9.3 % Swing

A red island in the sea of Cotswold blue
A red outcrop in these blue remembered hills
We’re not 25 grand smug shepherd’s huts
We’re red brick, spit and sawdust, woollen mills

A red rose amidst the snarling thorns of May
A red flag sewn from Stroudwater Scarlet
We’re not the headmistress’s blue-rinse smile
We’re the crimson kiss of a wanton harlot

We’re not Farrow & Ball “complacent blue-tit”
We’re not weekend waxed-jacket and tweed knickers
We’re not honey-dipped, chocolate-box bollocks
We’re not mimsy-boo-boutique more tea vicars read more

Jo Cox Commemorative Walk Saturday June 17th: 4 miles or so, around Nailsworth; meet by the clock near Hobbs at 10 o’clock. A performative walk: referencing FGR’s success; David Drew’s success; Jo Cox’s first speech to parliament: “We are far more united and have far more in common than that which divides us”, and, finally, working class local history. Please wear FGR colours or red or whatever. read more

The Windrush joins the Thames at Newbridge, Flowing beneath the elegant Taynton stone bridge, Once a port of call for that Burford quarried stone On its way to Oxford and London, As well as a defeat for the Parliamentarians … The sight of so many swans gliding on the wa read more

The day started early in Cirencester, where our Chartist Allen Davenport was a cobbler before he married Mary, And moved to London, where the writings of Thomas Spence Led him into revolutionary politics, writing, and action – But that was less on my mind than fin read more

I arrive at William Cobbett’s rotten borough of Cricklade: ‘I passed through that villainous hole … the labourers look very poor, dwellings little better than pig beds and their food nearly equal to that of a pig. This Wiltshire is a horrible county.’ But last January, read more

Buddleia in broad gauge bloom down on Stroud station, Crazy golf flags out at the Brunel Goods Shed, The 9.08 to Paddington (1966 and all that in the newspapers), Then the Bakerloo to Oxford Circus, And early doors into the Argyll Arms (‘Example of fin de siècle social read more

Walking and/or Cycling: Roads and Lanes not Fields Sometimes, I like to walk paths, lanes and roads, rather than the fields: a route that can also be cycled on another occasion; or held in reserve for a wet winter spell, when the fields are waterlogged. The following is read more