FOBT Stakes Should Be Limited To £2
This is the title on The Thunderer column in The Times today.
If you don’t know, FOBTs are Fixed Odds Betting Terminals, which have been described as the crack-cocaine of gambling.
I have never seen, let alone used one, as when I have a bet, it’s usually on a horse or an event like I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here! using the Internet.
The odd thing about this Thunderer comment is not the comment itself, with which I agree totally.
It’s just that it is joint comment, written by.
- Carolyn Harris, who is the Labour MP for Swansea East.
- Iain Douglas smith, who is the Conservative MP for Chingford Green
East and West, Left and Right have met in a good cause.
Surely, we should have more cooperation like this!
Britain Powers On Without Coal For Three Days
The title of this post, as the same as that on this article on the BBC.
This is the first paragraph.
Britain has not generated electricity from coal for more than three days – the longest streak since the 1880s.
Let’s hope we keep out our commitment to phase out coal completely by 2025!
Barratt To Pay For Fire Safety Cladding Upgrade On Croydon Block
The title of this post is the same of that on this article on ITV.com.
This is the first couple of paragrphs.
Developers of a high-rise block that failed fire safety tests will pay for safety measures estimated to run into the millions of pounds, including replacing its Grenfell-style cladding, the Government has said.
Barratt Developments has said it will pay for backdated and future fire safety costs to make the Citiscape housing complex in Croydon, south London, safe, the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government said.
The ITV article has a video report.
I feel that they are in a difficult place, as their architects probably thought the cladding was safe to use. So I don’t think there has been too much malfeasance on the part of Barratt.
But to hold up their hand and say we’ll fix it, probably means everyone will be a winner.
- Barratt get to fix the block for the cost of two or three of their more expensive houses.
- If Barratt get an agreement on the deal, they should avoid complex and expensive legal wrangles.
- Replacing the cladding now, will probably be a lot easier on a new building, that was probably built to a high standard in the last couple of years.
- The Government should be pleased as there appears that the hand of Sajid Javid has applied some pressure.
- Croydon Council should be pleased, as it is unlikely many owners will need to be moved to emeergency accommodation.
- Hopefully, the owners will be pleased, as it appears they should get the value of their properties back.
The ITV article quotes a Barratt’s spokesman as saying.
Following the recent ruling that the costs for necessary recladding at Citiscape will fall on the individual apartment owners, many of whom were originally Barratt customers when it was built in 2002, we have decided that we will pay for the work. “Citiscape was built in line with all building regulations in place at the time of construction. While we don’t own the building or have any liability for the cladding, we are committed to putting our customers first. “The important thing now is ensuring that owners and residents have peace of mind.
I suppose Barratt could be accused of spinning a good line, but it is all good publicity for the houses they are building.
Whether other developers, who used the same cladding, as that involved in the tragedy of Grenfell, will follow Barratt’s example is another manner!
OVO Energy Drops 4 Product Bombshells, Including New Vehicle-to-Grid Charger
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Clean Technica.
This is the first paragraph.
n London yesterday, OVO Energy took to the stage and dropped not one new product but four product bombshells that are aimed at creating a new energy ecosystem that is accessible to residential energy consumers.
The products are.
- A Vehicle-to-Grid Charger for the Masses
- 7kW Smart Charger
- One Ring To Rule Them All
- Residential Energy Stoage
The article discusses them in detail.
If I still drove, I’d be very interested in the vehicle-to-grid charger, as I’d fit one in my garage.
The amount of car use, I would have would probably be fairly minimal, so most of the time the car would be sitting in the garage, acting as a storage battery for the National Grid.
Suppose ten million homes in the UK, had a vehicle-to-grid charger and an electric car with a 30 kWh battery. that would be 300 MWh of energy storage, which would be ideal for storing wind energy generated at night.
Does President Putin Speak English?
I’ve wondered this for a few months and this article on Newsweek, which is entitled Does Putin Speak English? After Trump Meeting, The Kremlin Weighs in.
This is the first paragraph.
Russian President Vladimir Putin may have been praising Donald Trump’s listening skills last week but on Monday, his own abilities as a good speaker were receiving plaudits. Putin’s English, seldom heard by western audiences, is good enough to correct his translators, according to the man hired to speak on Putin’s behalf.
I think we can take the answer as yes!
Twisted Mind That Gave Us Chemical Warfare
The title of this post is the same as that of an article by Ben Macintyre, in today’s copy of The Times.
It is subtitled.
Fritz Haber’s pacifist wife killed herself as he plotted Great War carnage…and he picked up a Nobel price.
Fritz Haber was a brilliant chemist, described in the first paragraph of his Wikipedia entrry.
Fritz Haber ( 9 December 1868 – 29 January 1934) was a German chemist who received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1918 for his invention of the Haber–Bosch process, a method used in industry to synthesise ammonia from nitrogen gas and hydrogen gas. This invention is of importance for the large-scale synthesis of fertilisers and explosives. The food production for half the world’s current population depends on this method for producing nitrogen fertilisers. Haber, along with Max Born, proposed the Born–Haber cycle as a method for evaluating the lattice energy of an ionic solid.
This description is rather stained by the second paragraph.
Haber is also considered the “father of chemical warfare” for his years of pioneering work developing and weaponizing chlorine and other poisonous gases during World War I, especially his actions during the Second Battle of Ypres.
Ben Macintyre feels strongly about Haber and finishes with this paragraph.
Rescinding Haber’s Nobel prize will not stop Assad from killing his own people with poison bombsbut it would be a profound symbolic expression of the moral revulsion over the misuse of science so dramatically demonstrated by Haber’s wife a century ago.
I don’t know whether Nobel prizes can be rescinded, but the article is a very informative read about the origins of chemical weapons.
Marks And Spencer Returns To Dalston
Marks and Spencer used to have a shop in Dalston, but it is now long gone. In those days before and during the Second World War, the shop would have been close to where my mother worked at Reeves.
Yesterday, I went to the littleWaitrose at Highbury and Islington, only to find it was being rebuilt, so I decided to take the Overground to Dalston Kingsland station and get the tin of cannellini beans, needed from the big Sainsburys opposite.
On turning right out of the station, I saw a new store had been opened under a new residential block.
Imagine my surprise, when I saw it was a new M & S Foothall.
But Marks and Spencer don’t sell cannellini beans, do they? Oh! Yes they do!
- This new stop may only have a short frontage on the street, but it is deep.
- It is much more Kings Road, than Dalston Kingsland High Street.
- The gluten-free section is massive.
- I was even able to get the Southwold 0.5% low-alcohol beer.
These pictures show the store on Dalston Kingsland High Street.
I suspect this store will be a roaraway success.
- It is a high-quality store.
- The world-famous Ridley Road Market is opposite.
- The only major store in the area, is a medium-sized, but rather tired Sainsburys.
- Passengers changing between the two alston stations will have to pass the front door.
- It is up there with new stores I’ve seem in Camden Town, Muswell Hill and West Hampstead.
If Crossrail 2 is built, it will sit right on top of the Dalston mega-station.
Novichok Used In Spy Poisoning, Chemical Weapons Watchdog Confirms
The title of this post is the same as the title of this article in the Guardian.
This is the first three paragraphs.
The international chemical weapons watchdog has backed Britain’s findings on the identity of the chemical used in the Salisbury nerve agent attack.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said an analysis of samples taken from the Russian former spy Sergei Skripal, his daughter Yulia, and Det Sgt Nick Bailey confirmed the UK’s assessment that the three were affected by novichok, a military grade nerve agent developed by Russia.
The executive summary released by the OPCW does not mention novichok by name, but states: “The results of the analysis by the OPCW designated laboratories of environmental and biomedical samples collected by the OPCW team confirms the findings of the United Kingdom relating to the identity of the toxic chemical that was used in Salisbury and severely injured three people.”
Let’s hope that the Skripals continue to improve and make a full recovery.
What fairy tale will the Russians invent this time?
King’s Lynn
I went to King’s Lynn today, because I had written about the Fen Line and I’d never been there before.
Note the references to George Vancouver.
I wonder how many Canadians visit! After all it only cost me about twenty pounds with a railcard to come up from Kings Cross.
The weather could have been better! But I can remember a day, when we took the dogs to North Norfolk for a walk, on a sunny day. Celia was wearing a summer dress over a bikini, but by the time we got to the beach, it was so dreich, we went straight back home. That’s North Norfolk for you!
Steam Methane Reforming
In The Liverpool Manchester Hydrogen Clusters Project, I used an extract that describes the project.
This was a paragraph from the extract.
It proposes converting natural gas into clean-burning hydrogen gas, using a process called steam methane reforming. The process also removes CO2 from the gas, which can then be captured using existing carbon and capture storage technology and stored in depleted offshore gas reservoirs.
So what is steam methane reforming?
Methane is a chemical compound consisting of one carbon and four hydrogen atoms, that is the major component of natural gas.
This first paragraph is from the Wikipedia entry for steam reforming.
Steam reforming is a method for producing hydrogen, carbon monoxide, or other useful products from hydrocarbon fuels such as natural gas. This is achieved in a processing device called a reformer which reacts steam at high temperature with the fossil fuel. The steam methane reformer is widely used in industry to make hydrogen. There is also interest in the development of much smaller units based on similar technology to produce hydrogen as a feedstock for fuel cells. Small-scale steam reforming units to supply fuel cells are currently the subject of research and development, typically involving the reforming of methanol, but other fuels are also being considered such as propane, gasoline, autogas, diesel fuel, and ethanol.
If the process has a problem, it is that is produces carbon dioxide, which in the case of the Liverpool Manchester Hydrogen Clusters Project is captured and will be stored depleted gas reservoirs.
The Anonymous Widower 