Live chat with Sheherazade Goldsmith Wednesday June 18th 1-2pm

[carriemumsnet]

You magazine eco columnist and editor of a Slice of Organic Life, Sheherazade Goldsmith, will be joining us for an online chat to share her green tips on Wednesday June 18th from 1-2pm. Sheharazade is an eco mum with three children under ten. She's launching the Peter Rabbit Naturally Better initiative which sees the well-loved Beatrix Potter creation become the first ever licensed character to go green.

Created in 1893, the naughty little rabbit is the oldest licensed children's character in the world and this new initiative reflects the importance that Beatrix Potter placed on the natural world and the environment.

If you can't make it on Weds, you can post your questions in advance here. Otherwise, we'll see you with your organic salads (home grown of course ) on weds lunchtime.

Xenis please, you are showing your class. You must know that it is simply tolerated in the uppers. Poor bloody women

I think MN should maybe think of scrapping this. There are some things in here of a very personal nature that I think it would be better not to let her see. She is a real person after all

I agree.
Xenia as someone actually saying something nice - goes on to make the whole thing even worse. Bit car crash.

I love organic food but can't afford it. How can we make it more affordable?

People always say "I think he/she is lovely" just before they slide the knife, effortlessly in between the shoulder blades, and twist.

Hmm, yes, MT, I see your point but frankly those issues have been very widely blazoned across all sorts of national media before now. Putting oneself up for interview in that situation is a bit sitting-duckish if you actually think it through.

eBenes, you say she needs to publish a book so her ideas get noticed. You say if she publicised them via a website, it would simply be one of many green websites and have much less impact.

OK... so if publicising the eco mother lifestyle is her key concern, shouldn't all the profit from the book go to a 'green' charity?

Message withdrawn

ROFL cod

No, what I'm saying is that the question 'why isn't the book available for free' (paraphrased) is a bit impossible. She has decided to make some money. She thinks the green thing is something she knows about and can make money doing. She also, presumably, thinks good comes of encouraging other people to find out more about it - while spending money on her book. Lots of companies have green beliefs and make money. This is the way she wants to make money, but just because it has a goody-goody aspect to it doesn't mean she's any more likely to do it for free than companies who sell fair trade coffee or cotton. You can say she's promoting ideas rather than selling a product, so it should be for free - but she's not. She's selling a product: she thinks this is a pleasant and helpful and enjoyable book. So to say to her 'if you're not doing this for free you're a hypocrite' is an impossible and rather unfair attack. She is selling the usual pleasurable experience that we expect a book to be, however far it delivers. She'll get about 10% of the coverprice and she can give it to a green charity if she wants, but the publisher isn't going to give any of their profit to a charity because it's just another book and that's their business, and they're not going to let her give away all the contents - as seemed to be suggested by the question I was responding to, god knows why - for free on the internet because they're a business.

Message withdrawn

I did incidentally find the Peter Rabbit Naturally Better website, which seemed to be flogging the Beatrix Potter classics on recycled paper. The green option is to buy second hand copies (there are thousands and thousands in excellent condition for the same price as new). This isn't the greenest business ever contrived.

My guess is that at some point she'll say something along the lines of "I know I'm lucky, I know I lead a very priviledged existance, and I want to use my position and my contacts to bring about change and by raising awareness of green issues and by increasing demand, help to reduce the cost of organic food".

Ya just know it.

I bet Tesco can't wait.

The most interesting thing about her is her toleration of the alleged adultery.

Well you could say the same about Hilary Clinton

Sexual fidelity is not necessarily the only basis for a long and successful marriage

And at least it was only around the corner = no carbon footprint

There is nothing interesting about her - apart from a rather fanciful Christian name. And that's down to her parents.

Two reasons why I think she should give her book profits to a green charity:

1. She is rich already so doesn't need the money AFAIK. Green businesses have wages to pay, plans to expand and diversify etc.

1. Presumably the use of paper in publishig her book is more anti green than having a website, so in giving the profits to a green charity, she is balancing this out.

However, perhaps she is using the profits from the book in some worthy way. For all I know she might not be keeping the money she makes.

I'd be interested to know her answer if she cares to give it.

Will take a look at the website you mention.

Hilary Clinton is a great deal more interesting than Shezzy Goldsmith.

Toleration of (alleged) adultery does not an interesting person make

She is pretty and dull and married to the son of a man who was colourful and good at business...

"I know I'm lucky, I know I lead a very priviledged existance, and I want to use my position and my contacts to milk a shed load of money from mumsnetters under the umbrella of bringing about change and by raising awareness of green issues"

Face it, only Xenia has even feigned an interested in buying the book.

Why not give the bunting business a whirl?

Has her husband been putting up bunting in some other woman's garden?

As long as it's green bunting, she'll be OK with it

Not just some other woman but his sister in law's sister, allegedly. The interesting issue is whether if you marry a rich man or woman there is a kind of deal that you will tolerate the adultery or not and once they've done it once and got away with it it tends to continue through the marriage. But not everyone does. Viscount Spencer's second wife apparently wasn't prepared to tolerate it and she had two very little children when it allegedly went on. Whereas Blunkett's lover's husband was even prepared to accept the lover's (Blunkett's) child in the marriage.

There are downsides to marrying rich and well known people in that scandal tends to stick and be known.

My garden yard is 2m x 3m; it is concrete(a necessity for the drainage as we reside on a hill) and sloped.
How many chickens can I pack into this space and still call them "free range"?

What's the carbon footprint of your wardrobe? Surely all that Prada comes with a load of air miles.