Le Cafe Mouse

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ASHTANGA YOGA & PILATES

2005-11-29T11:11:00.000Z

Which one would you choose over the other and why ?

At the moment I would say Yoga because you get into a position and hold it, using your breath to increase intensity.
Whereas with Pilates it is repetitions that count.

SPAM

2005-10-15T12:03:00.000+01:00

The Cafe Mouse is being inundated with comments some verifiable, others spam. Reporting those that look like spam seems to work. Apologies if genuine articles get chucked into the spam bin. For instance marissa, Clifford and someone else all have a link to the same Book keeping site.

The African Child

2005-10-07T10:09:00.000+01:00

http://www.newint.org/issue102/reviews.htm
Having read this book in my childhood it is one of the few that has remained in my consiousness. I would urge anyone to read it. I find on the link that the author was Camara Laye.

Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel, To Kill A Mockingbird is another to add to the list.

South Asian sauces : One not to miss

2005-10-03T16:40:00.000+01:00

http://www.manjira.com/index.htm
Definitely worth a try if you want to re-create a Southern Sea Island retreat on a golden beach with coconut thatch hut where time disappears in acres and acres of golden sand.

The Fish recipes (with fresh fish obviously) are my top favs.

If you've tried them out or any other similar sauces drop a line on what the outcome was.

2005-09-18T20:42:00.000+01:00

Instead of measuring out 22 yards, the correct distance between the stumps, the Queen's Gardeners at the grounds of Balmoral had used meters adding an extra 6 feet to the wicket.
As a result the Crathie cricket club's ageing bowlers
had all their venom taken out and they ended up being relegated.
"I cannot believe we played a whole season before anyone noticed. It is quite embarrassing but in our defense none of our protagonists noticed either."

2005-09-12T20:37:00.000+01:00

Ashes Glory
How can it be
18 years since
ashes tasted like
the sweetest champagne?
Winning the ashes must
signal a time for renewal..
So how about letting shielas
bat or bowl for country and Queen?

Hurricane Katrina

2005-09-01T14:41:00.000+01:00

Another really tragic disaster and the deepest sympathy to those who lost loved ones. The tidbit of information that is most puzzling is that the most affected were those who couldn't afford to flee. Couldn't some sort of disaster fund be set up at short notice without the bureacratic red tape? Even if it was neighbourhood for neighbourhood. Having never experienced such a disaster in my life, be it inclement weather or political coup that one has to flee for one's life, perhaps one can't question this non-action. Can't remember what the Brums did in the wake of their recent tornado.

Horses for Courses

2005-08-13T12:40:00.000+01:00

Henry Ford once said if he had asked the people what they wanted they'd have asked for faster horses.
Now that Concorde does not fly anymore, the people are asking for supersonic craft that can carry twice as many passengers as Concorde, fly twice as fast (London to Washington DC in half an hour), and no noise , without the sonic boom that restricted Concorde to TransAtlantic flights and no TransPacific travel.

By 2011 we'd see some of the results flight tested in this field.

Extras

2005-08-12T14:39:00.000+01:00

Having watched Les Dennis in Extras one might be able to work out why there aren't any Chinese suicide bombers. Or English or American suicide bombers. The ability to put oneself through extreme humiliation renders the other obsolete. Not being able to take oneself too seriously has to be a factor.

Tim Berners-Lee may well have been richer than Bill Gates had he taken out a patent for the WWW. The problem with patents is then you have to worry about defending rights to absolute power.

Apparently, from nature we can learn that altruism and selfishness go hand in hand. How altruistic was Tim Berners Lee really in letting people have the world wide web free? To find the answer someone might have to liken him to a vampire bat that gives blood freely to less fortunate bats. And so it is with our genes. What might appear kindness could well be an act to ensure that something is in it for me.

Snap Happy

2005-08-05T10:56:00.000+01:00

I've been rather snap happy lately. Have mobile phone, hang around at your peril. Some scenic snaps I took at Dover Castle. The second one is from the tower above the chapel where Thomas Becket was murdered. Go figure( though I admit it will be difficult given the lighting in the photo - So I hadn't discovered, then, the night time mode option which might have made the image clearer on the PC. The image details stand out just fine on the mobile phone viewer.)

Lance Armstrong wins the Tour de France for the 7th time

2005-07-26T10:06:00.000+01:00

The inference that the Daily Mail has come to is that he probably has his sights on running for the Presidency next. Whether Sheryl Crowe would be considered good First Lady material will be decided by him in the run up. It doesn't bode well for her as he has dumped first girlfriend, so supportive when he first learnt he had cancer, for the younger mother of his three children borne from frozen sperm taken before his chemotherapy treatment. The young family has since been dumped for crow.

London hosts the 2012 Olympics

2005-07-07T11:34:00.000+01:00

Whey Hey ! I understand the team were unstoppable when putting forward their bid. And pitched against Putin's first public utterances in English.

Heard that there were explosions in London this morning. At times I feel I've really fallen through some time loops and regressed 20 years ago. Yes 20 years ago I ran the Race against Time, bought the Live Aid CDs etc etc., spoke against killing dolphins to put tuna on our tables.

Will technology really be allowed to make a difference this time ?

mouse file

2005-06-28T09:05:00.000+01:00

http://mail.google.com/mail/?view=att&disp=inline&attid=0.1&th=104bd8c7861523c6

Reasonable Accommodations

2005-06-27T12:39:00.000+01:00

Strategies for Teaching University Students with Disabilities

http://www.anu.edu.au/disabilities/reaacc.html

My Mouse gif

2005-06-27T12:26:00.000+01:00

http://mail.google.com/mail/?view=att&disp=inline&attid=0.1&th=104bd8c7861523c6

My cat image

2005-06-27T12:16:00.000+01:00

http://www.lecafemouse.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/mouse_4289_028_014.gif

Mozarts Sonata for Two Pianos K448

2005-06-24T16:11:00.000+01:00

Mozarts Sonata for Two Pianos K448
http://www.indiana.edu/~pietsch/zoemozart.html is also supposed to be good for the mind.

John Rutter is so underplayed in my opinion. Karl Jenkins is another favourite.

I Pod you not ,I hear the BBC's podcasting experiment is making high quality programming available for download as MP3’s for listening to on MP3 players (not just iPod’s! You just need an MP3 player, and iTunes is free and the best available).

BBC Radio 3 is making all of his symphonies available for download over the next few weeks. Symphonies 1 to 5 are available now, and the remaining ones will be available to download over the course of the next month for a week after broadcast.

How come no one managed to nab the copyrights on these works ?

The Queen has her very own silver iPod.

A little Mixed Up

2005-06-24T15:50:00.000+01:00

Just a line to say I'm living
That I'm not among the dead
Though I'm getting more forgetful
And mixed up in the head.
I've got used to my arthritis
To my dentures I'm resigned
I can mange my bifocals
But oh God, I miss my mind.
For sometimes I can't remember
When I stand at the foot of the stairs
If I must go up for something
Or If I've just come down from there
And before the refridge so often
My poor mind is filled with doubt
Have I just put food away, or
Have I come to take some out.
And there are times when it is darjk
With my nightcap on my head
I don't know if I'm retiring
Or just getting out of bed.
So if it's my turn to write you
There's no need of getting sore
I may think that I have written
And don't want to be a bore.
So remember I do love you
And I wish you were near
But now it's nearly mail time
So I must say "Goodbye Dear."
There I stood beside the mailbox
With a face so very red
Instead of mailing you my letter
I opened it instead!

Author Anonymous but written with such feeling

Reiki Healing

2005-06-24T15:13:00.000+01:00

I did enquire at the doctors whether Reiki Healing might be available on the NHS.
Here's a blurb about what it is.

Health is wealth. This old saying raises new interest in the present era. Humans are realising the imporance of complimentary therapies along with conventional medecine to achieve holistic health. Reiki is such a complimentary therapy that works at all levels of being i.e. physical, mental and spiritual.

What is Reiki ?Reiki is a Japanese term which means 'universal life energy' the energy that lives in all creation and is inherent to all living beings; nourishes them and keeps them alive.
Dr Usui, a Japanese theologist re-discovered the Reiki as a natural method of healing. Following a prolonged period of meditation, he acquired this art of healing and transferring reiki energy to others. A reiki therapist is a person whose energy centres are attuned to act as a chanel and vibrate higher amounts of energy. A reiki therapist can help accelerate the healing process by transferring this magnetic energy to the healer through his/her hands.

What Reiki is not !Reiki is not a religion, as it holds no doctrine. It is a very ancient science or technology hidden in th eTibetan sutras and was re-discovered by Dr Usui for human well-being.

Benefits of Reiki

Those who use Reiki often feel as if their inner energy is enhanced. Emotional energy blocks in the form of conflicts are released leading to greater relaxation. toxins of various sorts are removed and greater vitality and stimulation of body is experienced. Reiki helps reklease blocks that causes disease and pain. It activates and transforms inner energy and helps enhance immunity.

Importance of Healee
In reiki therapy , Healee is not a passive personality but plays a crucial role in his own treatment. Because reiki is never given or sent but is drawn by the healee. The healee draws an appropriate amount of energy from the healers hands thus there is never an overdose and it never goes wrong. this happens however with certain persons only who have some unconscious need to remain in the disease. Reiki is a wonderfl tool to achieve greater health and harmony. As one cannot really express how it feels to feel the light, reiki needs to be experienced to be appreciated.

Anyone with personal experiences of Reiki I'd be delighted to hear from them.

I am currently reviewing some Educational links in Japan for those with dyslexia or mentally impaired.

It may help with the sessions of clinical scientific pscychology that I was offered instead. That's what you get when practising NRLP on one's own and not bringing yourself back safely.
£5000 with Paul McKenna was way to expensive.....

Hypothesis - The Creator's Testament to Modern Man

2005-06-11T13:15:00.000+01:00

I have given you DNA programmed by evolution through millions of years. It has form , function and instincts derived from your anthropoid ancestors. You have evolved the gift of language and intelligence to process the ability to reason, to enquire, to have abstract thoughts from which you may experience rich emotions. The blessings bestowed on you are to be used to live in peace with fellow men, animals, plants, and the elements of the earth.

From your ancestors you have inherited the urge to reproduce to preserve your pecious DNA. Many of the secrets of nature are now revealed to you by your probing curiosity and rational analysis. This knowledge can be used for good or evil.

The legend of the serpent who gave Eve the fruit of knowledge is a terrible warning ; beware not to succumb to the temptation of greed, envy, fanatic hatred and lust for powerto dominate others. If you continue to multiply without constraint or consideration of the rest of the world you will swiftly exhaust irreplaceable resources, animal, vegetable and mineral, which will surely lead to destruction of your DNA and desolation of the planet.

You will have many hard decisions to make but I have given you the ability to choose. In the spirit of love and compassion towards your fellow men and all living creatures, animals and plants, use your scientific knowledge to choose and act wisely and to devise ways of sharing without exploitation, to live and let live.

I hope you become Homo sapiens , the alternative is Homo EXTINCTUS.
I wish you well. Roy Calne

The Game of GO

2005-06-10T15:48:00.000+01:00

http://www.usgo.org/index.asp

Boogaloo did a cheap version for £8.00.

Said nephew will be trying it out shortly in the safe custody of the other cleverer Aunt. I did provide the board as an Xmas 2004 present. Nephew said he was bored the last time he came home and asked whether I could set up a 'puter for him to play on when he visits.
Now that Apple are moving towards Intel chips may be a good time to start.
Thankfully niece and me share common interests like good food and good medecine. (Though she doesn't know it yet.)
"Lou, you are going to be a Doctor, aren't you ?"
"No, they work nights."

Monkey brains

2005-06-09T15:42:00.000+01:00

“These findings suggest that new learning isn’t simply the ‘smarter’ prefrontal cortex figuring things out,” says Dr. Miller. “Surprisingly, primitive brain structures might be the engine driving even our most advanced high-level, intelligent learning abilities.”

Learning New Rules

Sudoku

2005-06-07T11:07:00.000+01:00

A craze that's sweeping the puzzle world. My nephew who is autistic - can't read too well - I think the problem is emotional , lack of proper communication or room for communication - is a bit of a whiz at it.

He is numerate but not literate which just about sums the form of puzzle.
It is based on an 18th century Swiss mathematician's "Latin squares". But these days we aren't allowed to mention either Latin or squares.

Some references :

http://www.dailysudoku.co.uk/sudoku/

Life Skills (Continued)

2005-05-05T15:27:00.000+01:00

Standards and Measures vs Metrix

at which point do you show compassion in situations like watching a child assess the risk of being hit by the mother or father but still take the chance of approaching.

A child's confidence crumple in the face of discrimination (obesity and/or race ) - when do the carers go and make them whole again quickly so that they can carry on again.

Or workers still trying to assess their work - life - balance but risk going out in the community and find that standards and measures have reversed (sic) and there is continued and aggravated aggression. Who is going to rescue those people who have held things together in the past across political parties and racial groups, perhaps not too well.

Surely fair is fair both ways. Chances should be given earlier rather than later.When might it be too late ?

The question of personal responsibility becomes harder when you look at both sides of the equation.

My metrix would be based on trust in men of their word based on past experience and boy,haven't they disappeared in certain professions.

Happily so far I can see men who hold true to their word where the application of science and soul/heart is pure.

Life Skills

2005-04-21T12:32:00.000+01:00

I've added Book keeping to the long list - For book-keeping we have the Medicis to thank. The monetary amounts might have changed considerably but the system of double entry book keeping has remained the same since.

The 263 successor to St Peter

2005-04-09T13:04:00.000+01:00

It will be hard to beat a world event like the funeral of Pope John Paul or Joannus Paulus II or his real Polish name Karol Wojtyla. Four million people, pilgrims and atheists, thronged to the Vatican not so much for the event but to pay their respects to the man, a priest to the last, as the Cardinal conducting the funeral said.

The Vatican's site has a good summary of his life.

The Polish pilgrims apparently outnumbered the others singing a Polish chant that sounded like "Roll out the Barrel". The Pope will be remembered for his preaching for change for liberalism in Central Europe but he was an authoritarian figure in the Church he headed.

Mark Steyn of the Daily Telegraph's report on the Pontiff is an eye opener. (Thanks Thomas Paul.)

Got a date for an Exhibition but no paintings

2005-03-31T11:30:00.000+01:00

I have a little exhibition in a bookshop in July but no artwork as yet.

These are the titles for the images I have in my head.

Tiger Lily
Cat among the Pigeons
Robin Camouflage
Woodpecker and Blue Tit in the Primroses
Monet's garden - Series of an actual garden in France created by Monet
The garden of Eden - tropical spots from the Eden Project
Spring Blossoms
View from Shirley Windmill
Shirley Hills Thicket
Let Sleeping Tigers Lie
Shirley people - a series of portraits
Londoners Weekend Retreat at the Glade circa 1920

Two of them will definitely involve some travelling - Monet and Eden and while at it, might as well visit Cornwall for a few seascapes.

Design Patterns

2005-03-01T11:05:00.000Z

Design Patterns - Christopher Alexander studied both Mathematics and Architecture.
I'v been concentrating on the architecture side so much that I've forgotten the mathematical element.

What every IT practitioner should know

2005-02-05T11:21:00.000Z

The bit about NOT rewarding people for doing overtime but rewarding them for planning to finish the day's work in time is a 22 carat rule.Personal Chemistry and the Healthy Body

I've grown used to my blog

2005-02-01T19:57:00.000Z

I've had to view my blog on the Internet Explorer 6 browser on various computers as mine was being repaired. This browser drops the right hand side to below the other posts. In an effort to compromise I tried other templates but couldn't find any I thought I could stick to and kept coming back to this layout.

I'm afraid this blog will look like this forever. Best viewed in the Mozilla Firefox browser. I've become used to it. Though I just might drop the Google ads to the bottom and possibly add a panel of paintings along the far side. Japanese sumi-e art will look stunning. It's like art a step or two above calligraphy.

I thought my blog was pretty unique but it appears not.
Where U from Man ? looks remarkably similar.

The Mouse Pad Internet Cafe at Bondi Beach is an interesting variation on the Mouse theme.

The Bison Forest and Tolstoy's War and Peace

2005-01-17T14:22:00.000Z

The Bison Forest or Bialowieza Forest once extended from the Nordic icelands to quite near the Mediteranean Sea near Spain and from the North Sea to right across to Central Russia. Now it has shrunk to the border between Poland and Belarus. An area 3 miles by 5 miles has species that have been undistrubed over time. About 300 European Bison have been reintroduced. Russian Czars and Emperors built a hunting lodge-palace and had seasonal hunting trips in the Forest, though they restocked the forests over the years and protected parts of the forest. A mighty oak tree that started life in the forest in the 14th century and under which a Polish Prince took refuge from his enemies, was blown over by heavy winds just 10 years ago.
Bialowieza Forest
"Situated on the watershed of the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea, this immense forest range, consisting of evergreens and broad-leaved trees, is home to some remarkable animal life, including rare mammals such as the wolf, the lynx and the otter, as well as some 300 European Bison, a species which has been reintroduced into the park."

I also happened to watch a television dramatisation of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace". I was surprised to see a scene where horses and hounds were used to chase some animal, probably the fox. I wonder how the scene is actually depicted in the book. ( Today while at a busy crossroads on a main road nearing home, a fox waited for the traffic to die down and then crossed the road looking well pleased with himself.)
The scenes showed the similarities in court life between Europe and Russia. Curiously when Bonaparte's armies marched into Russia the peasant folk gave them their carts, animal stocks and horses and burnt down their own crops. Quel dommage!
Did that pave the way for the end of the rule of the Czars ? Quel dommage seeing as the French concept of Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite never took hold on Russian soil but Karl Marx's teachings did in a way he never meant.
""It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity..."--from Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens .

More analysis of the Napoleonic era at :

Cadalyst

Considering the film had Henry Fonda and Audrey Hepburn in it, it's quite likely the film had nothing to do with how Tolstoy meant the story to be enacted if he'd had a choice in the matter. Court life in Europe and Russia may have had some similarities but the differences might have been greater.

Happy to be alive

2005-01-04T14:59:00.000Z

A survivor of the South East Asian Tsunami Sylvia Lucas was found clinging to a wooden board (which helped her to stay alive). She was washed out to sea while playing on the beach with a friend when the tidal waves struck. Previously helicopters had flown by picking up people miles on either side of her. She also spoke of a giant fish which circled her for hours. She was found in shark-infested waters.

Three Creative Tools

2005-01-01T09:51:00.000Z

I received the book "The Sound of Paper" from a friend, an early birthday present as we'll not meet again until long after the event.
It's by Julia Cameron and she has written two other books which I've now added to my New Year's wish list.It appears she has written more than three.

This is the book I have. Anyway the Three Creative Tools are:

Morning Pages : three pages of longhand, morning writing about anything and everything.
Complain, whine, grumble, grieve, hope, celebrate, plan, plot. Obviously a blog isn't the immediate place for this. Sharing thoughts once in a while may be Ok.
Now for the tools. Tesco do a great range of cheap pencils and pens that just glide over paper. Great for rapid writing. I wouldn't recommend them for drawing where some resistance between pencil and paper is desirable. And the same with hand-crafted writing. I had a calligraphy set lying somewhere. In fact I used to have another set but can only find the nib holder and bottle of Indian Ink. I could get some nibs and I still have great writing paper left over from previous years' presents.

Artist Dates : Once-a-week festive outing undertaken and executed solo. On an Artist Date you become intimate with ourselves, our hopes , dreams and aspirations. Time set aside to nurture our creative consiousness. Think pleasure not duty. Think mystery not mastery. Trips to Natural History and Art Museums.

Walks : The third pivotal tool. Two to three half hour walks a week and one long one at weekends. Julia Cameron promises that it would nudge us out of our habitual thinking. It builds a bridge to higher consciousness. The doctors recommend 10,000 steps a day - about five miles.

On art, I find this book very inspirational.

He has broken most rules of painting with oils and his paintings look like watercolours at first glance, albeit elaborate and painstaking watercolours. I've pasted that table here a s a reminder I need to look for an easel. That table folds into an easel as well, though you'd have to go the Lee Sinclair's site (details on the bottom Right Hand side of this blog). 6th girl along in this image has put up an easel.

Warning! It costs! But so convenient if you are short of space. TV dinners, easel, coffee table, easel, dining table, easel. A professional artist wouldn't touch it. A studio or converted barn with an upright easel, nothing less. Tip for UK residents : Sussex Stationers have great books and art materials at a fraction of the price.This book cost me 12.50, at Amazon it's 17.50 and the RRP is 25 pounds. though the three-for-two deals at Waterstones and Best Books are worth keeping an eye out for. Ottakkers are more a specialist book shop - I think they do great children's books and toys.

And added to my wish list are these books ,

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (20th anniversary edition with a new preface by the author) a belated trip down Creative Computing. I see I have managed to weave my own three creative tools. Though with the latter category I'm thinking more along the lines of Cascading Tile Sheets and DHTML and Fonz(fonts) and XML.
Written by Charles C. Wetherell while at Livermore Labs, it attracted just the right kind of hacker personalities. People who were initiated and inspired by Etudes tend to be exceptionally good programmers.
C. Wetherell, the author is still considering a second edition. Currently Etudes sells for above $90 for a run down copy. The last auction at Ebay peaked at $270 for a mint edition. C. Wetherell implemented Kriegspiel in FORTRAN 66 while at Lawrence Livermore Lab. There's an interview with him and Tom Buckholtz at nersc.gov.

A Kriegspiel game features two people playing chess against each other. All the rules of chess (with the exception of conventions about forced draws) apply, but each player has his own board and cannot see the opponent's position on the other board.

Indeed, a player can place chessmen of the opponent's color, coins, or other objects on the board to indicate the player's guesses about the opponent's position. Such memory aids are not part of the official game.

With our Kriegspiel monitor, a player was allowed to put any number of opponent's pieces of any type on his own board, subject to two limitations. One could not put an opponent's man on a square occupied by one's own chessman. One could not put more than one opponent's piece on any one square. Also, I should note that we did not provide an analog of "coins."

As I had seen the game played, only two boards were used, with the White pieces being official on one board and the Black pieces on the other. Usually, the players sat facing each other with their boards between them and an adequately tall, wide, and opaque "divider" standing between the two boards [37]. The referee positioned himself at one end of the divider and mentally superimposed the official positions of the two players. (I recall rumours that some referees used third boards, maintaining the actual chess positions thereon as aids to themselves.)

I was proficient at refereeing two games simultaneously. This required four chess boards and one long divider. I stood at one end of the divider. The two players nearest me faced and played against each other. The other two players faced and played against each other. My main challenge was to maintain a normal degree of referee-generated "banter" and convey the required information without slowing down either the "near board" or "far board" game. Accuracy in refereeing did not prove a challenge.

Because all the rules of chess (except conventions about forced draws) apply, the two opponents know each others starting positions. Such "complete knowledge" usually dissipates starting with the first or second pair of moves.

Software Practice and Experience available at Wiley Publishers available on their interesting Pay-per-View sites and other relevant links here and here for anyone interested in in-depth detail. Way beyond my skills but posted here for anyone who chances by and does have the skills and knowledge.

What else is there

2004-12-31T05:43:00.000Z

to write about but the biggest earthquake the world has seen in 40 years registering over 8 points on the Richter scale and creating the tsunami waves that spread over Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand , India and Sri Lanka. The hardest hit parts were parts of Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The dead now number over 120,000 and many more are expected to die from communicable diseases.

The world has responded with relief aid, the US donating $35 million and after Wednesday's paltry offering of 411,000 pounds by Britain they've now upped it to 15 million pounds by Thursday, which is about $28 million. It looks like the money for relief is there but it won't be immediate as there is a huge logistical problem. The pictures in the papers of children left orphans and husbands or wives not knowing anything about their partners or children are really very sad. Most eventually found the bodies of loved ones in morgues. A lot of tourists visiting these regions were affected and stories abound, especially in Sri Lanka, of how tourists were helped by locals to get clean away while they were left to deal with the devastation left behind. The locals kept saying, "Please come back to Sri Lanka after this is over".
During the Tamil guerrilla war, spread over fifteen years tourists avoided the Emerald Island and this had a bad effect on the local economy, bad enough to still be borne in people's minds.

Every little helps so personal donations will still go a long way.

Update : Aid from the UK has exceeded 50 million pounds and China has somewhat surprised us with a pledge of 33 million pounds. Amazing!

Update to Update : The US has pledged $350M. They have special trees that money grows on. ;) Joking aside, thank you to the big donaters from the States. When the Spirit moves htem boy it does move. What is the population of the USA ?

Update : Public donation from Britain is around 60M pounds exceeding the government's pledge. The death tolls are nearly 100,000 in Indonesia alone. Indonesia is predominantly Muslim. Hopefully the relief aid would go some way to show grievances are not with the Muslim people. Dealing with scum like Sadaam Hussein inevitably tips the balance in producing like scum in your camp.
Death tolls in Sri Lanka, the next highest, and India are approx. 30,000 and 10,000
respectively.

Memorable Quotes

2004-12-29T10:08:00.000Z

Somewhere to stash my sigs :

Strong typing is for people with weak memories - Tom Van Vleck

"You learn something every day, unless you're careful." - Tom Van Vleck

"Apples just work. Out of the box, and out of the way, they enable you to work and play with the things that matter" Richard Leyton

Misc

2004-12-27T13:45:00.000Z

Granny's heart and Daddy's girl - My nephew and niece.
Still to be re-worked but these two drawings are going to be a New Year and birthday gift to the Gran. The second drawing is bound to be called That child.

Evening Stroll in Washington Park

Green eyed two faced

Yann Arthus-Bertrand

2004-12-27T08:40:00.000Z

The simply stunning photowork on the "Earth from above" project. Yann Arthus-Bertrand is the artist.

Dromadaires 2

Tapis de Marrakech

The colours on the Tapis de Marrakech depicted here are not as brilliant as mine.

OK. So I'm so loutishly exhibiting my favourite Christmas presents received. The CD by 'Il Divo' is another favourite.

Wishing you all a Very Merry Christmas

2004-12-25T08:04:00.000Z

Merry Christmas to all!

Knees Up Mother Brown

2004-12-24T19:29:00.000Z

Tentatively pushed some earrings through ear lobes. 'They' didn't tell you all those years ago that wearing earrings can be such a trial for some people. The reason I have trouble is because it had to be done twice and left a little tunnel going nowhere. Sometimes the post of the earring goes down the wrong hole and inflames the area (what would you expect with all the probing, rolling around and poking). I can just visualise me at a hundred years old, with one earlobe down to my waist. It must be a genetic coding that have females punching holes in their ears. Did Palaeolithic woman find she got an easier time of it with a glittering object stuck to her ear, touching some cord in Palaeolithic man ? Or even through the nose ?

It was this post that just begged the question. Why ?

...tottering around on twin towers with bleeding ear....Palaeolithic woman

Update : Google Ads came up with this solution.

Projects and New Year Resolutions

2004-12-24T06:50:00.000Z

New Year Resolutions -

To pull finger out and get on with it.
To release projects under a Creative Commons GNU GPL license.

By the New Year, check link under View my complete profile you should be able to find some projects that a Social Entrepreneur might have and read the terms of the license. Basically, it grants you the following rights and responsibilities:

1. The freedom to run any program released under the Creative Commons GNU GPL license for any purpose.
2. The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your needs.
3. The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor.
4. The freedom to improve the program and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits.

You can do all of these things provided that you distribute any copies or derivatives with the source and a copy of the GPL license linked to later. And, as so well put in the one liner, " you don't have to worry about someone stealing your ideas. If it's truly original you'll have to ram it down their throats."

Rocking Reindeer , Santa's nearly here
A beautiful sight, We're happy tonight
Rocking in a winter wonderland

After watching aspirational shows like Strictly Come Dancing and the X-Factor, the urge to learn to dance and sing is overwhelming. Perhaps in time for Simon Cowell's next show....
Simon Cowell - he always has to go for one better. Why he ever supported Steve is beyond me. G4 and Denise Lewis were my favourites to win the shows. G4 and Denise Lewis singing and dancing in Cowell's new show would raise the roof sky high.

G4

2004-12-23T21:46:00.000Z

G4, the band that should have won the X-Factor competition and the 1 million recording contract. Instead the title of winner of the competition and prize went to soulful Steve Brookstein. I bet all the bored housewives voted and ordered their dozen or so kids to vote for Steve or else....

G4 did not go empty handed. They won the Brylcreem Best Male Celebrity Hairstyle Award. Under the terms of the competition, they cannot sign a deal until winner Steve Brookstein has released his single and album. But I'm sure they'll be snapped up soon with an even better deal.This article is in total agreement with what I suspected all along. Now did the band call themselves G4 after the G4 Garage Band ? It's all too plausible. Their rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody is a favourite. This song got them through the audition and twice more on their way to the final. It also got them unlikely fan Liam Gallagher. Some people reckon they should have stuck with Queen and done Queen's little known track The Miracle as their voices . As seen when G4 sang Queen's Somebody to Love in the sixth live showdown. We could have had stunning performances of other Queen anthem-type songs such as We Are The Champions or Barcelona. Freddie Mercury even performed Barcelona with the opera singer, Montserrat Caballé. Or alternatively, they could have done a Beatles song to bowl the maidens over. Sigh! Instead we have I-think-I'm-so-sexy Steve.Steve was likened to Freddie West the serial killer, by Louis Walsh, X-factor judge and manager of West Life. Sharon Osbourne, the other X-Factor judge, effed and swore at his last performance which helped swing the sympathy vote in his favour.

Actually , this post is due to the sudden traffic I'm observing, of people searching for Il Divo and ending up on my blog on the post I wrote about them way back in August.
But I do admire G4, the classical and rock operatic buskers, who once earned the princely sum of 640 pounds after four hours of busking. In some respects they are much better than Il Divo, the classically trained operatic singers, each earning over $350,000 per annum .

Soulful I-think-I'm-so-sexy Steve Brookstein

Diamond In A Star

2004-12-23T17:20:00.000Z

and other odd ball stories(the best of 2004 in my opinion).

In February scientists discovered a diamond the size of a small planet , a ten billion trillion trillion carat gem, 2500 miles wide and weighs five million trillion pounds, 3,300 light years away buried within the core of a white dwarf star in the constellation Cepheus.

Pigeons released at a traffic junction follow major roads, turned right then left at junctions showing they didn't bother with their own navigational systems around major roads.

In March the tiniest time span ever recorded was measured by scientists. Using laser light pulses they distinguished events to within 100 attoseconds - a ten million billionth of a second. It's similar to the difference between one second and 300 million years.
Makes one think in what kind of world will that kind of information be useful ?

These statistics make quite an impression.

75% of the world's population have never made a phone call.
One in ten young people have never heard of the Ten Commandments ( I presume that's in Britain).
About half of all humans that have ever lived have died from malaria.
In 1990 the average age of video gamers was 18, it's now 29.
12% of Coca-Cola consumed in the USA is drunk at breakfast.
The Royal Mail is now receiving 400 complaints an hour - as much as the German postal Services gets in a year.

The competion on eBay

2004-12-20T10:31:00.000Z

This is a fine example of the competiton available on eBay selling at $4.99.

Actually e-bay is running a treasure hunt over the Christmas Season and it's gripping the nation's bargain hunters.
Here's another watercolour I did from the series. Quelle force!
The Detective

Watercolour Calendar

2004-12-19T19:47:00.000Z

The 2005 Calendar Watercolor Lesson-A-Day with Dennis Pendleton.

Dennis R. Pendleton ISBN 1-57939-175-3
Accord Publishing Ltd

I got mine from the bookshop Books etc. Art suppliers may stock them. Highly recommended.
By popular request, here's more detailed information:-
Ordering information
more in the series

You find you are at your most relaxed when absorbed picturing something in your mind and moving the brush over the paper to accomplish the same effect, a small detail at a time.
These are the artist's (Dennis R. Pendleton) impressions. Note the naivety in my impressions. I really must try some of his tips. ( Red + Yellow + Blue = Grey) is one combination I haven't tried at all. For Grey I use a watery black wash and add Blue to inject a bit of life but the blue tends to end up being applied too thickly, so the colour looks like a dirty blue..

Statcounters

2004-12-19T08:01:00.000Z

I've included a statcounter in this page. It's getting quite a bit of traffic but only registering a time of 0 seconds. Apart from nautile in France who lingered for a whole 3 minutes. Do I infer from this that a radical redesign is required.

This image appears to be updated in real time. SO what you are seeing is the very latest situation.

I'm seriously thinking of having a front page that may direct some traffic to my other blogs once they get to be more fullsome. Funnily they'll all hinge on some product that Google and Ebay are offering like Google Scholar and ebay treasure hunts.
No one appears to be clicking on the Google ads (so I expect Google will ask to remove them sometime), whereas I'm beginning to pay more attention to the Ads now.

The rare bluethroat robin

2004-12-17T11:03:00.000Z

This bird has decided to spend Christmas in Scotland at the Loch of Strathbeg RSPB reserve instead of sunning himself in the Mediterranean. This Scandinavian bird is a close relative of our own robin redbreast.The birds are occasionally spotted in the British coast in spring but have been spotted here for the first time in December.

I cut down some branches from under a fir tree to make room for a planting bed. A little red-breasted robin hopped up from underneath and flew up to a higher branch on another tree. He spent the next 15 minutes scolding me. And rightly so. I had just exposed his home to marauding cats.

I left some food near by and a bowl of water.When he came down to drink he engaged in a song of delight. On seeing me imitate him he continued dancing for about 5 minutes. I need to get him a bird house in case he is still around.

Robin's cousin pays a Christmas visit

More watercolours

2004-12-13T18:47:00.000Z

Ancient cave painting

Evening in Central Park

Cave Spirit

Stalker at the theatre

Boarding the Trolley and Winter

These tiny drawings (6"x5") came as a 2005 calendar with a watercolour palette of just five colours : blue, red, yellow, green, black. Part of the fun is mixing the colours, and the other part is being able to complete it in five minutes. Some of them look much better on paper than the ones translated here. I'm already painting well into February. I'd recommend it to anyone as a great way to relax and take the mind off things. It would make a great Christmas present. There are also tips by a well known artist but I've paid scant regard to them so far just let my eyes draw their own conclusion. His examples are fantastic. I can't believe this costs only 10 pounds. My drawing skills are rusty to say the least so I'm getting some good quality watercolour paper cut to this size and will start drawing some of my favourites from this collection and from this list I posted at the JavaRanch.
City Rythm

I've also put my name down to exhibit for free some paintings in a bookshop Books etc. in June 2005. This exercise will give me some idea whether to leave my name on the list or not. They'll look at samples and decide whether they want to back the venture or not. I like doing trees and buildings. The other day a TV news reporter stood reporting outside Parliament or the Westminster Offices, and the pale yellow stone backdrop looked just like a painting, the brickwork and shadows defined in thin pencil line shaded areas. Possibly the uniformity of the building and the sun shining dead on to the front of the building lent itself to that. I think I'd attempt that and perhaps some sundials and clocks on London churches and buildings. I quite like the new Eastern looking cucumber building. This is where the camera on the mobile comes handy. It's also useful for capturing the images in different lights to test what washes suit which moods. The difference between 100 watt, 60 watt and 40 watt light bulbs is quite distinct, as is daylight in different weathers. Claude Monet often returned to the same location at the same time of day, to achieve the lighting effect he wanted.

Britain's Royal Horticultural Society

2004-12-13T15:49:00.000Z

In 1804 seven men met in a London bookshop to form a society to "collect every information respecting the culture and treatment of all Plants and Trees."

In the group were John Wedgewood of ceramics fame, royal head gardener William Forsythe whose name lives on in the yellow forsythia (of which I may be able to post a watercolor I did ),
Purple Irises and Forsythia
and globe trotting naturalist Joseph Banks. 200 years later the Society claims 340,000 international members and is now a leading institution in the science and practise of growing things. It's subjects range from geranium naming to global warming and serves as the official regitration authority for more plant categories than any other body in the world.
Daisies

In the 1820's and 1830's the RHS began its famous flower shows, ran institutions for training in horticulture and planted experimental gardens to test viabilityof plants in British soils- work that continues to this day. The most famous are the Flower Shows at Hampton Court Palace in Surrey, Hatton Park in Cheshire and the world famous Chelsea Flower show.A street called Horticultural Place marks the original location in Chiswick. Last year the Chelsea Flower Show had an entry from Soweto and New Zealand which just shows how far it has travelled.

Melt-in-your-mouth Mocha heaven

2004-12-12T20:15:00.000Z

Marks and Spencer Chocolate Yule logs dunked in a real roast coffee.

Feijoada update. It was stupendous. Or rather the close approximation was stupendous. I substituted Cumberland sausages instead of spicy ones, red and black-eyed beans instead of black beans. As the group consisted of both adults and children finnicky about what they ate, everything was cooked and served separately. Consequently there were lots of dishes to wash up. One child was sick in the night and the next morning tried to blame it on the previous night's supper. Luckily his mother remembered that while throwing up he asked her not to let him eat too many sweet things. Witnesses recalled seeing the stick-insect clutching handfuls of biscuits at various intervals in the evening.

We didn't have any approximation for the cream of wheat beer. Instead we had mulled wine. There's something about mulled wine that heralds party time. I did cut out a recipe for banana beer from last week's newspaper. Maybe next time, the genuine feijoada article and some banana beer.

Home Security

2004-12-10T13:09:00.000Z

‘We think it may be legal to hunt burglars with dogs.’

From the spectator http://www.spectator.co.uk/newdesign/cartoons.php

A new twist to the fox hunting debate ? Instead of pensioning off horses and dogs use them to hunt down burglars instead. John Giffard is chief constable of Staffordshire. His family has always had the hunt on the estate they own since 800 years ago. His father allows the hunt but does not participate, though he would be very sad to see a ban. The son will follow the law to the letter if hunting foxes becomes unlawful. And burglars ?
Legal wranglings, mayhem on the streets

I posted this at the JavaRanch in reply to a question about the rights of dogs fighting off burglars:
Keeping dogs to fight off burglars (what dogs were bred to do for centuries) is on par with keeping dogs to contain fox numbers or shooting deer. When the breed of dog gets a particularly bad name, especially by mauling kids playing in parks, owners start to be treated as criminals and they shun their pets. The pets suffer severe neglect. It happened with the Rottweiler.Once fox hunting is removed no one will really want the fox hounds. They probably won't make good pets on a one to one basis anyway. And the breed will die out.

As it is, German Shepherds make nice pets and people are wary of them. But to encourage dogs to attack people is insane. By all means put up a sign saying "Here lives a German Shepherd - Enter at your own risk." Or a picture of a big scary dog at the gate has worked reasonably well, so far.
A dog may not have helped the Chelsea millionaire stabbed on his doorstep by a group of men dressed as postmen. A dog over time would learn to tolerate people dressed as postmen.

Black Eyed Susan

2004-12-10T08:42:00.000Z

My Black Eyed Susan is dying.
The one pictured is an American wildflower common in North East America. Mine has smaller petals on smaller flowers and is a lovely rusty orange colour with black eyes. That is, it looks more like a Black Eyed Susan. I left my plant outside because the garden centre manager told me it would survive in a bomb site but I'm sure the frost got to it. It's a good thing that he moved to deeper Surrey, closer to the Surrey Downs. Anyway, I have come to love this plant and I've moved it under shelter. Some leaves don't look frost-bitten. I should take it to the garden centre to see if it really is frost and not some kind of virus.
I have noticed that the plant attracts a lot of butterflies. See here for details of the animals that shelter, feed and do other things with this plant. Oh, it appears that this plant is an annual or biennial, and not a perennial, as I thought.
Next years cascade will be trailing Nasturtiums, Black-eyed Susan and the yellow Canary Creeper grown from seed and planted out in May to last all summer long. This winter I'd extend the trellis fences. In summer, the cover is a requisite in order to make full use of the garden. With the amount of light we get in the northern hemisphere in winter it is just as well that the trees are bare otherwise it would be an altogether gloomier place. Learning to live along with nature cannot be beaten in some respects. In Austria, for instance, put the cars and the motorways aside and you are back in time a 100 or even 200 years. Though, inside the chalets there is every luxury imaginable. Austrians really know how to have a jolly time in winter. I have never been to an Austrian city so far and never to Austria in the summer. Salzburg and Vienna have been on my list for some years now. The cities love of classical music may finally take me there.Arena di Verona is also famous for it's open air performances of classical music.

Wonder what the US will do with it's million of tonnes of plutonium waste from production of defense weapons or the primary , secondary and low level wastes still being produced at Sellafield. Exhorbitant amounts of money are spent on defense systems, followed by health sytems and within these are placed business and personal life systems. Some radical thought spent at the first may avoid the sheer waste at the lower end. Ordinary people also share some of that responsibility. You only have to watch programs like Esther Rantzen's. Some ordinary people do extra-ordinary things. I don't think there's ever been another presenter, who shed so many humble tears over the valiant acts of ordinary people and children as young as two years, driven by their sheer belief in doing "the right thing".

Re: Feijoada

2004-12-08T15:49:00.000Z

On Dec 8, 2004, at 9:57 AM, the mouse wrote:

> Thanks. The blog is at www.lecafemouse.blogger.com

Actually,

http://lecafemouse.blogspot.com

works better. I concur with adding more garlic.
Also more hot pepper.. I normally eat mine with some
big splashes of Tabasco, but I think it would be
better all round with some drops of Dave's Instant
Insanity added earlier.

I have a wonderful decomposing South American cookbook
which has served us well for years. Carbonada criolla,
stew coooked in a pumpkin. Cariucho, steak with peanut sauce.
Lots of others.

regards, tom

Culinary Globe Trotting - Feijoada

2004-12-08T08:07:00.000Z

I like to think I have eaten some dish from most corners of the globe but I've hardly touched on South American food. Mexican doesn't count as South American.
This dish is what's on offer this weekend at the Mouse Cafe. It has the ingredients that my nephew loves. He is a finnicky eater, hates colourful vegetables and gets more and more like my sister when she was a toddler.
My 4 year old niece eats anything. She will have a tendency to put on weight unless she's able to get interested in sport to the point where she just loves taking part and doesn't notice the effort required. At the moment she panics when the swimming pool heater is turned off and refuses to go swimming for weeks until a bribe is part of the bargain. It used to be sweets but now the fair price are Barbie dolls and I'm not sure which is worse.

From Tom Van Vleck's blog
Feijoada (Brazil's national dish)

1 lb black beans
1/4 lb salt pork, diced
1 large onion, coarsely chopped
3 lg cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
2 bay leaves
1 tsp ground cumin
2 ts chopped fresh parsley
1 lb corned beef uncooked
4 hot spicy sausages
4 mild sweet sausages
4 smoked pork chops
Optional additional meats: ham, canadian bacon, smoked pork hocks
ribs, feet, ears, tails, fresh or salt beef, tongue (traditional)

Prepare the beans: either soak overnight or boil 2 mins and soak an hour. About 2 in of water above the beans. Use plenty else it dries out later. This stuff freezes beautifully and is even better after reheating. (Keep a block of it in the freezer, and just chip off a hunk and eat it with minute rice.)

Brown the salt pork & onion & garlic. Add them to the beans. Add the corned beef (big chunks). Add bay leaves, cumin, parsley. Bring all to a boil, cut back to simmer, let it cook 2 hrs. Meanwhile brown sausages, etc in skillet.

Cook beans until skin splits when you blow on them. Overcooking ok. Stir so bottom doesn't burn. It looks very watery at first but will thicken up. Dip up a cup of beans & juice, mash with a fork & dump back in. Add sausages, pre-cooked meat, etc. Simmer for another hour or so. Or longer, adding water and stirring to keep the beans from burning.
Salad sauce

2 large ripe tomatoes, diced
4 scallions, chopped fine
1 large clove garlic, pressed or crushed
1 green pepper, diced
1 small red or white onion, chopped fine
1/4 cup finely chopped fresh parsley
1/4 cup salad oil
2 tsp vinegar

mix, salt, pepper.
Serving
Serve with rice & orange slices & beer. Farinha de mandinoca is traditional, use cream of wheat if you can't find any. Tabasco on the side or other peppers. To eat: take some rice, some feijoada, some farinha-de-mandinoca, some sauce.

Back to me blogging:
Brazilians would have less meat and more beans in the recipe. I would tend to keep to the meat amounts but double the quantities of onion, herbs and spices and garlic, if you like garlic.

Art - ancient, Renaissance, Baroque, modern

2004-12-07T09:48:00.000Z

It's been said that modern art allows the viewer to make what they want out of it and is liberating in that sense. Historically, art was commisioned by the landed gentry and therefore very flattering portraits abound - still portraying double chins and rotund bellies. The subjects had to be recognisable but perhaps made to look taller and less wide with elaborate wigs covering balding heads.

The other day, while stopping for tea at a Japanese restaurant, my senses were so taken over by their teapots - particularly by the one served to me with tea in it. The spout, for one, was hidden underneath and pouring the tea used fluid movements with plenty of time left for ceremony. With normal English teapots I invariably splash the tea around while "being Mother" and end up pouring hot tea on the guests if they want seconds. I recall reading about another teapot created in the St Petersburgh porcelain factory after the era of the Czars. Until then, teapots may have been opulent affairs on par with the Faberge diamond encrusted eggs found in Czarish parlours. After these immodest excesses the revolution turned over factory production to a band of men known as the Suprematists of the calibre of Malevich, Kadinsky, Chekonin and Suetin, who took the opportunity to redirect the story of art.

Malevich's first step was to design the notoriously impractical Suprematist tea set. And here it is.

Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel has so far been seen as his masterpiece but recently discovered documents show that Michaelangelo was r4esponsible for the design, creation and supervision for the Sforza Chapel in the Basilica of Santa Moria Maggiore. It is now a serious contender for the title. Until now it had been thought that Michaelangelo delegated the work to his assistant, Tiberio. It's "a visionary work that prefigures the Baroque era". Rome would be well worth a visit, 2 weeks minimum. I've only been to Milan (for modern fashionistas only) and Naples (a smelly, corrupt sea-side port). Though the long and well established tradition of scholarship in which the Medici and the city of Florence are seen as the vanguard of modernism, Milan was the first city state to develop modern government (along with its bureaucracy) and diplomacy.
The BBC showed a documentary of how Raphael developed his art by surreptitiously understudying Michaelangelo at every opportunity. Raphael also promoted himself and his work at the Vatican court by stooping to deride the work of the other artists including Michaelangelo's at every opportunity.
One day he snuck into the Sistine chapel where Michaelangelo kept his work under lock and key. Raphael was struck dumb as the beauty and wonder of the scene unfolded before his eyes. He quietly went to his corner of the Vatican and paid homeage to his master. In his work School of Athens he included a figure, burly, disgruntled and in dirty work clothes, seated alone by a rectangular marble slab, and at odds with the other figures dressed in courtly attire. The figure is now generally acknowledged to be Michaelangelo. The work of Michaelangelo and Raphael belong to the Renaissance era but it interests me that the Sforza Chapel is credited with setting the stage for the Baroque story of art. Unfortunately I cannot find a picture of the interior of Sforza Chapel.
Baroque art was less formalist and had more realism, involving more of the emotions. Leading artits are Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Rubens. The paintings get much darker in lighting and subject which are a trademark of old Dutch masters.
Following were the Impressionists, Romantics,Realists, Cubists from more westerly parts of Europe and later America,but Italy had reached the pinnacle of it's great artists and now lead in the design of furniture, clothes and cars. How does an artist cap the style of Michaelangelo and Raphael ? It'd be harder for Italian artists as they would be justifiably so proud of their art heritage.

Of sheep and men

2004-11-26T15:18:00.000Z

Griff is a 4 year old prize ram that weighs 20 stone and measures 6ft from nose to tail. He is probably the biggest sheep in the world. Home is Beverley, East Yorkshire and he is very popular with visiting children and generates enough income for the family Richardson who have kept sheep since the 19th century. His fleece is exported to Japan where it is used to stuff futon mattresses and he sires 80 lambs a year.

But that's not all to the life of sheep. Two ornamental sheep were stolen from a Norfolk garden.The owner resigned herself to never seeing them again. Three years later the wooly cut-outs appeared along with photos documenting their travels. The album, Larry and Sean's Holiday Photos included snaps of the pair sipping cocktails on a beach in Goa, socialising with camels in Pushkar and gazing at the Taj Mahal. The overjoyed owner thought the whole endeavour was fantastic.

Larry and Sean's Holiday Photos

Morbid Serendipity

2004-11-13T17:09:00.000Z

Found this week that Natasha was actually half Iraqi and spent her childhood in Baghdad. Further discussions revealed we actually barely knew particular details about her life, just this great kind spirit. Not even an enemy was spared from her help. But the little known of her is so precious to us and will be treasured for long afterwards. Her bereft husband now decides what to do with their new home in that great expansive flatland which will be doubly cold and exposed in winter.

Teenage Kicks of the Undertones

2004-11-07T17:20:00.000Z

The legendary BBC Radio One guru John Peel played the 1978 indie single "Teenage Kicks" ot The Undertones until the grooves wore flat. Recently he said that he rated songs from albums with stars - three stars for may play, four stars for must play ,up to a maximum of five stars for definitely must play. For this, his favourite song, he gave 28 stars.
One of the band framed and presented the original lyrics, with corrections crossed all over, to him on his 60th birthday. John had to disappear for 15 minutes to have a good cry. John was a one-off radio presenter. There never will be another like him , no apprentice waiting in the wings to take over.

What better tribute to the late John Peel than to play his song.
Teenage Kicks of the Undertones

The Indian legacy

2004-11-06T10:11:00.000Z

The world owes so much to the tribal Indians of America.

Nearly half the world's leading food crops can be traced to plants first domesticated by American Indians. The cornucopia of nutritous plants include potatoes, peanuts, manioc (tapioca) , beans, tomatoes, sunflowers and yams. Maize was far the most significant, now grown on every continent except Antartica.
Their strains of domesticated corn and potatoes helped reduce hunger and disease in Europe. Indians also introduced the cultivation and use of tobacco.

With the UK planning to introduce gambling soon, if it's modelled after the most successful Indian casinos the Mashantucket Pequot Foxwoods complex in Conneticut, which boasts the world's biggest casino, there's no worries.
377 casinos support 400,000 jobs and generate 15 billion dollars annually compared to all Nevada's casinos combined 9.5 billion dollars. In 1988 Congress passed a bill allowing tribes to offer gambling under certain conditions.

Revenue from the Miccosukkee's bingo , video , gambling and lotto operation near the Everglades pays for tribal members' health care, education and housing. It also helps finance the tribe's legal push for a government funded restoration of the wetlands. The controversial multi-billion dollar project is designed to return natural water flow and reduce pollution over the next 30 years.

Off to buy a lottery ticket.

Guess where the Baghdad Blogger went

2004-11-05T15:03:00.000Z

went to mow a meadow

I posted this at the JavaRanch ( slightly diluted) but as usual the thread was deleted. And I was so hoping that it would stay showing we can at least learn to be mature (and meaningless? ). After all I've got them to thank (particularly Mapraputa Is and Thomas Paul and a few others which would take too long to mention) for giving the world more than a passing glance. Poverty comes in all forms.

The highlight of the news was that Salam Pax was sent to Washington by the Guardian.
At the airport he was screened twice. On his second screening he was asked,"Are you religious?" by someone wearing a tiny cross. He wanted to reply honestly "No, I dropped that hot potato a long time ago" but then felt like replying "It's really none of your business". He feels ashamed that what he actually says is "No sir, I am not religious and I don't know how to prove it to you".

Then waiting to board the plane he gets asked to spread his legs and lift his arms while they pat him down. He feels homesick. It's just like entering the green zone in Baghdad except everyone is so friendly here.

Salam discovered a weblog last August written by Sean Turningtables an American
soldier. He wrote " I hope we uncover all the banned weapons that we said were here," it said. "Then all of this will have served a glorious purpose that no one can argue with. I need to know that I helped unplug a dangerous beast before it struck. I want all of this to go down in history as "the right thing to do".

Salam thought Turningtables blog written when the soldier was in Baghdad was funny, had a distinctive voice and somehow did not fit in with The Terminator image of US soldiers in Baghdad. The soldier now lives and works in DC after finishing a six-year enlistment. They meet up for dinner. Turningtables has blogged about the event.
They laugh over how badly sounds popping affect them. 4th of July fireworks makes the soldier very jumpy. Salam tells of how he ducked when a car back-fired in London. They talk of going to some good clubs to "get down and get crazy".
When it's time to go home they shake hands and hug. Salam tells him he really doesn't understand what he was doing in Baghdad.
" I was there because I was ordered to be there. My personal feelings mean nothing.I'm cool with that. I don't work in a democracy- I work for one."turningtables
e-rocky-confidential

That colour scheme must have been designed specifically for military blogs.

From that blog e-rocky-confidential:

There’s really an abundance of Iraqi blogs, and it can be difficult to keep up. The original rising star, whose name may or may not be Salam Pax, seems to have laid his site to rest, but he was just the beginning (not that his was the first Iraqi blog, necessarily— I have no idea— but it was certainly one of the best, and he’s the one with a book now published in umpteen different languages). The author’s erstwhile co-blogger Raed is posting his own (apparently less optimistic) blog these days, and Salam has been out there collecting data on the casualties of war.

My current favorite is written by Zeyad, an Iraqi dentist with a stunning command of the region’s history and an enthusiasm for English-language satire. He’s got a run-down of the newest crop of young bloggers (which I’ve yet to investigate) at his site, Healing Iraq.

It's nice to catch up with these guys.

Natasha

2004-11-03T22:52:00.000Z

Bright spirit never still
There's service to be done
Dear ones or perfect strangers
People just acquainted, befriended
Long before painful direness chances by
Bright spirit rushes laughingly to press upon
Gifts of kind words or small deeds

So tragically a life snuffed
To eternal rest bright spirit summoned
As angels and archangels rejoice to trumpets and fanfare

Natasha, thank you for living your life with such perfect example.

Natasha is a family friend, half Iranian half Parisien who, while driving on her way home this evening, was tragically killed. My sister got a call at 19:30. She commuted 130 km each way daily from Leicester to London, whence she and her husband decided to relocate to a quieter part of the country, promising to give this commuting up soon. She leaves behind a very devoted and beloved husband and two sons just married. Natasha day-dreamed longingly of the days when she'd become a grandmother.

The Learning Game: A Teacher's Inspirational Story

2004-10-30T18:04:00.000+01:00

A continuation. Expect to see more of these little revues from the book.
Jonathan Smith mentions his disabled Uncle, his mentor and teaching example, who denied that pain and suffering were ennobling. Pain hurts, he said, you just want it to stop. Nearing his end at middle-age, his uncle answered his nephew's unasked question. How do you cope ? "You have to, you have no choice", he said.

One Christmas Day after dinner the family gathers in the uncle's room to play cards. The young Jonathan creams the adults who are well into their cups, sampling port and wine. Jonathan gleefully gathers up the spoils which Uncle Bert had egged him on to win. Uncle Bert, eyes twinkling, then passes around a ladies see-through stocking urging those present to contribute to the Haemophiliac Society. "It's very good of you, very good indeed" he'd say eyeing each coin on it's way down to the bottom of the stocking, then eyes flicking back to the remaining pile on the table. Jonathan reluctantly let go of all his treasure. Years afterwards, any time Jonathan felt low from exhaustion teaching, or off the mark writing or at general low points in life, he'd only have to think of his uncle for a little while and he'd be ready for the next long haul.

I have people like that in my life, my parents for one, who are rarely appreciated except at Christmas and birthdays these days. When I stop to think of the choices they had to make I am too astounded for words. Tonight I must finish this book.

Jane Austen

2004-10-25T20:01:00.000+01:00

Jane Austen novels are still read avidly as library lendings show. They are prized for the irony, humour, depiction of English country life and it's underlying lessons.
Earlier I wrote this piece on the current movies covering Pride and Prejudice.
"Comedy Bridget Jones' Diary and the sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason to-be-released soon. Based loosely on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.

So far, the definitive TV period drama has been the highly successful BBC 1995 production. There's another version due out in Dec 2004/early 2005 starring Keira Knightley and Dame Judi Dench. No one thinks it will surpass the 1995 version because the leading man appears weak for the role of Darcy( Colin Firth appeared in both BJD and the 1995 BBC drama).
And there's the Bollywood spin-off.

Chick Flick Alert!" AND
"Being a Jane Austen fan I caught up with the Bollywood spin-off,Bride and Prejudice, this weekend.I thought it was enjoyable and fun. As RK said there were no moments of suspense, it just flowed freely to the end.

In the benchmark 1995 production of Pride and Prejudice there were heaving bossoms and Cavalry men,the bad daughter was bad even to her sisters in her race to be married off first and ended up married to the cad (an event that wasn't portrayed in B&P). I suppose in this day and age they couldn't be shown to be forcing a marriage on somebody. In P&P the dishonoured just stormed around talking darkly of preserving honour. If the long-suffering father hadn't lost interest in his three younger daughters, deciding they didn't have much sense and left them to their foolish mother's devices the family (honour) might have been better preserved.In B&P there is a fight scene between the hero and the cad ; not in P&P, the cad was offered money to marry the girl.
So which was more chivalrous? The end of P&P shows the entire family being reunited, cad and all.

If B&P, instead of too many dance and song scenes,had put some of these suspenseful elements in it, it might have fared better at the box office. Obviously they'd still have to translate the events to modern times. To do that and still be true to the original may have proved too difficult. All in all, Chadha did well IMO."

Putting the garden to bed for winter

2004-10-10T17:37:00.000+01:00

It's a daily sweep up job now that the trees are shedding the leaves. The apple trees are shedding their leaves yellow while the pear tree sheds black leaves.
The geraniums and fushias go back in the greenhouse cut back and repotted in small pots. All the extra compost goes back into beds dug up and re-composted for winter bulbs and plants. Out come the chrysanthemums, violas, pansies and primulas in all the colours mentioned in this post.Winter Colour
Our single robin who hasn't left us all year and the blackbirds are having a feast in the beds turned over. They don't eat together and as the blackbirds outnumber the robin I have to shoo the blackbirds away occasionally. So I think I'll leave it a while before planting out the winter plants. It'll probably be a good time to treat the fruit trees and perhaps put out some arbours for grape plants next year. In the morning I chucked out a handful of peanuts in their shells and by evening they had disappeared. Our single grey squirrel most likely picked them up and buried them somewhere for winter. I'm thinking of puting out a webcam to capture nocturnal goings on in the garden. Not to run every day but only when some treat or bedding has been set out for the wildlife. That would teach the young nieces and nephews some eco-sense. They are being so good with their pocket money and already show signs of having financial sense.
Food for thought : Most UK recycling waste is exported to China who then do the minimum recycling required with scant regard for the environment.

Welcoming Wildlife

2004-10-07T13:52:00.000+01:00

Almost everyone seems to be talking about creating mini nature reserves or miniature eco-systems. So lets consider the possibilities.

Cheetahs have never known to harm man in all the 5,000 years they have been in contact. (advantage) Cheetahs never breed in captivity. Females don't lust after males they grow up with and may even go off strange males. Timing of the mating being crucial,the right week has to be chosen. (all advantages) Why can't kitty kats be the same? A friend of mine had twenty cats at one time, three generations.
Feeding. I assume they have to eat and since they aren't going to pick off any ready meals with two feet, that does present a problem.

Scaling downwards a bit to see what is possible:- toads , hedgehogs and squirrels will add interest to your plot and teach young ones about the fragility of eco-systems. Animals need food , water, shelter with imaginitive planting schemes and autumn is a good time to do this. Plant bushes that will be bursting with berries in winter - cotoneasters, holly, hawthorn and rowan - blackbirds and thrushes just love them.

Winter time animals find it difficult to find water so provide a waterhole. A pond would be ideal but a little birdtable or even an dustbin lid face down will do and see who visits.
In the summer dragonflies and damselflies will find a pond and a little later you should have frogs, water beetles, and newts taking residence. Make sure your pond has deep and shallow areas to make it easy for the animals to wade in and out. In spring add a log for dragonflies and other insects to lay their eggs.
Hedgehogs like frogs and toads think slugs are a tasty treat and provide a free slug control service! Leave out a dish of dog or cat food but not milk and bread which is bad for them. Hedgehogs are active from March to November but provide a home and warm shelter till warm weather shows.

Creepy crawlies are loved by various birds. Thrushes crack open and eat snails, starlings love daddy longlegs' larva and shrews munch grubs.
Slug pellets are verboten inside the nature reserve. In cold winter months treat birds to a handful of birdseed , a chopped apple or pear core ( Conference pears are particularly loved) and bread could mean the difference between life and death.
Set up the bird table clode to bushy cover to offer them protection from predators such as sparrow hawks. To prevent disease clean the table with boiling water and move it around the garden frequently. Sunflower seeds are favoured by greenfinches, bacon rind beloved by robins and goldfinches will spend hours picking out fine Nyjer seeds.
The greater the variety of food the greater the variety of birds will visit.Autumn is the best time to put up a bird or bat box on a tree or the side of the house. Place the box outside the reach of cats and facing north/north east so that the chicks don't become too hot.

Foxes also visit gardens and sometimes make their home under sheds and garden buildings.Although they can be a nuisance they will eat rats and feral pigeons. If you keep guinea pigs and rabbits outside make sure they are locked up else they'll end up on a fox's menu.

Plan summer garden displays with a lot of thought for encouraging wildlife.Honeysuckle, ivy, wisteria and flowers such as cornflower, Michealmas daisy and primrose, which attracts insects from hoverflies to bees and beetles.
Sedum (ice plant) and blackthorn are brilliant for butterflies and, honesty , ladies smock and dame's violet are great for orange-tipped butterflies and holly may tempt pretty holly blue butterflies into your reserve.

It's a bit like setting up murders by numbers so I am not sure what is being conserved in this case. I prefer furry animals to slimy beasties any day and hate the thought of inviting snakes to the garden. Maybe I'll just stick to insects and birds.

Tips picked out from various Sun bloggers and Thames Water - who knew techs could be such Forkheads.

Thanks to Jennings

2004-10-05T20:10:00.000+01:00

Jennings was the character in the childrens books written by Anthony Buckeridge. I refered to this writer when I blogged about how a young teacher, who, reading from a story books about boys' school-life in post war Linbury Court Preparatory School, found to her surprise that the stories touched inner-city immigrant children from Somalia and Bangladesh.

Jennings Goes to School is another favourite title along with Thanks to Jennings. Sales of the 40 books have soared in places as far as China, Norway and Indochina. The best stories work wherever they go.

William Brown is one of the most popular fictional characters of all time. Usually referred to as the Just William books after the title of the first book in the series.

"There is only one William. The tousle-headed, snub-nosed, hearty, loveable imp of mischief has been harassing his unfortunate family since the 1920's. His name is a byword for irrepressible boyhood. His pranks are the scrapes of every healthy youngster, recorded with keen observation and an even keener sense of humour by a writer of immense talent.Incredibly, the William books span five decades."

Malbouffe

2004-10-02T21:04:00.000+01:00

Or junk food in French. Olivier Pichot sounds like the right person to try and change McDonald's image. "If children don't eat vegetables at home it's because they haven't been taught."A Chateaubriand steak with foie gras

He has a tall order. Satisfaction from a Mac lasts for about as long as it takes to consume it. If they can get as far as actually putting something that resembles meat in a bun they'd be half way there.

New meaning to going Dutch

2004-09-21T10:49:00.000+01:00

A post in Javaranch regarding e-mail reminded me of a little enclave of Baarle-Hertog near the Dutch border. It's 5,000+ parcels of land are split into the towns called Baarle-Hertog and Baarle-Nassau.

Houses on the opposite side of the street or even those attached can be in different countries.House numberplates have either a Netherland flag or Belgian flag. The local governments have offices 200 yards from each other run their own towns and the policw patrol their own towns.

A Belgian sending a letter to his Dutch neighbour using a Belgian post-box would be picked up by his Belgian postman taken to the nearest big town, Turnhout which is in Belgium proper, and re-directed to Brussels. From there it would be flown to Amsterdam and sent on to the post-man in Baarle-Nassau where a Dutch post-man would deliver it down the street (probably as the Belgian postman who picked it up was walking past).

The Belgian poster would in reality have posted the letter in a Dutch post-box which would have been delivered by local mail.

The situation arose from political ties that go back to the 12th century.
It's quite interesting. Godfrid of Schoten gave the land to the Duke of Brabant.The duke loaned out some land, gave some to the Counts of Nassau and some back to Godfrid, keeping all the inhabited land for himself. With time his land ended up in the ownership of Belgium while the others were lands belonging to Netherlands. In World War I the town was not invaded by the Germans because some of it belonged to then neutral Netherlands.

Seems to me here's something for delivers of e-mail to learn from.

Time:machine

2004-09-21T07:26:00.000+01:00

Do all these labour saving devices actually save time?

Because we have washing machines we wash clothes maybe twice a week.
With a tumble dryer you are more likely to up the washdays to 3 days and maybe also wash and dry the odd item just because you can bung it in.

All that time far exceeds ye olde washday once a week which included washing the occupants of the house. (No ironing labour saving device as yet, none that do the job properly.)

These days you probably have not one but two or three computers. You can get parts and software cheap from e-bay. You are probably building machines with all sorts of capabilities from them. Sooner or later I'm probably going to rip mine apart after visiting car boot sales and raiding the kitchen of it's utensils, spoons, forks and colanders. I reckon I am going to build me some art. Full armoury and steel animals come to mind.

The point is, we are stuck in a time machine of our own making.

The solution is apparently to plan ahead to save time and money. A month from now you should know what you'll be eating because you have stocked your freezer up on all the bargain offers. Holidays are planned a year ahead soon after you have been on your last one. Lack of planning can catch one out. You should know just how much detergent you use and calculate to the penny how much garbage you generate. Soon the more garbage you produce the higher the council tax you pay.

Face it, those are some of the few variants you are likely to be able to control. Though it'll be nice to have some surprises planned in and may they turn out to be pleasant ones.

Pragmatic Programmers on Software Gardening

2004-09-18T22:12:00.000+01:00

This analogy is so unusual in Software Development. Most developers would probably have laughed at the idea but since it's written here in Black & White (well Blue on Grey) by two very esteemed authors perhaps more developers would take up gardening.
It would be like working at your hobby and not seem like work at all.

Kill two birds with one stone and have Software Gardening Design Patterns. The authors borrow from Charles Alexander's Design Patterns but find SD is not like buildings. I guess these guys like to poke and potter around code a lot.

Dahlias - follow the recommended spacings in planting bulbs otherwise the blooms get smothered in the bushy growth.
Geraniums - don't overwater or feed these Mediterranean plants
Begonias - ideally pinch off the females as the male flowers make bigger longer-lasting blooms and don't run to seed.
Daisies - they like to be dead headed every so often to produce more flowers
as do petunias who also like to be overfed.

This much I know from 6 months experience.

Gaming

2004-09-15T11:57:00.000+01:00

Bear Bibault a bartender at the JavaRanch created this game Enter the Blackbox from a 70's board game.

It's really good. He created it using JSP 2.0 and HTML running on a TomCat server.
I find that inspires me so much but cannot think of a board game that translates well to playing on the web. Creating the game as a multiplayer option is a pre-requisite I feel. Bear is working on his game with this in mind. But what a great start.

The inspirations I have in mind run from a game based on professional people,lawyers and estate agents and politicians that you might get to dunk as the game progresses.That would best be kept single-player.
Wonderland(Stinky & Loof) from http://www.BigFishGames.com is a family favourite. I can see this one getting there too.

Words from an old poet

2004-09-12T19:10:00.000+01:00

Written by W.H.Auden as Hitler was infiltrating Poland, this poem has been distributed in memory of the tragedy of September 11, 2001 following terrorist attacks. The terrorist attrocities at a school in Beslan is Russia's own 9/11.
My nephew remembers images of 9/11 when he was only three but he can only recall it as a bad fairy tale like those found behind a Brothers Grimm cover. We didn't dare probe his understanding of the horrors at Beslan but children miss so little these days.

September 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odor of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analyzed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism's face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
"I will be true to the wife,
I'll concentrate more on my work,"
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

Peking Duck

2004-09-12T09:59:00.000+01:00

No I'm not about to wax eloquent about Chinese and Thai food. These have been featuring a lot in our get-together menus of late, popular with both work-stressed adults and carefree children on summer holiday.
* Aromatic Duck Pancake Rolls with Spicy Plum Sauce
* Thai Chicken & Vegetable Samosas with Chilli Jam
* Honey Mustard Coated Gourmet Cocktail Sausages
* Mini Beef and Seeded Mustard Mayonnaise in miniature Yorkshire Puddings
* Chicken Satay Skewers

Rather, recently having worked with people from China I was struck by their down to earth honesty, goodness and attitude to hard work. It's very easy to stereotype people based on a few experiences but I decided to try and learn a bit about the culture. I'll listen if anyone wants to dwell at length on the art of Sheng-Fui and I feel every garden has to have a Japanese garden spot for meditation.

The epic, Wild Swans chronicles the lives of three generations of women, grandmother and concubine to a warlord , daughter and grand-daughter,Jung Chang, the author of the book. The grandmother's story, (probably the best read in the 3 part book) details the lot of Chinese women living out their lives in excrutiating pain with their feet bound from birth, unquestioning subservience to the whims of their men, masters, husbands and in their late years, their sons.

It also explains why the madness that was Mao took hold over this great culture.
Mao wanted to rid China of all western ideology.The story Jung's mother brings to life is the maddening irrationality of the Great Leap Forward, the famine of 1960 and the Cultural Revolution. The description of life during these years is superb if completely surreal. The writer goes to a lot of trouble to make the three heroines emerge as pearls among the swine.The reader has to continually try and remind themselves that perhaps the other characters weren't as black as painted. Not having had any similar experiences to compare, a lot is beyond our ability to imagine.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress : A Novel I feel would give a more balanced read about the Mao era. It is the story of two young men sent to a remote re-education camp, and how their discovery of a suitcase full of classical Western books changes their lives, and the life of the object of their love - the book's heroine, the little Chinese seamstress.
I've only read the reviews which highly recommend the book on many levels.

Grass soup is by one of China's best-known writers. Declared a Rightist by the authorities in 1958, Zhang spent 22 years in a labor reform camp in western China, condemned as an "intellectual." "As a hod carrier, he subsisted on scraps of food with an occasional "treat" such as live toad ("a cold appetizer... delicious"). He traces the weakening of his body and spirit to the point where he cared about only two things: the bowl of grass soup that was his evening meal, and taking his next breath. Starvation, he explains, is an effective government policy: "Only by making people endure hunger can you make them submit to you, worship you.".."

From a vantage point in this century, people will find the story hard to believe, apparent from the reviews.

Blogshares

2004-09-10T07:55:00.000+01:00

I don't know what's happening here but this site is up there on Steven Berlin Johnson's Blogshares and up-for-trade.
(Sep. 14 - it's off now)

Time for a chunder.
Ok, think we have it sussed. It's a way of determining how many valuable links a blog has, incoming and outgoing. By including these links here(outgoing) I don't believe this blog's blogshares will sky-rocket overnight. But I'm leaving them here for a while to watch. I cannot believe ebay is worth more than General Motors and has only been in existence for a mere six years.

Green footballs politics (B$10,719.46)/
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Seeing things (B$9,054.27)
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Tom Paine
Turning the Tide
Wonkette
words without borders

How the Colonies were won

2004-09-09T20:01:00.000+01:00

Ever watched How the West was won ?

Hazard a guess that the Colonies were won because of feminine obsessions with gardening. Out of all the relics built in the past still stand these glowing testimonies to the olde gardeners. Cottage gardens packed with colour or perfect green lawns outside palace windows, flanked by topiary hedges,rose gardens and perennial borders.

English women made their fair contribution to colonisation, perhaps more than their fair share because some of them were notorious adventurers who literally helped carve up countries when maps were redrawn. Others were wives, trapped in Victorian married existence, who threw themselves in parties and their gardens with the aide of servants if they had any.

Gardening is a passion especially in these isles and their ex-colonies. It's good business, too with more and more supermarkets selling gardening implements and seed bar actual composts. City Analysts' reports have targeted gardening centres and asked for better retail management. Cue all those television shows out there tapping into seams of pure gold. Television gardening programs do not encourage the gardeners of today to create gardens meant to last and evolve, but gardens to be reworked every year. The costs can spiral each year.

It has caused a backlash of "true gardeners" who refuse to spend more than £40 a year on their garden but re-cycle, become composters and grow plants from seed or propogation. But they can't do without the garden centres because new pests and viruses are introduced all the time. Garden Centres seemingly have such a huge responsibility; luckily there are Environmental Laws to keep them in check and some very public spirited people to keep the latter in check. Who knew that heavy farming near rivers would cause such damage to water life that the fish are bi-sexed and infertile.

Juggling Browsers &

2004-09-09T16:12:00.000+01:00

I've been so used to running up Firefox that I neglected to check how this blog viewed in Microsoft IE6. One word to describe it - pants. Fortunately it was just the last post that needed tweaking but the table-rendering needs some more attention.
At least this isn't something you need to worry about from day-to-day, working on an Enterprise project. They usually kow-tow to Microsoft when it comes to browsers and the Desktop.

Winter Colour

2004-09-05T19:39:00.000+01:00

Start planning the colour scheme of your winter garden now. To get it right plan early August and start planting by mid-August.
mauve
For autumn flowers, cyclamen and autumn flowering crocuses are a good bet.
I'm picking a deep pink and a bright pure white varieties of cyclamen. Snow at Christmas is getting to be a rarity so large bands of white cyclamen would work very well lined with deep Christmas-red ones. Going with a Christmas theme a red and white planted-pansy Santa in a wheelbarrow hitched in reverse with sleigh bells to willow reindeers... Outlined with brightly lit outdoor lights... Jeez! Next year we'll probably be lighting up the whole rooftop following the British trend to keep up with their Jonesy cousins.
peach
In the lawn I'm planting some autumn flowering crocusses, intermingled with spring flowering daffodils and narcissi. The scheme: mauve and lavender crocuses to be followed by tiny spring yellow and peach or off-white narcissi and daffodils. This isn't as horrible as it sounds. Dolce and Gabbana do a mauve and lavender tie but I'd feel sorry for the person who gets it as a Christmas gift. I'm actually working up to mauve, peach, yellow, lilac and lavender colour scheme between winter and spring if I've got the bottle but perhaps Nature will stop my well-laid plan in it's tracks.
yellow
In spring, the cyclamen borders will be followed by the pink and white Salome narcissus, pink Angelique double headed tulips, white hyacinths and some pink hyacinths.
mauve-lavender
Spring and autumn are the times to work on the lawn and it's a good time to be either removing bulbs or adding them while weeding at the same time. I find overseeding with grass seeds helps to give a thick carpet. And so what if the birds eat some seeds. I musn't forget to pick some onion sets and perhaps plant some barrel-grown potatoes in time for Christmas. I'm already a few weeks late planting but try getting the stock from Garden Centres. Suppliers are over-stretched and there's hardly anything in store. Preparation is key.
lavender
As I haven't done winter planting before I need all the luck.
Actually I find lilac too cold (who wants to be reminded of the cold in deep mid winter) so I'm switching to lilac-mauve. You'd just have to imagine these as tulips ,crocusses and narcissi. Of course the theme could be continued into the summer with roses and hydrangeas of the same hues.
lilac-mauve
In the summer I prefer hot reds,magentas,hot pinks and oranges. They seem to accentuate the heat better.Or make up for the lack of heat, so either way you're on to a winner. But plants with these colours tend to be annuals so that means starting all over again the following year.
lilac

Freemasons

2004-09-03T14:11:00.000+01:00

The way the RSA organisation introduced itself triggered some half memory of a group called the Freemasons who operate through Lodges throughout the world.
Some Lodges have a very good Christian centre and others are deemed "irregular" to even Satanic. Even the regular ones have rumours going around of strange rituals like " *edited- family members invited to read* " at initiation ceremonies.

So buyer beware. That last could have been recounted to me just to keep me away.
For a bit of background on Freemasons read on:

"Great Britain, the cradle of freemasonry, has 350,000 members. The name "Freemason" is a contraction of "Free Stonemason", a guild of mediaeval cathedral builders.

As the techniques of the trade needed to be kept secret, every apprentice wanting to become part of the guild had to take part in a very strict initiation ceremony. At the outset, freemasonry had religious influences, which the Masonic symbolism embodies. Life is viewed as a building to be completed and each man is a block of "rough ashlar" or unhewn stone that must be worked on to be a part of the invisible Temple."

more here

Invitations

2004-09-03T09:17:00.000+01:00

This has been a week of invitations and the week hasn't ended yet.

Alright, I solicited one invitation by sending an e-mail to someone who was offering to give GMail invitations away. My life has just become easier by a factor of 20.

The second invitation arrived by post. The letter said "The Trustee Board has noted your success and has asked me to invite you to stand for election to Fellowship of the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacture and Commerce. Election is only available to those whose achievements set them apart."

I checked the date. No it wasn't April the 1st. Did I do any kind acts in the last year like help old ladies cross the street? Not by a long shot. Success ? Hah! Nil!

Puzzled, I read further. The RSA's five key challenges are Encouraging Enterprise, Moving towards a Zero Waste Society, Fostering Resilient Communities, Developing a Capable Population, Advancing Global Citizenship. In 1754, a William Shipley was inspired to develop a fund to support improvements in the liberal arts, sciences and manufactures. The first meeting was held in a coffee house in Covent Garden.

People who make up the membership of the RSA ?
Benjamin Franklin, William Hogarth, Samuel Johnson, Joshua Steele, Karl Marx, Sir David Attenborough, Sir Terence Conran, Betty Jackson, Baroness Kennedy, Lloyd Grossman, Cherie Blair, Lord Rogers, Tom Stoppard, Sir Simon Rattle, Jon Snow, Stephen Hawking, Nelson Mandela, Alex James, Anthony Gormley, Julie Walters, Gavin Esler, Dianne Thompson, Manolo Blahnik, Andrew Marr, Ben Okri, Sir Christopher Ondaatje, Tim Smit, Sir Adrian Cadbury and Professor Martin Rees.
Lloyd Grossman and Cherie Blair kind of spoilt the list for me. I'll have to mull this over and promptly forget it afterwards. In all probability. They appear to have a good library.

www.theRSA.org

Harry Potter in Latin ? That is just devious

2004-09-02T17:12:00.000+01:00

I think learning Latin should be mandatory from quite young so pupils will be thankful forever after to be learning French and even German. Harry Potter in Latin is devious.
A London teacher struggled to teach inner city kids from backgrounds as far reaching as Somalia, Ethiopia and even Bangladesh. Almost giving up in despair she stumbled on a series of books set in the 1950s about a group of schoolboys and girls and read aloud to her class. She was amazed at how well they seemed to relate to the characters and based all her lessons around them. Perhaps the books touched on experiences of life-after-war. Listening to The Diary of Anne Frank read aloud is an experience never forgotten.

I forget the name of the book series now but I may recall where I saw it.

Well then don't look...

2004-09-01T21:51:00.000+01:00

Learn a language or two by reading books written in a foreign language.

Persepolis and Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return.
Two books,originally written in French,have now been translated into 11 languages.
Persepolis is written by an Iranian woman in comic book style, featuring blunt black and white graphics reminiscent of Persian miniatures. The French narrative is humourous though it deals with living in war-torn Iran, especially sufferings by Iranian women. The heroine is 10 year old Marji.
In one sequence Marji runs to catch a bus when she is stopped by Guardians of the Revolution guards who admonish her for running telling her that her posterior makes obscene movements."Well then don't look at my ass", yells Marji so loudly that the guards don't arrest her.

A reviewer on Amazon describes Persopolis as 'To Kill a Mockingbird' for today's world. He also likens it to the classic 'A Catcher in the Rye'.

Frenchy by Benjamin Cros (in French) about persecuted minorities, Parisian-Texans in Hornflat, Lone Star,the American Deep South.

Mill,Alm,Money,Lemon: A Family Conversation by Bolivar Lamounier (in Portuguese).
The author reckons he is from an ancient line of European labourers - millers, lemon growers, financiers or almsgivers. In pursuit of his ancestors he ends up tracing much of world history. Ultimately a story about all of us.

More on Stereotyping

2004-08-30T14:21:00.000+01:00

English lessons in Luxembourg constructed to give an insight into everyday life in Britain.

An exercise in tense enquired if Arthur has left the house, to be answered that yes he has gone down to his favourite pub, where he likes to have a few pints. It went on to say that he goes there often and it will not be long before he becomes an alcoholic.

Another lesson was about a young lady who had not yet eaten but was going to get fish and chips from round the corner and then watch the telly.
In another passage the reader was informed that the English middle classes will lose all their cheap servants when immigration stops. The British were beyond redemption in their eyes.
BBC on this day

National Stereotypes

2004-08-29T21:39:00.000+01:00

Here's an amusing extract from but she's a girl blog, and there is a ring of truth. Maggie Thatcher generally gets blamed for the new wham-bam-thank-you-mam British attitude especially in the construction/property and estate industry. She's also blamed for the increase in the number of tenants who couldn't afford to get onto the property market, with the correspondng boom in landlords, the new multi-millionaires who also hold down professional jobs like accounting,nursing and teaching. The craft had been taken out of craftsmanship.I would tend to agree with the commentator who said:

"I suspect that our many years of tutelage under Margaret Thatcher may have had something to do with this.Or, more generally, the way in which our economy has developed over the last several decades. I remember my father describing his time as an engineering apprentice - when apprenticeships were something to be aspired to. Contrast this to more recent ‘innovations’, particularly things like the YTS scheme, and you’ll see that there’s been something of a shift in the Zeitgeist. Apprenticeships were something to be pursued, YTS schemes, which as best I can tell were a wholesale disaster, were foisted on young men and women who really didn’t want to work a dead-end job for dead-end pay.

I think these sort of economic and political changes go some way towards explaining the national spirit … sadly. "

The piece describes the construction of a Huf Haus.

The Huf Haus looks great but these modernist structures tend to last for only 40 years after which most modernist homes need to be replaced.

G-AD FLY

2004-08-27T20:39:00.000+01:00

"Even so I cannot understand why Anil Dash's blog didn't pass the test whereas Steven Berlin Johnson's blog was approved."

Spoke too soon. Anil Dash now uses G-Ads whereas Seven Johnson has stopped doing so.

I am posting this via my e-mail client.

If all goes well it should pop up on my blog. Also changed the Ad layout to be a WIDE Skyscraper banner- like the sticky fly traps my grandmother used to set up.

This is intriguing.
Though I'm not sure that I'd care to be blogging nearly every thought and deed. But then again, a year ago I wouldn't have dreamt to be doing this.

The Great American Bunion Derby

2004-08-27T13:52:00.000+01:00

While I am trying to understand the new horrible layout of the blog here is an amazing story.The story puts the Olympics in the shade.
Bob Brown on a normal day teaches in Cornwall. He recently won the toughest contest known to man a 3,100 mile run from the east coast to the west coast of the United States, running nearly two marathons a day for two months.
There are no spectators to cheer them on or watch them cross the finish line because the race is one of the best kept secrets in the US. They run through deserts, plains and over mountain ranges. The winner made do with a minimal support crew consisting of wife, sister and just a couple of friends.
He lived on one particular gift from one of his sponsors, 8 Cornish pasties a day. A gift from a small Cornish bakery perhaps. After supplies ran out he made do with jelly beans, crisps, energy bars and cereals and gorged on chocolate. Just about anything that was bad for you.There wasn't any time to roast a rattlesnake or desert rat or two.

Google Ad Mad

2004-08-27T11:44:00.000+01:00

This blog is going Ad Mad for a while until we see how things pan out(pun). Yes, we are officially gold-digging and have a sponsor. Google had the Adsense to approve their ads inclusion on the blog. Simply copy and paste from generated templates. Google don't give their approval indiscriminately either. A human reader browses through the blog. That's nice to know. Maybe it was late afternoon and he or she fancied some afternoon tea. Anyway we are Adseiling. That's enough bad jokes.

Early in the night I slipped in a lacy background image hoping to tip the scales in favour. I have more jiggery-pokery planned as I am trying out a Macromedia Flash trial.
A few adjustments to the ad placements are required. Jobs for tomorrow, the night is drawing closed.

Actually, I think I've reasoned it out. It must be all the links to Thomas Paul's 700+ Amazon reviews and the potential $$$$ revenue generation. Thank's Thomas Paul.
Even so I cannot understand why Anil Dash's
blog didn't pass the test whereas Steven Berlin Johnson's blog was approved. Hitchin' your wagon to a star publisher or reviewer has added bonus points.
Read his thoughts on his sponsors here.
I feel so Blogging Beautiful :smile: until the Inland Revenue turns up at the door before the first cheque arrives. I'll have a good laugh if the cheque is written out for the princely sum of $0.00. It'll serve the IR right.

Unfinished review : The Learning Game

2004-08-26T18:19:00.000+01:00

Thought I'd try and review the book as I was reading it to see if I could capture any thoughts and feelings. My thoughts are in the light of teachers I knew in the past. As you got older you made the unpleasant discovery that if they lost you while lecturing that was the beginning of the end. You were history. So even if a lecturer or his subject bores you to tears, it bodes well if you hang on to their every word. Feigning understanding isn't much use as they'd throw a googly of a question and catch you out when least expecting it. Sensitivity to any rivalry or romance between the teachers would further keep you out of trouble. As you can probably tell I got quite detached about what teaching was all about. I felt they didn't really understand "real" life and lived in an ivory tower. Let's see if Jonathan Smith's book can change my view.

Jonathan Smith teaches young children. That's clear from the start. He claims that people tend to look on teachers as people not quite fully grown up. This I find is very true of teachers in junior education. Which is a good thing. It's only later that the teachers get egoistical and aloof. Which is also a good thing, generally. But on rare occasions you do discover the teacher that has the ability to connect to the playful and curious inner child and bear fruit.

Rule no 1: Learn never to apologise for being a teacher. The British teachers are habitual apologists. Some teachers go even further and are in denial, aware of "the social disabilities of the trade." Jonathan Smith writes that teachers need to be like doctors who never apologise even if they are about to finish you off. Those who have second careers in writing or in music still find themselves apologising. The apologising only stops if they are lucky enough to have a book or piece of music shown on TV.

Rule no 2: As a parent and teacher he advises that beyond loving them, the best that can be done for them is to "make them interested, interested in things in the hope that it will make them interesting." To me that is the most difficult thing about being a parent or teacher. "Nothing beats a seriously good and demanding chat with your pupils or child , a really serious exchange of views even if it descends into a row or argument." I ask you, have teachers and parents lost sight of that ? Can they not risk being humane over being PC ?

What afternoons were made for

2004-08-25T21:26:00.000+01:00

Tea at the Ritz.

Every day of the year this most British of traditions may be enjoyed in The Palm Court. Tea is served from noon and there are three sittings that may be reserved; 1.30pm, 3.30pm or 5.30pm. During the week a pianist plays and at weekends a harpist.

Menu
Afternoon tea sandwiches:
Smoked salmon with lemon butter on brown bread
Poached salmon with watercress on brown bread
Roast turkey on sun dried tomato bread
Cream cheese and chives on caraway bread
Cucumber and dill on spinach bread
Egg and mustard cress on brown bread
Salt beef and mustard on granary bread

Freshly baked plain and fruit scones with strawberry jam and clotted cream

Madeira and rich Dundee cake

Afternoon tea pastries and cream cakes:
Passion fruit mousse
Three chocolate mousse
Raspberry tart
Mixed fruit tart
Lemon meringue tart
Millefeuille

The Ritz selection of tea or coffee
£32.00 per person
Inclusive of service and Value Added Tax

In order to avoid disappointment, reservations are strongly recommended. Gentlemen are respectfully requested to wear a jacket and tie. Jean style trousers and trainer type shoes are not permitted.

It was the Ritz I was thinking of not The Dorchester. But apparently The Dorchester does them too without the pianist or harpist and formal dress. I think it's still better value than, say, The Aberdeen Steak House which you find at every corner in and around Oxford Street. They could have put more effort in the number of cakes. Shock horror! They don't have strawberries and cream.
The dish has become too common for the Ritz to include it. Mille feuille ? Lemon meringue ?
And the breads! The British afternoon tea has been sabotaged. On second thoughts, stick to the country.

Finding an ECH

2004-08-25T20:39:00.000+01:00

I was going to post this as a response to Tom's comment on the previous post but it got overly long.

Finding a good ECH is never easy and while I think being in the countryside is an essential ingredient, a good alternative for afternoon tea in London is at The Dorchester, a very swanky hotel near Hyde Park on Park Lane. I enquired and prices have changed recently but the traditional afternoon tea has been preserved in spite of rumours to the contrary.
The price per person seems to have kept up with inflation. I had compared it to a week's rail fare travelling to the city, years ago when I studied the basics of computing at the education arm of the British Oxygen Company in Park Lane.To my utter surprise the price is still on par at £28.50. It used to be £11 then. You could also bump into the likes of ET there. Elizabeth Taylor.

For really good puddings try The Pudding Club, Three Ways House, Mickleton, Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire started in the 80's in response to the attack from The Black Forest Gateau and Strawberry cheescake on the great British pud..

"Enjoy a unique break to remember. Attend a meeting of the Pudding Club, generally held on the 1st and 3rd Friday of each month. Stay overnight and take English breakfast before exploring the local area. On Saturday night dine in the main Restaurant from the table d’hote menu, departing after breakfast on Sunday morning."

There are many local attractions in the vicinity. The most important Stratford-on-Avon (Shakespeare Country) is in the next county Warrickshire.
That's enough sounding like a travel guide. I'd also look for Gary Rhodes' restaurants him being a top chef and ex-footman to the Queen who hopefully instilled in him her partiality to afternoon tea. And hotels doing Agatha Christie mystery holidays.

Staying at an English Country Hotel

2004-08-24T13:36:00.000+01:00

The English collectively suffer from sweet tooth. Stay at a Country Hotel and it's very obvious from the ritual ceremony at tea-time and plans for a stay-in supper meal or dinner will only be finalised after first determining "what's for pudding?".

The beverage is often Earl Grey or a blend of lapsang souchong and Earl Grey. Copius amounts are needed to wash down the cucumber/salmon/cream cheese sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, a selection of biscuits and shortbreads and an even bigger selection of cakes ; small and dainty fairy cakes, butterfly cakes, iced finger buns, mini fondants, medium loaf breads (eggless and best served with fresh butter), to large Victoria Sponge cake, Dundee cake, Devonshire cake, Country fruit cake and Farmhouse fruit cake.

In the evening the main event is the pudding parade of which there must be at least seven. Spotted dick, syrup sponge, sticky toffee pudding, passion fruit charlotte, chocolate mousse , summer pudding and Eton Mess, all served with lashings of custard arrive one by one. Each arrival is greeted with cheers and the aim is to eat all seven.

The following morning a very brisk long walk in rolling hills is the perfect antidote to these excesses.

'Il Divo'

2004-08-24T11:41:00.000+01:00

Four tenors in a group called "il divo" is a new project by Simon Cowell in conjunction with BMG records in London to create a new sound that combines pop music with opera. Guess what ? When they sang, they shut Simon Cowell up.They each earned about £300,000 a year before they signed the recording contract, so this is the gourmet end of dining on music.The full album is due to be released in November/December and Il Divo's first single, a cover of Toni Braxton's Unbreak My Heart, will be out next month.

The Four tenors are : David Miller from Colarado , appeared in La Boheme on Broadway. He gave up the opportunity to debut as Cassio in Othello with the New York Metropolitan Opera to be part, instead, of Il Divo when he realised it's scope. In classical music you can either be completely caught up or be totally let down.
The worst performance I've been to was at the NY Met Op. The star of the show , Placido Domingo, cancelled on opening night and I guess the remaining performers of Aida felt equally let down and gave a lacklustre performance over two days. It was excruciatingly painful to sit through that, though the rest of the night in Central Park more than made up for it.

Urs Buhler from Lucerne Switzerland. He has sung with the Salzburg and Amsterdam Operas and is a star of Holland's oratario circuit.
Sebastien Izambard a songwriter and producer based in Paris he also performs in musicals and concerts. He has never sung true Opera.
Carlos Marin born in Germany of Spanish parents, he has appeared in La Traviata and Figaro and taken leads in Spanish productions of Les Miserables and Beauty And The Beast.

On another note, the TV program X-Factor starts in early September, with auditions like Pop Idol but open to all age groups. Watch out for a woman in her 40s , stopped by her husband from accepting recording contracts, twice, while in her 20s and 30s.

Modest Mouse : as life gets longer awful feels softer

2004-08-16T18:35:00.000+01:00

as life gets longer awful feels softer
well it feels pretty soft to me
and if it takes shit to make bliss
then i feel pretty blissfully

Check out the Easy Listening link on the right, down.
from the "new" Modest Mouse album Good News For People Who Love Bad News , admittedly easier on the ear than their other album The Moon & Antarctica.

Living In Egypt

2004-08-14T06:30:00.000+01:00

Some Blogs are beyond fascinating and this is one.

Living in Egypt

The author has a way with describing an unusual culture and her love for Egypt, warts and all, shines through each post.

The Library

2004-08-13T15:44:00.000+01:00

It's been ages since I last loaned books from the Central Library and I had to apply for a new card, a laminated, magenta coloured card. Fortunately, they had all the books I wanted when I rang up and I was in and out of there in 15 minutes.
To me, Central Libraries exude the same sense of foreboding as hospitals do. The feeling that the longer you stay there someone's precious time is being wasted, doesn't help either.
I prefer going to local libraries, the staff are always happy to see and service their customers. A visit to the GPs used to have the same cozy feel but now the General Practioners is just like a visit to the Central Library. It's becoming so that it's wiser to know exactly what you need before you enter which usually requires doing some research beforehand.

I got out all the books mentioned in the previous post. The same Jonathan Smith authored both The Learning Game and Summer in February and I'm looking forward to reading them.

Who knows, I might even blog up a review or two.

The Learning Game: A Teacher's Inspirational Story

2004-08-09T19:12:00.000+01:00

Amazon.co.uk: Books: The Learning Game: A Teacher's Inspirational Story:

This appears to be a must read for those interested in inspiring others, not just for teachers. Jonathan Smith also taught "poets like Christopher Reid and Charles Boyle, the biographer Anthony Seldon, entertainers and actors, and even the oscar-winning maker of When We Were Kings, Vikram Jayanti".

Note of interest: Is this Ed Smith-of-Kent-and-England-cricketing fame's father ? The Jonathan Smith who wrote The Learning Game, taught Vikram Seth at Tonbridge School and Seth's The Golden Gate has a place of honour on Ed Smith's bookshelf as does his father's book

Summer In February describes the stormy first marriage of the painter Sir Alfred Munnings.One of the strong points of the book ,apparently, is that it is very well researched ! :confused:

Also, Smith (Ed) believes that D.H. Lawrence's : Studies in Classic American Literature shows insights into America that are unsurpassed.
To the last I would add :
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville . After more than 150 years since it's publication, this analysis of the America still remains startingly apposite. Lightly written and with intelligence it stands as a definitive guide to the US and a founding text of modern liberalism. Or so I am told but decide for yourselves from this full-text electronic version.

The Nimbys

2004-08-06T19:34:00.000+01:00

English passions for long muddy walks and gardening amaze foreigners. One explanation is that the countryside is a scarce commodity and set to become even more so with all the planning development in progress. Plans for whole stand-alone towns like Stevenage and Milton Keynes are underway.

Nimbys is a word that exists only in English. It stands for Not In My Back Yard and describes the hostility to rural development.

Legend has it that under the hills around Winchester, England's ancient capital lies a sleeping dragon. Only when the tribes of Britain gather once again upon it's head at Twyford Down would the dragon awake to protect the land and banish tyranny from the shores.

Some think the dragon has been woken as Protestors take up the cause to keep England a green and pleasant land. Market forces are once again at work to place a value on either development or conservation. Each side would have to show the loss by going ahead or not with rural developments.

See the comments on origin and use of the word NIMBY.
Meanwhile here's a very humorous strip on NIMBYs.

Always On

2004-08-06T18:52:00.000+01:00

Wi-Fi coverage is a requirement at conference hosting venues so that attendees can wirelessly surf the internet even during speaker sessions. When the networking works they sit in neat rows eyes glued to their laptops , not missing out on any live action as they have mounted webcams capturing the visuals on stage and displaying them on a small window on their screen.

While software boss at IBM Steve Mills was giving a speech on things being "leveraged" and "empowerment of modular design and componentisation" , screens alongside him had blogs shown running commentaries on the audience reactions. It wasn't flattering ! "OK, bring on the hook. Enough of the IBM commercial!".
"Blah blah say something!" read another blog. "Seriously , what is this dribble... what a waste of 45 minutes" said a third blog. Attendees can look at the blog screens without even making eye contact with the people sitting around them and read what they are saying about the panel discussion.

A technology breakthrough in getting rid of dull speakers. Wait till it hits every classroom. Scary!

Java 1.3

2004-07-19T15:59:00.000+01:00

A refresher on what's so great about Java 1.3 .... Well, it's guaranteed that most companies are currently using it with no plans to migrate to Java 1.4 in the immediate future. Though it's unavoidable unless the .Net competition gets severe enough to fast forward the required platform to be Java 1.5 .

What's required is a refresher course and here I aim to cover the most unforgettable points about 1.3.

I'll be using Eclipse 3.0 and watch out for some UML diagrams that may not make much sense yet as my UML is evolving at best. Any helpful pointers, dear reader, will be appreciated a LOT.

Pioneers of the Millenium

2004-06-16T07:06:00.000+01:00

Tim Berners-Lee has been awarded a cash prize of 1.2 million dollars for inventing the World Wide Web, winning the first Millennium Technology Prize..

"If I had tried to demand fees ... there would be no World Wide Web," Berners-Lee, 49, said. "There would be lots of small webs.Building the Web, I didn't do it all myself," he said. "The really exciting thing about it is that it was done by lots and lots of people, connected with this tremendous spirit."
Despite his prize, he remained modest about his achievements.

Berners-Lee now runs the standard-setting World Wide Web Consortium from an office at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Other people I would nominate for the award, based on what I've read. Your mileage may be different.

Rajiv Mody of SASKEN Ltd.

Dial 911 on a cell phone and the location pops up on the emergency operator's screen then think of an unassuming software engineer thousands of miles away in Bangalore, India. The man is 46 yr old Rajiv Mody founder and chairman of Sasken Ltd. one of the world's leading providers of wireless communications software. Japan's NEC have turned to Sasken, and companies like Ericson, Intel and Sharp as rhey sought to upgrade their products multi-media capabilities.

This icon of Indian technology was founded oddly enough in a garage in Silicon Valley on about $40,000 of Mody's savings. " years later Mody (born in Gujarat) moved his fledgling company toi Bangalore. The move gave him an edge in hiring the best graduates of Indian technical universities and helped infuse Sasken with an austere corporate culture.
Mody's two great heroes are Mahatma Gandhi and Warren Buffet.

More here

Knuckling down

2004-06-16T04:25:00.000+01:00

Links to add to my growing list:

Data Structures in Java

Dr Baldwin is author of the famous

The Baldwin Tutorials

Java Network Programming