In two hours it'll be over England. I can't remember sunrise over Handsworth, much as I love the place and enjoy its dawns, seeing the sides of tower blocks turn to gold, cycling alone across the Hockley flyover to take an early train from stygian New Street. In Corfu I'm often watching the earth as it hurries east. No English sun has made me nervous, emerging slowly, lustering dew. In Greece by May I'm averting my eyes, sensing the warmth of an opened furnace. Winter Greece is frosty at night, but the sun, from a clear sky, corrals the morning mist, shepherds the chill, making January an English summer.
We've worked for hours on the allotment. I ache. But we've made a second path, turned more earth, set onions, planted more flowers in the borders, sown more potatoes.
Jack in a rare polemic against the enveloping blight of feckless modernity - twenty six seconds just found on the web posted three years ago by Russell Davies who's no Luddite, indeed seems as fascinated as Jack always was with inventiveness and gadgetry. I asked members of the illustrious JH Committee, by email, if they recognised the clip. Ian Wegg came back to me almost at once:
Hi Simon. That is from the video release of Out of Town - the 'Appleby Fair' edition (which is episode 1 of the DVDs*). The hook is used by gypsies to hang a cooking pot or kettle over a fire, which leads him into the Appleby Fair film. He is unusually animated isn't he! Regards, Ian.
That yard of curly iron bar is the symbol of a dying culture. One of the rich small cultures which are giving ... all the way from the Amazonian Indians to the Eskimos which are giving way before a tide of denim and plastic and microchips and sparking plugs and frozen snacks. I'm reminded over and over of the inaccuracy of the distinction made between people who welcome change and those who resist it. Far from being in either category Jack detested the lazy disposition that propagates such polarisations, vexed by the mind-set which, amid buzzing blooming confusion, sees only black and white, confuses that with 'plain speaking'; claims it as 'common-sense'. Such thinking - horridly prevalent, amplified by torrents of printed and spoken comment, examines a grain of sand and sees - what? A grain of sand; looks at a wild flower and sees what? A wild flower. Pretty. Looks at the palm of their hand and sees? "My hand. So?" Watching a clock, notes an hour's passed. I saw a quote by Corfucius - a Corfu blogger - sharing the confidence of a mentor who said to him, while a youth, "anyone who isn't thoroughly confused is simply very badly informed." William Blake hit the mark on plastic thinking - A truth that's told with bad intent beats all the lies you can invent. How my stepfather would have enjoyed conversations with Socrates who, in a few minutes of question and answer, could hook a plastic thought, play it for a few minutes and drop it with vexing ease into his keep-net of clichés. For dispensing bewilderment he was tried for corrupting youth! He and Jack would have shared jokes and anecdotes and laughed a lot.
* These are the commercially available VHS tapes, and now DVDs, that Jack made with Steve Wade. These episodes, included OB film from earlier broadcasts but none went out live - my stepfather's great preference. I continue to search out recordings of his original broadcasts.
Wandering along a downland slope twenty years ago Jack shows a close cropped hillside full of cowslips - product of regular sheep grazing and rabbits feeding, then an example of more recent ley grass monoculture - cocksfoot, ryegrass, white clover, and then an enclosed meadow. once commons, full of flowers and insects that live on them, now rare in the British countryside. Thirty and more varieties of herbage he knows best by their traditional country names; for instance, ox-eye, marguerite or dog daisy. 'Many of my relatives must have been conceived among the dog daisies."
...among the dog daisies
*****
Anyway I'm off to London after a meet this morning with Edmund Branch, following a meet yesterday with Cllr.Mahmood Hussain and Yvonne Wager to help agree ways of ensuring the future of Central Handsworth Practical Care Project, Qatib Ali having circulated notice of his resignation from the project 'I have taken over'.
It's going to have to be managed participatively and constructively by a like minded committe of trusted volunteers who get on with each other and can be audited for their stewardship of public money.
Hi Simon. The organisation that I thought may be able to offer some advice assistance to the Practical Care Project is: Community Network 4 Birmingham Best regards Yvonne, Birchfield Neighbourhood Manager
Tonight I'm doing a seminar with councillors at Lambeth on questioning skills for scrutiny Tomorrow I'm up to Darlington to meet Mark Taylor and borrow his old VHS video of live Old Country broadcasts which I'll pass on to the expertise of Tony Herbert for digitising. Meantime I've been sent this sweet little clip of an Italian bloke weaving through the streets of Genoa on his green folding bicycle - just as I do - including buses, trams and trains in his journey. His accompanying letter:
I am now in a position to share the videoclip we produced with Monleone Films for the presentation I gave during last Toward Carfree Cities Conference held in York. It shows how it is possible to move effortlessly by bike in a hilly city. No more climbs thanks to elevators, funiculars, buses, nor long rides thanks to metro trains. It provides a snapshot of the experience we gathered since 2004 on this mobility concept. Feel free to contact me for any further information. Cheers, Massimiliano Amirfeiz, Green Mobility, Genova (Italy)
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The Regional Governor of the Ionian Islands, Spyros Spyrou and the Mayor of Corfu, John Trepeklis, and the Chairman of the Department of the Technical Chamber of Corfu, Nikos Spingos, have co-organized an event to update people on plans for wind farms on Corfu. This will be done by Evangelos Dialynas, a mechanical electrical engineer and Professor from NTUA (National Technical University of Athens). The meeting will be held next Thursday, March 31 at 17.30 in the hall of TEE, 13 Alexandras Avenue - 3rd floor - Corfu.
Ο Περιφερειάρχης Ιονίων Νήσων, Σπύρος Σπύρου, ο Δήμαρχος Κέρκυρας, Γιάννης Τρεπεκλής και ο Πρόεδρος του Τμήματος Κέρκυρας του Τεχνικού Επιμελητηρίου, Νίκος Σπίγγος, πήραν την πρωτοβουλία να συνδιοργανώσουν εκδήλωση με θέμα την ενημέρωση για τα αιολικά πάρκα. Η ενημέρωση θα γίνει από τον Ευάγγελο Διαλυνά, καθηγητή του Ε.Μ.Π., μηχανολόγο – ηλεκτρολόγο μηχανικό, την προσεχή Πέμπτη 31 Μαρτίου, στις 17.30 στην αίθουσα εκδηλώσεων του Τ.Ε.Ε. (Λ. Αλεξάνδρας 13 – 3ος όροφος – Κέρκυρας).
On Monday evening, having flown via Frankfurt - where security, along with the other usual precautions, had me remove my belt - to Venice Marco Polo, we rolled our cases to Casa San’Andrea, 100 metres from Piazzalle Roma, then strolled over the Scalzi bridge to the station and along the busy street following signs to Rialto, sharing a pizza. We noticed a lad sat by the canal chatting to a girl, her face filling the screen of the laptop on his knee. Early Tuesday we took the one-stop vaporetto run - €2 each – to the rail station and after a short row about tickets (“Which of all these is for a train?’ “Isn’t it obvious” “No”) found reservations on a eurostar to Rome, but sat beside a loquacious mobilista choosing a remote conversation to one with his travelling companion. At Bologna we changed trains for Ancona. A fellow passenger worked on her laptop preparing a presentation about Balkan borders, getting up to quiet someone down our coach playing their MP3 without earphones. Civil space. The countryside was flat intensively farmed with vines and orchards between large box warehouses. Now and then a brick farmhouse with blank windows, tiles clumped precariously on sagging rafters flashed by. “Will we ever make beautiful buildings again?” asked Lin. “You should see some of the new ideas in the glossy architectural books – cities mingled with greenery, trees in the sky, skyscrapers embraced by vines, exchanging energy from sunlight and wind, seeking alliance with nature. (See Greenhouse Britain)
The Superfast ferry – Europa Princess - left Ancona at 1800 and delivered us to Igoumenitsa, via the Corfu Channel, at 0900 Wednesday. We slept fitfully in run down aircraft seats in an almost empty pullman lounge sharing the eleven storey vessel with few others – truck drivers, and some car drivers. The system’s not set up for people who walk on and off. We watched Corfu rising in the south and passed on by to the mainland. The ships TVs showed news stories about Skopje’s claim on the name ‘Macedonia’
A €5 ride taxi got us, with seconds to spare, from the main terminal at Igoumenitsa to the apron - a kilometre down the vast jetty - where ferries leave for Corfu. The ticket collector - €6 each - followed us up the escalator, our big bags left in a cuddy by the stern door. Nearly there. Kostas’ son waited for us with a car at the jetty in Corfu to take us to do the papers at the office where Kostas, waiting, offered Lin a peony from his garden. So on to Ano Korakiana driving by the blossoming Judas trees and blooming wildflowers. All was in order. Bubble greeting us heavy with expected kittens.
Saturday morning seems to have come swiftly. We’ve woken to the desultory two-finger typing of rain. On Thursday it came stronger, with hail heaping on the balcony. Lightning flashed and thunder smashed. Our main roof kept us dry, but water still evaded the paltry seal between that and the rear roof. Aln said that was his next job. Meantime we have been working at repairing our upstairs floor, removing the damage caused by a previous electrician who’d got his wiring under a finely carpentered floor with a circular saw; working all Friday inserting three new strips of tongue and groove cypress – from a woodyard in the south of the island where to buy hardwood we had - rightly - to give a tax number. Offering up, marking up, whittling, sawing and screwing down went on between sandwiches, tea and coffee and steady acrimony. Around 6.00pm, after struggling like Galapos tortoises with standing up and sitting on the floor, we were admiring our work, ready to finish two smaller areas in the morning, having learned a little about laying a floor. “It’d have been easier to start from scratch” said Lin. The new planks, like the old, are screwed down with joins well separated. The trickiest job was filling the last space between new and old boards. This entailed sharpening or even removing the tongue on one side, cutting away the lower lip of the grooved side with chisel and knife, and then coaxing the carved and slightly warped plank into place with our combined weights and blows from a lump hammer cushioned with a small piece of wood to prevent bruising the parts of the cypress that remained proud. The last creaks from these now smooth lying boards were removed by tightening countersunk screws at carefully judged intervals, holding our floor to the aged pitch pine beams beneath them. In the evening we tidied up, lit the fire, ate supper.
