Foo-go

In a similar vein to the post about Innocent drinks, there’s a new sandwich company now called Foo-Go which has an interesting attitude. All their packaging is biodegradable, and should have completely dissolved within 14 weeks of going into a landfill. They seem to get the ingredients for the sandwiches from good and reputable companies too, which is always a good thing. But it’s the “green”ness of their packaging I find interesting, and it makes me wonder why more isn’t done by other companies to do the same. Sandwiches are a large part of the income for supermarkets and food halls – you only need to look on the shelves of an M&S food court to prove it – yet the huge majority of the packaging is still either entirely plastic (and thus a bugger in landfills etc.) or in a small number of examples, a card box with a plastic window. The Foo-Go boxes are card, and also come scored with fold lines to compress the empty box flat. The “plastic” see-through window is made from corn starch, and thus degrades easily.

It’s an interesting development, and I for one would like to see more companies following their lead. No matter how much the government whittles on about how recycling is important and everyone should do it, there are still a lot of local councils (Manchester among them) who do close to fuck-all in this regard. However, if the packaging itself can be made to be recyclable or biodegradeable in the way that Foo-Go do, then it seems it would be a better answer.

Innocent Drinks

I have to say, I love the drinks made by Innocent. But I also love the stuff on their labels, which may sound slightly bizarre unless you already know of Innocent. This one seemed to be a perfect case in point, particularly apt considering I was heading for Reading at the time…

We like reading. That’s why we write stuff on our bottles and we bang on about all of the fresh and pure fruit in our drinks all of the time, because we want you to read good things and drink good things and to have healthy eyes so you can read more. As we’re quite into all of this reading stuff, we thought it would be a good idea to have a library, but we didn’t have enough money to build one. So we’ve put one on our website – it contains a few of our favourite books, and you can borrow them if you want. As long as you’re quiet.

How cool is that? Every variety of drink has something different written on it, and they’re all well worth reading. The fact that the drinks actually are healthy is a beneficial side-point, but it’s the attitude of their stuff that I really like.

Charity Work

It’s taken some time before I put up some shots from the work I’ve been doing recently for a local charity – but somehow today seemed like the right time, particularly following on from the gripe about Children In Need.

I’m only putting up three photos so far, and I’ll see how I feel about putting up any more. I still need to find out how the client feels about some of the shots, and there are some edits and crops that need to be worked on more. Also, I’ll be out next week doing some more, I think – it’s been odd, I’ve already done a fair amount of work with this assignment, yet I don’t actually feel it’s enough yet.

Anyway, I’ll be interested to know any thoughts/responses to these three…

©Lyle 2004.

Children in Need

Oh dear sweet Jesus Christ on a warped pine zimmer-frame, it’s that time of year again. Not content with the various “grand” *cough* switch-ons of Christmas lights, it’s also Children In Need night on the BBC. It’s not that I’m uncharitable (OK, so that’s part of it) but mainly I just find I really don’t like being set-upon by a bunch of people dressed up in stupid outfits “for charity”.

I don’t have a particular problem with giving money to charities, or doing work where they’re involved – as is obvious from some of the stuff I’ve been doing recently. I just don’t like being pushed into donating, to be guilt-tripped into doing it “because everyone else is”. Frankly, fuck a whole heap of that. I prefer to choose the charity I donate to – not have it forced upon me.

I feel the same when it comes to things like Comic Relief and so on too. (And, in a slightly different way, the Festering Season™ and Valentine’s Day too) I’m not a fan of doing anything just because everyone else is, and with the additional peer pressure and guilt-trips in it. But today the pubs will be filled with roaming collectors (and more than a few who say they’re collecting, but aren’t really) as will the train station.

Still, it gives me an excuse to ignore people, so it’s not all bad I suppose…

Snowfall

Yes, the UK had it’s first snowfall of winter yesterday. Thankfully around here it didn’t settle at all, although it did apparently hit -3°C last night, and the roads have certainly been dodgy and icy.

Personally, I find the sensation of sliding downhill in a bus to be fairly interesting, albeit with an undertone of “Oh, Shit!”

First Aid

I’ve studiously avoided mentioning the Band Aid 20 single until I heard it for myself (or, in this case, saw the video premiere on BBC1) but now the gloves are off.

Fuck me dead, what a pile of wank. The line-up of performers is – in theory at least – not too bad, although it’s definitely not a patch on the original line-up. But it sounds so wanky. The original had some power and passion in it, this one is totally mild, middle-of-the-road, and to be blunt, fucking dross. Other people have commented on it at far greater length, but I must admit that I’m looking forward most to seeing what Mike TD has to say about it…

Snow

It’s fucking snowing. Oh joy.