Back Then

Primary school children have always brought home notes from school with messages about upcoming events or rules which could not be trusted to those fallible young memories.  These days they are printed out in the school office on laser or inkjet printers, after having been typed up on a computer. It wasn't always so. Before these very handy and efficient printers there were duplicators, Roneo or Gestetner, bulky and often messy machines which used paper stencils which had been typed on a manual typewriter with the ribbon removed so that the keys would cut through the stencil. Before that there were the various types of gel copier. This is difficult to describe to anyone who has not seen them.  Essentially messages were written on to coated paper with special inks.  The paper was then pressed into a pad of gelatin like material to which the ink transferred.  A sheet of paper was then pressed very carefully into the gel thus producing a copy.  One copy at a...

The plight of the Beluga whale sighted in the Thames this week is another reminder of  what is happening to the environment and no part of the planet is immune. When we used to sail our 28ft boat on the river Medway many years ago we had to be vigilant to avoid the floating debris which could have damaged our hull.  Wooden pallets and other large pieces of timber were regular hazards as well as partially submerged objects of unknown size and construction. In strong winds, even the moored large iron buoys became a hazard. More than thirty years on the situation must be worse and the waters between the Thames estuary and Iceland will contain many tons of hard material as well as the plastic which is more frequently mentioned.  This whale will not have been on a sightseeing tour, it is clearly disorientated and its natural navigation system is not function.  One would not need to be a scientist to deduce that all this debris could be a contributory factor....