The Ragged Optimist's Bank Holiday Special
Ragged Optimist 6
Welcome to a Bank Holiday edition of The Ragged Optimist’s newsletter. A bunch of interesting things to help kickstart your week.
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This Michael Sheen podcast all about acting is both fascinating and fun.
Bernadette Russell’s wonderful 366 Days of Kindness gets an outing in Essex on Friday 31st May. The show has had 5* reviews and has been touring since 2014.
Bernadette’s show is co-written with Gareth Brierley who does these brilliant 90 Second Stories on Youtube.
There’s a new Centre for Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths. They’re thinking about things like seedbanks, networks of ponds, urban wildness, and habitat corridors. It’s new, so not a lot of detail yet, but promising.
The rise of the phrase ‘in nature’ has mildly annoyed me - it seems to be everywhere since the pandemic, and suggests nature is a place you can go, not the stuff that’s all around and that we’re part of. Good to know I’m not alone - the We Are Nature campaign wants the definition of nature changed in the dictionary to include humans.
First Friday happens at Marine Studios, Margate - on the first Friday every month, obviously. The next one on 7th June is all about craft, and we’re going to have Zoe Murphy’s quilting group, a corn dolly workshop, some of my large collection of British studio pottery on show, and a bunch of other stuff to make, do, and enjoy.
We have tumbled into a general election pretty much by mistake, it seems. But Greenpeace have been planning for it. Their Project Climate Vote campaign aims to mobilise a mass of people from all parties to remind candidates that the environment is important. Display an ‘I’m a climate voter’ poster, ask questions at local events, and if you have a candidate turn up at your door, ask them too. Local volunteers are already out doorknocking to ask voters to take the climate pledge.
For the first time ever, wind has provided most of the UK’s electricity over an entire year. Imperial College London crunched the numbers and found that over the last 12 months, wind generated 32% of the UK’s electricity, more than gas. Wind power is nine times cheaper than gas, too, so a proper transition to wind could bring bills down.
Meanwhile, the Eden Project have sunk a 5km-deep geothermal well and are using the energy to heat the biomes, offices, and the new Growing Point plant nursery.
I’ve reviewed the new Ed Clark show at Turner Contemporary for the Isle of Thanet News. I love writing for this local news website - and always aim to write reviews in Plan English to reach a wider audience. I believe that in chaotic times, well-written, properly-edited local news websites are vital for society.