current affairs, environment, ramblings

HS2 (again)

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Lord (Tony) Berkeley writes a regular column in the Railway Magazine. In the July issue he once again takes a very scathing look at HS2. The article isn’t online but here are a few key extracts:

Head in sand over escalating HS2 costs

New Civil Engineer reports design elements for one of the main design and construct contracts let for the civil works were coming in at 18% over the target price, up from £6.6billion to £7.8bn.

… some bids were as much as 30% to 40% higher than their individual target price.

… the project is probably running three to four years late, even before any serious work on the ground has started. Other estimates from along the route indicate the project is held up because the purchases of the necessary land and additional areas needed for accommodation works are late.

Has HS2 allowed for the cost of diverting a 12in-diameter fuel pipe a dozen times along the route? Have they applied to the National Grid for the necessary power supply for the trains and for the required capital cost contribution to build the necessary power station capacity? Have they allowed for the cost of driving piles to support 20km of double slab track in the mushy ground of the Trent Valley?

I have asked many questions in the Lords since that time and have always been told the funding
envelope of £23.73bn at 2015 prices is still valid.

Given what we are now discovering there seems to be every reason to suppose the out-turn cost of Phase 1 will be a lot closer to £50bn than the DfT’s £25bn.

Surely it is time to reflect on why ministers continue to allow HS2 to have a blank cheque to spend what they like – a figure likely to reach more than £100bn if Phases 2A and 2B are included – while at the same time starving Network Rail of any investment …

It is all investment in the railway and there are many who believe £100bn could make a massive
difference to improving the present network in a greater number of beneficial ways.

Now we know that Tony Berkeley is a powerful voice in the rail freight side of the industry (so he’s not totally unbiased), but he is also a respected civil engineer. Even if half of what he says were to stand up to scrutiny (and from what I’ve read I’m unsure about the cost figures quoted) then it is yet another damning condemnation of this benighted government.

HS2 is a vanity project, pure and simple. It is government “willy waving” on a massive scale. See, for instance, this in the Spectator, this and this in the Daily Mail.

And all of that is without the environmental damage HS2 will do – as the Woodland Trust and the National Trust highlight.

Isn’t it time for everyone to come clean and admit that we just cannot afford HS2? Environmentally or financially. If nothing else, wherever the money is supposed to be coming from, it just isn’t there. Not when we have such a huge public debt. Not now, and certainly not after Brexit.

amusements, personal

Ten Things

Ten Things this month takes a brief look at where the money goes.

Ten Things I’ve Bought in the Last Month:

  1. Top hat
  2. Bacon sandwich
  3. Army regiment cap badge
  4. 18 bottles of wine
  5. Sausages
  6. Pelargoniums
  7. Peach Schnapps
  8. Indian restaurant lunch
  9. Petrol
  10. Train tickets
amusements, personal

Another Meme

Another meme, courtesy AJB on Facebook. It’s almost inevitably a variant on previous ones but is about the height of my abilities today.

  1. What was the last thing you put in your mouth? Toothbrush, toothpaste, water.
  2. Do you sleep naked? Of course. Why would anyone not? It’s just so much more comfortable, even in winter.
  3. Worst physical pain in your life? Post-knee replacement.
  4. Worst emotional pain of your life? Break-up with my first long-term girlfriend.
  5. Favourite place you have ever been? Probably Dungeness.
  6. How late did you stay up last night? I crashed about 11pm.
  7. If you could move somewhere else, where would it be? Lots of contenders outside London: Dungeness, Rye, Lyme Regis, Norwich.

    8. Prospect Cottage, Dungeness
    Derek Jarman’s Prospect Cottage, Dungeness [© KCM]

  8. Which of your Facebook friends lives the closest? Noreen – she’s less than 10 feet away!
  9. When was the last time you cried? Probably last year?
  10. Who took your profile picture? Me.
  11. What’s your favourite season? Late-spring/early-summer.
  12. If you could have any career what would it be? Dilettante researcher, looking at whatever I feel like and being paid handsomely for doing it.
  13. What was the last book you read? I’ve several books in progress, but the last one I finished was Gesshin Claire Greenwood, Bow First, Ask Questions Later. Here’s my review.
  14. If you could talk to anyone right now, who would it be? My mother.
  15. Are you a good influence? I do hope not.
  16. Does pineapple belong on a pizza? No, and neither does peach, or chicken.
  17. You have the remote, what show will you be watching? Nothing.
  18. Two people who you think will play? I hope no-one is so stupid.
  19. Last concert you went to? It’s so long ago I don’t have a clue.
  20. Favourite type of food? Lots of contenders, but I’ll go for curry.

Join in if the mood takes you.

food+drink, personal

Rosé d’Amour!

Some while back I wrote about the Tavel Rosé, Richard Maby’s Prima Donna, I’d bought from the Wine Society. We continue to enjoy it. In fact it gets better as the supply has now moved on from the 2016, which is what I wrote about, to the 2017 vintage.

And yes, the 2017 is even better than the 2016. It is a little paler in colour, but if anything bursting with even more red berry fruits – especially raspberry.

Now the Wine Society have very recently got what was obviously a small parcel of Maby’s new Tavel, the 2016 Libiamo. I grabbed a case of six without hesitation.

At £17 a bottle Libiamo is significantly more expensive than the Prima Donna, at a mere £11. But if I thought the Prima Donna was good, Libiamo is just out of this world. It’s the same deep coloured rosé, with the same burst of red berry fruits. But oh! how the oak barrels in which it is aged come through: as a delightful ambiance of dry sherry. So much dry sherry that it almost feels like a fortified wine – which is brilliant. We were both stunned!

We’ve just drunk a bottle with a quite rich spaghetti with prawns in a sun-dried tomato pesto sauce. They went so well together; the richness of each complementing the other.

No wonder Libiamo is already sold out! I can only hope there will be further supplies!

environment, history, links, medical, science

Monthly Links

There’s again a lot in this month’s round up of items you may have missed the first time. So here goes …

Science, Technology & Natural World

Maglev trains have been around for a surprisingly long time, so why aren’t they ubiquitous?

Inter-species hybrids were once looked on as just biological misfits, but science is now coming to appreciate their importance for evolution. [LONG READ]

Did you know that witches’ brooms grow on trees? You do now!

Tidal power is supposed to be able to provide a significant percentage of the world’s energy needs, but a close look suggests it won’t. [£££]

Health & Medicine

Here’s a little about how Moorfields Eye Hospital in London really has changed the world.

It’s only a matter of time before we get the next major pandemic. An American-centric look at our preparedness? [VERY LONG READ]

The medical profession prescribe a lot of opioid painkillers. But are they all they’re cracked up to be, and would we miss them if they weren’t there?

Restoring life using CPR is brutal and rarely works. So why do people have so much faith in it and demand resuscitation at all costs?

Against most specialists expectations there’s work going on to develop a single vaccination to prevent several common cancers. It’s about to start a major trial in dogs.

While we’re on cancer, the placenta may just give us insights into cancer treatment – it’s just one of nine ways the placenta is so amazing. [£££]

Scientific American recently asked “When Does Consciousness Arise in Human Babies?”

Did you know you have an “inverse piano” in your head? Well actually there are two and they’re in your ears.

Finally in this section, Fred Pearce in the Guardian, takes another look at the real fallout from the Fukushima Dai-ichi disaster.

Sexuality

Why was it ever in doubt that women can have multiple orgasms?

Environment

Here are two articles on the length of time it takes garbage to decompose. The first is fairly general; the second gives us the following graphic looking at plastic and other rubbish in the sea.

And while we’re on plastic, Annie Leonard in the Guardian says that the “plastic crisis” is too big to be solved by recycling alone.

The Woodland Trust are understandably – and quite rightly – angry at Network Rail’s apparent plans to clear trees from railway embankments.

Social Sciences, Business, Law

History tells us that all cultures have their sell-by date, so has the West’s time come and are we on the brink of collapse?

Oxford and Cambridge Colleges own a bigger portfolio of property than Church of England.

The rail industry are running a public consultation on rail fare structure prior to submitting proposals to the government. Do have your say.

History, Archaeology & Anthropology

Aethelflaed: A Saxon warrior queen who was out to vanquish the Vikings.

London

Layers of London is a super resource which allows you to overlay a number of old maps on the current street plan of London. One of the best is the Tudor layout of 1520. IanVisits takes a look.

Lifestyle & Personal Development

So just why are Dutch teenagers among the happiest in the world? And couldn’t we learn something from their approach?

Here’s Zen Master and writer Brad Warner contemplating the problem of spirituality, religion, the ego and intellectual honesty. It is readable, and well worth a read.

Meanwhile the Guardian (again!) reports that UK homes vulnerable to a staggering level of corporate surveillance from smart TVs, smartphones, laptops, security cameras etc.

Shock, Horror, Humour

And finally, just because it isn’t 1st April … a prep school in Derbyshire has lost its Bakewell pudding in space. So very careless!

More next month!

current affairs

Civil Partnerships

So, yesterday the UK’s Supreme Court ruled that allowing only same-sex couples to have a civil partnership was discriminatory. See, for example, the BBC News report.

Well what a surprise! Surely this was so easily foreseeable by even the most intellectually challenged politician.

So on top of everything else they have to worry about, the government now have to do something – although they will naturally drag their heels as long as they can, and probably until someone takes then to court again because they’ve done nothing. They have a track record, after all.

But really, where is the problem? Isn’t the answer so very simple?

  1. Every couple, whether same-sex or mixed-sex, should be entitled to a civil ceremony. I don’t care what you call it: civil partnership or marriage they are essentially identical. This should be the default arrangement which grants partnership rights as “marriage” (in it’s multifarious forms) does now. And it should be a purely civil occasion, like current “registry office” weddings.
  2. If the couple desire a religious element to their conjunction, then they can have whatever church, temple, synagogue, mosque they choose (and which will play along) give them a separate religious ceremony. Just as some couples now have a civil wedding and a blessing in church.

Just what were the politicians thinking of in making the current mess in the first place?

Gawdelpus!