NO ALCOHOL JANUARY..

Last year I raised £160 for Cancer Research UK by not drinking alcohol during January.

This year I'm signing up again to their annual DryathlonTM and have set the target at £200 like last year. I suspect it might be a little harder this year as there's a limit to how many times you can ask your facebook friends to donate. It's not fair to keep digging the same people in the ribs and asking them to cough up money.

So, if you donated last year do please consider whether you can do the same again this year. If you can't it is not a problem. If you don't want to, again it's not a problem.

We all have our favourite charities that we give to and everybody is different in that respect. I do this one for Cancer Research as the scientific programmes that are run in the UK are world class and deserve to be supported. I also give a little bit each month to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute here in the UK too. I am from a coastal town and have had experience of the good work they do (not me airlifted out of the sea, my brother!).

Here's a link direct to my JustGiving donation page - entirely free, the money goes direct to the charity. If you click and donate, thank you.

If you want to do it the easy way, from a UK mobile phone you can simply text like this to 70070. You choose the amount - £2 is just my example!

Finally, if you want to know more - here are some links to the Dryathlon pages, twitter and facebook etc

REALLY BIG BUILDINGS..

Here's something that has slipped my net in the last year.

Europe's tallest building was The Shard in London (310 meters high) during 2012. But, actually it wasn't. At the time the Shard was 'topped off', technical construction term for finalising a building, another tower was already higher than it but hadn't been topped off/completed.

During 2013 the building was finished and ready for occupation. At November 2013 it is Europe's tallest building. In fact, despite many other skyscrapers that are much much taller, it is currently the World's tallest building built of reinforced concrete.

Here's a picture. I really like it's copper cladded look. Bit retro, but I bet it glimmers like crazy in the sunshine.

Sunshine that I guess it doesn't get too much of when you learn where it is.

But, before that. The technical spec:
Height: 339 meters
Floors: 75 + 5 basement floors
Start: 2005
Finalised: 2013
Architects: Mikhail Mikhailovich Posokhin, Frank Williams & Partners LLP

I really like the shape and the look of it.

So, where is this copper clad beauty then?

Moscow, of all places.

It's called Mercury City Tower - strange given the very different colour of Mercury to the building's cladding you might think? There is a reason. The developers are called Mercury Development Company - bit difficult to plan a fluid, liquid-based building made from mercury yet though!

There's a really good set of pictures at this website.

Next door however, there is a new 'tallest building in Europe'. The Russians have been busy putting Moscow back on the skyscraper map. Cue Federation Tower, a real monster construction at 506 meters high.

For now, one last look at Mercury City Tower with the final floors still to be clad (Federation Tower already started to the right).