The hounds failed in their duty to give early warning of a door-to-door salesperson yesterday and I ended up having to answer the door. They would have been sent to bed without dinner if they didn’t raid the bin anyway.

For once, the visitor was sent by the electricity company I use (I am still an old-fashioned supporter of government-owned utilities, if for the only reason that it reduces the number of salespeople from myriad competitors with increasingly complex deals and promises … but only if they can see my last bill … and only if I sign on the line today … and yes, I can cancel later and return to my old provider if I’m not happy – who the fuck’s got time for that? It took a year to cancel an internet service I never took up because my three cancellation calls weren’t logged on the system).

The rep outside my screen door wanted to reward me for being a customer. The company loses customers after being waved gifts from competitors so this mob was getting in early and rewarding me for being loyal. Me! He flashed the laminated card with photos of choices including a shower head and some other shit I already have but I still prepared to make my selection. I was so excited I even got my bill for him without being asked. See, I am a customer! I’ll even open this locked screen door to grab the freebie out of your hand and not break your wrist when I close it!

But, like all gift horses, there was a catch. I had to change my electricity plan to 20% ‘green’ energy (right there and then, of course), but the upside was that it wouldn’t cost me any more than 100% coal-powered energy.

I scratched my head and showed him the section of the bill confirming I subscribe to 100% wind power.

He said I was able to unsubscribe from 100% green and switch to the 20% green plan and I’d receive my gift. I, in fact, didn’t have to be on 100% green power because did I realise I was paying more for it?

I replied that I had chosen wind power and pay more because I feel it’s one of my civic responsibilities and I’m fortunate enough to afford it (and, by crikey, it makes me use less energy). Do I still get my piece of free crap?

“No. Only if you switch to our 20% green. Would you like to sign up?”

I said no, we shook our heads at each other in disbelief and walked away from the aborted transaction.

In the meantime, landholders outside Ballarat are divided on a company’s plan to build Victoria’s largest wind farm with 282 turbines. People offered and accepting financial deals to have turbines on their land are in favour, while almost everyone else is in the negative, citing the usual reasons of ugliness and saving the birds.

There are few things uglier than open cut mines and coal-powered electricity plants, and most people, when pressed about which birds on what migratory paths are at risk, can’t answer because they are parrots repeating neighbours’ angry vitriol as unassailable fact. The State Government is possibly being moronic in this instance by not insisting on the usual environmental impact studies, so no one knows if any or what birds might be munched up by 846 spinning blades. Ignorance all round.

Vote 1: wind if it’s studied, sensible and sustainable.

Crank-o-meter: another reason the planet is fucked

I remember a Louise Hay book about self acceptance or thinking positively or some tricky life qualities I should study more, and she had a novel approach to paying bills received in the mail. Instead of cursing the greedy scoundrels for ripping her off blind, she would write and mail a cheque with gratitude for the valuable service provided.

She obviously wrote the fucking book before the privatisation of utilities and the advent of hyperactive marketing departments with budgets to burn into the atmosphere.

I go off my nut when I receive a bill, and not because of the amount owing or how they all hit the mailbox in the same week. It’s the fucking extra shit enclosed in the envelope that’s breaking me.

With this quarter’s gas bill came:

• A fold-out propaganda card with how to make panna-fucking-cotta with fucking rhubarb for god’s sake. I hate stringy food so you can shove your rhubarb right up your bums unless you can tell me how the recipe is relevant to my gas account.
• Twee messages pleading me to consider the environment and convert to electronic billing — hey, you don’t have to ask, just keep filling my envelope with junk and I’ll capitulate quick smartly.
• Oh goodie, some green fucking stickers to stick somewhere, I dunno, on my nose, on my cats’ bottoms, across the tele? How much of the earth’s resources were used to produce umpteen thousand stupid green stickers telling me to use fewer of the earth’s resources? Stop preaching to the already-converted and better-converted, pompous fools.
• Bugger me dead, the bill, there it is! I was worried there wasn’t space left in the envelope.

Hypocritical ‘don’t we think we’re green and awfully pleased with ourselves’ marketing has spread like a plague of corporate consciousness but pongs like a stream of verbal diarrhoea. Hey, with one envelope we can coerce the customer into converting to electronic billing by pulling a tree-hugging, pinko greeny guilt trip, but in the meantime, we’ll bombard the passive fuckers with as many paper products as we can stuff in the envelope. Our brand of environmentalism is better than yours because we can afford to tell you so. Ha haaaaaa, take that, consumer! And pay your fucking bill before the due date or we’ll charge you interest — and send more correspondence for the snails in your letterbox to shit on.

Crank-o-meter: burning the propaganda to stay warm instead of turning on the gas heating