Everybody in the construction and associated industries these days is talking about the Green Deal. In particular, there is a clamour to become assessors for the scheme, which claims to be a sure-fire way of recouping the cost of installing environmentally-friendly heating and insulation by savings on your energy bill.

There is no money-back guarantee, of course. Launching the scheme on 28 January, Cleggie said: "The Green Deal will help thousands of homes stay warm for less. Those people will benefit from energy saving improvements – and their energy bills will fall."

There is a group of people who are guaranteed to make money from the scheme – just as they do with all such initiatives. Suddenly, from out of the woodwork has sprung a forest of people offering to train the assessors and all the other operatives involved in the scheme. At around a grand-and-a-half for the three-day course to become and assessor, there is no shortage of people wanting to take up the offer.

This week I'm mostly exercised by food miles. I don't specifically mean the amount of CO2 emitted by flying food from far-flung places to our tables here in the UK – although, to be honest, I thought The Flying Horse was a pub.

No, I'm more concerned about the distances being clocked up by TV chefs in the pursuit of items of confectionery that would cause a nutritionist to cringe (and hit the chocolate, possibly).

For example, in the trail for United Cakes of America, his new series on the Good Food channel, James Martin says: "I've been consumed with two passions in my life: cakes and cars. And finally, I've found a way to combine the two..."

I've got a lot of admiration for James Martin; he is without doubt my favourite of all the celebrity chefs and given the fact he's a Yorkshireman, that is some accolade. His Saturday Kitchen programme showed me the error of my ways when roasting duck and allowed me to produce a bird that now draws compliments rather than criticism. I've even forgiven him for serving peas with Lancashire hotpot, despite the fact he admitted it was wrong in many ways.

One of the seminal moments in terms of EU fisheries policy – certainly in my memory – came not when MEPs finally accepted what rational people had always know, or even when Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall took his 'fish fight' to Brussels in 2011, but when Hugh's fellow celebrity chef Raymond Blanc took to the sea for his BBC TV series last year and discovered to his horror just what large numbers of fish were simply dumped back into the sea, or discarded. The look on the face of the culinary wizard spoke volumes.

The actions (and reactions) of the two may have influenced the European Parliament in voting for an outright ban on discards in January. What will certainly influence the fisheries ministers of the EU is what they consider to be the most expedient short-term policy to adopt, ie whether to adopt he policy as agreed and proposed by the Commission, TV chefs and all right-thinking people or dilute it to provide a sop to their fishing constituencies. It all depends on which they consider has the most votes in it.

The concept of 3D printing is astounding to most people above a certain age, who still retain the ability to be surprised by technology. Earlier this month a story broke of scientists at Heriot-Watt University using the technique to produce stem cells for medical research (One Californian executive newsletter referred to scientists in "...the UK and Scotland" - seems the result of the referendum has been leaked already!).

In addition to helping to save lives, the technology can help save the planet. A company in Oxford has developed a way of printing photovoltaics so thin they can be applied to the surface of windows. The development has been pioneered by Oxford Photovoltaics, a University spin-off company, which has now announced further funding from 'cleantech' venture capital company MTI Partners. Last year the company was one of the 16 'Best of British' cleantech companies forming a trade mission to California's Silicon Valley to showcase UK (and Scottish!) innovation.