Fact Police

Really? A single sub-station (in Gloucester) feeding sites in Cheltenham and Reading?

Not really a single substation, or a little one. Walham is fucking massive. It’s a National Grid substation, which as you probably know is different to the substations you get at the end of the road, which will invariably be owned by the local distribution company. It supplies half a million people with power coming straight from the National Grid into regional infrastructure, so it’s a bit different from the end of your road brick square substation.

At that level, there’s little or no redundancy – that means that it’s either too expensive or impractical for an alternative route for power to be made available.

However, because Walham is north of Gloucester and Aldermaston is about 100km SE, I don’t think that Aldermaston’s loss of power would have been a threat, as redundancy would have been available at that level. GCHQ and the half a million homes (although the real figure would have been less than that, because there would have been alternative power available for at least some of those homes) would have been a good enough reason for protecting Walham.

Although GCHQ would have had its own generators on standby,
the fact that it’s a huge National Grid substation and repair costs could have spiralled into the tens of millions, as well as the effects of losing power to a couple of major towns, would have been a good enough reason to protect it like they did.

To be fair to him a) remember all that hoo-haa about that Walham sub-station that was defended during the floods, because (according to the media) tens of thousands of homes would lose power otherwise – the truth is that this unassuming little sub-station fed Aldermaston and GCHQ

Really? A single sub-station (in Gloucester) feeding sites in Cheltenham and Reading?

Thomas Thompson may relate to the fact that it is more plausible that his girlfriend was stolen by the illuminati than he was dumped.

All I would expect from a justice system is to see justice is done. The police waste enough time re-capturing known offenders who go to court just to be released in time for tea and their next little adventure. To visit the victims over an over would only double the time wasted. All criminals should be branded so everyone will know they are not to be trusted. This includes politicians, bankers and CEO’s who have been convicted not just the local villains. Dye their hands and face green.

[domthegrumpyoldman], Runcorn, United Kingdom

I suspect that we’re going to get more and more of these “initiatives” the nearer we get to an election, as this sorry apology for a government tries to con us into forgetting twelve years of lies, deceit and betrayal.

[Oldgibber], Harlow

Next thing you know the government will be offering the taxpayers £50 for a nice new dress, go on, you deserve it, I know I’ve been horrible, but I can make it up to you…

Oh, fuck….

george blake chips in with an old favourite :

Why do many people moan at being stopped all the time by police for doing 32 mph on 30 mph streets and yet other people claim they never see police on the streets. Both statements cannot be true.

A fair point well made there, george. Why is that extra 2 mph so important that you have to keep doing it and consequently keep being stopped? Does it provide a means of getting a personal hearing when reporting a crime? The next time I’m knife-crimed I’ll just jump in the car and set the auto-pilot on 32 mph, and the old bill will materialise out of thin air to hear my plaint.

And Graham has picked up on something too –

Added: Sunday, 22 November, 2009, 20:48 GMT 20:48 UK

Is this not what happened prior to Tony Blairs government?

Graham, Harleston

Yes Graham, it is. And judging by the calibre of the alleged cops posting on that thread, the reason you could always count on their attendance was that they were probably doing the crime. Nowadays they have to sit in the station writing about other, less well-trained criminals. How it must gall them to be reduced to that. No wonder they don’t like NuLiarBore.