The Sagrada Familia dominates the skyline from afar. This view is from Park Guell to the North- tall spires and cranes.

Walking to it, you can’t actually see it up close until you are a few blocks away.

Here we are at the Metro exit. Now for a quick walk round.

This is the Eastern side, known as the Passion Facade. The bells are in these spires and the carved figures are stark in their styling. The wording repeated on the spires is very vibrant and colourful in the flesh, with biblical glory words like Sanctus.

The southern facade isn’t actually built yet, it will be known as the Glory Facade.

The Western side is known as the Nativity Facide. It looks almost organic and is so busy that it looks a bit of a mess in this photo but I have seen professional shots that show up the detail as being stunning.

After a while, you notice that there is a huge Christmas tree at the top!

The northern side is the Apse, or dome. I think that this is where the Altar will be.

We are now back at the corner between the Apse and the Passion Facade. When you look closely, you can see stone snails slithering down the walls.

As I said, it was just a brief visit. I’d like to go back but I’ll be long gone before it is finished (and it might even fall down anyway).

There is a good photo review of a visit here.

Lead is in the news again in Morley. Thieves have stripped various more roof flashings, including the Salvation Army. Also, drain grids are going walkies. (Previous local news stories here and here.).

It seems that the demands of China for copper and lead to feed their rapidly expanding industrialisation are squeezing supplies. Indeed, our Data Centre power system supplier told me today that one battery supplier has just bumped up prices by 15% and introduced an unspecified “lead surcharge” chargable on delivery at whatever cost they want to stick you with. (Data Centres have systems that protect the mains supply to the computer systems by switching over instantly to batteries during any fluctuation).

I had a look at the website of the London Metal Exchange today, out of curiosity. The graph below shows the price over the last five years, the laws of supply and demand in action. The website stats make interesting (if arcane) reading and looking at market analysis, apparently demand has outstripped supply five years running and UK tracked stockpiles have shrunk to only two days supply. (This explains why we have to wait several weeks for our order!)

The deep discharge batteries in our uninterruptable power supplies have an internal construction that demands the use of new lead rather than recycled lead so I can rest assured that the Morley scratters having a trip down to the scrap yard won’t end up in me inadvertently receiving stolen goods.

I still chuckle at the Latin name for Lead that we were taught in Physics at School (If you have forgotten, it is Plumbum) and considering how toxic it is I balk on reflection at how much we used to handle it, melting it in a pan over the stove and casting fishing weights. (I wasn’t a fisherman, I used them in my model theatre as counterweights).

No doubt our children will be agog at us using aluminium pans.