The Martian Observer

Fungibilsation of Humanity

2011-12-23T01:05:00.002Z

An interesting read http://www.forbes.com/sites/rawnshah/2011/05/17/the-future-of-work/Part of the article reminded me of the day that I realised that my employer had shifted "our" Values in such a way that humans had become fungible resourcesI believe this is a trend that is spreading like a cancer across the worldThe companies Values used to be: Respect for People, Integrity and Excellence in that order, in the short form P.I.E.The company like many I see are shifting their Values to Respect for Profit, Discretion, and AgilitySome organisations are still clinging to their original values and avoiding this shift, but the "market" will punish them until they bend to the inevitable.fungible - of goods or commodities; freely exchangeable for or replaceable by another of like nature or kind in the satisfaction of an obligationIt seems I am not alone in thinking that making humanity fungible is the ultimate sinhttp://www.patrickemclean.com/2011/10/a-word-patrick-likes-fungible-adj/One might call this trend the Commoditisation of Humanity, I personally abhor the trend whatever we might call it!Is the trend exacerbated by our dire economic situation, or was our dire economic situation a result of the "Fungibilisation of Humanity"?There was a time when Companies thought differently: Cadbury used to be one such company, a firm run by Quakers whose beliefs helped direct their enlightened management styleSadly even this firm has fallen to the "market" for Cadbury Shareholders chose the 11.4 Biilion offered by Kraft, the temporary promise of continued employment for the Cadbury staff has now lapsed...The "Market" is apparently driven by Shareholders... I am one…. But do I really want the goal of any organisation that I hold shares in to treat humans as fungible resources to be cast aside when someone or something equivalent can be found to do their work for less? My answer is a resounding NO!But apparently I am alone… What must change?A word of warning or a glimmer of hope: Humans are not unthinking commodities, they can think, and act!Merry Christmas

Long time no see...

2011-08-25T10:34:00.004+01:00

Partly as I have not been moved to remonstrate or share at length = > 140 Characters

Today I finally have...

Open Letter to Tim Cook, Steve Jobs' replacement

I just wanted to wish you luck in stamping your own mark on Apple. I read with interest that Steve has inserted his DNA into the company and that it will continue on it's merry way with the innovative zeal that Steve is so famous for. That has some clear benefits as well as some very dangerous implications. I would like to think that you are aware that your Customers are moving with the times and Apple is rapidly being left behind. So what are the signs....

Exhibit One: The Apple Store Purchasing Experience
I today decided to never again purchase any more Hardware from the Online Apple Store, having placed my order for the new Mac Mini I was disappointed to find that to Apple Next Day Shipment still means Next Month Delivery! I have made this complaint directly at every opportunity that I can find. The MAC MINI was indeed "shipped" next day as you proudly informed me and "happily" it only took TWO WEEKS to arrive, which assuming an average speed of 70 MPH produces a distance travelled that is remarkably similar to the circumference of the Earth. (Methinks something is very wrong in Apple Distribution land). With a little perusal I have now found that I could have bought my Mac Mini from Amazon and get Next Day Delivery for LESS than I paid from the Apple Store, teach me to be blindly loyal!!. So, goodbye Apple Store

Exhibit Two: The Mac Mini Installation Experience
Happily getting ready to instal the Mac Mini with the new Magic Track Pad that you implied might have been the reason for the delayed delivery, "we have to get all the parts of the shipment in one place before we can ship to you"

I powered up the Mac Mini and the Magic Track Pad and my previously acquired Apple Blue tooth keyboard. The Track Pad stubbornly refused to be recognised by the Mac Mini, and as a result I could not get the keyboard connected either. So I had to go find a USB Mouse to gain control. At this stage I was able to cajole the Track Pad into working in a fashion. The Track Pad refused to produce a "Click" apparently it was defaulted to not do so? So I set the appropriate Box to persuade it to, and then found that there is a system wide default that meant that when I started up the box and tried to select which user I was, I couldn't, as I could not click! When I was in my own user domain clicking was possible. I have temporarily bypassed the problem with Auto Login, something I do not want to keep as the final option, currently I am stuck with that though... This is not the simple user install experience I expect from Apple. There where other similar glitches that all point to some poor UI testing... Hey Apple your UI DNA has been compromised somehow?

Exhibit Three: The LION OSX 10.7 Experience
Here I am quietly apoplectic, how am I supposed to bray about how good my new Apple is when you create a user experience that reminds me of the reason I set up this Blog. http://vista-log.blogspot.com/

On 10.7 eMail blows up regularly for no reason that I can tell even after the rapidly rolled out update.
You have also turned my world upside down, while I do get the reason, it is making my head swim watching the up and down scroll become the down and up scroll. I will get there but oh the pain!

I could go on but as I said I am apoplectic and a symptom of that condition is irrational irascibility.

Exhibit Four: A lost key...
Having lost, of all things, the Apple Key on my trusty MacBook Pro keyboard, don't ask me how! I simply asked how I might "buy" a replacement to clip back on myself. I prepared myself for a stupid price for a silly bit of plastic (I set my upper limit at £10) Sorry sir, the only way we can do that is to replace the whole keyboard. Say What?! Needless to say I am still missing the Apple Key and EVERY time a I press the transparent plastic nipple I get yet another mini shot of Apple Frustration.
What really annoyed me is that I was watching other "Apple Geniuses" agree to replace whole devices on a whim, and I could only imagine the pile of dead Apple Mac Book Pro's out the back. Methinks that the Apple Geniuses could do with being given a dose of common sense!

Apple Delight = MISS!

Exhibit Five: The Enterprise Experience
I work with an organisation that gives senior executives a glimpse into the future of technology, you are the one company on the West Coast that is so up it's own posterior, that you refuse to even consider groups of potential customers understanding the future of technology through your own eyes. Why??? OK so I am now beyond apoplectic. Which means that anything I type after this may start getting me into trouble.

So please Tim stamp your mark! Keep all the good parts that you know exist in Apple, but please get rid of the growing Apple Arrogance and focus on delivering the experience that in the original Apple DNA aimed to deliver "Apple Delight". For those times when you do get close to delighting me, more often than not your systems ahve already frustrated me.

So Tim what say you? How do you plan on keeping me as an Apple Customer?

Crowd Sourced Wedding Album Site

2011-05-09T22:02:00.003+01:00

Where-fore-art-thou?

I am looking for a Wedding Album SIte

Design/Specifications
1) Simply enrolment Wedding Guests as Crowd Sourced Photographers (Up to 200 Guests)
2) Clear communications of Album Goals
3) Simple Bulk Uploads (Up to 200 per Guest)
4) Simple Video Uploads
5) Automated Photo Time Synchronisation
6) Automated Face Recognition (linked to a Guest List)
7) Geolocation Tagging
8) Timeline
9) Crowdsourced Photo rating
10) Individual Album Development
11) DVD Creation
12) Printed album creation

Flickr 2/5 Poor Group Tools
Picassa 2/5 Capacity limited for Group Albums 500 Free 1,000 Paid

Is it out there?

Crowd Sourced Wedding Album Site

2011-05-09T22:02:00.002+01:00

2010-09-27T09:55:00.000+01:00

To American colleagues and friends, can I commend to you the "Farewell Speech" of George Washington with special reference to the section warning of the dangers of parties..
"In 1792, George Washington was prepared to retire as the first President of the United States. To that end, Washington, with James Madison, wrote a farewell address to the public of the United States of America."

The relevant section warning of the dangers of parties reads:

"20 I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the state, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party, generally.
21 This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
22 The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty.
23 Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind, (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight,) the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
24 It serves always to distract the Public Councils, and enfeeble the Public Administration. It agitates the Community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms; kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.
25 There is an opinion, that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the Government, and serve to keep alive the spirit of Liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in Governments of a Monarchical cast, Patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in Governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary purpose. And, there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought to be, by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.
26 It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution, in those intrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositories, and constituting each the Guardian of the Public Weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way, which the constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for, though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield."

Pre-tirement or Pre-tardment?

2010-05-14T10:00:00.005+01:00

Either way it is way more hectic than one can every imagine, let alone plan for!
(Aargh... I used that nasty four letter word again!)
I had so many things I was going to do when I pre-tired, or as Lord Erroll posited "pre-tarded", thanks for that Merlin!! (It only twinged because it had more than a smidgen of truth to it!).

I hit overload in April, or more correctly I recognised that I hit overload in April, from which time I have been frantically searching for ways to row backwards from the lip of my own equivalent to Niagara Falls.

The fact is, that I had been pushing far too many of my FUN TO-DO items into the period after I was pre-tired. This backlog was in fact a major cause of the overload. Then, to cap it all, my friends in the security world awarded me "Security Person of the Year", which has served to make the whirlwind spin ever faster! I cannot properly explain how pleased I was to have been nominated let alone be, given the award. Thank You Folks! I do know that I was sitting back, bow tie undone, jacket off, when the award was announced. Little did I know that at least two people on my table, who were actually on the Awards Panel, were itching to tell me to "get dressed"! A piece of good luck came from the fact that I was trying out a newly learned trick of wearing a false bow tie and then switching to a real one when it came to relaxing. I owe my godson Matthew a drink, however I am now resolved to practicing doing up a Bow Tie as easily as I can do my shoe laces, but I will do that when I retire properly. (Hmmm, I sense a new overload in the making)

Well, my body has now signalled enough, by allowing me to catch Man-Flu. There will be those uncharitable folks who will point out that the session at Stephens Restaurant, under the shadow of Big Ben, which involved a few too many bevvies, might just have lowered my bodies defences. The subsequent hazily remembered tube and train journey home then provided the surfeit of viruses for the coup de grace. As I said uncharitable...

Whatever!

I have started searching for technical solutions to my dilemma surely there's an iPhone App for this... Apparently there aren't, there are many that purport to be, but they all turn out to be very effective Procrastination Aids, NOT Prioritisation or Action Aids. I suspect the developers of such tools were, like me?, wanting something to take the guilt away, but didn't think through the fact that simply putting it in a Procrastination App doesn't get it done!! Doh!

Ideas any one?

What I really really want....

2010-02-01T11:14:00.006Z

... is a standard Semantically enabled Wireless Home Piconet Area Network (HomePAN) technology with..
- a USB HomePAN device to connect it to my Mac/PC and the internet
- a Cloud based Data Capture, Storage, Display and Control App
(Of course it would need to be secure!)
- a series of devices that allow me to interact with and measure my Home
(each device would have their own PKI enabled identity and
security would also mediated by a trusted cloud based third party,
"Identity Service Provider".)

1) Max/Min Temperature recording/ reporting device
I would have at least 4; Greenhouse, Outside, Garage Freezer,
Indoors (near kitchen water pipes)
2) Infra Red Movement Detectors
I would have loads: Shed, Garage, entrance hall, key rooms.
They would be used for lighting control and security
(I wouldn't mind if the 1 & 2 were combined)
3) Power Switches Wall Mounted
These would in the main replace light switches, would be able to dim also
4) Power switches Plug Mounted
These would control power to devices
5) HomePan to Infra Red Transmitter
Would control entertainment devices
6) HomePan Hand Controller
Used to control everything
7) A HomePAN Dual purpose RFID / Laser scanner
I'd have one by the fridge / larder, and one by the bin,
It would have two buttons Stored and Consumed
8) HomePAN Electricity Consumption Monitor
9) HomePAN Water consumption monitor.
10) HomePAN Weighing Machine
11) HomePAN Exercise Bike
12) HomePAN Module in the car
13) HomePAN Module on my bike
14) HomePAN Pedometer
15) HomePAN Pet Monitor
16) HomePAN Excretion Monitor (Literally this would fit in the pan)
Though there would probably need to be a bum scanner to ensure identity of poorly person is known! Which would likely lead to weird forms of identity obfuscation!

17) HomePAN Health Watch, (on my wrist it would Monitor my vital signs)
18) HomePAN Entertainment Devices would be able to be controlled directly
from the Home PicoNet
19) HomePAN/Skype Video Devices
From: "Who is at the door?" to,
Chatting with remote relatives as if they were there.

and the list goes on!!!

Key would be that status would be always available from any
HomePan device (push and pull)

The neat trick would be the amount of money I would get paid each month for allowing Waitrose or Tesco's access to some of my data. My house insurance would be lower. My health insurance would be lower. And best I will be able to live in my own home into my dotage.

Finally I would have an uncountable number of "Apps for that" on my iPhone that would help me make effective use of all this data!

=====

Yes I know X10 exists, I have loads of them, but status on X10 is very flaky, and ZWave looked like a possibility until you see what HomeSeer want to charge for a temperature device that won't monitor below 0C and no local Max Min storage. Then realise that most of the devices I want don't exist on ZWave. I could see ZWave being a part of the solution but we would need a shift in mindset on price and performance.
Till then it's manual data entry! And flaky statii of X10... wouldn't trust that for my dotage!!!

====

Oh and by the way did I mention all this needs to be secure?

My proof of our zero electricity EarthHour

2009-03-29T22:12:00.003+01:00

Thanks to a
battery powered
Wireless
Electricity
Real Time
Consumption
Meter

Minutes before

Earth Hour

we were

consuming...

After the start of Earth Hour we consumed....

Earth Hour is Saturday 8:30pm

2009-03-27T21:44:00.009Z

On , your Local Time!
Are you going to go dark at 08:30pm in less than 22 hours time?

For Earth Hour happens on Saturday 28th March 2009 at 08:30pm for one dark and not so silent hour.

Have FUN!

Experience it!

Exemplify it!

Be it!.....

E N J O Y I T!

Make your switches count!!!

Turn them off!

Let your house consume no electricity between 08:30 and 9:30 pm on Saturday wherever you live! Some with old half empty Freezers might feel the need to keep them going, but NOTHING ELSE!!!

Read the
Earth Hour Guidebook

I've Typealyzed my own Blogs, TMO's, Jim's and Byn's

2009-03-24T19:05:00.005Z

It seems I must have been subconsciously copying the style of The Messy One's Blog as we both exhibit the same style in our respective Blogs; ie this blog and Secrets and Lies have both been assessed by the Typealizer as ESTP like Blogs.
(An interesting factoid is the advert that pops up when one Typealyzes TMO's blog is: "MHC: Providers of bespoke Mental Health and Learning Disability Services!" Either the advert was aimed at TMO or myself, my only question is .... how did they know!!! :-) )

I also was interested to see how Jim's first Blog would pan out: it turns out, according to the Typealizer to be of the type ISTJ - The Duty Fulfillers, which is the same as the type of Byn's Blog

Finally my e-Trust comes out as type INTJ - The Scientists
Which the Typealizer describes as: The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it - often with a highly creative and imaginative touch. They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be physically hesitant to try new things.

Not so sure about that last sentence!!!!

It was a sublime soup.

2009-01-18T18:45:00.004Z

So after twittering my praise of the soup, and being asked for the recipe....

It had the magic ingredient of Nutmeg in it, which looks like an alien egg with the "yet to be Mace" outer red parts eerily spreading round the Nutmeg Seedpod.... I had not realised that Nutmeg and Mace were from the same seed pod! We live and learn.
(This was such a good photo, and as I couldn't find the creative commons sign I have simply linked you to see it on the owners Flickr site)

I asked SHHTD if she could send it to me, she ummed and ahhed, but as I was head down in my Lecture Prep, she relented! While juggling two dogs, AND cooking dinner, she typed out the following sublime Veggie Soup recipe.

RUSSIAN VEGETABLE SOUP

25g butter
1 medium onion
225g potatoes peeled and sliced
110g parsnips peeled and sliced
110g carrots peeled and sliced
50g cabbage sliced
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
½ teaspoon dried mixed herbs
freshly grated nutmeg to taste < The secret sauce!!!
1.2 litres vegetable stock
salt and pepper

GARNISH

Small leek chopped into 5 cm strips and fried in 25g butter

Melt butter and fry all veg gently for 10mins in a covered saucepan. Add herbs, nutmeg, parsley and stock and cover and simmer for 30 mins. Liquidise and season to taste. Fry leek in butter until crisp.
Serve hot soup garnished with the leek.

This feels like one I could do! :-)

========================

The bad news was that in the juggling; the milk sauce boiled over and Wilf did what he always does at this stage of his potty training when he is not getting what to him is the required amount of attention. (He finds he always gets attention straight away!!)
And as both dogs and humans agree: Any attention is Good attention!!

So it would have been churlish of me not to wrap a Blog round the recipe and launch it into the Blogosphere....

Back to Lecture Tweaking!! Oh yes, and Course Work Prep
This is not going to be one of those EASY Modules that you can get a pass mark on by simply turning up for the Revision Lecture.... No! Dear reader, I am not being CRUEL!

My attitude is that these are some very capable and motivated young adults with a thirst for learning. I do not want to disappoint them!

The size of the ball shows the amount of time spent on my ULearn site, the higher the ball shows the number of visits to the site. There are a number of students at the end of the graph with no balls, as they spent no time during no visits. My initial analysis is showing that I have some highly motivated students, some reasonably motivated students and some who have not yet woken. However term has not yet started. Starts tomorrow apparently, so I should probably give some of them the benefit of the doubt perhaps they just have the right balance in their work and play life.

Perhaps they will kick into gear during the week just before my lecture.

PS Wish me luck the nerves are starting!

"Rag and Bone 2.0"

2009-01-11T10:32:00.008Z

or The Wonders, Pleasures and Frustrations of FreeCycling

The Wonders
Some of you may not be aware of this underground phenomena called FreeCycling, let me explain:

The person with the unwanted "Whatever" puts a notice on a FreeCycle Page in the form
OFFERED: "Whatever", Location this is then emailed to all those subscribing to the page. At this point a slew of emails are sent winging there way to the inbox of the one who just Offered the "Whatever", resulting in an electronic form of the Scrummage, which involves making your email most likely to be selected. Here the risky bit occurs, the Offerer selects the winning email and sends them the address to come and pick up the "Whatever". You have No Idea who you are inviting to your home.

Please think twice, if you're a single lass, before offering unused thongs on FreeCycle!

A real example of ill considered FreeCycle usage was the person I spotted last week who posted "WANTED: Free Shredding of Confidential Waste"!

When the item has been collected one simply posts an update notice:
"TAKEN: "Whatever" and the cycle is complete.

A less effective form of FreeCycling, is the Wanted form: here individuals with the need post WANTED: "Whatever" this requires avid FreeCyclers who have the unwanted Whatever to be checking their email or the FreeCycle page for these WANTED posts and then emailing the individual concerned. Rarely happens from my experience, I am still waiting for those Unwanted Rhubarb Forcers to come my way! OK So I might have tried for something a little rare to start with.

From initial evaluation I expected that the whole cycle would be powered by two basic drives "Need to be Tidy" and "Simple Greed". In fact, the well-kempt, middle class folks that are picking up my "Whatevers" don't feel at all greedy, confusingly they feel Charitable??... I was expecting Steptoe and Son, I got Mrs BOUQUET! For example our theory on the extremely well dressed lady, who came direct from Church, to pick up the Electric Pop Corn Maker, is that she got it for the Youth Group she helps run. So we felt really good about having thrown in the huge, (well I say huge, and it was half empty) jar of unused popcorn.

The fella who came to pick up the uplighter was a Greenie, if ever I've see one! Clearly he came to ensure the re-use of the offending "Whatever". The audible street cry of "Rag and Bone!" of my youth has been replaced by the electronic cry of OFFERED: "Whatever", Location. The Rag and Bone men have been replaced by an altogether more upmarket lot!

So my drive to be organised has opened my eyes to the wonders of a whole new world, a world of Charity and Environmental Re-Use.

The Pleasures
Surprisingly I suspect FreeCycling gives you a warm glow however you participate in it. I used to get my pleasures from putting the "Whatevers" in the bin or taking them to the tip, creating a sense of cathartic freedom that was close to sublime. Imagine that same sense but without the effort, its feels nearly sinfull, but so clearly isn't. They come and take the unwanted "Whatevers" away for you! So actually, the real drive of Freecycling is my Laziness and their sense of Charity and Environmentalism. ((Darn That means it is sinfull, for SLOTH is a Sin!)) Whatever the drives are, the result feels REALLY GOOD and I can see more of my Shed floor than I have in ages! What other unwanted "Whatevers" can I find to offer? SWHTD has spotted an issue, she has warned me that I might start offering things that we want, it won't be long before she demands sign-off on the things that can I offer. I haven't plucked up the courage of offering Designer Handbags quite yet but the thought of it feels SOOO GOOOD! (Whoa... wait a minute, that will make space in the Wardrobe for her to buy more..... BAD IDEA!)

As an aside: I bet Freecycling peaks in January, February, and March as the urge to Spring Clean strikes. I was wrong! Data shows that in Indianapolis the peak months are January and July, and in Guildford August and November, go figure!

The Frustrations
I have tried to claim four "OFFERED:Whatever"s, but experienced an interesting phenomena, what would you call it?... "Quick Grabs" and so I got now-where, which was a little frustrating. Clearly I need some ointment!?. There are clearly FreeCycle Professionals out there that go in FAST and I mean very fast and grab the "Whatever"s at light speed. The Antique Sowing Machine disappeared so quick it made my head spin, and just so you know I was trying I responded 5 Minutes after it was offered.

I have also experienced my first frustration as an Offerer,and that is the "No Show", where the person that had said they would be arriving to pick up the unwanted "Whatever" just doesn't! I suspect that there is another frustration waiting for me out there, which might be driven by the same mechanism as is driving my lack of Rhubarb Forcers. If one offers something that is so esoteric that no-one wants it! How devastating would that be.... Must make a note to only offer things that loads of people will want!!! It would be even worse than the Fridge still sitting on the deck waiting, the morning after the supposed collection date!

George: "Right Vision, Wrong Timeline!"

2009-01-09T08:14:00.006Z

or.. Excuse Me?! Why are you proposing to waste my money?

When I read the book, the very idea that a video display could be used by the government to track citizens activities seemed like a fictional jump too far. I can remember thinking TV's can't do that!

An early rumour Gloucestershire Government Kite Flying?? I didn't respond then to such a silly idea.

Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt! The security services try and mold our readiness to be monitored wholesale. Don't get me wrong I am ALL for monitoring terrorists, and certainly agree that techniques need to be developed to ensure that we REALLY can.

Over the holidays, I had heard it was a possibility but having spent 30 seconds considering it, I realised that the Government wouldn't be that stupid! Just shows how stupid I was!

For, today Radio 4's Today program reported that the idea was progressing...

So lets take a look at the reason for doing this: "The Security of Citizens outweighs their right to Privacy". Assuming for the time being I accept that premise.

Taking the total emails sent":

Remove all the emails sent from Companies, as it won't be that simple to track down individual terrorists (and we are after terrorists, right?) from that deluge.

Realise that a nefarious individual (read terrorist) will simply move their communications to a place not being monitored, Twitter for example. "D Terrorist

Remove all emails that are sent from domains set up by individuals and then shared with others, just who are the people using the @pomegranite.co.uk email domain? Good luck with that HMG!

Then add the fun of all the SPAM that needs to be pruned out!
Then realise that the large proportion of free email addresses do not simply connect to individuals.

The result is precious little security for the £12 Billion (one of the rumoured INITIAL costs), a predictable escalation in costs and more importantly in the rapid erosion of Privacy. If I was in the Security Services I'd want the £12 Billion applied more effectively.

If we want to get into the more technical details surrounding the possibility the ISP's will be requested to track the emails from the sending IP addresses; I suspect that the terrorists have heard of VPN. So there goes that idea! All that will be left is George's initial Vision: A Government spying on the daily lives of its normal citizens.

HOW TO STOP THIS INSANITY?

.....
"What's that?"
.....
"You mean you HAVE to because it is an EC Directive?"
.....
"Oh! I see! Forget I said anything!"

Needless to say someone thought it was very funny!!!

2009-01-07T22:39:00.005Z

The start of the recent IT Crowd sent SWHTD into mild hysterics, she being so very proud of her total lack of any Social Media skills what-so-ever, and a nigh on phobic desire never to acquire any.

Darn embedding disabled by request

But at least you can watch it here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rNgCnY1lPg

at least for now!!! The rest of the program just built on the pain and humiliation.
I really do need to manage this Web 2.0 situation! No-one told me that the Social Media Space had an event horizon!!

Is there a FaceBook Anonymous yet?

Please someone "tweet" me when there is! Doh!

In the past buying a Mac was a certain delight! (or Apple Loyalty RIP)

2009-01-03T20:48:00.003Z

Back in the old days, Apple knew how to delight there Customers!
You got all you needed in the box. All the information, all the software, and most importantly all the cables! In short, every new Apple Box was a delight!

Having just purchased a new All Aluminium MacBook Pro, which is certainly a nice product. I was NOT delighted as there were NO CABLES IN THE BOX!

I reached for my trusty Apple Standard FireWire 400 cable to transfer the operating system from the previous device I was using, but no, our friends from Apple have decided to put in an alternate Firewire Connector. Namely the FireWire 800 and then not sell the cable on their website? Reason to be frustrated part 1!

But the REALLY annoying experience was when I went to connect to a projector. Apple have decided to create a special Mac proprietary port called the Mini DisplayPort, and then sell two cables on their website, one for VGA and the other for DVI. None of my prior Apple VGA cables would work! I have just purchased the the new cable with a sense of frustration and disappointment.

Yet another nail in the coffin of my Apple Loyalty.

I wonder if they think that we Apple Customers have an unbreakable bond of loyalty?
For it seems to me that they are continually coming up with ways of testing it!

My favourite new productivity aid!!!

2008-11-04T11:32:00.004Z

Why haven't I found this before!

http://www.jingproject.com/

All I can say is try it for yourself!

It will make your Social Media Experience one step closer to perfection!

One of those times where you are delighted by the realisation that everything that you thought you wanted it to do it does already! And with an intuitive interface....
(Not quite Apple Style Guide but intuitive none the less!

(I have to admit it doesn't quite do everything I wanted Jing to Video me showing you how I could use Jing to do a Video of me, showing you how to.... Seems I need two mirrors! I did figure a way using Share Screen and two computers but it was two juddery!)

Despite that minor hiccup: "I am Adrius42 and I approve this plug for Jing!"

A recent Facebook experience... Hmm let me think!

2008-10-16T15:22:00.004+01:00

So why am I fearing flying the atlantic this time?

The answer is simple its Mrs Butterworths fault, she apparently looks buxom.

When I posted recently a picture of Mrs Butterworth on Bridezilla's Facebook page. I seemed to have been misunderstood!

When I said "you are she" I clearly was referring to Mrs Butterworths sweetness!

My only hope is the fact that I posted a Lite Version, surely that must work in my favour...

Wish me luck!

Chi.mp is it or isn't it...

2008-10-16T08:36:00.004+01:00

So far I am still refining my profile having achieved access and signup to this beta. I am even more excited than I was with Sho-Zu, a good thing! The key question is will Chi.mp be the answer to my desire for an integrating Social Media Portal? So far the signs are good!! Tagging is rife throughout the site.... BRILLIANT! And it feels like it is meeting the "Connie 2.0 Test". Also good is the fact that in order to associate various sites to Chi.mp I have not yet needed to give Chi.mp the password for any of the sites.

But as I say it is early days...

You can find me here http://adrius42.mp/

I have set most of the privacy to contacts or customized so my Public Space will be quite bare. Sign up and give me feedback!

ShoZu read Show Zoo?!!

2008-09-03T08:37:00.001+01:00

Ironic app naming aside, after a week of use I am still on the fence, which is good! As most of my ipod touch apps find themselves deleted or kicked of the key first page inside an hour. ShoZu is still on the top line of the first page.

Why? More because of the promise it holds, than its current capabilities.

In one month if ShoZu doesn't give me numbers on the app icon and then the sub app icons, and if it doesn't get better at keeping up to date, I suspect it will get deleted!

BUT what it does today is already good. It is the beginning of adding order/ structure/ simplicity to my 2.0 world!

Today it is still a little too geeky, even for me.

For 2.0 to become mainstream it needs to be able to pass the Connie 2.0 test. Connie 1.5 is a very capable silver surfer, who is finding the current 2.0 world a little too frustrating. It still doesn't do what she expects it to do, in the way she expects it to do it! That is to deliver amazing functionality SIMPLY!

So heres to SIMPLY 2.0

ShoZu post

2008-08-28T02:40:00.001+01:00

Trying out ShoZu

Just plain funny, mostly because it is spot on...

2008-08-23T07:35:00.002+01:00

Web 2.0 + Environmentalism + Global Warming = Green 2.0

2008-07-11T19:28:00.003+01:00

"Web 2.0" is a key shift in the use of the World Wide Web, changing from providing services and information by the few to the many, to providing services and information by the many to the many. Environmentalism the importance of consuming our planets resources in a sustainable manner is starting to be understood,

Take the thinking of Professor Andrew McAfee where he added Web 2.0 and Corporations to create Enterprise 2.0

add a dose of Green...

Now consider how we might use Web 2.0 to drive forwards the Green agenda, we could call it Environmentalism 2.0

You heard it here first!!!

3 Examples to consider

Green Acquisition
I want a wooden lathe, how can I get a second hand one? I am convinced there are a number out there!

Green Recycling
I have a Electric Saw that I want to dispose of it is mostly operational but will need some maintenance

Green Transport
I am traveling to To Gloucester on August 23rd at 4pm from ..... How to share??

Now the question is HOW? Ideas anyone or has somealready done it already?
I don't count the 8 folks at this site

Why did I do it!

2008-06-20T07:56:00.003+01:00

Well it wasn't because it sounded like Zardoz. I suspect it's because I have a quizzical ego. My friends at Garlik of Data Patrol fame, offered me a view of my status on the web...

...so yesterday I joined the QDOS beta and found that approximately 2/3rds of the other joiners have a lesser web presence than I do and 1/3 greater. Then it struck me. Statistically this is only going to tell me anything about the web kudos of people with quizzical egos. Those of a more confident nature who already know they are the best won't bother joining and those who are absolutely convinced that they are the bottom of the heap won't even consider trying to pretend that there just might be someone out there with a lesser web presence.

So dear reader depending on what sort of web ego you have, you or may not choose to join this sorry mid band of quizzical egotists who wanted to know!!!!

Now the question is, will I publish the statistically irrelevant result on my Blog.... well I tried!!!

One day I will be competent enough to deserve to be in the top web decile, but by then I won't need the ego stroking that QDOS might give me!! Sigh!!! It's all so confusing!!

PS (Well it isn't really a "post" script more an aside but I don't know the latin for that. It will be something starting with "Se-"
Lets plump for segway... not right but I am bored with this train of thought!)

On the subject of Web Publishing of Supposedly Embargoed Data, it is my contention that data shared with no sign of a classification, will always be subject to the possibility of transparency, ie publication. That is not to say I have not been wracked by a very weird mixture of crippling guilt and side splitting mirth at they very thought of a certain "frater" finding out about the Caerbonnagic event on my blog. Either way it hurts!!! Where the happy couple to have deigned to arrive at Chez Moi while I was present I suspect I may have attempted a stumbling apology!

A Greener World Dawns.... Green and Mean!

2008-06-16T08:53:00.003+01:00

I am getting cheaper electricity and gas and the electricity is Green!

Why didn't we switch earlier?

Saving and being delivered Hydro Electricity.

What with driving a Hybrid I feel a "smug git" grin appearing, at least it would were it not for those pesky transatlantic air-miles!

Caerbonnagic Romance is not dead!?

2008-06-13T08:56:00.005+01:00

There I was enjoying my post exercise lie in, (doesn't everyone enjoy breakfast in bed after their morning exercise and shower? But hey I deserved it as my Wii Fit had just told me that I had the body of a 26 year old! ...any way I digress...) ...when SWHAND interrupted me from my revery with the news that the White Killer Rabbit of Caerbonnag had proposed to one of my Surrogate Daughters. Which, of course, stunned me and simultaneousy put me into the weird state of having 2 SD's engaged. (To lose one SD is careless, to lose two is just plain criminal!) This state will last for a brief few weeks, as the first SD marriage occurs before the end of the month.

I was left wondering how a Killer White Rabbit would be involved in such a romantic act as proposal for:
1) They don't talk!
2) They mostly rip peoples throats out!
3) They live in caves in Wales
4) Effergies of them are mostly seen flying across castle parapets
5) ...well heck you see my point!

So I started my researches.... I was surprised to find that the Kille Rabbit was both real and a prop. Then I found the ThinkGeek site and all became clear! There are fluffy versions of the beast of Caerbonnag! In fact, having found that out, I was surprised not to see fotos of the occassion here, like this one. I suspect this site is also the likely source of the offending instrument!

CONGRATS TO YOU BOTH!!!!

(PS: You are still not forgiven for coming to Guildford while I am away, but despite that I have instructed HWWGTA to share some of my better drams with you both! His only restriction is that he cannot open any unopened bottles!)

Wii Fit roolz!

2008-04-25T13:03:00.002+01:00

The first impression is one of wow!
A side thought, how long will I keep using it?)
Think Brain Trainer for your Body...

You are buying 4 weighing machines that wirelessly connect to your Wii.
From this apparent surfeit of measurement, a lot can be determined about your weight, BMI, Core stability, and more

Have you ever tried standing still? It is way harder than you think without a stable core.

I hadn't realised that I tend to stand with too much weight on my ankles either....

Yoga was always hard, but when you are getting direct feedback about how well you are holding the pose (or not) it only gets harder!

My Body age is 49, I am mighty proud (some might say sadly) of those -3 years and will be working to increase the gap between my calendar age and my body age, I am already on track to achieve my target body weight having dropped from 250 to 231 since the start of the year. (No you don't need to know my target, as the lady in the Wii knows and she is going to hold me to getting there)

A little weird being able to rotate here, thus seeing her from the front and the back, all I will say is that she is fitter than I am!!

My midnight play proved to me that the rest of the journey will be more fun.

Why of course I bought one at Midnight of the day of the launch, after all I was told too!

Hmmm 45 Seconds of shaking!!

2008-04-18T12:38:00.001+01:00

Wonder what you Hoosiers were up to!

Apparently they already starting to blame Illinois!!!

Looking forwards to seeing The Messy Ones excuses!

"It wasn't me because....."

:-)

Identity Thoughts...

2008-04-17T09:46:00.001+01:00

The fundamenmtal one being...
Why can't an Operating System's security be designed from the User in!

The answer that I have come to: Because devices cannot yet reliably recognise / identify people.

Combination of Identifiers
Facial Recognition
Voice Recognition
Typing Recognition
Finger Print etc....

Two thoughts:
Our Identity is a state that should be continuously monitored, not just initially checked.
Our Identity will be known to devices and we must have the power over them to decide the Persona we are choosing to represent to the outside world.

Leopards don't like to serve on Mac Mini's!!!

2008-04-17T08:58:00.003+01:00

Well this is exactly true as I do actually now have Leopard serving on a Mac Mini.
But our friends at Apple didn't exactly make it easy!!!

So I signed up for Twitter Adrius42 in prep for my great Leopard Server on a Mini Mac Challenge.... What is your twitter address, email me it...

Can't see how to attach to Twitters that are out there on a relevant/interesting topic....
My sense is that it is a People Social Network not an Ideas and Activity Social Network.... DoH! I did have high hopes....

Looked around Google for folks who had trod this path before me and twittered about, some preacher fella that simply said he was about to and was afeared but not much else, it took reading pages of rubbish to get to that one-liner....

So started installing Leopard on my MacMini twittering and ground to a great big fat shuddering halt!

Boy do I wish someone had twittered DON'T DO IT.... unless you have a week to spare...

...my sarcastic estimate of the time required after the first three bumps....
1) Nah I won't recognise your Bluetooth Mouse
2) Nah I am not playing with your Wireless Network, I need wiring!!
and the latest
3) Bluetooth keyboard forget it!! Wiring, didn't you get the message I am a server!! I need wiring!!!

Wish me luck I am off back downstairs with a wired keyboard!!!

Post Blog Comment: Leopard is now serving... and I now have so many more questions for the Identity world!

Mark Curphey has some wild links!

2008-04-15T12:58:00.003+01:00

Looking forward to seeing him next week at the Jericho Forum presentation.

This one's Just plain weird

And this one had me in stitches!

Also just got frustrated at the Wiki Police, I should have known better than to find interesting perspectives on the evolution of Enterprise 2.0 in Wiki. After all it was only coined by a Harvard Professor! The Wiki Topic has been merged with the more specific Enterprise Social Networking Topic.

So I declared my frustratiuon in the Discussion page...

Fair Weather Bloggers Tch!

2008-04-13T10:04:00.002+01:00

Some Bloggers I know, Blog regularly, where as I Blog less often, the frequency being inversely proportional to the number of nagging emails I get on the subject of my Bloglessness. Well as the last was received a while ago, Thanks Nitram!, I am ready to Blog. So many subjects to Blog, so little time...

Maasai Warriors in London Marathon told not to hunt Farm Animals or show off their dangly bits. Leave it to the Sun to lower the tone of their attempt to gain life saving funding for their village, (Elaui).
Although, I must admit I was bemused by the various interviews with the warriors apparently they are not going to run fast and will probably do the journey in about 2 hours. Hmm... 2 hours has not yet been done, at least not on foot!!! If they weren't carrying their spears and shields perhaps they could do it?

Interview

PLEASE GOTO THEIR SITE AND DONATE! I HAVE.

Livia Kovacs - Hungarian Lady Cop sacked for being in a porn movie.
My questions / observation
Did her dad name her after the film star Livia Kovacs from his youth? She starred in Álomkeringö in 1943.
How many Hungarian dads will now persuade their partners to name their daughter Livia? I predict a spike!
Weird link I was in Budapest this year with the Open Group. Didn't bump into Livia though!

Also from the Sun: Cabinet delivered to a girl who wanted a Taxi!

Now you tell me!!!

2008-02-15T06:45:00.002Z

Warning this blog deals with a subject that is sensitive to us gentile humans.

Drink Water! : I knew that
Eat lots of fruit: Got that too!
Roughage is good you: Yep!
even Wear Sunscreen, thanks to Baz Lurmann, but Baz you never shared with me the really important advice!

It came as a bolt from the blue! The the most important piece of advice that everyone should know is in plain Anglo-Saxon:
Shit Slowly and off the loo in less than a minute!
More specifically...
1) Relax, and Shit Gently! No forcing it!
and the crucial
2) Don't read on the loo after your done shitting!

With this advice one can avoid the early onset of piles or haemorrhoids

So to modify a loo poem I read many moons ago...

A poem from your future Piles
(Alternate Title Shit Slowly!)
If you want to shit with ease
Relax and give a gentle squeeze
then it will come out like toasted cheese
and leave the loo in less than a minute please!

And of course drinking water, eating fruit, and extra roughage all help avoid Constipation which is another common cause of piles, so follow that advice as well!

Mark Forytarz is allegedly a swindler of a mentally damaged train driver!

2008-02-10T12:14:00.001Z

Paul and Mark have decided to sue Google for continuing to surface an issue that initially surfaced in 2005, That is Google operated effectively as a Search Engine!

Paul and Mark musing to themsleves... "Wonder how to make this go away??"

"I know we'll sue Google"

I wonder if they really thought this would improve their image and reduce the noise!!!

Clearly they don't understand the internet!

Their details from the Castran Gilbert website. Golly Google took me to that too! It MUST be true that Google is conspiring against them!

Castran Gilbert
276 Toorak Road
South Yarra VIC 3141

Phone: 1300 657 343
Mark Forytarz

Click to contact agent

Sales:
03 9827 1177

Rental:
03 9826 8788

Mark Forytarz
Phone: 03 9827 1177
Mobile: 0407 766 308

Heck, people could even be SMSing their dislike of Mark's tactics as I type this blog!

On the other hand it could all be a nasty made up story against a poor innocent Estate Agent.

But the ABC News has the story too!

Poor Google, how can they remove all these new links!! Especially this one that quotes the individual that "actually defamed"? them!!

Size isn't everything....

2008-01-07T23:12:00.000Z

...in fact her indoors recently insisted that she wanted me to get a smaller one. I however asserted that I wanted to enlarge, and after much discussion, we agreed on a compromise size. The great day arrived today, her exclamation on first seeing it was that it was far to big! My heart sank, as I had already accepted a reduction from my original goal by 4 whole inches, and I could only imagine the pain and anguish involved in downsizing. Happily, once she had seen it unwrapped, she agreed that it was acceptable! Though she did restate that she would have preferred smaller.

The most amusing comment came from HWWNGTA, who on first seeing it, asked with a confused look on his face "It is bigger, isn't it?". Clearly he hadn't really taken note of its size previously. The nastier among you will be thinking that it can't have been that much of an enlargement, but I have measured it and it is now 20 inches bigger.

Having now experienced it in living color, I will nearly admit to liking it better than my wall mounted projection version. So if you are considering a change in size, I would encourage you to go for it.

Last weeks news that Worlds Largest was now 108 inches, did not serve to quell the shrinking urges of spouse of many years!

For the record we both found 46 inches to be very enjoyable, though I still secretly yearn for a 50 incher. (Even I know that 108 inches would not have worked)

Now the challenge will be to keep HWWNGTA's hands off it! I caught him playing with it earlier this evening.

(Incidentally, for the technically minded the default picture and colour settings are set to "Garish", my term not theirs! So for best pleasure you need to change the Picture Settings and Colour settings to normal)

(Yes! Mr Messy I know that I am blatantly copying your new Oeuvre! But I am sure you realise that the act relates the highest form of objectification, which only goes to show my ability of turning you into an object, the action presumably also known as objection! Which gets me to being objectionable )
And yes, I am aware of the oxymoronic implications of that last bracketed paragraph!

2008-01-02T08:07:00.000Z

new years resolution it isn't, but this year ... "I be mostly healthier and considering the actions I can take to save humanity"
For as was recently so well stated the Earth does not need saving it will survive perfectly well! Humanity however has only a tenuous handhold on the planets surface.

Happy New Year!

NUMU!

2007-12-15T11:41:00.000Z

Ambling around the internet I found RosieG on NUMU

Naive, Folksy, poorly recorded, yet surprisingly listenable.

With better production techniques, I think she could go places

Search out RosieG on NUMU

Now I have researched some more this young lady from Southend Girls High School was Number 1 on the NUMU Chart in November!

Happy listening check out her rendition of City Lights, which I like even better!

Wears Sarfend neway!

Stop Press: I am now just plain ECSTATIC!

2007-11-12T17:52:00.000Z

Signal! You don't even need to Jailbreak your iPT/iPhone!

Thanks to AlloySoft

As seen in my prior Blog I wanted an iTunes Remote: Signal! is it!!!

Apart from the fact that it cannot control the AirTunes selection, it is perfect

U just gotta try it!!!

I am now partially delighted with my iPod Touch!!!

2007-11-12T17:49:00.000Z

No thanks to Apple!? Which saddens me....
(The way I could become fully delighted is for Apple to uncripple the iPod Touch and reveal the rumoured BlueTooth functionality in it, and have it work with my Apple iTunes on my Main Mac, it could be A REALLY COOL REMOTE CONTROL OVER ALL MY Music, and have it work with AirTunes)

Thanks are due to the writers of Jailbreak and AppTapp, and the now infamous Safari Tiff Exploit. Although I am experiencing slow downs since I hacked the iPod Touch. (More on that as I discover the cause)

Owners of an iPT still at version 1.1.1 will be able to uncripple their new toy using the following link from their website explained here:

There are some great apps out there waiting to be installed by AppTapp....

Is Apple losing it's way?

2007-11-05T08:28:00.000Z

A sad state of affairs, Apple losing its way!

The key differentiator that Apple was founded upon was; designing for the User, rather than for Profit. This notion was the prime reason for the development of hordes of loyal Apple Users. They are always willing to upgrade, invest, or spend more money on Apple products rather than other similar, cheaper, but designed for profit Technology. The resulting product were invariably what the consumer wanted, thus the premium paid was acceptable.

Let me tell you a story.

One day one of those fiercely loyal Apple consumers (FLAC) went to buy an iPod Touch, the new form of the iPod. He was in Indianapolis so that the dollar exchange rate benefit was too difficult to resist, he only purchased the 8Gb version as he really wanted the 160Gb Hard Disk enhanced version of the iPod Touch, sadly not yet a product. He had lugged his trusty old iBook across the Atlantic as it had his music and photos on it. He couldn't wait to synch . He first called at the home of one of his surrogate daughters, as sadly her mum had suffered through the initial stages of piratisation, by a presumably short sighted foot surgeon. He proudly dropped off a copy of the Sunday Times, actually on a Sunday!, and some nice Chocs to help take her mind off the impending wooden leg, and hopefully didn't infect the household with the deadly virus he was infected with. Anyway back to the less important topic of how Apple is losing its way!

He got back to the hotel room, and expectantly plugged the iPod Touch into his Apple iBook. The result was a VERY unApple message, apparently a 0xE8000025 error had occurred, he winced and waited for the BSOD, just to add the final touch of irony. Happily, Apple have not yet got totally lost! Anyway the iPod Touch could NOT synch with the iBook. Doh! One deflated FLAC!

Sadly, the fLAC unpacked his HP Windows Laptop and fired up iTunes on it and tried to Synch, it was a long shot, he thought, but NO the Apple iPod Touch synched just fine with a Windows machine!!! However there was no music on his work laptop, and no photos to speak of. The initial joy of the synch was thus very tainted.

Then he started to play with his new toy and slowly discovered just how crippled it was. He was sure that he had read that it was based on the Mac OSX Operating System and was capable of the same things that the iPhone could do, less of course, Phoning and Taking Photos He would clearly have purchased the iPhone in preference, but those mean AT&T folks had forced Apple to cripple that device, and tie it to a Heavy Contract. (Clearly Apple wouldn't have come up with that idea..... right!!???)

First he searched in the box for pouch to protect his new toy, instead he found a polishing cloth, damn he thought "I'll soon lose that, especially as it is black!". He then searched in vain for the email application, or the weather app or the... heck quite a few of the apps he had been expecting were not present. The first inkling of an unusual Apple initial experience, when was the last time he had purchased a new Apple product and not been DELIGHTED!?. But at least the Contacts and Calendar Apps were present. The Contacts user interface was a typical Apple interface, designed for users, but the Calendar interface???...., he knew he had read that he could add calendar events but nothing he did would add one. So he resorted to Google, but WHAT!!! ...according to Steve the feature has been disabled due to a software bug. Then a little later he found that the software bug was to do with the Edit feature being "accidentally?" set to FALSE in a key line of code in the operating system. He thought, "Those pesky testers... bet Steve was livid!"

ITunes on the iPod Touch still doesn't want him to connect directly via the built in wireless, weird comments about going to the iTunes website but when he did, no clue as to what he should do to enable the iPod Touch. Hmm more and more like Microsoft every day....

A little more perusing and he found a site that could resolve the problem, literally 2 clicks later having entered the correct URL into the Safari Browser on the iPod Touch and he was happily adding Calendar events.. Admittedly the TIFF exploit crashed the Safari Browser in the process and rebooted the iPod Touch, but that was all to be expected... (See Next Blog)

So have Apple lost their way...???

There is a choice here: They haven't lost their way and they always did intend to launch the full suite of applications, but these bugs are actually real, just like the TIFF Security Vulnerability, just harder to find... and in an effort to protect their trusty iPod Touch customers from the nasty bugs that the iPhone customers will be experiencing they just had to delete all the dangerous though valuable applications.

...OR...

AT&T and Microsofts money grabbing practises have rubbed off on Apple and they are now thinking "Damn the FLAC's we want to screw them for all the profit we can!"

Well all I can say Steve is Watch Out!, for racing up behind you is:
1) an as yet unfunded start-up
2) Google
3) Nintendo...
who will build a Linux based hand held device that will have the following features
High Def Touch Screen to die for
WiFi
Blue Tooth , I'll come back to this!!!
MP3 Player
Gaming Capability
Surround Sound
Cool Browser
Camera
eMail App
The obvious Instant Messaging App
Capability of Running Multiple Open Source Apps
Oh and did I mention Blue Tooth, as this enables VOIP in the device!

(Hey folks at Nintendo are you listening this could be yours, that way I wouldn't need to be carrying around my DS, and my iPod Touch ! Imagine taking over from Apple as clearly they have given up delighting their Customers, come to think of it I was delighted with my new Wii and my DS...... AND THE DS DOES ALREADY HAVE WIFI.!!!!... hey you have already started I GET IT.... WAIT A MINUTE YOUR STOCK PRICE IS ALREADY SHOWING THE POWER OF DOING THAT)

And as of today I am no longer as fiercely loyal as I once was!!!!

I am feeling more like a Partially Loyal Apple Dupe. A PLAD?!

DOH! I gave away "his" identity!

Yes loyal reader it was me!!

The last six Tech Toys I have purchased recently were

Mac Mini- Delighted
DS - Delighted
iBook - OK (Was as expected but I did NOT get a free Leopard upgrade in the box as it was so close to the Leopard Launch date) SO really that was a "Just OK"
Wii - Delighted
Leopard - Underwhelmed
iPod Touch - Deflated, with a tinge of delight thanks to my JailBreak friends
(See next Blog)

WELL STEVE ITS DOWN TO YOU NOW!
Do you want Nintendo to take your delight the user slot?
Or is the impending Google announcement the true death knell?

Hmmm.... A Google-Nintendo Dream team, now that would be pretty neat!

So Steve:
Please get Apple back to what you did best; delighting your Customers!

Mac Users!! FANTASTIC TOOL

2007-08-31T09:24:00.000+01:00

Get yourself a NEW Mac for free, or at least what will feel like a New Mac.

Does your Mac feel lethargic and bloated, has it stopped responding to you in its normally sprightly way. Does it feel just plain OLD!

ONYX is your answer!

www.titanium.free.fr

VEGETABLE UPDATE

2007-08-31T09:04:00.000+01:00

Tomatoes died of some sort of blight.
Peppers and such, eaten by Slugs
One courgette plant survived we have had 3 Courgettes of it!
(Not enough sun!)
Radishes still growing..
The perpetual Spinach is doing a fine job.

Just plain Wow!

2007-08-31T08:30:00.001+01:00

The price is right!
The taste is even righter!
(I never said I was going to stay true to the English Language!)
Sainsbury stocks this wonderfull liquor; a brilliant malt blend that contains two of my favourite malts: The Macallan and Highland Park.

The exciting thing for me, is that in writing this blog I have discovered there are now three more Famous Grouse Blended Malts for me to track down.

Famous Grouse 12 Year Old Malt Blend
Famous Grouse 18 Year Old Malt Blend
and the new Famous Grouse Black

Yippee. Note to self: must persuade Gill to give me some more Whisky cupboard space, 3 is clealy not enough!! (OK So I am using 5, bUt she has sanctioned 3!)

Let counselling in Guildford begin!

2007-08-18T15:40:00.000+01:00

This month marks the actual start of Gill's new company guildfordcounselling.org. Her website is live! Now all we need is loads of links to it!!!! Got get that GOOGLE PAGE RANK rising!

After 5 years of providing her service f.o.c. in order to gain her Masters, she had her first paying client on Monday, via a referral from an overbooked counselling friend

Go visit her site, and more importantly put a link to it on your site.

Her website http://www.guildfordcounselling.org

Clynelish

2007-06-08T09:19:00.000+01:00

A wonderful Malt! I am now fighting the urge to open the 20 year old Brora that we purchased at the same time from the modern Clynellish distillery across the road from the now silent Brora distillery!

Have been distracted by holidays work trips and SketchUp

2007-06-08T08:34:00.000+01:00

Great Holidays in Little Cayman with friends and a great trip to Barcelona to understand the future of Information Technology from Gartner followed by a wonderfull trip to Orkney with more friends.
Photos will be appearing or have appeared in Flickr under Adrius42.

My latest distractions are: Google Sketchup, which allows me both to create a 3D image of our home to place on Google Earth (in Progress) and to create 3D knots in cubes...

Additionally my up till now latent and recently emerging twitcher gene has driven me to Swarovski and my new scope.
I practised taking photos through the scope on Orkney simply holding the camera to the eyepiece and got surprisingly reasonable results!!

What a nice Puffin!!

Demo Picture Post for Lesley

2007-05-01T22:34:00.000+01:00

You can type words before the picture code
or even after the code, it will wrap around the picture.

Exercising does help weight loss!

2007-04-09T23:05:00.000+01:00

I have of course known this but have been denying that it could be that effective. The accursed reality is that it is very effective! I got through the Easter Weekend... and lost weight in the process.

Drat! That means TBM was right all along!!!

The good news is that I have hit my target weight of 225lbs before the holiday, now I have set myself a new target 220! with just 4 days to go!!! Can I do it?

==========

Vegetable Garden Planted with 4 rows of Perpetual Spinach, 1 row of Beetroot and the Courgette seeds are in their pots. Not sure it will be sunny enough for the Courgettes... We will see.

==========

SWDNFT and HWWGTA flew off to see bade naked ladies in Dublin.... there's no accounting for taste!

Stop Press: SWDNFT does like the Guinness in Dublin, whereas she doesn't like the stuff served here.

So I did some Googling:
"Everybody knows that the Guinness in Ireland is better than anywhere else!
This is bullshit, an urban legend almost. When Guinness is brewed and ready for distribution, even the most acclaimed brewmasters cannot tell the difference between the "geography" of the product. Bear in mind that these guys can identify minute traces of chemicals in beverages and estimate their quantity... by taste alone.

The reason Guinness tastes better in Ireland, correctly pointed out by ryano, is the way the product is managed when it leaves the brewery or distributor. In Ireland, thousands of pints of Guinness are consumed every day, therefore the volume of Guinness coming though an Irish pub is much greater than an equivalent English pub. This means the kegs are changed more often and the lines are cleaned more often.

This equals fresher and better tasting Guinness.

Because less is sold in the equivalent English pub, the stout is lingering in the keg longer, becoming less fresh, giving it that distinctive bitter taste. The Guinness lines in the equivalent English pub would not be maintained as well as the Irish pub either. These factors, plus illiterate bar staff who don't know what they're doing, all contribute to the Guinness tasting bad in England sometimes."
=========
I also found this...
in the past, the draught Guinness served in Ireland was not pasteurised while the British was. Today, both are - albeit briefly, by a method usually applied only to draught beers. Pasteurisation is intended to stabilise beer, though it can also flatten flavours.

So much for my unpasteurised Guinness "Urban Legend"

Buy now it is till available in bottles.... but wait horror of horrors Guinness are ending, or maybe already have ended their unpasteurised bottled Guinness.

ASK FOR IT IN YOUR LOCAL SUPERMARKET!!
Let's use the power of the market to reverse this decision.

I now have a FaceBook Badge!

2007-04-08T10:40:00.000+01:00

Patchy Blogging... Aarghh!!!

2007-04-08T08:48:00.000+01:00

I hate these sorts of bloggers and now I am one!

The garden has been taking my attention as well as giving me more aches and pains than are good for me!!! However I am pleased with the overall impact.

My key concern now is will I hit my target weight, I did not count on the temptations of Easter coming the week before we fly to Cayman!! I was 2.5lbs off the target before Easter hit!

I am feeling fitter though, the rowin' and bikin' seem to be helping....

Latest Culinary effort... a Rhubarb and Plum Cobbler
Warning the cleaning up will take longer than the prep!
900g Roughly chopped fruit into suitable oven proof dish (Rhubarb from the garden added 2 plums just becos' they came in the Green box this week)sprinkle with Muscovado sugar (110g) and 2 Tablespoons of Elderflower cordial and the juice of a Mandarin???!

Cobbler Topping
225g of Plain Flour
110g of Frozen Butter, cut into small cubes.
3 Teaspoons of Baking Powder
(I actually used 1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda and 2 teaspoons of the other stuff (Cream of Tartar), shame that the flour I used was self raising!! There are no signs on any of our flour containers! Didn't seem to matter too much (Phew!))
1/2 Teaspoon of salt
175ml of milk
Zest of small Orange
(I didn't have this, as Gill had already been zestfully creating nude citrus fruit and I wanted to avoid creating even more nude fruit that would not get used. Plus the Mandarin did not create good zest, thus the juice got used above!)

Flour, Salt, Baking Powder, Butter into the Food Processor blitz until well mixed
Add Milk blitz until sticky dough is created.
Spoon dough in little sticky balls over the top of the fruit.

Sprinkle with heaped teaspoon of Demerara sugar, or six roughly crushed brown sugar cubes

Oven Gas Mark (200C) Place dish on tray as it tends to boil over!

Serve warm with a good vanilla ice cream. Calories?: Don't ask!!!
Darn there goes my target weight and I can't even blame Gill!!!
The FftN and the FftS all seemed to enjoy it.... :-)

Cocktail:
My latest weird cocktail involved blitzing a handfull of Mint M&M's, with an Ice Cube and a shot each of vodka and JD, (How was I supposed to know that Lent was yet too finish! Doh! Sorry Chris! At least you have the chocolate fountain to look forward to today!)

A friday night above an old butchers shop...

2007-03-27T06:54:00.000+01:00

It was nearly all predictable, but none-the-less enjoyable.

I arrived late, the clear cause of the over cooked vegetables, but wait a minute that meant that NITRAM prepared me a meal! Yes, dear reader he did!, that was one of the surprises for me too! What was even more of a surprise was the fact that meal was very enjoyable, a Cajun Sweet and Spicy Chicken along with an oven baked Mashed Potato, with a cheesy crispy surface that went perfectly. (While the veg were a little stewed in their juices, (Yes I know, my fault!) they were not unpalatable)

And despite warnings to the contrary the butchers shop was clearly well on the way to being transformed into a small printers. It is however at that very dangerous 80% stage where it is near enough to operate but not yet complete. [[ Suggestions from elder siblings not being the most desired of feedback, I will resist making further comment ]]

Another surprise was the remodelling that NITRAM had initiated in the back yard!! This resulted in failed attempts to melt the house at the back, and eradicate the next door garden shed. Though he did burn down sections of the fence between them. The fireman had attended for more than a few minutes in battling the resulting blaze. The outcome of this faux pas has yet to fully unravel. Why didn't I have my camera, (Wonder if NITRAM will send me a photo...)

A "surprise"? for NITRAM was that his elder sibling has crap at Starcraft!! We stopped playing at 1:30am, when I finally beat him, once. Final Score was 4 to 1.

Saturday, Up early, NITRAM was only joking about not having coffee, PHEW!!!. The local newsagent took pleasure in staring back at me from behind the locked door of his shop at 6:30am. Needless to say I did not buy anything from him, nor will I, EVER!. Had a go at setting up the LAN, made a small amount of progress, but still much more to do. ((PVN: Applications/Utility/Directory Access is the obscure path to renaming the Apple SMB Workgroup name, if only I had found that while I was there!!))

A Very Hearty Brunch at the home of SWTBH and HotRCKM, before they were off to bowls, then back to Ye old Butchers shop to finally thrash NITRAM at Starcraft... DOH!!!

Arrived back in Guildford JUST in time to shower and shave and take Gill to watch the dancing in Guildford Cathedral. OK!, so it wasn't dancing it was singing... they danced a little, as did large sections of the audience! Very uplifting, the only reason we left early was my concern for the mutts.

OMG! Facebook said "link to the Blog!"

2007-03-27T06:38:00.000+01:00

Not download the whole of the Blog!!

Bin too silent this month, have been exploring other technologies.

Where you from?

2007-03-03T10:26:00.001Z

Procrastination is really hard work!!

2007-02-13T21:09:00.000Z

What is it about procrastination that results in my doing more to avoid the thing I am procrastinating against, than doing it?

1) I built a shoe seat for the hall
2) I tidied up the TV room
3) I read emails
4) I responded to emails
(now you know I must really be procrastinating!)

But at least I have not sent off my expenses...
...but wait a minute I get money back when I do that!???

So please someone explain to me why!!!???

Did you know just how many drivers there are for procrastination?
- 'just so' procrastination
- procrastination based on fear of failure
- procrastination based on 'fear of success'
- approval-based procrastination
- discomfort-based procrastination
- worry-based procrastination
- autonomy-based procrastination
- crisis-based procrastination

So which one am I doing?

Keystrokes Missing...VISTA? No OAUE!

2007-02-04T09:33:00.000Z

Courtesy of Brian Basset and Microsoft Corporation

Convinced that Vista was losing keystroke, I Googled "Vista Losing Keystrokes" and guess what the Bill goons had got to Google before me... there on the first page perfectly centred for my fading eyesight!! was:

Guide for Aging Computer Users: Tips for the Awkward Age of Computing
Around age 45 for most people, eyes start to lose the ability to adjust their ... Windows Vista: Ignore or slow down brief or repeated keystrokes (Filter ...
www.microsoft.com/enable/aging/tips.aspx - 27k - Cached - Similar pages

Bloody Cheek!!! Old Age User Error indeed!
Plus they also imply drug abuse!

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/aging/tips.aspx

I Vista'd! Therefore I ain't! WOW?

2007-02-04T08:58:00.000Z

I really am starting wish I had Thunk instead!

Didn't realise that W.O.W stood for Why Oh Why?

For those interested in the journey I have started a blog of the saga here!

Both TREE and SWHAND are now more convinced than ever that I am losing it!!

Were it not for my amazingly short term memory loss, I am convinced that I would have remembered that I have lost it already!

Recycling Water is only a matter of time. NOT!

2007-01-28T13:22:00.000Z

Queensland Premier Peter Beattie is telling other Australian cities they too will need to recycle their urine, as he eliminates the planned plebiscite on the "Urine Recycling" decision for Queensland, apparently there is now no choice. The really amazing thing was that the plebiscite was going to cost $10M.

Someone really has to tell these antipodean folks, that it is in fact, NOT a question of time, in the sense of when in the future will it occur, as it plainly already has been since the formation of the water molecule. It is porbably also important to record here that less than 1% of the worlds water is readily accessible and fresh, ie not saline.

So lets explore the perceptual reality here; the issue is not whether a human unit, will in their lifetime consume a water molecule that has ever passed through the digestive tract of another human unit or any of the many animal units on this greeny blue planet. Let us assume that can be reasonably established as a high probability.

I posit that the underlying driver is not actually the "Everyone Else's Waste Water" factor commonly known as the EEWW! factor.

It is more likely to be that well known saying, translated by the Russian Linguistic Program as "Invisible Idiots" or in the original..."Out of sight, out of mind!"

Even if the water has been treated, the human units need the water to pass (oops!, sorry) conceptually out of sight, for them to get out of their minds that they have just passed it! In short, they do not like the idea of drinking their own urine!!! This is a very positive and natural survival instinct, as the urine is a waste product that contains compounds and elements that should not be reintroduced back into their bodies, while their systems can cope with a little short term urine recycling, not to be confused with the term "taking the piss", however that is another thing entirely! (Imagine what the Russian Linguistic Program would have made of that phrase) But I digresss... the simple matter is: long term urine drinking is bad for human units... and they naturally avoid doing it. Apart,of course, from the special case of the "Magic Mushrooms". So, apart from the sublime? benefits of magic mushrooms, how to make it good for the human units??

Any one of you read DUNE? if you have you will understand that the question is not so much a matter of time, but of distance. The Fremen stillsuit brought the recycling distance down to a matter of feet!
There are species on this greeny blue planet that have a more intimate means of recyling their own waste, take for example terrestrial crabs, or the macaque monkeys. It is clearly efficient survival capability when resources are in short supply, to hang onto as much of them as possible.

So here is a proposal!
Let City A, in addition to the rainfall they manage to capture, receive top up water from City B, and City B receive their water from City C, and City C from A, whereas City A feeds the water it does not need along with some "super refreshed water molecules" from their water treatment plants, (OK "Recycled if you like!") to City C, who,, etc....

Sort of like what the folks in Windsor Castle have been doing to Londoners via the Thames, for as long as I can remember! Amazing how the royalty always prefer to be upwind and upstream of the plebs! Of course Slough did not exist back then, it was all verdant countryside with just cows and sheep urinating into the river! And Reading was far enough up the Thames not to be visible, back to those "Invisble Idiots", and of course the academics chose to stay even further up the river in Oxford.

In a funny sort of way this is similar to my last blog the trick seems to be, for the unit in question to get resources from outside the unit if possible, and the closer to the unit centre the more efficient, in this instance the resource was H20, the prior example involved cellular energy. Feels like a principle of nature don't you think? More proof needed?, well the Danes have a different approach, than drinking the urine in the recyling process, greener in many ways more than one! For urine contains nutrients that are good for plants!! They eat their urine!, it's all just a question of perspective. Which this Taiwanese toilet restaurant tests to perfection.

Before you think that I do not understand just how serious this situation is I have read this Special Report

The Energy Crisis was "solved" in 1930!

2007-01-27T19:43:00.000Z

The question was;
Is it Cause or Effect?
Unfortunately a leading scientist, the famous Hans Krebs (right), denounced the Warburg Hypothesis, and the older Otto Warburg (left) never did manage to have his idea taken seriously. Interestingly Hans was Otto's assistant at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gesellschaft (now renamed the Max Planck Institute) until 1930, which is the time when Otto was developing his ground breaking concept. Later in his life Hans would continue to denounce the hypothesis. (I wonder was there a falling out?) Otto's idea was simple; The source of energy is the Cause! I am of course referring to Cancer. Otto was proposing that the fact that cancer cells switch to glycolosis from their normal energy source provided by the mitochondria was a defining property of the cancer cell. Had this idea been accepted back in the 1930's, perhaps we would already have the cure! As the key trick, lies in the fact that another function of the Mitochondria is to trigger an abnormal cells self destruction (an activity known as Apoptosis).

A recent article in New Scientist 20th January has highlighted that a very simple compound, namely dichloroethanoic acid (aka Dichloroacetate (DCA)) has the potential of switching a cells energy source back to the Mitochondria, resulting in the other Mitochondrial function of apoptosis operating.

DICHLOROACETATE ROCKS! WE HOPE!

The problem is that the capitalistic system of Invention-Patent-Reward will not work with a compound already known to exist and thus not patentable. Yet the clinical trials do need to occur as this is after all an acid, and earlier trials have shown that DCA is corrosive and destroys the tissue of mucous membrane and upper respiratory tract.

Any one care to invent a new disease eradication model other than the standard selfish/greed based model we use today?

Gnephngh! (or some such gnarley expletive)

2007-01-23T02:46:00.000Z

He just can't be!! Can he?? But then again I did shave 30 years off my mental age... and TMO before you comment, NO that does not result in either an imaginary number nor a negative one!!

If you have thus far avoided this accursed time eraser, congratulations.... NOW...RUN, RUN as fast as you can! Don't look back...

Especially if you are competitive, and like the idea of practising to get your mental age lower. OK Brain age isn't the same as Mental Age.... but you get my point.

Any how, back to the Gnephngh! .... My youngest just sent me a multimedia message to my mobile phone that I had to pick up at an O2 web site!!

Facts you need to know:
He has been consistently older than his actual age,
ME... YOUNGER!!!
You cannot get lower than 20,
So he wins!!! >:-(
I am a sore loser especially when I can't even play being 1,000's of miles from the accursed device.
(And NO there was not one at the Airport !!!)

My gallantry (I erased their scores and their real names to protect both their pride and their identity) got me to thinking about HWA (Her Without Acronym) and in a flash it came to me! SWDNFT, so now she has one! I'll give her about 10 minutes to guess it, she's that bright!

Official Name Change!

2007-01-13T08:54:00.000Z

WFBOJ will henceforth be known as WFT, after the terror she causes TMTDUB! Given her tiny legs, it is really quite amusing watching her run rings round TMTDUB. His barks are very easy to translate: "Respect Your Elders!" and "If I ever catch you!". Her yaps clearly mean "Fat Chance!" As a quick squint at the TMTDUB photo, it will be seen that he has less of a chance to catch her than she realises...cataracts can really mess up one's aim.

Galatte du Roi, Twelfth Night, or What You Will

2007-01-06T00:51:00.000Z

Today is the day that the decorations come down!
SWHAND reliably informed me that we need to take them down on the Saturday which is after all the 12th day as they don't need to be down until the 12th night. Unfortunately she was WRONG! Happily our Xmas tree is fake. So I vote we can take it and the lights down late! Otherwise they need to stay up all year!
Ever since the unfortunate accident with the Xmas Tree and a saw, I haven't been allowed to have a real one. Just as well really as I don't have the requisite baby elephant to dispose of it! The human units have some quaint customs related to the end of the Christmas Period: from chasing and killing Wrens, Lewd behaviour on the Feast of Fools, to the rather more gruesome custom of the Celtic Queens who had their new consort kill her old one on the 12th Night. (Some let them last 7 years others just the one! But that's pagans for you!) Incidentally, anyone know where in the bible the three kings arrive? The closest I can get is three gifts delivered by an unspecified number of Zoroastrian sorcerers, wise in the ways of astrology. I have found at least 6 names for them...

Wonder if the Gremlins will strike during the dismantling phase? Watch this space...

Well the Lambs Legs were not wasted!

2007-01-03T08:11:00.000Z

It was great to move on from Turkey, with what I consider to be the second best English meal that ever existed, (yes it even beats that traditional 14th Century English dish Loseyns (pronounced Lasan)). In this case, I refer of course to Shepherds' Pie, and as a reminder to those that misuse the term; if one uses left over beef rather than lamb it is called "Cottage Pie".

I can remember as a child the pleasure of anticipation that came from helping my Nan mince the left over lamb from the Sunday roast. For me at the time, Shepherds' Pie and it's beef variant were the only reason to submit to eating a roast Dinner.

HWWGTA's profligate purchase of Lamb's Legs created the opportunity to partake of this magnificent meal, last night.

It also gives reason for the existence of that most sublime of all condiments, if that indeed is what it is, namely Worcestershire Sauce (Pronounced "Woos-Tah" Sauce) which is the only way to make a Shepherds' Pie complete!

(The observant amongst you will note that I have tried to be balanced by referring to the dish as English, providing a Scottish recipe, and a Welsh image.)

Finally I did try and consider the punctuation but Google gave me all variants and I could not decide which was correct... your inputs will be gratefully received.
This was my order of preference.
Shepherds' Pie
Shepherd's Pie
Shepherds Pie

That Was The Not So Green Year That Was!

2007-01-01T18:08:00.000Z

It was the year I discovered just how big "our" Carbon Footprint was. You can calculate yours here. I just could not lie about the fact that I had burned 26 weekends flying the Atlantic.

It was also the year that we spoiled ourselves as well as the planet and had six different vacations, if you don't count the long weekend in the North clebrating SGM's 80th!:

Marrakesh with a medium sized negative carbon impact, but GREAT memories, as much from the smells as from the colours and images that we shared with the PoSDO (looks like we have lost the Marrakesh Photos to technology!!).

Orkney with a small sized negative carbon impact, and this time GREAT repeat memories, from the wildlife, the sea scenery and the amazing hospitality of Jackie and Stewart at Rickla the greatest B&B on the face of the planet.

Birmingham Canals with a smallish sized negative carbon impact, as we drove to Birmingham to pick up the Canal Boat. Brilliant slow down holiday that the whole of the FftS enjoyed. If left to my own devices I would buy one tomorrow.

Cornwall, Lerryn
, a small negative carbon impact with the drive down, and a visit to the Eden Project to remind ourselves what being Green really means.

Indy & Chicago on one of my trips to Indy I took Gill and we spent the weekend in Chicago. Unfortunately a large sized negative Carbon Impact.

and finally....
Moscow and St Petersburg Brilliant Memories! that we shared with TGSWAES and her husband (TREE).
Another large sized negative Carbon Impact which could have been larger had we not taken the train to St Petersburg.

It was also the year that we got delivery of a Toyota Hybrid vehicle a small and virtually insignificant reduced negative impact in comparison to our Carbon driven travels.

In addition it was the year that we installed a very large rain water collection tank, in order to reduce our reliance on tap water for gardening.

And finally it was the year that two special folks from the FftN became a special year older!

Having read this blog, it feels a little wrong, it was great reliving the memories but in the cold light of a blog, could also feel like showing off.... when it was in reality a cathartic way of dealing with the juxtaposition of my Green Guilt and Great Memories. (That I know I would do again in an instant!!) Wonder how long I will leave this up? It also explains how I burnt up all my back log of vacations!!! Nearly didn't have enough for Christmas!!!

unHappy New Year

2007-01-01T02:32:00.000Z

We arrived home, in the first few hours of this New Year to find, despite the missing script for the murderer (or was that "ess")... the house tidy, no wine stains on the carpet (that I have yet found), and the washing up done! So why "unHappy " I hear you ask! Well, I was just showing HWWGTA the prior blog at 2:30 am and suddenly he clicked and nearly guessed his acronym, so very nearly that the one formerly known as SWWMD, now clearly known as SWHAND! said "surely that counts!". How little, does she know! I told him that he was close... what more does she want!

We had had a brilliant evening at the home of TVBNL, who regaled us with a wondrous recitation of the poem of the Magna Carta by Marriott Edgar. Given it has 19 stanzas, that is no mean achievement! He followed this up with a mean display of fireworks that lasted into the new year. He had the luck of the irish as the weather created a starry moonlit night for the fireworks despite raining like cats and dogs hours before and again as I type this blog. (I just love the English language, the word "mean" can mean so many things!)

TVBNLSSL, TSOAFGF and our very kind Teetotal driver (who did the desserts) had laid on a spread fit for a whole bevy of Kings. I have to admit to being very struck with the Lemon Possett which apparently is far simpler to make than its sublime taste and texture would suggest!

Happy New Year to my reader!

Happy Old Year!

2006-12-31T18:33:00.000Z

We are trusting the humble abode of the FftS to HWWGTA for the New Years celebrations and spending the evening with friends. Such great friends that they have even asked a very kind teetotaller to do the driving. Thus TMTDUB and WFBOJ are in the hands of HWWGTA and (Now what will her acronym be? for the time being it will be HWA). They are holding a Murder Mystery Dinner with an Italian theme. Wonder if they will play the "Mafia" game after they have figured out who the murderer was?

Happily HWA arrived just in time to get the two legs of lamb into the oven. Yes, two and there are only 6 of them. Hope they like meat! She had asked me just after arriving; how organised HWWGTA was I nearly split my sides!!! He is after all his father's son!

Must go and get ready .... must be ready for our lift!!!

Puppy Bath Photo Blog

2006-12-31T13:30:00.000Z

Early one morning WFBOJ needed a bath. Not that she wanted one! But for reasons that I won't go into here we knew that she did! As you can see from her very forlorn look.
Unfortunately she wasn't able to tell us just how bad we were at giving puppy baths. Though I suspect her attempts to frantically scrabble out of the sink was a sort of clue.

Finally the liberal application of a hair dryer produced a very interesting out of focus fuzzball effect!

A resounding success!

2006-12-23T02:32:00.000Z

It is sadly not often enough that the FftS meets up with the FfY. We did get a full set together, though the specific instance of full-set-ed-ness was unfortunately not long lived, must be something to do with the half life of the resulting element.

This occasion was the first introduction of TIBF to the "Full-Set". First impressions were that he was smart, clearly proven later in the evening to be an understatement. As an example he spends his spare time correcting the English in the latest QI book,.... I swear I would never have spotted the misused apostrophe it's indeed! Stephen how could you let the side down so badly by allowing your name to be connected to such badly constructed English book!. Being apparently so smart, is totally congruent with him being the (Ex) Italian boy friend of TBA.

The evening progressed onto food which of course, for TEIBF was surely the main trap, as being Italian (did I mention that?), and bound inexorably to the stereotypical model us Brits have of the Italian Male, he had to uphold his Mother's cooking at all costs.

The trap was neatly executed by TGSWAES, (who for my reader is TBA's mum) as she had cunningly decided to serve "Lasagne". What she was actually serving was the traditional 14th Century English dish Loseyns (pronounced Lasan). which in turn is likely to have originated from the Scandinavian "Langkake", popular from the Viking ages, a multi-layered dish consisting of flatbread, meat sauce and cheese.. (I wonder if TBA has already found Archaeological proof of all this.)

Any how.. back to the neatly executed trap, TEIBF shewn earlier to be not short of a braincell or two, had spotted the trap and on being asked (a little too blatantly for my taste in traps) by TGSWAES "How does it compare to your mother's Lasagne?". He replied with a perfectly executed and very simple "It's different!". The tone held enough to clearly convey that his Mother's culinary dominance had not been assailed, certainly not equalled, and the very thought of it having been surpassed, not even a remote possibility!. To have the grasp of English tone to execute in 2.5 simple words so much, had me in awe. The effect on the table was quite interesting, as the various parties bound to support the slighted one. At this point TEIBF executed another blinding verbal pirouette by helping us understand that the execution of most foreign cooking by the English was "different", "take for example" Indian food in England. We all pictured in our minds eye the Chicken Tikka Masala dish that we had come to understand had never been cooked in India, until arriving English tourists demanded it! As TEIBF had said "diferrent"!

It is so easy after the fact to see how simply he lead us all neatly away from discussing the true origins of Lasagne. Clever really how we never really got to prove that Lasagne was English, before it was Italian!.

The latter part of the evening involved playing a most interesting Parlour Games, called variously Mafia or WereWolf. The rules we played can be found here, originating from Russia it is one of the most recently invented parlour games. For its history and other rules check the Wikipedia entry

HWWGTA was the Narrator, and he had the challenge of selecting a Detective, a member of the Mafioso. He had to make it difficult to guess, but how? So his selection made the game began... The individual playing the Mafia moved in quick and took out the three eldest Males of the village , assisted by the villagers in their lynching selection. His second strike took out the Detective, who had correctly identified him just before his demise. He spoke little but when he did it always resulted in a shift of blame and his survival.

One by one the innocent villagers fell to the power of the "Mafia", the game came to its inevitable conclusion. I will never forget the spine tingling comment of TIBF on our departure. Paraphrased his comment simply recognised that the result was not unexpected given the experience of the person that HWWGTA had selected to be Mafia. I was still numb from the fact that HWWGTA had chosen to double bluff and select TEIBF, after all who would suspect he would choose an Italian. So when TEIBF shared the inevitability of the result, I of course shivered! I just hope he reads this and then smiles benignly! If this blog comes to an abrupt end, you will know he didn't!

Dastardly Multi Letter Acronyms

2006-12-22T08:21:00.000Z

My "reader" has given me clear feedback about my DMLA's, they are apparently too dastardly, despite the fact that I pepper clues to their meaning throughout a blog in which they are introduced, often just plain spelling them out! Well for most of them ,of course HWWGTA is not going to get any clues! None, NARDA, just ain't happenin'!

So I am going to use this Blog as the key for all those who do not have the desire to wrestle with them... of course I fear I am putting myself in mortal danger by publicly declaring an order to my Surrogate Daughters, but they were created in a very strict time dependant order, so hopefully they will not pillory me for being a clock watcher!

I will add DMLA's a few at a time and keep them in Alphabetical order for ease of reference.

D.M.L.A. KEY

AFGF A DMLA that for the time being shall remain lost in the history of the old millenium.

FftN A simple one to start including lower case to signify "little words", this one means "Family from the North". An indicator of the current geographic location of one of the Families mentioned in the Blog.

FftS Clearly the opposite of FftN

FfY this one means "Family from Yately". Comprising TREE, TGSWAES. TBA, *****, HWINKU.

HWA this one is a temporary one that means "Her Without Acronym".

HWINKU another silent DMLA disclosue {insert Evil Laugh here} which means "He Who Is Never Knowingly Uncool". You have to see, to believe!

HWWGTA this one gives me insane pleasure in silently publishing as it means "He Who Will Get This Acronym". He is getting closure, so by publishing I can at least claim he could have read it here!

SDO Ever feel like the sword of Damacles was suspended above you, this one stands for "Surrogate Daughter One", it in NO way is intended to rank by any means other than time-based, things like their downright cussedness, the power of their eminently powerful laser looks (although I can secretly disclose here that there have been not a few incidents that have been put down by officialdom as being caused by "Natural Disasters", when in fact it was simply me riling one of them a step too far!!) Not to mention things like Weight, Height Beauty etc., for clearly any SD of mine is perfection personified.

SDT I am simply not telling you!

SGM Speedy GrandMa after one GrandMa that we know, who "got done" for speeding which clearly scored her MANY brownie points with the young of the FftS and the FftN.

SWDNFT She Who *** Wait ... for .... it!

SWHWMD She WhoWants More Dogs The old DMLA for SWHAND

TBA "The B******** Archaelogist", She knows who she is, and her brothers will be making up words beginning with B until they find one that finally gets under her skin!

TGSWAES "The Good Samaritan With an Evil Streak", despite the fact that it sounds harsh, to those who don't know her, she knows I'm right! It also one of her most loveable aspects, if only she didn't keep it under control! I have to be carefull here as I can feel an urge to gush... Phew! Nearly complimented her, that was close!

TEIBF "The Ex Italian Boy Friend", Like you needed this one explained!!! Yeah right! (Though it turns out he wasn't as bright as I thought he was! Perhaps he was kinder and more generous than I can imagine.)

TREE "The Real Electronic Engineer, I knew as soon as I met, him many moons ago that he knew about electrons and I would always be feeling in the dark. Happily his IQ does n't stop him having flaws, like the urge to eat chips before arriving to dine.

TVBNL "The Very Bright Northern Lad" the father of AFGF (not sure I am ready to disclose that last Acronym.)

TVBNLSSL "The Very Bright Northern Lad's Sweet Southern Lass" the Mother of AFGF (still not sure I am ready to disclose that Acronym.) (This acronym care of SWHAND)

TMO "The Messy One" also known as the Trundling Grunt whose Blog is known as Secrets and Lies ((Magnificent indeed!!!))

WFBOJ "White Furry Bundle Of Bundle Joy" The old DMLA for the latest addition to the FftS household, selected before we knew better.

WFT "White Furry Terrorist, the more apposite DMLA for the latest addition to the FftS household.

***** DMLA Wildcard. Normally means that I have had to veto most of my DMLA's for the individual referred to using the wild card, or that I have not had that AHA! moment yet.

I wonder if this will appease my reader!?

Blogs! Who has time for Blogs with a new puppy!

2006-12-19T22:19:00.000Z

This will be short terse and hopefully as sweet as the new puppy! She arrived in a flash of white fur and introduced herself to TMTDUB, who didn't even know she existed as an extra member of the household, by sneaking up behind him and running under his belly to poke her head up under his chin! Well! To say he was enamoured would be a downright lie! He jumped about 4,000 feet into the air, all the while spinning round to check out what this alien being was, and then landed paws splayed, snarl at the ready and took his first snap at her, but she must have been expecting it as she wasn't where his jaws snapped shut. We had hoped just maybe he was just playing, but he hasn't stopped snarling since!?

Well between then and now we have been introduced to this amazing phenomena, a tiny white furry bundle that just KNOWS she is in charge! Which does not serve to increase TMTDUB's sense of well being and calm, and has done a lot to have him perfect a terrifying lip curling display fo fangs. He seems to have a permanent snarl with a continuous low pitched rumble coming from deep in his belly. Which appears to be intended to communicate to WFBOJ, that she should stay well clear. What she actually does is simply ignore him. Which only serves to wind him up more... Puppies are supposed to be subservient to older Male dogs that bare their teeth right....??? Not WFBOJ!

After all she owns the place already! Charlie just hasn't got accustomed to the fact yet!

But neither have we, it seems a little weird coming to the realisation that something so small can take instantaneous control of 4 adults and an older male dog.

So hourly trips into the garden, which is after all a wonderful new place to explore is a requirement for many reasons not least that it's best to tire her out as quickly as possible so that we can get something done! But actually it is quite entertaining, the first time she tried to walk across the pond was quite a sight! The netting, there to protect the fish from the dratted Herons. served to stop her sinking to the bottom of the pond, but as luck would have it she still had her hind legs on terra-firma so with a complicated fast reverse coupled with a body roll to her left she avoided drowning....

12 Days of Hogswatch

2006-12-06T18:34:00.000Z

You Terry Pratchett fans should be pretty excited about the upcoming Sky One event on the 17th and 18th of December Hi Def too! Yippee!!

Unless of course you don't get Sky One! :-)

So as a teaser, watch "Death" in the '12 Days of Hogswatch' here..

Be quick they are already on day 2...

A new cocktail to celebrate: KT's Surprise

2006-12-02T08:04:00.000Z

After the news last night I designed a new cocktail to celebrate.

Glass: Martini Cocktail Glass

Ingredients:
2 parts Golden Cayman Island Rum
1 part Roses Grenadine Syrup
1 Maraschino Cherry

Recipe
Chill Glass to achieve frosting (increases the chances of the surprise)
Half fill shaker with crushed ice
Add liquids to the shaker
Shake well till ice forms on the outside of the shaker
Remove glass from freezer
Drop Maraschino Cherry in the bottom of the glass
Pour in the Pink liquid over the cherry to "hide" it!

Serve and Enjoy

Background
Cayman Island Golden Rum reminds me of the best of holidays
The cherry disappears beneath the pink liquid and emerges from the depths as the drink progresses.

YIPEEE!! great news...

2006-12-01T20:43:00.000Z

"I have never heard HWWGTA squeal as high pitched, it was really sweet!", said SDO.

I will remember that line for a while, but not as long as I will recall the squeal just after he had picked up the phone. What! I said.... and he passed me the phone... I just managed to avoid beating his squeal! So sad how age affects one...

All triggered by the purchase of 29 pink roses, 2 bottles of pink champagne and a circle of metal with what are rumored to be terribly well cut and polished oxides of aluminium colored by iron and titanium. The human units have a penchant for digging up objects out of the dirt and turning them into attractive shiny objects to adorn the orifices and digits of the female units of the species, primarily.

The first time I met TSO, now presumably better known as FSSILO; was in SDO's college room, and like her Mum, it took me seconds to realise he was hooked. Well, 5 years on he has proposed and SDO has said yes! YIPEEEE!

It hasn't really sunk in yet but I suppose the backlash will hit me far less than it will PoSDO. Surrogacy has a diminishing effect on the pain I'm sure. At present I am still just plain chuffed and even more convinced that I want to go up and see them in their new abode. I suppose the other thing that is keeping the pain at bay is the fact that I have had 5 years to prepare for this day.

Weird that it occurred on the very day that I was feeling guilty for not sending the bits to put in the HMAC. The relief is palpable, FSSILO now has the official duty of filing up the said advent calendar. So, some rules to help him get it right...
1) Don't put the same thing in every pocket!
2) Mix the value, at least 60% can be chocolate or other silly things
3) The rest different surprises, one of which needs to be of a higher value of the others... OMG! he wouldn't have been that clever would he? He already made me look stingey with SWWMD, Pink Roses and Pink Champagne indeed! "Girls like that sort of thing you know" With the knowing look that signifies now you have to get me something more than Millie for Christmas!

So with that thought bouncing round my head, I will sign off this blog, with a final congratulations to the happy couple! Can't wait till 2008, that's if I can persuade them that I deserve an invite! As this first metal band signifies that another band or two will be required, along with possibly some other banns being read.

Wow hope for me yet!

2006-11-28T00:58:00.000Z

I may yet get to improve my blog template with this super blog

Tis late but I will be figuring out all the tricks over time especially love the little url book icon!

The first three Christmas Light Gremlins

2006-11-27T20:54:00.000Z

1) The Transformer Gremlin
This tricky little gremlin uses the ploy of hiding the transformer stored with a more demanding string of lights and swapping it with a weaker transformer, of the correct voltage of course so the lights do light, for a while at least before the poor under powered transformer goes into permanent melt down. The result is a double whammy two light strings out of action!

2) The Spare Lights Gremlin
One of the tricks that this gremlin uses is to provide copious supplies of different types of replacement bulbs, that one never remembers purchasing that fit none of the strings available. He gains much pleasure from watching his victims trying in vain to make any of the different bulb types fit any of their strings of lights. Another of his tricks is to retreive previously discarded dead bulbs and reinsert them into a seemingly new pack of spare bulbs. (His cousin the "Dead Match" gremlin uses a similar ploy with matches.)

3) The Invisible Dead Bulb Gremlin
This gremlin has many tricks up his sleeve, his favorite appearing to be the hands on "Swap the dead bulb" trick. Which due to his invisbility he can do during his favorite time, which is when his victim is swapping their spare bulb in a string of lights that clearly has one dead bulb stopping it working. There are many who will not have realised that it was not the fact that they lost track of which bulbs thay had not tested. It was the IBL Gremlin's greatest pleasure to swap two broken bulbs into a string that had just been proven to work. Another of his tricks is to carefully move the string of bulbs beneath the feet of his victim so that they crush at least one more bulb than they have spares.

I am sure many of you have had the misfortune to have been visited by these gremlins....

Hot Press: Indian Ocean not safe for seals!

2006-11-26T20:41:00.000Z

For those of you lucky enough to watch BBC TV, you will have realised that you "DON'T" want to come back as a seal in the Indian Ocean.

I was going to blog about my first meeting with the "Christmas Lights" gremlins, but then I read TMO's blog and as I had only just started with one set of lights and have thus far only met the Transformer Gremlin. I thought I would wait until I had met and identified a few more of them.

Grapevine Blog: about the Professional Lady

2006-11-18T08:26:00.000Z

I know a professional lady, and I asked her what she would do for half her going rate, her response was :
"I wouldn't even get out of bed for that!"

Which was a good start!

============

There are some that will remember the "professional lady's" ability to fill the UniS, as it is now called, "grapevine" with her utterings! It was a section in the weekly student mag to capture the various unfortunate sayings that folks utter before they have fully engaged brain and checked for double entendre or unfortunate inuendo.
(The profession in question was in fact Counselling)

Emotional Stop-Press

2006-11-17T21:10:00.000Z

I interrupt this important ethanolic rambling.... to share an emotional experience.

Some background.... three years ago I was standing in front of a body that was broken, it was my friend of many years standing... TOACC. He had had a stroke. Worse from a selfish point of view, I was standing with his wife and children. So I couldn't just cry.

We were in a hospital and this shell in front of me was not TOACC! It was one of the lowest points of my watching. A demonstration of the human units at their frailest.

Over the weeks and months on each of my returns across the pond, TOACC made amazing progress. With the support of his family, friends and faith; he became TOACC again.

But that is not the reason for this Blog...

Today, I met him in the cafeteria of our mutual place of employment.

He was BACK @ WORK!! Here I have to stop as I do not have words to convey my joy!
(PS Happy Birthday TEG, who is the son of TOACC)

Scotch is NOT Whiskey! PART 1

2006-11-09T22:04:00.000Z

In my early days of exploring the vagaries of the human units, I came across a noxious substance known as Alcohol, an arabic word meaning "finely divided". It was named in 5,000 bc by the alchemist Paracelsus, of Harry Potter fame. A general formulae for a simple acyclic alcohol is C_nH_2n+1OH. The specific alcohol of interest to the human units is ethanol (CH₃CH₂OH), which is created by fermenting sugars.

The earliest known use of ethanol beverage was some 9,000 years ago in Jiahu, in the Chinese province of Henan, where it has been proposed that a beverage fermented from a mixture of rice, honey and hawthorns was created.

Why would they imbibe these substances, the answer is found in their brain chemistry, for ethanol is a psychoactive substance, with sedative hypnotic and depressive effects. OK, so they are whacky. The human units find it easier to socialise after partaking of this poison, which is also unfortunately for them addictive.

The yeasts that break down the sugars cannot survive readily in liquids containing more than 18% Ethanol, and die above 25%, so the human units invented a means to purify the ethanol to make the ethanol based beverage more toxic, this method known as distillation was invented by Islamic Alchemists in the 8th or 9th century.

Bonemeal and Bulbs, good idea or bad?

2006-11-05T08:11:00.000Z

It all started with TPoSDT visited, they spoke of a structures as tall as 11 Red London Buses piled on top of each other! Biomes built into a sixty foot crater, it sounds and is, other worldly. Actually, it's anti-everything I have observed in the human units. Words like ecology and conservation flow from the crater in abundance, they are even researching "Green" surfboards!. The place is the Eden Project, so given the urgings of "TMO" I visited with SWWMD. Unfortunately we visited in the spring, at a time called Bulb Mania. When the air must be imbued with some form of mind altering narcotic gas, or perhaps it was the bubonic plague, argued to be the real origin of TulipMania. We ordered hundreds of the things. I must explain that I saw it as an investment! After all there was a time not too long ago in the history of this greeny blue planet (1637) that bulbs were sold by weight, and one weighing about half an ounce could be sold to purchase: eight pigs, four oxen, twelve sheep, twenty-four tons of wheat, forty-eight tons of rye, two hogsheads of wine, four barrels of beer, two tons of butter, a thousand pounds of cheese, a silver drinking cup (as well as clothes, bed and mattress, and a ship! ((Now, you don't think me so stupid eh!!))

As usual the above may or may not bare any resemblance to that thing called reality, which one human unit recently described as "just a crutch for people who can't deal with drugs" but I digress. As hinted at earlier, some see the whole TulipMania thing as an artefact of a mass histeria caused by the bubonic plague.

Well months later, after having visited BulbMania, just as promised, the said bulbs arrived in a distressingly large box. (Goodness knows how many hogsheads of wine they would have cost in 1637!) Needless to say we practised a few weekends of bulb procrastination. However I did do my research, on how to make the bulbs grow in weight during their planting, for after all this is how one makes money, every aas counts! (0.0018gm).

It seems the answer lies in allowing rapid root development, which in turn lies in the right feed: which according to the web is Phosphorous, which can be found in Bonemeal. Bone meal helps develop sturdy root systems and stimulates plant growth. As luck would have it the previous gardening season, I had purchased enough bone meal to plant thousands of bulbs.... Serendipity is such a wonderfull thing, as well as being a great spaceship, if you take out the "dip".

Just imagine the hogsheads of wine I will be able to buy now I have found this money spinning trick!

The saturday was sunny and both SWWMD and I focussed on the massive undertaking, OH Yes! did I mention that SGM had also chosen to add to the fun by buying us an additional 60 bulbs. Pits were dug and appropriately sprinkled with copious amounts bonemeal, pots were filled, again with generous dollops of the ground stuff! I was positively salivating at the thought of the resulting "aas".

Anyone spotted the flaw yet?

Many will have! And no it wasn't the downright disingenuity of the internet, for while researching for this blog, I came acrooss this link The best time to feed bulbs? When you plant them! You may think "and???" that's what you have been telling us. However, embedded deep within the reinforcing article, is this question: What about bonemeal, the old favorite? The answer a very disappointing:

Because changes in commercial processing have affected the nutrient quality of bonemeal, it's no longer the best fertilizer to use when planting bulbs.

That just served to rub my nose in it! Which unfortunately is part of the root of the real problem. For a certain TMTDUB has a nose that is very good at determining where he planted his bones, well most of the time, as he knows he has lost a few!

IMAGINE!, the next morning that he prances out into the garden anticipating the blessed relief that emptying a canine bowel can bring, when POW!!! his olfactory nerves start firing 10 to the dozen a garden FULL of BONES! Yippee.... where to begin!

Hence his DMLA, The Mutt That Digs Up Bulbs!

His disappointment is only matched by that of the merchant who lost his Semper Augustus to the sailor to whom he had just rewarded a red herring breakfast, who thought it was an onion and nicked it to eat with his free breakfast.

Now we have the fun game of reburying hundreds partly chewed bulbs.

Millie's Christmas Holly

2006-11-04T19:24:00.000Z

The visit to choose our new puppy felt a little like visiting the dentist. I hoped it might be good for me, but I also knew I wouldn't like the smell and expected it to be painfull.

Good for me?..., due to the fact that SWWMD had a permanent smile on her face as we walked toward the momentous decision of choosing "which" little girl was going to be added to the FftS. For the gender was pre-determined, the ratio in the FftS household was to be re-balanced. As luck would have it, 2 of the 4 puppies matched the gender criteria, and due to TMTDUB's Kennel Miles, and SWWMD's friendliness we had first pick of the litter.

Zena, the Mum of the puppies is a West Highland White Terrier. The family of Tina, the breeder, traditionally names the puppies and then incorporates these names into the Kennel Club Registration Name. For as you may have guessed female members of the FftS always come with a certain pedigree! :-) Zena's puppies were named Holly, Annie, Bubbles and Squeak.

We chose Holly based on her being presented as the calmer and quieter of the bunch. After much discussion we agreed to try for Millie's Christmas Holly as her Kennel Club name. With Millie being selected as her family name. (When "TMO" reads this he will undoubtedly feel a sense of amused victory, as it was he who initiated the inexorable slide towards naming the innocent pup after a horse. At least I avoided the initial choice which was Lillie, heaven fore-fend! )

HWWGTA was mad as heck that he missed out on the visit to select Millie. So look out for future Blogs on his visit, as well as TMTDUB's visit to meet Millie.

To top it all off, the dental visit turned out very different to my expectations, and providing no-one blabs to SWWMD...
...I actually found myself totally smitten by the little white bundle of fur and all that in less than 5 minutes, imagine how I am going to be after a few months.

Now I am REALLY afraid! :-) But the canine unit I really feel sorry for is TMTDUB! He won't know what hit him as a quick read of the WIKI will disclose.

A goodly part of our virtual family visited...

2006-11-04T18:57:00.000Z

Many moons ago... in a time when whole holidays, including flights and full board, could cost less than the boys last holiday bar bill! (Yugoslavia was that low cost!) We met the Toyotas. Mum and Dad Toyota were there at the same time with brilliant and musical offspring (girls and boy)

T3 arrived for Sunday Lunch with NQBF, we celebrated her partners recent qualification and then went onto discuss their future life plans. I found myself having to stop my selfishness coming to the for, as they talked of moving their lives to the antipodean provinces.

Then amazingly T4 called to say he was in the area, visiting some friends, and wondered if he could visit with us, which of course he could. So he arrived with his partner and we proceeded to an extended afternoon of Scotch tasting.... but more on that later... these human units have invented a drink so potent that they name it using an adjective meaning "of Scotland"!

Celebrating 80!...

2006-10-22T10:30:00.000+01:00

A join of two families, and two complete sets too! We had achieved miracle of modern teenagers all were available, but then it was for their SGM!

We had SGM, the FftN and the FftS joined to celebrate SGM's 80th, which coincidentally was not the speed she was doing when she gained the appelate SpeedyGrandMa, after being nabbed by one of the more dastardly pieces of technology that the Human Units have developed, namely a "Speed Camera".

As an aside it is quite interesting to experience the weird juxtaposition of horror and celebration that occurs when one passes a recently burnt out Speed Camera. Such acts of vandalism in any other context would have created nothing but horror and loathing for the unthinking miscreants. The blackend Box clearly no longer operational, one gets a small sense of victory against the forces of oppression.

TBMHSE chose the meeting location halfway between the South Coast and Bawtry. Clearly he used an ancient map with the standard scale distortion that used to accord the proper import to the South of England. On such a map Matlock would have looked to be exactly half way! To be fair the location did turn out to be all he had promised. We arrived at the Red House Country Hotel in the afternoon and true to their word we were served Tea and a home made fruit cake, whose fruit had clearly been soaked endlessly, to create that difficult to achieve moistness.

Our superbly appointed room had a magnificent view of the National Park with a balcony. The only minor complaint and warning to future guests is that the hot water is not available to exhausted walkers who return from a hike in the early afterrnoon. (I would suggest an extra layer of foam around the tank and a commitment to keep the hot water hot!)

Later that evening we began our sorry slide toward gluttony, that most dastardly of the sins. The evening dinner is a four course affair, not including the coffee and mints at the end. The chef should rightly proud of his offerings, though super-tasters beware, as the flavours he conjures up are not for the faint of heart. The fish soup on the second night was sublime. The pepper sauce that accompanies the steak is not shy of shouting "PEPPER", and my rather picky description of the way I wanted my steak cooked, as the French would say "at the point" was taken very seriously and delivered to perfection.

SGM celebrated her birthday on the Saturday, and after a day of visits to Matlock and the surrounding area and sundry visits to various retail outlets, apparently a necessity when one is blessed with daughters ;-), we finished off the evening with a game of "Famous People".

Which will be the subject of a future Blog...

We all decided that we had fun and had thoroughly enjoyed the locale and establishment.

Before I sign off I must also acknowledge the true gem of the RHCH, ie Sylvia!. Her experience in the hotel industry has given her the ability to read a guest

A questionable cache...

2006-10-22T07:11:00.000+01:00

'Tis but a short?! walk from the Red House Country Hotel in the Peak District to the Stanton Enclosure geo-cache. At least according to my new way of finding caches, somehow on a 2D Map, the hills are less of an issue!

The walk starting with a footpath down by the side of the hotel, continues across a rusty railway line occasionaly frequented by harumphing steam trains, takes you towards a set of green fields in front of Darley Bridge. I started a little late and my first mistake was to decide against an early lunch at the pub at the muddy exit to the fields. It is amazing how muddy a herd of cows can make the exit to a field.

Following my trusty GPS enabled Personal Navigation Device (PND), I was taken past an Industrial site, on the left apparently still working, on the right mounds of disturbed soil, being used by children on bikes and marked as "Contaminated Land Unsuitable for Recreational Use". Clearly the human units have not yet grasped the fundamental tenets of the things they would call "Conservation" and "Safety". Found at the very edge of a National Park called the Peak District, it is interesting how the parks boundaries bend inwards to accomodate this blot on the landscape.

Walking a little further I approached the cache from the same direction that many other GPS directed hunters had done before me, namely the "wrong" direction. It was here I made my second mistake. My "you can't get there from here" alert did not trigger effectively until I had reached the point where I couldn't! There had been a clear track up the steep hillside until then, where had it gone? I was faced by what looked like a stone built escarpment built into the hillside to block my path. So I struck off to the left, to find a place where I could clamber up it. On top of the escarpment?! I found a track up the side of the hill, which took me away from the cache. I followed it some way until I decided to strike out into the 4 foot high ferns, to make my own path back to the cache, my third mistake. Had I continued some 200 yards I predict I would have found the proper path back to the cache.

I eventually found the conventional path, having forced myself through the ferns. It felt like miles but was measured in a few 100 metres on the PND. The path went right past the cache location. The cache was in an old stone built enclosure, I started hunting for the cache on and around the enclosure, when my conservation alert did trigger very solidly! I started noting upturned stones with the moss underneath, the tops of the recently disturbed wall with no lichen or moss, cache hunters before me had started the slow but sure destruction of this enclosure. At this point I stopped my search and decided that I would submit an archive request to the fellows at www.geocaching.com on my return.

With a mixture of pride and sorrow I started my journey home. As I had left my rain gear at the bottom of the "you can't get there from here" hill. I decided to head straight back down the hill toward it, my final mistake! The journey while steep was relatively safe as the heather and ferns were very forgiving and also made a soft cushion that protected my knee on the journey down. I was approaching the area that I thought was the escarpment keeping a sharp?! eye out for the track that was atop it, when I found a secondary escarpment! The manner by which I found it consisted of a violent spin to my right, with a flailing left arm and my right arm hanging onto my PND for dear life. The protective heather and ferns had protected my eyes from seeing a 1.5 metre drop off this secondary "escarpment". Happily they re-asserted their more positive protective qualities as I landed on them in a heap! Nothing but my pride was bruised, and I continued down the hillside mentally berating myself.

Back tracking, I amused myself by selecting which of the pubs I would stop at for lunch, remember that first mistake? Having chosen and arrived at the Square and Compass I met the publican who was happy to estol the virtues of his liquid refreshments then told me that lunch stopped at 2pm, and no amount of pleading on my part would persuade him to part with even a slice of bread, let alone toasted! So my lunch consisted of a pint and a packet of crips and nuts. Not that I am bitter, but I would not be moved to recommend the pub to hungry hikers. Though to be fair he did open the back door to the pub garden so I could sit outside. (I have to say though if you haven't already click on the link to the pubs website it is something else! I suspect it was developed by one of the younger locals for a free pint!)

The walk back to the Hotel was uneventful.

What do they get from these puzzles???

2006-10-17T22:09:00.000+01:00

The human units seem to enjoy puzzles and games, so when NITRAM emailed this link... I could not but try.
Especially as he declared himself to be stuck on Level 11, while TDoMB was herself stuck on level 16. My silly mistake was to share the link with HWWGTA! I admit to doing my usual trick of getting a few levels ahead before I did, but it still only seemed a matter of minutes before he was ahead of me.

The unfortunate side effect was that we then got into a competition and lost sight of the fact that SWWMD both cooked the evening meal and cleaned up after it.

I was gutted to hear HWWGTA, tell me the total number of puzzles in this particular 3D Logic Game another example of his cerebral proficiency, though perhaps not his subtelty. He may as well have shouted I won!!! :-)

It tickled me to transmit that number to NITRAM, I didn't state that I completed the puzzle, that would have been fibbing! Though I can now "proudly?" state that I have completed it!

Njoy

Canoeing ....

2006-10-16T08:40:00.000+01:00

I suspect that the pre-launch discussions regarding the last canoe trip, which involved a "C"apsize, here-in-after known as the "C" word, were the reason for my nervous-ness. The act of boarding was in itself a vision, the slippery mud bank adding to the fun. We launched onto the river at high tide. My white knuckles the subject of much mirth, were kept white by appropriately timed repeats of the "C" word. The highly efficient paddling of my crew mates helped us achieve a wake, at times I felt we were exceeding the rivers speed limit! We soon pulled out of sight of the village and turned the corner into sublime wilderness.

We passed through a section of water that had a thin floating layer of brown sludge, identified by our captain (PoSDO) as his own output! The predictable increase in the use of the "C" word created the equally predictable change in my knuckles colour! A vague reference to needing the water testing skills of a previoulsy "C"apsized crew member, whilst creating some mirth, only served to firm my grip. Happily we soon left the sludge layer behind.

The mists clearing, we soon arrived at our destination a small spit of land where we intended to partake of the bacon butties being carried overland by the less intrepid, or was that more intelligent!, explorers of this glorious wilderness.

We arrived as a female swimmer chose to exit the water. Presumably she had not spotted the three male canoeist paddling feverishly toward her, for she started to change with the occasional use of a covering towel! She would not have known our goal was bacon butties as she turned to see us hit the bank at speed, only yards from her changing spot. Luckily the con-current arrival of the all female over-land party calmed her somewhat frantic towel clutching activities. Our captain gallantly reversed from the bank and reinserted the canoe 6 yards further from the partly changed swimmer, an act which I am not sure did much to calm her further. We all rapidly exited the vessel averting our eyes apart for the odd glance to check for brown sludge, as after all the offending layer was only a few 100 yards up the river??!

The bacon butties in crunchy baguetes, justified our haste, though perhaps not our lack of gallantry!

I reluctantly?! let others experience the return journey, surely driven solely by my sense of fairness!, not the need to let my knuckle muscles rest! I was actually too much of a landlubber to realise that the turning tide and the wind would make the return journey much harder!

This blog was just a small part of a brilliant weekend that felt like we packed in the activities of a week! As usual the location exerted it's power. I felt the word "Relax" hit me as we drive into the village, very similar to the effect Orkney has on me. Needless to say the village is a BlackBerry free zone.... NO SIGNAL! BLISS!

Few DMLA's this blog. I have not spent the time to consider them for this previously unblogged group... the FoSDO! SDO was not there on this occasion, though her sister (SoSDO?) was.

Incidentally...

2006-10-09T04:35:00.000+01:00

The human unit: TMO, had clearly fondled the marinaded raw pork in the plastic bag long enough, as "The Canon" was prompted to ask; "How did you keep the meat so tender!". The kebabed (sp?) Thai Pork was in fact del.ic.ous!

If only I could understand...

2006-10-09T03:46:00.000+01:00

... the complex interactions of Family and Friends. Perhaps writing of it will help.

TMO has prompted me to start the blogging more seriously. Mostly due to his penchant for assigning DMLA's to his Blogged victims!

I was privileged to once again experience the welcome and hospitality of the FoSDT

As usual I left with too much to Blog even if I had unlimited hours.

From the surreal offer of the opportunity to fondle a plastic bag containing raw pork in a Thai Marinade. What was TMO thinking? He had just got it from the fridge! Where's the fun in that?

To the coincidence(s) of just having visited Moscow and St Petersburg, which the visiting Canon had also done. Except "The Canon" was a gourmand who had found a number of excellent Russian restaurants (Would that I had met him before we visited). Both of us had visited at a historic moment, he at the time of the Theatre Bombing, Us at the Re-Burial of the Swedish Mother of the last Czar in St Petersburg. (I wonder if I did understand that correctly?)

This occasion was the second time, this year, that I was present at a full family get together. As usual the love was demonstrated by full-on ribbing. "TTO" (the current partner of SDT, I use ""'s for DMLA's when they are not mine!) demonstrated his ability to survive the FoSDT by responding instantly to a challenge, that in an instant switched topic and dissed the Brits. It was a masterpiece! The question of who was the best Doctor Who had been raised. Rather unfair given that the dinner was taking place in Indiana and not all guests would know who Dr Who was let alone the list of actors who played him. So his instant response: "George Lazenby!", (this punctuation should get me an "F") was truly a classic.

TOWCC also had his current partner at the dinner, she impressed me as much at this dinner as she did the first. I am always left thinking how few braincells I have in the company of the FoSDT, so it feels totally unfair that the two partners add so clearly to the IQ of the FoSDT. I am still working on a DMLA for her, so for the time being she will be TPoTOWCC

The double sighting of a starving Humming Bird, and the comparison of TMoSDT to a Russian circus Bear trainer for not having the feeders out, prompted an instant feeder. Despite observing closely for the rest of the afternoon, I did not see the Humming Bird partake. Although I did see lots of bubbles, I suspect that he was drinking from the Dark Side of the Feeder, Grrrr. I really WILL super glue closed the feeder hole on that side one day, I am convinced they sneak in and drink from that side on purpose...

In short, another glorious and pleasurable visit to the FoSDT!!

Effects of Terrorism or the desire to bolster Government Units

2006-08-28T18:55:00.000+01:00

The recent "clamp down" of atmospheric travel of the human units by the societal unit calling itself Great Britain was ostensibly due to the capability of a young group of terrorists to cleverly mix ink gel, baby food and a selection of pungent ointments, that the female units like to smear themselves with, in order to blow air transport units from the atmosphere.

A VERY minor amount of observation shows that there was a higher likliehood that the Goverment Unit was in trouble with the population units. What better way than to use that favorite of magicians the Universe over: Distraction!

First arrest a group of highly dissatisfied muslim units, who were starting to discuss the means by which they could do harm to the Governments that have been supporting the attacks on their fellow muslims.

Then over secure the air ports so that they can not operate effectively. Stopping even the transportation of, reading material, writing implements, in addition to any electron entertainment devices. This at a time when most of the human units like to burn liquid carbon fuels to pollute the very atmosphere.... but that is an entirely differnt observation...

The results are relatively clear major distraction, and loss of revenue... little increased actual safety.

In the beginning... not really... I watched before then!

2006-08-28T18:24:00.000+01:00

Before there was a puff of smoke observed on the Red Planet. I watched!

Observing the crazy goings on of the human units.

This blog is dedicated to the continuing observations of the complex interactions of these units and all the other units, processes and organisations on their greeny blue planet.