Saturday, August 19, 2006

[living] the wrong kind of snow









British Rail used to be a fact of British life. Smelly blue carriages with threadbare upholstery that chaffed like the paper in the toilets; fat black ticket-selling women; small cockney ticket-punching men; begrudging station buffets selling fairy liquid tea and blue Formica sandwiches.
Full text here.

[environment] the petron disaster

I've just been e-mailed by one of the readers with the question, 'Who is Petron Corp?'


A fair question because this disaster is most definitely a sleeper - front page in all the oil rags but virtually zilch in the mainstream media. And this says everything about the western media.

There are two posts about them and their motto is 'We fuel success.' Unfortunately I lost the first post which was posted on this site on Friday, August 18th but you'll find it here.

Here was the gist:

So far, only one of the Solar 1’s 10 containers has ruptured in the sinking in the Panay Gulf, off Guimaris but this alone has spilt more than 50,000 gallons of oil into the sea.The slick now stretches across 13 nautical miles of water polluting 1,100 hectares of mangrove and 26 hectares in the Taclong Island Marine Reserve, as well as seaweed plantations and coral reefs containing popular dive sites. The damaged areas are not merely where townsfolk get their source of livelihood; these are protected areas which took years to develop and will again take many years to revive.

[environment] solar 1 tanks ready to rupture

The sinking of the Solar 1 last week is soon to become a major environmental disaster [see earlier article].

The tanker with 10 tanks, each of 50 000 litres, of which the first has already ruptured and the others are just biding their time.

A disaster official admitted Saturday that Philippine authorities have no capability to refloat the sunken ship off Guimaras province fearing that the country's worst-ever oil spill will affect the province for years.

[society] high class maids

Would you take a low-paid job and turn yourself into a second-class citizen just to make a few dollars and see the world?

Swedish au pairs and French maids are legendary for it but it's more difficult to see why two German girls from good families would come over to London, specifically to find such work.

Hannah and Elsa were two ladies at a loose end some summers ago, having negotiated work at a pizza place on Shad Thames and with the weekend to put in before they began their first shift on the Monday morning. I met them in Blackheath, trying to negotiate accommodation for the night. What else was a man to do on a Sunday afternoon other than take them through Greenwich Park and give them a boat trip to the city?

How would two proud Germans react to the drudgery of the work and how would they be treated by the management?

Friday, August 18, 2006

[far-east] the nuclear power game in the east

Will North Korea fight fairly? Will Japan?
North Korea’s armed forces comprise:

- Active forces: 1.14 million
- Special forces: 100,000 estimated
- Manpower fit for military service: 3,694,855

It has the world's fifth largest military and is the most militarized nation in proportion to population (estimated at 22 million. Military spending is 22.9% percent of GDP while around 70 percent of the army is deployed within 65 km of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).

Overall, the effectiveness of the North Korean military is ... read more and comment here.

[classic film] manchurian candidate still relevant today

The Manchurian Candidate had the effect on me that Silence of the Lambs might have had on cannibals around the globe.

Leaving aside today's ubiquitous directors' cuts, this would have to be one of the few films where the revised version stands up almost as well as the acclaimed original. Almost.

John Frankenheimer’s dark, brooding 1962 tale of American psycho-history is, if you can believe Rotten Tomatoes’ 100% rating, a genuine classic. It certainly took the box office by storm before being suddenly withdrawn from circulation and then re-released a quarter of a century later.

It is as much oracle as movie - steeped in what Norman Mailer called ... read more and comment here.

[oil and gas] so sorry to shut you down but ...

I made reference in an earlier article about Russia playing with a full hand. Look at this innocuous story about the Druzhba oil link and judge for yourself. Bear in mind that ‘Druzhba’ is Russian for ‘friendship’.

The president of Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft Simon Vainstock said on Thursday, Aug. 17, that the branch of its Druzhba oil link that supplies crude to Lithuania’s Mazeikiu Nafta oil refinery may be shut down for years in order to conduct much-needed repairs.

“This could happen,” Vainshtok said in
... read more and comment here.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

[love and all that] sam puts the question yet again

Samantha Brett addresses the question of whether to take your friends’ advice about that perfect person or whether to ignore it all and plunge ahead.

“You even think he or she’s The One. One problem: your mates think otherwise. So should they keep it to themselves and let you live happily ever after? Or tell you how they feel and hopefully stop you from a life of imminent disaster...”

Read more here and comment.

[historical accuracy] storm brews over what is being taught

There are certain issues which do not grab the immediate attention. They seem too abstruse, too far removed from our focus of interest and yet they really are deserving of our attention because of the ramifications if we do not focus on them.

One such issue is history. History is written by the winners, yes; and history is also written by the unrepresented, who then ... read more and comment here.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

[cosmos] how many planets are there - really

8, 9, 10, 11, 12 or 53?

According to Hubble:

Our solar system officially has nine planets and one star: the Sun. In order from the Sun out, the planets are: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. The discovery of an object larger than Pluto in 2005 rekindled the debate over whether such objects, belonging to the "Kuiper Belt" - a collection of icy bodies located beyond Neptune - should be called planets. Pluto itself belongs to the Kuiper Belt.

On Sunday, July 31st, 2005, CNN’s Sara Weisfeldt and Kate Tobin ran an item which questioned the 9 ... read more and comment here.

[film] emmanuelle beart bares her soul

At the time of Claude Chabrol's 1994 drama about a jealous husband who suspects his ravishing young wife of having an affair, Chabrol said Emmanuelle Beart had "the face of an angel and the body of a whore". This comment has dogged her ever since and she sighs each time she hears it.

"In France, the public has this image of me as very sexual. I am always fighting against that. This is just one of ... read more and comment here.

[holy smoke] signs of the times or just bad luck

I just can’t get over Oliver Kamm’s comment, to paraphrase and interpret him, about bloggers being derivative and using the main stream media’s pieces for their own commentary and opinions.

I detest doing this and the only way around it I can see is to access multiple sources and build an article of my own, as the mainstream usually does. But not always. How many pieces have you seen with AP or Reuters tags?

Anyway, this one is news this morning and there are no other sources, so I’ll have to run it as is. Sorry.

A monster lightning strike, captured by a Sydney Morning Herald reader during a freak storm in the city yesterday, narrowly missed luxury yachts owned by the likes of Nicole Kidman but almost wiped out a yellow sloop moored at ...
read more here and comment.

[world] hezbullah move on to their next step

Three Hezbul Mujahideen terrorists belonging to Barmullah in the Kashmir valley supposedly joined the CRPF and were put on duty outside Manmohan Singh's official residence on Race Course Road, an unnamed Indian news channel claimed on Tuesday night.

The antecedents of the three were discovered in an investigation of a carbine which went missing from the Prime Minister's residence in 2004. Head constable Raj Kumar was later compulsorily retired, while the three terrorists ... read more and comment here.

[off their brains] political correctness gone mad again

As one of the supposed beneficiaries, one has to just shake the head and wonder at the mindset of the people in control of things:

Broadland Council bosses in Norfolk, England, are planning to axe long-service awards for staff - in case they are accused of being ageist when new laws come into force in October that make it illegal to discriminate against someone on the grounds of how old or young they are.

What! Is that really how people spend their time now - dreaming up this sort of drivel?

[health and living] one way to avoid a heart attack pt 1

Does the fact that you’re currently reading this indicate that I’m a cyber-junkie?

Does the fact that my computer-geek mate asking me, the day before yesterday, what the hell I’d done to the configurations indicate a techo-phile?

What about my VW from a few years back – sitting on 205 tyres and flared arches, big-bore, extraction, stabilizers, pre-amp and amp, surround sound system – does that indicate a frenetic brain?

Or tearing through the forest with a Halda occupying the glove compartment and the navigator beside me having just given me a wrong turn and the nose 270 degrees up an embankment causing a four car pile up behind me – what does that indicate? ... read more and comment here.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

[world] sharp practice in high places in canada

I love this one, not so much for the shenanigans it uncovers, which appear to be the same the world over but for the way Daniel Leblanc, of the Globe and Mail [Toronto] writes it up:

When two-high ranking federal advisers left Ottawa for London in June, the stated purpose was to learn about British experiments in public-private partnerships. But the outcome was far less clear-cut, leaving officials scrambling for damage control.

“A number of London people who are important to Canada were not at all pleased,” a federal source said ... read more and comment here.

[mr. badger asks] any problems with these notices

In a Tokyo Hotel: Is forbitten to steal hotel towels please. If you are not person to do such thing is please not to read notis.

In another Japanese hotel room: Please to bathe inside the tub.

In a Bucharest hotel lobby: The lift is being fixed for the next day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk

Read twelve more notices and comment here.

[life] part two of dr phillip mcgraw's 10 lifelaws

Part 1 of this article was run on Thursday, August 10th, comprising a paraphrasing of the first 5 of Dr. Phillip McGraw’s 10 life laws. This is the second part:

Lifelaw 6 - There is no reality, only perception. We all view the world through individual filters - our personalities, attitudes, points of view - which influence ... read more and comment here.

[world] oliver kamm on domestic terrorism

Oliver Kamm on his interview with the Muslim Public Affairs Committee:

Mr Bukhari asserted it was obvious that the reason for domestic terrorism was foreign policy, because that's what the 7/7 bombers had said was their motivation. I responded that this was largely nonsense, and - even in the form of the notorious letter published at the weekend, some of whose signatories were more serious personalities than Mr Bukhari - inflammatory nonsense at that. It was inflammatory because it insinuated, without its signatories' having the candour to state openly, that in pursuing our policies and forming our alliances we get what's coming to us.

Well worth a look.

[money] in the uk, as in the us, bank branches are back in vogue

And about time too! Did it take them all this time for the penny to drop?

Did it really take banks and others in the public services community this long to understand the principle that customers need a name and face to deal with when they agree to hand over their hard-earned to an institution?

Did it really take institutions this long to understand that ordinary people fall into two categories - those who delight in the swift, web based money shifting and others, like me, who like to take our passbook to a branch and speak with ... read more and comment here.

[world] ho hum, more killing, now in india

Security was tight across India on today as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh addressed the nation on its Independence Day after Washington warned of possible militant strikes in the wake of July's deadly train bombings.

Thousands of police manned barricades in the capital, many of them armed with automatic weapons, checking cars and guarding government buildings ... read more and comment here.

[transport] 'the knowledge' under attack

Satellite navigation systems may be the latest "must have" car gadgets but London cabbies, who have to pass the world's toughest taxi exam, are not impressed.

While hundreds of thousands of the electronic mapping devices are sold every year - despite some reports of software glitches that have sent drivers down one-way streets or up impassable mountain tracks - most cabbies in London regard them as ... read more and comment here.

[angling] is that fish you caught poisonous

A man died on Sunday in north Queensland, after eating what is believed to be a poisonous toadfish.

The 45-year-old Fijian man caught the fish off a jetty near Bowen on Sunday, police said. He filleted and cooked the fish on a barbecue on Sunday afternoon before collapsing on the beachfront.

An ambulance took him to Bowen Hospital but, attempts to revive him failed. Two other men with him at the barbecue survived. It was not known how much of the fish, if any, they had eaten. A post-mortem examination is due to be conducted today.

As a former keen fisherman, I wonder how many times I diced with death as we stayed overnight on our trailer sailor and caught our breakfast over the side the next morning, minus the fish guide. I suppose it's a little like eating mushrooms and toadstools.


The photo was the least unprintable I could find of this species. No further text but you can
comment here.


[on a train] stephen pollard's laptop hasn't exploded yet

Stephen Pollard did a short piece about being on the train with his laptop and not being able to post and edit sufficiently well in that situation.

I recall at the time trying to imagine Stephen Pollard on a train with a laptop and a finely balanced cup of coffee and began worrying awfully about his health. After all – his procreative abilities were in great danger. Does he by any chance use ... read more and comment here.

Monday, August 14, 2006

[far-east] china blocks canadian tourism

Interesting report in the Toronto Globe and Mail and sorry – I’ve lost the link but it’s on the web.

Chinese tourism is potentially a multibillion-dollar industry for Canada, since Chinese tourists are among the biggest spenders of any tourists in the world.

Yet in a typical week, only 10 to 15 people visit the office in Beijing. After seven years of failed negotiations, Canada still doesn't have the right to advertise itself as a tourist destination.

The reason is intriguing. Read more and comment here.

[business english] spoiler answers

Of course, the answers were:

1. book c) a room
2. set up a) a room d) a meeting
3. make d) a deal
4. open d) a new branch
5. break into a) a market
6. face b) competition
7. We've lost the contract thanks to your incompetence. You really ........ , didn't you? e. blew it
8. He used to work on the factory floor. Yes, he really started out as a ........ worker. a. blue collar
9. There are many reasons why this should be a success. However, the ........ is that it has been a big flop. a. bottom line
10. Production has been unable to keep pace with demand. We are doing our best to eliminate the ........ . e. bottlenecks


No links to this post.

[have a chat] iran president's new blog

Black Quill reports:

As by now reported on lots of sites the president of Iran, Ahmadinejad, has a blog. Some question its authenticity, but a quick WHOIS look up reveals the servers are ns1.nisn.ir and ns2.nisn.ir where ir=Iran; the domain holder is Mahdi Ahmadi Nejad; his registered address is Motahari Ave. at Raham St. Tehran, IR 1567718571 and he may be reached for confirmation at president.irsite@gmail.com.

Join me in writing to his esteemed presidentness on the stirling job he's just done in Lebanon and how we look forward to the next instalment. And tell him, from me, to keep up the good work on the uranium enrichment.

No further link for this post.

[world] cynical killing continues despite ceasefire

Look at this news snippet and say where it is from:

… the Air Force had deliberately targeted schoolchildren as they were taking a first aid course in the worst single loss of civilian life since fighting flared three weeks ago. The military dismissed the claim, saying jets had bombed a rebel training camp and killed 50-60 fighters. The military posted a photograph on its Web site which it said depicted schoolgirls taking weapons training. Truce monitors said they had seen the bodies of males and females, aged 17-20 and said the site did not appear to be a rebel training camp …

Israel? Lebanon? No, this one is the ... read more and comment here.

[general] can english ever be the one world language

This is a reposting, now formatted, of the transcript of a speech I gave at an international educational seminar in July and I suppose, in a way, I was representing the English language there. Strange then that I should have made friends with a Frenchman from Dauphin Universite' and should attempt to chat most of the breaks in my execrable French.

Maintaining the purity of the English language

Introduction

In the 2000 Guy Ritchie film, ‘Snatch’, a Jewish-American gangster says to a London gangster, “Speak English to me Tony. I thought this country spawned the language and so far nobody seems to speak it.”

... read more and comment here.

[business english] back to school

This is the sort of thing I do with my business clients who need English. You, of course, know all the answers, don't you? Quickly cast an eye over the first 10:

1. book

a] a factory
b) a deal
c) a room
d) a business

2. set up

a) a room
b) a customer
c) a book
d) a meeting

... read on and comment here.

[discussion] en slip, les hommes s'aiment en blanc

[For English language readers - the taste in this blog has now surely reached a new low.]

Faire un sondage autour de soi et demander aux hommes s'ils portent des dessous imprimés, c'est comme leur poser la question : "Vous arrive-t-il de mettre une jupe ?"

Les yeux s'écarquillent, le rire éclate et la sentence tombe : "Non moi, c'est noir, blanc ou gris." Sur la forme, les réponses sont plus nuancées : "Boxer, caleçon, slip..." Certains sont fidèles à un modèle, la plupart changent … read more and comment here.

[business] how to succeed in retailing

THE old adage "the customer is always right" may still be in circulation, but putting consumers first may not always be the top priority of retailers.

Australian retail expert David Jenkin says despite the common assumption that customers are the most important, the world's most successful retailers tend to focus on their staff first.

The former regional managing director of the Coles Myer group says that while this presents a conundrum for many in the retail industry ...
read more and comment here.

[business] chinese monks learn new skills

Piety and a knowledge of Buddhist scriptures used to qualify one to be a Chinese monk.

Now, add computer skills, foreign language ability and a degree in financial management.

Three decades after temples were destroyed and scriptures burned during the Cultural Revolution, Buddhism is making a comeback in China. And like most things in the super-competitive, rapidly developing country, it's become both big business and a ... read more here.

[quiz] spoiler warning answers to yesterday’s quiz

I’m aware that some of the answers [below] to yesterday’s questions are debatable but have stuck with them because sufficient sources indicate that they are so.

1 What is a leprechaun's profession? [Tailor and Cobbler]

2 Only three countries in the United Nations have names which start with the letter 'F' in English. Name two of them. [France, Finland and Fiji]

3 Which came first ... read more and comment here.

Sunday, August 13, 2006

[living] the great sunday quiz - number two

Try the previous quiz as well, [even if it wasn't on a Sunday], on countries. Answers to that quiz are here. Answers to the quiz below will appear tomorrow. Are you sitting comfortably? Then you can begin …

1 What is a leprechaun's profession?

2 Only three countries in the United Nations have names which start with the letter 'F' in English. Name two of them.

3 Which came first – colour [as a feature film] or sound films?

Bonus point: At the same time as the first of these, one of the most famous Russian films came out about a battleship. What was that film?

... read more and comment here.

[l'économie] le japon accuse un coup de fatigue

Priorité au redressement encore fragile de l'économie nippone. Sans surprise, la Banque du Japon (BoJ) a décidé hier de laisser inchangé son principal taux directeur, le taux de l'argent au jour le jour. Ce statu quo monétaire était attendu, la hausse des prix à la consommation restant très modérée au Japon (+0,6 % en juin).Lors de sa précédente réunion ... read more and comment here.

[oil and gas] $100, $200 a barrel by next year ... or not

There's an awful lot of gloom and doom being talked about at the moment over oil.

"If another major event takes place, it's not at all unrealistic for oil to spike to $100," said Bruce Lanni, an oil analyst at A.G. Edwards. "And there's no fundamental reason in this current climate to see oil prices retreat below $70 in the next few months."

An Iranian official have warned that oil prices could hit $200 if international sanctions were imposed on ... read more here and comment.