Last Saturday I wrote that ‘at the end of the nineteenth century the population of England was five million’. I thought about it during the week and decided this was wrong. I read quite a bit of R.H.Tawney last year and his figure of five million had stuck in my head...but Tawney’s period was the sixteenth century. So today I went rummaging around in Google for the right figures and corrected my web posting by doubling the population. The sentence now reads that ‘at the beginning of the nineteenth century the population of England & Wales was ten million’. You deserve the benefit of my research...free at the point of use.

Since the Middle Ages the population of England and Wales stayed around five million. It went up and down with events like the Black Death wiping out a third of the population. But five million is a good number to keep in your head. The big picture is then of numbers starting to increase in the eighteenth century, shifting into overdrive in the nineteenth century and then slowing down last century.

A good place to start is 1700 when England and Wales had a population of about six million. The first doubling took 120 years. The population reached 12 million in 1820 just as the gas lights were going on in towns and cities all over the country. The next doubling took just sixty years. By 1880 England and Wales had a population of 24 million. The third doubling to 48 million in 1970 took 90 years and since then the pill has kept the quantity down...but the jury is still out on what the pill has done for the quality of the nation. Current estimates put the population of England at 50 million, Wales at 3m and Scotland at 5m.

The contours of my day took on their traditional homeday pattern. My weblog was done by ten. It was a lovely Welsh winter’s day...blue sky, a few clouds, bracing temperatures. It took me an hour to walk to Efailwen picking up my copy of the Daily Mail at Glandy Cross on the way. An hour at Caffi Beca and an hour to walk home. The final stretch took me along the river and above the slate gorge just a few minutes from home.

The slate industry was as vital to the local economy, culture and history of Wales as the coal industry. Both industries arose out of nothing, became giants on the world stage and then suffered catastrophic decline and almost total extinction. In the boom years prospectors would be out scratching at barren hillsides all over Wales. There were many speculative sites but the giant quarries employed thousands.

Water power was the primary source of energy with networks of dams feeding the water wheels through wooden or slate lined leats. At the quarry water would cascade from wheel to wheel. Even after the advent of steam the water wheels were retained to save on coal and wood. Conditions in the quarry barracks and lodging houses were appalling and accidents in the quarries were frequent. Unguarded machinery, roof falls and lung diseases all took their toll. Working underground in the industry was more dangerous than in coal mining.

Welsh slate went all over the world from small ports like Porthmadog and purpose built harbours like Port Dinorwig. Narrow gauge railways were built to access these ports and connect the quarries to the nearest town or main line railway. Welsh slate peaked in the 1890s. After this capital dried up, imports grew, roofing tiles became cheaper than slate and men left for easier ways to make a living. The once mighty Dinorwic Slate Quarry finally closed in 1969. I am rather proud of my local Llangolman Slate Workshop at Pont Hywel Mill.

The afternoon was spent catching up on matters sidelined by the Swedish accounts. JAK tells me I can have my seventy five thousand kronor in a couple of weeks if I can provide some collateral but otherwise I go onto a three month waiting list which puts my Lund trip back to the end of April. What to do?

Constanza called from Mexico as Steve Wright on BBC Radio Two was telling his seven million listeners that Mexico City has more taxi cabs than anywhere else in the world...sixty thousand of them. Constanza has a five-year plan and wants to talk to me about it. We set a time.

I was in touch with Toni Pinschof in Brittany. His son is about to embark on his first solo overseas adventure and has been placed under the grandiose wings of Tapeley Park. In 2001 Dmitri hitched a ride with Vemara back from Morlaix to Rye to attend a cousin’s wedding in London and my daughter had instigated the introductions to Hector Christie...the brother who ‘lost’ Glyndebourne on the toss of a coin.

Each member of the UN Security Council has one vote. Nine yes votes are needed on procedural matters but on substantive matters all five permanent members must vote yes. Other organs of the United Nations make recommendations to Governments. But the 191 members of the United Nations...United States would be more accurate but the name had been taken...are obligated by their treaty commitments to carry out the decisions of the Security Council. Gun runners rule the world OK!