BLOGetc

News from a few film buff friends of mine in Australia of two good documentaries viewed at Melbourne Film Festival. Our Daily Bread is a film that enters the lurid world of industrial food production and high-tech farming. Not for the faint-hearted apparently, as about a third of the audience walked out. Bound to send ripples through the industry once it gets released at the London Film Festival this September. View Our Daily Bread website here Workingman's Death explores heavy manual labour in the 21st century - down illegal mines in the Ukraine, among the sulfur workers in Indonesia, with lions at a slaughterhouse in Nigeria, ship breaking yards in Pakistan, and Chinese steel workers. Looks like amazing cinematography. View Workingman's Death website here

McDonald's has agreed to stop buying chicken fed on soya grown in deforested areas of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. So what's so bad about soya? Soya farming is chewing up the Amazon rainforest at unprecedented rates as huge areas are cleared to make way for massive monoculture plantations. The impact is huge, not only on the plants and animals that make up the forest itself but also on the communities that live there. From an illegal port built in the heart of the Amazon by agribusiness giant Cargill to handle the vast quantities of soya being shipped out from the region, soya exported by Cargill goes directly to Europe to feed the chickens found in fast food retailers like McDonald's and supermarkets across Europe. A campaign by Greenpeace has been so successful that not only have McDonald's made their own pledge, but with the help of Greenpeace, they've been instrumental in getting other food companies and supermarkets, such as Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury...

Returned to one of my favourite city haunts - Barcelona. Great to see the space invaders are still popping up in unexpected corners. Anyone up for invading Norwich?

Anna Mudeka Back to work after a seriously chilled out weekend at Drum Camp, a small-scale WOMAD in Bungay, Suffolk. The festival was a refreshing change from the usual frenzied affairs; intimate workshops with world-class musicians such as Modou Diouf and Nansady Keita and a truly eclectic mix of evening performances at the Main Stage, from flamenco to bhangra with can-can dancers in between! As I don't have a musical bone in my body I planned to simply soak up the vibe and enjoy the live music. But the constant drum beats were infectious and it's almost impossible not to pick up one of the many varieties of drums lying around and join in. So I decided to attend an Indian Dhol workshop with the Dhol Foundation and attempt to learn some bhangra rhythms. The Dhol is a traditional North Indian instrument made from a large wooden shell. It has two skins on either side which are made from goat hide. Rope is then woven through the edge of both the skins and they are tensioned to pr...

I spent many an hour in this nook of Bedales library poring over texts of Zola and Beckett. I used to love staring out onto the apple orchard dreaming of becoming a famous writer and having my book placed in this section. Sadly nowhere near that goal yet but at least my name may crop up from time to time in their new magazine section! Returning here after 10 years made me realise that very little changes in this space of time. The library smells exactly as it did, the globe still glows and the teachers remain timeless masterpieces. So I guess there's plenty more time to write that chef d'oeuvre; the 25 year reunion should be about right.

According to an article in The Times today, mafia-style gangs from Russia are plundering protected stocks of cod and then laundering their illegally-caught hauls through fishing ports in Britain. Read the rest of the article here: ">How the fish on your plate makes you an accessory to crime at sea Some interesting facts in it too: FALLING CATCHES How quotas have altered over the last five years: Cod down 15% to 20,180 tonnes Herring down 15% to 100,304 tonnes Whiting down 15% to 11,796 tonnes Haddock down 13% to 42,770 tonnes North Sea prawns up 32% to 1,418 tonnes Hake up 3% to 4,699 tonnes So next time you head down the chip shop, why not opt for something less endangered such as hake, colney or Dover sole. it will taste even more delicious than your usual cod. The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) publishes a Good Fish Guide and you can find out Species to Eat and Species to Avoid . It has compiled a “Sustainable Seafood Supermarket League Table”, based on the performance o...

Exciting news today as I found out that BLOGetc has been given the accolade of Blog of the Month in the Summer edition of The Chronicle. Delighted to know that my blog is being read. I'm now more determined than ever to write as often as possible and win lots more awards!