Monday 28 March 2011

Damn! I missed it!

Apparently it was Earth Hour yesterday at 8.30 pm. Now, being me, I had all the usual lights (and probably a couple of television sets or computers, fridge, freezer etc) turned on at the time. I wouldn't have turned them all off anyway, but as I didn't know that the Greenies wanted me to turn them all off, I was deprived of the extra pleasure of not doing so.

In other news, George Moonbat would appear to be amiably mad:

"I’m lucky enough to have half an acre of land. In normal circumstances that’s more than enough to provide all the food we need. But unfortunately it was a devastating winter and wiped out all my kale, broccoli, winter salads and slightly optimistic fruit like kiwi and figs and Chilean guavas and frost-tolerant oranges and lemons. So things aren’t looking too good."

An Englishman reckons it serves him right for gambling on global warming (tee hee) but if normal human beings were trying to be self-sufficient in the UK (and yes, it is possible on half an acre, although it's very labour intensive), would they not go for stuff like potatoes, carrots, onions, apples and maybe a few chickens or even a pig? The only vegetable on that list that comes even close is broccoli (Her Indoors grows some broccoli in our back garden, if memory serves).

16 comments:

Bill Quango MP said...

Well I sat in the dark in front of the laptop yesterday. No lights on anywhere. Doing accounts.

I even had sunglasses on.
But this was really to do with a migraine.

Span Ows said...

And...cabbages, chard, turnips parsnips etc.

Also pears, berries.

Probably not exotic enough for Moonbat.

JuliaM said...

That's what happens when you try to maintain Waitrose tastes on an ASDA resource budget... ;)

Bayard said...

Half an acre? I knew an old boy whose garden must have been 500m2 tops and his proud boast was that he'd never bought a vegetable in his life. Mind you he wasn't a veggie...

Rob said...

I insist that Moonbat sticks to his principles of localism and self-sufficiency and starves himself to death.

BTW "lucky enough to own..." could so easily read "wealthy enough to own". I say we confiscate 90% of his land in the name of equality.

Mark Wadsworth said...

BQ, hope you're better now.

JM, ...in a globally cooling world.

SO, yeah, turnips are a cross between potatoes and carrots which I already mentioned. I don't have a clue what 'chards' are, let alone 'Chilean guavas'. They might be cuddly animals for all I know.

B, maybe 500 sq yds is enough for one person who doesn't eat veg.

R, half an acre of Welsh farmland is very modest, actually. It'll be the house (i.e. the fact that it has planning permission) that might be worth something.

Span Ows said...

Chards are well known once in the South West, very good for you..now relegated to cattle fodder if at all.

Not sure re the the guavas: the ones I know (and grew, and ate in Venezuela) wouldn't grow in Chile or chilly so George will have to tell you what he means!

Bayard said...

My mum used to feed us "chard". I reckoned they were spinach stalks myself. Didn't taste of anything that I can remember.

James Higham said...

Cabbage patch - that's the way to go.

Mark Wadsworth said...

SO & B, having Googled 'chards' and 'images' I think I know what they are, but they are rubbish compared to good old fashioned tatties, carrots or onions.

JH, cabbage, that's a fine, healthy British veg. We just need to learn to steam it, not boil it.

Derek said...

Kail is just a fancy name for "big tough cabbage with curly leaves". Takes more cooking than ordinary cabbage but, boy, is it hardy! Was formerly used in Scotland to make the late, unlamented kail brose.

So he actually does have a cabbage patch.

Robin Smith said...

Aha so Monbiot is a home-owner-ist.

I wondered why he refuses to respond to me when I ask him to think about how private property in land is compelling all the slaves to burn everything they can lay their hands on and not give a monkeys about the climate. Forget about denying cc on me, it is irrelevant for this point.

I'm still trying to find out how much land assets Mr Richard Murphy owns. Its my belief he wont go near LVT because he would fired as a huge tax evading hypocrite and he know it! Id id find out he has large assets in accounting companies he has worked for. They usually invest in land cos they are not stupid. So...

AntiCitizenOne said...

He might even build a greenhouse on the exit to his heating vent...

As we know CO2 is plant-food, not pollution.

AntiCitizenOne said...

It was Human Achievement Hour here.

http://cei.org/hah2011

Celebrated with an hour of Power!

850Watts of over-clocked, water-cooled, Computer games. Don't ask what it cost.

dearieme said...

Look up Swiss Chard: as well as being edible, it is quite beautiful when the sun shines on it. So he may well be bonkers, but at least he's a bonkers aesthete.

Anonymous said...

Presumably she is Her Outdoors when she's gardening.