Without the state

Changes ahead

This blog has been pretty moribund for a while, largely because my original intent for it is no longer relevant. I'm going to recast it over the next few weeks, once I work out how to remap the domain, as a simple personal blog. Whether that will mean I post more frequently, remains to be seen. This will only be the second such change since I started it in 2003, so not a bad achievement.

Where next?

I haven’t posted here in a long time. I’m reluctant to close the blog though. There is a lot here that I am proud to have written and don’t want to see it simply vanish into the ether. My reasons for not posting are many.  I‘ve retired – again and many of the topics I used to write about no longer have the same relevance. I’m still interested in planning and the environment of course, but in a more general, less focussed way. I certainly have no need to be quite so up to date. The political scene is very much changed – less interventionist than under Blair and also significantly less informed as demonstrated by what passed for a debate over Brexit and the parallel upheavals in US politics with the election of Trump. It has now got to a point where whenever I attempt to think about the future in political terms I am not energised but driven to despair.

I still have interests, especially the visual arts. They were generally covered in a different blog which formed part of my web pages as an artist. Unfortunately that site fell victim to hackers and I had to take it down, As here, there were many posts I was proud to have written, but in that case most of these are now inaccessible. I still hope to recover them but so far I’ve been unsuccessful and I may have to pay a specialist to do it for me. If that proves possible I then have to decide whether to build a complete new site, with blog and shop or simply to republish the posts in a parallel blog to this one.

I’ve lost energy I suppose and I’m finding it hard to restart. I enjoy the craft of writing, and I have things I want to write about, but I need a core focus to drive it. I also have to consider time. I’m now only a week or so shy of my 71st birthday. My health is OK with some minor niggles, but I have to think about best use of however much time is left to me. It was in part probably the time issue that led me to Facebook. It takes a significant effort to write the sort of posts you find in the blog archives. However discussion on Facebook and Twitter – and indeed in most online forums – is usually unthinking, often acrimonious and sometimes downright disturbing (see any discussion of gender issues for example). At best it is candyfloss and at worst it is positively poisonous. I think I probably need to step back from social media except as a way of promoting the posts.

So – where next?

• There is potential contradiction between the ideas inherent in this blog’s current title and my belief that we should, even now, still try to stay within the EU.  The idea of self reliance, of operating outside or without the state comes well to the fore in the writings of the late Colin Ward, but also influenced figures like Ebenezer Howard, the father of New Towns via writers like Kropotkin and Tolstoy. The same idea is also built into the Maastricht Treaty as ‘subsidiarity’, - the principle that a central authority should perform only those tasks which cannot be delivered at a more local level. Related to that and coming from anarchist thought is the idea of Confederation as distinct from Federation.
• Housing, education and health all have very local impacts but at the moment are subject to strong central direction, I’ve written on some of these topics already and there is still much to explore I think.
• Some aspects of public policy are more difficult to reconcile with local or non-state actions. The most obvious is Transport but aspects of energy policy also need considering beyond the immediate locality.

As a starter I’m going to review and revisit some previous posts on housing matters.

This time I will try!

It's over a year since the last post. Since then I've been so wrapped up with other things, the blog has been neglected yet again. I'm still writing, but mainly as an adjunct to my online Etsy shops to promote sales. I have lots of things I want to write about here too, but long blog posts take time and effort that is sometimes hard to find and to be honest I was running out of inspiration. So view this as a reboot...

I’m back…

- soon anyway!

I obviously haven’t posted here in quite a while. That’s partly because of health issues but mainly because of a lack of focus I think. I was trying to spread myself too thinly over four blogs and not really managing any of them properly. So, I clearly need to regroup. I’ve decided to abandon two of them. One of these is based around my local area and has been met with unmixed apathy, so isn’t worth pursuing further.  There are a few posts that might be capable of recasting in more general form. If so I’ll repost them in amended form here.  The other has never really got off the ground. I intended it to work in conjunction with my online shop selling vintage reproduction graphic designs here.

The third blog is an art based blog associated with my online shop selling my own work here. That site is in urgent need of an upgrade, so nothing has been posted to the blog in a while and the shop has been deactivated after the company I used for the shopping cart decided to start adding VAT to any sales I made. - I am below the registration threshold. That revamp is in hand. Once completed the posts intended for the repro blog will appear there instead. This of course is the fourth blog. It has already mutated several times from its original form and I think it is time to do so again. I’m not sure yet precisely how to do that, but I will continue to post on political and social issues, probably with some cross posting between the two blogs.

Still here!

I'm still here, just been busy with lots of other things. Several posts are in various stages of preparation so watch this space.

Anniversary

Purely by chance I realise that this blog started on this date in 2003. To be honest I never expected to be still here. There have been gaps, and the focus has shifted from time to time but over the years I have produced a lot that I am still proud to have written. I hope to stay and carry on writing for many more years yet.

An even more significant anniversary comes up in November - 40 years married (to the same woman!)

Spectacular...

 

via Make magazine

Mind blowing

 

How long before filming on board a plane becomes illegal I wonder?

Nice one...

Quote of the day - no - the decade!

[Biodiversity] is a SCAM! Designed to lead inevitably to a world Govt.

Yes - that is indeed what the man said.