Down the Bog

It was a bad weekend for UK sport. As far as England were concerned they lost to South Africa in the Rugby World Cup Final and in terms of British motor sport Lewis Hamilton failed to win the Formula One World Championship.

Living in Canada I’m far away from the intensity that seems to exist in Britain as far as certain sports are concerned. Football (soccer) is of course the real big thing and has massive support. Rugby and cricket follow on and whatever the sport is if we Brits think there’s a chance of us actually winning something we all get very excited. If we then lose (which is normally the case) there’s always a big debate after about why did we lose? Are we taking it seriously enough? Are we investing enough? What’s wrong with us?

I think people from other countries look on and think that we are expecting to win and that we are in some way looking down on everyone else as if our nation should be the only winners. That’s such nonsense but is probably some kind of throwback to British Empire days which was a long time ago but understandably causes resentment. No brit seriously thinks that we are still some centre point of a mighty empire. Britain is just a small country with a large and big hearted population who’d really like to win something sometime.

Here in Canada where it’s a big country with a relatively small population ice hockey rules which unfortunately leaves me cold (excuse the pun). Canadians clearly have a passion for it and are also very good at it which means that in an international competition Canadians want their team to do well. But I don’t pick up on any real passion here just an excitable interest. When Canada was recently represented in the Cricket World Cup and Rugby World Cup I’m not sure just how many Canadians even knew about it.

It’s this kind of feeling that conveys to me a sense of being isolated over here. Sometimes I feel that all the big parties are taking place over in the rest of the world.

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I can remember being aged about 18 or 19 when I realised that I was going to lose my hair. It wasn’t really a surprise as my Dad lost his hair although his Dad kept a fine head of hair until his death so I was hopeful that it might not happen but not really surprised when it did.

I hated losing my hair and 26 years later I still do. On and off during those years I’ve encountered the occasional person who thought that they could have a joke at my expense because of my hair loss and I laughed it off through gritted teeth.

I’ve often thought about why it’s considered so unacceptable for men to wear wigs. I don’t know why it is because male pattern baldness is so common but I’ve never been tempted to because of the stigma attached to it. If everyone else did it then it would be odd not to but instead it’s an opportunity for people to point and snigger.

I can remember a guy I knew years ago who just suddenly started wearing a hairpiece. He was very bald and went from that to having quite a long hairstyle. He was very brave and wore it for quite a few months until one day it disappeared and he was without hair again. Somebody must have got to him.

So I keep what hair I do have very short and have never attempted the comb-over by allowing it to get long and somehow drag it across the top of my head. Nicola kindly gets the clippers out every other week or so and does the once over and leaves me with a hairstyle built for speed!

Last friday after my latest trim I opted to shave off my goatee beard that I’ve had for around four or five years. I wanted to remember what my chin looked like and although it kind of shocked both myself and Nicola I wasn’t ready for the reaction of my 11 month old daughter Abby. She really didn’t seem to recognise me and just looked traumatised without taking her eyes off me. She’s not great with strangers and at I think at least she thought she should recognise me but it was going to take some convincing.

Well, over the weekend she’s got used to me and all is good again but I’ve decided to grow it back. My Mum won’t be pleased because she never liked it but she’s in England and doesn’t yet know that I’ve shaved it off.

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We bought a new phone last weekend from Future Shop. It’s a regular land line phone made by vtech but it’s also designed to be used with Skype.

I’ve used Skype on a regular basis since moving to Canada because it offers very good call rates for me to phone my Mum back in England. She doesn’t have a computer and so although we can’t talk to each other just with computers the service offered by Skype to call from my PC to her phone is very good. In the main I get a great connection and we can hear each other very clearly.

Of course, if a call is made with Skype, computer to computer then there’s no charge made at all.

So as I say we’ve bought this new cordless phone and it’s base unit plugs into the regular land line socket and also into the USB socket of the computer. There’s an easy software installation required to set the phone up and that obviously also means having a Skype account too. Once that’s all done the phone can be used as normal and with Skype.

Pressing the phone button on the handset will bring up the dial tone and pressing the PC button will bring up the list of Skype contacts previously set up on the computer. I’m then able to scroll down the list of contacts on the LCD display and it shows up the people who I can call for free because they have Skype installed on their computer and also the list of people that I use Skypeout with. (Skypeout means using Skype to call a regular phone or cell phone)

For those contacts that have Skype installed a tick will appear alongside their name if they are online with Skype and then I can call them and they can receive the call on their computer. Skypeout contacts can obviously be called anytime because the call is made to their phone.

For overseas Skypeout contacts we buy credit in advance and we also paid $35 for unlimited calling to landlines in Canada and the US for twelve months. We weren’t able to get what we thought was a good deal with Bell Canada for long distance in North America which is why we’ve gone this route and so far it’s been fine.

We’ve used the phone to make calls within Canada using Skype and most of the time the quality of call has been good. Occasionally the connection seems to go quiet for a second or two but then it’s back again and doesn’t happen everytime. My daughter in England doesn’t have a landline to use but does have high speed internet so now she can get onto Skype and call our new phone directly without it costing her a penny because it’s effectively a call from computer to computer. She’s done that a couple of times now and it’s a great way of staying in touch.

So then. So far so good. We’re very pleased with the phone. It cost us $100 so it wasn’t cheap and we didn’t shop around for it so we might have got it at a lower price elsewhere. But I can recommend it as a way of using voip to make calls that are either free or low cost.

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I was most definitely amused by the news that JK Rowling has revealed that the character in her Harry Potter books, Albus Dumbledore is gay.

I’ve never read the books although I did start to read the first one to Ruth when she was younger but we didn’t get that far into it and the whole thing has pretty much passed me by ever since. I’ve seen one of the movies but it didn’t leave me on the edge of my seat wanting more so it’s fair to say that I’m not a fan. I’m trying not to say that I think the whole Harry Potter thing is over the top because I know it’s wonderfully popular but…well…you know. Just not my cup of tea.

Anyway I don’t think a lot when an author feels the need to fill out details on a character from outside the book. They may well have a fuller insight of how a personality has developed to become who they are in the story but unless it’s in the book it shouldn’t be mentioned. It should be there to be read about or left to the reader’s imagination to draw their own conclusion during or after they’ve read the story. It may well lead to massive debate but the writer should keep quiet at that point and say no more. If it was important for the reader to know then it should have been in the book.

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Having commented last weekend on England’s unexpected victory against Australia in the Rugby Union World Cup that’s taking place in France I should have made more of a noise on Saturday over England beating France to get into the final.

As I said last week I’m not a big fan of Rugby but it’s still good to see England do well in any sport and to have beaten two of England’s biggest rivals over the course of the last two weekends is very nice indeed. With my limited knowledge I believe that both victories have gone against current form so it’s all rather sweet.

Next weekend they take on South Africa in the final and they were beaten in an earlier round by South Africa with a score of 35-0 so if England win this time that will definitely be unexpected but you never know.

Lets see now. England to beat South Africa next Saturday followed by Lewis Hamilton winning the Formula One World Championship on Sunday. It should be a good weekend!

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We recently decorated our baby daughter Abby’s bedroom with a Princess theme because of course she really is quite the Princess. Here are some pictures.

The room actually has ended up with a Disney theme as most of the Princess’s in the decor are from Disney movies. It makes me think back to when my other daughters were a lot younger and were such great Disney fans. Hannah, Sarah and Ruth absolutely loved so many of the movies that we had on video.

If I recall correctly the first one that we bought was The Little Mermaid from 1989 and it was a spectacular success especially with Hannah who was soon heard to be singing all the tunes with her little girl voice. I think it was the movie that captured all of their imagination because I remember so well a holiday that we took down in Devon and we got them each a mermaid doll. I don’t think that the doll’s were ever put down the whole two weeks.

We added several Disney movies to the video library. Amongst them were Beauty and the Beast (one of my favourites) Alladin with the great voice talent of Robin Williams and a little later the very popular Lion King.

A big memory that stands out for me was how the girls would each take several roles from the movie they’d be watching and act out the part with one eye on the TV. I think it’s fair to say that on more than one occasion there were arguments about who played who.

Now up to date with Jake and Abby the Disney movies are not really their thing yet. Jake has autism and so is less focused on the TV at this stage and Abby is still a little young. But we already own Alladin on DVD which we bought a couple of years ago and today we bought The Little Mermaid. I tried sitting down with the kiddies to watch it but their interest was still minimal bso I watched it for half an hour or so and the memories came flooding back to me as to just what a favourite this movie was in our family. I suspect it will have it’s time again.

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This is just another short post to encourage people to go to the Daily Mail website (again) and read this humbling story of a Mum and her disabled daughter.

Sometimes I can feel so sorry for myself and yet I’m so fortunate to be able to have the life that I’ve had, am having when I read of other peoples constant struggles.

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If you’d like a good laugh because your day has left you feeling a bit down then check out this story. The Tate Gallery in London, England have their latest bit of art on show for everyone to enjoy and appreciate.

It’s a 548 feet long and 10 inch wide crack zig-zagging along the floor. It took Colombian artist Doris Salcedo six months to create the “masterpiece” along with £300,000. They should have asked me. I could have done it in a day with a pneumatic drill and a packed lunch.

Three people visiting have already fallen over as a result. I guess that health and safety together with art don’t mix well.

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I mentioned yesterday playing World of Warcraft on Minday evening but I didn’t play last night because I’m working extra hours at my job at the moment and I felt too tired to log in and tackle any more quests. Do you think the WOW universe survived without me?

Anyway I checked into the cost of playing the game and I noticed that if I want to continue playing after the ten day trial (there’s one day left) that I’ll have to go and buy the game and enter the serial code from it. I think the boxed game will have a month’s subscription with it and can probably be picked up for around thirty or forty dollars. That’s probably not too bad assuming it includes a manual and as I say a month of online play.

I looked up the monthly costs and I believe it to be $15 per month but if purchased for three months in advance that it drops down to $13 per month. A six month subscription reduces that to $11per month. These are US dollars and I assume taxes have to be applied depending on where the subscriber lives although I don’t know that for a fact.

But I don’t see myself going that route right now as I really enjoyed the game on Monday evening and I’d certainly recommend it but I reckon I’ll be too tired during the working week to feel like playing as last night proved. So I’ll keep the cash in my pocket for now and consider that I’ve had a close shave with World of Warcraft addiction!

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We have two small children and I find myself wondering what the world will be like for them as adults. I already have three grown-up children and I used to think the same thing about them.

Just a fews years before they were born back in 1977 US President Jimmy Carter had the vision to create the US Department of Energy as part of a plan to lead America to a more sustainable future way a head of the global warming concerns that we have today. However nothing really changed and America’s importing of 9 million oil barrels per day back in 1976 has grown to 13 million today. The plans to build a sustainable future with a sustainable energy supply were discarded and President Reagan even had the solar panels removed from the White House placed there during Carter’s presidency.

But things are looking up and since 2002 BP has joined forces with the US Department of Energy to sponsor the BP Solar Decathlon. Every other year twenty university teams from around the globe put together a house designed to be attractive and pleasant to live in along with being completely solar powered. This year from October 12th to the 20th all of the competing houses will have been moved to the National Mall in Washington DC to form a solar village and take part in ten tests to find a winning house design. Visitors are very welcome on those days and the opening times are 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m weekends and 11:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m weekdays.

There’s a BP Solar Decathlon Blog to be read to get much more inside information from some of the teams.

Just think about it: These houses are designed to be powered completely by the sun but still provide all of the modern conveniences that we are so used to. This requires innovative design and planning but also the fantastic prospect that as this competition continues over the years that we will be able to look forward to seeing houses, peoples homes, built in this way.

For me it was a surprise to see BP, so obviously an oil company involved in such a project but BP has a strong interest in this contest as it has a large involvement already with solar power as part of BP Solar, a global company who’s purpose is to harness effectively the suns energy.

Apart from being such a fascinating competition and one that if I lived closer I would dearly love to attend it makes me wonder that if when my two youngest kiddies are grown up whether this time things will have changed for the better. I really hope so.

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