Trolley 551

Trolley 551, another small trolley from an M&S food hall, picked up this morning on the ramp down to the market place from station approach. A station where, I might say, there were no Metros this morning. Had to make do with a Guardian from Costcutter instead. A trolley which had signs of stress and was some way off new, although not actually bent.

Plus, I am beginning to think that this small trolley did not start its life in the food hall of the M&S in Epsom. Nevertheless, I take the view that they are responsible for their trolleys, more or less wherever they turn up, so the people in Epsom can work out what to do with this one. Be that to just drop it the M&S skip around the back.

Picked up a stick of good looking brussels sprouts in the market for £2, to discover that BH had bought a small bag of same from Sainsbury's anyway. Just as well I like them, even if they don't like me all that much these days.

And down to the butcher in Manor Green Road for some sausages, where the choice was fat Cumberland (pale green), fat venison (dark red) or thin plain (pink). I settled for a dozen thin plain, plus a couple more for good luck. Didn't want to go short.

Topped up with some of the batch white rolls from Costcutter with which to make sausage rolls from any of the sausages which might get left over from lunch. Very good they were too, baked rather than fried and taken with boiled potatoes, carrots & parsnips and some of the Sainsbury's brussels sprouts.

Perhaps I had too many, as I went on to lose at Scrabble, later in the day, by a short head. Most annoying.

[Despite no one dying in the accident, the Three Mile Island leak of 1979 led to an almost stagnant US civil nuclear industry © Bettmann Archive/Getty Images]

I also took time to read at reference 3 about the stay on new nuclear power in the US and the freeze in Germany. Both policies putting us in a weaker position vis-à-vis Russian energy aggression than we might otherwise have been in. Then there is the long pause in Japan from 2010 and our own dilatory behaviour. Not helped by massive doses of nimbyism all round. A problem we are told the economist Tyler Cowen of reference 4 calls 'banana' — build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything.

I remain a backer of nuclear power, fission for now and hopefully fusion to come. A clean source of energy to back up renewables, in our case mainly windy and variable. That said, I have never seen an eco-balance sheet for a nuclear power station. They soak up an awful lot of concrete and steel in the construction, both of which generate a lot of global warming in their manufacture: is that more than balanced out by the lack of global warming in the resultant generation of electricity? Then, speaking for myself, I am not that bothered about the disposal of spent fuel, thinking that we get far too charged up about that. Life is too short. But I am bothered about where we get the uranium fuel from - with, as I recall, Russia being a big supplier of that too.

PS: advertisement: as it happened, Thursday's Guardian include a three page essay by one Samath Subramaniam (of reference 6) on the goings-on at Sellafield, our world class facility for the containment of nuclear waste. No leakage into the Irish Sea here. But, beyond the thought that, unlike us, both Canada and Russia have plenty of empty space in which to do this sort of thing, further comment awaits digestion of the essay.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/trolley-550.html.

Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2022/12/french-beef.html. Earlier notice of our newish butcher.

Reference 3: The American left’s chronic Nimby problem:Progressives like to embrace worthy causes but not often at the cost of having their lives disrupted - Edward Luce, Financial Times - 2022.

Reference 4: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyler_Cowen. Ranked No.72 among the top 100 global thinkers, whoever they might be.

Reference 5: https://tylercowen.com/. The horse's mouth.

Reference 6: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samanth_Subramanian. Not much in the way of scientific credentials in this horse's mouth.

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