Paris to Barcelona (a descent into Hell)

I recently went on a trip Paris and Barcelona with four friends (Kevin, Julie, Stuart and Cate)

After a day in Paris we were supposed to take a sleeper train to Barcelona and arrive the next day. Events turned out a little differently: -

• The 2 days before we left for France Kevin and Stuart spotted that SNCF (French rail workers) were going on strike and our train had been cancelled.
• Kevin booked an Easyjet fight to Barcelona and a hotel for one night.
• After our day and night in Paris we get to Paris Orly airport and find the flight had been cancelled as lots of airport workers could not get to work because the trains were on strike.
• We are standing in a queue for the Easyjet information desk when a rep tells us that there are no hotels rooms in Paris because of the rugby and no available seats to Barcelona for two days.
• We discuss the situation and decide our first priority is to get out of France.
• Stuart and I dash off to find an internet terminal.
• We find one but there is a guy using it to browse flickr.
• I leave Stuart to queue behind him and try to find another one.
• I find one, get Stuart and he goes to Easyjet.com to book us on the next flight to Madrid.
• He succeeds but I have to dash back to the others to get a pen and paper to note the booking ref as the terminal has no printer.
• Meanwhile Cate's friend is texting her times and prices of flights from Madrid to Barcelona.
• We fly to Madrid examine the departures board and pick some flights to Barcelona.
• We then queue at a couple of desks to find the best balance of cost and time for a flight to Barcelona ASAP.
• We pick one and I try to pay but my credit card is declined even though I have loads of credit so Julie pays. By this point we have paid an extra £250-£300 each.
  
• We take off from Madrid one hour and 20 minutes after landing.
• We arrive at Barcelona and catch a train to the part of the city containing our hotel.
• I get a voicemail from HSBC saying that they think my credit card was stolen by someone who used to try to buy flights from Madrid (AAAARGH).
  
• After an uphill walk with our bags through the dark streets of Barcelona we get to the hotel. It's about 21:00 and we are hengry and tired.
• THE HOTEL HAS NO RECORD OF OUR BOOKING AND IS FULL. BECAUSE OF A CONFERENCE EVERY HOTEL IN BARCELONA IS ALSO FULL.
• The man behind the desk (Alberto) says he will see what he can do and we sit down while Cate and Julie search the internet for anything from five start hotels to youth hostels with no luck. We are beginning to think we will spend the night on the streets.
• I clear up the HSBC misunderstanding and reactivate my credit card
• Alberto tells us that he has found us rooms in a hotel 20km's outside of town and they will pay for a taxi and the rooms. He offers us a meal while we wait.
• After dinner he tells us there was a mistake and the other hotel has no rooms after all. Cate and Julie continue searching the internet
• Alberto says that there have been a couple of no-shows and if they have not arrived by 23:00 he will call them and see if they are coming. If not we can have their rooms.
• The no-shows are not coming and the rooms are being cleaned and one of them is being converted into a triple.
• About midnight we have our rooms and are almost ready to hug Alberto in tears of gratitude. He is sweating and has a headache after 3 of the toughest hours of his career.
• Stuart discovers that although the hotel bar is closed they have a vending machine that sells beer.
• The next day our holiday in Barcelona begins it is fab and the sleeper train back to Paris is wonderful.

On our trip we saw the Segrada Familia, Casa Batillo, La Pedrara, Park Guell, The gothic quarter of Barcelona, We also went to the top of the Eiffel Tower (very high indeed) .

I have always hated air travel. I am not afraid of flying even in bad weather but I hate airports that are always full of stress, rushing and security checks followed by sitting on a cramped plane eating vile food and then the same stress at the destination with addition of hoping your luggage is in the same place as you and knowing you are still miles from where you want to be.

When we travelled from Barcelona to Paris we simply placed our bags on an x-ray machine, picked them up and got onto the train. A guy came to our private cabin to check our tickets. We relaxed before heading over to the dining car for a fantastic meal. I had the octopus followed by pork and apple in a mustard sauce accompanied by a very good beer. The food was cooked by a chef and served on china with real glasses and real metal knives and forks on real table linen. We then returned to our cabin to find the beds already made. We could lay in our beds reading a good book while the countryside rolled past the window. We woke up in France the next morning on our way to the centre of Paris with time to reurn to the dining car for breakfast . Because we left in the evening and arrived in the morning we got a great nights sleep and didn't waste any of our holiday time. This was my first journey in a sleeper train (something I have always wanted to do) and I loved the experience. It is more relaxing, more enjoyable, more environmentally friendly and more time effective. Learn more here. The difference in the journey to Barcelona and the journey to Paris really reminded me how much I hate flying.

Awwwww Yeah.

Mmmmmm Blood

I just finished giving blood about half an hour ago and can happily await my blue card. Apparently twiddling a juggling ball speeds up my blood flow to 70ml/min. This means it should be possible to completely insanguinate (good word) me in 65 minutes.

They had to get a nurse to find my vein and even she had trouble. The carer said that in another couple of years they will stop sending nurses to the donor sessions at all. However they will be given a new piece of equipment for finding veins by ultrasound.

Vertical Farms

Approximately 12,000 years ago the human race created one of the most important innovations in history, agriculture. By growing their own food humans were freed from the constant search for food by hunting and gathering. This allowed humanity to get on with the job of creating civilization. Agriculture has come a long way in the last 12,000 years and we have all reaped the benefits. In first world nations we can walk into a shop at any time and be sure of having a large range of fruit, vegetables and meat available.

However conventional farming may not do the job for much longer.

• By 2050 it is estimated that we will need an additional area of land 20% larger than Brazil to meet the food demands of the increased population.
• Additional land will be required to grow crops for biofuels to replace oil and coal.
• Climate change is already causing adverse weather conditions such as drought and flood making crop yealds less reliable.

The increased land use will have a devastating effect on the natural habitats of many species and the human race will still be unable to feed itself. Things look pretty grim. However the vertical farm may be the solution to our problems.

The vertical farm is a concept by Dr. Dickson Despommier of Columbia University, it takes two well established ideas (Hydroponics (growing plants in liquid nutrient solution rather than soil), and indoor farming) and pushes them to their logical conclusion. A vertical farm looks more like a office building than a farm and is powered by solar, wind and self-produced biofuels. Each floor contains 2 layers of hydroponic crops. Depending on the crop this means that at any time each floor can give between 4 and 30 times as much food as the same area of soil. The plants will also act as a water purification system not only for themselves but for the surrounding community. In addition power can also be generated by burning waste plant material. This means that in addition to crops the farm can create a net output of clean water and electricity. It is estimated the 150 of these farms could feed the whole of New York. Vertical farms also have a number of other benefits over conventional farms: -

• Vertical farms are not effected by droughts, flood or other adverse conditions.
  
• Different floors can be simulate different seasons and skip winter allowing an ongoing production of food all year round and multiple harvests per year for each floor.
• Vertical farms can isolate crops from diseases and pests allowing for easier organic farming.
• Vertical farms recycle all waste meaning there is no sewage run off.
• Vertical farms do not use tractors or combine harvesters and can be placed in major population centres where the fodd is needed dramatically reducing the carbon footprint for crop production.
• Much of the millions of square miles of farmland around the world can be returned to their original wilderness and forest states allowing endangered species a chance at recovery and helping to stabilise the climate.

The task of replacing many conventional farms across the world with vertical farms and returning the existing farmland to nature is a task that could take many decades and be fraught with difficulty (not least of which is what the farms owners would say). However if we have the commitment needed to do it then the benefit to mankind and the natural world could be huge. Vertical farms have potential to help solve our problems with food production, climate change, endangered species and even conficts over resources. More info can be found here, here and here.

Lifestraw

It is sometimes the case that a truly simple invention can change the world (The bicycle, the compass, the telegraph). The Lifestraw may be such an idea. The Lifestraw designed by Danish innovator Torben Vestergaard Frandsen is straw shaped personal water purification device that allows a person to drink directly from a contaminated water source. The straw design is incredibly simple: -

• The straw is made of high impact polystyrene and has a cord to be hung around the neck.
• When water is sucked through the straw it passes through two meshes (100 micron then 15 micron) this removes particles and even clusters of bacteria.
• The water then pases through iodine impregnated beads.
• The water passes into an empty chamber where the iodine can continue to kill bacteria.
• Finally the water passes through a charcoal filter removing any remaining particles as well as the iodine taste.

A diagram of the Lifestraw can be found here.

The straw costs between £3-4 and is capable of filtering enough water for 1 person for a year. Here is a picture: -



Surprisingly WaterAid have been critical of the device. Their points are as follows: -

• Lifestraw will not save people the long journeys that are often required to gather water in third world countries.
• Lifestraw will not provide solutions to sanitation or irrigation.
• For £15 water aid can supply a person with clean water for life.

I agree with all of these points, Lifestraw is not the final solution to the third world's water problems. But it can still save millions of lives. Half the people in the developing world are sick with a water borne disease which kill over 6000 people every day. I believe that in refugee camps, natural disasters and villages where NGO's such as WaterAid, Oxfam, and Practical Action have yet to complete water projects the Lifestraw can bring immediate relief from water borne diseases. Find out more here.

The blood is absolutely loads of life

I gave blood again today.

Things went well except that the woman dealng with me decided to cover half my arm in micropore tape. I hate removing micropore from my arm, it hurts no matter how fast you pull it off and you lose all the hair.

On the upside I convinced two friends (Kevin and Roy) to join me for their first time. The both gave successfully and are happy to continue as blood donors. Well done guys.

Play Pumps

It is not very often that you see a really creative, original and worthwhile idea. It is even less often that child labour in the third world seems like a good thing. Thanks to an organisation called PlayPumps International both of these things have happened at once. The idea of the PlayPump is very simple. A hand operated pump draws water from underground to an 2,500 litre tank 7 metres above ground level from where it is fed to a simple standing tap. If too much water is pumped into the tank the excess flows back down the bore hole.




The idea is simple enough but the clever part is that the pump takes the form of a merry-go-round that children enjoy playing with. The pumps are sited in schools, this means that children who spent much of their time collecting water are now able to get an education. The fact the play pump is so much fun has actually helped encourage children to attend school. Women who also play a major role in collecting water now have more time for family life.

If that wasn't clever enough the water tank is covered with posters that include public health information and commercial advertising, the revenue from which pays for the maintenance of the pump for at least 10 years.



The importance of clean water water in the developing world cannot be overstated. Half the people in the developing world are suffering from water related illness. Also water related illness accounts for 80% sickness in the world.

PlayPumps are doing work that provides real help for a third world communities on many levels. They are also attempting to install 100 pumps in 100 days if you want to help them go here.

Strange Dreams

Every now and then I fall into a strange sleep pattern where I wake up at about four in the morning and then go back to sleep where I have the most detailed, lucid and surreal dreams imaginable. The last one was a couple of weeks ago.

In the dream I was a multi-millionaire and I agreed to help a man start a donkey sanctuary. I told him to take as much money as he needed and left him to it. When I returned the sanctuary was built but had taken the form of a sixteen storey building. The fourth floor was where he had housed the Bengal tigers and the sixth floor contained and advanced system for remote controlling the tropical island of St Lucia which had been modified to allow it to be driven around the West Indies (possibly the whole World).

Unfortunately I woke before finding out if any of the remaining floors actually contained donkeys. Some people think dreams actually have meaning and if this is so then maybe my subconscious is telling me not to leave tasks to other people when I should be involved myself or maybe to be kind to donkeys. It might also be telling me to seize control of St Lucia (that seems more likely).

Anyone wishing to learn more about donkey sanctuary's go here.
Anyone wishing to learn more about Bengal Tigers go here.
Anyone wishing to learn more about St Lucia go here.
Anyone wishing to learn more about weird dreams go here.

That is all.

My new photograpic career

I recieved an email last weekend from one of the editors of Wikipedia. They had seen one of my photos on flickr and wanted to use it for an article on the Sutton Hoo Anglo-Saxon ship burial. My photo was of the re-assembled shield fittings and was taken at the British Museum. If your interested you an see the article here. My photo is just under half way through the document and is of a white circular replica of the shield with the original fittings. If you click on the image you will see an enlarged version with my credits underneath.

I know that Wikipedia conatins millions of images from millions of people. However being asked by someone at Wikipedia to allow my picture to be used was quite a thrill. Like most people who write blogs, post images to flickr or videos to YouTube (I do all three), I just do it because I want to share my thoughts or pictures with the world. However it is always a pleasant surprise when someone from a distant part of the world gets back to you and says the saw your post, picture, etc and liked it.

The blood is even more life.

As anyone who reads my blog (if anyone does) will probably know I became a blood donor about 8 months ago. Unfortunatley my company did not allow people to give blood during working hours or expected them to make up the time. This seemed a little unfair to me and here's why: -

After subtracting public and personal holidays we work about 45 5-day-weeks a year at 7 hours a day. This is 225 days (or 1575 hours) a year. You can only give blood 3 times a year and each donation takes about an hour. This averages out to about 48 seconds per day and saves lives.

Compare this to the 15-20 minutes a day smokers are allowed away from their desks to give themselves cancer and you can probably see my point.

Fortunatley the company I work for is very good at listening to it's staff and I decided to try changing this policy. After a few meetings and a lot of waiting they have finally decided to allow staff time away from work to give blood. I hope that once I everyone knows this then we will have a few more blood donors in the company and save some lives. I might even be able to get some friends to join me the next time I donate