The Totnesian

Totnes Riots: the hideous aftermath

2011-08-11T11:05:00.004Z

At 06:25 on Thursday 11th August 2011, a copycat rioter in a hoodie smashed the window of the Totnes Wine Shop at 36 High Street with a granny trolley and stole three bottles of what the owner described as 'a pretty decent wine'.

A man shouted at the rioter who ran off down the street.

Police rushed to the scene within the hour.

Being Totnes, no further looting took place. It might have been a different story had a local wholefood store been broken into, however, as we may have seen a follow-up attack by vegans intent on stockpiling organic lentils. A gruesome prospect indeed.

How the NHS Could Save Some Money - and make life better for patients

2011-02-23T19:24:00.003Z

Having just been a guest of the NHS for the first time (as a patient - not including childbirth) in 40+ years, I feel that I may be in a good position to offer them(it?) some observations of a potentially money-saving nature, along with some aimed at improving conditions for patients.

#1 - There must be a stupendous waste of energy across the NHS if this (un-named) hospital is typical. Far too hot, and many more lights on than necessary. LED PIRs would pay for themselves many times over, as would turning the thermostat down a couple of degrees.

#2 - As in most places, there is a wide range of competence among staff. They all work hard and probably are grossly underpaid. Some excel at communicating with patients, while others are probably better in an admin role. Sorting these from each other would probably improve efficiency.

#3 - Sort out your IT and avoid duplication of effort. I lost count of the number of people who asked me the same questions over 2 days - What is your height/weight/date of birth? Do you have any allergies? Sometimes my answers would be recorded on a PDA, other times on a paper form: neither seemed to obviate the need to ask those same questions one more time...

#4 - Cut the din! Every machine bleeps it's own little electronic ditty, to tell you (a) it is working, (b) it is not working, or (c) it just feels like attracting attention to itself. At certain times - including the small hours - the ward sounds like a gaming arcade.

#5 - Cut the din some more! Those wretchedly over-loud bleepers that patients use to attract the attention of the duty nurse do NOT need to be heard by everyone else as well. How about issuing duty nurses with devices like pagers that only they can hear?

#6 - Get rid of those stupid and expensive pay-through-the-nose-as-you-view TV sets and install a decent wi-fi network, so patients can look up their symptoms online and advise their doctors.

#7 - Don't get me started on the food! In a place where people need near-perfect nutrition for optimum recovery, what sense does it make to send a trolley around in the morning, laden with sugar- and additive-laden fizzy drinks and sugar- and fat-laden biscuits? And a salad is NOT a handful of brown-edged lettuce with a couple of out-of-season tomato slices and soggy cucumber. For one meal, I was offered a highly salted, monosodium glutamate 'soup' and a bowl of mashed-up orange-coloured jelly. I chose water.

#8 - All professional footballers should be required to pay 30% of their income into a fund to pay nurses a tax-free annual bonus of at least 100% of their salary.

Apple and iTunes - control freakery meets incompetence?

2010-10-29T11:53:00.004Z

I was given an iPod about a year ago. I would never have bought one myself, and my experience of Apple since then has convinced me that I won't be buying anything else sporting their logo anytime soon.

Every single iteration of the iPod's OS has brought new frustrations: missing features, junk added that I didn't ask for, and the thing simply not doing what I wanted it to do - a basic requirement of any software that gets to stay on my computer for more than a trial run.

I have also detected signs that Apple is quietly sidelining podcasters. I don't know if you noticed, but a recent iTunes 'upgrade' actually removed a small but very useful feature from the software. Previously, if you showed a list of podcasts in your library and highlighted a particular podcast, a small, white, right-pointing arrow would appear beside the podcast name, and if you clicked it, it would take you directly to that podcast's 'home page' in the iTunes store. By v10 of iTunes, this feature had disappeared. I have also noticed some simplification in the way they display 'categories' of podcasts on the iPod -I can no longer see a 'new and notable' list , and the 'More Categories' button has stopped working.

Of course, we have to remember that Apple make almost nothing out of podcasts, and no doubt they would prefer that we were adding to their profits by buying music or some crappy game.

I recently posted this on Apple's forum:

Steve Jobs' recent 'amateur hour' comments about podcasting, together with recent 'improvements' to iTunes - including the apparent removal of a swathe of podcast categories and a couple of 'podcast specific' features, and the complete lack of podcast-friendly features in recent Garage Band software upgrade - all lead me to suspect that Apple is starting to squeeze out podcasting in favour of money-making music sales.

Within the hour, the post had been removed by a moderator.

Apple removed your post on Apple Discussions, titled "Is Apple sidelining podcasters?" because it contained the following:
Speculation
Discussion of Apple Policies, Procedures or Decisions
Off-topic or non-technical posts

So apparently we are no allowed to discuss Apple Policies, Procedures or Decisions, or to 'speculate'!

If they were a government, they would undoubtedly be a fascist dictatorship.

I will be taking a close look at Androids, and my iPod will likely go on ebay quite soon.

Organic Food is Poisonous

2009-10-07T14:50:00.000Z

An inevitable consequence of the media’s addiction to controversy is the polarisation of publicly-expressed opinions. Saying that sonmething is “probably not perfect” is not going to attract much attention, so for those who seek it, the temptation is always to take an extreme position, even when it is several steps beyond the comfortable reach of supporting evidence.

Such is the case with recent ill-informed attacks on organic food by a selection of apologists for agri-business and bio-technology, whose attitude seems to be characterised by, “we are scientists, therefore we know what is good for you” overlaid with “anyone who disagrees with us is clearly an ignorant Luddite whose opinions do not count.” (In fact, Luddites were far from ignorant: see The Ecologist Vol 29 #5.)

Suggestions that organic food is likely to cause outbreaks of E coli poisoning have been made with no reference to any actual examples, and with apparent disregard to the fact that recent E coli outbreaks in the UK have beed caused by non-organic meat and poor hygeine. There have also been no instances of BSE in organically-reared cattle.

The fact is that organic food is probably not perfect. Many organic vegetables, like their chemi-culture equivalents, probably contain traces of dioxin and DDT, chemicals once freely sprayed by farmers and declared ‘safe’ by scientists.

Some organic maize has been found to have been contaminated by pollen from GM crops several miles away, against ‘scientific’ predictions. Some processed organic food undoubtedly contains more sugar and/or fat than some artificially sweetened, coloured and preserved non-organic equivalents. Some organic fruits have – horror of horrors - marks on their skins, offensive to the eyes of EC bureauocrats and supermarket buyers who would prefer everything to be a regulation size, shape and colour, unblemished by anything vulgarly ‘natural’.
Yet, despite these imperfections, public taste is moving inexorably in favour of food grown using agricultural systems that nourish and enrich the soil, rather than treating is merely as a convenient factory floor.
Ironically – and to the despair of the biotech industry and its political allies – this shift is a direct result of the clumsy attempts of companies like Monsanto (recently reborn as Pharmacia) and AgrEvo (now Aventis) to smuggle their 'miracle' products into our food chain unnoticed.

Why have we been so ungrateful as to dare to reject these remarkable creations of science in favour of crops grown on animal dung? Was it, perhaps, the unseemly haste with which they were rushed to market, unfettered by proper testing or public consultation? Was it the arrogant and belligerent behaviour of Monsanto et al towards anyone who challenged their right to patent native plants and to dominate the world’s seed markets? Was it the unspeakably slick PR campaign that famously succeeded only in convincing Europeans that Monsanto are as trustworthy as a rattlesnake?

Or perhaps it is that an increasingly savvy public has begun to realise that social change can now be effected more swiftly and more profoundly through the purse than through the ballot box. Paradoxically, as a direct consequence of post-industrial capitalism, the daily decisions we each make about spending our money have overtaken voting at general elections to become the most accessible expression of democracy. The best-laid plans of politicians in cahoots with industrialists can be laid waste by a nation deciding, en masse, to back an alternative idea. People have discovered the power of the purse.

European supermarkets were persuaded to remove GM foods from their shelves not by an outbreak of ethics among their boards of directors, but by an unprecedented mass direct action by their customers, four out of five of whom – to the profound discomfort of the patriarchal biotech high priesthood – turn out to be women. By voting with their purses, ordinary shoppers caused massive corporations to change direction in defiance of government policy.

Since then, the supermarkets have become hyper-sensitive to public opinion and are currently falling over each other in an attempt to champion the organic cause, which formerly they had treated with barely-disguised disdain.

Growing one’s own food and trading surpluses locally was, within living memory, considered a routine part of community life across Britain and, in those places where ‘community’ is more than just a PC catchphrase, it is still common practice. Wartime allotments are being defended as fiercely as the Flanders trenches as more and more people begin to realise that by taking control of their own food supply, they are not only ensuring a degree of purity that they no longer trust agri-business to provide, but that they are making a political statement about government interference in their lives.

If a real mass movement continues to develop towards locally-sourced and organically-grown food, not only could we save many millions of food-miles each year, with consequent reductions of fossil fuel pollution, but millions of pounds would remain in circulation for longer within local economies.

Phil Chandler

How 'ethical' is Natural Collection?

2009-08-04T16:02:00.006Z

Natural Collection like to tell people how ethical they are. They have even won awards for it, but behind the PR, just how ethical are they?

From where I sit, it looks like they are using 'black hat' SEO tactics to draw traffic away from one of their popular competitors, the long-established Totnes company Greenfibres.

Take a look at this image from their web site on 4th August 2009 (click the image for a better view):

The words 'Green Fibres' are prominent, above a list of products that are in no way relevant to this title. Greenfibres is, of course, a registered trade mark, so they would clearly be crossing a line by using it as one word, but by showing it as two words, they can wriggle around the letter of the law, but still show up on Google searches for 'greenfibres'.

Here is another image from their site, same date, this time showing the result of a search on their site using the term 'greenfibres':

Again, they list products that are not sourced from Greenfibres and do not have the words 'green' or 'fibres' in their description. This is clear evidence that their claim to be ethical does not extend to their SEO activities, so it must raise the question: exactly how ethical is Natural Collection?

WARNING: marriage may damage your wealth

2009-07-27T15:38:00.003Z

The more I hear about divorce, the more I think marriage should carry a serious health warning - especially for men.

A friend of mine, who spent all his working life accumulating enough funds to buy himself a house and keep himself in his dotage, has recently been served with divorce papers by his wife of ten years, on the pretext of 'unreasonable behaviour' - that convenient catch-all for partners who want out, but not for any readily identifiable reason. She cited such trivia as his 'refusal to involve her in the family finances' (she never worked, had no knowledge of investment and has a talent for spending money); and his 'not allowing her to use the family car' (completely untrue, and if her driving was less dangerous, she might have been able to use it more often).

He bought the house, entirely with his own money, many years before meeting her, yet she has declared in her petition that she wants the house, half his money, maintenance and a lump sum. It really is remarkable that a such a greedy, selfish woman can ruin the life of an honest, hard-working man, who has provided for her every need, and - potentially - wreck the lives of her three children, apparently on a whim. Unfortunately, it happens only too often, with the man usually being the loser, no matter what he has or has not done, because courts almost always award custody to the mother, no matter if she is negligent, bullying or less able to take care of them than their father.

It's time for a more even-handed approach to divorce, starting from the premise that parties should come out of the marriage with what they brought to it, and putting a stop to gold-digging.

Finally - the end of Thatcherism

2008-09-30T12:06:00.000Z

September 2008 will go down in history as the month in which Thatcher's 'greed is good' doctrine was finally found out as the bankrupt, heartless garbage that some of us always knew it was.

The greedy gamblers who have played fast and loose with our money, backed by the Thatcher-Reagan partnership and supported without question by Blair and Brown, have at last been hoisted on their collective petard and hung out to dry by an American public revolt, reflected in Congress' failed attempt to pass a bill designed to bail them out of the crisis they created.

Here in the UK, our old-established building societies destroyed themselves by trying to be banks and hiring people with the same warped set of values as those who park their Ferraris at Canary Wharf. Once bastions of solid, people-based British values, providing affordable loans to buy houses for people who actually wanted to live in them, they became embroiled in financing those who only wanted to make a profit from housing people who could no longer afford to buy, thanks to the gross inflation of the housing market, aided and abetted by estate agents. Privatized building societies lost their sense of what they were created for and jumped aboard a bandwagon that was heading straight for a cliff, while the regulatory bodies stood by and watched.

Thousands out of work, and I have sympathy only for those at the bottom of the heap - the counter staff and other innocents. Perhaps this is an opportunity for get-rich-quick speculators and gamblers to find themselves something more useful to do: social workers or nurses, perhaps.

The ramifications of this massive financial earthquake will be felt for years and even short-term fallout is hard to predict, but what is sure is that Wall Street will never be the same again - until the next time.

Ex-Beatles Promoter Tony Bramwell's Selective Memory

2008-02-15T09:59:00.006Z

If you had spent the '60s hanging out with the Beatles, basking in reflected glory and living the high life at other people's expense, you could be forgiven for wanting to cash in on your memories before everyone forgets who you were. You might well write the book - or, like Tony Bramwell, get someone else to ghost it. You might even try to market your memories on film, as Tony Bramwell is now trying to do.

However, if you are indeed Tony Bramwell, you will probably want to select those memories quite carefully, as there are some events in your life that you would rather were not public knowledge.

Like, for example, the time you finally walked out on your family, leaving them penniless and homeless. Or the local musicians you conned out of thousands of pounds on the promise of promoting their work, which you failed to do. Or the massive bill you ran up at a local hotel and left without paying. Or the time you refused to pay your eldest son's university fees, forcing him to delay completing his degree. Or the times you have walked past your youngest son in the street, in Totnes, without even recognizing him.

Yes, If you are Tony Bramwell, there are a lot of memories you would probably not have at all. But the past has a habit of catching up with you, sooner or later, and if you go out in the world seeking publicity, it may catch up rather quickly.

Sport: a load of balls

2007-12-31T02:25:00.000Z

I am probably one of a small but - I believe - enlightened minority who know little and care less about the subject of sport: that is, the chasing about fields, pitches, courses and courts of balls of various sizes, shapes and colours, by people with, it seems, nothing better to do with their time.
I have nothing against ball games per se, so long as the participants are children or simple folk just having fun. A game of football - soccer, that is, to differentiate it from that appalling American game - among young boys is a harmless amusement and may even aid them in their development in some way. But the same game - more or less - engaged in by grown men in special uniforms and grossly inflated salaries is absurd and an obscene waste of human endeavour. The only possible benefit to society is that it provides an outlet for the physical energy of a particularly primitive form of human that may otherwise be causing annoyance to someone else. American football is simply the British game of Rugby played in space suits in slow motion and thus unfit even to be included under the definition of sport: it is merely a padded fiasco.
Golf - I can hardly bring myself to discuss this idiotic pursuit of a small ball around an obstacle course - is surely the most banal of human activities that has somehow come to be regarded as 'sport'. The irredeemably ridiculous idea of hitting a ball with a stick in an attempt to persuade it to fall down a hole in the ground may have had a certain appeal to neanderthals in their breaks from mammoth hunting, but to invest modern human resources and technology - not to mention countless acres of precious habitat - in such a pathetically pointless activity is wasteful beyond reason.
Cricket - I have to admit - can be quite amusing when played by an ill-dressed assortment of random characters representing their local public houses in a suitably populous village. Mildly inebriated yokels may gain some pleasure from such contests without causing much bother to anyone, beyond the odd broken window. But when it gets serious - though how anyone can be serious about throwing a ball at a bunch of sticks I cannot begin to imagine - and people start wearing headgear that even motorcyclists would balk at, the fun has stopped and the money game has begun.
For that is what sport has become: a money game. Just one more way for the Haves to scrape a few more dollars from the Have Nots under the guise of Entertainment; that euphemism for Wasting Your Life By Watching Other People Do Things.
How did we become so passive as to let this happen to us, not just without complaining, but with something approaching rapture? How did we allow our harmless, childish ball games to become hygienically re-packaged and sold back to us by Russian oligarchs?
That, dear reader, I cannot say.

Slavery in Totnes: Part 2

2007-09-03T14:43:00.001Z

(see below for Part 1)

The employer's business has now closed. She is now required, by law, to pay the employee statutory redundancy pay at a level determined by current legislation. Considering that she has broken the law on several counts and has done so for the entire period of this employment, how likely is it that she will comply with this requirement?

Unless, of course, she is publicly exposed and shown up for the bully she really is.

YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

If you do not mend your ways and within ONE MONTH of this being published comply FULLY with your statutory responsibilities as an employer in EVERY RESPECT as listed above, and pay ALL the money you owe to this employee for ALL the holiday pay and time in lieu and ALL the statutory breaks you should have allowed her, and APOLOGIZE for the shocking and inhumane way you have treated her for the last 17 years, I WILL NAME YOU ON THIS BLOG.

If you fail to pay her AT LEAST the statutory redundancy pay that she is entitled to, I WILL NOT ONLY NAME YOU, BUT REPORT YOU TO THE EMPLOYMENT SERVICE.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

People are already talking about this and soon somebody will work out who you are. So I suggest you act quickly.

Slavery in Totnes, 2007

2007-09-01T15:31:00.001Z

Bullying takes many forms; all of them inexcusable. Perhaps one of the most condemnable is the mistreatment of a vulnerable person by someone with power over them.

This is not the sort of thing you expect to come across in Totnes, but how shocked would you be if you discovered that a local business owner has systematically bullied and abused a female employee for many years with a combination of personal insults and by failing to allow her even the most basic employment rights?

The employee in question has worked full time on minimum wages with:

- no contract of employment
- no holiday, either paid or unpaid
- no time off for bank holidays, or time in lieu
- no lunch breaks
- no breaks of any kind

She is also forced to stand all day, despite having problems with her legs.

You may be even more shocked to learn that her employer is also a woman.

Who is this employer?

She knows who she is. And so will the rest of Totnes if she doesn't mend her ways very soon.

Totnes Town Council fails to redress injustice

2007-06-08T17:23:00.000Z

At their meeting on Monday June 4th, Totnes Town Council ignored their role in the removal from office of Councillor John Macadie and failed to take action to reinstate him, despite clear public support for his position. Instead, they stood on the rule book and passed the buck, putting bureaucracy before democracy and declaring that 'this was not a matter for the Totnes Parish Council'.
In a show of pompous arrogance, the mayor silenced further debate on the matter after listening with obvious impatience to a single speaker, while Cllr. Marion Adams scowled at a sizeable public representation that she clearly resented. A man was told to switch off his video camera because "we don't know where the pictures will be shown". The British Parliament is broadcast live on television, but meetings of Totnes Town Council cannot, apparently, be filmed.
No mention was made of the fact that the Town Clerk had declared at the previous meeting that all councillors had signed their acceptance letters, nor of the votes that Mr Macadie had participated in, despite his position having been retrospectively nullified.
It really is time that these people were reminded that they are elected as servants of the people, not as banana-republic-style dictators.

Disabled driver ticketed in disabled parking bay!

2007-06-04T11:40:00.000Z

Posted on behalf of a disabled reader:

I received a parking ticket on Saturday 02.06.07 in Totnes. I had
parked the car in one of the disabled parking bays at the top of the
town - a bank of three outside RoyBern newsagent where I usual buy
the daily paper, tobacco etc. before stopping off at the Red Wizard
for breakfast. There I was, reading the paper, supping tea, hacking
on a fag when John Macadie, who with his partner Eve run the cafe,
came in and told me I had a parking ticket. Well, the look on my face
must have been a sight.

The car I am the keeper of is a Motability car and is registered as
such with the DVLA. I have mobility problems due to multiple
sclerosis. The car was legally parked and displaying the required
information - a blue card and 'clock' which were attached to the drop
down passenger sun-shade and fully visible in the windscreen a foot
above the special Motability tax disc. The people who accompanied me
to the car noticed them immediately. Perhaps the Police Constable
missed them. The offence thought committed? PK59; 'parking in a
disabled bay without lawful authority'.

Anyway the displayed blue card and penalty notice stuck to the window
were photographed by oesteopath Graeme Pollard, who was in the cafe
at the time and of course the ticket will be challenged.

The day previous to my parking traumas, the Totnes Tory MP, Anthony
Steen was served 2 parking tickets when he left his car in a disabled
bay at Newton Abbot train station for a couple of days while in
London. His response was odd for an MP (from the BBC news web site);

"...absurd number of handicapped spaces.............It's not a
requirement that you provide so much for the handicapped and
comparatively insufficient for the un-handicapped. Of course we want
to help the handicapped, and of course they've got to be given
provisions, but not against the interests of the majority"

Its not so much the oddness of the archaic language that Anthony
Steen employs, after all he is a Tory and the use of 'handicapped' is
merely representative of the dimmer personalities, like that other
Andy Capp which inhabit the Conservative Party. No, what was really
odd was listening to him on Radio 4 ranting as he tried to justify
his selfish actions with such tripe. Attempting to place the blame
for his illegal parking onto the number of spaces for the disabled is
contemptible, and to whip up hostility for a minority out of a
"rushed" anger at being inconvenienced by some compassionate rules
for car parking, has exposed an intolerant and dangerous temperament.

To repeat urban myths expounded by the more ignorant elements of
society is not the standard of propriety expected from an MP who
should, at the very least have some understanding of the facts.

An example from his constituency:

The total car parking spaces at the top of Totnes town, along the
High Street above St Marys church to Castle Street and the two
nearest car parks - Civic Centre and North Street - is 102 of which 8
are designated disabled. 2 outside Woolworths, 3 outside RoyBern
Newsagent, 2 in the Civic Centre car park and 1 in North Street car
park. A ratio of 1:12, or 8%!

I have used them all and many times found them all occupied,
occassionally by delivery trucks or non-disabled drivers but mostly
by cars displaying the blue card. Most able-bodied drivers understand
and respect the need for disabled parking spaces, but Anthony Steen
still can't shed this antediluvian thinking that 8% is to much for
the disabled. Like I said, odd.

Totnes Town Councillor Sacked

2007-05-18T09:21:00.000Z

Totnes Town Councillor John Macadie has been removed from office just days after being elected by nearly 600 voters. The reason? He omitted to sign an acceptance note before the first Council meeting following the election.
Despite having the fifth largest share of the local vote, Macadie has been forced from office by a technicality, which may mean another by-election has to be called. He did not sign a letter of acceptance because he had already signed one when he was first elected three years ago and did not realize that it had to be done again.
The Town Council appears to be standing by its decision, even though the Town Clerk had confirmed at the meeting that all councillors had completed their paperwork. They are also insisting that all votes that Macadie participated in at the meeting shall stand, despite their insistence that he was not eligible to vote.
So on the one hand, Totnes Town Council are prepared to be pedantic about a signature and waste public money on a by-election that could be easily avoided and on the other, they are willing to let stand the votes of a participant who they say was not an elected councillor at the time. Double standards or Kafka-esque bureaucratic pedantry - what's your vote?

Call grows for 'Bully' Brewerton's resignation

2007-03-09T18:03:00.000Z

This appears on the "Save Dartington College" web site:

Sam Richards, the longest serving member of staff at Dartington College of Arts was today summarily dismissed for 'gross misconduct' following a piece of satire he wrote which was published on this website last week.

The Save Dartington Campaign, as well as many members of staff and students were absolutely appalled by this decision. Not only is it being seen as a direct attack on the right to freedom of speech (within a College of Arts, no less) but also as a symbol of the style of management which has been a feature of Andrew Brewerton's short reign as Principal of the College.

Staff morale is at an all time low, students are extremely angry and a climate of fear pervades.

The Campaign are calling for the immediate resignation of Professor Brewerton and those members of his executive who are responsible for the current state of affairs.

It is our considered opinion that in these difficult times, the College is in desperate need of new leadership.

Date posted: 08 Mar 2007

Messages of Support for Sam Richards Pour In
The Save Dartington College website has been inundated over the past week with messages of support for Sam Richards, recently suspended from the College for 'Gross Misconduct'.

Mr Richards had the temerity to write a piece of satire in which he 'stood for election' as the College Principal.

One correspondent wrote:

"Among other actions, I think there should be a legal fund for Sam Richards, if necessary, because he should not be victimised for having only said what thousands of us believe."

Professor Brewerton's 'style of management' is coming under increased scrutiny and is being criticised widely, not only in the town but from within the College itself.

Date posted: 05 Mar 2007

Brewerton Resigns as DCA Principal

2007-03-05T00:55:00.000Z

That's how the headline should have read last October, after Dartington College of Arts Principal Andrew Brewerton was caught in an underhanded attempt to move the college to Falmouth without bothering to mention it to his own staff, let alone the people of Totnes, now confirmed at last week's Board of Governors meeting.

It has become clear that, despite crocodile tears he almost shed at a public meeting in Totnes in January, Brewerton had made up his mind last year that the college would leave the Dartington estate.

In a BBC article dated 6th November he is quoted as saying:

"The decision to move is inevitable (sic) given that it is beyond the means of a small, private, charitable institution to guarantee our long-term sustainability."

"The colleges are an almost perfect academic fit. We want to achieve that through funding that may be available through European funding in Cornwall."

Professor Alan Livingston, principal of University College Falmouth which has 2,200 students, said: "We are delighted to be working with Dartington on this exciting merger and hope to satisfactorily conclude our discussions shortly."

Now, instead of falling on his own sword, as would have been the honourable thing to do, Brewerton has resorted to bullying staff and pupils who dared to raise their voices in protest.

Brewerton has suspended popular tutor and jazz musician Sam Richards - someone who has made a great contribution to the cultural life of the town and who is the longest-serving member of staff at the college - on the grounds of 'gross misconduct' and 'insubordination' - simply for writing a satirical article suggesting that he (Sam) stands for election as principal.

I have also heard of students being threatened with suspension if they did not toe the line.

There have been suggestions that Brewerton's publicly-stated claim that he had no personal interest in the college moving to Falmouth may be disingenuous, with rumours of a lucrative job offer linked to the move.

And it may not be a done deal yet. The following is quoted from the 'Save Dartington College' web site (www.savedartingtoncollege.org):

"Headlines stating that the College will merge in the University of Falmouth ignore the fact that the Governors are not in a position to make such a decision in the absence of the necessary funding from the Regional Development Agency. It is by no means clear that the Regional Development Agency will endorse the plan to move because it is highly questionable whether public funds should be used to remove a College from one region for the benefit of another. The controversy is heightened by the fact that millions of £'s of public funds have only recently been used to enhance the existing college buildings at Dartington - on the declared assumption that the college would remain where it was."

Highly questionable indeed - and it seems that Brewerton has many questions to answer. It will be interesting to see if he dares to front any more public meetings in Totnes.

Totnes skateboard park causes confusion

2007-02-15T14:29:00.000Z

As the pioneering Totnes town centre skateboard park - otherwise known as a 'traffic calming scheme' - takes shape, people are to be heard asking searching questions about it, like "What the **** is this supposed to be?"

Well, what do you call it when you build something across a busy road that to pedestrians looks like a pavement, while to motorists it looks like a road?

I call it a massacre waiting to happen.

The other day, I watched some young skateboarders enjoy the experience of shooting out of Ticklemore Street straight across Fore Street on the nice, level pavement that now crosses the street. I haven't attempted to measure the incline either side, but it is so shallow that it is barely noticeable in a car and will do absolutely nothing to slow down the teenage boys who delight in using Fore Street as a drag strip. What it will do is to lull pedestrians into a false sense of security and, I suspect, cause a few accidents, as nobody knows whether cars or pedestrians have priority.

The patch of brickwork outside the church has taken up half a dozen parking places - for what? What is it supposed to be? Are we going to sit there in deckchairs in the summer? Are we going to hold fiestas there? It will do nothing to slow cars down, as it appears to be level with the road surface. So is it another population control measure aimed at the slower citizens?

The one place that badly needs 'traffic calming' is The Narrows, where cars should be reduced to walking speed as the pavements range from utterly inadequate to non-existent. Nothing is happening there, so I propose we get together and tip about 6" of soft sand along its length - turn it into a beach, in fact. That would slow the traffic down and give us somewhere to sit in summer.

Shock: Totnes Man Did Not Smoke Cannabis At School

2007-02-13T23:33:00.001Z

A Totnes man - not thought to be a candidate for the leadership of a political party - today admitted that he did not smoke cannabis at school.

After speculation in the Totnes Times that there may be one or two ex-KEVICS students who had never taken drugs, the un-named man, believed to be in his thirties, revealed that he had been too busy reading poetry and working on his stamp collection and simply "...never got around to doing drugs."

He went on to say that he had owned up to his wife, who was "very understanding". "She was shocked at first," he said, "but she understood how important my stamp collection was to me and respected my right to be different. Of course, we both smoke it now, so it's not a problem."

Speculation that the Teddy Bear Shop in Totnes is a front for a Bolivian cocaine smuggling ring has been strongly denied by its owner. Suspicion was aroused when a neighbour noticed that hardly anyone ever went into the shop. "They can't be living on two customers a week," she is reported to have observed.

The shop owner, a Mr W T Pooh, commented, "Yes, we do some business with South America, but the fact our teddies are stuffed with a white, powdery substance is in no way suspicious."

Communication Breakdown

2007-02-03T07:57:00.000Z

At a packed public meeting in Totnes Civic Hall last night, Anthony Steen MP refereed a tetchy debate between Andrew Brewerton, principal of Dartngton College of Arts, Vaughan Lindsay, CEO of the Dartngton Trust and the people of Totnes.

Prof. Brewerton talked well beyond his allotted time and gave a ramblng and less-than-coherent account of how and why the college found itself to be 'unsustainable', while Vaughan Lindsay blamed everyone but himself and the Trust for the current situation.

One of the few things that became clear during the meeting was the anger - albeit well-tempered - of the people of Totnes over being misled, misinformed and ignored by the decision makers in this process. And if there is one lesson that the Trust really should learn from this affair, it is the vital importance of interaction with the local community and its wealth of talent and intelligence; the greatest natural resource we possess.

If you have not yet done so, I recommend that you read Sam Richards' excellent article 'How To Trust The Trust' on the 'Save Dartington College' site - a considered view of how democracy could be introduced to Dartington. After all, if it's good enough for Iraq...

The Student Village – proposal to be considered by Triodos Bank

2007-01-30T09:12:00.000Z

“If the residences problem can be solved, the College can remain on the estate”

Statement attributed to Vaughan Lindsay, CEO, Dartington Hall Trust.

The possibility of retaining Dartington College on the Dartington estate
came a step closer yesterday when the socially-conscious Triodos Bank agreed
to consider proposals to help finance a development package. Under the
proposals, the public would be invited to make donations or purchase shares
in the "Student Village" project with the balance made up by a bank loan. Up
to £8 million will be sought in total, but an initial investment in the
region of £4 million would probably provide for a first phase of
development.

The “Student Village” is a proposal to build 200 self-catering residences off the Dartington Hall estate, within easy reach of the college and Totnes. The buildings would be dual-purpose, that is to say, they would be rented by college students from October to June, and available for tourist accommodation during the peak summer season (we have already received an enquiry to take up 100 of the summer places each year). They would incorporate the latest ecological and energy-efficient construction techniques. A number of sites have been proposed by prominent local landowner, the Duke of Somerset, which are now being discussed with South Hams District Council. Living Villages, locally-based eco-builders with an established track record, are drawing up outline proposals for the development.

http://www.livingvillage.com

Our intention wherever possible is to find local solutions for a local problem. It is proposed to set up a charitable foundation whose sole aim would be to finance the building and maintenance of structures off the Dartington Hall estate for use by Dartington College of Arts. The “Student Village” would be the first project.

A meeting has been arranged with Andrew Brewerton and Vaughan Lindsay on 16th February 2007. We need to show at this meeting that we can raise the necessary finance. We need your commitment now, with pledges of donations, or intentions to take a shareholding.

Please phone 868698 (daytime) or email details to:

studentvillage@dart-sensors.com

Walter King/John Macadie
30 January 2007

New Rescue Plan for Dartington College of Arts

2007-01-24T09:39:00.000Z

A plan to enable Dartington College of Arts to secure its future in the Totnes/Dartington area was launched today by local businessmen John Macadie and Walter King.

“Providing student residences is the key to retaining the college in our area” said John, “but the College and Dartington Hall Trust have been unable to find a way to do it. We are putting together a consortium of local business, industry and investment to provide new buildings for the college off the Dartington Hall estate. We feel that it will also open the way for the college to expand into Totnes”.

Several locations for the new residences have been put forward by the Duke of Somerset, a prominent local landowner, and exciting proposals for sustainable and energy-efficient structures are being developed by Staverton-based Living Villages, run by Bob Tomlinson and Carole Salmon, who welcome this opportunity to bring the skills they have demonstrated elsewhere in the country to their own neighbourhood.

An important feature of the development will be its dual-purpose nature, which will increase its attractiveness to local investors. Walter explains: “The student population will guarantee 100% occupation from October to June, and between July and September the residences will provide substantial additional accommodation for tourists, which will transform Totnes from a day-trip destination into a touring base, to the benefit of the local economy.”

The development is likely to be carried out in a series of rolling phases, and detailed proposals including investment opportunities will now be drawn up by the consortium. “We have got this far already in just 21 days, but now the real work begins”.

http://www.duchyofsomerset.co.uk/ssw/berry.php

http://www.livingvillage.com/

http://www.theredwizard.com/

South Hams DC accuses Totnes cafe owner of fly-tipping

2007-01-19T10:19:00.000Z

This is the story of a pair of 'Street Scene Officers' - surely Kafka's creations - who, upon discovering, simultaneously, a pile of household junk in Totnes Market Square and an un-opened envelope addressed to a friend of mine - made the sub-Holmesian leap of logic that the one must belong to the same person as the other. Whereupon, this pair of retards descended upon my friend with some alacrity, uttering little grunts of satisfaction and accusing him of fly-tipping.

My friend - normally a calm and composed character - was a little disconcerted that his good name was being hauled so literally through the dirt and was, understandably, sufficiently upset to address the beleagured bureaucrats in a tone less elevated than his habitual modus. He, rightly, questioned the bizarre logic by which they arrived at their conviction of his guilt. He pointed out that, had it in fact been he who had deposited the mattress and associated detritus in a public square - itself unlikely as he lived in the countryside some five miles distant - he would hardly leave an unopened bank statement alongside as prima facia evidence of his aberrant behaviour. He may also have mentioned that it was somewhat less than likely that anyone would deliberately leave their bank statement lying in a public place under any circumstances. And in any case, he runs a cafe, so where would the mattress have come from? And, by the way, he didn't do it.

The long arm of South Hams District Council failed to follow my friend's arguments and a day or two later presented him with a demand for proof that he did not carry out the fly-tipping, or pay a fine of £300. Yes, that's THREE HUNDRED pounds.

Now - I may be in error here - and please correct me if I am labouring under a misapprehension - but is it not a basic tenet of English Law that one is innocent until proven guilty? But apparently not in the world of the 'Street Scene Officers' - or just 'SS' for short - and their SHDC Ubermensch, who sent my friend a set of photographs of the aforesaid garbage pile and requested a written explanation from him of his actions.

Gentle readers, I will spare you the rather vulgar expletives that I am tempted to use to describe the behaviour of this pair of goons and their masters - but I think you can read between these modest lines that I am - as is my friend - more than a little angry about this gross injustice, bureaucratic stupidity and the mis-spending of our Council Tax.

Perhaps someone could make a nice pile of assorted rubbish in Totnes market square, with a label attached showing the name and address of the CEO of South Hams District Council, and invite him to prove that he did not put it there?

I will be keeping a close eye on this one and will let you know how it develops. Meanwhile, I suspect there are other, not dissimilar stories out there: do let me know.

Of Mice and Bin Bags

2007-01-17T15:24:00.000Z

There seems to be some kind of mad proposal doing the rounds that will mean councils charging extra tax for rubbish collection. It seems that some people chuck out more rubbish than others (quel surprise) and - by golly - they should pay for it!

So some silly arse - who is clearly incapable of thinking a complete thought - proposed that councils should count our bin bags and charge us PER BAG - or, perhaps PER KILO - (either way, someone will have to chase after the bin men with a clipboard and/or a set of scales).

Now this MIGHT work if - and, I think you will agree, it's a BIG if - we were all totally honest and really didn't mind paying yet MORE bloody tax to the council. But in the real world, what will happen? Will people scrupulously label all their own bags and put them 63cm (or whatever) from their front door? Or will they - under cover of darkness - add a couple to their neighbour's pile? Or will they take a boot-full out into the countryside and drop them over a hedge?

And has it occurred to them that households that throw out the most rubbish are likely to be the ones with the most PEOPLE and will, therefore, already be paying the most Council Tax?

And while we are on the subject of rubbish - which genius (of the many that South Hams employ) decided that Friday - yes, that's MARKET DAY, the BUSIEST DAY OF THE WEEK IN TOTNES - would be a perfect day for the bin men to pick up rubbish from the town centre?

Separating State From Religion: Totnes shows the way

2007-01-16T15:20:00.000Z

Totnes Town Council have been all over the news lately over their abandonment of prayers before council meetings.

This has proved to be rather more controversial than (I suspect) they thought it would be. Eric Pickles MP, Shadow Minister for Local Government, criticised the decision:

"This is a deeply troubling move, which I hope other councils will not be foolish enough to follow. Such absurd town hall political correctness actually serves to undermine community cohesion and tolerance towards all religions. The Lord's Prayer is an important part of the religious and cultural fabric of our nation."

I don't think this has anything to do with 'political correctness', but is a rational response to a modern society which has overwhelmingly rejected such outdated , pious mumblings as having nothing to do with the operation of an arm of local government. It is high time, in fact, for a total separation between church and state at all levels, and I am pleased that Totnes is showing the way. Bishops should be kicked out of the House of Lords; all prayers at all levels of local and national government should be replaced by a minute or two of silence, for participants to use as they will.

And while I am on the subject, I think 'faith-based' (read 'superstition-based') schools are the most socially and culturally divisive institutions in the UK today and should be closed forthwith - and I mean ALL such schools: Catholic, Moslem, Jewish, C of E - the lot. We have seen - in Northern Ireland - what happens when children grow up thinking that they have God on their side and we can see in Baghdad today the result of religious hatred between two branches of Islam. Let's get rid of these breeding grounds of bigotry while we still have the chance.

I happened to be at Dartington tonight...

2007-01-12T01:11:00.000Z

...for the launch of South West Recordings (see here for more info) and I was casually introduced to someone called Dan (I think) who is - wait for it - the Communications Officer for the Dartington Trust!

My first thought was that this must be a joke, but he didn't look like he had a sense of humour. My second thought was that this must be a (very) part-time job... what does he do for the other six and a half days per week? Come to that, what does he do at all?

If there is one thing that the Trust have demonstrated with crystal clarity over the past - how many decades? - it is their utter lack of ability to communicate effectively, especially with the local community. Perhaps it's about time they gave their 'Communications Officer' something useful to do?

And - by the way - as they have been registering domains with 'Dartington' in them - I thought I ought to have www.dartingtononline.com and www.dartingtonart.com - so I have registered them and I look forward to offers of large sums of money from Vaughan 'Popeye' Lindsay.

A joined-up-through-the-dots Totnes and Technology: but not as in ‘BC equals ‘Before Computers’

2007-01-09T10:20:00.000Z

(A guest post by John Clifton Bramble of Ashprington. See end for biographical note.)

What we have round Totnes isn’t simply ‘hippy dippy’ as the Guardian article made out: it goes a long way back, to the different early countercultures (Pont Aven, St Ives, Ascona, Green Acre Maine, Taos, Dartington, the Cornish in Seattle) that once criss-crossed the arts-modernist scene. In Ireland, there was Lady Augusta Gregory’s Coole Park (hosting Yeats, Synge, Shaw) and near Oxford, Lady Ottoline Morrell’s Garsington (hosting Bloomsbury, D.H. Lawrence). The last are other instances of the mixture of ‘country house modernism’ and early counterculture found at Dartington under the Elmhirsts. Since the Trustees have long since deserted, there has to be a way to save ‘it’—and by ‘it’ I mean the general ambience, not just DCA, though that’s embedded in and crucial to ‘it’. Make it all into a museum? No. Keep the arts and counter-culture alive—not as ‘hippy dippy’, but as thinking and creating against the grain. We might need that ‘contrarian’ quality when the mainstream (as now) screws up. But students tend to be transient (less so than tourists!), and the old guard is getting long in the tooth: what’s needed is longer term new blood. In the shape, I personally feel, of more university/ college type teachers and Tech.

I had this 'join up the dots' flash after talking to you: I've always felt Totnes and region had a lot going for it--but for me, ten years ago a) it was hard for a newcomer to find b) it was riven by factions (like Dartington and Sharpham) c) everything was terribly dotty or spotty. Still is, I think. So why not join up the spots and dots? Especially now we know that the ‘logo’ went to a patent last summer. We corner the ‘cultural substance’ this way: if you like, call it the ‘anti-Dartington’ of one-time friends of ‘that place’ (as Maurice Ash called Trustee ravaged Dartington). Christopher Titmuss reminds me that not everyone seems to know that the College of Arts (DCA) is separate from the Dartington Trust. And that since the whole matter is so crucial to the future of the region, some MAJOR public meeting should take place. What follows is just a selection of themes that might be considered.

Some of it canvassed by other people before, my flash combined (effective) 'cultural boycott', your 'first past the post' (the dreaded postmodern), university, anti-university, technology firms (not the same as your ‘iPod therefore I am’), giving the town a chance (no more discarded used woman), '1968', up yours to New Labour arts-speak, Frank Furedi's points about rampant ‘arts’ condescension, homage to Maurice' Ash’s ghost. A great injustice has been done there: many say that, and now there's Christopher Titmuss on the campaign web-site about Maurice’s late life 'despair' over 'new directions' at Sharpham. (It was getting like ‘that place’, but he was too old and tired to do anything about it.) I’m sure the Elmhirsts would have despaired as well, now that their creation is being treated like Pepsi or Coke. So can’t we do something about that ourselves? I’ve got a great personal affection for these founders, though I only knew Maurice. You met Leonard, I think.

This flash was a bit ultra-democratic ‘John Cage’ as well. But in a good sense, no populist hype, no governors, just 'join this joining up of dots if you think it will benefit you', no room for ‘bosses’ either, since each bit (spot, dot, even yurts) would be self-determining within a very loose collective or co-operative. Small enough to have common aims/ common enemy, too big for any one spot/ dot to start bossing the others about. That would be less likely to happen with the ‘anchor’ of technology and a collegiate side that’s turned its back on ‘non-benign archaic’ factors stemming from the past. As long the ‘oblige’ is there in ‘noblesse’, it’s generally benign (Dorothy, Leonard, Maurice): without it, ‘noblesse’ is an archaism that works against the public good. Any Sharpham or Dartington involvement should be on the understanding that (their present brands of) Byzantine/ feudal type politics are out-of-date and incompatble with this. By now (some at least of) the Trustees might be sufficiently chastened to concede this point. They’re on a slippery slope: who remembers the brand names of even ten years ago? Were you ever alone with a Strand? Where’s Benetton these days, all those united, pre war on terror colours? Could Wal Mart end up owning the Dartington and Sharpham estates, as ‘high class’ subsidiary arms?

Apart from the balancing and stabilizing tech/ science presence (this is crucial I think), the only difference from now would be that the spots and dots would be easier to find, hopefully less faction-ridden (some conservative nostalgia would have to go), and less spotty/ dotty. This ‘regeneration; would also have a common aim: to combat the ultra-marketization of the region via second homes/ designer tourism/ yachtsman uniforms/ naff arts/ Pepsification of logos/ counterculture-and-arts-lite for flown-in cognoscenti, deranged driving of show-off-mobiles etc. (OK so I’ve got that BMW, but I don’t boy-race it through the lanes like an invincible.) It would also help combat the uncommitted retiree thing and provide jobs for kids, both bright and less advantaged, since the 'service' side would be able to grow if the spots/ dots got together and Tech firms arrived.

By ultra-democratic/ ‘John Cage’ I mean independent but interlocking 'centres' all over the place, but none of them pre-dominating. This would sideline or put the Dartington Trustees out of business (plus Sharpham’s, if they don’t ‘join up’), it stops them being such a big player in the region, and removes their impact on local lives and livelihoods. If they no longer believe, that is to say, in responsibility and obligation (my point about noblesse without oblige being politically, culturally and economically malign). True, the Trustees could still be 'authoritarian' and axe the college, but they'd look even more foolish and anti-social if we were actively 'doing our own thing' (as per Thoreau or was it Emerson?) in a substance-not-image, reality-not-logo way. They'd have no joy of it, and 'centres of Yehudi Menuhin style excellence', or pictures of Ravi Shankar on the brochure, would look pretty daft if Totnes and region was getting on very nicely, thank-you, and attracting the (right sort of really talented) people for what's really here. As opposed to Pepsification, make-believe and gloss.

I think we have to self-critical: admit that make-believe has run the risk of turning into a general local problem, as--in the wake of the bowdlerization of the founding Elmhirst-Ash vision--‘counterculture’ has become less serious or more stuck in the past. But at least it isn’t gloss, and if it were ‘joined up’ , it would represent a more substantial and serious version of the talent that’s really here. I think we have to accept and embrace things we might not be interested in individually: as in ‘wouldn’t do if we were all alike’. Factional in-fighting is another local problem, and not just confined to Trustees and their ilk. (I’m trying to build on the best that Sharpham and Dartington have encouraged, not the worst.)

So at mobilization stages, this ‘regeneration’ would be a (neo) ‘summer of love’ type of venture, but more substantial than the original, since there would be no short-sighted overlooking of science and tech. Come to think of it, the guy who taught me to use this Apple was a ‘transpersonal therapist’, but so what (to any hippy dippy basher), he was pleasant, erudite, helpful and transferred the documents I wanted. New Age can combine with other things than simple money spinning.

St Andrews in Scotland more than eg Cambridge would be the model I’d invoke: St Andrews is comparable in size to Totnes, it has a much smaller university than Cambridge, a fair amount of ‘heritage’, science hasn’t been terribly developed there (nor, as yet, well represented down here), it has tech firms dotted about, an ‘East Neuk of Fife’ counterculture (jazz in St Andrews itself), also theatre, an arts cinema, and the tourism is more orderly/ purposeful than down here. Nothing like the same aggression and congestion on the roads, and like South Hams generally, St Andrews and region points out to sea. You don’t go to St Andrews itself unless you want to sample what it actually has to offer. You go elsewhere.

Down here, on the other hand, there isn’t as yet sufficient distinction between Totnes (and say the old triangle with Ashburton/ Newton Abbott) and the newer pseudo-‘naval’ constellation at Dartmouth/ Salcombe/ Kingsbridge. This way, ie ‘joined up’ and allied with Technology, Totnes would become more distinct from that sea-side constellation, and perhaps start to draw some sides of Dartmouth (notably the Flavel Arts centre) into its general sphere of influence. As things stand, Totnes is getting left behind and swamped by drive-through tourism: Dartmouth, Salcombe, Kingsbridge—with their ‘new’ new money and their Sainsburys, M£S and Waitrose--are now calling the shots.

The Totnes region ‘regeneration’ I’m thinking of would be using local resources to solve local problems, enlisting (real) local 'cultural capital', more than unstable tourist ‘trickle down’ or (patented logo) ‘this is the instantly ennobling Pepsi/ Dartington/ Sharpham experience’ approach. It could also attract (not to be sneered at) people who've decided that they want to get 'culture' and 'education'--but amidst a sea of Blairite ‘Cool Britannia’, slides at Tate modern, and Turner prize style hype, don’t know quite where to look. We in Totnes would be offering the real thing: not passé Britart or pre-packaged New Labour ‘culture’ with its stifling conformity. (See critics like Frank Furedi and George Walden on dumbed down arts for the presumed 'masses': we wouldn't be condescending like that.)

A friend from London makes this point about the 'need to get education’. He says Beckham is finished as a model, that Footballers Wives and pink Jacuzzis were yesterday, and that the one-time Essex men cant get 'culture' fast enough. So why not offer the real thing, instead of drive-through ‘naval’ tourism interlarded with the snob-appeal of the higher Pepsification at Dartington and Sharpham? St Ives Tate could be brought in (it’s not sold out so much as the mother institution), and Totnes could make more of Leach and Tobey, or Sean O’Casey (as opposed to Dartington, who don’t). There’s also Falmouth art school—why not some arm of that round here? On the web-site there’s a piece lamenting the impoverished state of visual arts teaching locally.

As for ecology, in the case of the Trustees still wanting to axe DCA, Schumacher would look pretty strange, as well, if it stuck to an Estate line--as opposed to joining the joined up dots. I think this also goes with 'transition town Totnes', that type of thinking (versus eg the present eco-babble at post-Ash Sharpham) seems close to what I’m proposing. Bit like the old Amsterdam provos, but updated in an alliance with Tech, we try to set a good ‘continental example. Tech can obviously work to general benefit—there’s eg alternative energy--not just further harm. The main point as I see it is achieving unity/ integration, and having a common goal, with shared awareness of what (from the Anglo-US corporate model down) the enemy actually is: the marketization and destabilization of the region by the influx of a ‘new’ new money that’s unlikely to last. But we’ll be finished then, Benidormed or Glastonburied out. Individually, we don't need to understand/ have expertise in what's happening at any given 'centre', as long as the over-all purpose is generally—even vaguely—agreed. Universities work like that: I’m sure Stephen Hawkins, eg, is pretty vague about what goes on in other Cambridge departments. But that’s not to say that the university doesn’t add up.

Economically, the ‘regeneration’ would be 'mixed' and anti-Thatchero-Blairite. 'Productive' social capitalism mixed with co-operative/ worker participation schemes, private (but not monopolistic) Tech investment, public money where state education comes in, also grants from here and there. Drawn up as a 'blueprint for the future' (without too much hype, be honest about Devon being in trouble and overlooked) and people could scramble to invest in/ support it. Think ambitiously at first, to mobilize/ broaden the campaign/ fire imaginations (what's ‘counter-culture’ after all?) then concentrate on what (not just Keith Richards) happens to fall out of the trees?

This could invigorate and unify the coming Saturday/ Sunday protests. There’s a bit of ‘1968’ in it, but also a real responsibility to the region which unambiguously retains the moral and cultural high-ground without there being any specious PR in the arguments. Nobody can then claim the protest to be an anarchists’ circus, or lacking all-round support. The 'Elmhirst-Ash vision restored' might be a general heading, and the town itself would benefit economically, in a way that it does not on the approach of the Trustees and their CEOs. The last merits the regional ASBO award, first prize for destructivity. (Anglo-US hyper-capitalism isn’t ‘creative-destructive’, as is sometimes claimed: the personnel spear-heading it—the shareholder value CEO types--are cultural retards or philistines, so it’s simply destructive.)

With a bit of repetition, a rough summary of these arguments for the regeneration of Totnes would be

1 At present the region is 'spotty' (culturally speaking, the different groups) so there's a lack of any such balance and integration as could makes the local economy truly add up. A substantial, diversified culture and a balanced, thriving economy go together. Pepsified logo and boosted economy might work for a while, but then there’d be the usual bust or collapse. At present its all too ragged, too subject to an aimless day-tripping tourism, much of it of a specialized nature (the Cider Press, the Vineyard) that only lines specialized pockets. (I don’t agree with the whatever-is-is-right rationalization that ‘it creates jobs’: how many? wouldn’t more jobs—and more stable jobs--be created this way? As with the DCA £20m, there’s lies, damned lies and statistics.) Inject Tech (not iPods), and you get a symbiotic whole that makes sense, on the St Andrews model referred to above. Sharpham and Dartington could be invited to ‘join up’, as against swimming against the trend. The Trustee habit of adopting ‘cutting edge’ when that’s actually fading or passé could be related to George Walden’s comment that ‘While everything else moves on, the avant garde remains ever the same’ (see New Elites, a Career in the Masses, 2006).

2 As opposed to different interests all wearing placards saying ‘I am right’, a 'join up the dots/ spots' collective or cooperative could justly claim the moral AND cultural high-ground. Tech and other science/ arts departments at Exeter and Plymouth universities could be approached to instal 'arms' down here. At Exeter eg there's a new 'esoteric studies' sub-dept of religious studies headed by Nicholas Goodrick Clarke, a good scholar: obvious reasons to have an arm down here. The ‘arms’ could include research institutes and so on: the university component needn't simply consist of undergraduates. Could we get that Bristol graffiti artist, on our side—begins with M, ends with Y--the one who strikes by night at corporate stuff and doesn’t like ‘cool Britannia’?

3 As an ‘inclusive/ symbiotic' idea, the regeneration could integrate and unify the dots and spots, add ‘1968 style’ communal impetus to the campaign, in order to combat the money-spinning, just-keep-the-corpse alive, life-support type tactics enlisted in relation to Dartingon/ Sharpham ventures inc by both sets of Trustees. It could also help correct the speciality tourism/ glitzy brochures thing, the running down of Totnes’s present Collegiate structures (at Sharpham as well as Dartington), and the retiree/ second homes ethos. Cal Arts funding for ‘new’ Dartington would become redundant, any 'institutes for narcissism, excellence' etc would be upstaged. No more noblesse without oblige, no more self-regard. That’s archaic and un-democratic, this is the 21st century

4 The Town would benefit from substantial ‘service industry' spin-offs: no more speciality ‘trickle down’, if that even exists. The town would also be encouraged to participate culturally: no ‘arts for the masses’ condescension. Compare also ‘transition town Totnes’, as another form of regeneration, related to this. And bring in Totnes’ top quality museum society.

5 Regarding DCA, the regeneration would make the Trustees look even more anti-social, even more like ASBO award material...and daft, if they still wanted to go it alone and axe. 'Ludicrous' (Clare Short of Blair) I find a good word. In this ‘joined up’ case, we set the tone--pro-actively--stop arguing with anyone, stop re-acting to twists and turns, psychology etc. That's as boring as what makes Bush/ Blair tick. 'Act don't react': if the Trustees and their henchmen want to join an effective local 'axis of evil' or ‘evil empire’, let them, but don’t moralize. Leave them room to come over to a unified, non-sectarian vision for the area as a whole. ‘Retirees’ could show an interest: let’s not polarize (except perhaps with week-end yachtsmen?) I mean, Christ, after all I’m retired myself!

6 So the general 'join up the dots' idea is an updated 1968 style mobilization which anyone can join, even the Trustees and their axemen. No 'out out' signs, just peace and love. We stop quarreling amongst ourselves about whether it’s a bird or a fish (that dates me), Hindu or Buddhist, modernist or postmodern. We love one another. Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner, at most, for those who want to side with Trustee ventures inc. As a friend said, ‘don’t worry John, you’ll have a hippy pushing you when you’re in a wheel-chair’.

7 With a concerted regeneration, the logic for DCA staying on the Estate would be even more apparent, 'enacted' more than argued for, ‘performed' (if you must). This 'join up the dots' approach makes allowance for all forms of (valuable) local dippiness/ eccentricity on the grounds that that's good for 'counter-culture' as contrarian thinking, thinking against the grain, since that's what we need when the mainstream goes wrong. The ‘new’ Dartington/ Sharpham approach is precisely that—mainstream and lightweight, most probably to be superceded nationally when Blair goes, and with him the New Labour gloss-arts-for-all, John and Janet approach. I think you [Sam Richards] said something like this in your first piece on the web-site: DCA stands for authentic 'creating against the grain' and that's where (politically motivated talk about) 'cutting edge' and Cool Britannia are poor substitutes. Parasites, in fact, on the real thing. No more neo-liberal hi-jack of counter-culture for consumerism, no more abuse of (now patented) logos. The last’s like a paranoid attempt to hive off their bit of the region—as if it were a fairy-circle or the area’s ‘jewel in the crown’. It’s not. The seeds sown by the Elmhirst-Ash vision have grown since, and the ‘real’ Dartington (and Sharpham, for that matter) are now far more widely diffused.

8 There’s obviously great potential in the ‘joined up’ idea for civic and local government involvement. The politics of the idea are far less archaic than has been the case hitherto, and more in line with what must be required of these more modern, democratic bodies. In the light of what I wrote initially about the (non hippy dippy) history of ‘counter-culture’ here, those public bodies would be doing the past and present a massive favour if they helped revivify what’s here already, without resorting to invasive and intrusive—and though actually naff, would-be ‘upmarket’--factors like the Trustees.

9 Without opening the gates to aimless mass tourism, the idea could also subsume 'heritage' and 'history'. St Andrews has these ‘industries’ too. At present there are too many interesting buildings locally staffed by only a couple of grannies handing out leaflets? Keep the grannies, involve more town people, but add some techies/ students/ anti-university/ cafe type things? I think there’s a lot of sentiment in the town that would be only too happy to ‘join up’ like this. Most local interest-groups would, I think, be accommodated by the over-all vision. And while we’re at it, let’s have a new public library: the staff are fantastic in there—and so much of this starts from reading, not sitting there watching pre-pulped TV.

10 The whole thing subsumes the 'cultural boycott' that has been proposed by some on the campaign. In the case of refusal to ‘join up’, real (anti-) Dartington Arts would lie elsewhere. (What about that poster of Kitchener from the first world war? ‘Anti-Dartington needs YOU’) Bookshops, listings, cafes, the Flavel could all participate, linked up/ joined up fashion, with leaflets available for activities at other spots/ dots. (From its run-down, but trend-setting position, Totnes library already does this.) Each 'centre' advertizes and promotes all the others, so assisting the rejuvenation of a presently tired looking scene. Different people move to the area, techies, new people in the arts, new blood, new talent, and buy out the second homers, settling down here with a real commitment to the area. Trends of the last ten or so years are reversed. Revenge on the designer sun-glasses and ‘cos I’m worth it’ types in the SUV. RIP Posh and Becks—well, OK, there was something rather sweet about them. Perhaps just that they, like Totnes, got used.

All in all, existing buildings would be used on this scheme as centres for this and that, combining with small tech firms, and preserving the built environment. Church roof type appeals would become unnecessary. We get a sort of arts/ counterculture/ Tech/ town amalgam, no longer so ‘dippy’ or spotty, the whole linked together in a co-operative, with a university (and anti-university) component. It would be a massive shame if Totnes ended up with the burnt-out look of Glastonbury, when all its existing resources (plus Tech) could, with a bit of imagination, be redeployed like this.

There is, for instance, a department for the (serious) study of astrology at Bath university, with an anthropological and historical--not a New Age--slant. (New Age itself or ‘as such’ is over, I think.) More possibilities for extensions down here, as with the 'esoteric studies' sub-department at Exeter university. What better place than Totnes? (I recently heard an excellent paper by a PhD student from that Exeter sub-department at an anthropology conference in Cardiff: trends are changing and Totnes should keep up. The ex-Oxford head of that sub-department has published good historical studies. And if an arm of that moved here, some History of Science—already of interest because of Babbage, with his early computer--could obviously fall under the ‘esoteric’ heading.) ‘Babbage Park’—too vulgar, or OK for the new tech/ science zone?

With this restoration/ extension/ saving of the collegiate side round Totnes, any such local ‘hippy dippy' as is tired, old or dead would most likely feel a shock. (But I still want that hippy for my wheel-chair!) Heads might have to be knocked together a bit--but the co-operative idea (and the prospect of a dire Trustee alternative) could save some of the pain. Everyone I've spoken to so far seems keen—and perhaps more important, only too willing to adapt. I guess it'd be a mixture of private and public money: private for the Tech and local institutes (‘old’ Sharpham eg had links with Gaia House and the Karuna Institute), public for the college of arts and/or any university department extensions that could be attracted to come down here: including--so far absent--science or tech departments. (In a place like Cambridge, a mixture of arts and sciences keep each other on their toes.)

With a few Tech and university department injections, local resources to solve local problems, as I say. Especially in the face of the threat of an aimless mass tourism, second homes, impossible house prices, the driving away of the local population, the proposal, I think, makes sense. With pit-stops at the Cider Press and Vineyard, Totnes and region could otherwise become a part down-at-heel, part retiree place to drive through on the way to Dartmouth, Kingsbridge and Salcombe. I myself feel its already losing its distinctive character, and giving way to an invasion/ destabilization/ degradation which, if present trends persist, it won’t survive. When I last wrote on this subject on the campaign web-site I felt very gloomy: now I feel there is a way out. The ideas are only provisional: I’m sure you all have things you could add.

John Clifton Bramble: I taught Classics at Oxford then became interested in Orientalism and arts-modernism, before coming down here to research the early counterculture. I'm an emeritus fellow of Corpus Christi College Oxford, who cant understand why there's so little comprehension or prizing of the historical importance of the original Elmhirst-Ash vision (including its flaws and good points). I wouldn't want to preserve that vision in aspic, but feel it needs better documentation. This is difficult since some archives are closed. I also feel very strongly that with or without the Trustees on board, Totnes and region should try to perpetuate that vision in in some way. My interests, in other words, aren't antiquarian so much as in the fate of this living entity, the local arts-counterculture as fostered by the original Elmhirst-Ash vision.

Elmwashing

2006-12-14T17:56:00.000Z

It turns out the Dartington Trust is a bit taken aback by the volume and ferocity of the criticism aimed at them for their failure to consult over the decision to kick the College of Arts off the estate. While Totnesians discuss boycotting the Trust's moneyspinners - the Cider Press, the Barn cinema, Totnes Bookshop - certain people not unconnected with the Trust attempted to browbeat a local councillor by turning up mob-handed to a 'quiet lunchtime meeting'. They expressed their 'disapproval' of a certain video that has been getting some attention. They were left in no doubt of the strength of local feeling and that they had made a huge blunder by failing to take local social and economic considerations into account.

Meanwhile, the Totnes Times contains a letter from an ex-employee of the Trust, who says:

"In many ways, the people of Dartington and Totnes can't be that surprised that the College of Arts is leaving. It must be clear to many that the legacy of the Elmhirsts is slowly but surely disappearing. Empty buildings left to decay, a lack of care displayed to residential and commercial tenants, staff frightened about the security of their jobs - these are surely the hallmarks of a badly-run organization."

Sure enough, the Dartington Estate is littered with derelict buildings - including the old Tweed Mill, quietly decaying beside the main Totnes-Dartington road - despite having been approached by many local businesses with offers of rent. A few years ago, they even turned down a substantial offer from Body Shop mogul Anita Roddick for one of their enpty shells - an enterprise that would surely have breathed new life into the estate.

Meanwhile they continue to wave the 'Elmhirst flag' when it suits them - such as when publicizing prestigious events like 'Ways With Words' and the 'Summer School'. I propose the term 'Elmwash' to describe the use of the names of worthy ancestors to glorify current misdemeanours - add it to your NewSpeak Dictionary.

A Matter of Trust

2006-12-12T08:01:00.000Z

The mood in Totnes at the moment is one of impending doom, brought about by the decision of the Dartington Hall Trust to expel the College of Arts from their campus, indirect contradiction of one of their declared aims - "Creating a unified Dartington Estate with Dartington College of Arts and other activities on the estate", or as it is worded in their 2005 review: " Create a national centre of excellence in music and the arts".

DCA - is the latest of a long list enterprises to be abandoned or destroyed by the Trust since they inherited the Elmhirst legacy. Local historian Walter King has documented this shameful story in the current edition of his excellent Totnes Review so I will not go into detail here.

Apart from the matter of their apparent incompetence as managers of a once-profitable estate, one of the main issues in this current debate is the absurd 'ivory tower' mentality of the Trust, which behaves like a secret society rather than a body that - given the influence and history of the Elmhirsts' 'Dartington experiment' on Totnes and the local area - should have been in constant and intimate communication with the people whose lives it directly affects. Their 30-year embargo on procedural documents stands in stark contrast to most modern institutions and it is particularly ironic that their chairman, James Crnford, is Chairman of the Campaign for Freedom of Information.

Much of the responsibility for recent changes on the estate must be laid at the feet of Trust CEO Vaughan Lindsay, who is said to have been brought in to clean up the mess left by previous management. Shortly after he arrived, several long-standing tenants on the estate were given notice to quit, while others had their tenancies 'reviewed' (which, in at least one case, amounted to an attempt to re-write a 16-year-old contract). The pottery, founded by Bernard Leach, was driven off the estate by an inprecedented rent increase and Park School was threatened with a dramatic rent increase.

The Trust cannot be trusted - given its grim history - to make decisions that are good for the community: this much is clear. In the 21st century, is it not extraordinary that a self-appointed, un-elected body, answerable to nobody, can make decisions that could mean a loss of £4-5 million annual revnue to a small country town and dramatically alter its social and cultural life? Is it not time that this self-serving oligarchy was replaced by something more democratic?

The 'Save Dartington College' site has a fair sample of local comment, but for some reason no open, threaded discussion forum, so the Totnes Forum seems to be the place to go.

There are a couple of short videos of some of the protests, including one where Vaughan Lindsay was forced to answer some difficult questions about the Trust's lack of local consultation.

Totnes

2006-12-11T10:54:00.000Z

This blog will be mostly about Totnes in Devon (SW England), which has been my home since 1995 and the place I have wanted to be since I discovered it ten years earlier.

I will be talking about what makes it unique, what I love about it and what annoys, irritates or bugs me.

This will be an unashamedly opinionated blog, which at times may cause offense to some people. You have been warned.