Stick head in sand and it will go away

I just had to share this form the BBC Newsnight daily 'Watch us
tonight' email:

> Conversations with the Tax Office on the question of illegal
> immigrants have become a little surreal.
>
> "If a fake National Insurance number is used, do you flag it up and
> tell an employer?" we asked.
> "I'm not telling you", they said. "Is it a secret?" we asked. "I'm
> not telling you that either".
>
> Do we need investigative journalists on this programme or therapists?

Sadly I missed the show, but I rather suspect there was no one there
for Paxo to tear into.

As you know, I'm not that impressed with the extent or quality of
investigative journalism in the UK these days, and especially when it
comes to tenacity.

So I really hope that this is one that will not go away.

Who was this in our Public Services, paid by us, who took such a
stance? Why do they still have a job?

There is simply too much that we need to know and are allowed to
know, that can now be, and is dismissed by those responsible when it
is not convenient for them to share with us for purely personal
reasons of self-preservation.

It would make one heck of a smoothie

A bit of fun for the weekend.

I subscribe to a few rather odd 'e-wsletters, which can often prove distractions, but more often than not throw up a diamond.

One such is eatmail, who has passed on this rather hilarious, but very well done (doubtless claimed to be by some students to protect the guilty, but such things do not happen easily or come cheap) viral 'homage' to the gorgeous Sony ad.

And yes, as an advocate of not wasting, I guess I shouldn't like  nor promote this, or indeed the original. Maybe it would have been better if it had been sponsored by Innocent.

But that's the dilemma of being a creative soul; it's hard to make anything with consuming. 

Greening Your Eats

One of the many pleasures of staying abreast of all the stuff Junkk.com feels it should stay on top of, is making links across a series of seemingly disconnected sources.

For instance, I have been entertaining myself lately with the antics of some of our major retailers (at least, as reported), who seem to have lately decided to bathe themselves in green a lot more than before, and thus suitably washed are quite aggressive/defensive in staking their competitive claims to be first, best, most, etc.

I accept most of what follows comes from the Telegraph (it would have been more striking had it spanned a few other colour shades of media, but as a lot is pretty factual it's worth working with me on this), but you can try this - Sainsbury's wrestles with Tesco for environmental high ground from the Indy - but their links don't seem to hold up for very long.

As followers of my blog will know, I have cocked a few eyebrows at some of the claims being made in this arena, and also lamented how little they have been delved into by the mainstream enviro-media who reprint their press releases.

So first up, to set the scene from another source than myself, there's this from the Telegraph Business Club, initiated by a question: “I would like to know peoples viewpoints on the ever increasing cost of energy in the UK.”

To which an obviously well-versed chap has responded extensively, but I do pick out these words in particular: "It is fair to say that large businesses are being motivated to take proactive steps to save energy, most financially driven and little to do with their Corporate Social Responsibly standing."

Which now brings me to a few commentary pieces, firstly one from Sophie Brodie's Business Diary: Leafy Leahy refuses 'greener than thou' row, which refers to Tesco's 10-point plan to make the world a better place. This I imagine includes the '£100m investment' that so comprehensively underwhelmed me recently, but has also stirred 'a bit of a do' with Sainsbury’s Head Honcho, and then, in short order, that of Boots.

Thing is, so far pretty much all I have heard from these CEOs in this regard is stuff about improving their energy efficiencies. Bearing in mind that comment at the start, when you read Sainsbury's energy bill rises £75m, with the comforting opening line that they '... tried to calm fears that it would be forced to pass on escalating energy costs to shoppers, after its chairman suggested the company could not absorb all of its hefty fuel bills', you start to see what's what.

And to which Tom Stephenson has referred (another dodgy link, but it is accessible by link from the base of the one above) in his Business Comment: 'Passing on higher energy costs is a non-starter when you are scrapping for market share with the likes of Tesco and Asda.'

My simple observation to all this would be to ask: 'Where are the benefits to the green consumer?'.

Of course costs and profits simply get reflected in the price we pay at the checkout. But until I see much that is tangible by way of environmental initiatives that have a direct relationship to the buying public (making the store cheaper to heat or cool is great 'n all, but so what?), I really rather wish they'd stop behaving like the pols and insulting our intelligence with all these 'smoke and reflective panels' stories. They really are only about helping their bottom lines and very little about doing their genuine bit for the environment.

Addendum: I don't always follow the path laid out by Friends of the Earth, but they are without doubt sincere and can be tremendously effective. Just after I wrote this a press release came in (rather dramatically entitled 'Fight Corporate Abuse, which at first seemed extreme for self-interested greed, but on reflection is pretty fair) from them that is pertinent and does seem to point at some relevant action.

Mad* if you don't. And it looks like, for now... we won't

We have been looking forward to the Mad* Show. After a few major disappointments on the exhibition front, this seemed like the real deal. A good message. A good blend. A good audience. And I was to be a co-speaker in very good company, an illustrious crew who were likely to attract a media audience as much for what they had to say as their celebrity.

So it is with great regret, and no little frustration, that I share an email from Richard Dratton, MD of the Mad* Group, received last night:

Dear all,

I am writing to you to announce the postponement of the Mad* Show 2006.

We apologise for the short notice but we believe this is in the best interest of all concerned.

We are busy working on an alternative date and will announce this together with

our future plans within the next few days.

We would like to thank everybody for the huge support that we have received so far

and hope to continue our relationship with you into the future.

From all of us at The Mad* Group.

That's about all I know for now, though I did manage to contact their director of sales. It seems there were 'problems' with meeting the minimum exhibitor number requirements of the hall. This the same hall that managed about 6 enviro-stands out of 600 on a show (the Ideal Home) billed as 'Sustainable Living and Recycling' not so long ago. The hundred odd for Mad* would have been a wonderful focus for like-minded exhibitors and visitors to interact. A shame they could not pad it out with jacuzzis and patio heaters too.

All I can hang onto is the word 'postponed'. I can only imagine what it must be like for the organisers. But being selfish, it has thrown a major spanner into our already dented marketing efforts for the year.

All the news that's fit. Well fit.

Doing well at the moment PR-wise.

Our little bit of radio (still figuring out how to lift that off a steam driven cassette and upload digitally) was very good, thanks in no small measure to a very nice and professional interviewer, Nicola, who put me at ease and charged around all our Junkk features seeing great ways to talk about them. She also took some video too, which will be edited and uploaded later on in the summer.

It was going to be sooner, but by coincidence the Rural Media-organised feature by the Yarrantons was posted as well the other day, and this can be seen here and viewed via here.

So we do seem to be getting our message out slowly and surely.

This... I like.

Via a variety of resources (quoting this as the earliest 'origin' I could find, outside of the creator of course), I found this.

Just wanted to share. For every ugly lamp I have with the panels bolted on, this one is just geeeorgeous and a triumph of form and function.

Thanks dude for making it. Thanks dudes for sharing it.

And Ya-Boo to the posters who are having a whinge. Right though you may be about the efficiency (or otherwise) of the design, I hadn't thought of it, hadn't seen it before now. And it is inspirational. Now, do better if you can.

Plane Crazy

I get many business newsletters, and one I do enjoy is from the Telegraph Business Club. It does have interesting articles, and often rather challenging debates, many initiated by their editor, David Sumner Smith. One of which I have pitched into. I can't seem to find a URL on their site, so I'll have to quote it in full here, followed by my reply:

"It's scary. The statistics we learnt at the Business Club seminars about the growth of the Chinese economy (for details click here) are impressive. But one can't help but wonder how the UK can compete with such an awesome pace of development. Take air travel, for example. Every time plans are made to build a new runway or extend a terminal at a British airport, it unleashes a furious debate. Environmentalists and 'Not In My Back Yard' local residents spend long enough squabbling with the airport authorities and local businesses for the minister for transport to have been replaced at least once. Fair enough. That would not be a problem if all the UK's competitors behaved in the same way. But compare that process with development in China. Over the next five years, China will spend £9.4bn to expand the three biggest international hub airports and build 48 more airports. While they are at it, China will buy 100 planes and recruit 1,000 new pilots every year until 2010. Digby Jones, director general of the CBI, points to the business benefits to British companies that are involved in the development programme. "Our idea is to get China wealthy as quickly as possible," he says, "so they can pay for all the value-added goods and services we can provide." In the short to medium term, that might be feasible. But it is only a matter of time before companies in China and elsewhere in Asia start providing those services. If the UK is going to retain its competitive position, then it will have to stop spending so much time listening to NIMBYs and environmentalists and give business its head. But is that what we want? Do we want to sacrifice our 'green and pleasant land' to compete in a race we can never win?

---

Yes, it is scary. The Chinese economy of course, and perhaps a few other not unrelated nor insignificant issues.

Such as air travel. As I look at the sky above Ross-on-Wye criss-crossed by contrails caused by a single flight - which I couldn't match for greenhouse gasses driving a Veyron for a lifetime with Jeremy Clarkson paragliding off the back - I do feel a slight shudder of the prospect of 50 more airports adding to the airspace race. Even if they are over the other side of the globe. Sadly jetstreams do have a habit of sharing things about evenly.

We could of course try and set a small example to get them to ignore the precedents we in the West have set and learn from our mistakes, but then again we could also simply gun the engines of commerce and see about beating them.

Trouble is, with a world of finite land and finite resources to sustain a growing population, trying to out-produce, consume and hence pollute those with whom we share a common atmosphere seems to point at a dubious end-game eventually.

I recently caught, and as it appealed quoted in my blog, the tail end of yet another academo/journalistic spat about climate warming - A Tart Counterpoint To Ibbitson's Irrelevance - and without comment on who said what to whom, why and who has had the latest laugh, would just like to share a neat analogy made that seems apt and pertinent to this topic:

[You are] flying on holiday and the plane is ½ hour out over the Atlantic. Of 150 aerospace engineers on board, 90 say that there's been a fuel leak and the plane has 40 minutes of flying time left. It's time to turn around. The other 60 say that there's no conclusive evidence of a leak and [you] should not turn around because it would inconvenience the CEOs in business class. Who [do you] listen to? The answer seems clear: You listen to the journalist who tells [you that you] should really do something about the in-flight service.

The conclusion is also worth sharing: '[The] debate is about risk, not certainty. [We] might choose to listen when more than half the experts are warning of a problem that threatens our entire species'.

Indeed.

I'm all for the need to compete, but maybe it's time we thought ahead a tad from the consequences to our green and pleasant land, to those that may affect our green and pleasant planet?

Today's debate about the A380 show the dilemmas faced. More passengers per plane: good for environment? Or just lowering prices and encouraging more flights? Personally I'd advocate designing greenhouse gas-free aero engines to flog to any of our Asian friends who may, like us, be unwilling to forgo travelling, but are enlightened enough to see that copying us to spite us literally will be losing the nose... and more than face.

-----

I don't think of myself as a NIMBY, but no one does until something happens next door they don't fancy and decide to take a stand, so I guess we all are, potentially and/or eventually. And what is an environmentalist, especially when used pejoratively? I consider myself to be no more than a guest resident on this planet, and parent of future occupants, concerned about the state of the land I leave to the coming generations.

STOP PRESS: My comment has been kindly added. Looks like it may be shaping up to be an interesting debate: http://www.telegraphbusinessclub.co.uk/default.asp?p_id=search&showresults=1&showarticle=1474

Inspirational Stuff - Mark Barthel

The other day we were going through our sign-ups, and were pleased and frustrated in equal measure to suspect that we had had a mention in Saturday's Telegraph, which of course was now well off the shelves.

I guess it is too much to ask (even though we happily inform the subjects of our editorial coverage when it happens. Why not? It's a 10 second email) that folk let us know, but it does mean we miss out on good PR to quote, and does lead us on a merry online hunt to find it if we can.

Often we are successful. This time we are not. But in searching it is is fascinating what we can stumble across. In this case a rather inspiring story about a real green lite warrior I can actually empathise with. Nice philosophy and a lot of things to 'do'.

It really does not affect what I say above, but having subsequently 'done a Google' to try and get in touch with him, I was a tad disappointed to find he really is part of our 'Green Elite', at least if he is the same guy who is a high-up in WRAP and BSI.

The hints were there, I guess, but I would have wished he was doing all this with the same level of access and resource as an average Joe. I just feel that the experiences and financing such folk share with us may not reflect reality, and could lead to disappointing experiences.

Gulp

Another from (well, Military.com, Air Force Print News, C. Todd Lopez, 15 May 2006 via) Grist: The Air Force consumes more than half the fuel used by the entire U.S. government.

This one seems to be from the 'I'll save you if it kills me (and you, too)' files'. 

Answers on a postcard... er... email...

A question from the very excellent Grist:

Can you work as an environmental consultant without losing your soul?

What do they say?....: 'Where the US leads the UK follows'.

Better Red than... well, any other colour, really

Last night I watched a re-run of Sunday's Top Gear. Actually it was just one bit, when the merry trio of presenter/pranksters were handed a radio station to play with. And play they did. I don't know if it was a success or not, but the body language of some of the staff seemed to suggest that the plan may not have fired in the direction required. When the dust has settled, the next day the workers have to clear up the debris.

And so we come to today's edition of the Independent, which unless you have been locked in a box these last few days (even other media ran features), is the one with Bono editing, to borrow a nomenclature trick from Friends' episodes. It sets an interesting precedent for any other medium looking for a circulation boost.

My first mistake was not buying a copy, because I did not get the chance to pop out first thing, and once I did it had gone. Which is a good sign, because they are forking over half the revenue to the cause. Better than nothing, when all's said and done.

So I am left with today's online, and it is all a bit daunting. As, cleverly, the RED features were in, well, red, which kind of drew the eye (distracting from some top enviro bits too, try Carbon trading chaos as Brussels gets numbers wrong). And there were a fair few of them. Lots and lots. All covering some aspect of the cause. And all contributed by the A1alpha list of UK pol, comment and celebdom.

It's hard to know what to quote from (as a few were a bit SOSO), so I won't. In fact the better summary is from yesterday, which I will: A red revolution on the high street (see, I am playing along, too).

There were many bits I liked, but I am being selfish, because I get encouarged with what we are trying to do for the environment when I see stuff like: '...brings together two of the most powerful forces in the contemporary world - the appetite of consumers and the marketing intelligence of the corporate sector - to open up an entirely new front...', and: '...they wanted to do something. So we had to come up with something for them to do - something easier" ,"You need to market this like Nike.", and "We had the churches, the student campuses, the activists. But we didn't have the high street."

And the piece is further littered with direct lifts, it seems, from our Funding Proposal:

"What was needed, was not a mere spur to the social consciousness of big business, but something more structured - a new brand. And one which iconic companies would fight to join." "Only that way would we be able to bring to bear the marketing muscle and intelligence of these big companies who, above all else, know how to sell stuff". "In between are "middle- path realists" - who want to effect change without spending much money or time," "...hoping it will also attract the kind of shoppers who look for the cheapest chicken on the supermarket shelf. "...they are no more expensive than the one you were going to buy. On top of that they are products that are aspirational, cool and look good. Where's the downside?'"

"The point of RED is that it is win-win-win - consumers, corporate business and the world's poorest people all benefit."

All I can say is good luck, and why not?

But I'm afraid my passion, and what I am a bit more interested in is GREEN, which is the totality of the environment.  And I am keen to engage as much as possible with the average person in the street, and especially those who may not be slavish adherents to media hype-driven elitist icons to feel guilty about, and then satisfied with a low effort way to buy off their guilt (not that the environment is immune from a few of these).

But we have a ways to go. As one of the top organisers is quoted:  "I got a phone call the other day from someone who works for the Global Fund. She happened to be in Cardiff and saw the RED window display in Gap and went in to see the T-shirts... The woman came out of the shop in tears of joy and called me." 

Gap. Hmn. Nice she happened to have his number handy, too.

Ross Calling, Ross Calling..

Not too sure who out there who reads this and may be in the vicinity to listen, but I've just found out that tomorrow at crack of drivetime I am to be interviewed here by BBC Hereford & Worcester. 

That their pre-show soundbites were of the order of 'What's it like to be a latter-day Womble' puts it in context, but it's shaping up as a nice bit of PR coverage, so I hope I don't mess up.

Now the big thing is to figure out how to a) record it, and b) upload it to the website. It looks like they have all sorts of onsite techno stuff so it may be possible.

If we manage, you will be the first to know. Otherwise, at 7.30ish am and again at 8.45ish  am I shall be in a living room near you.

"You were looky. In my day we had only had 512k memory and a 28k modem."

The Sunday Times has a columnist, consigned (if relevantly) to the Appointments section, by name of Andrew Taylor. His 'patch' is the trials and tribs of those at the more senior end of the workforce, which I am surprised to realise I am well into, and may well be rejoining soon, if only to secure more Junkky funding. Having read a piece of his on IT, I was moved to write:

"I enjoy your column, which often speaks to me (and about my situation). Especially your latest Technology: getting the hang of IT.

It's a bit late for me to learn from your sage advice 'think twice before launching a business on the web', but two years ago I allowed a hobby to take over the day job, and here I am, nearly 50, with many eggs in one online basket.

But has been, is and doubtless will be quite a ride.

Like you, I find many programs wonderful mysteries, often to remain unsolved after a few hours with the immortal words onscreen: '[PowerPoint, Excel, etc..] has quit for no good reason - shame you forgot to enable the regular save function'. But I persevere, and often commit my pencil and paper doodles to an odd kind of layout using the pretty pictures function on Word, which in turn a munchkin with a graphics package to make da Vinci weep converts into something pretty. Note at this point where the idea has originated. I’ve often knocked out a campaign whilst the designers are still warming up the border function of their Macs.

So of course I have a pretty good grasp of what a computer can do, and can often do it. But here I must diverge from Mr. Thomson. The details can be distractions that  lead you down very expensive and time-consuming paths. The secret (and for sure not one easily solved, in terms of personpower or finance - ie: paying for the person with the power) is applying your wealth of experience in the grey matter, and not getting hung up with the demands of that big grey box.

Actually my problems come precisely because I could care less about the manual or obsessing how the program does whatever it does. I just need to get to what it can do and figure out applying the end-benefits (to my clients, readers, etc ) in short order.  

Maybe that's the issue with people over 40: they remember the taste and sizzle is worth more than the sausage and the packaging. I am perfectly at ease with a computer; they just a boring tool between me and doing useful stuff.

Which is odd, as I use one 18/24 of 24/7 of 365 (minus a few).

And if I can avoid a meeting by using a PC and do it all by email, blog, vlog or any other way not to budge from my comfy chair rather than do battle with a conference call or a few hours on the M4, then way-hey!!! What I’m not so keen on is hitting the bars post-working hours to bond with fellow workers or clients, and that is a failing on the whole networking front (see last para) that really powers careers, new business or pr.

As you say, '...getting a website going is a lot cheaper and simpler than setting up a business with office premises, equipment, stock and all the other start-up expenses, and it’s a good way of reaching customers and building a reputation'. 

I am more in the mould of Greg Paine, though Junkk.com became a full-time job more by accident as I let the hobby take over... 'after a long and successful career in advertising'. Maybe I should get in touch with him! 

Whether letting the day job slide was a good idea is another matter, but time will tell. And you have kindly posted some very useful resources to help if not.

My start-up costs and marketing cost were/are considerably more, but then I am being a bit more ambitious with what I am trying to do (and IT does not come cheap, especially if your understanding is this side of the screen/CPU), and I wish the site was paying for itself by now, let alone turning a profit. For me it's a long term thing. But you are right to be a cynic, and the pitfalls you mention are very real (I am writing this from the bottom of a few you mention.).

It rather depends on the business you are in, so it’s missing a trick or two to think only in terms of 'widgets' you 'sell'. Often a website can sell experience and information,,. which are not so tangible.  Mr. Thomson's 'product' is surely his advice after all, and he is using his success in people seeking it to create opportunities for him to profit from this.

What I think he has touched on, is that most elusive of all things beyond the quality of the product or where it exists; and that is getting your audience (purchasing or otherwise) to know about it, love it and want it.

And that, though it can be helped in so many ways by using it skillfully, need not have anything to do with IT. Maybe I should be hitting the bars more often."

Acorns & Oaks

I was reading a Sunday Times Special insert entitled 'Companies that count' (I've popped the link in, but good luck if you can get anywhere with it being an online version of what I read - why do B2B types assume we all live in their complicated, jargon-laden worlds) along with a piece It's cool for business to be green, when ironically enough along came this from the Guardian: Five biggest polluters in UK produce more CO2 than all motorists combined .

From the Times I now have a hitlist of organisations who would in theory be open to engaging with us, though my experiences with Tracey on Reception ('Hew should I sayz callin'? Does he/she know you... no... goodbye') or Mrs. Miggins on gatekeeper duty ('Computersezno. He/she is very busy, please address all enquiries via our customer service website [oblivion]) mean it will be time well wasted.

And out of the 50 listed, it was amazing how few are in our area of 're'.

But looking at the Guardian piece, it is pretty telling the disconnect between the efforts being directed at the consumer and those selling to them by those tasked (or who have taken it upon themselves) to serve/save them.

It's a problem compounded when these figures and consequent headlines come out.

As a consumer, I am tempted to say 'sod it, I'll get the 4x4'.

But there are threads that need to be picked up.

These big polluters produce the energy which we burn inefficiently with our 18p lightbulbs from Tescos (you can see what they were pushing with the message I advocate they could/should (part of a series I did) side by side) - and ironically they are one of the top 50 CSR companies in the Times list.

So it IS worth plugging away (there's an idea in there for an 'anti-leaving electric appliances plugged in' ad) on the little things, but only when they are relevant and can be tied in to benefits.

I reckon the whole car thing is diverting way too much from more importnat areas that could be more fruitfully addressed.

Mixed Messages

At my talk at Internet World (must post it up on the site one day), I enlivened it a bit with a section called 'mixed messages', basically advocating that these should be avoided wherever possible. 

It was a thinly veiled plug for Junkk.com vs. more traditional media, because we are in a position to embrace more relevant ad opportunities and have less conflicting editorial dilemmas to deal with. I had fun showing a page from one online site which had a big blue-chip energy banner advocating renewable electricity atop an article gushing about a device that plugged in to keep your butter permanently spreadable, and a button ad offering a day trip in a Bentley as as a prize for entry next to a piece trashing 4x4 drivers.

But as I have admitted before, things can slip through. We are looking at Google adwords-style revenue for now (while we can't be choosy or find the time to place and monitor every page) that can result in 'inappropriate' clashes.

But it doesn't stop me having a chuckle at others' expense.

And today I noticed this from the invariably excellent Grist:

Arctic Tock ...

Arctic ice may be gone in one to three decades

If you've been planning a trip to the Arctic, better buy your tickets now, because it's a-meltin' fast. (Perhaps you've heard?)... 

straight to the source: The Guardian, David Adam, 15 May 2006 

I know the environmental rite of passage de jour is a trip to the snowy wastes and all (and I'm pretty sure they were just making an off the cuff funny remark - the article it links to is pretty heavy), but there is a certain perverse irony in advocating one travels up there to see it before it melts, thanks in part to people traveling up there more and more to see it... before it melts. 

And I quota... (or don't)

Drifting into politically incorrect territory for the sake of a light-hearted intro line, you can say what you like about the Germans, but they certainly know how to obey orders. While, patently, the British cannot: UK above quota, Germany within, where we are not exactly delivering the goods (or, rather, are delivering too many) on our carbon emissions EU-wide.

It's hard to find an excuse, until you read on and find out what a tortured and convoluted the whole thing is, rife I am sure with all manner of accounting tricks, back-door politico/commercial deals, smoke and mirrors and of course small fortunes being made by those who make everything out of making nothing (n this case literally as well as figuratively).

Mind you, our new national habit of blaming the pitch/track/weather/own negotiated positions for failing to do what was agreed smacks of goalpost adjusting.

I wonder what the average consumer would make of it all, especially if they know how much of their money pays these guys salaries.

There's Interest Groups, Activist Groups.. and Statistical Groupings

It's official. 100% of middle aged family men would be quite happy to never use the car again.

This is based on a sample of one (me), and did not involve any complicating factors like keeping the job going, doing the weekly 'big' shop' and getting the boys to the middle of a forest at the weekend for their night hike. Then, I fear, I think I might be one of the 100% who felt the car was an essential and could not be done without into the forseeable future.

So, what are we to make of 75 percent back new climate law ?

Well, it's a bit of a 'why not?' at the moment, up there with 99% of us recycle regularly... apparently (as Jimmy Carr would say, eyebrow cocked, in that biscuit ad).

But is such a thing worth trotting out?

75% of the UK population may support anything nice and fluffy if asked, but getting from 1000 people to the thoughts of 30 million seems a leap. Much less actions.

And it doesn't mention, but I also wonder to what extent this survey added the bit... 'and you will be required to do this in future, and it will cost you this much extra."

Wishing it doesn't make it so, and I for one tend to lean against pressure to make me bend when its coming from a direction I can get my head around.

In the bag

An almost throwaway snippet in the Daily Mirror a few days ago:
'Tesco vow to go green': Tesco is to make all its carriers [sic] bags
biodegradable by September. And it aims to slash the four billion
plastic bags it gives away free by a quarter within two years in a
new green initiative. But Lim Dem Chris Huhne said: "Biodegradable
bags themselves can have an adverse impact.'

That's it, verbatim. For such a small piece, I found a lot going on
in there.

One is the significance that only now are they tackling this issue. 4
billion bags!!!! Anyway, at least they are now. Next up is the quite
fair point Mr. Huhne made. I have still to get to the bottom of this,
but the last I heard was that biodegrading let off greenhouse gasses,
and that is high on my 'first thing to stop' list. Plus the fact that
'once they are gone, they're gone'. Of course not having them is the
optimal option, but surely recycling is better?

I'm interested to find out what this new initiative may be. Maybe the
phrase '..it gives away free...' is a hint. What's the betting
there's a cost coming? The do need the money, after all.

Power Plant

I love the internet. Especially when it works. Because I was (again) paying catch up on my reading and came across something I wanted to blog about, but thought I'd missed the e-window online. But, no. A few clicks and there it was, lovingly preserved. And allowing you to wonder why on earth I'd want to have anything to do with the Koenigsegg CCX, as reviewed a week ago by one J. Clarkson.

Well I don't really want one, if that's a help. Sideways at 180mph is not high on my 'must-have' list for a car. I have a wife, 2.2 kids (trust me, they eat 110%) and aspire only to get from A to B with my family and/orstuff in comfort and safety. Ok, I want to do it fast and fun too, which is why I'm still keen on a Saab Aero, because they do all the necessary and still squirt past a lorry nice and easy. I doubt a Prius does. But the minute something like it does, along with all the other requirements of domestic and business travel, I'm up for it (in fact I have a vague recollection that Saab do have such a thing).

And then there's the small matter of cost. Forgetting about buying for a moment, the other major bit is fuel. Which is what brings me to the Kthingie review. two things caught my eye.

One was that it did 16.6mpg. Which is not great. Except my R-reg Volvo does only about twice that, and has an engine about 1/3 the size producing 1/4 the power. It also cost about 1/20th as much, so everything is relative, but it just seemed pretty efficient is all.

But the thing that really perked me up was seeded (pun intended) in the middle: 'now with their own Swedish-made twin-supercharged 4.7 litre V8, the CCX. This is a very powerful engine. On normal petrol you get 806bhp. But here’s the good bit. If you tune it to run on eco-friendly biofuel, you get more than 900bhp.'

Not only is it good for the environment, but it's good for the adrenaline junkies too. Now, let's hope we see a bit more of this in a car I can actually aspire to owning.

Kismet by moonlight?

Well, more like 4.30am, but close enough...

I usually only buy the Sunday Times.  I'd like to say this was me doing my bit for the planet by reducing paper consumption, but really I don't have the time and, as importantly, the cash, for a raft of dailies. 

But yesterday I couldn't resist getting 'Metropolis' free (well, in the price of the paper), and was certainly not going to let the total investment in entertainment go to waste. And it has been good value.

For a start, I can add a little blog note having come across the following in the travel section:

'Climate Cost - Each week, Times Travel pays Climate Care a fee that goes towards green projects which compensate for the damage caused by aircraft emissions'

I don't know if it is the first, or indeed only regular (I have commented before on 'one-offs' that seem more cynical than doing nothing in some ways)  attempt by a medium to address the impact its 'business' has on the environment, but it is certainly welcome and better than nothing. And goes a fair way to addressing my feeling like flipping the bird at reading finger wags from correspondents for all our wasteful ways, and then turning the page to find a bunch of staff from another section off to report on FurEX 06 in LA. 

However, I remain slightly dubious about how all this works, from the costs to the mechanisms. £36.10 doesn't seem like much to plant the necessary trees (ok, investment in renewable energy is better, but even this is a rather dark black hole of obscurity to me still) or whatever to address the short and mid-haul flights of four writers. Plus I can't help but wonder where all this ends up. As regular readers know, I am more than concerned about the finite amount of land on this planet, the ever-expanding population standing on it,  our increasing tastes for moving around it and the consequential further reduction in the planet's ability to sustain it all. The conclusion one come to in extrapolating such a very not complex equation is rather dire.

There are only so many forests we can plant, or wind turbines to spin to compensate. At some point, not doing it so much has to be the only option.

Anyway, on a more positive note I also stumbled across a very interesting piece by a regular contributor named Anna Shepard, who is dubbed the 'eco worrier'.

The piece itself was about our friends at ecover - Dish the dirt and clean up your act - but also had Ms. Shepard's blog link: Eco-Blog.

It's good. Not preachy, with a hint of eyebrow-twitch very like the style I hope to convey here when it comes to encouraging progress but reserving the right to question those who think they are qualified to talk down the average person trying to muddle along.

I know I have had not had much luck with mainstream media in the past, but I do hope to see if I can establish contact... and maybe see what synergies may be explored.