I’ve had laser eye treatment (Dec10)
It’s brilliant – I’m over the moon! I now have 20:20 vision again. I had the surgery just before Christmas. It was totally painless – although a little frightening. But I was completely confident in the surgeon – Dr. Dan Reinstein from the London Vision Clinic, which he set up. I’ve been a contact lens […]
Eco-Renovating London Flat (Jan11)
I’ve started eco-renovating my London flat. It’s been rented out since 1995 but needs sprucing up. I’ve employed architect Jerry Tate , who specialises in bringing ‘buildings and nature closer together’. In this case it means lots of insulation, inspirational energy and water-saving ideas and including as much recycled materials as possible. I’ll be up-dating my […]
Buying a second-hand green car….(Dec10)
My Audi A3 was a bit battered but I loved it. I particularly liked the fact that it was extremely fuel efficient, whilst also being quite speedy. Although, my sons complained that I drive too slowly and so didn’t make the most of this quality. One of the few problems with the Audi was it […]
Eco-renovation – starting with windows (Nov10)
I have a flat in London that’s been rented out for years. But I’ve recently started some renovation work, which I’ll be reporting on over the next few months. The first job has been repairing the windows. They rattled and in some places had large gaps, which let the air in and the heat out […]
Is the Green Deal a Good Deal? No! (Nov10)
This week I went to a Green Monday event, held in the offices of Merrill Lynch, the theme of this well attended evening was ‘The Energy Bill – The Green Deal’. This Bill is due to go before parliament by the end of this year, but is still in its formative stages. We heard from Patrick […]
Innocent Drinks – Taking my son to Fruit Towers (Oct10)
He was particularly impressed with the fact that they’ve got a kitchen to test out their recipes, a gym for employees to keep fit and best of all a fridge with an unlimited supply of Innocent juices and veg pots. Fruit Towers was a little surprising. For a start there were no ‘towers’ at all […]
My goldfish died along with Labour – Here’s my coalition manifesto (May10)
Zac Goldsmith, formerly editor of the Ecologist, gets elected in Richmond Chris Huhne – New Minster for Energy and Environment Caroline Lucas – the first Green MP in the UK My goldfish died in the night. I’ve posthumously named him ‘Gordon’. It seems rather propitious that their floundering exit coincided. And […]
3D movies creating 3D waste (Apr10)
I loved the film Avatar – particularly the strong environmental message running through it. I saw the 3D version in Yeovil, with my sons, Rollo and Monty. They were equally enamoured. In fact, Rollo thought it was the best film he’d ever seen. But, we went home clutching three pairs of 3D glasses. There weren’t […]
I’m not supporting fuel price campaign (Mar10)
I received a round robin email this week. It was launching a protest campaign about the price of fuel. The allegation was that although the current price of oil is low, the price at the pump is high – hitting 114.9 per litre in some areas. And the worry is that this will soon mount […]
M&S listening to underwear concerns! (Mar10)
Mike Barry – Head of Sustainable Business at M&S I buy most of my underwear from M&S. You won’t be surprised to hear that this winter I’ve bought some thermals! Reading the pack I was surprised to see the following instructions – ‘It’s easy to look after too – just put it in the […]
Eco driving simulator (Mar10)
I crashed. The Energy Savings Trust brought their eco driving simulator to the M&S Plan A suppliers conference, where I was speaking. It looked great fun, so I thought I’d have a go. I discovered that the optimum eco-efficiency score was seven – seven of what I’m not sure. And the best score of previous […]
We need more Bedzeds (Nov09)
Bedzed – Beddington Zero Energy Design William Steel, Generation Green Think Tank member Did you know that cats give off about 10 watts of heat and dogs about 15 watts. I suspect that a friend of mine with a Great Dane gets as much heat from his as a human though – roughly […]