NEW UPDATES POSTED BELOW:
I was link surfing today over at Dellers, and I found myself looking at the long list of bios for the 1010 team on their website. I noted something curious in the bio posted on Splattergate’s designer Franny Armstrong, because it was rather off the wall. She listed a “guilty pleasure”. Well no harm, we all have those, but at the same time she says her Actual job: “Asking powerful people for money and/or emissions cuts“.
The “emissions cuts” part I get. But wait a minute…not in season blueberries? Hmmm.
Now I don’t know much about growing blueberries, but I did find this on a BBC gardening site:
Blueberries produce fruit on branches that were produced the previous year. For the first two or three years of a blueberry’s life it’s not necessary to prune it much, apart from keeping the plant tidy. After this, blueberries need regular pruning to maintain plant vigour and high quality berry production. Prune them between November and March when the plant is dormant.
They need cold weather apparently:
“These bushes are hardy and require a minimum of 750 hours accumulated chilling time below 8 degrees centigrade in order to produce good yields of berries, so please do not put them into your greeenhouse over the winter.”
OK, so you can’t grow them “off season” in a local greenhouse. That means UK “off season” blueberries have to come someplace where the “off season” is opposite, like another hemisphere.
Looking more into blueberries, I find this from a Latin American Markets site on Chilean blueberry production:
While the US is the main importer of Chilean blueberries, Europe, and in particular the UK, are also strong markets.
“We’ve seen an explosion in UK blueberry consumption over the past two to three years,” says Hortifrut’s Francisco Ortuzar. “Unlike some other parts of Europe, the market is familiar with blueberries and category managers have done a good job of promoting the fruit.”
Huh, imagine that. Demand for blueberries in the UK is ummm ‘exploding’. Given what I know, I would imagine the demand would increase in the “off season” when no local blueberries can be harvested.
I wonder how they get there? Oh, here we go:
Tesco blueberries are harvested in Argentina and are flown to the UK for sale.
So I think it would be safe to assume that Franny is eating off season blueberries, flown in from Chile or Argentina using the speedy but horrible CO2 belching airplanes to preserve freshness.
Yet WE are the ones that have to reduce our consumption of things like “guilty pleasures”. Ya know, modern, guilty, dirty things like air travel, cars, and incandescent lights (though I do like the new LED replacements), to keep the planet from “burning up” due to CO2 emissions. And if we don’t, or give an indifferent shrug like those school kids in her movie…we get the red button.
She also mentions in her bio:
“Not flying to America or Australia to launch my climate movie”
…yet Franny can have her off season jet set blueberries. No pressure to eliminate that. I guess Franny never stopped to think how “not in season blueberries” get to her local shop.
Now that’s just plane stupid.
UPDATE: 8:05 PM PST 10/7/10 I was informed by email of some silliness. For the record, somebody who obviously didn’t like this story has signed up my name as a “supporter” at the 10:10 website, here: http://www.1010global.org/uk/people along with Christopher Monckton, and James Dellingpole. This is of course false, and the product of a simple minded prank. I don’t know what this stupidity will do for them, especially since it is obvious none of us would sign up to 10:10. Here’s the screen cap:
UPDATE2: 11:40PM PST 10/7/10
It appears the application of names is being handled by a static list superimposed at the website. The people counter continues to rise, but the list does not change. Here’s a screencap from 11:38PM of the “people” page at http://www.1010global.org/uk/people
If you visit the other pages on the website, you’ll find that static list with my name on it, along with Monckton and Delingpole, superimposed on it, even though the counter has advanced from 94,885 to 94,910 signups, a total of 25 names, more than enough to move the list down.
But it appears the “legal” page here: http://www.1010global.org/legal has what appears to be a correctly updated list:
How fun! Let’s watch the amusement unfold.
If even greens can’t give up non-essentials, how can they expect the rest of us to give up essentials?
How can anybody take AGW seriously when even its most vocal promoters can’t take it seriously???
I’m not bothered about hypocrisy, as lots of people make mistakes. But the evidence is that greens don’t take AGW seriously. If in your heart of hearts you really believed that airfreight was actually killing polar bears, how could you eat the stuff?
No, they love the power and the glamour and the publicity and the fuzzy feeling of being important. That’s OK, everybody loves that. It is just that we hope that most people get to feel important because they’re doing something actually useful for the world.
Franny’s 10:10 press manager previuosly worked on teenage girl’s magazines…….and fashion and gossip mags….
http://www.1010global.org/uk/about/inside/team/jonathan
Job title: Press Manager
Actual job: Making sure as many people as possible know what a great job 10:10 and its supporters are doing.
“…..Jonathan started as a writer and sub editor of teenage magazines, interviewing everyone from Britney to Beyonce. In recent years he worked as assistant editor on New! magazine and news editor at Look, but has also written for magazines including Heat, OK!, Reveal, More! and Star. While he’s stepped away from the celebrity circus, he’s still hell-bent on getting Cheryl Cole to wear a 10:10 tag! Jonathan is married and lives in Herts with his wife, Emma, and son, Alex.”
He’s interviewed Britney and Beyonce…!!!!!
Al Gore next…………
If her “honesty” is refreshing, then why do you try to sweep it under the carpet by claiming that air freight fruit makes no difference? Franny seems to think it makes a difference, otherwise she wouldn’t call it “guilty”. Do I get to fly guilt-free because the flight would have flown anyway? Various environmental organisations are talking about stripping anything sent by air freight of its label “organic”, because consumers think that organic means better for the environment. Oh but Franny’s blueberries are the special heavenly kind that don’t weigh anything and don’t emit CO2.
As for her subtle dig, those who don’t agree with AGW and the call to stop flying, have been saying that for years. She could only make the point “well” if she actually stopped flying. Everyone else has already made the point.
I’m sure Franny is a very nice person. But I don’t think she’s thought this all through.
(I should add to my previous post that the uranium is in minute amounts and is regarded as well within health guidelines).
I tried signing up as Torquemada, but they told me that he’s already onboard
Well Franny, you saw your own nasty little emission cut off within hours of hitting the web. How’s that “no pressure” thing working out for you right now?
My guilty pleasure? I actually like the light from low-energy fluorescent bulbs! [In most other respects, I’m pretty normal].
Anthony,
It is a legal requirement under the data protection act that all data recorded is accurate and used appropriately – so you have a resource if you want your name removed from their web-site;
http://www.ico.gov.uk/for_organisations/data_protection/the_guide/the_principles.aspx
I prefer Sainsbury’s to Tesco.
When I stopped by the 10:10 site a few days ago, some rather rude an improbable names were listed. The 10:10 signup list must be a favorite graffiti wall, raising the question of how many of their 94,983 joiners are valid people.
As a huge blueberry fan – I mean a huge fan of blueberries, not a fan of huge blueberries, most of the berries sold in the UK are flown in from Poland. You can buy organic blueberries here (in Tesco), but they only last a couple of days or so in the fridge before mould takes over. In order to prevent this, here’s a tip: put your berries in hot water (not boiling, around 70 degrees) for 30 seconds or so and then dry them on paper towels. Once dry, put them back into the fridge. They’ll last for a fortnight.
After reading that bio I immediately began thinking that her Best/Worst 10:10 moment, certainly the suicidal airing of ‘No Pressure’, has in fact become my own Guilty Pleasure from watching the 10:10 campaign self-destruct.
I’ll tell you something else, Franny and the rest of her cabal had better pray (heh heh) that their new found climate allies Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda, do not choose to use the date of 10/10 to explode more people/planes/trains/buildings. They certainly have an affinity for memorable dates (9/11 and 7/7) and are not averse to exploitation of current events.
Considering that presently there is attack chatter in the air and threat warnings in Europe, should something happen two days from now (currently 10/8), well, Franny and company will find yet a new Guilty Pleasure, this one including Swat Teams, confiscated computers, and cavity searches.
Such are the perils of spectacular publicity stunts and using seemingly clever easy to remember organizational names.
But hey, NO PRESSURE Franny. 😉
P.S. This stuff justs writes itself.
Franny is a big fake.
She describes herself, in breathless biographies in the Guardian etc, as an “ex rock drummer turned self-taught film maker.
In fact she’s a second generation, upper middle class, activist media brat.
Her Daddy, Peter Armstrong http://uk.oneworld.net/article/view/113201 , was a senior documentary maker for 20 years at the BBC (where else!) until he bought out the multimedia technology he had developed there and floated “The Multimedia Corporation” on the junior stock market – it later bombed in the dot-com crash. He now runs his own international activist organisation
Daddy worked with her for 10 years on her first film “McLibel” – http://spannerfilms.net/films/mclibel – about the two hippies who were sued for telling lies about Macdonalds. (British left wing media types HATE Macdonalds because their food is enjoyed by the people they most despise – Americans and common people).
She still runs a website providing anti-Macdonalds propaganda to activists.
Her step mum is also an activist film maker and Mummy and Daddy still work with her at her film company – http://spannerfilms.net/node/424.
“Greenery” is just her latest vehicle for self promotion.
OK, thanks, I’ll no longer feel guilty for any fruit I buy from abroad. Thanks. (And I can just ignore the Soil Association: “Aircraft emissions produce far more greenhouse gases per ‘food mile’ than any other form of transport. Although less than 1% of imported food is air freighted, it contributes 11% of the carbon emissions from UK food distribution.”)
Actually the Soil Association thinks that the benefit in trade to Third World countries is worth the CO2 emissions. Funny that, given that the world is overpopulated and so a bit of trade here and there shouldn’t matter much, when the catastrophic 2C is on the horizon.
As usual, greens get to rewrite the rules whenever they like, whilst accusing everyone else of being selfish deniers.
The environment is complex. The greens want to claim the certainty (95%) of man made climate change, and dangerous tipping points that we will probably hit if we don’t make big reductions in consumption/emissions — they want to maintain that al this is virtually a fact, but they can’t decide whether flying a bit of this or that is a net benefit or a net detriment, whether biofuels are good or not, whether the population should be halted or not, and all sorts of vague issues, simply because nobody understands this stuff. But they want to claim moral and scientific certainty over the rest of us, and accuse the rest who don’t agree as being “deniers”.
Franny’s blueberries and helicopter rides to shoot scenes, are just a reflection of the overall contradictions and ignorance in the wider green movement.
I’ve got nothing against Franny personally. The movement as a whole displays a lot of ignorance. Franny can’t help it because she is in that culture and the culture makes them see stuff the way they do, ie. contradicted, lacking knowledge, whilst pretending to have the answers, and pretending to be certain.
I signed up to the 10:10 campaign, just to check whether there is an option to sign off again. There is not.
Then I signed up again (with another address), just to check whether there is a mechanism to remove duplicate names. There is not.
Their claim of 100,000 supporters is a bit of an exaggeration.
I wonder, has Michael Crichton signed up yet?
Guess what? Michael Crichton did just sign up, as did Elvis!
No blueberries in England – nonsense! We call ’em Whinberries here in Shropshire, and you can pick ’em free.
Article in Independant :- http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/uk/days-out-atildeiquest-pickyourown-whinberries-on-the-stiperstones-641751.html
The Stiperstones Inn buys up most of the crop that is now harvested. Landlord John Sproson reckons that, in a good year, an expert picker can make up to £2,000 in the season, which lasts until the second week of September. But now the pickers are mainly pensioners, using a variety of methods. “Some pick clean, one berry at a time,” said John Sproson. “Others use a comb, and then a hairdryer with an attachment to get rid of the twigs and leaves.
Shropshire, England’s best kept secret. If Franny and her “oh so superior friends” got out a bit, they’d learn a little about their own countryside.
And as for their web manager, yesterday I pointed out that he wasn’t too clever, leaving pages up with “Access denied”, but still available (twit), but now he allows people to sign in strangers with no checks. It is a very silly and juvenile site, but allowing Moncton’s name to be loaded::: now that’s one name I wouldn’t take in vain, all hell is about to break over this site, and a good thing too.
From a Guardian article about her on September 1, 2009, one can see how delusional and deluded the woman is.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/sep/01/franny-armstrong-10-10
She’s obviously never stopped to give herself a reality check:
“Where did Armstrong’s climate-change obsession come from? “I must have been 14,” she says, “and I remember my teacher telling us about something called the greenhouse effect and that in a century’s time the planet may not be able to sustain life. I thought, oooh, that sounds quite a big deal.”
“I just believe if you’re not fighting against climate change and you’re not doing a job – like a teacher or a doctor – that is about improving the world, then you’re wasting your life. ”
This explains Splattergate. Teachers are important for indoctrination. Those who do not buy into warmist propaganda are “wasting their life”, so they can be liquidated to prevent any more carbons emissions from their useless lives. They are ‘useless mouths’. At least, try to get that suggestion into people’s minds.
I see that Nessie of Loch Ness has joined the campaign, and thrown her support behind 10:10. Excellent news!
This Franny-and-Splattergate-bashing is going a bit too far now, donch’ya think? The point’s been made; we get it. Time to get back to business.
The biggest fear 10:10 have is silence.
It’s 11.00 hrs in Uk this morning, and this page:- http://www.1010global.org/uk/about/inside/team
is still up. Recent signups include Nessie of Loch Ness, Elvis Presley, Michael Chrichton, and would you believe West Dorset District Council. Well, it’s all good knock about fun isn’t it?
But you have to ask yourself, did Sony actually look at the Team Photo at the top of the page, and then still they decided to give them money. This is a big solid company like Sony, who make zillions of high quality products – they put their good name in the hands of these kids, all wet behind the ears. They must have been absolutely bloody mad.
Franny claims:
“a mere blip compared to the 300,000 real people who now die each year from climate change”.
This statement portrays perfectly why these people must never be allowed near the levers of real power.
The invention of the supposed ‘crimes’ of you enemies is nothing new, documented as long ago as the Persian wars of conquest begun by Cyrus. A fanatic finds it all too easy to make up the most outrageous accusations against their enemies, the truth being a tool not a truth in itself. The bigger the lie the more people believe it.
The scary part is that the instigators of the lie will make themselves believe it to justify actions that no normal person would ever contemplate.
Franny is trying to justify her hatred and intolerance of others by inventing crimes that could never be proven.
Occupation : Asking powerful people for money…
That’s what pirates, kidnappers, robbers and hijackers do too.
Oh. My. God.
These 10:10 bios… I’ve never seen a more self-indulgent self-reinforcing up-their-own-backside bunch of right-on eco-egotists than are listed on these bios.
Save us from these nutters !
““Where did Armstrong’s climate-change obsession come from? “I must have been 14,” she says, “and I remember my teacher telling us about something called the greenhouse effect and that in a century’s time the planet may not be able to sustain life. I thought, oooh, that sounds quite a big deal.””
I remember, (just) being at school in the latter stages of the cold war when S.A.L.T. talks were taking place and one lesson we had about multilateral vs. unilateral disarming.
Some girl of about 14 became nearly hysterical screaming that if we exploded a nuclear weapon near a fault line in the earth’s crust, that the earth could explode.
The last I heard, she became a Greenham Common protester against nuclear weapons.
I guess that some ignorant young women can become tripped by being exposed to these seriously scary scenarios at such a young and impressionable age.
Still, she has a significantly higher carbon footprint than I have, so she is a hypocrite.
I think that concerns over flying are utterly groundless (ho, ho).
For those who believe otherwise, however, it need not be hypocrisy to fly around telling people not to go by air. Afterall, a librarian may need to shout ‘Silence’ to reduce the noise – although, momentarily, it is increased thereby.
The AGWA’s have to fly now so that far fewer things and people are flown in the future. Any hypocrisy is revealed by airmiles used for non-campaign purposes.