Wind turbines can't cope with UK weather as 3 more blown to pieces | Mail Online

via dailymail.co.uk

The impact of the devastating weather which has swept the country is shown by the state of these wind turbines - which couldn't withstand the strength of the gales.
The huge blades - 15ft long - flew off three turbines including one on the aptly-named Windmill Lane in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.
The firm which made the turbines in the Hepworth and Upper Cumberworth areas of the town has promised a full investigation.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2083149/Wind-turbines-cope-UK-weather...

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UK Democracy in Action

UK Politicians set to go to war on a jaded UK populace. Wouldn't it be good to be one of the Corgi's

Childhood Reminiscences

Browsing the intertubes last night I came across Geograph which has the goal of taking a photo of every square kilometre of the UK. It is the sort of site that you could spend hours and hours on and fitted my mood for that time. My short visit picked up many of the farms from my childhood and this photograph of Teuchats Crossroads, just down the road from where I grew up. 

Where the white building is, used to be the blacksmiths where the old man used to shoe the horses with his huge manual bellows breathing into the charcoal fire. My mum, who couldn't drive used to take us for long walks and we got to know the area very well. Later in life he used to come down the hill from his house on his bike without brakes. There was a skid mark in the verge for a good way down the hill as he used his foot to slow down. The bus also used to run between St Andrews and Leven and stopped at the corner when I used to visit my Grandmother in St Andrews. This was where I made my first bike rides to and from my house and where we went for winter walks with my mum and where people from out of the area used to come to park their cars and have some nukie. And we drove over this road to see the moon landing at Teuchats Farm on grainy black and white television in the late 60s.

So many memories for a short stretch of road. 

Thanks Geograph and Jim Bain who took the photograph. Turns out his kids went to the same High School as me in St Andrews. A few years later I think. 

The Demise of Woolworths

As the Woolworths brand continues apace here in Australia with plans to buy consumer entertainment group JB HiFi, having already cornered a big part of the grocery, liquor, petrol, hotel and pub markets in the great Australian duopoly/monopoly theory of capitalism, UK Woolies is on the chopping block for the cost of a modest bag of pick 'n mix.

Woolworths was always a very familiar place during my childhood and many Scottish High Streets can be marked in my memory by Woolworths as an anchor tenant. They have been doing business in the UK for almost a century. It will be a devastating black hole and a very visible reminder of a business strategy gone bad.

'I quite like Woolies, but basically it's all just a bit crap isn't it?' says one browser, Steve, as he leaves empty-handed. A woman is buying plastic coathangers; another is discussing Advent calendars with a member of staff; and a boy is briefly mesmerised by a musical Santa which dances and plays the saxophone, before his mother drags him away. At the till, two young women lean with their chins in their hands, chatting to the security guard.

It wasn't always like this: Woolies once had a shop on every British high street and a special place in the hearts of millions of bargain-hungry shoppers. It was famous for selling anything from sixpenny toys to brown paper and string.

My grandmother used to love to browse around Woolworths for a bargain. I don't get the feeling that this generation values that shopping experience quite as much. Rather, a more focused offer is important.

Sad all the same.

Murder Tipped to Be Demonstration Olympic Sport in 2012

 

London Mayor Boris Johnson waves the flag for 2012

The London Olympic Organisers are not looking so hot with a really crap show in Peking and Myra Hindley, the Moors Murderer, showcased at the Ra Ra UK event afterwards with Da Mayor and Gordon the Grumpy Celt on stage.

At least we won the Brag Rights with the Former British Empire topping the table.


Sucked in Commies.

Thanks Mr Eugenides.

Beryl Cook

I always liked Beryl Cook.

There was always an innocent nautiness in her work and a very fun accessibility to her art.

Beryl Cook, one of Britain's most popular and most recognisable artists, has died aged 81, at her home in Plymouth. Once described by Victoria Wood as "Rubens with jokes", Cook portrayed a world of innocent naughtiness that divided critics but established her as a firm favourite with the public, who never tired of the cards and reproductions of her work.

Her private life was nothing like the pub life that she portrayed so accurately.

Yet the critics hated her: Time Out refused to include her exhibitions in its listings and the Tate never bought one of her paintings. Brian Sewell said of her art: "It doesn’t have the intellectual honesty of the Pig and Whistle. It has a kind of vulgar streak which has nothing to do with art."

Yet infuriatingly for the artistic establishment, her paintings, (produced at a rate of about one a fortnight) commanded up to £20,000 apiece; even more infuriating was that Beryl Cook herself seemed to share their low opinion of her own work. “I know there are some artists who look down on my work,” she said, “and when you compare mine with some of the others, I can see what they’re getting at.”

People invariably wanted to know whether Beryl Cook was fat like her paintings. In fact she was neither fat nor jolly, but thin, almost pathologically shy and extremely neurotic, so much so that several interviewers concluded that her painting was an outlet for the repressed desires and emotions she never dared to express.

She had a disconcerting habit of laughing uncontrollably when uneasy; disabled people or dwarves would reduce her to wheezy hysterics and she could not sit in an audience at a theatre without bursting into fits of nervous giggles. Not surprisingly she rarely gave interviews and never attended private views or publicity events for her own work.

She even refused to go up to London to see the Queen when she was awarded an OBE.

She brought a lot of joy to a lot of people and it seems, more than a little teeth nashing and negative chattering by Art Toffs. Her legacy is way beyond those people now.

Revisiting My Primary School Readers

Some of my old primary school readers have been updated to reflect important contemporary issues. Where did all that bed rock of trust personified by the likes of Dixon of Dock Green go?

Not having lived in the UK for over twenty years I am surprised at some of the current police practices.










I actually had this book. I can remember some of the illustrations. Nothing in here about guarding Olympic Torches. Very clever. My brother sent these in an email, so no idea who the clever insurgents are. You can see them all here.

Brits Bail Out

Australia and New Zealand received over 100,000 immigrants from the UK out of a total of about 400,000, as many as France as Spain in the last year. During that period almost 600,000 people moved in. This is the largest rush for the doors since 1991.

Perhaps we can expect even higher numbers next year as Brits become more frustrated with a seven day summer (over 3 months). Happy Sunny Bank Holiday Weekend residents of that soggy place. Glad you have been able to find some sunny weather wherever you are.

I can confirm that it took me many months living in Colorado when I first emigrated to get used to the sun being out every day during the summer and fall. It stayed that way for the rest of the day. We have the same weather here in Adelaide at the end of winter at the moment as parts of the UK. 25 degrees and sunny is the forecast for today. It would be hard to go back to the UK weather and I am not sure I could cope with my Australian family moaning about how cold and wet it is.

Cross posted at the Wardman Wire.