A quiet week, so at least a change from the rest of the news.

The elimination of live entertainment, or even contacts, this last week, leaves a local arts blog with little to chat about other than what's on the box, which is personal-taste dependent & mostly not time-sensitive - I'm still reliving Sky Arts wonderful night of tributes to Bowie on the anniversary of his death last Sunday - but last week for me was mainly walking obediently near my home. Here's a view from one of the lanes to Tytherington, with rather sodden fields & a distant glimpse of Cley Hill. 

This is the land currently earmarked for a  housing estate which would increase Frome's population by over 7,000 residents, with no extra amenities, senior school, or medical facilities. You can see the transformation envisaged by the inappropriately named Selwood Garden Community here. 

Land ownership is one of those entirely invented concepts, like monetary value, which caused strife even before the 'Inclosures' acts claimed previously 'common' land. "They hang the man and flog the woman / Who steals the goose from off the common / Yet let the greater villain loose / That steals the common from the goose" goes the old rhyme. (And there's an excellent article on John Clare 'the poet of the environmental crisis' by George Monbiot, here.)  People do, of course, need somewhere to live, so even though there are 650,000 empty homes in England,  (latest Ministry of Housing estimate), there is a case for construction - but this project includes no social housing or even realistically 'affordable' housing. Hence the protest. The print is from a 1770 edition of Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, an elegiac lament for the destruction of rural life through displacement of villagers, the greed of landlords, and political change, so it seems appropriate.

Meanwhile Liv Torc is busy turning this new lockdown-without-end into another HAIFLU film - you can see it all here. Grief and sadness are spiked with shock at what was happening over the pond, so although quite dark it's a searingly accurate snapshot of the week. 

Ending this week's potpourri with some thoughtful advice from the American poet ee cummings, culled from that excellent & ever-interesting blog Brainpickings.

“A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words. ...The moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.  To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.'