Ellee Seymour

I find it extraordinary that electronic “spy bugs” have secretly been planted in hundreds of thousands of household wheelie bins.

It is hardly the best way of getting the message across about recycling, engaging with the public and gaining their full support to ensure the government meets strict targets set by the European Parliament – else face a hefty fine.

A few years ago, householders in Cambridgeshire were written to by the local authority and asked if they would mind their blackl plastic rubbish bags being randomly picked on to check what rubbish was being thrown out to give council officers further insight into recycling. Anyone who objected was excluded. I was the press officer promoting recycling for East Anglia and it made a great slot on Anglia TV when a reporter split open a rubbish bag and demonstrated how more than half the household waste could have been recycled.

Dealing with rubbish is something this government has not been able to grasp, it needs to be kept as simple as possible. At the moment, different local authorities provide a different coloured bag, box or sack to denote where recyclables should be placed. Why can’t one system operate county wide? All local authorities have a different system, some will collect plastic and kitchen waste while others others focus on paper, cans and glass; this depends very much on whether they have an outlet to send it to. Collections are often made alternate weeks with household waste, a system which has had no public support and fills many column inches in the local press from irate householders. But their views are ignored.

It’s obvious why the government wants to keep a track on people’s rubbish, to prevent them losing any future prosecutions. Legal cases are based on firm evidence and proving ownership of wheelie bins is one step in this direction.

Our landfill sites are rapidly filling up which is why recycling is so essential. I regard these items as valuable resources which can be given a new lease of life. I would love to track discarded medical or IT equipment from the UK through to its new, grateful home in Africa. We are such a throwaway society.

Do you remember fridge mountains and the chaos this caused? And what about the delayed implementation of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment?
We will never support incinerators in this country, just like power stations, even though in Denmark there is even one sited in view of the royal palace – and their Queen does not object! So recycling must be one solution to divert waste.
And it is no surprise that fly tipping is a growing menace, a blot on our landscape, with Defra shamefully admitting that rubbish is illegally dumped every 35 seconds in the UK. My solution would be to offer to remove these items free of charge from households and recoup the cost by selling them on either to the public or to a manufacturer, make it easy for everyone all round and protect our environment.

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A great weight has been lifted from my shoulders – thanks to the brilliant new Windows Live Writer which is the simplest way I have come across of writing posts and adding pics for WordPress. It is an absolute godsend and I shall be eternally grateful to Bill Gates and his creative team for designing it. I was struggling with this after launching my new site recently, but I am confident it is now going to be effortless to run. I am absolutely thrilled and shall be publishing pictures galore.

Geoff kindly came over yesterday to install the software and it is a real dream to use, simplicity itself; I love the fact that you can download maps too, as well as having a spellcheck. I am always saying thanks to Geoff, who raves about Live Writer too.

However, I am not sure if the software includes a facility to write pic captions, does anyone know if, and how, this can be done?

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So men should not marry career women if they want to have a successful and happy life, they should stick to someone who has no desires other than pampering her man, dusting the house and doing the school run.

This advice has propelled Michael Noer, news editor of Forbes.com, one of the world’s leading business magazine groups, into notoriety and condemnation after his controversial comments sparked outrage on both sides of the continent.

It made me wonder how many MPs have happy marriages, how do they maintain a close family life, especially if their spouse/partner has a demanding career too. The Blairs seem to manage ok as a family, though of course no-one knows what goes on behind closed doors.

Does Noer’s advice work the other way too for women with demanding careers? Should women marry domesticated men who can multi-task?

Here is what Noer said:

“Guys: A word of advice. Marry pretty women or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Blondes or brunettes. Just, whatever you do, don’t marry a woman with a career.

“Why? Because if many social scientists are to be believed, you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage. While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional women are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that women–even those with a “feminist” outlook–are happier when their husband is the primary breadwinner.

“Not a happy conclusion, especially given that many men, particularly successful men, are attracted to women with similar goals and aspirations. And why not? After all, your typical career girl is well-educated, ambitious, informed and engaged. All seemingly good things, right? Sure…at least until you get married. Then, to put it bluntly, the more successful she is the more likely she is to grow dissatisfied with you. Sound familiar?”

It is clearly ridiculous to make sweeping statements as each marriage is personal and what works for one couple will not work for another, it is based on their personalities and their needs. Is the male ego really so fragile? And if a woman is happy with being a trophy wife, then surely that’s her decision.

But I fail to see why a couple cannot have successful careers and a happy and fulfilled marriage as long as they both maintain their values, keep their feet firmly on the ground, continue to show kindness and consideration to each other and do not become self-centred and egotistical. If a couple continue to spend enjoyable time together and communicate, then I do not believe having a successful career is a threat. Keeping a sense of humour and having a good laugh is essential too.

In theory, that’s how it should be, though I appreciate reality involves stress and lack of quality time for each other. But these difficulties can be overcome if you both want them to.

Within hours of posting the piece on its website, Forbes was inundated with complaints and forced to withdraw it. It also led fellow Forbes writer Elizabeth Corcoran to retaliate.

In her piece, entitled “Don’t Marry A Lazy Man”, Corcoran, a “career woman” with two children and a husband of 18 years, described her colleague’s opinions as “downright frightening”.

Has Noer been watching too many episodes of Stepford Wives?

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