The Spog Blog

Font or Cheese?

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:25:24 +0200

Do you know your Gautami from your Gouda, font from Fontina, or Helvetica from Swiss? Take this (rather long-winded) quiz and find out!

(If you find this amusing, you are probably another turophile typographer like me - I am sure there must be at least one other in the universe. If you don't then you probably have a life - well done!)

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Radio rage

Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:06:58 +0200

I very rarely read papers or pay much attention to the news any more - same old, same old despair-inducing stuff - but something on the six o'clock news on Radio 4 last night had me more than usually enraged and I have to share it. Trying to navigate the BBC website in order to share my reflections takes exasperation to an altogether different level, but I will not dwell on that here.

This is what I wrote:

'I refer to a report yesterday (16 July) on the six o’clock news on the funeral of Lt Col Rupert Thorneloe. He was a first rate fellow doing a difficult job, no doubt, but I inferred from the casual reference to ‘another soldier’ who died with him, that this unnamed soldier’s death was not newsworthy. I can’t imagine how that must have made the parents of 18-year-old Joshua Hammond feel. It made me furious. At the sound of your unctious ‘royal reporter’ giving further sycophantic gravitas to your coverage, I turned the radio off.'

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I've come out of hibernation

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 11:18:48 +0100

Have I missed anything?

Rather than curling up in a cave and ignoring the world for the last few months, I have been spending my time touting my book on the Harper Collins website 'Authonomy', with some measure of success (as in, people like it), but it is addictive and now I realise there is a whole other world out there with which I should attempt to re-engage.

So - nature notes. The most fantastic blossom and cuddly catkins abound, daffodils and primroses grace grassy banks everywhere and suddenly the countryside is awesome in its promise. Did you know also that moorhens climb trees? We observed one literally run up a weeping willow branch which touched the ground, and there it perched on one of the branches. Delightful little feathered critters with big feet, but not ones you expect to see aloft somehow.

I still drive to work past watercress beds every morning and for the past week, a pair of adult swans have taken up residence. It is a most glorious sight to behold their amazing white plumage and contrasting black legs set against a background of watercress green. A Kodak moment, except I don't own a camera.

More if it occurs to me. Meanwhile enjoy, enjoy.

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Credit crunch survival tip #1

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:44:52 +0100

Never let it be said that the Wakemen don't know how to have a good time on a shoestring. Picture the scene:

A loud crash from upstairs was followed by a lot of cursing and clattering. A few minutes later, Mr W emerged in the kitchen, to announce that he had dropped his compartmentalised metal case of woodscrews on the floor and they were now all mixed up.

Never one to miss the chance of some free entertainment, I suggested we could spend the evening sorting them out - which we duly did. After supper, and armed with a glass of red wine each, we took a tray of ironmongery each and scuffled and scrabbled all evening while the usual soup of uncomprehending TV pap washed over us.

Sorting out the very big and very small ones was the easy bit, but then we were left with a muddle of middle-sized ones in several sizes and not enough bins to stash them in - a conundrum only solved when Mr W decided that there were different makes of the same size, which my unduly tidy mind had tried to sort into too many categories. So with a tiny twinge of uneasiness, I allowed him to amalgamate my carefully-sorted piles into fewer heaps, and they were then put to bed.

So, a whole evening spent in good clean family fun and not a penny spent!

I wonder if I shall wake in the middle of the night worrying that he will pick out what he thinks is a 3.5 x 25 but it's really a 4.0 x 20 - or is that the way that madness lies?

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So, farewell then Woolworths

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:39:13 +0100

(after E J Thribb)

So, farewell then Woolworths,
Duck-egg blue and pillar-box red livery,
1950s chrome and glass frontages.
Broken biscuits by the pound, dried-up garden plants,
Dylon dyes and Ladybird children's clothes.
Buckets and spades in seaside resorts,
LPs and singles in city and town.
An Aladdin's cave of plastic wonders
seen from a child's eye height,
Prosaic curtain poles and paint for the grown-ups.
The place to go when you can't think
of where else would sell it.

So many memories over my lifetime.
All going or gone - how sad.

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Bob and Barack

Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:36:20 +0100

From our Washington correspondent:

Little-known political speech writer Bob "The" Builder was recruited by Senator Barack Obama to craft his eloquent speech, following Obama's victory in the US Presidential Elections last night.

This fact only emerged when it was realised that Bob's catchphrase '[Can we fix it] - yes we CAN!' had inadvertently been left in the final draft of the speech - not just once, but several times, in what may prove to be an embarrassing mistake that may come to haunt Mr Obama in the future.

- now compare and contrast:

Bob was later tracked down by our London correspondent in a pub in Chiswick, drowning his sorrows in Fuller's Best. He was reluctant to be interviewed about the gaffe, but did observe, in a somewhat incoherent way, that he hoped American elation wouldn't turn to ashes the way it has for the UK, many years on from Tony's triumphant election speech.

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Hedge fund traders emulate Beastie Boys fans

Thu, 30 Oct 2008 18:16:42 +0100

From our London desk, 16:00

In an unexpected spin-off of the Porsche-VW shenanigans, bands of angry traders are roaming the City ripping the badges from VW cars. Scouring executive car parks, they have done several thousand pounds worth of damage.

Wags have pointed out that they'd be better off trashing Porsches - but most of them drive their own, so don't want to foul their own nests.

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Olympian idiocy

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 11:34:36 +0200

Waking up and getting up in the mornings has never been easy for me, apart from on the odd occasion when the clock radio has done its job and something I hear in the news makes me so furious that I am propelled in a state of disbelieving fury from my moribund state.

It's normally politicians or religious twits that have this effect, but today, whilst the mental shutters always come down at the mention of sport and the Olympics in particular, something seeped through this morning. It was the idea that yet another over-funded under-brained sporting organisation is actually setting targets for UK medals in the games. That is just so risibly stupid on so many levels that I shan't even try to begin to expand my thought processes on this one. Count yourselves lucky. I'm beginning to sound like Marcus Brigstocke!

And on a note related to the previous post, Southern Electric keep sending us free energy saving lightbulbs, so they can't be all bad, although Southern Water have just sent us a bill from our neighbour's meter and it takes sending an operative from Siemens to ascertain that we're not entirely stupid and can read our own meter serial number accurately.

OK, rant over. But there'll be more, I just know there will.

Everyone enjoy their day now.

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The true cost of inflation?

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 14:20:01 +0200

The government's measure of inflation seems not to apply to people like me who spend on essentials i.e. proper food made from ingredients, power and fuel. Not clothes, new cars, electronic gadgets, eating out etc.

To illustrate that: from an email last week from EDF Energy:

"Congratulations!
It has been two years since you signed up for the Read. Reduce. Reward Scheme and we are delighted to award you 1000 Nectar points for reducing your annual electricity usage from year one to year two. Your usage is recorded below.
Year 1 annual electricity usage - 015736 kWh
Year 2 annual electricity usage - 007198 kWh"

Yes - that is a 55% decrease - for which we have worked hard.

This morning, the end of year payment review arrived, telling us that our monthly budget plan payment has been changed (i.e increased) from £46 to £70 - a 52% increase.

I think I'll blow the Nectar points on long johns for us to wear in the winter... or perhaps candles to light us after dark.

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Cut-price ferry tickets for amputees?

Mon, 14 Jul 2008 14:03:20 +0200

"The fuel surcharge is £2.50 a leg per car, and 30p per leg for foot passengers".

Thus spake the MD of Wightlink on BBC's Working Lunch today, explaining how increased diesel costs were affecting his business. The web site requires you to know the price of Brent crude in order to see how much you will be paying - now there's a novelty.

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Sofa, so good

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:28:20 +0200

From the Uplyme Gazette, June 31st

"Devon housewife Lois Wakeman was expecting a delivery of a new sofa and chair from Tesco Direct last week.

"She was somewhat bemused to be called on the day of delivery by a Tesco rep, claiming that the delivery driver had only just noticed that the sofa had three legs. He then went on to encourage Mrs Wakeman to accept the sofa to see if she could do something with it. Leaving her more lurid speculations aside, suffice it to say that the delivery was declined, and a replacement scheduled.

"That wasn't the end of the story however. The next day, she received a 'phone call from a shadowy organisation calling itself the FDRC, warning her that she was being considered for prosecution, on a charge of unfairly discriminating against a three legged sofa, which with a little attention, glue and a piece of 2x4, could perform a useful role in society.

"She's still waiting to hear if anything will happen on this front, but feels unfairly victimised, as she already has an office chair with a wonky wheel that has not been abandoned, and sleeps in a bed with a missing castor."

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Am I being curmudgeonly?

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 12:09:37 +0200

I like to consider myself a pretty easy-going sort of a person, but there are one or two human affectations and idiocies which annoy me beyond all reason. Political posturing and effluence is given its own particular pigeonhole (see previous).

But first, apols for lack of contributions, due entirely to lack of anything meaningful upon which to reflect, including birdsong which is singularly lacking in or around my place of work.

I do not consider it in any way meaningful, just sufficiently irritating to make me yell at the radio while driving to work, but in the news I see Zara Philips' horse has an injury and a spectacularly pointless sports commentator (but then, aren't they all) described the four legged beast as 'fragile'. To quote a voice recognition mistranslation: fur fox ache.

In the world of work in which I am sadly still obliged to operate, the thing which irritates me on a par with grit in the eye or Thought for the Day is the vacuous and utterly insincere enquiry after one's wellbeing upon taking any phone call or upon any encounter, unfailingly. They don't even bother listening to your response and assume you have asked them the same and reply accordingly when you haven't actually said anything because you couldn't give a flying tinker's cuss.

One day I might say I've just been diagnosed as HIV positive and I've got dreadful piles, as you asked, and see what response that elicits. But I probably shan't because frankly my dears ....

As I believe I have tried to assure everybody before, generally, I am of a sunny disposition, really I am.

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Songlines

Fri, 23 May 2008 16:20:11 +0200

- no - not the book by Bruce Chatwin, but an idea that pinged into my head when I was just sitting outside the pottery with a cup of tea, listening to the blackbird singing at the top of our ash tree. He was the loudest, but I could hear two more in the distance answering.

Then I imagined each of those being able to sing to some others - a network of blackbird conversations stretching all over the UK.

So, all my blog chums who can hear a blackbird might be listening to the same territorial conversation that I am. I thought that was quite a pleasing idea to round off the week before the bank holiday...

Have a good one, everybody. I'm off now!

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Campaign for real pigeonholes

Wed, 14 May 2008 15:09:13 +0200

Seen this morning on the wall of the Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis.

Pigeon 1: "Coo, nice house"

Pigeon 2: "It's a bit of a hole really, but it's mine."

It is reported that the market in pigeon accommodation is largely unaffected by the credit crunch, as most die before they are old enough to get a good (or even a bad) credit record.

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From the Unnovations catalogue...

Fri, 09 May 2008 17:02:22 +0200

Tired of sitting through endless FAST trailers with banging music?
Weary of working out non-standard DVD selection menus?
Don't want to watch another film in an obscure language by accident?
Not interested in 3rd rate out-takes and actor interviews?

Then you need our unnovative DVD control with its unique "Just play the b* * * * y film!" button - it's extra large so even drunken digits can locate it amongst the crisp packets, pizza boxes and half-empty beer cans.

Only £79.65 including VAT from our web site, or available to order at your local TV and radio emporium. Allow 68 days for delivery, as each is hand-crafted to order by trained bears in Bavaria.

Why not buy one for the weekend, and save all that unnecessary rage and heartache?

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Word game: interminable isograms

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:55:25 +0200

How many words of four or more letters can you make from this grid? Each word cannot contain the same letter more than once. All words must appear in the OED. Proper nouns, plurals, and alternative spellings of the same word, are not eligible.

Q M U F E Y G V T L B R K Z S A W C J N O D H I X P

Scores:
100 = you're a Sun reader, right?
1,000 = OK
2,000 = good
5,000 = excellent
10,000 = get a life, man

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A bouquet for PrintingDirect.com

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 15:38:42 +0200

I've used this firm before for printing clients' stationery, and was impressed by the thoughtful way the web site is designed, so it's really easy to find out what things cost, and how to order them. I am not normally easily impressed, so this is an accolade indeed!

They have now gone up even further in my estimation. I had just uploaded the artwork for a letterhead and got an error message in the browser. Just as I was scratching my bonce wondering if it had worked, the phone rang, and a very nice lady told me she had noticed my order, and as there was a server problem, she knew I'd be unable to do the upload. She told me how to email the file instead.

How wonderful, in these days of the surly customer disservice representative, to be pleased and surprised by efficiency and initiative. Well done them.

Buy stuff from them now!

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Rabbit, pea and olive what???

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:15:02 +0200

I'm a fan of good ingredients simply cooked, so nearly snorted my beans on toast when I read this on Ceefax just now:

"Glynn Purnell cooks rabbit, pea and black olive trifle"

It is hard to believe that the reality could be worse than the vision that this phrase conjures up - but yes, it can be worse - a lot worse. Read this and vomit:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/rabbitpeaandblackoli_88473.shtml

Someone ought to be made to eat this till he explodes. That means you, Glynn with two nns.

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Upon tedium

Mon, 31 Mar 2008 12:02:05 +0200

I’ve just spent a thoroughly relaxing week-end with my Mum in Dorset and naturally, saw my co-author whilst there. I expressed the guilt I felt not having made any recent contributions to the SB, purely because I have absolutely nothing of note or interest to convey. This situation has arisen mainly because nothing exciting or interesting has occurred since our return from LA – merely sleeping, eating and working really and that just doesn’t provide the material for inclusion in a blog, or not one with which I (or my sis) would care to be associated, anyway.

However, there is an association whose sole purpose is to be as boring as possible, and as you might imagine, it has a large membership. I have resisted joining the Boring Brigade Blog so far in the vain hope that life will become so unexpectedly, coruscatingly and all-absorbingly interesting that I shall provide the inspiration for a Barbara Taylor Bradford novel or no longer be eligible for membership of the Boring Brigade at the very least. Come to think of it, BTB’s heroines normally commence upon their upward struggle in their youth, so I’ve missed that particular boat which will no doubt imminently be docking at exotic shores.

In the meantime I was hugely amused to find within a catalogue of silly ideas (one must find one’s amusement where one may) in the household pets section a slotted litter tray scoop with an integral spring in the handle. You can picture clods of animal waste catapulted into light fittings, shoes, behind domestic appliances or, if you’re really accurate, into the bin. I suppose they must have road-tested the thing, unless they apply BA ‘management’ standards in which case someone might be suing Kitty Klusters for an optically health-contrary clod in the eye.

There, a successful posting about nothing of any real relevance to anybody. I think I should take up being a sports commentator.

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Upon returning from Los Angeles

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:51:53 +0100

The only way I can justify my transatlantic flight (feebly) is to say that we had a sort of symbiotic holiday in which we went to look after a good friend’s house which contained seven cats, a rabbit and four fish tanks, while she travelled to Dublin in order to celebrate the new year. Unconvinced? Hmm, I see your point.

Los Angeles. Where to start? Vast beyond imagining – 46,000 square miles we were told, the product of eighty cities expanding and merging, and containing nine million vehicles. The message about curbing profligacy has surely not reached those shores yet. Reaching anywhere involves a lengthy car journey on particularly noisy roads as they are all surfaced with concrete (as tarmac would melt in the summer temperatures), thus we didn’t venture out an awful lot as it was not intended to be a driving holiday anyway.

We did however visit Pasadena (I just love that name!) and took in the Norton Simon museum (which I keep needing to call the Homer Simpson) – quite small, fearfully tasteful, and it contained some amazing originals including Van Gogh, Renoir (a spectacularly talented fellow IMHO) and Degas, although he seemed to have gone rather overboard with his horse and ballerina figurines. I can just imagine Mrs Degas heaving a sigh as he produced ever more things to dust. They had a fair few Rodin sculptures there too, including the Thinker.

The stark contrast between the astonishing talent of real painters (the way they managed to depict folds of fabric and skin tones never fails to inspire me) and the artless dross displayed in the ‘modern artists’ wing is astounding, although that woman with her elastic (see below) hadn’t got there at the time of visiting.

Los Angeles had a mere four inches of rain last year, an inch of which probably fell over two nights while we were there, but other than that, the weather was mostly warm and sunny, akin to an early autumn day in the UK and reaching the high 70’s on a couple of days. Glorious. In the garden by the front door of the house in which we stayed is a lemon tree laden with fruit (and this is in winter), and apparently the fruit literally cooked on the tree during the hottest part of the summer. Difficult to imagine.

BA cancelled our flight back without warning which, on the other hand, is entirely possible to imagine. A letter of complaint has been sent, not so much about the cancellation, for these things happen, but more about the abysmal attitude of their staff after the event.

We don’t expect anything to change.

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Midwinter blues

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 23:15:38 +0100

This post is about a tiny moment - a tipping point from comfort to mild despair that you may also have experienced.

Picture the scene: you are lying all cosy under the duvet in the predawn dark, listening to the rain splattering on the windows, feeling smug.

Then you realise that in a few minutes, you are going to have to get up and wash and dress in the gloom, and even once the sun has allegedly risen, it will still be dim and grey till dusk. All the cosiness flees, and the pleasure in listening to the rain evaporates.

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Stretching credibility to the limit

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 16:05:41 +0100

"Stretching Stretch

Sophia Clist, Craig Vear, Nick Burge, Ragnhild Olsen and guests

In residence from 21 January-1 February

Stretch is an installation devised by visual artist Sophia Clist, which will transform the gallery with light, sound and miles of elastic! Sophia will be exploring its landscape and performance possibilities while in residence with other collaborating artists.

Intrigued? Come along for a two hour session, watching a performance in the gallery, talking to the artists and giving your feedback to help Sophia stretch Stretch further.

Thursday 31 January 6pm - 8pm at Bridport Arts Centre"

This extract from the Marshwood Vale Magazine events section illustrates what I find so annoying about some modern art: you need a whole screed of text to explain it, and by the end, you still haven't the faintest as to what you will see. Funnily enough, the event has been 'cancelled due to unforseen circumstances': perhaps the elastic gave out? What a fine metaphor for real life: drawers drooping around ankles!

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Wallinger hits the Bollinger?

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 10:39:20 +0100

Well – he could afford to, after winning the Turner Prize yesterday. A self-styled conceptual artist, his ‘works’ range from the mundane, through the trite, to the frankly unbelievably silly.

According to the BBC, one of Wallinger’s recent exploits was to “spend 10 nights alone in a Berlin gallery dressed as a bear to make the resulting film, Sleeper”. All I can say is, it’s a pity he didn’t go to Khartoum and do it.

His biggest installation to date is an accurate copy of the banners, posters and paraphernalia of political protester Brian Haw's demonstration in Parliament Square. It beggars belief that someone would actually waste time and money reconstructing, in minute detail, a replica of this on the very slim premise of acute commentary. But I guess the lovely money makes it all seem worthwhile.

You really couldn’t make this pretentious stuff up!

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A new meaning

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 16:54:51 +0100

Watercress bed - I passed one this morning sporting a huge fleecy duvet. Winter really must be on its way.

As I travel down the hill of the Alresford bypass on my weary way to work in the mornings, especially at this time of year in the autumn sun, there is a glorious view of Hampshire hills, made even more atmospheric by a distant plume of steam generated by a steam train making its magnificent progress along the Watercress Line. R F Delderfield's work comes to mind when I survey the scene and I wonder whether life really was gentler in the heyday of steam trains.

Having shed a silent tear listening to the Remembrance Day ceremony on the radio yesterday, I suppose the unremitting dreadfulness of war poisoned everything then, and although we are rather more removed from the current bloodshed being caused, I cannot deny that when I heard that Tony Blair had the effrontery to be at the proceedings, being responsible as he is for the current hell created in Iraq, and no doubt shedding a crocodile tear or two for added sincerity, I felt pretty sick. I wonder what he was thinking about during the two minutes' silence? Probably the text for his next celebrity after-dinner speech.

Anyhow, steam trains are just fantastic, majestic and awe-inspiring things, in my humble opinion.

Also, if you ever get the chance to visit the SS Great Britain in Bristol, that's pretty awe-inspiring too.

My next will be an altogether lighter confection I promise, unless it's the recipe for heavy cake of course (see previous posts).

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Apples for Halloween

Wed, 31 Oct 2007 17:41:55 +0100

To pick up the sweet theme again - a nice treat for young and old alike, and a recipe that requires a healthy disregard for Health and Safety, as it involves Hot Things. You have been warned.

Ingredients:

8-10 small apples - coxes or russets are good. (I do mean small - you want more candy and less apples!)

One stout kebab stick per two apples

A greased baking tray (or use baking parchment)

1/2 lb granulated sugar

1/8 pt water

Pinch tartaric acid (cream of tartar)

Method:

Make sure the apples are clean and dry, then starting at the stalk end, push half a kebab stick almost though the core. Wipe off any juices.

Put the sugar and water in a heavy pan with the tartaric acid, stir gently till sugar dissolves, then boil hard without stirring till the syrup is just turning a gentle straw colour (145 degrees C on your thermometer). Take off the heat, and twirl each apple in the toffee, allow to drain for a second, then put on the tray to cool.

If any toffee is left over, pour it out and break up when cold.

Eat as soon as they are cool: the combination of glassy toffee and cold sweet apple is magic. Leave them a few hours at this damp time of year, and you'll have dripping browning apples to look forward to!

To make more grown-up ones, you can leave the toffee for a few seconds more till it's darker - but it continues to cook off the heat, so don't overdo it or you have black bitterness to look forward to.

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Criminal tendencies

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:17:26 +0200

The TV licensing authorities clearly believe I tell lies and receive TV signals gratuitously and illegally because their records indicate that we don't have a TV licence and therefore we must clearly be in the wrong. I had a red-edged letter from them yesterday telling me my premises did not have a licence and if I didn't get one I would be breaking the law and all manner of punishment would be meted out for my appalling crime.

It seems it is up to me to telephone them and tell them we do not own a television. I take huge exception to the high handed and accusatory tone of the letter and, left to my own devices I would ignore it and let them pass the matter to their 'Enforcement Agency' which is the next step they threaten to take if they do not hear from me by 23rd Oct. Richard however is wary of upsetting these types and has said he will ring them.

I consider it a hugely depressing sign of the society in which we live that such zealotry is displayed by a mere TV licensing agency, yet old folk are left to die of neglect because they just don't appear on the radar, tax avoidance by the wealthy and big business is almost acceptable and government shoulders are just shrugged at stolen pensions; but then, they're alright Jack, aren't they?

I think my sis will confirm that I am normally of a cheery disposition, but sometimes the overwhelming idiocy of authority and human behaviour in general sends me into a spiral of despair and no small amount of splenetic outrage. It achieves nothing, I know.

I think it's time to get my coat.

Something of a more cheery nature next time " class="middle" border="0">

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Holy wafers, Batman!

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 10:18:14 +0200

Seen in the recent Bridport Open Art exhibition, on a card next to an exhibit:

"Julie Price
Mary's Bakery
Mixed Media
NFS
Evangelical cookies and pasties to order"

And they have just unveiled a crack in the floor of the Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern - which symbolises the rift in modern society. Appropriately, the sculptor is a Colombian - hence the crack, no doubt. What a hoot.

See here

I am fervently hoping that a guerilla activist from the HSE will come along and place hazard warning tape, plus those jolly orange netting barriers on pigtails, each side, to stop the general public falling down the hole.

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Herons over Lyme Bay

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:56:55 +0200

I and my co-author spent a most delightful past Saturday in warm sunshine walking across the fantastic limestone 'pavements' in Lyme Bay, and were able to go farther than usual as it was a particularly low seasonal tide. The rocks were, of course, embedded with fabulous fossils everywhere. Gazing at them and trying to absorb the fact that their remains still exist millions of years after they lived is amazing. Well it amazes me anyhow, but the gazing was kept fairly brief as I was, I acknowledge, overly nervous about the speed of the tide coming in from its low spot despite calm assurances from my sis.

Above: ammonite pavement; below: shale and limestone layers on Pinhay beach. No herons though

Of course there was the usual plastic detritus washed up on the beach to spoil things and I don't think I shall ever be able to reconcile the awe-inspiring stuff with which nature can come up and the self-absorbed stupidity and resulting destruction wrought on this planet by the human race. I acknowledge (for a second time) that it is a thoroughly unoriginal observation however.

Anyhow, amongst the normal seabirds flapping about the place, we were surprised and delighted to see three large herons flying languorously, as they do, along the water's edge. They did land on some fairly slippery rocks, it appeared, but seemed to keep their footing. I hope they don't mind salty fish.

I might add following the previous post that we were conveyed to the location in my W reg Fiat Punto which as far as I know is currently lichen free, but extra weight in said vehicle notwithstanding, its small engine meant a very slow journey in very high gears (or do I mean low gears? - first or second anyhow) up the exceptionally mountainous roads of Lyme Regis. I also think that due to all the fossils about, gravity is stronger in those parts too.

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Ecocars

Tue, 25 Sep 2007 12:30:28 +0200

It is well known that lichens are an indicator of good air quality. Ergo, my F-registered Escort, bless her, is a positive boon to the environment, as she has lichen growing all over the window seals. And algae in the inaccessible bits of the bonnet grille and bumper, too. She provides a home for spiders in her wing mirror surrounds, and a handy perch for birds as I can often tell in the morning.

So, all you smug people driving round in your Toyota Prions, think on!

Seriously, new cars are not as green as they are cracked up to be. Few calculations take the energy and resource (steel, petrochemicals, copper etc.) cost of fabrication - and scrapping - into account when working out the environmental benefit of a new model. Not to mention the extra fuel used by catalytic converters, or to drag heavy batteries around in hybrid cars.

Old bangers are not nearly as black as the greens would paint them, in my opinion. And mine is silver(ish), anyway.

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Nature's palette

Fri, 21 Sep 2007 13:15:15 +0200

In airy fairy contrast to the worthy chemistry that has gone before, I could not help being struck by the most fantastic colours appearing in the hedgerows and verges: in fact I was so struck, I verbalised my wonder, which was fairly pointless as I was alone in the car at the time. Astonishing red shrubs of many shades seem to be growing everywhere along my route to work. Sadly too, I encounter far too many battered badgers, foxes and rabbits along that same route and I fear I have also witnessed two owls which appear to have come to a messy but I suppose thankfully swift end.

Does anyone remember having a nature table at school? I do remember that someone brought to the biology lab at senior school a relatively un-damaged badger corpse for dissection and stuff but it really was a bit smelly and copious quantities of air freshener were used in an attempt to mask it. The resulting aroma was truly nauseating and you won't catch me deploying air freshener (nor indeed, Shake 'n' Vac) to this day, not that it's an activity to which I have ever been prone in the first place, mind.

I'll see if I can't come up with an amazing fact next time, but it isn't likely to be chemistry-orientated and it won't be during this next week either as I'm away from work for a week, enjoying being absent from the office and thus unlikely to have access to reliable internet stuff. I might amaze you all and report back saying I've produced a cake which is heavier than Jacksonium, although I guess it would probably fall through the bottom of the oven. I'll have to carry out a full risk assessment first.

Have a risk-free week one and all

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