Month: July 2006

 

We played tourist yesterday, and decided to head out for dinner on a Saturday evening. Our first choice, Due South, was fully booked so we decided to wander along the seafront and into town. I spotted that Louis Beach cafe had a sign out saying that they now do Jamaican and Carribean food, so we thought we’d stop by and take a look. One portion of Jamaican Jerk chicken, one of ackee and saltfish and a side order of plantain and we were very happy people. They don’t have an alcohol license, but the Fortune of War is within staggering distance. We had a great evening, eating tasty food, looking out to sea.

We grabbed the last chance to go and see Jerry Springer the opera at Brighton Dome the other week. We didn’t see it on TV, and so couldn’t appreciate the outrage it caused in relation to the language and “religious themes”.

Apparently a third of venues dropped the show after being threatened with prosecution. Which is very silly. The show does contain strong language, and it does have religious content in the second half, but it’s not something you’d want to get worked up about. It’s funny, but as with all things, not to everyone’s taste.

The show itself is worth seeing: performances were excellent, the idea was superb, and the writing contained some moments of genius. The Hollywood-style dance routine by the Ku Klux Klan is going to stick in my memory for some time, I suspect.

In one of the pull out sections from the Mail on Sunday this morning there was a column describing the Nike + iPod combination. Working with selected Nike + trainers and an iPod nano this gadget monitors your activity, and transmits it wirelessly to the nano. Judging by the website, you can then sync your run data with the nike+ website and monitor your progress.

Friday night was beautiful, so we headed down to the beach, collecting a curry from Nishat on the way and sat and watched the sunset over Hove. This is what living in Brighton is all about.

I was listening to the Connected Traveller : Travel News/Odds ‘n’ Ends this morning and one of the items was about The Happy Planet Index which is an index of human well-being and environmental impact. The UK is pretty low with a HPI (Happy Planet Index) of 40.3. The top of the index is Vanuatu with an HPI of 68.2. The lowest is Zimbabwe with 16.6 where life expectancy is only 36.9 years.

You can calculate your own HPI. I scored 29.7 which isn’t very good, but seems to be pretty badly affected on ecological footprint which for me is 8.62 global hectares, or the equivalent of 4.79 planets – oops! Most of this is due to my 30 mile each way trip to work, and my flights to the US/Canada for snowboarding. We’re pretty good with recycling, but I need to be better at turning electrical appliances off rather than leaving them in standby.

We went to the last of this season’s Cafe Scientifiques at the Terraces this evening. Tonight’s discussion was “Bones, Rocks and Stars: the science of when things happened” given by Chris Turney. It was a really interesting talk, with props (inflatable globe, skulls etc) and promoted a really good discussion afterwards. This was the kind of science that I can cope with – some of them can be a bit too technical for me – but I always learn something. Tonight I learnt about the calendar system, and that the western astrological calendar is out of kilter with the constellations by approximately one month (see Astrology vs Astronomy and read the section on Zodiacs in Astrology). Also in Ethiopia it is currently 1998

One of the gentlemen we shared a table with was telling us about The Royal Society and about their discussions which are open to the public. Apparently he went to a very interesting one on climate change a while ago and looking at their website they are have a wide range of topics. Maybe something to keep an eye on.

As we were heading home, Richard pointed out that I could enter into the cult of mac and create an iCal calendar for the Brighton Cafe Scientifique – so I have and it can be subscribed to at webcal://ical.janeandrichard.co.uk/BrightonCafeScientifique.ics

I bought myself an FM transmitter for my iPod shuffle last week. I found that I was only using the shuffle when I was on the bus or train and that seemed to be a bit of a shame, not to mention that my collection of podcasts was getting out of hand. So, I did a bit of a search and found a couple of likely suspects, the AudiaX iTube-101 and FM Transmitter for iPod nano, iPod shuffle and video iPod. The second one is quite interesting as it just plugs into the headphone jack, and so would work with any portable music device, the downside is that it needs an AAA battery. The AudiaX one works off the cigarette lighter connected to the USB port and so takes its power from that, as well as charging the shuffle. This does, however, only work with the shuffle. I’ve chosen the AudiaX version as I just can’t face buying so many batteries. So far the solution is working well for me, there are 4 memory locations for the frequency so I can just swap between them as I move between areas. I’ve now finished listening to the Baddiel and Skinner world cup podcasts, and have moved on to the ITV Tour de France podcasts.

The London 2012 Roadshow is in Brighton tomorrow.

Where: Brighton, Seafront

When: 18:30 to 21:00

What: Cultural and sporting activities

And according to the Council “On 14 July the Roadshow bus will be on the seafront (opposite the Grand Hotel near the basketball court) for a sports and cultural event. There will be basketball, volleyball and hip hop displays for the public to enjoy, starting at 7pm and continuing to 9pm”. Shame we’re going to be at the cinema.

What could Materazzi have said to cause Zidane to react like that? It must have been a terrible insult to a French man. Something ancient and appalling. It could only have been one thing: “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelled of elderberries“.

So, world cup chart complete, life returning to normal for another four years.