Supermarkets

Only hermits, prisoners and The Queen don't visit supermarkets. 99% of us are regular visitors to these grocery palaces. As the years have passed, the main British supermarket chains have become both expert and ruthless in their insatiable quest for our money. Some time ago, the BBC conducted a survey to find out shoppers' main gripes about supermarkets and these were the results:-

1. Changes to food/aisle layout
2. Running out of basics
3. Stops stocking favourite item
4. Long queues
5. Trolleys with dodgy wheels
6. Picking the ‘wrong’ queue
7. Grumpy till assistants
8. Person in front of queue running off to get another item
9. Staff who don’t know where things are

Well, as regular readers of this grumbling old blog will guess, I have a few other gripes to add to the list! Take this week for example. It has become clear to ASDA and Tesco that in the current economic climate the budget/discout supermarkets - Netto, Aldi and Lidl are increasing their market share. So what do the big boys do? They cynically plan widespread reductions in the cost of basic food items to combat the growing threat to their dominance. What I would ask is this - why did the buggers have to wait to slash costs? This can only mean that their margins were greedily too wide beforehand. They are like monsters chomping up the nation's wealth, killing high streets, providing people with corporate monster uniforms and terribly low pay.

I don't know who worked this out but they say that for every seven pounds spent in the UK, £1 is spent at Tesco. That is a helluva lot of money - so who is benefiting from this monstrous profit-fest? Who are the people watching their supermarket-engendered incomes growing like rampant cornfields as they sit round distant swimming pools drinking pink champagne? If anyone knows the answer please tell me.

Other things I despise about supermarkets:-

1) Psychological mind games - fresh fruit at the entrance, the smell of baking bread.

2) Loss leaders and "Buy One Get One Free" tricks to lull us into spending more money.

3) How their scanning or pricing errors are okay but a kid stealling a can of lager feels the full force of their legal wrath.

4) "Free" delivery services that those not using the delivery service actually pay for!

5) Very limited recycling facilities even though they are responsible for mountains of waste.

6) Occasional and very costly changes in corporate uniforms. Who pays for them?

7) How they flout or stretch planning laws and ultimately kill off independent stores.

8) Extended opening times that mean workers must accept unsocial hours.

9) Mind boggling choice on the shelves - far too much choice in fact, leaving shoppers overwhelmed.

10) Bullying and exploitation of farmers and growers in the UK and across the world - to squeeze out maximum profits - no matter what the hurt or repercussions.

In a few minutes, I will be doing what I do every Saturday - toddling off to Netto with my recyclable shopping bags. I will spend several pounds less than I would need to spend at the Monstermarkets. Choice will be refreshingly limited. It will only take me forty minutes as the shop is so small. Regular workers Ange and Keeley will chat with me and who knows what I might pick up from the weird middle aisle? A bowling ball - a riding helmet - a marble egg - a mallet - a set of oil paints - a set of saucepans? Such is the magical world of your local Netto store...

But Is It Art..?

Have just uploaded images of my lasted work to Webshots.

This is a Stoneware, part thrown, part coiled sculptural piece. Decoration was Colbolt Oxide with Light Oatmeal and Bright Orange Red glaze.

Click here to go to Webshots:

Dilemma

...Still in the sad post Boris world... and the sad world post Shirley's mum. Time to think about another holiday...

At first I thought Hong Kong. Just £715 return with Qatar Airlines then £35 a night at the Silvermine Beach Hotel on Lantau Island. I had it all planned out - until that is I dipped into "The Rough Guide to Hong Kong and Macau". To paraphrase, it said that one would be advised to avoid visiting Hong Kong at the end of July through to mid-August because of heavy rainfall and the possibility of typhoons... So I have decided to give Hong Kong a miss.

So where? Where? USA? We'll be going back when Frances spends a year at university there. Caribbean? Again that rain factor and besides Jamaica and The Dominican Republic sound risky. I have been just about everywhere in Europe and coastal Spain for example holds no sense of excited anticipation for me. Perhaps Sicily? Perhaps Turkey again - remembering the lovely holiday we had in Kalkan two years ago.

I trawl the Internet for deals and I check out travellers' reviews in Trip Advisor. I seek maps and photographs. I find out what the beaches are like. Sandy or pebbly? Is air-conditioning included? Is airport transfer included? I tell you, I am a travel maniac and though I say it myself - rather wizard at finding flights, accommodation and exploring the fine details of resorts.

I notice the time that a flight departs and when it returns as flight times in the middle of the night can sometimes really spoil your holiday experience. I wish you could do online degrees in tracking down great holidays because I'd win a first. It's much more fun than the daily grind of being a teacher - the books to mark, the assignments, the reports, the targets, the improvement plans - the crap! I'd rather be dreaming of the famous lagoon at Olu Deniz.

I'm circling around like a harrier hawk. Beneath me I see Turunc and Side, Gokova and Kas, Fethiye and Olu Deniz. It hasn't always been like this. I remember our first excursions abroad as a young married couple. We were still paying for those trips six months later as we counted the pennies and struggled to pay phone bills, the mortgage, the credit card bill etc.. Now, if we wanted to we could go anywhere in the world. Does that make us rich? You know. I think it does. To be solvent and secure. So many people on this planet would give their eye teeth to be in our position. It's not really a dilemma after all. It's a bloody dream come true!

With A little Help...

Thought I would share these.

Saturday we had some "help" with the lunchtime washing up. He seems to have enjoyed himself.

Kick stool not pictured.

Disappeared

One of my best friends has gone - Boris. He arrived as a stray at our back door - eight years ago - thin and bedraggled. Shirley took pity on him and fed him while I made a handbill for the local shops - "Found!" But nobody came and Boris was starting to explore our home. I really didn't want him. Having a cat can be a twenty year commitment but Boris had chosen us.

I bought him a watertight kennel from "Pets R Us" or some such warehouse type place and as soon as it was in position, Boris crept in and fell asleep - knowing instinctively that it was for him.

Boris would often wait for me as I returned from my occasional visits to the local pub. He would see me turning the corner then run in front before lying supine on the pavement to have his belly rubbed. And if I was working on this computer, he would often enter the room, miaow, prick his ears back and command that I followed him. If he went to the kitchen cupboard it meant he wanted feeding and if he went to the front door it meant he wanted out.

He spent a lot of time out and about - patrolling his territory. Once Shirley blinked googgle-eyed when she saw him on a work colleague's street about a mile from our house. She called him over and stroked him. I envied his feline life - free to come and go - free food supplies - no work and no clock to watch - no fashion concerns and as much impregnation of the local tabbies as he could handle!

I would sometimes see him waiting intelligently to cross roads but of course he was only a cat and in my heart I feel sure that he has met his end on a nearby road. I have looked for him and we have called constantly for him but I believe that Boris has well and truly gone. Just one little bit of hope resides in memories of our last cat - Blizzard - who died at the age of sixteen. Twice, he also disappeared and twice he returned several days after leaving. Where had he been? Of course he never told us. So please Boris! Come home! Daddy is waiting! We miss you!

Fact?

Apparently the word Solstice is derived from the Latin for 'Sun stands still.'



Latin scholars please form an orderly queue to correct me.

Only The British

Today our Finance Director is leaving the company. This has come as something of a surprise and has saddened many- he is one of the most popular people here. So last night we made our way to a local pub for farewell drinks and cheesey chips (pictured). Turnout was at around 95% of the company, which speaks volumes. Even if just that's just for the promise of a free drink LOL.

It occured to me- as we all stood in the beer garden- that only the British would be brave, no make that foolish enough to pretend to be warm on what was quite clearly a chilly evening. I think other more sensible nations would probably have said "Look there's a nice warm inviting pub- why don't we go inside?"

Anyway the garden was nice enough, the sun did try it's best and above all we had a pleasant evening.

Hmmm

Can't really believe in less than a week the nights will start drawing in LOL.




We've not had much of a summer so far have we?

Sky

Mid to late June. Such a lovely time of year in the northern hemisphere - though last year this city I inhabit was struck by biblical style flooding around now. Not so this year. As the days and the weeks pass, it feels as if we are having a proper, sun-kissed summer - interspersed with acceptably short spells of wind and rain.

In Endcliffe Park, the annual travelling fair didn't have to call in tractors to drag their sodden vehicles out of the mud and behind the school where I toil, the earth that the construction team pile into mounds is as dry as coffee granules. Last year, a natural swimming pool complete with muddy brown waterfalls formed over the emerging foundations of our new school.

I love these summer skies, in a period when the darkness over Yorkshire lasts for little more than three hours a night. Every evening the sky is different - sometimes streaked with yellows, mauve, rose-pinks and gold but the sun rises so early I hardly ever see what's happening up there on the beautiful ever-changing natural canvas beneath which we mortals parade upon our ant heap of a planet. But just last weekend I greeted a summer 3.30 am dawn on the old bench at the bottom of our garden - mug of tea in hand and a rosy birdsinging glow from the east. Beautiful.

See the sky beneath which bats weave and flutter and crows flap to their evening roosts. See the never-to-be-repeated patterns of light and colour, shadow and cloud. The gradual dying of the day - over silhouettes of rooftops and sycamores - a promise of something finer, brighter far to the west. Human beings have always looked up there - to the stars, the clouds, the blueness and the grey - the sky - silent and perpetual witness to a billion zillion ridiculously brief lives.

Mum

Mum met with her consultant yesterday to get the results of a recent scan and again with a specialist today. As far as chemotherapy is concerned it looks like we've reached the end of the road- the experts don't think any more can be achieved and (more likely) harm may in fact be done by further treatment to her liver. The liver is slightly enlarged versus the previous scan but they will monitor this. The consultant is however recommended further radiotherapy for the spine and bone-strengthening treatments. Not all bad news then.

Diatoms

Scientists believe that this planet has been in existence for 4.6 billion years. In only half of that time has there been a belt of oxygenated air that could sustain life. It seems that people have only been around for the last million years so if you took a twelve inch ruler and used it as a scale to represent the Earth's history, human life would only figure in the last measly millimetre.

Over the last few days, news services have been well-focussed on rising oil prices, shortages, truckers' strikes etc.. It set me thinking - what is oil anyway? This natural product without which much of the life that we know would be so very different

Now I am not a scientist but my researches suggest that there are many differing opinions about how oil ever came about in the first place and also about how far back on the Earth's massive timescale it was first formed. A majority of modern scientific observers cite the "diatom" as the basis of all oil formation. Think of ancient tropical seas and lakes. Under the hot sun a living soup forms - plankton and other basic life forms such as the diatom. This soup falls to the seabed and it falls again and again over millions of years. Sediments fall and they give a home to the oily broth of those billions of dead single-cell diatoms. Rocks form and the oil is trapped awaiting human discovery though some of it seeps to the surface. Estimations of how old the Earth's oil is vary betwen ten million and five hundred million years. Quite a lot of room for error!

I have started to try to picture this ancient natural process when I use electricity. Upn deciding to switch a light off, don't think of the money you'll be saving, think instead of those pre-human seas and lakes with the sun beating down, long before dinosaurs, long before woodlice and certainly way long before the first primitive men said "Ug!" and beat their chests. Having oil and the petroleum and plastic products it has spawned is an amazing bounty for which we should all be incredibly grateful. Instead - what do we do? We squander this gift like children with Christmas selection boxes. Guzzling it down with no thought for tomorrow.

Patience Is A Virtue. Honest

Should it really take over 5 hours to download and install Windows XP SP2? I mean it can't be that big, can it?

And yes before you ask that was via a Broadband connection.

If it had gone on much longer I'm sure I would have hit the CANCEL button or kicked the pc. Thankfully I was saved from having to explain away some unsightly damage and all seems to be working well.

This all started a while back when my anti-virus software informed me it needed upgrading but the new version wasn't compatible with my existing OS. So I obtained and installed the XP upgrade and then installed the new version of my anti-virus. Less than a month later, my anti-virus needs updating again (sigh) and would you believe it, now requires XP SP2.

And that's where my nightmare seems to have started. Knowing my connection wasn't the fastest or most capable I though maybe the best route would be to order the cd and install. Yeah I know that goes against ever wanting to give Mr Gates and Co any more of my hard earned cash than necessary but I thought it worth the investment.

However at the end of this month Microsoft are making XP obsolete and moving it into it's support life, until 2014. As a result they seem to have "retired" the cd version of XP SP2 and for some reason the SP3 cd isn't available to customers in the UK or US, so that left me little choice.

Sorry, am I boring you..? Well I've got that off my chest, thanks for reading. Normal service will resume shortly.

Gone

That Generation is Gone

Dad scraping toast and yelling that I'd miss the bus
Charlie with his cap at a jaunty angle
Mum laughing till she could hardly stand
Winnie on the riverbank watching the boats go by.

Dad with black eyes in a lard-coloured carcass
Charlie succumbing to death like a drowning man
Mum remembering the bluebell wood of long ago
Winnie sucking tea through a straw.

All gone. All gone.
That generation is gone.
All of their dreaming.
All of their words.
All gone.
All gone.

Photo - The lighthouse at Spurn Point.

Sarkar Raj: Review

Sarkar Raj: Review
After spending 100 bucks for the movie ticket and 30 bucks for a Coke i wished that Sarkar Raj
had finally something in store for me... and that it would be better than its previous
installment that i had watched on the original VCD... but it couldnt follow the magic of Sarkar.

So what the heck is the story:::

Starring Amitabh Bachchan as Subash Nagre, Abhishek Bachchan As Shankar Nagre and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan as Anita Ranjan, Sarkar Raj deals with the political and social scenario of Modern day Maharashtra when a proposal for establishing a power plant in rural Maharashtra is brought by Ash and is approved by Abhi. And the consequences of the approval with some twists, turns, violence
and etc. etc....

Now, doing something crazily sensible...

If Sarkar Raj is a coin, here is its head and tail...

Head:

1) Original Script (hope so)

2) Brilliant Performances

3) Nice Dialogues

Tail:
1) Slow

2) absurd camera angles

3) Useless Rona-Dhona ( I dint understood why the f'in hell Aishwarya was continuosly crying in the movie...)

Since i could only find 3 heads and 3 tails...

so how could the asrology be more or less than that...
stars for Sarkar Raj(Thackrey)

Pottering

Nice word don't you think... pottering. And a much under-rated activity. I picked Ian and his girlfriend Ruby up from East Midlands airport at two in the morning and finally got to bed at four. I rose at ten, showered and spent much rest of the day just pottering around in the garden.

It was a lovely blue sky day and as the afternoon proceeded, the temperature rose to 29 degrees centigrade according to my electronic thermometer - though this may have something to do with the fact that the outdoor sensor gets hit by direct sunlight. I lay prostrate on the grass and trimmed away at the corner where the wooden toadstool is and the shy little stone girl. I tugged away at grass stalks and clipped the invasive brambles.

Nesting swallows made various journeys to the temporary home they have made under the eaves of next door's house while a mother wren fed her babies in the nesting box I screwed to a fence post a couple of years ago. You could see two tiny beaks at the little round hole, begging for life. A familiar robin cheekily landed on the giant sycamore shoot I was in the process of hacking down. He seemed to be watching me all through the afternoon, darting from lawn to apple bough, sipping at the bird bath, pecking at the niger seed feeder.

At one, Shirley and I ate chicken biryani and nan bread on the deck when who should join us but Boris, returning from his feline morning patrol. I rubbed his belly and he sheltered in the shadow under our garden table.

A veritable mountain of clippings and prunings, twigs and branches is building at the bottom of the garden. One of these nights I will be out there with matches, intent on arson.

When you're pottering, time drifts by and you think lots of thoughts. They wash across your mind screen like random sea waves. It's therapeutic. And when you are pottering, it doesn't matter what you achieve or fail to achieve. There's no pressure. No big project. No deadline.

Ian arrived for Sunday dinner and the three of us ate it on our sunny decking around six thirty. He'd been in Egypt for two weeks so I told him all about the Tigers' triumph at Wembley and Shirley told him about his grandmother's departure. We had insisted he should go ahead with his holiday come what may and he flew out to Sharm el Sheikh on the morning of May 24th just a couple of hours after Winnie passed away. And when Ian went back to his house, I continued to potter a little while longer as well as trying unsuccessfully to connect up the Orange Live Box to our computer. This piece of technological wizardry arrived through the post and is part of the deal when you switch phone and broadband provision from British Telecom to Orange. "No problem!" they assured me. I should have known better.

Parting

How fickle is our English weather. On Tuesday, the rain came down like stair-rods but today our skies were blue and hot sunshine melted the tarmacadam. It was on this day that we said goodbye to Shirley's mum, Winnie. Born in December 1929, she died eleven days ago. I was asked to pen some words about her for the vicar to mull over but at Woodlands Crematorium in Scunthorpe, I heard many of these words being read out verbatim:-

"No one ever called her Winifred, she was always known as Winnie or Win. She was a country woman through and through. She lived her entire life close to where she was born, mainly as a farmer’s wife, supporting her husband Charlie through the good times and the bad. She knew the rhythms of the land and the seasons as only country people can...

...Like most lives that are lived, hers was perhaps unspectacular but it was also a very decent life in which each day she lived and breathed the two things that really mattered to her – her family and her friends. She didn’t smoke or drink but sought to live healthily with dignity and self-respect, raising a family by the river bank as beyond it the Trent flowed on towards the Humber and the sea."

There were perhaps a hundred and fifty at the funeral. Afterwards, we all moved on to The Berkeley Hotel for a buffet and drinks. Then Shirley, Frances and I took the funeral flowers to St Martin's churchyard in Owston Ferry (see picture) where we laid them on the simple grave where her parents rest along with two of Winnie's siblings. These small children sadly died of diptheria in the nineteen thirties. Then it was back to Sheffield, our thoughts filled with the resonances of another completed chapter... Farewell Winnie. Sleep well...

Flying Hearts in Love

Love is the romantic bond between a boy and girls, Its a splanded feeling can't be expressed in words. The flying hearts in love are crazy and have passion to get the extreem height in love. So save these flying heart wallpapers of valentine's day on you desktop window.

Old Fashion Valentine Cards

Loose you heart on me, and let me wish you a very happy valentine's day through these old fashioned valentine cards. Send some love message to you sweet heart with these beautiful cards.

A Love Kiss Wallpapers

A Love Kiss Lock Wallpapers for you and your girl frd, try this wallpaper and feel the suger of long smooch on lips of you lover at this valentine day dance party.

Valentine Game Wallpapers

My sweet heart i love you plz don't go away, Never play a game with my heart.. come darling!!! This is request for my girls ... I look around for the celebrity performances for this upcoming Valentine's day event.

Girls Valentine Wallpapers

Decorate your computer desktop with the lovely shotout valentines day pictures and cards. The couples plays games togeather and everyone goes around every body and gives some clues about the "valentine word" in the game and ... All the girls sit on the laps of his boy partners in a romantic pose.

St Valentine Wallpapers

Check out the best collection of St Valentine Wallpapers.

New Pots

Just uploaded last night's images to Webshots:

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2289203230100771155toxOcI

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2536234550100771155IlPece

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2981682510100771155EMjOGE

http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2269539510100771155FsvQQt

Carving

Model with carving in the background.

The Crazy Horse Memorial is a mountain monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota, in the form of Crazy Horse,an Oglala Lakota warrior, riding a horse and pointing into the distance. The memorial consists of the mountain carving (monument), the Indian Museum of North America, and the Native American Cultural Centre. The monument is being carved out of Thunderhead Mountain on land considered sacred by some Native Americans, between Custer and Hill City, roughly 8 miles (13 km) away from Mount Rushmore.The sculpture's final dimensions will be 641 feet (195 m) wide and 563 feet (172 m) high. The head of Crazy Horse will be 87 feet (27 m) high; by comparison, the heads of the four U.S. Presidents at Mt. Rushmore are each 60 feet (18 m) high.The monument has been in progress since 1948 and is still far from completion. If finished, it will be the world's largest sculpture. The mountain carving was begun in 1948 by sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski, who had worked on Mt. Rushmore under Gutzon Borglum. In 1939, Ziolkowski had received a letter from Chief Henry Standing Bear, which stated in part "My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know that the red man has great heroes, too."

Ziolkowski died in 1982. The entire complex is owned by the Crazy Horse Memorial Foundation. Ziolkowski's wife Ruth and several children remain closely involved with the work, which has no fixed completion date. The face of Crazy Horse was completed and dedicated in 1998.

Even though it is far from complete the Crazy Horse carving has become the central focus of a lucrative tourist trade with some 1.2 million visitors arriving at the site each year. The Ziolkowski family continue to laugh all the way to the bank. How many more years before the carving is finished? Some say twenty five years, while others say - never!

It Must Be Summer: It's Raining Again

So far June seems to have been fairly soggy for much of Britain. OK so we're only three days in but come on this is meant to be summer. Parts of Berkshire and Oxfordshire have now joined the West Country and are either flooded or on flood alert.

See << http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7433589.stm >> for more details.

My little bit of Berkshire has just about remained flood-free but it's come pretty close in past years and I do have friends nearby who have seen their towns under considerable water in the past. You've got to feel sorry for people who got flooded out in the past, just got thier houses straight and are now facing being washed out again. Or the couple who moved into their new home last week in Somerset and the next day got flooded.

Here's hoping for a dry summer.