BIG GREEN CREATURE

Image above is me at the Big Green, talking in the Moon Marquee to an audience on grass, high up on a knoll where we could just about get good reception on cell phones. A good time was had by all, although one of the speakers could not make it earlier in the week - David Shayler, former MI5 agent who suddenly announced that he was the Messiah while speaking in Glastonbury. Somehow in his new state of enlightenment he was too big for the Big Green. Nonetheless we managed to carry on throgh the weekend with lots of support from the hemp world, Hempspace, Hemp Garden et al.

GREEN HIGLIGHTS

Just packing up for the Big Green, trashing my room and not finding all the bits and bobs I am supposed to bring. But then out of the closet popped the brand new pair of Gravis hemp trainers (sneakers if you're from the US), so I can cross one thing off my list. They are by the way quite comfortable and aesthetic. Some may recall the hemp shoes on the cover of Rowan Robinson's The Great Book of Hemp and cringe.

Once at the Big Green there is so much to do, there will be speakers all day long and well into the night at both the Sun and the Moon Marquee, and there is an Earth Space as well where films will be screened. Highlights of events include Dr. Nick Kollerstrom speaking on the Summer of Love 1967 - I think he hit the hippy trail and toured Afghanistan back then; he does this talk on Thursday, 2 August at 2:30 pm in the Sun Marquee, and will again address an audience on Sunday, 5 August in the same place, but at 10 pm, when he will discuss crop circle geometry. Friday, 3 August starts off with a didgeradoo serenade by Eshua, who is playing a hemp didgeradoo at 10 am in the Moon Marquee - and again on Sunday, same time, same place.

My talk on the Hemp Revolution is scheduled for 8:30 pm on Friday 3 August in the Moon Marquee, where I will be enlisting and arming revolutionaries...More notes on hemp will be heard on Saturday 4 August when Rebekah Shaman and Carlo Dawson give their presentation on ethical business, 11:30 am in the Moon Marquee.

Other highlights, though not about hemp, include Hugh Newman of New Humans who will be talking about the ancient science of earth energies and the planetary grid-shift at 7 pm in the Sun Marquee on Friday, 3 August. David Shayler, former MI5 agent, gives us his opinions on 9/11 at 10pm on Thursday 2 August in the Moon Marquee, though his views may well not be backed up by valid research, or any at all in some cases. Still, an interesting chap for his experience with MI5, which has now been caught shopping British citizens to the CIA.

Don't miss the screening of The Great Global Warming Swindle at 12:30 am (just after midnight) in the Earth Space!

GOING GREEN

It seems everyone these days is going green, or am I just wearing my Oz glasses? Perhaps the wizard is about to pop out and make the world a better place, but even he will not remove my cynicism.

Some things however are hard to knock, and I have only good words for a new book out by Sheherazade Goldsmith, wife of Zac, who is known for his work at the Ecologist. The cover is featured right (so I could save time typing in the lenghty title). It is very spot on, though it seems to have greatly upset George Monbiot last week in his Guardian piece. Methinks he did protest too much, as there are 90 projects here and whether someone lives on a sheep farm or in a bedsit there is something for everyone in this tome. Maybe even he could roll up his sleeves and get to work instead of inundating us with innacuracies. He also tried to sneak out the back door on the global warming issue, rather than saying he was wrong, or listening to Piers Corbyn, whose letter appeared the next day in the same paper. Corbyn gave us his previous predictions, facts on which they were based, and future predictions. According to him, this year and next will get colder, and there will be more storms this summer. The Big Green Gathering will be mostly spared these storms, if he is correct, and I hope he is as sloshing around in the mud with the madding crowd in Somerset is not my idea of fun, or even how to save the planet. I am to hold forth on hemp on Friday, 8:30 pm in the Moon Marquee, so if Corbyn is spot on we will be high and dry.

When I called around to the environment editors in the UK to invite them, they all seemed to know nothing about the Big Green or Mr. Corbyn (except for John Vidal of the Guardian). So tens of thousands of people will be speaking in the woods, but there will quite likely be a mainstream press blackout, with the left trying desperately to ignore anyone who questions global warming, just as they did when they were all global cooling experts. From the right, expect lots of stories about drunk rich kids and journalists killing each other in helicopters as they try to follow drunk rich kids, and from the left, expect lots of know-it-alls claiming that we are freezing this summer due to global warming.

Somewhere in the middle there are a number of people who just want facts and are working on growing hemp and using electric cars. The next political movement may well be the Centrist Party, fed up with all the nonsense on the far left and far right. They will be carrying copies of genuine peer reviewed articles on hemp, climate change and sustainable living. The 'Green Party' ought to take note and expect a rebuke from me this Friday. Unless I get thrown out first for speaking the truth by the hard core global warming Nazis.

FIELDS OF GREEN

In 1900, James Lane Allen of Kentucky wrote about the hemp as "fields of living emerald". He might be seeing red today if he knew about the status of hemp under the law; his book was titled Reign of Law, but today he would not have hemp to write about; just lots of lawlessness as the politicians rip off the taxpayers. It's called 'organised crime'.

The hemp issue and other environmental issues are now hot topics, even hotter than the weather (which has been rather cool here in the UK and many other parts as well, with monsoon rains here and villages under 9 feet of water - water, water everywhere). So of course the Big Green Gathering will have someone there talking about hemp, namely me. I am already laying out my green clothes, from Braintree trousers to a Minawear limited edition tie-dye shirt to a pair of green sunglasses (for a trip to the Wizard).

So look for the jolly green hempster at the Moon Marquee on Friday, 3 August, at 8:30 pm. This year the event will be at Fernhill Farm above the Cheddar Gorge in Somerset. Last year there were 20,000 attendees, and it looks like we will have quite a crowd again. For info click here. Tickets can also be ordered over the phone at (44) 01458 830 281.

BTW, it may be a cool idea to have a hemp bag to carry around the farm, and this month The Ecologist has a reader offer on one that says: "REAL ECO BAGS ARE MADE OF HEMP". It is 100% organic hemp, made in the UK. It is the real thing, no cotton involved in it, unlike the Anya bags and other ersatz bags being foisted on us by the cotton lovers. (see related posts for full story on cotton and the bag wars). The bag can be ordered from The Hemp Shop while supplies last, click here for info.

I got this bag in the post last week, delayed a bit by the strike, but soon after I was using it I got mugged; just like when you wear an Rolex in a rough neighbourhood, my bag got taken off me. The perpetrator was one of my co-authors, as a matter of fact, who wanted it to walk around Manhattan with. So if you are in the Big Apple, an you see a woman with a burlappy grey bag sporting the above-mentioned logo, quite possible hanging out at the Galaxy Global Eatery on 15th & Irving, that is one of the hemp team from London (though she is actually from New Jersey, but likes lots of rain, so she moved to London, where she lives with her husband Nick).