So - in a nutshell - here's the plot, the gist and the final ironic twist:  "Huckabees" aka "PHuckabees" (don't blame us - it's in the script but probably spelt with an "F" !) is a thriving (ie. pre-Amazon/eBay !) department-store chain whose shallow, fake-green, narcissistic boss Brad Stand is effortlessly played by Jude Law.   Happily, Brad's fashion-modelling, chameleon-like, trophy girlfriend Dawn Campbell(Naomi Watts) is eventually won over, awoken and stolen by Wahlberg's macho-green bicycling firefighter character Tommy as he rescues her from a house-fire where they (non-literally) melt into each other's arms.
Oh yes - that ironic twist of fate:  our passionately pedalling non-conforming hero-in-uniform Tommy luckily reaches Dawn and Brad's blazing house well ahead of the fire-truck which is stuck in heavily congested traffic - but the feisty fireman triumphantly whizzes past it on his congestion-proof, petroleum-free trusty two-wheeler whilst bawling gutteral expletives at the (quote) "effing gas-guzzlers" that he's forced to fight a path through.

"What are you doing tomorrow ?"  "Chaining myself to a bulldozer. D'you wanna come ?"

- So voilà - an awesomely intense Wahlberg playing totally against type as an unlikely, unsung, ethical, green, geopolitically wide-awake hero in an almost unknown, totally mis-represented, stereotype-demolishing movie - one to watch back-to-back as a trilogy with the 2016 oil-soaked movie Deepwater Horizon"(starring none other than Mr. Mark Wahlberg ! ) and Steven Seagal's "On Deadly Ground" -  an eerily portentious (1994) movie in which Seagal's character Forrest Taft - who normally fights fires on oil platforms - resorts to using fire-power of a different kind to deactivate and destroy Michael Caine's ticking time-bomb of an oil-rig before its dangerously worn-out blowout-preventers unleash an eco-catastrophe on a par with the subsequent and decidedly non-fictional BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in 2010.  Note that both of these explosive oil-rig dramas centre around faulty blowout-preventers which cost-cutting oil-giants have failed to maintain or replace. And as mentioned, by sheer spooky coincidence, "Deepwater Horizon" co-stars Mark Wahlberg as "Mike Williams" -  a petrol-headed electrician(how ironic is that, EV fans ?!).  But this time it's a child - Mike's daughter - who portentiously delivers the best line in the film and in the trailer(quote):  
   "That oil is a monster !" 
(Watch trailer, blowout collage and the full free movie)

- But back to Huckabees and 2004...

 - To reiterate:  perhaps the most amazing and flabbergasting thing about "I ♥ Heart(Love) Huckabees" is not the movie itself but its total misnomer of a title(almost everyone ultimately hates Huckabees..) and the related fact that almost no reviewers, critics or commentators - not even the cast and director - ever make any reference at all in interviews to the film's uniquely bold, green and ethically fearless Big Picture/Big Issue narrative as outlined above and as so clearly demonstrated by our exclusive little 6-minute Wahlberg-focused movie clip-chain.  Instead critics would all-too predictably prefer us to believe that the film is all about discovering our true inner selves(quote: "How am I not myself ?") and have us focus not on global Big Picture issues but on the vacuous, egocentric Hollywood-esque, dope-fuelled psycho-babble that Dustin Hoffman's comical, pot-smoking "existential detective" character Bernard Jaffe and his partner-wife Vivian spout from start to finish - although even they do repeatedly offer up one worthy but trite little truism - yes, apparently (quote) "everything's connected"(!)  - and Hoffman holds up a pristine white blanket(right) to help explain why(though thankfully we're spared glove-puppets aka sock-puppets).  But unlike Hoffman's inward-looking, geopolitically and environmentally mute "detective",  Wahlberg's ethically fired-up fire-fighter Tommy would surely wonder why Dustin's daft, dopey blanket isn't criss-crossed with blood and oil - just as he doesn't and would never shrink from reminding car-drivers that the gasoline they obliviously pump into their gas tanks is disastrously connected to costly and bloody fossil-fuelled foreign policies, climate meltdown, frequent global oil-spills, toxic local exhaust pollution(etc etc ) - all of which is neatly encapsulated in the outraged fireman's unusual pet-phrase "the petroleum situation".  And yikes - the fire-fighter and his increasingly bold ally Albert Markovski even commit the cardinal sin of extolling the virtues of socialism at the dinner-table of a family of devoutly capitalist Christians in America's heartland !  Blasphemy !  Sacriligious socialists !   Yet all of this is very rarely mentioned at all by commentators, film critics, audiences and fans of the film - even the cast and writer-director David O.Russell never refer in interviews to anything remotely green, ethical or geopolitical.

- So don't believe those environmentally comatose and geopolitically blind reviews:  it's definitely Tommy and indeed the actor Wahlberg himself who are the real enduring, unsung heroes of this movie - not Jason Schwartzman's lead-role character Albert Markovski - a vacillating, poetizing caricature of a NIMBY-serving, local-minded green activist who eventually however is so inspired and emboldened by the cycling fireman's flaming rage against the machine that he gleefully torches the Kawasaki jet-ski in Brad Stand's/Jude Law's garage...and (un)fortunately the fire spreads to the rest of the Huckabees boss's house - and Wahlberg rescues his girl...in more ways than one.

(Again - click any image - if you dare - to watch the best green-rebel Huckabee clips chained together).

From a fired-up fire-fighter to one fatefully furious fire-lighter. Hey, accidents can happen - much like coincidences (the film's / DVD's Spanish title is after all "Extrañas Coincidencias").

Whichever way you cut it, slice it or dice it - the fact is that director David O.Russell and his co-writer Jeff Baena have produced an enduring, uniquely bold and inspiring "stick-to-your-principles" homage to marginalised, rejected, resented, alienated and uncompromising activists and inconvenient truth-tellers the world over.

Finally(phew !) - here are a few more Huckabees-related connections, strange disconnects and remarkable coincidences and silences:

- Watch the DVD's 4-part   "Making of/Meaning of... Huckabees"  special feature(links below) in which no-one - none of the actors or even the writer-director David O. Russell - make any reference at all in interviews to the movie's uniquely powerful environmental, ethical or geopolitical storyline.  Jude Law(pictured on set) is the first to 'blank it' all out at the start of Part I - insisting that the film is(..yawn!) "all about finding your true self".  (Hey Jude, hey dude - are you talking about the same uniquely rebellious movie as we are ?! )  Watch Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4 for more of the same.

- Fiction-to-fact footnote:  reliable rumours have it that GM will launch an electric version of the Cadillac Escalade before 2025(video) - so that's circa two decades after Wahlberg's ethical, anti-petroleum, Huckabees-hating fire-fighter Tommy Corn wished he could buy one way back in 2004.(..a name-change to "Cadillac Escalate", perhaps ?) A long-teased electric Cadillac Lyric is ostensibly closer to production. Hmm, d'you think the name "Tommy Corn" means anything at all to GM boss Mary Barra ?

- Bicycles a-go-go:  It is virtually unheard-of for any Hollywood movie(or TV series, sitcom etc) to feature a leading character who uses a bicycle as their primary form of transport - but "I Heart/Hate Huckabees" features not just one but two lead-role cyclists.  What's more they're both male - and one of them is a macho-green fire-fighter.  So here we have two positive role-model environmental activists who dominate the film and triumph in the end.  All of which is totally unprecedented in any movie or TV series. Yet almost no commentators, movie-critics etc etc ever draw attention to any of this.  Go figure.

- Quote: "Most people prefer to remain on the surface of things" - another memorable but easily missed line spoken by Hoffman's vivacious partner-wife Vivian(right). She might also have added that most people - unlike Tommy Corn - prefer to focus on themselves, their own backyards, their own families and on the here-and-now - and when the likes of Tommy or Thunberg have the gall to prick their consciences they are hit with a mix of hostility, indignation and ridicule. (Been there, done that).

- re:  Wahlberg's  movie-line:  "Jimmy Carter could have a great electric car by now".  It's very odd that Wahlberg and the writer-director David O. Russell refer in 2004 to Jimmy Carter not to leading environmentalist and electric car advocate Al Gore who in 2000 - just four years before the movie's release - as voting booths closed had been confidently declared "the next President of United States" by no less than five US TV channels and the Associated Press based on clear decisive exit-poll results. Ah yes, Tommy -  the "petroleum situation", Iraq, George Bush, Dick Cheney, Saudi Arabia. If it weren't for those "hanging chads" and Diebold's easily flippable voting machines and that company's infamously pro-Republican CEO Walden O'Dell - what a very different world and century we would now be living in and "existentializing" in.   With green campaigner Gore in the White House - who'd also pledged to loosen ties with Saudi Arabia - 9/11, the Iraq invasion, the Afghan quagmire(and on and on..)  might never have happened.  Join the inconvenient Big Picture dots - as Wahlberg's Tommy Corn character would.  "Everything's connected" - whether we like it or not, remember ? 

-  A belated little EV-related heads-up to writer-director David O. Russell:   any reasonably affluent ethical US consumer - including ex-Presidents like Carter - could have leased then bought a Toyota RAV4 EV between 1997 and November 2003 when production was terminated. Tom(Tommy ?) Hanks and many more did just that. The far less practical 2-seater GM EV1 was similarly cancelled but scrapped and crushed with no option to buy in 2003 a year before George Bush was re-elected via Diebold's voting machines after the company's CEO Walden O'Dell had publicly pledged to deliver the Presidency to the Republicans. So - are we still joining those inconvenient 'petroleo' dots, Huckabees fans ?  As Wahlberg's fire-fighter Tommy Corn and eco-fighter Al Gore most definitely would...

  "I Love-Hate Huckabees Too Two" ?

  This time starring - not Wahlberg - but real-life, stereotype-crushing green-macho Arnold Schwarzenegger - with his pal Greta Thunberg making a cameo or co-starring appearance...as his identical twin.  No - let's throw in pint-sized, long-time EV advocate(click for clip) Danny deVito and make it identical triplets("only their 108 year-old step-mom can tell them apart...").

Plot teaser:   our triplet-team of self-styled "Planet Reactivators" / "Earth Activators" face their - and humankind's - greatest challenge ever.  The clock is ticking. The stakes couldn't be higher. The mission seems impossible as fact collides and coincides with fiction. Remember that in the real world our awesome threesome are as alike as green peas in a pod when it comes to electric vehicles, the environment and the world's deadly addiction to fossil fuel.
So how's about it, Arnie ?   Activators instead of Terminators. You've still got the muscle and the hustle to make it happen - and my scurrilous, seriously hilarious screenplay is fully scrawled out and ready to help save the world(via Netflix etc).

But wait - there's more...
Script Postscript 1:  have added "Paul" to the Arnie/deVito/Thunberg triplet-trio line-up -  "Paul" being the chatty, miracle-performing, midget-sized and (literally) very down-to-earth alien from the *Spielberg-featuring (2011) movie "Paul" (watch trailer) which stars my fellow Gloucestrian Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Sigourney Weaver.  Oh yes - that is indeed the very same worldly-wise "Paul" who briefly butts in at the close of our own Huckabees-Wahlberg clip-collage to deliver a much-needed extraterrestrial wake-up call to humanity(did you miss it ?).
  In fact - let's ditch the Huckabees sequel title altogether - and replace it with:

"Paul Saves the World(Never Too Small to Make a Big Difference)".

(*Steven Spielberg side-note:  in the original 2011 Pegg/Frost movie Mr. Spielberg himself chats casually with alien Paul via Area 51 intercom about his miraculous or other-worldly healing powers...)

Script Postscript 2:   a little spooky Gloucestrian synchronicity for you - from Wikipedia(Paul) "Possible Sequel" :  "Simon Pegg has stated that he would like to do a sequel to 'Paul'...".  Hmm - a 'Great Gloucesterian'  idea Pegg - but we don't much like your proposed title: "Pauls" !

Script Postscript 3:   - the "extrañas coincidencias" just keep getting spookier:   just before our down-to-earth, runaway alien hero Paul returns home at the end of the 2011 movie, he leaves us with this "moral of the story" :

 "I guess we've all learned something from this. Be yourselves. Always speak from the heart ♥".

...which brings us full circle back from "Paul" to "I ♥ Huckabees" and the alienated, green and ethical Tommy Corn who's always true to himself and his principles and speaks from the heart and the head - no matter how hostile or indignant the response from his fellow human beings.

Author: Paul G(no relation, probably) - EVUK editor and aspiring screenplay-scribbler.

"Spensational"(sic !) update:  billionaire (Baron) Michael Spencer aka "Spens"  officially appointed to Board of Directors of Superdielectrics Ltd.

- Click pics for full Companies House filing record.

January, 2021

Sssh!   Superdielectrics Ltd - Sunday Times:  "Michael Spencer - the "City of London' s Richest Self-Made Man" - Invests £8m in Disruptive UK Supercapacitor Company"
- Superdielectrics now valued at £250 million
- Sunday Times:  "The Cambridge-based company is eyeing a float in London"

 
Teaser Question:    one of the above two London-based "wealthy philanthropists" - the Times has them both covered - believes that women "are for making cakes and babies" whilst the other, by polar contrast, was among the first to employ female brokers in the City and supports positive discrimination employment policies for women.
Click both pics for solution. (Clue:  the tease should be a breeze for most anarchic schoolgirls !)

So while 99.9% of EV commentators(including Elon Musk !) and the media in general continue to conformingly talk only about "batteries, batteries, batteries" and blindly insist that it's all just about "lithium, white gold, batteries with less cobalt etc etc" - a few of us provably prescient, long-active EV revolutionaries know that the imminent and truly electrifying EV future is and must be all about batteries and supercapacitors. And that goes for energy storage in general of course - not just EVs.

But before expanding on this surprising little Sunday Times story - which has predictably been ignored by the rest of the world's media - here  are a few, er, 'indispensable' Spencer-related biographical details(mostly from Wikipedia) :

- in September 2020 - for what it's worth - Michael Spencer became a life peer - his full title now:   Baron Spencer of Alresford.   He is also known as "Spens" and often referred to as a "City Grandee".  In 2016 the pre-baronial Spencer married a Marchioness(right).

- Spencer co-founded ICAP(Intercapital Brokers) in 1986.  Over its 20 years as a listed company, its total shareholder return was close to 6,000%.
So..sooths - from ICAP King to Supercap Supremo - in less than a decade, perhaps ?  Given Spencer's stellar track-record, only a motley fool would bet against it...

- Spencer was Treasurer of the Conservative Party from 2006 to 2010, during which time the party's finances moved from a deficit of  8m to a surplus of  75m.

- Spencer considered becoming an astrophysicist after graduating in physics from Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He is an Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi and an Honorary Doctor of Loughborough University.
(So the newly noble, wealthy Baron Spencer and the relatively ignoble, low-rent Yours Truly, Paul G - do have at least two things in common:  we're both Oxbridge aka Camford alumni and both believe in subversive supercaps and the well-proven, eclectically talented team at Superdielectrics).

- Wikipedia again:   "Spencer has been reported to favour positive discrimination  employment policies for women...he was among the first to employ female brokers in the City".

- From "The Independent" - Chris Blackhurst writes:
"Spencer is someone who has built his entire career and considerable fortune upon being spot-on...a calculating machine, someone with a brain for numbers and a nose for a profitable opportunity."

- See Sunday Times "Rich List" 2020. Current position: 135
But Spencer could well soar straight to the top of that illustrious list if/when Superdielectrics do succeed in delivering supercapacitors with "just" 2-3 times the energy-density of lithium cells - remember they have stated that "50-500 times the energy-density of lithium" is "potentially/theoretically" possible. (Watch this now hard-to-find 2018 Superdielectrics video presentation and jump to 32'55" for the "50-500 times" statement - in a segment pointedly titled "The Energy Density War").

 OK - that's enough background and biography for now - time for a key extract from that headlining, silence-breaking(if slightly flawed - see notes !) Sunday Times article:

"A tech start-up tipped to play a leading  role in the future of electric cars has raised about £15m in a funding round led by billionaire ICAP founder Michael Spencer. The cash injection values Superdielectrics - which has a tie-up with Rolls Royce to develop supercapacitors,  a new form(sic) of energy storage that could replace batteries - at about £250m. Sources said Spencer, 65, appointed to the House of Lords this year, had pumped in  8m. The Cambridge-based company is eyeing a float in London - joining a wave of other tech companies."

Name memo / query - just a coincidence ?  You decide - read on :
- So here's a curious side-note re: two relevant (and related ?) guys named "Nimmo" :    please speculate at will - but intriguingly the Sunday Times author of the Superdielectrics-Spencer article Jamie Nimmo shares the same unusual surname as one William (Ian) Nimmo who briefly served as co-director on the board of...none other than Superdielectrics for eight months in 2018 - he had been appointed in March of that year but resigned for unspecified reasons in November 2018.  If Jamie and William Nimmo are indeed related it would at least help dispel the notion that the latter's 2018 resignation may have been prompted by negative events or opinions relating to the company and its technology. That's all water under the bridge now of course - Spencer's astonishing all-in, heavyweight involvement has swept away such speculative doubts (although an itch of idle curiosity remains re the two 'Nimmos' ).
Nimmo update !   Sunday Times reporter Jamie Nimmo has contacted us to affirm that he is not related to former Superdielectrics co-director William Nimmo. So suspicions erased, just an odd coincidence - case closed !

Anyway - hats off (for once) to Murdoch's Sunday Times and its reporter Jamie Nimmo for breaking the ongoing, near-universal "supercap silence" and daring to deviate from our myopic media's mandatory mantra - all still blindly chorusing ad nauseam that "it's all about the batteries, batteries, batteries" and "lithium, lithium, lithium".

Now here's a slightly pedantic, corrective note to Sunday Times editors:   reporter Jamie Nimmo is obviously very wrong to describe supercapacitors - per se - as a "new form of energy storage".  ("Next-gen" or "energy-dense" supercaps, please guys !).  It's also a pity that Nimmo talks only about how (energy-dense) supercapacitors "could replace" batteries when in fact they will initially - barring another sooner-than-expected, giant-leap breakthrough - merely complement batteries in dual so-called "batt-cap" power-packs.  He also only talks about EVs - odd given the fact that (as again only we reported..) Superdielectrics registered fourteen(!) more "Ltd" companies over a year ago covering a wide range of potential energy-storage applications.  Oh yes - and like most journalists Nimmo also fails to differentiate between Rolls Royce plc and the entirely separate BMW-owned Rolls Royce Motor Cars.

- Putative Pedantry aside:   Michael Spencer - aka Baron Spencer of Alresford  or "Spens"(not just to his "Frens" ?) - has now thankfully also clearly seen the post-lithium light and the writing on the wall. On second thoughts - let's look beyond writing scrawled on walls - and opt instead for "written in the stars" - given that the "sky is not the limit" for next-gen supercaps. And as a one-time would-be astrophysicist, Spencer is clearly still reaching for the stars.

- So please note or recall again that Superdielectrics have convincingly stated(with independent corroboration by leading nanoscientist Prof David Fermin) that their supercapacitors could "potentially" or "theoretically" deliver "50-500 times the energy density of lithium ion ".  But If they achieve just a fraction of that potential within a decade - eg. two to three times the density of lithium ion - ICAP founder Baron 'Spens' Spencer may well find himself annointed with - or immortalised by - another even more exalted 'title'  - namely Michael 'SuperCap' Spencer.

 - To sum up:  Spencer's uniquely weighty involvement with Superdielectrics Ltd both as a director and major investor is indeed nothing short of  "spensational" :    the company and its erstwhile directors would be hard-pressed to secure a more prestigious, persuasive, protective and impressive endorsement than this - by contrast the company's 2017 tie-up with military-industrial goliath Rolls Royce plc remains as much a cause for concern as it is for optimism - for surely obvious reasons.
 

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Final note(for now):   oil barons(or baronets/baronesses) - not just City barons - are moving in and buying an early stake in Superdielectrics:   ADM Energy for instance began purchasing shares in 2017 and their stakeholding has soared in value by nearly 440% in just over 3 years  - as reported here by "Proactive Investors" in October last year:

"The following day, ADM Energy updated investors on Superdielectrics Ltd, which it deems a   legacy investment  , though the firm has just closed a funding round that results in a significant mark-up on the group's initial investment. Superdielectrics owns a patent on what ADM describes as a highly disruptive technology with 'the potential to help solve the world's renewable energy storage problem.' The technology company raised  13 million, pricing new shares at  4.50 each. ADM holds some 195,000 which were bought in 2017 and 2018 at an average cost per share of  1.025. ADM's shareholding was valued by the latest funding round at  877,500, versus a total of  199,875 spent to buy the shares."

Postscript:  we can neither confirm or deny rumours or speculation to the effect that EVUK's copious, voice-in-the-wilderness coverage of Superdielectrics Ltd may have influenced Mr. Spencer's decision to back and now join the Cambridge-based company. That said, we are well-known to the directors and lead researchers etc - hopefully for all the right reasons. And as stated previously, we (still !) have no financial or personal ties with Superdielectrics.(But all job offers considered - even from baronial billionaires)

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January, 2020

Schooling Grown-Ups: - a clip-chain video tribute to St.Trinians-Thunberg-Tesla.
"Never too small to make a difference" - School Girls Kick Some Serious Adult A$$
...and Wind Power, Green Power, Girl Power Save the Day for St.Trinian's and saintly Greta Thunberg !
Joining the dots...by joining the clips.
Click any pic below for our Youtube'd "Trinian-Thunberg-Tesla" tribute. Warning:   this short-sharp clip-trip will surprise you - perhaps even energize, inspire or anger you. Or you may just wanna get up and dance like a wild anarchic St.Trinian(and turn the volume up to 11+plus..)
  
Left:    Celia - St. Trinian's very own Greta Thunberg - delivers an astonishingly clear and very un-movie-like green message in 2009 - when Greta Thunberg was just six years old(extract):
"Climate change is the most important issue our generation faces. Sea-levels are rising. The ice-caps are melting ".
Right:   Tesla Roadster movie debut:  yes, the all-too predictably underrated 2009 film "St.Trinian's - The Legend of Fritton's Gold" - was the first movie ever to feature a normal-looking or sinfully cool all-electric car. (PS. see below for the real-life Elon Musk-St.Trinian's marriage-divorce back-story..).

So - our subversive little homage-montage kicks off with St. Trinian's schoolgirl and teased-to-bits "eco-freako" Celia warning her mystified classmates(in 2009 when Greta Thunberg was just six !) that:

"The ice-caps are melting. Sea-levels are rising. Climate change is the most important issue our generation faces. With this money we can make our school carbon-neutral !".

The Tesla Roadster then makes its stellar, scene-stealing movie debut.

Next we're taken "sailing on the high seas" in the company of 16 year-old Ms. Thunberg together with St.Trinian's headmistress Camilla Fritton(Rupert Everett) and her equally legendary and notorious ancestor Pirate Archibald Fritton(Everett again).

 
Left:     St.Trinian's ahoy !   Wind-power, green-power and girl-power save the day for piratical girls on a mutinous mission...
Right:   Ten years later the intrepid Greta Thunberg heads for those same "high seas" (our ever-higher, ever-rising high seas..)  for another climate conference showdown. Wind-power, green-power and girl-power save the day again.

At the close of our (6min 41sec) clip-mix - after a pulse-pumping injection of high-energy St.Trinian's rebel-music - real-life schoolgirl and naughty truth-telling truant Greta briefly mentions the ongoing worldwide "School Climate Strikes" - reminding us that (quote):

"You're never too small to make a difference".

Finally, in the closing seconds, it's back to wind-power as we're taken sailing on the high seas again in the company of Greta and those two deliciously disreputable, wickedly rebellious Frittons - Camilla and her ribald ancestor Pirate Archibald - both played by the supremely talented Rupert Everett.
(*NB. repeat:   those above-mentioned "high seas" are rising ever higher of course..as the ice-caps melt and the atmosphere warms..)

_________________________________________
St. Trinian's Lessons - a few "revision-notes" - homework for the un-schooled and unitiated:

- The 2009 film "St.Trinian's - The Legend of Fritton's Gold" was the first movie ever to feature a normal or wickedly cool-looking all-electric car - namely the Tesla Roadster. (Yes - Mike Myers did roll out a load of nerdy, naff-looking, single-seater Corbin Sparrow EVs in Austin Powers non-green "Gold Member" - but for comic not positive effect).

- Most people will be surprised to read that this sublimely subversive 2009 St. Trinian's sequel also serves up an unexpected little "green gold" treasure-trove and probably contains the most direct and clearly enunciated environmental message ever spoken in any movie in all of cinema history - Hollywood or British. Grown-up movie-makers, you see, have always avoided buzz-killing, 'corporately incorrect' environmental issues like the proverbial plague. But this St. Trinian's sequel arguably eco-trumps even "The Day After Tomorrow" and "The Simpsons Movie" thanks to the powerful green message that's so succinctly, movingly and passionately delivered by St.Trinian's very own "Greta Thunberg" - namely the pensive, contemplative character Celia(sensitively and skilfully played by actress Juno Temple).  Here, this time in full, is that clear, stark and highly un-movie-like green message - delivered by a subversive St.Trinian in 2009 (when Greta Thunberg was just six years old):

"Turbines. Wind Power. The ice-caps are melting. Sea-levels are rising. Climate change is the most important issue our generation faces. With this money we can make our school carbon-neutral !".

St. Trinian Celia again:  "Wind-power, man !   I told you it was the frikkin' answer !"   Admittedly a little fire-power(canonballs) also came in handy..

But sadly and predictably - in the movie-world the issues of climate change and the threat of imminent environmental meltdown remain as near-taboo and off-limits as they ever were - and again - as unlikely as it may seem - only "The Day After Tomorrow", "On Deadly Ground" and "The Simpsons Movie"(ditto Lisa in the TV series - see our earlier clip-mix tribute) have ever come close to matching the power of the simple, Green-as-Greta message delivered by the heroic, unsung St.Trinian's schoolgirl Celia - who incidentally is mockingly labelled as an "eco-freako" by many of her more air-headed schoolmates(..so just like real life).

- St.Trinian's super-fan Elon Musk and that Tesla Roadster:   Mr. "Model S3X"  is indeed far more than just your average St.Trinian's fan:    remember or note that St.Trinian's head-girl Annabelle (aka actress and now edgy author Talulah Riley) married and divorced Musk twice between 2010 and 2016.
(Right:   the once-twice happy couple)
Talulah Riley's latest, controversial and strangely hard-to-buy novel - "The Quickening" - involves love and (non-Islamic) "terrorism" - aka popular resistance and revolt - in a repressive, contemporary Britain. These naughty, rebellious, incorrigible St.Trinian's girls, eh !? Always trying to rock the boat - literally and otherwise. Wicked little scalliwags...
To quote headmistress Camilla Fritton(Everett) in the initial, preceding 2007 St.Trinian's remake:

"One man's terrorist is another woman's freedom fighter".

With so many fearlessly subversive comments like that it's no wonder that establishment film-reviewers and our corporate media in general have fallen over themselves to denigrate, disparage and bury both of these excellent Everett-led, girl-powered St.Trinian's revivals.
And no wonder, either, that the promised  third film in the series - provisionally titled "Battle of the Sexes" - sadly never materialized...despite the record UK box-office success of the first two.

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Trinian Tesla Roadster - here are two more reasons why that green, scene-stealing EV's 2009 movie appearance was and still is so deliciously subversive, deviant and ground-breaking:
1) In the 2009 Trinian's movie, the all-electric Tesla is driven by Kelly(Gemma Arterton) - an ex-Trinian head girl turned British secret agent now working for MI6 - sorry - "MI7". Compare and contrast that with Broccoli's dinosaurian, loyal-to-oil (MI6) Bond who it turns out - even now 11 years later in 2020 - won't be switching to electric-drive after all(ie. the Aston Martin Rapide E) in the upcoming "No Time to Die" flick - despite the countless, cast-iron "Bond to Go Electric" reports(not rumours!) that appeared back in March 2019.

2) What's more, that electrified St.Trinian's "MI7" British secret agent was/is subversively female - whereas Bond producers are still dismissing the idea that their iconic, not-very-secret agent will ever (entirely !)  switch sexes.
So "MI7" - a fictional British Intelligence Agency in a reportedly "frivolous chick-flick" - appears to be markedly more intelligent, green-minded, innovative and disloyal-to-oil than its fossilized, change-averse MI6 and Broccoli-Bond counterpart.
High time surely then for a green, game-changing Trinians-style MI7 for 007 - and for the rest of us. For "people and planet" - as the saying goes.
That's undoubtedly what Greta Thunberg would want - and given that for our media - temporarily at least - the saint-like Thunberg appears to walk on water, it's surely equally logical to assume that a new, green, game-changing MI7 plus 007 plus military-industrial apparatus would be rapturously applauded by that very same Thunberg-applauding media, right ?
Ho-hum !  Don't hold your breath !  Let's face it - it's tragically unlikely that "grown-ups" employed in "Intelligence" or as "journalists" will ever learn any existentially crucial long-term lessons from a bunch of "naive", "jumped-up" schoolkids, "eco-freakos" and "extremists" of the Thunberg, St.Trinian's or Lisa Simpson kind.

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Watch:   Naughty 15 yr-old schoolgirl Greta berates grown-ups again - especially parents - whilst playing truant at UN Cop24 Cop-Out Climate Charade:

- "You say you love your children above all else - and yet you are stealing their future in front of their very eyes."

- "I don't care about being popular."

(Watch full 3'29" UN speech)

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Footnote: Spoiler Alert ! (so switching to small font)

- To all those who think that the St.Trinian film's stunning revelation that "Shakespeare was a Woman" is a ridiculous fantasy or heresy - you couldn't be more wrong !  Many Shakespearean scholars and researchers have unearthed an abundance of persuasive evidence - especially since the Shakespeare-infused movie's 2009 release - which strongly suggests that at the very least many or all of Shakespeare's plays were penned by one of two extraordinarily gifted, intelligent and cultured females - namely Mary Sidney Herbert(the Countess of Pembroke) or London resident Emilia Bassano (of Italian-Jewish descent). What's more, experts have frequently gathered to discuss "true authorship" at the Globe Theatre in London - where the Trinian movie's climax also kicks off and where the treasure-hunting schoolgirls unearth the awesome-awful truth that (quote): " the Bard is a bird ".  It gets more awesome:  in 2018 a sell-out play titled "Emilia" focusing on the subject was staged at the Globe Theatre and later transferred to the West End. In addition, a forensically-researched and very favourably received book "The Sweet Swan of Avon" was published in 2012(available on Amazon, Goodreads, eBay etc - by Robin Williams Ph.D).
Funny, is it not, how a bunch of "jumped-up" little schoolgirls in a reportedly "frivolous chick-flick" could have so much influence and prescience...
Check the following links - then amaze your friends and terrify all sexist-chauvinists with your wickedly subversive Shakespearean revelations:
- Daily Telegraph(surprisingly !):  "Did a Woman Write Shakespeare's Plays ?"
- Book(2012):  "Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare ?"
- The Atlantic(2019):  " Was Shakespeare a Woman ?"
- DeBayTable (2015):  "A Woman Wrote Shakespeare"
Video - Youtube:
"Who Was Mary Sidney Herbert".
- Whilst this wicked Shakespearean sacrilege may have nothing to do with EVs or Green Power - it does have everything to do with disruptive, transformative and positively subversive thinking and action - and that's definitely what has been needed to unleash the current, long-overdue EV Revolution. And subversive, disruptive thought and action will be just as crucial if we humans are to stand any chance at all of avoiding extinction, ecocide and a total environmental meltdown.
PS. the (EVUK) author of the above St. Trinian's masterpiece / mistresspiece - in case you're wondering - is a thoroughly heterosexual, anti-normal and anti-chauvinist male...
Deviantly Yours, Paul G.

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April, 2020

Exclusive !  Supercap these(x14) ! Just for the Record(as in Book, World, Guinness ?):   Superdielectrics Ltd have officially registered / incorporated FOURTEEN new companies in ONE single day(...and noone seemed to notice)
(Read on for the full list of 'Ltd' companies)

- Is this a UK or World Record ? Who can say ? But what is certain is that this Cambridge and Herts-registered powerhouse did all of this with no press releases, no public announcements, no publicity whatsoever. Clear proof, if any more was needed, that Drs. / Mssrs. Highgate, Heathcote, Hamerton, Spence & Co. are, as ever, fully focused on delivering real-world products as rapidly as possible(.. as opposed to issuing perpetual press releases and promises - Volkswagen et al please note !).

This unleashed list must surely be the clearest declaration of imminent intent you could wish for.

And the company's strangely under-reported, eclectic track-record of commercial success in other areas speaks for itself - having repeatedly proven a steely ability to bring game-changing solutions to market with maximum speed and minimum hype - check out for instance:

1) ITM Power and the H₂O-electrolysing hydrophilic polymer membranes that are key to the success of its ground-breaking hydrogen refuelling stations
2) Augmented Optics Ltd. Soft contact lenses("extended wear"). Dr. Donald Highgate's surprisingly versatile hydrophilic polymers are now widely used throughout the contact lens industry.

- But back to the present - and the future - and those 14 new "Ltd" companies...
We've tried hard until now to resist breaking the company's impressive silence...but what the heck !  Fourteen on-the-money new companies all blasting the bullseye from almost every conceivable angle !  Sorry - but the company information we're presenting here is after all fully in the public domain (at Companies House) - and someone somewhere has to finally scream this to the hill-tops! It might as well be us and it might as well be now. And if this electrifyingly disruptive list of "Ltds" doesn't lift your spirits or blow your socks or your face mask clean off amidst all the coronavirus doom, gloom, hysteria, hypocrisy, double standards and misinformation - nothing will.

But first:   Is The Sky The (Ltd) Limit ?

- The term "Limited" - as in "Superdielectrics Ltd" and "limited liability" - does read like a spectacular misnomer here - given the almost limitless range of applications that this company of supercap superheroes is targeting. So far the sky appears to be the only literal limit - but that will no doubt change if their unique and super-green next-gen supercapacitors (aka ultracapacitors) can perform as well in space as they do on earth and in our skies. So Mr. Heathcote et al - could I humbly suggest pushing the limits beyond the skies with the addition of an extra-terrestrial, Musk-matching 15th company ?  As in:

  Superdielectrics SPACE VENTURES Unlimited Ltd

Worth launching ?
(NASA, ESA and their many global rivals are already pushing the limits with supercaps..)

There are several other conspicuous and more down-to-earth omissions from the company's extraordinary portfolio of registered "Ltds" - namely electric motorbikes, scooters/mopeds and trams..but that'll no doubt change before too long.

So here anyway is the full tantalizing list of Superdielectrics' disruptively broad and bullish battalion of "Ltd' / Limited companies. Brace yourselves !
(As registered at Companies House - full listing here) :

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Superdielectrics AUTOMOTIVE Ltd
(https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272406)   Company nr. 12272406

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Superdielectrics AUTONOMOUS FLYING VEHICLES Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272413)   Company nr. 12272413

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Superdielectrics ELECTRIC AIRCRAFT Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272331)    Company nr. 12272331

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SUPERDIELECTRICS MOTORSPORT Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272459)    Company nr. 12272459

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Superdielectrics MOBILE ELECTRONICS Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272780)    Company nr. 12272780

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Superdielectrics ELECTRIC SHIPS Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272810)    Company nr. 12272810

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Superdielectrics ELECTRIC TRAINS Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272448)   Company nr. 12272448

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Superdielectrics ELECTRIC BICYCLES Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272466)    Company nr. 12272466

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Superdielectrics RENEWABLE ENERGY STORAGE Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12271854)    Company nr. 12271854

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Superdielectrics ELECTRIC HOUSEHOLD PRODUCTS Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272386)    Company nr. 12272386

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Superdielectrics ELECTRIC INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272907)    Company nr. 12272907

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Superdielectrics GRID POWER MANAGEMENT Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272429)    Company nr. 12272429

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Superdielectrics RAPID REFUELLING Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272081)    Company nr. 12272081

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Superdielectrics VERTICAL FARMING Ltd (https://beta.companieshouse.gov.uk/company/12272848)    Company nr. 12272848

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Breaking News ! (Feb 4) :   "Tesla Buys Leading Ultracapacitor/Supercapacitor Manufacturer Maxwell Technologies".
Supercap Synchronicity ?! Just 6 days after we posted up our silence-shattering supercap piece below....Musk breaks his own 8 year silence with a major move to embrace supercapacitors and 'batt-cap' combi-powerpacks..see below for latest.

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Jan/Feb, 2019

Supercap this ! (Part I)

"50-500 times the energy-density of lithium ion"
"Potentially". "Theoretically".

(Claims since verified and validated by one of Britain's top electrochemists/physicists Professor David FERMIN)

Still too disruptive for the mainstream and the masses ?

Why not break the silence for yourselves - click this pic to watch or download our exclusive 30 second clip(with quote):

Click here to watch the full and now hard-to-find Youtube'd presentation(Feb, 2018) - but jump to 32'55" for that key "50-500 times" quote (...in a segment pointedly titled "The Energy Density War").

- Rolls Royce plc are now backing the esteemed team behind this (potentially) game- and world-changing technology - so why is almost no-one talking about it ?
About what precisely - you're almost certainly asking ?

And there's the "mystery" - near-zero EV watchers still appear to know anything of the seismically sensational statement soberly delivered by Superdielectric's Jim Heathcote at a remarkable presentation in February of last year(to which we were flattered to be invited..) - much less that an obscure little outfit by the name of...Rolls Royce plc confirmed their belief in the technology a few weeks later by joining forces with the highly successful and experienced company - now called Superdielectrics - and the talented team of Surrey/Bristol Univ. researchers who discovered it "almost by accident".

Yes, that's right. We're referring once again to energy-dense supercapacitors aka ultracapacitors.

Pie-in-the-sky and pigs might fly ?  Let's not ignore the fact that a "mere" 5-fold energy-density gain over lithium - never mind "50-500 times" - would be more than enough to radically transform transportation and energy storage as we know it. And the positive impact on geopolitics and fossil-fuelled foreign policies should be equally dramatic and far-reaching.
To cap it all - no controversial cobalt or nickel or lithium are used in these polymer-based supercapacitors - only stainless steel - so they definitely shouldn't cost the earth whichever way you look at it !

Note too that in the two weeks or so between that revelatory February 2018 presentation and the mid-March 2018 news of the tie-up with Rolls Royce plc, Superdielectrics received a call from the office of Prince Albert of Monaco informing them that they'd been nominated for the Principality's imminent annual "Clean Equity Awards". They promptly hopped on a plane - and won first prize. (...that news was likewise reported almost nowhere on this seriously endangered planet)

Watch these THREE videos(1,  2,  3) - or just click the top image for that key (short) nugget excerpt containing Jim Heathcote's astonishing statement claiming "50-500 times the energy-dense of lithium ion..potentially, theoretically".  In the third and more recent (October 2018) video two of the three supercap 'Drs' - Howlin and Hamerton - address a large audience gathered at London's Excel Centre - see link-image below.
Feb, 2019: new fourth video - a 20 min presentation by CEO Jim Heathcote at MOVE 2019 - again at London's Excel Centre

Note that no media entities of any description are quoting or have ever quoted those potentially sensational words spoken by Mr. Heathcote - ie. specifically : "50-500 times the density of li-ion". Instead the very few sources(only science/engineering sites..and the Daily Telegraph) that have reported the 2018 presentation and the Rolls Royce* collaboration chose to use more abstruse, obscure terminology(eg. "capacitance" increases) that only specialists and electrical engineers will understand - thus ensuring that the general public remain safely uncomprehending, non-pressing, unsensationalized and uninformed.
(*NB. a few little-known 'RR' facts:   Rolls Royce plc and Rolls Royce Motor Cars are entirely separate business entities related only by name - although the D.Telegraph has confirmed that the two companies do communicate informally. Equally surprising to many:  Rolls Royce Motor Cars has been wholly owned by none other than BMW since 1998)

Click this split-screen image of the potentially game-changing supercap research "Drs" for our earlier(2017) wide-ranging, context-providing and of course provocative coverage of recent and not-so-recent supercapacitor research - or lack of it :
   
Left:      See EVUK (2017):
"University Challenge:  are Oxbridge 'Profs' about to be trumped, topped and capped by Bristol/Surrey Univ 'Drs'?"
Right:  Video(October 2018) - two of the three supercap 'Drs'(Ian Hamerton and Brendan Howlin) speak at Battery Technology Show at London's Excel Centre. An update and 're-cap' if you will...

______________________
In Part II we'll give 100% exclusive details of yet another novel, ingenious and very promising research initiative that appears to be successfully tackling and mitigating the other major Achilles Heel weakness exhibited by all supercapacitors - namely the hitherto unresolved problem of self-discharge or leakage. To be more precise:
- Supercapacitors self-discharge - lose/leak - 50-100% of their stored charge in 30 to 40 days. Lead and lithium-based batteries, in comparison, self-discharge about 5 percent per month.
(See Supercaps v Li-ion at:  Battery University.com )

As we have stressed in our earlier articles the leakage/self-discharge problem can for now be fairly well managed by combining supercaps with (li-ion) batteries in what we're referring to as "batt-cap" powerpacks - but if supercap self-discharge aka leakage or energy-loss can also be significantly reduced - so much the better. And we're talking here about far more than just EVs, ebikes, escoots and the like - think aviation, renewable energy storage, ships, boats, consumer electronics ...

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When will next-gen supercapacitors take off ?

Pigs might fly - faster than ever. But how far ?  Yes, even the BBC's Clarkson-free Top Gear avidly reported(Jan 7th) Rolls Royce's plans to smash electric flight speed records in 2020 but with no references anywhere to range or supercapacitors of course.
(Top Gear also appears to mistakenly believe that the "two Rolls Royces" are part of or subsidiaries/affiliates of the same company or "RR" group of companies. Again - they are entirely unconnected !)

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Breaking News ! (Feb 4) :   "Tesla Buys Leading Ultracapacitor/Supercapacitor Manufacturer Maxwell Technologies".
Now there's a coincidence ! Just 6 days after we posted up our silence-shattering supercap piece above..Musk breaks his own 8 year silence with this spookily-timed move.
Note that Musk has been a semi-secret supercap-believer for almost 25 years - see our 2017 article)

Update(10 Feb) :
While some sources(eg. Electrek, Electrive) believe that Tesla is primarily interested in Maxwell's barely publicised or proven new "dry electrode" battery technology others like Motley Fool(Feb 4) focus on the ultracap/supercap factor - quoting Maxwell's website:
"Our recently developed lithium-ion capacitors are energy storage devices with the power characteristics of an ultracapacitor combined with enhanced energy storage capacity approaching that of a battery..."

We however remain firmly convinced that with this latest move Musk is at last unequivocally re-confirming his commitment to both next-gen energy-dense supercapacitors and batteries - Maxwell are after all clearly demonstrating a rare ability and willingness to embrace and advance both forms of energy storage.

But will Maxwell and Musk manage to match Superdielectrics' lithium-less, cobalt-free potential ie. supercaps with "50-500 times the energy-density of li-ion" ?
(Again - that very credibly confirmed claim is conspicuously still being quoted by zero media outlets anywhere..)
PS. why do so many media outlets - incl. the FT and D.Telegraph - still wrongly refer to supercapacitors as "batteries" ? By refreshing and perhaps surprising contrast, CNBC's report is accurate and concise:   in it Maxwell is rightly described as a manufacturer of ultracapacitors or supercapacitors - not of ultracapacitors *and* batteries(as is being widely mis-reported). And that's exactly how Maxwell still describes itself on its own website.

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