Priceless Paintings from W7

There are too many children living around my house.

Too many, at least, to work in the garden of my house between the hours of 11:30 and 13:00, while delicious smells of cooked lunch come and distract me from various directions.

Nice to know that not every parent has surrendered to Microwave food, although the smells did make me struggle with my gardening work.

I gave them my revenge yesterday though, kick-starting a huge amount of oxtail soup mid day, and preparing a delicious liver pate in the early evening. Both are very smelly businesses, so I am confident that the smells from my extractor made a few bellies rumble.

Thoughts cooking, home, society

I guess the makers of Avatar never set out to make the world a better place, but with the news from the Oscars just in earlier this week, I can’t help wondering:

The movie cost between 240 and 300 million US dollars to make. Amazing, if you think about it. In terms of box office revenue, it made well over 2.6 billion US dollars so far (according to this site). That is US$ 2,600,000,000, and growing. Not to speak of merchandise and DVD sales.

More than a year’s pay, even including the bonus!

And this is just one of many big money-spinning movies. While the crowds enjoy watching the fate of the Earth-like planet Polyphemus in 3D, I can’t help thinking what all this this money could have done in our present, real and truly three dimensional world. $2,600,000,000. That’s enough to fix a lot of things in this world. Instead, we squander it away in 2 hours 40 minutes, accompanied by a bucket of sticky popcorn.

Maybe intelligent life exists somewhere in the Universe. On a whole, we don’t seem to have much of it on this planet.

Thoughts human, movie, society

I used to think nurses were women,
I used to think police were men,
I used to think poets were boring,
Until I became one of them.

The BBC quoted this poem in their Mastercrafts program on stained glass, and the poem is now cited in a new stained glass featuring in a school in Peckham, south London.

I was intrigued and consulted with a popular Internet search engine, and thus discovered a poet called Benjamin Zephaniah. What a great guy! Well worded, non-boring, non-traditionalist, inventive, fresh. I also like Wot a Pair.

Read it for yourself, and read it aloud. It’s right here.

Books, Thoughts BBC, BBC Television, book

The cheapest workout is to have 800kg worth of gravel and slate delivered roadside, sign the receipt, then carry those 800kg into the back garden.

It always looks so much! As if I had ordered three times as much as needed, but it will only be a few buckets over, if anything, I know from experience.

Weather permitting, I’ll be digging and sweating and gravelling and making the new garden path this weekend. This will connect the patio area (railway sleepers, far back in the picture) with The BBQ Zone (granite pavement, front right) in a playfully meandering way such that your journey from said patio leads you through the kitchen garden and banana grove, then through the orchard and the decorative garden, past the shed and the camomile lawn. Unless you are in a hurry, you might require as many as seven or eight steps for that, and even more if you may a detour past the greenhouse!

Well. We can’t change the boundaries of our home and garden, but we love it, and the new garden is going to be brilliant.

Enough gravel and slate is here. I can feel it in my shoulders.

Thoughts gardening, home

How does one get from A to B these days?

Like almost everything else, you’d start by going online, and seek Google’s advise.

Google’s maps are superb after all, and their driving instructions excellent. Our collective blind reliance on Google as the world’s single source of information on almost anything is increasingly worrying. Not that I have reason to believe they do anything wrong, or filter or rate or present information in a way that I disagree with, but I grow increasingly uneasy about this whole thing.

Supersized media barons such as Axel Springer or Rupert Murdoch are tiny players in the information monopoly game, when you compare it to Google.

So, when it comes to journey planning within the UK, it turns out that there is an excellent, government-funded alternative: Transport Direct.

Unlike Google, Transport Direct only covers the UK.

Unlike Google, Transport Direct considers the use of sustainable transport (i.e. bicycles) and use of public transport in addition to regular use of roads and cars. They factor live travel news into the equation, compute the CO2 cost of a trip, know locations of car parks.

And, they aren’t run by Google.

Thoughts, Travel, Web/Tech Google, Internet, society

The advert carries a lovely tag line, which made me look it up: a new movie by documentary maker Michael Moore, called Capitalism: A Love Affair. This could be something worth watching out for, and quite possibly something worth watching.

I watched the trailer and wasn’t entirely sure if I liked it. Maybe not a case for £10 at the movie theatre (especially since our local movie house has been demolished, and reconstruction has come to a standstill ever since).

Out in UK cinemas February 26th, DVD release May 24th.

The tagline? Oh, yes:

Because it is not about what your C.E.O. can do for you, but what you can do for your C.E.O.

Yeah. That rings true.

Thoughts movie

Lily Allen, the caller sais, is slightly unsuitable for his young daughters. The caller rung the Radcliffe and Maconie Show on BBC Radio 2 (18-Feb-2010), so he was of course agreed and his call turned into another couple of minutes of inane babble.

These guys play all the right music, but really shouldn’t be allowed to speak.

Anyway. Slightly unsuitable. Right. A little bit pregnant.

A little bit stupid. Yes, that’d work.

Thoughts BBC, BBC Radio 2, life

Easy, Tiger, easy. There was no need for this pathetic tear-jerking grovel of a public apology.

I wished you had just advised the media about the fact that your private life is, well, private. You could have also added a comment about the hypocritical nature of all those reporters and commentators.

They all had sex. Most liked it. Many had sex in ways, or with partners such that they’d rather not talk about. Certainly not in public, and not behind closed doors in many cases.

The public uproar of high morals is hypocritical at best. I find it disgusting.

Current Affairs, Thoughts human, life, society

You might know that I drive very little. Working from home, regular use of public transport, and doing most of my day-in day-out shopping on foot means that my car is pretty stationary. I think I last used it in early January.

Which explains why I wasn’t surprised to find its battery flat. The car has seen little use and the battery got little charge thus. Add an unusually long and cold season, and it makes perfect sense. Inconvenient, but not alarming.

What’s next?

Find the old battery charger, and descent down onto memory lane just once again. I made this charger myself, back in ‘86, as part of my vocational training. When I say “made it myself,” I mean it: made the transformer from scratch (a hand-packed E-I core with self-calculated and wound coils), made the case from scratch (starting with a handful of screws, a welding kit and a piece of sheet metal). Fitted the electronics, engraved the front, – just about everything that one can make by hand in this thing is made by hand.

Which means that the charger must be worth an absolute fortune. I must have been working a week or more on it. To me, it’s worth much more still, and it is something I was immensely proud of when I took it out of the cupboard and brought it to good use on my flat car battery.

Prouder still when I re-connected the battery in the following morning. One turn of the key, and off we were.

Thoughts, Web/Tech car, human

I have two retirement plans: first, become a student of mathematics, and second, recover our old photos.

Turns out neither can wait, as retirement seems further away as I would want it to be. I started playing with maths in the evening back last November.

Now I bought a scanner capable of scanning 36mm colour slides and negatives, and started work on our old photos. While scanning those is a job for someone who doesn’t have anything better to do, I take my time and run them one after the other. I hope to get through before they crumble to dust or discolour entirely, and maybe even before I reach my retirement.

So far, I managed to get Portugal 1989, Denmark 1990, Acores 1991 and Acores 1992 done (click each for the album if you’re curious). Some photos are missing and the order is all over the place, but it’s still good for a trip down memory lane.

Actually, I have more plans for my retirement, but the others can wait.  Like, for example, playing LEGO (Click to see an incredible LEGO feat).

Thoughts home, life

I hadn’t known that single-bed hotel rooms still existed. This one was fully equipped with one flimsy duvet, accompanied by a thin pillow and all-day, all-night entertainment from the near-by air-conditioning unit.

The room further featured theft-safe courtesy soap (but no other of the usual amenities, such as body lotion or cotton buds). An alarm clock (or, really, any clock), was unavailable and the bed-side reading spot-light would only light the centre of the room.

The door card only worked after three or four attempts, and staff was not very forthcoming or even prepared to inform and seek understanding about the nearby building site, or the problem with the door locks (which wasn’t limited to myself or my door).

Coffee is rationed, and the toilets in the breakfast room, restaurant and bar remain firmly locked until lunch time. Wireless Internet access is available throughout the building, at the ludicrous rate of €10 per hour.

Mövenpick Bielefeld. I am not impressed.

I paid only €78 per night on a corporate deal (breakfast excluded), so that’s the upside of it.

While I would generally hesitate to agree with the Kulturamt’s claim (“Sex is no solution,” see picture), in this particular case, I will. It is not that I tried, though. In the middle of one dark, cold, snowy and thoroughly miserable evening, I was approached by a street hooker who probably was frozen to the bone as much as I was. Not tempting, and I doubt that it would have solved the problem with the hotel anyway.

Thoughts human, life

Did you ever see or hear Michael O’Leary, the man behind Ryanair, on radio or television (or even in real life)?

He might be a sweetheart, deep somewhere in his hidden inner self, but towards the media, he certainly portraits himself as the most obnoxious foul mouth in the British business world, going on more aggressively than anyone else about his business, his ideas, and of course about his competitors.

While I despise the unpleasant attitude of Michael O’Leary as well as that of his airline, whose staff largely seem to adopt a similar mannerism, I had to laugh about this advert.

Stelios Haji-Ioannou, the Easy-Jet guy depicted here as Pinocchio, won’t find that funny (he doesn’t). Should be interesting to watch, and will give Michael a few more prime-time TV appearances where he will point-blank refuse to apologize, but promote his airline, of course.

In a way, the man’s a genius. Too bad he’s such an obnoxious one.

Thoughts commerce, Easyjet, Ryanair

Welcome back. I am glad you’re still here, after such a long break. Let’s just say it was necessary, all right? Now, the fun goes on.

Why?

Because I have nowhere else to tell you about www.mydavidcameron.com, that’s why. Everyone can have a go at a spoof election poster for the Conservative Party.

Brilliant; check it out.

The Independent writes today that the Conservative Party’s latest campaign poster doesn’t feature David’s photo; allegedly in an attempt to be less prone to caricature.

I say: Watch this.

Thoughts Politics

A significant portion of this blog’s regular readers, otherwise known as the good wife, has urged me to proceed with blogging. You know how it works: Candle light, big blue eyes, and pretty please?

You know I can’t resist such a request, so I decided to give a small intermediate update on the situation here:

I plan to continue blogging just as soon as I can. At present, I don’t know where to start or stop with paid work, so the blog will remain dormant until February 8th. Hopefully, I’ll see light at the end of the tunnel by then, and I shall continue delivering your daily dose of meaninglessness and rants.

I can’t walk through the streets, loudly and rudely commenting on people, for at least another 30 years, so keeping a blog running is the next best thing, really.

Until then, go away and do something that matters. Like, writing a reminder to come back here on February 8th, 2010.

Thoughts notices

Well, hello there, and welcome to 2010. Two thousand and ten. Who would have thought.

I hope you have all arrived safely, healthy and happy in the new decade. While we enjoyed nice, quiet and stress-free Christmas and New Year celebrations with lots of food, drink, and a few friends, we are now back to normal, like it or not.

Since that involves travelling to California once again, and keeping me busy there for a while, I shall not post until the second half of this month.

Take care, and behave yourselves while I am out. You might as well take a look at some nice new photos taken at the Winter Wonderland fun fair in London’s Hyde Park (click).

Thoughts Christmas, london