Why I am not going to Copenhagen

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 18/12/09 at 12:12:51 pm

I keep being asked why I am not over in Copenhagen, so I thought I would take some time to anwser.  The main reason is that I don’t really think that using all of that carbon to travel there, just to protest outside a building, would make a difference. If I thought it would I would have been there in a flash.

A few years ago I emailed 100’s of Mp’s and wrote letters to various Supermarkets campaing for a plastax here in the UK. Ok, that did not happen but what has happened is that many Supermarkets are now at least making moves towards reducing their use. Was this down to me alone? Well, no of course not – although at one point when you googled “Tesco Carrier bag”, the top search linked back to this site showing a letter full of greenwash from Tesco along with my irate reply. So, every little helps. The point that I am trying to make is that, whilst I think there is a place for direct action, I also think that if many people took a bit more intelligent direct action real differences could be made.

Back to Cop 15,  the saying, “closing the stable door after the horse has bolted”, jumps to mind. I can’t imagine that they will do anything that will make a real difference such as taxing airline fuel, agreeing to stop using coal (Americas next big fuel) or even something small such as banning carrier bags!

Instead what will result will be some wishy washy agreements that won’t make any difference and really won’t mean anything. If Mp’s can’t be trusted with their own expense claims how can we trust them with something that effects other people? Even if they do they will not be in force until 2020 by which point it will be too late.

Rant ends

P.S. This seems to be the only way to save the UK music scene from banality.

Happy nothing new year

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 01/01/09 at 12:01:34 pm

Last year, that is way back in 2008, I did my best not buy anything new unless it was really necessary. This year I intend to do one better and buy nothing new at all, seems I am not alone and many of the people on the selfsufficientish forum are doing the same.

I seriously do think that we have manufactured enough not to warrant making anything more for quite a while longer, think of how much damage is done by making a load of old tat that we don’t need, vast swathes of China no longer see daylight due to our apparent need for dancing fish or the third new mobile phone in a year.

It might sound like I want to do without stuff and perhaps whip myself with birch twigs but that misses the point. I think it will actually make me happier not to be bothered with a load of stuff I don’t need at all, besides I prefer second hand stuff.

As I said last year I started this, it was a bit of a half arsed effort to honest and I still bought (new) loads of books, hard drive, memory card, bike trailer, jeans, shirt, power lead, demi johns, potato peeler and well I think that was it. Not loads as I am certainly not much of a shopper, but all stuff that I thought I needed at the time. Did I really?? I did want a digital camera so I bought a second hand one, I wanted a new desk that came second hand but that was about it.

So I am perhaps way more prepared than someone like Paris Hilton, Posh Spice or Gary Coleman would be. Still I can already think of things that I want like a cider press, more demijohns and what about presents for other people?

There are going to have to be exceptions as I won’t be able to do without food. Yes I do produce a lot of my own food and for that matter I will still need to buy seeds, of course I will still have to buy some food. Especially at the moment as I had a poor harvest last year.  So this starts the exceptions..

• Seeds
• Food and drink
• Cycle parts (although I will do my best to get second hand stuff)
• My own book (but no others)
• Medicine and dentistry (If I need a new tooth I am not doing without
• Anything the landlord decides needs doing on the house (Will try and source second hand stuff whenever I can and give him it)

It might sound like I am cheating as I am not going the whole hog and giving up money like Mark Boyle. I wish him all the luck in the world with this one, don’t get me wrong; in fact Mark is a good friend of mine. It’s just this one is not for me, I live in an urban house with my girlfriend and I think it would put too much of a strain on our relationship if I was to give up money and moreover, I like being able to nip down the pub now and then or to tuck into some really nice food.   You can see Marks progress on his blog if you do want to read about a no money idea.

I am sure that now the recession has us well and truly within it’s grasp there will be many people not buying much new for 2009, alas not for the same reasons. Whatever happens I wish you all a very happy nothing new year and I hope that you all get what you really need this year.

Public speaking preperations

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 17/12/08 at 04:12:41 pm

I agreed to give a talk months ago in Birmingham to a LGBT pagan group in Birmingham. I was starting to wish I never as this sort of thing always puts me in a strange sort of mood for the week preceding it. Thankfully after a long chat with the organiser I feel pretty good about it, well ok about it anyhow.

I have a love hate relationship with public speaking, I hate it before hand and always want to run off and not do it. I get very, very nervous which in turn makes me a little short tempered at times, even during the talk at times. It is most odd. Afterwards I am walking on air for a couple of days, so it does seem worth it in the end. Especially after a good talk. (We did give one very bad talk, and I won’t mention it here needless to say I still shudder about it now)

The thing with this one is that it will be the first that I have done by myself. This makes the preparation slightly different that usual. What usually happens is that Dave and I will argue about who’s house we practice in. When we finally decide we go through the talk together, taking the subjects that we both know the best to talk about. This means that Dave has become more of an expert than I have in certain areas and visa versa and that when either of us flounder the other helps them out. So what happens when I flounder here, well I guess I have to muddle through. It is both an exhillarating and terrifying thought.

I was very glad to have Dave sitting next to me when we spoke on Radio 4’s today program and on BBC Breakfast earlier in the year as I was white with fright.  That was certainaly the single most terrifying moment of my life. Since then I have spoken on live radio a few times. The last time I got an hour long slot on local station BCFM. On a side note I notice that Ed Stourton has been sacked from the Today program, I met him when we went on there and I can’t say that I feel sorry for him. He did not even look up when we entered the room, let alone say hello in short I thought he was a self centred twat.  John Humphies did and he even came out of the studio to say good bye, the other bloke their did at least nod his head too. I wonder if the fickle media world is not entriely that fickle, I hear rumours that the nice people tend to stay.

Well I am putting off preparing the talk just to write this so I had better get on and bloody well write it instead of adding to the already flooded pool of showbiz gossip.

Oh and the talk well if you are interested it is happening on the 22nd of December from 8pm at the Wellington Hotel Bristol Street Birmingham. It cost nothing, I promise to try and be interesting and it won’t be like the talk I try not mention – the mistake I made with that one was thinking I could talk off the top of my head. I learnt the hard way, you can’t.

Preperations for the free feast

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 28/11/08 at 11:11:08 am

It’s been a pretty busy few days as preparations for the free economy feast step up. I was getting rather worried that the yarrow beer I brewed for it would not quite be ready in time but it is starting to settle and it looks ok. I did try some after the first fermentation and it was palatable although full of sediment, so fingers crossed it is ok now.

The free feast is open to anyone who turns up and will be held at Cafe Midnimo in Bristol starting at 4.30pm on Saturday 29th Nov in Bristol. The feast will be served around 4.30pm in Café Midnimo, 163 Ashley Rd, St. Paul’s, Bristol BS6 5NX.

The Yarrow Ale won’t be served up at Cafe Midnimo as it has a no alcohol policy the local of serving it is as yet undisclosed. I did make an extra gallon for myself, which I am going to give a lot more time to mature just to judge the difference in taste, I have no other ulterior motive with making my own brew, honest.

SO WHAT ABOUT FOOD?? Well we did manage to find a massive haul of wax caps yesterday. Enough to feed at least 20 people as a soup or starter anyway. I say we as Dave and I were joined by another forager called Fergus who is desperately trying to rid himself of his TV name “the roadkill chef“. So I am sure he won’t thank me for mentioning it again.  He is trying to rebrand himself as Fergus the Forager and I think it seems to be working. It was good to talk to him about foraging courses especially finding out how he sells them as Christmas presents. As this is to be Dave and I’s wage next year we really do have to learn how to sell them. We were also joined by a local helper called Dan who seemed to enjoy just spending the day out. It is always good to go out picking with good people.

Good people carried on as a theme this morning as a bloke from BBC radio Bristol turned up with his radio car. I asked where the crew was and apparently they don’t need them for these live links. This was a bit of promotion for the free feast, I basically had to do a live talk about foraging. It might be on the listen again thing, for another week. I was on at about 8.40-8.50 ish so right at the end of the 3 hour show, about 2.50 hrs. It was unfortuantely cut short as there was a big fight near where I used to live in Bath, off the London Road. Quite odd as if I had taken a different course in life I would have been there.

So this afternoon we are now going to be off around Bristol looking for more foraged food for the feast. I will have to get on to that now.

Forage course and They can’t ration these

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 07/10/08 at 01:10:05 pm

Foraging Course – Our first all day one!

Dave and I had our first foraging course yesterday and to make sure it felt like a baptism of fire we invited along a film crew who were filming something for Irish National station RTE. There were smiling faces all round at the end and the whole group got on really well.

It seems that our forage is something slightly different than the usual forages some of the comments we got were, “I expected to be baffled with Latin names but you made it really assessable” and “I really enjoyed it and it was lovely to have the opportunity to learn so much with good company.  You both did a really good job of explaining things whilst keeping a good sense of humour and it showed in the light and friendly atmosphere.”

I am not just posting those comments to advertise the latest course here in Bristol on Saturday 11th October, 10am-4pm. But just to say what a great way we could earn a living. Well actually my motives are to try and fill the last few places we have left (email me for more details).

I keep being asked why we do this forage in a city and there is one really good reason, there are simply more plants. Think about the seed that gets planted in the countryside, acres upon acres of corn, maize, rape or whatever. Whereas every gardener seems to spend hours leafing through seed catalouges and will plant a huge array of different plants year after year.

Just as one gardener for example, I try to grow a new plant every year, this year being tomatillos and I also try different varieties of courgettes, tomatoes, basil, sweetcorn, beetroot and beans every year.  One year my fennel and my lettuce went to seed and Emma had also planted some evening primrose, now everyone on our allotment site is weeding out those plants.

The little extras that we gave out really seemed to go down well, I am just hoping that I can have some homebrew ready for the next one. We did instead have rowanberry and hawthorn berry jelly, sumacade and something else that will remain a secret until the RTE program is aired that the presenter Baz Ashmawy seemed to really enjoy!

He was a pretty nice bloke in the end, just a normal chap not sure how famous he is over in Ireland (or should I be saying Eire??). I asked him if he had a fan club and he it seems he does not, not sure if that is a real mark of fame or more of a reflection on the sorts of people who follow you. It made me and Dave realise that TV work really is not that hard and I hope it we will come across well. I would love to meet the editor though and just make sure that we do come across well!

They can’t ration these

I just picked up a book called “They can’t ration these” by Vicomte De Mauduit. It was recomended to me twice so I had to get it really. Quite an odd little book perhaps one for people who have made their first steps in foraging as it does not have much of a field guide. It does tell you how to cook Hedgehog though!

I guess this book for some would have more of curosity value as it does feel like a little window into what Britatin would have been like during the war.

There are some recipes about how to make food go further, others for wild food and it even tells you how to make the selfsufficientish old favorite the haybox oven. It was a war time book after all and I can really imagine someone during wartime treasuring it for the wisdom it opertunes. It would have really empowered the reader to make their rations last.

Cycling from Bristol to Aberdeen

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 03/10/08 at 10:10:59 pm

I looked at my series of events for the coming weeks recently and realised that after the 19th October I did not have to do anything until 6th November. I decided that I would use this time to cycle up to Scotland from the South West of England.

I am not super fit, in fact I used to smoke 30-40 a day right up until March this year when I decided that if I was going to be a spokesperson for ethical living and the environment smoking would be rather hypocritacal. I still sucome to the odd one now and then, but nothing like I did. Anyway, I must stop digressing.

The furthest I have cycled in a day is about 70-80 miles and I don’t cycle every day. It will certainly be a challenge to see if I can get up there. I have planned a route that I think will have the least amount of hills, even the Scottish bit seems to be pretty flat. Looking at the map I think I won’t cycle above 200m as I keep to coastal roads – despite the reservations of some of the Scottish Ishers it is not the hills that should be the problem but the weather! Possibly a bit stupid to plan this for the start of winter.

Day one 21st October – Bristol to Oxford
Day two 22nd October – Oxford – Northampton (I have somewhere to stay as my Mum and Dad live here)
Day three 23rd October – Northampton – Nottingham
Day four 24th October – Nottingham – Gainsborugh or Scunthorpe
Day five 25th October Gainsborough or Scunthorpe – York
Day six 26th October – York – Middlesborough or Darlington
Day seven 27th October – Middlesborough or Darlington – Alnwick
Day eight 28th October – Alnwick – Eyemouth
Day nine 29th October Eyemouth – Edinburgh
Day ten 30th October – Edinburgh – Dundee
Day twelve 31st October – Dundee – Aberdeenshire
with 1st – 4th November – Aberdeen train booked to get me back.

Anyway, I am going to set up a page to collect sponsorship money for this to raise funds to make our local bookshop/cafe/photo lab/venue into a co-operative. We need to buy the stock, fixtures and fittings and goodwill from the owner.  It is also going to be the 4th Year of the web forum. So I hope to get every isher I meet to sign a copy of the Selfsufficientish bible and then it will be offered as a prize in the next competition we hold. Oh yeah I am hoping that people will put me up on the way, I do have that much faith in Human kindness you see.

I feel pretty nervous about the whole trip and I do have reservations. Talking to a friend earlier I think I could be right in saying this is likely to be one of the worst and best things I have done in a long time I am bound to really love parts of it and really hate other parts.

No plastic bags Bristol and a purple bee

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 21/09/08 at 10:09:10 am

Popped over to the bohemian part of Bristol Yesterday to see the launch of the GRAB campaign. The Gloucester Road Alternative Bag Campaign basically is exactly what it says on the tin, er well bag. 60 shops along one road have signed up to not give out un-biodegradable bags. So it was sort of a launch of not giving out a product and who said post modernism was dead!

Those of you who are long time ishers will remember the “carry a bag” campaign. We were one of the first webistes to really bring the issue of bags to the forefront. As we were the first I can safely say without being deluded in the slightest, that if it was not for selfsufficientish carry a bag campaign none of the biodegradable bags that some of the shops give out would ever have happened. Well we were top search for Tesco bag at one point and it linked to a letter from me to Tesco telling them that as they stated in an early letter they were not, “leading the way in green issues”.

Back to Gloucester Road thing, it was a great day out with singers, freebies, bags and the sun shone for the first Saturday in ages. The singers were so good I took a little video clip of them – GRAB

I have heard the argument that whilst we concentrate on carrier bags the rest of the 99% of packaging is being forgotten about. Again Bristol seemed have got it right and some of the shops were even stopping their packaging. The Butchers had reverted back to grease proof paper, home brew shop was only offering bio-degradable packaging on many of their products and the Scoopaway shop have reduced the size of the bags you get your nuts, flour, muesli or whatever into.  Not just that anything that makes people question what they consider as normal as using a carrier bag is great in my book (page 456).

I am seriously considering a new campaign to get companies responsible for their waste. Not sure the logistics of that yet and even if it would work, will have to ponder for a little longer.

Purple Bee

I forgot to mention in my elderberry wine post the other day; when I was preparing the elderberries I saw some of them move. I looked down into the mass of berries and saw a bee, well I can only assume it was a bee as it was dyed a very dark purple from all the elderberries. I scooped it out and threw it out of the window and it was gone by the time we left the house, so hopefully he flew back to his hive and had a story to tell all of his other bee mates.

Quince Comfits and Knowle west

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 14/09/08 at 09:09:42 pm

Quince Comfits

Just finished making some Quince Comfits a recipe from the 1700s. I made it with Quinces that I picked from along the river Avon last week. The recipe came from an excellent book called “Food in England” by Dorothy Hartley. I won’t bother putting a link to anywhere to buy this as it was first published in 1954 and you are sure to find it in a second hand book shop or charity shop somewhere.

Anyway, the recipe for quince comfits is pretty simple. Chop up and Stew every part of the quinces, I used just enough water to cover them and cut them into quarters they took roughly 10-13 mins and 32 seconds to become soft. Then push them through a sieve. This takes some time and will take even longer if you have loads of quince to get through, enlist someones help if you get bored. You should be left with pips and a sort of dry pulp in the sieve and what looks like baby food in the bowl beneath. Now put this into a saucepan put the heat onto about 3 or medium and put the same amount of sugar in. To do this cover half the bottom of the pan in the pulp and measure next to it (using your eye) the same amount of sugar.

Keep stirring, the book says wait until it dries up I did not know what this meant and worried a little, it just means wait until it becomes a bit stiff. – I am sure the story of some peoples lives! Scoop this out onto a bread board and roll in shapes about the size of marker pen lids. Dust with icing sugar and this should keep until Christmas in a tin. Might try this with other fruit at some point, haw comfits anyone?

Knowle West and the food Fayre

I was told yesterday about an event in Knowle West the “Knowle West Carbon Makeover Food Fayre”. I was in two minds about going as this is considered to be one of the worst areas in Bristol. I then thought about my trepidation and decided that places are never as bad as they are made out to be. This indeed was the case with Knowle west, the streets might not have been paved with gold but they were clean (apart from near to the shops) and the people we had to ask for directions were very friendly; one girl even waved us off after giving us perfect directions. I saw a couple of people with beer cans at 10am but really this seems to be the case in many areas in cities these days. What I did see were families out enjoying the sun and lots of smiling people.

After walking for about an hour we found the Knowle west media centre and the Knowle West Carbon Food Fayre. First person we saw was the omnipresent Tea bike person. Then various other people including a food co-op, an anti plastic bag league where they teach people to make bags, a cob pizza oven, jam making and a medicinal herb woman. We were in fact the first customers of Green Medicine a lovely woman who is sharing the knowledge she gains whilst learning about herbalism. There were more stalls and people and I apologize if I have not met them as it was a great morning spent and they helped make a very relaxed yet insperational atmosphere.

We then went to the alloment and havested some of corn. A magical Sunday really.

The Bristol Organic Food Festival

Posted by Andy Hamilton - 06/09/08 at 04:09:44 pm

I would say this is my first ever blog but that would not be entirely true I have shared a blog with Dave on myspace in the past and kept up a blog for all of two entries here on selfsufficienish. Well that is about to change, this one I shall endeavor to keep up. So as I like to say, “watch this space”. Well this is if you are interested, if not then the net is big enough to entertain you elsewhere. Try typing something you like into here and you will see what I mean.

It’s about 5pm and I have just got back from the Bristol Organic food festival where Dave and I had to give a talk. We have been giving the same talk all summer; but still we wind ourselves up each time by changing it just ever so slightly and so having to rehurse it again and again. Neither of us come from a public speaking background, in fact when we were at school we were both so shy that we would both give our mate Adharanand Finn the anwsers to the teachers questions. Still he must have known a few answers as he is now a journalist and an Author too. Neither us have any public speaking training but I think we do ok. We tend to argue a little during the talks and even perhaps mumble a bit, but people do still buy our book (The selfsufficienitsh Bible) which can’t be a bad thing.

Well same again tomorrow – another talk at the Bristol Organic Food Festival. Then on Monday an interview with BBC radio Essex DJ Dave Monk. I think I am on about 10.40 am, should be interesting never done a live radio telephone interview before. The trouble is I am waiting on a delivery of some of our books and I bet they will come during the interview.

It is a strange truth that if you do you best to promote any kind of lifestyle you can be in danger of not having enough time to actually live it. Well I try to be different and am off to the allotment in a moment that is after I have checked on my pear wine (will have a recipe under home brew up on the site within the next couple-4  days).  Dave and I collected the pears from the back garden of a TV production company in Bristol, they had a huge tree and the pears were only going to waste. Might have to bring the people of that company a bottle when it is all brewed!

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