Season's Greetings

 

Seasons' Greetings to all my readers. 

Happy Christmas to those who celebrate. 

Have a lovely break and see you in the New Year.  

The Art of Activism by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert

 

Subtitled "Your All-Purpose Guide to Making the Impossible Possible", this is a very practical guide to using creative approaches to activism, to achieve concrete outcomes. Creative approaches to activism inspire, energise and engage people who might remain unengaged even after signing petitions or joining a march. The text is accessibly written and accompanied by lots of illustrations, including a surprising number of rabbits!

The book includes a historical overview of artistic activism, including the storytelling of Jesus, the spectacle of the Boston Tea Party and a 1968 action by native Americans to claim Alcatraz Island. The authors also examine some of their own projects, drawing out for example, what a group of American Muslim activists learned from watching the Fast and Furious films. These and other examples are analysed to show why they worked, giving the reader insight into how best to use creative approaches to activism and what pitfalls to avoid.

Case studies include: Undocubus, a bus decorated with pictures of the migratory Monarch butterfly, that tours the USA with riders who have been threatened with deportation, raising awareness of the issues around migration. Project by No Papers, No Fears.  

Journal Rappé, a rap news broadcast in Senegal.  

War on Smog, a performance action in China.  

You can find a whole range of case studies on the Actipedia website. 

The physical book is supported by an online workbook, which is full of practical exercises designed to make you more creative, whether or not you want to apply that to activism. You can access the workbook here. 

The Art of Activism by Steve Duncombe and Steve Lambert, illustrated by Steve Lambert, published (2021) by OR Books. Order the free pdf of the interactive workbook here. 

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If you're based in the UK, you may be interested in the Wildlife Trusts' Community Hub, which shares inspiration and ideas on how to get involved in community conservation action.

 

Corstorphine Hill, Edinburgh

On Saturday, we had a lovely walk aorund Corstorphine Hill. The weather was very mild for the time of year (we're having a worryingly mild winter this year) and though the trees are mostly bare, it doesn't feel like winter. 

Corstorphine Hill is renowned for its fungi and we were happy to find a few at the weekend. It was particularly nice to find these tiny Scarlet Elf Cups  

We were pleased to also find this clump of puffball fungi 

and several species that we didn't get the chance to indentify, including these bright orange fungi, which look quite dramatic against the green moss 

We were amused by this tree stump, which looks a bit like a dragon 

 

The Seed Detective by Adam Alexander

"By the end of the nineteenth century, the USDA (US Department of Agriculture) had recorded a total of 408 varieties of pea being grown commercially. By 1983 the number recorded was just 25, a loss of over 90 percent. This loss of genetic diversity is not unique to the pea. It is happening with all edible crops and poses an existential threat to human survival"

This scenario is the backdrop to Adam Alexander's travels, searching the world for rare varieties of well known vegetables (from asparagus to zucchini), taking seeds home to grow and share, both to enjoy and to preserve them for the future. 

The Seed Detective takes us on a journey starting from when humanity lived as hunter-gatherers up to the present day. Each chapter focuses on a different vegetable and shares the stories of how they became popular, widespread and, on the commercial level, so uniform. Luckily across the world, the author has managed to find wonderful heritage varieties of all these crops and outlines how these varieties are being preserved as well as doing his own bit towards their preservation by collecting and saving their seeds. 

The book looks at various issues around each vegetable. Just taking one example, in Roman times, the Emperor Augustus had a special fleet of ships that carried asparagus around the Mediterranean Sea. Asparagus has been grown in the sourth east of England since the eighteenth century where the soils and weather are ideal for it, however, in Peru where farmers were encouraged to grow asparagus to divert them away from coca (grown to make cocaine) the vegetable is causing drought due to its high demand for water. 

There are many fascinating snippets here: did you know that there is archaeological evidence for pop-corn dating bac 3,500 years?

Throughout the book, Alexander underlines the importance of seed saving - he's an avid collector himself, with 70 varieties of tomatoes in his collection. You can view his seed collection on his website here. 

Seed saving allows rare varieties to be preserved, ensures stocks of seeds in case of poor harvests and allows crops to adapt to local conditions. Heritage crops are often more resistant to disease and almost always have more taste than commercially grown varieties. 

This is a fascinating book is a plea to preserve all the wonderful heritage varieties of vegetables and is essential reading for anyone interested in botany or the history of our food. 

The Seed Detective by Adam Alexander, published (2022) by Chelsea Green Publishing.  

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My latest Substack post is all about winter wildlife. You can read it here.

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And some excellent news for Swifts in Scotland, "all new buildings over a certain size must include ‘swift bricks’ as part of their design", a change secured by the Scottish Green Party. read more here. 

 

Arthur's Seat

 We had a lovely walk round Arthur's Seat on Saturday. It was looking beautiful in autumnal colours, the photo below shows Salisbury Crags in the background 

There are also great views down to Duddingston Loch  

The clouds were also impressive

 

We met a few Jackdaws while we were walking, they nest in various places around Arthur's Seat. We were particularly impressed by how the irridescent purple and green is showing up in the wing of the Jackdaw below 

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You can read my latest Substack post, inspired by World Soil Day, here.  

The Sloth Lemur's Song by Alison Richard

 

Subtitled 'Madagascar from the Deep Past to the Uncertain Future' this is a fascinating overview of the natural history of Madagascar and the relationship that humans have had with nature since first arriving on the island (the first evidence of human habitation dates to around 10,000 years ago). 

Alison Richard has been involved in research and conservation in Madagascar for fifty years and brings a vast amount of knowledge and experience to the book. 

We are guided through the history of Madagascar from the fascinating early animals that have left their fossils here to the current day, where the island is one of the poorest countries in the world and is losing large amounts of its precious rainforests, which are home to a vast array of wildlife found nowhere else, including the around 100 species of the iconic lemurs. Much of the forest loss in Madagascar is due to very poor people having little choice but to clear trees for their farmland. 

Richards makes the important point that a large part of Madagascar has always been grassland and large areas of open space in the country don't all represent areas of destroyed forest. Yet her insistence on this almost undermines her presentation of the actual devastation of the forests. 

A very short chapter, which I felt should have been longer, is dedicated to the fact that some communities are protecting their local forests and wetlands. The chapter gives three brief case studies, including the work being done to protect the areas around the lakes in the west of the island, where Madagascar Fish Eagles are now increasing due to conservation measures that also offer local villagers a sustainable future fishing the lake. 

This is a fascinating book, though at times I did find the writing style awkward. I also expected more lemurs. 

The Sloth Lemur's Song by Alison Richard, published (2022) by Harper Collins.  

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Just published today, is this post from the Nature Briefs Substack, about the trade in lemur meat.  

You may also be interested in this recent article about Madagascar's lemurs.  

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My latest Substack post went live yesterday, you can read it here.  

 

A Day of Changeable Weather in Musselburgh

 Yesterday we had a lovely walk along the John Muir Walkway from Musselburgh in East Lothian, along to the old ash lagoons, which are now a nature reserve. 

The weather started off, beautifully sunny, like this:

 but later a haar (sea mist) came in and everything looked wonderfully atmospheric like this: 

In between, we enjoyed lots of birdwatching (which was obviously easier when the weather was sunny). The highlights included Long Tailed Ducks, one of which you can see distantly in the photo below 

 

Goldeneye, a male of which is below:

and Lapwings, once a common farmland bird, but now sadly very much decreased in number, so it was lovely to see quite a large group of them at the lagoons 

and Wigeon, of which a fairly large group were hiding in the mist, you might be able to see them in the photo below

It was amazing how different everything looked in the haar 

The Secret Life of Dust by Hannah Holmes

 

This book explores all aspects of all types of dust, from the cosmic dust that formed the origins of the universe, through desert dust, fungal spores and smoke from forest fires to pollution and household dust. The more I read, the more I became aware of the risks posed by all these types of dust. It's a sobering read. I'll just share some interesting facts here.

Astonishing amounts of dust are produced from dried out lakes, for example the Aral Sea, which has been massively reduced in size due to overextraction of water for irrigation, produces an estimated 150 million tons a year of dust, heavily laden with toxic pesticides. Up to "half the desert dust in the air today may rise from land damaged by human use." 

Natural dusts from different places have unique mineral signatures and combined with the differing sources of pollution in different areass mean that rain varies around the world in terms of the chemicals and particles contained in raindrops. 

The dusts produced from industrial processes have long been associated with illnesses, particularly asbestosis. I was surprised to read here how long humans have been using asbestos, two thousand years ago, Romans were including asbestos in funeral shrouds and even back then the risks were recognised by the Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder, who noticed that "the unfortunates who mined and wove asbestos were a sickly lot." Yet even now, asbestos creates problems. It can take us a long time to really address problems...

Asthma of course is another ongoing health problem strongly associated with dusts, some of them natural. The last chapter of the book looks at household dusts, and how these are affected by the appliances we use and our approach to household cleanliness.  

This book is very US-centric but is a fascinating read, wherever you live and may make you more aware of all the dust around you. 

The Secret Life of Dust by Hannah Holmes, published (2001) by Wiley.  

 

nightskies haiku

overcast skies -
the meteor shower
unseen

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I first posted this haiku a few years ago, but am reposting it, as last night, we had hoped to go to a meteor watching party but the skies clouded over and the party was cancelled....

Also a few years ago, Dosankodebbie made a beautiful artwork incorporating this haiku, you can see it here. 

Easter Craiglockart Hill

 

 Yesterday we enjoyed the autumn colours on Edinburgh's Easter Craiglockart Hill. The hill also offers lovely views across the golf course

There weren't as many fungi as we would hope to see at this time of year, but there was a reasonably good selection, including Candlesnuff

these Inkcaps (which I think are Glistening Inkcaps)  

and these very young Scarlet Elfcaps 

We then continued our walk to Craiglockart Pond  

and then home via the Union Canal, which inexplicably, we didn't take any photos of! 

 

Spineless by Juli Berwald

Subtitled "The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone", this is a fascinating look at jellyfish. 

Many people have negative images of jellyfish, as they are well known to cause problems, if their numbers get out of balance, for example, clogging up waterways so that boats can't get through, to causing power outages when they clog up cooling systems. They can also have a negative impact on the catch for many fishing operations, though some species of jellyfish are now becoming desirable catches themselves.  

However, jellyfish are central to many marine ecosystems, and can be entire ecosystems in themselves, offering surfaces for other creatures, such as shrimps to live on and shelter for small fish, who may struggle to find shelter. 

This book takes us on a tour through jellyfish, from ancient times (I was astonished to read that there are jellyfish in the fossil record!) to the current day. Here are details of jellyfish locomotion, bioluminescence and their roles in ecosystems. 

The book later broadens out to look at more general topics around ocean conservation and offers ideas of how individuals can help conserve marine life. 

Blending memoir and science, this is an excellent read for anyone interested in our oceans. 

Spineless by Juli Berwald, published (2018) by Penguin Random House. 

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I've just had a tiny poem published on the Smols website, you can read it here.  

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This week's post on my Crafty Green Poet Substack is all about the sharing economy, you can read it here.  

 

Linlithgow Loch

 Yesterday we had a lovely trip to Linlithgow in West Lothian, a short train away from Edinburgh. Of course, when we visit the town our main focus is to walk round the loch (though we also had a morning coffee in a nice cafe and later lunch in a pub). The weather was beautiful, a light mist lifting to sunshine later, but it was worryingly warm, it's certainly not supposed to be that warm in November in Scotland! 

The autumn colours were beautiful 

 

and we were delighted to see plenty of wildlife, including this very friendly Robin 

this Cormorant drying our its wings 

and this Great Crested Grebe in winter plumage

 We were also happy to find this lovely arrangement of lichens 

Linlithgow Palace (the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots) sits by the shores of the loch and you get lots of great views as you walk around the lochside path  

 

Autumn Colours in the Meadows

 After tutoring my Friday morning creative writing class, I usually walk through the Meadows, and today the cherry trees were as beautiful as they are, more famously, in Spring. 

 

The Sycamores are surrounded by their beautiful fallen leaves too

 

The Importance of Not by Dorothy Baird

 

Dorothy Baird is an Edinburgh based writer, who comes along to one of the writing groups I facilitate. She has published two collections of poetry and this newly published pamphlet was a winner in the 2024 Poetry Space Pamphlet competition. 

It's a beautiful wee selection of poetry about things that are missing, fading memories, lost loved ones, the empty nest and the Sycamore Gap, the last of which is reflected in the cover design by Hanni Shinton. Nature is essential in this collection, from the "squirrel that could clearly run the country / with its problem solving" (You Can't Stand in the Same River Twice) to the "blackbird in his widower's weeds" (Therapy of Vowels), the "otter, the seals and the sleek wheel of a porpoise turning in the blue" (A Small Life Against the Timeline of Everything) and skylarks singing in many poems. 

I was taken right back to my own childhood by "Memories are Lonely things to carry alone" with it's description of a child's den under a rhododendron bush, my childhood den was under a sycamore tree, that has since been removed from the garden I grew up in, just as the poet's rhododendron bush is no longer there. 

 There are moving poems here about her father's dementia and his difficulties coping with the social distancing imposed by COVID-19 lockdowns 

"On the way out, she opens the door
with her sleeve covered hand and smiles
across the distance he wants to close
and she has to maintain, pushing back
against thousands of years of evolution
and the magnetism of family"

Social Distancing 

But in all the grief and sadness, there is always solace and the comfort of nature, and "snowdrops / spread among the stones like small bulbs of hope" in the cemetery (Carpe Diem). 

This is a closely observed, acutely felt and beautifully written pamphlet.   

The Importance of Not by Dorothy Baird published (2025) by Poetry Space. 

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My latest Substack post 'Art and Activism', went up yesterday, you can read it here. 

Autumn Colours over the weekend

 On Saturday we walked round Saughton Park and in between the showers I captured some of the lovely autumn colours on camera

 The cherry trees look particularly beautiful at this time of year, especially when viewed in full sunshine against a clear blue sky  

Yesterday, I met a friend to go to the Resistance exhibition at the National Galleries of Scotland Modern 2 Gallery. Described as  "How protest shaped Britain and photography shaped protest", it covers all types of British protests including environmental protests from early protests against birds being killed so their feathers could be used in hats (a protest which lead to the formation of the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds)); the 1932 mass trespass on Kinder Scout, highlighting the lack of public access to open spaces; and the 1971 Friends of the Earth Bottle Dump which protested the withdrawal of returnable bottles by a major drinks brand (you can read an excellent article here, about the legacy of that campaign). So it's well worth catching if you're in Edinburgh (it runs until early January.)

While I was waiting for my friend, I took some photos of the autumn colours in Dean Cemetery, which can be seen over the wall from the grounds of the art gallery