The 2010 vintage Roman villa built at Wroxeter Roman City in Shropshire, whose construction was featured in Channel 4‘s ‘Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day’ TV series, is now open to the public. A team of seven builders mastered traditional Roman methods to construct the villa, largely by hand, to a ferocious six months deadline…. Continue reading
Posts by Gareth Huw Davies
Dublin – capital not of the world, but (far better) of the word
The best way to begin a visit to Dublin is not with a drink, but inside a drink. If that sounds too completely barmy even for this city of whimsy and imagination, consider this. The finest view of the Irish capital is from the glass-walled bar on the seventh floor of the Guinness Storehouse, the… Continue reading →
Sunshine solution for smelly old rubbish dumps
Full up rubbish dumps could be covered over with solar farms, as as an extreme greening of the environment option. You may have seen these beguiling but useless green mounds: a previously rough area caringly restored to nature, perhaps? But look closer and there’s something very wrong. The clue is the pipes and gadgets siphoning,… Continue reading →
Rome, begun by the emperors, finished by Fellini
If a stray meteorite ever took out Rome, they would be able to rebuild it, from the big monuments down to the most intimate viale, by studying the many films shot there. Whereas most cities, when they feature in a film, are only a backdrop, the fabric of the Rome so often plays a full… Continue reading →
An affordable electric car, just In time for the Olympics?
Is the affordable electric car (EV) finally here? The Renault Zoe will be in showrooms by spring 2012, just in time to be driven (congestion charge free, of course) through the streets of London to the Olympic Games. It should cost around £12,000, although with an additional, unexpected, expense. You lease the battery for around… Continue reading →
Could solar meet world's energy needs by 2027?
Here’s a man who is outrageously optimistic about solar power. You may think he’s being hopelessly positive, naive even, but read this. Most of futurist Ray Kurzweil’s apparently accurate predictions come from his law of accelerating returns. According to him there’s an exponential progress in information technology. Advances feed on themselves, to help create the… Continue reading →