David Davis
I’ve commented about this poor, sad, unhistorically-educated Monty Don chappie on The Landed Underclass, earlier, but Bella Gerens does a better academic demolition job on him and his hypotheses.
Yes it’s nice to play at growing a few veg – even keeping a few chickens, if you can stand the slimy shit, are prepared to shoot, gas or snare the inevitable foxes and hawks (beware of the RSPB Gestapo*** on that one!) and stuff their corpses in your wheelie-bin, and if you can bear, as a metropolitan dweller, to kill, pluck, draw and then cook and eat the poor bastards when the time comes.
I don’t object to play-growing. But it won’t feed a nation of 60 million, no way Monty. You can afford to, but we can’t.
***Hawks are of course quite OK, and ought to be allowed to predate your stuff all they want, but your food-birds are of no interest ot them whatsoever.
I can’t work out whether you hate Monty Don because you’re a set of horrible fuckwits, or because he’s a liberal toff. Or both.
Anyway, a libertarian agenda which denies the primacy of self-sufficiency at an individual and a national level is the work of degenerate, disconnected halfwits.
If your still trying to get your head round it – imagine the incapacity of the state faced with a nation of citizens who need next to nothing from it, or the people you work for. Duh.
John,
I have never denied that people ought to know how to grow stuff. Just _READ_ my comments on The Landed Underclass, on whose post I discussed this matter extensively before it got more important and attracted you.
For heaven’s sake, _we_ here in Lancashire, in the county-shed of which the blog lives, grow stuff, most of the year, when we can. (Not now, it’s ultra-cold, owing to global warming.) We even have _vines_ . A quite large number thereof: about eight. We even harvest _grapes_ – whether owing to global warming or not I do not know or care, but we do.
I don’t hate Monty Don. I just think he’s not very well briefed about what it takes to support a very very very very very, and , er, very, large population, of deliberately-de-countryside-dis-connected metropolitanistas, in very small islands, with NO knowledge about plant or animal husbandry, under a background of the deliberate removal of any knowledge of how to do it, from the education system.
I don’t hate poor tormented Monty Don. I just wish he’d not got into bed with Gramsco-Marxians.
And yes, John.
We may be liberal fuckwits. or even horrible fuckwits. (This is the comment section, so we can type “fuck”, and “cunt”.)
It is not the main blog, in which I don’t allow these words.
And he’s a horrible toff too. Or he may even be a liberal toff. Either kind of toof is horrible and inexcusable, since he and everybody else, including his sponsors the BBC, ought to know better than to transmit his sad stuff, as it is in gross and terrible error.
But either way, he was trying to make, although badly and unresearched, a point, about how he thought people ought to behave, in the plant-and-animal-growing-part of their lives.
I am sure that, when he comes round into reality, he will realise that what he meant was not that people ought to be able to grow ALL their stuff in this way, but only play at it, to “reconnect” with “the soil”.
Dave:
Farmers in Britain are perfectly capable of providing a pleasant and varied food supply to all Brirish people (and even foodstuffs for export).
The last time I checked this out, British farmers produced 80% by volume and 50% by value of all the food consumed in Britain.
This, with 1% of those empoyed.
This is more than enough to assure a healthy diet for everyone here. We did during WII; and food production was much less advanced back then.
British people tend to import high-cost “specialist” food and drink. Foreign-sourced meats, cheeses, drink, luxuries etc.
The great majority of money spent on food is for pleasure, not for nourishment.
Entertainment!
A quite basic diet of inexpensive foodstuffs and clean water, with added supplemental megavitamins and minerals will ensure good nutrition.
There simply is no real problem.
I usually start the day with a goodly bowl of raw milled oats, with whole milk and soft brown sugar, sprinkled with soft brown sugar and chopped fresh fruits.
This provides at least four hours-worth of high-protein healthy nutrition. I add 3mg. of chelated boron to prevent arthritis (there’s an exact inverse proprtion of boron in the diet to the incidence of arthritis). I have no arthritis…
QUEST Super Once-a-Day Megavitimins and Minerals in a time-releasing tablet handles most of the rest.
Then, there’s the Smoked Salmon sandwiches; and the Tiramisu… (smiles)
Best,
Tony
PS: I’ve had an excellent Spring day today. I took my Volvo 480 Coupe for a spin. We tidied up the apartment. I went to Henbury Golf Course (just across the road from where I live at BS9 3NU) and visited the Leisure Centre. And played with Cass our adorable cat! I recorded my first colour video with sound using my new self-contained wrist-watch with 8 GByte Flash Drive built in. The AVI clip is usefully time-and date-stamped. Wonderfully unobtrusive, and a gift at $99. Took just two days between ordering from http://www.thinkgeek.com in America, and delivery to my door by DHL.
I plinked on my indoor shooting-range, and ordered a wonderful illuminated “Aerobie” Super Frisbee on eBay…
Maybe I’ll issue a Summons or two later, via MCOL on the Internet. Online Courts!
This is what I mean by “free.” Near-on evey day, I do whatever I like from dark to daylight and back.
“Freedom In An Unfree World.”
[ FX: “Thank you, Harry Browne!” ]
The best revenge is to live well…
Best,
Tony
Tony, old fella!
Who exactly regulates what farmers do here, and why?
Dave:
The main regulation is done by the big land-owners, who let tenancy to the farmers (rack-renting if they can get away with it); the banks (whose finance they must hacve (because finance capital controls British economic life, and farming is cyclic with ups and downs); and the “supermarket cartels (who pay them 17 pence for lamb which sells for UKP 2.50 in the stores). And Agri-businesses…
Government regulation is rather far down the list. The EU, of course, cross-subsidizes agriculture as s social policy, particularly desired by the French to preserve the rural way of life.
Commodity speculators play their part also.
Best,
Tony
Tony:
I thought it was DEFRA that f****d farmers? No?
“Department for Ending-of-Farming and Razing-Agriculture”?
He is a twat because he plays at things to truy and keep a TV career going. If you saw clips from pebble mill years ago he was a jeweller dressed like a new romantic…..and he was a jeweller on telly.
On gardeners world he dresses like a wanker with these affectations to edwardian gardeners with leather gilets and cord trousers.
No garden he ever plans works and again you feel he is just desparately looking to try and stay in the media playing which ever role he has to…
He is a wannabe…and when you compare his garden work to titchmarsh you will see he is crap at what he does…