The planes are flying again..... so what?

At last the world can once again breathe a sigh of relief because the aeroplanes are flying again and people can now get back to the good old UK ready to whinge and moan about having to stay in a foreign land a few extra days and whinge and moan they certainly will do! Most will get at least 4 weeks of drivel out of this episode.

It seems to be OK to go abroad for a week or 10 days, be louts on the beach and help destroy the locality of some distant shore then fly back home only to work your nuts off for another 52 weeks in order to do it again next year but come the time when people might be a bit inconvenienced then all hell has to be unleashed and it HAS to be someones fault in order to get full whingeabillity.

One report I saw was a woman sitting by the poolside in full sun saying it was hard to be stuck away from home, if she felt that way why did she contribute to the damaging ozone depletion by taking a cheap flight in the first place?

If people just take a few minutes out of their precious, hard working, stressful lives to think about the bigger picture of their very individual actions that contribute to global warming and the environmental destruction BEFORE they take the actions then there may well be less issues with "natural events" or "acts of god" [assuming that there is a god of course] and more money will be kept in the UK.

It may also be a good idea to think about why you need a foreign holiday for 2 weeks because if you need this holiday to relax and unwind from the pressures of daily life then surely the best action would be to reduce the pressures and stress of the daily "grind" rather than stick your head in the sand for 50 weeks a year.


it does the soul good to rant, lol......

The Election

So we have an election looming in the good ol' UK and the main two parties are slagging each other off as per normal bear pit politics that we are all used to. Along the rails comes Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats with sound debate and arguments and wins the first TV debate hands down. Even 4 days later the oppinion polls are still showing a good response for NC.

I do hope that the LD's get a good showing at the polls in May even if it's just to give the others a good wake up call.

If anyone reading this can vote then you have until the end of Tuesday to get on the voting register..... especially if you want to vote LD, lol.

Fridgeless...... again

I tried last year to do without a fridge deciding to make a pot in a pot cooler for the milk and butter etc. Primarily this was an eco thing and a desire to go back to the pantry system and daily shopping to get the freshest food and save money and CO2 by not consuming as much electricity. Although this worked I was having to shop daily and this was taking it's toll on my chronic back problems so this more or less died a death quite quick but about 5 weeks ago both the fridge and freezer blew up so we have now been fridgeless and freezerless for the last 5 weeks and with no money to replace them we have had to manage.....!! 

These last 5 weeks have been darn hard for the above mentioned problems but we have had the car available to do shopping when my back has been far too bad to use the bus but this has an ipact on my personal CO2 production. On the matter of CO2 production we have saved over 119kg of CO2 from the electric used to power the FF. Some of this will have been used by the car and buses but I've not assertained how much yet.


I don't know how long this will continue but with no money available it may be a fair while, lol. which brings me to another point, Sell by dates. The government is going to do away with the sell by dates and the use by dates because 1000's of tonnes of food that is perfectly good to eat is thrown away because it is not used by these dates. Good for the reduction of waste food but this also means more profit for the supermarkets as they will be able to leave produce on the shelves longer and there will be less food marked down for quick sale wich will mean many people will have less to eat because they need to use the marked down products to eek out a food budget.

Why is it......

...... a policy of the local (?) government to insist on putting your local election number on the counterfoil of the ballot papers before you vote ?
In Hartlepool when you give them your election register number they write this on the counterfoil " so that if there is any fraud they can check who voted" . What it actually means is that if you dare to vote for a minority party, say the BNP or UKIP for example then the likes of special Branch can keep an eye on you !!

Paranoid... you bet I am.

At cost energy

Saw this piece about a new energy company on the Tonight programme today and thought I'd mention the link here.
Basically it is a millionaire who is setting up an energy supply company [ like BG, EDF, Eon etc] but he plans to charge the consumer the at cost price he pays, I.E. no profit for him.

It is planned for late autum 2010 but you can read all about it at http://www.atcostenergy.com

The less we pay for our energy the more we can spend on heating our homes........

Chilli heads

I've been making chilli sauces for a while now but never really got the right one. Today I made one that is more or less there. I bit too much ginger but I can correct that in my next version. Ready for testing so if anyone out there is a chilli head and would like to sample a bit of my rather hot sauces then contact me but remember I need a disclaimer signing first.....

25th of February 2010 
Number two version done today and boy does it blow your eyeballs out and then scorch your sockets.... loverly...........

13th of April 2010

Version three made today and I'm becoming a dab hand at this chilli sauce lark now, lol. 40 birds eye chillis, 5 narga moriche chillis and 2 tablespoons of narga moriche chilli paste (70% chillis). This one is really hot. I mean bloody hot, so hot my wife thought my head was going to burst as it was cherry red like a tomato!!
I'll have to re evaluate the idea of scorching my sockets as this one has done the job better.

 Still it tasted nice....

Quilting

I have always loved the feel of a good big quilt and the artistry involved. I've wanted to have a go for years now but thought it was too difficult. Well now i've had a go and I'm hooked or should that be wuillted,lol. It also came as a bit of a surprise when afriend said she was a quilter but she is far more accoumplished than I am and probably ever will be. Why not check out her site here  perfect patchwork  and have a look at all her glorious items.   

google adsense

Just a quick plea to ask if anyone reading this blog can click on some of the adverts that appear on this blog. I have an adsense account and all last year I earned £2.03 so i ain't retiring just yet but every little helps so they say.

Take care,

Alan

Happy new year and surviving the weather

So tis the time of the year when we all, well many of us say Happy new year to each other. I hope you all have a really happy new year and that it continues through the whole year of 2010.

It's snowing really hard here today, like 2" this morning and the likes of which we haven't seen for many a year but then I can just about remember the last really bad winter we had in 1963. Admittedly it is only by photographs of me playing in the snow as a toddler but the family stories of having to dig the house out of snow drifts are still well remembered. Digging the house out was in fact a truth. The snow was so hard and fast in laying and drifting that it was up above the downstairs windows so when we opened the curtains we could not see anything as the light was blocked out by the snow. Aparently my brother was able to open the front door and had to shovel snow into the house just ot get started to dig his way upwards and outwards.

Probably a bit of a long story but it still does the rounds.  It will pay dividends to take a bit of thought to your health and safety whilst we have these difficult weather conditions with us. I say difficult because we in general have not had to endure bad weather in theUK for many a years except for short 3 day jobbies.
Still, as many of us work many miles away from home and transport is a necessity whichever form you use  it becomes relevant to tae a few minutes to think of your H&S. My website has some tips on it if oyu are stranded so click on the title of this post to be taken to the site.

I hope it is og some help.
 

The Pig of Happiness