With friends like these...

BBC Newsnight Ethical Man's been at it again - Save thousands and live longer with ethical living, and so have I:

What I do with these posts is copy and paste what’s been written, with the comments below, and then work through jotting away to come up with my contribution. Here you go:

The first thing I thought was “Oh, wow. He’s managed to persuade someone else to give up their car.” But then I find that what looks like a fairly OK piece of kit has been crushed and sent off to the recycler (how much energy in the air from all that... right now), and replaced by the Saab. Now at least that’s not a new car (at 5-25% bad eco-stuff, depending on who you believe, in the making), but really...

So basically you still get to use the car almost as much as you would (ie: when you only need it) and Gid gets to drive around the rest of the time, emitting away. It’s not the car that pollutes (figure above notwithstanding), it’s the driving it around that does, isn’t it?

So basically more traveling is going to happen, and you save on capital and most running costs, and Gid covers the rest. Neat.

You can afford a lot more than most obviously, but then you shunt the cost elsewhere anyway.

I wish I could be so ethical. Or have such friends. I have a bit of swamp in Florida should you wish to get in touch.

For those (Justin, you’re welcome – it’s in London. But I’m afraid I’m driving in as it’s all the demo gear and the family!) wishing to find a few more fun and practical things to do whilst staying at home, pop along and visit us and a few other sat ‘I’m Dreaming Of A Green Christmas at the Science Museum

If only the trains ran... at all

If you're going to p*ss people off, you may as well make it all sides.

So I decided to reply* to this: If only the trains ran on time . . .

Let me begin, as I always do to articles penned by the great and good of British journalism, in London, to note that for some of us the option of a tube is not always open, with children or without, outside your fair city. There is, of course, the bus, and here we start to meet on matters of... 'delivery'. I am sure we will have many a merry tale of those raped and pillaged catching the last bus home on one side, and various photo ops of HRH, Ken and whoever is the eco-pol of the day on the other (won't say anything about a possible mix of the two livening things up). Moving on, we then become as one: defunct routes. I look out on the Ivy-covered arches of Mr. Beeching's brainwave. And hence to make any kind of trip I need a car to even start with the train , and once I get there, I may as well keep going, not just for convenience (last back to catch the connection , if it comes, is around 6pm), but also the price. With those darn kids in tow, we're looking at £200 vs. about £7 a head. And to some in the country, that is a saving still worth making, planet or no planet. And I say this as one doing all I can to help save it in other ways.

*It won't get printed as they seem to 'moderate' (see pic) me every time. Ah, Freedom of the Press.

Sticks and stones

Will never hurt me, but poor ratings will with luck sink in with the producers and sponsors, where what a few brave souls were trying to point out from the outset once we saw what was going on (and saw ourselves being vilified by the few acolytes - one suspects mainly staff of the production (the website numbers tell their own sorry tale) and, worse, the vindictive twists of the edit suite :

Media Guardian: On Saturday night, another of Sky One's big hopes for the autumn, The Big Idea, a business reality show featuring The Apprentice's Ruth Badger as a judge, ended its seven-week run with a whimper. The final installment of The Big Idea attracted just 24,000 viewers on Sky One between 9pm and 10pm.

Am I in 'told you so' mode/mood? A bit. But I take no pleasure in the failure, as we invested a lot in getting seen.... by a rapidly diminishing audience, with almost no media coverage in complement.

One can only wonder what may have been had they not tried to engineer the heats to suit whatever bizarre notion they had of the kind of audience they were trying to reach.

My personal view is that this could have been a BIG idea, but a slow burner. People of passion getting involved, pitching genuine ideas with substance that could go on to make a difference, and creating a groundswell of support from those fed up with Dragon's Den egos and similar editorial manipulations.

Sad.