majorca (1)

Exit from Palma.


Wooden opulence.


Soller in the rain.


The tram to the port.

A real gem on Majorca is the Palma-Soller railway, which we visited last Thursday.

It's a three foot gauge line that starts from a charming station right in the heart of Palma, then using a little street running and reservation passes through some rather shabby bits of town before heading into the mountains through orange, lemon and olive groves and then reaches the mountain town of Soller. From Soller there is a 4km tramway down to the port, which we didn't have time to visit, but I did get a few shots of the tram running down the narrow streets.

Also posted to somerset and dorset and european byways

reality bites!

It's been fun watching the markets the last few weeks. As an economist this has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience, history as it happens. (It helps being debt-free, renting, out of stocks and into gold and silver!)

But what does it all mean? The USA's slide into socialism has been as surprising as it's been amusing, watching the rednecks having to confront the results of their love of debt and ignorance by using the tired old techniques of Lenin and Roosevelt. It's pathetic watching it.

Meltdown will not be averted no matter how much cash is thrown at the system. The old debt-financed globalised consumer 'capitalism' will die. In its place will arise REAL capitalism. Businesses funded by savings, run on a small scale from sustainable premises, sending their goods to market by train, tram and canal, utilising local currencies and hopefully not being taxed to the hilt by unimaginative bureaucratic self-appointed governments. That is what the post-Peak Oil world will look like. Who knows, this may even be the beginning of the end of global warming ...

circuses and bread

Milling penniless consumers at Cabot Circus,


Where to next - everything looks the same!


LOL!


REAL retail space - St Nicks.

We visited the new Cabot Circus in Bristol today. On the way we saw zombies, spat venom at time travellers from the SWP, signed an animal rights petition and missed the christians. The place itself was an infuriating tangle of different floors, totally unimaginative shops and some nice (but far too busy) restaurants. All in all a white elephant with a sense of timing that staggers. It may well be the UK's last major retail development and will probably be all but empty once peak oil hits.

Less than a mile away is the excellent St Nicks, a REAL retail development. Small units, tons of atmosphere, individually locally owned businesses, useful products and superb eating facilities. St Nicks will outlast Cabot Circus by centuries.

the US slides towards communism

This evening commie Bush will speak to the nation (thankfully not ours!) Our previous business model, based on consumerism fuelled by huge amounts of cheap debt, is coming to its natural end. But our left wing friends across the Atlantic want to keep the party going.

Americans have NO concept of a free market. Their mortgages are backed by NATIONALIZED companies, they bail out businesses that should be left to go to the wall by throwing rapidly devaluing dollars at them and they expect the poor US taxpayer to fund this socialist drivel. It's pathetic.

Big government is ALWAYS wrong. It always ends in socialism then decay. In the UK Thatcher learned that the hard way, now Brown is finding it out too.

LEAVE THE MARKET ALONE AND IT WILL SORT EVERYTHING OUT!! But then, of course, the politicians will all be out of a job.

super weston mare

A day trip to Weston super Mare!


We set the dinosaurs on the foreign christian invaders on a shelf in Marks and Spencers.


Took the obligatory tourist trip to the burnt out pier.


Stopped at The Cliffs tea room on the old toll road - a wonderful slice of 1930s Englishness.


Ah ...

We popped down to Wick St Lawrence to visit our aristocratic Finnish chums on Saturday and ended up visiting Weston. Not, alas, on the long-closed Weston Clevedon and Portishead Railway which once had a station at Wick St Lawrence, but in our new low carbon car/van thing.

littlehampton 2

Neil's garden.


Food.


Grapes.


Neil discusses Peak Oil.

On the second day we visited Chris and Neil up in Findon. We hardly need push Peak Oil any more - everyone gets it now. Neil is really looking forward to things breaking down as he's the kind of bloke that will thrive in a much harsher world! He's got a dog the size of a bear, knows the location of more community guns than I do, composts, beats up hippies and commies and grows his own food. He was also desperate to talk up Peak Oil.

littlehampton

Jeff's garden.


The ubiquitous Green Man - no English home should be without at least one!


Jeff's tree nursery.


The model railway.

We popped to my old stamping ground of Littlehampton - Britain's toughest town - a couple of weeks ago, calling in on family. This is Jeff's place. As well as numerous artefacts of Sussex - Jeff is a rabid Sussex nationalist - there were Green Men, a nursery for trees that he rescues from the Downs as seeds, then brings on and replants back on the Downs, and an excellent model railway.

only in Hartcliffe!

This gem appeared in today's Independent - other communities have playschemes, parks or coffee mornings. Here in Hartcliffe we have a community gun! I only wish I was party to where it's kept as there are a few climate change deniers and hippies I'd love to send on their way!

comment

Oh dear! When things are chugging along calmly Panther churns out post after post, but when the shit hits the fan I'm much more likely to be watching the news, Bloomberg and the markets. And what a week or so it's been! First Lehman Brothers and Merrill Lynch, today it's Lloyds possible buy out of HBOS. The markets dither and don't always reflect the long term reality, but the drift is down.

So what's the long term view? My own faith in capitalism will never be shaken, but I'm glad that we're beginning to see the end of this Thatcherite socialist populist 'capitalism', that's really just consumerism for sheep fuelled by cheap credit and tat. I think this is the beginning of the end for so-called 'globalisation' and a robust rebirth of genuine, small-scale, artisanal capitalism, funded by wealth rather than debt. The death of the dollar (and many other fiat currencies) is getting closer by the day, the death of pointless jobs will follow and the growth of the family as unit of production is on the rise. Our towns and villages will begin to fill with shops, business units and real people, our railways will be reinstated and energy will be produced in the UK, not imported at high prices from stupid places like Russia and the Middle East.

This is a major, pre-Transition, change to our society, and not before time.

morons

The Bank of England fucked up again today. They didn't raise interest rates.

To rebuild our shattered economy after 20-odd years of Credit Cruncher abuses aided by craven governments we need to rebuild our national balance sheet, and the best asset class is cash in a strong currency. We get that two ways - by building a strong industrial base that underpins a strong currency, and by encouraging our citizens to be thrifty and SAVE. We're not going to do that with interest rates so low. My money's going into gold, silver and land, REAL money.

These fuckers still haven't learned the lesson. We need economists running the country, not idiot politicians whose only interest is in keeping the sheep grazing.

Expect REAALY bad economic news over the next year or two, and to avoid it just read this blog!

oh dear

The poor Americans. Having to choose a replacement for dimbo tree hugger Bush. And what a choice they have! Smarmy smart-arse Obama, or zombie McCain. And as for his 'running mate', Sarah Palin, it's got to be a joke! She runs a village store up north, surrounded by a gaggle of kids with stupid names - she wouldn't be out of place in Hartcliffe! And now her 17 year old - called wonderfully 'Bristol' (How Hartcliffe is that??) - is up the duff by some chav loser.

I like my Republicans old school. Low IQ, loads of money and easily controlled.

So what does Sarah believe? Apart from that the Commie Centre is the best place on earth? She is convinced that 'global warming' is not man made. Impressive, as she'd be hard pressed to find a single scientist who would agree with her. But there again she believes in 'creationism'.

It's all crap anyway. Obama will walk this election, McCain will probably pass away before November in any case. And Sarah can go back oop north to sell fishing reels and bullets, whilst believing the world is flat. Fuck 'em all ...

the future and the past

Scene from the Great Dorset Steam Fair, near Blandford. Debs is interviewing one of the owners.



A few general views.


Our press pass - which gave us a carte blanche to wander the site and ask questions. This was at the invitation of ITV Local Meridian, who were experimenting with using bloggers to report on the show.

I suspect 99% of the visitors go for nostalgic reasons - but of course steam is likely to become very much part of our future. Bear in mind that the most advanced form of energy - nuclear - is really just a big steam engine. The nuclear reaction heats up water which turns to steam and works the turbines.

There are also HUGE reserves of coal in the UK, and the government is already eyeing this up. It's not hard to imagine the coalfields of South Wales, South Yorkshire, Scotland, the Midlands, the North East and even Somerset and Kent bursting back into life over the next 20-30 years. There is also a huge unworked coalfield under Oxfordshire. Of course coal is - currently - a dirty fuel, and any talk of using it sends the tree huggers into apoplexy (good!!) But clean coal technologies may well come along, even if expensive. But of course to be sustainable we need to grow and burn wood. Imagine the UK covered in vast forests, all sustainably harvested for fuel. With the vast increase in railways and rail traffic expected in the future many of these railways will, once again, be worked by steam, where electricity is too expensive or difficult an option. The future is beginning to resemble the past more and more.

Back to the fair! Visitor numbers are now in excess of 200,000. Almosst all arrive by car, by the fair organisers are looking ahead and considering building an on site railway. This will no doubt be steam powered!

The flexibility of the traction engines is amazing. As well as pulling heavy loads, they could also be used to work farm machinery and, of course, fairground rides. This flexibility is something we've also lost on the railways, as locomotives have been replaced in many cases by multiple units. A locomotive can pull freight or passengers, can shunt, work a snowplough or engineering trains. Flexibility is the key to keeping costs down. I bet the fair railway when it is built uses locomotives, and will be the better for it!

french lessons

The festival at Lizio. Breton music and other treats - and very chilled out.


Ploermel station. How long before the tracks return?


Josselin - lively as always.


I think this is the old railway (which continues to Ploermel and beyond) but still not sure!

A week in Brittany again. A great time despite raging sinusitis!

It still amazes me how far in advance of us France is. They will cope well with Peak Oil, though not so well with Climate Change. 80% of their power is generated by nuclear, though how long uranium will last is anyone's guess. There were plenty of wind turbines, and the roads were almost empty. Towns and villages still retain local shops, although the supermarkets are useful too! The French have invested heavily in some of their railways, the TGV in particular. Even smaller cities have brand new state of the art tramways. And their closed railways are generally protected as rights of way with reinstatement much easier than in the UK. And in many towns and villages council services have switched from internal combustion to horse and cart. Even the weather's better ...

The race to claim ownership of oil and gas-rich areas in the Arctic has been charted for the first time in a map showing the potential territorial ambitions of interested states.

Researchers from Durham University's International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU) produced the map to illustrate current boundaries, possible future claims and potential disputes in the region.

Last year a Russian submarine planted a flag on the ocean floor underneath the North Pole, in a bold gesture highlighting its claim to a huge chunk of the frozen land.

Other disputes involve Canada, USA, Denmark, Iceland and Norway.

Martin Pratt, director of research at IBRU, said he thinks the race for resources is the key motivation for states. He said a new survey by the US Geological Survey estimates that a fifth of the world's undiscovered, technically-recoverable resources lie within the Arctic Circle.

"We are talking 90 million barrels of oil, nearly 17 hundred trillion cubic feet. I mean I cannot even imagine how much that is, but it is a lot," Mr Pratt said. "I suppose for any state, control over hydrocarbons is significant as other resources dwindle."

He said Russia could be particularly attracted to the region's potential for oil and gas extraction because it already has a well developed gas infrastructure.

Areas of the Arctic, once frozen all year round, now melt in the warmer months, allowing investigations in the region that were not possible before.

"The other aspect is the melting of the polar ice and that is making it easier to explore the area which is why the oil and gas industry is looking at it," he said. "It is now becoming a potential area of development rather than a hypothetical one."

But he said this was likely to cause concern about the "unique environment" in the Arctic. "It is vulnerable and extracting oil and gas is not an environmentally friendly activity." Source

I felt obliged to add this comment!

Even if it's 90 BILLION barrels it is little more than 3 years' worth at current rates of consumption (86 million barrels per day). It will be very expensive to produce (the arctic is still pretty cold and dangerous for half the year or more), it will cost a fortune to transport, this is also the gross yield - huge amounts of energy will be expended getting it out. My best guess is that this will actually supply about a year's worth of energy - and as such would be a total waste of time and effort. This is before any further negative effects from climate change are factored in, many of which will need energy to correct/contain.

What it does reveal is the absolutely desperate position we are all in over energy supplies. It's pretty clear from this that Peak Oil has already passed the real danger point and that we're all going to learn to live with far more expensive energy and, often, no energy at all.

By their actions governments and oil companies reveal that they are desperately worried, but don't have the guts to tell us directly.

The real answer is energy efficiency and conservation, massive investment in renewables and a huge increase (as a stopgap as uranium is rapidly running out) in nuclear generating capacity. Don't let the hippies, tories and Daily Mail reader socialist scum dictate the agenda - they don't have a clue what they're talking about!

100 months left?

Let's hope not, but there are real dangers that positive feedback mechanisms may well kick in (or may already be doing so) and that if these aren't addressed we won't be able to stop runaway climate change. Whilst my main interest is Peak Oil I don't totally disregard climate change - it's the synergy between the two that is so difficult to quantify.

Anyway, check out this site for the apocalyptic view of climate change.