King Pippin

Influence

2011-11-23T20:15:00.010Z

Coming to the close of my PGCE at long last, it has been a long slog and I am just brimming at the seams waiting to find the perfect teaching job and actually get on with the job of coming up with exciting lessons and having a class to teach. One of the last things to do is some reflective writing about teaching.
I heard yesterday on Brain Culture (Radio 4) about how children do not respond well to being congratulated on how intelligent they are. The studies they feature showed that children performed better when being rewarded with the old carrot for how hard they are working. If congratulated for being intelligent, when children are struggling with something the displeasure of this not meeting their identity as someone who can do things causes them to dispair, whereas those who think of themselves as hard-working are more likely to work hard ata problem. The programme then continued withthe presenter giving a very leading interview with some advanced maths students, but we'll gloss over that.
There is no reason that these theories shouldn't work with adults, too, we may just take a bit more prodding as we are somewhat stuck in our ways.

Anyway I've been thinking a lot about influence and persuasion and how they matter as a teacher. I read Freakonomics last Christmas and read Superfreakonomics cover to cover whilst I was ill the other week, which starts in its' introduction that the authors' writing had a unifying theme; "people respond to incentives". An interesting point in both of these books were what incentives people respond to. Self-image was very important; Acting in accordance with our self-perceptioon of our identity to re-inforce who we think we are was a strong imperative in many cases. Another book I read whilst ill was Yes!: 50 secrets from the science of persuasion which had an excellent example of how social pressure (what others are doing, using the hook of keeping up with the Joneses) can be even more persuasive. Customers staying in a hotel were more likely to re-use their towels if told how many others had done so than if they were told of the environmental benefits.

Persuasion can be broken down into 6 , "universal principles of social influence." says Robert Cialdini:

reciprocation
authority
commitment/consistency
scarcity
liking
social proof

The final book I wanted to mention, unlike my usual selection is a little older: The Brain Book is almost as old as myself, but the theory in it is still strong. It shows how the brain sets about remembering things through association. In Brain Culture(2011) the plasticity of the brain was discussed and children who visualised this idea of neurons making connections said they were better at remebering other topics. This may be less to do with self-aware neurons and more to do with consciously forming patterns of images and associations. The stronger your images and associations, the more bizarre and multi-sensory the more imprinted upon your brain they become (Brown, 2007; Russell, 1979).
So, for example I've (tried to) memorise Cialdini's list above by imagining teaching someone to cook from a recipe (reciprocation). The person being taught is particularly objectionable and needs persuading in a forceful manner, so the recipe is barked out like a Seargant Major (authority), which transforms the learner froma nobody into the lowest in the kitchen (comi chef= commitment), magically putting a chef's hat on their chavvy smelly unwashed greasy hair and forcing them into the servitude of stirring treacle (consistency). However the learner runs off with a girlish whimper when a spider (audibly) plops down onto a pool of treacle (scare-city) and starts licking (liking) it. The spider than invites all it's friends to eat treacle and they all get drunk (social) and have a spider party because the mixture is alcoholic (proof). It's not a the best example but you get the idea. To improve it I would make the images more personal and more rude/offensive/sexy (this emotional context would make it more memorable). The more layers of meaning and multi-sensory you make your images the better. Similarly in teaching there are many ways that youshould show subject in a variety of ways (PLTS, Domains of Learning and Bloom's Taxonomy all being examples). Not only can techniques be described to learners so that they can remember well, but but bringing a subject to life in - and to some extent out of- context, it can add layers of meaning to the learning and make it more memorable. This not only means you are doing what you have a basic responsibility to do as a teacher, enabling learning in those who struggle with a subject by presenting in a way accessible to them but also that you are making different associations for other learners and engraining this knowledge in their neuron patterns.

References
Brain Culture: Neuroscience and Society [Radio broadcast] BBC, BBC Radio 4, 22 November 2011 16.00 [online] Available: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b017cfkq [Accessed 23 November 2011]
Brown, D., (2007) Tricks of the Mind London: Random House
Goldstein, N., Martin, S. & Cialdini, R.B. (2007) Yes!: 50 secrets from the science of persuasion London: Profile Books
Levitt, S.D. (2006) Freakonomics London: Penguin
Levitt, S.D. (2009) Super Freakonomics London: Penguin
Russell, P. (1979) The Brain Book London: Routledge
Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills - Skills - Key Stage 3 and 4 - National Curriculum [online] http://curriculum.qcda.gov.uk/key-stages-3-and-4/skills/personal-learning-and-thinking-skills/index.aspx [Accessed 24 November 2011]

Survey into part-time work amongst Higher Education students

2011-10-02T12:37:00.004Z

The last big project I have for my PGCE si to carry out a research project.

I have put together a quick survey to collect some data about university students doing part-time work. If you have ever been to university or know someone who has, could you take 2 minutes (or pass it on) :
http://www.survey.bris.ac.uk/careers/pgcesurvey

Thanks,

Pippin

Samantha Erin Richards Sadler

2009-07-23T20:55:00.003Z

Hey there,

I've realised for those sensible friends of ours who haven't joined the hordes on Facebook that there are no photos of my beautiful month old (month tomorrow, anyway) daughter.

View a slideshow here

Warm-up for Reebok Bristol Half Marathon

2008-09-15T10:39:00.001Z

For the last month I've been working on the Bristol Half Marathon. On the day I was responsible for College Green, which meant that this was about as close to the race as I got. It was a great day and I got some really good feedback from the runners. Maybe next year I'll run.

SJ Esau - Under Certain Things

2008-07-09T00:23:00.004Z

All flued out.

2008-02-10T16:42:00.000Z

It's been a really beautiful February day here. Out the window, the drunks haven't been the only one's in the park for once, people from all over have been out picnicing and reading papers. My favourite park regular, the old Chinese lady who does evening Thai Chi on her own each night, has just left as the sun disappears and the day starts to cool. And us? We've all been indoors all day feeling rotten. I caught Amon's cold that he picked up at nursery - he's now started 2 days a week, and seems to be on course for picking up every bug one by one - and Rosa's got a hyperactive thyroid. According to Wikipedia and her, this sucks. It means at night when she should by all rights be asleep she's lying there with her heart going like the clappers trying to sleep. She's really exhausted now, and can't even sleep in the moments she should be able to. This coincides badly with her return to work after maternity leave and now Amon's had to move onto formula milk for fear of getting her medication through her milk.
We even failed to make it out to the back yard to start the gardening off afresh. I failed to get a job in the Council's allotments team recently, which only served to remind me that I should have been taking care of the garden over winter.
Feeling truly sorry for ourselves, I shall leave you with some good news: babies. Our friends Viv & Ali and Emily & Will have both had babies since I last wrote.

The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust

2007-12-10T23:12:00.000Z

This album is by one of my favourite artists in ages.
It's FREE or $5 (about £2.50) to download, depending on how much you want to pay.

It's also been produced by Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails fame.

Have a listen, on me, go on. If you like it - have it - completely legally. It's yours (although obviously your a cheapskate if you don't pay £2.50, direct to the artist, no record label involved, to get your copy).

Have a listen

Back from holiday

2007-11-10T20:30:00.001Z

We've been away to Budleigh Salterton, where we rented a cottage for a week.
It's a bit tricky getting anything done wit' baby, as you can tell by the plumetting number of posts in the last few months (this in no way correlates to the fact that work banned access to blogspot.com from our desks).

Sugar, talking of having no time, I gotta go, but before I do here's some pictures of Amon from a while ago:

This is from the Lake District earlier the year ...

... Amon no longer fits the bucket bath, being the weight of the avergae year and a half yearo old and the height of the average one year old.

The ol' family beer stick

2007-10-02T00:08:00.000Z

I've been reading up on brewing over at this amazing (well informative, at the least, maybe you're not all as fascinated with the why and wherefores of beer) site

There was a time when the role of yeast in brewing was unknown. In the days of the Vikings, each family had their own brewing stick that they used for stirring the wort. These brewing sticks were regarded as family heirlooms because it was the use of that stick that guaranteed that the beer would turn out right. Obviously, those sticks retained the family yeast culture. The German Beer Purity Law of 1516 - The Reinheitsgebot, listed the only allowable materials for brewing as malt, hops, and water. With the discovery of yeast and its function in the late 1860's by Louis Pasteur, the law had to be amended.

Single Use Items

2007-08-06T22:49:00.000Z

No, I'm not talking about disposables that get chucked once done with. I thought I'd share a secret and indulgent passion of mine ... I really love kitchen gadgets that serve one singular and niche purpose the more bizarre the better (although I have an irrational dislike of garlic crushers).

As you see in the little animation below, I bough an egg slicer the other day. To me they are the epitome of this kind of item.

But let us not forget the noble toothpick, or olive fork, or even better the pickle fork with spring action. My grandmother had one of these and I've wanted one ever since. I can't explain how they work but they are a marvel of victorian engineering akin to the canal system in my warped mind.

What other items bring joy to my heart when rummaging in the drawer for some tool or other?
Pizza cutters, mandolins, pestle and mortar, scone cutters, coffee makers, cheese slicers, flour dusters; God they're lovely.

The only problem is I have a perfectly good knife and my brand new egg slicer from Aldi makes the egg look like this:

Last ever Ashton Court Festival

2007-07-20T23:08:00.000Z

OK, this video isn't from Ashton Court, but I found it on You Tube and the sound quality and snippet of music is a better representation of SJ Esau than this video of him at Ashton Court by Rabid Pounder.

Anyway the sad news this morning is that the company that organises Ashton Court every year is going to go into liquidation after Sunday of the festival was rained off and everyone lost out, not least of all, poor Damon Albarn who didn't get to headline on Sunday and now never will. He must be gutted.

Ashton Court sponsorship plea+

2007-07-08T12:51:00.000Z

There's a very sad neglected, lonely-looking page I've found, asking for sponsorship for Ashton Court.

As of writing it reads

Money Raised: £115.00 Amount Remaining: £30,270

5 Days remaining: it's hardly worth it is it? Bless 'em! 'em, in this case being "Snappy Start-ups", an Ad /web design Co.

Further adventures in babyland

2007-06-24T21:58:00.001Z

Lately Amon has begun to laugh a bit. It's heart-meltingly good and when he does it, we regularly just spend ten minutes singing and dancing, doing monkey impressions and beating each other up violently all in an effort to get him to repeat that little grimace.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

I spent an absolute age the other day boucing him in his chair and getting him to gurgle whilst pointing my camera-phone in his face. Even with the flash off, before the photo is taken a little red light comes on to take a light reading, and this always surprises him out of laughter. Except once. When the bouncy chair was bouncing too fast to capture it. Damn.

Nevertheless; More photos:

And some of family holding him:

Mum

Dad

Christopher

Beth

Actually enjoying my job

2007-06-21T23:06:00.000Z

I've been setting up a conference and publishing a Good Practice Guide over the last few weeks and working long tiring hours (ontop of having a gloriuos baby boy to come home and care for).

It has been weird actually enjoying my job and when all this is over and I'm back to stationary orders and mis-management, I thoroughly intend to go out there and find a job I can enjoy like this all of the time.

Listening to SJ Esau on Last FM

2007-06-14T18:10:00.000Z

I'm happy listening to my friend Sam (and people who are, apparently, a bit like his band). on Last.FM.

Try it! It may make you happy too!

You can find me here on Last.FM

Facebooked

2007-06-14T17:16:00.001Z

Oh dear, I seem to have got hooked on Facebook over the last couple of days. How very addictive it seems to be.

Fortunately all my attempts to hunt down old Uni friends and school chums have fallen short, or I wouldn't have found time to write this.

Try it - it's the new Myspace! (oh ... dear.)

More homebrews

2007-06-14T16:57:00.000Z

After the fun I've had making beer, I've gone a bit brewing-crazy.

I got some wicked old cider bottles for putting my beer in, they have glass screw-stoppers with rubber seals to stop them bursting. And they feel properyl 1930s. the problem is some of my beer's gone flat as some of the seals are probably from teh 1930s!

A couple of months or so ago I went out to the countryside where my mum lives and got a load of dandelion heads (it was St George's Day: the best day for picking dandelions, apparently) and oak leaves.
The Dandelion wine has now breweed and been bottled, and the poak leaf wine has finished bubbling and will be bottled in a month or two.

For my birthday my mum gave me a load MORE elderflowers (ontop of the stuff I got just before Amon's birth which I turned into wine and cordial and now I've got three bottles of elderflower cordial)

I also have a gallon and a half of ginger beer which I made at the weekend for my birthday (30th dontchaknow)

The Ginger beer tastes good, I used a really good recipe from CJ Berry's classic book about brewing. It tastes a bit lemony, fairly gingery and has a hint of cream of tartar - a substance I haven't quite figured out yet. My main problem is that I can't figure out how to kill off the yeast without making it go flat. This means that it slowly gets more alcoholic and I need to release the pressure in the bottles every day. I discovered this this morning when I took the champagne cork out of the demi-john it was in and all the CO2 that was liquidised within it turned suddenly to gas and with a whoosh which sent the cork rebounding off the ceiling spurted all over my living room.

Brewing's excellent fun!

The League of Apathy

2007-06-04T09:34:00.001Z

So, yeah.
I founded the League of Apathy (yes, that was me!) back in 2002 and thought I should mention it to someone.
Umm, like, here's our* manifesto, which is a kind of work in progress I haven't yet finished.

League of Apathy Manifesto

The League of Apathy is the true way towards the enlightenment of people, betterment of the planet and all that jazz.
Note to self: Think of a second comment
Ignore idiots.
Get it wrong the first time and you're unlikely to be asked again.
Putting things off until later could be a good idea, unless it's too much bother
Things can be best achieved through the natural gestation of the apathetic.

to be finished later...

*I say "our", it's just me really, and I think Alex might have joined once. If anyone else wants to join the League, do let me know, and we'll, umm, have a cup of tea or something.

People's Republic of Stokes Croft

2007-05-22T21:24:00.000Z

I am very impressed by PRSC (The People's Republic of Stokes Croft)'s work. It has been set up to turn what is otherwise an area of deprivation in Bristol, into a recognised area of culture.
Stokes Croft is right on the edge of St Paul's in Bristol, an area, for those who aren't familiar with Bristol, which has a long history of social problems peaking in some big riots in the early eighties.
Stokes Croft is also right at the start of one of the cities major transport arteries northbound from the centre, so it has quite a substantial percentage of Bristol's populous passing through it each day.

With this in mind The People's Republic ...
Have set up returning the area to its' former glorious state of colourful, tasteful advertising, with signage and Billboards. the idea is if they can get all the parts of the area which are neglected or tagged, and get proper graffiti artists and other murals and artwork up to beautify the area, then how nice would that look?

On Tuesday 15th, they organised a whole load of people to turn up and paint the boards outside of the homeless persons hostel which I live. I had forgotten all about it until I walked passed, with Amon strapped to my chest in a Baby Bjorn carrier. Then I rushed home and got this photo, which I stuck up and varnished with interior varnish in an attempt to keep the weather off.

I'm so glad to have got involved in doing something to improve where I live and to take part in something so unique and apt to the area.

Update on parenthood

2007-05-21T16:52:00.001Z

So everything is still going amazingly. Baby Amon is in great health, and somehow, we know not how, Rosa and I are struggling through.
As if he wasn't blessing enough already, he's started sleeping for longer at nights after only two weeks (touch plyboard desk he sticks or improves on this), so we (as in Rosa) get woken up twice in the night for feeds, burps and changes which is bearable.

Little Amon still doesn't do a great deal, holds fingers in his hand, stares at interesting patterns of light and dark on the wall, especially when you're trying to show him so cool mobile or over-priced toy.
His favourite game, and it's a cool little trick, is to wait until you've just changed him and then do a big one, or alternatively, wait until he's naked and then do a "fountain". It's a classic and we have a whole load of fun, cleaning up and washing things constantly. We're not even on the washable nappies yet (I know, there go my eco-credentials, although are disposables are largely biodegradable).

Here's a slideshow of photos (if it works, if not follow this link to my photobucket account)

Babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies babies

2007-05-13T18:08:00.000Z

Some highly amateur theories on childbirth:

Boys fart
Boys fart more because it is more likely their father's burped and winded them as a baby, therefore they learned it is good to fart around men.

Jiggles = wiggles
Babies wriggle around a lot, as their digestive systems don't do much, and this shifts the food in the right direction for them and gets them going

Perfect little poos
Obsesive Compulsive parents seem to be fascinated by baby poos. I first thought this was just because midwives ask you to keep a check on how often baby poos to make sure he's all working alright, but now I'm starting to think, that little babies don't have a lot of expressions, and one of their major functions is poo production, so maybe that parents just like to see the bbay expressing themselves someway. I'm tired. I don't really know what I'm getting at here, please ignore me.

Amon Zach Richards Sadler.

2007-05-09T17:39:00.000Z

Not the prettiest photo in the world, but at least his eyes are open in this one.

We have finally come to an opinion on our little baby's name.

The decision was a tricky one. Jasper, Harry and Finn or Finlay were all names we were considering recently. We wanted a name with 2 syllables for the forename, we like Biblical names or old names, but nothing too popular.

I got Amon from Amon Tobin, a musician I like. I met him when he played the Thekla in Bristol at a gig John Stevens put on and he was a thoroughly nice chap.

Rosa favourite has always been Zac, mostly, I think, because she fancies Zach Braff, the actor (from Scrubs) and Zac Goldsmith the environmentalist (from The Ecologist). She will probably claim she just likes the name, but ...

Amon is very happy right now because his mother's milk has come in and his no longer having stinky yellow colostrum on a drip-by-drip basis. Please let me know if you want a blow by blow detail on his poo, I believe it's something all parents are weirdly fascinated by and we are developing a chart of his progress to date - kerwow!

More later.

More new on our baby

2007-05-07T16:33:00.000Z

Here is our little baby giving his arm a suck.

Rosa had a long labour that started when I got back from a poker night. She had been having period pains about every fifteen minutes for a few hours, but they got a lot stronger and regular when I got home.

We turned the lights down low and tried to settle down for the night, although Rosa didn't like to lie down as she had to get up when the contractions began and moan whilst on all fours, with her arms up on her gym ball (large inflatable silver ball).

From midnight until seven she had contractions every five minutes, we phoned the midwives at one am, when we =sure this was "it" and at four they came to check how we were doing. At seven Rosa's sister, Beth, joined us to help out. Beth was fantastic, she sat calmly by Rosa, rubbed her back stroked her hair and held the glass as she had water through a straw.
The labour carried on and on and by about midday tRosa's waters still hadn't broken and she was dying to get into the birth pool (a large pool-in-a-box which is brilliant. It's an enormous paddling pool with wide, heigh sides and room for two people comfortable, or four intimate 'friends').

Unfortunately her temperature was quite high and the midwife was worried that if she got in the pool her labour might reverse a bit (stop having such regular strong contractions). By about 2pm, she was allowed into the pool, took the TENS machine off (a little device which does magic - can't be arsed to explain, sorry.) and got in.
It was probably about 3pm, when she was still labouring away, we allowed the midwife another internal inspection to see how we were doing. and as most her cervix had dilated and the baby's head was coming right down, the midwife said she would burst the waters. She got a little plastic stick with a hook on the end, inserted into Rosa's vagina and with an enormous splash all this water and muck came out. Rosa couldn't see at the time, but I was crestfallen to see that it had lots of brown and green bits in it.
This doesn't mean that the baby's disintegrated thankfully, but it did mean that the amniotic fluid (waters) had myconeum (baby poo) in them, which was dangerous for the baby, if he had inhaled any of them. From here on the baby would have to be closely monitored and specialised equipment would need to be on hand if there were any problems.
Gone were our hopes of a relatively relaxing birth at home.

The ambulance came at half three. I feel as I write this that I'm going on a bit, so if you're still with me, this about the same feeling we were having at the time, your average labour would be finishing up by now, whereas Rosa had been crying out to push for about an hour and hadn't yet been allowed that privilege. In fact for the next hour and a half all of her remaining energies were used up just straining against her muscle's urges to push.

Eventually, though she was exhausted and despairing she lay on the bed on her side and as she pushed I could see a baby's head starting to appear. At five o'clock a shit-covered little baby boy stuck his head out from between her legs, facing her bum and blinked. Two pushes later he was out and started crying like you would not believe. He was wrapped up warm and had a little hat put on him, and that is as you see in the video at the top of this post.

Rosa had to stay over at the hospital in case there were any problems with his breathing or anything else. But so far, he has been perfect. Hallelujah! Here are some pictures from my visit today:

I came back to get some rest myself before the baby came home and all I've done is laundry, emptying the birth pool and this post. I can't help it I'm too excited.

My son

2007-05-07T08:55:00.000Z

After a long and exhausting 17 hour labour, Rosa gave birth yesterday to our son. There are some photos below, but I'm not going to say much more because visiting hours are about to begin and I'm going to run off and see him again.
He weighs nine pounds, five and a half ounces.

Fishboy's summer spectacle almost released

2007-05-01T22:59:00.000Z

My mate Dave has got an animation he's been preparing for ages. I remember going around and seeing this as a kind of computerised flipbook of images in flash, it was very impressive. I really don't know what the full thing will be like and can't wait to find out.

HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! HYPE!

Fun little game

2007-04-24T00:03:00.000Z

I should have finished the edit of the story of the 5 course pastie, but, no, I'm taking some kooky Japanese intelligence game. Good luck!

I found this game on Arcade Templethanks to Channel 4 games site

Shit. I should have explained this game is all about domestic violence and disturbed parenthood

Father can't be left alone with the girls
Mother can't be left alone with the boys
The criminal (probably a murdering paedophile with a penchance for jaywalking) can't be left with anyone except the policeman

Gapminder - A new Google Tool?

2007-04-20T13:43:00.000Z

I don't really know what this is.

I found it whilst looking at the Webby awards noiminations for internet 'things of the year'.

It appears to be a organisation that promotes accessible world statistics, which has been bought and taken over by Google (ah, Google. I am I'm afraid, signed up to just about everyhting google there ism from Maps and Groups to Personalised homepage with applications on and Google Sketchup 3D models).

You can select about 3 variables about national statistics and ontop of that highlight the country's stats, plot lines and refine your data in other ways. It's all very interactive, the kind of thing you'd see in a science museum, and I'm fairly impressed.

These Webby awards, on the other hand ... I hadn't heard of half the stuff that was being voted for and couldn't be bothered to trawl through it all looking for things I had an opinion on. They're a load of marketing rubbish really, aren't they?
Well Jackson.

The 5 course pastie PART III

2007-04-16T00:53:00.000Z

All I did to finish this off, was cut a corner from the cheese so it wouldn't break through the pastry. This didn't work and it was impossible to transfer to the pan for baking.
Although as you can see I did a lovely crimped crust before I attempted to lift it.

OK. This wasn't as fantastic as it could have been. I made a few crucial and critical errors, such as forgetting the salt (properly seasoning is probably lesson #1 in chef's school)
Could have done with veg stock or something for more body. The bacon went soggy and I managed to mess up my fine pastie look as I was attempting to transporting raw pastie to pan and then from there to plate was a nightmare. My thoughts are I could either pre-cook the bacon and the crust or make the pastie in-tray? Hmmm.
Need a better cheese than cheddar something that will keep it's shape yet taste interesting and complementary, perhaps a goats cheese veg pastie to keep my friend Matt Borg happy.
The only other criticism I have of this is that I forgot to sweeten the coffee to taste first. I take sugar, and it would be a good idea to ask how people like their coffee before baking it all up.

I will post again with the new improved pastie when it's made.

The 5 course pastie PART II

2007-04-16T00:40:00.000Z

I have realised the dream and it was ... well, it needs a little work, but it's getting there.

Surprisingly the espresso jelly worked out well and it was the main filling that let me down.

Anyway, to tide you over until I write up all the details and paste up some photos from photobucket (my photos are here, but there's a lot of other rubbish there, too...) Here's the diagram I based it all on ...

It's not very clear, I was originally considering an additional hard-baked handle for carrying it, but talked myself into thinking it was a friend's mistake and that all it needed was some good crimping.

asparagus tips (wrapped in the word bacon)
Pork, fennel, coriander, white wine, coriander, sweetcorn and barley
Apple puree and cardamom
cheese and a grape (which I bought but forgot to put in)
digestive border
espresso jelly

Mmmm, still sounds good.

London Marathon

2007-04-11T15:59:00.000Z

My friend Tom is running the London Marathon for charity. I certainly couldn't run for 26 consecutive miles, so to do my bit I've given him a wee little bit of cash (hardly anything compared to all his other generous friends) and thought I'd pop this bar here:

Why not sponsor him?

He's raising money for The Deaf Studies Trust because he, like, cares about people and shit.

Edit: silly technology went and broke so there may not be an automatic bar showing you how close he is to his target now, just this picture.

Pimp my 5 course pastie mother-fudger

2007-04-11T13:39:00.000Z

Seriously. There is a mother who makes fudge somewhere, to whom I address the following:

STAGE 1: Planning

Plan for a 5 course meal in one pastie:
Each course must be able to seep into the previous without ruining the flavour.

bacon wrapped asparagus
mains
fruit-based pudding
Cheese and a green grape
espresso (probably in a jelly)

Notes to self: will the jelly melt when baked? What will happen when it does? Is the use of sugar paper (thanks, Alex) a good idea?

Waiting

2007-04-11T10:39:00.000Z

We are in the eighth month of pregnancy, the hardcore nest-building stage. It reminds me of a couple of things, which it probably shouldn't. The first is when our cat gave birth when I was a teenager and she spent ages going all over her territory looking around and sitting in new and interesting places trying to find somewhere comfortable to birth. I wasn't quite sure how aware of being pregnant our cat was, but clearly, she got the hang of it and managed to deliver her litter behind the curtains in the lounge.
We tried out the birthing pool on Sunday, which was great fun. It's like an enormous paddling pool, so whilst everyone was outside in the park reading the papers in the sunshine, we lounged about in our front room in a big old paddling pool with extra high and wide sides (and some handles you can hang onto whilst in labour). I can see that it was a brilliant investment. Pool in a Box are the company if anyone's interested.
The second thing I was reminded of is the story of when Rosa was a wee one, how she made a "white castle". Legend has it that her parents came home to find talcum powder everywhere and toilet rolls slung up all over her bedroom and a happy, busy Princess in the middle of it all, making her white castle. Awwwww!

Our flat is about as fully equipped as it could be now, and except for my responsibilities of making the mix tape (well, mp3s and CDs) of music to birth to, it's just a question of waiting for the Big Day to arrive. Waiting and waiting and waiting.
ETA May 10th.

Batter mix

2007-04-08T21:10:00.000Z

I am incensed by this stuff. Usually it says on the packet, just add milk and egg, but occasionally it's water and egg.
I wonder whether people know that they are basically buying flour, or flour and milk powder.
I hate people sometimes.
Then I consider custard powder, and absolutely everyone I know uses custard powder to make custard. This is normal, and yet the same applies somehow.
To make custard from powder:
Put powder into a receptacle
Add hot water
heat and stir
To make custard from scratch:
Put milk into a receptacle
Heat,
add an egg yolk and some sugar; stir.

I mean, whichever way you make it you have to get the proportions right, and most people have egg and milk in the house, so why does anyone even bother with custard powder?

And another thing ...

No. Actually I've run out of outrage. All this talk of custard has made me sleepy.

Mobius Strip

2007-03-15T17:19:00.001Z

I am very bored at work.

Meeting my nephew

2007-03-11T23:04:00.000Z

I'm clearly going photo-happy this evening, putting all my recent pictures up.
This afternoon I met my nephew. He's the first of the next generation in my family. He was born to Lizzie and Luke about three week ago, four weeks premature, so he's still amazingly small (I think Lizzie said still 6 lb 4) and relatively quiet and sleepy. He'd just fed though, when we arrived so that may explain it. I got to hold him for an hour, maybe more, whilst he slept and he snuffled and whined and made lots of itty bitty little baby noises. Goddamn, I can't wait until mine is born, especially not if he's half as sweet.

Please may I introduce Torin ...

Ancona, Italy

2007-03-11T22:25:00.000Z

I went to Ancona for work on Thursday and Friday. It was pretty good, all in all, and I got about much done as I'd expected. There are still a lot of holes in the guide we've to prepare by June and anxieties over Finances and making sure everyone's budgets are OK, but I think we're making good progress and getting things done. This is the website I maintain for work. Here's some of the less-business-orientated photos from the trip.

Relaxing after our meeting on Friday

There's a guy in Bristol with a marker pen who writes "Jesus" absolutely everywhere, and I was glad to see he's got a colleague over in Italy.
The side of a cleaning truck by one of the main squares in Ancona.

I seem to love photos of rust and grimy things. I found an advertising board with a hole rusted in it, and a hole built into the wall behind it:

Imogen's Hands

2007-03-11T22:17:00.000Z

I went out with a whole load of work friends on Friday before last. I had quite a good time and got fairly damn shloshed in a good way.

Anyway, I took this photo of Imogen, and she said I could put it up here, so here t'is:

I quite like it. It looks quite arty.
This new camera of mine is giving me lots of fun.

Little baby no-name

2007-02-26T13:15:00.000Z

I feel very guilty about not mentioning anything to do with the baby for a while. it has taken up considerable (though by no means regrettable) portions of our life already. I feel I should have shared some of this earlier, but I don't really have any news to post about.
Rosa is exhausted, she has always slept lightly as it is, but with being woken up every night at 3am, combined with some stress at work, she has been considerably out of energy for a few months now. She's doing pretty well at keeping it together and not loosing her rag at all, but I think these last few weeks until maternity leave begins are going to feel like an eternity to her.

Our big difficulty at the moment is the greatest challenge of what to name him. Of course once we see his face (ETA: May 10) all bets are off, but, until then, here's some of our favourites and some random others to give you some choice and save you from slagging off our favourites:

Ginger Beer

2007-02-26T13:07:00.000Z

As well as making my first beef stock, I'm trying out a recipe for Ginger Beer, from a book mum recommended I get, which someone on Freecycle was giving away.

I 'accidentally' put six times the recommended amount of ginger in, and then hastily added half again of water and lemons.
To summarise you chuck ginger and lemon rind into a bucket, boil water and put the remaining lemons in. Then mix that and sugar all together in the bucket. Now take the lemon halves out again. When it gets cool, throw in some yeast and cream of tartar.

Quantities are something like:

4.5 litres water
25g ginger
2 lemons
500g sugar
some yeast (forget how much, but I just put the whole packet in)
¹/₄ teaspoon of cream of tartar

I think I put in 150g ginger (inc. peel, so probably less).

the guy in Brewer's Droop (the best darned homebrew shop in the whole of God-belovin' Bristol) said something about yeast nutrient so I'll chuck a bit of that in in a second. Apparently this evening it should be ready to bottle up (in plastic bottles, as it's volatile and wont to explode if not drunk quickly).

Beef stock

2007-02-26T12:47:00.000Z

Some throw-away comment from Rosa on Friday inspired me to ask in the butchers if they had any beef bones. They gave me a large plastic bag-full for free, so I spent Sunday stinking out the kitchen with a simmering pot of beef and scum.

Having never made beef stock before, the first thing I did was track down a recipe. All my classic cookbooks failed me. I found no mention of it in Mrs Beeton's Household Management. Edouard de Pomiane simply uses it, he has someone to make these things for him, probably in these new-fangled 'cubes'.

Getting a bit more contemporary, an excellent book mum gave me for christmas, Living and Eating by John Pawson and Annie Bell (which is a bit of a snob's bible to all you need to know) told me that there was a virtual PhD in stock-making available it could attain such artistry, and then proceeded to only give me a recipe (which I made with good results just after christmas) for chicken stock. Hugh Fernley-Whittingstall got me all excited by having a reference to it in the index of The River Cottage Cookbook, but it turned out only to refer to its existence as a recipe. Finally! Gary Rhodes came up with the goods in his New British Classics book. Here's his recipe in summary (from memory):

5kg beef bones
6.5-7 litres of cold water
3 onions
2 sticks of celery
2 carrots
1 leek
4 tomatoes
1 clove garlic
1 bay leaf
1 sprig thyme
salt

Roast the onions slowly for two hours or so. The Roast the beef bones at 200^oC for half an hour. Ten minutes in, chuck the roughly chopped carrot and celery in with the bones. Put everything in a big pan. Bring it to the boil and keep it there for 8 hours, skimming the scum off the top every now and then.

I ballsed up the thyme and chucked in some dried stuff, that I then skimmed off twenty minutes later. I also ballsed up by not having a large enough pan to fit all that water in.
By about midnight last night it was ready, if a little too reduced, even. I strained off the lumps, and took the bones out of these. Then I pureed the remainder into a further stage opf soup, that made a grinding noise with the blender as the bits of gristle and bone whizzed round (I had to hack the some of the roasted bones in half with a butcher's cleaver - no simple task for a first-timer). Two minutes later, this final by-product was in the Council compost bin, which marks the territory of our doorstep like the piss of a randy old alcoholic fishmonger. Can't wait for summer!

By 1 am, I'd finished pouring it into various containers to cool, and sort the skimmed-off matter to get some second servings of stock, true blemished skimmings and purest beef lard (pure except for a bit of thyme and leek).
I'll let you know if it was worth the effort when I actually make something.

The chicken stock has made some really really nice stew with a recipe from Nigel Slater's Kitchen Diary, which I got for christmas and am spending the year reading so that I can appreciate the food and get inspiration for seasonal cooking.

Truth revealed unto me from the great and glorious meatball

2007-02-13T10:59:00.000Z

This beaticious creator has become known to me through the glorious Wikipedia and the words of Bobby Henderson, who is trying to insist that if creative design is to be taught in American schools so must his truth revealed unto him that the world was created by the flying spaghetti monster.

Other less surreal wandering son the internet have revealed that Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden, is flying the Rangers football team to Israel.

And whilst I'm on the topic of meatballs, someone at work has been going to Subway every lunchtime for one of their £1.99 meatball sandwiches. It sounds really good. Could meatballs be the new Pie?

Rodent in the night

2007-02-11T18:23:00.000Z

On the night before last I awoke to a krr-krr-krrr sound of something evil happening past the foot of the bed. I'd been to my mate Ray's birthday and got back late, so was relegated to the spare-room-for-alcoholics-and-insomniacs.
I sat up and looked around.
Nothing happened, so I curled back up in an exhausted ball and tried to sleep. Just as I was drifting off it started again, "What is this?", thought I. Sounds like a beast of somekind. I turned the light on and sat up. Suffice to say I couldn't see any thing.
This went on for a while. I eventually figured out it was some kind of invisible rodent intent on keeping me awake with it's ridiculous mindgames, "I'll out-fox 'e.", thinks I, figuring my fatigue would outweigh any rodent gnawing-noise. Just after 2am I stopped turning the light on and looking about whenever it happened, and sure enough I must have drifted off, because I woke up with something on the back of head. I screamed an incoherent frightened whimpering and waved my arms around a bit, whacked the light on, and thought I saw something sneak down the end of the bed and behind the chest of drawers.
At this point I admitted defeat and went and woke Rosa up to get comfort and a corner of the BIG bed to sleep on (she's filled it with pillows and cushion support for her pregnant-self).

So.
Then Yesterday, whilst I was out shopping, Rosa made the bed and actually saw the little mouse when she lifted the duvet.
I borrowed a mousetrap off her parents.
Some good people came around for a poker night and I made them wear silly hats.

And then ... THEN. As I was tidying up, I armed the trap by trimming a piece of wire down to the right size and loading it with cheese:

I whipped off the duvet covers and this sweet little thing was sitting there. It shuffled off to the edge of the bed and pretended to hide about as pathetic as five year-old closing it's eyes so you can't see them.
What could I do? It was so cute.
I went to tell Rosa, who had had enough by now and told me to the, "Lay the treacherous death-machine, bitch, and get your pretty arse in here." (I'm somewhat paraphrasing, as anyone who knows Rosa will testify).
I got a plastic fruit carton, cut an airhole in the side, and plopped it over the mouse, slid the lid underneath and took a couple of photos.

I then popped it in the garden for the night in case it escaped and dropped a woolly jumper over the carton to keep it warm.

When I went to look at it the next morning it was dead. Aw.
No more mouse.

I named it Rupert and 'buried' it in the dustbin.

Farewell, Ian

2007-02-08T18:11:00.000Z

Ian (left) is going to sea. He's going to be an officer on a ferry boat going from the US to S. America. For the next four months Bristol will be quiet and poker nights will be missing something.
Inevitably after pub closing hours, I was dragged out to the Prince of Wales with Toby, chucking rum all over the place. There was a powercut and the walk home in the snow would have been blissful if not for house alarms and a brief police questioning as they drove through St Andrews park.

Having a geek moment

2007-02-03T11:27:00.000Z

I am KingPippin on del.ico.us

What am I talking about? Well, I've indulged my geeky side and set up an online bookmarking tool, which, frankly, bores the piss out of everyone I tell. So instead of boring my friends, family (and especially my lovelyspecialladyfriend), I though I'd bore the piss out of a load of trolls, spiders and lurkers on t'internet. Apologies if you know me.

I think it's fantastic, obviously. All of the above words are tags I've put on my bookmarks, so I can cross reference different themes (e.g. film and food tags http://del.icio.us/kingpippin/film+food gives you films about food; hopefully). [Edit: this would work embedded if Blogger .com accepted javascript in their pages, which they don't, as is the above is just a picture linked to my del.ico.us page]
This means I can just bookmark EVERYTHING I may ever want to se again. EVER. and I thinks it's great I do.

Thankyou for patronising me, do carry on reading now.

I always wanted to try doing this

2007-01-31T00:31:00.000Z

A photo every morning for 8 years:

... although I'm kind of glad I didn't.

Land's End to John o'Groats books

2007-01-24T16:15:00.000Z

Invaluable books I used on my walk:

A chap called Andy Robinson objected to me saying I'd used his book for my walk, as it was as yet unpublished, so I actually bothered to dig out the remains of my books and check their names they are as below.
I'm presuming that this is the same Andy Robinson's list of LEJOG books, excluding his as yet unpublished masterpiece. Cheers, Andy!

This first book is an invaluable map of all the major pathways throughout England and Wales (Scotland has strange barely existant trespassing laws which mean, correct me if I'm wrong) you're pretty much allowed to stomp in a straight line over any mountain field or bit of countryside you please (Countryside code-obeying stomping, of course).

The second is the route and description as outlined below. I have it in pieces as it was bound to the spine in 3 places and I ripped out the third and posted the rest home once I was north enough.
One thing I will say about walking guide books is that it's important to get one going in the right direction. I got a guide for Offa's Dyke that ran north to south and was forever reading back and forth trying to figure out which direction I should be heading over a field et cetera.
That and buying second hand maps from the 50's. Although the fifties maps are quaint, it can be annoying when by-passes have to be walked around, housing estates pop up where forests should be and villages with shops (and pubs) in are now shopless.

Save the Junction

2007-01-23T13:39:00.000Z

The Junction is a gnarly little pub on Stokes Croft in Bristol. One of the few remaining venues in Bristol where local bands have a chance to play gigs without too many overheads.
Most of the bands who play there are pretty loud, often punky and always great fun.
It's a good idea to go prepared with earplugs.
Recent financial troubles almost brought it to it's knees, but a bit of cash over christmas has just about kept it rolling on. If you are a Bristolian (or merely an eccentric philanthropist) who likes this type of venue, then click on the banner above and buy their CD of local bands and artists who have in most cases recorded songs eclusively for this venture.
Bands include:

Loci - Zweifel

White Trash Ambition - Celebrity Spaz Plug (unreleased)

SJ Esau - All Agog (Smaller Intestine Mix)

North Sea Navigator feat Rose Kemp - Edward ( UK exclusive)

Big Joan - The Sucker's Bug

Mustard Allegro - Grosser Weiser (unreleased)

My Own Flag - Intervention (unreleased)

You and the Atom Bomb - El Apacheo

Redd FM - Dirty Bitch Tango (live @ Folkhouse)

Hunting Lodge - Dub Ghost (feat. Terry Edwards)

Safetyword - Debobbler (unreleased)

First of the Giants - Sufferer Jet (live @ Lousiana)

Geisha - Cocktown & The G-Boys (Unreleased)

Mea Culpa - A Panoramic View of Deception

Santa Dog - Rosa

The Taxidermist - Spend the Night

The Girl From Headquarters - A Worthless Man

Arctic Circle - Comfort Zone (unreleased)

Team Brick - Alsatian

In a very nepotistic manner I have put links in for some of my friends' bands sites.

Land's End to John o'Groats

2007-01-10T16:28:00.000Z

I realised whilst looking at some of my photos from my walk that I haven't done anything with them really. So it's time I posted up some archaic photos from walking Land's End to John o'Groats in 2004:

This is St Michael's Mount in Cornwall a day's walk from Land's End. about a week after this I had to go home with a very painful ankle. I took everything out of my bag and put about two thirds of it back in again two days later and set off again. My dad said about cutting your toothbrush in half as an example of the ridiculous lengths you should go to to cut down on the weight of your bag.

I was sleeping out under the stars every night, which was lovely. Maybe it is one of those things that is lovelier in retrospect. Being 6'3", I have to take care of my back, and pitching down in the comfiest bit of land you can find on a quarter inch of foam underneath your waterproof poncho is somehow even rougher than it sounds.

I worked my way North and East through the middle of Devon and Cornwall, a journey that took weeks, and unlike a lot of the rest of the route, just followed my own meandering trail each day, reading a guidebook ("The End to End Trail" by Andy Robinson) and trying to find paths on the OS map that would keep me away from main roads.

Inevitably some road walking was necessary. I like this photo because of the way the exact square cut into the hedge in the distance looks.

Rosa came and met me in Congleton where my aunt and uncle live (which is perfectly halfway between Offa's Dyke and the Pennine Way). It meant that I've not walked Offa's Dyke or the Pennine Way in entirety whatever lies I may tell you later, as I missed the last day's walking on Offa's Dyke, which was all rolling countryside and a bit gentle, and the first and last days on the Pennine Way. Anyway the point of this picture is to demonstrate that she brought me my tent. As summer wore on and I got further north into rougher territory it was really nice to have a cover over my head. The additional weight was like starting all over again for a while, even considering that I'd put on some muscle for once in my life.

Some bits were nicely wild, such as the Pennine Way. Although maybe too much had been done to make it safe for people. I'm kind of glad I didn't sink in a bog though. 2004 was the wettest summer on record (don't know if that record has been beaten yet), so I had my fair share of dampness and hardship to contend with.

This gives you an idea of the size of bag I was carrying. It was big. It was my bain and a burden and a half. By the end, I was sick of walking, sick of roads and paths and most of all sick of carrying that enormous weight around everywhere, it was like torture to me.

I'm terrible at smiling for the camera.

Scotland was without doubt my favourite places to walk. the remoteness of locations, the glorious views and roughness of the countryside. It's properly wild in places. Bleak as anything, but in a very romantic way.

nearing the end. I had to make the decision whether to go through Glasgow and follow the West Highland Way along the West Coast or, to head vaguely Northwards from Edinburgh and try and beat a path straight through the mountains.
In the end, although the West Highland way is one of the nicest walks around, apparently, I opted to just tear north as quickly as possible without the detour. "Beating my way was hardly necessary however, as for the final fortnight's walk the A9 runs all the way from the end of the M90 to within a day of John o'Groats. I succesfully avoided it until Inverness.

One of my favourite days (well, two days) was going cross country from Blair Atholl to Kingussie.

Tired and a bit beardy on my final day I walked 30 miles, unwilling to camp out a mere ten miles from the end when darkness fell and navigated the dark road to John o'Groats making excited phone calls to friends and family. Worrying I'd missed a turning in the dark and finally, finally walking in to town, buying myself a luxurious B&B room and then drinking too many doubles of whisky. This photo was taken the next day, exactly 3 months after I set off.

Those who could, can't

2007-01-05T17:50:00.000Z

Jesus, I'm frustrated. Those of you who know me, know that I have been trying to get a place on a course as a teacher this year. In fact most of this year, that is what I have been aspiring to do. You'd think with all the adverts and press that the government have put out that it would be an easy process, wouldn't you?

No way!
There are about 3 or 4 different agencies, a number of different ways they want to communicate and the entire experience has been quite traumatic.

Now, obviously I am angry because I haven't got a place on a course. Why else would I be so riled? The most annoying thing though is not that I was turned down, it's that I was accepted at every stage of the process, accepted for a place on a Maths Enhancement Course (MEC) to get my maths up to scratch in the 6 months prior to the teaching course (a PGCE - Post-Graduate Certificate in Education) starting; accepted for a place on a PGCE to go and study in the same place as the Enhancement Course is taught. But simultaneously as Bath Spa University accepted me for a place on the PGCE they wrote to me to say that the MEC was now full up (despite having previously assured me that if I was fast enough I would get a place - and I did everything I could from that moment) and I would have to go elsewhere to study.

Jesus, God-blaspheming mother-loving shit-sticks!

Now I'm on the waiting list for the MEC course which starts on Monday week. I presume that I am anyway, because when I phoned them a day after receiving their e-mail they had all gone off for Christmas and there's neither sign nor trace of them yet. My alternatives are: To commute to the nearest MEC course in Plymouth (or Birmingham) each day; to postpone my PGCE until next year; or to give up entirely. I'm just pent up with fury right now and feel like smashing things. it's been like this for a few days.
Thanks for listening.

People keep trying to give me reassuring advice or tips, which just makes me more angry for some reason, because their advice is usually as futile as what I've already considered, which will eventually lead to nowhere. More on this later, I expect. A more considered and rational explanation.

My very merry mix

2006-12-22T12:24:00.000Z

I was off work with a cold and feeling a bit grotty about two months ago. On the other hand I had a few precious hours away from Rosa in which to play all the music she doesn't really like very much. So I made this lovely mix for my mate Gareth. He didn't get around to using it yet (Gareth - I'll make you another exclusive mix, just as soon as I get a new computer), so instead it got sent to Bruce at House Plant Radio and ended up here: OLO Radio.
Happy listening.

Here's a vague track listing from what I can recognise listening back to it now:

Nosrep

Squarepusher - Go Plastic

possibly(?) some BS2000 in there.

Dom & Roland - (the one with the radar on the cover)

Goldie - Demonz

Patrick Dawes - Creep

Him - don't know which track, sorry.

Hal Wilner - Alamo Hellfire

True Colours - Cyndi Lauper

Stock, Aitken and Walkman - again, it's brilliant stuff, but I can't Name That Track

The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby

unknown artist and tune - Break dat (thing)

Triosk - unknown track

BBC World of Sports

There's Monolith by The Beta Band in the mix somewhere, but I haven't found it yet

Venetian Snares

James Dean in A Rebel Without a Cause

Anyway, it's the Friday before Christmas and a "working lunch" beckons;
Merry Christmas one and all!

What a marvellous weekend

2006-11-20T14:00:00.000Z

I am, it has to be said, feeling someone what tired and satisfied after an amazing weekend of fun with my friends. Most of them, it appears, are leaving the country forever, but nevertheless: superb.
On Friday I got home from work and cooked Rosa dinner as she slobbed out on the sofa in a knackered and immovable way. My poor lady's sleeping has not improved much and so she's still (semi-)functioning on half a night's sleep all the time. She wanted to come out to Sami's leaving do, but couldn't make it in the end, so I went solo, and met up with a whole load of people in The Lansdown in Clifton, which is a lovely pub.
Sami is off to America forever, because he is in love and she is in love and their world is golden and glowing. Awww.
Also in the pub was a whole load of strangers and a whole load of old friends from Clevedon who we'll be spending New Years with. It sounds like it's going to be an excellent event. We've an ancient YHA Hostel with no-one else in it and nothing but countryside around us. There will be just enough drinking and raucousness and fun to complement the cosy fireside nodding and board games and, weather permitting a few trips through some muddy Wlesh backwaters turning maps around, scratching our head snad trying to trigonometry from far-off mountains.
Saturday night was spent hectic as hell. One of my best mates from secondary school came to stay with his lovely wife Sam, who is a postie. Poor Sam had been up since before dawn, nevertheless we dragged her off for some food at Budokan in town (quality sushi and noodle-soup kind of affair, we got a small but cheap meal deal before 7, which was a bargain!) and then had a few pints at the Zero Degrees Micro-Brewery on Park Row. Zero Degrees is like a 50s science fiction writer's depiction of a brewery or pub in the year 2000. All shiny metal and ... [Here I stopped writing and went and did something else, running out of steam completely]

Pickled Eggs

2006-11-13T15:15:00.000Z

After the last post it seems a bit weird to post such a mundane thing, but I guess really getting into pickles could be a normal reaction to fatherhood.
Last night I watched the latest episode of In Search of Perfection on the cable Watch Again thingummy and made pickled eggs.

This is the recipe I used for the eggs, which smelled proper nice, but I can't check for six weeks (i.e. Christmas)

2 and a half pints cider vinegar
12 eggs (preferably organic ones)
2 blades mace
12 cloves
1 ounce (25g) pickling spices
A couple of hefty jars - I had to finish off some gherkins and still had too much vinegar and not enough eggs

The recipe is really quite simple: You hard-boil the eggs and put them in cold water, you boil the vinegar with the spices (all wrapped up in muslin) for 10 minutes and then put it all in sterilised jars; put half the vinegar in first, then top up once filled with eggs.
Sterilising Jars is a pain. I always end up chucking them in a pan of boiling water and then putting them in a low oven (160 ^oC) for ten minutes.

My hope is that this will be ready for Christmas, with my sloe gin, elderflower wine (which will free up the demi-john for blackberry wine with the blackberries in the freezer) and the ancient mincemeat from last year. It's a homemade wholesome gargantuan festive feast. The only shame is Rosa won't eat the eggs or drink the booze, poor thing.

I'm going to be a daddy.

2006-11-10T17:01:00.001Z

Check out this gorgeous blob. One of the sweetest blob things in a load of dark water one could look at. Of course when I was looking at it it was beating it's heart and twitching around a bit as a midwife pushed a ultrasound scanner into my girlfriend's belly.

What to say? Well, aside from that bombshell of news

Yes, it was planned, after some discussion and attempt to reach various comprimses we realised that actually if we really wanted kids there was nothing not money to stop us. Babies, technically are free. But like every too-good-to-be-true offer it's the accesssories that really sting the pocket. So we're going for it and screw anyone who gets in my way.
This is my Queen's 14th week of pregnancy; due date: May 10th 2007
As you can see from the picture the sex of baby is inderterminate (lady's have slightly outtie innies at this stage, anyway.)
We're thinking waterbirth at home

I can't think of anything else at this stage. The shock and excitement has kind of worn on so that I'm used to the idea now.
Just wait til I'm holding a 0 Days year-old in my arms, then I'll be shitting myself!

The ordinary madness of Charles Bukowski

2006-11-07T19:02:00.000Z

If the video's bust, click on this!

I look forward to getting time to actually watching this later. But I love Bukowski and the first few minutes seem to imply that this is a top documentary. Watch, if you like.

Bastards nicked my laptop

2006-11-07T15:46:00.000Z

Some bastard nicked my laptop from my house on Friday. I think I've got everything backed up, but if anyone gets offered a cheap Compaq Pressario in Bristol, let me know!

This does mean that I now have to indulge my techie side by doing some computer shopping for a new one (and my religious side by praying that the insurance pays up when there was no sign of a break-in), any recommendations?

That is all.

Random crate of beer

2006-11-07T15:33:00.000Z

I missed a delivery from a parcel company yesterday, and when I popped home to pick it up from the driver returning today, it was a crate of beer.
24 beautiful bottles of Corona (looks like I'll be picking up some limes on the way home tonight!).
It took me ages to remember that I had entered a competition last month (the same time as I won those Starter for Ten tickets). I think the first prize was a weekend away, but this will make a lovely weekend in.
I'd big up whoever it was who promoted this if only they'd sent me a note to say congratulations, you've won a fantastic box of beers. Nevermind, thanks Corona (I assume).

Cheers!

Perfection - the TV series

2006-11-01T14:15:00.000Z

Last night the TV series started. I was pleasantly surprised by how personable Heston Blumenthal came across as being. My expectations from his photos and writing manner was that he would be a lot gruffer and more surly in that kind of blinkered obsessive way. The man himself seemed quite charming.
The programme was good, but having read the book I expected it to be far more in the documentary style, following him around as he weighs the dry weight of potatoes and gets lessons in feeding sausage meet into a lamb’s intestines.
Instead, each half-hour episode looks like it is taken up with a small amount of his research (having read the book it could be over an hour for each dish, but I would like that; I like to know the reasons why each potato is good for sauté rather than Bombay wedges) some of his talking head saying about why this dish is special to him (I reckon this will invariably be down to childhood nostalgia) and the rest is just making two dishes in a TV kitchen.
I was double-excited to see dry ice ice cream being made at last, though. Gonna get me some of that stuff (If anyone wants to get in on some of the ice let me know as you can only buy it as ten 1kg blocks, apparently). In summary, I was pleasantly surprised by the charisma of Dr Blumenthal and the program overall. I would have liked to see more of the research and less of the putting-the-recipe-together bits. But that’s just me, I’m sure most people were happy with the already fastidious attention to detail and amazing chemistry as it was.

In search of Perfection

2006-10-27T12:33:00.000Z

I keep meaning to post up a cathartic rant about how I'm always staying up late and watching crap films on TV. It drives me crazy. I used to berate myself for wasting my life away by getting stoned and doing nothing. Then my asthma got too bad, and I cut back and then gave up smoking pot. Next I berated myself for drinking most days of the week, not necessarily heavily, but, you know...
Now I just berate myself for watching crap and wasting my life by being permanently tired.
Anyway, last night, I got back from watching Little Miss Sunshine at the Orpheus (which was brilliant) and managed to not collapse in front of the telly, but nevertheless stayed up late reading my new book.

I bought this half price on Amazon.

That Heston Blumenthal is a bloody great genius (is what he is). I'm not entirely persuaded that I would like him, but I certainly respect him to hell and back.

This is the accompanying book to an upcoming BBC TV series in which Dr Blumenthal (recently granted an honorary degree by Reading University; he aspires to write a paper on Umami in tomato sauce)creates some very standard everyday meals. The twist is he makes the very best version of them that he can possibly muster. Last night I read the chapters on roast chicken and roast potatoes; bangers and mash; spaghetti bolognese and pizza; and I don't think there was a single recipe at the end which you could easily cook in less than a day.
Bloody.
Genius.
I mean, let's take the example of a roast chicken (and I hope I don't spoil this for anyone here). He tracks down the finest breed of French chicken living off the perfect soil and running free. Pickles it in brine, roasts it slow with regularly thermometer probing, injects flavoured butter into the flesh and then fries the bastard up in a frying pan to make it golden brown.
It's not a typical chicken.
I was quite expecting him to go for the standard haute cuisine of par-boiled potatoes in goose fat, but to my surprise he boils them for about 20 minutes until they're barely held together and then roasts them up in olive oil in a separate pan to the chicken!
I'm not sure I totally agree. But the man is a genius and I haven't tried his version yet, so he's probably right. I'll have to track down the specific family of potato first, too.

Anyway, the book is brilliant, he describes the history and beauty of each dish, travels around to find the ultimate suppliers and goes into great detail about the molecular composition of the food, how it's usually done wrong and all his reasons for doing the weird things he does.

In all honesty I'm expecting another late night of reading definitive recipes and exhausted mental self-flagellation.

My song

2006-10-25T16:33:00.000Z

These words to this tune is an old song called King Pippin. Which is nice, for anyone who cares.

It's all a bit twiddly-diddly for me, though.

Omega 3 oils

2006-10-25T12:01:00.000Z

Following on from an interesting series of articles in the Ecologist the other month, the Guardian is now highlighting some research into the effects of diet on Anti-social behaviour and in particular the ongoing discussion over whether we should be force-feeding schoolchildren and prisoners cod liver oil.

He has been rocking his 6ft 2in bulk to and fro while delivering a confessional account of his past into the middle distance. He wants us to know what has saved him after 20 years on the streets: "My dome is working. They gave me some kind of pill and I changed. Me, myself and I, I changed."
...
The UK prison trial at Aylesbury jail showed that when young men there were fed multivitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids, the number of violent offences they committed in the prison fell by 37%. Although no one is suggesting that poor diet alone can account for complex social problems, the former chief inspector of prisons Lord Ramsbotham says that he is now "absolutely convinced that there is a direct link between diet and antisocial behaviour, both that bad diet causes bad behaviour and that good diet prevents it."

I'm not sure how good for sustaiable fisheries this news is, but that your diet has a huge impact on your life is clear to anyone who's in my house about 8 o'clock; typically, I'll still be halfway through crashing about the kitchen and swearing about how there's no coconut milk, oblivious to some burning onions. The rage and the fury will be beautifully counterpoised by my girlfriend's drained expression as she stares with blank hunger at the half-chopped vegetables on the chopping board.
As soon as we've eaten we get sleepy and then about an hour later we can get stuff done again.
Proper eating is like proper sleeping. If you don't do it correctly it's not surprising you go a bit doolally. I can't really speak. I have been skipping breakfast for about a year now, and generally don't get hungry until about eleven thirty in the morning.
Anyway, do clcik on the title and read the article above, it's quite interesting.

Starter for Ten

2006-10-24T09:33:00.000Z

The preview of this bestselling-novel-turned film was an understatement and a half, last night. There was a distinct lack of showgirls, red carpets or marauding press on Union Street in Bristol. This was partly because the press have had their screenings weeks before, and partly because the celebrity attendance was a two-man behind-the-screen affair. The writer and the director introduced it and stuck around for questions afterwards. I guess this is why - so that a little word of mouth goes a long way.

The film starts with an unrecognisably youthful and bad-skinned James McAvoy (who appeared in Shameless and the recent version of Macbeth on the BBC) having his interview for a place on an English course at Bristol University.

It spectularly remained understated the whole way through, with the lead character's emotional crises being exactly the kind of thing I went through at Uni. The cast were pretty, but not drenched in the kind of senseless glamour and sheen that an American campus movie has and the plot was gritty and real enough to be believable, but enough also to keep the film moving along fast enough.

Tom Hanks notoriously bought the rights to this film, and sadly (for the British film industry) it is a largely American-funded film. However, the good thing about it is just that it is so very darned British. Maybe, as a Bristolian, I am being over-homely about this film, though.

Catherine Tate also does a good turn as the mother. Holds the role down well, but I'm too used to seeing her in a rubber mask to believe in her character.

Creating the perfect woman

2006-10-20T12:50:00.000Z

I really like the series of adverts running at the moment by Dove, partly because it features lots of women in their underwear looking very happy, and partly because I am sick to the teeth of seeing perfect women all over TV. I found this little video online, and hope that it manages to post up here OK:

Photoshop
Uploaded by cybermac

campaignforrealbeauty.com

The question for me is whether men suffer from poor self-esteem and the burden of trying to live up to the expectations and mis-representations of manhood in the media.
The answer for me is: Probably not much.

Pumpkin Pie

2006-10-17T00:21:00.000Z

Our garden was covered by thick chords of creeping vine this summer from our five Giant pumpkin plants.
Only one solitary pumpkin made it from this sprawling mass, all the others either dropped off in the heat when they were tiny or got eaten by our mouse (who lives in the wall).

We harvested the only pumpkin about a fortnight ago, before the rain mushed it or rodents got it.

Rosa turned half of it into a really nice soup.

I got the remaining half and found a recipe for Pumpkin pie in "Food from your Garden"

This is a typical 50s recipe consisting, consisting of getting a few good ingredients and basic flavours and lacing them heavily with cream.

about 200g shortcrust pastry
500g Pumpkin
cream
2 egg yolks
ground cardamom
ground cinnamon
sugar! (I forgot)

First up, the tricky bit that I got wrong! - Scoop the flesh out of your pumpkin, carefully taking out all the seeds. Next boil it with a little water (it will make it's own juice once it's got going a bit). About 15-20 minutes on a low heat is good, then strain some of the liquid off and sieve it into a puree.

Whilst you're dong this, blind bake some shortcrust pastry for ten minutes. Blind baking is simply baking the pastry on its own in a greased dish with some dried beans to weight it down.

This was where I was having problems as, not having removed all my seeds I had to go through it as ach batch went into the sieve. The other problem was, it wouldn't really go through the sieve. I don't whether pumpkins weren't as hady or sieves were made of sterner stuff back in the day, but mine certainly didn't look up to the task.

Next all there is to do is turn the mush into a kind of custard mix.

To do this mix the cream, sugar and pumpkin together. Flavour with spices (the original recipe had nutmeg and cinnamon, but cardamom is my current favourite), then stir in two egg yolks. I forgot the sugar at this stage and then went out to the pub whilst it baked.

Rosa astutely recognised something was up and put some sugar on top and tok my mini flame thrower to it. That's why it looks a bit like creme brulee in this final picture:

Cheesy pic

2006-10-16T23:51:00.000Z

Shortly after I bought my record decks, I took this picture:

I found the photo again in a box yesterday and realised I loved it very much. Even if it's been done before.
I remember spending ages fiddling with my camera to get it to sit behind me on a cabinet, whilst I held a mirror in my hand and looked into the lens.

I'm a skinny girl whinging about pretty models

2006-10-16T10:06:00.000Z

I recall contemplating, at some point last night whilst failing to sleep, about a comment Sami made about beards. He said that every man would basically like to be bearded; and I agreed.
There something about getting around to having a shave that is just tiresome, and something very soothing about stroking the course fibers of overgrown stubble that is very reassuring.

If true that, left to his own, man would let his hair go wild and do it's own thing, or a least warm his chinny-chin-chin, then what does this say about society? Removing my head from my poncy-art-critic-arse for a moment, my point is just that is man's naked chin an equivalent complaint to that of women complaining about the demands that society puts on them to be skinny?
If men only shave because women like a boy-like face (and hate the stubble-rash of an unshaved man), we men have grounds for launching a campaign against hairlessness. Although there is clearly a need for a better slogan, I think there should be more pride in beards, OK, they're not the best to look at (especially in teenage boys trying to prove themselves men), but damn it they feel good, and that should count for something. The old stubble rash will go when the hair becomes soft, think of the storage advantages, the styling possibilities (Rarg!) and the benefits in winter!

Not to mention the fact that it would cause a drastic reduction in Gilette adverts and beauty products, which can only be a good thing.

Suing my bank

2006-10-13T16:54:00.000Z

This morning in the post I received the letter I had been waiting for for over a month.
A while ago, Someone called Jambon Spandau (allegedly) posted a message up on choke about penalties from their bank and how very unfair they are.
I had a look into this, and apparently many banks charges may be deemed unreasonable as they do not adequately reflect the true costs of the administration necessary when somebody goes over their overdraft limit or fails to pay back their credit card or has an unauthorised payment or whatver it may be.

On 5 April 2006, the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) concluded that default charges over £12 are automatically presumed to be unfair in terms of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations. Unfair terms are legally unenforceable.

(http://www.bankcharges.info/)

The point is, that if you breach a contract and somebody charges you more than you would be expected to pay back, then this stops being known in legal terms as a charge, and instead turns into a penalty. (Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Co. - vs. - New Garage and Motor Co. Ltd, 1915).

People have been suing banks left, right and centre as far as I can tell. It has been on This Morning and discussed on Money Box on radio 4, I think. Due to the nature of English law, the banks appear to be unwilling to fight it in court as they may then have to change their charges to a reasonable amount. in other words the equation is:

if ((unreasonable bank charges - reasonable bank charges)>legal costs, then continue to settle out of court).

I could be wrong. I'm no legal or financial expert.

First I got a letter from HSBC saying that they did not accept the charges as illegal but to save them from paying all the legal costs, would I accept a token amount (about half) in settlement of this matter.

Next I received a letter from their solicitors not accepting that there was anything wrong with their charges, but offering to pay the full amount + my legal costs as an out of court settlement. the only thing was that I would have to sign and return the letter and agree to treat this matter confidentially.

I had to think long and hard about this, as it wasn't pocketmoney. It was almost a month's wages they were offering to pay me back, and all I had to do was agree. I very nearly did, but then I got courage from the testimonies on penaltycharges.co.uk and wrote back saying that I couldn't do that. I waited. I checked the mail every morning, and finally I got a letter agreeing to accept. I signed it and returned it Recorded Delivery the next day, and a few days ago, the payment came! Yeah!

So anyone who thinks they have been charged too much in the last six years - I recommend fine-tooth combing your bank statements and check the fees and charges they have slapped you with, count them as an investment, add 8% interest and then write to your bank and see what they say!

The British stiff white upper lip

2006-10-09T15:52:00.000Z

A British Dairy farm has caused controversy within the EU after it has been closed down.

Various EU Member states have banned produce from Bowland Farm in Lancashire after the European Commission found serious breaches of EU food safety rules. It stated:

There was evidence that raw milk containing antibiotic residues or contaminated with substances such as detergents and dyes was being used to make curd cheese, as was out-of-date milk collected from retail establishments. Bowland was also using mouldy and contaminated cheese (including “floor waste”) to vacuum-pack for sale.

The milk curd was sold in Europe to be turned into processed cheese.

The European Commission will be sending a team of investigators from the Food and Veterinary Office in November, with a brief to investigate the standards of the whole British Dairy industry. The UK FSA, on the other hand are not prepared at this stage to state that they are at fault. There is, they say, "a genuine difference of scientific opinion between the UK and the European Commission about how you interpret testing results for antibiotics in milk."

At present there is a Mexican stand-off between the two parties. The ban, which came in on 6 October 2006, will remain in place until the EU Commission is satisfied that the UK FSA has demonstrated that "there is no risk to human health and has changed its procedures with regard to what it demands for antibiotic testing in milk."

Until then, I shall be happily drinking Organic Milk.

Following strong campaigning by the Soil Association, Glasgow University has conducted tests on organic milk. On carrying out an assessment of their evidence, The UK Food Standards Agency concluded that it showed that organically produced milk can contain higher levels of types of fats called short-chain omega-3 fatty acids than conventionally produced milk.
The report went on to downplay these results, however, stating that the results showed these fatty acids "appear to be of limited health benefit compared to the longer chain omega-3 fatty acids found in oily fish."

Nevertheless, The Soil Association has won a victory here. It has further scientific evidence for the link between organic food production and good quality food.

Walking around Wales

2006-09-23T18:45:00.000Z

Alex and I spent last week stomping over mountains in Wales.
The plan didn't exactly go according to plan.
To start with I was getting over severe sleep deprivation from a series of late nights, including a rather long and hard fought poker night at Sam's to celebrate his distribution deal with a known record label. Of course, kids, in poker there are NO WINNERS.

Anyway, Alex decided that it woud be best to leave at 6 in the morning and drive get to North Wales nice and early, which is such a foreign idea to me. We took in a fried breakfast in Chester, on the basis that everyone there would look like (or perhaps be a part of) Hollyoaks. There was the beautiful drug addict with fake purple-ringed eyes, the tight-tracksuit bottomed girls (body doubles judging by their faces) and the matronly mother figures.
My directions brought us up 3 miles short and we had an extra-long headstart walk around the headland called Little Orme and Great Orme. Great Orme is a nature reserve, and the cafe will gladly sell you a certificate saying you walked all the way around it for £1.50.
The weather man couldn't make his mind up all week. We stayed at a YHA in Conwyn Bay on Monday night, and checked the weather in the morning, which basically said it was going to piss on us from a great height with gales and hurricanes and piss.
Given that my priority for the week was to do Mount Snowdon (the tallest mountain in Wales), we hopped it back to Alex's car by bus, got over there and yomped it over to the start of the path up, with one bag filled with emergency stuff and a couple of beers.
The path up the side of Snowdon from Pen Y Pass is a broad bridleway covered in gravel. You could ride up it on a bike easily and the whole thing was a bit dissapointing until we good to the last 200 metres or so of big, bad vertical hill. Then I got my walk head on, fumed, "Right!" and stomped up half a mountain . I spent the next two days whinging about my broken left arse, where I had strained a buttock muscle.

Here's a couple of snaps I took on my phone. The first is from a hotel which let us camp on some nearby grass and have a little bonfire. They were very talkative and I got the feeling that they didn't get much custom this time of year and were a bit desperate for a couple of lads to prop up the bar all night. I had a really nice time there, though, and dnk plenty of vitamin-rich stout for 'energy'

The other picture is from a wall we walked passed and then started furiousy snapping pictures of with our phones as it had really nice moss:

Long live...

2006-09-15T00:14:00.000Z

I used to have a little Victorian morality story for children about a selfish rich child called Pippin. The Book was called King Pippin and I seem to remember it had a horrible ending in which Pippin drowned or something. Hold on one minute ....

No. Weird; after all these years it's missing from the book shelf and all I have is a half-memory of a lithograph of a boy running. It seems like a weird thing to title yourself after. It is, I guess.

I do have another book on my shelf though. Something a little bit more contemporary:

Steinbeck, very uncharacteristically (although I don't know a lot about John Steinbeck)wrote a farce set in France on a hypothesis of a 2^nd French revolution and a return to a monarchy. It's set in the mid-twentieth century and is quite astute and quite funny. Alright, at points I was only reading it because he had my name I admit, but, all the same, recommended.

The other thing to set me off, was assuming an alter-ego on Choke of 'The King', which taught me far too much about Elvis (and the King o the Jews).

For me, his diet was one of the interesting things. He would wake up in the night and snack heavily. Towards the end of his life when he was clinically obese and addicted to prescription drugs (he was strictly legal, I think; when he met Nixon he was trying to get appointed drug tsar for the US) his Doctor had him on a diet of just jello, but he still had a cook on the payroll who would cook him whatever gorgeous fatty concoction he would dream up. Various myths surround his actual weight at the autopsy.

Nappies - are Real Nappies healthier?

2006-09-14T09:29:00.000Z

The affects of Cotton and disposable nappies to health

I have been investigating real nappies for a project at work. It wasn't a subject particularly close to my heart, but I grew to understand how it can turn into a crusade for interested parties.
The best source of information, if you interested in finding out more or wish to talk about related topics, is the women's environmental network.

Introduction:

There are benefits to using both disposable nappies and real nappies, although the vote on the basis of environmental benefits is out (or so you would think; the results of this Environment Agency Report were surprisingly critical and have caused a wee furore: Click here for the contreversial EA report on the Environmental Considerations) there is still a lack of evidence to support the claims of the Real Nappy camp, and most disposable manufacturers do not reveal the contents of their nappies, for obvious reasons.

Cotton nappies are simple, studies have shown them to be financially beneficial, and they are of benefit to the environment. They are basically a terry towelling fabric made from cotton, with dispoable liners to collect solids in and often a pretty multi-coloured outer layer.

Cotton nappies are more likely to keep the infants skin in contact with the ammonia which can be formed by a combination of faeces and urine. This is the most common cause of nappy rash. The argument for Cotton Nappies is that parents are aware of their child’s discomfort with cotton nappies and therefore change the nappy more frequently. Studies on infants in their first four weeks tended to show that cotton nappies were better for the infant.

The second most common reason given for using cotton nappies (in a survey of 15% of the parenting population of Buckinghamshire carried out by their Council) was for the health of the child. The primary reason given was for environmental concern. Click here for full report

Disposable Nappies are convenient and easily available in a number of styles to suit the changing needs of babies as they grow. They usually contain absorbent materials to keep the baby dry.

Little research has been done into the chemicals used in disposable nappies, and manufacturers are under no obligation to list what is used, although some of the known common constituents are outlined in this report.

Disposable Nappies:

Modern disposable nappies are constantly being re-invented, with cotton-soft and ever more breathable nappies being added to companies’ ranges.

Disposable nappies are based on two main materials; cellulose fibres and polymers. The core is composed of fluff pulp and sodium polyacrylate (super absorbent polymer or SAP), which is a water absorbing polymer. The function of the core is to absorb and contain liquid excreta. The top layer, referred to as ‘non-woven’, is a polymer-based material with a textile structure. From the top layer, the fluids flow through a pulp-based tissue layer down to the core. They can contain up to 200 chemicals depending on the manufacturer.
Disposable Nappies work by absorbing the liquids from urine and faeces away from the baby.

Areas of concern include the constituents of absorbent gels in disposables, raised scrotal temperatures, the contamination of plastics with TBT (tributyl tin), chlorine bleaching of the wood pulp used in nappies and possible respiratory implications.

SAPs are supposed to be non-toxic and have been approved by the American Food and Drug Administration. However, there is a distinct lack of research into the effects of extreme dryness on babies' thin skin and genitalia. Warrington Borough Council proposed that this dryness was counter-productive as parents would become accustomed knowing when their child had soiled their nappy and be more easily able to identify if they are dehydrated.

Super-absorbent gels can include sodium polyacrylate crystals which forms a gel when in contact with urine. There are particular concerns about these super-absorbent chemicals entering the body via broken skin, especially as sodium polyacrylate and other chemicals designed to increase absorbency have had to be removed from tampons as they were associated with the development of Toxic Shock Syndrome.

Research has also shown that disposable nappies keep babies' testicles at higher than normal temperatures. This has raised concern over whether this could pose a risk to their future fertility, as research shows brief elevations of testicular temperature can suppress spermatogenesis and sustained elevation of temperature may contribute to testicular pathology in cryptorchidism, varicocele and occupational male infertility. I t should be noted that, despite speculation, there is presently no evidence to state that an increase in scrotal temperature of 1.5 to 2 degrees causes long-term damage in infants.

TBT or tributyl tin is a toxic chemical, it can contaminate certain types of plastic during manufacture. Recently commissioned research has shown significant levels of TBT in many brands of disposable nappy. Babies may be in contact with up to 3.6 times the World Health Organisation's estimated tolerable daily intake. TBT is a recognised environmental pollutant and is also used as a constituent of ship paint. It is known to disrupt the immune and hormonal systems of marine shellfish and there are plans to phase out its use worldwide.

Chlorine bleaching is used much less than previously in the bleaching of wood pulp for white paper products. Chlorine bleaching creates toxic dioxins, dioxins are considered to be extremely toxic, so much so that there is debate over whether safe levels actually exist. There is presently no legislation requiring manufactures to print the nappy materials or processing details on their packaging.
An independent study done in 1999 has shown that the airborne emissions of some disposable nappies can produce acute respiratory toxicity, including asthma like reactions, in normal laboratory mice. The researchers suggest that further study is required into a possible link between disposable nappies and the increasing prevalence of childhood asthma (Anderson, Rosalind, and Julius Anderson. "Acute Respiratory Effects of Diaper Emissions." Archives of Environmental Health, 54, October 1999).
A potentially serious problem associated with disposable nappies is the ease of disease transmission via faeces left on the nappy and then disposed of in regular household waste. More than 100 enteric viruses are excreted in human faeces, including hepatitis and polio (if the live vaccine is used for immunisation) Viruses can live for months creating risks to both sanitation workers and contamination of ground water in landfills.

Re-usable Nappies

Re-usable nappies are generally made from terry-towelling, a cotton-based material. They often come with a separate or built-in waterproof covering and additional liners made of fleece or silk.

Almost all parents who use re-usable nappies also use disposable nappies, as they are broadly considered to be the more convenient option.
The fit and padding of most cotton nappies promotes correct hip development and they are often recommended for babies with ‘clicky hips’. Most will also give additional protection and padding for the lower spine, which can help with falls when toddlers are learning to walk.

As cotton nappies are re-used and do not contain bacteria-killing chemicals the risk of them carrying infection is greater. However, many companies offer cotton nappy collection and laundry to a hospital standard.
Commercial laundering of nappies, although successful in cleaning the nappies, may also use bleach and therefore be as hazardous as disposable nappies in this respect.

The Environment Agency study, Life Cycle Assessment of Disposable and Reusable Nappies in the UK concluded

there was no significant difference between any of the environmental impacts –
that is, overall no system clearly had a better or worse environmental
performance, although the life cycle stages that are the main source for these
impacts are different for each system.

Additional information:

There are a number of causes of Nappy Rash, the most common of which is prolonged dampness; however diet has also been proved to be a considerable factor in the degree to which contact with urine and faeces irritates the skin.

The type of nappy used is not a significant factor in the incidence of nappy rash. Research carried out by The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) also known as 'Children of the 90s' has shown that infants in their first four weeks are given little protection from Nappy Rash by Disposable Nappies.

This finding helped to endorse a hospital scheme arising from environmental concerns that encourage parents to use cotton nappies instead of disposables.

The most important factor in avoiding nappy rash is keeping the baby clean. Dirty nappies should be changed immediately and wet ones regularly, and bottoms washed at each change.
Cotton Nappies do not have chemicals to treat the faeces and urine immediately in them, however, babies in cotton nappies are also more likely to make a parent aware that their nappy is oiled more often.

Fresh air is important too; babies should be allowed to ‘go bare’ as much as possible. Prolonged skin contact with soiled nappies causes nappy rash. Germs from the bowel have time to break down the urine and release ammonia, thus inflaming the skin. Nappy rash may also be a symptom of teething, or a reaction to new food that the baby's digestive system isn't ready for. However, studies into the causes of ‘severe nappy rash’ have been inconclusive and it is not known what effect the type of nappy used has in these cases.

The National Eczema Society says, “Cotton clothing and bedding keep the skin cool and allow it to breathe, whereas synthetic fabrics and wool can irritate.” This is worth considering given the increasing cases of Atopic (infantile) Eczema in tandem with asthma (which is, in turn, more prevalent in inner city areas).

It is important that the skin is not kept too dry where eczema is present and disposable nappies function by keeping the area dry. Despite personal testimonies to the contrary, a study of infants with eczema using different fabrics discovered no discernable difference between the fabrics (Diepgen TL, Stabler A, Tepe A, Hornsein OP. A study of skin irritation by textiles under standardised sweating conditions in patient with atopic eczema.[German] Z Hautkrankheiten. 1990;65:907-910)

Sources:

http://www.rwh.org.au/wellwomens/whic.cfm?doc_id=7691

http://adc.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/83/4/364

http://www.bucksinfo.net/recycleforbuckinghamshire/assets/documents/real-nappy-research-july-05/

http://www.ecologikids.com/?page_id=11

http://www.alspac.bristol.ac.uk/abstracts/p29.shtml

http://www.theecologist.org/archive_detail.asp?content_id=426

http://www.warrington.gov.uk/services/waste/nappies/

http://www.eczema.org/

http://www.clinicalevidence.com/ceweb/conditionpdf/1702.pdf

http://www.punkinbutt.com/diaper_dilemma_the_health_of_your_baby.asp

http://www.endotext.org/male/male15/maleframe15.htm

Indoor BBQ

2006-09-07T19:06:00.000Z

I'm halfway through making a BBQ for Rosa when she gets back all wearing and punctured from acupuncture. As there were no rolls for the veggie burgers I picked up on the way home, I tried making some in the bread machine. I followed the recipe, set it to knead. Watched it need for five minutes (whilst I pre-boiled some sweetcorn) and then got fed up, took it out and kneaded it myself. Time is of the essence here (despite me sitting at the computer instead of cooking).
Also on the menu: salad from our little garden (and round lettuce from the shops) and a whole range of chutneys (yay! Chutney! I can't eat the plum chutney I made yet, as it must sit for 4-6 weeks first. Dag nam it.
After sitting in the drizzle at my sisters on the weekend (admittedly having a good chinwag, but still feeling damp), you'd think I'd have accepted that the British BBQ season is well and truly over, wouldn't you?
My chilli plant still has no flowers, :-(

The Itch is worse than ever

2006-08-29T09:54:00.000Z

I woke up after a dream about asthma, walking and gone-off meat to discover that I was in the midst of an asthma attack. Being too lazy to get out of bed until I was up, Rosa kindly fetched my inhaler and got me up.
We'd washed a sheepskin rug, and left to hang up and dry in the room I was sleeping in, which pretty much goes against every allergy thing there is and I've been feeling the itch in my nose, sneezing, sniffing and scratching all morning.
The rug must be full of dust mites, and there's dust everywhere as we took the curtains down to wash them, too, and then damp stuff hung up everywhere is perfect for dust mites to breed in. Aaargh!
It gave me a feeling of involuntary loss of bodily functions (careful, now.) I wandered about the flat tic-ing and running about for loo roll, scrunching up my face and saying, "Gahk!" a lot.
I then had to post bike keys off to France (after having borrowed bikes and wandered off with them) and started getting all morose about being back in the city again (and having rubbish vegtables, rant, rant, rant ...)
I came home the other day to find Rosa had covered our kitchen wall in a kind of brain-storming exercise for how to survive the pending oil crisis (and corresponding economic collapse according to Rosa - I'm sceptical that it will be as bad as she says). More on that, and maybe a photo, another time.

Getting over the countryside

2006-08-24T20:46:00.000Z

Its been hard coming back from a holiday in the countryside, going back to work in tis dusty, crusty city.
My nose has got blocked up again, my lungs have recognisably got worse (although I'm not back on the Ventolin yet), I'm back in my routine of staying up until about 1am, which means getting up for work really hurts towards the end of the week.

Basically, I think I need to leave town and live in the countryside, is what I'm saying.

I had a good long hungover think whilst I was waking up in the shower this morning and felt almost copernican about buggering off for some countryside goodness. My mate Caleb made it out to Yeovil, but I don't really know how that whole lifestyle is going. I guess it must be good.

Too tired to be angry now. I think I'll join Rosa on th sofa sucking up that telly juice through her eyes.
Mmmm, telly juice.

First posting

2006-08-23T12:03:00.000Z

So. I've been trying to develop my own blogsite for a while with all my recipes and photos and gubbins on, and it's amazingly silly trying to get my head around all the coding necessary.
This, in other words is an experiment to see how flexible a blog is and if I can adapt it to do everything I would like in my own blog.
I know I can do fancy biz with this, to allow people RSS feeds and such like from it, even put in photographs and change all the colours around. But I want to find out how easy it is to tag, sort and categorise my pages, personalise layouts and generally mess with it all.

Sorry, that was a bad start and a typically terrible blog entry, just spurting whatever rubbish is in my head; let me start again.

I am a 29 year-old guy from Bristol, UK. I've been toying with the idea of keeping a diary again for a while after my live journal got lost to the wilderness of internet moribundity: Called Pippinsfeet & Pippinsback .
I'm really into food and photography, so expect lots of recipes, reviews and photos of food here. I also seem to get typically lateral thoughts on a variety of topics, so expect random entries on any topic I fancy (recent favourites include Google Earth Models, real nappies and pigs).
I've got my driving test on Wednesday 30th, but I've been having lessons on and off for years, so I'm not too worried (unless I fail again and have to pay up another Â£100 for lessons and a test; Yaargh!)
I have an online alter-ego as a fake Elvis on Choke forum, which is chat area for the Bristol music scene that rarely sticks to the point.
I set up a flickr account once, too, but won't link to it as it was never used once the work server blocked me from abusing the internet from my desk. The End.

What shall we name our boy?
	Amon
	Joran
	Harvey
	Sextus
	Joshua
	Jonah
	Finn
	Junior Danger
	Humphrey
	Ethan
	Gewis
	Hubert
	Jed
	Joseph
	Samuel
	Samson
	Cedric
	George
	Louis
	Saul
	Cynric
	William
	Gerald
	Dominic
	Augustus
	Ernest
	Ralph

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