Journal

Gave the Frank Parkinson Lecture at the Oxford Farming Conference yesterday – and here’s the coverage in Farmers Weekly. Was meant to be on BBC Radio 1 too, but that got wiped out by Trump-induced attack on the US Capitol. I know I predicted a 12-15 year “U-Bend” in history in Green Swans, but this is going even faster and stranger than I had imagined.

I decided to cycle up to Hammersmith Bridge today, closed to all traffic for an eternity, it seems – to blow away some of the holiday cobwebs. Got there and back comfortably, with slushy rain starting to wink in as I got back to Barnes Pond. Then this evening I watched the Dr Who New Year’s Special, Revolution of the Daleks – which featured Daleks, of all places, on Hammersmith Bridge.

Other than that I have been plowing through books – currently immersed in Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry of the Future. Very much linked to work I have been doing over the holidays – but more on that later. At times it reads slightly like a novelised version of an MBA course on sustainability, but am enjoying it immensely – and pondering how I can step up my game in 2021.

Have also watched Ken Burns’ 2012 miniseries, The Dust Bowl. Mentioned that to Paul Hawken today and he replied that we are pretty much there again.

I have literally lost count of the number of podcasts I have done in 2020, but some stand out in my mind, partly because they have just been ‘aired’. The first is the Good Luck Club podcast with Simon Squibb, viewable here, which has gone our via Apple and Spotify. And then, also just out, there’s a nice one (which comes in two parts) with my longstanding colleague and friend, Maggie De Pree, founder of the League of Intrapreneurs.

2020 has certainly been the Year of the Green Swan for me, whatever else may have happened – including COVID-19, the defenestration of the Trump regime and the seemingly endless Brexit idiocy.

My book Green Swans is about to go into a reprint, with an audio version and foreign editions in preparation. So I would like to use this image, the swans designed by Silvio Rebêlo and the Xmas version by the Volans team, as an e-missive to everyone following, dipping into or stumbling upon this website.

Happy holidays to all – and I wish you the sort of 2021 you would hope for as this extraordinary year begins to wind down – or is it wind up?

Delighted to see VIVOBAREFOOT releasing their ‘Feet, People & Planet’ report – with my foreword on footprints and handprints: https://www.vivobarefoot.com/uk/regeneration. An emerging focus is on Regeneration.