Public vs private luxury: why are we so willing to accept that we can’t have nice things?

I woke up this morning to the depressing news that CoBikes, Exeter's bike and electric car hire scheme, had gone into administration and would be ceasing operations. Sadly I can't say I'm entirely surprised. CoBikes were an absolute lifesaver for me during the pandemic when, thanks a hasty decision to prioritise bringing my plants home …

Camping in our common treasury

You poor take courage You rich take care This earth was made a common treasury For everyone to share Billy Bragg - The World Turned Upside Down Photograph by Rob on Flickr It may surprise you to learn this about me, but I frequently do something illegal and thoroughly enjoy doing it. I do it …

The future is federated: my first week (back) on Mastodon

Mastodon is a federated social network - unlike Twitter or Facebook say, which is run by one company, it's easiest to think of Mastodon as a tool like email. There are a number of different servers or "instances" where your data (your account details, the contents of your posts, the timestamps of your activity, the cute picture you took of your cat fighting your slippers) are stored, there are a number of different apps or clients you can use to access these data the same way you could access the same email account through Apple mail on your iPhone or Outlook on your work PC or Gmail on an Android phone, and Mastodon is the set of instructions that allows them all to talk to one another.

Economy gastronomy? Hay boxes, Wonderbags and insulation cookery

Several years I met a rather wonderful hippie elder, who told me that she used to make yoghurt in bed in the seventies; if you heated the milk in the morning and put it under the duvet it would stay warm and fermenting all day and by evening you would not only have homemade yoghurt …

Lying down for a better world

I spent yesterday evening lying on my back in the middle of a B road, my legs steepled awkwardly to avoid the woman lying in the road behind me, squinting as I stared straight into the bright sky and wishing I'd thought to put my sunglasses on before I lay down. It was too late …

We all wear masks

As the British government continues to fumble its way through its response to the covid-19 pandemic, it is becoming increasingly apparent that if our leaders cannot provide guidance on how to protect ourselves and one another we will have to make our own judgements. We absolutely should not be in this position, with the government …

Where do we go from here?

I've now had a little time to process the results of December's elections, and move on a little beyond the shock, grief and very real fear (two of my disabled friends have explicitly stated that they don't believe they will survive another five years of austerity driven cuts) that were my immediate reactions. I shared …

How Greta Thunberg’s Atlantic crossing is accidentally tackling period stigma

https://youtu.be/WT8NemS6FmQ Greta Thunberg is currently crossing the Atlantic in the sailing yacht Malizia II in order to attend the UN Climate Action Summit in New York, which in addition to being an exciting adventure for her of which I am extremely envious is a CO2 neutral alternative to a flight that would have released two …

“Let them eat weeds”: Foraging is not a solution to food poverty

Dandelions growing along the edge of a shingle road at the base of some concrete steps. Stuart Rankin, CC0 licensed I love foraging for wild food, as a way of exploring new flavours, learning more about the natural world around me and deepening my connection to it. My walk to work across the university campus …

Packaging, piñatas, and punching up not down

Why you shouldn't leave your packaging at the supermarket checkout, and what you should do instead The growing awareness of the impact of plastic pollution is being matched by an increasing awareness that plastic recycling is not the panacea it has been sold to us as - plastic can only be recycled into a lower …