Alex climbs Kenyan giant for charity

ALEX Cochrane has raised £3600 to fight his mother’s illness by scaling the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro.

He climbed the Kenyan giant two weeks ago to raise money for LUPUS UK, a charity which was set up to fight the rare immune disorder Lupus, an illness with which Alex’s mother has been diagnosed.

Alex, who works for AMICUS ITS in Totton, trained for over a year in preparation for the 19,000 ft climb by scaling Mt Snowdon and Scafell Pike.

Alex’s mother Jo Cochrane, 52, said: "Alex just texted me one day and said he’d done something really daft. Then he told me that he'd decided to climb Kilimanjaro.

I couldn’t believe it at first but I’m really proud of him. He’s proved that you can do anything if you really work at it."

Alex, a keen snowboarder said: "I hadn’t really done anything like this before so I had to go out and buy some walking boots. It was one of the hardest and best things I’ve ever done. The wind chill factor at the summit was between minus 25 - minus 30 degrees and the organisers said it was one of the coldest years they had ever known. It would have been great to stick around and admire the view but it was just too cold.

"I phoned my mum on the way down as soon as I could get a signal even though she’d asked me not to. She was really excited."

But even when Alex got back to England, he couldn’t sit back and relax.

"I got in to find mum had organised a surprise party for me which was really amazing even though I was absolutely exhausted," he said.

Mrs Cochrane who works in a school for children with special needs suffers from the rare and so-far incurable illness which causes the immune system to turn against itself: "I get extreme tenderness and weakness in my joints and I’ve also got raynaud’s syndrome which means my fingers and toes go blue and cold at any slight change of temperature. I’ve only got a mild form of the disease compared to many people though, so I’m very lucky," she said.

Alex and his family have also organised a series of fundraising events over the past year including a computer racing night and community coffee mornings.

Mrs Cochrane said: "It’s great. We knit scarves to sell and have stalls for plants, books, toys and jewellery. All our friends and family are extremely supportive and there’s a great sense of community."

Janine Hirsch, fundraising manager for LUPUS UK said: "We’re absolutely delighted Alex has done this. This is still quite an unknown disorder so we need to raise as much money as possible to go towards scientific research”.

And Alex says this is only the start of his mountain conquering career: "I hope to do the three peaks challenge next year which involves climbing Ben Nevis, Scafell Pike and Snowdon within twenty four hours," he said.

For more information or to make a donation visit:

http://www.justgiving.com/nutdoeskili

www.lupusuk.org.uk

local soldier helps build vital road link

A soldier from New Milton has been deployed to help construct a vital military road in Afghanistan.

Michael Lee,19, a combat engineer for the Royal Engineers, is helping to build Route Trident, a road link which will give British troops the freedom of movement they need to protect local communities in the war against the Taleban.

It is also hoped the road will kick-start economic and social development in the area and help encourage the Afghan people to reject the Taleban.

Sapper Lee said: "We work for long hours, often at night and under enemy fire. The force protection we provide for our soldiers is very important as it helps keep all of our soldiers safer against attacks from insurgents. But it’s not just about safety and security –we also do things like install hot showers which are a real morale boost to the lads."

A spokesman for Task Force Helmand, the name given to all UK forces in the province, said: "As a combat engineer, Michael is responsible for building structures in dangerous locations. The aim of projects such as Route Trident is to make it easier to drive out insurgency and improve security for the local population."

But despite the high-pressure situation, Sapper Lee has still maintained his sense of humour:

"What keeps you going is being able to spend time and have banter with the rest of the squadron – amongst my personal highlights have been trying to catch a runaway headless chicken that we were preparing for a special dinner treat!" he said.

"I am very proud of what I do and the difference we are making. The locals often tell us we have made a big difference to their lives by improving the roads."

Sapper Lee, a keen rugby fan, attended Arnewood School in New Milton before joining the Army in 2008. This is his first visit to Afghanistan.

Solar power makes island green

Solar power is helping residents on the Isle of Wight to cut their energy bills in half.

Southern Housing group have installed solar power into over 300 of their island homes in a bid to make bills more affordable for tenants.

The energy-saving scheme has been developed in partnership with green service provider Eaga.

Island residents like Mr and Mrs Clews-Cartwright have noticed an immediate impact on their energy consumption.

Brenda Clews-Cartwright said: “The whole install was really quick and clean and we are delighted with the result. We noticed the difference immediately. Our monthly fuel bills used to be around £92, but straight away they went down to £72 and are now as low as £50.”

The scheme has also won the approval of Southampton MP and green energy specialist Dr Alan Whitehead who visited the island recently to lend his support to the initiative.

Dr Whitehead who sits on the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee, said: “As someone with a special interest in clean energy and micro-generation it is encouraging to see first hand how low carbon technology can be used so effectively. I’m grateful to Mr and Mrs Clews-Cartwright for showing me the system in their home and I applaud Southern Housing Group and Eaga for making solar energy so accessible and affordable.”

Southern Housing group is one of the first housing associations to partner with Eaga, and is taking a lead in the drive to make the Isle of Wight a ‘green island.’

Paul Wenham, Property Services Director at Southern Housing Group Ltd, said: “It became apparent to us that in some cases our residents were paying very high energy bills and this, combined with the ongoing search for new cleaner energy, prompted us to begin this project.

“We think the results speak for themselves, and our residents agree that the changes we’ve made have lowered their energy bills. We are currently reviewing extending this and other initiatives across the Group.”

John Swinney, Eaga Director added: “Our programme is all about making renewable technology easy, affordable and accessible for all. It’s a fit and forget exercise for the householder and with forward-thinking partners like Southern Housing Group we are now rolling the programme out at scale and making a real difference.”

·         Eaga have developed a simple and effective way to provide homes with solar panels free of charge. The system works by fitting photovoltaic (PV) panels to the roofs of south-facing houses which are then connected to the mains to provide energy. Eaga makes money from the scheme by using the the feed-in-tariff (FIT), which provides an income from electricity generated domestically and fed into the national grid. This means that the install and maintenance of the system are completely free to residents and housing providers.

Millennium Walkway won't be completed in my life time

Story as printed in the Portsmouth News

EVERYONE in Portsmouth knows about the Spinnaker Tower. Love it or hate it, it’s impossible to ignore the spidery structure thrusting into the sky over

Portsmouth’s world-famous harbour.

Everyone also knows that the tower has always been, and still remains a huge source of controversy with questions like: ‘Was it worth the money?’  ‘Why wasn’t it completed on time?’ ‘Is it serving any useful purpose?’ being raised almost daily in the cafés and pubs of the city.

What fewer people realise is that another major millennium project still hasn’t been completed and  lies languishing in solicitors’ offices and council meeting rooms.



Proposed route of the Millennium Walkway



The scheme is known as the Millennium Walkway and it has frustrated councillors to such an extent that Portsmouth City Council leader Gerald Vernon-Jackson ecently commented: “I doubt if the project will be completed in my lifetime.”

According to Councillor Vernon-Jackson, Network Rail are behind the failure to complete the scheme which has already tied up hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayers money and has embroiled the council in a series of costly legal negotiations.

“This is a highly complex project involving four sets of lawyers. Negotiations have been going on between them for many years but the real problem is network Rail, they’re an absolute nightmare to work with,” he said.

The much touted Walkway was supposed to be completed, yes, you’ve guessed it, in the year 2000. It was to be a waterside heritage trail linking Clarence pier at Southsea to the dockyard via Gunwharf Quays and The Hard.

Initially the scheme was part of the grandiose Portsmouth Harbour Millennium Project, which aimed  to transform the waterfront area for the year 2000.

Most of the trail is now fact complete: Walkers can obtain a leaflet from the

Tourist Information Centre to guide them along the pleasant heritage trail which links up sites of historic value such as the Square Tower and Spur Redoubt.

However agreement has stalled on the most striking phase of the trail, a covered walkway linking Gunwharf Quays to Portsmouth Harbour Station, which is owned by Network Rail.

Roger Ching, Strategic Director for Portsmouth city Council has worked

tirelessly for the completion of the walkway for the last ten years but says

that ongoing legal disagreements between the five main players have prevented completion. Portsmouth City Council, Whitelink, Continuum -the company behind the Spinnaker Tower, Gunwharf Quays and Network Rail all have a stake in the area covered by the development.

MrChing said: “This would have been completed many years ago if it were not such a complex project. I don’t think people realise just how difficult it is to reach agreement when there is such a large number of stakeholders involved.”

He is however optimistic that the legal disputes will soon be settled and that the council will be able to commission new contractors to complete the work in the near future: “We’re just waiting on the final bits of paperwork from Network Rail,” he said.

However Councillor Vernon-Jackson is much less optimistic: “Roger has been saying this for many years,” he said. “At times I despair and there is no apparent end in site.”

David Hempsey who is overseeing the scheme for Network Rail was unavailable for comment but a  spokesperson for the company said: “We are working with all the parties involved in this project and are hopeful of resolving all outstanding issues shortly so the Millennium Walkway can be completed fully.”

The council has also faced an embarrassing funding crisis over the project. In June 2009 it was forced to re-pay £250,000 to Berkeley Homes after failing to meet a deadline for completion. The construction company had handed over the funds in return for planning permission to develop No. 1 Gunwharf Quays on condition that the project be completed within five years. However by the time the money was due to be repaid, the council had spent £86,000 of it on the Spinnaker Tower and had to make up the shortfall from its own budget.

A 2008 cabinet report estimated that in order to complete the walkway, the

council would have to find £895,000 from ‘available capital resources.’ Put

simply, this means that the city will pay for the much of the project with our council tax and other rents, fees and charges that we hand over to the council on a daily basis.

If the £250,000 that was repaid to Berkeley homes in 2009 is deducted from this sum, the council will now have to find around £1million of capital funding in order to complete the project and this is not taking into account the increase in building costs since 2009.

The report dated November 2008 also recommended that the Council’s Strategic Director be authorized to accept the lowest tender for the completion of the scheme  as soon as possible.

However a survey of the key players in January 2010 suggests this process has not been carried out.




Portsmouth Harbour Station

 A spokesperson for Wightlink said: “At t the last meeting with Portsmouth City Council, I am pleased to confirm that they were happy with the progress with the legal agreements and budget and are finalising the design which will be going to tender shortly for revised prices.”

Clearly this is the same stage that had been reached in November 2008.

Juliana Delaney for Contiunuum, the company behind the Spinnaker Tower development said: “We are hopeful that the scheme will go to tender in the very near future.”

If the plans ever do go forward, this will just be the beginning of the process. The council will then have to vote on whether to proceed with the project and will have to allocate the necessary funding. This is at a time when the council is having its budget slashed by 28 per cent over the course of four years, this seems unlikely to happen. 

So there may be a long path ahead for the Millennium Walkway. It could turn out to be the longest heritage trail ever built and there certainly won’t be a pot of gold at the end of it.

Words 1000

Residents speak out against EastEnder's car lot

PLANS to convert a car wash into an ‘East-enders’ style automobile lot are causing outrage amongst Fratton residents

Home owners on Claremont Road say the Superhands car cleaning business is already wrecking life on their street and that any attempt to expand it would be disastrous.

Matters came to a head yesterday when Mr Yadgar Omar put his plans to convert the business before Portsmouth City Council Planning Committee

The joint founder of the Fratton South Neighbourhood Watch Scheme which lodged a petition against the plans said: “There’s been a lot of swearing recently and residents have been told to f*** off.

 “It’s especially bad for people with child buggies or those in wheelchairs and on crutches. They just can’t get down the street because of the cars parked on the pavements. It’s been even worse recently in the icy conditions.”

Mr Omar defended his plans to the committee: “There has been a misunderstanding with my neighbours,” he said. “I really believe there is plenty of space around to develop the business and we are always careful not to park anywhere we shouldn’t.”

Councillor David Fuller was also vocal in his opposition to further development at the site: “Residents just don’t want an East-enders style car lot in their area,” he said.

The planning application was deferred to allow Mr Omar time to provide more details of how the proposed car lot will affect the parking situation.

Story as it appeared in the Portsmouth News 

Stories in Stone

Stories in Stone: Published in etc.  magazine, March 2011

Martin Elvery discovers  the beautiful Roman mosaics of Sussex which tell a forgotten story of how the other half lived 2,000 years ago.

We all like to show-off to our guests and relatives when we invite them to dinner: We might bring out the best crockery, or set up a decorative table-centre as a talking point. For the Romans -or more accurately the Romano-British- living in Britain almost 2,000 years ago, it was little different;  Instead of making small talk about the NEXT curtains or the latest IKEA furniture however, Roman dinner guests would have talked about the floors!

Mosaic art-the art of creating pictures from small pieces of tile, glass or stone,   was first developed in Mesopotamia in the third millennium BC, originally using terracotta cones and later different coloured pebbles to make intricate designs. But it was the ancient Greeks who perfected the art, developing precise geometric patterns and detailed scenes of people and animals. The Romans brought mosaic art to Britain after the emperor Claudius launched an invasion of the country in AD 43, and it soon became the favoured floor decoration for elite Romano-British families in their chic country villas and  town-houses, as they sought to imitate the fashions of Rome.

As a wealthy Romano-Brit you would have been keen to further your position amongst the Roman high society by holding regular dinner parties for the great and good of the empire.  Once you had welcomed your dinner guests -perhaps they would have bee travelling officials or relatives from a far distant part of the empire-you might have  invited them to  recline with you on cushioned couches in the dining room where a low table would have  been regularly re-filled with an array of exotic dishes which were designed to amaze and delight you;  As you invited your guests to tuck into such delicacies as larks tongue and honeyed doremouse, you might have tried to impress them by telling them stories about your floors.

In the early years of the Roman empire (1^st century AD), the fashion in Italy was for black and white or partially coloured geometric mosaics. These mathematically complex and often symmetrical designs, varied enormously but a basic rule was that the more lavish the design, the more impressed your dinner -guests were likely to be. Diners would have been suitably awestruck at the magnificent house of Fishbourne Roman Palace for example when you revealed to them that one of your  geometric pavements  was in fact a clever  illusion: At first site the pavement appears to be a simple cube-based design, but on closer inspection you r guests  would have noticed stars shifting between the squares, then –if they were still sober enough- it would have dawned on them  that the perspective in the pavement confuses the eye to create a continually alternating  pattern of three-dimensional shapes. At Bignor Roman Villa, near Pulborough in the heart of the south downs, you might have taken an after-dinner stroll with your guests along  a fine geometric pavement in the main corridor of the villa, fronted by an open colonnade, which let you gaze out on magnificent views across the downs.

At  Fishbourne  it's possible that you -as the host- might have been king-Cogidubnus, a British prince who had collaborated with the Romans and had probably received the colossal palace as a gift in return for your loyalty. Over dinner you might have drawn your guests’ attention to the  beautiful boy-on a dolphin mosaic  which graced your dining room. In the centre of this pavement  a boy cupid sits astride a beautifully executed dolphin, with a trident in his hand.  In Roman mythology, cupid was the god of love and erotic desire so you might have laughed  with your guests over stories from mythology of young lovers who were struck by cupids bow- such as Aeneas, the prince from Troy who founded the Roman nation, and Dido queen of Carthage who was thrown into an uncontrollable desire for him by the will of Juno queen of the Gods.

For fun, you might have asked your guests to look closely among the vine tendrils around the edge of the design, to see if they could spot a small black bird which may have been the trademark of the designer -much as a potter might stamp his work today.

If you were lucky enough to be the owners of Bignor Roman Villa, you would have been a wealthy Romano-British couple who had inherited  a fine  country houses amid acres of highly profitable farm estates. In winter, you might have escorted guests to the winter dining room which was heated under floor by an ingenious hypocaust  system which can still be seen today. During dinner you could have asked your guests look down at the head of Venus, Goddess of love, which was the central feature of the mosaic in this room. You could have asked guests to stand up and walk slowly around the dining room to marvel at the brilliant trick of the mosaicists art which caused the doe eyes of the goddess to gaze at you intently  no matter where you were standing  in the room.

If time allowed you might have invited your guests to bathe with you in the small heated bath house in the south western corner of the villa. Bathing in Roman times was both a social event  and an issue of hygiene and  you would have had a good opportunity to enjoy conversation in the changing rooms before passing into the inviting warm and hot rooms. While they changed, guests would have rested their bare feet on a  beautiful floor adorned with the head of medusa. The story of the snake headed gorgon who could turn men to stone with just a look- and who was recently featured in the film Clash of the Titans- might have served as a warning to bathers against vanity and the pleasures of the flesh: Medusa was said to have once been a beautiful maiden who was transformed into a gorgon as a punishment for sleeping with the sea-God Poseidon.

In summertime you would have invited guests to dine in a summer dining room nearer to the front of the villa where a strikingly three dimensional image of mythological figure Ganymede awaited you. Ganymede , a prince who was said to be fro the city of Troy (yes the one with Brad Pitt), is depicted as hanging  in the clutches of a starkly rendered golden eagle complete with beady eyes and a dangerous looking beak. But all was not lost; The story goes that Ganymede was so attractive that Zeus decided to have him abducted and taken up to Mount Olympus to serve as a cup-bearer to the gods. Perhaps dinner guests imagined furtively  that they were having their wine poured by Ganymede himself and that they were in fact dining in the company of immortals!

But the dream of Roman civilization could not last ad after nearly 400 years of occupation, the last Roman troops were recalled in 410 AD and the province was gradually over-run by Jutes, Angles, and Saxons from Northern Europe. Over the course of time the mosaics were buried beneath farmers fields as the buildings collapsed and decayed around them. It was only the dedicated work of teams of archaeologists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that has brought the floors to light once more and has allowed us to re-imagine the stories that would have been told around the dinner-tables 2,000 years ago.

Mobility Scooter damaged by cemetary potholes

Story as it appeared in the Portsmmouth News


PEOPLE with mobility problems are being forced to dodge dangerous potholes on a popular walkway through Kingston cemetery in Fratton.

Tony Bradshaw, 72 who suffers with a neurological condition known as cerebellar ataxia which affects his mobility and balance, says the potholes caused £200 of damage to his motorised scooter.

“I am always having to swerve around the potholes which is very hard for me,” he said. “The front wheels of my scooter were damaged by the uneven surface of the road. The scooter cost me £600 so it’s really lucky that it was covered by insurance.

“I visit the cemetery every fortnight at least. You can’t get down the side roads to visit the graves because they are too uneven. I really have to watch out.”

Mr Bradshaw also said: “The cemetery toilets have been closed since the summer. It means elderly folk have to walk a long way to find a public convenience.”

A sign on the toilet door which has been defaced by a disgruntled member of the public says they are closed due to drainage problems and that visitors must use the public convenience on neighbouring Clarke’s Road.

Mr Bradshaw’s daughter-in-law who didn’t wish to be named said: “We paid a lot of money for our mother’s grave two years ago. It makes you wonder where all the money is going.”

According to the Portsmouth City Council website there are around 400 burials at Kinston cemetery each year. The Council has raised burial prices by 29% over the past two years and in 2010 the cost of a burial went up from £443 to £483.

The cemetery thoroughfare which is a favourite cut-through for dog walkers and pedestrians is also causing problems for  wheelchair users such as Craig Kelly, 25.

Craig’s mother Mrs Kelly, 46 said: “We come through here each fortnight to visit my mother’s grave and we have to dodge round the potholes. Craig has nearly fallen out of his chair on several occasions so something really needs to be done about this. It’s even worse for mothers with pushchairs and the elderly with buggies.”

Ward councillor Eleanor Scott said: “Residents have told me how much of a problem this is and we are trying to get something done about it, but it would cost 25K to re-surface the road. The annual budget we have to spend is just not enough. Everything changes  at a time when the council is having to make cuts of £10.9 m in 2011-2012. Its going to be even harder to find the money for this kind of work.”