Waitrose ‘Can Add 50 % To The Price Of Your Home’
The Standard also reports this.
I’ve got three within a simple bus ride, but I have a feeling that one will turn up nearer in the next couple of years.
I May Not Be Old Enough To Listen To Radio 2, But I Did Get Invited To Take Part
I was invited to appear on the Jeremy Vine show on BBC Radio 2 today, even though I’m not old enough to listen regularly.
If they put it on-line, I’ll give a link.
The Plight Of The Bees
It would appear that bees are not doing well. Over the years, I’ve known a few people who kept bees and we even had a Primary School teacher called Adams, who was a bee enthusiast and sometime keeper. My physio at the Angel, was even given a jar of Stamford Hill honey from an Orthodox Jewish client. Read why honey is kosher here.
I like my honey and I would miss it, if it disappeared, so I’m watching the arguments on whether neonicotinoids should be banned. Many of the arguments are outlined is this article from the BBC in Scotland, about whether if a ban is brought in, Scotland should delay implementation.
It is the classic argument, where commercial interests, which in this case are farmers and pesticide manufacturers are arguing against the emotions of various lobby groups.
We seem to be getting a lot of arguments like this these days, with fracking, nuclear power, waste incinerators and HS2 producing similar stands-off.
With the bees and neonicotinoids, there is a solution and that is research, performed scientifically over a period of years. But I suspect both sides of the argument, would probably not want to wait for any conclusions and then if it was against their views, they wouldn’t accept it anyway.
Janice Turner in the Times last week, published an article entitled, Hectoring won’t persuade the MMR-deniers. The title alone says it all, about those who are against MMR.
So this argument about bees and neonicotinoids, will buzz on for years.
The Water We Drink
The BBC has done a blind tasting test of the tap water from various parts of the United Kingdom.
I don’t drink much water directly, although I do drink a lot of it in cups of tea all day.
I was brought up in London and I suspect that the water I drink now in Hackney is vaguely similar to that I had sixty years ago in Enfield. It’s probably exactly the same to that we had in the Barbican, as that area is only a kiolmetre or so away and I can see the flats from the corner of my road.
I certainly will drink it again, if there is nothing else, which is something I hardly ever did, whilst living away from London.
Except for the four years or so, that I lived in Liverpool, I’ve always lived in hard water areas. In fact, at one time, I lived in Melbourn near Cambridge, which in the 1970s reputedly had the hardest water in England. It also had quite a few sets of twins and the doctor thought there was a connection.
It’s funny, though but a few months ago after a couple of days in Liverpool, the tastes and smells around my mouth were quite different. It was almost if they were much fresher. But that could have been the Liverpudlian sea air.
Incidentally, one of the waters they tasted was from Woodbridge in Suffolk, where C and I lived for twenty or so years. The water didn’t come out well in the taste test! But I do remember C, who was an obsessive water drinker, saying she didn’t like the water, when we moved to Newmarket. She used to drink masses of bottled water, although usually insisted on tap water in a restaurant.
Now The Big Brother Fridge!
The Sunday Times and the Daily Mail are carrying a story, which says that National Grid, want all appliances to be able to be switched off, automatically, when there isn’t enough electricity. The story is here in the Daily Mail.
The problem is that for every method of electricity generation or method of saving, there are vociferous opponents.
Coal produces CO2 and therefore adds to global warming.
Wind farms blight the countryside.
Nuclear power kills everybody with radiation.
Fracking causes earthquakes.
Barraging the Severn and other rivers would upset the birds and the RSBP.
People won’t insulate their houses, as why should they spend money for no visible improvement?
People can’t get it into their heads, that AGAs and other high energy use appliances are antisocial.
Energy saving bulbs are ugly and give a bad level of light.
Perhaps not having power for a few hours every day, will make Daily Mail readers and the other ostriches see sense.
Signs With Sensible Distances
I don’t think I’ve noticed these signs in Ipswich before.
Signs With Sensible Distances
Even if they’re not new, they have at least got distances that are marked sensibly.
Around The Gherkin
I’ve never been to the base of the Gherkin or 30, St. Mary Axe to name it correctly, until today.
A lot of the buildings between the Gherkin and Liverpool Street station have now been removed and the views of the building are a lot better, as some of the pictures show. Note the reflection of the Gherkin in the windows of TK-Maxx.
Ed Balls and Twitter
You can read what you like into this story about Ed Balls handling of Twitter.
I would just ask one question. Would you like to see this politician in charge of the economy?
Syria And Sarin Gas
following the attack on the Tokyo subway with sarin gas in 1995, I asked a friend, who is one of Cambridge’s most eminent chemists about how difficult it is to make sarin gas. He indicated that making the gas is not the problem, but stopping it killing those who make it, is a difficult one, as even a tiny leak is fatal.
For protection, he said, you need the best protection suits. And they are very difficult to obtain and extremely expensive.
So who is providing Syria with these suits? Or do they want to kill everybody, even their own soldiers?
But with Syria, who knows what they think?
Mark Steel On The US Gun Lobby
I found this thoughtful article by Mark Steel in the Independent.
His logic may be faultless, but he comes to a series of hilarious conclusions. This paragraph is typical.
Or it could be that there’s a rule that the capture of a dangerous criminal is only a victory for America if the criminal can be portrayed as not American. Because if you’re going to go on a killing spree in America, you should at least have the decency to be American. There must be some people saying: “It’s a disgrace. These Chechen lunatics are coming over here taking our lunatics’ jobs.”
On the other hand most people, who’ve read what he says agree with him.
The Anonymous Widower 