Hedgehog

Snow Patrol are so great. I had their album, Final Straw on my mp3 player when I used to cycle to school in Pompey. Now we have their albums on our slim server and whenever we were at home yesterday we just listened to them. I hope they can feel the love.

Canadian Karen and I had brunch yesterday. We ate at a place that is popular for such things on Commercial Drive. It was very crowded and we even had to queue for a table, just not for very long, but we ended up outside being grilled from above by enormous outdoor heaters. I'm sure this must be exciting when it's very chilly, just that it wasn't.
Nonetheless, we enjoyed our brunch, talked, then wandered down Commercial Drive for a while. Here is life, here is Vancouver.
My brunch exited in one swift movement several hours later.

One of the many things I like about the BBC series 'Rome' is that it brings to life things I learned about in school.
Last night's episode saw the battle of Philippi. We witnessed the closely trained legions that we learned about in Latin and in History, spread out ready for battle. It was interesting to remember how much of this was borrowed by Nazi Germany, the salute, the impeccable troop rallies, the standards.
Each legion stood in a perfect rectangle, every man spaced equidistantly from the others.
When battle was to commence, they marched, stamping each small step in unison so that the ground trembled and the opposing side felt fear. Except that at Philippi, the opposing side were more Roman legions so they probably didn't feel any fear. Battle was considered a glorious and noble way to die.
The leaders made sure their men were paid and fed and had salt.
We saw the famous formation where every man in a unit raised his shield over his head or in front of him, depending on where he was in the hedgehog creature, his spear sticking through between the scales like spikes. Every individual's action contributed to the safety of the whole. Brilliant.

At our friends' house on Saturday, we watched TV via a projector again, as we had done before Christmas.
We had projectors like these at Mayhem, they were attached to the ceiling and projected onto a whiteboard or screen and displayed what you had prepared on your laptop.
The energy saving from using these instead of an ordinary TV is enormous, the impact of the picture is too. The main drawback is that you have to have an entire white wall kept just for the projection, although I'm sure that can be designed differently in some way, building storage into the wall.
But my imagination sees the real draw of these devices is going to be when more channels are offered in 3D. How spectacular will that be when we can have Discovery channel 3D swimming in our living rooms, and at an energy saving of two thirds.
Also brilliant.

I see that something is stinky in Brussels. The top EU environment official wants to get rid of the old gas guzzling Mercedes and get a more environmentally friendly car. Now they're all arguing amongst themselves bless 'em. Yes, we want to be green, we want to send out the right messages, but if we give up our environment killers, the European car manufacturers will suffer.
Well, here's a thought ladies and gentlemen. Tell the European car manufacturers to get their act together and put out some more efficient models. Oh! They already do, so now change the way you think and more to the point, act.
Bunch of pansies.