All posts by A Scotsman in Suburbia

I am not a Grumpy Old Man I am a middle aged man who occasionally gets slightly hacked off with things. My politics are greenish and to the left of centre. I am married again, following being widowed. I own two bikes, one car, one campervan and half a cat. I love cycling (hence the bikes) and cycle sport especially road racing. During the winter I enjoy watching football (soccer if you are North American). I sometimes paint and enjoy cooking and eating.
Cycling, Sport, Tour de France 2012

A Brit wins Le Tour de France

Leave a comment

Tour de France LogoSomething happened last July that I genuinely did not think I would ever see. A British cyclist, Bradley Wiggins, won the Tour de France, and I was there on the Champs-Elysées to see him do it.

Obviously I follow the Tour de France religiously, even of it does mean tolerating Phil Ligget’s increasingly inane commentary. (Next year I am going to learn Flemish and watch it on Sporza.) By the end of the second week it was obvious that, barring a jour sans in the Pyrenees, Bradley Wiggins was going to win. With that thought in mind my mate Lord Wallington called me on the Monday suggesting that we make a trip to Paris to witness history.
” Brilliant idea” said I. So at five thirty on a bright and clear Sunday morning at the end of July, six middle-aged blokes set off for Paris in a car designed to seat five.

It was a fairly uneventful journey, punctuated only by a bacon roll and a cup of coffee while waiting for the shuttle and an inconsequential wrong turn on the peripherique. Somehow, we assumed by luck rather than judgement, Lord Wallington found a parking space just of the Place Charles de Gaulle (L’Arc de Triompe). Despite having to negotiate three roads coming off the Arc de Triompe we all made it to the Champs-Elysées to join the hundred thousand other Brits also there to see history made.
We had a few hours to kill while the peleton drank champagne and generally faffed about on their way into Paris. Finding something for lunch was in order. I was very pleasantly surprised to find a place just round the corner from where we had set up camp offering a cheese and ham sandwich and a cold beer for 5€.
The publicity caravan arrived shortly after lunch, and while reasonably entertaining for a while, partially clothed young men and women dancing to French disco music on top of a truck does get boring after a while. What I wanted was some cycling.

What he is advertising I’m not sure
I think they are advertising bread

Finally at around four in the afternoon the peleton arrived on the Champs-Elysées. George Hincape led them onto the finishing circuit because this was his last ever Tour de France and he had been a participant in every single tour ever ridden, or at least quite a lot of them. Shortly after that the attacks started, most of them were fairly short-lived, but one attack featuring everyone’s favourite baroudeur Jens Voigt and about a dozen others finally got somewhere and dragged out a lead of about 30 seconds. Sky and Liquigas kept it under control and with about a couple of laps to go it looked as if it was all going to come together when The Jensie took of again with a couple of companions. The move was always doomed to fail because Sky had decided that Mark Cavendish deserved a reward for all his faithful bottle carrying duties and sure enough with about 3km to go everything was back together. The Yellow jersey set about leading out the Rainbow jersey and shortly afterwards ‘Cav’ crossed the finishing line with his hands in the air.
Not that we saw any of that. Having positioned ourselves near the top end of the Champs, we caught a quick flash of the peleton every lap as it raced past our position at 55 kph. This video gives a rough idea of what we saw.

Neither did we see Wiggins presented with his trophy and final yellow jersey, but we did hear him announce the drawing of the raffle.
We hung around to watch the parade lap. After the race all the riders, and often the managers, do a lap of the circuit and in Sky’s case they included by Bradley Wiggins’ son. I did actually manage to get a photo of Wiggo in his yellow jersey, while he was doing the parade lap.

Maillot Jaune 2012

Maillot Jaune 2032?

Peter Sagan showing off

After that it was time to head home. We stopped for dinner in a place called L’Isle Adam, just outside of Paris. A good steak-frites and a beer later and we were on our way back up the Autoroute to Calais and the last shuttle of the day.

We arrived back in Wallington about 2:30 in the morning. To quote Wallace and Grommit “It had been a grand day out.”

Sport

Our Summer (like no other) is over.

1 Comment

It’s the mid September and after a few weeks that actually felt like summer the weather today has a distinctly autumnal feel to it and the leaves on the trees are beginning to turn. The Paralympics finished last Sunday with another spectacular closing ceremony that had something to say as well as being entertaining. We had the victory parade/celebration of our (British) Olympian and Paralympian athletes on Monday. Our magical summer has drawn to a close.

Andy Murray managed to extend it by a day, missing the victory parade in the process, and Bradley Wiggins is currently on his own personal week-long victory parade round the country ( also known as the Tour of Britain cycle race), but everything is getting back to grey boring normal. On Tuesday when I got the train up to London, for the first time in about six weeks, there were no Games-makers in their purple and pink uniforms, just slightly stressed looking people in their normal uniforms of grey business suits.

I have thoroughly enjoyed all of it and have decided to put my thoughts on it all down in a series of blog posts. I’m not sure how many there will be but I’ll start with where it began for me, in Paris on the Champs-Elysées on Sunday July the 22nd.

Cycling

David Moncoutié Retires

Leave a comment

With all the current admissions and accusations of doping during the 1990’s and early years of this century, I am slightly saddened that one of my favourite riders, and one of the few universally acknowledged to have ridden clean during those years, has decided to retire. After fifteen years in the pro peleton (all spent with the Cofidis team) David Moncoutié will retire on Sunday at the end of this years Vuelta.

Moncoutié Confirms Retirement.

In his early years many pundits thought that he was a potential Tour de France winner and although he won a couple of stages that potential was never fulfilled, largely, in my opinion, because he was a clean rider in the Lance Armstrong/Jan Ulrich era. The latter part of his career in many ways has been more succesful than the early part. He has won the climbers jersey and stages in The Vuelta for the past four years as well as other smaller races. This could be seen as a sign that cycling is actually getting cleaner. I hoped that he could take the Polka-dot jersey in this years Tour de France, but a crash on Stage 12 forced him out of the race.
He says that he has no ambition to stay in cycling, but will carry on riding his bike. That was the thing I liked most about him, he always seemed to enjoy the riding as much if not more than the winning.

Cycling, Tour de France 2012

Green and Spotty

2 Comments

Tour de France Logo
I said in my last post that I would take a look at the potential winners of the Maillot Vert (Points) and the Maillot a Pois (King of the Mountains) competitions in this post. In these competitions, especially the King of the Mountains competition, it is a bit harder to pick out the potential winners.
Normally in the Green Jersey competition it is fairly easy to find the riders who could win it. You start the list with Mark Cavendish, then add a few others. This year predicting a winner is complicated by the Olympic Road Race taking place six days after the Tour de France finishes. The Olympic course suits the type of rider who would normally be targeting the Green Jersey, so there is a question mark over whether some or indeed any of the contenders will make it to Paris. Some, like previous Green Jersey winners Thor Hushovd and Tom Boonen, have decided to opt out of the Tour completely, in order to concentrate on the Olympics. Other contenders may be tempted to drop out before the Pyrénées in order to fully rested on the start line in London. All of this makes predicting a winner difficult. In addition, this this years route appears to feature fewer stages that are suited to out and out sprinters.

Who is in the running for Green?

Let’s start with the obvious candidate, the current World Champion, and self proclaimed “Fastest Man on Two Wheels©” Mark Cavendish. I don’t think that ‘Cav’ will win the green jersey this year. I think that he is more focussed on winning the gold medal in the Olympic road race than winning green again. Also this year his team is focused on Bradley Wiggins and winning the Tour, so we won’t see nine riders on the front making sure that it ends up as a sprint.
He will probably win a few stages though.
The person I think will probably win is Peter Sagan. At this year’s Tour of California he won every stage that that wasn’t a time-trial or didn’t finish on top of a mountain. The boy ( he’s 22) is seriously fast and he can get over reasonably big hills. He will have competition from the likes of Matt Goss and Andre Griepel and possibly Oscar Friere, but this year I think it is his to lose.

Who is in the running for King of the Mountains?

The short answer is I haven’t got a clue. Alexander Vinokurov has said that he would like to at least try to win the thing. Every French breakaway artist would like to spend a day or two in the jersey. A climber like Dan Martin or Samuel Sanchez, who is unlikely to feature as a G.C. contender could take it, but for sentimental reasons I think it would be nice if David Moncoutie won the Polka Dots in what will be his final Tour de France.

Cycling, Tour de France 2012

Tour de france 2012 Preview

1 Comment

Tour de France LogoIt is time to fire up the blog again. Le Tour de France est presque sur nous mes enfants. Next Saturday on the 30th of June one hundred and ninety-eight riders set off from Liège in Belgium in the hopes that one of them will pull on that final maillot jaune on the Champs-Élysées three weeks later. It is starting a week earlier than it normally would because of some silly multi-sport event that London is staging the following week.

(More London-based whines about the Olympics will follow over the next month or two.)

One hundred and ninety-eight riders start but only one can win, so who is it likely to be? I can tell you who it wont be. It won’t be Andy Schleck, he is out with a fractured pelvis sustained in a fall in the Criterium du Dauphine. It won’t be Alberto Contador, he is banned until August because of doping violations or eating a dodgy steak, depending on whose story you believe. It won’t be Mark Cavendish, he will lose twenty minutes the first time the road tilts seriously upwards and at least another twenty on every subsequent occasion.

TdF 2012 Map
Click on the map for full details of the route

This years route goes clockwise round the country, with the Alps coming before the Pyrénées.This is normally reckoned to favour the all-round riders like Cadel Evans against the pure climbers like Frank Schleck. This year’s course also features two long individual time-trials for the first time in a few years. All in all including the prologue there is about 100km of racing against the clock. Again this doesn’t help the climbers. The climbers will have to think about how they are going to win this years tour. I don’t think the will be able to wait to the final climb of the day before they attack, because they won’t gain enough time that way. They will need at least three minutes over the likes of Cadel Evans or Bradley Wiggins going into the final time trial to have a hope of winning. The moyen montange stages could prove to be crucial. The other stage that I think will be important is Stage 16. This the classic Pyrénéan stage from Pau to Bagnères-de-Luchon as won by Robert Millar back in 1983.

The contenders

So who is going to win? For the first time, probably ever, we have a British rider, Bradley Wiggins, with a realistic chance of overall victory. Some bookmakers have him odds-on to win, which is ridiculous. There are far to many variables in a three-week stage for any rider to be odds-on to win it. Wiggins isn’t Frankel, streets ahead of the opposition, he is one of about five or six riders with a realistic chance of winning the race. They are in my opinion, and in no particular order; Cadel Evans (last years winner), Frank Schleck, Bradley Wiggins, Vincenzo Nibali, Robert Gesink and Ryder Hesjedal.

Cadel Evans (BMC) (Aus) has been there done that and last year finally got the tee-shirt. There will be no doubt about who is the BMC team leader and what the teams object is. He is strong, determined, more than a good enough climber to stay with the best in the mountains, and even if he can’t always match the sudden accelerations of the pure climbers, has repeatedly shown the ability to drag himself back up to them and limit his losses. He is also one of the peleton’s better time-trialists, especially at the business end of a three-week tour. This years course probably suits him even better than last years. However last year he was one of the oldest riders ever to win the Tour de France and this year he is one year older. At the Critérium du Dauphiné he did not seem to be at full form, but neither was he at his best last year, besides there is a saying in the peleton “Good Dauphiné, bad Tour, bad Dauphiné, good Tour”, meaning that it is possible to peak too soon.

Bradley Wiggins (Sky) (Gbr) had a good Dauphiné, he won it. He has also won Paris-Nice and the Tour de Romandie this year. He is undoubtedly the man in form. He is a similar rider to Evans, in that he is a good climber albeit one who generally prefers to climb at a steady pace and he is probably the best time-trialist in the world at the moment. If he is within three minutes of anyone bar Cadel Evans at the start of the final time-trial I will expect him to in Yellow by the end of it. I think that he can even give Evans a minute. In the three races that he has won this year he and his team have made controlling the race look easy. However in the races up to now the team has been wholly dedicated to making sure that Wiggins is on the top step of the podium. In the Tour Mark Cavendish will be looking for stage wins and probably trying to keep the Green (Points) Jersey that he won last year. The riders required to take care of “Cav” and lead him out in the sprints are not the same type of rider that Wiggins needs in the mountains. Possible conflict there.

Frank Schleck (RadioShack-Nissan-Trek) (Lux) is one of the climbers in the race who could win it. Normally he is slightly in his younger brother Andy’s shadow. Andy being out injured perversely could actually help Frank. Last year they had a tendency to try to make sure that one brother’s attack wasn’t putting the other brother into difficulties, so when they did attack in the mountains, they didn’t persist, allowing the other riders to come back to them. This year when he goes, he wont have to worry about his little brother being left. Having said that, he is generally not as strong a climber as is brother and in last years final time trial he lost 2:34 to Cadel Evans over a course that was 11 km shorter than this years. In addition, rumour has it that he (and Andy) are not happy with their current team and the Team Manager (Johan Bruyneel) in particular. So while I think that Frank Schleck might influence who wins I don’t think that it will actually be him who stands on the top step in Paris.

Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) (Ita) is another rider whose main strength is his climbing, but he also rides a reasonable time-trial, if not in the same league as Wiggins and Evans. He has won a Grand Tour before, the 2010 Vuelta d’Espana (Tour of Spain) so he knows how to defend a lead if necessary. Liquigas’ normal tactics in the mountains seem to be set a high but steady pace to make sure that there are no surprise attacks and then for the leader to try to nip off at the end. This plays right in to the hands of the likes of Wiggins and Evans, both of whom are quite happy to sit behind anyone who is setting a steady pace, almost no matter how high. What they find more difficult is a pace that is constantly changing, having to constantly put in an extra effort to drag themselves back up to an attacker. In this years Giro d’Italia those tactics didn’t do the eventual winner any harm.

Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin) (Can) won this years Giro d’Italia in the final time-trial. A similar rider in many ways to Evans and Wiggins, this years course should suit him. He rides for a team that works as a team, and regards a victory for anyone on the team as a victory for the team. He will have some of the most experienced riders in the peleton working for him, but the Tour de France is a step up from the Giro, and we will also need to find out if he has fully recovered from the Giro, something that might not become apparent until the third week.

Robert Gesink (Rabobank) (Ned) is a tall skinny Dutch climber with a reasonable time-trial. He won this years Tour of California with a superb attack on the principle mountain stage, so his form is there. The Tour of California, however doesn’t attract a very strong field because it takes place at the same time as the Giro. A fourth place at the recent Tour de Suisse show that he is still up there. His main problem, however is a tendency to fall off.

My predictions

Because the course suits all-rounders rather than climbers, and because the two climbers (Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador) who are able to disrupt the equilibrium of the all rounders in the mountains are both out of the race, this is how I think the final podium will be. It’s an all Commonwealth affair;

First      Bradley Wiggins
Second     Cadel Evans
Third      Ryder Hesjedal

Of course a rider could appear, if not exactly from nowhere, but from below the radar, and surprise us all. Last year’s White Jersey winner Pierre Rolland is one who springs to mind.

I shall have a look at the Green (points) Jersey and the Polka-dot (King-of-the-Mountains) Jersey competitions in my next post.

Uncategorized

Get ready to walk through airport security naked.

1 Comment

From the Guardian:

Foiled al-Qaeda bomb plot likely to lead to changes in US airport security

Homeland security adviser says FBI is testing latest underwear bomb to determine if it would have cleared current systems
The disruption of a plot by al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula to attack a US-based jet using what is being billed as an “improved” underwear bomb is likely to lead to increased security at American airports, the chief White House adviser on terrorism has indicated.

The full article is here. I have a feeling that we might have to take more than our shoes off the next time we get on a plane bound for the U.S.A.

Art

The Most Astounding Fact

Leave a comment

This is awesome. The astronomer Neil Tyson was once asked “What is the most astounding fact that you know?”
An Australian illustrator named Gavin Aung has turned the words he used to reply to the question into a cartoon. These are the first few panels, click anywhere in the illustration to see the full cartoon. You need to see the whole cartoon, trust me.

(h/t to Phil Plait at Bad Astronomy)

Domestic (UK), Politics

Boris, Ken, or someone else?

4 Comments

Non-Londoners can skip this post, I won’t be offended.

The time has come for those of us who live in The Great Wen to decide who we want to be Mayor of this great metropolis for the next four years. Although there are seven candidates, unfortunately I think our choice probably boils down to, do we dislike Ken more than Boris or vice versa?

Here, in alphabetical order are the seven candidates and the parties they represent:

Candidates
Name Party
Siobhan BENITA Independant
Carlos CORTIGLIA British National Party
Boris JOHNSON The Conservative Party Candidate
Jenny JONES Green Party
Ken LIVINGSTONE The Labour Party Candidate
Brian PADDICK London Liberal Democrats
Lawrence James WEBB Fresh Choice for London (UKIP)

Clicking on the candidate’s name will take you to their website, except for the B.N.P. candidate, who does not seem to have a dedicated website, so clicking on his name takes you to his Wikipedia entry.

Lets take a quick look at the minor candidates first.

Both the BNP and UKIP seem to think that the Mayor of London has more powers than he actually has. The BNP wants their Mayor to build a better NHS and pledges that they will not allow an amnesty for illegal immigrants. I might be wrong, but building (or currently destroying) the NHS is probably down to the Secretary of State for Health and granting an amnesty for illegal immigrants (not that there has ever been one suggested by either of the main parties) would probably come under the Home Secretaries remit. The UKIP Mayoral candidate, judging by his policies appears to think that the Mayor can unilaterally withdraw London from the EU. Both of them also seem to think that the Mayor can ban non-UK citizens from working in London.
If they don’t know what they Mayor can and can’t do then I think we can move on.

Siobhan Benita, the Independent candidate, is more interesting. I can agree with a lot of her ideas, especially on education, housing and infrastructure. Interestingly she is the only candidate to advocate building a third runway at Heathrow. If she was standing as the Labour or Liberal Democrat candidate (her ideas would fit reasonably well with both parties) I might consider giving her my vote, but as an Independent, she will find it difficult to garner the support she needs.

Jenny Jones, the Green Party candidate, is the only candidate with a well thought out and practical plan to turn London into a cycling city, along the lines of Amsterdam or Copenhagen, and for that alone you should consider voting for her. While cycling in London isn’t a dangerous as it is often perceived to be, it is not safe either, as she says:

It may well be fine if you are confident, experienced and physically fit, but we want roads where everyone feels safe whether you are 7 years old or 70.

Some of the other policies I am a bit more ambivalent about, though she is good on transport and recycling, slightly less so on what to do with non-recyclable waste.

Brian Paddick, probably doesn’t see himself as a minor candidate, but he is. He is not going to win, but the second preference votes of people who vote for him might, in fact probably will, decide who does.
He builds is candidacy on the following facts. For the first time the Mayor will be directly responsible for the Metropolitan Police, and he was a police officer for over 30 years. I will admit that during his time as Borough Commander he came up with some interesting and moderately radical (too radical for the Daily Mail) ideas on policing. The “big idea” on policing seems to be this:

If elected Mayor and London’s “Police and Crime Commissioner” I would make it my top priority to bring the police and public together, so that criminals don’t stand a chance.

Reading his manifesto it seems to me that he isn’t actually running for Mayor the position he wants is Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis. I want to elect a Mayor not a police chief. He is also a Liberal Democrat and I haven’t forgiven them yet.

Boris or Ken?

Here we have our choice then Boris or Ken, Punch or Judy, Scylla or Charybdis?
The best thing I can say about Boris Johnson is that he wasn’t (quite) as big a disaster for London as I feared he might be. He comes across as a cuddly buffoon, but is actually a very calculating politician.
There are two Londons, the divide is not between Inner London and the Outer London suburbs as some suppose, and Boris Johnson tries to pretend, the divide is between the City of London and Greater London.
The London that he has been Mayor for is not Greater London, he has been Mayor for the City of London.
Billy Bragg links to a story in the Sunday Telegraph and points out:

Two headlines from the Sunday Telegraph today – ‘Boris Johnson: We need more tax cuts’ and ‘Rich get richer’. Could the two be in some way connected?

The one thing that people will probably remember him for, the TFL Cycle Hire scheme a.k.a “Boris Bikes” wasn’t even his idea. Jenny Jones (the Green candidate) came up with it and Ken Livingstone adopted it during his last period as Mayor. It just happened to be introduced during his term in office, but he gives himself the credit for it. Similarly with introducing Oyster Cards on the rail system in London. The donkey work was done before his election in 2008, all he had to do was dot the i’s and cross the t’s.
What have his achievements been, well, he got rid of ‘bendy buses’ to keep the cab drivers happy and replaced them with white elephants, sorry Modern Routemasters, that is if they ever get enough built.
His reaction to last summer’s riots was late, ineffective and patronising, to put it mildly.
I won’t be voting for Mr Johnson.

That leaves Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London from 2000 to 2008, Leader of the GLC before its abolition by Margaret Thatcher back in the 1980’s and known to most Londoners as ‘Ken’.

In years gone by I would have said “Vote for Ken, he is the only candidate who actually understands London.” This time I am not so sure. I could be that I think he has been around too long – he is 67 this year – I think that Labour would have been better with Oona King as their candidate, but they plumped for the devil they knew instead. A few other things are also bothering me. There is a vague whiff of Anti-Semitism around some of his statements. There is also a feeling that he has been opaque about his financial affairs. Having said all that, his policies, cutting public transport fares and the reintroduction (in London) of the Educational Maintenance Allowance, and support for childcare, seem to me to be the best package on offer and look affordable.
Along with every other candidate he pledges to reduce crime and make housing more affordable. I can’t recall ever having heard a politician pledge to allow crime to increase, so I think we will ignore that one. Making housing more affordable is more easily said than done and while I am sure they are all sincere in their wish to get housing cost down, again I think that should be taken with a pinch of salt.

My vote, without any great enthusiasm will be cast for Ken Livingston. As the Mayoral election is a sort of Alternative Vote, I was toying with the idea of giving my first preference to either Siobhan Benita or Jenny Jones, with my second preference to Ken Livingstone, but I think I might as well just vote for him and leave the second preference blank. There is no point in putting a minor candidate as your second choice, because they will all be out by the time the second choice votes are counted. If you want to support a minor candidate put them as your first choice and the vote for Livingstone as your second preference.

As for the London Assembly my advice is this vote Labour for the Constituency Member (elected on First Past the Post) and vote Green for the London wide additional member – we need some greens on the assembly to make sure that the other parties keep to their pledges on the environment.

So to summarise this is how I recommend that you vote

  • Mayor – Ken Livingston – reluctantly
  • Constituency Member – Labour
  • London Wide – Green
Uncategorized

How the internet sucks your time away.

2 Comments

This morning I got up full of good intentions about what I was going to accomplish. The first priority was obviously to make breakfast and read the Guardian, from cover to cover, except for the sections that I don’t read. I had about 60% of this task completed when Mrsjohnm55 asked if I knew how to add some one to an email group. I know how to do it with my work email, but we use Lotus Notes at work, and because it is Lotus Notes, the method will be completely different to any other programme ever written. Being male I was reluctant to admit that I wasn’t sure how to do it in Windows Mail, because I have never needed mail groups for my private email. I came upstairs and opened up my email to work out how to do it. It turned out to be as simple as dragging and dropping contacts into the group. However..

One of my hobbies is Family History, and I subscribe to ancestry.co.uk to help with the research. One of the things they do is email you if someone else is researching one of your ancestors, and there in my in-box was an email telling me that some one had found something on one of my 3x great-grandmothers. I had tried to get a better handle on who she was for a while so I clicked the link. I checked out the information, it wasn’t a significant addition to what I already knew, it gave me an actual date of birth as opposed to the month and the year that I already had. Actually it might be the date of baptism, it wasn’t that clear.

This got me thinking about one of my other 3x great-grand mothers. Checking out her death certificate, I decided to find exactly where she had died. I couldn’t find the address on Google Maps. On a whim I typed into Google “Map of Kelso 1870”. This took me to the National Library of Scotland’s digital map archive. I found the address that she had died at. As I sort of guessed the street had been renamed sometime in the past century and a half.

Maps fascinate me, especially old maps. I don’t know how long I spent exploring the last three centuries of Scottish Borders via the maps I found in their archive, but it was a significant amount of time. If you like old maps have an explore of the site. It is first class and free. Just expect to lose an hour or two of your time.

I thought I might as well check Twitter (@john_m55) and that looks like an interesting article @so-and-so is tweeting about, I’ll check that out. That link in the article looks worth following as well. Should I look at my RSS feed to see if there is anything interesting there, of course there is, I wouldn’t be following these people if they didn’t say interesting things. Another half-hour gone. Might as well check Facebook before I shut down, nothing too much going on, except my sister tells me she has a friend who is cycling across the United States and is blogging about it, so naturally (cycling and cycle touring in particular is another of my passions) I had to check out his blog Bicycle Across America, more time gone.
And now I am blogging about it.

Environment

Time to turn out the (street) lights

Leave a comment

I have blogged about light pollution and the needed for dark skies before. Miriam O’ Reilly writes about the subject in today’s Guardian.

It’s just after midnight. There’s no moon, and hardly any cloud. A few street lights burn in the village below, but on the hill where I’m standing they have no impact on the brilliance of the night sky. Brilliant, because I’m looking into a canopy of stars too numerous to count.

She lives in a village on the edge of Snowdonia, the reality for most of us is different.

The latest annual star count survey by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) and the Campaign for Dark Skies (CfDS) showed 53% of those taking part on a clear night earlier this year could see 10 stars or fewer within the major constellation of Orion. Only 9% could see between 21 and 30 stars within the constellation, and just 2% had really dark skies above them and so were able to see 31 or more stars. Our skies are so “saturated” with glaring light, according to campaigners, that many of us are unnecessarily denied access to the wonders of the night sky.

In South London, where I live it is worse than that.
We needed to do something about this. We need to see the stars otherwise we lose something, partly our sense of wonder, partly our connection with the universe and the idea that we are a small part of it, but mostly the sheer joy of being out on a clear moonless night and looking up at the stars.

Posted from WordPress for Android