Beta Blogger

Recently, I decided to make the switch from Blogger to Beta Blogger. The lure was the ability to add labels to posts. This is a feature that I've been mimicking by having a drop-down menu in my sidebar called "Series Archive" but this has been far from ideal.

Unfortunately, once you've made the move to Beta Blogger, there's no going back.

To be able to use the labelling feature of Beta Blogger, one has to "customize" one's template (i.e. choose a template, then re-customize it to resemble what you had before). I don't mind doing this, but the problem was that the line height of the text varied between paragraphs for no reason that I could make out.


Here's what Blogger have to say about it:

There are general formatting issues in various places throughout the application. These are mostly just cosmetic and nothing to worry about in terms of functionality. — latest update on Tuesday, September 05, 2006

Blogger: Known Issues

I gather from this that "just cosmetic" issues are not top priority.

I resorted to reverting to my old template. (Although one can't revert to the tried and tested alpha version of blogger, one can upload the old template). Unfortunately, though, all of the old template's functionality is not available in Beta Blogger. The "Previous Posts" section only lists the twelve most recent posts. Previously, one could click on a post and the twelve "Previous Posts" listed would be relative to the post being viewed. The search box also fails to find older posts.

Now that I'm using my old template on Beta Blogger, the only way to access older posts is via the "Main Archive" drop-down menu. This only shows posts by month, without the option of viewing individual entries.

Beta Blogger does have better archiving options -- one can have a list, a drop-down box or a hierarchical structure. Although nice, it is not very customizable, so they need to work on that a bit more too.

So, if you're wondering what's wrong with my blog at the moment, it's teething problems with Beta Blogger. Hopefully, the problems will get ironed out eventually. I apologise for this and if I could go back, I would.

By the way, if you have any input into my Beta Blogger problems (i.e. if there's something I can do to sort out the text line spacing without having to wait for Blogger's support team), please let me know.

October 10.2006

I'm outlining the problem with the line spacing and possible solutions for posterity, in the hope that it may be of help to anyone else who has had this same problem. This problem and solution is specific to the various incarnations of the Minima template only.

The problem is that when one types one's post into blogger, carriage returns are interpreted as breaks, not paragraphs. This means that the entire post is treated by the browser as one big paragraph. My problem was that I had been using div tags to float images with their captions underneath. This use of div tags within the mega-paragraph that forms the post would break the mega-paragraph and the styles would no longer apply.

The style for the post body is defined by a div tag with "class='post-body'". The line spacing for the mega-paragraph is defined in the style sheet by "'post p'".

Solutions are:

1. Go to each div tag and change it to "span" (very time-consuming and boring)
2. Encase each paragraph in p tags (also very time-consuming and boring)
3. Make the "post p" style apply to "post-body" by changing the style sheet line ".post p {" to read something like ".post-body, .post p {".

There are also lots of things with beta blogger templates that do my head in, so I'll have to have a bit of a think before I decide to ditch my "classic" template.

More Things to See

Jensen and GervaisWe watched the first episode in the new series of Extras last Thursday night. It has just started airing on BBC2, in the UK. It was very good and featured Orlando Bloom (who was very funny -- loving himself and jibing at Johnny Depp), Liza Tarbuck and Keith Chegwin. Still, it hasn't managed to knock my favourite episode (the Kate Winslett one) off its pedistal.

There are also a few well-reviewed films coming up that may be worth watching:

The Queen

A low budget dramatisation about the interactions between Buckingham Palace and Westminster in the aftermath of Princess Diana's untimely demise.

Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

Borat visits the US and goes in search of Pamela Anderson. I like Borat, but he can be a bit rude and the film has been rated R (18 in the UK), so I'm not sure about this one. My prediction is that it'll probably be good, but also rude, crude and very cringe-worthy.

An Inconvenient Truth

Mark Kermode describes this as "a powerpoint presentation", not a movie. It is a lecture on global warming given by Al Gore. The way I see it, if I start watching it expecting a glorified powerpoint presentation, not The Day After Tomorrow, then I'm not going to be disappointed. Mark Kermode also said that the film preaches to the converted, but, as I've said before, there's a whole gulf between knowing something and doing something about it, so perhaps this film will encourage those of us who are able to make lifestyle changes that help the environment to do so.

TransAmerica

TransAmericaTransAmerica is another excellent film that we watched recently. It is a road-movie about a transexual whose operation is imminent discovering that she's a father and having to travel across America with her son.

The film stars Felicity Huffman. Even though I've seen her in other things (mainly Desperate Housewives) and even though I know full well that she's a woman, she plays the part so well that I am convinced that she is a pre-op transexual.

I thought that it was a good portrayal of a transexual waiting for an operation, but as I've only ever known one person who has changed sex, I wondered what the "transexual community" might have thought of the film, so I did a little googling. I couldn't find that many transexual people who had seen it or anything that was particularly quotable, but generally those who had seen it seemed to like it. Let me know if you think differently.

The Girl in the Cafe

Mark and I recently watched the film, The Girl in the Cafe -- a 2005 Richard Curtis film. We loved the film right from the opening seconds right through to the end. It sported brilliant performances from both Bill Nighy and Kelly MacDonald.


Lost in TranslationThe backdrop of the story is a fictional G8 Summit hosted in Reykjavik, Iceland and the story is a romance between Nighy and MacDonald. On this level, the film does what Lost in Translation tried and failed to do -- be heartwarming and engaging from beginning to end and depicting a relationship between an older business man and younger woman without coming across as a bit sleazy. For the most part, I quite liked Lost in Translation, but this film is far its superior.


The Girl in the CafeThe real emphasis of the film is not the love story, but the Make Poverty History message -- that on average once every three seconds a child dies due to extreme poverty and that the leaders of the richest countries of the world have the power to do something about it.

I'd like to be able to say that this film has motivated me to try and get more involved with issues of social conscience; and that, as far as I'm concerned, Richard Curtis's mission is accomplished. I am, however, a realist. I realise that there is a huge gaping chasm between empathising with a cause and actually doing something about it and I don't want to speak too soon. However, I think that I will go as far as to say that I will investigate the matter further by looking into what may be going on in my area. Watch this space.

I Wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,
And spotted the perils beneath,
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food,
Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.
etc...

Pam Ayres

A Trip to the DentistIn the USA, almost everyone pays for almost everything and most people have a whole array of insurance policies to cover almost everything that one can think of. This includes medicine and dentistry. The UK has the NHS, which, despite its problems, makes me proud to be British. In the UK, we would pay about £13 each for a scale and polish for the adults and, as one would expect, it was always free for the children. The government payed the rest. The bill for our family trip to the dentist, for a similar amount of treament, in the USA was about $1500 plus an extra $500 or so of treatment that would most probably not have been prioritised by a UK dentist. Of this $2000, we had to part with $130 and the dental insurance policy covered the rest. The great thing about the NHS is that medical treatment is completely free and dental treatment is almost free for anyone regardless of socioeconomic status.


A Brit with Bad TeethHowever, my recent State-side trip to the dentist has highlighted something that one can see in this and in other aspects of American life that is rarer in British life. This is the relationship between service providers and their recipients: that if one is paying for something up-front, one is likely to demand and therefore to receive a better quality of service. This is great for those who can afford it or have an employer who can afford it, but is less great for those who are less fortunate.

The USA seems to run on this principle. At the dentist, our initial "oral evaluation" was far more thorough than anything that I have ever experienced in the UK, with an emphisis on prophylactic treatment. In addition, the dentists/hygenists themselves are more polite and friendly. They realise that one can always take one's custom elsewhere, which is less easy to do in the UK.

While we're on the topic of teeth, what is the going rate for teeth at the moment?

When in England, our tooth fairy always used to give £1 per tooth. On the odd occasion, he'd forget to do his job, so we would have to negotiate compensation for his lateness to the tune of a 100% per tooth markup. Since moving to the US, the rate has been $1 per tooth, with the same penalty for lateness. However, we recently found out that Emily's friend's tooth fairy pays $5 per tooth. In addition, we were recently
Larry Davidwatching an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm (one of the funniest programmes ever) wherein Susie's daughter, Sammi, has lost her last baby tooth and Susie is trying to put a $5 bill under her pillow (with disastrous consequences resulting from Larry using the upstairs loo very noisily whilst wearing very squeaky shoes). Is our tooth fairy particularly stingy? Should we be negotiating a better deal for our kids while they still have baby teeth to lose?

New Labour Implosion

Tony BlairOver the past few days, it's all been kicking off in UK politics. Someone had pressed the self-destruct button on New Labour. Thankfully, they have a few years to try and recover a little dignity in time for the next General Election.

Let's settle the matter with a googlefight.




Gordon BrownWell, as of now, Gordon wins by a good 10,000,000 or so. So, I'm afraid Tony that your time has now come to move over.

Labor Day

Labor Day FlagYesterday was Labor Day (labour to Brits). Labor Day is a public holiday that each year falls on the first Monday of September. Everyone in the country, except for Duke University staff and students, gets the day off work. Why? I hear you ask. What does Labor Day celebrate? Even Americans don't seem to know the answer to this question. When asked, the answer is simply that one gets the day off work -- 'nough said.

A quick google search later and I think that I may have the general gist, although it really was a quick google search. If you want to enlighten me further, or provide a better expanation of what Labor Day is, just drop in a comment.

It seems that Labor Day started with a parade in New York City, in 1882. The first parade was a protest march against the introduction of the eight hour working day. It was organised by the Central Labor Union, a trade union affiliated to a secret society that was an offshoot from the freemasons -- the Knights of Labor. Turnout to the march was in defiance of employers, who docked a day's pay from workers who attended. From there, the march became an annual event and spread to other areas. There was growing political pressure to designate this day a national holiday.

Then, in 1893, the American Railway Union called a strike over pay cuts and high rents that lasted through most of the following year as well. The strike and the union was crushed when President Cleveland declared the strike illegal and sent in 12,000 troops to break it up, resulting in two deaths. There was much criticism of President Cleveland's handling of the strike and 1894 was an election year. This gave those campaigning for a national holiday the fuel they needed and Labor Day was born. It was not enough to win Cleveland the election, though.

The lingering question is:

Is Labor Day a celebration of the working man; or is it an appeasement of the working man in the aftermath of a fatal blow to trade unionism in the USA; or third, has any such meaning been lost to its being relegated to just a celebration that marks the end of summer?

Here's a tongue-in-cheek brief history:

1882: The first Labor Day Parade occurs in the United States. Organized by the Knights of Labor, the event has a loose affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan. Hilarity ensues.

1884: In an election year, Grover Cleveland makes Labor Day a national holiday. Surprisingly, the creation of a majority of the public cares little about fails to help re-elect the President.

1920: Hallmark's Labor Day greeting cards fail to sell. Following this year, it is decided within the company that they will be better off creating holidays.

1966: Jerry Lewis begins his annual telethon to battle Muscular Dystrophy, which recently celebrated forty years of mediocre programming and lack of a cure.

1978: For the first time Labor Day is confused by a U.S. citizen as Memorial Day, a practice common for many to this day.

1980: A teacher in Madison Wisconsin's play, "The First Labor Day," fails to inspire in its goal to teach "“the true meaning”" behind the holiday.

1989: The first year Labor Day is looked at as less of a celebration of the working man and more of an excuse for the working man to get that much more intoxicated.

Luke Allen Hackney, The Banana Peel

Sources:
First Labor Day Parade
The History of Labor Day
The Origins of Labor Day
Labor Day

The Doctor Returns to Sci-Fi

DaleksThe second series of Dr Who is due to begin on the SciFi channel on the 29th of September, 8pm ET. And what an excellent series -- especially the final episode. Needless to say, we'll be watching the whole lot again.

The spin-off series Torchwood should be starting on BBC3 some time in October too. This is purportedly aimed at adults. There are also rumours of other spin-offs that are aimed at children -- Sarah Jane Investigates and another attempt at a K-9 spin-off.

I'm also looking forward to this year's Christmas special -- The Runaway Bride, mainly because it's starring the very talented and funny Catherine Tate.

September 15, 2006

The BBC have confirmed plans to air a one hour special of Sarah Jane Investigates in early 2007, followed by a series later in the year.

The Office & My Name is Earl

An announcement for all interested parties:

NBC's The Office
BBC's The Office

The third series of The Office (aired in the UK as The Office: An American Workplace, to differentiate it from the original) is due to start on September the 21st (8:30-9p.m. ET) on NBC.

My Name is Earl

This is preceded by My Name is Earl (8-8:30p.m. ET). Both are well worth watching.

Here's a couple of NBC's The Office vs. BBC's The Office articles, just to whet your appetite:
The Office Heavyweight Bout: NBC vs. BBC
The Office (BBC) vs. The Office (NBC)

Carolina Beach

Last January, for the Martin Luther King weekend, we went up to Asheville, at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Since then, we have been intending to try out one of the NC beaches, but had not had the opportunity until now.

Main Map Source

It turns out that someone we know owns a three bedroomed, two and a half bathroomed (Translation: two bathrooms and a toilet) condominium that overlooked Carolina Beach. They lent us the keys for a weekend away. We drove down on the Friday evening after school and came back on the Sunday, spending all day Saturday at Carolina Beach.

Carolina Beach

The town itself is not beautiful, but the beach boasts lovely big Atlantic waves and a warmth that comes from the Gulf Stream. The area of the beach that we were in was very long and narrow, even at low tide, but one doesn't have to go out far from the shore to be quite deep. There is also a fairly strong undercurrent, so if a wave knocks you off your feet, it's not always easy to get up again.

Carolina Beach is also famous for the invention of the Carolina Shag. One might think that the Shag did not need inventing; that it has been around since Adam and Eve; and that it comes fairly naturally to most people. However, the sign in the picture does not point the way to a house of ill repute, but to a dance hall. The Carolina Shag dance craze started on the North/South Carolina coast and the term "Carolina Shag" was supposedly coined at Carolina Beach, where this picture was taken.

An Amazing Story

We were watching Newsnight over the internet and they covered an amazing story about a young girl who was abducted on her way home from school when she was ten years old and held captive in a cellar for eight years before managing to escape.

'Incredible' case grips nation
Vienna cellar girl 'our daughter'
What now for Natascha?

Although this is very good news that the girl escaped, she still spent much of her childhood in captivity with who-knows-what happening to her. Let's hope that her traumas are now over (ie not exacerbated by endless media coverage). It's a reminder to all of us parents that the world has more than its fair share of dangerous weirdos who look normal and function well in society. Scary, but true.

The Journey Home

After driving a total of 2375 miles in our hired car (spent £280 (approx. $530) on petrol), we drove up to Manchester. On the last night of our trip, we stayed in a TravelLodge (a motel) near Manchester Airport, where our sleep was broken by being awoken in the early hours of the morning by the fire alarm. We, and all the other residents had to stand around in the car park waiting for the fire brigade to give the all clear before we could go back to bed. It turned out that someone had fallen asleep after having lit a candle. As far as I know, nobody was hurt.

(Source)

The real trawl was, however, the journey itself. The previous Thursday, the security level at UK Airports was increased to "critical" and pandemonium ensued. Even though by the time that we were travelling the security level had been brought down a step to "severe", the journey was still difficult.

We got to the airport at about 8am, but the queues were such that we didn't get through checking in our luggage and security until 10:30, so went straight to our gate. Boarding was slow as they were seating a few rows at a time and separating men from women so that almost every passenger could be frisked and hand luggage searched before we could get on the plane. They were so strict that they even confiscated Lauren's ball-point pen. As none of the passengers had pens, the flight attendants had to then hand out complementary pens (of which, there were not enough to go around) so that we could fill in the necessary forms for entry to the US.

The plane then couldn't take off until a full manifest listing all passengers had been approved by US Homeland Security. In the end, the plane left about 3 hours late.

Once in the US, there were more body searches and my hand luggage was thoroughly searched. Next, all flights from the UK had to go through customs. One couldn't just walk through the "nothing to declare" bit. About every other person was having suitcases opened up, but thankfully they just asked us a few questions and let us through.

We missed our flight from Philadelphia to Raleigh by about 4 hours, but they put us on a later flight that got into Raleigh at 10pm (3am in the UK). Unfortunately only one of our seven cases made it to Raleigh with us, which meant spending an hour or so standing in a queue to report the missing bags before we could get the taxi home. Thankfully, however, the missing bags arrived at our door the next day (two of which had been opened and searched at some point in the journey).

All in all, though, compared to others' stories, we came off quite lightly. We're also now thankful that we didn't take our usual direct flight to/from Gatwick, but flew to/from Manchester instead, which was outside the core of the hubbub.

Here's the latest on the police investigation:
More time for terror probe police

Shropshire

Bishop's Castle is a small town in Shropshire that dates back to the eighth century or earlier. The town used to have a motte and bailey castle, which was replaced by a Norman stone castle in 1167. Now, all that remains of the castle is a hill and a couple of stone walls. We used this as a base, from where we went on country walks and day trips. Each evening, we would bring home a pitcher of locally brewed real ale from the local pub and enjoy a game with the children.

Offa's Dyke

Offa's Dyke
An Elizabethan church in
Mainstone, near Offa's Dyke

On the first day, we went for a countryside walk through fields of wheat, cows and sheep. The next day, we went in search of Offa's Dyke. This is a big earthwork dyke that was built by the Mercian King Offa as a defence against the Welsh hoardes.

Ludlow

Ludlow is a busy market town on the River Teme. It has many tudor buildings and a rather large Norman castle ruin at its centre. One of my favourite things is looking around castles -- whether or not they're intact and functional. There's something exciting about looking around a ruin -- climbing up the narrow winding staircases to the parapet and into what were once rooms and imagining what it may have been like in its heyday.

Ludlow Castle
Eating Ice Creams

Bridge on the River Teme
Ludlow Market

Blackberry Picking

While on one of our country walks, we engaged in the ancient art of blackberry picking. The trick is to be fussy and only collect the blackest berries that involve the most stretching and the greatest exposure to stinging nettles. It is a law of nature, however, that the best berries are always just out of reach.

Severn Valley Railway

The Severn Valley Railway is a standard-gauge railway that used to be a part of the old Great Western Railway, but now operates mainly as an attraction for tourists such as ourselves. The children mainly loved it because they could sit in carriages that were similar to those in the Hogwarts Express. All they needed were some of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and a few chocolate frogs to catch. After lunch in a nice little pub that sold almost-only local ciders, we took the train from Bridgnorth to Highley. At Highley we went for a short riverside walk and skimmed stones before taking the train back to Bridgnorth.

Blists Hill Victorian Town

We also visited the Blists Hill Victorian Town in Ironbridge. It can best be described as an open air, living museum. Mark and Emily had visited the town before, but the rest of us hadn't. At first, we tried quizzing shopkeepers in various shops that we entered about Victorian life, but, with the odd exception, found that their level of knowledge was only surface deep. In the end, we just stopped asking questions and just enjoyed the day. It was especially good to see how much the children entered into it -- especially becoming pupils for a while in a mock nineteenth century schoolhouse.

The Family Tour: Part 2

From Cambridge we drove to Northampton to visit Mark's Grandad. We took him out for a pub lunch in a lovely old Tudor pub, to celebrate his 95th Birthday. Only five years to go before he gets a birthday card from The Queen.

From there, we drove back to Mark's parents', where we were visited by an old friend who was at college with Mark. From there, it was back to Birmingham for lunch, visiting some more old friends. From there we drove to Shropshire for a week's holiday in a small rural town called Bishop's Castle.

We then drove back to Peterborough to see my sister, who was touring India during our previous visit, before heading off back to Manchester, ready to fly back to NC.

Lauren's Birthday

Lauren woke us up at about 5am, excitedly exclaiming that it was her birthday. The reply was a sleepy "Happy Birthday, now go back to bed."

At a more earthly hour and after presents were unwrapped we caught a train to King's Cross, where we tried to catch the Hogwarts Express. Unfortunately, as we're all Muggles born and bred, none of us could get through to platform 93/4. We consoled ourselves with some sight-seeing around London. Neither Emily nor Lauren had ever visited London before, so they were as keen to see the sights as we were to show them.

We started our tour of London (led by Lauren's uncle) by taking the tube to Westminster, where we saw Westminster Palace and St Stephen's Tower.

From there, it was across the bridge to the South Bank for a ride on the London Eye, some street entertainment and lunch.

Next, we went to Downing Street to show the girls where the Prime Minister lives. (One used to be able to walk down when I was a child, but now has big metal gates and police officers with machine guns). Next, it was Horse Guards, Trafalgar Square, then up The Mall to Buckingham Palace. The Buckingham Palace sentry in the picture was, I'm told, from the Coldstream Guards regiment (established in 1650) and has a medal on his chest that was earned in Iraq.

After ice creams in Green Park, we visited my favourite museum -- The Natural History Museum. Unfortunately, we got there only about half an hour before closing time, so only got to see around the dinosaur section. We'll have to take the girls again another time. We finished the day off with a ride in a Hackney carriage back to King's Cross where we rounded the trip to London off with a slap-up meal at Pizza Express.

The Family Tour: Part 1

After our week in Cornwall, we began our tour of the country, visiting family and friends. From Cornwall, we visited friends in Oxford, then drove up to Birmingham where Emily and Lauren stayed with their friends and we stayed with ours. From Birmingham, it was up to Derbyshire to visit Mark's parents for a few days. Emily, Lauren, Mark's dad and I went to see the new Anthony Horowitz film Stormbreaker. We were keen to see this, having read the book. The next day, we had a day trip to Birmingham to see more friends, who were also Anthony Horowitz fans, so we went to see Stormbreaker again.

From Mark's parents' it was off to Preston to visit more relatives, then down to Cheshire to visit my brother and his family. We has a lovely day trip to the beach. It rained in the morning, but cleared up into a lovely beach day involving a picnic lunch, relaxing and kayaking, and a barbecue. The intermittent rain also produced a beautiful rainbow.



From there, it was off to Peterborough to visit more of my family. It's been lovely to see more nieces and nephews as well as my gorgeous little great niece who I haven't seen since Christmas and who is now walking and talking. We also got to meet our six week old great nephew who is also absolutely gorgeous.

Tomorrow we go to Cambridge and London (for Lauren's Birthday).