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The subterranean complex that was built in the 1950s to house prime minister Harold Macmillan’s cabinet and 4,000 civil servants in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack is being put on the market. Just four maintenance men are left.
Already two uses are being considered: a data store for City firms or the biggest wine cellar in Europe. Other ideas put forward include a nightclub, a 1950s theme park or a reception centre for asylum seekers. The bunker is in a former mine near Corsham in Wiltshire. A system of underground power stations would have provided electricity to the 100,000 lamps that lit its streets and guided the way to a pub modelled on the Red Lion in Whitehall. A spur line was built inside a tunnel on the London-Bristol railway, linking it to the bunker. It was meant as an escape route for the royal family to flee London in the event of an attack. Code-named Burlington, it was never used. See also Subterranea Britanica Cold War. |
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The tobacco industry will introduce in Japan a system aimed at preventing minors from smoking with the help of micro chip-imbedded cards. 620,000 tobacco vending machines will be switched during 2008 to types that can read integrated circuit cards carried by those aged 20 or older.
Smokers would need to carry the IC cards, with the new vending machines reading them through a sensor. They would apply for the cards free of charge by sending an application form to offices managing the system along with an ID document. Via Japan Today. Image from the Smoking Manners campaign. |
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After Chernobyl reactor No 4 exploded on 26 April 1986, the surrounding 30 kilometres were declared too contaminated for human habitation.
Now this radioactive wasteland has become a tourist attraction. With radiation levels having decreased, limited guided tours were begun in 2002, they include a sight of the ruined reactor and a trip to Pripyat, once home to 47,000 nuclear workers and their families. There are currently 360 people (+ deer, wolves and other animals) living in the exclusion zone, most of them elderly. What are the risks? Dr Michael Clark, from the UK's Health Protection Agency, says you will receive no more radiation on a tour around Chernobyl than on a transatlantic flight. However, he warns against eating food grown there. In the zone, your guide carries a Geiger counter and ask you to watch where you walk during your limited time out of the car, because the soil is still relatively highly contaminated. Via the indispensable archinect < The Observer. Pictures. |
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An entire town for millionaires is to be built on the outskirts of Moscow. It will be almost twice the size of Monaco, have a European-style citadel and house up to 30,000 of Russia’s new rich. Construction is due to begin next year.
The centre of Rublyovo-Arkhangelskoye will resemble pre-revolutionary Moscow, with narrow streets and canals clustered around the citadel, according to its architects, John Thompson and Partners. "Our concept is a city with its own history, not an ordinary village with plots and buildings," explains Viktor Novichkov, a director of the project. "We are trying to make it in the architectural style of old European cities like Prague, Amsterdam and Munich." Prices are expected to range from $500,000 for an apartment to several million for a townhouse or villa. Most Russians live on an average monthly income of $244, but the country’s wealthy elite is growing ever richer thanks to an oil-fuelled economic boom. Rublyovo-Arkhangelskoye will be a self-sufficient community that will eventually be granted official town status. The town will have its own police station, fire department, health centre and schools. One day it may even have its own mayor. Until then it is not clear how the authorities will administer the town. Via The Times. |
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Patrick O’Brian's take on Japanese Boy.
Via transbuddha. For the readers who understand french, a video from the cult Belgo-French TV show Strip-Tease: Portrait of a Webamster. Via aeiou. |
