Could The Brexit Ruling Be Beneficial To All?
This article on the BBC is entitled PM urged to calm the backlash against Brexit ruling.
It is all getting very nasty out there.
The judges were asked for their opinion and they gave it.
Some reaction is like that of a heavy smoker, who has just asked his doctor, if smoking will cause lung cancer and he hasn’t liked the reply.
I am by training a Control Engineer, who in his time has modelled very complex systems.
I can remember a couple of difficult problems, where to find a working solution, some form of delay had to be introduced.
After that, everything was hunky-dory!
The biggest effect of the Brexit ruling, will be to introduce a delay in the calling of Article 50, which will now hang like a Sword of Damacles over everybody, be they a politician, captain of industry or just an ordinary Jack or Jill like me.
So as Doctor Johnson said about hanging concentrating the mind, could we see the ultimate British solution; a compromise?
Thank the Devil for lawyers!
What Would Happen If Trump Made It To The White House?
The Times yesterday tried to answer this question in an analysis.
Introduction
- Donald Trump has changed parties five times.
- He would be the first commander-in-chief with no experience in office or at the top of the military.
- He says he’s his own best adviser on foreign policy.
- He as campaigned as the ultimate political outsider.
Day 1
- He has vowed to erase the Obama presidency.
- He would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
- He would suspend a scheme that brings Syrian refugees to the US.
- He could task officials with drafting trade cases against China.
- He would go to a terrific inauguration ball.
The First 100 Days
- He would drain the Washington sump.
- He could restrict White House officials becoming corporate lobbyists after leaving.
- He could introduce term limits for members of Congress.
- He could cancel all payments to the UN climate change programme.
- He would begin interviewing candidates for the upreme Court, a decision, that could shape issues like abortion and gun control for thirty years.
- He has said he would give top jobs to generals.
- He will face resistance in Congress.
- The wall with Mexico will be designed.
- An immigration ban on some countries would be in place.
- Plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act would be in place.
More
A lot more is said on the wall, taxes, Syria, NATO, trade, Obamacare and immigration.
Read the article!
Conclusion
I doubt, I’ll ever go anywhere near the United States again.
What Are They Doing With Auntie?
I took these pictures around the old BBC Television Centre in White City.
Everybody must have their favourite image of the site from years ago.
I particularly remember an episode of Michael Bentine‘s It’s A Square World, where they flooded the building, using some superb special effects and lots of real water. I think that section started with Bentine interviewing Jack Hawkins and talking about making wartime naval dramas, with a big screen showing the sea, which then burst out of the screen. According to Wikipedia, he also sent the building into space.
But then Bentine was a unique comic genius.
Old Ford Water Recycling Plant
This plant just off the Greenway takes raw sewage from the Northern Outfall Sewer and converts it into clear water for non-potable purposes on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
I visited it during Open House 2016.
We need more plants like this, to make better use of the water we use.
If Your Train Is Late Should You Blame Henry The Eighth?
I have just read this fascinating article in the Rail Engineer, entitled Fulwell’s Blue Lagoons.
This is the first paragraph.
What do we have to thank – or blame – King Henry the Eighth for? The Church of England? Some very ruined abbeys? The fashion for padded shoulders? Flooding and subsequent train delays on the Shepperton branch?
Yes, they’re all down to him.
Henry’s need for water at Hampton Court Palace, meant that a whole series of problems were left for Victorian railway engineers, when they built the Shepperton Branch, that have persisted to the present day.
Read the article to find out how Network Rail have hopefully solved the problems.
This Google Map Shows the area around Fulwell and Strawberry Hill stations.
Between Fulwell and Strawberry Hill Stations
The tunnel talked about in the article is to the West of Fulwell station.
Draft Hackney Central And Surrounds Masterplan
Last week, I went to a consultation about the Draft Hackney Central And Surrounds Masterplan in the Narrow Way by HackneyCentral station.
If you want to see the full version of the masterplan it is available at www.hackney.gov.uk/spd.
About Myself
As this article will be sent to the Council Planning Department, I’ll say a little bit about myself.
- Widowed, in my seventieth year and living alone.
- I’m coeliac, which I inherited from my father.
- I always describe my politics as left-wing Tory and very radical.
- As someone, who has helped create two high class technology businesses sold for millions of pounds, I’m very entrepreneurial.
- My father and three of my grandparents were all born within the triangle based on the Angel, Dalston Junction and Highbury Corner.
- My father was the least racist person, I’ve ever met. I hope his attitude has rubbed off on me!
- My two grandfathers were of part-Jewish and part-Huguenot ancestry respectively.
- As my two grandmothers families came from Northants and Devon, I usually describe myself as a London mongrel.
- My late wife and myself partly brought our three sons up in the Barbican.
- My middle son talks of that time in a tower block with affection, so I’m not against well-designed tower blocks.
After a stroke, left me unable to drive, I returned to my roots.
My Views On The Masterplan
I like lots of things about it. And especially these!
- The prominence given to new workspace, shops and the creation of jobs.
- The creation of new housing, where I’m only against bad tower blocks.
- The opening up of the railway viaduct, so it becomes a feature. Network Rail get a lot of stick, but they know how to look after railway brickwork.
- The creation of a public square at the bottom of the Narrow Way.
- The creation of more pedestrian streets.
- Better use of the bus garage site.
- Improvement of Bohemia Place.
It wouldn’t be me, to not put in my own wish list.
The Overground
Truth be told, I don’t think Transport for London, thought the Overground would be the success, it has turned out to be. So the designers did the minimum they felt they could get away with and would satisfy their political masters!
But the London Overground’s success has been repeated in places like the Borders Railway, Electrification in Liverpool, new stations in Leeds and the Todmorden Curve, and it is now proven in the UK, that if you give the population a good train service, they’ll use it.
Now that the walkway has connected Hackney Central and Hackney Downs stations and other improvements to the complex are in the pipeline, I think that serious consideration should be given to creating a second entrance to Hackney Central from Graham Road.
Failing that, pedestrian routes should be improved, so that access to the cluster of buildings around the Town Hall and the Empire is easier.
Hackney Central As A Meeting Point
Once the public square is created at the bottom of the Narrow Way, use of the area as a meeting point should be encouraged.
Consider.
- Hackney Central is where two rail lines cross.
- The London Overground through Hackney Downs gets new trains in 2018.
- There are several bus routes passing through the area.
- Bohemia Place and the railway arches must have potential for specialist shops and cafe/restaurants like Leon.
- Leon was started by a Hackney resident.
Who said it’s all about location?
Learning From Other Cities And Towns
I travel extensively, in the UK and Europe and see both good and bad examples of how to develop cities and towns.
Recently, I went to Blackburn and I was totally surprised at the transformation since I last visited a few years ago.
A Landscaped square had been created between the station and the cathedral.The square is surrounded by a PremierInn, a new office block, a small bus station on one side and a pedestrian way to a supermarket on the other.
Hackney could do similar or even better.
Sculpture
My uncle was a very good sculptor and I feel it is a crime that works of art like large bronzes are kept in store because security and insurance is a problem.
However, there are places where they could be placed with little fear of theft or damage. And that is at carefully selected locations on the platforms of railway stations.
So why not?
Hackney Downs certainly has space for one, but the platforms at Central are too narrow!
Information
When I was on holiday in Iceland, every building with a historic connection, had full information displayed outside.
Is Hackney’s information up to scratch?
Other Thoughts
This is a series of pictures with comments.
Conclusions
Hackney Central has some interesting buildings on which to develop the area. Unfortunately, there is some bad examples of boring architecture.
Some sites definitely have potential.
- Could the top floors of the Iceland building, be converted into a Southern station entrance, with perhaps a cafe and a couple of shops that travellers like?
- Bohemia Place could be a nice oasis with cafes, workshops and individual shops, a bit like the Box Park at Shoreditch High Street station.
- Bohemia Place will be better, when the arches under the railway are opened up.
- The right architect could do a fine job on the M & S Building.
- The car park at Hackney Central station might be much better as a bus interchange.
In my view the key is Bohemia Place, as this could be a magnet for people of all ages, races and classes to come and shop and refresh themselves.
Threat Of UK Tax Cut Staves Off Hostile EU
This is the headline on an article in the Sunday Times, which suggests that the UK may cut corporate tax rates from 20% to 10% unless the EU grants the UK access to the single market.
I don’t know whether it is speculation on the paper’s part, but it does illustrate how Brexit means that it removes a whole set of rules from the UK Government.
It is an interesting suggestion!
I think it could have these effects.
- Companies like Apple, Starbucks, Google and Amazon would look at the UK favourably.
- If a company was spending fortunes on research, the UK would probably be more attractive, as if say they developed a world-beating drug, they wouldn’t pay as much tax on the large profits.
But I never heard it mentioned in the Referendum.
It probably shows how our politicians all think inside boxes and that those in Europe do even more so!
Walloonacy
In Brexit – Signalling Implications For The UK, I quoted this from an article on Rail Engineer.
The endless committees to discuss and agree how the standards will be implemented do not get in the way. Whilst not suitable for main line usage (at least in the foreseeable future), there could be suburban routes around cities (for example Merseyrail) that could benefit from CBTC deployment.
So when I read articles like this one on the BBC, which is entitled Ceta talks: EU vows to unblock Canada trade deal, I do wonder if the EU has got its decision-making right.
Allowing the Walloons to block the trade deal with Canada, is a bit like giving a handful of MPs, the right to block new standards on the making of sausages.
When we leave, which is something I don’t want, the EU must surely reform itself to make it a more efficient and sensible organisation.
Coal’s Economic Victims
Coal still claims victims, but these days, the biggest ones are economic and corporate.
In the United States, this article has been published on Bloomberg, with a title of Coal Slump Sends Mining Giant Peabody Energy Into Bankruptcy.
The article makes these points.
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Biggest U.S. producer felled by cheap gas, China slowdown
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Environmental costs could complicate miner’s reorganisation
How many US pensions have lost value because Peabody was considered a safe investment?
As fracked cheap gas is given as the reason for Peabody’s fall, don’t think that the US is swapping one dirty fuel for another!
- When you burn coal, which is virtually pure carbon with impurities, you create a lot of carbon dioxide and spread the impurities, which are sometimes quite noxious over a wide area.
- But natural gas is mainly methane, which is one carbon atom and four of hydrogen. So burning gas creates a lot of water, as well as less carbon.
I seem to remember that to get the same amount of heat energy from natural gas, as from a given quantity of coal, you only create about forty percent of the carbon dioxide.
This page on the US Energy Information Administration probably can lead you to the answer.
In the UK, there are two recent stories on Global Rail News.
Rail freight is going through a bit of a crisis in the UK, because we are burning much less coal in power stations.
As coal is moved to power stations by diesel-hauled trains in the UK, from open-cast sites and the ports, the burning of less coal in power stations is having a serious effect on rail freight companies.
At least, if any train drivers are made redundant, there are plenty of vacancies for drivers of passenger trains and I’ve yet to meet a freight train driver, you likes the dreaded Class 66 locomotives, with all their noise, vibration and smell, that generally pull coal trains.
But it’s not all bad news, as this article from the Railway Gazette, which is entitled Freightliner wagons use recycled coal hopper components, shows. This is said.
Freightliner has taken delivery of the first of 64 open wagons which are being built by Greenbrier Europe using bogies and brake components recovered from coal hoppers made redundant as a result of the decline in coal traffic.
Freightliner Heavy Haul needed a fleet of high capacity box wagons for a new contract to haul construction materials for Tarmac, and decided to investigate the possibility of using recycled parts from redundant Type HHA 102 tonne coal hoppers. With assistance from engineering consultancy SNC Lavalin, Freightliner and Greenbrier Europe identified that with some modifications the bogies and some of the braking equipment would be compatible with an existing design of Greenbrier box wagon.
To a small extent, the movement of aggregates around the country by rail instead of truck, is replacing the coal trains on the the railways.
Did Aberfan Change My Thinking About Coal?
I have just watched a moving piece by John Humphrys on the BBC, which describes Aberfan now and compares it to what he remembers from fifty years ago.
Growing up in London, I remember the awful smogs of the 1950s caused by domestic coal smoke, so that might have had an affect on my thinking.
But I have been strongly anti-coal for as long as I can remember and I suspect that the tragedy of Aberfan, finally sealed its fate in my mind.
Coal mining tragedies used to happen regularly at that time all over the world and I probably felt it was just too high a price to pay for energy.
I must be one of the few people, who felt, through all of this country’s coal mining troubles of the latter twentieth-century, that the mines should be shut immediately.
I always remember an article in the Guardian, that stated that miners should be retrained into teams, that went round and insulated our pathetic housing stock. If you’ve ever put insulation into a roof, in some cases, it’s very much akin to Victorian coal-mining in reverse.
After all the greenest form of energy, is not to have to generate it in the first place.
I have solar panels on the flat roof of my three-bedroomed house, and even in the Autumn, I only use 50 KwH of electricity and 20 units of gas every week.
The Anonymous Widower 