This environmental jolly is a good thing .....

So 20,000 plus delegates, politicians, environmental activists and journalists et al all failed to get a binding agreement in Copenhagen in Dec 2009 so they are all trying again this year in Cancoon, Mexico with all the associated travel, disruption, policing, Co2 and other environmental pollutants just to have another stalemate at the end of it....

The best part is that they will be doing it all again in 12 months time in South Africa........


As I said this environmental jolly hollies are a nice little experience ...... if you can get on the band wagon [ run on bio diesel from a non rain forest deforestation country project of course]  that is.....

Where does the time go??

Whoa!! May the 12 was the last post, blimey where has the time gone. Probably cleaning the house and doing the washing up but then again it could easilly have been just watching the rabbits and chickens we now have.... Oh yes the livestock are multiplying !!

living a subsistance life.

I watched a programme last week about a vicar who is living without money, initially for 3 months but it seems as if it is ongoing. I was incredibly impressed with this guy and the BBC for doing it mainly because it is following a religeous theme from 800 years ago and the bbc generally don't get into "controversial things" these days but also prove the idea is not new.

Last nights programme was where he tried to walk 240 miles from his home to an environmental guru in Devon. He had to resort to thumbing a lift and  also had ot beg for food, which apparently is now illegal! He got there in time and i did wonder if it was by chance or good fortune but I am enjoying these programmes.

To quantify that a bit, I couldn't hope to live without money for one day or even one hour as we have a mortgage and we are only 60% self sufficient in veg.... and my wife would give me a kicking if I sugessted it, lol.
I must say my wife is going to be nominated as a saint when she dies ( hopefully not for a long time) because she is already saintly in her patience of me and the ideas I get up to but I feel another "experiment " coming on!!

Judgement day Part II

So the election was run and the public decided they could not decide on who could run the country properly. Today we have the first day of the first coillition since the war years with the tories and lib dems in power.

I hope this works out well as I would prefer a more PR / talking to each other type of politics where slagging off each other, where "briefing against people" is a thing of the past. New labour was needed to get rid of the tories back in 1997 but then they desended into the dirty world of political backbiting for the next 13 years until now.  I wonder how this will pan out over the next few weeks and months.  Oh and I didn't manage to stay up all night on election night managing to stay awake until the late hour of 22.30 pm, lol.......

Judgement day

So the election in the UK is here, now, today...... For the first time in eons if not ever the whole house is voting Librel Democrat. There is nothing surprising in the fact that we vote, I make sure we both go to the polling station and even if my wife votes different to me, spoils her ballot paper or votes for all of the candidates then we will have voted because I feel that it is our duty and not a right to vote because people died to give all of us the option of democracy. Of course many, many people have died in the wars to ensure our vote and democracy takes place on a daily occurance but don't forget that women died in the suffrajet movement to get women the vote.

Wether we feel that democracy is taking place is another thing. If you were a believer in the Iraq anti war movement when Tony Blair [allegedly] took our forces to war in support of oil and George bush then you probably think that democricy is not working but thinking of Iraq as an example they always had a 99.9% turnout for elections when Saddam Hussain was up for election....... oh, that's right he was the only candidate in the elections wasn't he....

I hope the election proves to be a turning point in the UK political system and we do get a situation where no one party "wins". The tories and labour parties call it a "hung" election where hanging is bad whilst the Libral Democrats call it a "ballanced election" but whatever it is called it will make politiciens sit up and think.... at least the optimist in me likes to think so, lol.

I know for one thing and that is I'll be sitting up all night to hear the results, soething I've never done before....... ever.

The planes are flying again..... so what?

At last the world can once again breathe a sigh of relief because the aeroplanes are flying again and people can now get back to the good old UK ready to whinge and moan about having to stay in a foreign land a few extra days and whinge and moan they certainly will do! Most will get at least 4 weeks of drivel out of this episode.

It seems to be OK to go abroad for a week or 10 days, be louts on the beach and help destroy the locality of some distant shore then fly back home only to work your nuts off for another 52 weeks in order to do it again next year but come the time when people might be a bit inconvenienced then all hell has to be unleashed and it HAS to be someones fault in order to get full whingeabillity.

One report I saw was a woman sitting by the poolside in full sun saying it was hard to be stuck away from home, if she felt that way why did she contribute to the damaging ozone depletion by taking a cheap flight in the first place?

If people just take a few minutes out of their precious, hard working, stressful lives to think about the bigger picture of their very individual actions that contribute to global warming and the environmental destruction BEFORE they take the actions then there may well be less issues with "natural events" or "acts of god" [assuming that there is a god of course] and more money will be kept in the UK.

It may also be a good idea to think about why you need a foreign holiday for 2 weeks because if you need this holiday to relax and unwind from the pressures of daily life then surely the best action would be to reduce the pressures and stress of the daily "grind" rather than stick your head in the sand for 50 weeks a year.


it does the soul good to rant, lol......

The Election

So we have an election looming in the good ol' UK and the main two parties are slagging each other off as per normal bear pit politics that we are all used to. Along the rails comes Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats with sound debate and arguments and wins the first TV debate hands down. Even 4 days later the oppinion polls are still showing a good response for NC.

I do hope that the LD's get a good showing at the polls in May even if it's just to give the others a good wake up call.

If anyone reading this can vote then you have until the end of Tuesday to get on the voting register..... especially if you want to vote LD, lol.

Fridgeless...... again

I tried last year to do without a fridge deciding to make a pot in a pot cooler for the milk and butter etc. Primarily this was an eco thing and a desire to go back to the pantry system and daily shopping to get the freshest food and save money and CO2 by not consuming as much electricity. Although this worked I was having to shop daily and this was taking it's toll on my chronic back problems so this more or less died a death quite quick but about 5 weeks ago both the fridge and freezer blew up so we have now been fridgeless and freezerless for the last 5 weeks and with no money to replace them we have had to manage.....!! 

These last 5 weeks have been darn hard for the above mentioned problems but we have had the car available to do shopping when my back has been far too bad to use the bus but this has an ipact on my personal CO2 production. On the matter of CO2 production we have saved over 119kg of CO2 from the electric used to power the FF. Some of this will have been used by the car and buses but I've not assertained how much yet.


I don't know how long this will continue but with no money available it may be a fair while, lol. which brings me to another point, Sell by dates. The government is going to do away with the sell by dates and the use by dates because 1000's of tonnes of food that is perfectly good to eat is thrown away because it is not used by these dates. Good for the reduction of waste food but this also means more profit for the supermarkets as they will be able to leave produce on the shelves longer and there will be less food marked down for quick sale wich will mean many people will have less to eat because they need to use the marked down products to eek out a food budget.

Why is it......

...... a policy of the local (?) government to insist on putting your local election number on the counterfoil of the ballot papers before you vote ?
In Hartlepool when you give them your election register number they write this on the counterfoil " so that if there is any fraud they can check who voted" . What it actually means is that if you dare to vote for a minority party, say the BNP or UKIP for example then the likes of special Branch can keep an eye on you !!

Paranoid... you bet I am.

At cost energy

Saw this piece about a new energy company on the Tonight programme today and thought I'd mention the link here.
Basically it is a millionaire who is setting up an energy supply company [ like BG, EDF, Eon etc] but he plans to charge the consumer the at cost price he pays, I.E. no profit for him.

It is planned for late autum 2010 but you can read all about it at http://www.atcostenergy.com

The less we pay for our energy the more we can spend on heating our homes........

Chilli heads

I've been making chilli sauces for a while now but never really got the right one. Today I made one that is more or less there. I bit too much ginger but I can correct that in my next version. Ready for testing so if anyone out there is a chilli head and would like to sample a bit of my rather hot sauces then contact me but remember I need a disclaimer signing first.....

25th of February 2010 
Number two version done today and boy does it blow your eyeballs out and then scorch your sockets.... loverly...........

13th of April 2010

Version three made today and I'm becoming a dab hand at this chilli sauce lark now, lol. 40 birds eye chillis, 5 narga moriche chillis and 2 tablespoons of narga moriche chilli paste (70% chillis). This one is really hot. I mean bloody hot, so hot my wife thought my head was going to burst as it was cherry red like a tomato!!
I'll have to re evaluate the idea of scorching my sockets as this one has done the job better.

 Still it tasted nice....

Quilting

I have always loved the feel of a good big quilt and the artistry involved. I've wanted to have a go for years now but thought it was too difficult. Well now i've had a go and I'm hooked or should that be wuillted,lol. It also came as a bit of a surprise when afriend said she was a quilter but she is far more accoumplished than I am and probably ever will be. Why not check out her site here  perfect patchwork  and have a look at all her glorious items.   

google adsense

Just a quick plea to ask if anyone reading this blog can click on some of the adverts that appear on this blog. I have an adsense account and all last year I earned £2.03 so i ain't retiring just yet but every little helps so they say.

Take care,

Alan

Happy new year and surviving the weather

So tis the time of the year when we all, well many of us say Happy new year to each other. I hope you all have a really happy new year and that it continues through the whole year of 2010.

It's snowing really hard here today, like 2" this morning and the likes of which we haven't seen for many a year but then I can just about remember the last really bad winter we had in 1963. Admittedly it is only by photographs of me playing in the snow as a toddler but the family stories of having to dig the house out of snow drifts are still well remembered. Digging the house out was in fact a truth. The snow was so hard and fast in laying and drifting that it was up above the downstairs windows so when we opened the curtains we could not see anything as the light was blocked out by the snow. Aparently my brother was able to open the front door and had to shovel snow into the house just ot get started to dig his way upwards and outwards.

Probably a bit of a long story but it still does the rounds.  It will pay dividends to take a bit of thought to your health and safety whilst we have these difficult weather conditions with us. I say difficult because we in general have not had to endure bad weather in theUK for many a years except for short 3 day jobbies.
Still, as many of us work many miles away from home and transport is a necessity whichever form you use  it becomes relevant to tae a few minutes to think of your H&S. My website has some tips on it if oyu are stranded so click on the title of this post to be taken to the site.

I hope it is og some help.
 

The Pig of Happiness