This weekend I’m heading north to the Bluedot Festival (named for how the Earth looks from space) to host a conversation on the Lush ‘Power Plant’ Stage on Sunday with ‘Forget Me Not’ author Sophie Pavelle and founder of the XCellR8 laboratory Dr Carol Treasure. I interviewed both of them (separately) just a few weeks ago, and was thrilled when they both said yes to an invitation to talk with me again! If you’ve not heard the interviews please give them a listen. They’re both fantastically enthusiastic speakers and even managed to fill a generally pessimistic grumpy old git like me with a sense of optimism - Interview #29 Sophie Pavelle | Forget Me Not and Interview #30 Dr Carol Treasure | XCellR8 and non-animal testing.
Remarkably all the tickets for this weekend have sold out. Now, I think that’s more to do with Björk who’s headlining the main stage that evening, but if you are coming to see us can I point out that I’ve been trying to get the text about our conversation changed on the Bluedot website for what seems like weeks. What did they think “a UK-based laboratory devoted to animal-free safety” even meant (the wording should have been based on “XCellR8’s regulatory safety tests are entirely animal and animal-product free”)? And we’re not talking about ‘biodiversity and re-wilding in the UK’ (as critically important as those issues are). Based on just how upbeat both Sophie and Carol are, and how important their positivity struck me as a fellow campaigner when I talked with them for the interviews, we’ll be all about ‘Positive Communication’ - awful times these may be, we intend to leave a smile on the faces of whatever audience we do get.
I must admit that festivals are not normally my bag (been there, thrown up, slept in a puddle etc), and I wouldn’t normally want to do a four hundred-mile round trip for a 45-minute chat (talking of climate crises, eh), but Lush asked, and not only do Lush throw awesome parties they have supported me for many years and whatever I do in the future I will always have an unbreakable loyalty to Lush and (especially) founders Mark and Mo Constantine. Seriously, can you name another Company in the UK that has done as much to get rid of packaging, consistently funds campaigners like me, sabs groups, and human rights groups through sales of Charity Pot, and gives out huge cash prizes to individuals or groups fighting animal testing? Me neither. Yes, Lush can be a tad frustrating sometimes, but they’ve earned the right to be idiosyncratic in my opinion…
If you are thinking of popping in, do please say hello. I’m actually quite friendly and I won't try to make you sign up to this substack, I promise - it would just be nice to chew the cud with a few like-minded folk. Cheers!