Herend… eth the Lesson
Herend… eth the Lesson
Some things are a luxury and some luxuries turn out to be essential, but even something you bought for £1, can be a pain in the Trossachs and especially if that something was valued at £2 million and then ends up costing you £150,000 to get rid of!
That is exactly what has happened to the wave machine that was to be used off Orkney to power 2,000 homes with cheap renewable electricity. It became the first offshore facility to send energy into the National Grid, but when the company running it went bump in the night in 2014. It was known as the Sea Snake, but the serpent got the company thrown out of the Orkney Garden of Eden and it was extremely expensive, but was it valuable? History has deemed the answer a negative. It was just a little too ahead of its time. The Ukraine war has made energy prices jump, but the leap came too late for the Sea Snake and its paraphernalia.
Installed in 2004 at the European Marine Energy Centre the snake made the Orkneys a world first in renewable energy as Scotland became a leader in the charge away from fossil fuels. After the crash though the local council bought the machinery for the traditional sum of £1, but they couldn’t find a use for the machinery and now 9 years later this particularly chicken has come home to roost. The council are to spend £150,000 of the taxpayers money to scrap the 1,350-tonne beastie.
But with some luxuries you can be sure that you won’t be left with a lemon. The good people at Herend in Hungary who have been in business for even longer than James Pirie’s 1890, with origins going back to 1826 are a case in point. That is when Vince Stingl founded the forerunner of Herend Porcelain. Mr Stingl learned his trade in Vienna which was at the heart of the AustroHungarian Empire at the time and it predates the great Scottish invention of the bicycle by Scottish blacksmith Kirkpatrick Macmillan in 1839.
The Herend Red Squirrel animal figure in the very finest porcelain is a true delight. The figurine is patterned in Herend’s signature fishnet design, has a genuine gold-glazed nose and paws and is positioned upright holding a gold-glazed nut. It’s hand-painted in superior porcelain with 24ct gold accents and come is a Herend black and pale gold box. It’s luxury, but it’s at an affordable price as you can now save £46 on this gorgeous creature. Comes with free delivery and free gift wrapping to make this a one of a kind present for that every special person.
