Human Lifestyle

A generally relaxing day, with a late and slow start, watching Country Tracks on the box and chatting with Gill.  But then my planned evening was thrown into disarray.  I was going to meet my new facebook friend Faye at City Screen and get a ticket to see Peeping Tom, a film made 50 years ago, and a bit of a landmark in the history of cinema.  But she sent me a message saying she had decided to stay in as her husband was due home after a short break... and I asked her if I could buy her ticket off her. 

So, I said I'd cycle over and collect that later, and I did an hour's work outside which was lovely.  Then in for a late lunch and Gardener's Question Time, and after this I got on my bike and went over to South Bank.  I was pleased to see Faye in person as we've chatted on facebook, and both her and her husband Trent seem like nice and interesting people.  Faye was playing with her cute little 3 year old son, who eventually overcame his shyness and we played a bit.  Then her 2 year old woke, but he didn't overcome his shyness before I had to go.  Faye gave me the ticket, wouldn't accept any money so I promised a bag of dried fruit and some balloon animals as and when we meet again.

From Faye's I cycled on to Miller's Yard and picked up 4 sacks of oranges and one sack of plastic bottles to  recycle.  And a quick cycle home, picking up some long lanky pruned branches on the way home.

Gill had added to my stew and so I had a plate of that and soon after 7, got ready to head down to City Screen to see Peeping Tom.  I hadn't done any research other than what was on the invite page on facebook, ie it was an early study of voyeurism and warped sexuality, not something I'm overly interested in, but interested enough to consider seeing the film.

I enjoyed the film and will write a brief review later.

I had a late start as I was up and around doing things last night til a ridiculous time. But I had nothing planned for the morning, and in the afternoon I had three meetings one after the other, with not a lot of time between them, including a 'public appearance' for which I felt the need to be clean and well groomed!

So after breakfast/lunch I had a bath, and then read a bit more No Impact Man book. I'm just over halfway through.

At 3.30 I set off for the Environment Forum meeting at the Friends Meeting House. The attendees had received my version of the Allerton Waste Recovery Park response document, and we were also going to meet and discuss things with Kersten England, the Chief Executive of City of York Council, and also we needed to discuss our Vision Document. It was really good to meet Kersten England for the first time, and she responded to all our questions in the manner expected of a Chief Exec. The Allerton Park response is going to be reconsidered after we've heard more information next Monday, when some of us will attend a meeting which will discuss a 'Zero Waste Policy' which has not been considered by the Council. The Vision Document discussion was complicated, and over-ran, and I left at 6.10, which didn't give me enough time to get to the Planning Panel meeting. So I went home and Gill gave me pizza and broccoli, baked beans and potatoes. I had some quiet time before setting out for City Screen at about 8pm.

This was for the screening of No Impact Man. I met Guy and Ivana at the stall in the foyer, and other people started to turn up whom I knew. Dave Taylor arranged that the three speakers got complimentary tickets which was nice of him. There were about 45 people in the audience, many of them 'the usual suspects'. The film is excellent, has funny moments, some cute interludes with Colin and Michelle's daughter Isabella, and I really liked the fact that the story focuses a lot of the relationship between Colin and his wife. I missed the bit about the candles when I watched the DVD last night; they are not paraffin wax, but bees' wax, and therefore NOT of fossil origin, but renewable. For as long as we've got honeybees, that is.

The Question and Answer session seemed to go quite well afterwards... about half the people went as the credits rolled and the rest were happy to hear the discussion and a few asked questions or made comments. The most interesting observation (afterwards, in the foyer) was that when the film Super Size Me was screened here, the auditorium was packed. So what is it about a film which looked at the fast food culture by means of a guy eating nothing but McDonald's for a month which made it so popular, whereas a film about a guy giving up stuff for a year drew just a few dozen? Both films had the aim of drawing attention to an aspect of modern life... maybe it was because Morgan Spurlock's experiment was just one aspect whereas Colin Beavan's was about lots!

I enjoyed my cycle home and picked up one more plastic crate for Abundance York's fruit collections, and I realised I hadn't taken the crates round to Dave Broughton in my bike trailer like I said I would. I now have 11 to give him.

Later, at home and typing away doing my blog, playing Scrabble on facebook, a friend, Manuel Costa who's an environmentalist in Canada, I think, posted ths article about Germany getting the wobbles about 'Peak Oil' and it's well worth a read. Another challenging read, if you're interested in diet, meat and veganism, is George Monbiot's review of Simon Fairlie's book 'Meat: A Benign Extravagance. Not sure I'll be moving away from vegetarianism though.

Well, Gill and I slept in, after a very long drawn-out game of Scrabble til 3am, which Gill won.

But I'd already arranged to meet Sarah or Sarah's housemate Jasmin at midday at the Scarcroft allotments with a trailer load of compost, so I had to get my skates on and have a quick breakfast, go and get the compost from down the garden, and loaded 7 sacks into my trailer. I also got 4 carrier bags of riddled compost for Country Fresh.

My other reason for heading into town today was to try to get a recharger lead for my beard trimmer. On the way into town, I met Ben and Jill and Ben had a quick dive into his room full of cables but found nothing... he suggested Argos, or failing that, eBay.

So, I dropped off the riddled compost at Country Fresh and got to Scarcroft Allotments on the dot of midday, and Jasmin was there waiting for me. It turned out that she is the daughter of a friend of mine, and has memories of having a Fiddlesticks party as a little girl. So I dropped off the compost and visited her allotment, and helped her pull out a bit on encroaching couch grass.

She invited me round to her house, actually a shared house owned by another friend of mine, in order to pay me for the compost. We had a cup of hot chocolate and a chat, and for someone so young, she has a really wise approach to life. She takes after her mother in this respect. I was really pleased to have got to know her a little bit.

Then I cycled into town to go to E. Roy, who has a tiny shop near the market, which sells all manner of electricals. But they didn't have the 240v to 3v dc converter with the 3.5mm jack, and he said I wouldn't be able to find it anywhere. I looked in Argos... but they only sell complete sets, minimum price is £20 for a new beard trimmer.

Called in to Country Fresh on the way back and they had a surfeit of bananas, so I now have a full box of ripe bananas to deal with.

I did a bit in the garden as it wasn't raining too much, and after a pasta-based tea, I went out to see my favourite local band, The Falling Spikes.

They were playing at a night called The Fuzz Club at City Screen. The first support band, Mon Mon, were not to my liking as there was too much shouting. The second band, Insect Guide, were better, with an interesting start. The guitarist got his iPhone which had a recording of a commentary from an Apollo mission or something similar, and he pressed the iPhone against the strings so the recording played through the guitar pickups. He used his effects pedals to do things with the sound too... very inventive! I also liked the fact that they had made their own backing video, which was projected onto the band. But I couldn't hear the female singer's words and I wasn't moved by this band.

However, The Falling Spikes, which is a six-piece... Rich my greengrocer buddy on drums, Moz on synth, 3 guitarists and a singer, they blew me away. I love what they do. There is so much going on... a wall of sound and lots of polyrhythms, an assault on the senses. This has the effect of making me very happy; it transports me to a different level of consciousness. At one stage, all the band walked off, leaving guitars up against the amps, giving shuddering feedback mixing with the synth playing some early Eno-esque or perhaps Kraftwerky noise. Brilliant.

I was pleased to meet Jan whom I met many years ago at Cafe No 8 on Gillygate, and Jenny, who looked happy with Moz, and filmed the whole gig on her mobile phone!

I got home at about half midnight. Tired and needing sleep.

One of the most sedentary days I've had for ages.

I spent nearly all of the morning doing some e-paperwork... basically trying to compose an email to try to sort out something... and then, after lunch, I finally got down to editing the new website that my Canadian friend and I are developing. Jim and colleagues had provided a user guide, how to edit Wordpress, and I understood enough and remembered enough from my short workshop to be able to add some Googlemap web links to the site, but the first one took over an hour, and needed adding to two places in the site, and the second one was a lot easier, and also needed adding to two places. It was very frustrating and difficult, but I was pleased with the outcome. However, when I reported my 'success' to Jim, he replied saying he'd thought that it ought to be done differently and he'd invite me back into the office to show me how to do it properly!!! Well, learning anything completely new at my age is bound to be a bit slow...

I was due to go and see the Premiere of Dirty Oil at 6.30, and had got two free tickets as I'm a Co-op member. So I cycled down to City Screen and met up with Lynn, who is also a Co-op member and is just as concerned as I am about climate change, health and democracy.

I met several people I know and had a good chat with Chris, fellow Rotter, and an old friend Ginny whom I haven't seen for ages. Lynn arrived and we went to Screen 1. Before the film there was a live link to The Barbican, London, with a chap from the Co-op with a good presenting style and sense of humour introducing the film, the film-maker Leslie Iwerks, and the narrator, Neve Campbell.

The film is a documentary about the extraction of oil from the deep soils in large parts of Canada. These sediments are sand, clay and water mixed with oil. The first oil humans found and extracted in any quantity was under high pressure and when the rock above was punctured, it just squirted out. These wells were capped and the oil piped away. Then came the oil which had to be pumped out. Now the price of oil is high enough for it to be economic to extract the 'difficult' oil, such as that in the tar sands and oil shales. With the tar sands, the sandy oily stuff needs to be mixed with hot water, the sand and clay separates from the oil and water, and then the oil has to be separated from the water. So, this oil takes a lot more energy to extract than 'normal' oil. And obviously, this input of energy creates a lot more carbon dioxide.

Secondly, these tar sands are extracted by open-cast mining... so all the vegetation is removed (trees, forests) and the layers of oily sand dug out and transported to the plant which uses natural gas to heat water to extract the oil. The waste sand and clays, mixed with water and some oil which wasn't removed, is pumped out to vast 'tailing ponds' where the solids slowly settle out and the dirty water seeps into local rivers. There is the obvious impact on wildlife, and the indigenous people,and as their drinking water is polluted, and they are breathing particulates and chemicals from the refineries. So in one community, levels of rare cancers have increased enormously. These Canadian tar sand deposits are providing most of the oil that the USA uses, for cars, planes and chemical feedstocks, for pesticides, fertiliser, lipstick, plastic and fireworks. An area the size of Florida has been destroyed to provide this oil, and the Canadian government has given permits to increase production hugely.

The effects aren't just local. If the allowed extraction is allowed to take place, and the oil is extracted and burned for its energy, this will release enough carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to increase the global temperature by over 2 degrees Celsius, which will push our little planet into runaway climate chaos and make the future of human life more than difficult, as well as increasing the rates of extinction of other life forms.

This is an excellent film. The aim is to inform, and to persuade viewers to take action on the companies responsible for the planned expansion. Information about this campaign can be found at Toxic Fuels, and more info about the film found at Dirty Oil and Babelgum. If you have a pension, you should ask your pension provider to back the tar sands resolutions, as you will probably be a shareholder of BP and Royal Dutch Shell plc, through your pension.

One of the main backers of this film is The Cooperative, who do not invest in fossil fuel extraction companies. So if you don't want your money to be used to fund the tar sands development, switch your bank account to the Co-op.

I had a coffee with Lynn after the film, and had a brief chat with Graham Martin, then cycled home via a place where a load of huge willow trunks have been felled and left in a ditch. This is my renewable fuel for next winter. I cycled home with two large logs in my trailer.

How lovely to have some time with Gill and both children at school! We had some quiet quality time which was so welcome.

So, the afternoon was pretty quiet too, and short as our eldest came away from school an hour early. I mended a puncture in one of my trailer wheels and kept the stoves going...

At tea time my friend Mark Richards rang me and told me that he'd got four special-deal tickets for Avatar at City Screen, and one of his friends had dropped out, so would I like to come to it?

So I had tea (Gill wanted to do something simple... oven chips, veggie sausage, baked beans, fried mushrooms) and cycled down to City Screen for 7.30. Mark rolled in at 7.45 and we got a row of 4 seats all together. Mark is really good at hospitality... and had got popcorn, ice creams and orange drink! The film was awesome, just amazing. The 3D effects are far superior than the old-fashioned two-colour system, yet the film doesn't 'milk' the effects, it just adds to the film in a really 'natural' way (if that's appropriate for a film based on an alien life-form!). I do reccommend the film... I'm not a big cinema goer, but it's got a nice environmental message, as is indicated in this article. It is a long film, and we had a false start as the sound failed 3 minutes in, so I didn't get home til after 11.30pm.

So, an interesting day.

The morning was a re-run of yesterday.

Got to St Nicks for 10am, 'Saint' John welcomed them and introduced me (John the Rotter) and the other people helping, took the group on a walk, and back to the centre and split them into their groups, me with the Rotters first and then, after a juice and biscuit break, the Saints.

I had taken in several cakes and quite a few bags of biscuits, all out of date and destined for landfill, rescued by lil ol me in a freegan moment, and gratefully snapped up by the various members of the recycling crew.

I got a phone call from Gladys during lunch asking if I could pop round and help her get some apples from a neighbour's tree which overhangs her property... the neighbours are students and take no interest in the garden at all, so it was good that she had these dozen apples or so. There were also some plums, which Gladys doesn't care for but I really like, especially if dried. So I picked them too and brought them back.

I did a little bit of shredding before 3.30 when I got tidied up to meet Sasiki in town, at the City Screen cafe/bar. I met her at Austin's funeral and agreed then to have a meeting with her to learn about the plans she has for YUMI : York Unifying and Multicultural Initiative, which are to have a centre where people can meet, display art, cook in a cafe (and eat in the cafe!) and have a garden where interesting foods can be grown. We had a wide ranging conversation, including about links with York in Transition, York Green Festival and others. We spent over an hour chatting.

Came home via Country Fresh where Rich was in good form and I came away with 3 boxes and a sack full of compostables... as well as bought potatoes, cauliflower, eggs and a cucumber.

Spent a good chunk of the evening sorting out plums, for drying.

Two visits to do this morning... to deliver compost to Caroline, to swap for some vegetable seedlings. I checked first that someone was in and cycled down to Fishergate with 4 sacks of well rotted but unriddled. In return I received a 'Small Sugar Pumpkin', a single Brussels Sprout seedling, a tray of Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli and 3 'Stringless Polestar' runner beans, and a bag of Tares seeds, a green manure which fixes nitrogen. I am happy with this swap. My allotment will be too.

As soon as I got home I set out again with a single sack of the same compost as Lynn had indicated that she needed some... and would swap it for a couple of squash seedlings. Lynn wasn't in but her daughter was and was happy to take the bag of compost... but didn't know which squash plants might be mine, so I said I'd be happy to have them another time.

Home for lunch and all too soon it was time for me to head down to town to go to the screening of The Age of Stupid at City Screen, hosted by York in Transition. About 140 tickets were sold, so the auditorium wasn't full, but we were reasonably happy with the turnout. This was the third time I'd seen the film but it still moved me to tears. But I sorted myself out by the end as I had been asked to sit on the panel table alongside Andy Chase the Green Party candidate for the Parliamentary seat for York Central, Daniel Vockins from Not Stupid and Andrew Waller the Lib Dem leader of the Council. Daniel talked about the film and the Not Stupid campaign first and then there were questions from the audience. This went well, apart from Councillor Waller firing off cheap party political jibe about Ralph Nader (Green Party in US) being responsible for Bush getting in. But apart from that, it was a good Q+A session.

Afterwards I gave out leaflets and some Calendars of Climate Change which Diana at Flipside Vision has sent me. Then a good chat with Bill who works for the Youth Service, about the Youth Parliament (I think it's called) and a myriad of other things, over a coffee. I also had a good chat with Alison and then Carolyn, before getting away at about 7pm.

Gill had made a rice and veg dish, which I had when I got in, and I then had an hour or so in the garden til just after 9.

Excellent day... went first to Bishopthorpe to visit Loretta who had asked me to go with log splitting equipment to split a load of holly logs she had got. I split all these, plus some other logs (elder, pine) and had a look at her compost bin, at her request, and round the garden looking to identify some plants Loretta could not...

Then on to Brunswick Organic Nursery to get some vegetable seedlings. But they are not quite ready for sale yet, except the Calabrese. I bought some lunch and ate it there, and had a brief chat with Adam the chief honcho which was nice.

Then on to see Pauline... but I stopped on Bishopthorpe Road where a vehicle had come off the road a while ago, uprooting a stretch of hedge, which I trimmed with my bowsaw and took the biggest chunks in my trailer. Then cycled to Pauline's to chop a few of her logs, with my big bowsaw, which has a log blade on it, whereas hers has a blade which is better suited to dried wood. Had a coffee and chopped her logs, chatted to her grand-daughter who was helping her with some painting.

Then towards 3pm, to 'York Beach' which is under Ouse Bridge, on the Queens Staith side of the river. Members of York in Transition had arranged to meet a Press photographer here to publicise the Age of Stupid showing at City Screen on 26th April. He arrived and had quite a few suggestions about what and what wouldn't work, so Edward, Candy and I did a variety of poses for the camera! We then all went to City Screen to get another few.

We had just finished when I met my friends Trish, Dexter and Miladdio, which was nice.

Then onto Country Fresh with an AoS poster, and St Nicks with my second AoS poster and flyers.

Then home! The family had gone into town to go to the Warhammer shop, as both boys are getting into these little models, and they came back and started painting them up and gluing them together. I spent some time with them and had a word game with my eldest.

Minimal tea, enjoyed Newsnight as it was Ethical Man's second USA outing.

Another good day, after a late start I did my Community Care Blog and then at midday headed into town to a meeting with my Transition buddies down at City Screen, to discuss the publicity around The Age of Stupid, and the panel members for the discussion afterwards.

I then went to chat to the proprietor of 'One' Ethical Boutique, about a possible publicity stunt for the film, and my building society to pay in a cheque, the council to give in some paperwork, and finally to see Dylan at Millers Yard, and a good chat and collected several sacks of oranges and coffee grounds, which I promptly took to the St Nicks Fields composting area. All that pet shop sawdust needs some nitrogen-rich stuff!

Home for a very late lunch... 3pm and then did a bit in the garden, clearing up some of the riddling before tea and then another meeting, this time a YorkLETS meeting which I chaired and I think was a successful meeting.

Home by 10, and had to do more writing, this time the proposed text for the Age of Stupid flyer/poster.

Woken with a phone call from a friend who's applying for a job and wanted to check that I was OK being a referee. When the post came I had to do some fairly urgent paperwork and this took til lunchtime. I got an email reminding me (or telling me for the first time, I think) that I have a column due in today, so I emailed back expressing surprise, and have til tomorrow lunchtime to get it in. Some thinking time needed.

I got a phone call from a new LETS member who had listed that they wanted some structural timbers, so weeks ago I said, yes, I have some tanalised timber which I don't want to burn, and want someone to use... so this person said they could be with me in 10 minutes! She came by car. However, I was happy that she and her husband will be able to use about a dozen lengths of timber, also helping to tidy our front garden, slightly! She was also happy for me to deliver, as she said she'd have to get a friend with a van. I can do it with my bike and trailer, in two or three loads. Fortunately they are just 6 minutes cycle up Hull Road.

I popped out to get some bits and bobs for Gill from the Co-op and bakery, and on the way back found a large rosemary bush in a skip, one where previously the owner had said I could have something out of it. So, I loaded up my trailer with lots of lovely-smelling rosemary, and then a nice chap called John walked past and asked if I wanted some bits of tree he'd just removed from next to his garage where it was beginning to cause some structural damage. I went to check, and he had quite a bit of Ash and Elder, already chopped up and some of the twiggy bits already bagged up. I was very happy to accept his offer. The alternative was him driving it down to the Hazel Court recycling depot.

So a good haul of compostable and stove-able material. I delivered the tanalised planks up the road, and came back via John's logs and twigs. I got completely engrossed in processing the twigs and at 7.15 Gill called me... it was Dave from City Screen ringing and reminding me that I was due to be at a meeting at 7pm... whoops! I quickly cleaned up and jumped on my bike, and was at City Screen to meet up with Dave, Edward and Barry for 7.30. We discussed the forthcoming showing of Age of Stupid at City Screen on 26th April, who is going to speak at the panel discussion afterwards, and how we are going to publicise it, on top of the existing publicity offered by City Screen.

Back by 9pm, via the cycle track logpile, where someone else has been removing logs... so I'm not the only log burner in York! (Well, I knew this, but renewable fuels are an increasingly valuable resource.)

Spent til 2.30 am writing my column, on 'Buy Local'.

Gill got up early to make pancake batter for the kids' breakfasts. She got me up at 8 so I could take our youngest to school, and then go into town to deal with the paperwork I failed to manage last night. So got to town just before 9 and waited to get into the Building Society, then waited outside the bank til 9.30 to pay the water bill. Got back home before 10, Gill getting ready to go into town to help Melody celebrate her birthday with a girly lunch.

I awaited the phone call at 11.30 from Shannonside FM who had arranged to interview me about my low cost/low carbon/verging on 'Freegan' lifestyle. The presenter, John, chatted to me for about 10 or 12 minutes and seemed pretty positive about most of what I said. The interview might be made into a podcast... it certainly generated some interesting comments afterwards!

I then had lunch but stayed in afterwards ding various things on the computer and phone. This included trying to get the York City Screen to show The Age of Stupid nice and early after release. I found out that the out-of-town 'Vue' cinema in Clifton Moor is screening the Public Premiere on 15th March. I wish that City Screen had got this... they still might, with a little bit of pressure! The Vue cinema is mainly visited by car users and the Premier tickets are a hefty £10.

I cycled down to school at 3 to pick up our youngest son and again stopped at the trashed woodland to pick up some quite large chunks of Scots Pine which filled the trailer very satisfactorily...

We had a relatively peaceful after-school time. Gill thickened the carrot soup with some of yesterday's mashed potato, and this was eagerly demolished by all... much appreciated, and better with the thicker texture. I had a cheese sandwich which one of the boys hadn't eaten with my soup. And a slice of Gill's cake with an out of date free yoghurt for pudding!

I managed to make time to sort out four bags of seedless grapes retrieved from the compostables, and blanched a big saucepan full for a few minutes before draining them (re-using the water for the washing up of course!) and spreading them on a baking tray to balance on the water can on the stove. The duff grapes and stalks, of course, will be composted....

So a productive day.

What a day! Woke early but the boys left us alone (are they getting the hang of a lie-in at the weekend?) and we eventually got up soon after 9. The boys and Gill headed off to Scarborough and I went down the garden to plant some courgettes and climbing beans.

So I had the whole day to myself... lots of sorting in the garden, and at about 11.30 came in to do emails and at 12 watched part 3 of the either rubbish or excellent (can't decide!) Kyle XY on BBC2 whilst having lunch and preparing a nutloaf for the family to have when they come home. Had to do it by hand as out liquidiser is broken. So it took an hour to grate bread into crumbs and hand cut nuts... however it was eventually ready for the microwave. I also did a lot of apples, making them into rings and laying them on racks on the stove, which I have lit to get plenty of hot water and heat for drying fruit, despite the warm weather.

So a very productive day... family came back at 7ish, ravenous and ready for nutloaf and cauliflower with tomato sauce. They loved it!

Watched Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall on C4 whilst doing more emails and blog, getting ready to go out tonight.

Cycled down to City Screen to an event called the Fuzz Club, a psychedelic night with my favourite band playing, 'The Falling Spikes'. I met up with Dave T which was really good, we spent the whole night together chatting and enjoying the music. The support band was called 'Apply The Brakes', they were a bit American and a bit pretentious, and I was very glad when Spikes came on. They are loud and have a certain sound which they stick to... lots of stuff going on, a bank of guitars and my buddy Richard on drums. I really REALLY enjoyed them. They take me to amazing places, soundscapes, beautiful.

Came home after midnight and went to bed very soon after.