Dick Strawbridge is not a TV presenter that you're likely to forget. He has possibly the thickest and bushiest moustache you've ever seen. As far as I'm aware, he first rose to public prominance as part a member of The Brothers in Arms on Scrapheap Challenge - a team of soldiers from Northern Ireland who regularly did well in the 10 hour build-time they were given to come up with some device or other.
In It's Not Easy Being Green, we follow Strawbridge with his wife, two children and various friends of the family, and assorted hangers on, as they move into a relatively delapidated farmhouse in Cornwall and attempt to become as self-sufficient as possible, and live life in environmentally sound manner as possible. This is no mean feat, and they know that complete self-sufficiency is not going to be possible. But they're going to do the best they can.
As well as planting gardens for herbs and vegetables, Dick builds things like water mills or heat transfer mechanisms for greenhouses making full use of his engineering talents.
I'm really enjoying this programme. As usual, you're not entirely sure what the financial situation is - the farmhouse, we're told, cost half a million, and they've had to take a pretty big mortgage. And then there'll be presenter's fees etc. But this shouldn't detract from a fascinating experiment that'll I'll be watching with keen interest.
Posted by adambowie at April 4, 2006 10:11 PM