Earth Hour

On Saturday night (27th March) all around the world at 8.30pm local time, it will be Earth Hour. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, then the best thing to do is to click over to the link at the top of my 'Enjoying this week' link - yes, that's it, down there on the right - and find out a lot more. Just so you don't click-off mid-blog, I'll give you the heads up. For one hour every year, the whole planet is encouraged to turn off all of its lights as a reminder of the impact needless energy usage has on climate change. This has been going on for a few years, but since last year the bandwagon has been gathering pace and it's started to get the media attention it deserves. Schools are starting to work with kids to take the message home and that's all for the good.

I'm not gullible or starry-eyed; I don't think that just turning off a few lamps for an hour each year will solve our emissions or sustainability issues. But the idea really appeals to the culture-jammer in me. No amount of worthy reporting seems to be having any dramatic effect on the public perception of the link between energy use and climate change. What Earth Hour is attempting to do, is to jolt people out of their lethargy by offering a collective moment of thought that means something where it counts...at home. I really think that the success of the initiative will depend on how much fun we can make in our allotted hour. Here are a few suggestions to give you a start;

• Go to bed for an hour, but don't read, because you'll hurt your eyes
• Get in a hot bubbly bath with some candles and get wrinkly for an hour. Maybe take a friend
• Have a good old cockney sing-song, like we did in the blitz
• Play hide and seek. (Please note, I have no time for health and safety, so if you damage yourselves I'm accepting no responsibility)
• Tell ghost stories, but remember, if you scare yourself too much, you've got a long wait before you can put the lights back on
• Go outside and moonbathe
• Make some sandwiches and have a picnic in your lounge
• Light the candles and play shadow puppets. Yes, I know, it's always a rabbit
• Talk
• Get with the neighbours, then you'll halve the candle burning needs
• Look up at the sky and enjoy the stars for once

Let me know if you thought of something we need to share with the world for next year's Earth Hour (Plotter28@aol.com). Or maybe, we could all do it again next week? Where did I put those candles?