WD postcode area

Postcode district boundaries: Bing / Google

The WD postcode area, also known as the Watford postcode area, is a group of eleven postcode districts in England, which are subdivisions of seven post towns. These postcode districts mostly cover south-west Hertfordshire and a small parts of Buckinghamshire and Greater London.

The main sorting office is at the Home Counties North Mail Centre in Hemel Hempstead, having been at the Watford Mail Centre until its closure in 2011. The area covered includes all of the borough of Watford, most of the Three Rivers district, the western part of the Hertsmere district and small parts of the Dacorum and St Albans districts. WD3 also covers the village of Chenies in the Chiltern district of Buckinghamshire, as well as the north-western extremity of Greater London - a small and mostly unpopulated protrusion of Harefield in the London Borough of Hillingdon.

Coverage

The approximate coverage of the postcode districts:

Recoding

In September 2000 districts WD17-19 and WD23-25 were created from the recoding of the WD1 and WD2 districts. BUSHEY is a new post town; having previously been part of the WD2 district of WATFORD. This was due to postcode exhaustion of WD1 and WD2 Another reason for the postcode revision was the old WD2 area included Bushey with North Watford. Bushey was to all intents a section of Watford sorting office up until 2000, all mail for WD2 was cut and tipped at Watford office. To change this new codes were created to enable direct bags to be opened at Bushey delivery office. Local union reps claim (archaic) that the reason Bushey Delivery Office was included with Watford was so Watford postal workers would attract outer London weighting as Bushey was in the London Metropolitan Police area at the time.

Effervescence

Effervescence is the escape of gas from an aqueous solution and the foaming or fizzing that results from a release of the gas. The word effervescence is derived from the Latin verb fervere (to boil), preceded by the adverb ex. It has the same linguistic root as the word fermentation.

Effervescence can also be observed when opening a bottle of champagne, beer or carbonated beverages such as soft drinks. The visible bubbles are produced by the escape from solution of the dissolved gas (which itself is not visible while dissolved in the liquid).

Although CO₂ is most common for beverages, nitrogen gas is sometimes deliberately added to certain draught beers. The smaller bubble size creates a smoother beer head. Due to the poor solubility of nitrogen in beer, kegs or widgets are used for this.

In the laboratory, a common example of effervescence is seen if hydrochloric acid is added to a block of limestone. If a few pieces of marble or an antacid tablet are put in hydrochloric acid in a test tube fitted with a bung, effervescence of carbon dioxide can be witnessed.

Fizz (novel)

Fizz is a novel by Zvi Schreiber centered on the history of physics. It tells the story of a young woman from the future named Fizz, who time travels to meet physicists such as Aristotle, Galileo, Newton and Einstein, and discuss their work. Fizz brands itself as an "edu-novel" with similarity to the genre of Sophie's World. The book claims to target both young adults and adults, with an amateur interest in physics, as well as teachers and students of physics.

Plot summary

Fizz is a young woman from the "Eco-community" - a future sect which abandons science and technology. Her father has left this community and invented a time machine. Driven by curiosity about the physical world, Fizz borrows her father's time machine and visits many past physicists from Aristotle to Stephen Hawking.

Each chapter combines some discussion of physics with some fictional plot and personal development of Fizz. Eventually Fizz returns to the future to choose between life inside or outside the eco-community.

Fizz (cocktail)

A "fizz" is a mixed drink variation on the older sours family of cocktail. Its defining features are an acidic juice (such as lemon or lime) and carbonated water.

History

The first printed reference to "fiz" is in the 1887 edition of Jerry Thomas's Bartender's Guide, which contains six such recipes. The fizz became widely popular in America between 1900 and the 1940s. Known as a hometown specialty of New Orleans, the gin fizz was so popular that bars would employ teams of bartenders that would take turns shaking the drinks. Demand for fizzes went international at least as early as 1950, as evidenced by its inclusion in the French cookbook L'Art Culinaire Francais published that year.

Gin fizz

A gin fizz is the best-known cocktail in the fizz family. A gin fizz contains gin, lemon juice, sugar, and carbonated water, served in a tumbler with two ice cubes. The drink is similar to a Tom Collins, with a possible distinction being a Tom Collins historically used "Old Tom Gin" (a slightly sweeter precursor to London Dry Gin), whereas the kind of gin historically used in a gin fizz is unknown.