Neutron News

Too Late...

2009-11-08T02:56:00.002+01:00

...you have all missed Carl Sagan Day! I have just left the chat room which was linked to the live stream from Broward College in southern Florida. I was the last one still standing in the chat room...another first!Carl Sagan is one of the very few people on my list of "people I would really like to meet/to have met" and the speakers made me even sadder at not being able to achieve this.The most

New (Old) Look

2009-10-20T08:23:00.007+02:00

I got a mail from my younger daughter last night about a website she had found:www.yearbookyourself.comYou have to upload a suitable picture of someone and then you can choose a "look" from decades gone by.This is how our Bid would have looked if she'd been a dedicated follower of fashion in 1960:She looks frighteningly like a couple of my old teachers from when I was in infant school!I was

Happy Birthday Atchoo

2009-10-17T19:27:00.002+02:00

Yes, it was my birthday yesterday and, yes, I managed to get some kind of cold/cough combination which meant that I spent the day (and the day before actually) coughing and sneezing in bed.At least this means that my diet has got off to a good start... I poisoned myself with alcohol last Sunday, poisoned myself with some strange beans on Monday and then came down with this lurgy on Wednesday.

Neutron Resurrectus Est

2009-10-12T07:25:00.004+02:00

There is only one good thing about having a hangover - there comes a time when you actually feel better. Correspondingly, having a really bad hangover means that your recovery is like getting over a serious illness. Having a catastrophic, supernova, brain-bursting hangover makes your recovery more like a resurrection - returning from the dark netherlands of the deceased.It all started as an

Don't Ring Us...

2009-10-07T15:52:00.002+02:00

Will you look at that! A newly discovered diaphanous ring of dust around Saturn.Full story at NASA

54 going on 22

2009-10-05T14:58:00.002+02:00

In the run up to my birthday next Friday (bleugh) a few disjointed remarks.We had visitors from Scotland last week - an old friend and her new boyfriend. We got to talking about age.. and he said in a wonderful Edinburgh brogue which I won't even attempt to spell phonetically, "I saw a t-shirt the other week. On it were the words I'm 18 with 36 years' life experience".That's exactly how it feels,

Liza23 and Big Bruvver

2009-09-23T21:44:00.005+02:00

My elder daughter plays bass in a band... and they have just won the Bavarian Music Lion Newcomer 2009 award!!Here they are:Liza23A Neutron as proud as a very proud thing.So we went to Berlin to take part in the awards. Great evening... red carpets, TV cameras everywhere, good food, good drink (FREE!!!) and good music.Then next day we did some sightseeing in Berlin. It's a marvellous city Berlin

My (well, Dawkins' actually) Latest Book

2009-09-05T12:27:00.001+02:00

I just have to find time to read it now...

It's Only 36 Pages...

2009-08-13T13:04:00.003+02:00

... but it's still my book!I couldn't resist getting a test copy from lulu.

Unbeerable

2009-07-23T22:46:00.004+02:00

For those of you waiting with that good old bated breath to find out what that frozen beer tasted like...I'm sorry to confess that it took quite a while to get round to trying it. I didn't want to try it without being sure of having a few other beers in just in case but then when I had a few beers in, I simply ignored the unfrozen half-opened experimental bottle.Anyway I tried it on Tuesday and

40 Years Ago...

2009-07-17T23:33:00.002+02:00

..I was watching every news programme, science update, etc, I could about the Apollo 11 mission which was well under way at this point.Take-off was yesterday 40 years ago...and the landing would be this Monday, 20th...although we were sat watching it at 3.00a.m. on the 21st in Liverpool.NASA has released pictures today from the LRO of 5 of the 6 landing sites here. It won't convince any of the

Tight-Fisted Auld Git..

2009-07-02T14:38:00.004+02:00

...is what you might call me, but I don't care!I was looking in the fridge for something to have for lunch...opened the freezer and found...this!!Yes, a bottle of Augustiner...frozen solid. Amazingly it hadn't cracked - but this is still a potential disaster. At the moment it is thawing in the kitchen and later I will simply have to try and drink it.This happened to me once before, many many

Body Clock Alarm

2009-05-17T09:22:00.002+02:00

It's 9.55 and according to a programme I saw the other day about the body clock, I have about 2 more hours to go before I am out of the heart attack danger zone.It seems that in the morning hours from waking till midday, first of all your blood vessels are less flexible than at other times, secondly you have more likelihood of fatty deposits building up inside them and, thirdly, as if that were

Odysseus Becalmed

2009-05-16T15:50:00.004+02:00

It has been rumoured, not without just cause, that, like Odysseus on his way home from Troy, I have been becalmed. And indeed, 'tis true!I have been drifting aimlessly in the bloggy doldrums, the sea gurgling idly around my soggy timbers and slapping gently against my bows, here in the midst of the Sea of Apathy.But now I sense the faint stirring of a breeze somewhere off over the horizon, the

Baaaaaaah, Humbug...

2009-03-27T22:04:00.001+01:00

...more of the wonders of Ewe-Tube...!

Off the Ale

2009-03-14T10:38:00.004+01:00

One of the clever functions of new religions is taking over the festivals and traditions of previous religions, adapting and adopting them and fitting them into the new system. The Romans did it with the Greek gods and goddesses and then took over the various divinities of the tribes they conquered and renamed the deities with Latin names. And then there's the intermingling of traditions and

How Could Anyone Go By Car...

2009-02-19T15:04:00.006+01:00

...when you could travel by the Munich branch ofSiberian public transport?It was minus 18°C this morning at 7.00 as I was on my way to teach and there was a razor breeze which slit open my cheeks and froze the contents of my paranasal sinuses along with most of the frontal lobes of my brain.Up there on the left you can see the u-bahn station, cold, depressing, concrete, functional... and turning

How Windows Make You Sad...

2009-01-14T07:19:00.007+01:00

I mean windows windows, not Windows windows. Everyone knows how Windows windows make you sad. And angry, and frustrated, and computer-cidal.Changing our window windows - 1934 original, beautifully designed, draughty, energy-profligate windows for brand new, 2009, double-glazed, energy-efficient but totally anonymous windows.3 steps:From this...to this...and finally this...Yes, I know the old

Chrissy Pud

2008-12-24T09:13:00.011+01:00

There will be seven of us at the table for Xmas Dinner this year and I went round everyone asking if it would be a terrible disaster if we didn't have a Chrissy pud just this once - this being due to the fact that I had cancelled my trip to Liverpool in November when I would have brought a pud back and not knowing where I could rustle one up in Deepest Bavaria. The reaction was more or less what

Run Down

2008-12-17T19:55:00.006+01:00

It's strange - every time I go to cross a road at the moment I have a curious feeling at the back of my mind that I am going to be run over. It doesn't matter what kind of road it is - wide or narrow, busy or deserted...Maybe I have just been on the road too long - the Diddly Tour 2008 came to an end last Sunday morning at about 06.30 when we got back from...somewhere. Over the last few weekends

Buzzy Anesti! Malista Anesti!*

2008-11-07T11:20:00.007+01:00

You may have noticed a certain silence on the Buzzy front recently since we broke down last September near Aachen... well...Buzzy has ARISEN!!This is where he has been recuperating this last year having had a motor transplant and exhaust pipe implant.But finally on Wednesday it was time for him to get back to work.One sort of 'drawback' about living in Deepest Bavaria is that the authorities

Birthday on Guy Fawkes' Day...

2008-11-05T19:56:00.002+01:00

...and so my mother said there would never be an excuse to forget her birthday!We will be drinking a gin&tonic (or 10) to her memory later on.

Book Mess

2008-10-26T08:12:00.004+01:00

I was at the Frankfurt Book Exhibition last week courtesy of Pearson Education Germany, one of my translation clients.In German it's called the Frankfurt Buchmesse (for the xenolinguistically-challenged among you: Buch = book and Messe = exhibition) which is why one of my more misguided English students described it to me as, ze biggest book mess in ze world!I remember thinking at the time, 'you

Fall Back

2008-10-26T07:55:00.003+01:00

Now that my computer remembers for me I don't have the problem with clocks going back or forward any more - well, I don't have a problem remembering but I do have a problem adjusting. It's amazing how for a couple of weeks after one of these 'equinoctial' clock changes everything seems to be earlier or later that it "should be".Maybe I rely on my inner clock more than most as I don't wear a watch

Off the Road Again

2008-10-14T14:25:00.007+02:00

Back from the latest section of our German Tour! This time it was the states North Rhine-Westphalia and Baden-Würtemburg, and more precisely the cities Siegen, Düsseldorf and Mannheim which were provided with doses of the diddlies.In brief:Siegen: ughDüsseldorf: wowMannheim: erm, ughLittle bit less brief:Siegen: reminded me of the centres of those English cities which were "redeveloped" in the

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2006-05-21T00:00:00-07:00

English is Easy! - BlogCharm

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2006-05-20T00:00:00-07:00

Greek Grand Canyon