Eat for the environment

Read about how "scoffing fish can save ecosystems" in Eat for the ecosysytem.

Make do and mend?

BBC News reports that although repairing gadgets can save cash, many people would rather replace their broken appliances. So the BBC decided to find out whether it is worth giving these broken gadgets a new lease of life with a little help from a traditional repair man. Read the story and the accompanying advice from Which?

Calculate your personal carbon footprint

The Guardian's quick carbon calculator enables you to calculate the impact of your travel, home and shopping habits with our simple carbon footprint calculator. You simply drag the sliders to the left or right based on your spending and lifestyle patterns to compare your footprint to the UK average and other countries around the world.

• Find out more about the calculator's methodology
• Get some quick tips on reducing your footprint

Best time to meet?

A new study says 3pm on Tuesday is the best time to call a workplace meeting as most prospective attendees will be free. The hour in question is an office diary sweet spot - representing a confluence of employee availability, motivation and willingness, say those responsible for the finding.

Keith Harris, of online scheduling service When Is Good, has analysed 100,000 responses to 34,000 meeting requests sent by When Is Good users, and 3pm - particularly on a Tuesday - is the time which has the most acceptances. Conversely, the worst time to plan a meeting is at 9am on a Monday. Then, just one in three people will readily accept, compared with about half for an afternoon meeting.

Communicating God’s love through ice-cream

Young people in Coventry Diocese are about to blend their love for God with their love of ice-cream by opening an ice-cream parlour, to give away ice-creams and host events for young people in the area who fancy a fun flavour of Church life.

Meanwhile, in Chester Diocese a Christian Union wants to run the Sock Project to communicate God’s love to their school using sock puppets, running events and film-based discussions, and performing random acts of kindness in the school lunch hour.

These are two of 84 ingenious new evangelistic projects to receive a pump-priming grant of up to £3,000 from the Church of England’s Youth Evangelism Fund (YEF) in 2009. The fund is supported by the Archbishops' Council (50 per cent), the Henry Smith Charity, the Laing Family Trusts, and the Jerusalem Trust.

Launched in 2006, the YEF grew out of a report presented to General Synod in 2002 entitled Good News for Young People: The Church of England’s National Youth Strategy, which included proposals for a Youth Evangelism Fund. It aims to enable more young people to connect with the Gospel and develop faith within the life of the Church by allowing the young to share faith with friends in ways that make sense to them. Each year for five years, eight to 10 dioceses are receiving YEF support to resource new ideas for mission.

Wild Vision Tour Autumn-Winter 2009/2010

John Beatty is widely acclaimed as one of the most exciting and stimulating nature, travel and adventure photographers to have emerged in recent years. With over twenty years of assignments to his name, John’s work has taken him from the peaks of all the Greater Ranges to the American Deserts, to the teeming wildlife of East Africa and the wonder of the Galapagos Islands.

This autumn/winter he will be touring with his show Wild Vision: Images and Stories from the Wilderness. He will be appearing at Loughborough Town Hall on Thursday 4th February 2010.

10 best chocolate dessert recipes

To celebrate Chocolate Week, check out these delicious chocolate dessert recipes:

• Chocolate roulade recipe
• Chocolate and black cherry marquise recipe
• Hot chocolate pudding with fudge sauce recipe
• Chocolate, hazelnut and Amarula cheesecake recipe
• Chocolate tart recipe
• Chocolate and cardamom pots recipe
• Chocolate trifle recipe
• Chilled mocha souffle recipe
• Chocolate and orange brioche pudding recipe
• Chocolate, coffee and mascarpone torte recipe

The Teasmade is back on the boil

The Telegraph reports a revival for the great British Teasmade. Swan have revived the Teasmade by popular demand. The author writes of 'the charming paradox at the heart of the Teasmade [it is] a "labour-saving" device that really just transfers the labour from morning to evening'.

"In its curvaceous new form, with an LCD face like a blue moon and a swanky reading light, the Teasmade is not a bit like its squat old self with the funny little silver pipe sticking out of the top. It looks as if it might play music or make bread. It is unrecognisably lovely. The ceramic teapot wouldn't look out of place in Fortnum's."

Blog Action Day 09‏ (the ecocidal moment)

Today is Blog Action Day - an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance. Blog Action Day 2009 will focus on climate change and will be the largest-ever social change event on the web. Follow the action on Twitter in anticipation, with updates from around the world every minute.

I've chosen to post a link to an essay from the Archbishop of Canterbury on the ecocidal moment. In this he discusses his view that the climate and financial crises reveal an amnesia about the human calling:

The Christian story lays out a model of reconnection with an alienated world: it tells us of a material human life inhabited by God and raised transfigured from death; of a sharing of material food which makes us sharers in eternal life; of a community whose life together seeks to express within creation the care of the creator. In the words used by both Moses and St Paul, this is not a message remote from us in heaven or buried under the earth: it is near, on our lips and hearts. And, as Moses immediately goes on to say in the Old Testament passage, "You know it and can quote it, so now obey it. Today I am giving you a choice between good and evil, between life and death … Choose life."

[The Guardian article is an edited extract from the 2009 Operation Noah lecture]

Fairtrade Chic

The Fairtrade chic website describes itself as "your guide to buying fairtrade products and services in your country and area". The website aims to provide information about why you should buy Fairtrade, what products are available from fairtrade producers, and where in your area or online you can buy the fairtrade products.

Chocolate: the terrible truth

"There is nothing quite like it... Chocolate. A remarkable product. Sold all over the world in vast quantities. But there is a problem. You can't see it when you buy your favourite snack but there is a terrible truth..."

Read more in an article by Ruth Dearnley, CEO of Stop the Traffik.

Songs I Sang At Sunday School

Songs I Sang At Sunday School is a collection of 16 songs from yester-year, dusted down, and rerecorded with a modern edge.

"Many of us were shaped by the songs we sang at Sunday school, songs which established biblical truths in our lives and taught us the basics of the Christian faith. How good would it be to hear those songs again? Well now you can!"

Authentic Music returned to the studio and re-recorded 16 Sunday school favourites. The strapline is: "Prepare to have memories revived, and get ready to worship agan as you enjoy the songs you sang at Sunday school".

Give this Christmas away!

The campaign dates for Operation Christmas Child 2009 are 1st - 18thNovember. Check out where to take your boxesand gifts to include in your boxes.

This year there is also a Give This Christmas Away group on Facebook for suggestions for how we can give some of our Christmas away for those less fortunate than ourselves

New Fairtrade Towns website

A new Fairtrade Towns website has been created to enable supporters from around the world to share ideas and inspiration. Communities across the world are working to promote Fairtrade in their area, in order to enable more farmers and workers to get a better deal. In the process many communities are meeting goals to become recognised as a Fairtrade Town. On the website you can find resources and top tips from over 600 Fairtrade Town campaigns in different countries.

“…if I owned a chocolate company...”

Today is National Poetry Day.

Divine, the chocolate company owned by cocoa farmers, is delighted to announce the eighth annual national Divine Poetry Competition in association with Christian Aid. This year the mouthwatering theme is “…if I owned a chocolate company...” and the guest judge is top author Anthony Horowitz. This hugely popular nationwide competition which attracts thousands of entries each year. is open to all ages. The deadline for entries is Monday 21st December and the winners of great Divine prizes will be announced at the end of January 2010.

Divine and partner Christian Aid are asking aspiring poets to write a poem imagining how wonderful it would be to own their own chocolate company. They are asked to consider what sorts of delicious chocolate products they would make & sell as well as thinking about how they would ensure the cocoa farmers received a fair deal. Alternatively entrants can think about what it would be like for cocoa farmers to own their own chocolate company (like Divine) and what this would mean for the lives of their families & communities.

Sing Hallelujah

Sing Hallelujah is a nationwide project which encourages people to find their voice and discover the joy of singing through Handel's famous "Hallelujah Chorus". Sing Hallelujah is a project from the BBC, led by BBC Radio 3, and English National Opera (ENO).

Everyone from beginners to established choirs is invited to learn the Hallelujah Chorus, with the help of the BBC and ENO, and encouraged to perform the work during November and December 2009 to help mark the 250th anniversary year of Handel's death.

Day of prayer on climate change

Sunday 4th October is the suggested date for a Day of prayer on climate change. Churches are invited to set aside time to pray on this crucial issue. Prayer and other resources are available for download.

The day is promoted by the Environmental Issues Network, of which A Rocha UK is a member. The Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Revd James Jones said, "I urge all Christians to pray for the earthing of Heaven on this day of prayer. Each day I make my own prayer with these words: Holy Jesus, Son of Man, come in glory and renew the face of the earth."

10 of the best secondhand bookshops

The Guardian highlights ten superb secondhand bookshops. These include the Infusion favourite Scarthin Books in Cromford, Derbyshire:

It lures the nervous in with reassuring new titles – 40,000 across the range – then seduces them with the “aroma and mystique” of a similar number of secondhand books interpersed among them. This is a labyrinth – 13 rooms, cubby-holes crammed with volumes, plus an organic cafe, the walls of which are lined with literary curiosities. A children’s room contains 9,000 books old and new. There’s a large ­collection of secondhand sheet music and ­antiquarian treasures.

What does your bookcase say about you?

As Ikea's Billy bookcase enters its fourth decade, the BBC website ponders why we display our reading material rather than just store it away.