Fireworks

Another attempt at High Speed Filming - Fireworks now theres some fast paced action.  What do you think?  Again I've used Dan Arborise Days Even Years as I think it works really well.

Clive James

I remember nothing so funny as watching Clive James on TV when I was little.  Every time I hear him speak or read anything he's written I'm always entertained by his humour, observations or depth of knowledge on a subject.  The other day I came across a BBC news article from his weekly column and I thought it was so good that I had to link to it on my blog.  There's nothing like a fallen celebrity to hook you in to a story and the 'so true' description of Nicholas Cage had me laughing: "Nobody will be left desperate by the career of Nicolas Cage except those who have been unfortunate enough to see his movies, in all of which he pops his eyes with his wet mouth half open, looking exactly like a man who wants to buy Windsor castle and employ the tenants as ground staff".  Is it just me or does everybody hear Clive James in their head when they read it?  But the article is much more insightful and wide-ranging than I could ever give him credit for here.  So I'll just let you go and read it. 

Good Advice

Since first hearing Baz Luhrmann's Everybody's free (to wear sunscreen) about 10 years ago - and absolutely loving it, I was pleased to see those inspirational words of Mary Schmich (Chicago Tribune column in 1997) being used in a recent anti-bullying campaign: 'Bullyproof'.  It made me listen again to that song and it really is beautiful:

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience…I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth; oh nevermind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded. But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked….

You’re not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra quation by chewing bubblegum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind; the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you.

Sing.

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts, don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults; if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters, throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either – your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can…don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room. Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents, you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings; they are the best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard;

Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths, prices will rise, politicians will philander, you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders. Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund, maybe you have a wealthy spouse; but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but, be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia, dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen…

follow me on twitter

Since giving up facebook - and vowing to leave social networking sites for good, I'm now on twitter.  It's not quite as exciting as I thought and I've yet to read anything funny or particularly interesting.  I'm on twitter here

Life in Slow Motion

Not a Plug for the delightfully beautiful music but just some inspirational footage of a trapped moth filmed in high speed.   The music incidentally is by Dan Aborise called Days even years.  The film is by me. Enjoy. 

More baking

More baking on my day off.  This time I made muffin size fairy cakes.  You can see a normal size cake on the far right of the photo.  I also baked a ham and had ham and pease pudding with roast potatoes for dinner.  I think that meal combination is my favourite meal to eat at the moment.  

Do you like pease pudding?  Let me know any tips on this real feel-good food.

The cooking and cup-cake decorating tools worked really well.  Butter icing is a good topping to use but I'm starting to get the hang of it.  Colleagues at work have enjoyed the many highly-decorated ginger biscuits I keep taking in to work anyway.

Clothes without lycra...

...no good to anyone. Come on clothes makers someone invented it for a reason. Use it!
And now I've just looked it up. Joseph Shivers I applaud you for this marvellous invention.

Baking

Today I felt like getting into the Christmas spirit.  I did some baking with my son and we made a gingerbread family and put together and decorated a gingerbread house.  As you can see we're not the most talented decorators in the world but it was great fun.  I think my son munched through more than his fair share of cake decorations and gingerbread men anyway.  The gingerbread daddy on the right of this photo is carefully hiding a few bites out of the roof so now it is no longer something we can share with other people particularly as I look back on the photos at his dribbling nose.

In order to decorate the gingerbread house I purchased a fantastic cake decorating tool and I think you'll agree that it looks great.  Really easy to use especially for children.  Believe me this is not a simple tool especially if you haven't got the mixture just right.  It is either so stiff that you cannot squeeze it out of the tube or its too runny and doesn't hold its shape.  I really think I'm going to have to practice with this a bit more.  I'll let you know if I come up with a good ratio of ingredients.

Well they are pretty tasty and it is such a fun thing to do with children especially if you don't mind the mess and them eating far too much sugar.

Not a Green Roof in sight!

I went on a tourist attraction in Sheffield at the weekend - a giant ferris wheel in the centre of town.  It was a lovely day and you could see, well not quite far and wide due to Sheffield's topography so you couldn't really see beyond any of the 7 hills that make up the landscape of the city, but it was really interesting.  Despite Sheffield having a policy of requiring 80% green roof coverage on new major development in the city I didn't notice any green roofs.  The roofscape [if that's a word] was disappointingly grey.  If you click on the image you get a nice shot of Park Hill in the background. 

Spiders

Incy-wincy spider spun its web on a tree

In came the wind and blew poor incy free

down died the wind and out came the sun

now incy-wincy spider its catching flies and having fun.

New Camera

Yey - I got a new camera and I love it. This is an example of the high-speed filming and yes its nothing special but its such an excellent feature. This is a very windy day by the way and its slowed down and captured so you can see the detail. It works better on things that are moving really really fast like popping a champagne cork or a humming bird for example. I din't have either to test it on but the weather was blusterly. I'll work on a better example.

spiders

I have to admit that I really, really don't like spiders.  Seriously I really have a deep loathing of them but I can't help photographing them especially their webs.  I am really down this week as I don't have a camera and its really getting to me.  Suddenly everywhere there is a photo opportunity for something amazing and all I can manage is the piddly little almost pre-historic camera put into to my mobile phone.  I would point out that this is a major failing on the part of HTC - come on guys this is a state of the art phone.  Not only can I get my email, browse the internet, use bluetooth, wi-fi, gps, google maps and pretty much anything else you can think of, my phone can do and I love it for this but it has the worst camera.  Not a problem when you have a perfectly good camera to hand.  Oh what a bum!  Having said that here is a pretty nice picture it took today after the dust created by the man doing the plastering.  Not as good or as close as I would like but okay.  I know, it no prize-winner but the webs did look amazing all around the garden.

The last film I saw at the cinema

My son is only 2 and a few weeks ago I took him to the cinema for the first time.  His eyes certainly lit up when we went in, possibly all the lights and colours but mainly all the sweets and pic 'n mix on display.  Anyway I really enjoyed taking him.  We went to see Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs.  I do love modern animation especially pixar films and whilst I only managed to see the first hour of the film I did enjoy it but I can't really give it a rating.  All in all a good experience for us both though.  It had been so long since I went to the cinema that I can't actually remember the last film I went to see before that.

I think the film makers were too anthropomorphous with the characters in an extremely american-centric way.  I guess that's what makes the film funny.  It pokes fun at the everyday foibles of life.  I do think this side of the film was lost on my son though.  I'd say not as good as the first two Ice Age films but okay.  I think I'll take him to see Toy Storey 3D - see what he makes of that.  I'll let you know.  Still no camera but I have an itchy trigger finger that's just not satisfied with the camera on my mobile phone.

Carved in Stone - update

At the weekend I visited Black Rock, a much loved destination from childhood.  My son loved it as much as I remember loving it as a child.  Whilst I was there I took a closer look at some of the fine detail and the effort put in many of the engravings on the rock face and I was amazed.  There are some beautiful and almost profound inscriptions left for posterity.  I wish I had a photograph, but the next best thing is to link you to an image I found on flickr.

Green tomato chutney

I finally put the green tomatoes to good use and made some chutney and I can honestly say that it is delicious and goes very well with cheese.  I would ordinarily post a photo here but my camera is broken but I'll post one soon.  10 jars worth should keep me going!  Growing tomatoes was a worthwhile exercise after all, even without a glorious sunny summer to ripen them.

Some Films I don't like so much

There aren't many films I wouldn't sit through but I can honestly say I was a sleep, within 5 mins, after going to see the much hyped 'Blair Witch Project'.  Well that was 10 years ago now and I haven't fallen a sleep at the cinema since.  But then again I haven't been to the cinema for quite some time now.  But I do love the experience.

Since my last post I have thought of some films that I didn't enjoy (and not that they were altogether bad - I just don't think I could bring myself to watch them again):

• The fisher king
• One hour photo
• Casino Royale
• The Flintstones
• The Hudsucker Proxy
• About Schmidt
• Sleepers
• LA Confidential
• Shine
• Being John Malkovich

Well that's all I can think of right now.  I'd like to know if anybody disagrees.

Lovely weather

I can't believe it's only 90 days until Christmas.  You wouldn't know by today's weather:

Some Films I like

I couldn't think of a post today so I thought I would write down some of my favourite films (in no particular order):

• Contact (and the book is excellent too)
• The Matrix (the two sequels ruined my affection for this film)
• Erin Brockovitch
• The Lord of the Rings
• Goodbye Lenin
• Amelie
• Signs
• the 6th sense
• unbreakable
• Groundhog Day
• The Incredibles
• Bridget Jones
• Four Weddings and a Funeral
• The Trueman Show
• The Abyss
• Dances with Wolves
• the Cider House Rules
• The Shawshank Redemption
• Forest Gump
• Big
• Freaky Friday (jodie foster)
• Castaway
• Dazed and Confused

I love films so this list could go on and on and on; what are your favourites?  I think I'll do a post soon of some of my favourite actors.  Bye for now.

Painting Again

Thanks to my blog of last week I finally got round to getting out my paints and brushes and did some work on one of my favourite paintings (which is never finished).  Its still a work in progress but now it has pride of place on my kitchen wall.

Ripe and ready

At last a lovely crop of red tomatoes.  Although the other 2kg will have to go into a nice chutney.

Trolls or Hippopotamuses?

As a child I found the Moomins television series quite scary.  I didn't understand the story lines and they always seemed quite dark.  Now I am older I am very fond of these characters and although I wouldn't choose to watch an episode of Tove Jansson creations, in animated form, I do appreciate the simplicity of the characters she created but I am confused as to why they are said to be a family of trolls when clearly they are a family of hippopotamuses, are they not?

Russell Brand

Have you ever watched Russell Brand's Ponderland.  It is the funniest thing I've ever seen. If you've never seen it go and watch an episode now.

One of my paintings

I used to paint quite a lot but I don't any more.  Its one of those 'I like doing it... but I'm not really sure if I'm any good at it' sort of hobbies.  But why should that stop me?  I don't think it will any more.  Committing this to my blog may now encourage me to pick up my brushes again.  What do you think?

Its a good day

How lush!  I was over the moon when Cadbury's bought back the Wispa.  I enjoy one with a nice cup of coffee.  What a stroke of luck to come across this at lunchtime!

Writing a book

Is it easy or is it hard? You decide. A few years ago I had an idea for a children's book.  Revolving around how exciting the world seemed to be outside of the classroom.

Page 1 Off School

On those days when your mum lets you stay off from school because you were a bit under the weather and everyone else would be in school.  You get to eat biscuits and have special treats.  You can lie in bed or on the settee under your duvet and watch television.  Back in the classroom the next day you would long to be out in the world again.

Page 2 Fun at home

Imagining what was going on back home you just knew everyone else was having fun.  Eating cake and party food.  Feeding the ducks in the park and watching films and eating popcorn.

Page 3 Back at School

But back at school you got to play games with your friends, paint and draw pictures, dance and play sports.  All things you couldn't do at home.  It wasn't so bad after all.  Those occasions of being out school when everybody else is in school wouldn't be so special if they happened every day.  So you get on and enjoy your childhood and your time at school (well most of the time).

The end.

What do you think?

Oak trees

I love oak trees and last year a tree grown from seed finally put out 4 acorns. This year I have the offspring of that original tree in two baby oak trees.  I thought I would need to wait 20 years for this cycle of events to take place.  Turns out it's less than 10!

Carved in stone

As a child I tried on several occasions to etch out my name on large boulders and rock faces always ending up with a chalky line when I could see people like 'JAG + JO' (albeit in slightly angular font) managed to seemingly effortlessly carve the deepest letters, as if writing in butter with a hot knife.  Obviously I now no longer try to deface the natural environment but it would be nice to leave my mark.  Although in retrospect I'm glad I don't have to look back on my name in the same classy fashion as JAG + JO.

Artistic stone masonry is just amazing take the 'Seed' carved out of a piece of 300 million-year-old Cornish granite by Peter Randall-Page at the Eden Project or the works of Isamu Noguchi or Andy Goldsworthy for instance who's master-pieces have amazed visitors at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park in the past few years.  I am truly in awe of such amazing pieces of sculpture.  But honestly where do you start? I certainly don't think these guys started out by attempting to carve their name at Blackrock?

Red tomatoes

After just 6 days of being indoors my tomatoes finally show signs of ripening.

The Mind of a Child

It always amazes me when a child does or says something unexpected.  Today my son drew a picture of Colin.  I won't go into who Colin is suffice to say he is of average height and evenly proportioned more or less.  But my son obviously see's him in a different light. 

Fried Green Tomatoes

What to do with an entire years' crop of tomatoes that refused to ripen?  Other than green tomato chutney or fried green tomatoes, what do you do with them?  They are now taking up space on the kitchen window sill in the vain attempt to ripen them off  before they wither and die.  

Sheffield University's Arts Tower

Sheffield's promotion of 'safe sex' to this years' intake of fist year undergraduates.  A giant sheathed erection.  A nice look for the Arts Tower I thought.

Green Roofs

A green roof is an engineered surface usually above a building that slows down the flow of rainwater and reduces the risk of storm surges after intense rainfall.  Whilst they have been used for many years in mainland Europe and Canada they are becoming more and more popular in many urban environments around the world due to increasingly large areas of hard/impermeable surfacing in towns and cities.  However there are other benefits to having a green roof:

• increases biodiversity;
• saves energy by improving insulation and reducing the need to artificially cool a building in summer (and heat in winter);
• lengthens the life-span of the roof;
• reduces the Urban Heat Island Effect;

I would like to shamelessly promote the good work of the The Green Roof Centre who provided me with some excellent practical training on the concept of having a green roof.

I now have to think of way in which I can incorporate a small area of green roof - maybe i'll start with my bug box.

IT service desk

This is the happy little fellow I imagine every time I am told I should contact the IT service desk at work.

The road less travelled

I like where I live and feel fortunate to live in England.  It is a great country and yes everything is far from perfect but the freedom that exists without the need to set it out in a constitution is a marvellous achievement, in my opinion.  I may take my lifestyle for granted most of the time but every now and again I am reminded of what a nice place it is to be. Today I sat in a park, the sun was shining and I was listening to some really beautiful music through my headphones.  Those occasions of sitting and doing nothing are a treasure to behold.

Welcome to my blog

What does it mean? Well my understanding of 'Ayers ya bugs' (and that's my spelling interpretation of this expression) is from my husband and it's a bit of a geordie colloquialism or so is my understanding.  It seems to mean 'ow stop it that hurts you little bugger' or 'get off that hurts' and it would usually follow after one brother punching/pinching the other.  Why call my blog after some obscure dialectical expression?  I don't know.  I think I just like the sound of it.  Hence the 'I haven't given it any thought' and basically it was my husbands suggestion for me to set up a blog.

Privacy policy

This website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc. (“Google”).  Google Analytics uses “cookies”, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyze how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States . Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.  Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.  You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of this website.  By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.