Karmasotra

Friday Joke - Costa Concordia

2012-02-10T10:51:00.001+01:00

The Costa Concordia provided a fantatstic metaphor for the Italian Economy so here are a few cheap jokes in that vain. Also worth checking of the Daily Mash's coverage

What's the fastest way to get off an Italian cruise ship?
Follow the Captain.

Italian divers searching the stricken cruise ship have found two Glaswegians at the bar.
They've told the divers to fuck off, their holiday was all inclusive and they had a week to go

The Italian army has been called in to help with the people from the grounded cruise ship. But they have now swapped sides and have declared war on the survivors.

Italian Police are still interviewing the Korean Honeymoon couple found on the Costa Concordia as to the whereabouts of the rescue dog that first found them.

If Man City fail to win the league this year, what are the chances of Mancini leaving?
I mean it's not like an Italian to abandon a sinking ship is it?

Just bought a raffle ticket to win a cruise in the Mediterranean, last weeks was a rollover...

After recent disasters such as the recent Costa Concordia crash, we often turn to history for comfort.
In lieu of the actions of the actions of Captain Schettino, I direct you to the words of Winston Churchill. Late in his life, Sir Winston Churchill took a cruise on an Italian ship. A journalist from a New York newspaper approached the former prime minister to ask him why he chose to travel on an Italian line when the Queen Elizabeth under the British flag was available. Churchill gave the question his consideration and then gravely replied: "There are three things I like about Italian ships. First, their cuisine, which is unsurpassed. Second, their service, which is quite superb. And then in time of emergency there is none of this nonsense about women and children first."

I'd hate to be the captain of the Costa Concordia. Boy! Oh! Boy! is he going to be in deep water ... which paradoxically, where he should have fucking been in the first place.

Italian Cruising - It's the new rock and roll.

Happy Birthday Sophie

2012-02-08T08:00:00.002+01:00

Our little girl is one years old today! It seems amazing that she is already one, it only seems like last week that we were hanging out in the hospital waiting for her to make an appearance.
She has had an eventful year, she has visited 4 countries (6 if you count Scotland, England and Wales as separates), she has gone from being totally helpless to tearing around the place creating chaos. Now she crawls and almost walks, she can point at what she wants, she laughs and claps and waves and she loves the swings. Her first word was Lola and she is learning to pet her without pulling all Lola's fur out. She growing up to be a very determined little madam who definitely knows her own mind. Most importantly she's has a very happy disposition and she laughs a lot.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SOPHIE

Wednesday Movie - Yosemite

2012-02-08T07:00:00.000+01:00

The Yosemite valley is a very special place, especially to climbers, geologists and photographers, of which I am all three (with varying degrees of ability). The valley was the first national park and represent a step change in our perception of wilderness from something to be exploited to something that should be cherished and preserved.

A couple of nice videos from the valley. First is a fantastic timelapse, one of the nicest I have ever seen.
Second is a nice bouldering video

Friday Joke -What's Your Business Sign?

2012-02-04T19:04:00.003+01:00

Instead of Astrological Signs, how about these .. What's Your Business Sign?
1) MARKETING You are ambitious yet stupid. You chose a marketing degree to avoid having to study in college, concentrating instead on drinking and socializing which is pretty much what your job responsibilities are now. Least compatible with Sales.
2) SALES Laziest of all signs, often referred to as "marketing without a degree." You are also self-centered and paranoid. Unless someone calls you and begs you to take their money, you like to avoid contact with customers so you can "concentrate on the big picture." You seek admiration for your golf game throughout your life.
3) TECHNOLOGY Unable to control anything in your personal life, you are instead content to completely control everything that happens at your workplace. Often even YOU don't understand what you are saying but who the hell can tell. It is written that Geeks shall inherit the Earth.
4) ENGINEERING One of only two signs that actually studied in school. It is said that engineers place ninety percent of all Personal Ads. You can be happy with yourself; your office is full of all the latest "ergodynamic" gadgets. However, we all know what is really causing your "carpal tunnel syndrome."
5) ACCOUNTING The only other sign that studied in school. You are mostly immune from office politics. You are the most feared person in the organization; combined with your extreme organizational traits, the majority of rumors concerning you say that you are completely insane.
6) HUMAN RESOURCES Ironically, given your access to confidential information, you tend to be the biggest gossip within the organization. Possibly the only other person that does less work than marketing, you are unable to return any calls today because you have to get a haircut, have lunch AND then mail a letter.
7) MANAGEMENT/MIDDLE MANAGEMENT Catty, cutthroat, yet completely spineless, you are destined to remain at your current job for the rest of your life. Unable to make a single decision you tend to measure your worth by the number of meetings you can schedule for yourself.
Best suited to marry other "Middle Managers" as everyone in your social circle is a "Middle Manager."
8) SENIOR MANAGEMENT (See above - Same sign, different title)
9) CUSTOMER SERVICE Bright, cheery, positive, you are a fifty-cent cab ride from taking your own life. As children very few of you asked your parents for a little cubicle for your room and a headset so you could pretend to play "Customer Service." Continually passed over for promotions, your best bet is to sleep with your manager.
10) CONSULTANT Lacking any specific knowledge, you use acronyms to avoid revealing your utter lack of experience. You have convinced yourself that your "skills" are in demand and that you could get a higher paying job with any other organization in a heartbeat. You will spend an eternity contemplating these career opportunities without ever taking direct action.
11) RECRUITER, "HEADHUNTER" As a "person" that profits from the success of others, most people who actually work for a living disdain you. Paid on commission and susceptible to alcoholism, your ulcers and frequent heart attacks correspond directly with fluctuations in the
stock market.
12) PARTNER, PRESIDENT, CEO You are brilliant or lucky. Your inability to figure out complex systems such as the fax machine suggest the latter.
13) GOVERNMENT WORKER Paid to take days off. Government workers are genius inventors, like the invention of new Holidays. They usually suffer from deep depression or anxiety and usually commit serious crimes while on the job...Thus the term "GO POSTAL"

Wednesday Movie - Its all a question of perspective

2012-02-02T09:56:00.001+01:00

Something a bit different this week - some cool Dutch dudes doing some wacky street painting

Cowieswells blog

2012-01-30T11:02:00.002+01:00

It's been busy times at Cowieswells and its about to get busier.
We have just finished repairing the steading which now looks fantastic.
All the plans are finished for the main house and we are out to tender with five building companies. Hoping to get started with the build by the start of March.
I have started a new blog that will have updates of the process so if you are interested in following what is happening without getting drowned in crappy jokes or movie clips. The goal is to update it ever couple of weeks with pictures, movies and a bit of text

www.cowieswells.blogspot.com

Friday Joke

2012-01-27T11:06:00.000+01:00

Rather than a joke this week - check out these gems from the golden age of advertising - classic

Have a nice weekend

Friday Joke is back...

2012-01-20T12:19:00.000+01:00

But they are still crap...

Mother Superior was taking a bath. There's a knock on the door.
She says, "Who is it?"
A male voice responds, "The blind man."
After a few moments of deliberation the nun says, "Come in."
The man enters and says, "Nice tits, Mrs Nun. Where do you want me to hang the blind?"
-------------------
Heisenberg is out for a drive when he's stopped by a traffic cop.
The cop says "Do you know how fast you were going?"
Heisenberg says "No, but I know where I am."
-------------------
A week later Bill goes to get a cab home and notices the driver from the week before is third in the taxi rank.
He strolls up and gets in the first cab, once inside he tells the driver that he doesn’t have any cash but, if he takes him home he’ll give him a blow job.
The cab driver goes mad and kicks him out of his cab.
Bill now gets into the second cab and makes that driver the same proposition: a blow job for a lift home. The second driver also refuses and kicks him out.
So now Bill gets into the third taxi, the guy who ripped him off, and asks to be dropped a few blocks away.
As the cab drives off Bill smiles at the first two drivers and gives a big thumbs up…
---------------------
A man checks into his hotel on a business trip and, feeling a bit lonely, he thought, I'll call one of those girls you see advertised in phone booths when you're calling for a cab.
He looked in a phone booth near the hotel and found an ad for a girl calling herself Eroveronique, a lovely girl, bending over in the photo. She had all the right curves in all the right places, beautiful long wavy hair, long graceful legs..... well, you get the picture! He copied the phone number and returned to his hotel. When back in the room he figures, what the heck, give her a call.

'Hello,' the woman says......... God, she sounded sexy.

'Hi, I hear you give a great massage and I'd like you to come to my room and give me one. No, wait, I should be straight with you. I'm in town all alone and what I really want is sex. I want it hot, and I want it now. Bring implements, toys, rubber, leather, whips, everything you've got in your bag of tricks. We'll go hot and heavy all night; tie me up, cover me in chocolate syrup and whipped cream, anything you want! Now, how does that sound?'

She says, 'That sounds fantastic, but you need to press 9 for an outside line

Wednesday Movie - Shit people say

2012-01-18T10:22:00.000+01:00

Found a whole new genre of videos entitled "shit people say" with people being anyone from snowborders, skiers, single girls, drunk girls, drunk guys, hipsters, vegans or many more

Choosing your Religion made easy

2012-01-14T22:53:00.000+01:00

Blimey that was one hell of a year!

2012-01-01T23:36:00.000+01:00

The popular risings across North Africa and the Middle East; a huge Tsunami in Japen that killed thousands and wiped out a nuclear reactor; the death of Bin Laden, another global economic meltdown; the closure of the New of the World and implosion of the Murdoch empire; riots and strikes across the UK and the final discovery of the elusive Higgs Boson. Steve Jobs is dead and the US has finally withdrawn from Iraq. If you think that the biggest event of 2010 was a woman putting a cat in a bin, it’s fair to say that 2011 was a pretty big year on a global scale.

2011 was an equally monumental year for us. The first big event was the arrival of Sophie in February. From that point on, we knew that nothing was ever going to be quite the same again. She has truly changed our lives and brought a whole new meaning to everything we do. Watching her grow through the year has been great fun. She has changed so much in those 10 months and she is now whizzing around on all fours, wanting to feed herself and her first words were Lola and Mama. We are very lucky to be blessed with such a happy baby. There is still a long way to go before we get our house back but we are enjoying the ride.

In addition to starting our family we also got married. We were joined by over two hundred friends and family as we celebrated starting our lives together, first in Mytholme (Bradford) and then a couple of weeks later in Bergen. Both parties were great fun and it was really nice to see so many people eating, dancing and celebrating with us. It made us realise how very lucky we are.

Katharine spent half of her maternity leave in Norway and we spent much of the summer getting the house there ready to sell. It’s ironic that so many jobs only get done when you are getting ready to leave, but by the end of the summer the place was looking great. I have lived there for 8 years and it was a bit of a wrench to sell it but it's been an awesome place to live and the next project is even more exciting.

So Katharine returned to work in September after a great holiday in Rome. Since then I have been on paternity leave in Aberdeen, getting to know Sophie better, planning the new house and trying to sort out next year. We have now finished the plans for the house at Cowieswells and should be starting work in the New Year. The steading already has a new roof and looks a thousand times better for being repaired and repointed. Everytime we visit we realise how impatient we are to be living there and dream of the days when we eating or own veg from the garden, watching the Sun rise over the sea and strolling to the local pub for Sunday lunch. We hope to be in by late next summer. Watch this space for news.

In addition to us, lots of our friends seem to be starting or expanding their families. Babies seem to be popping out everywhere and talk has changed from skiing and climbing to play-tables and feed times, but everyone seems happy about it, perhaps we are all growing up.

Wednesday Movie - Cycling Explained

2011-12-21T11:58:00.000+01:00

You must admit she raises some interesting points
Movie here

Saturday Video - Rainbow Slab

2011-12-17T19:51:00.000+01:00

A great video of climbing in the Llanberis Slate Quarries. The movie really captures the stark post-industrial beauty of the place and profiles the amazing Rainbow Slab.
But that is not what makes this amazing, nor is watching and listening to Jonny Dawes, which is always entertaining. No the thing that makes this awesome is Paul Pritchard, who was severally injured after an accident about 10 years ago and is now hemi-plegic. He somehow manages to get get his battered and broken body up the route. Listening to him talk and his condition and his philosophy on life is inspirational. And as an aside the route is E3 (7- / 5.11a) which is as hard as anything I have ever climbed in my life.

That is pretty fuckin amazing!

The Ascent of Man (and descent...)

2011-12-08T23:54:00.000+01:00

Bonus Friday joke

No caption needed

Friday Joke - Noah and the adders

2011-12-08T23:07:00.000+01:00

When Noah's ark had finally come to a rest on top of mount Ararat, and when the waters had receded, Noah and his family - along with all the animals - left the ark, and God told them to go forth and be fruitful . nd re-populate the Earth.

Noah dispatched the animals with the instructions to go out and multiply. Soon there were baby lions and tigers and sheep and goats and frogs and every other sort of animal... except the adders. The adders refused to multiply, they would only add.

And Noah fearing the wrath of God who had told him to make ALL the animals multiply called his family together and explained the problem.

Noah's oldest son Sham was a smart kid who had an idea. He took the two disobedient snakes and locked them in the woodshed.

Two weeks later they came back and opened the woodshed door and out slivered the snakes followed by 20 baby adders. Noah was ecstatically happy.

"Sham my Son, how did you do this? Before you put them into the wood shed the adders would only add. Now look at them, they have multiplied. Its a miracle!"

"No father its not a miracle, just maths".

"I got them to use logs!"

Wednesday Movie - Wildlife

2011-12-07T10:59:00.001+01:00

Nice simple but very pleasing video from the WWF about living on a connected planet (from Shane via FB).

Two Pandas just arrived in Edinburgh Zoo on loan from China. It's the first time in 17 years that there have been an randy pandas in the UK - this is what they will probably getting up to

And finally a great video about the logistics of Noah's ark.

Cowieswells Update

2011-12-06T22:51:00.000+01:00

Work has almost finished on the steading (barns) at Cowieswells and it looks stunning. There are some timelapse movies of the roof going on here. They took the scaffolding down today and we got a first glimpse of the place in its restored glory.

The steading looks huge and its great to see it with a roof, doors and windows. Lots of space which I have already started filling with crap! We have plans for workshops, storage, climbing wall, animals etc. This is so much fun, as I drove down there today it was really cold and sunny and as I came over the hill into Stonehaven I felt so alive and happy. It really feels like it is all coming together.

I have been researching the place a bit. It seems that the last people to live in the bothy moved out in the 1950's and I found an aerial photo from 1973 which shows a working farm in much better shape than when we bought it. If you look closely at the picture you can see the former owner on the left side of the house, looking up at the plane. I find this both intriguing and also rather sad because I know what is going to happen to this fit and healthy looking young man, standing proud on his farm with his well tended vegetable plot and his animals.

The plans for the house are now complete and we go to tender this week.

Fifty Thousand Hits

2011-11-30T19:59:00.000+01:00

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

2011-11-30T17:20:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-24T23:57:00.000+01:00

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

2011-11-23T23:57:00.002+01:00

Latest timelapse offering from our ongoing building project here

And some although much more impressive timelapse from space

Global warming

2011-11-16T22:33:00.000+01:00

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!

2011-11-13T22:26:00.001+01:00

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

2011-11-13T22:08:00.000+01:00

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

2011-11-11T16:25:00.000+01:00

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

2011-11-09T11:44:00.000+01:00

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?

2011-11-02T21:24:00.001+01:00

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

More time lapse astro photography

2011-10-27T15:05:00.000+02:00

A very cool video here

Mario Balotelli

2011-10-26T14:45:00.000+02:00

The majority of my friends know my views on football, which I think is one of the dullest games known to man. How you can watch 90 minutes of mediocrity which result in a 1-0 win for some bunch of grossly over-paid egos and think it was great entertainment is beyond me. I also think that the majority of footballs are prissy, over indulged children.

However, every now and again along comes someone who is so extreme and out there that its real rock n roll. That man is Mario Balotelli

Last week Balotelli managed to burn his own house down whilst setting fireworks off from his bathroom window at 1am. He then went on to score two goals against Man Utd the next day.

A quick investigation into this gem of a man revealed this, which is a great introduction to the man and his talents. Even if you hate football it's worth 30 seconds to watch. There is mountains more on youtube.

Roy Fitz sent me this great A-Z

A is for AC Milan. If you're a football player for Inter Milan, what's the most intelligent thing you can possibly do? That's right! You parade around on national television wearing the shirt of your club's bitter rivals, AC Milan!

B is for bib.

C is for Camorra. Balotelli is suspected by many to have links with The Camorra - a criminal organisation very similar to The Mafia - because he was given a guided tour around notoriously violent areas of Naples by mobsters. He claims not to have known that they were mobsters at the time.

D is for derby. Manchester Utd 1-6 Manchester City. Mario Balotelli scored twice as City handed Utd their heaviest defeat in Premier League history - something the fans won't soon forget

E is for ego. "There's only one player that is a little stronger than me: Messi. All of the others are behind me." - see N for a follow up.

F is for fireworks. Mario is extremely safety conscious when it comes to fire safety. He would never do something irresponsible like - I don't know -shoot fireworks from his bathroom window! See Q for a follow up.

G is for generosity. Mario Balotelli has regularly been spotted handing out

£20 notes to passers-by. See H for a follow up.

H is for homeless. After winning £25,000 in a casino, Balotelli handed a homeless man £1,000 in cash. When asked why, he said it was because he liked his ginger dreadlocks and beard.

I is for impound. Balotelli has reportedly had his white Maserati sports car impounded 27 times whilst racking up a staggering £10,000 in parking fines.

J is for Jenny Thompson. The prostitute linked to Wayne Rooney in the media. Balotelli reportedly saw her in a Manchester restaurant (See, Tevez

- Manchester does have restaurants) and started chanting "ROONEY!

ROONEY!ROONEY!" at the top of his voice.

K is for karma. Mario Balotelli's back-heeled goal attempt against LA Galaxy landed him in hot water with Roberto Mancini. He was subbed off instantly. Balotelli claimed that he only attempted the back-heeled goal because he thought he was offside.

L is for Lothario. Balotelli reportedly shouted at a 'wannabe WAG' in a restaurant. With food falling from his mouth he told her to come over.

Unbelievably, she came over. He handed her his phone and told her to store her number in it. Even more unbelievably, she did it. She then left without either of them saying another word. Who says romance is dead?

M is for marmite. You either love him or you hate him.

N is for Nicklas Bendtner syndrome. Balotelli suffers from what

psychologists call "Nicklas Bendtner syndrome" - Mario genuinely believes he's the best player the world has ever seen.

O is for open top bus. When Man City won the FA cup, Balotelli reportedly said he'd only go on the open top bus parade if he could take his dog, Lucky, on board with him. His request was denied.

P is for passenger seat. Mario Balotelli was pulled over by police shortly after moving to Manchester because he was driving round with £25,000 in cash on his passenger seat. When they asked him why he had it, he laughed and replied "because I can."

Q is for question. Who's the best man to front a firework safety campaign?

Answer - The man who set his £3million mansion on fire, with fireworks, just two days before fronting the campaign.

R is for role-model. Balotelli is the ideal role-model for kids everywhere.

Whether he's throwing darts, setting off fireworks indoors or abusing the general public, Mario's behaviour is always top-notch!

S is for show off. When Balotelli won the European Golden Boy Trophy he bragged that he had never even heard of his closest rival, Jack Wilshere, but would find out who he was just so he could remind him that he came in 2 nd place.

T is for tyre-track. My personal favourite of Mario's crazy haircuts. (It was hard to pick a favourite)

U is for undoubted talent. Aged just 21 Balotelli has already scored nearly

50 professional goals and has won 7 major trophies, including the Champions League.

V is for visitor. Balotelli once took his younger brother to visit a women's prison. When questioned by guards Mario said he and his brother were "just curious at the fact that it was a women's prison."

W is for "why always me?"

X is for x-ray. Balotelli has been sidelined several times throughout his career due to recurring knee injuries.

Y is for youth team. Balotelli was once found guilty of throwing darts at members of the Man City youth team. His excuse? "I got bored and wanted to pass some time."

Z is for zoom. Following Man City's 6-1 win over Man Utd, Balotelli reportedly drove around Manchester high-fiving City fans out of his car window. I'm not sure about the validity of this story, but let's face it it does sound like something he'd do.

Wednesday Movie on Friday

2011-10-21T16:08:00.000+02:00

Some great cliff jumping from Grant in Bermuda - not sure a cliff jumping festival would ever really take off in Scotland or Norway - maybe its the weather

Friday Joke - Steve Jobs

2011-10-13T23:07:00.000+02:00

Twenty years ago we had Steve Jobs, Bob Hope and Jonny Cash
Now in 2011 we have no jobs, no cash and no hope
____________________________________________________

And our favourite news site sums it up nicely here

Finally not directly related to the demise of the great Apple guru but in a similar vain

Wednesday Movie - some geology

2011-10-11T20:53:00.000+02:00

Fairly awesome movie of a cliff in Cornwall collapsing
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-15250554

All a bit quite on the blogging front at the moment.
Having huge problems with access to internet courtesy of BT, BTFON and BTopenzone
New service provider on Monday and then I hopefully never have to think about BT again
Normal service will resume then

Wednesday Movie

2011-10-05T11:06:00.000+02:00

Are the modern generation spoilt?
This guy thinks so and I tend to agree

BT – The Saga Continues

2011-10-02T11:13:00.004+02:00

In our last thrilling instalment…

...our heroes were living in near third world conditions without phone or internet for almost three months. The stress was beginning to show and there was some cursing and even threats to assault Maureen Lipmann with one of Sadam’s missing nuclear weapon. Now the saga continues, but will it result in a satisfactory conclusion? Will our heroes get back on line? Will BT manage to salvage the last traces of their once glorious brand from the gutters of Bangalore? Or is it game over for the company that once supplied telecom services to an empire?

Dear BT – Part 2

I am very unhappy to have to write to you again. Last time I wrote a very nice man called Daniel, promised that your customer service would call me back in 48 hours but of course they didn’t. A rude woman from Newcastle then told me I should be happy to wait 5 days – so I resigned myself to other week scrounging internet access from coffee shops and friends. Little did we know, it was about to get worse, in fact at this point we didn’t imagine that it could get worse. So naïve!

So while we were waiting for somebody in the complaints department to bother to do their job, the overzealous Nazis in the billing department went into my bank account and extracted £155, without notification and without any justification. Which in my book makes it theft. At this point I can not begin to tell you how angry I was. I was so mad that I waited the weekend before calling to, dare I say, complain. The women I spoke to in billing wasted another twenty minutes of my life (and my mobile phone credit) before saying that if I ordered broadband then you would credit me the £155. My £155, the one that you stole from me.

Fuck me! There are warlords in Somalia who could learn from your techniques. Out of the blue you cut off my phone and internet, then when I asked to be reconnected you tortured me for 2 months and finally when I opted to go elsewhere you went into my bank, took money from me and said I could only have it back if I buy services from you. THIS MUST BE ILLEGAL? Its extortion!

So I had to go back to work and the women in the “appear incompetent whilst surreptitiously robbing peoples bank accounts” department promised to call me back after 5pm, which of course she didn’t. At least at this point we were not expecting a call so we were not disappointed. Low expectations are the key to dealing with you and your organization.

Then three days later, just as we had pretty much given up ever getting this resolved we got a call from a man in the complaints department called Daniel. Daniel appeared like a Knight on a white charger out of the murkey gloom of incompetence and apathy that is your organization. I knew things were going to be different with him because when he called he already knew what was going on. He showed a real understanding of the issues, he shared my frustrations and he offered sensible solutions. He has organiased monies credited to our account. He arranged for engineers to come out and tinker with lines, he didn’t offer us any more wireless routers. He didn’t try and sell us more broadband, he just did his job politely and efficiently. We love Daniel and if this gets sorted it will be solely down to him. Your organization is a disgrace and I humbly suggest that you need to get introspective and make some pretty substantial changes. And if you think I am alone in my woes I suggest you Google “BT customer service” and see what you find. With the exception of the pages you have put up there, it’s not a pretty story

Some statistics from our experience

11 – the number of times we have called your costumer services department

6 – the number of times people have promised to call back and haven’t

5 the number of wireless routers that we have been sent or offered

3.5 the number of months that we have now been without a phone or broadband line

96 – the number of café lattes I have had to buy and drink in order to access the wireless internet in the coffee shop around the corner

5 – the approximate number of years that the stress has reduced by life expectancy by

150,000 the approximate number of people in your organization

149,999 the approximate number of people in your organization that are useless

So we wait in eager anticipation of Monday morning when the engineer comes around to install a new line and then billing department give back the money they stole. When (if) that happens we will be very happy to say

Thank you Daniel and goodbye BT

Facebook privacy

2011-09-28T22:09:00.005+02:00

From i.imgur.com via John T

In the age of the internet we all expect to not pay for products, services and most of the stuff we get online. We rarely think about why people are giving things away and we expect that smart people will invite ways of making money without us having to dig into our pockets. And for many people that is as far as it goes. They prefer not to consider what they are giving up to enable these smart people to make money.

The more skeptical amongst us perhaps understand that many of these services, Facebook, Google, twitter etc. are collecting data and selling it on to advertisers and market research companies. Perhaps you don't find that to concerning. In the early days it seemed like a reasonable deal. You didn't need to be a rocket scientist to figure that all those stupid "Which Star Wars character are you?" quizzes were just cheap psychological profiling to enable better directed advertising. So you avoided them. You also recognized that if you clicked the "Like" button when somebody said they were fly fishing you would get barraged with adverts for fishing rods, waders and river bank holidays . It all seemed easy enough to avoid if it bothered you.

But then things got more much more invasive. There have been a number of articles recently (e.g. here, here and here) highlighting what companies, especially Facebook are up to. Basically Facebook is monitoring every site you visit and is providing info on your web browsing EVEN WHEN YOU ARE NOT LOGGED ON. And for me, that is the point that I decide I have had enough, I value my privacy and find that all a bit too scary. So what to do?

Well you can always opt out altogether and delete your Facebook account. But that seems a bit drastic. I have spent a lot of time travelling around, I have friends spread all over the World and I enjoy hearing what they are up to and keeping in touch with them. Furthermore lots of events are now advertised on Facebook. I don't believe that simply denying the existence of social media is a useful solution, so I went looking for another answer and I found it.

Here is a simple 7 step guide to enjoying the benefits of social media without worrying that privacy is being massively compromised. It has come from a variety of sources, not least the Technology Liberation Front. Read the original article here.

1. Stop using Internet Explorer and get Firefox. Firefox has all sorts of cool add-ins which allow you to customize your browsing experience. Get Firefox here.
2. Then download the browser add on NoScript
3. Once Firefox is up and running, go to TOOLS and then ADD-ONS. Then go to the EXTENSIONS tab on the left and click on NoScript
4. In NoScript go to the OPTOINS menu and click on the ADVANCED tab and then the ABE subtab
5. After checking the ‘Enable ABE’ box, select the USER Rule set, then paste in the following lines:

Site .facebook.com .fbcdn.net facebook.net
Accept from SELF
Accept from .facebook.com .fbcdn.net facebook.net
Deny INCLUSION
Site .twitter.com
Accept from SELF
Accept from .twitter.com
Deny INCLUSION
Site .google.com googleapis.com
Accept from SELF
Accept from .google.com
Deny INCLUSION

6. Then hit ‘Refresh’ and ‘OK’ and you’re all set.

7. If you’ve done this correctly, you should no longer see Facebook, Twitter, or Google widgets such as the "Like" button. To test it out go to site that has a "like" button and you will see that it is no longer there.

It may sound involved but it took me about 5 minutes and its actually very easy. Most importantly it doesn’t affect the functionality of Twitter, Facebook, or Google, so you can still use each of these services with full functionality.

Postscript
Another, perhaps even easier solution is to get rid of IE explorer and install Chrome.
Then go to the chrome store and download "disconnect". Its installs very easily with no scripts or anything. While you are at it install "facebook disconnect" and "adblocker". Now its only google that are stealing your data but at least they produce good free stuff like google earth and google sketch-up

Friday Joke

2011-09-23T16:58:00.003+02:00

Some classic Milton Jones
I’d just like to say to the old man who was wearing camouflage gear and using crutches, who stole my wallet earlier: ‘you can hide, but you can’t run.

When I was young my parents used to say to me: ‘To pay for your education, your father & I had to make a lot of sacrifices’. And it was true, ’cause they were both druids.

I don’t know about you, but I really hate sitting in traffic. ’Cause I always get run over.

If you’re being chased by a police dog, try not to go through a tunnel, then onto a little seesaw, then jump through a hoop of fire. They train for that.

The school had a big problem with drugs… especially Class A.

As a child I watched Mary Poppins so many times I suffered from a condition with my sight. Umdiddleiddleiddleumdiddle Eye.

When my grandfather became ill, my grandmother greased his back. After that, he went downhill very quickly.

My mother made us eat all sorts of vitamins and supplements, until one day I nearly choked on part of The Sunday Times.

Wednesday Movie

2011-09-20T18:10:00.002+02:00

I like to thing that I am largely immune to advertising and branding. I know that much of it is subliminal and I am supposed to think that but I do try hard to ignore ads.

There is an exception, there normally is. I am a sucker for Audi. It started with the Hannu Mikkola driving the revolutionary Audi quattro in the World rally championship in the early 1980's and it was greatly helped along by a couple of adverts - the first shows some stunning winter driving - 34 degrees never looked so steep and it belongs to a generation before CGI when stuntmen actually did stunts.

The second is an absolute belter. I think it is one of the best adverts ever.

It came at a time when being one of Thatchers children was still something people aspried to. The twist in the ad is symbolic of the end of that era, when general public opinion was just starting to realise that greed was not necesarily good.

I love this ad and perhaps it contributes to the fact that we now own two Audis

The reality of "modern" coal mining in the UK

2011-09-18T23:49:00.002+02:00

Following the tragic death of four miners in the Swansea valley last week, I started reading around the health and safety record of our de-regulated coal industry. Whilst doing this I came across this an old article from the Guardian by a guy called Seumas Milne.

Here are a couple of quotes from the article

“On Friday nights in the Welsh valleys, miners go from pub to pub hunting for their employers to claim unpaid wages. Pay cheques bounce, mining companies close and re-open under other names, men are sacked for being union members or refusing to work on Christmas Day.
In some pits, miners get no basic minimum and are only paid by the tub of coal produced. Underground, they stand in streams of water, hacking at the face with picks and shovels. Wooden roof props, are standard”.

“Pit ponies haul rusting carloads of anthracite back and forth from the face. On the surface, there are no showers”.

“Phillip Rees, a 32-year-old miner electrocuted at the Blaengrennig colliery in the Amman valley just over a year ago. "The manager called me up and asked if this boy was one of my members," recalls Anthony Jones, the local National Union of Mineworkers official. It's just there's been a bit of an accident, he told me. I said I'd come right over anyway. He was dead when I got there. They didn't even know where he lived."

Now I would like you to guess when that was written. People paid by the tub of coal, pit ponies, wooden pit props, mine owners who screw their staff when they are alive and don’t even know how to contact families when they die. It sounds like something out of the 1920’s, but this picture of a bygone age is truely shocking because its not 100 or even 50 years ago. It’s from 1994, ten years after the miners strike and the decimation of the UK coal. That is the reality of what Thatcher and her cronies did to one of our proudest industries – knocked it back a hundred years.

Rome

2011-09-18T23:20:00.001+02:00

When I first proposed to Katharine a year and a half ago I had a plan for a honeymoon which involved five weeks around southern Africa in a pickup with a camper shell. Starting in Cape Town, up the west coast into Namibia, along the Skeleton Coast, east along the Caprivi Strip into Botswana. A quick stop in the Okavango, across the Kalahari and back to Cape Town. A chance for me to visit some old stomping grounds and an opportunity for Katharine to see an amazing part of the World. Then we found out that Sophie was on the way and Africa went on hold.

So then we decided on a camper van around Norway, it’s a big country and there is lots to see and since we were leaving it would be nice to have a final fling. But then things got busier and busier and the chances of an extended holiday got proportionally less and less likely. So when I went on “permission” (paternity leave) we decided to squeeze a week in Rome in before Katharine went back to work.

We stayed in the traditional area of Trastevere just by the river. Narrow chaotic streets, small squares, cafes and restaurants on every corner – mopeds whizzing in and out of smart causally dressed people. It was everything you imagine Rome should be. We stayed in a very cool little hotel, with a small courtyard so we could put Sophie to bed and set out in the evening. We were able to walk to all of the sights we wanted to see and spent a full week over dosing on history. Highlights were:
1. Just being in Rome, it was beautiful
2. The Pantheon, 2000 years old and stunning
3. Ancient Rome, was surprised at how small it was but wandering around the forums and up to the Palatine Hill was great
4. The Coliseum, clichéd but still stunning. To imagine the gladiators, the wild animals and the roar of the crowds – amazing
5. The Vatican – had mixed feelings about visiting the home of the Catholic church but from a historic and architectural perspective it was stunning
6. Walking up the hill to the Garibaldi monument and seeing the views of the city.

The Italian people are super friendly, especially to children. Sophie was a huge hit. Not just to middle aged women who always love babies, but to everyone from macho waiters and taxi drivers to tour guides and general passers-by dotted on her. In the restaurants they never complained when we took the pram in (unlike Wetherspoons in Edinburgh who threw Katharine out, despite the fact they were empty). It was a great place to be with a young child.

The traffic is legendary, but despite being busy and chaotic its really not that bad. I have never seen so many Smart cars and they seemed so right. Larger cars, even polos and fiestas looked big, ungainly and out of place. The People are amazing drivers and they can squeeze their small cars into tiny parking spaces. They don’t care too much of they get banged or stretched and tens of thousands of people get into and around town each day. Best of all, it works.

I can’t recommend Rome enough it was fantastic. Having listened to the History of Rome podcast and was really keen to see the ancient parts but was also blown away by the Renaissance and modern bits as well.

Some things are just true

2011-09-16T13:29:00.000+02:00

1. I think part of a best friend's job should be to immediately clear your computer history if you die. 2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.
3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.
4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.
5. How the @#!*% are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?
6. Was learning cursive really necessary?
7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.
8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.
9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind of tired.
10. Bad decisions make good stories.
11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.
12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.
13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.
14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.
15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.
16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Lite than Kay.
17. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Ghetto" routing option.
18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.
19. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?
20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!
21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.
22. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.
23. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

BT - Customer Service

2011-09-15T22:16:00.001+02:00

Dear BT,
I moved into my flat in March 2010 and I signed up for a Broadband and phone package with you then. The router arrived and I was online straight away. For the first 15 months everything worked well and I was a happy costumer.

Then in July 2011 I received an email informing me that, as per my request, you were discontinuing the service. This was not my request, I did not want to be discounted, I was quite happy with the service. I loved BT, it is a part of my heritage, part of my countries history. I had grown with Maureen Lipmann and her Ologies. I had no desire to get my service from any of these upstart companies with lurid graphics and stupid names. I wanted my service direct from the mother company and I didn’t care if it was a bit more expensive because it was BT and that’s British.

I assumed that your desire to break off our relationship and blame it on me was simply confusion, caused by the couple in the flat upstairs who were moving out. So on the 23rd July I called you to say that I was not leaving you and please don’t disconnect me.

The man I spoke to initially insisted that it was me that was breaking up until I pointed out that I had been in Norway on maternity leave for the last three months. He eventually conceded that maybe you had made a mistake and cancelled the service to the wrong flat. But tragically the wheels were in motion on the run-away train of disconnection. Despite the fact that you could stop the service remotely it was technically too challenging to start it again. There was no option, I needed a new router. Despite the fact that the old one is still shinny and sits there blinking away. I can still see it in my wireless network list, but is sadly impotent. Unjustly sterilized by a cruel technician in Bangalore. Despite this inconvenience and obvious waste I agreed to proceed, not yet ready to throw away all we had together.

Then the next day I was called by someone else in BT to inform me that the order I had set up the day before had been cancelled. He claimed that I had cancelled the order which was again untrue. Why are you so keen to blame this break-up on me? If you don’t like me just say.

After a bit of heated discussion he said it would be sorted by the end of the month.

The new router arrived as expected on the 31st August along with a letter and bill for £155. Now this is starting to get random and annoying. The bill is for cancelling service - just to remind you, I NEVER CANCELLED ANYTHING – THAT WAS YOU!

Predictably the service did not come back on of the 1st September. What a fool I was to even think that anything you promised could possibly happen. So again I called BT and after the inevitable half hour of listening to illogical fuckin menus and stupid music I was answered by another mindless drone who again was unable to find my case history on his computer and after 10 minutes of not really listening to what I had to say passed me to another department who are equally disinterested and even more fuckin useless. The final person I spoke to promised it would be back on in 5 days and she would cancel the £155 bill.

I being the eternal optimist agreed to wait. By the 10th September I still have no phone or internet but I had another bill for £155 and, yes wait for it – another fuckin wireless router, that’s three and there is apparently another in the post. You are totally taking the piss. I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

So later on 10th September I called again – why oh why did I bother? And after playing the inevitable game of telephone pass the parcel I was put through to a supervisor called Rohan. Oh good I thought, someone with authority who had risen through the dizzy ranks of customer service. He would be able to help, now I had a chance of getting it sorted. But alas Rohan was even more useless at dealing with costumers than his hapless staff but he did offer to send me another router. He also promised to call back the next day, but again predictably never did.

The next to final straw came on the 11th September when I got a phone message (on my mobile because I still don’t have a land line) from another of your departments who want all their routers back. Perhaps they are running out because the fuckwits in the first department keeping giving them away to anyone who rings up.

Now I genuinely don’t care if your staff are sitting in London, Newcastle or Delhi. I just want somebody who knows what they are talking about and can remotely switch a fuckin internet service back on. How difficult can it be?

So on the 12th September I finally ran out of masochistic tendencies and decided to give up on BT and get my internet from someone else. Sorry! Bugger, the history and the brand loyalty, enough is enough, all of a sudden those upstart comapnies, with their jazzy logos seemed very appealing.

But it was never going to be that easy was it? Oh no!

So I found another company who could supply the internet but they needed BT to provide the line… With that news I got the sinking feeling that you must get when you realize that you are in Rome not Britain and you have just looked the wrong way and stepped in to some very fast moving traffic…

But never one to give up, I had an inspired idea… I called the sales department which was staffed with nice people, who actually know what they are talking about and are keen to help, probably because they don’t yet have your business and want to put on a good show. It also probably helps that they are based in the UK and understand the concept of a house that has been subdivided into two flats.

A very nice man called Daniel spent a long time listening to my wows and figured out the problem. He was very calm and understanding although he also tried very hard to sell me more broadband and another router. He said that we needed a new line and it would cost £130 unless we got broadband from you. It must be a testement to his sales ability that I was even tempted, but the prospect of getting another batch of routers and having to deal with the cretins in tech support in India and the memories of all the pain of the last two months meant that I could not bring myself to do it. No, we just wanted the line and we shouldn’t have to pay for it. He agreed and told me somebody from complaints would call me back within 48 hours. He was so nice I actually believed him. Yes I really was that stupid.

So 48 hours later and no call. Why oh why am I surprised? So I call back and listen to all the tedious menus before giving up and going to sales again. There some brainless Gordie fishwife tells me that I’ll have to hold while she reads my notes, goes off has a cup of tea and then comes back 15 minutes later and says they’ll call me back with five days. What happened to 48 hours? What is so fuckin difficult to understand? You turned the line off JUST TURN THE FUCKIN THING BACK ON. Don’t send any more wireless routers, don’t send any bills for connection or disconnection, don’t make me wait weeks or months, don’t redirect me to a bunch of fuck wits in India, JUST TURN THE FUCKIN LINE ON AND THEN FUCK OFF AND LEAVE ME ALONE! Yes it really is that simple to make me happy.

At this point if I had a nuclear or biological WMD I would consider bringing it to your office and detonating it with prejudice. In fact I might just send it to Maureen Lipmann because ultimate I think its all her fault.

The 9/11 decade - the true cost

2011-09-13T13:23:00.001+02:00

Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US. It's often said that you always remember what you were doing when such events occur and that is certainly true for me in this case. I was in Berwick on Tweed running a field course for a bunch of Nigerians. When the first plane struck I got a text from my then girlfriend who then proceeded to send more text updates through the day. An early version of rolling news on my phone at a time when texting was still novel.

After our day in the field we returned to the hotel to watch dumbstruck as the TV kept repeating the main events. It was indeed shocking. Next morning at breakfast it transpired that the terrified Nigerians had been up all night reading their bibles and they were convinced that the final chapters were playing out and the Revelations were taking place. To them the World was about to end. I remember trying not to knock their superstitions and saying there was no doubt that after the events of that day the World would indeed change for ever. I met one of those Nigerians in Utah three years later and he reminded me of my prediction and we agreed that it had been valid but not in a way either of us had thought. By that stage the west had invaded Afghanistan which was arguably justifiable, at least that is where the terrorists were hiding out, and Iraq, which was utterly unjustifiable.

When I was younger I was obsessed with history and I used to wander how it must have felt to be German in 1937, not an evil bastard Nazi but a normal person? How did it feel to watch your government flaunt international law, unilaterally bully it’s smaller neighbours and invaded sovereign states under an umbrella of thinly veiled lies for justification? Well in 2003 I didn't have to imagine anymore because my government, not just the government of my country but the party I had voted for did exactly that agaisnst the will of its own people and the international community. For that I was, and still am, ashamed to be British.

So while it is poignant to remember the victims of 9/11 perhaps we need to take a broader view of the decade. Let’s look at some statistics

2997 civilians died in the 9/11 attacks
There have been 8813 civilian deaths in Afghanistan
There have been a staggering 1,455,590 civilian deaths in Iraq
2710 international soldiers have died in Afghanistan
6962 international soldiers have died in Iraq
The two wars have cost $1,247,603,518,251 - that's 1.2 trillion dollars.
That's $400 million, 3 soldiers and 490 civilians for ever person who died in the towers.

And that is just the physical and financial cost. There is also reputation. We have systematically abused human rights, flown suspects (many innocent) to dark corners of the World and tortured them. In doing so we have lost all the respect and credibility that we previously had. Not even in the darkest days of the Cold War or WW2 did we behave so badly. Now the people that hate us have ammunition to sway the views of the people who were previously ambivalent or even positive towards us. We have become the evil empire and we are suprised that the World hates us.

So our allies hunted down and killed Bin Laden for what he had done and maybe that was right. I am not liberal enough to feel sadness at his death, the World is a better place without evil fucks like that. But what about the real criminals? Bush, Blair, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice et al. have all walked scott free after causing the deaths of 1.5 million people, destroying 2 countries and bringing down the World's economy. Where is the justice there?

These people should be tried for crimes against humanity, locked up and the key should be thrown away. This is not a joke, it's not even rhetorical, I genuinely think they should be brought to justice for what they have done in our name.

So let's not forget 9/11 but also let's also not forget what a bunch of evil fuckin bastards did in the decade that followed.

David's back...

2011-09-02T09:38:00.003+02:00

From the man who brought us "can I have my spider back?" and "Lost Cat"

Yosemite Video

2011-08-30T22:12:00.000+02:00

Yosemite Valley was made famous by Ansel Adams with his iconic black and white photographs. As well as tourists it is also a mecca for climbers. I visited it twice back in the mid-90's, the second time was on a 3 month climbing road trip around the western US. I was climbing well with a very strong partner and we climbed some amazing routes.

I found this video about life as a climbing photographer in the valley. The narration is a bit annoying but the sceanry and cinamatography are fantastic. The camp 4 collective have some other pretty cool stuff on their vimeo site.

Contingency

2011-08-28T22:58:00.002+02:00

I have always been rather good at leaving things until the last minute and scraping through. It didn't matter if things didn't work out exactly because I am normally at my most creative when things arn't going quite to plan. Logistics for entire field campaigns have been mapped out on paper napkins in diners on the first day of the field season.

It was in that vain that I approached my departure from Norway. A bit of planning and then make the rest up as I go along... However, this year though things have proved a bit tougher than anticipated.

First up, I thought I had a robust plan for what would happen in work when I went on paternity leave after Sophie was born. But no, the woman who was supposed to cover for me while I was away randomly quit and I had to come back early. Then to add to work chaos another senior guy also quit and that sealed it. Instead of the easy(ish) year I had planned for it turned into doing three jobs, no paternity leave, no honeymoon and no summer holiday! Good job my wife is so understanding.

Meanwhile at the house, I spent all of my spare time over the summer getting it ready to sell, building steps, painting, fixing stuff with a plan to put it on the market it August. That's a great time to sell a house like the lair, after the holidays but before the autumn sets in. Then, two weeks before it was due to go on the market the water tank and pump stopped working. Now, to cut a long story short I have to get put on to mains water which being Norway takes at least a month and costs a kings ransom. So the house sale is delayed.

Last weekend I spent all saturday cleaning up the boat to put it in the water to sell this weekend. When we went to launch it the engine started fine but the steering seized. Off to the boat shop for at least a week which means I will miss the selling it this year window. Bugger.

Then the tumble dryer stopped working and the hot tub controlling went dicky. Both of these are being sold with the house and have been running fine for the last five years. If they had waited a month then it would not have been my problem - grrr!

So is it bad planning or is it my fault because I am trying to do everything at the last minute? Just when I think "its going to be tight but I think we can get all this done" then something else fucks up. I don't think you could have predicted all these things going wrong but building a bit more contingency into the planning would have made it all a lot easier...

...but then again where's the fun in that?

Monkey See Monkey Do

2011-08-26T18:13:00.000+02:00

A monkey one day managed to break free from the laboratory where he had been born and brought up. As he scurried away from the fencing of the compound, he felt grass under his little feet and saw the dawn breaking for the first time in his life.
"Wow, this is great," he thought. It wasn't long before he came to a hedge and after squeezing under it he saw a wonderful sight.
Lots of other monkeys, all free and nibbling on bananas. "Hey," he called. "I'm a monkey from the laboratory and I've just escaped. Are you wild monkeys?"
"Yes. Come and join us," they cried.
Our friend trotted over to them and started eating the bananas. It tasted so good. "What else do you wild monkeys do?" he asked. "Well," one of them said. "You see that field there? It's got carrots growing in it. We dig them up and eat them." This, he couldn't resist and he spent the next hour eating the most succulent carrots. They were wonderful.
Later, he asked them again, "What else do you do?"
"You see that tree there? It's got papayas growing in it. We eat that as well."
The papayas tasted just as good and he returned a while later completely full. "It's fantastic out here in the world" he told them. "So are you going to live with us then?" one of them asked.
"I'm sorry, I had a great time but I can't." The wild monkeys all stared at him, a bit surprised.
"Why? We thought you liked it here."
"I do," our friend replied. "But I must get back to the lab. I'm dying for a cigarette."
___________________
Meanwhile in West Africa

Canyonlands Climbing - wednesday movie

2011-08-24T07:12:00.001+02:00

Really nice climbing video from one of my favorite place on Earth

The Russ - From intrepid explorers to drunk students

2011-08-22T07:10:00.000+02:00

The westwards exploratory journeys of the Vikings are well known. From their base in Scandinavian they raid, traded and eventually conquered most of the UK, the Faroe Isles, Iceland, Greenland. They even reached NE America (Vinland) 500 years before Columbus.

Their eastern travels are equally as impressive although less well popularized. Vikings from the Roslagen region of eastern Sweden headed east, through the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, entering the continent by the modern day St Petersburg. Then via a series of rivers, lakes and overland hauls they reached the Volga River which flows south to the Caspian Sea. From there they managed to reach Persia and Bagdad. A second group headed south westwards to the Black Sea and into Turkey. Once the routes were established they routinely traded with Islamic and Turkish merchants.
As they trading routes become more used some of the Vikings stayed behind to settle riverside trading towns, they interbred with the local Slavic peoples. It has been suggested that these people gave their name “Rus” to the modern day region we call Russia.

Fast forward 700 years to the 18th Century and Norwegian students arriving in Danish universities (Norway was ruled by Denmark and had no universities of its own) were humiliated by the more sophisticated locals and made to endure an initiation ceremony. Part of this involved them being called Russ which came from the Danish word Rus for yokel.

Fast forward another 200 years and Norwegian high school students spend the last 17 days of their school career dressed in red overalls getting very drunk and pulling “wacky” stunts. From the start of May to the 17th, distinctive looking gangs maraud around the town centre, drinking and misbehaving. The majority of this is very good natured and no shops are burnt or looted. While the sensibilites of the older generation are occasionally upset everyone sees it as a harmless tradition.

It’s an interesting cultural lineage from warrior-explorers who named a nation to drunk kids flashing their boobs and shouting a lot.

(To learn more about the Volga Vikings I suggest listening to this podcast from the BBC. It’s fascinating.)

Life with Sophie

2011-08-21T23:45:00.000+02:00

Sophie came in to our lives 6 months. It's incredible how such a small person can have such an impact. Her arrival changed pretty much every aspect of how we live. While we have lost a lot of the freedom that we once cherished we have gained something much better.

Watching her grow up is fascinating. For the first three months, she simply fed and slept with the occasional a bit of crying thrown in for good measure. Heather, an old friend told me that human babies are born 3 months too early, because of the head size. That actually they are not ready for the world until they are three months old. I am not sure if that is based on any scientific study but it’s a good observation. It also helped us get through that initial period.

After three months things really started to get interesting. First she smiled when she saw us, that smile is incredibly rewarding because it’s the first time you know that they are really aware of you. Then she started to reach for things and pretty soon anything she could get hold of went straight into her mouth. Next she could pass things from one hand to the other, increasing dexterity and awerness. Two weeks ago she managed to roll over for the first time. Katharine can in from the kitchen and there she was, lying on her front looking very pleased with herself. Previous to that she had been happy to lie on her back and kick like crazy while we sang “the grand ole duke of york”.

Last week she learnt to wave and she has also discovered her reflection. She spent a 5 hour car journey waving at the baby in the mirror and chuckling when she waved back. Everyday she becomes less of a helpless baby and more of a little person.

I could never have imagined, before she arrived, how much it’s possible to love one little person. We are blessed to have a happy little girl and she already gives us more than we could have hoped for. Katharine has risen to the challenge and is an awesome Mum, repeatedly getting up through the night, figuring out when she can start on solid food and learning all this stuff that is so new to us. Soon she goes back to work and its my turn, although I suspect she has done the tough bit. I am really looking forward to it.

(Photo by Mike Sivyer, check out his awesome website at http://www.mikesivyer.co.uk/ )

Evil Lair before and after photos

2011-08-21T22:04:00.000+02:00

Last week we had the photographer around to take photos of the house for selling.

With the place being clean and tidy I took the opportunity to dig out some old photos that were taken before the place was renovated and to try and recreate the same field of view...

Some of the results are shown below - I can't believe how bad it actually was when I moved in, especially the downstairs which was squalid.

Rather nostalgic...

Friday Joke... Academic perception

2011-08-19T12:26:00.000+02:00

More of an observation really.
Its a perception matrix that shows how different people in the academic food chain see one another...

I hope my favorite Technician Jonny Kav is reading this...

Have a nice weekend

Wednesday Movie - the Nuclear Age

2011-08-17T07:43:00.001+02:00

Amazing movie showing all of the nuclear bomb tests since 1945. The movie is 14 mins long but strangely compelling.
Courtesy of Gonzalo

Friday Joke on Sunday

2011-08-14T19:23:00.001+02:00

English is no longer just the language spokne by people in England. It is now also the global, universal language, much as Latin was in the middle ages.

But there is so much more to language than just the basic words, just as there is more to a cathedral than a pile of bricks. Much is lost in the subtlety of the phrase. The following translation from British English to Euro English is an excellent example of this.

Courtesy of Ola

Riots in the UK

2011-08-11T23:36:00.001+02:00

There is not too much to say that hasn't already been said really.
A bunch of feral scum trashing their own communities and as soon as they are given a platform they immediately blame it on everyone except themselves. These two girls are particularly vacuous and unpleasant, while this guy clearly has a huge chip on his shoulder (its worth fast fwd to 1.30).

Meanwhile the long suffering Police are encumbered by ridiculous HSE rules and are highly demoralized by a government that doesn’t give a shit. I most certainly do not want to live in a police state and I don’t want a return to the corruption and thuggary that led to the Toxteth riots of the early 1980s. I would like a police force that doesn't shot random Brazilians in tube stations or knock over middle aged men who are on the way home and then lie about it when they later die. BUT at the same time when a scally, hiding behind a face mask runs at the police with an iron bar, I would like to see the police kick seven shades of crap out of him. There is a very big difference between herding peacefully protesting school kids into alleyways for 6 hours and giving a thug the hiding he clearly deserves. I would like to the police arresting chav scum that burns down shops because they want a pair of trainers and I would like see that police force backed up by the people and the gutless bunch of old Etonians that run the country.

Meanwhile the government bluster and posture and basically prove how truly out of touch with everyone they really are. Interestingly, before the election Clegg predicted riots if the Tories got in, and then, rather bizarrely, he then put them in power. Maybe he wanted the riots? Also interest to see in that clip is to listen to that utter wanker, Cameron saying that the country understands we need the cuts and no one will protest. Well he was wrong about that as well then wasn’t he.

And then he has the nerve to stand up in parliament the very next day and say that cutting 16000 police is still on the cards – what an utter dickhead. Well the police are starting to track down the offenders and they could do a lot worse than start in the house of parliament which contains a 650 offenders who routinely lie and just last year were finally caught swindling tax payers out of thousands of pounds.

So once again we see how close to the edge society really is. These “protesters” are not politically motivated; they are just opportunistic shitheads with no sense of society. But how do people end up like that? How did we get to the point that such people exist? Is it due to a liberal society that gives them too much leading to a bizarre, misplaced sense of entitlement or is it due to a society that feeds on consumerism while simultaneously abandoning significant portion of its members.

I don’t have an answer, neither do I have any faith that the current government can sort it out

Wednesday Movie

2011-08-11T23:07:00.002+02:00

This is rather cool and very short
Courtesy of Chris D

Svalbard Tragedy

2011-08-11T23:05:00.000+02:00

On the 6th August on the arctic island of Svlabard a 17 year old British school boy named Horatio Chappie was mauled to death by a polar bear. Two other boys sharing the tent were badly injured as was a trip leader who tried to shot the bear. This is clearly a tragedy for all concerned, not least the boy and his family. Polar bears are serious shit! They are the only mammal that routinely hunt humans. The world get a whole lot scarier when you are not at the top of the food chain and there is a hungry, skillful 300 kg predator out to get you.

Chappie was on a British Schools Exploring Society expedition. BSES is a charity that aims to get young adults out on adventures in remote parts of the World. That is something I am fully in favour of. Its clearly better that smashing up your community and looting a flat screen TV and a pair of trainers. I even have a couple of friends who went on BSES trips and have nothing but good things to say about the society and the trip they went on.

However, I was talking to a Norwegian friend today who has spent a lot of time in Svalbard and knows a thing or two about avoid and dealing with polar bears. He was rather scathing about the BSES organization and from what he said I have to agree that this tragedy would appear to have been avoidable. He made the following points

1. The group appears to have only had one rifle. This is not enough for any group, there is no redundancy in the system and if the rifle fails, as appears to have done four times here then the entire group is defenseless. Everyone in Svalbard carried a rifle. When Hilary Clinton visited the CIA demanded that the Governor of Svalbard disarm all the people wandering through town with guns. He laughed at them

2. When camping in a small group people set out trip wires attached to flairs to scare the bears and alert the campers. With a larger group such as this one it is normal to post a guard with people taking two hours shifts. This appears not to have been done, despite the group being large enough for everyone to take a turn and still get some sleep. Why?

3. The trip wire system appears not to have worked. Why?

4. They were also carrying a flair gun that didn’t work. Its not looking very good guys

Lots of questions and none of them bring back the dead boy or diminish the impact of the tragedy. There have been several incidents in the last few years and it appears that the shrinking ice coverage means that the bears are unable to catch seals and are getting more and more desperate as they become more hungry. What ever the cause I hope that the BSES tighten up their act but I also hope that they don’t stop taking kids on wild adventures in very remote places.

Obama gives in to the loony right - America is toast

2011-08-04T08:42:00.003+02:00

So a minority group of gun totting, christian fundamentalists have hijacked America's democracy and held the country and indeed the World's economy to ransom. It's very depressing.

There is an interesting article in yesterday's Guardian highlighting that the vast majority of the Tea Party voters will not benefit in an any way from all the tax and spending cuts. Only the ultra-rich will. This is why they fund these campaigns. So the propoganda machine that is Fox news somehow manages to convince a bunch of very stupid people that "Christian values" mean not helping the sick and the poor but supporting the ultra-rich. If it wasn't so scary it would be funny.

Read the article and also take a look at these graphs below which come from an independant, bipartisan Congressional Budget Office and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (courtesy of Roy Fitz).

Roy and Viktorija's wedding in Vilnius

2011-08-02T23:42:00.001+02:00

We spent a very pleasant long weekend in Vilnius for Roy and Viktorija's wedding. She is Lithuanian, he is half Welsh and half Finish and they both live in Norway. There was a lot of people who didn't really understand each other. And it didn't matter at all because everyone had a great time. There was much drinking and some very silly dancing that transcended language.

I have wanted to visit the Baltic States since they first appeared on a map in my 4th year history lesson (I was 14) and I thought "wow 3 European countries I have never heard of". That was 1981 and since then I heard a lot about them and there has been huge changes, but I have never quite made it out there. So this was the perfect oportunity.

And it was great, Vilnius is a small city with lots of amazing history and some really good bars and restuarants. The wedding was everything a wedding should be. Excellently planned with lots of nice details. Good to see Roy so happy and nice to catch up with some old friends.

All in all a top weeekend and Sophie has now visited more countries in her first six months than I managed by the age of 20.

Interesting statues and churches in Vilnius

The Happy Couple

Newly wed couples lock an engraved padlock to a bridge and throw the key in the river

Lighting lanterns at midnight

The day after

All in all a rather nice city

Anders Behring Breivik is above all a COWARD.

2011-07-24T21:59:00.001+02:00

What kind of evil fuck detonates a huge bomb in a city centre and then heads to an island full of children and then sets about systematically murdering them? It is truely incomprehensible. Even the worst attrocites of the IRA or ETA don't come close. Nothing in the gun crazed US matches this and while the bombing of civillians in Iraq and Afganistein are equally tragic for the victims, they are not meticulously planned and callously executed by their own people. Maybe in the deepest darkest parts of war torn Congo, or in Rawanda such things have happened, but not in a quiet, peaceful and gentle country like Norway.

One thing that has not been said by anyone I have spoken to or read is that Anders Behring Breivik is above all a COWARD.

First he bombed a city centre, which in itself is a cowardly act. But even at the time this act didn't quite make sense. Anyone who knowns anything about Norway knows that the cities are empty and the mountain cabins are full in late July, especially on a Friday afternoon - it all seemed wrong?

And indeed it was wrong becuase the bomb was mearly a distraction, a clever decoy and while all eyes turned on the devestated town centre, Breivik drove two hours away, took a boat to a small island full of 700 kids on a youth camp. He then set about murdering them for the next hour. When the police arrived he immediately surendered.

All of this is so cowardly in every way! To kill unarmed people with a machine gun; to kill children, not even adults who might fight back. To give up as soon as the police arrived and not even kill himself. This man is utterly pathetic and as such a typical nazi bully.

Norway on the other hand has shown itself to be hugely dignified in the face of such loss. Many commentators were quick to predict the "end of the innocance" but I am not so sure. I think people here value the openess and trust of their society too much to let some evil Nazi coward take it all away. After 9/11 George "war-monger" Bush decleared that the United States would "hunt down and destroy the perpetrators", while after last Friday, Jens Stoltenberg said that "Norway would retaliate with more democracy".

And that is what is so great about Norway...

Friday Joke - Condoms

2011-07-22T12:41:00.000+02:00

Interesting piece of history.
The Arabs invented the condom in 700 BC, using a goat's lower intestine.
In 1873 the British somewhat refined the idea by taking the intestine out of the goat first.

Q. What does a rattlesnakes and a rubber have in common?
A. I know I don't wanna screw with either one of them.

Two old ladies were outside their nursing home, having a smoke when it started to rain. One of the ladies pulled out a condom, cut off the end, put it over her cigarette and continued smoking.

Lady 1: "What's that?"
Lady 2: "A condom. This way my cigarette doesn't get wet."
Lady 1: "Where did you get it?"
Lady 2: "You can get them at any drugstore."
The next day ... Lady 1 hobbles herself into the local drugstore and announces to the pharmacist that she wants a box of condoms. The guy looks at her kind of strangely (she is, after all, over 80 years of age), but politely asks what brand she prefers
Lady 1: "It doesn't matter as long as it fits a Camel."

The government today announced that it is changing its emblem from an eagle to a condom because it more accurately reflects the government's political stance. A condom stands up to inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks, and gives you a sense of security while you're actually being screwed.

The Wednesday Whale

2011-07-20T18:19:00.001+02:00

There were whales in Bergen harbour last weekend which was rather awesome.
A while ago I found this on the internet and forgot to post it. I think its pretty amazing and well worth watching.
It's a home movie by a group of fishermen who find a whale entagled in an old fishing net - its really rather moving, espeically the end. Enjoy.

Whales in Bergen harbour

2011-07-18T19:22:00.000+02:00

A pod of grindhvale (pilot whales) have been spotted in and around Bergen harbour. About one hundred including lots of mothers and babies. The locals are justifiably very excited. Lots of good pictures here.

This joyous event comes on the same day that Norway voted with Japan and Iceland at the ongoing IWC meeting in Jersey to block the establishment of a southern Ocean whale sanctuary.

The irony is crushing!

2011 part 1

2011-07-11T23:38:00.004+02:00

So here we are half way through what is undoubtably the busiest year of my life so far. Any previous complaints about being "very busy" are blown out of the water by this battle cruiser of a year!

So far 2012 has seen the birth of our daughter and a rather substantial increase in personal responsibility. I was warned that "it will f**k yer life up, in the best possible way" and I think that's a pretty good summary for what has happened. Everything has changed and it's great. She is such an amazing addition to our lives that it is very hard to imagine life without her. I am very lucky to be in this adventure with Katharine and we are both excited to see who she grows up to be, but there is no rush, everyday brings something new.

We also got married this year and to make things even more complicated we did it three times. First time was in Leeds registry office where we did the legal bit. Then we had a party at Mytholme for our UK family and friends followed by a similar bash in Bergen for our Norwegian based friends. I think the take-away from two weeks of partying was that we are really lucky to have so many great friends who really know how to party. We are now well and truly married and it feels good.

We have spent most of the spare time this summer getting the house in Norway ready to sell. Lots of jobs that never got finished because going climbing or kayaking was more appealing are all suddenly getting done. The place looks good! Shame to be leaving! Still I have enough photos of the sunset for a game of "sunset snap" and my year long time lapse project was finished, so I will have lots of good memories to take away. Eight years has flown by but I still love this place. The thing that will make it all worth while is that we have an awesome place to go to in Scotland.

We got the planning approved on Cowieswells and we should be starting building work in September. We are both very excited about it and we're getting very impatient waiting for it to get started. There is lots to think about, not least bathrooms, kitchens, what type of land rover to buy, what type of veg to grow in the garden and llamas vs alpacas. It's all very exciting.

Work going well, after lots of delays the company is now drilling its first three wells. From feast to famine! Still its what we have spent the last five years working for so we shouldn't complain. First one is at least a discovery and we will know more about the next two before the end of this week. Exciting times!

To add chaos to the busy-ness two key people, including the guy who founded the company with me and the woman who was supposed to cover for me during my paternity leave, quit in feb. That threw a serious spanner in the works and meant that I had to come back early after Sophie was born and we aren't getting a honeymoon. That was no big deal, but then when they started to poach away key people while bullshitting about how much they care about the company, then I got pissed off. It's really frustrating to watch people you thought were friends trying to wreck everything that you have worked for... Still as we keep saying "it's not meant to be easy, if it was easy then somebody else would have already done it".

Work at the Uni is going great. It's good to have such a good bunch of guys (and girl) to work with. Every time I spend time with them I wish there was more days in the week and I had more time to work on this stuff. Still I am very lucky to have the option to do both jobs and next year...

And that's about it for the year so far, had child, got married, designed house, drilled three wells, prepared house for sale... Part 2 of 2011 will be, sell house, move country, build house and drill two more wells, sounds daunting but it feels pretty good to be half way through the madness and I reckon the hardest bit is behind us.

And as for 2012, who knows?

NotW Jokes

2011-07-08T17:02:00.003+02:00

Wow, who saw that coming? Harry Potter and the News of the World. Two of the biggest selling copies of modern fiction ending in the same week.

When I read the headline, 'News of The World is shut', I thought it was a typo.

That's very inconsiderate of Rupert Murdoch to close down the News of the World.
What's my cat supposed to shit on now?

Good to see News Of The World editor Rebekah Brooks following in the footsteps of Paul Scholes.
Hacking people due to the fact they're bitter and twisted about being a little ginger twat.

Journalists at Rupert Murdoch's daily tabloid have been consoled by the Australian media magnate over the closure of the News of the World.

He told them not to think of it as the death of a sister newspaper, but rather the birth of a new Sun.

Rebekah Brooks is leading the investigation into the News of the World phone hacking.
How about we get Ronald McDonald to look into childhood obesity?

The News of the Screws!

2011-07-06T23:11:00.001+02:00

I have stayed away from blogging (ranting) about politics for a while because there is too much going on in real life to get stressed out about a bunch of twats in London. Also there are too many good things going on in my life to feel angry about pretty much anything.

However, I will make an exception for the current News of the World phone hacking story. The back story, if you don't follow the UK news, is that a paper called the News of the World, which is the pits of the UK gutter press; skanks getting plugged by married footballers, celebrates failing rehab etc etc, all with an unhealthy dose of moral indignation, racisim and sexism thrown in; has just stirred up a whole heap of shit.

The case revolves around the paper using private detectives to hack the mobile phones of "news worthy" people for information a few years ago. This is clearly illegal, but nobody really cared too much because the only people effected were a bunch of vacuous media whores who spend half their lives trying to get into the news and the other half bitching about invasion of privacy.

So the Guardian kept bringing up the story and everyone ignored it, despite the fact it was clear that the Police had taken bribes to not investigate the case properly; the governements chief media consultant was the ex-editor of the NotW and finally the paper is owned by super scumbag Rupert Murdoch to whom the governement is about to handover compelete control of satalite TV in the UK. If all this it sounds like a nasty corrupt, tin-pot Third World dictatorship, its because that is what my homeland has become.

But the fair people of Britian didn't really give a monkeys as long as they could read about Lyndsey Lohan's drug problems and Spud face Rooney's love of massage parlour exploits. The general population ignored the fact that their police force could be bought by journalists and their politicians were self-serving scum, content to be drip fed a constant stream of mindless tittle-tattle. That was right up to the point when it emerged that the same private detectives had hacked the mobile phone of a young girl called Milly Dowler, who was abducated and murdered a few years ago. Could it get worse? Well actually yes, because after he had hacked the phone and listened to the messages from her distraught friends and family looking for her, he then deleated them to make more room on her voicemail box. This led the police to believe that she was still alive and focus on her parents private lives which was not only stressful for them but also resulted in the real killer being able to escape and kill again, at least twice! Whoops!

The private detective is a gutter crawling twat - no doubt about it. I am sure that by the time he gets out of prison next time (he has already been in once), he won't be too keen to pick up the soap in the shower. But the real scumbags here are the bosses of the NotW like Rebeke Wade who are falling over themselves to claim they were on holiday at the time and claim they knew nothing about it, despite in the minimum fostering the culture that laid to that sort of behavour and at worse sanctioning it and paying tens of thousands of pounds to the police to cover it up.

But even lower than Murdoch and his cronies are our disgrace of a government. David Camer-wrong who employed ex NotW editor Andy Coulsden as his press secetary and until the heat got too much was defending him to the hilt. Only when the public indignation got too great did he suddenly, sensing the way the wind was blowing, change tack. What a lying, spineless, gutter snip. And still they are lining up to give Murdoch control of BSkyB - its an utter disgrace. How low can my country sink?

Wednesday Movie

2011-07-06T21:53:00.003+02:00

Just when I was getting pleased with my time lapse skills I found this!
Absolutely stunning.
If you enjoyed that, check out his blog http://www.terrastro.com/galleries/
Enjoy

Summer Joke

2011-07-01T14:50:00.000+02:00

Summer in Bergen is a joke, so here is another summer joke
____________

One hot summer day, a man is filling up his black pickup truck at the local gas station. He isn't very careful, and he gets gasoline all over his jacket's left sleeve. He ignores it, and leaves the station after paying for the gas. As he's driving down the highway, the heat of the sun on his truck's black paint is enough to ignite his jacket sleeve. He drives faster, waving his arm out the window in an attempt to extinguish the flames, but they burn hotter! As he speeds down the highway, a state trooper sees the situation and pulls him over. He jerks the man out of the truck and rolls him on the ground until the fire is extinguished. As the man dusts himself and thanks his rescuer, he sees the officer is writing him a summons! Confused, he asks, "You're writing me a ticket!? What for?" The officer replies, "Posession of an illegal fire arm."

And a joke about large people
A woman was terribly overweight, so her doctor put her on a diet. "I want you to eat regularly for two days, then skip a day, and repeat this procedure for two weeks. The next time I see you, you'll have lost at least 5 pounds."

When the woman returned, she shocked the doctor by losing nearly 20 pounds.
"Why, that's amazing!" the doctor said. "Did you follow my instructions?"
The woman nodded. "I'll tell you though, I thought I was going to drop dead that third day."
"From hunger, you mean?" "No, from all that skipping."

Wednesday Movie - view from my living room window

2011-06-28T21:46:00.000+02:00

This weeks wednesday movie was made by me and it can be seen here
There is also a version with a soundtrack here which seems to work in some places but not others.

Background
Over a year ago I got interested in timelapse photography. Since then I have experimented with a variety of different setups and methods which I have published here and on my youtube channel.

The most ambitious project has been to take pictures of the view from the Evil Lair once every 4 hours for a year. To make it more challenging I decided to create HDR pictures for each shot.

So the set up was an old nikon D70 powered from the mains, connected to an old laptop. In order to get the bracketing required for the HDR I needed to use the Nikon camera controller software. I must say at this point it really pisses me off that Nikon charge you thousands of pounds (or dollars) for a camera and then have the nerve to try and change you hundreds more for the software to use it!

Anyway the software was installed and the whole thing rigged up. I set the camera to automatic exposure bracketing one stop either side. The shots were taken at midnight, 4am, 8am, midday, 4pm, and 8pm. I thought this would reflect the changes through the year nicely.

Everything was running ok until I went to Utah in May. When I came back I found out the computer had crashed while I was away and I had lost a few days. This became a bit of a theme. I can not figure out why the laptop would crash, it was only running one piece of software, not connected to the internet and doing the same thing everyday but random times it would, normally after a month or so. I realised I could reduce this by restarting it every couple of weeks but I still lost a couple of blocks. The worse was when I was in Aberdeen for Sophie's birth and I lost the entire month of February (gained a daughter so I can't complain). Still very annoying.

I decided to stop at mid-summer, so I would have just over an entire year. Once the date came I downloaded all the pictures (about 6000). I am batch processing the HDR but in the meantime I decided to make the movie just from the single images, to see how it would work.

Its not practical to run the pics in order because within a day the contrast between night and day is overwhelming so that at 10 frames per second it just flashes light and dark twice a second. So instead I made seperate movies for the different times and the stacked them back to back. This way you can see how the length of the days changes with the weather through the year.

I am rather pleased with it. I compiled it in windows movie maker. I added Pink Floyds "learning to fly" as a sound track which seemed to fit well. When I uploaded it to youtube I got a message to say that it was blocked in numerous countries because of copyright, so I made a second version with no sound. I expect this means that less people will buy Floyds album now but that's EMIs loss - twats.

Anyway hope you enjoy the movie, I will post the HDR version when I get it processed

Ole and Sven in Hell

2011-06-24T00:02:00.000+02:00

Ole and Sven are from Minnesota. They die in a snowmobiling accident, drunker than skunks and go to Hell. The Devil observes that they are really enjoying themselves. He says to them 'Doesnt the heat and smoke bother you?' Ole replies, 'Vell, ya know, ve're from nordern Minnesooota, da land of snow an ice, an ve're yust happy fer a chance ta varm up a little bit, ya know.'

The devil decides that these two aren't miserable enough andturns up the heat even more. When he returns to the room of the two from Minnesota , the devil finds them in light jackets and hats, grilling Walleye and drinking beer. The devil is astonished and exclaims, 'Everyone down here is in misery, and you two seem to be enjoying yourselves?' Sven replies, 'Vell, ya know, ve don't git too much varm veather up dere at da Falls, so ve've yust got ta haff a fish fry vhen da veather's dis nice.'

The devil is absolutely furious. He can hardly see straight. Finally he comes up with the answer. The two guys love the heat because they have been cold all their lives. The devil decides to turn all the heat off in Hell. The next morning, the temperature is 60 below zero, icicles are hanging everywhere, and people are shivering so bad that they are unable to wail, moan or gnash their teeth. The devil smiles and heads for the room with Ole and Sven. He gets there and finds them back in their parkas, bomber hats, and mittens. They are jumping up and down, cheering, yelling and screaming like mad men.

The devil is dumbfounded, 'I don't understand, when I turn up the heat you're happy. Now its freezing cold and you're still happy. What is wrong with you two?' They both look at the devil in surprise and say, 'Vell, don't ya know, if hell iss froze over, dat must mean da Vikings von da Super Bowl.'

Married life

2011-06-17T22:36:00.003+02:00

People keep asking what it feels like to be married
So I decided to post this from diamondgeezers blog which I think sums it up quite well

Single: You get the whole duvet to yourself.
Coupled: You don't need a hot water bottle.

Single: There's half as much ironing to do.
Coupled: There's twice as much ironing to do but there somebody else to do it.

Single: You can hoover the floor when you think it needs doing.
Coupled: Somebody else hoovers the floor before you think it needs doing.

Single: Nobody ever tells you that the kitchen must be repainted and the bathroom must be retiled.
Coupled: Two people can repaint the kitchen or retile the bathroom far more quickly than one.

Single: You never have to waste a Saturday doing what somebody else wants.
Coupled: You never sit around on a Saturday wondering what the hell to do.

Single: You can play your music collection really loud, even the track that nobody else likes.
Coupled: Your music collection is double the size and you have someone to dance with.

Single: You can watch whatever TV channel you like, without arguments.
Coupled: There's somebody else on the sofa to snuggle up to.

Single: You don't have to put up with somebody else's niggly annoying habits.
Coupled: Somebody else puts up with your niggly annoying habits.

Single: The toilet seat is always where you left it.
Coupled: The toilet seat isn't always freezing cold.

Single: You never come home to a blazing row.
Coupled: You sometimes come home to a cooked meal.

Single: You get to eat the whole ready meal for two yourself.
Coupled: It takes just as long to cook for two as it does for one.

Single: You can spend all your money on yourself.
Coupled: There are two salaries coming in and only one set of bills

Single: You can walk away from a flatshare, any time.
Coupled: You can afford a mortgage, together.

Single: There are no important birthdays or anniversaries to accidentally forget.
Coupled: Somebody actually remembers your birthday.

Single: You never have to buy useless presents for your partner, just for the sake of it.
Coupled: Somebody buys you presents occasionally, and it's the thought that counts.

Single: Nobody insists on coming over to yours for Christmas.
Coupled: Everybody insists on coming over to yours for Christmas.

Single: You're allowed to flirt with people you meet.
Coupled: You don't need to flirt with people you meet.

Single: You can still have a riotous social life in your 30s.
Coupled: You can still have a riotous social life in your 60s.

Single: You have no friends to go out with because they've all partnered off and are staying in.
Coupled: You don't have to go out with those annoying friends you had while you were single.

Single: You don't catch every sniffle, cold and flu bug off your partner.
Coupled: When you suffer a major cardiac arrest, somebody actually notices and dials 999.

Single: If you meet the partner of your dreams, it's not too late to marry them.
Coupled: You already met the partner of your dreams

Single: You never get your heart broken.
Coupled: You sometimes feel your heart leap.

Single: You can have sex with anyone you like.
Coupled: You can have sex whenever you like.

Single: The bathroom is always free.
Coupled: The bedroom is always full.

Single: You can lie in bed in the morning for as long as you like.
Coupled: There's a very good reason for lying in bed in the morning.

Single: Nobody sees what you look like first thing in the morning.
Coupled: Somebody loves you despite what they see first thing in the morning.

Wednesday Movie - Perspective on the Universe

2011-06-14T21:46:00.000+02:00

The galaxy song from Monty Pythons Meaning of Life is an oldie but a good place to start

And while you are at it check out this and this which also give an interesting view on our place within the Universe

Wedding - Parts 1 and 2

2011-06-13T21:31:00.001+02:00

So we are having a three part wedding. Part 1 was the legal bit at the Leeds registry office, Part 2 was the party at Katharine's Mum's house in Yorkshire and Part 3, yet to come, will be a party in Bergen.

Part 1 was on Friday the 3rd June. I hadn't realized that the Thursday was Ascension Day, so another religious excuse for a long weekend which meant that the flights were all chaos and expensive. So I ended up flying to Manchester. MAN used to be my main airport when I lived in Liverpool and it was strongly nostalgic passing through after being away for 10 years. I was picked up by my bro and we headed to Yorkshire. Not sure if it is the sat nav or whether Yorkshire only contains narrow back roads but I always have this feeling that I am A) lost and B) not going via a very direct route. We arrived in time for pizza.

Thursday was spent getting stuff ready, including mowing a large field of grass for car parking with two very small tractors mowers. Fun. The house and garden were looking fantastic and everyone had put in so much effort to make everything nice for us, it was moving. The reality was starting to dawn on me, I was getting married!

Two men went to mow, went to mow a meadow...

Friday we headed to Leeds registry office to do part one. There was Katharine and I, Sophie, Pat (Katharine’s mum), Laura Lolly, Les and Elin. We drove on small back roads (this time following Rik not the sat nav) and the traffic was terrible. The UK legal system insists that you go through a ceremony which is short and to the point. The woman who conducted the ceremony was lovely and it actually felt a lot more special than I had thought it would. The registrar selected some music at random and it was Greig, which was rather fitting and it all felt rather special.

We signed the register, took some photos and headed to a restaurant across the way for nibbles and champagne. Part 1 done!

Smiles all round

Back at Mytholme, folks had already started arriving and Friday night we had a very pleasant evening by the pool drinking and eating. Great to catch up with folk and the weather was stunning.

A meal with family and friends before the big day

Saturday dawned overcast but that was fine, it was a bit cooler. People arrived, I was banned from seeing Katharine while she got ready. Dougal arrived with his E-type Jag which I held built into the service so I could take it for a spin. Les and I got into our kilts. This was the first time we had ever worn them (apart from trying them on Thursday). Felt good and Les quickly got over his initial reservations of “being in skirt that looks like a picnic blanket”. When we first unpacked all the stuff it was a minefield. We had no idea of what to do with half of it but we soon figured it out. We were wearing a Welsh tartan (St Davids). There is actually a Howell tartan but it’s not common enough that anywhere rents it.

Men in skirts- looking good!

So we greeted a few folk then climbed into the Jag. I had tested it with Dougal and it felt like driving a very fast, old car. Fun but scary. After a little bit of getting a feel we took it up on the moors and through its paces before heading back to Mytholme, after 30 mins of razing I felt ready to get married with a big smile on my face.

We arrived and stood in our appointed spot. Everyone else was assembled in the open tent. The musicians fired up the Hovis tune and Katharine appeared from the house looking gorgeous. We walked in together and the cameras were going like crazy.

A very happy couple

Helen did a fantastic job of leading the ceremony that we had written and it all went perfectly to plan. After the ceremony we led the procession out and then greeted everyone at the main marque. Lots of old friends to catch up with and the time flew by. Then it was champagne and canopies before the speeches.

Laura was up first and did a fantastic job which included some pork balls and set the scene nicely. A lovely speech – we love you to Lolly! Then Katharine who was also great, followed by me. I was a bit surprised to find myself struggling with the emotion of it all. Les reset the mood very nicely with a speech that was, in his own words “like a skirt, long enough to cover the essentials but short enough to still be interesting”.

During the speeches

Then the barbeque and some great food. Too many people to catch up with. Someone had calculated in a 6 hour evening with 120 guests that is only 3 minutes per guest! No wonder I didn’t get to speak to everyone. And that’s without time for dancing

The band came on and we did our first dance. Fortunately we had practiced so it wasn’t a total shambles. Then the band kept playing and playing. They were fantastic, it was like having my 50 favorite songs played live to me by a really good band! Hardly stopped dancing all evening. It was great night that finished for us at 2am. The DJ had quit at 1am and most people were gone home by the time we left for bed. A few hardcore folk partied until 4.30, good luck to them.

Dancing!!!

It was a fantastic day – its times like that you realize how many great friends you have. So good to see everyone together. And now we are married and it does feel different. I didn’t think it would, nothing had really changed but it feels better.

There are lots more photos on my flickr site include Chris D's excellent shots. There are more to come

Best and worst of the USA

2011-06-07T23:35:00.000+02:00

Got married at the weekend!
Lots to follow on that but in the meantime I found some great maps on Strangemaps that show the best and worst of each US state. Classic. I love the fact that the Utah has the highest reported well being and the most porn usage - you gotta love those Mormons...

Not a stag do

2011-05-31T21:20:00.000+02:00

So there is lots going on and not much time for updating the blog. The wedding is in three days and work is horribly busy but I still found some time to head down to Rosendal and be absued but a bunch of lads in the pre-marriage ritual that is the stag-do.

The original plan had been to go to Uskedalen, which is a huge granite climbing mecca. Four to 16 pitch routes up massive walls that make the Etive Slabs look like bouldering. Had scopped out a couple of possible routes and even a camping spot. Had also rounded up some likley lads and had carefully billed it as "not a stag-do" on the grounds that the I am too old for the whole strippers and gaffer tape thing.

But this is western Norway and the one thing you can rely on here is that the weather will be unpredictable. So when a series of north Altantic lows were queing up to dump record rainfall on us, it was time to re-think the plan.

So we still headed to Rosendal but instead of camping we stayed in a friends barn. He was a bit reluctant at first, and who can blame him, but he took pity and let us stay. This was good because it meant we had somewhere dry to sleep and somewhere dry to hang out, drink beer and do what ever.

Friday we drove down and what was supposed to be a quiet night ended at 3am when I put myself to bed having set myself on fire doing something with Sambuca. Next day we walked up a hill with a hangover in atrocious weather - it at least washed away the hangover.

That evening I thought I was getting off scott free but they forced me to dress as superman, stop traffic and try and crawl through a culvet. I managed the first but superman was too fat to fit in the drain and was let off the hook. There was then some odd drinking games and that was it really. So I did get off pretty lightly and I am glad for that.

Sunday we visited the stonepark then failed to find an open cafe before heading home. Thanks very much to 15 good friends who travelled from all over to not abuse me too badly, to sleep in a barn, to walk up a hill in shitty weather and to drink a lot and laugh a lot. I appreciate it chaps.

The following photos were taken by Ian, John and Keith, I didn't have a camera with me

Outside at Eirik's

Nice day for a stroll

Superman at the barbi

Stopping traffic

The drain challenge

Unfortuantly Superman is just too fat

In the barn

Never good to mix alcohol, fire and a polyester suit

Friday Joke is back

2011-05-27T07:09:00.002+02:00

WOMEN WHO KNOW THEIR PLACE

Barbara Walters, of 20/20, did a story on gender roles in Kabul, Afghanistan , several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked five paces behind their husbands.

She recently returned to Kabul and observed that women still walk behind their husbands. Despite the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime, the women now seem happy to maintain the old custom.

Ms Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, 'Why do you now seem happy with an old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?'

The woman looked Ms Walters straight in the eyes, and without hesitationsaid, "Land mines."

_____________________________________________________________________

These are sentences exactly as typed by medical secretaries in National Health Service Greater Glasgow

1. The patient has no previous history of suicide.
2. Patient has left her white blood cells at another hospital.
3. Patient's medical history has been remarkably insignificant with only a 40 pound weight gain in the past three days.
4. She has no rigors or shaking chills, but her husband states she was very hot in bed last night.
5. Patient has chest pain if she lies on her left side for over a year.
6. On the second day the knee was better and on the third day it disappeared.
7. The patient is tearful and crying constantly. She also appears to be depressed.
8. The patient has been depressed since she began seeing me in 1993.
9. Discharge status:- Alive, but without my permission.
10. Healthy appearing decrepit 69-year old male, mentally alert, but forgetful.
11. Patient had waffles for breakfast and anorexia for lunch
12. She is numb from her toes down.
13. While in ER, she was examined, x-rated and sent home.
14. The skin was moist and dry.
15. Occasional, constant infrequent headaches.
16. Patient was alert and unresponsive..
17. Rectal examination revealed a normal size thyroid.
18. She stated that she had been constipated for most of her life until she got a divorce.
19. I saw your patient today, who is still under our care for physical therapy.
20. Both breasts are equal and reactive to light and accommodation.
21. Examination of genitalia reveals that he is circus sized.
22. The lab test indicated abnormal lover function.
23. Skin: somewhat pale, but present.
24. The pelvic exam will be done later on the floor.
25. Large brown stool ambulating in the hall.
26. Patient has two teenage children, but no other abnormalities.
27. When she fainted, her eyes rolled around the room.
28. The patient was in his usual state of good health until his airplane ran out of fuel and crashed.
29. Between you and me, we ought to be able to get this lady pregnant.
30. She slipped on the ice and apparently her legs went in separate directions in early December.

Utah 2011

2011-05-17T17:04:00.001+02:00

Just back from a flying visit to Utah - busy times!
Three days on the student field course, followed by two days with Christian and Oliver in the Wastach and Beckwith Plateaus. We were also joined by Ivar and Anja from Oslo for a day. This was followed by a day around Moab with students and then down to Cainville, which is possibly the most remote place (habitated) that I have visited in Utah. Great geology but a very odd feel to the place. Rather enjoyed it.
After two days laser scanning there it was back up to the Book Cliffs for a final field day before driving back to Salt Lake City.

In Salt Lake I caught up with Lance, an old river running buddy who I havn't seen for 15 years - time flys. Then did some obligatory shopping before flying back to Norway in time for May 17th.

Was good to back back in Utah, even if it was rushed and busy.

Also confirmed my previous suspicions that Delta Airlines is truly awful! Note to self "just because they are in an alliance with KLM doesn't mean that the staff are not exteremely rude, the planes are not crappy and falling apart and that you will have a pleasant trip".

Will post more about trip and upload some picks some time soon.

Wednesday Movies - climbing

2011-05-03T22:58:00.000+02:00

A nice compliation of climbing falls here, a strange person doing some wierd climbing here
And a nice, short ice climbing movie here

Off to Utah tomorrow. Looking forward to being back in the desert

Bird Cams

2011-05-03T08:22:00.002+02:00

Last year we had a live Seagull cam with a couple of chicks on top of the science building in Bergen
This year we have a live eagle cam with a couple of chicks. Very cute.

The scientist, the pig and the monkey

2011-04-29T09:53:00.000+02:00

Three agricultural scientists were determined to discover how much a pig could eat before it just had to take a shit. To this end they procured a Yorkshire sow and pushed a large cork into her arse. After six weeks of force feeding, the sow was the size of the Goodyear airship and threatening to burst. Being humane types, the scientists agreed that the cork must now be removed.

No-one wished to volunteer for the job, however, so in true scientific tradition, they decided to train a monkey for the task and swiftly put a small gibbon through a crash course in cork-pulling. The day came and the pig was air-lifted out to the desert for safety's sake. Special equipment was set up to monitor the event. Picture the scene: In the middle of the desert, the pig. Behind the pig, the monkey. One mile behind him, the first scientists with a video camera. One mile behind that scientist are the other two scientists with a seismometer. Finally, the monkey reaches up and pulls out the cork. SPLAT!

When the massive geyser has subsided, the two scientists find themselves knee-deep in pigshit. Grabbing shovels they wade forward and dig out the first man who has been buried up to his neck. When they free him they find that he is laughing hysterically.

"What's so funny?" they ask.

"You should have seen the monkey trying to get the cork back in!"

Royal wedding

2011-04-29T09:51:00.000+02:00

The only thing I want to say about this is that I am suprised at how, in the 21st Centuary, educated, rational, intellegent people actually give a shit.
As far as I am concerned the Royal Family is not a bad thing, its not a good thing, its simply irrelevant.

So I wish them luck and I will be having Pizza for my supper

Wednesday Movie - cool people doing cool stuff

2011-04-26T23:49:00.000+02:00

Two movies that are totally inspiring
The first is an insane speed solo of the North Face of the Eiger in 2 hours 40 mins - unbelievable, makes my hands sweat just watching this guy as a runs along an icy snow covered knife ridge.

The second is a complitation of people doing crazy things, many of the clips I have seen before, but I still liked this video.

Easter Holiday

2011-04-26T23:35:00.001+02:00

To Norwegians, Easter is more important than Christmas, probably because at Easter the weather is improving, the days are getting longer and there is lots of nice outdoor stuff to do in the mountains or by the sea. Whereas Christmas is dark and miserable and only good for eating and drinking too much, which gets boring after a few days. So this year we opted for the full experience and I spent a day top turing in the Rosendal Alps with Ian Sharp and 4 days at a beautiful house in Nesboe on Fensfjord about an hour north of Bergen. The place was an old village shop on a queyside and was lovingly restored by Helen's mother about 7 years ago. We were there with Helen and Sandy and the weather was fantastic. A couple of 10 km kayak trips, an afternoons climbing and a lot of lazing about in the sun. Just what the doctor ordered. There are pictures on my flickr site here.

Back to Sotra on Sunday and the harsh reality of leaving western Norway soon was brought home by the need to empty the shed and pack up all the gear in the Aladins cave that is the gear room. Still felt good to get it done.

Manners

2011-04-16T11:21:00.001+02:00

So I was standing in the lunch queue minding my own business, when suddenly...

Crash! I am showered in orange juice as the short, miserable looking guy in front of me drops his tray, scattering its contents which seem to be mainly glasses of juice, over me, the counter and the floor. The pretty girl behind the till looks initially shocked and then quickly hands him a cloth to begin mopping up the mess. He says nothing, just looks on non-plussed.

He takes the cloth with a look that clearly expresses his dissatisfaction at having to clean up his own fuckin mess and he makes a half- hearted attempt to mop up some of the juice, while I bend down and pick up the scattered but not broken glasses for him. He says nothing, in fact he does not even acknowledge that I exist or that his incompetance has just resulted in me getting soaked.

So the girl mops the counter and I somehow end up mopping the floor with a large wade of paper which she has handed to me while he ineffectually rubs some kitchen paper across his tray. Then without looking at either of us he wanders off back into the queue, pushes some people out the way and gets himself a new lunch. The girl and I continue to mop up his mess from the floor and then the counter.

He returns himself to the front of queue, still without even establishing eye contact, pays for his food before wandering off to find a table. He never apologized to the girl or to me, in fact at no point did he even acknowledge that either of us existed, as we first suffered his clumsiness and then cleaned up his mess.

What a utter twat! I feel a strong urge to follow up and punch his sullen face, or at least ask him how he feels that it is socially acceptable to be so fuckin rude.

This is sadly typical of a certain breed of middle aged Norwegians, almost always male, who skillfully manage to combine smug aloofness with an introverted arrogance in a way that is so exasperatingly rude. Most Norwegians are not at all like this but there is a minority who are so monumentally crass and socially incompetent that it has become a stereotype.

If most people had dropped that tray we would have been rushing around, smiling awkwardly, cleaning up and apologizing profusely. The people around would have been glad to help and would have felt sorry for someone who was so clearly embarrassed. It takes real effort to absolutely ignore all the people around you, especially when you have significantly inconvenienced them.

Friday Joke from Roy Fitz

2011-04-15T16:43:00.000+02:00

These weeks friday joke is from Roy Fitz who sent it after complaining that last weeks was crap.
Life in the lair is good. Sophie needs to stop waking up wide awake at 4am and everything would be perfect. It really felt like summer had arrived at the lair earlier this week, we were out in the hot tub. Its raining now for the weekend but Laura "Lolly" has turned up with her own brand of sunshine.

Anyway the Friday Joke....
At the end of the tax year, the IRS office sent an inspector to audit the books of a local hospital. While the IRS agent was checking the books he turned to the CFO of the hospital and said, "I notice you buy a lot of bandages. What do you do with the end of the roll when there's too little left to be of any use?"

"Good question," noted the CFO. "We save them up and send them back to the bandage company and every now and then they send us a free box of bandages." "Oh," replied the auditor, somewhat disappointed that his unusual question had a practical answer. But on he went, in his obnoxious way, "What about all these plaster purchases? What do you do with what's left over after setting a cast on a patient?"

"Ah, yes," replied the CFO, realizing that the inspector was trying to trap him with an unanswerable question. "We save it and send it back to the manufacturer, and every now and then they send us a free package of plaster."

"I see," replied the auditor, thinking hard about how he could fluster the know-it-all CFO. "Well," he went on, "What do you do with all the leftover foreskins from the circumcisions you perform?"

"Here, too, we do not waste," answered the CFO. "What we do is save all the little foreskins and send them to the IRS Office, and about once a year they send us a complete dick."

Geek Day - the international space station

2011-04-14T07:08:00.001+02:00

Terry sent me this link which shows how the international space station has been assembled over the past twenty years. It is very cool but it does also resemble trailer park with various pieces of junk being parked next to a load of old caravans.
"Hey Joe, stick that camper van in the space between the tractor with one axel and the burnt out minibus"

Wednesday Movie - The Avalanche

2011-04-12T22:39:00.000+02:00

If you have ever wondered what it is like to get caught in an avalanche then this weeks movie gives you a pretty good taster - very scary.

Telavåg

2011-04-11T21:14:00.000+02:00

So we have our old friend Graham over at the moment and since the weather was nice on Sunday we headed out to Glesvær for a walk and coffee and cake at the cafe. Glesvær is a pretty little fishing village on the south of Sotra that has a real summer feel to it. It was a favorite spot for sea kayaking and now its works for pram pushing.

On the way back I spotted a sign to Telavåg, which was a place I always wanted to visit, so not being in a rush to get back we followed it. Six km down the road we came to a very pretty village, nestled in a rocky bay. Perched up on a cliff above the village is an excellent museum that tells the story of the tragedy that unfolded almost 70 years ago.

In 1941, following the Nazi invasion of Norway the villages on the west coast of Sotra became centres for smuggling arms and people to and from the Shetland Isles. The service was so busy it became called the Shetland bus. Back before the Sotra bridge put Telavåg an easy 30 minute drive from Bergen city centre, the area was very remote and isolated. Ideal for illicit partisan activites.

But there are snakes and cowards everywhere and soon the German's had learned of the activites, so they sent a troop, including two senior Gestapo officers to the village to arrest two resistance fighters staying in the postmasters house. They arrived early in the morning and caught the partisans in bed. In the ensuing gunfight the Gestapo officers and one of the freedom fighters were killed. The Germans were enraged and extracted a harsh revenge.

They first rounded up all the men and destroyed the houses of the postmaster and several other key people. The men were all shipped off and ended up in a concentration camp in east Germany, only 41 survived the war. Then they returned, rounded up the women, children and old people before levelling the village. Every house, boat house and barn were destroyed. They sunk the once proud fishing fleet. The survivours were then shipped off to Bergen and later spread around Norway. This was the worst attrocity against civillians in Norway during the war and served to galvanise resistance elsewhere.

After the war, rebuilding the village became a matter of national pride and within four years all of the buildings were replaced. Now its hard to differentiate this pretty village with its colourful wooden houses from any of the others along the coast.

The museum is well worth a visit and has an excellent film that tells the story.

Then

And now

Tilt shift timelapse - Jackson Hole and Whistler

2011-04-10T22:43:00.001+02:00

So the new video craze is "tilt shift" which original started as a method of taking photos with a special lens that removes some of the effect of convergent lines, if for example you need to photograph a tall building. It is also associated with very shallow depth of field. The effect is that it often looks like you are vieiwng a miniature model.

As with many of these things it started with expensive lens and now can be done with post processing of photographs in special software. Most recently people have started making movies using it.

The best I have found takes us on a ski tour to the Tetons here and another to Whistler here.

The effect is pretty amazing and its well worth wathcing both videos on full screen.

In the army now

2011-04-08T13:41:00.000+02:00

One Sunday morning the pastor noticed little Johnny was standing staring up at the large plaque that hung in the foyer of the church. The young man of seven had been staring at the plaque for some time, so the pastor walked up and stood beside him and gazing up at the plaque he said quietly, "Good morning son." "Good morning pastor" replied the young man not taking his eyes off the plaque. "Sir, what is this?" Johnny asked.
"Well son, these are all the people who have died in the service", replied the pastor. Soberly, they stood together staring up at the large plaque Little Johnny's voice barely broke the silence when he asked quietly, "Which one sir, the 8:30 or the 10:30?"

--------------
On some air bases the Air Force is on one side of the field and civilian aircraft use the other side of the field, with the control tower in the middle. One day the tower received a call from an aircraft asking, "What time is it?"
The tower responded, "Who is calling?"
The aircraft replied, "What difference does it make?"
The tower replied "It makes a lot of difference. If it is an American Airlines Flight, it is 3 o'clock. If it is an Air Force, it is 1500 hours. If it is a Navy aircraft, it is 6 bells. If it is an Army aircraft, the big hand is on the 12 and the little hand is on the 3.
If it is a Marine Corps aircraft, it's Thursday afternoon".

Aruora Video

2011-04-05T22:04:00.000+02:00

Living in Norway gives the oppertunity to see the northern lights - if it ever stops raining. This is the best video I have found so far that really captures it. Also check his other videos they are also pretty cool.

Twins

2011-04-04T22:47:00.000+02:00

A while ago I discovered that a girl who works for us is part of a pair of identical twins. What was more interesting is that she is living in Norway as an expat doing a technical job, like most of her peers she has bachelor and masters degrees. She spends her free time mountain biking and hill walking. She is unmarried. Her identical twin married at 18 and never went to university. She lives in their home town (a parochial place in the north Midlands) with her kids and has a mundane, dead end job. She is utterly disinterested in the outdoors and is over weight.
This contrast is fascinating; here are two people with the same genetic make-up and the same home environment (nature and nurture) who are diametrically different. I asked when the divergence had happened and she told me that they had been very similar up to secondary school and then they had been put into different classes and diverged from there.

Is it really possible that that something as mundane as a different class at the age of 11 could make such a huge difference? It’s an extreme example of chaos theory where a subtle change in initial conditions has caused a totally different outcome. What are the implications of this for the rest of us? I actually find it rather scary.

The girl told me that she thought it was not due to that at all. She felt that despite being identical twins there were subtle differences in their genetic makeup that had lead to such different paths in life. This way be true but if it is then it means that all the nature vs nurture experiments where twins are separated at birth, put into different environments and then compared are meaningless. If this pair of twins with the same home environment had been split up at birth it would have been an obvious, but erroneous conclusion that the different environments had caused the differences in development and lifestyle choice.

There is no conclusion to this piece, its just an interesting observation which perhaps has implications for how we consider the nature vs nurture argument and the possible role that very small changes in our life can lead us down massively different routes

Friday Joke

2011-04-01T18:15:00.003+02:00

The following are from a book called Disorder in the American Courts, and are things people actually said in court, word for word, taken down and now published by court reporters that had the torment of staying calm while these exchanges were actually taking place. Courtesy of Angharad.
______________________________
ATTORNEY: Are you sexually active?
WITNESS: No, I just lie there.
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: This myasthenia gravis, does it affect your memory at all?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And in what ways does it affect your memory?
WITNESS: I forget.
ATTORNEY: You forget? Can you give us an example of something you forgot?___________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you know if your daughter has ever been involved in voodoo?
WITNESS: We both do.
ATTORNEY: Voodoo?
WITNESS: We do.
ATTORNEY: You do?
WITNESS: Yes, voodoo.
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Now doctor, "isn't it true that when a person dies in his sleep, he doesn't know about it until the next morning?"
WITNESS: Did you actually pass the bar exam?
____________________________________

ATTORNEY: The youngest son, the twenty-year-old, how old is he?
WITNESS: He's twenty, much like your IQ.
___________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Were you present when your picture was taken?

WITNESS: Are you shitting me?
_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: So the date of conception (of the baby) was August 8th?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: And what were you doing at that time?
WITNESS: Getting laid
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: She had three children, right?
WITNESS: Yes.
ATTORNEY: How many were boys?
WITNESS: None.
ATTORNEY: Were there any girls?
WITNESS: Your Honor, I think I need a different attorney. Can I get a new attorney?
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: How was your first marriage terminated?
WITNESS: By death.
ATTORNEY: And by whose death was it terminated?
WITNESS: Take a guess.
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Can you describe the individual?
WITNESS: He was about 20, medium height, and had a beard.
ATTORNEY: Was this a male or a female?
WITNESS: Unless the Circus was in town I'm going with male.
_____________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, how many of your autopsies have you performed on dead people?
WITNESS: All of them. The live ones put up too much of a fight.
_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: ALL your responses MUST be oral, OK?
What school did you go to?
WITNESS: Oral.
_________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Do you recall the time that you examined the body?
WITNESS: The autopsy started around 8:30 p.m.
ATTORNEY: And, Mr. Denton was dead at the time?
WITNESS: If not, he was by the time I finished.
____________________________________________

ATTORNEY: Doctor, before you performed the autopsy, did you check for a pulse?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for blood pressure?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: Did you check for breathing?
WITNESS: No.
ATTORNEY: So, then it is possible that the patient was alive when you began the autopsy?
WITNESS: No ..
ATTORNEY: How can you be so sure, Doctor?
WITNESS: Because his brain was sitting on my desk in a jar.
ATTORNEY: I see, but could the patient have still been alive, nevertheless?
WITNESS: Yes, it is possible that he could have been alive and practicing law.

A few hard facts about the economy

2011-03-29T23:12:00.001+02:00

The present British Government is citing massive debt run up by the last labour government as a basis for dismantling society. Frighteningly a significant proportion of the UK population seem to subscribe to the view "its tougher but necassary". It's inevitable etc. Well before we close the hospitals, shut the libraries, cut back on the police and start excluding all but the very wealthy from higher education lets look at some actual facts about our defecit.

1. As a function of GDP (thats how much money the country makes) our current debt is lower than it has been in 200 of the last 250 years (see here). Yes that was lower!
2. It was higher when:
a) we pionered the industrial revolution,
b) built a very large empire across half the known world
c) beat the Nazi's
d) built the NHS and social welfare system that is currently being desimated
3. As a function of GDP our national debt is 47%; which is lower than Canada (62%), Germany (63%), Japan (170%), India (70%), Italy (103%) France (67%) and the USA (61%). In debt terms we are doing better than the rest of the G8 except Russia. (see here)

Even if we did have a catastrophic debt, reducing it rapidly is a bad idea. In 1929, following the Great Depression Herbert Hoover cut back just like Cameron/Clegg are trying to do now and the US sank deeper into depression. It wasn't until FDRs New Deal when significant money was spent on public works which created roads, bridges and hospitals etc and stimulated the economy that the US clawed its way out of depression.

Two of our European neighbours (Ireland and Greece) have bankrupted their economies by invoking rapid cuts which have lead to collapse as their economy slowed down and then choked themselves. Why are we blindly following suit? Its got nothing to do with saving the economy and everything to do with an extreme idealogical policy.

So next time somebody says that the cuts are "hard but fair" or that they are "inevtiable" you can now point at that they are nothing to do with prudent managment of the economy and everything to do with an oppertunistic ultra right wing political agenda.

(this post was inspired by and draws heavily from, a much longer piece by Johann Hari which can be found here).

Wednesday Movie - Crazy things that happen in Norway

2011-03-29T22:09:00.000+02:00

The first is from Gareth - its utterly bonkers
And the second is doing the rounds at the moment - insane.

Tips for new parents

2011-03-27T22:07:00.000+02:00

We have a 7 week old baby and we are on a steep learning curve. We are fortunate enough to be a bit older than most parents and have benefited from advice given by friends who have already been through it. Here are a few of the more unusual tips that have proved very useful both practically and in keeping us sane.
1. Any friends that visit in the first two weeks should come with take-away food
2. Consider that human babies are born 6 weeks too early. Once you make it through the first 6 weeks it becomes much easier
3. Brest is best - especially if you are the Dad ;-)
4. Buy a large bed
5. When they are young they are not developed enough to be interested in your attention or love. Harsh but true. The good part of this is that if they are crying its because they are either hungry, in need of a nappy change, too hot or too cold or tired. Working from that position it shouldn’t be hard to figure it out.
6. Look after each other. It's very easy when you are tired and stressed to take it out on your partner. But remember the other person is probably equally or even more tired and stressed. The way to get through it is to look after them and then between you look after the small person. A bit of consideration goes a long way.
7. Start training them to like your music early!
8. Get a structured routine - it makes life so much easier
9. There is a great iphone app that helps mum record all the feeds and sleeps - makes it easy to be at least a bit structured
10. Have lots of linen clothes around the house for catching vomit. Much better than tissues
11. Try not to let having a baby stop you doing everything you used to. Its not (quite) the end of the world.
12. Have low expectations of what you will be able to achieve and then be happy when it happens
13. Remember that lots of poor people with way less facilites and stuff than you manage to raise children in way tougher conditions
14. Remember that lots of dumber people than you also somehow manage to raise kids - how hard can it really be?

And finally try and remember how amazing it is have fun

Thursday Fashion

2011-03-24T07:59:00.006+01:00

Thursday fashion is back (just for Laura)
While I embrace alternative lifestyles and I think it's great that not everyone aspires to look like a cheerleader or a golf pro, sometimes it can be taken a bit far.

I think this guy may have got a bit carried away

Wednesday Movie extra

2011-03-22T22:11:00.000+01:00

Not getting out so much at weekends at the moment. This had some advantages such as getting to watch pretty much all of the 6 nations rugby this year. I really enjoyed it.

The Irish played a totally blinding game to deny England the Grandslam. It is pretty funny that this video celebrating England's grandslam victory (which didn't happen) has been leaked to the internet.

And who ever said that the English RFU were arrogant? Ha ha ha

Wednesday Movie

2011-03-22T21:58:00.000+01:00

Back in Bergen mid week and having the joys of being woken at 6am but the fat furball. That made me wonder if there was any new movies of Simon's cat

And yes there are! These are the best
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOHvZjiDANg&feature=relmfu
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9EYkdFsP2w&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKvNqe8cKU4&feature=related

Which also gives me a chance to publish these photos which Ben sent me a while ago. They make me realise that Lola is not as mad as she could be...

A deal is a deal

2011-03-21T21:07:00.002+01:00

Twenty plus years ago my brother and some of my friends looked around at possible careers and thought "hmm joing the the Police is an option. It sounds ok, it will certainly be interesting, the pay is crap but once you have worked for 30 years you get to retire with a good pension. On the balance of things that seems like a fair deal". Other people looked around at the same time and said “the police, that looks dangerous with shitty hours and crap pay. I think I will go and become a lawyer or an accountant or maybe even a politician, where the pay is much better and I'll be safe".

Twenty years on and the people who became politicians are now enviously, eyeing up the policemen’s impending long retirement and nice pensions and saying “ooh I am not sure the country can afford to pay that now! Since people are living longer and we have blown the money we invested to pay for your retirement bailing out useless bankers we will have to change your deal so you should work until you are 60 or maybe even longer”.

And for some reason normal people seem to think that it’s ok.

Is it fuck! You made a deal and now you should stick to it, irrespective of whether the conditions have changed. A deal is a deal! They have done their part of the bargain; they have been stabbed, shot at, attacked, spat on and worse. They have worked long, anti-social hours and kept your pathetic arse safe while you worked 9-5 and put 3 or more times their salary in the bank. Well now its time for us to repay them not and not try an weasel out of our commitments.

When I suggested this last week in a discussion, somebody quoted "Force Majeure" and said that the circumstances had changed, therefore the contract was invalid. That is utter bullshit, nothing has really cahnged except people live a bit longer than they used to and if you can't predict that you shouldn't be in power.

When the flawed economic policies of the Bitch Thatcher meant that the interest rates on peoples mortgages went from 6 to 17% in a couple of months and hundreds of thousands of people lost their homes there was no option to go to the building society and say “Force Majuere - that was not predicted, I think I will just pay you 7% and you will be happy”. No, the concept of renegotiating a deal when conditions change only seems to work one way and as usual it’s the people down the ladder who suffer.

I have no problem with them setting different terms and conditions for people who join the force today. That is fine. They can look at the deal and decide if they like it. If they don’t they can go and do something else (most of them probably will and then we are buggard!), but to go back on a deal that is already in place is just low – it’s so low it could only come from a Tory government with a idealogical agenda that would see the rich living in secure gated communities and sod the rest of us.

Friday Joke - Real life Dilberts

2011-03-19T17:19:00.000+01:00

A magazine recently ran a 'Dilbert Quotes' contest. They were looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life Dilbert-type managers. These were voted the top ten quotes in corporate America:

'As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.' (This was the winning quote from Fred Dales, Microsoft Corp in Redmond WA)

'What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter.' (Lykes Lines Shipping)

'E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business.' (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

'This project is so important we can't let things that are more important interfere with it.' (Advertising/ Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

'Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule.' (Plant Manager, Delco Corporation)

'No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them.' (R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/ 3M Corp)

Quote from the Boss: 'Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.' (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said,'That would be better for me.' (Shipping executive, FTD Florists)

'We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.' (Switching supervisor, AT&T Long LinesDivision)