Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Aug 8, 2019 13:16:42 GMT
Slow handclap for the cafe bar at the Roundhouse- just saw someone being told that from an hour before a show, they have to serve teas and coffees in disposable cups. They are using compostable cups but still weird
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2019 13:47:55 GMT
Slow handclap for the cafe bar at the Roundhouse- just saw someone being told that from an hour before a show, they have to serve teas and coffees in disposable cups. They are using compostable cups but still weird A very necessary policy for a venue that principally operates as a live music venue. Hard, breakable objects of any description (pint glasses, beer bottles down to tea/coffee cups) are a no-go as they are a risk to public and performers. It's an established policy in nearly all live music venues as a safety precaution, because some mindless idiots in the past have taken liberties. Once cleared to open, the cafe bar and the main venue are connected and it's easy to get from one to another with drinks brought in either area. Having previously worked there I'd say this is completely justified.
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Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Aug 8, 2019 16:57:49 GMT
Ah ok, that does make sense and they are doing what they can with the compostable cups
Was in the National just now and they have switched to solid reusable plastic cups similar to the Bridge
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Post by joem on Aug 14, 2019 22:29:20 GMT
I would have thought the West End is already doing quite well in recycling old plays.
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Post by lynette on Aug 14, 2019 22:35:50 GMT
They sell water in glass bottles at RSC bars now. You can’t take them in to the auditoria so they give you a plastic cup. So no saving on plastic use, then. You could take in tap water in a plastic cup. I wonder if they recycle the glass bottles. They charge £2 a bottle. A confused rip off
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Post by Noel on Aug 15, 2019 10:22:40 GMT
I used to collect the plastic cups from the show I went but have stopped as I have tried to limit my plastic use.
I think it would be wonderful if Theatres sold re-usable cups and distinct pins could be purchased at shows.
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Post by Phantom of London on Aug 21, 2019 23:32:14 GMT
Including making theatre more substainable is getting to the theatre.
I reckon on this one I might be in the minority of just one, in thinking it is a terrible decision to jettison HS2.
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Post by Jon on Aug 22, 2019 0:54:19 GMT
I think more and more theatres will adopt paperless tickets, not just an eco-friendly method but in terms of cost as well.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2019 7:19:11 GMT
Including making theatre more substainable is getting to the theatre. I reckon on this one I might be in the minority of just one, in thinking it is a terrible decision to jettison HS2. HS2 has a huge potential for positive impact at an industry and consumer level. Unfortunately I think they're laying the groundwork there now for when a cash-strapped Brexit Britain can't afford to import the basics and projects with superfluous spendings will be have to be cut. Atleast (in their minds) they'll be able to justify it as a "spiralling costs in a report before we left the EU". It's just another victim being led to the gallows.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2019 7:23:08 GMT
I think more and more theatres will adopt paperless tickets, not just an eco-friendly method but in terms of cost as well. I agree with this and whilst I enjoy collecting tickets currently I'm not going to get my knickers in a twist when physical tickets cease to exists. For every ticket I get a cardholder receipt goes in the bin, it's not practical or sustainable. If the show isn't memorable enough to recall it without a token keepsake it probably wasn't worth remembering.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2019 11:09:43 GMT
HS2 has a huge potential for positive impact at an industry and consumer level. Unfortunately I think they're laying the groundwork there now for when a cash-strapped Brexit Britain can't afford to import the basics and projects with superfluous spendings will be have to be cut. Atleast (in their minds) they'll be able to justify it as a "spiralling costs in a report before we left the EU". It's just another victim being led to the gallows. I'd rather it was scrapped for two reasons 1) the costs are spiralling and will only get higher and 2) that cash should be used to improve existing services which really need it and produce the ones the midlands etc desperately need. Brexit or HS2?
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Post by Phantom of London on Aug 22, 2019 12:23:10 GMT
HS2 will serve the country for hundreds of years, you cannot easily upgrade the existing Victorian railway, they tried that with the West Coast Main Line Upgrade That went vastly over budget and under delievered what was promised.
Cost the government should bring in French style road tolls to pay for it.
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Post by The Matthew on Aug 22, 2019 15:58:19 GMT
HS2 will serve the country for hundreds of years, you cannot easily upgrade the existing Victorian railway, they tried that with the West Coast Main Line Upgrade That went vastly over budget and under delievered what was promised. I think they'd do better to downgrade HS2 to a standard rail service. We desperately need the extra capacity, and with the ability of people today to do more than just gaze out the window time spent on a train isn't wasted time in the way it used to be. There might be a case for high speed rail if it was linking directly into the channel tunnel and we were talking about knocking several hours off a ten hour journey, but saving an hour or so on a short journey isn't worth the colossal cost. Personally I can't see them getting anything done at all. Consider something as simple as the plans to reopen the line between Bletchley and Bicester. That would create an important passenger route and a vital freight route. There's already a line there: it's too degraded to use right now but all the bridges are still in place and all the property is already in railway hands. They've been discussing reopening it for nearly ten times as long as it took to build the original line from scratch, spent nearly as much money in real terms, and we're still years away from seeing any actual trains. But hey, we've had a shedload of feasibility studies, so I guess that's progress, right? (Still on topic for the discussion. Farce is theatre.)
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Post by Dawnstar on Aug 22, 2019 19:34:17 GMT
I think they'd do better to downgrade HS2 to a standard rail service. We desperately need the extra capacity, and with the ability of people today to do more than just gaze out the window time spent on a train isn't wasted time in the way it used to be. There might be a case for high speed rail if it was linking directly into the channel tunnel and we were talking about knocking several hours off a ten hour journey, but saving an hour or so on a short journey isn't worth the colossal cost. Personally I can't see them getting anything done at all. Consider something as simple as the plans to reopen the line between Bletchley and Bicester. That would create an important passenger route and a vital freight route. There's already a line there: it's too degraded to use right now but all the bridges are still in place and all the property is already in railway hands. They've been discussing reopening it for nearly ten times as long as it took to build the original line from scratch, spent nearly as much money in real terms, and we're still years away from seeing any actual trains. But hey, we've had a shedload of feasibility studies, so I guess that's progress, right? (Still on topic for the discussion. Farce is theatre.) As someone at the north easterly end of that line, I reckon I'll be dead before they get round to re-openng it as far as Cambridge & I'm still relatively young!
Rather than spend a fortune on speeding up an already quite quick London-Manchester service, I think they should be spening money on improving train travel when you want to go between two places neither of which is London. I wanted to go to Salford recently, for theatregoing purposes, but had to abandon it when I found it would take me over 4 hours each way as I'd either have to go down to London & back out or I'd have to change two or three times on various other routes. From London it's only 2 and a half hours, despite London being further away from Salford than Cambridge is. It's the same if I want to go pretty much anywhere else to the north/west/south that isn't London. With the exception of London-Cardiff, I'm struggling to think of any east-west train routes that aren't very slow & involve changes.
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Post by Phantom of London on Aug 23, 2019 11:57:20 GMT
Sadly a high speed needs to go to London, as that is where people want to go.
As I alluded to earlier they tried to upgrade the West Coast Main Line but failed, but failed miserably.
After sitting on the M25 the other week and noted 9/10 cars were singularly occupied, bring in road tolls like they do in France, this would entice people to travel by rail, by making single car journeys uncompetitive, get polluting lorries off the road, by getting freigh on the rails . Incidentally the West Coast mainline is full, so you cannot run anymore freight down it.
Road tolls will pay for a great railway infrastructure and also cut down on pollution by reducing car journeys.
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Post by oxfordsimon on Aug 23, 2019 12:14:46 GMT
Road tolls are a very blunt mechanism that takes no account of ability to pay. There are people who need to use a vehicle who cannot be easily transported via rail or other forms of public transport. Yes, you can argue that if you can afford the car and the fuel, you can afford the tolls - but that isn't always the case. There are those - particular those people living with a disability - who would not be able to get out and about without a car and thus any toll system must take this into account.
My experience of travelling through France on train and by car doesn't seem to tally up with the idea of tolls encouraging greater rail use. Rail is fine between major urban centres - but if you need to travel beyond that, it is far less use and there are many communities that are not served at all by a rail connection within easy access.
The cost of tolls will get swallowed up by freight companies and other businesses that currently rely on the road network - it will be the occasional user who gets hits the most, they have no-one to pass the cost onto and frequently no other option but to travel that way.
Tolls might be part of the solution - but they are not a magic bullet
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Post by TallPaul on Aug 23, 2019 12:16:47 GMT
One of the problems with the UK is infrastructure projects are always built in isolation. If HS2 does go ahead, then alongside the railway line should be a huge pipeline to transport water from the wet north west to the dry south east.
Likewise, there should be a new railway line built alongside every major new road.
And if the landscape is going to be blighted anyway by a major project, it's not going to be any less blighted by including wind turbines (though I personally don't consider wind turbines to be blight).
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Post by Dawnstar on Aug 23, 2019 14:20:28 GMT
Sadly a high speed needs to go to London, as that is where people want to go. I'm sure that there are also an awful lot of people who want to go to places other than London! One of the problems with the UK is infrastructure projects are always built in isolation. If HS2 does go ahead, then alongside the railway line should be a huge pipeline to transport water from the wet north west to the dry south east. That's a great idea. So of course will never happen!
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Post by Jon on Aug 23, 2019 14:21:09 GMT
This has gone way off-topic!
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Post by Dawnstar on Aug 23, 2019 16:15:41 GMT
This has gone way off-topic!
I'd argue that ecologically-friendly transport to/from theatres is a part of making theatre more ecologically-friendly.
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Post by The Matthew on Aug 24, 2019 5:05:18 GMT
After sitting on the M25 the other week and noted 9/10 cars were singularly occupied, bring in road tolls I think tax on fuel is better. As the M6 Toll shows, if you toll specific busy roads then people just move to different roads. But if you tax the fuel then you're automatically taxing the heaviest polluters the most with no extra administration cost required.
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Xanderl
Member
Not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations
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Post by Xanderl on Sept 29, 2019 6:40:33 GMT
I think that digital programmes are a fantastic idea. The only issue is that commercial theatres would still want to charge a lot for them which would be a rip off. Could abolish free printed cast lists as well perhaps (or make them available on request at the box office?) - all of that info is on the website these days. I see the Royal Court has now done this - maybe Stephen floated the idea or they were going to do it anyway! Where the cast lists were is a large poster with the cast list, saying they are available on request and suggesting you take a photo of the poster if you want to refer to it. Good move!
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Post by Stephen on Sept 29, 2019 20:59:32 GMT
The Royal Court has also completely stopped using takeaway coffee cups. They're selling great little keep cups for £1.50!
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Post by NeilVHughes on Oct 4, 2019 10:38:01 GMT
Today, the National Theatre has declared Climate Emergency
The planet is on track to reach a global temperature rise of 3˚C before the end of the century. The evidence of catastrophic environmental collapse is growing ever clearer, from extreme weather events to widespread extinction of species.
Theatre, like all industries, has an impact: we create work that is inherently temporary; that makes use of raw materials, of heat, light and sound; that asks people to travel to a particular location at a particular time.
However, we believe theatre can be part of the solution – we tell stories, shape culture and encourage empathy and understanding. Our industry is made up of creative and inspiring people who are motivated to make change.
We have already made significant progress towards reducing the carbon impact of the National Theatre; you can read more about that work here. The scale of the change required means we are already scrutinizing every part of the way we operate. We are on track to achieve our goals set in alignment with the Paris Agreement, taking us to carbon neutrality by 2050. But we believe this is a climate emergency - and it is our responsibility to aim for a carbon neutral National Theatre faster.
To achieve this, key areas of focus are:
Our building – we have made significant improvements to the efficiency of our 1970s building, reducing energy, waste and water carbon impact by 25% since 2016. We will continue to set ambitious targets to move towards net carbon zero on site.
Our programme – as part of our mission to tell resonant stories and to galvanise positive change, climate and ecological concerns will be reflected prominently in our programme. Making theatre – we are working with production teams to examine every step of the process of bringing shows to the stage and understand how to reduce their environmental impact. We will share what we learn with the theatre sector and encourage the exchange of ideas. Transport – as the National Theatre we believe it is very important to tour across the UK and around the world. We’re actively assessing the impact of our touring and will work to minimise carbon impact; however, the truth is that radical changes to national and international transport infrastructure are needed to reach carbon neutrality.
Audiences and staff – we want staff to feel empowered to examine their own practice and decision making, with ideas for change filtering throughout the National Theatre. We must enable audiences and visitors to understand and minimize their pollution and carbon footprint when visiting us.
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Post by lynette on Oct 4, 2019 11:42:37 GMT
Of course, do all the above NT and we applaud you for it and hope you will be an example to encourage others. But, the NT has state support and isn’t wholly dependant on shareholders or big ‘owners’ for whom the only thing that matters is profit. And though mighty oaks from tiny acorns do indeed grow, I am wondering what impact this will have in a world dominated by other nations’ overwhelming need for and production of energy.
Ps frankly I find the high moral tone of the NT a bit much. If they want me to visit, then hey, I have to get there somehow, maybe eat some of their dire food offerings and tramp my metaphorical footprint all over the place.
Pps I suppose knocking the hideous and user unfriendly building down and starting again might help, no?
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Post by TallPaul on Oct 4, 2019 12:45:04 GMT
I suppose knocking the hideous and user unfriendly building down and starting again might help, no? I know you are jesting (and have a particular dislike of the National Theatre), but now it's been built, it's probably more environmentally friendly for it to remain. As a concrete building, the cement used in its construction will have released huge amounts of CO2. Even if producers switched fully to non-fossil fuels, the chemical reaction is responsible for 60% of the carbon footprint. Any mention in the press release of closing the underground car park?
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Post by oxfordsimon on Oct 4, 2019 13:06:41 GMT
Our programme – as part of our mission to tell resonant stories and to galvanise positive change, climate and ecological concerns will be reflected prominently in our programme. I suspect the vast majority of casual theatregoers are looking for something to take them out of the current world and what we are living through and to find things that entertain, divert (and occasionally challenge) them This doesn't diminish the importance of seeking solutions to the issues surrounding our climate - but we don't need to have it a prominent part of our National Theatre programming. I am increasingly frustrated by this movement. It is huge on idealism and not always fully engaged with the real world issues of actually bringing about viable solutions. Yes, you need drive and enthusiasm. But you also have to contribute more than just protest and slogans. Demands are all well and good - but they are not enough. Declaring a 'climate emergency' is a response to a very vocal pressure group. A group that does not always follow the demands it places on others. A group that threatens groups that are already doing good work in the area of reducing their carbon footprint to as close to zero as they can with disruption if they don't sign up to a very specific agenda. I want people to work together to find ways through this. But I also want our cultural institutions to be free to tell a whole range of stories - not to be pressured by ANYONE into telling the stories that any one group wants to hear.
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Post by Nicholas on Oct 4, 2019 14:56:25 GMT
Sadly, I've just read their 2021 programming. It includes: Uncle Electric Vanya. Animal Wind Farm. War Horse-power. The Sustainable Cherry Orchard. Wild Organic Honey. I know you’re being facetious, but…
This discussion comes up EVERY TIME a political issue comes up. The assumption is that the play can be about AND ONLY ABOUT that issue. Personally that strikes me as a lack of imagination. One of the best shows I saw tackling climate change (albeit indirectly, through tribal displacement) was The Encounter, and so imaginative was it that I honestly don’t know what was real, what was illusion, and what was imagination. Another great show tackling the climate crisis is An Enemy of the People – and that was written 200 years ago.
There's only one bad climate play I've seen - but it, um, wasn't a play. One of the dullest shows I’ve ever seen was 2071. I’ve actually reread it a number of times – it became the centrepiece of my university dissertation 100 years ago – but I fell asleep in the theatre, due it being, well, not theatre. I 100% understand why Billers gave it five stars, and politically I was chuffed that climate science was given this push, but it just was not theatre. I’d urge to Royal Court and Katie Mitchell to go back and complete her trilogy of science plays. I’d just urge her to make it a play this time.
Lungs is about to be on. Lungs is 100% a climate crisis play, written before we used the words climate crisis. It’s also a deeply human play. I wept at the end of it. It’s that perfect thing – unapologetically political, but deeply human. With his insistence on humanising issues, Ibsen could have written it.
Worry ye not, mind. 99% of shows at the Nash will be as is. When they next revive Twelfth Night, will Malvolio’s garters be flooded by melting ice caps? Yes, if they do put one ‘issue play’ on every year, there is also the issue of, you know, the plays being good – will we gets Lungs, or will we get 2071? Sir David Hare’s probably writing something extremely tedious as we speak, and given his fame we’ll have to endure it; it’ll be dull not because of its topic, but because it’ll be I’m Not Running Water. Rufus does have a duty to commission committed people to write his issue plays.
However, not only has theatre always been political, but, as with the Ibsen, it has the rare power to put a human face on issues that otherwise are beyond us. Climate plays? People vs Oil is David vs Goliath. The tragedies of air pollution outside schools are intimate stories of family loss. Simon McBurney should adventurously adapt Merchants of Doubt (that’s a gift Simon - ed: no, do The Lost Words).
At the moment immediate crises are happening to tribespeople in Siberia and in the Amazon. I want to see those stories. Crises are also happening in London schools. I want to see those stories. Crises are happening by indigenous tribes trodden on by big oil, and by middle-Americans being trodden on by big oil. I want to see those stories. If Katie Mitchell can do something half-decent this time, I want to see actual scientists telling stories too.
But nonetheless, this'll probably be one play, via allusion, every two years. If you're going to boycott, that's only £7.50 a year you're saving!
If you’re worried about how climate science will ruin theatre, go to the Old Vic. Is A Very Expensive Poison unnecessary political sloganeering, or a challenging piece of (admittedly messy) theatre? Go back. Watch Lungs. When you come out weeping and in love, you tell us that plays shouldn’t tackle the climate crisis.
P.S. Having said 2071 was that dull, I’m nonetheless still haunted by its closing words – the only point the play becomes theatrical, implicating us as theatregoers. Actually, it does imply the breadth of stories theatre can and should tell on this issue. More importantly, it does remind us that we have a duty when we go to the theatre, and theatremakers have a duty when they inspire us:
By being here tonight - by travelling to this theatre, by using these lights, the heating, the amplification of my voice - we have contributed to the amount of CO2 in the Atmosphere. There will be carbon atoms that were generated by this event that will still be in the air in 2071, in the air that my granddaughter will breathe. That’s our legacy. Science can’t say what is right and what is wrong. Science can inform, but it cannot arbitrate, it cannot decide. Science can say that if we burn another half-trillion tons of carbon the atmospheric content of CO2 will go up by another 100 parts per million, and that will almost certainly lead to a warming of the planet greater than two degrees, with major disruption of the climate system, and huge risks for the natural world and human wellbeing. But it can’t answer moral questions, value questions. Do we care about the world’s poor? Do we care about future generations? Do we see the environment as part of the economy, or the economy as part of the environment? The whole point about climate change is that, despite having been revealed by science, it is not really an issue about science, it is an issue about what sort of world we want to live in. What kind of future do we want to create?
Oh, and also, stupid of me to miss - Uncle Vanya! Character and ecology, beautifully at one. You can burn peat in your stoves and build your sheds of stone. Oh, I don't object, of course, to cutting wood from necessity, but why destroy the forests? The woods of Russia are trembling under the blows of the axe. Millions of trees have perished. The homes of the wild animals and birds have been desolated; the rivers are shrinking, and many beautiful landscapes are gone forever. And why? Because men are too lazy and stupid to stoop down and pick up their fuel from the ground. [To HELENA] Am I not right, Madame? Who but a stupid barbarian could burn so much beauty in his stove and destroy that which he cannot make? Man is endowed with reason and the power to create, so that he may increase that which has been given him, but until now he has not created, but demolished. The forests are disappearing, the rivers are running dry, the game is exterminated, the climate is spoiled, and the earth becomes poorer and uglier every day. [To VOITSKI] I read irony in your eye; you do not take what I am saying seriously, and—and—after all, it may very well be nonsense. But when I pass peasant-forests that I have preserved from the axe, or hear the rustling of the young plantations set out with my own hands, I feel as if I had had some small share in improving the climate, and that if mankind is happy a thousand years from now I will have been a little bit responsible for their happiness. When I plant a little birch tree and then see it budding into young green and swaying in the wind, my heart swells with pride and I—[Sees the WORKMAN, who is bringing him a glass of vodka on a tray] however—[He drinks] I must be off. Probably it is all nonsense, anyway. Good-bye.
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Post by Nicholas on Oct 4, 2019 19:55:41 GMT
The assumption is that the play can be about AND ONLY ABOUT that issue. Personally that strikes me as a lack of imagination. Unfortunately, though, it does normally turn out to be not only true, but relentless. I agree there are exceptions ("Lungs" should be interesting) but there is, I find a certain mentality of approach that is hard to shake for many in that field. True! I think I've just been hurt before here. In that old thread about working class theatre*, I wanted to say that any play could be "working class" if cast well and in the right theatre - but I got tired of people basically assuming there was only one plot and one ideology for this "issue". Given that the climate crisis is a very broad and human issue - perhaps too new and big to have been tackled much, but one subtly mentioned in plays like Chekhov and Ibsen - I wanted to highlight that this shouldn't be any hindrance to theatrical brilliance. Shouldn't be. Apologies for bigging up Lungs so much. I really did love it mind.
More broadly, I think this press release a good thing in theory, obvs - largely because once you've made a statement it's in the public's hands. Now you and I have the power to pursue Rufus. If he's all talk and no trousers when it comes to carbon costing his shows, let's complain. If he fails to put on suitable shows, let's complain. And if those shows end up as two dimensional and sh*tty as you worry - and given I'll bet you a fiver Sir David DOES attempt to adapt Greta Thunberg, they very well might be! - let's complain. But now it's up to us to enforce!
*Wanted to pick you up on something you mentioned over there, actually:
"Naked Attraction" is literally reaching "rock bottom," isn't it. As some comedian mused, will there one day be "Celebrity Naked Attraction" - if so, the barrel has truly been scraped. I bloody love Naked Attraction.
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Post by paulbrownsey on Oct 5, 2019 14:24:14 GMT
Everyone, in everything they do, must be made to think about climate change.
People having sex must be made to think about whether their energy could be harnessed to save the planet.
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