Nothing is so beautiful as spring. Gerard Manley Hopkins A short one this week, just a reminder that I’m still alive; just as spring is a reminder that the natural world is still alive, despite the best efforts of industrial civilisation to kill it off. This is the vernal equinox, the turning-point when the daysContinue reading “On spring”
Author Archives: thesoundoffallingleaves
Intermission
Albatross! Monty Python Due to a family thing, there will be no blog posts for a bit. I’d like to think I’ll be posting again post again next week but I can’t make any guarantees. In the meantime, feel free to peruse the archive.
On living in the moment
Sometimes it doesn’t matter that there was any time before this time. Sometimes it doesn’t matter that it’s night or day or now or then. Sometimes where you are is enough. It’s not that time stops or that it hasn’t started. This is time. You are here. Jeanette Winterson, The Gap of Time Once uponContinue reading “On living in the moment”
On the return of the peasant
The most dramatic and far-reaching social change of the second half of [the twentieth] century, and one that cuts us off forever from the world of the past, is the death of the peasantry. Eric Hobsbawm I fear I must disagree with the late Professor Hobsbawm. The death of the peasantry has been much exaggerated,Continue reading “On the return of the peasant”
On the vision for a New England
Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country. President John F. Kennedy (attr.) I am, as I believe I have mentioned before, a citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, or at least that’s what it says on my passport. That countryContinue reading “On the vision for a New England”
Book review: Limits to Growth
Who could have predicted the climate crisis? Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, 31.12.2022 This is a review of a deeply unfashionable book. It was published a little over half a century ago, which is certainly inconvenient for those who, like M. Macron, would like to suggest that these issues are a recent development.Continue reading “Book review: Limits to Growth”
On activism
Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing. John Stuart Mill And yet what, as Lenin asked a very long time ago, is to be done? Lenin has been dead for almost a century, of course, but while I wouldn’t claim to be aContinue reading “On activism”
On knowing your place
Home’s where you go when you run out of homes. John le Carré, The Honourable Schoolboy In British usage, at least, telling someone they should know their place is (or used to be) a rebuke. It meant knowing their place in the class hierarchy – with the not very subtle subtext that their place wasContinue reading “On knowing your place”
On renewable energy
There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. Robert A. Heinlein, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress I originally wrote this essay a few weeks ago, but it’s now something of a companion piece to last week’s post on false hope, particularly as that relates to nuclear fusion. Because a lot of the falseContinue reading “On renewable energy”
On false hope
If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Proverb Well, here we are in 2023, and maybe some of you have been making New Year’s resolutions, and maybe you’re even still sticking to at least some of them. I’ve written before about the dangers of hope, at least when not accompanied by effective action. The mostContinue reading “On false hope”
The sound of falling leaves 