I'm still waiting to see the film An Inconvenient Truth, written and presented by the charismatic and not even slightly unexciting Al Gore. The reason I have been delaying is the knowledge that this film will almost certainly make me feel guilty and depressed. However, there is heartening news. It may all be someone else's fault after all! (Not really of course, but go with me on this...) As I have long suspected, it is in fact the cows that are the evil and irresponsible wreckers of our planet. In Ireland and New Zealand in particular, about a third of their carbon dioxide emissions is the fault of the farmers' cows burping and farting too much. You may have thought that our government was stupid, but over in New Zealand they are so worried about gassy cows that they've imposed a flatulence tax! The response from the farmers has been to set up a campaign called F.A.R.T. (Farmers Against Ridiculous Taxation). This is all true. God bless you, New Zealand.

If you've shopped in any of the bigger Tesco stores in recent months, you may have seen some new 'self service' tills that they have set up. The idea is that you can scan your own items and pay for them without having to interact with a cashier. What a great idea! NO. I found myself in one of the monstrous Tesco Extra stores yesterday and, even though I hadn't found what I was looking for, I still felt obliged to buy something (damn you Tesco!). I went for an individual carrot cake slice (89p), and thought this would be the perfect opportunity to try out the 'future of shopping'. Firstly, the item wouldn't scan so I had to tap in the handy 20 digit product code. Next, you have to place your item in the bagging area, but the cake weighed so little that it wouldn't register. Finally, I inserted a £2 coin for payment and the machine swallowed it whole and asked for more money!!    I called for help, but the assistant looked at me incredulously, as if I was trying to swindle Tesco out of a carrot cake. I turned to the ladies behind me for confirmation that I had indeed paid, but they suddenly lost the ability to speak English. The cashier silently and angrily dragged me over to a different till to give me my change, but she made it quite clear that she thought I was a thief, and no better than a dog turd on her shoe. So that's progress for you! The future of shopping is here.