Here’s an exercise in (un)historical imagination. It is June 1381. You are Wat Tyler, leading a ragtag army of villagers from Kent and Essex on a righteous crusade of justice against corrupt government, punitive taxation and social injustice.
You are on the way to Blackheath, where you intend to set up camp. But on the way there, you step through a wormhole in the fabric of space-time and end up in August 2009.
When you arrive at your destination, you are startled to find that the whole place has been taken over by a load of Hampstead hippies, with foldaway Brompton bicycles, buck-teeth and deferred places to study PPE at Oxford.
Several of them are strumming guitars and a working group is pitching a wigwam, using the camp-building skills they picked up doing their Duke of Edinburgh bronze award.
Tell me seriously that you do not feel your hand tighten around the handle of your pitchfork.
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on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 10:32 am and is filed under Comment, Press and reviews.
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Climate change camp v proper rebellion
Here’s an exercise in (un)historical imagination. It is June 1381. You are Wat Tyler, leading a ragtag army of villagers from Kent and Essex on a righteous crusade of justice against corrupt government, punitive taxation and social injustice.
You are on the way to Blackheath, where you intend to set up camp. But on the way there, you step through a wormhole in the fabric of space-time and end up in August 2009.
When you arrive at your destination, you are startled to find that the whole place has been taken over by a load of Hampstead hippies, with foldaway Brompton bicycles, buck-teeth and deferred places to study PPE at Oxford.
Several of them are strumming guitars and a working group is pitching a wigwam, using the camp-building skills they picked up doing their Duke of Edinburgh bronze award.
Tell me seriously that you do not feel your hand tighten around the handle of your pitchfork.
This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 10:32 am and is filed under Comment, Press and reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.