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Knowing what ‘just enough’ is: Azby Brown on Japan’s Edo period – Part Two

So how did you set about researching the book? I was really fortunate because there are quite a few excellent researchers in Japan who have done a lot of the groundwork, and researchers overseas as well. Of course a lot of it was academic research. And again, the specialisation was

Appearing on Desert Island Discs, Totnes-style

On Friday, at St John’s Church in Bridgetown, Totnes, I was the subject of a rather unusual version of Desert Island Discs. The Winter Concert, organised by 2 local choirs, Global Harmony and Viva, and by The Bogg Boys, invites a local person to choose 8 tracks which are

Knowing what ‘just enough’ is: Azby Brown on Japan’s Edo period – Part One

One of the most extraordinary books I have read in recent years is Just Enough: lessons in living green from traditional Japan by Azby Brown. Brown is director of the Konazawa Institute of Technologies Future Design Institute and has lived in Japan for the last 30 years. It is a

Inez Aponte: From dismal science to language of beauty – Towards a new story of economics

Humans are storytelling beings. In fact one could argue that it is impossible to make sense of the world without story. Storytelling is how we piece together facts, beliefs, feelings and history to form something of a coherent whole connecting us to our individual and collective past, present and future.

My year without Amazon

Exactly a year ago today I wrote a piece on this blog called The day I closed my Amazon account. It set out why, and how, I had decided that Amazon was so at odds with my values that I was withdrawing my support for good. It turned out to

December 2014 – Transition Network Newsletter

While our theme in November was catching up, December’s theme is ‘Less is More’. In the newsletter we find out about the new Support Framework, we want to hear your starting out stories and your thoughts on Transition Culture. We offer several reflections on stuff and what happens when

Fukushima – living with the aftermath of a disaster

Fukushima. We all arrive by bullet train and take a photo of the station sign. Not just our small group of visiting foreigners but other visiting Japanese are doing the same thing. Fukushima. The name has resonance these days. An ongoing tragedy worthy taking a picture of the station sign