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.