came across this little gem on the Beeb site https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-44911209 Which in turn led me to this https://scarfolk.blogspot.com/?m=1 As per usual, I'm a bit late to the party and the blogger is currently having a break after 5 years however Scarfolk is the funniest thing I've seen in many a year. For those of you that were around during the 70s, you'll find loads of familiar references, both the content and the style of the "public information" articles. For those that weren't, this is really dark and funny satire...just read it If you already knew about Scarfolk, well done you, as it was a bit off the beaten track.
I'm sitting here relieved that my heart condition has now been proved to be a result of the serious Flu I was off with . I can now apply for another driving licence
Great news Jasper - it highlights just how dangerous proper flu can be (rather than the cold that people get for a few days and call flu because it sounds more dramatic)
Nope, just destroying ourselves and all the furry bunnies and things. The insects will be fine. I wonder if dung beetles take sentient lessons? On a serious note, I'd like to ask if others suffer from throat problems, respiratory problems and runny noses, etc... if they spend time in their city centres, or driving around within Southampton City with the windows down? For the last... hmm, I'd say 5 years or more I've suffered from the above symptoms whenever I've driven or ridden around Southampton. I live in the north of the City and some days the air can be pretty bad. 25+ years ago, Southampton was one of the cleanest and greenest cities, with little air pollution. Or so it felt. I'd just come back from living in NZ and the city traffic planners had bollarded off all the rat runs and every car was shoehorned into existing roads. It meant that the rush hour traffic was horrendous. Friends from London would say that we had it worse here, because at least they could turn down a side street. We no longer could. Then they put traffic lights at roundabout and further slowed the queues. Plus, I recently read the revelation that, in spite of cruise ships having the equipment to plug into land systems elsewhere in the world, when they dock, they can't do it in the UK, and especially at Southampton. Consequently they keep their engines running to power their systems. And in the process they dole out 23% of the daily CO2, NOx and particulates while they are in dock. How backward is that? So, further on the serious note, here is something serious to read and then to respond to: Please read. This is very important: https://www.southampton.gov.uk/modernGov/documents/s31110/Appendix 1.pdf And now respond when you have time: https://www.southampton.gov.uk/council-democracy/have-your-say/clean-air-consultation.aspx I think all of us would rather have air quality, and a city strategy to return to cleaner air, fit for ourselves, our children, and our children's children. And so on. Ta.
Estranged husband implicated in the acid attack on his own son. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/25/five-charged-acid-attack-three-year-old-boy-worcester/
As an Environmentalist, of sorts - not a tree hugger - who, when I can do something, I try to make the smallest environmental impact, while doing it, I am getting more and more concerned at our seeming lack of doing anything to combat our decreasing quality of air and consumption of power. The local council initiative above is good news though. But we can do our own thing too. I have the smallest car I can get away with these days - a Fiat Seicento. They don't come much smaller, and my VFR800 motorcycle. But, for the past 2-3 years I've been finding out about EVs, or Electric Vehicles. First, let me put something into perspective. We need to get Internal Combustion Engined [ICE] vehicles off the road as soon as possible. Diesels in particular. They were never the answer. I knew that back in the early 1990s. But we don't all have a spare £25K or so kicking around doing nothing to buy one of these super-duper EVs. And importantly, if you have recently bought a new ICE car and realise you've made a boo-boo, and want to buy a new EV to replace it, you'll cause almost as much pollution in the manufacture of the new EV as you would if you kept the new ICE car you bought and ran it for a few years. Manufacturing can cause a heck of a lot of pollution. However, we have to get rid of ICE cars. So if you are considering a new car, consider an EV. There are loads of them coming onto the market now and in the next 6-24 months. The cost of charging them up is a fraction of the cost of filling fossil fuel [FF] tank and going the same distance. I think it's around 10%, ie, £6 instead of £60 to fill the 'tank' and go the same distance. Much less if you charge at home. Nothing at all [for life of ownership] if you own a Tesla Model S or X and charge at a Supercharger outlet. Other manufacturers have finally woken up. BMW, Mercedes Vauxhall, Opel, VW, Renault... Nissan have been there for a decade with their Nissan Leaf. Tesla kicked them all up the backside and got this movement underway in the mid 2000s. Actually, GM made the EV1 in the late 1990s. It was so good it made their other cars look and drive terrible, so, because they were leasing them all, they got them all back and crushed them by 2002. Nevertheless, their CEO said he'd made the greatest mistake or his career in crushing them. But the EV world is back and better now. People will tell you how EVs are dirty. They are not. The EV that runs on the dirtiest coal produced electricity still measurably causes less pollution than any ICE car. And they get cleaner as the grid does. And that is getting greener every day. EVs require a tiny fraction of the maintenance, because there's no engine. In an ICE car there are about 10,000 moving parts. A Tesla Model S, one of the most techie and assessorised EVs there is, has 150 in total. So they are way more reliable and cheaper to run. But what about my Seicento? Well, I'm thinking of doing the greenest thing and getting it fitted with an electric motor and battery kit. They aren't available just yet, but it won't be long. The VFR800 will either go or be kept for the occasional ride once or twice a year. Consider it?
A great piece TSS and I agree with every word. The only thing I would question is whether EV’s are the long-term solution, or whether hydrogen-fuelled cars would be a better direction to go in. Hydrogen can be produced relatively cheaply and easy from water by electrolysis, and the only exhaust gas is water vapour. As you say, the source of the electricity up the line is the issue at the moment, and the grid has to get cleaner. Tesla make photovoltaic roof tiles nowadays which can look exactly like any style of tiles or slates, so why not insert a clause into planning law so that every new build house has to have them? With a decent battery system the householder will generate more electricity than they can use, and make money feeding the grid. If enough houses did it there would be no need for coal-fired or nuclear power stations at all, and we have this technology now, today.
Hi TSS, I've been looking to go to EV when I change my car next....can't afford to buy one that has sufficient range unfortunately unless I buy an old one and then I'd have the worry of having to replace battery packs at huge cost. The Renault Zoe is probably the most accessible option for most people but doesn't fit my needs as I need a bigger beast, the vauxhall Ampera is a compromise option being a plug in petrol/electric hybrid however the pure ev range of these is at best about 35miles and then the petrol engine kicks in to charge the battery and the early Nissan Leaf is just too fugley (I am that shallow)- ok for the urban dweller I guess but not so useful for us rural folk with 25mile each way daily commutes and fairly regular longer journeys that are not really practical to plan a recharge stop into. EV vehicles need to have a 300 mile range and a comparable cost to ICE vehicles if they are going to become widely used imho. A Tesla would be lovely but I haven't got £35k spare for the "cheap" model, once they actually manage to make enough so that I could actually buy one. Instead of all the above options, I'm going to get a 5 or 6 year old turbo diesel and use the savings that I make from buying an older car to pay off what I owe on my household solar PV system. Most of my journey is rural roads so I won't spend a lot of time stationary in traffic pumping out clouds of particulates, CO2, CO and NO2. I wish I was wealthy enough to be a fairly early adopter of an EV vehicle but it's just not an option for me.
Evening . Off Topic , but have you seen this ? presale-blue-oyster-cult-announce-uk-tour-with-the-temperance-movement
