A good way from London’s King’s Cross Station to Edinburgh, where I am going for the last time as an external examiner at Napier University, I notice that I am a bit too eager to appreciate the countryside along the way. Beautiful as it is, it is dotted with power-stations and crisscrossed by power-lines. Power corrupts landscapes, as well. As this could well be my last chance to see this swath of land from the train, I had been turning a blind eye to these irksome blemishes. But not to worry, in time they will turn up everywhere. Those eager to appreciate the world around them will eventually miss them altogether.

Addendum (June 26, 2003)

A day later I notice that many power-stations are surprisingly close together. There are three of them within sight of each other just south of York. North of Newark North Gate there are two within sight of each other. Why is this so? As far as I could see from the train, all these power stations were surrounded by fields. Is this where coal mines are close at hand? Be that as it may, never before have I seen so many power-stations in one go.