- Sleeps in the park. First of all, his bodily wastes go straight back into the local envioronment, without the need for energy intensive processing. Secondly, by avoiding the need for a bedroom, Mr Mustard is acting to reduce the pressure to build more houses, often on envioronmentally sensitive sites.
- Shaves in the dark. Not only does he save energy (a 15 minute shave using a 100 watt light bulb would use about .025 KwH of energy) but his bristles can be collected and use to make felt, or organic paintbrushes.
- Tries to save paper. See! Back in the late 1960's recycling was not even on the agenda. Mr Mustard was in many ways years ahead of his time.
- Sleeps in a hole in the road. During the day, particularly during the summer, the surface of the earch absorbs solar energy. Black surfaces, such as asphalt roads, are particularly efficient at capturing and storing this energy. By choosing a hole, Mr Mustard is surrounding himself with warm material and maximising his advantage. Thus he frees himself from the need to use electric blankets, or cotton sheets, with their attendant envioronmental costs. During cooler months, he merely vacates the hole in the road, and switches back to sleeping in the park.
- Saving up to buy some clothes. We are all encouraged to consume things that we don't really need. As a society, we spend many billions of pounds on advertising goods and services that we could really live perfectly happily without. So Kudos to Mr M for resisting the call to follow fashion, and limiting his consumption of clothing to the bare essentials.
- Keeps a ten bob note up his nose. I'd suggest that Mr Mustard has made an informed decision - based upon his awareness of global inequity, and how it is perpetuated by the financial and commercial structures and institutions we have created - to limit his contact with such institutions, and capitalism in general to a minimum. Using his nose as a store of liquid assets, rather than a multinational mercantile organisation is significant, and is an example more of us should try to emulate.
Now compare that with his sister, Pam. She:
- works in a shop. By forming part of the chain of production and consumption, Pam is at least partly to blame for climate change, poverty, sweat shops in third world countries and the Iraq war.
- She never stops. To expend energy requires fuel. therefore she must consume far more than her brother, or she'd be unable to function.
She's a go-getter. This is symptomatic of a competitive economic and social system. Some inequity is caused by peopleslatent abilities and motivations, but other inequities are inevitable. Pam has failed to see this, or if she has seen it, has chosen to become a climber, rather than attempt to change the system, or even to live as much as possible outside it, as Mr Mustard has. That she does respect the status quo is verified by the fact that she takes Mr Mustard out to look at the queen. An obvious symbol of the state, and an outdated relic of an even more iniquitous social system, she none-the-less commands respect and awe among some more gullible members of society.
And that's the only place she's ever taken him. A blatent attempt at brainwashing really, although Mr Mustard, being politically and ecologically aware, refuses to fall for this, and challenges the Queens authority using foul language, every opportunity he gets.
And good for him, I say.
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