Book Botherings: "How to Be Free" - Tom Hodgkinson

Have you ever had the experience in reading a book that perhaps your journey through life is in fact a great play that you planned from the start and you left yourself some little guide posts and reminders along the way...? This book read like a tale I had planned to tell myself all along and was momentous, joyous, reflective and downright delicious to consume.

From the book cover itself - "Drawing on the French existentialists, British punks, the US beats, hippies and yippies, medieval thinkers, anarchists and 1970s back-to-the-landers such as Ivan Illich, Idler editor Tom Hodgkinson provides a new, simple, joyful blueprint for modern living. He shows that consumer society has led not to a widening of freedoms but to the opposite, and that they key to a free life is to stop consuming and start producing. We are not consumers, we are creators!"

"Read How to Be Free and throw off the shackles of anxiety, bureaucracy, debt, governments, housework, moaning, pain, poverty, ugliness and waste, and much else besides. "

"Are you ready to be free? Read this book and find out!"

Enough said...but really...you must read this book! If you believe anything I have to say (and I'm not sure I believe half of it myself) then believe this.

Medieval Musings: Common Ideas, Common Outcomes

"The principle of medieval trade was admittedly comradeship and justice while the principle of modern trade is avowedly competition and greed" G.K. Chesterton, 'William Cobbet', 1926

The theory (at least as far as is advertised) is that competition leads to higher quality and resonable pricing of goods. The opposite is what actually occurs, as evidenced by the rise of massive monopolies and super corporations that almost without restriction pursue their own corporate agendas across countries, peoples and cultures. They force small enterprises out of business and suck money and resources out of local communities and into the hands of shareholders. Sales and profits, not quality, service or human respect are the goals.

Merry old medieval England was imbued with a spirit of hospitality, charity and common enterprise. Workers gave 10% of their produce or earnings to the local monastery and the tithe was then used for local relief for the poor and needy. Communities looked after their own rather than delegate the task to a distant collection of bureaucrats. The notion of a 'brotherhood of man' was powerfully promoted and citizens were encouraged to love they neighbour as thyselves'. Guilds arose to manage work and trade in the mould of spirited creativity and high quality goods with complex agreed value systems specifically to engender free and fair anti-competitive trade. Members donated to a central coffer for feasts, guildhall maintenance and alms.

Gardening Goings On: The Chicken Perch Dilemma

Now chickens aren't the brightest of animals but I had thought that given the choice between a flat plank of wood and a nice cosy perch high up the back of the shed, nicely sheltered, the choice would be a no brainer.

The perches have been set up like a ladder, sloping back to the wall with enough space between each perch to keep the chickens roosting above from dropping poo on the chickens below. There is plenty of room for the birds to roost without being too crowded. Sounds ideal....right...?

Unfortunately our chickens decided that the flat plank of wood we placed above the feeder and waterer (originally put there so they could sit on the window sill during the day without dirtying their resources) was also an ideal perch and there they slept, three fat ladies bustled together on an ever increasingly sloped board.

The solution then appeared to be to simply remove the board and close off the window. Anticipating our reclacitrant ladies would simply sit on the L shaped shelf supports directly above the food and water (they needed to stay as they held up the water and food) we placed two large diameter PVC pipes there to dissuade them.

This was all in vain as my next nightly visit found two chooks perched on the PVC pipe (feet splayed out in the most uncomfortable of fashion) and one cold chook out in the yard who obviously missed the opportunity of a PVC perch and failed to notice the state of the art ladder of perches lovingly constructed at the back of the shed.

At least they lay well!

People Ponderings: James Howard Kunstler

Author of "The Long Emergency" as well as a couple of books harshly critical of suburbia namely "The Geography of Nowhere" and "Home From Nowhere.", Kunstler is a verbal samurai carving up notions that technology will save us from ourselves and depleting oil reserves will be solved by friendly bacteria excreting fuel into our cars and civic projects.

His website is http://www.kunstler.com/ and I invite anyone who wants a direct injection of reality straight to a major artery to visit it.

He also has a weekly podcast available at http://kunstlercast.com/. Again strap yourself in, be prepared to make light of disturbing human dysfunction and weep yourself into a world made by hand.

"I believe a lot of people share my feelings about the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work."

James Howard Kunstler, 'The Geography of Nowhere'.

I have enjoyed Kunstler's rants for over twelve months now and his no nonsense, take no prisoners approach to what I also believe is a massive waste of human potential in the mega over globalisation and suburbination (new word coming soon to a dictionary near you!) of our world, is inspiring in the same way that being chased by a lion lends an extra step to one's gait. Life is absurd and we are now witnessing the slow swaying and suspenseful slow motion collapse of a world built of goo. Be Merry!