I have just finished reading two books by Nick McCamley about bunkers and underground factories. Secret Underground Cities covers the history of the large underground military facilities that were built in England during WWII. I have visited the facility at Monkton Farleigh and once stayed in a house in Chislehurst that had an entrance to one of these facilities in its back garden. The book shows how largely these facilities were failures and cost huge amounts of money, often 20 times the original estimates. If nothing else it is a good study of poor project management. The book is not just dry history and contains the occasional anecdote. I particularly the story of the workers who clocked on when going underground, clocked off when they came to the surface, and were paid for the hours in between. Little did the timekeeper know, but some of these men had found another exit and were sneaking of to a second job for most of the day. Read the rest of this entry »

I recently added “ClustrMaps” to my web site. It is a nifty little application that shows where all the visitors to my web site are coming from. On the first day I only had two dots. One was in the vicinity of Sydney and was obviously me visiting my own site. The second dot came right from the middle of Australia. This could mean either someone from Alice Springs visited my site very quickly or a more sinister explanation. Just outside of Alice Springs is the so-called “joint defence establishment” of Pine Gap. In reality it is a CIA station for intercepting communications. Maybe the super spies are checking to make sure I don’t start plotting the overthrow of the United States from my backroom. (Little do they know, my plans to overthrow the United States are kept in the sitting room.)

Keep defending democracy guys, oh and if you happen to be reading this, I have just checked the attic and Osama Bin Laden is not hiding there. It gives you one less place to look.