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Guerilla pumpkin-carvers join the campaign against Tesco in Machynlleth

Machynlleth enjoyed an eye-catching display of pumpkin art on Saturday night (November 1^st). While hundreds lined the streets to enjoy the annual lantern procession, a group of guerilla pumpkin-carvers made their opposition to the proposed Tesco supermarket clear. They installed a carved pumpkin protest message on the former Travis Perkins site on Hoel-y-D oll, spelling out the words “NO TESCO”

The newly-formed group, who call themselves ‘Pumpkins Not Profits’ said that Halloween was the perfect night to unveil their art because:

“Halloween is a time to be scared, but we’re terrified of Tescos coming to town as it will likely cause the death of independent, local businesses.”

All photos by Paul Bullen

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/7706100.stm

I have run onto so many people recently, desperate to cut down on their vehicle costs, willing to shell out their hard eared money on cons like the Magnofuel and the run-your-car-on-water scam, willing to believe anything but the inevitable, that sooner or later they are just going to have to give up their adiction.

Anyway, I thought I’d have a go at writing my top ten ways to save money on your car!

1. Sell your car!
   No, stop, bear with me. The easiest way to cut down the amount you spend on your car is to sell it. When you add up how much you spend on the vehicle, its tax, insurance, repairs, fuel… you will be amazed how much they cost… save a tone of money and a little bit of the environment (and you eco-soul too maybe) by selling your car.
   If your can’t do without your car
   (and please let me know, in the comments below, why you can’t do without your car, I LOVE hearing peoples excuses!)
2. Walk when ever you can!
   And when it is too far to walk:
3. Ride your bike!
   Most car journeys are under 3 miles, very walk-able or  cycle-able distance. You will loose weight, have more thinking space, be fitter, live longer… it is a no-brainer really.
   When it is too far to walk / cycle / it is raining / you have the weekly shop to carry:
4. Catch a bus and/or train and / or taxi!
   Buses  and trains are probably much cheaper than driving your car. And the occasional taxi is going to be cheaper than owning a car 24/7/365.
   When it is too far to do any of the above then:
5. Get a smaller car.
   What do you need such a big car for anyway?
6. Slow down.
   Driving more slowly will make a big difference to your fuel bill, as well as your repir bills, as will accelerating and decelerating more gently… and your less likely to crash, break your car, kill yourself, kill someone else…
7. Make sure the tires are inflated to the correct pressure.
8. Take all that stuff you never need out of your car.
   Do you need to drag round all that stuff?
9. Get your engine serviced regally, even if you just get the air filter checked/changed regally.
10. If you happen to have a diesel vehicle.When have exhusted all of the above, then  think about buying my book.

I just went to the cinema to watch Burn After Reading, it was great but this is not what this post is about.

You see, before the movie started, in the middle of the trailers, there was this song/advertisement thing for the National Guard. I could not work it out, I was not sure what I was watching, was this Americans doing irony or was it real? Was this supposed to be funny? I was not laughing, instead my jaw was on the floor in disbelief.

Then the audience started to laugh, at first just a few were just a few chuckles but after a a minute or two it turned into peels of laughter, shouting and booing from across the theatre. And at the end of the song this guy came up on screen and suggested we may like to download the song from the internet! That was when the audience collectively wet themselves.

Thing is this was not Americans doing irony at all, it was real! But at least the Americans I was in the theatre with tonight got the joke.

The official site is here:

http://www.nationalguardwarrior.com/

But it is easier to watch it here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2j6j-vf6Ks

Front page of the New York Times’s web site too, nice one!

It’s one thing to operate a pirate radio station, with foul-mouthed D.J.’s hopping from rooftop to rooftop to hide the transmitter. But the ever-defiant Pirate Cat Radio went and opened a cafe (2781 21st Street; 415-341-1199; www.piratecatradio.com). Now you can stick it to the man over a spot of tea or vegan donuts. The grungy décor and sparse offerings are true to pirate form — the fun lies in watching the illicit broadcasts through the smudged window.

My chalange for 2008 Burning Man festival; to provide a shade structure for about 15 people that would not blow down, or otherwise fail, in the viciously strong winds that you get on the playa while shading us all from the savage sun.

But to start with I’ll show you why you need to bother… with two photos of our 2008 neighbour’s shade structure:

Now you see it…

…now you don’t!

To make one that won’t blow away you will need:

(all measurements in imperial, we are in the USA and that is what they use here…)

• 21 foot by 21 foot bit of 70% Alumanet.
• 60 or more special grommets for it.
• a 100 foot length of cheapish rope (to help reinforce the seam of the Alumanet).
• a 100 foot length of good quality rope (we used a length of retired climbing rope)
• 4 7-foot bits of 2×4 (to make the 4 corner uprights).
• 4 eye bolts (one for each corner).
• 1 9-foot bit of 2×4 with a big heavy thing at its base (your batteries, maybe?)
• 8 ratchets (to make the whole thing very tight).
• 8 2-foot lengths of 1/2-inch re-bar (for pegging it down).
• 100-foot or so of thin rope / thick string.
• a 10-foot length of 2×4, or similar, and a heavy base for it (to make central pole)
• a big-ish hammer, a 10-pounder should do.
• Lots of little bits of para-cord or similar.

Corner detail

The finished structure.

Inside the structure.

The entire structure is put up and tensioned without the Alumanet in place; each corner is placed about 21 feet apart, two three-foot rebar pegs per corner about 4 feet from that, a ratchet strap on each… once erected tighten so the rope makes a square of rope about 25 feet by 25 feet strung between the 7-foot uprights.

Only once this is up and stable and solid is the Alumanet added, gently, corners first, using the little bits of  para-cord to attach it.

After that the 9-foot centre pole… in the centre… with a big heavy weight at the bottom…. and maybe a corner-to-corner cross of some string to suspend your lights or whatever from.

This shade shaded 12 or so of us from the sun and withstood the 2008 storms without even flinching.

We booked a van with Enterprise Rent-A-Car about 4 months ago, today just 7 days befor we are due to pick it up I get this from them! by email!

Mr. Starbuck,
This email is in regards to your booking for a cargo van on the 23rd of August.
Due to the burning man event, we have been overbooked 100+ CargoVans/PickUp Trucks.
Therefore, we are cancelling all reservations for the end of August. There will be no trucks or Vans available during this tmie period.
Thank you for your understanding. Please feel free to call our branch with any questions or concerns.

Kylie Beren
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Assistant Manager 23GP
San Francisco- Mission St.
415-522-5900

Can you beleive it? I can’t. I sent them this response (by email):

Dear Kylie,

This is totally unacceptable! Have you only just noticed you are overbooked by “100+” vehicles? What kind of system are you running? This van has been booked with you for about four months now, I did not book it yesterday, you cannot just cancel my reservation with one week’s notice, especially by email!

Because of the Burning Man event I am now unable to book another van, I knew this and booked in good time and you took the reservation. How do you not know when Burning Man is, it is not as thought this is the first year it has happened .

I need the van on the date I reserved it for the duration I reserved it for and I will be in to pick it up next Saturday.

If you have any “questions or concerns” about this then I can be contacted on 415-823-8109.

Yours,

Mr. Jon Starbuck.

No response from them yet………….

I have every intention of bloging something here properly one day……….. but for the time being here are a couple of links:

Oxfam come out against coal,  Kinsnorth

The Coal Hole

Coal Scuttled

George Monbiot has gone nuclear! (not)

Back in 2004 (?) Amanda Roll-Pickering (now Amanda Starbuck, my wife) was the media officer at C.A.T. when, as I remember events, Peter Harper, a C.A.T. employee, publicly made reference to the idea that, depending on the way you look at it, nuclear may be bad but not be as bad as the worst effects of climate change.

This was picked up by the Guardian’s environmental colonist George Monbiot (a man who’s writing I adore) and reported as “C.A.T. has gone pro-nuclear”. Amanda asked George to print an apology / retraction but he refused on the grounds that Peter had said it, which he had.

Since then George has moved near to C.A.T. and is, I presume, friends with Peter; they are both very nice charming guys with similar politics who live about a mile apart.

George recently made reference to the idea that we should not be looking at electricity in terms of financial cost per kilowatt-hour but at the environmental cost of co2-production per kilowatt-hour and if (and as George points out, it is a very big if) nuclear compares favourably maybe we should go with it.

Guess what is happening now? Everyone is shouting “Monbiot has gone nuclear!”. Of course he has not done anything of the sort, but am I wrong to find it rather funny?

Burning coal produces more radiation than nuclear!

Sounds absurd, does it not? But in this article in the Guardian George Monbiot points out a fascinating fact that coal powered plants produce much more radiation than nuclear plants!

The last couple of weeks of July 2008 I am spending on board Greenpeace’s Rolling Sunlight for its The Global Warming Story Tour, I will be cruising up and down the West Coast of the US with some folks from Greenpeace for twenty days while they collect personal video stories about how global warming is affecting ordinary American’s and getting them to ask the Congress to legislate to stop global warming by not investing in dirty or dangerous technologies and instead to use the money in clean, safe renewable energy!

Thursday 10^th July 2008

We met at 8am at the GP warehouse and went straight to the plaza by the Ferry Building in San Francisco for our first Global Warming Story Tour stop; a chance to ensure everyone knows what they are doing, that we had all the equipment it all was working and collect some stories while they do it.

We left SF for our first stop, the Oregon Country Fair near Eugene, just after lunch. We have almost two days to get there, so plenty of time.

We drove out of San Francisco on the I-80 and then onto the 113, through small humid towns thick with the smell of ripening fruit, fresh cut grass and smoke. All the way it was very overcast, everything looked a little orange. It is hot and the sun is high in the sky and yet I can stare directly at it, by the time we got onto the 99 and Chico the sun had disappeared entirely.

Right nhis area is badly affected by the smoke from wildfires raging elsewhere in California, I have no idea if this is typical (I am told it is, but getting worse each year) but the more we feel the effects of global warming maybe the worse this is likely to be here.

Friday 11^th

We awoke to a glorious day, Northern  Californian sun and mountains and Lake Shasta. The sky was blue and there was no sign of yesterday’s smoke and gloom. Crossing Lake Shasta it was amazing how empty it was, it is fed from snow-melt and run-off from the mountains and these have been demising drastically over recent years and glaciers receding leading to doubt and water shortages, there is little doubt in anyoones mind here that this is directly attributable to global warming and climate change.

It is 334 more miles to Eugene up the I-5. We passed Mt. Shasta on the way and met some great people in gas stations, they are all attracted to the truck, most assume we are selling PVs but are happy to chat when they find out what we are really up to, even if they don’t agree they are very nice anyway…. generally.

Eugene

On the way we filled up with B99.9 (99.9% biodiesel) from SeQuential Boifuels in Eugene, I am so impressed with these guys! However, they are struggling due to how hight the price of fuel, including biofuels, have risen recently. I’d have loved to have put them in my book but too late (maybe there will be a second edition guys).

Oregon Country Fair

Arriving at Oregon Country Fair was initially quite a let down, the promised festival in the forest turned out to be much more like a hippie-mall in the forest, with hundreds of tie-dye t-shirt makers and other “crafts” people all trying to sell their wares to you - but the food available in there was great and not too pricey and much of the music was great too. It was also very hot and humid and dusty.

However come the evening the paying visitors are swept out of the site leaving a night time woodland wonderland devoid of hippy-shoppers and full of dark spaces, nonsense and sillyness in the dark; suddenly i got why people rave about this festival, it is all about the after party. It would have been amazing to stay up all night and play, by the sound of it hundreds did, but we had work in the moring.

Portland, OR

After two very hot days at The Fair we continued on our way north, towards Portland for a quick photo opportunity with Mount St. Helens and Mount Hood (and a quick hello to my old friend Rebecca), then onwards towards Seattle .

Al Gore’s Speech

Al Gore’s Speech on the 17th July times nicely with what Greenpeace are trying to say here, instead of talking about how global warming / climate change is the biggest catastrophe facing mankind (though it is becoming more obvious that it is), he focuses on solutions. Hank Green at EcoGeek says:

Now he’s focusing the whole suite of problems that can be solved with renewable energy: job creation at home, removal of reliance on other nations for our power, sustainability, pollution and global warming.

Gore’s ten year target is very over ambitious, I can only assume that by being so bold to stimulate debate and get things moving, maybe he would be pleased if it happens in twenty. Unfortunately, as Gore well knows, we may not even have ten years to turn this round.

(you can read what else Hank has to say here, along with the full text of Gore’s speech)

Seattle, WA

Tuesday is a day off in Seattle. We are staying in a suburb of the city call Kirkland in a crappy motel (the toilet is broken in both the rooms we are in). Spent a lot of the day drinking coffee and eating but when we did manage to get the bus to down-town Seattle we had a ball, visiting all the touristy crap and taking pictures by the big Space Needle thing. We ended up trying to go to the famous Crocodile Cafe for a beer but we were a few months too late so we ended up in Shorties (SIC), a busy and cool bar playing punk where I would have fitted right in ten or fifteen years ago but now I look like the old guy in a nice short-sleeve shirt.

Wednesday was back to work with the Rolling Sunlight crew in a suburb of Seattle, it was a bit slow but we were joined by some of Front Line and, later, my friends from England, Tara and Mike, and a couples of professional photographers

No ID, no beers…………

We met up again later at some bar / restaurant near the Greenpeace office but they staff refused to accepted my UK driver’s license as ID when it has been fine everywhere in the US since 2004, according to them only a US, Mexican or Canadian driver’s license are acceptable, I have to cary my passport – bullshit! I don’t mind the whole carrying ID thing, but lets have a bit of consistency for what constitutes suitable international person’s ID, my passport is the most pretious document I have, I am not going to carry it about, especially when I am intending to get drunk, just for the 0.1% of servers who think it is necessary…….. and besides, I have been legal to drink in the US for the past 15 years!

Olympia, WA

Thursday was a quick event at Evergreen University Campus in Olympia and then we set off for San Francisco again – about 15 hour’s drive away. Made it as far as Eugene, handy for a B-99 fill up in the morning.

(brief) Return to San Francisco

The next day was a very long one, driving from Eugene to San Francisco, it took about 12 hours in all. We got back to SF to find it cold and foggy, so the fabled SF-summer has finally arrived here! Weekend hours in the city before the head on South.

Left The City on Monday for a quick stop in San Jose and on to LA.

Los Angeles

We are staying on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood but we don’t have much in the way of time to see much of the sights. Hollywood is not quite what it is cracked up to be anyway, it is mainly a shabby neighborhood, with the rich living in the Hollywood Hills. We did find time to visit Hollywood Boulevard and walk along the walk-of-fame but this too is a crappy city-center-shopping experience with big stores sitting alongside Sientology establishments (there are a lot of these in L.A.) and underwhelming famous cinemas / theartres; unless you happen to be in town and have nothing better to do don’t bother.

Long Beach

We did an event in Long Beach, outside the City Hall, which was a big success, and later that evening we were joined by a new volunteer, Katheryn – she is from Carolina and has a cool southern accent, says things like “y’all” a lot which she says makes her sound ignorant but I think is endearing.

OC

Thursday’s event was in Huntington Beach in Orange County; surf bums, Irish girls on holiday, humunclous meatheads in giant hot-wheels trucks, women with too much makeup and fake tits; not a very nice place at all (but the beach the the surf were amazing despite the oil rigs just off shore), but we met some good people even here, tones of people all worried about the environment, especially the kids who, without exception, all seem very well informed on the subject of global warming.

Palm Springs

Friday we spent driving inland, away from the cool sea air and into the desert, it got hotter and hotter until we arrived in Palm Springs where it was 113 degrees (that is about 50 in English) and humid.

Next morning was a 5am start for all of us for an event in Desert City College’s parking lot, much too early and hot and all too much to be honest, we had to pack the truck up in the midday sun and it just about killed the three of us. Kyle’s family are in town so the afternoon was spent napping and being looked after by them, they were so hospitable, cooked us dinner and everything.

San Diego

The latest Crew member arrived last night at 4am, poor thing had a hellish flight with missed planes and lost luggage - she is Rachel and, i have been told, is “awesome!!”. San Diego’s event was a great success, and we caught up with Kelly and Jenny there and after which was so cool. After last night in some hotel 30 miles out of town we moved into the 500 West Hotel in San Diego.

Stolen bag!

A weird thing happened when we arrived, while checking in one of your bags disappeared! Obviously we freaked out! I ran around the block expecting to find it being ripped apart by some homeless guy round some corner while the others tried to work out what had happened inside the hotel and to get the guy on the desk to believe it had happened and that we had not just left it in the truck or something.

Then this young guy wearing no shoes walks across the lobby carrying the bag’s labels, he hands them to us, it is all very odd, the guy is behaving very strangely, his eyes keep rolling upwards in his head and he is not making much sense; we ask him where the bag is and he tells us it is “upstairs”, we ask him if he took it and he says “yes”, we ask him why he took it and he says “that is what you do with bags, you take them upstairs”, as to where upstairs he does not know.

We call the police, who take an age to arrive, and run frantically about upstairs until we find the bag, still closed, on the second floor. We have been watching the guy for a while now and by the time police do turn up is is very clear to us this guy is mad or high or something. He has no ID on him, does not seem to know who he is or where he is staying or anything, so he gets arrested and we go our for beer.

Ocean Beach

Next day is a day off, Kyle stays at the hotel and works all day while the rest of us go clothes shopping in Ocean City and to check out the beach.

Another late night with Greenpeace San Diego ensures a late start tomorrow.

Yuma

Not much to tell you about Yuma. We only spent the night here, but it is so hot, we made good use of the hotel’s pool and drove on towards Phoenix and Scottsdale the next mooring. For the sunniest place on Earth and being in the middle of nowhere it is amazing that it appears to have no solar (PV or thermal) and it must have a massive electrical load with all those thousands of AC units, all presumably running on electricity made at some dirty and inefficient coal power station hundreds of miles away.

Phoenix and Scottsdale and my last night

On to Phoenix and Scottsdale, five or so hot hours travel in the truck. I can never tire of travel through the desert, I love it, but in this noisy hot truck it almost becomes a chore.

Tonight is my last night. The hotel is fantastic and the pool is great, but Rachel is not at all well, Kathryn and I walk a few blocks and get her some medication, she looks a lot better for it and I find myself being so pleased when she comes out for dinner with us on my last night - they were right, she is is awesome.

Final thoughts on the trip

Flight out is Southwest from PHX to SFO; I hate the idea of flying home, it seems such an oxymoron to be flying an environmentalist anywhere but 500 miles takes 2 hours in a plane and 2 days in a truck, it releases about 10% of ones fair share of carbon for the year and costs less than a day’s wadges - this is of course the problem with air travel, it trivialises distance and costs the earth dearly while costing your pocket comparability little - still, I get an ace view of the Grand Canyon and Yosemite included in the price.

The guys drop me off at the airport in the Sunlight and I find myself very sad to be going back while the three of them travel onwards for another two or more months. Kyle and Kathryn and Rachel (and Geshe too), you are all amazing!

Have an amazing trip, I have learned so much, am so going to miss you, have a good one guys!

——————————-

Interesting (?) facts about the trip:

• The only people who gave us the finger while overtaking our truck were motorcyclists.
• About 10% of car drives waved, hooted, gave the thumbs-up, smiled or otherwise gave a positive signal.
• Truck drivers seem disinterested.
• The vast majority of Americans we have spoken to are very worried about climate change and want to see radical action now, almost everyone is concerned and wants to see greater leadership.
  This is in direct contradiction to what most people overseas think but concurs with Greenpeace’s own research.
• There are still significant numbers of people who persist in the absurd belief that Global Warming / Climate Change is not proven, that it is somehow still open to debate.
  I am at a loss as to what to say the these people.
• An astonishing number of people approached me about HHO “technology”, it seems the scam is very prolific, I wonder how many unfortunate people have bought into this.

Immigration

I arrived back in San Francisco on 5th July, I got questioned by Immigration for about an hour before they let me in but once satisfied i was not here to enter the US workforce or to overstay; however I was told in no uncertain terms that in order to qualify for a visa waiver again I must stay out of the country for at least “3 or 4 or 5 months”, how clear is that? It is very frustrating and confusing when you think you are playing by the rules, doing exactly what the last immigration officer and the US embassy in London said to do, not abusing the visa waiver system, not working illegally, and then to be hauled over the coals like that, but i guess there is nothing I can do about it and they did believe me in the end.

Once in I went straight home to wash and catch up on some sleep, Amanda awoke me in the early evening in order to force me down to Pirate Cat Radio for, as it turned out, a surprise welcome home reception!

Dead Computer

Unfortunately my laptop did not survive the flight so i spent most of my second day back (first week day) searching for a cheap replacement, surprisingly difficult in SF. According t the Dell website the s a Dell store in down town SF - when i got here i was told it closed down several years ago. Nice one Dell. I ended up buying the the smallest, cheapest Dell I could find anyway as there was no real chioce in Best Buy (who I can honestly tell you were appalling, thirty minutes to even speak to a sales assistant and then I knew a lot more about what the shop sold that he did, which is saying something because I know nothing about Laptops) but I could not find anywhere else to buy one in San Francisco……….

Pirate Cat

Amanda did yet another great Pirate Cat show that same day with Fossil Fool at Pirate Cat Radio 
http://www.flickr.com/photos/morehumanthanhuman/sets/72157606086038257/

Rock The Bike:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockthebike/

Rolling Sunlight

The last couple of weeks of July 2008 I am spending on board Greenpeace’s Rolling Sunlight for its The Global Warming Story Tour, I will be cruising up and down the West Coast with some folks from Greenpeace for twenty days while they collect personal video stories about how GW is affecting ordinary American’s and getting them to ask the Congress to legislate to stop GW by not investing in dirty or dangerous technologies and instead to use the money in clean, safe renewable energy!

Yosemite

Early August saw Amanda and I reunited after many weeks apart, she took a long weekend and we hired a car and went to Yosemite National Park which is only a few hour’s drive from San Francisco. Forest fires are apparently keeping visitors away but i saw little sign of it being quiet, we had trouble finding camping space even though we arrived on Friday. More than 4 million visitors come to Yosemite each year but the vast majority of them, something like 98%, visit only a tiny fraction of this enormous space so getting away from them, even at peak season, is easy. We took a day hike to Cathedral Lake and it was fabulous!

We also took the opportunity to visit Bodie, an amazingly unspoilt and un-Disney-fied ghost town which is held in a state of arrested decay - we also went seven miles off the paved roads to sit in Buckeye Hot Spring .

US Air Guitar Finals

We got given two tickets to the US Air Guitar Finals in SF the following weekend, a rare opportunity to see Americans actually being ironic. To air is human but to air-guitar is divine, it is all about air-supremacy,

Shooting

Amanda and I have been talking about going shooting while in the US since 2004. Well we finally got round to booking a lesson the other day, 20 minutes in the classroom and were let loose in to shoot targets on the range with some 22 pistols. They were just not satisfying enough, se later we rented a Glock 9mm and had a go with that, a much more satisfying bang! Not that I’m going to make a habit of this, it was fun but I can’t see how anyone could get too excited about this, after an hour or two it is, quite frankly, a bit boring.

Andrea and BRC

Oldest and nicest friend Andrea came over and visited us for 3 weeks and to come to the BM event in Nevada. Spent a week or more before making a shade structure that won’t blow away. Here are some pictures of our camp at Burning Man.

Friday 5th Sep 2008

Man On A Wire, a cool movie, and an earthquake!

Saturday 6th Sep 2008

Power to the Peacefull Festival in GGP, my second year running.

Goin g Home to Wales

……… and  a load more stuff before going back to the UK to pick up a load of work with Perpetual Energy.