This is a little ahead of schedule print-wise, but if you are proactive enough to check out my site based on last week's Vert I think you deserve a little reward. Note the answers to the crossword. I am all for social and progressive living (see my blog post about Adair Turner who lectures, to paraphrase "after you have what you need the rest is relative wealth and doesn't increase happiness". I am sure we will move on from Capitalism but let us value peace and quiet, natural places, rural enclaves and not go tearing up the land in such a way it will be spoilt forever. Cities are wonderful and human rich places but one big city would be a nightmare. It looks like HS2 may never happen, which would restore our faith in cost benefit analysis and human collective decision making. Also DEFRA is doing a good job with things like farmers 'subsidies for meadow planting. The EU ban on Neonicotinoids is a logical necessity (we need Bees). So the world may not be in PERIL (for now) and yet we still have to play our part, there is always the next episode.
This weekend I went all the way down to the sea. I love the sea. Everyone is just enjoying the air and watching the water, picking up pebbles and squinting at the sun. Everyone is more relaxed by the sea it seems to me. These are the kinds of important things you consider while sprawled on your back feeling your body warm through while the Gulls observe the wildlife invading their beach.
Longship may or may not have one or two familiar faces hidden in the background. It's probably just my imagination.
A local paper just popped up last month and they needed a cartoonist, so now I am drawing a strip for them. This is great as I like the challenge of having to come up with something for print once a month.
For the first of 'Vert', which is published in The Coleshill Post, I went with an anecdote I have heard told, about a local man who first discovered the Roman Settlement just outside the current town. I got in touch to ask if he'd mind me using his story. Not only does he claim to have met a centurion on the hillside (!) but he actually went on to discover pottery that was later dated from the second century and that led to a full scale dig on the site. Archaeologists unearthed a Roman Temple as well as a Bath House and various other Roman buildings. They think that the Roman Temple was built on the site of a pagan place of worship so it just gets more and more fascinating. Nowadays there is a housing estate built on the site, but the roads are named after various Roman Ceasars. I also put together the crossword, for a bit of fun (it is just an easy one to start with). |
The ARTIST
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