Get knitting . . . and save the world

GIVE ME A BREAKJust think of the money, carbon footprints and food miles that a spot of 'guerrilla knitting' can save as the downturn worsens, writes Kate Holmquist

WHEN THE Guardian newspaper gives instructions for knitting an eco-friendly banana cosy to protect one's banana from the thumps and bumps of the journey to work, the world really has gone mad. They think my banana has a job? Good Lord, I wish it did because I could use the extra cash.

Eco-nuts call this "guerrilla knitting" - a crafts-based movement by which we can wrest back control over the manufacturing of cute fluffy accessories from multi-nationals who exploit child workers in Asia, by making charmingly useless cuddly bits for ourselves! Mobile phone and iPod holders! Pure wool wristbands to hold our spare change in when we go running! (Sounds itchy.) A knitted cup-sleeve for our Starbucks coffee so that we don't have to use those eco-dicey cardboard things!

And for next Christmas, we can now start knitting handbags from recyclable plastic for our nearest and dearest! Knitted recyclable plastic socks, anyone? Not convinced yet? Just think of the money, carbon footprints and food miles that knitting can save. Your banana, having arrived at work safely, will not turn squishy and black, thereby preventing the annoying purchase of another banana for your lunch and saving further food miles for those of you who haven't already planted banana trees in your globally-warmed garden.

My God, knitting can save the world! I have to knit myself some raffia adult nappies before I wet myself! This concept of self-sufficiency is so timely, that I'm thinking of suggesting to my bank that it adds knitting to its selection of carbon-consuming leaflets placed for convenient reading while I wait in a queue for 20 minutes to be told: "Computer says no." Then, next time I go to them trying to get an overdraft of €200 at the end of the month to feed the children because my husband hasn't been paid as promised due an email error, and all the bread and cereal and pasta is gone and there is literally nothing to eat and I haven't enough money even to take the Dart to work, they can give me helpful suggestions. Go out to the garden and use those dandelion leaves to make a healthy salad! Knit yourself a steak! Get the children so preoccupied with knitting recyclable plastic bags into school uniforms that they'll forget they're hungry!

The banks are as realistic about how we are meant to survive the economic downturn as the Guardian is about how we should spend our leisure time. The banks believe that we can run businesses and feed and clothe ourselves out of thin air if only we adjust our thinking and practise a little self-discipline, just as the eco-nuts would like to see us growing our own bananas. These are unrealistic philosophies created by privileged people who think that those who cannot manage with this ecologically unsound and economically unstable world they've created for us have something fundamentally wrong with us. We don't know how to handle money because we're immature and haven't learned to do without unnecessary items like mobile phone cosies.

Try going to a bank for an overdraft today because your mortgage has gone up and you've got school uniforms and books to pay for in August, and you'll get short shrift. Don't even try to buy anything as substantial as a house or a car. The lenders have gone from cheerfully offering 100 per cent mortgages to people who didn't even have permanent work, to thinking twice about lending 80 per cent mortgages to people they regard as presenting no risk whatsoever. By lending 100 per cent mortgages to all comers, including family-building two career couples, they heated up the property market to an unreasonable level. Investors made killings, but a few years later, couples who bought houses to actually live in are struggling to pay mortgages on negative equity, when by now they have crèche fees in addition to rising petrol, food, electricity and gas costs. Some people paid too much for houses, while others who already had houses were encouraged to remortgage to the hilt to pay off other debts.

The result: more and more families are finding that they absolutely cannot manage even by living on shoestring budgets but the banks will do nothing to help them. You can weep bitter tears and they won't be budged. If the computer says no, you could be relying on hand-outs from relatives and friends and the banks won't care. And even if you're pushed to selling your house, in today's market nobody wants to buy it. The vultures are circling, no doubt, for the market to reach rock bottom before they start taking advantage of people's misfortune.

In the old days, your bank manager knew you and was willing to help you through tough times. Not anymore. Now it's all about online banking and if you dare sully a branch with your presence, there's a different manager every time you go in - not that it matters, because if the computer says no, it's no.

What the banks and lenders have done to us by minting money during the Tiger years and now refusing to give us any leeway when times are hard, is totally amoral and it should never be allowed to happen again. If we're going to knit anything, it should be ethical banking where people really matter - which will probably happen as fast as I can knit a pair of raffia knickers.