cie:rss

We have a REAL cat! Maybe

Your child is running up the field, making a dash for the try line, it will be his first. Then out of nowhere he\'s tackeld to the ground 10 meters out. Pride quickly turns to disappointment. Not at your child but at the fact he was robbed of his first try.

This is how I felt this morning, when told of Tuppences early morning surprise. Whilst Jayne was brushing her teeth, Tuppy bought in a live bird from outside. This is the first time she\'s done anything like this. In the past she has caught spiders but then when they move under he paws she jumps back, she just doesn\'t know how to kill. And so this was the case this morning, she bought the bird in but didn\'t know what to do with it. So, she let it go, in the bathroom while Jayne was cleaning he teeth, I can almost imagine what it was like. Needless to say the bird was released.

I was so proud of Tuppence for finally showing some signs of being a real cat, but alas it\'s only just. She still has to release he Killer instinct.

Wii Balance Board & WiiFit

Well I\'ve had my Wii now since Christmas. I\'ve totally enjoyed playing the various games that are available. I\'m also currently enjoying playing Mortal Combat in a regression back into the last century.

HOWEVER I have just made my latest purchase of the WiiFIT and boy does it blow my mind away. You have to look past the Fitness Activities that come packaged with it and look at the potential for other games. What we are in for I think is a resurgance of games like California Games etc but utilising the amazing technological advances that Nintendo have bought us. All I can say is I can\'t wait for it to come!

ANZAC DAY

What is ANZAC Day?

ANZAC Day â�� 25 April â�� is probably Australia\'s most important national occasion. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The soldiers in those forces quickly became known as ANZACs, and the pride they soon took in that name endures to this day.
Why is this day special to Australians?

When war broke out in 1914 Australia had been a federal commonwealth for only 14 years. The new national government was eager to establish its reputation among the nations of the world. In 1915 Australian and New Zealand soldiers formed part of the allied expedition that set out to capture the Gallipoli peninsula to open the way to the Black Sea for the allied navies. The plan was to capture Constantinople (now Istanbul), the capital of the Ottoman Empire and an ally of Germany. They landed at Gallipoli on 25 April, meeting fierce resistance from the Turkish defenders. What had been planned as a bold stroke to knock Turkey out of the war quickly became a stalemate, and the campaign dragged on for eight months. At the end of 1915 the allied forces were evacuated after both sides had suffered heavy casualties and endured great hardships. Over 8,000 Australian soldiers were killed. News of the landing at Gallipoli made a profound impact on Australians at home and 25 April quickly became the day on which Australians remembered the sacrifice of those who had died in war.

Although the Gallipoli campaign failed in its military objectives of capturing Constantinople and knocking Turkey out of the war, the Australian and New Zealand actions during the campaign bequeathed an intangible but powerful legacy. The creation of what became known as the \"ANZAC legend\" became an important part of the national identity of both nations. This shaped the ways they viewed both their past and future.
Early commemorations

The date, 25 April, was officially named ANZAC Day in 1916 and was marked by a wide variety of ceremonies and services in Australia, a march through London, and a sports day in the Australian camp in Egypt. In London over 2,000 Australian and New Zealand troops marched through the streets. A London newspaper headline dubbed them \"The knights of Gallipoli\". Marches were held all over Australia in 1916. Wounded soldiers from Gallipoli attended the Sydney march in convoys of cars, attended by nurses. For the remaining years of the war, ANZAC Day was used as an occasion for patriotic rallies and recruiting campaigns, and parades of serving members of the AIF were held in most cities.

During the 1920s ANZAC Day became established as a national day of commemoration for the 60,000 Australians who died during the war. The first year in which all states observed some form of public holiday together on ANZAC Day was 1927. By the mid-1930s all the rituals we today associate with the day â�� dawn vigils, marches, memorial services, reunions, two-up games â�� were firmly established as part of ANZAC Day culture.

With the coming of the Second World War, ANZAC Day was used to also commemorate the lives of Australians lost in that war. In subsequent years the meaning of the day has been further broadened to include Australians killed in all the military operations in which Australia has been involved.

ANZAC Day was first commemorated at the Memorial in 1942 but, due to government orders preventing large public gatherings in case of Japanese air attack, it was a small affair and was neither a march nor a memorial service. ANZAC Day has been annually commemorated at the Memorial ever since.
What does it mean today?

Australians recognise 25 April as an occasion of national commemoration. Commemorative services are held at dawn â�� the time of the original landing â�� across the nation. Later in the day, ex-servicemen and women meet and join in marches through the major cities and many smaller centres. Commemorative ceremonies are held at war memorials around the country. It is a day when Australians reflect on the many different meanings of war.
Dawn Service

The Dawn Service observed on ANZAC Day has its origins in an operational routine which is still observed by the Australian Army today. During battle, the half-light of dawn was one of the most favoured times for an attack. Soldiers in defensive positions were, therefore, woken up in the dark, before dawn, so by the time first light crept across the battlefield they were awake, alert, and manning their weapons. This was, and still is, known as \"stand-to\". It was also repeated at sunset.

After the First World War, returned soldiers sought the comradeship they felt in those quiet, peaceful moments before dawn. With symbolic links to the dawn landing at Gallipoli, a dawn stand-to or ceremony became a common form of ANZAC Day remembrance during the 1920s; the first official dawn service was held at the Sydney Cenotaph in 1927. Dawn services were originally very simple and followed the operational ritual. In many cases they were restricted to veterans only and the daytime ceremony was for families and other well-wishers. Before dawn the gathered veterans would be ordered to \"stand to\" and two minutes\' silence would follow. At the end of this time a lone bugler would play the Last Post and then concluded the service with Reveille. In more recent times the families and young people have been encouraged to take part in dawn services, and services in Australian capital cities have seen some of the largest turnouts ever. Reflecting this change, the ceremonies have become more elaborate, incorporating hymns, readings, pipers, and rifle volleys. Others, though, have retained the simple format of the dawn stand-to, familiar to so many soldiers.
The ANZAC Day ceremony

Each year the commemorations follow a pattern that is familiar to each generation of Australians. A typical ANZAC Day service contains the following features: introduction, hymn, prayer, an address, laying of wreaths, recitation, Last Post, a period of silence, Rouse or Reveille, and the national anthem. At the Memorial, families often place red poppies beside the names of relatives on the Memorial\'s Roll of Honour after events such as the ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day services.

waste management

Every year British households throw out over 6.7 million tonnes of unwanted food. Of that around 40% is fresh fruit and veg!

Most people wouldn\'t think that this is a big issue. Fresh fruit and veg will rot down and compost, but there are two major things that have a massive impact on the environment from this. First off there is the space that it takes up in our ever dwindling availability of rubbish dumps, secondly is the rotting process of the unwanted food produces methane which is a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon-dioxide.

There are a number of things that we, at a household level are able to do to start to minimise this.

Planning plays a big role in minimising waste. Plan your weekly meals, lunches and breakfasts. When you plan asll these things you can create a much more structured and concise shopping list. Following on from this when you are doing you grocery shopping you should stick to your list, buying unnecessary will only lead to increased consumption - affecting your health - and greater wastage.

Think about home composting! Now home composting will only ahve a small effect on the rotting process mentionned above but what you can do is use this compost on your garden, put it back into the life-cycle of our consumption lifestyle. Think about growing some of your own veg and fruit at home to further offset this. Try potatoes (they will grow almost anywhere and are impossible to kill), try tomatoes, lettuce, carrots etc, using your own compost along the way.

I have just taken a quote from a BBC article which can be found here and it is as follows

A trial in the Shropshire town of Ludlow is offering an alternative to our bin-bag culture. Householders have been issued with a separate bin, along with biodegradable bags.

They\'re asked to keep their food waste separate from the general rubbish. It\'s collected every week and brought to the town\'s anaerobic digester - a sort of Robocop of food waste - designed to turn the scourge of rotting food into a force for environmental good.

It all gets shredded and liquefied. It then goes through a process of fermentation and pasteurisation before being turned into fertiliser for local farms.

At every stage of the process, methane gas is collected and used to power the plant, and the vehicles that ferry the waste here.

I find this a very interesting concept and know of a similar process used for water on properties that do not have access to the sewage network, surely there could be some crossover on water purification, energy production and waste management?

Do you know what a solitary bee is?

30 minutes of my day yesterday was spen looking at tht eground intently. Why you might ask, well I saw a bee! I know, I know not that interesting you might say, but this bee was digging a hole! I discovered something new today and that was doing research into burrowing bees. There are around 250 species of solitary bees in the UK, and the two most common in your gardens are The Tawny Mining Bee and the Red Mason Bee. The one that I discovered was the Tawny Mining Bee.

Every spring these bees turn up in garden lawns. Tawny Mining Bees are harmless. The female is one of our most attractive bees, with lovely foxy red coloured hairs clothing its body. Andrena fulva makes its nest in loose soil, often in lawns. It makes a characteristic cone shaped mound of soil. The cones are created with the soil excavated by the bees as they dig out nest cells underground.

What can you do to attract them to your garden? These bees like loose soil to burrow into, and usually like to do it on your lawns although they will go into garden beds. to avoid distrupting the and forcing them to move on avoid mowing your lawns during the middle of the day as this is when they are most active. during the cooler parts of the day they are still relativly dormant underground.

Watch them and admire them, they will not sting you as being solitary they do not put themselves into a position to lay down their life as they cannot then reporduce. Check their activities and the plants and flowers they are polinating in your garden.. Above all admire nature.

Snow in windsor

It\'s been a long time comming, mid-spring in fact, but we\'ve finally had our first proper snow of the year. It was nice yesterday with a bit of rain and wind but not much and then over night, the weather transformed into snow and we were left with beautiful surroundings and children throwing snowballs outside. Even the cat has been out although she was looking somewhere to poo and dI did have to break up the frozen ground for her!

One downside to all this though is that it pushed back yet again when I can plant out on my allotment, let\'s hope that this week sees some imporovment in the weather and I can start to get some of my crops down!

Music on Public Transport

Got an iPod? Get some decent head phones then! I am sick and tired of travelling in the morning, actually at any time of the day on the trains and tubs and having to listen to everybody elses music. There are sometimes when I do not have my iPod on precisly because I don\'t want to listen to music and might just be reading. There is nothing more disturbing then having to listen to your bloody music! Really! A noise cancelling pair can be picked up for less then Â£20, that way you also wont wreck your hearing by the time you\'re thirty. If you can\'t afford Â£20 then just not go out one friday night!

Just what is needed in Britain

Original Article

Badly behaved commuters riding on Yokohama\'s public transport will soon be risking a dressing-down.

Newly appointed \"etiquette police\" will be asking travellers to turn down their headphones and give up their seats for their elders and betters.

The move comes amid growing concern that etiquette is losing its hallowed place in Japanese society.

A recent poll found nearly nine out of 10 respondents felt standards of public behaviour had declined.

This perceived lapse included failing to offer your seat to pregnant and elderly people, chatting loudly on mobile phones, applying make-up in public, and listening to music on \"leaky\" headphones.

A prime hang-out for violators was identified as Japan\'s jammed commuter trains.

Japanese businessmen bow while exchanging namecards
Ways of showing respect have become rituals in Japan

So transport authorities in Yokohama - a port city south of Tokyo - have appointed a team of manners enforcers, the Smile-Manner Squadron, to try to curb some of the bad behaviour.

The team is mostly made up of over-60s, well acquainted with the standards of conduct associated with the \"old Japan\".

But many of these enforcers will be accompanied by younger bodyguards, should their etiquette advice - diplomatically given, of course - not prove welcome.

The team members, who will be identifiable by their bright green uniforms, will have no legal powers to insist that their advice is accepted by recalcitrant passengers.

But backers of the scheme hope their refined social skills mean they will be able to charm - or shame - culprits into reforming their ways.

The ANZAC on the wall

ANZAC - I\'m not sure how many of you know the passion that I support our (Australian) troups serving overseas. My upbringing had a close relationship with the military and I had participation in ANZAC parades for as long as I can remember. I stood with ARMY, AIRFORCE and NAVY from the early hours of the morning to late a night, offing my heart into the Last Post and Reveille when the time required. It is often at times when I am feeling a little homesick that these memories come back. I used to participate and had more cause to think on our forefathers that fought to save our livelyhood and it seems have to gotten further from my mind in recent years.

I came across a poem which bought tears to my eye while reading it, and made me feel quite upset that in recent years I\'ve not done as much as I could do for our service personnel around the world. So here\'s my poem and my promis to do more. Please enjoy, let the tears flow but do not feel sad. Their sacrifice was made for our future. Remember them.

The ANZAC on the Wall - Author Unknown

I wandered thru a country town \'cos I had time to spare,

And went into an antique shop to see what was in there.

Old Bikes and pumps and kero lamps, but hidden by it all,

A photo of a soldier boy - an Anzac on the Wall.

"The Anzac have a name?" I asked. The old man answered "No,.

The ones who could have told me mate, have passed on long ago.

The old man kept on talking and, according to his tale,

The photo was unwanted junk bought from a clearance sale.

"I asked around," the old man said, "but no one knows his face,

He\'s been on that wall twenty years, deserves a better place.

For some one must have loved him so, it seems a shame somehow."

I nodded in agreement and then said, "I\'ll take him now."

My nameless digger\'s photo, well it was a sorry sight

A cracked glass pane and a broken frame - I had to make it right

To prise the photo from its frame I took care just in case,

"Cause only sticky paper held the cardboard back in place.

I peeled away the faded screed and much to my surprise,

Two letters and a telegram appeared before my eyes

The first reveals my Anzac\'s name, and regiment of course

John Mathew Francis Stuart - of Australia\'s own Light Horse.

This letter written from the front, my interest now was keen

This note was dated August seventh 1917

"Dear Mum, I\'m at Khalasa Springs not far from the Red Sea

They say it\'s in the Bible - looks like Billabong to me.

"My Kathy wrote I\'m in her prayers she\'s still my bride to be

I just cant wait to see you both you\'re all the world to me

And Mum you\'ll soon meet Bluey, last month they shipped him out

I told him to call on you when he\'s up and about."

"That bluey is a larrikin, and we all thought it funny

He lobbed a Turkish hand grenade into the Co\'s dunny.

I told you how he dragged me wounded in from no man\'s land

He stopped the bleeding closed the wound with only his bare hand."

"Then he copped it at the front from some stray shrapnel blast

It was my turn to drag him in and I thought he wouldn\'t last

He woke up in hospital, and nearly lost his mind

Cause out there on the battlefield he\'d left one leg behind."

"He\'s been in a bad way mum, he knows he\'ll ride no more

Like me he loves a horse\'s back he was a champ before.

So Please Mum can you take him in, he\'s been like my brother

Raised in a Queensland orphanage he\' s never known a mother."

But Struth, I miss Australia mum, and in my mind each day

I am a mountain cattleman on high plains far away

I\'m mustering white-faced cattle, with no camel\'s hump in sight

And I waltz my Matilda by a campfire every night

I wonder who rides Billy, I heard the pub burnt down

I\'ll always love you and please say hooroo to all in town".

The second letter I could see was in a lady\'s hand

An answer to her soldier son there in a foreign land

Her copperplate was perfect, the pages neat and clean

It bore the date November 3rd 1917.

"T\'was hard enough to lose your Dad, without you at the war

I\'d hoped you would be home by now - each day I miss you more"

"Your Kathy calls around a lot since you have been away

To share with me her hopes and dreams about your wedding day

And Bluey has arrived - and what a godsend he has been

We talked and laughed for days about the things you\'ve done and seen"

"He really is a comfort, and works hard around the farm,

I read the same hope in his eyes that you wont come to harm.

Mc Connell\'s kids rode Billy, but suddenly that changed

We had a violent lightning storm, and it was really strange."

>"Last Wednesday just on midnight, not a single cloud in sight

It raged for several minutes, it gave us all a fright

It really spooked your Billy - and he screamed and bucked and reared

And then he rushed the sliprail fence, which by a foot he cleared"

"They brought him back next afternoon, but something\'s changed I fear

It\'s like the day you brought him home, for no one can get near

Remember when you caught him with his black and flowing mane?

Now Horse breakers fear the beast that only you can tame,"

"That\'s why we need you home son" - then the flow of ink went dry-

This letter was unfinished, and I couldn\'t work out why.

Until I started reading the letter number three

A yellow telegram delivered news of tragedy

Her son killed in action - oh - what pain that must have been

The Same date as her letter - 3rd November 17

This letter which was never sent, became then one of three

She sealed behind the photo\'s face - the face she longed to see.

And John\'s home town\'s old timers -children when he went to war

Would say no greater cattleman had left the town before.

They knew his widowed mother well - and with respect did tell

How when she lost her only boy she lost her mind as well.

She could not face the awful truth, to strangers she would speak

"My Johnny\'s at the war you know , he\'s coming home next week."

They all remembered Bluey, he stayed on to the end

A younger man with wooden leg became her closest friend

And he would go and find her when she wandered old and weak

And always softly say "yes dear - John will be home next week."

Then when she died Bluey moved on, to Queensland some did say

I tried to find out where he went, but dont know to this day

And Kathy never wed - a lonely spinster some found odd

She wouldn\'t set foot in a church - she\'d turned her back on God

John\'s mother left no will I learned on my detective trail

This explains my photo\'s journey, that clearance sale

So I continued digging cause I wanted to know more

I found John\'s name with thousands in the records of the war

His last ride proved his courage - a ride you will acclaim

The Light Horse Charge at Beersheba of everlasting fame

That last day in October back in 1917

At 4pm our brave boys fell - that sad fact I did glean

That\'s when John\'s life was sacrificed, the record\'s crystal clear

But 4pm in Beersheba is midnight over here.......

So as John\'s gallant sprit rose to cross the great divide

Were lightning bolts back home a signal from the other side?

Is that why Billy bolted and went racing as in pain?

Because he\'d never feel his master on his back again?

Was it coincidental? same time - same day - same date?

Some proof of numerology, or just a quirk of fate?

I think it\'s more than that, you know, as I\'ve heard wiser men,

Acknowledge there are many things that go beyond our ken

Where craggy peaks guard secrets neath dark skies torn asunder

Where hoof beats are companions to the rolling waves of thunder

Where lightning cracks like 303\'s and ricochets again

Where howling moaning gusts of wind sound just like dying men

Some Mountain cattlemen have sworn on lonely alpine track

They\'ve glimpsed a huge black stallion - Light Horseman on his back.

Yes Sceptics say, it\'s swirling clouds just forming apparitions

Oh no, my friend you cant dismiss all this as superstition

The desert of Beersheba - or windswept Aussie range

John Stuart rides forever there - Now I don\'t find that strange.

Now some gaze at this photo, and they often question me

And I tell them a small white lie, and say he\'s family.

"You must be proud of him." they say - I tell them, one and all,

That\'s why he takes the pride of place - my Anzac on the Wall.

Glastonwick 2008

Glastonwick 2008 is the 13th annual beer, music, poetry and more beer festival.

Held at Church Farm, Coombes from Friday 4th to Sunday 6th July, Glastonwick promise a weekend of enormous quantities of delicious real ale (including many new brews as usual), farmhouse cider, perry, and top quality entertainment.

Frequent trains run to Shoreham from Brighton, Worthing (both only 10 minutes away by train) and other stations along the West Coastway Line. From there, you just need to jump on the special shuttle bus linking the festival with Shoreham High Street and Railway Station, Southwick Square and Manor Hall Road, and Portslade.

This year camping is offered on site for Â£5 per night (Friday and Saturday), but you MUST book in advance if you wish to camp on site.

The festival is open from 6pm to midnight on the Friday, 12 noon to midnight on the Saturday, and 12 noon to 6pm on Sunday.

There will be about 65 cask-conditioned ales, all from small independent breweries -
mostly unusual but with a few \'old favourites\'. About 10 farmhouse ciders and perries, and plenty of food including vegetarian options.

There will be entertainment compered by Attila the Stockbroker. On the Friday evening there will be performances from Strawberry Blondes, TT Smith, Swill & The Swaggerband, and Al Baker & Alan Parry.

On Saturday there will be performances from Blyth Power, Ppz30 (Belgium), The Meow Meows, Contingent (Belgium and Southwick!), Luke Wright, Eastfield, Steve Drewett, Robb Johnson, Wob, Babar Luck, Crispin Thomas, Pog, and Evan Greer (USA).

Sundays performances will come from John Otway, Fish Brothers, Jason Pegg, Rory Ellis (Australia), Tracey Curtis, and Livingston Freeman.

Tickets can be purchased by sending a cheque made out to Barnstormer Events with your ticket requirements and an SAE to P.O. Box 668, Portslade, East Sussex, BN42 4BG.

Ticket prices (available from Monday 21st April):

Friday evening (6pm to midnight): Â£7

Saturday (noon-midnight): Â£10

Sunday daytime (from 12 noon): Â£5

Camping tickets (Friday and Saturday nights): Â£5 per person per night (from outlets or direct from Attila).

Tickets are also on sale at the following outlets:

The Evening Star, 55-56 Surrey Street, Brighton (01273 328931)

The Romans, Manor Hall Road, Southwick (01273 592147)

The Duke of Wellington, 368 Brighton Road, Shoreham-by-Sea (01273 389818)

The Buckingham Arms, 35-39 Brunswick Road, Shoreham-by-Sea (01273 453660)

SKYPE

Skype, a global phenonomon that has changed the world of telephony. It has been around now for a number of years, but I am still in awe of it and the easy of use it provides. I was an early taker of the technology. Due to the fact of my family\'s worldwide spread it was a convienient way for us all to stay in touch.

Right from the outset it had done it\'s homework on the UI and the User Experience. Sound quality from the outset was primary concern especially when calling across continents. Having said that making a conference call from UK to HK and to AUS to speak with my parents and brothers respectivly there was no time lag the majority of the time (more than can be said for standard telephone calls) and I could always get through. What about now?

With SkypeOut, SkypeVideo and the many other features that they now offer, what more could you ask for? For a period I had a smart phone with skype on it and it was a joy to be able to make calls from my mobile (when in range of a WiFi) cheaper (if using SkypeOut) than my normal mobile phone. Skype still does all these things and more for me. I have just reinstalled the software drivers for my CyberPhone Kso I now have full conectivity back between my handset and the Skype application and I\'m happy again.calling immediatly on picking up the phone, using the number keypad. Really it\'s just like using a normal phone, but isn\'t that what it\'s meant to be like.

I think I\'ll go call someone.

Russian Science Fiction/ Fantasy

Sergey Lukanenko is currently one of my favorite authors. Having just discovered him and his literary works I am totaly consumed in his world of moral dilemars with a Fantasy twist. Obviouslly his name gives him away as not being an English author, he is in fact Russian. Now reading his translations I wasn\'t expecting there to be much of a difference in his books, however there is. It\'s a very subtle difference in the thinking of the Characters and in his style of writing his difference in thinking comes through. It\'s a refreshing change to read a genre of novels that is extremly established but come across as fresh and new even though the some of the themes are themselves not new.

I have just completed the first three books in the tetraolgy based around the "Others", The Night Watch, The Day Watch and the Twilight Watch. I am waiting for the final installment of The Final Watch in October this year(2008). I am currently half way through the Film of the second book (having already watched the first) and am desperatly hoping that the third and forth books will be make into films as well.

I\'m not sure where I am going to go with all this now, but it has made me think that there is a whole new area of reading for me to explore. I am now to restricted to English / American authors.

Arthur C Clarke dies @ 90

Arthur C Clarke dies @ 90

The incredible scientist and science fiction writer passed away at his home in Sri Lanka at 0130 local time on 19 March 2008.

"The first dweller in the electronic cottage", was a dreamer, a visionary who took what he knew and learned in science and turned it into books that have captivated millions over his lifetime and undoubtobly long after it. Clarke was unique in that quite a lot of his writing included gadgets that gripped people and that we now see as common place today. He took a genre that was sometimes seen as fantastical and put a very personal and human touch to it, making it widly appealing.

Clarke enjoyed a varied 90 years on Sol\'s 3rd planet

"Life is just one big banana. Science fiction allows us all to peel open the reality and discover the yellow truth inside."

Not only did Clarke enjoy success with his Science Fiction, and lesser known with his Real Science work Films of his novels have graced our screens as well. Working with directorts suck as David Fincher and Stanley Kubrick.

Sir Partick more has said A great science fiction writer, a very good scientist, a great prophet and a very dear friend. It has been a long time since I have read any Clarke but this is ust the inspiration that has made me order some of his books and will happily devour them over the coming months.

Long live Science Fiction

Novels

Prelude to Space (1951)

The Sands of Mars (1951)

Islands in the Sky (1952)

Against the Fall of Night (1953)

Childhood\'s End (1953)

Earthlight (1955)

The City and the Stars (1956)

The Deep Range (1957)

A Fall of Moondust (1961)

Dolphin Island (1963)

Glide Path (1963)

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Rendezvous with Rama (1972)

Imperial Earth (1975)

The Fountains of Paradise (1979)

2010: Odyssey Two (1982)

The Songs of Distant Earth (1986)

2061: Odyssey Three (1988)

A Meeting with Medusa (1988)

Cradle (1988) (with Gentry Lee)

Rama II (1989) (with Gentry Lee)

Beyond the Fall of Night (1990) (with Gregory Benford)

The Ghost from the Grand Banks (1990)

The Garden of Rama (1991) (with Gentry Lee)

Rama Revealed (1993) (with Gentry Lee)

The Hammer of God (1993)

Richter 10 (1996) (with Mike McQuay)

3001: The Final Odyssey (1997)

The Trigger (1999) (with Michael P. Kube-McDowell)

The Light of Other Days (2000) (with Stephen Baxter)

Time\'s Eye (2003) (with Stephen Baxter)

Sunstorm (2005) (with Stephen Baxter)

Firstborn (2007) (with Stephen Baxter)

Omnibus editions

Across the Sea of Stars (1959) (including Childhood\'s End, Earthlight and 18 short stories)

From the Ocean, From the Stars (1962) (including The City and the Stars, The Deep Range and The Other Side of the Sky)

An Arthur C. Clarkee Omnibus (1965) (including Childhood\'s End, Prelude to Space and Expedition to Earth)

Prelude to Mars (1965) (including Prelude to Space and The Sands of Mars)

The Lion of Comarre & Against the Fall of Night (1968)

An Arthur C. Clarkee Second Omnibus (1968) (including A Fall of Moondust, Earthlight and The Sands of Mars)

Four Great SF Novels (1978) (including The City and the Stars, The Deep Range, A Fall of Moondust, Rendezvous with Rama)

The Space Trilogy (2001) (including Islands in the Sky, Earthlight and The Sands of Mars)

Short story collections

Expedition to Earth (1953)

Reach for Tomorrow (1956)

Tales from the White Hart (1957)

The Other Side of the Sky (1958)

Tales of Ten Worlds (1962)

The Nine Billion Names of God (1967)

Of Time and Stars (1972)

The Wind from the Sun (1972)

The Best of Arthur C. Clarkee (1973)

The Sentinel (1983)

Tales From Planet Earth (1990)

More Than One Universe (1991)

The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarkee (2000)

Non-fiction

Interplanetary Flight: an introduction to astronautics. London: Temple Press, 1950

The Exploration of Space. New York: Harper, 1951

The Coast of Coral. New York: Harper, 1957 â�� Volume 1 of the Blue planet trilogy

The Reefs of Taprobane; Underwater Adventures around Ceylon. New York: Harper, 1957 â�� Volume 2 of the Blue planet trilogy

The Making of a Moon: the Story of the Earth Satellite Program. New York: Harper, 1957

Boy beneath the sea, Photos by Mike Wilson. Text by Arthur C. Clarkee. New York: Harper, 1958

The Challenge of the Space Ship: Previews of Tomorrowâ��s World. New York: Harper, 1959

The Challenge of the Sea. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1960

Profiles of the Future; an Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible. New York: Harper & Row, 1962

The Treasure of the Great Reef. New York: Harper & Row, 1964 â�� Volume 3 of the Blue planet trilogy

Voices from the Sky: Previews of the Coming Space Age. New York: Harper & Row, 1965

The Promise of Space. New York: Harper, 1968

Into Space: a Young Personâ��s Guide to Space, by Arthur C. Clarkee and Robert Silverberg. New York: Harper & Row, 1971

Report on Planet Three and Other Speculations. New York: Harper & Row, 1972

The Lost Worlds of 2001. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1972

Voice Across the Sea. HarperCollins, 1975

The View from Serendip. Random House, 1977

The Odyssey File. Email correspondence with Peter Hyams. London: Panther Books, 1984

1984, Spring: a Choice of Futures. New York: Ballantine Books, 1984

Ascent to Orbit, a Scientific Autobiography: The Technical Writings of Arthur C. Clarkee. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1984

Astounding Days: A Science Fictional Autobiography. London: Gollancz, 1989

How the World Was One: Beyond the Global Village. New York : Bantam Books, 1992 â�� A history and survey of the communications revolution

By Space Possessed. London: Gollancz, 1993

The Snows of Olympus - A Garden on Mars (1994, picture album with comments)

An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, 1995, St. Martin\'s Press ISBN 0-312-15119-5 (Online Version)

Fractals: The Colors of Infinity (1997, narrator)

Arthur C. Clarkee & Lord Dunsany: A Correspondence 1945-1956. ed. Keith Allen Daniels. Palo Alto, CA, USA: Anamnesis Press, 1998.

Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! : Collected Works 1934-1988. New York: St. Martinâ��s Press, 1999

Profiles of the Future; an Inquiry into the Limits of the Possible (updated edition). New York: Harper & Row, 1999, ISBN 057506790X, ISBN 9780575067905

From Narnia to a Space Odyssey: The War of Letters Between Arthur C. Clarkee and C. S. Lewis (2003) with C. S. Lewis

The Coming of the Space Age; famous accounts of man\'s probing of the universe, selected and edited by Arthur C. Clarkee.

War heros, but not the ones you usually hear about.

Woman Ears Silver Star in Afganistan

Original article can be found here.

Now I know this is an american article from an American website but quite frankly I don\'t know of a similar British or Australian site, so if anybody does please let me know.

All too often we hear of our heros serving in Afganistan or Iraq (or other parts of the world) however when we hear about them in the media it is when they have been killed or seriouslly harmed (although not so often in the case of the latter) in the corse of serving in these war torns parts. We rarly hear of the heros doing the job in extraordinary circumstances, however this article which I haven\'t seen in the mainstream media made me stop and think about all the people doing what they are for their counties. I am sure that this young woman is not alone in her display of bravery in the line of fire, but by golly anybody who can do that gets a standing ovatino from me.

It\'s an incredible shame and I personally think it\'s a stain on the media\'s reputation (not that another one will be noticed) that because a story is not headline grabbing like another dead British serviceman, or some controversy that these stories do not make it into the mainstream media. There is a serious lack of understanding and respect from the general public (as we have recently seen in the media) towards service personnel and things like this and maybe a bit more reporting on their day to day duties as well would help to alleviate this.

We don\'t really know how lucky we all are that quite a large portion of the population dedicate their lives to protecting their contry and government and all that we stand for. These people unfortunatly are at the mercy of politicians but they still rally to the call when their country needs them. Give them a hand and a bit more understanding, they have to deal with things that we can\'t even imagine.

Stonehenge and Sailsbury

This weekend saw the arrival of a couple of family friends from Australia, well actually it\'s my mothers friend from school and her daughter. Julie is here for 10 days helping her daughter get settled in for a 2 year stay in the UK working and travelling.

With the arrival of two more tourists in Windsor this weekend a quick trip into the town centre ensured, with a brief guide around pointing out bits and bobs for them to follow up in their own time.

On the Sunday however, we decided to go a bit futher afield, and we made our way to Stonehenge and to Sailsbury to see the cathedral (photos can be fuund on flickr.com

Stonehenge, although smaller than I imagined, is an impressive structure of mammoth stones that boggles the mind in trying to work ou t how it was done without the use of modern facilities such as cranes. A guided walk around the structure taking in the surrounding coutryside is certainly worth the visit. although much of what we think we know about Stonehenge is speculation it certainly makes you look in awe and wonder at the structure. Was it a calulator, calendar or did they just like the way the sun came through on certain times of the year? Personnaly I don\'t know but taken with the approaching avenue and the surrounding burial burrows and flat, open countryside it is totally aweinspiring. At Â£6.30 for an adult and a 1.5Hr drive to get there it\'s not a waste of time or money.

Change Requests.

Original Article

I thought I\'d share this with you all as this has been than bain of my life for the past 8-12 weeks. Take heed PMs and Developers

So, your project is up and running. You\'ve defined Project Requirements and had them signed off in blood by the sponsor. All you need to do now is watch your New Model Army get on and deliver. Right? Ahhh no. Life is never that simple, and you can reasonably safely bet hard currency that the requirements will change during delivery. Managing those changes is a potential cause of massive disruption to your project and your relationship with the client if you don\'t do it well.
Never Say No To a Client
Change is Bad

It\'s often said that Salespeople never say No. And it\'s often true - whatever the customer asks for, they invariably say Yes, we can do that. And Project Managers generally hate that as it paints us into a corner where our projects are not under our control. Some PMs therefore retreat into a Yoda-like mantra:

* Saying Yes leads to Change
* Change leads to Lack of Control
* Lack of control leads to Suffering (which is a PM technical term for missing deadlines, budgets or quality objectives)

But as a client-facing PM, you soon learn that to say No is just unacceptable to most clients. It\'s seen as pure stonewalling; that you\'re not prepared to be cooperative, or (worse) that your team just isn\'t competent. Either can cause you serious problems in your sponsor relationship, maintaining which is one of your top priorities.
Change is Good

On the other hand, saying Yes to client requests tends to result in more work. In the other Yoda mantra:

* Saying Yes leads to Change
* Change leads to More Work
* More Work leads to Happiness (another PM technical term for Increased Project Revenue and Gross Profit, which you\'re often responsible for)

Balance - a Neat Trick

Balancing between stonewalling (pretending that nothing can be changed and rejecting all proposed changes) and accepting all proposed changes and causing major project control problems is a tough act. Trying to work it out mid-project is even tougher. Trying to work it out on the hoof is nigh on impossible. Here\'s the basic magic formula - if you take nothing else away from this article, take the following sentence. Put it in your wallet, stick it to your monitor, brand it on the back of your hand:

Your request makes sense, but it raises potential risks and issues that might cost time and money.

Use The Sentence even if the client request doesn\'t make sense. Some requests will, some won\'t, but The Sentence usually ends up with one of 2 results:

1. Client backs off
2. Client agrees to more time, more money or lower quality

In either case, it\'s a useful holding action that then lets you wheel out the Change Control Process that you thoughtfully included in your standard statement of work.
Change Control Process

This is a process to consistently handle the inevitable Change Requests that crop up mid-project, ensuring that the good ones get through, with associated adjustments to the cost/time/quality Holy Trinity, but the bad ones don\'t. You maintain control of your project, you\'re contractually covered, the client gets what they want, but pays for it if necessary.
What is a Change Request?

This one\'s easy: A Change Request is any request that changes the Project Requirements.
Do We Need a Change Control Process?

Again, easy. Yes. Every project must have a change process. Every change request must use it.

Time and time again, I\'ve heard inexperienced clients, developers and sales people starting to say things like: This project is too small/rapid/ low-budget to have a change process. or This change is too small to go through change control. To which I invariably respond: Only if the project policy is to refuse all change requests - which is of course a change process, just a really simple one to operate - or find yourselves another PM.

Strict? Yes. But here\'s why: because Project Requirements are a contractual document, any change to Requirements is also a contractual document. If the appropriate project authorities (the Sponsor and you) haven\'t signed up to a Change to the Requirements, you will fail UAT, your project won\'t be accepted by the sponsor, and there\'s a good chance you won\'t be paid.

Here\'s an example: a stakeholder has a wizard wheeze. It\'s a pretty simple change to the requirements and won\'t take much effort to implement. Realising this, the stakeholder takes it straight to one of the developers, who codes it up and tests it in a couple of hours. Doesn\'t break anything else, doesn\'t noticeably impact timescales or budgets. But come UAT, the Sponsor notes that the delivered site doesn\'t match the requirements, and rightly asks Where did I agree to this? You cannot allow your project to get to that point, because the only honest answer is You didn\'t with the enevitable followups of When did you agree to it? and Who died and gave you authority over what I want. That\'s A Bad Place to be.

You don\'t need to follow the same process for small CRs as large ones, though. You can use a light weight process for small CRs, as long as the 2 processes are documented and agreed, including - vitally - the definition of a small CR.

Prague in Feburary 2008

As some of you would have known, Jayne & I took a last minute trip to Prage last weekend (21-24 Feb). It was a chance to try and let our hair down and echarge the batteries a bit.

My Czech friend Tereza who lives in Prague very kindly lent us some books and we met up with her for an evening to have dinner and a catchup.

Besides spending the days wandering around the city, we also did a Day trip out of the city to Kutna Hora to visit the town and the main draw there which is the Bone Church in Sedlec. It was an amazing experience being in a church decorated with the bones of 40,000 Plague victims from the middle ages. There were candelabras and chandeliers mae from all the bones of the human body, and massive pyramids of skulls and femurs. All the photos of which can be found at my flickr account.

Besides this we went to a great beer keller called U Fleku, with live music and great food, wheer we met some great sweedish and norwegians who invited us to come out and stay!

We also spend some time in the Old Town Square having hot coffee and a cheese platter with grapes and walnuts whilst waiting for the hour to tick over so we could see the astronomical clock in action. On the Saturday we went out the the outskirts of the city to a huge outdoor markts the likes of which I have only ever seen in SOuth East Asia, in fact this was very much like that as all the store sellers where Asian, I swear it! They were all from Hong Kong!

A quite disturbing thing about these markets were the blatant accessibility of weapons, from knives, to brass knuckles and throwing stars. But I did manage to pick up a great pair of cowboy boots whilst I was there aswell. Prague is a strange city, with many a interesting sght, plenty to see over a long weekend, but it is certainly worth a trip out of the city to see something of the Czech country that isn\'t so touristy orientated.

All in all we had a good time, not enough rest though, saw some amazing things, got some great photos, caught up with an old friend and got back in time for snuday lunch!

Live long and prosper

There is one remarkable scientific fact that sets Okinawans apart from the rest of us, they actually age more slowly than almost anyone else on earth.

\"The calendar may say they\'re 70 but their body says they\'re 50,\" says Bradley Willcox, a scientist researching the extraordinary phenomenon. \"The most impressive part of it is that a good lot of them are healthy until the very end.\"

Finding the cause of their exceptional longevity is not simple but the spotlight has fallen on one hormone - DHEA. It\'s a precursor of both oestrogen and testosterone and produced in the adrenal glands.

While scientists don\'t know what it does, they do know the hormone decreases with age and levels decline at a much slower rate among the Okinawans.

Explanations for this mostly centre around the dinner table. The Okinawans not only eat more tofu and soya products than any other population in the world, their diet also includes a vast range of different vegetables and fruit all rich in anti-oxidants. Scientists refer to it as a rainbow diet.

But it\'s what they don\'t eat that may be at the heart of their exceptionally long lives.

The Okinawan\'s most significant cultural tradition is known as hara hachi bu, which translated means eat until you\'re only 80% full.

In a typical day they only consume around 12,00 calories, about 20% less than most people in the UK. Culturally it is a million miles from attitudes in a lot of Western societies, where all-you-can-eat meal deals are offered in restaurants on most high streets.

Scientists call it caloric restriction, but don\'t entirely understand why it works. They think it sends a signal to the body that there is going to be a impending famine, sending it into a protective, self-preservation mode.

\"It\'s this ability to trick their bodies into starvation that may be keeping Okinawans physiologically so young. It\'s a stark contrast with the cultural habits that drive food consumption in other parts of the world,\" says Mr Willcox.

Children of the State

Here\'s an interesting notion. Housewives and Househusbands are working for the state!

A reccent BBC article shows that the typical house mother was \"worth\" around Â£30K. So why isn\'t the state paying Â£30 for mothers that are rearing children for the next generation of Tax Payers, Workers etc (I\'m not talking about a single mother with 3 children, pushing the buggy into Chav Central spending her benifits on Fags) (I also know this is an over generalisation but you all know what I mean). We have here, people, that are investing time and money into providing for the future of the state and certainly not getting their worth out of it. Families often have to struggle with one parent working and the other on \"token\" benifits, to be only able to afford to send their children state funded schools that are lacking in facilities etc and not being able to provide altogether healthy meals, not to mention that the working parent spends so much time trying to provide that they end up missing out on the brining up of said children.

Honestly I don\'t know what the solution is to help these people but surely the state should be looknig after our next generation.

Kimchi Recipe

There are probably as many different recipes for Kimchi as there
are Koreans, but nothing on earth tastes as good or is as good for you. (For
an explanation of it\'s health benefits, see What
Makes Kimchi So Healthy?) Kimchi can be based on a variety of vegetables,
but arguably the healthiest and most common version is based on cabbage.

This is probably the ultimate kimchi recipe. A lot of Korean foods
are too hot for the Westerner to enjoy at first. But this recipe blends a variety
of flavors and textures in a way that suits the Western palette. It also provides
a pleasing mixture of colors and adds a bit of fruit to sweeten the taste.

One of the interesting aspects of Grandmaster\'s teaching is that the energy you are generating while preparing
food goes into the food through the energy fields around your body, and especially your hands. The directions in
this article capture as much as possible of the flavor of that teaching, encouraging you to generate the best possible
energy while cooking. If nothing else, consciously preparing your food will be a healthy and rewarding experience,
irrespective of any effect it may have on the food itself.

If you have already tried kimchi, and you like it, then you are going to just love this recipe. If you
didn\'t like it, then keep an open mind -- you haven\'t tasted anything like this before. And if you have never tried
it before, don\'t go right out to a Korean restaurant and expect to find what is described in these pages -- its
not even close. I hope I\'ve got you curious enough to try this recipe. Besides tasting great, it can make an incredible
difference in your health and longevity.

Ingredients

Here are the ingredients you need to make the "Ultimate Kimchi" (my
name), and quick summary of the directions. Obviously, organic vegetables are
the best. Not so obvious is that raw, unrefined vinegar and oil make
a big difference. Of the two, absolutely the most important is unrefined sesame
oil.

Note:

Part of the process is making sure that the kimchi is properly fermented.

Ingredients

Directions

Organic foods
	1 Napa cabbage 3 Carrots 2 Cucumbers 3 Heads broccoli 2 Bunches scallions 1 Apple 2 Small oranges 1 Lemon

Health food store
	Unrefined rice vinegar Unrefined sesame oil Kosher salt (or sea salt)

Korean foods store
	Crushed red pepper (coarse) Crushed garlic Sesame seeds (Roasted more flavorful. Raw may be healthier.)

Cooking tools
	Large mixing bowl Small mixing bowl Cutting board Cutting knife

Rinse all vegetables in water and salt.
Cut out stem of cabbage with a V-notch, then cut in half lengthwise. Cut each half lengthwise once again, and
slice crosswise into strips.
Cut up the cabbage stem into thin strips.
Sprinkle liberally with Kosher salt.

Scoop and stir with hands.
Let cabbage sit while peeling carrots and cucumber. Peel carrots completely. Take strips from the cucumbers.
Section the carrots and cut into thin strips.
Section the cucumbers and cut into thin strips.
Cut broccoli heads into byte-size pieces, cut stalks diagonally to make thin oval slices.
Add salt. Scoop and stir.
Trim scallions, slice the white part down the center, then cut into strips diagonally.
Core and dice the apple and add.
Skin the oranges and lemon.
Slice the oranges, separate into pieces, and add.
Put a handful of chilli pepper into a
sauce bowl. Add from a third as much to an equal amount of sesame seeds,
and crushed garlic.
Add enough sesame oil to moisten everything, and approximately an equal
amount of rice vinegar (enough to make a paste).
Dice the lemon and squeeze into the bowl, add the remaining pieces.
Mix the ingredients in the sauce bowl to make paste, then gently spread the paste into the vegetable bowl.

Note:

When it comes to the amounts, there are no hard and
fast rules. It\'s all done "to taste", and I can tell you
that when GrandMaster makes it, it tastes a lot better
than when I do. (The taste you\'re going for is one that balances
all of the flavors, so you\'re aware of each of them as you eat.)

Directions

Preparing the Basic Ingredients

Cabbage

First, cut the Napa cabbage in half lengthwise. Then you are ready to wash all of the vegetables. This is a
very important step. Don\'t neglect it. Run cool water into the sink or into a bowl. Sprinkle some Kosher salt into
the water, and put in a bit of vinegar. Then swish the vegetables around in the water. Let them stand for a little
while, but not too long, so they get a thorough rinsing. The salt and the vinegar act to purify the vegetables,
washing away any toxic residues from pesticides and any clinging dirt.

As you wash the vegetables, focus on your inner cooking. As you prepare the food, prepare your mind. Recognize
that the way you prepare this meal is the way you are preparing your life. Put your total energy and attention
into it. Clean your mind of all surface troubles and tribulations, all worries and fears. Focus on this exact moment
in time. Observe the colors and textures of the vegetables. Feel them in your hand. Relax. Connect with your purpose
and with the purpose of those who will be eating this food. Recognize that you are preparing totally healthy, life-giving
fuel. Feel the love that you are demonstrating for yourself and for others as you perform this important service.
Smile inside. This is going to be great! Its going to taste awesome!

Now its time to slice up the cabbage. The secret to all Korean cooking is to cut the food into bite-sized pieces,
just right for putting in your mouth and enjoying. That way, the meal can be eaten calmly, instead of hacking away
with a knife and fork every minute or so!

Put half of the cabbage on the cutting board, flat side down. Then, at the base of the cabbage, cut a V-shaped
notch around the stem, and remove it. (If you are an old hand, you can skip this step and leave in the heart of
the cabbage. But at first its better to leave out the heart because its pretty tough to chew.) Then cut the cabbage
lengthwise again, but leave the two halves together. Now, starting at the base and working towards the top of the
cabbage, cut across the cabbage making strips about one inch wide. As you cut, the pieces will begin separating.
When you are done, put all the pieces into the large bowl.

Cut the other half and add those pieces to the bowl. Then sprinkle them all with a layer of Kosher salt. This
again is a most important step. As the salt interacts with the cabbage, it draws out its natural juices and begins
to break down the cell walls so that the spices in the chili paste can penetrate. Salting the cabbage is done early,
so the salt can work while the other ingredients are being prepared.

After sprinkling salt, gently stir it into the cabbage. Do this with your hands, rather than with a tool. (We\'ll
discuss more on this later.) Use your hands like you\'re hugging the cabbage. Move them gently around the sides,
and then gather them into the center. Then push the cabbage to the sides (gently) and pull your hands around the
edges like you\'re swimming with a breaststroke.

The hugging motion is gentle. Generate love while you\'re doing it. Its hard to overstate the importance of this
step. Whenever we make Kimchi, it comes out good, but nearly as good as Grandmaster\'s. We\'re pretty sure that the
missing ingredient is love. No one generates love with the intensity and purity that Grandmaster does. Its interesting
to watch Grandmaster at times like these, too. If someone speaks to her, she may nod, or smile, or she may not
react all -- but her concentration never wavers. She is completely absorbed in what she is doing. She is also completely
aware of everything going on around her -- who is saying what, who is doing what, and where they are -- but she
has her attention focused on one thing -- and that concentration makes a big difference in her kimchi.

After you hug the cabbage, taste. It shouldn\'t taste "salty". At the same time, you should be able
to taste the salt. Try adding little at a time, and test it frequently. When you reach the point where the cabbage
"zings", you\'ve got it. The right balance of salt makes the cabbage come alive, so its exciting on your
tongue. Practice! You\'ll get it.

As you prepare each of the next vegetables, work them into the bowl with the same hugging technique. Add additional
salt as required to keep the flavors tingling on your tongue.

Carrots

The carrots are next. Cut off the ends, then cut the carrots into sections about one inch long. Then stand the
pieces on end, and cut downward into flat strips about a quarter of an inch thick. That gives you bite-sized carrot
morsels that will taste great and be easy to chew. Go ahead and try one. Sing out â��Lachaimâ�� first ("La-kheye-em).
Let it ring out! It means "To Life!" After all, that\'s why we\'re cooking!

In addition to making the carrots easier to chew, this method of cutting them exposes the maximum surface area
of the inner fibers, so that they wind up as tender as can be! If you happen to have a very wide carrot, you can
cut each "cylinder" in half vertically before making the downward cuts, then turn the piece 90 degrees,
and continue cutting downward -- every vertical slice now makes two carrot slices. (Don\'t try this on the cucumber,
though. The interior of the cucumber is too soft -- the extra cut makes it go limp too quickly.)

Cucumber

Before cutting the cucumber, use a peeler or knife to take off the skin. Leave thin strips of skin between the
areas you peel -- they add color and texture -- but remove most of the skin. Then cut off the ends, and cut the
cucumber the same way you cut the carrot (except for not cutting down the middle unless the cucumber is huge).

Broccoli

Before cutting the broccoli, remove the little leaves growing in and around the stalks. Then cut up the broccoli
heads into mouth sized pieces. You can also add parts of the stalk if you cut them on a narrow angle. To see what
I mean, try cutting straight across the stalk. That gives you a small circular piece with a lot of rind and very
little of the soft, white middle. But if you move the knife to angle the blade up the stem, you slice off a long
oval with a lot of the white inside. These pieces are in good balance, with enough rind on the outside to keep
a firm texture, and enough fleshy white part on the inside to make them a delectable treat.

Scallions

The scallions are the last of the "standard" vegetables in this recipe. Actually, none of the vegetables
are standard. There are hundreds of varieties of kimchi. For example there is cucumber kimchi, that uses no cabbage.
And there is mostly-cabbage kimchi with a few scallions and not much else. That\'s the kind of kimchi you usually
find in Korean restaurants, and Koreans love it. But the basic kimchi we are making here is one that is designed
to be a tasty treat for people who have never had kimchi before, and who may not even like spicy food all that
much! Whenever you make kimchi, don\'t be afraid to experiment. Use whatever you have on hand. That keeps it exciting.

No matter what kind of kimchi you make, though, always include the scallions. Scallions are a vital part of
Grandmaster\'s cooking, and of Korean cooking in general. Onions and garlic have for centuries been eaten as regular
staples by the longest living peoples on earth -- Asians, Russians, and Bulgarians. That is not a coincidence!

To prepare the scallions, first cut off the hairy ends and cut off as much of the green parts as have started
to wilt. The topmost layer of skin on the onion is frequently soft and wilted, too. If you peel it off, you\'ll
find fresh, crisp onion underneath. All of the onion that remains should be that crisp.

Once the scallions are ready, cut them once lengthwise, from about the middle (where everything joins into a
single stem) down to the end of the stem. Opening the scallions in this way unlocks their flavor, and lets their
juices mingle freely with the other ingredients in the Kimchi. After slicing them lengthwise, hold several (or
all or them) at one time, and cut short sections -- about half an inch long. But, rather than cutting straight
downward, cut at an angle to expose the maximum amount of surface area.

Fruit

With the last of the vegetables in the bowl, check the salt level one more time, then start on the fruit. Different
fruits can be used. Each gives a different flavor. I have seen a pear used, for example, and it tasted great. But
the standard blend that Grandmaster makes usually has an apple, a couple of oranges, and one or two lemons. Although
the Korean kimchi you find in stores or restaurants generally does not use fruit, I love the little bits of fruit
in Grandmaster\'s recipe. They taste great! (Hint: If anyone in your family tends to dislike spicy foods, use more
fruit and less red pepper. They\'ll love it.)

To prepare the apple, either core it or slice it into sections and remove the core from the sections. Then dice
the apple into half-inch cubes. Add them to the bowl.

For the orange, first remove the skin, then slice it like a pineapple, making slices between a quarter-inch
and a half-inch thick. As you put the slices into the bowl, gently separate them into sections of one or two pieces.
These pieces act like little surprise packages, giving you little bursts of flavor now and again as you enjoy the
kimchi. They\'re wonderful!

When adding the lemon, first remove the skin and slice it into round sections, the same as the orange. But then
dice the lemon into tiny bits before adding it to the bowl. Brush off the juice on the cutting board into the bowl,
too. It adds a lot of flavor.

Note: Rather than adding the lemon to the bowl, it can also be used for extra moisture when making the chili
paste. I\'ve seen Grandmaster do it both ways. Actually, I\'ve seen Grandmaster do a lot of things differently each
time. What matters most is the energy you put into the project, not strict attention to detail. If you perform
each step with a purpose, and are consciously aware of that purpose, then that is sufficient. If something doesn\'t
work out, then rely on Grandmaster\'s second principle of mental conduct: Learn from your mistakes! And if it does
work out, great! Adding your own creativity and ingenuity to the process makes it that much more wonderful!

Preparing the Chili Paste

That takes care of the basic ingredients. Now for the chili paste. This is the big step! So far, its easy to
see why Kimchi is healthy. After all, its all raw fruits and vegetables, something we all need a lot more of in
our diet. But much more healthy and energizing surprises await!

Chili Pepper

The first ingredient is Korean ground chili pepper. This is a very coarse grind of pepper. It consists of large
flakes that are very flavorful and very hot. Take out about as much as you think you\'ll need to cover the Kimchi
and put in the small bowl. (Usually a small handful will do.) Don\'t worry about taking too much -- anything that
doesn\'t get used on the kimchi can be used later on as a flavoring for soups or rice or sandwiches. (Sparingly!)

Along with garlic and onions, chilli pepper has been recommended by some very long-lived peoples! Its worth
using, even if you are not all that fond of spicy foods. Remember to keep it in balance -- it should add flavor
and zest, not cry out for a fire hose!

Garlic

This is without a doubt the secret ingredient in Kimchi -- large amounts of fresh, crushed garlic. Grandmaster
recommends eating kimchi with every meal. Anyone who looks as young as she does at 46 has got to be on to something.
Along with meditation, exercise, stress release, and positive thinking, the garlic in her diet has a lot to do
with that.

You need about half as much garlic as chili pepper, or a little more. You can relax, though. You don\'t have
to crush it all yourself. Any Korean store (or a good Oriental store) will have small tubs of crushed garlic in
the freezer section. Later on, I\'ll go into a lot more detail about how Kimchi and garlic act to make you healthy.
For now though, let\'s finish up the recipe so we can enjoy the eating!

Sesame Seed, Rice Vinegar, Sesame Oil

There are only a few steps left. Now that you have added the garlic to the chili powder, add an equal amount
of roasted sesame seeds. The total mixture so far is about 1/2 chili powder, one quarter crushed garlic, and one
quarter roast sesame seeds. Add rice vinegar and knead the mixture with your hands. Add enough vinegar until you
begin to form a smooth paste. Then add a dash of sesame oil -- about a tablespoon. Now is the time to add the diced
lemon, if you haven\'t already added it to the large bowl.

Test the chili paste for flavor -- it will be hot, but the sesame and garlic flavors should also be pronounced.
Add more ingredients as needed. Blend the ingredients until the paste has a uniform color. The dry chili pepper
will be bright red. As you add rice vinegar and other ingredients, it becomes more orange. Try to keep it on the
bright side, rather than a dull orange.

Spreading the Chili Paste

Ah. The final step. Take a bit of the chili paste in your hand, and rub it into the top of the Kimchi. Softly.
Gently. Now practice your hugging exercise, gently moving the Kimchi around until all of the pieces are evenly
coated. If you can see uncoated pieces, then you need to add more. The goal is to just cover the Kimchi -- any
more chili paste than that, and its going to be a lot hotter. If you are not used to spicy foods, add the chili
paste a little at a time. Try it as you go. When you get to the point where your tongue says, "Wow! That\'s
exciting!" then its time to stop. Get a bowl, put in some rice, and treat yourself to one of the best dishes
you could possibly make.

The goal of this step is not just to spread the chili paste, but to put your energy into the food. Perhaps you
are familiar with the concept of "energy circuits" in your body. This is a very traditional concept in
the Orient.

One of the body\'s main energy pathways runs along the arms down to the palms of the hands. It terminates right
at the base of the hand, in the center of the palm heel. For an exercise in energy sensitivity, put your hands
out to a fire (from a distance), or up to the sun. Be aware of your body. Note how much more you feel the energy
in your palms than elsewhere on your skin.

As you spread the chili paste and hug the kimchi, focus on generating energy through your palms. Generate all
the love, strength, and power that you can. Put your heart into it. You will feel stronger, and the kimchi will
come out that much better!

Now for the Good Part...

Making kimchi is an exercise in generating good energy and putting into your food. The next step is to eat it,
and get all that healthy benefit inside you!

Eating Kimchi

Use kimchi as a side dish with any meal, have it with rice, or put it between two slices of toast and make a
sandwich. Its great for you, however you eat it.

Storing Kimchi

After you finish eating, store the remainder in covered jars or bowls and keep
them in the refrigerator. It should be good for a few weeks before it starts
to develop the strong smell that says "Use me for soup!" You can use
it for Kimchi soup practically forever!

Note:

In Korea, they put the kimchi in large earthenware jars that they bury in
the

ground. About a foot below the surface, the ground maintains a constant temperature
of 55 degrees. In other words, it is an ancient and honorable practice to
refrigerate the kimchi while it ferments.

To get the benefits of the fermentation process that is responsible for many
of kimchi\'s healthy qualities, it is ideal to let it sit for a couple of days
before eating. But it\'s not necessary to do that, especially if you make a lot
of it. It is still a great, healthy salad when eaten immediately, and it will
ferment over time.

Drinking Kimchi Juice

Any time your energy is low, or you think you might be fighting off a cold,
pour out some of the kimchi juice that collects in the bottom of the jar and
drink it -- its a wonderful tonic for what ails you! .

Food for the day : Kimchi

gimchi or kimchee, is a traditional Korean fermented dish made of some select vegetables with varied seasonings, most commonly referring to the spicy baechu variety. Kimchi is the most common Korean banchan, or side dish, eaten with rice along with other banchan dishes. Kimchi is also a common ingredient and cooked with other ingredients to make dishes such as kimchi stew (kimchi jjigae) and kimchi fried rice (kimchi bokkeumbap). Kimchi often tastes better with age

he history of kimchi traces back to ancient times. References to kimchi can be found as early as 2600-3000 years ago.[1] The first text-written evidence of its existence can be found in the first Chinese poetry book, Sikyeong (hangul:ì��ê²½ hanja:è©©ç¶�). In this book, kimchi was referred as â��Jiâ��, the term used before it was known as â��Chimchaeâ��.

The earliest form of kimchi consisted of only cabbage, and it was in the 12th century when people began to include other spices to create different flavors, such as sweet and sour flavors, and colors of kimchi, such as white and orange.

Chili peppers, now a major ingredient in most forms of kimchi, were unknown in Korea until the early 17th century. Chili peppers originated from the New World and were introduced to East Asia by Western traders.[4] This particular style of kimchi made with chili peppers and baechu, a variety of Chinese cabbage, gained popularity in the 19th century and this baechu kimchi continues to be the most common and popular form of kimchi today

Wiki Article

La Papa es Peruana

It\'s potato time again. We are nearing the time when the first earlies will be going into the ground but besides the limited number of varieties that are available in the UK I thought that maybe a bit of education may be in order.

The history of the potato has its roots in the windswept Andes Mountains of South America. It is an austere region plagued by fluctuating temperatures and poor soil conditions. Yet the tough and durable potato evolved in its thin air (elevations up to 15,000 feet), climbing ever higher like the people who first settled the region.

The tough pre-Columbian farmers first discovered and cultivated the potato some 7,000 years ago. They were impressed by its ruggedness, storage quality and its nutritional value. Western man did not come in contact with the potato until as late as 1537 when the Conquistadors tramped through Peru. And it was even later, about 1570, that the first potato made its way across the Atlantic to make a start on the continent of Europe.

Though the tuber was productive and hardy, the Spanish put it to very limited use. In the Spanish Colonies potatoes were considered food for the underclasses; when brought to the Old World they would be used primarily to feed hospital inmates.

It would take three decades for the potato to spread to the rest of Europe. Even so the potato was cultivated primarily as a curiosity by amateur botanists. Resistance was due to ingrained eating habits, the tuber\'s reputation as a food for the underpriveleged and perhaps most importantly its relationship to poisonous plants.

The potato is a member of the nightshade family and its leaves are, indeed, poisonous. A potato left too long in the light will begin to turn green. The green skin contains a substance called solanine which can cause the potato to taste bitter and even cause illness in humans. Such drawbacks were understood in Europe, but the advantages, generally, were not.

Europe would wait until the 1780\'s before the potato gained prominence anywhere. About 1780 the people of Ireland adopted the rugged food crop. The primary reason for its acceptance in Ireland was its ability to produce abundant, nutritious food. Unlike any other major crop, potatoes contain most of the vitamins needed for sustenance. Perhaps more importantly, potatoes can provide this sustenance to nearly 10 people on an acre of land. This would be one of the prime factors causing a population explosion in the early 1800s. Of course, by the mid-1800\'s the Irish would become so dependent upon this crop that its failure would provoke a famine.

While in Ireland the potato gained acceptance from the bottom up, in France the potato was imposed upon society by an intellectual. Antoine Augustine Parmentier saw that the nutritional benefits of the crop combined with its productive capacity could be a boon to the French farmer. He was a pharmacist, chemist and employee of Louis XV. Parmentier discovered the benefits of the potato while held prisoner by the Prussians during the Seven Years War. He was so enamored by the potato that he determined that it should become a staple of the French diet. After failing by conventional means to convince Frenchmen of its advantages, he determined upon a surreptitious means of making his point.

Parmentier acquired a miserable and unproductive spot of ground on the outskirts of Paris. There, he planted 50 acres of potatoes. During the day, he set a guard over it. This drew considerable attention in the neighborhood. In the evening the guard was relaxed and the locals came to see what all the fuss was about. Believing this plant must be valuable, many peasants \"acquired\" some of the potatoes from the plot, and soon were growing the root in their own garden plots. Their resistance was overcome by their curiosity and desire to better their lot with the obviously valuable new produce.

Soon the potato would gain wide acceptance across Europe and eventually make its way back over the Atlantic to North America. As time passed, the potato would become one of the major food stuffs of the world. But not without a few bumps in the road. The 1840\'s saw disastrous potato blight. This terrible disease was caused by a fungus known as Phytophthora infestans. With the devastation of potato crops throughout Europe came the destruction and dislocation of many of the populations that had become dependent upon it. The Potato Famine in Ireland would cut the population by half (through both starvation and emigration). An effective fungicide was not found until 1883 by the French botanist, Alexandre Millardet.

Today, the potato is so common, plentiful and pervasive in the Western diet that it is taken for granted. We forget that it has only been with us for a few hundred years.

Constantly Amazed at Science

Reading this article on the BBC this morning, I am yet again amazed at the advances and the new ideas comming from Science. The practicle applications of being able to collect wasted momentum energy is boundless. Think about all the activies and devices we have that require motion or allow us to more and think about the ability to capture and harness that enery, from simple rocking motino in your office chair,. to cars, bikes and obviouslly from this article, walking.

View Here

This is yet another reason why the government cannot skimp on funding into the public and private sector for research and innovation. Think of all the new technologies and advances that will be losty to other contries if we do.

Thinking along these lines I really should do some research into the support and funding possibilities for someone link me who has a multitude of ideas that I would like to turn into prototypes. I have had any number of energy saving ideas that !. I don\'t have the time to turn into a working prototype or the funding. Ah, c\'est la vie! One day I\'ll have the time, I just hope someone doesn\'t come up with the ideas again before I get to work some of my magic!

Can Japan\'s paper plane fly in space?

The fact that Japan is doing novel design, development and testing of the most common of materials in our everyday life and putting it under stresses of space flight says something of the differences between it and the rest of the world. Although it hasn\'t happened yet, it is only a matter of time that they come up with a modification to a lightweight everyday material that is capable of making advances in space exploration.

What I\'m trying to get at here is that could you imagine a British academic experimenting on this? first off, putting in the proposal for funding, do you think they would get it? Well not now anyway with Science funding cut from the goverment because of their own problems with being able to account properly (sound familure, it\'s just not the Science Faculties that seem to suffer from appaling accountancy) but this means that the UK are going to fall even further behind the rest of the world in ground breaking discoveries.

There was a time when GREAT BRITAIN was at the fore of innovation, but sadly now they are falling behind. In my (amost) adoptive home, I\'m quite disappointed about all the negative things I hear about research and development here. It\'s quite depressing that personally I don\'t thnik Britain will be taken too seriouslly in the future when it comes to new technological developments. For gods sake they\'e thinking of building MORE COAL POWER PLANTS to meet the Energy needs, not to mention that the UK is almost totally dependant on overseas gas which almost every household needs. Heaven forbid anything happens between the UK and Russia (like the cold war) again.

Google Can\'t Find Chuck Norris

Please, go to google, type in \"find chuck norris\" and hit \"I\'m feeling Lucky\", if this doesn\'t make your day, then there is something wrong with you! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA

New Photos

With a substantial ammount of decorating now finished in the house I\'ll take this oportunity to upload a whole load of photos. The list of new photos are as follows

Christmas Party @ GBK

Record Christmas Party

ECB Christmas Party

Renovation & Decoration

Hope you all enjoy!

Greenpeace blockades government / coal industry love-in

The views and goals of these people are completly laudable, I am contantly off-put y these organisations by not only telling people what they can\'y do but not offering any constructive guidance or information to help the situation. All these people have done today for me is piss me off by making it difficult to get into my place of work. If they actually had some benificial guidance instead of propaganda sheets I may have given them more of my time instead of tell the girl to \"shut up\" and \"let me get to work, I have bills to pay!\". While protest certainly make a point and certainly get public interest, show me their efforts to actually HELP the global cause in Research and or helping to make technologies more afforable for the individules so we can all start to make our little bit of difference to the world!

RANT OVER!

Migrants\' advice packs proposed (BBC)

Immigrants should be told not to touch people without permission, spit in the street or play loud music, Communities Secretary Hazel Blears has said.

I\'m pretty certain that this should be something that is done with the wider population as a whole, I meet a lot more intimadating and see a lot more English youths (as well as some adults) that could do with taking heed of some of this guidance. I personally do not think that this is an immigration problem (although there is a cultral misunderstanding that needs to be sorted out) there is more of a social problem here that needs tackling.

The original BBC article that prompted me to write this (read it here) has some very interesting points in their side list which I think should be put into an education programme focused on the whole country! That\'s just my thoughts anyway

Nearly Finished

Good god! Decorating is driving me nuts. I have spent the whole week renovating the master bedroom, I\'ve done the walls, inside the wardrobes, laid the new floor, and now that the ceiling is dried it needs to be painted. I had thought that the last time I was doing this that having some music playing or working with somebody else doing it as well made it alright. Well I was wrong, I\'m in a bad mood, REALLY PISSED OFF, and do NOT ever want to do this again. When we do the downstairs areas, I\'m going to pay for someone else to do it. Right I feel a bit better now I\'ve have a little rant. Of that photos isn\'t from this week either!

Bedroom under construction

LOL, well I\'m doing work in the master bedroom this week, so far I have totally emptied it of furnishing and, well actually everything. I have removed all the curtains, skirting boards and surrounds on the windows, This left big holes in the walls which I have had to fill today. I did however manage to get the new skirting boards on and get a base coat of paint on.

Tomorrow I\'mm be doing some light sanding and getting ready for the plasterer to come and skim the ceiling. Can\'t wait! Then I\'ll be painting and laying the floor! Yipee, then it\'s all done, I\'ll post a link to the photos in due course!

Oh and as an after thought we had a print arive today, framed, that we took on our holidays to Hong Kong at Xmas 2006.

Is you internet connection shit

It has just been announced that some hmoes in the UK will be recieving their internet connections via fibre delivered using the sewers!

See BBC Article. I still can\'t believe that BT is not pressing ahead with this due to fears that there is no demand for the service. With contention ratios etc keeping bandwidth restricted and the distance from your local exchange a limiting factor, not only the face that the UK\'s reliance on old copper wire which has an upper limit anyway surely there must be the demand for the increase. Are we not also seeing new commonplace services delivering TV contetn via the Internet. I installed to watch programmes on the BBC iPlayer the other day. The programme I wanted was 500MB. If I wanted to get a host of these to watch I would spend more time downloading them than watching them. Wake up, Improve the infrastructure like other European countries or you\'ll be left behind!

iPod and ubuntu

In Irish legend, a banshee wails around a house if someone in the house is about to die. There are particular families who are believed to have Banshees attached to them, and whose cries herald the death of a member of that family.

This however is NOT what I\'m going to go on about!

How many of you know of my hatred of Windows? Well if you didn\'t know I don\'t use Microsoft products at home. I actually run Ubuntu. I have recently also got myself an iPod and have been looking for a solution to iTunes under this amazing OS. I have come across Banshee which does everything I need, has a miniscule footprint and I don\'t need to be running Microsoft Windows for it to work! I\'m in heaven.

Cucumber\'s

What I love about growing your own vegatables is that you can do the
most amazing things with them that would be almost impracticle if you
were buying all your product from the supermarket. The last time I was
in Hungary I was introducted to the pickled cucumber, Hungarian Style.
This was one of the most enjoyable way of eating pickles that I\'ve come
across and the process to make them is straight from the Farm House.
Although almost all families will get around to making their own,
sitting on window ledges, balconies or anywhere where the jars will
fit. I have come across this great site that goes into a bit more
details about the history and social traditions associated with it and
one of the recipes on the page very closly resembles one that was given
by a Taxi driver in Budapest. This is added to the list of experiments
for the comming 12 Months. God I can\'t wait!

Check out the link for a couple of recipes etc