The Aquatics Centre Is Taking Shape
This picture shows that the London Aquatics Centre now has a complete roof.
The Aquatics Centre at Stratford
Is yet another venue on time and hopefully on budget?
Government to Sponsor Engineering Prize
This has been announced in The Times today and is also reported in The Engineer.
They ask if it should be called the Brunel, Boulton, Babbage or Bazalgette Prize.
I have my view and it should be called the Blumlein Prize after Alan Dower Blumlein.
I wrote to The Times and they published my letter on the 12th. Here’s an extract.
Sir, I think we should choose the engineer who has probably had the greatest effect on everyone’s lives in the past 100 years. And that is the pioneer of electronics, Alan Dower Blumlein, who, after he perfected stereo recording and electronic television, went on to develop the electronics for radar. He was a true genius who was granted 128 patents before he died at the age of just 38, in a plane crash while testing an airborne radar in 1942.
I am an electrical engineer myself and I was horrified to see that at the new Olympic site there is no mention that it is alongside Bazalgette’s massive Northern Outfall Sewer and that this superb piece of Victorian engineering is being used as a public viewing platform for the works at the site. In due course the waste water from the site will be pumped into the sewer to continue its journey via the beautiful Moorish pumping station at Abbey Mills to the treatment works at Beckton. The Olympic site really is standing on the shoulders of a giant.
World Heritage Sites
Listening to the warm-up to the Grand National today on Radio 5 this morning, it struck me that none of the UK’s historic racecourses are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Liverpool city centre is but surely one of Aintree, Ascot, Epsom and Newmarket should be listed.
After all Newmarket and the Heath have been associated with horses since the time of Boudicca. Newmarket is actually a corruption of New Horse Market. And every thoroughbred horse can trace its ancestry back to the small town in West Suffolk.
And when it comes to other places that should be listed, the Forth Bridge is rightly on the provisional list, but Joseph Balzalgette‘s historic London sewers are not!
The Angel, Islington Is Now Clean and Tidy
This picture shows how islington have cleaned up the Angel.
The New Pavements at the Angel
It must have impressed the BBC as they conducted interviews for BBC Breakfast one day last week on the pavements on the opposite side of the road to this picture.
Just before I took this picture, I had bumped into a person of the female gender, who had just got off the same 38 bus as I had. I won’t call her a young lady, as she’d debussed (does it have one s or two?) and immediately stopped to light up her cigarette. As I was close behind her, I walked straight into her. I apologised profusely, but got a mouthful. Whereupon I told her that she should stop smoking, as it will eventually kill her! Possibly it will be sooner than I think, as she immediately wandered in front of the 38 bus to cross to Islington Green. Luckily for her the driver was paying attention to the lights, which had turned red.
It must be very disheartening for the council, as the pavements were already covered with discarded cigarette ends and chewing gum.
Stupid Calls From the United States
I have my old phone number at my previous house diverted to my mobile phone. It must be very frustrating for the scammers from the United States, who keep rnging me from Delaware, as O2 now properly display their number. so I let them ring and then end the call.
This is a new phenomenon. Until perhaps two weeks ago, these scam calls didn’t give a number, but now they do, so I can treat them with the contempt they deserve. After all, if they are important calls, the caller would probably know my e-mail address, so they’ll do that instead.
It’s funny though that all these calls seem to be from the United States, so is that country, now the new Nigeria?
Industrial Swearing
With all this talk about swearing, brought out by Wayne Rooney, I must repeat this story, which I heard when I worked at ICI in the early 1970s.
ICI had employed their first female instrument engineer. She didn’t suffer any sexism, but she did feel that when she was working with an electrician or fitter on a chemical plant, there was a certain coolness between them.
One day, whilst she was working with an electrician installing an instrument, she dropped something heavy on her foot and did what most of us would do. She swore loudly and very industrially.
The electrician then put his arm round her and said, “Does that mean we can all swear now, madam?”
Interns
There has been a lot of talk lately in how those with power and money have got their children work experience, which is of the highest class and out of the reach of those without privelege and wealth.
It has always been thus.
Take my example.
My father was a successful letterpress printer in Wood Green. He employed half a dozen people and we lived comfortably in the days before letterpress was replaced by offset litho. Much of his work was for a company called Enfield Rolling Mills, that as the name suggests rolled metals into something useful. In their case it was non-ferrous metals, like copper, bronze and aluminium, which were turned into bars, sheets and cables.
So when I got my place at Liverpool University to read electronics, and I needed some work experience, he decided to do something about it. His business wasn’t that healthy too, and he had told me that, he wouldn’t be able to find me work for the summer.
In his usual manner, he started at the top and phoned John Grimston, the Earl of Verulam, who was the boss of his largest customer.
They found me a place in their electronics laboratory, where I had my first lesson in controlling processes. I also learned a lot about industry, health and safety, the various trades and their unions and of course life, which gave me a lot of rich anecdotes I use to this day. Only today, I related to my physio, a story about lady cricketers gleaned from one of my colleagues.
To say that internship, as we’d call it today, changed my life, would be an understatement.
But I got it because my fsther knew someone with influence. And also because he never felt anybody too grand to ask for a favour.
No Shredders in the City
My rather-too-cheap shredder failed a week ago and you’d think being close to the City of London, it would not be difficult to get a new and better one!
Wrong!
After a couple of abortive trips to the nearest PC World and Maplins, where they were out of stock, I decided to take the bull by the horns and go to Staples at Tottenham Hale.
In the end I chose one that just fitted in my large Tesco bag-for-life.
It also fitted the steps of the escalators on the Underground well and I could place it under the seat on one of the new Victoria line trains, so getting it back home wasn’t the hassle I thought it would be.
But why are there no shredders in the City?
Does Public Transport Combat Racism?
I wonder about this, but the masses of different races and nationalities, that use public transport have to get on.
When you swipe your card by the driver on a bus say, you often wave and say thank you and if the bus isn’t busy you’ll often get a cherry reply, whatever the race of the driver. And let’s face it, is there a race not represented amongst London bus drivers.
Often too, you’ll strike up a conversation with the person next to you, about something trivial. Sometimes this will be caused by my apologising for being clumsy because of the stroke and I can’t remember receiving a rude response.
One incident stands out. I was needing to get by a black man of my own age, as I’d rather hidden myself away on a corner seat, at the back of the bus. So I apologised before I hit him with my rucksack. He said not too bother, as he was very happy and after five years as a widower he was going to propse to his girlfriend that day. I said I was a widower too and he said that it’ll all work out. He waved me goodbye as I left the bus. Good luck to him and I hope the lady accepted his proposal.
So when you throw people together and they all get mixed up, does it take the racial tension out of living?
I think the only thing we need to ensure is that when we travel on a bus or train, that we treat everybody in the way we would like to be treated ourselves.
Coal Hole Covers
There are a few coal hole covers still left in Hackney and Islington.
Sadly many of these nice pieces of Victoriana have been collected or stolen and then melted down for the metal.
I don’t have one as my house is new and there are none down the road, as they have the wrong type of cellar.
