Green Man admits enjoying television!

Firstly, I admit that I watched much of the recent series of Big Brother on Channel 4. I'm happy that Brian won, even though my vote, had I phoned in with one, would have been for Carole. I think that Brian won as he is a 'lovely sweet boy', humble, and his lack of worldly knowledge was surprising, amusing and above all, endearing. I'd have been very happy to see the twins Sam and Amanda win. They have been of interest to many CC readers, as they are (were?) social work students, but I don't think they put social workers in a bad light, as they were not so different to many other young people, just a bit more cute! They would make good social workers as they weren't fazed by much that went on in the house, never caused or got dragged into arguments, and remained positive and upbeat all the way through.

Also on Channel 4 at the moment is 'Dumped'. A group of volunteers who answered an advert for a televised environmental challenge are provided with an unusual place to try to survive for 3 weeks... a landfill in Croydon. Their challenge is to create shelter, build compost toilets and solar showers, find scrap metals to sell for recycling and generate an income for luxuries/essentials. The aim of the show, apart from entertainment, is to show us how much we throw away and to perhaps help change attitudes to our wasteful culture. This is right up my street, I would have loved to do this challenge as I'm a regular 'skip-diver' and enjoy reusing stuff I find, taking metals to the scrap merchant and reducing the volume of materials buried in landfill. One thing which did faze me was the attitude of Darren the builder who stated that he likes the feel of new underwear so much that he puts on new pants every day and throws the previous day's pair in the dustbin! I was incredulous! This type of behaviour should be illegal! I wasn't surprised he left the project after only 3 days. A pity as I'd have liked to see if his behaviour could be changed and his lifestyle become less wastful. Hopefully the viewing public will be moved in the right direction.

Finally, I saw a report of an interesting project on BBC's Look North, about a scheme in the Sheffield area called Carbon Quids. The South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive has developed a two- week promotion where people using public transport or cycling or walking can earn Carbon Quids, and these can be exchanged, on 22 September, for prizes such as goody bags, bicycles, concert tickets, a tree. What a good way to encourage people to get out of their cars and reward them for travelling more ethically.

So with all this telly watching, I like to switch off sometimes and get on with my real life. We've been told about switching off the standby button so much recently that I thought everybody now did this. But when I stopped overnight recently with a friend, and slept on the living-room floor, I found that the telly, video, DVD etc, which hadn't been watched all day, had the standby buttons glowing as they were switched on at the wall. I switched them off. If these are switched off, not only will it reduce your carbon footprint, but it will reduce your electricity bill too, and who prefers a big bill to a smaller one? There are moves to make standby buttons on electrical equipment illegal, but in the meantime, my 'Green Tip Of The Week' is to get into the habit of switching off at the wall, at night before going to bed, or when you leave the house for work.