What Does Novak Djorkovic Tell Us About The Covids?
If you search the Internet for “coeliac disease and Novac Djokovic, you get a lot of posts linking to gluten-free diet and some to coeliac disease.
Some say he is coeliac and others say he is just gluten-free.
There are also reports on the Internet of Novac Djokovic having Covid-19.
So does that tell us anything about gluten-free diets, coeliac disease and Covid-19?
As there are no reports of him spending a long time in hospital, it doesn’t disprove my theory, that coeliacs on a gluten-free diet don’t get serious doses of the Covids!
I’d love to hear more stories of coeliacs on a gluten-free diet, who have caught Covid-19.
Are Kraft Heinz Up To Something?
This article on The Times, is entitled Ketchup On Its Way Back To Britain As Kraft Heinz Invests In UK Site.
This is the first two paragraphs.
Heinz tomato ketchup will be made in Britain again after its owner announced plans for a £140 million upgrade of a site on the outskirts of Wigan.
Europe’s largest food manufacturing facility is set to start making the sauces of Kraft Heinz, which also include mayonnaise and salad cream, in a move designed to meet demand in the UK.
I wrote about Kraft recently in Kraft Heinz And Freight Innovation, where they were experimenting with Network Rail to get goods to their Wigan site faster and with less carbon emissions.
I think the two stories might fit together.
have just looked at my 435 gram bottle of Heinz tomato ketchup. It states on the bottle that every 100 grams of the sauce is made from 174 grams of tomatoes. I suspect leaving in the pips and the skins would make a rather lumpy sauce!
But this means that for every tonne of sauce, there is a need for 1.74 tonnes of tomatoes.
Could this be a reason why Kraft Heinz ran an experiment a couple of months ago with bringing in goods to the site at Wigan by rail?
There could be TomatoLiner trains all the way from Spain or Italy.
Or perhaps, they could link Wigan to Lincolnshire or South Yorkshire, where tomatoes could be grown in large automated greenhouses, heated by the waste heat from all the power stations. Carbon dioxide from gas-fired power stations could also be used to make the tomatoes grow big and strong.
Why shouldn’t we eat the carbon dioxide we produce?
The more I look at Google Maps of Lincolnshire and South Yorkshire, the more I think that cost-competitive UK-produced tomatoes could be one of the reasons for this move.
I have found companies like Yorkshire Grown Produce, who grow the speciality varieties of tomatoes for supermarkets. and CambridgeHOK, who design and build the automated greenhouses.
But the problem, all growers of fruit and vegetables face, is the lack of people to do the harvesting, at an affordable price.
- As a Control Engineer, who has worked on automation, it is my view that robot or automatic harvesting is needed.
- After all robots don’t get drunk at the weekend and not turn up on Mondays.
I haven’t found a robot that would pick tomatoes yet, but I suspect there’s a company out there working on it.
Yorkshire Grown Produce are in Brough, a few files to the South-West of Hull. and say they can provide quality tomatoes from March to November.
So could a company provide affordable tomatoes to Kraft Heinz’s specification for 9-10 months of the year?
- Looking at bottles of Ketchup, it appears they have a shelf life of at least a year, so the month’s without tomatoes could be bridged by a warehouse.
- I also suspect that automated greenhouses could turn out guaranteed Organic tomatoes.
- The tomatoes would arrive in Wigan the day they are picked.
- It probably wouldn’t be a large train every day and the line at Wigan is not electrified, so it wouldn’t necessarily be a zero-carbon trip across the Pennines.
I can see an efficient system for the production of tomato ketchup, which could be labelled organic and 100 % British.
How many tonnes of carbon emissions would be saved? Probably not many! But it’s the thought that counts.
If this isn’t technology-aided marketing, I don’t know what is?
Conclusion
How many other production and delivery processes can be simplified by the use of rail?
Kraft Heinz And Freight Innovation
In the UK, we certainly need to get more freight on to the railways.
Recently, KraftHeinz were involved in an experiment. A lot of their product currently comes into the UK in containers, which are then taken by road from the ports by truck.
This report about the experiment was on this page of the Modern Railway’s web site.
KraftHeinz’s distribution centre is in the Orrell district of Wigan, with the Wigan Wallgate to Southport route the closest railway line. The trial involved a container train that was sent from Crewe to the branch on an overnight working, with the notional offloading taking place from the running line close to Gathurst station. Also demonstrated was the feasibility of loco run round in this area. Network Rail signallers helped ensure the success of the trial by facilitating the use of a crossover at Parbold station for the run round (some signal alterations would be likely if this became a regular operation).
This Google Map shows the area.
Note.
- Gathurst station is in the North-West corner of the map.
- The KraftHeinz Distribution Centre is in the South-East corner of the map.
- The Wigan Wallgate and Southport Line runs between the two.
It was all very convenient for some intense night work.
I have some thoughts.
Where’s The Siding?
Years ago a lot of factories and distribution centres like this, would have had a siding.
Many have been sold off and built over, as many companies preferred to use road transport.
Using The Running Line
This was first used in the UK to load timber on to trains in the North of Scotland for transporting to markets in the South.
Surely, the only thing needed is ground strong enough alongside the track to support a container handling machine.
Were JCB Involved?
JCB are innovators and appeared a few days on this blog, in this a post entitled JCB Finds Cheap Way To Run Digger Using Hydrogen.
Although, that post wasn’t about cargo handling, it shows that the company thinks differently and I’m sure they can come up with a pollution-free container-handler to unload containers at night for companies like KraftHeinz.
Conclusion
Surely, if this freight movement were to be used regularly, the signalling changes and perhaps some concrete should be installed.
We need more cargo-handling experiments like this to get more trucks off the road.
Strawberries And Beer
This was my afternoon snack whilst writing on the Internet.
Beer from Suffolk and strawberries from Herefordshire.
Freshly Vacuumed Strawberries
I have been eating a few more boxes of Dyson’s strawberries.
They certainly seem clean and could have had a good vacuum before packing.
Unlike some Moroccan ones, which tasted like they’d been sprinkled with some sand from the Sahara.
Plump And Red
Dyson Farming’s strawberries do seem to be very plump and very red.
Is this because they have been grown, so that they will be easy for picking robots to identify in the future?
Serial Cooking – Twelve Minute Fish
I’ve used this recipe for years, since I discovered it in the sadly-missed Dinner Tonight daily recipe in The Times, that was contributed by Lyndsey Bareham.
Note.
- I used haddock, but it generally works with any white fish trawled from the depths of the freezer.
- I always keep little pots of frozen peas and runner beans for one in my freezer.
- I have lots of pots and always split frozen peas up when I buy them.
- I usually cook it for one or two, but have cooked it for four.
- I’m a bit worried about getting the Carluccio’s olive oil with lemon. But I suspect someone else will supply something similar.
It can’t be too bad, as two friends have asked for the recipe. And they’re still friends.
Finsbury Circus Appears Fully Open
I bought my breakfast yesterday in Leon on Moorgate and ate it in the nearby Finsbury Circus Gardens.
It is now fully open.
This picture shows the gardens during the construction of Crossrail.
Note.
- The bandstand can be picked out amongst the trees.
- The shaft towards the bottom is forty metres deep and was used to get men and materials to the tunnels.
Comparing the pictures shows that the gardens are now able to used for their original purpose.
Belgrove House – A New Entrance For King’s Cross Tube Station
The title of this post, is the same as that as this article on Ian Visits, with the addition of Belgrove House,
This is the introductory paragraph.
An isolated box entrance to King’s Cross tube station is to be demolished and replaced with a new step-free entrance as part of a building development.
I went and took these pictures today, as I needed a few bits of shopping, which I bought in the area.
Note.
- The busy Euston Road which is a major route into and out of London in front of the two stations.
- The two station boxes on the South side of Euston Road, making the pavements difficult places to walk at times.
- The subway is step-free to all the Underground lines at Kings Cross and to both National Rail stations on the North side of Euston Road.
The block with the access self-store and the entrance to the station in front, will be replaced by a substantial new building, with step-free entrance to the existing subway.
This web page is entitled Welcome to the Consultation Website for Belgrove House and Acorn House.
It more of less does what it says and has this statement on the page.
This site presents our aspirations for an exciting new project for Camden; a life science Discovery Hub and UK HQ as a centre of excellence for MSD UK at Belgrove House along with affordable housing at Acorn House. It involves two interlinked sites within the King’s Cross ward of the London Borough of Camden – Belgrove House is located on Euston Road and fronts onto the King’s Cross Square and Acorn House is located a four minute walk away on Gray’s Inn Road.
We have now updated our website to include virtual exhibition boards where you can view the proposals for both sites in detail, see the consultation that has been undertaken to date and review the feedback that we have received so far. This is also an opportunity for you to give us your feedback on the plans ahead of a planning application being submitted to Camden Council at the end of August 2020.
The virtual exhibition boards can be viewed here.
The web page also features this visualisation of the building.
I have read most of the virtual exhibition boards and I wish that more consultation websites would be only half as good as this one.
These are a few points from the exhibition boards.
Cafe
There will be a publicly available cafe on the ground floor.
Many times in my life, I’ve arrived early and there is nowhere suitable to wait.
Carbon-Efficient Building
This is obvious from the proposal and raises its green head everywhere in the proposal.
Heating
It will be an all-electric building, with no combustion on site.
There will be air-source heat pumps and heat recovery.
Innovative Biophilic Façade
Wikipedia says this about biophilic design.
Biophilic design is a concept used within the building industry to increase occupant connectivity to the natural environment through the use of direct nature, indirect nature, and space and place conditions. Used at both the building and city-scale, it is argued that this idea has health, environmental, and economic benefits for building occupants and urban environments, with few drawbacks. Although its name was coined in recent history, indicators of biophilic design have been seen in architecture from as far back as the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
This sounds to me, like the sort of post-Covid working environment we need to tempt people back into offices.
Parking
This is said about cycle and car parking.
We are proposing over 350 cycling parking spaces as part of our proposals for Belgrove House. These will be accessed via its own entrance located on Belgrove Street. We are also not proposing any car parking spaces as the area benefits from excellent transport connections.
I can’t see many disagreeing with that.
Recycled Building
I particularly liked this paragraph.
In line with the low-carbon strategy, the team intends to recycle and reuse existing building materials on the site where possible, such as bricks where these are salvageable. The re-use of these materials will reduce the embodied carbon of the new building.
Some of the buildings, I’ve commissioned have made extensive use of recycled bricks. And very fine, they’ve looked too!
Service Vehicles
This is said about servicing the offices and the retail units.
All servicing and deliveries for the Belgrove House offices/lab space will take place via the ground floor loading bay, with any vehicles entering the site from Crestfield Street and exiting onto Crestfield Street. The retail element of the development will be serviced from Crestfield Street in the same way as the existing McDonalds unit.
Sounds fair to me.
The more I read about this building the more I like it.
MSD
The main tennant will be MSD.
This is said about the company and its involvement in Belgrove House.
The proposals for Belgrove House have been designed to meet the needs of Knowledge Quarter occupiers such as MSD, a multinational life sciences company that discovers, develops and provides innovative medicines and vaccines to make a difference to people’s lives.
MSD has been looking for a suitable site for some time and identified King’s Cross as the ideal location for their Discovery Hub and UK HQ as a centre of excellence for the life science community.
They have form with this type of development and have a similar Discovery Hub in San Francisco.
Connection To Kings Cross Station
The current station boxes on the South side of Euston Road will be replaced by a step-free entrance inside Belgrove House, that will connect to the existing subway under Euston Road.
It is a difficult area to walk through and the pavements will be widened.
This Google Map shows the location of Belgrove House and the two stations of Kings Cross and St. Pancras.
Note.
- Kings Cross station is at the top of the map.
- St. Pancras station is in the North-West corner of the map.
- Argyle Square Gardens is the green space in the South East corner of the map.
Belgrove House will replace the Access self-storage with the squares on the roof, that lies between Argyle Square and Euston Road.
Conclusion
If the development is as good as the proposal and lives up to the aims of the developers and MSD, it will be a building of which London will be proud.
How long will it take for some wag in a tabloid to call it The Hanging Gardens Of Kings Cross?
Cooking Multiple Cinties
My son and his husband came round for supper on Sunday, so I cooked a batch of Cinty’s French fish pies.
The method is detailed in Serial Cooking – Cinty’s French Fish Pie.
I cooked four, which was one for each of us and one for the freezer.
Note.
- Every pie got two pieces of haddock.
- The topping was a mix of gluten-free bread and parmesan, blended in one of Delia’s Little Choppers.
- I served them with baked tomatoes.
I cooked them in 0.6 litre Le Creuset dishes. You can never have too many of these.
The Anonymous Widower 