Hay on Wye Festival!

Hi folks,

I've got a new wave of tour dates to put up here soon, but here's a quick one for next Tuesday - if you're at the Hay Festival then come and see me in the This Is Rubbish tent!

This Is Rubbish is a brilliant project that rescues "waste" (i.e. surplus) food and transforms it into fantastic feasts. Here's their full timetable for Monday 30th and Tuesday 31st May - note that I'm scheduled for 2pm on the Tuesday, and may also be performing at the Tuesday night feast (tbc):

MONDAY 30TH MAY:

11am - 12pm Breakfast Roundtable: Talk food powers - policy makers vs supermarkets
with guests including Andrew Simms, author of Tescopoly. Served with breakfast bites.
12pm - 1pm Waste Drama! acting on our waste with rubbish games and waste wordplay
1pm - 2pm Lunch Roundtable: Talk food production - methods and madness
with special guests including Harriet Lamb, Director of the Fairtrade Foundation. Served with light lunch snacks.
2pm - 3pm Is This Rubbish? Re-Writing Waste; writing and performance workshop
3pm - 4pm Low Carbon Cook Off Compete and eat!
4pm - 5pm Varied Veggies and Fanciful Fruits vegetable puppet making and stories

TUESDAY 31ST MAY:

11am - 12pm Speak with your Mouthful Food love and poetry play for all ages
12pm - 1pm Low Carbon Cook Off Compete and eat!
1pm - 2pm Lunch Roundtable: Talk food future with special guests including
Clare Patey, artist & curator, Iain Cox, Ecostudio & Martin Bowman, Food Not Bombs. Served with light lunch snacks.
2pm - 3pm Food Off! Surplus snacks and quiz with Danny Chivers, legendary performance poet & author of the ‘No Nonsense Guide to Climate Change’
3pm - 4pm Tea & Tales with Talia Dream up delicious poetry & eat your words over tea.
7pm - 9pm FEAST Dine on delicious discards transformed into delectable dishes in a 3 course intimate feast. Entertainment by ‘Bard’. Text 07966071073 to book.

Hope to see you there!

Danny x

New tour dates for April/May

Just a quick post to update you all on my ongoing book / performance tour! I’m roaming around the country doing a rather unusual series of talks/gigs, mixing poetry, tales of protest, climate change news and bad jokes. It would be great to see you at any of the times and places listed below.

In the meantime, remember you can read the first chapter of my new book for free here, see me performing my anti-cuts poem here, and watch me wearing a terrifying T-shirt at last week’s BP AGM here.

Thanks so much to all of you for your ongoing support,

Danny x

***************************

LIVERPOOL, Saturday 23^rd April, 7pm: Talk and performance at the Next To Nowhere Social Centre (next door to News From Nowhere bookshop), basement of 96 Bold St, L1 4HY - http://www.newsfromnowhere.org.uk/noticeboard/bookshopevents/index.php

MANCHESTER, Sunday 24^th April: Talk and performance at the OKasional Café, tbc (email me for more info)

CAMBRIDGE, Monday 25^th April, 7.30pm: Performance for Headstand, at The Emperor, Hills Road. https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=106539526099131

ST ALBANS, Tuesday 26^th April, 7.30pm: Performance at Rrrants at the Goat Inn, 37 Sopwell Lane, AL1 1RN. https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=108247199260634

WALTHAMSTOW, Friday 6^th May, 7.30pm: Night of the Green Poets at the Hornbeam Café, 458 Hoe Street, E17 9AH. https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=152139374849507

LONDON, Monday 16^th May, 7.30pm: Talk and performance at Pogo Café, 76 Clarence Road, Hackney, E5 8HB.

HEMEL HEMPSTEAD, Thursday 19^th May, 7.30pm: Performance at Rrrants at the Olde Kings Arms, 41 High Street, HP1 3AF

WOOD FESTIVAL (TBC), 20^th – 22^nd May, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire. http://www.thisistruck.com/wood/

UPPSALA UNIVERSITY, Sweden, 24^th-25^th May: Talk, workshop and performance at the “Challenging Uncertainties” conference for Education in Sustainable Development, http://www.challenginguncertainties.se/

CARDIFF, Thursday 2^nd June: Talk and performance organised by local Friends of the Earth groups, details tbc (email me for more info)

LONDON, Sunday 5^th June: Performance at the London Green Fair, Regents Park, precise times tbc (email me for more info) http://www.londongreenfair.org/

That’s probably enough for now, but there are more gigs and talks in the pipeline for Edinburgh, St Andrews, Birmingham, Leeds, Narberth (oh yes) and of course the Glastonbury Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe. Watch this space…

It's here!

It starts arriving in shops this week. It's all rather exciting.

The book is a friendly pocket-sized overview covering climate science, targets, solutions, history, politics, and what action we can usefully take, all in one handy little guidebook. It's intended both as a primer for people new to the topic (or confused about it) and also as a "where are we at and where do we go from here" update for more experienced campaigners. As you'd expect, I've scattered the text with as many weird analogies, bad jokes, cheeky asides and snippets of verse as possible, and have done my best to leave the reader feeling positive and empowered rather than sunk in doom and gloom.

We're pestering various media outlets to review it, I'll let you know how that goes. It's already had a very positive review in Green Prophet, a Middle East environmental magazine.

It's available on Amazon, and direct from the New Internationalist website, but it's much better to support your local independent bookshop if you can. You can find your nearest independent bookstore on this website here. If your local bookshop doesn't have a copy yet, they should be very happy to order it in for you (why not suggest they order a few more for the shop while they're at it...?).

New Internationalist is a publishing cooperative that puts out all kinds of great books but has only a small marketing budget. That means that I'm relying heavily on word of mouth to get this out there. Do you have friends or relatives who ought to read this book? If so, please put a good word their way (or maybe buy them one as a super-thoughtful gift). While you're campaigning to save your local library from the spending cuts, why not drop in and suggest they buy a copy (this works far more often than you'd think)? Plus, of course, once you've read the book it would be wonderful if you could write up your thoughts in a reader review on Amazon, and of course share it all over the Twitbookosphere.

I'm also launching into a major run of talks and performances to plug the book all over the UK. Why not come and say hi at one of the events below? If there isn't one near you yet, drop me a line on dannychivers@excite.com with any suggestions for likely venues and we'll see what we can sort out.

Thanks for all your support everyone!

Danny x

Wed 2nd March, 6.30pm: Talk at the Dialogue Society, London on the topic of social movements

Friday 4^th March, 7pm: Panel member, “A Million Climate Jobs” meeting, Environmental Change Institute, Oxford

Sat 5th March, 8pm: Evening poetry performance at 6 Billion Ways, London. http://6billionways.org.uk/

Tue 8th Feb, 6.30pm: Panel member at "Energy Union" event, Darwin Lecture Theatre, Malet Place, University College London

Fri 11^th March, 7.30pm: Short talk at the opening night of the Conversations with the Earth festival, The Old Book Binders, 9 Green Street, Oxford

Sat 12th March, 7pm: Poetry performance at Re:Versing The Damage, part of the Conversations with the Earth festival, The Old Book Binders, 9 Green Street, Oxford

Sat 19th March: Climate activist poetry workshops, Visions for Global Justice (Scottish campaigners’ convention run by WDM), Renfield St Stephen’s Centre, Bath Street, Glasgow, near King’s Theatre. http://www.wdm.org.uk/events/scottish-campaigners-convention.

Sun 20^th March, 2pm: Talk and performance at the Manchester University student anti-cuts occupation, Roscoe Building, Brunswick St, Manchester, M13

Mon 21st March, 8pm: Talk at Green Drinks Newport (Shropshire), The Royal Victoria Hotel, St Mary’s Street, Newport TF10 7AB. http://newport21.org.uk/

Thursday 31^st March: Performance in support of Pete The Temp’s great new poetry show “Pete The Temp verses Climate Change”, Ovo Theatre, St Albans, http://www.ovotheatre.org.uk

Fri 1st April, 7pm: Book launch event at RISC, 35-39 London Street

Reading, RG1 4PS

Weds 13^th April - Weds 20th April: Various dates to be confirmed as part of the Tar Sands Speaker Tour, featuring Indigenous activists from Canada and organised by the UK Tar Sands Network and Indigenous Environmental Network: www.no-tar-sands.org.uk

Tues 26th April: Poetry performance at Rrrants, The Goat Inn, 37 Sopwell Lane, St Albans, http://www.rrrants.com

Friday 6^th May: Poetry performance at the Hornbeam Café, 458 Hoe St, Walthamstow, E17 9AH. http://www.hornbeam.org.uk

Sun 15^th May – Weds 18^th May: Talk and performance sometime this week at the Centre for Alternative Technology, Machynlleth (tbc) http://www.cat.org.uk/

Thurs 19th May: Poetry performance at Rrrants, The Olde Kings Arms 41 High Street, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP1 3AF. http://www.rrrants.com

Fri 20^th May – Sun 22^nd May: Poetry at the Wood Festival, Braziers Park, Oxfordshire (tbc)

Sat/Sun 18/19 June: Speaking and performing at the SW Friends of the Earth regional gathering (tbc)

Thurs 23rd - Sun 26th June: Poetry at the Speakers' Forum, Glastonbury Festival, various times

Weds 13th July, 7.30pm: Talk at Warborough & Shillingford WI, The Greet Hall, Sinodun View, Warborough, OX10

August: Talk and workshop at Methodist Fellowship event, also possible performance at the Edinburgh Fringe (if I get my act together)

Undercover and over-the-top

This week, I was meant to be on trial at Nottingham Crown Court on a bizarre trumped-up protest
charge. However, the trial spectacularlycollapsed due to revelations about an undercover cop
who had infiltrated the UK environmental movement. Yes, my life has become a dodgy spy novel.

I’ve written up the full story for the New Internationalist. To my knowledge, it's the only account of
the whole bizarre affair from beginning to end that you can find online. Check it out:

Undercover and over-the-top: the collapse of the Ratcliffe trial

Weird weird world.

My other exciting news is...I’ve written a book! It’s called “The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate
Change”, and it’s my attempt to write an accessible and fun pocket-sized overview of this
complex scary mega-subject, combining all the basics with the latest facts and analysis. It goes
through the science step-by-step in non-technical language, explaining the key evidence and
debunking common misconceptions with the help of (inevitably, for me) bad puns and daft
analogies. It then covers climate targets, solutions, history, politics, and the way forward, with
top tips on how you can go beyond recycling and lightbulbs and actually change stuff for the
better, all in one handy little guidebook. It’s also got a poem in, obviously (I wonder if you can
guess which one?).

The book hits the shops in March, but you can read the first chapter for free and/or order an
advance copy from the New Internationalist website here:

The No-Nonsense Guide to Climate Change

Please do spread the word to anyone who might be interested. I’m thinking about organising a
book tour, so if you’re part of any sort of local group that might be interested in a combined
climate talk and poetry performance, let me know!

Finally, if you haven’t already seen it my poetry video on the government spending cuts and tax
dodgers is still online here.

Best wishes for 2011 everyone!

The BBC - unbiased reporting on behalf of the powerful

After last week's protests, the BBC interviewed Jody McIntyre - a young political activist who's been pulled out of his wheelchair by the police. You can read Jody's own account of the protest here, and watch the interview below:

Sadly, this is representative of most of the mainstream media throughout the protests. Much respect is due to Jody McIntyre for holding his own very effectively against the awful interviewer, but this was such a perfect example of how bad the BBC can be at reporting this stuff that I've written a complaint. Other people have too. If you want to join in, go and fill in the form here.

Here's the text of my complaint:

The context: a man with cerebral palsy has been pulled out of his wheelchair and dragged across the concrete - twice - by police officers. These officers have given no good reason for doing this - both times, their actions appear to have been completely unprovoked.

So when the victim of these attacks - political activist and blogger Jody McIntyre - is interviewed on the BBC, you'd expect the interviewer to show a bit of respect, allow Mr McIntyre to tell his story and ask him his opinions about it. Instead, the interviewer Ben Brown launches into a bizarrely aggressive series of questions, suggesting that Mr McIntyre had somehow behaved in a threatening manner to provoke the police. From his wheelchair. Which he couldn't wheel himself. Mr McIntyre himself points out early on how ludicrous it is to suggest that he could in any way pose a physical threat to a line of armed and armoured riot police, but Brown returns to this ridiculous, accusatory line of questioning again and again.

Whenever Mr McIntyre starts talking about more useful and relevant issues such as police violence against other protesters such as Alfie Meadows; the damage that would be caused by education cuts; or the media's double standards in how they report injuries to protesters as compared to the police or the powers-that-be, Brown ignores him and keeps repeating the same offensive suggestion that McIntyre must have done something to deserve being attacked by the police. It was horribly biased reporting and completely disgusting to watch. The interviewee was not given a fair hearing and was treated as though he was the attacker rather than the victim.

On a wider note: is Mr Brown's memory really so short that he can't remember any incidents of unprovoked or unjustified police attacks on protesters (or passers-by)? Why is someone so clearly anti-protest and pro-police violence being employed as an "impartial" reporter, to report from the frontline of protests for the BBC? Does he really believe that a few youths chucking stones at riot cops' shields justifies the mass batoning of unarmed protesters, horse charges against terrified children and a twenty-year-old in hospital for brain surgery after being struck by a police officer from behind?

I would like Ben Brown to make a personal apology to Mr McIntyre for his disgraceful and unprofessional behaviour, and I would like assurances from the BBC that they will use less biased journalists than Ben Brown for their frontline protest reporting from now on.

Yours sincerely,

Danny Chivers, Oxford

Shop a Scrounger

Here we go - slam poetry vs. tax dodging and spending cuts!

If you like it, please share the link or embed it on your own blog/webpage. Let's remind people these cuts aren't necessary, they're ideological - and there are plenty of alternatives. Plus, everyone needs to know that there really is a rhyme for "Guernsey".

Big thanks to Zoe Broughton and Pete Speller for very generously volunteering their filming and editing skills to make this happen!

Watching the watchers

Last Wednesday, during the anti-tuition fees march, hundreds of people occupied Millbank (the location of Tory Party HQ) while thousands more cheered them on, in an amazing piece of direct action protest. While this was going on, a few people broke windows, there was a small amount of push-and-shove with the cops (with some students getting nastily batoned) and one person stupidly dropped a fire extinguisher from the roof (for which he was angrily booed by the crowd).

Rather than report this for what it was - an inspiring, largely spontaneous mass occupation with a bit of (understandable) property damage - most of the media chose to describe it as "a descent into violence", and sadly a lot of people who should know better (including the NUS President) seem to be parroting that line. I wish the fire extinguisher thing hadn't happened, but to condemn thousands of protesters for the action of a single person is disgraceful.

Many people who were there will now feel worried about becoming victims of a high-profile witch-hunt simply for taking part in a bit of civil disobedience. More windows get smashed on an average Saturday night in London than at Millbank on Wednesday, but elements of the media are treating it like the crime of the century, and launching vendettas against the people involved. The Government are about to gut the education system, strip away legal aid, privatise huge swathes of our public services and hurl millions of people out of work, off benefits and into poverty - we need to get our priorities straight here, and go after the Government, not the people who are standing up against the cuts!

I personally would not have broken the windows at Millbank. Property damage has its place as an activist tactic - for example, the "decommissioning" of arms factories, weaponry or bulldozers - but I suspect this particular occupation would have been more effective without it [3pm update - I've been reminded that the broken windows did achieve something useful by making the protest far more hard-hitting and high-profile - see the comments below]. However, I still want to support the people who did it - they were young people watching their future being stolen from them, and so were understandably angry (and, as this video shows, several of the windows were broken simply to let more people in). All of us who oppose the cuts should be looking to stand together in solidarity. To be successful, this anti-cuts uprising is going to need everyone, from polite letter-writers to marchers to occupiers, and while it's fine for us to debate tactics amongst ourselves - and sometimes disagree - we can't allow ourselves to be divided and ruled. Everyone who cares about stopping the cuts should show their support to the Millbank invaders.

One group who've been doing just that are FitWatch. They were originally formed in 2007 to prevent on-the-ground harassment of protesters by police "Forward Intelligence Teams" (FITs) - those officers who photograph and film you just for attending a demonstration or going to a meeting, and gather vast reams of intrusive information on campaigners. After the Millbank protest, FitWatch posted some advice on their website for anyone who was at the occupation and was worried about police harassment. The police responded this Monday by closing the FitWatch site down.

At which point, the social networks kicked into action. Within hours, hordes of outraged people had reposted the offending advice on their own websites, blogs, and Facebook pages. After a flurry of media coverage - i.e. a load of free publicity - the FitWatch site came back online today, only to seemingly be suspended once again. [Update at 3pm - the new Fitwatch site is working fine, it was just a "DNS transfer issue", apprarently. Woop!]

I'm told this is just a temporary glitch, and that some browsers just can't see the site yet. Hopefully that's correct, and the site will be visible to everyone soon. In the meantime, you can check out their advice to the Millbank protesters here. As lots of people have already reposted that one, I'm going to put up another FitWatch article that the police would rather you didn't see - all about the police trying to use the student demo as an excuse to return to the heavy-handed tactics that led to the death of Ian Tomlinson at last year's G20 protests:

Police seek to capitalise on student demo to justify further repression and their own budgets
(from www.fitwatch.org.uk)

Although the actions of the students last week were inspiring and empowering, it should come as no surprise the media savvy police are using it as an ideal opportunity to both fight back against cuts to their budgets and to counter the recent bad press regarding protest policing.

The NCDE domestic extremist units are claiming they have suffered in the cuts. Former head of NCDE, Anton Setchell has retired, and head of NETCU, Steve Pearl has been given the boot, and both have been replaced by a cheaper, junior model - Detective Chief Supt Adrian Tudway. Steve seems particularly upset about getting sacked and has been whining to the Telegraph about how, if he was still running the units, their intelligence on the riots would have been better.

As usual, he is talking nonsense. The police didn’t predict the disorder because it wasn’t planned; the march wasn’t hijacked. I read the same websites as the cops, I know lots of activists, the intelligence we all had before the demo would have been similar. Yes, there were rumours of civil disobedience, and autonomous blocs, but this is true of every major demonstration. It would certainly have been true on the entirely peaceful February 15 Iraq demo, and there was no particular reason to believe this would be any different.

This is a desperate attempt by an unpopular unit to appear relevant and we must not be fooled. NCDE are bleating about cuts when only a few weeks ago they were squandering money sending Ian Caswell to Plymouth to monitor and photograph Trident Ploughshares pacifists.

The lack of police action at the protest had nothing to do with the cuts. Ever since the bad publicity surrounding G20 and Kingsnorth Climate Camp, the MET have taken a softly softly approach towards protest, and it was always obvious that eventually this would fail and it would be used as an excuse to continue repressing and harassing protesters. One senior police officer, speaking to The Guardian admitted the protests had done them “a favour”, stating “In the past we have been criticised for being too provocative. During the next demo no one can say a word.”

The students who occupied Millbank are not domestic extremists, they are angry, brave and passionate people who care about what this government is doing to the country. They have grown up witnessing the futility of being herded from A to B and listening to the platitudes of irrelevant politicians.

Ordinary people are angry, with even a Daily Star poll showing the majority in favour of the students rioting. The fight back is on, people will not be repressed, and no amount of intelligence on the usual suspects from a redundant unit is going to make a difference.