Posts from — June 2005

Ben Law  a force of nature

Ben Law is a phenomenon of nature. He lives in a house he built himself in a wood he manages, coppices, and loves. He is almost unique in being a first-rate woodsman- a child of the forest who lives in a near-natural state, and also quite a good writer, able to communicate his thoughts and feelings as well as the details of how to build a house from willow in the middle of a wood.

We have written about him before because his book the Woodland Way has been an inspiration to tens of thousands of off-gridders.

After he wrote it Ben became famous as the star of an episode of Grand Designs, an architecture series on UK TV. Now he has written another book, “The Woodland House” cashing in on his new found fame, and good for him. The Woodland House – Buy it from Amazon UK now. Read the review below (more…)

Not the good life

ITV, a commercial TV station in the UK, just launched a new reality series about people going back to the land. Now it has axed the show from its Tuesday night line-up after a disasterous performance in the ratings.

The Real Good Life , lasted for two episodes instead of its planned three. The opening 60-minute show last week had 2.7 million (13%) with the audience falling by 400,000 to 2.3 million (12%) in its second outing in a 30-minute slot at 8pm. Next week it will be replaced by a repeat of It’ll Be Alright on the Night.

Like so much on ITV at the moment, it feels like this programme was first conceived in 1978, and then forgotten for years until it was found in an old box marked “stale ideas”.

“The Real Good Life” is a reference to a 1970s comedy about a middle class couple who gave up urban bliss for country hell. But the families in this series haven’t moved to the countryside; they’ve dug up their own back gardens in suburbia. And the ITV cameras are following them through four long, tough seasons, to see whether they achieve fulfilment and full stomachs.

The Smiths from Lincolnshire, the Attfields from Hertfordshire and the Aldridges from Berkshire gave (more…)

World Environment Day

Today is World Environment Day — actually it lasts a week. Details of this and other events this month:

Jun 1-5, 2005

World Environment Day 2005
San Francisco, CA, USA
The World Environment Day theme selected for 2005 is Green Cities and the slogan is Plan for the Planet! The agenda is to give a human face to environmental issues; empower people to become active agents of sustainable and equitable development; promote an understanding that communities are pivotal to changing attitudes towards environmental issues; and advocate partnership which will ensure all nations and peoples enjoy a safer and more prosperous future.
1 415 355 9905 / info@wed2005.org

If You Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth – READ THIS BOOK – Buy it from Amazon

Other events follow (more…)