The last days I have tried to tidy up a little bit by optimistically getting rid of stuff I hope I won’t need anymore in future. But like everything, it has become more of an exchange of things rather than being able to get rid of stuff. Especially as I got two guinea pigs now, via freecycle. I originally wanted a non-barking dog, but then that offer came along and I thought I would try. The two are not that tame yet, but seem to be happy to listen to classical music and they are very shy and a bit overweight.

This weekend it was the London Anarchist Bookfair as well as Edinburgh’s Independent and Radical Bookfair by Word Power. I was a bit disappointed that they both clashed, and the Edinburgh bookfair had less interesting events than usual, but a whole lot of Palestine Solidarity and other more socialist tendencies. This year there was hardly any factual, investigative or news journalism presentations, but novels, poems and prose. Mike Small and Kevin Williamson are planning to launch a new magazine (again), called “Bella Caledonia”, with a seemingly slightly Scottish nationalism editorial. However, there was some tendencies and new books which were interesting me: one investigation into “Blackwater”, the private American mercenary army, a lot of books about criticising New Labour’s policies into spending £60 billion on “consultants” to change and privatise education, health service and other public services and some books about PFI and one about the water struggles.

Have created a list of great international children’s book on Amazon. I am just so shocked that a lot of my favourite children’s books are not recognised or known at all in British culture – like Pippi Longstocking for example or even Momo. Unfortunately I could not find the Turkish book I have read a while ago, or the one set in ancient Rome. I thought it was called “Quo Vadis”, but I am sure it was a children’s book and not the classic by Henryk Sienkiewicz. I forgot the title of the book about the heist mystery set in ancient Egypt and the story of the Great Dane dog.

I have been busy swapping seeds on the Grow Your Own Grapevine Forum, and as I offered Red Onion seeds, I got into discussions about the fertility of F1 Hybrid seeds, and Phreddy pointed me to this excellent article.

Jason reports from Chiapas that both Coca-Cola and Pepsi first take and then pollute the drinking water at their factories above San Cristobal de la Casas. At the same time BASTA reports on Indymedia Germany that the wave of repression towards the Zapatiastas has lately increased. SINALTRAINAL reports that violence is also increasing towards Coca-Cola unionists in Colombia. [KanalB documentary]