The Green's hidden agenda

Cider barrels, originally uploaded by CharlesFred.

Fiona has just gone out and taken Thomas to school and will be going on to her shop - Dotty Dot at 67a St Helen's Place in London W10 - and left the TV on. I am sitting here imn my pyjamas with ahlf an ear on BBC morning television and we have a programme telling us a sad story from Lightwater in Surrey.

It turns out that there were some recycling bins in the centre of the village near the supermarket. These recycling bins were very popular among the good folk of Lightwater, so popular that they were regularly filled to over-flow, whereby people would leave their waste NEXT to the bins instead of IN the (full) bins. The supermarket manager mentioned this to the local council, with an appeal to empty the bins more quickly such that the rubbish would not build up around the bins.

What did the council do? Did they respond by saying they would empty the bins more regularly? Not at all.... they removed the bins. Silly, silly people..... so now the chap from the BBC is trying to contact the council for an explanation... we'll see....

In the meantime, my Mum told me that she has received a flyer from her local Somerset Green Party, on which was included a ten point plan on Going Green. The first three points were the normal, switching off electronic appliances, energy-saving lamps and taking public transport. Point number was quite a surprise..... none other than a tip to DRINK ORGANIC CIDER, there being no better use for the apples for which Somerset is famous. Sounds fun!

Whilst on the subject of cider, I have to say that I have seen an awful lot of advertising for a brand of Irish cider. On the TV, on advertising boards and in the pubs. I keep saying to myself ' is the world really waiting for Irish cider, especially when we have such excellent cider in this country?' Of course, we don't, but what we are seeing is yet another mutli-national (probably Diageo) trying to create demand for a product from which they can make a lot of money from people who had no intention of buying that product in the first place..... and it is not even organic!