A load of Rubbish

So much for good intentions – I have got as far as making a list of things to complain about (I like lists) but have yet to do another formal complaint following my success the other week. Oh well. I guess I will get round to it eventually.

The thing that is bugging me at the moment is recycling. I think I have said before that I am really sick of being told what to do by our bloody government, and it is particularly irksome when they don’t make it easy to do the right thing. I was harping on about recycling and the future of the planet long before the politicians got on the bandwagon. Now of course, in true Tony Blair fashion, we have loads of stupid government targets about how much councils are meant to recycle, by tonne. So what happens? Well, our council takes away the heavy stuff and valuable stuff and sod the rest, that’s what. So, for instance, plastic doesn’t get collected from our homes because it doesn’t weigh enough to make it worthwhile. This is not the fault of the recyclers, who are a social enterprise company who provide training for people with learning difficulties – they used to rely on European funding and even shut down for a while due to a lack of money. Eventually the council did see sense and now fund them (I think) to collect our recyclable rubbish, but as I say, subject to these ludicrous targets. I know for a fact that some other councils in England do collect all recyclable waste from households so it just seems crazy to me that there is this disparity in how councils interpret the regulations. I’m off to write to the council and my MP.

Complaining is Good

I really had every intention of doing a mild-week blog entry last week, but just didn’t seem to get round to it. How on earth do people who blog all the time fit it into their lives? Or is it the main focus of their lives? Actually, there was a very good programme on the other night called www.herecomeseverybody.com (a reference to Finnegan’s Wake I believe) saying how t’internet had popularized culture and made knowledge free etc. Actually, this is a prediction my partner made some years ago (in 1995 to be exact – I remember ‘cos we were in the Hacienda in Manchester where Carl Cox was meant to be doing a gig but he didn’t show up and we bumped into an old school friend of mine She thought he was talking a load of rubbish, but she was still into that worker’s revolutionary bollocks).

Anyway, I’m rambling a bit. I really meant to write about the art of complaining, because we really ought to do it more – us Brits anyway – we just winge rather than complaining to the right people. I rang up the customer helpline for the co-op to complain about the stock levels in our local supermarket, and lo and behold! The very next day stocks of fruit and veg were up, and the day after that, I got a letter saying they were really sorry and they were making sure it wouldn’t happen again and to please continue shopping at their store. Wow! I thought. That’s customer service. So I am going to make more of an effort and complain constructively from now on rather than just wingeing.

Justice without Mercy

Justice without mercy is revenge… That is no road to peace’ Thus spoke a holy man in the holy land on telly this morning. What an excellent way of putting it, thought I. It is a great irony that the so-called holy lands are torn apart by conflict and hatred, and yet we still feel this great connection to them. Well, I do anyway. I was brought up religious but no longer practice. Nonetheless, there is definitely something special about that part of the world. We spent two days in Jordan earlier this year as part of a Red Sea cruise and I really really liked it. Predictably, Petra was awe-inspiring. It was even better than I expected. I had failed to appreciate beforehand how big it is. And the colours! Just fab!

What I didn’t expect was how much I liked the country in general. Not that we saw that much of course during such a short stay, but just wandering about Aqaba and people-watching in cafes, I started to get a real feel for the place after only a few hours. It made me want to go back there, as well as explore more countries in the region, especially Lebanon and Syria. However, with seemingly no end to the troubles it’s a tricky business. How do the Israelis justify blowing up the road to Damascus for Christ’s sake? (No, I am not blaspheming, I mean it). It really is such a shame that one of the most interesting parts of our world is torn apart like it is. And as for Iraq, well. Don’t get me started….suffice to say that the cradle of modern civilization has been turned into hell on earth, but at least the American people have at last cottoned onto the horror of war at last (well, it only took 3 and half years, Ha! Ha!). Some of us said the ‘V’ word way back in May 2003, but now there is a lot of opinion that it is actually worse than Vietnam. Reap what you sow, say I!