There’s a new Flickr group for the Ratcliffe on Soar power station – hundreds of photos of a coal-fired electricity generating plant in south Nottinghamshire.
The first I saw of the group, I thought it was a bit odd.  But then it can be seen for miles around, and it is very striking from a distance.  You can certainly see it from the top public floor of the Cornerhouse in the centre of Nottingham, on a clear day.

It used to be a personal milestone for me when my parents were driving me back to university at the end of holidays – I new when we saw the cooling towers from the M1, that our journey was nearly at an end.

And another power-station-factoid – some might argue that all those tall cooling towers are a phenomenal waste of valuable energy.  After burning all the coal to boil water into steam to turn turbines which turn magnets in coils to generate electricity for thousands of homes, the steam is cooled down again in those vast concrete towers.

I have read that rather than force-cooling the steam down, an infrastructure could be created to pipe the steam away for better use – eg heating houses or plants.  I have read the steam can be piped up to 30 miles away.  That’s easily enough to get from Ratcliffe to anywhere in Nottingham city.  There are also plenty of homes and businesses much closer to the power station that need heating.
Another power-station fact.  They store coal in huge great open-air piles near the entrance to the station.  You can see them from the road.  If the coal is carelessly stored, if, for example, you make the pile too deep, it can burst into flames.

The SeekerYou scored 52%!

I don’t know if you’ve been searching low and high, but you do know your bare-bones classic rock basics. With this kind of score, you probably nailed the signature song questions and most of the albums.You probably don’t have much of a classic rock collection yourself, but when your friends play theirs, you recognize the songs. This is a respectable score: you’re neither know-nothing nor nerd.

What it says here – not even slightly true! I know naff all about rock and guessed the answers to most of the questions!

Please put your address in with your Christmas cards if you’re sending them through the post.  Sticky label on the back.  Somewhere on the round robin.

This is our second Christmas in this house. The previous owner died last August. Last Christmas, we took the big stack of Christmas cards that came to the to the estate agents for handing back to the lady’s executors.

We can’t really do that this year, so we’re opening them to see if we can send them back, or drop a note to the senders.  Most of them, there’s nothing helpful. Lots of personal information, but no addresses.
Obviously, if you’re sending cards to someone, you don’t think they’ve died. I don’t think there’s anyone on my Christmas card list who hasn’t made it through the year.

I spent my formative years playing this game on my Acorn Electron.

One day we took the game in to school and tried to play it on the BBC Micro, but it ran about 200 times quicker, and was a bit scary.

There were rooms in this game I couldn’t complete.  I had to get Mum to help!

Very funny reaction to local news on leftlion.co.uk

I particularly liked

October 25^th

Well, about fucking time; two new tram lines are announced, which will run through Clifton, Chilwell and Beeston. Fact: since the first one was opened two and a bit years ago, our twin city in Germany has knocked out 14 of the bastards.

[…]

November 21^st

Moaning about the new tram lines starts. Already. For fuck’s sake.

Very funny reaction to local news on leftlion.co.uk

I particularly liked

October 25^th

Well, about fucking time; two new tram lines are announced, which will run through Clifton, Chilwell and Beeston. Fact: since the first one was opened two and a bit years ago, our twin city in Germany has knocked out 14 of the bastards.

[…]

November 21^st

Moaning about the new tram lines starts. Already. For fuck’s sake.

It’s been a while since we had a quiz!

The cupboards are Kensington Maple, made with real tongue-and-groove wood. The work top will be Copper Neuzeit laminate. Bog standard stainless steel gas hob. (They were selling ceramic quite hard but I resisted – I know what I’m getting with gas.) Fairly standard single oven with grill. Standard cooker hood. We’re supplying the integrated dishwasher and fridge freezer, but no idea how, when or where from.

Aargh!

When the surveyor visited, he said we’d have to remove the wood panelling that infests our kitchen ourselves. P duly did so last night, and guess what he found underneath? washing machine plumbing. Unbelievable! Couldn’t make it up! Now the question is whether the units will still fit…

Twenty four little hours:

But those twenty-four little hours are nothing like the ravages of time wrought by eight years.

And also, photographed for the first time ever, the weird ridges on the back of my head that are usually covered by hair.

I wrote on LDV two nights ago about some printing I’m doing at the moment: christmas cards, which have to be guillotined in half. Last night I had a salutory reminder that the guillotine is indeed very sharp. Don’t click “more” if you are squeamish!

Incidentally, the main editor of LDV is away for the weekend, and has left me and the rest of the editing team with the keys. I’m very tempted to pop across and fill the site with cat pictures.

Even if I don’t do that, it is fascinating to login into the site and see the hundreds of plugins and customisations that are possible with a serious, experienced web designer at the controls.

Interestingly, I’m the only person on Flickr to use the tag “industrial accident”.

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