Cutting the Grass, GM Foods, Scotish Students and inventors

Four subjects you may think don't have a lot in common. Allow me to explain.
It is that time of year when every time I have a day off I have to cut the lawn. I have many inventive excuses for not doing so, but eventually I have to give in our Pygmy tribes start to establish themselves. It was whilst mowing that not unconsiderable expanse of grass this afternoon that my mind began to wander. I shouldn't have let it go, it's too weak to be out on it's own, but there you go.
It seems to me that in these days of modern science we should be able to develop grass which doesn't need cutting. I mean there is that old joke about the Scotsman who watered his lawn with Whisky so it came up ha;f cut. But is the idea so far from reality? I wouldn't want to waste good Whisky of course, but it seems to me that if we can grow dwarf conifers then surely we can fiddle with the DNA of grass to make it grow to the optimum height and then stop? I don;t object to having to mow the grass say once a year as a sort of ritual to welcome in the spring. But that should be it. I want to enjoy my garden, not work in it all day every time I have a day off.
Then the idea occurred to me. The Scottish should have the funding to find an answer. Why the Scots? Well, I don;t want to offend them, I think they are a wonderful nation with lots going for them - they invented Whiskey, Television, Trains, Telephones, bridges ...... the list goes on and on. Whilst we English invent things which on the face of it have great technological advances like Jet engines and the Hovercraft only for them to be ought evolve by turbo skipping saucer planes and a hole in the ground (otherwise known as the Channel Tunnel - which is Half French for Gods sake)
But if we accept that our students are our future engineers inventors and thinkers, then we have to look to Scotland and their people/ Scotland, the region around Glasgow in particular is famed for it's low class attendances, high rate of alcoholism and unhealthy eating habits. If the students in my town are anything to go by, this is what defines a student - failing to turn up for lectures, eating junk food and falling over drunk in the middle of the road. With a traffic cone on their heads. Quite obviously a University education is not needed, simple a pack of Tenants Extra, a Kebab and an empty room other than a classroom. Possibly a pencil or two.
And better still, being Glaswegians, they will evolve a grass which is not dissimilar to themselves, tough, hardy and ideally aggressive. Yes I want GM grass which will give daisies a knuckle sandwich and headbutt dandelions. Then and only then will I get the lawn I deserve, instead of the ragged patch filled with weeds, which always looks unkempt and which my neighbours put to shame with their perfectly manicured striped 1/4 acre of perfection.

Election Result

The British public has spoken - but we're not quite sure what they had to say.
As I have said before, I don;t profess to understand politics, - Jeremey Clarkson was my choice, but he wasn;t even on the ballot paper.
The result of the voting is that the Torys pulled in 306 seats, Labour 258 and the Liberals 57. Oh and a Green person got one too. To any sensible person, regardless of their politicl views, this should mean the Torys have won. But apparently not. Because more people voted against them than for them, this means they lose. How does that work? As I understand it 65% of the electorate turned out to vote. Meaning 35% didn't. So in actually fact the proportional representation system ought to mena that as the overall majority of people did not vote for an elected representative in parliament, then we shouldn't have one at all. The Prime Minister should be a silouette, like when you don;t upload your photo to Facebook. He should just be an icon. An image that does nothing and says nothing. He should in fact be the Stig. Sorry Jeremey, you've been upstaged by your own creation.
Apparently some people are upset as they couldn't get to vote because of the current voting system. 15 hours wasn't long enough to get 65% of the public through the polling stations. Thsi is because of the muppets employed to run the polling booths. Our local village hall was used for ours, and equipped with four booths. I don;t know why it had four, because we had two staff workign as a team to issue the ballot papers. It goes somethign like this. You hand your card to muppet number one, who then asks for your voters number. I am not a number, I am a free man! I don't know my number it is written on the card I have just handed to first muppet. First muppet then tells me my name. I agree with her. I know my name. It to is written on the card I have just handed her, hence she now knows my name too. Actually, as she works for the rest of the year in the local library she already knew my name anyway. She then reads my number to muppet number 2 who checks my number and writes it down, while muppet number 1 crosses my name out on the electoral roll list. She takes quite some time to find me, despite me living in a village with only two dozen streets. She then hands me my card back and a ballot paper is pushed at me by muppet number two. My wife, attempting to speed along the process gives them her number before handing over her card. This confuses them, and they have to ask her for it again, then tell her her name and repeat the performance again. My wifes number is one digit higher than mine, her address is the same, and her surname is also mine, yet for some strange reason the muppet has to go to the start of the electoral register and go through page by page agin until she findas her name and crosses her out. Amazingly she lives at the same address as me and is directly under my name.
No wonder the process takes so damned long. I wonder why they gave us four booths, when the process only allows one person through at a time. I can only suggest that some people arrive at the polling station determined to vote, but still undecided as to who to vote for. Either that or they are so thick they need time to find their candidates name on the list. We hada choice of about 8 I think, and all but one had a symbol next to them depicting the party they represented - so that people who couldn't read the name could recognise the picture. Only the independant candidate didn't have any emblem, probably because he couldn;t think of one on hsi own. Or maybe it was a ploy to capture more votes from the stupid.
At least we do know why 35% of the electorate failed to vote. It was nothing to do with tactical voting, inabilty to get into the polling booths (despite the best efforts of the muppets) or apathy. No, it was because they were too embarrssed to let anyone know that in broken Britain, educatiobnal standards are so bad they can't even spell X.

News that a Japanese Viagra Factory went into production overdrive at the news that Britain was having a General Election are grossly exagerrated.

Cooking on Electric

E Day approaches. My electric conversion of the Cinquecento nears completion.
Tonight I have ripped out the last reminders that it ever had an ICE (Infernal Combustion Engine) with the removal of the petrol gauge and the coolant temperature gauge. Don't need them no more. I toyed with the idea of fitting the digital voltmeter and amp meter in their place, but they wouldn't look right and didn't quite fit in the available slot, so they will remain in the custom centre console along with he emergency stop button. Where the gauges were fitted thee is now black coloured plastic card, leaving a nice neat and tidy finish with just the speedometer and a bank of warning lights for the various lights, signals etc - exactly as it was when it left the factory, but tidier. Removal of those gauges wasn't strictly necessary, but why have a non working and pointless gauge on the dash? And it save an ounce or two in weight.

Next I reconnected the speedo cable and proved it worked - as well as getting some idea of the probable performance. In typical bodgit testing manner I jacked up one front wheel of the car, the differential stopping the other from turning, to do some testing. This is rather rough, as their is no load on the spinning wheel, but it proved the speedo works, and the readings I got were -
2nd gear up to 20 to 25 mph, 3rd gear round 30 mph. The car won't pull from start in fourth, so I tried changing on the fly from 3rd, but couldn't get the sync right - it will be easier once the car is actually moving. This is encouraging as with fourth and fifth gear still to go I reckon my target speed of 40 mph is achievable. Next plan will be charge the batteries again and replace the little one up front with a 110 amp so they all match - that should see a power increase., albeit a small one. Then I'll have to do some proper testing.

I've emailed VOSA to find out what tests and inspections the car will need before they allow it back on the road with a FREE tax disc.

Between now and then there are just one or two jobs to complete, the horn doesn't work and neither do the hazard warning lights. As both these should work with the ignition off I think it's probably a fuse or wiring fault somewhere. Another problem seems to be the headlamps - i get a Bright main beam, sidelamps, and very dim dipped beam, brighter than the sidelamps but not bright enough to be a headlamp - a sort of dim dip you'd expect when parked. Again I suspect a wiring problem, maybe even the same fuse?

A heater of some sort is in order, but as yet I'm stumped as to how to get enough heat. Those small plug in ceramic heaters would be ideal if they actually worked. Or an eberspraucher type heater if they were cheaper. Maybe I'll wait for someone to crash and scrap on of those Gwiz cars then I can get whatever thy use.

Vote Top Gear!

You can't have failed to notice we have an election coming up. The press have been banging on about it for a month or so, fortunatley not with quite so much coverage as they gave the US Presidential campaigns, but for long enough that it can't have escaped your attention.
As i see it we have a choice. We can vote for a bunch of scheming, lying, cheating, money wasting, two faced, depraved, self serving publicist bastards who beleive there is one set of rules for them and another for the rest of us - or we just don't vote.
In the red corner, representing the Labour Party, and promising the moon, on a stick, covered in chocolate sauce, and expecting us to beleive it, even thoguh they've had fifteen years and have made a mess of it, is the biggoted woman hater Gordon Brown. (That is, he hates women bigots, not that he himself is a bigot who hates women - I just thought I'd better clarify that - although perhaps the ambiguity would have done him a favour with a certain group of voters)
In the blue corner, representing the Conservatives we have - well I'm not so sure. I'm not that up pn this politics lark to be honest. Cameron? The one with a bit of a looker for a wife. His policies seem to be that he will support the NHS. And that he has a good looking wife. Well better looking than Mrs Brown anyway. He stands for family values, but won't re-introuduce a married couples tax allowance or anything like that. In fact he'll probably continue to support the "underpriviledged" single parent familes who don;t contribute anything to society, have never worked and claim all the benefits going which hard working married but single income couples can't get a shot at.
Then there is the Liberal Democrats (are they still democrats?) or Social Democratic party or whatever they are branding themselves as this year. Their policies are...... well does anybody know? Does anybody care? Apparently Hull is run by the Liberals. Funny, because so far as I can tell the council services work exactly the same as when Labour ran them, although it probably costs more now. The Liberals are promising to turn the country around. I'll look forward to power cuts, miners strikes and economic instabilty then. I think they were the party that was on the radio today promisng to "mend Broken Britain." Al Murray - get onto a no win no fee solicitor straight away - they've nicked your slogan. Shame on You Liberal Deocratic Alliance.
That leaves the Greens. Who will put a windfarm and solar panel on every roof top and very commendable too. That way we can be self sufficent in power and tell the Arabs to go and **** themselves and withdraw our troops back to the UKL protecting our borders from Illegal Immigrants. The only drawback in their master plan is how do we pay for ths dream? And in the meantime how do the lorries deliver these goods with no petrol until the Ortganic Goats Cheese fuel becomes a reality?
If you want to waste a vote you could vote for the UK Independance Party. This is a sort of polite BNP so far as I can work out. Migrants out! (if you wouldn't mind awfully, thank you very much, please.) Sory but how can the UK be independant overnight when we have spent the last 100 years training Johnny Foreigner how to do all the stuff and build all the stuff we used to sell all over the world, and whcih we know longer have the capacity to make ourselves? UK independance is all very well if you beleive that Yorkshire Tea grows in Yorkshire. It doesn't. It grows in India and China. We import it on favourable terms, along with bananas, oil, coal, timber, electricty, gas, Soap stars....... the list goes on.
That leaves the BNP. Not really an option is it? Racist skinheaded anarchists. If they meloowed down a bit they might stand a chance, but until they realise that almost without exception everyone in the UK is either an immigrant or descended from one they will get nowhere. My own family for example can be traced back 1000 years - but are ultimately probably French or German. My wife is called Jennifer - to quote Al Murray once more "A beautiful British Name." A derivative of Genevere, the wife of King Arthur. How much more English can you get? But her family can only trace themselves back around 1000 years as well, and she was probably a descendant of the Vikings, so what right does she have to vote in England?
The one party not represented in the elections is of course the common sense party. This is of course the TOP GEAR party, their leader being Jeremy Clarkson. His views may seem outlandish at times, but the silent majority (sorry Al Murray again) woudl supoprt him. Richard (beautiful English name) "The Hamster" Hammond would be deputy, performing much the same role as Prescott used to occupy - i.e. performing outragious stunts to distract the pubic from the day to day politics. And James May, the slightly geeky, brainy but cautious one would make the ideal Chancellor. Because whilst Jeremy may want to buy a Bugatti Veyron as the Presidential Limo, James would almost certainly buy him a FIAT Panda or a Dacia Sandero.
Other advantages would be an immediate abolishion of Road Tax and Fuel Duty, a tax on Vegetariansim and the prohibtion of bicyclists and Traffic Wardens. And the Bus Lanes and speed bumps would be ripped up. A minimum speed limit would be set on the roads which would really get the ecomony moving again. And Johnny Foreigner could be shot legally with a twelve bore, as well as foxes.
Of course the Stig would need a role too, and I think I have the perfect job. He could be your local councillor. A faceless and silent prescence who listens but says and does nothing.
So, my advice is, don't waste your vote - vote Clarkson.

Grass cutting

I mowed the lawn today. No big deal. Except that the neighbours dog had left me a mesage on my lawn. The message said quite clearly, that because I'm not allowed to have fence to the front garden, he will come and shit on it whenever he likes.
I pointed out the turd to my neighbour, and complained that his dog had shit on my lawn. His attitude was less than helpful - "You don't have to pick it up, just run it over with the mower if it bothers you."
I took him at his word. Have you ever done that though? The smell is bad, but that's not the worse thing. The noise it makes! It's a sort of crunchy noise at first, but then a sort of splat - with a lot of yelping, howling and whining thereafter. And the fuss the neighbour made. I mean it wasn't even a pedigree dog or anything. But it won't be shitting on my lawn any more.
Not unless dogs have nine lives too.

Travel News

I will point out immediately that I am a Radio Two fan (it's my age) So the following criticisms are not aimed directly at the lovely Sally Traffic, it is not a slight directed solely at Radio Two or indeed Sally, it's just that theirs are the traffic reports I hear. Almost without exception every radio station and many TV stations are guilty of the same.
They all imply that the traffic problems are my fault. How do I conclude this?
Well, they usually say "If you're travelling on the M1 there's an incident at junction 4 closing two lanes ...." that sort of thing. They imply therefore, that if I am not travelling on the M1 the closure will not occur. Which makes me feel guilty if I am, because quite simply, if I had driven a different route the incident would not have happened. I don't see how it can be attributed to me though if I am at junction 38. I am an advanced driver, I drive reasonably carefully and with due consideration for others. If they crash at junction 4 it is nothing to do with me - I'm not even in the same county.
Another annoyment is the way the refer to Police Incidents. I appreciate that sometimes they might not know exactly what is going on, and the police might not want to say it's a crash because they haven't told the next of kin, or it's a bomb because people panic, or that they've had to shoot a terrorist because well, that;s not the way we British do things. So, I'm quite happy for it to be a mysterious "incident" I just don't see why it belongs to the police. The police didn't create it, they are just dealing with it. In the majority of cases it's a motorists incident - they cause it, let them take ownership.
It's the careless throwaway use of words that annoys. Let's encourage more thought before adding unnecessary and misleading words into our conversations.

Tortoises have traction control.

If ever a graphic demonstration of determination was needed I have the perfect example.
We are currently looking after a tortoise while the in laws are away. Although house trained and well used to padding around the carpetted floors at his permenant home, he is having to make do with the lino and laminated floors of our kitchen, utilty and dining room here, as the front room is being decorated.
Tortoises are of course normally four wheel drive, and getting a grip on the lino doesn't seem to present a problem. The laminate floor however is a different prosepct, particularly as he is temporarily redueced to three wheel drive due to an abcess on his right rear leg - toroises don't limp as such, they just sort of shuffle with less effect on the injured limb. Sheer determination and bloodymindedness keeps him in a straight line. But the effect is comical when he tries to cross the dining room on the slippery laminate - it's like watching a tortoise version of Chariots of Fire. It's a weight/grip/power transfer nightmare of logistics for a tortoise trying to progress across laminate. It's like watching a Land Rover with the traction control switched on, on an ice rink - the Traction Control detects the slip and decreases the power to the wheels - result? No motion. Switch off the traction control and you get power to the wheels, which then spin and you get no motion. Conclusion - tortoises have traction control.
Contrary to popular opinon tortoises are not all that slow. Admittedly they won't outrun a Ford Fiesta or even a Smart car, but they can have quite a turn of speed when they feel the need - except on laminates. His determined expression is matched only by the surprise at the lack of any actual progress. And when he crosses the threshold back onto the lino and regains grip it must feel to him like he's on the SS Enterprise going through the stargate.
One confused tortoise. No wonder he's glad to get out to the concrete floored greenhouse every morning.