Uranium, and opinions on nuclear power

Running a bookshop occasionally means I see a new book, order it, and completely forget about it for 3 months until it arrives. This happened with Uranium by Tom Zoellner. 
Pretty interesting stuff Uranium, and as Zoellner travels to loads of countries trying to exploit it (mostly its sought to sell to the mad countries for bombs), and you get the sense it screws up a country as much as it helps them financially.
Not only does it make the surrounding area radioactive, and therefore full of tumorous Elephantmen, it becomes The Place for the locals to work (as in Niger)- so other jobs and stuff aren't done. Economically worthless countries like Niger are/were foreign owned too (France in their case) so all the money from Uranium goes to France, whilst Niger, and other places like it, are absolutely shit.

Unlike The Gold Rush, there was no Charlie Chaplin film about The Uranium Rush (that would have probably been like Dawn of the Dead),

mmm, shoes for tea.

but The Uranium Rush was a huge thing in USA, with prospectors running around trying to find radioactive rocks- some of whom succeeded and became mega-rich. USA still holds secret bunkers that are stuffed with radioactive waste that no-one knows what to do with. The USA was the primary country buying up Uranium, and has spent $10 trillion - 5/6ths of the current national debt on making bombs out of it, or its by-product, Plutionium. Morons.

Although theres explosions like Chernobyl, it causes radioactive cancers, and it produces waste we'll never get rid of, its got to play a big part in our energy future. Coal has fucked up a lot more of the world than Nuclear-  but because of Chernobyl and the waste element, everyone hates nuclear power.
The supply of Uranium has barely been touched, and it produces no C02, we can store waste in glass in the ocean, and not have Homer Simpsons working at the power stations. So shut up- if you want toast in 2050- you need Nuclear power.

Although any information about uranium I just learnt will disappear within a few months, I was pretty happy knowing about a rock that far exceeds the price of gold, and has seen an unthinkable amount of resources devoted to its enrichment. Uranium was unquestionably the mineral of the twentieth century- and with both Nuclear power set to become more prominent, and rouge states continued desire to produce bombs, it will be the mineral of the foreseeable future too.

Death of a salesman

Arthur Millers play is currently showing at Leeds West Yorkshire Playhouse, and I went to see 5/6ths of it last Saturday (we arrived late due to neanderthal train and bus drivers). Fortunately it was over 3 hours long, so it was easy to catch up. Williy Loman (the salesman) was played by the guy from Poirot- Philip Jackson, and someone else looked like Patrick Stewart- exactly like Patrick Stewart, it took over an hour for me to realise it wasn't Patrick Stewart. 

 Not me

Loman is on stage for almost all the play- an massive achivement to remember that much, and he really steals the show- theres a whole host of other people (12 all together, a record I think for a play i've seen), but its difficult to take your eyes or ears from Loman. Basically he has two sons, both a bit losers, but he wants them to make loads of money selling stuff- something he never really did, and continues to fail at. He's getting older, times are changing, and his kids dont want to travel around selling socks. The best bits are when Loman goes a bit mad when things aren't going his way, and he natters to himself and has imaginary friends (Patrick Stewart). Imagine that, having an imaginary Patrick Stewart as a friend. haha. In truth I never worked out if Patrick Stewart was imaginary- he seemed to be some of the time, but not others- I assume this was explained whilst I was trapseing around trying to find the bloody theatre.

I always enjoy the theatre- I don't think i've been to a bad play, so as usual, my verdict is 'it was ace'- it reminded me too much of The Glass Menagerie- mostly because of the accents, but I enjoyed that too, so that was fine.

Good end bit- I would say I'm not telling you what happens- but as its called 'The Death of a Salesman'- I guess you can figure it out

Link of the day 06/05/10

The 7 most disastrous typos ever.

Jeez, if your writing the 10 commandments, you'd think they'd concentrate.
http://www.cracked.com/article_18517_the-7-most-disastrous-typos-all-time.html

Link of the day

Thats right, I am going to try and do this daily (and adjust the day settings if I forget). In a borderline genius piece of wordplay- I have a picture of Link.

Stephen Hawking, well known for being a bit stupid now reckons we can time travel.
Sounds neat, but it being in the Daily Mail makes me suspicious. The 'go back and shoot the inventor of time travel' does pose an interesting question though.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/moslive/article-1269288/STEPHEN-HAWKING-How-build-time-machine.html

JG Ballard- Miracles of Life

I finished this last night, JG Ballard's autobiography. Ballard died about a year ago, and I've been meaning to read this since then, after reading the Steig Larsson books, something slower paced was in order.
I read Empire of the Sun a while ago, and that seemed like an autobiography, so I expect I'd be repeating stuff I already knew. However it turns out Empire wasn't totally fact, the main differing point being Ballards parents were in Shanghai concentration camp with him (they went missing in Empire). This is by far the most interesting part of the book, and he spends quite a few chapters going over his early life in Shanghai before and during the Japanese invasion, where everything went to pot, and mass starvation reigned and scores of people lied dead in the streets and water.

Ballard goes on to get married, have kids and get jobs and stuff, but the most interesting imagery is the early life in Shanghai, and his return visit in 1991.

Sicily

Can you 'review' a whole island by visiting it for a week? - When your as dismissive and rash as I am, you can probably do it via Google Images.
In a few words- the west is crap, the east is ace.
We flew into Trapani (nothing there, a typical ridiculous RyanAir destination), and made our way to Palermo. Palermo is the capital, and is therefore much bigger than anywhere else. We found a few redeeming features- notably the food markets, fresh squids lay in ice, buckets of little fish and weird fruit and veg were shouted about by enthusiastic Italians- food doesn't come much better than this. There was a few sculptures, and fairly decent art exhibition, but on the whole its fairly lame. Theres hundreds of cars, garbage fills every street corner, the bars were trashy and the restaurants filled with immigrants selling keyrings. Theres almost no reason to be in Palermo, you might as well go to a city in mainland Italy.

We spent a day in Agrigento on the south coast- its fine, got a few Roman/Greek temples and stuff, but they're everywhere, better than Palermo, but still only 6/10.
Passing Catania (which didn't look great, but we only saw a bit) we then went to Taormina, and more specifically Castelmola, which is up in the hills behind Taormina. This place was in my top few places I've been to- the views were insanely good, looking over the sea and villages. Theres a few shops and restaurants there but its the views that make it (picture above). Its a bastard of a trek down to Taormina, theres a steep winding path, but you feel fit after doing it, and if you need a reason to buy ice cream, this is a good one. Taormina is a really nice town, big enough to keep you happy for a week, small enough not to piss you off with the amount of people. Strangely I bumped into one of my mums friends- little village in Sicily, off season, shops are shutting- and I bump into someone I've know for 20 years. Weird.

We spent a day up Mount Etna (above, I know it looks like a whale or something, but its not, its a volcano). There's no colours, the sky was white, the snow was white, and the rocks and road were jet black. Its like being set in a bleak Bergman film, where everything has been obliterated, and your left in black volcanic rocks, clouds and snow. Etna was defo the highlight, I cant imagine a stranger landscape to be in- Castelmola was a cracking reminder our planet can be neat, but only 70 odd miles away lay this indescribable post-apocalypse landscape. How all these so vastly differant places are all on this small island i've no idea.