Fighting the Devil
Jonny Bairstow has effectively won the last one-day international for England at Cardiff tonight on his debut. England were up against it, when he started his innings, but 41 runs from just 21 balls got England home. At the end, Rahul Dravid, the former Indian captain, warmly congratulated him, for what he had done.
Cricket is a warm compact sport and I suspect that all the Indian players knew of Jonny’s father, David Bairstow, who took his own life in 1998.
BT Vision
I have just installed BT Vision.
It seems to work well and I’m just watching the cricket on Sky Sports 1.
Technically, I like the concept of watching most things free through Freeview and getting other things from broadband or by unlocking channels on Freeview. I think it is a concept that will grow like Topsy.
I know too, that I’m paying a lot less than I did for a poor service from Virgin.
A few points of comparison.
- I have Freeview television in my bedroom, so now I have the same channel numbers in my living room and my bedroom. I didn’t with Sky or with Virgin.
- Picture quality is good, but I have just fitted a new aerial.
- All the features like stop the picture and then contunue are there. Virgin may have had them, but I never found out how to use them. The designer of the Virgin box, was probably a games-optimised person, who didn’t understand logical system design for those who don’t and never will play games.
I’ll add to this list as time goes on. But I’m not regretting moving away from Virgin.
Back To The Future?
Fedex were delivering a parcel nearby and parked their driver parked his van outside.
Fedex Modec Electric Delivery Vehicle
It is totally electric and called a Modec. It would appear that the manufacturer no longer exists.
The reason I used the title was that I can remember the electric Harrods vans that used to trundle all over Central London until about the late 1960s. They had been built in the 1930s in the basement of the store. I think I once read that the rolling friction was designed to be so low, that it was possible for one man to push them on his own. I also think there were about sixty of them.
We need a lot more of this type of delivery van in big cities. London is probably an ideal place, as it is fairly flat, but perhaps San Francisco would be less so.
Another Of Jerry’s Horrors
This picture shows some of his handiwork being removed from the cupboard in my bedroom.
A Shelf By Jerry
If you think that was bad, just look at this hole he made in the floor of the cupboard to access the shower.
Pipe Access By Jerry
It’s all gone now and hopefully when the new wardrobe inserts come from IKEA, his handiwork will be buried for ever.
But Jerry seems to keep popping up in some very unexpected places.
Why Do We Still Mine Coal?
Mining coal is a dangerous business as this report from South Wales shows.
Our mines are safe compared to some. This report in the Guardian from 2009, says that in 2008, over 3,000 miners died in China.
So why do we do it, when burning fossil fuels are the major creator of greenhouse gases, that cause global warming? If you look at the science, to get the same amount of energy from coal and natural gas, you get forty percent more CO2 if you burn coal. It’s all because coal is pure carbon, whereas natural gas contains a lot of hydrogen atoms, which on combustion produce nothing but water.
You also get a lot of other pollution when you burn coal. Let’s face it, coal is a very dirty fuel.
One of the biggest mistakes we made in this country was not to get rid of coal mines, steam trains and coal-fired power stations a lot earlier.
The first real modern electrification of rail lines in the UK, were the Liverpool and Manchester lines, which were completed in the mid-1960s. It is totally crazy that only now, we’re still planning the electrification to Bristol and South Wales from London. It should have been done by 1970.
The Anonymous Widower 