July 2008 Archives

A real zero waste community in Japan is finding out.

The town of Kamikatsu on the island of Shikoku in Japan has adopted a zero waste strategy and rather than just talking about "a commitment to zero waste" or stating "they are working towards zero waste", they are doing it for real.

Son No One has just given us a wonderful surprise by passing the first year of his university course and announcing he won't be deferring for a year after all...

WITH much of the news dominated by youths stabbing other youngsters it is easy to fall into the trap of thinking all teenagers are bad.

But of course this is ridiculous - the vast majority of young people are decent, law-biding and, well, mostly respectful.

Those are the kids we rarely get to hear about in the news because helping or proving to be an inspiration to others ain't as 'sexy' as a good old bad news story about young thugs.

Now the Sunday Sun recently featured a story about a 16-year-old youth called Daniel Squires who sadly died from cancer after a two year struggle.

Teenagers are generally lazy, thoughtless, stroppy and uncommunicative . . . and that's just their good points.

Generally, attempts to discipline them are usually pretty lame. Most criticisms, however diplomatic, tend to be met with the mumbled "whatever" or "stop going on" followed by the obligatory rolling of the eyes.

But even by our standards, my wife's latest attempt to tick off our 17-year-old was, frankly, useless . .

Having embarked upon a journey of weighing my rubbish at home and investigating some ways to increase my recycling I thought I'd present the results so far.

A smug b+++++d has made his return to Police Camera Action.

Remember Alistair Stewart. He was the finger-wagging tut-tutting holier than thou presenter of the series on dangerous drivers.

The same Alistair Stewart who got nicked for drunk driving.