Earth Quake!

I was woke up at 12:55am this morning, and I thought, blimey, the wind is a bit strong, but then it seemed to go on too long for wind, and the room seemed to be shaking.

I looked outside and saw that all was calm. I went back to sleep, thinking it must have been an earth quake.

Turns out it was! 5.3 on the richter scale - way to cheat death, dude!

Seeds of Doubt

This week sees the formal opening of a vault designed to protect and preserve samples of valuable seeds. The "Doomsday" vault in Svalbard can store more than four million batches of seeds, including the world's major crop varieties.

This vault is dug 200 metres into the Permafrost of Norway, and will remain at a constant -20 degrees centigrade.

Well thats just great.

Our politicians are always banging on at us about global warming, and using these lies to tax us more and more. We are bombarded on an almost weekly basis about how the ice caps are melting, and we all face doom.

So they decide to keep the worlds seed bank in a load of ice!

Can you see where im going with this?! If we believe the world leaders, the ice will soon melt away, so whats the point of having this vault in the permafrost?!

A Card on Valentines Day

A card on valentines day...not an unusual thing for a good looking fella like myself, I hear you say (!)

Well that would be true, but I was in Crawley that day, and I phoned home. Carol informed me that I had a card from Australia, and she assured me it wasn't from her :-)

When I got home that night I opened the card and was pleased to find out it was a belated christmas card from my friends Karyn and Jason and their son Xander in Sydney.

In 1997, I worked in Sydney at IBM in Lane Cove. Jaon was my shift leader, and Karyn was my counter-part on the opposite shift. To cut a long story short, they got together, and then came over to the UK and stayed at my place in London for a couple of months and spent christmas in Hull at my mum and dads.

I havent seen them in ages, and I have meant to write, but havent quite got around to it :-)

Anyway, I e mailed them tonight, and I expect they will probably be browsing these pages sometime soon...so Hi Karyn, Jason & Xander. Sorry be so lame at keeping touch!

My Cold and a Steam Room

I went to the gym on Friday, and sat in the steam room for about 10 minutes, now I have a cold. I thought steam rooms were supposed to be good if you were a bit blocked up, but now Im beginning to wonder.

If you think about it, if one person has a cold, and goes into a wet steamy room, then anyone else in there has a good chance of getting a sniffle.

On the other hand, if you're running on a tread mill, you're sucking up more air, ergo, more germs, so it could be the run I did.

Anyway, the only consolation is that if I got the cold from running, all those other people in the steam room with me are probably feeling just as bad as I am now!

Where's my manky tissue?

Sky+

I have recently bitten the bullet and decided to get a Sky+ subscription. I suppose you're thinking, that why he hasn't blogged for a while!

You would only be half right.

Its great, I have to say. I especially like the way you can pause live TV, so you miss the adverts (the televisual equivilent of a cold caller), and also the ability to record 40 hours of TV onto the hard drive (for 40 hours of TV read 40 Mythbusters episode, or 80 Simpsons episodes!)

Well, I would love to blog some more, but this TV isn't going to watch itself, now is it?

You Know What Really Bugs Me?

Cold Callers, thats what. Especially at 8:15pm

Last Christmas

This year I spent christmas in Malvern again, at the Forge Cottage in Gilberts end, which is such a lovely place to stay.We visited Upton-upon-Severn, and was quite surprised to see that all of the pubs on the front were still closed from the flooding in the summer. Its good to see that this year, they seem to have got the flood barriers in place, so if it happens again, they may just be spared the water again. Im surprised that they can even still get insurance in Upton now.



I took this picture of the 'Pepper Pot', which was refurbished a few years ago

We had our usual walk up the Malvern Hills on Boxing day, and my dad now realises he needs to shift a couple of stone he's gained since quitting smoking. The extra weight certainly made him struggle a bit!

The Naga Report

Well I have finally got some time and a connection to post some pictures of the Dorset Naga testing.

As you can see from the picture, the fruit is quite small, but they really do pack a punch! A recent New Scientist report stated that only Police grade pepper spray and commercial pepper spray (5m Schovilles and 3m Schovilles respectively) are hotter than these beasts (around 1.5m Schoville units)

I wasn't quite sure how hot they would be, but the recomendation was to handle them with gloves on, which I did.

I cut a small sliver off, and dabbed it on the tip of my tongue. Immediatly, I could feel the heat, and it quickly spread all over my mouth, which started to salivate to put the fire out!

I don't recomend anyone eat these!

A friend decided to try it too, as she loves chillis, and reconked she would easily be able to handle it. She was wrong! Her tongue came up in strange bumps, and later in the evening, her skin became blotchy :-) That'll teach her!

Anyway, I have harvested the seeds, and will be planting some more next year. However, I will be planting them quite soon, as they seemed to take quite a while to grow, as you can see from the picture below taken in September last year, they seem to take a while to ripen

Phew - Busy!

I know its been a long time since I last blogged, but I am really really busy at the moment - honest!

Also, my connection at home is intermittent at the moment, so its been hard to log on there too. I will be trying to fix it in the coming days though.

When I have a bit more time, I will be posting about the Dorset Naga's, which I harvested a couple of weeks ago. i wasn't sure if they were going to be very hot, but jeezo I was wrong! They really are pretty much inedible, as they are way too hot. There was an article in the New Scientist recently that put the Naga's third in the league of hotness. The two hotter substances were 1) Police pepper spray (5m schovilles) and 2) Commercial pepper spray (3m schovilles)
The naga comes in at just over 1m schovilles! I have pictures to post of them too

Also, this weekend, I shall be travelling to Israel with work, so i will have a lot to post about that too.

So there you go, the blog has been slow, but im still here...!

No rest for the wicked

I have been working away a lot lately in Crawley, hence the few and far between posts.

Anyway, I was at a meeting in Bristol last week (those who know me will know where) and I had gone through the security procedures and passed the armed guards.

As I was walking to the meeting, I heard running footsteps behind me and out of the corner of my eye I saw my boss dodge out of the way, then I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder and the words

"Excuse me sir, we need to check your security pass"

Well I nearly shit my pants! I turned around, face drained of colour, to see the grinning face of a guy I used to work with in Malvern. Everyone laughed at me, of course! I was just hoping that the lump in the back of my trousers was shepherds pie!

Anyway, Im back in Crawley next week, so unless there's an internet connection in my hotel room, I wont be posting for a week :-(

Should I be Worried?

My dad has recently upped his accident insurance for some reason, and has recently bought a canoe and a one way ticket to Panama for my mum.

Should I be worried? :-)

Bus Drivers

My uncle Phillip is/was a bus driver, but maybe he should think again about his chosen profession....

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7116720.stm

Seems bus drivers are more likely to die earlier than lawyers/solicitors and other professionals.

One thing is certain though...life is a terminal disease and we all go sometime! It makes me wonder - all these professionals may live longer, but is their quality of life in the latter years worth it? I mean what is the point of spending the twilight years sat in a nappy, dribbling and not knowing what day it is?

Wibble...

Smoking Makes Your Nob Fall Off

No it doesnt, and neither will it increase your risk of going bald I suspect! I bet my grandad would be laughing at that one, as he mops his fringe out of his eyes.

Also, my uncle Peter and uncle Phillip must have been pretty annoyed this morning as they polished their collective heads, as they have never smoked!

Seems like its just another stupid report, probably funded by some anti-smoking lobby to scare a few more people.

Scotland the Brave?

I notice that Alex Salmond has predicted that Scotland will be independant by 2017, and will be awash with cash from the oil fields of the north sea.

Thats great! i wish him all the best, however, I think he is treading on thin ice with this announcement, but he should make sure it happens sooner rather than later...

If he doesn't extricate Scotland from the Union soon, then Scotland risks enduring an American style 'liberation' now the yanks realise they have oil!

Gym

Well today I have joined the local gym. It dawned on me on Friday, that I had driven to Loughborough, then driven to Marlow, then had a meeting, then had a lunch consisting of a pint, a starter and a main, then driven to Loughborough, then back onto Lincoln.

The common factor in all of this was my arse. I had been sat on it all day, and realised that as the new place doesnt have a gym, unless I got up off my arse, I was going to end up on one of these 'Diet Doctors' or 'You are what you eat' programs.

Have you ever watched 'Diet Doctors'? Basically you get the usual 'tub o' lard' in off the street, and the two Harpie presenters stating the bleedin' obvious!

Tub o Lard: "I don't understand why Im an absolute gut bucket"

Harpy #1: "Well, have you seen the sh!t you put in your stomach on a weekly basis?"

Harpy#2: "Yes, thats why you stink of wee"

Tubbs: "F*ck me, Im a right daft b@stard - I never though eating all this cake would make me fat"

Harpy #1: "Follow our bread and water diet and we'll see you back in 3 weeks"

3 weeks later....hey presto, the weeble has lost a couple of stones and can't believe it was so easy!

So, today, I started off with a swimming session, and tomorrow I'll be hitting the CV stuff in the gym - that should hold the diet doctors at bay for a while :-)