- Written by Robert McCaffrey Editor, Global Gypsum Magazine
I recently saw a news article1 on The Guardian web site that literally made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. As I read it, I thought to myself, 'This changes everything.' The report, which was tucked away towards the bottom of the long Guardian site, and which was apparently not thought of as being particularly ground-breaking or earth-shattering, was about an apparent breakthrough in nuclear fusion. There's also a smooth video2 that accompanied the report.
- Written by Peter Edwards Editor, Global Gypsum Magazine
As we go to press, literally on this occasion, residents of Scotland, one of the UK's four 'home nations' are voting in a referendum. The question in this referendum, as those living all over the UK are now very aware, is this: 'Should Scotland be an independent country?' (It is, of course, unfortunate that we could not go to press 24 hours later).
- Written by Robert McCaffrey Editor, Global Gypsum Magazine
In the house of my venerable parents is an odd-shaped piece of furniture. It is an elongated rectangular box made of some highly polished wood, perched on four stout legs - they have to be stout because this thing weighs half a tonne. Opening the front reveals a radio dial, and opening the top shows a turntable for old-fashioned records. It is a Blaupunkt radiogram from around 1950 - you can actually see it for yourself by searching 'Blaupunkt radiogram playing Otis Redding Fa fa fa' on Google. Placing a vinyl record on the platter and bringing down the needle into the spiral groove will bring forth a nostalgic series of clicks and pops as well as the full audio representation of your chosen music, faithfully rendered in full stereo through powerful - and heavy - speakers, after amplification through real glowing analogue valves. If the heating in the house fails, you can warm yourself next to the heat-emitting innards of the radiogram.
- Written by Peter Edwards Deputy Editor, Global Gypsum Magazine
Yesterday, during my lunchbreak, I read a transcript of a recent lecture given by the former British politician Nigel Lawson at the University of Bath, UK. The subject was 'climate change,' the catch-all phrase that seems to be increasingly used to describe weather events that do not conform to our expectations of a generally benign climate. The person that recommended the article was Robert McCaffrey, the Editor of Global Gypsum Magazine and, as regular readers of this column will be aware, something of a climate 'sceptic.' The content of the Lawson article was therefore not a surprise.
- Written by Robert McCaffrey Editor, Global Gypsum Magazine
I've sometimes been accused of being slightly morose, with a cynical take on the world, but I prefer to think of it as seeing the world as it really is, and being better prepared than if I were to wander around wearing rose-tinted spectacles. So when I recently noticed an increase in reports about China's growing economic troubles, my ears pricked up. I've long been a sceptic about the sustainability of China's meteoric growth, even after having been to the country and seen for myself the jaw-dropping construction projects and scale of building work that seemingly never stops. Flying from skyscraper-studded Shanghai, below, (where I have travelled on a 400km/hr maglev train to the airport) back into low-rise London felt to me like passing from the 23rd to the 15th century.
