Newsnight In A Twist
The BBC’s flagship news program has really got itself in a twist lately.
They may or may not have libelled a politician and they really got it wrong with Jimmy Savile.
When she was a pupil, C did one pupillage in chambers specialising in libel. Every night, someone from chambers used to read the next day’s copy of a well-known tabloid to make sure they hadn’t defamed anybody.
Where was that check in Newsnight?
Football Grounds Of Clubs Who’ve Won A European Or UEFA Cup
This is another idea, that might be easier. Only clubs, that have won the European Cup, Champions League, Cup Winners Cup or UEFA Cup qualify.
Aberdeen
Amsterdam – Ajax
Anderlecht
Barcelona
Belgrade – Red Star
birmingham – Aston Villa
Bremen – Werder
Bratislava – Slovan
Bucharest – Steaua
Donetsk – Shaktar
Dortmund – Borussia
Eindhoven – PSV
Florence – Fiorentina
Frankfurt – Eintract
Gelsenkirchen – Schalke
Genoa – Sampdoria
Glasgow – Celtic and Rangers
Gottenburg
Hamburg
Ipswich
Istanbul – Galatasary
Kiev – Dynamo
Leverkusen – Bayer
Lisbon – Benfica and Sporting
Liverpool – Everton and Liverpool
London – Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United
Madrid – Athletico and Real Madrid
Magdeburg
Manchester – City and United
Marseille
Mechelen
Milan – AC and Internazionale
Monchengladbach – Borussia
Moscow – CSKA
Munich – Bayern
Naples – Napoli
Notts Forest
Oporto – Porto
Paris – PSG
Parma
Rome – Lazio
Rotterdam – Feyenoord
St. Petersburg – Zenit
Seville
Stuttgart
Tbilisi
Turin – Juventus
Villarreal
Valencia
Zragoza – Real
I got all of these from this list in Wikipedia.
How To Deal With Annoying Bloggers – Iranian Style
This terrible story of the death of Sattar Beheshti, a blogger from Iran, shows the regime in its true colours.
ING Pulls Out
I heard this story from a friend, who used to broke deals for the Dutch bank.
The effect is summed up in this paragraph from the article.
Last year, the leasing business provided £22bn to help keep British industry running – many of the deals being done direct between banks and large companies. On that measure, ING Lease accounted for 5% of the market.
However, it specialised in the smaller end of the business – farms and young firms that got in touch via specialist brokers.
It is these customers, wanting essentials such as tractor attachments, computers, desks and commercial vehicles, which will bear the brunt of the loss.
It left lots of my friend’s clients without finance, as he deals very much at the smaller end. Last time, I spoke to him, he was thinking of retiring, so leaving his clients further up the river without a paddle.
I think, it shows that we need to get alternative methods of finance in place. This is Funding Circle territory, but at the moment they are not big enough to replace much of ING’s portfolio.
It also illustrates a rule of my friend, David. Never bank with a bank head-quartered outside of the UK.
European Capitals Alphabetically
I’m just playing for another trip. These are the capitals of the countries either in or contained within the EU
1. Amsterdam – The Netherlands
2. Andorra la Vella – Andorra
3. Athens – Greece
4. Berlin – Germany
5. Bern – Switzerland
6. Bratislava – Slovakia
7. Brussels – Belgium
8. Bucharest – Romania
9. Budapest – Hungary
10. Copenhagen – Denmark
11. Dublin – Ireland
12. Helsinki – Finland
13. Lisbon – Portugal
14. Ljubljana – Slovenia
15. London – UK
16. Luxembourg – Luxembourg
17. Madrid – Spain
18. Monaco – Monaco
19. Nicosia – Cyprus
20. Oslo – Norway
21. Paris – France
22. Prague – Czech Republic
23. Riga – Latvia
24. Rome – Italy
25. San Marino – San Marino
26. Sofia – Bulgaria
27. Stockholm – Sweden
28. Tallinn – Estonia
29. Vaduz – Liechtenstein
30. Valletta – Malta
31. Vatican City – Vatican City
32. Vienna – Austria
33. Vilnius – Lithuania
34. Warsaw – Poland
It doesn’t look like it is a trip that can be done within a month, as few journeys are short.
Questions.
1. Should I go to all the little countries like Andorra?
2. Should Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh be included? If we add Edinburgh do we have to add Barcelona.
3. Should the former Yugoslavian states and Albania be included? I think some are difficult by train.
4. Do I fly?
Getting To Grips With The Killer Heating System
I think it is best to document what I have here first. Engineers have problems and try to solve them. Others have theories and try to prove them.
With any problem you start by writing down what you’ve got.
The Boiler
This is a fairly common Vaillant boiler.
The Boiler
It has been regularly serviced and when I took the house over I found that the control circuit was broken, so a new one was fitted.
I have no manuals for it, as is the case for everything else in this house.
It would appear to be running well.
Boiler Temperature And Pressure
But I have no idea if the temperature and pressure shown are correct.
The Control Timer
This is a pretty standard Honeywell product.
The Control Timer
It seems to work without trouble.
What the boxes underneath do, I know not!
The Downstairs Manifold
The pipes to the underfloor heating end up here.
The Downstairs Manifold
The pipes always seem to be warm when the boiler is on, with the individual zone controllers having no effect.
So in other words the only way to control the heating is from the master thermostat.
Upstairs there is a similar manifold, which is just as out of control. I’ve got it switched off, so I only have heating downstairs and let it find its way up the stairs.
My House Is Trying To Kill Me!
23:00 I’m sitting here with the heating off. I have the underfloor heating box open and the pipes are cold, so no heat is coming into the room from the heating. The air conditioning is off. But I can feel the temperature is rising.
I should say that I have a Maplin temperature meter and this agrees with the one in the air conditioning system. They are both saying 22°C and forty percent humidity.
I’ve checked and the boiler has shut down, but the temperature downstairs is going up and is now at 24°C and rising. All the floors downstairs are hot, when surely they should be cold as the boiler switched itself off an hour ago. In fact, I think I might have started to see the temperature rise start when it shut itself off at ten o’clock.
It’s the sort of story you read in horror films. But now we do know I was boiled as it actually gets hotter in this house overnight.
It also explains why I felt so much better in Liverpool. It wasn’t Liverpool, but it wasn’t being in this killer house.
23:30 – The meter was showing 25°C when I brought it upstairs and threw the windows wide open, which brought the temperature back to 22°C.
23:50 – The meter was showing 24°C downstairs and the floors are still hot. The air-con meter shows 20°C upstairs, but it seems rather hotter than that to me.
I shall be doing some serious investigating in the morning.
One conclusion is that neither the top or the bottom zones work. If the heating is on it piles heat out willy-nilly no matter what the settings of the thermostats.
Vapour Trails Over Hackney
I took this picture this morning.
Vapour Trails Over Hackney
They’re not normally this clear, but the sky was very blue at the time.
A Stylish Clock At London Bridge
This clock is in the new bus station at London Bridge station.
A Stylish Clock At London Bridge
We need more of these at important bus stops.
Busking On The Beach
It was a nice sunny day yesterday and this guy couldn’t resist getting his guitar out on the beach.
Busking On The Beach
He was just outside the National Theatre on the South Bank, sitting in the River Thames.
The guy is Tim Sidall or Flame Proof Moth.
The Anonymous Widower 