An amusingly eclectic mix of culture and politics from Jonathan Calder "Well written, funny and wistful" - Paul Linford; "He is indeed the Lib Dem blogfather" - Stephen Tall "Jonathan Calder holds his end up well in the competitive world of the blogosphere" - New Statesman "Charming and younger than I expected" - Wartime Housewife; "Bitter and obsessive" - Mark Littlewood Wednesday, February 01, 2012 Living the town and country life "We live the town and country life," went the song in an old television commercial for the Town and Country Building Society. That society has long since merged with the Woolwich (and thus Barclays Bank), but maybe it was on to something. I have been reading the opening chapter of The Child in the Country by my favourite modern anarchist Colin Ward . In it, Ward looks at the consensus among so many theorists that city life was unhealthy for children and that the country was the place for them to grow up: Not only public schools and preparatory schools but borstals, reformatories and approved schools were deliberately situated in the country, far from the temptations and stimulations of the city, for rural childhood was especially valued. "Rousseau's 'Emile,' wrote Herbert Read, "seems to have been taught in a well-furnished country house, surrounded by a well-cultivated garden with all variety of natural phenomena within easy reach. That may be the ideal environment for the unfolding sensibility of the child - personally I believe that it is. That may be