The Future's Bright; the Future is....Green?

Having spent the last couple of weeks blogging for Edinburgh Science Festival, I have been having a few Eco-Nightmares, due to the frank predictions and (much needed) dire warnings about climate change from many of the Science Fest. speakers.

So, it was with a some-what heavy heart that I picked up Mark Stevenson's 'An Optimists Tour of the Future'.  Mark (a stand-up comic and writer) set out on a mission to see what the future holds.  And he found out some pretty amazing stuff!

Who would have thought that drought-parched grass pasture in Australia could fully recover, just by installing a few fences and moving cattle around differently?

Who would have credited the fact that you can print solar panels just like photographs, on giant flexible sheets of plastic and wrap them around anything from buildings to rucksacks?

Who would believe that nanotechnology allows oil to be produced without having to drill for it (and by the way, it's carbon neutral)?

And all of this is happening now, not in some way-off Star Trek vision, but right at this moment.  This book certainly helped me feel more optimistic about the possibilities that lie ahead.

The future is indeed bright; it is also smart, efficient and green and it is waiting for us, whenever we're ready!

Find out more at An Optimists Tour of the Future

No Impact Man by Colin Beavan

I have just finished reading No Impact Man, by Colin Beavan, and it is just the push in the right direction that I needed for my own 'live a better life' project, Goodbye Magpie.

The book documents how Colin and his family spent a year trying to live their lives whilst creating no harmful impact on the planet.  The approach they take is extreme, but very inspirational, and it goes to show how little of the over-packaged, resource intensive stuff we actually need.


The book is honest and so well written that I raced through it in a couple of sittings.  I have since watched the accompanying documentary and signed up to Beavan's blog at http://noimpactman.typepad.com/ 

I would highly recommend that you all do the same!  I have come away with so many helpful pieces of advice that I plan to put into practise over the coming weeks.  So keep reading to see how I get on.

Thanks No Impact Man; you have saved another family from self destruction!

A Room of One's Own - You're damn right Virginia

I am often reminded of Virginia Woolf's polemic paper, A Room of One's Own.  The idea that there aren't many more great female writers, poets and painters, because they were just too darn busy bringing up children and looking after husbands, completely chimes true with me, and I am sure all females across the world can empathise with this sentiment one way or another.

I have been reminded of Virginia again today.  I have written a children's picture book and I am now trying to illustrate it.  Now, I know this isn't quite Mrs Dalloway territory, but drawing takes a long time, painting even more so.  The book has been written for about 10 months and it needs 16 pictures to be completed.  As we are short of money, I have felt a real drive to get the book finished and to see if any publishers are actually interested in it.  So, I have set myself the absolute goal of finishing the book by Christmas.  Today I set to work. I got up at 7pm ready for my big day.

Everyone was up and out of the house by 8pm and I began to think about sitting down to work.  However today was also Thursday, which means bathroom cleaning day.  An absolute weekly necessity when you have a teenage son!  Thursday is also bin day.  Then, as with everyday, it is emptying dishwasher-feeding guinea pigs-making beds-and-doing a load of washing-day.  So jobs done, I was tired and hungry and needed a coffee!

Finally at 10.15am, over three hours since I got up, I sat down to draw.  I am really happy to report that by lunchtime I had finished my final two line drawings and was all set to start on the painting process.  But I needed lunch, I also had to figure out what to make for dinner and get groceries in, and I had an appointment at the beauty therapists (another total must I am afraid!)  The post arrived and that in turn necessitated a trip to the Post Office and before I knew it, it was 3pm.  I was just sitting down to make a start when No.1 Son arrived home from school, totally starving and in need of an ear to moan to.  So food is now cooking, moaning is complete, but I haven't started painting yet....

Virginia, you were so right!

Aesop's Fables

What a delight to re-read Aesop's Fables.  In this collection by Penguin there are 203 Fables, selected and adapted by Jack Zipes.  The Fables have been popularly attributed to the Greek slave Aesop (circa. 620BC).  Lions, Wolves, Greek Gods, Eagles and Foxes feature a-plenty, as well as the obligatory moral message. 

They are fun to read, a few at a time over several weeks, pondering the meaning of each one and imagining the debates that ancient Greek scholars may have had over each tale.

I felt the Fable entitled simply The Miser, was particularly apt for saying Goodbye Magpie:

To make sure that his property would always remain safe and protected, a miser sold all that he had and converted it into one great lump of gold, which he hid in a hole in the ground.  Since he went there continually to visit and inspect it, one of his workers became curious and suspected that his master had hidden a treasure.  When the miser's back was turned, the worker went to the spot and stole the gold.  Soon thereafter the miser returned, and when he found the hole empty, he wept and tore his hair.  But a neighbour, who witnessed his grief, told him, "Don't fret any longer.  Just take a stone and put it in the same place.  Then imagine that it's your lump of gold.  Since you never meant to use it, the stone will be just as good as the gold."

The value of money depends not on accumulation but in its use.

What a gem!  I feel exactly the same way about 'precious' objects which we have in the house, that are hidden away in case they are stolen, or because they are too good to use.  I wonder what is the point of them is, they may as well not be there at all!  The Miser also reminded me of the saying, 'you can't take it with you'... which is equally true.



Good Read Rating: 7 out of 10

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

What an epic book by the Russian master of literature.  I was led into reading this book via another, very beautiful book called The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, which my friend Jules lent to me.  In that particular book the narrator of the story is a French conceirge who hides her intelligence from her employers, as she wants to keep her pleasures to herself and does not want to risk being mocked by others.  In the story the concierge's cat is called Leo, after Leo Tolstoy, and the conceirge has a passion for the story Anna Karenina.  That affection for Anna Karenina led me to want to read the book for myself.

The depiction of Tsarist Russian life is very vivid and so novel to me that I found it very captivating to read about the likes of Princess Catherine Alexandrovna Shcherbatskaya, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina and Dmitrich Constantine Levin.  One small thing that was an eye-opener for me was how the characters often called each other by shortened, pet names (Kitty for Catherine, Kostya for Constantine etc.) and then would switch to their full names (including middle names), depending on the situation they were in, a type of complicated etiquette where I would find it impossible to remember everyone's middle names!

That aside it was the character Levin's struggle to reconcile his own actions and purpose in life that I found the most compelling.  He spends much of the novel trying to find the meaning of his actions and those of the people around him.  He finds the social expectations, etiquette and manners of Russian high society extremely difficult to deal with and doubts the rationale for the pomp and rituals of society and the depth of character of those around him who submit to it so easily.  One scene where he is expected by his wife to 'call' upon an acquaintance as 'everyone does it', is particularly well described in it's excruciating uncomfortableness.  Levin turns from extraditing himself in the countryside, where he feels he can be himself, to throwing himself headlong into society and finding that he can enjoy it so long as he doesn't think about it, to swinging back again to an unsatisfactory middle ground.

The book is beautifully written, but at times, for me, Tolstoy goes into too much detail, for example over local beaurocratic meetings (Tolstoy had a gripe with the workings of Russian beaurocracy), but these passages can be skipped over quite easily and may offer other insights to other readers; who am I to judge!

If you haven't read this book, I would recommend it to you, the characters are brought to life around you and although you may find many unpleasant and shallow, it is interesting to view the world through their thoughts and actions, which are often confusing even to themselves.

Overall Rating: 7 out of 10 (it would have been higher, had it been a bit more concise)