Smog, 1962

Weitere Todesfälle durch Smog: Luftverschmutzung in Leeds steigt

Guardian, 7. Dezember 1962

Die Gefahren des Smogs, der seit Mitternacht am Montag 67 plötzliche Todesfälle in London verursacht hat, haben sich gestern weiter ausgebreitet. In der Stadt von Leeds, die gestern den dritten aufeinanderfolgenden Tag von dichtem Nebel heimgesucht wurde, wurden 30 Menschen mit schweren Atembeschwerden in Krankenhäuser eingeliefert.
Während der letzten 4 Tage hat sich die Anzahl der Lungenentzündungen in Glasgow verdreifacht.
Die Opfer in Leeds waren zum größten Teil ältere Menschen. Die Luft, die sie einatmeten, enthielt deutlich mehr Schwefeldioxid als beim Londoner Smog von 1952, der viele Todesfälle verursachte. Die Luftmessstation in Kirkstall, ein tiefgelegener Ort, hat in den 24 Stunden bis gestern Mittag 5.195 Mikrogramm Schwefeldioxid pro Kubikmeter Luft gemessen. 1952 war in London die höchste Messung 3.825µg.
In der City von Leeds, ein Stadtteil, der Rauchregulierungen unterliegt, wurden 3.970 µg gemessen; 3 der 9 städtischen Messstationen meldeten noch höhere Konzentrationen. An einem „ordentlichen“ Tag in Leeds, ohne Nebel, ergeben Messungen ca. 400 µg.
In Manchester war die gemeldete Luftverschmutzung dreimal so hoch wie der Durchschnitt von Dezember 1961. Meldungen aus Birmingham waren positiver: laut Amtsarzt Herr Dr. E. L. Millar zeige die Anzahl der Todesfälle in der Stadt keine Anzeichen einer eindeutigen Erhöhung wegen des Nebels. Birmingham profitiere von den Rauchregulierungen. Laut dem Amt für Wissenschaftliche und Industrielle Arbeit war die Luftverschmutzung ähnlich wie beim Smog von 1952, wäre aber ohne die Maßnahmen zur Luftreinigung viel schlimmer gewesen.
Nach klarem Wetter am Nachmittag waren gestern Abend London und 22 englischen Grafschaften von Nebel umhüllt. Bis zum frühen Abend waren viele Ortsteile Londons bereits zum dritten Mal hintereinander völlig bedeckt. Ein Vertreter der Londoner Transportgesellschaft beschrieb die Lage als „die schlimmste der letzten 3 Tage“.
Ein Großteil der RAC Funkrettungstransporter im Zentrum von London saßen gestern Abend im Nebel fest. „Zum Glück gibt es so gut wie keine Fahrer auf der Straße“ erklärte ein Vertreter. „Schlechteren Straßenverhältnissen werden Autofahrer nie begegnen."
Der Londoner Flughafen war seit über 60 Stunden gesperrt. Am Flughafen von Gatwick, der nicht vom Nebel betroffen ist, soll es gestern Abend „chaotisch" zugegangen sein. Einem Verantwortlichen des Luftfahrtministeriums nach musste Gatwick zusätzlich zu den eigenen Flügen auch Flüge von London bewältigen.
Die Funkstreifen des AA meldeten Nebel und stellenweise Eisglätte auf alle Straßen in den Regionen um London und den meisten Grafschaften im Süden, sowie East Anglia, die Umgebung von Birmingham und Yorkshire. Sichtweiten betrugen zwischen 0 und 45 Meter. Meldungen gab es auch über stellenweise Eisglätte auf Straßen in weitere 10 Grafschaften Englands und Wales.

as well as

Leo thread

Fat man of Europe

I'm a little confused. I always thought the UK was the fat man of Europe, and have put up with teasing by Germans (not necessarily thinner than me) about how fat and lazy British people are, convinced that they were actually quite right.
Now on ARD someone mentioned in passing that Germans are the fattest in Europe. Looking it up I find a 2005 document by the International Obesity Task Force:

A study comparing Germany between 1985 and 2002 suggests higher rates than the USA in terms of overweight, with a recent survey suggesting 75% of German men age 25 or over were overweight or obese. This figure is surpassed only in Greece [...] >>

The study is by the International Association for the Study of Obesity (IASO). It's not exactly in favour of Britain: as a Spiegel article from 2007 puts it:

A new study has found that Germany has the highest proportion of overweight people in Europe, partly due to the country's high beer consumption. But Britain, Greece and some Eastern Europe countries have an even higher share of truly obese people.

>>

The Spiegel article has a photo of a fat person ... in Britain. Huh.

The figures, collected from 2002-2004 and presented in 2007, show:

Overweight men (BMI of 25-29.9) - Germany 52.9%, England
43.9%

Overweight women (BMI of 25-29.9) - Germany 35.6%, England
34.7%

Obese men (BMI above 30) - Germany 22.5%, England 22.7%

Obese women (BMI above 30) - Germany 23.3%, England
23.8%

So the Bild's image of Brits with wabblige Bierbäuche is not quite as fair as you might think?

A more recent article in Bild in April 2009 said that British women have a higher average BMI than German women - the highest in Europe. It described how Thibaut de Saint Pol, a French researcher, studied women from 15 EU countries and said that British ladies' average BMI is 26.2, and German ladies' is 24.

However, de Saint Pol's BMI figures are not original research, but are apparently taken from the EC's Eurobarometer 59.0 - which is from the year 2003: the figures are older than those in the IASO's study.

A more recent Eurobarometer (64.3, from 2006) has Germans with an average weight/height ratio of 0.435 and Brits with a ratio of 0.433, i.e. almost exactly the same.

OWAD teaches me English

Recently discovered OWAD - One Word A Day, which selects English words that "occur in educated British-American conversation" but are "unknown to most German speakers of English". These words are "within the most frequent 50,000" in the "World Bank of English" and will apparently impress your British and American acquaintances. The writer says "I would ask you to please trust me that the words I offer are useful. "

I've been subscribed for one day and the first word I got was "putpockets". I've never heard it before. Now I've been away from the UK for a while, so I'm willing to concede that my vocab may not be up to date, but I'd like to check how useful this word might be.

First I check the "World Bank of English", of course. I look it up on Google. Two hits.
I discover that the University of Birmingham has a "400 million word Bank of English Corpus" - which is evidently what OWAD is talking about.
It seems the Bank of English is subscription only. I try the related free concordance search but it doesn't seem to work. So I'll have to try Google to find out how common my new word is.

"Putpockets" gets 62,000 hits, but when you go to the last page of results there are 533 hits.
The first is the newspaper article quoted on OWAD, entitled "Putpockets" give Londoners a little extra cash. The quotation marks in the article tell you that this is an unusual word, perhaps a newly coined one. The article is about former pickpockets going round London putting money back into people's pockets. Hence "putpockets".
I whiz through the first three pages of Google hits and they are all news stories based on this article. I look through random pages of hits. Pages 10, 19, 28, 37, 46 and 54 (the last page) of the Google hits are also all stories based on this article.

One blogger on the Telegraph says "The whole wheeze, known as Putpockets, is a publicity stunt dreamed up by a broadband supply company".

One blog comment says "I live in England and its the first I've heard of it! Many of the Stories from the US about England are straight from Fantasy Island."

Which seems to sum it all up really.

Newspaper website slideshows - cultural differences? Or just reflect what's on offer?

Sächsische Zeitung websiteEssex Chronicle website (both 28.09.09)

Old soldiers return for their final D-Day

When do people start work?

A survey shows what time people start work in various EU countries.

In March 2009, over the previous 6 months the average time for German workers was 8.44 and for British workers it was 9.10.

According to the Guardian the survey is by OfficeMetrics, a software company, and covered 80,000 users of their software.

Winter tyre statistics

In the UK, where annual temperatures often range from -15°C to 30°C, usage of cold weather (winter) tyres is far less common, as legislation dictating changeover does not exist. >
In Germany legislation was brought in on May 1 2006. The traffic regulations (StVO) now say that cars must be fitted to suit the weather conditions, including having appropriate tyres. What is "appropriate" is not described in any more detail. If drivers contravene the rule, they pay a EUR 20 fee; if they hold up the traffic, there is a EUR 40 fee and they get a penalty point on their licence.
75% of people in the UK would not consider fitting winter tyres. >
Winter tyres are a mere three percent of the UK's total tyre market. This poor statistic compares with ... 50 per cent in Germany. >
(2006) 77 percent of German drivers have a set of winter tyres; 6 percent use all-season tyres.... 80 percent of those who change their tyres do so when the temperature drops below 10°C; one in ten waits for the first snowfall. >
In Germany, winter tyres are recommended when the temperature (day or night) drops below 7°C. Winter 2007/8 in the UK - The final mean value for the season is 4.9 °C >
(2006) In Bavaria, 90% of drivers have winter tyres, in eastern Germany, 70 percent have them. In western Germany, almost one in five uses summer tyres all year round, and in northern Germany that is the case for one in four. In Lower Saxony 40 percent of drivers use summer tyres all year round. >