“Australian attempts to convert to renewables basically have no parallel. To make matters worse, not only do policy-makers want to shift to all renewables they want to throw away the fossil fuel back-up power sources. This has not happened anywhere and is madness.”In order to avoid a climate crisis, which never seems to arrive, activists and state governments are about to plunge us all into a very real power crisis. In ten years don't bother to try turning on the lights.Mar...

Did you know?Wales is the only nation in the United Kingdom not to be represented on the Union Jack.During the First World War, Cardiff was the largest coal port in the world.Guglielmo Marconi sent the first ever wireless communication over open sea – from Wales.The Little Book of Wales is an intriguing, fast-paced, fact-packed compendium of places, people and history in Wales. Here we find out about the cou...

Why was the partridge in the pear tree? Who was Good King Wenceslas? And what are the pagan origins behind 'The Holly and the Ivy'? Discover the hidden stories behind our best-loved Christmas carols, from their earliest incarnations in the Middle Ages and their banning under the Puritans to the wassailing traditions of the nineteenth century and the carols that united soldiers on the Western Front during the First World War. This fascinating book charts the histor...

Follow Inigo (Ignatius of Loyola) from ambitious, hot-headed, street-fighting sensualist to his co-founding, (with a radical group of young friends), the Society of Jesus in the sixteenth century.In Moore’s bold, visceral, funny and poetic play, he asserts Loyola’s position as counter-cultural radical. But it is not only for those interested in Ignatius Loyola and the Jesuits. It is also a political allegory about those who fight for change against an implacable Establishment. With...

Four families live in a beautiful stretch of English countryside in magnificent listed houses, built for the old aristocracy. They are the new aristocracy and the elite of their village: financiers, business tycoons, lawyers, doctors, magistrates. They leave their rural idyll only to commute first-class to London for meetings, deals and theatre outings or Heathrow flights to winter sun or half-term skiing. They and their children are protected by investments, pensions and expensive securit...

Sustainable Steel Buildings reviews steel and its potential as a sustainable building material and shows how steel can be used to deliver buildings and structures with a high level of sustainability. The book's main focus is on the advantages and disadvantages of steel and how those characteristics can be used under a range of international certification systems (DGNB, LEED, BREEAM, openhouse etc).

A funny and clever novel about art and reality and the way they imitate each other, from the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. With an introduction by Mark Lawson.Would-be novelist Fleur Talbot works for the snooty, irascible Sir Quentin Oliver at the Autobiographical Association, whose members are all at work on their memoirs. When her employer gets his hands on Fleur's novel-in-progress, mayhem ensues as its scenes begin coming true... Spark's ini...

Enough is Enough revolves around actual events in May 1968. Harold Wilson knows the public thinks he's a slippery liar, the newspapers are out for his blood, and the party which once loved him is now plotting to remove him. Still, he has failed to spot at least two other conspiracies brewing. Bernard Storey, a journalist, stumbles on the rival plots and enters a world of lying and spying, back-stabbing and blackmail, malicious gossip and false intelligence.

Beginning in Timaru, reputedly the most activity-challenged place in New Zealand, Lawson travels through Australia and Canada, where he learns to be especially wary of any place named after Queen Victoria or her close relatives. After dropping in on Normal, Illinois and Dead Horse, Alaska – place names in the quiet world are sometimes disarmingly honest – he travels through soothing Switzerland, Milton Keynes, and Belgium, before his journey’s end in EuroDisney, Expo ’92, and Center Parcs:...

Miles Black is fresh from a country newspaper and a failed engagement looking to break into big city journalist. But the only job he can get is on a weekly suburban giveaway, where journalists are regarded as biddable nuisances.Worse, the beautiful Anne from a rich family is decidedly unimpressed by a dirt-poor suburban journalist.

Modular construction can dramatically improve efficiency in construction, through factory production of pre-engineered building units and their delivery to the site either as entire buildings or as substantial elements. The required technology and application are developing rapidly, but design is still in its infancy. Good design requires a knowledge of modular production, installation and interface issues and also an understanding of the economics and client-related benefits which influen...

Steelwork offers the opportunity for architectural expression, as well as being structurally versatile and adaptable material. Good detailing is vital because it affects structural performance, costs, buildability and, perhaps most importantly, appearance. Whilst the choice of the structural form is often the province of the structural engineer, architects should have a broad appreciation of the factors leading to the selection of the structure and its details. Traditionally, most detailin...