Seen in the News

[Tripps]

Perhaps we need a new topic, to bring attention to news items which may be of interest to members? What caught my attention doesn't quite cover it.
Let's see how it goes.

Here's a start Strange noises. Nothing to worry about. . .

[Tripps]

I've begun to wonder about the news that is 'fed' to me by google. I thought I was immune to Cambridge Analytica type manipulation since I don't use social media, but I'm having second thoughts.

From the sites I look at, who would have known that the Indian Embassy in London was under siege yesterday by thousands of people, many brought in from all over the country, in a well organised operation? Had it been about climate change it would have been all over the media.

Now perhaps because Google thinks I am in Lancashire, This is brought to my attention.
Nelson peace summit

Should I be concerned at any of this?

[PanBiker]

Excellent Tripps we need new topics, the more the merrier in my book. Anyone that requires a new category to put any ides in if they don't fit in any of the existing ones just shout. I have just created two new categories in the Hobbies section. Makes a change from seeing the regular twenty or so topics regurgitated ad infinitum each day.

[Tripps]

Thank you Ian, that's very encouraging and most welcome.

I think we need to get the balance right between 'if it ain't broke don't fix it', and 'better the devil you know' etc, - popular views on here - and the site going dormant most days after 'Bob's Bits'.

I don't want to jeopardise the uniqueness of the site which is valuable. (or should that be 'uniquity' ?

[Tizer]

Now perhaps because Google thinks I am in Lancashire, This is brought to my attention. Nelson peace summit

The photo in that Lancashire Telegraph link caught my attention. Outside Blackburn Town Hall - and you can just see to the right the old building across the road. It started life as the Cotton Exchange in the 1860s, then became the The Exchange Picture Hall at the beginning of the 1900s and later the Majestic Cinema, New Majestic, Essoldo, The Classic, Unit 4 and then The Apollo. You can find it and photos of other old Blackburn cinemas here: LINK

[Stanley]

"I don't want to jeopardise the uniqueness of the site which is valuable."
Good sentiment David and thanks. I agree with Ian, I think it's good that members feel they can modify the site to better fit in with what they want. I hope more do it.....
I agree with the people who are asking questions about the explosions at Heysham.... It all sounds a bit fishy to me. No engineer wants to hear explosions in the machine he is running, in my experience it is always a sign that something is amiss!

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on the tanker Grace 1. I think the gist of it is that the tanker is now free to leave as far as the UK and Gibraltarian authorities are concerned but the US has now made it legally possible for it to be seized again. What this means for the Stena tanker in Hormuz isn't clear. It's a complicated world.....
Did you see THIS? Evidently there was a bit of a scare during the demolition of the old car park in the town centre.

[plaques]

Did you see THIS? Evidently there was a bit of a scare during the demolition of the old car park in the town centre.

When I was in Nelson the other week the area had been boarded up on the building was almost down. I didn't mention it because I thought it was old news.

Tanker Grace 1. I said at the beginning that its arrest had American fingerprints all all over it now they are trying to keep up the pressure on both Iran & Iraq but at the same time doing their best to drag the UK into it.

[Stanley]

I think you are right about US pressure P. However they are still being very cagey about that. Nobody at the FO has admitted to anything......

[Tizer]

Unintended consequences strike again!
`Didcot power station: Power cut as cooling towers demolished' LINK
Have a look at the photos of white flashes and flames on nearby pylons!

[Stanley]

I watched the videos on Youtube and at the moment of the explosion one viewpoint clearly showed something like a large plastic drain/conduit being flung out in the direction of the power lines. There was a surprisingly long lag before the failure of the line.

[plaques]

If it takes something as large as a drain to short the power lines out just think of the nonsense of wires being dangled from balloon bombs (previous mystery object). These ideas were to make the people think that something positive was being done. Firing the AA after the event during the war to give some comfort to those who had just been bombed was another morale booster.
Sorry about that it sounds a bit like Brexit propaganda doesn't it?

[Tizer]

There is a lot of explanation about how it worked on the Operation Outward Wikipedia page. Also this:
`After the war, German records revealed that the trailing wire attacks had caused the Germans considerable inconvenience with electricity supplies regularly being interrupted and significant damage to the electrical distribution network. A 1946 report concluded that, based on available records, £1,500,000 of damage was done (approximately equivalent to £54 million in 2019). The report also stated that the actual amount of damage must have been far higher because the records were very incomplete with no available records for the Russian zone and all records becoming less reliable after 1943. The Germans had attempted to record interrupts to the lower voltage lines, but the incidents were so frequent that the recording was abandoned. In addition to sending up fighters, the Germans used anti-aircraft fire against the balloons, sometimes shut down electric cables when an attack was anticipated, and modified the circuit breakers on high voltage networks.'

[Stanley]

I often wonder about the vulnerability of the high voltage supergrid, the one with four parallel cables to each line. At Carlisle one of my parking spots was under such a line and on a dry day it induced a big static charge in the steel framed boxes of my cattle wagon. Great fun to get an unsuspecting passenger to ground the box by reaching up and touching the metal fastenings of the calf door! The spark jumped from the box before you had even even touched it. The amount of energy passing through one of those lines is enormous.
Incidentally you occasionally got the same affect on a dry day when opening the cab door and I was once told that the main source of the static was the exhaust gas leaving the pipe. Can you remember the trailing ground wires, chains and strips that some cars had to prevent car sickness?

[Tripps]

I think this is good news. . .HS 2 Review

Having ventured out of the parish last weekend, and circumnavigated almost the entire M25, (not entirely voluntarily) I came to the conclusion that the whole of the South East is very overcrowded, and that HS2 should be cancelled, and the money spent on new and upgraded motorways.

Discuss.

PS where do I start a campaign to have all access signs to the M25 marked with a symbol to represent Clockwise / Anti clockwise, not just a list of irrelevant intermediate destinations? (Please don't say Social Media).

[Tizer]

Petition Parliament: LINK
You could ask for a referendum...if you're willing to wait for 3 years or more!

[Stanley]

Re-examining HS2 was probably a no-brainer. Reliable estimates are that the cost is up to £100billion and it will almost certainly over-run. The London Cross Rail hasn't helped, it is suffering from the same problem.
How about doing the same at Hinkley Point?
On more roads David... The problem is that Parkinson's Law operates and traffic density automatically increases to fill the space created. We have to stop the increase in cars and that will probably be done soon by pricing the family motorist out of the market.
Later... See THIS BBC account of MPs latest opinions on decarbonisation. This was the key sentence I noted; "In its report, the committee said: “In the long-term, widespread personal vehicle ownership does not appear to be compatible with significant decarbonisation.”"

[plaques]

We have to stop the increase in cars and that will probably be done soon by pricing the family motorist out of the market.

Must get myself a private jet. Buy a large acreage of land. Plant some trees and say I'm carbon neutral.

[Wendyf]

There was an item on the local news last night about a company who will bury a bag of charcoal for you to offset your carbon usage. Apparently burning wood to make charcoal and then burying it is much better than growing trees.
Oh and you can buy pretend fried eggs made from soya which are much better for you and the planet than real eggs.

[Stanley]

Both those posts illustrate what is a very common modern syndrome, the cunning wheeze that looks plausible to some but doesn't make a damn of difference. I class the whole hysterical movement against domesticated animals advocated by people who have no concept of what constitutes good farming and soil management as a plausible cunning wheeze. Science isn't much help here because we have not done enough research into the role of micro biological and chemical constituents of soil. I suspect that when we eventually do get an understanding of these mechanisms we will realise that the old fashioned mixed farming advocates were right all the time and a big element of that system is the recycling of animal manure.

[Tizer]

To take offsetting to its logical conclusion, rich people could eat oodles of meat by paying poor people to eat only vegetables. You could pay me to drive at only 50mph on the motorway so that you could drive legally at 90. Etc, etc...

[Stanley]

Off-setting is another cunning wheeze. Planting a forest doesn't mean it is AOK to book a flight on Virgin Galactic at a cool quarter of a million.

[Stanley]

The Headingley miracle......

[Stanley]

Johnson and Johnson fined $570,000 for encouraging the use of opioids in the US.... The tip of an iceberg I fear.

[Tizer]

This sounds like a good way to test and develop equipment for driverless cars...
`The robo racing cars accelerating driverless tech' LINK