Thread: Saving the Planet

Environment Secretary Ruth Kelly has announced plans to offer free travel advice to encourage us to walk, cycle or take the bus and cut down on "greenhouse emissions". At a cost of "only" £10 million, 92,000 people are being counselled on how to reduce their car use by "up to" 14 per cent.

Richard Littlejohn rode shotgun on one pilot scheme.



Good morning, madam. I'm from the council.

Ruth Kelly has sent me along to advise you on your personal travel plans. May I suggest leaving your gas-guzzling Suzuki jeep at home and taking the bus on the school run instead.

What's that you say? You've got three children under 15 and they all go to different schools?

No problem, we're here to help.

Have you considered one of those bicycles that the Goodies used to ride on television?

You can get three up and Halford's will sell you a trailer to go on the back, made out of recycled toenails from Afghanistan, which comes with the Greenpeace seal of approval, yours for only £999.99 plus VAT.

Don't worry if you can't ride a bike, we can offer full training, in 23 different languages, including scribble.

In certain circumstances we are able to provide a grant to encourage you to shift from carbon-hungry modes of transport to a more ecologically friendly lifestyle.

You don't happen to be an asylum seeker, do you? Pity.

Member of an ethnic minority?

Sorry, madam, white English doesn't count, I'm afraid, ha, ha, not many of us left, if you know what I mean, but don't quote me, more than my job's worth.

No room on the form for it, anyway.

You're not a lesbian, are you? No, please don't be offended, not that there's any reason why you should be offended, nothing wrong with it in this day and age, I might even give it a go myself if I was a woman.

I should have realised, you having three kids and all that, but these days you never know what with UVF or whatever they call it.

Anyway, best not to go there, you can't be sure who's listening.

Apparently they've got these satellites what can see from outer space whether you've got a gazebo - no, that's not the word - you know, conservative thingy on the back of your house, so you have to pay more council tax and this bloke at the Town Hall said they can hear every word you say, even through the loft insulation they insist on now.

All I'm saying, like, is that if you was a sexually diverse person then we could get you 50 per cent off the price of your next tandem.

Same goes for community, we have to call them now.

You're not one of them, are you?

'Course not, otherwise you'd have a Toyota Land Cruiser, running on red diesel, not a Suzuki hairdresser's job, plus a horse and cart, which also qualifies under the ozone-reduction scheme.

Transgendered? Me, neither. Not a clue.

There's a box for it, though.

Sorry, this isn't getting us anywhere, well not you anyway, nor your kids to school.

I suggest you take the number 69 from the bottom of Nelson Mandela Way, that's about 20 minutes' walk from here with a fair wind.

It goes straight past the nursery, you can drop off your youngest.

That runs every two hours on the quarter hour, unless there's a strike, which there usually is, though not as often as on the Tube.

Then take the W9 Shoppa Hoppa, pikeys, sorry, members of the travelling don't mind standing, do you?

'Cos they've taken out all the seats to get more people in and meet the Department's targets on optimum occupancy in line with the European standard agreed at Limoges last Tuesday and to help them get wheelchairs on, not that you ever get anyone in a wheelchair on a bus, they all get minicabs paid for by the council.

Change at the Steve Biko shopping precinct on to the number 27, which will get to the front gate of your daughter's school by about lunchtime, it's cottage pie Tuesdays, or vegetarian alternative, which I wouldn't advise frankly, tastes like carpet underlay my Kylie says.

Then your eldest can catch the bendy bus to the Desmond Tutu Comprehensive and should be there in time for the going home bell. How much is all this going to cost, I can hear you saying.

Well, a single journey is £4, unless you buy one of Mayor Livingstone's Lobster Cards, if you don't mind handing over your e-mail address, your blood group and your mother's maiden name, why they want to know all that for a bus pass is beyond me.

And there's Brown talking about cutting down on snooping.

He's having a laugh.

But the good news is that your eldest won't have to pay anything because no one does on those bendy buses, ever since they did away with conductors, though I'd get him a stab vest just in case, to be on the safe side.

Take no notice of the scraping sound, that'll be a pedestrian being dragged along underneath, or else a cyclist, bloody nuisance if you ask me, with any luck it will be Boris Wossname or that Call Me Dave bloke with the windmill.

Now, I know what you're going to say: how are you supposed to do your grocery shopping, since all the local shops have been turned into Carphone Warehouses or Starbucks, or places what only sell fireworks, and the nearest Tesco is five miles away, off the ring road at the back of the Keir Hardie industrial estate?

You could always walk.

That would be a great way of offsetting your carbon footprint and getting fit, not that I'm implying, madam, and think of how much you'd be saving in petrol.

I don't know how that Gordon Brown gets away with it, daylight robbery if you ask me.

Just think of all the polar bears what's being saved from dying of ozones, though.

How did I get into this line of work?

Since you ask, I used to be a black cab driver until Red Ken ripped up the Knowledge and started fast-tracking immigrants into the trade and flooding the streets with bloody rickshaws.

Soho looks like downtown Kowloon these days, there's no money in it, not even to the airport, that's always assuming you can get a fare back to Ilford.

And then there's the bus lanes and the bloody traffic lights which only change on to green for about five seconds.

The congestion charge was supposed to help but from where I'm sitting it's only made things ten times worse and now he wants to charge 25 quid a day for SUVs, which is another reason, madam, for leaving the Suzuki at home.

So I sees this "green personal transport co-ordinator" being advertised in the Walthamstow Guardian and I think with my 30 years of experience I'll give it a go.

Be a fool not to, actually, at 40 grand a year, plus index-linked pension and London weighting, it's more than I used to clear at the cab game and the hours are better, no more late nights or drunks throwing up all over the upholstery.

I had that Al Gore in the back of my cab once. . .

Pathetic.

Thanks.

I was referring to the actual article, the one where Richard Littlejohn uses the excuse of covering a new scheme to unload every single bigoted and misinformed remark he can - no matter how tenuously connected to the actual subject.

I do wish you'd put things in quotes though.

Extremely badly written, I'm surprised even the Daily Mail published it. Must have been a slow gossip day.

Originally Posted by Begbie

Extremely badly written, I'm surprised even the Daily Mail published it

To be fair they did have an accompanying cartoon picture (graphically representing the sheer terror at such an insidious plan - which probably saves half the readership the hassle of actually reading it in the first place).

I can't believe that bloke is the highest paid journo in the UK.

Originally Posted by sabang

I can't believe that bloke is the highest paid journo in the UK.

Lucrative business apparently, this pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Originally Posted by AntRobertson

I was referring to the actual article, the one where Richard Littlejohn uses the excuse of covering a new scheme to unload every single bigoted and misinformed remark he can - no matter how tenuously connected to the actual subject.

Well, the excuse for him is that he is very well paid for such drivel.

What's your excuse for posting it CO?

Come on guys- some of it was funny.

Satire is a literary genre, chiefly literary and dramatic, in which human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods, sometimes with an intent to bring about improvement.

Transgendered? Me, neither. Not a clue.

There's a box for it, though

You can get three up and Halford's will sell you a trailer to go on the back, made out of recycled toenails from Afghanistan, which comes with the Greenpeace seal of approval, yours for only £999.99 plus VAT

Funny stuff.

Some people liked it. I agree it was pretty badly written, though.