I’ve written about food waste before (War on Waste and Hugh’s War on Waste: The Battle Continues) because I think it matters.
These days it’s so easy to be drawn into buying only the fruit and veg that look ‘pretty’, that conform to a standardised idea of what they ‘should’ look like.
So I was really pleased to read at theguardian.com this week, that sales of wonky fruit and veg have been an important element in the current success of the UK supermarket, Morrisons.
How much – or, how little – do we need? How much do we want?
How much (of anything) is ‘enough’?
Last year I wrote about the UK Channel 4 programme ‘Life Stripped Bare’. Simplifying and de-cluttering are topics that crop up fairly regularly these days and we might think they’re a recent phenomenon fuelled by trends inspired by TV programmes and self-help books.
But not so – I found this in ‘On the Shortness of Life’ by Seneca, the Roman philosopher and statesman (c.5BC-AD65) translated by C.D.N. Costa: Continue reading “Simply Enough”
Struggling to make decisions about what to buy friends and family for Christmas this year?
With less than three weeks to go, the pressure may be mounting – and funds running short.
On BBC Breakfast this morning there was a discussion about ‘The Four Gift Rule’ and I found a BBC article online about it, too. Continue reading “Something they want … or an IOU?”
Modern artists such as Michael Landy, the man who destroyed all his belongings as a piece of performance art in 2001 and Neil Boorman and Jasper Joffee who respectively burnt and sold their ‘stuff’ have, in recent years, highlighted the materialism and consumerism abundant in our society today. Dramatic and thought-provoking.
Now we have one of this year’s Turner Prize exhibits at Tate Britain in London featuring a huge pile of pennies – 2043599 to be exact – by Michael Dean. Continue reading “Artistic Comments on ‘Enough’”
The UK Channel 4 programme ‘Life Stripped Bare’ which was broadcast in July created some debate as to whether the nakedness of the participants was necessary or gratuitous.
The premise was “… What happens when three young households have all their belongings taken away?…”. It’s still on All 4 at the moment, and various clips from the programme can also be found on YouTube (see links below). Continue reading “How Much ‘Stuff’ is Enough? The Naked Truth!”
“Dear Mum, I wasn’t meant for this planet. You did everything you could so please don’t panic. No one likes me so I might as well vanish….”
The opening line of a fictional suicide letter from a boy to his Mum, this is an extract from the keynote speech given last year in Thailand to 1,300 One Young World delegates by Hussain Manawer, a 24-year-old poet and activist from Ilford – which won him a trip into space in 2018.
He says he’s dedicating the trip to “every single person who has suffered from mental health [problems]”. Continue reading “Dear Mum, I wasn’t meant for this planet…”
I loved these two programmes on the BBC – presented by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall but it was shocking to see the amount of fresh, nutritious food that is thrown away in the UK because it’s not ‘pretty’ enough for our supermarket shelves – and the businesses who produce it who are struggling or, worse, shutting down. Continue reading “War on Waste”
When we act ‘automatically’ towards others this can have a really detrimental effect on them, on our relationship with them, and on ourselves. Continue reading “Acting on ‘Autopilot’”
Whole People 