Off to Ely for the pre-breakfast event “Business Support is Changing”. Arriving for a 7:30am reception, this meant that the parking in the all day car park had not yet started; anyone arriving before 8:30 had to leave the car park after 90 minutes.
After the meeting there was a bacon butty breakfast, to be followed by a consultation between the county council and interested businesses.
The start of the consultation was briefly interrupted as the realisation set in that our cars were at risk of exceeding the 90 minute parking time. Indeed, a car park attendant was counting down the minutes and gave us a good natured good morning as we all dashed out to move our cars to another car park before returning.
The main message of the meeting was that business support was being dramatically pared down by the UK, whilst there was still free support from EU programs promoting cross border partnering between businesses.
After lunch and catching up with mail, I photographed the watercolour paintings that author Alan James wished to use in his book. The images were optimised for contrast and then both colour and grayscale versions saved.
The afternoon passed quickly with other work interspersed with an uncharacteristic number of Skype calls.
My mind was slightly disconnected by the early start and so some of the messages that I received took on separate meanings.
A tweet by London's Mayor, Boris Johnson, “Mayor secures more than £11m to boost homeless hostels in London...” raised the spectre of a fleet of hostels without a home. A friend attending a meeting “Inspiring Entrepreneurs” was equally ambiguous.
Later that evening, watching “Midsommer Murders”, one of the key items was protection of apple blossom from frost damage by “smudging” - creating a protective smoke blanket to keep frost at bay.
A search revealed that smudging was indeed a possible method for frost protection as listed in an Ontario Factsheet. However there more successful methods that could be used, including using the downdraft of a helicopter to displace the cold air boundary close to the ground. Spreading lots of small heating units through out an orchard would also work - more so than fewer large heaters which would create counterproductive convection, drawing in colder air from the surroundings.
The other reason that I would also have thought that smudging was less adviseable is that if the smoke is generated by combustion, it will invariably contain significant amounts of ethlylene, a gas known for its ability to induce senescence of leaves and flowers. Indeed this ethylene effect had beenfirst seen when the first gas street lights were installed – causing damage to nearby trees.
The most horrific news story of the day was of Ugandan children being trafficked into the UK (several hundred a year) for abuse in black magic blood rituals. Apparently the perceived value of blood in rituals is rising.
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