Out of ideas

I am memeing, as a way to deal with the vast echoing blankness that is the inside of my head. It’s still, vaguely, Resolution Season, so here is one I found over at Helen’s, which she found at Charlotte’s, which Charlotte created after reading this Newsweek article listing ten tips to help save the planet. I had always thought of myself as irritatingly, primly, green and eco-friendly. So this has been… interesting.

1. What do you for the birds and the bees? Nothing. I live in London, I have three house-plants and a tarmacked yard with two cars parked in it. My main interaction with the local wildlife consists of me leaning half-naked out of the bedroom window at three am to scream abuse at the exuberantly noisy mating foxes.

2. Household products. Chemical or organic? Organic, biodegradable, made lovingly by hippies and bottled in refillable and recycled and recyclable bottles. AND I use a lot if vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. As far as cleaning goes, I am the planet-loving queen. And too lazy to do much cleaning in the first place, which is also good.

3. Do you junk? We registered with the ’send us junk mail and we will SUE your asses’ services, we recycle the inevitable ‘to the occupier’ rubbish and leaflets that turn up anyway, and mostly we fantasize about shredding a year’s worth, finding the company owner’s home and using a leaf-blower to cover his front garden irretrievably with it all.

4. Air-dry or tumble-dry? What is this tumble-drying of which you speak? I personally, after a hard childhood spent washing my own smalls by hand in the bathroom sink and wringing them out in the salad-dryer, find having a washing-machine the height of luxuriant decadence. And we wash at low temps with ecologically friendly detergent. Smug mode.

5. Old gadgets. Recycle or toss ‘em? My current and beautifully functional mobile phone is approximately the size and weight of a house-brick and can just about do predictive texting. I will keep it until it breaks irretrievably. We also still use the stereo (with tape deck and no CD player) I inherited when I went to University. So, what old gadgets? Ooh, even smugger mode.

6. Lightbulbs – incandescent or fluorescent? Speak to my landlord. Him and his snazzy multi-bulb light-fixtures. Bah. Though we do have a several-year-old florescent bulb in the hall, and it does just about cast enough light to let you see if those are your keys you are clutching, or random cutlery.

7. Meat or veg? We only buy organic meat. I grew up on an organic farm (by default. My parents were mostly too cash-strapped and too soft-hearted to have more than a few outrageously pampered animals). I could no more buy battery chicken than I could buy the Daily Mail. But, yes, I should probably eat less meat [Or just eat less - Ed].

8. Loo paper. Virgin or recycled? But totally recycled. We’ve even found a brand sturdy enough to prevent the dreaded finger-goes-straight-through-when-it-gets-the-least-damp problem that has been my friends’ main objection to recycled.

9. Tap or bottled water? At home I drink tap. I feel twinges of guilt whenever I buy bottled water when out and about. I realise feeling a twinge and buying the bottle regardless is not good.

10. Dating – metrosexual or ecosexual? He’s about as green as I am, especially now that I have brow-beaten him to jelly as regards electronic gadgets, purchasing of when old one is still intermittently functional. Oh, and he’s better than me at turning lights off, and worse about leaving gadgets on stand-by.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 13th, 2007 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Politics, The Capacious Hold-All. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.