I suppose that they get them from the RSPCA

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This is Nelson - reloaded

100% of the day's turnover from this café

Neudorf Vineyards collected over $10,000 at their Winery Tour concerts

$15,000 from the Opera in the Park concert in Nelson on Saturday.

Mr Todd from whom we buy veggies said that some people from Christchurch came in to stock up.
"We gave them a couple of big bags. Don't want any money from them"

Something I saw on TV still makes me teary

They tracked down a rescue worker who someone described as "a hero, an angel"

The guy stands there bashfully as the reporter tells him how the woman whose life he'd saved described him.

In utter embarrassment, he looks over his shoulder and says " I don't see any wings, dear, do you? Oh no, yeah, look, I was just helpin' out, eh? Had to be done, eh"

This is New Zealand

These people are idiots

You order a satnav device, pay for shipping and expect  - at the least - a modicum of intelligence in packing it for shipping.

This is how it arrived.

It's probably experienced the equivalent of  being picked up and dropped on a hard surface 200 times.

No point in complaining directly, of course - you just get a Call Centre drone who's measured by how quickly he/she gets rid of callers..

So if anyone's interested - the company is Dick Smith Electronics and they're staffed by idiots

I thought so....

Mrs jb's foot started swelling and - $100 later - the doctor wanted to do some tests to rule out DVT.

"I don't think you've got a clot" she said.

"What do you mean" says Mrs jb "I've been married to one for over 30 years......"

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No littering on the beach

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This is Nelson

Local cafe donating their entire coffee revenue - not profit, REVENUE - for the day to the Christchurch Earthquake Fund.

Next door, one of the banks is barbecuing sausages, either donated by the bank or it's customers.

Cool stuff and you're hearing stories like the mobile phone shop owner from Auckland who closed down the business and moved his staff and stock to Christchurch and is driving around areas with no power, handing out car chargers to folks who don't have them.

Or farmers from 100s of kilometres away, champing at the bit to be able to use tractors, trucks, diggers....

In a small country like NZ, everyone knows someone who's affected.

6 degrees of separation doesn't work here.

Here, it's 3 degrees of separation.


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Ooops

Seismic beer at Golden Bear brewery in Mapua.

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This is the life IV

Less than 2 hours after landing in Nelson.

A beer from The Golden Bear brewery.
Blue cod and chips from Nature Smoke.
A bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Waimea Estate.
All local.
Consumed next to the Waimea Estuary at sunset.
Beat THAT if you can.

Hint: You can't
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Style

 The Oriental hotel in Bangkok has a deserved reputation of being one of the best hotels in the world. Never stayed there, of course, but we've eaten at their restaurant frequently and you invariably find us at their Veranda bar on the banks of the river on at least one evening when we're in Bangkok.

They also have a café in the Paragon shopping centre.

Here are 2 examples of just how good they are.

1

Mrs jb orders a blueberry cheescake and an espresso, I order my usual doppio and I'm - as usual - encouraged to try the cake.

All of a sudden (and you don't even NOTICE its being placed on the table), there's a plate with an extra fork.

2

The first time we went there, we asked if they served a light breakfast.

Would we like croissants and preserves?

That would be very nice.

Of course, please take a seat.

They don't ACTUALLY serve breakfast, but instead of sending us downstairs to their bakery (which DOES serve breakfast), they send one of their staff downstairs to bring it upstairs and serve it.

Now, THAT'S style.....

This the life III

Still the Oriental Veranda bar

Now you see it...

...now you don't.

My life now has a purpose.

Everytime I see a book by Glenn Beck/Dick Cheney/Carl Rove/George W Bush et al, I surreptiously move its neighbour (subject to the condition that said neighbour isn't a best seller and that the author is not one of the above) and simply BURY it.

I walk with my head held high.....

Probably not.....

Thailand is one of the few places I regularly visit for which I don't have a prepaid SIM card for the iPhone.

The United States is the other, but as far as I can work out, they don't even EXIST there.

(Talk about world technology leaders....)

So I popped into the very flash True mobile phone outfit in the Paragon Centre.

The sweet young thing at the counter had NO CLUE what I was talking about, but a Thai guy jumped in to help, translated my question and translated her answer which was that I should go to a 7eleven store, buy a card and call up customer service to have them activate the data package.

"Will they understand me?" I asked.

"Probably not" he said.

Stuffed again......

Maybe not.....

 

White Café, Bangkok

This is the life II

The Oriental Veranda bar

The Annabatterie Café syndrome

.

 

 

This the White Café at the end of Soi Thonglor off Sukhumvit 55 in Bangkok.

Big spread in the "Nation" this morning so we rocked on over this evening.

Median age clicks 2 points to the right. That's the Annabatterie Café Syndrome.

Who cares?

Great food  (authentic Thai on one side of the menu - stuck to that, Thai Fusion on the other), open kitchen, clued up staff, great music (Snic Youth, Pulp, Supergrass, Moldy Peaches, Asteroids Galaxy Tour)

Everyone local apart from us, which is ALWAYS a good sign.

What more could you want?

[Mobiilty scooter parking? Ed]

This is the life

The Oriental Veranda Bar

As far as I can work out....

...we've arrived in Bangkok.

A mere 18 hours late.

Not that I'm complaining, of course.....

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Glenn Beck talks to himself

He's also astoundingly frank in acknowledging the shortcomings of himself and his peers

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"Maybe we should buy a house in Florida"

....I said.

"This article in Fortune magazine says they're as cheap as chips. Save flying halfway around the world in winter"

"Not a bad idea" says Ms jb "but FLORIDA?"

She's of course.

Back to the drawing board.....

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Truth in advertising

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All the shitty countries of the world.

Well, not actually ALL of them - Somalia and North Korea would be on the list for sure - but on the way to Bangkok, you overfly Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Myanmar.

If we'd flown a bit further south we could have even taken in Greece....


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Broken aeroplane

....and what goes as an "overnight kit" for business class passengers in this day and age.

Can someone tell me how I'm meant to get my eyeshadow off? No cleansing lotion? Nothing?

The big advantage....

... of being deplaned at 2 in the morning and shoved into a 1970s hotel for 5 hours is that you get to see "Ladies and Gentlemen - the Rolling Stones" again.
Haven't seen it? Buy it - you've never seen them look or sound better.
Plus a second browse through Duty Free and finding a 1994 Lagavulin Distillers Edition. A snip at €90.
Day's moving slowing from disaster to merely shit...



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What's wrong with this picture?

We pushed back from the gate 2 hours ago, nosebags are on and I can see people walking around outside.
And the doors are open.
Appears that one of the engines has fallen off, so they're glueing it back on and we should be away within a matter of days.

Sod this for a game of soldiers....


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Don't give Speights to your mates...

There's a good reason why they say "Don't give Speights to your mates", but NITRIC ACID?

Maybe young Rute over at Tangerine has an explanation.

Although I'm not quite sure if she's over the drinking age yet....

He's either extremely stupid....

... or extemely crafty and sly.

Karl Theodor Maria Nikolaus Johann Jacob Philipp Franz Joseph Sylvester Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg is Germany's Defence Minister.

Bright as a button, young (turns 40 this year), high flying politician.

Such a threat to Angela Merkel, in fact, that she quickly passed him the poisoned chalice that is the Defence Ministry in a strongly pacifist Germany.

He's been accused of plagiarising acres of text for his Ph.D dissertation in 2007.

Now, 2 things could have happened.

Either he did it, which - given his high profile and maturity at the time (already a member of Parliament, 36 years old )- is terminal stupidity.

Or he's set up his critics. 

Leaks a fake dissertation that's full to the brim with nicked bits, lets his political foes rant and rave and waits for his alma mater to evaluate the REAL one and clear his name.

Either way, he's gone.

Has to be.

Breaking news


Minister Guttenberg has left on a surprise visit to Afghanistan.

Not if THAT'S not an admision of guilt.

Probably applying for political asylum with the Taleban......

Whoosh....

There's a new stair lift on the market.


It's so fast, it gets you to the top of the stairs before you forget why you wanted to go there in the first place.

Hunter S. Thompson meets O'Reilly

T-shirt of the week

Oops

 

Most-used passwords: 123456, password, 12345678, qwerty, abc123  

Users who choose a common word or simple key combination for a password: 50% 

Proportion of help desk calls that are password-related: 30%

So claims Bloomberg Businessweek

Up pop the nerds, talking about rainbow tables and salts and saying stuff like "An 8 character password with lowercase, uppercase, and numbers took my computer about 1.5 minutes to crack"

Makes you worry

Too. Cool

This week, I outfitted my ice fishing sledge with a rattle-reel, a super-sketchy homebrew detonator (the trigger involves a guitar pick) and a launch pad. Now, I know when a fish bites because a rocket launches.

No one lost a hand today, but we did lose 2 rockets.

Sez Mike Haeg

I always thought that it was.....

...JOB'S wife who was turned into a pillar of stone.

Or was it salt....?

Bravo......

...you cretins.

Offer me a product that supports English and German and then tell me that it's not available in the German App Store?

You also offer to redirect me to the US Store where I can't even download FREE stuff, because I have to have a US-issued credit card with a US billing address to set up an account there.

Fail.

Einstein was right

 

HT Getty

In response to this article

I am a beekeeper and have farmed organically for a quarter of a century. There is no chance of the chemicals you mention affecting my remaining colony of bees as no cereals are grown within ten miles. In the winter of 2009/10 at least half the colonies of bees in my valley were killed by nosema. Now, I have only one colony of native Welsh black bees and I won't build up again.

The half dozen beekeepers within a couple of miles are now only keeping bees for their own supplies of honey. Why? Well the octogenarian beekeeper who had been selling his honey in the village shop for more than half a century had to stop a couple of years ago. The way the UK implemented EU legislation prevented the village shop from selling his honey. His apiary had dozens of hives and now has just two.

Villagers used to donate their surplus garden produce to the village "community" shop, run by volunteers. UK implemented EU legislation put a stop to that too.

The whole web of unnecessary regulation is stifling food production. As I approach retirement, I am in tick-over mode. I am not uncommon. The average age of a Welsh farmer is over sixty. You see it in the markets. Sons and daughters don't want all the hassle that government has added to what is already too tough a life. My son teaches in a F.E. college and has a full social life.

Soon, you will all be eating Frankenstein foods. The backlash to the proposals to introduce GM lasted a short while but now the government and supermarkets have given the green light. I know this because a friend who manages a vast food production facility has been told by his supplier that by the end of this year he will have to personally import non-gm soya from Brazil, hundreds of tons at a time, to remain non GM, because his supplier has had to bend to the major customers.

Good luck to you all. You live in a country in which producers of good food are unappreciated and expected to produce at a loss. You are happy to pay huge sums for food when you go out to restaurants, so it isn't that you won't pay for food. The current situation is not sustainable. It is so obvious. Better not be a scaremonger though. Just look on from the sidelines and wonder whether the controls existing during WWII will be re-introduced when we just can't feed the population any more and other economies will pay more than us for what is available on the world market.

Post-crisis

They all look the same to me, says the NYT

The New York Times featured Bangkok in its (actually quite good) "36 hours in..." series a while back

Friday

5:30 p.m.

1) DRINKS AT SUNSET

The Chao Phraya River, with its constantly running ferries, water taxis, long-tail boats and freighters, is one of Bangkok’s most beguiling features, and there is perhaps no better place to take in its charms than the terrace bar at the Oriental hotel. Have a Singapore Sling — if not here, then where?

Errrrr -  Singapore....? 

You're not going out like THAT.....

"What WILL the neighbours say..."

Daughter exits upstairs.

Reappears with a knitted cap in Borussia Dortmund (1st Division football/socer team, currently top of the table, playing as if from another planet) colours

"Better?"

"See you later...."

How can we help you today?

Random acts of beautification

robo-rainbow from mudlevel on Vimeo.

Children, you have no idea what you missed....

You were  born too late.

You lived in the wrong part of the world.

You don't speak German.

This was broadcasting of the Finest Kind

And then of course there was Kenny Everett at the Beeb
[13 September 1969 55:34 Listen]

Too. Cool. For. Words

There will never be....

...an dynamo-powered iPhone charger, because Steve Jobs doesn't acknowledge that the iPhone has a battery-life problem.

Or at least not until Apple's engineers come up with a wireless energy transfer concept that only works with their product.....

Back to basics

Miner damage

I use this system, too

And this is how I fold them

Software testing

Been there, done that.

Mostly in the right hand box....

Never question a drunk

True story, told by a woman

I was shopping at the local supermarket where I selected:

• A half-gallon of 2% milk
• A carton of eggs
• A quart of orange juice
• A head of lettuce
• A 2 lb. can of coffee
• A 1 lb. package of bacon

As I was unloading my items on the conveyor belt to check out, a drunk standing behind me watched as I placed the items in front of the cashier. While the cashier was ringing up the purchases, the drunk calmly stated, 'You must be single.'

I was a bit startled by this proclamation, but I was intrigued by the derelict's intuition, since I indeed had never found Mr. Right. I looked at the six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly unusual about my selections that could have tipped off the drunk to my marital status..

Curiosity getting the better of me, I said , 'Yes you are correct . But how on earth did you know that?'

The drunk replied, 'Cause you're ugly.