Friday, January 15, 2010

The Gardeners Year North Fife

As the snow melts and the days get warmer it's time to get out there and prepare the garden, you will not regret. In times of austerity and getting back to the basics of existence why not grow it and eat it.
The Gardeners year North Fife. Best-selling author Alan Titchmarsh brings us the definitive guide to gardening throughout the year. This ideal gardening companion was released to coincide with a BBC2 6 x 30 television series to be broadcast in early 2006. It still holds true for today."The Gardener's Year" is not about quick fixes, design makeovers or hard drudge, but simply about knowing what you should be doing in your garden, when, and why. Month by month Alan gives us the low-down on how to keep your garden looking its best. In-depth and packed full of useful tips, it includes advice on everything from what seeds you can plant out in your vegetable plot in May, to how to keep your hanging baskets looking stunning in September. Alan's most recent gardening books "How to be a Gardener 1 & 2" were the fastest selling gardening books ever with sales of over 1 million copies to date. Alan Titchmarsh, the Gardener's Year
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Thursday, January 14, 2010

Kitchen Garden North Fife

This is the time of the year to think about preparation of the garden, what to grow, how to grow it. here in North Fife we too have a kitchen garden that provides. Any of us if we have a plot or patio pot etc can grow food/herbs. There is nothing better than eating really fresh foods, come on, do it.
The Kitchen gardener by Alan Titchmarsh. Allotments with ten-year waiting lists; fruit and veg seeds outselling those of flowers - Britain is growing a passion for home produce and the time is right for the nation's favourite gardener to provide the definitive book on the subject. Alan's comprehensive guide will tell you everything you could possibly want or need to know about fruit and veg and how to grow it, including herbs, baby veg, salads, every-day fruits plus gourmet or unusual varieties, and how to fit them into today's stylish small gardens. As well as providing the key facts needed to yield good results and what to do when things go wrong, the text is sprinkled with Alan's personal observations, anecdotes, culinary tips and quirky historical uses.The book takes a very practical approach, starting from scratch for the benefit of anyone who's never grown their own before, but is also ideal for those with some experience who might be growing edibles in a new way - perhaps in a small space that needs to look attractive, or on a new allotment. Lavishly illustrated throughout with over 250 photographs and artworks, this inspirational and authoritative fruit and veg bible from the UK's best-selling and most influential gardener will become a classic in the genre. The Kitchen Gardener: Grow Your Own Fruit and Veg
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Garden Vegetables North Fife

Vegetables in a small garden. I am conscious here in north fife of the hands on benefit of just doing. More and more it's becoming apparent that there will be fresh food shortages, to safeguard against dearth or expensive products it is almost imperative each of us self provide. This book guides us to a means of being productive and self sufficient. Simple steps to gardening success, from the experts at the RHS Follow RHS show-how and know-how for a garden that looks great all year round (whatever size it is). From root veg to herbs and salads, inspirational tips and techniques on choosing the right seeds, growing organic, finding the best site, fertilisers, pest protection and more guarantee success. Get perfect results: whether you’re a green-fingered guru or a gardening novice. For more step-by-step gardening advice, pick up other titles from this series. Anyone who grows food will extol on the wonderful qualities of really fresh food.Vegetables in a Small Garden: Simple Steps to Success (RHS Simple Steps to Success)
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Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Slumdog Millionaire

Tonight unusually I watched a film on channel 4 TV. Fantastic, moving and heart wrenching Slumdog Millionaire was a delight. It is worthy of all the awards it has received.

Slumdog Millionaire. Danny Boyle (Sunshine) directed this wildly energetic, Dickensian drama about the desultory life and times of an Indian boy whose bleak, formative experiences lead to an appearance on his country's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" Jamal (played as a young man by Dev Patel) and his brother are orphaned as children, raising themselves in various slums and crime-ridden neighorhoods and falling in, for a while, with a monstrous gang exploiting children as beggars and prostitutes. Driven by his love for Latika (Freida Pinto), Jamal, while a teen, later goes on a journey to rescue her from the gang's clutches, only to lose her again to another oppressive fate as the lover of a notorious gangster.

Running parallel with this dark yet irresistible adventure, told in flashback vignettes, is the almost inexplicable sight of Jamal winning every challenge on "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?," a strong showing that leads to a vicious police interrogation. As Jamal explains how he knows the answer to every question on the show as the result of harsh events in his knockabout life, the chaos of his existence gains shape, perspective and soulfulness. The film's violence is offset by a mesmerizing exotica shot and edited with a great whoosh of vitality. Boyle successfully sells the story's most unlikely elements with nods to literary and cinematic conventions that touch an audience's heart more than its head. --Tom Keogh
Treat your self and others. Slumdog Millionaire [DVD] [2008]

The official tie-in screenplay of the hit movie directed by Danny Boyle. Contains: the complete shooting script; colour photo section; foreword by screenwriter Simon Beaufoy; introduction by Danny Boyle; exclusive Q&A with Danny Boyle; complete cast and crew credits. Slumdog Millionaire: The Shooting Script

The Body Language Handbook

The Body Language Handbook. In THE BODY LANGUAGE HANDBOOK, the authors use candid photos of real people in stress-free situations, then juxtapose them against others showing the same people responding to different kinds of stimulus to illustrate the power of body language. By going step-by-step from the holistic to the detailed, you'll quickly discover when body language indicates something significant and when an itch is just an itch. You'll learn how to: · Identify the basic mechanics of human communication. · Observe what is culturally normal...and when abnormal matters. · Read changes in body language. · Avoid misunderstandings. · Project the right message. · Protect yourself from manipulation. THE BODY LANGUAGE HANDBOOK will not only teach you how to read the body language of others, it will, also, make sure you send the signals you want to send. Increase your power of communication in the office, in a courtroom or classroom, at home and in any social setting, even the poker table! Published on the 20th January, be amongst the first to acquire this useful knowledge. Body Language Handbook: How to Read Everyone's Hidden Thoughts and Intentions

Monday, January 11, 2010

Ducks Flisk North Fife 2010


With all the snow we've had recently the ducks have been off the lay. They always waddle off to the same hedgerow nibble the occasional dead leaf and mainly sit until it's time to head home at nightfall, eat provided veg matter and pellets before settling down for the night.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

River Tay Ice at Newburgh Jan 10th North Fife

Is the duck real? I'm actually not sure, it seemed live at the time.

Looking East from Newburgh on the Tay estuary towards Dundee.

Robertson's Pier Newburgh. When walking on the ice at the left end of the picture my leg crashed through a layer or two up to mid thigh sending my camera flying and on return did it again. Happy it wasn't over water at least.

Boat icebound in the Newburgh Ice.


Today at Newburgh watching the ice flows pass by, the river was reasonably quiet but the strong north easterly wind was something else. The temperature was a tad above freezing but with the wind chill factor bare handed camera work became a pain.

Saturday, January 09, 2010

The River Tay Jan 9th 2010

A cold misty day overlooking the Tay at Newburgh, North Fife. From home I left shrouded in a Haar off the north sea which cleared at Ballinbreich on the barony road.


The River Tay today Jan 9th 2010. As flagged in previous posts the ice flows are growing, over the coming days I'll try and get closer and take a look.

Out Building for sale North Fife

85 High Street, Newburgh North Fife out building for sale. One of two lots. More.

Thursday, January 07, 2010

The Tipping Point

Thoughts are a phenomena of mind, existent yet owned by no one, shared by many expressed by some and are viral in effect. Malcolm Gladwell explains it, sort of.

The Tipping Point. How little Things Can Make A Big Difference.
THE TIPPING POINT is the biography of an idea, and the idea is quite simple. It is that many of the problems we face - from crime to teenage delinquency to traffic jams - behave like epidemics. They aren't linear phenomena in the sense that they steadily and predictably change according to the level of effort brought to bear against them. They are capable of sudden and dramatic changes in direction. Years of well-intentioned intervention may have no impact at all, yet the right intervention - at just the right time - can start a cascade of change. Many of the social ills that face us today, in other words, are as inherently volatile as the epidemics that periodically sweep through the human population: little things can cause them to 'tip' at any time and if we want to understand how to confront and solve them we have to understand what those 'Tipping Points' are. In this revolutionary new study, Malcolm Gladwell explores the ramifications of this. Not simply for politicians and policy-makers, his method provides a new way of viewing everyday experience and enables us to develop strategies for everything from raising a child to running a company.
"The best way to understand the dramatic transformation of unknown books into bestsellers, or the rise of teenage smoking, or the phenomena of word of mouth or any number of the other mysterious changes that mark everyday life," writes Malcolm Gladwell, "is to think of them as epidemics. Ideas and products and messages and behaviours spread just like viruses do." Although anyone familiar with the theory of mimetics will recognise this concept, Gladwell's The Tipping Point has quite a few interesting twists on the subject.

For example, Paul Revere was able to galvanise the forces of resistance so effectively in part because he was what Gladwell calls a "Connector": he knew just about everybody, particularly the revolutionary leaders in each of the towns that he rode through. But Revere "wasn't just the man with the biggest Rolodex in colonial Boston", he was also a "Maven" who gathered extensive information about the British. He knew what was going on and he knew exactly whom to tell. The phenomenon continues to this day--think of how often you've received information in an e-mail message that had been forwarded at least half a dozen times before reaching you. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

Self Catering holiday Cottages North Fife

Today driving from Cupar to Newburgh North Fife on well gritted roads approaching Parbroath crossroads. A fantastic landscape rich in history and beauty. On crossing the A92 Kirkcaldy to Dundee road to the right Normans Law becomes dominant. Click to view at other times of the year.

Normans Law with sign indicating self catering cottages for rent. A good choice since they offer hot tubs, perfect for this time of the year.