An important and challenging book on the impact of globalisation and some attempts to limit/counteract its effects. I won’t write much as the author speaks for himself on his website (see below).
Maybe two things:
1. - - This is Real England. But it could equally be Real CR/Spain/Germany/Finland. The details may vary but the same process is affecting all of our communities....
2. - - I think the particular appeal/success of the book lies in the fact that it reaches beyond the generalities of economic/sociological theory and statistics to examine in detail seven specific contexts (pubs, waterways, local shops, farms, markets/public spaces, villages & orchards) and in each one focuses on a limited number of individual ‘case studies’. To me this makes a large scale and abstract problem very concrete and human.
Thank you for your insight(s), Paul, and over to you.....
I was going to post something else today but hearing the news of (in alphabetical order...otherwise which to put first?):
Instead the line in my head was one from a poem by the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. Maybe because of the work they leave behind them (RS & JS) or, in the case of SL, the impact on the criminal justice system and the achievements of the Stephen Lawrence Trust set up in his memory (http://stephenlawrence.org.uk/).....in some way..."death shall have no dominion”.
This is the Dylan Thomas website: http://www.dylanthomas.com/
This is the text of the poem: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/178637
SL, RS, JS, DT.....RIP
"I keep lists. Some copied into notebooks in neat italic script in blue-black ink, others scribbled almost illegibly in soft pencil on the back of an old envelope. Most remain in my head. There is the usual inventory of things I need to do, of course, but also less urgent lists, those of books to read or read again, music to find, plants to secure for the garden, and letters to be written (few of which will ever see the light of day). One list that has remained in my head is that of favourite scents, the catalogue of smells I find particularly evocative or uplifting. Snow (yes, I believe it has a smell), dim sum, old books, cardamom, beeswax, moss, warm flapjacks, a freshly snapped runner bean, a roasting chicken, a fleeting whiff of white narcissi on a freezing winter’s day.....
....Right now I have come in from the vegetable patch – a romantic mingling of vegetables, fruit, herbs and flowers – and feel elated. There is an unusual abundance, even for midsummer, and a sense of energy in the garden. I have just picked the first tomatoes of the year. Tiny green-shouldered Sungold, no bigger than a Malteser. They are sweet-sharp and burst refreshingly in my mouth. Almost best of all is the deep, herbal scent of tomato leaves on my fingers. Another one for my list."
All that and more before you get to the first recipe.....
Two years after the last post.......Happy New Year!