Wednesday, April 25, 2007

More animals

More pictures from Longleat...

Sea Lion



Otters - they are cute, but they smell





















Meerkats
















Hallucinogenic deer (I think something went wrong with the camera here!)

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Longleat

For my girlfriend's birthday, I decided to plan a surprise trip to go and see some lions and tigers. However, rather than going to Kenya, I decided that Longleat (as featured in the BBC's "Animal Park") would be much easier to get to.

You cannot possibly understand how big and powerful a lion is unless you get close to one. In this case, one got close to us (we were inside the car, obviously!). A large male lion also walked even closer than this, but unfortunately I was unable to get a photo.

As we made our way around the safari park, I joked that I didn't want to drive through the monkey enclosure as I didn't want them to nick my windscreen wipers. We had some monkeys sit on the car, like this adult and baby.

Unfortunately, I discovered why they get called "cheeky monkeys", as some of the monkeys were chewing away at various fixtures and fittings culled from other people's cars. And then I had another visitor, who did actually try to steal my windscreen wiper!

All in all, a great day out. It costs £20 for adults, which sounds like a reasonable amount but which I think is actually great value for money. In addition to the safari park, there are also tours of the house, pet's corner (including lots of otters - very cute but they really smell bad), an opportunity to feed sea lions, and my favourite part was walking through a bat enclosure - lots of people ducking as the bats like to tease unsuspecting humans. I could have stayed and watched the bats all day!


As for Nicola, she didn't even know where we were going until the night before (when she saw a roadsign which gave the game away), and I think that she was pleasantly surprised by my choice of birthday surprise. I do think that the deer-feeding spot was her favourite bit, although my car did need hoovering afterwards!

TIP: If you have a nice car, you might want to give the monkeys a miss. Alternatively, just keep moving - that's how I got rid of my vandal!

All this for free

As many of you know, I am from Nottingham but recently decamped to the West Midlands. However, Nottingham is still very much my home town, and so when I heard that they were planning a series of events to celebrate the opening of the redeveloped Market Square, I thought that it would be worth checking out. Even more so when I heard that the Magic Numbers would be playing, and it would be free!
Actually, there were events for several days, and for several hours prior to our arrival in the Square. Our intention was to arrive in time for Just Jack, who put on a decent set. Jack seemed to be enjoying the day and smiled a lot. Can't say it inspired me to buy his album, but full marks for the use of vocoder and swirly and robotic 80s keyboard sounds.

Magic Numbers are a band who I like, but would not necessarily pay to go to a gig. I have previously thought that they would be a good band to see at a festival though. And to their credit, even though this was a free gig (which threatened to be ruined by some lairy kids who wanted to shout abuse at the band - if you don't like it, you can just walk away, it hasn't cost you anything!), they put on a proper show. My favourite songs were "Love's a game" and "Morning's Eleven", although everyone was jumping and singing along to set-closer "Love me like you". And they finished with what I can only describe as a hoedown, accompanied by Nottingham City Council's fireworks display. Nice.

Monday, April 16, 2007

Giving blood for the cause

I went to give blood last week. This is not me boasting about how I help worthy causes, merely because, as so often in my life, there were complications and problems (with hilarious consequences).

My appointment was last Wednesday, just after 6pm. Everything went fine, I handed in my form (you need to fill out a health check every time you donate), had the little chat where they checked my iron levels etc, and lay down on the bed. Then there was a delay because they noticed that I hadn't donated in the West Midlands before (my previous donation was in Nottingham). Despite the wait, I was grateful that they had noticed, because apparently if they hadn't corrected the details, my donation would have been wasted.

Then the needle went in, it was painful enough for me to shout "ow". I don't particularly like needles, but I can cope with injections, blood tests and donations. But this hurt. Definitely hurt more than last time (last time, she used the other vein in my arm). I was asked if it felt OK, I replied that it was a little uncomfortable, but the blood was coming out quite quickly, so we decided not to adjust too much - it would be over soon.

Then, when the blood bags were full, I asked "will it hurt as much to take the needle out?". The nurse said "I knew you were going to ask that! I will do my best". So she carefully removed the needle, and before I knew it, she had lowered my head, raised my feet, and there were two staff fanning me. What seemed like a few seconds later, I felt hot, clammy and faint.

Of course, I was fine after a few minutes - they managed to get some blood back to my brain, I didn't pass out, and I enjoyed a couple of glasses of lemon squash and a few biscuits. Apparently a few others had similar problems, probably due to the warm weather (the donations were being taken in Sutton Coldfield Town Hall, in a room with big screen windows and not much of a draught). In my case, I had foolishly not eaten anything since lunchtime, so my blood sugar was a bit low, and the sheer pain of pulling the needle out of my arm did not help.

So, for next time, I must remember:

  • Do not give blood on an empty stomach
  • Try and donate in an air-conditioned room
  • Make sure that the nurse chooses the right vein - one of them hurts, the other doesn't!

After my drink and biscuits, I filled in a feedback form to compliment the staff on their excellent work. Being a bloke, I spent most of the rest of the day feeling a bit sorry for myself; my girlfriend remarked that I seemed a bit subdued. What was strange was that I felt out of sorts for a couple of days afterwards - maybe they removed the bit of the blood that holds my soul?

Jordan and David Hasselhoff

Around a year or so ago, there was a campaign to give, erm, "ironic" customer reviews on Amazon to the work of David Hasselhoff. Here is an example.

Yesterday, I discovered that Katie Price (aka Jordan) and her chisel-pecced husband Peter Andre had recorded an album of duets. Read the reviews here.

The Namesake

Went to see The Namesake the other day. It is directed by Mira Nair (Monsoon Wedding), and it deals with a family who emigrate from India to America, and the trials and tribulations attendant to moving to a new homeland and bringing up your kids in a different culture.

This film really spoke to me. My parents moved over from India in 1975, when my brother was just six months old. When he started school, he was getting confused by speaking English at school and Assamese at home, so my parents decided to bring us up as English speakers. We both know and understand a bit of Assamese, but couldn't have a conversation. Mum and Dad have pretty much brought us up as British, which I think is the right thing to do - I cannot stand the thought of certain sections of the community who seem to be hostile (or at least indifferent) towards the "host" society. As a matter of interest, my brother's wife is a Yorkshire woman, and my girlfriend is from Nottingham, with an Italian grandmother who moved over here with her English husband after the war - there was no pressure from Mum and Dad to find "a suitable Indian girl".

Some bits of the film are very moving, some bits spoke to me as a second-generation immigrant trying to understand the cultural complexities that my folks must have faced in moving to the other side of the world. I won't give any of it away in case you choose to go and see it. I confess that I definitely got more out of seeing the film than my girlfriend - I do think you have to be Indian to understand some of the nuances and cultural references.

I heartily recommend this film (including the soundtrack, by Nitin Sawnhey) - it is only being shown at a few cinemas, so catch it while you can.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Tiscali Update

It's over. They have written to me to "sincerely" apologise. They accept that it was their mistake that have caused me problems, and it was apparently down to miscommunication. I am not going to pursue them any further, it would be extremely difficult to prove any loss of potential earnings, and they have admitted their liability with regard to the data protection issue.

My new agreement with Talk Talk starts next week - I hope it is not a case of "out of the frying pan..."