Compost

Worms at work: compost - το κοπρόχωμα για το κήπο - coming along nicely in our garden

Compost lunacy! I've learned from various sources in our local council that staff have been told to stop composting fallen leaves in city parks as a rich source of humus for suppressing weeds and enriching soil, with occasional surplus being brought to nearby allotments. In future all a park's potential compost will be taken to the local waste depot...

Denise and I take green waste we've collected in the streets of Handsworth to Holford Drive - but we'd hoped to take it to our local park in future

...often several miles away, where Birmingham City Council pays a private contractor to remove it. That company will compost the leaves that fall in the parks. Green waste previously generated and used as compost inside a specific park will now have to be removed from that park purchased back from the contractor. This probably means that the council will not pay for any compost at all. We shall live with the consequence of that interruption of a natural and local cycle; from green leaves on trees and shrubs and plants, and grass cuttings, to the rich fertiliser that helps them thrive the following year. I avow the verity of this daft logic. I learned about this accountant-driven erosion of the principles of sustainability, after, I, as a representative of the committee of Handsworth Helping Hands, was encouraged to explore our voluntary group's involvement in 'community composting'. We're anticipating more abandoned domestic green waste now that citizens must pay £35 per annum to continue a service previously covered by their council tax.

Green waste put out on a non-collection day - typical of what we can expect in greater abundance next year

*** *** ***
Love is powerful; so's hate. Both use the sleep of reason to create seamless narratives.

Love conquers all because it’s invulnerable to reasoned rebuttal; so's hate. Beware of the self-serving story that contains no doubt – take the film by Jim Bruce ‘Money for nothing – Inside the Federal Reserve’ which blames the sub-prime mortgage crisis on government, most specifically the US Federal Reserve system. Don’t I recall Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, in failed government, as the catastrophe's precipitant?
An expert on the history of the Federal Reserve (a mechanism explained to me two years ago by my old friend and guest in Ano Korakiana, Tony Scoville - "oh that you had such a mechanism in Europe!") wrote a piece - 'They Hate the Fed'. Roger Lowenstein says the film espouses the grand villain theory of catastrophe, rather than a less gripping story of many causes (Once upon a time vs. once upon several occasions?), indicting Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke...

Ben Bernanke

 ...for the Fed’s policy of low interest rates which induced speculation. Don’t blame liar loans and reckless traders, argues the carefully edited documentary, they were merely responding rationally to Fed policy. The film adroitly rejigs a private market failure and presents it - seamlessly - as a failure of government. More likely, the disastrous rescue operations that followed Katrina were informed by a Darwinian retreat from duties of central government to intervene decisively on behalf of vulnerable citizens of New Orleans after the great tempest. Government action to ban risky mortgages might have averted the sub-prime mortgage crisis – ‘in other words’ writes Lowenstein ‘the problem wasn’t too much government, it was too little; regulation was woefully deficient’. I’d agree, but the real interest of this story is its demonstration of seamless narratives to propogate a ‘grand villain’ ideology. This would apply at any extreme of the political spectrum. In this case it’s a shrewd way to dismiss complexity, to dismiss the notion that the economic catastrophe we now experience and for whom I have to resist the temptation to seek one feckless clump of rogues had many causes including Lowenstein’s list:

‘faulty incentives that rewarded Wall Street traders for buying unsound loans…incompetence or corruption at rating agencies that endorsed mortgage securities as safe investments…abject failure to regulate new mortgages at various levels of government, including the Fed…reckless behaviour by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government sponsored housing agencies…low interest rates set by the Fed, that arguably motivated investors to seek the higher yields of mortgage products.’ (Roger Lowenstein 'They Hate the Fed' NYRB 21/11/13 pp.29-30)

*** *** ***
There are enough children in the village now for a decision to have a second kindergarten teacher.

Χριστούγεννα στο νηπιαγωγείο - Christmas at preschool in Ano Korakiana

Το μουσικό παραμύθι με τίτλο «Η αγέλαστη Πολιτεία» αναπαράστησαν απόψε οι μικροί μαθητές και μαθήτριες του Νηπιαγωγείου Κορακιάνας, με την καθοδήγηση της νηπιαγωγού τους.Η αίθουσα γέμισε από γονείς και συγγενείς (κυρίως παππούδες και γιαγιάδες) των μικρών παιδιών, που μεταμφιεσμένα σε καλικάντζαρους και παπαρούνες, σύμφωνα με τις απαιτήσεις του παραμυθιού τα «έδωσαν όλα». Στο τέλος της εκδήλωσης, ο Άγιος Βασίλης μοίρασε δώρα στα παιδιά, ενώ τον κόσμο ανέμενε ένας μικρός μπουφές που ετοιμάστηκε από τις μητέρες των μικρών μαθητών…

Ο σχετικά μεγάλος αριθμός παιδιών και η αναβάθμιση του Νηπιαγωγείου σε ολοήμερο (από τις αρχές του νέου έτους αναμένεται να προστεθεί και δεύτερη νηπιαγωγός), σε συνδιασμό με την ποιότητα των εκπαιδευτών-νηπιαγωγών (σημερινών και προγενέστερων), πιστεύουμε ότι θα παγιώσει ένα καλό επίπεδο για το μέλλον…

(My translation) The small pupils of Kindergarten Korakiana enact the musical tale The unsmiling State* tonight - 20.12.13.. Our kindergarten room was filled with the parents and relatives (mostly grandparents) of the young children, who, disguised as goblins and poppies "gave all". At the end of the tale, Santa Claus distributed gifts to the children, while everyone looked forward to a small buffet prepared by the mothers of the young pupils...The relative numbers of children is bringing our village an upgrade to an all-day kindergarten (from the start of the new year we expect a second kindergarten teacher). This, combined with the quality of kindergarten teachers (current and past),, promises well, we believe, for the future.

*A story and play by Haris and Panos Katsimiha just republished...Χάρης και Πάνος Κατσιμίχας: Η Αγέλαστη Πολιτεία...

Kόβε πριονάκι μου, η Αγέλαστη Πολιτεία Κατσιμιχα.wmv

I wish I could tell this story to Oliver but he's more into touching and looking than following a narrative in any language. He and I play with books but I look forward to when we can read together.

Oliver with us for the afternoon: the high chair was my mum's. mine, our childrens' and now our grandson's

Days merge into days. It's mid-Winter. The longest night. Greece seems as far as I want it to be; as I want her to be always, as far as when, on my own, I first travelled there by train fifty five years ago; four days by train with three days in Venice on the way, then on through the Balkans via Belgrade in the middle of the night to Thessaloniki, Larisa and Athens in the morning - following the historical routes on the map I went on a standard train from London to Paris. I must have taken the métro from Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon where, around midnight, I caught the Simplon-Orient Express. I'd still travel that way had not air travel ravaged the railway. In 1957 train travel was so normal, it seemed effortless, yet exciting. From Venice I took a standard train through what was still, and for a good long time yet, Yugoslavia, travelling via Belgrade to Athens - a two day journey. Such a travelling adventure is impossible today. Even were I able to buy tickets for the heritage version of a journey on the Simplon-Orient Express, it's the last thing I'd desire.

I freely roamed the centre of Athens returning to my family staying in Kolonaki, I living in a single bed flat loaned by a Greek cousin for a two week stay engraved in memory...

Ναός του Ολυμπίου Διός: I still have the 35mm Kodak camera I used to take this picture in April 1957

*** *** ***
Birmingham's canals are my favourite routes.

The Birmingham Mainline - σε όλη τη διαδρομή προς την Ελλάδα;

How wonderful if there were a waterway with a tow path, but for the channel at Dover, that stretches to the Black Forest to join the great Danube  - the Donau, Dunaj, Duna, Dunav, turning south somewhere before it becomes the Dunǎrea, and my route drives through Bulgaria southward to the Aegean. Our canals wind far and wide. I use a tiny section for my journey's in and out of the centre of Birmingham. Oscar and I enjoy them as, carried to the towpath in the basket on the front of my Brompton, he can run with me clear of traffic danger. The other evening after a visit to the Christmas market to enjoy a mulled cider and a lemon and sugar crêpe, I headed down to the Birmingham mainline that runs westward from the city beside the west coast railway and city trains to Wolverhampton. The wind was blowing wet and almost warm. Well clothed against the driven rain I sped through a succession of long puddles, the ruffled surface of the canal reflecting yellow lights from flats and street...

Vincent Street bridge on the Birmingham Mainline canal

...until under the Ladywood Middleway dual carriageway my way turns darker, Oscar, a dashing smudge in the gloom, now and then a lighted train rushing by in and out of the city. When I'm on one of those trains I peer down through my window watching for a version of myself pedalling below, getting dressed for cycling when I step onto the platform at New Street, ready to head home on the route I've been scanning from the train.
Earlier in the week I was again in London delivering Christmas presents for relatives in the middle of town gazing like a tourist at Katharina Fritsch's blue cockerel on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square...

...and on Pall Mall - sign of the times - two of the once cherished Gilbert Scott phone boxes - littered, damaged and disused; an optimistic ad for the services of a dominatrix; unrecognised by a generation unfamiliar with tart-cards or fixed phones.

Phone boxes on Pall Mall

*** *** ***
At home I'm making a present for Oliver, adapting a small bedside locker to make it into a cooker...

I got all the bits and pieces from a new ironmonger on Lozell's Road, most of the small items likes hinges, catches, nuts and bolts difficult to find outside a big-box suburban DIY store.

Lin at the kitchen table is surrounded by papers as she finishes our tax returns on-line as I feed her receipts for sundry paid activities in 2012-13.

The allotment

Even at a time of year when I expect the allotments to look scruffy, our site seems especially untidy. On the noticeboard at the gates there are notices that have been there all through 2012 and some of the previous year.

Plot after plot reveals neglect; matted turf and debris. I have not had a successful year in that my aim to have vegetables for our Christmas table remains unfulfilled, but my plot looks worked and now that I share it with Chris Rishworth, semi-planted. We have a sturdy shed, tools, barrow and other kit. There are piles of compost in preparation.

Plot 14 - slightly less scruffy

I've learned to dig without putting my back out thanks to Vanley's tutorials and indeed the whole plot has been well worked over so that future digging will be that much easier for both of us. I've learned having the whole plot tidied, prepared as a sort of blank slate - however temporarily satisfying that might be - is less important than waiting until I have things to plant; then working up a bed tailored for getting them in the ground.
In the next fortnight I should try to plant onions, shallots, early potatoes, possibly cabbages. On my last visit I brought back my last cabbages...

...boiled and mashed some potatoes, fried some onions - both shop bought - and added some of my cabbage, shredded; mixed it all up to fry a delicious comforting bubble and squeak. It's a humble start and everyone agrees "It's been a lousy year on the allotments!" I feel humourless.

There are, thank goodness, a few plots that are producing in the hands of gardeners who have the gift - a mix of skill and committment. Even at this time of year their ground is rewarding their work..(see below Birmingham City Council Allotment team's message about consultation on the future management of allotments.)

There's near as much greyness indoors as out. Lin's been completing family tax forms, in my case collecting invoices filed over 2011-12, all entered on-line.

Grey

Probate continues with drab tedium. Mum's terriers have started a new life at Farr Mains. On Inverness Gumtree, Lin's found a buyer for the shrubs mum had happily collected in her conservatory at Brin, saving them from the hardening winter. Most things must remain until Spring when further dispersal will need to be managed - a slow dismemberment and the miserable business of turning what you've only known as qualitative into something quantitative and divisible; digitised for the revenue, translated into the language of lawyers and accountants.

Goya's picture of men fighting in the quagmire into which they are sinking

*** ***
Lin and I are 'collecting' qualified people, CRB checked, with skills in a variety of small jobs around the home; people we can hire out for work we're not covered for under the tighter guidance and regulations covering any public use of work equipment. This evening after Mike had dropped it off at the garage, I collected the Handsworth Helping Hands van this evening from Alan Sheeran at Villa Cross Garage and paid for its MOT. It was in good condition; just needed headlight realignment. Alan seems a good find for future mechanical work.
Dropped in on Hirons Nurseries. They'll donate bulbs for the planting we will be doing after we've cleared litter from the ivy covered bank opposite St Theresa's Church tomorrow.
*** ***
I'm preparing for a seminar in a few days for officers of a unitary council near Bristol, one I postponed because I needed to be with mum in Scotland...

MANAGING THE POLITICAL INTERFACE

Monday 7 January 2013 

A morning seminar facilitated by Simon Baddeley from Inlogov, Birmingham University, for xxx Council focusing on working relationships between elected members and officers. The aim is to:

- assist managers to maintain their reading of the local political scene,

- explore the skills and values basic to political-management working,

- offer models of competence and integrity in politically sensitive situations

- help members and officers negotiate the political-management overlap

We will be working in plenary and groups on material tailored to xxx, including maps of the council area. Simon’s teaching style is participative, relying on a mix of short talks, discussion and handouts.

OUTLINE PROGRAMME

Introductions: why this matters

xxx’s political environment: reading the local political scene.

Political-management: talk and discussion

Political sensitivity: skills and values

Critical incidents: exploring the overlap of politics and management

Conclusion

*** *** ***
But for the coming and going of motorised traffic the neighbourhood seems almost uninhabited. People are living indoors but for the industrious labourers working late into the evening on the house opposite, just visible by their working lights as the work steadily on the roof top. It was a pleasure to see someone tidying the verges outside his house; to say "Good afternoon" and receive a pleasant smile in return.

Το σήμαμα που δεν έγινε...Στην Άνω Κορακιάνα: Λίγο καθυστερημένο, αλλά αξίζει να σημειωθεί…Νωρίς το πρωί της Πρωτοχρονιάς, η καμπάνα του Αγίου Νικολάου ή του Άη-Νικολόπουλου, κτυπάει αναγγέλλοντας την είσοδο του νέου χρόνου. Φέτος όμως η προσπάθεια του Σπύρου Γ. Κένταρχου δεν στέφθηκε από επιτυχία, αφού το σχοινί της καμπάνας ήταν μπλεγμένο στις κληματόβεργες και το σήμαμα κατέστη αδύνατο…

...A little late, but worth noting...Early in the morning of New Year, the ringing of Saint Nicholas - Αγίου Νικολάου - or Saint-Nikolopoulou's bell, announces the entrance of the new year. But this year's attempt by Spyrou G. Kentarhou was unsuccessful, since the bell rope had become entangled in vine branches muting the signal...
*** ***

CONSULTATION ON FUTURE MANAGEMENT OF ALLOTMENTS

Birmingham City Council is reviewing the management function of the Allotment Service in consultation with the Birmingham and District Allotments Council, Associations and tenants.
Given the severe budgetary pressures that we all face, the Council needs to review how the service will be managed in the future.
Initial discussions with the BDAC have given rise to a number of options which now need to be discussed wider. These include:
• Devolution of budgets to individual sites to enable the Associations to directly manage their budgets, this will include repairs and maintenance, water, cesspit and portaloo servicing. Payments will be made twice per annum, on 1 April and 1 October direct to the Associations for all devolved budgets.
• The Associations will be responsible for applying the Allotment Rules, letting of plots, collection of rent, monitoring of Grounds Maintenance, plot cultivation, and initial resolution of complaints and disputes.
• Issue of Letters of Concern and Letters of Intent will be carried out by Associations. Where Notices of Re-Entry are recommended by the Association, this will be ratified by the BDAC before the final Notice of Re-Entry is issued by the Council, acting as the Landlord.
• Associations will still be required to notify the Council, as the Landlord, of structural or other major changes and funding applications prior to anything being submitted. Events notifications will also still need to be submitted to the Council a minimum of 4 weeks before for the event for approval.
• The BDAC will directly manage the current ‘Departmental’ sites, until such time as they set up their own Associations. Once Associations have been formed on these sites, they will perform all management functions as outlined above.
• The BDAC will operate in an advisory capacity to help Associations where requested. Should disputes arise between tenants and the Associations, the BDAC will act as the arbiter, and ensure consistency in the application of the Allotment Rules across individual and between different sites.
• The Council will act as Landlord and retain the final power of eviction. All rents collected and tenancy records will continue to be maintained and managed by the Council.
• The Council will continue to provide training in rent collection and completion of Tenancy Agreements.
• The Council will remain responsible for making payments to the current 3 Grounds Maintenance Service Providers where applicable.
• Strategic management decisions regarding the future of sites, payments of leases for ground rent, statutory checks e.g 17th Edition Electrical Testing, will continue to be carried out and paid for by the Council.
• Future rent levels will be set by the Council, however, full consultation with the BDAC will be carried out prior to any changes.
• Annual Risk Assessments will continue to be carried out by the Council, however, every Association will be required to have a trained Health & Safety/Risk Assessor member on their Committee. Training will be given by the Council’s Safety Services Officers.
• Fire Insurance to the Council’s buildings will still be met by the Council.
• The Council will retain a small contingency budget for major repairs and maintenance emergencies, which Associations will be able to bid into. The decision to award funds from this budget will be made jointly between the Council and the BDAC.
• Quarterly meetings between the BDAC and the Council will continue, as is the case now, to ensure regular liaison and consultation is maintained.
All of the above are items for discussion, and we must stress that NO DECISIONS have been made to date. The Consultation period will continue for a further 3 months to allow due consideration to be made by tenants, Associations and the BDAC, and for them to feedback their views and suggestions which will be considered - before a final draft of the proposals is written and circulated. After a further 4 week period, the final proposal will be submitted in the form of a report to the Council’s Cabinet Members to gain authority to proceed with drawing up the new Management Agreements.
It is anticipated that these new Management Agreements will be circulated and signed off by the 1 January 2014, with the start date of the new Management arrangements being implemented in full from 1 April 2014.
All comments and ideas are welcome, and should be submitted to:
allotments@birmingham.gov.uk
or for those without email, in writing to:
Allotments Team, The Lodge
115 Reservoir Road Ladywood Birmingham B16 9EE

My response:

Dear VJA
CONSULTATION ON THE FUTURE MANAGEMENT OF ALLOTMENTS
I’m anxious about the current consultation by the city on the future management of allotments and have submitted a personal reaction to the proposals which I summarise below.
Councils, up against the wall on their budgets, have been resorting to raising plot rents. Coinciding with a succession of very wet years, there has, as a result, been an unprecedented abandonment of allotments.
Combining these difficulties with giving local sites powers and responsibilities they may lack the experience and competence to exercise, means some sites will suffer the consequences of the 'constructive non-maintenance' referred to in the Government's 1998 Report on a Future for Allotments - a process which further reduces demand for plots as surely as taking the seats out of a cinema reduces the population of moviegoers.
The law says allotments must be protected unless it can be shown there is no demand fo them on a particular site. This ‘managed’ retreat from responsibility, lowers demand for plots and turns what should be statutorily protected allotments into tempting windfall sites for housing, retail outlets and industry.
This means an accelerating loss of urban green space, further loss of recreational and growing space and consequent weakening of social cohesion.
Allotments have in the past become self-managing as a result of a robust process of monitored delegation that has included an opportunity to take early well supported steps towards self-management. I fear that current plans are based on council abandonment, with few opportunities for local associations to develop sustainable competencies. The Council in the guise of nurturing the 'big society', local empowerment and citizen participation is, in effect, jumping ship. Local government should not be blamed for this. It comes from the top! Best, Simon
Simon Baddeley
Handsworth Allotments Information Group (HAIG)

Plot rents	Full	60+
Mini Plot (Cat A)	£40	£20
Small (Cat A)	£50	£25
Standard (Cats B/C)	£75	£37
Large (Cats D/E)	£90	£45

Reply from Nikki Bradley Allotments Rent and Records Officer, Parks and Nature Conservation:

Hi Simon Thank you for your comments. Whilst we cannot comment on matters relating to politics, we are endeavouring to ensure - by seeking as many views as possible during the consultation process - that whatever future management of allotments is put in to operation, it is for the best of the allotment sites and the tenants, and protects them from further losses of tenants in to the future. We will obviously carry out training in relation to any extra responsibilities that are finally devolved, as we have done with all other management functions that sites have taken on as part of the new management agreements introduced in 2011. Best wishes Nikki