In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz I have decided to include pictures from my visit there in 2008. If this provokes discussion then it will have served its purpose to raise and maintain awareness of the holocaust and help stop the declaration “Nie Wieder” [Never Again] fading from memory.
You can find it here.
A selection of pictures taken during my three month trip to India in 1998, together with my account of the trip, “The Indian Newsletters”.
It’s scary just how many films I haven’t heard of, let alone seen in 2019. Anyway, this BBC review will help you catch up in 2020.
So here are the films they saw fit to review:
How many have you seen? There are 45 listed here, less than one a week!
My Google Maps timeline for 2019 – 28,010 miles in total.
What’s that? “Carbon offset” you say? Yes, I’m working on it!
“What about 2020 then?”. Iceland, China and Russia. Probably.
Natasha Thoday presents the case for maintaining a nuclear power element of world electricity supply as the only viable means of meeting demand whilst at the same time eliminating fossil fuel use and mitigating the variability of renewable energy supplies. The stark conclusion is that we will require more electricity from nuclear power than even the nuclear industry itself is suggesting, based on the Harmony Report which is remarkably vague about exactly what the non-nuclear element will comprise.
“This paper is an urgent call for political actors, parties and their networks in the UK to establish a robust long-term statutory framework to create the “Ultimate Power Couple” a Pro-Nuclear electricity generation partnership with Wind Water & Solar renewable energy in recognition that it is the physical world, of science, maths and engineering that determines what is politically possible, not the other way round. All the evidence presented and analysed here below, very strongly suggests there is an urgent need for such a new state supported industrial partnership to be formed: a) to create tens of thousands of new jobs building domestic infrastructure; b) to expand UK technology exports; and c) ensure immediate and ongoing action to realise and sustain these outcomes.“
Click here to download the full report.
About the author
Natasha graduated in 1982 specialising in 3D design, and worked in industry designing spiral staircases, and high end audio (vacuum tube, horn speaker & vinyl turntables).
She has written & filed 2 patents, rebuilt a 5 storey terraced house, is a secondary, further & higher education teacher, special educational needs (EBD & ASD), was diving officer at University of Brighton Sub Aqua club for a decade, and worked as a whale shark spotter at Ningaloo reef during 1 year tour of SE Asia’s wrecks & reefs.
In 2001 she completed a Post Graduate Diploma, Business Research, (first of two year MA Change Management), University of Brighton, throughout the early 2000’s active in Brighton’s multi agency Home Office funded Anti Victimisation Initiative (AVI), participated in University of Brighton ‘Count Me In’ research, wrote and won several high profile employment tribunal cases supported by (former) statutory body (EOC), in 2007 helped set up Transition Town Brighton, in 2011 helped Occupy Brighton.
Since 2013 Natasha’s been running a local electronic musicians collective that regularly puts on synthesiser jams and DJ gigs.
Since 2014 she’s been advocating for local people the ASD spectrum, helped secure local authority housing and written and won disability (PIPs & ESA) appeals.
In 2015 Natasha completed the University of Cumbria MA equivalent online (MOOC) course Money & Society.
Submersion video re-released with enhanced graphics.
Inventor and entrepreneur Carl Nicholson has revealed details of a new technology which promises to revolutionise the way we combat both global warming and ozone layer depletion in one device. Called RAM for “Reverse Armageddon Machine”, the device extracts carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and converts it into diamonds and ozone using solar energy alone. The massively negative carbon footprint of the prototype is mooted to be forty kilograms of carbon removed per megawatt-hour of solar energy, producing four million dollars worth of industrial quality diamonds and over a hundred kilogrammes of eighty percent pure ozone (the other twenty percent being oxygen) every day.
This highly guarded secret will be made public when trials finish next year and he applies for worldwide patents. In the meantime Nicholson says he is working on refinements which will allow the percentage of ozone to be varied from zero to one hundred percent. Sources close to him also suggest that he is on the verge of using the device to produce gem quality diamonds. He won’t comment on this, but it is understood at the moment that this is a much slower and less cost-effective process. He says he is more interested in a deal with the airlines to deliver ozone to depleted areas of the planet and is prepared to use some of the profits from the diamonds to achieve this. He is already in talks with Richard Branston of Maiden Atlantic and Michael O’Flaherty of Bryan Air.
So, is this the philosopher’s stone or the cold fusion of global warming? We asked a few top people in the field what they knew and thought about Nicholson’s claims for RAM. Scientists at MIT, Oregon were sceptical. They say they’ve been working on a similar device, but the ozone yield is much lower and they haven’t been able to produce diamonds at all. They doubt it is possible to create the pressures needed to produce diamonds using the kind of technology the RAM team describes. They are also doubtful about the performance of the catalysts used to convert oxygen to ozone and vice versa. Professor Alan Bentall, of the Cambridge School of Mines said “This is a load of hype to raise the share price before selling out to some diamond mining company.” and went on to add “On the other hand, if there is anything in it [RAM] then it is a serious threat to the diamond industry and worth a great deal of money. I don’t think he [Carl Nicholson] knows the kind of people he is dealing with.” The jury is still out on what Nicholson will do if the technology actually works, but now the Pandora’s box is well and truly open it is only a matter of time before something serious happens.
Be a responsible student.
This is a Chinese copy of a Russian tank, bought by Pakistan and captured by India in the 1971 war. This is surely the very model of international relations – why can’t it all be that simple?
British Airways crews at the Brighton i360 are demanding parity with their short-haul flight colleagues. “Not only do they get paid more than us, they get more perks, such as foreign travel and discount flights.” said a spokesperson at an emergency meeting convened by the conciliation service ACAS.
Crews are threatening to stop operations with a full complement of “passengers” aloft and leave them there till management agrees to further talks. One senior BA executive was overheard saying “If they think they’ve got us over a barrel by stranding fifty people in an oversize cock ring 160m off the ground they can f*ck right off.” The CEO was unavailable for comment.
