No 114: Innovative but silly; Annoying and sillier; Visionary but silliest.

Innovative but silly: The 4 year drought in California is driving some truly innovative approaches to water saving. The latest idea is to install 100million ‘shade balls’ on one of the largest reservoirs in Southern California (see attached). The opaque balls will not only decrease water loss through evaporation but will also help control algae blooms and cut down on contamination via bird droppings. It is an inspired approach and should be applauded.

But turning a reservoir into a something that resembles the world largest ball-play-pit does seem mildly silly.

 Annoying and sillier: I have long since suspected that my iPad had a personality of its own, I now have clear evidence that it is not only sentient, but that it also has a plan to destroy my (already shaky) reputation. Every email I send from my iPad is no longer delivered under the heading ‘Piers Clark’; instead it now arrives under the title ‘Holidays in the UK’. I have no idea why. Perhaps it thinks that since I have left Blackstone this is all I do. If/when I manage to work out how to correct it you can expect all my future emails to arrive with the declaration ‘Piers, Lord of All’.

• Visionary but silliest: As further clear and irrefutable evidence of my iPads plan to slowly but systematically unravel me it has recently taken to automatically spellchecking the word ‘desert’ to ‘’dessert’. You may feel this is a minor problem but following the recent launch of the Nevada Centre of Excellence (see Note 111) I have been in fairly regular email comms with people at the Desert Research Institute.
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• To date they are being very understanding, and there have even been suggestions that pudding investigations could represent a new and lucrative emerging market for them. It is, after all, Bake Off season.

Spotted Dick anyone?