This is a collection of five things I found out about in the past week that felt relevant to my work.

They can be read as individual curios, or, as I understand them, as waymarkers towards a more interesting and inclusive culture of fitness.

I have been re-reading Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Book of Ferment and Human Nutrition. It’s a catalogue of food cooking and preservation methods from all over the world - a true cornucopia of delights!

I was very lucky to get a copy. I had set up a search alert on Abe Books but any copies were well out of my budget. Then I saw it on the shelf at a friend’s house in Sheffield! And he said he hadn’t read it in years and that I could have it! I was delighted. Thank you, Ed.

Yesterday I searched to see how much copies are going for now and was pleased to see it’s been reprinted!

I’m so happy it’s not been lost. There is much to learn in it about our relationship to food and the food industry and it has been hugely influential. For example, I read on his website that the legendary fermenter Sandor Ellis Katz began his experiments after reading it!

Towards the end of the book there is a section on what he called “Life Enhancing Activities”. Here are his thoughts on ‘Exercise and Life Interest’:

This is a natural adjunct of gardening. Building compost piles, trellising, picking vegetables, and mulching are all active processes, and looking after the garden and the health of the family or community provides a varied interest in life.
Every gardener has the best chance of being healthy; to garden is to be patient, optimistic; to live expectantly as if tomorrow matters; to teach and share with others. Gardeners sleep well, get mild but regular exercise, eat very well of many foods, and are generally good cooks. They browse or snack often from their gardens and eat simply of good food. They live in fresh air and with natural things, and daydream rather than meditate. They are practical, skeptical, and hardy people, and feel self reliant and secure in themselves. All this leads to good health and along life. your garden and live in it, and help others to do so. This will return power over their lives. Above all, gardeners are content to die, as resurrection from dead material is a daily event in a garden, not a rare miracle guaranteed by some guru!

Of course, there is currently a certain amount of privilege in having access to a garden…

Some of the more esoteric recipes in the book reminded me of Christina Dodwell’s magnificent Explorer’s Handbook, which always makes me want to live a more active life with its sections on how to build a saddle for a camel and what to do when you get arrested as a suspected spy…

The quote below is softer than the strictly-pragmatic tone of most of the book, so perhaps not the most representative, but it’s very evocative and makes me want to immediately plan trips…

Sand is lovely to sleep in. Wriggle until it fits your shape. Or sleep on a bed of heather which is bouncy and sweet-smelling. Other comfortable natural mattresses can be made from bracken, broom, evergreen branches, dry grass, dry moss, or any dry springy foliage.

I love to watch skateboarding videos from New York City. In recent weeks, these have given a compelling alternative inside perspective on the city during lockdown:

Miguel Rio Branco’s early ‘90s photo series ‘Out of Nowhere’ was taken in Santa Rosa Boxing Club in Rio de Janeiro, “where former prostitutes, street kids and people of all backgrounds go to train”.

And finally, here’s an hour of ‘80s Japanese pro-wrestler entrance music, selected by DJs Cozy Lariat and Fuzzy Peach for NTS.

What would your ring walk soundtrack be?!

New Fitness Culture Scrapbook #13