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I have got massively into blackberries.  I hadn’t really made the connection between brambles and blackberries before – I just thought brambles were the plant version of wasps, irritating and pointless in equal measure.  But now I see they’re great!   I can’t believe there are so many blackberries around and people don’t pick them – people usually love free stuff, I would have thought others would have hoovered them up like locusts (do locusts use hoovers?  I’m not sure) but there are still loads nearby my house at the moment.

Everyone likes free stuff – I particularly like the feeling of getting stuff without paying for it, without it being theft.  That is brilliant.  Does anyone else know of anything else similarly healthy, free and fun which I may have overlooked?  Or is blackberries the only such thing?
Also, you can freeze blackberries.   I’ve now got nearly 6 kilos of the things in the freezer.  My girlfriend is turning out crumbles at a rate of knots, but still isn’t keeping pace with my massive blackberry-acquisition rate.  Any ideas on what to do with them now I’ve got them would be appreciated.

This is amusing and upsetting in equal parts.
Someone recently asked on Yahoo Answers “what is better for the environment, bus or train?”  And of all the answers, the best one, the BEST, the one that the other half wits voted for as settling the argument was by someone who thought that trains were better because:
“some types of trains run on electricity not on fuel, this way it does not pollute the environment.”
Can anyone see a flaw in that, because I can’t?

I’ve signed up with Ecotricity, because I know I’m supposed to.  But Uswitch tells me it costs me about £85 extra, and I’m worried about whether it’s worth it.

Ecotricity make a grand claim that for every pound you spend on their bill, they spend a pound putting up windmills.   I called Ecotricity and asked the girl on the end of the phone “if that’s true, how do they pay your wages?”  After some needling, someone else explained that what you spend on your bill doesn’t have much to do with it.  Of course, they actually put up the windmills with money borrowed from the bank, and the amount of £1s they get from me doesn’t have anything to do with it.   I think their chat should be “For every £1 you spend on your bill, we borrow an unrelated amount from the bank – just like any other windmill builders.”  Not quite as catchy though. (more…)