DESPAIR
Well, that’s a depressing title, if there ever was one.
Let me explain. I realise I’ve persuaded all sorts of people to sign up for this blog (THANKS SO MUCH!) and yet I have remained silent for months on end. And it started so well!
I can in part blame a hectic schedule – not only am I on tour (and was on tour all autumn) but my partner and I are running the village pub… it’s a shortish story so I’ll bore you with it…
My partner’s darling brother Frank was the Landlord, for 15 years and tragically died of Covid on Jan 31st in 2021. When lockdown started lifting, the Lease was still held by his Estate and since my partner was the Executor, we were faced with a dilemma. Do we open the pub and let our little community get back together to have a little fun and friendship once again, or do we hand the keys back to the Brewery and let the ownership of the pub pass out of the village for ever?
So of course you know what happened. And it has kept me insanely busy, organising new fire doors, upgrading the kitchen and generally trying to improve the place. No idea how long we’ll be in charge, but it’s fun while it’s lasting.
Also, I got sick. No, not Covid, but one of these super-colds that make you feel you’ve been lamped by a bear. (I gather its nickname is Novid…!) My partner got sick too. He’s still not entirely better many weeks later. And then I had my Christmas concerts to perform with my dear friend Barb Jungr, and then it was Christmas… So you can see that it has been a bit on the busy side!
But if I am honest…
… I have been in a state of blue funk ever since I read an article in the Guardian that said (and I paraphrase) that a survey of the country had shown that the vast majority of people don’t feel it is their responsibility to do anything to combat climate change – they believe that it’s government who should be sorting it.
So while you and I were saving our Christmas ribbon, recycling blister packs with Superdrug, putting on an extra jumper instead of whacking up the heating and making many many small but incremental changes to ensure that we tread more lightly on this glorious planet, most people can’t be bothered to check whether packaging is recyclable, or they’re trading their old moke for a nice big diesel car, eating salmon and wiping their bums with the softest Cushelle. If that isn’t enough to provoke despair.
And running the pub has been instructive. I’m working hard there to make it a little more carbon neutral, but I am surprised by how little my fabulous staff seemed to know about recycling and the use of plastics.
Now you know …
… why I titled this piece “despair”. We are hurtling every faster towards climate catastrophe and hardly anyone is doing anything about it. Have you seen the movie “Don’t Look Up”? It’s wonderful and, manages to be very funny in spite of the fact that it’s about a possible catastrophe. A very important movie, methinks. I saw it the other night and boy, did I identify with the Jennifer Lawrence character. I won’t tell you any more for fear of spoilers.
But I also watched “It’s A Wonderful Life” again. If you’ve never seen it, watch it immediately. It’s about a man called George Bailey who is “discouraged”– but who is made to see that the tiny actions and accidents of his life have made his town a better place. It’s about hope and decency and, when push comes to shove, doing the right thing in spite of all temptation to do otherwise.
So I am willing myself to soldier on like George Bailey in the hope that all of you are doing so too. If you haven’t read the pieces on salmon, avocado, or soft loo paper, please do. And pass it on. It’s all very well being righteous at home, but unless we really make the world aware that the cataclysm is around the corner, we really might as well eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow…
Meanwhile, after much thought, I am going to slightly change the blog. I simply haven’t got time to do the enormous amount of research for the kind of pieces I was writing – each piece took at least a week because I have to read the scientific papers VERY slowly in order to have even the slightest chance of understanding them. And I suspect people haven’t got the time to read them… so expect some different kind of stuff from now on.
But you can always expect two things…
Your Plastic Fact Of The Week
Although not obvious to the naked eye, small pieces of plastic debris deemed ‘‘microplastics’’ (particles less than 5 mm in diameter but larger than 1 micrometre) are the most abundant form of solid waste on Earth. (Source here)
A picture of the world’s most delightful (though annoyingly shouty) dog.
Here is Miss Piper taking part at the pub.
Shit You Don't Need 
You can cut that out now.
It’s your job to lift our spirits in such times. Leaving me crying with laughter at the Royal Northern College of Music kept me going for months.
Chin up dear.
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Oh, that was a GREAT night, my God, you were a FANTASTIC audience.
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Well done for surviving an amazingly hectic time. Piper is not unlike my shouty dog Pippin! Don’t seem to be able to post a picture…. oh well. Shes on my facebook!
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I’m sure she’s a delight and Piper would love to be able to shout at her.
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Spot-on, Dillie, as always. You are the voice of our consciences. Sadly, the indifference of people doesn’t surprise me, though from time to time it enrages me. When we left Germany in 1995 and returned to the UK after 25 years away, Michael and I were appalled by the lack of awareness in the country about recycluing, climate change etc. We did what we could locally, but even among friends who we thought were on our side we eventually got a label: “they’re nice people, but they’re a bit weird – lived a long time in Germany, you know.” And what did we do to deserve it? Separated out all our waste (plastic, paper, compost), bought bulk packs of things rather than lots of little packages, avoided triple-wrapped anything, re-used gift wrap, showered at the swimming pool, threw vegetable-washing water on the garden … How weird is all that?!?!?!
So, when the parents we had come back to help in their old age had all shuffled off this mortal coil, we decided (actually, Brexit decided it for us) to return to Germany for good. I’m not saying it’s perfect, but we feel much more at home here, separating our waste and taking things to the recycling centre, growing mushrooms in the cellar and veg in the garden, passing on clothes we no longer wear to the needy, NOT ordering anything from Amazon, buying lots of bulk goods in a non-packaged shop (you take along your own containers), not running a car (the neighbours, even her: “what?! you don’t have a car?! how do you survive?” – Easy, this city has fabulous public transport), continuing our membership (30 years and counting) of a car-sharing club for the odd occasion when we really do need a car, and enjoying the life we lead. When we visit the UK, we take the train.
We’re just amazed, as a childless couple, that people with kids are not more worried about all of this.
Keep ’em coming, Dillie. Somebody’s got to save the planet.
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OH Janet, you’re better than I am!
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Hi Dillie
An anagram of DESPAIR is PRAISED – and you should be. Keep buggering on, you are not alone. There are lots of good folk about doing their bit. Have faith in the youngsters, too. Your Coventry show in October was the tonic I needed and I will get to see you again as soon as I can
Sally
Ms S L Scarlett 07831 663653
On Thu, 17 Feb 2022 at 13:47, Shit You Don’t Need wrote:
> Dillie Keane posted: ” Well, that’s a depressing title, if there ever was > one. Let me explain. I realise I’ve persuaded all sorts of people to > sign up for this blog (THANKS SO MUCH!) and yet I have remained silent for > months on end. And it started so well! ” >
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Love the anagram! Thanks for the boosty post!
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No Idea how you fit it all in. I felt exhausted just reading it ! However, when at school the local priest came in and told us how despair was a sin and that the The Devil wanted us to despair and give up….
So I suppose we just need to plod on doing our bit, one starfish at a time.
By the way , we never had a priestly lecture on the evils of drink so you are superbly located for a pick you up !
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All the priests we knew liked a drink – including my beloved Jesuit uncle who would take two whiskies and no more. In fact, I have to say that all the priests I’ve known ranged from the pleasant to the humane, the kindly and the delightful.
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Thanks for all this, Dilly and well done to the two of you on keeping the pub going and doing any of the other shows, etc. We were at one recently and loved the crosser than ever numbers. Just back from an instructive ten days in Barbados (yes, I know – flying – but we’d both had Covid at 75 and 74 respectively with adored hubcap needing a couple of nights in a Red Ward with several refuseniks, despite all our jabs and caution. Anyway, there we found not only much safer Covid protocols and unquestioning compliance with absolutely everyone masked at all times,even when out walking or driving alone, but much climate change awareness and activity. Much, much more environmentally sane and compliant than Brits and much less whingey. Love Sue (25 years on LAMDA Board helping build its new theatre block, now an RSC Governor)
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That’s v interesting about Barbados being much more Covid-safe… and sane! Delighted to hear you’re an old LAMDA hand!
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Thank you, Ma’am, for yet another enjoyable/absorbing read.
‘Busy is better than bored’ 🙂
Our village pub is currently closed; tentative moves afoot to see if we can do anything, as a community, to get it re-opened. Early days, yet.
Very much enjoyed ‘Don’t Look Up’. Like the best satire, all too believable. (Cheap Flights, springs to mind?) Did you watch through to the end credits?
Hope you are both recovered from ‘Novid’, by now?
Thanks again
Regards
Mark
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Good luck with the pub. It’s a huge learn, not so much a curve as a series of bumps and jumps!
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👏👏👏👏👏😅😅😅😅 Right with you on the plastic mission and love reading your blog.
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Good to hear you’ll still be posting and no judgemental comments from here if it’s short and sweet (or rants and moans!). Thanks for all you do to keep up aware of the real horrors going on in the world… Jenny
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I too consider myself busy, but then look at your agenda in awe.
Anyway – just to say much appreciated all you do, I’m off to my second viewing of the show next week in Crewe (What the heck! How did you find that on the map!) Anyhoo, hope we are a worthy crowd. Just off to plaster my bum cheeks with a suitable salve after the toilet roll revelation
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I spent 8 months at Crewe rep in the early 1400s… Great fun it was too!
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Happy Salving!
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Hi Dillie ~ great to hear from you again. I have been an eco warrier since age 10 when I won the school prize for litter picker ~ going back to 1967! I was born vegetarian and at age 14 at school in geography we did world pollution and this covered noise, sewage, factories and population(often the elephant in the room). I took this seriously and have always recycled since an adult from 1980 and supported organic ~ it has been a huge up hill struggle. I was nicked named “the nutter” in the family ~ Dad thought it was funny as I ate a lot of nuts!! I purchase from local farmers and now get my cheese from The Ethical Dairy in Scotland once a month as they have found a way to let calves stay with their mothers ~ they were on Panorama this week https://www.theethicaldairy.co.uk/…/our-farm-and-how-it… I have been very dismayed that with all my letters over the years to governments and corporations, as I believe it is the manufacturers who actually have created most of the world pollution and damage and governments world over will not do laws to enforce water companies, factories, suppliers etc to avoid polluting rivers, seas and landmass. It is the Corporations / shareholders/ hedgefunds along with goverments officials who are making big money that have existed all my life going back to the fifties ~ it is they who have actually destroyed the world ~ yes consumers buy and use ~ but I think if the foundation of where all pollution comes from had been addressed by governments by laws and enforcement to corporations ~ this may not be as big an issue in the 21st century. I think the statistics would prove people using the items or having to live near are not the original culprits. I had a boyfriend doing urban engineering in 1974 and it was KNOWN then about sewage and landwaste polluting damage and if you read newspapers in the 19th Century they despaired with the stupidity of capitalists polluting and destroying the rivers and towns of the new industrial age and they said way back in 1870,1880 etc ~ this is going to kill us!! So now we are going back 150 years of KNOWING at Government and Corporation level. It is Huge what has been allowed to happen. The industrial age has been fantastic for most of us as our lives are clean and easy ~BUT this could still have been achieved by making sure from square one when the Victorians who cared were shouting out ~ do not pollute!! Greed by the few have caused this world to be a cess pit and just horrendous to humans, animals, seas and land ~ it is heart breaking but I also have always agreed that as an individual you do your best and keep that standard of care regardless. Hope is essential and we must not allow G7, Davos etc (in other words the clubs of the billionaries) to keep telling US we are the problem ….we are the victims as much as the land and sea and animals are, because of BIG money just ignoring what was known way back 150 yrs ago. It is not us to feel The Guilt but those who in power knowingly kept polluting for decades or abusing cheap labour and destroying forrests etc. Much love and hope all who read this have a good day.
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Thanks for taking the time to write such a long and interesting post. Keep up the good work…
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Thanks Dillie. So lovely to hear from you again. It’s been so long I have forgotten the name of your adorable and obviously highly intelligent dog. I try and recycle everything possible. My sin to confess is that we are enjoying the sunshine in Madeira but being such a small island they had such a tough time last year. Hope you are coming to Sheffield sometime soon.
Pippa Field
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Piper is my dog’s name… we did Sheffield in the autumn, so I’m sorry to say you’ve missed this one. Another time!
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Your two film suggestions are tremendous ~ I would also throw “Sew on a sequin” into the mix as a cheerer~upper song. There are so many things to despair about in the UK at the moment – but every little bit of encouragement does help and please rest assured that your blogs do help. (By the way my parents ran a pub and I really do not know how you manage it along with writing world class shows.) Keep up the good work ~ short blogs are fine with me. Mike.
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Thanks Mike, I am very proud of SEW ON A SEQUIN, it’s what I play on the piano when I’m at my lowest. Expect another blog soon. xx
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From Dilly. I would enjoy a drink with her! Xx
Sent from my iPhone
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Cheers Dilly, you are amazing doing all you do, so don’t feel guilty about not doing so much on the blog. Sorry to hear your sad news and that you’d both been ill.
It would be lovely if everyone took more responsibility but that won’t make the rest of us give up anytime soon.
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Thanks Jan!
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Thanks to reading about it in your blog I had delivered a large box of ‘Who Gives a Crap’ toilet paper.
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AndI bet it lasted longer than the other rubbish loo rolls!
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Don’t be overdoing it Dillie. Hope your dear partner feels better soon.
My friend and I seen you in New Brighton two weeks ago. Of course the biggest cheer of the night was for Dogging 😂. Loved Adele’s song too x
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My God, that was an absolutely MARVELLOUS night, the audience was electric! Best gig of the tour so far, though Newcastle comes close. I shan’t forget New Brighton EVER!!!
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Thanks for your post, Dillie. The work you have put into these has appreciated. And sorry to hear about Frank.
As a bit of a silver lining, I wonder if your new venture as landlady gives you more chance to nudge people across to your way of thinking. You will get all sorts of people who wouldn’t read the blog in conversation with you. The problem with the Internet is breaking out of the bubble of people who already agree with you.
And Miss Piper looks like just the sort of dog for mischief. Give her a little stroke from me please!
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Yes, that is one of the problems, preaching to the converted. I am quite careful with people who come into the pub, they have after all come to relax and shake off their cares, but when we sell our crisps I do tell people that the bags are compostable, and I bang on a bit about food waste.
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Thank you for taking the time to blog. It is very true that if you want something done ask a busy woman. Much appreciated by 72 year old trying hard to be responsible and save the human race (haha)
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Ah, we do what we can!
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Aha!
Dilly returns! So glad to read another insightful piece and, as always the comments from other readers are thought provoking.
Plastic is not fantastic,
In fact, it’s fair to say
That I’m unenthusiastic
In using it each day.
Let’s hope the tide is turning
And common sense does conquer
I do not need my apples wrapped
It’s absolutely bonkers.
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A little verse to gladden the heart – thanks so much!
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Welcome back, Dilly. You have managed to warm the cockles of my heart while not increasing my carbon footprint, and reinforced my determination to be more mindful. After all, every decision we make is an ethical one. We live on a10 acre property in the sublime Adelaide Hills (South Australia), free of pesticides. managing our own water supply and sewerage, recyling all glass, cardboard and plastic containers, growing our own fruit and veggies,and generally trying to live a sustainable life within our capabilities. Brian, my dear old husband is 83, and I have defied death (golden staph septacaemia in 2019) to enjoy 87+years. We both drive but have sold our second car, and while my husband tills the soil, manages the water, refills the dams from our saved water, does the fencing, and has taken over the gardening, I follow my own interests in horse welfare, classical music, and advocating for people who are receiving care and support at home or in a dentention centre (aged “care” “home”). This involves sitting on Boards (not planks, although there are some…….), writing submissions to government, researching policies and also speaking as Ambassador for Flinders University’s Centre for Research, the Caring Futures Institute for which I also blog. So I am in awe of your commitment and aware of your dilemna. Just speak from your wonderful heart, enlivened by your amazing humour.
My dear friend Vickie Mac and I are hoping that you return to Adelaide before I cark it – no pressure! Much love, Judith
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I’m impressed and SO encouraged by this lovely reply, thank you so much. I hope to return to Oz myself… I have a godson there who’s children I have never met…
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You are ALWAYS Worth making time to read and thank you for your E- Christmas card. Much love Sue. X
Sent from my iPhone
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Love right back! xxxx
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Dilly, I totally get your emotions, but don’t give up, not that I can imagine that you would! I was totally cheered at your Manchester show last November, a gang of us came and we had a ball – thank you.
On the climate stuff I know how frustrating it is when so many people don’t seem to give a dam. But I do know that many others do and you know that too.
I run holiday apartments in Italy and spend most of my spare time trying to educate, push, entice (and every other bloody way) to get my industry to listen and take action.
My latest initiative launched yesterday – http://www.greenvrevents.com – encouraging the many conferences in my sector – about 50 – to take action. They are the gatekeepers to the rest of the community. Where they go others will follow!
I wonder who are your gatekeepers are Dilly? – maybe focus on them.
BTW love Miss Piper
ciao
Bob
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Golly, I wish I knew what you mean by “gatekeepers”… Thanks for the nice reply.
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Love your blog, Dillie, and all the comments people leave. Loved your latest show too. Saw it in Yeovil. Your shows always make me laugh and cry. Good luck with the pub , shows etc.
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Thanks Alison!
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Dearest Dillie ,
You are not on your own, really you’re not. I think a lot of us feel the same, it’s easy to feel powerless in the face of any enormous issue. It can feel a bit limited just doing your little bit, but it all helps, it really does. But in the eternal battle that is light against the darkness, so there are thousands of brilliant people out there globally coming up with amazing products and inventions to help the situation.
I try to read the inspirational stuff like the ‘Positive News’ It was a news paper sent to your door with only positive news in it. Now it’s online, but it’s fabulous, so many positive articles that would never get the light of day in our normal bad news sells papers world. Also online on social media, there’s a lot of great organisations I follow eco. mady , it highlights young inventors from across the globe, who are coming up with brilliant idea and making them happpen. Like a new replacement for plastic made from veg waste, and window panels that produce electricity from sunlight, while looking like stain glass from the inside. Machines that take water from the air for villages without a water supply. And many many more. It gives you hope for the future and the brilliance of the next generation.
I’m so sorry to hear you and your partner have not been well. I do hope you both feel much better very soon. I understand the added pressure from the fall out of covid. My 84 year old mother went blind over lockdown, and our beloved NHS has no idea why. This has bought many new challenges to both our lives, mum & I , but we muddle on as you do, not as much fun as running a pub, but with the same crazy learning curve I’m sure !!!
One thing I do believe, is that the planet as a whole will survive, even if we don’t , and let us be honest we don’t deserve too. The planet has survived all sorts of global catastrophes, meteors and ice ages. The planet has time on its side and will recover We will not however, but maybe that’s just as it should be. Doesn’t mean we should stop trying, but if the money men win in the end, I am confident that the natural world will eventually find its way through what we have done to it, and come back stronger without us. In the mean time, to help feel better , investigate the inspirational stuff and print some of that. It’s mind blowing what people are up too.
Huge love
Shirl
Of Southbank fame 😉
>
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Shirl of Southbank Fame, how lovely to hear from you. As always, you are so supportive! xxxx
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Love your positive emails with positive news. Thanks Shirl.
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Oh, Dillie. I do know how you feel. Sometimes it all seems so futile. And it feels worst when you’ve picked up the battered banner and started leading from the front, then realised you are wading through blood and mud and the generals are too busy quaffing cheese and wine to care.
I can tell you of BP and Shell’s phenomenal share payouts when heating bills are going up. I can tell you of the £billions the UK banks have invested into oil exploration this past year. But that’s how it’s always been so there’s no need to feel despair because…
… if you are making a difference, just you and nobody else, then the world is in a better place than it was.
One of your other respondents referred to the starfish story: how when there are millions of starfish stranded on the beach and you are throwing them back in one at a time, someone will say “How can your tiny contribution possibly make any difference?” Then as you throw one more starfish back in the sea you say “It does to that one”.
Keep saving those starfish, one plastic container at a time.
The world was totally fucked. It is now a bit less fucked because of people like you and me and Karen Wallwork and your other followers. It is that growing less fuckedness that will save the world from the self-serving bastards. Sadly, the self-serving bastards will survive too, but thus it has ever been.
Sadly, Dillie, you have done something foolish. You have committed yourself. You have said you will save the world. And we are following you, walking alongside you and we are all in this together. But because you are famous, a celebrity and talented, your actions matter far more than those of us little people. You are an influencer. Not like those brainless wazzocks that sell make-up and convince girls to starve themselves, but someone who matters to people who think and care about the world. You know, Radio 4 listeners.
Having made this brave statement, you have to follow through. We need you. We need funny, intelligent, popular, talented, famous and downright nice people like you to show the way. Please don’t leave it to the feckin’ captains of industry (self-serving proud bastards) and politicians (self-serving lying bastards) to set the standards for us to follow. Dammit, we could not get down that feckin’ low without doing our backs in.
Keep going on the path you are on in a straight line. That’s all you have to do. We’ll be following, doing what you are doing and using you as our beacon of hope that what we are doing is worthwhile. Because while people like you say you are saving the world – people with an audience of intelligent people – we are validated and motivated to do the same.
In short, I’m sorry, old girl. You’ve made your values clear. You have to live up to them or let us all down. Such is the price of fame.
But do tell us where your pub is so we can (a) turn up and hero-worship you, (b) put some money in your till. 😉
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Oh don’t worry, I am still following through in my own life as much as I can, though I’m a pragmatist and realise that we can’t all be saintly all the time!
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I’m with you! Don’t despair 🙏 I live on the beautiful Balearic isle I’d Menorca and organise beach cleans and educational talks to, 🤔 educate the masses. Surprising what a few little changes by the majority can do.
Keep up the good work and chins up girlie 💕
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Ah, but it’s getting the majority to change that’s the difficult thing. The majority want someone else to do the changing, or to legislate for change.
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Hello Dillie Just to say all your thoughts and information are greatly appreciated. If they arrive shorter in future, so be it. They will still be inspiring and thought-provoking. {{{{{ hugs }}}}} Keep safe, keep well, and keep smiling :)Dena
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Thanks, Dena!
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I don’t trust the current government to wipe their own bottoms effectively, why on earth would I consider them to be capable of dealing with climate change? I shall continue to be inspired by your ramblings to try and do my own little bit for the planet, however small it’s got to be better than doing nothing or assuming that ‘someone else’ will always deal with it. In the meantime I will carry on waiting patiently for you to return to Basingstoke since blasted Eunice foiled my plans for a night out with the girls on Friday. Still, we’ve waited since March 2020, another few months won’t hurt!
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No, I don’t trust the government either. Bunch of self-serving, short-sighted twats. Ah well. I shall return to Basingstoke! Thanks for the nice comment. xx
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Totally with you there ! My neighbour infuriates me constantly with his “ couldn’t care less what I put in it “ attitude to his recycling bins ! I’ve now given up having a polite word or leaving him friendly notes in favour of going through all his receptacles myself to make sure his “ crap” ( literally , as he has a large dog and I’ve known him throw the odd poo bag on too !🤬) isn’t contaminating the load that othered of us have carefully sorted and rinsed ! Couldn’t care less what he thinks about me ! Because he’s a total cunt ! ( Christmas included!) xxx
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Gosh, that’s dispiriting. But good on you for going through his trash. I have to do it for my partner because he simply doesn’t understand which plastics are recyclable and he just looks befuddled when I remove something – but it’s not really because he doesn’t care less, he is just not terribly practical and doesn’t get the difference between certain plastics. We do need government to legislate and we need to start fining people for poor trash disposal. Ah well. Onward and, well, if not upward, at least onward and along, rather than onward and downward. xx
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My wife and I have lived all over England and Wales (getting on my bike and chasing work – turned out we should have stayed where we were – we’d have been better off – but that’s another story) so have seen what happens and the variation.
Every local authority has different rules and different waste and recycling containers. And they do not tell you when you start paying council tax what the rules are. At the dump the rules in England and Wales are even more different (they try much hard in Wales to help you recycle).
Rather than fining people for not knowing what to do, how about making it easy?
In Taunton the recycling lorry is different to everywhere else we’ve lived. It has loads of bins and boxes down the side. You put all your rubbish in black bags, biodegradable in a brown box and all potential recycling into a green bin. They then sort your recycling at the roadside. Any rubbish in the recycling they throw in their own bin. So residents do not need to do any sorting at all, cannot get it wrong, and none of this “We threw the lorry load away because of a dirty yoghurt pot” bollocks, and I say it’s bollocks because it just means they were not going to recycle it anyway.
Where we live now, if the bin men are running late they put all the black bags, and the green bins and the blue bottle bins into the bin lorry. So all that sorted, washed, organised recycling you’ve carefully processed was a total waste of time. THAT is what should be illegal. Local authorities charge us a lot of money to do this recycling, if they are sabotaging it then the councillors and senior managers should be prosecuted.
When they started saying our plastic is polluting the Pacific, I said it was bollocks because that’s the other side of the planet. They we eventually learned our recycling – not our waste – gets sent round the world for processing but then gets dumped in the sea because it is cheaper. It is the responsibility of the local authorities who issue these contracts to check they are getting what they (which actually means us) pay for. If our recycling is being dumped in the Pacific, under contracts from the council, then it is the councillors who should be shamed and senior managers sacked for not doing their jobs.
This is why so many people resent dealing with the recycling: because so many local authorities don’t follow through on our efforts.
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Thanks so much for such a detailed and interesting reply. Of course recycling and the general issue of waste is an absolute lottery and councils are much to blame. However, I disagree with you about individual responsibility in part, however, because I see personal carelessness at every turn. Why do people still buy bottled water in plastic bottles, for instane? Yes, they should be banned, but there’s nothing like sales grinding to a halt for companies to rethink. It’s so easy to own a permanent water bottle and fill it from the tap. That’s just one example and there are so many others. There’s a mindset which is simply divorced from the problem. Chatting to a dear friend – by no means stupid – about recipes the other day, she told me she used those Knorr stock pots a lot. I asked her why she would do that when the cubes are just as easy to use and don’t come in plastic pots. She said they melted better, to which I replied that the difference was slight, the cubes just need a stir or two after you’ve dropped them in your stew (or whatever) and she looked slightly surprised, and said, “To be honest, I’ve never thought about it.” So I do think personal responsibility comes into it as well. And of course, we should be lobbying our councils for information and for change and I don’t do enough of that myself. Ah well, we all soldier on.
Meanwhile welcome to the blog, hope you find something to inspire you! And thanks again for taking the trouble to write at such length. xx
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Having seen you in Manchester last year and just about to welcome you to Lancaster, just so grateful you’ve found time to tour – thank you for the laughter!
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That’s lovely, Liz, thanks so much!
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Totally agree Dillie, and with Janet who came from Germany. We too have friends in Germany and visited them in the early 2000s, we came back feeling like cavemen!! They are so far ahead of us in their approach to the earth and how to best utilise our natural resources.
I’ve seen your show three times on this your (Stoke last year and Crewe and Shrewsbury this year), plus countless times over the last 25 years. Introduced some friends to you at the Shrewsbury show who absolutely loved it, not laughed so much in ages.
Keep up the great work Dillie, we love you
Celia xx
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Thanks Celia, what a lovely message.
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At last got round to looking up links in your latest email blog, and find to get to eg Salmon, I found myself on WordPress (or whatever it’s called) & then need an account &I start this & find they want me to set up a domain whatever that is. Pleas Dillie can I just click on link on your website – could not find Salmon. avocados etc there.
Thanks Dillie. We mustn’t despair even as we lurch into even more disasters but keep speaking up & doing our bit
Heather Williams heatherwilliams42@gmail.com
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Sorry for long delay in replying, I will try to fix that issue now. Thanks for highlighting it, most irritating. I hope it will be fixed in an hour or so. Best wishes, dillie.
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Just returned from your concert in Malvern, I took my Daughter in Law, who deserved a break from her Nursing Degree.
Brilliant evening I thought you were even better than in Bath, I went to that one with my Step-Daughter, she lives there and I’m afraid eats crushed Avocado.
Which just leaves my own Daughter, who lives in Germany, having run off with a German, Screamo Punk Rocker, whom she met when he was on tour in Worcester. So I bet you can guess which song always make me cry with laughter.
Had a depressing day, visiting my once beautiful, 93 year old, demented, Mother, this evening was just the tonic I needed.
I’m trying to do my bit for the environment but know, I need to try harder. x
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I don’t disapprove of avocados, I just think they should be for a very occasional treat and from somewhere where you’re sure people aren’t getting murdered or forced out of their homes because of the terrible practices of avocado farmers. So I never eat South American or Mexican avos. Sorry to hear about your Mum, how sad. xx
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“..that the vast majority of people don’t feel it is their responsibility to do anything to combat climate change – they believe that it’s government who should be sorting it.” Quite right, as ever. This is Them/They once more, isn’t it. ‘They should do something about it.’ One of the toughest arguments to win, especially after a pint (and well done, there, Dillie) is the government has NO MONEY. It’s OUR money. Yours, mine and everybody else’s who pays taxes. Very occasionally a mindset can get turned around and then the pennies drop in quick succession about how the Government is not our master but our joint responsibility, and indeed very much responsible to us than we had ever understood before. So, in short, yes .. let’s hold each other accountable if necessary, when a little external motivation helps, but above all let’s make ourselves responsible for one voluntary self-imposed action after another that makes US accountable individually. I’m sitting here more exhausted than I need be because to offset my carbon footprint, having driven to The Apex in Bury St Edmunds last night (May6th 2022) – and boy was that worth it – I’ve just walked the 35 mins into and back from Norwich city centre in pursuit of my morning task. Cheers, Dillie.
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Thanks Colin, what a heartening reply!
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