Wu Wei

Subsidies, what subsidies?

The UK government plans to sell a 25 per cent stake in nuclear group British Energy in a long-awaited move that will raise about £2.2bn at current share prices and help pay decommissioning costs for reactors. more

Wouldn't this be the same British Energy that was recently in such financial trouble because nuclear electricity was not competitive in the UK electricity market, that it had to be bailed out by the tax payer?  Remember, all the old dodgy Magnox reactors already closing soon could not be sold off, so British Energy got the best lot.

And aren't these the decommissioning costs that are supposed to be part of the real costs of nuclear electricity, not paid for by the tax payer? 

And what is the strategic stake of 29.9% that the government feels it needs to keep in this company?  Or is that just to keep track of the plutonium?  

And just who is going to want to buy this doubtful competitor in the market?  All these reactors going to close by 2020, leaving only the decommissioning for the tax payer to pay for, I suppose.  I suppose that could only be EdF who no doubt will buy the power stations for the sites, since it is highly unlikely that new nuclear plants will be built anywhere but on the sites of the old one. 

And we all know how transparent the French nuclear industry is, and the exact separation between state aid and nuclear power, don't we?

 

Technorati tags: nuclear energy, British Energy, EdF, subsidies

A luscious read

 

James Runcie's The Discovery of Chocolate is a sensuous read, if you like reading about chocolate.  Personally I like eating it better.  I read this book late at night and early in the morning, so no chance to get distracted and dash off to the shop for the real thing. Since I have no smell, and so not much taste, I tend to skip the descriptions of smell and taste anyway.  Chocolat by Joanne Harris, did it better anyway, plus we liked the story better as a family, with all our wanderings. Incidentally, the cover designs  are remarkably similar, particularly when you are looking at thumbnails. 

The new book is about the discovery of chocolate in Mexico by the Spaniards and its later development down to the present day. It's told as the life of a very fictional character, a young poor Spanish boy set the task of winning something special in the New World to impress his haughty love, an aristocratic girl.  As an assistant she entrusts her pet greyhound, who as the story unfolds is the only one who comes out creditably for the whole story, saving the hero's life in a greyhound race to pay off his debts.  As you can see the story diverges from the story of chocolate into a morality tale of survival of true love, what is the meaning of life, what is life worth living for if you have eternal life etc. 

The Spanish love match is soon abandoned in favour of the love of a local woman who has the secret of chocolate and who gives the hero a brew which makes him fear he will live for ever.  Luckily she drank some herself as well, so there is a happy ending when they meet some centuries later.  (It must be one of the few times, two time travellers end up synchronized, but without that it couldn't be a love story, could it?) In the meantime, the hero meets a few people from history, the Marquis de Sade in the Bastille, Franz Sacher and Sigmund Freud in Vienna, and Joseph Fry of Bristol.  Not altogether convincing?   Well, you also get fictional stories of the invention of the raspberry cream chocolate, Sacher torte and the chocolate bar, for better or worse.  The dialogue between Sigmund Freud and the hero is a long way from the "talking cure", as practised now, and there is no chocolate invention following, either, so it's a bit hard to see the need, since he isn't recommending chocolate as therapy.

And the inclusion of Joseph Fry made me remember this from my childhood: the "Five Boys Bar".  The rest of Fry's is gone now, mopped up into the maw of Cadbury's Schweppes. 

For my kids, the "Realisation" stage would be that it had only 30% cocoa solids, like most British chocolate and tasted awful. No acclamation and probably only Aggravation and Disaffectation.   Once abroad they got used to real chocolate which begins at around 60 or 70%.  Or as the Cadbury history website says "Swiss milk chocolate dominated the British market - a situation the Cadbury family set out to challenge".  

It's a good job these bars were discontinued, as now they would have to print a government health warning on the bottom, and, if exported, a label saying British milk chocolate-style bar, as per M&S Greek-style yoghurt.  I don't really want to know what the rest of the bar consists of, do you?

Technorati tags: chocolate, Chocolat, Fry's Five Boys

All you need to know about RSS

Or perhaps this should be called "all I know about RSS".

You don't need to know anything about RSS if

• you don't have a computer
• are quite happy keeping in touch with your friends by email or snail mail
• read a newspaper or watch television to get any news you are interested in
• don't know about blogs and don't want to read them
• you are quite happy rooting around with google to find things

This is not to imply you are in some way Luddite, just that your dynamics are different to those people who use RSS.

So here are the RSS FAQs.  (Lost already?  No hope for you, then.)

1.  What does RSS stand for? "Really simple syndication".  Now that really helped, didn't it?  Try here, then.  If it's good enough for the BBC, then it's good enough for me.

2.  What does syndication mean, and why do I want it?  Syndication is just another word for broadcasting or spreading stuff throughout the internet.  If you have a blog you want stuff to go to your readers automatically, and you want new readers to find your blog easily.  If you want news you want it to come to you automatically, not to have to search on google for it.

3. What is a (news) feed?  It's the way the news gets to you, as soon as it is published by a website eg on the BBC, or on a blog.  It's like a wire that the news travels down directly to you. 

4. What do I need to read a feed?  The really essential part is a computer connected to the internet.  If you only have dial-up internet, then you will only get updates when you connect, just like for email.  However there's not much point really is there?  If you really want the news NOW, then you have to have broadband and have your computer on all day to get the updates.  Now you can see that it's not for everyone.

The other thing you need is some free software called a feed reader (or news aggregator).  You can use Yahoo, or Google or MSN (even) or Newsgator.  I use Netvibes because I have it as my desktop.  I can do lots of other things with it as well, like have a page of work news separate from my fun blogs, so I don't read the wrong stuff all day.

5. What does a feed look like?  If it's from your blog, then it looks like your blog.  Well it has the titles of the latest posts and you can click on each and see the rest of the post.  Some feedreaders like Netvibes allow you to see the website, so each post looks just like on the website.

If it is the news, then it looks like a list of news headlines that you can skim and just read the ones you are really interested in.

As an example, I have given my friend Beate a free plug by putting her feed in the sidebar  of my blog.  So you can read her blog, while reading mine.  So go find Music and Life Everywhere on the side bar. It's just above the big orange button.  

Actually Typepad doesn't do a very good job in displaying the feed, there are only headlines and no box round it.  Boo to Typepad.  I'm really not good enough at HTML and CSS to fix that up.

6.  Do I have to do anything to set up a feed for my blog?  No, most blog platforms do it automatically.  But there are several different types of feed with names like Atom, RSS 2.0, XML, so they can blind you with science.  Stick an orange RSS button on your blog and all is solved.  

7. And where do you get the orange button from?  The simplest is the best.  Go to Feedburner (costs nothing, but you need an account) and get some bling for your blog.  Follow the instructions to find your feed, then choose the "publicise" tab to put stuff on your blog to make it easier for people to connect to their own feedreader.  That's where I got this stuff:

8.  How do I find the feed on a blog?  Are you blind?  It's in the orange button.  Most feedreaders allow you to put the blog URL in a search box and it will find the feed itself, without you even going to the blog. 

9.  How do I find a news feed as opposed to a blog feed?   Well, how many do you want and how difficult is it to choose?  Go here and the BBC will give you a start with 26 different sets of news.  Now do you think you will really have time to read them all? 

So what's the fuss all about?  Wouldn't you like this on your computer?  All my "fun" feeds and a few news feeds as well, all in one place, easy to see what's new.  Because Netvibes has tabs (did I mention I like Netvibes?) I have a tab for techie feeds (for when I'm really bored),  a tab for Bosnian feeds (because I'm working there), a tab for Lebanon feeds (because I might be working there and need to know more what it's like), and a tab for Russian feeds because all human life is there. 

As you can see, all the feeds are in boxes which you can expand to read the headlines. Then you can read the actual post, which expands to fill the page.  It's all so easy.

And now I must go to check it out again.  Anything's better than working.

Technorati tags: RSS, feed readers, news aggregators, blogs, BBC, news feeds, blog feeds, Netvibes, Feedburner

Cats and IT

Why is it that cats have such excellent IT knowledge? 

When they walk across the keyboard with such an innocent look, they always manage to find the exact combination of keys which will produce a serious disaster.

My cat knows how to:

• change the display resolution so your picture shrinks
• make the computer hibernate in the middle of  some crucial technical fix, never to be remembered again,
• make your perfect document disappear for ever, after hours of editing (and saving)
• change the font to something you never knew you had
• make the Google desktop sidebar appear no matter how many times I change my preferences.  (it now is see-through which makes my screen look like it is burning out from the edge).

After wreaking the damage, she nonchalantly perches on my shoulder like a parrot, smirking at my efforts to find the reverse key combination to undo her efforts.

I'm sure they know all about RSS too. 

Technorati tags: cats, IT, computers

Is there life without RSS?

Isn't it amazing how there are people out there who still don't know what RSS is, or blogs, or news aggregators? I've had to explain them to two separate friends this weekend, both of whom I regard as intelligent clued up independent women. They still live their lives without this sort of essential kit, both for work and for fun.

I don't think they teach stuff like that at school either, being stuck with the IT equivalent of the 3 Rs, Word, Excel and Powerpoint, with the internet and Google as an afterthought, though most kids learn the internet when they are weaned, it seems. How do all those illiterate and innumerate kids that Britain produces communicate now? Or are they so out of it, they don't use the internet? Despite all her fancy stuff, Bee's production of her school Yearbook on Word was treated with contempt by the printers who had to shift it into Photoshop. "Don't you have that at school?" You can guess the anwer.

Now I seem to have developed a reputation as a techie. I suppose it's true that I am a bit of a geek, and still better at IT things than my kids. On Friday I was in a meeting in Sarajevo with an Advisor to the Minister and got a text message from Oxford "what is the password on the internet". Since this was clearly a matter of life and death in our household, I had to leave the meeting and send three possible passwords down the line. Of course it was none of them, and the problem was the wireless not the internet (aren't they the same? says Sloph). I was reduced to texting "it's the one on a post-it note on the book shelf and it begins with FF". Luckily that worked, though probably because the cleaner never dusts my bookshelves.

A curious set of cards

I was sitting in our favourite restaurant when I spotted this curious set of cards framed on the wall.

Red Crescent or Turkey, Red Cross, Sword or Christianity, and Jewish Star of David.  What to make of that selection?

 

Technorati tags: cards, unusual suits

Banja Luka

Distances are deceptive in Bosnia Herzegovina.  Our first trip to the "capital" of Republika Srpska necessitated a four and a half hour drive there, 4 hours of meetings, lunch at 4pm and a four and a half hour drive back.  As a result we have been completely knackered ever since.  The meetings were worthwhile We had a good driver, (so no near escapes from accidents like on the way to Trebinje) but the road wound round between steep tree-covered hills, river gorges  and the odd steel works, so it was slow going.  It's a geologist's paradise.  I wish I had learnt more.  No time on the road for photos.

Banja Luka itself seemed a quite pleasant busy town on a sunny day.   We didn't see much but decided it would be nice to come back and spend more time there.

I took a few photos: a splendid Orthodox church, unusual for its tower.

 

and these curious people in front of a building I didn't have time to identify:

I snapped them while on the run.  The woman looks like a typical peasant woman but the man looks more like a Cossack, than a Serb. As figures from the period of socialist realism they need some explanation. Perhaps when I come back I can find out.

 

Technorati tags: Banja Luka, Republika Srpska, BiH

To be or not to be? That is the restaurant

Another restaurant squashed into a tiny place down a side street. This one is one table wide downstairs and you can just squeeze past to climb the amazingly steep stairs without a handrail. Upstairs the space is two tables wide, and two tables long, so it's quite cosy. You can sit outside, but the sun goes down behind the mosque so it's in the shade in the evening, and it's not quite hot enough at the moment. In any case, the road has been dug up so no tables outside tonight.

The food is international: eg grilled vegetables, caesar salad, steak, black risotto. The service is adequate. The entertainment is provided by the incredibly hen-pecked waiter, whose life is made a misery by the cook. Last time we went there, we sat downstairs and had to listen to him being sent out for bread, then onions, then something else. (it was quite late by the time we got there). The Greek vowed never to go again, as he felt so bad for the waiter. So he went home for an early night and I had Irish company instead.

5 top restaurants

I was already feeling hungry before I saw Ms Melancholy's post called Now I am feeling hungry, in which she lists her favourite restaurants.  But it's too late to do anything about it.  I shall just have to get up early for breakfast in the hotel, which would never figure in my list, no matter how much we like the rest of the hotel.

Update: I see that actually I was supposed to write about 5 restaurants at my location. Well, my excuse is I was tired and hungry. And I travel a lot, so my location is very variable. I haven't actually got a favourite place in Oxford, where I live, yet. Haven't been there too often.

Here they are:

Antonella's in Pristina, Kosovo, otherwise known as il Passatore 
I have no idea what the address is, as I have only been by taxi, but a friend of mine is lucky enough to have it as his nearest restaurant, so I am very envious.  He says he feels like he is at home, with a personal chef.  Antonella, the owner, is a strange but friendly Italian lady, who does rather smart Italian home cooking. Or rather she supervises it.  It is a bit like going to dinner at your grandma's, (at least if she was Italian) as she offers you all sorts of goodies according to what she has bought, and fusses round you making sure it is all OK.  My Bosnian friend said that she laid on a Christmas dinner for everyone not doing a family thing, and refused to charge.

Literatu Svetaine, Vilnius
This is unfortunately still closed as far as I know, due to some kitchen dispute, but is due to open again soon.  Not only does it have the best location, just by the Cathedral so that le tout Vilnius passes you when you sit outside at lunchtime, (creating for visitors the idea that I knew everyone in Vilnius), but it has delicious (even if a bit expensive) Scandinavian food.  Plus the internal decor has not changed much since it was the Writers' Salon, in communist times, giving you an exclusive feeling of being with the elite. 

Any of the old Balti restaurants, in Stoney Lane, Birmingham
When I first moved to Birmingham in 1977, these restaurants were just cheap places for students and the locals to eat.  Then Balti became fashionable and prices rose, and imitations proliferated, as I have written about elsewhere on the blog but I refuse to give that restaurant a free plug.  These old restaurants are a bit smarter now, and the prices have risen, but the food is still as good.

Diwana Bhel Poori House, Drummond St, London
This restaurant dates back to my student days, when there were always queues outside to have several sorts of South Indian pancakes made with rice flour and other veggie delicacies.  I occasionally went back on trips to London, and nothing had changed; still queues to get in, still delicious cheap food.  The last time I went, I took my children, who were not yet so keen on Indian food (must have been years ago) and I thought they might like this better.  I was surprised I could even find it, since I had long forgotten its name, just remembering its location by Euston Station. I googled and it's still there.

Dveri, Sarajevo
This is our current favourite, and one day we even ate there twice.  I reviewed it here.  On Friday night, it was raining heavily, so we all packed into the tiny space indoors and borrowed an umbrella to get home.  We haven't found many other restaurants where the food is interesting and agrees with our stomachs.  Which is a shame.

Finally, (I know this is 6, but I can't remember its name) I haven't included any Greek restaurants because I have never had a bad meal in one.  There are too many I have enjoyed to list my favourites, but they must be by the sea and have fresh fish.  Perhaps the one I remember best was the one on Kalymnos overlooking the channel between it and the small island across the water.  You had to climb half way down the cliff to get to it but the view was magnificent.  Each night we saw the lights coming on round the bay and the small boats coming home, and it was just wonderful. The food was good too.

Since Ms M did not tag anyone, just left it up to anyone to respond, I'll do the same.  But you are supposed to add your blog to the end of this list.

Nicole (Sydney, Australia)
velverse (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
LB (San Giovanni in Marignano, Italy)
Selba (Jakarta, Indonesia)
Olivia (London, England)
ML (Utah, USA)
Lotus (Toronto, Canada)
tanabata (Saitama, Japan)
Andi (Dallas [ish], Texas, United States)
Todd (Louisville, Kentucky, United States)
miss kendra (los angeles, california, u.s.a)
Jiggs Casey (Berkeley, CA, USA! USA! USA!)
Tits McGee (New England, USA)
Kat (Ontario, Canada)
badgerdaddy (Ludlow, Shropshire, England)
Dandelion (England, Great Britain)
Ms Melancholy (Yorkshire, UK)
Wu Wei (currently in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, sometimes in Oxford, UK)

 

Technorati tags: Food, restaurants, meme

We are like Tobago

At our meeting in Mostar, we were gently chided for talking about Bosnia.  "Here in Herzegovina, we feel like Tobago must feel, when everyone talks about Trinidad", said the lady. 

So if we can't manage "Bosnia and Herzegovina" we can manage BiH, pronounced "Bee Hash".

And I was very carefull how I tagged this post.

Technorati tags: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bosnia, Herzegovina, BiH