by Fern Shaw | Jun 28, 2013 | Health and Hydration
This week I thought I’d take my foot off the proverbial history; good-for-you, bad-for-you, beat you with the facts and dates accelerator and trip the light irreverent with some more trivia:
Channel Tunnel
To dig the Channel Tunnel, 11 tunnel boring machines were used to extract 8 million cubic meters of chalk, clay and soil. At the end of the drill one of the boring machines was buried in the side of the tunnel. (I wonder if our water coolers were installed down there during construction? I’ll have to ask!)
The tunnel has over 100 miles of railway lines, 1200 telephones and 20,000 lighting fixtures over its length. The building of the channel tunnel involved 15,000 workers.
Scaremongering
Thanatos is a term widely used in psychoanalytic theory to represent the encouraging to destruction, or an apparent pleasure in seeing the worst outcome. It seems that much of the UK press knows this term all too well with headlines like ‘House Market Throttled as Loans Fall 56%’ – the article then explained that mortgage issues were down by 56%.
What the press is failing to explain in the headlines or the articles (in many cases) is that measures such as this only use part of the total loans i.e. new loans and do not account for all the mortgage market – and especially remortgages.
Agatha Christie
The only statue in the world of the prolific crime writer Agatha Christie is a bronze bust on the seafront at Torquay (her birthplace) opposite the Grand Pavilion. It is believed that the Grand Pavilion is where her first husband proposed to her.
The Guinness Book of Records lists Agatha Christie as the best-selling fiction author of all time estimating 2-billion of her books have been sold in 103 languages worldwide. Her first novel, published in 1920, was “The Mysterious Affair at Styles” and she received £26 for it.
Champagne Bubbles
Britain pops the cork on champagne bottles to the tune of 40 million times a year, which is pretty impressive, and something to celebrate particularly when you consider that is twice as many as the next biggest market – the USA. In fact the only people to drink more champagne than the Brits are The French, but then, they do make it. (As delicious as bubbly is, remember to keep hydrated with water in between all that bubbles quaffing – your body will thank you).
And finally …
Steeple chasing
Steeple chasing began in 1750’s when two riders in Ireland decided to test their horses’ speed by racing across country between two churches – steeple to steeple. (No, no, AquAid did not provide the refreshments, the first water cooler was a hundred years or so away!)
by Fern Shaw | Jun 24, 2013 | water cooler, Water Coolers
So, there I was, lurking (and trust me, blogista’s lurk with style) at the water cooler, almost in a lion-gathering-around-the-watering-hole (but not as predatory) manner, waiting to pick up on tips regarding the general consensus of the effectiveness of said water cooler.
Sadly, even though I lurked for a number of days (perhaps my four day leg fuzz was a tad off putting?) I didn’t pick up anything worthwhile – apart from Tad’s recipe for lemony corn fritters – way to go Tad.
So, I broke my watch and haired *harf harf harf* off to my desk and my beloved pc. Now, there’s true inspiration, just waiting to be resourced.
Factual and informative stuff
- A water cooler on site can increases staff productivity.
- Saves on electricity costs. For a reference on this story, read about Winston.
- AquAid have more distribution centres than any other water cooler company.
- Water wastage is reduced as there are no dripping taps and no having a beady eyed staff member appointed to constantly check on potential water wastage.
- AquAid also include an illustrated urine chart for the bathrooms upon purchase of a water cooler. This chart indicates hydration vs. dehydration so you can see at-a-glance whether you should be upping your water intake.
- The water in AquAid’s bottle fed coolers means you are drinking water from source, with a consistent mineral content.
- By having an AquAid water cooler on site, you allow easy access for your schoolchildren at schools and staff at your company to keep hydrated, thereby indicating your care for their well-being.
Touchy-feely feel good stuff (also factual)
- By having an AquAid water cooler on site, you allow easy access for your schoolchildren at schools and staff at your company to keep hydrated, thereby indicating your care for their well-being.
- Every purchase of an AquAid water cooler means a donation to our chosen charities, Christian Aid and The Africa Trust.
- Donations to The Africa Trust mean that millions of people in rural communities throughout Africa have access to clean, fresh drinking water and continue to have access due to more Elephant Pumps being built every year.
- By keeping yourself hydrated and learning more about correct hydration, you become an ‘ambassador’ for drinking sufficient water and thereby create awareness while keeping yourself healthy, happy and productive.
We have oodles of information about sufficient water intake, hydration and all other matters water available for a squizz at our blog page. We also welcome your feedback and comments on the blogs as learning every day is just grand.
by Fern Shaw | Jun 7, 2013 | Charity
As you may have gathered by now, I like to think of myself as a bit of a card carrying clown-arounder, not taking ‘stuff’ too seriously and always looking for the pun, the sarckie (that’s sarcasm to you) the silly, but ….. there are some days when all the malarking around is just supressed in an instant.
That would be today.
Here’s why:
I have always been rather shine-my-lapels to work with a company that not only has a work ethic but it sticks to it and even more so that AquAid has an ethic towards sustainable charities and sticks to that and, and, and … but, when I read something like this, honestly, I put paid to a week of good hydration habits in 10 minutes flat. Leaking eyes, super attractive puffy eye surrounds, weird keening noises, you know the drill.
Now before I short circuit my keyboard from all the blubbing, let me elaborate about this magical water producing letter:
- It is written by a 10 year pupil who attends a school in a rural region of Zimbabwe.
- The Elephant Pump was built by a team and people in the local community.
- The team will have been trained by The Africa Trust.
- The Africa Trust is one of the charities that AquAid supports.
- AquAid founded The Africa Trust together with Ian Thorpe, CEO of The Africa Trust and inventor of The Elephant Pump.
- Ian Thorpe developed the pump after having worked as a teacher in remote African rural areas and seeing how communities had to walk for many miles each day just to get drinking water.
So, all of this eventually led to this rather remarkable letter and I’m c for seriously delighted to say that there are more letters like this because there are more wells that that have been built.
Fab-u-lous! *snif* Online casino slots | Business | Article Point- Casino Slots
by Fern Shaw | Jun 3, 2013 | Charity, Guest Blog
As UK specialists and leaders in the supply of modular buildings and portable accommodation, AV Group /Danzer / Rentacabin© are committed to protecting and enhancing local and global environments. Along with our commitment to sustainability we also try to give back where we can and this was one of the reasons why we chose to use AquAid.
Our decision to install a water cooler from AquAid not only means that our staff members are properly hydrated allowing them to perform at their best, but it also gives our company the opportunity to help those less fortunate than ourselves.
For each of the machines that we have, we have donated £20 per year per water cooler to The Africa Trust. Through our contributions to The Africa Trust, an ‘Elephant Pump’ is being installed in Africa on our behalf. This pump will bring much needed clean, fresh drinking water and improve the quality of life of those who will have access to our well.
We are proud to be involved in this initiative and over the coming months we look forward to updating our website with photos of the pump bearing our company name.
For further information on AV Group / Danzer / Rentacabin© please visit our website https://avdanzer.co.uk
by Fern Shaw | May 29, 2013 | water cooler, Water Coolers
Here is the ‘Law-uh’! (to be said with an old-school-spaghetti-Western-type-small-town-sheriff pronunciation).
In the U.K. the Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations of 1992, Regulation 22 places requirements on the employer with respect to the provision of drinking water.
It states:
1. An adequate supply of wholesome drinking water shall be provided for all persons at work in the workplace.
2. Every supply of drinking water required by paragraph (1) shall –
(a) be readily accessible at suitable places; and
(b) be conspicuously marked by an appropriate sign where necessary for reasons of health or safety.
3. Where a supply of drinking water is required by paragraph (1), there shall also be provided a sufficient number of suitable cups or other drinking vessels unless the supply of drinking water is in a jet from which persons can drink easily.
With this rather stern fact out of the way, I then proceeded to cross fjords, wade through rivers, scuba in ponds and was sadly, unable to find any unusual water laws per country.
What I did come across, however, were a plethora of unusual water tidbits and factoids.
- If the entire world’s water were fit into a 4 litre jug, the fresh water available for us would equal only about one tablespoon.
- Each Briton uses about 150 litres of tap water a day, but if you include the amount of water embedded within products, our water consumption increases to about 3400 litres a day.
- One cotton t-shirt has about 25 baths full of water embedded in it. (Frightening that, but the thought of seeing Colleague X nekkid at the water cooler, the t-shirt needs to stay)
- To produce just one pint of beer for example, takes 170 litres of water.
- It takes 200,000,000 litres per second to grow food for the planet.
Overall, that’s a lot of water used and some of that isn’t even for drinking!
So, employer, be kind to your employees and install a water cooler that will allow them to keep hydrated and therefore, be happier, healthier and more productive during working hours.
And remember, it’s the law-uh! *cue sunset and whistle Ennio Morricone theme to The Good, The Bad and The Ugly and exit stage left*
