Letsseewhathappens

Continuing Failure

Delighted & surprised to find LSWH still going (well done Claire)

I am proving the worst pledger against change possible

Just changed my electricity to ecotricity (which I had pledged to do on Pledgebank)

Continuing to refuse foreign conference speaking invites (c50% of my carbon footprint) unless I can get there by train or have other (client meeting) reasons for making the trip - 7 turned down so far

Been buying fresh british seasonal veg from the local greengrocers (asparagus v good right now)

Fortunately presumably few are still reading :J

Eco Worrier's Report

Well I got this week's change-a-week away late; I bought vaguely eco-friendly (carbon balancing) car insurance from the coop; the main justification actually being that they are nice eg ethical investments and all the many schemes and good causes they fund. But it also does a bit of cabon balancing. Given what i had to pay for it they should really come around and fit some loft insulation too.

I have also inadvertently given up smoking (day 9 and counting) more on the basis that it was stupid than any worries about unbiodegradable filters, although that has been raise on sites like treehugger.com

The great thing is that its so quiet around here I can prob get away with the sheer volte-face hypocrisy of it all (pledge against change posts should probably be eaten in a vodcast moment of attritition, but printing them off would be the major eco snag)!

:J

Inconvenient truths

Unfortunately in the course of researching a book on green marketing I've discovered that about half of everything I do, buy etc. is rubbish. ie not just environmental damaging but actually quite stupid. It was fine when I didnt know. But now its not. The pledge against change is now officially busted I'm afraid (prob a good thing, it got a bit boring about 3 months ago anyway).

I've decided that the only sensible thing to do is to try to change one thing a week.

I had thought of starting with electricity supplier, because its a one off change but I need to check a couple of things first (eg I think i my current contract)

But then I read about mineral water. I knew it was a bit crap from the point of view of transport and recycling. What I didnt know was that in a test (Health Which?) only 7 out of 40 brands got as good a result as London tap water. I have decided not to drink mineral water any more and to drink tap water instead. I'm particularly looking forward to ordering it loudly when I meet someone for lunch at a posh restaurant later this month.

Let's see how it goes.

Low Resolution New Year

I remember someone in an agency creative department telling me that when a picture and a headline said the same thing it was like 'a piece of violence on a page'. Since then doing this always makes me smile.

Anyway hello, happy new year LSWH-ers, belatedly

Here is my current situation. I deliberately made no new years resolutions. But yet I seem to be behaving as if I had. For instance due to driving to airport, schedules & etc. I happened to have a total of one small drink all week. Mostly got good amounts of sleep. A few cigs but not many. Lots of energy efficient lightbulbs & stuff not on standby. Five or more fruit & veg. Reading. Got my sons primary school application forms off. Catching up with people I'd been meaning to catch up with. Yes no art galleries or marathon runs (but lots of long walks) and who knows?

Maybe its coincidence/ there's lots of it in the air/ I'm fed up of being a slob after xmas.

In a way I feel the way I might if I made lots of determined resolutions I didnt quite keep.

Funny that

:J

True Meanings of Xmas

I couldnt find the digital camera anywhere (something to be remedied before the big day methinks)... and so I couldnt show off the christmas tree ish decoration we made out of a large chunk of the menacing overgrown shrub with the red berries outside our front door. This may not sound like much compared to mince pies and etc but firstly the branch I went for was over an inch thick and tough as iron with it & I couldnt find the hacksaw anywhere - secondly it turned out to have sharp spikes all over it as long as your little fingers & thirdly the little branch I cut off turned out to be so big I had to drag it up the stairs on its back. It's now hanging from the balcony over our living room festooned with lights, christmas balls & stuff. Some of the redness of red berries is my blood, but that's all part of the pagan wonder that is yuletide.

I worked on a 'Christmas brief' for amazon a few years ago and found out that the sanitised family around the tree version we have now was introduced by the Victorians to get drunken rioters/revellers off the streets. Before that this festival was a sort of north european version of mardi gras; so basically a very drunk and disordery few days. But father christmas himself dates back at least as far as Wotan who legend has it used to send his ravens out to see if the children had been good; if they hadnt their eyes would be pecked out, which certainly would have added a bit of edge to the build up of excitement i'd have thought. I was just searching for a link to all this to share and found this which is more amusing in many ways (& hence the pic):

"The Sami have a custom of feeding fly agaric to their deer and collecting the urine to drink. The reindeer's digestive system metabolises the more poisonous components of the toadstool, leaving urine with the hallucinogenic and psychotropic elements of the fungus intact. Drinking the urine gives a 'high' similar to taking LSD. Under the hallucinatory effects of the drink, the Sami thought their reindeer were flying through space, looking down on the world. The reindeers' liking for the toadstool hallucinogens are such that they, in turn, have been known to eat the snow on which intoxicated humans have urinated, creating a reciprocating cycle. When the first missionaries reached Lapland they heard stories of such reindeer flight, and integrated those tales into the existing Christmas folklore of Western cultures concerning Saint Nicholas."

No idea if that's true but it's even funnier if someone took the trouble to make it up.

Anyway Christmas is apporaching & I am only rambling on because it is a no-change time of year. Lots of traditions like counting down an advent calendar and fielding requests to Santa from a four year old for things like "a real light sabre, not one of those toy ones, but a real one like Luke Skywalker uses".

Being basically freelance I havent been to any of the lavish agency do's that have kept half the people I know & work with hungover most of the month. I am going out with the missus tomorrow night for an 'office xmas party' (thats certainly what it will say on the tax return). And am looking forward to coffee morning friday, maybe followed by a swift pint and mince pie, with any bloggers still in london towne.

Merry Christmas one and all! And a Pledgeful new year.
(I can hardly make any resolutions myself but it should be peak season for this blog....)

Geen Veranderung

Isnt Babelfish marvellous?

Been busy, travelled a bit, quite happy with all sorts of things despite having a thick cold.

Looking forward to a Christmas just like many others. The best time of year for non-changedness. It's like the antithesis of a new year which comes after; full of pledge, regrets and temptations. I've already started on the xmas pud (it was on special offer at M&S). Advent calendar up to date. Bring it on!

The Globs

Well nobody took me up on my kamikaze pledge donor offer. prob a good thing. And I'm really glad it has picked up again round here. No change only works if others do.

I've decided to have a bit of a green week. It's only blogging so no change really.*

Actually there has been a thunderous silence so by friday I may be forced to do the Chris Evans stunt of driving the audience down so low you can invite the few stragglers out for a pint. If the green week doesnt succeed I can do what he did and repeat posts (he played the same record over and over).

Anyway, it being a green week, I've also started work on a project which was planned ages ago (before LSWH*) and anyway was my wife's idea. I am going to try to write a kids book called The Globs. And we (my wife doing nifty slightly Japanese style illustrations) are going to serialise it on a blog.

If anyone has 4-9 year olds in the household or enjoys childish stuff it is going to be the story of some ogres which move in next door to our hero, a little girl called Lucia. As well as being greedy, eight wheel driving, plant bed repaving, noise making, ravenous consuming, selfish exemplars of what is wrong in the world from a green (or simply nice, human) point of view, they also eat the occasional postman and elderly neighbour. In fact they didnt buy the house, they mysteriously just 'moved in' without it apparently having been for sale. And others will start doing so in the neighbourhood.

Anyway I am some way through writing a first chapter, it will take a week or two to get artwork done and then we will stick it up and see how it goes. If it works well, then readers will be able to comment, discuss, suggest better storylines... All the stuff kids do when they listen to stories really.

letsseewhathappens?

*But as I say in several judicious disclaimers: no change

Upping the Stakes

I think Russell is right, 2nd wind is the way to go. Maybe I need to shift positions too.

How about this...

What if everyone else suggested pledges for me?

I cant promise to accept any or all of them (eg I actually dont fancy giving up smoking at the moment).

But I'd like to look at a list which others have chosen and have the option to go for some of them. It feels like a continuation of the pledge against making any conscious decisions to improve myself but obviously it is rather different, kind of 'diceman' territory. I'd need a different byline too...

Just a thought

:J

Change vs pledge?

I'm back, London is gloomy and wet, I will be late for a meeting if i dont get my skates on (no change)

I am wondering about the posts about the pledge trail trailing off. Isnt that a bit like new years resolutions? If I were a change consultant (which I am not) I would be looking for changes that led to irreversible, systemic change as opposed to spurts of better behaviour.

Here are a list of potentially irreversible life changes;
- change your job
- covert to a religion
- get married
- have a child
- overcoming an addiction
- give away a large sum of money
- move to a new country
- change sexual orientation
- find a vocation/burning hobby/passion
- leave a relationship

Carl Jung saw these sorts of things (particularly religion and having a kid) as often signalling a permanent change and end of analysis; the finding of a better or more fitting way of life. If you do any of these lots of other things fall into place behind it, there is the possibility to be 'better'.

I doubt that's helpful, just sharing my model of 'change' vs 'pledging'.

I suppose one difference is that the 'change' examples are uprooting and permanent. Maybe its just that change is so difficult that permanent change is easier to sustain?

I for one hope you all find your second wind. Otherwise I will probably have to return to my old fickle, changeable ways and its been very comfy on the no-change ticket for a while.

42

It's my birthday today

The best thing I can find to say about my age is that it may be the answer to life, the universe and everything. perhaps there is a 'no change' equator. Having past it I now am focused on deepening rather than adding? Jung described it as like the journey of the sun, you reach a high point halfway through life and then start the inward journey.

Anyway musnt grumble I am off to istanbul with family which is a better way to spend a birthday than most.

Birthday greetings to one and all. I'll raise a BA glass of warm bubbly to the letsseewhathappens crew