Farage Won’t Use An Oyster Card
This article in the Standard shows a lot about how Nigel Farage thinks.
I have both an Oystercard and a Freedom Pass, both of which track me through London. The only reasons, I have the Oyster, is to use it on the cable car and the river boats and also to give to visiting friends, so they don’t have to queue up to buy a ticket.
So I can be tracked, but then so what? Perhaps Nigel has a few secrets that he doesn’t want revealed. Perhaps, he’s even having relations with someone from Uganda?
Should We Ban Chinese Lanterns?
The enormous fire at Smethwick, which appears to have been caused by a Chinese lantern, is getting the authorities to change their attitude to these devices.
We never had any problems on the stud, with Chinese lanterns, but I have read of farmers, who have. And Tim Farron, MP is calling for action, as is reported here.
My worry is that hooligans being hooligans, that after this fire, others might decide what a great way to have a bit of fun!
Perhaps an outright ban would be a bit harsh, but surely, we could insist on some form of insurance, for those who launch them!
It will be interesting to see, if the owners of the Smethwick site, can trace the person, who launched the errant lantern, whether they attempt some form of legal redress.
The Joy Of Not Driving
There was this report on the BBC tonight. It says that over the last three years, there has not been a single day, when there wasn’t a closure of the M25. In fact, it’s worse than that, as this paragraph shows.
In fact, the Highways Agency does not even know when it last managed a day when the road was not shut in some way or other.
I’m very glad, I don’t drive.
I haven’t taken as many enjoyable trips by train, like the one to Birmingham last week, as the weather has been so bad, it’s been better to stay at home.
Is This A Real Payday Loan Site?
This site called lolcatloans.com was mentioned in the Money section of The Times today.
Is it real? I certainly wouldn’t borrow any money from them, despite the appealing cats!
The site appears to be registered in Panama, although it does appear to offer loans in pounds.
I would sugest that you laugh at the cats and do no more!
The Other Upside To Fracking
If you believe that we can successfully solve the problems of extracting gas from the ground using fracking, it should give us enough gas for our needs for many years to come according to reports like this one.
In all of the discussions about fracking, no-one seems to mention how you transform this gas into useful electricity. You put it through an enormous gas turbine engine and this powers some form of electricity generator. Normally these days they work on a principle called combined cycle and you see the term CCGT (combined cycle gas turbine) used. But which British company is involved in this technology? Rolls-Royce is the answer. Unfortunately, their turbines don’t seem to be used in our numerous gas-fired power stations. But I know they could be.
I’ve found this link to a company, I’d never heard of before called Centrax, who integrate Rolls Royce Trent 60 WLE engines into power generation sets. Their web page is here. And this is their page on using the Trent 60 WLE .
So if we have all this gas, will it lead to extra jobs in the manufacturing sector?
It could do if we get it right!
The Queen Remembers
I first saw this story in The Times, but it’s also here in the Daily Mail. This is the first few paragraphs.
The Queen will honour the bodyguard who protected her when she was a princess during the war by attending a chapel built in his memory next month.
Lieutenant Robin Tudsbery was one of the selected few members of the Royal Horse Guards assigned to guard the King, Queen and their daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, during World War II.
The teenage princesses grew very fond of him, but tragically he was killed aged just 25 in Germany days before the conflict ended in 1945
It says in The Times, that the Queen,will be the only person at the service, who actually knew Lieutenant Tudsbury.
Come to think of it, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, must be almost the only world leaders, who experienced the Second World War first hand and still have their marbles about them!
Should We Have Unit Pricing For Energy?
Go back thirty years or more and you paid for what you used with energy. I’m not sure if you paid a standing charge, akin to a telephone line rental, but you knew exactly where you stood. If you used more electricity you paid more money.
Now it is not as simple and to be cynical, I think the energy companies like it that way, as customers find it hard to compare prices.
So when EDF suggests going back to simple pricing, as is stated in this report, do I think it is a good thing?
Of course I do!
But there is something we need even more urgently and that is a smart meter, so we can see how much electricity and gas we are using.
I haven’t seen any reports yet, but a smart meter connected to a smart phone and then linked back to smart heating controls, must save a lot of money. Just think of this simple case. Do you switch your central heating on and off, at the most optimum times. Without information you’re just fishing in the dark.
But I doubt I’ll ever see unit pricing and smart metering, as the energy companies will do all they can to delay its implementation.
A New Approach To Fighting Alzheimer’s Disease
Last night, I received my alumni e-newsletter from Liverpool University. There was this article about a new approach to fighting Alzheimer’s Disease. This is a key sentence.
We are using a new approach, harnessing the natural ability of sugars, based on the blood-thinning drug heparin, to block the action of BACE.
BACE is an enzyme, which according to the article causes some of the problems of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Let’s hope that the research succeeds.
Do You Look At The Mantelpiece When You’re Stoking The Fire?
This story from the BBC reminds me of that very old joke from years ago.
To add another joke, most of the ladies, I’ve seen, who work in this profession, I wouldn’t touch with any barge pole, let alone mine!
Some might think these sayings are a bit sexist, but I’ve heard my late wife more than once, describe one of her male clients as a paper-bag job!
Foreign Libel Cases Are Still Held In London
Despite the new Defamation Act on which I talked in this post, individuals and companies, who are not ostensibly UK-based, continue to fight libel actions in the UK. Here’s a case reported on the BBC web site.
I can’t say I object to this, as I suspect a few nice fees are trousered by a few lawyers and hopefully, they’ll spend it in the UK to give employment to tailors, builders and a few other trades.
The problem comes, when these sort of cases are pursued against a small individual, like an impoverished blogger, who perhaps has said something like Liberace couldn’t play the piano.
The Anonymous Widower 