Undercurrents 9 page 3

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eddie currents

Your Country's Scientists Need YOU:

MISSED THE war? Well, now's your chance to do. your bit to help a 'vital programme of medical tests'. The Chemical Defence Establishment at Porton Down desperately needs guinea pigs to test its latest lethal lachrymators (tear gases to you and me).

Those who volunteer, in reply to massive advertising in certain government publications, will be paid £15 to £30 a week. depending on the 'amount of work' (perhaps £30 is what you get for posthumous work?). 18 volunteers are needed for each of the 21 test periods over the next year. You need not be a 'superman', but must be 'well motivated' (after all, we can't have any anarchists getting practice running through CR gas clouds, can we?).

Our nation's Chemical Warfare Establishment, to give it an honest title, stresses the recreational and sports facilities at Porton Down. Not to mention 'the large range area on which some outdoor trials are conducted which offers plenty of rambling opportunities in unspoilt countryside'. Perhaps they are referring to the 7000 acres of the beautiful Wiltshire Downs which were closed off and sealed up in order to create this establishment.

Bookings are being taken ¬Ýnow, so just send along your form 838/74. Regretfully, only children over the age of 18 may accompany you. And, as you ramble over the 'unspoilt countryside spare a thought for the three villages - Porton. Gomeldon, and Idmiston which have already been delivered the kiss of death. And for the people of Northern Ireland, whose country is the real 'testing ground I for the weaponry of Porton Down.

There’Äôs a bomb in my sewage

MEET conservationist David R. Safrany. He describes himself as an admirer of the California coast. which he rides along on a motorcycle and flies over in an aeroplane that he pilots himself. Naturally he is concerned about future energy supplies. In Scientific American (October 1974) he proposes a wonderful scheme for converting organic waste into valuable fertilizer.

Now don't leap to conclusions. Dr Safrany hasn't invented an improved compost heap. Rather, he proposes that the waste should be pumped into an underground cavity and blown up with a thermonuclear bomb. The waste would be almost 100% converted into carbon monoxide and hydrogen: and the hydrogen could be combined with atmospheric nitrogen to yield (after a radiological wash and brush-up) nitrogenous fertilizer. Of course organic waste, as usually understood. isn't a bad fertilizer itself and frankly we're astonished that Dr Safrany didn't spot the short cut: forget about underground cavities, carry out the explosion at ground level and you can instantly plaster the fields with shit for ten miles.

Un-plugging the operators

MASSIVE INCREASES In the area of the globe which can be dialed from Britain's telephones were announced shortly before Christmas.

Subscribers in many parts of the country can now dial directly to South Africa, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore and Israel - though charges are as high as a pound a minute for the more distant areas. This move reduces still further the amount of work done at the various international switchboards and, ¬Ýconveniently, reduces the Post Office's vulnerability to industrial action taken by its telephone operators in search of better working conditions.

This summer, telephonists at the London International exchanges staged a go-slow in support of wage demands which were never fully met. They "Blacked' the other international exchanges, particularly the one at Brighton which had refused to go-slow. But subscribers at Brighton were soon able to dial the calls for themselves, since, by a curious coincidence. the ISD (International Subscriber Dialing) facilities were brought into service in their area at that very time. As a local PO spokesman smugly commented: "Any blacklist ¬Ý¬Ý¬Ý would no longer be relevant."

A go-slow or cut-back over the Christmas period could have been crippling, because of the vast amount of overtime and holiday-time working necessary to maintain services. But ISO was ready and waiting to bypass any stroppy operators. And coincidence it isn't.

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