I am voting for the Labour party in the upcoming UK election on Thursday, December the 12th. Please check out the issues that concern you in their Manifesto, using online page where you can select your priorities.

Supplying process heat with low carbon emissions to industry is required to avert climate change. One of most credible viable pathways to this is converting Natural Gas into Hydrogen for transport to industry through pipes but also ability to store in salt caverns. Carbon Dioxide that is a by product but rather than releasing Carbon Dioxide to atmosphere capturing the Carbon Dioxide and storing it underground. This change would increase accounted for costs of energy of industry along the line as would any decarbonisation strategy, but it is quite reasonable for the transition costs to be seen as investment, that is paid back with reduced social costs.

Some extracts from the Labour Party 2019 Manifesto that I myself find particularly of interest: “Energy use in buildings accounts for 56% of the UK’s total emissions, making it the single most polluting sector. We will develop the recommendations of our ‘30 by 2030’ report to put the UK on track for a net-zero-carbon energy system within the 2030s – and go faster if credible pathways can be found. We will deliver nearly 90% of electricity and 50% of heat from renewable and low-carbon sources by 2030.

Net Zero by 2050 is challenging but by 2030 even more so. But the actions that we need to start taking asap are pretty much the same just brought forward and intensified. The “Thirty by 30” report which you can find via link below makes thirty recommendations that aim to put the UK on as fast a path to zero carbon as possible. Like similar reports we need to see it turning into practical plan that gets demonstrated and then built upon.

For rest and relaxation I often listen to Podcasts. One that I really enjoying is Pirate History, along with reading Treasure Island just now. I also listen to (or have listened to in past or in tend to listen to in future): Revolutions Podcast The History of Rome Work Class History Podcast Novara Media Podcasts Behind the News: Doug Henwood’s Radio Show Talking Politics. Another Europe is Possible Titans of Nuclear Shell Energy Podcast Sleep With Me Podcast Orbiting Human Circus Dreamboy The Duncan Trussell Family Hour … And btw a recent conversation led me to revisit the GapMinder website.

Last year I was introduced to the world of Train Simulation on the PC. One thing that enabled this was my switch to using MS Windows on our family PC, a decision that deserves a whole article. But in brief although I still support use of Free as Freedom software. There are various factors that led to this: choices of PC to buy; easily setup family options such as child Screen time & Content restriction with the MS set up on Windows 10 (although having PC in living room with all of us is key with ours kids’ usage); my own use of Windows and MS Office at work (I wish this was not so but it is); and now Gaming!

For past few months I have been enjoying listening to the Sleep With Me Podcast. And in last week Ulla has really started to appreciate them too as we listen together to relax. Strongly recommended.

Ulla said on April 16th 2018 in Leeds: “We visited the Kitty Cafe today because it was a teacher training day at our school. Kitty Cafe was lovely but cats were all quite shy – not like our lap cat. Marcus said our cat should go there and have its birthday party there due to all the exciting cat toys there, tunnels and walkways and wobbly bridges and huge window seats which the cats enjoy.

On visiting Bradford on Thursday 12th April 2018 Ulla said: “We had a brilliant time with friends from Cambridge, also visiting the Media Museum in Bradford though our family was missing the unique interactive film studios which have been taken out for hands- and teeth-on Science experiments. We enjoyed playing ourselves through gaming history. Boys enjoyed making spider webs for their pretend spy challenge with sticky tape.” National Rail Museum, York & on visit to York on Friday 13th April 2018: “We had a fantastic day at the National Railway Museum, Marcus in particular enjoyed himself very much.

Here is a list of the historic Counties of Great Britain in an inconsistent order with some overlaps as some existed at different times: Bedfordshire Berkshire Buckinghamshire Cambridgeshire Cheshire Cornwall Cumberland Derbyshire Devon Dorset Durham Essex Gloucestershire Hampshire Herefordshire Hertfordshire Huntingdonshire Kent Lancashire Leicestershire Lincolnshire Middlesex Norfolk Northamptonshire Northumberland Nottinghamshire Oxfordshire Rutland Shropshire Somerset Staffordshire Suffolk Surrey Sussex Warwickshire Westmorland Wiltshire Worcestershire Yorkshire Caithness Sutherland Ross and Cromarty Inverness-shire Nairnshire Morayshire (Elginshire) Banffshire Aberdeenshire Kincardineshire Angus (Forfarshire) Perthshire Argyll Bute Ayrshire Renfrewshire Dumbartonshire Stirlingshire Clackmannanshire Kinross Fife West Lothian (Linlithgowshire) Midlothian (Edinburghshire) East Lothian (Haddingtonshire) Berwickshire Roxburgh Dumfries Kirkcudbrightshire Wigtown Lanarkshire Selkirkshire Peebles-shire Zetland (Shetland) Orkney Monmouthshire Glamorgan Carmarthenshire Pembrokeshire Cardiganshire Brecknockshire Radnorshire Montgomeryshire Denbighshire Flintshire Merioneth Caernarfonshire Anglesey and here is the list again separated with a |