We might have a creaking tube system, but at least we can now get to the Olympic Park from King’s Cross in less time than it takes a cappuccino to cool.  But at what cost?  Will Twirly cards be valid?

In times past  the engine would have been built in Swindon or the West Midlands but at least a service based economy like ours can more easily operate from home via broadband during a pandemic.

As The Times reported today:

High-speed Olympic ‘Javelin’ train service launched

Ashling O’Connor, Olympics Correspondent

Few things in Hackney reach speeds of up to 125mph legitimately. That changed yesterday when Olympic chiefs successfully orchestrated the first trial of a super-express train service linking St Pancras and the Olympic Park in East London.

The target was to reach Stratford International, 5.6 miles (9km) along a purpose-built high-speed track, in less than seven minutes — three years before the opening ceremony on July 27, 2012.

The fear of failure was palpable around the Champagne Bar as athletes including Tom Daley, the newly crowned world champion diver, joined dignitaries and the media for the most high-profile test to date of London’s £9.3 billion Olympic project.

As 2012 officials laughed nervously at the ominous departure point on Platform 13, sceptical reporters boarded the Javelin ready to gloat when the train broke down in time-honoured British fashion………

Green Man gets a final haircut. 

Lady from a company called Pre Construct Archeology out surveying the Lee towpath – looking for sites which need to be preserved during the construction of the Olympiad facilities in the Lee valley.

Such sites include the place where the first Uk aeroplanes were constucted by A V Roe.

A difficult decision when Grandma likes to relax at the end of the day with the Times’ Polygon word puzzle and Grandpa wants the Telegraph because all this week there is a free Paddington Bear CD.

Happily marital harmony can be maintained via the The Times Online.

Polygon: March 26

Using the given letters no more than once, make as many words as possible of three or more letters, always including the central letter. Capitalised words, plurals, conjugated verbs (past tense etc), adverbs ending in LY, comparatives and superlatives are disallowed. How you rate: 11 words, average; 15, good; 19, very good; 23, excellent.

Friday’s answers: acara, amtrac, atman, cant, carat, cart, catamaran, cram, cran, maar, mana, manat, manta, mantra, maraca, maranta, marc, mart, narc, rant, rata, tarmac, tarn, tram

When I read this headline in today’s Times I began to wonder whether I had picked up The Sun by mistake.   Then I got cross at such a ludicrous piece of journalism.  But maybe I’ve been done a favour.  Riding a bike in London can be hair-raising at times.  If motorists suspect that I could be a bomber they might give me a bit more road.

The headline also made me think of ‘ Man bites dog’ journalism.  * Wikipedia has an interesting entry on this subject which made me think that the reason for this headline was that the scribbler thought that bombings in the UK had become such a frequent event that he or she needed to add something unusual to the story to make it newsworthy.  As Private Eye says,  “Shurely some mistake.”

Happily the squirrel decided to have a go at the sunflower head I rescued from him in the summer and having put it aside for winter feed for the birds, hung up on the wire last week.  The birds ignored it so I didn’t mind him having a go today.  As he tightrope walked along the wire he provided the entertainment and interest lacking in The Times.  Should I have headed this blog, “Non-cyling squirrel eats sunflower?”  Or, “Squirrel influences rural depopulation in mid-Wales?”

* “The phrase Man bites dog and the related phrase Dog bites man are used to describe a phenomenon in journalism, in which an unusual, infrequent event is more likely to be reported as news than an ordinary, everyday occurrence. This can be explained by the fact that the news media generally considers an event more newsworthy if there is something unusual about it. On the other hand, a situation which is completely normal is unlikely to be taken as newsworthy. The result is that it may seem that news items which carry titles such as “Man Bites Dog” occur more often that those which carry ones such as “Dog Bites Man”. The remarkable thing is that the observation can be made even though examples of the latter occur far more frequently than the former.

The phrase comes from a quote attributed to New York Sun editor John B. Bogart: “When a dog bites a man, that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news.”^[1]“

Swans happily gliding along the River Lee in North London oblivious to the fact that a few yards away to the East of the river work has already started on the site of the Olympic Park.

To create this first test pit earth moving vehicles have been traversing the well used cycle route dropping lumps of mud as they go.  Will the cycle route survive the actual construction work?

On 06 February it was a nice sunny day in London.  On that day and on the two previous days the foxes had been out sunning themselves for most of the day.  if you look carefully at the centre of this picture you will see one of them snoozing on the bank.

Then on Thursday 08 February the weather forecasters were amazingly accurate and it started to snow, as predicted, at about 5 am.

By 8:30 am the view of the garden had changed to this,

and the road was looking like this.     

Then the winging started on Radio, TV  and in the papers.   Why can’t London be like New York and Moscow where they manage to clear the snow within minutes and their traffic does not come to a halt within seconds of the first flakes hitting the ground?

The simple answer is that we could.  We would need to close a few  hospitals and invest in snow clearing plant which on average would be used once every ten years – and sit idle for nine.

No, we prefer to keep the hospitals open and have an unofficial public holiday when the snow comes – far more sensible.  Oh and it enables the drivers of Chelsea tractors to sooth their environmentally seared consciences and claim that they really do need their gas guzzling monstrosities.

Pictures taken on 03 February 2007.

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?