Fifty Thousand Hits

Its been a while since I checked Statcounter so I was pleasantly suprised when I logged in and found that Karmasotra has hit more that 50,000 hits - that's quite a lot for a blog that doesn't have any theme or purpose beyond random stories, rants jokes and the odd movie.

The stats are displayed below, it needs to indicate that there is a stable readership of about 270 hits per month and progressively increasing number of unique visits each month. Presumably that reflects that there is now so much content (crap) that the site comes up more and more on Google searches.  

Thanks for reading and if you have any feedback I would be happy to hear it.  In the meantime I will try and write something more interesting in the coming months.

Wednesday Movie

Three movies this week with no theme
The first is by me and its the latest version of the timelapse of the roof going on our steading (barn)
The second is a total crazy guy flying a jet suit, straight out of batman, this is for real
And finally some fairly crazy Spaniards showing a total lack of respect for the sea (turn the volume down)

Friday Joke - When Grandma goes to Court

In a trial, a small-town Southern prosecuting attorney called his first witness, an elderly, grandmotherly looking woman to the stand. He approached her and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know me?' She responded, 'Why, yes, I do know you, Mr. Williams. I've known you since you were a boy, and frankly, you've been a big disappointment to me. You lie, you cheat on your wife, and you manipulate people and talk about them behind their backs. You think you're a big shot when you haven't the brains to realize you'll never amount to anything more than a two-bit paper pusher. Yes, I know you.'

The lawyer was stunned. Not knowing what else to do, he pointed across the room and asked, 'Mrs. Jones, do you know the defense attorney?'

She again replied, 'Why yes, I do. I've known Mr. Bradley since he was a youngster, too. He's lazy, bigoted, and he has a drinking problem. He can't build a normal relationship with anyone, and his law practice is one of the worst in the entire state. Not to mention he cheated on his wife with three different women. One of them was your wife. Yes, I know him.'

The defense attorney nearly died.

The judge asked both counselors to approach the bench and, in a very quiet voice, said,

'If either of you idiots asks her if she knows me, I'll send you both to the electric chair.'

Wednesday Movie - Timelapse

Latest timelapse offering from our ongoing building project here 

And some although much more impressive timelapse from space 

Global warming

Very nice video here that demonstrates mean surfaces temp across the Earth for the past 250 years
And there are still people who think the planet is warming...
Mind you most of them are in the GOP or Tory parties

Things that have changed!

I left the UK 10 years ago and now I am back. Not surprisingly  there are a lot of things that have changed. Some of these I knew about, the same developments had occurred more or less simultaneously in Norway, others were more of a surprise.
So here are a few in no particular order
1. The self service checkout in supermarkets and big shops. Had never seen that before I came back and was a bit sceptical - now I love it. Its quick and it works.
2. Banks! What has happened to banks? They bare no resemblance to how they were when I left
3. All of the call centres now seem to be outsourced to third World countries - I like the idea of people in India getting jobs but these are basically shitte
4.NHS direct - a phone number you call when you are sick. You talk to a call centre person (not in India yet - but just wait) tell them what is wrong and they give you advice over the phone, which may include "get to hospital quick!" I was super sceptical about this, I thought it was a cheap way of cutting back on Doctors and doomed to be a disaster. Having called it a few times for Sophie I think its great.
5. TV - when I left there was 5 free channels - now there seems to be hundreds. They are mainly still crap though. Tonnes of vacuous cooking, dancing and property shows and an even bigger serving of utterly shitte talent and reality shows. TOWIE must be the biggest waste of 10 mins of my life - what sort of people watch this shit?

The country is still run by a corrupt bunch of self serving arseholes in London, although the current bunch seem even worse than the last lot who were in power when I left. Very glad to be living in Scotland which is at least partially autonomous.

Next time - the differences between the UK and Norway

Update

I have been pretty slack at posting over the last couple of months - not being at work is surprisingly time consuming. I checked Statcounter today and saw that we are approaching 50,000 hits so I figured I should probably stick something more that crap jokes and timelapse movies on here. So here is a bit of an update.

I am in Aberdeen making the most of my generous Norwegian paternity leave. I knew that paying all that tax would eventually be beneficial to me eventually. We are currently living in Katharine's flat which is fairly large and well placed in the city. However its not very big we you try to cram in a woman who has finally git all her stuff in one place after years of travelling the world, a bloke who is used to a large evil lair on his own, a baby that has more clothes than the rest of the house hold and a cat that is used to roaming freely outside. Things are a bit cramped. We manage by 1) reminding ourselves that lots of people spend their whole lives with lots less space; 2) visiting Cowieswells at least once a week and dreaming about living there at least once an hour; and 3) laughing a lot. This is working for Katharine and I, Sophie doesn't know any different but poor old Lola has very bad cabin fever. How do you explain to a cat that in 6 months time she will have fields and barns galore to roam and that the small screaming person that keeps grabbing her tale will, in two years be her best friend. Its tough.

Work at Cowieswells has started with the steading (barns). Its been cleaned out, the stone work restored and the roof replaced. Its been fantastic to see it coming on. I have been down there quite a bit and spent quite a bit of time chatting to the the two stonemasons. They are really top guys and its so refreshing to have builders that actually want to work and aren't ripping you off chronically. I posted a video of the trusses going on to the roof. Work on the main house should start before the end of the year.

Apart from that work goes on. I manage a couple of hours a day when Sophie is in nursery which is enough to keep on top of most stuff. I bought an old Range Rover (P38) down in Oldham for trashing around the farm. We have visited friends and had family visit us and I have had a couple of trips back to Norway for work and to sell my house. The year has flown by and as we keep saying we can't wait until we are living in Cowieswells...

Friday Joke

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal and a bottle of wine, they lay down for the night and went to sleep. Some hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend. "Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see" Watson replied, "I see millions and millions of stars" "What does that tell you?" enquired Holmes. Watson pondered for a minute. "Astronomically, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I observe that Saturn is in Leo. Horologically, I deduce that the time is approximately a quarter past three. Theologically, I can see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect that we will have a beautiful clear day tomorrow. What does it tell YOU?" Holmes was silent for a minute, then spoke. "Watson, you idiot, some bastard has stolen our tent" 

Wednesday Movie

Work progresses on our new Evil Lair -
The stonemasons have been rebuilding and repairing the wall heads for the last couple of weeks
Then on Monday and Tuesday they came to erect the trusses for the roof. Given that this was a bit more interesting than two blocks laying stones I decided to capture it with some time lapse.
Here it is...

Feeling sorry for yourself?

I am sure your weren't but just in case here are a couple of videos to the watch

The first is Paul Pritchard, who was a North Wales based climber until an accident climbing a sea stack in Tasmania left him hemiplegic. Not a man to take such things lying down he has continued his life as an adventurer. His latest trip is to ride a recumbent tricycle 1100 km across the Roof of the World from Tibet to Kathmandu to raise awareness for blind Tibetan orphans. Many Buddhists believe that being born blind is karmic punishment for bad deeds in a former life, so blind kids are driven from their family homes and made to fend for themselves.  Braille without borders is a small charity that helps these children punishment  

Paul is one of the most inspirational people I have ever met, both before and after his accident. If you are feeling down then his courage and spirit should help to give a bit of perspective.

And on a similar note, check this guy out. Truly inspirational