No 158: When it comes to court appearances, how often is too often?

My first appearance in court was back in the late 1980s. I had been driving for about a year and was involved in a car accident. The case was dismissed within minutes, not because I was wholly innocent (it had been one of those situations where neither party was paying enough attention), but because the other party started making statements that were patently untrue. My then girlfriend (who is now my wife) appeared in court beside me, partly as moral support, partly as a character reference, and partly because she had witnessed the event in question. I went into the courtroom fearing I would be banned, I walked out acquitted.

My second appearance was about 10 years later. Speeding cameras were still a relatively new phenomenon and following a spate of poor choices on my part I had accumulated more points on my license than is wise. I pleaded guilty. My time in court was mercifully brief. I went into the courtroom expecting to be banned, I walked out with a hefty fine and a slap on the wrists, but with my license still valid.  

My third appearance was earlier today. It may have been over 15 years since my last visit but little had changed. Except this time my wife was not with me to provide character support/shoulder to cry on (sensibly she had better things to do). I was charged with speeding, having been caught on camera driving at 69mph on the motorway in a 50mph zone. I pleaded guilty. I went into the courtroom knowing I would be banned. I walked out not at all surprised.

The judge was rather nice about it all, and we had a little to-and-fro banter about the challenges of modern driving. Don’t press so hard on the accelerator might be the obvious advice to someone like me. Or perhaps: pay more attention to the variable speed signs. Either way, as the judge said with a little conciliatory shrug, ‘speeding is speeding’. When invited to give a statement I wisely chose to reject the pearls of wisdom that friends have encouraged me to use. I did not, for example, say that I was sorry….Sorry that the police were not spending more time chasing real criminals.  Neither did I point out that the speed awareness courses clearly don’t work, otherwise I would not have been appearing in court today. In particular I chose to reject my loving brothers advice that I base my appeal on the fact that I pay so much in parking fines that local authorities across the UK would be harshly hit without my regular contributions. No, I simply said I was sorry and I took my punishment (a 6 month ban). Clearly I have not yet learnt my lesson.

On the plus side this will help with one of my New Year Resolutions. I vowed to tread more softly on the planet and this will help. Now all I have to do is find a way to get banned from flying too and I will be able to really reduce my carbon footprint.

For previous versions of this blog visit http://notesfrompiers.blogspot.co.uk/

No 157: The 2017 Utility Week Awards

Once a year the great and the good of the UK gas, water and electricity sectors gather at a posh hotel off Park Lane to celebrate and showcase their recent achievements. It is a classic industry back-slapping celebration and is a glorious bit of self-indulgence. 1500 people dressed to the nines in everything from skimpy black dresses to over-sized dinner jackets (depending on personal preferences and body shapes). Everyone hoping for their moment of glory, their chance to shake the hand of the celebrity Compare Jeremy Vine, and walk away with a coveted trophy.

The organisers (Utility Week) pulled out all the stops and created a glitzy 1980s vibe that resonated with (at least) the middle aged attendees such as myself. It transported us back 30 years to when we were younger, bolder and still had that naïve belief that we could make a difference. A band of enthusiastic singers, resplendent in 1980s lycra, welcomed each award winner to the stage with a 20 second sound bite from an 80s classic. As the night progressed the songs became slightly more obscure. Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now was followed by The Final Countdown, which then became Fame and, bizarrely ended with Gary Newman’s ‘Cars. Somewhere along the way I lost the thread of this but was whipped along by the glitz, glamour and tightly-lycraed dancers. It was all rather entertaining.

I was attending as a guest of Thames Water. It is 2 years since I left Thames and it was great to be back with my old work ‘family’ to celebrate Christmas early. I played the part of the distant, slightly embarrassing uncle who everyone knows has only been invited because no one else would have him due to his tendency to dribble, fart and say inappropriate things. I did my best to play the part.

One of the projects I had been honoured to be part of while at Thames was the installation of Europe’s first commercial scale phosphorus recovery facility at Slough. Phosphorus is a finite element vital to all life on earth and we are currently squandering it as if there was no tomorrow. It represents one of the greatest environmental challenges of our generation and the facility at Slough is an important step forward. Not surprisingly the project had been shortlisted for the prestigious Environmental Award. I was confident that we were a shoe-in. The trophy was ours.

With hindsight there were signs that we were not going to be successful from early on in the evening. Our table was No 123 and was about 2 miles from the main stage. Had we been successful it would have involved a 4 hour trek through the throng of people, tables, and eclectic 1980s memorabilia just to get to the stage.

It is a minor compensation but at least the winning project was from a Water utility rather than the rabble of Gas businesses or Sparkies who tried to share the limelight.  Severn Trent Water walked away with top prize for their commendable efforts with renewable energy. I am not bitter.

Much.  

These Notes, and previous editions, are available at http://notesfrompiers.blogspot.co.uk/

No 156: The UAE is the only country in the world to have a Ministry for Happiness.

Even if everything had gone according to plan I knew I was cutting things tight. My plane was due to land in Abu Dhabi at 730am on Sunday morning and 90 minutes later I was supposed to be chairing a workshop for a roomful of important government dignitaries. This was one of the key kick-off events for the nationwide Innovation Week across the UAE and it had more people attending who needed to be referred to as ‘Your Excellency’ than I have ever encountered, but then again I don’t get out much. There were representatives from many of the UAE’s important Ministry’s, including Energy, Climate Change and Infrastructure. Ministry of Happiness was, unfortunately, unrepresented.

My plane landed on time and customs was a breeze. It was in the taxi where things unravelled. The venue was the Sharjah Centre for Astronomy and Space Sciences. Now don’t get me wrong, Sharjah is a lovely Emirate with many great features, but one would not immediately expect it to have a cutting edge, state-of-the art space centre. Bearing this in mind, you might think that local taxi drivers would know of its existence. You would be wrong. I tried two different drivers, both of whom swore they knew the venue before I got into the cab, only to recount this important fact 5 minutes into the journey. When we eventually located the venue it turned out to be a huge golden-domed building in its own massive parkland grounds. It was just the sort of imposing infrastructure that a local might have noticed, especially given the 3 foot high lettering around the rim of the golden dome which proudly read 'Sharjah Centre for Astronomy and Space Sciences'. 

I eventually arrived 15 minutes late, just at the point where my Isle colleagues who were already on site and had been holding the fort in my absence were debating kicking off without me. Rest assured that this lack of faith in my ability to be fashionably late will be fully addressed at their next performance reviews.

There then followed an intense 3 hour workshop exploring novel and innovative technologies that could help the UAE address some of their water related challenges. Slightly unusually for an arid county one of the key themes we had been asked to explore was Flood Management, which is becoming an increasing issue in the UAE (‘Yes Mr Trump, you are right. Climate change is a figment of our overly fervent imaginations…’). One of the technologies we presented was a world exclusive: we showed a video of a large scale flooding trial using a fantastic new product from Neptune Solutions Ltd (http://www.neptunesolutions.co.uk). A less discerning viewer might have regarded the video exclusive as 2 minutes watching water flow down a muddy field in outer Manchester but this would be missing the point. It was a demonstration of one of the boldest, most innovative and cost effective means for flood control/defence. It is worthy of a blog in its own right. The audience were appropriately impressed and I am sure are busy booking their flights to Manchester so they too can experience the delights of standing in a wet field the in the north of England, with howling gales and horizontal rain while watching murky water cascade down a hillside into an immovable barrier.  

Unusually for a workshop we managed to hold onto our audience. An unacknowledged rule of all conferences and workshops is that is that the more senior the attendees the more likely it is that they will gently slip away during the session. The key is to not take this as a personal affront, these are busy people with packed diaries.

Perhaps it was a reflection of the quality of the workshop content, or perhaps they were beguiled with our novel presentational style (we toyed with doing some of the presentations through the medium of dance then wisely opted for something slightly more conventional) but we started with 45 people in the room and 3 hours later we still had 42 engaged and happy. Within hours the Ministry of Energy (MOENR), our client, had their press machine in full swing (see attached).

Then again, perhaps it was the free lunch that encouraged people to stay. Or the special post-lunch VIP tour from the  Director of the Planetarium (I learnt a swathe of new facts I will share with my Scout Group, whether they want them or not). Whatever it was I don't mind. All that really matters is that the attendees were happy, and that my client was happy. The fact that my colleagues and I were also happy was just a bonus.

No wonder the Ministry of Happiness didn't attend. Their work was complete. 

No 155: It is called SPACE for a reason….

I am not a real man. I can’t fix shelves, I don’t know (or care) how the combustion engine works, and I have no opinion on the best driving route from Basingstoke to Cheltenham on a Sunday afternoon. I have long been content to lack these  masculine traits. However, sometimes just sometimes my failings come back to haunt me. As the Assistant Scout Leader for my local troop I was recently asked to lead some badge work. I find backwoods survival skills frustrating (‘just use a match!’) and I am hopeless at anything that requires hand/eye coordination (such as archery). This significantly narrows my field of badges.

Earlier this year I had successfully enthralled the troop with my one party piece: a session on water and wastewater treatment (see Notes 123 and 124). Unfortunately the troop foolishly concluded this meant I possessed hidden depths of knowledge. My protestations to the contrary were seen as modesty. If only they knew the truth. Mrs Clark could have told them just how useless I am.

Faced with the challenge of finding something that would engage and educate yet not be too practical I eventually decided upon the Astronomy badge. Over the course of the next 5 weeks I will attempt to engage twenty-five 10 – 14 year olds in the majesty of the universe. Week 1 went surprisingly well.

In order to see how much the children knew already I invited each patrol to act out how the sun, earth and moon interact with each other. With the possible exception of when the Earth kicked the Moon because his flailing arms were getting too close, their basic level of knowledge was higher than I had expected. They could even name all the planets (obligatory schoolboy laughter at Uranus). Perhaps most worrying was when I asked the other three other leaders to act out the ‘right answer’. They ended up in a confused huddle in the corner of the room. On the plus side between them they could cook a delicious three course meal in the Arctic with just two pieces of wood and a bag of broccoli.  

Next, using a football (200mm diameter) as the sun, I got the scouts to select from an array of smaller spherical objects (ping pong balls, tennis balls, etc) those which they felt best represented each of the planets in our solar system. As expected everyone chose objects too large. There was a lovely jaw drop moment when I revealed that, on this scale, the earth was just a tiny bead (2mm across) and our biggest planet, Jupiter, was nothing more than a small cherry tomato (16mm in diameter).

My final exercise was to give them a sense of the massive distances across space. Taking turns each child placed the Bead Earth and the Tomato Jupiter at appropriate distances from our Football Sun. With each attempt I confirmed if they were better or worse than the previous guess. Inevitably we ended up outside. With our football sun balanced precariously on the gate we started walking up the road. At 21 meters we positioned our Earth in orbit. It was another 185m before the Cherry Tomato was finally positioned correctly. Had we wanted to place Neptune it would have involved another half kilometre of walking. Our solar system really is huge.

As a final question I asked the scouts where, on this scale, would our next nearest star (Alpha Centuri) be? The guesses came thick and fast. In the High Street? By the train station? Eventually one of the more exuberant children who has a natural tendency to misbehave and is invariably being chastised for being disruptive, chirped up with the biggest distance he could imagine: FINLAND! Imagine his delight at learning he was the nearest. On the scale where our sun is a football, Alpha Centuri would be 5200km away.

Next week: Telescopes!

These Notes and previous editions can be found at http://notesfrompiers.blogspot.co.uk/

No 154: Today I was a Moroccan research scientist. Tomorrow I will be a Spaniard.

Late last Friday my phone rang. It was my good friend Frank Rogalla, Head of Innovation at Aqualia in Spain. He sounded agitated.  ‘Are you going to the IWA Congress in Brisbane next week? Can you do me a favour?’ As it happens I was just boarding a plane in SE Asia for Australia where I was scheduled to spend a couple of days at the Congress. ‘Of course’ I replied, somewhat foolishly.

Frank is the leading a glorious research project investigating whether it is possible generate energy from wastewater by growing microalgae and then feeding the harvested algae into an anaerobic digester. The project started in the laboratory back in 2010, has worked its way through pilot and prototype testing, and there is now a 2 hectare demonstration scale site, complete with a 2300m3 digester, being constructed in Southern Spain.

It is a fantastic project, involving Aqualia (Spain), the Univ of Southampton (UK), the Fraunhofer Institute (Germany), BDI (Austria), Hygear (the Netherlands) and, slightly left field, Volkswagen (Germany). Two papers were due to be presented at the IWA Congress but for various last-minute reasons neither speaker could make it. Could I, Frank asked, step in and help?

Now what I know about algae can be written on the back of a matchbox. Or rather, what I knew about algae last Friday could be written on a matchbox. A crash course over the weekend (what else would one want to do when faced with a sunny weekend in beautiful Brisbane?), combined with a couple of calls with Frank brought my knowledge to a level where I felt I might just about do justice to the hard work done by others and (perhaps more importantly) not look a complete fool.

My back up plan, much like the one I use every day, was to resort to egotistical showmanship if things got a bit sticky.

So today I was Dr Zouhayr Arbib, a distinguished Moroccan research scientist. I presented his work, which shows that you can indeed generate lots of energy using their method. Rather than consuming 0.5kw of power to treat a m3 of sewage you can generate 3kw. That is truly impressive. I wallowed in the glory that came from the audience and even managed to field the (8!) questions, subtly choosing to talk about the biogas generation part of the project (which I know and understand) rather than the algae harvesting (which I don’t).

Tomorrow I will be Dr Ignacio de Godas and I will be presenting his work. I am particularly looking forward to explaining the slide that has the following equation on it:

My back-up strategy may need to be more refined than that of today. Adopting a bit of distracting showmanship isn’t going to be enough. Instead I shall assume a strong Spanish accent, possibly with a Catalonian lisp. I will be fiery and passionate and act in accordance with such a sweepingly Mediterranean stereotype that no one will dare ask me anything difficult. Wish me luck.