Searching For The Bermondsey Project Space
I was actually going South of the Border to visit the Bermondsey Project Space, which is one of the more unusual exhibition spaces in London, buried in deepest Bermondsey. These pictures might help you find it, as they document my walk from the 21 bus stop at Bricklayers Arms.
In the end I found it quite easily. But it would’ve helped, if some of the street signs hadn’t been nicked.
I just went down Pages Walk and then turned right into Willow Way, where the Project Space is at number 46, which is clearly marked.
Putin Is The New Tsar
In the iconic film, Dr. Zhivago, set around the time of the Russian Revolution, the question is asked if Lenin is the new Tsar.
But this story on the BBC’s web site really says that Putin might be behaving like a Tsar and is having a palace built on the Black Sea coast.There will be a full report on Newsnight tonight.
A Memory of Liverpool University Panto Week
My late wife and I, both went to Liverpool University and the Rag Week then, was called Panto Week and it was rounded off by a fancy dress ball called Panto Ball. I don’t know whether it’s still the same, but the aim of Panto Week was to raise money for various charities.
One year, the Panto Secretary was a girl, who wasn’t particularly liked. So that year, a male student, went to the Ball dressed in exactly the same elaborate and expensive ball-gown she’d hired for one of the other balls earlier in the year. She had fairly recognisable hair to say the least and an appropriate wig was secured. She was reported to be absolutely incandescent and even more so, when she found out that her look-alike had been danced with by something like fifty gallant engineers.
Getting Into the Habit
This was one of the headlines in the second part of The Times on Tuesday and it described why more women are becoming nuns.
I would say it is their choice, but surely in these days there are much better things that people can do for the general good of society. There was a Catholic chaplain in Alder Hey hospital in Angels of Mersey. She was doing the practical things that benefit those in emotional difficulties, rather than being out of it all in a Convent.
I do feel that some who go into closed orders are just opting out of real life to the detriment of society.
It’s Swimwear Buying Time Again
Judging by this picture of a London bus, it’s time to buy swimwear again.
H&M Swimwear Advert on a London Bus
Not me, as I don’t swim. And the advert wouldn’t apply to me personally, as I’m a man.
My late wife, C, was a manic and enthusiastic swimmer to say the least and every day before work, she’d swim umpteen lengths in the pool at Bedford Lodge Hotel in Newmarket. She used to wear out Speedo Endurance swimsuits regularly, and I used to watch eBay for when last year’s models were sold off for here. Do professional swimmers have suits and trunks made out of something more long-lasting, or does the sponsor just pay?
I remember in 2007, which was the year she died, that C decided she needed some summer clothes and that of course meant swimwear. Since her breast cancer a few years before, she always felt that she must look the best fifty-year-old on the beach, not out of vanity, but more to stick two fingers up to the cancer. Although, she was probably two polite to do that other than metaphorically.
So she bought tickets on easyJet and one Friday in April we took the plane to Nice and checked in at the Hotel Windsor, which is much recommended. We had a marvellous weekend in the sun.
It was the first of seven holidays that we took in that fateful year before she died in December of a cancer totally unrelated to that in her breast.
My biggest memory of that holiday, is that C decided to buy a couple of bikinis for the summer. So we headed to Gallerie Lafayette and for a couple of hours, she tried on most that were suitable in the shop, whilst I passed what I thought might be suitable or a different size over the door of the changing room. It was a difficult job, but someone had to do it. They got hard work that last summer she was alive.
The picture shows C on the beach on the island of Panarea. I think you can just see that she was wearing nail polish, something she rarely did except on holiday.
Jimmy Carter on the Death Penalty
This article appeared in the Macon Telegraph.
For many reasons, it is time for Georgia and other states to abolish the death penalty. A recent poll showed 61 % of Americans would choose a punishment other than the death penalty for murder.
Also, just 1 % of police chiefs think that expanding the death penalty would reduce violent crime. This change in public opinion is steadily restricting capital punishment, both in state legislatures and in the federal courts.
As Georgia’s chief executive, I competed with other governors to reduce our prison populations. We classified all new inmates to prepare them for a productive time in prison, followed by carefully monitored early-release and work-release programs. We recruited volunteers from service clubs who acted as probation officers and “adopted” one prospective parolee for whom they found a job when parole was granted. At that time, in the 1970s, only 1 in 1,000 Americans was in prison.
Our nation’s focus is now on punishment, not rehabilitation. Although violent crimes have not increased, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with more than 7.43 per 1,000 adults imprisoned at the end of 2010. Our country is almost alone in our fascination with the death penalty. 90 % of all executions are carried out in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
One argument for the death penalty is that it is a strong deterrent to murder and other violent crimes. In fact, evidence shows just the opposite. The homicide rate is at least 5 times greater in the United States than in any Western European country, all without the death penalty.
Southern states carry out more than 80 % of the executions but have a higher murder rate than any other region. Texas has by far the most executions, but its homicide rate is twice that of Wisconsin, the first state to abolish the death penalty. Look at similar adjacent states: There are more capital crimes in South Dakota, Connecticut and Virginia (with death sentences) than neighboring North Dakota, Massachusetts and West Virginia (without death penalties). Furthermore, there has never been any evidence that the death penalty reduces capital crimes or that crimes increased when executions stopped. Tragic mistakes are prevalent. DNA testing and other factors have caused 138 death sentences to be reversed since I left the governor’s office.
The cost for prosecuting executed criminals is astronomical. Since 1973, California has spent about $4 billion in capital cases leading to only 13 executions, amounting to about $307 million each.
Some devout Christians are among the most fervent advocates of the death penalty, contradicting Jesus Christ and misinterpreting holy scriptures and numerous examples of mercy. We remember God’s forgiveness of Cain, who killed Abel, and the adulterer King David, who had Bathsheba’s husband killed. Jesus forgave an adulterous woman sentenced to be stoned to death and explained away the “eye for an eye” scripture.
There is a stark difference between Protestant and Catholic believers. Many Protestant leaders are in the forefront of demanding ultimate punishment.
Official Catholic policy condemns the death penalty. Perhaps the strongest argument against the death penalty is extreme bias against the poor, minorities or those with diminished mental capacity. Although homicide victims are 6 times more likely to be black rather than white, 77 % of death penalty cases involve white victims.
Also, it is hard to imagine a rich white person going to the death chamber after being defended by expensive lawyers. This demonstrates a higher value placed on the lives of white Americans.
It is clear that there are overwhelming ethical, financial and religious reasons to abolish the death penalty.
Jimmy makes some interesting points and I think he’s right.
One thing I find interesting is that Protestants are more in favour of the death penalty than Catholics. I doubt many European Protestant are in favour, so why the difference?
Pay-As-You-Go Solar Electricity
This system from Eight19, got a big plug in the Sunday Times today.
I think the company has got something here, as it can provide low-cost lighting to all of those places in the world that are off-grid.
The article shows how in places like Kenya it can be used to provide lighting and mobile-phone charging at a very affordable cost, by combining good solar technology with simple systems based on scratch cards and mobile phones.
But I think it has other applications,where you need a small amount of power in a difficult to get to place. Remember that even in the UK, we have a surprising amount of sunlight most of the time. But of course not now!
Plastic Brits
There has been a lot of criticism about the UK choosing athletes, swimmers and others from other countries. There is an article on the BBC here, in which Paula Radcliffe talks about the subject and defends those who come here to compete.
But in some ways, it’s always happened. After all, Linford Christie was born in Jamaica, although he’s lived in the UK, since he was seven.
The Times today tells the story of Ben Helfgott, a Polish Jew, who survived the Holocaust and eventually ended up in England, who competed in two Olympic Games for Great Britain. He later went on to be a respected internsation weightlifting administrator. Today at 82, he is president of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
Like Paula, he wouldn’t agree with the term plastic brit.
The New Deptford Station
To me Deptford is summed up by a picture of Peter the Great working in the Royal Dockyard at Deptford, that was in one of the school history texts I read.
I’d never knowingly been until today, when I went to look at the new Deptford station, which is just a few months away from being finished.
To my untrained eye, they have done a good job in creating a station with full step-free access, using ideas and components that could also be used in other places, where new or rebuilt stations are desperately needed.
I particularly liked the treatment of the brickwork in the tunnel under the tracks.
Made In Stevenage and Congleton
The Times today has an article about how a large proportion of the satellites we need are made in Stevenage.
Our space presence may be small in media terms, but in the bits that matter like jobs, money and technology it’s rather large.
The paper also has an article about how a company called Senior is doing rather well, by selling high-tech bits and pieces to Boeing, Airbus and Rolls-Royce.
So don’t write-off the manufacturing sector of the economy. Find out the truth!
The Anonymous Widower 