It's an exhausting business saving energy. Only this week I've had to fend off two door-to-door salesmen trying to persuade me to take a few rolls of loft insulation off their hands.

Then there's all those leaflets about home energy you receive every winter - how to knock thousands of pounds off your bills by using electricity when it's cheapest (presumably in the middle of the night) and installing low-energy light bulbs.

I'm still pondering how we could work our daily routine around an evening meal at 3am and the kids' bathtime an hour later.

And while I love the idea of low-energy light bulbs, they emit all the ambience of a public lavatory. We have taken the step of installing one on the landing, but in the living room - never. Even worse in the bedroom, although it would help enormously with the "Not tonight, I've got a headache" look I strive to convey.

People do strange things to save energy - they smear clingfilm on their windows, and stick little strips of white foam around the door. I did that last year - but far from removing the draught from the side of the door, we couldn't close it at all, allowing an entire weather system to whip around the sofa.

My uncle turns off lights. When we go to his house, no sooner have we entered the hall than it's plunged into darkness as he ushers us through the blackness into the living room, where a tiny lamp illuminates an area of one foot square. You have to feel your way on to a chair.

And if anyone goes to the toilet, he will nip out afterwards to check that the light has been turned off. "Costs money," he will point out at least a dozen times. As a child, I would dread going. It was terrifying, having to fumble my way around a strange house in the darkness. And we could never have the television on. He is the only person I know who loves power cuts.

I'm not saying people shouldn't be cost-conscious when heating and lighting their homes - I was on the verge of driving home from a holiday in the Lake District because I thought I'd left the central heating on (I hadn't), and spent the entire week fretting about the impending bill - but that they be sensible about it.

Talking of sensible, the silliest idea yet has got to be that about to be acted out by astronauts about the infamous Russian space station Nir. They are planning to use their dirty underpants to generate fuel.

Scientists are busy searching for a cocktail of bacteria that will feast on the smalls, converting them into methane.

Well, there's a thought. Maybe in future we won't need gas or electricity - just grubby Y-fronts. But then, if most men are like my husband and only change their underwear once a fortnight, we could be looking at a long, cold winter.

No, if you want to save energy without looking silly, there's only one way to do it - join the vast number of very sensible pensioners and jet off to Benidorm.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.