shepherd's posterous

amazing discount on apple laptops at amazon

Amazing_amazon_apple_discount

Good grief !

I received an email from Amazon, suggesting that I might want to hotfoot over to their site to check out "More great prices on netbooks and laptops".

I did just that and I could not believe my eyes.

Those kindly folk over at Amazon appear to be moving heaven and earth to bring Apple laptops to us at affordable prices.

In this case, they present a MacBook White 2.0GHz/2GB/120GB/GeForce 9400M/SD, and they have shaved an incredible 18 pence off of the price !   Just think of what you can do with all that money you save !
 
If that doesn't kick-start the economy, I don't know what will.

devolution

My_pictures1

Although I cannot imagine that the man himself would agree, it would seem that a considerable number of people believe that the world's most intelligent and charismatic ex-President of the United States of America - Mr George Walker Bush - looks like a chimp. Searching for "george bush chimp" in Google returns over 600,000 hits, so it must be true.

 
So with primates in mind, I popped over to the Open University's "Devolve Me" gizmo at http://www.open.ac.uk/darwin/devolve-me.php  and experimented in devolving Mr Bush into a series of early humans - maybe an australopillockus or somesuch.
 
The result for "homo heidelbergensis" was my favourite and is quite remarkable on two counts, because a devolved George Bush :
 
(1) looks less like a chimp than he does today;
(2) looks rather like a Radio One DJ of yesteryear, one Dave Lee Travis (http://tinyurl.com/ckslyg)
 
But never mind the picture. Let's look at how the OU describes Mr Bush .... er, sorry .... homo heidelbergensis :  
 
He was an " ... excellent hunter and adept weapon maker ... "  and creatures were " ... hunted and butchered by this resourceful species."  Spooky, eh ?
 
But my favourite bit comes at the start of the description :
 
" ... this stout, thick boned species ... "
 
We didn't really need the "boned" bit, did we ?

meet roaring meg

 

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When I first started working in Stevenage, I thought that "Roaring Meg" was the name of a mad, belligerent bag-lady who would holler drunken gibberish and obscenities at anyone within earshot.

But no.

"Roaring Meg" turns out to be the name of a mighty river that runneth 'twixt the B&Q and the Harvester and (for some part) alongside what is now the London Road.

"Roaring Meg" was formerly the main trade artery of Stevenage. Mighty ships would deliver to the town much-needed imports of coal, steel, timber, wheat and peas. The primary export - shiny tracksuits - would leave by the same route.

These days, of course, road and rail have superseded rivers and canals as commercial pathways. Instead, the mighty waterway is used for recreation. Every Sunday, pleasure cruisers and paddlesteamers plough up and down these fierce waters, affording unparalleled views of the beautiful town from a unique vantage point.

In the photos, I draw your attention to the higher-class of crap in the water. Where other towns would have mere shopping trolleys, notice that Stevenage has a pushchair. And where else in the world might you get not one - but two - sacks of dust free hay ? Were you even aware that there was such a thing as "dust free hay" ? 

Well, there is, and you can order it from http://www.dustfreehay.co.uk/ at (what seems to my inexpert eye) very reasonable prices.

If you do order some, tell them I sent you.

ye olde chippe shoppe, royston, herts

 

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This quaint building is your run-of-the mill, timbered, Jacobean fish-and-chip shop.

Well, the little blue plaque says it was "The King's Buttery".   This does not mean that "The King is Buttery"; rather, it is "The Buttery belonging to the King". 

I wonder if His Highness ever charged into this building and ordered .... oh I don't know .... lamprey and chips and a pickled gherkin after a few flagons of ale in a local pubbe ? I'd like to think so.