Almost every day at some point, I suddenly notice that it's got VERY dark VERY quickly.
I'm sat somewhere, minding my own business only to briefly look out of a window to find that it is absolutely, unequivocally dark. It is so dark, you could not see someone who was wearing something reflective without the aid of some kind of light.
It was light. Now it is dark. I wanted to go and look at the sky and think "oh yes, day light!"
I want to know when it happens - because I'm almost certain it didn't always happen like this. I'm almost certain there used to a be a point somewhere between "day" and "night" called "evening". Where did it go?
Did you steal it?
If you did, I want it back please. Fast as possible, please.
You are currently viewing archive for January 2010
PLEASE NOTE: Content prior to April 2010 is a collection of posts from Nic's previous blogs - some of this content may be offensive or may have become inaccurate since the original publication.
When did it get dark?
Anything Else | Friday, 29 January | Respond
Cadbury's....From a Brummie
Rants! | Thursday, 28 January | Respond
There are a few situations that I'll actually claim to be a Brummie, and this is most certainly one of them.
When the world's media descend on somewhere in Birmingham it generally means one of two things:
- Someone not from Birmingham has done something IN Birmingham or
- Someone has been stabbed/shot
Now, though, there's a third reason: a Birmingham institution has been bought and the buyers are AMERICANS. Set off the panic, because now that the Americans have bought a British chocolate company, everyone in the whole of the country who has absolutely no business knowledge or sense whatsoever suddenly concludes the worst.
Forget what, for the whole of your life, you've been told is chocolate and reacquaint yourself with a Hershee bar: that is how the future will taste. Instead of some lovely lucious milky melty goodness, the future tastes of sugar, and some kind of herb that grew in a farm next to the one that grows cocoa beans, and was harvested by someone who once had some Dairy Milk on a Tuesday in March, but never tried it again.
The Great British Public have, of course, decided that this is Kraft's aim - to destroy everything but the brand name, and sneakily change us all over to their sugar-filled American-tasting chocolate, but to me, this makes less sense than pretty much any activity where people volunteer to exert themselves physically.
I mean, if I had a spare £11.5bn to spend on a chocolate company like Cadbury's - I certainly wouldn't be spending it for a brand name alone (and therefore it's presumed, some of the fan base who don't object to the change). I'd be buying Cadbury's because it had a unique selling point of containing a glass and a half of milk in its core product - Dairy Milk. I'd be buying it so that I could have some variation in my products - and please all of my customers while increasing the income of the company and therefore (well, at least hopefully) profitability.
I wouldn't even be confident enough to walk past the room where the recipe was kept, let alone risk changing it and annoying the whole of the British public.
In fact, I can't even begin to contemplate that someone would spend £11.5 BILLION pounds only to strip away everything but a logo and bin it. Of course, you can understand there's going to be concern that the management functions of Cadbury's may well be stripped away from it and transfered over to its parent company. That might cause a number of changes - those might be good or bad, and most certainly the UK could do without any more unemployed people at the moment.
Having decided, as we always do, the worst: that Kraft have bought the company simply for its logo and brand name, the people of the UK have taken the single most important action left to us.
They created a Facebook group.
When the world's media descend on somewhere in Birmingham it generally means one of two things:
- Someone not from Birmingham has done something IN Birmingham or
- Someone has been stabbed/shot
Now, though, there's a third reason: a Birmingham institution has been bought and the buyers are AMERICANS. Set off the panic, because now that the Americans have bought a British chocolate company, everyone in the whole of the country who has absolutely no business knowledge or sense whatsoever suddenly concludes the worst.
Forget what, for the whole of your life, you've been told is chocolate and reacquaint yourself with a Hershee bar: that is how the future will taste. Instead of some lovely lucious milky melty goodness, the future tastes of sugar, and some kind of herb that grew in a farm next to the one that grows cocoa beans, and was harvested by someone who once had some Dairy Milk on a Tuesday in March, but never tried it again.
The Great British Public have, of course, decided that this is Kraft's aim - to destroy everything but the brand name, and sneakily change us all over to their sugar-filled American-tasting chocolate, but to me, this makes less sense than pretty much any activity where people volunteer to exert themselves physically.
I mean, if I had a spare £11.5bn to spend on a chocolate company like Cadbury's - I certainly wouldn't be spending it for a brand name alone (and therefore it's presumed, some of the fan base who don't object to the change). I'd be buying Cadbury's because it had a unique selling point of containing a glass and a half of milk in its core product - Dairy Milk. I'd be buying it so that I could have some variation in my products - and please all of my customers while increasing the income of the company and therefore (well, at least hopefully) profitability.
I wouldn't even be confident enough to walk past the room where the recipe was kept, let alone risk changing it and annoying the whole of the British public.
In fact, I can't even begin to contemplate that someone would spend £11.5 BILLION pounds only to strip away everything but a logo and bin it. Of course, you can understand there's going to be concern that the management functions of Cadbury's may well be stripped away from it and transfered over to its parent company. That might cause a number of changes - those might be good or bad, and most certainly the UK could do without any more unemployed people at the moment.
Having decided, as we always do, the worst: that Kraft have bought the company simply for its logo and brand name, the people of the UK have taken the single most important action left to us.
They created a Facebook group.
Why do we not share a sense of humour
The New City | Wednesday, 27 January | Respond
Why is it that while most people can appreciate most humour, not everyone can be funny - even when they're using someone else's material?
As an example, someone stealing a line from the new series of Mock The Week quite openly had a conversation with me this weekend and gave a joke about the snow. He said he was once an investigator for some kind of crime organisation (it could have been the Police, I suppose) and that he once discovered a mass grave of snowmen.
It turned out that, actually, it was a field of carrots during the snow, and the case was closed.
Hearing this joke from the guy who was repeating it, it was one of the most boring sentences I've ever heard.
Litterally, within seconds of the end of it the silence fell, and the tumbleweed was being prepared in the sides of the stage; the man who tolls the church bell had been got out of his bed, brushed his teeth and put his clothes on. He'd got the keys to the bell tower out, and was on his way over there before I left the room with disgust at the poor joke.
I assumed, like most people claim - it was the timing that was at fault, rather than the material. I always claim that when I'm doing operations that I haven't been trained for.
I'd have found having my hair set on fire during a church funeral service for someone who'd died in a house fire slightly more hillarious and well-timed. Yet, when I watched Mock The Week myself - I sat there and laughed at the joke.
I don't understand.
As an example, someone stealing a line from the new series of Mock The Week quite openly had a conversation with me this weekend and gave a joke about the snow. He said he was once an investigator for some kind of crime organisation (it could have been the Police, I suppose) and that he once discovered a mass grave of snowmen.
It turned out that, actually, it was a field of carrots during the snow, and the case was closed.
Hearing this joke from the guy who was repeating it, it was one of the most boring sentences I've ever heard.
Litterally, within seconds of the end of it the silence fell, and the tumbleweed was being prepared in the sides of the stage; the man who tolls the church bell had been got out of his bed, brushed his teeth and put his clothes on. He'd got the keys to the bell tower out, and was on his way over there before I left the room with disgust at the poor joke.
I assumed, like most people claim - it was the timing that was at fault, rather than the material. I always claim that when I'm doing operations that I haven't been trained for.
I'd have found having my hair set on fire during a church funeral service for someone who'd died in a house fire slightly more hillarious and well-timed. Yet, when I watched Mock The Week myself - I sat there and laughed at the joke.
I don't understand.
Taking more pictures
Pictures | Tuesday, 26 January | Respond
It was my birthday a while ago (well, 12 days or so) and I decided that there was an area of my life I needed to fix. Ages ago, when I had a pretty blog and was an Editor of a news website, I used to stick by the idea that I should stay happy, because every 60 seconds of unhappiness is a minute of joy that you won't ever get back.
The little saying also used to say something about taking photographs, and I realised that since about 1994 I haven't actually had a camera other than the one on my phone, and as everyone knows phone cameras are a little bit shit.
So I've taken action. I have got a camera which has been slightly mentally disturbed, and I've got a plan to take pictures of a hell of a lot more of my life than I was taking pictures of before. As if to encourage it, not only have I bought the camera - but I've also bought ANOTHER year of Pro account from Flickr (by! Yahoo!), so that I've got plenty of space to upload pictures to.
Samsung finepix S1500
The final challenge for me is finding out how to use the camera, which although it isn't one - is convinced it's a DSLR. It's got settings for everything, and while I've previously stuck to compacts - I'm not left trying to adjust something called the Aperture.
That's a hole, I've learnt; as far as I can tell the smaller numbers are bigger holes. Which means you need a smaller number, to get a bigger hole, to let more light in when it's dark, and that's before you've even factored in something called ISO and the whole shutter speed thing - I might just keep it set to "automatic".
If anyone would like to teach me how to use it (since the instructions that came with the camera are utterly useless) then feel free, but I'm talking hands-on lessons here, not just some "set the ISO to 1600 babbbbbyyyyy" text message.
The little saying also used to say something about taking photographs, and I realised that since about 1994 I haven't actually had a camera other than the one on my phone, and as everyone knows phone cameras are a little bit shit.
So I've taken action. I have got a camera which has been slightly mentally disturbed, and I've got a plan to take pictures of a hell of a lot more of my life than I was taking pictures of before. As if to encourage it, not only have I bought the camera - but I've also bought ANOTHER year of Pro account from Flickr (by! Yahoo!), so that I've got plenty of space to upload pictures to.
Samsung finepix S1500
The final challenge for me is finding out how to use the camera, which although it isn't one - is convinced it's a DSLR. It's got settings for everything, and while I've previously stuck to compacts - I'm not left trying to adjust something called the Aperture.
That's a hole, I've learnt; as far as I can tell the smaller numbers are bigger holes. Which means you need a smaller number, to get a bigger hole, to let more light in when it's dark, and that's before you've even factored in something called ISO and the whole shutter speed thing - I might just keep it set to "automatic".
If anyone would like to teach me how to use it (since the instructions that came with the camera are utterly useless) then feel free, but I'm talking hands-on lessons here, not just some "set the ISO to 1600 babbbbbyyyyy" text message.
What are they thinking?
Rants! | Monday, 25 January | Respond
When you buy a new phone you are almost always forced to adhere, for the first couple of hours of using it, to a number of settings which are the defaults, and yet which are the choices recorded to be least popular in all records since records began and mobile phones became the new personal accessory for telling the time.
Having purchased the phone from a shop which has tried to sell you every accessory and feature available - including being able to make phone calls, some extra minutes, a text message bundle, some firewood, an MMS bundle and an exclusive form of insurance which covers you in the event of losing your phone, provided that in the past twenty four hours you had not eaten, or drunk any alcohol or other liquids.
When turning the phone on, you're greeted with some animation of a load of bubbles passing past some strange breed of fish that has been subject to several genetic experiments. Following that, some completely silly piece of music plays which despite sounding silly is also completely and utterly unrelated to the phone you've bought, or the manufacturer who has produced it.
Once everything has loaded, and you've phoned Orange to give them every last detail about you as well as your solemn promise that you'll post them a urine, blood and sperm sample immediately by recorded post in order to prove your identity, you are finally given an 11 digit number which you will immediately forget and which represents your connection to the outside world.
You'll experiment for several hours trying to work out how to transfer over your contacts onto your new phone, before trying to send everyone a text with your new phone number in it; and for a reason that no one has yet worked out - your phone will make a noise every time you press a button.
This has nothing to do with this blog post at all, but you're going to have to stare at it for a few seconds
The 'key tone' has been a feature of phones as long as I can remember (and I first had a mobile in 1999 like the pre-teen geek I was) and yet has always been a hated option by everyone that I've ever known. I cannot think of a single reason why anyone would like everyone within the same building as you would like to listen to various DTMF tones, which I will add, no-one understands, as you type out the all important "what you up to?" message to your friend.
The feature is as pointless as having a speaker and battery pack added to every door that makes a very over-the-top noise everytime the door is opened, simply to remind everyone the door has opened. Pointless, since everyone can see the door is opened anyway - because we can now see through the space that, if the door were closed, would be filled with the door.
The same applies with a phone. While typing, I do not require confirmation beyond the letter appearing on the screen (or the number, if you're being pedantic about it being a phone, although I have to say you're being terribly old-fashioned) that I have pressed a button which I not only meant to press - but went to great effort (moving a thumb, I tell you) to press.
And just don't get me onto the noises ATMs make as you enter your PIN number.
Having purchased the phone from a shop which has tried to sell you every accessory and feature available - including being able to make phone calls, some extra minutes, a text message bundle, some firewood, an MMS bundle and an exclusive form of insurance which covers you in the event of losing your phone, provided that in the past twenty four hours you had not eaten, or drunk any alcohol or other liquids.
When turning the phone on, you're greeted with some animation of a load of bubbles passing past some strange breed of fish that has been subject to several genetic experiments. Following that, some completely silly piece of music plays which despite sounding silly is also completely and utterly unrelated to the phone you've bought, or the manufacturer who has produced it.
Once everything has loaded, and you've phoned Orange to give them every last detail about you as well as your solemn promise that you'll post them a urine, blood and sperm sample immediately by recorded post in order to prove your identity, you are finally given an 11 digit number which you will immediately forget and which represents your connection to the outside world.
You'll experiment for several hours trying to work out how to transfer over your contacts onto your new phone, before trying to send everyone a text with your new phone number in it; and for a reason that no one has yet worked out - your phone will make a noise every time you press a button.
This has nothing to do with this blog post at all, but you're going to have to stare at it for a few seconds
The 'key tone' has been a feature of phones as long as I can remember (and I first had a mobile in 1999 like the pre-teen geek I was) and yet has always been a hated option by everyone that I've ever known. I cannot think of a single reason why anyone would like everyone within the same building as you would like to listen to various DTMF tones, which I will add, no-one understands, as you type out the all important "what you up to?" message to your friend.
The feature is as pointless as having a speaker and battery pack added to every door that makes a very over-the-top noise everytime the door is opened, simply to remind everyone the door has opened. Pointless, since everyone can see the door is opened anyway - because we can now see through the space that, if the door were closed, would be filled with the door.
The same applies with a phone. While typing, I do not require confirmation beyond the letter appearing on the screen (or the number, if you're being pedantic about it being a phone, although I have to say you're being terribly old-fashioned) that I have pressed a button which I not only meant to press - but went to great effort (moving a thumb, I tell you) to press.
And just don't get me onto the noises ATMs make as you enter your PIN number.
It's worth talking about
Anything Else | Sunday, 24 January | Respond
I try and avoid watching adverts, being a strictly BBC kind of guy - but it's hard in a modern world to avoid any form of advertising at all. Most recently, of course though there has been this massive economic thing that we've all noticed thanks to the plethora of media coverage which has almost universally referred to - and I'm putting my mighty movie-voiceover-man voice on to say this The Credit Crunch .
Sounds like a new chocolate biscuit, in fact is something where bankers did a bit of banking and spewed it all over the carpet. Then the carpet was repossessed, and Gordon Brown saved the world. Thankfully, we're back in growth now - because, of course, the end that would never come to the WORST RECESSION SINCE THE TWENTIES has, well... come. It didn't even come via DHL, because - it turns out - it was here all along.
Aside from all the financial crap that everyone has got bogged down in, though, I've been massively interested in the sudden massive increase in Public Service Advertising. You'll certainly know the one where the woman checks that they've been complete and utter idiots and left everything in full view of the robbers because they fancy getting burgled that night, and you've probably heard the one on the radio that tells you all about Chlamydia.
Search online for more4, you retard.
It's a sexually transmitted infection that you can catch by being indifferent - or having unprotected sex if you want to get it the fun way - that generally is completely and utterly invisible until one day you try and get pregnant (men included) and find that your womb has been infected by Chlym men and they've been eating eggy-bread since 1994 at your expense.
The Government is rather worried that we'll all get this horrible disease, and the ones who haven't will be gay, and there'll be no children of the future to get us out of this rather sticky recession thing that we've been experiencing, and of course - are already out of. So they've launched a huge campaign to make sure that sitting in the car as a 16-year-old girl with the radio on and your dad in the driving seat is an uncomfortable and awkward as having your granny watch you in the shower while you clean a particularly awkward-to-reach part of your body.
The adverts end with the idea that you should "search online" for 'Worth Talking About'. This phrase is becoming increasingly ubiquitous in a world where everyone uses the internet, but doesn't know how to find anything and where everyone has access to an incredible amount of intelligence and yet can't remember an email address or a domain name. The simple idea being that you say something like "search online for" and everyone heads off to Google it or *ahem* Bing it, and everything becomes a happy little world filled with butterflies.
At the very outset, the solution is undoubtedly a good one. If people can't remember a domain name or an email address, then we should probably try a phrase or something that they'd be used to. It's an example of executive people, who can make an animated PowerPoint presentation, succeeding in their general goals of being good at things like this. Unfortunately, there is a small factor involved in getting it to work.
No single person (it's claimed) can control Google. Typing Google into Google doesn't break it and let you into the administration panel. Instead, you have to get link juice from other sites. Which isn't easy to do for a brand new slogan and marketing campaign which you haven't actually launched yet.
It's a bit like a writer going into a library and asking for a copy of his book, so that he can make his job of writing it a little bit simpler. The Librarian will probably just look a little confused, before pointing you to a book about Antelope Mating Habits.
So what choices are left? There is one simple one. It's called AdWords and it's a Google product that allows you to appear on searches for keywords you choose. So, you say you want to appear whenever anyone 'searches online' for Worth Talking About and miraculously the next time someone 'searches online' for "Worth Talking About" your advert appears and your mission has been done.
Is it Worth Talking About whether or not keywords are worth it? Here, we needn't be paying
The side effect of this, though, is that the NHS 'Worth Talking About' campaign is being charged per-click for some advertising. A pointless exercise because the NHS Worth Talking About website appears as the top result without costing any money, but also slightly risky since the Government is now urging people to 'search online' for specific terms, and Google isn't in on the act any more than it is with the keyword "muffin squeezing" or any other non-trademarked term you can think of.
That means that if I want to start a company that does Chlamydia screening but charges a lovely fee of £9.99 for it I can buy adverts on the keyword you're advertising. People might chose me over you, by accident - and without realising it - and will pay up because they've been urged to.
We're all saving the world, not hi-jacking a Government campaign, honest.
The same applied to the 'Act on CO2' campaign which was running last year, where double glazing companies were claiming to be saving the world.
AOL Keyword, anyone?
And of course, we have to remember that this isn't the first time the Internet has been advertised as being full of key words. Anyone remember Anna, from AOL? She had a wildly interactive scrolling dress and she advised everyone to use keywords. Movies often had keywords, and they used them next to a little AOL logo. We moved away from this as we moved to a more 'free' internet, but surely we must move towards having a controlled platform again if we're going to end up using what are essentially keywords once again?
Sounds like a new chocolate biscuit, in fact is something where bankers did a bit of banking and spewed it all over the carpet. Then the carpet was repossessed, and Gordon Brown saved the world. Thankfully, we're back in growth now - because, of course, the end that would never come to the WORST RECESSION SINCE THE TWENTIES has, well... come. It didn't even come via DHL, because - it turns out - it was here all along.
Aside from all the financial crap that everyone has got bogged down in, though, I've been massively interested in the sudden massive increase in Public Service Advertising. You'll certainly know the one where the woman checks that they've been complete and utter idiots and left everything in full view of the robbers because they fancy getting burgled that night, and you've probably heard the one on the radio that tells you all about Chlamydia.
Search online for more4, you retard.
It's a sexually transmitted infection that you can catch by being indifferent - or having unprotected sex if you want to get it the fun way - that generally is completely and utterly invisible until one day you try and get pregnant (men included) and find that your womb has been infected by Chlym men and they've been eating eggy-bread since 1994 at your expense.
The Government is rather worried that we'll all get this horrible disease, and the ones who haven't will be gay, and there'll be no children of the future to get us out of this rather sticky recession thing that we've been experiencing, and of course - are already out of. So they've launched a huge campaign to make sure that sitting in the car as a 16-year-old girl with the radio on and your dad in the driving seat is an uncomfortable and awkward as having your granny watch you in the shower while you clean a particularly awkward-to-reach part of your body.
The adverts end with the idea that you should "search online" for 'Worth Talking About'. This phrase is becoming increasingly ubiquitous in a world where everyone uses the internet, but doesn't know how to find anything and where everyone has access to an incredible amount of intelligence and yet can't remember an email address or a domain name. The simple idea being that you say something like "search online for" and everyone heads off to Google it or *ahem* Bing it, and everything becomes a happy little world filled with butterflies.
At the very outset, the solution is undoubtedly a good one. If people can't remember a domain name or an email address, then we should probably try a phrase or something that they'd be used to. It's an example of executive people, who can make an animated PowerPoint presentation, succeeding in their general goals of being good at things like this. Unfortunately, there is a small factor involved in getting it to work.
No single person (it's claimed) can control Google. Typing Google into Google doesn't break it and let you into the administration panel. Instead, you have to get link juice from other sites. Which isn't easy to do for a brand new slogan and marketing campaign which you haven't actually launched yet.
It's a bit like a writer going into a library and asking for a copy of his book, so that he can make his job of writing it a little bit simpler. The Librarian will probably just look a little confused, before pointing you to a book about Antelope Mating Habits.
So what choices are left? There is one simple one. It's called AdWords and it's a Google product that allows you to appear on searches for keywords you choose. So, you say you want to appear whenever anyone 'searches online' for Worth Talking About and miraculously the next time someone 'searches online' for "Worth Talking About" your advert appears and your mission has been done.
Is it Worth Talking About whether or not keywords are worth it? Here, we needn't be paying
The side effect of this, though, is that the NHS 'Worth Talking About' campaign is being charged per-click for some advertising. A pointless exercise because the NHS Worth Talking About website appears as the top result without costing any money, but also slightly risky since the Government is now urging people to 'search online' for specific terms, and Google isn't in on the act any more than it is with the keyword "muffin squeezing" or any other non-trademarked term you can think of.
That means that if I want to start a company that does Chlamydia screening but charges a lovely fee of £9.99 for it I can buy adverts on the keyword you're advertising. People might chose me over you, by accident - and without realising it - and will pay up because they've been urged to.
We're all saving the world, not hi-jacking a Government campaign, honest.
The same applied to the 'Act on CO2' campaign which was running last year, where double glazing companies were claiming to be saving the world.
AOL Keyword, anyone?
And of course, we have to remember that this isn't the first time the Internet has been advertised as being full of key words. Anyone remember Anna, from AOL? She had a wildly interactive scrolling dress and she advised everyone to use keywords. Movies often had keywords, and they used them next to a little AOL logo. We moved away from this as we moved to a more 'free' internet, but surely we must move towards having a controlled platform again if we're going to end up using what are essentially keywords once again?
Mmm...I'm not sure why
Pictures | Saturday, 23 January | Respond
I wanted a lamp. How did this happen?
My new lamp
My new lamp
Signs
Pictures | Thursday, 21 January | Respond
I've seen a lot of weird signs today, including one that confused me particularly.
As I walked past a rather normal looking building, full of people sat on computers in front of a huge glass window - I read the sign on the door and was confused about the unfortunate aspect of the message it gave.
unfortunately, we are not an employment agency, so please do not come in if you think we are.
Surely, if it's unfortunate they could become one? There has to be a market there. Although, maybe now they've told everyone they're not one, they wouldn't get the business. A bad decision maybe. They should have just accepted people, and left their options open.
Alarmed scaffolding. Do not climb on
This one just made me burst into laughter. We'll fetch it a counsellor and it'll be fine.
So when I got home, as part of my revision, I decided to take part in my own sign making activities.
As I walked past a rather normal looking building, full of people sat on computers in front of a huge glass window - I read the sign on the door and was confused about the unfortunate aspect of the message it gave.
unfortunately, we are not an employment agency, so please do not come in if you think we are.
Surely, if it's unfortunate they could become one? There has to be a market there. Although, maybe now they've told everyone they're not one, they wouldn't get the business. A bad decision maybe. They should have just accepted people, and left their options open.
Alarmed scaffolding. Do not climb on
This one just made me burst into laughter. We'll fetch it a counsellor and it'll be fine.
So when I got home, as part of my revision, I decided to take part in my own sign making activities.
I love Windows 7
Reviews - TV, Book and Internet | Wednesday, 20 January | Respond
Okay, you've got me. I'm a geek, and I'm a picky one. I can't help it, frankly - I just love to try out new things, and I love to play with new gadgets but for some reason, I'd stagnated on Windows XP since about 2 years after it came out, and would proudly claim that I'd be happy using Windows 2000 if it wasn't for a lot of programs that I like deciding they didn't like it at all.
Using Windows XP despite there being a perfectly good copy of Windows 7 on offer to me for just £30 was a bit like having multiple wives. While people are quite often sure of your motivations (the extra reliability of having dinner ready when you get home from work, as well as the double speed cleaning) they're also certain that if you turned up to some kind of massive "bring your partner" dance with all of your wives you'd be looked down upon. Spurned, if you will.
So I made the switch. I dumped three of the wives, and I chose a lovely one called Seven. An odd name, but she was an unknown outsider and as a lot of people know that can often mean that she's an unrealised talent. I was hoping she would be.
Almost a month into using Windows 7, I'm the happiest I've ever been with a Windows operating system. The only bug I have yet found is that if you open iTunes while it is pinned onto the taskbar you do tend to end up with two of the little icons. While I'm sure that's iTunes and Apple's fault (I know, I said the forbidden) I'm not totally sure that the Operating System should let that happen.
My other gripe, of course, is that now - running a 64 bit operating system on a 64 bit computer, I am left with lots of programmes that insist on still being 32 bit. I'm sure there's a reason for them being 32 bit (the not wanting to maintain two pieces of software might be behind the idea) it would be nice if everything could run in 64 bit just so that I didn't have to scream every time I looked at the wrong part of the Task Manager.
The improved Microsoft Paint, in looks only.
On the other hand, the improvement to Microsoft Paint now using the Ribbon interface (which I've now got used to after using Microsoft Office 2007 for about 8 months) is rather lovely although only equivalent to the wife having had highlights. In other words, the cooking hasn't improved but it's slightly more fun to watch.
Biggest of all, though is the fact that Microsoft are now aiding me with my next computer purchase.
I, like many people, tend to replace my computer between every two and three years. I'm due an upgrade in November, in other words, and I had already decided one or two things about my new computer: it would be a desktop model; and it would probably be quite heavy on space since I am sick of using USB HDDs to expand my space beyond what a Notebook HDD can hold.
Apple's fault, but shouldn't really be possible should it, Microsoft?
Windows 7, while good, has stolen something rather crucial as a concept from Apple and their 'attractive' OS X. The task dock. Known by Microsoft as the Task bar and by Apple as the Dock. The task bar now works in an amazingly similar way to the dock in Mac OS X and as such it is making the transition for me a little easier.
My next computer will be, by far, an Apple; but who knows which one?
Using Windows XP despite there being a perfectly good copy of Windows 7 on offer to me for just £30 was a bit like having multiple wives. While people are quite often sure of your motivations (the extra reliability of having dinner ready when you get home from work, as well as the double speed cleaning) they're also certain that if you turned up to some kind of massive "bring your partner" dance with all of your wives you'd be looked down upon. Spurned, if you will.
So I made the switch. I dumped three of the wives, and I chose a lovely one called Seven. An odd name, but she was an unknown outsider and as a lot of people know that can often mean that she's an unrealised talent. I was hoping she would be.
Almost a month into using Windows 7, I'm the happiest I've ever been with a Windows operating system. The only bug I have yet found is that if you open iTunes while it is pinned onto the taskbar you do tend to end up with two of the little icons. While I'm sure that's iTunes and Apple's fault (I know, I said the forbidden) I'm not totally sure that the Operating System should let that happen.
My other gripe, of course, is that now - running a 64 bit operating system on a 64 bit computer, I am left with lots of programmes that insist on still being 32 bit. I'm sure there's a reason for them being 32 bit (the not wanting to maintain two pieces of software might be behind the idea) it would be nice if everything could run in 64 bit just so that I didn't have to scream every time I looked at the wrong part of the Task Manager.
The improved Microsoft Paint, in looks only.
On the other hand, the improvement to Microsoft Paint now using the Ribbon interface (which I've now got used to after using Microsoft Office 2007 for about 8 months) is rather lovely although only equivalent to the wife having had highlights. In other words, the cooking hasn't improved but it's slightly more fun to watch.
Biggest of all, though is the fact that Microsoft are now aiding me with my next computer purchase.
I, like many people, tend to replace my computer between every two and three years. I'm due an upgrade in November, in other words, and I had already decided one or two things about my new computer: it would be a desktop model; and it would probably be quite heavy on space since I am sick of using USB HDDs to expand my space beyond what a Notebook HDD can hold.
Apple's fault, but shouldn't really be possible should it, Microsoft?
Windows 7, while good, has stolen something rather crucial as a concept from Apple and their 'attractive' OS X. The task dock. Known by Microsoft as the Task bar and by Apple as the Dock. The task bar now works in an amazingly similar way to the dock in Mac OS X and as such it is making the transition for me a little easier.
My next computer will be, by far, an Apple; but who knows which one?
The microwave banana
Pictures | Friday, 15 January | Respond
Does your microwave automatically turn itself down to its lowest setting while you're not looking? Well ours does - and we've come up with a unique solution which can be yours for just £2.99!
The balanced banana on the temperature gauge-a-tron from 3B Solutions.
We're not at university for no reason, you know?
The balanced banana on the temperature gauge-a-tron from 3B Solutions.
We're not at university for no reason, you know?
What a good idea
Anything Else | Thursday, 14 January | Respond
Getting a little bit serious for just a few minutes but I've just read an article which has pointed out the most sensible political point to me that I've seen for ages.
While Gordon Brown tries to fight off some silliness and David Cameron tries to back down on everything he's said on the basis that he wasn't in power, and won't know what it's like when he is in power - all the time trying to look all cool and hip, and, of course, electable, the Liberal Democrats quitely make little noises in the corner.
Those noises might sound like little whimpers as a Lib Dem tries to stop someone from slapping them around the face using simply the offender's will power and a few soft words, they're also making promises about increasing the income allowed before paying income tax.
And I've never heard a more sensible figure in my life, about anything. It has clearly been given thought - good thought. Unlike the amount of thought given by the Conservatives into their income tax plans - which simply equate to the number given in answer to "how many people have you had sex with?" when asked of a 16-year-old boy in front of his most cool friends.
There are few things wrong, in my head, with the minimum wage other than the fact that it is currently impossible to live on. While it's good, I've worked with loads of people at Costa who were being paid the bare minimum, and been paid above minimum wage myself in the same job. There was little difference in truth in what we could all afford, because after paying tax and National Insurance there isn't a way for someone to live completely from their own means when being paid just £5.80 an hour.
The Lib dems propose that increasing the personal tax allowance - that is, the amount we're allowed to earn before paying tax - should be raised to £10,000.
Irrelevant of the effect this would have on the Government's finances (which, as we all know - aren't exactly in good shape) this change would have a massive effect since someone earning the NMW earns £11, 310 before tax, presuming they work 52 weeks a year (or they get paid holiday) for 37.5 hours a week. That means that only £1,310 would be taxable, giving them a (the Lib Dems say) £700 saving on Income Tax.
That difference would be an increase in the weekly take home pay of £13.46 - which doesn't sound a lot, but represents 7% increase. That could mean the difference between making a credit card payment on an essential purchase.
In a couple of minimum wage earners living together, the £26.92 could go into a savings account each month - giving the couple a piece of new furniture each year, or simply meaning that they can have a holiday together during what little time off they get.
The unfortunate thing is that this is very unlikely to happen. Apparently, voting for the Liberal Democrats is a 'wasted vote' and there are a number of people in my life who say that while they'd love to vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate in their area, no-one else will.
Shockingly, the number of people who say this could probably make a difference. So, how about we all get onto http://www.pledgebank.com/ and make a pledge? I'm considering it.
While Gordon Brown tries to fight off some silliness and David Cameron tries to back down on everything he's said on the basis that he wasn't in power, and won't know what it's like when he is in power - all the time trying to look all cool and hip, and, of course, electable, the Liberal Democrats quitely make little noises in the corner.
Those noises might sound like little whimpers as a Lib Dem tries to stop someone from slapping them around the face using simply the offender's will power and a few soft words, they're also making promises about increasing the income allowed before paying income tax.
And I've never heard a more sensible figure in my life, about anything. It has clearly been given thought - good thought. Unlike the amount of thought given by the Conservatives into their income tax plans - which simply equate to the number given in answer to "how many people have you had sex with?" when asked of a 16-year-old boy in front of his most cool friends.
There are few things wrong, in my head, with the minimum wage other than the fact that it is currently impossible to live on. While it's good, I've worked with loads of people at Costa who were being paid the bare minimum, and been paid above minimum wage myself in the same job. There was little difference in truth in what we could all afford, because after paying tax and National Insurance there isn't a way for someone to live completely from their own means when being paid just £5.80 an hour.
The Lib dems propose that increasing the personal tax allowance - that is, the amount we're allowed to earn before paying tax - should be raised to £10,000.
Irrelevant of the effect this would have on the Government's finances (which, as we all know - aren't exactly in good shape) this change would have a massive effect since someone earning the NMW earns £11, 310 before tax, presuming they work 52 weeks a year (or they get paid holiday) for 37.5 hours a week. That means that only £1,310 would be taxable, giving them a (the Lib Dems say) £700 saving on Income Tax.
That difference would be an increase in the weekly take home pay of £13.46 - which doesn't sound a lot, but represents 7% increase. That could mean the difference between making a credit card payment on an essential purchase.
In a couple of minimum wage earners living together, the £26.92 could go into a savings account each month - giving the couple a piece of new furniture each year, or simply meaning that they can have a holiday together during what little time off they get.
The unfortunate thing is that this is very unlikely to happen. Apparently, voting for the Liberal Democrats is a 'wasted vote' and there are a number of people in my life who say that while they'd love to vote for the Liberal Democrat candidate in their area, no-one else will.
Shockingly, the number of people who say this could probably make a difference. So, how about we all get onto http://www.pledgebank.com/ and make a pledge? I'm considering it.
Home is where the heart is
The New City | Tuesday, 12 January | Respond
I am increasingly learning that the phrase "home is where the heart is" is increasingly something with which I do not, even in the slightest, agree with.
The problem has come with the fact that at the moment I have two sets of "home," since I am technically a resident of both Birmingham and of Brighton. However, there is also a slight problem with declaring either of these two places to be my home.
Prior to moving to Brighton, I was forcibly removed from the rather large room that I'd previously called mine in a completely fair and, if I'm honest, ancient agreement made with my sister when we moved into our house in 2001. This moving out, though, also came with some moving in as I decorated a new room and shoved as much of my Birmingham-bound belongings into it as would fit.
Two weeks before the move, I emptied and began to decorate what would become my new room - glossing, not particulally my forté, took place and the runs were most definitely plenty as I ended up painting parts of the door which had never even been discovered, let alone painted before I decided to take my brush to it.
And following that, I began painting the walls with a lovely blue colour. After painting 75 percent of the walls, I started painting again.
My decision on colour had been vetoed by the Management of the building, since it was deemed to be 'too cold' for the room.
As a result, I was able to live in the room for just 4 days before moving to Brighton into another room which was (fortunately for the owners) painted on my behalf. However, as with all university halls - the rooms of the building are somewhat faceless, plain and completely impersonal. The wardrobe is attached to the walls, and is a perfect match for the hotel down the road, and the dressing table in an institution for the infirm. And the mattress is rubberised to avoid damage from leakage that may occur during your 39 weeks. On the face of it, the rooms have the worth of about £32.50 - but cost about 32.50 times that.
And at the end of it all, you hand back the keys and pretend you never lived there - ready for another set of students, who if the movie is to be believed will never reach the end of their course, to inhabit.
So it's not really home. But, neither is home. So I've decided that until September 2010, the place to which "home" refers is the place where I am currently not living.
The problem has come with the fact that at the moment I have two sets of "home," since I am technically a resident of both Birmingham and of Brighton. However, there is also a slight problem with declaring either of these two places to be my home.
Prior to moving to Brighton, I was forcibly removed from the rather large room that I'd previously called mine in a completely fair and, if I'm honest, ancient agreement made with my sister when we moved into our house in 2001. This moving out, though, also came with some moving in as I decorated a new room and shoved as much of my Birmingham-bound belongings into it as would fit.
Two weeks before the move, I emptied and began to decorate what would become my new room - glossing, not particulally my forté, took place and the runs were most definitely plenty as I ended up painting parts of the door which had never even been discovered, let alone painted before I decided to take my brush to it.
And following that, I began painting the walls with a lovely blue colour. After painting 75 percent of the walls, I started painting again.
My decision on colour had been vetoed by the Management of the building, since it was deemed to be 'too cold' for the room.
As a result, I was able to live in the room for just 4 days before moving to Brighton into another room which was (fortunately for the owners) painted on my behalf. However, as with all university halls - the rooms of the building are somewhat faceless, plain and completely impersonal. The wardrobe is attached to the walls, and is a perfect match for the hotel down the road, and the dressing table in an institution for the infirm. And the mattress is rubberised to avoid damage from leakage that may occur during your 39 weeks. On the face of it, the rooms have the worth of about £32.50 - but cost about 32.50 times that.
And at the end of it all, you hand back the keys and pretend you never lived there - ready for another set of students, who if the movie is to be believed will never reach the end of their course, to inhabit.
So it's not really home. But, neither is home. So I've decided that until September 2010, the place to which "home" refers is the place where I am currently not living.
The battle begins
In the news... | Monday, 11 January | Respond
So, this morning (or, rather, at the time of writing, tomorrow morning) the fight of the Chris will begin on BBC Radios 1 and 2.
There's already a lot of press speculation on the issue, and an obvious answer from me as to who I want to win. There's almost an obvious answer to which of the two will win tomorrow morning, and an obvious answer as to who will win in the long run - but as always, we'll ignore this and continue with speculation.
Chris Evans seems to be the main one firing the punches - saying Moyles has been at Radio 1 for too long, and a rather confusing interview with the Press Association where he says he's not worried about the competition..
Moyles, meanwhile, has stayed relatively calm about the entire situation and has instead stuck by the argument that he will become number one by default. A fair point, I think, considering that Evans has to contend with a load of people who loved Terry Wogan and will be listening meerly to slag him off. Moyles has been contending with that for 6 years and counting.
He continued: "We narrowed the gap down from two million to a couple of hundred thousand which was great. But if the figures fall just because of Terry leaving and we go No 1 by default, then it's well done for us, but... it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Press Association: Moyles on rating war with Evans
Aside from the ratings war, though, Moyles and his Radio 1 team are going at it on full power with competitions to spend time with the team in reality at a meal and at go karting.
Who knows who'll win. But I will most certainly be listening to the Saviour at 6.30am tomorrow morning.
There's already a lot of press speculation on the issue, and an obvious answer from me as to who I want to win. There's almost an obvious answer to which of the two will win tomorrow morning, and an obvious answer as to who will win in the long run - but as always, we'll ignore this and continue with speculation.
Chris Evans seems to be the main one firing the punches - saying Moyles has been at Radio 1 for too long, and a rather confusing interview with the Press Association where he says he's not worried about the competition..
Moyles, meanwhile, has stayed relatively calm about the entire situation and has instead stuck by the argument that he will become number one by default. A fair point, I think, considering that Evans has to contend with a load of people who loved Terry Wogan and will be listening meerly to slag him off. Moyles has been contending with that for 6 years and counting.
He continued: "We narrowed the gap down from two million to a couple of hundred thousand which was great. But if the figures fall just because of Terry leaving and we go No 1 by default, then it's well done for us, but... it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.
Press Association: Moyles on rating war with Evans
Aside from the ratings war, though, Moyles and his Radio 1 team are going at it on full power with competitions to spend time with the team in reality at a meal and at go karting.
Who knows who'll win. But I will most certainly be listening to the Saviour at 6.30am tomorrow morning.
12 Days - 2010 | Sunday, 10 January | Respond
I know that no matter what I write as my look back at the past year that I’m going to annoy someone because I’m going to miss something major either because I don’t want to talk about it, or because I completely and utterly forgot about it. So instead of looking back at the 12 months, I’m going to do my best to look at 12 days. And the first day I’m going to look back at is Thursday.
Over 2009, Thursday became one of my least favourite days out of all seven. A couple of reasons stand out as to why that happened, not in any way helped by the fact that Thursday was the one day of the week that the Kingfisher Centre in Redditch decided to be a proper shopping centre, and extended its hours past the already daring 5.30pm to a wild and exciting 8pm.
This change was both good and bad for me – firstly, it was good because it gave me extra time when it was quiet to complete whatever needed doing in the end-of-week-procedure for Costa, who for some inexplicable reason run their week from Thursday to Thursday, but it also gave me plenty of time with only one other person to keep me company, while not a single person required coffee in the whole of the county.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the shopping centre a small family of Albinos and a disabled couple bought a few fan heaters and a bath rug from Argos before heading to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal and some still Fanta, and then heading home at 7pm.
In fact, it was after all this had happened that one Thursday I commenced a drive home in pouring rain only to find that my windscreen wipers had suffered a major failure. Obviously, they’d chosen to do this exclusively on the driver’s side of the car and just to add insult to their already mounding list of injuries they decided that instead of coming to rest in a sensible place, the blade and arm took it upon itself to build a very thin, and indeed breakable, bridge for passing cars to drive into, neatly deleting any chances of repair.
Having got home on a recovery truck since the car was un-drivable in the weather without some kind of hand-operated system involving a squeeze of massive proportions and some kind of energy drink, I then sat up worrying about having to get up at 5am and drive back into work again. And, of course, watching to ensure that it had stopped raining and was not going to start again.
Of course, I was rationally thinking that if I stopped watching, the gods of weather (who in my mind are called Malcolm and Jay) would see my predicament and wreak their vengeance upon me like they may have done if Jesus had ever owned a Fiat Punto with a broken windscreen wiper.
Over 2009, Thursday became one of my least favourite days out of all seven. A couple of reasons stand out as to why that happened, not in any way helped by the fact that Thursday was the one day of the week that the Kingfisher Centre in Redditch decided to be a proper shopping centre, and extended its hours past the already daring 5.30pm to a wild and exciting 8pm.
This change was both good and bad for me – firstly, it was good because it gave me extra time when it was quiet to complete whatever needed doing in the end-of-week-procedure for Costa, who for some inexplicable reason run their week from Thursday to Thursday, but it also gave me plenty of time with only one other person to keep me company, while not a single person required coffee in the whole of the county.
Meanwhile, in the rest of the shopping centre a small family of Albinos and a disabled couple bought a few fan heaters and a bath rug from Argos before heading to McDonald’s for a Happy Meal and some still Fanta, and then heading home at 7pm.
In fact, it was after all this had happened that one Thursday I commenced a drive home in pouring rain only to find that my windscreen wipers had suffered a major failure. Obviously, they’d chosen to do this exclusively on the driver’s side of the car and just to add insult to their already mounding list of injuries they decided that instead of coming to rest in a sensible place, the blade and arm took it upon itself to build a very thin, and indeed breakable, bridge for passing cars to drive into, neatly deleting any chances of repair.
Having got home on a recovery truck since the car was un-drivable in the weather without some kind of hand-operated system involving a squeeze of massive proportions and some kind of energy drink, I then sat up worrying about having to get up at 5am and drive back into work again. And, of course, watching to ensure that it had stopped raining and was not going to start again.
Of course, I was rationally thinking that if I stopped watching, the gods of weather (who in my mind are called Malcolm and Jay) would see my predicament and wreak their vengeance upon me like they may have done if Jesus had ever owned a Fiat Punto with a broken windscreen wiper.
Kill it, Cook it, Eat it
Reviews - TV, Book and Internet | Sunday, 10 January | Respond
BBC Three have been showing Kill it, Cook it, Eat it for three years now and I have watched pretty much every episode of it since then. But it is only the most recent episodes which have focused on fast food and how it is produced that have actually made me ponder exactly what it is I am eating, and why.
Kill it, Cook it, Eat it is clearly an example of a programme which takes an opportunity to show things that some people would judge to be disgusting and inappropriate for broadcast - the killing of Bullocks, Lambs, Chickens and Pigs and then their cooking, and eating. And then, just to add insult to already rather grand injury, going back in the final episode to cook piglet testicles, cow stomach and any other offal that happens to come their way.
Kill it, Cook it, Eat it on BBC THREE
And, to a certain extent, it does smack of a programme which has been thought up in order to be controversial. But I think that the way the programme has been put together does - to a certain extent - remove that element completely. Although they have done the obvious of allowing vegans to take part in the programme, one whose view point is positioned so far towards pro-life that they think an animal in pain at the end of its life should not be dispatched, but left to die in a wholly natural way, and one who has simply stopped eating animal product for concerns as to its provenance.
Alongside those they have thrown in a rich student from the country who is almost so posh she can't speak without saying "oh my god" in an over-affected way, and then going off to hunt a fox and shoot a phesant for her breakfast, a normal student who eats normal things in a normal way, a poor mother with a family of 4 and an unemployed husband and a student who eats all the kebabs and fast food she can.
But above all, the thing they focused on was telling us about how mass-production was different from what we were being showed. Instead of being stunned with a gun by a person, Chickens in mass-production abattoirs would instead be placed into racks on a motorised system before being dunked into water - with electricity provided from the device into which they are attached. Following the stunning, a blade would chop off their heads and allow them to bleed-out (as is done to preserve the quality of the meat and to starve the brain of oxygen in order to facilitate death) and immediately afterwards they would be boiled in order to make their feathers a lot easier to remove in the following stages.
The show, though, also took the time to point out the ways that this can go wrong - and of course, since the system operates in such a large scale there is a larger number of these opportunities. All it would take is a chicken to raise its head (as it may do, in order to right itself) and the electrocution would not succeed. This could lead to the head being removed from a fully concious chicken - or, indeed, if the head continues to be raised, the chicken being boiled alive.
And it was this that made me wonder whether or not I should have Sainsbury's Basics Chicken Breast in my freezer.
My reasoning, of course, and justification to myself is that I do not have the money to be able to spend excessive amounts on food when there are cheaper alternatives. My mind, though, no longer seems to think that this is a valid excuse. Of course, what then becomes difficult is a choice.
In the programme, it was discussed that sausages which are treated in a reasonable way before they become sausages could cost up to £20 per kilogram. That's against a cost of around £4 per kg for cheap sausages which contain the cheapest cuts of the cheapest meat as well as several chemicals, and possibly anything else that was hanging around - not limited to, but not excluding, the contents of a rented children's swimming pool after a particularly messy party for kids with skin conditions and hair loss, and a bowel issue.
Quite simply, the argument is to buy cheap meat (which is wrong, because anyone who has morals has to understand that animals deserve to be killed as well as possible, if they are killed at all) or to buy less, more expensive, meat. I have often mocked people for their purchasing of meat which is exclusively organic, free range. However, even this - to a certain extent - is now mass produced.
A butcher at work
The only answer is that we all eat less meat - and spend more on it. We'll not only feel better, we'll also end the endless amounts of carbon that we emit as a result. This will then, finally, be along the right lines.
Having researched it, it would seem that the only way to actually make some kind of difference is to purchase none of your meat at a supermarket. Instead, returning to local butchers who provide meat that has been killed on less of a large scale and has been treated as they should have been.
You can watch Kill it, Cook it, Eat it on BBC iPlayer until Friday.
Kill it, Cook it, Eat it is clearly an example of a programme which takes an opportunity to show things that some people would judge to be disgusting and inappropriate for broadcast - the killing of Bullocks, Lambs, Chickens and Pigs and then their cooking, and eating. And then, just to add insult to already rather grand injury, going back in the final episode to cook piglet testicles, cow stomach and any other offal that happens to come their way.
Kill it, Cook it, Eat it on BBC THREE
And, to a certain extent, it does smack of a programme which has been thought up in order to be controversial. But I think that the way the programme has been put together does - to a certain extent - remove that element completely. Although they have done the obvious of allowing vegans to take part in the programme, one whose view point is positioned so far towards pro-life that they think an animal in pain at the end of its life should not be dispatched, but left to die in a wholly natural way, and one who has simply stopped eating animal product for concerns as to its provenance.
Alongside those they have thrown in a rich student from the country who is almost so posh she can't speak without saying "oh my god" in an over-affected way, and then going off to hunt a fox and shoot a phesant for her breakfast, a normal student who eats normal things in a normal way, a poor mother with a family of 4 and an unemployed husband and a student who eats all the kebabs and fast food she can.
But above all, the thing they focused on was telling us about how mass-production was different from what we were being showed. Instead of being stunned with a gun by a person, Chickens in mass-production abattoirs would instead be placed into racks on a motorised system before being dunked into water - with electricity provided from the device into which they are attached. Following the stunning, a blade would chop off their heads and allow them to bleed-out (as is done to preserve the quality of the meat and to starve the brain of oxygen in order to facilitate death) and immediately afterwards they would be boiled in order to make their feathers a lot easier to remove in the following stages.
The show, though, also took the time to point out the ways that this can go wrong - and of course, since the system operates in such a large scale there is a larger number of these opportunities. All it would take is a chicken to raise its head (as it may do, in order to right itself) and the electrocution would not succeed. This could lead to the head being removed from a fully concious chicken - or, indeed, if the head continues to be raised, the chicken being boiled alive.
And it was this that made me wonder whether or not I should have Sainsbury's Basics Chicken Breast in my freezer.
My reasoning, of course, and justification to myself is that I do not have the money to be able to spend excessive amounts on food when there are cheaper alternatives. My mind, though, no longer seems to think that this is a valid excuse. Of course, what then becomes difficult is a choice.
In the programme, it was discussed that sausages which are treated in a reasonable way before they become sausages could cost up to £20 per kilogram. That's against a cost of around £4 per kg for cheap sausages which contain the cheapest cuts of the cheapest meat as well as several chemicals, and possibly anything else that was hanging around - not limited to, but not excluding, the contents of a rented children's swimming pool after a particularly messy party for kids with skin conditions and hair loss, and a bowel issue.
Quite simply, the argument is to buy cheap meat (which is wrong, because anyone who has morals has to understand that animals deserve to be killed as well as possible, if they are killed at all) or to buy less, more expensive, meat. I have often mocked people for their purchasing of meat which is exclusively organic, free range. However, even this - to a certain extent - is now mass produced.
A butcher at work
The only answer is that we all eat less meat - and spend more on it. We'll not only feel better, we'll also end the endless amounts of carbon that we emit as a result. This will then, finally, be along the right lines.
Having researched it, it would seem that the only way to actually make some kind of difference is to purchase none of your meat at a supermarket. Instead, returning to local butchers who provide meat that has been killed on less of a large scale and has been treated as they should have been.
You can watch Kill it, Cook it, Eat it on BBC iPlayer until Friday.
Why are commenters so inane?
Rants! | Saturday, 09 January | Respond
Over the past couple of years we have seen a massive increase in the number of places on the Internet that ask us what we think.
All over the place, we're asked whether we'd like to have our say, invited to join forums and urged to tell the world what we're doing whether or not we happen to be doing something interesting or whether we're simply cooking Wheetabix in an interesting fashion.
Long ago, newspapers only offered to publish your letters once someone with a qualification in something other than Argos had read through them and at least decided whether or not they said anything in English.
But now, it's all changed - you don't need a qualification to inflict your views upon everyone, you need an Internet connection, a computer and a set of views which were established following head trauma.
Once you've got all of those things, head over to a newspaper's website and find an article which talks about something which just about gets your goat, grinds your gears or, for the sensible amongst us, is simply a comment on something mildly irritating.
In the past, I'm sure that the exact same people would have been writing letters in their minds to local papers, even to - perhaps - national papers as they do on the websites now. The difference was, perhaps, that people at the newspapers read the letters and decided that the ones from people with brain cells mattered slightly more.
A letter from the Bromsgrove Standard newspaper
On the Internet, though, where print space is unlimited and a lot of the time the 'moderation' as it is known of comments on websites is pretty much restricted to destroying people with an aim to advertising their products or to making comments which would be illegal for some reason or another, the comments find they are not only 'seeing the light of day' but actually squinting at the brightness of the exposure they've got.
Just one example that I've found in the past day while thinking about writing this blog was on The Guardian's website. David Mitchell wrote an amusing article where he talked about the change of the English language.
As always, whenever anyone decides to comment on someone's use of language - someone else feels the need to charm in and point out why they are shockingly wrong, and why, instead of using the word "carrot," we must use the word "parsnip".
it provides an excellent opportunity to reinforce the conclusions we've already come to in 2009.
Last year, 12 months of being broke and online, has thrown up exactly the kind of new terms you'd expect
David Mitchell: Comment is Free
In this case, David is using the present tense to talk about the past.
Within English, this is - strange as it is - actually possible to do. Because one can talk about anything in the present, provided they put themselves there.
It is, perhaps, not an ideal way of putting the words onto the page in order to convey the meaning grammatically, but - in terms of what it sets out to achieve - is fine.
when you use a fixed point in the past (2009, last year) you generally need to use the simple past, not the present perfect (conclusions we came to, threw up).
Link to comment
The use of the present tense reflects the fact that 2009 is still - for most people - the 'present', because although we have transitioned into a new year: we have not all suddenly become rich again.
Despite the frivolity of New Year's Eve for most people not being seen as over the top at all, by most, it is - in fact - just another day. And although the idea of a 'recession' itself is actually a human idea - the setting of when we transition into a new year is also something which we have created from no basis whatsoever.
Hoping for the New Year to be better simply because it is the new year is almost exactly the same situation that most young children find themselves in every year when they make the transition into a new year of their life.
What person can afterall say that at some point in their lives, they have asked a parent "Am I any taller today?" on their birthday.
And that is what David was trying to say. He was showing continuation through the grammar he used. I, for one, even though I could be labelled a 'pendant' for my obsession with apostrophes and commas, would argue that he is doing so rather well.
Others, though, it seem, would disagree.
All over the place, we're asked whether we'd like to have our say, invited to join forums and urged to tell the world what we're doing whether or not we happen to be doing something interesting or whether we're simply cooking Wheetabix in an interesting fashion.
Long ago, newspapers only offered to publish your letters once someone with a qualification in something other than Argos had read through them and at least decided whether or not they said anything in English.
But now, it's all changed - you don't need a qualification to inflict your views upon everyone, you need an Internet connection, a computer and a set of views which were established following head trauma.
Once you've got all of those things, head over to a newspaper's website and find an article which talks about something which just about gets your goat, grinds your gears or, for the sensible amongst us, is simply a comment on something mildly irritating.
In the past, I'm sure that the exact same people would have been writing letters in their minds to local papers, even to - perhaps - national papers as they do on the websites now. The difference was, perhaps, that people at the newspapers read the letters and decided that the ones from people with brain cells mattered slightly more.
A letter from the Bromsgrove Standard newspaper
On the Internet, though, where print space is unlimited and a lot of the time the 'moderation' as it is known of comments on websites is pretty much restricted to destroying people with an aim to advertising their products or to making comments which would be illegal for some reason or another, the comments find they are not only 'seeing the light of day' but actually squinting at the brightness of the exposure they've got.
Just one example that I've found in the past day while thinking about writing this blog was on The Guardian's website. David Mitchell wrote an amusing article where he talked about the change of the English language.
As always, whenever anyone decides to comment on someone's use of language - someone else feels the need to charm in and point out why they are shockingly wrong, and why, instead of using the word "carrot," we must use the word "parsnip".
it provides an excellent opportunity to reinforce the conclusions we've already come to in 2009.
Last year, 12 months of being broke and online, has thrown up exactly the kind of new terms you'd expect
David Mitchell: Comment is Free
In this case, David is using the present tense to talk about the past.
Within English, this is - strange as it is - actually possible to do. Because one can talk about anything in the present, provided they put themselves there.
It is, perhaps, not an ideal way of putting the words onto the page in order to convey the meaning grammatically, but - in terms of what it sets out to achieve - is fine.
when you use a fixed point in the past (2009, last year) you generally need to use the simple past, not the present perfect (conclusions we came to, threw up).
Link to comment
The use of the present tense reflects the fact that 2009 is still - for most people - the 'present', because although we have transitioned into a new year: we have not all suddenly become rich again.
Despite the frivolity of New Year's Eve for most people not being seen as over the top at all, by most, it is - in fact - just another day. And although the idea of a 'recession' itself is actually a human idea - the setting of when we transition into a new year is also something which we have created from no basis whatsoever.
Hoping for the New Year to be better simply because it is the new year is almost exactly the same situation that most young children find themselves in every year when they make the transition into a new year of their life.
What person can afterall say that at some point in their lives, they have asked a parent "Am I any taller today?" on their birthday.
And that is what David was trying to say. He was showing continuation through the grammar he used. I, for one, even though I could be labelled a 'pendant' for my obsession with apostrophes and commas, would argue that he is doing so rather well.
Others, though, it seem, would disagree.
It might be irritating
Pictures | Saturday, 09 January | Respond
It might be incredibly irritating to you when you're trapped in a building for 5 days in a row without being able to get out, but the snow doesn't half look pretty from space.
I'm sure the country is just posing for some publicity shots. (Pic from BBC News/NASA)
I'm sure the country is just posing for some publicity shots. (Pic from BBC News/NASA)
How many keys have you got?
Rants! | Friday, 08 January | Respond
There are a few things that everyone, even men themselves, will admit that 100 percent of the population of males are. It’s similar to say that a lot of people, although probably not a single actual woman, will say that women are.
Rounded up, we all know that while some idiot reckoned that men are from venus and women are from mars the truth is more likely to be that woman are from Tunbridge Wells – a world where everything is perfect and everyone has time to invest in writing complaining letters to The Daily Mail.
Most men, though, are from somewhere that “looks familiar” and that they undoubtedly will know the way around without a map. Somewhere where they definitely won’t need to ask a passing person for directions.
I’d imagine for this to be true, the place where men live would consist of a single road. And with most men’s habbits, I’d imagine the road would have become impassable thanks to the inaction of its residents to do anything before anyone else, in case they are seen as weak. All the time, of course, promising that they have the best tools for the job – both in actual tools, and in body.
The truth is though, that men are obsessed with having the best.
Ever since men realized they had penises shortly after Channel 5 launched in 1997, though, having the best has somehow equated to having the biggest. But something about this disturbs me. Hop into my 12 litre engine V8, 15 seater tank with a 25 mile nuclear range, and we’ll go on a journey.
A man has to have the biggest engined car, a woman with the biggest breasts and if possible a big set of muscles. Big feet allow many jokes that start “well you know what they say..” and ultimately end in something disappointing about socks which always causes me masses of confusion because socks only come in a single size.
And I’d generally assume that sock manufacturers would have done their research before launching a product into the sock market.
But the thing that confuses me most about the size issue is that no one, not a single person seems to be bothered about the size of your key ring.
Honestly, you see them in all sizes. And not a single person seems to care less whether or not you have access to 354 rooms, or a single room. They only care if the key allows you access to something with 75 litres and a top speed of Mach 3.
Or if you’ve got a locked sock draw.
Rounded up, we all know that while some idiot reckoned that men are from venus and women are from mars the truth is more likely to be that woman are from Tunbridge Wells – a world where everything is perfect and everyone has time to invest in writing complaining letters to The Daily Mail.
Most men, though, are from somewhere that “looks familiar” and that they undoubtedly will know the way around without a map. Somewhere where they definitely won’t need to ask a passing person for directions.
I’d imagine for this to be true, the place where men live would consist of a single road. And with most men’s habbits, I’d imagine the road would have become impassable thanks to the inaction of its residents to do anything before anyone else, in case they are seen as weak. All the time, of course, promising that they have the best tools for the job – both in actual tools, and in body.
The truth is though, that men are obsessed with having the best.
Ever since men realized they had penises shortly after Channel 5 launched in 1997, though, having the best has somehow equated to having the biggest. But something about this disturbs me. Hop into my 12 litre engine V8, 15 seater tank with a 25 mile nuclear range, and we’ll go on a journey.
A man has to have the biggest engined car, a woman with the biggest breasts and if possible a big set of muscles. Big feet allow many jokes that start “well you know what they say..” and ultimately end in something disappointing about socks which always causes me masses of confusion because socks only come in a single size.
And I’d generally assume that sock manufacturers would have done their research before launching a product into the sock market.
But the thing that confuses me most about the size issue is that no one, not a single person seems to be bothered about the size of your key ring.
Honestly, you see them in all sizes. And not a single person seems to care less whether or not you have access to 354 rooms, or a single room. They only care if the key allows you access to something with 75 litres and a top speed of Mach 3.
Or if you’ve got a locked sock draw.
Do you know what annoys me?
Rants! | Thursday, 07 January | Respond
The smart answer to that question is quite obvious. If anyone has spent any time at all reading this blog, or even talking to me they'll know for a fact that annoying me is a lot easier than not annoying me.
If you bought people at supermarkets, I'd be a brand exclusively sold at both Waitrose and Marks and Spencers, where I'd be lovingly covered in the gravy of anger and served on a bed of frustration. Ideally, I'd also like to be served with some kind of asparagus.
But even so, there is one thing that annoys me quite a lot. There is one thing that currently makes me incredibly angry.
In fact, it has made me so angry that I actually couldn't comprehend the idea of not writing this blog post.
It's like if you were to think back to the night your parents created you. Now - what happened is a given. If you went back in time and put crumbs in their bed, it might not have happened. If this hadn't happened to me today, then I wouldn't be sat here right now ranting at you.
20100107-NucleusDateBOx.jpg
I absolutely hate it when I tell Nucleus to post something at a later date by typing the date into the boxes, but I forget to click the check box next to 'Add the dates specified'.
Quite why any developer writing this software would think that if someone changed the date they wouldn't actually want anything done about it at all is beyond me, but I'm sure they have some kind of motivation.
And it is my true belief that the developer had this blog post, and indeed my rage, in mind when they made the decision.
And guess what? It worked.
If you bought people at supermarkets, I'd be a brand exclusively sold at both Waitrose and Marks and Spencers, where I'd be lovingly covered in the gravy of anger and served on a bed of frustration. Ideally, I'd also like to be served with some kind of asparagus.
But even so, there is one thing that annoys me quite a lot. There is one thing that currently makes me incredibly angry.
In fact, it has made me so angry that I actually couldn't comprehend the idea of not writing this blog post.
It's like if you were to think back to the night your parents created you. Now - what happened is a given. If you went back in time and put crumbs in their bed, it might not have happened. If this hadn't happened to me today, then I wouldn't be sat here right now ranting at you.
20100107-NucleusDateBOx.jpg
I absolutely hate it when I tell Nucleus to post something at a later date by typing the date into the boxes, but I forget to click the check box next to 'Add the dates specified'.
Quite why any developer writing this software would think that if someone changed the date they wouldn't actually want anything done about it at all is beyond me, but I'm sure they have some kind of motivation.
And it is my true belief that the developer had this blog post, and indeed my rage, in mind when they made the decision.
And guess what? It worked.
It's wanging it down!
Rants! | Thursday, 07 January | Respond
This isn’t exactly a new thing. I’m not going to sit here and pontificate at you about how Britain is awful because we can’t cope with any weather whatsoever since we aren’t used to it, because I know all of the factual things around the issue.
It’s understandable that because this doesn’t happen very often, we’re going to suffer when it actually does. But why is it, in Britain, as soon as a single tiny little bit of snow arrives in the country everyone starts worrying about everyone?
As soon as a few flakes of snow fall, 50 percent of the population decide it’s too cold to get out of bed, phone into work and let their employers know they can’t make it. The other half of the working people get out of bed, get into work only to decide that it’s too dangerous to stay in case they can’t get home again.
And they are suddenly supported by their employers who are ‘worried about the welfare of their staff’.
Unsure of what the weather might be like, we cease running bus services as a ‘just in case’ measure. Trains suddenly get delayed because of the snow (this one, I don’t understand).
Even London Underground was reporting problems running its services like normal because of the snow when I checked the website yesterday in my frantic search for information.
The best part, though, is that in the place where I live – most of the buildings are closed to employees because of safety issues, yet we are continued to be allowed to live here. Even if we aren’t allowed to have some of the meals we’ve paid for, because it wouldn’t be safe for us to get to the restaurant.
The last thing, though, that stands out in my mind is the situation that Britain found itself in on the day of the 7/7 bombings with people actually dying, yet the country managed to continue about its affairs reasonably well. Yet we encounter what is essentially water, falling from the sky – a natural occurrence for which we can read predictions and makes plans for - and we feel the need to go into panic mode.
We feel the need, suddenly, to phone any old people we know to make sure they’ve got salt in the house. We encourage them to defrost their pathways, but then continue to remind them that they shouldn’t go out because it’s dangerous.
And, at the end of it all, shops are too scared to put grit and salt down – because the ice that can follow it, if not done properly, when the snow re-freezes, can lead to people injuring themselves and suing you.
Suing you for trying to make their day easier. Roll on Happyness classes in schools.
It’s understandable that because this doesn’t happen very often, we’re going to suffer when it actually does. But why is it, in Britain, as soon as a single tiny little bit of snow arrives in the country everyone starts worrying about everyone?
As soon as a few flakes of snow fall, 50 percent of the population decide it’s too cold to get out of bed, phone into work and let their employers know they can’t make it. The other half of the working people get out of bed, get into work only to decide that it’s too dangerous to stay in case they can’t get home again.
And they are suddenly supported by their employers who are ‘worried about the welfare of their staff’.
Unsure of what the weather might be like, we cease running bus services as a ‘just in case’ measure. Trains suddenly get delayed because of the snow (this one, I don’t understand).
Even London Underground was reporting problems running its services like normal because of the snow when I checked the website yesterday in my frantic search for information.
The best part, though, is that in the place where I live – most of the buildings are closed to employees because of safety issues, yet we are continued to be allowed to live here. Even if we aren’t allowed to have some of the meals we’ve paid for, because it wouldn’t be safe for us to get to the restaurant.
The last thing, though, that stands out in my mind is the situation that Britain found itself in on the day of the 7/7 bombings with people actually dying, yet the country managed to continue about its affairs reasonably well. Yet we encounter what is essentially water, falling from the sky – a natural occurrence for which we can read predictions and makes plans for - and we feel the need to go into panic mode.
We feel the need, suddenly, to phone any old people we know to make sure they’ve got salt in the house. We encourage them to defrost their pathways, but then continue to remind them that they shouldn’t go out because it’s dangerous.
And, at the end of it all, shops are too scared to put grit and salt down – because the ice that can follow it, if not done properly, when the snow re-freezes, can lead to people injuring themselves and suing you.
Suing you for trying to make their day easier. Roll on Happyness classes in schools.
Just because I've got a BlackBerry....
Rants! | Tuesday, 05 January | Respond
There is some kind of assumption, for some reason, that just because you own a BlackBerry and are a little more technologically advanced than someone who thinks there's something magic going on in their sky+ box when they press record and truely believes that there is something in the whole Derren Brown Predicted The Lottery Live On Television thing, that makes them take the "always on" nature of a Black Berry a little bit over the top.
All of a sudden there is an expectation that you'll be around for a completely and utterly boring conversation about something like plaster dust at 4am, while there is also the expectation that because you are getting emails a little before they've been sent to you, that the replies will be there just as fast.
Certainly looking at a blog a couple of weeks ago which I have now inefficiently lost the address of, within business being issued with a BlackBerry is seen as the end, pretty much of someone's life. Equal to someone walking over and stabbing you, the thud of the parcel arriving onto your desk, labelled "fragile". Like a padded brick.
I can just see the scenario in my head right now. The boss eagerly planning his constant lines of communication with his employees. The contracts being drawn up sentencing employees to a life time of having the phone switched on.
The software of the phone has even been designed with this entire situation in mind. The phone is able to go into a sleep mode, but will wake up and use its loudest ring tone for people who are in the "important" list.
Practically, I see this as being a list of people who you might feel are urgently important. People who are pregnant or dying come to mind, not a boss who has the idea of launching a bookend flavoured ice cream during the middle of the night and needs to talk to his "top guy" about it.
The best part about the entire situation is that the entire phone is impossible to switch off. Turning the phone off simply turns off the screen. If you're lucky enough to be offered a choice of a "full power off," which seems to happen only when the moon and sun are in line with Golliath's gentials, you are also allowed to turn the radio off. But press a button and the screen will come whinging back on, telling you that someone somewhere might have something to tell you.
I want a Nokia 3310 again.
All of a sudden there is an expectation that you'll be around for a completely and utterly boring conversation about something like plaster dust at 4am, while there is also the expectation that because you are getting emails a little before they've been sent to you, that the replies will be there just as fast.
Certainly looking at a blog a couple of weeks ago which I have now inefficiently lost the address of, within business being issued with a BlackBerry is seen as the end, pretty much of someone's life. Equal to someone walking over and stabbing you, the thud of the parcel arriving onto your desk, labelled "fragile". Like a padded brick.
I can just see the scenario in my head right now. The boss eagerly planning his constant lines of communication with his employees. The contracts being drawn up sentencing employees to a life time of having the phone switched on.
The software of the phone has even been designed with this entire situation in mind. The phone is able to go into a sleep mode, but will wake up and use its loudest ring tone for people who are in the "important" list.
Practically, I see this as being a list of people who you might feel are urgently important. People who are pregnant or dying come to mind, not a boss who has the idea of launching a bookend flavoured ice cream during the middle of the night and needs to talk to his "top guy" about it.
The best part about the entire situation is that the entire phone is impossible to switch off. Turning the phone off simply turns off the screen. If you're lucky enough to be offered a choice of a "full power off," which seems to happen only when the moon and sun are in line with Golliath's gentials, you are also allowed to turn the radio off. But press a button and the screen will come whinging back on, telling you that someone somewhere might have something to tell you.
I want a Nokia 3310 again.
