Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Simone Abram, Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Director of Durham Energy Institute, Durham University

Thousands of new electricity pylons are to be built across parts of England under the government’s plans to decarbonise the electricity. And some people aren’t happy.

A glance at recent Daily Telegraph articles seem to suggest most of the genteel English countryside is about to be taken over by evil metal monsters. Headlines talk of “noisy” pylons set to “scythe through” “unspoiled countryside”, leading to a “pylon penalty” for house prices and even “mass social unrest”.

While some of the stories are rather over the top, they reflect a genuine unease, and there have been significant campaigns against pylons. In Suffolk, for instance, resistance is building against plans for a 114-mile-long transmission line connecting new offshore wind farms to Norwich and beyond.

So why do these towering steel structures evoke such powerful feelings?

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Pylons have had a particular fascination since they were first introduced in the 1920s. Even then, the biggest challenge was to get “wayleaves” (permission) to cross farmland. To calm rural protest groups, the government’s electricity board commissioned an architect, Reginald Blomfield, to design transmission towers with an eye to “visual amenity”.

In the most protected areas, expensive underground cabling was used to hide the transmission lines altogether. The board used its copious marketing materials to emphasise that this option was around six times more expensive, and therefore only for exceptional use. By the 1940s pylons were much cheaper than underground cables, providing a techno-economic rationale that remains politically persuasive today.

Why we love the countryside

One reason pylons are so controversial is related to a particularly English fascination with landscape. The geographer David Matless wrote some years ago of the “powerful historical connection” between Englishness and a vision of its countryside. People feel a degree of ownership over a varied landscape, encompassing lowland and upland, north and south, picturesque and bleak, and often have strong opinions about what “fits”, what constitutes “heritage” and what is “out of place”.

Even if most of England is privately owned and commercially farmed, many people still imagine the land as a public good tied to national sentiments and see pylons as intruders in the landscape.

This could also explain why proposals to build infrastructure across the English countryside often provoke significant objections. My research on planning in the Home Counties (the areas surrounding London) back in the 1990s revealed a very determined population of well-educated and well-resourced people willing to spend significant amounts of time and money ensuring that the landscape met their expectations.

Concerted efforts had seen off a proposal from the then Conservative government to build a motorway through the Chiltern Hills to the west of London, for example.

There were, and still are, innumerable village groups willing to turn up to public enquiries and to pay lawyers to launch appeals and legal challenges. They may have been sceptical of the more grungy road protesters (historically embodied by the indomitable Swampy), but there was certainly common purpose.

My conclusion at the time was never to underestimate the effectiveness of local action where people’s vision of the English countryside was challenged. More recently, plans to run the HS2 rail line through those same hills ran into fierce local opposition, which prompted significant redesigns.

That’s all well and good, but today we face catastrophic climate change and biodiversity loss. Wind turbines are one of the most effective ways to decarbonise electricity supplies, but they are in different places from the old coal and gas power stations. Ironically, the same love of landscape that pushed wind farms out to sea now fuels opposition to the cables that bring the power back to land.

Democratic decisions?

One of the challenges here is that decisions over things like high-voltage transmission lines are based on models that seek to “optimise” the design of equipment, on the basis of cost or effectiveness, or both. These models have no way to account for landscape and heritage value or aesthetics and should never be the sole basis for decisions about infrastructure.

Running pylons across Suffolk might be the cheapest route with least electrical loss, but is it the best option? What would the alternatives be? Starting the discussion from the basis of techno-economic modelling often preempts a properly balanced debate.

This isn’t an argument for or against big pylons. It’s a call for more democratic planning and not less.

Studies consistently show that people resent being excluded from decisions that reshape their landscape and environment. Planning is a political process, and in any such process, humiliating your opponent rarely leads to long-term harmony.

Top down decisions about “national infrastructure” may save time on paper but are not a good way to make progress. It appears autocratic and shifts objectors onto the streets or into the courts.

Real consultation takes time and effort. But it builds trust and leads to better outcomes.

Maybe pylons are the least-worst option. Maybe not. But we won’t know unless we ask – and listen.

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Simone Abram receives funding from EPSRC for research on integrated energy systems and equality, diversity and inclusion in energy research. She received funding from the Norwegian Research Council for research on socially-inclusive energy transitions. Her Chair is co-funded by Ørsted UK but she does not represent the company in any way and any views expressed here remain independent.

– ref. ‘Pylon wars’ show why big energy plans need locals on board – https://theconversation.com/pylon-wars-show-why-big-energy-plans-need-locals-on-board-258877

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Diane Watt, Professor of English, University of Surrey

The afterlife is not typically associated with aggressive pets and insatiable worms. But these are exactly the creatures that appeared to an unnamed woman recluse living in Winchester, England, over the course of three nights in the summer of 1422. The woman was an anchoress. That means she had chosen – and subsequently vowed – to live in solitary confinement within a small cell attached to a church for the rest of her life.

The recluse wrote a vivid account of her vision and sent it to her confessor and a circle of influential churchmen. Her letter, known today as A Revelation of Purgatory, makes her one of the earliest known women writers in the English language.

Despite deserving this accolade, the Winchester recluse did not appear alongside her more famous contemporaries or near contemporaries, Julian of Norwich (1342 – after 1416) and Margery Kempe (circa  1373 – after 1438), in the British Library’s hugely successful recent exhibition, Medieval Women: In Their Own Words. One likely reason for this is that the manuscript copy of the full account of the vision was not available for display at the time. That situation has now changed.

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The British Library has just announced the purchase of five medieval manuscripts from Longleat House in Wiltshire. One of these manuscripts contains the complete surviving version of the recluse’s letter, which, although referred to in an incomplete version elsewhere as “a revelation recently shown to a holy woman”, is untitled in this particular manuscript. This may be another reason for this woman’s writing having been overlooked until very recently. This exciting purchase will hopefully now give the Winchester recluse and her writing the attention they deserve.

In her vivid, technicolor visions, the recluse watched a dead friend, a nun named Margaret, ushered to the forefront of purgatory by a cat and dog that she had adored and pampered when she was alive.

Transformed into vicious satanic minions, Margaret’s former pets joined the many devils responsible for doling out her punishments. They tore endlessly at her flesh and bit and scratched her relentlessly. They did so to remind her that, as a nun, she had broken her vows by keeping them as her companions in her nunnery and by devoting too much love and attention to them.

In Margaret’s heart, too, a voracious little worm had taken up residence – a so-called “worm of conscience” – that was intent on consuming her from the inside out as part of her torment.

Read more:
Cats in the middle ages: what medieval manuscripts teach us about our ancestors’ pets

So deeply troubling was this vision of her friend’s suffering that the Winchester recluse immediately summoned her young maid, and the two women started to pray for the nun’s soul. On the very next day the recluse decided there was nothing for it but to document her visions of Margaret’s fate. She not only detailed all she had seen, but also stipulated which prayers, and how many, should be said on behalf of poor Margaret to deliver her from her suffering and help her reach the gates of heaven.

The recluse’s letter is very specific about the date of these visions: they took place on St Lawrence’s day, August 10 1322, which fell on a Sunday that year. There was – and still is – a small church dedicated to this saint very close to the cathedral in Winchester (the so-called Mother Church of Winchester).

As an anchoress, the author would almost certainly have occupied a cell attached to a church somewhere in Winchester. This would also have allowed her the time and the space for contemplation, study and writing.

Read more:
Dogs in the middle ages: what medieval writing tells us about our ancestors’ pets

As has been argued in a recent blog and podcast for the University of Surrey’s Mapping Medieval Women Writers project, it is quite possible that the Church of St Lawrence was the location of her cell, where she experienced her visions, and where she wrote down her account of them.

This manuscript now permanently joins an unparalleled collection of medieval women’s writing in England held in the British Library. It includes not only The Book of Margery Kempe, manuscripts of both the short and long texts of Julian of Norwich’s Revelations, but also the Lais and Fables of Marie de France, the Boke of Saints Albans attributed to Juliana Berners, and the letters of the 15th-century Norfolk gentlewoman Margaret Paston and other female family members.

As such, the work of this unnamed Winchester anchoress now takes up its rightful place alongside the writing of her hitherto better-known literary sisters.

Diane Watt has received funding from the AHRC, British Academy and Leverhulme Trust.

Liz Herbert McAvoy received funding for an associated project from the Leverhulme Trust.

Amy Louise Morgan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Why snappy dogs, scratchy cats, and hungry worms were part of a medieval woman’s vision of the afterlife – https://theconversation.com/why-snappy-dogs-scratchy-cats-and-hungry-worms-were-part-of-a-medieval-womans-vision-of-the-afterlife-259409

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Andrea Hammel, Professor of German, Aberystwyth University

Abschied (Parting) by Sebastian Haffner (1907-1999) is dominating the bestseller charts in Germany. It has been published posthumously, over 25 years after his death, after the manuscript was found in a drawer.

The novel is a love story between Raimund, a young non-Jewish German student of law from Berlin, and Teddy, a young Jewish woman from Vienna. Raimund and Teddy meet on August 31 1930 in Berlin and the novel covers the time they spend in Berlin and Paris together.

Abschied was written between October 18 and November 23 1932, just before the Nazi takeover. It reads in the breathless, immediate manner in which it was clearly conceived. It also gives a personal insight into the zeitgeist of the final months of the Weimar Republic.

Haffner was born Raimund Pretzel in Berlin, where he trained as a lawyer. He disagreed with the Nazi regime and emigrated to London in 1938. There, in order to protect his family in Germany from potential Nazi retribution he changed his name.

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It is estimated that around 80,000 German-speaking refugees from Nazism lived in the UK by September 1939. Most of these refugees were Jewish, but there was also a sizeable number who, like Haffner, had fled for political reasons. Many politically committed exiles arrived soon after 1933 but this was not the case for Haffner. In the 1930s he was busy being a young man in Berlin, training as a lawyer and enjoying himself.

Haffner’s father was an educationalist who had a library with 10,000 volumes. As a young man Haffner liked reading, and toyed with the idea of becoming a writer and journalist, but his father advised him to study law and aim for a career in the civil service. Political developments in Germany made this option increasingly unpalatable. Initially Haffner found it difficult to see a way out. As he wrote in Defying Hitler: “Daily life […] made it difficult to see the situation clearly.”

In the book he also describes how he and other Germans acquiesced to the new regime. Haffner was disgusted with his own reaction to the SA (the Nazi party’s private army) entering the library of the court building where he was a pupil, asking those present whether they were Aryan and throwing out Jewish members of the court.

When questioned by an SA man, Haffner replied that he was indeed Aryan and felt immediately ashamed: “A moment too late I felt the shame, the defeat. I had said, ‘Yes’. […] What a humiliation to have answered the unjustified question whether I was Aryan so easily, even if the fact was of no importance to me.” Haffner never really took up his career as a lawyer, because it would have meant upholding Nazi laws and Nazi justice. Instead he started working as a journalist and writer, first in Germany and after his escape in 1938 in the UK.

Life in the UK

Soon after his arrival in the UK, Haffner finished a book titled Defying Hitler (1939). The memoir was both autobiographical and a political history of the period – but after the outbreak of the second world war it was considered not polemical enough, and was dismissed as an unsuitable explanation for the rise of Nazism at the time. But the intermingling of private and public history is of great interest to readers in the 21st century. Defying Hitler was published posthumously in German (2000) and in English (2003) and became a bestseller in both languages.

After Defying Hitler, Haffner turned to writing another book, Germany: Jekyll and Hyde (1940). It was more clearly anti-Nazi and focused on his journalism – during the war, he worked for the Foreign Office on anti-Nazi propaganda and he was later employed by The Observer as a political journalist. The book was a success, and Winston Churchill is said to have told his cabinet to read it.

The handwritten manuscript for Abschied, which was never published in Haffner’s lifetime, was found in a drawer by his son Oliver Pretzel, some time after his father’s death.

The German critic Volker Weidemann who wrote the epilogue to Parting toys with the idea that it was never published because its focus on the love story was considered a bit too trivial for such a great writer. Thanks to his work for The Observer after 1941, Haffner was a well-regarded political journalist and historical biographer. He became the paper’s German correspondent in 1954, and was well known for his column in West Germany’s Stern magazine and for his biographies, including one on Churchill (1967).

The perspective of a young non-Jewish German living a relatively ordinary life in the early 1930s makes Abschied a fascinating read. Academics have been exploring everyday life under Nazi rule for nearly half a century now, but it seems that modern readers are still keen to learn about it today.

Perhaps the novel resonates with so many German readers because we live in a time where many struggle with the inevitable continuation of everyday life while politics is becoming ever more extraordinary.

Andrea Hammel does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Parting by Sebastian Haffner: the forgotten German novel of the early 1930s that’s become a bestseller – https://theconversation.com/parting-by-sebastian-haffner-the-forgotten-german-novel-of-the-early-1930s-thats-become-a-bestseller-260154

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Primrose Freestone, Senior Lecturer in Clinical Microbiology, University of Leicester

Most of us spend around a third of our lives in bed. Sleep isn’t just downtime; it’s essential for normal brain function and overall health. And while we often focus on how many hours we’re getting, the quality of our sleep environment matters too. A clean, welcoming bed with crisp sheets, soft pillowcases and fresh blankets not only feels good, it also supports better rest.

But how often should we really be washing our bed linens?

According to a 2022 YouGov poll, just 28% of Brits wash their sheets once a week. A surprising number admitted to leaving it much longer, with some stretching to eight weeks or more between washes. So what’s the science-backed guidance?

Let’s break down what’s actually happening in your bed every night – and why regular washing is more than just a question of cleanliness.

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Each night, as we sleep, we shed hundreds of thousands of skin cells, excrete oils from our sebaceous glands, and sweat up to half a pint of fluid – even if we’ve showered just before bed. Our skin hosts millions of bacteria and fungi, many of which are transferred onto sheets, pillows and duvets as we move during the night.

That fresh sweat may be odourless, but bacteria on our skin, particularly staphylococci, break it down into smelly byproducts. This is often why you wake up with body odour, even if you went to bed clean.

But it’s not just about microbes. During the day, our hair and bodies collect pollutants, dust, pollen and allergens, which can also transfer to our bedding. These can trigger allergies, affect breathing, and contribute to poor air quality in the bedroom.

Dust mites, fungi and other unseen bedfellows

The flakes of skin we shed every night become food for dust mites – microscopic creatures that thrive in warm, damp bedding and mattresses. The mites themselves aren’t dangerous, but their faecal droppings are potent allergens that can aggravate eczema, asthma and allergic rhinitis.

Fungi also find your bed appealing. Some species, like aspergillus fumigatus, have been detected in used bed pillows and can cause serious lung infections, particularly in people with weakened immune systems.

If you sleep with pets, the microbial party gets even livelier. Animals introduce extra hair, dander, dirt and sometimes faecal traces into your sheets and blankets, increasing the frequency at which you should be washing them.

Read more:
There are benefits to sharing a bed with your pet — as long as you’re scrupulously clean

So, how often should you wash your bedding?

Sheets and pillowcases

• When: Weekly, or every three to four days if you’ve been ill, sweat heavily, or share your bed with pets.

• Why: To remove sweat, oils, microbes, allergens and dead skin cells.

• How: Wash at 60°C or higher with detergent to kill bacteria and dust mites. For deeper sanitisation, tumble dry or iron. To target dust mites inside pillows, freeze for at least 8 hours.

Mattresses

• When: Vacuum at least weekly and air the mattress every few days.

• Why: Sweat increases moisture levels, creating a breeding ground for mites.

• Tips: Use a plastic or allergen-proof mattress protector and replace the mattress every seven years to maintain hygiene and support.

Pillow interiors

• When: Every four to six months (check the label first).

• Why: Internal filling can harbour bacteria and mould.

• How: Wash thoroughly and dry completely to avoid fungal growth.

Blankets and duvet covers

• When: Every two weeks, or more often if pets sleep on them.

• Why: They trap skin cells, sweat and allergens.

• How: Wash at 60°C or as high as the care label allows. Some guidance recommends treating these like towels: regular and hot washes keep them hygienic.

Duvets

• When: Every three to four months, depending on usage and whether pets or children share your bed.

• Why: Even with a cover, body oils and mites eventually seep into the filling.

• How: Check the label: many duvets are machine-washable, others may require professional cleaning.

Your bed may look clean – but it’s teeming with microbes, allergens, mites and irritants that build up fast. Washing your bedding isn’t just about keeping things fresh; it’s a matter of health.

Regular laundering removes the biological soup of sweat, skin, dust and microbes, which helps to reduce allergic reactions, prevent infections and keep odours at bay. And as research continues to show the profound effect of sleep on everything from heart health to mental clarity, a hygienic sleep environment is a small but powerful investment in your wellbeing.

So go ahead – strip the bed. Wash those sheets. Freeze your pillows. Your microbes (and your sinuses) will thank you.

Sweet dreams – and happy laundering.

Primrose Freestone does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How often should you really be washing your bedding? A microbiologist explains – https://theconversation.com/how-often-should-you-really-be-washing-your-bedding-a-microbiologist-explains-256516

Source: The Conversation – UK – By John Aitken, Associate, RAND Europe, RAND Europe

Countries have come to rely on a network of cables and pipes under the sea for their energy and communications. So it has been worrying to read headlines about communications cables being cut and, in one case, an undersea gas pipeline being blown up..

Critical undersea infrastructure (CUI) as these connections are known, supports about US$9 trillion (£6.6 trillion) worth of trade per day. A coordinated attack on this network could undoubtedly have devastating consequences.

But, as a former submarine commander who researches maritime security, I believe that attacking and disrupting the network is not as easy as some reports might make it appear. Deliberately snagging a pipeline with a dragging anchor in relatively shallow waters can cause a lot of damage, but it is fairly indiscriminate trick with a shelf life, since the damage can be repaired, and deniability becomes increasingly difficult.

Targeting the cable networks in deeper waters require more sophisticated methods, which are much more challenging to carry out.

A hostile state wishing to attack this network first needs to locate the cables they wish to target. The majority of the newer commercial cables are very clearly charted, but their positions are not exact.

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Cables and pipelines, even the heaviest ones, will drift somewhat as they are laid, and the deeper the water they sit in, the greater the distance they may drift.

Those newer cables are often buried in a shallow trench to protect them, which
makes locating and accessing them more challenging. Older cables were laid in slightly less exact navigational times, some before the GPS network was
available for civilian use. They are not in pristine or predictable patterns.

The positions of cables used by the military are generally not advertised at all, for reasons of security. Locating the target cable requires a detailed
understanding of the topography and features of the seabed. That sort of picture can only be built up by survey and reconnaissance.

Accurately surveying the seabed takes time and significant effort. And to get certainty of the picture, the survey or reconnaissance operation needs to be conducted in overlapping rows. This is painstaking work which is conditional upon the state of the sea.

Specialist equipment

Identifying a cable against the seabed or in the trench in which it lies requires a sonar resolution of something in the order of one or two metres, requiring specialist equipment.

In 2024, several submarine telecommunications cables were disrupted in the Baltic Sea. Although there had been suspicions about ships dragging their anchors to damage the cables, authorities were not able to confirm this. The damage has not been conclusively attributed to a third party.

There have been fears about “hybrid warfare”: deniable actions taken another nation that are enough to cause disruption, but are not enough to be an attributable act of war.

In 2017, the UK chief of the defence staff said that Russia posed a threat to undersea cables. Russia has spent considerable money, time and effort in developing the
platforms and capabilities that could target undersea infrastructure, if the country so wished.

An organisation called the Main Directorate of Deep-Sea Research (GUGI) operates deep-diving nuclear submarines, as well as a survey ship that is equipped with a deep diving submersible capable of operating at 6,000 metres.

Russian navy

The Russian navy also operates survey vessels such as the Akademik Vladimirsky. The precise sensors that the ship is equipped with are unknown – but in a 2012 research expedition to the South Pole it deployed a proton magnetometer, which can be used to discover metallic objects on the seabed such as pipelines.

However, there is no suggestion that these survey vessels have been involved in disrupting undersea infrastructure. Nevertheless, operations by such vessels do not go unobserved by the west. Indicators and warnings of their deployments can be gained from imagery, and western submarines are capable of tracking and observing their patrols.

The threat posed to Europe’s critical undersea infrastructure is real, and the consequences of a successful attack could be catastrophic. But this is a difficult business in a very challenging environment.

The most acute threat is in the littoral (shore zone), where cables make landfall and in the shallows around those landing places. Protecting these chokepoints should be a top priority.

That, in turn, requires adequate numbers of attack submarines capable of
monitoring and, if necessary, deterring or disrupting hostile activity. Vigilance,
investment, and realism – not alarmism – will be the foundation of a credible undersea defence.

John Aitken does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Undersea cables are vulnerable to sabotage – but this takes skill and specialist equipment – https://theconversation.com/undersea-cables-are-vulnerable-to-sabotage-but-this-takes-skill-and-specialist-equipment-259417