Richard Mabey via Clare Winfield

‘It is easy to forget, as one stands before the modern supermarket shelf, that every single one of the worlds vegetable foods was once a wild plant. To some extent, we have become conditioned by the shrink-wrapped, perfectly shaped produce we find in our supermarkets, and we are reluctant to venture out into woods and marshland in search for food’
(Richard Mabey, Food for Free)

Question – 001

Three friends of the Bottle collective have their lost jobs in the last month.

• In the UK will the recession get worse before it gets better?

At the beginning of the year most news sources pointed to mid 2010 before things got better (source1), with the Bank of England interest rates not moving off of 0.5% since 5th March 2009 (source2) is this a sign banking systems/economies are still in trouble?

In the south of England there are still a lot of empty shops and offices to let, but most peoples lives seem to be back to normal. Is this a calm before the storm moment or are things really getting better?

Jonathan