Wasps of the Parking World

Last Thursday I opted to pay by text message for parking in Islington. A simple process (once registered) that I think has really made parking a whole heap easier in London (no more scrabbling for coins etc!) but thanks to the over-zealous nature of a Civil Enforcement Officer (or Traffic Warden as everyone else would call them) on behalf of Islington Council, I was given a ticket despite having paid!

Why? Because the CEO (to abbreviate their glorified title) decided to wait less than 60 seconds from when I parked! It takes their own systems 2 minutes to confirm the payment so...how does this behaviour help anyone? All it does if frustrate honest, tax-paying drivers to despise once again the wasps of the parking world and condemn a Council for creating paperwork for their appeals department (cost to the tax payer), waste my time (cost to my business), print a needless ticket and associated paperwork (cost to the environment).

If drivers could hand out tickets to the councils for wasting their time when they've done nothing wrong, then Islington Council would be getting one from us today. Come to think of it, what a great idea that would be....!

Hijacking the Union Jack!

Yet again a multi-national (and ironically one of the less eco-friendly of energy companies) have hijacked 3 great things - the concept of a greener Britain, the brand identity of a properly green business and the most nationalistic of all things, our union jack!

Whilst I wholeheartedly support the concept of a greener Britain and all things that that may encourage that possibility, the reality is that EDF is neither green nor British. EDF is French -Electrcite de France -so why are they pretending to be British? Why are they not flying a french flag and making it green? And most importantly why have they hijacked the brand equity of a PROPER green energy company (Ecotricity) for their own benefit...why because try as EDF might, they are not and never will be green at the core!

Ecotricity has used the Green Union Jack for more than 2 years as a clear symbol of being a TRUELY British and TRUELY Green organisation - a fact that will hopefully not be lost on the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). The ASA confirmed it had received more than 80 complaints accusing EDF of confusing people by using Ecotricity's imagery and a further 23 complaints accusing it of being "unpatriotic" in its presentation of a painted Union flag.

A spokeswoman for the watchdog confirmed that an investigation was underway into the use of material similar to that used by Ecotricity, although complaints that the use of a green Union flag is insulting to the UK have been rejected. Do you think such a comment would be made by a French government agency or an American one for that matter - why do we not protect our flag for use by our countries great companies?

EDF attempted to downplay both the threat of legal action and the complaints to the ASA but they are just one of many who are stealing the Great from Britain. We wish Ecotricity success in defending their brand identity against the greenwashing multinational that is EDF.....after all if EDF can get away who will do it next?