We’re off on our holidays in a cottage overlooking Loch Broom, in the Scottish Highlands. Alas, my mobile internet connection fails to connect here - some issue with the Three mobile network when using legacy (GPRS) networks. I remember seeing comments about it, but as I have no internet access, I can’t Google for the […]

Today is the start of Fairtrade fortnight, the annual celebration of the campaign to secure better prices, decent working conditions, local sustainability, and fair terms of trade for farmers and workers in the developing world.
With Scotland aiming for Fairtrade nation status, and Britain’s biggest sugar producer switching all its retail sales to Fairtrade, Fairtrade no […]

Last year Lothian buses introduced real-time tracking of buses on a number of routes in Edinburgh. Displays at the main city centre bus stops show the predicted arrival times of the next two buses for each tracked service. This has been handy for me coming home from work in the city centre, but has been […]

I happened to have the radio on in the kitchen this lunchtime and the BBC Radio 4 “The Food Programme” came on. They had a feature on Michael Pollan and his book “In Defence of Food”. Pollan argues that it’s time to take food back from the people in white coats. Food scientists, nutritionists, and […]

A lifelong friend of my wife’s dropped in for a chat last week (let’s call her Mary). Mary chatted away happily about a recent long haul flight with her husband to do the safari bit in Africa. They had managed to fit this in between their regular EasyJet trips to their holiday home in Italy.
Mary […]

A visit to any supermarket in the UK will demonstrate how consumers here are reaping the rewards of globalisation. Not only can you pick up the proverbial “electric kettle for under a fiver” (5 UKP) - manufactured in China, but you will probably also be served at the checkout by low cost labour - a […]

The impact of climate change is brought home by floods in England and protesters in Scotland.