We’ve been enjoying some welcome media hits (but not yet from here in the UK aside from an early interview with BBC’s Outriders).
The media interest from southern Europe is not a surprise to us – given the deep and unrelenting crisis the region is going through. Restart itself is a response to what we perceive to be a slow burn, deep economic and ecological crisis.We’ve been enjoying the seemingly growing interest in Ugo’s native Italy, starting with a green blog post, then an interview with a large news agency, radio and now a piece in one of the country’s largest dailies, Corriere della Sera.
Carlos from Spanish daily El Mundo took time to visit one of our events and to interview us. Here is the result.
A benefit of these newspaper stories is that we learn about repair activities in other places, for example PCOfficina in Milan. (Please let us know about communities of repair in Spain!)
One of the frustrating things for us is that we can’t scale tomorrow to Spain or Italy – but we would be really excited if the repair movement were to spread organically and stay connected.
To be fair I have always got the impression Mainland Europe (both North and South) also has had a much more “interested” attitude to hobby electronics and repair / repurposing, its why I try and keep up my language skills.
For a decade or more I have been passing on hobby electronics info from Europe as it is to younger people in England, but they are often too shy to get too deeply involved as they fear being judged as “geeks” or “nerds” (contrary to the mainstream (London?) media this term has not been “positively reclaimed” by wider groups of youth, any more than racial slurs have been).
Yet they will of course consume the tech if handed to them on a plate.
in reality it seems to be is the Europeans (and other ethnic groups) teaching the native English, who are somewhat belatedly and reluctantly learning (perhaps its not unlike introducing ethnic cuisine to England in the 1970s?)
Alex