22 October 2007

on 22 October 2007 at 04:30

Secret plan to keep holidaymakers at home

During the postal strike a pigeon alighted on my desk. Someone was clearly relying on tried and tested methods. It turned out to be Richard “Volcano” Meek, noted Norfolk explorer and author of the widely acclaimed Walking over Bishy Barnabees, who has recently been, in his own words, seeking a challenge.

His pigeon post revealed that he had recently “explored the upper reaches of the Acle Straight, seeking the legendary city of Yarmuff, fabled to be constructed – like Petra – from solid rock”. I thought it was sand, but there you go.

He writes: “A less observant traveller might well have missed a number of subtle changes taking place on the marshes flanking the A47 causeway.

“I can now reveal that a hitherto top secret project designed to encourage holidaymakers to stay local and reduce their carbon footsteps is being trialled in our region.

“All signs have been removed or obliterated. A white donkey and a herd of black cattle have been drafted in. Herons are being rounded up and dyed pink. Clearly the plan is to convince holidaymakers that they have arrived in the Camargue – or Camarcle, as insiders know it.

“Planes taking off from Norwich International are being equipped for crop spraying, early warning of nuclear attack and deliveries of local post. They will circle several times before landing at a secretly constructed airfield in Halvergate.

“Locals have been undergoing clandestine training as extras in this farce. It appears that disembarking passengers will be met by Len "Francoise" Hardy, Freddie Maisonyva and Dorothea Bon-Enfant before being taken to their gites in nearby Grand Yarbouche.

“Where will it end? Beeston Bump re-profiled to serve as Table Mountain? Gondoliers in Potter Heigham? Fruit bats being liberated in Loddon? Fruit cakes in Fakenham?” Almost unbelievable.

Free car parking the best option

I suggested last time that the simplest way to make car parking consistent throughout South Norfolk was for it to be free.

Council leader John Fuller tells me that this solution was indeed considered, but several problems arose, and they stemmed partly from changes in political domination of the council.

Apparently the maintenance of car parks has fallen behind – and £300,000 is needed to put them right. Meanwhile, machines that should have been collecting fees have been allowed to remain out of action from some months, costing the council about £40,000.

The council also faces a new problem. “On-street parking will no longer be enforced by the police from April, risking gridlock in the market towns next year unless we do something about it,” says Mr Fuller.

Taking over an essential service in mid-stream is undeniably difficult, but I still think car parking is so central to what happens in market towns that it should be financed by everyone, and not just car drivers.

This means temperamental machines would not be necessary, and maintenance would get the priority it deserved.

People are willing to pay for what they see needs to be done. What they are not willing to pay for is machines that don’t work and the consequences of essential repairs not being carried out, followed by a consultation process.

And if car parking were free, the problem with street parking would disappear – or at least be manageable. Or am I just a hopeless optimist?

Nobel judges not swayed by newts

A Norfolk man claimed yesterday that there had been a mix-up, and the Nobel Peace Prize should have been awarded to him instead of obscure American Al Gore.

Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago, who has a long history of exposing the insidious activities of expansionist great crested newts in his home county, said that it was widely expected by people he knew that his fight for peace, literature and physics would catch the eye of the Nobel judges.

He admitted that much of the science on which he had based his anti-newt activities had been contested, but this did not matter as long as people became aware of the newt menace, for which they themselves were to blame. Ponds should have been abolished years ago. Now only heavier taxation, digging up roads and erecting monstrosities around the countryside would avert the danger.

Asked whether his campaign had anything to do with peace, Mr Houseago commented: “Probably not. But that doesn’t seem to matter. Anyway I could do with the money.”

Washed-up dog walkers anger bottle users

A large number of dog walkers washed up on a Norfolk beach has angered users of plastic bottles who frequent the area.

They believe that the dog walkers were thrown into the sea by a local enthusiast in the hope that they would reach Europe and spread the dog-walking gospel there. But the tide turned, and the dog walkers were washed up.

A newspaper columnist, when asked, said he would rather see plastic bottles than dog walkers on a beach, because they were cleaner and quieter, and tended not to write semi-literate abusive letters to him. In fact, messages in bottles tended to be quite uplifting.

When challenged, he admitted that many dog-walkers did not send him abusive messages and were quite friendly, although they tended to jump up too often, run around a lot and lick unnecessarily.

Eyes down for a new hazard

Readers will know how keen I am on low speeds, but it is hard to see how using average speed cameras to police 20mph limits in towns can be beneficial.

Law-abiding drivers will be determined to stay within the limit and therefore pay very close attention to their speedometers. However good they are, this means less attention paid to what is going on around them in what must be high-risk areas.

One road safety expert describes driving within the area covered by average speed cameras as “driving in fog”. While I would not put it quite like that, I do see what he means.

Mysterious marking

Taking an exam in RE nowadays seems a little bit less strict than it might be. The examiner will, I understand, mark super-positively, which is nice, and the exact mark you need to get a C grade, for example, is about as mysterious as the ways that the Almighty works in.

“We often get a call from on high asking us to push it down a bit,” a senior examiner reveals. “And I do mean the Government, not God.”

8 October 2007

on 8 October 2007 at 16:23

True science, or a tidal wave of mush?

Al Gore’s film on climate change can be shown to children in schools, despite being described in court as containing “serious scientific inaccuracies, political propaganda and sentimental mush”. But High Court judge Mr Justice Burton said the Government had to rewrite its guidance material and will rule this week that the film does contain partisan political views.

Is this a victory or a defeat for the concerned parent who brought the action? If that is not clear, the facts about climate change remain even less clear, despite the eager acceptance of one extreme version by what has been described as the soft left, soft green majority in the media, universities and politics.

Proper discussion is inhibited by the attitude of scientists and fellow-travellers who think it simplest to abuse sceptics, who they describe as “malicious” and “climate change deniers”, though neither description is remotely accurate.

No-one in their right mind denies climate change. You might as well deny rain. What is questioned by many people is that global warming is out of control, has been caused almost entirely by human activity and can be prevented by changing our behaviour.

Many have a fundamentalist religious zeal for this idea. They would like to compel other people to both believe it is right and act on it - a position that even God rejected, with his slightly greater grasp of what is right than climate change activists.

To assist them in this they suggest that the sceptics do not understand the first principles of science, which is not only a distortion of the truth: it is the opposite of the truth. It is those non-scientists who blindly follow the activist line on climate change who don’t understand the science. To be a genuine sceptic you have to research the subject: when in the past I have presented scientific evidence against the majority view, the activists invariably don’t have time to look at it.

I question their naivety, not their motives. It is disturbing that Avaaz, a growing global e-mail group that does excellent work in drumming up support to make politicians act on key issues like Darfur and Burma, has swallowed the climate majority view hook line and sinker. As a result, petitions signed by the innocent and gullible will no doubt continue to be presented to assorted summits with an appropriate side salad of moral indignation.

They and others like them think the science is settled, but this is far from the case. It has been described as “the most complex field of science ever tackled”, and many questions remain to be answered.

For example, is there any reply to the argument that ice cores always show CO2 following warming periods, rather than causing them?

Could the so-called amplification of the effect of CO2 by other gases actually reduce it? A senior scientist says the jury is out.

Why are solar scientists predicting a global cooling period by 2020, if not before, and calling it the major climate threat to the world?

Could our climate really be governed by cosmic rays and low cloud cover?

Is the effect of CO2 on the atmosphere logarithmic? If so, it means it would become smaller and smaller over time.

How is it that the 1930s were so warm, and in the USA 1934 was the warmest year on record? And how is it that the oceans have not warmed at all over the past five years?

We don’t like questions like this because so many of us have bought into the climate catastrophe model. Councils are now paying out £102 million a year for an army of officials to work on “green” issues. The number of companies set up to take advantage of new rules and laws on emissions is already beyond calculation, and few politicians nowadays would be brave enough to resists such a tidal wave.

But does that make it true? Or just mush?

Last refuge of the unimaginative

South Norfolk Council wants to charge motorists to park in Harleston and Loddon because you have to pay in Diss and Wymondham, and “charging should be consistent”.

Oscar Wilde said consistency was the last refuge of the unimaginative, which doesn’t seem to have got through to most councillors. I wonder why?

What also doesn’t seem to have got through to them is that if you just want to be consistent, you could make parking free in Diss and Wymondham.

But that wouldn’t do, apparently, because the cost of maintaining car parks shouldn’t fall on the general council tax payer.

Why not? I happily pay for schools and swimming pools, though I don’t use either. If we pay for everything we use individually, what’s the point in having a council?

Mystery surrounds short stretch of road

Most mind-boggling comment of the past two weeks came from the chief executive of Great Yarmouth Port Company, who pronounced that “for all but one short stretch, the road to the Midlands is dual carriageway”.

I suppose it depends where you start and finish, but clearly Yarmouth is not an option. There are two single-carriageway stretches before you reach Norwich, and if you persist with the natural route to the Midlands – the A47 – you soon come across more. Many more, and not short at all.

So is there another way? Well, yes there is. You could go down the A11 and take the A14.

This would give you three single-carriageway stretches, only one of which could really be described as short. But it would also mean piling another great clump of lorries on to two of the most hideously congested roads in East Anglia – the stretch between Cambridge and Huntingdon and the much-loved Elveden traffic lights feature.

So, obviously a completely new meaning for the words “short”, “dual” and “carriageway”. Oh, and possibly “Yarmouth” too.

Alternate-week collection is rubbish

I see that the main aim of the alternate weekly rubbish collections planned for Norwich soon (you may have missed the road shows) is “to reduce the amount of waste we collect and dispose of”.

Of course, not turning up at all would reduce it even more. I wonder how long before someone suggests that.

The second aim is to increase recycling rates. Why this should happen is a complete mystery. “Oh, they’re not collecting my rubbish this week. I’ll recycle it instead.”

I don’t think so.