Zeroism
A Beginner's Beginning
The Grand Zero Epiphany. How a nobody figured he should do some things about some stuff but still be kind of a dick about it. Inspiring.
Goals, Plans and Assorted Machiavellia
What we’re going to do, how we’re going to do it. And you’re included in the we.
Principal Principles
We’ll be sceptical, not cynical. Knowledgeable, not knee-jerking. And thorough, not breezy or fun or anything even slightly appealing.
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Blog
No success like failure
You join me in the middle of another climate anxiety freakout, the beginning having begun several years ago and the end expected roughly forty minutes after my death. As deadly heatwaves clobber half of Europe, I’ve relocated my climate panic from background hum to front, centre and screaming in my face.
Book Review: Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
David Graeber has a theory that hundreds of millions of people are stuck in pointless, dead-end, bullshit jobs; jobs that exist only because we created them, jobs that add nothing, do nothing, give nothing of value to the world. What I’m saying is, this book appeals to me on a midichlorian level.
Alone in electric dreams
After 11 months of dithering, three nights of barely any sleep, and one day of sweating with guilt in a showroom, I finally bought an electric car. Here’s how it’s been:
Public charging, it turns out, is a piece of piss.
Book Review: The New Corporation by Joel Bakan
The New Corporation takes on the myth of goodhearted corporations, the ones that pretend to give even half a shit about the disposable fleshpods that make up their customer base. The ones that care about the social problems they’ve very definitely caused. It’s horseshit, of course.
Book Review: The Corporation by Joel Bakan
Most humans on earth are aware of how Big Bidness stomps all over humanity’s face in search of its next shabby cash-grab. Joel Bakan’s The Corporation helps explain why: Corporations are, in human terms, amoral, antisocial psychopaths. That is a million percent my jam.
The Nestlé boycott in 2022: What’s the latest what?
Having graduated from the Bond Villain School of Bastards and Bastardry, Nestlé, the world’s biggest food and drinks company, apparently set out to also be the world’s biggest contributor to infant mortality, aggressively marketing its baby milk substitute in countries where the water used to make it was so filthy it killed babies…
No success like failure
You join me in the middle of another climate anxiety freakout, the beginning having begun several years ago and the end expected roughly forty minutes after my death. As deadly heatwaves clobber half of Europe, I’ve relocated my climate panic from background hum to front, centre and screaming in my face.
Book Review: Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber
David Graeber has a theory that hundreds of millions of people are stuck in pointless, dead-end, bullshit jobs; jobs that exist only because we created them, jobs that add nothing, do nothing, give nothing of value to the world. What I’m saying is, this book appeals to me on a midichlorian level.
Alone in electric dreams
After 11 months of dithering, three nights of barely any sleep, and one day of sweating with guilt in a showroom, I finally bought an electric car. Here’s how it’s been:
Public charging, it turns out, is a piece of piss.
Book Review: The New Corporation by Joel Bakan
The New Corporation takes on the myth of goodhearted corporations, the ones that pretend to give even half a shit about the disposable fleshpods that make up their customer base. The ones that care about the social problems they’ve very definitely caused. It’s horseshit, of course.
Book Review: The Corporation by Joel Bakan
Most humans on earth are aware of how Big Bidness stomps all over humanity’s face in search of its next shabby cash-grab. Joel Bakan’s The Corporation helps explain why: Corporations are, in human terms, amoral, antisocial psychopaths. That is a million percent my jam.
The Nestlé boycott in 2022: What’s the latest what?
Having graduated from the Bond Villain School of Bastards and Bastardry, Nestlé, the world’s biggest food and drinks company, apparently set out to also be the world’s biggest contributor to infant mortality, aggressively marketing its baby milk substitute in countries where the water used to make it was so filthy it killed babies…
VEGGIENESS
My Life As A Hypocrite
How a spider spurred my veggie awakening, and with it my wider Zero awakening and with it a general saving of animals, humanity and the planet.
In search of protein
I scream, you scream, we all scream for protein. Let’s just calm down and eat some. It’s basically everywhere.
A Matter of Life and Death
Disappointed I couldn’t think of a Slaughterhouse Five pun. Slaughterhouse High-Five sounds like I’m all for them. Here’s why I’m not.
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Big Bidness
THE SUM OF NO FEELS
How a bit of corporate maths made The Zero see Red.
Sweatshops
The living hells we try to ignore. Let’s not do that.
Beyond Your Trolley
Campaign to promote Fairtrade, tackle tariffs, close sweatshops, improve working conditions and raise wages. Because we’re done screwing the poor.
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Butterflies
Meddle!
Get proper stuck in.
Join something
Meddle on a grand scale. Turn individual action to collective action. There’s strength in etc.
Ditch bottled water
It’s about the least necessary thing since the last Die Hard sequel.
Use Public Transport
Even if it’s terrible right now. Reduce emissions, save the planet, let me take all the credit.
Buy Fairtrade
Pay people enough to let them actually live. Weird that has to be said.
Vote!
Because we’re in the age of Trump and Brexit and right-wing arseholery everywhere.
Impatient Zero
I decided to spend ten days off my tits with fever, and then most of March struggling to breathe, and then half of April self-isolating while I downgraded my cough from persistent to lingering to socially awkward. It’s been frustrating. But I’ve been up and about for a few weeks now, and the old nagging feeling that I should be doing more is kicking back in.
THEIRStory
I was a true believer back when the allegations first hit. I loved Michael Jackson with the bone-deep intensity only teenagers get to feel, when music feels important. When it feels tribal. When the heavy metal mob splits from the goths, when the indie kids look down on manufactured pop fans. I spent the next couple of years in second-hand record stores, car boot sales and memorabilia fairs building a collection so obsessive it could have scored me a diagnosis and a decent whack of DLA.
Vote. Campaign. Donate. Win.
Well… We lost the fuck out of that one, didn’t we? After Christine Blasey Ford’s heroic testimony, after Jeff Flake’s ego-driven dithering, after a week of two Republicans pretending to struggle with the ethics of the thing, we had Trump mocking Dr Ford while his disciples laughed uproariously.
Veganuary beganuaried
As Veganuary hit and I finished updating the Veggieness section of this here website, I was lightning-bolted by one of my many micro-epiphanies: Ever since Covid demanded I spend less time in the kitchen and more time in bed I’ve become a lousy, lazy vegan.
Veganuary: What, why, how, when and who
Veganuary aims to get people trying veganism for a month, drawing them in with time-limited new year faddishness. Last year it had more than half a million sign ups, with about 85% committing to cutting down on meat and dairy thereafter, and a solid 40% aiming to stay vegan for all time. That’s decent, given the most popular new year’s resolution – getting and using an annual gym membership – has a success rate of less than 3% I assume.
Soyless Green
As with many hells, the road to veganism is paved with good intentions…
Bottle bricks/Dolphins drownin’ slowly
Like most of you, when I first saw WALL-E I assumed it was a documentary and was relieved to find we had at last discovered a solution to the madness of short-term landfillery. However, on attempting to contact and marry EVA, Pixar security guards informed me not just that I would be charged with breach of the peace but also that the film was a work of speculative fiction.
Putting the draising in fundraising
Devoted as you are to yer man The Zero, and as closely as you monitor my good works, you’ll be aware I do the odd bit of fundraising in spite of hating it almost completely. The past few years I’ve been meddling with Yaknak Projects, a small charity set up by a few friends to run two children’s home in Nepal. They need £16,000 a year to keep the homes running, a delightful spot of constant pressure that cheers them greatly.
Nappies: let’s not be rash
As you’d expect from a man in my position, I have literally thousands of children. The groupies that gather at the foot of Zero Towers are as fertile as they are up for it, and the rise of my master race is progressing nicely. Sadly, due to the sheer size of my collective progeny, all of whom are disabled rad-fems, I am unable to support any of them financially or emotionally, thus creating twice as many social problems as I was hoping to solve.
More on Butterflies >
No success like failure
You join me in the middle of another climate anxiety freakout, the beginning having begun several years ago and the end expected roughly forty minutes after my death. As deadly heatwaves clobber half of Europe, I’ve relocated my climate panic from background hum to front, centre and screaming in my face.
Alone in electric dreams
After 11 months of dithering, three nights of barely any sleep, and one day of sweating with guilt in a showroom, I finally bought an electric car. Here’s how it’s been:
Public charging, it turns out, is a piece of piss.
The Big Plastic Count: World’s Worst Typo Successfully Avoided
Among the million things we need to do to avert climate breakdown, kicking the arse out of plastic is one of the most urgent. Plastic comes from dirty-bad oil, gas and coal, using about 4.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions and about 6% of coal-fired electricity in its production. We’re bringing on the sixth mass extinction for the sake of shrink-wrapped broccoli.
More on Environmentalism >
