Crawling around Cambridge

A few weeks ago our beer club whisked me off to Cambridge for a pub crawl, and to visit the Cambridge Winter Ale Festival.   What was surprisingly thrown in before the trip was a tour of St. John's College. This monolithic complex was huge,

hosting at least five courtyards full of rooms. Each section had its own castle-styled arched entrance and fortified roofs. Then there wasn't s the chapel and Professor dining area as well as the Bridge of Sighs crossing the river. It was a real shame that we ran out of time; I would have liked to have climbed the tower; visited the library and witnessed Claxton's printing press. But we did cover a fair bit of ground in our whistle-stop tour. Once we were back on the bus we were whisked away to another part of the city where the beer was rapidly running out; but fortunately there was an excellent range of pubs nearby. 

The God of Small Things

I could not get on with this book. It is a tale full of woe and tragedy, with no entertainment value whatsoever. The out of place children have no idea how to blend in with society; while the parents make no effort to help them. The narrative of the book is very confusing since it does not describe events in a chronological order; making it hard for the reader to piece together what is actually happening and which event the author is focusing on. In most cases, it seems that all grown-ups are agents of corrupt India; living their own rules and manipulating other to their own requirements. There’s not really any morale to the story other than to introduce us to the author’s misguided childhood. And as for the Booker prize, it seems all it takes is a load of colourful adjectives to win the judges over. Never mind the plot!

Traffic Cone Farming

One of our most popular enterprises  in modern times is the art of traffic cone farming. Each cone contributes around five pence per passed car to the government's gross domestic product; raising a revenue of millions of pounds per year as motorists sit idly in their cars wasting fuel as they wait to pass through the traffic jam. It's quite rare that you actually see a traffic cone farmer; usually they leave behind a set of traffic lights to police them. The cones are trained well to recognise that red is to mate and green is to stop; though the presence of motorists puts them off and deters them from reproducing.The revenue from the farms is usually spent on more roads to create larger farms which in turn create more delays.  Current government estimates of traffic cone population is about 1.3 million with an average growth rate of just one point nine percent; but in actuality there are a lot more since many escape from the farm and go on to form their own residency. 

On-line Pizza

Last week I took part in something that borders on the anti-social. I came home and didn’t want to cook, didn’t want to go out again and didn’t want to speak to anybody. So I took part in a new internet craze; ordering pizza on-line. I found a new pizzeria and placed my first order. I even had the option to pay cash; but that’s so twentieth century. So in went the credit card details; half wondering if I was even on the right site or whether my order would even reach them. But it was done; and the next thing that popped up on the screen was that my pizza was being made. And the strangest thing was; it was actually delivered within twenty minutes. And the guy didn’t even hang about for a tip. It was a shame that my screen never got updated. And the pizza was warm, but a little dry. But still, it was all done and dusted within the hour.

Do Birds have a sense of smell?

I spotted a bird in our stockroom the other day. I tried to keep track of it but it took off overhead into another part of the stockroom. This posed a few questions. How did it get in? Can it find its way out? Will it set off the overnight alarms? And do birds have a sense of smell? We keep a small selection of food in the stockroom and were worried that the bird would peck its way into these items. Of course birds have an excellent sense of sight for seeking food from the skies, but then they only have a beak which is visible to the naked eye. Would it recognise and smell these boxes out? It turns out not. A few hours later, I saw a bird on the stairwell. Again, it reacted before I could and flew up into the rafters. I got a colleague and pointed out its escape route, but could just see shadows. We got a light which immediately illuminated the bird, which took off round the other side of the wall. It turns out that there's a gap between the inner wall of our building and the outer wall of the retail complex, allowing the bird to shop from store to store. Happy shopping little birdie.