Author Archives: Natalie Bennett

A great quote

January 3, 2007 – 6:33 pm

US environmentalist Edward Abbey: ‘Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell’.

Found in a nice piece on Gaian Economics explaining the Green argument against so-called economic growth.

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The first female Beefeater

January 3, 2007 – 1:56 pm

Well, OK, it might not be the most significant post in the world in the overall scheme of things, but it is nice to know that the first female Beafeater (the formal guards at the Tower of London) has been appointed. (Or to give her the full title, she is to be made a Yeoman Warder of Her Majesty’s Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Members of the Sovereign’s Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary.)

Among her duties she will, of course, be looking after the ravens… (and yes, The Times has repeated the old Charles II line.)

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Healthy architecture

January 3, 2007 – 1:53 pm

I got into trouble last time I got into this, but nontheless I’m going to applaud a piece in today’s Guardian urging architects to plan to encourage, rather than discourage exercise.

“Using the stairs is not seen as normal,” says Amelia Lake, a research fellow who works with Townshend. “In most [new] buildings it’s very difficult to find a staircase. The focal point when you enter tends to be the lift. In certain buildings, you’ll even find that using the stairs will set off the fire alarm.”

And it provides some stats on the well-known fact of how sprawling suburbs encourage slobbish, car-filled lives.

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On Religion, and soap opera

January 3, 2007 – 12:42 am

Over on My London Your London I’ve a review of On Religion, the AC Grayling/Mick Gordon production at the Soho, which I caught just before it closed.

The philosophy is entertaining, the family drama, even soap opera, aspects, rather less so…

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Here here

January 2, 2007 – 2:11 pm

In today’s Times – Why getting hitched is the real hitch for women:

Politicians of every stripe profess to despair of the decline of marriage, even though we know they would be bereft without such a convenient — if wholly unproven — scapegoat for all ill. I suspect that they need not worry; that the decline will continue with or without their help. The scale of the exodus of young women from orthodox union, along with their reasons for it, are such that it will take an awful lot more than a tax break here or there to change their minds.

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Advice – probably too late…

January 1, 2007 – 11:51 pm

Don’t stir your mincemeat for your mince pies counterclockwise; it will bring back luck.

From a new blog/website: News for Medievalists.

But you should eat a mince pie a day over Christmas – something to remember next year, even if your doctor wouldn’t agree.

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