To be honest, remedy I was skeptical of the idea of a bike rental scheme before the launch. If we are going to spend £140 million on cycling I’d rather see we build more bike lanes, cheap I thought. London needs to make roads safer for cyclists, and in my experience, this is the number one reason why people are put off getting bikes.
But in the weeks since 30 July’s launch, when 6000 solid, bright blue bikes where installed in 315 docking stations, my objections have been put to shame. Now, as I roll into London Bridge every morning on my trusty hybrid bike, I invariably find myself accompanied by city workers scurrying around on rental bikes. And I swear the number of ‘regular’ bikes have increased as well – the profile of cycling has shot up as everyone loves the ‘Borisbike’.
While the need for more bike lanes prevails, there is safety in numbers as every extra bike on the road makes it safer to cycle. Over a million rides were made on the Borisbikes in the first three months, the Greater London Authority declared as it held the first appraisal of the scheme on 12 October. Once implementation costs are covered within three years, the scheme is expected to become profitable – in fact it will then be the only London transport system not to run at a loss. Only five bikes have so far been stolen, a fact the Police Cycle Task Force attributes to a sense of ‘community ownership’ among Londoners. And I think that’s true – having spoken to numerous people about this, there is a feeling that these are ‘our’ bikes. In a sometimes very anonymous city like London, where being spoken to on the tube by a stranger can actually feel intrusive, the bikes are becoming a symbol that after all, we are all Londoners.
Mayor Boris Johnson‘s introduction of the bike scheme grants London a place in a worldwide club of bike rental cities. But the Borisbikes, and the the 12 cycle ‘superhighways’, were actually the suggestion of former mayor Ken Livingstone, following a visit to Paris to see the city’s ‘Vélib’ cycling scheme. This is the biggest in the world with 17,000 bikes, suggesting this is only the beginning for London’s 6000 bikes. Our numbers are soon to reach 8000, however, as the system expands beyond central London to cover all of Tower Hamlets and more of Hackney, in time for the 2012 Olympics. The bikes themselves are identical to Montreal’s ‘Bixi’ rental bikes; 23 kilos would be excessively heavy for a regular bike, but for a rental it makes it a very stable and durable ride, plus very unattractive to steal. Vandals are further deterred as most of the wires have been placed inside the frame, and the bikes also boast extra-strong tires and dynamo lights.
So as Londoners get on their bikes – here’s a quick guide to safe cycling in traffic:
* Claim your space. Make sure drivers can see you, and ride a good foot’s distance from the kerb. Signal clearly and look behind you before turning, and they will respect you for it.
* Watch out for cars turning left. If you see vehicles indicating to the left, stay behind, or, if there’s time, get far in front where they can see you.
* Overtake on the right if you can. Instinct will have you overtake queuing vehicles on their left – this places you in a blind spot so only do this if there’s plenty of space.
* Avoid lorries. Stay behind, or overtake on the right. But as statistics dictate that if you get injured while cycling it will be from a lorry, it’s best to just steer clear.
* Follow the traffic rules. Cyclists who plow into pedestrians to get ahead give us all a bad name. But every now and again, it might just be safer to get ahead of heavy traffic by jumping a light. But be extremely sure before you do this – and mind those pedestrians.
Sign up for the London bike hire scheme here. Read more about the scheme in Amelia Wells’ article about the launch, or have a look at our tips for getting ready for winter cycling here.
Written by Jessica Furseth on Monday November 22nd, 2010 9:07 am
What is Ecocide?
Has the formation of laws and legislation had unforeseen and possibly disastrous consequences?
Has the protection of the environment been abandoned by the law?
What can we do?
Polly Higgins is a Barrister, viagra a Human Right’s Lawyer and author of Eradicating Ecocide. On her blog The Lazy EnvironmentalistHiggins defines Ecocide as the “damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.”
Published in 2010 by Shepeard-Walwyn, Eradicating Ecocide, is a carefully considered polemic on the consequences of leaving environmental concerns at the sidelines, (the destruction of the rainforest, tar sands, deep sea drilling, Global Warming) in favour of infinite growth and unregulated capitalism. Higgins believes that the “law as it currently stands is not fit for purpose. It rarely protects the wider earth community interests of both people and planet. Instead, all too often it is the interests of the very the few that are protected, of those with ownership. This causes great injustice at both micro and macro level.” In short, Eradicating Ecocide is a call to arms, an appeal to the protection of the environment in the face of wanton and needless destruction.
Eradicating Ecocide opens with a contemporary reminder about the consequences of runaway ecocide and unregulated industry; the 2010 BP Oil Spill in the Mexican Gulf. Higgins’ arguement implies that as it stands both law making and the planet are being held to ransom by profit-driven corporations.
For Higgins the environment is all too often neglected in favour of short term profit, pointing out that part of the problem lies with “Governments, driven by the obsessive pursuit of economic gain, often undervalue subsequent ecological losses that can arise out of profit making activity… Myopic financial policy takes preeminence over longer term damage and destruction, by keeping the focus firmly on the short-term, problems mouth for others to address at some indeterminate later date.” Not only do we need to fight big business, we need to take the challenge to our own blindfolded Governments.
In her calm and through exploration of the unforeseen consequences of law making,? Eradicating Ecocide takes us through the convoluted changes in law and the pivotal court cases that lead to the development (in law) of corporations being held to account for damages made to the environment as “fictional persons” The example Higgins cites is the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad trial of 1886, where for “the first time that the word ‘person’ in the fourteenth Amendment was presumed to include corporations.” See Eradicating Ecocide for further details on the outcome of this pre-trial statement.
Eradicating Ecocide also focuses on the development of ‘compromise laws’ by big business and the law courts in order to pacify pollution concerns. The subsequently formed ‘compromise legislation’ merely side steps environmental responsibility whilst failing to provide any real deterrence against the destruction of the planet. The biggest failure in compromise recently was at Cop 15 in Copenhagen. Desperate to end the conference with some form of good news, politicians’ delivered the “The Copenhagen Accord“. As this document is not legally binding, nothing within this treaty has yet to be implemented in local or worldwide politics, as of yet there is no binding successor to equally compromised Kyoto Protocol.
For myself, em>Eradicating Ecocide highlights that the problem with placing profit over all else is that monetary worth becomes the barometer against which all ‘worth’ is measured. Subsequently the earth and its ‘resources’ become a mere asset. Once the earth is seen as an asset, it ceases to be alive and once it ‘dies’ it becomes easier for the bio habitat to be seen as singular commodities (a trend which began with the Industrial Revolution). Subsequently we, the citizens of the planet, must fight to save the planet as a living organisim in its entirety, not solely the sections we personally inhabit.
A brave book, Eradicating Ecocide takes the stance that by allowing the “commercial exploration and destruction of resources” to take “precedence over the obligation of the sacred trust”, corporations have become the colonisers of the 21st Century. Within the UN framework, the concept behind the sacred trust is to ask for “community interests to be placed over private and corporate decisions.” (p.57)
Eradicating Ecocide is an inspiring, informative read and an incredible history lesson on the role of law (so often seemingly abstract from our lives) in shaping our society, our business and the way we view the earth. Personally, the book is incredible for its demand that we use that which is already present within the UN – The development of International Criminal Law in the wake of World War Two and the concept of Trusteeship- to implement these necessary changes. Because the framework for Crimes against Peace already exists, Ecocide could be included without the need to create any new organisations.
The book’s brilliance is that it functions as a template for what both citizen and state can do to protect the environment. Eradicating Ecocide contains useful advice on how we, citizens of the world can implement change. For example, by joining existing climate change networks or starting your own, we can apply pressure on Governments to recognizing Ecocide as a breach against peace. We have the power of the multiple and the power of the streets on our side. With an ever-increasing population, we need to accept the earths resources’ are finite and move away from a market driven economy.
For an update on the Climate Change debate in the wake of Cop 15, I recommend reading Higgins’ account of Cancun (Cop 16) and her summery of the RED++ deal; “The commercialisation of forests into the hands of the corporate sector to make money out of supposedly saving forests.”
If middle England can stand up against the Coalition’s plans to sell 15% of British Forests, we can ALL stand up against a destruction on a far wider scale -the loss of “the Earth’s lungs”- too.
For further information please visit the book’s website: This is Ecocide’s.
What is Ecocide?
Has the formation of laws and legislation had unforeseen and possibly disastrous consequences?
Has the protection of the environment been abandoned by the law?
What can we do?
Polly Higgins is a Barrister, shop a Human Right’s Lawyer and author of Eradicating Ecocide. On her blog The Lazy EnvironmentalistHiggins defines Ecocide as the “damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.”
Published in 2010 by Shepeard-Walwyn, Eradicating Ecocide, is a carefully considered polemic on the consequences of leaving environmental concerns at the sidelines, (the destruction of the rainforest, tar sands, Oil, Global Warming) in favour of infinite growth and unregulated capitalism. Higgins believes that the “law as it currently stands is not fit for purpose. It rarely protects the wider earth community interests of both people and planet. Instead, all too often it is the interests of the very the few that are protected, of those with ownership. This causes great injustice at both micro and macro level.” In short, Eradicating Ecocide is a call to arms, an appeal to the protection of the environment in the face of wanton and needless destruction.
Eradicating Ecocide opens with a contemporary reminder about the consequences of runaway ecocide and unregulated industry; the 2010 BP Oil Spill in the Mexican Gulf. Higgins’ arguement implies that as it stands both law making and the planet are being held to ransom by profit-driven corporations.
For Higgins the environment is all too often neglected in favour of short term profit, pointing out that part of the problem lies with “Governments, driven by the obsessive pursuit of economic gain, often undervalue subsequent ecological losses that can arise out of profit making activity… Myopic financial policy takes preeminence over longer term damage and destruction, by keeping the focus firmly on the short-term, problems mouth for others to address at some indeterminate later date.” Not only do we need to fight big business, we need to take the challenge to our own blindfolded Governments.
In her calm and through exploration of the unforeseen consequences of law making,? Eradicating Ecocide takes us through the convoluted changes in law and the pivotal court cases that lead to the development (in law) of corporations being held to account for damages made to the environment as “fictional persons” The example Higgins cites is the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad trial of 1886, where for “the first time that the word ‘person’ in the fourteenth Amendment was presumed to include corporations.” See Eradicating Ecocide for further details on the outcome of this pre-trial statement.
Eradicating Ecocide also focuses on the development of ‘compromise laws’ by big business and the law courts in order to pacify pollution concerns. The subsequently formed ‘compromise legislation’ merely side steps environmental responsibility whilst failing to provide any real deterrence against the destruction of the planet. The biggest failure in compromise recently was at Cop 15 in Copenhagen. Desperate to end the conference with some form of good news, politicians’ delivered the “The Copenhagen Accord“. As this document is not legally binding, nothing within this treaty has yet to be implemented in local or worldwide politics, as of yet there is no binding successor to equally compromised Kyoto Protocol.
For myself, em>Eradicating Ecocide highlights that the problem with placing profit over all else is that monetary worth becomes the barometer against which all ‘worth’ is measured. Subsequently the earth and its ‘resources’ become a mere asset. Once the earth is seen as an asset, it ceases to be alive and once it ‘dies’ it becomes easier for the bio habitat to be seen as singular commodities (a trend which began with the Industrial Revolution). Subsequently we, the citizens of the planet, must fight to save the planet as a living organisim in its entirety, not solely the sections we personally inhabit.
A brave book, Eradicating Ecocide takes the stance that by allowing the “commercial exploration and destruction of resources” to take “precedence over the obligation of the sacred trust”, corporations have become the colonisers of the 21st Century. Within the UN framework, the concept behind the sacred trust is to ask for “community interests to be placed over private and corporate decisions.” (p.57)
Eradicating Ecocide is an inspiring, informative read and an incredible history lesson on the role of law (so often seemingly abstract from our lives) in shaping our society, our business and the way we view the earth. Personally, the book is incredible for its demand that we use that which is already present within the UN – The development of International Criminal Law in the wake of World War Two and the concept of Trusteeship- to implement these necessary changes. Because the framework for Crimes against Peace already exists, Ecocide could be included without the need to create any new organisations.
The book’s brilliance is that it functions as a template for what both citizen and state can do to protect the environment. Eradicating Ecocide contains useful advice on how we, citizens of the world can implement change. For example, by joining existing climate change networks or starting your own, we can apply pressure on Governments to recognizing Ecocide as a breach against peace. We have the power of the multiple and the power of the streets on our side. With an ever-increasing population, we need to accept the earths resources’ are finite and move away from a market driven economy.
For an update on the Climate Change debate in the wake of Cop 15, I recommend reading Higgins’ account of Cancun (Cop 16) and her summery of the RED++ deal; “The commercialisation of forests into the hands of the corporate sector to make money out of supposedly saving forests.”
If middle England can stand up against the Coalition’s plans to sell 15% of British Forests, we can ALL stand up against a destruction on a far wider scale -the loss of “the Earth’s lungs”- too.
For further information please visit the book’s website: This is Ecocide’s.
What is Ecocide?
Has the formation of laws and legislation had unforeseen and possibly disastrous consequences?
Has the protection of the environment been abandoned by the law?
What can we do?
Polly Higgins is a Barrister, link a Human Right’s Lawyer and author of Eradicating Ecocide. On her blog The Lazy EnvironmentalistHiggins defines Ecocide as the “damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.”
Published in 2010 by Shepeard-Walwyn, Eradicating Ecocide, is a carefully considered polemic on the consequences of leaving environmental concerns at the sidelines, (the destruction of the rainforest, tar sands, Oil, Global Warming) in favour of infinite growth and unregulated capitalism. Higgins believes that the “law as it currently stands is not fit for purpose. It rarely protects the wider earth community interests of both people and planet. Instead, all too often it is the interests of the very the few that are protected, of those with ownership. This causes great injustice at both micro and macro level.” In short, Eradicating Ecocide is a call to arms, an appeal to the protection of the environment in the face of wanton and needless destruction.
Eradicating Ecocide opens with a contemporary reminder about the consequences of runaway ecocide and unregulated industry; the 2010 BP Oil Spill in the Mexican Gulf. Higgins’ arguement implies that as it stands both law making and the planet are being held to ransom by profit-driven corporations.
For Higgins the environment is all too often neglected in favour of short term profit, pointing out that part of the problem lies with “Governments, driven by the obsessive pursuit of economic gain, often undervalue subsequent ecological losses that can arise out of profit making activity… Myopic financial policy takes preeminence over longer term damage and destruction, by keeping the focus firmly on the short-term, problems mouth for others to address at some indeterminate later date.” Not only do we need to fight big business, we need to take the challenge to our own blindfolded Governments.
In her calm and through exploration of the unforeseen consequences of law making,? Eradicating Ecocide takes us through the convoluted changes in law and the pivotal court cases that lead to the development (in law) of corporations being held to account for damages made to the environment as “fictional persons” The example Higgins cites is the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad trial of 1886, where for “the first time that the word ‘person’ in the fourteenth Amendment was presumed to include corporations.” See Eradicating Ecocide for further details on the outcome of this pre-trial statement.
Eradicating Ecocide also focuses on the development of ‘compromise laws’ by big business and the law courts in order to pacify pollution concerns. The subsequently formed ‘compromise legislation’ merely side steps environmental responsibility whilst failing to provide any real deterrence against the destruction of the planet. The biggest failure in compromise recently was at Cop 15 in Copenhagen. Desperate to end the conference with some form of good news, politicians’ delivered the “The Copenhagen Accord“. As this document is not legally binding, nothing within this treaty has yet to be implemented in local or worldwide politics, as of yet there is no binding successor to equally compromised Kyoto Protocol.
For myself, em>Eradicating Ecocide highlights that the problem with placing profit over all else is that monetary worth becomes the barometer against which all ‘worth’ is measured. Subsequently the earth and its ‘resources’ become a mere asset. Once the earth is seen as an asset, it ceases to be alive and once it ‘dies’ it becomes easier for the bio habitat to be seen as singular commodities (a trend which began with the Industrial Revolution). Subsequently we, the citizens of the planet, must fight to save the planet as a living organisim in its entirety, not solely the sections we personally inhabit.
A brave book, Eradicating Ecocide takes the stance that by allowing the “commercial exploration and destruction of resources” to take “precedence over the obligation of the sacred trust”, corporations have become the colonisers of the 21st Century. Within the UN framework, the concept behind the sacred trust is to ask for “community interests to be placed over private and corporate decisions.” (p.57)
Eradicating Ecocide is an inspiring, informative read and an incredible history lesson on the role of law (so often seemingly abstract from our lives) in shaping our society, our business and the way we view the earth. Personally, the book is incredible for its demand that we use that which is already present within the UN – The development of International Criminal Law in the wake of World War Two and the concept of Trusteeship– to implement these necessary changes. Because the framework for Crimes against Peace already exists, Ecocide could be included without the need to create any new organisations.
The book’s brilliance is that it functions as a template for what both citizen and state can do to protect the environment. Eradicating Ecocide contains useful advice on how we, citizens of the world can implement change. For example, by joining existing climate change networks or starting your own, we can apply pressure on Governments to recognizing Ecocide as a breach against peace. We have the power of the multiple and the power of the streets on our side. With an ever-increasing population, we need to accept the earths resources’ are finite and move away from a market driven economy.
For an update on the Climate Change debate in the wake of Cop 15, I recommend reading Higgins’ account of Cancun (Cop 16) and her summery of the RED++ deal; “The commercialisation of forests into the hands of the corporate sector to make money out of supposedly saving forests.”
If middle England can stand up against the Coalition’s plans to sell 15% of British Forests, we can ALL stand up against a destruction on a far wider scale -the loss of “the Earth’s lungs”- too.
For further information please visit the book’s website: This is Ecocide’s.
What is Ecocide?
Has the formation of laws and legislation had unforeseen and possibly disastrous consequences?
Has the protection of the environment been abandoned by the law?
What can we do?
Polly Higgins is a Barrister, a Human Right’s Lawyer and author of Eradicating Ecocide. On her blog The Lazy EnvironmentalistHiggins defines Ecocide as the “damage, destruction to or loss of ecosystems, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been severely diminished.”
Published in 2010 by Shepeard-Walwyn, Eradicating Ecocide, is a carefully considered polemic on the consequences of leaving environmental concerns at the sidelines, (the destruction of the rainforest, tar sands, Oil, Global Warming) in favour of infinite growth and unregulated capitalism. Higgins believes that the “law as it currently stands is not fit for purpose. It rarely protects the wider earth community interests of both people and planet. Instead, all too often it is the interests of the very the few that are protected, of those with ownership. This causes great injustice at both micro and macro level.” In short, Eradicating Ecocide is a call to arms, an appeal to the protection of the environment in the face of wanton and needless destruction.
Eradicating Ecocide opens with a contemporary reminder about the consequences of runaway ecocide and unregulated industry; the 2010 BP Oil Spill in the Mexican Gulf. Higgins’ arguement implies that as it stands both law making and the planet are being held to ransom by profit-driven corporations.
For Higgins the environment is all too often neglected in favour of short term profit, pointing out that part of the problem lies with “Governments, driven by the obsessive pursuit of economic gain, often undervalue subsequent ecological losses that can arise out of profit making activity… Myopic financial policy takes preeminence over longer term damage and destruction, by keeping the focus firmly on the short-term, problems mouth for others to address at some indeterminate later date.” Not only do we need to fight big business, we need to take the challenge to our own blindfolded Governments.
In her calm and through exploration of the unforeseen consequences of law making,? Eradicating Ecocide takes us through the convoluted changes in law and the pivotal court cases that lead to the development (in law) of corporations being held to account for damages made to the environment as “fictional persons” The example Higgins cites is the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad trial of 1886, where for “the first time that the word ‘person’ in the fourteenth Amendment was presumed to include corporations.” See Eradicating Ecocide for further details on the outcome of this pre-trial statement.
Eradicating Ecocide also focuses on the development of ‘compromise laws’ by big business and the law courts in order to pacify pollution concerns. The subsequently formed ‘compromise legislation’ merely side steps environmental responsibility whilst failing to provide any real deterrence against the destruction of the planet. The biggest failure in compromise recently was at Cop 15 in Copenhagen. Desperate to end the conference with some form of good news, politicians’ delivered the “The Copenhagen Accord“. As this document is not legally binding, nothing within this treaty has yet to be implemented in local or worldwide politics, as of yet there is no binding successor to equally compromised Kyoto Protocol.
For myself, Eradicating Ecocide highlights that the problem with placing profit over all else is that monetary worth becomes the barometer against which all ‘worth’ is measured. Subsequently the earth and its ‘resources’ become a mere asset. Once the earth is seen as an asset, it ceases to be alive and once it ‘dies’ it becomes easier for the bio habitat to be seen as singular commodities (a trend which began with the Industrial Revolution). Subsequently we, the citizens of the planet, must fight to save the planet as a living organisim in its entirety, not solely the sections we personally inhabit.
A brave book, Eradicating Ecocide takes the stance that by allowing the “commercial exploration and destruction of resources” to take “precedence over the obligation of the sacred trust”, corporations have become the colonisers of the 21st Century. Within the UN framework, the concept behind the sacred trust is to ask for “community interests to be placed over private and corporate decisions.” (p.57)
Eradicating Ecocide is an inspiring, informative read and an incredible history lesson on the role of law (so often seemingly abstract from our lives) in shaping our society, our business and the way we view the earth. Personally, the book is incredible for its demand that we use that which is already present within the UN – The development of International Criminal Law in the wake of World War Two and the concept of Trusteeship– to implement these necessary changes. Because the framework for Crimes against Peace already exists, Ecocide could be included without the need to create any new organisations.
The book’s brilliance is that it functions as a template for what both citizen and state can do to protect the environment. Eradicating Ecocide contains useful advice on how we, citizens of the world can implement change. For example, by joining existing climate change networks or starting your own, we can apply pressure on Governments to recognizing Ecocide as a breach against peace. We have the power of the multiple and the power of the streets on our side. With an ever-increasing population, we need to accept the earths resources’ are finite and move away from a market driven economy.
For an update on the Climate Change debate in the wake of Cop 15, I recommend reading Higgins’ account of Cancun (Cop 16) and her summery of the RED++ deal; “The commercialisation of forests into the hands of the corporate sector to make money out of supposedly saving forests.”
If middle England can stand up against the Coalition’s plans to sell 15% of British Forests, we can ALL stand up against a destruction on a far wider scale -the loss of “the Earth’s lungs”- too.
For further information please visit the book’s website: This is Ecocide’s.
It was three minutes past ten, dosage meaning I was three minutes late (as ever…) for my meeting at Camellia’s Teahouse in Soho. As the bus crawled another inch up the Strand, troche I began to wonder if I would ever get there in respectable time (and also if the lady sitting in front of me was wearing a toupee – yes, viagra 60mg people, a toupee – but that’s entirely beside the point).
I hopped off the 23 on Regent Street, sauntered down the ever-charming Carnaby Street and after a few minutes of genuine confusion and cursing myself for not planning ahead better – my general view before visiting somewhere new is ‘hey, I don’t need to look at a map: I know the area, how hard can it be?’ – I finally found Camellia’s, nestled on the top floor of an outdoors shopping precinct.
Photography by Ajit Madan
Before Lubna Madan bought the premises with her brother Ajit in 2007, the shop was a vintage clothing store, and the likes of Amy Winehouse used to pop in to browse. Indeed, Amy came into Camellia’s on the shop’s first day of opening (‘She didn’t buy anything,’ Lubna tells me quickly.) Other famous visitors include actor Jonathan Rhys Meyer and Shizuyo Yamasaki and Chinatsu Wakatsin, two of Japan’s biggest stars who loved it so much that Camellia’s is now featured in Japanese guidebooks of London. Situated near a stone’s throw from the raucous crowds of Regent and Oxford Street, Camellia’s is to the thirsty shopper, I imagine, rather like a waterhole to a lost explorer in the desert. Except cleaner, and with friendly staff and chairs.
If, like me, you are a bit of a tea addict, chances are you will be stunned into silence when you first step into Camellia’s. The bookcases containing around 120 different jars of tea were so impressive that they put me in mind of the library in Beauty and the Beast, and each caddy was neatly labelled, listing the benefits of the tea enclosed.
Alas, I didn’t have the chance to be stunned into silence – although I’m pretty sure there were at least three seconds when I stood motionless with my mouth hanging open – as I was instantly meeted and greeted (well, it sounds better than ‘met and gret’) by Lubna, Ajit and their P.R. chap Ian. Ian left shortly afterwards, and I began to quiz the Madans about their business, starting with the most difficult question first.
‘What’s your favourite tea?’ I asked, with a challenging raise of the eyebrow. Paxman, eat your heart out.
Surprisingly enough, they were both able to answer; Ajit plumped for White Apricot (which I tasted a cup of – trust me, it’s delicious) and Lubna opted for Beautiful Skin tea, a tasty blend of rosebuds, elderflower and a host of other yummy goodies. Lubna and Ajit talked me through some of their most popular teas, some of which are believed to help medical ailments such as stress (Bobby Marley blend), acne (the afore-mentioned Beautiful Skin tea) and a huge range of other problems.
Photography by Katie Byrne
All of the teas are blended by Lubna herself, who, with a background in homeopathy, has an extremely vast knowledge of the health benefits of everything she puts into her teas. ‘All the recipes are my own,’ she tells me. ‘Tea excites me – it’s my passion. Sometimes, I wake up in the middle of the night shaking, as I’ll have just dreamt up a new recipe.’
There are also slabs of cake, slices of pie and quiche, sandwiches and other teatimes favourites available – some of which are made with tea (e.g. green tea muffins). Alas, my steely Lent resolution meant that I restrained myself, but if you visit then please do have some cake on my behalf.
Ajit and Lubna then asked me if I’d like to try making my own blend. I began nodding so enthusiastically that I must have looked like one of those toy dogs that sit in the back of cars.
Armed with a spatula and a dozen or so different teas, I began to concoct my ‘Kay-tea’. A bit of lavender…a scoop of ‘Very Berry’…some lemon peel…a pinch of star anise…a bit of liquorice…a touch of rosehip… Basically I got a little carried away and used a bit of everything. Once I had finished – i.e. there was nothing left for me to use – Ajit took the blend away to brew it. Three minutes later, he returned.
Photography by Ajit Madan
I was a little nervous. What if it tasted awful? Then I could mark tea-making as yet another career that I would never be able to pursue (I am still a little tender after my GCSE Chemistry teacher told me that my ‘dream’ of being a dentist was impossible owing to my scientific ineptitude. And I’ll never forget the time I got rejected following a job interview at Woolworths). Ajit poured us each a cupful and I tentatively took a sip.
I was very pleasantly surprised – it was lovely; or, to use my original verdict of it, ‘Ribena-y’. It was indeed fruity, but I could pick up the other flavours too meaning that it was a real taste-sensation. The cherry on top was that Ajit and Lubna liked it too!
I have to be perfectly honest. I loved the shop, and if I lived closer I would probably become an irritatingly frequent customer. I am 100% behind any company that is brave enough to stick to its own guns and refuse to conform to what the masses dictate (such as The People’s Supermarket), and I think Camellia’s really does make a refreshing change: expertise, personality and affordability, all under one roof.
Whereas I am normally more than happy to swing by Starbucks for a green tea (although Starbucks green tea never really tastes that green…) I really relish the idea of tea being an event rather than just something that comes with a paper cup and a little wooden stick. Camellia’s, with its vintage china, acres of choice and emphasis on health and well-being, is a million miles away from the current chain-coffeehouses. You should definitely visit – I think it would be just your cup of tea.
Camellia’s Teahouse can be found on the Top Floor, 2.12 Kingly Court, Carnaby Street, London ?W1B 5PW
Written by Katie Byrne on Tuesday April 5th, 2011 10:18 pm
What have you been doing since the last Uncivilisation Festival? It’s been over a year and I presume you’ve been suitably busy…
Yes, viagra last year’s Uncivilisation does feel like a long time ago. I think it’s safe to say that neither Paul Kingsnorth nor I had ever imagined we’d find ourselves running a festival. It happened by accident. We were writers, we’d written a manifesto with the idea of starting a journal of stories and ideas — and then we got invited to use this venue in Llangollen for a weekend to bring together all these people for whom the manifesto meant something. It was an intense experience. (Read our post 2010 festival interview with Dougald Hine.)
Afterwards, we took some time out to reflect and decide what we wanted to do next. We started to hear from people who were running their own Dark Mountain events, which was very cool, and from bands who were releasing records inspired by the project. It’s a humbling experience, seeing other people respond to something you’ve written and take it to completely unexpected places, and do something beautiful with it.
Cernunnos – from Dougie Strang’s Liminal.
We knew we were going to do another book. We had writers getting in touch who we’d really admired, people like David Abram and Naomi Klein, and new writers sending us amazing work that spoke from the middle of the chaos we’re living through, or from the wild places at the edges. And as Issue Two came together, we realised we had to do another festival. There’s only so far you can go in print, or online. Beyond a certain point, you need to create spaces for people to come together face to face, to have conversations, to laugh and cry and hold onto each other. So yes, Uncivilisation is back, another gathering of stories and ideas, performances and encounters.
Mark Boyle at last year’s Dark Mountain Festival.
What are your feelings about climate change thinking and activism at the moment in the UK and worldwide? And in terms of the other associated problems we face? A lot has changed since May 2010…
It feels like there’s a new conversation opening up, with a rawness and an honesty to it. I’m thinking of the piece Shaun Chamberlin wrote after Just Do It the film came out, and also of an article of George Monbiot‘s from a couple of months ago. You compare that to the debates we had with George in the first year or so of Dark Mountain, which feel pretty sterile to me in retrospect, and there’s a sense that even as the situation becomes more desperate, in many ways, people are reaching deeper into themselves.
The roundwood timber frame classroom at the Sustainability Centre built by Ben Law. Photo courtesy of Permaculture.
And meanwhile, I think it’s dawning on many more people just what a multi-layered mess we’re in. The entanglement between the ecological crisis and the social and economic unravelling of the world we grew up in. I’m struck by how fast history seems to be moving these days, how quickly the ground of “normality” is shifting. Even in mainstream politics, the fabric is wearing thin, the gap between the official version of reality and people’s lived experience becomes more obvious.
What will be different about this year’s festival?
It feels like we’re consciously approaching it as a journey that people go through. You arrive and you’ve left behind your everyday life, and you need permission to enter into this other kind of space, where it’s safe to feel things and have conversations you might not do with your colleagues or your friends back home. So the first night is full of magical performances, feral choirs and storytellers and lyrical boat-dwellers and music by lamplight.
Then the Saturday daytime is where we can have big conversations about the past and the future, going into the ways people have made life work and made life meaningful in difficult times. By the Saturday night, you need to let your hair down, so we’ve got some real party music with bands like Merry Hell. Then on Sunday, as you’re turning for home, there’s more space for sessions about practical projects building parallel infrastructure and ways of getting involved in things back in the day-to-day world that have an edge of deep resilience, that allow you to take back some of the meaning and perspective that Dark Mountain is hopefully making room for.
What special new speakers and activities are you particularly excited about and why?
Personally, I’m looking forward toTom Hirons‘ storytelling on the Friday night, and the Collapsonomics panel on the Saturday morning. That’s going to be a group of speakers who have personal experience of living through economic and social crisis — in the USSR, in Ireland and Iceland. They’re also all people who have an inside understanding of how the systems we depend on work, financial systems, tech systems. I’m expecting to learn a lot from that conversation.
And there are a couple of people who really stood out last year, who I’m really delighted are coming back. Vinay Gupta, who I’ll be interviewing on the Saturday afternoon, who’s this extraordinary hybrid between a Scots engineer and an Indian mystic, talking about these deeply practical projects he develops for working in the aftermath of disasters, but also the roots of his ability to think clearly about this stuff in the tradition of the ‘kapilika’, ‘the bearers of the skull bowl’, constantly facing your own mortality. And Jay Griffiths, who was one of the most moving speakers last year, she’ll be back to talk about the songlines and dream-shrines of West Papua.
Why did you choose to host this year’s Uncivilisation Festival at the Sustainability Centre? How many people do you hope will attend?
One thing we learned from last year is that the festival is as much about the people you meet as the speakers or the bands you see. So we wanted a venue with lots of space for conversations, walks in the woods, gatherings around campfires. We’re expecting about three hundred people, this time. It’s important to us that it’s a human-scale event, that there’s chance for us to meet people and hang out with them.
The philosophy of Dark Mountain has been described as moody, poetic and a bit devoid of hope. How do you respond when people say this to you?
To be honest, I know this is an impression people sometimes have at second- or third-hand, but it’s not something I get asked much by people who’ve actually had any contact with us. If you check out the video of people at last year’s festival, ‘hope’ is actually one of the words that comes up when people try to describe what they’ve experienced.
Now, that might seem strange, given that the starting point for Dark Mountain is admitting how deep a mess we’re in — letting go of the fantasy that we can take control of this reeling world, which, for all the wonders of science, we only partly understand. But hope is a strange thing — it’s not the same as optimism, or having a plan. It’s an attitude, a way of being in the world, treating each other well and finding meaning, even in the dark times. Go back to the Greek myths, and the last thing out of Pandora’s Box, after all the evils of the world, is hope.
We’re going to take some time out this autumn, before we come back and start working on the next book and the other plans we’ve been brewing. For me, it will be a time to weave some of the threads from Dark Mountain into the other things I’m working on — The University Project, where we’re creating new pockets and pathways for the cultivation of knowledge, and Space Makers, and the patchwork of other people and projects I’ve been stumbling across which share this search for what works and what makes life meaningful, when the future hasn’t turned out the way the grown-ups said it would.
Most music lovers have certain labels that they follow, information pillsprice awaiting releases, viagra 100mg excited by the new directions the people behind these labels have chosen to take. Warp and Planet Mu are two such labels for myself. Years of solid, this web progressive releases have meant I trust their taste – and once again, I think they may have succeeded.
Tim Exile‘s new album bends and shifts between tracks, layering genres from trip-hop to jungle with aspects of punishing techno all combined with stiffly melodic vocals hanging over the top of it all. Each track rolls around almost drunkenly, though perpetually rolling forward – something only possible through the albums astounding production.
There is something about the vocals that don’t strike me as truly necessary. They don’t reach out and suck you in enough and at times and you feel like they’re just sort of there, almost unnecessarily. The tracks speak for themselves; they don’t need Tim’s mutterings splashed across them – often just cheapening the melodies created by his impressive range of synth sounds.
What works much better can be seen in a youtube video of Tim Exile remixing Micachu live. Such an obscure combination that you just know that it could work perfectly, and it does. Well, kind of. It’s interesting.
My highpoint of the album surprisingly comes in the form of ‘Family Galaxy’. It springs from Exile’s past as a Drum and Bass producer (albeit a rather experimental one). On mass, I hate drum and bass. It really is quite ridiculous how much guff can be produced week after week, tirelessly, systematically presenting itself as the same thing. This track however just seems to play with your senses, drawing you in. Then you realise you’re listening to drum and bass and you just have to commend the man. ‘Carouselle’ is also well worth a listen. Truly uplifting experimentations with sounds and melodies it has a kind of dramatic theatricality to it.
This is an album fans of the obscure corners of electronica will enjoy, but not hold up as an album everyone should care about. Intelligent Dance Music is a genre I try to distance myself from (a recent evening spent in a room with Aphex Twin actually scared me away from the genre). This album however seems to bring quite a colorful and enjoyable feel to a genre that seems to thrive in the horrific side of music.
It has to be said I am still trying in vain to establish myself as savvy online shopper. A string of failed eBay purchases led me to become rather despondent about the whole word of online retailing. However recently I found a shop that wholeheartedly restored my faith in the otherwise online abyss.
Hip London based retailer Youreyeslie have emerged on the scene with a shed load of innovative new designers to get our online juices flowing. Branding themselves with the comical slogan “bad taste is better then no taste” its clear to see these guys are not ones for conventional clothing. Featuring everything from bake well tart rings to t-shirts brandishing Nuns with red noses. Their kitsch designs for men and women are sure to make you stand out amidst the city crowds.
The t-shirts feature an eclectic range of styles to suit all tastes from the grunge rockers, hospital the whimsical bohemians to the new rave eccentrics. The site are keen on promoting hand illustration so all t-shirts are beautifully intricate. My favourite has to be the delicate printed tiger oversized t-shirt, I think you will agree he is a handsome beast! I definitely want to take him home.
My Achilles’ heel of the entire website has to be the accessories. They got the entire Amelia’s HQ resorting to excited childish giggles. Each of us tried to conjure plausible excuses to buy a whole bundle of their adorable pendants.The whimsical designs are brilliantly kitsch, taking you on an imaginative whirlwind tour through the fairground, with marching band and tambourine pendants. Then it’s on to the tropical jungle with exotic birds and butterflies and if that’s not enough excitement you’re then catapulted into the realms of outer space with a rocket pendant.
My favourite has to be this bird pendant of two Bluetits, (see a pastoral upbringing has its distinct advantages, well for bird classification at least!) Anyway as an avid bird fan myself these beautifully delicate feathered friends get the thumbs up from me, I happen to think they would be very content perched on my neck.
So give your wardrobe that new leash of life it craves, with free delivery over orders above £50 there is no excuse not to go mad, well that’s my reasoning anyway! Send us stuff by the barrel load, here at Amelia’s we are well and truly hooked on YEL!
I’m sure that all our our wonderful Amelia’s Magazine readers have got a viewpoint on animal testing being conducted for cosmetic products. And I would like to think that the viewpoint is that it is JUST PLAIN WRONG! (Seriously, page what other viewpoint is there?!) I don’t know about you, hospital but I have been under the illusion that we were all in agreement about this, and so were the suits behind all legislations that decided upon animal testing. Apparently I was wrong. Because R.E.A.C.H had got there first. Under this law ( also known as Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals), many more animal tests are taking place as the scientists try to work out which chemicals can harm us. Alarmingly, these include chemicals found in cosmetics and toiletries.
Having found out that one of my favourite brands, Lush, have been campaigning heavily against this, I spoke with Andrew Butler, Lush’s Campaign Manager at Lush H.Q to find out more about this situation.
Andrew, I can’t get my head around this.
“This whole R.E.A.C.H thing is horribly convoluted situation, and a lot of people don’t know about it. R.E.A.C.H is already a reality, people have been fighting it for years, but it went through, largely because its something that people didn’t fully understand, It has been too complicated for the media to follow. R.E.A.C.H affects all products. It is a piece of legislation that is about 10 years in the making, and here’s the backround: consumer and health organisations were concerned that there were chemicals on the market that were potentially harmful, either through direct contact or consumers, or via the environment, and concerned that things were getting into the soil or the water, and getting into food chain or affecting wildlife. The kind of concerns in question were if the substance was an irritant, or carcinogenic, or a endocrine disruptor, – i.e it upset the hormonal balance. and so R.E.A.C.H was designed to be a catch all, and pull together all the diverse different bodies that dealt with chemicals in Europe into one central body and pull together existing information and fill in any blanks that there may be, and this was why R.E.A.C.H came to pass.”
But it sounds laudable, in theory?
“Absolutely, we should be ensuring that dangerous chemicals are not in the marketplace, and anything that is either cancer causing or disruptive of hormone systems should be heavily restricted or banned. But it is the way that the data is collected, and the sorts of data is used to ascertain whether something is safe or not. . And that was something that was not asked of the people who proposed the legislation. The groups were concerned about the chemicals, but not necessarily how the safety would be assessed. Traditional toxicology and eco toxicology involves animal tests, and that has always been the case. Pretty much everything that you can imagine from the carpet under your feet to the painting on the walls has been tested on animals somewhere by someone. Almost everything has been through a lethal dose 50 test which is where a group of animals is force fed a substance until 50% of them die. Its something that is done for virtually everything.
Companies who are concerned with safety testing but also don’t want to use animals have been concerned with the ingredients so there are various mechanism that companies can put in place so animal testing is not used. They can set a cut off date after which ingredients are not tested on animals, or they won’t do business with companies that are testing on animals. There are grave questions about the validity of animal testing, not just the ethics. The animal testing data is not really applicable to people.
As R.E.A.C.H was being developed there was pressure to not rely on animal test data. We ran a campaign in our stores, we collected postcards to MEPS urging them to not rely on animal tests under R.E.A.C.H, we collected 85,000 of those and sent them to MEPS. Many groups, such as Animal Aid and PETA were also campaigning against R.E.A.C.H. In the six years that the legislation was being passed, there were provisions put in place. For example, if animal test data already existed for a particular ingredient, that should be used in place of any new data. So provisions were put in place to minimise it, but not do away with it entirely. ”
I’m sure we already know it, but what is Lush’s stand on animal testing?
Lush goes into the stocks
“For us as a company, we have an objection to animal testing – both because it isn’t ethical to inflict suffering and kill animals in order to assess safety, and we don’t believe that animal tests will result in accurate info, we feel that the animal test data is inconclusive. Generally speaking, animal tests offer an accuracy rate of 40%, whereas the non animal tests are accurate 70- 80%. We are opposed to animal tests being mandatory in R.E.A.C.H. We need to ensure safety without suffering, with modern, non animal testing methods that will give us much more accurate results. ”
When did R.E.A.C.H come into effect, and what kind of ingredients are being tested?
“The legislation passed in 2007, and it has been implemented over the last couple of years. R.E.A.C.H legislation presides over anything that has undergone a chemical process – so e.g. a lavender flower isn’t included, but lavender essential oil would be considered a chemical, because it has undergone a chemical process. Anyone manufacturing or importanting any material in Europe that is over a tone of materials have to register it to R.E.A.C.H, and collectively, almost everything comes under these guidelines. And the deadline for this was December 2008 and the European Chemicals Agency were meant to have sift through all of these registrations, come up with a final list and set deadlines for the testing to be done. 140,000 materials need to be tested and be given safety information. If the data doesn’t exist, animal testing needs to be done. There is a huge degree of uncertainty – how much of that data already exists? How much animal testing needs to be done? Potentially, millions of animal experiments will need to be done. And it tends to be the more natural substances, like essential oils that don’t have all of the data. They are the ones who are going to end up being having to have their products tested; this will be done against their will.”
This is all so bleak! Is there a possibility of a positive outcome?
“We are struggling at the moment, because of the degree of uncertainty. But there is a silver lining. There is the European Cosmetics Directive, which came into force on March 11th 2009, it is an amendment to the cosmetics directive. It says that you cannot test any ingredients for cosmetics on animals in Europe. You can’t even market a product in Europe containing ingredients that have been tested on animals anywhere in the world. So on the one hand you have this, and on the other, you have R.E.A.C.H. ”
Before the last draft of R.E.A.C.H was passed, Lush paid a visit with a manure truck
So which one gets the say so on testing?
“That is a good question! It’s something that has to be tested in court. The whole cosmetics industry sees that there is clearly a conflict. What we need is for more companies to stand up and start questioning this, and to get the British Government to stand up and say that we are questioning this. So our campaign right now is awareness raising. R.E.A.C.H spells the end to cruelty free cosmetics. So if you care about this, you need to be aware of this, you need to start talking about this, and you need to ask other companies what they are doing about this. What are the British Government doing about this? They stood up in 1998 and said no more animal testing. Well they have signed us up to the biggest animal testing programme in Europe’s history, what’s that all about? Lush can engage corporate disobedience, and refuse to toe the line but thats not enough, if everyone is complying with R.E.A.C.H then animal testing will still go ahead. It needs to be collective. And the British public need to get involved too!”
Is there information readily available in Lush stores about this?
“Until the end of Easter there is information in all the stores, it’s being run as an in store campaign. The aim after Easter is to get a more comprehensive leaflet that will be available if you ask for it. There is also always going to be information on our website (www.lush.co.uk/reachout/ ) We are hoping to produce letters to MP’s and other companies, specifically about this issue.”
How has the feedback been from your Lush customers?
“We have had a really strong response. We have run plenty of campaigns about packaging, shark finning, human rights in Guantanamo, all sorts of things and this is one of the strongest customer responses, people have been shocked – they had no idea that this was happening. A lot of the responses have been that this is contrary to my rights, this should be going through the European Human Rights Courts because it should be my right to say, no I am not going to be alright with animal testing.
Information booth outside Lush
R.E.A.C.H is a law, there is not one particular thing that you can do to stop it, but if we do lots of things; if we at least start talking about this, and get large companies to stand up and say that we are not happy about this situation, then we stand a chance.”
If you haven’t come across Etsy before, treatment a bank holiday weekend is a good time to start exploring, find as you could very easily wake up Tuesday morning and find that’s all you’ve done for the last 4 days. www.Etsy.com is kind of like Ebay, but only for handmade items – from cookies to soap, socks to coffee tables – if it can be made, chances are you’ll find someone on Etsy who’s made it. Painter, carpenter and photographer Rob Kalin created the site after failing to find anywhere he could sell his products online. In 2005,the year the site was launched, $166,000 worth of goods were sold. This year, they had already sold $32 million worth by March. The ethos behind the site is responsible for it being such a massive hit in the States, and its starting to become better known worldwide- everyone is reacting against our culture of mass-production and supporting small, home-run businesses where people make things by hand. The following statement fromt the company explains it all…
With the global economic crisis putting finances in a squeeze, Etsy is a great way to maximize a budget. There is an endless variety of unique, quality handmade gifts at affordable prices. Besides being memorable, these gifts are also valuable. They’re made to last a lifetime, not just until next year’s version comes out. Which means less trash for landfills, and more savings for shoppers. Plus, each purchase on Etsy directly supports independent artists and designers.
To ease you in gently, I have picked out some affordable works of art that would be a wise investment and more importantly, might brighten up your home. If you like a seller’s work, click on their ‘Favourites’ tab on the right hand side of the Etsy web page, which will take you to all the sellers they like..and so on until before you know it your cyber basket is full!
Aqua interior print by Annechovie Anne’s amazing paintings of interiors are just gorgeous- if you have a chair, rug or room that you particularly love, commission a painting of it so you can take it with you wherever you go.
Tea Fairy by Winonacookie
Lots of artists on Etsy use old images from vintage photographs and books to create new collages or ‘altered art’. Winonacookie is my favourite, though she’s obviously gained a fair following and her originals are a tad pricey now. Remember- the prices shown are in dollars though- they change it when you check out.
Two photographers making really special work are Lightleaks and Capree (below).
Their work would look perfectly at home on the pages of Dazed and Confused or Vogue. Nab a print before they make it big.
You can view my favourite spring fashion buys from Etsy by clicking here.
Who would have thought that so close to Oxford Street, information pills headache-inducing caricature of the nation’s identikit high streets that it is, Great Marlborough Street would reside, a civilized and calm conduit of the Capital’s finest culture creators. Culture creators with smart suits and serious rosé habits, who have long since outgrown their boho-clobber. And right between these parallel universes, on the barely-noticeable Ramillies Street, we find the new home of The Photographers Gallery. It is a very efficient three-tier cuboid of display. If Muji did art galleries, they’d be like this.
The prize exhibition began on the 20th of February, and for a few nail-biting weeks of suspense, we wondered where the fickle finger of fate would land, and what arguments we would have to have about it, while the winner went off to Jessop’s to fritter away their £30,000.
The winner, it turns out, is Paul Graham. Graham’s work is pure uninterventionalist America-watching, with a dark profundity to it. A fat man in America pulls on a cigarette like he really needs it outside a drab white building. He’s shuffling about, going nowhere until the end of his fix. And he’s doing the the same again. And again. And again. Some trees in America do nothing. And again. And again. The book that led to his nomination is entitled A Shimmer Of Possibility. It’s all as dry as this, yet strangely moving. A sequence of the book depicts one hard-on-his-luck chap striding across New York tensely, again with a cigarette, yet each shot is followed by a shot of a magnificent, yet naturally composed North Dakota sunset. It’s just the very idea that one man’s drab life and lack of purpose coexists with the world’s beauty. A beauty that cares not at all, but still offers a redemptive temple for prayer. It’s inevitable that this will be compared with Robert Franks’ The Americans. It’s a valid comparison, since critical distance is the backbone of each body of work. But A Shimmer Of Possibility is not an update, but more a change of gear, with all dynamism and gusto drained from The Land Of The Free, the better to imprison them within our gaze. But that’s the book.
The exhibition space doesn’t really have room to display a significant proportion of Graham’s slow narratives. The small selection here should be taken as an existentialist aperitif, and is not necessarily the most potent of his output.
Moving up two floors, you’ll find the three runners-up. Tod Papageorge is responsible for taking pictures of people in Central Park constantly for twenty-two years (1969-1991). These are bizarre little vignettes situated within the expanse of Manhattan’s great lawn. It’s a bit like zooming into a Watteau and finding little scenes depicting the strangeness of twentieth century life. A young couple stretched out on a blanket in the sun. A scruffy man combs his son’s hair in a clearing. In a very compelling shot, a black man lies in repose before a chessboard. The black pieces are his. The white pieces belong to the gallery-going public. Is this a meaningless chance happening, or composed confrontation? It drives right to the core of what apparently out-on-the-prowl photography can be, asking the viewer what they can see, and are they right to see it.
The next encounter is with the work of Taryn Simon. I found her the most fascinating exhibitor here. These photographs constitute a very focused project, to catalogue aspects of America that are normally hidden or unfamiliar. The hydroponic marijuana room at a licensed research lab. A cryopreservation unit that holds the bodies of the wife and mother of cryogenics expert Robert Ettinger. A couple of thousand nuclear waste capsules sitting at the bottom of a watery containment facility in Washington State. A Braille edition of Playboy magazine. Finches in quarantine. The seized contraband room at JFK airport, full of tropical plants, odd food, diseased vegetation, and bushmeat, all awaiting incineration. These glimpses off the radar, though all beautifully captured, lack a consistent visual style. The subject is paramount, to a documentary degree, and each must be captured on its own terms. Simon is really allowing her issues to speak for themselves, be it with humour, disgust, or merely what Stephen fry would call Quite Interesting-ness. It’s a glimpse behind the curtain, bringing your conspiracy theory gland into the real world, for each composition is an altercation between your notions of real and normal, usually wedded, now in uncomfortable stand-off. The most powerful piece is a heart-wrenching portrait of Kenny, a white tiger, residing at an animal refuge, selectively inbred as a status pet by Arkansas half-wits, themselves perhaps inbred. Kenny has breathing difficulties, malformed bones and teeth, and cannot close his jaw. His siblings are even worse off, apparently. Looking into Kenny’s eyes and wondering, identifying, is overwhelming. Elsewhere on the spectrum is an interior of the CIA’s art collection offices. Simple yet sinister, this makes you wonder about all the things you still can’t see, all the dirty interventions by Intelligence Agents in our beloved realm of culture.
Simon’s project is almost journalistic, and the photos need to be accompanied by the little text labels, which explain these otherwise very disparate images. However, if that constitutes a dilution of the definition of a photographer, it’s nothing next to Emily Jacir’s deviation. She presents an archive of the life of Walter Zuaiter, a Palestinian intellectual who was assassinated in Rome by Israel’s Wrath Of God Operation in 1972, after they linked him, perhaps falsely, to the Munich Olympics massacre.
Jacir would have been two years old at the time, and I’m assuming she didn’t take the photos herself. She is an archivist, perhaps a curator, likely an artist, certainly a fangirl, but I can’t see how she could be called a photographer. Photography Prize, remember? It’s easy to redefine art for found objects, but the word photography is a bit more specific than that. I suppose that’s just semantics. It may not be in the right place, but it is worth seeing, and is a tragic memory of this intriguing life. She displays a selection of paperbacks that he had read, along with letters, and old photographs as a way to create some space for the personal amidst the political, the human amongst the historical. And it’s good that not everything here is about America.
The show overall is a pretty still, meditative, even modest affair. Beauty abounds. And thought. The Deutsche Börse Prize turns all of this into a big discussion about art and value. To award one prize is a shame, and probabilistically, only a quarter of people would agree with the choice of Graham, but art, at least, wins on the ground floor, and the second floor. The filling to this Photography sandwich is a shop for photography books and prints and coffee. The hordes of Oxford Street will never know. Don’t be one of them.
The Exhibition runs until April 12. Monday, what is ed 13th
Enough with the chocolate eating! Music can be delicious as well, so go enjoy your last holiday evening with Bombay Bicycle Club (the band, not the restaurant silly!) at KCLSU (King’s College Student Union). They are launching a very yummy single called “Always Like This” which is the leader one from their new album due this summer.
7:30 pm. £8.50.
Bombay Bicycle Club
Tuesday, 14th
Some Swedish romanticism can`t hurt, right? Well, Loney Dear is back celebrating the release of their fifth album ‘Dear John’ with a full band show at Scala, fresh from an extensive tour around America.
On support duties, welcome Snowbird, a brand new and rather bewitching collaboration from Stephanie Dosen and Simon Raymonde (Cocteau Twins, Bella Union) playing songs of the old and new variety. As if that’s not enough, there`s also the full lavishly appointed and luxuriously hand-tooled 8 piece version of The Leisure Society, a fast rising orchestral folk-pop band whose tour will culminate at this very show.
7:30 pm. £11.50
Loney Dear
Wednesday 15th
Acclaimed indie pop trio The Wave Pictures release their latest album ‘If You Leave It Alone’ on the 4th May. The band is currently on tour in the UK and London fellows can check out the homonym single at ICA this Wednesday.
7:30pm. £8.50.
The Wave Pictures
Thursday 16th
OK, so far it`s been impossible not to go out every single evening in the week. The musical orgy continues on Thursday with all the Berlin coolness of The Whitest Boy Alive, fronted by Erland Oye, formerly Kings Of Convenience. The will be playing “Rules”, the new album, at Scala.
7:30 pm. £15.
The Whitest Boy Alive
Friday 17th
Temper`s Trap new release Science Of Fear is due to 20th April and a preview will be performed this Friday at Koko.
9:30PM. £5.00.
Temper Trap
Saturday 18th
Great music for free? Here we come! To celebrate Record Store Day, Pure Groove will be hosting three gigs where you’ll be able to see Graham Coxon performing live, along with our own Dan Michaelson and Patrick Wolf.
10am to 6pm. Free.
Graham Coxon
Sunday 19th
Everybody is all around talking about “Two Suns”, Bat For Lashes new album. Honestly? When we first listened to it at the office here we all flipped out.
They are playing a second night at Sheperd`s Bush Empire so guarantee your Sunday ticket before it sells out.
7:30 pm. £15
Bat For Lashes
How strong are the bricks and mortar that hold your house together? Chances are they are flimsier then you would think. Especially if you have ever fallen behind on a rent check, sick mortgage payment, drug or found that your job no longer exists, pharm or that your employers can’t afford to keep you on. These scenarios are affecting thousands of people every day, in every party of Britain. Millions of people are trapped in a vicious cycle of spiralling costs, a precarious job market and a serious shortage of funds – all which are contributing to a level of uncertainty that has not been experienced in our life time. When this all hits, it hits hard and its impact is usually centered on whatever place that you call home. It’s at this moment that you realise how fragile your home really is. Suddenly, the idea of becoming homeless doesn’t seem so far removed from your reality. Right now, there are 1.9 million households on council housing waiting lists and repossessions are predicted to rise to 75,000 in 2009. And right now, the entire housing market seems as fragile as a house of cards. Which is why Amelia’s Magazine would like to help raise money for Shelter. Read on for the design brief.
DESIGN BRIEF:
Amelia’s Magazine has been asked to produce a piece of artwork for an exhibition that Shelter will be putting on in the summer. Other designers and artists who will be contributing to the exhibition include Stella Vine, Basso and Brooke and Rachel Whiteread. The final artworks will be auctioned to raise money for Shelter, and it’s a great honour to be asked to contribute to this. I’ve been given the TWO OF HEARTS, and the plan is to put together a patchwork quilt of cards in many different styles and designs, all depicting the TWO OF HEARTS. But I am not going to do this alone; in keeping with the way that I have produced the magazine this patchwork will be made up from contributions from illustrators. So I need your submissions! The best playing card designs will be added to the quilt and your name will be credited in the exhibition which you will also be invited to attend.
TECHNICAL DETAILS:
SIZE: Please design to standard playing card dimensions but larger scale. Your design should therefore be 126mm x 176mm and in jpg, psd or tiff format.
RESOLUTION: 300dpi, as a photoshop file in CYMK mode, using Photoshop print profile: euro standard swap coated 20% (or euroscale V2)
MY STYLE: I am looking for decorative, colourful interesting designs on the theme of TWO OF HEARTS. I’m excited, I can’t wait to see what you come up with!
SENDING IN YOUR DESIGN: Send your design to info@ameliasmagazine.com on an email clearly headed SHELTER CARD QUILT any time before this closing date.
CLOSING DATE: Please send your design into me by the end of June. Closing date for entries is Monday 29th June. If your design is picked to be used on the quilt I will be in touch at some point after the closing date to let you know.
UPDATE: WE NOW HAVE A FACEBOOK EVENT FOR THIS: CHECK THIS WEBSITE FOR THE BEST NEW DESIGNS AS THEY ARRIVE IN MY INBOX! Fabstraction
Ian Davenport
This will be the artist’s second solo show at the Alan Cristea Gallery and will include 30 new works.
Alan Cristea Gallery 34 Cork Street, viagra sale London W1S 3NU
4th Mar 2009 – 17th Apr 2009
Ad Nausea
Guy Denning – solo show
A collection of powerful, website like this dark expresive Images depicting people at their
best and worst.
Signal Gallery, page 96A Curtain Rd, EC2A 3AA
Open to public: 27th March – 25th April 2009
Tuesday – Saturday 12 – 6pm
New Work
Ron Arad
The exhibition will include some experimental pieces from the designers newly completed selection.
Timothy Taylor Gallery, 15 Carlos Place, London W1K 2EX
8th April- 9th Maf 2009
Monday to Friday 10am — 6pm
Saturday 10am — 1pm
Prophecies and Deceits
Sousan Luqman
The show tackles concealment, transparency and hidden messages. The artist brings a personal insight into current global issues such as religion, war and politics,
Red Gate Gallery
10th Apr – 16th Apr 09
Opening Hours: Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon – Wed 2.30 pm – 6.30 pm
Last day of exhibition: Thursday 16th of April from 11 am to 5 pm
Free
Mimetes Anonthe
Alastair Mackie
The lone chimpanzee lost in the urban concrete formed city jungle.
The artist’s sculptures often explores and questions the need to socially and economically race towards a better future. In this case the chimpanzee forces us to face our distant animal past.
The Economist Plaza, 25 St. James’s Street, London , SW1A 1HG
19th February – 17th April 2009
PM Gallery & House, Mattock Lane, Walpole Park, London W5 5EQ
11th Mar – 18th Apr 09
Here at Amelia’s Magazine we were left so in awe by the spectacular vintage emsembles we witnessed at last weeks Affordable Vintage Fair when contributer Robyn got in touch with this interview with 40′s pin up Fleur De Guerre, link we just couldn’t resist the chance to get our mits on all the trade secrets to her immaculate get up!
As a fully fledged vintage enthusiast, Fleur de Guerre was more then keen to act as hair stylist to the masses at this years Affordable Vintage Fashion Fair in Bethnal Green, London. A part time pin up model who dresses daily in full 1940′s regalia, Fleur states “it’s the hair done in rolls and curls, red lipstick and the eyeliner that makes my look”. Something that has come in handy for the 27 year old from Surrey who has straightened, curled and victoria rolled her way through a hoard of customers at The Queens of Vintage stall at the fair this afternoon.
Fanning her face as she walks down the street towards a park opposite the FymFyg Bar where The Affordable Vintage Fashion Fair is hosted, Fleur exclaims “I stayed at my boyfriends house last night. He had forgotten to set his alarm clock forward from last weekend and I woke up an hour late. I rushed all the way here and haven’t stopped since. Im so hot and bothered, it was crazy in there.” Lowering herself onto the grass, Fleur crosses her legs and moves her face away from the sun commenting “I’ve such pale skin, I wish I had of brought my sunglasses, it’s such a lovely day. I think this is the first time I have sat in a park this year.”
Dressed in chocolate brown, high waisted sailor trousers with a pale green and white striped shirt, Fleur looks every bit the preened and perfectly turned out model. Her style is sophisticated and modest, complimenting her good posture and manner. Speaking about the fair Fleur comments “these fairs, there brilliant but they don’t usually have the kind of thing I like” she says in reference to the abundance of 70s and 80s vintage garments at the fair. Instead she says that “very late 30s, early 40s cotton sun dresses and suits are my thing, I probably won’t buy anything today”.
Fleur de Guerre, real name Fleur McGuerre is not a fan of her own name “it rhymes in a sort of embarrassing fashion.” Instead she adopted the alias Fleur de Guerre “when I introduced myself to somebody and they misheard me and thought, oh “Fleur of War”, thats a really cool name. So when I started doing pin up modeling I had a ready made name which fitted in well with my 1940s look. Fleur de Guerre is your war time undercover name, it works.”
Although she has now been modeling for a year and a half, Fleur hasn’t always been so stylish. Picking at the grass in front of her she declares “I’d be lying if I said my mother didn’t think the way I dressed when I was in my late teens wasn’t completely awful.” Remembering really baggy jeans, dreadlocks and heavy metal Fleur states “I had two nose piercing, I was just really unfeminine basically.” Even in her younger years Fleur clearly adored all things unusual “I can distinctly remember the things I really loved. I had this really wacky pair of trainers in the late 80s with these sparkly pink laces, I also had this ra-ra skirt that I absolutely loved.” It was during her middle teens that Fleur’s style took on a much more individual approach, when she was 14 she “started getting into the whole alternative thing. I started to customize my jeans, I would cut up the side to put extra fabric in them.” Fleur’s mum still did not approve “she just wished that I’d wear a pair of jeans that fitted me properly. She was fine, to a certain extent she would encourage my individuality, help me out with my hair do’s when I was younger. She really approves of the way I dress now.”
After studying a degree in English Language and Literature at Kingston University, Fleur now works at The Readers Digest as a full time marketing copywriter. The job pays well enough for Fleur to enjoy suitably niche hobbies such as swing dancing to taking drives with her boyfriend in his collection of vintage cars. However it is modeling that fills the majority of Fleur’s spare time, although she insists with animated excitement “it wasn’t something that I ever thought I would do.” Fleur was introduced to the world of modeling through a friend who took her to a shoot for The Boudoir, a company that offers girls the opportunity to be dolled up in full vintage style hair and make up before taking part in a themed photo shoot. The shoot included 11 other girls who acted as examples of what customers could buy into before the company was fully launched, enabling Fleur to sample the world of fashion modeling for free. Not only did the experience give Fleur her first images on which to build a portfolio, it was also a great confidence boost. Recalling the shoot she exclaims “I did it and it was brilliant. I had a really great time, really enjoyed it, really like the photos.”
Other favourite photo shoots of Fleur’s include a shoot with Tony Rizzetti for lingerie brand What Katie Did in which she learned the traditional pin up poses. Jumping into each pose as she retells the experience Fleur explains “he’s funny because he goes “put your leg in front, you know like that, do an “ooh” for me” and he’ll do it too and put you totally at ease. It’s really helped me get more work”.
However as much as she enjoys her hobby, Fleur doesn’t see it turning into a full time career stating “if I could, I would” however not all her modeling experiences have been positive. So far this year the model hasn’t done much work, she explains looking pensive “by the end of last year I’d kind of killed my social life by going out modeling every weekend. I would be too tired to go out after a shoot in the evening. I didn’t have any more outfits, new outfits, because I don’t like wearing the same thing more than twice, once if I can get away with it.”
Mixing her clothing is something that Fleur is quite accustomed to, she explains that while she prefers not to she “will occasionally be found in Primark. I get an attack of guilt when I come out and am like ‘Oh no! Child Labour!.” The Make Do and Mend ethics of the 1940s is something that Fleur would like follow “I wish I would learn to sew so I can perpetrate the whole Make Do and Mend thing myself, but in theory I support it.”
But for now she is concentrating on the present day, her schedule is waiting to be filled up with photo shoots and events. In the mean time she would like to concentrate on her blog “it is going really well, my readership is going up a lot. I wouldn’t say that I’m aiming for a career as a blogger but I’d like to see if it could get a bit more noticed.” She continues “I would like to try and grow and write some more informative articles about vintage”. However Fleur accepts the limitations of her chosen style “it’s very restricting but I’ve found my niche really, my calling.” Tuesday 14th April
ENCOUNTERS AT THE END OF THE WORLD/Q&A
6.20pm, sales
Renoir Cinema,
Holborn,
London, WC1N 1AW
Certificate:
U
Duration:
99 minutes
Exclusive Preview and Q&A of this Oscar-nominated documentary from Werner Herzog on 14 April at Renoir Cinema. We welcome Clive Oppenheimer, the volcanologist featured in the documentary.
The long awaited new documentary from the director of Grizzly Man and Rescue Dawn, this critically acclaimed film was recently nominated for an Oscar. Winner of the best doc at the Edinburgh Film Festival in 2008, this is the story of an outsider who, for the first time ever, is admitted to the Antarctic community of McMurdo station, and into the heart of one of the most remote places on earth.
UK AWARE 09 – Ideas for Greener Living
Date: Friday 17 Apr 2009 to Saturday 18 Apr 2009
?Time: 10am-6pm daily
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre
Hammersmith Road
London
W14 8UX
Description:
The two day exhibition will offer you hundreds of products, services and ideas that will help you lead a more sustainable lifestyle. Everything from the latest in ethical fashion to the fastest and most ingenious eco cars, from travel options to energy solutions will be there for you to discover.
The event will also include a symposium area, Green Screen Cinema, interactive areas, an ethical business start up surgery and over 40 ‘Green Machines’.
UK AWARE 09 promises to help save you money and cut your carbon emissions without compromising your modern lifestyle.
Venue: Olympia Exhibition Centre
Contacts: UK AWARE team
E-mail: info@ukaware.com?Web Address: www.ukaware.com
* Campaigners do it together! How we can make change, one-day Workshop,
Nonviolence for a change
All over the world, people join together to challenge injustice, overcome oppression and make a more just and peaceful society.
Turning the Tide promotes the understanding and use of nonviolence to help such groups become more effective.
Active nonviolence is a way of confronting injustice – not doing nothing, not responding violently, but struggling creatively to transform the situation.
Turning the Tide takes its inspiration and learning from effective nonviolent movements including those of Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King,Dorothy Day, Greenham Women, environmental and economic justice movements, land rights nonviolent activists and many more. We offer workshops, speakers, literature, a journal and advice.
Remember last Tuesday when we all had to come back to real life after a long weekend of sugary indulgences? Well, information pills I had a really busy work day, visit but what relieved me was the fact that I had my name on the list for a great gig later that evening, site and that was The Leisure Society playing at the Scala, which I had spent the entire previous week looking forward to.
Seeing them live was sort of like reading a book and then watching the film adaptation: all the images (well in this case vibrations) I had in mind took seconds to became concrete. An enchanting sound fell on stage and all the countless amount of instruments they make use of guaranteed an impeccable performance.
Their latest album, ‘The Sleeper’, holds a lot of great instrumental techniques and varies in the musical genres. The homonym single has a soft romantic feel with the acoustic guitars playing a sequence of music with accompanying glockenspiels in the background to make the sound really interesting. Singer and multi-instrumentalist Nick Hemming plays the sounds from the ukulele, mandolin, banjo, guitar; accompanying alongside him, the keyboardist Christian Hardy forms the core of the group, with impressive arrangements also featuring strings, flute, pedal steel, glockenspiel, thumb piano, among other instruments. It’s clear that the band all share the same vision for music. The piece is sung in synchronisation throughout, by various voices as it would sound. Taking lead vocals, Hemming’s voice is pleasant to listen to, and is clear he has had influences from bands such as ‘The Kinks’ with his use of tones.
It’s a combination played with soft, gentle sounds; it’s a very English song but has some American influences as well. The violins play smooth melodies over the bouncy rhythm of the guitars, and the gentle beat of drums play in the background. Forget counting sheep, the lyrics are repeated throughout, but as it’s called ‘The Sleeper’ you can just need something repeated over and over again to make you fall asleep.
The entire album is just beautiful and serene. Country and Western influences are clear throughout, you can really visualise an image in your mind of how and where the song would be performed and would be set-out.
Their latest single, ‘A Matter of Time’, is a fantastic and captivating song made up with a number of layering instruments all playing melodic and memorable tunes. Obviously it gets a lot better when played live, so that`s the part where we show you a piece of the gig. Enjoy!
A long time ago, purchase I saw David Goo as a solo artiste for perhaps the fifth time, and wondered “What is you?” I’d never known such a hard-working jobless fella. If i went to a mini-festival, he was there, singing and strumming. An open-mic night, he was hosting it. Every other night I went to, there he was. And always giving it the utmost of his energy, always with the audience in the palm of his hand. His humourous ditties never grew tired or stale. No word ever died on the man’s lips. And it was all from a genuinely off-the wall, wacky headspace. Bizarre ideas floating in a general insanity stew. And still, it always worked, and sounded fresh. Where could all this exuberance be coming from?
And then he started to multiply, and multiply more, much like mogwai. New band members sprang forth, and bopped around a lot, and did whatever David told them to. Bands are, of course, very different territory to the solo gig. Would it work? Can you spread that kind of energy around? Would it not thin? Would the stew not turn to broth? I decided to find out for myself at 93 Feet East last night, while the band still numbers in single figures (Seven, at time of writing).
The magic ingredient in David Goo’s expansion to The David Goo Variety Band is drumkit conductor, Gregory De Carte. Dead sharp and precise, yet also ready to ebb and flow in perfect synchronicity with David’s handiwork. They are one. And crucially, said drummer has just as much energy as his lord and master. Energy he uses to stab gentle verses, birth sudden ska-grooves or reggae-bounces, and push rock-out sections to bursting, explosive climax. The bassist is just as tight with these organic grooves, though less dominant, and leaves himself enough resource to generally dick around and pull faces like the band’s self-appointed goon. Bravo.
Sadly, the sound at 93 was such that most of the time, I could only clearly hear one other band member, Angel De Marco, who is a kind of cross between Bez and the rap guy from Linkin Park. You’re probably thinking that sounds awful, but I should mention a tricky subject for the DGVB: genre.
There’s only one musician I’d feel at ease comparing David Goo to, and that is Frank Zappa. Does humour belong in music? asks Zappa. And Goo replies by singing of the lovelife of a black marketeer who specializes in body parts. And by prophesying that a maggot will become the biggest star in the world. I reckon we can take that as a loud “yes, humour does belong in music”.
Genre-wise, then, let’s start with Comedy, then mention Mr.Goo’s slight flamenco touch, the overall folk flavour, the circussy diversions, the high speed vocals with hip-hop back-up, the yodelly melodies, and the strangely metal feel that often accrues, and the party-party feel that comes from the gang-chants. (pause for breath) Then there’s the upper strata of the band, poking through occasionally. A cellist who provides a klezmer relief in the anthemic Keep On Wishing, hunching over his Yiddish melodies with plenty chutzpah. A pale skinny waif-boy gives it some beginners’ jazz on the sax, then turns to a synth for spots of happy hardcore kids’ TV themes. And they have enlisted the help of Miss Jo Williams (genius in her own right with her rather more earnest songs), here providing a sweet, airy backing vocal, as well as some kitsch dance moves.
So it often comes across as parody music, but really I think that’s just a side effect of Goo’s willingness to sound like woteva for a few bars until he gets bored and decides to sound like woteva else. He just throws it around with an it’s-only-music attitude, and three minutes later, you’ve been to hell, Catalonia, The Wailing Wall, Compton, Shoreditch and back.
And that’s why the audience submits. He tells them they should dance, and they realise that they should, and then they get wild, and silly, and it looks a bit like the hokey-cokey for a second. When I arrived, these people were cool. They are now reduced to Stimpy-mode. Idiotic rapture through obedience. In another world, trust me, David Goo is a cult leader, with thousands of devotees happily sacrificing their daughters and taking part in bloody ceremonies. Luckily, in this world, he has chosen to lead his disciples to the Temple of Rock, and London is much better off for it.
Where Goo fundamentally differs from Zappa is the accessibility. Obviously, nobody is exactly identifying with his lyrical protagonists, but these ludicrous fables are presented with such musical gusto and spirit of fun that you can’t avoid infection. While Zappa left many confused faces in his wake, Goo leaves a trail of happy-clapping converts, grinning like Hare Krishna geeks on MDMA and Jelly Babies.
Obviously, I’m going to have to see them again. For one thing, I shall need to review the twelve band members they will probably have by Autumn. But also because it’s such a lush hit of sheer enjoyment, and there is much cause to expect the throng to swell. Talk of a record deal, recent exposure on the omnipotent Rightmove ad, and a new batch of recordings are raising the alarm, and it’s exciting.
Double exciting because there’s no fear of selling out or growing mould. Goo is the genuine gush that never dries, I’d stake my hair on it, so roll up, check it out and do what the leader says: wig out. It’s only music. It’s only fun.
You can get Goo’d at Dragon’s Ball, The Green Dragon, Croydon on May 6 or Dingwall’s, Camden on June 4.
Have you seen The Age of Stupid Yet? If you say yes, viagra then I’m sure that you will have been in parts blown away and devastated, tadalafil and hopefully, galvanized into action to fight climate change. If you haven’t seen it yet, you will soon have a novel and inspired way of doing so.
In keeping with the way that the film was ‘crowd funded‘ and was debuted at ‘People’s Premieres‘, the way that it will soon be able to be screened will be equally as meritocratic. From the guideline of May 1st (exact date is still to be confirmed), the people behind ‘The Age Of Stupid’ will be launching ‘Indie Screenings“, which concept goes a little like this; you (yes, you) rent a copy of the film in DVD format from the team, and pay a screening fee – which is going to be set on a sliding scale; if you are the head of a huge company in the city (well, you might be!) then you will be paying more than if you want to screen it for a local scout group. Then you print off a license, set up your event, and show a copy of the film to your mates!
The key issue with this concept – and how it sets itself apart from most other films is that the team behind the film have made it free of licensing restrictions; so it can pretty much be shown anywhere. The possibilities are endless; schools could rent copies for assembly screenings, local councils could hold screenings in their offices (especially if they are active in the Low Carbon Communities campaign) or pubs,libraries, university campuses, restaurants and village halls could be rented out. Personally, with the summer months approaching, organising an outdoor screening is something that has prompted me to get my thinking cap on. While you will have to pay the screening fee, you can make the money back from ticket sales if you charge for this. Any money that you make will be yours to keep (but I’m sure that you will be putting it towards your climate change campaign, right?)
If you are interested in organising a screening, all you need to to is send an email over to addtolist@ageofstupid.net, with your details, where you would like to show it, a rough guide of how many people that you would like to show it to, etc. And be creative! You could invite guest speakers along – after I had seen the film I had so many questions, so it was fortunate that I attended a screening which had a Q+A from the producer of ‘The Age Of Stupid’, Lizzie Gillett. Do your homework before you decide to hold a screening – think numbers, technicalities- like how the sound and visual equipment will work in the venue, how you will wish to advertise it to your buddies (that’s when Facebook will come in handy). The film, and the message behind it is too important to be missed, and needs to be shared. And this is the perfect way to share it!
Written by Cari Steel on Tuesday April 14th, 2009 6:20 pm
Last weekend I went to Hampshire for my first experience of Uncivilisation, approved the Dark Mountain gathering of like minded folks interested in discussing our future.
Uncivilisation 2011. All photography by Amelia Gregory.
Dark Mountain is a manifesto put together by Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth, pharmacy who met in that grand new fashioned way – through reading, admiring and commenting on each other’s blogs. This means that the process of getting to know each other has happened alongside the production of two Dark Mountain anthologies and two festivals – all of which has been hard work, both financially and emotionally.
I am interested in the space that Dark Mountain occupies because I have been involved in direct action for change through both Climate Camp and Transition Towns. Climate Camp stops the source of problems whilst creating an alternate vision of a sustainable future. Transition Towns tackles sustainability with local community action. In both there are attempts to talk about the crisis we face and the emotions that this elicits, but Dark Mountain is more explicitly about facing some kind of imminent collapse, facing up to and talking through it on an intellectual level. The Dark Mountain Project is also rooted in Deep Ecology, a recognition that humanity is just one part of the wildness that makes up planet Earth. It touches on the kind of emotional work that Joanna Macy teaches: the Work that Reconnects which gives a voice to our deepest fears.
So it was no surprise to find many familiar faces at the Sustainability Centre when I arrived late on Friday night, though the deep Hampshire darkness prevented me from doing much seeing and socialising. Instead I instinctively felt my way towards the fireside to join Tom Hirons‘ wonderful Baba Yaga storytelling session. It was so lovely to find a group of adults enthralled by stories, and a salient reminder that we need to have our imagination stimulated every bit as much as children do.
On Saturday morning Uncivilisation officially opened with an introduction from co-founders Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth. Paul, ever the more downbeat of the two, presented lost property of an iphone and a penknife. ‘One will be useful after the apocalypse.‘ We then went straight into the major panel discussion: Collapsonomics. This was due to be presented by Paul Mason, but he had to bow out, currently busy covering the actual collapse that we are experiencing right now.
‘Recovering banker‘ Arthur Doohan echoed Nicole Foss of The Automatic Earth, who spoke at the Transition Towns conference last year. She spoke about how we are currently forestalling the collapse – which will make the eventual complete financial collapse even worse when it does arrive. He predicted it to be 9mths away which almost exactly chimes in with Nicole’s prediction of 2 years in June 2010. This is not the first time that we have headed towards collapse – it happened in the last century and it will happen again but unfortunately humans have short memories and each time we must relearn how to react. Arthur reminded us that proper banking should be the servant of the people, and somehow we have allowed this concept to be reversed. By propping up the banks we have poisoned sovereign cash, which, coupled with ongoing denial about our situation, puts us in a precarious state of affairs. We have to learn that ‘banking without bankruptcy is the same as Catholicism without Hell.’
Smari McCarthy spoke about his attempts to deal with the Icelandic collapse. In Iceland if something is considered too fancy or luxurious it is common parlance to say ‘Oh, that’s so 2007.’ He noted how in the early stages of failure the state will offload services to the public, who concurrently have been so stripped of any power that they are unable to manage the infrastructure. Chillingly he predicts that whilst basic services are dropped the state will retain a monopoly on strategies of force. He finished with the chilling words, ‘You’re next.’ We are like Roadrunner, feet spinning wildly in the air before we plunge to the ground.
Eleanor Saitta is a specialist in how complex systems work and fail. She explained the need to fight the current structures that have been built in the name of stability, and of ways to manage the wild swings between despair and hope. Anton Shelupanov is a penal reformer from Russia who is now based in Tottenham and he told us that when the tools of civilisation are no longer fit for purpose then there is a tendency to go into overdrive – as seen in the state reaction to the riots with hyper incarceration. He did a chilling demonstration with bodies (including mine) of how tightly packed prisoners became in the Russian prisons after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This mania happens in all sorts of primary systems when there is a collapse.
It was most intriguing to hear ways in which collapse has affected various countries and systems but the conversation stopped short just as things were about to get interesting. It was a shame that more of the weekend could not have been devoted to this specific subject, for the collapse that may have seemed far away when the programme for Uncivilisation was put together suddenly seems very much in the present, and having heard about the effects of collapsing systems I would have liked more discussion on how we manage a collapse, from all kinds of different aspects.
Over in the beautiful Woodland space it was time to go back to the wild with crofter Sharon Blackie, who spoke eloquently of her new life in the outer Hebrides. Yearning to be in closer contact with nature she left a corporate life to learn how to farm and weave and spin; she believes that stepping out of the system can help to bring it down because if enough people chose a different way of life then the current system will crumble at the edges.
By witnessing, really being, in a different way of life, in a place of wildness, Sharon hopes to show a more authentic way of living. The post talk discussion was particularly interesting, as many city dwellers addressed the importance of a connection with nature in urban spaces. Sharon Blackie also publishes books that inspire change via Two Ravens Press.
The discussion ‘We can no longer afford to ignore the sacred‘ was opened with a very moving introduction by Dougald’s own mother but from then onwards it was unfortunately convoluted and confusing, offering little in the way of concrete opinions or ideas, the format wrong for the subject matter. But it did cause me to ponder on the idea that Western religions do not accord as much power and importance to the act of birth (ie sex) as they do to death. Vinay Gupta questioned why the most creative act of life is hidden and the most destructive one is revered?
Once the sun had set it was time once more to evoke the spaces beyond the intellect. I particularly enjoyed heartfelt acoustic folk music from A.P. Clarke. Liminal by Dougie Strang was staged in the woods with naked creatures, eerily glowing artwork and plenty of trance like chanting. The interactive performance was a highlight for many, confirming the need for physical release after the heady discussions of daytime.
A revival of folk music in recent years has caused many to cast off their former preconceptions of it being a little bit twee. It is still yet to be seen as to whether this new lease of life will have a positive or a negative effect on folk music. Will it change the face of folk forever and cause the genre to lose its defining heritage. Or will the new sides of folk work alongside the older forms, recipeweb increasing it’s following.
Folk musician Barb Jungr is due to speak at the event Photo: Steve Ullathorne
All these points and more are due to be discussed at Who gives a folk?, ailment an event which aims to find out who really does give a folk about folk in the 21st century. Taking part in the discussion will be the legendary singer Barb Jungr, buy the Daily Telegraph music critic Ivan Hewett, Time Out music editor Eddy Lawrence, together with the music journalist Neil Davenport, music student Cara Bleiman, folk enthusiasts Don Eales and Abdul Rehman-Malik in discussion with the Institute of Ideas and Guardian arts
blog’s Shirley Dent.
The event is due to take place at Vibe Live, 91-95 Brick Lane on 29th July between 7 – 9 pm. Be sure to get their early to defend world music in its most British of forms.
Last weekend I went to Hampshire for my first experience of Uncivilisation, approved the Dark Mountain gathering of like minded folks interested in discussing our future.
Uncivilisation 2011. All photography by Amelia Gregory.
Dark Mountain is a manifesto put together by Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth, pharmacy who met in that grand new fashioned way – through reading, admiring and commenting on each other’s blogs. This means that the process of getting to know each other has happened alongside the production of two Dark Mountain anthologies and two festivals – all of which has been hard work, both financially and emotionally.
I am interested in the space that Dark Mountain occupies because I have been involved in direct action for change through both Climate Camp and Transition Towns. Climate Camp stops the source of problems whilst creating an alternate vision of a sustainable future. Transition Towns tackles sustainability with local community action. In both there are attempts to talk about the crisis we face and the emotions that this elicits, but Dark Mountain is more explicitly about facing some kind of imminent collapse, facing up to and talking through it on an intellectual level. The Dark Mountain Project is also rooted in Deep Ecology, a recognition that humanity is just one part of the wildness that makes up planet Earth. It touches on the kind of emotional work that Joanna Macy teaches: the Work that Reconnects which gives a voice to our deepest fears.
So it was no surprise to find many familiar faces at the Sustainability Centre when I arrived late on Friday night, though the deep Hampshire darkness prevented me from doing much seeing and socialising. Instead I instinctively felt my way towards the fireside to join Tom Hirons‘ wonderful Baba Yaga storytelling session. It was so lovely to find a group of adults enthralled by stories, and a salient reminder that we need to have our imagination stimulated every bit as much as children do.
On Saturday morning Uncivilisation officially opened with an introduction from co-founders Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth. Paul, ever the more downbeat of the two, presented lost property of an iphone and a penknife. ‘One will be useful after the apocalypse.‘ We then went straight into the major panel discussion: Collapsonomics. This was due to be presented by Paul Mason, but he had to bow out, currently busy covering the actual collapse that we are experiencing right now.
‘Recovering banker‘ Arthur Doohan echoed Nicole Foss of The Automatic Earth, who spoke at the Transition Towns conference last year. She spoke about how we are currently forestalling the collapse – which will make the eventual complete financial collapse even worse when it does arrive. He predicted it to be 9mths away which almost exactly chimes in with Nicole’s prediction of 2 years in June 2010. This is not the first time that we have headed towards collapse – it happened in the last century and it will happen again but unfortunately humans have short memories and each time we must relearn how to react. Arthur reminded us that proper banking should be the servant of the people, and somehow we have allowed this concept to be reversed. By propping up the banks we have poisoned sovereign cash, which, coupled with ongoing denial about our situation, puts us in a precarious state of affairs. We have to learn that ‘banking without bankruptcy is the same as Catholicism without Hell.’
Smari McCarthy spoke about his attempts to deal with the Icelandic collapse. In Iceland if something is considered too fancy or luxurious it is common parlance to say ‘Oh, that’s so 2007.’ He noted how in the early stages of failure the state will offload services to the public, who concurrently have been so stripped of any power that they are unable to manage the infrastructure. Chillingly he predicts that whilst basic services are dropped the state will retain a monopoly on strategies of force. He finished with the chilling words, ‘You’re next.’ We are like Roadrunner, feet spinning wildly in the air before we plunge to the ground.
Eleanor Saitta is a specialist in how complex systems work and fail. She explained the need to fight the current structures that have been built in the name of stability, and of ways to manage the wild swings between despair and hope. Anton Shelupanov is a penal reformer from Russia who is now based in Tottenham and he told us that when the tools of civilisation are no longer fit for purpose then there is a tendency to go into overdrive – as seen in the state reaction to the riots with hyper incarceration. He did a chilling demonstration with bodies (including mine) of how tightly packed prisoners became in the Russian prisons after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This mania happens in all sorts of primary systems when there is a collapse.
It was most intriguing to hear ways in which collapse has affected various countries and systems but the conversation stopped short just as things were about to get interesting. It was a shame that more of the weekend could not have been devoted to this specific subject, for the collapse that may have seemed far away when the programme for Uncivilisation was put together suddenly seems very much in the present, and having heard about the effects of collapsing systems I would have liked more discussion on how we manage a collapse, from all kinds of different aspects.
Over in the beautiful Woodland space it was time to go back to the wild with crofter Sharon Blackie, who spoke eloquently of her new life in the outer Hebrides. Yearning to be in closer contact with nature she left a corporate life to learn how to farm and weave and spin; she believes that stepping out of the system can help to bring it down because if enough people chose a different way of life then the current system will crumble at the edges.
By witnessing, really being, in a different way of life, in a place of wildness, Sharon hopes to show a more authentic way of living. The post talk discussion was particularly interesting, as many city dwellers addressed the importance of a connection with nature in urban spaces. Sharon Blackie also publishes books that inspire change via Two Ravens Press.
The discussion ‘We can no longer afford to ignore the sacred‘ was opened with a very moving introduction by Dougald’s own mother but from then onwards it was unfortunately convoluted and confusing, offering little in the way of concrete opinions or ideas, the format wrong for the subject matter. But it did cause me to ponder on the idea that Western religions do not accord as much power and importance to the act of birth (ie sex) as they do to death. Vinay Gupta questioned why the most creative act of life is hidden and the most destructive one is revered?
Once the sun had set it was time once more to evoke the spaces beyond the intellect. I particularly enjoyed heartfelt acoustic folk music from A.P. Clarke. Liminal by Dougie Strang was staged in the woods with naked creatures, eerily glowing artwork and plenty of trance like chanting. The interactive performance was a highlight for many, confirming the need for physical release after the heady discussions of daytime.
An eclectic mix of art work by a group of like minded people exploring expressionism through art.
Peckham Square, tadalafilpage 28th of March 2- 6pm
In the Pines
Jack Strange Limoncello 2 Hoxton St London, rx opening 27th of March 6.30 – 8.30pm, case exhibition: 26th – 28th of March 11am – 6pm and by appointment until 2nd May 2009.
Order and Disorder
Wilhelmina Barns-Graham
A look at a very unique collection of paintings and prints, several have never been publicly exhibited before. Art first in Cork street, 24th March – 23rd April
One or Several Wolves
Priya Chohan, Coral Churchill, Annelie Fawke, Kwang-Sung Hong, Heidi Locher and Anne E Wilson.
A group of artists look at conceptual motivations within Art, using a variety of media each artist explores the relationship between concept, material and final work created. Kingsgate Gallery, 20th March – 5th April Free
Bandits present
New installation work from Glaswegian artists littlewhitehead. The Bun House Bandits, 96 Peckham High Street London. Preview: 15th March 2009, 4pm. Exhibition: 16th March 2009 – 29 March 2009, 11am–11pm
Being and nothing-ness
Youngmi Kim, Kiwoun Shin and Seunghyun Woo
Three Korean artists explore the notion of “being” through various multi media methods, the exhibition includes paintings, videos and sculptures. Nolias Gallery, 60 Great Suffolk St SE1. Private view: 26thMarch at 6pm- 9pm, exhibition: 27th March- 7TH April 200 10:30Am-6pm,
We are his body
installation art work inspired by the artist’s exploration of the cross in today’s society.
Viewing at Christ Church URC 663 Barking rd Plaistow E13 9EX, 25th March 6pm
Kate Marshall: Live Painting.
This dextrous figurative painter will be doing a live drawing and painting gig at Movida, Argyll Street on April 2nd. Arrive at 9.30pm, you might get a free drinky. She’ll be starting work at 10pm. Check out the event on facebook.
I just woke up from the best nightmare I ever had, store at least I think it was a nightmare. I mean, side effects I’ve heard of mutton dressed as lamb and a wolf in sheep’s clothing, health but last night I saw a couple of ladies, dressed as a wolf and a sheep respectively, among other things.
But what was this, what had I stepped into? Well I found the best person to ask, Annie Oldfield. A lovely young lady from Leeds, dressed as a wolf! I thought it would be fun to create a one-off themed party where you can listen to music all night that`s in some way related to animals: Animal Collective (Panda Bear), Deerhunter, Modest Mouse (the list is endless), eat crackers and, of course, what themed party is complete without fancy dresses. Shark, tiger, zebra, duck, crab, swan, cat (there were lots of cats) all had turned out.
After Annie along with friend Bonnie Wan came up with the idea they went to
DJ/Promoter friend Dave Bassinder (Underachievers) and Filthy animals! was born.
Not one for getting down on the dance floor, that was no problem here, you could keep yourself occupied by making animal balloons or watching films played on a big screen, obviously starring our fantastic furry friends. Or grab a piece of paper and give origami a go, make some sort of flapping pterodactyl. Of course the term filthy suggests more than balloon modeling so a few cheap drinks and many tunes later and the dance floor got the attention it deserved, well you spend all day making a costume you gotta show it off, right?
It`s a real shame it had to end as there are no plans for further repercussions. If you read this Underachievers “BRING BACK THE ANIMALS and KEEP EM FILTHY”!
I have something to admit, viagra sale I am a warehouse party virgin. By warehouse parties I mean not-really legal parties, treat which announce their locations via facebook messages about five minute before they start and you quickly have to get yourself to some remote north London spot in Zone 4. For me there is nothing fun about the obvious issue of trekking all the way out there just for the police to shut it down at twelve. Or 11.30 PM on New Years Eve, rx which is what happened to one of my friends!
After one of our writers posted about their last exhibition I decided i couldn’t miss the LuckyPDF warehouse party, even better it was all above board and legal. There were rather fancy gold flyers promoting the event and they even hired their own bouncers, who were at the door all night checking ID. While this might take some of the thrill away for regular warehouse party goers I rather enjoyed being somewhere with plumbing and electricity. My favourite part was not having to trail across London to a Saw-esk industrial park, because the event was just off Peckham high street. As the LuckyPDF people boldly proclaimed before the event, “The people of South London shalt need to travel to East London any longer for their Huge Party needs.”
I arrived at eleven and the queue to get in was absolutely insane, luckly i’d sent a RSVP email, but I still had to wait a good fifteen minutes to get into the rooms even once I was through the main gate. This was no thrown together event, they had obviously put a lot of effort into sound and lighting, which was refreshing and very welcome. As I entered the bottom room floor I was immediately hit with throbbing lights and heavy bass. There were hoards of people, I couldn’t even begin to count how many attended the event, but nothing was too serious. I think something about the fact it was in a warehouse just made the whole event more relaxed, there was a lot less people there just to smoke and be seen than there were people just wanting to have fun. No “this is the dance floor, this is the bar” locations usually explicit in gig venues meant people were just doing what they wanted where they wanted.
The LuckyPDF warehouse party aimed to be “a rampant music/art extravaganza that will continue til the early morn..” The music was definitely there with the order of the day being, “Bass, Bass, Garage, Electro, Bass, Drum n Bass, Swing, Tango, Nintendocore and Bass”. There were Dj sets from 10 PM – 4AM from South London party circuit favourites, XXX, My Panda Shall Fly and Tomb Crew, plus many, many more. These Dj’s were well selected and well received (apart from whoever kept cutting tracks short in the top room!) effortlessly mixing cutting edge bass tracks with forgotten classics.
However, I was completely perplexed about the other bit, you know the art. Unless really, really small (microscopic) art has come in fashion since the last exhibition I went to I would swear that there wasn’t any. It could have been hidden by the hoards of people there, but still if you’re going to advertise art it would be helpful if people could see it. Previously this would have annoyed me, but I feel i’m just starting to get the point of collectives such as LuckyPDF and it’s peers. Although these guys are artists, they’re not together to try and promote a certain type of art or medium over any other. With the exception perhaps being Off Modern who have a whole Off Modern manifesto on their website. As far as I know there is no particular theme or common interests in the work of the organisers of these events and if there were it would be purely incidental. It’s more a case of getting people excited about South London. Which something that hasn’t happened since (dare i say it) the YBA’s, and they all rushed off to live in the East End or houses in the country as soon as they could anyway.
I will forgive the LuckyPDF guys just this once having an event light of the art and heavy on the music (which draws people in and allows them to charge entry fee), because they have stated that they’re a not for profit organisation, and I hope the money they made will be going into more exhibitions. And when they do I’ll be there, pen in hand, because I can’t wait to see what they’re going to do next. Photography by Ted Williams
Monday 23th
The Rakes release their third album, symptoms KLANG, buy information pills today and to celebrate the band will play a special gig at London’s Rough Trade East at 6pm tonight.
The follow up to ‘Ten New Messages’ is pure and the best of The Rakes as you can check out on lead track ‘1989‘.
Wristband collection 1 hour prior to gig, first-come-first-served basis-one per person.
The Rakes
Tuesday 24th
It`s crunch time at The Social and the venue welcomes Kid Carpet to promote his new single, followed by Moonfish Rhumba with their electro beats and peculiar lyrics.
If great music is not enough to take your mind of recession, this month the venue provides the Crunch Time Rant where you can take your anger to the stage, step on to a soapbox and speak out your thoughts.
Doors 6pm, 99p.
Moonfish Rhumba
Wednesday 25th
Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen receives Joseph Mount, aka Metronomy and DJs, including the opulent pop of Your Twenties (whose harmonious frontman is Metronomy’s former bassist).
8pm, £7, adv £6.
The three new yorkers forming The Virgins land in town for some dance rock at Koko London.
9:30pm, £7, £5 before 11pm, concs £4.
The Virgins
Saturday 28th
Up for some healthy girlie pop? Betty and the Werewolves bring their female fronted indie-ditty-pop vocals (they do count with one boy on the drums!) to Bardens Boudoir next Saturday.
8pm, £6.
Betty and the Werewolves
Sunday 29th
Close (or begin?) your week with the Society of New Music – an avant garde event featuring Wet Dog live at The Social.
7pm, £2.
Wet Dog
To all you vintage addicts I bring you salvation!
On April the 4th a vintage bonanza will be hitting the streets of Bethnal Green to bombard you with their scandalously cheap vintage, viagra 40mg so prepare yourself Shoreditch! I understand if you are dubious, case “what makes it unique in comparison to the endless array of oversaturated vintage fairs and markets in London” I hear you say? Well, the differentiation is that at this event you won’t be leaving empty handed if you left the house with a mere twenty pounds. This is vintage on an extremely tight shoestring, for any savvy shopper the affordable vintage fair is akin to the sensation of being a child in a sweet shop again!
Heralded as the largest vintage fair in north England, the organizers have delved the nation with their noble quest for affordable vintage, leaving no stone unturned. Our loyal travellers have unearthed hidden gems and want to bring you the fruits of their labour! So cast aside the idle and banal window shopper, let your hair down and embrace your style hungry primordial urges. The fair is an emporium of vintage wonderment; there are style advisors, a customisation and alternations area, swapping area as well as bundles of vintage clothes and furniture.
But the most exciting element of the fair has to be the pay by kilo vintage stall. This really is vintage paradise; trawl to your heart’s content safe in the knowledge it’s not going to cost you much more then your weekly grocery shop. The phenomena is commonplace with our European counterparts, but kilo shopping will be making its debut here in the UK. So get trawling and scout some hidden gems, this might just be your chance to revive your wardrobe from the brink of darkness and inject a whole new burst of life. What other chances would you get to weigh out your clothes, just like you would weigh out your sugar?
They have catered for your every whim feeding your ears and taste buds with a nostalgic trip down memory lane. With music spanning the decades from the bohemian 60s to the energetic 80s, not forgetting a whole host of cake stalls and beverages to whet your appetite.
So don’t miss out, get down there 11am pronto on the 4th of April, I for one will be installing my vintage bargain radar and heading down myself!
Everyday at the office here, treatment while we`re writing our articles and drinking our teas, we try to go through the many cd`s we receive daily and now and then there`s one that catches everybody`s attention, making everyone in the room ask “who`s this”?
That`s exactly what happened when Cari put on the single from up and coming group My Tiger My Timing. In less than 30 seconds heads were bopping and legs were shaking unanimously. This Is Not The Fire is so catchy that I`ve been listening to it non stop since Tuesday.
They play a delightful, totally danceable afro beat, electro-pop and still they compare themselves with bands like Metronomy and Casio Kids. While most of the groups desperately run away from extreme pop and commercial tracks, MTMT does exactly the opposite, recognizing their will for creating easy listening and fluid beats.
The foursome was formed in 2008 in south east London and their debut single was produced by Andy Spence of New Young Pony Club and will be released April 6th 2009 downloadable through Silver Music Machine.
Tuesday I had the chance to see them live at Cargo and I`m definitely looking forward to the entire album, it was quite an electrifying performance. Here`s a little video of the last song:
Yesterday, buy a few of the Amelia’s Magazine girls went along to witness the G20 protests in the City of London. The day had dawned to brilliant sunshine, and clear blue skies, which meant that the sight and sound of the police helicopters hovering overhead was even more pronounced. The events which were due to unfold promised to be extraordinary, and I was keen to see what was going to happen. It was hard to know what to expect, but here was the run down. Four different carnival parades, were to converge around the Bank Of England, and protest the current economic and environmental climate. We were guided there by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, leading the processions from four rail stations. We were setting off from Liverpool Street, led by the Green Horse – representing climate chaos. Walking from Brick Lane to the station, I was struck at how different the city seemed. Spitalfields Market, and all the restaurants around it were closed. There were not many city workers around, but those who were out and about were dressed down. I didn’t see a single suit around me.
The Barbican towards The Bank of England. It was enjoyable to be part of such a good natured crowd and it was fun to watch all the shop owners standing outside their establishments, watching with fascination at the colourful carnival proceeding past them.
As we walked towards Bank we passed Northern Rock. Some clever jokers had hung a sign inside their office entitled ‘We Love Money”. As I went to take a picture they hastily pulled the sign down. I could only marvel at the thoughtlessness of that statement, wasn’t it hundreds of thousands of pensioners money that they had lost – was that the money in question that they loved so much? After a brief stop, we marched into the space around The Bank Of England. I was shocked by the amount of people who were here. Estimates at 4,000 are not an exaggeration. The place was packed. Having only ever seen this section in London as a thoroughfare for busy, frantic city workers, and crammed to the gills with buses, it was surreal to see it filled with so many protesters. No cars, just people.
After about 45 minutes, we were ready to head back to the office. I went to walk past a row of police and quickly found that I couldn’t get through. Not quite understanding the situation I was unconcerned, thinking that they were guarding just one exit. Knowing there were plenty more exits around Bank station we wandered back to the road that we had come in on. Again, we were met with a throng of police. They stood arms locked. Still assuming that this was something that would be resolved soon, we sat down and scrounged some crisps off a girl sat next to us. (Not expecting to be there for long, we didn’t take any food, and not much water.)
Then some of the police vans next to us started to move through the police and drive away. We thought that this was our cue to leave as well, and strode towards the police. They immediately closed ranks. It was at this moment that I took in the situation. They had cordoned us all in; we had unwittingly become kettled. (This word now chills me to the bone). No one was going anywhere without their say so. the crowds started to fill up and began asking questions. As I was nearest the front I asked how long this situation would last for. “Don’t know” came the response. Many people started asking why this was happening, but the police would not respond. Our crowd was large, and there was not an ‘anarchist’ in sight. Many tried to squeeze towards the police and told them that this was violating their human rights, and was against the law. Again, no response.
We were soon packed so tightly that it was like being at the front of a gig, but instead of watching a band, we were staring into the hard faces of men who refused to talk to us, and would sooner beat and arrest us then let us get past them. At this point the crowd surged and we fell into each other. The police shouted at us “Get back!” a woman shouted “Where to?!” We were trapped in a scrum, and the police were pushing us back while we were being pushed forward. I saw riot police walk towards us and I felt a surge of panic. We had been trapped by the police and there was nothing that we could do. I pleaded with the officer in front of me to let us go (I can now see how futile that was). I said that we were scared, and asked if a riot were to kick off, who are they going to protect? “I can’t answer that” was the response. Women started shouting that they had children from school to pick up, jobs to get to. The most common cry to the police was “Why won’t you speak to us?” I got so fed up from this feeling of powerlessness that I phoned the news desk at BBC News. I shared my feelings of worry to the reporter on the other end of the phone; and told her the scenario. I relayed what the officers had told one girl to do who said that she needed the toilet – “you can go in the street”; what they told one boy who said that he wasn’t even part of the protest – “You are now”. The BBC reporter told us that this situation was happening at every exit of the march. She said, “You are all being tarred with the same anarchist brush, this is their tactic”.
Around an hour later, still in the same position, a man passed out in front of me. He had been standing quietly, not trying to defy the police, and his only movement for the two hours that we were held was to quietly read a peace of paper that he had in his hands. I had looked at it at one point and could see that it was a Psalm. Thankfully, the officers took him away and led him to an ambulance. Just as I started to feel that it was going to be an all night cordon, my friends phone rang. A friend of hers told her that they had just opened one of the exits round the corner and we bolted for it. Walking to the tube, we were jumping up and down with exhilaration. We began receiving updates that the RBS building was being stormed, and that the police were beating protesters. What had started off as a peaceful and well meaning protest was quickly turning into something much darker, but who was at fault? If you asked anyone in the 4,000 strong crowd they would have no trouble telling you. The police’s tactic of kettling us, purposely providing us with no information and locking us in for two and half hours was easily going to generate the mayhem that they had predicted. Nonetheless, I am so pleased that I attended. It was always going to be an interesting day, I just wish that the peaceful protesters would have been treated better and not denied their basic human rights.
Written by Cari Steel on Thursday April 2nd, 2009 5:43 pm
On Sunday at Uncivilisation the main marquee was packed out for a discussion around where next for Dark Mountain, cheap both the festival and the movement. Dark Mountain was started by two writers as a literary endeavour and as it attracts many interested newcomers from different fields it is inevitably straining at the seams. Thus it was good that this conversation was held in the round, buy allowing many voices to be heard equally, contributing constructive and helpful suggestions.
Uncivilisation 2011. All photography by Amelia Gregory.
Founders Dougald Hine and Paul Kingsnorth are happy to admit that they are two very fraught men, trying incredibly hard to maintain their core philosophies whilst struggling with the infrastructure and admin of Dark Mountain. ‘Basically we are two guys going broke and mad… with a few volunteers.’ Now they need to decide just how much they are willing to let go in order to allow Dark Mountain the space it needs to grow.
Between festival goers there is conflict between how that should happen: it was clear that many would like to see more of a concrete movement for change, whilst others relish the looseness of a gathering that allows for new conversations and stories that may not find space elsewhere. For my part I think that any future Uncivilisation should allow for the exploration of emotional and physical ideas that may be nebulous to the intellect: giving a space for new ways of thinking to flourish.
At this year’s event my friend Zoe Young held a sacred space in her Bright Valleys workshop. Those I met who attended this were very thankful, and I highly recommend that you read Zoe’s thoughts on the Dark Mountain experience in her excellent blog.
I decided to instead attend an unscheduled talk from Simon Fairlie – author of Meat: A Benign Extravagance – on how veganism and the industrial livestock farming system are converging. He envisages a future where to be a vegan is to live as unsustainably and technologically removed from the land as those who eat mass factory farmed food products. I can easily believe it.
I’ve heard Simon speak several times and his writings are always incredibly interesting: George Monbiot and many others listen to him because not only does he exercise his intellect but he also walks the walk: farming the land at Monkton Wyld Court to demonstrate his theories.
I rounded up my time at Uncivilisation with a talk by John Mitchinson, a writer for QI and founder of Unbound, which is a new way to crowd fund books without going through the usual rigmarole of publishing. It was fascinating to hear from someone who used to work in mainstream publishing and intimately knows the problems facing the industry. Of course it was especially interesting to myself, as someone who has self-published and knows just how bloody hard it is to stay afloat.
This unfortunately meant that I missed a talk from Benny Wenda and author Jay Griffiths, who spoke about the struggles of local peoples against corporations in West Papua. It was by all accounts incredibly moving.
We finished Uncivilisation with a farewell folk song before everyone dispersed into the afternoon sunshine. The festival provided a great focal meeting point for like minded people; enabling me to reconnect with old friends and make new acquaintances. It also reminded me that there are many people, all over the world, who are tackling different but related ideas around life beyond collapse. And that we must continue reaching out to include more people from all parts of society in the discussions that we are having.
As Alabaster Crippens says in his blog: ‘Nobody has many answers about what to do next apart from look after yourself, pay attention, listen to stories, tell your stories, and learn how to live with less.’ There is so much more to do but creating understandable narratives is undoubtedly at the heart of what the Dark Mountain movement can contribute. Although I say it with some trepidation I look forward to what the future brings.
The Hexayurt, a cheaply built shelter for use in disaster zones.
lindsey_akamuti_darren fletcher Why did you decide to set up business?
Akamuti grew out of my passion for plants! I’ve always been interested in their role in tree medicine, price herbalism and aromatherapy so it feels very natural to work with all these wonderful ingredients. Akamuti began in 2003 when I was only 20 years old and keen to start my own business. I think that being home schooled from the age of 10 instilled in me a very independent outlook on life and this streak has grown with me! The business started off in a really small way, cialis 40mg mixing up tiny amounts of creams & balms from raw ingredients – always using only the best natural ingredients that we could source. Then I would set off to the local health shops with my little box and try to sell them. It was really exciting to get a positive response and this spurred me on to set up a website so that people could order online. From these humble beginnings the business slowly but surely began to grow. Nowadays the whole family are involved in the business, with five of us working together. Our combined enthusiasm for a holistic way of living, eating and healing keeps our creativity focused, ensuring that our products reflect our ethics.
Why is being part of a family business so satisfying?
Its good to work together because you have people you know that you can rely on in a crisis. We understand each better than anyone else and thankfully we all seem to rub along nicely so we make a good team.
How did you train yourself to make skincare products?
When I was 17 I did a herbal medicine course that taught me how to make balms and macerated oils, which was great fun to do in the kitchen. I loved drying herbs, hanging them from the airer so that they made a mess on the floor. I experimented, researched and got my hands dirty until I found a recipe that I was happy with. I’ve also worked in aromatherapy for many years so I know my ingredients inside out.
How is your organic vegetable garden, and do you grow any of your own ingredients?
I really love gardens and I’ve been trying my best to grow veg for years. This year I managed to coax some lovely potatoes out of the ground as well as salads, tomatoes and a million cucumbers. Sadly, my onions and garlic didn’t even get chance to see the sunshine this year (slugs!) but I plant them every year because it feels wrong not too! We have plenty of space so it’s been a dream of mine to grow our own ingredients for a few years now… I just need to find the time.
I’m hoping to plant a lavender and rose garden at some point so that I can make a small amount of my own rosewater!
Can you describe the set up in Wales?
We work from our workshop in a beautiful valley in south west Wales overlooking the Brechfa Forest. We have a smallholding so it’s not only home to us but a few unruly animals as well. It’s a truly inspirational place to live, with nature literally on the doorstep and natural beauty around every corner. I love the peace and quiet here, it really nourishes the soul.
When you have visitors where do you take them out?
I would take them to our little town of Llandeilo to shop for organic bread and homemade ice cream, then we would visit Carreg Cennen Castle, dramatically perched on a limestone outcrop. I’d make sure we visited the seaside where there are countless coves to choose from, so we might just do them all. And to finish, we would end up in our local pub which has the best beer garden in the world!
What are the benefits of being in Wales, and the pitfalls?
I love the wild side of Wales most. It’s great to nip out the door and within minutes you can be in a forest, a meadow, or on a mountain. I love the trees and fields, the castles, the coastline, the views out to the Brecon Beacons, the stunning drive through the Towy Valley. There is a strong craft community here, we have several community run shops, and there is a lot of great food and farm produce about too. The pitfalls… what pitfalls!?
Been anywhere else lately?
I’ve just got back from southern Snowdonia where I stayed at the foot of Cadair Idris. There is a beautiful lake there which I love. It is very cool and quiet – you could be anywhere in the world. I’ve also recently discovered the New Forest – I particularly like all the animals wandering freely through the villages.
How do you source your fairtrade organic ingredients?
Thankfully the internet makes this very easy. We find new suppliers quite quickly and many come by word of mouth. A lot of the time I stumble across people doing amazing things which I note down for the future!
What is the first thing you do when you want to invent a new product?
I make myself a coffee, find a comfy spot, get my notebook out and start writing. I think of what I want to achieve with the product and what I would like to go in it and then I start putting them together. I also brainstorm with everyone else. A bit like planning a garden, the best part is picking the plants!
What exciting new products are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a flower based perfume at the moment, so I’m playing around with sandalwood, rose, jasmine and a number of other oils to get the best combination. I’ve decided to keep the perfume as an oil, much like the ancient Attar perfumes, which were based on sandalwood oil. I am a big fan of eastern aromatherapy and I like the way the scents make me drift away to the ancient lands of Persia or Anatolia in my mind.
What is your favourite ingredient to work with and why?
I’ve got a few favourites but I’ll try and narrow them down. My first love is definitely Rose Otto oil – it works so well for many physical and emotional problems, as well as smelling beautiful. I also love working with Neroli essential oil because it is so uplifting. If an oil could have the quality of kindness then this is the one!
Why should people buy your products?
Because they are good for the skin and the soul! They are made with 100% natural ingredients from start to finish without any additional rubbish, and we try our best to harness all of the natural goodness of trees, plants and flowers in each product so that our customers get the very best we can make. Our products are people and planet friendly, and they are affordable too.
Akamuti by Jenny Lloyd.
Why did you decide to set up business?
Akamuti grew out of my passion for plants! I’ve always been interested in their role in tree medicine, click herbalism and aromatherapy so it feels very natural to work with all these wonderful ingredients. Akamuti began in 2003 when I was only 20 years old and keen to start my own business. I think that being home schooled from the age of 10 instilled in me a very independent outlook on life and this streak has grown with me! The business started off in a really small way, doctor mixing up tiny amounts of creams & balms from raw ingredients – always using only the best natural ingredients that we could source. Then I would set off to the local health shops with my little box and try to sell them. It was really exciting to get a positive response and this spurred me on to set up a website so that people could order online. From these humble beginnings the business slowly but surely began to grow. Nowadays the whole family are involved in the business, health with five of us working together. Our combined enthusiasm for a holistic way of living, eating and healing keeps our creativity focused, ensuring that our products reflect our ethics.
Why is being part of a family business so satisfying?
Its good to work together because you have people you know that you can rely on in a crisis. We understand each better than anyone else and thankfully we all seem to rub along nicely so we make a good team.
Akamuti skincare by Karina Yarv.
How did you train yourself to make skincare products?
When I was 17 I did a herbal medicine course that taught me how to make balms and macerated oils, which was great fun to do in the kitchen. I loved drying herbs, hanging them from the airer so that they made a mess on the floor. I experimented, researched and got my hands dirty until I found a recipe that I was happy with. I’ve also worked in aromatherapy for many years so I know my ingredients inside out.
How is your organic vegetable garden, and do you grow any of your own ingredients?
I really love gardens and I’ve been trying my best to grow veg for years. This year I managed to coax some lovely potatoes out of the ground as well as salads, tomatoes and a million cucumbers. Sadly, my onions and garlic didn’t even get chance to see the sunshine this year (slugs!) but I plant them every year because it feels wrong not too! We have plenty of space so it’s been a dream of mine to grow our own ingredients for a few years now… I just need to find the time.
I’m hoping to plant a lavender and rose garden at some point so that I can make a small amount of my own rosewater!
Can you describe the set up in Wales?
We work from our workshop in a beautiful valley in south west Wales overlooking the Brechfa Forest. We have a smallholding so it’s not only home to us but a few unruly animals as well. It’s a truly inspirational place to live, with nature literally on the doorstep and natural beauty around every corner. I love the peace and quiet here, it really nourishes the soul.
Akamuti by Nina Hunter.
When you have visitors where do you take them out?
I would take them to our little town of Llandeilo to shop for organic bread and homemade ice cream, then we would visit Carreg Cennen Castle, dramatically perched on a limestone outcrop. I’d make sure we visited the seaside where there are countless coves to choose from, so we might just do them all. And to finish, we would end up in our local pub which has the best beer garden in the world!
What are the benefits of being in Wales, and the pitfalls?
I love the wild side of Wales most. It’s great to nip out the door and within minutes you can be in a forest, a meadow, or on a mountain. I love the trees and fields, the castles, the coastline, the views out to the Brecon Beacons, the stunning drive through the Towy Valley. There is a strong craft community here, we have several community run shops, and there is a lot of great food and farm produce about too. The pitfalls… what pitfalls!?
Lindsey by Darren Fletcher.
Been anywhere else lately?
I’ve just got back from southern Snowdonia where I stayed at the foot of Cadair Idris. There is a beautiful lake there which I love. It is very cool and quiet – you could be anywhere in the world. I’ve also recently discovered the New Forest – I particularly like all the animals wandering freely through the villages.
How do you source your fairtrade organic ingredients?
Thankfully the internet makes this very easy. We find new suppliers quite quickly and many come by word of mouth. A lot of the time I stumble across people doing amazing things which I note down for the future!
What is the first thing you do when you want to invent a new product?
I make myself a coffee, find a comfy spot, get my notebook out and start writing. I think of what I want to achieve with the product and what I would like to go in it and then I start putting them together. I also brainstorm with everyone else. A bit like planning a garden, the best part is picking the plants!
What exciting new products are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a flower based perfume at the moment, so I’m playing around with sandalwood, rose, jasmine and a number of other oils to get the best combination. I’ve decided to keep the perfume as an oil, much like the ancient Attar perfumes, which were based on sandalwood oil. I am a big fan of eastern aromatherapy and I like the way the scents make me drift away to the ancient lands of Persia or Anatolia in my mind.
What is your favourite ingredient to work with and why?
I’ve got a few favourites but I’ll try and narrow them down. My first love is definitely Rose Otto oil – it works so well for many physical and emotional problems, as well as smelling beautiful. I also love working with Neroli essential oil because it is so uplifting. If an oil could have the quality of kindness then this is the one!
Why should people buy your products?
Because they are good for the skin and the soul! They are made with 100% natural ingredients from start to finish without any additional rubbish, and we try our best to harness all of the natural goodness of trees, plants and flowers in each product so that our customers get the very best we can make. Our products are people and planet friendly, and they are affordable too.
Akamuti by Jenny Lloyd.
Why did you decide to set up business?
Akamuti grew out of my passion for plants! I’ve always been interested in their role in tree medicine, and herbalism and aromatherapy so it feels very natural to work with all these wonderful ingredients. Akamuti began in 2003 when I was only 20 years old and keen to start my own business. I think that being home schooled from the age of 10 instilled in me a very independent outlook on life and this streak has grown with me! The business started off in a really small way, mixing up tiny amounts of creams & balms from raw ingredients – always using only the best natural ingredients that we could source. Then I would set off to the local health shops with my little box and try to sell them. It was really exciting to get a positive response and this spurred me on to set up a website so that people could order online. From these humble beginnings the business slowly but surely began to grow. Nowadays the whole family are involved in the business, with five of us working together. Our combined enthusiasm for a holistic way of living, eating and healing keeps our creativity focused, ensuring that our products reflect our ethics.
Why is being part of a family business so satisfying?
Its good to work together because you have people you know that you can rely on in a crisis. We understand each better than anyone else and thankfully we all seem to rub along nicely so we make a good team.
Akamuti skincare by Karina Yarv.
How did you train yourself to make skincare products?
When I was 17 I did a herbal medicine course that taught me how to make balms and macerated oils, which was great fun to do in the kitchen. I loved drying herbs, hanging them from the airer so that they made a mess on the floor. I experimented, researched and got my hands dirty until I found a recipe that I was happy with. I’ve also worked in aromatherapy for many years so I know my ingredients inside out.
How is your organic vegetable garden, and do you grow any of your own ingredients?
I really love gardens and I’ve been trying my best to grow veg for years. This year I managed to coax some lovely potatoes out of the ground as well as salads, tomatoes and a million cucumbers. Sadly, my onions and garlic didn’t even get chance to see the sunshine this year (slugs!) but I plant them every year because it feels wrong not too! We have plenty of space so it’s been a dream of mine to grow our own ingredients for a few years now… I just need to find the time.
I’m hoping to plant a lavender and rose garden at some point so that I can make a small amount of my own rosewater!
Can you describe the set up in Wales?
We work from our workshop in a beautiful valley in south west Wales overlooking the Brechfa Forest. We have a smallholding so it’s not only home to us but a few unruly animals as well. It’s a truly inspirational place to live, with nature literally on the doorstep and natural beauty around every corner. I love the peace and quiet here, it really nourishes the soul.
Akamuti by Nina Hunter.
When you have visitors where do you take them out?
I would take them to our little town of Llandeilo to shop for organic bread and homemade ice cream, then we would visit Carreg Cennen Castle, dramatically perched on a limestone outcrop. I’d make sure we visited the seaside where there are countless coves to choose from, so we might just do them all. And to finish, we would end up in our local pub which has the best beer garden in the world!
What are the benefits of being in Wales, and the pitfalls?
I love the wild side of Wales most. It’s great to nip out the door and within minutes you can be in a forest, a meadow, or on a mountain. I love the trees and fields, the castles, the coastline, the views out to the Brecon Beacons, the stunning drive through the Towy Valley. There is a strong craft community here, we have several community run shops, and there is a lot of great food and farm produce about too. The pitfalls… what pitfalls!?
Lindsey by Darren Fletcher.
Been anywhere else lately?
I’ve just got back from southern Snowdonia where I stayed at the foot of Cadair Idris. There is a beautiful lake there which I love. It is very cool and quiet – you could be anywhere in the world. I’ve also recently discovered the New Forest – I particularly like all the animals wandering freely through the villages.
How do you source your fairtrade organic ingredients?
Thankfully the internet makes this very easy. We find new suppliers quite quickly and many come by word of mouth. A lot of the time I stumble across people doing amazing things which I note down for the future!
What is the first thing you do when you want to invent a new product?
I make myself a coffee, find a comfy spot, get my notebook out and start writing. I think of what I want to achieve with the product and what I would like to go in it and then I start putting them together. I also brainstorm with everyone else. A bit like planning a garden, the best part is picking the plants!
What exciting new products are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a flower based perfume at the moment, so I’m playing around with sandalwood, rose, jasmine and a number of other oils to get the best combination. I’ve decided to keep the perfume as an oil, much like the ancient Attar perfumes, which were based on sandalwood oil. I am a big fan of eastern aromatherapy and I like the way the scents make me drift away to the ancient lands of Persia or Anatolia in my mind.
What is your favourite ingredient to work with and why?
I’ve got a few favourites but I’ll try and narrow them down. My first love is definitely Rose Otto oil – it works so well for many physical and emotional problems, as well as smelling beautiful. I also love working with Neroli essential oil because it is so uplifting. If an oil could have the quality of kindness then this is the one!
Why should people buy your products?
Because they are good for the skin and the soul! They are made with 100% natural ingredients from start to finish without any additional rubbish, and we try our best to harness all of the natural goodness of trees, plants and flowers in each product so that our customers get the very best we can make. Our products are people and planet friendly, and they are affordable too.
Akamuti by Jenny Lloyd.
Why did you decide to set up business?
Akamuti grew out of my passion for plants! I’ve always been interested in their role in tree medicine, prescription herbalism and aromatherapy so it feels very natural to work with all these wonderful ingredients. Akamuti began in 2003 when I was only 20 years old and keen to start my own business. I think that being home schooled from the age of 10 instilled in me a very independent outlook on life and this streak has grown with me! The business started off in a really small way, mixing up tiny amounts of creams & balms from raw ingredients – always using only the best natural ingredients that we could source. Then I would set off to the local health shops with my little box and try to sell them. It was really exciting to get a positive response and this spurred me on to set up a website so that people could order online. From these humble beginnings the business slowly but surely began to grow. Nowadays the whole family are involved in the business, with five of us working together. Our combined enthusiasm for a holistic way of living, eating and healing keeps our creativity focused, ensuring that our products reflect our ethics.
Why is being part of a family business so satisfying?
Its good to work together because you have people you know that you can rely on in a crisis. We understand each better than anyone else and thankfully we all seem to rub along nicely so we make a good team.
Akamuti skincare by Karina Yarv.
How did you train yourself to make skincare products?
When I was 17 I did a herbal medicine course that taught me how to make balms and macerated oils, which was great fun to do in the kitchen. I loved drying herbs, hanging them from the airer so that they made a mess on the floor. I experimented, researched and got my hands dirty until I found a recipe that I was happy with. I’ve also worked in aromatherapy for many years so I know my ingredients inside out.
How is your organic vegetable garden, and do you grow any of your own ingredients?
I really love gardens and I’ve been trying my best to grow veg for years. This year I managed to coax some lovely potatoes out of the ground as well as salads, tomatoes and a million cucumbers. Sadly, my onions and garlic didn’t even get chance to see the sunshine this year (slugs!) but I plant them every year because it feels wrong not too! We have plenty of space so it’s been a dream of mine to grow our own ingredients for a few years now… I just need to find the time. I’m hoping to plant a lavender and rose garden at some point so that I can make a small amount of my own rosewater!
Can you describe the set up in Wales?
We work from our workshop in a beautiful valley in south west Wales overlooking the Brechfa Forest. We have a smallholding so it’s not only home to us but a few unruly animals as well. It’s a truly inspirational place to live, with nature literally on the doorstep and natural beauty around every corner. I love the peace and quiet here, it really nourishes the soul.
Akamuti by Nina Hunter.
When you have visitors where do you take them out?
I would take them to our little town of Llandeilo to shop for organic bread and homemade ice cream, then we would visit Carreg Cennen Castle, dramatically perched on a limestone outcrop. I’d make sure we visited the seaside where there are countless coves to choose from, so we might just do them all. And to finish, we would end up in our local pub which has the best beer garden in the world!
What are the benefits of being in Wales, and the pitfalls?
I love the wild side of Wales most. It’s great to nip out the door and within minutes you can be in a forest, a meadow, or on a mountain. I love the trees and fields, the castles, the coastline, the views out to the Brecon Beacons, the stunning drive through the Towy Valley. There is a strong craft community here, we have several community run shops, and there is a lot of great food and farm produce about too. The pitfalls… what pitfalls!?
Lindsey by Darren Fletcher.
Been anywhere else lately?
I’ve just got back from southern Snowdonia where I stayed at the foot of Cadair Idris. There is a beautiful lake there which I love. It is very cool and quiet – you could be anywhere in the world. I’ve also recently discovered the New Forest – I particularly like all the animals wandering freely through the villages.
How do you source your fairtrade organic ingredients?
Thankfully the internet makes this very easy. We find new suppliers quite quickly and many come by word of mouth. A lot of the time I stumble across people doing amazing things which I note down for the future!
What is the first thing you do when you want to invent a new product?
I make myself a coffee, find a comfy spot, get my notebook out and start writing. I think of what I want to achieve with the product and what I would like to go in it and then I start putting them together. I also brainstorm with everyone else. A bit like planning a garden, the best part is picking the plants!
What exciting new products are you working on at the moment?
I’m working on a flower based perfume at the moment, so I’m playing around with sandalwood, rose, jasmine and a number of other oils to get the best combination. I’ve decided to keep the perfume as an oil, much like the ancient Attar perfumes, which were based on sandalwood oil. I am a big fan of eastern aromatherapy and I like the way the scents make me drift away to the ancient lands of Persia or Anatolia in my mind.
What is your favourite ingredient to work with and why?
I’ve got a few favourites but I’ll try and narrow them down. My first love is definitely Rose Otto oil – it works so well for many physical and emotional problems, as well as smelling beautiful. I also love working with Neroli essential oil because it is so uplifting. If an oil could have the quality of kindness then this is the one!
Why should people buy your products?
Because they are good for the skin and the soul! They are made with 100% natural ingredients from start to finish without any additional rubbish, and we try our best to harness all of the natural goodness of trees, plants and flowers in each product so that our customers get the very best we can make. Our products are people and planet friendly, and they are affordable too.
Willow Organics was founded by Sue Stowell in 2005. Just a few weeks ago she opened her first pop up shop in London’s Kings Road, ailment so we decided to track her down and find out more about this luxury organic skincare brand.
What made you first approach skincare in an organic and natural way?
For a long time I have believed that eating organic food unadulterated by artificial additives is better for our health. We have had an organic vegetable garden for the past 18 years and grow all of our own vegetables as well as keeping free range chickens. There are many harmful chemicals used in farming and in the making of conventional beauty products and we don’t know the long term effect on our selves or our environment, so luxury organic beauty products were the only route I wanted to take when I started Willow Organic. I was also adamant from the start that I would use biodegradable and recyclable packaging that would fit in with Willow as a luxury brand.
How did you set up Willow Organics?
I had been an interior designer for several years when I decided to make a career change. I was asked to design a Thai themed spa at Careys Manor Hotel, Brockenhurst in The New Forest and became involved in finding organic products for use in the spa treatments. There were very few if any beautifully packaged and genuinely organic products, many claimed to have 100% organic oils but when you looked at the ingredients they only had say 3% oils and the rest was made of synthetic materials. Many had cheap plastic packaging. I travelled to Thailand to look for artefacts to put in the spa and when I saw these beautiful silk boxes I had a Eureka moment; I thought how lovely the products would look in these gorgeous boxes. I saw a gap in the market for genuine organic beauty products in luxurious boxes. It wasn’t easy to find manufacturers who were able to make organic products because preservation can be tricky – in fact it was far more complex than I had imagined. We had to use different companies to make the fragrance and the final products, the bottle manufacturers wanted had a huge (to us anyway) minimum order of 10,000 units and the pumps to fit these bottles were only sold in 15,000 lots. The labels and ribbons were made by yet more companies and the European legislation was a nightmare. But we got there eventually and started selling at charity fairs to raise brand awareness and create a data base.
Why did you decide to make Willow a luxury brand?
I think that girls appreciate beautiful things. All of our boxes can be kept and used for storing trinkets and they look lovely in the bathroom or on dressing tables. And of course being a luxury brand does make us stand out… but that wasn’t the initial idea.
What is the philosophy of Willow Organic and what makes it so special?
Organic and Gorgeous. There are now many organic skincare brands on the market that seem to favour the pharmaceutical style packaging or the brown paper and string look, so we would like to think that Willow stands out because of our luxury silk packaging and first rate organic formulations, as well as the fact that all Willow Beauty Products are made in England. We make organic products that really look, feel and smell beautiful and they really work. Willow Organic products have soft natural scents rather than over powering chemical fragrances, so you can pamper yourself with a clear conscience. There are lots of other brands out there that call themselves ‘organic’ but their ingredients are not certified organic and in fact their products contain only a small minority of organic ingredients.
You have a prominent men’s skincare section on your website; why is this market important to you?
Men are taking more care of themselves, and they are conscious of the environment. We have regular male clientele who buy our products – the face and body wash and black rice exfoliating soap in cedarwood and spicy citrus are particularly popular. We sell a great many of our men’s gift boxes at Christmas, and have been told that they made a very pleasant change from socks and ties!
On average, what percentage of organic ingredients do you use in Willow products?
On average our products are over 85% organic and some are 100%, but that isn’t to say that the remaining 15% are not organic. The Soil Association has strict guide lines, so for example if an oil is changed, perhaps by heating or separating, or if the fragrance from organic Jasmine flower buds is extracted by means of alcohol, then they may not choose to allow it to be called organic under their criteria. In order to be certified organic all the ingredients must be approved.
How easy is it to use all biodegradable and recyclable packaging?
All of our packaging is biodegradable and/or recyclable and meets high standards of sustainability – for example our filler is made of corn chips which you can put on the compost heap. It is a fine line however, because people obviously don’t want their products damaged when they receive them, so we use the minimum of packaging but enough to protect the products whilst in transit.
What key product would you suggest for an individual thinking of moving towards a an organic skincare regime?
A good place to start would be replacing the soap that you use on a daily basis. As well as lovely hand soap we make a very gentle hand wash in two delightful fragrances; Lime & Lavender and Orange Lime & Bergamot. We make everything you need for a daily routine: lovely cleanser, toner, exfoliator, face mask and a wonderful moisturising face balm.
As Christmas is fast approaching, do you have any gift products to recommend to our readers?
Yes, our gorgeous limited edition Gold, Frankincense and Myrhh candle costs £38. and the oils it contains are very expensive so it really smells of Christmas. These precious oils have been used since biblical times for their soothing, calming and spiritually uplifting properties. The candle contains a piece of real gold leaf and comes in a gold box with a gold organza ribbon.
What else would you like to do with the Willow Organics brand in the future?
We would love to have several shops in London; in Sloane Square, Marylebone, Covent Garden, Notting Hill, and perhaps Richmond. Then we’d like to expand into Manchester, Bath, Bristol, Edinburgh, Birmingham. And of course we are planning to export into Europe and then the Middle East and the Far East: China and Japan are very enthusiastic about beautifully packaged organic luxury beauty products.
You can visit the Willow Organics pop up shop at 340 Kings Road, London SW3 5UR (between Cath Kidston and Bora). There’s a special shopping evening on 8th December, with mince pies and mulled wine plus 10% off everything and free gift wrapping. Nice!
Written by Sarah Critchley on Friday December 3rd, 2010 4:40 pm
The Barbican towards The Bank of England. It was enjoyable to be part of such a good natured crowd and it was fun to watch all the shop owners standing outside their establishments, watching with fascination at the colourful carnival proceeding past them.
