Screws, bolts, nails, and…

I spent a couple of hours sitting around today.

Now before everyone falls off their chairs, no, I wasn’t joining mainstream television watching culture and, no, I wasn’t having a well-earned rest either.

No, I was carrying out a vital job that’s much akin to standing on the end of a railway station platform and deciding if it was a modified Class 37 locomotive in the yard or an unmodified one.

A question for the environmentalists

I’ve finally got around to reading George Monbiot’s Heat with his proposals for a greener, cleaner future that curbs global warming.

But while I agree with much of what he says, I have one fundamental question that he, nor most of the professional environmentalists and “radical thinkers”, seem unable to pose, much less answer.

And that is, how are large-scale wind turbines, wave generators, solar power stations, geothermal projects and hydro-electric schemes going to be build without access to vast and cheap supplies of steel, aluminium, concrete and plastics?

The wheel of daftness rolls onwards…

I telephoned Scotch Premier, the abbatoir we use in Inverurie, today to book three pigs in for slaughter next week.

It was business as usual until I was told the pigs would have to have our herd number slapmarked on both shoulders (basically a tattoo) to avoid confusion.

I found this a little puzzling as the legal requirement is for metal tags (in the ears), ear tattoos or slap marks. Any one of these three is deemed acceptable by SEERAD in Scotland and DEFRA in England.

Teetering on the brink

If you live in Scotland, then you may be well advised to check your preparations for an electricity blackout after an accident disabled one of the country’s main coal-fired power stations.

A conveyor belt that carries coal to Longannet power station, near Fife, collapsed and forced the station to shut down.

This should not have been a major problem except that the nuclear-powered Hunterston B power station is also shut down, due to safety concerns.