Worth the candle

It's getting towards the shortest day, that time of year when in this part of the world there exists such a thing as "Four o'clock in the evening". There have been some pretty long days, though, for the heads at the COP (where COP apparently doesn't stand for COP-enhagen, or even a football stand in Liverpool (recent viewer poll question: "Marmite or Custard?"), but is actually short for "Conference of the Parties". Earlier on in the week, candle-lit vigils had been organised around the world, to give all the heads there a bit of a boost.

Because Lunchista has it on good authority that all the poor guys want is to be confident in the knowledge that, if they come up with some drastic agreement which means we no longer have the right to get up before dawn and drive 90 minutes to a pointless and overheated (or over-air-conned, or both) job each day, we're not going to vote them out of office. Or burn them out, depending on your country's constitution. And so Lunchista grabbed some of our emergency supply of candles, and a pretty painted jar to put them in, and headed off to take part.

That jar has a bit of a story.

Way back in 2003 Lunchista, along with rather a lot of other people, just couldn't see any point in going to war in Iraq. Better government? Not usually to be found while you're being bombed. Terrorism? All the terrorists were elsewhere at the time. Oil? Already got ours, under the North Sea. Jobs? The forces already have a useful line in peacekeeping and disaster relief. And that's before you start on the "moral" thing. Even Colin Powell, a military man from the crew-cut to the boots, didn't rate the idea, on the grounds that there wasn't an "exit strategy". Sensible chap.

So as part of an international wave of protests one Sunday, I organised our own small effort under a tree at a nearby roundabout. We put out only a hundred or so flyers, made a banner (the sheet and gaffer-tape method), stood at the spot and waited...and were joined by dozens of people! Not to mention a phone-call from the local press, who gave us a couple of column-inches. And a Sunday evening, when most people below retirement age are heading from where they like to be, back to where their work makes them live, isn't exactly quiet on the roads: lots of people saw our message.

As we were packing up after our appointed hour I noticed that someone had left their home-made night-light in the tree. I let it stay there for a few days in case they wanted to return and claim it, but they didn't, so I did.

Back to this weeek, and here we are at 5:30 pm on Saturday in a shop-lined city centre square, lighting our candles. As luck would have it, that time in our city centre was "not optimal" for silent vigils, or indeed silent anything. Someone, in this case the City Council in a filthy great truck, has to clean up after a whole week of the pre-Christmas shopping frenzy. Why they had to do this by reversing around the entire square (as opposed to going forwards and sparing us 20 minutes of safety warnings) is anybody's guess. Perhaps it was a two-fingered gesture to a past government election campaign. I can only hope that our MP, who was good enough to join us and read out the first part of our "Declaration", wasn't offended.

Is it all worth it? Well it might be time to think of Battenburg cake, or even Mr Pareto with his 20% of the effort leading to 80% of the result. The cost to Lunchista of taking part in all this was one candle (you could be more energy-efficient, but who would take a "CFL-lit vigil" seriously? And anyway, I was glad for some of that energy-lost-as-heat on my hands). The odds of success are unknown, but the possible reward is, well, about the size of a small planet.