Peoples Republic of South Devon

Park life

The bods behind Plymouth’s proposed Life Centre might want to take a look at the loveparks website.

It boasts loads of information, facts, figures and case studies to tie in with Love Parks Week, a national campaign which promotes the benefits of parks and encourages people to discover what they have to offer.
Parks, as any fool knows, are one of the most important cultural and social elements of the urban environment and are visited by some 2.5 billion people each year.

Each day of Love Parks Week will see the site focus on specific issues that affect parks and provide a range of information to encourage awareness of how good, well-maintained parks can improve quality of life and the local environment.

Suffice to say, they probably won’t be encouraging developers to rip up some ‘unused’ trees and build a glorified bowling alley. Call it a hunch.

Posted by Thin White Duke

June 22nd, 2006

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Can’t see the trees for the carbon offset?

You know that niggling environmental worry you had when you last got on a plane? Well, according to this month’s print edition of New Internationalist [NI 391] you were right not to feel so smug about salving your carbon conscience with the offsets you were going to buy next time.

Turns out, carbon offsets - planting trees to soak up the carbon caused by our jet-setting hedonistic lifestyles - don’t work. In fact offsets cause even more problems (just ask Coldplay) affecting the water table in dry lands, non-native planting, even genetic engineering of carbon guzzlers.

What we need to do is change our habits and attitude to the environmental damage.

So do I tear up the tickets for the weekend break to Valletta or what?

Posted by Cptn

June 21st, 2006

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Safe from harm

The media often portrays self harming as a bit of a joke, but new research shows that one in 12 young people in the UK have self harmed - that’s at least two kids in every school classroom.

Despite the unsettling figures there’s still very little information available to help young people and their families understand what’s happening.

A new booklet, snappily titled The Truth About Self Harm For Young People And Their Friends And Families, will be available from July 6 for those who want to know more about self harm; what it is, why young people do it, and where to go for help.

It’s based on the experiences of young people who have self harmed, their families, friends and professionals.

To get your free copy visit the Young People and Self Harm site or the Mental Health Foundation, telephone 020 7803 1100 or email mhf@mhf.org.uk

Posted by Thin White Duke

June 20th, 2006

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Shades of green

Ever felt you’ve been banging your head against a low-impact wall as you’ve tried to uncover more about sustainable living?

What you need is a Sustainable Living Fair to break through that tight-lipped cabal of environmental thinkers and tinkerers.

With all kinds of tips to reduce this and that and in conjunction with an Alternative Energy Symposium you really could start going headfirst and fast down the renewable super highway, and shake off fear, ignorance and that nasty encounter with the solar panel salesman.

On Friday and Saturday June 23 and 24 at Summerhill Farm, Hittisleigh the fair will set you back £5 (concessions available) and the symposium £18. Website? of course not, you’ve got a fair, what more do you want? Call Land Heritage on 01647 24511 for more information.

Posted by Cptn

June 19th, 2006

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A lido lido

June 18th, 2006

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Don’t give a good kahoo?

Respect yourself. And then you can respect others, we are often told in song. If you need any pointers visit the Respect Festival at the Exeter Phoenix, which started on Thursday.

Music, drama, poetry, food, photography, literature, film, workshops, comedy, art - they claim. So keep your eyes and ears open. There’s visual art throughout the Phoenix’s gallerys and the festival runs until July 7.

Monday at 5pm is the deadline for the submission of your artistic master piece to the Exeter Contempory Open (eco). Send them to the Phoenix where you will be databased and judged (there are prizes!).

And if you’ve not heard of it, Scratch is an interesting concept in performance art. Two hour-long performances are on at the Phoenix on Thursday 22 and Friday 23 June, it kicks of at 8pm.

Funnily enough, this page isn’t sponsored by the Phoenix, although it could be…

Posted by Cptn

June 17th, 2006

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Mill Communication # 1

We at the People’s Republic are huge fans of those full-page Trago Mills adverts that regularly appear in the local rags.

Our favourite bit is, of course, the little section given over to political comment from UKIP.

But who wants to wade through a block of bile-ridden text to find the comedy gold within? Answer: Nobody.

So that’s why we’re gonna do the hard work for you, in the first of an occasional series called Mill Communication (y’know, like the Beastie Boys – oh, please yourselves).

Here’s today’s not-so-bon mot:

MILL COMMUNICATION # 1
“We have the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly and (if the IRA can stop murdering people for long enough) a Northern Ireland Assembly.”

Fin.

Posted by Thin White Duke

June 16th, 2006

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Mentor arithmetic

If you already know that next week is Refugee Week, you can award yourself 10 pinko points. Hooray!

As for the rest of yous… well, you should probably take the opportunity to brush up on your leftish credentials with Time Together’s sexy online quiz.

Visitors to the website will be asked questions about their attitudes to issues such as minority faiths, interests and cuisine; tolerance when it comes to helping someone in need and in dealing with differences of opinion.

But here’s the clever bit: after each poser an interesting statistic or bon mot will pop up to tell you how tolerant you really are.

Basically it’s like having a particularly right-on Yoda locked in your PC. Great, huh? And let’s face it, those Time Together bods have every right to feel smug.

Since it was launched four years ago, the scheme has matched over one thousand refugees with volunteer mentors, aiming to challenge misconceptions and help refugees integrate into British society.

Of course, quite why refugees would want to integrate into a society obsessed with football and Big Brother is another question entirely.

Posted by Thin White Duke

June 16th, 2006

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Life, oh life, doo doot doo dooo

“I’m afraid of the dark, ’specially when I’m in the park,” sang a trembling Des’ree a few years back.

But young Des would be phobia-free in Plymouth if the plans for a proposed Life Centre in Central Park came to fruition. There’d be very little ‘dark’, and, it seems, even less ‘park’.

“What’s a Life Centre anyhow,” you ask?

Well, it may sound like a scientologist’s wet dream but it’s actually what people in the 70s used to call ‘a leisure centre’.

Set in 220 acres, the £50 million Life Centre is described as ‘a multi-use complex that would reinvigorate the centre of Plymouth’.

Although still in its very early stages, with an application for planning permission in the distant future, the Evening Herald has seen fit to gather more than 10,000 signatures as part of its Let’s Build It campaign to ’show lottery commissioners the massive public support for the scheme’.

And who wouldn’t sign up for a new recording studio, dance centre, health clinic, Olympic-sized swimming pool, sculpture trail, library, youth centre, cinema and bowling alley?

In fact, it sounds like something the PRSD should be getting pretty excited about, non?

And yet, and yet. Our quibble comes with the news the facility would ‘replace the Mayflower Leisure Centre and build into unused space around Home Park’.

Unused space, you say. That would be the bits with trees and plants and stuff then.

Leisure bosses insist the project will only eat into one per cent of the park’s green space but shouldn’t the public know what actual areas will be lost before they sign anything?

After all, you can’t walk your dog up a bowling alley. Well, you could but you’d probably get arrested or something.

So why not sign the PRSD’s Careful Now petition. When we get 10,000 signatures we’ll present them to the never-popular warbler Des’ree, then run off really quickly.

Posted by Thin White Duke

June 15th, 2006

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Dangerous Liaisons

A citizen of the People’s Republic of South Devon recently caused an outrage by questioning the title of the new bestseller (out now for Father’s Day!) The Dangerous Book for Boys.

This book is about ‘traditional hobbies for young males’ and includes chapters about Conkers, Fishing, Astronomy, Secret Inks, Skimming Stones, Making a Periscope, Marbles and Artillery. All good stuff, and written by fiction author Conn Iggulden and his brother Hal.

The citizen was given the impression that the book was for children, redressing the “damage” that “Polictical Correctness Gone Maa-aad” had done to the nation’s young boys over the years.

“Wouldn’t it be a good book for boys AND girls?” the citizen asked.

“Maa-ad! Can’t we even say ‘for boys’ anymore? What’s next? Hermaphrodites?”

When the PCGMaa-aad Gang mention hermaphrodites in relation to gender equality, intelligent discussion has ceased.

Luckily, Lucy Mangan of the Guardian stepped in today with The Dangerous Booklet for Girls, listing activities such as Cat’s Cradle and Joining the Brownies. “Why not get back to Brownie roots by founding your own pseudo-paramilitary organisation?” is one useful suggestion [ahem].

Posted by Edgy

June 14th, 2006

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