planet impiazzi

Seems I've not been paying attention lately. Give myself a slap. Tonight Gav drew my attention to the fact that Green & Black chocolate is now Cadbury's. Despite what G&B are still proclaiming on their website, they are no longer a cuddly little fair trade chocolate company, promoting the well being & livelihoods of cocoa farmers in Belize. They are now a subsidiary of the chocolate giant Cadbury. The Guardian tells us that around £20m added G&B to the Cadbury box. William Kendall, former owner of G&B and

"the former chief executive of New Covent Garden Soup Company, insisted that high-quality organic production and ethical sourcing were "integral to the Green & Black's brand".
He said that is what had attracted Cadbury's, adding that the multinational group would be "crazy to unravel these elements".
"I don't think people actually care who the owner is," said Mr Kendall. "

Well, Mr Kendall, I care. As the Guardian points out, "Cadbury's has consistently rejected arguments put forward by lobby groups on behalf of cocoa farmers". Just because Cadbury are now running G&B doesn't mean they are a fair trade company. If Cadbury care about cocoa farmers why don't they make ALL of their chocolate products fair trade? Greenwash.

BBC Radio 2 had a phone-in today about proposals in Scotland to follow the Irish route to a carrier bag tax. Now, carrier bags are one of my pet hates. What is the point? Why get a new bit of plastic every time you go shopping? When I was little all grown-ups had their own shopping bags. They lasted for years. My first pocket-money job when I was 14 was at Tesco and back then you had to buy your carriers. 3p each! The only staff benefit we had in those unenlightened days was free carrier bags - so we had a house full. Now, of course, I know better. Now I know that plastic carriers pollute the environment, many end up as litter, more end up in landfill where they will stay for decades, their production and transportation pollutes. So I always have a couple of cotton bags with me (very green, unbleached organic cotton) and they will last me for years. Every few months I have to give them a wash, but that uses much less energy than would have been used had I got yet another plaggy bag with every purchase. So I say TAX 'EM! Just a pity the same proposals aren't in front of the English parliament...maybe an email to my MP is required. Anyway, I'm not the only ranter on the subject. Have a look at selfsufficientish.

Finished Cloud Atlas today (sat in the sun reading a bit too long though!), and a mighty fine read it was. 9 out of 10. Get yourself along to your local bibliomarket and buy one. It is a very well structured, excellently written novel covering several centuries of humanity, both past, present, and future. Mitchell's mastery of language exceeds anything else I've read recently - his future sections are inventive and thought provoking. He nods graciously to Orwell and Huxley in his dystopic vision of a McFuture that all but the most blinkered must acknowledge to be not too far from possible. I thought there were some interesting parallels between the Sonmi section and modern politics re terrorism. There are allsorts of theories around about US investment in al Qaeda, Mujahhadin etc, US activity in Afghanistan during the 80s & 90s, and of course Cold War before islamawar. There has to be an enemy to bolster the interests of those in power and keep them in power. Hence demonising fabricants/communists/islamists/animal rights activists etc etc. At times the novel is very bleak - the repeated themes of domination/subjugation/exploitation are genuinely scary, and it wasn't until the very end that I saw what Mitchell was actually trying to say. He ties it all together wonderfully, and leaves you feeling hopeful after all.

Although Cloud Atlas has taken up a lot of my free time over the past several days, I did find a moment to go and see Elvis Costello at Leeds Uni on Saturday night. Kind of accidently though, very last minute. But a good evening it was. The sound engineer at the uni managed to sort out Costello's vocal about half way through the gig so we could actually hear what he was singing (the Refectory is notoriously awful acoustically). Afterward, however, I proceeded to get really rather drunk. Really really rather drunk, for which I suffered muchly on Sunday. Will I never learn?

Aha! Cloud Atlas is a clever book....and page 40 is supposed to not be there.

Yesterday I went on a lovely 10 mile walk with a small selection of Leeds Bookcrossers. We met up in Hebden Bridge and headed up hill and down dale, stopping at The Packhorse Inn for lunch, (getting slightly rained on both before and after), and popping in at The New Delight on the way to Heptonstall to visit the grave of the wonderful Sylvia Plath. As well as all that there was good conversation! What more could a woman want? (Its ok, you don't have to answer that one.)

Has anyone out there got page 40 of Cloud Atlas? My p40 is blank. I don't think this is intentional, as all the other chapters end at the end, not mid sentence. If you can scan it and email it to me I'd be very grateful.

Day 13 without tobacco, and all is well. Apart from the noxious flatulence. I hope that's not going to last too long or my friends will start to desert me. I've booked a trip to Venice with a friend for September but she might change her mind if I continue to carry a cloud of poison gas around with me! I suppose I could blame it on the canals.

Finished Goodbye, Johnny Thunders. Really quite a girly pop-lit book, but I did enjoy it. Methinks there is a lot of someone's real life in the novel, though I don't know if it's Tania Kindersley's life. Ostensibly, its about a woman in her mid-20s falling for Mr Unsuitable. I could really relate to it! But it's also very much about addiction, illusion, obsession - a modern trinity (or not so modern?) to which it is too easy to succumb. The central character, Nancy, falls victim to the addiction of loving against her better judgement; Jack, the man she falls for is a drug dealer and user. Both are under the illusion that they are in control of their lives.
Stylistically this book is heavy with cliche. Kindersley milks late 20th century pop culture for all it is worth, throwing in song titles, lines from films & songs, to anchor her characters in a subversive rock/drug lifestyle.
While there are no great truths or revelations here it is nevertheless quite comforting in its familiarity - and to a 40-something who has been there and done that (and still wears the t-shirt sometimes) quite nostalgic.
I give this book 7 out of 10 for entertainment value. If you are of my generation, and if you spent your 20s being a bit naughty, give it a go. I think you'll like it.

How come its only Wednesday? Surely it should be Thursday by now.

Still not smoking. So far, not too difficult. Evenings, and after meals I find myself thinking of having a smoke, but then I remind myself I don't smoke anymore and besides I'm wearing a nicotine patch so I don't need to. But tomorrow I'm going to a meeting in a pub, with beer available, so I'll have to gather up all my willpower for that!

A colleague from work had her car stolen from her driveway last night. She lives in a respectable part of the city, but a posse wearing "chav" jumpers (as described by her daughter who saw them from behind) still walked into the kitchen, picked up the car keys and drove off in the car. Where I live we keep our doors locked. Anyway, the car turned up this morning a few miles away, with only a couple of broken windows. But not nice, not nice at all - her house keys were taken too, so they had to get a locksmith out to replace all the locks. Charitable locksmith suggested that the culprits should be hung. Dread to think what he would do to the rapists and murderers...

Oh yeah, nearly forgot. Fuck off Tony. I didn't vote for you or your minions. Actually, I don't think many of your minions want you either. And in case anyone out there gets any funny ideas, I didn't vote for Tricky Micky either. Mainstream British politics offers nothing but bigotry and selfishness, greed and destruction. And the other political groups get ignored by the media so no-one knows who they are and what they want to do. Thats probably why so many voters stayed at home.

Lazy, lazy Gael. Been doing nowt 'cept stroke my cats. And read a bit. But even then I've given up more often than I've finished a book. I got three quarters of the way through The Woodlanders by Thomas Hardy then lost interest. I got half a dozen pages into Unless by Carol Shields before deciding it was far too serious and hard work. Just couldn't be bothered. So those two are heading for BookCrossing. Then this evening I started reading Goodbye Johnny Thunders by Tania Kindersley. Seems a bit more fun so maybe I'll get into this one.

I stopped smoking (again) today. I'm using nicotine patches for the first time - previous attempts have been willpower alone. Last time I managed about 10 days. That was just over a year ago. Then irritability got to me, and I gave in, preferring tobacco and all its nastiness to being a growling, paranoid harridan. I'm hoping that the nicotine patches will help me to avoid that. I really want to be rid of the mucky habit. Time to get clean, cast off such childish indulgences. It really feels like a growing up thing - packing it in feels like leaving behind a habit of my youth. Wish me luck - and if you know me, be nice to me! (And don't offer me a cigarette).