Life, the Universe and Everything

Dancer’s Cough and Alcoholic Rubs

2012-01-30T14:32:00.001Z

I've been getting fed up with what seems like a prolonged “commoncold” this Winter. There seems to be a lot of it about – some of my dancingfriends are coughing for England.

So I looked into it. A significant infection route is not directly via the “coughs andsneezes that spread diseases” but more like this:

· Infected person touches their face (we all touchour faces a lot)

· Infected person touches uninfected person's hand(Dancers do this a lot)

· Previously uninfected person touches their face –especially their nose or eyes

So I started thinking about more hand washingand looked into it. There's certainly some evidence that it can help. There's quite a lot of “anti-bacterial” soaps and handwashes around but the common cold is a virus so it I started looking forsomething viricidal. The answer seems to be alcohol, specifically 70% alcoholhand rubs.

A trip down to a few pharmacies went badly. Lotshad the anti-bacterials. When I told people I was looking for 70% alcohol as a”gold standard” they told me it was very bad for the skin. I investigated againand found that what's in the other 30% makes them even better for your skin than soap and water

Another nice thing about alcoholic hand rubs isthat you don't need clean water and a towel. You just rub it on and itevaporates. I found a nifty little 50mL dispenser on Amazon . (No, I don’t get commission)

So I'm all set. Just before driving home after a dance, I whip out this little dispenser and give my hands a good rub. I could also do this:

Before going into a dance
After visiting the toilets
During any interval

PS: This suggests I'm wasting my time and money!

Village cinema

2012-01-23T13:42:00.001Z

I was in the small Cotswold village of Windrush recently and noticed this poster

I like the detail "Please bring a cushion and a log!" presumably for corporeal and thermal comfort.

The death of cinema has bee predicted many times. TV was supposed to kill it as was Broadband but here it is, alive and well in a remote Cotswold village.

Birds at Farmoor Reservoir

2012-01-21T01:02:00.003Z

Took this picture recently, Click to see it full size.

Opinion: Scottish independence

2012-01-19T14:41:00.000Z

I have no opinion on Scottish independence as such. That is for the Scottish people. However, I'm very disappointed by the standard of public debate. The main technique - mainly from south of the border - seems to be Fear, Uncertainty and
Doubt (FUD)

Just today, we heard from a military chap that independence couldn't happen because everyone in the British forces swears allegiance to "Her Majesty the Queen, her heirs and successors". Yes, he gave did us the detail I've italicised in strong, resonant tones, the ~~pompous ass~~ dear man!

A few days ago, commentators were expressing concern about whether the Scots would cope without the Pound.

Anyone would think that no country had ever seceded from another but of course, it happens all the time. For an example close to home, take the Irish Republic. They used to be part of the UK until 1922. It was a fairly acrimonious affair but it was made to work. Yes, there was an Irish Pound and they decided to keep parity with the English pound. Decimalisation happened in both countries in 1971 and it was only in 1978 they broke with Sterling.

The Irish also sorted out their defence arrangements - a detail worthy of note in the current debate is that they agreed to allow the British to continue to use bases at Spike Island, Berehaven and Lough Swilly until 1938

Another quite successful "divorce" was in 1993 when Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. More recently, Sudan split into two and you know, they're just getting on with it. See the South Sudan Government site for fairly boring details.

So, if Scotland wants independence, they can have it. Sure, there will be swings and roundabouts on the way. That's life.

Whiteway Colony

2012-01-15T22:44:00.000Z

It’s a village on the Cotswolds originally founded over 100years ago by followers of Tolstoy. The philosophy has changed over the yearsbut it's still a “community” with meetings to make decisions. It's not a posh “gatedcommunity”, I know some quite ordinary people who live there. Still, instead ofa “village hall” they've got the “Colony Hall” and the library is “The BookRoom”.

Sign

The Colony Hall

Middle England has its garden gnomes and neatly clipped hedges but Whiteway is different

Like most village notice boards, this one gives a snapshot of local life

Excellent garden shed

A stony ploughed field. A lot of Cotswold fields are like this which must make for hard work. The lime will make the soil alkaline and especially good for growing cabbages

Wikipedia entry

Security nonsense

2012-01-14T02:35:00.000Z

Found this sign on a railway station platform. Presumably the fear is that someone might conceal a bomb in a saddlebag. Not completely far-fetched as the bicycle has a far from peaceful history - the Vietcong used loads.

Presumably, there is not an equivalent notice for the car park. That's probably because a search of a parked car is a more serious business. On the other hand, a car bomb could be very much larger than a bicycle bomb.

I wondered if the danger of a car bomb in station car parks had been thought of and perhaps stations were designed so that the nearest potentially explosive car was a "safe" distance from the platforms? A quick look at the satellite pictures on Google maps shows it isn't so. Although car parks are not right on station platforms like this bike park, some of them are pretty close.

So, this sign isn't evidence of a carefully thought out security policy, it's just a nonsense.

Satnav Summit Nonsense

2012-01-11T20:56:00.001Z

Apparently, there's this problem with Satnavs. Errors mean that lorries get stuck on country lanes or as the bureaucrats would have it, "local residents end up with inappropriate traffic on their doorsteps".

More shockingly, "some motorists do not update their satnav maps, either because they forget or are not aware they can do, which makes the problem even more serious." What is the world coming to?

The upshot is "Norman Baker, Local Transport Minister, will host the Government's first 'Satnav Summit' to thrash out solutions to end the misery caused when lorry and car drivers follow out of date directions from their satnavs."

Sigh! They don't know they are born!

Maps didn't always come with a satnavs attached. Before the silicon chip version there was the folded paper carbon-based edition. There was a brand called "Ordnance Survey" run by a government department and updated every 15 years if you were lucky. You used them as a guide and accepted they were not infallible! No one had a "summit" about it - although there was some adverse comment the time I believed the "PH" on a map and led the cycling club to a pub that was no more.

You also got to know that a "Ferry" on the map might not still be running. And that a line indicating a "public right of way on foot" might be a quagmire or a jungle with no actual path.

In those days, a "summit" was something that sat quietly on maps and on the ground and didn't give politicians any publicity at all.

Original story

Cheap Seeds

2012-01-06T13:34:00.000Z

Gardeners! This is a good time to buy seeds. A lot of the usual places sell them cheaply in early January - and quite often it's fresh stock. I've noticed 50% off and 3 for 2 deals in local shops. Another advantage of buying now is that things you are particularly interested in are less likely to have sold out.

Lidl are not usually so quick off the mark - they put their seeds out in February. Worth looking at as some of their seeds are unusual and none are more than £1 a packet.

Recycling

2012-01-02T12:57:00.000Z

Here's a typical, topical and local plea to recycle:

Councillor Stan Waddington, the county council's cabinet project champion for waste, said: "Don't throw your Christmas trees away. If you are not planting them back in the garden, chop them up and take them to your local household recycling centre.

Let's say it would be a 10 mile round trip to the rather unpleasant recycling centre. I used one of the online calculators to find that it would cost about 200g of carbon - not to mention actual £££.

Let's think of some ways to reduce this:

Don't have a Christmas Tree at all - my system - zero carbon - bah humbug!

This is simple and effective. Unlikely to catch on though as the Norwegian military-industrial complex :-) are likely to oppose it tooth and nail - they have more spare trees than people. Ok, most trees in the UK are locally sourced but there's still commercial interests pushing you to buy them.

Suppose the county council sent round a (small) fleet of lorries on January 7th collecting the trees put out by residents?

The the total carbon would be less but seems even less likely. The council actually introduced a garden waste bin collection scheme which might seem ideal. They were surprised at the low take-up rate. I wasn't. They charged £36/year and gave you an enormous brown bin! This scheme replaced a free garden waste bag scheme.

Doh!

Masquerade Ball: What I learnt

2011-12-11T13:00:00.006Z

My mask

Went to the Ceroc Xmas Masquerade Ball last night. The party shop in town had a wide selection of masks, I could go as the Queen or other "Celebrity". Not having a TV, I didn't recognise 90% of the many faces on offer. In the end settled for a "burglar" mask.

I must say, I doubt if any real burglar uses this design - it narrows your field of view considerably. For the professional burglar, this could mean missing nice nickable things. For me, it meant lack of peripheral vision which is pretty vital on a crowded dance floor. The other thing I learnt was that it's a pretty poor disguise. Lots of people recognised me easily including Diana and I recognised her too.

Diana

Interestingly, There were a few friends I had considerable difficulty recognising. Afterwards I started wondering if this was something particular about them or just effective mask design? Maybe it's the masks - there was one lady who clearly knew me but I never identified. The mask she wore had lots of dangly tassells - burglars take note!

Evil or Ill?

2011-11-15T10:53:00.000Z

Read an article about psychopaths and work scanning their brains.

It seems to show that unfortunately for them and their victims, they are (physically) "wrong in the head" and suggests they need treatment rather than punishment. Not that it's clear what the treatment should be.

I fell to thinking how lucky I am. I don't endure great moral struggles to avoid being a psychopath - I just wasn't born to it. Similarly, I don't "battle" with alcoholism, tobacco, gambling, weight or any of the many other "unacceptable" things. The last time I got legless-drunk was about 6 years ago at a festival where there wasn't a dance to go to and we sat around savouring one nice bottle after another. Keeping sober (etc.) isn't difficult for me, I simply have "lucky" biology.

I'm not arguing that mass-murderers should be allowed to wander around as if nothing had happened but executing them (as happens in the US) is going way too far. If, as may be the case, it's genetic, future generations may dust off the "genocide" label.

Rain Engineering

2011-10-31T14:23:00.003Z

As promised, I've put up the first (of perhaps several) articles about "leveraging" the rain that falls on my garden. Click

Geeky Gardening

2011-10-23T16:02:00.002+01:00

I've been writing up my experiences getting lots of nice fruit off my apple tree. See Care of Ashmead's Kernel Apple Trees

I've also been engineering some novel rainwater systems for my always-too-dry garden. It started during the planning stage of a new raspberry bed and sort of grew...

Check back soon!

Dancing, Dunes & Daddy-long-legs

2011-10-06T21:16:00.004+01:00

The word "surreal" is perhaps overused but stay with me. I went dancing for a weekend at Pontins, Brean Sands. Yes, Pontins, a "holiday camp" with "bluecoats" and chalets. Pontins still exist (although they went bust) and my picture was taken on a balmy evening in October 2011 although the ~~chalets~~ (sorry, "apartments") are from a bygone era.

The "Brean Sands" bit sounds old-fashioned and it is. The single road is lined with amusement arcades, caravan sites and more caravan sites. But, break out and head across the dunes and there's an enormous, desolate sandy beach. When the tide is out, you can't see the sea and if you can see the sea, you're not running away fast enough. There's even a Heath and Safety guy in a big truck with a tannoy yelling at people to get out of the water.

Back to Pontins where the reception area is crammed with "amusement" machines that flash, beep and even wolf-whistle as you walk through to the dance floor. It's modern jiving put on by the Ceroc organisation and runs through to the small hours on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. About a thousand people are kept cool by huge roaring fans. If that's still too hot, there's a terrace outside. Daytime is taken up with classes on how to (almost) drop your partner on the floor, "double trouble" (1 man, 2 ladies), Tango and even Pole Dancing.

And the "Daddy-long-legs"? They were in season and took up residence in most of the bathrooms. Interesting creatures, they are the adult form of the leatherjacket that spend the summer eating the roots of the grass on your lawn.

Early Apples

2011-08-21T15:46:00.002+01:00

First good apple of the season. "The book" says 'Ashmead's Kernal' is ready for harvest in mid-October. My experience has been late-September but this year, here we are not quite in the last week of August! They're not quite as sweet and sharp as I remember and they're about half the size. This may be due to the lack of rain although others note that this variety produces large fruit only when young. I may leave some of them for a couple of weeks although pest attacks are starting.

Camping and Child Protection

2011-08-11T12:11:00.000+01:00

I camp at festivals several times a year. The sites are large and I'm often quite close to people I don't know. So you hear stuff, in particular, parents shouting at the kids. After a few days, a pattern starts to emerge - Little Billy is always being shouted at. He's obviously a persistently naughty boy, or is he? Sometimes it sounds more like the parents are dumping their frustrations with life on the kid and there's nothing the child can do to stop it.

As I don't have children, I find it difficult to judge what's going on - not that it's any of my business, or is it? Should I quietly take the registration number of the car and pass it to the NSPCC?

Sometimes it is my business. I was once camped next to a mother who seemed to berate her daughter loudly from morn till night. It was a bloody nuisance so eventually I waited for mum to pause for breath and let out a loud "Ewwwwwwwww!"

Worked a treat! Didn't hear a peep out of her for the rest of the festival.

Great British Eccentrics #57

2011-08-10T11:54:00.005+01:00

I first got to know Erik a few years ago when he was going out with one of my dancing friends. An engineer by profession, a bargee by residence and a boat-builder in a very small way. I was not greatly surprised when on a trip to Sidmouth when he said he was going to launch another boat and furtively opened a carrier bag. Inside was a small yacht.

He explained that the sails were cut out from an IKEA umbrella and a network of string linking the two sail booms allowed it to tack without a rudder. A lead keel would ensure it stayed upright. Erik's email address was permanently marked on the deck with a note asking finders to let him know their location before re-launching. A previous effort had got as far as Calais in France!

So we trotted down to the sea front and held up wet fingers to gauge the wind. Initially, Erik was worried that the boat wouldn't get past the headland but then Russ turned up fresh from the ceilidh in the ford on the river Sid. (…which is another story!) As he was already soaking wet, he readily agreed to wade out into the sea and launch "Stryder" from deeper water.

It's surprising how visible a tiny bright orange sail is. Erik reckons it had got about 400m in 20 minutes before it became difficult to see.

It was headed roughly southwest towards the Atlantic but it may well flip around and head up the channel.

Later, Erik told us it was his ninth boat….

(Edit: 14Aug11, pictures from Erik)

Russ holding the yacht concealed in a carrier bag just before launchPddy sent this "Stryder" sighting 5 miles south of Exmouth the next day

London Riots: Shameless steal from The Guardian

2011-08-09T11:25:00.003+01:00

I rather liked this comment by "AllyF"

There's a widespread myth that law and order is preserved by police, politicians and other forces of authority. Not true. Never has been. If we all decide to go out and chuck a dustbin through Argos's window and help ourselves, it would take about 15 million coppers to contain it. We actually have about 150,000.

Law and order is kept by a collective acceptance of mutual goals. If, as a society, we look after each other, offer everyone a share and a stake in the common weal, maintain some semblance of a Rousseauian Social Contract, then the vast majority of people will mostly stick to the rules without ever needing to see a police officer.

When people lose that sense of being looked after, no longer feel part of society, no longer feel like they have any kind of share in any kind of collective, the ties that bind begin to be broken.

Rioting, especially the type of vandalism & looting we've seen in London, is a sure sign that the social contract is unravelling around the edges. In the days and weeks and months to come, we shall see how far it has frayed.

There are few things more dangerous to a society than a populace with nothing left to lose.

Original article and comment

Awayday

2011-07-25T00:46:00.004+01:00

I'd been planning to try out the Ceroc dances at Hammersmith Town Hall for some time and while planning routes and transport I noticed a station called "Kew Gardens". Ding! Why not explore these during the day and then dance the night away?

Kew is a quaint London suburb with lots of small shops gathered round the station and decaying genteelly. A short walk and you're at the gardens. In some ways, they are like an enormous municipal park, the like of which you'd find in any English city. There are lawns, flower beds, lakes cafés and screaming kids. When you look a bit closer, you spot the differences. For a start, there's no swings or "amusements" which may explain why the kids are screaming. The plants, shall we say have class. Almost immediately I noticed some 6' stalks with large seedpods. A small sign announced Cardiocrinum Giganteum. Hooray! I've read about these giant lilies and considered growing some at home. They were not quite as impressive as I'd expected so I probably won't bother.

I soon find you can't rely on the signs. There's a curiously shaped tree claiming to be "Lillium Regale" but I know better! In one area the Verbena Bonariensis has got everywhere (as it does) but it gets a variety of labels. Nice plant though. Here's one I grew earlier
I am much taken with a bed full of "Impatiens glandulifera" which seems wrong as it's 6' tall. Impatiens=busy lizzie and they're usually quite small. Looked it up at home and it's Himalayan Balsam and an "invasive species weed"! I suppose like lions and tigers in the Zoo, it's safe enough in skilled hands but possibly unsuitable for the home garden.

Another discovery was lemon poppy seed cake (in the café), several huge greenhouses, a treetop walk and a viewing platform for their giant compost heaps.

So, on to the dance. Whenever I go to a dance place out of my normal orbit I tend to arrive early and find the place so quiet that I initially wonder if I've got the date wrong. Next, I discover that it is the right place/time but there are only 10 punters in a huge ballroom. After an hour, it's filled up and looks sensible, two hours and it's heaving. I found some great dancers by my usual method of watching their feet and I'm grateful for the management's bulk purchase of huge electric fans keeping things cool. They even set up one to blow cold air direct from the outside.

Just before midnight, I bail out and catch the underground to Victoria for the "Oxford Tube" that delivers me back to my car. An hour's drive and I'm straight to bed.

Murdoch and News International

2011-07-17T21:40:00.001+01:00

As this scandal rumbles on, I'm a little surprised at just how much fuss there is. Sure, it looks like some people have been very naughty. And Murdoch has been unpopular with the Left for a very long time. Still a lot of heat though.

Perhaps I'm over cynical but I wonder if it's being used to bury any bad news? Not that anyone triggered it for that purpose but now it's here I wonder if anyone is making "use" of it?

One way I try and keep a wider view on what's going on in the world is to use Wikipedia's "Current Events" link as this certainly has stories that don't reach the mainstream UK media.

Haven't spotted what "they" are burying yet though!

Cleeve Hill

2011-07-14T00:29:00.004+01:00

Went for an evening walk over Cleeve Hill. It's got sheep and golfers - and I suspect that's a relationship that has to be worked at. The sheep get an occasional high-speed golf ball in the ribs. So to protect the greens, the golfers have put up "electric" fences with the insulating poles, etc. but no source of volts. One sheep had sussed this out and was on a green getting her revenge by eating the grass.

Saw a couple of rabbits. Clapped my hands and verified that their ears worked. You know that old Monty Python line about "What did the Romans ever do for us?". One answer is that they brought rabbits to Britain.

Other wildlife included a moth buzzing around at about 25Hz and a murder of crows in the trees near Postlip. Moon came up - see picture.
.

Gardening Blog

2011-07-08T22:34:00.002+01:00

Regular readers will know I'm into gardening. I've started a Garden Blog full of tedious detail about what's happening in my garden. See here.

Important gardening stuff will still be posted here from time to time.

The Sheep House

2011-06-22T12:43:00.001+01:00

I've been on the train through Bristol Temple Meads recently and finally managed to snap this
just outside the station on the way to Bedminster. Lovely row of painted houses and the one
nearest the track has a rural scene complete with sheep.

Lovely idea!

No flowers

2011-05-22T17:05:00.006+01:00

The trouble with flowering plants is that they spend a lot of time not flowering so for the decorative bit of my garden, I decided to go for some specimens that show off in different ways. This first one is Chenopodium giganteum 'Magentaspreen' that achieves bright purple patches on the stem-end of each leaf. This one is only young but they grow to 1.5m by the end of the summer. The common name of this plant is "Tree Spinach" and you can eat the leaves. It's very easy to grow from seed as it does have flowers but these are "insignificant"

Next, we have red veined Sorrel. I've grow ordinary Sorrel from seed but this pretty version came from a garden centre. It's edible stuff too. You make up a bland potato soup, let it go slightly off the boil and then blend in a handful of these leaves and it's stunning.

Finally, something that looks rather like a weed. I first read about it on the Plants for a Future site where they say "The leaves have a pleasant agreeable flavour with a slight sweetness, they make a very acceptable lettuce substitute." and importantly "This plant has proved to be almost totally slug-proof, even in a very heavily slug-infested garden."

Reichardia picroides is a native of southern Europe and I had to get seed from Slovakia but I'm giving it a go. Actually, it's supposed to have flowers a bit like dandelions. Somehow, not a surprise.

Physalis and Real Irrigation

2011-05-08T13:09:00.003+01:00

Some plants really love some heavy rain. Within 24 hours of our surprise deluge, the Tomatillo (Physalis ixocarpa) has grown about 50%. (Same applies to the weeds: Those that had already germinated have doubled in size overnight.) My watering during the last couple of very dry months was much less effective.

The Physalis genus deserves to be better known by gardeners. They're part of the Solanaceae family, like tomatoes and if you can grow tomatoes outdoors you can probably grow Physalis outdoors too. (I'm told you can grow them in a greenhouse but they enjoy it too much and take up space you might have wanted for other things)

I've grown Tomatillo before (see pic) but this year I'm trying a purple-fruited variety instead of the greeny-yellow. Like all the Physalis, the fruit comes wrapped in a paper lantern formed from the flower calyx. You'll want to know what it tastes like and it's bit like a Granny Smith apple but in the kitchen, you're best off using it where you might otherwise use a sweet pepper. Slice it and chuck it on pizza. It's nice, not wonderful, but when you consider it fruits well without fertiliser and looks better than a tomato plant, it's easy pickings.

You probably already know Physalis peruviana as the "Cape Gooseberry" or in the supermarkets where they sell punnets of " Physalis" imported from Guatemala around Christmas. The fruit is orange, sweet, acid and perfumed. It's surprising it's not better known to gardeners as it's also about as difficult/easy as tomatoes. I'm growing it again this year.

I haven't grown Physalis alkekengi but it's moderately well known as the Chinese lantern. It's better looking than the edible species as it has a bright orange fruit covering. It's frost hardy and invasive.

Note: All parts of these plants are poisonous except the ripe fruit.

Counting my apples...

2011-04-17T12:35:00.005+01:00

...before they are hatched. The "Ashmead's Kernal" is plastered with blossom and a small team of hard-working bees are in attendance. If all the flowers were to turn into fruit, there would be over 1000 apples and I think something would break! Of course, some won't get pollinated and quite a few will be lost naturally in the "June Drop" There will still be far too many so I'll have to thin out the crop ruthlessly.

The tree suffers from "biennial bearing" and this is its "on" year. Thinning out the crop this year should help production next year.

It's also a bit prone to "bitter pit" a physiological disorder that results in small dead areas mainly near the surface of the fruit. The cause of this is not fully understood although it's believed to be due to the distribution of calcium in the tree. Preventative measures include:

An even supply of water - so with our current drought, I'm irrigating already
A good mulch to help reduce water loss
Not too much fertiliser
Not too much Winter pruning as this encourages too much shoot and leaf growth
Spraying later on with Calcium Nitrate. Not very organic and would be a shame since the tree came to to me organic certified.

This may seem slightly geeky and over the top but did I ever mention that this is the World's finest apple? Oh! It seems I did.

Docks Monster

2011-04-15T16:40:00.003+01:00

Spotted this in Gloucester Docks while waiting for my MOT to be done. It wasn't attached to a ship but perhaps they were waiting for one that deserved it?

Adventures with a Fortic Tank

2011-03-16T22:53:00.003Z

Warning: This is a minority-interest geeky post! A Fortic Tank is not military item with tracks and a few bangy accessories. It's a sort of hot water tank and fits in an ordinary airing cupboard. Indeed, that's where I first met one. I'm sorry to disappoint those hoping for a story of romance in a plumber's merchant.

It's still an interesting though and as in Hitch-Hikers Guide to the Galaxy, someone ends up with a bruised arm. In keeping with the tradition and to maintain the suspense, the leftness or rightness of the arm will not be disclosed until later.

Anyway, every now and again, the immersion heater fails. The first time this happened was a learning experience. I turned off the cold water and opened the hot taps to drain the thing. Next I applied a huge spanner to the heater element and after a lot of banging and cursing got it to rotate. As I did this a few drops of water oozed out. I turned it some more and as there seemed to be a growing trickle of stray water, I put a bucket underneath.

Suddenly, the element fell out followed by a torrent of water. Whoosh! I had a frantic five minutes emptying buckets before the water stopped. A bit like Pinocchio in Sorcerer's Apprentice but with an exponentially decreasing quantity of water.

Learning point 1: Draining a Fortic Tank isn't as simple as it looks.

I replaced the element and 18 months later that one failed :-(
So I repeated the banging, cursing and whooshing procedure but with bigger buckets. The old element was horribly corroded so I looked around on the Internet and discovered….

Learning point 2: The cheap copper elements are no good in hard water areas. I needed to buy an "Incoly" element.

So, I replaced the element and 6 years later that one failed :-(

By now, I was fed up with the banging, cursing and especially the whooshing and only partially effective buckets. Also, since this was about the 5th element I was concerned not to break something and have to replace the whole shebang. I really wanted an element that would last too…

Learning point 3: They make elements out of Titanium. Hard to find and costing about £80 but supposedly the best.

Learning point 4: You're supposed to do the banging and cursing with the cylinder full. It's more rigid and less likely to break. You drain it after the element starts to move.

Learning point 5: Used my non-whoosh draining technique. This is how it works:

You need:

Siphon tube (I used B&Q "Water Supply Pipe for use with B&Q easy watering system")
Blob of blue-tack

Method:

Start with the tank full
Stop cold water coming in. Careful application of elastic cord on the ball cock can avoid the need to turn off the rest of the system
Fill a siphon tube with water. Block one end with a lump of blue tack and the other end with a finger. (Filling tip: Put tube in a bath, stuff one end up the cold tap, turn on and wait for a steady stream at the far end)
Plunge your finger, tube and hand into the water in the top tank.
Take your finger off the tube end but ensure the tube end is kept below the water.
Feed the tube into the pipe joining the two tanks. On my tank, it's angled favourably. Keep feeding, you will probably be able to tell when it hits the exit and enters the bottom tank. It's awkward and it's at this point that I acquired some nicely coloured bruises on my right arm.
Feed in another 6" of tube for luck
Unblock the far end of the tube and check for a steady flow. Have a cup of tea and come back to make sure it's still flowing.
Turn on hot taps etc to assist draining
Do something else for about 9 hours - which is how long mine took to drain.
Suggest you leave the tube in place (bunged!) until you are sure you won't need it again.

So is titanium any good? Don't know yet. Come back in 6 years!

Gaddafi and his regime will survive

2011-03-11T17:53:00.003Z

I don't like what I hear of the man but I think he's going to win. Unlike some of the recently departed leaders of nearby states, he's kept his nerve and doesn't worry too much about his image.

The rhetoric from the EU and NATO is all mouth and he knows it. The chances of any effective intervention is remote:

Effective intervention is pretty difficult
A strong and nasty leader of Libya provides stability and certainty that our governments prefer to the uncertain alternatives.

Telling him to stand down is simply playing to the gallery. He's got very good reasons to fight to the last man. There is no safe bolt-hole for him and his sizable family. To stand down is suicidal - or at the very least a route to a jail cell for the rest of his life.

It may take some time but he's going to mop up this rebellion and kill a lot of people. He has no reason to do otherwise and it's unlikely anyone will give him one.

The Tarragon Experiment

2011-02-16T23:06:00.000Z

I like tarragon but the stuff in the garden is skulking underground. Last year it waited until July to show itself. So when I noticed Tesco had packets of fresh tarragon - flown in from Israel - I bought some, wrapped it round some chicken and cooked it. Great! Really strong tarragon flavour.

Then I had an idea. I bought another packet and put some stems in a pot of compost. So I may end up with a supply of fresh super-strong tarragon both for the garden and the window ledge.

I was going to try the same with some lemon thyme but the flavour, although strong wasn't quite lemony enough.

Card security sucks

2011-01-23T17:07:00.000Z

Got a replacement credit card recently. Using the contents of the single postal package and two very easily obtainable pieces of information about me, I managed to activate it, view my PIN and change my statement delivery to paperless. Fortunately, I am me. Had that post gone astray, it would have been too easy for someone to have run up a large bill!

A Digression

2011-01-19T17:20:00.001Z

I was thinking today about the Thursday Market in town and how it has changed over the years. It used to be by the gasworks and a blind man could find that for the same reason as he could find the brewery - though neither establishment thought to offer a factory outlet and make a profit from their commitment to diversity. Of course, the market used to be much larger and largely taken up with men selling complete dinner-services on the "I'm not asking you to pay £10, I'm not asking £5, ladies and gentlemen, who will offer me £2 10s?" system. There was a "Temperance" café - where "temperance" actually meant "abstinence" - see we had "spin" even before decimal coinage! The posters on the wall explained how animals only drank water - which I knew to be lie because our dog enjoyed Guinness when he could get it. But then, I digress….

I've seen another van

2010-12-06T15:46:00.003Z

Nearly crashed today staring at a "Cotswold Dog Spa" van. Yes, they do offer Canine Hydrotherapy which I've sneered at before. They even offer "canine sports massage".

What is wrong with the modern dog? If it needs a bath, sure it's a tussle but it can be achieved with simple equipment at home! And if it's ill, you take it to a vet who diagnoses Worms and prescribes dried rhubarb pills.

It'll be an Albatross Flying School or Hippopotamus Dieting next!

Scottish Power marketing = Hotel California

2010-11-30T20:06:00.003Z

Your Question: Why are you contacting me for marketing purposes when I've opted out of marketing?

All our customers have the option to opt out of marketing. You can view and amend your preference at My Account and check the 'My details' section. Alternatively, you can telephone on 0845 270 6543 (Lines are open Monday to Friday 8:00am - 7:00pm, Saturday 9:00am - 1:00pm). If you opt out of marketing, we will be unable to send you details of offers and services that could save you money. But we will still contact you in relation to the service we provide you.

Duh!

Caste

2010-11-25T23:18:00.001Z

Read an article recently about discrimination on the basis of "caste". In India (and presumably the Diaspora) there is an ancient system of social division, which I don't really understand but it's used to deny people jobs and other things.

So, understandably, there's a move towards outlawing discrimination on these grounds. In English law, this would be recognising caste as a "protected characteristic" like race, age, sex and the rest. You'll notice I haven't done an exhaustive list of "protected characteristics" for three reasons:

I'm too lazy to look it up
I'd probably leave one out
I wanted to make a point!

My point is that it will be years before caste is added to the list in the laws and that doesn't seem right. It should be on the statute book today. Transgender people only got on the list a few years back. It's nonsense.

I'm not a lawyer but it would seem better if unjustified discrimination were outlawed pure and simple and there was no ever growing "list".

Polish Takeaway

2010-11-18T17:51:00.001Z

I see we have one of these locally. History repeating itself as each wave of migrants tempts us with their cuisine - and that word itself I suspect is not native :-)

Anyway, there was a menu in the widow. A list of incomprehensible items with prices. I reflected on how more customer-friendly the equivalent menus were in 1970s Chinese and Indian takeaways. Sure, they had foreign words but each item also had a number for embarrassment-free ordering. And there were English descriptions too such as "rices with vegetable" which served to inform and amuse.

But history hasn't repeated itself exactly. The owners of Indian takeaways in 1970s Britain were often the only people of that ethnicity in town. Pioneers. Very few of them were nurses, engineers, doctors, etc.

With the Poles it's been different. The pioneers arrived a decade ago. The Polish takeaways, grocers, etc. came later and are not there for to provide the occasional exotic treat for the English natives. They're for Polish people.

A couple of dancing things

2010-11-16T23:03:00.001Z

Went to a traditional French dance and two girls start playing flute and harp. Lovely, but what IS it? Lot of people struggle for a bit but eventually we all settle down to a much slower Mazurka than normal. Great! I could feel and savour every step!

Several dance teachers have irritated me lately - mainly by talking too much. Nice people, good dancers but no idea how to teach. Some other teachers - who get a significant part of their income from dance teaching are much better.The paying public demand it. Some of them that have proper businesses and franchise systems have clearly been trained to teach. All that mucking about with money and accreditation is an anathema to some but it works!

Gardener Tax

2010-11-07T16:59:00.001Z

Our Council is fed up with collecting garden refuse in reusable green bags free of charge. Instead, they are offering to rent us bins - a snip at £36/year. Or we can drive to the tip. They just don't get this environment lark do they?

Dancer Memory

2010-10-11T23:11:00.002+01:00

Out dancing tonight, I saw a face I thought I recognised. Couldn't remember her name, or where I knew her from. Somewhere, a fleeting memory that she was good to dance with. It was enough :-)

After the dance she told me she hadn't danced for 3 years. It's often like this with dancers. There are people who can't remember my name but know they (don't) want to dance with me.

Men expressing feelings

2010-10-07T20:31:00.000+01:00

It's supposed to be a good thing. We're told that women want men to do this and it really frustrates them when we won't. There's propaganda that it's what "real men" do and how happy it makes women.

Good news ladies, it can happen but we need your help! On those rare occasions when the man in your life does express his feelings - especially if it's about inadequacy, fear, grief etc - put your arms around him and whisper in his ear "That's so sexy darling, let's go upstairs….."

Bus rental

2010-10-02T12:06:00.000+01:00

Saw a sign on the back of a bus "Drive this bus for £7.25 an hour" with a phone number. Just for a minute or two, I pondered this. Would I pay £7.25 to drive a bus round for an hour? Would it be fun? Brm Brm! Then my brain tapped me on the shoulder and explained the scheme was that I would get paid £7.25 if I drove the bus around for an hour. Strangely, that didn't seem to be such a fun idea.

Spiders like my Rosemary

2010-09-27T16:24:00.001+01:00

Picture says it all, really

A few apples

2010-09-26T19:56:00.002+01:00

Just three apples from my Ashmead's Kernel tree this year. Had over 100 good ones last season which is possibly the reason. It's tired out poor thing although the scientists call it "biennial bearing" and further damn the variety as "erratic".

I think it's building itself up for next year, it's got about twice the normal number of leaves (see pic) so it should have made a whole lot of sugar. It'll need a good cold winter though to make sure of a good crop. The cold tells the tree that it's really had a winter and now it's spring and kicks off the springy things like blossom. If trees had evolved wearing digital watches, it would have been simpler and, err, more digital. If you see an apple tree that does have a watch strapped to the trunk, let me know….

More about the Ashmead's Kernal

Local Hypericum

2010-09-08T19:28:00.004+01:00

This is a bush we have an most of the gardens along my street. One of the less civilised Hypericums (aka St John's Wort), it's scruffy and self seeds fairly easily. No one has grubbed it out and replaced it with an "official" plant from a Garden Centre and if I ever upgrade this blog to scratch'n'sniff you'll understand why.
When it's sunny, the whole plant (not just the flowers) has a gorgeous and powerful scent. Think warm treacle, tobacco and rubber.

You'll sometimes see me leaning over garden walls and sniffing furtively at other people's tidy Hypericums. I'm just checking they haven't caught up with our variety :-)

Can I multitask? Perhaps…

2010-08-15T13:35:00.002+01:00

Regular readers - and I think there's at least two of you :-) will know that I don't do multitasking. Talk to me (or worse still, witter) when I'm dancing and it all goes to pot and I probably won't ask you to dance again.

But wait, at the Sidmouth Festival recently, I danced and talked with A all at the same time and it worked! And thinking about it, I've done that with her before.

So what's going on?

Well, she's a very fine dancer. So perhaps she makes it so easy for me that my brain has the capacity for conversation? Could be.

Another possibility is that she has the sensitivity to know when I've got the capacity to talk and listen and when I haven't.

Pretty good either way. Unfortunately, I think she has a boyfriend. Not surprising really...

The People's Republic of Hulme

2010-08-08T23:31:00.004+01:00

BBC Radio 4 recently did a documentary on Hulme, part of Manchester. If you're quick, you can Listen Again

It's a fascinating story of Tamil refugees, deck-access flats, squatting, demolition, a no-go area for the police and a rich alternative culture.

My connection? A few years ago, I got a day's work delivering some training to an organisation based there. In preparation, I used Multimap to plan a route. Having got a small-scale map of my approach, I zoomed in for more detail. Something went horribly wrong - the layout of the streets on the large-scale map was almost completely different. When I finally arrived, it was clear that a large part of the area had only just been rebuilt. Multimap must have used some mapping from before and after.

Here's links to some less geeky stuff:

Wikipedia on Hulme

Photos of the old Hulme

Café Sarnie

2010-07-24T16:22:00.002+01:00

It's a café in Cheltenham town centre between Tesco and the taxi office. It's old fashioned - a throwback to the 1960s. Not quite authentic - the ketchup is not in a tomato-shaped container and the wartime posters are reproductions. They don't talk about cholesterol, they just DO it. Popped in there at lunchtime today and realised I hadn't had a proper breakfast so I ordered one. They didn't bat an eyelid. The kitchen is in the basement so the girl leaned out of the back window and shouted the order down. All the puddings are served with the option of custard or ice-cream. They do coffee but don't get clever and try ordering cappuccino. It's probably the last of it's kind - I'm sure there are others in less sophisticated towns like Gloucester but we are Cheltenham Spa.

Jury - The End

2010-07-22T20:25:00.002+01:00

Our ancient and venerable legal system sent me a text. They've made me redundant - it's over. Quick reflections:

It's interesting in parts
But take a book for the boring bits

It's been a quiet week on the jury

2010-07-22T01:57:00.000+01:00

They gave us Monday off. Tuesday and today, we didn't even get into Court, sill less do any Deliberating because all the defendants decided to plead guilty at the last moment.

While we were waiting for this to actually happen, we were let out into the car park for cigarettes and fresh air - an optimistic combination.

Anyway, In one corner, near the public loos, I noticed an umbrella, a pile of bedraggled possessions and a man sat with them smoking. I recognised him as the guy who on the first day told me quietly "You're trespassing, pal". I would have tried talking to him again but the usher sternly told us not to talk to anyone. She did consent to convey a fag to him from one of the smokers.

I popped into the office later and Mel knew about the chap. She thinks he's been living there for about twenty years! I tried Googling for information and found nothing. Maybe after this all over, I'll go back and talk to him.

Jury - The Verdict

2010-07-16T22:36:00.002+01:00

Any of you could have sat in the public gallery and seen more of this interesting and unusual case than we did. You'd have got the lawyers arguments and all the fun stuff denied to us.

The defendant was accused of committing some sexual offences last year. Unfortunately, over subsequent months his health had declined to the point that the judge said he was "unfit to plead" - we would not be hearing from the man at all. He wasn't allowed to tell us if he was guilty or not. He just sat there silently in the dock throughout.

The question put to us was not the usual one of guilt - just whether he did the alleged acts with no account of what the judge called the "mental element".

The poor defence barrister pointed out that he was unable to present us with an alternative version of events - all he could do was pick holes in the prosecution case.

So, after a couple of days, our foreman was asked if it was proved that the defendant had done the act. And all four times, the foreman said "No"

The judge told the defendant he was free to leave. I watched as he got to his feet, turned and walked out and closed the door behind him - still a complete stranger.

Jury day 3

2010-07-15T01:00:00.001+01:00

Starting to get to know some of the people on the jury with me today. Quite a mix. There are a couple of students, a barmaid, an engineer and a woman who complains about everything. We didn't get started until after lunch today because one of the barristers is trying to run another case in Swansea simultaneously. Once in Court, I'm still in creaky seat number 10 and will be until we finish this case.

At a quiet point I look up at the public gallery and try to work out who might be friends and family of the people involved and who has just come in out of the rain. If you have the time, it's worth spending some time in the public gallery of your local court. There certainly are interesting and dramatic cases but under the rules, I can't say much more than that.

Jury Service - Days 1&2

2010-07-13T19:47:00.001+01:00

It started with a heart-warming attempt by a member of one of our migrant communities to do his citizen duty by turning up as summoned despite having no knowledge of English. Helpfully, he'd brought his wife and daughter along to interpret but the usher would have none of it and told him to go away.

Our Courts are run on a basis of a lot of false starts and hanging around. As a trial is about to start, the usher gets his computer to produce a list of 16 names out of the 28 or so of us hanging around. Then he asks who is willing to swear on the bible, who wants to "affirm" and (anxiously) are there any requests for other holy books? Then he prints 16 cards with our names on. Then, it's quite likely word will come that the defendant has pleaded guilty at which point Mr. Usher tears up all the paperwork and throws it in the bin.

A little later the whole process repeats from scratch! As a result, I didn't get to do a trial at all on the first day but such was the excitement that when I got home I went to sleep on the sofa and missed going out dancing.

Today was better. Sixteen of us got led into court but then they shuffle the name cards and call out 12 names to form the jury. Smiling, the usher shows me to seat number 10. I mention this detail because if you are ever a juror at Gloucester Crown Court, you would do best to avoid seat 10 in court 1 because it creaks loudly at the slightest movement resulting in intense embarrassment.

For various reasons, I can't say much about the actual case and anyway, we kept on getting thrown out so we wouldn't see the ugly spectacle of "legal arguments" by the lawyers. Why can't they just get along?

Presentations

2010-07-03T14:07:00.002+01:00

Was at a small presentation recently and this woman started by handing out some papers while she chattered away. Most people started reading but I put the papers to one side and listened. Someone noticed and I explained that I couldn't read and listen properly at the same time. This provoked some unfortunate comments about men and multi-tasking.

Anyway, introduction over, here's my tips for doing and surviving presentations:

If the presenter gives out documents and doesn't stop talking, put the papers to one side and listen. You can read stuff later but you can't usually "listen again"

Presenters: Give out documents at the end if you want to be listened to. Tell them you're going to do that and that there's no need to take notes.

Presenters, consider not using technical equipment at all. I was at a day-long meeting recently and everyone (except me) had their stuff on Powerpoint. Nothing actually went wrong but there was loads of fumbling.

In contrast, I stood up with 18 sheets of paper - about a dozen prompt words on each. The delegates all watched me because there was noting else to watch and I think I got the biggest round of applause of the day.

Actually, I'm not totally against Powerpoint. If you run a presentation on screen as you say the same words, people can choose which to focus on according to what works for them. It's essential that you are slick with the technology though - to be precise, best to use your own familiar system, preferably on home ground.

Free

2010-05-26T21:27:00.000+01:00

I was organising a little gathering for the first afternoon of the Chippenham Folk Festival. I asked a fairly new dancer to come along. She asked what it involved

I explained that it involves drinking beer
She said she is teetotal
Then I told her we also plan to eat fine cheese
She is "dairy free"
So I pointed out that she could eat some crackers
She is "wheat free"

I've told her to come and watch :-)

This Election Lark

2010-05-04T21:55:00.002+01:00

One of my former neighbours had a nice line in political posters in his window. Lines I can remember include:

"Don't vote - it only encourages them"
"Guy Fawkes - The only man to enter Parliament with honest intentions"

Don't know what happened to the neighbour....

Health and Safety

2010-04-21T21:49:00.003+01:00

Ray told me a funny joke the other day. I laughed so much I fell off my chair. As he fancies himself as a bit of a Health and Safety expert, he was suitably embarrassed :-)

A Riddle

2010-04-14T16:48:00.001+01:00

Q: What do chickens and visually impaired people have in common?

A: Fear of boy scouts who insist on helping them cross the road.

They don't want to cross the road but modern scouts know better and anyway have a target to meet for "being helpful".

Disturbing Films

2010-04-04T18:12:00.001+01:00

I've read a few reviews of "How to Train Your Dragon" that have picked up on some of the "messages" in the film. None of them noticed an alarming messages that makes this "PG" film entirely unsuitable for children. The heroine hits the hero - but wait, she kisses him afterwards so that's Ok.

Then there was "Fantastic Mr. Fox" where Mrs Fox hits Mr Fox and draws blood. It's just "PG" as well.

So, the message (young) girls is that it's OK to hit your man.

Can you imagine the uproar if a film promoted men hitting women?

Actually, there are such films but they tend to be called "horror", rated 18 and it isn't the hero hitting the woman.

Caraway Thyme

2010-04-04T12:11:00.003+01:00

I've been growing this for years. Or more accurately, of the dozen or so thymes I've tried, this is the one that's survived and flourished.

Useful in the kitchen - does what it says on the tin - you can tell it's thyme but it's also got a Caraway taste. Unlike some of the other fancy thymes, it's got some wallop and the flavour is still there when you get the chicken out of the oven. To be fair, if you incinerate your chicken rather than gently roast it that won't apply.

The botanists amongst you will of course know that it isn't a cultivar of Thymus Vulgaris but a separate species, Thymus herba-barona. For the gardener/cook who wants to try it, you won't find it in every Garden Centre but it's not rare either. The garden designers will want to know that forms evergreen mounds of grey-green leaves with light mauve flowers in summer.

In the North East

2010-03-08T12:17:00.005Z

Went dancing in Durham. It's a dance festival run by, and mainly for students but they let anyone in. On the first night, later on, they had what they called a "Disco Ceilidh". The idea was that you dance what some would call "English Country Dances" to modern pop. It's not quite as bad as it sounds although the music doesn't fit the dances particularly well. After watching this for a while I had an idea. I grabbed Ruth - who is never knowingly conventional - and we jived - right in the centre of the room while several hundred people did some Sicilian circle dance around us. Magic!

I like Durham. The town has lots of old and interesting bits - including a number of pedestrian bridges crossing the river and up on into the town. However, it's not a "tourist trap" it feels like a town that's got more important if mundane things to get on with, - like working, making excellent chips and drinking!

So, Saturday tea time was spent in the back of the 'Shakespeare' drinking real beer. Claire sang several songs and Ruth played whistle along with the other musicians. Jon, Phil and I sipped our beer and nodded wisely.

At the "Survivors Ceilidh" on Sunday we had the World Première of a dance I'd written. Based on the idea that you often need a dance for crowded places I adapted an almost-traditional dance named after Clopton Bridge in Stratford upon Avon. Wondering what to call the new dance, I looked on a map for a nearby place. I happened on "Avon Industrial Estate". I don't think that name will be taken already…. :-)

Below: Pictures of informal late night dancing and one of Durham's many bridges

Maltese Drinking Clubs (And other cultural discoveries)

2010-02-25T00:20:00.001Z

Had a go at this "winter sun" malarkey and went to Malta. It was sunny and unlike Birmingham Airport, it didn't have the "wrong sort of snow". It was a partly escorted tour and while the other half of the group were having their turn down an archaeological hole in the ground, the local guide casually pointed out what he called a "Band Club". The official story is that the Band Club provides a band to accompany a saint's statue in procession on the saint's day. So they erect a large building with glass case to store the statue in. And while they're at it, they build a bar. So, for the other 364 days of the year when there's no procession, they smoke, drink and don't let women in. It's a bit like a Morris side in the UK. Top picture is taken in Nadur, Gozo while one with some of the many small dogs is from Paola in the mainland. The inside of this one is quite ornate

Actually, there's a lot of small dogs in Malta which is perhaps appropriate for one of the smaller European countries - but I digress - another institution is the Malta Labour Party. They seem to have an "office" in every village and - yes, you guessed it - it's also a bar. The picture with the huge flag is on the waterfront in Marsaxlokk

There's scenery too. The picture of open countryside is near Nadur. The yellow flowers (Paleocyanus crasifoleus) were introduced during the "British Period" from South Africa and just spread. Went to the orange sand Ramla Bay. It's got a rocky end too. Went for a paddle. No one else did. Clearly I was the only English on the beach...

Weather, Women and Dancing

2010-01-10T15:26:00.000Z

As I approached the dance place last night, I met one of the other blokes. He said that given the ice and snow, he expected a shortage of women. I thought he was probably right.

We were both wrong.

Sure, overall dancer numbers were way down but there were more women than men. Thinking about it, I realised I'd made this false assumption about women's attitude to difficult travel conditions before. However, when I look at other activities such as getting in to work, the image of men being bold risk-takers stacks up pretty well.

So, is it possible that some women make a special effort to go dancing when the weather is dreadful and risky? And why? Here are a few ideas:

Women who dance are special and are less worried about risk than average?
Women expect fewer other women to turn up and want to go where they think they are unlikely to be wallflowers?
Men expect fewer other women to turn up and don't want to go where they think they are going to have to compete for partners?
Women prefer to dance with bold, risk-taking men?

Facebook slow or crashing?

2010-01-09T12:58:00.001Z

Most people access Facebook via the main site and that's the all singing, all dancing version. As well as seeing what your friends are up to, the silly games and adverts work just fine.

At the other end of the scale, there's a very simple site that's really intended for mobile phone users. You can use it from your PC as well and it's very fast and doesn't hang up or crash like the main site. There's no "chat", games or adverts.

Then there's a happy medium which they call Facebook Lite. It does have chat and adverts. Not made it crash yet.

Finally, I discovered what they call the Touch Site which is another medium weight version. I'm not sure what its intended mission is. I suggest you just try it and see if you like it!

Asian Recycling

2010-01-08T20:25:00.003Z

Our local Asian grocer is into recycling in a unique way. He is unfashionably keen to offer customers a bag to take stuff home in. And the bags are not the flimsy Tesco "split under the weight of a jumbo pack of feathers" style. These are sturdy, heavy-duty items that rival the supermarket's "bag for life"

So, how is this recycling? Well, for a start, they're such decent bags, it wouldn't feel right to throw them away. Then when you look at them, you see that they are "surplus" or "bankrupt stock" from other businesses.

Fragment of a novel I'm writing

2010-01-06T02:05:00.000Z

In a corner of Martin's room, Meg noticed an old-fashioned draftsman's board with built in sliding rulers. She wandered over and looked at the drawing on it.

"This looks like some sort of shoe?"
"Yes, it's my design for a Chesil Boot" said Martin..
"What's one of those?"
Did you ever hear of Chesil Beach?
"Yeah, I remember going there on a geography field trip."
"Quite pebbly and difficult to walk on?"
"Yes, I remember now, Kelly Simpkins fell off her stupid high heels and broke her ankle"
"I'm going to walk that beach. All 18 miles of it - and not break anything!"
"Cool!"
Meg pointed to the drawing and looked at Martin questioningly.
He smiled and explained how the design supported and cushioned the foot.
"So that's what you engineers do?"
"Some of us"
Meg smiled.
"How many pairs are you going to make?"

The Geeky Seed Catalogue

2009-12-31T02:14:00.002Z

One of the joys of the "holiday season" is the first post after Christmas. This is when the Chiltern Seeds catalogue plops through the letterbox. Now, if you're a gardener, you'll be used to glossy catalogues with impossibly bright photographs of perfect flowers and vegetables. The Chiltern Seeds catalogue is 220 pages of plain text offering about 4000 different seeds. And what seeds!

Have you thought of growing a Silver Fir from seed? They have a mere half-dozen to choose from. For the ambitious, there is Abies Grandis that is not only very big, it has orange scented foliage. Then there is the hardy Fuchsia excorticaca which has blue pollen. They even offer seed for Cacti, Eucalyptus, Bananas and Tree Spinach. It's quite bizarre.

The brief descriptions are well written which makes it ideal for the armchair gardener as well. Here's just a sample:

Spinach, Tree 'Magentaspreen'

This is a vigorous plant, giving a colourful display, with smooth stems striped red and green, producing large leaves of a brilliant magenta colour, covered when young with a red crystalline powder, and bearing long spikes of tiny reddish flowers. The leaves, tastiest when young, are eaten raw or cooked as spinach. 6-8 ft.

They've got a website and for just £2.00 they'll send you a copy of the paper catalogue and a random packet of seeds post free. If you're a geeky gardener, it's the best value in town.

Rocket

2009-12-13T17:55:00.000Z

I first started growing Rocket about 4 years ago. I thought that "wild rocket" sounded the most fun - and it was. It grew to a large bush about a metre in all directions. The leaves were if not hot, very warm and spicy. You're supposed to use them in salads but after buying some roast beef and rocket sandwiches in a shop, I decided to go for home made.

A bit later in the summer, there was another bonus. Small, sweetly scented yellow flowers. My garden is fairly enclosed so on a sunny day the smell met you on the path. The bees liked them too, which is another environmental box ticked.

This year, a bit of a set back. I'd bought in the beef, bread and butter before wandering down the garden for the Rocket. It just wasn't there. Not only the main bush - even the self-sown seedlings had vanished. Now, I was used to Rocket dying back in winter but by early summer, I just assumed it would be back. The very sharp frost we had last winter had taken it out.

Went down the garden centre for seed. This time, decided to try a variety called "Skyrocket" which claims "the speed of Salad Rocket and the flavour of Wild Rocket" Initial tasting is good - I know this sounds like posing but the flavour has both strength and complexity.

And, just in case of a cold winter, I'm keeping a pot under cover :-)

The Oca Harvest is in!

2009-12-10T17:01:00.001Z

It wasn't raining for a change so I took a fork to the Oxalis tuberosa and dug it up. Underneath were the Oca tubers. A quick rinse got the soil off the waxy skin and I sunk my teeth in. Crunchy. Sharp. I know it's gardening/culinary cliché but they really are "nutty". Brazil nutty.

Above: The plant in summer

Links
Growing and eating ocas
Plants For a Future page about Oca
Realseeds - suplier

Retail

2009-11-30T10:38:00.008Z

Martin approached the convenience store counter with dread, He put the newspaper on the counter.
"Good Morning Sir!"
"Hullo"
Janet - for that was the name on her badge - swept up the paper and waved it at the barcode reader.
"That’s 50p"
Martin held out a coin.
"Any mobile top ups Sir?"
"No, I have a contract phone."
"Any stamps Sir?"
"No, I use email these days."
"Convenience Loyalty Plus card at all Sir?"
Martin shook his head and Janet took his 50p.
"Janet?"
Fear crossed her face. Didn't he realise that the transaction was over?
"Why do you always ask me if I want a mobile top up and all the other rubbish?"
"Just doing my job, Sir"
" I wouldn't tell anyone"
Janet pointed silently to the CCTV camera.

Surviving in a Multi-Tasking World

2009-11-29T17:16:00.000Z

I don't do multi-tasking. Well, I do - just incredibly badly. So if I'm trying to drive through Swindon's "Magic Roundabout" at the same time as a passenger wants me to discuss the 30 Years War, just be somewhere else Ok?

Yes, I know that I should calmly explain to the passenger that I "don't do multi-tasking and although their conversation about the 30 Year War is fascinating, I would prefer to defer the subject until Wootton Basset"

Of course, to be able to accomplish that, I'd have to be able to multi-task in the first place. Finally, I have an answer. I just say "Thursday". Works fairly well.

Some people just talk for the mouth exercise and don't even notice that my reply doesn't make sense

Others actually listen and are confused by my irrelevant answer. Most of them work out that I am not listening even if they don't know why and give up
A few friends know about the "Thursday" system and understand.

Actually, it surprises me that people who talk at drivers trying to drive through the "Magic Roundabout" aren't dead yet. Charlie Darwin needs to make fewer films and get on with the day job

London

2009-11-24T01:58:00.002Z

Went dancing in London and thereabouts (Ran Tan Band and Boka Halat) last weekend with Martin from Vienna, Angela and Ian from Norfolk which was good but here are some other highlights:

Seeing a sign "Strawberry Hill Train Care Depot". How cuddly can you get? Does the fat controller have a soft side?
The Komodo Dragons at London Zoo. Not as awesome as expected. More sad and intelligent.

They also had Asiatic Otters. Rather gregarious, noisy and love posing

Postcard Teas are at the geeky/quality end of the tea market. The system is that you go in and select a tea from the list and get to sample it for £1.50 a cup (more for really rare stuff). You can buy bags of leaves too. I enjoyed "Dark Mountain Oolong"
Went to the Cabinet War Rooms which is the bunker from which the Second World War was fought in Britain. It's well known that Hitler had a bunker but so did Churchill. Lots of old telephones and scramblers the size of a 1990s PC. A good detail was the audio guide system - you held this stick to your ear and it said stuff like "to your left you will see X" and you did see X. It's actually quite hard to get stuff like that right.
Went to Trafalgar Square to see the "Ghost Forest". Didn't work for me so a I wandered over to St Martins in the Fields (which lacks fields in a big way and may face prosecution under the Trade Descriptions Act) and sat at the back while a choir and small orchestra practised some Purcell.
Smashing Lebanese snack place near Baker Street tube.
Breakfast with Tink featuring Tesco's "Value" smoked bacon. Forget the "delicately smoked over organic applewood chips" stuff you see at a premium, This is not delicate. You know it's bacon and you are in little doubt that it was smoked. Smashing as was the company.
Solving the mystery of how to find the train you want at Waterloo (Wait until 4 minutes before scheduled departure, stare at the electronic boards as they briefly indicate which of 19 platforms to go to. Do not blink or the information will be gone and the train shortly afterwards)
Breakfast with Martin at a Garden Centre that seemed to sell almost everything except plants, seeds, spades, etc. Martin swears that sort of stuff is there, you just have to look hard.

Will bookshops become extinct?

2009-10-16T23:54:00.000+01:00

I used to have a bookshop addiction. Then I discovered online bookshops such as Amazon. Not only is Amazon cheaper - even with the postage - they rarely seem to be out of stock. And they do secondhand too. Amazon is cheaper for music as well. I got a CD I wanted for £6 including postage. The HMV shop wanted £18.

I can't see how High Street bookshops can survive :-(

Cheltenham LitFest

2009-10-15T21:18:00.000+01:00

I've been going to this event for decades but I seem to becoming addicted.

You know how on BBC Radio 4, talk programmes, the guest always uses the phrase "in my book" from time to time? Well, Cheltenham Literature Festival is just the same except less technology is involved. The audience feedback mechanism is faster though - you just wave at the guy with the roving microphone and there you are asking Michael Mansfield, Oleg Gordievsky, John Irving or some other luminary a question in real time. None of that tedious modern emailing nonsense!

So, yeah, they talk about their books but the other stuff is fun too. A guy called Peter Millar told us about being in East Berlin when the Wall fell in 1989. Matthew D’Ancona talked about "Being British" and Stella Rimmington gave us her ideas on what the real security threats are today. Still to come, we have Susie Orbach, Tony Benn and Kate Adie. And many more!

I'm sure there must be at least one who will not say "in my book"

Worlds finest apple!

2009-10-09T23:48:00.002+01:00

My 'Ashmead's Kernel' apple tree is a proper adult now and set about 300 large fruit. The local wildlife nibbled over half of them but there's still been a lot to eat and share. About 60 look perfect enough to store.

I took a bag into the office and got some rave reviews. This is only right and proper - the variety is very sweet and very sharp. I bough a Cox's Orange Pippin for comparison porposes and it was bland.

The tree itself still looks weighed down even though the crop is all picked

Previous post about Ashmeads Kernel

Time to harvest the fuchsia berries

2009-10-01T00:58:00.000+01:00

Fuchsias are popular garden plants grown mainly for their many flowers. You can get food from them too. Around this time of year, you may see small berries hanging where there was previously a flower. They look like a very small almost black cherry. They are edible.

Not a lot of people know that!

Mine are Ok. See here for a general introduction to Fuchsia as a food plant with suggested varieties.

Grow Onions and Shallots in winter

2009-09-11T18:30:00.000+01:00

The kitchen garden can start to look a bit bare this time of the If like me, you get the urge to plant something, try overwintering onions or shallots. Every time you wander down the garden this winter, something will be happening! On a more practical note, you'll get a harvest earlier next year than with the normal spring planting.

Look in Garden Centres for "sets" which are actually small onion bulbs (or in the case of shallots, full sized bulbs) Check the packet to make sure the variety is suitable for winter use. Push then into soft soil about 6" (15cm) apart with the tops just poking out. Well before Christmas, green shoots emerge and by June, they're ready to harvest.

Some birds think it a fine game to pull them out of the soil so chuck on some netting for the first few months. The books suggest fertilising in March. Apart from that, there's not a lot to it. They are unlikely to dry out and they're out of the ground before most of the serious weeds get going in summer.

Sow and forget? I suppose so but that's not as much fun.

A Good Story

2009-08-11T23:06:00.003+01:00

I was on a bus. Not a Clapham Omnibus - that would have been too easy. No, this was the festival bus at Sidmouth. It was about midnight and the bus wasn't going anywhere. I looked out the window and saw the reason why….

Beth, the lady in the rainbow coat had captured our bus driver. She's a storyteller and was in full flow. Our bus driver (middle) was hopelessly enthralled. On the left was some random member of the public similarly engrossed. As such, a standard hazard to traffic at folk festivals along with Morris dancers and buskers.

We did get back to the camp site eventually but that, as they say, is another story…

Red Duke Of York

2009-07-02T00:22:00.002+01:00

It's a potato I tried growing in a pot this year. It's a "first early" which I though meant the same as a "new" potato. So I boiled them and they fell apart! Then I looked them up properly and found that they're best for baking - indeed, Waitrose sell them as "summer bakers". According to Alan Romans, William Sim of Fyvie, Aberdeenshire, bred the original "Duke of York". Then in a field somewhere in Holland, it spontaneously mutated into the red form....

Alan Romans, seed potato expert extraordinaire

If you think your job is the pits…..

2009-06-29T23:19:00.001+01:00

…it could be worse. You could stand at the entrance to Asda with a badge saying "I am your greeter today!" you can tell it's the worst job in the place because all these greeters look so miserable. And isn't the whole concept of someone paid to greet you at the entrance to a supermarket just completely awful?

And the worst part? "Word" doesn't query the spelling of "greeter". It thinks it's a real word.

Charlie Darwin has been at it again

2009-06-09T00:06:00.001+01:00

I grow Brassicas which you may know as a fancy name for cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, radishes etc. Enter, the Cabbage White Butterfly which probably has a Latin name but who cares? These beasties used to lay neat yellow clumps of eggs on the leaves of my crops that hatched out into caterpillars and decimated the foliage.

So I got a system. Once or twice a week, I'd check the kitchen garden for said neat yellow clumps of eggs and squash them. Result! No caterpillars. Woot!

Until this year when Charlie upped the ante. I found a load of fully-grown caterpillars munching away at the kohlrabi leaves. On the Sea Kale too. No eggs anywhere!

I'm still trying to work out how he's done it. Maybe there are eggs but they're so small or well camouflaged that I haven't spotted them. Or maybe the eggs are just as big as they ever were but were laid on some other plant and the caterpillars marched across the lawn?

Answers, as they say, on a postcard.

Tested

2009-06-06T23:30:00.001+01:00

The office has some square holes in the wall. A lot are filled with network connectors, phone jacks or 13 amp power sockets. Someone put in more than we needed so some are just empty, yawning holes. Not a problem! Somewhere in deepest Milton Keynes, a marketing guy spotted an opportunity! Blanking plates! A simple square of plastic with holes for fixing screws. And, realising the importance of offering lifestyle choices he decreed that for a few pence more, the consumer could have stylish rounded corners on their blanking plates as well as the plain economy model.

But I digress. We had these holes in the office wall and the office was so quiet, I had time to deal with them. As I fitted the blanking plates, I noticed that they all had a sticky label, "Tested".

I fell to wondering just how they test blanking plates? Maybe someone stares hard at them, daring them to laugh? Or puts 1000 volts across them to see if they burst into flame?

I suppose it's designed to make me feel reassured. I'm not that sort of guy. I'm just not going to trust "Tested" stickers any more.

Overlapped Seed Sowing

2009-05-18T00:18:00.002+01:00

Warning - seriously geeky gardening post!

There are a number of techniques for getting the maximum crop out of a kitchen garden. In "Catch Cropping" as soon as a crop has finished, you clear the ground and plant something else.

I take it one step further. I don't wait for crop A to finish, I sow seeds for crop B during the last few weeks of crop A's life. Here's an example:

Mid February: Sow Broad Beans
Early July: Sow Dwarf Beans seed under the still growing Broad Beans. For the first half of July, the Dwarf Beans stay underground doing whatever Dwarf Beans do when they only just been sown.
Mid July: Broad Bean harvest finished, cut them down. Dwarf Beans start to show
Autumn: Harvest Dwarf Beans.

Disadvantages? Yeah, there's a few:

Those of an organic bent will know that you are supposed to dig in Broad Bean plants after harvest. With this system you can't do that directly. You'd have to dig them in on some other part of the garden or just put them on the compost heap.

The books tell you that the main harvesting period for Broad Beans is July and August. If that's when yours area ready, this system won't work. I've found that mid-June to mid-July is the season here. I've tried to move it without much success.

You "should" sow Dwarf Beans much earlier. My system gives a somewhat smaller and later crop. Consider using cloches towards the end of their life.

Another crop that lends itself to this technique is overwintering onions. Here's the system:

Previous autumn: Plant overwintering onion sets
May/June: Sow/Plant Crop B seeds under the still growing onions
June/July: Harvest onions. Crop B starts to show
Whenever: Harvest Crop B

"Crop B" can be any of the many crops that you put in the ground in May or June - check your seed packets and gardening books. I've used tomato plants and plan to use Radicchio this year.

It was the beavers

2009-04-27T23:30:00.002+01:00

The place used to be called South Cerney Gravel Pits but the marketing guys changed it to Cotswold Water Park. It's a fair name though - if you scoop a load of gravel out of the ground, water seeps into the void and pretty soon, you've got a lake. Or, in the case of Cotswold Water Park, 133 lakes.

If was the beavers that made me go and have a look. There's a place called Lower Mill Estate where they've reintroduced Castor fiber. I didn't get to see them though because Lower Mill Estate turns out to be an exclusive "gated community" and I had to stick to public footpaths nearby. Took some photos….

Rebellious duck.

One of the houses on the Lower Mill Estate. Odd!

More upmarket houses? Or a student campus?

Resident

Economic Models Explained

2009-04-24T00:08:00.002+01:00

So I found this on the Net somewhere:

SOCIALISM
You have 2 cows.
You give one to your neighbour.

COMMUNISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and gives you some milk.

FASCISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and sells you some milk.

NAZISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both and shoots you.

BUREAUCRATISM
You have 2 cows.
The State takes both, shoots one, milks the other, and then throws the milk away.

...but the one I really love:

SURREALISM
You have two giraffes.
The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

:-)

Partnership

2009-03-24T21:34:00.001Z

Jeff was having a good day. He'd finally got the Counselling Centre a "partnership agreement". These things were so fashionable nowadays. True, the partner was only the tatty Catholic Church round the corner but they were friendly. Even given him their old confessional box with the suggestion he use it for "supervision" sessions with the counsellors he managed.

Damien, one of the younger counsellors had been sceptical but entered into the spirit of it…

"Bless me Supervisor for I have sinned!" he intoned
"And what sin would that be? Have you been Insensitive?"
"No"
"Made Assumptions?"
"No, worse than that. Oh, I can't say it!"
Jeff had a lot of experience so his next question seemed quite casual.
"Oh dear! Which client did you shag?"
"NO, it's WORSE than even that!!!!"
Jeff was bewildered
"Wow! What have you done? C'mon, spit it out!"
Tears filled Damien's eyes. Hesitantly he admitted his guilt
"I have been INCONSISTENT"
"Now I am shocked!" said Jeff firmly "Five hundred Hail Marys!

New phrase: Reputation Management

2009-03-20T22:24:00.003Z

Shortly after I blogged about the TV Licensing people, someone from Fishburn Hedges surfed by. I looked them up and they say they are "one of the leading reputation management firms in Europe" and their clients include "BBC TV Licensing"

They say: "we’re here to make a difference - to the reputation of their brand, organisation or campaign. To make them better. Not just look better, but be better. And always with a clear purpose: to change the behaviours and opinions of those who matter to them."

Sounds quite ethical although I'm twitchy about them trying to change my behaviours and opinions. Mind you, I suspect that TV refusniks like me are not " those who matter to them".

Respect, guys! You have the client from Hell!

Links

Fishburn Hedges
Me v TV Licensing

Less is more

2009-03-17T19:26:00.001Z

Just this week the doctor sent me to see his vampires. They call themselves Phlebotomists nowadays which is more cuddly but only marginally.

When I got to "Phlebotomy" (that's cuddly too, right?) about 20 other patients were already parked in various nooks and crannies. No sign of a queue or anything British. Lots of signs about the dangers of ultra violent ("What skin type are you?), the dangers of Osteoporosis (£35 for a test), the benefits of counselling (A fee is charged for this service), No smoking, wear a condom, keep fit…..

As I stood there looking bewildered, another patient took pity and directed me down a narrow corridor on the left and told me to take a numbered card from the board on the right. I got the card, sat down feeling pretty stupid and wondered if the compulsory 14 hour pre-test fast had damaged my brain.

Then another patient came in, looked bewildered at all the signage and had to be helped into the system. Every new patient went through the same procedure. Except for the lady who was there for Chemotherapy. There was a prominent red sign telling her not to take a number. So she didn't.

Now, somewhere in that room, there was a clear, unambiguous set of instructions but none of us could see them.

I wondered about having a word with the staff. Then I remembered what happened last time I gave similar feedback. It was in a small office where I worked. Wrote a memo!

Dear Boss

I just counted the notices on the walls. There are 241

Yours

Boss took action! She put a load of cubes onto the desks and transferred some of the notices to them. You can get 6 notices on a cube. Clever.

Doh!

Practical Pest Control #37 - TV Licensing Enforcement Officer

2009-03-16T00:34:00.009Z

As with all our articles on pest control, we start with a little biology. Contrary to statements on some websites, TV Licensing Enforcement Officers are not in fact reptiles. Surprisingly, they are actually mammals quite closely related to man!

The exact date of the introduction of this pest into the UK is unknown but it was probably after World War II. Like another recently arrived pest, Mink (Neovison vison) they were originally introduced for a practical reason.

In the case of Mink this was for fur farms but the animals escaped and kill many small wild and domestic creatures.

TV Licensing Enforcement Officer is used to hunt down people who use a TV without paying the licence fee. Unfortunately, they also harass people who don't have a TV.

Normal pest control methods such as trapping or shooting are not legal for TV Licensing Enforcement Officer. For many years there seemed to be no way of dealing with infestations but I've recently discovered a promising new method - and I'm going to share it with you free of charge.

Here's a little about their habits:

Any address without a license is sent an intimidating letter demanding that a licence is bought on pain of prosecution and a £1000 fine.

Novices who don't have a TV believe that all they need do is explain the situation and that will be the end of the matter.

They couldn't be more wrong. TV Licensing Enforcement Officer replies that since over a third of the people who claim not to need a licence are lying, they intend to come and search your house!

They do actually turn up sometimes. You don't have to let them in or even talk to them. (Unless they have a Search Warrant which is unusual)

The whole dreary cycle repeats. In my case, it's been going on for 30 years.

I was clear in my mind that I wanted to achieve:

Stop the visits

Stop the letters

Now, under common law, anyone has the right to walk up to your front door and knock unless you've told them not to. Legally, this is called withdrawing the implied right of access to your property - and it goes in the letter you send to their nest. That should stop the visits.

Next, you are not obliged to answer their threatening letters. So, you tell them you are introducing charges for dealing with them!
So here's the letter:

The British Broadcasting Corporation
Broadcasting House
Portland Place
London
W1A 1AA

Date

Dear Sirs
As you know, there has been no TV licence at this address for over 29 years. You also know that is because I don't have a TV. During the last 29 years, you have repeatedly harassed me with your letters, threats and enquiry officers.

1. I withdraw from the BBC, TV Licensing, your employees, agents and other associates the implied right of access to my property at (address)

2. You may acknowledge this letter.

3. You will not attempt to contact me or anyone at this address further except as set out below:

Fees that apply should you wish to continue contact with me:

3.1.1 Receiving communications from you by any media, £25 per occasion. I reserve the right to decide whether or not to respond to your communications.

3.1.2 Receiving visits in connection with TV Licenses, £50 per occasion, which must be sent at least 7 days before the visit. I will then telephone you to arrange a convenient time.

3.1.3 If you attempt a visit outside the terms of section 3.1.2 above, the fee rises to £75 payable in cash on the doorstep. Should your representative fail to pay the £75, not only will they not be admitted, you will be liable to a further invoicing charge of £25 making a total of £100.

I am entitled to use force to remove trespassers on my land.

I reserve the right to record any of your activities.

No communication from you purporting to vary any of the above has any validity unless explicitly agreed by me in writing.

If you are concerned that I'm an evader, use detection equipment from the street. Just leave me alone!

Yours

This should result in them writing back to you

Dear X
Thank you for you recent letter….
I am sorry…not our intention to harass….
Having received your letter, I have noted your effective withdrawal of the common law right for a TV Licensing Officer to approach your property. Your instructions will of course be adhered to….
…our standard renewal notices and unlicensed mailings have been stopped…
Thank you again for writing to us…..

Notes

My thanks to Ian K for suggesting the use of green ink.
Point 2 in my letter is vital. You need their acknowledgement of seeing your letter
Of course, they might not actually leave me alone but it will cost them money and embarrassment
I'm not a lawyer. Do not rely on this as legal advice

Lots more information on this fascinating pest animal

On the kindness of railway ticket office staff

2009-02-12T17:52:00.002Z

Glasgow where the guy pointed out that a return ticket to Mallaig was cheaper than the single I'd asked for.

Dublin where the clerk asked if the two of us were married? Anxiously, we told him "No" (this was 1980's Ireland), He said, "Look, say you are married and I can sell you a 'Family Ticket', it's cheaper". He sold us a "Dog, Bicycle or Pram" ticket for the tandem too.

Just today, in Cheltenham, I went to buy a ticket for a trip to Exeter. The guy cheerfully offered me a ticket to Exmouth via Exeter for £6.50 less.

Another seasonal tale

2009-02-11T01:14:00.001Z

Lucy finished changing out of her dancing clothes into her warm tracksuit and wandered back into the main hall. She looked around hoping to see the tall man who was a newcomer to the class. After all it was only polite to be welcoming to a stranger!

She found him buttoning himself into a very substantial winter coat. "Good coat" she said, "especially with all the snow that's fallen this evening"

"Thanks!" he replied, "I did come prepared - very prepared"
And with that, he took her hand and walked her out into the car park to his car and opened the boot.

Lying there was large sledge. "Help me lift it out!" he said and the next thing she knew they were trudging up the slope at the back of the hall dragging the sledge behind them.

At the top of the slope, they both got on the sledge and rode it down the hill in great style finally hitting a large snowdrift. Lucy allowed him to brush the loose snow off her before helping him put the sledge back in the car.

"Right" he said, "I must dash! Thanks for helping!"
Lucy was caught off guard, "See you next week?"
"Expect so! Bye" he said closing the car door.

They never met again.
Maybe they didn't need to.

Bob's Breakfast

2009-02-07T12:09:00.002Z

It wasn't really light when Bob awoke. He rolled over and was relieved to find the airbed had stayed up. Peering out of his sleeping bag at all the other sleeping bodies in the church hall he decided it was much too early to get up. Besides, he'd done a lot of drinking in the student bar last night. Then his knees reminded him about the dancing. It was his first time at any sort of festival and he'd had a lot of fun.

Then he noticed a girl of about his own age holding a coffee-pot. Seeing him she shook it and mouthed "Do you want a cup?" He nodded and she gestured to an older guy who added an extra scoop of coffee beans into a grinder. Then Bob noticed the two camping stoves - one with a kettle and one with a frying pan. A little later he was breakfasting on bacon, eggs and fresh coffee with his new friends.

Suddenly, a nearby heap of blankets disgorged a white haired lady "I've got the strawberries somewhere" she announced, "and the bubbly". Soon a punnet of strawberries was being handed round and Bob found himself volunteered to open the champagne. The "pop" of the cork sounded deafening and was followed by the sort of silence you only get when everyone stops snoring.

After several paper cups of champagne, Bob went back to sleep. For the rest of the weekend, he kept an eye open for his breakfast companions and although he thought he caught a glimpse of them now and again, he wasn't sure and started thinking it must have been a dream.

A few weeks later, his flatmates took him on one side and told him they were fed up with the stink of his rucksack that was parked in the hall. So he took it into the garden to unpack. Out walked three very sweaty T-shirts. The third one handed him a champagne cork.

Link

Background

Snow

2009-02-03T23:20:00.002Z

Quite pleased with this picture of snow on the lawn taken with my mobile phone.

Predictable?

2009-01-20T22:14:00.001Z

A woman I dance with quite lot said to me last night that one of the great things about dancing with me was that I was unpredictable. Quite a relief really because I sometimes worry that I don't use a big enough variety of moves.

Years ago, I had a boss who complained I was unpredictable. Can't please everyone!

Dancing in Stroud

2009-01-19T00:26:00.005Z

Stroud is not a place that does "smart". Steep streets remind me of the hill towns of Provence yet the place is where five Cotswold valleys meet. The Town Council is run by the Green Party and every Thursday, the Mayor sits on bench in the town centre and talks with anyone who happens by. This is not some centuries old tradition or even compliance with a European policy on "Open Government" - the current Mayor just thought it was a good idea.

Political parties need money and the Green way is to put on a dance and by luck or good judgement they booked the Horsley Band from the nearby village of the same name. That choice is why I passed up the opportunity of a dance nearer home because this band play the finest, the most exciting and most beautiful dance music. Their tunes for English Ceilidh dances are joyous with a raw edge but are never coarse. Dark tunes for French traditional dances are silky smooth…

There is a pause and Caroline has transformed herself into a Spanish lady. She is Flamenco!

Then we take our partners again and I find a lady from Japan who quickly learns the traditional English "rant" step.

Another success for Multiculturalism? Nowhere near that organised - it's not the Stroud way. Just random people sharing their enthusiasms.

Links

The Horsley Band
Stroud
Green Party

People Care System

2009-01-13T15:56:00.001Z

"I'm sorry," said Bruce into the phone, "could you speak up, please? There's a lot of noise in here today!"
The client hung up. Bruce cursed and turned to glare at Damien who was standing by a new machine.
"What the hell's that noisy monstrosity and what is it doing in the Counselling Centre???"
Damien smiled.
"It's the new card printer and it wouldn't fit anywhere else"
"What do we want a card printer for?"
"It's a vital part of the new "People Care System" - and you've already benefited from it yourself!"
"I have?"
"You got a Christmas card signed by the Chair of Trustees"
"It came from that machine?"
"Yes, it even did the personal signature!"
"Fantastic"
Damien, missing the sarcasm, ploughed on.
"It does birthdays too and when a Counsellor or Client is sick, it automatically sends out a 'Get Well Soon' card!"
"Let me guess, it's automatically personally signed by all the Trustees?"
"You're getting the idea! - It's so important that people feel that the whole Board is with them!"
"I prefer the old method!"
Damien's heart sunk, the man was such a dinosoar. "What would that be?"
"When I had the 'flu, Wendy called round with a bottle of my favourite Whisky!"
"Not allowed anymore!"
"Progress? Health and Safety? Financial constraints?"
"Sort of. It was felt it might endanger our funding from the local Alcohol Partnership"

Caution: May contain disclaimers

2008-12-24T20:12:00.002Z

Just saw this advert on Facebook. Red line added by me.

Language

2008-12-18T23:51:00.000Z

Went to the Chinese takeaway the other night. It wasn't usual chap. Managed Ok, asking for number 45, etc. Then he looks straight at me and says something totally incomprehensible.

I indicate I didn't get it.
So he repeats
I still haven't got it.
He tries again
Oh, I think he's asking if I'm all ready for Christmas?
So I lie and say "Yes"
"You have problem hearing?" he continues.
I ponder telling "No" but it seems more diplomatic to answer "Sometimes"

Not Mourning Woolworths

2008-12-11T01:29:00.003Z

So, Woolworths is going down the tubes. I'm only surprised that it's taken so long. I mean, what is the modern Woolworths for?

Years ago, they sold "everything". You needed a replacement bulb for a table lamp, an egg poacher, a ball of string - just about anything and you went to Woolies and they'd usually got one. The modern Woolworths is full of rubbish you don't want - except perhaps chocolate.

Fortunately, there's competition - "Wilkinsons". This is a chain of shops that's a bit like Woolies used to be. They have a reasonably complete range of kitchen stuff, garden stuff (seasonal), stationery, DIY car accessories and chocolate.

They even have a replacement cast iron coal fire grate! Ok, I admit - I don't want a fire grate but hey, next time I do need something mundane an ordinary, they're the first place I'll try.

Link
Wilkinson web site - rather ordinary - don't be put off

An attempt to match me up

2008-11-29T01:45:00.001Z

Bumped into an old mate at a dance tonight. He told me he'd got married to a 36-year-old woman.
"Nice!" I said.
Social convention dictates that I should have asked if she's got a sister but I'm not very good at that sort of thing. He helped me out
"She's got a sister!"
I came straight to the point.
"Does she dance?"
"Yes and she's very keen to get married"
"Uh huh?"
"Only problem is she's still stuck in the Philippines"
"Shame!" I said with rare diplomacy.

The contents of the glass

2008-11-20T20:04:00.000Z

To an optimist, the glass is half full.
To a pessimist, the glass is half empty.
To an engineer, the glass is twice as big as it needs to be.