The BBC is running on BBC4 TV a short series of programmes about medieval times. It started this evening with a program in which the comic actor Stephen Frye looked at Gutenberg and the development of the printing press. It was a coffee table programme: long on visual imagery, Frye’s idiosyncratic style and hammed-up wonderment; but despite the reconstruction of a Gutenberg press short on real academic detail. Certainly worth watching and much better than the average run of what these days passes for heavyweight programming; and mercifully devoid of dramatised reconstruction.
Frye made one interesting point, however. The Papal Indulgence was the medieval equivalent of our modern-day carbon off-set schemes: the payment of money to absolve us of our sins. Pure genius. Pure scams.
I wonder how the idea of charging us extra to collect our rubbish would sit with this? Presumably paying absolves you of the sin of having rubbish in the first place. If you stopped putting rubbish out – would they stop charging you? probably not Then I suppose you’re paying for the sin in case you commit it. Carbon off set schemes = total scam in my opinion.