Category: Environment

Ode to a Church Organ

What comes around goes around!

A few years ago I saw an advert for a small piano sized electric organ in our local shop window.

Great I thought, that will be a good way to introduce some music into the home, and see if I can add pedals to the idea of playing the piano.

It didn’t take long to track down the owner, but unfortunately the organ was in a back room, down two sets of stairs, round a corner, in a house which was isolated and difficult to find. Whereas I should have gone along with a team of

Typical electric organ

people, there were only three of us to move the instrument, but we eventually managed to move the thing out of the house, and into a trailer which we used to transport it to our house.

My wife thought I was mad, but I really liked it because it only had the sound of an organ, not a choice of sounds. It even had stops, not buttons to choose the different pipes you wanted to use.

Actually we were undertaking a great deal of building work at the time thus when our local church’s organ came to the end of it’s life, it seemed a good idea to offer them the chance to have this piece. It was ten times better than the original and sounded wonderful: job done!

However, last year some kind soul left money to the church and it was decided that the churcch could afford a new organ.

It duly arrived and our old one was moved to an alcove at the back of the church: I was asked to remove it.

Where was I going to put it? By chance we had acquired an almost new one ourselves and nobody seemed to want this old but wonderful piece.

We tried Ebay – no luck. Adverts – again no interest. The pressure started to grow.

People were asking me to move that old organ of mine. Letters started to arrive. Could I please take it away – I became the bad guy.

Eventually, I made contact with a man in London who would be happy to take it away for free, but he wanted to hear it play. Whoops!  It was already loaded on my trailer!

But I managed to position trailer and load near an electric socket and in broad daylight, with the aid of the mobile phone, I stood and played a range of music!  Our customer was happy.

He agreed to come at about eight o’clock one Saturday morning, but actually arrived two hours ahead of time at six in the morning!

A church in Ghana

The man brought his wife, dressed in her national dress, explaining that they wanted the organ for a church in their village back in Ghana. They had never ventured outside London, so this visit to the country was a major event. They joined us for breakfast and we showed our children a map depicting where the organ would eventually go.

The man was built like an ox and he and his wife together were quite happy to lift the instrument and put it in the back of their vehicle.

Funny old life!

By Bob Derham

Remarkable people: Kevin Richardson

Trust is both taught and learnt!

Thanks to Naked Capitalism, we posted an item on the 19th December about an unknown wild-life ranger working in the wildlife refuge area of Lanseria, South Africa.  Here was one of the pictures included in that Post:

The Post finished with an appeal to anyone that knew the name of this Ranger.  Many of you did and responded; thank you!

Read who this Ranger is

A hero

Another example of the power of social media.

I subscribe to Naked Capitalism, as much for the Antidote du Jour, as for the fine economic commentaries.  In my inbox of the 16th December was this wonderful antidote.  A quick Google search shows that these pictures are spreading like wildfire around the world’s email servers.  Not without reason.

Maybe these pictures resonate in all of us when we long for some simpler way of life …..

This Ranger is assigned to prevent poaching around the wildlife refuge area of Lanseria, South Africa. The way these animals interact with him is absolutely stunning! The lions seem to know he’s there to protect them. His charm works with hyenas and cougars too. Hyenas are usually vicious. Check out the pictures taken in the river – amazing because lions hate water.

As they say, don’t try this at home!

View the rest of these stunning photos

Greg Craven and his message

How to approach the global warming dilemma.

Yesterday, a Post was published a Post about Greg Craven.  It made the point that social media was becoming a very real force in influencing opinions and how that threatened traditional politics.  Here’s an extract:

I was doing some research for an earlier Post about Copenhagen and came across a YouTube video created by Greg.  More details and links later after making a more fundamental point.

This video of Greg’s has had 2,704,000 viewings! The information on that YouTube ‘page’ has had over 7,500,000 viewings. Greg has now written a book and so on, and so on.

Now I want to return to the core subject of how we deal with very complex issues that have the power to decimate humanity, e.g. global warming.

The fact is that the majority of people who think about such issues as global warming don’t have the skills and knowledge to determine what to do for the best.  It comes down to determining risks, which was the theme of an earlier Post acknowledging the work of Peter L Bernstein.

That’s also the theme of Greg Craven’s video on YouTube.  It’s a noble effort by a concerned citizen of Planet Earth.  Watch it.

By Paul Handover

Copenhagen – the unspoken issue

It’s getting crowded down here!

For those readers who are not regular BBC television viewers, the Beeb has for many years run an excellent factual/science & nature series under the name of Horizon.  Just recently there was a programme with the title of How Many People Can Live on Planet Earth?

Sir David Attenborough

It was presented by that familiar face on the BBC in terms of the natural world, Sir David Attenborough.  It was an appropriate and worthy person to present the information.

But before getting into some of the details underpinning the programme, there seems to been an enormous and unspoken omission at Copenhagen – why no debate about global population trends?

Luckily the media noticed the rather obvious exclusion.  Here’s the UK Daily Telegraph newspaper (online version) of the 8th December, 2009. An extract:

Population growth is the one issue accused of causing driving climate change that no one at the Copenhagen climate summit dares to talk about.

The argument is that more people consume more resources, therefore producing more greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

The global population is currently at 6 billion and could rise to 11 billion by 2050 if fertility rates continue, not only threatening the climate, but food shortages and conflict as well.

Organisations like the Optimum Population Trust, that is backed by Sir Jonathan Porritt, Dame Jane Goodall and Sir David Attenborough, advocate birth control as a way of slowing climate change.

As Sir David has said: “I’ve never seen a problem that wouldn’t be easier to solve with fewer people, or harder, and ultimately impossible, with more.”

A study by the London School of Economics found contraception is almost five times cheaper as a means of preventing climate change than conventional green solutions such as investing in green technology.

Read more of this Post

Greg Craven and the power of social media

There’s a new power on the streets and it may make politicians feel very uncomfortable!

The Rt Hon Gordon Brown

Like me, you probably haven’t heard of Greg Craven.  I hadn’t until about 24 hours before starting to write this Post (that would be Friday afternoon, Mountain Time, on the 11th December).

I was doing some research for an earlier Post about Copenhagen and came across a YouTube video created by Greg.  More details and links later after making a more fundamental point.

This video of Greg’s has had 2,704,000 viewings! The information on that YouTube ‘page’ has had over 7,500,000 viewings. Greg has now written a book and so on, and so on.

In other words, the personal message that Greg is conveying has reached an unbelievable number of people.  That would have been impossible without the power and reach of modern social media software systems: YouTube, Facebook, Linked-In, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, at al.

In the past, information has flowed outwards in a much more ‘top down’ way.  Hierarchical, as it is called.   That has suited those that wish, in some way, to control the message.  While individuals would always chatter and gossip with their peers, there was a finite limit to that before “Send reinforcements, we are going to advance” morphed into “Send three and fourpence, we are going to a dance”!

The example of Greg Craven shows only too well how information can now flow.  Out of anyone’s control, spreading virally.

Having made my point, I want to return to the subject matter that Greg is championing – but will include that in a separate Post.

Politicians!  Be very careful what you say.  We are all listening now, in one way or another, and ready to pounce if we don’t trust your words!

By Paul Handover

Copenhagen – that’s clear then.

Will we ever know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?

It’s a week since the start of The United Nations Climate Change Conference – Copenhagen, 2009 and it’s clearly been a media success if nothing else.

My instinct has, for many years, been the assumption that mankind behaves in many ways that harm our environment and that, ultimately, harming the very planet upon which our survival depends could happen.  Stupid, yes!  But in line with some of the more strange behaviours of homo sapiens.

But like millions of people, I do not have either the scientific background or the time available to test the statements made by so many governments and other ‘wise’ bodies as to whether the science of climate change, global warming or whatever, is real and irrefutable.  One thinks that would be relatively easy to do and that after all the years and millions of dollars spent on climate research, the proof would be there.  Cause and effect were perfectly understood.

Read more of this Post

Forwards to bygone times!

Sign of the times?

Woodstove

We have been looking for ways of cutting down our energy requirements and coupled with trying to grow as many of our own veggies as possible, 2 small flocks of chickens for eggs, we have now acquired a reconditioned, wood-burning cooker.

It arrived last Wednesday and weighs in at just under a third of a ton. It was manoeuvred into place by 2 men, some planks of wood and a few rollers made from off-cut, scaffolding poles.

Our youngest son and I fitted the flue and fired it up on Thursday evening. What a transformation!

The quality of heat and ambience it creates in the kitchen/dining room is amazing. It is like being transported back to a bygone era where everything seemed less stressed and slower. Whoever gets up in the morning lights it first and it seems to be able to rise from cold to a useful temperature in 20 minutes. It uses a very small amount of wood to keep it in all day and we have switched off all the heating in the adjoining rooms. We cooked a roast dinner in it on Sunday and a load of mince pies plus bread over the weekend.

It’s not instant and it has its own foibles but we love it – a bit like most of us, I expect!

By Jon Lavin

An interconnected world.

Bringing out the best in us.

As I visit some of my clients, I am becoming aware of an unusual phenomenon – I think some people are actually becoming less selfish. We are used to hearing stories of institutions reaching heights of greed and selfishness during this recession but not many that are about the other way round.

I don’t go to supermarkets very often because I’m usually out working when my wife goes but by a fluke, I kept her company recently. We have been trying to support the local farmer’s markets in the area but this is proving difficult as it’s much quicker to do a one-stop visit to a supermarket than lots of small visits since we both run our own businesses.

It is of course cheaper at the supermarket as they have systematically forced food prices down to a level that prohibits most small food producers from supplying them.

Anyway, I digress. In our local supermarket works an ex colleague and friend of mine. He was made redundant just over a year ago for the second time and decided that he would go for the stress-free, safe option. He used to organise procurement for a large, global communications company so he has his head screwed on around organising things. I guess the supermarket job means that he can just switch off away from work, something he could never do before.

I saw him with a large trolley, checking shelves and we stopped for a chat. He was fine and generally enjoying his work. He asked about mine and I mentioned that things were a bit tight at the moment. We got talking about how training is carried out at his work and how they work with developing employee’s interpersonal and communications skills. He mentioned that there was a new HR manager at the branch, or is it “in branch?”, and would I like an introduction as they were always recruiting new people and they needed training?

I was flabbergasted as we weren’t necessarily that good friends and he didn’t need to say or do anything but went out of his way to be helpful.

I have also noticed this phenomena in other companies from time to time, in the form of clients arranging meetings and spending time, something previously they really didn’t have time for. Maybe we get more of what we notice and by focusing on the positive, we attract more of the positive into our lives?

Is it because when the going gets really tough, for example, in times of national crisis or great hardship, that we remember that we are all interconnected?

By Jon Lavin

Our Christmas Tree is a Fake ….

From “The Guardian”, a photo of the the fake Xmas tree in Poole, England that is making people go mild.

Oh Dear! Not even XMAS is safe from the dreaded H&SE, the British Health and Safety Executive and the mentality that we must be protected from every eventuality, but how on earth can you get any Christmas spirit from a giant plastic H&SE tree?

Apparently, the authorities think it is safer than a real tree which “might fall on someone”. But has anyone ever heard of death by XMAS tree? It would make a good title for an Agatha Christie of course ….

But REAL Christmas trees are “good for us”, aren’t they? They grow and are cut down (providing jobs), but then of course new ones are planted, all good for the environment …. But above all, they are REAL. Will everything eventually be replaced by digits and images? How long will it be before we get just a giant wall poster of a Christmas tree? Surely that would be even safer for the plebs?