Doing the Necessary, Priority-wise

It's a rare situation when I can put hand on heart and comment on something from the remote position that not being too fussed about it all confers.

And so I listen to the BBC breakfast news, with an interesting series, and sequence of items.

So we have them quoting a government minister (I think one of our 'several' enviro grade ones) pondering the morality of bottled water. Yup, pretty bonkers flying stuff in from Fiji, and now shipping water over water to a place with water is also... odd.

Thing is, I then ponder the messengers. The BBC obviously fessed up to their internal complicity* (I think to the tune of £300k. No mention of what they'll do about it). I also need to check if the Panorama programme in question really did need to fly* round the planet to make their case (though doubtless offset; lord knows where and to what effect). And beyond what gets served up in the Commons Bar. I do also have to crank an eye at how this stands, enviROI-wise vs. blowing £110 billion propping up a dodgy financial business using our money.

Then we skip to a piece about the new trend of having baby showers, with gifts of £1000 exchanged.

It all rather goes into what is... necessary. And in what priority.

I also crank an eyebrow at how long this will be flavour of the month between the government/media cabal that seems to exist to focus the public's attention on one set of things, often at the expense of, how to say, 'bigger' issues.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. There are of course those who will suffer any reduction/ban rather more tangibly and immediately, namely all involved in the industry. I have to concern myself whether those with worthy, mitigating aspects, such as Belu or Frank, will weather this. I guess it's possible they may even do better out of it.

As, of course, will all fizzy pops (if I do ever opt for bottled water I like it sparkling to feel liek it is 'special', so maybe I'll still get Perrier for artist Jason B to turn into lamps) and booze.

Funny old world.

Addendum 1 - You are either part of the solution, or part of the problem. I just watched a live feed from a helicopter of Mr. Al Fayed's car trip to the Diana inquest. The world has gone mad.

Addendum 2 - Bottled water industry faces growing eco pressures - I quote this because I have to question the adequacy of the industry response, at least as reported and, I presume, as intended.

For a start, when I read upfront “simplistic comments such as ‘oil from the Middle East is turned into plastic and ‘many of the bottles that are thrown away end up in our rivers and canals.’” I have to cock an eyebrow. The first needs amplification (where do the raw materials come from?) and the second, well, seems pretty clearly right.

The thing is, why, what, how... etc? In this cases reasons can serve in place of excuses.

Good luck with the campaign they intend, but it's all coming across, to this consumer at least, as a little bit 'from on high' and unnecessarily defensive.

It's not fair and they have been singled out in flagrant diregard to other, possibly equally worse 'culprits' of our conucmer choice society, but I'm not sure what I read here is going to cut it.