Getting Pushy

Here I am pushing a 'Mundo car' (the clean car of the future) down Torrens Street in Islington. That's Jean Lambert, Green MEP nearest the camera. My Alliance Against Urban 4x4s colleague, Blake Ludwig, is inside the car, steering blindly!

It's all part of a campaign to encourage MPs and MEPs to push (push, geddit?) for low emissions targets for car manufacturers. We're asking them to commit to 120g/Co2 per km by 2012. There are cars out there doing that right now - the technology exists. However, there are also cars out there doing 3 or 4 times that amount, such as the biggest 4x4s.

It was great that Jean came along and supported the campaign. It's a Europe-wide initiative and the website is:

www.mundocars.eu

Write to your MP, your MEP and your local councillors and ask them to support lower emissions targets - the car companies aren't going to choose to make their fleets clean, we must force them to do so!

Think of it as a challenge, ye car companies!

Stop and Search - more like stop and stare.

I saw loads police conducting 'stop and search' outside Archway tube station yesterday. Teenage boys were having their turn-ups searched for knives and the like. They even had a metal detector to walk under - I saw two policemen struggling to carry the frame into position.

I actually felt quite sorry for the police. What a massive waste of their time. Talk about knee-jerk reactions! Last year we all were told to be paranoid about terrorists, now it's youths with knives. Or maybe guns. Though knives seem to be the biggy at the moment.

Now, don't get me wrong, it's awful that people are getting stabbed and killed. But yesterday figures were released that showed that crime is down. So why are we being bombarded with front pages about how we're all going to be stabbed any second? Well, because whipping the public into a frenzy is what the tabloids do best.

But when that frenzy extends to the police, and they are stopping random young people in the street - cornering them as they get out of the tube - then you know things have gone too far. Imagine being a young man of 15, being searched in broad daylight by two policemen. Onlookers stop and stare. People whisper that you look like a bad 'un. What do you feel? Resentment, panic and a swiftly developing hatred of the police.

It's the quickest way to turn a law abiding young person into a detester and an antagoniser of the police.

So what is the solution? Well, it's more complicated than packs of police outside tubes with metal detectors. Why do people carry knives in the first place? To seem tough. To belong to a gang. Because the music they listen to tells them that's what you do. Because they have no positive role models, no father figures, no one to show them right from wrong. Because they live in shit conditions, people have had low expectations of them from birth and they see no way but the wrong way.

These problems are huge and deep, and are hard to remedy. Easy to put some police on the streets, stopping lads in baseball hats and hoodies, and then we'll all say "That Boris, he's doing something good for London. We're safe now."

Bullshit. I think we need to address the real issues, not skirt around the subject and further alienate people from the police. Let's get people onto the right track when they're young, and help them to stay there, for eveyone's sake.

A Victory - though not for the Ad men!

Following Friends of the Earth and the Alliance Against Urban 4x4s' initiative to make the car advertisers stick to the guidelines re: CO2 emissions info on car ads, we this week had some excellent news. Our persistence has paid off, and following our efforts the Department for Transport has tightened the laws, so that misleading the public isn't going to be an option any more.

I am not keen to celebrate too early, however - advertisers are already saying that this is simply a challenge for them - it may lead to some very clever advertising that gets round the law in dubious ways. Think back to when cigarette advertising was made to carry, in huge letters, the fact that, well, smoking and being cold in a coffin are somewhat linked. The ads became, shall we say, 'arty' with all sorts of subliminal messages going on. Of course, cigarette advertising has since been banned - oh, what joy if ads for highly polluting cars were also outlawed! After all, polluting the planet will directly lead to the loss of human life. Bring on the ban, I say.

Recycling, Seed bombs, media training and Voting tactics.

Some updates:

We've finally got recycling in our street! Well, for our block at least. Oh, and it's co-mingled. But hey, better than nothing! And what's more - people are actually using it! I am overjoyed, though not so happy that it's currently overflowing. Come on Haringey, you're usually so good at picking up recycling and rubbish. Oh, wait a minute...

Our complaint about Homes for Haringey has now gone to Stage 2 level, which means we might actually get to see some improvements soon. I am also in the process of organising the estate's 'Gardening Day', which is going to be on May 11th. I attended 'Haringey Independence Day' yesterday, where I learnt how to make 'seed bombs' using soil, compost and wild flower seeds. I then came home and lobbed it into some wild, inaccessible ground between two blocks on the estate. I think it's be great to get the children making them on Gardening Day.

I had some media training the other day, so know I know how to evade questions and ram home a key message again and again...and again. The problem is, I, like a lot of people, hate it when politicians do that. I prefer to answer the question honestly and openly. More fool me.

It seems our mayoral candidate, Sian Berry, has the same policy, and this slightly backfired on her this week. When we went on our dinosaur hunt in Mayfair a couple of weeks ago, we had the audacity to take a taxi to transport four of us - myself and Sian included - along with all our placards, pith helmets and safari jackets. Sian admitted to this scandalous car journey and has been lambasted as a climate criminal in that bastion of quality journalism, The London Paper. I've written a letter defending her heinous crime - we'll have to see if it's published.

On a serious note, I am really hoping that Sian does well on Thursday, and also that the Green Party succeeds in getting more London Assembly members elected. Furthermore, I have actually been losing sleep about the possibility of Boris Johnson tasting victory in the mayoral race. It would be a disaster for London and all Londoners, plain and simple. Goodbye congestion charge, hello pollution and traffic chaos. Farewell to an Olympics that is any way sustainable, hello big business and multi-nationals. And let's wave goodbye to a London that celebrates multiculturalism and instead witness a man who tried to block the Stephen Lawrence enquiry attempting - and failing miserably - to try to run the most complicated, sprawling and diverse city in the UK.

In short - vote Sian 1, Ken 2! I have a feeling it will be close and those second preference votes will make a difference.

Hunting for dinosaurs in Mayfair

Here I am with my binoculars and pith helmet, searching for dinosaurs in Berkeley Square. Oh, there's one - the sadly not very rare Porsche Cayenne Turbo! Look at it go...as it lumbers along at 5 miles per hour in a traffic jam. Wow! Look at it beltching out just short of 400g of CO2 per km - I'm awestruck.

13 of us turned up bright and early this morning for our Urban Dinosaur Hunt at the Porsche showrooms, hoping to shame them regarding their battle with Transport for London over the increased Congestion Charge for Band G cars. As well as spotting some highly polluting sports cars and 4x4s in the showroom, we saw some in the 'wild' too. A couple of press photographers came along which is always good - now we're looking out to see where the pics they took crop up...

"Vote Green Party on May 1st! Don't forget to vote!" I spent a couple of hours hollering this today on Stroud Green Road, in an attempt to get the electorate to the polls - and to get them to put crosses in the right boxes when they get there. We were handing out 'Green money' which looks like a bank note but our mayoral candidate, Sian Berry, is pictured in place of the Queen - much more preferable, in my opinion. It also contains lots of information about how a Green London would be a cheaper, more affordable London.

Of course, giving out rather convincing looking money made us rather popular. I was especially popular with a huge dog which leapt on my back, paws on my shoulders, and decided it loved me. Unfortunately, I can't abide dogs, especially the big, slobbering, be-fanged type, so the feeling was decidedly not mutual. Uuuggghh...

Comedy moment of the day was provided not by the doggy-style moment, but by the ever-incredible Homes for Haringey. They've partially upheld my complaint, but deny that a member of staff was 'intentionally rude'...despite the fact that he was, and in front of the residents' association AND a local councillor. The letter from Homes for Haringey contained a classic non sequitur:

'Since working with Zuned, I have found him to be professional and he has successfully worked with Cllrs and residents groups successfully, and I have reason to believe that he would not work with yourself and your group in the same manner.'

Ha ha ha! Thanks, Homes for Haringey. And thanks also for the £20 'compensation' you've awarded me. Read my blog. Does The Mitchell usually accept being paid off thus? Nope. Stage 2 complaint, here we come!

Encounters with the Pink Dame

Radio 4 loses it's right to tag itself as the broadcaster of, and I quote, "intelligent speech" tomorrow morning at 11am, when my documentary, 'Encounters With the Pink Dame' gets another airing...much like a pair of well-worn bloomers.

I made the programme last year, and it was selected 'pick of the week' - always a thrill! I had a lot of fun making it, especially when I went a'visiting the Dame's Pink Pad in Hertfordshire. I was accompanied by the plain speaking Lancashire lass, Liz Kershaw, who presented the show, and David Prest, head of Whistledown Productions.

The Dame's son has kept the mansion EXACTLY the same since Babs's death a few years ago. Pink and turquoise furnishings, gold statues of Pan, fake dusty flowers and dozens of framed pictures, cartoons, portraits of the Dame herself. Then there's the stuffed toys, thousands of trinkets, four poster beds...you get the jist. Frankly incredible.

I was obviously on my best behaviour, and being, at the time, 6 months pregnant and unmarried, I was keen that Ian, Barbara's son, didn't discover my disgraceful circumstances, fearing that he would view me as scum - his mother certainly would have turfed me out!

However, despite my best efforts in the arena of etiquette, my presenter and Mr Prest both managed to make huge boo-boos. David asked Ian whether Barbara had ever met Raine Spencer...Ian gently reminded us that Raine was Barbara's daughter!

Later, another Raine-themed clanger was dropped by Liz when she said "Of course, Barbara outlived Raine didn't she?" (Silence). "Oh, have I said something wrong there?" Ian said that his half-sister was still very much alive.

Goodness me. I will be tuning in to hear my efforts at 11am, and anyone who misses it can of course 'listen again' on the web player:

www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/

P.S. It isn't essential to don huge fake eyelashes and a pink feathered hat when tuning into the programme, but you may find it augments your listening experience...