Friday, 1 June 2007
"Vida" by Marge Piercy
Most fiction about activists makes me cringe, but Piercy's characters here are naive only because it's the 1970s, and she avoids reducing any of them to caricatures. The personal and the political are not just juxtaposed to prove a point but are completely interwoven, and give someone my age a much-needed insight into the roots of feminism and sexual politics. It also keeps you guessing until the end, which gives any book that essential compulsive quality. Seems to be out of print, but there are plenty of copies on Abebooks.
Saturday, 26 May 2007
"Complicity" by Iain Banks
Truly disgusting, utterly sick, very scary - loved it! Banks describes it as "a bit like The Wasp Factory except without the happy ending and redeeming air of cheerfulness". Had to put it down a few times to breathe and uncurl my toes...
Don't go looking on Amazon - support independent booksellers!
Don't go looking on Amazon - support independent booksellers!
Thursday, 24 May 2007
Composting Tea Bags
I’m sure I’ve always composted tea bags, long before I ever composted anything else. In one house I used to just chuck them out in the garden straight from the kitchen window, since they don’t smell as they break down and apparently some plants like a bit of caffeine. I drink a lot of tea and I’ve never thought twice about composting the bags – it seems obvious, and I’ve been doing it so long I can’t remember where I first got the idea.
I’ve just used the last of this year’s compost on my seedlings, and emptying the bin this year I’ve had unpleasant surprises*. Pulling out odd pieces of plastic and woody bits I kept finding fluffy white fibrous stuff stuck in there, like duvet filling in small patches stuck fast to and tangled up with everything else. I pulled one out after another but they kept appearing, so I looked at different parts of the pile and found them spread out through the whole heap. Even the blackest, crumbliest parts had these stupid blobs in them, either solid little black lumps in stringy white** mesh bags, or stringy white mesh bags full of worms.
I’ve had several thousand cups of tea since I last emptied the compost bin and I’ve put every single used tea bag into the damned thing, and now every single one is sitting there waiting for me to take it out before I can use a year’s worth of compost. Since when are teabags not made of PAPER???
It’s dead fashionable to compost these days – even the Guardian is explaining how to do it – so there are millions of sites, books, factsheets and community projects out there to tell anyone who’ll listen how to put things in a pile and leave it alone for a while. After trawling through a few of them and rolling my eyes quite a lot (Q: My compost bin is full of pests! After only two weeks it’s all full of horrible woodlice and millipedes – what did I do wrong?) I finally submitted a question to WRAP.
After a long time, I got this back:
“The answer is that not enough companies specify their tea bag materials, which can be plastic or paper based. So, two batches of tea bags from the same tea company may have used different materials. You will need to contact the tea bag company I am afraid.”
Right. They get together a big organisation for “supporting compost producers and growing markets for compost products”, but encouraging tea bag producers to create something I can put IN my compost is left to me the individual. Thanks a lot.
I did give up at this point, but then another hour pulling all the little white mesh bags full of worms out of my compost spurred me on again to find a contact e-mail for “the tea bag company” and ask them. I got this reply:
“Thank you for your email and your comments. I would like to confirm to you that our Teadirect teabags are made from polyester which is fairly typical for all teabags as far as I am aware. Yes you are right, unfortunately they are non-recyclable and non-biodegradable.. The best method for disposal is to burn for heat recovery. I would be very grateful of any feedback you have with regards to any alternative teabags that you have come across which I would gladly pass onto our marketing department for their consideration as we are continually carry out research to find more environmentally friendly products. I look forward to hearing from you.”
How many tea bags would I have to burn to boil a kettle then?
Strangely enough, when they’re dry they do burn remarkably well, which leaves me with no way of telling which tea bags are still made from paper, since the usual test for man-made fibres is that they melt slightly (or a lot) when you burn them.
So, the question now is this; should I a) try to make WRAP or maybe the Guardian lifestyle and fashion department compile a list of compostable tea bags, b) ask all the tea bag companies myself which would be more hassle but quicker, or c) get a life, stop composting my tea bags and experiment with using loose-leaf tea, which would probably be more hassle in the end over the course of a lifetime.
Answers on a postcard if you wish, so long as it’s a bloody PAPER postcard.
* The first few were surprising anyway. The next 6000 were just unpleasant.
** Fellow gardeners will appreciate the meaning of “white” in the context of a compost bin compared to the meaning of “white” in, say, a Persil ad.
COMMENTS
I’ve just used the last of this year’s compost on my seedlings, and emptying the bin this year I’ve had unpleasant surprises*. Pulling out odd pieces of plastic and woody bits I kept finding fluffy white fibrous stuff stuck in there, like duvet filling in small patches stuck fast to and tangled up with everything else. I pulled one out after another but they kept appearing, so I looked at different parts of the pile and found them spread out through the whole heap. Even the blackest, crumbliest parts had these stupid blobs in them, either solid little black lumps in stringy white** mesh bags, or stringy white mesh bags full of worms.
I’ve had several thousand cups of tea since I last emptied the compost bin and I’ve put every single used tea bag into the damned thing, and now every single one is sitting there waiting for me to take it out before I can use a year’s worth of compost. Since when are teabags not made of PAPER???
It’s dead fashionable to compost these days – even the Guardian is explaining how to do it – so there are millions of sites, books, factsheets and community projects out there to tell anyone who’ll listen how to put things in a pile and leave it alone for a while. After trawling through a few of them and rolling my eyes quite a lot (Q: My compost bin is full of pests! After only two weeks it’s all full of horrible woodlice and millipedes – what did I do wrong?) I finally submitted a question to WRAP.
After a long time, I got this back:
“The answer is that not enough companies specify their tea bag materials, which can be plastic or paper based. So, two batches of tea bags from the same tea company may have used different materials. You will need to contact the tea bag company I am afraid.”
Right. They get together a big organisation for “supporting compost producers and growing markets for compost products”, but encouraging tea bag producers to create something I can put IN my compost is left to me the individual. Thanks a lot.
I did give up at this point, but then another hour pulling all the little white mesh bags full of worms out of my compost spurred me on again to find a contact e-mail for “the tea bag company” and ask them. I got this reply:
“Thank you for your email and your comments. I would like to confirm to you that our Teadirect teabags are made from polyester which is fairly typical for all teabags as far as I am aware. Yes you are right, unfortunately they are non-recyclable and non-biodegradable.. The best method for disposal is to burn for heat recovery. I would be very grateful of any feedback you have with regards to any alternative teabags that you have come across which I would gladly pass onto our marketing department for their consideration as we are continually carry out research to find more environmentally friendly products. I look forward to hearing from you.”
How many tea bags would I have to burn to boil a kettle then?
Strangely enough, when they’re dry they do burn remarkably well, which leaves me with no way of telling which tea bags are still made from paper, since the usual test for man-made fibres is that they melt slightly (or a lot) when you burn them.
So, the question now is this; should I a) try to make WRAP or maybe the Guardian lifestyle and fashion department compile a list of compostable tea bags, b) ask all the tea bag companies myself which would be more hassle but quicker, or c) get a life, stop composting my tea bags and experiment with using loose-leaf tea, which would probably be more hassle in the end over the course of a lifetime.
Answers on a postcard if you wish, so long as it’s a bloody PAPER postcard.
* The first few were surprising anyway. The next 6000 were just unpleasant.
** Fellow gardeners will appreciate the meaning of “white” in the context of a compost bin compared to the meaning of “white” in, say, a Persil ad.
COMMENTS
Sunday, 20 May 2007
My Neighbour's Cat
Aaah, isn’t she sweet… 
She couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this pot having been knocked over.
I expect the french beans suddenly attacked her, which would explain the big crash I heard and would have been why she was running away from it so fast. Poor thing must have been frightened.
Aaaah…
Tuesday, 24 April 2007
Spencer is a Genius
A friend suggested that I cut a door flap in the bender greenhouse and then open and close it using laces like on a marquee. At last I can visualise a bender greenhouse door solution that might actually work. I've got loads of gaffa tape (never leave home without it) to reinforce the cut edges and could probably lace with the washing line I found with bits of concrete on it - I KNEW that would come in handy for something!
When I learned finger knitting as a child I had no idea that it would actually prove to be a useful skill later in life...
When I learned finger knitting as a child I had no idea that it would actually prove to be a useful skill later in life...
Monday, 23 April 2007
Budget Bender Greenhouse Part 2
It looks a bit strange but not ugly, it certainly gets warm inside and it hasn't fallen down yet, but I am now having quite serious bender greenhouse problems.
The first thing I did after stretching plastic over the frame and burying it carefully around the edges was to go on holiday for two weeks, and in a fortnight of high winds the whole thing filled with air like a massive balloon and loosened itself so much that I've had to tie it down with string around the outside. It now looks as though I've netted a giant jellyfish. Trouble is, I can't think of a way of making a decent door for it, so opening and closing it currently still involves folding up the loose plastic around the doorframe and piling half a ton of rocks on it to weigh it down.
The recent hot weather has made me realise I'm going to have to put vent holes in it sooner rather than later, but I'm scared to cut the plastic in the wrong place because it was so expensive, and to top it all a couple of the willow branches I made the frame from have started to grow, which I'm worried will result in big spikey bits making holes exactly where I don't want them.
The first thing I did after stretching plastic over the frame and burying it carefully around the edges was to go on holiday for two weeks, and in a fortnight of high winds the whole thing filled with air like a massive balloon and loosened itself so much that I've had to tie it down with string around the outside. It now looks as though I've netted a giant jellyfish. Trouble is, I can't think of a way of making a decent door for it, so opening and closing it currently still involves folding up the loose plastic around the doorframe and piling half a ton of rocks on it to weigh it down.
The recent hot weather has made me realise I'm going to have to put vent holes in it sooner rather than later, but I'm scared to cut the plastic in the wrong place because it was so expensive, and to top it all a couple of the willow branches I made the frame from have started to grow, which I'm worried will result in big spikey bits making holes exactly where I don't want them.
Arse.
Sunday, 22 April 2007
Guns
Listening to Radio 4 yesterday I realised that the reason for the huge traffic jam outside my window was that someone had been shot dead in a takeaway a few doors down the road from my house the night before.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/6581435.stm It seems he was killed at about the time I was watching Blake's 7 at a friend's flat next door.
Doesn't seem very long (although having looked it up it's about 18 months) since I last came home to find my house in the middle of a 1/2 mile police cordon, when a man held his former partner hostage in a house on Bayswater Grove and came out to shoot at police cars and put a few bullets through neighbour's windows. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/west_yorkshire/4344402.stm
I have decided that the next time I see some stupid film ad with guns in it on this street, which I frequently do, I'm going to vandalise it as thoroughly as I can and let them arrest me and listen to my reasons in court. It's just offensive.
Tuesday, 17 April 2007
Removable Seedling Shelf
Casually put some very early seed trays on the windowsill. Fill the remaining space with the first tomatoes, and shove all your lovely ornaments out of the way to fit everything else in. Then knock everything over every five minutes, as the spring gets underway in ernest and there’s not a horizontal space left in the house that doesn’t have some tender seedlings growing on it. Sound familiar?
I have accidentally cooked seedlings that I’d left on the top of the grill, I have carried a six-foot ladder around my flat to water things growing on top of the wardrobes, I have been unable to reach my windows for months at a time because of the precarious arrangements of vegetable racks I’ve used to layer seed trays in front of my windows. I’ve had enough now.
This year I’ve been trying to make better use of the vertical space in my high-celinged flat, and with spring just around the corner I want to double the amount of windowsill space I can grow things on this year. I have a cunning plan.
This is what my living room windows look like
And this is my bedroom window
My plan is to construct a shelf half way up each window where the panes are split. I’m hoping that this won’t block out too much of the natural light coming into the rooms, but for my next trick I’m going to make the shelves completely removable, so that I’m not stuck with a huge window obstruction all year round.
To make the supports as unobtrusive as possible I’m putting in small batons on either side of the frames. Here is me measuring one against the inside of the window frame
I’ll be needing four, two for each set of windows, and a support shelf for the middle of the wider living room window. I sawed the wood for these to the right length in the middle of my living room, on a science lab stool I found behind Leeds University and took home on the bus, topped with an old chopping board that I rescued from a bonfire. Just in case you are having trouble visualising this:
It works a treat.
The next thing to do is to help the fittings (which will not be removable) to blend in, by painting them to match the windows. I used gloss spray paint, but would have used normal gloss paint if I’d had any. I reckon they will get fairly grubby with bits of soil etc spilling on them all the time, so I want to be able to wipe them clean when I take the shelves down.
A couple of thin layers of spray paint is the way to go, it just drips if you try to put too much on at once and thin layers are also less likely to chip off later.
To fix them to the frame I used 40mm screws straight into the wooden window frame. Then I cut the shelves to length on my homemade saw bench and put them in position resting on the batons. This bit actually took some time because after I’d found woodworm in the reclaimed floorboards I was going to use, neither local skips nor Homebase could provide me with suitable wood. Eventually a neighbour gave me some wood left over from her own shelves, thus saving the whole project just in time. Here is the finished product with all my little seedlings waiting for the sun to shine:
And I can of course use the time they take to grow to hoover all the soil and sawdust out of the carpet…
Sunday, 15 April 2007
Tadpoles
Sorry to have kept you all waiting - no doubt with baited breath - for my next installment here. Excuses include being in Mexico, then being in Somerset, then having a massive list of garden and allotment related things I should have been doing when I was in Mexico and Somerset. Some of this I'd planned to write blogs about, but I've been too busy actually doing it all to maintain a cyber presence at the same time.
I'm now back, everything is planted and watered and I've even got tadpoles in the bathtub on my allotment. Time to sit back and look at it all for a minute, and ask everyone to tell me everything they ever knew about tadpoles...
...for instance, I know you can't move frogs to new ponds and you're supposed to start with frogspawn, but is it ok to move them as tadpoles? The water will be different (I know a bit about that from keeping goldfish in an aquarium) and I think mine will be alright because I've used about half rainwater and half tapwater, to which I added chlorine-neutralising stuff designed to make it safe for fish. The tap water tends to be quite acidic around here though, and I've no idea what PH rainwater is likely to be.
And what do they need to eat? Am I right to think I can feed them goldfish food, and how much/how often should I feed them? What should I feed them when they grow into frogs - I'm hoping they'll eat all my slugs, but should I deliberately plant slug-attracting plants near the pond, or will that just stop them hopping further away to eat the ones that are near my crops? Will they get drunk if I also put slug beer traps down?
Suggestions for names would also be very welcome 'cos I guess I need about fifty. They don't exactly have distinctive personality traits yet, but I'll keep you posted.
I'm now back, everything is planted and watered and I've even got tadpoles in the bathtub on my allotment. Time to sit back and look at it all for a minute, and ask everyone to tell me everything they ever knew about tadpoles...
...for instance, I know you can't move frogs to new ponds and you're supposed to start with frogspawn, but is it ok to move them as tadpoles? The water will be different (I know a bit about that from keeping goldfish in an aquarium) and I think mine will be alright because I've used about half rainwater and half tapwater, to which I added chlorine-neutralising stuff designed to make it safe for fish. The tap water tends to be quite acidic around here though, and I've no idea what PH rainwater is likely to be.
And what do they need to eat? Am I right to think I can feed them goldfish food, and how much/how often should I feed them? What should I feed them when they grow into frogs - I'm hoping they'll eat all my slugs, but should I deliberately plant slug-attracting plants near the pond, or will that just stop them hopping further away to eat the ones that are near my crops? Will they get drunk if I also put slug beer traps down?
Suggestions for names would also be very welcome 'cos I guess I need about fifty. They don't exactly have distinctive personality traits yet, but I'll keep you posted.
Friday, 9 March 2007
Old Inefficient Lightbulbs
This is a conversation I had in a forum on My Space. When I'm really bored, I sometimes talk to random Americans who are wondering things like which brand of dishwasher detergent is most eco-friendly and what they can buy to be more "green". Sometimes it gets interesting though, and I thought I'd share this one:
David, Maryland
I have a moral dilemma. These lightbulbs have been in my closet for the past 3 years. They are 75watt bulbs... about 10 of them. Five years ago I spent like $150 outfitting the whole house with new energy efficient bulbs (when they were quite more expensive), which only use 15watts each. What do I do with these old bulbs?! They are perfectly good, but I know I will never in my right mind put them to use.
Vinny, Wisconsin
give them to somebody who will use them.
David, Maryland
I have already thought of that. My problem with that is it defeats the purpose of reducing energy consumption. I feel that it would be like selling my perfectly good gas car to someone, then buying a hybrid car. I am merely passing on the inefficiency to another person. I want it to end with me... I don't want to pass it on. Hmm.... maybe I can bust the glass off from the metal part and put them in their resepctive recycle bins? LIGHT BULB!! I knew it was in me. Thank you for helping me through this thought process... LOL.
Wait a minute... does the recycling process take up more energy than the life of these bulbs? Jeeze... these light bulbs are going to be the end of my sanity!
Give Me Organic, Colorado
David!I'm so glad you posted this problem!I just changed 9 more of these light bulbs in my house yesterday myself, and while I was doing it I was thinking "What the heck am I going to do with all of these!!I'll be checking back to see what ideas people have. I'm with you though, it's like you don't want to give them away because it's like feeding the fire!
Aliya, Texas
There is NO good use for them, that is WHY you replaced them. Dispose of them properly.
VexxingVixxen, Georgia
I have a friend that recently changed religions, and instead of donating all of their books dedicated to the prior "religion" they BURNED them. I was horrified, but they explained it to me by saying that "if they were a reformed drug user, that they wouldn't pass along their used crack pipe to someone else".While a very poetic and noble way of looking at it, it is also very unrealistic.There are still plenty of crack pipes out there, and still plenty of light bulbs. Destroying yours isn't going to make a homeless shelter (or other worthy cause) stop using energy consuming bulbs, they will still buy them. Donate the bulbs and move on. :)
Alice J
Some ideas:
Make art with them, incorporating the paradox and conflict symbolised by the objects themselves into your work of art.
Write to your MP (should that be "congressman" in America? Or "congressperson???) and send them the lightbulbs. Explain your situation and ask that they either give you a logical way of re-using or recycling them, or use their influence to help bring about a ban on less energy-efficient lightbulbs. Might be quite effective if we all did it.
Paint them with glass paint and sell them on Ebay. Charge as much or more than your efficient bulbs cost, so that the buyer will be taxed for wasting the extra energy they'll use, and you will subsidise the purchase of your more expensive efficient bulbs.
Write to the company who made the inefficient bulbs, explain your situation and ask them to dispose of them in a logical way, since they created the problem in the first place. A mass campaign like this would be absolutely brilliant and could work with all kinds of products - let me know if you're up for spreading this idea around a bit!
Wire them up, stand well back, and run a high current through them so they explode. This will at least give you some enjoyment, and you could video it and put it on YouTube with an explanation, as an educational video about saving energy.
Give them to someone with a dimmer switch, as energy-efficient bulbs can't be used with dimmer switches. Of course you should also explain that you'd rather they got rid of the dimmer switch so they too could use energy efficient bulbs....
David, Maryland
I have a moral dilemma. These lightbulbs have been in my closet for the past 3 years. They are 75watt bulbs... about 10 of them. Five years ago I spent like $150 outfitting the whole house with new energy efficient bulbs (when they were quite more expensive), which only use 15watts each. What do I do with these old bulbs?! They are perfectly good, but I know I will never in my right mind put them to use.
Vinny, Wisconsin
give them to somebody who will use them.
David, Maryland
I have already thought of that. My problem with that is it defeats the purpose of reducing energy consumption. I feel that it would be like selling my perfectly good gas car to someone, then buying a hybrid car. I am merely passing on the inefficiency to another person. I want it to end with me... I don't want to pass it on. Hmm.... maybe I can bust the glass off from the metal part and put them in their resepctive recycle bins? LIGHT BULB!! I knew it was in me. Thank you for helping me through this thought process... LOL.
Wait a minute... does the recycling process take up more energy than the life of these bulbs? Jeeze... these light bulbs are going to be the end of my sanity!
Give Me Organic, Colorado
David!I'm so glad you posted this problem!I just changed 9 more of these light bulbs in my house yesterday myself, and while I was doing it I was thinking "What the heck am I going to do with all of these!!I'll be checking back to see what ideas people have. I'm with you though, it's like you don't want to give them away because it's like feeding the fire!
Aliya, Texas
There is NO good use for them, that is WHY you replaced them. Dispose of them properly.
VexxingVixxen, Georgia
I have a friend that recently changed religions, and instead of donating all of their books dedicated to the prior "religion" they BURNED them. I was horrified, but they explained it to me by saying that "if they were a reformed drug user, that they wouldn't pass along their used crack pipe to someone else".While a very poetic and noble way of looking at it, it is also very unrealistic.There are still plenty of crack pipes out there, and still plenty of light bulbs. Destroying yours isn't going to make a homeless shelter (or other worthy cause) stop using energy consuming bulbs, they will still buy them. Donate the bulbs and move on. :)
Alice J
Some ideas:
Make art with them, incorporating the paradox and conflict symbolised by the objects themselves into your work of art.
Write to your MP (should that be "congressman" in America? Or "congressperson???) and send them the lightbulbs. Explain your situation and ask that they either give you a logical way of re-using or recycling them, or use their influence to help bring about a ban on less energy-efficient lightbulbs. Might be quite effective if we all did it.
Paint them with glass paint and sell them on Ebay. Charge as much or more than your efficient bulbs cost, so that the buyer will be taxed for wasting the extra energy they'll use, and you will subsidise the purchase of your more expensive efficient bulbs.
Write to the company who made the inefficient bulbs, explain your situation and ask them to dispose of them in a logical way, since they created the problem in the first place. A mass campaign like this would be absolutely brilliant and could work with all kinds of products - let me know if you're up for spreading this idea around a bit!
Wire them up, stand well back, and run a high current through them so they explode. This will at least give you some enjoyment, and you could video it and put it on YouTube with an explanation, as an educational video about saving energy.
Give them to someone with a dimmer switch, as energy-efficient bulbs can't be used with dimmer switches. Of course you should also explain that you'd rather they got rid of the dimmer switch so they too could use energy efficient bulbs....
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