Utility Week

Community Art for art's sake Visitors at a Car-Free Day festi- val in Vancouver, Canada, were bemused to be faced with a stand run by the Hot Dog Water Company selling unfiltered hot dog water at £28 a bottle. It purported to have any number of health properties, among them increasing brain function and improving vitality because of electrolyte replace- ment and sodium replenish- ment and the like. If that sounds ridiculous to you, that's because it is. The Hot Dog Water Company is the brainchild of Douglas Bevans, who describes himself as a performance artist. He says he set up the "installation" (complete with glossy marketing material and fake scientific testimonials) to "encourage critical thinking related to product marketing". Another way to look at it is that he was mocking the sort of people who go to a Car-Free Festival. Disconnector notes that by the time The Sun picked up the story in the UK, Mr Bevans had been demoted to "prankster". Let me see your licence We are surely living through the most luxurious epoch enjoyed by humanity – at least in the West we are – but you'd hardly know it judging by how many people seem to be living on short fuses. The great man waxes in this philosophical vein on ponder- ing the story of eight-year-old Jordan Austin, who was selling bottles of water from an ice bucket on the pavement of a street in San Francisco. She reckoned without Alison Ettel, who promptly came out of her house and demanded to see Jordan's licence to sell stuff on the street. An argument with the girl's mother ensued, leading to Alison calling the police. Whether the police showed up is unknown, but a video of Alison calling them was posted online and promptly went viral. The fact that the eight-year- old is a black girl and Alison is a prosperous-looking white woman doesn't help the overall "look" of the incident. Little white girls raising money by selling lemonade from stands in the street is the epitome of suburban cute- ness in the US. A little black girl selling water is less so, apparently. It later emerged that the enraged Alison was no out- of-town redneck but the chief executive of a company selling medicinal marijuana. You'd have thought she'd be more chilled out. You're tearing me up When it comes to modern day America, everyone is angry – from the top down. This week's Trump nugget is that the prez is in such a per- manent state of high dudgeon that he frequently rips up docu- ments he's presented with if he doesn't like their contents. He does this oblivious to, or uncaring of, the fact that by law all manner of documents presented to the president must be preserved and stored in the National Archive for the histori- cal record. So it falls to White House civil servants to collect the pieces of paper and tape them together again. Disconnector kids you not. Solomon Lartey, a govern- ment official of more than 30 years' standing, told website Politico that he was one of the staffers charged with repairing shredded papers, describing the task as "like a jigsaw puzzle". He revealed he had repaired a wide variety of documents, from newspaper cuttings Donald had written on to let- ters from politicians, including senate minority leader Chuck Schumer. "I had a letter from Schumer – he tore it up," he added. "It was the craziest thing ever. He ripped papers into tiny pieces." 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If we are unable to resolve your complaint, or if you would like more information about IPSO or the Editors' Code, contact IPSO on 0300 123 2220 or visit www.ipso.co.uk UTILITY WEEK | 29TH JUNE - 5TH JULY 2018 | 31 Sarah Merrick @SpeakSarahSpeak Heathrow green light is crazy. Swansea red light is, however, a good decision. Just because something's low carbon doesn't mean it should happen... but when something's going to create literally MILLIONS OF TONS of CO2 it clearly shouldn't happen. Carwyn Jones @fmwales The UK Government's decision to pull the plug on Swansea Bay @TidalLagoon is short-sighted & demonstrates their complete lack of ambition. Another crushing blow to Wales. @ AlunCairns has questions to answer. Edward Davey @EdwardJDavey Tidal power: hugely disappointed the plan for tidal lagoons across Britain I kicked off as Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change has today been killed off by the Conservatives - a historic mistake for Britain's green energy future @LibDems @TidalLagoon @BBCPolitics William Marchant @richonlyinname The value for money figures Clark cites really call into question the credibility of the Hendry review. They aren't from a different ballpark. They're from a different galaxy. David Joffe @david_joffe Yes - all very well to make the value for money case for not doing tidal, but value for money also means doing the cheap things like onshore wind. More from @theCCCuk on that in Thursday's annual progress report to Parliament… Lois Vallely @LoisVallely Alan Whitehead says (sarcatically) that by the current rate, we will complete the rollout of SMETS2 meters in under 6,000 years! #energysummit Ofgem @ofgem Dermot Nolan, Ofgem CEO, speaking at Utility Week #energysummit - likely that some form of protection for vulnerable customers will remain even after temporary default price cap is lifted Laura Sandys @Laura_Sandys Thrilled that Martin Cave will be joined by the consumer champion @AnnRobinson8 Great appointments all round. @ofgem @beisgovuk @GregClarkMP Top Tweets

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