Ever since we read The Lost Gardens of Heligan, which narrates the story of the rediscovery and restoration of one of the great Victorian gardens of England by Tim Smit, we have been meaning to visit them in Cornwall.
We recently discovered a second reason to visit Cornwall – the Eden Project:
The BBC is planning to offer a download service next year for viewers who have missed a TV program.
The last 7 days of broadcasting will be available. If they don’t tie the service in some way to the UK (for example, by checking the IP address) this would be a great way of receiving the BBC in areas not covered by satellite services, such as Germany, for example.
Bob Brotchie, a paramedic in the UK, had the original idea – over 75% of the UK population doesn’t carry any form of ID with them, and even if they do, it is not clear who should be contacted in the case of an emergency. He suggested putting an entry in the address of book of your mobile phone under “ICE” (in case of emergency), indicating the phone number to be called if you are involved in an accident or become incapacitated for other reasons. If you have more than one contact, you can label them ICE1, ICE2 etc. There is usually enough space in the mobile phone’s address book to add more information in the name / address fields – for example “mother”, “brother – work number”, or whatever.
The idea has spread rapidly in the English speaking world – for example, if you check out Vodafone’s web sites, you’ll find information on their New Zealand site, the UK site and vodafone.com. You don’t find a single word about it on their German site, however. Which is a pity, as the idea is a good one, and it makes sense to use the English acronym, rather than a local one (such as “IN” – im Notfall in German speaking countries for example) – many people go abroad on business or vacation and a standard acronym is the only way they are going to get their message across abroad.
If you follow this idea, you might also want to identify your mobile phone with a small label on the back, so that the medic knows who you are too. And remember, the ICE doesn’t make other forms of ID obsolete. It is still a good idea to carry some other form of ID, or medical details with you. Your phone may be damaged or the battery may not be charged when the paramedics need it.
Well, I have heard the opinion expressed before, that Windows is an evil computer virus, but I didn’t expect the BBC to imply as much on their web site 
I am half way through reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. What a story – this is a real page-turner. It is the story of his life after breaking out of a Australian prison and fleeing to India – here’s a summary from the man himself:
I was a revolutionary who lost his ideals in heroin, a philosopher who lost his integrity in crime, and a poet who lost his soul in a maximum-security prison. When I escaped from that prison, over the front wall, between two gun-towers, I became my country’s most wanted man.Recommended!
Luck ran with me and flew with me across the world to India, where I set up and ran a free clinic in a crowded Bombay slum. I joined the Bombay mafia, and worked as a gunrunner, a smuggler, and a counterfeiter. I was chained on three continents, beaten, stabbed, and starved. I went to war. I ran into the enemy guns. And when those wilderness years of hunted exile came to an end, when I changed my life, when I stopped running onto the knives and started running into the light of love instead, I wrote the novel, Shantaram, that was based on my wild and wicked life.
The Swiss drug company Roche has donated 3 million doses of Tamiflu to the World Health Organsiation. Tamiflu is one of the drugs that will be used to try and contain avian flu if when it makes the jump to humans in the near future.
The British government has funded research at Nottingham University’s school of psychology into work-related accidents.
They conclude that drivers of emergency vehicles and drivers of company cars are most likely to be involved in accidents involving excessive speed. Company car drivers are also more likely to be involved in fatal accidents than other groups of road users:
“Company car drivers had more of their accidents on slippery roads, or while under the influence of alcohol, or while speeding, than would be predicted by chance when compared with drivers of other vehicles used for work purposes.My take on this, is that part of the reason for the increased risk is that if you don’t own something, you are less likely to take care of it – the same applies to other things, like holiday accomodation, rented housing and rental cars.
“Over half the accidents on slippery roads also involved excessive speed, so there appeared to be a huge overlap in these two groups.”
Professor Thomas Parnell, the first Professor of Physics at the University of Queensland (Australia), set up an experiment in 1927 to show that some everyday materials exhibit unsual properties.
The experiment in question was to show that pitch – then used to waterproof boat hulls, and normally brittle at room temperature – will drip, albeit slowly, if placed in a funnel and left to its own devices. The pitch was poured (warm) into a sealed glass funnel and first left for three years to settle. Then the funnel stem was cut, allowing the pitch to drip. The eighth drop fell on November 28, 2000, allowing experimenters to calculate that the pitch has a viscosity approximately 100 billion times that of water.
The US Army Chief of Staff, Peter J. Schoomaker, said in an interview yesterday that the US is planning for the possible requirement to keep over 100 000 troops in Iraq for the next four years, the Washington Post reports.
Not surprising – they have completely lost control of the town of Haditha, which is 3 hours drive from Baghdad and the US is obviously miles from the White House’s understanding of introducing self-determination into Iraq. Where they will get the neccessary troops for an extended operation of this size is unclear – the US Army has repeatedly missed its own targets for recruiting and the situation is becoming more difficult after growing criticism about the US being in Iraq at all.
Shoomaker’s remarks won’t sit well with George Bush, who is still pushing everything he’s got for a withdrawal of US troops before the next US elections – even to the extent of removing a US veto today on making Islam a cornerstone of the new Iraqi constitution, which must be passed to the Iraqi parliament for approval by midnight tonight.
Now is the time to buy English literary classics – Penguin Books are 70 years old and they are selling 70 titles at historic prices (£1.50 a book, or £105 for all 70 in a boxed set).