Friday 12 April 2013

How green is my island

You know how you get really hacked off when you get something in the post like a bank statement or a utility bill and the envelope is stuffed with gratuitous extra leaflets and whatnot? Well I certainly do. It's probably a conpiracy to force you to go paperless but I'm absolutely buggered if I'm going to let the Royal Bank of Scotland (to name but one offender) off the hook from posting me a hard copy of my monthly statement in accordance with time honoured tradition.

Anyway, for once I was remarkably interested in a brochure enclosed with - as it happened - my electricity bill from EDA (Electricidade dos Acores). It showed in commendably simple graphic form the sources of generation of electricity on each island of the Azores:-


The brown bit of each doughnut (filhos) represents the proportion of energy generated by oil. Counter-intuitively, perhaps, the smallest island - Corvo - is 100% fossilly fueled whereas the largest island - São Miguel - has the largest proportion of renewables. That's mainly due to its access to geothermal energy, what with its hot springs and all. Flores is the second greenest island due to its high proportion of hydro-electricity. I know there's a hydro reservoir here but have never been there - note to self to remedy that shortissimo.


That's the reservoir on Flores as seen on Google Earth. To my untutored eye, it doesn't look big enough to generate more than a quarter of the island's electricity but what do I know ...

But anyway, thanks for that EDA - I was very interested in these stats. Nice one.

It was, however, all something of a contrast to an insert with another delivery in the same post - a DVD off Amazon of a film called Cockles and Muscles. I've seen this on the telly before and it's the sort of thing the Sunday Express would call "a delightfully sexy romp". But I was unprepared for the brochure in the padded envelope. My suspicions were tipped off by the inside of the front page:-


Oh Lord, I thought, bloody artsy-fartsy Euro films. But I should have realised the drift when I spotted the company was called Peccadillo Pictures.

Feeling somewhat queasy about what might be revealed under "Rites of Passage" or "Saffron Hill" (you do NOT want to know), I inevitably skimmed straight to "Women in Love" where I was rendered positively billious to be confronted by none other than Sharon "Cagney" Gless:-


Does Harv know? Who's going to tell Harv Junior? Was he played by John Goodman or am I thinking of someone else?            

1 comment:

Kathie said...

On "Cagney and Lacey," Harv (John Karlen) was the husband of Mary Beth Lacey (Tyne Daly). Sharon Gless played her unmarried police partner, Christine Cagney.

John Goodman played Roseanne Conner's husband Dan on the sitcom "Roseanne," starring Roseanne Barr.