The Kindertransport Sculpture At Gdansk Station
I hadn’t expected to find this in Gdansk, but when I saw this, I knew exactly what it commemorated, as I pass the other statues at Liverpool Street station regularly.
There’s more about the Kindertransport sculptures here.
For some reason, I didn’t take a lot of pictures. You can never take too many!
Writing this blog with hindsight, my route home from Gdansk could have followed the route of the Kindertrannsport, which is marked by the moving statues. The two I missed are in Berlin and at the Hook of Holland. I actually went very near the one in Berlin, but I didn’t know it was there.
How Did They Get There?
There really can’t be an obvious answer to how these trees got on top of this chimney in Burnley.
How Did They Get There?
Life would be so much more boring without questions like this!
The East End Dogsbody Who Got To Shoot The Queen
David Bailey is a real East Ender, who started as a studio dogsbody at £3.50 a week.
This morning, the papers are all showing the photograph he has taken of the Queen.
The picture is shown here in the Telegraph. Here’s a small extract about fom the accompanying text.
The pair are said to have got on famously during the photoshoot, which took place at the palace in March.
Bailey, 76, said: “I’ve always been a huge fan of the Queen. She has very kind eyes with a mischievous glint. I’ve always liked strong women and she is a very strong woman.”
I have a feeling that this image will be one of the lasting ones of the only British Queen most of us will ever know.
Adjusting My Energy Direct Debit
I’ve now been with Ovo Energy for three months or so now and I’m beginning to see what my usage is going to be. It’s all a bit complicated as in that period, I’ve changed the boiler for a new and hopefully more efficient one.
So every so often, I take a look at my Direct Debit and see if I should change the amount, I pay.
This morning, I found this article about energy prices on This Is Money, so as they are saying this.
Small energy companies are trouncing their giant rivals, with two suppliers now offering average households cheaper gas and electricity bills for less than £1,000 a year.
First Utility has nudged Ovo Energy off the top spot by launching a one-year, fixed-rate deal for combined gas and electricity at £994 a year. It is called the iSave Fixed July 2015 and is based on medium energy users – typically a family of three or four sharing a three-bedroom house. Ovo’s dual fuel Cheaper Energy Fixed tariff is only marginally higher at £998 a year.
So I did drop my Direct Debit a bit, but I suspect it can go a bit lower.
I’ll have to work out a proper Control Engineering based philosophy so that I minimise my payments and never go into the red so to speak.
A Picture With Memories
I first saw this picture from an episode of Mad Men in The Times, but it is prominently displayed here on the Closer web site.
When tights arrived in the 1960s, C bought herself a red pair. She used to wear them with a red maternity dress of a similar style and length to the dress thatJessica Paré is wearing in the picture. C also wore the long blonde hair in a similar style at the time. One difference though is that C would have been in flat shoes.
For many years, we kept the dress, especially as I had made it. but it disappeared a few years ago. The tights lingered on for years too in her tights bag, as for some reason they just didn’t ladder or fail and she probably last wore them in the mid-1990s.
Altaeros
At a brief glance, the idea of a flying wind turbine, is akin to putting cows and pigs in the sky.
But enter a company called Altaeros Energies.
Look at their press release and video here.
It may seem wacky and totally off the wall, but the designers could have something.
When I did my electrical engineering degree in the 1960s, power was generated by either water from dams or steam generated by burning coal or oil or from nuclear.
There was no natural gas in the UK, and using it to generate electricity wasn’t in anybody’s book of ideas.
Now a good proportion of our electricity is generated directly from gas.
So don’t make any predictions about how we will generate electricity in ten or twenty years time.
The only certainty, is that a good proportion of our electricity will come from an unexpected source, that is totally discounted or even unheard of at the present time.
Lights, Fun, Action At Kings Cross
I heard of this art installation in the Standard, so I went to Kings Cross station to have a look.
It’s certainly fun! It’s part of the arts program at Kings Cross and is called Identified Flying Object. This page gives more details.
It should win an award for the most innovative use of LED ropelights.
However, I do feel there is a case for someone to be on the swing in the middle covered in a few more ropelights or perhaps some photo-luminescent paint.
The possibilities are endless!
Fracked Or Fiction
I went to the London Geological Society today to see a lecture called.
Fracked or fiction: so what are the risks associated with shale gas exploitation?
The lecture is described here on their web site.
They will put up a video in two or three weeks, which you can watch to make your own mind up.
My overwhelming conclusion after the lecture was that before we can embrace fracking in earnest, we must collect a lot more information. For example, we don’t know the background levels ofearthquakes and natural gas seepage in this country. So if say it is thought, that fracking had caused a small earthquake, can we be sure that that isn’t one that we habitually get in this country.
A secondary conclusion, is that my engineering knowledge indicated that there are several very fruitful areas for the development of new technological solutions to mitigate some of the possible problems of fracking.
Stopping fracking is probably an easy task for opponents, as it can be portrayed as dangerous in several ways, that appeal to the sensationalist media. And of course the benefits of low gas prices aren’t so obvious, until they actually happen.
You can compare fracking with that other nimby-opposed project; HS2. This can be opposed in terms of noise, vibration and construction and visual disturbance cost, but the benefits of better and faster journeys is easier to understand by the man on the Birmingham train.
What The Heck Is This?
I like properly engineered or crafted products.
What The Heck Is This?
As a clue, it is cast in solid brass!
Can anybody tell me, what to use it for?
Should Scottish Islands Be Given More Independence?
The BBC this morning is running a report about more independence from Scotland and the rest of the UK.
Scottish Secretary Alistair Carmichael has promised to deliver greater powers for the Northern and Western Isles.
The Orkney and Shetland MP said government from Edinburgh had been “just as bad and just as dangerous” for the islands “as it is from London.”
He hopes to deliver “genuine and long lasting reform,” and said an agreement should be in place by midsummer.
Why not?
It could be argued that a greater degree of independence hasn’t done the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands any harm!
But if we look at giving this independence to any area of the UK, giving them control of their strengths and natural resources and such things as infrastructure, education and planning could only be positive.
I probably know most about infrastructure and especially railways than anything else and if we look at Scotland and London, where transport policy has been partially devolved, we’ll see a lot more rail projects than say in the North East or South West, so I’ll look at one example.
If East Anglia had control of its transport, they would have probably dualled the A47, A11 and A140 by now and would be seriously thinking about improving the London to Norwich and the Peterborough to Ipswich rail lines. The latter is probably needed to be electrified, to enable Felixstowe to compete with the London Gateway.
This type of local control could only be good for an area.
But as I said in this article on Mayors, central government doesn’t like to give up power.
The Anonymous Widower 