The arrival of the BBC’s The Big Allotment Challenge shows that grow-your-own is a pursuit worthy of the same attention as baking, dating and home improvement. As an allotment holder myself, albeit very much the head gardener’s lackey, I’m ambivalent about this. Allotments are wonderful things but the rise, fall, and rise again in their popularity tells a story about social change that is both encouraging and dispiriting…
ReadAmerican photographer Shellburne Thurber’s images of consulting rooms reveal the tensions of psychoanalysis. The “patient” lies on the couch, as though receiving medical treatment. At the same time, the walls are lined with books, paintings and objets d’art, telling us this is not a hospital but a site of intellectual endeavour. So is psychoanalysis a “talking cure” for the sick or a creative, humanistic exploration of the psyche? The ambiguous set-up of the therapeutic space suggests it is a little of both.
ReadIt is as though we have two different models of human freedom here which don’t fit neatly together. There is the spontaneous free spirit, flying where she feels like, and the composed free intellect, choosing what she decides is right.
ReadWe can’t just expect instinctive preferences for the natural to disappear. The best we can do is gently keep push at the limits of the natural and see how far we are willing to go. We just don’t know in advance what our limits will be.
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