I've got your attention with some cute farm animals. I want to discuss community as I went to listen to Mike Berners-Lee in Penrith last night in Penrith and was completely unmoved by his talk and book promotion, which I didn't expect.
I didn't buy his book. Why? I usually would at an event.
Community up here is me out for a walk and a farmer a field away calls over to me, another comes out of his yard to ask me to do more work. Yet another, in a car stops to chat, asks me to do more work.
Yes it's a thread. I work hard, when I do work for people, working hard trying to make a living in a hard place. That's community to me, people respecting each other.
Berners-Lee said all the right things, had the graphs and the info about climate, about politics, about how fascists are doing their utmost to control us through govt and business.
I get all that, it's terrible that reform control the council and I can't name the Labour MP I voted for. Darren Grimes is now a councillor?
At the end of his talk, he asked for show of hands about whose thoughts had changed and whose had not because of the info he presented. Mine had not.
He lost me when he suggested if we see a house with flags up we should knock on the door and discuss. I've been in A&E once.
On way home, we discussed the event and it was like some sort of ritual. We were all of a certain age, we nodded or shook our heads at the right times, but the hall was not packed in a large town, as it should have been.
I honestly don't know what I expected but I didn't expect to be so unmoved by such a speaker on topics of the utmost importance.
I have a community here in this little dale, I've worked hard to become part of it. I haven't the strength for the challenge of anything bigger, like the challenges thrown up by world politics or events, the rise of the right, etc.
It's just overwhelming at times. I'll keep posting the cute photos of stone walls and animals, that's about all I can do.
Ivor
John Faithfull 🌍🇪🇺🏴🧡✊🏻✊🏿
Pedro Quixote ‽ aka MultiVax