I went to a lecture on alternative energy today. There was a load of posters up on telegraph poles advertising it - some people here are starting to look for solutions and the university is taking the opportunity.

I decided to walk even through the drizzle, to have a look at the city. I tried to get an old tire for lead_tag's mission, but the garage was closed - no business I guess. I took my phone with me and took some snaps. I'm so glad Greg gave me that solar charger for it - it's my camera, music player, phone and potentially could be used for the internet if there's more blackouts. There's multi-functionality for you!

Here's a few things I saw on my walk.



Not a rare sight walking around the city these days. Bins full to overflowing, recycling that hasn't been collected, stuff you wouldn't normally expect to see being chucked away - someone decided this telly was using too much electricity?



All the way up Whiteladies Road is a constant stream of cars, all jostling for position to get fuel from the esso garage. A fair few people come back disappointed, although it seems better since rationing started.




This shop was an awesome and expensive TV and HiFi shop until a week ago. it's the only sign of looting I've seen in Bristol but it's still a shock to see nothing there anymore...



This garden shop,on the other hand, is doing really well. I bought my seeds and compost from here. The people are really nice and friendly - they seem to be really happy to have such a thriving business in the crisis! it's much cheaper buying seeds than the actual plant for a lot of things.



Told you I'd be productive - we don't have a garden in my house but with this pot, compost and seeds we'll have some home grown salad, at least! it only cost me £6 too! that's a single trip in the car!

There were less cars than normal but far more bikes and joggers. The downs is covered with sweaty runners - I suppose it is free! There's more religious nutcases on street corners though. I was walking along Woodland Road near the university and this crazy woman in a really tatty coat shoved a piece of paper in my hand and started jabbering at me about the end of the world! I mean, I know things are a bit iffy at the moment but I hope it doesn't come to that - I've barely started my life so I'm not going to give up so easily! She kept talking about how we should all give ourselves to God and embrace Armageddon.... *shudder* I think I prefer to make the best of the world we have now.

Although those kind of people are increasing, there's far less people trying to sell me stuff now. It used to be you'd only get fifteen paces before some bohemian dude with a clipboard would corner you and guilt trip you into signing up to give money to charity. We called them charity muggers - there's nothing wrong with charity, it's great - just don't force it on me on the street - it's not charity if you make me do it! So it's nice to see they aren't around although I do wonder who'll be charitable to us if things get worse...



The lecture was at the university. I have to admit I didn't understand a lot of it. It was about wind turbines and tidal power but there was a lot of maths. I went up to the professor from the university that did the talk afterwards. I asked him how he thought we could get through the crisis. He said that we'd have to build lots and lots of wind turbines. The ones they put up now can supply a lot of the power we need but we need to get building. He said only nuclear would be able to compete but that planning the building of the reactors takes so much longer than wind turbines. Apparently there's a place on the Isle of Man that makes a lot of the wind turbines - they're hiring tons more people in order to keep up with demand. One of the guys at the talk said the government was trying to install loads more as quickly as possible.

I headed home feeling a little overwhelmed but amazed that there were people that clever that were doing something productive about our problems.

A lot of houses around me are student lets and since the term ended they've been empty - normally there's a fair few staying over the summer but they all seem to have gone home - it's cheaper to live with mum I guess!

It was nice to have a walk but it's strange to see how different things have got. Everywhere is a lot more subdued. I guess the rain doesn't help. In the sun everyone's not too unhappy not being able to drive but when it rains it gets pretty miserable!

What's going on in everyone else's town?

-Mia

[author's note - week 11, thursday.

The lecture Mia 'went to' was actually one of my physics lectures in uni. The awesome Professor John Hannay (a really important member of the physics department where i study) does a lecture course called 'Air Water Fire Earth' about how the wind, tides, weather and sun combine to give us the world we live in. His later lectures, like the one in the picture, cover a lot about how in particular wind and tidal turbines work. It's very complicated and involves a lot of thermodynamics but is absolutely fascinating. After attending yesterday's lecture on turbines I couldn't resist snapping a picture and putting it into the story - it's odd how coincidences like this happen.

incidentally, cid_yama's latest entry is quite possibly the best I've seen on wwo so far. I wish he allowed comments for me to tell him how much I respect what he's been doing.]

Enough sitting around! Now that school's out, me and Jodie and Alun decided we'd go plant some vegetables! We got some rocket, basil and lettuce seeds for now. I'll try and get some pictures whilst we plant them over the next few days and weeks. Mum said it's a bit late in the year but at least we're doing something!

I wanna make these! lead_tag, I accept your challenge! if i can find some old tires, I'm gonna give it a go! I'll see if I can ask someone at the garage if they have any spare. this self-sufficiency stuff is fun!

things are getting a little hairy around the world - milwaukee has had some deaths, Romania's oilfields no one knows what's going on and four more tankers like uncle andy's got attacked. rory23 sounds like he has it worst - i hope it doesn't end up where I think it will. cycleboy_wwo had it bad too - a riot on student campus is never a good idea!

I managed to find some positive stuff about Bristol though! I thought we'd be in trouble to stay here if things got REALLY bad, and that it'd be better to move to dad's in Brecon. Turns out, there's a great group of people working for the Transition Towns project, in this very city! I hooked up with the Transition City Bristol people over email - they seem to have been aware of this long before us - just look at This event held in week 1!

Plus, we have a new prime minister! Brown was sworn in today, with Blair leaving. Mum said she hoped Brown would be a bit more sensible and stabilise us in this time of crisis. Greg (a tory - bleaugh) said Cameron would be better but at least if Brown kept the economy as well as he did as chancellor we'd be ok.

His speech was good. Mum made us sit and watch it on the 10 o'clock news. David grumbled but I was happy to see what Brown said.

Some major points from the speech:

- He's planning to go full-out aggressive on containing any trouble. Economically we're shielded because we tax fuel so high anyway, so the shock should be less.

-a lot of money being put into public transport all of a sudden, to stop the price gougin (maybe some of those cheap train tickets will come back)

-plans are being drawn up to ration fuel. Those that don't use their credits can get reduced fares on public transport - that's great for me!

-food prices are being fixed at their current levels, except those flown in or shipped from far away. No more mangos for me, eep!

-the one that got most people's heads turning was the withdrawal. Brown's decided that the troops are needed back here and a lot of those in Iraq will be withdrawn within weeks. The Afghanistan ones like my friend Ally's dad are staying though.



Sounds like our government is at least trying to do something about this. I've never really thought about Politics before but this speech, while a bit boringly spoken, really got me excited. Will it work?



[author's note - Tuesday, week 10]

Many thanks to wwo_mitchtrix and gracesmominnh for putting me onto the Transition Towns project. Like Mia I was totally unaware of their work in Bristol!

Having mentioned Brown over here, I'll be interested to see if any of my US compadres talk about how the presidential candidates are spinning the crisis. by the end of the wwo we'll be near the primaries, after all.

I accidentally posted this in draft form yesterday - apologies to anyone that got a brief look at the unfinished entry!]