This weekend column is brought to you by the founders of Niceties Tokens, Liz and Pete of Team Nice.

8. Cocomad

It was the day of the Live Earth concerts, eight events in eight cities with a goal of raising awareness of the threat to planet Earth from climate change. The most significant cause of climate change is the burning of fossil fuels such as oil. So I guess it was a little ironic that it was an oil spill on the M40 that ruined our plans on Saturday. Perhaps it was our punishment for choosing to drive to the Cocomad park fair in Birmingham rather than take the train...

In any case we ended up spending 5 hours at a virtual standstill in the resulting traffic jam and completely missed the event where we’d hoped to say hello and take some Niceties Tokens.

Cocomad is run annually by The Friends Of Cotteridge Park, an example of the impact that can be made on the local political process when a group of community minded people come together to challenge the local political establishment. Ten years ago they refused to accept the closure of the Victorian era Cotteridge Park and ran a campaign against the City Council’s plans. The park was saved.

Ten years later and the global campaign that is Live Earth attempts a similar goal, on a much larger political scale.

We saw plenty of reasons to succeed whilst we were stuck on the motorway. Under those circumstances you might expect to see cursing and a little anarchy, but all we saw was an awful lot of joking and camaraderie as people strolled out to chat with their neighbouring cars.

Lets hope Live Earth can do another Cotteridge Park.

By Peter Muriuki