Recently, I have been singing the praises of Marks and Spencer, advising about the yellow sticker bargains.

Today, whilst in M/S in Stirling, I saw a sign offering grapes at 1/2 price. I went to pick some up and was soon told that they were no longer for sale. I asked why. I was told they were being dumped in the skip as they would be out of date at 11.59pm. I was in the shop just after 4.30pm.

Got some great yellow sticker deals at Marks and Spencer and I make them my Supermarket of the month

I watched the BBC news this morning. They gave prime time to a company who collect goods that have passed their best before date and sell them at reduced prices. Most tinned food is OK up to a point.

I would not like to be the seller of a product that may cause suffering in the way of food poisoning etc.

This website is a notice board for products that have not reached their sell by/best before dates and are offered at reduced prices for members of the public who can go to their local shop and pick up what they want.

Wed 11th, Thorntons Budgens will be offering to the public a list of all their nearly out of date products. This site gets no money for this service. It is free to list and to search and IN DATE.

Ray

Great news. 2 of Budgens London stores have signed up to this website and will be listing their nearlyoutofdate products from Wed.

Make sure you take a look.

Just been watching a program on the BBC introduced by George Alagiah.

Talk about a wake up call.

Billions of people going to bed overwieght and billions going to bed hungry.

Watch it on BBC i player.

Climate change is rapidly expanding the size of the world's tropical zone, threatening to bring disease and drought to heavily populated areas, an Australian study has found.

The Earth, as seen from US spacecraft Messenger in 2005 Enlarge photo

• Steam billows from the cooling towers at a nuclear power generating station in Byron Enlarge photo

 

Researchers at James Cook University concluded the tropics had widened by up to 500 kilometres (310 miles) in the past 25 years after examining 70 peer-reviewed scientific articles.

They looked at findings from long-term satellite measurements, weather balloon data, climate models and sea temperature studies to determine how global warming was impacting on the tropical zone.

The findings showed it now extended well beyond the traditional definition of the tropics, the equatorial band circling the Earth between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn.

Professor Steve Turton said that meant the subtropical arid zone which borders the tropics was being pushed into temperate areas, with potentially devastating consequences.

"Such areas include heavily-populated regions of southern Australia, southern Africa, the southern Europe-Mediterranean-Middle East region, the south-western United States, northern Mexico, and southern South America," he said.

"All of (them) are predicted to experience severe drying.

"If the dry subtropics expand into these regions, the consequences could be devastating for water resources, natural ecosystems and agriculture, with potentially cascading environmental, social and health implications."

Turton said tropical diseases such as dengue fever were likely to become more prevalent.

"Some models predict the greatest increase in the annual epidemic potential of dengue will be into the subtropical regions, including the southern United States, China and northern Africa in the northern hemisphere, and South America, southern Africa, and most of Australia in the southern hemisphere," he said.

James Cook University vice-chancellor Sandra Harding said the evidence showed climate change was already affecting wildlife and rainfall in Australia, which is in the grip of its worst drought in a century.

She said studies showed changes to wind patterns meant rain was now being dumped in the ocean south of the continent, rather than over land.

"There is also evidence that many Australian animal and plant species are moving south in an attempt to track their preferred climatic conditions," she said.

"Some won?t make it."

Harding said the world had to get serious about finding solutions to problems caused by climate change in the tropics.

"Tropical climate conditions are expanding and the impact of this expansion is immense because the tropics is a big, complex and important zone of the world," she said.

The environmental group WWF on Friday urged the Group of Eight industrialised nations to show global leadership by making a commitment to keep climate change in check at their summit next week. Skip related content

Related photos / videos

 

Echoing a call by German Chancellor Angela Merkel a day earlier, the WWF said the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy, must commit to keeping the rise in global average temperature "well below" two degrees Celsius.

"A clear commitment to a two degree Celsius danger threshold on paper is an absolute must for G8 countries," said Kim Carstensen, the leader of WWF's Global Climate Initiative.

"The countries gathering in L'Aquila have the biggest responsibility to show leadership on climate. Without their action we cannot expect the rest of the world to move," he added.

Negotiations to strike a new deal to tackle global warming by the end of the year have been foundering, partly over disagreements on emissions targets and a rift between industrialised and emerging nations on the burden of responsibility for deeper cuts.

WWF said the long-term target under discussion, of 80 percent cuts in carbon emissions over 1990 levels by 2050, was at the low end of what was needed.

"This is an absolute minimum and anything weaker will be a complete failure," said Carstensen.

"A firm statement by the G8 will send a powerful signal to the developing world and make it easier for the poorer countries to slash their emissions."

Merkel on Thursday set a similar target for the two-day G8 summit which opens on Wednesday.

But she said that European Union and US targets meant little if emerging giants like China and India were not on board at the Copenhagen conference in December, when countries aim to set emissions reduction targets beyond 2012.

WWF said 17 countries in the Major Economies Forum (MEF), which it says account for about 80 percent of the world's emissions, had a particular responsibility to double investment in research and development of green technology and renewable energy by 2012.

The MEF is meeting on the sidelines of the G8 next week.

Filling parts of the Sahara desert with mirrors to create clean energy and making livestock behave like herds of wildebeest to lock in carbon are among a number of innovative proposals put forward to help tackle

Making livestock behave like wildebeest could allegedly help tackle climate change

Innovators from across the world gathered in Manchester to present groundbreaking plans to a panel of experts on how greenhouse gas emissions could be reduced.

The best proposals put forward at the Manchester International Festival could go on to become more widely used if they convince investors and policy makers.

Dr Gerry Wolff, formerly from the University of Wales, Bangor, advocated the use of mirrors to capture energy in places such as Africa's Sahara Desert.

Dr Wolff explained that mirrors positioned to reflect sunlight onto special power stations could provide huge amounts of energy.

He said: "The major attractions of this is it's very clean - there's very little pollution. You can store the electricity fairly cheaply, it's very quick to put up and can deliver power on demand. It's hard to think of any down sides."

The technology is already being installed in parts of North Africa and is supported in a number of European countries such as Spain.

Chartered accountant and farmer Tony Lovell from Queensland, Australia, told the conference that huge amounts of carbon could be stored by farming cows in a manner that mimics wild herds. He explained that the world's natural grasslands when grazed naturally by animals such as wildebeest, could lock in or sequester massive amounts of carbon.

But traditional farming methods meant livestock graze in a totally different manner which damages the landscape and actually releases huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere instead.

Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy at Google is one of the conference judges who will cast their eyes over 20 proposals. He explained: "So many climate related topics are focused on the problems, this is focused on pathways and solutions instead."

Millions around the world will be saddened by the unexpected death of Michael Jackson.

As a singer myself, I can understand some of the preperation he went through and to add the dance routines he was probably preparing for his forthcoming tour. It was just too much.

My sons Mitchell and Byron, (both band members) went to two of his concerts and reported back that they were the best ever.

RIP Michael.

Been absent for a week or two as I have been recording my new CD.

Got an email from "The Economist". This is to let me know that they have included this website as a link in their website www.theeconomist.org.

It's a good start.

I am still waiting to hear back from ASDA etc.

Ray

This week, I had an email from a company who are interested in filming an on-going documentry on this website.

I was asked are any of the major supermarket chains joining. I was fortunate to meet with Julian Walker-Pailin last week at the Sustainability exhibition at the nec Birmingham England.

He now understands what is the intention of the site and says he will find someone in the organisation to look into this.

I can't get any major press until the biggy's come in.

I met some very interesting people at the nec. 100% of everyone I met thought it was a great idea. I have some very famous friends of mine who are taking notice of how the supermarkets react.

So, I would imagine that the first major that makes an effort to try out this idea will get some much needed publicity and extra sales.

For the last 5 years I have used Tesco and the Co-op for my nearlyoutofdate purchases.

I know the best times to turn up and I can often walk out with 3 bags of shopping for under £15.

Well!!. On Monday I decided to try out the new Marks and Spencers in Dunblane. I met the manager and gave him my nearlyoutofdate card.

I asked where all the nearlyoutofdate bargains were. he told me that anything with a yellow sticker had been reduced.

I have to say the staff were great. The shelves were well distributed with products and all the bargains clearly marked.

I could not resist what was available. I walked out with over £200 worth of food for £61. This included a meat joint at the full price of £14.

So far, I have eaten 6 meals from these bargains. They were fantastic. I know where I am going for my bargains every week now.

I have not mentioned Marks and Spencer anticipating that they will register with this website. I know it will take a while, but I don't mind sharing my good fortune with you.

Supermarket Managers. When you list your nearlyoutofdate products on this free to list and search website you are allowing the customer to look for something they may want from their own home.

If they see something they want, they just pop down and buy it.

The less goods the supermarket has to dispose of means less to pay to transport it to the landfil sites and a reduction in CO2.

I have just had a promise made to me from a national newspaper in the UK that the first supermarket that begins to list nearyoutofdate products on this website will feature in his story.

I am in touch with all the major supermarkets and I think they are all waiting to see if anyone joins before they do.

I want to thank "The Scotsman", "The Sun" and "The International Supermarket News" for their reports. I was also happy to see "The Edinburgh Festival" report on this website.

I have had more than 20 letters from MP's and a really nice one from David Cameron + a couple from Bill Clinton's office. Nothing from Gordon or my own MP.

I will be in Birmingham for the "Sustainability Exhibition on the 19th-21st May. I hope to see some of you then.

Carteret Islands sunk by climate change

For most people in the UK, climate change feels like something that will happen at some undefined point in the future - to our children and grandchildren's generation. For the people of the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea, it's a bit more serious than "one of those summers". As the sea level rises, their drinking water and crops have been poisoned by salt. The 1000 Islanders are packing up and their home abandoned to the waves. They are the first entire people to officially be evacuated because of climate change. For Ursula Rakova, seeing her ancestral homeland disappear is a hard reality. As she says, "Climate change is not just about statistics. Climate change is not just about science. Climate change is about human rights." Ian Sullivan is a campaigner at Oxfam

• Original article

• Oxfam

I want to thank "The Scotsman" a great newspaper. They were the first along with "The Sun" to tell the world about this website.

While online on "The Scotsman's" website, I noticed a lot of comments about the story, 30 at the time of writing.

Some of them saying I am bampot. The only two people who know me and call me a bampot are my two ex-wives Jacqui and Tania and that was only after the maintenance money stopped.

I think some of the comments are misleading. This website sells NOTHING.

We buy NOTHING. It is a notice board for the shopkeepers to let you know what is available NEARY OUT OF DATE. NOT OUT OF DATE.

Out of date food may be harmful and supermarkets are obliged not to sell it.

The intent of this website is to advise of your nearest location for the product you are looking for. You then have to go into the shop to buy it. Good news for the shopkeeper as you may buy something else while you are in the shop.

Back to the comments. How some of the guys bought the Scotsman, then went online to complain that I was emptying their bins? Really?

Ray Conn.

Teak Garden Furniture - Is Teak Suitable as an Outdoor Material?   by Gen Wright

About the Author

For more information on outdoor furniture, please visit our teak garden furniture website