In the 1950's, the city of Los Angeles had a streetcar system. It was ripped up and replaced by busses. NCL was an organisation formed to acquire streetcar facilities and NCL was owned by Firestone Tyres, General Motors, Standard Oil of California and Phillips Petroleum.
Perhaps in the 1950's, this de-railing of the streetcars didn't seem such a bad idea.

However, in London, in 2008, I would've thought London voters would have known better. Mayor Ken Livingstone bravely introduced the Congestion Charge. Personally, I have never needed dissauding from driving into London's city centre, even before the introduction of the Congestion Charge. It was hell to find a place to park and when you did, it cost a fortune, you could walk to where you were going, faster, than you could drive there.

Mayor Boris has scrapped the £25 charge for Chelsea Tractors. Apart from being total gas-guzzlers, they take up far more space than my modest 1.6L car. Are roads going to be enlarged to make room for these huge vehicles? I even saw a Chelsea Tractor that was so large that it couldn't even get into a car park!

The more sinister overtone for London is that Porsche's involvement in city politics. Well, the London voters apparently agree with Porsche and Boris?

Anglia Ruskin University the first 150 years!

Of course, we've only been entitled "university" since 1992. John Ruskin, the famous art critic, author and poet, opened, in 1858 , the School of Art in Sidney Street, Cambridge. Ruskin thus laid the foundation for what is today, Anglia Ruskin University.

In 1976, the Mid-Essex Technical College, merged with Brentwood College of Education to form the Chelmer Institute Of Higher Education.

A series of other changes took place and in 1992, Anglia Polytechnic University was born. Public perception of the term "polytechnic" was that this somehow subtracted from the university.

The title "Anglia Ruskin University" was granted by the Privy Council in 2005. Anglia Ruskin University seems to have more energy these days, perhaps because of this rebrand.

I enjoy working here. There's something very rewarding about being a part of providing resources and services to enable to students to gain their degree and realize their ambitions, make their dreams come true. Most importantly, in this ever increasingly competitive world of work, gaining a firmer foothold there and the confidence that goes with that.

You could say we're a dream factory!

Enviroment and how we save it

It occurred to me that I've said almost nothing about the environment. And you may wonder what the EU flag is to do with this. More about that, later.........

Like so many people, up and down the land, I'm still struggling, as I'm confronted with a myriad of different rubbish containers. Bags, wheelie bins, white sacks with pink writing, white sacks with green writing and little bins. I spend more time being informed what I can't put in, rather than what I can.
Oh yes, and they're about to ban plastic carrier bags from supermarkets. The reason is that that are bad for the environment.
"Oh, so what do I put my rubbish in then?" I asked.
"Black plastic bags"
"Ah yes, don't tell me, aisle 14, next to the Persil?"
"Now you're gettin' it!" winked the checkout lady.
So now I'm paying for black plastic bags that don't break down.
That'll help!

I have always agreed that something must be done. But this does my head in. Like anything new, we should expect to be on a learning curve.... (God! how I hate that expression! I hope I don't say "level playing field"..) I am sure that it's top of the agenda....

During the mid-seventies, I saw the firm I worked for throwing out wooden crates and burning them in a field behind the factory! A double tragedy. If they were intent on burning them, couldn't they at least burn them in a furnace attached to a generator?

If they generated greenhouses gas that way, at least this would be partly offset by the saved electricity. Even in those days, the Netherlands were racing ahead of us in adopting, what we now call carbon offsetting practices, in the workplace. The Dutch seemed to be able generate megawatts of power from almost any waste. Dear old England always said that it wouldn't work on this side of the North Sea. The main reason why it didn't work in Britain was that they never even bothered. So I guess they were right!

I joined Labour in 1982. My local party then talked endlessly about the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, fighting the Imperialist American-backed contras. I sided with the Sandinistas, sure, but I wasn't that sure how to get more local issues onto the floor. After the meetings, I asked the question. "How much better off are the people of Chelmsford, now, compared to before the meeting?" At least one was worse off. Labour meetings really did take place in smoke-filled rooms!

Neither Labour or Conservative governments of the day seemed remotely interested in adpoting the Netherland's energy saving practices. I don't recall any Liberal comment either. In many other European countries at that time, there was some movement of policies, that would be helpful in at least, slowing down the huge waste and environmental damage. But not dear old Britain.

In Britain, recycling, through the 80's and 90's, was still perceived to be very "brown rice, brown sandal brigade" led. Perhaps people were worried that they might have to re-use toilet paper? Britain, even today, is still the laziest recycler in Europe, despite any government spin to the contrary. To the government's credit though, there has been significant improvement.


Wind power.
Various people commented that wind power
would never work.
"We don't have enough wind in this country" they said.
"We do, just attach a wind turbine to the House Of Commons!"

I am very proud of that comeback!

http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp

They would still argue that in the 1970's we didn't have good enough technology. Probably true, but at least we would've known that the technology would improve in the future. We would be investing into a wind power infrastructure. The level of technology would've been more likely, even higher, as the research and development in the field is always better.

I am glad to see that these wind critic's arguments have been blown away!

Britain's record shows that no nation state can, alone, would be able to enact, enforce and most importantly, punish polluters. If the EU can take a central role in this, then we can, at least in Europe, look forward to the promise of environmental recovery.

Mars - we want the canals back!

This is the Mars I grew up with. There was a confidence that there was life up there. Mariner 4 put pay to all that. The pictures that came back seemed as though Mariner 4 had detoured to the Moon, or Mercury instead.

Ray Bradbury in his "Martian Chronicles" hinted at Martians having been there, being there when the astronauts finally landed on the red planet. Ray's book brought back my boyish vision of Mars, rather than the "real" one, gradually revealed by Mariner 4 and the other Mariners. I also read other tales about Mars written by Captain W.E. Johns "Return To Mars". I can't remember much about the book itself. I'm almost reluctant to re-read it, in case it destroys my precious image of it, consisting of the rexine bound and lavishly coloured drawings I can just recall from it.

The black lines you see in my experimental colour pencil drawing, (to remind myself how I did it!), were once thought to be canals, built by intelligent Martians to irrigate their exceedingly arid planet. Imagine. Martians investing in a planet-wide irrigation system. How much money would that need?

Later, Viking 1 and 2 actually landing on surface of Mars! Wow! I am so honoured that I witnessed the Apollo 11 landing on the Moon.

Think about it. I witnessed humankind setting foot on to the surface of another world. And hopefully, I should still be alive when humankind land on Mars. These are events that no other generation will ever witness. Sure, we'll land on other planets of our solar system and later, of other stars.

I just hope we don't ever "know" to much.

Moon Conspiracy Theories

I'm surprised that this still persists. There are still people who believe we never set foot on the Moon. There are a number of things that baffle me, if what the conspiracy theorists say, is true. The alternate events posed by the conspiracy theorists would require a level of secrecy which would be extremely difficult to maintain.

The radio signals that were used to communicate were in the high VHF/low UHF band. Analogue, this was years before digital and so perfectly accessible to all of the best equipped amateur radio operators all over the world, except those of course on the wrong side of the planet. What would be in it for the amateur radio operators to be quiet about the alleged hoax?

Surely, at the height of the Cold War, it must've crossed the minds of the Soviet government in Moscow to check where the signal was really coming from? If an HF radio signal, allegedly coming from the Moon, wasn't coming from the Moon, even a high school student with suitable radio rig would soon know that the signal wasn't coming from the Moon?

That being said, the Conspiracy Theorists are doing science a service. After all, ever since I heard about their claims, I've been checking and re-checking what I believe in. And that's got to be a good thing.