Is that the Baby? (by sarah)

At dinner today I kept hearing a sound that could have been the baby whimpering (she was already tucked up in bed) or something like an owl hooting outside - after making Als life a misery and a checkup on the baby it was discovered that the noise was infact the sound air makes going through Als nose when he breaths!

He says that when there is a sleeping baby you'd better be quiet around me - not becuase you'll wake the baby but becuase I will panic!

Feeling a tad silly now - I should have just checked on the baby monitor in hindsight - oh well.

Cleaning the Fireplace (by sarah)

Meep!!!!!!

Well there was a distinct untrianed kitten smell wafting arounf the living room, so I went on a hunt - failing to find anything - the kittens were being good little kittens right?

Well I'm sure they think they are!

I thought to myself - hmmm if I was a kitten and I couldnt find/make it to the litter tray where would I go? My eyes fell upon our fire place, still covered in ash from the winter - I poked at the ash bucket but that seemed clear. Now I have been remiss and havent even really thought about the fireplace for months - I vaguely remember asking Al to sweep it out (which appears never to have happened - poor polyps have been to bizzy!).

So it begain, I cleared the coal bucket (a lovely copper giant preserving pan that we stilll need to polish to its full glory!), ash bucket and old tea chest come wood holder, plus the kindling baskets out. My fears were confirmed 🙁 The little darlings had weed in the shelfy bit at the front of the wood burner - all over two boxes of matches, I though hmmm, there's a lot of ash under the wood burner - hmmm - so I prized out the metal erm... well I've dubed it the iron gurder! that sits underneith for some unspesified perpose.

All tongs and the such like have been relocated to the sink for washing due to me being paranoid!

I got the shovel and cleared the cavity under the fire and lo! montians of kitten poo - me not happy 🙁 me horrified - me vowed to clean everything more 🙁 erm... but I may have to find some way to cuase time dialation!

After the shoverling there came the dust pan and brushing - this took a lot of elbow as I had to lay on my front to get right into the far corners under the fire! Then the hoovering - this was sort of fun though it made the kittens head for the hills! I surveyed my work and noticed that there was suspicousness on the shelf infront of the 'oven cupboard' in the fireplace alcove. Cursing the kittens I went to get the warm water and disinfectant - I scrubbed the shelf, fire and wall only to find that all the paint is flaking off!

Walls cleaned, the mopping begain - mopping done - I have to wait for it all to dry in order to hoover a second time as little flecks of white paint are addhering to the stone in the thin film of water.

So the fireplace now looks worse than when I started as there is stone work showing messily through the paint! And on top of that I triped over the 'iron gurder' meaning my right foot is killing me and pelvis aches:( Oh well at least its clean even if the house does now smell like a hospital!

I don't believe it!

We went to get Jean from nursery and one of the kittens (probably Hydrogen) has laid a small montian of turd neatly in the corner - Al is cleaning it up for me:(

Liquid Explosives (by alaric)

Here's an interesting technical analysis of all this talk of taking explosives on board planes in liquid form.

http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/200608/msg00087.html

Where it really gets interesting, though, is towards the bottom. The author argues that stopping people from taking nail scissors and liquids on board planes is pretty stupid, since a clued-up terrorist could still hide plane-destroying materials in any metal object (sintered iron and aluminium = thermite, basically indetectable until it becomes a fireball), hide bombs in their body cavities, form hard plastic explosives into the shape of any object, convert a soft drinks can into a knife with just a couple of minute's work, etc.

The techniques developed by prisoners to improvise weapons from what they have to hand, or to smuggle and hide drugs, should give us some inspiration of what an organised terrorist group should be able to manage.

So should we give up and cower in fear? No. The fact that the terrorists aren't managing to make planes fall out of the sky can probably be put down to one of a few possibilities.

1. There just aren't enough people willing to die for their cause; motivating intelligent people to be suicide bombers is hard
2. Real security is provided by proper police work - identifying terrorists and tracing their networks to identify all the people involved in a plot, then arresting them - and that's working. Causing all this disruption at the airports in the name of security is pointless; once somebody's decided to down a plane, if they managed to recruit suicide bombers and get the materials and get them to the airport, the opportunity to actually stop them has already passed.

I'd like to see more money spent on actual policing - and less trivially-avoided, expensive, unpleasant, liberty-destroying measures like mass surveillance, laws against cryptography, and airport/train station/port screening. Sure, have an impressive-looking police presence at the airport to deter the weak-willed would-be bomber, but please, don't strip search me and make me spend an eight hour flight without my laptop.

HEHEHE!!! (by sarah)

Just thought I'd mention that I got mistaken for a teenager on Friday! 🙂

Probably the Shreik bag that did it!

Silly marketing people!

Still I'm really happy about this - Al said he'd have been peed off if it was him!

Sponsered Walk! (by sarah)

This weekend coming is the village boundary walk, now I've been practicing as a physiotherapy thing and am going to attempt it - I'll be doing the shortened version which is about 10 miles and will be with the old and infirm. We will be having regular breaks and generally taking all day about it with a stop of in a pub at the end - our lunch is being taken around for us so no carrying!

I think I might be able to do this especially as it'll be broken into stages meaning if it is too much I can back out and be rescued easily! (knowing me this is lickley ask any geologist whos been on a field trip with me!).

However I will be doing this as a sponsered walk to raise money for a charity - provisionally this will be the NSPCC though they have not yet got back to me. It will be a charity along those lines though!

Now if peeps are feeling flushed with short change and want to encourage me to work at this walk they can sponser me 🙂 I dont care if it is a penny or a pound or ten, just something would be nice!

I am aware that I wont see lots of people so you can either send me cheques etc.. or if you are coming to the Parties then I will have the form there (even though I'll already have done the walk).

Thanks guys!