2009 Lindsey Oil Refinery strikes On 16 February an Acas report concluded that Total had not broken the law in employing Italian workers at the refinery. The strike at Lindsey resumed on 11 June 2009, after a subcontractor at the site laid off a number of employees, later confirmed to be 51. The strike was quickly followed by sympathy strikes at Cheshire's Fiddlers Ferry Power Station on 15 June and Aberthaw on 17 June. The strikes escalated on 18 June, with walkouts at Drax Power Station and Eggborough Power Station in Yorkshire and Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station in Nottinghamshire, BP Saltend, and the BOC oxygen plant
Hugo Drax the Drax of the novel, he is implied to be French (as he was portrayed by French actor Michael Lonsdale), although this is never explicitly mentioned. Though Drax lives in California, he resides in a fully imported French château for which "every stone [was] brought from France" – Drax also supposedly owns the Eiffel Tower, but wasn't allowed to export it from France in a similar manner because the French government wouldn't issue him an export permit for it. Drax portrays himself as an accomplished pianist, as evidenced by his recital of Chopin's "Raindrop" Prelude in D-flat major (op. 28)