Over Harwell at lunchtime.
Like a tea tray in the sky …
Category Archives: Life
Mother Nature makes an overture
Nature and technology coincided in a dramatic multimedia event as I drove home this evening. Classic FM was playing the William Tell Overture – not the famous bit at the end portrayed variously by the Lone Ranger, Mike Oldfield and Kenneth Williams but the whole four-part movement, of which the second represents a storm whipping up over Lac Leman: first a few raindrops and then a sudden escalation into nature’s fury, beautifully conveyed through the orchestral medium.
And just as the storm hit Geneva on the airwaves, so it hit Harwell in real life: the dark clouds over Didcot were suddenly much closer, the wind was whipping the leaves off the trees in a cloud you could barely see through, and then came the rain, so strong I had to slow down.
Classic FM’s marketing department has a surprisingly strong reach. I will look around cautiously the next time they play the theme from Jurassic Park.
Here’s the bit I mean.
Steady, aim …
Yesterday I watched a skilled, trained, experienced NHS professional fail to extract blood from Bonusbarn by the simple expedient of sticking a needle into him. I’m not doing her down: I know it’s a matter of finding the vein, and if the vein isn’t prominent then success isn’t guaranteed. She tried again and this time got the required few drops into the vacuum container thingy.
But, bearing in mind that the distances involve can be measured usefully in millimetres, somehow it makes sinking a shaft you could easily step across half a mile through rock into a gallery only a few metres wide all the more remarkable.
Of course, veins aren’t generally positioned by GPS.
Anyway, here’s the last man leaving the mine. Wow. Towards the end it looks like they’re playing with him. We’re bringing you up! No we’re not. Yes we are! No we’re not. Tee hee.