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utILIty WeeK | 6th - 12th February 2015 | 31 Community Disconnector Editor: ellen bennett, t: 01342 332084, e: ellen.bennett@fav-house.com; News editor: Jillian Ambrose, t: 01342 332061, e: jillian.ambrose@fav-house.com; Associate news editor: Mathew beech, t: 01342 332082, e: mathew.beech@fav-house.com; Insights editor: Jane Gray, t: 01342 332087, e: jane.gray@fav-house.com; Research analyst: Vidhu Dutt, t: 01342 332026, e: vidhu.dutt@fav-house.com; Reporter: Lois Vallely, t: 01342 332083; e: lois.vallely@fav-house.com; Business development manager: ed roberts, t: 01342 332067, e: ed.roberts@fav-house.com; Business development executive: Sarah Wood, t: 01342 332077, e: sarah.wood@fav-house.com; Publisher: amanda barnes, e: amanda.barnes@fav-house.com. General enquiries: 01342 332000; Subscriptions: uK £577 per year, Overseas £689 per year, t: 020 8955 7045. ISSN: 1356-5532. Registered as a newspaper at the Post Office. Printed by: buxton Press, Palace road, buxton, Derbyshire SK17 6ae. Published by: Faversham house Ltd, Windsor Court, Wood Street, east Grinstead, West Sussex rh19 1uZ Lest we forget Electricity! What a wondrous commodity, thinks Disconnec- tor. Not only can it bring light to the darkness and power any motorised device from a truck to a toothbrush, it can also improve your memory. Apparently. A study published in the jour- nal Nature claims that memories can be retroactively enhanced using mild electric pulses. That means that you don't have to pass a current through yourself while memorising something (which, let's face it, would be da), but rather you pass a cur- rent though yourself when you want to remember something. The finding could pave the way for treatment for those in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease, according to the report, although the co-author of the New York University study, a certain Lila Davachi, is quoted as saying: "This might be a way to build a really smart person." Disconnector has his doubts on that score. Surely the really smart thing to do would be to find a way of enhancing your memory that didn't involve electro cuting yourself? Further research is to be car- ried out. Wood you believe it Disconnector must applaud the quick thinking of Basing- stoke construction worker Ade Savage, who saved the life of a co-worker, 50-year-old Mark Disconnector Bradley, by whacking him with a plank of wood. Ordinarily it's the sort of behaviour the personnel depart- ment gets precious about, but since Mr Bradley was being electrocuted at the time, it was a course of action that almost certainly saved his mate's life. Mr Bradley had been install- ing a lamp post at a Network Rail site in Hampshire when it hit power lines, sending 11,000 volts coursing through his body. Ade's attempts to pull and punch his friend free only earned him electric shocks in return, so in desperation he whacked Mr Bradley with a plank of wood, breaking the circuit and freeing him. It just goes to show how easy it is to forget how dangerous electricity can be. If only there were a cure for that… The lay of the land It's been a bad few weeks for the fracking industry. First the global oil price dived, dragging down gas prices and throwing into doubt the profitability of previously viable shale extraction. And now Bez, the wobbly-headed dancer with 1990s Manchester dance band The Happy Mondays, has announced he's going to have a "bed-in" with his girlfriend, Firouzeh Razavi, at The Montcalm At The Brewery hotel in London to protest against fracking. A bed-in, for our younger readers, is where you lie in bed naked with your girlfriend surrounded by the world's media, usually as a means of effecting political change. It was successfully pioneered by John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1969 with their Bed-in for Peace at the Presidential Suite at the Hilton Hotel in Amster- dam. For our even younger readers, Lennon was one of the leading songwriters and singers in proto type boy band The Beatles. The Brewery is no Amster- dam Hilton, of course. And Bez is no John Lennon. But the famously drug-addled Mancunian does have some public pulling power (he won Celebrity Big Brother in 2005, aer all), so perhaps the UK fracking industry should sit up and take note. Bez lying in bed has got to be more effective than Bez at the hustings, anyway. The ardent anti-fracking cam- paigner announced last year that he would run as MP of Sal- ford at the next general elec- tion under the banner of the Reality Party. Unfortunately the electoral commission ruled that the name was too close to the Realists' Party, which is already on the register, so it was barred. Bez missed the January deadline for resubmit- ting a new name, so he'll have to run as an independent. Or he could just take it easy for a few days and have a lie-in. 3,580 average circulation Jan–Dec 2014 Subscriptions: uK £577 per year, Overseas £689 per year fhcustomerservices@ abacusemedia.com William Marchant @richonlyinname I was going to spend the money from the EdF price cut on a Michel Thomas teaches French tape, but it turns out I can't afford one. Merde. Sustainababble @thebabblewagon Today's #fracking news confirms @olliehayes has all the predictive powers of Paul the Octopus John Moylan @JohnMoylanBBC Energy Sec @EdwardDaveyMP on @ofgem margins – "People want to see bigger savings on their energy bills not bigger profits going to the Big 6." Chris Choi @Chrisitv Energy: "meagre reductions are too little too late". Cuts range from 5.1% (Npower) to 1.3% (EDF) American Wind Energy @AWEA #Windpower fact of the day: wind forecasting is steadily improving, helping utilities use wind's variable energy. #windworks Peter Mannion 'MP' @PeterMannionMP Miliband when asked about privatisa- tion of utilities in the 1980s replies, 'We know where that got us, don't we?'… #GE2015 John Lewins @Phoenix_Energy I'm waiting for a live/dead check – (on a gas supply not a customer) World Medical News @worldmedi Tristram Hunt: Crisis of fuel poverty is snow joke #world #health Damian Carrington @dpcarrington so #fracking minister and ex-enviro sec who wants a ban met today RT @matthancockmp: With @spelmanc at @UTCAerosystems #AwkwardDate Simon Bullock @simonbullock If 9,000 people died every winter because of train crashes would politicians act? #coldhomesweek Top Tweets