Cork Monkey is back!

Where have we been? - More detail on that later but in brief we have been visiting the big wide world to see whats what so watch these pages for the fruits of these labours.
There is a story in the UK that caught our attention.

The UK has had the wettest April since reliable records began (a century or so). There is also a hosepipe ban in much of the country (people in the UK  cannot use hoses to water the garden or clean their cars etc ). Of course we at Cork Monkey understand that a few weeks heavy rain do not balance a couple of dry years (mainly because heavier rains will  run off the land and into the sea instead of seeping into the soil and filling underground resovoirs) but it occurs that hosepipe bans are rapidly becoming the rule rather than the exception.

Why is this? -We don't know but would love to find out.

The government blame rising population, immigration and an uneven dispersal of the population that is challanging the infrastructure however I am not so sure. Why is it surprising and unpredicatable that people want to live cities and that people in cities are having babies. Could we not plan for this and develop adequate infrastructure?

Cork Monkey detects a common theme here? We notice that there is a lot of 'green' talk about the need to conserve power and not waste energy, really strong stuff too - enough to make you feel like Hitler just for turning on a light bulb.

There is also a lot of talk of saving money by switching to low energy light bulbs too the extent that they issued  households with low energy bulbs which are a bit like the current cabinet ( dim, dull and no good for reading) - nobody has noticed the change though - power companies still making huge profits because they put there prices up an get paid more for producing less power.

Are these real problems or are we some way being manipulated by government and large organisations who hide behind this 'Greenwashing of the market, the current financial crisis or as ever behind the dastardly johnny foreigner to disguise that they have failed to invest in infrastrucure?

Would it be churlish to suggest that where expensive development projects run the risk of reducing profits (which would mean shareholder dividends and bosses bonuses would be smaller)  those who might be affected are reluctant to approve these projects.

We don't yet have these answers - do you?

CM (:-(I)