It's been almost a year since I posted here - stuff happened irl - and then Twitter started to look like a place that might collapse at any time, so I looked around for a new home in social media space, and it seemed logical to stop posting here (which I'd already done) and start posting somewhere else.
Since about 90% of the blogs I follow are on tumblr, it seemed the natural choice, so I have now started a blog called morwennastower on tumblr.
My main blog, Life in Hay, isn't going anywhere.
A little while ago I picked up some old magazines from one of the free bookshelves around town. It was a pile of World Magazine, which looked quite interesting to flick through.
My eye was caught by the Guest Editorial in the June 1989 issue, with the title I've used for this post.
It's by Professor Chris Baines, who I was unfamiliar with, but he's actually a well-known environmentalist who has been on TV, being one of the first presenters of Countryfile among other things.
The article begins:
"With holes in the ozone layer, dead seals in the North Sea, and Austria-sized lumps of tropical rain forests disappearing every year, what can we as individuals do to help the Earth get better?
....Time is running out. Every step each of us takes is valuable, but the urgent need now is for giant leaps forward. These are dependent on industry and government, but it's you and I who must make them happen."
This was written nearly 30 years ago, and it was clear then that time was running out and that there was an urgent need for action.
The article could have been written yesterday, because nothing has changed.
He talks about needing more investment in public transport, and using cars less - we're still talking about that.
He talks about recycling and stopping industry from polluting our rivers - and just look at the River Wye now, full of phosphates and green slime.
He talks about insulating our homes, and there's a group now which has been stopping traffic on the M25 to campaign for the same thing.
He talks about the use of pesticides in farming....
And he says that the government initiatives that were happening in 1989 were as useful as re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic. Since then we've seen the National Rivers Authority and Environment Agency underfunded, and a vote in the House of Commons just a few days ago to permit sewage to be pumped into our rivers and along our coasts.
Thirty years, and not only are we no further forward, but the situation nationally and globally is far worse.
Like many people who want to go on living on a habitable planet, I have been watching COP26 with interest, but without much hope that things will change in the way that they need to.
As Greta Thunberg said: "Blah-blah-blah".
Quite honestly, I don't expect to see anything meaningful come out of COP26. I don't expect governments or the fossil fuel industry to change their behaviour, no matter what David Attenborough says, and no matter what the scientific evidence is.
People like Professor Chris Baines have spent their professional lives encouraging wildlife gardens, advising on environmentally friendly housing and sustainable water management and all the rest of it, but it doesn't seem to make a dent in what needs to be done - and the people who could take action don't seem to be interested.
I don't know what the answer is - I'm going to carry on doing what I can as an individual. I just wish I knew how to change the minds of the people in power. It was urgent 30 years ago. It's even more urgent now.
The Oldham Tinkers have a new album out!
It's their first for 42 years!
Andy Kershaw wrote the sleeve notes for the album.
I bought it because I like their version of a song about Peterloo (which does not appear on this album), and I'd heard a snippet of the first song on the album, Alphin, a gentle song about a hill near Manchester.
I was pleased to find that the album also includes Remember Annie Kenney. She was a working class Suffragette leader from Saddleworth, close to Oldham, and there is a statue of her in Oldham centre.
Another song, Ten Oldham Men (No Pasaran) commemorates the ten men from Oldham who volunteered for the International Brigade in the Spanish Civil War, and Peace Be Upon You (As-salamu Alaykum) celebrates the multi-ethnic background of the Oldham community. Other songs are settings of dialect poems by Cliff Gerard, Harvey Kershaw and Edwin Waugh, and the album finishes with It's a Long Way to Tipperary.
The artwork on the album, sort of Cubist? in light blue, is by Peter Stanaway.
It's a lovely album, and I hope they don't wait another 42 years to do another one.
She was Mrs Hudson in Sherlock, Aunt Sally in Worzel Gummidge, Alf Garnett's daughter in Till Death Us Do Part, and Cliff Richard's girlfriend in Summer Holiday. She danced with Lionel Blair's ensemble in the 1960s, and I remember her appearing on Cliff Richard's TV show in the 1970s. She was also the team captain opposite Lionel Blair in the game show Give Us a Clue. I've even heard her in a Big Finish Doctor Who audio drama, The Horror of Glam Rock, alongside the 8th Doctor Paul McGann and his audio companion Lucie Miller!
Here she is in Summer Holiday.
That's a long and varied career, including several well loved characters, so I was sorry to hear today that Una Stubbs has died, aged 84.
On the one hand, there has been some very good news today, with the announcement of a second season of Good Omens by Neil Gaiman.
On the other hand, Stuart Damon has died. He was, of course, one of The Champions.
Here they are in the title sequence, supposedly in Geneva where Nemesis headquarters was (it was actually an office block in a place called Whetstone, in the UK). He did some of his best acting in the episode The Interrogation, where Craig is questioned because his special powers have made him too successful as a secret agent.
Here's Matthew Flinders and his cat Trim, outside Euston Station. He was the first person to map the coast of Australia (which is what he's doing here).
I was sorry to see the obituary of Damaris Hayman, who has died at the age of 91, in the Guardian today. It was written by Toby Hadoke, so mentioned her appearance as Miss Hawthorne, the white witch of Devil's End in The Daemons, one of the most fun Doctor Who stories from the Jon Pertwee era:
