A vertical garden or living wall
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63D2UkkTtBQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Of course, how long they last or how easy they are to maintain is another option. But there's no reason we shouldn't be trying them for growing food..
WATER WARS
Change our value systemsa and our lifestyle
%80 of energy springs frm homes
Why Bikram is best
Well, other forms of yoga are fantastic too, but it's been really interesting to watch how Bikram yoga has appealed to men and other groups that wouldn't normally have been interested. There's something about Bikram yoga that means you feel the benefits immediately. If I ever have backache, only a Bikram yoga session will fix it. Immediately.
It's the heat and the sweat and the detoxing. And the fact that you know what to expect because it's always the same set of postures in the same order, but somehow you experience them differently depending on your physical and mental state.
I just wish I had the time and money to do it everyday. But I need variety, so that would never happen..let's be realistic here. Sometimes I just can't balance in a posture because my brain is off assessing all the other people in the room, or I just don't feel like looking at myself in the mirror very much. Other times, the focus and concentration is exemplary and I am proud of myself. Except, it's all about letting go of judgment really innit.
Anyway, it's fun being pretty flexible and getting into positions I wouldn't have been anywhere near 10 years ago when I first went. www.bikramyoga.co.uk
loving food
My parents seemed to have instilled a love of good food in me, being exploratory and talented cooks themselves. As the first 10 years of my life were spent mostly in Malaysia and China, and later on based in Italy and Hongkong, my tastebuds were pretty experienced by the age of 5. In China I had a fixation for jiaozhe, (dumplings stuffed with pork belly and spring onion) which were almost a peasant's meal, eaten with a mixture of seseme oil, malt vinegar and soya sauce, with a lump of raw garlic too if you wanted. They are still my comfort food today. We used to have to spend hours making them, but now you can get perfectly good ones in the frozen section of the Chinese supermarkets here in London.
In Malaysia I discovered those tiny salty fishies, ikan bilis, and beef rendang, and we had papaya with lime for breakfast every morning. Nowadays, just slicing a lime transports me right back to age 5. In our garden, at number 7 Lorong Kuda, (now sadly knocked down to create way for those Petronas Towers) we grew bananas, rambutan, lychee, orchids and chickens. And I had durian-flavoured smarties once and they were disgusting.
In Rome later on, recent trauma could not dullen the excitement of mealtimes. Terracotta walls bled red in evening sunlight, church bells pealed, waiters flirted, art beckoned and architecture enthralled. With my father and younger brother I discovered the delights of polenta, risotto, rughetta (rocket) and pizzas in the colours of Italia Novanta World cup. I liked the way Italians mixed their ragu into the pasta in a big bowl, before serving it, rather than piling it in the middle and serving it with the pasta bare. I thought that was highly cool. (You have to remember that was in an era (late 80's) where all Britain had was the wonderful Pizza Express and the horrible Pizza Hut - not a very sophisticated market at all. Then all the Pizza Pastas and other chains started springing up and excrutiatingly slowly, Britain learned about Italian food. )
So a passion for food has accompanied or even fuelled me - around the world. Salmorejo in Spain (a thick tomato soup, more exciting than gazpacho), papas rellenas and ceviche in Peru, even rice and beans in Nicaragua. And still so much more to taste!
I'm a keen cook but I am by no means an expert and have no professional training whatsoever. I would so love to do a proper long-term cookery course, but for now I'll have to keep self-teaching. I still have to catch up skillwise with my extended family, the females of which are expert entertainers. This blog is for whatever comes into my head, but perhaps one day through this vehicle I will rediscover some of my mother and grandmother, remember some excellent meals, put out some of my own recipes, and get used to writing.
And there is also, of course, the growing of vegetables, the learning of permaculture, the discussion of films such as Fast Food Nation, all to talk about too...
Plastic Planet: The Curse of the Carrier Bag, 2006
In 2006 I made a no-budget short film about plastic bags. Put it on Myspace and then suddenly the whole world was contacting me wanting to use it in anti-plastic bag campaigns. At least 40 campaigns from Canada to India to Australia showed it to public gatherings to raise awareness. I think people latched onto plastic bags as a ubiquitous symbol of all that is wrong with our unsustainable way of living these days. Anyway, The Cooperative group in the UK showed it internally, Liverpool projected it in their town square on an open film day, it won a Green TV competition at the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival and Discovery Channel asked to put it on their interactive website to show what's happening at grass roots level, I think as part of their buying the TreeHugger site.
I hope to embed the film here but it doesn't work at the moment.
Interviewees in the film are :
Satish Kumaar, ex-Jain monk and environmentalist, started Resurgence,
Mukti Mitchell, eco-designer,
Jonathan Porritt, Sustainable Development Commission
Diana Verde-Nieto from Clownfish, and ethical PR company,
Jessica Symons, social entrepreneur
the lovely Jeffrey Davies running a plastic bag factory in London (Polybags), telling us why biodegradable bags aren't the answer
a waste-worker in Brighton,
Irish minister talking about the banning of plastic bags there
My favourite bit is the fact that I found a song with the most perfect chorus, and got permission to use it: Simon Denyer's Plastic Bag song. A little bit too catchy...and I like the 50's archive material with its enthusiasm about plastic.
Anthony Alexander edited with a great deal of talent and commitment, and I got Rosanna Jon to draw these cartoons for me with her animation expertise, using photos I had taken of plastic bags arranged with blue tac on my wall in certain positions. They appear at the end of the film depicting the nicknames which people have given the plastic bags you see strewn all over the place : Landfill snowbirds, witches' knickers, urban tumbleweed, Tundra ghosts, and one to do with kites which I've now forgotten... 2 of the cartoons below.
Also, some of the horrid photos that didn't make it into the film. (All copyright permissions cleared in 2006) Every time you throw away a plastic bag into the bin going to Landfill, conjure these images to mind.
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Chanting like a Hare-krishna
Kirtan chanting is such fun. Well perhaps fun isn't quite the word for it . You feel a bit like a Hare-krishna devotee but the tunes are great and you sometimes get to play instruments - even if you can't play them! Somehow the instrument (rattle, tamborine etc) plays itself. There's a leader who sings the line and then the group repeat it, so you don't need to read music or know the songs. It's very meditational, and it helps when you are in a low emotional state - perhaps in the same way as exercise does, but more spiritually...
Of course, the words you are singing are mantras, and they are repeated either softly to yourself (japa) or out loud (kirtan) in order to channel divine energy. And you know what, you feel you really are!
You can do it here at Triyoga in Primrose Hill (http://www.freetheinnervoice.com/chanting.html) or you can do it at my fave place, Innergy yoga centre in Kensal Road every month on a saturday night and have a delish indian meal afterwards. http://www.innergy-yoga.com/chantingnews.htm. Innergy is great because it's a lovely carpeted old hall and there are fairy lights everywhere...
To find out what sort of stuff you might be singing, listen to Krishna Das (double cd Live on Earth, try songs Namah Shivaya or Devi Puja) or JayaLakshmi (try song Ocean of Mercy) ... I often find myself singing along to these at top volume whilst doing the housework.You find that some of them have a great beat and I often wish I was a cool funky DJ that knows how to technically take these tunes to another level by transforming them into some sort of Deep trance house rave mix. If you know of DJs out there already doing this, lemme know.
Anyone who's recently taken up kirtan chanting, would love to hear your comments.





