Concrete testing

Having spent a formative year or so testing concrete in and around what is now Westway in west London, I was very pleased to learn yesterday that concrete testing figures very large in the world of Peppa Pig, that we are teaching our young children about the important things in life.

While some people at the Guardian work themselves into a lather about the amount of greenhouse gas generated during the manufacture of the cement needed to make the concrete. Sadly, while they might have a point about the greenhouse gas, they don't offer any realistic alternative to this truly splendid building material. Where would the world be without it?

And I might say in passing that the proper filling and compacting of the concrete test cube illustrated left is not as easy as it might look. To be useful, the test has to be replicable and replicability requires order and method - with this cube not having been filled quite to the top. Furthermore, my recollection is that you use two tamping bars, one in each hand, not one. But if you don't like this illustration, Bing has lots more to offer.

PS: I wonder if I can find out how concrete testing got into the world of Peppa Pig. Presumably the writer had some connection with concrete or he - or she - would not have thought of it.