Happy Friday!

It’s been a while, August has been fun, but I’ve been scattered and this space is always the first thing that stops when I’m full of overwhelm (good overwhelm, but man I need to pull myself together – more on that on Monday!)

Here are this week’s links:

‘It’s sink or swim’: A beginner’s guide to allotments in Aberdeen.

I worked on the privatisation of England’s water in 1989. It was an organised rip-off. I’ve been saying it forever, but utilities are national resources and should not be privatised, for me that’s water, energy, trains and the BBC. They should be run for the benefit of the citizens of the country. Most of them (trains excepted) were built as monopolies and the privatisations were a botch and not truly competitive. Capitalism has to have limits, this should be the line.

Truss and Sunak are promising sunshine without rain – don’t believe them. We are currently living in the actual consequences of no rain and lots of sunshine and it’s rubbish and leads to drought!

Four in 10 under-30s locked into rent contracts that exceed 30% of pay. At the risk of sounding like a man, it’s not just under 30’s, my rent has always been over 30% of my pay, when I was under 30 and now I’m nearly 50.

Emily Maitlis is finally free to say what needed saying: the BBC has lost its nerve

The crises of the past two years have killed the idea that markets will fix everything