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 Dafs Are Out
Or they certainly are in the Thames Barrier Park.
Daffodils in the Thames Barrier Park
This park is one of London’s hidden gens, in that it has beautiful modern gardens, the river, the barrier and of course the coffee.
The Best £1.85 Capuccino in London!
Possibly! No! Probably! Today I was cold and as I walked through the Thames Barrier Park back from the Thames Barrier to Pontoon Dock station, I had one in the cafe in the park. It was in a china mug too!
The Cafe in the Thames Barrier Park
I’ve not had one better, since I had one for a Euro in the backstreets of Naples over three years ago.
A Two Man-Hernia Job
In the 1960s, the amount of effort required to do a job with lifting used to be measured in man-hernias.
IKEA's Two-Man Hernia Label
This packaging on an IKEA bookcase, clearly identifies this as a two man-hernia job.
