Statkraft, Technology and Art

Statkraft is an energy company owned by the Norwegian state. It is the largest producer of renewable energy in Europe, and owns more than 150 power stations. The majority of these are hydroelectric stations, but Statkraft owns a number of wind farms. But Statkraft isn’t static; it is growing. It has a number of aims, among them to provide Norway with clean energy from renewable sources, to increase its market operations in Europe, and to uncover other forms of green energy. Statkraft has joined forces with that other Norwegian company, Statoil, and created Scira Offshore Energy. Scira is in the process of building a windfarm of 88 turbines, which will be finished ‘sometime’ in 2012. Then, it is expected to meet the electricity requirements of 220,000 UK households…whew! I give this publicity to Statkraft because they are sponsors of the Edvard Munch: The Modern Eye exhibition that has just opened at Tate Modern. If you get a chance to see it, please do…

Caught red-handed

A few days ago, I received an email from PayPal - so what? Well, the email popped into a mailbox address that is not registered with my PayPal account. It read Dear Customer, Our Technical Service department has recently updated our online services, You are required to verify your account security details in order to start using our PayPal services as normal. due to this upgrade we sincerely call your attention to follow below link and reconfirm your online account details. please ensure that all security details are entered correctly in order to avoid loose of account. Thank you for helping us protect you. PayPal I need not draw attention to the terrible grammar, diction and punctuation of the piece. A quick call to PayPal proper confirmed the fraudulent intent of the mail. An email from a genuine company will always address the customer by name. My subsequent Google search revealed that a multitude of these ‘phishing’ emails are loose on the net. I also discovered that the link included with the above email could have unleashed spyware onto my computer – if I had clicked it. I did not. So beware, and take care… https://www.paypal.com/uk/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=xpt/cps/securitycenter/general/RecognizePhishing-outside

The Great Battersea Saga

The great Battersea Power Station saga has taken another turn. In 2010 I reported that “Real Estate Opportunities, the firm that bought the site in 2006 has just had a £5.5 billion ‘retail and housing’ plan approved, with the proviso that the Northern Line is extended by two stops to facilitate the shoppers and visitors who will certainly want to go there.” I finished the post by saying “we can only wait and see.” See we did. Last December, Real Estate Opportunities fell victim to the implosion of the Irish property market in general, and the ruination of Irish property tycoons, Johnny Ronan and Richard Barrett, in particular. Just to recap the history of the building: leading architect, Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, designed BPS in 1933. John Mowlem & Co built the main building, and the total cost of construction was £2,141,550 – billions in today’s money. It was 1953 before BPS was fully in operation as a coal-fired powered station. By1975 the day of coal as a major provider of electricity was over. In the meantime, the building had become an international icon. BPS has both the blessing and the curse to be the largest brick building in Europe. Its expansiveness makes it unsuitable for the type of development of Bankside, its sister building down the river (Tate Modern). Besides, the other end of town has the benefit of City finance, a privilege the Battersea site lacks. Over the years, proposals have come and been banished, one by one for a variety of reasons; among them a dearth of funds, opposition by heritage groups and of local residents. Now, the latest news is that Malaysian property developers SP Setia and Sime Darby Property have outbid Chelsea Football Club by putting forward a £400 million plan for the development of the site. In addition to this, the duo is putting forward £250 million for an extension of the Northern Line to the site. Already, a chorus of sceptical voices, the lowest of which is not Chelsea, is dooming the project before it has even begun. As I said at the outset, we can only wait and see.

Disgusted, etc

Excuse the title, but I am still reeling from the mess that was last night’s Apprentice final. I, and many other people, had been looking forward to it for weeks. My mouth was watering over the thought of all those lovely-jubbly business pitches growing in the minds of Britain’s Brightest and Best. You know what I mean; an amazing niche restaurant, or a boutique of extraordinary clothing, or a widget to revolutionise all our lives and save the sinking economy. Of course, I ought to have known that there is no money in making and selling things any more. But even if the plans of the candidates were going to focus on organizing, and communicating, and presenting, they could have done loads better than finding a new way to, er, buy groceries. There was the candidate who wanted to open a series of those wonderful things, call centres. She didn’t even bother to find out if the web name on her business plan was actually available and buy it – one of the easiest things in the world to do. Then there was the geezer who wanted Lord Sugar’s money to help amass an enormous gambling fund – what a project for the country’s business tsar! The ‘winning’ plan will at least create a few jobs by placing other people in jobs. But what a letdown the entire series has been. I hearken back to the blog I wrote a few weeks ago, expressing a wish that Lord Sugar would summarily fire the whole lot of them and hold over the quarter mill for the next series. One thing; the entire episode has answered the question I posted on my last blog: why do Americans get to go to the moon while the British get the steam punk trophy?

Skylon versus the Dragon: isn't it time we cast aside our steam punk role?

Not that long ago, I saw a report in the press about Skylon, the name of the unmanned space plane designed by the British firm, Reaction Engines Ltd. The story of Skylon’s journey from engineer Alan Bond’s head to computer disk is too complex to lay out in detail here. However, it began in the 1980s and has cost £12 million to date. If all goes well and another £220 million is found, Skylon should be taking to the skies in another…7-8 years? Oh dear, oh dear… To make matters more poignant, the Dragon, an unmanned space capsule built by the Californian company, SpaceX, has just docked at the International Space Station. Tut-tut again. Why do the Americans always win the space race, while the British get the steam punk trophy? It’s not that we lack imagination. The greatest robot known to man was built in the mind of Mary Shelley, while HG Wells zipped us forwards and backwards in time. Great Britain is hardly a minor player on the world stage. That great political power, Russia, has long had a space program to rival the Americans, and even the come-lately Chinese are getting their program – and rockets – off the ground. Get with it, Britain. Think of the employment potential, if nothing else…more information..

Why The Apprentice didn't fire me...

I watched last night’s Apprentice, my jaw tickling the carpet in disbelief. Lord Sugar did his usual thing of separating the goats from the sheep, and later dismissed one of those sad animals with his famous finger-wave. Well, if I had sat in Lord Sugar’s seat, I would have fired all members of both teams, wiped the slate clean, and held over the lip-smacking, £250 K prize for the next round – yes, there is going to be another series. Alright, it’s wisdom in hindsight, and OK, those poor teasels are under the scrutiny of the camera. But they had so much to begin with, not the least of their resources being a guy who owns his own wine distribution firm. His team won, or rather, didn’t lose because the alternative offering was so dire. The only spark of talent was from a young lady who designed the good-ish product logo for the losing team. Again, wisdom in hindsight, but nobody on either team, when asked to epitomise ‘English-ness’ mentioned William Shakespeare. I had the entire campaign in my head before I went to bed. Picture this. A guy in a suit of armour cries: “For Harry, England, and St. George.” He holds up a bottle of St George (the wine), branded with a red cross on a white background. There is a flurry of Greensleeves, and a galliard of Renaissance men and women on a lawn in front of a stately home. They cease dancing, and a serving wench steps forward with a tray of filled glasses. One man – Prospero? – raises a glass and says “The stuff dreams are made on…” Far-fetched? Years ago, there was a sherry called A Winter’s Tale – is it still around? Costly? The losing team hired a stately home to film a lassie in a modern wedding dress…curious, that. There are Renaissance costumes for hire, the length and breadth of the land. So, there you have it. McCann Erickson, I await your call.

Vidal Sassoon, RIP

Several posts ago, I waxed lyrical on the work of Vidal Sassoon, the man who contributed more than anybody in freeing women from their stifling, lacquered bouffants. Well, Mr Sassoon is now dead, and I bow my fluffy, unkempt head to this maestro of the hair salon. Sadly, I never had the bone structure requisite for a five-point geometric bob. A gal has to be built along modernist lines to walk the walk of Shrimpton, Hornby, Farrow, et al. However, I cherish the extraordinary VS hairdryer that I bought in 2002 for £12.99 and that was/is still going strong; 1800 watts, folding handle, 2 heat/speed settings, worldwide dual voltage, and cool shot button. When it does eventually break down, I will keep it as a museum piece. In the meantime, I go into mourning for this man who contributed as much as any artist or architect to visual culture in the twentieth century