RDN on BBC1’s “Big Questions” on premature babies
I had an outing on BBC1's Big Questions and on the issue of extremely premature babies missed an important note or two... Read more...
Richard D North.
On culture, Nature, liberal issues, monasticism, spiritualityPage 34 of all posts
RDN on aid on BBC Big Questions
The British state is right to have a growing international aid budget. How on earth could a screaming right-winger argue this? Well, BBC1's Big Questions asked my opinion on the matter and I surprised myself thus.... Read more...
RDN on Libya on BBC R2
I had a fairlydecent outing on the Jeremy Vine Show on BBC Radio 2 today. Since I was defending the UK's behaviour toward Libya in recent years, that was about the best one can expect, I think. Read more...
RDN on library cuts on BBC R4 You & Yours
Local libraries, like woodlands, seem to inflame the English middle class in a very special way. So it was good fun to go on BBC Radio 4's You & Yours and bat for the closure programme. Read more...
Kissinger on form on Egypt & the US
Here, courtesy of the best but most irritating TV news in the UK, is Henry Kissinger on the current Egyptian revolution (if that is what it is). It was a masterclass. Read more...
Chernobyl’s 25th anniversary: Start here
There are 10 mini-essays on this site which intend to do honour to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the extraordinary people who are associated with it. See the "Browse by tag" menu at left.
Here's a v short YouTube video of an RDN visit to the surviving Chernobyl plant in 2005. You may be interested in Chernobyl's cancer death toll, and an account of that appears here. If you're kindly interested in my personal take on Chernobyl, read on below..... Read more...
BBC’s Countryfile: “Allotments save the world”
Yeah, so OK, BBC1's delicious, mostly youthful Countryfile didn't actually say that the alleged world food crisis would be solved by British allotmenteers. But... Read more...
#1 The Accident
What happened on 26 April 1986 Read more...
#2 Mechanical causes
The reactors at Chernobyl were RBMKs, which moderate their fission processes with graphite and are cooled by water. Hence their common Western name: LWGR, or light-water graphite reactor... Read more...
#3 Management causes of the accident
In some sense all errors are human. Reactor 4's design made it fallible, but Soviet secrecy made it impossible for its designers to explain the weaknesses of their work. Soviet bureaucracy also made it likely that the reactor might not be well built and maintained... Read more...