Thursday March 10, 2005

House of the flying daggers

I watched a film the other night with my wife called House of the flying daggers . The film is based in China a long time ago. The story is about a rebel group - the flying daggers and one of them ( a very pretty Chinese girl ) who is trying to get back to their base camp in the north. The authorities corrupt and on their way out are trying to infiltrate the rebels and see this as a chance to finish them off once and for all. It has excellent cinematography and the scenery is fantastic. The effects are not brilliant but I guess this is a low budget film unlike its Hollywood counterparts. It is all in Chinese so you have to read the subtitles. I would recommend the film.

The thing I said to my wife afterwards is we all know about our countries history and usually European, American but how many of us have any knowledge about Asian history ? The only Asian history most of us know about is related to the second world war I expect. I imagine they have the same colourful characters like Oliver Cromwell , Henry Eighth and so on.

During a team building event organised for us prior to a several day meeting on a proposed big project Steve White got the team to do various things to explore ourselves and help us understand more about each other to 'gel the team'. It was very interesting. One of the things was to draw a shield with some things of importance to us on it. I cannot remember all we were meant to do but it was related to a person who we thought was important. It will be no surprise whom I chose. Winston Churchill . One of the guys in the meeting from Singapore had drawn some person from Chinese history. A pretty important chap by all accounts. We had never heard of him. We still have a lot to learn.

The allotment

I thought some folks might like to see the allotment. It is by this church in Ruscombe, the village next to Twyford.

The allotment is quiet at the moment. As can be seen below a few rows of leeks remain to be eaten. To the left of them are the shallots, these can be seen as brown dots in the picture. In the ground in a row next to them are the garlic (underground). To the left of the picture is an area all dug over and manured. This is where this years leeks will go. In the area to the right of the shallots is where this years onion sets will be planted later on in the spring when the leeks are all gone. You can just about make out the chicken wire that protects the plot against the local rabbits.

Sadly the plot next to mine ( in the background) and to the right of mine are both unoccupied which means I get weeds that grow from seed blown off the weeds growing in those plots. Hopefully this year someone might take these two plots over. It only costs five pounds a year !

Turn those lights on !

In World War two blackouts were mandatory but in the 21st century driving in the dark this now not so. I think a few drivers need to be careful during what I think is the most dangerous time of the year. As I leave to drive home it is daylight on a good day but by the time I am home it is dark. So I am seeing a lot of drivers who are going along the road in the 'dusk' time with lights not on. Other road users as well can suffer as a result of cars not turning their lights on. I wonder if like Sweden we should have our headlights on all the time ? I have mixed feelings about it myself.