112 days ago
My mother was a self sufficiency nut in the spirit of John Seymour with whom she corresponded, a believer in a sort of communitarian way of thinking. I spent a, not entirely happy, summer on a Welsh agricultural commune with her. Even then, aged six or seven I guess there must have been a latent capitalist and libertarian within me because I remember that I sensed unhappiness and impending implosion. There were loud arguments among the adults. Some folks worked hard in the fields while others listened to folk music and dreamed of the revolution. In the end those who worked walked and those who did not had to go and find someone else to sponge off.
2835 days ago
Perhaps it explains why I have picked up such a sweet tooth later in life but, in my early years at Butterwell farm Byfield, chocolate was a real rarity and sweets were just non existent. This was my mother at work.
2863 days ago
The Mrs asked me to put the bins out today. According to the complex glossy grid posted to us by cash strapped Bristol City Council, it is a 4 bin day. I am still not sure what the difference is between the green box and the black box but they together with the big black bin and the brown food bin must all go outside by 7 AM and if you are caught putting the wrong stuff in the wrong box you are publicly stoned to death in a multi cultural ceremony to demonstrate Bristol's commitment to diversity as well as saving the planet.
4432 days ago
Everyone knows that I think that global warming is, as a theory, pure bunkum unbacked by evidence or science. And so it is not a surprise that Met Office data admitting that global warming stopped 16 years ago was greeted with a ‘Gotcha’ from me on Sunday. The response from one tweeter was “Yey! Keep driving 4×4’s, don’t recycle burn it, destroy forests, pollute rivers, Go man go. Must feel good knowing all a scam.” Au contraire you have got it all wrong. Being a global warming sceptic is in fact the green thing to do.
4485 days ago
A survey by Which reveals that 56% of English and Scottish shoppers want supermarkets to charge 5p per plastic bag sold in order to discourage us all from using too many plastic bags. The average shopper users 120 plastic bags a year and supermarkets hand out 8 billion bags a year. Bags cost more or less nothing for a supermarket to order in bulk.
So what this survey says is that 56% of Britons would like to boost the profits of the big supermarkets by around £400 million a year by each handing over £6 a year. Admittedly
