Gwyneth's personal blog

Friday 23rd May, bright blue skies, cool and breezy sunshine. First four-legged froglet yesterday, today the UK Local Council Election results roll in, Frog Prince in the fore (unsurprisingly, given the inescapable coverage he was awarded, while the Green Party, that's the Party of Change Your Lifestyle, got nothing.)
If Farage ends up my next PM I know who to blame. That will be the mediafolk, and Channel 4's Jon Snow will head the list. Dear UK readers, don't you think Nigel Farage is like a portrait of himself that David Cameron has been keeping in the attic, shuddering as he observes on that painted face the stark record of his fall into political decadence, moral bankruptcy and decay. But oh no, the Portrait has escaped and is roaming the streets, drawing every Party to imitate its charming, seedy grimaces, taken by all for the true Dave; causing all kinds of havoc . . .

Okay, I know it's not really very funny. But don't you?

Billions of Barrels Of Oil Under The Weald!

I watched the Newsnight item on Fracking In The Weald: so now I know what I'm supposed to think about the opposition to this pleasant pursuit. Professor Iain Stewart's overview was shockingly dishonest (where do they find them?). Not a mention of Climate Change; and in his tour of the US, no problems arising whatsoever! The Wisborough Green group, did not do too well either, coming across,, or made to come across, as perfect middle-class South East NIMBYs, protecting their own idyllic lifestyle. And thence to Fernhurst, where the Professor explained it had been hard to find people who would speak to the BBC, a truly bizarre claim, given the committment of Frack Free Fernhurst to publicising their plight. Hard to find people who would say what Newsnight wanted to hear: that, I believe. No mention of the fact that this drilling site is inside a National Park, or of the National Trust RSPB Wildlife Trusts' reasons for demanding a ban on the pleasant pursuit. And still not a word about Climate Change. Or the devastating amounts of clean water that fracking will gobble; or the inconvenient truth that the fields around the Wisborough Green site were under flood water last winter. . . No word from disputed sites in the North, or the repudiation of the pleasant pursuit by citizens of Manchester, oddly enough. Poor people like fracking, was the message. . . (Terrific idea, fake Dave. Go ahead, tear up the entire map of England. "Poor people" dumb enough to still like fracking when it moves in on their doorsteps and comes out of their taps will carry on voting for the True Dave! There's only one vote you can snag on this issue, if you want to reach beyond those making an immediate profit, and it's the protest vote.)

In contrast, in the studio session, with Caroline Lucas saving the day as usual, Climate Change was taken seriously (except by the presenter, of course). Even Andrew Austin of IGas told us that, despite his passion for shale gas in the UK, "the two degrees limit is imperative". Interesting position . . . Yet again, the weird omissions. Shale gas was discussed, throughout. Shale oil was not mentioned. But it's oil, as we all now know, the dirtiest of fossil fuels, lurking in the crevices of Wealden Basin. How does extracting this thrilling glut of oil (if it exists: see California's revision) sit with the grim reality of climate change? Oil bonanza and keeping the global temperature rise under the fatal two degrees? Impossible! It has to stay in the ground . . . But we'll have to wait and see what The True Dave thinks about that.

The Bees

Now that Laline Paull's fine animal fantasy The Bees is out, I could share with you some of the bee information, and pollinators in crisis stuff, that didn't fit into my review. Bees, for instance, do not have a caste system. Every bee that emerges passes through the ranks, starting off as a cleaner, and rising to become a glorious forager. Drones are numerous, but they're harmless and helpless; they don't require to be slaughtered when the hive has to cut public services for the winter. All the hive workers do is shove them outdoors, and don't let them back in . . . Cellphone masts are not a hazard to bee navigation, that was an "urban myth" . . . But there's so much, and maybe you don't even like bees, so I'll just pass on a fascinating article in which the researchers show that the oppressive social structure in a honey bee hive isn't Selfish Gene type normal bee behaviour, "designed by evolution for the survival of the fittest". It vanishes in the wild. It's a brutalising effect of domestication. Hive bees have a slave culture, how about that!

It may look a bit dry, but if you're keen on bees, you've got to read this! It isn't even depressing! http://www.academia.edu/4154844/Altruistic_behaviour_by_egg-laying_worker_honeybees


This report is depressing: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/16-10

& so is this one. Also liable to annoy you into some kind of action, which would be a good thing:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/04/28-3

Pollinator crisis? What pollinator crisis? The Soil Association et al have been fighting for years to get the guilty pesticides banned, but it isn't going to happen. Nope, the bees are doomed. Bayer and Syngenta have too much to lose. And everything to gain. What do they care if insect pollinators vanish? They can make a fortune selling artificial bees!

I never seem to do anything but whine and grouch, do I? I protest it is not my fault, it really isn't. A star laughed, and under it I was born . . . and ever since I've been seeing the sarcastic side of everything. Oh well, going out tonight might cheer me up, Emmy Lou Harris at the Dome (Peter is a HUGE fan, so I made sure we got good tickets). And then Much Ado About Nothing in St Nicolas Gardens tomorrow. Hope it's as wonderful as As You Like It two years ago, and not quite so cold and in every sense wet as King Lear