Got any unattractive natural resources?

This is just great and from the same people that brought you the crazed weather woman video.

I love the sultry voice and the general weirdness of the whole thing

You're never too old

I saw this image at the weekend thanks to the Guardian's Eyewitness app for Apple's iOS and I loved it and the story so I had to pop it up here:

Former farmer Liu Xianping, 72, has become an internet sensation after modelling his granddaughter's teenage fashion designs for her online boutique Yuekou. What began as a joke went viral after Lyu Ting posted the photographs online, and saw her sales increase fivefold. Comments have been very favourable about Mr Liu's slender pins.

Now here's a TV weather slot!

I feel bad about posting yet another video rather than relating my own beautifully worded record of life here on the lovely Essex coast, but when I saw this today I knew I had to pop it on here. I love the way that the news anchor continues to keep the programme sailing on in its usual fashion. :)

I don't Tweet and I'm not on Facebook so this is really my only place to post items that pique my interest. Anyway, I'll also include the intro text from the blog entry at Climate Progress and then the video.

I don't think I need to add anything else, perhaps apart from registering my continuing disbelief that the politicians in almost all countries appear to be sleepwalking right into the biggest crisis our species will ever face. As Caroline Lucas memorably said several years ago "We could be the first species to monitor its own extinction".

Here you are:

While the increase extreme weather has boosted Americans’ attention to climate issues, it still hasn’t spurred much alarm or concrete political action. Last week, after the underwhelming reaction to record melting of Arctic sea ice, George Monbiot of theGuardian labeled it as “the day the world went mad.”

Well, what if your local weatherwoman went
mad sane and told it like it is? The mock video below shows how that might play out:

We've been making boxes for a long time, but ...

A bit of a frivolous post, but then, it's my party!

One of the things that often amuses / astounds / irritates / depresses me, is how a manufacturer can take something that humans have been doing for years, decades even, and makes something which you would think is the first time it's ever been done.

So, a cardboard box containing a product. It can't be that difficult can it?

A better world ...

I know, I will post something soon about a wonderful recent tour around the Tiptree marmalade fountains soon but for now here's a rather pithy cartoon:

Christmas is coming ...

Well, 2012 sets a new marker in forward planning!

On the 26th of June, Chris and I visited my Mum and took her out to Silvermere for lunch. There in the bar were the invitation brochures encouraging us to book for Christmas and New Year meals and entertainment. As Mum observed, "But the children haven't even broken up for summer holidays yet".

Further comment is superfluous.

Boxes, boxes everywhere

What a mess!

We'd slept the night with the mattress on the bedroom floor but today was bed assembly day. Ahh .. that's better. Had to be rather careful though with the lower ceilings and those long pieces of MDF.

Next big task, after breakfast of course, was to clear enough stuff from the lounge so that we could actually find a place to spread a handkerchief and perhaps, more to the point, assemble the sofabed. I have a Knole sofa which is a little curious but does make you feel very snug with the sides up and here you can see it assembled and with Chris next to it emptying boxes of books onto the bookshelf.

The plan is to sleep on the sofabed when the fire is going at the end of the night rather than sloping off to a chilly bedroom when we've already got snug in the cosy lounge. I'll let you know ...

Later that night it was off for a well earned easy evening with food and fun supplied. In other words, we went to the pub! Our little village, like so many others in England no longer has any of its original shops but does still have a church and two pubs and conveniently our cottage is about halfway between both of them but it was The Chequers to which we went tonight.

I had been to the pub when visiting Chris earlier in the year but now it was my local. It's a pub I'd happily visit even if I had to travel several miles so it's a real bonus having it on our doorstep (Hmmm - is that a bonus?). Tonight it was cosy and inviting, packed with people, a log fire burning in a large metal box fire with folding doors. We settled down with our beers after ordering some food and shortly afterwards joined in the evening's pub quiz which happens every Thursday night. We named our team as "The Two Poppadums" as the barmaid said that she'd charge the cost of the quiz to our tab as two poppadums! If it works for them ...

So, there I was after the first full day in my new home in a great pub with a roaring fire, good beer and food and the most beautiful and gorgeous man at my side. Happy indeed.

The only downer of the evening was not winning the quiz, but there's always next time. We could of course have been knocked off kilter by the jokes of Phil the landlord. I have a couple here taken from the seemingly never ending stream of them from his iPhone (Health warning - this is not Brighton and the Politically Correct approach has not yet taken hold here. Yet):

An Irish man has a new girlfriend and he's in her bedroom looking through her clothes drawers and find a nurse's outfit, a  policewoman's outfit and a school mistress's outfit. Shocked, he goes downstairs and storms out of the house saying to her as he leaves "If you can't hold down a job then I'm not interested!"

Did you hear about the man who put helium in his blow up doll so that it plays hard to get?

On these edifying thoughts I'll leave you for now...