little more than a placeholder

A few post-greenbelt thoughts

2008-08-28T10:01:09Z

This year's Greenbelt programme contained a piece by Maggi Dawn, who sadly wasn't able to be at the festival. Reading the programme on the tube back from a post-festival get-together, I really connected with Maggi commenting:

Whether Glastonbury or Global Gathering, at their heart, all festivals are actually less about gazing at bands from the back of a field, and far more about the day-to-day encounters we have around the site. We have a fundamental need for these real-life meetings, because without them, we cannot create or sustain community. Yet, strangely, that's one of the paradoxes of this idea of festival: we immerse ourselves in order to be able to leave it. Showing up is what makes the festival work, but Greenbelt is also all about not being at Greenbelt, about taking the infection away and breeding it in the day to day communities that sustain us.

I love the second-half of the paragraph, but it was the first that really struck me. I had one of those years where I felt like I didn't really see the festival in the programme sense. I turned up for a few minutes at several gigs, and took a lot of photos (all of which sit on my laptop awaiting editing, I'll post again when something's on flickr) but I wasn't able to really get a sense of what the festival was like this year. And that's okay. David Dark and I had a brief exchange about the "deep magic" (I called it magic, he added the deep) that keeps so many of us working at the festival. We run ourselves ragged, get frustrated, and channel it all into conversations about how we'll fix it for next year. Always next year. (almost) Always hopeful. It's quite a thing. The festival may or may not be in perpetual beta, but the feature set is somehow compelling.

Ambridge Acoustic Revue

2008-08-03T11:00:00Z

The first of our little musical get-togethers at St. Luke's went so well that we're planning to make them a regular fixture under the name "Ambridge Acoustic Revue." The next one will be on August 30th and if all goes according to plan will feature Julie Lee, Lobelia Sabo and Aaron Roche. And of course it will once again be ably hosted by Iain Archer. For those of you who are planning to attend Greenbelt you can think of it as a little afterglow from the festival, and for those who aren't... well, we suspect it'll be a highly enjoyable evening of music. If you're so inclined you can let us know you plan to attend on facebook or last.fm.

One Hundred Months

2008-08-02T11:00:00Z

The facts of climate change have entered the public consciousness to an unprecedented degree over the past couple of years. But to date there hasn't been a strong, coherent campaign around which masses could organise. Effective campaigns need clear targets and, ideally, clear deadlines. I'm hoping that that is what the recently announced 100 Months can offer. Introduced by Andrew Simms, writing in the Guardian, the campaign is based on the idea that 100 months is a very good bet for how long we have until the cascade effects of climate change take us past the final tipping point. It suggests a series of integrated policies, promises monthly actions for its supporters, and hints that a powerful, deadline-driven coalition may yet emerge. We can only hope (and click, act, lobby, and all the rest).

A brief personal update

2008-08-01T12:56:50Z

Last year among many other activities we managed to:

sell a house
travel round the world
move from the USA (Grand Rapids, MI) to the UK (London)

As a follow-up this year, we're in the process of:

moving out of our rented flat
heading to the US for a couple of weeks
buying a house
having a baby

Today was the big day when the removal firm came and moved us out of our rented flat. All our belongings are going into storage until such a time as we can move into the house we're buying. So for the next couple of weeks while in the US, and for at least a week after that we're going to be experiencing that safe, middle class form of homelessness known as "crashing with friends." And very grateful we are too.

Genoa, seven years on

2008-07-27T09:07:24Z

It's been seven years since the notorious G8 summit in Genoa, and a fair bit of news coverage seems to have come with that. In part it's because the Italian government still haven't really dealt with the fallout, or even recognised that the brutality on the part of their police forces must have been authorised very high up in their establishment. Nick Davies (who's coming to Greenbelt this year) has a very good piece in the Guardian a few weeks back that is well worth reading for a summary of why we should still be worried that none of those really responsible has been brought to justice.

Tracing Continuity

2008-06-14T11:25:34Z

I knew when I emailed the editor of Matthew's House Project with a fairly strongly worded response to one of their recent articles that there was a good chance I'd be asked to write something as a follow-up. And that's exactly what happened. So a piece I wrote on identity and immigration is now available for reading over there.

A few musicians in North London

2008-06-04T16:33:42Z

On Friday 13th June it'd be great to see those of you within reach of North London at a little get together Iain Archer and I are putting on as part of the Breathing Space series. From 8pm at St. Luke's Church, West Holloway, Iain and his band will be hosting an evening of music featuring Julie McKee, Burning Codes and Foreign Slippers. Each artist will perform a selection of their songs, and then they'll all gather to chat about their music and perform a few "in the round." We're quite excited about it, so I hope some reading this will be too. You can find more details on the Breathing Space website or at the event pages on last.fm, facebook or upcoming.

Do Good Lives Have To Cost The Earth?

2008-05-06T21:06:26Z

I may well have mentioned this here before, but living in the US I was frequently surprised by the number of people who, when hearing I was from europe confided in me their desire for the US to have good public transport. I wasn't just surprised because as a Brit I'd been trained to think of our public transport system as very poor (it looks a lot better to me now than it used to), but also because I kept wondering how something so many people wanted could still seem so far off. There's a lot of ways to approach that question that I'm not going to go into here; deep discussions to be had about the nature of contemporary political discourse. But that recurring conversation kept coming back to me as I read Do Good Lives Have to Cost the Earth?. Though the book's various authors touch on dark themes, and the potential for environmental and/or economic collapse is very real, it maintained the sense that those steps we can take to be more conscientious might also take us closer to the planet we would like to live in. In that, it reminds me quite a bit of Generous (on which more, later). The book has its weaknesses. For the most part it's a volume for people who have access to the resources to make significant changes (whether simple or radical) in their lives, and a safety net to fall back on. But for those of us who are in that boat, it's a good and helpful read.

New look Greenbelt site

2008-04-13T08:39:48Z

Whilst attending the ecampaigning forum I frequently had to dash off and find a quiet corner to make final tweaks to a site that was about to launch. Thankfully the wifi coverage at the conference was pretty good. Late last night we pushed the button and that project—a total redesign of the Greenbelt website—was launched. We've been working on it for several months, and I'm very pleased with the result. You can see a few words Paul wrote about it on the site.

Ecampaigning Forum 2008

2008-04-12T18:57:58Z

Taking a couple of days out of the hectic schedule which has kept me from updating anything around here for a while, I spent Thursday and Friday in Oxford for the 2008 ecampaigning forum. It was a great event, and a good time reconnecting with old friends and making new ones. I live blogged several sessions and written up some notes over in the other place, but wanted to post a pointer here because it's likely to be of interest to those who might normally avoid the tech overload on that blog.

links for 2008-04-07

2008-04-07T03:43:08Z

Aid to developing world falls for second year | Business | guardian.co.uk

"At the 2005 Gleneagles summit, G8 countries committed to pledge an additional $50bn in aid by 2010. Three years on, this target now looks to be missed by as much as $30bn, said Oxfam, enough to save 5 million lives."

(tags: aid debt g8 internationaldevelopment poverty)
Open veins: Crude reflections

Nick's article on Ecuador from the latest Red Pepper. "We need a vision of growing qualitatively not quantitively.”

(tags: ecuador internationaldevelopment latinamerica nickbuxton redpepper)
Report backs freer use of data | Technology | The Guardian

"work is under way on a government "information incubator" to encourage experiments with "mashups" and other innovative uses of government data"

(tags: fordevblog freedata government uk web2.0)
No Impact Man: How FDR got us to carpool

One World War II poster read: "When you ride ALONE you ride with Hitler! Join a Car-Sharing Club TODAY!"

(tags: carsharing environment fdr propaganda reduction)
What's Alan Watching?: The Wire: David Simon Q

"I don't think it's cynical about human beings. I think that's why viewers were so committed and loyal, because the human beings that were traversing this rigged game were entirely worth the time spent following them."

(tags: davidsimon interview thewire tv)

links for 2008-03-10

2008-03-10T03:27:57Z

BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US names '9/11 steel' warship

Steel salvaged from the World Trade Center site has been used to build a warship. Terribly symbolic, and terribly sad.

(tags: militarism revenge symbolism worldtradecenter)
John McCain’s Charitable Contributions

For a while I held onto a belief that John McCain somewhat resembled his chosen persona. Then he decided that maybe torture was okay after all, and a whole lot more crept out of the woodwork along with that.

(tags: johnmccain uspolitics)
Beth Rowley, Cherry Jam, London | guardian.co.uk Music

A more positive review that the star rating lets on. We've seen Beth play quite a number of times over the past few months, and it's always worth the trip.

(tags: bethrowley guardian music review)
Iraq: an interview with Dr. Stephen Zunes (part two of three) « The Heathlander

Shedding useful light on how the statistics about "the surge" have been cooked. Shooting in the back of the head are sectarian, those in the front of the head are not. Hmmm...

(tags: iraq politics statistics surge)
Rowan Williams: It's adults, not young people, who are a public menace

The disappearance of truly public spaces is a loss for us all, but is it most problematic for kids?

(tags: publicspace rowanwilliams)
Danger Mouse to Produce new Beck Record

Could be good.

(tags: beck dangermous music)
Swiss bank Julius Baer drops lawsuit against Wikileaks | Media | guardian.co.uk

"Julius Baer had been pursuing court action against Wikileaks after the website published documents about the bank's offshore accounts."

(tags: transparency wikileaks)

In The Office

2008-03-08T15:00:22Z

Normally being in the office on a Saturday would seem a bad thing, but this weekend there is still enough novelty for it to be a little fun. This week, you see, Matt and I moved into an office space we're going to be sharing in Hoxton. There's still a lot of unpacking, arranging and decorating to be done, but so far it feels good to have a space outside the home for working. Pictures will come with time. There's space here for one or two more people, and our hope is to find one person to share it on a full-time basis and keep one desk free for occasional visitors. So whether you need a space in east London to get a bit of work done, need a more permanent office space, or just feel like dropping by, get in touch. (For a full-time person rent would be around £170 per month including bills and wifi. You'll need to provide your own furniture.)

links for 2008-02-28

2008-02-28T03:35:39Z

Trailer Mash-ups: Wall-E-nator Mashup Proves Cuteness May Destroy the Future

Best mashup I've seen in a very long time

(tags: mashup pixar terminator)
Building explosion in Grand Rapids' Eastown - The Grand Rapids Press

Very bizarre news

(tags: eastown explosion grandrapids)
Londonist: Some Of Our Banksys Are Missing

Someone's painting over Banksys. My money's on it being the man himself.

(tags: bansky london streetart)
Obituary: Larry Norman | Obituaries | guardian.co.uk Music

Steve Turner on Larry Norman, who died a couple of days ago.

(tags: ccm larrynorman music)

links for 2008-02-25

2008-02-25T03:30:44Z

'If I find one reel, I must kill you' | Features | guardian.co.uk Film

"Erlend Clouston on the men who risked their lives to save the Afghan film archive from the Taliban "

(tags: afghanistan film)
Gary Younge in New York: It's up to the superdelegates to prove Democrats believe in democracy | The Guardian

"The elections we have all been watching account for 80% of the total voting delegates who will nominate the candidate. The remaining 20% goes to "superdelegates" - Democratic legislators, governors, former presidents and vice-presidents, a

(tags: democrats primaries superdelegates uselections)
Old Nick | Rock | guardian.co.uk Music

There are only a couple more weeks till the new Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds record comes out

(tags: interview muic nickcave)
£1bn ‘city beneath a city’ planned for Amsterdam - Building

Sounds like quite a plan

(tags: amsterdam cavedwelling urbanism)