Everybody Loves A Big Explosion
There was only a small protest at the demolition of the cooling towers at Didcot power station, early this morning.
But they were mainly locals asking if they could be blown up at a more user-friendly time than 04:30.
This report and video on the BBC, shows that as explosions go, it was a good one!
Is This The Future Of Patient Monitoring?
As anybody who has spent time in hospital connected to a traditional heart, blood pressure, pulse and temperature monitor will know, it is not an easy process. Leads fall off, moving around is difficult and you are often in need of staff. I’ve only spent time recently in good hospitals, where they were enough staff to check on me regularly and that includes two NHS hospitals. But in one NHS hospital, I had a private room and a quick visual check as the nurse passed by wouldn’t have been possible.
In some ways the current system is like driving a car without a fuel gauge and every few miles, you have to get out to dip the tank to see if you’ve enough fuel to carry on.
But then enter the engineers!
I have just watched this story on BBC Breakfast Here’s the first three paragraphs.
The NHS is starting to test a sticking-plaster-sized patient-monitoring patch.
Placed on the chest, it wirelessly transmits data on heart rate, breathing and body-temperature while the patient is free to move around.
Independent experts say the system, developed in Britain, could ease pressure on wards and has the potential to monitor patients in their own home.
I think we all have to remember, that this is the first device. No-one would be able to predict how far this technology will go. And how a healthcare system like the will be able to use it in the future!
On the other hand, there is also this statement in the story.
But the Royal College of Nursing says there is no substitute for having enough staff.
In some ways that shows what a good system it must be, as the Luddites and Nimbys always try to stop good developments.
Read more about the company; Sensium Healthcare, behind the development here.
As it’s got one or more ultra-low power chips in there somewhere, is this another application of technology from ARM?
Call For Elizabeth
Barristers aren’t supposed to have favourite judges, but if C had one, it would have probably been Dame Elizabeth Butler-Sloss. C first met her at a dinner around the time the judge was chairing the Cleveland Child Abuse Enquiry and I can remember her coming home and saying she had rarely met such an impressive person. I think later C went on to appear before her several times. I can remember C saying in 2006, that it was the right appointment for Dame Elizabeth to be appointed to do the inquest into the death of Diana, the Princess of Wales.
So now at the age of nearly 81, she has been appointed chairman of the forthcoming large-scale inquiry into cases of child sex abuse in previous decades.
C would have approved!
Good News For Cornwall
Cornwall is not where you would go, if you want to drive there in an hour and it is unlikely you’ll ever be able to get an electric high speed train to the county. I drove back once at a very busy time in my Lotus and reported it here. It took six hours to Cambridge if I cut out the delay due to accidents. Why bother?
But today, it is reported on the BBC, that the government has announced a £146million package of measures to upgrade the rail system in Cornwall, by resignalling the Cornish Main Line from Totnes to Penzance and refurbishing the sleeper trains.
I’ve only taken the train as far as Plymouth a couple of times, but on one memorable trip, the train was several minutes late at Totnes and the driver had recovered most of the time by Plymouth, by showing how an Inter City 125 can perform, if it is needed.
The BBC article doesn’t say if Network Rail are going to raise the speed limits on the line, but surely when the signalling upgrade is complete, the current journey time of five and a half hours could be reduced and the frequency increased to half-hourly, even if they still run the same amazing trains designed in the 1960s. But I travel in these trains and Mark 3 coaches regularly and you rarely hear a complaint about the trains, as they ride so well on their air bag suspension. Read about the construction of the coaches here. It is true to say that they don’t build coaches like that any more.
As it currently takes two hours from Plymouth to Penzance and a couple of years ago, First Great Western did Plymouth to London in under three hours, it would seem to be a possibility, that when the updating is complete, we could see trains from Paddington to Penzance taking under five hours. The tourism business in Cornwall will be licking its lips in anticipation of a service like this.
So will we still be seeing these trains going at full speed to Cornwall in twenty or even thirty years time? With these trains you never say never, as clever engineers always find some way to prolong their lives for another few years.
More Money Than Sense
That is all you can say about this story in the Standard. Here’s the first couple of paragraphs.
The lawyers must be laughing at her like crazy, as they trouser expensive fees for a case that she will probably lose.
I can certainly hear C laughing and hinting that a fool and their money are soon parted.
Is Google Burying The Truth?
In this blog, I do occasionally criticise individuals, but my comments are always fair and based on fact, unless it is something like fair comment on a design. As a supporter of the Libel Reform Campaign, and as someone who lived with a barrister for forty years, who did her first pupillage in Libel Chambers, I hope I know the difference between libel and fair comment.
But I am worried by the story of Robert Peston and his reporting of the banking troubles of the last decade, where Google has been asked to remove a story from their searches, he wrote in 2007. It’s all reported here on the BBC web site.
This morning the story is on the front page of The Times, and their report names the individual, who asked to be forgotten.
But they are also saying Google’s action might have backfired, as the story of the forgetting has been retweeted and commented on hundreds of times.
The story has been picked up by numerous newspapers including this story in the Mirror.
Do As I Say Not As I Do!
I don’t support Greenpeace directly, although I follow some of their ideas and I’m happy to use their research to back up a principle I believe in.
My reasons for not supporting them financially, is that they have chugged me and I don’t support charities who do that.
But also, I feel some of their stunts are more about raising money than anything else.
I also feel in some cases their views are wrong and that these views have set back the lot of some people, who don’t live in the same decent circumstances, as most who work for and support the charity.
But today, I read the report on how one of their senior executives commutes from Luxembourg to Amsterdam by air, rather than uses the train. It’s reported in several newspapers and the report in the Daily Mail is here.
On reading this report, I suspect a lot of Greenpeace’s supporters have decided not to do so any more!
It’s not as though there aren’t other charities working in the same area.
Man Gets Stuck In A Vagina
This story was the most looked at on the BBC’s web site, so I had to link to it.
I should say it was a stone statue and the man was an American student.
The Psychopaths Are Trying To Run The Asylum
One news story stood out on the BBC this lunchtime. It was all about how jogging has been banned in Burundi and can get you many years in jail.
I noticed this paragraph in the story.
The 49-year-old president, for his part, remains an enthusiastic consumer of team games – football in particular.
He has his own side, Hallelujah FC, for whom, according to government leaflets, he plays as a striker and often scores goals.
So it’s not just Muslim fanatcs who are three parts round the bend.
The news is depressing with more fighting and massacres in Iraq due to ISIS, dozens killed in Kenya by Al Shabab, kidnappings in Israel probably by Hamas and all the Boko Haram troubles in Nigeria.
Although those four seem to say they support Islam, many of those they kill seem to be Muslims too!
I sometimes think that this section of mindless violence will only end when the various divisions have eliminated each other.
It just gets more depressing!
Bannockburn Riding for the Disabled
I was alerted to the plight of this organisation by Melanie Reid in her Saturday column in The Times.
Riding for the Disabled was one of the charities C and myself supported, so she would be totally behind my donation to help the Bannockburn RDA in their fight against a difficult landlord.
If you would like to donate, you can use Just Giving.
The Anonymous Widower 