The joy of going "tube-less"

Gone are the days when I stand on one of the platforms cursing and swearing at another delay in the tube frequencies. Over the past month, I have been cycling to work with the bike that I have inherited from my girlfriend (It's a ladies bike, but she felt it was too high after buying from a colleague). It's quite a refreshing change especially after my company just moved from a building directly above Chancery Lane tube station to somewhere in the middle of Fleet Street, and also in the middle of 4 different tube stations, all about the same walking distance. To take the bus in the morning hour rush is pure suicidal. And I reckon the time to walk from one of the tube stations to my office probably takes half the time I require to get to work on my new found transport. Last weekend, I ordered a GPS gadget from eBay hoping that I can use it for my coming trip to the Caribbean. Unfortunately, I was too optimistic thinking that my winning item will arrive in time. BUT luckily, this wonderful colleague of mine lent me his GPS gadget for this trip and here I have, just like a school kid, having my first go at it by plotting my route back home this evening. It was pretty accurate, except on 2 occasions where it indicated that I "dived" into the Thames, and cycled straight into Big Ben.

An Inconvenient Truth - Why are we still avoiding this issue

Last night, I caught this film with a like-minded friend in a theatre off SOHO. To summarize briefly, it part documentary and part Al Gore presentation style which shows him on embarking on a very different journey after the his presidential loss to Bush in 2000. I think it's a tremendous effort by him to raise the awareness of how the health of planet Earth is increasingly deteriorating. I am still very much disturbed by many of my peers who seem to hold little or no responsibilities to making sure that we do our little bit of what we can to help the cause. Maybe that is why Al Gore is right to say that maybe the biggest push factor to make people aware of the damage that we have caused to the environment is by going through the political path. I still want the economies to prosper, but I am sure there are other ways to help to push economies without doing more harm to our already fragile environment. I strongly believe that is something that can be achieved, and if the world stands together for a cause, similar to how the world stood together to fight SARs, I don't see why it is not possible. The papers this week highlighted the amount of money spend by the world in the arms race, wouldn't it be more sensible to put that amount to help find ways tot combat global warming with minimal impact to economies?

I see myself to be very much a environmental-aware person, doing my every little bit to help - e.g. instilling 'strange' habits at home such as recycling bins, filling cold water from initial showers to flush toilets, switching all electrical appliances off if not in use rather than on standby, keeping the number of lights turned on to a minimal, cycling to work, switching off monitors in offices, etc, - and I do make a point to 'preach' to my friends about my ideologies at times, to a point as to not upset them. But if we can all do something that helps a bit, it may come a day when our children will not have to ask the question "Dad, why didn't you do anything about it...?"

Visit http://www.climatecrisis.net/ and see how you can do your part.

The DVD is due to be launched on 21 Nov, and my friend who watched the movie with me suggested that it will be a great Xmas present to raise awareness - I can't agree more.

I am also keen to know how you are helping the environment in your everyday life.

Busy bee Pollinating

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Originally uploaded by skinnydiver.

Pink Gerbera

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Originally uploaded by skinnydiver.

Love the colours of this pink gerbera, with the fine stigmas in the center. Taken using new F30.