IT Chair



the IT Chair in (static) action

 
Always fancied one of these (the seat attachment to the bike - got the little boy and the bike already), but it is impossible to find one for sale anywhere on earth. I even stopped off at the main stockist in Barcelona when we were on holiday there in the summer, but they were out too. Apparently they are hand made by a Spanish company but the supply seems to be very erratic. They occasionally but rarely appear on eBay, but prices are high. There was also a version made by the renowned Brompton modifier and frame welder Steve Parry. I managed to get hold of him and sadly have to report that he has apparently stopped his great work on accessorising and altering bikes it seems due to the pressure of an impending lawsuit from someone who claims to have been injured using one his bespoke products. So the dream of taking my little boy to nursery on the Brompton remains just that for now.

Radio 4 - Spring Forwards, Fall Back

 

On October 31st we'll all dutifully turn our clocks back by one hour, plunging our evenings into premature darkness. There's mounting evidence that this annual ritual has a real environmental cost. in this BBC Radio 4 Costing the Earth programme, Alice Roberts takes a look at the arguments from the Greenwich Meridian to Cornwall and the Western Isles to find out who could benefit and who might suffer from a change in the way we set our clocks.

Listen to iPlayer for the whole programme.

New Instructions

We are now moving forward with the next phase of Chapel Cottage, and hope to be submitting a Building Regulations application soon. This is exciting news for us, but more importantly will be another key milestone for the client in their quest to move to a more rural location for a better quality of life and to be closer to family.

Turn the Clocks Back

It is the dreaded time of year when the clocks go back, and darkness decends again. Is that feeling of waking up in the dark and coming home in the dark an essential part of winter, and the changing of the seasons? Or are the clocks changing just a depressing quirk of timekeeping that we are doomed to follow? I don't think so, which is why I have joined the 10:10 Lighter Later campaign to try and change this. They have lobbied for change and have got an Early Day Motion and a debate scheduled for the 3rd December. They are encouraging you to write to your MP to get them to support Lighter Later - they want a three-year trial in which the clocks in Great Britain shift forward by one hour throughout the year – to GMT+1 in winter and GMT+2 in summer. This model is also known as Single Double Summer Time (SDST).

There are lots of questions answered on their website, and some research showing that there is a carbon saving benefit too. Winners all round.

Why not do your bit.

Cyclists v Red Lights - Problem Solved

At last- the solution to the most blogged and commented issue in cycling - running red lights. This guy Martin Cassini has come up with the answer and it is genius. Just get rid of the traffic lights. That's it - as simple as it sounds. His theory is that without traffic lights to tell us what to do, we humans have an uncanny ability to just get on with it - assess the situation, the movements and the priorities and it all just works. In the same way that we know we have to let everyone out of the lift before we get in, we know who has right of way, who arrived first and who should progress next at the junction. We can all remember the time there was that power failure and the traffic lights at that particularly bad junction failed at rush hour, but somehow the traffic wasn't that bad after all, and maybe it all moved just a bit more smoothly...This idea just takes that a step forward and formalises the "Filter In Turn" theory that we seem to have hardwired into our brains already.

Check out these two videos that explain it all far more eloquently...

Website Update!

We have made some excellent and fabulously interesting amendments to our website, including pages about research we are carrying out in Barcelona.

Go to Estudio27.co.uk for more infomation.

Copenhagenize.com - Building Better Bicycle Cultures: Carbon Trust: Don't Ride a Bicycle

Copenhagenize.com - Building Better Bicycle Cultures: Carbon Trust: Don't Ride a Bicycle

Classic piece of British bureaucratic farce. It's what made us great.