Bibi Without Books. Baffling!

Bibi van der Zee writes books and in The Guardian about the environment and food. She has written articles supporting herbalism and charting the best of Patrick Swayze (no, really).

In today’s Guardian, she describes her successful attempt to go without books for a week. Riveting stuff, I know, but she starts of like this:

Going to the loo without a book! It is a profound shock. Instead of reading, I stare at the walls and notice that there are still two empty nails on which I meant – a year ago – to hang pictures. Also, I notice the dust on the floor and the cobwebs on the ceiling. I sense that I will be doing a lot more housework than usual this week.

In situations like these, I recommend a good laxative.

Though maybe not a herbal one.

On their feet for 6 hours?

Sometimes I think Masterchef UK reflects its society’s attitude to hard work:

‘..the contestants have now been on their feet for the last 6 hours, but there is no let up”

Well, isn’t that what  you would expect from a normal job? Anybody who invests a decent amount of work into their career would obviously scoff at this statement.

Grrrr…

Vodcasting done badly.

I have been a member of the Planetary Society for over 5 years, mainly to help financing their excellent weekly podcast. This week they tried their hand on live streaming/video casting. Boy, did that go wrong. Can anybody tell me why I want to see a thin guy and an broader guy sitting at a desk for about an hour, answering questions from the web? Neither Bill Nye (who is not Bill Nighy and really should cease his extremely annoying weekly slot on Planetary Radio) nor Lou Friedman convinced me that I rather hear them on Mat Kaplan’s weekly show on my Ipod. To add insult to injury, there was no sign of the adult geek’s heroine, Emily Lakdawala. Planetary Society, if you want to convince the unwashed masses to WATCH, don’t feature Bill and Lou. That’s what radio and Podcasts are for. Instead, show loads of pics from probes and maybe the odd shot of Spirit and Oppi.

Thank You.