Accidental Anarchist film

Accidental Anarchist: Life Without Government is a rare instance of TV putting anarchism in a favourable light. You can see the trailer at www.accidentalanarchist.net. Produced by BBC Scotland and shown on BBC4 Storyville on Sunday 23 July 2017 at 21:50, the one-hour film tells how:

Carne Ross was a career diplomat who believed western democracy could save us all. But after the Iraq war he became disillusioned and resigned. This film traces Carne's worldwide quest to find a better way of doing things - from a farming collective in Spain, to Occupy Wall Street to Rojava in war-torn Syria - as he makes the epic journey from government insider to anarchist.

gender identity politics

I’m bewildered and confused by the public debate about gender identity. As a heterosexual man I have never felt troubled with my gender identity. I have my share of other personal issues, of course, as well as an awareness of being a privileged male in a patriarchal society. But gender has only become an issue in my life in the last few years: partly because of personal acquaintance with some trans gender people and partly because of the acrimonious debates in left liberal circles on the subject. I want to support feminism and at the same time I'm worried about being transphobic. But I don't want to fall in with the ideology,  as described in the blog gendercriticalgreens, that 'there is such a thing as “gender identity” entirely separate from one’s biological sex, that being a man or a woman is a feeling unrelated to biology, and that the only way to be supportive to trans people, and indeed to avoid being seen as transphobic, is to adopt this ideology.'

Arc Boxford eco home

The Arc in Boxford was on Grand Designs Season 5 Episode 10 on Channel 4 in October 2010. 

TEFL Colchester

• Fresh Beginnings (Migrant and Refugee Support Centre in Colchester) provides practical help to refugees, asylum seekers and migrant workers around Essex including free English classes for refugees - six a week: Mon, Tue, Thu, 10.30-12 and 12.30-2 at the Bunting Rooms off Head Street.. 
• Local Quakers are also involved in helping provide free English classes.
• Refugee Action Colchester - on Facebook -  provides one on Wed 10am-1pm. 
• Volunteering with Refugees is an online course to help volunteers understand how they can best support the linguistic and social needs of refugees at www.futurelearn.com.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values by Robert M. Pirsig - GoodReads calls it 'one of the most important and influential books written in the past half-century.' Here is my favourite one of the 6,662 Reviews (by Richard):

Lentil soup

Lentil soup ingredients

Stop 350 Mersea

Stop 350 is a campaign group founded in November 2016 to campaign against Colchester Borough Council plans to build 350 new homes on Mersea Island, which equates to an 11% increase in the island's population.