Wednesday, January 10, 2007, 12:57 AM
I read in the paper today that only about one in twenty Britons plans to do anything about the environment this year. And, also that Tony Blair says that climate change should be "left to the experts".
Well, actually Tony's very wrong here. It's down to you, actually.
At the end of the day, if you were to place the fate of your planet in the hands of either a self-interested, electorally-focused, business-compromised politician, or your own, which would you choose? I see...
It's not rocket science (although it certainly may have to be if we turn this planet into a piece of miserable wasteground) - just a few small things make all the difference.
Look around your house at all your chargers - you probably have several for mobile phones, for your digital camera, your MP3 player, your cordless phone. If you leave them in the plug socket, with the power on, they continue to draw power, even if there is no appliance to charge. You pay, the planet pays.
Admittedly switching these chargers off makes a gnat's fart of a difference, although if you have ever witnessed sixty million gnats farting at once, I can assure you the smell is quite prodigious.
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Sunday, January 7, 2007, 11:42 PM
I was watching German TV recently and saw a travel programme on a place called Wales, located just off the edge of Great Britain. The way that the programme viewed Wales through the eyes of a total outsider suddenly made it irresistible - like a sort of green, untouched, mini-New Zealand just west of Birmingham. "I've been there..." "...and there" I proudly proclaimed, before I was asked by my co-viewer to pipe down.I have just spent the weekend there in the company of four friends, who can be seen in the picture here, basking in the damp, hilly glory of a part of Wales that not many people go to.
Wales gets a reputation for its valleys, but the thing with valleys is that there are inevitably hills all around them, and the hills are less well-known. It's only when you get there that you realise that such geography can only be caused by mind-blowing amounts of rain, rain and the odd downpour. In the hands of Mother Nature, water is capable of displacing the kind of space you see behind my four friends here. She just needs a couple of million years, that's all. Wales is the fiercest test for any waterproof jacket, and the occasional moment of clear weather is greeted with disorientated sheep and plants that wither at the slightest sign of direct sunlight. It's also a time to get your camera out.
In the photo below, you see the five of us taking refuge at several hundred metres in a cairn whilst rain-laden winds lash over the tops of the stones. From the left, you see your friendly blog writer, then there's Matt the outdoor man (note map), then Neill, who crosses barbed wire fences with his hands in his pockets, then Steve, who could produce a copy of the Guardian anywhere on earth and in any situation, and finally Andy, who has vainly attempted to conceal the rather remarkable rucksack he chose to wear. The photo was taken by a Welsh stone and a bit of guesswork. Quite frankly, any hill (or valley, for that matter) should watch out for this lot.
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Wednesday, January 3, 2007, 01:08 AM
This is a close-up of our daughter Ruby, who is turning from a baby into a little girl, day by day. This week, she will be 100 days old. The movements, smiles and sounds are less random, and the sense of touch, sight and sound are more important to her. She now decides what she finds funny, and what less so. Next week, she will wearily inform me that I have already told a joke twice...
Chief among her sensory areas is now her mouth - give her anything - a cloth, your hand, your mobile phone, and she will pull it towards her mouth for testing. If it doesn't taste good, it will be rejected and thrown on the floor. The period where we will have to watch her very closely has begun.
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Wednesday, January 3, 2007, 12:17 AM
I was particularly disturbed to hear about the little girl mauled to death by the pitbull on Merseyside - I enjoy looking to the news with a cynical eye, but this is just upsetting. The story made me and probably millions of others think about the dog and what drove it to the deed. The pitbull was no different to the thousands of humans that lose their composure and murder people each year - it is more nurture, than nature. Of course a pitbull is possessed with a shorter fuse than this dog here in the picture. Seen here just before a Christmas walk, Plum, my parents' dog is a pack creature that like any dog will await direction from the alpha animal - it should respect the alpha animal, but not be brought up on a diet of violence and fear. If you put violence in, you get violence out. Wherever you look in life, you see this proven time and time again.
Any pitbull can be trained properly, just like any labrador can. It's more challenging, and there are more failures, but we don't need to ask questions of the right of existence of dangerous dogs. We need to look very closely at the motives and fears of the owners. A man walking down the street with a pitbull will radiate pure human inadequacy, and he will cram all of his tension and ready-to-wear violence into his four-legged bodyguard. The dog will make him feel bulletproof, and it's that that needs analysing, not the dog.
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Monday, January 1, 2007, 09:55 PM
We spent new year's eve indoors this year. It was just me, Mayke, Ruby and some friends from around the world - Mexican food, Spanish Cava, German beer and television scenes beamed from Honolulu to Helsinki. Even if we had wanted to go outdoors, I don't think it would have been possible. We would have had to emerge into this:
Germans aren't the only nation to have a weakness for the odd firework, but I'm afraid that they have an inexplicable attachment to evil little things called 'Boeller'. Whilst you see fireworks in the air, the people on the ground are feverishly lighting their Boeller. They basically resemble paper-wrapped sticks of red dynamite, and you light them at one end and they explode with a loud bang. They are the Jade Goody of the fireworks world - simple, loud and available in all good newsagents. No visuals whatsoever. A real one-trick-pony.
The thrill is that once you light the thing, you should get out of the way before it explodes. Even if you throw it into a river, it will completely ignore the water and explode with a dull, fish-obliterating 'thwump'. You can use it as a weapon, a distraction, and attention-grabber or just to wake up elderly relatives on the other side of town.
Now consider for a moment that you have a three month old little girl. Your trip outside basically isn't going to happen tonight. Happy new year.
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