Life is Healthy

Here's the beautiful Nigella Bites showing us how she makes lentil soup.

Please enjoy this page from Ceefax for a while. I am back from my holiday, but am about to tackle the kitchen floor, so I am sure that I will be back with a tale of disaster soon (unless I glue myself down, in which case I shall have to survive on whatever is in the nearest cupboard. *Makes mental note not to start in "cleaning products" territory*).

Coty Fowler lost 20 pounds in six weeks and reached her ideal weight by adhering to what she calls "The Cave Woman Diet". The diet is based on eating meat, fruits, nuts and vegetables.

She says she began "by purging the kitchen of every slide of bread, every cracker, every package of pasta, and every cream-filled pastry."

She goes on to describe what her daily meals were like and then she says; "At the end of five days, I had lost three pounds and my chronic indigestion. Goodbye Tums! And I was never hungry since I ate all the time. Previous dietary study indicated that to change our metabolism it is necessary to eat often. This reprograms the body to stop storing fat.

The second week I dropped four pounds and my energy level skyrocketed. I was not just cleaning house, I was cleaning closets and kitchen cabinets and organizing items for a yard sale. Interestingly, I had no more sinus headaches or joint pain and had eliminated the use of over the counter decongestants and arthritis pain relievers.

At the end of six weeks, I had lost twenty pounds, my clothes no longer fit and I had energy to spare. I was sleeping soundly and my anxiety level was greatly reduced. I felt better than I had in years."

Check out The Cave Woman Diet story here.

African Mapping Highlights Drought and Flood

African mapping highlights risk of drought and flood
The map will help predict droughts Nell Barrie
27 July 2007
Source: SciDev.Net

The European Space Agency (ESA) has produced maps of soil moisture levels in southern Africa, and says they will help predict floods and droughts.

The maps of countries in the Southern African Development Community were published online last week (16 July) and will be available to governmental and independent organisations free of charge.

Conventional methods of measuring soil moisture are expensive and inaccurate as each measurement has to be done on-site. ESA's ENVISAT satellite measures soil moisture levels by emitting radar waves and measuring the energy bounced back by the soil.

High levels of soil moisture can lead to flooding and erosion, and low levels cause crops to wilt and die.

Annett Bartsch, project coordinator at Vienna University of Technology, Austria, explained how the maps are used. "Areas of saturated upper soil can be identified with ENVISAT," she said. These areas are those at risk of flooding.

The maps can also help predict droughts by looking at past trends in soil moisture. "Provided that a long enough reference database is available, anomalies can be identified and thus… drought risk areas identified," she told SciDev.Net.

In a changing climate, predicting when and where floods are likely to happen is becoming more and more important, according to Geoff Pegram, co-researcher on the project at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. "Although we cannot prevent floods, we can anticipate them and hopefully get people out of the way."

"I think it is really a breakthrough," said Wolfgang Wagner, professor of remote sensing at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria. He said that the satellite is the first to provide enough measurements over the right timescale to give detailed maps of soil moisture.

The maps have been produced as part of the SHARE project (Soil Moisture for Hydrometeorological Applications in the Southern African Development Community).

The SHARE project is part of ESA's TIGER initiative, which aims to assist African countries in managing water-related problems by using satellite data. The next stage of the initiative involves transferring leadership of the projects to African authorities.


Earthimages/ESA











Africa, July 30, 2007

Climate Change Center Foresees Longer Dryer Droughts

Excerpt:

So what can we expect to see in the next 100 years? Unfortunately, we can expect to see many of the above trends continue or accelerate unless technological and social initiatives are carried out to curb emissions, provide more sustainable land and resource use, and increase economic security throughout the regions of the world. The IPCC used a variety of scenarios to project future impacts and trends. The scenarios differ in the assumed rate of population growth and expansion, rate of implementation of cleaner and more efficient energy, and levels of economic development. The scenarios also factor whether the loci of control for the implementation of the social, economic and environmental policies are global, regional, or local.

For example, a scenario with a peak in global population at mid-century and then an ensuing decline, with a global introduction of “clean and resource efficient technologies,” reduced material consumption and a focus on global solutions, resulted in a “best estimate” projected surface temperature change of 1.8 degrees by the last decade of this century. An alternative scenario that maintained the intensity of use of fossil fuels, with mid-century achievement of maximum global population and ensuing decline, rapid economic growth and increased social and cultural interaction and capacity building could result in a “best estimate” increase of 4.0 degrees by 2090.

Regardless of the specific scenario, IPCC projects that many of the observed trends are likely to continue. Specific projections related to drought include:

Decreased precipitation in tropical and subtropical land regions.

Increased hot nights, hot days and heat waves.

Increased evapotranspiration as a result of increased temperature and decreased precipitation.

Significant decrease in precipitation in the Sahel, Mediterranean, Southern Africa and Southern Asia.

Decline in mountain glaciers, snowpack and snow cover, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere.

Continued decrease in the total area of seasonally frozen ground.

A pole-ward movement of extratropical storm tracks resulting in continued changes in wind, temperature and precipitation patterns.

The IPCC’s projections demonstrate the need for actions to be taken on all levels to offset and mitigate the impacts of climate change. The panel projected more widespread and intense droughts in regions where the world is currently seeing high levels of population growth, economic development and social conflict, which will jeopardize food security, access to safe drinking water and economic stability for a high percentage of the world’s population.

End of excerpt.

Okay so Richard Vaughan stuck his neck out to do a young adults program (well when I say he stuck his neck out) he asked for it to be put together and Rob, Marissa & I ran the program.

So was it worth it?? I must say there was a lot of speculation and apprehension before the start of the program - having worked with kids, teens & adults I tried to keep an open mind give them benefit of the doubt and see how it went, but I expected it to be full of energy.

I was too right for the most part. The week flew by with very few issues, the key factor for every night was the alcohol consumption (something I think will be monitored closer next time) as a few could not handle it or handled it badly. Although I'm pleased to say the majority were in fact well behaved and responsible: Well done guys.

So will Richard do the program again? I'm sure he will; A. theres a market B. there was no real problems. After all it was a success, only time will tell if there were any REAL issues - I reckon 9 months should be long enough to see ;)

All of them got involved and again I managed to see the magic of the program unfold as people slowly came out of themselves and their characters shone through. The already confident folks naturally blossomed and encouraged the others - and I am even more pleased to say that no ego's came with either group, which helped to build relationships quickly, although we have an MC in the making with Craig! Think about it dude!

All in all I was more than happy - although I must admit didn't offer 100% of myself as I was slightly distracted with issues back in the UK. I am due back in only 10 days now, and don't know whether I will get to see and have my daughter - which is really messing with my head. China I miss you so much baby and cant wait to see you and tell you all about my travels. I'm hoping for good news and to spend quality time with her; also after having my wallet stolen I have no recent photos so i need some of them too, I bet your real big now?!

As usual all the photos are posted HERE

Anyway only one more week and I'll be there, until then, bye for now!

Pepsi Admits Aquafina Made From Tap Water

Aquafina labels to spell out source - tap water
By Martinne Geller
Thu Jul 26, 2007

NEW YORK (Reuters) - PepsiCo Inc. will spell out that its Aquafina bottled water is made with tap water, a concession to the growing environmental and political opposition to the bottled water industry.

According to Corporate Accountability International, a U.S. watchdog group, the world's No. 2 beverage company will include the words "Public Water Source" on Aquafina labels.

"If this helps clarify the fact that the water originates from public sources, then it's a reasonable thing to do," said Michelle Naughton, a Pepsi-Cola North America spokeswoman.

Pepsi Chief Executive Indra Nooyi told Reuters earlier this week the company was considering such a move.

Pepsi's Aquafina and Coca-Cola Co's Dasani are both made from purified water sourced from public reservoirs, as opposed to Danone's Evian or Nestle's Poland Spring, so-called "spring waters," shipped from specific locations the companies say have notably clean water.

Coca-Cola Co. told Reuters it will start posting online information about the quality control testing it performs on Dasani by the end of summer or early fall.

"Concerns about the bottled-water industry, and increasing corporate control of water, are growing across the country," said Gigi Kellett, director of the "Think Outside the Bottle" campaign, which aims to encourage people to drink tap water.

San Francisco's mayor banned city employees from using city funds to buy bottled water when tap water is available. Ann Arbor, Michigan passed a resolution banning commercially bottled water at city events and Salt Lake City, Utah asked department heads to eliminate bottled water.

Critics charge the bottled water industry adds plastic to landfills, uses too much energy by producing and shipping bottles across the world and undermines confidence in the safety and cleanliness of public water supplies, all while much of the world's population is without access to clean water.

But industry observers said such opposition is unlikely to drain U.S. sales of bottled water, which reached 2.6 billion cases in 2006, according to Beverage Digest. The industry newsletter estimated that U.S. consumers spent about $15 billion on bottled water last year.

"Consumers have an affection for bottled water. It's not an issue of taste or health, it's about convenience," the newsletter's publisher, John Sicher, said. "Try walking up (New York City's) Third Avenue on a hot day and getting a glass of tap water."

Dave Kolpak, a portfolio manager at Victory Capital Management, said the environmental objections will have little impact on the bottom line for either Pepsi or Coke, though he admitted it could slow the market's growth rate.

"Pepsi and Coke do not make a lot of profit" on bottled water, said Kolpak, adding that people may talk about the issue, but will likely continue buying some bottled water. Victory Capital owns about 3 million shares of PepsiCo among its $62 billion under management.
~~~~~~~~~~
It'a about time these liars fessed up, but notice that nowhere did they state they would stop making bottled water and contributing to the millions of pounds of plastic waste in this country every year. They think admitting they lied is now "environmentally responsible" enough even though they will continue to do business as usual regarding how they come about this "public source" water and how they package it. I sure hope their profits take a BIG hit.

It's so good to know however, that pressure is building on these corporations to admit their deceptions. I just hope people are savvy enough on the whole to understand that "public source" means tap water. Let's face it, even regarding how they are wording it they get a free ride.

I suppose people like me with blogs and those taking other action will just have to keep telling that truth to awaken people to the grand deception of these companies to use our most precious resource for their own profit at the expense of our environment and the lives of those who in many countries around this world have no potable water because these companies take it from them in order to get their product in the first place. I think they should also be legally bound to note on their bottles WHERE that source is and what that plastic bottle will do to our planet once it is thrown out by the consumer. That should be next on the agenda.

Good Housekeeping Magazine has some nice weight loss success stories they've recently posted to their online site. Here is one of their success profiles; Robyn Spieler. She lost 70 pounds in less than a year.

She did this by cutting out the carbs and by going to the gym four days a week. See more about her story and other stories at Good Housekeeping here.

That was the comment from my Mum in New Zealand last week when she found out I had lost my voice (again!)…

"It’s not meant to be winter, no, but it's definetly not summer…"
I replied...

Just to prove my point, here's a comparison of the weather at the moment

AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND (current season = winter!)


LONDON, ENGLAND (current season = summer, supposedly!)


Though that rain cloud does not really do the current weather situation here justice!

For a better idea here are a few pictures taken last Friday as torrential rain and flash floods across the country left streets under water after nearly a month's rain fell in a few hours.




For a more detailed report see here…

Now what’s really ironic is that Andy choose Friday to come back from Spain…

Now Andy, if you’d stayed there, this is what you’d be experiencing today…

MADRID, SPAIN

Can a camera make you look ten pounds slimmer? The HP Photosmart camera has a 'slimming feature'. And it really does work. Here's a photo of Libby before and after using the slimming feature on her camera. See more details about how this deceiving magic works at a blog by Regina Lewis.

Learn About Insurance Privacy StatementWhat follows is the Privacy Statement for all Information-About-Insurance.Blogspot.com websites (a.k.a. blogs) including all the websites run under the http://Information-About-Insurance.Blogspot.com.Please read this statement regarding our blogs. If you have questions please ask us via our contact form.Email AddressesYou may choose to add your email address

I am SO elated because my petition at Tree Nation (you can get to it by clicking on the Tree Nation icon above) has surpassed the 1000 mark and is heading for the next thousand, and MORE TREES. More beautiful Baobab trees whose massive trunks can hold 120,000 liters of beautiful live giving water to provide the people of Niger with food, sustinence, and life. Trees to provide Co2 absorption, healthy landscapes, shade, spiritual growth, and physical sustinence. Trees to be the lungs of a planet in desperate need of the care that trees provide to her.

Trees are the balm on the wounds of our planet. It's life force, its love. To me trees promote well being, spiritual wholeness, and an inner peace we get from no other resource on our planet save water. They are a part of the web of life we simply cannot live without.

I am so filled up to be a part of such a wonderful effort to save our planet and to be doing something to mitigate the effects of deforestation, drought, and the poverty that slowly take away hope. Planting these trees gives us all a renewed hope in the life of our planet, and a future where our children and their children will be able to look upon the beauty that once was and say to us, "good job."

And we need to now take it further. We need another 1000 signatures to get more trees planted for Mother Earth and for us. We need to pledge that we are willing to change our lives in ways that will benefit our world and ourselves. We need to be the change we wish to see in the world, and with the spectre of climate change ever present in more lives everyday this petition is all the more crucial for the future sustainabiity of our beautiful planet.

So let's do it! And thank you from the bottom of my heart.

As most of you know, I am always up for trying new things... Well last weekend was my weekend of culture...

Friday night I attended a Céilidh (Scottish dance pronounced K-LEE) with my mate Harry and some of his friends - I didn't really have a choice in the matter - a few weeks earlier I'd missed a call from Harry, in fact I'd missed 2 calls from Harry, the first asking is I wanted to go to the Ceilidh, the second, about half an hour later saying, since I hadn't replied to the first call I WAS going to the Ceilidh as he'd already bought the tickets - so that was that! Now don't get me wrong about my mates, Harry is not the typical Ceilidh attending type, but friends of his are getting married soon, and she's Scottish, and having a Ceilidh at their reception so she wanted to make sure everyone knew what they were doing - especially the groom! It was lots of fun though, not to mention a rather good work out!! How the Scottish manage to drink as much as they do AND dance like that is beyond me! I think I only managed a couple of glasses of wine because the dancing was far too energetic to be drinking at the same time! Not to mention all the spinning involved wouldn't have mixed well with a head full of alcohol! A 'different' way to spend a Friday night!


Monday night, was opening night of another friend's play Intimacy, playing as part of the Abbey Fest 2007. It was a Jean Paul Satre story adapted for the theatre and was great!
"Two young women with turbulent love lives, a white sheet, two chairs, atable….and let INTIMACY begin…A penetrating, very funny study oflove, friendship, jealousy and betrayal. "IMPOTENCE. What abeautiful word that is. My friend Rirette thinks the most beautiful wordin the language is HAPPINESS. Rubbish. For my money, its im-po-tence." Susy and her friend were the only two actors and the set held only a piano which at times was used as a bed, a taxi and a cafe table. I was definetly glad I made the effort to get there. They did themselves proud and I hope that they had a successful week as they were self funding the production themselves and she was so excited about it all.

A while back I mentioned, albeit very briefly, that I was going to be attending the filming of a music video...

Well I think I forgot to write much more about it after that, but basically my friend Janine from work had managed to get free tickets for the privilege to be part of a live audience for the filming of the new Roisin Murphy music video 'Overpowered' (formerly of Moloko fame).

It was a, hmmm, long evening, which I did find mildly interesting, working in the tv industry and all, but even I had to admit that screaming, cheering and looking 'really enthusiastic' whilst listening to the same song for a period of about three hours did start to wear a little thin.... Well, when the video came out maybe it'd all be worth it.... we thought optimistically as we left that evening....

Well the video has finally been released... Take a look for yourself and see if you can spot us...


Music Videos - Overpowered

Do you think our three hours of pain gained us any fame?

Dr. Nick Yphantides weighed 470 pounds at one point. He then decided to change his life. He took a sabbatical for one year to focus on what he enjoys most (baseball) and to lose weight in the process. He went on a medically supervised liquid protein diet (soybean based) for several weeks. Just over a year later he had lost an amazing 270 pounds.

He's been quoted as saying "Food was never meant to be your friend, Valium on a plate, where you turn for comfort, an alternative to boredom. Food is for nutrition. I eat for very different reasons than I did in the past. How I eat and why I eat is more important than what I eat."

There is an inspiring 7 minute video about his weight loss story here. It shows him at his heaviest weight and his current weight. At one point, after he had lost 103 pounds, he says he was very discouraged because he didn't feel much different. But then he went on a fishing trip with his brother in Alaska and happened to catch a 100 pound fish (as shown in the video). That experience got him completely motivated again and he was able to persevere until his goal was reached.

I have an annoying habit. It is that I can’t help pointing out to people that what they think of as amazing coincidences are usually statistically fairly probable. I am often to be heard using the phrase “What would be really amazing is if there were no coincidences”. By the time I have mentioned self-selecting samples or false causality it is usually agreed that I have won the point, or that it is time to be going home.

As an example, my Dad, who was a primary school teacher, was amazed by the fact that he never once taught a pupil who had the same birthday as him. But I used some simple maths to show that 25 new children each year for 40 years is only 1000 kids – it would be more amazing if all those birthdays were evenly spread throughout the year. It was actually quite likely that there would be some days with no birthdays, and it was only because one of those days was his birthday that he found it significant. This speech perhaps wasn’t the high point of his retirement party.

Anyway, so a stranger from off of the internet wanted to ask me some questions about writing and I agreed to meet him for a drink after work so that I could impart all of my wisdom and experience to him. It turned out that I actually didn’t have all that much wisdom and experience to impart, and there was a good 10 minutes before I needed to leave to meet my girlfriend and some friends of ours for dinner. (NB this is probably the first time in the last decade that I have gone from one social engagement straight to another without an intervening period of two weeks or so watching repeats of Friends.) So, with a bit of time to kill I asked the stranger from off of the internet where he came from originally. Only to find out that we went to the same secondary school!

Isn’t that amazing? Of course, we both thought that the other one was winding us up, or stalking us, or that some kind of ITV Friends Reunited show was underway and that the hidden cameras would come out any moment.

The hidden cameras did not come out. It truly was an amazing coincidence. And luckily I never bullied him and he didn’t have a sister whom I failed to get off with so it wasn’t awkward or anything.

I then went to my dinner engagement. My girlfriend and our friends were already there, so I made a grand entrance and told them all to shut up as I had the greatest story ever told, and I started to relate the events of the evening so far, right up to asking the stranger from off of the internet where he was from. “And guess what?” I said, triumphantly.

“He went to the same school as you?” my girlfriend asked. I made a note not to invite her to any more stand-up gigs I might do.

“Yes! Isn’t it amazing?”

There were some polite nods.

“Was he in your year?”

“No.”

“Was he from your village?”

“No.”

“Did you know him at all?”

“Er, no. He’s five years younger, and because of the schools in that town reorganising we were never actually at the same school at the same time. But we remembered a couple of the same teachers.”

The conversation stopped. I felt a bit like the scientist who announced about 20 years ago that he had perfected cold fusion to give us all limitless free energy. When he had actually just perfected heating up some water in a test tube. Imagine if he had also said that in an amazing coincidence his new lab assistant had turned out to be his cousin’s friend’s neighbour’s ex-husband’s brother-in-law.

“So it’s like when I met your friend Denise you did your MA with, and it turned out I went to the same school as her”, said my girlfriend. “But again we weren’t in the same year and didn’t actually know each other.”

“Not really”, I said. “You both come from London, and you met her in London. That’s not an amazing coincidence. This is – we went to school miles from London. This must be a one in a million chance.”

There was then some discussion about this implying a significant overspend in the government’s education budget, with a secondary school for every 60 people, regardless of whether they were aged 11-16 or not. I shortened the odds somewhat, but still insisted it was amazing.

Then one of our friends asked about all the hundreds of people whom I’ve met in the past couple of decades who didn’t go to my school, and whether I found that remarkable in any way.

I had taught them too well; my own weapons had been turned upon me. I muttered something about wanting to choose a starter, and the conversation moved on. But after that amazing coincidence I'm doing the lottery this weekend. Somebody's got to win it.

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What is Homeowners Insurance?Homeowners Insurance provides you with the coverage in case of a disaster. In the event of a disaster your homeowners insurance will provide you with financial protection. A homeowners insurance policy insures the home in which you live along with the possessions you keep in it.Home Insurance is a Package PolicyHomeowners insurance is purchased in a package policy. A

This is the real crisis of the 21st Century. This is how Darfurs begin.

Well last week I headed off to join a friend in Asturias and what a beautiful place it is! The journey was long - three hours (more or less) to Leon then a further three hours or so to Asturias.

Well the place certainly has allot to do if you like canoeing, climbing and pony trekking and the scenery is amazing. We went very high into the mountains I'm sure if there is a God I would have seen him (or her)!?

After trekking all the way up there time to go back and hit the beach, and turn my white body brown, well not joy there more a redy brown (not sure of the colour) but it ain't white no more, lol!

Then after all the fun at the beach and mountains time to return home, another long journey - but I spent the following day at Parque De Attractions (Alton Towers kind of place) - nearly died twice going on rides that man should not attempt to do; at least not without making a monkey go first to prove is safe!!

Anyway I survived, I have the guts of a Spanish woman - if you are a Spanish woman and missing yours please call me, I have them.

Now a week of boredom what to do.... shave head? tattoos? piercings? erm....

Cool Slideshows!

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You may have read in my previous posts that through work from time to time we get taken out to lunch or invited to various events and things by different media companies that we deal with! Being an opportunist, socialite, and generally up for anything, I generally jump at every opportunity we get. And this week, that’s literally what we did – JUMP!

Wednesday evening, we were picked up from work, taken to meet a luxury tour coach (and by luxury, I mean think rock star style – with TVs, leather seats, a bar, kitchenette, and circle couch at the back!) watered and fed and taken here…

And what a blast! It was like being a bird, a plane, and superman! All at the same time!!! I absolutely loved it, and even got the hang of it quite quickly – receiving cheers from the group and ‘Awesome Flying’ marked on my certificate! I was amazed though by the amount of effort needed just to hold your arms and legs in the correct position and surprised that it felt like I’d done a workout afterwards, with various muscles in shoulders, arms, back and butt aching the next day! We are meant to be getting a DVD of us flying, so when I do I’ll try upload some of it so watch this space!

Oh, life in the media is so hard…

Last weekend was the annual world famous Henley Royal Regatta, where both the elite of rowing and society itself, descend on Henley-on-Thames for a week of racing, Pimms, strawberry scones in true English tradition. Over the years the event has grown somewhat, and these days joining the true ‘posh’ are those who would like to think they are posh as well as anyone else in the general area up for a good time and A LOT of alcohol! www.henleyregatta.com

Each year I work at the Regatta, for the last two running a private party marquee for 1500+ people. It’s great fun, and a break from the norm, but long long hours (I did 45 hours on top of my normal 'day' job last week though the pay packet afterwards and the people are worth it!). This year I also came away with quite a few dozen beer that people seemed to not have time to drink in the twelve hours they were there, nor could be bothered to lug back home with them! (The marquee is BYO).

Apart from loving the event’s atmosphere, being beside the river, and this weekend, the rare appearance of the British sun! I also find it highly amusing observing the deterioration of ‘poshness’ in direct relation to consumption of alcohol. Its incredible how the effect alcohol has on people doesn’t change regardless of the class of society they are in! Sometimes I think its even more amusing to see drunk posh people slurring their accents, falling off their high heeled shoes and generally in a state of dishevel!

(nb: no offence is meant by this post to any ‘posh’ readers of this blog – they are purely the observations of a small country girl no often exposed to the elite of society!)

Angela Stokes lost 160 pounds by switching to a raw foods diet. Here's another of her videos. Here she reminds us to try eating more raw foods each day. She shows us some of her favorite raw foods.

FeedBurner users - we just added a feature for you. Matt's post on the FeedBurner blog explains it more fully, but in short, you can now specify a URL to which Blogger will redirect your feed's traffic. This means you'll no longer have some subscribers getting your Blogger-hosted feed while others get your FeedBurner feed, and your subscriber count should (as a result) be more accurate.

To enable this functionality, visit your blog's Settings | Site Feed page, and enter your feed's address in the "Post Feed Redirect URL" field.

Enjoy!

Note: this feature isn't limited to FeedBurner alone - you can use any feed-mashing service (like Pipes) with it.

As of today, the Polls feature has graduated from Blogger in Draft, and is now an official Page Element on www.blogger.com! Polls lets you add a poll to your blog's sidebar, which your visitors can vote on and see results. This video shows how to create a poll:

Drinking lots of water is one of the easiest ways to lose some weight quickly, especially for many people who are chronically dehydrated.

But tap water is usually a better alternative to bottled water. Bottled water companies are not regulated for safety or purity. And the environmental waste resulting from the bottled water craze is horrific. Here's an eye-opening passage from the Food & Water Watch:

Bottled water wastes fossil fuels and water in production and transport, and when the water is drunk the bottles become a major source of waste. It takes more than 47 million gallons of oil to produce plastic water bottles for Americans every year. Eliminating those bottles would be like taking 100,000 cars off the road and 1 billion pounds of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Each one of those bottles required nearly five times its volume in water to manufacture the plastic and may have caused the release of nickel, ethylene oxide, and benzene. Then, rather than being recycled, 86 percent of them are thrown away. Breaking down these plastics can take thousands of years, while their components seep into our water supplies.

When texting your Jewish friend, Jez, try not to begin the text "Hi Jew!"

Here's an artist who is morbidly obese and has created this very touching video about his weight loss issues. His name is James Barany.

Show, don’t tell. Those three words have probably been scrawled in the margin of every script ever written at some point. It’s a simple rule, but surprisingly easy to forget. The gist of it is that instead of telling the audience something (eg that a particular character is not very nice), you should actually show this character doing something not very nice. It is agreed by everybody that this is better.

I was reminded of this yesterday, when a production company said that they wanted to “show me how much I was valued”, then proceeded to talk about how great my scripts had been on this series and how much they wanted me to work on the next series, but said that they couldn’t do anything about the contractual dispute that we were having. ie merely tell me how much I was valued.

Which is funny, because I don’t remember Cuba Gooding Jr saying “Tell me the money”.

Our friends at Twitter just released a nifty new web badge, which you can use to easily display your Twitter updates in your blog's sidebar:

http://twitter.com/badges/blogger

(if you're unfamiliar with Twitter, its FAQ states that, "Twitter is a community of friends and strangers from around the world sending updates about moments in their lives. Friends near or far can use Twitter to remain somewhat close while far away. Curious people can make friends. Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool. Developers can use the API to make Twitter tools of their own. Possibilities are endless!")

Well on Saturday night there was a HUGE gay pride festival which me and a few others attended, we left the tapas & headed off, all gay (and by that I mean: happy) and excited. Me trying to be a gent offered to carry someone rucksack, big mistake - I was so distracted with that i didn't notice someone lift my wallet!!!! Fuck!!! - 100 euros & my credit cards gone! Worse of all my photos of my Bro and China gone - irreplaceable that really pissed me off.

I'm sure it wasn't the gay community that took it but from what I heard the event was full of thieves; mobiles, wallets and bags going missing all night long. Not a lot of pride to be associated with that. Strangely enough I also found out they have names for this: Mary Annie & Mary Ellen - definition: A pickpocket that pretends to be gay in order to pickpocket another mans wallet. Although I must say the event was huge and well setup, but not well managed - thousands of folks forced down little streets with no obvious direction, and not much of a police presence.

So the following day off to Gredos again to start another program. As you can imagine my mind was on stopping my cards before ran up a huge debt for me - luckily I checked my balance through the net and nothing appeared to have gone.

So how was the rest of the week? Well apart from the desire by the Spaniards to speak Spanish (what was that about??) it went well, earlish to bed maybe 1am most nights, the one night we did stay up I took alot of hassle for - I don't get the fact they want people to bond between certain hours?? seems strange - although noise travels at night more so maybe it was loud?

Party night went well and all joined in activities which helped to make everything very smooth indeed. In fact not a lot to say - good program, nice group and fun was had by all - oh one small point not many photos from me this time as my battery on my camera died, so Nelson took over my role on that, so I'm hoping to get them soon.

Well I'm off for 2 weeks now may go somewhere nice who knows??

photos are posted HERE

The Skinny Website has just posted these new photos of Janet Jackson. After losing over 60 pounds and keeping the weight off for more than a year, it looks like she has gained more than a few pounds since her cover photo on US Magazine (just seven weeks ago) where they celebrated her one year weight loss anniversary.

Joey Chestnut is a competitive eater from San Jose, California. On July 4th he won the 92nd Annual Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest, beating six-time defending champion Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi by consuming 66 hot dogs and buns in twelve minutes.

Jocelyn Noveck writes;

Watching these "gustatory gladiators," as the show calls them, brings a few basic questions to mind. Why do people subject themselves to this torture? More importantly, how do they do it (when most of us would get sick after, oh, four hot dogs or six waffles or a dozen ribs)? And is there any long-term harm?

The first question is pretty simple. Why do people do it? As with many things, the desire for fame and money. Prize money at some events can be $30,000 for the top player, and the Nathan's contest, for example, gets an hour of Big Event coverage on ESPN.

Still, there must be something deeper — the fiercest of competitive instincts — motivating Sonya Thomas, the most unlikely speed-eating champ you'll ever see. The woman they call the "Black Widow" weighs 105 pounds. Yet, she can consume one-sixth of her body weight — routinely defeating guys three times her size.

Some of these men are so big, "it looks like they have their own ecosystem," says the witty George Shea, who with brother Richard runs the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Thomas, in comparison, "looks like she couldn't finish a tin of cottage cheese." (Spoken like a man who probably never eats cottage cheese ... since when does it come in a tin?)

Thomas is an assistant manager at Burger King, which in terms of speed-eating training seems as good as it can get — kind of like Andre Agassi growing up on a tennis court.

They say that being good at pool is a sign of a misspent youth. I have just found out that I can still do three-quarters of a Rubik's Cube.

Mr. Fat Guy set out to lose 100 pounds. He is six feet tall and weighed 303 at Christmas. That's when he started walking off the weight. By March he had lost 28 pounds.

But then he fell off the wagon. In June he started in earnest again. He now weighs 281 pounds and has recently made an extreme goal of walking two hours per day. When he keeps to his regular walks the weight falls off quickly. See his progress at No More Mr. Fat Guy.

The beautiful photo above is by chaosinjune.

It was quite a good party anyway. Then the birthday girl brought a gentleman over to me and said, "This is my friend Ray. He wrote Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em."

Desert Nomads

by Richard Harris

Morning Edition, July 2, 2007 · Climate change threatens ice sheets and ecosystems, but it also threatens human cultures.

For centuries, the Tuareg people have lived as nomads, herding their animals from field to field just south of the Sahara Desert in Mali, near Timbuktu.

"Our life is basically the animals we have, so we protect them and we feed them," says Mohamed Ag Mustafa, a herder living the traditional nomadic lifestyle. "Whenever we need tea or grain or clothes, we take an animal to the market and sell it and buy something."

But this way of life has become impossible due to a change in the climate.

Over the past 40 years, persistent drought has forced the Tuareg to give up their wandering way of life. To survive they have had to start settling in villages and cultivating land to secure a food supply which is less susceptible to drought.

Preserving Culture

CARE is an international humanitarian organization working to alleviate poverty. Uwe Korus, director of programs for CARE in Mali, visits the town of Er-Intedjeft near Timbuktu, where he is greeted warmly. He is here to learn what the Tuareg need in order to make the rapid and jarring transition to a new way of life. One of the big questions on Korus' mind is whether the Tuareg can retain their ancient culture.

The Tuareg welcome Korus with a mishwee, a traditional feast like they used to have in the desert. They build a fire in a sand pit, and when the sand gets scorching hot, they bury a sheep carcass in it. After the sheep has roasted, they blow off sand still clinging it and bring it over to straw mats laid out under rust-colored tents they erected for their guests.

As the women look on, the men of the village sit around the main dish along with Korus and the others from CARE. After the men are through eating, the bones are cleared away for the children and women to pick over, and the Tuareg sit down and talk for hours. They tell the people from CARE about their struggle to settle down. The nomads say they need to learn to farm, they need clean water, health care and veterinary care for their animals.

Welcoming Change

Mohammad Ag Mata, the chief of Er-Intedjeft , is in his mid-60s and appears frail. He is resolute about his decision to give up his nomadic ways.

Mohammad Ag Mata says droughts are responsible for the shift in the Tuareg lifestyle. He used to have 200 head of cattle, but they all died in droughts in the 1970s and '80s. "If it hadn't been for a little money I stole from my father and saved, we would have starved," he says.

Jacob Aromar also lives in Er-Intedjeft. Aromar is not a herder like his forefathers, but a school teacher. He points out the changes taking place all around him, such as the Tuareg homes which used to be tents, but are now built with mud bricks they make by the river.

The Tuareg diet has changed from one of meat and cheese to one with more grains and vegetables, and they still have a lot to learn about growing crops. A pump was donated so the town can draw water from the nearby Niger River and irrigate tomatoes, rice and potatoes. However the pump is not working because no one has been trained to use it.

end of excerpt

Africa: Water Is A Right, Not a Business

I am including this link because I believe the essential step to bringing potable water equally to all people in this world is to declare it a human right globally. This will ensure that corporations will not have as easy an access to indigenous water systems in third world countries to take advantage of them for profit. It will also give hope to millions around the world who see their resources dwindling due to privitization and as in Mali, changing rainfall patterns that are resulting in the droughts forcing them to find a different way of life because they depend on rain for irrigation.

Also, on the topic of this article, I am appalled by the attitude of the men in these tribes towards the women and children. It is only through education that the next generation in all countries will be better equipped to deal with the crises this world will face. Women and children should not be spending their days fetching water that is many times a dangerous task to perform in these countries, especially with it so scarce.

Declaring water a human right and truly working to give people the EDUCATION and resources they need and the ability to use those resources without relying upon The World Bank and other "new world order" type organizations that only seek to take advantage of their resources for profit is the way to a better world.

And for the people of Mali and countries throughout Africa, education is really the key to their survival along with water.

Message In A Bottle
By: Charles Fishman

The largest bottled-water factory in North America is located on the outskirts of Hollis, Maine. In the back of the plant stretches the staging area for finished product: 24 million bottles of Poland Spring water. As far as the eye can see, there are double-stacked pallets packed with half-pint bottles, half-liters, liters, "Aquapods" for school lunches, and 2.5-gallon jugs for the refrigerator.

Really, it is a lake of Poland Spring water, conveniently celled off in plastic, extending across 6 acres, 8 feet high. A week ago, the lake was still underground; within five days, it will all be gone, to supermarkets and convenience stores across the Northeast, replaced by another lake's worth of bottles.

Looking at the piles of water, you can have only one thought: Americans sure are thirsty.

Bottled water has become the indispensable prop in our lives and our culture. It starts the day in lunch boxes; it goes to every meeting, lecture hall, and soccer match; it's in our cubicles at work; in the cup holder of the treadmill at the gym; and it's rattling around half-finished on the floor of every minivan in America. Fiji Water shows up on the ABC show Brothers & Sisters; Poland Spring cameos routinely on NBC's The Office. Every hotel room offers bottled water for sale, alongside the increasingly ignored ice bucket and drinking glasses. At Whole Foods (NASDAQ:WFMI), the upscale emporium of the organic and exotic, bottled water is the number-one item by units sold.

Thirty years ago, bottled water barely existed as a business in the United States. Last year, we spent more on Poland Spring, Fiji Water, Evian, Aquafina, and Dasani than we spent on iPods or movie tickets--$15 billion. It will be $16 billion this year.

Bottled water is the food phenomenon of our times. We--a generation raised on tap water and water fountains--drink a billion bottles of water a week, and we're raising a generation that views tap water with disdain and water fountains with suspicion. We've come to pay good money--two or three or four times the cost of gasoline--for a product we have always gotten, and can still get, for free, from taps in our homes.

When we buy a bottle of water, what we're often buying is the bottle itself, as much as the water. We're buying the convenience--a bottle at the 7-Eleven isn't the same product as tap water, any more than a cup of coffee at Starbucks is the same as a cup of coffee from the Krups machine on your kitchen counter. And we're buying the artful story the water companies tell us about the water: where it comes from, how healthy it is, what it says about us. Surely among the choices we can make, bottled water isn't just good, it's positively virtuous.

Except for this: Bottled water is often simply an indulgence, and despite the stories we tell ourselves, it is not a benign indulgence. We're moving 1 billion bottles of water around a week in ships, trains, and trucks in the United States alone. That's a weekly convoy equivalent to 37,800 18-wheelers delivering water. (Water weighs 81/3 pounds a gallon. It's so heavy you can't fill an 18-wheeler with bottled water--you have to leave empty space.)

Meanwhile, one out of six people in the world has no dependable, safe drinking water. The global economy has contrived to deny the most fundamental element of life to 1 billion people, while delivering to us an array of water "varieties" from around the globe, not one of which we actually need. That tension is only complicated by the fact that if we suddenly decided not to purchase the lake of Poland Spring water in Hollis, Maine, none of that water would find its way to people who really are thirsty.

A chilled plastic bottle of water in the convenience-store cooler is the perfect symbol of this moment in American commerce and culture. It acknowledges our demand for instant gratification, our vanity, our token concern for health. Its packaging and transport depend entirely on cheap fossil fuel. Yes, it's just a bottle of water--modest compared with the indulgence of driving a Hummer. But when a whole industry grows up around supplying us with something we don't need--when a whole industry is built on the packaging and the presentation--it's worth asking how that happened, and what the impact is. And if you do ask, if you trace both the water and the business back to where they came from, you find a story more complicated, more bemusing, and ultimately more sobering than the bottles we tote everywhere suggest.

end of excerpt.

Great article. Worth the read.

Wow! What a hectic week or so I've just had. This is the first time I've had a moment to get online really since my last post (admittedly not helped by the fact I still have two computers sitting broken in my room!)! I realised tonight that it must have been over a week ago now that I last posted since Dade has managed to post TWO posts in the interim!

Well, so as you all actually get the end of my post, and find out all what I've been up to I'll try to keep this short and sweet - Dade I think I need to take some lessons from you on summarising - how you manage to capture all the going ons and feelings of each week into such short posts always amazes me!

Anyway, I've already rambled away for two paragraphs and still not really said anything - see what I mean!!

Last weekend amazingly I was only rostered to work Sunday day at the restaurant, so Ellen jumped at the opportunity to see me and organised my whole Saturday for me! Firstly we spent the afternoon at a BBQ, which I found out when we got there was for someone who I vaguely knew's 40th - I didn't even know I had friends turning 40! I mean I remember being at my parents' 40ths!

We then spent the evening in Windsor, drinking wine, and enjoying a good comedy preview of what's in store up at the Edinburgh Festival this year - enjoyed it so much Ellen and I started thinking about maybe taking a trip up there this year - Shame Chris and Alice will be in NZ at the time!

At work our holiday year ends on 30th June, and I still had two holiday days to take, so I decided to use them constructively - I always feel like I am wasting holidays if I'm not actually doing something! So Tuesday and Wednesday saw me down in the Surrey countryside learning how to dive - yes you read that right - DIVE! Surrey, an odd place to learn I admit, but I found this dive school down there who were offering the PADI Open Water Diver referral course at a really cheap rate for mid week dates - when I got down there I discovered I'd really hit the jackpot as the others booked on the course had cancelled so I actually had the instructor all to myself! The referral course means I did all my theory and confined water components of the course and now just have my 4 qualifying open water dives still to do. I was planning on waiting and doing them overseas somewhere hot later in the year, but I enjoyed the course so much I don't think I want to wait to long before finishing it, so watch this space! All those of you who have your PADIs start dusting off your dive gear! Those who don't yet - get booked and learn! It's great fun (not to mention a good work out without even noticing it at the time!).

Wednesday night I tried to go see Shrek 3 with my mate Dave, but we turned up a day early, as it was officially opening in cinemas on the Thursday! So, since we were at the cinema anyway we saw The Fantastic Four instead. I enjoyed it considering I had no expectations of it since I didn't know I was going to see it! We followed it up at our favourite half price curry house - if you are ever in the Hampton area of London it's definitely worth a taste!

Thursday was back to work - and what a hard day back at work it was - including a long boozy lunch, a massage and then celebratory drinks after work as my boss is off for all of July, getting married and on her honeymoon. Understandably Friday was rather quiet in the office!

Friday night, Janine and I had a lovely girls night out in Clapham - cocktails then dinner and wine for £15 (thanks to a TheLondonPaper offer) - although by the time we had all the cocktails, desserts and supplement charges the evening did admittedly cost us a bit more than £15, but it was a great night out and that's the important thing!

Have worked both days this weekend, although haven't minded since the weather has been really bad - still! - NZ are basically having the same weather as us at the moment - which is pretty sad really considering it really is winter over there!! Fingers crossed it improves over here this week as I am down working at the Henley Royal Regatta next weekend and don't really fancy traipsing around knee deep in mud! Although seeing all the 'posh' regatta goers sinking on their high heels is always a good laugh!...