spedley

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Thu Jan 27 2011

TRAVEL BUGS

You want to get the travel bug - check Darren and gemmas listings if you want to get totally inspired. Or totally jealous.

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Sun Jan 23 2011

I had not really thought about the names of some of our favourite fizzy drinks until i read an article recently about them. Many of the best known drinks began life as drinks with alledged health benefits. The legacy of this can be found in their names.

Tizer - originally developed as a stimulant for your APPETITE - an appeTIZER . Even today it is marketed with the strap line ‘mouth watering’.

Lucozade - aided recovery - or ADED recovery. Originally called GLUCOZADE - which piece of clever marketing manipulated people into believing Lucozade was the item to take into hospital along with some grapes to help a relatives recovery. It was designed to aid recovery from common ailments, while today it has morphed into an energy drink.

Irn Bru - marketed as a restoarative drink. Although refutedly a hang over cure - i couldn’t find any reference to this Scottish concoction being designed for that purpose. It is however Scottish and theres a good chance it was amde with that purpose.

You also have Dr Peppers which was developed as a digestive aid and Coca Cola which was developed using real cocaine.

These drinks may have their roots in the folk medicine. Drinks such as ginger beer and Dandelion and Burdoch have been made for centuries with medicinal reasons in mind. Dandelion and Burdoch was thought to detoxify the liver, treat constipation and stimulate digestion. Noof which is enough to get me drinking any of them - i’ll stick to my Genmaicha.

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Sat Jan 15 2011

The wonders of a wandering mind… NOT MUSIC

Sometime ago I had a debate with a good friend of mine. He had given away all his music and given up listening to any. He told me it was because it was a distraction from life. Now i know some would say this is exactly why they listen to it. My arguement is and was that it adds tothe colour of life. I see his point though. Music with lyrics particularly can become overwhelming and restrict thought about other things. I know first hand that being subjected to repeated Beatles songs leaves the mind barely able to think about anything else. The hooks in their tunes are nasty and one awakes at night with lyrics drifting around the brain hole. Dont get me wrong -i like the beatles but every man has his limit.

I was thinking about this debate again the other day. Partly down tomy Beatles saturation and partly because i have started swimming again. I love swimming and part of the reason i have realised is that music is absent. I dont speak to anyone and the monotonous rhythme of a repeated swim stroke allows the mind to wander. A wandering mind is a great thing.

A brief internet search into music being a distraction leads to amongst other places the ubiquitous Facebook page - music is NOT a distraction, it helps me focus!!!!! Worryingly this includes varous discussion threads. In one someone called Jonathan Fernandez claims he has listened to Eminem - Stan. 814 times (he added the smile). Very worrying. An online poll meanwhile discovered that 22% of people found music at work a distraction. Guess it depends if you need to think about what your doing at all.

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Wed Jan 12 2011

MOSSAD and the vulture spy - surely its a culture vulture?

Breaking news - Saudi Arabia have been holding a suspected Mossad agent. A vulture. The Saudi authorities suspected the vulture to be an Isreali spy. The offending bird had been tagged by a Beiruit university to monitor its migratory patterns. This follows some reports in Saudi Arabia that the recent red sea shark attacks were a result of Mossad releasing deadly sharks into the water. Farce the Times say.

You’ll be happy to know that the vulture has now been released. Sanity has been restored.

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Mon Jan 10 2011

A SMILE IS NOT JUST FOR CHRISTMAS

Some people are just the most miserable BASTARDS. They have no bright inclinations, no good days or bad sides of the bed. They only know one tone to life - dull.

We have 2 builders working in a house very close to us. I have walked past them both and they have actively avoided eye contact. You can tell by the way the one guy shuffles around with his head bowed looking through his eye brows that he has no interest in civilities. He has no time for small talk, nay any talk. I was shocked the other day when our eyes met across the top of his skip and my cheery morning was met with a monosyllabic utterance that had shared some syllabals with ‘morning’. If these guys were foreign they could perhaps be forgiven for avoiding contact with people who dont share a language. I know however that these 2 grunts are irish.They will turn around tomorrow and have a full blown conversation about teaching children how to ride a bike or something tomorrow. Heres to hoping.

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Sat Jan 8 2011

DECEMBER RECORDS

This past December has broken all sorts of records. It was the coldest December on record at -1. The records themselves going back 100 years. There is an even older record of temperature - the central england weather records. This is the oldest archive of temperature recordings in the world as it dates back to 1659. By these records December was the second coldest on record and the coldest for 120 years. Strangely though given how much snow we had December was particularly dry. Records show that we had 38% of what we could usually expect. We also had more sunshine that normal. Did it feel like it … anyone? Aparantly snow contains much lass water than rain 10 times less roughly, well there you go.

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Thu Jan 6 2011

RECESSION, WHAT RECESSION

Two stories today rather shot in the face of all the recession stories. A Swiss business man has had a playhouse made for his children. The house in question is a recreation of his swiss chalet. It has underfloor heating, double glazing and a kitchen. It also comes with a £150,000 price tag.

I knew tuna’s were huge fish but a new record has been set for the most expensive sold at auction in the Tokyo fish market. The 342kg fish sold for £25400. It was huge mind.

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Fri Dec 31 2010