Street Rubber Bands

Need a rubber band while you're out walking? Britain is the best place
to find one. Just look down and one will appear in a few minutes, most
likely near a door with a letterbox slit.

These are red rubber bands discarded by the post/man/woman. At the post office, mail is bundled up into delivery groups and as they are delivered, the rubber bands are tossed. How much do you think the post office spends on rubber bands every year?

But indeed, they must be cutting back (that is, conserving rubber bands), since fewer are visible on the streets than in previous years. Still, I found one recently to hold a mandolin in a rucksack that couldn't be zipped closed, and I've since heard that two friends actually collect them (that's rubber bands, not mandolins)...

Red rubber band abandoned on doorstep    ➞

Fishy names at North Sea Fish Restaurant

Wish I'd Invested in Restaurant Banner Barrier Manufacture

Food Waste Bucket for Recycling!

With the recent acknowledgment that methane (a greenhouse gas) is produced by rotting food in landfill sites, some local authorities (city councils) are collecting raw food waste to be used as fuel. Considering how much food is wasted in Britain, this is a good move, but it does create problems in the kitchen.

We have been given a food waste basket and bags made of degradable corn starch for collecting our garbage:

Food waste basket; Cox apple and onion for scale!

Classy, eh?

But it does have to be disposed of very regularly or it leads to fruit flies...

Geology Lectures at the Geological Society of London

For the past two years, Shell oil company has sponsored monthly talks at the Geological Society of London. These are open to the public and deal with many topics of current interest. Past titles have included:
"Icelandic volcanoes, interactions between volcanoes, ice and atmosphere"
"Challenged by carbon: geologists, the oil industry and climate change"
"A mole in London: tunnelling beneath the city for major transport and infrastructure projects"
"The Anthropocene: living in a new age"
"Returning carbon to nature: the geology of carbon capture and storage"

Wednesday's talk was on "Paleogene climate conundrums", looking at the a previous instance of rapid climate warming at the Paleocene/Eocene (PE) boundary. Dubbed the PETM (thermal maximum), the climate at that time (between 50-52 million years ago) resulted in a temperature rise of 5°C at high latitudes due to injection of massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Included in the lecture were fossils of a 15-metre long snake that weighed 3 tons, which would have needed a minimum of 30°C climate to grow that large. The PETM is being studied for comparison with our current global warming, with the conclusion that the rate of carbon dioxide addition to the atmosphere is much faster today, disallowing time for the ocean to act as a buffer by absorbing extra carbon. Thus, it was implied that whatever happened then will happen faster and perhaps more extremely now.

Talks for the rest of this calendar year are:
19 October "Earth's atmosphere trapped in ice: 800,000 years of climate change"
16 November "New hydrocarbon development challenges and the impact on geoscience research"
14 December "Mineral deposits and their global strategic supply"

Reserve a seat by contacting The Geological Society
Burlington House, Piccadilly, London W1J 0BG
Tel +44 (0)20-7434-9944
Email registration@geolsoc.org.uk

More information about The Geological Society is available at:
www.geolsoc.org.uk/shelllondonlectures11

Cambridge Building Spree

Anyone who has lived in Cambridge, moved away, and then returns for a visit will be astounded what is going on south and west of the station. It is common knowledge that when the rail station was built, the colleges conspired to have it sited as far out of town as possible, out by the cattle market, the lumber yards and grain elevator.  This was to keep the students from quickly jumping on a train to London.

A bicycle bridge erected in the early 1990s opened up the area south of the tracks to new housing, and blocks of flats now line the railway. The cattle market was ended and turned into a leisure centre, marked by a parking garage and a dance venue. This was matched by downtown development of a new shopping center dwarfing Lion Yard.

But here we are in the 2010s and all sorts of construction is going on along Hills Road south of the station turnoff. At the head of Station Road, for example, a 7-storey building is being erected, completely out of character with the surrounding buildings and vying with the Catholic church steeple in height. Continuing south, one comes to a whole neighbourhood of new blocks of flats on the left in the Cambridge Gateway project, some completed, some just going up. Then at the junction with Cherry Hinton Road, the street going west is loaded with apartment blocks, while the old cattle market on the left has acquired a Travelodge, a multiplex cinema, a bowling alley, and a row of shops including the ubiquitous Tesco. Cambridge is growing southwards, with gusto!

Cambridge Gateway project with the old grain elevator in the distance;
looking east towards the station from Hills Road

The old cattle market, looking northeast from Cherry Hinton Road

Looking west from the head of Cherry Hinton Road

Okinawan Music at the Japan Matsuri

We did it again! The London Sanshinkai did a half hour's performance this past Sunday at the 2011 Japan Matsuri (Festival), singing slow and fast songs and then dancing the Okinawan bon dance, Eisa. Great fun. The stuff is already up on Youtube.

Let's start with the fast dance, Toshindoi

Penguin outside the London Aquarium in
kimono for the Japan Matsuri!

Then to a slow dance and song, Asadoya Yunta

And end with a slow song teaching morals to children, Tinsagu no Hana

Unlike the past two years of Japan Matsuri held at Spitlefields Market, this one took place around the outside of the London County Hall, next to the London Eye. Lots of stalls offering food and trinkets; two outdoor stages for music performances and one for martial arts. Good that it didn't rain!

Don't know where next year's festival will be held yet but probably at the same time of year – maybe conflicting again with London Open House Weekend (previous blog)...Keep in touch with the Japan Matsuri website.