Website update

For some reason, I forgot to put last month's update on here. Oh well, here's the latest:

June 2005

General: Time's flying by now: it's summertime already, would that the living were easy. Still, one works at one's pleasures and thus obtains at least a smattering of golden moments amidst the drudgery of the daily grind.

Books:  new Poem of the Month.

Food: a new Recipe of the Month re-focuses attention on that great British summer institution, the barbecue, with a suggestion for a complete 4-course feast, incorporating 3 brand new recipes. I seem to have gone bonkers with The Quiche Project, adding 2 new recipes. Plus new cookbook review.

Fractals: new Fractal of the Month, plus a new preview 'mini-gallery' as a taster of my latest work, only now available to view at deviantART due to my webspace beginning to run low.

Freeware: new program review, the deluxe RSS feed reader Newzie.

Garden: new Garden Tip and a further chapter in the major new project, 'A
Year at Padley Wood' - this month, it's Spring. I've also taken the decision to remove all the old garden photos - out with the old, and in with the new.

Philosophy: new quote.

Latest fractal: Surfacing...

A very subtle Apophysis render whose structure and lighting give a definite feeling of moving upwards through a medium...

Perfect day #2

Well, I never expected to be blogging #2 so soon! Our first visit of the year to our 'special place', Matlock Bath, close to the Peak District and Derbyshire Dales, was as wonderful as ever. The weather wasn't perfect, with high winds requiring the cable cars to be ballasted, yet it was still warm and, where we chose to eat our picnic, quite sheltered. Time always seems to pass equivocally yet dreamily. Later on, looking round from our place near the river, the Prospect Tower announced itself from an unusual angle, peeping out from behind some leaves bathed in the mellow evening light: this was the image selected to represent the day.

52 Weeks to Make the World a Better Place: Week 23 - Switch to environmentally-friendly cleaning products.

These alternatives to the run-of-the-mill cleaning products are so widely available now that there's no longer any excuse to avoid them. Probably best to take one at a time: multi-surface cleaner; washing-up liquid; toilet cleaner; and perhaps leave until last the most 'difficult', washing powder. Why 'difficult'? Well, if you're expecting identical results to your normal chemical cocktail, it may even be better to miss this one. If you're fully committed to ditching the chemicals, then be prepared for lack of optical whiteners and less in the way of broad-spectrum stain removal. Best to treat stains as they occur using traditional methods like lemon juice, vinegar and whatnot - plenty of help elsewhere on the 'Net for these.

Blue boy!

Ah, summer's definitely here now - the first flower on our little group of meconopsis grandis (blue Himalayan poppy), that incredible, ultra-blue that announces itself only as a faint eye-defying luminosity one morning, amidst, amongst other flowers, its own Welsh cousins, m. cambrica. With the afternoon light forcing its translucency, I thought this relatively rare flower deserved broader coverage :-)

Latest fractal: Solar flair

No, it's NOT a misspelling: this sun has talent!

Apophysis flame, plasma 'surface' created and blended using the GIMP.

52 Weeks to Make the World a Better Place: Week 22 - Compost!

Yes, I'm using this in the verbal rather than nominal sense, in the imperative voice. But enough of grammar: save vegetable and garden waste and make a compost heap. This cuts down the amount of domestic waste that has to be removed and landfilled, and you can use the compost to replace chemical fertilisers. And don't trot out the old myths about them being smelly and attracting 'vermin' - these are absolute bunkum, invented by bourgeois wimps with a cleanliness fixation. OK, a little knowledge is required, but surely the acquisition of practical know-how is a good thing in itself.

Key points: a good mix of vegetable waste, light prunings and grass cuttings work well. Shred woody stems and add the shreddings if you prefer not to use them as a mulch. Cover the heap with old carpet to keep in the warmth. At the end of the season, begin a new heap and turn the old one, then leave for another 6 months (covered with that carpet!), and you'll have a sufficiency of decent nutrition for the garden that costs nothing but a little effort and saves you money as well as allowing your garden to develop its own mini ecosystem. You KNOW it makes sense!

Latest fractal: Lifecycle

A visualisation of the Universal cycle: the lower part is the physical world, the outer upper parts higher non-physical states. The central upper core represents the Ground Luminosity, the Implicate Order, the Cosmic Unconscious, call it what you will. From this core, all other states are fed by a narrow thread; feedback loops return that which is spent.

Perfect day #1

Sometimes, there are days that come close to perfection: weather, mood, food, wine... all conspire to provide a memorable whole. After one such day, yesterday, the 15th, we set off for a stroll in the evening, around the local fields. Returning along the lane, we noticed a balloon, so distant when we set out, was now quite close and floating low over the fields, as though seeking a spot to land. I captured the moment as it drifted over a field of rape, with the church of a neighbouring village just beyond: it seemed a fitting moment to close such a day.

52 Weeks to Make the World a Better Place: Week 21 - Turn OFF the television when not in use, don't leave it on standby!

There are various estimates for the average standby power-use on televisions, from fractions of a watt to over 10W, depending on model. And of course, this is 24/7 power consumption, so the low figure can deceive concerning the contribution to overall household electricity bill. But the fact remains that IT REALLY DOESN'T NEED TO BE ON STANDBY! Of all the common domestic electrical appliances, the TV is one that's pretty much guaranteed not to require power to keep 'residual' functions ticking over. So it's just pure laziness. So stop it!

52 Weeks to Make the World a Better Place: Week 20 - Buy free-range eggs rather than battery-farmed ones

The conditions under which battery-farmed hens are kept are worse than concentration camps. Virtually no room to move, nothing of interest, fed a 'diet' of chemically-'enhanced' rubbish... The result is moody and aggressive behaviour, deformity, short life-span and... crap eggs. You'll be doing yourself, as well as future generations of birds, a big favour by switching to free-range: a more naturalised lifestyle and normal diet mean happy birds and better-tasting eggs. Unless you're poverty-line material, the minimal extra financial cost shouldn't hurt.

Of course, better to give them a miss altogether, but that's another story.

Socialising II - Networking

The term 'networking' became trendy many years ago in the early nineties to describe the web of relationships between all the 'happening' people in media, arts, film, all the usual suspects. But like the people themselves, it was just a fad and the concept faded, only to be taken up by the world of business with some gusto, to the extent that it's used even now, and without a trace of irony.

In common with hairdresser chat, it's all about alignment: "What are we driving at the moment?"; "Family?"; "We're off to Mexico/India/the Far East later this year"; and so on. But then there are the shared rituals that cement the bonds tentatively (shyly, even?) forged through purely conversational gambits: tea/coffee and BISCUITS (oh, the importance of these nutritional paragons!); lunch - but no alcohol, this is a health-and-safety-conscious world now, don't you know; the exchange of business cards (I'm only just holding back here); and finally, if we're on a biggy, dinner in the evening - and here, we can let ourselves go just a tad and get a little tipsy (oooh!).

Yet none of this is new. It's always been like this: the '70s, lyrics from Pink Floyd's 'Dogs' - "Like the club tie, the firm handshake, a certain look in the eye and an easy smile"; and the '80s, the phrase 'It's not what you know, it's who you know'. So, just re-packaging the old ideas, a bit like marketing in general. No, too much, it'll have to come out: as the character Oliver in Julian Barnes' 'Talking it Over' so aptly opined, "Hie me to the vomitorium, pronto."

52 Weeks to Make the World a Better Place: Week 19 - Gradually boycott blacklisted companies

Time to put to use that 'ethical consumer guide' you subscribed to in week 16. Identify, by a gradual process, companies (listed by the guide as particularly unethical) whose products you purchase, and then identify alternatives that you consider will adequately replace them, made by companies given the thumbs-up by the guide. Sometimes, such products are a little more expensive: let your budget/conscience determine how far you go.