Making it up

“SAGA Zone is a new online community where you create a whole new social network of friends and easily stay in touch from the comfort of your home……. Anyone over 50 can join SAGA Zone in three easy steps.”

Or not.

I really can’t see the appeal. The last time I was put in a slot based on my age I was at school. Can’t say I liked it much then.

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, “Excuse me,can you help me ? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago but I don’t know where I am.”

The woman below replied, “You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude.”

“You must be in Information Technology,” said the balloonist.

“I am,” replied the woman, “how did you know?”

“Well,” answered the balloonist, “everything you told me is technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip.”

The woman below responded, “You must be in Management.”

“I am,” replied the balloonist, “but how did you know?”

“Well,” said the woman, “you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my bloody fault.”

A boy playing with matches started a fire in north Los Angeles County that destroyed more than 15,000 hectares (38,000 acres) and destroyed 21 homes last week, according to Californian police. Times

I think I have probably blogged before about English place names.

But a couple of things have made me think about them again today. First, I heard an archaeologist on Radio 4 earlier talking about place names which contain the word ‘raven’. What she said was fairly straightforward, ravens are carrion eaters, so they tended to congregate by the town midden. Hence, somewhere with the delightful name Ravenswood, for example, probably really means it had a fairly smelly past.

Then I chanced across ‘Long Tongue Scrog Lane’, wouldn’t it be fabulous to live somewhere like that? “Could I have your address please” “Long Tongue Scrog Lane” “???…can you spell that please”. Mind you I do get fed up with having to recite our current address, so I expect the charm might wear thin.

Other favourites of mine are:

Grunty Fen, Pidley Fen, Clowne, Dudley (only when spoken by someone born there),
Happisburgh, Wymondham, Heckmondwyke and Mytholmroyd.

But some of them, Woodbridge, Shingle Street, are lovely for just setting out the plain obvious.

Where it all comes from
Is a mystery
It’s like the changing of the seasons
And the tides of the sea
But heres the one thats driving me berserk
Why do only fools and horses work

If you want to know where it all comes from, the film below has the answer. It is long (47 minutes) but it is worth it.

“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” Kenneth Ewart Boulding

Paul Grignon’s 47-minute animated presentation of “Money as Debt” tells in very simple and effective graphic terms what money is and how it … all » is being created. It is an entertaining way to get the message out.

Is best done indoors, where it is warm and dry.

Big is currently designing a garden. I think we are required to move house by spring and have her an area of garden sectioned off. Anyway, here is the plan so far.

even if it’s not the one I wanted

Dear Jax,

Thank you for your inquiry. We wanted to write back to let you know
that Gap Inc. is committed to doing business in a socially responsible
way.

We have a team of 90 people around the world who are dedicated to
improving the lives of garment workers. In fact, in 2006 our vendor
compliance officers conducted 4,316 inspections in 2,053 garment
factories. Last year, we revoked our approval of 23 factories for
compliance violations.

When we first learned about this allegation, we immediately launched an
investigation. We learned that a very small portion of a particular
order placed with one of our vendors was apparently subcontracted to an
unauthorized subcontractor without the company?s knowledge or approval.
This is in direct violation of our agreement with the vendor under our
Code of Vendor Conduct.

We strictly prohibit the use of child labor. This is non-negotiable for
us ? and we are deeply concerned and upset by this allegation. As we?ve
demonstrated in the past, Gap has a history of addressing challenges
like this head-on, and our approach to this situation will be no
exception.

As soon as we were alerted to this situation, we stopped the work order
and prevented the product from being sold in stores. As for the concern
you raised involving how we are handling the merchandise, we do not
believe it would be appropriate to sell or donate product involving
child laborWe will continue to work with a variety of groups including
government, non-governmental organizations and trade unions in an effort
to end the use of child labor.

Thank you,

Janelle
Gap Inc. Customer Relations

Please feel free to mail Gap with your thoughts as well! Very happy to share, don’t view it as stealing, Barbara

The smock blouse will not be offered for sale in the company’s 3,000 stores around the world, Gap said, and instead will be destroyed.

bbc

I could be wrong, but this almost seems like insult to injury.

Why not donate the clothing to some charity that works against slave labour and allow them to either reuse the shirts or sell them to raise money to continue their work to rescue children?

Surely better than just wasting both the time, effort and material? Or am I totally off base?

Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson went on a camping trip. After a good meal and a bottle of wine they were exhausted and retired to sleep.

Some hours later Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful companion.

“Watson, look up at the sky and tell me what you see”

Watson replied, “I see millions and millions of stars”

“And what does that tell you ?”

Watson pondered a moment.

“Astronomically it tells me 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 a quarter past three. Theologically I can see that the Lord is all powerful and we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically, I suspect we will have a beautiful day tomorrow.

What does it tell you Holmes ?”

“You blithering idiot Watson. Some bastard has stolen our tent !”

Trash Back

(Friends of the Earth Scotland) Campaigners are to return unwanted packaging to supermarkets as part of a campaign to cut waste. BBC

I have thought of doing just this. Makes a lot of sense to me, the supermarkets have to pay to have their rubbish taken away, so I think if they had to pay to get rid of all the pointless plastic, I think they might be inclined to do more to reduce it.

On Your Bike

Torygraph reports “Man who had sex with bike in court”. Which ought really to read “Man who had sex with bike in hotel room in court” I really don’t get this on all sorts of levels. Like, how, for example? Also, I don’t understand what the offence was. Using a sex aid? Sex in hotels rooms? Or just sex? (Edit - come to think of it, does this count as “furious riding of a bicycle”? But why would that get you on the sex offenders register? I think there ought to be a separate offence of “wearing Lycra shorts” though)

I was just reading a really rather depressing news item in the Times about a UN report “Global Environment Outlook: environment for development” in which 400 scientist apparently say we are all doomed. (Times)

In the comments thread someone called “Brian, London” sets out the solution. It is so mind-blowingly obvious I really cannot think why one of those 400 scientists didn’t come up with it.

“The answer is simple, all we need to do is find/create/modify a suitable tree to generate electricity in a collectable form. We can then plant mile,on square mile of trees that renew the environment whilst supplying electrical energy locally.”

The Car and Lorry Planning Act of 1948

I just read on my Facebook profile the helpful message “You are online now.”.

Today I took an exam I don’t think I did very well at it - usually these computer based ones give you a mark straight away, but because this one is in beta, it just told me I’d get a letter in 6-8 weeks.

For starters, despite the advised time being 4 hours and the number of questions 160, I actually got 4 1/2 hours and 153 questions. Seemed like big changes even if it is in beta. There were comments forms on the questions, and I made some comments but wasn’t really sure what they were asking for. And I had to drive 35 miles to sit it, but at least I could go after the rush hour.

Small did some letter work with Tim and Big, but he still isn’t actually recognising which letter goes with which sound, despite us being told that he does at school. Not quite sure why that knowledge isn’t transferring home, and he’s quite frustrated with it all at the moment.

Dunno what Big did, apart from wear the new clothes I bought for her.

Jax: I don’t remember this bit……. I remember the bit with Anadin Skywalker though…

Nearly half of England’s secondary schools do not give pupils a good enough education, the schools watchdog warned today.

the guardian

We go on to find:

Ofsted inspectors found 49% of secondaries were rated no better than “satisfactory”, which is no longer deemed good enough.

(Anyone else got echoes of Sir Humphrey? You know, maybe if they stopped redefining perfectly acceptable English words to have secondary opposite meanings, children would do better at English as well…)

Ms Gilbert said: “The gap between outcomes for those with advantages in life and those with the least is not reducing quickly enough. Only 12% of 16-year-olds in care achieved five or more good GCSEs in 2006 compared with 59% of all 16-year-olds.

Perhaps it’s the care aspect of the equation rather than the school? The care homes I’ve worked in are not generally conducive to stable home lives and doing your home work on time, and I bet there aren’t that many care staff who can do your course work for you or will buy you an essay online either

I wish that they would spend less money on spinning what’s going on and more money on solving the problems. And I wish that they would really open up parental choice - I don’t understand why I can get grant funding towards Small’s time at school right up until he’s actually school age (which is presumably when it’s most important for him to be there, according to the powers that be) and then the money stops unless I send him to a primary school which has a more than passing chance of being satisfactory, or, in government speak, not good enough.

His and Hers Houses. “….former public toilets at Station Road, Luddendenfoot. Offered for sale with planning permission for a pair of semi detached dwellings with balconies and patio areas with pleasant aspect.”

My imagination runs riot….

Joanna Lumley (yes, now Purdey is an expert on global warming, too).

OK, I’m sold, let’s exterminate all the cattle on the planet. And we need to get rid of all the antelope, wildebeest, buffalo and the animals that feed off them at the same time. I think Joanna is going to need a bigger gun.

I think this is just plain stupid. Surely, any animal, in the wild, is carbon neutral? Everything is recycled all the way through to the worms and maggots at the end. Including the methane, or whatever, from their digestive systems. I think it is called an ecosystem or something like that. Or am I missing something?

The only problem comes when you adopt certain intensive farming methods, so surely the solution is not mass extinction of cattle, but to modify those practices?

“Mummy, what made this apple fall from the tree?”
“Gravity” says Tim.

(it was funny if you were there.)

“Mummy, you can go on this computer now because finished I have.”
(Picture him small and green with big ears.)

Not much of a blog for however many weeks it is since I’ve blogged. We’ve been to parties, to school, to work. Small has discovered an aggresive streak, the first day he squeezed ppl, then he poked, then he kicked. Then I sat him down and explained that keeping his friends safe doesn’t mean thinking up a new way to hurt them every day that is different to the one we told him not to do the day before.

He said “You told me one thing and another thing, but I didn’t hear the other thing.”

No, I don’t know what that means either.

Big has a list of things to think about every night, and worry ppl to tell her worries to if her list runs out. It isn’t working desperately well, as she still comes down most evenings to ask what to think about. She’s reading very rapidly now, worked her way through several Roald Dahls and is on to her first independent Noel Streatfield.

Small wants to learn to read, but doesn’t want to do anything about it. Isn’t that the way it goes.

And I keep losing at scrabulous.