The Powder Treason
Remember remember the fifth of November Gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder, treason Should ever be forgot… A beautiful, bright and sunny day dawns in Virginia for what I’ll refer to as Bonfire Night, November 5th, 2009.  If you’ve never heard the above poem before (or only seen it in the context of the movie V for Vendetta) then you’ve probably no idea why much of Britain celebrates tonight with fireworks and bonfires, and the burning in effigy of a certain Guy Fawkes…

Looking at Halloween again
Three years ago now I wrote an article about the history of Halloween, you can read it here. The Telegraph today had an editorial entitled “Why has Hallowe’en eclipsed Bonfire Night“, with the author blaming the “American holiday” for the change.  He was surprised his views weren’t supported by the British folklorist, Doc Rowe, who said: First there was Samhain, the Celtic marking of the onset of winter, which was

Excellent Birds
Every once in a while I find myself helplessly adding a short pause and the phrase “Excellent birds!” after the word birds, when it happens to occur in conversation.  Now just to prove I’m not justslowly going insane, this trait comes from a song performed by Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson.  Not only did they both perform it but they both included it in separate albums, weird but true. so just to prove I’m not making this up, here you go… What is strange is that I don̵

The new exhaust
This may not be of interest to everyone, but I’ve got a new exhaust on my car, and it looks just like this… All new and stainless steel So we’ve gone from 2inch to 2.25inch stainless steel, with a nice new highflow cat and magna-flow silencer.  The 4inch tip looked a bit big in the box, but looks the business on the car, and the sound is fabulous. Thanks to

Barcodes forgotten cousin – Kimball Tags
Google is making a big deal about the 30th birthday of the barcode, and although there are many misconceptions about the purpose of those bands of black and white lines, their purpose is generally well known. Washington Post – New Google logo celebrates the barcode BBC News – The rise of the barcode Wikipedia – Barcode