On destructive development, on food that isn’t food, on two-legged sheep, on the demise of thought and the war for the future
Never let it be said I’m afraid of lengthy headlines if they’re appropriate and relevant to the topics under the spotlight. I really should learn not to ask questions or voice worries sometimes. Invariably if I ever mention to someone that we’ve had, say, a vacuum cleaner or washing machine for a very long time, it breaks down within a week or less. Two days ago I was chatting with a neighbour across the street, a lovely old lady, and commented on how beautiful the large open space behind her row of houses is. And it is. You get a fantastic panoramic view of the Dales, and the entire area right now is festooned with daisies. It’s land that, in the merciless capitalist predatory age we live in, doesn’t ‘do’ anything. It simply is, and all the more wonderful for it.
tags: activism, affordable housing, developments, eco-towns, environment, eschatology, extinction, food miles, green spaces, hope, local authorities, politicians, radicalism, self-sufficiency, supermarkets, the matrixThe Liar, the Which, and the War Room
‘Of all tyrannies,” wrote CS Lewis, ‘a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.’
A government advisor wants to see the introduction of deliberately complicated forms to be filled in by smokers who’d pay £10 per year to obtain valid Permits to Smoke.
tags: 1984, Big Brother, CS Lewis, Narnia, poem, poetry, politicians
