Category Archives: Alternative Energy

Green Nation – Free Solar Panel offers in South West UK – Greater freedom for the rest of us

This is a big shout out for a fantastic renewable energy company in the South West UK who are doing wonderful things with solar energy.

Established in 2011, Green Nation is developing solar farms of increasing size and helping public, commercial and private residences to maximise the benefits of solar power.

This is the type of organisation that is quietly making a big difference to some of the challenges we are facing today and on a blog related to imagining the world my children will inherit I have no hesitation in advocating and promoting their offerings.

Aside from being founded and run by people who are passionate about the transformative capabilities of technology, they already have many happy commercial and residential customers who are seeing the tangible and realistic benefits of installing the latest generation of solar panels.

Regular followers of this blog will know my admiration for the call to action campaign One Hundred Months and its excellent monthly updates which are a healthy mix of eye-opening climate science, political skepticism and technological optimisim.

As the counter clicked down to 29 at the beginning of this month, now well under the half way point in this credible and insightful action timeline, the concise and useful 5 point communication contained an excellent article documenting progress that is being made to combat our dangerous addiction to fossil fuels. Titled  10 reasons to be hopeful that we will overcome climate change point number 3 contains this encouraging comment … Continue reading →

Rome – a Smart City starting to get into a Twizzy

It’s been a while since I produced an automotive related post but a recent trip to Rome has reminded me just how ripe things are for a revolution.

smart_romeThe people of Rome don’t do cycling. In fact, seeing someone riding the streets on a bicycle of any pedalled variety is a rarity. What they do love however is small cars and scooters.

The country that gave us iconic cars like the Fiat 500 and the Vespa and Lambretta scooter brands has clearly embraced other small four, three and two wheeled vehicles, most notably Smart cars.

Rome must be the Smart car capital of the world and it is easy to see why the narrow cobbled streets and lack of large open parking areas or multi-story car parks have led to such an uptake of compact two seated vehicles that up half the space of the average family car. Continue reading →

LED this way and that on the road to recovery – Spring Fair NEC 2014

This last weekend I went on what is an annual pilgrimage for many business owners – that glorious ‘assault on the senses’ known as the Spring Fair at the NEC.

ipad_businessIf you haven’t been there, or to the smaller Autumn equivalent, then it is basically where the nation’s shopkeepers – both online and bricks and mortar – gather to see what latest and greatest ideas they can stock their warehouses and shelves with to entice the punters to part with their cash.

It was interesting to see what’s changed and what hasn’t since my last visit in 2011

The first thing that was noticeably different is that the ‘buzz is back’. You could see that even on the opening Sunday, when the general public like to take a peek, there was business being done. The last time I witnessed anywhere near a ‘buzz’ at a Spring or Autumn Fair was way back at the start of 2008 before the impact of the financial meltdown hit home in the UK.

The other big general change from a couple of years ago is that tablet PCs have become not just a flashy accessory but an essential exhibition tool – from snapping visitor badges, to demonstrating product variations to collecting order information, the exhibition stands were awash with tablet toting staff tapping and swiping away.

Here are a few more observations and highlights from this year’s visit … Continue reading →

Postcard from North America – The worst and best of US

I’m writing this half way through a family break in the United States.

After good and bad experiences heading to Florida via Washington and heading home via Montreal on our last visit – well documented here – we opted to keep the flight costs down by travelling via Toronto this time.

fatUScop1The hop across the Atlantic with Air Canada was, we all agreed, the best long haul flight any of us had experienced with attentive cabin crew who kept us well fed and watered and excellent in-flight entertainment that made the seven plus hours literally fly by. Being able to link my new hearing aids directly to the audio output meant I could hear the three recently released movies I chose to watch very well – in fact probably the best I have ever heard such things as I was able to cut the cabin noise out virtually completely.

I had no problem hearing John McClane and his son swearing at the Russian mafia as they blasted their way across Moscow, leaving many vehicles written off in their wake, or Will Smith guiding his real life and fictional son across the hostile environment of an unfamiliar planet they had crash landed on – which is Earth 1000 years after we’ve irreparably damaged it and moved on, or indeed hearing Brad Pitt saving his wife and daughters and the rest of the human race from being over-run by the fastest moving zombies I have ever seen.

So having spent the best part of six hours watching heroic parenting and gaining expert guidance on how to save your offspring from all manner of nastiness this world might have to throw at them now and in the far future it was somewhat ironic when less than an hour after stepping off the flight I had to stand powerless with teeth gritted as a man much younger than myself treated my kids with rudeness and contempt.

Continue reading →

Lean, green and keen at Grand Designs Live

GDL_kevin3If you watched Gogglebox this week – the programme that watches people watching TV that currently follows the latest series of Grand Designs in the schedules – then the most memorable comments came from the posh couple who watch their telly in their 17 bedroom mansion through an alcoholic haze. In a hilarious moment Dominic observed that the long black gloves worn against a black dress by one of the characters in Downton Abbey made her look like she was missing most of her arms. In a not so hilarious moment Stephanie described Kevin McCloud as an ‘arse’.

Kevin McCloud is a personal hero of mine since watching the first series of Grand Designs back in 1999 and so I was suitably offended on his behalf. Two days later I came face to face with the man himself on the opening day of Grand Designs Live at Birmingham’s NEC.

The first encounter was while waiting at the entrance to the event with a vast crowd eager for the show to open. A giant image of Kevin stares down at you as you enter a calming blue tunnel to the atrium of the event from where you can choose to explore the wonders of Build, Interiors, Bathrooms, Kitchens, Gardens and Technology each of which was guaranteed to bombard the senses with grand and beautiful designs and some very clever ideas.

Continue reading →