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What Colour Will the BBC Go?
So the UK is now under the leadership of the Conservatives in coalition with the Liberal Democrats. Yay, I guess. At least I'm happy to see that the Lib Dems are finally in power (if only a little bit). And while I'm not keen on the tory blues - I simply don't believe that the world can be improved by making the rich richer, its an delusion to believe that the more people have the more give away (not proportionally anyway) - I think that a change could probably be good for the country. And two fresh faces in downing street might be better.

But what I'm interested in is the colour of the BBC. They are not allowed to be party political, but I distinctly remember that when I was growing up under Margaret Thatcher and the other one the BBC news was bright blue. Then in 1997 when Labour swept to power the BBC news swept to a new red (and also a little orange) bright fresh colour scheme. Gradually the orange/yellow has been squeezed out to leave only Labour red plastered over our screens.

But what now? With a new ConLib government will we see another shift in colour scheme to reflect this. Will they go bright blue with five splashes of yellow. Or perhaps due to non-definitive outcome of the election, they'll keep some red in for balance. Or perhaps the BBC is now simply a communist stronghold. Or perhaps they just like the colour red.
[19-05-10]

Spotify
I've recently discovered Spotify thanks to an invitation from my brother. It is seriously stunning - I can't get over how well it works and that it actually does work. Damn cool. And I don't mind the adverts either, actually I quite like them as they break up the music. However, one thing in particular annoys me about the ones advertising the availability of Spotify on your mobile phone. Why can't Americans pronounce mobile without either saying "mow^bile" or else it "moble". No people, it's simply "mobile". Miss pronouncing things doesn't make you sound cooler.

Personally I blame Apple for giving us the iPod and hence for splitting up real words into odd double jointed i-words. Will the world ever be the same a-gain?
[18-05-10]

Text, And Lots Of It
I've just had a striking thought:
"Some people don't mind reading lots of text"
OK, so that doesn't sound like much of a revelation, but it is to me. I just received the May edition of River Cottage E-News letter. Now while I like the idea of receiving this email, quite frankly I can't usually be bothered to actually read it all. If I'm feeling particularly inspired I might read the headlines (literally, the lines) and possibly a few paragraphs of the text. But mostly I just have a look at the photos and the various shades of background colour of the variou boxes. The content escapes me due to the shear volume of words. It's just words words words, not boring words, simply words. I don't like words. At least they are not my friend.

So there I was thinking 'gosh who actually reads any of these emails' when I suddenly realised that for many (perhaps most), they are not put off by seeing a page full of words and so quite happily read them all up, perhaps they even relish the opportunity.

Why is this striking? It's not really I guess (and ironic seeing as this blog entry is just words), but isn't it amazing that we are all so different. My hell is another's heaven. Where one relishes colour, shape and texture, another sees only a beautiful depth depicted by this mass of tiny black letters. Amazing.

Blogging!
Oh I remember just how easy it is to do blogging. For some reason I'd not exactly forgotten, but some how lost the knack* and become daunted by having to remember how to do it. That sounds pretty odd coming from me with a PhD and job doing computer code with a history of web design, but I tell you writing a thesis can do weird things to a chap. I'd also become daunted by the number of photos I've taken but never sorted through and the back log of blogs that I've not written. But as it turns out I just realised that I don't have to do it all at once and can just potter through them as I like. Suddenly it didn't seem quite as terrible as it had and then I was able to start to make a little progress. So over the past few days I've been going through my photo collection getting it a little more ship shape - removing bad photos, thinning out duplicates, reducing the image size of non-essential shots to save disk space. I'm quite enjoying it too.

It's all very odd the effect of stress. Even a year after my PhD ended I still have the tail end of the nagging worry it generated in me. It sounds a bit like I'm pathetic, but it really did take it all out of me. Or rather I let it take it all out of me - Su got through it all while barely breaking a sweat. However, I am pleased to announce that I now feel between 85 and 95 % recovered from it all and am able to get back on with my life. And more importantly for you, get back on with my blogging. 'Yay' for miss-spelt crazy rants. I'd like to go into more depth on the effects of stress, but I'll save that for a future post.

Now I remember! Blogging is supposed to be fun, not a hardship.

It would appear that knack is spelt with a k, rather than nack, as I would have had it. That's fine, as long as I can spell my name kNick and not get any complaints. Right?
[06-05-10]

Kitchen Towel
I've just seen the new advert for 'Plenty' kitchen towels. You can see their similar previous advert here. The concept revolves around their super absorbent towels which mean you only need to use one towel instead of three 'ordinary' towels.

But I don't need to use any towels - I just use my washing up sponge which is both more absorbant than the most absorbant of towels and is infinitely more re-usable. In fact it just is re-usable. Why the hell would anyone mop up some spilt orange jusice with a towel that needs to be thrown away when you have a sponge or cloth? It's just utterly wasteful.

But more than that, it's not even better. With a sponge you have an abrasive layer for working off caked on bits, you can plunge it into boiling water to sanitise it (or use other detergents), you can wipe up an entire work surface in one go, you can clean your hob, your cupboard doors, your greasy bottles. And when that's not to mention all the thousands of dishes you can clean with ONE sponge. And it never runs out!

There is simply no economic, hygienic, environmental or social reason for anyone using a kitchen towel. So stop it. The only use I can really accept is with oil - either moping up oil spills or oiling a wok - as oil makes a mess of sponges (but only till you wash them).
[06-05-10]

Sure Fail
Clearly the effects of dumbing down the British education system and shoving 40+ % of students through "university" has trickled down into the product world. This week I purchased a bottle of Sure deoderant for men. Why? Because it was on offer - clearly they were trying to shift stock.

All was well until I actually tried to apply it to my body. Now arm pits are not the least sensitive parts of the body, they have soft skin and are ticklish. So why oh why oh why did the good pople of Sure think to design a roller-ball applicator with SHARP COURNERS? My god people, have you taken leave of your senses or simply skipped on the effort of putting any thought into what your doing?

Take a look at this photo and imagine those two sharp sholders being dragged along yor sensitive skin every time you want a little deoderant.

Sure - now with sharp diggy corners.

By the way I wouldn't bother with their website if I were you - it seems they also forgot to design that too, it consists of completely no information whatsoever. Fail.
[27-04-10]