The summer’s test cricket programme is underway, and the purest form of the game, with the reassuring sponsorship of Waitrose, reasserts itself against those many upstart versions. But whether they play test cricket or T20, cricketers turn to essential and traditional tools, the most important of which is the bat. Older readers will recall the… Continue reading
Browsing Category Environment
Wild Highlands life in a year of changing weather
A Bird’s Eye View of a Highland Year, by John Lister-Kaye. Canon Gate, £14.99 hardback, £12.99 e-book. Any preconceptions I might have had that this would be the standard “Year in the life of” nature book were summarily dispelled on page 3 of the preface. John Lister-Kaye has run the study centre at Aigas in the… Continue reading →
Fine electric bus, but Milton Keynes cannot match Europe’s public transport
The latest easyJet magazine extols Milton Keynes. It is certainly a city of energy and achievement, and it deserves to be recognised as a pleasant place to live and work, just 30 minutes by fast train to London, even if it doesn’t have many interesting conventional tourism features. It is in a good central position… Continue reading →
Tidal lagoon in Swansea could power 100,000 homes
This blog was first published in the spring of 2013. Swansea has its second chance to lead the world. Will it take it? 206 years ago the city launched the world’s first passenger railway. This week (April 8, 2013) a consortium announced a £10m “investment offering” to fund its proposal to build a “tidal lagoon”… Continue reading →
Is Swansea’s tidal lagoon the new pinup renewable scheme?
It was the pinup renewable energy project of the early 2000s, a barrage across the mighty Severn estuary. Second highest tides in the world, providing enough clean, green power to provide 5% of the UK’s energy needs. And a new 11 mile (15 km) road and rail link between England and Wales as well. The… Continue reading →
The LED street light revolution cuts cost as well as carbon
LED streetlights have appeared in my village, one of the first pieces in the jigsaw which will depict a truly low carbon future, as seen from my doorstep. They come not so long after the first electric car was spotted here. While electric cars are still a better-off person’s indulgence, that essential street light above your… Continue reading →