Wellbanked

Join us for the North East Premiere of 'HAPPY' on World HAPPY Day

2012-01-11T19:38:00.002Z

Background

You may be aware that I’ve been working at happiest Limited since last June. I feel very fortunate to have learnt a great deal, and discover a treasure trove of resources around the practice of happiness. I.e. that one’s level of happiness and well-being is something that one can grown, through regular practice and habitual behaviour.

This post provides the context to a happiness-related event I’m involved in organising in Newcastle upon Tyne, and invites you to attend and bring your friends!

Happiness at Work event

I was thrilled to attend the recent Happiness at Work event, organised by Codeworks:

This month we’re taking a different approach to our Think and a Drink event with the topic of Positive Psychology and its effects in the workplace. We’ve got speakers and discussions and even a chance of taking part in some of the very first research studies on the subject with our friends at Northumbria University. Here’s a little taster of what you can expect.

Positive Psychology is a new branch of Psychology which focuses on enabling people to grow and fulfil themselves. Professor Martin Seligman, who is generally credited with igniting the interest in positive psychology when he was appointed President of the American Psychological Association in 1998, describes it as enabling people to ‘flourish’. A positive psychological state in which we feel positive emotions, engagement, achievement, positive relationships and a sense of meaning in our lives.

Research also demonstrates that a positive psychological state seems to protect against illness and prolong longevity. It also enhances resilience, very important given the challenging and unpredictable economic climate we are experiencing.

At that event, the seeds of local action were sown, so please read on for details of the event in February.

We’re showing a movie, and you’re invited!

We’re showing a movie on 11th February in Newcastle upon Tyne. Once in the afternoon, and for the second time in the evening. Please use these links to book online.

The following is the descriptive blurb:

Happy People = Happy World

On World HAPPY Day, February 11, 2012, thousands of people will join together in communities across the globe to watch the film HAPPY and begin their journeys toward healthier, and happier lives. We want everyone in the North East and Cumbria to be part of this amazing, worldwide event so we are screening the film twice, at 2.00pm and 6.30pm, at The Centre for Life in Newcastle.

World HAPPY Day inspires action for increasing happiness in our own lives and in the world. Research suggests that happy people are healthier and live longer, they are more likely to care for the environment and less likely to commit crimes or go to war. Happy people help others more often and are more optimistic and creative. Increasing happiness benefits us as individuals and communities in infinite ways – it is a goal worth sharing.

Roko Belic, director of the Academy Award® nominated “Genghis Blues” now brings us HAPPY, a film that takes us from the bayous of Louisiana to the deserts of Namibia, from the beaches of Brazil to the villages of Okinawa to explore the secrets behind our most valued emotion.

Screening Programme

Afternoon

2.00pm ‘Happy Networking’ – an opportunity to relax over a drink, catch up with friends and meet lots of new, like minded people

3.00pm ‘HAPPY’ – be one of the first in the North to experience the inspiring new film by Roko Belic

4.30pm ‘Happy talk’ – share your feelings about the film, learn more about the psychology and growth of happiness and find out more about forthcoming Happiness events, including the foundation of a Happiness group in the region.

5.30pm Event draws to a close

« Click here to book the matinee »

Evening

6.30pm ‘Happy Networking’ – an opportunity to relax over a drink, catch up with friends and meet lots of new, like minded people

7.30pm ‘HAPPY’ – be one of the first in the North to experience the inspiring new film by Roko Belic

9.00pm ‘Happy talk’ – share your feelings about the film, learn more about the psychology and growth of happiness and find out more about forthcoming Happiness events, including the foundation of a Happiness group in the region.

10.00pm Event draws to a close

« Click here to book the evening showing »

The Film

Happy - A Documentary Trailer from Wadi Rum Films on Vimeo.

For more information about ‘HAPPY’ go to - http://www.thehappymovie.com

How you can get involved

Please come and join us – the links again: afternoon and evening. Come to both if you like ;-). Key activities:

share your feelings about the film,
learn more about the psychology and growth of happiness and
find out more about forthcoming Happiness events, including the foundation of a Happiness group in the region.

#Movember monkey's tail update, & ‘Mo Down’ - please donate!

2011-12-05T15:18:00.000Z

Context

Previous posts (Movember: please help raise money to combat men’s cancers & Movember Shave-down) have explained how I am raising money to combat, and raise awareness about, men’s cancers such as prostate and testicular ones.
This post is to bring everyone bang up to date, and sign off by encouraging you to keep giving using this link please!

Becoming Jimmy Hill

Those of you with strong constitutions may wish to check out my scary Dr Who-like regeneration into Jimmy Hill below.
There are three sets of photos in this Flickr slideshow – basically the two last weekends in November, and in fact the final shots are before and after the epic trim yesterday. I hadn’t realise quite how long the Movember monkey’s tail had become!
Apologies due to Jimmy – I’ve always thought actually he’s a really decent bloke (as his Wikipedia profile attests) :-)

Lady Greys bar Mo Down

To finish off the Movember movement in style, us Lady Grey’s bar team members gathered for a drink this past Wednesday. At the bottom of this post, you should find a widget with the results.
Not particularly wanting to see myself without my normal facial hair, I gave myself a two week run-up without trimming my beard, so that I’d have something to talk about from the off! I’d actually opted out of the competition because I chose to start not clean-shaven…
Highlights from these photos include Cameron, who reminded me of Ron Mael from Sparks, but I think that’s probably wrong (although any suggestions gratefully received!). Also, Peter – who had to have his fluff enhanced with mascara [not sure where that came from…!].
To cap it all, there’s James with the wrap-around ‘tache, with a roundel at the back reminding me of that geezer with the thing on his forehead, from Stargate SG-1.
At the time of writing, our team has raised £458, so I’m hoping to boost this through further donations! Thank you :-D

Movember Shave-down

2011-11-04T09:12:00.000Z

Intro

As per my previous post, I promised to report in. You can skip the blurb and go straight to the photos if you’d like…

What it is

Shave-down

From the Lady Grey's Bar website:

SHAVE DOWN PARTY: 31st of October – 7.00pm

Hosted by our Mo Bro’s at The Boiler House Barbers, Jesmond, this party marks the start of Movember. Every member of our team can get a free shave from a team of professional barbers and once everyone is clean shaven we’ll be taking photos to capture the ‘before’ shot and you can meet your fellow Lady Greys Mo Bro’s.

Mo Sista’s are encouraged to come and we’ll have lots of Movember Merchandise for you to wear proudly to show your support for the cause. You can also sign up to the team on the night so bring as many Bro’s as you can find, the mo’ the merrier.

How I plan to raise more £££ :-D

Ok, so I realise I’m going off-piste with this, and big thanks to Nathan of LGB for his willingness to go along with my idea. I’ve been growing my normal stubble into a rather itchy mass. The plan is to go to the Boiler House and have them craft something evil on my face – i.e. I figure I’ll raise more money my wearing something amusing for the whole month!

What happened

The folk at the Boiler House were very helpful when I agreed with Nathan that I would opt out of the competition, and forego any potential end-of-Movember prizes.

The goal

Inspired by Phil Wright and his “are you looking at my monkey’s tail” look – I have set out to recreate the splendour as best I can.

Lori and the clippers

I was fortunate that Lori (featured in the 3 photos towards the end of the slideshow below) choose to use me as a guinea-pig. Apparently, her rugby-player boyfriend was also thinking of having a monkey’s tail, so she was inspired. And charming, bless her!

Flickr photos

Although the smartphone images are pretty blurry, I hope you’ll get an impression of the event. The Boiler House has fantastic decor, and I did get slightly carried away with the snapping…! :$

Please Donate

I would be very grateful if you could please sponsor me – click on the images on this post, or on this link. I’ve led by example :-)

My profile is http://mobro.co/justingsouter – the donate button is at the top right.

Many thanks! It’s for a tremendous cause :-D

Movember: please help raise money to combat men’s cancers

2011-10-31T08:56:00.000Z

Intro

Pretty much a 'Ronseal' post - does what it says in the title!
This post gives you some of the background to Movember, explains how things work (and my twist on the theme), and then encourages you to donate your hard-earned cash to a very worthy cause. Vamos!

The Details

About

From the Movember website:

ABOUT THE CAMPAIGN
During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces in the UK and around the world. The aim of which is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and other cancers that affect men.

On Movember 1st, guys register at Movember.com with a clean-shaven face and then for the rest of the month, these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Supported by the women in their lives, Mo Sistas, Movember Mo Bros raise funds by seeking out sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.
Mo Bros effectively become walking, talking billboards for the 30 days of November and through their actions and words raise awareness by prompting private and public conversation around the often ignored issue of men’s health.
At the end of the month, Mo Bros and Mo Sistas celebrate their gallantry and valor by either throwing their own Movember party or attending one of the infamous Gala Partés held around the world by Movember, for Movember.

Docs for more info

Fill your metaphorical boots with the docs presented in the widget at the bottom of this post.

How it’s going to work

Team

I have signed up and joined the team from Lady Grey’s bar. More information about us on the Movember website - please join us. Thanks to Michael Walsh who I bumped into when he was distributing promo flyers – and I became aware of the team :-)
I thought it’d be more fun and hopefully I can raise more money as a result of doing this other people :-)

Shave-down

From the LGB website:

SHAVE DOWN PARTY: 31st of October – 7.00pm
Hosted by our Mo Bro’s at The Boiler House Barbers, Jesmond, this party marks the start of Movember. Every member of our team can get a free shave from a team of professional barbers and once everyone is clean shaven we’ll be taking photos to capture the ‘before’ shot and you can meet your fellow Lady Greys Mo Bro’s.
Mo Sista’s are encouraged to come and we’ll have lots of Movember Merchandise for you to wear proudly to show your support for the cause. You can also sign up to the team on the night so bring as many Bro’s as you can find, the mo’ the merrier.

How I plan to raise more £££ :-D

Please Donate

I would be very grateful if you could please sponsor me – click on the images on this post, or on this link. I’ve led by example :-)
My profile is http://mobro.co/justingsouter – the donate button is at the top right.
Many thanks! It’s for a tremendous cause :-D

Docs

Movember docs if you’d like further details!

UPDATED: to get the Scribd widget to work [fingers crossed!]

NLP Practitioner – first impressions

2010-11-26T10:51:00.000Z

Introduction

I’m putting this post together after completing the ‘Practitioner’ course of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), which finished on Monday.

[I’ve made extensive use of links to NLP-related articles on Wikipedia – which has a suite of pages addressing the gamut of issues in this area.]

Preconceptions

I must admit that I’m pretty sceptical of people who profess to turn your life around like Tony Bobbins (ok, so it’s a spoof), and I’m not really a big fan of TV hypnotists and Vic Reeves-style “I Will Cure You” stuff.

Loose impressions I’d picked up about NLP included such tropes as ‘vulcan mind control’ and something to do with the Dark Side. ;-D

My background

Perhaps this is all a bit of an amorphous mass of my own preconceptions, but I’m a psychology graduate, and have an interest in self-improvement and have read up about skills like Emotional Intelligence and assertiveness (amongst others).

The course itself

You should be able to find more information about the course from this link, but essentially it was about providing a practical introduction to skills that attendees could use for improving self-awareness and communication with other people.

Tutor and assistants

The course was run by Kay Cooke of The ME Group in Hexham, Northumberland. Kay is an accredited NLP Trainer, and was assisted by presence of a revolving team of Master Practitioners (i.e. people trained with skills to assist other people [my typology]).

Structure

The course comprised two 4-day clusters, run from Friday morning through to Monday night (i.e. over the weekend). Hours were 9.30 until 4.30-5 o’clock.

At times it was quite full-on, and was pretty much a synthesis of best practice tools and techniques for communication (e.g. “Deep structure and surface structure” from Noam Chomsky). There was a combination of theoretical learning, and practical exercises (e.g. visualisation) both with Kay and between other members of the group.

The Group

It was a small group of 5, with 3 men and 2 women. Ages ranged from late teenager to middle-age {I think I can get away with that! ;-)}.

I think the small group worked well – there is a lot of material to cover, and a larger group might well be more difficult for the trainer to optimally instruct.

Impressions

My over-arching feeling was that Kay draws upon a deep well of learning, training and personal insight to deliver a (potentially) tricky subject very adeptly. She made it look ‘simple’ when that’s definitely not the case.

When I questioned her about the wider context that NLP sits in (i.e. how we all live, in our different ways) she posited that NLP material is ‘simple’, and in many ways I would agree with her. However, NLP material definitely challenges many implicit and unconscious assumptions we all make about living.

What’s working for you, what would you like to change?

Kay made clear that the NLP framework is just that – a framework. If you’ve got things in your life which are going well, great: but if you’ve got stuff you’d like to work on, then NLP might be able to help.

There was also an ongoing discussion about process versus content: in that what I might call ‘traditional’ / ‘talking’ therapies, the therapist and client talk through issues; whereas NLP typically keeps content out of the interaction and seeks to come to a different perception of issues and events, in order to influence how the client’s subconscious is dealing with them.

Importance of ethical dimension

One of the things I struggled with at first was how one might be able to use powerful tools and techniques in such a way which was responsible and ethical. The penny dropped during the second 4-day cluster, in that:
a) I was only training for the Practitioner level, so interventions with other people were probably beyond my skill level, and
b) the ethical context was using NLP is / was absolutely crucial

I think this boils down to only ‘helping’ people if they ask to be helped, and—even then—closely observing the person to ensure any assistance was appropriate and that the flow of any intervention closely matched the situation. If you take someone on a ‘journey’, you’ve got to be able to bring them back, as it were…

Conclusions

Why the controversy?

The two founders of the NLP movement had a falling-out, and in compiling this post, I became aware of the extensive controversy surrounding NLP (e.g. vis-a-vis science).

Kay’s training is validated by The Society of NLP (logo to the right).

Whilst I understand that people often have very good reasons to get heated about things, personally I found the material pretty insightful and resonating (although not sure what that says about me! ;-D).

Part of the toolkit

Viewed in the context of many other ways of seeing the world, I felt it was an entirely legitimate subject area, and useful addition to the canon of self-improvement activity.

‘Everything in moderation’ is a useful dictum, and I personally gained some useful insights and elements of new self-awareness. What’s so bad about that? I’m still waiting to learn the vulcan mind control techniques <sigh>.

So, a summary of my first impressions. Doubtless there will be others, and I will do my best to post them here. :-)

Combat Stress – caring for Veterans' mental health

2010-08-05T18:54:00.001+01:00

Introduction

For my undergraduate degree, I studied Psychology, and fascinating it was – it’s related to the human condition, but both the physical and metaphysical perspectives [well, something like that – Ed.].

I was also a member of the URNU, the University Royal Naval Unit, and loved that as well. A little bit of background (i.e. a related post) can be found here.

Based on a gut instinct that our servicemen and women could be treated more respectfully and looked after better, I’ve recently donated to Help for Heroes. Based on my background though, I’ve got a closer affinity to Combat Stress, and this post is designed to help you understand why.

I realise that there are a number of quotes from the Combat Stress website, but I’m guessing you’ll bear with it…!

About Combat Stress

Why Combat Stress exists

Combat Stress is the UK's leading military charity specialising in the care of Veterans' mental health.

We treat conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression and anxiety disorders. Our services are free of charge to the Veteran.

Since 2005 the number of ex-Service men and women seeking our help has risen by 72%. And we have a current caseload of more than 4,300 individuals. This already includes 102 Veterans who have served in Afghanistan and 400 who served in Iraq.

In March 2010 our Patron HRH The Prince of Wales launched our major fundraising campaign – The Enemy Within Appeal.

The £30 million, three-year appeal is designed to help us treat the escalating number of psychologically injured Veterans who are turning to us for help, by:

Establishing 14 Community Outreach Teams nationwide

Enhancing clinical treatment at our three short-stay treatment centres

If you need help yourself

This link has the map referred to below in the following quote:

Combat Stress provides effective treatment and support to Veterans of the British Armed Forces who are suffering from mental ill health.

If you or perhaps someone in your family has a problem, then please call us for an informal chat.

Our services are free of charge and regardless of War Pension/Armed Forces Compensation Scheme status.

We have people in your area ready to take your call –8.30 am to 4.30 pm, Monday to Friday. Simply click on your region in the map ~~[below]~~ for contact details of your local Support Desk.

Veterans do not have to have seen active service in order to qualify for our help – but if you are in any doubt, just ask us.

Some facts re the Falklands War

At a recent Combat Stresss fund-raiser that I attended, Lieut-General Robin Brims addressed us, and mentioned the problems that service personnel faced returning home after fighting in the Falklands War.

I don’t really have time to substantiate the following quote which I believe backs him up, but it’s from here and quotes Guardian and Observer sources:

Since the war, hundreds of veterans, both Argentinian and British, have committed suicide. Numbers of suicides are not recorded by the MoD, but the South Atlantic Medal Association claimed in 2002 that more British ex-servicemen from the Falklands have killed themselves since the 1982 conflict than died in action: 264 they estimated (300 is more recently quoted).

An example is Lance Corporal Colin Deary who lost three friends in the Falklands, was discharged from the army eight years later with drink problems, and in 1994 stabbed himself to death. Similar reports have been made about the Argentinian troops.

[…]

As in all wars but still not adequately recognised by the military establishment, the servicemen and women suffer to varying degrees from post traumatic stress disorder. Many soldiers found it hard to return to normal life, ended up getting into trouble and committing crimes.

Simon Skinner suffered flashbacks and stumbled from one crisis to another attempting suicide on several occasions, becoming an alcoholic and getting into debt, and finally in 1995 having his final flashback. ‘He got out of bed, stood to attention, marched out of the room as if in a trance and, stumbling, fell down the stairs. He died five days later.’

Video highlighting the issue

The Enemy Within Appeal

Caution: this advert features a simulated flashback some viewers may find disturbing.

On 11 March 2010, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, launched the Combat Stress Enemy Within Appeal at St. James's Palace.

This accompanying advert highlights the emotional
impact of PTSD on the lives of Veterans and their families.

The key aims of The Enemy Within Appeal are to:

Raise £30 million to enhance and develop mental health services for Veterans.

Raise awareness of the plight of Veterans suffering from psychological injury.

Encourage Veterans and their families to seek help earlier.

Please help us in any way you can.

N.B. You can now follow us on:

Enemy within appeal leaflet

This gives info on the appeal mentioned above – probably best viewed in Fullscreen mode…

The Enemy Within appeal leaflet

Wash up

Hopefully you get the general idea. I’m expecting to do another Byte Night sleep-out in the Autumn, but plan to devote any future fund-raising activities to help this cause. I hope you can support me. :-)

Crowdsourcing Mycological Response Teams to help with the Gulf #oilspill?

2010-08-04T21:43:00.001+01:00

Introduction

In my previous post on this subject, I recapped my personal take on the overall situation.

Having drafted this posted a couple of days ago, I now learn that:

Almost three-quarters of the oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico has been cleaned up or broken down by natural forces, the US government has said.

A government report says only a quarter of the oil from the BP well remains and that it is "degrading quickly".

The majority had been captured, burned off or evaporated, it states. But more clean-up is necessary officials warn.

The report was released after BP announced its "static kill" procedure to seal the leak was working.

So I thought I’d better post in case something else major happened. Doh!

Challenges

I’m guessing that despite the good news re the oilspill, that there will remain a challenge to clean up that oil which hit the Gulf coast.

Having pinged an e-mail to Paul Stamets’ team, their response pointed me to a page with the following quote:

The Petroleum Problem

Thank you for visiting fungi.com, and for your interest in the BP oil spill disaster and the potential for mycoremediation.

We are being inundated with requests and cannot individually address all of the questions we have received. We are in direct dialogue with the EPA at the highest levels, and are teaming to implement solutions to this huge disaster. Since we are such a small company, we are stretched to our limits. Your support allows us to dedicate as many of our resources as possible, and for this we thank you. Again, please accept our apologies if we cannot individually address your concerns. Our statement at below will be updated periodically as we gather more information.

[my hyperlink for mycoremediation btw]

I am assuming that Paul Stamets and his team are the primary resource in this domain – i.e. to use fungi to break down pollutants in an ‘eco-friendly’ way. What seems clear is that there are problems with scaling, getting the idea to a wider audience and gaining a following & critical mass.

The article continues:

How can we help?

Knowing that the extent of this disaster eclipses our mycological resources should not be a reason to not act.

I proposed in 1994 that we have Mycological Response Teams (MRTs) in place to react to catastrophic events, from hurricanes to oil spills. We need to preposition composting and mycoremediation centers adjacent to population centers. We should set MRTs into motion, centralized in communities, which are actively involved in recycling, composting and permaculture—utilizing debris from natural or man-made calamities to generate enzymes and rebuild healthy local soils.

I see the urgent need to set up webinar-like, Internet-based modules of education to disseminate methods for mycoremediation training so people throughout the world can benefit from the knowledge we have gained through the past decade of research. Such hubs of learning could cross-educate others and build a body of knowledge that would be further perfected over time, benefiting from the successes and failures of those in different bioregions. The cumulative knowledge gained from a centralized data hub could emerge as a robust yet flexible platform that could help generations to come. Scientists, policy makers, and citizens would be empowered with practical mycoremediation tools for addressing environmental disasters.

Going social

My argument here is that a social approach, akin to the PeopleFinder wiki created in response to Hurricane Katrina, might help MRTs self-organise and conduct operations under a loose ‘umbrella’.

A similar tool might already have been implemented by Deepwater Horizon Response website – but apologies – I’ve not had time to check it out (or the follow-up site RestoreTheGulf.gov).

Tooling

I’m going to kick speculation about what tools to use into touch for now, as my priority is to post – and update this or post separately as appropriate. However, potential requirements could be:

Repository of successful mycoremediation techniques
Communications tools
Team-based areas where teams can get themselves sorted and manage their activities
Connections with mainstream social media tools

Staci Stoller

I wanted to tip my (Stetson hat) to Staci Stoller, a former colleague of mine in London, who has offered to help in getting the message out in Texas. Thanks, Stace! :-)

The Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X CHALLENGE?

I saw an item on the BBC news site, which took me through to the main page on this, which explained thus:

It is a $1.4 Million competition designed to inspire a new generation of innovative solutions that will speed the pace of cleaning up seawater surface oil resulting from spillage from ocean platforms, tankers, and other sources.

This X CHALLENGE, announced on July 29, 2010, is a one-year competition that begins on August 1, 2010 and culminates in the summer of 2011, with head-to-head competitive demonstrations taking place at the National Oil Spill Response Research & Renewable Energy Test Facility (OHMSETT) in Leonardo, New Jersey, USA (www.ohmsett.com).

A $1 Million Prize will be awarded to the team that demonstrates the ability to recover oil on the sea surface at the highest oil recovery rate (ORR) and the highest Recovery Efficiency (RE).

So, my initial excitement about something fungi-related winning the prize was tempered by the focus on “cleaning up seawater surface oil”. However, on the ‘competition details’ page I also noticed:

X PRIZE will be finalizing the details over the next 30 days, and will post final rules in September. We encourage you to PRE_REGISTER as a team and we will keep you informed of any changes and when the detailed rules are posted.

So maybe the scope of the compo could be widened to include prizes for on-shore cleanup efforts?

Paul Stamets @ TED on fungi; also re how they can help clean up Gulf oil spill

2010-05-19T18:55:00.001+01:00

Introduction

I first discovered Paul Stamets when reading this article on my Palm III via AvantGo (a forerunner of RSS) – waaay back in 2002.

I was particularly struck by the effect of fungi in cleaning up soil contaminated with diesel – as told in this Wikipedia article about Mycoremediation.

Eventually, as per this previous post – I bought some wooden dowels, innoculated by fungi from Paul’s company, and set up a large log with them in. Rather embarrassingly, I never moved the stump from one house when Caroline and I moved – it got left my the wayside as it was too heavy / I was too embarrassed to ask the movers… :$

I also bought a copy of Paul’s book Mycelium Running: A Guide to Healing the Planet through Gardening with Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms but that’s also still on the to-do pile. Ho hum!

Rediscovering Mr Stamets

*Anyway*, I was reading The Whuffie Factor: Using the Power of Social Networks to Build Your Business by Tara Hunt last week, and she mentioned being introduced to Paul when she was at TED. So I googled Paul’s talk and found it – see below (I think he really nailed it, although there was a cheesy joke at the beginning lol).

The citation from the TED website reads:

Entrepreneurial mycologist Paul Stamets seeks to rescue the study of mushrooms from forest gourmets and psychedelic warlords. The focus of Stamets' research is the Northwest's native fungal genome, mycelium, but along the way he has filed 22 patents for mushroom-related technologies, including pesticidal fungi that trick insects into eating them, and mushrooms that can break down the neurotoxins used in nerve gas.

Video

He’s obviously a rocket scientist, but what he says is compelling!

Paul Stamets’ statement on Mycoremediation and its applications to oil spills

So, having found Paul’s talk, it got me thinking that his expertise might be helpful in mitigating the effects of the Gulf oil spill. I then got in touch with his company, and they forwarded the statement below:

Paul Stamets statement on Gulf oil spill

What Paul is saying is that fungi could provide a natural remedy to break down the oil and mitigate its long-term effects, but there would need to be an army of people on the ground to make it work in practice…

I think most people would put this in the “it’s so crazy, it just might work” category – but I’m putting this out there in the hope that it might get some legs. In fact, I might well send the link to the Deepwater Horizon team…

Thoughts?

Cheaper than a 4x4

2010-05-03T09:31:00.001+01:00

This is a fairly unvarnished paean of praise for the winter tyres I have for my VW MkIV Golf.

Introduction

I bought a set of Michelin Alpins from CostCo in November 2006: Caroline and I had just moved out into the country from coastal North Shields, and I figured that if the weather turned nasty, winter tyres would be just the job to get around.

As it happened, the winter of 2006-07 turned out to be one of the warmest in recent times, which made the £220 I had shelled out for the four (including fitting) seem slightly vain. I had bought them from the local CostCo in Gateshead, who swapped them on to my existing rims, and I thought the deal was a pretty good one.

Bog-standard

I should say that my Golf has very bog-standard steel wheels, hidden by plastic wheel trims - see photos below. The car had come from new with a set of Dunlops, and the one immediate thing I noticed was the the car became a better one when it had the Michelins on, so I decided to buy a set of 'normal' Michelins for the summer months as the front two Dunlops had worn out.

The winter tyres had been re-assuring in heavy rain, and in the light snow we’d had, they seemed pretty adept.

Coming into their own

However, snow and bad weather in early 2009, and the wintry conditions we've just been through have shown just what a massive difference winter tyres make to even a front-wheeled car like mine, let alone a rear-wheeled Beemer or Merc.

In fresh snow, settled snow and melting snow they have found grip and further re-assurance. In ice, they've been grippy and effective. The only thing I've had to do is learn a new driving style - rather in the mould of rally drivers, where you have to over-steer and wait for the back end to slide round corners...!

They've definitely saved me from sliding off the road, and allowed me to drive around Northumberland in the period where I was moving house - a priceless benefit.

Winter tyres for everyone!

I realise that, even if we we're in a recession, finding spare cash to shell out for a set of 4 winter tyres would definitely not be at the top of most people's priority list.

However, IMHO serious consideration of such a move might help free the British populace from (what seems to be) a rather passive attitude towards road conditions and the consequent blaming of the 'Authorities' for not doing more to make roads passable. More background information here about Holland and Germany deal with adverse conditions.

One thing that has been great has been the service of the local farmers contracted by the Council to keep our country lanes clear - excellent work!

I can still recalled being flashed by a motorist when I was driving down the outside lane of a local dual carriageway – which, granted, was not in a particularly good shape. I got the distinct impression they thought I was a nutter [not difficult!], but the possibility I was shod with winter tyres probably never crossed that driver’s mind. <sigh>

Wash up

Ok, so what I’m advocating is that during the summer months, many of you might want to consider ordering some winter tyres, so that you’re ready for the inclement weather.

In terms of cost, instead of putting them on your low profile alloy rims, mebbes you can get a set of cheapo steel wheels, and thereby save mega bucks versus the low profile versions. Especially recommended for rear-wheel drive cars IMO.

I pop into CostCo in early November to prep for the winter, and get the ‘normals’ put back on in late March, early April. I respectfully propose you do the same! Feedback gratefully received below. ;-D

Kielder bike demo day

2010-03-12T13:08:00.004Z

Post about recent day up at Kielder Forest – more details of this series in general is here. Drafted 07 March 2010.

Intro

It is with achy limbs and a weary body that I put together this post, to record my satisfying day up at Kielder Forest testing mountain bikes.

We are extremely lucky in the North East of England, and also the South of Scotland, in that mountain bikers are catered for in Forestry Commission woodland that covers swathes of our part of the UK.

In a series of forests from Dumfrieshire to East Lothian, the Seven Stanes MTB centres provide what's effectively a rollercoaster for pedallers - you hop on your steed, twiddle in the lower gears to the top of a hill through fir trees galore, and then launch yourself back down the hill to generate as much adrenaline as possible, and thereby a grin The Joker himself would be proud of.

Kielder Forest

I dare say Kielder is best known for its reservoir, built near the head of the River North Tyne to provide for Tees-, Tyne-, and Wear-side, and the now defunct steelworks at Consett I believe.

The natural splendour is complemented by the beauty of having a focus for outdoor activities, and a (mostly) decent road to get there.

Our local business development and tourist authorities have seen fit to provide for a developing centre for mountain biking in the North East, to complement venues such as Hamsterley Forest and Chopwell Woods [I'm sure there are others].

You may recall other posts I have written about being up in this remote but striking part of the County, and so it was with glee that I discovered mountain biking's roadshow was going to hit ~~Town~~ Kielder village. ;-)

Bike Demo Day Series 2010

I am lucky enough to have been given a subscription to What Mountain Bike? for the last 4 or 5 years.

I therefore knew about this event as What MTB? were the organisers. The bikes I booked myself to ride today:

Giant Genius 50
Lynskey LT
Norco Shore

I was also hoping to have a ride of a Lapierre Zesty 314 or similar, but they were all booked out all day – Hotlines being a happy distributor!

So what actually happened was:

I rode a Scott Spark 20, and managed to put myself on the deck after getting over-excited on a downhill stretch (happily my body armour came in handy)
Rode the Lynskey - which was great, but I've already got a hardtail. It had really wide handlebars, which I ended up quite liking :-)
The Shore turned out to be a bike for going downhill very fast indeed, but it was not designed for the riding I do, so I quickly took it back and rode a Norco 6.1 instead – much better!
Went back to the nice people at Scott (aka Arnie) and rode a Genius 20 – tremendous! Genius has

A carbon frame – great for chucking around the singletrack
It was an extra large though (food for thought)
Arnie reckoned the reason the back-end kicked out a few times was probably down to tyre selection
I loved the 6” travel, but there’s a great gizmo on the handlebars to selectively lock out fork / shock / both
I liked being able to dial down the front fork for going uphill
A bar-controlled adjustable seatpost would complete the picture, but it’d be a pretty expensive one! :’(

I managed to leave my driver’s licence with the registration desk so big shout to Future Publications for sending it back, and am thrilled that a) someone turned my digi camera into Purple Mountain, and b) they’ve sent it back – tremendous effort & much kudos to them.

Photos

Feedback

Quick thoughts:

Tremendous to have the mountain bike brands come to Northumberland – real feather in the cap of folks like Kielder Train Reavers
Folk had come from round about and also from afar – i.e. 2 hours away.
The weather was very kind, although still a bit chilly the Sun came out later in the day (and just as well).
Great learning experience for me – my best ride was on the (rather expensive) Scott Genius.

Helped to work out what sort of bike I might like to buy as a full suspension bike option for the future.

That’s probably about it for now :-)

UPDATED to sort out the link to Purple Mountain... :$

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Gastroscopy

2009-10-15T20:33:00.001+01:00

I’m posting this bunch of bullet points as is, otherwise this ain’t going to get posted at all… :-s

I’ve got a photo of my duodenum, but need to find it and scan it…

Cast

Pam, the super efficient ward sister with the excellent bedside manner
Lesley, the lady with the scanner (radiographer??)
The good Doctor
Caroline – who took me
My Mum, who picked me up

Chronology

Admittance into Gastro-enterology
Own cubicle, cubicle’s own hand wash
Explanation of choice between
1. Throat spray
2. Sedation
Explanation of procedure
Chose throat spray
Doctor arrives, I sign disclaimer
Go into ‘operating room’
I marvel at the gastroscopy equipment
1. Looks like something out The Matrix
Doctor gives me throat spray
Bed, turn on my left hand side
‘Bit’ to go between my teeth – aargh!

It’s a plastic thing with a hole big enough to have the ‘camera’ put through it, and so you don’t damage the equipment by biting on it - yeeuch

Gizmo fed into my mouth
Deep breathing, steady breathing
Suction thing like dentists
Swallow
Swallow again
Gizmo into my stomach
Further down, into duodenum for a look around
1. Makes me feel a bit sick
Air being pumped in makes me burp a lot
Gizmo used to take samples – duodenum
Back into stomach for a look see
Concern because of saliva & breathing
Back out again
Thanks heavens!
Lesley gives me photo
Recuperation
45 minutes after spray
Mum comes to collect
Rather tired last night
Have a sore throat today – unsurprisingly. Rather like a ‘sore throat’ caused by illness.

Initial test results

The biopsy taken from my duodenum was put into some ‘agar jelly’ containing lactose, along with a colour indicator. Apparently those with lactose intolerances normally turn the indicator a sky blue colour. I managed to turn it navy blue, which means a severe lactose intolerance.

The good Doctor also mentioned I have mild gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (apparently). Although looking at the symptoms, I don’t seem to suffer from this…

Results of blood test? Need to recall / check documentation

Reflections

Would have been good to have some kind of hand signals to communicate
Lack of control
Anxiety over pipe in mouth, & breathing
Throat spray vs. sedation

Deep joy – not.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike license.

The [un]funny tummy saga continues

2009-09-07T20:24:00.001+01:00

Introduction

Last week I went along to our local Hospital to speak with the Consultant Gastroenterologist. I took Caroline along to give her perspective (it was she who suggested I might be have an intolerance to lactose as couple of years ago).

This is a part of the continuing saga of my digestive system. So, look away now if you’re of a sensitive disposition.

We both felt that the good Doctor (name on application) was pretty impressive:

He has a good bedside manner / interpersonal skills
He seems open, knowledgeable, approachable

My Backstory

Not sure if he expects to be quoted (hence anonymity), but I recounted my story

History

2 Years ago - Caroline suggested I might have a dairy intolerance
- Not sure, take a bit of convincing!
Went to the local GP, pretty useless really
Went to see the Practice Nutrionalist, pretty useless
- But did give me a link to www. Lactose.co.uk
- I bought some lactase pills - helps, buy some more on eBay
Aunt had been treated by Nutrionalist, Angela Beecroft
- I (eventually) go to see her
She gets me to do a stool test – result points to Dientamoeba fragilis
She recommends complementary therapies
- These help, but after treatment has finished, symptoms return
After taking these she suggests I have a course of anti-biotics
- I go to the local Doctors (different from first ones, as we’ve moved since then)
- I've had two courses of Metronidizole - which is why I went to see the Consultant

Thoughts

I think I've had this condition for ages
When I was on the anti-biotics
- I felt more clear-headed
- I felt rested, I slept better
- My tummy was quiescent
- I was less snappy & more pleasant

Symptoms

Diarrhoea
Gas / wind
Tummy rumbling
Need to open my bowels soon after meals [I did say…!]
Better - taking lactase tablets
Worse - having dairy, but this is not the only story

The Opinion

The Good Doctor reckons it is IBS probably – he thought they were classical symptoms
Doesn’t have a very high opinion of most complementary therapists
- Has been involved in IBS study for 15 years
- No candida or parasites found in his experience
- Parasite (from previous test) is probably a red herring
We discussed link between stress & stomach – certainly I used to have pretty serious ‘butterflies’ in my stomach when I was a child

Next Steps

I go back in a couple of weeks
Tests for
- Parasite – blood & stools
- Endoscopy (argh – literally & metaphorically…)
  - Coeliac
  - Um something else
Treatments to be determined, depending on test results

Wash up

Caroline has also felt that the complementary stuff is bunkum, and (quite possibly) has probably been right all along ;-) :$

It's fair to say that I'm rather taken with the complementary stuff, but in the hospital, I managed to conjure up the following John Maynard Keynes quote:

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

It’s been an ongoing saga, so I don’t want to get my hopes up. However, if anything like the positive effects of taking that anti-biotics is a guide, this could be promising…

This is a shortened set of notes as I want to get this post up & not spend ages deliberating…

And finally:

Tummy-related Tweets

Due to dodgy tummy, couldn't make the second half of journey home. Being looked after by my Sister and her Family :-D Need to sort logistics 11:34 AM Aug 26th, 2008 from twhirl
fyi, I used Imodium to stop the tummy, dioralyte for re-hydration, & ibuprofen to stop the stomach cramps, but please use your own judgement 10:40 AM Aug 27th, 2008 from web
Have now finished the birch bark & lotus rhizome pills, now for a dose of flax seeds http://twurl.nl/olqokv 2:29 PM Feb 13th from twhirl
Just about to start my second course of Metronidazole for my [un]funny tummy; background here (if you're interested!) http://twurl.nl/lh4p28 12:22 PM May 19th from twhirl

Technorati Tags: ibs,health,digestion,irritable bowel syndrome,treatment,progress

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike license.

Deadwater MTB trail - Kielder Forest

2009-06-22T19:21:00.001+01:00

A post to commemorate taking the afternoon off last Thursday, and taking my bike up to Kielder. As per my tweet:

First piece of Leave this year - taking the pm off, & the MTB up to Kielder

Named after Deadwater Fell, part of Kielder Forest, and more about which is here. Most of the trail has been built by Kielder Trail Reavers, supported by The Bike Place.

Learning points

The trail is bearing up well, but has become quite uneven, with lots of stones, where the surface has been worn away.

My fantastic Marzocchi Bomber fork needs pumping up – it was slightly hairy going off large rocks / bumps and the forks compressing more than I’d have liked. Where is that shock pump?! Gah
My skills & stamina definitely need a big improvement!
Also, my brakes needs sorting / bleeding & new brake pads installed

btw, if you double-click on the photo of my bike and the associated gear, you will open a browser window at Flickr, as I have annotated the photo (and the next couple…).

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike license.

Dan Hannan lays into the BNP

2009-06-08T09:55:00.001+01:00

In the immediate aftermath of the European elections, I thought it useful to repeat this rather fine clip which sums up why I don’t like the BNP [although there are many other reasons].

From Dan Hannan’s blog at The Daily Telegraph

Can you suggest any other links / reasons etc.?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

GoodReads, LibraryThing, Shelfari, or WeRead?

2009-06-01T13:19:00.001+01:00

I’ve read a few cyberpunk and popular science books over the last few years, and I thought it’d be fun to catalogue them online and see whether there were folks who might suggest close matches to the micro-genres I’ve enjoyed.

To that end, I started looking around for websites that might provide this service.

This should probably be seen in the context of similar searching a while back, which lead to checking out Collectorz to catalogue my CD collection [so last century I know! ;-)].

GoodReads

Second most established

LibraryThing
- Seems to the most established
Shelfari
- Owned by Amazon (altho others get book data from Amazon)
WeRead
- Is this the most recent of the 4

Links

A google search for comparisons of the four yielded these:

However, this post looks like the clincher. I have therefore signed up with this account at GoodReads.

CueCat

Whilst checking out Collectorz, I found that one can scan the barcode of the CDs (and hence books) to more rapidly upload the details to the Web / desktop application.

The scanner of choice seems to be CueCat. Initially LibraryThing had this post and I thought LT would be the way to go. Happily this help item on GoodReads shows GR do the same, so CueCat is now on my birthday list!

If I go with Collectorz for CDs, I will let you know. I see there is discussion on GR re cataloguing CDs, but it’s not mainstream.

Technorati Tags: collectorz,goodreads,librarything,shelfari,weread,CDs,books,saas,web2.0,community

Where we live

2009-05-28T12:51:00.001+01:00

I wanted to write a brief paean to where we live, as we have enjoyed it so much.
Unfortunately we are moving when our lease expires in July because of circumstances beyond our control. So I thought I’d post whilst the going was good.
You’ll find a fair few photos of the countryside around where we live via my Flickr account.

My home office

We used to live in North Shields, so to move out into the lovely Northumbrian countryside has been a literal and metaphorical / metaphysical breath of fresh air. :-D
Other plus points is that where we live:

It’s not too far from Newcastle upon Tyne: about 30 mins from the Metrocentre & central Newcastle
It’s good for mountain biking
- I can hit the country roads and green lanes from straight out the back door
- It’s closer to Kielder forest, where there is all manner of cross country mayhem courtesy of Kielder Trail Reavers
There’s a brewery half a mile away, which we can drink at the the Black Bull
It’s nice and quiet and it gets pretty dark in the evenings (if the light from Newcastle & Gateshead doesn’t reflect off the clouds)
Towards the North West, the sky at night is very clear and it’s possible to see some amazing stars (and a few shooting ones)
There is a varied slew of wildlife out and about, including:
- Deer
- Bats
- Cows / Sheep
- Kestrel
- Badgers
- Foxes
- Mice
- Song birds
- Toads
- Sundry insects
- Rats
- Feral cats
- All manner of birds
- There’s a few horses knocking about, too

Jarvis, our dog, loves it as he chases the pheasants, partridges etc. that lurk in the cover around and about. We get to walk him in various places, which keeps us fit, too.
There *are* downsides:

Winter can lasts for 4-5 months, can we windy, wet & snowy; it can be expensive to run an oil-fired central heating system
Broadband is pretty hopeless – we’re at the end of a 9km line, at the limit of usability really
The pigs being reared next door can get a bit smelly!

So that’s it. We’re hoping to move down the road, so watch this space.
UPDATE: This is new house [ok, so it’s the garden at the top-left corner, but you get the drift ;-)]

Technorati Tags: northumberland,north east england,nice,wildlife,broadband,home

Schizophrenia – disambiguation

2009-05-26T12:05:00.001+01:00

I have a long-term interested in Psychology, having graduated in 1992 as a Bachelor of Science from the University of Bristol.

The point of this post is to say that (IMHO) it is wrong to view Schizophrenia as being synonymous with split personality, as the quotes from Wikipedia (below) attest.

I get frustrated when the word schizophrenia is used when ‘split-personality’ would be more appropriate.

Schizophrenia is defined by Wikipedia [accessed 25/5/09] as:

“Schizophrenia (pronounced /ˌskɪtsəˈfrɛniə/ or pronounced /ˌskɪtsəˈfriːniə/), from the Greek roots skhizein (σχίζειν, "to split") and phrēn, phren- (φρήν, φρεν-, "mind") is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality.

Distortions in perception may affect all five senses, including sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch, but most commonly manifests as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking with significant social or occupational dysfunction.

Onset of symptoms typically occurs in young adulthood,^[1] with approximately 0.4–0.6%^[2]^[3] of the population affected.

Diagnosis is based on the patient's self-reported experiences and observed behavior.

No laboratory test for schizophrenia currently exists.^[4]”

The entry continues:

“Despite its etymology, schizophrenia is not synonymous with dissociative identity disorder, previously known as multiple personality disorder or split personality; in popular culture the two are often confused.”

Wiktionary defines it thus [accessed 25/5/09], and thereby shows there is an informal use of the term:

Noun

schizophrenia

(pathology) A psychiatric diagnosis denoting a persistent, often chronic, mental illness variously affecting behavior, thinking, and emotion

(informal) Any condition in which disparate or mutually exclusive activities coexist

For the purposes of balance, I am including the Wikipedia entry on Dissociative Identity Disorder [again, accessed 25/5/09]:

“Dissociative identity disorder (DID) is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a condition in which a single person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities (known as alter egos or alters), each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment.”

I realise this is probably a hopeless cause, but nonetheless worthwhile!

Technorati Tags: psychology,schizophrenia,split personality,disambiguation

Blackberry add-on applications

2009-04-16T12:59:00.001+01:00

I’ve just installed Blackberry App World on my Bold, and thought I’d do a review of what’s installed so far.

Most of these were before installing App World, so good that BB / RIM have made it easier to find appropriate apps.

Doing the individual links to all these apps would take ages, so I’m afraid you’ll have to Google them… :$

Twitter
- Twitterberry – serviceable, lacking functionality
- Twibble – nice look & feel, but usability & functionality are pretty poor
- Tiny Twitter – probably the best of the lot, but doesn’t seem to work in the UK properly (worked in the US when I was in Texas recently…)
Google
- Mobile App – search
- Maps, including Latitude – excellent
- Sync – for sync’ing calendar with desktop
Facebook – came already installed
WorldMate Live – great if you’re a frequent traveller: trial version was great when I went to Texas
BBPlacemarks app for Brightkite, could do with a bit of extra functionality
Amazon App for Blackberry – good, would be even better if I had the option to use it with Amazon.co.uk
Opera browser – useful when Blackberry browser doesn’t cut it
Flickr app
Remember the Milk
Blackberry App World
- Bloomberg
- Shazam
NeoReader
- Use the camera on my Bold to photograph barcodes and the new square ones – and turn that into something meaningful
- Can’t get it to work properly, but fantastic idea
Vodafone SatNav
- Not bad, but sometimes takes wacky options

Since compiling this list yesterday, I found that all the system memory was taken, and therefore the Bold was running slow all the time.

I’ve therefore uninstalled Bloomberg, Shazam, and NeoReader [I think], to free up enough space.

It would be good to be able to install the apps on my micro SD card – which is 8Gb.

Technorati Tags: flickr,facebook,blackberry,blackberry app world,remember the milk,NeoReader,Vodafone,Satnav,WorldMate,Google,Amazon App for Blackberry,Opera,Bloomberg,Shazam,applications

419 e-mail – from someone at NatWest Bank. Fail

2009-02-18T15:13:00.000Z

Someone needs to tell this joker that we don’t trust our banks any more – muppet!
‘sppose it’s our stupid fault for falling for these scams & I’m in no way immune to this sort of stuff… :-s
“FROM THE DESK OF:HAMMOND KLEEN
NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK,NATWEST
LONDON,
UNITED KINGDOM.
15/2/09.
Your Attn,
Compliments of the season and good day.I am Ray Wells, the system and control director at the NATIONAL WESTMINSTER BANK,i am writing this letter to solicit for support and assistance from you to carry out this business opportunity in my bank.
Lying in an inactive account is the sum of Three Million Pounds sterling(3,000,000:00 GBPS) belonging to a foreign customer(Sperber Thomas) who was a gas consultant here in UK.He happened to be deceased during a business trip with his wife(Sperber Julie) on board the Swissair Flight 111 , which crashed into the Atlantic off Nova Scotia in september 2nd 1998.
Info of this crash was on the news which we have tried to notify his relatives but to no avail,see links below for more detailed information:
www.cnn.com/WORLD/9809/swissair.victims.list/index.html
www.cnn.com/WORLD/americas/9809/08/swissair.02/index.html
Ever since he died the bank has been expecting his next of kin to come and claim these fund which cannot be released unless someone applies for it as next of kin, as indicated in our banking guidelines.Unfortunately he has no family member in UK or Over-sea who are aware of the existence of the money.
At this juncture i have decided to do business with you by soliciting your assistance in applying as the next of kin to the bank then the money will be released to you,as i do not want the money to go into the bank treasury as an unclaimed bill,because the banking laws and guidelines stipulates that if such money(s) remains unclaimed for a period of eleven years(11yrs),the money will be moved into the bank treasury as an unclaimed bill.
My request for a foreigner as next of kin is occasioned by the fact that the customer was a foreigner and a British cannot stand as next of kin.
50% of the money will be your share as a foreign partner and your assistance to actualise this business,thereafter i will visit your country with your help once the money hits your account for disbursement according to the percentage indicated.
To effect the immediate transfer of the fund to you as agreed,you must apply first to the bank as the next of kin to the deceased,then we will follow up all formalities for the transaction.
Upon receipt of your reply, i will send to you, the text of application you are to send to the bank,and further clearify you in other issues as to effect this business.
Awaiting to hear from you urgently.
Best Regards
Ray Well.”

Technorati Tags: must do better,scam,419,fraud,stupid,banking crisis

Ditches, Cundies, and Burns

2009-02-15T18:46:00.001Z

A blog post about water drainage – and the lack of it.

It’s a times like these when I’m driving or cycling in our locality, when I feel a bit hacked off. Hacked off because the roads are awash with water, and roads and driving conditions are worse than they need to be.

Photo credit to Steve took it

With the snow rapidly melting, I think it should be running down ditches, flowing away through cundies (drains of loose stones), and into small streams that Northumbrians [and others] call burns.

The problem was particularly bad last year in early September, when a Northumbrian market town was inundated by flash floods. The roads around us were impassable in places, which meant it was tricky getting to the wedding of a couple we know.

The bride was stuck in a traffic jam when the Newcastle to Carlisle road was closed due to flooding, and the priest had to be rescued when his car engine was overwhelmed by standing water! The ceremony went off without a hitch, but about 50 minutes late…

I have been out myself from time-to-time, digging away at the verges on the road that leads up to our house, to let the water run-off into the ditches which usually are cut between the verge and hedgerows / fencing.

In doing so Jim, our next-door neighbour and ‘deputy farmer’ has called over and said I shouldn’t be doing the Council’s job. So, in writing this post I assumed that the Castle Morpeth or Tynedale Council were being dilatory.

A quick Google search showed this FAQ and made me think again:

“Roadside Ditches
Do you know who is responsible for looking after ditches? This is one of our most frequently asked questions.

Ditches on private land are the responsibility of the landowner, roadside ditches are normally the responsibility of the adjoining landowner, legislation permits the Highway Authority to discharge rain water from the highway into these ditches.

In order to keep ditches and drains working properly we advise landowners to:
clean the waterways on your land regularly to ensure water is able to drain from the highway.
check headwalls and grills regularly.
Rainfall certainly seems to be more intense these days and this does cause more drainage problems.

If everyone regularly maintained their ditches, a large number of the county's drainage problems would not occur. This would save a great deal of council taxpayer's money that is being used to solve the problems caused by blocked ditches and drains.”

Another hit was this:

“Who is responsible for roadside ditches?
The Highway Authority is permitted to use roadside ditches for the drainage of the highway.

Unless constructed specifically for the drainage of the highway, the maintenance of these is normally the responsibility of the adjoining landowner and not the Highway Authority. If road flooding occurs as a result of obstruction in these ditches the Highway Authority may exercise its legal powers to require the riparian owner to clear the ditch.”

A hit for activities around Alston (in the South of the County) are also enlightening:

Re: 2e/JAN/08 Cllr Pennell reported that he has researched the issue of responsibility for roadside ditches on the internet and noted that councils make a common presumption in law that the owner adjacent to the highway is responsible for the ditches. CALC have asked the county council to justify their position, but have not heard back yet, and the clerk has contacted the Country Landowners Association, who were unable to comment as the council is not a member. She has also e-mailed the new NFU chairman for Cumbria, who is aware of the issue and willing to follow it up.

The Traffic Management Committee met last month, and copies have been circulated of the County Council’s worksheet for employees on the cleaning of roadside ditches, and the Highways Act 1980 s101 which lists the power the Highways Authority has to fill in roadside ditches.

Cllr Phillips reported that he had spoken with Geoff Wilson from the Trail Riders Association, who had also offered to look into the issue of where the highway boundary should be. He added that if there is a case to fight, parish councils across the county should be in support. If needs be he will convene a meeting of the Rights of Way committee to discuss in detail.

It was observed that the county council have maintained the roadside ditches for thirty plus years, and it might be that in accepting responsibility for this they might have acquired that duty, possibly there is something about this in case law.

So, if you’ve read on this far – thanks for sticking with it! I had hoped to point the finger squarely at the Council and have done with it.

It now appears that maintaining ditches appears to be the responsibility of the landowner, and therefore I’m guessing it’s not a priority. However, the landowners may well reckon that the Council should be doing it - ergo no-one does. Dah!

I realise that the farmers keep the hedges in order, and it would be great if they could sort out the ditches on a regular basis, or else get a subsidy to do it – we’d all benefit IMO.

A shame that, as I not only agree with Gloucestershire Council but would also say that Councils wouldn’t have to pay so much in road repair bills because of the erosion this undrained water creates.

Bah.

Technorati Tags: frustrated,countryside,drainage,ditches,cundy,cundies,landowner,water

Seaton Canoe & the Transporter Bridge

2009-02-10T15:54:00.003Z

Yesterday turned out to hold an unexpected pleasure. I was travelling down to Teesside to hook up with @dmaxxx at Digital City Business.

David has done a grand job with the SCL business plan, and we had a washup session yesterday, after he’d finished the plan at the end of January.

*Anyway*, the traffic stopped around 10 miles North of Middlesbrough, near the Elwick turn-off. I called the BBC Jambuster line to report the problem.

The incredibly helpful man told me that I should head for Hartlepool, go through Seaton Carew and over the Transporter Bridge – completely new territory for me.

So, re-programmed SatNav to the fore, I went

Through the place of the Monkey Hanger
Along the seafront in Seaton Canoe
Past a nuclear power station
Past the ghost ships and the newly-arrived Clemenceau
Past a crane with a 2000-ton capacity
And all sorts of brownfield, a titanium dioxide plant, and (what seemed) many chemical and oil plants at Seal Sands :-s

The highlight, undoubtedly, was the £1.20 trip across the Tees using the Transporter Bridge. Photos on Flickr.

Transporter Bridge across the River Tees from Justin Souter on Vimeo.

Heaven knows how long it took the folk still on the A19 to get into Middlesbrough, but I was only 30 minutes late – genius!

Technorati Tags: tees river,teesside,middlesbrough,seal sands,seaton carew,canoe,john darwin,hartlepool,monkey hangar,clemenceau,ghost ships,transporter bridge

Is Diners Club listening to the Groundswell?

2009-01-13T08:58:00.003Z

A different type of diner’s club ;-). Photo credit to MamaT
A rant about not being able to get my money from Diners Club – the charge card people.
Set of bullet points to summarise the situation (from my perspective, of course):

I have over-conscientiously credited £550 to my Diners Club account – i.e. to pay off what I thought was an outstanding balance
I would like the money back – i.e. I don’t want to spend it
- Anyway, not many places actually take Diners
- I’m not staying in hotels, so haven’t got any big ticket things to spend the balance on…
I first start asking for my money to be wired to my current account, probably back in October
- however, there’s some technical issue or other
I also wanted to pay off my credit card – but they couldn’t do that either
- I thought the credit card was owned by the same company, but I now find that Diners Club has been sold by Citigroup [find out who has bought them]
Because it hasn’t happened, I’m wondering whether Diners Club is deliberately retaining my credit balance because they are affected by the Credit Crunch
- I’m rather worried I’m not going to see the money again
Supervisor
- There never seems to be a supervisor to talk with
- I have been promised a supervisor call-back on two occasions – it hasn’t happened
- Either they haven’t called, or they haven’t called my mobile
- Presently I have no messages on the landline number they have for me, and I don’t recall their supervisor calling on my mobile
That said, Diners have a great first line
- Plaudits especially to Juliet – extremely helpful, patient and courteous
- Also, Shirley
- There’s no point having a pop at the call centre people – they are told to speak to a script, and have little discretion.

Anyway, I have no confidence in Diners Club as an organisation, and I’m writing this because I want my money back!
The title of this blog relates to whether I will get satisfaction from Diners Club in the UK because they are listening to people like me to blog and tweet about corporations – although I think not.
If that’s the case, then I will use this post in future to agitate for better Customer service through social media tools like Twitter etc..
I have posted to my personal blog, as it’s a personal matter, but it could be an interesting case study!
I’m going to get in contact with their UK head office – Google led me to this post with contacts details for the Chief Executive’s complaint wrangler.
Update: I've hopefully removed all the apostrophe's from Diners, apart from the photo credit...

Technorati Tags: incompetence,charge card,finance,useless,customer service,diners club,muppets

Read all about it: Wellbank in good hands!

2008-12-21T19:58:00.003Z

A post about how the namesake of this blog is prospering under new management.

Photo credit to Ajnabeee. More photos tagged with ‘Wellbank’. fyi a place in Scotland called Wellbank.

I was at the Codeworks Connect Christmas party 10 days ago. There I bumped into Andrew Robson, its outgoing Chairman. Andrew is the boss of Perfect Image, an IT systems integrator in the North East of England.

The ever-genial Andrew ventured that he knew something about me that I probably wasn’t aware of. I immediately thought “Oh no, what have I done *this* time?”.

It was therefore with a mixture of fond memories and slight wonderment that Andrew announced that he and his family now live in my Granny’s old house – blog post passim.

So, we proceeded to have a long chat about the history of the house, and what the Robsons have done to refurbish the house. We talked about:

My Uncle floating this slippers in the bath, and jumping down the stairs
The marvellous outside loo
How they had found some fascinating stuff, e.g. university newspapers and some books[?] from the late 19th century.
- uni newspapers
- 1880s records
What needed to be done about refurbishing the house

Apparently (and thankfully) they have left the garden pretty much the same. And Don the Gardener still comes to look after the garden when he can. :-)

So, a happy story and good to think that my roots are in good hands.

More news as I have it.

Technorati Tags: family,upside,good news

My Identity being spoofed on YouTube

2008-12-08T11:21:00.003Z

If you follow my Twitterstream, you will have seen this on Friday:

"Reporting some geezer to YouTube who is spoofing my id & posting humourous videos. Lately however, they are such I must disassociate myself"
http://twitter.com/justingsouter/status/1038229468

By way of explanation, as a result of drafting an experiment with video sites , I came across this user on YouTube.
Having skim-viewed the content, I submitted this text to the YouTube customer complaint web page:

"I would like to complain about someone who is spoofing my ID and my videos. Initially this was amusing, but I find videos which refer to terrorist beheadings (albeit with a toy dog). I deem this to be a completely inappropriate use of my identity. It seems like an open and shut case, and I'd like to know what you are going to do about it."

Although it seemed rather funny, if not painfully embarrassing, I became uncomfortable with how this was developing, and felt I should do something about it. Hence this post on my personal site, as I believe it relates to my personal identity.
This was the clip that got me worried - I haven't watched this all the way through because of being slightly spooked by it all (also, check out the comments):

I would be very grateful for feedback from you:

What you think
Should I be worried - or is it a back-handed compliment[!]?
Whether to contact the YouTube account concerned and how to play it...
How to deal with this in a sensible way without over-reacting.

Technorati Tags: identity theft,concerning,youtube,lessons learned

Separating work and pleasure (blogs)

2008-10-31T09:48:00.002Z

Thanks to those of you who voted on the poll regarding whether I should separate out my postings on work and my home life.

Photo credit to wageslaves

The vote was overwhelmingly in favour of creating a work blog [thank you, 2 voters!], and therefore I have done so, here. I have also put a note underneath the blog header, just in case anyone doesn't see this post...

I will continue to post here about the divergent and the unexpected. I was going to say the posts would be less frequent, but I'm not sure that's possible! ;-D

Technorati Tags: business,common sense,enjoyable,experiment,technology,ideas,what's next,web 2.0,social media