I don’t blog very much these days as it is a very busy time at the moment, although it is rare that a day goes by without my outlining a blog topic in my head.

Back in 2007, after three years as an elected Councillor, I decided not to re-stand. There were several reasons for this, including a serious disillusionment with local politics and being in the undiagnosed stage of a chronic illness that left me with little energy or inclination to care. I did start up the Morleygate blog though, which gave me a platform to grumble about what shenanigans our local politicians were up to.

Anyway, I was bumbling along occasionally pontificating on the Morley Facegroup (under a theatrical pseudonym) when someone mentioned that the Town Council annual report was out but with some missing figures.

The story is all told at Morleygate so I won’t recount it here, but in a nutshell, expenditure and closing balances were redacted (i.e. censored) from the annual report published mid-august despite the figures having to be revealed by law by the 30th September. Digging into the matter further, the Council revealed through clenched teeth that they would have been prepared to break the law to keep these figures hidden.

Wow.

Arrogance, certainly, but what about ignorance? Well the wheels are in motion to remove the mud from their clarifications.

Now the Council did reveal the figures on August the 20th by posting up the statutory notice of completion of audit, documents up on the Town Council noticeboard for exactly two weeks. For that fortnight, on the left, the real figures, on the right the censored ones. Needless to say, all that remains are the ones with the missing numbers.

However, the statutory display was not without its faults- the page which showed the balance sheet was located by the scabbiest bit of the notice board which was obscured by grime, condensation, residual sellotape and scratches.

Strange that. Conspiracy or cock up? You decide.

Having given a totally piss poor set of answers to a set of perfectly straight forward questions (posted on day 19 of the obligatory 20 day response period), I was not amused, they picked the wrong man to piss off.

I’m now giving them a damn good kicking and they totally, thoroughly deserve it.

More soon.

However, as we don’t go out boozing and scoffing very much, that didn’t really leave that much in the repertoire. Karen wasn’t tempted by Spearmint Rhino, or indeed a trip to Morley Working Mens Club with the occasional beer-mates. We did take in a 15 film (The taking of Pelham 123) and we had a trip to Leeds Gala Bingo, somewhere we haven’t been since before the smoking ban. When we were there, we noticed three things that were different. Firstly, it didn’t smell of smoke any more, other than outside the front doors where the snoutcasts congregated. Secondly, it wasn’t as busy as it used to be, no doubt a combination of the smoking ban and the recession. Thirdly, they had gone hi-tech, with the availability of wedge shaped electronic bingo player machines, called “Gala Wiz”. We had bought traditional paper tickets by then, but being a gadget man, I was keen to investigate the technology on a subsequent occasion.

Big club bingo isn’t like seaside prize bingo, by the way. There is none of the “two fat ladies” banter and the punters just want the numbers. Bingo is a regulated recreation and is considered on the lower rungs of the gambling ladder. It is based totally on chance, although a lack of skill in marking off the numbers will scupper your chances somewhat! The numbers do come fast and if you haven’t done it before, you will struggle.

At a typical Bingo session, several hundred people will lob their money into an imaginary bucket and then try to win back more than they lobbed in. Of course, there is a saying that in a Casino the House always wins and at the races the bookie always wins. Bingo Halls are heavily regulated on the size of the House take and there is a near-illegible set of tables near the entrance that the club is obliged to display, summarising ticket sales and pot size. (This information is also flashed up on the large screens for certain other games involving more than one club. Needless to say, no-one is interested in this information).

So, when you are sitting there with your ninety numbers spread across six tickets you have statistically the same odds as everyone else of winning a line, two lines or a full house. The more people playing and the more combinations of tickets though, the faster the wins get called by players because statistically life is like that, as are numbers. Indeed as numbers get called, they tend over time to more-or-less evenly distribute themselves across all six tickets and even if you are only waiting for one number to come up, the odds are exactly the same as any other uncalled number coming up. (This is known as the Bingo Buzz, waiting for the one number that wins you a big prize, or, more likely, not!)

Our session at Gala Leeds was to win us the grand total of zilch, although it was interesting to notice a couple of changes to the way things worked. Previously, there were two sets of big prize games, the Link games (where many clubs play together linked up via audio-conference & integrated calling) and the National game (not played linked but the numbers are distributed electronically to the clubs) where there is a House winner for a small prize, a regional winner for a medium prize and a national winner for a big prize.

Now, at Gala, the national game has gone; it has been replaced by a big Link game (called High 5) that ups the odds by introducing a bookie gamble. There are two games played in the book, the first one being linked, the second one in the hall only (with much smaller winnings, of course).

As well as four (or five) figure prizes for lines and full house, if the caller calls House with the number ending in 5, then they win 10% of a substantial pot that rolls over each week if not claimed. (It was getting on for £200k when we were there). If the winner calls on the actual number 5, then they win 50% of the pot, and the other 50% is distributed amongst everyone else in that Bingo Hall playing. (They actually write you a cheque the following week, they don’t have that sort of money in the Safe!).

Now I imagine that Gala have a small team of highly paid gambling Actuaries who actually work out the statistical odds of these types of games not making them go bust, so it is probably a fairly safe bet on their part, provided that the odds don’t come up too much at the fringes as they reset the pot to a minimum figure each win. They have now introduced a bit of vertical marketing called the “side bet” where for an extra pound on certain games, if you happen to win within fifty numbers then you get double the prize money. (This type of incentive was entirely illegal not too long ago, when you had to join a club at least 24 hours before you played. Now you can roll up, register and start playing. (You do have to prove you are over eighteen though, we can’t have married children gambling, can we?))

Anyway, a Bingo Hall is a strange mixture of tension and boredom. It requires a fair bit of concentration to pick out the numbers called on your ticket and if your mind wanders, you are scuppered as you have to claim a win there and then, i.e. the last number called has to be on the winning line. Every time someone makes a claim, there is a small babble of conversation where everyone exchanges banalities “Eeh, I was only one away”, “I wasn’t even close”, etc.  (Not as much fun as the Galway Races Primal Scream I blogged about previously though). It is supposedly a social club as well and the bar is certainly keenly priced, but there is the constant drone of the Parti Bingo between sessions, a game even harder to play as the numbers come fast and furious, even if there are only eighty of them. (Parti Bingo is like a fairground barker trying to make you part with your money in bigger and better games, just another pound in the slot, go on, you know you want to…)

Anyway, in the spirit of blogger investigative research, I’ve now tried out three different Bingo Hall automated systems over the last couple of months and I am consolidating a report. In the meantime, here is a musical interlude…

Tom Paine of Last Ditch put up some figures for American electricity demand which didn’t seem to show much impact on electricity (lack of) consumption. He asked if there were figures available for the UK and as I have looked into that sort of info before, I decided to see if there was.

Unfortunately, the National Grid website had a problem and whilst it normally shows real time and recent historic data, it was unable to provide anything useful at the time (and is still broken for anything other than 60 minute figures). They do publish historic demand data however, and today I was able to download half hourly figures for January to March 2009 in the form of a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. (Last time I had checked it was only up to February).

It took me some time to get my head round what the information was telling me as there are four sets of figures showing the total added up in different ways. There are also related figures for storage and import/export of power between us and the Republic of Ireland and France. (It is mostly imported from France, as they have extensive nuclear capacity). Also of interest in another sheet of the document is a list of the various types of generating capacity, rather a lot of it gas &/or oil. In the end, I worked out that three of the four sets were essentially the same characteristics, the fourth also showing the early morning pumping storage going on.

Now storage is a misnomer, as it actually means consumption of power in order to pump water up a hill so that the kinetic energy gained can be reclaimed at short notice by using hydro-electric power (at significant efficiency losses). Indeed, it takes a Megawatt of power just to keep one of the six large 290 Megawatt Dinorwig turbines spinning using compressed air so that it is ready to go to full output in seconds. The pumped storage stations are like the large weights on the bellows of a church Organ, there to keep the wind at a constant pressure regardless of how softly or loudly the Organ is being played.

The National Grid needs to match the available power exactly to demand, which means that some power stations are up and running offline (known as spinning reserve) but not actually generating some of the time (but they could be called upon to synchronise with the grid and start providing power at short notice). Now I imagine that they have a substantial team of forecasters who factor in weather forecasts, Christmas dinner turkey roasting, national events and the like. (The peak maximum demand was reputedly straight after Coronation Street one year, when ten million households put the kettle on during the adverts). BT certainly do similar planning in order to protect their network as otherwise the likes of X Factor voting would result in a severe shortage of successful regular call connections. (BT activate something called “Gapping” for predicted high volume TV or Press advertised phone numbers where the majority of the calls are given busy tone from the local exchange without actually attempting to make the call across the network.)

So, having the peak load figures available in thirty minute increments, are we able to see the impact of Earth Day? Well the graph below shows the the power demand for three successive Saturdays in April for the full twenty-four hours. Power demand rises steadily from 6am -8am and remains reasonably flat during the day until teatime, peaking at 6pm then slowly falling off back down to base load as the evening goes on. The three curves are a very similar shape although it is noticable that the first date is higher than the second which is higher than the third. (I imagine this is down to weather as the seasons progress).

I make no apologies for the lack of polish in this graph, it is pretty much a raw Excel graph knocked up quickly whilst I was eating my lunch.

I have highlighted earth hour, 8:30pm – 9:30pm. I have to say that I cannot see any discernable obvious dip for the figures then at all. In some ways, this is to be expected, the sort of people who would have taken part would probably have energy saving lamps anyway and they were only encouraged to switch off lighting, not the main switch in the fuse box. Conversely, there were probably a number of curmudgeons who went through their houses turning all of their lights on just for the hell of it.

The Grey family were driving along the M3 heading back to Ealing for earth hour. I can’t say I noticed any vehicles driving without lights, fortunately!

The published data is quite interesting to analyse and has a wealth of data there, although the explanations are somewhat arcane to the point of being almost incomprehensible to an industry outsider. The graph is based on the IO14_DEM column (which excludes storage pumping and exports) and subsequent Saturdays were chosen because Sundays have a slightly different load peak pattern.

Then I swore at the newspaper when I read about the MEP accusing us of  Binge flying being as bad as stabbing a person on the street. That is rich coming from an MEP- the junket of moving between Brussels & Strasbourg must fill several Bread & Circus tents with Carbon Dioxide.

Then I swore at the computer when I read about David Attenborough’s joining of the Optimum Population Trust. They have a pledge to stop at two children you can sign. For years now, we hve been told that Europe is a declining population, that the growth is down to Africans, Chavs  & Muzzies who don’t know or care about contraception. Indeed population growth in Britain is down to more hopeful immigrants coming in than so-called white flight emigrants leaving trying for a better life elsewhere.

The Optimum Population Trust believes that Earth may not be able to support more than half its present numbers before the end of this century, and that the UK’s long-term sustainable population level may be lower than 30 million. 

Well, if our energy supply is knackered, our economy is a busted flush and we are living in Yurts then they are probably right.

Getting up early (for a weekend) I was out of the house by 7am and down to Ealing Broadway for the Central line to Holborn, changing to the Piccadilly Line for one stop to Russell Square. Just to the north of the square was the Institute of Education, part of the University of London.

On arrival at the venue I didn’t seem to be on the list, but as I had a printout receipt with me the registration girl said she’d add my name to the bottom in pencil. I was then given a goody bag which had the substantial 64 page programme as well as flyers from the various sponsors. There was also the all important wristband to get into the main hall. (If you had a green one you could get into the Green Room as a speaker but mine was red, an attendee).

The registration took place in a large hall with coffee being served and various stalls around the perimeter. Many of them were for things I hadn’t heard of like Red Pepper, unlock democracy and the Open Rights Group. (The first two seemed overly socialistic for my tastes but I talked to the latter at length).

Noting lots of people heading towards the main venue and wanting to get a decent seat I followed the throng into a large lecture theatre and picked a seat in row two on the side seating block reasonably close to the main lectern. I later found that this was a slight tactical mistake when I found out that the morning keynote speaker Shami Chakrabati from Liberty was so diminutive that she had to peer over the lectern to make eye contact with the front row.

Shami did a rallying speech in support of Liberty which went down well and she certainly seems to be a media superstar. My opinion of her and Liberty has diminished somewhat in recent weeks though, when it became apparent that freedom of speech doesn’t apply to those who discuss taboo topics, like visiting Dutch MPs…

There then followed a plenary entitled the Crisis of Liberty. Three QCs made strong cases of the increasing erosion, whilst Sir David Varney was not particularly popular for having advocated databases for Nu Labour (although he wasn’t actually booed and didn’t actually say anything to be despised for).

After a break, there were eleven parallel sessions spread around the building (many on the 8th floor) and I dithered which one to go to. The press freedom one was already full when I looked in and I got the last seat at the back (briefly) for Conservatives for Civil Liberties but I only really went in there to hear Iain Dales introduction and then went along the corridor to the Police session. Here I saw the silliest T shirt of the day by a Red Pepper girl- “Never kissed a Tory (Never will)”.

I grabbed a quick plate of sandwiches and then went to the Bloggers Forum for thirty minutes or so. This was chaired by Liberal Conspiracy’s Sunny Hundai and mainly talked about investigative journalism.

The afternoon resumed with parallel sessions and I went to one called protecting rights, unlocking democracy. Again, I had been slightly spoiled for choice but wanted to see Douglas Carswell in action. (He was very good). I was also im pressed by Historian/Philosopher Prof. A.C. Grayling deftly setting fire to all the straw men raised by David Willis MP (and subsequently blogging about it on CIF).

Returning to the main hall after the break, I bagged the equivalent seat on the opposite side of the hall in row two next to the aisle in front of the main table. Philip Pullman gave the first keynote and I have to say that I hadn’t a clue who he was beforehand but his speech is over on CIF (with some odd comments/commenters as well, but that seems to be par for the course over there).

This was followed by the second plenary called How do we secure modern liberty? Lib Dem Chris Huhne took the opportunity to push their Freedom Bill, Will Hutton was heckled for daring to suggest that the Religion of Peace wasn’t entirely conducive to liberty and Musician Brian Eno rambled about many things, even bringing climate change into it.

The session concluded after votes of thanks with David Davis MP who went down a storm, even if he was a Conservative. (I wonder if the red pepper T shirt girl was wavering?)

There was another informal session afterwards, but I had met up with various LPUK people by then and we retired to the Alternative Convention on Modern liberty at the Friend in Hand.

Here are a few snaps…

You can aslso see me make a brief video appearance here one hour nine minutes in, seated behind the man with the PC on the table.

Conclusions? Well, there seemed to be rather  a lot more about freedoms and rights being confused with entitlements and obligations  rather than liberty in the libertarian sense. There was much tribalism with vested interests raising their pet topics, along with anti-war protesters and 911 truthers (getting Section 44 Stop noticed outside). There was much talk of a constitutional settlement but I don’t think I’d trust anyone to write a British Constitution that had the simplicity and clarity of the American one (now much maligned and distorted of course). It was an interesting day certainly and most people who spoke did so with clarity. I imagine this is something like a party conference with all the quirky stands & fringe meetings (Peter Tatchell was discussing abolition of Royalty in Speakers Corner upstairs over lunch) and the tracking down rooms & meetings around the University reminded me of my British Association Young Scientist conference days in my teens.

However, I found the most interesting speaker of the day to be the larger than life Tom Paine, although I struggled to hear some of his anecdotes as it was noisy and the Rugby was on.

One of them was for a Flea Circus and David asked me about them. I suddenly realised that I wasn’t certain if they were fake or real. It turns out that they could be either, or both!

When scouting around for information, I was surprised to come across a familiar face in an image, one of the spielers from Shazam! Circus of Wonders.

It turned out that this was Jon Marshall, Director of Sideshow Illusions and restorer of the various exhibits.  Not only does he have an interesting website, but Cleo the Goldfish Girl has a facebook blog.

Jon was given a Flea Circus as an unexpected present last year and it is now part of the repertoire.

Professor Jon’s Flea Circus

The Blackpool Winter Gardens is a Victorian pleasure park on a massive scale but its remoteness from the Golden Mile (250 yards from the Prom) has made it a bit of a white elephant at times. Had it been more successful, however, it is doubtful whether much of it would exist today as it would have been redeveloped. Despite being much hacked around in places, it is a unique survivor in both scale and complexity. It houses two theatres, a huge ballroom bigger than the Tower Ballroom, several function rooms and an exhibition hall, not forgetting bars, Cafes and slot machines! It is advertised as having twelve amazing venues and a click-through shows a pretty sectional pictogram of this.

The dullest part of the complex is the Olympia Hall, being an L shaped rather plain part of the building that is so uninteresting to look at that the owners have put in a tent-like structure which although bland is probably hiding some guilty secrets. (When it opened it was themed as a Moorish Village but that has all long gone). Until next Sunday, though, it is housing a fascinating free event called the Circus of Wonders. This is an exhibition of fairground, circus and seaside side shows but with a twist- five of the side shows are actually recreated for your delectation at the weekends. A troupe of actors take the part of seaside spielers (and Freak show freaks), drawing us in to watch (and without relieving us of our hard earned sixpence!)

The five recreations all date from the Fifties and feature the original frontages, with some colour photographs to show how they would have looked in-situ. Of course, back in the 50′s the spielers lured the paying visitors into the tent inside, whilst three of these shows were viewable through the entrance in order to make use of the space.

The first sideshow was the headless lady and the spieler donned a white coat for the occasion, using a pointer to clarify the items within. A recorded announcement talked through the story whilst the spieler enhanced it with due gravitas. When the curtains opened, we were greeted with the sight of what looked to be a dummy sat on a high chair. The dummy wore a diaphonous sleeved top and didn’t have a head, instead having a metal grommet with several rubber pipes emerging. These pipes went off to various pieces of apparatus that supposedly kept her alive. After a while it became apparent that the legs were real and with the demonstration of removing a pair of gloves that the arms were real as well. (Which is more than can be said for the chest). There was no sign of the scooter that featured on the facade, perhaps that was round the back…

The second sideshow was the living half lady. The spieler donned a brown warehouse overall and explained to us how Gloria had suffered a terrible accident but that medical science had been able to save half of her. When Gloria was revealed she was sat (or is that placed?) on a plinth mounted on a table. We could see that there was nothing on the table under the plinth or below the table either. Gloria gave the spieler quite a bit of lip before the show was over, demonstrating that they may well have saved the wrong half…

The third sideshow was Lotty, the girl in a goldfish bowl. The spieler was dressed in bright waistcoat and top hat, forewarning us that Lotty wore only a bikini because she lived in a goldfish bowl. When Lotty was revealed, he proved she was real by asking David to choose a number from one to five and her raising the requisite number of fingers.

The fourth show was Lady Electra who demonstrated some tricks with a Van de Graaf generator, including making her hair stand on end and causing a heap of foil pie trays to fly out of her hand. For this sideshow, we were then invited inside, which was about the size of a small gazebo tent. (In fact it was a small gazebo tent). Here Madame Electra stood on an electrified platform and performed, lighting up fluorescent tubes, offering the keys to her house (which were of course electrified) and finally lighting a juggler’s flaming torch with her softest pink most delicate parts- no sir, I was referring to her tongue…

The fifth show was the most dramatic and called The Mummy. Here the spieler invited us in to the Egyptian mausoleum and explained the process of mummification in striking and shocking detail. He explained how we would see the beautiful Egyptian Princess age before our very eyes then become beautiful once more. He unlocked the tomb doorway and the princess appeared (who had a striking resemblance to lady Electra, as it happens).  The Princess transformed into the hideous Mummy which became incandescent with rage and rushed the tomb door. The spieler slammed and locked the door and asked us to leave at it was no longer safe. Suddenly the Mummy smashed its hand through the door, broke the lock and chased us all out, giggling and screaming!

There was another attraction in the hall that wasn’t strictly part of the Circus of Wonders but was greatly enhanced by the presence of the exhibit. The show was called Carnesky’s Ghost train and it is a strange mix of live theatre and side show. It has a story of eastern European refugee women who disappeared on a night train to nowhere and are reputed to haunt the line still. (It is hoped that this ride will have a permanent home in Blackpool).

Now I’d prepared David for this ride by watching the two online videos (here and here) but the reality was much more intense as the whole idea is to spook you and ghostly hands occasionally reached out to touch.  The  train driver wore a plain white mask and that can be decidedly unsettling when you suddenly find it underlit inches from your face. The train track wasn’t overly long but there were triple hairpins between the two straight sections which were exciting in the dark at high speed and there were different things to look at each time we went round (which must have been five or six times, I wasn’t actually counting). Even the departure platform was a scene in itself, with action taking place there and the lighting effects changing each time round. Quite a few of the things in the Video weren’t there though, or perhaps I was looking the wrong way. Definitely worth a re-ride, but David wasn’t having any of it…

It seems that the Carnesky’s Ghost Train has been a bit of a flop in Blackpool before now, being stuck in the corner of a large hall off the beaten track. It was originally a much smaller ride and was designed more as an art installation &/or a piece of theatre rather than something populist. The Council has spent huge sums of money buying it and getting the Illuminations team to light it. but attendance has been poor so far. It is very early days and it seemed to be doing well yesterday though, helped by the footfall to the exhibition. It seems its home is just rented, maybe they should look at putting it outside the Sandcastle later in the season. However, the ride is rather quirky and I can’t really see it appealing to drunken Chavs very much, Blackpool’s bread and butter. They much prefer the terrifying tour of the Pleasure Beach Casino basement, now that is scary.

We also got to see the Lord Mayor of blackpool talk about her days as a sideshow girl in her youth, she used to spend much of her day entombed in a block of ice for £7 a week (which was £3 more than a typical retail job, which was why she did it, times were poor). She also played an Eastern(correction) Mauri Princess for a while which was rather unlikely as she was blonde and fair skinned, but she explained that the punters would believe anything in those days.  She pilloried the current Blackpool Golden Mile as a concrete jungle and reminisced over things long gone such as Fairyland and its big dragon. She said that there was a lot of camerarderie amongst the shomen but there were some spivs around, including one that used to saw up a broom handle, paint it red, wrap it up and sell it as Blackpool Rock from a suitcase before scarpering. The audience brought forward a few memories of sideshows, including one that featured malnourished newlyweds, sometimes called the starving brides. Inside a couple of emaciated looking young girls wore scabby wedding dresses, very odd. The Mayor told us that all the sideshows were good clean fun apart from one which had a French theme and nudes inside. The beautiful french women within promised by the spieler were anything but and they were supposed to keep still but often they’d been drinking…

I don’t recall any sideshows at Blackpool as I didn’t visit there until 1970 but I do remember the bizarre medical exhibits in Louis Tussauds in a special gallery with lots of warnings to discourage the easily disturbed and in the process hype up the experience. (This tradition continues to this day, anyone with a heart condition wanting to ride the Revolution at the Pleasure Beach supposedly must bring a nurse).  The Newcastle Hoppings also had quite a selection of freak shows, including goats with clip-on extra legs, pickled siamese twins and bizarre papier mache’ fake models in murkily lit exhibits. One sideshow was quite popular with us teens and it was quite a simple one. It was a Gorilla in a cage and we used to taunt it until it finally had enough when would pull the rubber bars apart and chase us out!

(There is a good review of the exhibit online from the Blackpool Herald which contains the text of the blog title)

Photo montage to follow…

Giant plasma TVs face ban in battle to green Britain

Another story caught my eye was about fridges shutting themselves down at the behest of the Electricity Board to save energy. This is complete and utter cockwaffle, it isn’t anything to do with saving energy at all, it is a mechanism for the national grid to be able to shed load at the times of peak demand. If you turn off your fridge for an hour, it will simply use that energy running continuously until the chiller compartment reaches working temperature again.

Fridges (and night storage heaters) are the only domestic appliances that can be deprived of power for short periods without anyone noticing or it making much difference.

It isn’t widely understood that electricity supply has to meed demand or otherwise the voltage dips and the frequency drops. This is because all those huge power stations with their generators spinning at 3000 RPM are feeling the load and slowing down. (Think back to when you were a kid and how much more effort was needed to work the dynamo for the lights on your bike, assuming you didn’t have batteries, or even acetylene).

Now there is a failsafe mechanism to protect the grid called the frequency service. If the mains frequency dips below a certain level, certain large industrial companies instantly shed large loads that are not critical to their business, i.e. a cold store can do without refridgeration and a smelting works  can cope without power for twenty minutes. These customers are paid for the privilege of course, but as we don’t actually make very much in Britain any more, I imagine that is pretty much max-ed out.  (Once demand exceeds supply then once the two welsh storage facilities are empty then it is rolling blackouts).

By the way, if a fridge is not cooling due to load shedding, I’m sure the light inside will still come on. There might be a little green LED to show it isn’t running, although a brown LED might be more appropriate.

(This initiative brought to you by the EUSSR, thinking about the future so you don’t have to. Look out for more bansturbation coming your way soon!)

Dear Ric, thanks for the text. I think you may have got a wrong number as I have no recollection of talking to anyone about Viagra since I worked on a project down at Pfizer in Sandwich.

Indeed I can’t think of anyone who calls themselves Ric spelt that way and none of them are able to dispense prescriptions.

I gather that Boots will provide the little blue tablets after extensive questioning but the only pharmacist I know outside of picking up my prescriptions lives in Canada.

I very rarely get texts, apart from BT, who send me nine of them every time we need a BT Technician to do an “Engineer Reset” in the Exchange. So when yours arrived yesterday when we were both in the kitchen, I handed my Mobile to Karen who burst out laughing, assuring me that I was not the target audience for your excellent 50% discount opportunity.

That is not to say that some of my friends and acquaintances may not be interested, so I have put your offer up on my blog, with your phone number, which is 07854 311771.

Alas, I have bust the 160 character limit, but if you do get in touch with him, tell him Een says Orite.

I couldn’t hear him (the sound was very low and I’m a bit hard of hearing anyway) but the real-time sub-titles were on. During the course of the statement, he mentioned the EU Bingo pledge- 20% reduction in emissions by 2020, along with 20% decrease in energy use and 20% of power from renewable sources.

As an aside, though, he slipped in that we would be going for 30%.

What? Does he understand nothing of electricity generation? Is he now way past Dagenham and almost at Upminster?

It is either some bizarre scorched earth policy for the next Government, or he genuinely believes that anything other Countries can do he can do better.

Annie, get your gun…

The first house I bought in Maidenhead was off a foreign family and I inherited an interesting colour scheme- bright wallpapers and naked 200W lamps in every room, apart from the kitchen which had twin 6? florry tubes. I rapidly tamed it, fitting various track fittings,  reflector lamps and downlighters, along with a brass finish traditional triple shaded fitting from the lounge. Most rooms had touch dimmers fitted, I was a regular customer at Habitat, BHS and B & Q.

Now most of the fittings in my house have energy efficient lamps, with two notable exceptions- the lounge uplighter and the bedroom ceiling fittings. The bedrooms have 100W Tungsten Halogen lamps in which are long lasting. The ability to put the light on very low to go into a room without disturbing someone or to put it on full to clean or put out washing is very useful.

However, the EU does not agree with my personal choice, even though it is me who pays the bill. The bulbs must be banned in order to save the planet and ASDA is already on the glide path to this.

(I really must stock up…)

(Sorry, but any comments previously left on this blogpost have been lost)

There was a severe weather warning in Yorkshire late yesterday and a letter home from school warning that they may be short staffed.

We woke up this morning to an inch or so of snow and very slippery roads. Now normally getting out of our estate is tricky but the main roads get gritted and ploughed. Not this morning though. I passed numerous stationary cars kerbed with their hazards going, the AA attending to one of them on Magpie Lane. As I got up to the edge of town a lorry was blocking the road in but the road out looked clear, apart from a Transit van parked up and flashing. I got past the van OK but I gradually lost momentum and traction, finding myself immobile as well. That particular road (Bridge Street) was like glass and I kerbed myself in then got out. Where I had been stuck and skidding, I could see tarmac but no sign of grit on the icy mirror surface. 

We had a bit of a conflab and a few motorists helped push me up the short hill that was impeding me. One out, but a lot more pushing required for others. I had no intention of stopping again though!

I trundled out onto the main road which was icy slush, still no sign of ploughing. Surveying the horizon, I could see a number of trucks struggling to get up the rise leading towards the motorway roundabout and gridlock the other way.

At that point I took the decision to head home and went onto the short cut back (Glen Road) at a very cautious 5mph as it was ABS conditions. This road is fairly flat and then it is downhill back to home. There was a line of a dozen cars stuck facing uphill on Magpie Lane going nowhere and I carefully slid past them going back downhill as home beckoned.

Not too many made it in to work and our remote home working solution was well hammered.

David’s school was determined to stay open but appealed to Parents to keep their children home if possible as they would inevitably be short-staffed. 

That is more than can be said for Womble on tour, who has documented the bad weather conditions in his neck of the woods.

Tomorrow, I am going to my first political party conference, the small but perfectly formed UK Libertarians. The meeting is in York and I’ll be taking my camera, of course.

At the weekend, I got hold of three big plasic sacks and decanted the three main materials into them- tins/cans, plastic bottles and paper/cardboard. I was expecting to have to go to our community tip in Middleton (which is miles away but our nearby tip is just over the county border and they don’t let Morleians in, it is guarded by Kirklees Council staff with flaming torches and pitchforks.

However, we do have recycling facilities in the car parks of Morrisons and ASDA, so as we were going into town anyway, I thought I’d check out the Queensway facility. (I knew it did glass, paper and clothes so I could empty one bag at least).

On arrival, I was pleased to see that the materials accepted fitted what I had brought, so I got on with it. Here is a guided tour of the facility.

Hang on though, nowhere for plastic bottles. Let us check that sign again…

Hang on- where is the red container? There isn’t one. Fortunately there was a large unmarked orange skip with bottle holes in the side and when I peered in I could see plastic bottles and bags in there, so that is where mine went.

It is a shame that Leeds City Council repeatedly show themselves as chocolate teapots when it comes to the detail.

Another new wet shaver hits the streets. This time it is the AZOR, from King of Shaves. It was mentioned in the paper yesterday and you went off to a specific URL to win one of 4000 free samples. However, when I looked, there was just some strange stuff about filling in surveys and putting bags out on the front doorstep. (They have sorted it now).

They describe it as iPod meets Razor and I’m a sucker for new designs as I do suffer from razor rash. (I use an electric one with slimy squeeze outgel with the occasional wet shave to deal with the stubble the Philips misses)

Apart from the styling (& I’m a great believer in substance over style) the other selling hook is that the cartridges are much cheaper than the other top range blades which are now silly money.

I’ve been a fan of the King of Shaves oils and gels since finding it in the 90s.

(One for the ladies here!)

‘If we don’t do anything in the next five years to stop CO2 emissions, it’s probably too late’

Actually, what the person quoted said was this:

“If we don’t do anything in the next two to five years to change our behaviour and stop carbon emissions, it’s probably too late.”

she also says:

“You’re sitting in your canoe in open water, nowhere near land, and it springs a leak, and you sit there and argue about whether to plug the hole with a piece of wood or cloth, and only one thing will happen unless you fix it: the canoe will sink. We’re just arguing about what we might do and not fixing it.”

What if the water is only 2’6″ deep? You end up on You’ve been framed then looking rather silly and someone gets £250.

You can read the full article HERE.

David Bowie said we had five years back in 1972.

Enjoy.