F1rst Class News

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F1

As those who have read this blog for a while will know, I am a big F1 fan.  When people first hear this news it has been known to causes scream of horror from certain quarters.  Well you need scream no longer for Vodafone McLaren Mercedes have become the first F1 team to become carbon neutral.  Yes an F1 car which does about 4mpg is carbon neutral, you can read all about it here.

I can hear the cynical comments already, however please note that if Vodafone McLaren Mercedes didn’t have the income from a successful F1 team then they wouldn’t have the money to fund the projects.  Should you remain a cynic and drive a car then read the following bit again.  A F1 car whizzing around a track in excess of 200mph – in the big scheme of things – is better for the environment than your car unless, that is, you own one of the very few carbon neutral models.

More recently, we were recognised by the government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme, which publishes a performance league table of more than 2000 participating British businesses: we were ranked 92^nd overall.

Most significantly, we were not only the highest-placed Formula 1 team in the scheme, but also the highest-placed automotive manufacturer – a not inconsiderable feat.

A Continent Apart

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Photography

I find something very beautiful about decay.  Partly it is down to the colours and shapes, partly it is the wonder of nature reclaiming her own despite what we might think something should be made into, and partly it is to do with the beauty that lies within death itself.  I know, I know, not a popular statement to make in today’s modern world were death is all but hidden and talked about in whispers.  Anyway I wasn’t going to talk about death but boats and how in different continents the slow decaying of a boat can have very two very differing impacts.

As we drove along one of the many coastal paths we traversed during our holiday we rounded a corner to be met with this view.

The waters of the west coast of Scotland slowly reclaiming a boat which once sailed them.  The bright Autumnal colour it once had disappearing with each tide and the wood soaked by the sea water first looses its paint then crumbles and sinks into the silt unforgotten until maybe in a million years it will be rediscovered as coal or oil. Where had that boat sailed?  What has caused it to be abandoned?  Who were its crew?  Why had they stopped loving her?  Lying listing on her side still tethered to the land, foreign to her being she retains a forlorn beauty as her younger sisters bob on the waves behind her.  Will those fiberglass youngsters have such a repose?

It is not just abandoned wooden boats that grab my attention, I do like a bit of rust.  Like this rusty post from a long unused jetty, something once so strong and secure now flaking away under the elements.

Which brings me to the title of this blog.  While a one wooden boat in Argyll might be beautiful in Africa off the coast of Nigeria rusting ships are less so, not in the nature of their decay, but in the impact that they are causing.  Oil companies which make huge profits are in part to blame using cheap ships which are not really seaworthy and then abandoning them along the coast.  You can read and see the BBC news report about the problems they are causing for the locals here.

Gold Star and Wooden Spoon

Today I have been over in Edinburgh at a meeting and while I was out a delivery arrived.

Now you can see clearly who the delivery was from and more about that in a bit.  There are 8 not small boxes, as I was out the driver carted them down the narrow gap along the side of the house around to the back of the house.  Then he piled them up in a hidden spot and took the garden chairs to hide the boxes further.  I was impressed, really impressed so I phoned to let City Link know how good their driver had been.

Amazon on the other hand will not be getting such a phone call, this is what each parcel contains.

Yes that is correct lots of paper another smaller box with lots of paper in which is an 8oz jam jar!

Why, oh why didn’t they either just send the smaller box, or put all of them into one of the larger boxes?

Gold Star to City Link.  Wooden Spoon to Amazon!

Two Good Reasons

… not to get an electric car.

Driving home I was behind an electric car, as we travelled the car – which held the driver and passenger – got slower and slower until it was doing under 20 mph!  The road in question is hardly a hill more an incline (for those who know the area it was Craigdhu Road) the speed limit along that road is 40 mph, in my opinion that makes the car not much better than a bike, in fact that same bit of road often has cyclists on it and I think they would have been more than capable of overtaking it!

I said two reasons, the second is that it is down right ugly!  Go and look here.

Now, don’t get me wrong if they get a car right that doesn’t use petrol I would seriously consider it, the Tesla is getting there but way too pricy and even less practical than ‘Baby’.  The Lotus Exige is tempting, but not for everyday driving and again the price is an issue, as indeed is how to get the fuel, can’t help thinking I would end up putting petrol in it for convenience.   The PGO Cevennes Roadster Turbo is the one that might get me owning an alternative fuel car but not in that colour way and only after I have done a whole lot of saving.

Recycling

I am at a slight loss to understand why local councils deal with recycling so differently.  Not a total loss as I think it is maybe more to do with targets and money than actually recycling, but even taking that into consideration I am at a loss as to why one council should make it so easy as to encourage those who might otherwise not and another make it so complicated as to deter those who would.

South Lanarkshire made it easy.  A green wheelie bin for household rubbish, a blue wheelie bin for anything that was recyclable apart from glass for which their was a Burgundy wheelie bin – yes we did have a whole wheelie bin for glass and yes there were times when we filled it.  Batteries (including car batteries), electrical items and any compostable waste along with other specialist times and things like wood could be taken along to the local council site which was open at weekends and in the evenings and is all set up with big containers to collect the items.  Easy!

Now in East Dunbartonshire it is different.  A grey wheelie bin for household rubbish, a green wheelie bin for garden rubbish but not food related rubbish, and a collection of boxes that I haven’t yet been able to work out what they are for, I was told on more than one occasion but I honestly can’t remember, other than one is for paper which mustn’t get wet and mustn’t be shredded and mustn’t be card.  How with the wind and rain we have had recently the flimsy lid would stay on and not get the paper wet I am not sure.  However as someone who believes in recycling where possible we searched for the local council site, and did we find one, well yes and no.  We have found a collection of bottle and can and paper and card banks, and even a book and clothes bank.  but to recycle everything we need to go driving around for an afternoon and some things are too big for the little letter boxes those banks have on them.  If we want something like we used to have we have to cross a council boundary and go into Glasgow City Council and use their facilities.  Why make is so complicated, why clutter up the pavements with boxes and lids and bins, why deter even those who would like to recycle never mind those who can’t see the point, why can’t East Dunbartonshire make it as simple as South Lanarkshire?

Call me what you will, but, I can’t help wondering if a woman is in charge of the recycling policy in South Lanarkshire.

A Duck For Mr Darwin

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The Baltic

If you are in Newcastle I would recommend you go to the Baltic.

Sitting beside the Millennium Bridge over the Tyne on the Gateshead side it is a splendid building which used to be the Baltic Flour Mills and is now the center for Contemporary Arts.  I have a love hate relationship with contemporary art I just can’t see the point in some of it, while other bits communicate wonderfully, and their exhibition to mark the 150th anniversary of Darwin’s ‘Origin of the Species’, or to give it its full title ‘The Origin of the Species By Means of Natural Selection’ which runs until 20th September.  This exhibition manages to have works in both camps.  The Baltic’s own literature states that it “is a group exhibition of nine contemporary artists exploring evolutionary thinking and the theory of natural selection.”

I am not going to mention which pieces I felt fell into the former category but I do wish to mention two exhibits which definitely fell into the later, they are video presentations and filmed on the Galapagos Islands by the same artist Marcus Coates.

Human Report

A news presentation in which one of the islands iconic birds, the Blue Footed Booby, reports on the humans on the island.  It points out with humour how the invaders have changed the island, how they can not adapt to their surroundings so instead adapt the surroundings to endanger the very things that brought them to that paradise in the first place.  How even having adapted the island they still struggle and depend on things being brought from other places.  It ends with poignant words about how these invaders could live any where else in the world and survive, and if they were to die out the species would continue to survive.  While  the Blue Footed Booby, has but one home that has been changed forever.  The report was shown on Channel 9 TV on the Galapagos and the news station didn’t seem to get it, and cleverly it is the longer clip direct from the news channel that is shown in the exhibition.  As if to underline what the report was saying the couple who were presenting it, a male and a female, then introduce the next news item.  The man gets in a fluster while the female anchor gets all serious about an important event that is happening on the island, a beauty contest!

Intelligent Design

Probably the Galapagos are most well known for their giant tortoises and it is these which Marcus has made a film of and in doing so questions the whole idea of intelligent design.  For any species the ability to reproduce is essential yet for the giant tortoises this activity is near impossible and a lot of time and energy is wasted on not succeeding, as the film shows.  Marcus leaves you with the unanswered double edged question.  Has evolution pasted the Giant Tortoise by; for it certainly hasn’t evolved to make mating more successful and easier; or is the Giant Tortoise a less than intelligent design which has still managed to avoid natural selection?

The other works, which in our opinion, were definitely worth spending some time over were those by Charles Avery, Mark Dion, Mark Fairnington and Hubby’s favorite ‘On the Ark and I’ by Ben Jeans Houghton, a greenhouse full of found items all arranged by colour.

While at the Baltic it is worth going upstairs to see Tilting Planet by Sarah Sze which is showing until 31st August.  It might not be your cup of tea when it comes to art, but I fail to see how anyone can be impressed by the imagination which conceived such a large intricate installation.

Unfortunately you will have missed out on Matt Stokes, The Gainsborough Packet, which was another exhibition at the Baltic that when we visited, however if you are in London you can see that at the 176 Gallery in Prince of Wales Road, NW 5.

Lenor – Update

Last June I blogged (here) about a then new Lenor advert promoting their concentrated fabric conditioner and saying that if we all switched to it then loads of lorries would be taken off the road.  At the time I contacted them asking why they didn’t just make all their fabric conditioner in concentrated form and got a reply (here) stating that it was to give consumers choice.

So imagine my surprise when I saw a new Lenor ad on the TV stating their new ’fragrance’ will only be available in concentrated form.  I applaud them for the decision; however it does rather contradict the idea of consumer choice they once rated so highly!  Call me cynical but I still think it has more to do with their profits than any enviromental impact.

Calling All Angels

After trying on and off all day, without much luck, to post my contribution to Blog Action Day, it looks like this is going to be the only way to do it.  Please click on the link below which will open up a power point presentation for you to view, for the full effect remember to have the sound switched on.

Blog Action Day

Action With Words!

The New And The Old Together

One of the things we tried to do during the re-development was be as ecologically aware as possible, low energy saving fittings, as well as light bulbs, plenty of insulation, I wanted a couple of solar panels or a wind turbine but costs prohibited that during the re-development although we are still hoping in the future to maybe manage one or the other. Two other examples, this time of re-cycling, have been a great success:

This is not slate or grey stone chips as you might imagine but re-cycled tyres, not only do they look good, do something with the mountains to tyres which can no longer be legally driven on, but also any individual who might think of throwing them at the windows will find all they do is harmlessly bounce back at them. You can get them in other colours and sizes but I preferred these grey medium sized ones.

And this is what we have used for fencing and gates, not wood but re-cycled plastic, the initial cost is slightly higher but there will be limited maintenance, so in the long run I reckon it will work out cheaper.