london
I know i tend to talk of souls calling forth and that things happen because your soul asks for it.
But today, i realise your soul may call for it, but u dont have to accept.
haha.
today i got an email from the foodchain saying i had been entered into a draw and won two tickets to see jimmy summerville, at the hear and now tour in the O2 on july 2.

i googled it and it seems to be a big concert  to celebrate some anniversary or other from old pop stars and i guess i m in the age group to appreciate such oldies featuring old songsters so my soul seems to ask for it.

But i dont really fancy going all the way to the O2 arena for live music as i dont really like listening to live music; the acoustics are usually terrible and the audience makes too much noise and it is so un comfortable with everyone standing up and u are so far away from the stage u can not see anything except via the big screen which i can do so in the comfort of my home if i like it that much.  

so i replied saying  it sounds so ungrateful but i dont want it. Please give it to someone else who might appreciate it more.

So just because your soul calls for it, u can say no... which makes me wonder what the relationship is between my self(ego ) as opposed to the soul(or id).

I feel strongly that the soul can outvote the ego and vice versa and really in the end you can have a say... you being both id and soul. Or rather what happens to you is a balance of the desire of the ego and the desire of the soul.

It is a gray area in this philosphy of mine about the soul and calling forth what u want.

I wonder whether it is possible for your soul to bring you cancer, but your ego can firmly refuse it and that is why there are somepeople who get spontaneously cured without even knowing it or without any medication.

hmm, for all i know , we could have all kinds of disease and not even know it, because our bodies immune system simply got rid of it without us even being aware of it, because they were gone before any symptoms occur.  just like we can have infections without knowing it because the virus or bacteria is destroyed before it can take hold.

That is why i dont believe in checkups. so what if a doctor says i got high blood pressure or there is a tendency to diabetes or whatever. The doctor have no idea what can be done to prevent it, accept tell you to stop doing all those things that u like. They have no clue, but on the basis of everything that you like will likely be bad for you they will say no smoking, or drinking or eating meat or suger, or fat, etc.

might as well just live as u like, and die when you die. haha.

and let your id tell off your soul or vice versa if neither is wanting to die just yet. hehe.

this philosphy needs more working on and is not perfect but it seems to be the best to explain all the funny things going on in life and will have to do . haha.

what other souls have called forth

london
What a strange thing that I have witnessed around me.

First , it was simon telling me he had been given notice of a fine by the congestion charge people. he said he had paid the congestion charge via a shop in chelsea but cannot find the receipt. So he went to the shop and ask them. And found out that they had mistakenly put down  the date as july 2011 instead of june.
What a strange thing for his soul to ask for. It is quite unheard of for the shop assistant to miss -type july instead of june... the machine must be designed to make that mistake impossible surely...and yet it happened...  which makes me think simon's soul just wants to make his life difficult.
Added. 16.7.11 simon got confirmation in a letter that he wont have to pay that fine. but he said yesterday when he tried to pay the congestion charge for this week, he was told he had allready paid it and the machine wont allow him to pay twice. we live in the congestion zone, so when he pays he pays for a week at a time. he made sure he got a reference number so can prove that he tried to pay it but was refused. maybe they might completely let him off which i think they should seeing it was their mistake in the first place .

Then there was a chap, he is a german on holiday here,  who i found had made arrangements to go to clapham south, a tube station in south london, to meet his friends who will take him to another friend with a car and they will drive to the national coach station in victoria.
The curious thing is he is near victoria coach station allready.

Why go so far south, with heavy luggage, moving from friend to friend, to finally be driven down to a coach station just down the road from him?

I can only say his soul wants it.
I ask him why he did not ask his friends to come and fetch him on their way to the coach station, as they have to pass his way anyway. he said his friends wants it and he feels he should follow what they say.

he wanted to call a taxi to take him to clapham south, but it costs £25 to book a black cab, and the mini cabs are not that cheap either at £20, and anyway the minicab office i called said we have to wait 30mins.


It must be his soul wants all this palaver.

I certainly cannot imagine any sane person wanting such things.

Some might say it is a gremlin. a mischievous imp that make u lose things etc.
I am reading shakespeare's midsummer night's dream, sent daily to me by the dailylit website, and he had puck doing this kind of mischief.

I was going from the gym to the sainsburys earlier today, as i wanted to buy loose tea (i bought the fairtrade loose ceylon tea, which i like a lot because it keeps its colour no matter how many refills i do, and I have nearly finished the last batch; and I also bought the kenyan tea, just to try it. they both still cost the same, £1.25. I have a feeling i shall settle for ceylon tea after my experiment with the other teas has ended.) when i saw a chap standing on  the pavement with a tray of assorted cakes.

I thought he was with the shop he was standing outside of, but he was doing a promotion for the Patisserie Valerie across the road. I guess he was on the opposite side to the shop because there is more traffic on that side. More people will use that side as it goes to sainsburys.I chose a cheese cake, but it was rather soft from the hot weather. i got a leaflet from him offering a free drink if u buy a cake slice. I should have chosen their black forest gateau. It was about 12pm.

rather nice to have this free sample .

I guess my soul called for it and i approve. haha, these are the kinds of things i want my soul to bring to me.


Its very hot now, and i am saying that because i mean it (29.6C at 4.31pm )and not doing a newspaper exaggeration. And it seems it will continue till tomorrow, but thank goodness it cools down afterwards so it wont last long. my soul wants it not to last as i dont like hot weather that goes on so long. haha.
Added 28.6.11 it was 32.3C at about 3pm yesterday. I went out to the library, in shorts and sandals and it was cloudy and yet warm. Ideal weather really. It's the highest temperature this year, and surprisingly pleasant because of the cloudy sky instead of bright sunshine which would make it rather unbearable. And it was not humid too, which must add to the pleasantness.
added. 4.7.11 it dawned on me that this weather is really ideal for me. bouts of hot weather, with cooler temp and bits of rain to keep off the pollen from accummulating affording enough variety to keep me interested. how not to like and why bother travelling to the continent where it can get v hot.

free chocolate from thorntons

london
A lot of people dont like prominently mentioning  companies or products in their weblogs as it smacks of giving them free publicity. one blogger even refuse invitations to freebies not related to his blog as he is afraid he will lose credibility.

But i dont mind. I kind of like freebies. haha. I can have this easy attitude about it because no one is going to pay me to endorse them. haha.

and the daily mail has a freebie from thorntons today. i cut out two coupons and went to different branches of thorntons and got these rather nice packs.
an assorted mix of chocs in their summer collection. and a rum truffles pack .
the rum truffles really do have rum, and i can taste it, slightly bitter sweet. It is really very nice esp if u have it with coffee, which i did at my gym.

i could get more coupons from the daily mail but i did not want to be greedy. haha.

i suppose they hope people will go to the shop to get the freebie and end up buying other chocolates. Or even become aware of the shop and see their range and remember it  next time they are thinking of giving someone a present. i hope so, as they do deserve some reward for the freebie.

I would like to encourage shops that gives freebies and the daily mail for doing these deals.  haha. so everyone go out and buy from them if u are thinking of giving chocolates as presents.

I mention the daily mail a  lot , even though i read the times and telegraph as often as it. so it is not that i get the daily mail  free in the gym. It seems to have a lot more news than other newspapers. It is no wonder  it is a very successful newspaper and from what they do, i can see why. they give freebies, my gym provides it  free so they must have made some arrangements to supply it to them. At first it seems like a loss maker, but people get into habits and come to like the paper. by distributing it in these outlets, they can claim high figures for their circulation, and so can charge more and get more advertising.

I tried to load the photos of the chocolates here but it wont take. (Added. got it loaded now)

I read in the papers that people are cutting down on luxury stuff. hence this promotion of chocolates, I guess. i wonder if any of my friends are affected. I am not, but then my lifestyle is unusual.


Most people i know would finish those chocs at once. but i can say they will last me ages as i go through them one at a time with my morning coffee everyday.
added 10.7.11 took me about 2wks to finish them.

I can resist eating them at one go. And that makes me very different from everyone else.

I think it is just me, and that i think is what  saves me from being addicted to anything.

I know when to stop.

Latest update 28.6.11 thorntons to close 180 stores over 3yrs and concentrate on selling through other retailers like supermarkets, and online

cherries from the garden

london

from ian's parent's garden in essex.

I remember long ago ian and i would drive down to his parents place to pick the cherries from their tree in the garden.
today, ian called me and said he had been there last week and got the cherries before the birds ate them.
And he cycled to my place to give me them.
that was yesterday, and i had allready eaten almost all of them.
they are so more-ish.

I have just eaten all of them as i write this.

Thanks to ian for giving me this taste of summer.

And today is the longest day too. According to google, it is the first day of summer.

The British  call it midsummer, which is such a nice evocative word. so who is right? it cannot be the first day of summer and still be midsummer can it? Wikipedia says it refers to the celebrations associated with the summer solstice.


In years gone by this was the best day for outdoor cruising, haha, as the sky is light for so late.

For all i know it still is.

sunrise 4.44am sunset 9.21pm

does no one email you?

london
People complain that they get too much emails.
I dont get much, not even spam, and u might think me perverse but i would like more emails but not spam.
It is kind of dissatisfying to see the notice saying  no mail when i log on haha.
So how do i solve this?
I subscribe to a website called http://www.dailylit.com/
I have been reading regularly stories sent to me daily so i get emails that i want to read and is meaningful to me. haha. this way i satisfy my craving for email and my reading habit. And i dont have to reply to these emails unlike if they were sent by friends.
(I know ... u will be saying the reason why i dont get emails from friends is because I dont reply or sent emails to them. Very true, i recognise that . i have an ambivalent view about receiving emails from friends. Just writing emails to friends for the sake of getting emails from them is quite pointless. i guess i dont like talking or reading about gossip, which is what it will all degenerate into if u are writing to friends often. )
I think we all want to be sent things, but only if it is what we want. so we all dont like spam, though getting it can be quite satisfying in that there is at least mail  rather than nothing.
but after getting spam, the reaction sets in , disappointment and disatisfaction.
so if you are like me, I would suggest u do the same thing by subscribing to that website and get lovely bits of novels sent daily to read.
(hang on, i just realise what a silly thing i just wrote. no one is like me.haha.and if u were like me u would have done the same thing long ago. What i meant to say was you are not me, but if u too would like to get more stuff that interests you in your email than it is a good idea.)


I am now reading the arabian 1001 stories, and 1632 by eric flint, 2BRO2B by kurt vonnegurt. They are sent daily in bite size bits so very easy to read quickly.


to get started, click on browse books, and titles or authors and see what they have got.

writing

london
I just read a boingboing article about a guy who blogged for AOL . this guy wrote the article in thefastertimes.com
i am sure the boing article must have driven huge amounts of traffic to that website and made it known. in fact, i put my email to subscribe to it.
all on the strength of that AOL article.
It was very well written and shows the pressures on him to put in key words in his reports to allow search engines to drive traffic to the AOL website. he is paid $35,000 a year to churn out 12 articles a day.
(Added. someone wrote in the comments section that it was not well written mentioning the technical aspects of a well written article. i wont know about that, but i judge a article as well written if it draws me in, and is persuasive ... and this article certainly did. so persuasively did he write, that i put my email down for more news feeds from the paper. that is what the aim of this article is , to draw subscribers and readers to this paper, and it worked brilliantly, that is why i say it is well written. It was only later that i realise working for $35,000 a year is not exactly slave wages. haha)


When you have to write that much on that punishing schedule it is not fun at all, that was his experience and we read of how he struggled with it. But remember, he is a rookie, just starting doing this kind of work, so he is bound to find it difficult.

He felt it was amazing how many of the other writers wrote in saying how much they enjoyed working for AOL when they were sacked because of AOL's austerity drive.

At first, I too thought it amazing that the other writers feel that way; when i read his account of how the other writers, who have written for AOL for years thanking AOL , because from his account it sounds like slavery. but i had another think, and i put myself in their shoes and i can see after some time one can get to become an expert at writing short synopsis reviewing tv programs (which is what the bulk of his work is for. They send him short clips of the programs and he is expected to write a synopsis of it.)and I am sure u can learn to get the gist of what that episode was about and can write them quickly using all the key words and it becomes easy work then.

it becomes bread and butter work and as long as you dont have aspirations to be a serious writer it is easy money.

As usual, once u learn the trade, u can become so good at it, (some people anyway), that they can do it quickly and effortlessly and dare i say it , mindlessly.

I say this from my own experience. As a dentist, some of the work in Dentistry can appear very difficult to a lay person. but once u get to know how to do it, and do it everyday, it becomes routine and can be done quickly and effortlessly. At least that was my experience. (I worked as a NHS dentist, and the NHS is such a fantastic training ground to hone your skills and speed, because u get to practise on so many patients and practise makes perfect.)

Those people who keep saying they are stressed out by their work, are people who have not mastered it yet.
thus that is the conclusion i came to after reading his article. He called it slave conditions, to be expected to write an article in half hour. But you soon realise he found it stressful because  he is not good at it. and no wonder as he was only doing it for less than a year. And he made a silly joke about one of the actors who is sponsored by AOL, and the actor did not like it and so his fate was sealed. When u take a person's money  it is foolish to bite the hand that feeds you. haha.
(It is actually one of the aspects about working for others that i did not like. you have to be careful what u say. Now i m not beholden to anyone, i can say whatever i want in this blog , though even then there is no absolute freedom of speech. you cannot tell lies about someone for eg, or advocate illegal activities.

though in uk there is a lot of debate about what is free speech.

for eg, the guy Puddick, whose wife had an affair with her boss, and he got onto the internet with a blog, and twittered about it and insulting him. he was acquitted of harassment in the courts.
The wife who is the cause of it all went back to him and sided with him. yet she was the cause of it all and she was never criticised or anything. His anger was directed at her boss. it takes two to be unfaithful. she must be equally to blame surely?


women want equality but in these matters they are very happy to let the man take all the blame. She was having the affair for 10yrs. Don't tell me she was forced to have that affair with him? pull the other one haha.
 you cannot help thinking there is another side to this story.
I pity these straight men fighting over a woman.
if I see gay guys behaving like this, i shall knock all their heads together.


That might explain why so many of those writers said they were happy to be writing for AOL for so many years in their  reply to the computer generated emails that informed them they were sacked.

You can of course look at it another way, and say it is the slave mentality, slaves get to like their  slave conditions and downtrodden people get to like their slave masters.

But life is not so black and white, there are nuances to it, and it might be some people actually love being slaves, as it allows them to not having to make decisions and allow someone else to take over their lives. To some of us that may sound like an awful way to live, but i can see how it can be rather nice to let someone else take care of you and all you have to do is obey them. if u get to believe they know best it is easy to put your life in their hands.


The human mind is a hugely complex thing and i am not saying that lightly. I am sure we are only using a fraction of its powers. And believing as i do on the soul and reincarnation, i can say that souls get to chose to live so many lives for all of eternity, it stands to reason that they will want to try all kinds of weird combinations just to experience it.

Novels are a way for us mortals to live those lives vicariously and to invent such lives. but we all know even our most vivid imaginations will not out do what Life itself can throw up.

Added.20.6.11 I got an email from the gay website i belong to from a member who said he is a top master and ask me if i want to be his slave bottom. His picture shows he is very good looking and masculine with a good physique and describes his cock as large too.  Usually tops are older guys. It takes years of experience to be a good top.
Well, I am not into it, but there u are, proof if proof is needed that slavery is a turn on for some.
I can see what there is for the top, as he can bully someone with impunity, (I know tops will dispute that view but i guess i can be forgiven for thinking that, as i am a stranger to all the dynamics of a master-slave relationship). I dont rule it out though, because as i grow older, i realise there are lots of things that i found distasteful when i was younger which i like now. haha.

riding naked in london naked bike ride 2011

london
One of the highlights of the year of living in london is to ride naked through the centre of london in the naked bike ride.this is the 8th year. it was on yesterday. And it happened to fall on my birthday this year and i cannot think of any better way to celebrate it.

Its an annual affair that i look forward to participate.
this time the route is circular and took us from hyde park corner back to wellington arch. And we approached that by riding up the mall towards buckingham palace. This is a new addition.

Another new addition to the route was riding round lincoln inns fields. That was put there to filter and control the numbers entering covent garden, (I suspect this is the case, because i and a lot of others went round that square twice, because they were controlling the numbers allowed to go on to covent garden.) but it also gives us a loo stop, as there was a cottage there. haha.

it was surreal to see a crowd of naked guys  going in  and out and lining up along the urinals. All stark bollock naked. it is like a preliminary cruising scene from some porn movie, except it did not progress further. haha.

Last year there were guys pissing through the railings, and i think this loo stop answers that call of nature. I did not realise i need to go until i was at the urinal, and it was a relief.

The weather was kind, even though it was cold at one stage, but apart from a small short drizzle near trafalgar square, it was dry.
the fun thing was that not only were we able to ride naked through central london, but quite a number of groups were cut off from each other by the traffic lights, and there were lots of these groups wandering around as they got lost and we were able to just straggle back and taking our time about it.


Today, sunday, it was raining, and i sure am glad we had it yesterday. Generally, we had good weather for all the naked bike rides in london.
link to a video of the ride in utube.I am in there, if u can find me. haha.
(utube will ask u to register, no need, just click on that sign in box.)
here is another video in utube showing the beginning of the ride.

prepacked salads reduced to 10p

london
Today I saw the effect of the e.coli scare in the sainsburys.
Just got back from there and they have a glut of the prepacked salads.
reduced from 95p to 10p. Such overpriced salads and it is supposed to be their basic range... but at 10p they are cheap, so i bought 3packs. 

I saw this article in the telegraph from as long ago as 2sept2008 warning of the dangers of e coli infection in prepacked salads.So no wonder no one is buying them. haha. Frankly they are not worth buying at the original price.
I predicted salads will be reduced didn't I? I was right. Though i have to say i thought the loose veg will reduce, like cucumbers etc, should have known it will be the prepacked salads. They are allready overpriced as it is. Maybe this scare will make people realise it is cheaper to make up the ingredients from scratch.


I have a strong suspicion that the german spread was via these pre packed salads. Interesting that the boffins did not implicate the prepacked salads and ask people not to buy them. i guess they were aware of the huge fines they will have to pay the supermarkets if they said that. haha. they should test those prepacks in germany . i bet they will find the culprit then.

they were also reducing spring onions to 20p a bunch. I bought 2bunches.
There were caesars salads fr £2 to 25p, just lettuce and croutons and a sachet of dressing. overpriced like anything.I did not buy them.

I got 3 packs of pork too. Just got lucky as I  happen to arrive just after they were put on the reduced shelf. One 500mg roast pork for £1(from £4) and two 'taste the difference' 800mg roast pork for £1.50 (from£7.50). They cost about £8.80per kg.

Added.10.11.11 this taste the difference pork is really very nice. the fat is marbled within the meat, instead of just under the skin, so that when cooked, no fat runs off.
i looked at a previous buy of 1.2kg pork reduced from £6 to £1.50 and realise it has more fat in it.
it seems the supermarket will reduce it to a fifth of the original price. irregardless of what the quality of the pork. The original price will reflect the quality of the pork.
So you might get a 1.2kg pork original price of £6 , or a 800mg pork original price £7.50 and they will both be reduced to £1.50.Since i reuse the fat as cooking oil both types is good value to me though the 800mg pork is better value.

I got the smaller one roasting in the oven now. Yummy. 

Added. i ate it and it was very nice, lovely crackling, and i accompanied it with the salad. I made a nice dressing of corn oil (as i have no olive oil) and balsamic vinegar (someone bought this tesco finest balsamic vinegar and it has been lying around in the fridge). it is delicious and it lifted the dressing.

no need to use olive oil, corn oil which simon bought for cooking is just as good.

I have noticed that i would not have washed prepacked salad normally, but i washed these.I always wash the loose veg for salads. I have never bought prepacked till now.

i think a lot of people dont have a salad spin dryer. That might explain why they dont wash their salad veg.  i have one which i bought long ago in a charity shop. and I am right glad of it now as it spins the salad dry.

a skewed world

london
Have you often wondered why babies cry so much? It is a survival trait, the cry baby survives... the quiet baby gets forgotten and left behind or get squashed.

Looking at this picture and this... he forgot to drop his baby at the daycare and left the baby in the parked car on a hot day, makes me realise that if that kid is a cry baby, its presence  would never be forgotten.
Or do u think looking at the picture, that it is the man, who looks like he is not the father as he is dark skinned and the kid is light skinned, mimicking what lions do... kill off the cubs so that the lionness will be on heat and father his cubs. 

yesterday i spent the whole day running around trying to get someone in authority to certify a copy of a page from my passport. My bank wont do it, my doctor who i have been with for years... the receptionist said because  the last time i had an appointment was in 2003, the other doctors in the surgery cannot do it, (my own doctor was on holiday so i dont know whether he would have done it for me) and the dentist surgery says because i have not been a patient for 3yrs or more , they cannot do it.

i even went to the magistrate's court where assange was sent, and got through the baggage check(curiously they spotted my porcelain cup and want me to check that in...) and was told to go to the 2nd floor when i asked whether they will sign a certified copy; to be told that first i was too late, i should come before 9.30am, and then she asked me for a form and i dont have and it seems it is only for those who are brought to trial there. 

Eventually i remembered my accountant and i called her and she kindly agreed to do it. 

her copier got damaged when she tried to copy the certified copy to give me a copy of it, but luckily i got a certified copy before it went wrong. 
I dont know what my soul is up to with all this rigmarole and making her kaput her copier in helping me. 

But it is sure difficult to get a passport certified. In the past when i was working as a dentist, i would do it for my patients and not even ask them how long they have been with me. but i guess nowadays everyone is afraid of certifying the wrong things. or wants a lot of money for it. my GP surgery says it will cost me £25. The cheek of it really when u consider they dont promise it will be done right away but might take 3days.

What is skewed is that i get penalised for not being ill and needing to see the doctor. Should i make an appointment with the doctor just to say hello and have it on record that i have seen him? What a silly system.

What a skewed up world we live in, but that is what happens when u let form filling and quotas, and bureaucracy reign supreme.

There are a lot of these seemingly unfair events going on in this world. I guess those who are able to benefit from it, means that their souls wants it and so they can get away with it.

for eg, that prisoner who was allowed to artificially inseminate his wife so she can have a baby whilst he is serving time in prison; all paid for privately by the State, just because of his human rights.

Quite a lot of funny rulings brought about by judges interpreting strictly the individuals right to a family and private life in the human rights Act.
Stated like that it sounds ridiculous, but i think if we get the whole story, we will find there are compelling reasons under the human rights act for the judge's decision.

Sometimes it is better not to read of such things as it can make ur blood boil. haha. I have to keep reminding myself that their souls wants it. And why not ? it is all the fun and frolic of living this life irritating a lot of people or making other people laugh or cry or generally make a mess of things just to piss others off. haha.

Taking the mickey is what i call it.
Pushing the boundaries to see how far u can go just because you want to test the limits of the law.

it is very much on par with some guy climbing a mountain that has never been conquered just because it is there and no one else has done it. So there.!!!

ah humans, sometimes i think i wont mind if we go extinct.

added. 10pm.
I really appreciate not having any pressing thing to do today. So maybe yesterday's hectic rushing about is to remind me how lovely it is to drift through the day free to do what i like with no deadline to meet. 

We humans really are perverse, setting up time deadlines and documents signing. I suppose most people's days are like that,because their work must be like that.

How glad i am i am not working.

and it is lovely to live with someone. The reason i say that is because simon is in the kitchen busy making hamburgers... I bought lots of hamburger buns 6 for 10p in tonights foraging in the sainsburys. They had loads of buns for sale.  

(its no wonder they had so many buns unsold... overpriced at 99p for a pack of 6 .)

And found a mince beef(reduced to 50p, 700mg ,those were the days, compared to the one I recently bought, a 600mg pack reduced to 99p and rare to find any) in the freezer which i bought in feb 2011, which i forgot. it was thawing since yesterday and so it is perfect for making the hamburger. Simon is rather good at it. 
I think he wants to eat it, and i was in no hurry to make it, that is why he volunteered to make it. haha.

So i can sit here loafing about on the internet, whilst half listening to the tv , about a country house, waiting for my dinner of hamburgers.

I bought a lot of the buns, because i had a craving for bread. And tonight, i saw the sainsburys had reduced the basic peanut butter further to 52p, only a few days ago i bought one for 62p from 67p. So why is it being reduced when everything, even the basic range is going up? 

its a mystery but maybe like the basic toilet paper the price drop wont last. The basic toilet paper went down to 49p and jumped to 51p, now it is 55p all within a short time. it used to be 41p for a pack of 4. in % terms the increase is enormous. but in monetary terms it is not so bad as it sounds.
Added. 31.8.11 this article today says sainsburys have raised its basic minced beef from 98p to £1.20. such a big increase in one go. And long ago, sainsburys basic toilet paper has gone up to 70p for a 4pack.

I saw a chinese woman packing a laundry bag with these packs when it was 55p. Why? it will only encourage them to raise the price if people buy more when the price goes up.
Added. 13.11.11 I should have known that chinese women are very savvy. I should also have known that sainsburys always follow tesco in their pricing. so when i saw tesco has raised their basic toilet i should have bought the sainsburys toilet. now i saw that sainsburys have raised it to 60p. 

And tesco recently got rid of their basic toilet rolls of 200sheets with 400sheets per roll and charge £1 for 4, at first, and not long later is now charging £1.20.

I use them as tissue paper as well as toilet paper. perhaps she was doing the same.

Hope it doesnot catch on otherwise the price will rise as more people change to using it instead of buying the expensive toilet paper costing 50p  or more for just one roll.

I am hoping the strong psychological resistance to buying cheap toilet paper will kick in. A lot of people have hang ups about their  lifestyle going downhill if they resort  to buy basic toilet paper. it sounds too much like hitting the bottom of the barrel. haha.

I have been buying it for a long time. To me, it is silly to throw expensive toilet paper down the loo. you might as well take your money and throw it down there.But i know my way of thinking is not usual.

I know the westerner will argue it is an affordable luxury... but i have no idea why it is a luxury to wipe your bottom with expensive paper.hahahahee.

women authors

london
Naipaul said he thinks woman authors are inferior to him. Even jane austen. A lot will disagree with him, but i think i agree with him.
he says jane austen is too sentimental and it is true in that her women heroines always gets their man. most of us men, will say it is sentimental, but women will see it as romantic.

this link at overheard in new york describes to me the real world instead of woman authors' novel worlds a la jane austen.
It seems to me that woman authors aspire to be like jane austen. If jane austen is held up as the pinnacle of woman authors' achievement, it is very lightweight indeed.
Woman authors' novels describe the emotional point of view of the women antagonists in a love match and usually involves love lost and regained or the realisation that she loves him after all.
As another article in the standard mentioned, there have been no woman authors of epics and broad scope novels.
 no women Shakespeares or Tolstoys; there have been no female Samuel Becketts or James Joyces either

All the chick lits novels simply emphasises how light weight woman authors are, even though some of them may be written by men with a female pseudonym.
In the end, it is the kind of thing that women like to read and women authors are considered best who can do it skillfully written like jane austen.
If you want to carryon the fun of jane austen style, georgette heyer will fulfill that craving .
Even i enjoy reading georgette heyers' regency novels.

added. I think the disadvantage of a life lived by reading is that we live life by proxy instead of getting out into the world and doing it for real, we go into a book and live that life by imagination. i can see it is not very satisfactory to be doing that all the time. So i say when you are young, go out there and live.
when u are old, u can still do it, but it make more of an effort. Old age, old joints, old body ... not very easy to travel with it. health will be a problem. Thus that would be the time to get into books and get ur vicarious thrills .

moths, a millionaire who cannot read, a sofabed too heavy to bring back.

london
A number of news items caught my eye.
A millionaire in today's standard said he is ashamed that he cannot read. And it was this that made him want to prove himself.
This is supposed to illustrate how bad it is that so many kids cannot read in schools.
yet, when i read his story, i thought, hang on, shouldn't he be saying it is not important to read, as he cannot and he is a multimillionaire. so it just goes to show it need not be a handicap.
As someone who loves to read, i would think it awful if i cannot access the world's literature and reading material, but truthfully, it is not important if what u want is to make money. 
Fortunately, i am not too bothered to make millions, so to me being able to read outweighs my not having millions. haha. 

But it seems that millionaire still feel awful about not being able to read. i wonder why he should feel like that unless he has been brainwashed to think he is stupid because he cannot read and so continue to believe that. 
One day he will wake up and realise those teachers who have told him he is a dunce and made him feel bad about it  are wrong. 
nowadays with audio books he can hear books so it is not that he is unable to gain access to world literature and such.

And all those people now who said it is a disgrace that children cannot read may have to rethink their automatic condemnation.
When u come to think of it, what good havebeing able to read done for all those millions who work as 9-5 wage slaves?
Iwould have thought the conclusion is knowing how to read simply make u suitable to find work as a wage slave and fodder for huge companies to exploit you.

In life, if u lack something, u will make up for it in other ways.
So if u are blind, your hearing becomes much more acute, so much so that u can 'see' by clicking and hearing the echo. Some blind people are perfectly able to move about using this method.

So i say to people use what u have got.

I think so called dyslexic people may see the world in a different way, which is very desireable for survival.

they just have to find out what way and what areas of perception they are good at and find themselves as it were.
Its true that they wont be able to enjoy the world of novels and writing but it is only one world. Just as we sighted people experience one world of sight, others who are blind will access another world of sound, and smell and touch more acutely than we do. And neither of us are superior to the other.
Now i come to moths.
I saw one on my carpet when i was clearing up the corner. I know from the papers that people are having an epidemic of moth infestation, destroying their carpets, and woollen and cotton clothes. (Though knowing papers, the story may just have come up on a slow day for news, and in reality few people are bothered with it.)

But i am not worried about moths, because i dont have central heating, in fact i dont have heating on in winter at all, and i know whatever is infesting my place in summer will never survive to breed come winter. haha

I know there are lots of advantages not having central heating, and this is one of them.

Now i come to something that happened to me which i find rather disappointing but i have kind of resigned myself to the fact that my soul dont want it.
I found a sofa bed this morning, and it is a very good quality one.
However, even with simon's help i cannot carry it up one floor to my flat.
oh boo hoo..
It is a paradox, that if it were better made, it will be heavy and we wont be able to carry it up to the flat and not be able to make good use of it all these years.

I have a neighbour who lives in the ground floor and he told me he was thinking of taking it last night when he saw it, but didn't and now he said it is too late.
Well, he wasnt in when i went to ask him if he wants it. If he doesnot want it i shall return it to the bins.
it is heavy because it has two very solid metal rods fixed to the base and that carries the metal bed.
I had a sofa bed which was light to carry back to the flat though we had 3 people then. It was ages ago, and i have been finding it so useful.
it is lighter because it is not so solidly built , so much so that the screws have come off and the metal bit need to be supported (by books in my case).

How frustrating really that this good stuff i have to let go. Ah well, it will only be of benefit to my friends and visitors who stay overnight... so i guess they wont be able to get it. mayby my soul dont want to have them benefit. maybe it knows not to make things too comfortable for guests or they will be overstaying their welcome. hmm... i always feel if things dont go the way i want it, there is a good reason, and it wont be apparent to me till years later , when i will realise that not having it saves me a lot of bother. haha.

Ah well, that is my way of explaining when things dont go my way.

I find it is a very good way to look at things.

hows life

london
Lovely june is here.
melton mowbray pie

each about 0.56 kg. at £12.50 /kg they cost £7, but reduced to £1.40 when i bought them.

they are lamb joints.

I happened to turn a corner and saw the shop assistant reducing them. I got one pack and there were two guys came up and i thought they will take the other pack. One of them was talking to someone on the mobile asking what to buy... he was looking at the lamb chops. i asked if he is taking the joint and he said no and i can have them. it was all very civilised and polite. So different from the other time when a white sloan ranger type middle aged woman took all the 6 chicken being reduced. i said , 'are u taking them all?' she said yes, i come only on friday and got no time whilst u can come everyday. 

Well, that was telling me. haha. it was selling reduced to £1.80 each. But i dont mind, she shall soon get fed up of chicken. haha . She cannot be that poor, as on her shopping cart were two huge potted plants . dont know how much they must have cost her. 

  As i was going away i saw the two guys loading their cart with the lamb chops. There were a lot of them being reduced to £1. he must have thought it was his lucky day. I dont bother to buy the chops as there is a lot of bone in it. yet westerners like them ; for bbq , i think . Rather strange when u wont find them liking chicken wings and boney fish. maybe the fish bones and chicken wing bones are small.

this is the sainsburys melton mowbray pie.

selling for 20p each fr £1.99. a very good bargain, as the large pie means less crust and more pork. haha.

there were lots of small mini melton mowbray pies 6 for 10p but i did not buy them instead i got 4 of the big ones.

they are so filling, i could only manage half of that pie for my supper. delicious. with just the right amount of jelly inside and such a lot of pork with the crust crunching like glass. it is a weird sensation and difficult to describe.

There is a lot of talk in the papers about the cucumber e coli deaths in germany. it is funny that, why women are affected more than men. I wonder how it can be from contaminated veg salads, as we all wash our vegetables before eating them raw.
(Added. 18.6.11 I should have known better than to say we all wash our vegetables. not the westerners, if simon is typical of his race. He took some lettuce from the bunch i bought. i saw he simply gouge out the middle bit, instead of taking the leaves from the outside into the heart. i asked him did he wash them, he said no, i said, well no wonder your kind are dropping like flies in germany. haha.
 And any bacteria will be washed away. Are those salads veg in pre packed vacuum sealed and cut up? that is why they are not washed first? this link shows why pre cut salads are not all that good.
I never buy them but if that is the way they are spread it is one less bother for me to concern myself about. haha.
Now they say the e coli is not spread from the cucumbers from spain which makes spain hopping mad at the original accusation and the subsequent collapse of their vegetable export. i saw the film of them throwing away all that cucumbers and i thought what a waste.

I wonder if this scare means we shall have a glut of reduced cucumbers later in the supermarket....
In germany, they have warned people against eating lettuce, and tomatoes as well as cucumbers.
and only yesterday, lettuce were reduced to 50p. haha.

life is so full of scares nowadays. Correction, the press is full of scares.the difficulty is identifying  the false ones.
added.7.6.11 the german experts , so called, have been shooting their mouths off again by warning against bean sprouts to later admit there is no evidence for it.