30.1.12 Flat Pack Bully

Sometimes living by yourself can be a lonely business, rarely seeing a friendly face on a week night after work and the gym. So I’ve decided to get a lodger. Well, I say “get”, in actual fact one of my old school friends, Dave, is looking for a home near his new place of work and as I have a spare room it’s work out perfectly.

Yesterday he started to move some of his things into the room in preparation of his arrival, but as the room is rather short on furniture bar a bed, Dave decided to take a weekend shopping trip. Yes Dave took that new house pilgrimage to the big blue and yellow, DIY Mecca of IKEA. To provide some more storage space he purchased a great bed side table and a chest of draws, he also bought these round with the aim of nocking them together in an hour or so and being back home in time to eat his left over burrito. Or so he thought.

As he sat, surrounded by instructions, he had a confident look on his face leaving me to get on with some work in the living room. What happened over the next hour or so is anyone’s guess as banging, yelping and crashing drifted down the stairs. I popped my head in at one point to check he was still in one piece.

And thus the dichotomy of flat pack furniture – the point is meant to be easy transport and indeed easy assembly that anyone can cope with. After all how hard can following simple instructions be? Well apparently quite difficult. If you google “flat pack furniture assembly” you will see a wealth of companies who will send someone out to assemble it on your behalf – One website I found quoted £18/hour, which is more than a cleaner and many other services (but still much less than a locksmith!)

Eventually Dave managed to complete the two items – although it took him the best part of 3 1/2 hours for both pieces and he lost some skin on one of his hands. Maybe he should have called in someone else? But that’s expensive – maybe he should just have followed The Independant’s guide to flat pack assembly:

1. Read the instructions first, right through. Make sure you have all the bits as described (although it is not uncommon for the bits to vary slightly from those pictured in the diagrams).

2.The diagrams and instructions are often misleading, so trust your common sense. Try to visualise the finished bed or wardrobe as you proceed.

3.Whatever you do, don’t lose the special tool provided. This is usually an Allen key or a star key, and the idea is to stop you putting the thing together with an ordinary screwdriver. Nobody will say why this is so, but it clearly stems from some kind of exclusivity and world domination plan.

4.Don’t over tighten the screws. Most flat pack furniture is chipboard at heart, and over-tightened screws will tear out. Put all screws in hand-tight at first and only tighten them up when you’re sure everything is in the right place.

5. At least one of the pre-drilled holes will be in the wrong place. This is because the top was made in China and the sides were made in Venezuela. Don’t panic; leave this screw till last – you might find the thing stays up without it.

6. There is always a bit left over. This is normal. Don’t throw it away. It may be the special tool (see 3 above).

So today I learnt that as long as you don’t panic – you will eventually put together your furniture – it may just take a little longer than first thought.

DC

29.1.12 iPad Thai

Recently I have eaten a LOT of Pad Thai. The delicious Thai noodle dish is one of my very favourite things to eat, it’s like spicy comfort food. But I have another admittance – I’m a cheat! You see cooking is a major passion of mine but occasionally I am very lazy and my recent Pad Thai cravings have been satiated by a jar of paste from Marks and Spencer. I do all the chopping of the other bits etc, but the main flavour is from a jar – this is not real cooking!

So after I made it last night and sat there delightedly stuffing my face, I decided that before bed time I would find a recipe so that next time it was all of my own making – after all I don’t believe it’s that hard to make. So to quench my guilty conscience I’ve of found a recipie courtesy of Jamie Oliver’s Magazine

Ingredients:

• 2 tbsp groundnut oil
• 1 red chilli, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 2.5cm piece ginger, finely chopped
• 4 spring onions, shredded
• 150g green beans, chopped
• Handful of beansprouts
• 180g prawns, peeled
• 1 tsp shrimp paste
• 50g peanuts, chopped
• 150g rice noodles, soaked in hot water till soft, drained
• 1 egg, beaten
• Juice of 1 lime
• Splash each of fish and soy sauce
• A bunch of coriander, chopped

Method

1. In a wok, heat the groundnut oil over a high heat, add the chilli, garlic, ginger and half the spring onions and stir-fry till the onions start to soften. Add the beans, beansprouts prawns and shrimp paste and cook till the prawns are opaque. Stir in half the peanuts, then the rice noodles.
2. When it’s all heated, push it to one side of the wok and add the egg to the other. Stir until the egg is cooked, then break it up and mix in. Add the lime juice and fish and soy sauces, mix, and serve immediately topped with the coriander and remaining peanuts.

So it’s as simple as that! Now I can eat a delicious Pad Thai without the guilt of buying a jarred paste. If you’ve never tried it before, please give it a try – its absolutely delicious and quicker than a take away.

Today I learnt that making the real thing takes less time than buying the sauce.

DC

28.1.12 Fight for your Statutory Rights

As I scanned the signage in Reading’s branch of Zara (payday weekend always means an involuntary trip), my eyes focused in on an expression I usually glaze over – this does not affect your statutory rights. Well right, ok then – because if it did I almost certainly wouldn’t know what had been affected and even less an idea of the extent.

Clauses of standard rights and contracts are a thing of complete bemusement to me, and I hope a number of others, as I tend to ignorantly assume that someone else has already fought for the right to protect my shopping purchases (I imagine that they did it at the same time the Beastie Boys were fighting for my right to party).

Whilst I stood wondering whether I would or wouldn’t be able to take back my newly purchased denim shirt should there be a problem (it being as tight as my other denim shirt might be one) I realised that this is something I should really take some time to look into. The thing that causes most confusion in my mind is that usually the things that “don’t affect my statutory rights” normally seem to look like they definitely would affect them – such as not being able to return sale items.

In an essence your statutory rights are: that the seller has the rights to transfer ownership to you (ie. it’s not stolen etc); the thing purchased has to be as advertised or described; and finally (and most vaguely) it has to be of satisfactory quality – this is where most arguments come from.

What all of this means is that, unless something is not the sellers, not as described, or not of satisfactory quality, then you have NO RIGHT to return it. So my sale example, provided it was of quality, the store are more than within their rights to tell me I can’t return it. This means that you didn’t like it isn’t a valid reason (neither is it’s too tight) but many shops have returns policies to cover these areas and allow for returns!

So there we go – you’re not entitled to a huge amount but the law is there to avoid you getting completely ripped off. I’d advise those concerned that their statutory rights have been affected to read Martin Lewis’ Blog on the topic

Today I learnt to always make sure I try on my tight vests before I buy them just in case!

DC

27.1.12 G.N.A.R.LY Dude

Where do slang words come from? We all use words that make our parents go cross eyed with confusion and desperately search for the hidden meaning, but from what do they derive? We all know friends who claim that their group of friends were the first to use certain words, almost never that they created the word but that it came from a friend one night when they were hanging out. The origins could be as simple as Jel – being shortened from jealous and popularised by The Only Way Is Essex but some have long, interesting backstories that have long since faded.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you the word Gnarly! Urban Dictionary defines Gnarly as:

Slang term for something extreme. Used in good or bad cases.

Right up there with terms like rad and bogus, gnarly is a word that I could never get away with saying in everyday conversation with a straight face. It’s kind of an odd word as it doesn’t bare huge relevance to the world gnarled and doesn’t have a clear link to any other terms. Well today I learnt how that word was derived and it all starts with a love of winter sports and messing around.

Shane McConkey was an extreme sports enthusiast, him and his buddies would go out skiing and snowboarding and continually challenge each other to see who could do the craziest thing or pull of the best trick. Eventually they had a points scoring system for each run that rated it in how hard it was etc. There is a long book dedicated to the scoring system that at the heart starts with the run but then extends to tricks you do whilst doing the run. As well as scoring points you can also lose them for things such as “backslapping” and “losing skis”.

Where the game gets really fun is the extras category. Additional points can be earns for “best sunglasses tan”, “skiing the line naked” and “go mono skiing all day”. There’s even points available for dating a particular waitress at the local bar!

But what this game really needed was a name (do you see where we’re going with this??) – Shane and friends called it – Gonkey’s Numerical Assessment of Rad or…. GNAR! As the game gained in popularity, people started describing awesome tricks or lines as gnarly and the word was born.

Today I learnt how the slang term came into being, but there’s a huge amount more to the story, so much so that they made a film. It’s well worth taking a look, I’d go as far as to call it gnarly.

DC

26.1.12 Put Some Spain on It

The rain in Spain falls mostly on the…. Northern most mountainous region, if you know your geography correctly. With this correction of a widely repeated axiom we enter today’s subject of learning, one of Britain’s favourite holiday destination, Spain.

It seems a lot of my learnings recently are coming from the OpenText workforce, obviously the company is employing incredibly intelligent, well read individuals (of which I am the exception that proves the rule), and today is no different. Matt Dyson has taken it upon himself to impart some wisdom upon me for a Thursday and provides the subject matter for today.

The first revelation relates to Catalonia, a proud region of Spain with a strong sense of independence – indeed, many Catalonians think of themselves as a separate country. They have their own dialect, in 2009 94% voted for independence with a turnout of 25%, and they have their own flag:

The story of how the flag design came about is far from a fact, however, some mythology is as interesting as actual proven information. After all, who really wants to here, “some politicians may or may not have gathered in a room with some paper and some crayons”. So the story goes that the flag is derived from a coat of arms for the descended family of Count Wilfred the Hairy. Wilfred was was the founder of the House of Barcelona which lead way to Catalonian Nationalism and as a result he is idealised by modern nationalists. After being wounded in battle, he was issued with a coat of arms (a goals shield), as he lay there the king slid his four blood soaked fingers across the gold to form the 4 red stripes. Although a popular tale there is no significant historical background to support this story.

However, the next part is an unbelievable truth. Of the approximately (people can’t quite agree) 196 countries in the world, Spain is one of only 4 countries who’s national anthem has no accompanying words/lyrics (the other 3 are San Marino, Kosovo and Bosnia & Herzegovina). La Marcha Real (the royal march) has been subject to attempts to add lyrics, largely without success. General Franco approved lyrics that were used during his dictatorship but these were abandoned in 1978 but they were never made official. After hearing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” at Anfield in 2007 the Spanish Olympics committee ran a competition to add lyrics but after a winner was found the competition was dropped for fears that it was too nationalistic and would alienate regions of Spain such as the Basque and Catalan regions.

So today I learnt more about the origins of Catalonian nationalism and that most countries like to have a sing-a-long.

DC

25.1.12 I Think I Smell a Rat

I get the for work around 3 days a week and ill admit my journeys are normally a solitary affair consisting of listening to music whilst either reading or playing solitaire, (I know that sounds like dinner for one material) but on this occasion I was accompanied by my colleagues Matt and Anna.

As we sat waiting for the next tube to Oxford Circus, we saw a familiar site of a rat scurrying around under neath the tracks. Anna commented “That’s what you could learn today, you’re never more than a certain distance away from a rat in London!” Certainly I don’t feel like is exclusive to London as I live on a private road and rats regularly scurry in and out of our relatively poorly maintained sewerage network, but I digress. Certainly Anna was correct, in 2006 BBC news carried out some research that estimated that people in London were never more than 18m away from a rat. Heavens knows what they based that research on but there you go.

But are rats really that bad? I mean, sure, I’d never let them run around in my house – they seem pretty unhygienic and live in sewers – but they’ve never harmed me. As it turns out there problems are two fold, and incredibly important. Firstly, as suspected, they are terrific spreaders of disease and secondly they have incredibly powerful jaws enabling them to chew through most things. The latter allows them to cause bad structural damage such as chewing through drainage pipes etc.

When you actually look at the diseases rats spread it’s clear why so many people are worried to see them around. They cause Leptospirosis (which can be fatal in humans), ring worm, rat bite fever, murine typhus and obviously PLAGUE! All in all rats aren’t just the Bear Grills version of mice, they’re something to avoid at all cost. In more rat related facts (courtesy of Homeserve):

– Rats are crepuscular meaning that they favour being out at dusk/night time. Which is obvious but crepuscular was such a good word it could have been a blog all of is own.

– A rats teeth continually grow, much like rabbits, and are only worn down to a manageable size through gnawing at things.

– They are active burrowers, good climbers and reasonable swimmers (so maybe there’s hope for GB representatives at the 2012 Olympics!)

– On average they live for less than a year but are capable of reproducing at 6 weeks old.

It is clear that rats are something to avoid and as their numbers grow we need to find measures of culling any infestations – if they’re around your house, get Pest control on the phone.

Today I learnt a lot about rats and that my laissez faire attitude could led to some problems with my water pipes. For an added rat fact, the Norwegian Rat is not from Norway at all – they originate from China.

DC

24.1.12 Selective Collective

“A crash,” my mum exclaimed, “a group of rhinoceroses, is a crash!” You see my incredible mother works for a local old folks home as a carer (I always suspected she was well trained after over 20 years of my sister and I), and as part of this work he is a wonderful supplier of information and trivia to them. My mother followed this titbit of information by informing me that they are know as collective nouns. Now I’m not for one second saying that I didn’t know that there are varying nouns to describe groups, but my knowledge of them is far from extensive and I certainly didn’t know they were known as collective nouns.

A collective noun, is a noun that describes a group of objects which can include people, animals, things, paradigms, or even concepts. In the instance of “a crash of rhinoceroses”, it is the crash that is the collective noun. Given how excellent a noun crash is I’ve decided to compile a list of my favourite researched collective nouns. Bear in mind some of these aren’t necessarily wholly agreed upon and some group of objects do have more than one collective noun, usually dependant on the actions/situation of the objects:

A shrewdness of apes

A flange of baboons
A pounce of cats
A quiver of cobras
A convocation of eagles
A mob of emus
A bloat of hippopotami

An ambush of tigers
A murmur action of starlings
A storytelling of ravens (imagine that Sir Poe)
An ostentation of peacocks
A crèche of penguins
A rhumba of rattlesnakes

I could go on and on – there are so many great ones but, personally, my two favourites are:
A murder of crows
A destruction of wildcats

Today I learnt both the meaning of a collective noun and also some excellent examples.

DC

23.1.12 A Real Head Case

*Warning – The following post contains a mild spoiler for the beginning of the 3rd Steiger Larsson Millennium Trilogy novel – The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. The spoiler would ruin the second but not the third novel. *

750 pages? 750 pages!! That was my first though when I picked up the 3rd instalment of Larsson’s popular, if poorly written, thriller trilogy. Im tied into the series now, despite my thoughts on the second (I hated it), I feel obliged to see the tale out to its end. The book, however, may be better served as a lethal weapon instead of a bed time read.

That’s not why we’re here though. The initial few chapters of the story describe lead female character Elizabeth Salander being brought to hospital with a bullet lodged in her brain. This scenario allows the brain surgeon to recount his favourite tale of a brain trauma survival victim – A lady who had a crossbow arrow driven straight through her skull. In the story the surgeon managed to remove said arrow and the woman lived to tell the tale.

This novel aspect (see what I did there?), had a ring of a recent news story to it, where a man from Illinois had a 3 inch nail removed from his brain. Although he wasn’t shot by his maniac ex-Soviet special forces father, he instead shot his head with a nail gun during DIY. Much like Salandar though, Dante Autullo did continue about his business by shovelling some snow. Incredibly he also lived to tell the tail.

Given how unbelievable both of these stories sound, lead me to thinking: What is the most ridiculous object someone has had removed from their skull/brain?

– Arizona’s Rosemary Alvarez thought she had a tumour when she checked into hospital. The examining doctor cracked open her head to reveal no sign of either a malignant or benign tumour, but instead found a giant worm! Most likely Mrs Alvarez gained this ‘anomaly’ through eating some dodgy fast food, I say anomaly, but apparently this is disgustingly common.

– A Chinese teenager, Zhang Bing (15), was playing with his friends when one brought out a Japanese samurai sword to show to the group. Whilst messing around with the sword (spot the mistake), one of the friends accidentally stabbed Zhang through the forehead, between his eyes. The sword went in 2 inches!

– Li Fu (37) living in Southern China was attacked 5 years ago by a robber who stabbed him in the jaw. What Li didn’t realise was that the blade had broken off in his jaw, until an incredible 4 years later when doctors realised and removed it from his head. Doctors claimed that Li was lucky that the blade missed all major arteries etc. Not that lucky….

– But the largest article, and yes it’s a world record, belongs to Michael Hill of Jacksonville Florida. Michael was attacked and stabbed through skull before he had to stagger to a friends house to get help. Although he has a paralysed left hand and some damage to his brain now, Michael is still alive… Which when you look below is incredible:

Today I learnt that some people really do survive incredible head traumas and medical science to keep these people alive is a thing of wonder.

DC

22.1.12 Just Say No

This is a public service announcement, know when to stop drinking. That is all.

We’ve all done it. We’ve all said, just one more! At the time it’s a wonderful, beautiful idea to have just one more drink, maybe it’s a nightcap, maybe you’re buying the guy/girl you like a drink, maybe someone didn’t believe that you could do 5 Jaeger Bombs in a row. But I implore you, please know when to stop. Now I don’t say this to be anyone’s mother (Nagbags/Mummykins Czasznicka can do that) but I speak with a wealth of experience.

Sunday morning after an excellent night out with Joe Whiteaker and David Lloyd-Williams I was suffering. It started with a game of beer pong, except due to my resolution of no beer or wine for January I was forced to play with vodka. That was fine. Then we hit a bar and had some more drinks. That was fine. And then, around 1.45am we decided for one final round. That was not fine This is what I, imploring you to reconsider.

Now we all know the symptoms of a hangover, the dizziness, nausea, dehydration, sometimes extreme hunger, sometimes now hunger but I’ve learnt some things that I, and maybe you, didn’t know (with credit to askmen.com)

– Ancient hangovers were treated with bird beaks and tree sap.
– The longest recorded hangover lasted 4 weeks (after a four day 60 pint bender)
– The ATF shut down a vodka maker’s “Hangover free” advertising campaign
– Rabbit droppings we’re used as a hangover cure in the old west
– Rich people have milder hangovers (expensive booze is less likely to give you one)

Now all of the above remedies aren’t something I would suggest, but I do have some advice (which is based on nothing more than “my own meandering experience”). When you get in immediately down two pints of water before bed, this will get rid of the dehydration. The second? Just say no to that one last drink, your wallet and your head will agree with me. Today I learnt that these two tips are essential and there’s a whole lot of other methods that have been tried by some really weird people.

If you don’t want to listen to me – please listen to this guy:

DC

21.1.12 Dead Head Advice

Now I don’t consider myself an expert when it comes to weight lifting, there are far stronger men and women with better technique etc. And I’m far from dismissive of advice from informed sources but there are times, places and most importantly informed sources.

As an attempt to improve on last Sunday’s dismal showing, I spent some time Saturday practicing my dead lifting prior to a run, keen to shed the agony of the pain that went through my lower back early last week. It was at this point that a young guy, I guess around 20, with scruffy gym kit walked over to me and made me take out my headphones to have the following conversation:

Guy: Sorry mate, do you want some friendly advice? Now your obviously in better shape than me, but, and I don’t really dead lift myself, but my friends who do told me that its best if you pull the bar up your shins. Not how you’re doing it.

Me: Oh, right. Thanks

As I say I’m no expert and my dead lift technique needs work and I’m pretty sure what he actually meant was keep the bar closer to your body but really? Did I ask for your advice? So instead I have done some research on ideal dead lifting technique – because you can’t beat real experts.

This is a technique video from a monster – Dave Tate

Now this – this is good advice. Pay attention to to round your back, good advice on footwork and hand positioning. Today i learnt how to properly deadlift and to ignore gym idiots…. My back might just thank me.

Ps. This will be my last gym based post for a while (unless something really interesting happens) I’m aware it’s not the most fascinating of things!

DC