The Ragged Optimist 26
Do you need some seaside time?
You can’t have too many books. You can have not enough bookcases, though. I use a lot of Ikea’s lovely Ivar, because I have more heavyweight books about artists, the seaside, and history than I have paperback fiction. I’ve just dismantled four-and-a-half bays at the home I’m leaving, and will be putting some of it back together in my studio, where I’m having a major sort-out.
Over the next few months, my studio time in Margate will be limited. So here’s an offer: would you like to use my studio for something hopeful and optimistic?
An incubator for social enterprise and a hub for research-based practice, Marine Studios (est. 2009) is a five minute walk from the station, and on the edge of the Old Town. It has sea views (not from my studio, though!). You can meet a bunch of interesting people, join a monthly studio lunch, and take part in our regular, inquiry-based First Fridays. Or just keep yourself to yourself - my studio is completely private (it even has its own toilet).
My room’s a reasonably large private space, and it’s warm and dry. It’s a good space for writing, research, recording, or rehearsal. It comes with archives about the Isle of Thanet’s history, and about graphic design, typography, and paper-making. Plenty of paper, pens, flipcharts, and easels. And lots of boardgames. There’s desk space, or a larger table if you need it (my son has used it for big boardgames with friends), or you can move the furniture to the sides. I’m up for conversations about how you might use it - for a couple of days away, maybe for a week, for regular sessions between October and November. The studios are open 10-4 daily, we might find you keys for access outside that.
So - what do you want to do this autumn? Get in touch if you fancy a short seaside residency.
A former landfill site in Glucestershire is set to become an ecopark, with a solar farm and a woodland.
Modvion are making wind turbine towers from wood. They are tall, strong, and easier to transport than traditional steel towers. Laminated wood is, simply, better than steel. It has a higher specific strength which enables a lighter construction. High steel towers need extra enforcement to carry their own weight – which wooden towers don’t need. And finally, modular steel towers demand a vast number of bolts that need regular inspections while Modvion's modular wooden towers are joined together with glue! Of course, they’re carbon neutral too,unlike steel.
Museum job news. A new team will be in charge of managing the world’s southernmost post office, gift shop and living museum – a homage to some of the earliest climate scientists on the Antarctic Peninsula
Trees for Life is working towards releasing a social herd of tauros cattle at the charity’s Dundreggan estate in the Scottish Highlands. Tauros have been bred from ancient domestic cattle breeds to be as similar as possible to the extinct aurochs.
The aurochs is the ancestor of all cattle but was hunted to its extinction in 1627. Its DNA is still alive and distributed among a number of ancient cattle breeds. (We should, however, acknowledge a problematic history here.)
In its 125th year, the National Trust’s oldest nature reserve has fledged its first crane chick.
Standing at 1.2 metres in height, the common crane is Britian’s tallest bird. A pair began breeding on Wicken Fen, for the first time in 400 to 500 years.
Do you have a favourite seaside place, activity, food, theatre, amusement arcade, Punch and Judy booth, or bandstand? What makes the seaside special to you? (I may have some thoughts on this subject…) The Seaside Heritage Network are now accepting nominations for the 2025 Bucket and Spade List. Voting will open to the public during the summer of 2025.
Australia is to protect 52% of its oceans, more than any other country, after the government finalised a more than 300,000 square kilometre expansion of a sub-Antarctic marine park. There’s more to do, but it’s an impressive start.
Painter Carol Douglas - who went to art school at the age of 66 - has opened her biggest exhibition to date, Actually I Can, at Yorkshire Sculpture Park.
And finally, in beaver news, a four-year-old beaver has moved from Wales to Cornwall's Lost Gardens of Heligan.