The BLT Episode 16: Gyms, Goats and Goblins
2023: Back to porridge, back to the commute, back to the gym (if you're so inclined), and back to the BLT.
The first BLT of the year has landed. Have you seen it? Confused by the cryptic references and easter eggs? Wondering what on earth we're on about?
No worries—as always, the BLT blog is here to give you some context on the wonderfully wacky stories of the week and, hopefully, clear some things up.
Do you have some news that’s perfect for the BLT that we’ve missed? Tell us, and find out more about how we work by getting in contact today!
Old and New
The old, bearded man and determined baby you see at the beginning are Father Time and Baby New year, common symbols of the new year.
Father Time is a wise old man, thought to come from Chronos, the Greek God of Time, and Baby New Year comes from Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility, representing the promise of rebirth and a fresh start.
At the end of each year, Father Time bestows his wisdom to the newborn, who then goes on to pass on this knowledge as Father Time the following January.
A Positive (+) Start to the Year
The wise know that renewable energy sources are the way forward, but there's one problem with them: On days when the sun is scorching, or the wind is howling, wind and solar farms can produce more power than we need.
In the Alps of Switzerland, a neat solution has been built: A water battery. At the Nant de Drance Hydropower Plant, any excess energy is used to pump water from the plant up to an alpine reservoir. They can just send the water back when more power is needed later. Falling under gravity, it powers a turbine on its way.
The battery was finally completed, having been in the works for 14 years, and is set to power 900,000 homes in Switzerland and beyond.
See the Nant de Drance Plant in all her beauty here.
Proactive Pipe Patrollers
Another quirky solution to wasted energy has been announced this week.
Ofwat tells us that around three billion litres of water are lost daily due to leaky pipes in England and Wales.
The answer? Mini robot patrollers, the size of a toy car (perfect size for a mouse), with a microphone for ears and camera for eyes. They're designed to decide whether the pipe is at risk of developing a leak and talk to each other using sound and Wi-Fi.
Water UK says they are already investing billions in leak mediation.
We Like To Move It Move It
Another thing the government should invest in, according to the news this week, is transport options.
The first news story featured was the release of a study from University College London that found a link between travelling beyond your local area and positive health and well-being; People who do so feel significantly healthier and have more social interactions. How often they left their local area, how far they went, and the range of places they visited all made a difference.
The study focused on thousands of people living in the North of England.
The link was particularly strong for those over 55, a group at risk of reduced mobility and loneliness if we don’t accommodate for them. Researchers concluded that we should invest in transport options that take people further, including public transport and better-serviced roads.
Superhuman Gary McKee
One man who doesn’t need help getting around locally is Gary McKee. This Cumbrian father-of-three ran a marathon a day in 2022, raising over a million for charity along the way, all while maintaining his full-time job at a power plant.
365 marathons means 9500 miles. String them all together, and you'd end up in Australia.
It was all for a worthy cause, shared between Macmillan Cancer Support and West Cumbria Hospice at Home. As Gary often reminded himself, "Your worst day ever [while running] is nothing compared to what some people are facing.”
It's not too late to donate. Read more on Gary's JustGiving page.
No Goats Around Here, Please
If anyone deserves the title of G.O.A.T., it's Gary.
G.O.A.T., is a term used to refer to someone who is the greatest of all time.
The word was among those banned by Lake Superior State University officials in Michigan, USA, for being "misused, useless, and overused.” The establishment objected to the "technical vagueness of this wannabe superlative.”
Goblin Mode Activated
Not everyone aspires to be as fit and high achieving as G.O.A.T Gary. In fact, a mood that may be more representative of the zeitgeist is Oxford Dictionary 2022 word of the year: Goblin Mode.
The term is "a type of behaviour which is unapologetically self-indulgent, lazy, slovenly or greedy, typically in a way that rejects social norms or expectations."
This year was the first that the word of the year was chosen by public vote.
Read more about Goblin Mode, and see artist Esme Blegvad's detailed depiction of it in this article.
Send your letters on a Maiden Voyage
If you're wondering why our cave-dwelling goblin looks quite so spooky, this is to reflect Royal Mail’s new Iron Maiden stamps. Royal Mail decided to pay tribute to the ‘rock legends’ with 12 new stamps capturing the essence of their performances and their distinctive energy.
We took inspiration from the stamp of Eddie, which is also the artwork of the band's first album.
Not Just A Pretty Painting
You might have noticed our goblin was busy scribbling on his wall.
This week, a Londoner was credited with cracking a 20,000-year-old mystery about our hunter-gatherer ancestors; More specifically, about their artwork. He realised that cave paintings seemed to record local animals’ mating cycles, according to a lunar calendar.
None of Your Business
And finally, our bin-bag mountain was a nod to the story that H&M, the fast fashion giant, has found itself in bother with Norwegian authorities. They remain stubbornly tight-lipped about how many tonnes of unsold clothing they are left with in Norway. The Norwegian Board of Appeal for Environmental Information maintains that this is information they are obliged to share, and so they are stuck in a stand-off.
That’s all the stories for this week, which came together in our busy gremlin-containing bin-bag powerplant mountain. We hope you enjoyed it and learnt something new along the way.
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Give us the week’s offbeat news stories, and we’ll sum them up in an image, bringing them into the same universe.