Time The Dreaded Enemy

A Degree in Soundbite-ism?

2011-09-09T12:15:00.000Z

The weather is grey, and there is the sound of thunder in the distance; my outside activities are temporarily on hold. I have been watching television and caught a speech by David Cameron, given at the start of the school year at a new Free School.

I remember that great star of the programme Opportunity Knocks, Hughie Green. We all used to sit down as a family to watch him presenting his unknown talent. But the phrase I remember him for the most was this; “…and I mean that most sincerely, folks!” We all knew, of course, that with his adopted transatlantic accent and smooth flow of talk, the one thing he was not was sincere! So when I listen to a political speech in which the most frequently occurring word is ‘frankly’ – I am inclined to be less than completely trusting.

I am not against the concept of free schools – the jury is still out. I do think that teachers should have more autonomy, and I believe that a free education is a right that should be available to all, in the national interest. But when I see the size of the school that my grandchildren go to, and when I see that the less bright pupils are left largely to ‘catch up if they can’, I am convinced that the real solution to our education problems is to double the number of teachers and halve the size of classes. Smaller rural schools should be kept open so that numbers of schools should increase rather than decreasing through mergers and closures. Of course it costs money – it’s what is called ‘an investment for the future’!

But I despair when I hear David Cameron describing as ‘powerful’ Michael Gove’s sound-bite; “You have to learn to read before you can read to learn!”

The over-use of sound-bites is, I believe, directly associated with the present state of the party political system, which appears to me to have outlived its usefulness. I remember a time when a Party would state its beliefs and principles, and voters would decide which set of principles they wanted to support. Now, though, politicians take a straw poll (by one means or another) to discover which policies are the ones which voters like, and then say, ‘That’s what we will promise to do!’ The trouble is that the main parties are therefore all heading in broadly the same direction! So we have ended up with a marginally bluer version of that gifted self-publicist Tony Blair – David Cameron, who used to have a career in PR! I am completely confident that my own MP will slavishly follow the party line while paying brief lip-service to what her constituents say; probably in the hope of a place in Government.

So I am afraid that while I listened to David Cameron being very frank at the Norwich Free School, my eyes were inexorably drawn to the sign in the screen behind him which displayed what must be the ultimate in meaningless sound-bites, ‘The Future Is Here!’

A Satisfactory Day

2011-08-31T13:00:00.001Z

It was my time to give blood again yesterday. I am never quite sure why I am so keen to do this, or why I get such satisfaction from it; but I am almost on a high when I have done the deed. Strange.

Before I kept my blood-doning appointment I went to the centre of Truro for a pasty and a relaxing stroll. It was the first opportunity I had had to view Truro’s newest landmark, the sculpture of the Drummer. I am not particularly keen on it and don’t think that most people will have the slightest idea what it is supposed to represent, or what its significance is. The drummer is a naked figure balanced precariously on a globe, beating on a drum strapped in front of him with very extravagant arm movements. I guess that his position, off centre, on the globe, is supposed to indicate forward movement, but it looks to me as if he is about to fall off! His dignity has been somewhat punctured by the placing of a condom on the appropriate organ. Perhaps it is part of a ‘safe sex’ campaign!

I arrived early to give blood, but they slotted me in straight away. I found myself sitting next to a charming 20 year old woman, whose mode of dress and presentation were full of character and interest. I asked her about the beautifully drawn fake tattoo on her face – it was a kind of celtic design, which her mother told me that she painted on herself. I found her dress style attractive, especially the pronounced fish-net pattern of tights and the shoes which were yellow on one foot and green on the other! It was her first time at a blood-doning session and she was a little nervous, explaining that she couldn’t stand the sight of blood! (It later transpired that she was not permitted to donate until certain checks had been made with her doctor; the Service being their usual cautious self.)

During conversation with her and her mother I discovered that Zoe and her boyfriend were to emigrate to Brisbane in a year’s time. They are going for a year in the hope that they will be allowed to stay permanently. She is studying Psychology, and he Journalism. I explained my own Antipodean connections, and gave them my email address, just in case they fancy some time volunteering as interns at a certain site in Tasmania!

My lovely friends, complete with Great Dane, have successfully moved lock, stock and barrel to their forest-covered hillside in Tasmania, from Holland. They had to wait in Melbourne until the dog escaped from quarantine, and finally made it to their new home last week. They have many challenges ahead, including building their house, sorting out a satellite phone connection, setting up rain water collection, sanitary arrangements, a garden, an aquaponics unit, all from scratch. Exciting and scary! But they are young, energetic and talented, and have become experts in permaculture and natural building methods like cob, super-adobe, earthship techniques, manufacturing solar panels, and much more. I am looking forward to visiting in a few months.

Perhaps on a future visit I will once more meet Zoe with her different coloured feet!

Who Really Runs the Country

2011-05-08T22:00:00.004Z

This is the text of a letter I have recently written to my local paper. The City of Truro seems to be scheduled for major development over the next 15 or 20 years, and the local residents and local councillors seem powerless to stop it!

I am the first to admit that when it comes to the workings of government, both local and national, I am pretty naïve. But I am beginning to understand what the present Government means by ‘localism’. They are like the grown-up at the Christmas party who says, “I will decide where to put the Christmas tree, and how big it will be; and you, my children, may put the fairy on the top!”

The letter from Caroline Jones about the proposed Duchy/Waitrose development resonated very strongly with me, and strengthened my conviction that we are being governed not by elected politicians but by the mass retail industry.

Permissions will soon be sought for developments along the A390. These are the sites chosen by developers as being suitable for housing and supermarkets (i.e. showing the greatest potential for profit). Other sites are available, but the developers are not interested in these.

The only ‘defense’ which the Local Authority has is to provide a brief for developers to follow, thus retaining a little control – the fairy on the Christmas tree.

If the Council had the temerity to refuse permission for these sites to be developed, there would be a public inquiry, and the Secretary of State would find in favour of the developers, in the interests of that myth, economic growth.

Why these sites? Because there needs to be enough housing to accommodate the residents needed to service the supermarkets – to work in them, but more importantly to shop in them. And there lies the irony! I am old enough to remember when big business was there to service the population, but now it’s the other way round!

Never mind that we might prefer to move away from the superstore model, and encourage locally owned retail units processing and selling local goods – although this would provide more local employment. The unfortunate fact is that we do not have the clout or the cash that the Tescos and Asdas of this world have, who continue to suck the money out of the local economy and channel it out of the County, or even the Country.

These large transnational chains are able to buy the developers, who in turn are able to buy the land for eye-watering sums even before a planning application is made, secure in the knowledge that with the Westminster Government’s agenda behind them, the Local Authority doesn’t stand a chance. Thus local residents are reduced to a shopping statistic.

Meanwhile, what of the Core Strategy Document? Although the initial consultation period has only just finished, it seems to have become irrelevant! It appears to have already been superseded by these proposals.

So localism does not mean local decision-making. It does not mean either National Government or developers accepting the views of local communities, how ever much they pretend.

And while ‘consultation’ may mean Cornwall Council listening to the views of residents and parish and town councils, it does not mean that National Government will put the views and interests of local communities above its own. And, let’s be honest, we know who carries more weight with the Government – you only have to note that occasionally a Councillor may get an MBE, while supermarket bosses get knighthoods!

Every supermarket that gets built reduces the viability of small customer-friendly shops, not just in the City, but also in surrounding communities where local shops are not just a convenience but a point of social contact. As these shops lose custom to supermarkets, and as village residents are more inclined to shop away from their village because the small shop can no longer afford to stock a wide range of goods, the village itself slowly withers. An increasing proportion of residents work and shop away from the village, then start to send their children to the bright new school in the new development, as promised by the developer; the village becomes a dormitory and loses any chance it might have had to become a sustainable community with some measure of self sufficiency.

I don’t know what measures our elected Councillors could take to protect us from the destructive power of these retail giants, but I wish I could feel that they are all on our side (as I know that some are). Of course there is a need for more housing. But it should be up to us where it goes and how many there should be – just as Councillor Kaczmarek’s Core Strategy Document suggested. Was that document just another PR exercise? Do we have to continue to give in to blackmail – no Park and Ride without Waitrose?

So while I am deeply sympathetic to demonstrations and campaigns against cuts, or student fees, what would really get me marching is a campaign, led by our Councillors, in favour of genuine localism, as against the sham policies of this Coalition and its Big Society.

Irish Water Supply Crisis (and thoughts arising!)

2010-12-31T19:57:00.003Z

The weather hasn’t been great these past couple of weeks. Travel has been disrupted, on the roads, the railways and in the air. Northern Ireland has had significant problems with water supplies, with many people being without supply for several days. Urgent calls for blood donors went out to anticipate increased demand. Petrol stations ran out of fuel.

The priority amongst those who administer these facilities has been to get back to normal as soon as possible. The priority amongst everyone else seems to have been to find someone to blame, and to scapegoat them. The result of all this blame is to take the attention of the top managers and officials away from problem solving, in order to provide a public apology, a resignation or a decision not to take a bonus.

Heads must roll!

Small consideration is given to the fact that this level of snow and freezing temperatures at this time of the year is (or has been up until now) a freak occurrence. No manager, administrator or minister worth his salt is going to spend a fortune preparing for freak conditions, thereby risking the wrath of the budget keepers, the accountants and the voters. If those conditions can be shown, later, to fall outside the definition of ‘freak’, and nearer to the definition of ‘normal’, that is the time to spend the money.

What we have heard, and will hear again, is that well worn phrase, ‘Lessons will be learned.’ My question would be, ‘Which lessons?’

We can safely assume that in Northern Ireland, decades of troubled times, under all shades of Westminster government, has resulted in a considerable under-spend on water infrastructure. It’s pretty pointless then, to look for a token scapegoat.

The problems at our airports arise from the assumption that freak conditions are just that, and are unlikely to occur. To compare the situation at Heathrow with that at better equipped continental airports is invidious – they have always had more snow and lower temperatures than we have, and are more used to it; furthermore, they have not been without their weather related problems. Recent freak conditions in the US have caused similar disruptions, and they, too, are more used to severe winter conditions than we are.

The complaints regarding road travel seem to relate to a lack of communication, and the habit of distressed drivers of blocking the hard shoulder.

Much of our difficulties, and all our complaints, arise from an expectation that someone else should be looking after us. The workings of State and Big Business have contrived, over the years, to deprive us of the ability to fend for ourselves, to prepare for extreme conditions as a matter of course, and to ‘get on with it’ at times of stress.

The people in Ireland who are without water are certainly in a very difficult situation, and don’t need reminding of the circumstances in third world countries which require women and young children to walk 10 or 15 km a day to collect the water supply for the whole family, including the sick and elderly within their communities. The distressed road users, many of whom, despite the forecasts, set out on their journeys completely unprepared, won’t give a thought to the millions of people who aren’t able to afford a bicycle, never mind a car. The stranded Christmas holidaymakers feeling miserable in airport terminals are unlikely to work out what percentage of the world’s population have never left their village (or refugee camp), let alone their country.

No, I fear that the important lessons won’t be learned.

In this country we’re lucky – we are not generally short of water, as long as we are sensible. Irrigation of crops is not as prevalent as it is, for example, in North America: there, without irrigation, food production would decline to an unsustainable level, and yet constant irrigation degrades the soil, necessitating increased use of fossil-gas based fertilisers. At the same time, a growing city-based population is taking an increasing proportion of the available water supply: availability of clean water per capita is decreasing as water tables drop and replenishment can’t keep up with demand. Many parts of the world depend on grain exports from the US; and yet, as it takes 1000 tons of water to produce a ton of grain, there will come a time not too many years hence, when the US will no longer be able to export grain – and the irony is that a proportion of their crop will go to the production of bio fuel.

The most water-hungry grain crop is rice. In North Korea, where a majority of the population is undernourished, there is no longer sufficient fuel to power the irrigation systems upon which their staple crop, rice, depends. To make matters worse, in winter they can no longer heat their hospitals, let alone their homes. They don’t have fuel for their farm machinery, so farmers have to do the work manually – but being seriously undernourished, and living in cold accommodation, the labour is very much less than efficient, leading to increasing food shortage and malnutrition. Ultimately, complete societal breakdown is inevitable without huge help from outside.

In a large proportion of irrigated land in Northern China, the water tables are dropping by a meter a year – rivers and rainfall just can’t keep up with demand. In India, two thirds of the Punjab is losing its water tables at the rate of 20 centimetres a year.

Although there was some controversy over a misguided claim by the IPCC regarding how soon the Himalayan glaciers would disappear, that should not blind us to the established fact that these glaciers are receding at a significant rate (as they are in other parts of the world including Europe). Another fact is that a third of the world’s population is dependent on those glaciers for clean water. Already some of the world’s great rivers are reduced to a trickle, or dry up completely, when the demands of agriculture are at peak – and the periods when this happens are getting longer each year.

So what lessons should our politicians, managers and administrators be learning?

First, it is now clear that current agricultural practices are unsustainable (even without the threat of peak oil). This will become increasingly obvious as fossil-based fuel and fertiliser, and thence food, become more and more expensive. A partial solution to this is for agriculture to become more community based, and organic, with a loosening or abolition of the regulatory constraints which are placed on such things as community composting. This solution might involve some incentive to larger land-owners to allow some of their land to be put to community use (without charge). Small organic community based schemes have been shown elsewhere (Cuba for example) to be several times more productive than standard agricultural practice. As the size of a farmed area increases, the productivity per square meter reduces – so small community based units are the optimum for yield, as well as providing local employment, helping communities to enhance self reliance and resilience.

Second, all farming must become less dependent on oil and oil based products very quickly. Instead of cutting budgets on research, more funds should be provided to research and revitalise new farming methods. There are ways of growing crops which take up far less space than current systems, for example, and these should be investigated and perfected as quickly as possible. Lack of oil is not synonymous with ‘back to the stone age’. Properly researched modern organic methods have the ability to increase not only production, but more importantly, nutritional value.

Thirdly, the present rather tired efforts to enhance the value of ‘community’ should be doubled or trebled. This Government is making a few of the right noises in this direction but their actions are working against their sentiments. The more that a local community is stimulated, the more local work becomes available, the more money is generated locally. There was a time when light industry could be found in village high streets, whereas now it is shunted out to industrial ‘parks’, drawing people away from their communities, and engendering a mindset which embraces the long commute, the supermarket, the ‘dormitory town’ and the school with 1500 pupils which produces students who are outside their own communities right from the start.

Fourthly, politicians should be helping to educate the electorate to the fact that life cannot continue as it is. Our lifestyles are going to change whether we like it or not, but at present the Government is doing absolutely nothing to educate us for this. Major changes will occur and our leaders and most people in the ‘developed’ world are walking towards those changes with our eyes shut! The later we leave our preparations the harder it will be to live with those changes and the more chaotic and destructive will be the outcome.

The water crisis in Ireland leads me to wonder, with all the rigorous, so-called environmentally friendly building regulations, why new buildings are not required to capture rainwater for use, at least, in toilets and kitchen sinks. There is no reason why we should feel entitled to use good drinking water for anything other than drinking and cooking.

While we are whining at the Government because they aren’t keeping our roads clear or our trains running, some small island nations are already suffering deeply as a result of rising sea levels. Some African countries are suffering prolonged drought and loss of crops. Others devote their agricultural resources to producing crops for export instead of feeding themselves, mostly through the ‘good’ offices of the IMF and the WTO.

Unless real action is taken to change the way we live, we will soon be whining about failure of road, rail and air travel through lack of economically viable fuel supplies, and while our main sources of groceries (the supermarkets) only keep sufficient stocks to last less than a week without replenishment, we should certainly start to learn how to keep a sensibly stocked store cupboard. Globally we are heading towards shortage of oil, shortage of water and a spiralling global temperature.

The lesson which should be learned by the politicians is not when or how to apologise. It is that there are a number of potential crises up ahead. If these materialise and find us unprepared, it won’t be the odd minister who will have to resign! Meanwhile, those of us who can should incorporate our preparation for the future into our everyday lives, a bit at a time, until it becomes second nature.

Our Unsustainable Lives - an exercise in pessimism!

2010-06-13T10:49:00.003Z

I have become increasingly frustrated by the approach most people take towards the major problems faced by our ‘civilisation’ in this increasingly hazardous modern world. We have an economic crisis which, we are told, is the daddy of them all. We have climate change, about which almost everyone is in denial at least to some degree (in other words, although many people accept it is happening, few understand or consider the true depth of the looming problem). And we have Peak Oil – a phrase which is much more used than understood – which could pose a similar level of threat to our survival as does climate change if it is not addressed.

A significant chunk of the population is in the same position as I am – the real crisis will not be likely to hit me where it hurts in my lifetime. Should I therefore not care? I talk to people all the time who believe that they are off the hook because they believe it won’t affect them personally. I have two replies to them. One is this: Don’t be too damn sure that you won’t live to see climate and fuel related crises – their warning signs are already there! The other is this: Think of our grandchildren (or do you really not care?)

I am increasingly annoyed by the pundits and politicians, who talk about the pros and cons of nuclear power, coal fired power stations, hydrogen fuel cells, bio-diesel, ethanol, whether the carbon footprint of a kiwi fruit in a UK supermarket can be justified, and whether or not to buy a hybrid car.

They are all missing the point, because they are all looking for a politically acceptable way of cutting services, taxing consumption, encouraging recycling by imposing a higher landfill tax, and a host of other bits of tinkering, all without either upsetting the few people who actually vote, or significantly changing anybody’s comfortable lifestyle.

Oh how I wish they would start telling us the truth!

The future of human life on this planet depends upon us learning to reduce drastically our greenhouse gas emissions, maintaining what is left of our ecosystem so that it continues to sequestrate CO2 (which is what has kept our atmosphere human-friendly over the millennia), and accepting that our current level of consumerism is not just self indulgent, it is suicidal, regardless of the source of the energy. The fact is that we as a race are consuming more energy than the sun (the source of all our energy) gives us on a day to day basis; and so we raid the bank (fossil fuel), and look what happens to banks when they lend unsustainably!

Consuming less does not mean just making sure that some phoney organisation has sanctioned our hardwood patio furniture as coming from some mythical sustainable source, it means we don’t buy hardwood furniture! It does not mean hesitating over whether the third TV should have a 21” or a 28” screen – it means not having a third TV. And it doesn’t mean buying runner beans, or worse by far, flowers, out of season from the other side of the world (and yes I do feel sorry for the Kenyans, but they must grow food for themselves, not us!)

We hear the phrase, ‘Think outside the box,’ often enough, usually when related to Frank Field, or Alan Sugar. But we, the ubiquitous middle class (for there is no other class these days) do not, ever, think outside the box.

Many of us, commendably, compost and recycle what we can. But if enough of us took a stand in saying, for instance, ‘I won’t buy this item, because the packaging will have to go to landfill’, the packaging tide might start to turn – but of course not enough of us will, because to find an alternative to the supermarket or Happy Shopper for our meat supply is often just too much trouble.

When I asked my brother about the fuel consumption of his new hybrid car, it turns out that it is higher than my diesel van! That isn’t his fault – Government propaganda has encouraged this illusory ‘green option’ for years.

We really need a leader (and it isn’t going to be any of the current crowd) who will say something like, ‘ I’m here for five years, no more and no less, and this is what we are going to do: Stop all new road construction, stop the purchase of a new Trident, cap all salaries to 10 times the minimum wage, make all public transport free and increase the service, renationalise the railways and buses of course, subsidise local shops through the tax system, cap the speed limit at 50 m.p.h. and enforce it, make people pay for doctor’s appointments but make prescriptions free, tax air fuel, phase out oil-based fertiliser, encourage people to grow food on open spaces such as road verges and roundabouts,’ and I could go on....!’

I can hear middle class voices saying, ‘But that’s just socialism, isn’t it?' Well, I suppose it almost is, although these are only supposed to be examples of ‘thinking outside the box’!

But face it, the capitalist system is precisely what fetched us up in this situation in the first place.

Economies can’t just go on growing – it isn’t possible.

I am the last person to recommend isolationism as a solution – I would not suggest we stop all trade with other countries, but anyone should be able to see the funny side of sending recycled plastic to China to be turned into cheap plastic toys, to be sent straight back – it’s madness! We should tax cheap plastic imports to the limit, and allow people in this country the opportunity to make cheap plastic toys from recycled plastic! Thus, more jobs are created – and if the cheap plastic toys don’t sell because they are too expensive, then we could find another use for the recycled plastic – which, because of Peak Oil, will soon become a resource in considerable demand!

Many of us are fond of suggesting that the ‘green’ movement is a bottom-up movement, and at the moment it is. But we shouldn’t fall into the trap of thinking that that is enough to solve our problems: that is what we elect politicians to do.

Unfortunately, none of our politicians (except, dare I say, Caroline Lucas) have the vision to understand what is happening to our world.

So we should all find our own way to explain it to them!

Compulsory Water Metering

2010-06-11T10:18:00.002Z

A letter was published in our local paper, the West Briton, this week, expressing horror at the thought of compulsory water metering. This was my reply!

"I was really interested to read the letter from Miss Trewin regarding water metering, particularly the paragraph in which she states that ‘Any kind of compulsory action undermines democracy and is an invasion of the peoples’ democratic rights’. After all, the basis of democracy is the law and its creation and enforcement!

To follow that line of thought through to its logical conclusion, I guess Miss Trewin resents the fact that electricity and gas supplies also have to be metered! Perhaps we should instead be subjected to an inflated standing electricity or gas charge based on house size and location as is the case with unmetered water! The infrastructure associated with water supply is significant, and expensive to maintain (as with electricity and gas), and I cannot think of a reason to treat water as a special case!

More seriously, I am a supporter of Green policies and principles, specifically the principle of conserving our resources where possible. Having used an unmetered supply of water for many years, I came to realise that a more fair and honest approach would be to have a meter installed, so that I paid for what I used. The value from my point of view would be that I would be able to monitor my own water use, and avoid wasting this precious resource. As it turned out, the meter has had the effect of reducing my water bill by more than 50%.

Miss Trewin naively believes that ‘it is logical people will only use the amount of water needed...’ – I have to say that her faith in the human race’s ability to behave in a logical way is different from mine! The fact is that if volume of water used is reflected in the water bill, people will be more careful with its use, as they are with electricity. Additionally, it would enable anyone to judge whether they are being charged fairly or not.

We in Cornwall have probably the highest water charges in the country, but that is mainly due to the burden of catering for the tourists who visit, whether through beach cleaning or sewage treatment. Whether that is fair or not is a question for politicians, and I don’t think it is at the top of their current ‘to-do’ list!

In this economically challenged world, I take the view that we should all pay a fair rate for all our services, and compulsory water metering would allow us to do that. Miss Trewin wonders who would benefit – I would suggest that in the end, the whole population would.

Ring Out the Old, Ring In the New!

2010-05-31T10:06:00.001Z

What I remember of the political scene before the election was an all-pervading atmosphere of negativity. We had all the scandals associated with expense-fiddling, all the sniping, all the destructive criticism of any attempt by any politician to do anything positive. We used to get many personal and vindictive attacks on politicians just because they were of a different political hue. We appeared to have forgotten what democracy was all about. We appeared to have stopped respecting democratic principles.

Then we had the election. Times changed (thank Heaven!) and we found ourselves being governed by a coalition. It started to emerge that there could indeed be respect for opposing viewpoints, a respect of the right of people to disagree.

There have been a few dissenters – voters saying, ‘I voted LibDem to keep the Tories out, and now look what we’ve got!’

But those people missed the point. If everyone voted for what they wanted instead of against what they didn’t want, we would have a clearer picture of what the majority view is. I’m afraid I take the view that anyone who voted tactically deserved whatever they got!

If you wanted a Labour government, you should have voted Labour. And if you voted Labour and didn’t get a Labour government, it’s because Labour DIDN’T GET ENOUGH VOTES!

It is a bare fact that with the voting numbers stacked as they were, this coalition was the only form of government that was going to function in a stable way, and although I am not a supporter of either of the two governing parties, and although I believe that the policies of the Green Party are the ones which would work the best, I acknowledge that WE DIDN’T GET ENOUGH VOTES! We are, as yet, in a tiny minority.

So...yes...I support this coalition and wish it well.

Of course, we Greens believe that cuts to front-line services are unnecessary. But that only works if all the other Green policies are put in place. In isolation, to say that this government should not be making the proposed cuts is complete nonsense – they have to! In order to remain true to their election campaigns and their coalition agreement, they have to go down this road. Not our choice, but hey! You can’t win them all! For our Government to remain stable and get us out of the mess we are in, and to avoid further recession, and to maintain our current credit rating while the Euro teeters on the brink of going down the pan; and within the constraints that the majority of the country voted for by voting as they did, they have no option but to act in the way that they are.

In these circumstances, I really hope that the Labour opposition do as they promised, and provide a constructive opposition, and that all parties find a way of avoiding the old snarling, sniping, character-assassinating ways of the past, which drive the general voting public to distraction.

And this brings me on to David Laws.

It is unfortunate that probably the most competent manager of our finances in the government, more competent by far than either Osborne or Cable, has had to resign under the circumstances that he did.

I have never met David Laws. On TV he appeared pleasant, modest, self effacing, and highly competent. Colleagues on all sides of the house have paid him the compliment of confirming the view that he is a man of high integrity. His constituency is standing by him and want him to stay. The business of his rent, which has forced him to resign, has yet to be investigated and pronounced upon.

From the point of view of the National Good (and what other view should we be taking?) I would say that his departure is to be mourned.

From my own personal point of view, I feel some sympathy – after all, I confess that I have not always been a perfect human being!

What I do seriously criticise is the impulse from people who only read tabloid headlines, to point accusatory fingers, to rub hands in glee at another’s misfortune, to judge without knowing all the facts, to laugh cynically, without a thought being given to the damage it may do to the progress that the coalition has started to make along a path (not my chosen path) to economic recovery.

To those people, I say, ‘It’s time for you to grow up!’

Eco-confusion

2010-05-27T10:42:00.006Z

Earlier this year, I started taking one year old compost from my compost bin, to carpet the beds in my greenhouse ready for growing luscious, more or less organic tomatoes, courgettes, sweet peppers, chillies, and various veg seedlings. Imagine my surprise, when, amongst the rich brown well rotted compost I found a pristine white carrier bag, in mint condition apart from a little superficial dirt, carrying the following message, in dainty green print: “This bag is fully BIODEGRADABLE and 100% COMPOSTABLE”.

I don’t mind saying that I was miffed! I felt that I had been deceived – sold a pup – conned.

I dusted off the bag, photographed it, and started to search the internet for signs of its origin. And I found the website of a company that supplies this very bag. (To be fair, they are not the only supplier.)

My next stop was to Trading Standards – their office is not far away. They expressed their interest and promised to follow it up – and I’m sure they will, although who knows when?!

Then, still simmering with the resentment of the deceived, I emailed the Radio 4 programme ‘You and Yours’.

I also contacted my son who is knowledgeable about such things, and has useful contacts.

You have no idea how interesting and complicated this subject becomes! Apart from all the rules which define what temperature and under what circumstances various degradable plastic products should actually degrade, there is the question as to whether it is a good idea to produce degradable plastic containment at all.

Why would anyone prefer to use a bag which claims to be biodegradable? I suppose because they believe it is a more ‘environmentally friendly’ than the other kind.

This was a point for very brief discussion when the ‘You and Yours’ presenter interviewed me this morning.

So what would someone do with such a bag when it has outlived its usefulness? I guess that they would either put it in their compost bin, as I did, or put it in their household rubbish, probably to go to landfill, where it would safely degrade and feed the worms. Or perhaps they would put it into one of those bag recycling banks that some supermarkets have.

If a biodegradable bag finds its way into the bag recycling process, the fact that it is biodegradable is likely to adversely affect the quality of the recycled material.

If the same bag gets into a landfill site, it will degrade, and in the process, most of its bulk will convert to greenhouse gas, some of which may be captured, in a well-run site, but most of which will go to atmosphere.

The argument goes that a non biodegradable bag in landfill will do less damage to the atmosphere, because the carbon content is sequestered below ground for the foreseeable future, causing no damage to the atmosphere!

To summarise – we, the public, are only confused by this type of marketing, and we achieve no environmental benefit. The myths promoted by people jumping on the green-agenda bandwagon are simply a marketing tool in the same category as those used by double glazing salesmen to promote the benefits of their products.

But our dilemma is not resolved here!

If I am to believe my movie viewing, in America the supermarkets give out paper sacks to hold the groceries. Surely that is more environmentally friendly?

I just don’t know! I have just watched a Youtube trailer which shows huge old trees in ancient forest in Tasmania being blasted out of the ground to be converted to woodchips for conversion to pulp for paper, thus ‘liberating’ immense tonnages of carbon to add to our climate change problems. I believe that the process of making paper on a commercial scale is not an environmentally friendly business either, using as it does various chemicals, and no doubt copious amounts of power.

When we see someone’s beautifully oiled teak garden furniture, we may be inclined to wonder what kind of sustainable source produced the timber. But when we collect our mushrooms into a supermarket-supplied paper bag, do we wonder about the environmental impact of the paper?

The fact is that most of us don’t have a clue about what damage the goods we buy do to our planet.

There is a partial solution, at an individual level, and it is this. Wake up on a fine sunny spring morning, have a good stretch, and resolve to unburden yourselves from all that messy desire to buy, to own, to possess for the sake of it. Try not to buy anything unless you are happy with the way it will eventually be disposed of. Don’t believe the ‘authorities’ which claim that electrical goods are being safely recycled – it often isn’t happening!

If a manufacturer doesn’t know how his product can be safely disposed of – he shouldn’t be making it. If a shopper doesn’t know how his purchase can be safely disposed of at the end of its life, he shouldn’t be buying it.

Reduce, Repair, Reuse, Recycle – aim for ZERO WASTE!!

Linguistic Irritation

2010-05-24T08:07:00.003Z

There are some words, or groups of words, which stimulate in me a disproportionate feeling of annoyance, irritation, and even anger. Listening to the Today programme this morning (and it’s not over yet!) I’ve been having a field day. Union men saying ‘In-no-way-shape-or-form’, economic commentators talking about ‘Low Hanging Fruit’, and another perennial, ‘...going forward’, which presumably means some equivalent of ‘from this moment on’ – in other words a phrase only useful when distinguishing the futuristic from the historic.

But just now, for me, and of course speaking very personally – (other irritating verbiage is available) – the word BIG is a contender for the big prize!

It started with Big Brother – but in its context of a voyeuristic TV programme, that phrase obviously had some legitimacy, given to it by George Orwell. But it has spawned a number of illegitimate children.

When the word ‘big’ was associated with the lottery, it was no longer a comparative word – we don’t hear about a small lottery, because that would usually be called a raffle! Here the word ‘big’ was being used to create a spurious impression of largesse; to cause gullible punters to think that they have a reasonable chance of winning a huge sum of money (compared to their daily expectations). What they actually have is a completely UNreasonable chance of winning anything near to being a ‘big’ amount of money. Nothing wrong with a small flutter for fun, but as a cause of addiction, the Big Lottery has a lot to answer for.

This damned word is now being used in curious ways. That venerable guru of the superficial, Tim Smit, is promoting for the second year something called ‘the big lunch’. What he means, I guess, is a community exercise involving big numbers of people, rather than an occasion when people eat as much as their bellies will hold. (Many of our number seem to do that without Mr Smit’s help!) I can understand what he is trying to achieve – an enhanced sense of community; a sense of occasion when we may at last meet the person we have been living next door to for the last ten years – but this use of the word ‘big’ reduces the project to the level of a tatty game show, and is therefore likely to be a damp squib rather than an explosive event.

Then, in the lead up to the General Election, (the ‘big’ election?), David Cameron launched ‘The Big Society’, and even today, people are still asking each other what on earth he could have meant! When we are in the age of localism, decentralisation, community, expenditure reduction, discredited consumerism and anti-globalisation, this seems very like a somewhat desperate and inexperienced attempt at ‘soundbite-ism’ – now there’s a word to conjure with!

The Pope is Coming to Town!

2010-05-23T15:39:00.001Z

I don’t follow a religion – I guess I would be called an Atheist. As such, I presume I am a member of the largest ‘religious’ grouping in the country. As far as I can see there are less than a million practising Catholics in the UK.

Their leader, the Pope, is visiting the UK this year! This is obviously a very big deal for those million or so Catholics. I understand from the news that he will be holding open air masses for 400,000 people – nearly half the Country’s practising Catholics!

Probably like most people who have heard references to this visit on the airwaves, I sort of absorbed the information, but gave it no further thought other than how bad the traffic would be around those open-air masses!

But then I heard about the cost.

£50,000,000

Who pays? Well, the Church is paying £7,000,000. They only have half that at the moment, so they will be passing the collection plate around, to try to raise the other half.

That’s OK then – it just means that £43,000,000 will be found by the British tax payer.

I thought we were short of money?

It must be because Vatican City is an important trading partner... or something.

I’m really sorry, but I just don’t get it!

Electoral Reform - my letter to the press

2010-05-21T10:29:00.004Z

Electoral Reform is an idea which has supporters in all parties – yes, even the Conservative Party! Three out of four elections produce a result which has the party with the most votes failing to obtain a majority of seats, so it is not surprising that many voters, particularly those in minority parties, feel that they are never properly represented.

And yes, that does mean the BNP.

I am no fan of the BNP, but democracy is about winning the arguments in open debate, because that is preferable to rebellion and violence. If we are to extinguish the influence of the BNP, let’s get them into Parliament if people want to vote for them, so that we can expose them for what they are and defeat them in an open and honourable way. My guess is that if voters felt that their vote was actually going to count, so that tactical or protest voting was unnecessary, the BNP would not gain many seats, and wouldn't keep them for long.

The fear that PR would lead to ‘horse trading’ and confusion is unfounded. In fact lack of stability is more likely to arise under our present system. If a single party is sufficiently popular, it can still gain enough seats to have a majority government. If that doesn’t happen, it is because it has not won enough votes - pretty fair, I would have said! The negotiations that go to forming an alliance or coalition between more than one party are not likely to produce confusion, because it is usually pretty clear which parties would make impossible bed-fellows. The negotiations are simply the means to make a government which reflects the views of the majority. Our present (negotiated) coalition government reflects the views of the majority of voters, and is the first to do so in this country for a great many years.

I accept that the system used for European elections is not the best. I understand the desire to link a representative to a constituency (although I think that element is given more importance than it deserves). But the Electoral Reform Society has a dozen or so different PR systems on its website, and it is perfectly possible to have a system which maintains the link between a politician and his constituency. All of them give more weight to voters for smaller fringe parties than the Alternative Vote system (which is not PR). I believe that that is desirable, so that everybody can feel that their views are being considered and debated.

Conservative policy (before the election) was to keep ‘First Past the Post’, but with fewer MPs and larger constituencies – in other words a more distant representative with far more constituency work, but still with only 24 hours in the day!

The thrust of the Take Back Parliament Campaign is to persuade the Government to broaden the proposed referendum to include PR. Then, different types of PR can be debated, and if the referendum is properly conducted, the voters of this country can have their say, preferably after finding out the implications of the different PR systems.

So before anyone rushes to judgement, I would like to encourage them to do a bit of research into the different PR systems. They might find one they like! They will certainly find one which gives a fairer hearing to those of us who, like me, prefer the policies of a smaller party.

Spontaneous Thoughts

2010-05-19T12:04:00.004Z

One thing leads to another! I was visiting my new friends Wo and Kate, in the lead up to our next demo for Taking Back Parliament. Wo asked me how I got involved in politics, and I had to think a minute. The truth is that I don’t really think of myself as being involved in ‘Politics’, but can’t deny that I am involved in ‘politics’. (Did you see what I did there?) We are all, like it or not, involved in politics, because politics is simply the way a community governs its life.

I explained that I had once been a member of the Liberal Party back in the day, but had left all that behind me – and then Climate Change turned up and I saw that as the major threat, to eclipse all other threats, to our planet and way of life. I told them that I had started blogging on the subject (although no longer), so Kate asked for the link to my blog.

At that point I had to admit that I hadn’t posted anything for a year, and having given my new friends the link I thought I should write something....well, anything really! Silence is not always golden!

Curiously two other very dear friends also told me that I should start blogging again. If you want to know about them, you need to follow my link to OzEarth – they have plenty to blog about!

As well as loving them dearly, I am also full of admiration for what they have done, what they are doing now and what they are planning for the future. They are an example of people who don’t just talk, they DO! That quote from Wes Jackson suits them perfectly: ‘If you’re working on something you can finish in your lifetime, you’re not thinking big enough.”

They are very talented people (follow my link to Chloe Wolsey Fine Art, for example). Chloe moved to Holland to be with Helen, who is working as a professional singer, and they bought a house in a not too wonderful part of Hilversum (restricted by finance) and proceeded to renovate the very dilapidated property from top to bottom. They are the greenest people I know, and are planning to move to Australia to set up a sustainable, self sufficient establishment, to show how sustainable living can be done, and to teach others.

My friends remind me of those plastic dolls you used to be able to get, weighted in the bottom, so that whenever you knock them over, they always come back upright with a smile on their faces!

Another thing about these friends is that they have the only dog in the world that I am actually fond of! (My grumpiness with regard to pets is well known!)

Of course the only way I get to see them these days is by taking the occasional trip to Holland which I plan to do again later this year. (Thank heaven for Skype!) When they move to Tasmania, it will be a little more complicated, but their project is so exciting that I really want to see it grow – so I shall definitely be finding a way to visit!

Meanwhile, life goes on – reading my last entry from a year ago, I realise how much has happened, how much has changed, and how much has stayed the same! I shall be interested, in a year’s time, to read this, and to do a little more soul-searching, and to wonder, “What have I done with the last twelve months?”!

Privacy Versus Community

2009-05-03T10:11:00.001Z

In my village, in the quiet and subdued battle between privacy and community, privacy is gaining ground.

But surely, you may be saying, we all want privacy?

And, to be sure, people appear, in these times, to put a higher value on maintaining or increasing their level of privacy than they do on maintaining a sense of community.

There has been frequent talk about the possible introduction of a privacy law, although this seems to have faded a bit in the light of recent revelations about the activities of certain politicians and others active in the Westminster village. Our representatives were clearly divided over what I would have considered a ‘no-brainer’, whether or not to publish details of MPs’ expenses. Ahead of such publication we hear of at least one instance where second home allowance was used for the installation of a sauna at tax payers’ expense, so I am not at all surprised that some place a very high value on privacy. Equally, an extreme level of privacy, to which many feel they have a ‘right’, generally fosters suspicion and resentment.

Age and maturity often brings a sense of proportion to the debate. I am too old to worry about who sees the haemorrhoid cream in the supermarket trolley, or who hears me break wind whilst digging the garden; but I accept that younger and more sensitive souls may be subject to embarrassment over such trivia.

Younger members of society are also inclined to suffer from the illusion that others are intensely interested in their activities, while in fact the reverse is true; most people’s personal activities are a matter of complete indifference to their fellows.

One of the features of my house and its neighbours which attracted me when I was house-hunting was the footpath which separates the end of my front garden from the very small river bubbling cheerfully towards the village centre. I walked down the footpath when I first saw the house, and was delighted by the pleasant stroll past well- and not so well-kept front gardens, with low garden walls over which I could pass the time of day with neighbours.

Since then new people have moved into two of the neighbouring cottages, and have immediately erected high fences across the ends of their gardens. I am sure that the occupants see this as a logical move ‘to preserve their privacy’. It is interesting that the house owner in each case spends his working life away from home, and probably, therefore, doesn’t notice the degree to which his simple move has isolated him from his community. Although I know one of these two well enough to say hello, the family of the other are completely unknown to me.

The sense of community is on the way out. I am on our Parish Council, where we have been advertising a vacancy for a year. No one has put themselves forward for the vacancy. In a population of about 1500, we have 11 people who are willing to spend some time being Parish Councillors. Council meetings are well publicised and open to the public, but no one comes. We receive the occasional letter of complaint from someone who is too lazy to make the 5 minute walk to talk directly too us. There is an estate of some 60 houses which sell at around the £350,000 mark (when they sell!) and most of the occupants of these houses are almost never seen in the village, being content to make their daily commute to their place of work without impinging on the village at all, and studiously maintaining their privacy whilst in their homes.

On a national level, I believe that the politicians and the media between them have generated such a level of mistrust that the inevitable counter-weapon is privacy. Both establishments have lost sight of ‘community’, what it means and what its value is. The same is becoming true at a local level. When there is a community event, it seems that only a small number of people are actively involved, whilst the remainder of us continue to study our navels.

It is difficult to see how this trend can be reversed; and yet it is becoming very clear that as our climate changes to become more extreme, and as our energy prices soar as Peak Oil makes itself felt, and as supermarket food prices increase on the back of energy costs, a sense of community is going to be as important as at any time since the second world war.

I fear that we will only start to rediscover the community spirit when the village street lights start to dim, and when we can no longer afford the price of the fuel to take us to the supermarket!

What Should We Do With Our Rubbish?

2009-03-28T14:44:00.007Z

I went to Sainsbury today to pick up a few bits and bobs which are not stocked by our local ‘Happy Shopper’ (what a euphemism!), and because somebody mentioned it to me the other day, I took careful note of plastic bag use by my fellow shoppers.

Sainsbury has a policy, allegedly, wherein the store does not put plastic bags out on display, and only provides them if asked. The trouble is that my local store (Truro) makes an exception at the ‘hand-basket’ check-outs, so that if someone wants to nip through quickly with a couple of items, they are likely to use a plastic bag out of habit, because it’s there.

And on a Saturday, when the store is full and everyone is in a tearing hurry to get done, get home, get the TV on etc., the check-out staff seems to adopt the idea that time will be saved if they prepare several plastic bags in readiness for filling even though they are no longer displayed. Most of the shoppers I saw were using plastic bags.

I shall of course contact Sainsbury head office about this, and will expect the usual bland and reassuring comment in reply – I guess they see me coming!

The disposal of what is termed Municipal Waste is a subject which has occupied my mind for several years. On the basis that it has to go somewhere, I have involved myself with the local District Council (which ceases to exist on April 1st) in trying to promote recycling, and sensible waste collection policies. The bizarre situation has been that the Districts have been responsible for collection, and the County has been responsible for disposal. And the County Council, which also ceases to exist on April 1st, has taken a number of decisions in this and other regards with no consideration of public opinion whatsoever, in a way which has suggested the antithesis of ‘joined-up’ government.

One such decision, taken initially about 10 years ago, was to award the contract for disposal of Cornwall’s municipal waste to that well known champion of the environment, the French firm Sita. The contract is for 30 years, and Sita have made the assumption that they have the whole deal buttoned up, including the collection side of things, for the foreseeable future.

They may turn out to be wrong.

During the last decade, the County Council and Sita have been championing the idea of an incinerator, placed more or less centrally in Cornwall, to burn everything which cannot be recycled. I admit that when I first attended a presentation of the scheme given by an enthusiastic Council Officer, I thought it sounded pretty good. But over time I took the trouble to do a bit of research (which apparently the Council had failed to do) and it has become increasingly clear that the scheme was very deeply flawed on a number of different fronts – not least because technology has moved considerably since the initial contract was awarded. Something else which became clear was that the costings were based on very out of date fuel costs.

Imagine a long thin county with water on three sides (three and three quarters if you count the river Tamar). Then ask yourself the question, should all the waste be transported to a single point, or should it be disposed of more locally? I think that this is a no-brainer. On top of that, there are the health issues which are significant, the environmental issues, and the look of the thing (a 15 meter diameter 120meter tall chimney in the middle of the Cornish countryside, taller than the Statue of Liberty, on land already about 150 meters above sea level,) as well as the shear inefficiency of that type of plant when compared to other more environmentally friendly solutions.

Considering all the facts, I am amazed that Sita even bothered top put in a planning application. I am not amazed, but I am delighted, that the application was refused (you guessed it – by the relevant committee of that self-same County Council)!

And Sita does not have a plan B!

One could write a book on the implications of this decision, and of course Sita may appeal. Because the County Council and Sita have wasted so much time on this crazy proposal, we are a long way behind where we should be, and are running out of landfill space. The County is likely to be fined for not meeting targets, and someone will have to move very quickly to come up with an alternative scheme.

For years, some of us have felt a bit like those small puny kids at the back of the class who know the answers but can’t attract the teacher’s attention – “Please, miss, ask me! Ask me!”

Now at last, maybe they will ask us.

There are many good ideas out there – possibly too many. As my daughter said to me in a different context, ‘A watched clock never boils, and then three turn up at once!’

Strike and Snow

2009-02-04T10:14:00.001Z

I listen most mornings to the Today programme on Radio 4. I’m not that keen on some of the presenters, but it is a good way to keep up with national and international affairs, once you peel away the soap-box elements.

The last few days have provided a constant stream of complaints from workers around that notorious Total facility that foreign workers have taken their jobs, and another constant stream of complaints from people who think that despite plenty of warning our various highways authorities, local and national, have failed abysmally to keep our transport systems running.

I guess that these are the same people who, when the weather is fine and work is plentiful, complain about the ‘nanny state’. Only now they are saying, ‘Where is the nanny state when we need it?’!

Regarding the Total fiasco, it seems reasonably clear, from what I have been listening to, that the contract was initially awarded to a British company, who fell down on the job, so that the contract was then awarded, as second choice, to another company whose labour force is foreign.

I am as patriotic a Brit as most, and as suspicious as many others of the European ideal, but I don’t think that these unofficial strikers have much of a leg to stand on. And when you consider how many Britons there are working elsewhere in Europe, apart from all the others who simply whine about their country and move to Spain, the picture is even less flattering of the ‘whingeing pom’.

Then there is snow.

The Aussies, with their impossibly hot weather, have been headlining, not their own weather, but ours! Or at least, drawing attention to the difference – and taking the mickey somewhat!

Those people who are complaining that the authorities have responded inadequately compare our situation with that of Finland, which has a similar sized road network to ours, and trumpet that ubiquitous call, ‘lessons must be learned’! But if in the UK we spent Finland’s budget (three times our own) on road clearing equipment, to have it in mothballs for nine years in ten, I’m sure questions would be asked about the wisdom of the purchase.

On the other hand, I am very sure that many people used the weather as an excuse to stay away from their work. I was out and about, (OK, in Cornwall we don’t have the same problems as the south east) and found the majority of roads completely clear. I also found many shops shut, and many people at home who clearly had not poked their noses out of their front doors to see for themselves what the situation was.

I spoke to my daughter in Lincolnshire, one of the worst-hit areas, and found that she had worked from home because she could, but if she had had to go in to her office, she would have made the attempt.

I spoke to my brother in Hampshire, who is disabled, and had been out on his buggy to walk his extremely boisterous dog, who admitted that if he had got stuck it could have been a problem.

But a large part of our population seems to have lost its nerve; reluctant to venture out in case something goes wrong, or even just giving away to a general lethargy. Are we really, in general, lazy and risk averse? Maybe British society has just got too old and stale...

But not everyone, of course – watching the children in the snow (most of them had never before seen anything like it here in Cornwall) was quite uplifting, and I must have spotted twenty or more snowmen of various shapes and sizes. Perhaps the new generation are rediscovering an enthusiasm for life.

Beauty and the Beast

2009-01-22T20:36:00.006Z

Helford is a beautiful fishing village in Cornwall.

Its problem is its beauty.

70% of the properties in the village are owned by people whose main home is elsewhere. Otherwise, Helford is a small village with fishing as an important industry, landing about £1,000,000 worth of fish a year. Furthermore it is the only fishing port in the UK which has no proper facilities for landing the fish – fishing boats offload their catch into dinghies, and four-wheel drives come down to the beach to receive the fish from the dinghies. Back breaking work, in a flourishing local industry which helps what is left of the local community to survive.

And do we think that the second-home-owners enjoy the fresh fish when they find the time in their busy lives to visit? Most certainly they do. It’s sold locally helping local shops to survive.

In the winter, the village is like a small ghost town.

It would be logical for the fishing community to want to improve their lot, to build some kind of facility to ease their burden and possibly to allow for a bit of expansion in the local industry. This is actually what the local community want to do. They have shown their plans to the local councillors, who are all in favour of the scheme. Kerrier District Council supports it. The plans are pretty modest really. It’s only a small village! They want to build a road along the side of the river – all but invisible from most angles. And they want to build a jetty to allow their small fishing boats to unload straight onto vehicles instead of from boat to dinghy and from dinghy to vehicle. And to load diesel, nets, water and stores straight onto the boat, rather than via the dinghy.

Strange, therefore, that there have been nearly 200 letters of protest against the planning application for the project. It seems that roughly half the letters were sent from addresses outside Cornwall. What is even more interesting is that a number of the letters were from identical pairs of names at two different addresses!

One holiday-home owner had the courage to be interviewed on TV, and I give him full marks for that. He was Mr Nick Jacobs who spoke from his Mayfair address, and he felt that as a second home owner of some thirty years standing, he was entitled to his view, which was (paraphrasing) that he didn’t want a new road, which would lead to car-parks and basically the ‘industrialisation’ of the village.

What he and his fellow protesters don’t appear to grasp is that the village owes its existence and its character to the fishing industry. The way to preserve that character, and to stop the community from dying and fossilising, is to promote, encourage and improve the local fishing industry. If that doesn’t happen, then in not too long a time, the visitors will arrive to find there are no locals, no shops, no-one to look after their precious holiday homes. So they will have to arrange all to arrive at the same time, to give some semblance of community...what a joke that would be!

The Sin of Optimism

2009-01-14T21:05:00.002Z

We have all had a great deal of gloom lately. There are people losing jobs by the thousand, sound businesses going out of business through lack of credit, interest rates on new loans sky high – if they are available at all...

If Gordon Brown or his ministers come up with a plan, the other parties rubbish it. If David Cameron offers an option, Labour spokespersons tear it to pieces. All the politicians are very guarded when assessing the present situation, stating that they are doing all that can be done (or that the other lot are NOT doing all they can), and that there may be further measures needed later. Out in the country, the people whose interviews make it into the media are the ones who are suffering from redundancy, mortgage problems or lack of retail trade.

How sad I was to hear in the media today the response by Alan Duncan, Shadow Business Secretary, to a tiny and uncertain flame of optimism from a Government Minister.

Baroness Vadera, Business Minister, said, "I am seeing a few green shoots but it's a little bit too early to say exactly how they'd grow."

This was hardly earth shattering, particularly as she added, "Is this a positive straw in the wind, or should we say one swallow does not make a summer? It's too early to say."

Her comments reflected the fact that she had heard on Tuesday about a company which had successfully raised hundreds of millions of pounds.

Mr Duncan is the epitome of the smooth talker who has an answer to everything but a solution to nothing. So when he accused Baroness Vadera of being out of touch and insensitive, I felt that he may not understand that those of us who are on hard times may actually find comfort in a small spark of optimism. We all know that we aren’t out of the woods, that there is still plenty of misery to come, but when I heard the Minister’s comments my reaction was a cheerful one. When it was reported that a Tory was demanding an apology from Baroness Vadera, I thought that maybe the doom-merchants need to get a sense of proportion. I for one like to hear a bit of cheerful news from time to time, even if it doesn’t affect me.

We’re all grown up, Mr Duncan. We can listen to the news and understand what we hear. But if optimism is a sin, Mr Duncan, then let’s have a few more sinners amongst the politicians.

Technology Rules OK

2009-01-02T11:07:00.003Z

Remember the Millennium Bug?

During 1999 there were dire warnings that banks would crash, that planes would fall out of the sky, that there would be social collapse, all because the first digit of the year was about to change.

Of course, none of these fears were fulfilled, and none of us really knows whether disaster was avoided by hard work and planning by the back-room boys, or that nothing would have happened anyway.

In any case, during the nine years since then, our faith in the power of technology to solve all impending problems has increased. Most people are completely confident that any disaster will be averted by the clever guys in the back room. Terrorism doesn’t stand a chance against our sophisticated police forces. Meteorological disasters will be foreseen in good time for the authorities to take adequate precautions. Such is our confidence that if the system fails even in a relatively small way – a bank collapses leaving shareholders bereft; a train comes off the rails; we immediately expect an enquiry to find someone to blame and possibly prosecute – and we expect to be compensated.

We have, to a greater or lesser degree, absolved ourselves from responsibility for our own lives.

What a profound shock it was, then, when it was discovered that the Microsoft Zune music player had its own version of the millennium bug, a Leap Year bug! This gadget wouldn’t work on the 366th day of the year!

Now I have never even seen one of these things, but the fact that this problem made international headlines indicates to me that we are relying on others to look after us on an increasingly trivial level.

I was talking to my brother yesterday, and as is often the case when I talk to anyone at all, the subject of climate change and peak oil came up in the conversation. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my brother now accepts that peak oil is imminent – I had previously thought that he agreed with the Prime Minister, that our oil supply would remain ample for our needs until at least 2030.

What I found disconcerting was his certainty that before our diminishing oil supply becomes a crisis, our scientists would find a new source of energy so that our lives will be able to continue as before with no discernable hiatus.

Oh how I wish this was true, but the premise doesn’t stand up even to the most superficial application of logic!

I am afraid that the time is coming for us to start looking after ourselves again. It’s going to be difficult, because the ‘system’ is not geared for it – but over time, I expect we shall manage! I don’t share this sublime faith in our technological age, but I do still have faith in the individuals that make up our race.

Let's Localise

2008-12-06T20:06:00.003Z

The interaction between ‘Westerners’ and the rest of the world is making me increasingly uncomfortable.

I’m not primarily talking about politics (although we elect the politicians we deserve) but about the ‘man in the street’.

Despite the fact that we westerners have invaded, colonised, emigrated to and otherwise populated more countries than you can shake a stick at, we seem to be passionately against immigrants to our own countries. We resent them, victimise them, generally put them down and seek ways to exclude or banish them without a second thought. Not only that, when we travel to other countries, whether for commerce or holiday, we expect other populations to fall in with our plans, speak our language, adopt our ways and philosophies (George Bush’s “freedom’n’democracy” being a case in point) and allow us to plunder their resources at will.

The results of our attitude are there for all of us to see – although very often we don’t connect the results to the attitude.

This was brought home to me when I listened to the voices of western tourists marooned at Bangkok airport. Such phrases as ‘cockamamie dispute’ and ‘irresponsible youth’ were being bandied about, with no thoughts about the reasons for the demonstration. Thailand has many problems, with the Government being one of them and religious conflict being another. We in the west pride ourselves on being allowed to demonstrate for or against things we feel strongly about – such as bad government. Imagine how we would have felt if, say, Japanese tourists, caught up in the massive demonstration in London against the war in Iraq, simply complained at the disruption, without considering the cause. (As a matter of fact, I can’t imagine Japanese being so impolite!)

This western approach to other nations has clearly been the cause of many unfortunate consequences over the decades, whether it be terrorism, high oil prices, bad cooking or simply the ‘MacDonaldisation’ of attractive holiday destinations.

So I believe that we in the west will be doing the world a favour if we spend a lot less time travelling abroad, and a lot more time appreciating our own homelands. One thing our current financial grief is doing is forcing us all to become less self-indulgent and materialistic, and this can only be good. In three or four years time, when we start feeling the effects of Peak Oil, we are likely to have a permanently shrinking economy, and we are going to have to find a way of living with that.

Perhaps that will result in a welcome diminution of our desire to influence the way that other people live, and a broadening interest in how to live a more stress-free, economical and satisfying life ourselves.

Risk-Free Potato Preparation

2008-12-05T14:47:00.002Z

I went shopping in Sainsbury’s today.

There is a section amongst the vegetables which I have walked past with a snigger several times now, but this time I thought I would look more carefully – in fact I happened to have a pen in my pocket, so I wrote on the back of my shopping list a list of the items in the section. The items are pre-packed in plastic trays, with film covering and a label. Here is the list:

Carrots and Swede Potato Mash
Baby Potatoes with Herbs and Mint Butter
Mini Baked Potatoes with Herb and Mint Butter
Roast Potatoes with Rosemary and Garlic
Ready to Roast Potatoes with Thyme
Crispy Potato Slices
Mini Baked Potatoes with Roasted Garlic Butter
Peeled Maris Piper Potatoes

Now I have to admit that they looked pretty appetising.

But if you think about their star celeb advertiser, Jamie Oliver, and his superhuman efforts to get the nation cooking and eating proper food (which I very much applaud, by the way, as in the words of Mr Tesco, ‘Every little helps...’) you can hardly miss the irony of Mr Sainsbury doing everything but eat the potatoes for you, whilst piling on the packaging and at the same time demotivating their customers from doing anything but flicking the buttons on a microwave!

If I turned out a tray of homemade carrot and swede potato mash, wrapped it in cling-film and left it in their veg. section, I wonder how long it would be before it turned brown or went mouldy? What do they put into it to stop theirs going the same way? I am deeply suspicious of that classic ingredient found in most products in supermarkets, ‘preservative’; and I didn’t read the label on these products; but I expect that ‘preservative’ is there!

Many of us worry about the side effects of eating GM crops, but how many of us think about what ‘preservatives’ might be doing to us?

But then, if you peel and cook your own potatoes in your own kitchen, Health and Safety might have some unnerving things to say in a risk assessment!

Thoughts at Christmas

2008-12-04T10:16:00.003Z

This is a copy of an e-mail I have sent to all my friends and family. It is not my intention to be a kill-joy, or a grumpy old man, but I just can't escape the thought that our commercialism has taken us too far down the wrong road...

Christmas

In UK, we send about 1 billion Christmas cards each year, equating to more than 300,000 trees.

We use ½ billion drink cans, 3000 tonnes of aluminium foil, 83 sq.km of wrapping paper, 8 million Christmas trees which generate 12,000 tonnes of rubbish, 125,000 tonnes of plastic packaging....

I am conscious that most of this high volume of consumption is brought about by commercial interests and associated advertising, and increasingly I have the feeling that I am a statistic being manipulated by marketing organisations which, if we are honest, are responsible for our current economical stress.

I hope therefore that you will all understand my decision to jump off this particular merry-go-round. I propose to send no cards or presents to any adults this year (and probably subsequent years as well!). Children may well get a token offering, because I certainly don’t want to hurt tender feelings.

Anyone who chooses to send me a card (which I would discourage) can be assured that it will be recycled, and the good wishes implied will be gratefully received and treasured. Presents are definitely not expected!

Everyone to whom I might have sent Christmas cards will of course be in my thoughts – as they are for the rest of the year. My good wishes go to everyone, because I value family and friendship above everything, and this doesn’t alter even if you don’t hear from me in December!

So have a great Christmas, everyone, and may your life be good!!

Tim

PS It seems I am not alone in this line of thinking!

Time To Reconnect

2008-11-17T22:15:00.004Z

I’m not an economist.

I’m not a scientist.

I’m not an industrialist.

Maybe that means that I can take a more detached view of things....

I have been reading articles about biodiversity and cultural diversity, and the links between the two. I don’t need to explain that – if you’re interested you can read about it yourself. Suffice it to say that it has been very clearly established, by the UN amongst others, that there is a very clear connection between the two things. Areas on the globe which have strong cultural diversity, evidenced for instance by the variety of languages, also have strong biodiversity, as indicated by the number of species of animals and plants.

Similarly, where cultural diversity has been eclipsed by the shadow of globalisation, biodiversity has also suffered.

The survival of life on this planet depends upon the maintenance of biodiversity, and this depends upon the maintenance of cultural diversity. Take a look at (for instance) some of the indigenous peoples in South America. They are by and large content (except when their homelands are being destroyed by globalisation), and have developed a way of life which is in harmony with their environment. They are not interested in ‘growth’, and exist in a steady state economy. They maintain their own culture, and live in a sustainable way.

What a lesson for the rest of us.

I recently travelled from Cornwall to London by coach. You can see a lot through the window of a coach, and I admit that as we left Heathrow to head for the centre of London I was bewildered by the sheer volume of traffic. I found myself wondering how on earth we, the ‘civilised’ society, arrived in this horrendous situation, in which we are too busy chasing meaningless goals to enjoy life.

Can the driver for all of this be greed?

People have ambitions, fuelled by advertising, by ‘competitive materialism’, by dreams of what their perfect life might be, and yet it has been well established that having more money doesn’t automatically enhance happiness. George Soros, financier of note, counts his annual income in the billions of dollars. For an individual, that obscene quantity of cash is meaningless – what can he, personally, achieve with a billion that he couldn’t achieve with a million? And would he really suffer if he only had $100,000 a year?

I listened to an interview with Peter (now Lord) Mandelson this morning. I happen to think that he is one of the best brains in politics, but I was depressed to hear him state that the global economy would double over the next twenty years. Our leaders are convinced that healthy economies are growing economies - but I know what happens when you keep on blowing up a balloon!

Perhaps in the present crisis he needs to say such things, but he seems to have glossed over our impending double whammy of Climate Change and Peak Oil: these two little gremlins are likely to scotch any ideas of a growing economy – indeed even a ‘steady state’ economy will be very difficult to achieve under the pressures of peak oil and energy descent. And the general consensus (leaving out 10 Downing Street) is that peak oil will be with us at some point between now and 2012. Unfortunately Downing Street thinks peak oil will not be with us before 2030.

But in any event, some time soon we are all going to be forced to accept the conclusion that globalisation no longer works and that growth is no longer possible.

We in the Western World have become so disconnected from our natural surroundings that we no longer appreciate what our environment has to offer. I took a young friend of mine (age 10) out for a drive earlier this year and discovered that she didn’t know what a foxglove was – and we live in the country. How can this be?

I sat in my parked car this morning and watched a minute insect scurrying around on my windscreen: I became fascinated by the miracle of such a small creature containing enough energy to allow it to move so quickly over such long distances without recharging. Later I watched a couple of ravens lazily going about their business above, in no great hurry, and quietly gossiping with each other. We miss so much in our perpetual frenetic rush towards ‘more’ and ‘better’. Even in these economically uncertain times, I saw on the Freecycle website that someone is giving away a 21” CRT TV, presumably because they have upgraded to an up-to-date slim line model. And yet I am certain that the older model works perfectly well.

The older I get, the more I am convinced that the secret of a happy life is to be content with what you have. We need to relearn respect for our environment. This way we may just learn to deal with our climate and energy crises before it’s too late. But this needs to be a ‘bottom-up’ exercise, not top down.

No individual can do it alone, but many individuals, over time, by setting an example, working within their own communities, and talking about what they do, can – indeed, must.

A Tale of Modern Farming

2008-10-23T08:29:00.002Z

This morning I happened to listen to ‘Farming Today’ on BBC Radio 4. I was fascinated to hear a farmer explaining how he is managing to stay in profit even in our current and increasing recession.

Clearly the first point to be made is that he and his family work extremely hard, with no expectation of such soft options as weekends off.

Secondly, he sells all his produce through farmers’ markets. He started with one, but now sells through 25, and employs a full-time butcher.

The third thing he is doing, to help offset the increasing cost of fertiliser (currently £300 per tonne), is to extend the grazing area for his cattle, so that with less input he produces more meat, but from a greater area.

But this gentleman made it very clear that he doesn’t believe in organic farming, preferring, as he puts it, ‘traditional’ methods.

In the same programme we heard about a new report by Professor Dick Godwin, commissioned by the Royal Agricultural Society of England, which suggests that our soil is barely fit for purpose, and no longer able to sustain the increasing demands of intensive food production.

He puts this down mostly to bad drainage and bad soil condition. There is evidently extensive rainwater run-off and resultant soil erosion because the soil in its present condition cannot absorb the water, while too much rain leaves the fields unworkable for farm machinery. He recommends good soil management and better drainage as being the solutions, but made it clear that there is nowhere for farmers to go for expert advice.

Now I am not an expert. All I have to help me is a little common sense. But it seems to me that our successful farmer mentioned above is, despite his protestations to the contrary, leaning ever so slightly in the direction of organic farming, by reducing the amount of oil-based fertiliser per acre on his land.

He is unconsciously following the recommendation of Prof. Godwin and starting to improve the condition of his soil. He may even find in a few years time that, assuming these trends continue, organic farming is the only way to remain profitable.

Am I imagining the contradiction; that by going organic he thinks he would be abandoning ‘traditional’ methods of farming? He must be a lot younger than me – or else he has a very different take on the word ‘tradition’!

Dumbing Down

2008-09-16T10:32:00.003Z

I have a bus pass (by reason of my age). So I have started using the bus instead of my car. The savings I make by leaving the car at home are essential, as I have joined the army of those euphemistically referred to as being on ‘limited income’, or, sometimes, ‘fixed income’; or even, not to put too fine a point on it, ‘low income’. That last description could be considered by some to be tactless, or even politically incorrect – but that’s because it is the most accurate. To be described as ‘poor’ is of course unacceptable!

It’s all relative of course – the fact that I have a car to leave at home puts me a cut above many in this country, and makes me unbelievably rich compared to millions in the world.

In this country, particularly in the media, we seem to have arrived at a point where we decline to face certain truths (in case we offend) while at the same time over-clarifying other truths to the point of imbecility.

It is both fascinating and irritating to listen to certain broadcast interviewers, mostly those with enlarged egos, who constantly interrupt their interviewees to clarify that which needs no clarification for the benefit of an audience who (they assume) have not been keeping up with events for at least a year! I get particularly frustrated when listening to ‘Any Questions’ chaired by (or should I say ‘hosted’ by) Jonathon Dimbleby, son of a broadcasting genius, friend of the heir to the British throne, and patroniser par excellence. The amount of air time he spends interrupting the panel to over-elaborate, or over explain, for the sake of listeners who may have no idea what the context of the question is, must be a significant percentage of available air time – and yet his listening audience are likely to be well informed, or they wouldn’t be listening in the first place!

Another truth which could do with being addressed with greater clarity and fewer euphemisms is the fact that many of us are too fat! Yes, I dared to use the F word...

There is so much talk of ‘clinical obesity’, Body Mass Index and the rest that most of us who are too fat (yes, that includes me!) are not made to face up to the truth – I like my food and I like my wine, and physically, I am reluctant to over indulge in exercise.

Back to the bus-ride.

I have noticed that small children on the bus are almost always eating, crisps, or chocolate, or biscuits or some other comforting snack produced by a loving parent in order to quieten the child while the parent concentrates on ‘texting’!

So it follows that a substantial number of teenagers on the same bus have not kicked the habit instigated by their parents, and are chewing on something.

And when the bus slows at the pedestrian traffic lights, to allow a stream of students to cross to or from the Pizza Hut or MacDonalds which have been thoughtfully built near the college, I am tempted so much to leap up and shout, “You are all eating far too much junk and it is going to kill you!!”

Of course, it wouldn’t make any difference – the explanation would be too simple to be taken seriously.

So perhaps I should just go home and concentrate on eating and drinking less, and taking more exercise!

The Odd Behaviour Of Governments

2008-09-11T10:27:00.001Z

There seems to be no limit to the bizarre behaviour of nations and their governments.

Recent news from the Arctic Ocean makes me think of a hungry wild animal fighting off others so that it can eat its own leg.

The expanse of Arctic ice has shrunk in both area and thickness to an unprecedented degree, so that it is now possible to circumnavigate the ice. The reduction in the ice area is caused by global warming which itself is caused largely by our profligate burning of various types of fossil fuel. As the area of light-reflecting ice reduces, the area of heat-absorbing water increases. The extra heat absorbed from the sun causes more ice-melt.... and so on.

I am a mere private citizen, and what seems obvious to me may not be as simple as I think it is – but logic suggests to me that the way forward is to burn less fossil fuel.

But logic suggests to national governments that we should take full advantage of this dramatic ice melt to tap into hitherto inaccessible oil fields to produce more fossil fuels so that we can melt the ice even faster!

Not only that – the nations concerned have already started squabbling over boundaries, borders, mineral rights and the like.

One good thing though – if we melt all the ice there won’t be a shortage of water (although it will mostly be in the wrong place)!

Now there's a funny thing....

2008-08-23T21:51:00.005Z

I was invited by some close friends to accompany them on the Gay Pride Parade in Truro, Cornwall, UK.

I remember that my immediate response at the time was ‘what date is it on?’, and when I found I was not busy on the day, of course I accepted the invitation – I don’t deny I was flattered to be asked.

I suppose that I never really realised the extent to which the gay community is not accepted; the extent to which the presence of straight people on the parade might be symbolically important.

I took my camera, and after a bit I started looking out for disapproving faces in the crowd to photograph – and there were a few! There were also a few spectacular extroverts to shoot; but by and large what was the most revealing aspect of the parade was that most of the participants were, very obviously, ‘just plain folk’. There were many colourful and explicit T-shirts, numerous rainbow-coloured neckerchiefs, bandanas, wrist-bands and the like, and the behaviour of the whole parade was responsible, good-humoured and positive. So why, I found myself wondering, is so much fuss made? Why do some people find this particular minority so hard to take? Because when you get up close and personal, they are all so blasted normal!

I admit to having a very entrenched prejudice, and it is against bigotry. I am afraid that in Cornwall we are guilty of being a little slow to accept that members of minority groups, whether by race or by sexual orientation, are in all important respects equal to the rest of us and deserving of an equal amount of respect.

But today in Truro I believe we may have moved a little further down that road towards civilisation!

Unconsidered Opinions

2008-08-05T11:26:00.002Z

I read somewhere that for the first time, more than half the world’s population now lives in an urban environment. Only just.

When we see TV programmes about famine and war in Africa, the cameras are usually focussed on rural communities – or refugee camps which have been set up in rural areas but have now become tent towns. And that is of course as it should be: we need to be aware of the suffering of those desperately poor and mistreated people, so that we can all help in any way we can to improve their quality of life.

But that aside, I have been getting a little irritated by market research companies in the UK, or rather, I suppose, by the mono-vision of their clients.

A little while ago, I took part in a research project (it doesn’t matter what for) and was very happy to receive a modest fee for doing so. I was also more than happy to put myself on the research company’s mailing list to be informed of future projects in which I might take part. In fact I looked at a few other companies as well; and since then I have been getting frequent e-mails about forthcoming projects on all sorts of issues.

I suppose that I shouldn’t be surprised that I am always outside the age range that they are looking for (although I had thought that the ‘grey pound’ was quite an influential currency these days), but I am particularly irritated by the fact that these researchers are only ever interested in the opinions of people living in London, or such places as Reading or Swindon.

I can accept that users of Nokia phones between the ages of 20 and 30, or young mum’s using disposable nappies, are more interesting than keen gardeners between 65 and 80, but why should a young mum in Reading be more interesting to the marketeers than the same person in, say, Bovey Tracey?

The point I would highlight as an example is that the young mum in Bovey Tracey, as well as being just as important as the young mum in Reading, is subject to different day-to-day influences than her Reading counterpart, so her answers to questions would be different. The implication here is that the nearly 50% of the population (I’m guessing) who live outside the major towns are a completely unconsidered market by those companies who use the market research organisations. And it may be that the rural population doesn’t have as much money to spend as our urban cousins – but all the same, disposable nappies (or almost anything else) are used about as much by our rural young mum as by the city-dwelling equivalent.

Aren’t these companies interested in the fact that rural opinions may be different, but may also be just as important from a marketing point of view?

I suppose that I know the answer before I ask the question – it must be easier to find 30 young mums using disposable nappies who can take an hour out to come to a central location to answer questions about Huggies in London than in Bovey Tracey.

OK, so why not go a stage further and just do the research in the nearest branch of Tesco?

Well, obviously you couldn’t do that, because you would get an unbalanced response!

Exactly....

The Politics Thing

2008-07-26T10:58:00.005Z

People don’t vote. People don’t bother to turn up for meetings. People turn to the sports page first. The tabloids print biased headlines and very little else of substance.

On the subject of political matters, we are, as a race, pretty ignorant. How many people do you know who can name the Minister for the Environment for instance? And yet our environment is the biggest single issue people are talking about these days.

BUT if something goes wrong these same people complain like mad. They are very specific in their complaints too. Whose fault is it? Gordon’s of course!

Now, I don’t hold any strong feelings about Gordon Brown or anyone else in Westminster – how could I? I’ve never met them. But I hope that I can take a balanced view.

Can the PM do anything about world oil prices? No.
Can he do anything about the rising price of food or fuel? No. (It all goes back to the price of oil – and if he were to substantially cut the duty on fuel he would have to find the money from somewhere else, by raising a tax or two – and listen for the protests then!)

And would things have been any better if Mr Teflon Blair was still at No.10? Of course not. But he was smooth enough to get out of town. Am I wrong to suspect that he saw all this coming and that’s why he decided to go?

Would things be any better if David Cameron was in charge? Hardly! It wouldn’t change anything.

To misquote a certain US President – It’s the environment, stupid!

We have to be helped, by our politicians, to get used to higher fuel and food prices, because over time it can only get worse. Whoever is in charge is going to have to acknowledge that very drastic action is needed to cope with the triple-whammy of Peak-Oil, Climate Change and Credit Crunch.

My question is, which of our leaders, prospective or otherwise, is going to be prepared to make himself very unpopular by facing up to these challenges firmly and soon?

Whichever leader takes that option will have my vote!

What about some Green Agriculture?

2008-07-03T21:12:00.001Z

I am not sure who is losing touch with reality – is it me or is it them?

I read today that Defra is concentrating too much on the environment and not enough on agriculture!

That’s according to the National Farmers Union. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach when I read that. In our present dire straits, how can we possibly think of agriculture and the environment as being separate – in conflict? If ever there was a time when we needed to start being in tune with our environment rather than destroying it in the name of higher productivity, this is it. Surely the NFU of all organisations should see that if we want to stand a chance of surviving the double whammy of Climate Change and Peak Oil, then they have to start working with nature rather than against it?

Our agriculture is totally dependent on the oil industry for its diesel and for its fertiliser. What will they do when they can’t afford either? Just say ‘OK we go out of business’?

If Defra spend money on supporting agriculture in its present form, then all they are doing is hastening the demise of the one industry which, if it adapts to the changing world, could be our salvation.

Already, an increasing number of families are finding ways to produce their own food, whether on allotments, in their gardens or on their window sills. Many people avoid buying ‘organic’ food because the premium is too high. This is the writing that is on the wall.

Our farmers need to move away from mass production and supermarkets, and think small and local. That way they may still have customers in ten years time. If they continue to look for the big industrial markets, then they will be left with egg on their faces – and it won’t be free range!

Charisma - an empty vessel?

2008-06-08T11:03:00.003Z

I was particularly struck recently, while listening to a clip of Hillary Clinton addressing a rally, that the audience were not actually listening to what she was saying!

Whenever she started to speak, she would get out perhaps a dozen words before the cheering and whistling would start. The American audiences have this strange ability to emit falsetto yells of enthusiasm which effectively drown out everything the speaker is saying, so that the only people who could hear Hillary were those who were plugged into her microphone feed (i.e. the media).

I have noticed the same phenomenon when listening to live concerts being broadcast in the USA – the experience for the serious listener is all but spoiled!

Why then were the audience there?

Some were there, no doubt, for the prestige value amongst their friends, but many more must have been there because of Hillary’s CHARISMA; not her policies, not because of her effusive gratitude towards her supporters – no; because of her celebrity status, ‘personality’, and Charisma.

And Barak Obama has more!

I was similarly struck, in the UK, during the plummeting of Gordon Brown’s stature in the public opinion polls.

In the run up to the Crewe and Nantwich bye-election, there were many vox-pop interviews and more than one person gave the reason for voting against the Labour party was Gordon Brown’s lack of Charisma. Had these people been asked about Brown’s policies, or what he has achieved up to now, most would have had no idea.

Speaking for myself, I would rather have a dedicated, honest, intelligent, compassionate politician than one with Charisma any day of the week!

Certainly Mr Brown and his advisers have made some stupid mistakes and they have spent too much money, but they have also achieved a great deal. Compare their achievements in the Health Service with the 13 years under the Tories, when Ken Clarke amongst others completely messed it up!

But, God help us, David Cameron has more Charisma!

It may well be that we have had a Labour Government for too long – but I am sure as hell not ready for the Tories yet!

Maybe there is a Green Party member out there with some CHARISMA!

Pint of bitter, please, love

2008-04-11T21:02:00.002Z

I went for a drink the other day at my son’s pub. During the course of a conversation, I heard about the new adjustments to the Sex Discrimination Act. I couldn’t believe it at first, but my understanding is that I could be prosecuted (or the landlord could) for calling a barmaid ‘love’ or ‘darling’.

I haven’t seen any clear guidelines.

What happens if I call a barman ‘love’? ... or ‘mate’?

What happens if a barmaid calls me ‘love’?

Harriet Harman appears to be blaming this move on European legislation – but can you imagine how this kind of legislation would go down in France.... ma petite chou-fleur?

I believe I started getting the same feelings last time we had a Labour government for too long – why can’t they let me look after myself?

If one of my son’s customers upset one of his staff, I should think she could handle it – and if she couldn’t, then he would!

Or maybe they should just call the police!

Great Recycling Myths

2008-04-06T11:42:00.004Z

I went to a ‘conference’ about rubbish/recycling/composting in Cornwall last Friday.

The first thing to note was that there was an enthusiastically high level of apathy!

The second thing was that the County Council Officer who was running it was patronising, bland, anodyne and not very well informed!

The third thing was that the content of the seminar was aimed at encouraging all the people who were not there. The people who were there were already up to speed.

One thing that I did learn was that most of the waste collected in Cornwall for recycling is sent to a MRF (known as a ‘murf’ and short for Mechanical Recycling Facility), rather than being separated by the householder. And this is the bit I am very unhappy with.

Where MRF’s are used for separating the recyclables, the local authorities are inclined to say ‘send us all your plastics, glass and cans’, which means that the householder thinks they are doing a wonderful job with very little effort.

Recyclables which are separated by mechanical means do not generally get separated into different types of plastic. These plastics are baled up and sent to a specialist contractor (who may be in China or India) where a certain amount of hand separation may be carried out – often by children – and a percentage is recycled, while a percentage (often large) is sent to someone else’s landfill, where it decomposes over many years producing methane in the process; and methane is more damaging than CO2 by a factor of 20.

Mechanical separation is liable to produce a high level of contamination, for example, paper contaminated by bits of glass making it unusable, so it has to go to landfill.

I cannot disagree with the principle that large quantities of waste will need some mechanical means of separation, but with the right machinery, and, importantly, the right level of co-operation from the householder, a much better and more honest conversion rate can be achieved.

My own local authority asks the householder to separate recyclables thus:
White paper (including newsprint etc.)
Coloured paper and cardboard (including yellow pages)
Glass jars and bottles (rinsed and with tops removed)
Cans, aluminium foil, plastic bottles (tops removed), aerosols (tops removed)

The fourth category is mechanically separated at the recycling centre (but not shredded). The amount of material collected for recycling, and then not recycled is no more than 2%.

My authority does not kid us that they can recycle products which they clearly cannot (such as yoghurt pots, plastic bottle tops, margarine tubs, tetrapaks etc.) so when we are told how many tonnes we have recycled in a month, we are being told the truth.

Although the percentages differ from one MRF to another, the amount of material eventually recycled can be as low as 20% of the total which the residents believe that they are recycling.

I fancy that the main problem to address in the recycling of domestic waste is to close the gap between what we are told is recycled and what is actually recycled (without, of course, adding to China’s pollution problem).

In other words, it’s time that both we and the local authorities stopped kidding ourselves and started accepting the truth!

If In Doubt - Ask

2008-03-25T23:21:00.004Z

We are all conditioned by our environment.

In the UK we are looked after by the welfare state ‘from the cradle to the grave’, and we have got used to it. In fact we get more used to it every year as new laws are brought in to protect us from ourselves. Probably when we think about it we resent it.... but then we just accept it as the new status quo.

I am not automatically against these new constraints, but I do worry that we don’t think beyond them. We learn to take them for granted, and we forget to ask questions... or we are just too lazy.

I have been increasingly interested in the way that our population and our politicians have adopted the recycling doctrine. The speed with which this country moved from cynical indifference to steadfast commitment has been breath-taking; and since I live in a county which has more or less run out of landfill sites, I am delighted.

But we are still falling into the same trap of allowing the State to look after us, and assuming that everything outside our own little box will be ‘taken care of’.

I have been reading a lot of stuff about recycling – different local authorities have different ways of dealing with the problem. Some collect all the recyclates in one bin, to be separated mechanically at a recycling centre. Others ask the householder to carry out the separation. Not all authorities offer the same recycling opportunities.

When I read that local authority ‘a’ asks you to put out paper and cardboard, and explains how it will be recycled, while local authority ‘b’ asks you to separate cardboard and coloured paper from white paper, so that the white paper can be used to make more white paper, then I guess one of the authorities is doing better than the other.

But the trouble is that we don’t know which, and we don’t know who to ask. And we don’t know for sure that the paper is being recycled, or whether it's being used to the best advantage, or how many miles it travels before being processed. (A lot of mechanically separated paper cannot be used because it's contaminated with glass.)

My local authority will not process yoghurt pots because there is nowhere within a sensible distance where this can be done – so it goes to landfill, because that's the greenest available option. Other local authorities say that they will take all plastics, all mixed in together, for recycling. Do I believe them? Not really, but I could be wrong, in which case, my local authority is under-performing.

So if your local authority says it can recycle, say, plastic mushroom cartons, do you just put them in the green bin and hope for the best? Or do you ask the local authority exactly what they do with them?

I really hate being a cynic...

It's The Little Things....

2008-03-22T09:33:00.001Z

As I have already said, I do like politicians to be human – a little human weakness brings a remote politician down to an accessible level.

Of course there are exceptions – I happen to believe that George W has taken this philosophy to an uncomfortable extreme. Condoleezza Rice, however, has until now appeared to me to be too perfect – hair, complexion, carefully crafted speeches – so I was so delighted to hear a clip of her apology to Barack Obama over the unauthorised access to his passport information, in which she earnestly promised that she would ‘stay on top of it and get to the bottom of it.’ I guess only a politician could do both....

In the Philippines, devoted Catholics re-enact the Crucifixion, even to the extent of participants flagellating themselves with whips or bamboos before being nailed to a cross.

Enter Francisco Duque, Health Secretary, who has been refreshingly down to earth with his sound health advice.

The six-inch nails must be thoroughly sterilised, and participants should make sure that their tetanus shots are up to date. Furthermore, he says that ‘the best penitents can do is ensure that their whips are well-maintained’.

This advice seems to me to serve two purposes: it reminds these Devoted Christians of the obvious health risks; but more importantly, it reminds them that they are, after all, mere humans like the rest of us!

How many standards have You got?

2008-03-21T20:24:00.003Z

This double-standard thing is very tricky!

David Cameron has been caught out cycling across a red light, the wrong way down a one way street, and the wrong side of a mini-roundabout.

Naturally he had to apologise, and Boris Johnston declared that his London would be a zero-tolerance zone regarding traffic laws.

I saw the clips. There was no-one else around and there was not the slightest chance of anyone being injured. Anyone else of a normal disposition might well have done the same.

Clearly politicians have to adopt double standards in order to survive, and anyone who makes a fuss about this particular breach is nit-picking, or trying to make a story about not very much. I am not a Cameron supporter, but I like my politicians to be human.

Unfortunately, in this kind of situation, the tabloid press are inclined to become extremist: in other situations, the politicians become a little extreme. And when extreme thoughts creep in they are liable to appeal to emotion rather than rationality, and the concept of ‘balance’ evaporates.

Take the example of churchmen.

And consider the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill and its implications.

In the surprisingly emotive rant by Cardinal Keith O’Brien, the language he uses is worthy of the most extreme journalist or politician, and I have to assume that the rational argument supporting his view doesn’t stand up – if it did, surely he would use it, instead of phrases like:
Experiments of ‘Frankenstein proportion’
‘This Bill represents a monstrous attack on human rights, human dignity and human life’

As I understand it, this Bill will allow scientists to place minute clusters of human cells into animal eggs for a brief period in order to produce stem cells, which can then be used to research cures for some of our most insidious diseases. The alternative is to use human eggs instead, which are not readily available, and whose retrieval is invasive, uncomfortable and risky.

To use language which implies that we are set to create hybrids, monsters, or chimeras is clearly nonsense; to suggest that we are toying with human life is equally irrational.

Although I am not religious, I hold life to be sacrosanct – I won’t even kill a spider – but the proposed research doesn’t offend my sense of morality.

I would find it far more offensive if this research was to be forbidden.

That Divorce

2008-03-17T18:23:00.001Z

While I’m here, I do have thoughts about this ‘acrimonious’ divorce....obviously I refer to Heather Mills and Paul McCartney.

(Why do they always describe these things as acrimonious?)

I am feeling very cynical about Ms Mills. She described her settlement of 24 million pounds as ‘incredible’, and then expressed her relief that this safeguarded the future of her and her daughter, taking care of such everyday expenses as school fees, nannies etc.

Come on!! One hundredth of that would secure my future, pay school fees for all my grandchildren, and allow me to set my home up so that I could live the way I want to for what remains of my life. And we might manage without a nanny!

I cannot get away from the idea that she was in it for the money. The rest of us have to work! I have been married more than once, and so have some knowledge on the subject of failing marriages. I am afraid that I believe that a marriage that lasts only four years was based in the first place on false premises – one or other or both didn’t know why they were doing it....or, worse, knew exactly why they were doing it!

I really hate being a cynic!!

So, What's New With You?

2008-03-15T12:49:00.002Z

Why haven’t I put anything on my blog for 15 months?

The more you do stuff, the more stuff comes back at you! I got to a point when I didn’t have time to keep up. The major problem with the internet is that you haven’t the time, energy or mental capacity to read it all, let alone respond.

I did a City and Guilds course, to become a Domestic Energy Assessor. Great idea except that it took them 6 months to send me my certificate, by which time I was at the back of the queue for work, and the housing market had gone flat!

So I got another job, as a ‘white van man’....

Well, I’ll try anything once!

Then I decided to dig up my garden (‘yard’ for American readers) and turn it into a vegetable plot – since when we have had rain, gales, floods etc. etc. so all I have planted is onions. But I have big plans (although the plot is only 3m square).

Also, my family has been getting bigger.

In September I gained a new Grandson, who is certainly the most advanced and intelligent member of the human race.

Just before Christmas I had an e-mail from a daughter I didn’t know I had – she has been trying to find me for 20 years, which has been complicated by the fact that she lives in New Zealand!

So, to all you pessimists – there is always something new and exciting around the corner; and if you don’t believe that – well, get out there and create it!

And to all you optimists - stop saying ‘I told you so’!

What Goes Round Comes Round

2006-12-09T18:21:00.000Z

The Baker report on Iraq has been placed in the public domain. There are many sources which are starting to undermine its findings, and Bush and Rice are making distancing comments here and there. Amongst other things, the report has suggested that there should be dialogue with Syria and Iran, which has seemed to me to be a sound idea from the beginning.

The White House are refusing to talk to Iran unless they stop their nuclear programme - which we all know is not going to happen. What seems blindingly obvious to me is that if the West had engaged with Iran without preconditions we might be a lot nearer to peace than we are now, and if we could bite the bullet, sink our pride or whatever, and talk to the Iranians, surely the results could be worthwhile. Neither Syria nor Iran has any interest in continued instability in Iraq. To link any discussion with a cessation of the Iranian nuclear programme is counterproductive - a tactic from the Cold War which is pretty much discredited.

The new Defence Secretary has admitted that the war in Iraq is not being won, and that a whole new approach is necessary. There is much manoeuvring towards withdrawal of troops.

What has seemed obvious to me for some time, in purely practical terms, is that if we had not made this foolish commitment to Iraq when we did, we would have had sufficient troops (not to mention UN support) to fulfil our promises to Afghanistan from the outset - instead of which the situation in that sad country has got considerably worse than when we first went in, and we have manifestly failed to meet the commitments to nation-building which we made at that time. The efforts and resources which are required now to carry out those promises are hugely more than would have been needed at the time, before the Iraq diversion, and the resources are simply unavailable.

It is a simple matter for Blair to promise that whatever the troops need to do the job they shall have. Because to do the job with the resources they have needs time - about 50 years. You shorten the time by increasing the resources - which means more troops which we haven’t got, and more hardware which we can’t afford. Why can’t we afford it? Because of Iraq.

Of course, messrs. Bush and Blair say that no matter what our originally declared reasons for invading Iraq, deposing Saddam was sufficient justification for the invasion.

But consider this: Under Saddam, services were reasonably efficient, and average life expectancy averaged about 68, even in the face of blanket and corrupt sanction policies.

In Zimbabwe, on the other hand, there are no services. Life expectancy for women is 34 and for men 37, although the majority of men are leaving the country. A pack of 20 tampons costs two weeks wages at the minimum wage level (as a result of 1000% inflation) - which, with the consequent risk of infection and prevalence of HIV, could reduce this average life expectancy to 20. The number of people who are dying in Zimbabwe as a direct result of the state of the economy is three times as great as was the death toll under Saddam Hussein.

I am not suggesting that Saddam was a good man - he was a monster. But how could supposedly intelligent national leaders have made such an appalling series of mistakes and wrong priorities.

Without Iraq, we could have made a real and beneficial impact on Afghanistan and against the Taliban, and now we may be too late.

Without Iraq, we might have been able to pay more attention to Zimbabwe - and done what? I don’t know - but something.

From Sublime To Ridiculous

2006-11-17T22:40:00.000Z

Some months ago I deleted my blog. I was short of time. I decided to concentrate on taking my Photography A level (as well as work of course), and for a time at least, I decided that the blog had to go.

Now I have finished the Photography A level (straight A's of course) and have started drawing my Pension; so although I am still working I have decided to take an extra day off a week - 4 day working week - which leaves time to pick up again on the blog.

Last month I spent a few days in London. I stayed in Brixton, as usual, and as usual I took great pleasure from the vibrancy, the liveliness and the rich diversity within that community. It puts into perspective for me all the religious hysteria evidenced by politicians and the media here in Britain. I stood in the street, with my camera, taking photographs unless people objected (which they almost never did), being passed by people from a dozen races and religions, in a variety of modes of dress, fully veiled, or in Rasta dreadlocks, or Catholic Nuns, and none of them was worrying about any other.

While we are worrying (or not) about whether Jack Straw is right to ask women to uncover their faces in his surgeries, women in Zimbabwe are dying, on average, at age 34. Men manage, on average, to last until age 37. This is nothing to do with religion - this is a despot wreaking havoc in a country which used to be the bread basket of Africa. And yet it appears that no one is willing to do anything to support the opposition to Mugabe. Have neither we nor the Americans the power to influence South Africa? That is the country which might just swing things in Zimbabwe - if only they felt the need. The South Africans, out of all of Africa, should understand the meaning of oppression.