further south on the edge of the Forest of Dean, where Royston is slowly and steadily making repairs to Rock Cottage. Since the children grew up and we started living to and fro - πέρα δόθε - between Ano Korakiana and Handsworth, we've neglected it. It's up Bell Hill, way up a steep narrow path some way from the highway, now nigh impossible for our parents.

There are few builders we've trusted as much as Royston. We suggest work; he assesses it; sends us a quote; we approve and refine the detail; he gets on with the work; lets us know when it's completed; we pay and discuss the next stage. Our neighbours - Kirsti and Paul -  a few yards away also keep us informed on the work, which started from the outside stopping ways in which damp had been entering some parts of the upper floor. With the roof and eaves sealed, there's a lot more to do.

A ceiling has been replaced in one bedroom, a wall lined in another, and now Royston will set about giving us a quote for replacing several window frames, two doors and sealing and painting exterior walls.
"When that's done we can stay here again" I said
"...and Amy and Richard will come without us."
"That's fine. That's OK. They'd never let us sell the place anyway."
Our hope -  to have all work completed by Summer 2013.

Richard and Linda at Rock Cottage - a summer long ago

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The best article I've yet read on the enormously sensible Greek Property Tax, written last September but updated by An American in Athens - a superlative blog. Her article carefully copyrighted, long and rich in detail and illustration, especially on interpreting information about the tax as it appears on electricity bills, measuring properties, exemptions (for types of disability and property), penalties for non-payment, multipliers based on zone and house age, appeals against assessment, future changes currently planned - including the spreading of payments over the year and a future shift away from collecting the new property tax via electric bills to separate bills - likely to start in 2013. People like us, as my grandmother used to say, ought to pay rather more tax, especially death duties. I agree even as I make as sure as I can that I have checked legal means of not paying. I have a relative who regards all tax as 'theft'; does not believe there is such a thing as a public good and regards HM the Queen with her persistent sympathies for the less well off as a dangerous left-winger.

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My mum's had a chicken run built at the end of her house, robust enough to keep out the Pine Martin - more of a threat than fox or rats in Strathnairn. Once the risk of a final cold spell is passed her chickens will move in - four or five now her carer's approval is won.

"Fine" said Sharon "as long as there's no cockerel"
"I'm going" mum told me "to have a pair of Rhode Island Reds and some of those speckled Scots Dumpies."

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Meanwhile in Ano Korakiana:

Η προσπάθεια συνεχίζεται αμείωτη...efforts continue unabated...following last Sunday's Agricultural Cooperative AGM, the registration of new shareholders...with a strong probability the necessary numbers will be recruited by the end of the month. Several young people have responded to the challenge, as well as subscribers from the wider region. Some cases remind us of the situation (one of many) when the family of Kontostanou Chariklia, in the 1930s when the Cooperative was striving to expand its facilities in an even more difficult economic environment. Shareholders took out mortgages on their properties to guarantee the loan needed for the Cooperative...So when, at Christmas, Kontostanou Chariklia's mother had tried to "sacrifice" one of her chickens to make lemon sauce,  αυγολέμονο, her husband had to stop her; telling her the chicken, and indeed the whole coop, was already mortgaged for the Co-op....below, a jar of sweet figs to go with Mrs Metallinos' recent registration

Nitsa Metallinos registers for the Co-op

Στον απόηχο της Γενικής Συνέλευσης του Αγροτικού Συνεταιρισμού του χωριού μας την περασμένη Κυριακή, η προσπάθεια για την εγγραφή νέων συνεταίρων συνεχίζεται αμείωτη, ώστε να καλυφθεί με ασφάλεια ο στόχος, έως το τέλος του μήνα. Μεταξύ άλλων, αρκετοί νέοι σε ηλικία έχουν προσφερθεί για τη στήριξη του δύσκολου εγχειρήματος, αλλά ακόμη και άτομα από την ευρύτερη περιοχή. Και δεν είναι λίγες οι περιπτώσεις που οι παλαιότεροι, μας υπενθυμίζουν την περίπτωση (μία από τις πολλές) της οικογένειας της Κοντοστάνου Χαρίκλειας, στα μέσα της δεκαετίας του 1930, όταν ο Συνεταιρισμός επιχειρούσε τότε να επεκτείνει τις εγκαταστάσεις του σε ένα αρκετά πιο δύσκολο οικονομικό περιβάλλον. Όλοι λοιπόν οι συνέταιροι είχαν βάλει τότε υποθήκη τμήματα της περιουσίας τους, προκειμένου να εξασφαλιστεί η δανειοδότηση του Συνεταιρισμού...Όταν λοιπόν, τα Χριστούγεννα η μάννα της Χαρίκλειας είχε επιχειρήσει να «θυσιάσει» μια από τις κότες που είχε στο κοτέτσι της για το αυγολέμονο, ο σύζυγός της την απέτρεψε ενημερώνοντας την ότι (και) το κοτέτσι τους είχε μπει στην υποθήκη για  το Συνεταιρισμό…...Όπως το βάζο με γλυκό σύκο, που προσέφερε η κα Νίτσα Μεταλληνού, μαζί με την εγγραφή της στο Συνεταιρισμό.

Φωνὴ ἐν Ραμὰ ἠκούσθη

<Φωνὴ ἐν Ραμὰ ἠκούσθη κλαυθμὸς καὶ ὀδυρμὸς πολύς·Ραχὴλ κλαίουσα τὰ τέκνα αὐτῆς, καὶ οὐκ ἤθελεν παρακληθῆναι,ὅτι οὐκ εἰσιν.> ΚΑΤΑ ΜΑΤΘΑΙΟΝ 2.18

Prableen Kaur wrote.'It has now been several hours since all this happened. I'm still in shock. Everything has not fallen into place.'
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On Friday I cycled over, with Oscar, to Livingstone Road Allotments to attend a presentation of a cash donation by the Bank of Ireland to Birchfield Residents Action Group. I was invited by Mike Tye, who chairs Central Handsworth Practical Care's Advisory Group, is also Secretary of Birchfield Residents. Before the presentation I wandered along the hedged path between the Livingstone plots - what a cornucopia of growth of every kind of vegetable, rank after rank of rich greenery from hedge to fence, hardly a square inch of uncultivated ground. It was a salutary reminder of what can be done, of what a way we have to go on the Victoria Jubilee Allotments, almost a reproach to us.

Once home again I got ready for my lecture on campus on this afternoon on Working with Officers, a session in the Inlogov Summer School for Newly Elected Members. 
The day before I'd sent an email to Tim Pfeiffer, lawyer at Endemol who licence Contender, previously Southern Star International, to distribute the DVD series of Out of Town:

Dear Tim...I've been getting royalties on the Out of Town DVD series from Endemol which I share with their director Steve Wade's widow, in accordance with my stepfather's wishes. My query is about your stewardship of this product. In recent years lack of availability and marketing has meant sales of the DVD series of Out of Town are a fraction of what they were a decade ago. Yet the contents of several of these Contender branded DVDs have been streamed to viewers numbered in thousands on the web. Endemol, my family and the Wades are affected by this leakage of copyright material. Can the licensee act to achieve higher distribution of my stepfather's material in all our interests as well as achieving wider viewing of the excellent entertainment my stepfather's work offers - especially to many people over 50 who recall viewing his programmes in their childhood? Kindest regards.

Within a day YouTube had closed down nearly all the sites showing versions of Out of Town licenced by Endemol to Contender, previously Southern Star International.

Where sites were still working for other material the Out of Town clips showed:

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I've just received in the post a new gadget for logging into internet banking - one that will no doubt soon become the norm for personal banking security. It feels ironic that nearly a century after Arthur Scherbius invented a mechanical cypher gadget that was to become famed in WW2 as the German Enigma Machine cracked at Bletchley Park by the British, I'm carrying out the mundane tasks of personal internet banking on a gadget designed on similar principles.  It means that every time I log into my bank account I have to use this small keypad to generate a new number. I wonder if this will actually increase personal banking security or just cause more inconvenience for customers.

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Ήχος α´ ποία τοῦ βίου τρυχφή διαμένει λύπης ἀμέτοχος. Cycling back from town with Oscar I decided to video the well known tendency of Jack Russell's to hang a back leg when jogging. Our Oscar, though half Border Terrier, is no exception. When we had him as a puppy he did this. People pointed out his hanging leg as though we'd not noticed. The vet could find no problem. Eight years old now, he still hangs his back right leg now and then. It's a Jack Russell thing and if the Kennel Club got its malign hands on the breed they'd no doubt have a competition class for specially bred three-legged terriers - for which there'd be a rich novelty market.
In the evening during visiting hours Linda and I went over to City Hospital to see our neighbour, Jo, who collapsed at home a few evenings ago. She was taken by ambulance to hospital and is waiting for the results of tests. Long long wide corridors, doors and doors and everywhere notices, posters, warnings, directions, the smells of the medical cosmos, beeping of monitors, rows of spaced beds like cradles for space travel, screens, tubes, buttons and keyboards and old bodies half awake peering around, gazing up half comprehending at small clusters of family and friends sat quietly about half-helpless, tableaus, a frieze. So this is how it could be. Jo was cheerful, sitting up, the nurses we saw kind and competent. She said she wasn't too bad. People were visiting. She was getting rested; had plenty to read and puzzles to do and could walk about the rest of the hospital. No it hadn't been too difficult to park. No a short walk. Oscar's fine. We've been working on the allotment. It's been a lovely day. The doctors will talk about you in the third person. Did they use you as a table to write on a clipboard? No not that bad. There's a lady can't speak a word of English who comes and tries to make conversation just to have the company walking up and down the ward at night. Another crying out for help. It's her legs. We're keeping an eye on John.  We send Oscar over to keep him company. He's getting fed. We age. My eldest Greek half-sister when we were young .Ὄτι ἐγενήθην ως ἀσκος ἐν πάχυη.

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The hard wind of rationalisation, the Bill for Rural Co-operatives promoted by the Ministry of Agriculture in Athens, is threatening the future of Ano Korakiana's Farmer's Co-operative whose building on the village's lower road has, while we've been there, used for village celebrations and other local events. Ano Korakiana's was the first Co-operative to be founded in Corfu - ο πρώτος Συνεταιρισμός που ιδρύθηκε στην Κέρκυρα  - at the beginning of the last century. The Bill requires the co-operatives in each region of the Republic to join up with a larger market-tuned company - The Co-operative Company, ένα νέο α’θμιο Συνεταιρισμό η Συνεταιριστική Εταιρεία. If a Co-operative is unwilling to join the new entity it will, by the end of this year, be treated as unable to continue - θα πρέπει να έχει καταβάλει μέχρι 31/12/ 2011, unless it can demonstrate an annual budget of €60,000. If it cannot do that over the next three years it will be judged as being not economically viable and forced to dissolve. This would entail clearing debts to third parties and distributing the remaining money among the other Co-ops - Αλλά ακόμη και αν έχει καλύψει τις 60.000 ευρώ μπορεί να οδηγηθεί σε αναγκαστική εκκαθάριση εφόσον για τρία συνεχή έτη η λειτουργία του κριθεί μη βιώσιμη οικονομικά. Τι σημαίνει αναγκαστική εκκαθάριση: εκποίηση περιουσιακών στοιχείων – εξόφληση υποχρεώσεων προς τρίτους – διανομή του υπολοίπου ποσού στους συνεταίρους. In the next few months the village faces two choices in relation to its Co-operative, join the new regional Co-op Company or show an annual budget of €60,000....'otherwise face obligatory liquidation and closure', διαφορετικά, ο Συνεταιρισμός μας...θα οδηγηθεί σε αναγκαστική εκκαθάριση και κλείσιμο...
Economic trends far beyond Greece have long been threatening the Hellenic Agricultural Co-operatives. Vassilis Patronis, who may still be at the University of Patras wrote a paper (undated but I think around 2000) whose title speaks to the problem - Between state and market forces: Greek Agricultural Cooperative Organizations (ACO) in transition period. Patronis suggests that ACOs are a typical product of the Hellenic political culture. Greek ACOs are did not come into being as a result of a grassroots movement by farmers - the way they emerged in other parts of Europe and indeed the world - but as the top-down creations of government aimed at aligning farmers’ interests with state politics. His paper finishes with a smidgin of hope, that  has echoes of Elinor Ostrom's ideas about the governance of the commons or common-pool resources, that the only way to evade the pervasive forces of economic globalisation, is via the organisation of local farmers promoting local produce locally retailed - in other words local 'bottom-up' action.

In a period when the ‘modernist’ policies seem to predominate, the future of the ACOs is based upon their reorientation and their virtual reconfiguration. The era of state indifference which ‘neutralizes’ the ACOs leaves at the same time a unique opportunity to cover the lost ground of organizational and managerial autonomy. During this period of transition the Greek ACOs still have ‘room for manoeuvre’ by taking advantage of the existing EU regulations (e.g. producer groups) and their closeness to the family farms. It is a period when the agricultural cooperative mobilization ‘from the bottom’ carries more power than it did in the past. (Vassilis, p.25)

The difficulty in Ano Korakiana is that the Co-operative has seen minimal recent connection with local agricultural production, tho' there lots of community involvement in the use of the building for social purposes, but for farming I'm inclined to say 'what farming?' There is less agricultural activity around beloved Ano Korakiana than there is around Handsworth and across Birmingham where the drive to produce home grown vegetables has created a private-public compromise that with a lot of ground level political support and capacity for local organisation secures a sound future for urban farming and the self-help activities associated with it. This entry on Democracy Street 'Small island in which I rejoice' gives a small feel for this kind of activity. I am conscious that we proceed with our local activity under an umbrella. This protection in the form of legislation and linked local and central government policy is one that has to be constantly reviewed, propped up, repaired and defended. You don't just get to grow vegetables on prime urban development land coveted by other interests by assuming it's some sort of god-given historical privilege. The plot we rent for £35 lies on a piece of ground with a fine view over Handsworth Park. If it a house were built on it its rent would be in the region of £7000 a year, or equivalent mortgage payment. That such market forces don't apply to our Plot 14 and its neighbours is not something that just happens. We enjoy the fruits of political activity supported by research, public meetings - all kinds of lobbying - letters, petitions, legal actions in favour of setting aside and protecting by law, a proportion of marketable urban real estate for growing foods, instead of building houses, roads, shops or factories. The arguments are complex, refined, evidence-based, well documented and illustrated.