Review: ‘The Painted Ocean’ by Gabriel Packard

Published by: Corsair

Publication Date: 3rd March 2016

I.S.B.N: 9781472151148

Review: ‘Third Wave Capitalism’ by John Ehrenreich

Third Wave Capitalism

How Money, Power, and the Pursuit of Self-Interest Have Imperiled the American Dream

by John Ehrenreich

Published by: Cornell University Press

ISBN: 9781501702310

Publication Date: 3rd  May 2016

Update: 23th June 2016 – Life in general and blog posts to come

Good grief, it’s been over a week since I posted. You’re probably not bothered but if you are this is what have I been up to.

Review: ‘Rebellion’s Message’ by Michael Jenks

Published by: Severn House

Publication Date: 30th April 2016

ISBN: 9781780290850

R.R.P.: £20.99

Format: Hardback

Received from netgalley.com in return for an honest review (as if my reviews are ever anything but painfully honest?)

Review: ‘Mars One: Humanity’s Next Great Adventure’

Edited by Norbert Kraft, MD, with James R. Kass, PhD, and Raye Kass, PhD

Published by: BenBella Books

Publication Date: 23rd February 2016

ISBN: 9781940363837

R.R.P (US): $16.99

Edition: Paperback

Glyphosate, how you torture me

By Benjah-bmm27 (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I’m a gardener, and spent years studying chemistry so this subject interests me. Therefore I am going to inflict it on you.

Chemicals are scary if you don’t understand them, and people especially get worried by the ones we use regularly on food plants and in horticulture, pesticides and herbicides. I want to concentrate on just one, Glyphosate; it is used in 750 different products worldwide and is the most popular herbicide in the world [1]. It’s a broad spectrum herbicide used in domestic, agricultural and forestry settings and by every council in the country to keep the paths tidy and cut the lines in to football and cricket pitches (except in Bristol, where they’ve experimented with vinegar after a successful campaign by local campaigners to ban the use of glyphosate there by the council).

Update: This weekend

I will mostly be doing nothing, since I’m exhausted. I went to bed 11 p.m. Thursday night and woke up at 11.30 p.m. on Friday night, with a four hour gap in the afternoon. This is what happens when I have a busy week. I don’t know how I will cope next week, I’m even busier and it’s my birthday next Friday. I don’t particularly want to spend my birthday sleeping.

I haven’t managed to get much reading done, except reading New Scientist and Jo Brand’s second book of memoirs obviously, because I’m tired and my eyes are playing up because my glasses broke on Tuesday so I’m using my old pair. I’m going to collect my repaired glasses in the morning, before I go and visit the library before it closes to move in to the building. Since I haven’t been able to read much I haven’t got any book reviews for you this weekend.

Instead, I hope to be up to writing about glyphosate, a blog post I meant to write last weekend, but I got distracted trying to sort out my holiday this year.

I should probably go back to bed.