My First Request For Music On The Radio Was Successful
At seventy-three, I’d never askd for a tune to be played on the radio.
The presenter on Radio 5 Live, asked listeners to suggest a track, that would be suitable for the times.
So, I texted in.
Surely, the best track for these times is We’ve gotta get out of this place, by the Animals!
I was very surprised, when they played it!
As many do, I’ve got the name of the song wrong, as it’s actually We Gotta Get Out of This Place.
I certainly saw The Animals, at least twice.
The first time was when I was about sixteen, at the Regal Edmonton, where they topped the bill, with the Nashville Teens being the second group. I can remember Eric Burdon singing House Of The Rising Sun, highlighted by a red spotlight.
I also saw them at Cook’s Ferry Inn, when they chose a replacement for Alan Price and I may have seen them whilst at Liverpool University.
Those were the days!
All I wanted For Christmas Was A Short-Sleeved Dressing Gown
If it is one thing that annoys me, is a dressing gown, with long voluminous sleeves.
So I asked my son and son-in-law to get me one with short sleeves.
I have worn it to do the washing up and I’m wearing it, whilst writing this post.
Start-up Bags $7m To Bring Tourists To Edge Of Space On A Balloon
The title of this post is the same as that of this article on SiliconRepublic.
This paragraph describes it.
The start-up aims to use a series of space balloons – attached with a pressurised capsule – to fly equipment and tourists to the edge of space on a six hour flight. The company’s first test flight of its Neptune 1 craft is expected towards the end of Q1 2021 from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center Shuttle Landing Facility. While the first test will consist of an uncrewed, unpressurised capsule, Space Perspective hopes to begin crewed operations by 2024.
What a concept!
- It’s affordable edge of space travel for all!
- Learn more from their web site.
- From the pictures, it looks like each trip would carry about ten passengers, in normal clothes,
- I can see lots of these installed over the world.
- When can I book, a trip on one of these from Central London? Or from somewhere in say the mountains of Switzerland?
On this page of their web site, they describe a typical flight.
Flown by a pilot, Neptune takes up to eight passengers called “Explorers” on a six-hour journey to the edge of space and safely back, where only 20 people have been before. It will carry people and research payloads on a two-hour gentle ascent above 99% of the Earth’s atmosphere to 100,000 feet, where it cruises above the Earth for up to two hours allowing passengers to share their experience via social media and with their fellow Explorers. Neptune then makes a two-hour descent under the balloon and splashes down, where a ship retrieves the passengers, the capsule, and the balloon. Neptune’s commercial human spaceflight launches are regulated by the FAA Office of Commercial Spaceflight.
Note.
I’ve already flown at 60,000 feet in an aircraft. In Concorde!
Even a humble Airbus A320 can fly at 41,000 feet.
Splashdown in the Thames Estuary or Lake Geneva? Why not?
No-one ever had a worthwhile idea or made a useful fortune by thinking with the herd.
Good Omens For Mr. Biden
This extract is from today’s diary in The Times.
The election of Joe Biden, despite the twitterhoea tantrums of the toddler in the Oval Office, continues a correlation noted four years ago by the writer Brydon Coverdale between American presidents and the sequence of Mr Men books. Donald Trump is the 45th president and the 45th Mr Man is Mr Rude, an easy fit. No 44 was Mr Cool (Barack Obama) and No 43 Mr Cheerful (George W Bush). Going back further, the all-action Teddy Roosevelt has the same number as Mr Strong and Ronald Reagan shares his with Mr Brave. Grover Cleveland, the only president to return to office after being voted out, has Mr Bounce. Now at No 46 comes Mr Good — and the correlation may continue. Coverdale writes: “I wonder if the 47th being Mr Nobody means the next president won’t be a Mr.”
I like the correlation and also the new word; twitterhoea.
It will be interesting to return to this post for the US Presidential Election in 2024.
US Election 2020: Donald Trump’s Speech Fact-Checked
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on the BBC.
This is the introductory paragraph.
President Trump spoke early on Friday about the US election count, making a number of accusations of fraud for which he did not provide evidence.
I liked some of the BBC’s analysis on this statement.
I’ve been talking about mail-in voting for a long time. It’s really destroyed our system. It’s a corrupt system and it makes people corrupt.
The BBC said.
The president himself has voted by post in the past. He lived outside the state he was registered in, Florida, and requested a postal vote.
Surely, that makes him a hypocrite. Or did voting by post make him corrupt?
Dereliction On Teesside – 28th October 2020
The Tees Valley Line between Middlesbrough and Redcar is lined with derelict steel works.
I don’t think there’s an area of such industrial dereliction, in the UK.
Frankfurt Starts Building Fuel Station For World’s Biggest Zero-Emissions Train Fleet
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Reuters.
These are the two opening paragraphs.
German regional transport group RMV began construction on Monday of a filling station near Frankfurt that will use hydrogen generated as a by-product of chemicals manufacturing to fuel the world’s largest fleet of zero-emissions passenger trains.
France’s Alstom will deliver 27 hydrogen-powered fuel cell trains to the Infraserv Hoechst industrial park in the Rhine-Main region in mid-2022. Starting regular local services by that winter, the fleet will replace diesel engines.
All the investment will be partly funded by fares.
Chlorine Manufacture
I find it interesting, that the article also states that the hydrogen comes as a by-product of chlorine manufacture. When I worked in a ICI’s electrolysis plant around 1970, their plant used the Castner-Kellner process to produce both gases.
The process uses a lot of mercury and Wikipedia says this about the future of the process.
The mercury cell process continues in use to this day. Current-day mercury cell plant operations are criticized for environmental release of mercury leading in some cases to severe mercury poisoning as occurred in Japan Minamata_disease. Due to these concerns, mercury cell plants are being phased out, and a sustained effort is being made to reduce mercury emissions from existing plants.
Are INEOS, who now own the Runcorn plant, and the Germans still using the Castner-Kellner process?
I remember two stories about the theft of mercury from the Runcorn plant.
Mercury was and probably still is very valuable, and it was always being stolen. So ICI put a radioactive trace in the mercury, which didn’t affect the process. The result was that all legitimate metal dealers on Merseyside bough Geiger counters to check any mercury before they bought it.
One guy thought he had found the ideal way to steal mercury, so he filled his bike frame with the metal and wheeled it to the gate. Whilst he clocked out, he propped the bike against the gate-house. Unfortunately, it fell over and because of the weight of the mercury, he was unable to pick it up.
My work in the plant, involved devising a portable instrument that would detect mercury in air and a colleague’s project was to develop a way of detecting mercury in urine samples from the plant operatives.
Those projects say a lot, about why we should be careful around any process involving mercury.
Energy Scavenging Nanogenerator Finds Power All Around Us
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Phys.org.
These are the opening two paragraphs.
Imagine a mobile phone charger that doesn’t need a wireless or mains power source. Or a pacemaker with inbuilt organic energy sources within the human body.
Australian researchers led by Flinders University are picking up the challenge of “scavenging” invisible power from low-frequency vibrations in the surrounding environment, including wind, air or even contact-separation energy (static electricity).
I’ve known people with pacemakers, including someone with a nuclear-powered one. But surely this would be better, as the power source would be everlasting.
I don’t think I know anyone with one now! Are they less common?
Conclusion
If this can be commercialised, it is a very interesting development.
Can We Innovate Our Way Out Of Our Troubles?
One Of London’s biggest problems at the moment is the bridges across the Thames.
This article on the BBC is entitled London’s Bridges ‘Are The Capital’s Embarrassment’ and is typical of many.
Hammersmith Bridge is causing particular trouble and has been closed to all traffic for some time.
But then I saw this innovative solution to the Hammersmith Bridge problem.
Note.
- Hammersmith Bridge is still closed.
- A floating bridge has been added alongside for pedestrians and cyclists.
- The floating bridge uses parts of the old Blackfriars pier.
- There is an innovative floating pontoon, which is activated by the current, that is used in the middle of the river to transfer passengers across.
- New Civil Engineer thinks, the temporary bridge could become a tourist attraction.
The design made me smile.
Why Is Manchester The Odd City Out?
I find the different reactions of the large Northern cities interesting.
I have seen no comment and moaning from Leeds, Newcastle and Sheffield, and Liverpool and the rest of Lancashire seems to have accepted their Tier 3. fate.
Only Manchester seems to have a serious objection.
I know Liverpool well, as I went to Liverpool University in the 1960s, met my late wife there and we lived together in the city for a couple of years.
I still visit the City regularly, as I like the city’s weather and outlook and do business with my old University.
I have visited Manchester many times, often for football (I support Ipswich, despite being a Londoner!) and I find the city very different to Liverpool.
But I don’t seem to warm to Manchester, as I do to Liverpool and the other large cities of the North.
Or is it Manchester doesn’t warm to me?
Andy Burnham is not a Mancunian and could it be, that his hard stand against the Government, is driven by wanting to be more Mancunian, than the Mancunians.
Manchester puzzles me, but it does seem to be out of step with the rest of the North.
