No doubt you’ve noticed, as we have, how smartly the press has jumped on to the ecological bandwagon. Over the past twelve months we’ve received special ‘green’ issues of various magazines, encouraging us to inspect our supermarket fruit and veg for country of origin, buy a wormery and avoid flying if at all possible.
It’s all terribly worrying and bewildering, but we at Slightly Foxed feel that we too must at least try to do our modest bit for global warming, reduce our carbon footprint so to speak. So welcome to our ‘green’ summer issue, which will, we hope, transport you to interesting and unusual places without the necessity of moving out of your garden chair, or even out of bed.
(We’re reminded of an enterprising company we once heard of in the US which saved anxious Americans the trouble of actually travelling while providing all the kudos of an expensive foreign holiday. For a sum they would supply everything required to convince friends and neighbours that you had been abroad – postcards posted from foreign cities, foreign newspapers, metro tickets etc – while you could lurk comfortably at some undemanding place near home.)
In this issue Richard Platt visits Port William, Kentucky, to meet Wendell Berry’s creation, the philosophical barber Jayber Crow; Linda Leatherbarrow climbs Rum Doodle; Hilary Macaskill tackles the Cévennes with a friend and several donkeys; Stephen Glain explores Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria; Charles Elliott enjoys a Brazilian adventure with Peter Fleming; Charlie Lee-Potter revisits her Parisian youth; and Malcolm Gluck follows Rebecca West as she motors across the former Yugoslavia with some temperamental companions. And if you’re set on actually journeying to far-flung places, Lyall Watson provides some highly ecological and unusual tips for avoiding illness while abroad. These may literally turn you green.
Finally, on Friday, 6 July, Slightly Foxed will be making a short journey (we’ll try to travel in one car) to Alfriston in Sussex to launch the summer issue at Much Ado Books, a delightful independent bookshop nestling in the South Downs near Charleston, haunt of the Bloomsbury Group. We’ll be sharing the launch with our friends at Hortus, the distinguished gardening quarterly. Subscribers in the area will be receiving details, but if you feel like making a special trip and taking in Charleston, Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s home Monk’s House near Lewes, and the lovely countryside around, we’d be delighted to see you between 6 and 8 p.m. for a chat, a browse around the shop and a glass of wine. The phone number of Much Ado Books is 01323 871222.