Clinging on for dear life like crazy and remembering the poor old whales

‘EVERY time I go to do it, just before I do it, I pause for a moment. Perhaps I even pause for two moments, sometimes.’ Hermione was in confessional mode. ‘Yeah, I am the same,’ I responded gravely, nodding with sympathy, empathy and understanding. ‘I pause too. I genuinely pause.’

‘I know there are consequences,’ my fragrant spouse continued. ‘I really do realise that what I do can make a difference, so I pause.’

‘Me as well. I must pause for at least, oh at least three seconds,’ my voice was sad, sad in a reflective way, ‘every time I go to do it.’

Then we confessed together, two voices singing in unison from the same wretched hymn sheet: ‘Then we go ahead and do it anyway.’

The time has surely come to cease going ahead, to stop doing it anyway. It used to be when penguins were the creatures summoned up to remind residents of Medders Manor of their obligations to the planet. The logic was that, every time a light bulb was left burning unnecessarily, then a little chunk of Antarctic ice melted and the unfortunate birds were moved one step closer to extinction.

‘Remember the penguins!’ was our watchword as we raised the family.

‘Remember the penguins!’ before running a hot bath when a cold shower would do the job just as well.

‘Remember the penguins!’ before switching on a second bar of the electric heater during cold nights around the television.

‘Remember the penguins!’ before going to bed without first checking all lights and appliances.

Remembering the penguins has not only served to alert young minds to matters ecological but also to keep the ESB bill within bounds. Now the time has come to remember the whales too.

These great ocean creatures spend their lives patrolling the deep sea, hoovering up plankton as they go. But these days the plankton they eat comes with a queasy ration of plastic, all because I go ahead and use cling-film to wrap the sandwiches for my packed lunch. If poor old Jonah of biblical fame were swallowed by a whale in 2018, he might usefully spend his time in the beast’s stomach gathering up all the rubbish generated by throwaway humanity.

Of course I could put my ham-with-mustard in a proper lunch box or fold a sheet of paper around my cheese-and-tomato, but instead I take the lazy route and reach for the roll. Cling-film represents all that is ingenious in modern life – but it also stands for so much that is wrong and self-indulgent. Cling-film is both endlessly useful and infinitely unnecessary.

Since we discovered that it is possible to deploy cling-film in the microwave, our consumption of the stuff at the Manor has gone through the roof. We are totally cling-film dependent, reaching for that roll of clear, stretchable, self-adhering plastic given the slightest excuse.

We love the way it seals food into containers. We love the way it is perfectly see-through. We love its handiness and adaptability. We are hopeless cling-film junkies – and we are not alone in our addiction. Supermarkets are similarly in thrall, using cling-film on a vast scale to package and present all manner of products. The environmentalists have taken to calling cling-film, drink bottles, yoghurt pots, coffee-to-go beakers and such likes ‘single use’ plastic, too much of which finds a way into the rivers and seas.

Weaning ourselves off single use plastics will be painful but, please, remember those whales. We will all soon be back to the days of the thrupenny deposit on the bottle of pop, though some of us may have to be dragged kicking and screaming…

Hermione paused over the left over portion of shepherd’s pie she was preparing to put in the fridge. Yours truly paused over the cold beef with chutney sandwich I had made to sustain me through the long day’s work ahead.

Then we reached for the roll. We have masses of cling-film in store. It would be a shame to waste it.

The whales will be remembered some other day.