The Orwellian Truth, Bad Citings and Van Gogh's Grass

Had a great 35 degrees in Valencia whilst also touring a bit around Oliva. Met up with people like Gema, Albakra, Sofia, Fernando, Luca, Nuria, Sylvia, Elena C, Elena P, Gloria, and Luis' family in Denia, all of whom were complaining about the heat, whilst using it as a great excuse to have another beer.
It was also the moment when Ortega announced to us about his plans to marry. Reports that his proposal went like this "sabes lo que te quiero decir?" or "has pensao alguna vez en..." are unfounded.

Interested in George Orwell? Want to know more personal details about him? Then get over to the blog of his diaries (first entry Aug 9th). These are not his political ramblings but more his day to day "went to buy bread" type of notes. Each day a new entry is posted as per his original diary.

The internet is great for researching. Never before have so many sources been available, and easily searchable. However a lesson from my old history class keeps on popping up in my mind. We were taught at length about not believing all we can see or that is written (examples were of a photo taken at the time of Hitler's rule in Germany - all people in photo appeared happy, behind the photographer what we didn't see was the military making sure that non-smiling faces were taken out). We were taught to look beyond the basics and ask questions about who produced the piece, what reason or motivation they had to produce it, and whether it was authentic and possibly typical.
I think that people in Chicago's jury did not go to this class, after their recent verdict was based on a statement on Wikipedia, where anyone can edit the articles anonymously...

If you ever wondered what famous painters painted before they got a good result, then thank DESY (the German particle accelerator in Hamburg) which has been able to reveal a picture of an unknown woman beneath his painting of a patch of grass. Maybe he wasn't pleased with the result, and got the wax crayons and scribbled all over it...

Any cows reading this should turn away now. These bovines are accused of damaging the environment through their frequent release of methane (through flatulence for instance). Despite there being just as many cases of this in humans (I can mention a good few), the cows get the full grunt of the blame. Now you can resume reading. So in order to help the environment, researchers in Australia have proposed changing from beef to kangaroo meat. Their stomaches apparently digest differently and so don't produce as much methane. I suppose it's from all that jumping around...

Keeping in Australia for a moment, a man has been sentenced to jail after being pulled over by cops for speeding. On investigation they found drugs, drug plants, and a rifle in his car. He had also apparently being doing the knuckle shuffle and filming it whilst driving at this speed. His long story could not make the judge believe that he found those items, and he was duly found guilty.

Companies are being persuaded more and more to be sparing with packaging and to recycle more. I don't think the message has quite got through to HP who sent out 17 boxes to a customer to protect 32 A4 pages.

The EU has made another attack on British measurements by outlawing the acre. Yes from now on we are only allowed to register new land in hectares. You can't fail them for trying, but you can definitely have a go at our government that didn't think it was an important issue and sent some lone junior minister to protect our standards...

People at Google have had enough of Wikipedia as well and have decided to produce their own version which shall be edited by people who know what they're doing. Is this a fight for standards or just another step towards world domination? You decide at knol.google.com.

An independent rwandan commission has accused France in playing an active role in the genocide of over 800 thousand rwandans in 1994. For a very good account of this along with everything else that has happened in the last 50 years in Africa, I highly recommend the book "The State of Africa" by Martin Meredith (search for it on amazon in the box to the left of this article - currently on offer at just over five pounds). Have recently finished reading it and found it amazingly enlightening.

And before we go out with Chelsea and her family for a bite to eat, last check of the weather shows that summer has been and gone. I must have blinked.

Keep on reading...