Wot - No Understudy?

We recently attended a performance of Anthony and Cleopatra at the Globe for a mere £42 each (plus travel costs, plus food and drink, plus programme). Eve Best (who I admire as a good strong Shakespearean actress) was unfortunately indisposed - sort of thing that can't be helped. But I was amazed that there was no understudy. Instead the actress who should have played Charmian read the part of Cleopatra and another actress read the part of Charmian. This severely compromised the production - especially when players were close to corpsing at times. Come on Globe - surely you can mirror other theatres and manage to properly cover for inevitable absences? Actresses floating around the stage clutching a wad of paper is just not good enough. Pity the Sale of Goods Act does not cover theatrical productions because what was delivered here was decidedly not fit for purpose.

White Rose Gets NER300 Funding

Regular readers will know that I was a tad miffed that the White Rose CCS project got the nod over the one in which I was peripherally involved. However, now that it is going ahead it's good news that the project has captured substantial NER300 funding to top up the support coming from HMG. While there must still be some doubts about the southern North Sea being the best target area for storage I do hope that this project really does prove the potential for CCS.

Energy Policy - Excellent Nick Butler Blog Post

All - please look at Nick Butler's recent post on UK energy policy (or lack of). It should be required reading for anyone interested in the future of UK energy - that's you and me!

More Pragmatism

There's more on mitigation is a recent Building4Change post. The ICE has recently reported on the state of the county's infrastructure and its ability to cope with extreme weather conditions.

To lift a quote:
“It is becoming clear that extreme weather events will become more frequent, and it is time that factors such as availability, resilience and the ‘domino effect’ across the networks when one network fails – as we saw recently when our flood defences were overwhelmed and this in turn disrupted transport, energy, water and waste networks – are rooted into the criteria used to make decisions on which projects go ahead so new infrastructure is more ‘future proofed’.”
Seems like sound advice to me.

Climate Change vs Conservation Area

Question - what should have priority, an individual's attempt to do a little to tackle climate change or the aesthetics of a conservation area? Well, there's no one answer to that. There will be times when perhaps aesthetics win; in other situations the "damage" rendered by modern installations will be minimal. As a parish councillor in a parish with 3 conservation areas I know that the argument can become heated on both sides!

My good friend Paula Owen has blogged on just such a case. I urge you to read Paula's blog because, judging by the photos of the site in question, and assuming that the narrative is substantially accurate, I think there is something of an injustice being perpetrated here.

Pickles Pickled!

If you're an avid reader of my intermittent posts you'll know that I have little regard for one Eric Pickles MP. Well, for once, he's on the receiving end. His various interventions into renewable energy planning decisions have roused the ire of many in the industry. Now, the High Court has overturned one of his decisions to reject an on-shore wind farm planning application. I don't know the details of the particular project but isn't refreshig to see decisions being made in lower tiers of government (in this case the local planning authority) being upheld rather than sat upon by Planet Pickles?

A Bit of Pragmatism

In an interview in the Grauniad last month Sir Mark Walport makes some telling remarks about the need to focus more on climate change mitigation. It's worth a read.