Save a Bit More of the World

An astonishing bit of news today. Most of the major mobile phone manufacturers have agreed to adopt a standard charger (sounds a bit Medieval and horsey, but you know what I mean). They must have read my earlier post about refilling printer cartridges.

We have a bag full of chargers for old phones, and I'm sure you have too. This move will eliminate the need for all that plastic rubbish.

The next thing I want to see happening, is buildings wired with low-voltage power outlets, so that I don't have to have a transformer-brick for every laptop, low-energy lamp, and all the other rubbish we have to have to live these days.

W Bankers

I've been a good boy all week, working hard and making progress with my current JFH (Job From Hell). So I thought I'd give myself the afternoon off. This involved buying a copy of the Grauniad, and retiring to the James Joyce pub to read it, accompanied by several cups of tea (that's not how you spell 'Murphy's', Keefie, and those glass cups are damn big - ed).

I wish I hadn't. Today's Grauniad is replete with stories of global economic meltdown, largely prompted by the firesale of HBOS (Halifax/Bank Of Scotland) to LloydsTSB and the 'rescue' of Lehman Bros in the US.

I'm a simple geezer, financially. I tend to go along with the idea that if you don't have cash money to pay for something then that means you cannot afford it, and it's better to wait until you can. Everybugger else in the 'developed' world seems to think otherwise, and get themselves into all kinds of shit with credit cards, personal loans and whopping great mortgages. Hell, even I could spot the problem with giving people a 125% mortgage: instant, massive, negative equity.

So, not content with Dubya wasting 5 TRILLION DOLLARS on a pointless and unwinnable war in Iraq, we now face the complete and utter meltdown of the western financial scam system.

Woe is you.

On a lighter note, there's a brilliant story about a crap golfer.