WalesOnline - The Ugly Lovely City

Wind of change?

2009-02-24T15:35:37Z

Just heard veteran climatologist and gaia theory guru James Loveluck describe Germany's 11,000 wind turbines as "failed". He told Simon Mayo on Radio 5 the German turbines were only 17% efficient and needed to be backed up by coal fired power stations in East Germany and as a result the county is now putting out more C02 than before the massive investment in wind turbines was made.
Given the controversial nature of this subject and given the fact an application is about to be made for a vast wind farm at Mynydd y Gwair Common overlooking Swansea, should'nt those behind this scheme have a chat with Mr Loveluck first.
Or are they prepared to ignore him?
I'm not going to jump in one way or the other on this debate but if a respected climatologist and environmental thinker says wind turbines are a waste of time and money (he also pointed most turbines have 500ft of concrete at their base) and need to backed up by coal or gas fired power stations, thereby increasing CO2 emissions, should'tn our politiicians hold back a bit befiore pressing ahead with wind farms on a massive scale?

Erm

2009-02-24T15:35:37Z

Erm, now I've written that in the hysteria of Wales winning and Swansea being praised by the normally grumpy Sir Alex Ferguson, I feel bad about it.
Andy Goode can't help looking like Ian Anderson out of Jethro Tull and Inverdale can't help his eyes.
Sorry boys.

Andy Goode

2009-02-16T16:41:56Z

If England want to pick an outside half with a peculiar long but balding hairstyle who looks like a cross between Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, Bill Bailey and the mad bloke who asks you for money with a can of strong lager in his hand, then that's up to them.
But to allow Andy Goode to wear those seedy, black, fingerless gloves that make him look like one of the Sheriff of Nottingham's evil henchmen is taking it a bit far.
Come on England, stop him wearing the gloves.
it's creepy.
And come to think of it, John Inverdale looks like he could have a future in horror films. It's his eyes.

I just came back from sunny Portugal.

2008-11-04T14:27:39Z

It's the place where Swansea's Bonnie Tyler has a holiday home near Albufeira where her neighbour is Sir Cliff Richard.
I never realised until I went there though, how insanely proud the Portuguese (who are very nice people) are of cork.
On a visit comprising 25 journalists from Europe to Portugal, I found myself with the others inside the Museum of Cork near Faro, whre our guide had a clear obsession with everything cork.
Even after nipping out for a beer for half an hour when I got back, I found the guide was still goiing about everyday uses for cork (not just wine stoppers, but flooring etc) and there was a bit of an international incident when the guide claimed that cork dust was sprinkled into the paint on space shuttles to make it heat resistant.
A German journalist cracked at this point, shouting "Ze space shuttles made of wood? Nonsense."
"No, just the paint",came back the guide.
The exasperated visitor stormed out vowing "to phone Nasa now".
A colleague made an innocent remark that the Portuguese may have invented cork underpants and to his shock and horror the guide heard him and said "yes, we have cork underpants, come with me my British friend to the Cork shop".
And there they were, cork underpants, along with cork curtains, cork bedsheets and even a suit, made of cork.
As I looked out of the window and watched the German journalist dialling NASA on his mobile I looked back and watched the guide shaking what looked like a rather stiff headscarf.
"Guess what this is made out of", he shouted gleefully around the room.
"Eh, Cork?", everyone responded en masse.
Apart from that Portugal is fantastic. Warm sun, blue skies, (even in October) and relatively cheap beer with a coastline that's like a giant Gower peninsular and the seafood is spectacular and the people genuinely friendly.
Just give the Cork museum a miss.
Oh, and if you wake up in Faro with a headache on a Saturday morning, try not to have a bedroom overlooking the main square on Army Day like I did. The base drum can be very piercing after 20 minutes non-stop.

Captain Beany may lose all his elections and might have had his beanmobile impounded by the council.

2008-10-15T13:57:36Z

But he took on top people's store Selfridges....and won.
Captain Beany (he never allows anyone to call him by given name Barry, which he changed by deed-poll 15 years ago) of course had the foresight to take out a trade mark application (£200) on the name Credit Crunch as it applies to chocolate or chocolate products.
I pointed this out last week to a marble mouthed chap from the Chocolate Society (who produced Credit Crunch luxury chocolate for Selfridges even though Beany had the trade mark) and he said "Captain who?".
Obviously the powers that be at Selfridges (the store which coined the phrase 'The customer is always right') got in touch with marble mouth as this week the Chocolate Society has entered into an agreement with the good Captain, of Moorland Rd, Port Talbot (where he has his Bean Museum in his front room) and agreed to pay him 2% royalties for the use of the name on the Selfridges chocolates.
Why doesn't Captain Beany go into name thinking up instead of elections?

The pit

2008-09-12T15:00:48Z

A young labourer from Ammanford has been jailed this week for possessing more than 100,000 indecent images of children, some of them so bad an experienced police investigator was reduced to tears.
The sentencing judge, the very experienced Judge Michael Burr, rightly said that the people who make these films in the first place have "descended into the pit...."
It just beggars belief that people can do this to children aged as young as one for profit.
Why on earth aren't these people caught, surely there must be some trail from these grisly movies to the makers?

And.....

2008-09-10T09:25:10Z

And another thing, anyone worrying about global warming....don't.
According to weather statisticians (this info is freely available on the net) it has not globally warmed since 1998 a good ten years ago.
That is why politicians now refer to "climate change" so they cannot be challenged by anyone sensible enough to question most politicians' greenwashed outpourings.
Don't get me wrong, the sooner we move to a hydrogen economy the better as throwing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere when we do not have to is sheer vandalism.
But C02 is a fraction, a very small fraction of the many gases that make up the air we breathe so don't be panicked by politicians who cannot solve economic problems, knife crime or vandalism and claim to be planet savers instead.
Rant over.

Swansea Metro-oh

2008-09-10T09:08:20Z

I re-started five-a-side football this week after a break of four months due to a groin injury, usually associated with thoroughbred, highly paid professionals, but honestly they can happen to anyone.
The morning after my legs felt like a hand grenade had been thrown down them and gone off.
But the pain of that is nothing to the pain of hearing that the Swansea Metro (Bendy bus to everyone except Swansea Council) is making a trial run this week.
Why, oh why, has the centre of Swansea been reduced to the state it was in after the three-night blitz for the past few years just because of a joined up bus?
Why, oh why, could the council not just pay for two buses, one following the other, to provide more public transport. That way they would not have had to virtually demolish every road in the city centre, thereby threatening the livelihoods (already threatened by council sanctioned out-of-town developments) of city centre traders.
When this Metro does eventually start running how sure can people be that it will not, especially at night, be peopled by anti-social hoodies emulating Bebo style gangster poses and characters such as "the wild bunch", the group of drinkers who hang around Swansea Railway Station, seeking a free ride in the warm?
Yes, I know, I've gone grumpy as a result of the pain and the council is doing its best.
But honestly, just get two buses.

parking in Swansea

2008-09-02T16:08:41Z

So Swansea Council is bringing in "warning" tickets for people who park illegally...but soon the "real" parking tickets will be brought in, a whopping £70 for anyone who parks where they should'nt. Parking is already near impossible in Swansea's city centre so watch out because there is a lively team of 20 "civil parking enforcement officers" watching out for victims.
While there may not be dustballs blowing through the streets of Swansea's city centre yet does the council really think it is going to revive the fortunes of the city centre, already left reeling by major road works and the competition of council encouraged out-of-town stores left right and centre, by bringing in £70 fines?
I think not.

Club biscuits

2008-06-26T15:59:29Z

Yes, Club biscuits.
What happened to them. One minute they were my favourite, now I've suddenly realised they aren't there any more.
And on the subject of biscuits, Wagon Wheels gave me a terrrible allergy problem about a month ago.
I woke up one Saturday morning looking like a cross between Leslie Ash and Godzilla, my lips and eyes swollen up.
The only thing different I had eaten in the past 24 hours was Wagon Wheels which I bought from my local store.
I saw them and thought, 'Cor, Wagon Wheels, I haven't eaten them since the '70s'.
So I had them and ever since I've been mainlining on antihistamines.
I can't prove it was Wagon Wheels of course, in case the makers are thinking of taking me to court.
But they can't prove it wasn't their Wagon Wheels which started it. So there.

Still no sign of the crocodile at Pluck Lake.

2008-06-17T08:51:33Z

Which is just as well now the council is formally declare the land a development zone for the new snow centre.
If the crocodile is there, which I now admit is highly unliklely, wouldn't it be puzzled if on eventually leaving the water to look for food it wandered into a snow centre?
As well as things not spotted, there is no sight of an end to constant traffic hold ups in the Oystermouth Road - Tawe Bridge corridor, there is no sight of an end to the confusion over the new Leisure Centre's name, is it the LC or the LC2 (or is the 2 a "swan" symbol) and there is no sight to an end of the bad (globally warmed?) weather.
In fact Positive Weather Solutions (Wales' independent forecasters) and weather expert John Kettly say its nothing to do with climate change or global warming (people still use that expression even though it has not globally warmed since 1998) but it's just "a bad summer", caused by the failure of the Azores High pressure system to get up and going.
Apparently it happens regularly and instead of protecting us from weather systems running across the Atlantic if the high is not there we get a showery, sunny "traditional British" summer.
Another thing for the crocodile to get confused about.

global warming?

2008-06-09T09:07:56Z

Anybody worried about global warming should have seen the size of the hailstones falling on Swansea at lunchtime on Saturday.....they were enormous.

Not only, that, it was well into June, not far from midsummer's day and the hailstones (I got caught out in them) were ice cold.
And to make matters worse a weather forecast from Wales' independent forecasters Positive Weather Solutions says while we had a hot weekend (despite the odd appearance of hailstones) the remainder of June looks a bit "unsettled"....as we all know that probably means not very hot.
So this brings me back to global warming....or the lack of it.
I've done a bit of research into this and I've found it has'nt actually "globally warmed" for 10 years now, the average temperature of countries around the world fluctuating slightly, but not, when added up, leading to a global warming of any kind. So is that why politicians and green pressure groups now talk about "climate change" rather than global warming.
Jane Davidson, the Welsh Assembly Government's environment spokesperson has come in for a bit of stick for supporting the recent green lobby attack on the so-called "myths" of wind power. Wind power, it's effectiveness, its deadliness to birds and its subsidies have been one of Wales' hottest debating topics for the past decade (when it has not globally warmed at all) and while I take a neutral view it was interesting to note that a Labour politician (UK local government minister John Healey) suggested to the House of Commons this year that people who live near wind farms should have some kind of rate rebate. This followed the Friends of the Earth Cymru report which dismissed wind farms' effect on property prices as a "myth".
While I accept we have to leave behind our reliance on oil (to clean up the atmosphere for one thing) should'nt we find out the pitfalls of new technologies we go for BEFORE putting them in place at massive cost?
There are plenty of alternatives, hydrogen, solar, biomass, expansion of existing nuclear energy plants just to mention a few, why does wind power get millions of pounds worth of subsidies BEFORE a major public debate?
I don't doubt that wind turbines create energy but should'nt we have looked at, say, one wind farm, for ten years or so to find out what the effects would be on birds, local people and what the effectiveness of the wind farm actually was in terms of creating energy versus subsidy and how often the turbine would be idle due to too much/too little wind.
Anyway, that's my rant over.

hell of a show

2008-05-27T16:10:34Z

WENT to the Swansea Show on Bank Holiday Monday and it turned into something from The Omen.

The winds suddenly got higher and higher, bits of twig then branches started flying around in the air, the trees were being bent this way and that with a massive roaring sound and then down came the rain turning the showground into a sodden mass.
The jousting was cancelled as were several horse events (which we went to look at) and even the Army packed up and left early...and they had a TANK.
All me and my other half had was an umbrella to try to shelter under but the wind soon spoilt even that idea.
As we left, huddled together, with no-one else in sight (most sensible people stayed indoors we walked past a security guard clutching a walkie-talkie with the words CROWD CONTROL embossed on his back....must have been the easiest job of the day.
Was sorry to hear a little girl got injured....hope she's better soon.

Swans

2008-05-01T17:52:25Z

Even the Pluck Lake Monster will be raising a claw tonight.

After hearing Leeds lost their appeal.

So is there a crocodile in the middle of the Enterprize Zone

2008-05-01T17:44:17Z

A crocodile in the middle of Pluck Lake in Swansea's Enterprise Zone.

Well, why not?
The forests of Wales are said to be teeming with panthers (I've seen one myself, and yes, I was perfectly sober at the time), there have been vultures loose in Mid Wales and there was even a water python sighted in the River Tawe at Pontardawe (though a hunter later found it was an inner tube).
This county of ours is full of wildlife, you only have to fly over it in a plane to see most people are huddled together on the coast, the rest of the country, and the sheep, are at the mercy of a variety of animals, some of which are former exotic pets.
It's not made up, it's fact.
However, whether there's a three foot long, razor toothed, threshing crocodile in Pluck Lake is still open for debate.
Yes, it could have been dumped by an exotic pet owner....but how did he/she get it there?
On a lead?
In the passenger seat of their car?
I know they police are sometimes accused of overlooking things or being a bit thin on the ground, but even they would have noticed a crocodile being taken for a ride.
Wouldn't they?