Meet the frackers

THE FRIDAY THING: COULD Blackpool — all kiss-me-quick hats, landmark Tower, raucous stag and hen party nights, donkeys on the beach, deckchairs, boarding houses and the biggest glitter ball in Europe — provide the unlikely answer to our energy crisis?

As we prepare to batten down the hatches for what promises to be, in newspaper parlance at least, another “ice-age winter” it is hardly comforting to know that the companies that provide us with gas and electricity pocket £125 profit from each of us every year.

That news on its own may be enough to generate enough heat and steam in your body to keep you and yours comfy right through to next spring, but another solution may be close at hand.

There has never been any shortage of digging in Blackpool but now they have a new name for it — fracking; not only digging, put then pouring millions of gallons of water into the hole you have dug.

And the frackers — I suppose frackers is the only word for it, but be careful — have discovered decades worth of cheap natural gas on a par with Texas.

There are some, well, minor safety concerns: Blackpool, and possibly Southport, may fall into a black hole; houses for miles around may suffer earthquakes and there is always the risk of leaks and explosions to add extra spice and excitement to the annual illuminations.

But on the credit side, frackers in other parts of the world have not only found gas to quite literally keep the home fires burning, but have also produced water you can set fire to as it comes out of the taps. So you can wash up, warm your hands and dry your socks and undies at the same time. Who wouldn’t want that?

There may be good news on a local level too. The Blackpool frackers say that there may be pockets of gas all over the region.

So should we all become frackers, digging for gas in the garden?




Now then men, has your short-term mating strategy been activated? Has your ogling at Gladys in accounts moved on to cocktails after work or a chippy supper?



According to the latest research from our friends the boffins, men are more likely to cheat on their wives during a recession. When we men feel threatened by economic turmoil, we apparently go into survival mode, boosting our sex drive.

Some men in the research were asked to think about dying, while others thought about toothache, and those who thought about dying were far more aroused than those who simply thought about their dentist (though that may depend on the dentist).

A short-term mating strategy can cause death or a near-death experience if the lady of the house gets wind of it and the recession would make a pretty lame excuse for straying from the nest. It might also mean you couldn’t afford a chip supper, but that’s a thought for another time.

Professor Omri Gillath explains his findings by saying that, if a man thinks he might die soon, he wants to make sure there are a bunch of offspring.

“Women can’t do the same thing,” says the prof, probably sticking out his tongue and wiggling his hand in front of his nose in a sort of you-can’t-do-what-I-can-do playground gesture.