GREEN RUNNING IN BELSIZE PARK

There is a by-election in Belsize Park on 2 April, and one of the candidates has impressed me with her activism. Naomi Aptowitzer, of the Green Party. She is chair of the local residents' association in Chalk Farm and has been active in combatting anti-social behaviour. For 18 years she has worked for the Borough, and is currently director of ZiPee Bikes Ltd. That is what impresses me the most. She campaigns for better bicycle infrastructure, and in 2007 began the 'Elect Electric' campaign to press coucils to install more on-street charge points for electric vehicles. This would be great, and if we could get more people to drive the G-Wiz, which is visible on most streets in the borough, strangely juxtaposed to the oversizw SUVs, we could all have a bit more tranquility. Bikes, by the way, are bucking the financial trend, bike shops were trading 86% higher in '08 than in '07, so she is on to the new growth industry. And speaking of bikes, my friend Chris Sanders is working on importing a fold up electric bike, which is just about the greenest thing around. It can get people to work for much less money and save on parking spaces all over London. So I hope to see Naomi get in on 2 April, in which case, expect to see her on Haverstock Hill riding the latest e-bike.

KILLER THREADS

Belsize Park now has a new piece of merchandise with which to identify. It is a Belsize Ban Bag shopping bag. Is it made of hemp? No. Jute, bamboo, or flax? No, no and no. It is not made of cotton, is it? Unfortunately, yes. The trendy and foolish went and got themselves a piece of the bag war action and now want to parade around in a cotton bag. Bear in mind that a good number of residents here drive 4x4s. This is not an environmentally friendly neighbourhood. It is a good place to buy drugs or run into George Michael, Kate Moss, Pete Doherty or other drug users, and lots of rich people trying to be very cool indeed. But not so affluent that they could afford a real hemp bag, which only cost £10 or less from The Hemp Shop. And for that you get a long-lasting 100% organic hemp bag, the one which the Ecologist picked up on last year and which I used for my protests againt the Anya Hindmarch bag and other cotton atrocities.

So I am not going to make many friends in trendy Belsize Park. Not that I was ever anxious to waste my time with the likes of Moss and Michaels. Better things to do, like draw attention to the coming water crisis. For more information on this and why cotton is a threat to humanity, see related posts on this blog by clicking on the tags below.

In the meantime take a tour of Belsize Park and look for the Real Eco Bags are Made of Hemp bag- if you correctly spot me with it, and email me at hemppaperproject@yahoo.com, I will send you a prize, something made of hemp, or maybe even a copy of Hemp for Victory. Hint: I am very untrendy. Very uncool. That is my image.