Messing about on the river

Yesterday was a really good day, after a good few weeks of rough. It was the half-way point of the year and my Dad's birthday, and my folks were looking after Alexander whilst Rosie was off singing on the South Bank. And it was probably the hottest day of the year, at least down South. So my folks, [ex], Alex and I went for a picnic in the woods before going rowing on the River Little Ouse. It was absolutely gorgeous and a splendid time was had by all!

The river is runs roughly along some of the border between Norfolk and Suffolk, but it's kind of tucked away from everything. And we didn't see another soul that afternoon - nobody on the river, nobody on the bank. Lots of horses, waterfowl and absolute swarms of electric blue and black damson flies. Did you know that when two damson flies mate, they make the shape of a heart with their bodies? I didn't, now I do.

Alexander is talking much more than even a few months ago and making a really conscientious effort to learn new words and concepts – for ages, he was speaking, but wasn't really interested in conversation. Now, he's asking lots of questions and often whispers a word someone has said back to himself to help it sink in. And he has some long words, including a disturbing variety of car makes and models.

He was very impressed with my powerchair and said it just like a helicopter. I think this is because it has a joystick, not because it can fly (I don't like to fly it in public; people get complacent about accessibility when they know you could just fly between floors if you wanted to).

Incidentally, my sister was singing at the South Bank Centre with a group called the Celestial Sirens, who did the music for this week's and next week's Woman's Hour Drama Sacred Hearts on Radio 4 - you can still catch up listening to this over the weekend if you like.

Will blog properly really soon, I promise!

The Myth of Monetary Meritocracy

I am afraid I have unpopular thoughts about the Credit Crunch. Well, the crunchiness may have passed; the BBC News website renamed the crisis a Downturn and even had a snazzy logo to accompany related stories (although they appear to have abandoned this). Meanwhile, back in October, Radio 4 had a season of programmes about the Credit Crash. Generally a crunch comes just after a crash. For example, if you fell against a stack of cereal boxes in the supermarket, it would kind of go crash and then crunch in quick succession.

For the UK at least, it is more of a Credit Crumble. It is undoubtedly bad news but for the time being it has been blown out of all proportion, with all manner of chaos, panic and disaster headlines when nobody is in mortal danger. We are poorer than most people, and whilst we're certainly aware of the increasing cost of fuel and food, there is significant room for further economy. It did tickle me the other week when a shop-assistant made me aware of a multi-buy offer on kitchen roll, saying in the gravest of tones,

“That's a saving of nineteen pence and in these troubled times, nineteen pence can make a big difference!”

Which is rather melodramatic coming from someone who takes no more than three minutes to earn such a princely sum*.

But all this has got me thinking about our ridiculous attitude towards money – an attitude which caused this problem in the first place and is going to make it all the more painful. Yeah, it's that kind of monster of a post, but if you make it to the bottom, you can have a picture of a terrapin!

The trouble is that we believe that money should be fair. It can't be. Money is just numbers. In this economy, these numbers are regulated by almost entirely by supply and demand (capitalism). Supply and demand are not fair.

Something you are going to sell to someone else – whether it is a thing or some work you can do – is only ever worth what somebody else is prepared to pay for it. Whilst hard work, skills, talent, intelligence, charm and cunning may increase the price you are paid, your control over the matter is very limited. If you are a brilliant footballer who gets all the right breaks, then you can make millions of pounds and compare your working conditions to slavery.

But most people who are brilliant at football never get to play for money. If you are a brilliant car mechanic or a fantastic florist, then there is a fairly modest upper limit on how much money you can make. This blog is not worth any money, and yet is infinitely more valuable than the work of certain newspaper collumnists who get paid a small fortune. Much fewer people read here, but much more charming, more discerning and generally better-looking people, which is a far more valuable reward.

A person cannot work themselves rich. Some people are smart, skilled and/ or work very very hard and accumulate massive wealth, but only if what they have to supply happens to meet a demand – that is, they get lucky. Most rich people were born rich. Meanwhile, most talented, hard-working, brilliant people are on average incomes, at risk of hardship should they fall upon bad luck such as unemployment or ill health. And thus a proportion of the most talented, hard-working and brilliant people are relatively poor.

But capitalism is not a bad thing. Financial inequity is not the same as social inequality. In order to make sure of this, we have things like a minimum wage, universal healthcare, education and the welfare state. We have certain controls on financial activity and the amount of social and political power that money can buy. And fortunately, once you don't have to worry about a roof over your head, having enough to eat and a little to spare, money doesn't make a great deal of difference to one's happiness. Work (renumerative or otherwise) has its own rewards. And our value as human beings has absolutely nothing to do with the money in our pockets.

The trouble is that most people don't believe this. Not truly.

Our particular cultural work-ethic is highly individualistic, based on personal economic reward. A good job is first and foremost a well-paid job. People have some choice about the work they do and some make altruistic choices, but principly, the purpose of work in our culture to provide for oneself or one's immediate family, for one's own independence, security and happiness. These things, we are told can be bought – a principle we have reiterated several times a day. Everything is for sale; in any given ad-break we are sold sexual attractiveness, physical wellbeing, a happy family and the envy of our peers, all in the form of yoghurt or soap powder.

Stuff being the principle reward in life, it would make sense if people were rewarded according to their virtues. And we would very much like to believe this. Certainly most governments sell us economic meritocracy because it puts everyone in our place; those men have power and earn many times the average wage because they are the very best people for the job – you are relatively powerless and poo because you're not so bright and didn't work as hard as they did. And look at the chav thing; people love the idea of an underclass of people who are in the gutter because of their own personal failings – and love to hate them because even though they remain poor, they do appear to have a lot more stuff than they deserve.**

And this has ruined our economy. The first effect is (or at least was) hubris in the face of short-term prosperity. During the boom, those who were doing well thought they'd earnt it. Home-oweners spoke about the artificial rise in house-prices as if this was something they had achieved through hard work – and something for keeps, which of course it wasn't. Meanwhile, in the City, people were making money in all manner of strange and inventive ways and oh, how very well they were rewarded!

If you believe that your wealth is a product of natural justice, then it is difficult to conceive of it ever going away. I am not going to work any less hard in the future, so I shall always be this wealthy. In the context of reduced financial regulation and a sustained economic boom (so sustained that many young city types had never known any different), this got completely out of hand.

The second effect is that most ordinary people, most of the time, don't actually perceive that they are doing well at all. Most people you speak to will complain that they are either underpaid, or that they might have enough coming in but they pay too much tax.

This is not greed. Surrounded by messages which say that the accumulation of stuff is the reward for virtue and the thing that's going to make you happy, respectable, secure and so on, you're bound to feel short-changed. You're smart and you work very hard, so why shouldn't you have all the shiny things you want – shiny things that far less smart, less hard-working people seem to have?

In this culture people who have no problem paying for essentials nevertheless become very frustrated with financial limitations. One friend recently complained that there is no state help for people like her, because benefits and tax-credits are means-tested according to your income and don't take into account how much money you have going out. Yeah, I know. And yet I sympathise; she works very hard, and only wants decent things. A decent house in a decent area, a decent car, decent holidays, decent technology. Since this standard of living is a struggle, she feels like she's going without.

Add cheap credit into the equation, and an enormous personal debt problem results. I don't work or own property, and yet even I was receiving offers of thousands of pounds in loans. Treat yourself, the literature said, give yourself the break that you deserve.

Now, I don't believe that people need protecting from themselves, ought not to be loaned money or subjected to advertising. I think people who have borrowed beyond their means for non-emergency purposes are responsible for their choices. Not that they need berating; it'll be tough enough as it is just now and anyway, some degree of luck is always involved. Some first-time buyers got 125% mortages – which seems ludicrous - but others in their peer group got help from Mummy and Daddy and hardly took on any burden at all.

However, we are all free to reject this culture. For our own sake, for the sake of an economy which impacts on everyone, and for the sake of the environment. Money is not moral. The consequences of our attitude towards it are.

This enormous terrapin and its similarly proportioned friends live at the school where Alexander goes to nursery. Previously, I'd only seen terrapins the size of small apple (though not quite that shape); these were the size of a melon (though not quite that shape). And no, I don't have any pictures of kittens - the terrapin will have to do.


* In fairness, I was buying kitchen roll in Poundstretcher, conscious that I was paying 0.4p a sheet – closer to 0.3p with the special offer, as opposed to 0.5p a sheet in Wilkinsons and a shocking 0.7p a sheet in Tesco. In case you wondered (I'm pretty sure you didn't), if you take absorbency into account, Wilkinsons is the best value – it is about the same quality as Tesco, whereas the Poundstretcher stuff is very thin. I hope this confession mitigates for any degree of sanctimony above... and it takes two minutes and four seconds to earn 19p on the UK minimum wage – a few seconds longer after tax.

** Meanwhile, we participate in the exploitation of the poor in other countries and use more than our fair share of the planet's resources because we don't really believe that the world could be as extraordinarily unfair as it is – but that's another subject.

The Sea, The Sea

This weekend we went to visit our friend Vic, who was holidaying on the North Norfolk Coast. Well, it was kind of on the edge of the Wash, but we couldn't see land the other side of the water. I haven't seen the sea for almost two years (I almost saw the sea when I was in Hampshire, but the Isle of Wight was in the way). I have missed it rather badly.

Despite having rumbled and rained for most of last week, Sunday was a beautiful day and we sat outside looking at the water. [...] went for a walk on the beach and kept going until we could only see his head, at which point he decided that the water was a wee bit too nippy. And because we were facing west, the sun set over the sea - admittedly in an unremarkable way behind clouds. It was all very beautiful and we had a lovely weekend.

No time, no place to talk about the weather

The tedious thing about the British and the weather is when you find yourself a moment of great joy, tension or sadness and you find yourself having a conversation about the rain, the wind, the sunshine or the approaching cyclone. When you have relatives whom you have known for many years and you can't recall any conversation between you that wasn't about the weather. Or when all you ever hear about the weather is complaints, whether it is too cold, too fair or too middling.

But sometimes the weather is an entirely appropriate subject. In the last few days, we've been having a heatwave (not sure who decides it is a heatwave – when a leading supermarket claims to be selling 800 cucumbers an hour perhaps?). It is perfectly reasonable, therefore, for this event to come up in conversation; it probably impacts on all our lives in some small way. For my own part, my body has responded by sleeping half the day.

And when it comes to strangers, the subject of the weather is vital. Apparently they've published a guide for Polish people workinng in Devon which recommends breaking the ice with the natives by talking about the weather. Which makes me wonder how on Earth you begin a conversation with a stranger in Poland or any other country? I'm the last person to celebrate small-talk, but you have to start somewhere and being under the same sky is the only thing you can be sure you both have in common.

There is some skill to this, skill which the writer of this article hasn't fully mastered when he attempts to discuss the weather with his fellow commuters.

“Six were positively bright and chatty, one was too immersed in his iPod to hear me, another couldn't understand me and one gave a courteous response but then returned to reading his newspaper.”

See, one might regard it as the Golden Rule of starting a conversation with a stranger: If your intended stranger is currently reading, listening to music or engaged in a conversation with someone else, do not interrupt them in order to talk about the weather. Not only may this fail to illicit a response, but it is bad manners. And thus decidedly unBritish.

But of course, one does wonder whether talking to strangers, let alone talking to strangers about the weather, is a particularly British attribute. Clearly the London reporter wasn't used to it. Oop North, I often found myself indulging in meteological intercourse several times a day, but Down South (at least my corner of the South), one has to drag this stuff out of people.

My neighbours may be a particularly odd bunch and not representative of anyone. But they will not talk to us. In eighteen months only one person has volunteered a name. Even this most sociable of neighbours doesn't always say return a greeting but he does have a severe stammer so I might have gone indoors again before he can get it out (that isn't a joke; it is the benefit of the doubt). The other names we have learnt were obtained by direct interrogation and misdirected post. “Hello, I'm the Goldfish, I've just moved in next door.” (and not even that; I use my off-line handles for these purposes) didn't illicit any response whatsoever.

Don't get me wrong, they haven't turned against us; nobody is unpleasant and there's no community that we're being excluded from. We do hear chanting coming from the village green of a full moon, but that's probably just the Neighbourhood Watch.

Anyway, not sure what I'm rabbitting on about, except, it is jolly hot just now, isn't it?

House Martin Drama

The house martin nest built in the apex of our roof collapsed today under the weight of the chubby little house martin chicks. It is as yet unclear as to whether this disaster is the result of shoddy workmanship or rising obesity among house martins.

One of the chicks is staying balanced inside the ruined nest. There are a couple of chicks on a nearby rooftop who apparently managed to fly to safety. But one young House Martin was found on the grass. We haven't cut our grass this year so there is quite a lot of cover, but it was still an apparently flightless black and white bird on the ground surrounded by green. It had to be rescued!

Fortunately, you may remember that we have six chronically unoccupied bird-houses, so [...] picked up the bird and delivered it to the safety of the top of this house. Concerned it would need shelter later on, he then enlarged the hole in another bird-house, one with more of a ledge, placed dry grass in it and transferred the infant.

But would parent birds feed their chicks when they are in two different places? We watched and waited. The baby bird went into his new shelter, and soon enough the parent came to visit it. The united parent and chick had a prolonged conversation, after which the youngster flew all the way up to our rooftop.

So it could fly after all. And the birds could probably have sorted themselves out without our intervention. However, after flying all the way from Africa, all the weeks it took those martins to build that nest and all the months that they've been feeding those chicks, we could hardly stand by and watch the young bird get gobbled by a cat.

Mon amie la rose

We've got a rose in our garden. I had noticed the beginnings of a bush but I don't think it flowered last year. It is a big fat gorgeous rose, the size of my fist.

We've also been watching bats in the evening. When I first saw them I hurriedly closed all the windows to stop them coming in the house and nesting in our underwear.

Incidentally, the best version of Mon amie la rose is by Natacha Atlas, who gives a little more welly than the original.

I am off partying for the rest of the weekend (seriously). Hope you all have a good one.

An avenue of trees

Probably the best thing about living in this corner of the country is that whenever we go south of here we get to travel down roads like this. The woods are gorgeous all year round, so long as there's a little light. In fact, I think this is probably prettier in the autumn, but it is still jolly nice just now.

Have a very hectic few weeks coming up. In fact, with any luck, the rest of the summer is likely to be hectic by my standards. I say luck because I'm going to have to be on my very best behaviour, without any unexpected down-turns to cope with it all. I don't know why I'm telling you this. I suppose sharing the intention adds to the incentive to fulfill it.

It occurs to me that I should explain that our van is left-hand drive, and I took this photo in the passenger seat - in case it appeared that someone had taken the photo whilst driving...

Horses, horses, horses, horses

It's been a very busy week by my standards, with not one but two adventures.

Yesterday, my Dad and I went to Snetterton, famous for its racetrack, but also home to World Horse Welfare, which is a place that looks after retired police horses as well as variously injured and abused horses. Dad, who had never sat on a horse until a few years ago, is now studying for an NVQ in Horse Management, so this was a bit of a field trip. I learnt the difference between a bay and a cob, which is a pony, where are the withers and all manner of horsey facts.

I attempted to steer the conversation round to the sociological nuances of man's relationship with the horse, horses and socioeconomic class and the symbolism of the horse in psychoanalysis (e.g. the case of Little Hans, whose phobia of horses was used as evidence the Oedipus Complex).

However, the horses were very nice. Although clearly there is a whole world of horsiness which I shall never understand; for example, we saw a few horses in fancy dress, including one pony dressed as a Frenchmen with stripy sweater, a beret and onions round his neck. That can't be healthy, surely?

On Thursday, [...] and I went for a walk at a place called Lynford Arboretum. There were lots of weird and wonderful trees there, as you might expect at an arboretum, as well as some very pretty bits of water with geese, ducks and swans. But especially geese and their goslings; loads of them.

It was the second crowd of Canada Geese we'd seen that day. Canada Geese were introduced to St. James' Park in the 17th century apparently, and whilst they are rather common now, they are very beautiful birds – much nicer that ordinary geese.

We also saw a swan doing a sexy dance, a twite, two deer and a pair of Jays, which is a rare site indeed.

In other nature news, we were having tea at my folks' house when I spotted a pair of squirrels doing the dirty on my parents' fence. I've never seen squirrels mating before; I imagined they were private creatures who needed shelter and soft lighting. On a fence in full view of the dining table seems both precarious and exhibitionist. But I didn't have my camera with me and if I had, I'm not sure I would have liked to add to their illicit thrills by taking pictures.

We've also got a hedgehog in our garden. I've seen him or her in his or her nest during the day, but we're now keeping the look out for a night-time encounter.

All these pictures are a bit muddled up, I'm sorry, but as you can see, I've been getting out and about rather more than usual this last week and all the excitement has adled my noggin.

Assuming the Recovery Position

Predictably enough, I have been fantastically tired and I'm sure there are still a few BADD posts I haven't read properly yet. However, I reckon this was the best year ever as far as quality was concerned. Thanks again to everyone who contributed or helped in any way. Some people did absolutely loads - you know who you are - but everyone who chirped up to point out a typo in my code made a big difference (especially to whoever's link I had botched).

Once again, I didn't have a chance to post anything myself - although unlike last year, I might have got my post finished in time if I was just a tad better organised. Between now and this time next year, I intend to build a robot who can put all the links together for me. That or figure out some javascript to automate the archive.

In other news, summer has properly arrived and I realise that I didn't fix any of the holes and torn seams in my summer clothes before putting them away for the winter. So I have a wee bit of sewing to do.

I'm dreaming of a white...

Now I do tend to get disorientated with the passage of time, rarely certain what day of the week it is, or what time of day. So today, is today the one with the fluffy bunnies and spring flowers or is it the one with the holy and the ivy? Because we haven't had any snow this winter, not before today.

Happy Easter everyone! I'm out today with the family, I know I owe lots of e-mail and there are many blogposts I mean to comment on. This week I've either been not around or else here but not all there, as it were.

Alpacas on my mind

We had another adventure, this time to Ely. We weren't long in the town, but I bought a new notebook which is always exciting. On the two journeys we saw a lot of local wildlife. Readers from overseas may wander what kind of birds and animals it is usual to see in this part of the world.

Well, we saw rabbits, pheasants, partridges, pigeons, sheep, goats, geese and chickens, all of which are rather ordinary, though always nice to see. On this trip, we also saw a field with about a hundred and fifty swans, perhaps on their way up to the Wash. At one point a field mouse scurried across the road and at another point, a gorgeous white barn owl flew along beside us. We also saw an ostrich and a herd of alpacas.

Really. We really did. Not even in the same place. There was an ostrich in someone's back garden and a herd of alpacas, including some rather small ones, in a field. I thought they were llamas, but when I got home and looked on-line I found that they were, in fact, alpacas. If that's not proof of Climate Change I don't know what is.

This magnificent photo is by Stevie-B, licnesed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0. The barn owl we saw was similarly beautiful, but it was in flight and if I had tried to get my camera out I wouldn't have enjoyed watching it.

Making the least of the January Sales

So it's 2008 and we still haven't solved this wee problem of climate change. Who would have thought it?

This is a good time of year to think about such things, mostly because many people are feeling hard up and it is much easier to be environmentally-friendly when you're living on Queer Street. Indeed, as far as your British consumer is concerned, by far the most significant behavioural change an individual can make is simply to buy less stuff. Every single little thing we purchase required a certain amount of energy to produce and transport to us. And we have a lot of stuff.

Of course, nobody has a great investment in promoting this message and amidst the constant barrage of messages equating stuff with happiness, it may sound a little depressing.

Here in the West, spending money is a national past-time. It is quite extraordinary compared to other cultures and our own culture just a few generations back. People always wanted stuff, people always aspired to have nice things for all sorts of practical, social and psychological reasons and they always will. But that doesn't mean Epirucus wasn't right.

Is there any relationship between the stuff we have and our quality of life? Financial security is one thing, but that's quite different - and sometimes incompatible - with having a load of stuff. This culture of constant buying is not sustainable. Even if it wasn't for the small matter of climate change, it is not economically sustainable. And indeed, it's not psychologically sustainable; frankly, I think it makes us miserable. None of us have enough money to buy all the stuff we think we want. The last person who actually used the phrase "hard-up" to describe their financial situation is actually one of the wealthiest people I know. But they are hard-up in the Mr Micawber sense; lots of people owe money and feel that they can't afford things which they need.

Epicurus, by the way, is my second-favourite Greek and people imagined that his household, intent as they were on a life of pleasure, was a place of orgies and hedonistic consumption (thus epicurean). In fact, having studied the matter in great depth, Epicurus hit upon what we really need:

"Of all the things that wisdom provides to help one live one's entire life in happiness, the greatest by far is the possession of friendship."

So there you go.

Anyway, Sage has given up buying stuff for New Year and many other bloggers - lead by Andrea at A peek inside the fish bowl - are participating in the Shopping Embargo 2008, giving up non-essential buying for the first two months of the year (a project I came across through Nna Mmoy Andrea, who has written a number of super posts about The Green Family).

I think this is ambitious and very much worthwhile, but as Sage pointed out in an excellent post, to be environmentally-conscious can sometimes be a little like belonging to a religious sect which can alienates those who feel they can't commit to the entire doctrine. Therefore, some suggestions about reducing the amount of stuff you buy, without making any solid promises or feeling that you're missing out:

1. Use the stuff you have. Often revisiting old stuff can be as rewarding as brand new stuff; books you haven't read and movies you've not seen in an age. If you enjoy the things you actually possess, you will have less desire for the things you haven't got yet.

2. Use is a much better measure than need when it comes to making purchases. The issue of need is very difficult to wrestle with, and one can end up feeling very guilty about the slightest luxury - at least I can. A far greater sin than having things you don't need is having things that you don't use. Nobody needs two dozen pairs of shoes, but if you have them and each pair gets an outing at least once every few months then that is far better than a person who has just two pairs of shoes and only ever wears one. One is wasteful, the other is not.

3. Share your stuff. I must say it is second-nature for me to consider who I might pass a book onto once I've read it before I actually buy it. Borrow stuff and lend stuff, and where appropriate, give things away. Don't be afraid to offer people the stuff you don't want; so long as you make it clear that you will not be hurt by their refusal. Otherwise sell stuff on eBay and offer things up on Freecycle.

4. Identify truly useless purchase. The magazine or newspaper you barely flick through, the cosmetic magic potion whose promises never deliver and so on. Make sure that the only things you buy out of habit are bread and loo-rolls. Or at least that sort of thing.

5. Beware The Radish Principle. This is when, in the summer, you want to buy some radishes to go in your salad, and at the supermarket you can buy two packets of radishes for the price of one. Only you don't particularly like radishes, it's not like they can be used up in any recipes you know of and so you neither need nor want the extra packet of radishes. Only they're free! Free radishes!

This is the kind of heart-breaking moral quandary I face in my life. I hope you sympathise. Point is that however cheap something is, it is not good value for money unless you actually want it.

Do you get the impression that all I ever spend money on is books and groceries? Hmm, not quite.

Better Living Through Chemistry

Today is World Environment Day. Time to go shopping!

In fact, of course, reducing the amount of stuff we buy is probably the most important thing that a consumer can do to save the planet. Currently, we purchase unsustainable amounts of stuff; shopping is regarded as a leisure pursuit, even though every item we buy which we're not actually going to use (need, of course, is impossible to measure) has involved a manufacturing process, packaging and has been transported to us - sometimes from the other side of the world.

However, since life has to be worth living if it's going to be worth saving, a good place to start reducing one's impact on the environment is by looking at the really boring activities we can't avoid. Who takes pleasure in buying wash powder or stand around waiting for an inefficient kettle to boil? Exactly; no sacrifice involved. And in the long term, all of these things save money.

Most of these things I've mentioned before, but I thought I'd put them all in the same place.


1. Eco-Balls

You stick the Eco-Balls into the washing machine instead of using powder. The balls contain thingies which ionised the oxygen particles in the water and bash the clothes clean on a molecular level. It really works. It works as well as biological powder and these are supposed to last for 1000 washes - which would use a lot of washing powder.

This is also great from my point of view because there's no heavy box of powder to lift and nothing to spill. Also my gruesome skin itches a great deal less.

Downside: We have been programmed to associated a synthetic floral fragrance with cleanliness, whereas the Eco-Balls don't smell of anything. Despite being convinced of their effecacy, I couldn't persuade my Mum to buy some as she felt things didn't smell clean.

Price: Other than eBay, the cheapest price currently appears to be £27.50 at Cap Carbon where there is a money-back guarantee and you can get £10 is you also buy...


2. Dryer-Balls

When you can't dry things outside for whatever reason, the dryer-balls reduce the time things take to dry in the tumble dryer and soften your clothes while there at it. My experience suggests a drying time-reduction of about a third, although this must vary. So you save time and money on electricity.

Downside: They can be rather noisy.

Price: See above for the offer at Cap Carbon, otherwise £7.99 at ecoTime. I've seen them for three or four quids on eBay as well.


3. Bicarbonate of Soda / Sodium Bicarbonate / Baking Soda

Bicarbonate of Soda is a main ingredient in lots and lots of cleaning products but can be effective without the additional chemicals and packaging of shop-bought stuff It is really effective at shifting miscellaneous muck and quite fun to play Mad Scientists with, on account of the fizz it makes when coming into contact with anything acidic.

I use the stuff for everything from stopping strong foods smells contaminating the milk in the fridge through to washing my hair. However, a far more comprehensive list than I could ever manage can be found here: Sixty-One Uses for Baking Soda.

Downside: Bicarbonate of Soda can leave a powdery residue anywhere you failed to rinse properly.

Price: Because it's also a main ingredient in Bath Bombs, you can buy Bicarbonate of Soda in large quantities from shops that supplier folks who hand-make cosmetics. Just a Soap seems the cheapest for amounts you don't need an extra cupboard for storage (although note the prices exclude VAT).


4. The Eco-Kettle

The Eco-Kettle is so cool! It consisters of two cyclinders; you fill the inner one with water and the push the exact quantity of water you wish to boil into the outer cyclinder. It then boils extremely quickly. You don't have to worry about exposed elements or anything like that. It is great and is purported to save about 30% electricity - a significant saving for a tea junkie like myself.

Downside:
Measurement is in cups, as in tiny wee tea cups, so you have to work out how many cups of water fit into a grown-up mug. It is a bit heavier than an ordinary kettle. I also think it requires more strength in one's hands to work than your average kettle. Therefore, not one for people with signifcant weakness in their hands.

Price: These come up relatively cheap on eBay as unwanted presents, but the postage is usually steep. I got mine for £29.50 at the Ethical Superstore, where you get free teabags, you get a free gift anyway and you might find that you've accidentally bought a shedload of Fair Trade Chocolate at the same time (Actually, the Ethical Superstore is also great for your Teabags, which you can buy relatively cheaply in bulk.)

It is expensive for a kettle but you can go a lot dearer - here is a £60 kettle and it doesn't even look as cool. You can buy a kettle for a fiver, but those things only last about six months.


5. Vinegar

Vinegar is a super all-purpose cleaner. It cleans. Everything. It is antiseptic and antibacterial, it'll eat through grease, rust and all manner of crud. However, a far more comprehensive list than I could ever manage can be found here: Wise Bread's 242 uses for Vinegar. And Counting.

Downside: I don't like the smell of vinegar, even though it doesn't linger at all. Lemon juice is a good additive or even an alternative when this is important. Also, because of the acidity, you have to be careful about certain surfaces (I can't use it to clean the vast marble surfaces of our bungalow, for example).

Price: Uh, I don't know, we buy it with my groceries. We get the clear distilled stuff which probably tastes foul on your chips.


6. The Mooncup/ Keeper/ Menstrual Cup

I wrote an entire post about this last year, which covers the advantages and disadvantages of this method of sanitary protection.

Price: Just now, the cheapest would appear to be £17.99 at the Ethical Superstore, although I got mine cheaper than that. Look out for special offers. Also while we're on the distasteful subject of bodily functions...


7. Weenee Pouch Pants (sorry; that's what they're called)

This is my nephew Alexander's recommendation. It's a compromise between the convenience of disposable nappies and the ecological advantages of Terry Towels. What you have is a washable brief with a waterproof gusset, as it were. In this gusset fits a liner which is disposable and biodegradable. So Alexander's nappy doesn't need changing completely every time he goes to the toilet; the liner can just be thrown away. And when the nappy is changed, it can be washed and worn again.

Downside: Not as convenient as disposable nappies when on the move. When Alex stays away from home he prefers nappies you can just throw away. Or at least, his Mummy and Daddy do. Also, I imagine there is more of an issue with the growing size of a baby than with Terry Towels which you can adjust as you go along - I forgot to ask.

Price: These are bloody expensive; apparently at £11.99 a pair everywhere - although I can recommend Spirit of Nature having bought stuff from there myself. A good source for condoms which are suitable for vegans and biodegradeable.


You know, I'm sure there are other things, but that's all I can think of today.

Guilt is a Useless Emotion #2

One of the reasons I don’t blog much about the environment, is because I personally believe that guilt is capable of destroying the planet, or at least altering the surface of the planet beyond a point where it is hospitable for human life. Really. Guilt, as opposed to greed or laziness, is the cornerstone of public resistance to expert messages on climate change. And yet it is quite difficult to talk about this stuff without inspiring that dreaded emotion.

The most profound and easiest response to our guilt is denial. Denial can take many forms, sometimes the more absolute this is not happening as well as this change is not man-made through to this is someone else’s problem and nothing I can do will make a difference. Most of the people I talk to about climate change come up with a variation on one of these. But it is a defensive move, what they are really saying is, “Don’t talk to me about this. I don't want to feel bad about this. It is not my fault.”

And truthfully, it isn’t.

It is not your fault that climate change is happening! Were you present, powerful and in possession of all the facts, two hundred years ago when we started using fossil fuels in our technologies on a massive scale? I thought not. Therefore it is not your doing.

No living organism can exist without making some impact on the environment around it. Some things are pretty much condemned to causing harm to other things whenever their prosper; parasites as well as certain bacteria, viruses and fungi, for example. As someone born in the twentieth century, you were born into a world where we were already dependent on all sorts of unsustainable resources and practices. We were already using fossil fuels, which are by definition, a finite resource. Even if there is no climate change at all, this stuff will run out and before it does, there is likely to be a great deal more conflict and suffering over it.

Meanwhile, unless the vast majority of scientists, who we regard as intelligent, good and conscientious on most other matters, have either made a horrible mistake or are attempting to purposely mislead us over a sustained period of time (in which case, we might as well start entertaining Creationism and Flat Earth Theory), this is also bringing about a dramatic change in our weather systems, one which is likely to become extremely dangerous to human life at some point – when and in what way remaining areas of genuine controversy.

You and I were born into a crisis situation, a crisis which people didn’t foresee and one that has only become glaringly obvious in the last few decades. It’s okay. Your conscience is clear. And indeed, if it all goes to pot, if the human species is overwhelmed by floods, hurricanes, famine and disease within tens or a few hundreds of years, it shan’t have been your fault either.

In fact, this isn’t about you and your conscience at all. To chose to act on Climate Change is a positive choice to make a meaningful contribution to everyone else around the world for many generations to come. Many of us who are alive today are not going to see many of the negative effects of Climate Change, not the real horrorshow stuff. But I believe we can fix this. We must.


On which subject, please listen to this years Reith Lectures with Prof. Jeffrey Sachs; this guy rocks, is optimistic about our ability to sort this mess out and won't make you feel guilty, I promise.

How many kinds of sweet flowers grow in a somewhat neglected garden?

I was going to write another serious boring post today, but instead I shall show you pictures of flowers. Charles Dawson has been sharing the manifestations of spring in his garden and I've been watching the ongoing progress of spring over on Kethry's Blog.

It is really great having a garden, even though we've done almost nothing with it so far and being rented accomodation, there's not been much done with it in the recent past. All we've done is put a picnic bench out and some pots full of pansies, which I didn't bother photographing today.

Fortunately, I like weeds! Perhaps I have some sort of affinitywith them, I don't know, but I think they're really pretty I like daisis and dandelions and nettles - of which we have two varieties! We also have some things with long stalks and tiny white flowers which were impossible to photograph.

When I attempted to discover the names for our two varieties of nettles and to work out whether or not they stung, I discovered that next month they're holding a Be Nice To Nettles week. And so we should. I think. Probably.

Apparently what we have here are Purple Dead Nettles and White Dead Nettles or as I prefer, the Purple Archangel and White Archangel and neither of them sting. The bumble bees seem particularly keen on the white ones. If I like, I can mash the stuff up and make a detoxifying tea for my kidneys or a compress for my wounds. Like in The Outlaw Josey Wales. Very useful stuff.

Bizarrely, we also have one or two proper flowers and I could do with some help with identification. Is this flower, on the left a poppy or a tulip? There are two of them so far. I thought tulip, but then I thought, perhaps it is a poppy? Thus I display the true depths of my horticultural ignorance.

I know that these are bluebells on the right, of which we have a few scatterings. Not as many as Sally got to see the other day.

I suppose bluebells may be considered a weed as well. Who cares? I am kind of rambling on at this stage such that the photographs don't run into one another, can you tell?

And is this here a primrose? Or perhaps a primula? Any ideas? It is just sat there in the middle of the lawn, which needs cutting. I am wondering whether it is possible to rescue the thing?

In other news, I have nearly given up reading my news on the BBC News website after, following the news of futher discussion of the latest Mental Health Bill in parliament, they decided to have a Have Your Say debate entitled Should the mentally ill be detained against their will?

Not even Should some mentally ill people be detained against their will? which wouldn't have been a very pertinent question, considering that some people with mental health impairments always have been detained against their will for periods and all that is suggested is a change in the criteria and process. It is an important debate. Proposed changes include detaining people who are anticipated to behave dangerously, and detaining people who are not felt to be able to benefit from treatement - such as people defined as having Personality Disorders (horrible diagnosis that). But these issues are really complex and really extremely important for disabled people and society at large. Should the mentally ill be detained against their will? is a bit like saying Should all immigrants be deported?

See, did manage a little bit of serious and boring, after all.

Guilt is a Useless Emotion #1

I reckon, if we’re really going to save the world, we have to get shot of all this guilt.

Truth is, there is some comfort in the hair shirt. Punish yourself enough, and you feel better about it. Enter a cycle of sin and repentance and you don’t have to worry too much about putting right your mistakes, let alone doing the right thing in the first place. It is liberating, to accept that you are a repentant sinner; doing any actual good in this life is a bonus.

For this reason, both in terms of my egalitarian beliefs as well as environmentalism, I am strongly opposed to making people feel guilty. If you succeed in making people feel guilty, you have lost them.

It’s like with nutrition. Anxiety about weight and health has created an entirely false morality around nutrition. We talk about the naughtiness of certain foods even though (sorry in all that) there is nothing naughty about a chocolate cake. If it is a stolen chocolate cake, particularly if it was stolen from a small child on its birthday, well that’s pretty naughty. However, if you just bought it with your own money (as opposed to money obtained in an armed robbery), well you are entitled to it. You can eat it all by yourself, every last crumb and they’ll be no thunderbolt. I promise. Cross my heart and hope for a slice.

Unfortunately for those who want to lose weight, this morality around the nutritional value of food (as opposed to its origins, production and transportation which have real ethical consequences) doesn’t dramatically alter the way most people eat. For one thing, it is inconsistent; read enough of the wrong sort of magazines, and you will read every food product there ever was condemned as fattening or bad for your internal Feng Shui or whatever. So folks end up simply accepting that they are bound to feel guilty about their weight, guilty about very much of the food they eat, and little changes. If I lost a pound for every time I heard someone say, “Oh, I mustn’t eat this, but…” I’d be nothing but skin and bone.

I did encounter a chocolate cake at the weekend. Five women in the room ate some, but not one merely accepted the offer without condition.

“Only a very small piece for me, please.”
“Oh I mustn’t, but I suppose it is Easter.”
“Do you happen to know what the GI is?”
“I just know it’ll go straight on my thighs.”
And I, by far the podgiest in the room, declared, “I’ll have as much as is left after this lot, thanks!”

Not really, but arguably, guilt around food does more harm than good because ‘bad’ foods become an indulgence, a digression with which we reward our good behaviour or comfort ourselves. After all, where there’s no straight-forward avenue of repentance, guilt doesn’t feel good; it actually makes you feel extremely sorry and extremely powerless. So we rebel against it.

As with chocolate cake, as with the rest of the universe. It is this rebellion which does so much damage for those of us who believe we can make the world a better place. It is at the heart of all backlash, all denial about privilege, inequality, the impact of our actions upon the environment or any other ethical subject there is. It also cause conflict between those of us who share very similar objectives.

But worst of all, it can stop us from accepting responsibility, which is quite a different creature.

Though the claith were bad, blythly may we niffer

Today I have been sorting out my Cloth Box, attempting to reduce the contents which is spilling out the top. This was a horrible task. The trouble with my Cloth Box is that

• Every time an item of clothing or soft furnishings becomes unwearably knackered, I put that on one side with a view to using the fabric later on.

• Every time I make something, I save the remnants because they're bound to be useful at some later date.

• Meanwhile, I keep seeing lovely bits of fabric and thinking up weird and wonderful projects - especially when I have a baby nephew; there are outfits I think he'll like, Wendy Houses and wigwams, yet more soft toys. But sometimes I just buy stuff because it's cheap; I still have no idea what I'm going to do with all that PVC.

And once the pattern is established, it becomes impossible to throw good fabric away, even a two inch square scrap of good fabric which will be no use to anyone (but it might, it might; it could patch up a hole in... something... sometime). Apart from the fact that I am making very slow progress with my sewing projects on account of the fact that I am yet to learn how to use a sewing machine.

And if I wasn't having a frustrating enough time as it was, I moved awkwardly such that I ripped a hole in the skirt I was wearing, a skirt I had made, a skirt that had taken hours and hours and hours...

New Years Resolutions - Two Month Assessment.

I cut myself a lot of slack this year, by not telling anyone my New Year’s Resolutions and therefore creating no audience for my failures. I am cutting myself further slack by not giving up on those resolutions that I have lapsed upon. We have, after all, had a house move which took place within a month of the decision to move and it has been a somewhat chaotic house move at that.

I did however think it was appropriate to assess how I was doing at this stage. You'll have to excuse the irritating nature of my resolutions, but I am a very irritating person.


1. Buy No More Clothes. This was an environmental, ethical, financial, feminist and practical resolution. I was determined to keep my old clothes going as long as possible by mending and re-enforcing them, and that any new clothes I needed I would make myself.

Two lapses, both relating to the fact that I realised that I’ll probably be going to a Christening later this spring, don’t have anything suitable to wear and am unlikely to be able to create an entire outfit from scratch given everything else that is going on. Both purchases from eBay however, and buying second-hand is undoubtedly more environmentally friendly than making something from a new, freshly processed, bit of fabric. And it didn’t cost much.

However, I am quite determined to make things in the future. The environmental and ethical impact of the fashion industry bother me, but also, like a lot of people who with non-standard proportions and very little money to spend, I struggle to find things which fit, are affordable and which are to my tastes. Basically I'm just bitter.

Ideally, I would like to be able to adjust and jazz up secondhand things, but I'm not that hot a seamstress yet, I need to get my skills up to scratch. And we need to do some more tidying up around here before I have the space to work on that.


2. Buy No More Prepared Cosmetic Products etc.. For similar reasons as above. Fed up of getting through plastic bottles of lotions and potions full of lots of different chemicals I don’t know the source of. And itching. Was very fed up of itching.

This was fairly easy as I had already started in the autumn. Still having baths, still washing my hair and I am still perfectly fragrant. Just without the soap, shampoo, shower gel, cleanser, moisturiser etc., etc.. The only prepared cosmetic product I use now is my Lush solid deodorant as I cannot finally do away with the fear of smelling like a human being.

I shall have to write another post about my now disgusting standards of personal hygiene, but this is going perfectly well.


3. Buy No More Chocolate that’s not Fair Trade. This was partly an attempt to eat less chocolate, partly to improve my ethical behaviour.

This hasn’t gone so well. The first lapse was when my mother had some Thorntons chocolates and offered me one or two. It would have been positive antisocial and bad for my mother’s health if I had no obliged (since she would have eaten them all). The second lapse was with my Gran’s birthday approaching and not having had the opportunity or motivation to think up anything original to get her. So chocolate it had to be. I looked all over the internet to buy a box of Fair Trade chocolates – which are available of course, and not particularly expensive really. Only everywhere I looked, in order to get them quickly, I would have been paying as much in postage as I would for the chocolates. And I needed to post them once they got to me.

Time was running out, I was putting an order in for Tescos – which do stock Divine Fair Trade chocolate but didn’t have a box available on the on-line supermarket – so I bought some Lindt truffles instead. I should have gone to the Ethical Superstore, where I have gone before and which would have only charged a few quid postage, but somehow this possibility escaped me.


4. Eat less. Well, you know I’m conflicted about my weight, but I am also a bit fed up of being tubby. Any excess weight is bound to be adding some strain to my already strained system. If I don't make some effort, it is never going to go away.

I am eating less, but don’t appear to be shrinking. Still, if I am to lose weight, it is going to happen very slowly. It is not as if I overeat, or comfort-eat or anything like that and my weight has been stable - stable and heavy - for a long time. I just don’t burn anything off because I get far below average amounts of exercise and although I eat less than average too, I didn't when my activity levels first dropped off the radar. I need to very carefully work out what it is I can eat so I can lose my excess without adding to my fatigue and weakness. It is going to be very slow and I am going to shut up about it now and try not to mention it again.

I guess I resent the part of me who wants to lose weight; I can remember, following drug-induced obesity, being overjoyed to have got down to the size I am now. But I also resent being this heavy given that I don't eat much and when, if I was well, I could just go for a good long walk a couple of times a week and be back to a healthy weight within six weeks. Ho hum, such is life, guess I'll have to bite the low-calorie bullet and see how it goes.


5. Read and Review at least One Book Every Month. I felt guilty about the increasing "To Read" pile. I also wanted to be more disciplined about time spent on passive activities away from the computer and to remind myself what other people's books are like. At the same time, I didn't want to do what I tend to do which is not to read anything for weeks and weeks and then get completely distracted reading three books in a row and not getting anything else done in the meantime.

I managed January, just, but February has been complete chaos; there are very few non-essential objectives I have met this month, so I think I get the month off. I find it quite difficult to read when I'm working on my book - which is, of course, my main goal in life right now - but one book a month would probably be about right.

Unfortunately the next book on the pile is Jude the Obscure. Groan.


6. Be More Disciplined about Time Keeping. This started out as quite a complex resolution, with all sorts of things I would attempt to do a little bit of every day.

Naturally, the fact we decided to move within the first few days of the New Year put the kibosh on this for a while, but am beginning to get back into it now. I want to be able to do all the things I want to do, without becoming completely distracted and then completely exhausted by one particular project or actvity. The more different things I do, the happier and more productive I am. Spending time doing crafty things or music helps me concentrate better on my writing. Only, this does require significant discipline and pacing, including resting properly between every ten or fifteen minutes activity. Which is incredibly tedious, and thus requires effort.


7. Be More Open about My Sexuality. My sexuality is really not a big deal, but it has been a thorn in my side because I am always afraid of how people might react to it – which makes me rather inhibited, in my writing especially, for fear that it should slip out by accident.

Alexander has rocked my position on this, such that I fell right off. Not because Alexander has any more than whatever percentage chance a person has of happening to be queer, but because the possibility that he could be or else might be a straight boy who doesn’t like cricket (does happen) – and the possibility that he might be made to feel as I was made to feel, makes me feel very sad and angry. He won’t, of course, his parents being somewhat groovier than mine and him growing up now, post Section 28, where things are moving steadily towards equity. However, I do have a responsibility to set an example, to be happy with myself the way I am. That way, at the very least Alex will grow up with an example of someone who is confident in her difference, so that he too may be confident in his difference (after all, we are all a bit different).

This resolution has been a tremendous success. I started by subjecting you guys to my tales of teenage angst – tales which I haven’t quite got to the end of yet, you’ll be deeply depressed to learn. This was a real release for me; it was terrifying in ways it really ought not to have been, but now out there, well phew! You didn't all run away in disgust, surprisingly enough.

Then earlier this month I managed to tell my mother in quite explicit terms that I was bisexual (explicit as in such that there could be no misinterpretation, although I didn't use the word bisexual; I don't like the word in any case). It was a split-second decision really, in the context of a conversion about Boudica and the Iceni as it happens (don't ask, I'm not really sure how it came out myself). And there it was. Out. I feel sure she already knew, and I knew deep down she wouldn’t freak out, love me any less or anything like that. But I feel much better because I don’t have to worry about her ever finding out by accident any more.


So in conclusion, not a bad start considering how chaotic things have been. None of my resolutions will be abandoned at this stage. See how I managed with the next two months.

Being good isn't always easy, no matter how hard I try

It is surprising to what little extent the mind learns anything from the body. Vice versa, sure, all the time. Even when the body is lying still, safe and cool, the mind can make the heart race, the muscles tighten and the skin sweat. You can’t always get it to do what you want it to do, but it is listening.

The mind, however, doesn’t really give a shit what the body is up to. This is a great tune, it says, let's get up and dance! I guess that there are few of us, however decrepit, who can face an open flat field or an empty corridor and not wish to sprint to one end and back again. Similar temptations would include climbable trees or rocks in the middle of a river you're sure you could jump to in order to get across (I got in so much trouble last time I did that and I didn't even get very wet). And then there's this thing about getting lost.

I was reminded of this by a fantastic mist we had here. The temptation to walk into it and keep walking until you've lost sight of where you came from, and don't really know where you are. Dark woods are the same; the desire to wander into the darkness, to become disorientated. Whenever people say they like to travel and explore new places, or folks who like hiking about in the countryside, I imagine that's what they really mean; I want to get a bit lost in order to find myself again. Which may sound a little deeper than I believe it to be.

I tell myself off for caring about the things I can't do, especially these things which are a little frivolous. I also fantasise about taking flight but nobody is going to feel sorry for me that I don't happen to defy gravity. But it gets a lot more subtle than that. A temptation just to move about.

When I first got the electric wheelchair, I found it very difficult to keep still. Not me, not me in my body, but me in the chair. If I was waiting on a particular spot, I was inclined to shift about. It was a bad habit because the fidgeting meant engaging and disengaging the battery, which wouldn't have been very good for the machine.

And now, as my pain levels have reduced (she says, on the worst pain day in months - cursing my parents for living in a house with stairs), I find myself entertaining the more active whims for more than a passing moment. A few days without my body screaming at it and my mind forgets the experience of ten years. Let's take a little walk over there, just to see what we can see. Which is, incidentally, why I am in so much pain today.

I have to try and be good. It is many years since I have managed to get this far into a winter without some major immune disaster. I have had inexplicable crap spells, I have had colds, I have had ear, throat and miscellaneous icky yuck-yuck infections, but I keep getting over them, getting back to a level which is the best it has been in a long time. If I can only behave myself, I might be able to do a lot more by this time next year.


In other news, my computer has died, I'm borrowing my Dad's which is a rather temperamental machine and there's a good chance of getting stuck off-line for a while. Several other disasters today, too tedious to elaborate on. However, more positively, I have been rambling on these pages for two years today, so Happy Birthday to my blog. You may have noticed I converted to the new blogger this week and now have labels.

And for those interested in such things, this evening at five to seven (GMT), a French organisation called Alliance pour la Planète are asking everyone to turn their lights out and disconnect everything usually left on standby for five minutes as a gesture to demand urgent action on climate change from governments throughout the world.

Edit: After first posting this it occurred to me I might have used that Dusty Springfield line as a title to another post. I had done, but I'm tired so it'll have to do.

Balls to the environment

I have funky new toys, but really they are very sensible items for performing a sensible task and reducing the amount of pollution I am responsible for.

They are Ecoballs (on your right) and Dryer balls (left). Really I ought to hold off posting about these because I haven't thoroughly tested them, but they do look really cool.

These promise to do away with the need for washing powder, fabric condition and the resultant pollution was well as saving on the electricity required for rinsing and to dry clothes in a tumble-dryer (which we have to use). They also purport to be much better for sensitive skin, to cut down on the need for ironing and reduce the amount of fluff generated.

Yes, it does sound rather amazing...

The Ecoballs cost me £24.50 and my Dryer Balls £6.99 from the Ethical Superstore (they've gone up in price since, sorry). The Ecoballs are supposed to last 1000 washes. My box of washing powder is supposed to last thirty washes at £3.74, totally about £125 for 1000 washes, £175 with fabric conditioner. So the economics make a lot of sense, assuming both manufacturers have been equally generous with their estimates.

Plus, the Dryer Balls are supposed to reduce the required drying time by 25% and reduce the need for ironing. We very rarely iron anything, but given how often the Dryer is in use and given that a Tumble-Dryer needs a lot of energy to do its thing, I should be saving a significant amount of electricity and some pennies as a result.

And naturally, you're adding no chemincal pollutants to the sea.

Only trouble is, I don't really understand the science in either case, not enough to be completely and utterly convinced by them. Ionised oxygen, apparently. I know what that means but I don't know enough about how that's supposed to clean things. I bought them because I had read so many good reviews and no negative ones. I will let you know how I get on.