Now, I’m not trying to be deliberately condescending here, but I’ve found this to be the case very often in my life: some people are great at listening, while others are horrendous. It’s not their fault, it’s just that they never learned how to. So, with that in mind, here is my advice in list form on how to be a good friend and listen more:

1) Say you work for a red diesel suppliers and you’ve just gone to work in some shoes that you love. You weren’t worried, you never spilt any on your shoes, until today…when a barrel breaks and spills chemicals all over your shoes and trousers! Nightmare. That’s them ruined. You are now traumatized and need to speak to someone who can listen. You decide to call Doug.

What should you do differently next time with Doug or someone else?

2) You are Doug, yes you are. And as you listen to your friend’s woes you start to drift off and think about what you’re having for dinner tonight. Your friend doesn’t seem to notice and this just enables you to get away with it even more. But here’s the thing, later that night your friend lies awake and can’t sleep. He doesn’t feel like he got anything off his chest. What should you do differently next time with Doug or someone else? How about this: a) focus on your friend. You’d want someone else to do the same for you in a time of need, right?

…b) don’t suggest the obvious. Your friend knows that, that’s why it’s obvious! c) don’t tread on egg-shells, just say what you think because that always works better, which leads us to…d) sometimes you just have to be cruel to be kind, whether it’s chemicals on shoes or whatever it may be. Your friend may be upset to begin with but later he or she will see that you only have their best interests at heart. Fantastic!

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Unlike with the ancient Samarians, or Aztecs, our legacy will not be too hard to find. There will be endless miles of concrete, metal, and tarmac, that will not have degraded. The scar left on the earth by us now, will surely always be on the earth now. That is our gift to the earth, that many people do no t seem to think about. When the ancient Greeks were no longer around, they left some stone footings, pottery and the odd piece of metal in the ground, and when we leave, there will be, a never ending amount of plastic bottles, latex gloves and car chassis for future generations of people to deal with.

So when will it end? This is an interesting thing to think about isn’t it? If our current civilisation continues as we are for another few hundred years, surely the world will be so full of rubbish that there will be no more places to put it all. Instead of forests there will be 100’s of miles of rubbish tips outside the ever expanding cities.

Maybe this all a little extreme and things will find a way of levelling themselves out. After all, we are always coming up with solutions to the problems we create. It was just a thought that I had today and thought I might share with you!

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I, myself, don’t like to drink. I don’t know why that is: in theory I should love my drink. But that’s not to say that every now and again I don’t dabble. And recently it happened that my dad and I had some whisky together. Like two old boys we were, drinking out on the porch together, having a right old good time.

whenever he has a Fireball in him he sleeps like a log an snores like the devil

This last time was an even more special occasion that normal, as it happens. The reason for that? Well, that’s easy. Dad had him some fireball whisky (33%) and he wanted to share it with his son; wanted to bond with me and sit about and talk like old timers. I couldn’t turn that down, and I guess that deep down it is possible I am developing my dad’s love of whisky in a similar way (and, strangely enough, at a similar time in life to when he developed a love for the stuff). I really don’t mind that. In fact, it’d probably feel like carrying on some ancient important tradition.

Made with Canadian whisky – the good stuff, my dad says – and with naturally lovable cinnamon flavours, this stuff is beautiful and the cinnamon is anything but for show. In fact, it feels like a vital part of the recipe. Now, I doubt I could drink any other kind of whisky and enjoy it as much as this stuff. It would seem that dad has got me hooked.

The future? Will I start drinking more of this stuff? It’s quite possible, and you know what, I really wouldn’t mind. It hasn’t done dad any harm in all the years he’s been around, and one thing is for sure: whenever he has a Fireball in him he sleeps like a log an snores like the devil (and that isn’t an exaggeration. All he is missing are the horns on his head…man, as much as I love my dad and would do anything for him, I wouldn’t want to be in my mum’s shoes living in that house!).

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As always most of what I have to say really has nothing to do with anything at all, it’s more just my written observations of things in the world (and my life) that piss me off and I feel deserve some attention. I was getting fuel for my auto the other day and noticed a couple of tourists who were also filling up their rental car. They were complaining about the cost of fuel and how it didn’t matter where in the world you were, it was just as expensive everywhere.
Now the conversation itself didn’t bother me much, (except for the fact that they were bitching about fuel cost while on vacation and based on their accents they were very far from home) but had me thinking about how people constantly complain about such things yet don’t do a damn thing to help themselves out. While the cost of fuel, gas, petrol or whatever it is called where you live is in fact highly over priced and certainly over taxed does it ever occur to any of these people to practice good fuel management to save some money? I mean back in the days when our parents and grandparents were young taking two or three trips to do anything was unheard of. Most people would make an errand list and take care of all of their business in one economical trip, and if by some chance mom forgot milk at the store, she would surely ring dad at work and ask him to get it on his way home.
Maybe this is part of the reason that most of our older generation has better money management skills also. Regardless, it would just seem to me that people should quit complaining about things that are totally in their control and just do something productive about it.
On that note, I did forget milk so I guess I’ll be taking that extra trip if I want to eat some dinner tonight. But I promise I won’t complain about it.

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And he had a point. When can you punch someone? If your girlfriend is talking about looking for primary teaching jobs one minute and the next she’s being hit on by two guys at once, is that really acceptable? I know I wouldn’t like it.

If I was in government then I would propose a simple law: if someone cracks onto your girlfriend you get to punch them once very hard in anywhere but the face or neck or groin of heart. Everywhere else is fair game. Sure, it might result in a few fights and disturbances, but a man’s dignity is worth more than that, right? Well, I for one happen to think so! Let’s give the man on the street his power back, yes?

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My best friend doesn’t look like either of her parents. It is something that has plagued her, her whole life. The ironic (or interesting) twist to the story is that when she was young, she looked just like her sister. As they aged they looked increasingly different. This brings up a lot of interesting questions that cannot really be resolved with a DNA Test. Both of her parents are now dead, and it seems that not having the parents that you think you actually have is something that should be confessed on the death bed. A person wants to know who their parents are don’t they? But it also begs the question about judging a book by its cover, or a picture speaks a thousand words, or some other bit of nonsense. Why is this plaguing my mind? I wonder where I get my intelligence from, I wonder where I get my feet from, I wonder if I have inherited any rare genetic condition that early treatment could help prevent. I also worry that worrying won’t help at all. There are so many questions in the world today that we want to know the answer to and so many answers that will never have questions. For my friend, it is funny how her looks inspire a set of daily questions that speak to answers that are buried now. People like to guess her ethnic identity and invariably they make wrong assumptions. As far as she knows she is from Essex and not the Andes.

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I was having a consultation on the laser tattoo removal process recently when I saw a report on the television in the waiting area. The report was one cautioning us about the harmful chemicals that are the foods we eat each day. Here is a bit of what was said.

Most of us are oblivious to the presence of harmful chemicals in the food which we consume every day. This means we could actually be loading up on the chemicals without any knowledge. Some of the most commonly consumed foods which contain harmful toxins are:

Bananas are often harvested unripe so that they don’t spoil. Before the bananas are sold to the market they are stored in gas chambers to assist in quick ripening of the bananas. The gas chambers contain the chemical called “ethylene”. It is a growth hormone which spoils the natural taste and nutritional elements of the banana. Besides this, large doses of the growth hormone can have adverse effects on our bodies.

Potatoes contain the chemical “solanine”, which can interfere with the transmission of pulses through the nerves. This disruption in the nerve may cause severe stomach aches or even death under extreme circumstances. The chemical cannot be destroyed through cooking, so avoiding its consumption is the most viable option.

Cabbage and Turnips are loaded with “Goitrogens”; it can significantly interfere with the functioning of the thyroid gland and may even cause the gland to swell.

Kidney beans and Legumes contain “Lectins”, poisoning of which can cause a person to vomit.

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The family is planning on staying for a week with each other and spending as much time together as we possibly can. Could the Lanzarote Villas be our new vacation place? All over beautiful Mexico, we were able to pick a location that we actually wanted to visit instead of having to drive all over the place. Vacation with the family will be so much fun and so easy seeing as we are only going to have to walk to wherever we want to visit. A new place with a great location and sight seeing.

My family will probably purchase a bungalow to stay in so that all of us can be together. Part of the family is considering maybe even purchasing a place so that we can just come up anytime we want to visit. This trip will probably be the best family vacation that we have had in years and will be for years to come.

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As you can see from this blog, oil is on my mind quite a lot. Or rather, the debate about oil running out world-wide. Until recently I was pretty certain that we only had about 60 years left of oil left to use up. Then I ended up talking to a scientist in a pub the other day. Drunk though he was, he was still lucid enough to explain a few things to me. It was fairly shocking. Imagine drinking four red bull and Vodka’s in a row – or better still do it now and then read the rest of this – and you’ll know just how I felt.

“Oil won’t run out any time soon,” said the scientist. We’ll not bother giving him a name. Just imagine glasses, the crazed look in the eyes and the wild hair. Bingo.

“What do you mean drunken scientist?” I asked. “That doesn’t sound very scientific.”

“Oh,” he said, “but it is.” Then he started drawing something on the napkin that belonged to the rather tall threatening looking man who was sitting next to the scientist. I soon found out no punch-up would ensue as this was just Harry, another scientist.

“It is,” said Harry.

“Well I won’t argue with two scientists,” I said.

“You can if you like,” said the scientist sitting next to me, “He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

After some bloke came in with leaflets shouting about a new low cost roaming provider, the scientists instructed me that actually, there’s loads more oil left. The problem is right now our technology won’t allow us access. But when we have better technology, they said, we’ll have more oil. That simple. Oil isn’t really being fazed out. It just seems that way.

Logical when you think about it. Wrong too. I really hope that the scientists aren’t completely right…

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One of my recent idle thoughts, apart from having laser hair removal, was on whether or not there will come a time when oil will run out. Or will it last forever.

Oil powers the world, or that’s what it seems like. With the rate of oil consumption increasing as more countries develop, a very valid question is: When will the oil run out? After all, oil is a resource that is not renewable. Oil is a finite natural resource. We cannot (at present anyway) make more oil. We can try to discover more oil, but we cannot manufacture this valuable resource.

While experts agree at present that oil is a finite resource, it is difficult to figure out when the oil will run out, since it is challenging to get good estimates of the amount of oil available in the world, as well as project oil consumption over time. However, some rough estimates can be attempted, and an even rougher estimate of years left before “oil runs out”can be attempted by dividing the amount of oil in the world by the amount of oil consumed per year.

However, such a calculation is not only rough, it is making too many assumptions. One assumption is that the consumption rate of oil will remain constant over time. That is clearly not the case, as the trend has been an increase in consumption. Also, alternate energy technologies being developed may, over time, cause a decrease in oil consumption.

Some experts say we will never run out of oil because of the power of the market economy. If oil becomes scarce, according to the laws of the market and supply and demand, the price will increase to a point that consumers will be motivated to consume less (and seek alternate forms of energy that cost less).

So in a sense, oil will never truly run out. It may just become too expensive to use, and give way to cheaper, and hopefully renewable, forms of energy.

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