Mark Smith, aka the Man In Seat 61, shares his 10 favourite European rail journeys...#1: London-Fort William by 'Caledonian Sleeper'No matter where I go in the world, I keep coming back to this train as one of my all-time favourites. Leave London in the evening, sit back on the real leather sofas (yes, really) in the lounge car with a wee dram of Glenfiddich, then retire to your cosy 1 or 2 bed ...
Winter sports are making a big impact – you can’t get away from it on the TV over the last week. But have you wondered what kind of impact an event this size – with 5,500 competitors – would have on the environment? When the last bobsleigh slides home, the Olympic Village is dismantled, and the urge to book a snowboarding holiday is instilled in the millions of home ...
In the first of a new regular series on cool ways to explore the planet that don't involve being frisked by an overly-friendly airport security guard, Ed Chipperfield looks at an ocean holiday courtesy of Google...Google Ocean is the online way to explore the undersea kingdom without getting your feet wet. It allows you to explore the oceans without wasting fuel and, according to Al Gore, it's ...
With Avatar breaking box office records, Global Cool asks: is there a downside to the 3D movie revolution?
While ten-foot tall, blue-skinned cat people on the forest planet of Pandora already seem to have got the recycling message, have you ever wondered about us earth-bound grunts?
If you’ve missed James Cameron’s epic 3D movie Avatar, you’re in a small minority. Nominated for ...
You know how many calories are in that pack of Salt and Vinegar crisps. You even know how much salt is in your Fisherman’s Pie. Personally, I feel a much better person for knowing how my GDA of iron will be affected by a tin of beans.
We’re in a time of exacting detail when it comes to food. The tiniest bit of information is examined and broadcast. While packaging designers are ...
We all run around these days, trying to do our bit by avoiding standby on gadgets, even buying our electricity from renewable suppliers. What we rarely hear about is the effects of the gadgets themselves on the environment. Well, that’s probably because most companies don’t have a whole lot of good news to tell you.
That cleverly bundled package of wires, plastic and chemicals sitting ...
A good friend of mine recently returned from a trip abroad. The word 'abroad' hardly seems to cover it, to be fair: the bloke had gone all the way to the Antarctic. This bleak paradise of ice and midnight sun was his for a mere £3500, he eagerly explained: a snip when you consider the distances. He'd flown from the UK to Buenos Aires, then a connecting flight to Tierra del Fuego to catch an ...
It probably hasn't escaped your notice that it's more than a little chilly out there at the moment. Seriously - look out your window if you don't believe us. And with my newspaper assuring me that there's another couple of weeks to go for 'Frozen Britain', we've been swapping tips at GCHQ of how we all stay warm at home.
Okay, so not everything that got mentioned will work for ...
The Walking Works website has launched a festive Mince Pie Calculator alongside their 'Pledge to Walk 15 Minutes More' campaign, to show punters with a seasonal fluctuation in belt sizes just how many mince pies they can afford to eat this year based on how far they walk in the average working day.
Distressingly (or perhaps not considering my ambivalence towards the pastried fiends, which ...
Reuse, reuse, reuse. Getting the most from your purchases and avoiding the bins at all costs: that's the official line when it comes to keeping cool and staying the right side of the green lobby, right?
Well, when it comes to Christmas trees - that perennial mainstay of the living room during the festive period - it just doesn't work out that way.
Sure, you can buy a plastic tree that will go ...
Thank you Europe!What a lovely tour I had around Europe, seeing all the vast countryside has to offer me. It really (pardon the ‘almost’ pun) flew by! With only a few dates left with Rodrigo y Gabriela, I’m most definitely sad that myself and Liz are soon to be finishing our train tour.
We decided that it’s truly the best way to travel. Right now I write to you from ...
"I'm a bad advert. I take too many planes, I keep my heating on all day and night". You might expect this quote to be from a jetsetting corporate high flyer or a socially mobile Eskimo, but surprisingly it comes from the mouth of Tracey Emin, speaking at the launch of the Royal Academy's new climate change show, 'Earth, Art of a Changing World'.
Emin's quote gets to the heart of one of the key ...
When I suggested to my wife that I wanted to see her in a pair of recycled knickers, she suggested that her next husband would be far more reasonable.
At best, the very notion of recycled pants was tangled with some kind of kinky wife-swap at best. At worst, there was probably an image of me in the loft dressing up in my mother's wedding dress and pouting into the polished lid of a biscuit ...
Hello, Bonjour, Hallo, Ola, and other such hellos' in different languages!
I'm having an enormous can of beer on the train with Liz! I was just playing guitar in between carriages working on a new riff when I met a lovely fellow called Jamie who comes from Paris who was in Lausanne performing a play. We sat and sang together, improvising and having a great laugh.
I'm glad I didn't bring my kilo ...
Global Cool ambassador Wallis Bird takes to the rails for her latest European tour. She'll be sending us regular updates as she takes the train from gig to gig.
Bonjour!
I write from another impressive train station in Paris - Gare du Nord - about to depart en route to Lille. So far the travelling has been absolutely stress free. The language barrier was nothing to worry about and myself and Liz (Liz especially) found that we had more French than we thought, so logistics and general getting around was a cinch.
Travelling by train has given me so much ...
We're always being told about how it's the little guys who do small things that make all the difference. Well, that may be true - but it's no way to sell the idea of combating carbon pollution. Nope, what you need is a flashing streak of heroism and a grand gesture. You need the kind of stunt that requires a trumpet fanfare, gasping crowds and a pyrotechnic display that makes Roland Emmerich look ...
YEY!!
I write drunkenly (but not disruptively!) to you all from a lovely evening in Nantes on the first show of the European tour with the infinite and incredibly effortless talents of Rodrigro y Gabriela! A lovely crowd here tonight, thank you for the kind welcome.
Getting here was kind of hilarious! We arrived in Kings Cross St Pancras' impressive train station and that travel tingle ...
At the risk of sounding like - well, as if I enjoyed a glass or two more than I should - I've started questioning the bottle. More precisely, what seals it up. I've noticed that there's hardly any bottles of booze that come with old-school wooden bungs these days. They all seem to be sporting the solidly practical screw top or the suspiciously foamy plastic stopper. Of course, wine buffs might ...
The crackle of logs. The laughter of children, faces stuffed with marshmallows. The tang of smouldering terrorist effigies. With national festivals like this, who needs to worry about climate?
But worry I do. The annual burnout of Guy Fawke's Night is here, and I still can't decide if torching the gathering green rubbish in my yard is entirely acceptable. Even more worrisome is the purchase of ...
While you can never place too much trust in the ubiquitous list features, they're far too tempting to resist dipping into. Just take this week's biggie list from respected periodical Newsweek: the top 500 greenest firms. How could an eco-writer resist getting a galumphing eyeful of wind farming, manure-spreading welly-boot wearing activists, all doing their best to get ahead in the business ...
What do you get when you cross a hard drinking, flamenco playing, professional gambler with some of the world's longest and most hostile rivers? An utterly compelling and live affirming documentary that makes you consider how little most of us actually do to raise awareness of some of the planets most pressing issues.
'Big River Man' (showing at selective cinemas now) follows Slovenian endurance ...
Being famous, beautiful, talented and stylish isn't enough to cut it as a modern star. Oh boy, no. What you need now is compassion. We're not talking kissing babies heads, walking old people across the roads and fixing bird's wings with lollipop sticks (much though we'd love to see Hulk Hogan doing all three in a reality TV format). We're talking about caring for the planet like the people in ...
Okay, so it might not actually be the greatest journey on earth (everyone knows that that's the walk from my flat to my local pub), but the build up that accompanied my foray out on the bike this morning might have given that impression.
I've always owned a bike, and for extended periods have used it regularly. But for the past couple of years (actually, who am I kidding, it's more ...
So that was the summer of 2009 for Global Cool - and what a summer!
We went metal and wore black at Download, hung out with the London scenesters at Wireless, gazed in wonder at the fancy dress costumes at T In The Park and then finally, with an enormously happy smile, wrapped up our fourth and final festival of the summer at V last ...
Hollywood's finest are putting our homegrown celebrities to shame by forgoing thirsty limousines for far more efficient forms of lovely public transport.
School of Rock star Jack Black certainly wasn't afraid to 'Do it in Public' when he was papped last week hopping onto a 319 bus in Clapham. The down-to-earth comic, currently in the capital filming Gulliver's Travels with James Corden and Emily ...
In what is surely one of the most contradictory policy announcements in history, this week we heard that the US Marine Corps are going to run an energy-saving audit. While we all know that the only green thing about an occupying military force is the colour of its undercrackers, isn't the very act of going in to a battle all about using up as much energy as you can?
There were some incredible ...
It may have escaped your attention, but bees have taken a bit of a kicking recently. Not a literal kicking, of course. For those wearing summer sandals that could be disastrous. Nope, the bee – humble worker of honey that it is – is dying out. Numbers have plummeted over the last three years. It’s got to the point of desperation. We’re now a nation that has its own ...
News in this week: Gordon Brown is on holiday. Not content with a week in a Tuscan villa at one of Uncle Silvio’s saucy ‘spezziale’ parties, Brown is facing down the press with the thought that he may spend his down time dry stone walling. I’m not sure how many people really know what that is. For readers who haven’t kept livestock in the British uplands, dry stone ...
It doesn’t get any greener than this: Leo DiCaprio, legs pedaling furiously as he weaves his way through the London traffic. He’s probably on the way to a meeting with someone who makes wind farms for Africa, who knows? Hell, it’s green enough for the papers to pick up on it sharpish when he got snapped by paps a couple of weeks back. Wraparound shades clamped over his dial: ...
Ah, remember hydrogen? The super-fuel of the future that was going to save us all from the choking, radioactive, smog-filled mess of a planet that our energy needs are leading us into? You’d be forgiven for forgetting. It seems that most people have let the hydrogen question drop off the radar recently, despite the element being the most ideal fuel imaginable. About 75% of the entire ...
Clothes and shoes have always held a special place in my heart. When I was a child, I would sleep surrounded by my gorgeous clothes and my shoes. Even, my glorious shoes.
My love of clothes has continued since those early days and I have attained a somewhat dangerous addiction to couture. And along the way, there have been some true disasters. No details, suffice to say that a number of ...
Global Cool approached its third festival of the summer with a certain amount of trepidation, after the music press previewed T In The Park with such nerve-jangling phrases as “T In The Park is known for its special ‘atmosphere’”, and “surviving T is seen as a badge of honour”. Surviving, you say? Special atmosphere, you say? Nae bother, ...
I do love it. There is something magical about a wedding dress – as with anything associated with a happy wedding: it's imbued with an ability to cheer me up. And mine's particularly brilliant (if I do say so myself) because it's purple, and I designed it myself, on the back of a tube ticket.So why is it relegated to the dark recesses of my wardrobe and never allowed to see the light of ...
The Global Cool bus made the second stop on its summer of festivals as it pitched up at Hyde Park for London's premier music festival, Wireless 2009. The bus had an unrivalled view of the Wireless main stage, which featured headliners Basement Jaxx and Kanye West, and if you stopped by you had a whole bunch of treats to add to the weekend's outstanding music.In case you’re in any doubt as ...
Have a good think back. Ever seen a celebrity on public transport? I have. Well, of a sort. I sat behind Ben Fogle on GNER train to Leeds once. It was late, the drinks trolley had been round a couple of times, and I’d really like to take this opportunity to apologise to the bouffant Mr Fogle about the behaviour of the couple sitting behind him. The fact we were whistling the theme to Animal ...
You know those choices you make that you're not sure are the right ones? Well, today, while struggling with my bag and wellies through St Pancras on the way to get the train to Derby for the Download Festival, Global Cool's first festival outing with our new super-green GC bus, it did occur to me that being in a car right now wouldn't be so bad. It's often how I've got to festivals ...
It's all about bikes this week. Beyonce was spotted tootling around Dublin on two wheels, while Boris Johnson announced that £111 million was to be invested in improving and encouraging cycling in London. Elsewhere in the capital 300 climate campaigning cyclists created a roadblock on Westminster Bridge. And what's more next week is National Bike Week.Although her boyfriend Jay Z's ...
When you’re walking to the train station or bus stop in the morning, there’s one thing you can count on seeing. It’s a long queue of cars, each with one single angry passenger. It’s worth cocking your head and looking in at them, fuming to a soundtrack of Chris Moyles, squeaking brake pads and the incessant tick of the dashboard clock, each passing second bringing them ...
Nothing, but nothing, is getting on my wick more than flying. Everything about it sucks: the people, the planes, the airport. The scriptwriters on EastEnders couldn’t cook up a more miserable situation even if they tried to plug a storyline involving Dot Cotton, a sex therapist and Rolly the pub dog. It’s just a haven of unpleasantness. Vast warehouses full of knackered people, who ...
So, if you follow us on twitter you might have noticed through our tweets that we’ve been getting a bit excited by one of the things we’ve been doing recently, we didn’t want to give too much away to begin with, but now it’s live, I’d like to introduce you to…DRUMROLL PLEASE…the Youtube heroes! Lex!
Ben!
Mhazz! ...
Now, what are your normal concerns when you hit the salon? What style you want? How much it will cost? Which shade of blonde or brunette this time? Well, how about how you can help look great and save the environment at the same time?A novel project from stylists at Paul Mitchell Schools US hair dressing schools means during Earth Week they don’t just want hair to practice their skills on, ...
This years Earth Day came along on the 22nd and it seemed the whole internet lit up with talk of the environment, green issues and our planet in general. Just by visiting hashtags.org and looking at the #earthday twitter tag you could, and still can, see the huge amounts of people talking about the day, the pledges they made, the green acts they did and the awareness they tried to raise about the ...
The first in a series of guest posters, Vikki Chowney from BitchBuzz talks about her experiences as a guest blogger at the G20 summit, recently held in London.I’d always assumed that one of the main reasons I’d been asked to join the G20Voice project was my interest in climate change and the reduction of carbon that is apparent within my day-to-day blogging, as well as my evangelism ...
The guys over at Esquire magazine are about as matter of fact about stuff as you can get, they certainly don’t beat around the bush when it comes to anything from fashion to politics, and they’re no different on the environment either.On great little article they recently published on their blog was simply called “Five Ways to Go Green Without Really Trying,” and it does ...
Whilst Bauhaus theories of unifying design, art and technology have never really ‘gone out of fashion’ so to speak, it’s rare that you see something so well done, that it just jumps out of your screen and shouts at you.Well, over at Dieline, the self proclaimed world’s number one packaging design website, they recently featured the amazing, ‘boxed water is ...
Where do your recycled bottles go after you’ve finished the last few drops of wine or beer and put it in your recycle bin? Well, glass is 100% recyclable, and can be recycled without any loss of quality, so generally, bottles go round and around, getting filled with wine and beer, time after time, and keeping you merry.But there’s a few other ways that glass can be recycled, and ...
Hopefully you’ll have seen this if you’ve been browsing the internet a bit over the last week, it’s certainly been doing the rounds, but for those that haven’t we thought we’d quickly blog about it. It’s some pretty awesome information that clearly shows that we can make a difference.You see, the Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.net site, which is an ...
I’ve always been one for sartorial impulse buys, as my 10-foot wide behemoth of a wardrobe will attest, but not anymore thanks to bigwardrobe.com …I read somewhere that most people only wear 20 percent of their clothes 80 percent of the time. My stats are probably nearer 10/90. Country shirts, dark jeans and a threadbare pea coat in winter. This is exactly how I’ve dressed ...
No, not a thing of fantasy, you don’t have to be a caped crusader, you don’t have to be a governmental head figure or some sort of super-human-ninja-pirate, you just have to be you, and play your part.We’ve been working away on our own projects, that you’ve hopefully seen over the last few weeks, which bring together fun and environmentally friendly actions. Our swish was ...
We’ve talked about Twitter before on here, it’s really the in thing at the moment, and at we love it because not only can you use it to spread an environmentally friendly message, but you can keep track of your favourite celebs as well!Everyone’s using it at the moment, from everyone’s favourite, albeit slightly controversial comic, Jonathan Ross, through to Oscar winner ...
Amor de Madre is a uniquely cool set of designers and retailers from Spain. We were looking through their eco-friendly design and product range the other day and came across these awesome felt slippers.Made from 100% natural felt, you simply pick your size, and cut them out. Simple, quirky, warm and most of all environmentally friendly. The felt is renewable material and completely biodegradable, ...
You will hopefully know by now that we recently had a really successful swishing event during London fashion week. Well, during the swish, celebrity designer Scott Henshall not only donated a £3500 dress that he designed and was worn by Paris Hilton, he also offered a few fashion tips on how to swish your own wardrobe.He filmed a video for us that shows him giving tips and sharing his ...
So over the past couple of months we’ve shown you what we can do with 100,000 overlooked mobile phones. We’ve also introduced you to swishing and what happens when the contents of a few celebrity wardrobes collide with a bunch of fashion fanatical competition winners. But apart from the positive environmental impact of all them phones and frocks not ending up in landfill (and of ...
As you should hopefully already know if you’ve had a look around our site or following what we do, through our phone recycling scheme with Vodafone, we have been bringing solar power to Zambia in partnership with our friends at SolarAid.
This is utilising the latest in solar technology to bring affordable, sustainable and clean energy to people of a country in which nearly two-thirds of of ...
I’m sure you know by now that we’ve been encouraging you to swish your clothes. We want you to try and help out the environment by swapping clothes in a fun way, rather than chucking out those unworn glad rags and contributing to the vast amounts of clothes that go to the landfill each year and the vast amount of carbon that is wasted in their production.
Well, now the ...
Now here's an interesting one, what happens to an old oil rig when it runs out of oil and is decommissioned? These hulking great structures that are dotted across the globe will all eventually run out, but, according to Morris Architects, over the next century there’s roughly 4000 that are scheduled to be decommissioned in the Gulf of Mexico alone. Now, the Bldg Blog is asking, is ...
So, to top yesterday's swishing off with a bang, we celebrated Estethica, the British Fashion Council's eco-sustainable fashion initiative, with a party at the very fabulous private members' club Molton House in central London. Estethica definitely deserved credit, as far as we're concerned, for making such great strides to get the fashion industry to take care of our environment.
And what ...
We've been talking about it on a weekly basis, we've been getting excited and inviting people to come and join in, and today the Global Cool Swishing Party took place.
We had a plethora of women arrive with a huge accompaniment of clothes, all of which were awesome little pieces, but for some reason or another, had never quite made the cut in their own fashion stakes. Now they were up for grabs, ...
Each year there's a selection of show's around the world that bring together the best in green furniture design. I know what you're probably thinking, 'green furniture design, what's that? A tree stump or something?'
If you are thinking that, prepare to be educated... Some of the designs that have come out of this year's first such exhibition - IMM Cologne - are totally awesome.
Our friends ...
It's what everyone is talking about at the moment. It's new, it's interesting, it's got all the corner stones of a great social media tool, and it's taking off. What am I talking about? Twitter of course.
If you're not familiar with Twitter, I'll try to explain. You know the status update thingy on Facebook? It's like that really. It originally started out by being called 'micro-blogging' but, ...
Now, there's a whole lot of green blogging going on across the globe, as you can imagine. With the subject as prevalent as it is in everyone's mind these days, there are a lot of people that want the latest news and opinions on what's happening with climate change.
So, we thought we'd take a few minutes to have a look at some of the blogs we really like. Here's our top five.
1. Treehugger - It ...
So it's official, we're holding our very own swishing event during London Fashion Week as well as a very exclusive VIP party with Esthetica and as you can imagine, we're seriously excited!
In line with our belief that helping the environment can be fun as well as awesome for the planet, we're encouraging people to go out and swish. Hopefully you'll know what that is from our previous post by ...
So it happened, that moment, that point in time and history that makes everyone stand back and watch on in awe. Mr Barak Obama turned into President Barak Obama and the hopes and dreams of the American nation and the world were ignited again.
The internet and the social media are awash with commentary and conversation around the presidents moves on climate change. Just doing a quick Twitter ...
Swishing? A swish? A swisher? The swisherati? The swishset?! Just what am I on about?! Well, it's a little thing that could have a big impact, it's fun and productive and could possibly get you a new wardrobe as well as help the environment.
It's called swishing, and it rocks!
Okay, if you're in the know, then skip to the end of this post. If you've never heard of it before, bear with me, I'll ...
A simple question right? Well, we've been asked a few times by people we've been working with and talking to, how easy do you make it for people? "Well," we begin with a smile, "it's so simple there's nothing stopping you from doing it!"
See, as part of our activity to help you reduce your carbon footprint, we're encouraging you to recycle your old mobile phone, and here's how you do it:
1. ...
Well, as usual, things are busy here at the Global Cool offices, our cause never sleeps, and it feels like we don't either sometimes!
We thought we'd just take you through some of the awesome new stuff we've got on the new site to make sure you're getting the most of it. A good place to start is probably with our re-vamped and invigorated community section.
Alongside the great blog we've ...
Hi, and welcome to the Global Cool blog and our newly launched site. To kick off, I'll give you a quick run down of who we are, why we do what we do, what we're getting up to in the near future and that sort of stuff.
To start, who are we? We're a charity that wants to inspire you to help save our beautiful planet through by showing you how to reduce your carbon footprint. We've worked with a ...
