Author: Paul (Page 1 of 182)

3 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Fred Fredricks has an important delivery to make to someone on the moon. It is his first time there, and everything about the trip is strange. On the space flight over, he meets Ta Shu, a celebrity travel reporter and feng shui expert who agrees to meet with him again later in their visit to the moon. It is all going well until Fredricks meets the recipient of the package he is delivering, and it rapidly goes horribly wrong.

Fredricks is taken into custody following the incident. As he is an American and working for a Swiss company, there is a diplomatic standoff. Somehow, he manages to escape and joins a lady called Chan Qi, who is being sent back to Earth. They travel back with Ta Shu to China, where they evade the authorities on arrival and head to a safe house for a while. After being couped up, it gets to them, and they make a miscalculation on just how close the people looking for them are. They have to go on the run again, but they know the authorities are closing in on them.

One of the myriad factions in the Chinese security services that is sympathetic to Chan Qi has made the decision that they would be safer back on the moon and not be a distraction to the other factions on Earth. Once again, they are dispatched back on a space flight to stay in a super-rich gentleman’s called Fang Fei’s place. He is a businessman, and he has a separate base on the moon.

Even though she is 238,000 miles away, there are still people after her. They decide to hitch a ride with a couple of helium miners to an even more remote part of the moon. She decides that this is the time to send a coded message to her supporters in China, to add to the disruption as a power struggle for the president of China begins.

I have tried to keep the plot details as sparse as possible, to minimise spoilers, but there are a few. I would say that I liked rather than loved this; I had expected it to be entirely set on the moon, and was a little disappointed that it wasn’t. I would have liked it if Fred’s character had played a larger role in the story too; he was there as a bit of a stooge to the main character, Chan Qi. I felt it could have been a bit shorter, too. There were times when it dragged a bit, until the last quarter, when it flew by. Not bad overall, but not the best of his that I have read.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Be a traveller, not a tourist, is a phrase that is often attributed to the late Anthony Bourdain. But is there a difference between a traveller and a tourist, though? Some people think that there is, and surprise, surprise, others don’t… Though I do like Paul Theroux’s definition: Tourists don’t know where they have been, travellers don’t know where they are going.

Daniel Maurer considered himself a traveller, following in the footsteps of Bourdain, but it slowly dawned on him that maybe he was just a tourist.

Travel for almost everyone stopped during the pandemic. It took a while, but the world slowly opened up again, and Maurer became, not by choice, a digital nomad.

He ends up in Mexico and tries to find an authentic town to live in that isn’t overrun with tourists (sic). In this modern world, just the mention of a place can see massive crowds of people flocking to visit. This can have an enormous detrimental effect on the are and the people when this happens.

He is only moderately scathing on travel influencers and the lack of transparency that they have with regard to their sponsors. He is even less enamoured by AI assistants, seeing them as boring, predictable and often error-prone.

Being a travel nomad puts him in the gig economy. Yes, living is much cheaper in Mexico than in the States, but getting paid work meant that he had to lower his prices.

Moving on to Argentina, he finds that having dollars in his pocket means that he can live like a king. However, he soon learns to keep quiet about this as Argentinians are suffering from the effects of high inflation. As the economy there slowly implodes, he decides that he would be better off in Spain, the home country of his mother.

It is another country that is suffering from a massive hike in tourists and all of the accompanying problems that they bring with them. This is a phenomenon that is happening all around the world at the moment as locals struggle to cope with increasing self-entitled tourists. Instagrammable sites are super popular and these are now getting restrictions on the number of visitors that can attend.

The arrival of lots of digital nomads means that the local economies have changed completely. Rents and other expenses rise dramatically, locking out locals from the homes that they need. We have seen this effect in Cornwall and other places in the UK. Countries that were once offering golden visas are quietly dropping them. Plus, there is a concerted effort in Europe to restrict the number of short-term rental properties available.

During the time that he spends in Barcelona, he comes to see for himself how the tourists or guiri, and they are known there, are becoming less and less welcome. The city is beginning to restrict how many shops selling tourist tat are allowed. In July 2024, there was a huge protest against tourism; visitors were squirted with water pistols and attractions were cordoned off with fake police tape.

‘The idea of ‘I’m not like the others’ is very egocentric,’ Pardo said. ‘I think it isn’t possible nowadays to come to Barcelona and not be a tourist. If you come, you must accept it: you are just another piece of the mass. And it’s not each person, it’s the mass that is killing the city.

Cruise ships are also becoming a target for locals’ ire. The island of Ibitha can get three huge ships a day, and these can bring 10,00 disembarking from the ships. 10,000! This huge influx of people, coupled with the fact that the ships pollute a lot, are not particularly green and sustainable. Some countries are now starting to limit the number of ships docking and are insisting that low-sulphur fuels are used to combat pollution.

Other places are pushing back on anti-social behaviour too, restricting drink sales for example. In a twist of irony that you couldn’t make up, the anti-tourism protests have become a tourist attraction in their own right.

Like in other countries, migration is becoming a political hot potato, and this is causing some countries to lurch towards right-wing parties. Strangely, though, the predominantly right-wing capitalist system demands that low-paid workers exist to maximise company profits and executive pay. Utterly mad system when you think about it.

Maurer visits Expo 2025 to see what the future of travel offers from a corporate point of view and would it would look like. Having read his description of the event, I think it sounds horrendous… Whilst tech and apps could offer assistance in finding lovely places to visit, it struck me most as being a way to fleece consumers from increasingly larger sums of money.

One good this was that countries are now offering regenerative tourism. You help in some way or other, and you are granted benefits in kind. Key to it is that you are helping the area that you are staying in, rather than money disappearing into the corporate coffers.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell – Edward Abbey

How do we answer that Maurer poses at the end of the book:

Can we learn to move as thoughtfully as we can, as carefully as we can?

I thought that this was a really interesting book. Through numerous examples, he asks some very thought-provoking questions about the nature of travel and tourism and it made me think about just how it is affecting people and places that are becoming inundated with thousands of people on a regular basis.

I do feel, though, that he didn’t fully answer the question that he posed in the book; so, what do we do about travel? Not that this is a fault, he wants you to think about the consequences of what you do and where you go and the choices that you make. We have to make sensible and sustainable decisions going forward.

If you like to travel, then this book would be a great place to start before you book that next flight or holiday.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Like all good plans, the idea for this trip formed over a few beers one evening. With his friends, Danny, they had been putting the world to rights before Danny finally got around to asking him the question that had been distracting him for a while. Had he heard of Interrail? Quite a daft question to ask a travel writer.

Of course, he had.

The reason for the question was that Danny had seen that they were having a half-price sale to celebrate 50 years of the service. Danny had the idea that they should spend an entire month travelling around Europe. He was so enthused by the idea he had even broached the subject with his wife and been given a provisional pass.

They bought tickets there and then on the bench in Soho Square, before heading to Stanford’s to get a couple of maps. It didn’t take them long to concoct a plan, and they both knew the destination: Istanbul.

Sadly, a half-price Interrail ticket wouldn’t let them go on the horrendously priced Orient Express. Instead of spending vast amounts of time sorting their itinerary out, they decided to let serendipity reign and follow their instincts and the tracks. This, they hoped, would add a level of jeopardy to the trip and help them see a completely different range of places and people.

They arrived at St Pancras for the Eurostar in good time. There was a slight concern that their first destination, Paris, had been on fire because of riots. They were both slightly apprehensive as they disembarked the train in the station.

However, all seemed well as they alighted in Paris and they headed to their hotel, which just so happened to be in the same area that George Orwell stayed in many years before. They had a night out on and returned late to the hotel. Strasbourg was tomorrow’s destination and they had a train to catch early afternoon.

This was the beginning of the long winding route that would take them across Europe on their way to Istanbul. They pass through Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria; almost exclusively on trains, but with one trip on a bus because of strikes. It makes for entertaining reading, too, which, if you have read any of Chesshyre’s work before, you’d be familiar with. They get on really well and their account of their travels out there did make me laugh a lot at times.

After they reached Istanbul, Danny had elected to fly back home to relieve his wife from looking after the three children. Chesshyre was going to have to make his own way home, a challenge he relished. Rather than go back the way he had come, he chose a route that would take him through Greece, across the Adriatic to Italy and along one of the world’s most beautiful railway lines in Switzerland and then onward to the Netherlands.

I have read a number of Chesshyre’s books in the past, so I was really looking forward to this, and I am glad to say, it didn’t disappoint at all. It is both an entertaining and informative read. He has a keen eye for detail and particularly likes the variety of stations and the architectural differences they have. I haven’t expanded on the events of the route, because I think that this is something you should read and discover for yourselves when you read it. This is something that I can wholeheartedly recommend that you do.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

Unless you are a geologist or a quarryman, most people don’t think about rocks at all during their day. I know I am one of those people. I may take more notice when out and about, but then we’re spoilt here on the Jurassic coast. Rocks are the very foundation of our planet, our homes and our cities. They have been venerated by our ancestors for millennia too, hence why Anjana starts this book at some of the most famous rocks in the world, Stonehenge.

Why these stones were erected in this way and for what purpose, we will never really know, though modern archaeology and theories have gained a little insight into the Stone Age mind. We do know the use of some of the stone artefacts left behind, though. These tools were made by Mesolithic humans and are instantly recognisable as the shape and functions are still valid today. There is a photo of a beautiful banded gneiss mace head found in the Thames in the book. The rock it was made from is 2.7 billion years old.

That is quite an age for a rock; however, the oldest rock on Earth discovered so far is 4.4 billion years old. This fact staggered me, as this must have been one of the first rocks to solidify from lava. The zircon in the rock acts as a record of how old they are and allows scientists to look back in time. The ancient gneiss of Canada is found in more than its geological records. The rock can be found in the creation stories and rituals of the First Nation people there.
Continental drift was originally proposed as a theory in the early 20th century, but it was first proven in 1957 and is now known as plate tectonics. The speed of movement is mm per year for the fastest plates and almost no movement for others. Except for some that then, when they do move, go so quickly that it causes earthquakes and tsunamis and are a reminder that for all man’s mastery over the planet, we’re only here for a short time, and our existence is very short compared to the rocks beneath our feet.

Indigenous people coped with this natural onslaught by performing rituals to Mother Earth. Seeing the planet as a female is very common in these cultures; Gaia, Bhumi Deu and Pachamama are just three examples. Their creation stories go some way to explaining the seismic activity in these areas that the local population could understand. The ancient reverence that the New Zealand people have for a rock called Pounamu is carried forward to the rugby team, who have a Māori stone that all players touch before a game. A similar reverence for Mother Earth, but with very different rituals, can be found in her own faith, Hinduism. Mother Bhumi is the earth goddess who must be treated with due respect and not be injured by people’s labour.
Rock has a timeless quality about it; probably because geological time is on a completely different scale to human time. Our three score and ten is a mere blink of an eye compared to 55 million years or longer.

Walking into a tomb in the Valley of the Kings in Egypt is walking deep into the past. Not just the historical elements, the hieroglyphs and the way that the tomb was carved from the rock, but the limestone rock itself has its own story to tell. Rocks can bring trouble to people, too, not just from falling on people. There is arsenic present in the Himalayas, and the silt that washes down to Bangladesh causes all manner of health problems. The discovery of gold in the West of America caused the obliteration of a number of First Nation tribes in the region because of greed.
The rock that started Khatwa on her geological journey came from a volcano in the Tsavo National Park over three decades ago. She picked up this vesicular basalt whilst on a family holiday and from that moment on was hooked on rocks and has made a career from it. These deadly natural phenomena are some of the most dramatic natural processes of geology we can see in certain places around the world. The closest I have knowingly been to a volcano was when on holiday in Sicily. We didn’t get to go and see Etna, whilst there, maybe another day. If you want to have red hot rocks thrown at you, then the place to go is Iceland; genuinely the land of ice and fire.

Being classed as a space invader is not a reference to a slightly rubbish game of the 1980s, but a phrase that she is told about as she walks through the Chilterns. It is a phrase that hang heavily with her as she goes on to write about the way that colonial invaders have taken over land and resources in Brazil and other parts of South America and the efforts that the indigenous people are taking to push back and reclaim what is rightfully theirs.

Sedimentary rocks are formed from organic matter or minerals that have collected in a depression. As layers form above them, they are crushed and become rock. This process takes millions of years, but the formations that it creates are magnificent. Khatwa is in Petra looking at the rocks there, they are multicoloured, with strips of yellow, pink, white and orange, and are a thing of beauty. Leaving Petra through the narrow gorge of Siq is an experience that she has never had before; the way that the light flows around the rock is exquisite.
The Arches National Park in America is home to a number of First Nation Tribes who consider the landscapes as portals. The photos in the book only hint at how stunning they are. The reverence that they hold for the arches shows a deep spiritual dimension for the place and the rocks from which they are created from. Sadly, this often clashes with the Western view that can only see these as a source of income and possible scientific gain.

She is searching for fossils on the beautiful beaches of West Dorset. They get lucky and find an ammonite and the vertebra of an ichthyosaur. Both have been in and become part of the rocks for millions of years. Even though I have looked on the same beaches a few times, I still haven’t found either yet!
Rocks have been a constant in her life, as well as giving her qualifications and a career; they helped her get through a traumatic breakup when she was a young mother.
Rocks also undergo traumatic changes during their incredibly long life spans as they are absorbed into the crust and subjected to massive temperatures and pressures. These forces change their structure and composition to become something better and stronger after. We can have a similar recovery from life events, becoming more resilient after them.

Mountains are large and immovable objects, and people tend to see them as indestructible. They are, but also they aren’t. Something as simple as water can break them; constant freezing and thawing over countless years cracks the mountain into boulders, stone and sand, and couple that with erosion, then they do not stand a chance with geological time. Sometimes the roots of these once great mountains are the only things left. New York is an example, and the grey slate quarries in the Welsh hills are two that she explores in the book.
Erratics are those boulders that are found on the surface but are utterly different to the underlying bedrock. Nobody really knew how they had got there, so all sorts of folkloric stories were invented to explain how they arrived there. Most of them had some variation of the devil throwing them, but there are other local variations. The real explanation is much simpler: glaciers carried these enormous stones to their new resting places, but it took quite a while for science to work it out.
I must admit I don’t think about rocks a huge amount. I like looking at them when we are out and about, particularly the rocks along the beautiful Jurassic Coast in my home county. I am always a little concerned about how long the cliffs are going to last at West Bay, though.

What Khatwa does in this book is to blend the hard science of geology with the softer, more human story and how indigenous people have seen the rocks in their landscapes as an almost living entity. The rocks have whispered their own stories to the people that lived around them, and they, in turn, have made them central to their culture.

One generation of rock equals many, many generations of humans, but in a kind of strange way, the collective memory of humans overlaps the rock era. What I liked most about this book is that it opened my eyes to a new way of looking and thinking about the way humans have and need to co-exist with the landscapes around them in this only planet we have. I thought this was well worth reading.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

When I was going to school, which feels like a hundred years ago, having any label associated with you would make you a target for bullies. Back then, these labels were demeaning and patronising, and if you weren’t one of the cool kids and didn’t fit in with most of the regular students, your difference made you a target.

Even if you didn’t have a label, some kids found it really difficult to fit in with the majority of pupils. You either were lonely, or if lucky, you might find a small niche group that has similar interests. I was one of those pupils, and Joe Harkness was another. Joe has been diagnosed, and that has helped him come to terms with the way he is. I haven’t gone down that rout,e and at the moment, I am not considering following up on this. In those days, you’d be considered odd. Nowadays, in this partially enlightened time, you can get a diagnosis that is covered by the broad description of neurodivergent.

This book is Harkness’s journey into nature with his and other people’s neurodiversity. He conducted lots of interviews with people who work in all sorts of roles in nature and the conservation world. A lot were conducted face to face, but time and other circumstances meant that some took place online or by other methods. A lot were happy to share their names, details of where they worked, and any specific diagnosis, and some chose to remain anonymous. The conversations are about how they cope with life, work, the universe and moths…

There is almost no research into the effects that nature has on those with neurodiversity diagnoses. But where there have been studies, most concentrate on younger people. That is understandable, but it does miss swathes of people out. The studies showed that neurodivergent young people could concentrate much better when in a woodland setting when compared to an urban setting.

The natural world is seen as a non-judgmental space; it doesn’t tell people off, and it forgives. A balm for neurodivergent individuals. For them, being in nature is stimulating, but not excessively so. ADHD and autistic people tend to explore rather than exploit an environment, and it is a reminder of how indigenous people treat the landscape around them.
He considers if working in the conservation sector is good for neurodivergent people. Jobs in the UK are either government or NGO (RSPB and so on), and these are wide-ranging and varied. These roles can be especially suited to autistic people, the daily routines and rituals can remain the same, but the day varies because the location is different, the wildlife they observe changes, different weather and seasonal variations. The conservation sector is inherently caring; they are trying their best to look after the planet after all. There is nominally a chain of command, but this is often circumvented as the person with the best ideas and experience often takes the lead.

I thought that the Out Of The Box chapter was really interesting. He is looking at the theory that ADHD and autism are superpowers. Harkness’ initial opinion is that they aren’t. However, he talks to people who feel that their ability to hyperfocus on a task gives them a noticeable edge for certain skills, bird song identification, for example. Another individual he speaks to has dyslexia, and they feel that this gives them an ability to distil ideas that they then become meaningful and understandable to many others. Someone else has the ability to walk around a nature reserve once and have a map imprinted in their memory.

Lots of people have very niche specialist interests, some of which Harkness talks about with them. A good organisation can harness this mix of skills and by having both neurodivergent and non- neurodivergent staff will make for a stronger and more balanced team. One individual Harkness interviews, went from almost being excluded at school to creating a $50b scheme for mangrove restoration. And this is one of many stories of the successes of neurodivergent people working in conservation.

Even though things are improving for neurodivergent people, the barriers for some to gain employment in the conservation sector are sometimes set really high. It is difficult to gain entry when it feels like some of these decisions have already been taken prior to interviews. Having to undertake voluntary work in the sector only works when you have a supportive and fairly wealthy family. Should they overcome these hurdles a get the job, a starting salary of £18k is laughable but very common. So if you’re a female, neurodivergent and coloured, then it is almost impossible to be able to get a job, which hence why there are only 6% coloured people working in conservation. Less than 50% of the organisations have anything resembling an equality, diversity and inclusion policy (EDI). Link that to endemic institutionalised racism, and it isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Companies have a legal requirement to make ‘reasonable adjustments’ when employing people to ensure that all employees have a level playing field. However, the term ‘reasonable ‘ is very broad… Sadly, making a potential employer aware of your disability is a sure-fire way to not get the job. Harkness himself has had mixed responses and support from employers in the past and outlines the good and the bad. He does hear the horror stories and also writes about the organisations that are doing things really well. He notes that for some neurodivergent people, it is the interactions that they have with other people that is the problem, not the interactions that they have with nature.

Harkness looks at some of the well-known conservation organisations and their policies and, more importantly, their actions on EDI and neurodiversity. He even gets to talk to a government department about their policies. It was interesting to see that a substantial number of people who were responsible for this also have neurodivergent conditions. The better organisations use a workplace passport scheme for all employees; this makes it fair and reduces discrimination in the workplace.

Harkness also contacts a number of smaller conservation organisations to find out how they manage neurodivergent staff. About 50% of those he had contacted replied to him, and of those, they had policies and processes in place that helped neurodivergent staff to integrate and feel valued. Some of these conservation charities are tiny, only having six staff in some cases, so the office rules that bigger organisations have don’t really apply in these instances.

A friend of my wife runs a forest school, and until I read the chapter in this book, I must admit I didn’t really know a huge amount about it. The non-threatening environment works for everyone, especially the kids. He also visits a care farm that takes in kids who don’t really fit in the regular school system. If only more kids had these opportunities.

His final chapter talks about stories having a beginning, middle and end. Except life isn’t like that, especially if you’re neurodivergent or have ADHD, it is a super nova of themes, ideas, and threads to be followed. This book had come about from someone mentioning to Harkness that most people in the conservation sector were neurodivergent.

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting and informative book about how neurodivergent people can thrive in nature-centred organisations. Provided the organisation that they work for has put in place sympathetic schemes and systems for them. The thing to remember is that these systems work perfectly for ‘normal’ people too, unlike the other way around. Most of the people that Harkness has spoken to, to create this book, have had a positive experience with how they are treated, but there is the odd horror story in here! If you are or know anyone who is neurodivergent, then I think that you will find, as I did, this to be an informative and useful book. Bravo to Harkness for writing something that is very close to home and outside his comfort zone.

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

The Cloud is America’s biggest employer; it provides numerous goods and services to those left in society who can still afford it. It is so large that it has to a greater extent replaced government, and its warehouses are self-contained towns with accommodation, security, and facilities built in. Gibson is the owner of this business and built it from nothing. Some of his personality quirks are evident in the way that the business functions, but he is probably one of the richest men on the planet, so he doesn’t care what people think about that. He has a terminal illness that is focusing his mind on who will take over after him.

To get in as an employee means passing a test, and the company decides on what you will be doing based on the results of that test and your previous experience. Paxton, who has been down on his luck after the Cloud took his design and made it theirs without paying him, has decided to join. He passes the test and is annoyingly allocated to security; he’d rather have been in picking. Zinnia joins at the same time and is allocated a position in picking, but there are hints that she has an alternative agenda.

Their first day there is really tough. The training has given them an outline of what is expected, but the reality is so much harder, especially for Zinnia, who is picking. Her performance is constantly monitored for speed and accuracy. However, her role is not the only one that is monitored, for all staff, their company-issued smart watches track their exact location, what they spend in the company stores, and they are not allowed to leave their accommodation without wearing it.

They soon settle into the daily grind: wake, work, eat, sleep, repeat. The days become weeks, and these then stretch into months. As they get to know each other, their relationship blossoms to an extent, but they still keep some of their innermost thoughts very secret, especially Zinnia, who is at the Cloud for ulterior motives.

This book was quite a ride! It is a thriller wrapped in a dystopian tale of untrammelled corporate power. The Cloud company has effectively replaced the American Government following social unrest, riots and then pretty much societal collapse. This corporation that Hart has dreamt up has certain similarities to a certain emporium that is well known but not always well loved. On that he has layered big brother surveillance and control, an evil narcissist boss in the style of Bond villains and near-future technologies.

I thought that the plot was fairly good, and it was really fast-paced. There wasn’t much character development, but then I wasn’t expecting it in a thriller like this. Even though I really enjoyed the book I always feel that after reading dystopia, we need those in power to read them too and begin the process of making changes so that there are more checks and balances in the vast power that corporations and their owners have. Though until they stop funding the politicians that make the rules, I can’t see this changing any time soon!!

4.5 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

It feels like we have been in a living hell for the past decade. The rise of populism and nationalism in numerous countries across the world is driven by divisive figures who are being funded by unaccountable billionaires who have their own agendas for world domination. Having a malleable population who are susceptible to the fears that inflamed by the rhetoric by these individuals leads down a path that I thought that we’d never see again after the 20th century.

So how do we go from what feels like a proper democracy to a fully-fledged dictatorship?

According to Temelkuran, there are seven distinct steps on this path from democracy to dictatorship. She writes this from the experience of having lived through the coup in Turkey and the yearning that she has to live back in her home country once again. In each step, she explains the warning signs that she saw and how they can differ in each country.

She documents how an unknown political party in 2002 began a movement for the ‘real people’ of the country. They claimed all the way through this process that they were the true representatives of the country and that it was their aim to fix the dysfunctional problems that the country had. They won the elections, and seventeen years later, they are still there. They have changed everything for the worse…

These themes are present in all political systems around the world, and the UK is not immune; Farage and Brexit come to mind. The problem is that the mainstream politicians don’t really have any answers to some of the intractable problems that are facing our society at the moment. Educated individuals with liberal and progressive views are portrayed as enemies of the people who do not understand. The new politicians demand respect; they do not think about earning it, and it is a one-way street, too. They show no respect for other views. People who do not show respect or deference to them are held in contempt and often threatened.

It is only later that the ‘real people’ come to understand that they have been fed a lie. The truth that these politicians spout changes constantly; a figure who is seen in a glowing light at the beginning can become an enemy overnight. No one dares question the narrative, so they get away with it.
Temelkuran looks at how the populists control the narrative, attacking the character rather than having a rebuttal to the discussion, claiming things that are true when they aren’t, because lots of people think that (commonly known as sheeple).

The narratives that populists have are often seen as infantile. But it gives them the ability to arrange the narrative to suit their agenda. Trying to pin them down to anything is like trying to nail a jelly to a wall. If you choose not to follow the party line, you become a target for all their ire. This is something that Temelkuran has been on the receiving end of. These people are slippery bastards.

Another crucial indicator in the slide to dictatorship is the erosion of shame and empathy. This can be seen in the shocking response to the plight of refugees and migrants who are fleeing wars and other conflicts. People have a very fluid relationship with the truth, hence the rise of the most ridiculous conspiracy theories, including one where a lad had to prove that he was a student at a school that suffered a mass shooting after the trolls in the gun lobby claimed it was a hoax and he was an actor.

Popularists rely on distractions. They say something controversial and watch as the media furore kicks off and people get agitated by it, then as people are concentrating on that change something fundamental to suit them. Later on, when it has all died down, declare that neither side is in touch with the ‘real people’. It is, of course, all nonsense, but it means that the changes they made have slipped by, unnoticed by the majority.

When they are in power, authoritarian leaders ensure they are involved in everything and that you only get something if the leader has approved it. Even the wealthy stay wealthy if he wants them to remain that way, Russia under Putin is a good example of this. As their power grows, it becomes easier to change the rules to suit themselves and the opposition is left voiceless and often imprisoned…

With right-wing authoritarianism comes hard-line misogyny; women start to lose control over how they can look after their bodies; birth control and abortion are obvious indications. If you don’t fit their ideal image as a citizen, then they don’t want you. The harassment and then beatings of those who don’t conform are first reported as ‘isolated incidents’ but they are not. They are part of a concerted campaign. If you are audacious enough to bring up these attacks, then you are the person seen to be dividing and polarising the country and not understanding the values of the ‘real people’.

It all comes down to dictators wanting idealised citizens who conform to the ‘great’ leader’s vision or cause. Though what that actually is or means is almost never communicated to anyone, as it can then be moulded and changed at their whim. AS with all dictatorships, the rules that apply to the majority of the population don’t apply to the elite, as Temelkuran finds out one day for herself.

Dictatorships have no rigid or set ideology either. They morph and reshape the agenda as it suits them. It reminds me of Animal Farm and the way that the messages to all the other animals kept changing throughout the story. The situation seems laughable, but as the grip of the dictator increases, the laughter becomes a poison in its own right.

She visits a Greek island; from there, she can see her hometown, Izmir. It is a place she misses with all her heart, but she knows that until there is a regime change in the country, she will never be able to return.

I found this a shocking book in lots of ways. I knew that Turkey was a dodgy democracy because of the issues that they had when they had it is mind to join the EU and couldn’t or wouldn’t change the way they were doing things. I wasn’t aware of just how far down this path they had ventured. Temelkuran clearly loves her country and is mournful about the way it has gone and that she no longer can live there, having been brave enough to stand up to the authorities there.

More shocking though, is when I used this prism to look at how far down this path we and other countries had gone. I really hope it is not too late…

4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

After years of grubbing out hedges to make enormous fields for the huge tractors and other farm machinery, it is dawning on people that hedges are the lifeblood of the countryside. The irony is that a man from 2000 years ago could have told them this…

In some parts of the country, the hedge lines can be traced back as far as the Bronze Age and references to hedges are found scattered among lots of documents. Even though these hedges have been around a long time, following the wholesale theft of common land from the people by the aristocracy and the rich, lots more hedges were planted to enclose this land.

It is the underlying geology of the landscape that defines the plants that grow in the hedges in various parts of the country. Some areas are strong on holly, others have hawthorn, and wetter areas of the country you’ll find blackthorn. Because hedges have been part of the fabric of the country for so long, strange tales have permeated from these linear lines into folklore.

Replacing a hedge with a fence is just stupid. A fence absorbs no CO2, it cannot provide oxygen, shelter for stock, doesn’t provide nuts and berries or act as a windbreak and absorb rain. If treated to stop it from rotting, it will pollute the ground with all manner of toxins and will need replacing on a regular basis. A well-maintained and laid hedge can last indefinitely.

There was a formula for dating a hedge: Number of species per 30 yards x 110. It gives a reasonable guideline, but has been largely discredited now. The most accurate way is to look at old maps and trace the field lines and to go out into the landscape to see it for yourself. A survey of the hedges at Underhill Nature Reserve found eight species of trees and shrubs and an astounding 29 other species, five of which are seen as indicators of ancient woodland.

An ideal hedge will contain blackthorn and hawthorn (sometimes known as the Queen of trees), and whatever takes your fancy can be added to the mix. Hart even suggests adding in the non native plant and favours chokeberry because of their fruits.

Native trees support native wildlife, and in some cases, that amounts to hundreds of species. Flailing a hedge will stop it from flowering and fruiting, which is terrible for wildlife and not great for us. If you go back in time, the ancient landscapes were not dense woodland and forest, rather they were scrublands or, as Benedict MacDonald calls it, thornlands – a mix of woodland, scrub and grassland which was constantly changed by large herbivores bundling through it. In other words, a bit like the New Forest is now.

What every hedge needs is a pollard. It is a similar technique to coppicing. But rather than cutting the tree back to ground level, the branches are removed at head height. The effect is the same, though, the tree resprouts again and again. An oak that is pollarded every 50 years will provide wood to build houses and ships, and you still have the tree. A coppice could provide 96 – 180 cubic metres of wood and do this for centuries.

The next best thing to a live tree is a dead tree. Over 600 different insects require dead wood in their lifecycle. A large proportion of ancient hedges can be dead wood, especially where the hedge layer has filled in the gaps with some of the surplus brushwood.

Pretty much every plant in a hedgerow has some other use. Mind you, back then, they couldn’t obliterate the ‘weeds’ with the ultra-toxic chemicals that we now have access to. Some gardening websites claim that it is ‘natural’ to destroy these plants with flamethrowers… Hedgerow plants have often been used for the treatment of various ailments, for example, foxgloves for heart conditions, and so on. There are some really wacky cures out there…

In 2011, a guy called Dr Rob Wolton took a look at his 90m long hedge to see just how many species it contained. It was supposed to be a yearlong project, but he is still going. So far, he has found over 2000 (yes 2000) species in this hedge, and he is still going!

We should remember that we rely on all of these other lifeforms to live, too. The current insect apocalypse that is happening suggests that we have had a 75% drop in insect numbers, with some almost certainly going extinct, some species of which we will never know. This has a knock-on effect up and down the food chain, because if we don’t have pollinators, then we don’t have food to eat. Gone are the thousands of swallows that you’d see in the summer skies.

Hart considers the birds that have come to rely on hedgerows for their survival and expands on how a fully formed hedge can spell the difference between survival and ‘thrival’. As well as birds and insects, a decent hedge will give protection to a number of mammals and other creatures, in particular the hedgehog. I also learned that we used to have a species of tree frog in this country; sadly is a species long gone from the shores.

On top of all the other great benefits that a hedge can give us, it also acts as a year-round larder. There are fresh green leaves in the spring, and a plethora of fruits and berries in the autumn. Plus, numerous plants could be used for medicinal purposes, provided you knew what you were doing… Access to a hedge means you can fill your bottle and plate all year.

Politicians of all hues keep going on about planting trees to help combat climate change. It would help, but it would be good if they got behind planting hedgerows. Oh, and stopped accepting large donations from the oil industry…

Rant aside, rather than planting woodlands, so often done with the wrong trees in the wrong place and using dreadful plastic tree guards, we’d be better off planting and maintaining our hedgerows. They absorb carbon, the wood from them has multiple uses, they shelter crops and stock, stop soil erosion and don’t take up vast swathes of land. In fact, hedges’ ecosystem services outnumber woodlands and meadows. Plus, if coppiced regularly, it can be fairly profitable too.

I really liked this book. Hart is a well-informed and engaging writer, and this book is wide-ranging and interesting, especially when most people would think this is quite a narrow subject. If you are one of those people who think that we are not putting enough time and energy into caring for and planting new hedgerows, then this book would be right up your holloway.