Lazy Town is a mad little children’s programme featuring Sportacus, Stephanie and their arch-nemesis, Robbie Rotten. It can be found on CBeebies in the UK. Sportacus and Stephanie get the inhabitants of Lazy Town dancing and excersicing, while Robbie Rotten just want to take things easy and, well, be lazy. The general presentation is lots of colour, lots of excercise and lots of funky tunes, one of which is ‘You Are a Pirate’:
Lazy Town “You are a Pirate” – MP3 Ringtones
A couple of LazyTown “You are a Pirate” looping MP3 ringtones here:
To bring us more into line with the rest of Europe, the Government has decided to increase the Holiday Entitlement for UK Workers. Currently we are on 20 days for full-time workers which equates to 4 weeks a year (if you include the weekends). For people working less than a full week, the same applies but Pro-Rata, so someone working 3 days currently gets 12 days per year off.
Over the next couple of years that will increase to 28 days for a full-time worker. It is being phased in over two working years (so four this year, four more the next) to lessen the impact on companies.
In addition to this, we have 8 National (or Bank) Holidays scattered throughout the year. A minor problem is that these Bank Holidays can be included as part of your Holiday Entitlement – there’s no law that says your employer has to give you this time off, but a majority of office workers get them anyway.
The same applies with the new situation – you are now entitles to 28 days off, but those 28 days may or may not include the Bank Holidays, depending on what your employer decides. I can forsee a situation where some employers, perhaps already stretched paying National Minimum Wage, will decide to include the Bank Holidays as part of the holiday entitlement where previously they were extra. Employees will think it unfair, but it’s perfectly legal.
It’s worth noting, as well, that there’s no law that says an employer has to pay you extra if you don’t take your holidays. It’s a case of “Use ‘em or Lose ‘em”.
7 Seconds of Love’s ”Twister” is another one of those bloody songs that you can’t stop singing once it gets into your head, and the super happy fun time video doesn’t help either. Here’s the vid, below are the Lyrics – you can discuss the madness over in the 7 Seconds of Love Forums .
Herewith the Twister Lyrics for singalong-type-fun:
7 Second of Love – ”Twister”
Well I met her,
On a sunny day in July,
I was sitting on a beach,
With a beer and a book,
Enjoying a pork pie.
She smiled at me,
Her eyes laughed at me.
She said “Let’s have some fun,
Let’s play Twister in the sun”.
I said “I’d love to,
Play Twister with you.
You go get the sheet,
I’ll just go and wash my feet”.
[Chorus]
And put your left hand on red,
Put your right foot on blue.
I wanna spend every day with you.
And honey, I can fly like the bees in the sky,
Today I’m playing Twister in the sun.
I said, “Come on then,
Let’s see what you can do.
I cant wait to spin your spinner
And get tangled up with you”.
She wrapped herself around me,
So that all that I could see
Was a little bit of skin,
Just below her chin.
She said “I’d love to,
Play Twister with you.
But now let’s go inside,
I know a place where we can hide”.
Repeat Chorus
Red, yellow, green and blue,
Red, yellow, green and blue,
Red, yellow, green and blue,
Red, yellow, green and blue.
Hayfever from Grass and Flower Pollen
Cause Misery for people Every Year
Hayfever time is upon us once again. Roughly 15% of the population suffer from hayfever and pollen-related allergies in some form or other, ranging from itchy eye to stuffy noses. At the low end of the scale, hayfever manifests itself as an occasional sneeze, whereas severe sufferers can barely see or breathe.
Sometimes, as in my case, a hayfever remedy that works at the beginning of summer will cease being effective midway through the hayfever season. Sometimes taking a double dose will help, but more often than not the sufferer has to switch to a different medication. In a worst-case scenario, even the most expensive remedies are rendered useless.
In my case, I simply stopped taking any form of hayfever medication altogether. My reasoning was thus: You suffer from hayfever because your body is producing histamines in response to allergens in pollen, so you take an anti-histamine medication to control them. The problem can occurr if you take too much anti-histamine for your particular problem, prompting your body to produce even more histamines in response.
This can lead to a kind of histamine arms race, where the sufferer takes stronger and stronger medcation but seems to suffer worse symptoms between doses. In this instance, the solution is to take no medication at all during the hayfever season, putting up with a low-grade allergy that doesn’t get any worse and eases after 2-4 weeks. In addition to this, the body can adapt to the level of medication, rendering it almost useless. Once a sufferer starts taking medication during hayfever season, however, they must continue to do so.
Over the last couple of years I have gone without hayfever medcation completely and have felt much better for it. Granted, the start of the hayfever season is always uncomfortable, but the low grade fever I experience now is far more preferable to the supreme discomfort I had in previous years, when I had tried Boot’s own brand, Piriton, Clarityn and a nasal spray – all in the same hayfever season.
If you think your hayfever remedy is becoming less effective as the season progresses, it may be worth ditching it altogether next year.
Update: Dr. D’s Hokey Hayfever Remedy!
Since now is the time to bandy our own natural remedies about, I would suggest fruit and veg in as near-to-natural condition as possible. Tomatoes that are still on the vine is a good one – not the piddling little things you get at Tesco, but the apple-sized ones that come in a crate at your local greengrocer’s. They more earthy they smell, the better.
Postal Workers have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action in a recent ballot – the first time they’ve gone on strike since 1996. After tube workers, Postal Workers must be the most self-entitled bunch of halfwits I’ve ever come across.
I’d support the Postal Workers in their endeavour if they did a decent job, but just recent the Post Office’s service in general has been completely hopeless. First Class used to get a letter from one end of the country to the other by the next day if it was posted in time, but over the last few months we’ve seen letters (both personal and business) taking five days or more to reach their destination.
Last year an insider/whistleblower TV programme showed systematic apathy amongst Postal Workers, with a distinct lack of pride in their work. From personal experience I’ve found them to be thieves, liars and absolute grade A bloody jobsworths. I’ve known letters go missing, parcels stolen, others left out in the rain at the back of the house (no card through the door – too much effort), late deliveries, wrong deliveries and so on. Parcel Force – the Royal Mail’s parcel service – is a standing joke in itself.
If postal workers want to validate their jobs and prove their worth in the form pay rises, they should bloody well do a decent job in the first place. The Post Office is an institution that used to mean something, but recently it’s just a joke.
Update! A geezer writes…
In defence of *some* postal workers (A relative has been a postie for few
years now), I would say that a lot of your complaints are down
to management ass-hattery – yup, the British disease.
Many of the problems shown the C4 docu last year were caused
by them taking any scummy chav/asylum seeker off the steet as a
temp and entrusting ‘em with your mail. They’ve stopped this
now but there’s a lot of unrest in the ranks.
For example, guarantees about bonuses have recently evapourated
into thin air (this despite the PO generally making a decent
profit) and they’re constantly piling more “every door” junk mail onto
the posties. It is actually back-breaking work, with unsociable hours,
in all weather, with risks like muggings and dog attacks hourly.
Yeah, its a well paid job (where else is unskilled work like this
rewarded so well?) and whether a wage increase is due is open
for debate (the official “OMG! THEY WANT 47%!!!” stuff was bullshit
of course). But maybe the management should get their act together
and stop failing to deliver (ouch) on their promises – if there’s
not gonna be a bonus, stop bullshitting about it right up to the
week it’s snatched away.
The new London 2012 Olympic
Games Logo – Very Poor Indeed
Hahaha, oh my word! What on earth were the designers thinking when they came up with this? The new London 2012 Olympics Logo is an absolute abomination in pink. Judging by some of the comments on the BBC’s site, I’m not the only one who thinks this is an embarrassment.
Honestly, what were the Olympic Logo Committee (or whatever) smoking when they came up with this? It looks like a crack addict’s impression of a migraine. Graphic Designers up and down the country must be sitting there in shock, open mouthed, wondering how the hell this… this… thing even made it through the first round of the selection process. Perhaps I ought to give my 2-year-old neice a set of paints and see what she can come up with.
This really is bad. At the very least the London 2012 Olympic Committee should have had a competition to design a new logo so that the young could actually join in the design process. If the cost of this really was £400,000 (as I’ve seen mentioned elsewhere), someone deserves to get the sack.
And Lord Coe is loving it. Oh my.
“This is the vision at the very heart of our brand,” said London 2012 organising committee chairman Seb Coe.
“It will define the venues we build and the Games we hold and act as a reminder of our promise to use the Olympic spirit to inspire everyone and reach out to young people around the world.
“It is an invitation to take part and be involved.
“We will host a Games where everyone is invited to join in because they are inspired by the Games to either take part in the many sports, cultural, educational and community events leading up to 2012 or they will be inspired to achieve personal goals.”
Apparently this logo – which looks like it should be on a packet of Monster Munch – is going to ‘evolve in the run-up to the Games’. I dread to think how.
Went to see Pirates of the Caribbean III last night and for some reason it wasn’t really very crowded at all. The film itself was enjoyable but not as hilarious a romp as the second installment. Depp, Bloom, Knightly and co all put in decent performances (Keith Richards made a cameo too) but it was strangely lacking, and at over two hours it dragged on.
But anyway, here’s the very last bit of the film, shown after the final credits have rolled. Most of the people at our showing had left and so missed this. I advise you not to press Play if you haven’t seen the film already, since it contains a minor spoiler.
Apologies for the crappy quality – I forgot to clean my camera phone’s lens. I didn’t realise the tiny movements would translate into quite so much juddering, either.
