Monthly Archives: February 2009

Seeing the light!

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Independent: Nuclear power? Yes please…

Britain must embrace nuclear power if it is to meet its commitments on climate change, four of the country’s leading environmentalists—who spent much of their lives opposing atomic energy—warn today.

The one-time opponents of nuclear power, who include the former head of Greenpeace, have told The Independent that they have now changed their minds over atomic energy because of the urgent need to curb emissions of carbon dioxide.

They all take the view that the building of nuclear power stations is now imperative and that to delay the process with time-consuming public inquiries and legal challenges would seriously undermine Britain’s promise to cut its carbon emissions by 80 per cent by 2050…

Mr [Stephen] Tindale, who ran Greenpeace for five years until he resigned in 2005, has taken a vehemently anti-nuclear stance through out his career as an environmentalist. “My position was necessarily that nuclear power was wrong, partly for the pollution and nuclear waste reasons but primarily because of the risk of proliferation of nuclear weapons,” Mr Tindale said…

“My change of mind wasn’t sudden, but gradual over the past four years. But the key moment when I thought that we needed to be extremely serious was when it was reported that the permafrost in Siberia was melting massively, giving up methane, which is a very serious problem for the world,” he said.

“It was kind of like a religious conversion. Being anti-nuclear was an essential part of being an environmentalist for a long time but now that I’m talking to a number of environmentalists about this, it’s actually quite widespread this view that nuclear power is not ideal but it’s better than climate change,” he added.

Hale and well Med!

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Times: Holy mackerel! It’s not the oily fish that makes those Mediterraneans live for ever

… [Real contributory factor to the healthy Meditteranean lifestyle No. 3:] People in the Mediterranean hate cats. Marauding hordes of scraggy strays fill the streets of the Mediterranean, and why? Because people in the Med view cats, quite correctly, as rubbish, midget failure-lions, riddled with disease and vermin. In the UK, on the other hand, we look at that CV – and invite the creatures into our houses, for meat and catnip. One day, we will discover that cholesterol is caused by kittens, and a revolution will occur.

God endorses Darwin!

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It was like something out of The Blues Brothers (my all-time favourite film, incidentally). The London Natural History Museum yesterday afternoon:

Darwin bathed in light, the Great Hall, Natural History Museum

Cue the celestial music! Statue of Charles Darwin, bathed in heavenly light!

If I’m totally wrong, and there really is someone up there, He’s probably trying to tell us something…

Looks as if God endorses Darwin!

Northern Song

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An acoustic rehearsal by Calvin Party:

[Video removed by YouTube user.]

True story: I once had a conversation with the chap in glasses while we were both having a pee at the Hebden Bridge Trades Club. In those days, his band was the rather wonderful Levellers 5. They eventually changed their name to avoid confusion with the rather more popular tree-hugging folk-rockers, The Levellers.

Yeah, I know, the pee: too much information.

We have the technology

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Just because I now can…

A big hello from your roving reporter at Pret a Manger in Liverpool. (Free wi-fi!)

Apparently, the crisps I just ate were made from 100% natural ingredients. Sounds great, but isn’t uranium 100% natural? I hope they’ve been tested on cats.

Just like Cary Grant

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Jen and I booked our next holiday yesterday. We’ve decided to pay a return visit to Florence. Cool place. But get this…

We’re going by train.

Yes, that’s right: train. All the way from Hippy Central to Florence, Italy.

Now, before we’re accused of being a couple of tree-huggers who naively think we can save the planet all on our own by refusing to fly, I think I should point out that such accusations are utter bollocks. We chose to take the train because:

  1. As far as we could work out, there are no direct flights to Florence from anywhere in the North of England.
  2. Even the direct flights from Gatwick to ‘Florence’ actually go to Pisa, so we’d still have to get the train (or fly) to Gatwick and then get the train from Pisa to Florence.
  3. We hate the hassle of travelling by plane. I mean really hate it. Whether the train is any less hassle remains to be seen—although somehow I doubt it.
  4. The last time we travelled to Florence, it was from Rome, First Class, on the train, and it was bloody fantastic (apart from the loud-mouthed elderly American lady in the seat opposite). This is the life, we said, supping our expresso coffees and joking that we should travel all the way to Italy by train next time.
  5. … OK, so this is the real reason why we are travelling by train: I have always secretly wanted to travel overnight in a sleeper train, like Cary Grant did as Roger O. Thornhill (mistakenly believed by the baddies pursuing him to be the elusive secret agent, George Kaplan) in one of my favourite films, North By Northwest. This, of course, would mean that Jen would have to play the role of Eva Marie Saint—which is no bad thing.

So much have I got into the North By Northwest spirit that, when I ordered our tickets over the phone yesterday, I was sorely tempted to give my name as Richard O. Carter, hoping that the woman at the other end of the line would ask me what the ‘O’ stood for: “Nothing,” I would reply, enigmatically—just like Cary Grant. But then it occurred to me that it would probably be best if the name on my ticket actually matched the one on my passport. Pesky border control!

So, anyway, that’s why Jen and I will be travelling to Italy by train. Because I secretly harbour ambitions to be Cary Grant in North By Northwest. It has nothing at all to do with saving the planet.

Which is a damn good job, as it’s a bloody expensive way to go about it.

See also: A-maize-ing