Londoner Aimee Nathan has been loitering outside Starbucks today hoping coffee-drinkers will follow her lead and stop using paper cups and plastic lids.

She's even enlisted glamour model Jodie Marsh, pictured above, to give her crusade some celebrity flair.

You may not know this, but Starbucks offers a 25p discount on your tea or coffee if you bring in your own mug.

Not a bad incentive considering they charge a staggering £2.40 for a grande cappuccino.

For those who indulge in a daily caffeine hit from a coffee bars you added 365 paper cups, lids, stirrers, sugar packets and cardboard sleeves to landfill sites last year.

So why not start carrying a reusable mug in your bag? They keep your drink hot for hours (literally) and won't spill if you squeeze them too hard.

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Now I’m all for trees in general.

You can lean against them with a good book, hug them, shelter beneath them, climb up them and even live in them.

But I can't stand conifers.

Firstly you can’t shimmy up a conifer. The branches are too close together and you’d probably get needled.

But their most unforgivable offence is that they block out sunlight – something we get little enough of in England not to be precious about.

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As a bunch of over-worked web journalists, we rely heavily on caffeine to get us through a long day and keep our literary juices flowing.

Our work is punctuated by the welcomed cry of “Tea, anyone?” followed by the frantic clink of change.

The volunteer tea-runner heads for the canteen for aromatic Earl Greys, milky English Breakfast teas and pungent shots of espresso.

But what said volunteer tea-runner returns with is an armful of cardboard and plastic that always winds up in the bin.

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And as for playing with your food – if you don’t want it then don’t eat it and definitely don’t sit there mushing it around with the back of your fork.

So when I heard about a food artist (I know, I didn’t know they existed either) who was making a living out of playing with her food, I thought I’d take a closer look.

I suppose it’s some consolation that Prudence Staite isn’t slapping her tikka masala on a pub wall with a naan bread or finding Jesus in her pilau rice.

But still - spooning, ladelling and drizzling perfectly good baked beans and mashed potato into edible ‘works of art’ inspired by British TV shows is just a waste of good food.

Particularly when my weekly food bill has gone up by what seems like a month’s wages in the past week.

She’s immortalised Anne Robinson in Battenburg cake and biscuits – well until she reaches her use-by date anyway. But I see enough of the iron woman on BBC2 after work each day – there’s no need for an edible effigy thanks.

I’l

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And at the end of a hard day’s toil, your bathroom is covered in brick dust and large splinters and looks nothing like the one in the M&S Home catalogue.
 
So goodness knows why so many of us can’t get enough of Grand Designs. A whopping four million people tuned in for one episode of Grand Designs Revisited last month.
 
Deep down we all know the reality TV boom relies on the sadistic pleasure we get from watching things go wrong - though I suppose you could argue the case for the happy ending.
 
Property shows cater to the repressed nosey neighbour inside all of us and fortunately there’s a way to let your inner Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen out.

*** CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT GRAND DESIGNS LIVE ***

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