Positively frustrating

It's interesting that in sport it is the top performers and victories that get the headlines and the kudos. 

But in most other areas of news there seems more attention paid to the 'losers' or the bad stories. Negative trumps positive most of the time. Especially in the world of 'ENV/RE:' (Or environment/all-the-'re's'. I see potential in this play on the word envy, which is also associated with the colour green, though it is with negative connotations. Watch this space. You may be in at the birth of a catchword. Or not). 

At Junkk.com, we really think that it is possible to make for an interesting and valuable site experience by pushing the positives, perhaps with a few eye-twitches to spice the entertainment mix, mainly restricted to this blog, directed at those who may be straying from the path of righteousness.

However, it's not always easy championing the good. And a lot of folk do make it hard. 

Recently we discovered, after much excavating, a pretty neat line in products being brought out by a major high street retailer. So we got in touch, and ended up with a most helpful chap who shared what he knew. Trouble is, we'd learned about all this from the industry media, and as the contact given he was more on the technical side of things. Anyway, to make the piece more consumer-friendly he did suggest we get some pictures from the others involved, including a major govt-funded (that's your and my money, by the way) non-profit organisation, who we were told would also give us the skinny on a few other big brands doing neat stuff. 

We have yet to hear back. We have also yet to get a reply from this company's PR or marketing folk, despite asking to to be contacted so we could make the most of this and any other initiatives on our pages.

What little we did get IS on the site, because we wanted to SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS! 

Here is a range you can opt to buy not just because of the product, but the packs are also a plus, planet-saving wise. If you care about such things, it's your call to go that route. Or not. But at least you know about it. Only I'm prepared to bet that via most media avenues you don't. Yet here we were... are... ready, willing and able to bring it straight to the consumer. FREE.

Yes, putting on my editorial hat I admit that here I am being coy about naming names. Well, we are not in the business... yet... of making grumpy the folk we'd like, and to make life easier need, to work with. I very much doubt they read this blog, but if I did get specific they'd get told and get nasty. It's such a shame that we live in a culture so averse to constructive critiques.

But watch this space; if you get ignored too often then you just have to follow your own path.

And this is a blog, so I can at least vent a wee bit of frustration. And opine that if we can't do it with some folk, we will just have to do it despite them. Odd rationalising that last sentence with the fact that we're trying to help sell a brand's own products and assist in promoting officially-supported improvements to consumers' environmental purchasing.

Errors of Omission

I think we need, and hence have the facility, to edit out pretty much anything that goes on our pages, be it incorrect editorial, a dodgy diRE:ctory entry or unacceptable Forum post. 

However, and especially with the latter, it would need to be quite extreme. It must be accepted that in defining what 'extreme' is  means we are obviously applying our values, so we are of course casting our spin on everything. I guess you just accept that by coming here, and really it is fair enough that we have that right.

Just as it is for another publication not to choose to publish something they have been sent, though it can be frustrating when it is by invitation and, in the case of online, there can be no real excuses 'for lack of space'.

However, I have to take slight issue with the wording of the Daily Mail online section when it says 'No comments have so far been submitted. ' They are incorrect. On the matter of the PM's energy speech (as opposed to the disruption of it) I did reply. They just choose not to put it up. And that, in light of the wording above (and how you interpret the perceived lack of response)... is very different.

Meanwhile, back in the ;( corner

Well, that didn't take long. No sooner do I go to bed a little cheerier that Cat 5 hurricanes may not all be down to us, I open up my mail this morning to the following, from the New Scientist:

http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8398

Failing ocean current raises fears of mini ice age

With this key bit of analysis/explanation:

"The slow-down, which has long been predicted as a possible consequence of global warming, will give renewed urgency to intergovernmental talks in Montreal, Canada, this week on a successor to the Kyoto Protocol."

If there is a reason not to contemplate substituting milk with Scotch on my Frosties , I guess it's here:

"Harry Bryden at the Southampton Oceanography Centre in the UK, whose group carried out the analysis, says he is not yet sure if the change is temporary or signals a long-term trend."

And here:

"Richard Wood, chief oceanographer at the UK Met Office’s Hadley Centre for climate research in Exeter, says the Southampton team's findings leave a lot unexplained."

But sadly it mostly shows to me that we are still very much in a phase of claim and counterclaim that can rather assault the senses, and our ability to figure out rationally what is happening and/or what we are doing to ourselves. Which of course makes  decisions on the best courses to take to rectify the situation hard.

I did however find this final series of facts quite interesting:

"The last shutdown, which prompted a temperature drop of 5°C to 10°C in western Europe, was probably at the end of the last ice age, 12,000 years ago. There may also have been a slowing of Atlantic circulation during the Little Ice Age, which lasted sporadically from 1300 to about 1850 and created temperatures low enough to freeze the River Thames in London."

It would be hard to pin the efforts of man on these. 

I am starting to weary of big ticket stories (up or downbeat) which tend to make good headlines and then go on to provide the ammo for competing advocates, but it would be silly not to try and stay on top of all that is available. Noting that even sticking with the science is not going to result in a shining bolt of light on the problem(s) and the solution(s), I'd suggest this is a pretty good link to stay on top of if you're interested:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/climate-change

I remain resolute that whatever is happening is not being helped by wasteful or polluting practices, and so maintain my advocacy of any practical measures that can help improve the situation and steer people's behaviour in ever more cooperative directions.

And now, the goo... less bad news.

This, via USA Today, er, today:

http://usatoday.com/weather/stormcenter/2005-11-30-hurricane-cycle_x.htm

Excerpts: Natural climate conditions, not global warming, created the record-breaking 2005 tropical storm season, the nation's top hurricane experts said Tuesday. These included Gerry Bell, lead meteorologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center. 

William Gray, head of Colorado State University's Tropical Meteorology Project, also says on his website that there's no evidence that global warming has caused more hurricanes.

Despite a rise in ocean temperatures worldwide in recent decades, there has not been a worldwide increase in the number or intensity of tropical storms. Only the Atlantic Ocean has had an increase, which Gray attributes to natural cycles.

I guess these are just a bunch of experts who will be totally contradicted by another bunch of experts, leaving us all none the wiser, but for now I'll cheer myself up a bit with it. At least the fact that it may not be all our fault, though I guess anyone with a beachfront condo in Miami may still be less than thrilled.

So will the alarmists stop using this an excuse to rush us into over-reacting, pretty please? 

And will the other extreme (who are they? Government? Big business?) not even THINK of using it as an excuse to back slide.

We have seen some high-profile opportunities that have managed to capture the public's attention and inspire a desire to act. Doesn't matter why, but let's harness their interest and efforts honestly and direct them productively.

Waste is bad. Pollution is bad. Always was, is and will be. As it certainly can't be a good thing to pump vast amounts of man-made gunk up, down or sideways, so let's grab this chance to cut back... as far as we can, as soon as we can.

4x4xfarce

I just read a motoring piece about a new Mini 4x4 on the cards, which
these days inevitably ended up with a swipe (though on balance fair
enough) as to what the Mayor of London would make of it (it seems
he's talking of banning them as an eco-measure).

That's the problem with flip, narrow-minded, poorly thought-out,
agenda-driven , 'ist' campaigns; they almost always end up biting you
on the bum.

I'm not against a smart bit of well-considered, harmless, thought-
provoking, egalitarian protest to effect change, but when you take an
aggressively negative, and highly exclusive (but sloppily targeted)
stance such as the '4x4' efforts of some anti-dolts, you tend to
negate, or worse actively detract from any positives.

One obvious solution would be to move on to the more appropriate SUV
sector, but this would still consign all sorts of innocents to the
misery of censorious missionary zeal. There are many who, for sure,
it wouldn't hurt to inspire to drive more appropriate chariots based
on actual use, but is the collateral damage really worth it?

The final sentence here is not a defence of the unwarranted use of
such vehicles, simply a hint as to better avenues to explore in
trying to persuade people to change their purchase habits.

4x4s don't cause greenhouse gasses, burning lots of petroleum-based
fuels does. There's a difference.

Nuclear meltdown

And here it is. That is, the blog to follow the last one. Which it is in so many other ways.

I am trying to get to grips with the fallout (there may be a few unintentional nuclear-related puns here, so bear with me) from the PM's Energy Speech, which for various reasons pretty much got turned into 'How I Learned To Love The Atom'. Or, in the case of a few who took a pre-emptive opposing view, not.

So my time with the online versions of the major media was pretty extensive today. And frankly, it has done my head in.

What was interesting was how balanced they all were, with editorial, commentary and public opinion within organs of left and right, covering the full political spectrum, all pretty much disagreeing with each other internally, as much as with each other.

I actually found the 'letters to the editor' the most informative and useful, possibly becuase these were from folk who were not constrained by party lines, rigid dogma, commercial pressure or the need to stir up a rating or two.

But you know what? I'm still none the wiser.

And worse, my trust level is going down... further. All of a sudden I'm being sprung with stuff on little or no deadline, and it makes me suspicious: 'We've run out: this is the only way. Agree to it NOW!'. Prices have doubled and can only rise... but, conveniently, would you like to lock into the current rate for ten years?'. 'Donate to us or we'll die'. 'Give voice to our opinion or we'll throw our toys out of the pram, and then come and throw yours out to if you're not with us'.

As far as I can make out, the big problem is global warming. And this, at best guess, is not being helped to the greatest degree by greenhouse gasses. So we need to get these out of the atmosphere,  whilst reducing (to zero?) any more going back up form our activities. 

No one is going near the whole expanding, increasingly affluent (and hence not too likely too be tilling their fields for a lifetime with one visit a decade to the big city) global population.

So there are more of us, wanting more stuff (which takes energy to make) and needing more energy to run it all once we've got it.

So it's back to the numbers. What will it cost me financially, and the planet environmentally to a) survive (eat, drink, house, heat, etc) and b) consume (travel, entertain, etc)?

I can then get to what I'm am prepared to pay (money, inconvenience, etc) and what costs I am prepared to bear (reduced travel, less 'stuff', blemished potatoes, etc). 

But I don't feel close to those numbers. Look at the current nuclear debate. Just as one small example, it is admitted that while a nuclear power station does not produce greenhouse gasses (though I bet there's steam, which didn't I read was now a greenhouse gas?), its construction, operation and disposal has a 'carbon consequence'. Not to mention the glowy thingies that are left behind (anyone recall Space 1999? I personally blame The Simpsons for making this stuff seem harmless). 

However, I then see wind farms being deemed carbon neutral. Are they? It seems an omission on par with electric cars being called 'non-polluting'. There has to be a carbon consequence to making them, erecting them, running them and dismantling them at end of life, as with anything. It may be less operationally than nuclear, but it sure is not zero. And once the subsidy factor has been stripped away, how to they match up in terms of cost-effectiveness?  

Plus if you really want to get complex you can go on to break out the environmental costs per kWhr as well, surely? 

How is it so hard to derive a clear cost for the 'product' amortised over its life? Try this for a nuke and a wind farm:

Cost to build / Carbon consequence to build

Cost to operate / Carbon consequence to operate

Cost to decommission/ Carbon consequence to decommission

But that against what they crank out and... hence we get a £/KWh and CC/KWh for each. 

I am prepared to bet the wind farm will win in spades on all three (maybe close on building)

But....

We have to also look at what 'we' are expected to suck out of these things. No point going a route that can't deliver. 

That... is a whole new ball of wax.

Going ballistic with statistics

In an ideal world, everyone would would cooperate in doing what's
best for them. Glad I got that out of the way.

In the real world, everyone has a different view of what's best...
for them(selves & us). A pol with an eye on a few decades tenure with
a legacy to enjoy while he/she is still alive (I don't think they
worry too much about the afterlife). A manufacturer with an eye on
shareholder value. A lobby group with an office, ad budget and staff
pension to pay for. A family with a fixed income, uncertain pension
and the prospect of a cold winter ahead.

So I was looking last night at my utility bills. Gas, electric,
telecoms, insurance, water and rates. Can't do much about the last
two, so I was concentrating on the the first few.

Trouble is, I ended up pretty confused. And that is not a good way to
arrive at a valid decision. It should all be so simple. All I need is
a cost per unit. Even with some jiggery-pokery on standing charges
and payment plans, that's all I need to make my decision. BTUs,
kilowatts, you name it. It is but a consumable item I don't see, that
has to meet certain quality standards to get to me and do its job,
whoever it comes from. So if I can get to the number I seek, it's
simple. I'll buy the cheapest.

But.

What about the planet? So now it gets a wee bit more complicated. But
really it shouldn't, at least financially. If there is a loading, so
be it. Just so long as I know how much and can make that financial call.

But.

Where is this money going to? And where is this energy coming from?
Am I paying for green energy, or funding some alternative energy
subsidy to a system tasked to meet targets rather than best-case
solutions (whatever they may be), or to help fund some pressure group
I may not endorse who are lending their name to promoting a
commercial, competitive, enterprise?

I don't know.

And inasmuch as a lot of my day is reading waaaaaay to much on this
issue already, and am still none the wiser, I'm pretty sure not many
other members of the average working public are either.

So I think the best way to sort this out before we discuss our way
into oblivion is to try to get someone to give us a big, juicy (no
endorsement intended or implied) KISS. Please! Is it not possible to
strip away all the political and activist baggage and pare down the
big issues by Keeping It Simple & Stupid?

I'll offer my thoughts on developing that naive, idealistic plea in
another blog.

As for the end of the world, there is much thinking going on at high level, with a sense of urgency.

There was a bit of a hoo-haa today. A well-known group (who will remain nameless, as I seem to have been a bit down on them lately, despite admiring a lot of what they do) decided to hijack a certain speech. It seems it was because they a) didn't like what was going to be said, and b) were not allowed a demanded (with threats) 10 minutes to make their own speech at the same venue. Hmmn. Good job other liitle tinkers don't issue such 'or else' threats to get their way, or where would we be?

Anyway, this speech was by our PM, and was pretty important, being about the way our energy policy is shaping.

I was tracking it down when lo, it was delivered to me by the Daily Mail. I presumed in full transcript, but possibly not. Hard to say. Let me know if there is/was more than this:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=370076&in_page_id=1770

So I read it, and decided to tell them what I thought.... about the speech, which no one seemed to care about, as opposed to the protest, about which a lot of folk did. I guess that says a lot in its own right. 

In case the DM doesn't fancy sharing what I had to say, here it is anyway:

"Short speech. Was that it? Interesting that so far we have about a dozen comments on the 'disruption' and few, until now, here.

 

There's a lot of passion flying about, and stances being defended, but it remains hard to judge on the numbers so far. There are a few in this speech, but nothing that helps move my opinion. 'Back on the agenda'. 'Re-thinking'. 'Sense of urgency'. 'A review of progress'. 'Publishing a policy statement'. Woo-hoo. A bit on what's stopping; not much on plain facts of what can work or how 'we' play our part.

 

All I can see is a growing population requiring ever more 'stuff', which will need ever more 'juice' to operate. Cars, planes, boilers... things with plugs on.

 

It needs a courageous politician, or one not so worried about being re-elected, to lay it out and tell folk they can't have it all, and/or they can't have it cheap.

 

Following the handling of civil service pensions issue recently, I'm not holding my breath - which I might soon be required to do :)"

I think we'll just keep on plugging away at our little bit of doing.

Taking your ball back

Junkk.com has two (there may be more, and I am sure we'll be told
what they are in due course. Rest assured, if valid we'll try and
address them) main obstacles to 'use' as an online resource.

Research after research in this field shows that high on users' pet
hate lists are asking for personal info and, sort of the same thing -
but not always - long forms.

Well, we're trying to address the fact that we have, to an extent, a
bit of both.

So soon there will be some stuff you can dip into on site pretty much
anonymously and unrecorded.

But the majority will still require agreeing to our terms &
conditions and/or registering.

We simply can't let folk read about ways to make things, much less
upload them, without accepting that some common sense needs to be
applied. And that means, in this litigious age, to provide a free
service with the cooperation of major brands' products requires some
protections for the good against the scamps we know exist out there.

Similarly, without knowing the postcode we can't very well tell you
what's happening in your neighbourhood, now can we?

Plus, of course, without a name and email we can't ensure you are who
you say you are and playing by the rules, few though they are.

Which brings me to a game called Runescape. It's an online, virtual
world that you can log on to and play, it seems, with all and sundry
out there in cyberspace. And from what I have seen of it, it is
pretty awesome, not least because it is free. And it also doesn't
seem too shabby on social development, maths and all sorts of other
stuff, with the possible exception of the killing and maiming. But
anyone with an X-box or PS2 knows that excess violence in games is a
lost cause anyway.

I just found out my 9 year-olds were playing it. And I was concerned
a bit because we had had a chat about online behaviour, and one of
our many rules is no real names, which they were using.

So I insisted they used noms de plum, which in the changing had some
deleterious consequences to the credits they'd built up. Oops. Bad
daddy.

Sadly, being about the same age of Bart Simpson (at least this year),
and Gawd knows why, one of them also chose as his new 'handle'
something like Ruinpoop.

Along with crud (previous blog), 'poop' is a word we don't deem too
awful. In fact it's part of a ship, far as I can recall, as much as a
device to carry when you walk the dog.

Which is why him getting banned from the game for using offensive
language was a bit of a shock. Actually, he was desolate, as all the
levels he had built up were lost and he is weeks behind his chums now.

I was just angry. My wife had tried to appeal to their 'customer
services', or whatever the correct title for their nanny brigade is,
to at least get his credits transferred to another name, but she got
slapped down by some petty jobsworth citing 'the rules'. And that,
dear reader, is the end of this chapter.

Yes, rules will always be required. But how they get applied is
equally important. And, obviously, by whom.

So Runescape, for messing up with no good reason a lovely little boy
who could have easily been guided to the path you favour, I hope what
goes around comes around.

'Peace, man... or else

Speaking of energy... (stay with me here; it does all make sense).

First up, I have had a reply from Sir John Whitmore of the Telegraph Motoring page, which inspired a previous blog. Pleasant enough and I appreciate that he did reply at all, though I'm still weighing up whether progressing the debate by getting back to him will be productive. Suffice to say that I suspect we may at best end up in 'agree to disagree' territory, or worse if his 'anything less is unacceptable' last word is something to go by. Watch this space.

What got us to this point was my wondering whether some of his more overtly critical comments (he had accused some drivers of being 'selfish' in an article) or thoughts on others' actions (he was fairly warm to some 'direct' activist behaviours) were going to further the cause.

Let's say for now he favours doing whatever is necessary now, as time will permit nothing less. I agree with him on the doing something bit, and the urgency, but still not with what he seemed to be advocating under the 'whatever we can' banner.

Which brings me, for all sorts of relevant reasons to this thread, to Greenpeace. They, as you will know from earlier blogs, I have mixed feelings about. And in the way of Junkk.com, may I share again by raising an eyebrow that can only be described as... 'enquiringly critical'.

Last weekend I was with the family in Gloucester. As we parked I noticed several cars bedecked with a windscreen 'sticker' and wheel-sized cardboard clamp emblazoned with the following: 'Greenpeace: this gas-guzzling 4x4 has been clamped to stop climate change'.

Uh-oh, I thought, along with wondering why the mud-spattered 1.6l Vitara with the 'Young Farmers' badge got this treatment, and not the dirty great 5.4l Jag next to it. Or the plane the happy clampers will doubtless board to snowboard Verbier this Xmas.

And when we came back later, my sons wondered why it was allowed to have all this litter on the ground, as the folks who had been 'spoofed' obviously didn't feel like taking these fine bits of promo material to the cardboard recycling bin (doubtless to create no carbon consequences at all being turned into such materials and then distributed around to be re-affixed).

And I then had to also wonder how it was allowed to fly-post commercial ad messages in this way. Because interestingly, and I told you this would all tie together, it also had the following website emblazoned upon it: http://www.choosecleanenergy.com

This actually links to a section on the Greenpeace site. And if you really work very hard navigating around it, it gets you to a link (which doesn't work at time of writing! D'oh!) to Juice, which is part of npower.

No problem at all with that. Renewable energy is a great thing to promote. But as you'll note from my last blog, it seems npower is not the only bunch offering it. So why is that the only one offered by Greenpeace as an option?

No, really, why?

On Junkk.com we'll happily put any such thing, for free, in our diRE:ctory, should anyone offering such things go to the effort of telling us about it (that, by the way, includes organisations such as Greenpeace - we may not agree with all they do, but you still should hear what they have to say). We'll also write stories/reviews about them once we feel qualified to do so, and update them if we have not been fair in sharing all the options... again... only if we're told about it. Fair enough?

And to be able to afford to do so, we'll also happily take paid ads from folk wanting to push their commercially-based CSR initiative over those of anyone else. But we'll stick them where they can and should be, on the ad sections of our own site, so you can make choices without guilt or threats to cloud the issue.

Have I got the energy?

While in London last week I saw a poster from British Gas about converting to renewable energy at no extra cost, which is of interest to me both personally and obviously Junkk.com professionally. 

However, their website http://www.house.co.uk does not seem to have anything about this (renewable energy has no results under search). So I called and  talked to a nice young lady on the number given (0845 602 9027) but she only knew it was a feature of signing up to their fixed fee programme, which sent up a few red flags as that is something I do not yet know I wish to do.

It seems a shame that what seems to be a very good initiative is rather obscurely advertised, and also comes tied into something else (which may be the whole point). 

I have requested more info via their website. It will be interesting to see what the come back with.

Return to London

Friday was an adventure. I scraped off the snow from the car and gingerly drove to Gloucester, to find the train arriving bang on time, the London tube lines working smoothly and getting pretty much to the ExCel Centre in the East End for the business start up show http://www.bstartup.com exactly when I had planned to. 

Was it worth it? Hhmmn. I think for the chapter in 'Your free ticket to the Titanic' (actually going off that title for my 'How not to' guide... working on an alternative) on Going to Shows (as opposed to 'Exhibiting at' the darn things), I would put a few flags up against anything that is free, especially if it is to the public, which promptly goes against my egalitarian grain and a few past blogs about pricing the common person out of reasonable access. It was frankly, a bit of a zoo, and all the potentially decent seminars required queuing for about an hour beforehand, and even then you might not get in. 

At least I found out that their version of Dragon's Den, called Lion's Den, was another one we'd done well to miss out on, despite applying. I couldn't actually get close enough to hear whether the 'Lions' were as evil as in the TV series, but it just didn't seem worth it for the quality of exposure.

And 99% of the exhibitors were pretty much what you'd expect. Banks, accountants, website designers. No one we needed to buy from and nobody we could sell to. But....

I did get to meet Trevor Baylis of wind-up radio fame, and it was kind of fun to chat with a guy for whom I have great respect as an inventor, champion of practical eco-products (though it seems he got poorly served with his iconic wind-up radio invention) and defender of inventor's rights http://www.baylisbrands.com.

I also had an interesting chat at the Brother stand with a very nice techincal guy. They were there to flog their products, but when I started asking about their environmental stance he got quite animated and we had a very worthwhile exchange. He liked the sound of Junkk.com and said he pass us on to 'those who know', while I liked the sound of their commitment and see a feature in the offing.

Maybe it was worth going after all. Especially when, as I left, I was stopped for the umpteenth time and asked about my laptop sling and having explained its origins ended up with a few more converts to the Junkk.com cause. They even suggested I patent the idea, so maybe it was even more worthwhile meeting Trevor earlier! Nah, that one I'll offer for free on the site. What goes around comes around.

It's easy to forget what good there is around you

We got back from London at about 4am this morning. And my brain is still pretty much fried.

It was, obviously, a very long day. And most of it was not much fun.

But one thing has started to sink in. The number of good friends we have. 

Nothing much to do with Junkk.com, but I just felt like commiting it to print. 

But then again, thinking about it, maybe it is everything to with Junkk.com. 

Give 'peace a chance

My parents were, for their day, quite adventurous travelers. So I have vague, and fond, memories barelling down to the South of Spain in a state of the art Morris 1300 (something Dad had read about hydroelastic suspension being the pero's cojones in dealing with Iberian tracks), overnighting in exotic paradores and having my (then) blond (then) hair ruffled by cooing black-clad matrons with moustaches.

And it was on this trip that we ended up at a wondrous spot that is now in the news:

Greenpeace activists have seized a vast hotel under construction on a protected shoreline near Almeria in southern Spain, saying the project was illegal and should be demolished.

The skeleton of the hotel reaches down bare volcanic rock to a beach of spectacular beauty in the protected area of Cabo de Gata. 

So without knowing all, or indeed needing to go into the detail of this (such as feeling it a pity that the preventative occupation has taken place once a heck of a lot desecration must have already occurred), I have to say this is the kind of thing I remember, and applaud the likes of Greenpeace for.

Our Ladies Of Vision

Interesting dilemma. I should no longer be writing this.

One of my daily tasks is, was, or at least should be, blogging off. 

But yesterday that may have all changed. We left at crack of dawn (and set off back at dusk, and ended up arriving in the wee small hours thanks to a certain number of logs on the line turning the M54 into a 2-hr carpark - blogs on drivers of lorries keeping their licences and/or features on the correct time to switch off your engine to follow) to pick up Emma and head to Telford to meet up with the newest members of our merry crew.

Pat Freshwater and Amanda Brooke of The Business Advisor Partnership - http://www.thebusinessadvisor.org are now consulting with us on many business and marketing-related issues, rejoicing in their joint Junkk-titles of 'Our Ladies of Vision'. They are also tasked with getting us from 'here' to 'there' without, or at least a lot less of those creative 'ohh, this looks worth a detour'... er... detours. We have kind of figured out we do get distracted a lot, much to the detriment of our business model.

Thanks to their input you should see some major changes soon. More obviously to do with honing all we are up to with the site, but also in the way we do business.

Until we can hit that Nirvana moment of creating the visitor numbers to get under the radar of those major advertisers of a more ruthless, ROI-oriented disposition (even though we are still happy to look at a 'checkB4Ucheque' deal, so it really should be a 'why not; let's give it a whirl' to even the less charitably inclined seeking to up their exposure on to the Green£), they are helping us focus on paying the rent by doing more of what we do best and less of what tickles our fancy.

And that, for me, means going back to my roots: copywriting. Which is not quite the same as blogging, which of course doesn't involve getting paid. 

Hence the dilemma. Will this mean no more blogs for a while? We'll see. 

You are what you eat. Interesting what it takes to get to you.

The Sunday Times magazine had a photo feature this week called the
World on a Plate taken form a book: What the World Eats, by Peter
Menzel and Faith D'Aluisio. It compared the shopping of 'average'
families from around the world, including UK, Chad, China, Egypt,
Philippines, Australia, India, Turkey, USA and Germany.

The main thrust of the piece was the cost rather than the dietary
side (in fact the weekly shopping was broken down into similar
categories, such as grains, dairy, beverages, etc). And while the
West/Others divide was not unexpected, I couldn't help but notice
that the UK family spent half that of the German one, though the
national weekly income figures included seemed to show they were not
necessarily applying like with like.

But the thing that struck me most in these photos was the amount of
packaging the 'Western' families' foodstuffs involved: bottles,
Tetrapaks, cardboard boxes, etc. Especially... the Germans. But I
guess they do at least recycle all this stuff. In Chad of course,
they shop local and practice 'reduce' above all.

Oh, The Disappointment

So in the very blue.. er.. green corner we have the eco-activists, and in the red.. er.. black (hearted? 'in-the-black-at-any-cost' profiteers? 'Black day for my political career?) corner we have those traditionally ranged against them, or at least subject to their (often justified) scrutiny. 

As various folk square off, historically (that from which we should learn to avoid repeating...) a very bad place to be is in the middle. But that is where we proudly stand. Yet our best defence is that we have always stood there, and are firm in our resolve to stay there (blimey, I sound like a a cut price Churchill).

Yet there are a few other folk, who really cop it having strayed from total commitment to their cause, and find themselves in 'if you are not with us you are against us' territory, and I have a particular sympathy with these poor guys. Like the Gaia chappy who went from being the father of the Green movement to Jeremy Clarkson's patio heater mechanic (the way he got vilified). Or David Bellamy. Changed their minds. Had another opinion... whatever. Desertion gets you shot by your own side, and it is not a nice feeling, I'm sure. The reactions and comments made were very personal.

But there there are those who wanted to straddle all camps and, when the dust settles, clap the victor on the back and say 'I was always behind you chaps'. The problem is, you can get hung out to dry a tad when circumstances move quicker than anticipated or not quite as planned. And as you were never quite with anyone, then it's hard to be welcomed by anyone when you need a parapet to re-duck under.

 (Reuters) - Environmental activists accused British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Monday of failing to tackle global warming despite many pledges of tough action. As Greenpeace dumped five tonnes of coal outside Blair's London residence in protest at what they said was his backsliding, the World Wide Fund for Nature accused him of saying one thing but doing the opposite on climate change. "Blair has gone from being the great hope to being the great threat,"

Ooops.

But in the spirit of trying to be balanced, a hint to possible reasons behind the backslide from 'threat', if not justifying the move to that point from 'hope', can be seen later on in the piece here: 

A report last week by a European think tank, the International Council for Capital Formation, said hitting the Kyoto targets could wipe out at least 200,000 jobs each in Italy, Germany and Britain and more than 600,000 in Spain.

Who... would be a politician these days? Can't please all of the people...

However, there is one good thing to come of this:  I think I may have sorted our heating bills for winter. Now all I have to do is figure out how to disappoint Greenpeace. At least a tonne's worth. 

But knowing my luck they may figure 'we who would salute them' (I'll leave out the 'about to die' as that is too depressing) would perhaps have been more sympathetic if it had been a lorryload of white feathers. At least once tidied up they make good insulation.

Fly me to the moon... one way (the Earth is pretty much sc@££$ed)

Hot on the heels....

This from the Sunday Times quoting Michael O'Leary, Chief Executive
of Ryanair, 'rejecting claims that his low-fare model is increasing
emissions':

"If preserving the environment means stopping poor people flying so
only the rich can fly, then screw it".

I don't think he's actually rejecting the claim. He's saying he
doesn't care. Which is almost a bigger worry.

Because he's in a corner, and in defending 'his' business he's kinda
showing what I have been banging on about for a while is coming to
pass, where we're seeing trying to deal with this getting swallowed
by a 'them and us' war.

And I can see a good few folks squaring up against each other here.
With only one set of losers. Us.

Crud.

Steaming!

Considering their father's bad example, it is but a matter of time before my boys start to swear like little troopers.

But for now, thanks to a saintly mother, a certain amount of hypocritical (don't do as I do...) guidance by me and their own sense of what gets you brownie points in polite company, they do not. At least, not bad words. I wish I could resist as they do. Yet having read the following I am moved to coin a few choice phrases:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4419880.stm

Sample : Although rising concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxides and other gases are almost certainly driving the global rise in temperature observed in recent decades, the natural greenhouse effect - without which the world would be considerably colder - is largely down to atmospheric water vapour.

I'm sorry, but isn't just about everything we're looking at transport-wise to mitigate this is of 'the and all you get out the pipe is water' variety? Of everything I have been reading, hydrogen was the one that made sense to me, even if we ended up in a Blade-Runner permanent rainstorm. I guess a fair bit drips onto the tarmac, but won't an awful lot go up in... er... steam?

Solar powered 747's anyone?

So until I can get my head around this I would like for now to borrow from one of my son's very worst: Oh... crud. 

Memo to self: don't write memos

I was the other day reading about a memo from senior Wal-Mart exec.
that was advocating something pretty scummy get done (probably
legally, if not ethically) to the workforce to make a tad more
profit. And just now about the public-schools price fixing fall-out
(which involved compromising e-mails hacked by subsequently expelled
students). These of course come hot on the heels of Ms. Let's-
use-9-11-to-lose-the-bad-news-on-our-trivial-little political-
careers, whoever thought HMS Sheffield didn't need expensive
fireproof conduiting and, of course, the daddy (hey, at least with
the new ones the ladies are breaking through the glass ceiling when
it comes to being corporate weasels) of them all, the some bright
spark (no pun intended) at Ford who figured it was better to let the
Pinto blow up and pay the compo than actually redesign it.

What really beggars belief is that they:

a) Can think such things
b) Write such things
c) Send such things
d) Think they won't get caught out
e) Don't get censured by superiors on the spot
f) Don't lose everything soon thereafter

The answer of course, probably kicks in at 'e'. They do it because
there is a culture at their place of work that will reward
'results' (usually, but not always, profit. Protecting reputations or
defending policy can rate highly, too), to paraphrase and mangle
Ralph Nader, 'at any cost'. The risk is usually, at most, 'looking
bad', which is unlikely to trouble those who can come up with the
notions that pop them, fleetingly (what is Jo Moore doing now?), in
the glare of negative pubilicity.

What also beggars belief is that the organisations who employ such folk:

a) Are so cynical to think they can get away with it, and dumb as to
think that such a culture does anyone any good, especially their own.
b) Survive despite the consequences, along with the individuals at
the heart of it all.

So, ultimately, the fault can only be laid at our own doors. We let
them get away with it.

Life is too short (sadly, our attention spans are even shorter, along
with our thirsts for justice). The world is too small. Genuine (and I
know that can be a tricky one to assess) whistleblowers should keep
their jobs rather than losing them, and weasels should lose their
jobs, including benefits, rather than getting promoted sideways.

Idealistic... moi?