Extra Golden

Came across this lot last week, an interesting mix of Western Rock and Kenyan Benga musical styles which I really enjoyed. The title of this one “Obama” seemed to be way out of left field until I read that his office was instrumental in the two Kenyan musicians getting the visas that allowed them to enter the US and play live gigs and then record the album from which it is taken.



For more information check out their web site.

Mark Kermode – Mamma Mia

Watched this online yesterday and it is right up there with his finest reviews (warning contains some singing and sedentary dancing), I almost fell of my chair as I was laughing so much. Finally, a reason to be glad that I was back home, while I was able to download and listen to their podcasts I had forgotten how entertaining it was to watch him in full flight.



This review of Hancock is not nearly as memorable as the previous one but was recorded live in the BBC commentary box at Wimbledon and has been included for anyone who has entertained the idea of spending a night out watching the movie.

Nothing To Say

Received some very sad news from a blogging friend this morning, life can be very cruel.

Know that you are in my thoughts.

Back tomorrow.

Animal News

This chilling tale comes from the Ruhr valley in Germany, essentially some psycho(s) have killed and decapitated around 30 pet rabbits over the last year draining them of their blood. Frightened owners have taken to hiding their hutches under cover or keeping their rabbits indoors.

Police believe that those responsible may be using Google Earth to track down the locations of likely victims and are concerned that they might step up their activities from rabbits to humans.

On a lighter note comes this story of a teenager in the UK who dressed at 07:30 and went to work before “noticing” at lunch time that she had been transporting a small baby bat in her bra all morning.

Now I have no experience of wearing a bra but think that an experienced user might have noticed the presence of a warm furry critter down there a tad quicker than 5 hours later.

Old One Eye

Now, I have always had fish down there in the “none to bright” department of the animal kingdom but those living in the fish pond out the back at lil bro's place changed my mind. Any time the shadow of a biped crossed their domain the would swim around in a frenzy underneath it expecting food to fall down from the heights.

They would ignore the dog's shadow if he stopped on the small bridge over them, but any human would set them off. We noticed one day after I had been there a while that the large grey coloured one only had one eye – did not appear to hinder his ability to feed as he was one of the largest in the pond.

Getting a decent snap of him proved to be a challenge, did not help that they would circle at a fast pace, eventually managed to get this one which is not brilliant but does show it's lack of a second eye.

Back In The yUcK

Landed early on the morning of the 21st, could not see anything on the external camera view from the plane as we descended until we were in the last seconds of the final approach. There was a lot of low cloud and an unpleasant cold drizzle falling out of the sky, temperature was an icy 13°C and as I finally escaped outside for a smoke I started to regret having left my fleece on one of the couches in the guest wing where it had lain for the last four months.

The weather picked up after a day or so and my brain finally arrived as well, spent 5 days trying to get my laptop talking to the internet without any luck. Every fix that was tried generated no progress and I finally decided to archive my data and reset it back to factory settings. An hour later and suddenly I was able to connect – and in my absence something had been done at my local exchange as my 2Mbps connection had been transformed into a 6Mbps one.

While aware that petrol had risen 16p a litre while I had been away the rises in the price of food came as a bit of a shock; bread, eggs, milk and pasta seem to be much more expensive than when I left – at least beer and wine prices remain close to what I remember them being.

Have been asked many times if I am glad to be back and that question has made me pause before answering every time “yes and no”. It has been good to catch up with family and friends, satisfy my addiction for a high speed internet connection and to drink some ale that is not a plain old lager.

On the downside, I miss the good weather, the coffee and the people that I left behind – so the jury remains out.

More regular posting should ensue from this point on – unless the sky falls on my head!

Fish Rustling and Other Tales

Came across this story of a couple of fish rustlers who failed to make a successful get away, it says a lot about the lack of escape routes in the Highlands and also the observational skills of the police in my old home town.

Now I knew that Komodo Dragons were the world's largest lizards but had no idea that their saliva contains 80 different types of bacteria so a couple of days after being bitten their prey will die a painful death and the dragons can have a food fest. Interesting critters and the divers stranded on the island were lucky that they only had to contend with a single one.

Saw this on the news a while back and thought what kind of person throws themselves out of a plane at 7,500 feet armed only with a rocket pack (made from model aircraft engines) and a parachute. Turns out he is a commercial airline pilot for Swiss Air – wonder how he got through the “have you any hobbies” part of the interview process.

And here is the video just in case you thought that they were making it up.

Orchids and other “Flowers”

Now what I know about plants could be written in crayon on the back of a postage stamp, but I am reliably informed that this first shot is of an orchid. Notice how the absence of soil/compost does not appear to have affected it's flowering capabilities – this one lives above fish pond number 1 out the back by the swimming pool. Gets enough moisture out of the atmosphere for it's needs – augmented by the odd downpour as it is half exposed to the elements in this position.

Here is a bad close up of it.



The next two are growing on the balcony outside the office, they might be orchids or maybe not – as if I would know.




This last one lives on top of the bar out the back by fish pond number 1, it is allegedly worth a lot of money or will be when it grows up – pretty sure that it is not an orchid but more than that is beyond me.

View From The Balcony

Now here is a rare sight, some blue sky looking out from the "smoking" balcony outside the upstairs office in lil' bro's hoose. The view looks south from the hills in Sentul down towards Jakarts.

It would be pretty tranquil were it not for the major construction work being performed on the house next door, every day from shortly after 07:00 until around 17:30 with only a break for a meal around midday. This goes on seven days a week and there are no health and safety inspections, closest thing to a hard hat would be a baseball cap or woolly hat, they work in bare feet or with a pair of flip flops.

The scaffolding is very Heath Robinson and assembled from whatever pieces of wood they could lay their hands on at the time, while there are sounds of the occasional power tool or cement mixer the majority sounds are of hammers or pick axes chipping away at something.

Planning regulations are applied and decided after the build has been completed, we assume that they are extending the property but have no idea how it will turn out.

Looking South East from the balcony:



Inside view of the office:

Happy Birthday Spam

The first unsolicited email message was sent 30 years ago today to 400 “lucky” recipients on the West coast of the USA. Since that humble beginning it has mushroomed into a million dollar business with an estimated 100 billion plus spam mails being sent every day.

I had a Compuserve account from a long time back and when I finally closed it 3 years ago it was collecting 10 or more spams each day. My broadband ISP back home has much better filters and in 3 years I have less than a dozen spam mails, and my gmail account has yet to deliver one in 8 months of use.

Could well be tempting fate by disclosing this but reckon that I am covering myself by sending spam birthday greetings.

You can read the full story here.