Richard Oppenheimer's Blog

Spinning the law

2011-04-14T22:17:00.002Z

There's quite a lot of people who might say that lawyers could do with some 360 degree feedback. It's been said - more than once - that they talk legal gobbledeguk just to confuse the rest of us and make us think that we need them. But as a friend of mine pointed out recently, people who get to the top invariably speak very clearly in simple language - the others just aren't going to make it. Perhaps it's time someone told them.

It's OK if it's a 301

2011-04-14T22:06:00.002Z

"It's OK if it's a 301 but not if it's a 302" said my friend Matt then I asked him about optimising my 360 degree feedback site on a new URL. Now what he was actually addressing was a dilemma I'd been thinking about for some time. I recently managed to get hold of the domain feedback360.com for a few dollars when it expired. It was always a better domain than the main one I have been using for many years at www.appraisal360.co.uk - but as I didn't have it at the time I had to make do. So now I have a highly optimised site sitting on a domain that wasn't my first choice - so what to do? I'd like to optimise the new domain but I didn't want the effort to be wasted - or detract from the existing one which reliably delivers me 100 hits a day from Google. Apparently the 301 redirect is the answer. What this means is that if the URL changes when you land on it then it's OK. So try typing in www.feedback360.com and you should find that it redirects to www.appraisal360.co.uk - that's what's supposed to happen. Phew!

360 feedback blogs

2011-01-18T04:10:00.003Z

PPP links on 360 feedback Blogitive links on 360 feedback

Just when I needed you most

2008-01-23T22:51:00.000Z

Just in case you were worrying that this post was going to be about some silly love song ("Four hundred children and a crop in the field.") - it isn't. It's the latest in the saga of the Mighty Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company and the Dead Badger.

A piece of marketing junk arrived the other day from none other than the Mighty Liverpool Victoria Insurance Company: "Here when you need us most" - which was an interesting take on things when they had just taken 14 days, less a few hours to replace a couple of bits of broken plastic on the front of my car, and left me stranded without a car for five days.

Actually they didn't replace a couple of bits of broken plastic. In fact I'm not sure what they did, but it cost £1,700. And no - that's not a typo. What I do know is that they recharged the air conditioning because they thought it wasn't working (had the switch in the wrong position) - and charged that to the insurance company. And they left a small dent in the drivers side wing which I noticed when I got home. And they valetted the car - which was nice of them - and did something to the brakes.

What I'm trying to say is that being a vehicle repairer and charging insurance companies for unnecessary work seems to get you a mighty good living - no questions asked - which we all have to pay for. Contrast that with the £10 per day that the Mighty Liverpool Victoria Insurance company offer when your courtesy car isn't there just when you need it most..... Hmmm.

On yer bike...!

2008-01-15T13:57:00.000Z

In the latest act of the Mighty Liverpool Victoria insurance company Bodyshop Connect Stafford and the Dead Badger saga I find myself the proud driver of a Chevrolet.

But this isn't the fire breathing, rubber burning, gas guzzling Muscle Machine of a Chevvy that we have come to know and love - more like a tupperware box on castors.

"You'll have to get used to the power." said the recovery driver when he dropped it off his car transporter. (The badgers are safe - it won't go fast enough to kill anything.) The same car transporter that he was expecting to use to collect my dead VW Golf - the one which was about 40ft long without a lift he was expecting to back onto my drive. I don't think so...!

So having left me with my Chevvy and departed without my car I awaited for the next call from the Mighty Liverpool Victoria "We can't organise a Pissup in a Brewery" Customer Service Team. Actually - I didn't wait because I figured it might be at least another three years before I heard anything. However, I did indeed get a call from Clare, their Chief Apologist "We can offer you compensation of £10 per day for the excessive time you have been without a replacement vehicle. To say nothing of the trillions of calls you made to the muppets on our helpdesk who can't even work out that you are making a complaint and just put you on hold then back into the queuing system for good measure."

Having pointed out that £40 would hardly cover a taxi fare these days and that maybe she had noticed that my renewal comes up in March she went away to talk to "Head Office".

I'm still holding my breath.....

Sticking it where the sun don't shine

2008-01-12T13:10:00.000Z

Have you ever met someone from The Committee who grabs the rule book and promptly dissappears up their own backside with it? Yes? Thought so. It never ceases to amaze me how much brainpower can be applied to finding reasons for not doing perfectly sensible things rather than finding ways of making them happen.

Suffice to say, because of my 360 degree feedback services I find myself in a small group of freelance HR professionals who meet from time to time calling ourselves The SIG. Not surprisingly our attention was turned towards finding ways of promoting ourselves - and as a first step we now have a rudimentary website about our HR services.

So where does the rule book come in? Well - we are a part of the local branch of the CIPD and if The Committee is to be believed it is against our code of professional conduct to promote ourselves. Hmmmm.... Still trying to puzzle that one out.

Growling at the badger

2008-01-11T23:03:00.000Z

When I saw the low form of a badger appear in the headlights late on Wednesday night little did I realise the extent to which the mighty Liverpool Victoria insurance company were about to start ruling my life. Badgers, I have now discovered, are substantially bigger and heavier than you might think, and the somewhat louder impact than I was expecting was followed shortly afterwards by a barrage of beeping and flashing lights from the car telling me that I needed to check the coolant level.

This did not sound good and rather suggested significant damage to the car. Fortunately I was only about a mile from home and managed to make it back. On inspection the next morning it turned out that one of the radiator hoses had been torn off by the impact and damaged. Other than that some expensive looking bits of plastic were mangled and I figured a call to the insurers was in order.

"They are the in things to hit at the moment." said the girl on the claims desk. "They're heavy things to hit." said the girls on the repair desk. "Is the badger alright?" said the next one I spoke to. "The badger's fine. It's in Badger Heaven - just my car is in bits."

That was on Thursday morning. As I write this late on Friday night my car is still in bits on the drive and I'm told I should have a replacement car on Monday - should. Of course, we should be able to live without cars. But when you live in the country and your children live seventy miles away it's easier said than done. The X64 bus will occassionally take you into sunny Stoke on Trent but there is no guarantee that it will bring you back again and that's about it.

So - dear Patrick and Philippa. I'm sitting here writing this in bed when I should be with you. I miss you both very much and one way and another, despite having friends like Liverpool Victoria somehow or other I will get to see you this week. Dad.

Burning Bush

2007-12-12T21:13:00.000Z

In a little noticed article in the Independent on Sunday we start to discover just how isolated the Whitehouse Muppet has become in his attitude towards climate change. "Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee voted 11-8 to cut emissions by about 70 per cent by 2050. This would make the US a world leader in tackling global warming." What's more a second bill passed by the House of Representatives by a 235-181 vote will force through real changes such as improved fuel efficiency of road vehicles, greater use of biofuels and renewable electricity generation, and the banning of conventional light bulbs.

And how is all this to be paid for? By repealing a $13bn (£6.4bn) tax break for big oil companies. Not surprisingly Bush has vowed to fight the Bills. Clearly he'd rather go down in flames than acknowledge that not before time the eight year headache he's given the entire planet is about to come to a dramatic end.

Mandarin fingerprints..

2007-11-25T10:58:00.000Z

I've been reading the reports of HMRC's loss of two CD ROMs containing half the nation's bank account details with some incredulity. Not so much that it happened - that was just a matter of time - but of the sheer boldness of the bollox that has been uttered by senior politicians on the matter.

Asked if the incident now called the wisdom of the National ID card scheme into question Alistair "Teflon Tongue" Darling said "The data for the ID cards has biometric protection." Aha, so that's alright then.

What he actually meant to say was that if the lost disks had contained biometric data then a potential fraudster who got hold of them would have acquired the ability to digitally re-create the fingerprints of half the nation. Or is he just too stupid to realise that?

Biker Blight

2007-08-26T14:01:00.001Z

Picture this: a small village on a short straight stretch of the A51 in rural North Staffordshire approached by twisty stretches in both directions. It’s a Thursday evening, a local lass is riding her horse through the village and a number of local people are standing on the narrow pavement outside their houses.

Enter Johnny Fuckwitt and Randy Shitforbrains on their testosterone fuelled suberbikes as they round the last corner and open up for the straight stretch through the village. Meanwhile Eddie Stobbart has slowed his artic down to a crawl and starts to pull out to give space to the horse. Shitforbrains and Fuckwitt can’t see the horse and having completely lost the plot scream past between the artic and the pavement. Fortunately Eddie Driver sees them in time and anchors up giving the girl space to control her horse. Meanwhile two unidentified idiots scream off into the distance – presumably to meet up by the Storming Petrel at Market Drayton.

To be fair – most bikers through here do use their brains. They slow down and try to minimise the noise. In practical terms it’s impossible to identify who the fuckwitts are – but the rest of the biker community must have a pretty good idea. And it’s down to their failure to rein them in that people write to their MPs asking for bikers to be more tightly regulated, asking the police to target bikers, asking councils to install more speed cameras, asking for bikes to be subjected to noise and power restrictions and all the other stuff that bikers moan about.

This particular stretch of road has seen sixteen biker "casualty" accidents in three years with the casualties being not just the bikers themselves but local people as well. I have seen the police records for all of these accidents and it has to be said that by and large responsibility lies fairly and squarely in the hands of the rider.

We respect bikers freedom to enjoy their bikes – all we ask is that they respect our right to peace and quiet and safety in our own communities.

Point made….

More Googleperplexion

2007-07-09T10:52:00.000Z

Given the hassle we have been having with google.com imagine my surprise when I noticed yestarday that my 360 degree feedback site had climbed to position number 8 on the listings.

Past experience has shown that these excursions on to the forst page tend to be short lived, for reasons that I can never fully fathom. This it seemed to be when I looked again this morning and found that we were now at number 9 - albeit hanging on to the first page. The jury is still out on level of benefit of being on the first page as we stil have never been there for long enough to establish how it affects the level of traffic.

By all rational measures we should consistently be on the first page of google.com and the latest hike may be as a result of some blogging posts by blogitive.com - although the short lived hike that seems to occur in response to blogging remains a mystery.

My current investigation: is the best format for a URL 360-degree-feedback or 360degreefeedback?

Lurid Postings

2007-07-03T19:56:00.000Z

Massive and Passive

2007-07-01T17:08:00.000Z

Always on the lookout to find ways to promote my 360 degree feedback site I was browsing yesterday in Waterstones. I came across a little book called "How to make a Fortune on the Internet: A Guide for anyone who wants to create a massive and passive income for life".

Always a little cynical about these sort of claims I picked it up and started reading - and to be honest it was pretty well written, and with a companion website www.massiveandpassive.co.uk.

What the book said supported by and large a lot of what I have already learned over the last year - but I'm stillreading and learning - so watch this space.

Taxing Virgins

2007-06-08T10:44:00.000Z

Congratulations to Richard Branson for running Europe's first biodiesel train.

However, regular readers will know that one of the biggest complaints that we have is the high level of tax levied on biofuels by the government. And in his press release Branson makes it clear that one of the factors that has enabled this trial is a concession with the government on the fuel duty that they will be paying to a level which will make it commercially viable. Indeed, in the notes accompanying the last budget there was advance notice that there would be trials to establish the correct level of taxation of biofuels for off road use. And it didn't take a rocket scientist to work out that they were talking about Virgin Trains.

Biofuels currently get a 20p a litre reduction in road fuel duty - which so far the Prime - Minister in Waiting has trumpeted as part of the Government's commitment to carbon reductions. The truth is that biofuels are significantly more expensive to produce than petroleum fuels, the price of the raw materials is significantly more volatile and the 20p a litre rebate is not enough to make them competitive.

Mr Branson as we all know is no fool. He has pledged massive investment in biofuels over the next decade and putting pressure on the government to reduce the level of taxation is a key part of that.

We're right behind you....

For those of you who are wondering - my 360 degree feedback site is now sitting at number 15 on google.com and the reason for the change in layout of my blog is to try and escape Google's dreaded Supplemental Index.

Spinning on the Axis of Evil

2007-06-02T17:43:00.000Z

It was never going to be long before the Whitehouse Muppet had another go at destroying the planet. This time apparently it's his ego in the face of the United Nations that seems to be at the root of it.

Shortly before the G8 summit Bush decides that it would be a good idea to launch his own climate change agenda, outside of that which has been painstakingly put together by the UN, effectively destroying any chance of making progress in the immediate future. Clearly this is a diversionary tactic - but why?

We can only presume - apart from his already proven stupidity, Christian fundamentalist credentials and arrogance, that he wants to avoid being seen to make a U-turn, particularly after the hard time that the UN gave him over Iraq. If climate change were not such a serious issue there would be some satisfaction to be had from gloating over his fuckwit behaviour.

The question remains, however, how many of the major developed nations will follow the Bush administration's lead in favour of the UN. Not many I would imagine - and I suspect that when the history books are written the Bush era will be seen as a watershed marking the point at which the wane of America as a world power became irreversible.

Let's hope so - the planet cannot afford another Bush.

Google who art in Heaven....

2007-05-29T15:17:00.000Z

Those readers who have been following my 360 degree feedback site in these postings may have noticed that it took a massive hit on the rankings this morning, down to page three or even page four on google.com. A bit of investigation shows that many of the blog entries are showing up in the search engines with unexpected URLs. So my hypothesis is that the homepages of the blogs are being crawled, but not the archives. Obviously after a while each blog posting ends up in an archive and is therefore less visible to the search engine spiders.

My answer to all this: I created a couple of pages PPP BTY which contain links to all the blog entries about my site - in the hope that they will soon be spidered, that the blog entries will be discovered and properly indexed together with the backlinks to my site.

Meanwhile - look at my position in the listings and pray....

Search Lord in Cyberheaven

2007-05-27T15:48:00.000Z

Lord Google, of all the cyber Gods;
Thou art the mightiest, of them all.
Hallowed by thy glorious name;
Ever shalt though reign.
Let not temptation fall upon me to spam you,
Lest my penalties be eternal SERP damnation.

Bless my 360 degree feedback site with a one thousand hits a day.

The Great Google Blogging Swindle...

2007-05-26T22:22:00.000Z

Those of you who have been following the ongoing saga of the optimisation of my 360 degree feedback site - currently stuck at nbr 20 on google.com - may be interested to follow the results of my latest experiment. My observation was that a lot of the sponsored blog entries about the site seemed to have a short lived effect on my position in the listings.

My hypothesis is that when a blog entry is first posted it appears on the front page of the blog and is therefore easily spidered and indexed by google. However, at the end of every month the previous month's entries are archived and therefore become less accessible to the search engine spiders. The links therefore get lost from the index and my position suffers.

Now for the clever bit. Check out my homepage at richard.oppenheimer.org.uk and you will find that I have made a couple of static pages listing all the blog entries that refer to Appraisal360.co.uk. My hope is that google will soon spider these pages and be pointed to the relevant blog entries - which will then be indexed as linking back to my site. Hold your breath and watch this space.

What now...?

2007-05-24T23:45:00.000Z

Regular readers of this column will be all to familiar with the constant stream of gloom and doom about the future prospects for the planet - and the incompetence of the fuckwitts who run it.

This week, however, a new source of despair emerged from an unlikely source. New Scientist reported on how the planet's reserves of rare earths like iridium are becoming exhausted. Never heard of it? Well it is vital in minute quantities for the manufacture of computer chips and photovoltaic solar panels.

The prospect of losing our cheap supply of computer chips is more far reaching than most people realise. It will seriously hamper our ability to communicate and to process information. It is these very abilities which have enabled us to live on the planet in the numbers that we have. What's more nobody really knows how much of these precious minerals there are left - because up until now nobody has been counting.

Watch this space....

If you're wondering about my 360 degree feedback site - it's hanging on in there at number 20 on google.com.

Professional coasting

2007-05-23T20:30:00.000Z

When my sister and I went round to see our friends at eco-energy it was nice to see that a coaster advertising my 360 degree feedback site was occupying pride of place on the manager's desk. Unlike the google.com listing which is still just hanging on to the second page of google.com at number 20.

I hope the same happens to the 500 coasters that will be given out at the Birmingham Young Porofessional of the Year event in Brum tomorrow. One way and another I'm too mean to pay the £94 a ticket that they wanted for the event - but getting my brand in front of 500 ambitious young professionals seemed like a good idea to me. 360 degree appraisal seems to be catching on in a big way - and a customer of mine told me that there had been a recent public sector edict that 360 degree appraisal was to be used for all senior public sector employees.

This is good news, as is also the interest I have been getting from a number of personal and lifestyle coaches who seem to think that a slimmed down version of the product might work well for confidence building exercises. Watch this space.

Google and the Whitehouse Fuckwitt

2007-05-20T22:50:00.000Z

My attempts to move my 360 degree feedback site seem to be in the doldrums. I'm starting to think that it may be because a .co.uk site will never do very well on google.com which is looking for american sites hosted on american servers.

It seems a bit unfair that people who voted for the Whitehouse Fuckwitt should get such a good deal - but there we have it.

Sitting at nbr 19 on google.com

The SEO's Prayer....

2007-05-19T12:40:00.000Z

Google.com who art in Heaven,
Hallowed be thy first page,
Thy PageRank cometh,
Thy algorithm be done,
In the Adwords as it is on Page One,
Give us this day,
Our targetted inbound traffic,
Forgive us our duplicate content,
As we pray for those who link to us,
Tempt us not to spam,
Deliver us from the Supplemental Index
The listings, the SERPS and the PageRank,
Are yours now and evermore.

Search Google.com - bless our 360 degree feedback website.

The search continues....

2007-05-18T21:06:00.000Z

Next stage in the great Google experiment to see how blog entries affect the ranking of my 360 degree feedback site. Remember I am going to mention it in a post on here every day for the next three or four weeks to see how the ranking is affected.

At the time of writing google.com lists me at nbr 18 for "360 degree feedback" having gone up a notch from yesterday. The highest it has been is nbr 8 on google.com and it is consistently nbr 1 or nbr 2 on google.co.uk.

My hypothesis is that google are picking up on the RSS feed from Blogger and hence we are seeing a fairly immediate step up in the listings followed by a drift back down.

More Googleperplexion

2007-05-18T10:41:00.000Z

At the risk of boring you all I decided to try an experiment. One of my readers suggested that google might be looking for regular new inbound links rather than a flurry. So I thought I would try mentioning my 360 degree feedback site every day on here and see what happens.

Linked In

2007-05-16T23:10:00.000Z

I've just been discovering LinkedIn which is a site where you can publish a professional profile.You can find my profile under Richard Oppenheimer Richard Oppenheimer. And you can find out about my current business interests. I will doubtless be adding a little more to it in due course.

Googleperplexed

2007-05-16T22:36:00.000Z

Google continue to be a source of frustration. Although my 360 degree feedback site gets plenty of attention - for some reason its position in the listings continues to drift. Not that there is any shortage of inbound links - thanks to PayPerPost who have been regularly publishing my press releases and posting about the site.

You might wonder who I should be worried - as I already have a number one or number two posion on google.co.uk - but my listing on google.com continues to be a source of frustration having been as high as eight and down as far as 23. An appearance on page one does make a real difference with my search traffic increasing by about 50% when I was on the first page of google.com.

Sometimes I wonder if the inbound links age - or if Google start to disregard them after a period of time. Because whereas a new installment of links seems to give a jump of two, three or even four places in the listings, after about a week things settle back to their previous position.

Oh well, I suppose if you are as powerful as Google you can make your own rules - which is what htey seem to do.

A vegamite sandwich short of a picnic

2007-05-02T20:55:00.000Z

It's no laughing matter - but to be honest I do have some difficulty in finding a lot of sympathy for the Australians at the moment. Most of you will know that as I am writing this they are in the midst of just about the worst drought they have ever experienced. Of course - like all evtreme weather events - you can never say that it has been caused by climate change, but the odds are that it has.

Unfortunately the Australians do not have a good record in this department. Since the colonisation of the area around 90% of its natural rainforest has been destroyed. Much of the remaining natural rainforest in Tasmania is due to become a victim of the the chainsaws of Forestry Tasmania in the next few years.

Nearly all of the country's electricity is generated by coal fired power stations, and they remain one of only two developed nations to refuse to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change. (The other being - wait for it - The Whitehouse Fuckwitt.) Their reaoning being that they do not want to harm their important coal mining industry - no matter if they make the planet uninhabintable in the process.

This is in spite of having more solar energy on tap than they could possibly know what to do with, more uninhabited deserts on which to build solar power stations than the eye can see, and an educated population who shoud be setting an example o the rest of the world.

This contrasts with the much maligned Chinese who have the world's biggest windfarm, and the prospect that every wind turbine and solar panel on hte planet will shortly have Made in China stamped on it.

On a brighter note - I see that the world's first commercial solar power station has now come into service in Saville in Spain at a cost of 36 million Euros. Which seems to me like a pretty good price for a power station.

Crossing the line....

2007-04-21T17:58:00.000Z

I was almost as pleased to see my 360 degree feedback site finally reach the first page of google.com as I was when Patrick (my son) called me up to say he had achieved an A* in his maths GCSE. His achievement like mine had taken a lot of hard work over many months.

So now we can relax and watch Dr Who.

Purring Pussies

2007-04-08T20:48:00.000Z

These days apparently even cats have holidays. If you're looking to get shot of your cat for a while and the neighbours won't feed it anymore because you've fallen out with them then check out Baird's Cosy Cats in Penrith. OK - I know, it's a long way to go if you're in Cornwall but if you're in Cumbria then it might be worth checking it out.

So what's in it for me? Nothing except that I put the website together and it would be nice if someone looked at it!

Greening the airways

2007-04-05T16:57:00.001Z

Anyone who thinks that today's airliners are little more than carbon copies of the first airliners like the Comet and the Viscount to hit the skies in the 1950s would be exactly right. According to an article in New Scientist aerodynamics in civil aviation is pretty much a sunset activity. Current wisdom is that the current generation of turbo-fan engines is about as efficient as it's ever going to be.

New airframes would require radical research which is unlikely to be undertaken by the ultra conservative civil aviation industry and would only be undertaken in the interests of military aviation which clearly has other agendas than saving the planet.

Biofuels are unlikely to provide the answer either as like for like the volume of biofuel required to travel a given distance is much greater and the range of the aircraft would be much reduced.

Of course – there are innovative designs on the table – generally the work of dedicated amateurs without the resources to do anything about it. The aviation business is slowly waking up we are told, but don't hold your breath – it will probably be 30-40 years before we see anything really new.

In the meantime we're going to have to get used to flying a lot less.

Big Oil and the Electric Car

2007-04-05T16:29:00.001Z

I always thought that electric cars were novelties with the sole use of avoiding Congestion Charges. Not so apparently if you are to believe the story of Chevron-Texaco and their electric car.

The biggest drawback to the electric car has been its limited range: one charge lasted around 60 miles, then the car stopped. So the distinguished engineer Stan Ovshinsky created a battery that could run up to 300 miles at 70mph on a single charge - enough to get from London to Scotland, and make the car extremely popular. The oil company Chevron-Texaco bought the technology. It has not been seen since.

Why? Why would a string of corporations turn down cash and scrap a potentially extremely profitable techology? Isn't that contrary to everything we are taught about how market economies work?

The oil companies had an obvious interest in stopping an alternative to fossil fuels. There is $100 trillion of oil left in the earth, and they plan to mine it - even if doing so will make the planet uninhabitable. Anything that could divert that cash away from them is a threat to be crushed.

We have never needed the electric car more than we do now. But for reasons that can only be explained by our crazy market economy it looks like being mothballed in the vaults of Chevron-Texaco for some time yet.

Some techie stuff....

2007-04-04T22:43:00.000Z

Filling the cavities

2007-03-27T09:25:00.000Z

Carbon emissions from homes - well we swapped out all the lightbulbs, put in double glazing - but then cavity wall insulation? Sounded like it was expensive for not a lot of return.

Well, - not so. A bit of investigation on the internet showed prices of only a few hundred pounds. So we called someone up and the salesman came around with a tape measure and grant application forms. £495 in total - but there is a £250 grant for everyone and a 100% grant for anyone claiming any sort of state benefits. So it only cost £245.

The guys turned up with a drill and a compressor thingy on their van. A couple of hours work and they were finished. The cavity walls are pumped full of this fluffy stuff and the house feels warmer already.

Job done.

Dead Biofuels

2007-03-19T22:13:00.000Z

A recent press release from the Biofuels Corporation highlights the real difficulties that the biofuels sector is currently suffering. In the absence of assistance from the government the sector has been struggling in the face of low oil prices which has real implications when you consider the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation which obligates all EU member states to have a minimum proportion of biofuel as a total of road fuel.

The fact that nobody has been able to make any money at it does not bode well for the future, as the infrastructure investment - including the farming of fuel crops will not happen unless investors can see a real future.

Cutting carbon emissions is fine if all you want to do is make a lot of hot air - but to deliver results we need to see far stronger leadership from the government than we currently are.

Bio-Taxed

2007-03-19T13:56:00.000Z

Gordon Brown's promise to increase still further the road tax on Chelsea Tractors is probably a good move - but it still misses the vital point. CO2 emissions are as a result of burning fossil fuel and surely the right thing to be doing is to encourage the use of biofuels.

At the moment a driver who uses biofuels currently pays the same road tax as does one who uses fossil fuels - and also has to contend with a punitive level of tax which generally makes biofuels more expensive than fossil fuels.

Cleaner vehicles attract lower levels of tax - which is fine, but we now have a situation where drivers producing CO2 using fossil fuels are paying less tax than ones who don't because they are using biofuels.

Where is the sense in that?

Hard Blogging

2007-03-18T08:14:00.000Z

Spent yestarday evening slaving over a hot keyboard. Apparently you can host your blog on your own domain and I was wanting to host on www.appraisal360.co.uk - my 360 degree feedback site.

Well, it works - kind of. I managed to get it to post in the right place but when I tried to edit the template to make it match the rest of the site, that's where the problems started. Have a look, it's at blog.appraisal360.co.uk and if anyone can give me any tips they'd be very welcome.

Googleperplexed

2007-03-16T09:21:00.000Z

Exactly what Google are doing right now is a mystery. Over the last couple of days Appraisal360 - my 360 degree feedback site has been shifting erratically between position 18 and position 189 on the listings for "360 degree feedback". I had been hoping that it was just a temporary blip - but it's still doing it today.

Ah well....

More Swindle...

2007-03-15T18:03:00.000Z

Channel 4 comes under fire again in an article in the Independent about The Great Global Warming Swindle. But this time it is from Carl Wunsch - one of the scientists interviewed in the programme.

Those who saw the programme will have noticed the extensive editing that took place when the interviews were shown. Only a few sentences were shown at a time and I for one was left wondering what it was that these people said either side of the bits that were shown.

Professor Wunsch complains that he was mislead about the nature of the programme when he was originally approached by Channel 4 - and that far from suggesting that global warming is driven by natural rather than man-made emissions he was trying to say that as the world warms, natural effects - such as the warming of the oceans - can kick in and release vaste amounts of stored CO2 which will dwarf man made emissions. This is quite different to saying that man made emssions are not causing the problem.

Professor Wunsch goes on to say: "In the part of The Great Climate Change Swindle where I am describing the fact that the ocean tends to expel carbon dioxide where it is warm, and to absorb it where it is cold, my intent was to explain that warming the ocean could be dangerous - because it is such a gigantic reservoir of carbon. By its placement in the film, it appears that I am saying that since carbon dioxide exists in the ocean in such large quantities, human influence must not be very important - diametrically opposite to the point I was making - which is that global warming is both real and threatening."

The programme he says was "one-sided, anti-educational, and misleading. I took them (Channel 4) at face value - a great error."

So there you have it.

Selling with your mouth full

2007-03-14T23:30:00.000Z

Conversations with dentists tend to be short and fragmented - if not painful. But today in between drilling the nerves in my teeth my dentist asked me what I did. So I told him about my 360 degree feedback site - or more accurately, I gave the nurse one of my cards.

He's a South African gentleman and he's a big believer in his staff being well trained and confident in what they do, so the (rather one sided) conversation turned to how my system might help.

By this time my mouth was sufficiently numb that I wasn't confident of making a lot of sense - but he picked up my card as I left and promised that he would look at my website before I return next week for more of the same.

So does selling to your dentist qualify you for any records? Well it will be a first for me.

The Swindle Exposed

2007-03-14T08:26:00.000Z

An article in todays' Independent analysies the flaws in the Channel4 documentary The Great Global Warming Swindle.

As mentioned in some of my previous posts, much of the data presented was either out of date, misrepresented, invented or just plain wrong. Important and well known explanations for certain variations to the climate patterns were not mentioned because they would have destroyed the programme maker's case. And the programme maker himself has now admitted under questioning from The Independent that some of the graphs shown were 'modified' to support his case. Channel4 - according to the article - seem now to be wanting to distance themselves from the documentary.

The programme maker in question has been repremanded before by the ITC. Now it seems that a number of influential people are on his tail. And no doubt the ITC will soon be on the case yet again. Hopefully this time his credibility will be destroyed once and for all and his career as a documentary maker will be well and truly over.

It's a shame Channel4 didn't distance themselves before they broadcast such dangerous rubbish to a gullible public. But then this isn't the only major cockup Channel4 have made in recent weeks is it...?

A load of hot air

2007-03-13T16:02:00.000Z

Our friend Mr Milliband was on the Today programme this morning trying to defend the Government's record on carbon emissions. His first premise was that under Labour carbon emissions had decreased by 11% and that we were now well on the way to meeting our Kyoto targets.

Not according to a documentary I caught a couple of weeks ago - and which given this Government's record on spin I am inclined to believe - carbon emissions have actually increased under this government. A view supported by The Independent too.

In an earlier life I spent a lot of time campaigning against the Child Support Agency and I became well versed in some of the ways that the figures get manipulated. Carbon emissions it seems are no exception. For example: carbon emissions from international flights are excluded from the emissions that the Government owns up to. Did you know that?

The difficulty I have with all this is that this really isn't an issue that people should be spreading lies about. We are talking about the entire fossil fuel based energy industry being phased out over hte next 50 years. There are some people who aren't going to like it - get used to it.

Self help

2007-03-12T07:29:00.000Z

Remember yesterdays when I was feeling fed up because my ranking on Google for my 360 degree feedback site had taken a nosedive? Well - I'd been madly trying to find some places where I could get some decent links from and yesterday I found that I'd got a link from selfhelp.com which has a PageRank of 6.

My listing is still looking bad this morning - but Matt at XSEO put me in 50 links last week so hopefully in a few days things will start to look better.

Googleplexed

2007-03-11T09:00:00.000Z

Chasing search engine rankings can be a frustrating business. Having achieved some decent rankings for my 360 degree feedback site I decided to cancel my Pay Per Click campaign which was running away with some serious cash.

But part of the campaign was content adverts where your advert appears on other people's sites - you've probably seen "Ads by Goooogle" on some sites. Problem: as soon as those ads disappear then a lot of your inbound links also disappear and your google ranking starts to nosedive.

And thus it was - so the content network ads have been restarted and hopefully in a little while things will recover.

Seeing the Light

2007-03-10T22:14:00.000Z

The announcement by the EU summit that incandescent bulbs will be phased out by 2009 is an interesting development. Just a few weeks ago David Milliband was asked if he would be banning the sale of incandescent bulbs. "Impractical" he replied - only to be upstaged within days by the Australian government who announced that the sale of incandescent bulbs will be banned by 2010.

Now more humiliation for Mr Milliband as the EU leaders under the presidency of the Germans announced that they would be pushing through proposals to phase out incandescent bulbs for domestic use by 2009 and new regulations for office and street lighting by 2008.

Poor Mr Milliband it seems had been left in the dark.

Swindled Again....

2007-03-09T23:56:00.000Z

It was profoundly depressing to read some of the commentary about last night's Channel4 programme The Great Global Warming Swindle. Most people - it seems - are happy to accept anything they are told without question. Until you read Reasic's excellent blog where he not only points out that most of the evidence presented in the programme was faulty, but that the programme maker - Martin Durkin - himself has a bad history of misrepresenting evidence and inventing conspiracies:-

"Mr Durkin has often been accused of taking liberties with the facts. In 1997 he made a series for Channel 4 called “Against Nature”, which compared environmentalists with Nazis, conspiring against the world’s poor. No one would suggest that green claims should not be subjected to critical examination, but the people he interviewed were lied to about the contents of the programmes and given no chance to respond to the accusations the series made.

"The Independent Television Commission handed down one of the most damning verdicts it has ever reached: the programme makers “distorted by selective editing” the views of the interviewees and “misled” them about the “content and purpose of the programmes when they agreed to take part.” Channel 4 was forced to make a humiliating prime time apology. After the series was broadcast, I discovered that the assistant producer and several of its interviewees worked for the right-wing libertarian magazine masquerading as “Living Marxism”, which has just been successfully sued by ITN. All the arguments Against Nature made had been rehearsed in LM."

So there you have it - the great swindle was the programme itself .

Frequently Googled

2007-03-09T20:19:00.000Z

Can you imagine writing a document called 360 degree feedback Frequently Asked Questions? Well I can because I've just spent the last two days doing it - and now my brain hurts. Now I've just got to wait for the Googlebot to come round and spider it - the suspense is killing me...

The Great Channel 4 Swindle

2007-03-09T09:03:00.000Z

Channel 4's so called documentary last night "The Great Global Warming Swindle" will hopefully come to be seen as another big mistake by the broadcaster. The programme was big on vox-pops from people with no credibility, short on evidence and big on conspiracy theories.

One of their keystone arguements was to point to the fact that the different levels of the atmosphere are not warming evenly - as the climate models suggest that they should - as an indicator that the current global warming is not due to greenhouse effects.

But spend a few minutes searching on the web and the original scientific data is readily available from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The real difficulty apparently was a discrepancy between data gathered by satelites and that gathered by weather balloons. The discrepancy has now been resolved and the layers of the atmosphere have been shown to be warming evenly and consistent with the climate models. This report was published in April 2006 - so exactly how the programme makers missed it when I found it within a few minutes is beyond belief.

Similarly they argued that changes in cloud formation were as a result of changes in cosmic radiation as the cloud droplets in the upper atmosphere are precipitated by cosmic rays. Problem: the cosmic radiation data is also readily available on the internet and it shows no increase during the period in question.

The assertion that Al Gore's data in "An Inconvenient Truth" showing the correlation between CO2 and global temperature was flawed because CO2 levels lag global temperature was also incorrect. This time lag is well known as the Milankovitch cycle and is indicative of a positive feedback effect whereby as the oceans warm they release CO2 thereby accelerating the warming. The reverse also happens as the climate cools.

The most objectionable assertion in the programme was that measures intended to reduce carbon emissions will have a deleterious effect on the world's poor by forcing them to rely on 'flakey' sources of electricity such as solar. Far from it - anybody interested in plans to build massive solar infrastructure in Northern Africa should check out www.trec-uk.org.uk/index.htm. There is every reason to hope that the tropical deserts of North Africa will become one of the world's powerhouses - with the capacity to supply the world with electricity many times over.

Of course - most people won't bother checking the scientific data - or even know where to look. Channel 4 certainly didn't.

I'm not against people having different views and having intelligent debate. But there are are a dangerous number of people out there happy to sieze on programmes like the Channel 4 offering as an excuse for inaction and ammunition for creating doubt. What I am against is people blatently lying and producing false evidence - and a broadcaster who gives air time to such rubbish in the pursuit of ratings and dramatic programme billing.

Random thoughts

2007-03-08T07:20:00.000Z

I woke up in some distress this morning: feelings of despair, heart beating, slight body quivering. I knew what it was of course - I tested my blood sugar and it was 2.3 mmol/l. Far too low. I'd been exhausted when I went to bed last night - totally wasted in fact and I can hardly remember crawling into bed.

I had been writing an FAQ for my 360 Degree Feedback site - partly because it seemed like a useful thing to do and partly because I'm still trying to improve my ranking on the Google search listings. I've been doing OK on google.co.uk but on google.com I'm struggling to get onto the first page. So I had a word with a friend of mine - Matt Paines of XSEO who is a high flying Search Engine Optimiser. He reckoned he could get me a few more links in that might do the trick and consolidate my position on the first page. I do hope so because most of my business comes in through Google and it could make a real difference to the number of hits I get.

I did wonder if it was worth trying to get a link from my Insulin Pumpers biography page - but in my distressed state all I could think of was the reasons why not. I'm feeling a bit better now and I think I'll drop an email to John - the webmaster and see if he'll put me a link in.

Random thoughts this morning I know - but doesn't it just get you that way sometimes?

R.x

Wikipedia struggles too

2007-03-06T09:00:00.000Z

Wikipedia defines 360 degree feedback as follows:-

In human resources, 360-degree feedback is employee development feedback that comes from all around the employee. The feedback would come from subordinates, peers and managers in the organizational hierarchy, as well as a self-assessment, and in some cases external sources such as customers and suppliers or other interested stakeholders. ("360" refers to the 360 degrees in a circle.)

Also known as multi-rater feedback', 'multisource feedback', 'multisource assessment'.

Compare to upward feedback where managers are given feedback by their direct reports, or a traditional performance appraisal where the employees are most often reviewed only by their manager.

The truth is that it's a difficult concept to explain in a few short sentences and it's something that I struggle with when trying to explain my 360 degree feedback site to people I've just met.

It then goes on to say:-

The results from 360-degree feedback are often used by the person receiving the feedback to plan their training and development. The results are also used by some organizations for making promotional or pay decisions, which is sometimes called 360-degree review.

Hmmm..... their reasons for doing it seem about right. But I'm still trying to find ways of getting more people to understand - and more importantly - buy it off my site. Some people seem to understand it without further explanation, others don't seem to get it no matter how hard you try.

Any ideas anyone?

Chasing the moon

2007-03-04T10:02:00.000Z

There's something magical about an eclipse. It kind of makes the world stop while you watch disc of the sun or the moon hanging in the sky.

Our first attempts at eclipse chasing were a bit of a disaster. In 1999 we trekked over to France to see the solar eclipse only to spend the morning in a field full of noisy frenchmen and an overcast sky. As if to add insult to injury it cleared up shortly afterwards to a perfect sunny afternoon.

Then there was a lunar eclipse at about 2:30am. Patrick and I piled into the car with some duvets, hot drinks and sandwiches and went out of town to find some clear skies. But could we find a break in the clouds? We raced down the M42 towards Oxford looking for a break and eventually pulled into a country lane and wrapped up in our duvets waiting to see what happened. Nothing! So at about 5am we gave it up as a bad job and came home.

So determined not to be beaten we piled off to Zimbabwe in 2001 to chase the solar eclipse. The sky was perfect, the location was incredible, the people were fantastic. And the sight of the black circle of the eclipsed sun hanging in the twilight sky was one of those images that stay with you forever.

The next lunar eclipse made up for it all. The skies were clear, we drove out of town to find a dark place and sat in the car watching the moon like a brown plastic ball hanging in the sky.

Last night was much the same - I got cold standing outside in my dressing gown so I found a place I could watch it out the window. Captain Cook was once saved by an eclipse:- he told some natives who were giving him a hard time that the gods were going to come and eat up the moon that night to show that they had to be nice to him. It worked!

He had to work it out for himself - if you want to know when the next eclipse is going to be then check out the Goddard Space Flight Centre website.

Glacial Outburst

2007-03-02T08:13:00.000Z

Browsing around the web this morning I was thinking about a comment in Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" about the number of people dependent for fresh water on meltwater from the Himalayas. I came across this report into the Himalaya Glaciers which suggested that around a half of humanity is dependent on freshwater which comes from mountains. I'm still looking for some better figures, but at the moment I'm under the impression that about 25% of humanity depends on meltwater from the Himalayan icefields which are expected to disappear by 2100.

But there's another problem: ever heard of a GLOF? Glacial Lake Outburst Flood. Apparently as the glaciers melt they form lakes of fresh water which are held back by dams of ice. Eventually the ice melts and the lake bursts out with the inevitable consequences for anybody or anything in its path. Apparently in 2005 26 glacial lakes were identified as being in a dangerous state in the Himalayan region out of 226 known glacial lakes.

Anybody who thinks that a bit of freshwater isn't a problem - think again. Around 70% of the world's freshwater is currently locked up as ice somewhere or other. If it melts then it end up in the sea and reduces its density. That affects the ocean currents and hence the way heat is distributed around the globe. The last ice age in Europe occured when the meltwater in Hudson Bay was released into the North Atlantic stopping the Gulf Stream.

We are looking, as Al Gore puts it, at a canary in a coalmine....

Time to grow up

2007-03-01T23:58:00.000Z

I was reading an article today which discussed whether people using 360 degree feedback should be given their report alone or they needed to have someone to hold their hand when given the results of their survey.

Most readers will know that 360 degree feedback - sometimes called multi-rater feedback is a technique whereby a person's work performance is assessed by a group of people who knw that person and something of their work. It tends to be very effective because can you imagine ignoring what people say about you if everybody is saying the same thing? Yeah - OK, well there's the Whitehouse Muppet of course but we know about him.

I was once at an HR trade show where I got talking to a lady who said that most people who work in small companies aren't grown up enough to handle feedback. I always thought that adults were big enough to handle what people think of them. Maybe I was wrong...

Green with rage!

2007-03-01T08:36:00.000Z

Yesterday's events where motorists complained that their cars had malfunctioned when they had filled up with petrol at Tesco or Morrisons is unfortunate for a number of reasons.

Greenergy who supplied their fuel is one of a new breed of biofuel manufacturers. Morrisons and Tesco have been blending bioethanol with their petrol for some time now as part of their commitment to greener fuels and carbon reductions. Indeed - the blending of biofuels into the mix is an EC commitment set to increase over the next few years.

It is highly unlikely that these fuels would cause engine damage, but it seems that the vehicles affected are ones fitted with Lambda sensors which measure the oxygen content of the exhaust. Ethanol molecules do contain a certain amount of oxygen and so the fuel/air ratio when using ethanol from any source will be slightly different.

What is more likely in my view is that the ethanol in the fuel has dissolved some pre-existing contamination from the fuel system which the petrol on its own would not remove. For example gum deposits which can build up over a period of time - they won't dissolve in petrol, but are loosened by the ethanol and then cause a blockage somewhere else in the fuel system.

The worrying aspect of all this is the number of motorists who take their vehicles to independent garages who will see the opportunity to make a quick buck by changing a perfectly good Lambda sensor and then encourag the hapless motorist to make a claim. Their claims are unlikely to be successful and the risk is that the episode will get biofuels a bad name that they do not deserve.

Emotional Turmoil

2007-02-28T11:38:00.000Z

One of the products that I offer on my 360 degree feedback site is for assessing Emotional Intelligence at Work. Anyone who has read Daniel Goleman's book will know that the main behavioural competencies involved in Emotional Intelligence are Self Awareness, Managing Emotions, Self Motivation, Managing Relationships and Emotion Coaching.

I often get queries about profiling Emotinal Intelligence - but the most important aspect seems to be lost on most people. you cannot assess Emotional Intelligence in isolation. It is largely to do with the way that people interract with each other and so to make any meaningful assessment you have to include the observations of other people.

That's where 360 appraisal, also known as multi-rater feedback comes in. The subject of the assessment fills in their own profile and then the same set of questions is given to a number of observers who know the subject well. Then you compare the subject's self assessment with what the observers had to say.

That really is the only way...

Using 360 degree feedback to help appraisal and professional development

2007-02-26T22:40:00.000Z

If you are looking for a tool to help your professional development and appraisal process you could do worse than look at my Appraisal360 system at www.appraisal360.co.uk. 360 degree feedback is a system that works well for encouraging teamwork, helping people to take ownership of their own development. It is also known as multi rater feedback and can be used to help assess emotional intelligence because it is based on observations of people's real life behaviour.

Here's a copy of the sitemap.
Home: 360 degree feedback as part of the appraisal process (1)
How the Appraisal360 system works (24)
Appraisal360 feedback products (27)
Tell a friend about Appraisal360 (28)
Appraisal360 packages and pricing (36)
The 360 appraisal process (37)
Contact Appraisal360 (42)
Management competency frameworks for 360 appraisal (47)
360 feedback as an equality and diversity tool (49)
Emotional Intelligence (50)
360 degree appraisal partner solutions (52)
Appraisal360 download area (53)
Register as an Appraisal360 affiliate (59)
Emotional Intelligence Homepage (66)
360 feedback enterprise solutions (67)
360 degree appraisal systems for employers and managers (68)
360 degree feedback system for individuals (70)
Gail Machin: 360 feedback case study (71)
Running a 360 appraisal project (72)
Links: directories (79)
Diversity Homepage (80)
Appraisal360 QuickStart guide (81)
Win a free prize with your 360 degree appraisal (83)
www2.appraisal360.co.uk

Nuclear standoff

2007-02-26T08:56:00.000Z

When Patrick and I decided to measure the power that household appliances drew on standby, an hour's investigation turned out to be very instructive .

The standby power of the TV was a staggering 74 watts - enough to light the whole house using energy saving bulbs. And the common myth that leaving flourescent lights on rather than turning them off and on saves electricity proved to be a complete fallacy. The startup surge of a flourescent lamp amounts to only a few seconds worth of run-time consumption.

Anyone who thinks that building a new generation of nuclear power plants to supply a nation of incandescent bulbs and equipment left on standby has clearly lost the plot.

Dr Strangelove rides his nuke

2007-02-24T19:32:00.000Z

The news that Tony Blair has been in secret talks with Bush about siting nukes on British soil again rather reminds me of the closing scene in Dr Strangelove where a crazed Dr Strangelove wearing a cowboy hat, having evaded all attempts to rein him in, is seen riding his nuke out of the bomb bay towards a waiting Russian capital wired for automatic retaliation.

The chilling prospect of Bush starting a new Cold War indicates stupidity evolving into insanity. The fact that our political system does not immediately annilate such an extreme fuckwit shows the mindnumbing extent of CBA (Can't Be Arsed) amongst the populus and the deeply flawed nature of the democratic system - which assumes that the population actually take an interest in what is going on.

So: what's the difference between a Labour MP and a supermarket trolley? Answer: The supermarket trolley has a mind of its own. I'm not suggesting that other MPs are any different of course, but the way that they still support Blair after the events of the last few years - even before Iraq and the dodgy dossier - obliterates the boundary between loyalty and stupidity beyond intelligent comment.

The prospect of having billions of my tax payers money spent on hi-tech toys of mass destruction at the whim of unarguably the most stupid man ever to occupy the Whitehouse makes my blood boil. Save the money. Build a European Supergrid instead so we can start to use all the sunshine that falls free of charge on the deserts of North Africa.

Ever heard of a zero cost solution? Ban the sale of incandescent bulbs and scrap the next generation of nuclear powerstations: because you won't need them any more.

Of course - invest in nukes and there's a small chance that we might wipe out life on earth. Do nothing and there's a virtual certainty that life on Earth won't survive the next century.

My Blair can safely be ignored - he's on the way out. Great British Public - take your pick.

Carbon is the new Gold

2007-02-23T11:23:00.000Z

Some of you may be old enough to remember the Gold Standard. I'm not, but yesterday a comment from a reader got me thinking.

It's becoming increasingly apparent to me that future energy policy - and indeed the total solution to regulating carbon emissions - will require a global emissions trading scheme.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to have noticed that trading carbon emissions is much like trading any other commodity. You need a market, a mechanism for establishing futures, a means of setting interests rates and prices. Carbon savings now are worth more than carbon savings in the future - and so on. Hmmmm... now where have we seen all that before?

But two things make carbon emissions different: they are a truly global commodity and the total emissions worldwide have to be tightly regulated - in fact, much like the way a Central Bank regulates a currency. Carbon emissions will have a monetary value - the same the world over, so how long before the value of our currencies is defined against the Carbon Standard?

If there are any money men reading this, give me a call....

Google - are you listening

2007-02-23T10:07:00.000Z

There are a lot of people out there who want to know all about my 360 degree feedback service at appraisal360.co.uk. But your spider is taking rather a long time to look at the sitemap which can be found at www.appraisal360.co.uk/-54 so can you send your robot round please?

Strewth!!!

2007-02-21T08:53:00.000Z

This morning's announcement by the Australian government that they will be banning the sale of incandescent lightbulbs by 2010 is an interesting development.

Commentators have been suggesting for a while now that the incandescent bulb will be extinct within ten years. And regular readers will recall that when I changed every lightbulb in the house to a low enegy type the household electricity consumption dropped by a staggering 30% and an article in today's Independent suggests that this is typical.

But the Australian conversion is interesting because Australia is on of the few developed countries other than the United States to have refused to sign up to Kyoto on the grounds that it would damage their coal based electricity industry too much. Strange that, when you consider that Australia is one of the sunniest countries in the world and that the scope for solar power generation using CSP (Concentrated Solar Power) technology must be huge.

So is it too much to hope that the recently awakened Australian government will follow their lead in becoming the first major economy to outlaw incandescent bulbs by phasing out their coal fired power stations in favour of cheap, clean, plentiful, everlasting power from the sun?

Now the light is really starting to go on.... Strewth Bruce!!

Nukes again

2007-02-19T22:20:00.000Z

I felt somewhat reassured when Greenpeace managed to force a rethink of the government's decision to push ahead with a new nuclear power programme. The reality is that there is enough renewable energy around to power the world many times over and at a fraction of the price of a nuclear programme that will only ever supply a fraction of the electricity that the world needs.

But to my surprise - this Sunday's Grauniad carried an article by James Lovelock (creator of the Gaia theory) in favour of nuclear power. His premise is that nuclear is the only way of generating sufficient power quickly enough to avert a total disaster. He may have a point - but strange because nuclear is in itself not a renewable energy source, and ramping up the nuclear programme will take some considerable time. Not least because the number of trained and experienced nuclear engineeers has been run down considerably in recent years.

Renewable energy protagonists take the view that a nuclear programme will reduce the resources put into the real long term solution.

However, here Lovelock and the renewable energy guys see eye to eye. Long term nuclear is not the answer - renewables are the only way, and for that we should be optimistic. Clean renewable energy to power the world hundreds of times over. Why didn't we think of it before?

Chavs in suits

2007-02-08T21:27:00.000Z

This morning I was at another dreary business breakfast. Full of grey men in grey suits - supposedly the good and the great of Stoke on Trent. God help us.

It wasn't long before the sprinkling of snow that had brought the nation to a halt turned the conversation to global warming. "They won't do anything about it ho-ho-ho" went the grey coffin dodger on the other side of the table. Resisting the templation to lunge across the table and grab him warmly by the throat I pointed out that we were now committed to a level of climate change that would wipe out around a third of the world's population within about a hundred years. "But we don't know if it's caused by human activity." I thought that there was only one idiot left on the face of the planet who still believed that rubbish. And he's imprisoned in the Whitehouse. "Oh, but we've still got to have growth."

Presumably the enlightened long term outlook of this particular grey gentleman says something about the current predicament of Stoke on Trent. Perhaps he doesn't have any children or grandchildren - either that or he's too dense to see that the things we are talking about are impending during their lifetime. That he is condemning them to live in a world torn by conflict and strife - or that they will pay many times over every time he turns the key in his Jag or whatever it is.

To be blunt I struggle to tell the difference between people who carry on like this in the full knowledge of the impact of their actions and those who open the taps on the gas chamber. The result is the same, just maybe it's a bit easier to pretend that the link doesn't exist.

It would be nice to think that those fortunate enough to live in parts of the world that are likely to get through this are those wise and forward looking. That those destined to have their lands turn into deserts or floods will be the ones we can do without. Maybe we should have passports issued on merit - but somehow I don't think it's going to happen that way.

Many of our biodiesel customers are simple folk. Taxi drivers, van drivers, but concerned enough to see that they can play their part. They recognise that they owe it to their children and they deserve their place in the future of the planet. But many of the great and the good of Stoke on Trent, it seems, are just chavs in suits.

As reliable as a VolksWagen

2007-02-06T19:47:00.000Z

Some of you may remember a particular VW advert on the telly. A young woman comes out of her mews townhouse in an obvious fit of high maintenance stroppery. She takes off her engagement ring and throws it down the gutter. Ditto with the house keys. Then comes the car keys. She stops and looks at them. She smiles and gets into her conveniently parked VW Golf. "If only everything was as reliable as a Volkswagen" cries the ad smuggly.

Indeed - if only everything was as reliable as a Volkswagen. It was a bad omen from the start when I bought my Golf 2.0 TDI. Even before I hit the road I emailed the salesman with some information he needed. When I heard nothing I rang him up: "Our email isn't working." He seemed a bit shocked when I asked him if his cars were any better - but thus history has proven.

I've lost count of thie number of times the car has had to spend a day off the road to be fixed under warranty. The most expensive was to replace the turbo which died on the M6Toll. Rear wash/wipe, the throttle position sensor, the fuel pump (which died on the way into town leaving me stranded at the side of the road), the turbo seals (apparently they were leaking oil) and today the foglight switch gave up the ghost. It's got to the stage that every time the car seems to falter or sound a little different I'm worried that it's going to die yet again. When the AA man towed me in I said to him "The most unreliable car I've ever, ever had - does that sound right?" He nodded. But then maybe "Worst cars on the road" was his sympathetic response to every driver he rescued from the roadside.

That said it's still a lovely car, just unreliable - maybe it's a woman!

White House Muppet v Big Energy

2007-01-31T08:56:00.000Z

It would be nice to think that George Bush was watching the UKTV History channel last night. Somehow I don't think he was, but when he reads this he'll know what it was all about.

'Meltdown' was a part of a series on climate change. The big question is - given that we know beyond doubt that the planet is heating up, how much can be attributed to natural variations and how much can only be explained by man made effects?

For thousands of years the temperature of the Earth was governed by two main drivers: the solar cycle (i.e. variations in the sun's output) and the amount of volcanic activity which affects the amount of dust in the atmosphere and hence the amount of sunlight that can penetrate. The match between the actual temperature and the predicted temperature is stunning - until you get to the last 150 years. The increase of greenhouse gasses and with it the global temperature has been in liftoff, tracking the course of the industrial revolution and consequent carbon emissions.

Surprisingly one of the big voices in the debate in America putting pressure on the White House Muppet has been Big Energy. Surprising? Yes, until you realise that they own massive infrastructure and they need to be able to plan their businesses. They know that carbon emission caps will be arriving sooner or later, but until they have a regulatory level playing field it is hard for them to know how to invest their shareholders' capital.

Watch this space.

Low Energy

2007-01-29T21:58:00.000Z

Having just received my latest electricity bill I have some good news to report.

Aided by the fact that Waitrose was selling low energy lightbulbs at 99p we decided to swap out every bulb in the house. The old incandescent bulbs went in the bin and a few friends were persuaded to do the same.

The good news is that the reduction in our first electricity bill since making the switch has more than paid for the new bulbs. Already! Added to that we've made another small step to reducing our carbon footprint.

Not before time: last night was watching one of Attenborough's Planet Earth series about the impact that the disappearing sea ice is having on polar bears. I'm wondering how long it will be before the polar bear becomes a mascot in the campaign for change. Not long I hope. Even George Global Menace Bush may have to take note if he's seen to be against the white furry things - although I wouldn't recommend going anywhere near one unless you want to be eaten.

Now there's a thought!

Sliding Doors

2007-01-28T16:47:00.000Z

I took my children to London last week and we called in at the Tate Modern. It's one of our favourites places to visit down there, but to be honest we were a bit disappointed: like the place had lost its way. The Tate Modern was where I first learned what modern art was all about - taking everyday objects, looking at them in a different way and making a statement or triggering a feeling that you wouldn't normally have.

But then we got to the Sliding Doors. Just like the sliding automatic doors you get as you enter a shop on the high street, but a whole series of them like a corridor. And with mirrors in them instead of glass. What a feeling! Just like in life the doors open, and then they shut again and you see yourself coming the other way. Sometimes a whole seris of them opened together as people walked through and you got a glimpse of the future. Then they shut again and and the future became a mystery once more as you were trapped back in your little cell.

It's not often that a piece of art seems so real and so powerful. And of course we get used to seeing everyday objects used in imaginative ways - so the artist has a hard job on his hands. But this time he hit the spot with me - well done!

Boom and bust

2007-01-26T21:53:00.000Z

One of the more depressing attitudes I come across in life is the "Why should we do anything about our carbon emissions when what we produce in the UK is only 2% of the problem. There's no point until America, China and India come on board." This attitude is variously known as narrow mindedness, negativity, lack of vision or plain lack of understanding of how the world works.

We all know - well some of us do - that all change follows a known cycle. The early adopters are small in number but they lead the pack. In time their numbers increase as problems and costs are resolved. Eventually the new way becomes mainstream and it remains only to tidy up the laggards. The aforementioned countries do look as if they are starting to shift their position - but would they have done so if others had not taken the lead? I think not.

Today an old geezer sat next to me in the overpriced cafe at a trade show and started to expound these sorts of attitudes as if he expected to me agree with him. He was keen to let me know that he had breakfast with the governor of the Bank of England and that what this country needed was people who had made their way up from nothing and not smart arses out of university.

What he didn't know was that I also have had breakfast with the governor of the Bank of England. (And on another occasion dinner with Kate Barker of the Monetary Policy Committee - who can only be admired for her intellect, perception and insight - and who has a working class background as well as having excelled in her academic career.) The Governor, however, was keen to tell us what a great job the Bank of England was now doing having stopped the cycle of boom and bust, and that we hadn't had a recession for over a decade.

At this point I got on my hind legs to say that a good old recession once in a while is a good idea because it pushes some of the less efficient companies out of business and clears out the crap.

He had a counter argument of course, but what he didn't know is that I had a list of names up my sleeve. Businesses that Stoke on Trent can do without. I was going to say that if they are reading this they know who they are - but they probably don't because they are too stupid. As of today the list has just increased by one.

The greening of George Bush

2007-01-25T00:28:00.000Z

The greening of George Bush may seem like an oxymoron. (That means a contradiction in terms, not that Bush is a moron - which he is.)

However, there are some interesting implications of his quest to rid America of its "addition to oil". The first is his plan to invest massively in bio-ethanol production - a vegetable based substitute for gasoline. This may have more to do with creating a market for their grain mountain - and baiting the votes of said farmers than any green credentials. Environmentalists will tell you that bio-ethanol is the wrong alternative fuel to be going for because of the environmental cost of producing it (biodiesel is a much better option). But the United States have very few diesel cars - unlike Europe where around a half of new car registrations are diesels.

So - given a grain mountain, a nation of gasoline driven cars, a bunch of pissed off farmers an over dependency on Iraqi oil (now there's another story), a bunch of vehicle manufacturers who say they are more interested in bio-ethanol than bio-diesel and pressure from the Christian right who are getting huffy about trashing God's planet it does seem like a plan.

But - here's the rub. Biofuels have had very little press in the environmental debate in Europe. Very few people have heard of biodiesel even though it is available right now and will run perfectly well in todays diesel vehicles. The unintended impact of his announcement is that biofuels will get a higher profile. And that in Europe that probably means biodiesel - the feedstock (oilseed rape) grows here very nicely and there is a much higher percentage of diesel vehicles on the road.

The obstacles remain a bunch of sceptical vehicle manufacturers who never do anything until the law forces them to and a mean minded chancellor whose idea of a green budget is to raise taxes on alternative fuels.

None of this changes the undisputable fact that Bush is a global menace and Blair is a smarmy arse-licking, self deluded, twat. But there is hope.

A nation terrorised by dogs

2007-01-07T09:21:00.000Z

I don't like dogs at the best of times - there are some that I tolerate but that's about it. I do know people for whom a dog is a great support in an otherwise difficult life and I would not want to deny them a friend. But largely it's experience of what they and their owners can be like that hacks me off.

At the lowest level, just having some mut hanging around in the kitchen seems unhygenic to me. But some of the dog behaviour I've come across is terrifying if not downright lethal.

First case: Christmas 2005 I was walking across the park in Leamington with my children and my mother (then 86). A large dog - sort of alsatian size - comes bounding over the grass and jumps up at my mother. A shouting match develops between me and the idiot young woman who refuses to put it on a lead and seems oblivious of the potentialy fatal consequences of an old person being knocked over by an out of control dog. If she's reading this then please get in touch - I haven't finished with you yet you ignorant twat.

Case two: I'm cycling along the canal where I used to live in London and a large dog bounds out of a scrapyard, pushes me off my bike and nips me. The owner: "You're lucky it's not the other one - it's f*cking bigger!" Well thanks, obviously you get your kicks from terrorising innocent passers by. Nice guy.

Case three: my neighbour has - did have - a young sheepdog. Playful and relatively harmless I suppose, but it turned my field into a virtual no-go area. One time I had to rescue my daughter from the middle of the field crying and terrified as it circled round her barking. It would always be out there running around you and barking, getting tangled up in whatever you were doing. How it never ended up on the wrong end of a chainsaw I shall never know. It was an accident waiting to happen, eventually it did. Fortunately it got run over and killed and hasn't been replaced.

I could go on. But my point is, why oh why can't people who own dogs understand the distress and fear that their pets cause to other people? And why is so little done about it? When Princess Anne's terrier attacked and injured a child I still cannot understand why the court did not order it to be put down - still less why she did not have it put down of her own instigation. There is no room in a civilised world for people to have dogs that go around attacking people. Period. I'm told that in animal rescue circles a rescued dog that shows any sort of aggressive temperament is put down immediately - and so it should be for all dogs, and in some cases their owners as well.

Late Night Love

2007-01-01T15:29:00.000Z

One of the factoids that came out at the end of the year - and which did not surprise me - was that married households are now in the minority.

Not surprising? Well considering that human history on this planet goes back around one million years and the Marriage Act only happened around 200 years ago - and that marriage seems to be more about property than love it's surprising that more people haven't smelled a rat before now.

Or perhaps they did - most of old literature seems to be about people forced into unhappy marriages when they would rather have eloped with their lovers.

But listen to Graham Torrington's Late Night Love and you start to wonder if 90% of the population have lost the plot. People ringing in "He/she cheated on me and blah, blah, whahhhh!!" Fill in the blanks and that's most of it covered. Isn't that terrible? No just get used to it, and here's why....

Firstly we've been encouraged to place all our emotional and financial eggs in one basket. It's not realistic nor healthy nor sustainable. Secondly, we humans are primates - and primates generally live in polygamous societies. Why? Because it makes genetic sense to do so - young born in polygamous societies have a better survival rate. And that applies to humans as well as other primates.

What's more - there seems to be a presumption that screwing around is a male preoccupation. Well I've got news for you - every shag requires both a man and a woman - so the numbers must be exactly the same. Not a lot of people seem to have noticed that - perhaps it needs to be pointed out!

So Graham Torrington: next time you're moralising on your radio show about the things that people get up to remember this: the way people behave now is just a continuation of the way they have for the last million years. We evolved that way for good reason and a couple of hundred years of moral code isn't going to change that.

Nuclear power or save the planet?

2006-12-31T20:04:00.000Z

A recent feature in the Guardian raised some interesting points about renewable power.

A field of mirrors focussing the sun's energy on a furnace can be used to power conventional electricity turbines. Several of these power stations have been operating successfully in desert regions around the world for many years. Engineers have estimated that covering just 0.5% of the world's deserts with these ingenious devices would meet the entire planet's electricity demand with ease.

It seems like the ultimate answer - there's lots of sunshine in Africa so they can get rich selling their electricity to Europe and solve all their problems. We no longer need to buy oil from the late Saddam Hussein and other undesirables. Global warming will be halted in its tracks.

So what's the catch? Well part of the problem seems to be that somebody wants to invest billions and billions of our money in a new nuclear power programme which will generate about 3% of the world's electricity by 2050 - if ever - at many times the cost of these ingeneous solar powerstations. The other problem apparently is that we would need a new pan-Europe high voltage electricity grid to move the power around - and that requires those same people who want their nuclear power to dig into their budgets and build one.

No wonder you're not heard about Concentrated Solar Power before. Doesn't it just make you feel that the planet is safe in the hands of our elected leaders? Erm.... No!

Ode to Saddam

2006-12-31T12:18:00.000Z

It was predictable if nothing else to hear George Bush proclaiming that Saddam's execution was another milestone on the road to democracy for Iraq. But - and this hardly ever seems to get a mention - who says that democracy in Iraq is the right answer?

As far as I know there are no Muslim democracies - maybe that tells us something? Possibly that democracy and self determination are basically Christian concepts and that maybe Islam has different views on how to run things which should be respected.

What we are actually seeing is a re-run of the Crusades in all but name, orchestrated by a couple of fanatical Christian fuckwits. One of whom seems to think that the way to save God's earth is to open up protected arctic regions for oil exploration, the other presides over a government whose idea of a green budget is to raise the tax on biofuels.

That's what democracy delivers. Stop the world I need to get off!

To navigation the hard way

2006-12-30T09:20:00.000Z

Call me old fashioned, but when I want to go somewhere I get the map out and plan the route.

Some time ago I was persuaded against my better judgement to buy a satnav. Most of the time it sits in the glovebox switched off, and to be fair it does have its uses in pinpointing an exact destination somewhere you're not familiar with. But the other day I took my son to Sheffield to show him my old uni. We took a detour over to Brightside to see the old steel making area - now all bulldozed and redeveloped. And then on the way back he keyed in "Bakewell" to the satnav to show us the way home. And that was where the trouble started.

It took us out of town a way I would never have thought of - but against my better judgement I thought we'd give it a go. We never did make it. After many miles slowly driving through the dark foggy roads across the Derbyshire Peak district we finally came to the A6 Matlock to Buxton road. A few minutes studying the map put us nearer to Buxton than Bakewell so the satnav was promptly switched off in disgrace and we came home via Buxton.

Thing is: this sort of thing happens every single time I use a satnav.

Where I live is on the A51 and the next village is about a kilometer away on the A53. You can travel along the A51 until it meets the A53 a couple of miles away or you can take the lane direct. A while ago I was walking home and a couple of cop cars flew by blue lights, the lot. I walked back to my house along the lane and as I arrived these same two police cars came flying along the A51. Exactly who they were trying to catch I don't know - but if he didn't have a satnav he would have got away on foot.

Green budget - NOT! My letter in The Independent

2006-12-08T23:14:00.000Z

Thanks to the editor of The Independent who today published word for word my letter to his newspaper. I guess it ended up in Gordon Brown's press clippings for the day - and hopefully a few other people who can use the ammunition better than I can....

Brown's 'green' tax changes hit biofuel
Sir: Far from having delivered a green budget Mr Brown has just taken another step to killing off the embryonic biofuel industry in this country.
When he announced that road fuel duty was to be increased on petrol and diesel he also announced that the differential for rebated fuels would remain unchanged. Two of these rebated fuels are biodiesel and bioethanol, both of which are manufactured from renewable plant sources and are both carbon neutral and have extremely low emissions. Mr Brown has just increased the road fuel duty on these biofuels without saying as much.
The tax rebate for biodiesel is such that with a following wind it is just about possible to match the pump prices for fossil-based diesel - but with virtually no margin. Prices for raw vegetable oil, which is the key ingredient in its manufacture, fluctuate significantly and many of the producers are relatively new businesses that need all the help they can get.
Not only do we need to raise public awareness of the availability of these fuels, which can be used in today's cars without modification, but we also need to increase pressure on the vehicle manufacturers to take biofuels seriously, which at the moment they do not.
Most of the businesses involved in the manufacture of biofuels do it because of a passionate belief in the fight against carbon emissions and maybe the hope of profits some time in the future. Many of them have already closed down. Mr Brown has not helped.
RICHARD OPPENHEIMER

Green budget - NOT!

2006-12-06T21:53:00.000Z

The thing about headlines is that if you look read the small print you normally find that they are a load of b@ll*x! - and this latest budget is now exception.

What you don't find unless you really look for it is a small statement that the differential on rebated road fuels will remain the same. What this actually means is that the tax on biofuels is going to be increased in line with petroleum fuels.

I spend most of my evenings helping friend of mine to run his fledgling biodiesel business. Cold nights spent standing at taxi ranks persuading taxi drivers to use biodiesel because it's green. Trying to peruade them that it won't damage their engines - that it will run OK in their taxis. So far we've managed to keep the price a couple of pence a litre below the pump price for normal diesel - but we've been hanging on hoping and praying for a reduction in the road fuel duty that will make the business viable.

All around us we hear of small businesses trying to set up and make biodiesel but having to shut down because of financial pressures.

The last setback we had was a sudden increase in the price of rapeseed oil - the biggest single cost in the equation. Prices fluctuate a lot and without a decent margin there's not a hope of competing with petroleum diesel? So is Mr Brown helping the development of clean grean biofuels. Like hell!

And another thing - did you read the bit about income tax exemption for people who install micro wind turbines and get paid for the excess electricity they generate? Find me an electricity company that will pay you ANYTHING worth talking about. How about a bit of legislation forcing the electricity supplers to pay the going rate for wind turbine owners. But then that would mean upsetting the big electricty suppliers and we can't have that can we?

Litvinenko and the new russian connection

2006-12-03T12:09:00.000Z

In all the discussion about the late Mr Litvinenko and his untimely death we have heard all sorts of theories about who might have done it and why. The smart money is on some russian state sponsored assassins - after all, the Polonium 210 that he was poisoned with didn't exactly come from the local garden centre did it? In fact, I have it on good authority that there's only around 50 grammes of the stuff on the entire planet.

So why? Observers suggest that Litvinenko was little more than a nuisance to the russian government - so why bother? Well - elsewhere we have heard about our beloved energy minister (Malcolm Wickes) celebrating having secured our natural gas supplies with contracts to import gas from Russia. (Our own natural gas having been squandered in the race to heat up the planet.)

The Russians however, have already shown their willingness to use their gas as a political weapon earlier this year when they shut off supplies to the Ukraine. Is the British government going to give the Russians too much grief about assassinating people on British soil when the supplies of natural gas can be shut off at a moment's notice? I don't think so. So maybe Mr Putin was trying to make a point - the Cold War is history, he has the upper hand now.

Malcolm Wickes, as I pointed out earlier, is not as clever as he likes to think he is.

Road Pricing and carbon emissions

2006-12-02T18:09:00.000Z

Road pricing has hit the news again - and I have to say I have some sympathy for the idea. But in the debate about taxation of vehicles according to their carbon emissions, or taxation of fuel there's a key issue that never seems to get a look in - alternative fuels.

Alternative fuels - biofuels, biodiesel are available right now. Existing diesel engines can run on them without modification. They are carbon neutral and engines running on them have incredibly low emissions. What's more they totally eliminate dependence on oil imported from places it's better not to be dependent on.

So, if the government were as keen to be green as they say they are why aren't they promoting biofuels and giving generous tax breaks to encourage their use. Come to that why not scrap the idea of road fuel taxes altogether and just replace them with a carbon tax on fossil fuels based purely on their fossil carbon content whether it's to be used as road fuel or any other purpose.

Could the reason be something called Shell, or BP, or Exxon...? Or could it be an old friend of mine Malcolm Wickes - the Energy Minister - who's probably right at this moment licking Tony Blair's backside and saying "Yes Sir, nuclear power, sir. Anything you say, sir." Or, as another old friend of mine - the late and very well respected Earl Conrad Russell once confided in me: "Malcolm Wickes isn't as clever as he likes to think he is."

World AIDS day - Remember the boy who cried 'Wolf'?

2006-12-01T23:41:00.000Z

I hate to queer the pitch on this one, but tragic as situation is - if you happen to live in Africa - there seems to be an atmosphere of out of proportion hysteria in the western world which is more of a danger than AIDS itself.

I can remember in the mid 1980s when scientists were trying to predict the spread of AIDS and their models were coming up with best and worst case scenarios. Even the worst case predictions showed that in the western world at least it wasn't going to be a problem. But even so the government decided to leaflet every house in the United Kingdom to warn of the dangers.

The outcome 25 years later: the spread of HIV has been EVEN LESS than the best case forecasts predicted. Pregnant women have been routinely screened for HIV for many years now and possible infections have been consistently below 0.04% i.e. 1 in 2,500 and very few previously unknown cases are dicovered by screening. The assumed rate of transmission between heterosexuals has been revised downwards from 1 in 800 to less than 1 in 1000. In other words, the random chance of catching HIV in the heterosexual population is less than 1 in 2.5 million. And of the 60,000 people who have HIV in the United Kingdom over half have come here already carrying the virus.

So why the hysteria? This is not Africa. Why create an atmosphere of fear which darkens many people's lives? Or is this just another case of the media blowing it all out of proportion while nobody dares to stand up and state the facts in case they get shot down in flames for telling the truth.