Friday December 29, 2006

Xmas quiz the answer...

So the answer to this week's Xmas quiz question is a pencil.

Why ? Well in Doctor Who used a pencil in a mug to explain to Catherine Tate how she ended up being Kidnapped by the Tardis. At the end of the Vicar of Dibley Xmas show where a joke is usually told, the vicar asked her friend How do accountants recover from a bad bout of constipation?. The answer is they work it out with a pencil. Her friend had been playing with a pencil on the table while this joke was being told and had put it in her mouth. The vicar told her friend that the pencil was Harry's her fiancee's who happens to be a accountant. Her friend instantly put the pencil down in disgust. It was much funnier on TV than the way I have told it here.

Meanwhile a Happy New Year to everyone!

Wednesday December 27, 2006

A one question Christmas quiz..

So here it is. What was seen in both the Christmas specials of Dr Who and Vicar of Dibley ?

Answer on Friday. BTW both shows were excellent and Catherine Tate was an fiesty partner for Dr Who. It is a pity they can't persuade her to do more shows with him.. The Vicar of Dibley has its last show on New years day.

Monday December 25, 2006

Merry Xmas!

Friday December 22, 2006

All alone

Last year I wrote about folks I thought we should be thinking about at Christmas time. This year for various reasons my attentions are on those folks who are on their own at Christmas time. We are doing our own bit this year to make sure someone we both know will have company this Christmas. It is all too easy for us as we go and visit friends relations and have a great time with them to forget what it must be like on your own at Christmas. I can imagine the day lasts an eternity and being on your own must be very depressing at this time of the year. So if you know someone on you street who you know are on their own you don't have to go crazy and invite them for Christmas dinner but maybe ask them round for a drink or something like that.

To these folks on their own and all my readers - a Happy Xmas and lets hope 2007 is a good year for Planet Earth and all its inhabitants both human and otherwise. As we are entertaining and I have sent the students home for xmas I'll be giving the weblog a break but be back online January 2nd.

Thursday December 21, 2006

Binfield Sunrise

Wednesday December 20, 2006

Beef Stifado

This is a Greek version of a generic Mediterranean dish. It is a nice hearty dish.

Preheat your oven to 150C

In a little oil brown cubed two pounds of beef in a flameproof pot with a lid. Then add 8oz onions and two garlic cloves finely chopped and crushed. After these have cooked down a bit add one tin of tomatoes. At this point add the rest of the ingrendients: two tablespoons of tomato puree, the juice of one lemon, one tablespoon of Oregano, a pinch of thyme, one teaspoon of sugar and salt and pepper. Pour water in to just cover the beef. Put in the oven and cook until the beef is really tender - two to three hours. Stir every hour or so. While this is cooking the kitchen will have some nice cooking smells.

Tuesday December 19, 2006

Raise the Red Lantern

Lewis lent me this book. It is written by a Su Tong and in fact has three stories in the book. The title story is about a woman Lotus who becomes the fourth Concubine for a Chinese chap called Chen Zuoqian. As you would expect there is a certain amount of friction created as she enters the house. Near the end where the story reaches a dramatic conclusion there is an excellent sentence where Lotus reflects that women are strange; a woman can understand other people perfectly, but can never completely understand herself. The Third mistress Coral dies in the book and another great line in the story is The fox mourns the death of the hare. Creatures of the same kind grieve for one another, thats all .

The second story is called Nineteen Thirty four escapes. The narrator is discussing their families history in 1934. It seems to me to be a mixture of fact and fantasy and there are several prominent relations who feature in this story. The location is a place called Maple Village and the Grandfather is one of the main people in the story. His name is Chen Baonian - he owns a shop that sells things made out of bamboo I think. The narrator's father is currently inside the womb of their grandmother that is someone called Grandmother Jiang. A uncle called Dingo is also introduced to ourselves who collects dog manure in order to save money for a pair of rubber overshoes for the winter. The money is collected in a wooden box. The box is lost and Dingo suspects his relations of stealing it but after a flood the box reappears having been moved by a family of mice. Very strange. At the end of this strange story Chen Baonian dies after being soaked with water on a freezing night. One of the people who alledgedly did the deed ends up inheriting the shop.

The final story is called Opium family which I did not read. I found the first two heavy going and although I enjoyed them I decided to give the last one a miss.

There is an interesting note at the beginning of the book by the translator Michael S. Duke. He says a salient characteristic of Su Tong's writing is the use of very long multiple sentences marked with commas. This is to be expected of Modern Chinese writing. The first book was originally called Wives and Concubines, but was later changed. There was also a film made in 1992.

Monday December 18, 2006

Two walks in winter sunshine

After a grey and leaden sky week it was nice to look forward to two days of sunshine and cold weather at last. Saturday we did a walk local to us starting at a pub called the Beehive, White Waltham which has been elevated to a main entry in the Good pub guide. The walk had us go through the village with a pretty school, village hall finally leaving it along Love Walk to then meet Church Hill that took us to its attractive Norman church St Mary the Virgin.

In the churchyard was a really old Yew tree with a really large trunk sadly not much green left on the tree - a lot of it had broken away. We rejoined along Waltham road road for a short distance inside a narrow belt of trees. and then went past the sewage works. Here overhead were lots of light aircraft making their final approach to the local airfield. Also were lots of gnats that pestered us for about another mile before leaving us alone. At Heywood Farm we turned right and went along Snowball Hill walking towards the M4 motorway. Just before a pedestrian bridge over the motorway we turned right and went around two sides of a field before turning right to rejoin Church Hill. Where we turned off this road the building of Waltham Place could be seen a mixture of stone and brick buildings. Across another field had us in a small housing estate and soon we were back at the pub. Here I had a good but expensive sausage sandwich, the pub itself was burnt down in May 1861 and rebuilt shortly afterwards in June 1861 as a plaque on one of its outside wall explained. A nice three mile walk.

Sunday again was bright and sunny although with a sharp frost. Todays walk was at Watlington in the Chilterns just off the M40. As there was only one pub stop at the start of the six mile walk we elected to start it half way round to give us a break after three miles. This point was at Christmas common. Here at a National Trust car park was a viewpoint from the hill. We went through an avenue of trees then descending through more woodland. A farm Lower Dean farm came into view snuggling in the valley. All around us hedges had lots of berries on them all different colours and shapes. The hill also had large numbers of Yew trees - unusual I thought. The path levelled out through a few more trees and then met a road - the B480. After a short distance along the road we turned left to walk along the Ridgeway a short way before turning off to pass by Lys Farm. Over back towards the hill was a single lone Red Kite - we would see many more before the walk finished. In open ground now we followed the side of fields passing to the left of a dried up small pond before arriving in Watlington. Here we had our pit stop at the Carrier's Arms. This was an excellent prawn bap a at snip of one pound fifty pence. A bargain in this expensive part of the world. Behind one of the bars is a verse called The man behind the bar. Suitably refreshed we left the pub and past the local care home and caravan site - an odd combination to be close together. The road was now climbing and we turned left to go on the Ridgeway for a short distance before turning right on the other famous long distance path in this area The Oxfordshire way. The view below is typical of the lovely panorama behind us as we climbed.

We past Pyrton Hill House and continued along a grassy track. We were now heading up quite steeply on Aston Hill. Here there was still frost on the ground and I suspect it would not have melted by the end of the day. Berries here had droplets of water on them making them look like eyeballs.

We followed the right hand side of a field and met a road and were soon back to the car. A very invigorating but great six mile walk.

Friday December 15, 2006

An expensive nights sleep

A truly amazing story is described here. Drunken man falls asleep on a railway line resting his head on one of the rails. His feet were also close the the lively third rail. He was found, recovered and now has been fined five hundred and sixty pounds and has a load of community service to do. Hei s a very lucky man. The question is what sort of community service should he be given related to what he did.... any ideas?

Second hand but not second best

I have talked many times about my opinion on recycling but here is another slant on something which I feel a lot of people get very embarrassed about. Buying second hand items. It is to Ebay's credit that some of this stigma is being eroded but there is something anonymous about buying something second hand in private, finding and bidding for it on a web page and then meeting the individual to make the purchase - or doing it by post. My parents were not poor but not well off. So my first school blazer was second hand - they could not afford a new one when I started my secondary school. My football boots were also second hand. The cycles I used right up until recently were all second hand. Most of these items were sold because the previous owner had got too big for them. We both buy second hand books usually paperbacks from various charity stores in the UK. When in Northumberland we went to this store the biggest in the UK. Second hand CD shops appear more prevalent in the US one I found in San Jose, Silicon Valley was really good as it was so large it was worth them sorting the cd's into artist order instead of just under A, B and C etc. Car boot sales are also an option I bought most of my copies of the James Bond books at one of these sales. So second hand is definitely not second best.

Thursday December 14, 2006

Hong Kong from a litter bin

Want a job at Sun for a year ?

If you are a UK student and are doing a gap year starting July next year - for a year and are interested in working in my lab team in Camberley, Surrey then drop me an email with your CV and a covering letter. Here is the job description - and other info.

Exciting Student Placement
at Sun Microsystems !

Description

The student will gain knowledge of Sun's hardware range, system
and application software. In addition he/she will benefit from
working within a highly experienced software/hardware team and
indeed be part of that team.
The position will be working in the two labs in the Camberley ( Surrey )
office for 1 year starting in July 2007. The successful candidate will
gain exposure to Sun's latest hardware and software offerings as they
are released.

Tasks undertaken by the student may include the following:
Installation, configuration (hardware and software) , tuning and system
administration of lab systems and project work in the lab. This will
enable the student to gain hands on experience and knowledge of Unix
hardware and associated system software.
There will be opportunities for students to undertake project work in
the lab. These may include ongoing planning and development or
expansion of the laboratory infrastructure.

Requirements

Willingness and ability to absorb a large amount of information
within a short timeframe.
Ability to co-operate and communicate effectively with other
people.

The candidate MUST have at least one years experience of using
Unix, for example Solaris, Linux or similar. The experience must
cover installing Unix and other administration tasks. This should
include network (LAN/Internet) setup, user administration, software
upgrades/patching and file system maintenance. You should grade
yourself as having a good theoretical and practical understanding of
your preferred Unix platform.

Experience or knowledge in the following technical areas would
be a distinct advantage:

Unix skills (user/administration)         (essential)
Networking                                (essential)
Shell scripting                           (essential)
Experience of PC or Sun Hardware          (essential)
Structured programming techniques         (preferable)
Scripting languages (perl/tcl/php)        (preferable)

Training in some of these areas will be given where required
We expect applicants to write us a covering letter to accompany their
CV explaining why their skills make them a suitable candidate. The
letter should also cover what they would expect to get out of the one
year working in Sun in this position.

Wednesday December 13, 2006

The oldest profession in the world

The oldest profession in the world has suddenly got a load more dangerous as events unfold in Ipswich. I really hope whoever is doing this or someone who has information that leads to an arrest contacts the police soon as the number of females killed in this space of time is just scary beyond belief. Heavens knows what is like to live in that area just now.

Seeing thee pictures of the victims I find most disturbing. These girls are young and had their whole life ahead of them. Agreed some were taking drugs and used prostitution as a way of paying for their dangerous habit. But none deserves to die like this. At least the girls were not resorting to crime to get money as others do. I think it really is time to legalise or allow safe houses to get these girls off the streets. No one will want these places near their home but if it is done properly it should be no different than having a hotel next door to you.

In case anyone who reads this can help the Suffolk Police call them on 0800 0961011 or fill in the online web form that is here .

Tax has always been unfair...

A hotel we stayed at recently had fine examples of the previous owner trying to reduce the impact of the Window tax by blocking up some of the windows. The really odd thing for me is that after the tax was abolished people did not open up the windows again. It just shows you that Maggie Thatcher was not the first to introduce an unpopular tax...

Tuesday December 12, 2006

It works!

Upon reading up on Iris I wrote about it. After checking in to my flight to Singapore I registered. It took all of ten minutes. Upon arriving in the imigration hall of Heathrow on my return I used the system and it worked a charm. As our plane came straight in - we were not stacked there was hardly any queue in the hall so the benefit was small. At busier times it will save time I am sure. The only thing to be careful of is to keep any baggage you have behind you else the system thinks there are two people in the booth and gets confused.