C&H 4608
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Category: Personal
Not Dogs Gets a Revamp!
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The day has arrived… our lovely little Not Dogs restaurant in the Bullring, Birmingham has had a little update – in fact, our additions are a nod to our festival background complete with bunting and grass! Let’s go on a virtual tour…
Browning
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Fnorders
I’ve not posted much recently: I’ve had a lot of Complicated Life Stuff going on, sorry.
But I did make a thing: fnorders.com. You’re welcome.
Review of LEGOLAND® Windsor Resort
This review of LEGOLAND® Windsor Resort originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.
Expensive, overcrowded even outside of peak times, and increasingly losing its character and charm to become “just another theme park”… yup, this is a Merlin Entertainments acquisition, all right. If you look carefully you might find some Lego, but I wouldn’t count on it.
So long as you’re wiling to tolerate this above, this theme park caters better than most to families with pre-teen children.
Data-hucksters beware: online privacy is returning
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Next year, 25 May looks like being a significant date. That’s because it’s the day that the European Union’s general data protection regulation (GDPR) comes into force. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it’s a date that is already keeping many corporate executives awake at night. And for those who are still sleeping soundly, perhaps it would be worth checking that their organisations are ready for what’s coming down the line.
First things first. Unlike much of the legislation that emerges from Brussels, the GDPR is a regulation rather than a directive. This means that it becomes law in all EU countries at the same time; a directive, in contrast, allows each country to decide how its requirements are to be incorporated in national laws…
This Tiny Country Feeds the World
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In a potato field near the Netherlands’ border with Belgium, Dutch farmer Jacob van den Borne is seated in the cabin of an immense harvester before an instrument panel worthy of the starship Enterprise.
From his perch 10 feet above the ground, he’s monitoring two drones—a driverless tractor roaming the fields and a quadcopter in the air—that provide detailed readings on soil chemistry, water content, nutrients, and growth, measuring the progress of every plant down to the individual potato. Van den Borne’s production numbers testify to the power of this “precision farming,” as it’s known. The global average yield of potatoes per acre is about nine tons. Van den Borne’s fields reliably produce more than 20.
That copious output is made all the more remarkable by the other side of the balance sheet: inputs. Almost two decades ago, the Dutch made a national commitment to sustainable agriculture under the rallying cry “Twice as much food using half as many resources.” Since 2000, van den Borne and many of his fellow farmers have reduced dependence on water for key crops by as much as 90 percent. They’ve almost completely eliminated the use of chemical pesticides on plants in greenhouses, and since 2009 Dutch poultry and livestock producers have cut their use of antibiotics by as much as 60 percent…
Tory Momentum clone Activate at war as ‘hackers’ back Jacob Rees-Mogg for PM | Politics | The Guardian
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It’s the grassroots political movement whose launch nobody could envy. Now, social media channels for Activate, the centre-right attempt to emulate Momentum’s youth appeal, appear to be at war with each other over backing for Jacob Rees-Mogg to be Britain’s next prime minister.
On Twitter, the @ActivateBritain account has tweeted a string of anti-Theresa May images and issued an “official statement” endorsing the MP for North East Somerset as the next Conservative leader…
You’ll Never Be as Radical as This 18th-Century Quaker Dwarf
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It was September 1738, and Benjamin Lay had walked 20 miles, subsisting on “acorns and peaches,” to reach the Quakers’ Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Beneath his overcoat he wore a military uniform and a sword — both anathema to Quaker teachings. He also carried a hollowed-out book with a secret compartment, into which he had tucked a tied-off animal bladder filled with bright red pokeberry juice.
When it was Lay’s turn to speak, he rose to address the Quakers, many of whom had grown rich and bought African slaves. He was a dwarf, barely four feet tall, but from his small body came a thunderous voice. God, he intoned, respects all people equally, be they rich or poor, man or woman, white or black.
Throwing his overcoat aside, he spoke his prophecy: “Thus shall God shed the blood of those persons who enslave their fellow creatures.” He raised the book above his head and plunged the sword through it. As the “blood” gushed down his arm, several members of the congregation swooned. He then splattered it on the heads and bodies of the slave keepers. His message was clear: Anyone who failed to heed his call must expect death — of body and soul.
Lay did not resist when his fellow Quakers threw him out of the building. He knew he would be disowned by his beloved community for his performance, but he had made his point. As long as Quakers owned slaves, he would use his body and his words to disrupt their hypocritical routines…
Scavenger Hunt
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Digest for August 2017
Summary
This month I shared Oh Joy Sex Toy’s love of OMGYes and on the failure of Manchester’s bike-share scheme. I didn’t produce any original content of note.
All posts
Posts marked by an asterisk (*) are referenced by the summary above.
Reposts
Review of IMO Car Wash
This review of IMO Car Wash originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.
Good value, so long as you buy what you want and don’t let your eyes start drifting up the board (“for only a pound more… for only another pound more…”). Sometimes long queues, ocassionally to the point where the nearby junction is impacted – avoid if there are more than two cars waiting to go in!
Review of El Mexicana
This review of El Mexicana originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.
Excellent food served promptly by friendly staff. The soft tacos and the sweet potato fries are particularly good. Licensed, so you can have a beer or an adult-slushie with your food, too.
Reward card scheme requires a mobile, which could be good if you like that kind of thing (Me? I’d prefer a bit of cardboard or plastic in my wallet any day!).
Review of
This review of originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.
Confusing duration options when parking. Pay machines were out of order, and telephone payment system kept reverting to assuming I was driving our other car and couldn’t be persuaded to remember the current one. Lots of spaces and a good location, but for the time being I’d rather park elsewhere and walk, or else just get a lift to the station!
Review of Oxford University Museum of Natural History
This review of Oxford University Museum of Natural History originally appeared on Google Maps. See more reviews by Dan.
Fantastic, engaging collections: especially great for children with lots of hands-on opportunities to talk about fur, feathers, teeth, and bones.