Pete's Odyssey - Comments

Hi.. just wanted to say great

In reply to Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach from Ogwen:

Hi.. just wanted to say great photos! I did this walk last spring and added Tryfyn on the end (knackering!) but didn't take half as many good photos let alone making a note of where they were taken! Thanks :-)

Great blog! It brought back

In reply to The Clwydian Hills:

Great blog! It brought back memories of doing this walk myself last May. Your photos are reallg good.

Absolutely great blog entry

In reply to Home brewed beer:

Absolutely great blog entry Pete! Makes me really want to try this myself!

Hi Tom. It really is easy,

In reply to Home brewed beer:

Hi Tom. It really is easy, yeah. I'm looking forward to learning more about it, and trying it without the malt extract cans. This free book seems to be a mine of information: http://www.howtobrew.com/intro.html

But he doesn't describe the malting process itself. From all I've read this is the really tricky part and easy to get wrong if it's allowed to cool too slowly or left roasting for five minutes too long or what have you. One guy on a forum somewhere did actually suggest using a brick built pizza oven though - so maybe you should give it a try in yours!

I wonder if trial and error is the way forward. It seems that you can also do your own malting for "speciality malts" and then add them to a more generic "base malt", which you might buy. This way you can have some control over the taste without risking the whole process. Let me know how you get on!

Nice one Pete, it really is

In reply to Home brewed beer:

Nice one Pete, it really is quite easy isn't it? I must dig out my kit soon and do my 'Yorkshire Bitter', then we can compare notes. I'd love to try malting the barley too - picked up any tips of where to dry it out when doing it at home?

Cool blog. I'm quite local

In reply to The Clwydian Hills:

Cool blog. I'm quite local and always wanted to camp on foel fenlli, might go look for that spot myself :)

Hi Jacko, Thanks for stopping

In reply to Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach from Ogwen:

Hi Jacko,

Thanks for stopping by. Firstly you should *definitely* have an OS map of the area and not set out without one. If you haven't already got one, then most shops around Snowdonia will sell them to you (usually for about 7-8 quid). Make sure you've checked out the route you want to take before you set off and tell someone else where you're planning to go.

A book that I've got a lot of ideas for routes from it the one by Poucher - it's also got loads of photos with the routes drawn on, so you can see where you're supposed to head next. I'd definitely recommend getting it - it's helped me a lot. Take a look here to get it on Amazon: http://is.gd/efGf7

Hope you enjoy the walk!

Pete.

hi there i am doing this

In reply to Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach from Ogwen:

hi there
i am doing this walk with 2 of my freinds and we are all 15
we calnt find the trail information anywhere can you help us ???

Great pictures we done the

In reply to Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach from Ogwen:

Great pictures we done the walk to include Y Garn, Glyder Fawr, Glyder Fach and Tryfan, great walk weather sadly was not at its best. Great Mountain Range.

Wow!! really Good!!! I will

In reply to Website update:

Wow!! really Good!!! I will be back soon!!!

I agree - housing would be a

In reply to Another Stirchley is Possible:

I agree - housing would be a much better option. What's atrocious is that it's just been allowed to sit there empty for so long and the council hasn't taken the initiative.

Something needs developing

In reply to Another Stirchley is Possible:

Something needs developing with the interest of the communit and quick, i have the undelightful outlook of the old BT yard everytime i step out my front door and it's appealing, i weren't in favour of Tesco's and even less happy about the co-op proposal but at the end of the day something is better than the tip that is there now!

I have never been asked my opinion as neither a few of my neighbours and if i ask i bet a lot haven't had a say to anyone yet we are the one's that look at it daily ?! Who are all these people with opinions about their high street and their local businesses being effected - where do you live? I say it should be used to build houses!

Salut tout le monde! C'est la

In reply to Another Stirchley is Possible:

Salut tout le monde! C'est la chance - le jour de l'ouverture de la Coupe du monde à trouver votre blog! Aujourd'hui, d'ailleurs, même la France et joue! Offre machine ? sous, je parie sur le won de la journée va faire. Et ne me dérange pas si je perds - facile et amusant pour l'obtenir)! Essayez-le!

I remember hearing about that

In reply to Why I couldn't vote Labour and became a liberal.:

I remember hearing about that speech very well indeed!

"the Labour government

In reply to Why I couldn't vote Labour and became a liberal.:

"the Labour government introduced tuition fees for university students and scrapped maintenance grants"

Piffle. As anyone present at Jackie Smith's presentation to my highschool knows, these are "repayable grants", not "loans".

New Labour: Introducing doublethink to a whole new generation.

This is typical of the

In reply to Digital Economy Act:

This is typical of the government, irrespective of its public face, labour, conservative, liberal.The fact of the matter is, there is an overriding PERMANENT government which acts as the final arbiter on bills brought before parliament. the fact of the matter is. this act,"the digital economy act"was passed because there were financial incentives to pass the act, just as happens with the renewal of tee BBC applications for n increment, or continuation of, the TV licence fee. somnolent to which we are all subject regardless of whether or not we watch BBC television.( unless we can by some stroke of luck persuade the friendly, insignificant looking enquiry officer that we do not , indeed posses TV receiving equipment.) let me sum up by offering my definitional of piracy which the entertainment industry has so flagrantly bastardised at the expense of its performing artists who have little or no say in what is done with their revenue until they are fortune rough to have bank acounts fatter than the record/cd producers.

Piracy by my definition is the taking by force, any ship, vehicle or other form of transportation on the high seas,and claiming ownership of said vehicle, and the contents therein.

file sharing is a co operative endeavour between the user, the provider and everything in between. how long will it be before it is an offence to play music while your friends are visiting?are we heading towards a situation where a piece of music, or film will only function for one listening or viewing session, one one piece of equipment never to be heard gain without a per session payment? . we are moving away from the concept of mutual trust to a situation where "trust". is a commodity to be given out at the discretion of major corporations and institution.

You are a genius!

In reply to Bike shelter project:

You are a genius!

A very well thought out blog

In reply to Why I couldn't vote Labour and became a liberal.:

A very well thought out blog post and I have to say I agree with much of what you've said, particularly relating to the erosion in civil liberties causing a shift in accountability. It also formed one of the reasons why I chose to vote for the Lib Dems as I don't think that there's any need at all for police to question me simply because I'm in my 20's & wearing a hoody whilst I wait for my partner at the train station. Nor do (did) I trust the government to adequately protect my confidential information held in it's databases given the number of times in the last 13 years that we've seen such data casually misplaced. Lots of food for thought on the subject of where the line falls on the liberty continuum and it'll be interesting to see if this becomes clearer under the new administration or not.

Well done, thanks for

In reply to Radio 4's Today programme and my voting dilemma:

Well done, thanks for sharing.

Interesting that you brits may have a two-party system on the brink to be a three-party system on your hands. Hope you make it, and I can understand your tactical considerations.

In Germany, everyone is scared of going from 4 to 5 (while 3 to 4 was done when the green party came into play in the 80s/90s). In the Netherlands, they are happily living in a 5 + x system, where often x > 3. Think Italy, but northern european. Very interesting. This guy explains eheverything: http://www.quirksmode.org/politics/ Of course, tactical considerations do not end in such a system - he (and a lot of dutch people) think a lot about all the possible coalitions and how to vote such that the best set of coalitions is favoured (putting on my Cognitive Science hat, that should result in smarter people in th long run :).

Good post. It seems we're

In reply to Radio 4's Today programme and my voting dilemma:

Good post. It seems we're long overdue for proportional representation in the UK. Smaller parties would at least have a chance that way.

It is a long-standing

In reply to Digital Economy Act:

It is a long-standing principle of English common law that ignorance is no excuse for non-compliance with a law. Thus, I believe that courts would reject any attempt to copyright laws, since any restrictions in their distribution may permit or strengthen defences based on ignorance. The state of Oregon tried to assert copyright on its statutes a couple of years ago (in order to raise money from sales of copies of laws), but I believe this attempt failed.

Wonderful fotos. I was going

In reply to Glyder Fawr and Glyder Fach from Ogwen:

Wonderful fotos. I was going to take my son up Tryfan this April but he went with school last week (adventure holiday) and used an ice axe and crampons. He's happy to go up again though! We gone up various mountains in Wales but I haven't explored the Glyders yet, I can't wait mind!

Delvine Estate - Lovely area

In reply to Wild camping in Scotland: The right to roam:

Delvine Estate - Lovely area just outside the village of Spittalfield in Perthshire on the road between Spittalfield and Meikleour. Contains Inchuthill - a large Roman Camp and is in a lovely curve of the River Tay.

Visited today - first time in about 40 years - I used to live on the estate. Unfortunatly met an individual - dont know his name - so I will call him Flunkey - who was deligerant and indicated that the Estate owner - David likes his privacy and that I was in his garden - at this time I was more than a mile from the house - Big garden. Anyway Flunkey also believed that the Estate had the right to make the law and he had what I can only explain as a strange interpretation of right to roam.

Flunkey clearly wants to keep this area private for David and the salmon fishermen on the Tay.

The area can be accessed by the Aird Farm Road near Lethendy or by the main drive just half a mile outside of Spittalfield. If you go enjoy but watch out for Flunkey!

Thanks for the links. It

In reply to "Protection":

Thanks for the links. It seems that the local copy of Firefox does indeed maintain a list of blocked sites, which is updated from Google every 30 minutes! So, I guess that allows them to track when your're running Firefox or not.

Also, Firefox will send information (including cookies) to Google every time you find a "bad" site.

Luckily it can be disabled in Edit -> Preferences -> Security.

The details are

In reply to "Protection":

The details are here:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Phishing_Protection:_Design_Documentation#Overview

and here:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/phishing-protection/

I use the clock throughout

In reply to Old Timer:

I use the clock throughout the day as I can see it from my desk and it's seemed reliable to me.They are working inside it though at the moment so I guess they needed to stop it temporarily. Here's a gratuitous link to a timelapse I took of it from my desk the other morning - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIpbE0zqiRs

Absolutely. I heard that

In reply to Old Timer:

Absolutely. I heard that people used to be able to go up there 15 years ago or so, but there were problems with suicides. I'd like it to be opened up again, or as Si says, at least given a webcam!

And Si, Joe Chamberlain wasn't Prime Minister, but arguably was more politically successful than his son, Neville, as he held a great deal of influence in the government around the turn of the 20th century - perhaps a bit of a Peter Mandelson figure! There's actually quite a good Wikipedia page about him.

You're completely right Pete.

In reply to Old Timer:

You're completely right Pete. Thoughout my university life I didn't wear a watch and this has continued into my professional life here - there's no need when I work close to the old master! It really does completely throw my day when its out though.

It would be fantastic to see Birmingham from the top wouldn't it. Like you Si I'd pay to go up there!

Maybe they are fixing the

In reply to Old Timer:

Maybe they are fixing the lift to allow trips to the top? I'd pay good moolah to survey Edgbaston from up there. A panoramic webcam would be a cheap and easy marketing device meanwhile.

Complimentry pendantry: have you mixed up Joe Chamberlain with his son, Neville?

Hi and thanks Anon for

In reply to Old Timer:

Hi and thanks Anon for letting us know!

I have to admit that like Pete Ashton, I hardly ever wear a watch any more, and every time I pull my phone out of my pocket to check the time - then realise that Old Joe is smiling down on me - I feel rather daft.

Let's hope it's all back to normal very soon.