Count on the Co-Op...

If 'reduce, reuse, recycle' really is a mantra for our times (alongside 'oh no, the recession' and 'What do you make of that Fred Goodwin then?') then the Co-op really must get the plaudits today.

Unpacking my weekly shopping, delivered by the 'Co' via Caledonian Macbrayne, I was delighted to chance upon their choice of packing/insulation material this week.

Normally we're lucky to get a page or two of an old Press & Journal but today, having recently cancelled the Guardian Weekly subscription, I was treated to a glossy, free and fairly recent Telegraph Travel magazine. Tomorrow's breakfast need not be without its supplements!

Every little helps...oh, that's someone else.

What does this button do?

A question often asked in our house as we gaze at this on the stairhead wall...many theories have been put forward, a remote starter for the generator (nope, tried it), a central heating central control switch (ditto), master fusebox trip-switch type thing (don't even know what that is), panic button of some sort...all bearing absolutely no fruit whatsoever.

So it was with no small sense of worry that I spotted a picture in yesterday's Guardian Weekly which suggested that our innocuous looking device might, even as I speak and casually flick it on and off, be doing all sorts of untold damge to the stability (or otherwise) of world peace...