Topic: Addicted

From Wikipedia (the "if you need to know something don't look further"-website):

"An addiction is a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific activity, despite harmful consequences to the individuals health, mental state or social life. The term is often reserved for drug addictions but it is sometimes applied to other compulsions, such as problem gambling, compulsive overeating, and hyperreligiosity ."

In my case, it's coffee. At least Monday to Friday during working hours. And I'm so addicted, that I even drink this horrible brew on the left, that calls itself coffee. It's actually a disgrace and it should be forbidden to use that name. But hey! The "I brew something that should be coffee but never ever tastes like it"-machine in our office produces this chemical substance for free and four or five Starbucks coffees are definitively a greater harm to my bank account than this brew to my health.

Isn't it amazing? Today was the first flight of the Airbus 380, the biggest passenger jet ever. Humans can produce amazing things. Unfortunately that doesn't count for coffee machines...

For today's lyrics:

So give me coffee and TV
Peacefully
I've seen so much, I'm going blind
And I'm brain-dead virtually

Coffee and TV - Blur

Topic: OiOiOi Lads...what was that???

WellWell, that was not the perfect weekend for the English folks here... Everyone here - The BBC, ITV, The Sun, The Mirror, the upper class daily paper The Times and so on - hoped and thought on Friday, that this weekend there will be complete victory. And probably the breweries hoped it most as they counted on at least 30 Million Pints being sold... Well...uhmmm... it has rather been a complete disaster...

"Still more majestic shalt thou rise,
More dreadful, from each foreign stroke:
As the loud blast that tears the skies,
Serves but to root thy native oak.

Rule, Britannia, Britannia rules the waves; Britons never, never, never will be slaves."

James Thomson (1700 - 1748)

For today's lyrics (as a small piece of comfort):

I see, you need a trial of fire - a coward would wisely walk away
Help them, help us buy your time - Hideouts get discovered
I think you’ll find, everybody loves a loser
So you’ll be fine, you won’t be lonely long

Morcheeba - Everybody Loves A Loser

Topic: News of the week

The BBC-News of the week:

Two visitors to the Tate Modern have fallen into the hole which forms the centrepiece of the new installation in the Turbine Hall. Colombian artist Salcedo said the work - on display to the public until April next year - symbolised racial hatred and division in society. "I always try to relate my work to tragedy," she said.

I think that this art does not only symbolise division in society, but also the division into the 99.9% intelligent people and the 0.1% stupid enough to fall into an artificial crack. To be honest - for me - tooo much beer is the only explanation...

Salcedo added: "It represents borders, the experience of immigrants, the experience of segregation, the experience of racial hatred."

Well, for the two that fell into it, it was definitively an experience... the expression " he/she was so embarrassed that he/she wished the ground would open up and swallow him/her" gets a completely new meaning...

Oh and by the way - next headline - the car in which the jury of the Diana trial travelled around Paris ironically CRASHED...!!!! In front of the Ritz Hotel... If this is not British humour at its best, what is it then...

And for the lyrics of the week:

I'm falling down
And fifteen thousand people scream
They were all begging for your dreams
I'm falling down

Muse - Falling Down

Topic: World famous - Part Three

Nothing to do with London, but in remembrance to my favourite team at the World Cup, which unfortunately has been sent home. Now I just hope, that England kicks, crushes and humiliates the French in the semi-final...

New Zealand rugby team - All Blacks
Uploaded by Neocrisis62

Topic: World famous - Part Two

Greenwich Mean Time was adopted across the island of Great Britain by the Railway Clearing House in 1847, and by almost all railway companies by the following year - HA, again my beloved railways, which set the pace... In 1880, GMT was legally adopted throughout the island of Great Britain. Switzerland followed introduced GMT (+1) in 1894... Not so sure, if this would still be the case today...
And it's not only time, that starts and ends here. What would we climbers, mountaineers, hickers, GPS users, travelers, politicians and diplomats do without the good old East-West stuff. The good old USA, which at that time were still somehow diplomatic and really cared about the world ticking the same, called the "International Meridian Conference" in 1884, where it was decided "That the Conference proposes to the Governments here represented the adoption of the meridian passing through the centre of the transit instrument at the Observatory of Greenwich as the initial meridian for longitude." Abstaining from voting was (surprise, surprise...) FRANCE! Their maps still showed for a long time the zero meridian going through Paris... Well, Santo Domingo said "No" - not that this would be important... Et voila: www.from0to180degreesandback.com
Oh and back to time. Did you know that UT1 is the principal form of Universal Time. UT1 is the same everywhere on Earth, and is proportional to the true rotation angle of the Earth with respect to a fixed frame of reference. The ratio of UT1 to mean sidereal time is defined to be 0.997269566329084 − 5.8684×10−11T + 5.9×10−15T², where T is the number of Julian centuries of 36525 days each that have elapsed since JD 2451545.0 (J2000). I didn't. And to be honest, i really don't care anyway...

and this is me, on 52° 28'40'' N and 0° 0'0'' W?/E?


It's now 22.51 (GMT) and time for the usual lyrics:

And you run and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking
And racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in the relative way, but you're older
Shorter of breath and one day closer to death

Pink Floyd - Time


Greenwich Park on a grey London Autumn Day