Just in case The Great Pumpkin rises tonight I’m all prepared and ready.
If you are carving a pumpkin don’t throw out the seeds but turn them into a snack to eat while you wait for The Great Pumpkin to fly through the skies.
Pat them dry them spread them on a baking tray and bake for 15 minutes or so at 120 Celsius. Melt the butter and combine with Worcestershire sauce. Add the seeds and mix well.
Return the seeds to baking sheet. Bake at 120 degrees for an hour turning them frequently.
“Three Rules of Work: Out of clutter find simplicity; From discord find harmony; In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
Albert Einstein
Today I restarted my attempts on the first of these. The War on Clutter rematch saw me finding a bag of ground coffee that almost qualified for a place on The Antiques Roadshow and some wood hardener which means I don’t need a trip to Homebase to fix the shed.
If I could only find the opportunity in the difficulty today then it would almost be a worthwhile day…
“Everyone appreciates the long light evenings. Everyone laments their shrinkage as Autumn approaches, and nearly everyone has given utterance to a regret that the clear bright light of early morning, during Spring and Summer months, is so seldom seen or used. Nevertheless, Standard time remains so fixed, that for nearly half the year the sun shines for several hours each day, while we are asleep, and is rapidly nearing the horizon when we reach home after the work of the day is over. There then remains only a brief spell of declining daylight in which to spend the short period of leisure at our disposal. Now, if one of the hours of sunlight wasted in the morning could be added to the end of the day, many advantages would be gained by all, and especially by those who would spend in the open air, whatever time they might have at their disposal after the duties of the day have been discharged.”
Today, on the last day of summer time, K and I went for a walk at the lake before an evening of healthy cooking and watching Elizabeth.
Tomorrow when we are all asleep William Willett’s dream of the Daylight Savings Bill happens again and we return to winter time. Willett financed the pamphlet himself and managed to get the support of a young Winston Churchill. With the start of the First World War and the need to save coal his ideas were reviewed again and finally introduced when it was realised that Germany had started daylight saving in an attempt to increased their hours of production during the war.
So, next year when BST arrives and the longer evenings are back remember to thank William Willett and make sure, “that the clear bright light of early morning, during Spring and Summer months, is so seldom seen or used” doesn’t happen to you.
Chinese Bake-Away, Nuclear Power in an Earthquake Zone and a Podcast Queen...
There’s an interesting article by Paul Feldman over at Freakonomics saying the underground fires in China alone contribute as much CO2 to the atmosphere each year as all the cars and light trucks in the U.S.
Jayne Morgan, podcast queen, launches Podcart, “On this site you’ll also find all kinds of interesting things related to podcasts and podcasting in South Africa – whether you’re a listener, a podcaster or someone who’d like to use podcasting as one of the ways your business communicates.” - go check it out now.
If you are in the UK Panorama tonight at 21:00 carries the Alan Johnston story.
Today marks the twelfth year of detention and house arrest of Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma.
The Nobel Peace Prize winner has been held by Burma’s military junta, mostly under house arrest, for 12 of the past 18 years.
Ironically today is also the 62nd anniversary of the formation of the United Nations.
Sadly, unlike Australia which has just imposed financial sanctions on the junta the UN (which was formed to allow governments to deal with crises like those seen in Burma) is doing little to resolve this matter and free her.
If it is to reach it’s hundredth year then it needs to devote more time and effort to matters such as these.
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia slapped financial sanctions on Myanmar’s generals and their families on Wednesday as supporters of opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi marked her 12 years in captivity with protests in 12 cities across the world.
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the measures, in response to last month’s bloody crackdown on the biggest democracy protests in two decades, would hit 418 people, including junta leader Senior General Than Shwe.
“These new measures are designed to put further pressure on the regime and its supporters while avoiding harm to the people of Burma,” Downer said in a statement.
Given that two-way trade with the former Burma amounted to just A$54 million ($48 million) in 2006, the measures appear to be aimed mainly at junta family members going to Australian schools and universities.
The colours are turning on the leaves, the sun warms the oranges and reds but this year has failed to swell the fruit so we are let off wine making duty.
Around me the wine and conversation flows easily. It’s quite a gathering with people returned from New York and, more close to home, back from their first week in work.
I wonder just where this year has gone as we try to decide who will be where for Christmas.
“I hope you brought some earplugs”, I said to K as we walked into The Fun Factory.
I wonder just when these things were invented. When I was a kid fun was something that happened in the local fields or on the round bit of waste ground at the top of the road we all called The Frying Pan.
Now, fun is an enclosed activity with a party hostess and doors that have strips of plastic attached to them to prevent little fingers being trapped.
It’s hard to know what The Fun Factory was before it became fun. The best guess seemed to be a warehouse. Stuck on the edge of a, “magnificently landscaped site that sets the finest in modern commercial architecture within a sympathetically conserved natural setting” it does mean that the local roads get some use at the weekend when all the office workers have abandoned the place.
Inside, surrounded by primary colours, the party went very well. But with a huge climbing frame (called “soft play” for some reason), food, ice cream, cake, a helium balloon in the shape of a motorcycle and arm fulls of presents it was never going to fail.
After we helped clear up and get the present into a car K and I headed to the river for lunch. It was just warm enough to sit outside and watch the boats and ducks glide by then we headed up the road to the National Trust house for a wander in the garden in the sun.
So, I now have a car - a Hyundai Getz - which I picked up today. Still no news from Alfa on what they will do to sort all this mess out and everyone seems to be blaming each other.
In a break from tradition we decided to go out tonight and went to the local fish restaurant as it was Friday and ate oysters because, as Henry Buttes, the English Elizabethan cookbook writer, said in 1599 in Dyets Drie Dinner:
“The oyster is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that have not the letter R in their name”.
Amongst all the fun of learning Unix I’ve found a little time to look at Gimp, the GNU Image Manipulation Program as a means of editing photographs.
Normally I use a variety of tools to produce pictures. These include Nikon Browser for things I take with my Nikon D100; Zoombrowser EX for things taken with my Canon G6; Noise Ninja for anything taken over 200 ASA; Photoshop for more serious editing and Photomatrix Pro for HDR and tone mapped images.
I’m not really sure what part Gimp may have in how I deal with the pictures I take but looking at the pool of pictures submitted to Gimp Users Flickr pool it may be an interesting ride…
The manufacturer told the service network to change the service interval on cam belt changes and kindly offered money to help people with this new service item.
The car went in for a service at an approved service centre.
The service centre didn’t change the cam belt.
It broke.
So, now no one wants to own the issue and I spend all day long chasing the manufacturer, the service centre and the dealer whilst the ‘cuore sportivo’ of my car lies in bits over a garage floor.
WhenI grew up we never had a car and the closest thing to a supermarket was The International Stores in the town.
I can remember even then how odd the whole shopping experience was with it’s little trolleys and the ability to buy everything in one place. I grew up in the age when the local market was the place you bought all your food shopping and nails were weighed out and sold in paper bags.
Eventually The International Stores were bought out by Linfood Holdings and rebranded as Gateway. The shop was closed and moved out of town and Mr and Mrs White (who lived up the road from us and were seen as very posh) went on to run a different shop.
Now that I’m car-less I’m back shopping with a bag and confined to the shops in the town. What’s surprising is that it isn’t that much of challenge to get what I usually buy. Sure I can’t carry it all in one go but I need the exercise of walking and I can get what I want when I want.
“It’s your cam belt”, he said slamming the bonnet down.
At that moment the sun dipped behind the trees in the lorry park just off the motorway and I felt my bank account drop into the red.
Up until then it had been a really nice day. Sunny and hot at the seaside for an October day, the cafe was packed with people enjoying the weather and eating out. I’d walked up to the next town and wandered back to the car before heading home.
Not even the sudden lurch and lack of power phased me - after all it had happened before with the Golf. But this wasn’t simply electrical and it was the same thing which wrote off Martin’s car.
I watched him unfold the towing dolly from the back of the van, load the car onto it and off we set to my local Alfa dealer to unload it, push it up to their barrier and head back into the town to drop me off.
Luckily we made good time and I only missed the first few numbers at tonight’s Kate Rusby concert. It was the last one in a long tour which she had to suspend at one point due to a bad cold. It’s been a long year for her what with deaths in her family, divorce and the challenge of producing her first album and that strain showed a little tonight.
Loosing one’s partner, producer and band member of twelve years standing isn’t easy and having to do that in front of a theatre full of people makes it all that much harder but we all said farewell to John McCusker and wished him well.
You don’t expect to be eating out in the middle of October in London. Far less to be dressed in a short sleeve shirt.
K and I came into town to pick up some birthday presents from Hamleys. It’s been a while since I was in this part of Regent Street so it was a nice surprise to see all the scaffolding taken down and Reginald Blomfield’s Beaux Arts ‘façadism’ buildings cleaned, restored and on view.
Exploring somewhere new doesn’t have to be a grand adventure and we went exploring just off Regent Street to eat at Piccolino’s in Heddon Street.
In theory we finished the project. A last minute run around to close down all the final bits of work, file the email and read the congratulatory emails. Something tells me it may rumble on but it does seem “finished” to a degree.
This evening Martin and Joanne appeared minus Richard who had chosen Gameboy over Oldboy and decided to stay at home.
We opted to put the beer away and open wine for a change and sat up till late listening to music and talking of Winter markets and concerts.
And finally. Many years ago I was searching around the ‘Net and stumbled across Adventure Journalist. For many years now I’ve watched and read about her struggles and adventures bringing up a family, moving from one amazing house to another, her road trips and projects. I learned that blogs didn’t have to be just words and started to put the pictures that I was taking here.
Sadly now the road trip is over and Tonya is hanging up her blogging boots with the successful launch of her latest project. A lot of people will miss the family, the sunsets and the coyotes but a lot of people are wishing you all well for the future. Don’t be a stranger.
I wonder what Jason Bourne would do with my job. I have to say I’m glad I don’t have his.
We finally gave in and went to see the film which has been at number one for some eight weeks in the States and, as I write, has taken some $224,476,610 at the box office.
Now, I kinda like quirky camera work. I love it on Man on Fire. Tony Scott’s use of just about every camera known to man is a clever mix which adds to the storm. Handcranked 1910 cameras and film stock which has been cross processed rather than digitally altered - for me that adds to the confusion of kidnap and the trauma that people are going through.
In The Bourne Ultimatum quirky camera handling just doesn’t work. It detracts from the plot and makes a mess of a good story. Perhaps if it had been used more sparingly to show the panic and terror of people around Bourne compared with some steady camera work when the world was seen through his eyes it may have worked better.
That said it was a good film and all I really needed was escapism. Did it beat Casino Royale ? For me no - there’s something about the “new” Bond- perhaps the slickness of the direction, perhaps the camera work, perhaps the way it shows how rough he was in the early days that really works for me.
Your Call Is In A Queue : Justice Will Be Along In A Moment...
I ofter wonder what I would do if I get arrested.
Not that it’s happened to date. The closest I have ever got was being caught in a disused bit of land by a copper forty odd years ago. He asked me a few questions and tried to get me to call him sir, which for some reason I wasn’t doing. “What do you call your headmaster”, he asked by way of a prompt. “Mr Thomas”, I replied truthfully.
One thing I know to do if you get caught is to ask for the Duty Solicitor. Not for nothing have I watched Inspector Morse. I know that this person will arrive and help you out when you get your collar felt.
Or so it is at the moment. Under changes proposed by the Legal Services Commission the Duty Solicitor scheme is about to be scrapped in favour of a call centre manned by legal advisors. In the London area these will be ex Police Officers.
Now, who would complain about that. We have saved four million pounds by stopping people having the right to a person to calm, re-assure and advise them at a very stressful and serious moment in their lives and we have “improved” the whole experience and the quality of the advice by getting by using ex Police Officers to offer you advice on what to do if you feel you have been incarcerated wrongly by the people they worked with last week down the nick.
“Your call may be monitored for quality reasons ..”
Ok so it was only a packet of sweets but everyone seemed astounded.
The rifle sights just weren’t aligned; K looked shocked that I knew how to handle an air rifle and the girl running the stall looked amazed that anyone had won anything.
I have to admit the last time I tried my hand on the shooting range I was probably underage to be holding an air rifle but I was good at it then - and I’m not bad now …
Face pressed close to the small screen, thumbs moving from side to side, lost in the music and tiny tinny noises I watch Richard and wonder just what the attraction is.
I’ve never been into computer games. Back in the says of System 7 I bought a copy of Prince of Persia for my Apple Classic II and never got off level one. That sums up my gaming experience : no wonder I can’t appreciate the finer points of the Gameboy and why I sit bemused at just what Richard gets from this small device.
Don’t get me wrong I can be obsessed with computers. This week I have tried to get Unix running on a very old laptop and I have probably downloaded most of the variants of the operating system in an attempt to get it working : Whitebox, Knoppix, DSL, Ubuntu, Suse, Fedora - I have them all.
What seems to be working successfully is Mepis so I now have a system that I can use for listening to radio shows I missed and to keep in touch with people on MSN and Gtalk.
It’s still playing, it’s still a compulsion - just a larger system. Perhaps we aren’t that different after all …
I’m pleased to say that Bloggerheads is back online after his old hosters pulled the plug after getting a letter from Mr Usmanov’s lawyers.
Over on his temporary Blogger home Tim has an interesting piece on that nice Mr Usmanov taking some mainstream journalists off for a nice little trip in his plane and a rest in a five star hotel. How odd that they have all written supportive pieces about Usmanov choosing not to mention his more shady side.
And people say bloggers aren’t impartial.
Shame on you Roger Blitz (Financial Times), David Bond (The Daily Telegraph), Jason Burt (The Independent), Shaun Custis (The Sun), Matt Dickinson (The Times), Richard Galpin (BBC), Martin Lipton (The Mirror), Charlie Sale (The Daily Mail), Matt Scott (The Guardian).
Your readers I’m sure would have been interested to learn that you were treated to a flight to Russia in a private plane AND put up by the same person that you are writing about.
It’s odd how some people seem to sum up our lives musically.
For me it’s John and Paul, Burt Bacharach and Ronnie Hazlehurst.
Ronnie composed all those tunes we knew from a Saturday night in front of the telly : The Two Ronnies, Yes, Minister, Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em, That’s Life!, The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin and Are You Being Served? were all his inventions.
He went on to arrange Butterflies, Just Good Friends, Only Fools and Horses, The Likely Lads, No Place Like Home and Three of a Kind.
So, make yourself some tea, grab a buttered crumpet and enjoy….
Copyright (c) by Mark Fitchett 2003-. If you wish to repeat, use, or quote any aspects of this site, permission MUST be asked first and a copyright credit to me should be acknowledged at all times. Thank you.
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