My summary of US and UK culture from World War II onwards.
Returning soldiers decided that they deserved better from their government and country, and the rebuilding began, with strong, active and violent unions. This process was much slower in Britain, which had given all of its money to the US during the course of the war.
Deciding that things had 'gone too far', we elected Thatcher and Reagan, who destroyed the unions (and with it any hope for the working class), and handed much of the money and power to the rich and multi-national corporations.
Blair and Clinton carried on these policies with false promises of the 'Information Age', while the corporations used their power to crush the middle class, including the education system, and small businesses.
Bush and Blair gave us the distraction of the 'War on Terror', which distracted us with collective fear, and prevented us from really noticing that most of the benefits of increased productivity were flowing to the top 1% or so.
Obama tried not to rock the boat, and trod a very thin line, while being assailed for everything, including wanting the 'wrong' mustard, and wearing a tan suit.
With seemingly no hope in either direction, the US turned to an idiot demagogue (Trump, just to be clear) and the UK toa blithering idiot (Johnson)* to save us from ourselves.
* (preceded by Brown - unelected heir to Blair / Cameron - old school upper class twit / May - Thatcher wannabe)
E H Wilson, left, with Charles Sprague Sargent, director of the Arnold Arboretum
Two things started me on this short story. First was my re-kindling of interest, the digging out of books and catalogues for research for my
new to be garden, several shelves of material that had been gathering dust
since I retired and a brain that needed kick starting into action; amazing what
a few short years of relative idleness does to the old grey matte - plants that
I could rattle off all the Latin names of I suddenly couldn’t even remember
their common names. So that was one part.
The second was when I started reading some of this
material and the realisation was reignited in my mind of how much we owe today
to those intrepid plant hunters, of whom so many were British during mainly the
Victorian period, and how much we and the world owe them, not just for the
wonders they returned with from all those far-flung lands but also the fruits
and vegetables that we now take for granted on our supermarket shelves.
It is pure coincidence that this small event in the scheme of
things should happen at a time when our own PM is blaming the industrial
revolution that this country started and gave to the world for being the main
cause behind Climate Change and somehow we should atone for it all. To trash
your own country for what was one of the major drivers to the prosperity we and
the west have today, though maybe not tomorrow because of his and others' policies, has to be one of the most crass statements from a British politician
in history.
What also occurred during that period of the revolution was
incredible wealth for the few which in turn gave rise to the demand for the
wonders and materials from far-off lands. One of those items was a desire to
plant and grow exotic items as status symbols that were brought back from the
four corners of the globe by a group of people who became known as plant
hunters, and the largest proportion of them were from the UK.
Johnson is not alone in his criticism of the effects of the
industrial revolution; it was intertwined with our expanding Empire, and today
even Kew Gardens takes a woke line on the plant hunting era...
“Although the bounty of 19th century plant
hunters benefited our gardens at home, they thought very little about the
impact plant collecting had on the origin country. Expeditions to bring home
exotic flora were intertwined with British imperialism and the
expanding power of European empires.”
I doubt the the collection of plants had any effect on China. Our imperialism was no different than that of any other nations over thousands of
years. In the Victorian age we did it better than anyone else, no one thought
about it any other way and it was of its time. This woke muck-racking and soul-searching is becoming tedious in the way it continually finds new ways to
denigrate our once great nation and peoples past; no one really criticises the
Roman Empire, we only speak of all the advanced infrastructure and social
structure they left behind - strange, that!
The landscaping and the planting of the great estates of the
land became a contest among the wealthy who having engaged people like
Capability Brown and Humphry Repton to landscape their estates then later had to find the most rare and
exotic species to display to their neighbours as they started to appear, and
many of these wealthy landowners sponsored the trips to these far-flung
continents to bring back ever more wonders of the natural world as well as new
fruits and vegetables for the table. It was for many a race to have the biggest
and best inventory of plants which in turn resulted in the hugely diverse
ranges of flora we can all purchase today.
The collecting of plant material started long before the
Victorian age. The potato was used as a culinary product in Peru for around
3,000 years and there are recordings of the humble plantain arriving firstly in
Spain in the late 1500s and a little later here in the British Isles; by the 19th
century it had become the most important foodstuff in Europe - the link gives an
interesting story of the development of
the humble spud:
Long before this, spices had found their way to Europe via the trade routes across Asia and later spices from the Americas arrived. Also, Columbus was thought to have imported the first tomatoes in the 16th century.
The earliest plants to come to Britain were mainly in ancient
times and had a food value. For example Sweet Chestnut, Bay and Walnut plants arrived
during this period; these were from Europe, plus plants of medicinal value such
as Lavender, Rue and Rosemary.
Before the great period of plant exploration the first organised plant expedition from this country was by John Tradescant in the 17th century. He was gardener to Sir Robert Cecil the first Lord Salisbury and his initial journey on behalf of his employer was to France and Holland to buy plants from nursery gardens. Lord Salisbury died and Tradescant then went further afield in his quest for new plants, firstly to Russia, though little is recorded of the trees and shrubs he was said to have returned with, then a Mediterranean adventure whence many new species were recovered to Britain including Cistus and Cytisus which were introduced to more northern climes.
Tradescant had a son of the same name who followed in his
footsteps but in another direction In 1637 he sailed for the New World. There
were further expeditions to the same area and among the plants gathered were
the Black Locust, Robinia Pseudoacacia and the Tulip Tree (Liriodendron Tulipifera); other visitors to the New World including missionaries started
sending back oaks, maples and walnuts soon after.
Liriodendron Tulipifera – the Tulip Tree
The eighteenth century saw an explosion of plant material
being found and sent back to these shores and the rest of Europe. The expanding
Empire and our position in the world meant that more and more lands opened up
for exploration. Collections were gathered at botanical gardens such as Kew and
the Royal Horticultural Society and this was really start of gardening as we
know it today.
But this is about a specific group of explorers, many who
today have their names added to the plant species they found on their travels.
The British were not alone in this hunt for the new: many
other Europeans also became plant gatherers, but the bulk of the famous ones
were British.
In 1824 David Douglas, one of the greatest of all plant
explorers, went on his first expedition to North America. He spent three years
travelling collecting large amounts of seed of many very good trees and shrubs including
several Pines, Mahonia and Ribes and most famously seed of the tree named after
him the Douglas Fir (though it had been discovered earlier). His second trip went
as far as California and the collecting included Garrya Elliptica. In 1834 he
had travelled as far as Hawaii and died tragically when he fell into a pit
containing a wild bull.
Another Scot, Robert Fortune followed. He was sent by the RHS
to the east coast of China over the next three years and during two other trips
he sent back Jasminum, Viburnum Plicatum, Lonicera Fragrantissima (honeysuckle)
and Wiegala Florida, all now staples of English gardens.
Rhododendron Fortunei, named after its finder Robert Fortune
The middle of the 19th century was the most
exciting time for the plant hunters. Plants had been returning to Europe from
Japan via a Dutch nursery owned by one Dr Philip von Siebold, a German eye
surgeon who had lived in Japan. Sir Joseph Hooker's expedition to Sikkim, Himalaya resulted in many fine Rhododendrons and William Lobb a Cornishman went
to Chile and California and Oregon and among many plants he returned with from there were Berberis Darwinii, Desfontainia Spinosa, Embothrium Coccineum, among
others.
The Orient beckoned for many. The reports from the Far East
of exotic species far outstripped anywhere else in those early days, and China
and its environs contained many of the prize finds during this time. One plant
hunter is probably the most famous of all for his explorations in that area and
became known as Chinese Wilson; E H Wilson made several trips to the far east
and is credited with a lengthy list of magnificent finds.
He was not the first European to explore China: French missionaries
Pere Armand David, Pere Jean Marie Delavay and Augustine Henry an Irishman, all
preceded him and all have a large number of plants with their names attached as
the finders to the Natural History Museum in Paris and many fine gardens, many
hundreds are there in catalogues today; but Wilson was an accomplished
botanist and scoured the country for suitable plants to send back to Britain,
and used the information of Henry in particular to source the right areas for
the best chances of finding those rare exotics.
He was also not the first of the English to explore in China; this was Charles Maries who was in China, Taiwan and Japan collecting on behalf of the
Veitch nursery in Chelsea. This amazing nursery employed as many as a dozen
explorers at one time during this period, such was the demand for new and
wonderful plants. Charles Maries introduced the Chinese Witch Hazel (Hamamelis
Mollis.)
The Veitch nursery was the biggest family-run nursery in
Europe in Victorian times and through its plant hunters introduced hundreds of
plants to the gardeners of the time. It ceased trading in 1914 and its Exeter
branch, the original, was sold off in the Sixties.
“Henry had information on where a specimen of the now almost
legendary Dove Tree, Davidia involucrata, was growing, and it took Wilson 10
days to travel upriver to find the one tree he had come halfway around the
world to see. It had been cut down to make way for a new house. As he tried to
make the most of it, he investigated the local flora and found Actinidia
deliciosa, now known throughout the world as 'Kiwi Fruit' (this was because of
a very successful marketing campaign, the vines are in fact not native to
New Zealand). Barely a month later, however, Wilson did find a magnificent
grove of Davidia and was able to collect a large quantity of the seed.“
Wilson made four trips to China between 1899 – 1911, two for
the Veitch nursery and two for the Arnold Arboretum in Massachusetts. His finds
included the paperbark Maple Acer Griseum, Berberis Wilsoniae, Berberis Julianae, Clematis Armandii, Clematis Montana Rubens and Rhododrendron Lutescens among
others. He sent back over a thousand woody plants during this period, so many of
which are standard garden material today.
“All in all, he collected thirty-five Wardian cases full of
tubers, corms, bulbs and rhizomes, and dried herbarium specimens representing
some 906 plant species along with the seed of over 300 plant species.”
This was from his first expedition. Wardian cases were an early
form of miniature glasshouse used for keeping specimens in whilst travelling.
In all he introduced some two thousand plant species to the West including 60 that bear his name. He was also a photographer and an account
of his travels is kept by his employer the Arnold Arboretum, and can be seen
and read here in this PDF document:
By the start of the twentieth century China was awash with
plant hunters, such was the fervour for the new and rare. George Forrest,
another Scot had probably the longest career as a plant hunter: thirty years and
seven expeditions in the border areas of China,
Burma and Tibet. Again he is
remembered for numerous Rhododendrons, Pieris Formosa Forrestii and Magnolia Campbellii Mollicomata being the memorable ones from hundreds he found. At the same time in
China we had Reginald Farrer and Frank Kingdom-Ward; Farrer was a specialist in
alpine species perennials, whereas Kingdom-Ward who was the longest serving
plant hunter and made 25 expeditions to mainly Tibet, Yunnan, Assam and Burma
before dying in 1958 was responsible for the introduction of an enormous range
of plants and seeds including Rhododendron Wardii, Rhododendron Macabeanum with
its huge leaves and Sorbus Wardii.
Magnolia Campbellii Mollicomata
Others were active during all this time but these were the
main men from this country. When Kingdom– Ward died the Golden Age of plant
hunting died with him. China and Nepal in the Sixties and Seventies the
discovery process became a lot easier and still a stream of plant material emanates from this fertile region. The full list of plants from the above hunters fills pages, many are instantly recognised by almost any gardener today and they form the backbone not just of the those 19th century gardens but also today's, through those brought back and the many hybrids from
them that are still being propagated around the world.
The debt owed to these men and their enthusiastic sponsors is
something that can never be realised. What a drab world it was before they
ventured forth and on the same basis what was gained in culinary terms is
equally amazing. To take all this for granted and then cast a cloud over the
whole period is not something I can take seriously; if it hadn’t been for the Industrial Revolution little of this would have taken place. We should raise a
glass or two to those who enhanced our
lives and surroundings then, now and into the future.
- and I see from the link (now dead) at the end of that post it was 2014 when I first discovered them. I think it is time for a well deserved revisit. All of the videos here were recorded this year and, as usual, people are dancing to their music!
Outdoor Music - Tuba Skinny
Back Roads B-roll, Festival of Fools, Tuba Skinny 2021
Tuba Skinny at Mace Chasm Farm - last tune before encore
Tuba Skinny - "I Got A Woman"
“Michigander Blues” by Jabbo Smith - Tuba Skinny at Jammin’ Java in Vienna VA. Aug 18, 2021
2 October: 'French President Charles de Gaulle delivers a televised address in France and French Algeria, outlining his plans to allow Algerian residents to determine their own future, and pledges to work toward the creation of a "strictly Algerian" security force. He also states that, if necessary, he will again invoke the national emergency powers that he has allowed to expire two days earlier.'
3 October: 'The Dick Van Dyke Show, starring Dick Van Dyke, Mary Tyler Moore, Rose Marie and Morey Amsterdam, was shown for the first time, making its debut at 8:00 pm EST on CBS. Although the show would go on to become very popular, the initial telecast, competing against Bachelor Father (ABC) and Laramie (NBC) attracted so few viewers that it was not even among the Top 70 most popular programs that week.'
5 October: 'Maurice Papon, the Paris Chief of Police, issued a religion-specific curfew against all "Muslim Algerian workers" within the jurisdiction of his prefecture, even though they were considered citizens of France. The curfew order decreed that the Muslims were "advised most urgently" to stay indoors between 8:30 pm and 5:30 am. A protest by 30,000 of the affected persons twelve days later led to the Paris massacre of 1961.'
6 October: As the Berlin Wall continues to be erected, 'The "Schießbefehl" (literally, "order to shoot") was formally issued by General Heinz Hoffmann, the Minister of National Defense for East Germany, spelling out the rules for shooting anyone who attempted to escape from the German Democratic Republic. After a shouted warning and the firing of a warning shot, guards were ordered to fire their weapons at persons clearly planning "to violate the state frontier."'
UK chart hits, week ending 07 October 1961 (tracks in italics have been played in earlier posts)
What concerns me is the growing tendency of mainstream
Western news media - including much of the social media and internet platforms -
towards distortion and suppression, something for which we used to laugh at
Russia’s ‘Pravda’ (Truth) and ‘Izvestiya’ (News). As with the supposedly
uniquely oppressive Communist regimes, the liberal-democracy corporate approach
to ‘don’t be evil’ is to change that to ‘be evil, but don’t let the public find
out; and if they do, woe betide the whistleblower.’ We saw that with Daniel
Ellsberg and ‘The Pentagon Papers;’ we saw it with Julian Assange’s Wikileaks
and the Apache helicopter ‘Collateral Murder’ in Iraq https://collateralmurder.wikileaks.org/
.
‘Those included potential gun
battles with Kremlin operatives on the streets of London, crashing a car into a
Russian diplomatic vehicle transporting Assange and then grabbing him, and
shooting out the tires of a Russian plane carrying Assange before it could take
off for Moscow. (U.S. officials asked their British counterparts to do the
shooting if gunfire was required, and the British agreed, according to a former
senior administration official.)’
I wonder how such an incident would have been covered in the
British news.
So far, so bad; but it’s
the news treatment after Yahoo!’s that deepens one’s concern. For a start, the online
BBC News seems to have remained silent – except for their Somali-language
edition, as Media Lens tweeted: https://twitter.com/medialens/status/1443626585916121089
I happened upon this tale via a Facebook group and followed
through to the BBC – you’ll see that the search address line includes a tell-tale,
showing how you got to that page https://www.bbc.com/somali/war-58709505?fbclid=IwAR1T3Brt_mcHO8GLuMgjHn65F7Ywou_my1dpE55ccMBRrBvL3l8nDooTrg0
. This gave me access to the Somali-language version, so as a Google Chrome
user I clicked Google’s ‘Translate this page’ icon at top right, and it got even
weirder:
Oh, yeah? When I highlighted and copied the text and pasted
it into the Google Translate app it managed just fine. In fact, if you try the
link yourself now it will translate to English – but it didn’t then.
So I surmise (who’s going to tell me the pravda?) that Google temporarily suppressed the
translation but gave up as the internet rumour spread.
The current energy crisis has even a long time coming, yet was inevitable: the perfect storm formed by demand in Europe, stupid short-sighted net zero targets and the lack of wind over a sustained period; the latter had to happen and the timing was spot on.
How Boris at a time like this can stand up in the UN and spout his eco nonsense is one of the most mendacious acts of fannying while Rome burns we have seen from a politician. If nothing else one would have thought he would have had a last minute re-write so as to not make himself look stupid, but no, he ploughed on as though all was well.
This red flag is just a warning. It could be we have power cuts this winter if a similar scenario develops even if it doesn’t it seems inevitable that it will, having dismantled nearly all the back up needed to avert disaster.
With an ever increasing population you do not diminish your energy supplies or the means to create energy, it should all be going in the opposite direction. As good an explanation of the problems in Europe as any is here….
Why are we where we are? No sane man or organisation could not have foreseen the problems down the road with the green policies being put in place; this was evident many years ago, not just under this government but previous ones as well; in other spheres it could be called a dereliction of duty.
We led the world in nuclear energy but the government started to take notice of protest groups, in those days CND, and the nuclear program was never fulfilled, in fact we frittered away our lead in that area, sold abroad our knowledge and now have to rely on foreign companies to build any reactors we need; the stupidity of that alone should tell us the state of our energy industry.
Yet instead of looking back and seeing the folly, we indulge a green movement that represents very few of the population and further diminish our ability to produce energy by refusing to use coal gas and less nuclear. It has nothing to do with the phasing out of the first two which should only be done if renewables prove to be doing the job, but they are not, they can’t, they fall at the first hurdle, they are unreliable.
The whole of Europe has been going down this path. Germany closed its nuclear plants because of green party activists, and paid the penalty with high energy prices that nearly crippled industry and cost the general public 60% more in energy costs than us. They now are having to use coal fired plants, so that went well, and do we see the folly and say 'hold on a minute'? Oh no, we are going one better because Boris knows about these things and we will lead the world in eco-loonery, green jobs will be bountiful and energy prices will be cheaper, yes he has said all that and more; none is borne out by the facts.
Job creation is minimal as virtually all solar panels are produced abroad, China being the biggest supplier. All of the top ten wind turbine producers are foreign:
- and our two nuclear reactors are being built (maybe) by a foreign companies, French and Chinese, so what is he talking about?
Denmark is put up as the poster child of renewable energy production. Much is made of its ability to provide energy solely from wind power, only it isn’t:
It is very reliant on importing energy from surrounding countries, a route we are increasingly having to take. That is not a route that gives energy security especially at moments like this when gas is being fought over across Europe, hence the rapidly rising prices for home owners; and it doesn’t factor in any of the price rises that will come from switching all to electric and the hideously expensive heat pumps being foisted on homes totally unsuited to them.
Also, California should be a lesson to all who want to tread this path, and they have the sun that should make solar power worthwhile, but of course the sun goes down and as when there is no wind you are in the proverbial; without any storage that is meaningful light years away, black outs become normality and will increase. Has Boris or any of his advisors read and taken any of this on board ? It appears not.
We are suffering a two-pronged attack on our prosperity: Climate Change and the resultant changes that governments insist with the backing of big business are necessary to combat CC. One quite simply is an excuse to implement the other, whatever the input of man on any climate change - and there is little factual evidence any changes are happening despite the incessant claims, and as happened with Covid the blatant scare-mongering - why are governments making decisions on energy production that simply fail to meet any criteria on reliability and cost? This excerpt from a German expert gives some insight:
An interesting development re those who advocate change in the way we live, such as BLM and ER and off shoots, is the discovery that the basis for these movements hides a much broader vision, that of political change. The Marxist tendencies have leaked out in their literature; now you can add the ‘Doomgoblin’ to that list. Her latest speech, which as usual is all blame and no solution, goes further: it implies, as the others have, political change; climate change is just a vehicle for the real intent.
And this from Boris Johnson -
Young people around the world are already paying the price for the reckless actions of their elders," said Mr Johnson.
"Hundreds of millions of you are facing rising seas, failing crops, burning forests, and evermore ferocious storms, daily challenges that lead to lost opportunity. And your future is literally being stolen before your eyes."
He sounds as though he is trying to outdo the Doomgoblin. Seriously, is he mad? He is indeed in thrall to the Swedish sage; he has even repeated what she said about Britain being the cause of climate change. Luckily more sensible, intelligent people have called her out. Why is she followed with such fervent admiration?
Hundreds of millions? Rising sea levels - where? The Maldives were supposed to have disappeared by now but nothing has changed. As for 'the forest fires are the worst in history', a claim often made, not really true: swings and roundabouts re numbers of fires and areas destroyed, but the biggest fires are all in the past:
Even the much vaunted hurricanes in the USA can be seen historically to be cyclical.
You can always cherry pick statistics to say what you want either way, and use start and finish dates to suit your message. What has to be grasped is all of this is being used to push an agenda that assumes man has caused any differences. With Boris now blaming his own country for starting the industrial revolution we are not arguing on a level playing field; everything coming from government is skewed towards 'Net Zero' whatever the costs, and we will all pay if this lunacy continues. Our hope is that the facts on what is simply not achievable for practical reasons will filter through and as with dates already being pushed back some sense will be seen before untold irreparable damage is done.
Apart from the zeal of CC activists and believers, vested interest parties need to be exposed. The enormous subsidies being granted in this area would sway any company to join the troughing currently going on.
I am not sure how the ‘back in the ground’ slogan being used by energy companies now tied into the renewable scam pans out. It is surely again, not beyond their reason to realise that all the by products of oil that the west takes for granted in everyday life, the much maligned plastic and other polymers, would have to be sacrificed and a substitute found. Good luck with that: replacing plastic straws is just one small thing. The same goes for the thinking behind eliminating meat products: again if the goal is reached, which I doubt, all dairy products, milk, cheese etc. will either disappear as well or the limited amount produced will become very expensive, another point never found in the CC manifesto.
Why does this matter? Because most of the world leaders and governments, certainly the western ones, are in thrall and fear to CC activists and groups and are prepared to throw the population to the dogs to achieve a net zero at any cost - not a cost to them of course, just the little people who pay for it all.
But why this lack of of rational thinking, why is no one in any position of power standing up to the baseless measures being assembled, why the mantra of ‘build back better’ being uttered by all the world leaders at the same time? Is it they have no thoughts of their own in their heads, or is there actually some truth in the conspiracy theories that global business have the power to influence way beyond their normal reach?
If you discount that last point, why is all this happening? None of it makes sense. Is the energy crisis which is largely a gas demand shortage just an excuse to jack up energy prices to slow the use of auto mobiles and force the changes in travel and home heating they want to introduce? This fits in nicely with the CC objectives, but my guess is as good as yours.
What we are seeing happening is a series of costs rising at the same time. The post virus age is a very good base on which to raise taxes to pay for the mismanagement of so much; billions are being thrown at the NHS which will not, for the general public, make a jot of difference to the non service most are getting. Social care is now being paid for as I outlined before, on three fronts: council taxes are being raised by the maximum next year, National Insurance is being raised, and energy costs are going up now and next spring by rates not seen before.
With many private sector workers not having had pay rises in the last 10 years anywhere near keeping pace with inflation which itself is now rising higher than for years, the future is bleak. Anyone who has been near a supermarket has seen the price rises coming through; energy costs add to this and further rises in basics can be expected.
How all this squares with the 'triple lock' inflation protection being discarded for the worst paid state pensioners in Europe is not something to contemplate with any relish.
The energy crisis is very real for the medium term. Our total lack of forward planning for infrastructure hits everything. The area in the firing line now is energy production: you don’t build nuclear plants overnight, especially here; we may be temporarily able to ‘buy’ our way out in the short term but the cost will only add to the misery of those who work on low incomes and pensioners who rely on a state pension.
Enough has been written about the popular music 'revolution' of the 1960s, most of it being the somewhat lurid imaginings of journalists who didn't quite understand what was happening. Suffice to say that the USA's dominance in the field was overturned by an 'invasion' of British beat groups who had taken American music, repackaged it and then took it back to the land of its birth.
It took a couple of years for the Americans to respond and that came in 1965 from The Byrds, formed by two former folk singers Jim McGuinn and Gene Clark. (Jim McGuinn subseqeuntly changed his name to Roger for reasons which remain obscure.) Their first hit was a 'rock' version of Bob Dylan's Mr Tambourine Man which helped to inspire Dylan himself to change direction into this new 'folk rock' style.
"McGuinn developed two innovative and very influential styles of electric guitar playing. The first was "jingle-jangle" – generating ringing arpeggios based on banjo finger picking styles he learned while at the Old Town School of Folk – which was influential in the folk rock genre. The second style was a merging of saxophonist John Coltrane's free-jazz atonalities, which hinted at the droning of the sitar – a style of playing, first heard on the Byrds' 1966 single "Eight Miles High", which was influential in psychedelic rock." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Byrds
The third video here features new band member Clarence White's famous 'string bender' guitar. Invented by White and drummer Gene Parsons this modified Fender is so famous it gets its own special mention on White's Wiki page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clarence_White#The_StringBender
