Yes, for some, the rural indyll has indeed come true. Take Bigby
for example, a small 'village' in North Lincolnshire - there hundreds
of Bigbys up and down the country. I say 'village' as some would
dispute that a cluster of houses with no school, post office, pub,
shop, bus service worth the name, or any other obvious community
facility at all, save a more-than-half deserted church, is actually a
village at all, more a kind of piece of wealthy suburb with nice
rurally housaes that happens to be many miles from its town where
all the inhabitants, partners too, work to afford those high house
prices. This means they seldom actually get to see, let alone
enjoy, the nice 4 bedroom executive cottages that are the fruits of
their 8am to 6pm or later (maybe 11 or 12 hours away from home
with commuting to Grimsby or wherever) hard work, certainly not
the gardens, but then they have built up a nice £200,000 nest egg
for the government to take off them when 40 years down the line
they begin to get Alzheimers and have to move into a nursing
home. And of course that nest egg wouldnt be worth half as much
if there were any nasty old shops - yuck! in the 'village' to attract
kids, or slow and pesky old age pensioners, or - even yuckier, the
'poor' - aaaarrrggh!! Of course the high house prices, lack of shops
or a bus to get to them, lack of local unskilled work, etc has
ensured the poor will never get a foothold in beautiful Britain and
her Bigbys. as did the selling off of all rural council housing in the
early 1980s. Saturdfay of course all these hard pressed executives
swarm off to the golf course the other side of Brigg, a nice piece of
green desert, water, land, and pesticide hungry, conveniently
located at the head of Bottesford Beck so all said pesticides drain
away nicely into the fields beyond. But its just as well the golf
course is there as there are few places left to walk eldsewhwere in
the countryside. Not that the views aren't there, in fact there is too
much 'view' because all the hegderows, woods, etc are being
removed to make 6,000 acre fields to produce cheap food for Asda
etc. - see, the countryside is good for the poor, too. after a hard
day's golfiong there is Ye Olde Biggate Lodge to rest up in, a
marvellous imitation of a tudor inne, ca.1970, complete with
executive hotel, spa, gym, to work off all that unhealthy fatty food
from the supermarket/pub/ruched exectuive lunch on the hoof. Also
Ye authenticce Yorkshire puddinge, and other traditional 15th
century ready-microwaved fare. At prices the average minimum
wage earner would have to work over half a day for, but of course
none of the great unwashed poor ever come out here to sully the
place, the bus only comes by every 2 hours and the nearest stop
is over a quarter of a mile away. Then its back past a (genuinely)
old market town, Brigg, but the by pass ensures all the car-borne
will actually shop at Tesco, and never think of entering the historic
centre. Which is just as well as the small shops in that centre are
closing down fast and soon it won't be worth a visit anyway. Now if
they closed the Brigg Jobcentre too they could force all the poor
there to move into derelict council housing in nearby Scunthorpe to
get their dole money, and complete even further the economic-
ethnic cleansing of our nice rural countryside.
Ah, the joys of rural life, I really can't wait!
> RURAL MYTH "ALL TRUE" CLAIMS ACADEMIC
>
> Controversial claims were made recently of the nature of the British
> countryside. Dr David Evans of the Department of Geography, University of
> Rotherham, speaking at the Royal Geographical Society conference in Belfast
> earlier this month, argued that recent negative images of the British
> countryside were a poor reflection of reality. Dr Evans argued that the
> real English countryside was more akin to the apparently idealised images
> found, for example, on calenders, chocolate boxes and decorative place mats.
> While previously dismissed by academics as kitsch inventions or 'rural
> myths', Dr Evans claimed that such images were, in fact, highly nuanced and
> accurate representations of rural reality.
>
> Dr Evans claims were based on extensive analysis of thousands of discourses
> of rurality which included episodes of Heartbeat, the novels of Miss Read
> and Joanna Trollope as well as more convention sources such as little China
> cottages, available from Cotswold gift shops, and jigsaw puzzles, as well as
> ethnographic research in such typically rural spaces as tea shops, national
> trust gardens and cricket pitches located next to picturesque village greens
> and duck ponds. Dr Evans' research found no evidence to support claims made
> by its critics that the British countryside is impoverished, smelly and
> boring. Dr Evans' presentation firmly concluded the British countryside is
> a "nice place" populated by "well-fed labourers happy in their work" and
> characterised by "bountiful harvests, deeply routed community structures and
> an egalitarian social life".
> ********************************
>
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Hillary Shaw, P/G Geography, University of Leeds
"One day Confucius got to visit Hell, then Heaven. Hell
turned out to be a huge banqueting hall, but the inmates
had to eat with 6 foot chopsticks. Unable to feed
themselves., they starved in the midst of plenty. Heaven
was exactly the same banquet room, and long chopsticks.
Only in Heaven they were feeding each other".
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