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It is not my intention to write upon the complexities of the law of professional negligence but to use this article to start the reader thinking; I propose to do this from the viewpoint of a practical Building Surveyor and to concentrate particularly on one aspect of a surveyor's work, namely. ‘Structural Surveys’.

A chance observation fifty years ago provided a seed from which developed a series of brilliant blue and green pigments which, when dispersed, also yielded fast colours for dyestuffs.

The wide use of cadmium sulphide pigments and lithopones today brings to mind two anniversaries in the history of the element. 200 years ago Friedrich Strohmeyer who discovered a new element imparting a yellow to orange tint to some zinc carbonate used in preparing pharmaceutical zinc oxide was born. Then 100 years ago cadmium compounds became prominent in artists colours, an application preceding the role of cadmium in electroplating and in bearing alloys. Strohmeyer's researches not only formed a prelude to cadmium being a close associate of zinc, with the element extracted from zinc dust concentrates and not from the rare mineral Greenockite, a natural sulphide. But also his work proved the true nature of a yellow impurity in pharmaceutical zinc preparations, one far more significant than concluding that arsenic or lead was present.

The pattern of food prosecutions in more recent times has remained relatively unchanged. Most have been taken under Section 2, Food and Drugs Act, 1955, even for foods which have obviously been unfit for human consumption. The Section because of its wider application has distinct procedural advantages. A few local authorities routinely use Section 8 successfully; it probably depends upon a more liberal interpretation and understanding by local justices. The five‐year study of food prosecutions, (BFJ 1971, 73, 39), separated them into a number of well‐defined groups and showed that those for the presence of foreign material were the majority and remained fairly constant throughout the period; mouldy foods increased during the five years and then remained steady as the second largest single group. The foods most commonly affected and the foreign matter commonly present could be seen; neither changed much during the period of the survey.

Between the first and second world wars there was an expansion of building within Britain, which is personified by the British suburban ‘semi’. With only minor variations in their external appearance they utilised the same internal layout and were the housing equivalent of the model T Ford.

The steady stream of cases on landlord and tenant matters has continued unabated during 1985 and the early part of this year. Amost every week, reports on decisions of the High Court and the Court of Appeal appear in property journals. Decisions often seem to conflict with one another and it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep up to date. Advisers to clients — both landlords and tenants — are constantly seeking fresh nuances of which to take advantage.

Just 50 years ago an organic chemist began fruitful researches on polymers when he was invited to direct this project by Du Pont de Nemours at Wilmington. The chemist was Wallace Hume Carothers, of Scottish ancestry who had migrated to Pennsylvania. Before that historic move to Wilmington the young chemist had done much research and some lecturing, with papers published on phenyl isocyanate, on diazo‐compounds, and on catalytic hydrogenation of aldehydes in which he outlined early examples of poisoning of platinum catalysts. But following two years further work after moving to Harvard, there came the début of Carothers as father of polymer science, a title he shared with Hermann Staudinger.

HIGH PERFORMANCE is demanded of aircraft finishes because of the severity of the environmental conditions to which they are exposed. Many aircraft today operate long range, and encounter a wide variety of climatic conditions. Cyclic condensation occurs during the various temperature and pressure fluctuations, and keel areas may contain large quantities of water containing dissolved salts as well as aggressive fluids such as phosphate ester hydraulic fluids, ester lubricants, fuels, etc. Skin temperatures can change rapidly during flight and may even reach 130°C, by kinetic heating. Erosive influences are met whilst flying through rain, dust and hail, and as the whole structure is vibrating under changing stress, cracking tendencies of coatings are accentuated. C. E. Moey has reviewed aircraft finishes against this background.

At each New Year we stand at the threshold of fresh scenes and hopes, of opportunities and pastures new. It is the time for casting off shackles and burdens that have weighed us down in the old year; almost a new chapter of life. We scan the prevailing scene for signs that will chart the year's unrolling and beyond, and hope profoundly for a smooth passage. The present is largely the product of the past, but of the future, who knows? Man therefore forever seems to be entering upon something new—a change, a challenge, events of great portent. This, of course, is what life is all about. Trends usually precede events, often by a decade or more, yet it is a paradox that so many are taken by surprise when they occur. Trends there have been and well marked; signs, too, for the discerning. In fields particular, they portend overall progress; in general, not a few bode ill.

Food—national dietary standards—is a sensitive index of socio‐economic conditions generally; there are others, reflecting different aspects, but none more sensitive. A country that eats well has healthy, robust people; the housewife who cooks hearty, nourishing meals has a lusty, virile family. It is not surprising, therefore, that all governments of the world have a food policy, ranking high in its priorities and are usually prepared to sacrifice other national policies to preserve it. Before the last war, when food was much less of an instrument of government policy than now—there were not the shortages or the price vagaries—in France, any government, whatever its colour, which could not keep down the price of food so that the poor man ate his fill, never survived long; it was—to make use of the call sign of those untidy, shambling columns from our streets which seem to monopolize the television news screens—“out!” Lovers of the Old France would say that the country had been without stable government since 1870, but the explanation for the many changes in power in France in those pre‐war days could be expressed in one word—food!