Alaric discovered this amazing website Below the Surface. This is a fusion of maintaining environments, urban upkeep, archeology, social out reach and art!
Cataloguing all the finds from the river Amstel in Amsterdam during train line works they have built up an amazing image archive showing the depths and ages of the objects, you can explore this catalogue, find out things about the civil engineering around the project and create your own displays with the finds that catch your interest.
This is all free and on line - the internet is starting to have these little lovely treasure troves of sites. This was what I envisioned the Internet being used for. For me though this project is tinged with a "could have been" here in Gloucester something like this was created back in the early days of the Internet and had the scholars and volunteers and council members enthused and then... it basically got unplugged and lost (early days of the internet I did say - things were different in those call up days!).
Many museums and research institutes are also putting their photo archives on line - Below the Surface how ever is a lovely smooth and easily searchable interface which is slightly more unusual!
There are over 700, 000 finds and the time periods spanned is more than written history - it is an awesome resource!
So Gloucester is about it have it's first ever Literature Festival in the form of Word Fest organised by the Cathedral. The line up looks amazing (I should probably say at the point that I am now involved with performance and stuff at the festival and I am notorious for getting excited and carried away with events! And am therefore not impartial! But seriously...).
I am hoping that my hospital appointment doesn't clash with a few things I want to go and see on Friday including a talk on Aethelflaed - hence me taking in Puppet Aethelflaed this weekend to tell people about poetry ๐
There are lots of ways you can link history to literature - Anglo-Saxon monarchs are excessively easy to do this with as they were still running on the bardic tradition of getting epic poems about themselves published. And that's before you then have like a thousand years pulse of stories being written about them!
I like how you can follow the political trends of the day by how figures such as Judith from the bible is depicted in literature and art through out time. Aethelflaed is one of the Queens who was associated with this even more archaic symbol and Judith is very much a symbol - her name means lit. Jewish Lady O.o
I am running a little preview event this weekend at the Quays shopping centre to tell people about the festival, wax lyrical with poetry (and not just mine) and pester people with puppets! I will also have some writing workshop stuff with me and have the first proper outing for the Pandora Prose Story Cubes which I am very excited about and have been working on for months. I have been chugging away at the old WigglyPet Press ๐
We will be by the Nike shop on Sat 30th of June 11 am to 2 pm and Sun 1st of July 11 am to 1:30 pm followed by the Gloucester Poetry Societies monthly session at the Waterstones in town. This is one of the regular poetry events that I host ๐
The actual festival is the 6-8th of July - again we have the space in the Quays from 11 am - 2 pm, because bizarrely I am in more demand than I ever thought possible I am then wizzing over to Ledbury Poetry Festival which is also AWESOME and AMAZING and performing there. This means I am missing not only the Gloucester slam but, Poetry, Pie and Pint with one of the Stroud Poets I love - seriously Eley Furrell can send goose bumps down your arms with his word craft and performance. There are workshops and talks and Elvis... got to mention Elvis McGonagall - I have a claim to fame - he once said he liked my poem - can't remember which lit fest it was now or even which poem! (Ok so it's not a big claim to fame but still!).
Sunday I am hoping to get to a story telling workshop and take part in the Story Telling Slam - I love Chloe The Midnight Story Teller's work - when we first moved to the Cotswolds I was struggling to find creativity and inspiration that wasn't bloody water colours of landscapes or slightly more pagany hears :/ But we went to story telling night in the Village of Edge I think and there was Chloe and an American lady and they set my blood on fire again and I started writing again - this was at a point where I had been severely ill with Jean's pregnancy and moved away from all my friends and family - I needed that creativity - but more I needed the determinate fire and that is something Chloe is very good at giving to audiences. A few years later I met her again at a local poetry night in Cheltenham and she encouraged me to be getting up and performing and at that point I needed someone to say that to me.
Since then I have caught her story telling antics for both kids and adults when ever and where ever I can ๐ Both the kids love her work and Jean even bought her audio book/CD with her own pocket money!
And lo! She is doing story telling for kids on the 7th - a free event so I know where my kids will be ๐ Nightshade's Tales of Tooth and Claw.
Then the Sunday - if I am not too worn out from Ledbury I plan to go to her Storytelling workshop - Hot off the Tongue and take part in the story telling slam.
Last I checked there is still space in both the poetry slam (sadly clashing with Ledbury) and the story telling slam - so knowing other performers and writers out there in the local environs - if you are interested you should email helen.jeffrey@gloucestercathedral.org.uk.
Queen Aethelflaed the Puppet - Mother of England - talking about why she founded St Oswald's to a group of Scouts - she also mentions the fact that she would have been a political refugee as a child. Her father was on the run for a huge chunk of her childhood - she was probably safe living with family in a neighbouring Kingdom (the one she later ruled) but she would have been aware of what was going on and how precarious her position was.
Yesterday was World Refugee Day - a day it sickens me that we need, a day that highlights the plight and the wrong done to those in need around the world - and some of those doing the wrong are people who should be doing the protecting - people who have forgotten their own histories of persecution and fleeing in desperation. With the US lying to refugee families using rhetoric such as "you are going for a shower" to split up families - to rip children already scared and frightened from the only thing they have - their families - to use those words - that trickery... the ghosts of Auschwitz must surely stir. They are no doubt more moved than the power hungry bullies who are creating these inhumane policies.
We are all on a tiny little rock floating in space - life is so fragile, wars and war mongers create refugees - economic collapses occur due to power struggles that have nothing to do with the people who suffer - so why are they the ones punished?
And quiet frankly - it is a matter of luck and things can change so fast - you think your safe? Well so did a lot of the refugees not long ago. It could be you standing there in their place, it could be your family being torn apart.
And even if we were in an assured place - then why not help? For fear that they might use up some of our resources? One of the things I've had hurled at me over my stance on helping people is that I don't care about my children and my family - as if I am taking bread out of my own families mouths to feed the homeless/refugee. But apart from the absurdity of this - we are not struggling for food - we have done so in the past but not now and it seems to me that those with the most capacity to share are the ones that hold onto it, rigid and unrelenting.
My kids can go without ice-cream for some other kid to have a nutritious meal, my kids (though they would often argue) live in the lap of luxury - sure they have to do chores and we don't do lots of things they see their friends do - but they have food and cloths and toys and an xbox. They can go without a cinema trip to give clothing to those who need it.
From a selfish pragmatic point of view - I am protecting them - desperate people do desperate things and that leads to higher crime rates especially violent crime. A lot of the stuff I see being called a "gang", immigrant etc... problem comes down to poverty. The lesson should be that we need to care for others but people seem to take it to mean that we shut the door and well history hasn't been kind to those who did that in the second world war... but people seem to have forgotten or never known these things - those bought up in the shadow of the second world war (baby boomers) often see it as a glorious pulling together time against the damn enemy. They have often never looked at it as an actual piece of history.
I am truly scared by the uncaring, vindictive behaviour and out right hate I am seeing grow globally especially amongst the so called civilised countries ie America, Australia - Britain. But worse is the apathy and won't say that I haven't suffered from that also - so many bad things crushing down on you - demanding your attention - you kind of shut off. We don't do TV - when I go to my parents house I am horrified by the gut wrenching, emotional manipulation of the adverts that bombard most people at regular intervals through out the day - no wonder they are desensitised to it all - I'm not sure it registers as real hidden amongst all the day time dramas and things either.
Having said all this I am at a loss on how to help - a while ago now I was involved in a fundraising evening to provide clothing and things - but I became suspicious of where the money was actually going and so I am wary. If you deal with a charity and know they are doing good things - have seen what they have done - feel free to link to them in the comments.
This is an old film now but still relevant about the UN Refugee Agency.
As a writer, artist, communicator I feel it is my duty to NOT remain quiet whilst these atrocities are being performed and don't think I am being extreme here in what I am saying - the body count is mounting, and once more it is the most vulnerable who suffer - those who should most be protected.
Yes I wear my hear on my sleeve - I am a parent - I can not divide children into those to care for and those to make suffer - that is... an UNSPEAKABLE CRIME and yet I must speak it - I must highlight that that is exactly what is happening and I must fight against it. All decent people need to fight against it and too see it for what it is.
On a more positive note - many are standing and being counted - there is Harry who is in his 90's and is doing all he can.
My tweets and retweets on the matter:
I welcome refugees because If I was in danger I hope someone would welcome me. pic.twitter.com/h5FrBtXbCv
Remember the piles of wedding rings taken from holocaust victims and how we see it now and wonder how we ever let the violation of human rights get so far well yeah https://t.co/POKdmibgKk
— C-Dawg โ๏ฝกโข๏ปโข๏ฝก (@clarissalule) June 18, 2018
"I was sent to a camp at just five years old โ but even then, they didn't separate children from families" - @GeorgeTakei recalls his experience in 1941 and compares it with current White House policy.https://t.co/VMQYMtbCgApic.twitter.com/7k03Dzk3mB
One of my favourite paintings. Iโm the offspring of refugees. Now imagine this image with the woman removed. Imagine the fear the child experiences with no one next to them, no one to comfort them. What is happening on the US border is torture of children. My heart is crushed. https://t.co/JYJIm5Zd1E
— Dr Janina Ramirez (@DrJaninaRamirez) June 20, 2018
It is #WorldRefugeeDay that we need such a day is a heart breaking - watching what "civilised" countries (US I am looking at you) are doing is so damn painful - how do we help? How to stop the body count and hurt when just mentioning it gets you branded a traitor by some?
Werner and Walter were 14 when they were 'separated' from their parents and put in Auschwitz. They were tattooed 10 numbers apart. ALL Holocaust survivors I interview still weep when they talk about the moment they were taken from parents. #KeepFamilesTogether#NeverAgainIsNowpic.twitter.com/n0C0ECXMa0
SEPARATION || When innocent children are suffering & left in a state of terror you can't help but speak up. I'm outraged by the current migrant situation in the USA right now. If we let history repeat itself & stay silent we are all complicit! Speak up! #KeepFamiliesTogetherpic.twitter.com/7dtk9Tawnq
Continuing on with Cephalopod Week - I dug out one of my many made sea creatures - this is on I was gifted rather than one I made! It is a lovely hair clip which I wore to DismaLand (were it turned out Cephalopods where in fact barred from entry and so it had to leap the barrier!).
Aethelflaed and All things Anglo-Saxon, Art and Craft, Astronomy, Education, Society | sarah | 
Sat 7th Jul 2018 8:54 am | 
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