UK Departmental spending in 2012: Visualisation of Open Data

From https://openspending.org/ukgov-25k-spending/views/spending-by-department

Tattoos are a triumph of optimism over foresight

Imagine if we all had the same hair style when we're 30 or 40 or 50 as we had when we were 20.  Imagine that we all had the same bodies at those ages and wore the same clothes. OK a rare few do, but the nature of fashion is that it changes and it dates. And yet now there is a fashion of permanently marking your body.

It seems very unwise to me. As we grow older, our lives, our responsibilities, our choices, our interests and our tastes all change.  Why would anyone want to permanently limit themselves in this way with a body decoration? Would you want to wear the same jewellery/watch/make-up/nail polish day in day out? We wear different clothes for different occasions and accessorize to match.  Doesn't having a huge skin adornment limit your choices for self expression rather than represent it?

Aside from that, the people who tattoo themselves are doing the police a favour in many ways. It makes it very easy to identify you if you have committed a minor or major crime and/or if your body turns up after some misdemeanour.  All of these optimistic young people assume within their lifetime that they will never be stuck in a totalitarian state where they want to slip under the radar or not be picked out in a crowd. Or even in a more open state where they want to protest and make a political stand without standing out for special 'treatment'. There are only a few people still alive who have the tattoos that they didn't choose themselves, but surely that is a time and a lesson we should not forget:

If that isn't enough, then there's the risk of infection:

But of course if you change your mind you can always have laser treatment and a bit of scarring, or can you...? (see: http://regrettingink.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/how-it-all-started/)

 

So if you really want to express yourself on your skin, be more creative about it and change it frequently using temporary decal tattoos - paper for inkjet and laser printers available from decalpaper.com and craftycomputerpaper.co.uk

Planning laws and the way planners interpret them need to be reconsidered

I believe there should be planning control to protect the land from being over developed and turned into one mass of concrete.  This is to protect us all. Too large a proportion of hard surfaces that do not absorb water causes problems with climate and flooding.  So planning control is good.  Also to protect the country from becoming one homogenous mass of the same steel framed boxes and indistinct shells.

Meanwhile there are many people facing poverty, caught in traps unable to afford a home of their own, ending up in over crowded soulless spaces.  I believe that any dwelling created by the person who then lives in it from locally sourced materials, unique and individual, should not be judged on the same criteria as a developer coming in to make profit and leave.

If this story is correct, that as of the 1st August 2013 Pembrokeshire County Council's enforcement say the property must be demolished within 2 months because,

"benefits of the development did not outweigh the harm to the character and appearance of the countryside".  The planners have gone mad.  To destroy this beautiful property would be a travesty and the planners involved should be ashamed. It should be considered a temporary structure and be given a length of time that it can be there.  I would suggest 25 years.  That is time for the family who live there to grow up and leave to make homes of their own and then the elements that last that long can be reclaimed for another structure.

Microwave Raspberry Sponge in a Plastic Pan

I've never made a cake in the microwave before, but I foresee I will be making more. I made this from ingredients I had in to use them up and it turned out so well I am recording the recipe since I heavily adapted it from a number that I found.  These are the amounts I used:

Ingredients

2.6 oz butter (all that was left of a packet - out of date)
2.6 oz caster sugar (ie same as butter)
2.6 oz SR flour - wholemeal best before March 2013
1.5 oz ground almonds - use by last week - was aiming for 1.3 oz but slipped
0.5 tsp baking powder (just in case SR flour had no R left)
1 med egg
Bit of milk
6.2 oz raspberries (picked last night, washed and left in fridge) with teaspoon of sugar

Method

1 Put raspberries in plastic microwave pan and mashed down a bit with potato masher and sprinkled in sugar and stirred that in a bit.

2 Softened butter by cutting up and putting in warm water then draining off warm water. Added sugar. Beat with electric whisk.

3 Mixed together flour, almonds and baking powder. 

4 Beat egg in a cup. 

5 Added egg and flour mix into bowl with butter/sugar and mixed more with electric whisk.  Added a bit more milk to get to right consistency (soft dropping).

6 Spooned mix onto fruit in the pan.

7 Cooked in microwave on high for 5 mins (= 3+1+1 as wasn't really sure how long - that seemed to be ready, solid sponge come away from the sides a bit).  Put lid of pan on to start but then sponge rose and lifted it so took it off mid way through the cooking.

If I was doing it again.

I'd probably use a bit less fruit and not add any sugar to it.  Should work with other berries.
Would perhaps go for 2.5 oz of each thing that's at 2.6 oz, so slightly less sponge mix for that size pan (felt a bit scary when rising as might go over top of pan)
Maybe add cinamon to the dry ingredients or vanilla?
Maybe not need baking powder if SR flour within date, could of course use white instead of wholemeal.

Worth trying with jams and syrup but maybe syrup would explode?

Verdict

Taste 5 stars
Ease of make 5 stars

Cancer is a nasty piece of work

I've just stumbled upon a news item, which was dated 3 April, that Iain Banks had announced he had terminal cancer, and was unlikely to live for more than a year.  I thought reading it that they'll have told him he may have up to a year, but really it will be 2-3 months. So I searched "Iain Banks health news" and sure enough he died on Sunday 9 June. 59 is too young to die.

I was watching an episode of Frankie the other night and a patient who knew she had terminal cancer and thought she had a couple of years and was planning to live them to the full was informed that it was worse than she thought and she only had a few months. So that upset her, but she was stoic about it and thought she'd better get on with living to the max.

People seem to imagine, and film/TV perpetuate this myth, that when you're told you have a couple of months to live then you're the same degree of well and then suddenly you drop dead.  Er, news flash: you generally discover you have a disease like this after having lots of ill health and misdiagnosis and pain and misery. You die, because between the point of getting the diagnosis and the end, you just get more and more ill/frail/sick until your body packs in its basic functioning all together.

My message to myself and anyone reading is DO NOT put off living your life to the max and doing what you want to do until you are told you are on a count down. We're all on the bloody count down.  You need to be doing it now as later you won't have the energy.