The Giraffe Web-Site Has Crashed
Tesco have taken over the Giraffe restaurant chain, as is reported here in the Guardian. This paragraph explains their strategy.
For a retailer that accounts for more than one in every £8 spent in UK shops, with UK sales of £47.3bn, the deal is pocket change. But added to the grocer’s recent 49% investment in artisan coffee shop Harris + Hoole, the group’s Dobbies garden centre business, and a stake in the embryonic, luxury bakery Euphorium, and the beginnings of a bold strategic shift begin to emerge.
I also wanted to look something up on the restaurant’s web site and got this message.
Due to today’s Tesco announcement we are experiencing extremely high volumes of traffic to our website.
We are currently working to accommodate the extra demand and will be back online later this evening. We apologise for any inconvenience.
I wonder if the wags will come up with jokes about Tesco swapping horse-meat for giraffe-meat.
An Optimistic E-Mail About The Death Penalty In The United States
I have just received this e-mail about the death penalty from a abolitionists in the United States.
The famous phrase, “may you live in interesting times” is said to be a Chinese curse, but for a death penalty abolitionist the times are both interesting, and exciting!
Last Wednesday in Maryland the state Senate passed the death penalty repeal bill 27 to 20 and sent it to the House of Delegates. On Friday afternoon, the House Judiciary Committee passed it to the full House with a 14 to 8 vote. There are just two more big steps to go!
The countdown to repeal in Maryland continues with the second reading of the bill to take place starting around 6pm EDT tonight. The third reading and final vote in the House of Delegates is anticipated for Friday, where it is expected to pass and be sent to Governor O’Malley for his signature, making Maryland the 18th state without the death penalty!
We’ll keep you up-to-date as the Countdown to repeal moves forward.
ALSO THIS WEEK: Two more campaigns are introducing legislation to abolish the death penalty: Coloradans for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, and the Delaware Repeal Campaign. And last week, the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty launched its bill. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has been deeply involved in all of these efforts and will bring you the details as they move forward.
Thank you for your support during these very “interesting” and exciting times for death penalty repeal in the United States.
Look for our updates throughout the week!
I hope that the optimistic nature of the e-mail is well-founded.
Why Do The Italians Live Longer Than Us?
This question is asked by Fergal Keane on the BBC web site in this article. This is the first two paragraphs.
What is it about the Italians? They smoke more than us, they earn less, their economy is in even worse shape than ours, they spend less on healthcare, and yet – they live longer. Not just a bit, but a whopping 18 months more on average.
They also have more years of good health before disease and disability set in.
Only speculation is offered as to the reeason of Italian longlivity. Although I do find this statement interesting.
There have been improvements in living standards here of course. But Alan Maryon-Davis, honorary Professor of Public Health at King’s College London suggests that Italy is a more cohesive and less divided society than ours. He said “There is a flatter social gradient – less difference between the haves and have-nots in Italy, and that is likely to play a role in health outcomes.”
He also speculated whether the British psyche was fatalistic when it came to illness: “I wonder if many people feel that they can ignore their health for decades in the expectation that the NHS will be there to bail them out when they get into trouble.”
Especially, as I had similar thoughts a week or so ago in this article.
It would be enlightening to see how long Italians, who have lived in the UK for some time, live! After all, if you are from an Italian family in the UK, you probably eat like an Italian, even if your family arrived here decades ago.
The article gives a lot of food for thought.
A Comment On The Election Of The Pope
I cut this out of the BBC web site. It is a comment, that I suspect is typical of the way many Catholics are thinking.
I am praying that the conclave has voted for a progressive Pope. The aggressive rebuking of homosexuals and continued opposition towards contraception have left me doubting whether my social values are compatible with my Catholic faith, to the point where I have considered abandoning my faith. I hope the new Pope will treat these subjects with compassion rather than contempt.
It will be a tragedy, if they elect another backward thinking Pope.
We need leaders, who look forward with clear and radical scientifically-based answers to solve the problems of the World.
Barclaycard On The Buses
Barclaycard are pushing their alternative to Oyster for London buses and tubes.
Barclaycard On The Buses
It will be interesting to see in a few years, if credit and bank cards actually replace Oyster.
Sebi’s Cafe At Canonbury Station
A lot of the Overground stations have space for a small cafe.
Sebi’s Cafe At Canonbury Station
We need more like this one on Canonbury station.
Canonbury is an ideal place for a cafe, as the platform is wide and there is quite a few passengers changing from the North to East London lines and vice versa.
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The Language Rules In Quebec
There is a big row going on in Quebec about the use of the proper language in an Italian restaurant. It’s here in the Guardian. This paragraph shows the pedantic nature of the language police.
After a five-month investigation into an anonymous complaint, Massimo Lecas received a letter from the board telling him that his establishment, Buonanotte, had broken the law by including the words “pasta” on the menu and “bottiglia”, the Italian word for bottle, instead of the French word bouteille.
It sounds like several Italian restaurants, I have been to in the UK, the Netherlands or France.
I have only been to Quebec once and wouldn’t go again.
I don’t speak French well, but I can read it pretty well, as I’ve spent a couple of summers in the South of France and have also read some of the James Bond books in French.
But I found the French in Montreal very difficult and I never worked out how to use the public transport, as there is no English translation. It was almost like going to Wales and finding everything in Welsh. Even Paris, which last time I looked at the map was in France, is a city, where instructions for public transport are in multiple languages and in that respect it is much better than London.
But the main reason, I won’t go, is that I found on that trip it was difficult to stay gluten-free. In fact, I got glutened for the only time in recent years. It was mainly because the good restaurant I ate in, had probably used oven-chips, which are coated in wheat to make them crisp.
Some years ago, I used to own a hand tool company. We sold in numerous countries including the United States and France, and then had an enquiry from a distributor in Canada. They would take the product, but the product leaflet would have to be in perfect Canadian French. French just wouldn’t do! So at some expense we got a French Canadian translation and the product was duly launched in Canada.
Some time later, we had an urgent order from France and sadly we were out of French leaflets, so we told them, we did have the French Canadian version in stock. So we faxed one to France and the French said that the leaflet was rather quaint and a good laugh, but that it would do to fulfil the urgent order.
There’s no doubt that French Canadians are much more bothered about their language than the French.
Perhaps though some Canadians are also a bit touchy about English spelling. I once flew to the States sitting next to a secretary at the New Zealand High Commission in Toronto. She had to be very careful she didn’t use American spelling, when writing to some English-speaking Canadians, as otherwise they’d return it with corrections.
The British Win The Bathroom Race
According to The times this morning, the British are fasted in the bathroom in the morning.
The figures quoted are.
Britain – 19 min. 42 sec.
France – 27 min. 11 sec.
Italians – 27 min. 33 sec.
Germans – 27 min 35 sec.
Obviously women were slower than men.
My Times Wasn’t Folded Properly Today
As my father was a printer and bookbinder, I don’t like poor quality printing, even in a newspaper.
My Times Wasn’t Folded Properly Today
I did try looking for a good one, but all the copies I could see were similar.
I Drunk A Lot Yesterday And Feel Much Better Today
Yesterday, I drunk more than I have for some time. I had three mugs of tea before I left home, two cups of tea with my lunch in Carluccio’s and then perhaps another four mugs of tea during the afternoon and another one late at night. I also had a pint of Aspall Cyder down the pub during the presentation.
So I probably drunk about two and a half litres yesterday.
As a child, my mother was always getting me to drink more and often the only drink I had during the day, was the third of a pint bottle of milk and perhaps a small cup of tea. It was very difficult to get me to drink water and if I did drink anything else it was squash or her home made lemon drink, made to a Mrs. Beeton recipe.
From the time, I started drinking alcohol, I’ve generally been a pint of real ale man, although for years, I followed my father’s lead and drunk small bottles of Guinness. Incidentally, those small bottles, which are unobtainable now, were low in gluten.
I think when I went gluten-free, I started to get the odd stiffness in my legs and breathing difficulties at this time of year. I used to think, I needed to have a cup of coffee before tennis to get myself going. But could it be that I had cut down on my liquid intake, by avoiding pints of beer. And also in those days a few years ago, decent cider, like Aspall wasn’t available in pubs.
I came out of hospital after the stroke feeling pretty rough and I don’t think I was drinking much inside. Basically, I’ve never been a great water drinker. I need something stronger, like tea, milk or lemonade.
I think I will keep up the high level of drinking.
As I’ve been drinking hard for the past month or so and having a deep bath every day, it does seem, that the stiffness in my lower legs has eased.
Strangely, my rhinitis isn’t too bad this morning either and my toe nails seem not to be their usual mess.
So perhaps the two most important women in my life, my mother and C, were right all along, in saying I should drink more. C of course was always making me cups of tea, when she was at home, as she was a serious coffee and water drinker.
So perhaps we had mutually beneficial habits. I think too, my son is another heavy drinker of the non-alcoholic kind.
But why is it, that things seem to always get worse for my body in the first few months of the year? I had a GP once, who said I might suffer from SAD or seasonal affected disorder. It did get better soon after that diagnosis, but C and I were taking at least a week’s holiday in the sun.
The Anonymous Widower 