Julia has just been on the telly - coo!

 

 

Recently a film crew from GMTV came round to my flat to record a sort of green infomercial which was to be replayed on Lorraine Kelly’s breakfast show the following week. Eager as always to do my bit for the planet I was filmed poking around my worm bin (unfortunately the lid had blown off again and all the rain had turned it into a bit of a swamp), cleaning my windows with vinegar and water and watering my window boxes with my grubby saved old bathwater.

In a bid to raise awareness of the toxicity of cotton clothes (cotton uses one quarter of the world's pesticides), and to discourage people from buying new undies, I was filmed dying a batch of greying bras and knickers bright blue.  It's actually a very useful tip for revamping one's wardrobe cheaply – buy a tub of cheap Dylon dye, pour it into the washing machine with your old grey smalls, and when the wash cycle is finished, hey presto, you have a revamped set of clothes. 

 

'I now have an underwear drawer that is the envy of Elle Macpherson,' (in truth it would make her faint with horror) I lied waving my strange assortment of misshapen undergarments at the camera .  

The piece de resistance had come when I'd somehow persuaded S to be filmed peeing in the compost heap to illustrate the need to save water from excess loo flushing. 'Won't he mind?  asked Tristan, the producer, cheerily.  

'Mind, what do you mean mind?'  He'd love it, all men do', I explained warming to my theme, 'it brings out their hunter gatherer instincts that get re-activated watching  those boring Bear Grylls survival type programmes and that other tedious man who forages in forests and takes hours to make fire from bits of stone'.

But unlike the perky Bear Grylls, S seemed very grumpy when the time came to do his bit for home composting.

'Hurry up!' I told him as he wavered, 'just get on with it!' Which he duly did but only under much suffererance.

Women are advised not to pee on compost as we are too acidic (there's a surprise), so I was filmed in my bath (full of water blackened with sea weed fertiliser to make it authentically used-looking) to talk about the joys of sharing baths with presumably very grubby friends.  

Watching the rushes I was concerned that I appeared a bit bossy.  

'Bossy is good!' trilled Tristan.  'Brits like bossy.  Think of Trinny and Susanna, Kirsty Alsopp and Barbara Woodhouse!'  

Tristan was far too young to remember Barbara Woodhouse I'm sure.  That's the thing about telly people; they are all so very young, even younger than policemen to be sure.  

But more ignominy was to come.  The following week I got up at 5am and arrived at the studio clutching my bag of eco props.  Coming up in the lift I got talking to the GMTV celebrity divorce expert - she pops in whenever there's a celebrity divorce so as you can imagine she's there all the time.  

'What's that?' she asked pointing to my drought buster (a hosepipe device which siphons of bath water into your garden).  

'Oh' I replied breezily. 'I'm the new colonic irrigation expert and I'm giving a live demo at 8.30am'.  She didn't bat an eyelid; such is the eclectic mix of 'experts' on breakfast telly these days.  

My green infomercial was timely as a report had just appeared highlighting the dangers of 'toxic splash' – the 4 billion chemicals from toiletries and cleaning products - flushed into the water systems every day which have a devastating effect on our health, our hormone levels and on wildlife.  These chemicals are also implicated in the dreadful rise of man boobs (moobs).  

Lemon juice, bicarbonate of soda (better value to buy big boxes from the chemist than the poncy pots you find in supermarkets), vinegar, salt and various combinations of these will make your home gleam far more effectively than the chemical cocktail of expensively packaged, animal tested toxins on the supermarket shelves.    

Ushered onto Lorraine Kelly's fragrant sofa I braced myself for some challenging questions about global warming and home made cleaning unguents.  But she seemed more interested in my posh and purple past when a millennia ago I had enjoyed a short flourishing as a 'socialite'.  Long forgotten pictures of me 'sharing a joke' with C list celebs were flashed before 6 million bleary eyes.  

Then we were shown the footage.  Clips of S peeing, me in the brown bath water and then flushing the loo while intoning bossily, 

'One third of a householder's water usage is flushed down the loo, what a waste of top quality drinking water!  Remember.  If it's brine, flush in dine, if it's yellow let it mellow.'   

Then they replayed the clip of S peeing again, just in case anyone had missed it.  My goodness he was cross and there were raised voices in the Stephenson household that evening, I can tell you.  

Lorraine was friendly and very jolly considering it was only 8.30am as was everyone else.  How do they do it?  When do they sleep?  

After my 2 minutes was up I was shooed off the set by a grinning gofer, into a dingy corridor.  I shuffled off into a waiting taxi and went straight home to bed.  Hard work, this telly lark. I think I'll stick to the day job.  Whatever that is. 

Still, I don't think my efforts were entirely wasted.  Since it was shown I've had lots of emails from eco minded ladies insisting they too will encourage their men folk to pee outside. 

Though I'm happy to stimulate a mass water saving movement I wouldn't want to get some well meaning chap into trouble.  After all, how will the police be able to tell the difference between a chap doing his bit for the planet or a flasher? 

http://www.droughtbuster.co.uk