McDonalds Testimonial (May07)
“Julia participated in a panel discussion that explored our CSR past, present and future. We encouraged her to be provocative because we want to be challenged to create game changing social and environmental policies and programs. And she sure delivered. She has strong opinions about McDonald’s, and she’s not afraid to vocalize them.” “Most of […]
Food Ethics in practice! (Apr07)
Was rather flustered arriving at my first Food Ethics Council (www.foodethicscouncil.org) meeting and finding no-one in the allocated meeting room at University College London. It transpired that the meeting had moved across the road – and I hadn’t picked up the last minute change on my email. When I heard why the meeting room had […]
A McDonald’s experience (Apr07)
I thought I’d do a bit of comparison on fuel efficiency between the UK and the US. Went to Heathrow in an 8-seater vehicle – it was on its way to collect a large group. But at 36mpg even that was less thirsty than the flashy black Lincoln that collected me from Chicago’s O’Hare airport […]
Youth Media and G Whiz (Apr07)
Met Justin Smith from Youth Media in a juice bar on Edgware Road. He’s been tremendously successful with his student communications business. We discussed a number of ways in which green messages might be included as part of his package. There’s so much that schools, universities and students could be doing to reduce their environmental […]
Book fair, the Park and Chrome Radio (Apr07)
Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre is a nightmare. I went to the International Book Fair for a series of meetings with overseas publishers and agents. Had to queue about 5 times before finally getting to the right part. Even trickier was navigating between floors – it was surprisingly difficult to find the stairs. The whole set […]
‘Rollo’ the snake (April07)
My children seem to have a social life to rival Paris Hilton. I simply have to arrange how they get to and from friends house and how many I need to cater for at home. Picking up Rollo, my middle son, a few days ago, I learnt that he wanted to get a snake as […]
Supper Party (Apr07)
Eighteen people to supper last Saturday night. Arranged it ages ago because I wanted to make some introductions. It was great fun preparing the mostly home-grown feast on the day, with Alex (our marvellous au pair). The main dish was rabbit casserole with flageolet beans – the rabbits were shot by my neighbouring farmer. They […]
Walking in the woods (Apr07)
I haven’t seen much of the sunny Spring weather over Easter but did manage a lovely walk on Lewesden Hill, outside Stoke Abbott in Dorset. Wonderful beech trees – and one of the had a rope for Connor (my eldest son) and his friend Josh to swing out over the trees. It looked quite scary. […]
Easter holidays (Apr07)
Juggling Easter holidays with work commitments is a lot easier with an au pair! Alex is Australian and only with me until mid June but she’s wonderful. Had lunch last week with Arthur Llewellyn (www.hfhmanagement.co.uk), who worked with Green Spirit fuels until December last year, promoting bio-ethanol. He introduced me to a nearby pub, the […]
Some thoughts – Fish, John Travolta, Home grown, Standby TVs (Apr07)
Eco-hypocrite I think that having 5 private jets and an airport in your garden really does preclude you from encouraging people to do their bit for the environment. John Travolta’s carbon footprint is apparently around 800 tons a year, which is about 100 times more than the average Brit. But he claims to be concerned […]
A few hours in Naples (Mar07)
Should I even admit to flying to Naples for a stint of no more than 3 hours? Perhaps even more heretical was that I went to make a presentation to the European Management team at McDonalds. This is a company I haven’t been very fond of in the past – they tried to get the […]
National Trust Question Time on Climate Change (Mar07)
Arriving at the Royal Geographic Society early turned out to be a good thing. I was able to participate in discussions about topics covered in the Question Time style debate ahead of time – and meet a number of people from the National Trust who were involved in organising the event. Talked to Fiona Reynolds, […]