Communications

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Comparatively Refreshed

Wow! Son #2 just slept well! I feel much better having had about two weeks of him only sleeping for 45 minutes at a time and then waking crying because his teeth hurt. He’s even been awake and crying for a couple of hours in the middle of the night.
Last night he woke at 8:30, 12:30 and 3:30 and then finally at 7! It was, all things considered, relatively normal for a 11 month old.
That means I have had a few chunks of sleep of about three hours each. Brilliant. Having been tired since October 2006 this takes me back to normal levels of sleep deprivation.
Let’s see what tonight brings.

29 April Update
Last night was about the same. #2 only woke 3 times for milk and so once again we had a normal amount of sleep deprivation. I’m feeling almost human.

30 April Update
Back to very disturbed from just disturbed. Every 45 minutes until about 01:00 and then he slept until 6. Back to feeling hungover but without the benefits of having had a great night out.

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One Of The Rules

I broke a cardinal rule today. Car windscreen wipers should ALWAYS be left at the “off” position when the car is turned off. I didn’t do that today!
20120425-172638.jpg

The only time it is ok to keep the wipers in an “on” position is if you are driving a Le Mans prototype car or similar endurance car.

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Local Names

When ww and I talk about routes for walking the dog we give names to parts of local footpaths so we can say the name rather than give a six figure grid reference. Here’s a snip of Google Earth with some arrows pointing at vague features.

Map of places that we have given names
Local Names

A – Sports Field
B – Across middle field
C – George Corner (it’s where our dog did his first “on walk” poo)
D – Bushy Bushey Wood
E – Solar Farm Path
F – Rotary Hill
G – Cock Corner (there’s a graffiti picture of a penis)
H – Burham Route Road Return
I – Burham Route Field Return
J – Burham Route Path
K – School Path
L – Middle Vineyard
M – Vineyard Hill
N – Sheep Path
O – Aylesford Corner
P – George Gate (The dog once ran so fast he couldn’t stop at the gate and hit it hard)
Q – Pylon
R – Stake Corner

I’ve missed an arrow by I and J and this is called Burham Route Near Stream.

So there you have it. A list of terms used in a single household about the local area that is of no use to anyone!

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My Favourite Car

The best and most fun car I think I ever drove is the Toyota Land Cruiser FJ60 (Australia edition). I spent a glorious weekend driving around Fraser Island off the east coast of Australia with Pom, Mel and ww.

Gorgeous Truck, Fraser Island
Gorgeous Truck, Fraser Island

This truck definitely wasn’t the newest on the island. There was gaffer tape holding up the passenger windows and broken bits all over it. There were loads of newer Toyotas and other 4x4s racing the fishermen to the best sports areas but I’m glad we had this one. It made us feel like we were really getting into the wilderness. Also, it made us rather relaxed about getting it dirty.
Pom and I took it in turns to drive over the world’s largest sand island. It’s a place where there is an 80kph speed limit on the main highway (or beach as we would call it) and you just have to go slower inland. Where in the world do you have to check the tides before you can drive the highway?
We had a couple of close shaves! We entered some soft sand within the first hour of being on the island and the truck slowed but didn’t quite stop and we continued on. From then it was rather uneventful apart from placing the bottles of wine in towels so they didn’t break as we went over the bumps and they jumped about in the boot. This truck was a hoot to drive.
On the way back to the mainland we had a bit of an issue with a large wave that spread water up the beach and over the highway. I swear we were close to turning over! The truck lurched sideways and bounced around a lot. It was very exciting. On the ferry back to the mainland lots of people were laughing at just how dirty our truck was. It proved we had a great time.
Once back on the main land I drove along the beach (why use tarmac?) and we tried to find somewhere to rejoin the main road. Someway along the beach we came to a blockage. A tree had fallen over and there were two choices. Drive into the sea and hope or turn around and go back the way we came. I just drove straight on into the sea. We probably went about a foot deep and then with luck on our side we managed to get out the other side and keep driving. It was hilarious at the time although later that night we would whistle about it!
Here’s a glorious shot of the Toyota:

Gorgeous truck in a gorgeous location (Fraser Island)
Gorgeous truck in a gorgeous location (Fraser Island)

I want one.

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Making It Look Easy

Recently I have taken up jogging. This is a normal summertime hobby with the aim of helping lose my winter blubber and get fit. This year is slightly different as ww has decided to do this also. There is a little bit of competition there but it is rather unfair at the moment as ww has slight activity-induced asthma!

We have found a 5Km route around the vineyards and fields surrounding our village. There is a bit of vertical work to do as we live at the base of the North Downs and there are ups and downs on the route!

At the moment I can run the 5Km in about 32 minutes. Let’s say that this is about 6 mile per hour. Which would give a pace of about 10 minutes per mile. Now for the scary bit. . . . The current world record for the mile is under four minutes. If we take the four minutes as the correct time for ease of calculations then that is 15 mph or 2.5 times my current speed. An athlete I am not!

The London Marathon was recently run in a time of just over 2 hours. Assuming it to be about 2 hours you get a speed of 13 mph which isn’t that much slower than the speed for the mile and yet these athletes keep it up for 2 hours. VERY impressive. The human body is quite stunning! An athlete I still am not.

I think this is part of a bigger social phenomenon that professional people make things look very easy because they do it all-day every-day. Professional footballers make playing in the premiership look easy (although for £50,000 a week I’d make sure I could hit the net EVERY time). Professional athletes make it look easy, professional sports drivers make it look easy.
Even in my profession (teaching) I think we make it look easy. I have had people come and observe my lessons and I think they think it looks easy. Then when they get the chance to do it themselves a lot of them are rubbish and have no idea and to be honest won’t be able to do it after lots of practice. It takes the right kind of person with the right kind of practice to be good at their chosen profession. Not everyone can do it. The following is a misnomer:

you can do anything you set your mind to

Unfortunately this was said by Ben Franklin whom I would normally hold in high esteem. Perhaps it should be re-phrased:

you can do anything you set your mind to as long as you have the natural ability

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How Many Bottles?

The latest Robinson’s Juice promotion involves handing over some profit to transform playgrounds around the country.

Transform your patch

Here’s what it says on the back of a large juice bottle:
From the back of a squash bottle
Sometimes people get caught up on this sort of thing and don’t think about the numbers involved.

Let’s consider a small playground of size 6 metres by 4 metres, which might just be enough for a set of swings. To pay for the transformation of this mediocre patch of land Robinson’s would have to sell 600 x 400 = 240 000 bottles of juice. SERIOUSLY?
If Robinson’s sell nearly a quarter of a million bottles then they would have to cough up for the transformation of a patch on land into some swings and soft surface. I reckon this conversion would cost about £6000 (a severe guess but probably about right) and this represents a cost per bottle of 2.5p and given a profit margin of, say 40%, this means Robinson’s are laughing all the way to the shareholders’ meeting.

Essentially this is an ingenious piece of marketing and I think they should be congratulated. Well done Robinson’s. It looks like they are doing wonders for the community but in reality they are doing little.

A similar scam, sorry marketing ploy, was run by Pampers when they said that for each pack of nappies sold they would donate a single vaccination to UNICEF. This is marketing at its worst. Trying to make companies seem like they care when in reality they are just doing it to make more money (the basics of capitalism I know!).

If these companies were truly serious about changing playgrounds or helping vaccinate the world they would publish something along the following lines:

We have decided to turn ALL profits for one year over to XXXX charity so that they are able to further our combined missions to improve the health and well-being of the children of this fragile Earth.

If a company did volunteer ALL the profits from one product line then I would happily buy them over another but when it’s just part of the marketing campaign then be cynical.

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Mutiny?

Had a naughty thought last night. Having heard that DTM will be broadcast on ITV4 and if that coverage is any good and if it’s in HD and if Eurosport keep showing FIA WTCC then I might, just might, give up watching Formula 1.
I only have so much time to myself to watch these things and I try to drag myself away from F1 but keep going back to that mistress. I feel kinda sick just thinking about leaving. Mind you I only watch about half the races all the way through and trying to avoid the result is very tricky. Oh no, where is this argument going?
Right.
Let’s see what Hockenheim is like on ITV4. Then I’ll think about deserting again! More to follow. . .

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