Pie at 6 o'clock... no, 2 o'clock... is it a pie? ...

... and there you have it, as good as a stodgy politician lumping around in sheep's clothing.

After three bites and meeting nothing but pastry - in this alleged meat pie.  I decided to keep the rest.  Take it home, and place it under closer scrutiny in a soup bowl.  Just to give it some depth.

But, as can be seen from the opposite of an already munched side, a reasonable amount had been gobbled without meeting any form of resistance, whether in juices, tantalising flavour let alone anything resembling tenderised meat.  Nothing but the same flabby bits of over sogged pastry. 

So here are pictures (quick sequence) of the pie, and the heaped teaspoon of filling that obviously went into it, followed by acres and acres of more lamentable pastry.  Meat pie?  More like "nasty pie surprise!"

Sadly it turned out to be a proverbial oh why did i bother.  And will teach me to pack a small horse of apples to munch on, and not to munch on anything whilst travelling through a strange part of town.  However tempting it might first appear - unless it happens to be first recommended by a local!

For those wishing not to indulge at this particular eatery or for those masochistic enough for an experience, it can be found here:

On a totally different and unrelated matter, is there a law against idiots driving through built up areas with exhausts rivaling blasting off shuttles?  I thought that sort of nonsense went out with the eighties?  If not shouldn't residents be given the right to buy rpg's or bazookas - for some peace and quiet?

What was that...?  There's a world outside?

 

 

Energy utilities

Perhaps when it comes down to it, it is me and I have missed all the news in relation to oil, energy, gas and electricity. Maybe my half asleep id has missed the huge onrush of ceo's from energy companies parading themselves before the nations press, spouting their concern for the hard-pressed consumer by cutting gas prices by 35-50% and electricity prices by 19-24% . And with immediate effect. I must have overlooked their concerned visages earnestly peering whilst their mouths trot through the latest prepared speech, that it's about either helping or investing; forgetting there are many out there living on a day by day basis, who find themselves having to choose between lighting, heating, or eating.

You can just imagine their voices crescendoing on, “with oil now more than half it's $146 value a year ago peak,” yes it even touched $68.57 for US light crude before closing slightly up. “We feel the time is right that our consumers are given a break and we're glad to announce a 5% cut in gas and 2% cut in electricity prices,” and just as people decide on how to react to such a statement, it's finished by, “which will take place on January 5th 2009.”

Has anyone heard or seen anything like that? Or is the deafening rush of silence, from the absent, off the field utility companies, the only answer needed?

We would like to believe that a brand new bunch of fat cat ceo's will be walking that gold plank of parting, but I somehow feel the public mob mentality for such a public drubbing has, with simmering largesse, snuffed itself out.

What we do have however, is ed miliband announcing that the government will increase their carbon reductions targets from 50% to 80% by 2050 - 42 years time.

If a day's a long time in politics, then 42 years must equate to the universal equivalent of four big bangs. A very long period of time where even the ideology of those holding the power stick will probably have been radically changed by unforeseen events and circumstances.

If they attempt to reach targets by slow-creep taxation, it will be those on the bottom and in the middle who will take the greatest hit – especially since two big polluting sectors (aviation and maritime), look like been strangely absent from the proceedings.

Alternatively the government could consider bringing in effective legislation ensuring that new builds or repairs to existing builds that require planning applications, incorporate some element of renewable's or energy efficiency within there design. Imagine, a whole new manufacturing sector could be opened up, then sold off before the next popping bubble. Not only for the manufacturing of wafer thin etaic cells, but new inspectors – just like the tax collectors of old – will incorporate the curbing of excessive emissions, clamping down with powers to immediately close a business down, to giving certificates to those households and businesses who effectively meet the required standards.

So government might bring its full weight down to bear on the energy companies, under the possibility of talks about legislation “if they don't play ball!” What the bloody heck does that mean? They need to remove their noses from the utilities brown stuff and work to ensure that those unfortunates stuck on prepayment meters don't pay an extra £200 above normal rates. When you consider that prepayment users are actually crediting companies for their usage as opposed to those on monthly or quarterly plans who pay in arrears, then no wonder they find the pp'ers a useful set of cows to milk and not to do anything to truly upset the cart.

A while ago marie-antoinette was made infamous for saying “let them eat cake!” This current government will be famous for so many things, but one of the worst will be their seeming attitude of, more money for heating? Don't they know its global warming out there?

The unfolding saga will probably come to nought but a grubby watery end.  As in 38 years time panic will be the order of the day, with the government attempting to ram-raid the law into enactment – to reach the target, or quietly bury it under the table.  Let's just hope that in 42 years time that table isn't floating off, somewhere down the thames!

Dead Mercenaries Found in Tskhinvali

One side of me had to muse on this for this while. But I suppose it could well be true.

'Authorities in the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia claim that dark-skinned mercenaries took part in the attack on Tskhinvali, reports RIA Novosti, citing representative of the South Ossetian president in Russia Dmitry Medoev. He said there were bodies of many Georgian soldiers on the streets on Tskhinvali. “There were blacks among the dead, who were probably either mercenaries or instructors in the Georgian armed forces,” Medoev said.

South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity had said earlier that mercenaries were fighting with the Georgian forces. That information has not been confirmed in Tbilisi.
Latest information indicates that the Georgian Foreign Ministry has announced the withdrawal of its forces from the conflict zone. Russian peacekeepers have not confirmed that information, however.'

Taken verbatim from, the Russia's Daily online english version news otherwise known as kommersant.  But then I thought yes it probably is possible.  After all there couldn't be any Georgian soldiers who happen to be darker than the President... surely that sort of thing, just isn't possible.

Rambling missives - revisited

At 01:22hrs (GMT) watched the Constable Savage clip from youtube. Not on the official auntie channel, or any of the other "authorised" terrestrial, cable or satellite channels, but from a link posted on a comment read from the PC Pro website) and remembered just how comically excellent the "Not The Nine O'Clock News" series was.  Enjoyed it so much, I will now consider purchasing the series on DVD - if that is, they're out. 

It's little things like this which, over the years, enable people to remember things they've forgotten (have I just uttered a bushism?) - which those silly companies that wish to take people to court should consider is actually helping to keep their income streams flapping around in the breeze.  People will watch and see far more in the future from the interwebual than by simply sitting in front of a slivering television box watching the latest advert about henna hair. 

But then the television box will in turn become even more interactive and replace the noisy PC. We can simply wave our arms in the air (aka the Wii wave) and become even more athletically couch-potatoesque, by waving our arms in the air more vigorously (whilst sweating and obtaining a hernia) in a half-assed attempt to get even more complicated remote controls functions, to do what the old plastic wedge of a remote used to do, so simply and easily before.

In the meantime, the big companies with bosses who make whopping bonuses will instead of properly bearing down on those criminals who repackage the entire DVD for resale at t'pence ha'penny, continue turning their fire and brimstone lawyers onto those people who use these little memory aides to recapture such long lost moments.

So it's a yes to "go after those making millions illicitly copying dvd's/vids etc for resale" in pubs, clubs, on the street, down Mr Parokies cornershop. But think again about the others.  The many who will actually buy those overpriced shining tea coasters.  For those of us wondering what all the fuss is about, let's just hope we only get that fly on the wall experience by reading the headlines in a Sunday paper; that the judiciary or legislative/lawmakers have finally worked out, who the real cowboys are!

And then we have Alistair Darling saying that the government aren't sure yet about what to exactly do, to help those mortgage buyers suffering from the credit-crunch.  Doesn't know what to do? What have the government been doing since all this started so many months ago?  If they initially believed what was happening in the US wouldn't wing its way over here and then make plans for it then they don't deserve to be in power, neither do the conservative party as they didn't have anything much better in place or to say either.

"A return to family values", not quite sure how that equates to been better by doing without tv, internet access, mobile phones, consoles. Smacks more of a return to the buggy and cart, quill and parchment, with food been brought in by the servants period.  But then caravanning's on the up. More people realise we can do without the latest updated upgrade and it's so much more environmentally friendly.

The olympics... 3 days and counting.

Changing planets

With the ever increasing noise about climate change and how it will affect the planet and all the species it contains, perhaps now is the correct time to think about what comes after. 

Imagine all that captured carbon solidified and compressed into a small space then been carted over to mars.   With the leaps and advances made in the arena of ameliorating the worst effects our own climate folly could embue upon us, the flip side could be the knowledge to change another worlds atmosphere to one of our own suiting.  Yes that wonderful science fiction staple that is known as terraforming.

Breadless

Egypt, once the bread basket of an empire, is now running short of subsidised bread due to the rising cost of wheat. 

But when everything is a commodity, everything has a price.  And heaven help those who don't have the ability to leverage, as they'll be squeezed further into the gutter and labelled as terrorists if they complain.

Underworld CSI

Often wondered, since watching CSI (only the Las Vegas one - the others are too painful), whether it has an underworld equivalent; perhaps called ICS?

You know, sultry, depressive and bombshell types that go around watching crime scenes and how they're solved. So now we have criminals running around with different coloured lights making sure their tracks are sufficiently covered with a suitably nifty little vacuum cleaner sucking up any stray passing bits of debris and DNA. If not, then they deserve to get caught.

Overload. Input. BSOD. Super T!

With failing memory cells, sudden memory loss, and having to reboot at regular intervals during the morning, I often wonder why I bother getting out of bed.

Below is an image of my desktop. Fairly icon free, with Google desktop keeping me informed of the: time, temperature, appointments, events, many of the ups and downs occurring in the world, beyond my 23 walls.

To many of my friends, it just comes across as me being sad. "You're just stuck there in front of the computer, all day. No wonder you're getting fat!"

But to me, it's nothing more than a heavenly experience. Within the space of an hour I have digested the news circling the world, chatted with friends (whilst reading) around the world. Read many of the online papers, news stories and settled down to replying to emails; over a relaxing steaming cup of coffee, whilst listening to the plethora of streaming programming hitting my sound card from that doyen of tit-bits, BBC Radio 4. All the while retaining my slowly slipping sanity, by not been part of the rat-race.

I am now far beyond the need to risk life and limb skateboarding off a sky-scrapper or bungy jumping down the grand canyon. Those particular notions bring nothing more promising than a panoptic vista (no, not that one!) of all manner of broken painful lost bones, followed by those many months convalescing in hospital. And all for the sake of a shaky camera shot. No. If I require an adrenaline junkie rush, I'll fly solo in low-sec space of the MMORG game I play, eve-online. That and not getting mugged or shot at, whilst standing in a McDonalds queue are more than enough in the way of excitement, that I wish to experience during this particular moment in my lifeline.

So Super Tuesday is nearing an end, when we'll have more of an idea about who the next leader of the free world might be. And they do need change, badly!

After so many years of participating in the formulation of things like Outsourcing, Hedge Funds, burning the planet into oblivion etc., etc. It's time for a change in thinking. To come away from the 'me, me, me' culture that has been perversely corrosive over the past few decades. To think of all the species and planet as a symbiotic whole, and not just a hole for plundering and landfill.

Climate change. Official!

So the American Geophysical Union or AGU, have finally revised and re-affirmed most of the globes belief that the majority effects of the increase in melting, warming, flooding... is, with a more than 50% probability, down to human intervention.

"The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system—including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons—are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century. Global average surface temperatures increased on average by about 0.6°C over the period 1956–2006. As of 2006, eleven of the previous twelve years were warmer than any others since 1850." AGU

But many people have already accepted the scenario that it has been happening, for years. And started making small changes in their lifestyles to match. But how many actually recycle, how much in the way of goods are actually wasted, ending up in landfills or incinerated, all produced from energy fossil fuels.

A deep-vein coal mine has closed down in Wales today, lasting 15 years longer than anticipated. But it has come to an end, other mines will no doubt be in a similar position. Many mines in the UK have or had been in operation for centuries; before the Thatcher & Scargill fiasco.

There is no great probability of developing nations ditching their dash to luxurious modernity, by cutting back on their need for energy! Just as there won't be any real passion in developed nations to cut back on the luxuries and disposables they enjoy.

In the meantime, we know (well according to the science) that a CO2 reduction of at least 60% is in order, and that's just to get us back to where we were a decade ago! If a single digit reduction's managed, that would be a major surprise.

So what's to do?

Solar power, wind, turbine, nuclear, all with problems of their own. How many places have 12 hours of sun beating down from a cloudless sky, with at least 2 hectares given over to energy exchange? Or continual wind? Turbines sound more feasible if the motion - electricity conversion could be made more efficient. Nuclear? Current costs, possibility of meltdowns (with Three Mile and Chernobyl as benchmarks), terrorism and the dumping of burning waste for thousands of years - unless a safer means is found to secure and dispose of it.

Which brings me back. So what to do?

Fusion doesn't seem to be anywhere in the running! Could there be something peering out of the backwater?

Artists drawing of the ITER project

Environmental concerns

Most boring pompous clip in the name of a good cause, to help the environment, must go to:
Tada!

Admittedly these behemoths aren't aimed at the average Joe/Mary on the street, who happens to live in a bedsit flat or tenament overlooking patchy roadworks and broken fences. The FAQ portion of the website does - to be factual - say that! So full marks to them for popping that particular bubble. Although I Would have enjoyed a couple of them placed on the roof whizzing around from sunset till dusk, cutting down on the every increasing energy costs. But perhaps they are better off somewhere sunnier with loads of hot air, like the Ghobi desert, Sahara, San Diego, Congress... in fact any sunny place which just has the few odd days of scudding cloud cover, which might otherwise spoil the party.

But seriously, climate change is coming up fast on the inside lane as one of the most destructive series of events that might bring about the demise of many species, and take us down to the level of sticks and creaky parchment. Either that, or the gathering together of a global network of terrorists bent on world domination, or bio-weapons unleashed by desperate nations as resources get scarcer; and of course how could we forget the holy grail of hot-headed despots everywhere, with fingers itching to unleash their WMD's!

But, on a somewhat more serious note, how many disasters would it take before electricity, gas, water supplies in a few key countries are knocked out with the ensuing turmoil of food scarcity, resultant upsurge in population migrations? How long before the comforts and luxury's, so many of us in the 'developed' (sic) world take for granted, evaporate like clarity in a blizzard.

If we (or rather the Politicians) don't plan for it, make effective (efficient) use of renewables, with the knowledge of what's (possibly) just around the corner then we deserve our fate. A shame that the greedy billionaires out there are more concerned with feathering their own nests, looking out for number one without remembering that for the world to survive it's not a single horse race.

We are social animals and in general, when under direct or indirect stress, are more inclined towards selfishness, deviousness, battening down the hatches and thinking of oneself.

So if things are bad now, and we only have to look at the increasing number of disasters over the past few years to see how some sections of the population would behave, just imagine how much worse it will be when disasters are more frequent and on a far larger scale!

Time to watch those Mad Max films again, or maybe just a Marx Brothers film with a fine selection of chocolates flown in specially, from around the world!