Greenbelt

Greenbelt happened.

I'm too tired to write much about it, but basically, Myn was working nights in the medical centre, and I was working nights as event safety manager.

Other people have written lots, and even put lots of stuff on U-Tube. Go ahead and search, if you want.

Used and New

I'm quite a fan of the "used and new" feature on amazon: you sometimes get some good bargains, and it's very useful if the book you're after is out of stock.

However, I think this is one case where I wouldn't go for it.

The 'what have I eaten' meme

Yet another meme, this time taken from the Belingman

You know the pack drill:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.
2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.
3) Strike out any items that you would never consider eating.
4) Added by me: italicise the ones you can't identify

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes (I quite likely have, but I'm not specifically aware of it)
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans (I'm assuming the Tex-mex combo here)
25. Brawn or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche in ice cream
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float (eugh! Root beer is horrible.)
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (Except by accident)
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal (though I never would these days)
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini (Dislike peach. Waste of good champagne)
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Gosh: that's quite a lot, isn't it? Now, where's my bowl of epoisses?

An amateur photographer was told she could not take snaps of an empty paddling pool because she might be a paedophile.
Betty Robinson was ordered to put away her camera by a council worker when she began snapping the empty outdoor pool.

A disabled boy's parents claim they were accused of child trafficking and detained under the Terrorism Act as they made a day trip to France.

This story could ave developed in so may ways, but to arrest a family under the Terrorism Act on grounds of possible child trafficing is completely perverse.

As an old friend of mine put, ever so well,

"Suspecting your neighbour, fragments ideas such as "society". It makes a
mockery of any notion of power wielded by the people. Fear the hoodies,
fear the kids, they think differently. Fear the immigrants, they speak
funny. Fear the brown people, they have a different religion. Fear your
neighbour, he is probabloy a paedophile. They're everywhere, didn't you
know?"

Large Hadron Collider goes Torchwood

The BBC news website contains the following story:

Cern lab set for beam milestone

"A vast physics experiment - the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) - reaches a key
milestone this weekend ahead of an official start-up on 10 September."

It goes on to describe in laymans terms roughly what is going on at CERN with the LHC, what's happening this weekend and what will happen in September. The article ends with this paragraph:

"BBC Radio 4 will broadcast live from Cern on 10 September. The Big Bang Day
starts in the LHC control room at 0830 BST for the official start-up, and then
continues through the day with related programmes, from indepth discussions
about particle physics to a special one-off radio version of the popular TV
drama Torchwood."

Oh dear.

I'm Dave Walker*

Dave Walker writes the imressive Cartoon Church blog and is also currently cartoonist in residence at the Lambeth Conference.

Over the last while, he has been scrupulously (and scrupulously fairly) accounting the goings on at the SPCK / SSG bookshops, since SPCK decided to divest itself of its historic bookshop chain. This has included researched news stories, reports from the ground, and even responses from the more recent operators of the bookshop chain. For some background on the story, have a look here.

Yesterday, Dave posted a blog entry containing the following text:

"This morning I was sent a ‘cease and desist’ demand from Mark Brewer relating
to the posts I have made about the former SPCK bookshops. The demand says
‘Confidential - not to be redistributed or posted’, so I am not posting the
text.

The demand says that if I do not remove all SSG-related material by
noon today, July 22, 2008, an injunction will be sought against me and legal
action taken for damages for libel.

I have therefore removed all of the SPCK/SSG posts on this blog, as, although I believe I have not done anything wrong I do not have the money to face a legal battle. The removal of these posts is in no way an admission of guilt.

To say I am not happy about the decision I have been forced to take here is an understatement. I feel as if I have let many people down who have relied on this site over the last year or more.

I am not allowing comments on this post, though I can be contacted as usual. I
cannot of course stop you writing about this elsewhere."

Today, even that meagre entry has been removed.



Dave used to have a nice little cartoon on his front page saying "Save the S.P.C.K": I think it may be time for a "Save the cartoon church".




*for some of you, a reference to Monty Python. for others, Spartacus.

Dolphins make me cry*

A new story about the Mekong River Dolphins that we went to see in Kratie. They're still endangered and there are still efforts being made to save them.

* A song by Martyn Joseph. It's not bad.