Crème with everything….

A bad week for France got worse today as EDF’s chest beating, guns blazing, all action bid for British Energy fell flat at the first hurdle.

The £10 billion bid (the concept of a ‘billion’ was actually conceived by the French way back in the fourteenth century, ironically enough) tabled at the weekend, was rejected outright by the British Energy board for registering too low on the international hard currency scale.

Add in the lacklustre, stuttering showing by the national team in Euro 2008, plus the revelation presidential squeeze Carla Bruni is prone to traffic stopping temper tantrums Naomi Campbell could only dream of throwing, and it’s really not looking good for our Gallic chums right now.

Great cameo by David Ginola in the Ladbrokes TV ad though.

So what are the implications of this rejection for EDF, and where do they stand now?

Well, it’s pretty much put the kibosh on EDF’s plans to speedily hoover up UK sites ripe for new nuclear power plants, a move integral to their stratagem of getting the jump on the other five big energy suppliers in the great nuclear race.

A timely boon for environmentalists and anti-nuclear campaigners no less, but an unwelcome obstacle to those (including government ministers) who foresee an impending energy crisis should these new nuclear plants not be built pronto.

Building nuclear power plants in super fast time; doesn’t that all sound a bit Springfield? By taking more time over the construction of these power plants, maybe the likelihood of something catastrophic happening could be significantly reduced? They’re not the sort of buildings you want to be screwing together in five minutes.

It only takes one French Homer Simpson (Hervé Simpson, naturally) to become momentarily distracted by a tasty looking brioche, and it could be la fin d’histoire for the unfortunate region of the UK in which these stations are placed (probably Bristol if the DTI list of most fancied potential nuclear power plant sites is to be believed).

So who wants a nuclear power station in their back garden? Can I get a quick show of hands please?

Don’t all shout out at once.

 Marsh Warbler just out of shot

News this week that’ll keep Bill Oddie ‘twitching’ for all he’s worth (that’s bird spotting terminology by the way, although he may have an impediment, I don’t really know), involves proposals for a new onshore wind farm on the Isle of Lewis being rejected due to the harm it could cause to local wildfowl.

Plans for the 181 turbine wind farm were scrapped when, under European law (calm down Clarkson), the area in which the wind farm was to be situated has been deemed a ‘special protection area’ for rare and endangered bird species.

So, in the clamour to save the world from the evil clutches of noxious fumes, greenhouse gases and man’s own hell-bent need for self-destruction, it’s actually one of the living creatures we’re doing all this for that’s preventing the construction of a renewable energy source complex. Hmmmm…….

Don’t get me wrong; I’m by no means a Chelsea tractor toting, wildlife hating, myopic urbanite. I’m from the country and grew up in a house with a huge garden. It backed onto rolling fields inhabited by Friesian cows and retired ponies (who I talked to and befriended, in the absence of other children my age).

However, I have a confession to make. I love the way wind farms look. I think their aesthetic quality is second to none, and they make for a perfect marriage of nature and engineering. When suddenly they appear over the brow of a hill on a twisty country road, it gives me a buzz. The most breathtaking wind farms are those built at sea, particularly the one at Caister, on the Norfolk coast.

So where do I stand on this debate? Well, I’ll nail my colours to the mast. I’m a huge advocate of wind farm technology, and if a few birds have to be sacrificed in order for wind power to be harnessed, so be it.

Bird/animal/wildlife lovers, please lambaste me with your comments.

Just to throw another canister of diesel onto the fire (causing an o-zone busting mushroom cloud), I was given a free bag for life at Marks and Spencer ‘Simply Food’ last weekend, and when I visited the same shop yesterday night, I forgot my free bag for life and got another free bag for life. Now I have two free bags for life, one for this world, and one (if the environmentalists get their hands on me) for the afterlife.