Liberty In Chains

Goodbye 2011...

2012-01-01T00:00:00.000Z

Hello 2012!

Merry Christmas

2011-12-25T08:00:00.000Z

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year.

Boldly Going for 45 Years

2011-09-08T18:30:00.000Z

It's the 45th anniversary of Star Trek. The show aired on the US network NBC on September 8th, 1966.

The show was set on the USS Enterprise, a starship traveling interstellar space, and introduced us to concepts such as faster than light travel, technology which included the transporter and tricorders, and alien species the Vulcans, Klingons and Romulans, to name but a few.

Star Trek was rumoured to be canceled after it's second season, however a letter writing campaign by fans persuaded NBC to bring the show back for a third season. The final episode of The Original Series (as it was later to be known) aired on June 3rd, 1969, a month before mankind took their first steps on the Moon.

Syndication helped the show maintain it's popularity. The Original Series was followed by an animated series. Another live action TV series, Phase II, was planned but never underwent production.

After the success of Star Wars, it was decided to bring back Star Trek, but this time for the big screen, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture was made, recycling the scripts from Phase II.

More movies featuring the original crew were produced (The Wrath of Kahn, The Search for Spock, The Voyage Home, The Final Frontier and The Undiscovered Country). Star Trek also returned to its home on television with Star Trek: The Next Generation, later followed by Deep Space 9, Voyager, and the prequel series Enterprise.

After The Next Generation finished it's run on television, it too transitioned to the big screen with Star Trek: Generations, where the baton was passed from the original crew to the Next Generation crew. Three more TNG movies were made: First Contact, Insurrection and Nemesis.

After Nemesis opened to poor reviews, and Enterprise was canceled after four seasons it looked like Star Trek's long journey was coming to an end. The franchise was revived with the eleventh movie in the series.

Simply titled Star Trek, it was set in an alternative timeline and attempted to appeal to a wider audience by rebooting the story of the original crew from the '60's television show. It became the highest grossing movie of the franchise to date. A sequel is planned for release in 2012 or 2013.

All A Twitter

2011-08-31T02:51:00.004Z

I thought I'd give Twitter a go.

Writing tweets of 140 characters or less may give me the inspiration to start writing posts for this blog again. You can see what pointless babble I come up with via the widget on the right hand side of this page.

Silence Has Fallen

2011-04-23T19:37:00.005Z

The new series of Doctor Who kicked off tonight, and introduced us to it's latest, and some say scariest, monsters yet. The Silence.

The Silence has been mentioned a few times in the last season, though this is the first time they have been seen on screen. Scary to look at, they have the ability to render themselves forgettable when out of sight, and as such they have been free to manipulate history for some time.

Steven Moffat said “Humans will have been subconsciously aware of The Silence for many centuries and that awareness will have manifested itself in paintings such as The Scream.”

It will be interesting to see how The Silence is weaved into established history, and what impact they have in the Whoniverse.

Rest In Peace

2011-04-20T09:40:00.000Z

Elisabeth Sladen, known to the millions of fans of Doctor Who as Sarah Jane Smith, passed away yesterday. She had been battling cancer for some time.

I was truly shocked and saddened when I heard the news. Her tenure as The Doctor's companion (1973-1976) was a bit before my time, but I enjoyed watching her reprise the role in several episodes of the revamped Doctor Who, as well as her own spin off show, The Sarah Jane Adventures.

My thoughts go out to her family. She will be missed.

Declutter

2011-03-01T09:05:00.000Z

It's a new month, so time to implement a new resolution. This month I plan to focus on getting rid of all the clutter in my home.

I live in a kind of organised chaos. I'm no slob by any means, but items seem to find their way into my home and set up permanent residence. I have a pile of newspapers and magazines that haven't found their way into the recycling box yet because I haven't finished reading them. I have a drawer full of receipts, another full of plastic bags, and more "odd and ends" drawers than I'd like to mention.

The plan is to tackle each shelf, drawer and cupboard individually, ruthlessly sorting out everything, keeping only those items I really need, and getting rid of the rest.

Wish me luck!

Happiness Is...

2011-02-16T09:32:00.000Z

... munching my way through a bag of Cadbury Mini Eggs. I like to let the sugar coating dissolve in my mouth, till it disappears. By then the solid chocolate centre has begun to melt. Mmmmm!

Be My Valentine

2011-02-14T09:21:00.002Z

Wishing everyone a Happy Valentine's Day, whether with someone or not.

I haven't found that special someone yet, but I haven't given up hope.

Resolution Update

2011-02-01T00:20:00.000Z

One month in, and I'm still keeping up with my New Year's exercise regime. There have been a few dips along the way; my two days of rest lasted four days, but I didn't become disheartened, and picked up from where I left off.

The sore muscles I complained about in my earlier post are a distant memory. I have noticed a difference in muscle tone and also in my general well being. Moving around is easier too.

Taking things slowly and listening to what my body tells me has been key. Now I just have to apply these lessons to other aspects if my life.

French and Saunders Against the Music

2011-01-18T21:03:00.001Z

I watched the Britney Spears special of Glee last night, and though Santana and Brittany's song was good, my favourite "version" of the song is by French and Saunders.

Resolution Aches and Pains

2011-01-17T20:57:00.000Z

Three weeks into January, how many of us have stuck to the resolutions we made on the 1st?

My principle resolution was to get fit again. I was quite physically active in my early 20's, and worked out everyday. But after my first major bout of depression I lost all the muscle I gained and became skinnier than when I first started exercising. Over the years I've tried starting again, but never kept up with it long term.

I have been keeping to a fitness regime since the new year started. It has been hard going, but then the first two weeks usually are. My muscles ached, and I felt tried most of the time.

I've taken the weekend off to rest, but now it's time to resume the regime. I think exercising little and often is the key, and listening to my body.

Happy New Year

2011-01-01T03:59:00.000Z

All the best for 2011!

Merry Christmas

2010-12-25T05:45:00.003Z

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!

Happy Diwali

2010-11-05T00:15:00.000Z

Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali and a prosperous New Year.

VILFs

2010-10-31T09:26:00.000Z

Angel from Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel.

Eric from True Blood.

Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries.

Mitchell from Being Human.

If vampires existed, I'd definitely be a fangbanger.

Berries, Herbs, Pods, Roots and Tubers

2010-10-24T09:03:00.000Z

With Autumn upon us, I thought it would be a good time to write about my exploits in the garden growing fruit, vegetables and herbs.

The strawberries were a real success. Although they stopped cropping by the time August arrived, the plants produced many runners from which I was able to obtain new plants. I potted them up so they had time to develop roots before Winter comes. The leaves of the strawberry plants are starting to become scorched by the first frosts, but will be left in situ to overwinter. When Spring arrives they should come out of their dormancy and put on new leafy green growth, ready to produce a new crop of strawberries.

I tried a new method of propagating my sage plant. Last year I tried to root cuttings without success. This year I tried layering. In Spring I took one of the side stems from the main sage plant and, while it was still attached to it's 'parent' plant, buried the lower part in soil with the tip of the plant proud of the soil surface. Hopefully roots will have grown where the stem has been buried which can support the new plant. The stem has to be buried for a year, so I will know next Spring if the layering method was successful.

I also grew Scarlett runner beans, carrots and beetroot for the first time this year, all of which did well. I trained the bean plants up bamboo canes and could crop the bean pods every few days at the height of their production. The plants have stopped producing now that it's turning colder so they will be cut down soon. An added benefit of growing beans is that they fix nitrogen from the air into the soil, making the soil more fertile for the next crops to be planted in their place.

I have been harvesting carrots and baby beets for a few weeks. As this was my first time growing them I only planted a small amount to see if they would grow. Next year I intend to sow a larger area, and plant successive sowings, so that I'll get to harvest more throughout the growing season.

Finally we have the potatoes. I grew them in a bag, and layered the soil over the leaves every two weeks throughout the growing season until the bag was full. This was done so that the potato plant would produce more potatoes from the buried stems. It did not work. I found that when I cut the bag open, almost all the potatoes that had developed had grown in the initial 10cms of compost I put in the bottom of the bag. There were dozens of golf ball sized new potatoes, but the bag wasn't filled with them.

Next year I plan to fill up a third of the bag with compost before planting the chitted potatoes, so the developing tubers will have space to grow. Also I noticed the compost in the middle of this years bag was on the dry side, which may have contributed to the lack of tubers developing along the buried stems.

All there is left to do this year is to tidy up the garden and plan what I'm going to grow next year.

Codename: Species

2010-08-27T00:33:00.001Z

Get Your Cyborg Name

The First Of The Season

2010-06-29T11:59:00.004Z

Summer has arrived, and with it my first crop: the wild strawberry.

Smaller than its cultivated cousins, it packs a mighty strawberry flavour in its tiny form. I pick a handful each day, and the best thing about them growing on my patio is that I can harvest them when they are at their sweetest. Perfect for sprinkling onto my morning cereal, or adding to vanilla ice cream, or eating out of the hand like little sweets.

With all the hot weather we're having in the UK, I regret not planting a few outdoor tomatoes. With the poor summers we had the past couple of years, and the bitterly cold winter we just experienced, I left tomatoes off my "To Grow" list, thinking we'd never get enough sun for them to crop successfully. Hindsight is such a wonderful thing.

Still I have my beetroot to look forward too, the few carrots that managed to spring up are doing well, and soon my next crop will be ready to harvest: those potatoes I grew in a bag.

Springtime

2010-04-26T23:45:00.005Z

Spring has well and truly sprung here in the UK. The weather is warming up, leaves are beginning to bud on the trees, and the spring flowers are out in force. In fact my garden is a carpet of blue at the moment as bluebells and forget-me-nots fill the borders.

We had a harsh winter here in the UK, and I was a little worried that the snow and constant low temperatures would damage the newly planted roses, as well as my other perennial shrubs, but a few weeks of pleasant weather has bought them back to their former glory.

April has been a busy time in the garden. As well as a general tidy up, I've been getting the garden ready to grow more edible crops. I mentioned on my other blog how I grew potatoes last year and I am repeating the process this year. I'm also trying a few new crops such as beetroot and carrots, and maybe a few beans if I can find room for them.

Hopefully the summer will be glorious, and fruitful too.

Spotting The ISS

2010-03-14T21:53:00.004Z

I saw the International Space Station today as it passed overhead. Seen with the naked eye just after sunset, it appeared as a bright star moving west to east. It's passage across the sky took no more than 5 minutes. The International Space Station travels in orbit around Earth at a speed of 17,500 miles per hour (that's about 5 miles per second!).

The problem with living in a city is that you loose much of the star filled night sky due to the amount of ambient light radiated into space. Where I live, you can barely see the constellation of Orion, and just a handful of other stars, so seeing the space station as it made it's journey was a real treat.

Many thanks to Stuart Atkinson and his blog Cumbrian Sky, who provided the information on spotting the ISS.

Ellie Goulding: Starry Eyed

2010-03-12T00:50:00.002Z

This song is seriously infectious!

Rest In Peace

2010-03-02T21:23:00.004Z

Openly gay BBC TV presenter Kristian Digby was found dead yesterday in his London flat, in what police describe as "unexplained circumstances".

A regular on British daytime television, he was a warm and engaging presenter, and will be sadly missed.

The More Things Change...

2010-03-01T01:49:00.006Z

I have decided to restart this blog from the beginning.

I started my blog to give myself an outlet, to express my thoughts and chronicle what's going on in my head. However in the past year or so I don't feel like I've done that.

I feel that I'm not the person I was when I started the original blog 4 years ago, so in an effort to kick start the writing process I felt a blank slate was in order.

What hasn't changed is that I'm just trying to figure out who I am.