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An article about Beijing's Friendship store where foreigners could purchase imported goods, during communism.
"The Friendship Store is the only place to get service like in the old days - where the staff completely ignore you and don't really care if they sell anything"
The author has never been to this corner of North Western Europe.
A few snaps from the Belfast Rose Week, an impressive horticultural feat, 46000 roses they say. The cars were a little more interesting. Coming from Portadown, the home of the great Dr. Samuel Darragh McGredy C.B.E I should have paid more attention:
Some photos from the Giant's Ring in Belfast. A lovely place to visit on a summer's day. A very peaceful spot, all we heard as we sat in the sunshine was crickets doing whatever it is they do.
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Not the best thing to welcome you home on a Friday night. Open the living room door to find one dead magpie lying on the chair and another one scrambling up the bay window beside it.
I have heard of small birds sparrows and the like coming down a chimney, but not 2 magpies, this was bizarre. I managed to pick the dead one up by the tail and get it out the back door without too much problem.
Now I am not sure iof everyone feels the same about flapping birds in confined spaces, Rebecca doesn't, she wasn't here. I hate the bloddy things, those beady eyes, sharp beak and panicky movements, and the horrible noise they make as they flap and contort. The noise was amplified as it battered against the window.
So I managed to grab the magpie around it's wings, at which point the phone rings, I try to hold the bird with one hand, whilst answering the phone. the thing about holding a bird is that they are delicate, you don't want to squeeze them too tightly. Just as I answer the phone, one wing gets lose, and the maggin starts flapping, it's Rebecca on the phone to ask me about my day, as you can imagine I was a picture of cool and calm as I exchanged pleasantries and discussed my day. ;-)
So with the conversation over, it lasted 10 seconds I think, I made a grab for the magpie, he got away and crapped another few times over the furniture. He started climbing the window, the top of the bay is about 10 feet off the ground, so I lunged at the tail. Running for the backdoor, tail feathers in hand as the magpie tries to fly, panicking in case the tail feathers come out in my hand, I just make it to the back door and off she goes over the back trees.
I had a look at the damage when they had departed and couldn't believe my luck, the dead magpie must have flown straight in to the bay window and dropped in to the chair which sits there. The other magpie must have decided to stay close by and proceeded to spend it's time flying in to the window to try to get out. The chair which they crapped on was leather, the birds had flown over a cream sofa and 6 cream dining room chairs to get from the chimney to the window, not a drop on the cream, only on the wipe clean chair.
There is a floor lamp which one had perched on and crapped over the shade, I removed the shade and vanish took care of that. It had also crapped down the light bulb and in to the fixture, so that had to be removed and cleaned with cotton buds to get the last of it out.
The house has now been scrubbed and disenfected, and the chimney sweep is arriving on Monday morning to fit cages. Luckily they came down the chimney that is open to the house, the other chimney has two fireplaces, one upstairs and the other in the living room, both are plastered over.
I've been thinking about water intake recently, I drink 4 litres of mineral water during my working day, top this up with breakfast juice,coffee and a couple of pints of diluting orange I reckon I drink over 5 litres of liquid a day. There is no way that I need to drink this much, I couldn't possibly need to replace this amount of liquid.
I notice I drink way more than most people I know. On a recent visit to Canada, I took a fishing trip, the guide picked me up from the hotel at 7.00am and during the course of the day, until 7.00pm, he drank 2 huge cups of coffee. We were trekking over rough terrain and I couln't believe someone could survive on this intake of caffeine, which I always thought caused dehydration..this appears to be untrue:
Regular coffee and tea drinkers become accustomed to caffeine and lose little, if any, fluid. In a study published in the October issue of the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, researchers at the Center for Human Nutrition in Omaha measured how different combinations of water, coffee and caffeinated sodas affected the hydration status of 18 healthy adults who drink caffeinated beverages routinely.
"We found no significant differences at all," says nutritionist Ann Grandjean, the study's lead author. "The purpose of the study was to find out if caffeine is dehydrating in healthy people who are drinking normal amounts of it. It is not."
The same goes for tea, juice, milk and caffeinated sodas: One glass provides about the same amount of hydrating fluid as a glass of water. The only common drinks that produce a net loss of fluids are those containing alcohol — and usually it takes more than one of those to cause noticeable dehydration, doctors say.
I often think what someone 50 years ago would think of our habits today, spending a quid on a litre of water from a vending machine and always needing to have a bottle somewhere nerby. It's all a myth after all, even the 8 glasses of water a day:
http://www.snopes.com/toxins/water.htm
Chris Moyle's is broadcasting from a narrow boat this morning, he played the Howard's Way theme tune just now, that was one clinker of a show.
The theme tune took me instantly back to Sunday night's in the mid 80's, this website is a great resource for fans of the show:
http://www.zetaminor.com/cult/howards_way/howards_way_cast.htm
http://www.zetaminor.com/cult/howards_way/howards_way_intro.htm
A nice site offering a celebration of the British landscape as seen through the eyes of our famous artists.
Berkeley's panaroma photo resource , with a nice representation from our little corner of Europe:
http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwp605/html/MichaelJLove.html
http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwppeople/html/MichaelMcKelvey.html
I have been driving a car with a CVT gearbox now for about 4 months. I had driven one automatic car previous to this, a Freelander. I drove it for about 3 hours and must admit, whilst enjoying the experience, did not take to the gearbox.
I bought the mini cooper CVT on a spur of the moment decision after test driving it for 5 minutes. The car was in great condition all round, was the right price and the fact that it had a CVT gearbox was not that much of an issue to me.
The CVT gearbox blurb says this:
The ZF ecoTronic VT1F Gearbox is used in the MINI Cooper CVT and MINI One CVT. It is simple, reliable engineering married to powerful computing and controller software to produce a very capable car with the flexibility to meet more driving situations than any single gearbox. There are three forward selections: Drive (D), SportDrive (SD), and the virtual-manual Steptronic (1,2,3,4,5,6), as well as Reverse (R), and Park (P). The CVT replaces all the complexity of gears and layshafts used in traditional transmissions with two hydraulically-controlled variable-diameter pulleys (variators) and a metal Van Doorne pushbelt to produce turbine-smooth acceleration, and better economy and performance than a standard automatic. The manual mode is strong and precise enough to permit throttle-steering in track day driving, and still flexible to drive in commute traffic without shifting.
The car is really good fun to drive, in sports drive you get engine braking coming into corners, which is something I would never have imagined. Acceleration is impressive from a start. There are no delays between gear changes you don't get the plateau....delay...then acceleration you do with normal automatics or manual gearboxes. This is fun accelerating away from lights, when the car beside has to slow for the gear changes.
I must admit prior to buying the Mini I would have been dead set against ever driving an automatic (although hardcore CVT nuts will tell you this car is not an automatic). I do have less of an issue with them now, but I still miss gear changes, the software is great and it does everything I want, but that's perhaps where my problem lies. The Steptronic selection allows me to change gears, but the software has built in tolerances which change gears for me when I reach certain revs, and won't allow me to change down when it deems this dangerous.
I have no doubt that technically this gearbox is fantastic and it's something I am glad I have tried (mainly so I can smugly compare when an automatic vs manual debate arises). However the story about the company who invented the first instant cake mix springs to mind, sales were abysmal, until they changed the recipe. The new recipe required the cook to break, and add an egg to the mix, sales soared after this. You have to make the user think like they are doing something, even if they are not!!
John Peel graffiti at Bridge End in Belfast. I 'borrowed' the image from where I found it to conserve bandwith. I hope the author of the post does not mind.
Advice given to policemen in 1841 on how to deal with drunks.
A nice trip up the coast on Saturday
followed by a big feed in The Ramore who now have Hoegarden on tap. followed by a half hour with the flexifoil on the East Strand.
an altogether quite perfect day.
Yesterday was spent in Portadown visiting the folks. Rachel my niece was a surprise visitor.
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We also sat in the garden threading sea-shells on to fishing line and making a wind chime, Martha Stewart would be proud.
Next week sees the start of the annual swan census on the Thames. Traditionally all the swans on the Thames were owned by the Royals and ended up on their dinner plates. In the 15th century a Royal Charter allowed two companies to share in the stock of swans. Every year in the third week of July, the Royals, the Vintners' Company and the Dyers' Company row up the Thames and ring the swans legs.
In days gone by they would nick the beaks of the swans, but this process was deemed too cruel as late as 1988.
The timetable for the event can be found here:
http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page384.asp
The Queen's swan marker seems to have a nice job:
http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page3324.asp
Today is the first day I have had a few minutes spare to think about blogging. So have a brief synopsis of the last week. Last weekend I was on a stag do to Edinburgh. It had all the ingredients of a good stag do, and that's where I'll leave it. I reignited my love affair with Edinburgh, and still wonder to myself why my father chose to move from there to a 250 year old tumbledown cottage on a mountainside outside Ballykelly in the 1970's...the Good Life has a lot to answer for.
The last few days have been spent making up for my excess and overspending by doing wholesome household tasks, doors, fences and walls have been repainted, brasses polished and garden tidyed
This was the first twelfth I have spent in my new home of East Belfast, when i have felt comfortable. Last year I was in the States, the year before I spent most of the time peering out of the window, checking the car and house.
Lots of the neighbours had outside parties for the kids, lots of alfresco drinking and the local bonfire site had a kiddies day on the afternoon on the 11th. There was a definite, noticeable shift to more family orientated events this year. The footage of the demonstrations (with a few exceptions) was a lot more positive than in recent years and I do hope this is the result of the hard work undertaken by both sides of the community in recent times.
Anyway, I had loads more to say in my head that I can't articulate, so here some photos of some bonfires I took whilst driving round on the 11th:
