REPAIR - The trouble is you'll soon fancy another

I pass this one on as it's certainly worth a try.

My lovely Singapore auntie has passed on a cutting that links to a Yahoo group that I can't access or figure out, so you'll just have to take my version.

Basically if you drop anything electronic - mobile, iPod, Blackberry - in water it's pretty much a goner.

However... there is a last ditch solution: rice.

If it isn't already, switch it off and get it in sealed container of rise asap.

24 hrs later you may find you're back to being good to go.

I am guessing that a container of silica gel will work even better, but you can't eat it afterwards, whereas, depending on where you dropped the thing (loo or a puddle probably not a good idea you might want to risk it.

I figure salt water is pretty much a killer any which way.

The end of the cheap takeaway?

Think it will never happen? Think again, as it looks more than likely given that the cost of rice, the staple diet of some 3 billion inhabitants of our little lump of planetary rock, has jumped from $580 per ton to $760 per ton in a matter of a few weeks. A ~30% increase in price simply cannot be absorbed by most outlets, and on top of ever increasing energy bills, huge rises in transportation costs, we should all be prepared to spend a fair bit more than we have been used to on our Saturday night 'special fried rice' and curry sauce.

But the full story, and its potential impact worldwide, from the Toronto Star, seems to have escaped most of the world's meejah. (Well, ours are far more heated up about plastic bag bans, council taxes, the credit crunch, MP's expenses, some head honcho from F1 who has supposedly been enjoying himself a little too much, and what's happening in Eastenders!)

For poverty stricken people in parts of Asia (a large proportion of that 3 billion souls), where 50% to 70% of their tiny subsistence income goes on food, the situation looks dire. And given that demand is ever increasing, with transport and energy costs doing the same, and with an extra 70 million mouths to feed on our planet each year (now that's what I call a damned scary fact!), the long term outlook appears grim.

And wheat and corn prices are still rising too. Maybe I should bring my forecast of the £5 loaf by 2015 forward a few years?

Green Rush

Jumping on the big ‘green’ bandwagon - quite.

We are just at the start of a flood ('scuse the tasteless pun) of 'look how green we are' ads. Most, so far, fill me with dread, simply by the sheer crassness of the message, bolted on top of a usually pretty thin actual initiative.

And it's got me to wondering just how much longer it will... can continue. Because if in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, then if all in the land have gone green, to stand out from the crowd (which, let's face it, is pretty much what A&P is) those in charge of the purse strings may either tire or seek to differentiate. And much as it may seem attractive, I can only see Mutually Assured Greenification as being taken so far.

As one whose philosophy is pretty much predicated on the value of persuasion and seeing good environmental practice as an opportunity to embrace rather than a problem to 'deal with', I nonetheless cannot also help but think what could be DONE to help make this a better planet for future generations with £7.5M, rather than blowing it on a campaign to blow green smoke up various orifices.

No wonder the majority of the consuming public think it's all a bit of a lark.