aethilundain.org

It wouldn’t be a problem if we all did our bit.

Walking along the cliff again from Borth to Aberystwyth last week I realised that a broken wall surrounding the point where a stream meets the sea must have been built to form a small dam.  I wondered what the purpose of the dam was.  I couldn’t see any signs of a water wheel which I thought it must have been built to serve.  Looking on the web later because I was interested to find out the purpose or history of the large adjacent house I discovered that another passer by had spotted possible evidence of an old hydro-electric plant,  http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/23367

Maybe the houseowner should now restore it as farmer in nearby Dinas Mawddwy has done? 

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/communitiessummit/show_case_study.php/00098.html

Dam, Wallog

Small dam across the stream by Wallog. Now broken through, it would originally have created a small reservoir behind. Remains of ironwork suggest it might have had early hydro-electric fittings?

When the Government build more prisons will they insist that sentencers fill them?

With our prisons filled to near capacity the government are facing a crisis.  On one night recently over 400 prisoners were being held in police cells.

Until new prisons can be built or the need for prison places declines, the problem is likely to continue. 

 There are many possible temporary solutions. 

One might be to alter the law to remove the immediate link between sentence and the carrying out of the sentence.  Offenders could be released temporarily and required to report to prison when a prison place is available.  After all, this is how the National Health Service operates. Or perhaps prisoners could purchase a reduction in the number of days they are required to serve in prison and the cash raised in this way used to build new prisons.  A new kind of I’m a celebrity let me out of here?

28 February and 01 March look like being a gastronomic tour de force.  Lunch at the Hotel de Crillon,    Paris on 28/2.  http://www.crillon.com/crillon.html

On 01/3 St David’s day dinner at the Savoy hotel, London. http://www.fairmont.com/savoy/

Perhaps I need to join a gym?

And the fare from London to Paris via Eurostar is a wrinkly special of £59 return  (non-flexible, non-refundable, no frills & push up the hills) - which is less than the taxes you would pay if you bought an airline ticket.

I telephoned (called) an airline today because I couldn’t understand why their web site didn’t offer me a routing that another web site offered.  The lady I spoke to told me that I should have selected a different option on their web site.  I should have selected “Multi CD”.

I couldn’t understand  what on earth a Compact Disc had got to do with my problem.  Then I realised (realiZed).

CD= City!

Child in Care Proceedings was asked to suggest alternative carers as he was to be removed from parents who beat him. 

“I’d like to be placed with a member of the English Cricket team.  They don’t beat anybody.”

After about 30 years in the planning and ten in the building, the new hospital in Euston road which replaces the University College and the Middlesex hospitals is open, though not complete.  The old Middlesex hospital has been closed for about six months and looks sad.  All the windows were quickly boarded up with thick sheets of plywood as the security guards took over pending its conversion into what will be very expensive superbly located residential units.

But not today!

As I cycled past the car park was fuller than it ever was - though with film unit trucks and not Consultants’ BMWs and Bentleys. 

The signs proclaimed it to be the Trafalgar Hospital - all in standard NHS layout and colours.  At a passing glance it looked as if the old Middlesex was reopening.

The giveaway though was the sign that proclaimed the very modest clamping release fee for unauthorised parkers.  £35!

Look out for the Trafalgar Hospital at a cinema near you - or perhaps in a TV soap.

The drive from Borth was OK - but the wipers went on as we left and were hardly off until we arrived home 230 miles later.

Stopped off at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Mach to try to pick up a few more ideas.  Problem is that it’s neither easy nor cheap to be green.  Reminds me that “You can tell the pioneers.  They’re the ones with arrows in their backs.”  Still, in the attempt to be good stewards of the planet’s resources we press on. 

Had thought that we could drop all rainwater and used water into one large tank and use that to flush loos and water the garden.  Apparently not.  Because of possible bacteria build up, bathwater can only be stored for 24 hours.

An interesting variation on the Thornton’s blog today.  In a free London newspaper a journalist complained of being propositioned after a party by a partner in a London law firm for whom he was writing some promotional material.  He got invited to the firm’s Christmas bash as a result.  later in the evening he says she invited him to accompany her to her office “to collect some papers”!  He says he declined.

Shouldn’t be hard to find out which firm he was working for and then to work out who was the partner concerned. 

If it proves to be impossible to select which of a group of partners propositioned him, he may get Writs from all of them!