People irritate me at the best of times. I have little patience for stupidity, impoliteness, or a whole list of other negative traits that make this world a frustrating place to live in. My own transgressions are most likely many more than I probably think, but this doesn’t assuage my despair at others’ incompetence.

Our apartment, like all blocks of flats, gives us access to two rooms for rubbish, one of which is a recycling centre. They are situated about two metres from each other, but it does not prevent the no-brainers from throwing recyclable materials in the rubbish, or actually taking it to the correct room, only to then neglect any kind of sorting process.

I tried to convince myself that, as I was 10 years ago, some people are unenlightened and, with time, they will also realise the error they commit. This would be a reasonable thought, though the situation is a very different one from mine, as recycling in Sweden is much more widespread and well organised than it was when I was a lad.

That said, I do not wish to traduce the fact that the majority (of those who recycle) do sort their waste correctly. I don’t even know where I am going with this, since I have temporarily lost the ability to be enraged by a situation that did

a) make me seethe.

b) make me concerned enough to write this entry.

I need to go to bed and get a good night’s sleep.

Our crusade to change the world by changing ourselves, and in particular the way we spend our money, has, after a quiet period, come to a few new developments this last month.

Thanks to our economy being in a better state than it has for a few years I’m trying to buy organic food in larger quantities. Despite it being a hot subject at present, the local supermarkets are still pretty rubbish at offering a wide range of (especially fresh) products. Organic vegetables are still to be found in a small corner section of the fruit and veg section, almost as an apology.

It’s nice to see organic tinned-tomatoes and beans making a show in a more familiar setting for the consumer. They have almost always exclusively been the domain of health-food shops, and they make a welcome entrance into the real world.

Finally, and something that has been playing on my mind for a while, is the re-introduction into my life of vegan toothpaste. It sounds stupid, but it is one of those items I am glad to have changed.

It is sad that, in order to be sound, one needs a reasonably good economy. There was a discussion here in Sweden last year about the possibility of a “fat-tax”, where healthy foods would be taxed at a lower rate than unhealthy ones. I don’t imagine that this will occur, especially now with a Conservative government in power; they have no problems in increasing the tax for tobacco for health reasons, though it seems too much to ask that they would try limit our consumption of shite, more the pity.