komadori’s green corner

A few weeks ago I bought myself a couple of new bread tins, so that I can make 3 lb of bread in one go. Unfortunately, the larger of the two tins produces bread that is too wide for the slices to fit in my toaster. I would buy a new one, but can I find one that’s suitable? No! There’s plenty with wider slots, but not in the right colour: there’s white ones, pink ones, metallic ones,… but what about a green one? A green, wide-slotted toaster, it’s not much to ask for!

Walking to work through Faringdon Road Park this morning, it was nice to see the daffodils coming out. Not so good to see so much standing water. It’s hard to believe it is less than two months since the hosepipe ban was lifted.

I also noticed that the path on the side that was not resurfaced and widened a couple of years ago is now badly broken up. It is a pity that the money cannot be found to finish this work. Walking round the park, half is very good and the other half looks uncared for.

There was clearly nobody local advising when a new name was being thought up for the Research Council to be created from the merger of two of the existing ones. The Research Councils, most of which have their main administrative offices in Swindon, are usually known by their initials. So it will be very difficult to distinguish the Science and Technology Facilities Council from Swindon Town Football Club.

It being Friday, for dinner (by which I mean my midday meal — I’m a breakfast, dinner and tea person) I had fish, mushy peas and chips. As usual, I poured a generous quantity of gravy over my chips. For some reason, some of my colleagues regard this as almost unacceptably ‘common’ and vulgar. I like my chips moist, and that means in gravy. (And if the fish is rather dry, I’ll put gravy on that too!) Some people are just too pompous to accept that personal preference and taste comes before silly ‘rules’ about acceptable food combinations.

Very disappointed with today’s pudding in the work canteen. It looked so nice: chocolate sponge with a sticky chocolatey-toffee topping, all in chocolate sauce – lots of chocolate sauce. Sadly, no amount of sauce could make up for the extreme dryness of the sponge. It totally spoilt my lunch break. A creme egg and a mug of hot chocolate this evening have almost made up for the disappointment.

Couldn’t help thinking that the DTI person that said the quote below at a meeting I attended today could do with a quick revision course on basic economics. He was speaking about a scheme intended to increase innovation in industry. He listed the benefits to the companies, individuals and other organisations involved in the scheme, then said

The main reason, of course that we, DTI, are involved is that it increases the organisation’s profits, which means more tax paid which means more money to invest in innovation.

And of course the DTI know all about investing in innovation. Hmm, perhaps leaving the organisations to spend the money themselves on innovation, rather than taxing them so that DTI can try to do it on their behalf, might be worth a try.

In 2001, a report to Swindon Borough Council concluded that an area near the town centre called North Star should be developed as a university campus as part of Swindon’s regeneration programme. The Swindon Urban Regeneration Company was set-up the following year, with the University of Bath having a seat on it’s board. The plan was for the site to accomodate 1,000 students along with accomodation. Then a change of heart led to the University of Bath wanting a more traditional campus, and a site near one of Swindon’s main leisure areas, Coate Water, was selected. There was much local opposition, as the plans (paid for through major housing development on the site) would encroach on the currently open landscape. As a consequence of a change in government policy (towards more workplace learning) and of the housing developers wanting too much of the site, the university has changed it’s mind, again. Now Swindon College is offering to share their campus at North Star with the University of Bath. So we are back where we were six years ago.

This is totally bizarre. ‘An Australian watermelon picker has set a new world record for headbutting and smashing the most melons in one minute.’ As part of a ‘watermelon festival’ he smashed 48 melons in 58 seconds. The BBC report (video) shows the whole event is, errm, wierd.

I seem to have gone down with the ’flu-like lurgy sweeping through this area. Doubt I’ll being posting much here for the next few days.

Whilst Swindon may not be the first place many people would choose to live, it does have some advantages. One is the Cadburys shop in the Designer Outlet Village. It sells discounted chocolates, with nothing more wrong with them than being slightly misshaped or the wrappers not on neatly enough. I bought nine creme eggs at the weekend. I only have six left now. Delicious.