Today began with mist. I walked over Dobcross and down to the market in Uppermill in a very closed in world. The hills had been swallowed up.
As I arrived home, the sun was just coming up over the hill.
By midday the sky was blue. It’s rather cold though.
I’ve been trying, unsuccessfully, to find a post I saw earlier in which my German friend commented on her country’s warning to its citizens to be ready for World War III. Instead here’s a post from Michael Rosen this morning:
”So we're living at a time when the US is giving missiles to a country so that it fires them at Russia? Those of us who lived through the Cold War, were told that 'mutually assured destruction' ensured that this wouldn't happen. What now?”
It’s not just the USA. “Keir Starmer, the prime minister, said at the G20 summit that the UK recognised it needed to “double down” on its support for Ukraine, while diplomatic sources briefed they expected other European countries to follow the US lead.”
So it seems we’re all busily contributing to the possibility/probability of World War III. And the UK is doing its bit. We’re writing to our MP. We would like there still to he a world for grandchildren to grow up in.
Of course, that’s assuming we haven’t disappeared under plastic waste, or indeed ingested so much microplastic that we’re no longer fully human. Here’s a link to an article about AEPW, the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, an organisation set up in 2019 by a group of some of the world’s biggest producers of plastic. They’re producing more plastic waste than the organisation is managing to reduce. Its a bit like the bullies volunteering to stop bullying from happening in the playground, or the “firemen” in Ray Bradbury’s “Fahrenheit 451” who don’t put fires out but burn any books that are found.
We recycle as much of everything as we can, separating our rubbish into bins of different colours according to the type of waste. It can be difficult as our local council recycling plant doesn’t accept all kinds of plastic. Some types of plastic containers simply have to go into general waste, which annoys me. Then I read this he other day:
“Plastic bottles are reviled for polluting the oceans, leaching chemicals, into drinks and being a source of microplastics in the human body.
They even cause problems with recycling. When plastic bottles are mixed with cardboard in recycling bins, in the wet winter months the sodden cardboard wraps around the plastic bottles and trays, causing havoc at recycling plants.
New figures now suggest that plastic contamination in paper and card jumps by 40% between November and March and as a result the UK sends an extra 5,000 tonnes of plastic waste to landfill or incineration.
The government is expected to signal in the next few weeks whether it will continue a Conservative policy which planned to allow councils to collect “co-mingled” recycling or if it will insist that paper, plastic, glass, metal, food and garden waste should be separated at source.”
It rather defeats the object of having separate bins if everything ends up in landfill anyway.
And while I’m ranting about recycling and rubbish and such, I want to complain about screw tops on plastic bottles and those plastic-aluminum foil-paperboard laminated cartons of fruit juices. The are attached by a plastic link which can make them difficult to unscrew when you open the bottle or carton for the first time and then they are a pain to fasten up again as they need to be correctly clicked into place. And I’m sure most people, like us, want to store their cartons of fruit juice in the fridge without fear of the juice spilling everywhere. Okay! Rant over!
I’ve talked a bit about what we want for our grandchildren. Here’s Michael Rosen’s reading manifesto, which seems perfectly sensible and logical to me:
1. Reading books helps children make the most of what school and the world offer them.
2. Books give children language, thoughts, ideas and feelings.
3. Books show them places and times and cultures very near and dear to them.
4. Books show them places and times and cultures they may not have come across before.
5. Books help children walk in other people’s shoes, seeing things from someone else’s point of view.
6. Books help children see that they are not alone.
7. We have to do what we can to put books into children’s hands.
8. We have to do what we can to find space and time for children to talk about books.
9. We have to celebrate children’s books.
10. Children’s books are for everyone because we are all children at some time or another.
And to finish off, as Christmas rushes towards us, here”s Ben Jennings cartoon on Santa’s dilemma this Christmas:-
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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