Eye is nervous about the upcoming special Friend on sustainable living. Even the readers are keeping an eye on us. Some of the suggestions reaching the office smack of war-time restrictions and austerity. Not all of us in the office are in the utilitarian age group that can remember rationing and these ideas of saving energy are frankly disturbing to the younger ones!
Sheila Colbeck writes from Dunstable to remind us that a lot of the necessary behaviour change was practised during the second world war. 'Unless it is dark, keep lights off except when shaving, when getting up in the morning, in the dawn/gloaming and over breakfast,' she advises, 'and do without toast for breakfast.'
Sustainable cooks make sure that the oven is fully booked every time it is switched on. This requires forward thinking on quite a scale ­ and Eye wonders how many of the extra meals cooked at the same time will end up in freezers or dustbins. Either way it will be a waste of energy.
The editor has been to see Al Gore's environmentally alarming film An Inconvenient Truth after hearing that it was a 'must see' for Quakers. She and the advertisement manager have been overheard plotting to offer the DVD (when it appears) to readers. We wonder whether there will be compulsory viewing in the office.