Monthly Archives: October 2006

A decade ago

Mike is thinking about where he was a decade ago today, then two decades ago.

Since I have fewer than three, I’ll have a little think about where I was five years ago, etc.

Roundabout the end of September 10 years ago was when I first came to Nottingham – now I’ve been here a decade.

October 2001

As an excuse to stay with my friends in Nottingham post-degree and maybe to postpone still further growing up and finding a real job, I decided to do a part time MA in Film Studies and get a part-time job to pay for it.  For much of 2000, I was working at an adult IT learning centre, both as admin then later tutor.  Whilst doing the course, and the day job, I also got on the number 10 bus to Ruddington very occasionally to volunteer in Nick Clegg MEP’s office. After a while, I applied for a job there.  So by October 2001, I was working there part time, and just back from my very first Lib Dem conference, in Bournemouth, where I worked on the Gazette thinking up duck puns, and falling head over heels with a rather nice young man working for the party on his first conference too.  Didn’t last, didn’t go anywhere as he was a wee bit innocent back then and I definitely wasn’t, but I spent the week embarrassing myself, turning red at the drop of the hat and following him around with puppy-dog eyes.

October 1996

This would have been something like my third week at university, staying in self-catering accommodation with four lads.  I came out to them within a few days of getting there, and to everyone else not long after that, which was one of the first nerve-shattering things to do.  I didn’t go to any of the Fresher’s parties, but I did sign up to LGB Soc (those were the days before the T) the G&S Soc, the bellringing society, and eventually made friends.  I was  horribly homesick for the first few weeks, but settled in quite quickly, and quicker still once I’d learned to love beer.

October 1991

This would have been a few months after joining my third secondary school.  My parents moved house, something I saw at the time as ruining my life, taking me away from the people I knew and the established life I had with clubs at school, art lessons on Saturdays (a way of getting us out of the house, as I really cannot draw or paint at all – and much preferred to tennis lessons, which were awful!). The second school was a disaster, and I as a delicate flower didn’t do well.  Transfer to the third by virtue of singing in the church choir, and a bus journey to school.  Horror of horror — all the PE lessons are rugby, not just some 😦

October 1986

At 8, I was happily ensconced in primary school, romping the fields behind my house with a mate from over the road, using his penknife to cut small trees for bows and arrows, playing endless games on the climbing frame, our territory extending from the house, to the fields, to the school, to the park that was miles and miles away, to the shop in a portacabin halfway to town.  But not allowed past either of the main roads.

October 1981 

At three, my life has been turned upside down by the arrival of a younger brother, who’s not yet quite managed twelve months. Sibling rivalry manifests itself initially in pinching the baby and making it cry, and pinching Mum who pinches back.  I don’t suppose I’ll quite have figured out reading yet but it won’t be long before road signs prove puzzling (“Red Juice Speed Now?!”) and I’m spending all my time wrapped up in detective stories, and not quite getting why gay is supposed to be an insult.  Plus ça change, eh?

How was your conference, Dave?

I well remember being at conference in Blackpool where the media were trying to show the Lib Dems as battling with the leader over the post office motion of the time.  It was plain that gentlemen of the press had arrived not just with preconceived ideas of what was going to happen but pretty much pre-written stories.  Conference started to become about what they wanted it to be, with them promoting their version of events, and ignoring much of the rest of what was happening.

They tried in Brighton this time to do the same.  They so wanted the tax debate to end badly for the leader with the loony left activists defeating the party’s policy  pros.  Instead, they watched a mature and measured debate and in the end the grassroot Lib Dems voted with the leadership, and the fourth estate had quickly to rewrite all their copy.  Caught on the hoof, they ended up repeated what was being told to them about how this showed the party as mature and measured, etc.

A week later in Manchester the gents of the press also turned up with idées fixes. They wanted the story to be spats about the leadership, and they wanted to watch the Labour party tear itself apart. So much so, it appears that the only thing they could find to support their hypotheses were aside remarks allegedly made sotto voce by the wife of the Prime Minister.

So it’s rather pleasing that after being thwarted twice the media moguls arrive in Bournemouth and get to hear the Tories doing exactly what they expected them to, with spats about policy or lack of, tax cuts or no, and on top of that some really bad headlines for the party: a crass remark about autism that appears to have caused offence, terrible queues, porn links for Francis Maude, outright lies about previous manifestos.

Oh, this week will be jolly.

Sustainable Tech

PA020836An interesting day spent with Chris Huhne MP and Lib Dem councillors in Chesterfield going around the Borough and looking at sustainable technology included in recent buildings.

The Lib Dems in Chesterfield have persuaded Barratts to include solar panels on a housing estate, the first time Barratts have done this. So we all got to put on high-vis vests and hard hats and go up on the scaffolding to the 5th storey roofs to look at the evacuated solar tubes. Very exciting.

We also looked at ground-source heat pumps being use to heat new buiness incubator units in Staveley – 48 100m vertical shafts have been buried under the ground outside a new complex of office / workshop space and the steady 12 deg C under the earth can be used to heat the building in winter and cool it in summer. The former flooded mineworking the shafts have been buried in just help in terms of heat transfer to the pipes, and for every 1kWh spent in pumping coolant, 4kWh in energy can be put into the building in heating or cooling. It’s essentially free energy from the earth. The only catch is that there simply aren’t enough companies in the UK who can instal this technology, and who have the kit to drill 100m holes into the ground.

We also looked at the photovoltaic cells in various places around Chesterfield, most notably on the roof of the Queen’s Park Leisure Centre, a truly huge installation of PVs both on the roof, and on transfers stuck onto a glazed section. It’s one of the largest installations of PVs in the country and provides the entire leisure centre with up to two thirds of its energy in the best weather conditions, but around 80 MWh over a year, a huge amount for PVs.

Before we finished the day, we also saw a large installation of PVs on the brand new Coach Station, the working GSHP in the Tourist Info Centre, and of course took time to photograph our visitor standing outside the Crooked Spire.

I’ve been reading about the technologies put into these buildings in Chesterfield for ages, but it was good to go and see them in action, particularly the pump room for the GSHP.

Gore? Oh yes


Gore? Oh yesOriginally uploaded by nilexuk.

Plenty of the old Kensington at tonight’s Titus. One woman near us fainted and someone amongst the standing audience was sick and had to be led out by stewards in cagoules.

The sfx weren’t *that* compelling but the show was generally great. I’d forgotten most of the horrendous details – it really is grim – but laced with comedy as well. Titus in his chef’s hat, arguing over whose hands to cut off etc.

Wonder what tragedies will be in next year’s programme.