Just do it!

It was always pleasant to chat with Lyle. He was not only business-like, but was very perceptive. Very human too. His work in film distribution put him in touch with people in far away places. Passing his office one morning in early May, I popped in for a momentary “hello”. He had something on his mind. And as a freelancer I was always conscious of people’s needs and interests. They could put bread, and sometimes butter on our table.

Peter had just called Lyle from London. He had an urgent need. His monthly magazine, TV World was featuring Canada in its June issue. Three pages of adverts had been sold to Canadian companies on this promise. The deadline loomed and the Toronto correspondent had dropped out. Where to find a replacement?

Despite the queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach I piped up “That’s me!”. Then my customary self kicked in and I explained to Lyle that I knew nothing about the business of television, and rarely even watched the tube. A quick call to London and my own doubts were reflected in Peter’s uneasy response. “Tell him I’ll do it on spec,” I said. Peter, over the proverbial barrel, had no choice.

Paul succeeded Peter as editor and we got along well. One day when I was at their basement quarters on Wilfred Street, Paul took me in his Rolls to a prestigious Oxford Street club. That was a first for me, but not the last.

Those initial three articles with the seductive titles Challenge of the New Technology, Quiet Revolution that Brings the $’s In, and Keeping Canada for Canadians made me a sort of journalist. After that I churned out copy by the lorryload and met some interesting people in the process. And I learned that mystiques are meant to be shattered. There will always be more.

Reading Between the Lines

In the fifties my father made them for his own use. Plastic shopping bags were not known at the time, although a very few people here followed European custom and fait le tour with string carrier bags. But dad found the common brown paper bags to be wasteful so he bought some sturdy canvas and had permanent bags made for carrying home the groceries. These bags are still in use.

I was reminded of them when reading an article by George Monbiot in a recent issue of The Guardian. It brought to mind the commercial fad for promoting non-plastic tote bags. They have become status symbols, even for the elite. Apparently the upper-crust leave their tony shoppes with one of Anya Hindmarsh’s limited edition I’m Not a Plastic Bag carefully wrapped in the store’s own elegant paper bags. What irony!

Having bought reusable bags we are supposed to bask in a halo of Green. Fully redeemed. All the while of course, filling them full of non-essentials! Years ago I cottoned on to the wiles of the product pushers. I sat in the library perusing thirty or forty issues of that respectable American magazine, Consumer Reports. CR gives lots of useful attention to which car or van is better this way or that way. But never did I come across a caveat that any car is addictive. That perhaps one ought to consider other options. Of course if CR were able to persuade many people that life would be better without a car, it would be committing corporate suicide!

Monbiot goes well beyond shopping bags. He puts the lie to “green consumerism” in Eco-junk. Well worth a read! My father would have agreed. And so do I.