Month: December 2001

OK, so the world and its wife linked to this ages ago, but some of my regular readers (like my sis-not-in-law) may not have seen it. And it’s Friday. Tomorrow.

This site currently rates 563rd in the all-time links list at Blogdex, with 47 sites linking to here. Which is less than Meg, Luke, Tom, Dave (formerly known as Davo), Robyn, Katy and Marcia, but more than Cal, Ian, Vaughan and Rodney. Not that I set too much store by this, as it also suggests I am ranked higher than Ananova, USAToday, BlogYou, AmIHotOrNot, NakedNews and Dilbert.com.

Approved.

Finally made a start on my Christmas cards last night. I seem to have an incredibly long list of cards to write, and so far I’ve managed three. Not a great start, but a step along the card-writing path.
Yesterday evening was spent arranging my new Christmas tree (complete with silver bead chain and white and silver baubles), going to the Waitrose account-holders’ evening with my brother to purchase a few presents, some provisions and a treat or two, as well as sampling all the free tastings that were on offer. This was followed by wrapping a couple of presents, as well as long online chats with Sarah and Penn, an awesome beef and vegetable stir-fry and a couple of beers whilst listening to John Peel and Gilles Peterson on Radio 1. I even managed to get some laundry done.

This is worth a look.

Stood next to a woman in a shop earlier. She was complaining about the tomatoes: "They are all watery and forced!"
I asked her what she expected – fresh outdoor-grown tomatoes in December?? She looked at me strangely as if I were speaking Serbo-Croat.
Have consumers really become so divorced from the food production process that they don’t understand that tomatoes in December must either be forced under glasshouses or shipped in from far milder climes? Discuss.

My Christmas decorations are up (five pieces of silver tinsel and a set of white lights – minimalist is my middle name!), and today I purchased a dinky little tree to sit in the corner. All I need now is a big bunch of mistletoe, and then to put up the strings for all the cards I’m bound to get.

envious?

TFF: a respectable 36 points this week, taking my total to 403.

This looks interesting, but what about ekranoplans? Have a look at the KM ("Caspian Sea Monster") and also the MPE-400, which, with a displacement of 470 tonnes, is capable of carrying 460 passengers (about the same as the latest Boeing 747s) at 500 km/h (around 300 miles per hour) in a sea swell of up to 3 metres (nearly 10 feet) at an altitude of around 5 metres (15 feet or so) for up to 6000 kilometres (and very fuel efficient with it). And if the engine conks out? no worry! just float like a boat! I want one!