'Being behind the wheel of a car can turn someone from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde'

SUN, sea, and the open road. The adverts on the television that show brand new cars cutting through the deserts, spinning their way along winding roads with ocean views and ascending large mountains, don't really express a typical day's driving in Britain. Unless there's a Lidl store at the top of that mountain.

And, as I am not a fan of driving, it's misleading to suggest that the real driving experience in Britain is anything quite as exciting as those adverts suggest. In fact, at the bottom of the screen, there should be a disclaimer suggesting: 'Driving experiences may vary'.

If my driving experience is anything to go by (burning rubber, choking on the smell of a smouldering clutch, stalling as much as is physically possible, architecting a repetitive strain injury in the neck, and causing the car to howl like the feral lovechild of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Reliant Regal van from Only Fools and Horses - all before leaving the driveway); cruising through a mountain pass on a sunny day seems slightly more enjoyable.

The adverts also imply that there are no other cars on the road. No traffic lights. No speed bumps. No over-excited individuals in a rush to get back for Deal or No Deal.

The driving experience in the commercials suggest that, to get to work, you just drive in a straight line across a desert and pull up outside. No gridlock traffic jams.

They also imply that the weather is always warm and sunny - but that doesn't matter because, as the adverts suggest, you just roll up your sleeves and drive with one arm resting on the window ledge.

In reality, you're boiling hot because you can't open the window for fear of getting stabbed, mugged or lung disease from the toxic gas the HGV in front is giving out. So you sit and swelter in the heat because, to afford the fuel for the air-conditioning, you would have to sell your children for scientific experiments.

There's also something about the fact that being behind the wheel of a car can turn someone from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde in a matter of seconds.

Someone who is usually polite and courteous (if such a person exists) can, within seconds of leaving the drive, turn into the devil - not the best disposition of a person behind the wheel of 1.5tonne killing machine.

Even the preserve-making, cake-baking members of the Women's Institute may suddenly flip when cut up at a roundabout and find themselves in a situation not dissimilar to the opening sequences of Saving Private Ryan.

For many people there are not really any other decent methods of getting about. Buses can be unreliable. Taxis are too expensive. Trains are late.

And cycling isn't an option. While it would be enjoyable to ride a bike in the countryside or on a cycle trail, cycling down a main road with the gigantic tyre of an articulated lorry voluntarily exfoliating your legs and the man with the high blood pressure in the BMW acting like he's just discovered the horn whilst bringing the bumper in an uncompromising proximity to your rear end; obviously isn't going to be the most favourable method of city transport.

'The future's not orange, the future's green'

WALK DOWN the street with an AK47 assault rifle and you may have a police officer tell you you're being a "very naughty citizen indeed" and you'll have to go to bed without any supper. Walk down the street with a plastic bag; you'll be eating pavement within 3 seconds and an armed response unit will be pinning down all four limbs.

There has been a recent movement, over the last couple of years, that suggests plastic bags will be the downfall of the planet and many retail outlets are joining the banned-wagon and are either forbidding them completely or are making you pay up to 5p for their use. If the supermarkets don't "suitably enforce" a charge-per-bag policy in the near future, 2009 will see a government-implemented charge for every bag we take our shopping home in.

Because people in Britain aren't taxed enough.

So if plastic bags are not problematic for the planet's pollution levels, why is it, second only to the War on Terror - the War on Plastic Bags is so prominent?

Surely, whales having stomachs full of plastic and birds getting their feet tangled up in last Tuesday's shopping carrier is an issue with the disposal of plastic bags and not because we haven't been charged to use them?

Charging us for the use of plastic bags is a noticeably flawed method of reducing any harsh impact to the environment.

The fundamental, and possibly critical, error in all of these poor attempts from a well-intentioned, but often deluded, Government is the ignorance to the fact that tackling global warming is an attack on fuel and the West's entire socio-economic prosperity relies on fuel.

Charging everyone 5p for using plastic bags is not having a direct effect on the global climate but it may cause great inconvenience.

For a while now there have been green fanatics who have been installing solar panels and wind turbines, building their own ark in case of torrential flooding and eating lentils by candlelight while listening to The Archers. By doing this, whether the intention is environmental or economical, it has meant they're sitting on piles of extra cash while those of us who spent time running over vegetarians in gas-guzzling 4x4s have suddenly realised that the pennies are not going to look after themselves.

Show the nation images of polar bears drowning in the arctic and they're unlikely to bat an eyelid. Show them last month's electricity bill and they're suddenly hugging trees and adopting whales.

Now the threat has moved from icebergs to our pockets, the situation has suddenly become a lot more urgent.

The future's not orange, the future's green and because of this economic tension, we may just start to see an indirect reduction in pollution levels because people can't afford to live.

It's obvious that we need to reduce carbon emissions, but charging 5p to use plastic bags, driving cars powered by farts at 3 miles per hour and being shot in the kneecaps for putting cans in the glass recycling bin may not be the most effective way to go about it.

'We have been living in a financial haven for the last 10 years'

THE COST of energy bills, fuel, and food are causing many financial worries. Pension figures are as worthless as the paper they are printed on and, due to our banks being as safe as our personal details on a governmental laptop, many are being faced with the prospect of storing wads of cash (if you're lucky enough to have any) under mattresses.

This means it shouldn't come as a surprise if, in the next few months, Mexican television companies start running commercials with ghastly, black and white images of a family sitting in front of a measly 32inch television and eating turkey twizzlers, with a voiceover saying 'Just 337 Mexican Pesos could get this British family Sky Sports for a whole month.'

We have been living in financial haven, over the last ten years, where all the rules of fiscal rationality went south, and house prices went north.

We were able to live on eternal credit, take out mortgages five times our salaries, and bask in the financial sunlight; with not all of us thinking about why, for a country who hasn't manufactured anything useful since the 1950s - and imported almost everything from Asia - was able to live in economic prosperity.

As I'm writing this, Britain still has a banking system. Although, is it coincidence that the Government who were wetting themselves with excitement to build a super casino were, in effect - through not intervening with the happy-go-lucky banking structure - gambling with the public's money?

And while complaints have recently risen due to the number of betting offices in our communities, there is, in fact, a new gambling medium on the high streets: they're called banks.

Just a few years ago, the Government were pompously boasting about the unparalleled period of economic prosperity in Britain. Somewhat ironically perhaps, as this was also the same attitude portrayed by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin not long before the start of the Depression in 1929 with ye olde stock exchange.

The only difference being they didn't have frustrated men in Armani suits, their nostrils lightly dusted with the Devil's dandruff, shouting into mobile phones with a fearful look on their face.

We've recently seen American banks that we've never heard of go under, Lloyd's black horse supposedly getting set to rescue Harold the Halifax man while he's inadequately surfing in the middle of the ocean and have realised that's why business magnates go (or did go) to Iceland.

And suddenly, everyone is slowly getting to grips with the financial lingo. A year ago we wouldn't have heard old grannies at the bus stop coming out with terms such as "account aggregation", "monetary policy committee", and "spread betting". Even those whose vocabulary only consisted of the words "Posh" and "Becks" have now increased their terminology to "pounds", "pence", and "Ocean Finance".

It may be the case, however, that companies are latching onto the term "credit crunch" as an excuse to increase their prices - thinking that we will be more acceptable of the high prices because it's what we expect from a "credit crunch". Even though many of us don't even know what the terms "credit crunch", "recession" or "economic downturn" actually mean.

The phrases are just up there with contemporary, accepted jargon - alongside oxymorons such as "Great Depression", "Hell's Angels" and "President Bush".