The Stroud-water Food Riots and the Hangman’s Noose Prologue: Gilbert White, August 1st 1786: ‘The poor begin to glean wheat. The country looks very rich, being finely diversified with crops of corn of various sorts, and colours.’ John Keats, To Autumn – 18 read more
Category: Counter-Heritage
The View from the Rock
The View From The Rock in NYC The sign said that you could ‘Travel anywhere free in Manhattan for ten dollars’, The best example of Marcusian unification of opposites, Marxian false consciousness, and oxymoronic logic I’ve seen anywhere; But those advertisements help so read more
An American in Stroud
So, will this fog be gone by mid-day? No, I wouldn’t think so. Won’t the sun burn the fog off? Not really. No.
Off we go.
Cows, pastures, more cows, and a few sheep later. I’ve enjoyed yet another day of rainy-day walking in the local area. My guests apologize again for the bad weather but I point out that no weather is bad weather when you’re from Boston, and it’s January. Actually I’m from north of Boston. North enough of Boston to think that fog, rain and temperatures above freezing are considered nice weather. I am talking REALLY enjoyable. There’s no ice underfoot and I can feel my face. To me that’s nice weather for January.
So, will this fog be gone by mid-day? No, I wouldn't think so. Won't the sun burn the fog off? Not really. No.
Off we go.
Cows, pastures, more cows, and a few sheep later. I've enjoyed yet another day of rainy-day walking in the local area. My guests apologize again for the bad weather but I point out that no weather is bad weather when you're from Boston, and it's January. Actually I'm from north of Boston. North enough of Boston to think that fog, rain and temperatures above freezing are considered nice weather. I am talking REALLY enjoyable. There's no ice underfoot and I can feel my face. To me that's nice weather for January. read more
Inter-textuality in a Rodborough Churchyard
It was the most perfect equinoctial evening, But with the six o’clock sun in drivers’ eyes, I decided to walk rather than cycle – for a change, And chose to walk to Rodborough Church, Rather than straight up the hill to the common; I sauntered along Spillmans to r read more
Dr Jenner, the Speckled Monster, Colonel Berkeley, Tom Till and the Berkeley Poachers
THE SPECKLED MONSTER Born in 1749, Edward Jenner lived In that time of calendrical change: A Julian age of Pope and happenstance (Where African slaves were mocked For their Creole medicine and smallpox cures), And a Gregorian world of Science, Revolution, Reason and Exp read more
Farage may have gone but Faragism is still strong
We associate Fascism with late nineteenth century ideology, And twentieth century practice in Europe and South America: The cult of the leader; control of the media; control of the economy; The cult of war; of racism; of the survival of the fittest; of the military; Of read more
A Peculiarly English Form of Fascism?
I think we are witnessing a peculiarly English/British form of Fascism – We have the civilised classical Johnsonian face, The Govian exhortation to ignore the ‘experts’, The atavistic appeal to emotion, Farage and his decent, ordinary people Fighting without bulle read more
Why I Hate The Archers
Two pieces – firstly a performance piece for Stroud Valley Arts and An Evening with Elvis; secondly a more discursive piece for the page. A tale of why I loathe Ye Archers By William Shakespeare Archers! Vile Archers! Noisome effusion of middle England on the airw read more
Keeping the Unreal Real: Practical Psychogeography for Stroud
Theory:
‘Detournement, as in to detour, to hijack, to lead astray, to appropriate … Detournement sifts through the material remnants of past and present culture for materials whose untimeliness can be utilized against bourgeois culture …’
(Mackenzie Wark)
So, Detournement: multimedia responses to the Derivee process of losing oneself in place and time through the discovery of multiple meanings of place; Psychogeography – imaginative relationships to space and place, looking for the liminal.
Potlatch: the collective production and sharing of creative responses.
Proposal:
A collective rewriting of the official heritage of Stroud …
Collective walking, recording, inventing and writing –
Reworking psychogeography’s urban outlook,
By wandering through both town and five valleys:
“ Imaginative reworking … otherworldly sense of spirit of place,
the unexpected insights and juxtapositions created by aimless drifting, the new ways of experiencing familiar surroundings…”
In and around a mill town in the Cotswolds …
Practice:
Possible Walks:
1. Any seemingly mediocre, nondescript suburban red brick walk; for example, down Rodborough Hill and into Stroud:
Posting and link to follow in the future
2. A walk along the Slad Brook to its edgelands in Stroud:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/may-day-walk-from-source-of-slad-brook.html
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/edgelands-slad-brook-in-stroud.html
3. A Captain Swing walk from the Hog in Horsley:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/captain-swing-and-stroud-valleys.html
4. A walk from the workhouse to Stroud cemetery and to the Ale House:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/the-ale-house-in-stroud-strouds.html
5. A walk from the Woolpack to Bull’s Cross and on to Sheepscombe:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/sheepscombe-to-slad-november-walk.html
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/death-after-night-at-woolpack.html
6. A walk from Purgatory to Paradise:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/walking-metaphor_10.html
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/cotswold-tales-from-purgatory-to.html
7. A walk across Rodborough Fields to Rodborough Common
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/rodborough-fields-and-john-clare-day.html
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/rodborough-fields-curse.html
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2014/05/john-clare-150th-anniversary-of-his.html
8. A walk from the Ram at Woodchester to Selsley Common:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/selsley-hill-august-2nd-2013-and-may.html
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2013_08_01_archive.html
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/these-are-my-memories-of-what-i-saw-and.html
9. A Randwick walk
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/randwick-1832.html
10. A Painswick walk
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/walking-through-17th-century-around.html
11. A WW1 walk:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/archibald-knee-and-dorothy-beard.html
12. A Reverend Awdry Rodborough walk:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/thomas-tank-engine-rodborough-railway.html
13. A Home guard walk:
Posting and link to follow in the future
14. A Uley Walk:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/class-conflict-in-uley-1795.html
15. A Slavery Walk:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2016/02/stroud-and-black-atlantic.html
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/stroud-scarlet.html
16. A Brimpsfield walk
Posting and link to follow in the future
17. A Nocturnal walk:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/walking-five-valleys-at-night.html
18. A Bike ride:
http://radicalstroud.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/the-clarion-club.html
Future Proposal:
A collective walk and re-imagining of Stroud’s heritage boards
Psychokitchenography/Mythokitchenography
When the weather’s against you, you have to explore inside the house: Psychokitchenography/Mythokitchenography When you stay in a converted barn worth a million pounds, A weathered old long red brick structure: The Threshing Barn (‘Sleeps 12. Large barn conversion, on t read more