environment, food+drink

World Environment Day

It is World Environment Day on Wednesday 5 June.

Every year since 1972 the UN has hosted World Environment Day to encouraging people to treat the environment more kindly and realise that it’s everyone’s responsibility to make the change … because it’s not just us that our actions on the world affects — it will have an impact on all our future generations too.

Although World Environment Day activities happen year round they culminate on 5 June every year, with the aim of enabling everyone to realize not only their responsibility, but also their power to become agents for change in support of sustainable and equitable development. It is also a day for people from all walks of life to come together to ensure a cleaner, greener and brighter outlook for themselves and future generations.


This year’s theme is Think.Eat.Save — an anti-food waste and food loss campaign that encourages people to reduce their “foodprint”. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), every year 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted; the equivalent of food production in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. While this is happening around 15% of the world’s population is under-fed or staving.

That is an enormous imbalance in lifestyles and which also has serious effects on the environment. So the Think.Eat.Save theme is intended to encourage you to become more aware of the environmental impact of the food choices you make and empower you to make informed decisions.


As I’ve said before, in my view there also needs to be root and branch reform of our whole environmental practice as well as of agriculture (for instance see here and here) — but that’s really a whole other debate.

As always there is a whole raft more information on the World Environment Day website at , including a list of activities by country.

photography, pleasures

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photo should appeal to some of my more geeky friends. It was taken at New Romney station on the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. The RH&DR is a 15 inch gauge light railway running along the Kent coast. The 13½ mile line runs from the Cinque Port of Hythe via Dymchurch, St Mary’s Bay and New Romney all the way south to Dungeness, close to Dungeness nuclear power station and Dungeness lighthouse. Constructed during the 1920s the RH&DR was the dream of millionaire racing drivers Captain JEP Howey and Count Louis Zborowski. It now provides a valuable service to the otherwise relatively isolated communities, especially south of New Romney, as well as being a tourist attraction.

In the photo we see a gleaming 4-6-2 Pacific, No. 8, Hurricane, receiving loving attention from her driver while simmering between duties at New Romney station, the line’s HQ.

Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Hurricane
Hurricane
New Romney, Kent; August 2010

There’s lots more information on the RH&DR on their website, www.rhdr.org.uk, and on Wikipedia. If you’re in that bit of the UK it is well worth a visit for a really fun ride and some great photo opportunities.

words

Word: Cockshut

Cockshut or Cock-shut

Evening twilight.

Probably deriving from the time when poultry go to rest and are shut up for the night although it is also suggested to derive from cockshoot, the time when woodcock ‘shoot’ or fly. In consequence of the latter it has been recorded as used to mean a net to catch woodcock, although this seems to be unusual and isn’t recorded by the OED.


The first use recorded by the OED is 1594 in Shakespeare’s Richard III.

beliefs, current affairs, ramblings

In which I worry about Bishops …

… or more precisely, retired Archbishops.

The BBC reported a few days ago that according to Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, allowing Gay marriage “paves way for polygamy”.

In an article for the think tank Civitas, Lord Carey … argues that the government is effectively seeking to change the definition of marriage to “a long-term commitment between two people of any sex, in which gender and procreation are irrelevant”.

He says he does not want to be “alarmist”, but that could logically be extended to “say, two sisters bringing up children together” or “multiple relationships, such as two women and one man”.

Let’s just leaving aside the fact that this is an absolute load of old baloney — the relationships his Lordship cites have been happening since time immortal, so where’s the problem? But I do worry what school Lord Carey went to when he can clearly think that two women plus one man is two people. Do divines have different arithmetic rules to the rest of us? Or has he actually lost his marbles?

Fortunately others of Lord Carey’s colleagues are more sane:

[T]he Bishop of Salisbury, the Rt Rev Nicholas Holtham suggested in a letter to the Telegraph that it was time to “rethink” attitudes about same-sex marriage, as Christians had done with slavery and apartheid. “No one now supports either slavery or apartheid. The Biblical texts have not changed; our interpretation has.”

And in a brilliant response to Lord Carey …

Stonewall chief executive Ben Summerskill said: “This is regrettably hyperbolic shroud waving”.

You just have to love someone who can talk about “hyperbolic shroud waving”!

environment, science

National Microchip Month

June is National Microchip Month. No, not computers, but pets.

It’s so easy to lose track of a pet. But getting your pet microchipped is quick and pain-free; it takes your vet about 1 minute to insert the chip under the animal’s skin (usually at the back of the neck) do and you 5 minutes to send in the registration. The actual chip is about the size of a grain of rice and contains a passive RFID tag.

And from then on your pet is quickly identifiable by any vet or animal shelter. I know. We had a stray cat turn up with us a couple of summers ago. We fed her and took her to the vet for a check-up. It took the vet 30 seconds to scan the microchip and then about 5 minutes to find the owner’s details on the national register. The vet contacted the owner and there was one happy owner reunited with his cat who he thought had gone for ever.

There’s more on microchipping at www.rspca.org.uk/allaboutanimals/pets/general/microchipping and Wikpedia.

personal, ramblings

Volunteers Week

The week beginning Saturday 1 June is Volunteers Week — an opportunity to celebrate the amazing contribution millions of people make out of their own busy lives each year.

There are many different ways to volunteer from helping out at your child’s school through getting involved with your local hospital’s radio station to doing VSO (Voluntary Service Overseas) in your gap year. Whatever your interests, and however little time you can spare, there is a volunteering opportunity near you.


Why volunteer? Well I know from experience that not only is volunteering immensely satisfying in itself, but you can make a real difference to people. Bring some friendship or comfort to someone lonely, help improve the environment, teach children in a third world country (or just here at home). Almost whatever it is there is an opportunity for you in your local community or much further afield.

And as someone who is involved in running two, totally different, voluntary organisation I know that both small local organisations and national charities are always in need for more people to help. And I also know that volunteers really do make a difference.

There’s a lot, lot more information about volunteering, and Volunteers’ Week, over on the Volunteering England website. Find out what there is near you!

natural history

Butterfly Education and Awareness Day

Saturday 1 June is this year’s Butterfly Education and Awareness Day.

I think we all love butterflies for their beauty and the fact that they signal summer. We usually feel lucky to see a butterfly (even if we don’t like the caterpillars eating our cabbages) and they never get any less fascinating. And because of pesticides and changes in land use many are now becoming endangered.


So the Butterfly Association’s idea is to raise our awareness of butterflies and how important they are as pollinators and their place is Nature’s rich pattern. Their website has lots of ideas for things which both children and adults can do.

Find more information over at www.forbutterflies.org/gardening/butterfly-awareness-day-june-4/.

amusements

Auction Oddities

Once more unto the auction, dear brethren. We bring you some oddities from the catalogue of our local saleroom’s upcoming auction. As so often it is the odd juxtapositions and typos which add to the overall effect.

Lot 004 £30-50
A large
Yes, that really is all it says!

An 1896 South African half pond, [sic] estimated weight 4.3grm.

Lot 180 £15-25
A small
I’m glad the estimate is lower than for lot 004!

2 well presented postcard albums, a collection of Smiths potato crisps dinner and dance menus dating from the 1920′s to 1960′s. WWI Sweatheart cards, WWII letters and 2 telegrams.

A trilby hat by G A Dunn and Co, Orange hanging lightshade, two framed paintings by Peter Hodson, blue and white lidded tureen, collection of Crest ware, Golden Shred, Cherry Blossom moot [sic] polish and Bisto advertising plaques, table lamp, glassware …

Large meat platters incl one with drainage and a well, Shaving cup, a Fosters studio glugger in the form of a fish, two sailor dolls, commemorative china, Aynsley cups and saucers with a milk jug, boxed View Master, two bagatelle boards, gas mask …

A collection of various small wooden birds labelled and in bags hanging on a wooden stand; wooden duck, blue jay, horned owl, Canadian warbler and many more, also a collection of wooden birds, letter openers

A pair of brass five [sic] dogs, a brass lamp in the form of a candlestick, three weavers shuttles, another table lamp, brown leather Slazenger bag containing boules …

An old 3 and half Octave in an Oak case

A pair of iron garden urns of traditional 10th c.design

photography

Weekly Photograph

This week’s photo is a demonstration of just what one can do with an unpromising subject. This was taken one evening while sitting in traffic in central London (actually on the approach to Hyde Park Corner). The combination of the dusk sky, the lights, the shapes and then the ability to skew the photo in the processing make this (for me, anyway) an interesting shot.

Click the image for larger views on Flickr
Concrete Truck
Concrete Truck
Central London, February 2008