What might we learn from the construction, between1438 and 1448 of the Hospital of St. John in Sherborne (see above) that might shape the way we think about construction in the 21st century? While the bulk of the building was built using local oolitic limestone, it was dressed with Lias stone from Ham Hill, some 12 miles from the building site. However, in those days, without the internal combustion engine, 12 miles was a long way to carry stone (you try it). The meticulous accounts kept of the project at the time show that the cost of transporting the stone by cart cost more than the stone itself. As Alec Clifton-Taylor says in his seminal ‘The Pattern of English Building’, “it was the great difficulty of transporting heavy materials which led all but the most affluent until the end of the eighteenth century to build with the materials that were most readily available near the site, even when not very durable”.
One of the key outputs from the creation of ‘The Transition Companion’ was the ingredients card game which was launched last October. Each card represents a different ingredient, a different aspect of the process of creating Transition in your community. We have had good feedback from different events where people have used them, and so I was very interested to see this short film of their being used at Transition Town Cheltenham‘s recent AGM:
What they do is to allow a group to celebrate the things it has already done, and to reflect on possible parts of the process that it hasn’t got round to. They can be used to lay them out to tell the story of the initiative so far, with reflection on the cards left unused. They also get away from the idea that Transition is a linear, prescribed process, rather an organic, place-specific assembling of ingredients. What has been your experience with the cards? The activities we have come up with so far can be downloaded here … have you developed any other ones? My thanks to Transition Town Cheltenham for sharing their reflections.
I recently read Nick Shaxson’s excellent book which explores the extent of off-shore banking in the world, shocking stuff. I was honoured to be able to interview Nick recently, you can either listen to our conversation below, or read the transcript. You can find out more about the book here.
Nick, thanks very much for joining us. For people who haven’t read Treasure Islands, can you describe for us its key findings?
There are a couple of main conclusions. One is that the offshore system of tax havens is much much bigger and much more central to the global economy than almost anybody had thought. It’s seen in the popular imagination as an exotic sideshow to the global economy. But really since the era of globalisation began in the 1970s the offshore system of tax havens has been growing much much faster than the supposedly onshore economy.
A while ago here we posted the video to Rebecca Mayes’ song ‘The Lights’, her beautiful song written for the closing credits of ‘In Transition 2.0′ (the one everyone goes out after the film singing). I am delighted to announce that the song is today released as a single, and is now available via. iTunes. Here is what Rebecca says about it: “I’ve registered it with the UK charts so if enough of us buy it this week we’ll get into the top 40! If you’re outside the UK try and buy it through a UK distributor so it will count towards the charts. All proceeds go to the Transition Network. Tell your friends, family and local radio stations! Thanks so much for watching the video which has had over 3,000 hits – if you missed it first time you can check it out below.
I wrote a while ago about Transition Network’s recent one day conversation on ‘Peak Money and Economic Resilience’, and how it had included a session where people from Portugal, Ireland and Greece gave a sense of what is happening in each place. Filipa Pimentel, who is co-ordinating the networking of the national Transition hubs, spoke about Portugal, and about how the economic crisis is shaping how Transition is emerging there. Filipa was in Totnes recently, and I caught up with her for a quick interview at the station as she waited for her train home. Here it is:
How might our response to peak oil and climate change look more like a party than a protest march? This site explores the emerging transition model in its many manifestations
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