Food, booze, spiders, breasts, idiots, Chirac, trick or treat and trolley buses

From today's Daily Telegraph:

A chef produces what he claims is the world's healthiest meal, a chicken and blueberry curry with goji berry pilau rice, which given the chef is British-Indian, makes some sense. Now the combination sounds interesting. Each serving contains the nutritional equivalent of 49 helpings of spinach, 23 bunches of grapes or nine portions of broccoli. The recipe is in the article, and given

"Each plateful contains 25,000 'ORAC' units - the scientific measurement of antioxidants in foods.

Foods higher on the ORAC (Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity) scale have been proven to counter the onset of cancer, Alzheimer's, coronary heart disease and diabetes.

Most “healthy” meals like salads have less than 5,000 ORAC units, while traditional curries have fewer still."

it has to be worth a taste.

The French are drinking like the British. Is it true? Well this is Celia Walden simply describing her own observations in France, for what that is worth.

There are 750 million spiders in the UK. Breeding conditions have apparently been favourable, and let's bear in mind that they are fairly harmless.

India Lenon, a student at Oxford writes about the Cambridge female students who chose to pose semi-naked for a student publication called The Tab. She says:

"And if these girls are clever enough to know what they are doing, we might even have to accept that the ones in the national press do to. And then we might have to let go of one of the finest bugbears of modern feminism. But we wouldn’t want that, now would we? So it is far better to assume that the female students of Cambridge University, just like Stacey, 22, in The Sun, are too thick to make their own decisions. That way we can carry on sticking up for them."

Quite, although men aren't apparently allowed to comment on such things.

Newest winners of the title "world's stupidest robbers" are these pair who used marker pens to "disguise their faces". Children can do a far better job.

Jacques Chirac is facing charges of embezzlement from when he was Mayor of Paris, the accusation being he awarded contracts for non-existent work to friends or associates. Gee who'd have thought?

The Vatican joyfully condemns Halloween calling it "a pagan celebration of "terror, fear and death". Given everyone I've known who has done anything with it just regards it as a bit of fun, isn't it being a tad too serious? I don't think Halloween is competition for other religions. Indeed, could not the commemoration of a crucifixion be seen to be about terror, fear and death too?

Poneke will be pleased that trolley buses are likely to return to the UK (with CGI video), in one city at least. Leeds is pursuing a state of the art system, and apparently has most of the funding needed to do it, as it is a fraction of the cost of putting in a tram system. It will have dedicated lanes and is certainly the first city in the English speaking world to build a new system from scratch in many many years. If successful, it could mean the era of expanding tram systems in the UK could come to an end - £20m per mile for a trolleybus line including buses compared to around £45m per mile for light rail (in Edinburgh) means you better have a need for more than double the capacity.

10 myths you learn from school

The Times has them today including:

Napoleon was short - he was 5ft 7, which was average, then.

Vikings had helmets with horns, no they were buried with helmets and drinking horns.

Edison invented the light bulb. No, Joseph Swan did.

Mice like cheese. No they prefer sugary food.

Humans evolved from apes. No, humans and apes have common ancestors.

Read the rest here.

Helen Clark is still an MP!

So says the Labour Party website today

(I have a screenshot for when this is fixed)

Remember you trusted the leadership of this organisation to spend around half your money.

Of course given she is more popular than Phil Goff as leader, it might not be surprising.

(Hat Tip WhaleOil)

Kids evade fitness pushers

Got to laugh at this:

"Children taking part in a study to measure how much exercise they do fooled researchers by attaching their pedometers to their pet dogs.

"But after a week we found there were some kids who were extremely active but still obese," said Professor Maffulli.

Human beings have a particular knack in pursuing incentives to evade the instructions of those who tell them what to do.

Hat tip: Vindico

At 8ft 1 - world's tallest man wants a girlfriend

According to the BBC (which has video of him), they are usually scared of him. He's Turkish and 27. He grew so tall due to a pituitary tumour which has since been removed.

He has a specially made 3 metre long bed. Heaven help him flying, he'd never fit in economy class, business class would still mean folding legs, and so first class it is, at a crush.

"He said: "The good thing about being so tall is that I can see people from a long distance. The other thing is at home they use my height to change the light bulbs and hang the curtains, things like that.""

Which of course must drive him nuts, though in the USA I suspect many will think him suitable for basketball.

Of course he's not just tall, he has hands 10.8 inches long and feet 14.3 inches long as well. I suspect many women will be wondering about another dimension as well. Whether that is something that scares them is something else.

Good luck to him, I suspect he will want to be known for a bit more than his height, but sadly the article says nothing about what else he does.

Random observations while in NZ

In my time back in NZ, I have noticed a few things:
- Hysteria over Swine Flu the moment I arrived at the airport, forms to fill out so my location could be identified (yawn);
- Continued banality of so many drivers, tailgating me while I drive at 85 km/h on a windy road in pouring rain behind a truck I can't pass wont get you there faster, but it will be a bloody mess if I have to stop quickly (but I forgot physics isn't cool in Aotearoa);
- TVNZ must be the worst state owned broadcaster in the semi-free world. News that is more banal, brainless and celebrity oriented than any US TV news, with factual errors dotted throughout items. It shouldn't be privatised, it should be shut down, the frequencies sold and the equipment, broadcasting rights and other assets flogged off. It is second only to the education system in promoting the dumbing down of the broad mass of the population;
- Watch the teaching unions be scared shitless about the publication of the results of pupil performance at primary schools. Scared of providing information because parents are too stupid to know what to do with it, but the largely closed shop friends of the Labour Party know best what is good for your kids. School league tables wont make a big difference, and no they don't tell you what schools are best - but they do give an indication of the levels that schools aim for with students. Teachers' unions are scared of nothing more than performance pay and teachers being held accountable for the results of their pupils, and will do everything they can to obfuscate this issue;
- Local government is scared of Rodney Hide, this is a good thing;
- The recession has yet to seriously hit NZ. Sorry there are not shoots of a recovery, tourism is in for a long cold period of stagnation. Aussies may come to ski, but nobody from the northern hemisphere will be coming soon;
- Labour MPs don't know what to do. I briefly saw Chris Hipkins, MP for Rimutaka, rip into ACT MP Heather Roy for introducing a bill on motor vehicle dealers because it wasn't a bill about creating jobs. Even though Labour was supporting the bill, this junior retarded MP believes governments create jobs;
- Many Wellingtonians fear redundancies, but some of the smart people in the state sector are leaving, so the generically average will remain. It's like voluntary redundancy programmes, which generally incentivise good people to leave (because they always find other opportunities), but the deadwood remain;
- Nowhere is anything busy;
- Thanks to the Labour government, the telecommunications sector is now addicted to regulation. Now there is talk about the state regulating what existing mobile phone operators sell their own network capacity to resellers - apparently because it is unreasonable to expect new entrants to build their own networks, even though in the last 22 years Telecom has built 4 mobile networks and Vodafone 2;
- New Zealand also remains one of the few countries where Sunday papers are worse than weekday papers;
- Why does the NZ Herald National News section have a sub section called Child Abuse? Is it an indictment on the Commissioner for Children position that this is the case, and why are child abusers continuing to live off the back of taxpayers?
- I could buy Lurpak butter and Laughing Cow cheese in a NZ supermarket and the NZ dairy industry doesn't collapse, so why can't NZ dairy products enter European supermarkets at market prices (yes it is a rhetorical question);
- Does Air NZ charge full fares for young children in premium economy class and if not, why not?
- More women are wearing skirts in Wellington (in mid winter) than before, it this just pure coincidence with the disappearance of Helen Clark?
- For the last 5 years the highest priority road project in Wellington has been the Kapiti Western Link Road, a project led by Kapiti Coast District Council. The money exists to build it, and has for some time, but isn't the constant scope changing and the iterations between council, property developers, community organisations and central government symptomatic of the general incompetence of so many in local government to get anything useful done?
- The speed limits in downtown Wellington are now a ridiculous 30 km/h, was this because too many dopey people were being killed, or is it part of a creeping agenda against road transport?
- Why is Phoenix Cola no longer sweetened by honey?
- Why is it damned hard to get pressed fruit juice, not juice made from concentrate, except orange?
- How is it I can phone a GP in NZ and get an appointment the next day, with a small fee, having not lived here for years, but in the UK it is a big deal?
- Why isn't Richard Prebble hosting a news discussion programme on TV, it could be called I've Been Arguing?

Britney's faux pas

"What's up London"

except it was Manchester.

Given a review of her London concert was that it it was hard to tell how much lip synching she was doing, it wouldn't be surprising to believe that she is really isn't that conscious nowadays.

If you don't retain the simple information about where you are, what sort of state are you in?

What to wear on your feet in summer

Giles Coren from the Times has written lucidly on what is wrong with much that people wear in summer - basically stop showing your feet off!

Men's feet of course are vile: "Men's feet, in particular, make me squirm and gag: the mottled colouring, the sparse hair, the little toe that has been crushed into the one next to it over the years so that it has turned and bent and cuddles up against it now, sadly, as if trying to spoon an unwilling lover, the yellowed, cracked toenails, and the fully blackened one on the right biggy from toe-punting a goalpost 14 years ago. How can bringing these out in public be considered acceptable?"

Women's feet fair only slightly better: "all women's open shoes are revolting. Those strappy mules where the sole rolls out of the end of a wide, asymmetric toe-hole so that the shoe looks like it is vomiting toes. Toes that are all pointing to an imaginary origin just in front of the middle toe because of being crammed into closed, pointy shoes all winter. And heels all red and covered in Elastoplasts because in early summer the bare skin is not yet used to the rub of the strap.

Worst of all are these quasi-bondage shoes of which, among others, Louis Vuitton does one called a "Spicy", which involve a vertiginous heel sloping down to a 2in platform and the foot tied in with all sorts of ribbons and chains. I think it's meant to be a nod to fetish, but the effect is to make the wearer (who is paying maybe a grand a pair) look as desperate and slaggy as a pole dancer, while at the same time reminding us of the horrors of ancient Chinese foot-binding."

Quite. Only foot fetishists disagree and of course the men who design the shoes who "are not into women, and cannot bear to think too much about any part of them more intimate than their feet."

Hereth end the lesson. btw Giles Coren is one of those on a list of "reasons to live in the UK". He writes restaurant reviews like no other.

Sexual equality in Australia?

Stuff has published an AAP report that says "Australian women are as keen as men to take part in consensual group sex, and they initiate it almost as often".

Albeit this is a survey from an online dating site - so there is nothing scientific about it.

"80 percent reporting nothing but fun, with everyone's rights being respected." which of course you couldn't know unless all those involved were surveyed.

Though RedHotPie.com.au (!) "relationship expert" Geoff Barker says "This kind of thing has been going on since Adam and Eve," which of course begs the question. How?? Adam and Eve does not a group make - and the next people were their offspring, which takes it down a whole different path.

Funnily enough, I don't believe any of this has ever been illegal in NZ - it isn't illegal to portray it at all, despite it shocking and upsetting people. Although I don't think NZ has gone down the British path, as I think many Kiwis wouldn't know what dogging is (or they'd think it has something to do with dogs). It seems like a peculiarly British pastime for strangers to go to car parks or parks and have anonymous sex with each other, in groups sometimes. Although I understand the Germans are rather keen too.

Condoms too big for Indian men

This is an old report I happened to find listed in the top 10 on the BBC website.

A new stereotype to go alongside the one for black men and for east Asian men.

Nothing more to say on this.

Strange radio signals from space

While most were sceptical this morning of the reports from Mongolia of irregular radio signals from space, the confirmation of these reports from independent sources in Europe, Africa, the United States and Australia is exciting scientists at several universities.

Professor Ahmed Tanfik Rachdi of the University of Algiers was reported as reading the signal from the University's own listening station that signals on frequencies of 6576-6602 kHz and 9325-9345 kHz seemed to not follow any regular pattern, but that the wide bandwidth included an amplitude modulated sound that, if verified, would be the very first sound transmission received from space not attributable to a natural phenomenon. However he was not the first to note it. The signal detection was shared by several others, first noted in Mongolia.

"Doctor Choi Khan San of Ulaan Baatar University may well have been telling the truth when he noted the disruption to regular radio broadcasts for 67 minutes between 10.34 and 11.41GMT did not come from any typical radio bandwidth transmission" said Professor Rachdi.

Professor Bart Kennedy of the Berkeley Institute of Astronomical Science is unconvinced, and says it might be a reflection of a signal from outside the solar system that has taken some time to return to earth, although he says scientists should have a better idea after further research.

Is it just a bizarre reflection (and amplification) of past radio signals from earth from some other source, or is it intelligence from outer space?

Greenpeace spokesperson Elkin Colinsonya of Finland said that if there is evidence of life outside earth, we should "ignore it, as we shouldn't corrupt its ways". Colinsonya said research into signals from outer space simply encouraged the use of electricity for purposes inconsistent with the sustainability of the planet. "What if humans become friends with inhabitants from another planet? We'll want to use it and abuse it like our own".

TVNZ's trivia

The whole Stephanie Mills moustache incident raises two simple points:

1. How the media, including Paul Henry, is willing to talk about a Houstache (well Cactus Kate coined it so why not use the term), but not the drivel being spouted from the mouth directly below it. THAT is what is truly disturbing

2. The anger surrounding what is a rather childish pointing out of what is true.

Paul Henry seemed very agitated about it. He doesn't go to Wellington enough, Wellington has many women with facial hair. Each to their own of course. It's like men with facial hair, it's absolutely vile to me (I presume most men with it couldn't give a damn about what i think anyway) and I am slightly less trusting of ANYONE with facial hair. It's rarer for women to have facial hair, so I assume (since I've spent most of my life shaving facial hair daily) it is a choice, and the person with it likes it that way.

Whether to comment on it or not is another point. However, in a free liberal society the choice to do so should not be restricted, neither should be the choice to respond.

The Hand Mirror is understandably upset, because a woman is being judged on her appearance, not what she said. Catherine Delahunty equally so spouting nonsense that "She must never think that her work, her achievements, her wisdom and her analysis will be enough to be respected. Not unless she looks like Barbie" forgetting Margaret Thatcher went through much much worse, was treated appallingly by the Conservative Party, and changed so much. Of course, she doesn't count, I've yet to see too many "Barbie like" successful women in politics or business.

So how about this, wouldn't it be nice if Paul Henry ripped into Stephanie Mills for talking sheer nonsense next time? Oh and it's funny how Alison Mau is being seen as a kind of hero for finding Henry's behaviour vile, when she is hardly a journalist of any calibre.

David Walliams finds cure for depression

His 18 year old girlfriend reports the Daily Mail.

Her name is Lauren Budd, she's a model, they've been going out for a few months, and well, he's happy. No doubt most men will think good on him, lots of women will hate him, but he's having fun, she's having fun. For a man who is clearly troubled, but is funny and is rather well off, who can be too surprised?

I happened to see him in a corner shop in Belsize Park, London a couple of years ago, although was rather furtive. Unsurprising given the stalker he had at the time!

So you're having an internet romance

Here are some tips, given recent news:

1. Don't ever ever give out your full name or street address until you actually meet the person concerned. Otherwise your risk a stalker.
2. If all your communications have so far involved text or pictures then use the phone. The phone will tell you at least the sex of the person, and possibly the age. It isn't 100% reliable on sex, and maybe 50% reliable on age, but it will tell you intelligence and articulation.
3. Talk on the phone at least two or three times before meeting.
4. When you meet, make sure it is in a public place, that you can check out the person concerned before you approach her or him, and if it isn't obviously safe (cafe outdoors) tell someone you are doing this. Agree to call your friend after the meeting to say you're ok.
5. Just DON'T travel long distances to meet people unless you are willing to take the risk of profound disappointment.
6. Remember people lie. About age, wealth, intentions etc. Let's take some stereotypical examples:

- Poorer, unemployed men will lie about employment status and prospects. Their inability to communicate fluently will out them;
- Older desperate women will lie about their age. Carefully consider the language they use about culture, life and how reluctant they are to send a photo. Out them by saying age doesn't matter, and if it works then decide if you prefer to say "but honesty does";
- Very keen young women will lie about their age, in the other direction. Out them by saying age doesn't matter, then let them down gently;
- Horny men will lie about how they just want to get laid. They wont expend much effort on you if you string them along, but could be fun to tease by finding out how perverted they are;
- Almost all men want to get laid. The difference is whether they want your mind and heart as well as body;
- Horny men pretend to be women to talk to lesbians online and get their photos, and will evade giving new photos or talking on the phone. That's why the phone is useful;
- Desperate men will pretend to be interested in just about anything to get attention. Probe answers about interests and pastimes to see what there is in it;
- Desperate women will flirt and act slutty excessively, just to get attention, but men probably like that;
- Married and attached men (and women) will pretend to be single, or divorcing, or breaking up. If there are regular times you can't call (nights, weekends), odds are you're the bit on the side. Ring at that time once, unless you want to be the bit on the side.

7. The better the online photo the less likely it is to be true. Ask for a photo to be taken in a certain context, i.e. wearing clothes mentioned, or with the car.
8. If you're sceptical, use a phone or number that you can surrender (e.g. old prepaid mobile) in case the person proves to be a disaster.
9. Be strict about honesty. A person may be a bit shy about some things at the start, but if they haven't owned up to major discrepancies within a week or so, then toss them to one side.

Finally, be realistic. The internet has the whole range of people of the world on it. It will be a numbers game or a matter of being discerning, but by and large most people aren't that imaginative or creative. First above all things, to thine own self by true.

Is nobody going to....

Delve the depths of aesthetic political incorrectness and ask....

Who is the hottest female political candidate in the 2008 New Zealand General Election?

What I didn't need to know..

"In a book to be released this week former radical Tim Shadbolt who became mayor of Waitemata and subsequently Invercargill mayor claims he shared a bed with Green MP Sue Kedgley, who was drunk at the time" says the NZ Herald.

Who cares if idiots shag?

Nice to see the mainstream media finding that after some ground breaking in depth analysis of party policies in the general election, that it has the capacity to publish such doggerel.

Men aren't people?

"A fire at a pornographic video theatre in downtown Osaka, Japan's second-biggest city, killed 15 men and injured 10 people, local police said." according to Reuters via Stuff.

The establishment, which described itself as an "adult video theatre", is among many in Japan where customers can watch rented videos in small, separate rooms. Equipped with showers, the theatres are often used as cheap hotels by customers to spend the night, domestic media said.

At "Cats", customers could stay up to 11 hours for 1,500 yen ($NZ21.23) after 11 p.m.

So backpackers, there's your place to stay in Osaka, if you dare.

Vote McCain or Obama with The Economist

The Economist has an online "vote" for the US Presidential Election through its website. The hook is you must register with the publication to vote, but that does reduce the odds of multiple registrations to vote multiple times, and anyway you should be reading the Economist on a regular basis shouldn't you?

It works in a rather interesting way. The Economist has basically classified every country in the world as a state using electoral college rules. Every country gets at least three electoral college votes, and then by population gets more. The candidate with the majority in a country gets the electoral college votes of that country.

Unsurprising, Obama is overwhelmingly ahead. In the UK it is 86% to Obama, in Australia 85%, in New Zealand 81%, China gives Obama 79% (France 90%). Only El Salvador, Slovakia and Colombia look like possible McCain territory (but many countries have few votes).

However, regardless, it was only listed in the Economist on Friday, so it should have an overwhelming response in coming weeks. Go on, cast your vote.

Daniel Radcliffe and the older woman

Well really, it's good publicity and good for him, it is reported in Details magazine. He chose someone older (saying it might freak some people out, so surely at least mid 20s) to lose his virginity to, not one of the UK's hundreds of thousands of easy young strumpets.

British lobby group upset by sign

UK lobby group Age Concern is calling for street signs used to warn of the elderly to be changed because they are "out of date, condescending and in need of replacement" according to the Daily Telegraph. "Very few older people are hunched over, with a walking stick. They are assuming everyone who is old looks like that, and they don't" said a woman working for the organisation.

I simply want to know what the woman silhouette is doing with her hand.