America... Wake Up and Listen to Warren

It seems if you want to polarise America, get people talking about reforming the healthcare system.

Now one of the richest and most succesful men in America, Warren Buffet has waded in.

He has compared the runaway cost of heathcare to an economic tapeworm and pointed out that America spends 17% of its GDP on healthcare wheras other countries with more centralised healthcare systems only spend 9%

Tricky one for the Republicans / Right wingers / Tea party folk who've been using term socalised medicine to imply its socalism via the backdoor.

When someone such as Warren Buffet who is:

1) Very successful investor and businessman

2) Clearly not a socialist

Says something needs to be done, it'll be interesting to see how the right counters this

RIP Michael Foot

Growing up in the 1980's in one of the most conservative parts of the country made me a bit of a Tory boy, luckily a stage I quickly grew out of it.

Back in the early 80's Michael Foot was seen as a bit of a dangerous leftie who would leave us at the mercy of the Soviet Red Army tanks ready to invade.

While I still disagree with some of his views, the more I read about him, the more time and respect I had for a man who clearly stood by his views and principles even if meant time in the political wilderness

While most people thought of him as a pacifist for his views on unilateral nucelar disarmament, they didn't know that he was equally vocal on the use of force when he felt it was right.

For example;

• In 1940, his booklet denouncing appeasement sold over 250,000 copies
• He was vocal supporter of Nato involvement to stop aggression in Yugoslavia

A few more politicans such as him who are prepared to stand up and not worry about what others think should surely raise the publics respect for politicans.

Today's obituary in the Guardian sums up his life pretty well

Would A Hung Parliament Be Such A Bad Thing?

With a general election now only a couple of months ago, it is possible that we may end up with a hung parliament for the first time since WW2

While the joint wisdom (and I use that term very lighly) of the Daily Mail and currency traders don't seem to think so, would be be such a bad thing?

Timothy Garton Ash in todays Guardian points out a couple of very salient facts

1) World War 2 was won with a coalition parliament

2) Germany who has the strongest economy in Europe has known nothing but coalition governments

His conclusion is that it would strengthen parliament and take back powers from what has become an overstrong executive

The full article is here: Don't be afraid of a hung parliament

Laverbread and Cockle Gratin Recipe

I first had this at the King Arthur Hotel in the Gower and have been trying to replicate this ever since. Laverbread may be a little tricky to get hold of unless you live in Wales, but its worth getting hold of.

For this need you'll need the following ingredients

• 150g pot of Laverbread - Swansea market is excellent for this if nearby
• 200-400g of cleaned cooked cockles - you can buy these from fishmongers
• 4 slices of day old white bread
• 4 slices of good free range bacon

150g Strong Cheddar - Little Black Bomber is perfect for this

• 2 oz butter
• 2 oz of flour
• 1 pint of milk

To make it:

1. Turn your oven to 190C / 375F
2. If the cockles appear a little gritty, run them under the tap, otherwise leave
3. Melt 2 oz of the butter in the microwave in a large bowl and add 2 oz of flour
4. Mix together to create a paste / roux and add the milk and whisk ensuring that all the paste has been mixed in
5. Microwave on full power for 1 minute, take out and whisk
6. Repeat until the sauce is starting to thicken
7. While making the sauce grate your strong cheddar and put to one side
8. Remove any rind from the bacon, chop up and put to one side
9. Remove the crusts from the bread, tear up and put into a food processor
10. Pulse until you have fine breadcrumbs
11. Once you white sauce starts to thicken, add the cockles, bacon and cheese
12. Now add a spoonful of laverbread and taste. Laverbread is fairly strong tasting so try the sauce and see what you think. You should be able to taste it without it being overpowering
13. Pour the white sauce mixture into an overproof dish and sprinke the breadcrumbs over the top
14. Put in oven and bake for 15-20 mins
15. Serve with some crusty rolls which can be torn up and dipped in

The Maths behind Alice in Wonderland

Ever since Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland was first published, people have tried to interpret exactly what it means. The Freudians had a field day trying to unravel the dark journey into the world of the subconscious.

A recent article in the New Scientist magazine suggests they may have been barking up the wrong tree. Research by Melanie Bayley suggests that the book was a biting satire on the radical new ideas in mathematics that were emerging towards the end of the 19th century.

Lewis Carroll was a pseudonym for Charles Dodgeson., a mathematician at Christ Church Oxford. It appears he was rather conservative and disliked the new style of maths that detached itself from the physical world.

While some of the maths went right over my head, its a fascinating read into how someone communicated their ideas through fiction, allegory and story telling.

Read the article - Alice's secrets in Wonderland

Day of the Triffids Redux

Any director who attempts to update a classic text or film is never going to please everyone. The purists will insist that you stick to every word in the book, whereas an audience who has never seen or heard of the work, will compare it to more modern material.

Herein lies the problem of trying to adapt John Wyndhams classic Day of the Triffids.

Originally written in 1951, it has been adapted several times. Anyone 35+ in the UK is most likely to have come across the BBC TV series version, which while it looks dated now, certainly felt very scary back in 1981.

Over the last two nights, the BBC has been showing its updated version of the book. While keeping the central storyline, they have added new characters and updated to include contemporary issues such as global warming.

Personally, I think they have done a pretty good job and keep the central tenant that it mankind messes with mother earth too much, its going to come back and bite (a theme running through several John Wyndham books).

Whats interesting is that while some people like it, others are critical of it for the following reasons

1) Bad special effects - for those people weaned on the Matrix, the effects are not going come on guys and girls, its always going to be tricky to make the triffids really scary

2) Plot holes - While the ending makes no sense at all, the rest of it was all pretty plausible. I'm not sure what people were expecting from a story that deals with society collapse - perhaps they had the same issues with 28 Days Later.

I'd recommend anyone who watched the film to either

Go out and buy the book

or if you don't have time, read the Wikipedia summary and make up your own mind

Getting People To Switch

Take a look at what you do everyday on the web and in the real world and you soon work out that you constantly go back to the same place time and time again.

Whether its

• Using Google to find web sites
• Buying books from Amazon
• Shopping at the same supermarket

Why do we do this? Most likely is that these sites or suppliers don't let us down and do what we ask of them, so why bother taking the time to find something else that is probably only as good.

Seth Godins latest blog post Can't Top This, suggests that if you really want to someone to switch to you come up with something that the big providers didn't think was important