Twinkies Goes Bust
I read in The Times yesterday that the maker of Twinkies, a North American snack food, has gone bust. After reading their Wikipedia entry, I don’t think anybody who cares about their food will be bothered. In fact the entry, is one of the funniest I’ve seen in a long time. I particularly liked the part about their shelf life. They can also be deep-fried, like Mars bars.
My Progress With Kiva
I wrote about Kiva, the on-line micro-finance site in this post.
I invested a few hundred dollars to see how the site works.
I’ve now started getting repayments from the loans. This is not surprising in my view, as I used to know someone who organised micro-finance in Malawi and he said repayments were usually made.
So now all the money I’ve had returned has been lent out to others. So my original charity donation has been lent to two different people.
A nice feature of Kiva, is that you can search for people with whom you might have something in common.
I often search for widows, as I know a bit about the loneliness of the predicament. Interestingly, Kiva generally lists both sexes as widows and doesn’t seem to use widower. I think that is good.
One thing about Kiva is that if I recruit a new lender, I get a $25 bonus to lend. This is how they spread the word, but the positive result is more money is lent to the undeveloped world.
The Troubles With HMS Astute
These are reported in several papers like here in the Telegraph.
But then this is always the case with new defence projects. I always remember a non-working radar for the Tornado, that was known as Blue Circle, because it was just a concrete dummy. The story is in the Wikpedia entry for the aircraft.
Because of some delays to the radar, some development aircraft flew with a concrete weight in place of the radar assembly. In a nod to some other radar names of the day (Blue Parrot, Blue Fox) this was nicknamed Blue Circle – cynics suggested that at leastBlue Circle gave more consistent results. Unfortunately, the ‘Blue’ series radars were made by Ferranti – and the AI24 Foxhunter for the Tornado was made by GEC. At least one senior civil servant thought that the AI24 was a Ferranti-made radar as a result… (Ferranti made the antenna mounting assembly as a subcontractor to GEC. At least that bit was delivered on time and to budget, although they later discovered that GEC was blaming them for delays. Cute trick.)
British defence contractors never seem to get it right first time.
On the other hand new products usually don’t work a hundred percent of the time. I’ve seen a New Bus for London, that has broken down and they are rumoured to have the odd air-conditioning problem.
But then you could probably get 5,000 New Buses for London for the price of HMS Astute. And anyway with the bus, there’s usually another along in a few minutes.
Are Chinese Dogs More Intelligent?
This story from the BBC, about a Chinese dachshund is a bit over the top.
But it does seem to be an intelligent dog. Hopefully, it isn’t too intent on starting World War 3, like so many other dachshunds I’ve met and even owned. One was distinctly racist and would attack any black dog she saw.
The Canny Scots
This story from the BBC shows the Scots at their canniest.
Lost In Leicester
I left the match at half-time and then tried to walk to the station, by reversing the route shown to me by two Leicester supporters. Signage was non-existent near the stadium and the first one I found was this outside the hospital.
A Useless Sign In Leicester
Chocolate teapots come to mind. I eventually found this map at the station.
A Useless Map In Leicester
It doesn’t show either the football or rugby stadiums.
Stefan From The Atos Trio
The trip to Leicester on the train, was enlivened by this guy.
He is a member of the Atos Trio and was going to perform at a concert in Nottingham.
Sometimes, you see small women struggling with enormous double-bases on the Underground. Do they wish they’d chosen to play the violin or the piccolo?
The Worst Football Match I’ve Seen In Years
I went to Leicester yesterday to see Ipswich play.
What a waste of time and money!
I’ve not seen my team play so badly, since in the 1960s, when I saw Spurs lose 5-1 at Manchester United. But that was worse as I was standing by myself in the pouring rain on an open terrace.
Ipswich yesterday seemed to throw the match away.
If they want to go down, they can go down without me.
Changing At Brussels
Coming back, I changed at Brussels.
The signage is very confusing and resulted in my walking up and down several times before I found the new Channel Terminal, which doesn’t feature on the signs. There was no-one to ask either.
The new terminal was rather poor with only limited sit-down toilets for men and rather tired furniture. Hopefully, it’s just part way through completion.
It was also not improved by the most obese member of the UK Border Force, I’ve ever seen. A real advert for the UK,
Continental Trains
The train I travelled on between Brussels and The Hague was a fairly new one. There are differences between these trains and what we expect in the UK.
Traditionally, continental trains have always had a few steps up.
Too Many Steps
We do have our bad examples, but usually it’s step-free or just one step from the platform.
It was interesting to compare the trains to the one I took yesterday to go to Leicester.
The East Midlands train had a visual display which told you the next station, whilst the European one had announcements in various languages.
But what annoyed me particularly, was that when I moved around the European train, the doors didn’t open either automatically or by just pressing a button. I bumped into two doors, before I realised you pulled the handle.
There is a lot wrong with our railway system, but in some areas we’re better than Europe.
The Anonymous Widower 