In the latest green initiative, HMG have proposed that all new homes built in the near future must incorporate heat pumps, and have  no connection to the gas network.
I expect considerable opposition to this policy. mainly due to running costs, with electricity at 25 pence a unit, the heat will cost about 8 pence up to 12 pence a unit. Gas would be cheaper.
Also there is no point whilst we are still burning gas for electricity production. Gas is burnt in a power station about 33%.
1OO units of gas= about 33 units of electricity. 33 units of electricity used in a heat pump will produce AT BEST 100 units of heat, 70 units of heat is arguably more realistic. And you have to build the gas power station and all the heat pumps in addition.

The ‘Chair’s letter’ is a core governance and accountability tool for DfT and a key means by which ministers can communicate their priorities to their public bodies.

The Chair’s letter is a mechanism through which DfT can track the performance of DFTO and underpins the DFTO Chair and Non-Executive Directors’ appraisals.

The DFTO’s Chair’s letter sets out ministerial priorities for the next 14 months, which include:
delivering improved train performance, accessibility and customer experience
driving forward a railway which is value for money
taking steps to support the transition to Great British Railways

Are there any campaigns to get extra stations opened on this line?

I don't know the exact location of the old Holt station, but there should be a little local demand there, and The Courts at Holt would benefit from more people arriving in a sustainable manner.

I don't know if there was ever a station at Lacock (I haven't investigated that one, but would assume there was) but obviously that attracts many tourists, and for cyclists it would open up some wonderful quiet cycling country. I am aware the line is a little way away from the village (three quarters of a mile?) and involves crossing a main road, but the crossing there already needs a safe crossing place for cyclists. (It is quite a while since I cycled that way, so things may have changed since I last did).

Similar happened today closer to home.

Train hit a tree near Avoncliff and a passenger needed to be conveyed to hospital by ambulance.

Bouncing bomb inventor's items sold at auction in Horsham


Sir Barnes Wallis developed the bouncing bomb using marbles in a water tub

A collection of personal items belonging to the inventor of the bouncing bomb have been sold at auction.

The objects, which included marbles used in early experiments for the bomb by engineer Sir Barnes Wallis, who lived in Leatherhead, Surrey, went under the hammer at Denhams in West Sussex. The marbles had been given an estimate of £20,000 to £30,000 but did not meet the reserve price and were not sold, the auctioneers said.

A pair of black and white aerial photographs linked to the 1943 "Dam Busters" raid sold for £17,500. One of the top-selling items was an oil painting by Alfred Egerton Cooper – Sir Barnes's best man – which sold for £14,500.

Bouncing bomb material included Sir Barnes's CBE neck badge awarded in 1943, which sold for £8,000, and a replica catapult which went for £3,400.

Leo Denham, managing director of Denhams, said that the firm was "honoured" to be trusted by the family in selling a historically significant collection.

Several objects were donated to the RAF Museum, which is based in London and the Midlands.

Dr Harry Raffal, head of collections and research at the museum, said: "Throughout the process, the family were keen to ensure that the legacy of Sir Barnes Wallis would remain an important part of the RAF Museum's national collection. Today, our visitors can visit the RAF Museum to discover more about Sir Barnes Wallis' pioneering work and explore how he helped the RAF bring about victory in the Second World War".


The marbles from Sir Barnes Wallis's early experiments did not meet their reserve price

Before the auction, Wallis' daughter, Elisabeth Gaunt, said that she hoped buyers would remember her father as "tender, spiritual and sensitive beyond all belief", adding he was "not a war-like man".

The inventor tested his bombs at RAF Manston, near Ramsgate in Kent, before they were used in Operation Chastise, destroying German dams in the Ruhr valley in May 1943.

Operation Chastise and Wallis' bouncing bombs were immortalised in the 1955 film The Dambusters.

Wallis, who died in 1979, famously developed the bouncing bomb using marbles in a water tub in the garden of White Hill House in Effingham, in Surrey.

Dogs became man's best friend far earlier than thought, scientists find


It may not be much to look at but this battered fragment of 9cm bone has transformed the story of dogs and humans

A fragment of a jawbone found deep underground in a cave in Somerset has rewritten the story of when and how dogs became our best friends.

DNA analysis shows the jaw belonged to one of the earliest known domesticated dogs and that people lived closely with them in Britain 15,000 years ago, thousands of years before farm animals were domesticated or cats padded into our homes.

The discovery pushes back the time that the first dogs evolved from their wolf ancestors by around 5,000 years. It also suggests that the friendship between the very first dogs and stone age humans was there almost from the very start, according to Dr William Marsh of the Natural History Museum.

"It shows that by 15,000 years ago dogs and humans already had an incredibly tight, close relationship – and this tiny jawbone, which seems like such a small thing, has helped to unlock the whole human story of how that partnership began."

The first dogs were descendants of grey wolves that lingered around human camps at the end of the Ice Age, scavenging leftovers and slowly becoming tamer.

Over time, people started using these animals to help with hunting, guarding and tracking, turning them into working partners rather than wild predators. After hundreds of generations of human breeding, the dogs that emerged had shorter muzzles, smaller teeth and an enormous range of sizes, from lapdogs to hulking guardians.

Marsh made the discovery by accident during his PhD project. The jawbone was found in excavations from the 1920s in Gough's cave in Cheddar Gorge, now famous for storing its famous cheese.

It had been tucked away in a museum drawer for decades as it was thought to have been an unremarkable specimen. But the young researcher came across an obscure research paper published ten years earlier that raised the possibility it might have belonged to a dog.

Marsh carried out a genetic analysis of the jawbone and found to his shock and delight that it was indeed from a dog, making it the first unambiguous evidence that dogs existed thousands of years earlier than previously confirmed.

Scarcely believing the test results, Marsh told his friend and scientific collaborator Dr Lachie Scarsbrook, from the University of Oxford and LMU Munich, who takes up the story.

"William tells me: 'I found dog from the early stone age,' and I'm like, 'No you haven't — every other dog has been a wolf,' but he's super confident of it. He then shows us his results, and we're like, '(Gosh), this guy might have actually found a dog that far back in time."

Scarsbrook's actual language was more colourful than we can publish, because he knew just how important his friend's big breakthrough could prove.


The dog lived with humans in this Somerset cave 15,000 years ago

With the jawbone from Gough's cave now confidently identified as being from a dog, this allowed its genetic signature to be used to test specimens of a similar age from across western Europe and central Anatolia in modern Turkey, the large Asian peninsula that makes up most of the country. They all turned out to be dogs.

"We've spent years trying to make sense of ancient samples whose DNA sits between wolves and dogs," Scarsbrook told me. "Everything sat in no man's land because we simply couldn't tell where dogs truly began. Then this little jawbone turns up and it is the key to then identifying other ancient dogs all across Europe that had just been sitting under our noses this whole time," he told BBC News.

(BBC article continues)

Why can't the train leave Paddington at 06.30 rather than 06.28, as it used to? It would keep it in the timing people expect Temple Meads trains to run, on the hour and half hour, and would at least make a change at Chippenham slightly more reliable.

'I just heard this thump as our train hit a tree'


Jim Fleming praised the actions of the "outstanding" conductor after the collision

A rail passenger has told of the moment the train he was travelling on hit a large tree that had been brought down by a storm.

Jim Fleming was travelling on the Transpennine Express service from Manchester to Glasgow when it was brought to a standstill at Lostock on the outskirts of Bolton.

Network Rail said strong winds had brought "several trees down overnight causing damage to overhead lines" in the Lostock area.

Fleming, of Bolton, told the BBC: "I just heard this thump and then this scraping and dragging noise and I actually thought the train had derailed." The 51-year-old data consultant added: "It came to a sudden halt. I was in the very first carriage and that was the carriage that got hit."

Fleming was on the first train of the day, which had left just before 05:00 GMT and said, thankfully, the train driver had slowed down before he hit the tree at about 05:30 GMT. He said: "In less than a minute he saw the tree but it was too late."



The passengers were moved to first class before everyone was escorted off the train by the fire service. The passengers were later driven to Preston, Lancashire.

Fleming praised the train conductor who was "absolutely tremendous".

"He was so cheery, he was going up and down the carriage making sure everybody was fine."

https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/help-and-assistance/compensation-and-refunds/refunds-change/

The quote below ...
Mark