The Greens are Gathering!
Every year, 20,000 or so hippies congregate on top of the Mendip Hills in Somerset. It is called the Big Green Gathering. I just got back from this year's Gathering, so I thought I would do a joint blog and photo posting.
The idea of the festival is to let people learn about green lifestyles, and swap ideas or bring important things to peoples attention. There's also a lot of great music. One of the best experiences the festival offers is just to be able to know that you are not alone in caring about the environment. And with twenty thousand people in just a few fields, you pretty quickly get to see the full green spectrum! Among stall-holders this year were "Hunt Saboteurs", the Simultaneous Policy people, and the Squatters Rights group who, rather amusingly, put up posters for a forum titled "Beyond Squatting" on the doors to every portaloo on site!
I have to mention the Simultaneous Policy people because their idea is just so unusual that I was surprised to see them back at this years festival. The gist of the idea is that nation-states can make decisions that could affect matters such as trade and investment more easily if they all make the decision at the same time. It removes the disadvantage in being an early adopter and possibly losing the trade or investment to another state which has not implemented the idea. To be perfectly honest, while it may sound like a good idea, I think that it is just really incredibly idealistic and naive to think that this could ever work in the current international community. Anyway, they seem like nice people with good intentions.
One of the musical highlights of the festival was
Martha Tilston's performance. I don't think that she
is particularly well known outside the realm of folk
music, but she is an absolutely amazing artist.
Because most of the audience got to the venue before
she probably even left her tent, she had to tune
instruments and warm up in front of everyone, but I
think that just added to the experience. At the end,
she managed to sneak off stage and out of the tent,
leaving everyone in the audience still singing her
last song!
| What's this? |
