Saturday 9 May
Happy to be in ‘Combe on a bright, breezy morning to look at art works by friends. Is it possible that this beautifully situated holiday resort might make a big comeback? As its Mediterranean rivals become dangerously hot - and jet fuel unfeasibly expensive (as may be happening this summer) - could our coastal towns become cool again in every sense?
There have been many tributes to the remarkable Sir David Attenborough. One of the most unusual was this wittily-titled lecture by a communicator in Sir David’s mould - Karl Ritz. I met Prof. Ritz at the Eco Fair in South Molton Pannier Market autumn. He showed me how to use a 3D microscope. I looked at soil, clay and sand and it was a revelation. His well-attended lecture, hosted by Quarry Wood (High Bickington Community Wood), took us on a subterranean safari and introduced us to some of the amazing creatures and life-forms that inhabit this dark and microscopic underworld. In the Q&A Prof Ritz talked of the way biodiversity provides a well-equipped toolbox to handle problems. However, our diminishing biodiversity will make it harder to cope with issues caused by climate change. He gave encouraging examples of new methods of agriculture which, through varying the mix of plants, replenish and enrich the soil (without the use of additives). An inspiring man I’d love to hear again.
Sunday 11 May
We have been mucking out our car, a Prius we bought in 2009, before it goes to meet its maker: it will be recycled by Toyota who claim to re-use 95% of the components. We were advised that it will not pass its next MOT because of rust in the chassis. We go electric on Tuesday. My wife has been hoovering it - out of affection - as the Prius served us very well and saved a lot of carbon emissions. The final deep clean revealed a mouse nest that had evaded previous searches.
Monday 11 May
Last week I made an official complaint to the BBC about Nick Robinson’s Today programme interview with Zack Polanski as leader of the Green Party of England and Wales ahead of the local elections. Robinson kept telling Polanski that his answers had nothing to do with local issues but most of Robinson’s questions were not about local issues either. Instead they were about breasts and claims of anti-semitism in the party. These topics cannot be considered useful in terms of the local issues on which much of the country would soon be voting the next day. Nothing about planning, social care, SEND, transport, etc. I have now received an official response, which made no reference to the local issues I had mentioned. Was it written incompetently by AI? Or by an incompetent human? If the former, should I demand that a human respond? If the latter, should I insist on an AI written answer?
Tuesday 12 May
Starmer has been trying to convince his party to keep him on as PM but he and his more obvious rivals (Streeting and Rayner) are all complicit in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the government is still selling arms to Israel. The Netanyahu gang is also committing Medicide, as the film Doctors Under Attack demonstrated. One of its makers, the journalist Ramita Navai, has said: ‘Israel has killed over 47,000 children and women in Gaza. So far, Israel has bombed and targeted every single one of Gaza’s hospitals. It’s killed over 1,700 Palestinian doctors and healthcare workers. It has imprisoned over 400 in what the UN now calls the Medicide’.
Photo: Bude from the Castle
Thursday 14 May
A meeting of the Public Benefits committee of the Bridge Trust in Barnstaple, which I now chair, voted to include vacuum cleaners in the goods it can help those in need to buy, alongside white goods like fridges and washing machines. I read wildlife / nature poems with Jane Lovell at the Bude Literary Festival - great to be there.
Friday 15 May
When is no information mis-information? I listened to the BBC news and the Today programme this morning from 8am to 9 am without hearing anything on the following topics, all from the. Green Party Morning Briefing:
New forecasts show increasing confidence that the developing El Niño in the tropical Pacific Ocean could be one of the strongest on record with warnings of record global temperatures and huge humanitarian impacts.
Signs warning people not to swim are in place at almost all of England's official river bathing sites due to concerns the water could be unsafe.
CIA director John Ratcliffe met Cuban officials in Havana a day after protests erupted following an announcement from Cuba’s energy minister that the country had completely run out of diesel and fuel oil amid a US blockade that has strangled the island’s energy imports.
Coming up today and over the weekend
It is the Palestinian Day of the Catastrophe, Nakba Day, and tomorrow there is a rally in London.
Thousands of people across the UK will take to the water, shorelines and riverbanks on Saturday to demand an end to sewage pollution as part of the Paddle-Out Protest.
Our wildflower patch has its best showing of Yellow Rattle ever and Flag Irises are having their moment in the pond margins. My next poetry event is below. Thank you for reading.
