Another found poem…

…Never fair

Fly unto a curlew’s weeping distance;

But grant your arching wings a closer hold,

That, reaching down, their feather fingers fold

My saddened soul into your breast. Entrance

Your wandering, restless flight with love of me,

And pale not your roaming heart, but brighten

All with my fond love of you. Go: tighten

Our strong bond – but yet return, and softly

Cry my name from that sad curlew’s weeping;

Grant my aching wings your hold when sleeping.

Why do we need to build (so much…)?

Like food, there is actually more than enough housing to go round – at least for the moment. Not only in the UK (which has more than 700,000 empty homes); but in the rest of Europe, too (with more than 11 million empty, in total – “enough to house all of the continent’s [4.1 million] homeless twice over”).

With around a third of all food being wasted (through over-supply and over-eating) – in this country, at least – there could be sustenance for the permanently hungry; for those who are forced to collect parcels of provisions that can be warmed up with a kettle (the only source of heat in some people’s homes being a camping stove…). With empty houses being refurbished or conserved, there could be accommodation for the dispossessed; for those forced out of the homes they have lived in for years because of the ‘bedroom tax’, or from delayed or deleted benefits (that, in all likelihood, they deserve, or are due…) – or simply because their landlords demanded excessive rents.

Food wastage and food shortage are terrible problems; but so is the reported lack of available homes that is – I am told – at the root of the carpet-bombing of proposals to cover our green fields with swathes of unsuitable, unsustainable, identikit boxes: with a legislated proportion being ‘affordable’ to almost no-one that would qualify for their residence, or actually needs them to live in (especially as Stratford district’s “House prices are higher… than the average for Warwickshire”).

At 1 April 2011, there were 1,329 empty houses (14% of the estimated new homes needed between now and 2028 – or two years supply) in the area governed by Stratford-on-Avon District Council (SDC) – with 748 of those (8% of the housing requirement) having been empty for six months or longer. [As of 2 March 2014, this latter number has been reduced to 543, as a result of SDC’s Empty Homes Strategy.] And yet, from my reading of SDC’s Draft Core Strategy, and the National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF), it appears impossible to include any of these empty houses in the council’s five-year housing supply – even though there are hints in both of these documents that this would be a sensible move…. So they simply haven’t been.

And yet, the coalition government says that it is “committed to bringing empty homes back into use”: encouraging local planning authorities (LPAs), such as SDC, to do so – “as a sustainable way of increasing the overall supply of housing and reducing the negative impact that neglected empty homes can have on communities…” – both via the NPPF, and such resources as the Empty Homes Mapping Toolkit. The evidence appears circumstantial, at best, though.

This is what the NPPF says, at paragraph 51:

Local planning authorities should identify and bring back into residential use empty housing and buildings in line with local housing and empty homes strategies and, where appropriate, acquire properties under compulsory purchase powers. They should normally approve planning applications for change to residential use and any associated development from commercial buildings… where there is an identified need for additional housing in that area….

“Should”, not “must”. According to the CPRE:

The Government has… implemented two initiatives to support this policy: [including a] £160m fund for supporting local authority and community projects to get empty houses back into use…. Concern has been raised, however, that the Government’s proposed tightening of the rules which govern the use of Empty Dwelling Management Orders (EDMOs) could undermine local authority attempts to refurbish and re-let privately owned empty homes.

By the way, the above figures don’t include all the second, third, or fourth (etc.) ‘homes’ that are occupied rarely – or sometimes never – by the super-rich who buy up property like most people buy tea bags (or lottery tickets?); and who therefore drive up prices and scarcity in the name of selfishness and greed (their twin gods?). “Even London has more bedrooms than people.” (If you counted empty bedrooms in Stratford, what numbers would emerge…?) This is why more people are renting than owning, again; why families are living in unsuitably small and squalid spaces; why slums will soon re-erupt, like flesh flies from diapause.

There are no easy answers. Campbell Robb, the chief executive of Shelter, the UK’s biggest homelessness charity, has stated that the government needs to come up with “bigger, bolder ideas” to tackle the lack of available, affordable homes. But I would add that it then needs to put these into action, rather than just “encouraging”.

On 16 January 2014, the European Parliament adopted a resolution – by 349 votes to 45 – demanding that the European Commission develop an EU strategy on homelessness “without further delay”. And I would hope – however Eurosceptical our government has become – that this would eventually filter down into UK law: ensuring that regulations such as the NPPF force LPAs to not only allocate empty houses to the homeless, but also to designate them as truly affordable. Additionally, new legislation must ensure they are used as part of the five-year housing supply: therefore relieving some of the pressure from the remote and greenfield sites that are of so little use to those with limited funds, and limited access to transport….

Bard & Tew (Part 1)

With Mike Sanderson

Tew had been thinking hard since the FSD skirmish on Oxhill Road. He had come across the Bard, out perambulating the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). “Good morning, Tew!” said the Bard, “I see you’re getting ready for the next harvest. What are you planting?” Tew responded, gazing towards his fields: “I’ve been persuaded to plant some of these GMO Ticky-Tacky seeds. They’re not what you’d call sustainable: but, give ’em time and there’ll be a whole estate of ’em – and they’ll all look just the same. Prime Minister is a big fan; and the high PanYan himself thinks they are as good as Hobnobs.”

Tew knew there had to be something in these so-called Neighbourhood Plans. They were brought in by the government back in ’10 to support their localism fad; but could actually confer a lot of power to the community. The problem was to get one before the ministry changed and it all started over again. The three strands of this localism gubbins were sustainable development; some climate change stuff; and a thing called social well-being (which reminded him how much he could do with a pint of Sewell’s Stout, right now). Tew and his colleague the Bard of Tysoe think it would be a good idea to get ruminating about these matters. Over the course of the next few months, we’ll be taking a light-hearted look at them – especially as there are lots of code-words and capital letter abbreviations (CLAs) to cope with (for example, the accursed FSD).

So this month, we’ll begin with ‘sustainable economic development’ (or SED). Tew came upon the Bard just down from Old Lodge Farm. As they stared across the Stour Valley at the setting sun, the Bard said wistfully: “So, Tew, what passes for SED in this neck of the woods?” Tew answered: “Well, you can see it below you. The ridge-and-furrow: that’s sustainable. They calls ’em Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS). That’s after they’ve grubbed ’em out and laid shingle tracks leading to ponds. Shows there ain’t nowt new.”

The Bard said – after a brief pause to watch a mewing buzzard fly by – “Well, that’s fine now; but what about in 10 or 50 years time: what would SED look like then, down below?”

“Um,” he said. “Me gran knew a thing or two. When she came here there were no gas, no inside loo, no pipes. There still ain’t no gas, and mebbee we’re still short of a few water pipes. So in my opinion, we need more houses to make things sustainable. But since there’s no gas, the new houses need more than one source of fuel. They need to re-use rainwater, too. ’Cos if they don’t have these things, then nobody young can afford to live here. There aren’t enough jobs either: so they need cars to go to work. What do you think?” “Well”, he replied, resting his chin on his gnarled stick, “if it ever stops raining and we see the sun again, some of those solar thingummies you have on your roof might work. And perhaps we could convert the windmill to generate some power or pump all this water away? Be good to have the bus come more often. But it doesn’t really need to be so big, does it?”

Tew said, “I read your piece on Seeger. Seems like Master Risktaker had it right, when he said: ‘the circumlocution officers quote the word ‘sustainable’ in their PDF documents, meaninglessly; but we need to give that word meaning’. We have to ask the rest of the villagers what they think. Light’s nearly gone; footpath’s a bit boggy down below. Mebbee that’s something else we should be doing for ourselves!”

– Originally published in the Tysoe & District Record (March 2014: no.742)

The return of the Night Wasteman – Sustainable Tysoe?

By Mike Sanderson

Tew sat on the ridge and furrow outside the manor. This site was now the infamous site of the first battle of the second English Civil War, or War of Localism. Ironic, really, as you could see the first battle site in the first civil war from here. Tew couldn’t decide whether he was a goody or baddy. Hence his contemplative mood.

Like everyone else he had been suffering the fallout from the banking crash of 08. Things were changing though. The bankers had placed a jet stream or flying island over the Vale of the Red Horse and blocked out the sun. They’d done this because they didn’t think the inhabitants had made enough PPI claims, which was the only way bankers could lend money after the government got on their case. Like many other government inspired initiatives this produced unintended consequences. The deployment of the flying island meant it had started raining heavily in 2012. Flooding was rife in the vale. Ridge and furrow (aka SuDS) had been ploughed out and what were SuDS? Anyway some investment bankers who weren’t in the PPI scam had turned their hands to speculative development (SD), as allowed under another government initiative (the bumPF). These bankers were known as Flashmen (hence the term, FSD). Flooding was bad for FSDs.

The field he was sat in was the site of an FSD. FSDs would lead to increased flooding in the vale. Now Tew knew about these things. His original role had been to recycle night waste. But now the speculators needed to dispose of the bumpf a different way because there weren’t enough SUDs. He could be back in business and move over to the dark side. All he needed was for black bins to be designated as night waste bins and the disposal of such waste to become a section 106 reserved matter.

– Originally published in the Tysoe & District Record (February 2014: no.741)

The good strife…

The modern artist must live by craft and violence. His gods are violent gods. Those artists, so called, whose work does not show this strife, are uninteresting.

– Ezra Pound

I was talking to a good friend of mine, recently – Duke Senior to my Jaques; or Corin to my Touchstone…? – about the conflict or strife that we both believe is at the heart of artistry. Having written, drawn, composed, and designed things for most of my life, I have always been interested in what motivates or fuels the process of creating. [Interestingly, ‘motivated art’ is defined as that “produced under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs” – but I think imagination, or whatever spurs one to produce something (hopefully, original and interesting), is medication (and motivation) enough: often pushing you in directions you would never have dreamed of, if not under its influence. (Although I am still convinced that I play the piano much, much better after two pints of Guinness, of course.)]

A lot of creative people I know, or have met, talk about “striving” for their art – but modern-day usage seems to have disunited the word ‘strive’ and its sister ‘strife’ (implying that one is good, one bad): even though both appear to have joint thirteenth-century origins in the Old French ‘estriver’. Strife itself, as a noun, is usually defined as “angry or violent struggle; conflict”; whilst striving, the verb, is about making “a great and tenacious effort”. Yin and yang?

Going back even further, Hesiod – who lived towards the end of the eighth century BC; and who I suppose you could call a ‘farmer-philosopher’ (whose natural successor, therefore, is Tysoe’s legendary character, Tew…) – discusses these two types of strife in his seminal Works and Days: classifying them as good competition and bad conflict.

So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife [Eris] alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due.

But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night [Nyx], and the son of Cronos who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.

– translated by Hugh G Evelyn-White

This isn’t to say that great works of art haven’t been inspired (if that’s the right word…) by great conflict – such as Pablo Picasso’s overwhelming Guernica; Benjamin Britten’s intense and moving War Requiem; and most of Wilfred Owen’s published œuvre (never to be surpassed…) – plus, of course, there have been official ‘war artists’: such as John Nash, Stanley Spencer, and Eric Ravilious. It could also be posited that this blog would not have existed were it not for the local war against unsuitable and unsustainable development….

I did write, though, in an earlier post, that my work “stems from antithesis, from conflict: whether flippancy and earnestness; art and science; good and bad; happiness and sadness”; and it is this inner friction, I suppose (combined with a wish always to improve, to learn) – rather than the external competition Hesiod describes – that often initiates inspiration, and then translates it into prolonged perspiration (usually interspersed with huge chunks of doubt…). As Blake put it: “Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and repulsion, reason and energy, love and hate, are necessary to human existence.”

If I lost this urge, I would – having experienced it all my life – feel its loss as keenly as the removal of one of my senses. (And being hard of hearing – and currently completely anosmic: due to the ravages of some awful virus… – this isn’t just mere whimsy.) But do those who never (or infrequently) have such an impulse miss it too? I often hear people wish that they could play a musical instrument: but this is usually in comparison with someone who already does; and usually is mere whimsy.

The prompt for my discussion with ‘Duke Senior’ was the (apparent) lack of creativity of modern Denmark: apparently the happiest nation on earth – followed closely by Norway and Switzerland – and thus lacking “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower”. [I must admit that – as with the old challenge to list famous Belgians – I struggle to name any creative Dane since Carl Nielsen (whose Det Uudslukkelige symphony echoes the First World War…): apart from Arne Jacobsen – and he died in 1971!]

As Harry Lime says in The Third Man (an impromptu line, added during filming, by Orson Welles himself…):

You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.

Although historically inaccurate, it does have a convenient ring of truth to it!

Does creativity really, therefore, require strife or conflict – internal or external – to exist; or even to succeed?

I believe it at least matters. And I believe it is visible; made manifest. It seems that in many of the arts – if not all – the artist has grown to be more important than the actual art, though; the idea more important than its implementation. There is no strife (and it could be said that the only god is Mammon); and I believe its absence in many glib, calculated, knowing – mostly modern – supposed works of art is also, therefore, visible: which is why I believe it “will undoubtedly be seen as crass and talentless; and will fall into the Room 101 of already-discarded, faded-from-memory, trash.”

It may be crafty; but it lacks craftsmanship. It may be artful; but it ain’t art.