Transition Culture has moved
I no longer blog on this site. You can now find me, my general blogs, and the work I am doing researching my forthcoming book on imagination, on my new blog.
Come find me at robhopkins.net
9 Jun 2008
This post was prompted, a few months ago, by a return to a place in Italy where I lived between 1988 and 1990. I was returning for the funeral of a very dear friend of mine. I hadn’t been there in the intervening years, and much had changed. While I was there, I came across this photo, of an 18 year old me (left), and my friend Dan, standing in the farmyard of this extraordinary man, Guido Vannini (centre). Seeing the changes to the place I had known so well, and being reminded of Guido, prompted me to write the following;
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5 Jun 2008
Transition Stroud (check out their wonderful new website here) are launching their Communiversity initiative, which provides a wonderful opportunity to experience the wonderful diversity of initiatives that have been running in the town for many years. Stroud has, for a long time, been one of the UK’s leading ‘alternative’ towns, experimenting with local currencies, CSAs, farmers markets and so on, before the rest of the country even thought of it. Taking 6 days out in August to head over to Stroud would be very instructive and inspiring for anyone involved in Transition projects or for anyone who takes an interest in this kind of thing. It all kicks off with a launch event on June 13th (see below) and the Communiversity itself will be held over 6 days in August, and you can read the brochure for it here.
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4 Jun 2008
A while ago, on a very hot day indeed, I went to London to be one of the speakers at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPOG, not to be confused with OGOPOGO, a Loch Ness monster type supposed creature reputed to live in Lake Okanagan, British Columbia, Canada). The meeting was called Becoming a Low Carbon Society, and I was speaking along with Shaun Chamberlin who spoke about Tradeable Energy Quotas, and Simon Snowden from Liverpool University, who talked about, among other things, Oil Vulnerability Audits.
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3 Jun 2008
Using Natural Finishes: lime and earth-based plasters, renders and paints. A step-by-step guide. Adam Weismann and Katy Bryce. Green Books. 2008.
The first book on natural building I ever read was Becky Bee’s book ‘The Cob Builder’s Handbook‘. What was so refreshing about it was that it was a building book written by a woman, and it was as intuitive and accessible as it was technical, and much of it read like a cookbook in its descriptions of the materials. This same spirit has gone on to pervade the growing natural building movement, a playful, intuitive and inspired rethinking of the creation of shelter that does much more than just keep the rain off.
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2 Jun 2008
A few days of warm, moist weather and the great slug armies are massing on my garden. Although the sizes of them have been increasing as these slug-friendly conditions continue, it is actually the smallest ones that seem to do the most damage. The tiny ones, that look more like something that comes out of your nose than something you’d find in the garden, do an astonishing amount of damage, rather like me chewing my way though a couple of limbs of an oak tree in a single night. Anyway, as you can tell, slugs are rather on my mind at the moment. Which gives me the opportunity to tell you my favourite slug story…
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This post was prompted, a few months ago, by a return to a place in Italy where I lived between 1988 and 1990. I was returning for the funeral of a very dear friend of mine. I hadn’t been there in the intervening years, and much had changed. While I was there, I came across this photo, of an 18 year old me (left), and my friend Dan, standing in the farmyard of this extraordinary man, Guido Vannini (centre). Seeing the changes to the place I had known so well, and being reminded of Guido, prompted me to write the following; 
