Around St. George’s Hall and Lime Street
After the lecture and a very good lunch, I walked back down the hill to the station, where I dumped my bag in the Left Luggage and then took these pictures of the area.
Archeecturally as in many other things, Liverpool is the second city in the UK and these pictures tell just a part of why.
A Sign on a Lift
I found this sign by the lifts in the Electrical Engineering building mildly funny.
A Sign on a Lift
I know what it means, but I suspect it does raise a chuckle with many.
Incidentally, these lifts were a butt of a lot of humour, when I was a student as they were always getting stuck. In one case they became a story about Liverpool University’s space program using a lift, launched from Cape Dingle.
The Indiscrete Celebrity
The First Class Lounge at Lime Street was empty, when someone I thought familiar entered.
Immediately, they sat down, their phone rang and they proceeded to give their e-mail address to someone at the other end of the call.
It was then obvious, who they were.
Perhaps, they thought I was engrossed in my computer and it didn’t matter. But I heard the e-mail address and it might be something they’d have preferred to keep secret.
I have found the person on the web and I now know that I heard it correctly. So my hearing isn’t as bad as I have been thinking!
In this case it didn’t really matter, as the serious thinker doesn’t hide their identity on the web. But how many Z-List Celebrities have complained about harrassment because they’ve inadvertently given their e-mail address or mobile phone number to all and sundry?
Back To The Sixties
In 1965 when I went to Liverpool University, the Electrical Engineering and Electronics building was brand new.
It appears to have worn reasonably well and is just how I remember it all those years ago. So bits have been replaced and it’s been redecorated, but it is a real credit to its creators, which you can’t say for many of the buildings of the time.
It’s still contains all the original prints too. Some of which I seem to remember.
However the infamous legend by one painting has been removed. It had been beautifully typed and framed and said something like. “Unfortunately, we were unable to afford a painting by this artist. ut he was kind enough to sell us the rag on which he wiped his brushes!”
After the lecture, we retired to one of the staff’s room and I was pleased to see that he still had a genuine blackboard with real chalk on the wall.
How civilised!
The Lecture
I wouldn’t really think it would be a good idea to judge myself on how my lecture went this lunchtime.
I did however enjoy it and I was able to do it direct from this blog. I think that it would have been better with a more presentation oriented theme.
In some ways though it was strange to be lecturing in a theatre, were I’d perhaps listened to upwards of a couple of hundred lectures. And to the biggest audience, I ever have!
Paranoid About Japan’s Nuclear Plants
Everybody seems to be paranoid about Japan’s nuclear power stations.
I’ve been over several nuclear power stations. Would I be worred to live anywhere near any of them? Possibly, but only one that was in the United States that was a site in a very restricted position. I believe it has since been decommissioned. Look at these pictures by Sizewell. But these two stations were built in an area with little population and no earthquakes.
Properly designed, built and managed, we should have little worry about nuclear power plants. What we should worry about though is chemical plants and other industrial processes, which are close to centres of population.
Japan has built nuclear and chemical plants in areas with high seismic activity. I suspect that they won’t be doing so in the future. But what will that do for the Japanese economy?
Giving ITV A Chance
Just turned over to ITV to watch the football. But although it’s after two o’clock, I was too early for the football break.
The commentary actually started first on Radio 5!
Jane Russell Quotes
The Times had a nice piece on Jane Russell in the magazine.
Bob Hope once said of her, “the two and only Jane Russell”
A film of hers called The French Line, was shot in 3-D and was advertised with the tagline of “J. R. in 3-D! It’ll knock both your eyes out!”
She did have the last laugh though in that she once said. “Publicity can be terrible. But only if you don’t have any.”
Dumb she was not!
The Earth Bites Back
This was the title of a lunchtime lecture at University College London on March 3rd. Professor Bill Mcguire argued that we’d see a lot more natural disasters, as the earth responded to our treatment of it.
And now we’ve had two major earthquakes in a short space of time in Christchurch and now Japan.
They may not be connected, but it doesn’t man that we should let up in our efforts to cut carbon emissions and other practices that damage our environment.
Mackays Make the First Brass Headed Coach Screw
I did try to make one myself, but I didn’t have a strong enough die to cut the thread after I’d taken the head off the coach screw. So I took the screw and nut to Mackays in Cambridge, when I visited the city on Tuesday.
They are basically a very good tool shop, but they also have a small engineering workshop out the back.
This is what they created for me in a few minutes.
Brass Dome-Headed Coach Screw
Unfortunately, they didn’t have any of the unobtainable oversized washers.
But it installed perfectly to screw the staircase to the wall.
The Installed Coach Screw
Note the old brass-painted one at the left. I’ll now be ordering another two.
The Anonymous Widower 
