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Life & Amsterdam
Dec. 7th, 2006 12:54 pmSeveral months ago, I filled in an application form to join the BBC Expats forum & last night, I got an email from one of the researchers asking me for some more details. Whilst its certainly a pleasure to be considered to comment on things, I don’t expect much from it as I cant see them including “fat balding accountant from Amsterdam writes…” on their column, tbh. Nonetheless I’ll let you know how this goes; the main problem I had was in finding photographs of me that didn’t make me look like a Serbian war criminal - I had little success despite almost an hours intense searching, though Carole managed to find me some more photos within 20 seconds of coming home. How she does this, I just don’t know…
Speaking with public duties etc, I suppose that this ties in neatly with the fact that I posted some petitions to the Prime Minister yesterday (on line, using the new Downing Street petition system – it wasn’t just me randomly shoving paper in the post & hoping for the best). They’re at the "confirmed & waiting" stage, so they’re not up there yet
My main petition was to mandate minimum energy efficiency levels for cars & power stations; apparently most British fossil-fuelled power stations operate in the 35 – 41% efficiency range (data from Friends of the Earth & Greenpeace websites – but I admit that its not as though these organisations don’t have an axe to grind), whilst similar power stations around the globe (India in particular) now have efficiencies of 80 – 85%. Also, I think that minimum mpg’s for cars is a sensible thing – when we were in the US, there were adverts for ‘fuel efficient’ cars that could do almost 5 miles to the gallon – which was pretty sickening, tbh. Given that power stations & cars account for a sizeable whack (f not most) pollution, even a small change would help. I also signed some of the other petitions on the site – hey no vote, no voice. If you’re interested, here’s the link: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/. Go on in – if you want a say in the future, then speak up!
In other news, the weather over here is atrocious; last night it hammered down constantly & I feel as though I heard every single drop. I know that I didn’t get to sleep until well past 3am, so I guesstimate that I’ve had about 4 hours all told; to say that I feel rough is something of an understatement. The walk to work was also appropriately dismal – I’m still damp from it; at times like this, I really miss driving. Walk to car. Drive & listen to radio. Park & walk to building. Ok, its healthier for me & the environment to walk, but when the wind is howling & the rain is so heavy you could justify wearing a drysuit, I do miss it. Everyone else in the office is similarly stretched; when the weather is bad, no-one sleeps well & everyone’s in a miserable mood the following day. Like my boss.
S
EDIT: Just thought I'd point out that the original pettiton I put up asked for minimum mpg's "for cars & power stations". Which could have been interesting.
Speaking with public duties etc, I suppose that this ties in neatly with the fact that I posted some petitions to the Prime Minister yesterday (on line, using the new Downing Street petition system – it wasn’t just me randomly shoving paper in the post & hoping for the best). They’re at the "confirmed & waiting" stage, so they’re not up there yet
My main petition was to mandate minimum energy efficiency levels for cars & power stations; apparently most British fossil-fuelled power stations operate in the 35 – 41% efficiency range (data from Friends of the Earth & Greenpeace websites – but I admit that its not as though these organisations don’t have an axe to grind), whilst similar power stations around the globe (India in particular) now have efficiencies of 80 – 85%. Also, I think that minimum mpg’s for cars is a sensible thing – when we were in the US, there were adverts for ‘fuel efficient’ cars that could do almost 5 miles to the gallon – which was pretty sickening, tbh. Given that power stations & cars account for a sizeable whack (f not most) pollution, even a small change would help. I also signed some of the other petitions on the site – hey no vote, no voice. If you’re interested, here’s the link: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/. Go on in – if you want a say in the future, then speak up!
In other news, the weather over here is atrocious; last night it hammered down constantly & I feel as though I heard every single drop. I know that I didn’t get to sleep until well past 3am, so I guesstimate that I’ve had about 4 hours all told; to say that I feel rough is something of an understatement. The walk to work was also appropriately dismal – I’m still damp from it; at times like this, I really miss driving. Walk to car. Drive & listen to radio. Park & walk to building. Ok, its healthier for me & the environment to walk, but when the wind is howling & the rain is so heavy you could justify wearing a drysuit, I do miss it. Everyone else in the office is similarly stretched; when the weather is bad, no-one sleeps well & everyone’s in a miserable mood the following day. Like my boss.
S
EDIT: Just thought I'd point out that the original pettiton I put up asked for minimum mpg's "for cars & power stations". Which could have been interesting.
