The Ox-Cam ARC Love-in

Yesterday the Government published its “Planning for sustainable growth in the Oxford-Cambridge Arc An introduction to the Oxford-Cambridge Arc Spatial Framework”. Trips off the tongue, dunt it.

I sat through an hour-long webinar ‘launch’ of said document today, hosted by property consultants Bidwells, who are making and will make a mint out of downing trees, digging up pasture and throwing concrete around like confetti, which is what the ARC is all about. They say not. They say it’s about beautiful, sustainable development in the “knowledge-based” economy that will make the ARC a great place to live. The fact that it’s already a great place to live because it’s green and rural and tranquil in many places seems to have escaped their notice.

HS2 – a catalyst for crass

I got into a spat on LinkedIn recently, with several people who couldn’t fathom why anyone could be against HS2 and who objected to an interloper (me) invading their pro-HS2 feed with a short and polite reminder that no, the HS2-objectors will not come to love the scheme.

Anyone would have thought I’d said I was delighted England had lost to Scotland at the weekend. But I suppose if I were doing a job I loved, which paid the mortgage, with mates I liked and had been brainwashed into believing I was doing the country if not the planet a favour, I’d be miffed when someone crashed the party. 

Cultural Appropriation? Bring it on!

There are very few pieces of music that can top the sublime 2^nd movement of the New World Symphony by Czech composer Dvořák. You know the one – it accompanies an early 20^th-century lad delivering Hovis loaves up one of the steepest residential streets in England (Dorset) but the music is played by the Ashington Colliery Brass Band (Northumberland) and the voice-over is pure Yorkshire.

Yes the music is heavenly; the street-scene transports you back to the civilised days before cheap flights, sweat pants and ‘Influencers’, and the old man reminds you of your grandfather, whatever accent he had.