Category Archives: Uncategorized

Uncategorized

Writing 101 Free Writing Challenge

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So I have signed myself up to the WordPress Writing 101 Course. The Idea being to improve my writing and hopefully make this blog more interesting. Today’s exercise is to write for twenty minutes without an agenda and publish the result.

OK this may not be the most interesting post I have ever produced. It certainly won’t be the most coherent. Though some one (probably Lord Wallington) will probably tell me that it beats every thing that I have ever written on both counts.

I would normally run my posts through the proof reader to winkle out any gross grammatical errors, clichés and the like, before I publish, but this time I won’t as this is just supposed to be a stream on conciousness thing. I will use a spell checker though. The spell checker doesn’t like the way I spell spellchecker apparently. First fail of the post, unless you count starting it that is.
Normally at this time of the year I would be blogging mainly about the Tour de France, but for various reasons, mainly things going on in and around my life, I haven’t got the same enthusiasm for it that I usually have. At this time last year I was getting quite excited about the fact that it was starting in Leeds and that there were to be three stages in Britain, with the final on ending more or less on my doorstep in London. I was making tentative plans about going up to Yorkshire at the weekend and then back home for Monday so that I could take in all three stages, but life got in they way. And as Burns said

“The best laid plans o’ mice and men gan aft aglee”

That is my twenty minutes up, so I will run the spellchecker and hit the publish button.

Environment, Uncategorized

Another Cartoonist on Climate Change

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This time from Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury)

Lets go with the 1%

Environment, Uncategorized

How big a change is Global Warming going to make?

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The Web Comic XKCD – Which comes with the following warning;

Warning: this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors)

recently published this:

It is easy to deny climate change, to say “Global Warming, nothing to worry about. it just means that we will be able to grow grapes in Yorkshire”. The reality is that if we don’t stop pumping CO2 into the atmosphere we will be producing a climate that is as different from today’s as today’s from that of the last ice age.

Food, Restaurants, Uncategorized

Eating out with Vegetarians

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Barbara Ellen has a rant in today’s Observer at people who won’t go out with a vegetarian because they are “too picky” and make dining out “nightmare”.

“Would you date a vegetarian? I ask, because it’s still evident that there are people who’d prefer not to, because they feel that dining out would be a nightmare and that vegetarians are “too picky”.The cheek of it, yet such judgment is widespread.

Now I have some sympathy with her views, having gone out with, indeed been married to a vegetarian for the best part of the last 30 years. Admittedly it does need a bit of reading of menus outside restaurants in France, and (in France) often ends up eating in an Italian or Vietnamese restaurant. But generally, no they are not picky they can’t afford to be.

“It’s time to fight back. Vegetarians don’t ruin meals in restaurants – we are angels who meekly accept the one dish (max) we’re offered (these days, either the ubiquitous goat’s cheese tart or dreaded risotto).

It is slightly better than it used to be, when the choice was generally the vegetarian lasagna. Or with one memorable, for all the wrong reasons, meal in a pub on the A303, tagliatelle in “mushroom sauce”. They had boiled the tagliatelle for about an hour and the “mushroom sauce” looked and tasted like Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup. An Anglo-Italian family had made the same mistake as us. Their teenage daughter was overheard saying,
“Mama you will not believe what they have done to the pasta”.
My meal wasn’t much better.

“We don’t kick off when male omnivores use every pan in the house, lost in a fantasy that they’re Anthony Bourdain.

Yes you do, but we’ll leave that for another day. Anyway in my case the fantasy is that I’m Heston Blumenthal

No, the time when vegetarians are picky and a pain in the backside in restaurants is when you go to a vegetarian restaurant with them. Normally it takes her two seconds to decide what she is having to eat ( because there is only one choice) but take her to Terre à Terre and Grace can take half-an-hour making up her mind what to have.

Terre by the way comes highly recommended by this omnivore. Only the most blinkered carnivore could fail to enjoy their food.

Uncategorized

Meccano

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Ask almost any engineer of my generation what was their favourite toy when they were growing up and the answer will invariably be Meccano. A man named Frank Hornby invented it over 100 years ago. (He was the same person who made Hornby model railways.)

It consists of re-usable plates, drilled strips, angle brackets and nuts and bolts to put your models together. Most kits also included axles, gears, pulleys and wheels so that you could make working models. With a bit of thought and ingenuity you could make some impressive models, like the one shown below.

That model was made by Timothy Edwards Click on the link to see more of his models.

meccanoMotorbike

The thing that got me started on this nostalgia trip was a T.V. programme in which James May (him from Top Gear) had a motorbike and side-car built out of Meccano and rode it round the Isle of Man TT course. It kind of puts my models of cranes and draw-bridges into the shade. Maybe I should get myself a Meccano set for my birthday this year.

This is a link to BBC iPlayer if you want to watch it James May’s Toy Stories – The Motorcycle Diary.

That link might not work if you don’t live in the UK.

Uncategorized

It’s a New Year

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It’s New Years Day 2014. I’m not quite sure where 2013 went, but never mind it’s time for New Years Resolutions. I find New Years resolutions quite easy. I just recycle last years failed resolutions, eat more healthily, lose some weight, try to do a bit more exercise etc. etc…. This enhances my green credentials and saves racking my brain cells too much. I have also decided that his year I should try to blog a bit more than I did last year. I think I averaged about one post a month. I probably shouldn’t set my sights too high so I’ll aim for a post per week to start with.

Inspiration can be a problem, but there is always the cycling scene to comment on. I’m sure that our government will provide cause for the occasional rant. I’ll carry on linking to YouTube clips of songs that I like and throw in the occasional review of an art exhibition. We also have the independence referendum in Scotland this year. I don’t get to vote on it (because I live in London) but I am very interested in the outcome, so I will do a series of posts on it.

New Year also involves traditions. In the johnm55 household this involves going out for a curry on New Years eve (Hogmanay for my Scottish Readers) with Mrs johnm55 and our friend Mike. We used to be joined by another couple but they have moved to place their daughter describes as “almost the middle of nowhere”, it is actually Woodbridge in Suffolk, which is a bit of a trek just for a curry. After that we come back to our place for coffee, Mike goes home to see the New Year in with his mum, Mrs johnm55 usually declares herself French for the evening and wishes me a Happy New Year at 11 o’clock and goes off to bed, leaving me nursing a Caol Ila and watching Jools Holland, to see the new year in. This year she decided to stay up and see it in with me which was nice.

We had one of these in our garden in the Solomons

The other New Year Tradition is exercise, a walk, a bike ride or a trip to the gym. The gym was closed, the wind was high enough to make bike riding unpleasant, hard work and probably downright dangerous. so that left a walk, but where. Headley Heath was ruled out on the basis that with the amount of rain we have had recently it would be more like Headley Marsh. So we decided on The RHS Gardens at Wisley because they have proper paths there. We did try, but after half an hour of battling to keep our umbrellas the right way out we gave up and went to look round the Glass House.

We decided that we would have lunch in the hope that the rain would stop or at least calm down a bit but…

From the Café window
From the Café window

So we gave up and came home.

International, Politics, Uncategorized

Imagine – a world without hate and bigotry

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The Anti-Defamation League is an American organisation that has fought hate and bigotry in all its forms for One Hundred years. They have produced this lovely inspiring video. It may take you a few seconds to realise what they have done here, well it took me a couple of seconds anyway. Some of the references are American, but most of them are universal. It is only eighty seconds long so watch it all the way through. It may well be the best eighty seconds of your week.

Uncategorized

Homeopathy – how it works

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Turns out that it doesn’t. Shame, I was hoping that sugar pills might improve my diabetes.


Via CoolHardLogic

Uncategorized

Canterbury vs The Tory Party

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The current dispute between The Archbishop of Canterbury and Iain Duncan-Smith is easily explained.

The Church, if it is doing its job properly, takes the side of the poor and dispossessed, the Conservative Party always takes the side of the rich and privileged.

Uncategorized

Get ready to walk through airport security naked.

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From the Guardian:

Foiled al-Qaeda bomb plot likely to lead to changes in US airport security

Homeland security adviser says FBI is testing latest underwear bomb to determine if it would have cleared current systems
The disruption of a plot by al-Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula to attack a US-based jet using what is being billed as an “improved” underwear bomb is likely to lead to increased security at American airports, the chief White House adviser on terrorism has indicated.

The full article is here. I have a feeling that we might have to take more than our shoes off the next time we get on a plane bound for the U.S.A.