This one involves a woman in South Africa, who’s driving around town with a list of her husband’s infidelities attached to the car.

Apparently it’s an effort to get him to pay the maintenance he owes her.

It reminded me of the billboard poster from a couple of years ago, put up by a jilted wife keen to blow her husband’s cover in the most public way possible.

It was simple, but brilliantly worded:

Dear Steven

Do I have your attention now?

I know all about her, you dirty, sneaky, immoral, unfaithful, poorly-endowed slimeball. Everything’s caught on tape.

Your (soon-to-be-ex) Wife

Emily

p.s. I paid for this billboard from OUR joint bank account

Pictures of unfaithful, unfortunate Steven’s car getting graffitied with ‘HOPE SHE WAS WORTH IT’ were part of the same campaign of humiliation.

Of course, it was all too good to be true – it turned out to be a publicity stunt for a new reality TV show.

But brilliant nevertheless.

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Originally posted 2008-05-09 10:14:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

More than ever before, there are some great ideas around the web for injecting this year’s back-to-school routine with some green juice. We’ve been scouting around for the best – here’s what we found.

Ecostreet’s green back-to-school guide is full of organic, recycled and fairly-traded suggestions. Our favourite find is the Laptop Lunch box, which has lots of little compartments for different foods. It should reduce the amount of packaging you send the kids to school with (although you may have to keep tabs on all those plastic boxes).

One of the biggest demands on a parent’s wallet can be school uniform – children do have a habit of growing uneconomically fast. In the Guardian, Matt Gribble (great name) recommends trying ebay and Freecycle - the latter makes particular sense, as groups are arranged geographically. Someone in your area may well want to pass on a barely-used piece of kit discarded by their rapidly-enlarging offspring.

For some, mild September weather could be the right time to turn over a new green leaf when it comes to the school run. A staggering number of children are driven to school, even when they live within easy walking distance, but with increased concern over children’s levels of exercise as well as CO2 emissions, the backlash has started – see the Walk to School site for inspiration and practical advice.

And if you really want to get stuck into greening the very fabric of your school, there are extensive resources at Sustainable Schools.

IMAGE by Flickr user

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Originally posted 2007-08-31 22:08:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Cars with stop-start systems save fuel at traffic lights, or when the car is otherwise stationary and in neutral, by cutting the engine. Mini’s system has a beefier than usual starter motor and only begins to work once the engine has reached its normal operating temperature.

According to Car, the company claims a fuel saving of around 9% compared to models without the technology. The newest diesel Mini apparently matches the Prius’ CO2 emissions of 104g/km.

Car predicts that stop-start will be fitted to around a third of new cars by 2012, though Bosch’s Dr Bernd Bohr has said he only expects to see it on a fifth of models by 2015. There’s no word on whether Mini customers will need to pay extra for the feature, but fitting it to every model could help the manufacturer deliver lower CO2 emissions across its range, something with which the European car industry seems to be struggling.

IMAGE by Flickr user

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Originally posted 2007-09-10 12:22:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Or there’s this, from Mr King: “I own a 2001 VW camper that allows us to take holidays in this country. We will now have to sell it, forcing my family to board an exceedingly more polluting aircraft that emits far more carbon dioxide in one trip than my van would do in its lifetime. Plus my money will be put into another country’s economy.”

If you’re part of the vast majority who don’t have to drive into or around London, you may not have a clue what these disgruntled drivers are talking about. Even if you do drive in London, you may have seen the signs for the low emission zone (LEZ) and still not really known what it’s all about.

It’s not surprising. Since its launch on 4 February, the LEZ has caused more confusion than the last series of Lost. The Automobile Association (AA) has said it’s been inundated with calls from drivers who didn’t understand what the signs meant and who was affected.

Feel smug because you don’t live in London and have no intention of driving anywhere within the M25? You shouldn’t be, as there could be a similar pollution-cutting scheme coming to a city near you soon. Officials in Oxford are said to be watching the London emission-lowering scheme closely, and there are even calls for small Lancashire towns like Formby and Southport to follow suit.

So what is the LEZ all about, and how will it affect you?

What is it?
The LEZ is basically a scheme to deter the most polluting vehicles (such as diesel-engined lorries, buses, coaches, minibuses and large vans) from entering the capital by imposing a £200 charge for any that haven’t been modified to make them more eco-friendly. Transport for London (TfL) believes the LEZ will give “cleaner air for Greater London” – something that’s much needed as, according to this TfL leaflet, “London’s air pollution is the worst of any city in the UK and amongst the worst in Europe.”

Will I be affected?
Probably not right now, unless you happen to drive a 12-tonne diesel-engined lorry. But from July 2008 the scheme will expand to apply to all lorries over 3.5 tonnes, plus buses and coaches, then in October 2010 the scheme will go even further, to include large vans and minibuses, diesel-powered motor caravans and motorised horse boxes.

This is obviously not great news for some – paying £200 every time you want to drive your beloved campervan is no joke. It could also be bad news for cash-strapped charities who often rely on cheap, diesel-powered mini buses to ferry their charges around.

If you’re worried, you can find out if your vehicle complies by entering its registration on the TfL site here, but if it doesn’t, take action now as modifying vehicles can take some time. Fret not if you own a car, motorbike or small van under 1.205 tonnes in weight – you won’t have to pay a penny, at least through this particular scheme.

When does it operate?
Unlike the congestion charge, which at present only affects cars from 7am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, the LEZ operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

How is it enforced?
Ever get the feeling you’re being watched? Well, that’s because you are – by TfL, anyway. London is now home to 75 fixed and 10 mobile cameras which read your number plate and check it against a list of vehicles which either meet emissions standards, are already registered for a discount, or have already paid the charge. If your car doesn’t comply, you’ll be fined £1,000, reduced to £500 if you pay within two weeks.

Will it work?
At a cost of £130 million, Ken Livingstone certainly hopes so. At a press conference before the launch, the mayor said he was “delighted to have taken this step forward for those people suffering from asthma and for the 1,000 people who are dying prematurely every year because of poor air quality.”

Health bodies have also welcomed the zone, with Asthma UK calling it a “significant step forward” for London’s 600,000 asthma sufferers, while Dr Keith Prowse of the British Lung Foundation, said, “Anything that improves the pollution has to be good.”

Yet the mayor’s own transport body admits that very few lives will actually be saved. According to The Times, TfL’s own figures show that “existing European regulations on reducing engine emissions would contribute 65% of the health benefits listed by Mr Livingstone. Another 15% would be the product of existing plans to introduce cleaner buses and taxis. Only a fifth of the improvement in air pollution by 2012 will be attributable to the low emission zone. Air pollution in general will reduce only by about 5%, meaning the zone will improve overall air quality by only 1%.”

Meanwhile speaking in the Telegraph, director of the Future Cities Project Austin Williams pointed out that, while the scheme affects buses, it doesn’t apply to TfL’s own fleet, the majority of which would fail its own compliance test.

By Tamsin

IMAGES by Flickr users

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Originally posted 2008-03-04 11:15:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Home is where the heart is. And, less cosily, it’s where a great chunk of our carbon emissions spring from too – around a quarter of the UK’s emissions in fact.

So greening the nation’s housing stock is of major importance in fighting climate change. And last year, in his final Budget as chancellor, Gordon Brown said that he wanted to kick-start a new wave of energy-efficient homes.

Mr Brown said he had been talking to banks and building societies to encourage a new mortgage market that would help people make an “immediate capital investment in energy efficiency”. He envisaged that this would cut energy use and energy bills, ultimately paying for itself and increasing the sale value of the home.

Cue a lot of talk of ‘green mortgages’, with lenders big and small jumping in to agree that green was the future – and, of course, that they were happy to be a part of it.

Notably, Abbey announced that it would be launching a range of green loans, and HBOS (Halifax/Bank of Scotland) said it would launch a green mortgage in 2008. Many analysts agreed that the green mortgage market was set to move into the mainstream.

That was almost a year ago. So we were wondering: where did all the green mortgages go?

What’s a green mortgage anyway?

There are still no rules that say what a ‘green mortgage’ has to be – when it comes to saving the planet, it’s still up to individual lenders to decide how they market their products.

However, Mr Brown’s vision of “immediate capital investment” in energy efficiency won’t be hurried along by many of those currently on offer.

Most of the ‘green’ deals out there involve carbon offsetting, whereby a home’s predicted carbon emissions are offset for a while by money invested in carbon-positive projects elsewhere. Theoretically this results in no CO2 emissions overall, and typical offsetting schemes rely on planting trees that are intended to ’soak up’ CO2 from the atmosphere.

Lenders that have adopted the offset approach include the Hanley Economic Building Society, the Teachers Building Society and Giraffe. Mortgage broker London and Country (L&C) says that it plants 50 trees for every mortgage it sells (making “every mortgage a green mortgage”), and recently, financial broker Ethical Investors said that it would offer two years of carbon offsetting on the mortgages it finds for its customers.

Beyond carbon offset

Having paid for the offset, the homeowner isn’t required to do anything further to green the home itself, but not everyone’s happy that these kinds of schemes are green enough. Last year, the Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes (EEPH) issued a report on green mortgages, which proposed that real green deals should offer something more than an offset.

“Our key message is that a ‘green mortgage’ should help customers reduce carbon emissions by improving the home that the mortgage is offered on,” says the partnership’s David Weatherall. “A green mortgage can’t be just about carbon-offset: paying for carbon savings elsewhere, usually overseas.”

So far, only a handful of lenders go beyond carbon offset. The Co-operative Bank, which has long marketed its products for their ethical dimension, now offers ‘energy-efficient advances’ to customers who want to make improvements to their home, as does the Yorkshire Building Society. The Norwich and Peterborough Building Society provides cashback earmarked for green improvements.

A recent innovation is Ulster Bank’s solar mortgage, which offers low interest rates to customers who invest in photo-voltaic (PV) microgeneration for their homes.

Generally acknowledged to be the greenest of the green is the Ecology Building Society, which lends only on low-carbon new builds, green renovations and restoration projects. Although it is a relatively small, specialist lender, news that the Ecology doubled its mortgage lending last year – despite the credit crunch – may stir a few more lenders into stepping up their green offerings.

A green mortgage future?

Despite widespread reports of increased customer interest in green mortgages of all kinds, they don’t yet appear to have taken off.

“We offer green mortgages because we feel it is the right thing to do,” says Alison Rolls, head of communications at the Norwich and Peterborough Building Society. “However, the take-up is low, which is to be expected as this is still a niche area. The government needs to do much more to promote energy efficiency to homeowners.”

Some analysts suggest that the less serious providers of green mortgages have done it more for the good publicity than the real expectation of any ‘green’ sales.

For most of us, it seems, it still comes down to price – and without tax breaks many green mortgages (particularly those that go beyond carbon offset) struggle to compete with mainstream deals.

“There hasn’t been much of an increase in green mortgage lending,” says Julia Harris at Moneyfacts. “Considering that taking on a mortgage is one of the largest financial decisions we make, paying a lot more for a slightly clearer conscience does not seem to be catching on.”

And what of the green products announced by the big lenders last year?

Well, Abbey launched a ‘green loan’ last November, intended to fund a variety of environmentally-friendly purchases (not necessarily involving home improvement) up to the tune of £25,000. The loan is available at Abbey’s standard rate, and includes the planting of five trees and a free home energy inspection from the Energy Saving Trust.

A spokesperson for Halifax said that the bank is reviewing the market and developing its thinking around green mortgages with a view to delivering “very late this year”.

In the meantime, homeowners who aren’t prepared to wait for financial services to turn a deeper shade of green can find out about grants and offers for improving their home via the Energy Saving Trust.

by Charlie
First published 12.03.08
Updated 25.03.08

Related links:

Abbey

Co-operative Bank

Ecology Building Society

Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes

Energy Saving Trust

Ethical Investors

Giraffe

Hanley Economic Building Society

HBOS

London and Country

Moneyfacts

Norwich and Peterborough Building Society

Teachers Building Society

Yorkshire Building Society

IMAGES by Flickr users

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Originally posted 2008-03-12 15:00:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Inevitably, Ben crashed into the back of the car in front. “We both got out of the car to assess the damage, which to me looked like nothing more than a dented bumper. The driver of the other car insisted I give him £200 to settle the matter there and then as it was ‘clearly my fault’.

“When I refused, saying I preferred to let our insurance companies sort things out, he gave me his name and address, which he’d already written down on a piece of paper. He didn’t seem shaken at all, either, like you would when you’ve just had an accident. It struck me as odd.”

A month later, Ben got a letter from his insurance company. “They had received a claim for more than £16,000 which included the price of calling out a tow truck, and whiplash injuries to two passengers. But there really wasn’t that amount of damage and I’m sure I didn’t see anyone else in the car.”

Although Ben had no proof, he was suspicious enough to mention it to his car insurance company, who told him he may have become the victim of an increasingly common crime.

Crashing in

Figures from More Than parent company Royal & SunAlliance show that there have been over 22,500 instances of car insurance fraud since 1999. Yet this so-called ‘cash for crash’ crime wave is something of which 41% of British drivers aren’t even aware, according to a YouGov survey quoted on the BBC.

But while you may never have heard of it, your car insurance company certainly has. Fraudulent and inflated claims are estimated to cost the industry over £1.5 billion a year, adding 5% to the premiums of honest policy holders. In fact, levels of insurance crime have increased to such worrying levels that insurers have created their own Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) in an attempt to counter the problem.

Deliberate accidents are also a crime that the City of London Police know only too well. The force is currently investigating four suspected car insurance fraud cases, each involving more than 70 car accidents. Detective Chief Superintendant Steve Wilmott says that criminals “will drive with two or three people in their vehicle and will select a fairly new [target] vehicle with one or two people or maybe a family inside. Then they will deliberately collide with it, either by side-swiping it or by braking hard in front of the vehicle, and claim against insurance for whiplash or other injuries.”

The practice isn’t just fraudulent. “Staged motor accidents are also potentially extremely dangerous,” says ex-Metropolitan Police Detective Superintendent John Beadle, now IFB chairman. “Not only do they cost honest drivers millions of pounds each year but they also put innocent motorists in danger.”

He believes there are some telltale signs that show when you may have been involved in a fraudulent collision. “Motorists should pay extra attention to people braking suddenly in front of them for no reason, or otherwise driving erratically.” Other warning signs include the car you crashed into following you before the accident, fictitious passengers, and bogus witnesses, mechanics or doctors used to back up the claim.

Method actors

Car insurance fraud, also known as ‘auto fraud‘, is believed to originate in the US where methods have become increasingly sophisticated, often involving more than one participant. There, organised crime rings are said to be behind a large number of the incidents.

Where the US leads, the UK often follows, but you can keep one step ahead of the criminals by looking out for the following three techniques that are currently being used in the States.

1. The ’swoop and squat’
This is a sophisticated version of a classic rear-end collision that is harder to detect than when a car just slams on their brakes in front of you. The scam involves three cars – yours plus two driven by fraudsters. First, the ’swoop’ car intentionally pulls ahead of the ’squat’ vehicle and cuts it off, causing the driver of the squat car to slam on his brakes. Following behind the two, you may well be unable to react in time, meaning you’ll drive straight into the back of the squat car.

Of course the swoop vehicle has plenty of time to drive off before you’ve even had a chance to take a look at their number plate. If you’re not aware of this technique, you’ll probably innocently tell the police that the swoop vehicle caused the accident. But because this car is never to be seen again, it’ll be your car insurance company that has to pay out. Bye bye, no-claims bonus!

2. The panic stop
The fraudster crams a car (normally an old banger) with as many passengers as possible, then drives around looking for a suitable target. When the victim has been found, the fraudsters drive in front of them while one passenger keeps watch out of the back window. The passenger studies the victim, looking for any signs of distraction, such as fiddling with the stereo, or otherwise taking their eyes off the road for a second. As soon as that happens, the passenger signals to the driver who slams on the brakes, causing an accident.

3. The ‘helpful’ driver
This scheme happens when you’re trying to merge into another lane of traffic. The fraudster will motion you to come in, then speed up so you collide with them, later denying all knowledge of their earlier signalling.

Evasive action

So what can you do to avoid being taken for a ride? One of the best ways is to keep an eye on how you’re driving. Maintaining a good distance between you and the car in front isn’t just safe driving; it should also minimise your chances of falling victim to a scam. Other good tips include:

• Getting a good look at the driver and any passengers

• Taking photos of any damage – not just to your car – with your mobile phone or digital camera

• Calling the police if someone claims to be injured

• Being wary of anyone who seems too quick to offer their services as a witness – they could be in on the scam.

• Calling the confidential IFB cheatline on 0800 328 2550.

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Originally posted 2008-03-25 22:20:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Well, I’m changing my perspective. My current customer champion is Information Society and Media Commissioner Viviane Reding. Mrs Reding has been driving through new regulation for cross border mobile phone use (known in the trade as roaming).

A couple of weekends ago I really noticed the difference.

I visited friends in Seville in Spain. I lived there for several months last year. At that point Mrs Reding’s new EU regulations on the cost of roaming hadn’t come into effect. Typically I paid around 75p a minute to recieve calls and ?

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Originally posted 2008-11-07 09:07:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

In December, interim figures suggested that the rate had fallen again, but environmentalists accused the Brazilian government of using a past achievement to conceal an acceleration in rainforest clearing. Sadly it appears they were right.

Last Friday, the Independent quoted a Brazilian government scientist who warned that the rate of deforestation had surged at the end of 2007, and that it would be “much higher” this year than last. Now the BBC reports that satellite monitoring revealed almost a four-fold rise in the deforested area between August and December 2007.

So why the sudden increase? Roberto Smeraldi from Friends of the Earth Brazil explained to the Independent: “We had a real overdose of deforestation between 2002 and 2005, which led to abundant availability of cleared land. Now this land has been occupied, the process heats up again.”

Other sources point the finger at the increased demand for ‘cheap’ land, for which biofuel may be doubly responsible. There’s widespread concern that fragile ecosystems are being destroyed to produce biofuel crops, with Indonesia’s draining of its peat swamps for agriculture singled out as a particular folly.

At the same time, competition between food and biofuel producers for agricultural land – and for crops such as corn – have helped to drive food prices up, with poor harvests further contributing to record wheat prices in September 2007. And as crop prices go up, Brazilian officials have said that yet more land is illegally cleared to grow food crops.

On Thursday evening the Brazilian government, which previously claimed that its environmental policies were responsible for three years of slowing deforestation, announced emergency measures. These included a 25% increase in the police force in the Amazon basin, and fines for people and businesses buying items produced on illegally-cleared land.

IMAGES - Deforestation in Brazil’s Mato Grasso, courtesy NASA.

Top image taken June 2002, lower image taken June 2006.

Banner image by flickr user wricontest

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Originally posted 2008-01-24 01:18:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

There’s more in the news at the moment about the short supply of wheat, after this year’s poor harvests across Europe, Australia and Canada. The Financial Times says that the world’s stock of wheat has fallen to its lowest level in 26 years.

Russia, the world’s fifth-largest exporter of the crop is apparently considering a ban on cereal exports in response to rising bread prices, while wheat prices have surged to a record-high on exchanges in Chicago and Paris.

All of which reminds us of BP’s recent announcement that it was planning a bioethanol plant in Hull which would run on wheat. We wondered at the time where the petrochemical giant would find the spare cereal for its venture, and this year’s harvest makes the question seem even more pertinent.

It’s possible to use a range of crops to make bioethanol, and we expect that BP’s factory will probably be designed with this flexibility in mind. Even so, the current issue with wheat provides more ammunition for biofuel’s critics, who wonder how much spare food capacity there is to be diverted into fuels.

IMAGE by Flickr users

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Originally posted 2007-09-03 20:24:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

For those of you who don’t remember Saturday mornings with Noel, Maggie, John and Cheggers, the hapless Keith would be dispatched to outside broadcasts in town parks across the country, trying to match up kids who wanted to swap toys. As often as not, it was raining.

It’s easy for the Swap Shop generation to succumb to misty-eyed nostalgia, but the idea of swapping various things is still going strong, particularly online. Here are a few sites that aim to match up people with time, skills or belongings to exchange.

Freecycle

Probably the best known community recycling site, Freecycle started four years ago in Tucson, Arizona, and has spread to 75 countries. Like all good ideas, this one is simple: anyone with a useful item they no longer need can offer it to their local Freecycle group. Anyone who wants it can have it for free, but they’ll generally need to collect it.

The group says that each day across the world it keeps more than 300 tons of perfectly good items out of landfill sites. As the name suggests, it’s free to use.

TeamUpHere.com

Say you’re happy getting stuck in to a bit of gardening, but you’re hopeless on a computer. Somewhere over the other side of town there may be an IT wizard with a jungle outside their back door. Wait, we think we see a way out of this!

TeamUpHere.com is a free site that lets people get together to exchange their skills. You don’t have to be a professional to offer a skill, but you need to be honest about your level of expertise. It’s up to both users to agree a fair trade, but the site suggests that an equal amount of time from each party “might suit everyone”.

SwapShop

No Cheggers, we’re afraid, but this SwapShop does a similar job for people with items small enough to be sent by post. Once you’ve registered, you tell it about all the items you’d like to swap, and it gives each a value in Swap Points. If another member contacts you to request one of your items, you stick it in the post. When it arrives with them, SwapShop credits you with the Swap Points you asked for.

Points don’t make prizes, but they can be exchanged for other users’ items. Using the site is free, but if you don’t have enough points for the Matt Bianco box set you can buy more for ?Similar Posts:

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Originally posted 2007-09-11 01:02:00. Republished by Blog Post Promoter