More than 1,000 people have been killed in Pakistan by the worst flooding to hit the country.

Disease is the new threat after more than a million people hit by monsoon deluges in northwest of Pakistan.

The huge scale of damage from the Pakistan floods caused by a week of heavy monsoons is still being assessed, but officials say over a thousand are dead and tens of thousands more are stranded with a further two million affected in North West Pakistan.

Pakistan flood news video

Oxfam in Pakistan

Oxfam has been working with communities in Pakistan since the 1970′s and has supported more than forty emergency projects in the last 20 years. To assist the displaced people of the Swat Valley, Oxfam is working with trusted local partners to support those in most urgent need of assistance in the main camps and in communities.

Oxfam has begun an emergency aid effort for the victims of the worst flood in Pakistan for 35 years.

Donate to the Pakistan flood appeal

Worst flood in Pakistan for 35 years

Rescuers, aided by the military, are battling to bring supplies to people trapped in remote areas, while camps have been set up for those whose homes and businesses have been washed away or submerged by the floodwaters.

A westerly weather system sweeping in over Iran and Afgahnistan and the regional monsoon season combined to cause the worst downpour ever recorded in Pakistan.

The northwest of the country was hit hardest, with more than a million people affected by flash floods and mudslides.

Hundreds of people have drowned in the Peshawar valley, which includes the districts of Nowshera and Charsadda, and many others are still missing, according to a disaster management official.

More than 400 people were also killed by heavy flooding in the districts of Swat and Shangla.

Latifur Rehman, spokesman for the Provincial Disaster Management Authority, said: “Aerial monitoring is being conducted, and it has shown that whole villages have washed away, animals have drowned and grain storages have washed away.”

Officials warned that the death toll from the flooding could go even higher as rescue workers have been unable to access certain areas because of the severe floods.

There is the added risk of the water-borne diseases, such as cholera, spreading in the flooded communities.

More than 30,000 Pakistani army troops have rescued more than 19,000 people from the marooned areas but officials conceded some might still be trapped and awaiting help in remote areas including Kohistan, Nowshera, Dir and in the Swat valley.

Major-General Athar Abbas, an army spokesman, said: “The level of devastation is so widespread, so large, it is quite possible that in many areas there are damages, there are deaths which may not have been reported.”

Abbas added: “Virtually no bridge has been left in Swat. All major and minor bridges have gone, destroyed completely by the floods.”

The US embassy in Islamabad said it was assisting with the rescue efforts and pledged more than $10 million in immediate humanitarian aid.

Wine snobs get right up my nose but unfortunately “nose” has been previously spoke of by whine snobs.

Wine snobs are no fun, but neither are knuckle draggers who insist on complete wine ignorance.

Amateurs often end up tongue-tied, but I find many experts wind up being overly eloquent and/or exact about the wines they taste. Consider this excerpt description of a Chateauneuf du Pape wine that I received in a mailing from an online wine store:

“… this prodigious effort boasts an inky/blue/purple color to the rim in addition to an exceptional bouquet of camphor, roasted meats, blueberries, black cherries, black currants, truffles, beef blood, pepper, and incense….”

Solution for this non-existent dilemma of descibing wine (for some people):

Non Pretentious Wine Tasting

Be non-pretentious and simply state whether it smells good or not, tastes good or not, & if it reminds you of a certain flower or fruit. No need for verbosity or pompousness.

This works for me every time & if I am asked to nit-pick it even more I tell them I don’t care about the details. If I sit next to a wine snob who won’t stop talking, I tell them beer tastes better than wine any day….that will surely shut them up.

In an article in the Times recently a reader commented that during an Etihad flight to Australia they sat with a viticulturist who made the following observation following a trip to France and Italy.

The space on the back of a wine bottle is valuable real estate. Most european wineries ignore it or put drivel there.

The few wineries that have amusing or useful information help sway a sale (at least for me).

Let’s see now; the idiot shoe bomber got on an American international flight, and as a result, we all have to remove our shoes as part of security screening. Then, we had the would-be suicide bomber who was going to mix chemicals on board to create a bomb, and as a result we all must separate our lotions and potions, putting them in a separate Zip-lock bag of precisely one-quart size and with no item of more than 100ml. One of these days, a would-be terrorist is going to try the deed while wearing chemical-soaked clothing, so I guess we can expect to be required to strip to the buff for security screening.

But chances are we will never see an “underwear bomber”. It’s proven that you can’t pack enough explosives in even the most generous women’s underwear to bring down a jetliner anyway. So why should we be checking the genitals of millions of passengers, when they will just blow up the security line, the train, a bus, or something easier to do?

All that we will accomplish is to alienate the traveling public and put a few airlines out of business – Invasion of the Full-Body Scanners

If we today had the courage demonstrated by our forebearers, when we arrived at the scanning machine and took off our shoes, etc, we would just strip down to the buff, and walk through. Having thousands of travellers in the buff at multiple airports across the land would put an end to this insanity very quickly.

I can understand the vuvuzelas after a goal but when the crowd is blowing them through the whole game it is very annoying.

Lots of venues ban the compressed-air boat horns — what would be any different for these stupid trumpets? It’s a great illustration of the tragedy of the commons, where each person’s amusement from blowing the stupid thing makes it impossible for anyone to hear anything. At the very least, set aside a section of the stadium for mindless trumpeting!

Air horns have been banned from most sporting events and I understand some soccer hooligans were preemptively detained.

If FIFA can round up rowdies before they throw the first punch, I’m sure they can get rid of the mega-kazoos.

Related articles

• Vuvuzela horns invade England as World Cup 2010 kicks off (telegraph.co.uk)
• Getting Horny for World Cup 2010 (telegraph.co.uk)
• Soccer is like watching paint dry… (leftofsean.com)

Heard the one about the feed in tariff where the government are joining energy companies to offer payment for energy you generate from your own home using renewable sources?

Solar PV Panels

In sun blessed South Devon it is likely to be taken up by many home owners. Companies like Exeter based Sungift Solar Installers Devon are reporting a huge amount of interest and enquiries from householders from all over the region keen to generate and earn from fitting their own solar PV in Devon

Here’s a few observations that will hopefully help you to make a decision about whether this is feasible for you:

Solar power or Eolic power will never work as an add on to the national grid. You need a clean installation with adequate power input and accumulation combined with education in the use of your power capabilities. No lights left on. No utensils that use resistance: ie water heaters inc Washing machine hot wash. No extras that you don’t really need.

A good system with 6 top end pv panels, 1500 amps of wet accumulator storage, and a bit of education in saving power will run a normal 3 bed house including tellys and a halogen hob and oven. It’s all about learning.

Wind Vanes

Wind vanes are great as an overnight backup but you don’t need a huge two-blade machine. A small 5 amp 3-blade mill will boost your system enough to compensate for short winter days.

The value we get from the BBC  in return for our licence fee is incredible however sometimes they do themselves no favours

For example this article in the Times revealed that Alan Yentob, the creative director, defended his claim for a business class return flight between New York and London the that cost £3,300

His itinery was to arrive in New York, give a talk, watch some filming and get a return flight to the UK on the same day

A weak, creative but pathetic excuse. No one on a flight lasting less than 5 hours needs to fly business class but they can choose to pay the extra to upgrade themselves. On long-distance flights lasting more than 5 hours, and if there are meetings to attend, then business class might be allowed. But why not learn to be creative Mr Yentob and use video-conferencing to exchange views and ideas and ONLY fly somewhere if it is paramount.

Real creativity is the imaginative response to constraint.

What is striking about most modern television (not just the BBC) is how expensive it is while managing to be so lacking in imagination.

I would like to see at the end of every programme a breakdown of its costs – including the overheads resulting from Mr Y’s business class travel (where relevant).

Let us see whether we have really been given value for money.

Stop wasting our money, use video conferencing and send your juniors traveling who would be more than happy to undertake the project for a fraction of the cost.

Flowers

It’s amazing this country managed to survive into the 21st century at all. Reading this report in the Times:

In Kenya this weekend 400 tons of rotting flowers originally destined for Europe were being destroyed.

Quite frankly, who actually needs flowers from Africa, whose transport imposes a heavy carbon footprint?

Time to return to ‘home-grown’?

Are we running out of land at home on which to grow our own varieties of flowers, fruit and vegetables?

Chillies

Will mankind survive the trauma of a few days without sugar snap peas and Kenyan flowers?

“One supermarket executive said yesterday: “I wouldn’t fancy your chances of getting fresh chillies in the next couple of days.”

My goodness the world is coming to an end.

Birdsong

To console myself I’m going to sit in my garden, listen to the birdsong (which is usually drowned out by jet engines) and look up at the clear blue sky (which is usually white with vapour trails).

I was hoping to hear some birdsong today but they’ve been drowned out by the lawnmowers.

This incident does however show how fragile to UK ‘consumer society’ really is. We only produce 60% of the food we need and our manufacturing base is all but gone. Imagine the state we’d be in if something serious happened which curtailed imports for any length of time.

On the morning of Sunday the 29th March 1981, a cold drizzly day almost seven thousand people set off on the biggest road race Britain had ever seen.  It  took over the streets of  London from Greenwich to the Mall. The eventual winners American Dick Beardsley and Norwegian Inge Simonsen crossed the line fraternally hand in hand at 2 hours 11 minutes and 48 seconds.  Joy Smith from Great Britain was the first woman to cross the finishing line.

Marathon Distance

The distance run by marathon runners today is exactly almost the same as that run by the Greek messenger Phidippides who ran 26 miles to Athens from the battle of Marathon 2500 years ago to proclaim a Greek victory and then dropped dead from exhaustion.  Just 365 yards were added for the 1908 Olympics so the finish line would be at Buckingham Palace so Buckingham Palace could have a proper view of the ending and it still does – on the Mall.

Today’s London Marathon has grown into one of the great days in the sporting calender, highly organised, cleverly marketed and with over 30,000 runners the London Marathon is the biggest single one day charity event in the world and the largest fundraising event in the UK.

In 1881 6700 runners started and 5300 finished the race.

The marathon attracts both professional atheletes and fun runners to the capital and flights to London are usually fully booked from overseas competitors travelling to join the race.

The man that started it was already a British sporting hero, former olympic medalist Chris Brashire who had been the pacemaker for Roger Banister in his famous four minute mile.

The marathon’s co founder was another athelete the bronze medal winner in the 1952 olympic steeplechase John Disley.

They both wanted to capitalise on the popularity of the phenomenom of jogging and looked to America for inspiration and Chris took part in the 1979 newly created New York Marathon who was impressed that the giant city was transformed for one day into a place where everyone loved each other and thought well why don’t we try it in London?

Fun Ways of Fundraising

Putting the fun in fundraising the marathon we felt it kind to highlight this unsuccessful applicat to this years marathon, Bob, who on failing to get a place decided to look for sponsorship for NOT running the London Marathon

London Marathon Runner in Heart Costume

A recent article suggested that people who regularly spend time gardeing benifit from reduced stress and improved health.

While the lifestyle which includes gardening appears on the outside to be tranquil,  do not be fooled – there are many really depressing moments.

You spend hours preparing the soil and it it becomes a toilet for all the cats for miles.

You dilligently plant seeds which the moment your back is turned become breakfast for it appears all the birds ever created.

Some plants despite all arrive and are attacked by all manner of slimy things in existance closely followed by caterpillers.

For one day after weeks of backbreaking weeding you look at an order of Nature you have produced. Then comes the return of the cat toilet.

Harvest time can become the time of valium. After months of care and attention you pull up all manner of pests from under the soil in your veg with it not at all looking like the super market equivalent.

Gardening Rewards

However when you taste it all you know why you suffered so much and the valium bottle goes back in the cupboard where it has been for 10 years.

Of course a productive garden will reward you. If you concentrate on vegetables you can also get your ‘five a day’ for next to nothing all part of the healthy lifestyle instruction to lower blood pressure and reduce heart disease.

As a hobby it can be soothing as a semi commercial venture it is stress incorporated as the seasons and weather are the master. I doubt the statistics in relation to commercial producers who have the stress of selling at a profitable price as well.

Still having problems finding a nearby queue