Wednesday May 31, 2006

Coriander tip

Growing herbs like Basil and Coriander are a borderline positive experience from an economic standpoint. There is however the fun of growing your own instead of buying from a supermarket. I have always found Coriander to be a difficult to germinate and now I know why. I saw an edition of Gardeners world where they visited a site in Birmingham and had many different cultures all growing crops they used for their home dishes. One chap was growing Coriander and he showed us a tip. Each seed is actually a seed pod contains many seeds inside it each capable of germinating. His tip was to gently grind the pod between two bricks ( this releases the seeds) and sow the grinds. I did this expecting that I had destroyed the seed but they came up like cress.

Tuesday May 30, 2006

Am I cheating ?

While on holiday in Sicily I ate pasta spagetti etc. I noted that on the table was a knife and fork but no spoon. At home when we have spagetti or similar pasta I wizz a ball of it up on a fork using a spoon to help. I learnt this when I was doing my O'levels and I boarded with a woman who had an Italian husband where we had lots of Italian food and we had to learn how to do this. But I think it might be rude to cheat and use a spoon in Sicily or Italy and you are meant to wizz a ball of it up against the side of the plate/dish. Needless to say I tried but things got a bit messy at time for two reasons, an excess of Sicilian wine and the pasta having an oily sauce - thats my excuse. but thats part of being on holiday.

Monday May 29, 2006

Monaco GP

The Jewel in F1's crown but a crazy circuit nevertheless. One last statistic for Schumi to beat and that is Senna's number of wins here which stands at at six. A win here for Schumi would equal that. The 2006 qualifying rules where for one of the sessions all cars could be on the track at the same time was expected to lead to chaos. Mclaren were hoping for a good result here celebrating forty years in F1. That team has won here thirteen times during their time in F1.

The first qualfying session started and it was clear you could not rely on a banker lap at the start of each session. The track here gets faster every minute as more rubber is left on its surface. The first top team/driver is taken out as Massa goes wide in an odd manner and hits the Arnco The session is red flagged and he will start from the back of the grid. At the end of the session the usual suspects are eliminated before the second session starts. The second sesson is no less dramatic and Kimi again is the fastest but the Honda's are struggling in particular Button who aborts a series of laps to dive into the pits to get another set of tyres and more front wing to try and cure severe understeer. The Red Bull car of DC's is going well but his teammate is eliminated with Button after this second round. The final session with ten cars has them circulating on old tyres burning off fuel but keeping within the defined margins so they get their fuel credits back - which allows them to start the race with the same fuel load they started this session with. With a few minutes to go before the end of the session the cars pit for new tyres and the lap times tumble. Right at the end complete chaos and confusion but not due to traffic. Schumi starts posting the fastest lap on a second flier and then goes wide and seemingly pulls off in a manner to mess up Alonso's flying lap which might have beaten the German. The Renault team are furious as is Alonso in the post session interview. To no effect the time is permitted. Alonso joins the Schumi on the front row with Webber an excellent P3. As usual Schumi has courted controversy as he has so many times in the past. Button meanwhile has stormed off to a meeting with his team to understand what went wrong. Rubens has outqualified him for the second time now.

 1.  5  M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari           B   1'13"898  162.711 Km/h  
 2.  1  ALONSO       Renault           M   1'13"962  162.570 Km/h  
 3.  9  WEBBER       Williams Cosworth B   1'14"082  162.307 Km/h  
 4.  3  RAIKKONEN    McLaren Mercedes  M   1'14"140  162.180 Km/h  
 5.  2  FISICHELLA   Renault           M   1'14"396  161.622 Km/h  
 6.  4  MONTOYA      McLaren Mercedes  M   1'14"664  161.041 Km/h  
 7. 11  BARRICHELLO  Honda             M   1'15"804  158.620 Km/h  
 8.  8  TRULLI       Toyota            B   1'15"857  158.509 Km/h 

However eight hours after the qualifying was over the stewards decided Schumi had deliberatly blocked the other drivers including Alonso and dump him to the back of the grid. Fisi was also punished for blocking DC and will start in P10. Back to the race on Sunday. The starting grid then has two Ferraris on the back row of the grid but Schumi starts from the pit lane to keep clear of trouble at the start. Kimi nearly gets past Webber at the start but soon after makes a move stick when Webber goes wide. Button has fallen back to P15. 75 laps to go and Rubens is holding a gaggle of cars up he on a one stop strategy the others on a two. This will ruin their race as they are loosing so much time behind him. 68 to go and Kimi and Alonso are trading fastest laps with .4 seconds between them. Schumi has now caught Button and stays behind him for now. But later on he gets past him by the harbour wall. Released he now goes after JV. Kimi and the Monster pit within a lap of each other but keep their positions. Webber is still out their delivering the drive of his life. He is hoping he can leapfrog Kimi during his stop - but when he does pit he has not done enough to get past him. Alonso then pits and this time Kimi is getting very close to him - perhaps Alonso's new tyres are not to his liking. A lot of those drivers stuck behind Rubens have pitted and have come out near P16.

49 to go and DC pits and comes out just ahead of Schumi. Webber is now closer to the front two drivers Alonso's pace allowing this. It is believed Kimi is carrying two more laps worth of fuel than Alonso hoping to leapfrog him during their last stops. At this stage all twenty two starts are still running. A moment of confusion that helps Fisi who sneaks past DC who thought he was Alonso who he would have to let past as he was being lapped. One of Fisis' rear tyres clobber DC's wing but he carries on. The traffic is not so helpful for Webber who is loosing time by the spadeful. He is heard on his radio "Where are the blue flags?". Suddenly Webber slows and his car catches fire he leaves it clearly very annoyed - rotten luck. His car is at the end of the pit lane and the safety car is brought out - ruining Kimi's two lap fuel advantage. 28 to go and Kimi retires more smoke from the back of his car. He walks off and is seen later on his boat with his friends. The race restarts with the Monster now second but he has at least six cars to get past ( backmarkers) before he can get close to ALonso. Rubens long first stint is paying off he is in P3. Rosberg is seen stopping - a throttle jammed open the problem. 21 to go Klein now stops and amazingly Schumi is up to P6 Fisi behind him. Schumi is now flying trying to maximise the points from this race. Rubens is given a drive through penalty for speeding in the pit lane that demotes him down the field. Trulli who was on for a podium stops meaning DC has a podium if he can keep going. Schumi catches Rubens but unlike before at this race when they were teammates he is not going to get past him as Rubens stays awake. An amazingly fast and furious race - one of the best I have seen here. The final result:

 1.  1  ALONSO       Renault           M   1h43'43"116  150.708 Km/h  
 2.  4  MONTOYA      McLaren Mercedes  M   +  0'14"567  150.356 Km/h  
 3. 14  COULTHARD    RedBull Ferrari   M   +  0'52"298  149.452 Km/h  
 4. 11  BARRICHELLO  Honda             M   +  0'53"337  149.427 Km/h  
 5.  5  M.SCHUMACHER Ferrari           B   +  0'53"830  149.415 Km/h  
 6.  2  FISICHELLA   Renault           M   +  1'02"072  149.219 Km/h  
 7. 16  HEIDFELD     BMW Sauber        M      1 lap(s)                
 8.  7  R.SCHUMACHER Toyota            B      1 lap(s)  

The next race is Silverstone should be a cracker.

Friday May 26, 2006

Come on England

Spotted this flying over our house last night. I am not a football fan but I wish our team well and say "Come on England - don't loose your nerve when you are faced with a penalty shoot out.."

We are at war

Just finished reading the second in the trilogy of books by Simon Garfield based upon the diaries of folks who wrote for the Mass Observation project during the war years (the project is still going on). The first I read a while ago and covers the post war years, this one starts just before World War Two is declared. It is of course a very different country then and one not exhausted by WW2. Churchill is not PM when the book starts and the bombing of mainland UK is not even on the horizon. But as Germany engulfs mainland Europe the population believe an invasion is on its way and are prepared for it.

There is one writer in the book we know from last time and that is Maggie Joy Blunt. At this time she writes really long diary entries which are very interesting. We meet Pam Ashford who is a secretary at a large Glasgow shipping company and her life intially seems unaffected by the turn of events. Christopher Tomlin is a stationary salesman also religous and cannot seem to wait before he is called up. Tilly Rice lives in Surrey and moves with her children to Cornwall initially to protect them from the bombs but returns to Surrey just before the bombing starts. Finally we get to meet Eileen Potter who is doing excellent work as a social worker handling the childrens evacuations.

A really strange parallel with modern times is a natural disaster the Erzincan earthquake which triggered the Black Sea Tsunami afterwards on Boxing day 1939. Between 30,000 and 40,000 were lost.

It is interesting to see how news travels in these times. No TV all radio, word of mouth and newspapers. Very different from modern day war reporting.

I also learnt about the IRA bombs that exploded in London during the war - I did not know of that.

I was also surprised at how many of the diarists listened to Lord Haw-Haw Nazi propaganda.

I do think although the book is interesting it takes a long time to warm up and in parts of the book only one of the diarists are writing - so you don't get an overall picture from several writers. The final book in the series is to be published in the autumn.

( May 26 2006, 12:00:01 AM PDT ) Permalink

Thursday May 25, 2006

100 years of the British Newspapers

An excellent exhibition starts today at the British Library . It celebrates 100 years of British Newspapers. You can also vote via the BBC's Newsnight program on what you think the best cover page has been over the years.

This is the short list:

Mrs Pankhurst arrested - Daily Mirror - May 1914 
Dunkirk defence defies 300,000 - Daily Sketch - June 1940 
Games rocked by black power - Evening News - Oct 1968 
The first footstep - Evening Standard - July 1969 
Gotcha - The Sun - May 1982 
Freddie Starr ate my hamster - The Sun - March 1986 
Up yours Delors - The Sun - November 1990 
Murderers - Daily Mail - February 1997 
He lied and lied and lied - The Guardian - June 1997 
War on America - The Telegraph - September 2001 
War is over, says IRA - The Independent - July 2005 

Vote for each or get more information on each one by clicking on the link above. ( May 25 2006, 12:00:02 AM PDT ) Permalink

Zap!

I forgot to mention during this weblog a mildly amusing incident. After looking over the Basildon Park we did a woodland walk around it. Upon leaving the wood we walked alongside a field and suddenly a great view of the house presented itself. However to get the best viewpoint I had to clamber over a old style metal fence made of rusty posts and cross members. I slung my left leg over and as I reached out to touch the ground with my left foot a big jolt of pain went through my left leg. This had the effect of unbalancing me so I lurched to the right and then swung back to the left again. At each of these oscillations a jolt of pain went through my leg. Looking down I could see on the other side of the rusty fence had been fixed an electrified wire. I managed after a few more shocks to get myself off the fence. It confirms that you should always Look before you leap.

Wednesday May 24, 2006

Wysteria wandering...

I wanted to extend the Wysteria's coverage on the back of the house. It covers our pergola and I decided last year to get it to go over the flat roof and scramble up the top story of our house and then hang from the fascia board at the bottom of our roof. So last year I picked two branches and started them scrambling across the roof. The purple one has got further and is flowering nicely:

With it getting to the wall of the house it was time for the next support. I put in a second screw in the wall and secured a length of vertical wire for the Wysteria to climb on. The next stage was a horizontal support and I had one of those Eureka moments and worked out how to fit the wire to the guttering bracks and not having to fix a load of eyelets to the fascia board. You can just about see the wire:

Eventually as the branch becomes heavier I will have to support it with something stronger but I am hopefull the wire will do for this and next season. As long as the Wysteria keeps to its normal growth rate the two colours should meet in the middle of the guttering by the end of the year and flower on those branches in 2007.

Tuesday May 23, 2006

Three new cd's

Three new cd's are in our collection; first Superbi from the Beautiful South . The album cover although not making any difference to their music is excellent as usual with an old bus featured. The album has twelve Classic Beautiful South tracks on it. The first track Rose of my Cologne is an excellent fast country number and I hoped for some other different tracks from the band but its pretty normal BS stuff - but still ok. The vocals are as clever as usual, and the music pleasant and easy listening. A note in the cd cover says after all the other thanks to friends etc "No thanks to God he did $%^& all".

The next album is Neil Young's Living with War I bought it knowing it was a ten track anti war cd. I found it indifferent at first but after a second listening it is growing on me. However the last track has a choir singing America the Beautiful is misplaced on this rock cd I think - even is there is a sublime message hidden away in featuring it. However his last album Prairie wind is a much better investment...

Last but not least another old rocker - not as old as is Bruce Springsteen's latest offering We shall overcome; the Seeger sessions. This album I think is a tribute to Peter Seeger. In fact some of this material was recorded in the 1997 the rest in 2005 and 2006. The band did no rehearsals. Bruce clearly enjoyed making the album and it shows in the performance of him and the band. It really is a lot of fun to listen to it and we both took a liking to it straight away. (recommended by a friend who saw him recently...) Our CD also includes a DVD with the tracks in PCM stereo whatever that is. The DVD also has two bonus tracks on it and the usual DVD extras. He calls the music street corner music, parlor music, tavern music, wilderness music, circus music, church music and gutter music. Either way there is a lot of good music on the cd - a strong recommendation.

Monday May 22, 2006

Two Houses; one in a tree and one with Pride and Prejudice

Despite the promise of heavy rain we took our chances and did a walk around Streatley that we have done before. The village of Streatley is on one side of the River Thames on the opposite bank is the equally pretty village of Goring. We parked at the Bull Inn and headed out towards Lardon chase. Before we started the climb onto its summit we saw this pretty tree house in a garden.

On the chase the ground was covered in Buttercups also known in this area as Crazies. Also visible were the blue flowers of Speedwell. At the summit we had wonderful views of both villages and it as very windy too. In the distance we could also see Didcot power station. After we left the summit and headed down to a lane the other side of Lardon chase had Cowslips on it sadly past their best but still visible. We joined a lane which was bordered by Hawthorn and Lilac both flowering profusley. We then turned left and headed over a golf course before crossing another lane and heading up into a wooded area known as the Holies. We got slightly lost here and in doing so passed three small mazes cut out of the ground with flints indicating their paths on the ground. We retraced our steps and found the right path and eventually headed down a steep hill to the pub. The pub was once a coaching inn for the Royal mail coach to Oxford. We had an excellent lunch and then drove to nearby Basildon Park.

The house was built between 1776 and 1783 to the design of John Carr by a Sir Francis Sykes a wealthy East India Company "nabob" of Yorkshire origins. Between 1910 and 1952 the house was unoccupied and it became run down and in danger of demolition. Lord and Lady Liffe saved the house and restored it and in 1978 it was presented to the National Trust. Its recent claim to fame was last year the most recent film version of Pride and Prejudice was partly filmed there and it became Nethefield from the book. It was closed for much of last year to allow this - the rooms used were emptied and protected and different fittings and furniture were put in place. In one part of the house an exhibition described how this was all done. The highlights for me must be the Octaganal room and the Shell room. The latter contained many shells collected by Lady Liffe in cabinets which themselves were totally covered by shells. Also in the room where large collections of shells arranged by the same artist who decorated the cabinets into a face, a vase of flowers and many other delightful shell sculptures.

Sunday May 21, 2006

Parcel scam - this information might save you money

I am sure this has already been posted on the internet but one more place will not hurt. If you receive a card through the door from a company called Parcel delivery service saying they have a parcel awaiting delivery instructions and can you contact them on 0906 661911 do not call that number. If you do so you will hear a recorded message and you will have been charged fifteen pounds for the priviledge of doing so. If you get such a card contact your local tradings standard office. This scam is being investigated by ICSTIS. Please share this information with your friends and family. Hopefully this will be shut down soon.

Friday May 19, 2006

Another good Timewatch program tonight

Looks like Timewatch have potential good show tonight on BB2 9PM. I quote from their newsletter:

The Princess Spy - heroic, glamorous, highly principled... and forgotten. This film tells the remarkable story of Noor Inayat Khan - a pacifist Indian princess who for four months in 1943, was London's most important agent in Nazi-occupied Paris.

When Noor was dropped into France, the average life expectancy of a radio operator was six weeks. Against all the odds she continued to broadcast for nearly three times that period. Her story is one of courage beyond heroism, and her capture and escape could have been penned by Hollywood.

The truth behind her eventual betrayal is so shameful it was erased from the records. Get ready to salute one of the greatest of our forgotten heroes.

On a less serious note the second part of a Doctor Who show is on Saturday featuring the tin men - Cybermen.

Overtaking cycles

While driving to/from work I meet a lot of cyclists. I was wondering if my approach is right in regards overtaking them. I imagine if I caught up with Chris at the speed he wizzes along there would be no point in even trying. Here are my ideas:

Before even considering overtaking think about potential road hazards/features that mean attempting to overtake is not a safe thing to do - eg wait until it is safe ( blind bend, car approaching from other direction etc)

Obey any road signs/lights etc that relate to the bit of road you are on.

Keep well back. Unless you can read the mind of the cyclist you have no idea what they might intend to do. Also if they fall off you don't want them to go under your wheels.

Before overtaking. Again ensure it is a sensible thing to do again.

Look once more and indicate.

Overtake giving the rider a clear berth.

Don't blindly follow another driver overtaking. You won't be able to see other cars coming in the other direction.

Don't cut in as soon as you think you are clear of the rider give them room.

Any other ideas ? Do add these as comments.

Thursday May 18, 2006

The best restaurant in Berkshire?

There must be something special about the name Royal Oak. I have written about my local pub which is now a main entry in the Good pub guide . Well the other night we visited another Royal Oak pub this one in nearby Knowl Hill that is just outside Maidenhead on the A4 road. The pub is by the church but hidden up a side road. A Frenchman runs the place and is also the chef. His name is Franck Chauvin. The trouble is because of its hidden location he is not filling the place - it was only half full on Saturday night. He must have a very friendly bank manager. I had Mussles in a white wine sauce 4.25 with loads of bread to soak up the sauce. My wife then had the duck with a rich red sauce - loads of duck 14.25. I had the sea bass - two fillets with a beurre blanc sauce 14.25. We finished with the cheese and biscuits 5.75. house red wine 11.50 which was very good and I started with a pint of London Pride. It gets even better. From Tuesday to Thursday ( in an effort to build up trade) he is doing s slightly restricted menu for two people, two courses and a bottle of his house wine for twenty pounds, thats not each - that is the total bill. He has a lovely New Zealand waitress helping him, who is doing her bit to make the place as good as it is. I rate it as good as anything in this county. It would be a crying shame if he went under. I will be doing my bit to make sure that does not happen.

Wednesday May 17, 2006

K T Tunstall

KT Tunstall music's has finally reached me. Her debut album Eye to the telescope is pretty good but I always think for new artists the second album tells us if the artist has more than one good album that they can produce. Remember Alanis Morissette first album brilliant; the second one rubbish. Back to KT the first three tracks are excellent Other side of the world, Another place to fall and Under the weather. Tracks four and five are not so good, just not my kind of music perhaps. The rest of the album is then good. The words on her tracks are excellent here is a bit fromOther side of the world

Over the sea and far away
She's waiting like an iceberg
Waiting to change
But she's cold inside
She wants to be like water...

She also plays the lead guitar on most of the tracks but the sleeve notes also indicate she also plays the keyboards and the final track Through the dark has her playing the piano in a solo type track. So we will have to wait and see how her second cd pans out, but her first cd gets my vote.