Counting Sheep: A Celebration of the Pastoral Heritage of Britain

Sheep are the thread that runs through the history of the English countryside. Our fortunes were once founded on sheep, and this book tells a story of wool and money and history, of merchants and farmers and shepherds, of English yeomen and how they got their freedom, and above all, of the soil. Sheep have helped define our culture and topography, impacting on everything from accent and idiom, architecture, roads and waterways, to social progression and wealth. With his eye for the idiosyncratic, Philip meets the native breeds that thrive in this country; he tells stories about each breed, meets their shepherds and owners, learns about their past - and confronts the present realities of sheep farming. Along the way, Philip meets the people of the countryside and their many professions: the mole-catchers, the stick-makers, the tobacco-twisters and clog-wrights. He explores this artisan heritage as he re-discovers the countryside, and finds a lifestyle parallel to modern... From A Text Message To A War, From A Valentine's Rose To A Flight Or Even Having A Child, How Bad Are Bananas? Gives Us The Carbon Answers We Need And Provides Plenty Of Revelations. By Talking Through A Hundred Or So Items, Mike Berners-lee Sets Out To Give Us A Carbon Instinct For The Footprint Of Literally Anything We Do, Buy And Think About. He Helps Us Pick Our Battles By Laying Out The Orders Of Magnitude. The Book Ranges From The Everyday (foods, Books, Plastic Bags, Bikes, Flights, Baths...) And The Global (deforestation, Data Centres, Rice Production, The World Cup, Volcanoes, ...) Be Warned, Some Of The Things You Thought You Knew About Green Living May Be About To Be Turned On Their Head. Never Preachy But Packed Full Of Information And Always Entertaining. We always hear the same old green advice ... fly less, turn the thermostat down, drive a hybrid car. But what about all the other things we buy and do? Part green-lifestyle guide, part popular science book, How Bad Are Bananas? is the first book to provide the facts we need to make carbon-savvy purchases and lifestyle decisions. It also helps put things into perspective with entries for the big things (bushfires, volcanic eruptions and the Iraq war) as well as the little things (newspapers, sending a letter, a pint of beer). This book is packed full of surprises - a plastic bag has the smallest Part green-lifestyle guide, part popular science, How Bad Are Bananas? is the first book to provide the information we need to make carbon-savvy purchases and informed lifestyle choices and to build carbon considerations into our everyday thinking. The book puts our decisions into perspective with entries for the big things (the World Cup, volcanic eruptions, the Iraq war) as well as the small (email, ironing, a glass of beer). And it covers the range from birth (the carbon footprint of having a child) to death (the carbon impact of cremation)