- Written by Peter Edwards Editor, Global Cement Magazine
During the pandemic, I have taken to working more with headphones, often exploring the many musical genres offered by YouTube. Having established my pre-existing liking for guitars and 80s synths, its ‘algorithm’ led me down the path to ‘post-punk,’ Serbian ‘drum-and-jazz,’ suggested I try Norwegian ‘darkwave,’ and presented me with ‘Zamrock,’ a mixture of Western rock and traditional music from 1970s Zambia. Other algorithm trips took me to early electronic music, strange time-signatures and bands with incredible range. Much of this music would have been completely unaccessible to most listeners 20 years ago, and I’m extremely glad it’s out there, waiting to be discovered anew. Many others are too, with a common comment stating that ‘the algorithm has found a gem.’
- Written by Peter Edwards Editor, Global Cement Magazine
In the town I grew up in, there was a sweet-shop on my route home from school. It was run by Geoff, an eccentric chap who sold sweets the ‘proper’ way, by weight from behind a counter. He was straight-talking and uncomplicated. When UK shops were, in his words, ‘forced to adopt’ the metric system in January 2000, he just relabelled everything with the same price, per 113.85 grams rather than per 1/4 lb.
- Written by Peter Edwards Editor, Global Cement Magazine
The transition to net-zero CO2 living, apparently set to take place by 2050, will require a lot of changes to our way of life. We provide coverage to the many ingeneous technical solutions to CO2 in these pages, but researchers in Switzerland may have identified another useful method: Human laziness.1
- Written by Peter Edwards Editor, Global Cement Magazine
In its report The Inequality Virus,1 the charity Oxfam highlighted one of the most startling figures of the Covid-19 pandemic so far: US$500bn. This is the amount by which the world’s 10 richest men added to their wealth from April to December 2020. Read that again: Added to their wealth! In an effort to put a scale against this figure for us non-billionaires, Oxfam says this amount would be enough to vaccinate everyone on the planet against Covid-19 and to ensure that nobody ended up worse off due to the outbreak.
- Written by Peter Edwards Editor, Global Cement Magazine
One of the many facets of the recently-imposed third UK lockdown has been a return to home-schooling for my eldest daughter. She is now approaching six, which means a longer attention span and greater comprehension than in previous lockdowns. The school subjects have increased in depth and breadth to fit, meaning she is now knee-deep in something approaching proper maths, while other tasks prompt the investigation of materials (science) and discussion of whether things around us are natural or made by people (geography).
