Surrey Street Light Improvements

We had this letter posted through the front door the other day (a little bit out of the blue) letting us know that all of Surrey's streetlights are being replaced with environmentally friendly "smart lamps"...interestingly, not only is our little part of Surrey the first part of the county to get them (the rest being rolled out gradually over the next five years), but it turns out that Surrey is the first part of Great Britain to do this...(the words "Guinea" and "Pig" can't help but plop uncomfortably into the worry-centre of my mind)...meh...

There are (admittedly) a lot of positives - All the lights will be (individually) linked to a central giant "dimmer switch" in Guildford, so rather than each light just switching itself off and on in good time for dusk (based on a mechanical timer), when sunset approaches (which obviously varies day-to-day throughout the year) Guildford control center can just issue the on/off command to the relevant area, then, at the sort of time when everyone is usually in bed (2300hrs) they dim the lights to a soothing level (saving lots of energy) until the first early risers might need to be setting off to work (about 0530hrs)...or, and I speculate here, if Police/Fire Brigade/Ambulance service suddenly need to flood an area with light (e.g. to catch an escaping criminal, or deal with an accident) this can be achieved just as easily. So all good (in theory) thus far, but lets take a look at the (predicted) socio/environmental impact-

• The new lights are spotlights, pointing directly at the floor - so much less ambient light pollution should occur
• Lights can be kept bright in areas of need (underpasses/trouble hotspots) and dimmed elsewhere
• Lower electricity bills mean a collective saving of around £12 million in tax (over the next 25 years)
• We also stop 60,000 tons of carbon flooding the atmosphere (same period), which is actually quite a mind-bogglingly large amount when you stop to think about it

Nothing to complain about there then, but there are actually just a couple of things that do worry me - The lights are *white* and are (and I quote) "much brighter" than the existing (yellow/orange) sodium lights we have all grown up with. We'll have to see how this one pans out, but actually I quite like it being dark at night (for no particular reason other than that it is supposed to be dark at night)...I guess I'm just not sure I want the whole of Surrey to resemble the inside of a football stadium...secondly (and lastly) especially as all this is *extremely* new (and Murphy's law states that there is *always* at least one bug) I'm sure there will be "issues" to iron out...how long until the system at Guildford mucks up and plunges the whole of Redhill into complete blackness at 7pm, or we are awoken at 3am by blazing lights shining through the curtains (making us think we are being abducted by aliens à la Close Encounters)...

I'll keep you posted with developments as they occur, but it looks like we'll be all converted (to the most modern street lighting system in the UK) within the next two weeks...oo-er! ;)

Twelve cups of tea a day...

Prompted by my (soon to be ex) office manager, yesterday I kept a tally of how many cups of tea I drank during the course of the day...I don't know if, in a quantum way, by the very act of monitoring my behaviour I altered it in any way (I tried not to, but you never know) but the end result is that, on this occasion at least, I consumed twelve cups (with a spot of milk, no sugar, ta)...

This, slightly surprising figure, caused both he and I to raise our eyebrows a little...but is it actually bad?

From one point of view, no, it's actually quite the contrary - to quote Wikipedia -

"Tea leaves contain more than 700 chemicals, among which the compounds closely related to human health are flavanoides, amino acids, vitamins (C, E and K), caffeine and polysaccharides. Moreover, tea drinking has recently proven to be associated with cell-mediated immune function of the human body. Tea plays an important role in improving beneficial intestinal microflora, as well as providing immunity against intestinal disorders and in protecting cell membranes from oxidative damage. Tea also prevents dental caries due to the presence of fluorine. The role of tea is well established in normalizing blood pressure, lipid depressing activity, prevention of coronary heart diseases and diabetes by reducing the blood-glucose activity. Tea also possesses germicidal and germistatic activities against various gram-positive and gram negative human pathogenic bacteria. Both green and black tea infusions contain a number of antioxidants, mainly catechins that have anti-carcinogenic, anti-mutagenic and anti-tumoric properties".

- however, it does also contain quite a lot of caffeine...50mg per cup in fact...which means I am dosing (although spread out over 9-ish hours) on roughly 600mg of caffeine per day...this *seems* like a lot to me, even though (medically) there is "very little risk of harm" (see the note above the chart) - and (in my defence) - I barely touch a drop of tea outside the office (I go every week night and all weekend long without so much as a sniff, with no ill effects at all)...

But it's given me pause...What do you think? Is twelve cups of tea a day too much?