Money Spent

I saw the following details on a picture at the UN building and thought it made interesting reading. It was part of a presentation of stuff that had been done:

Money spent on Weapons - TOTAL - $780 Billion

Provide Clean Safe Energy - $50 Billion
Retire Developing Nations Debt - $30 Billion
Prevent Soil Erosion - $24 Billion
Provide Health Care and AIDS control - $21 Billion
Provide Shelter - $21 Billion
Eliminate Starvation and Malnutrition - $19 Billion
Stabilise Population - $10.5 Billion
Provide Safe Clean Water - $10 Billion
Prevent Acid Rain - $8 Billion
Prevent Global Warming - $8 Billion
Eliminate Nuclear Weapons - $7 Billion
Stop Deforestation - $7 Billion
Stop Ozone Depletion - $5 Billion
Refuge Relief - $5 Billion
Elliminate Elliteracy - $5 Billion
Build Democracy - $2 Billion
Remove Landmines - $2 Billion

Total - 213 Billion.

All the above represents only a third that is spent on weapons.
Remarkable.

New Template

Hi

Hope people that read it like the new template. I have updated it and some of the links on the side. My music listening is terribly out of date but will do that soon. I never read.

Champion

D

Sponsors

This has to be the craziest news story I have heard in a long long while.

http://www.safc.com/news/?page_id=9673

Basically, it says that Sunderland have adopted S & N as official beer sponsors.
Nothing odd there I hear you say, but bare in mind S & N is shorthand for Scottish & Newcastle.

So - Sunderland, arch rivals to Newcastle United, not sponsored by a local Sunderland company, but by a Newcastle based company. Putting it another way, its like have the Barclay stand rebranded to be the Ipswich Building Society stand.

Mental does not even come near it.

Times Square

Times square was one of the first places we visited in New York.
Part of this was because for some time now we had been watching Times Square on a web cam ( http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/timessquare/index.php?goto=live)

Here you may see people occasionally stop and watch as they are looking up at people. At the side you can also see some telephones. What we did is we rang my mum, who had been trained in accessing the internet prior to our visit to tell her to go and have a look. Since my mum is disabled we knew it could take some time. So we stood there for 25 minutes waiting to make sure she saw us. Amazingly she did, which is great for someone who never used a computer.

Times Square is unashamedly brash and bold and probably for most people who hate American culture and generally the wastage of resources that America uses is abhorent. However like a fly to light there is something drawing about it that means you staying too long is probably not healthy. Here are some images.

Central Park

I was really surprised by Central Park and indeed, if you live in New York is a fantastic area for families to relax and chill out. Its vast as well and took a good half hour slow walk to go one side to the other and thats not longways either.

In the past I would have associated Central Park with crime and grime, and probably like most inner urban areas isn't very safe at night, but it was quite surprising. Where I went there were hundreds of people bathing in the sun there. On a point of security, at no time did I feel nervous or threatened. Peolple were genuinely helpful and thoughtful. The most dissapointing thing was the persons that were rude to me twice were English! Says something really....

Here are some pics of Central Park

Da Jerry Vinci Code

I have been reading Craigs blog with regards to an article he references about the Da Vinci Code novel by Dan Brown (http://craig-deal.blogspot.com/2006/05/da-vinci-code-bookmovie.html)

To state at the outset, I have no problem with the novel and think its great. I have taken most of the Mary Magadelene side of the story in view that it is a novel and is not meant as an exposition of strict Catholicism. Many will disagree. But like many a good author, not only has he weaved a clever story he has also introduced the concept of "something to talk about". I wonder if the subject was less controversial whether the book would be such a success. But since it is controversial many people are talking about it, hence many people will pick it up and read it.

I know one Catholic who secretly told me they had read it and felt bad for doing so. Terrible really.

The point of this post really was to make a comparison between the very verbal and visible challenges that went on and carry on across the UK with regards to Jerry Springer. Not having seen the show personally as its not my thing, but I don't believe Jerry Springer deserves to be picked out and the Da Vinci Code left to show at cinemas without any objection.

I wonder therefore, where the people making all these acusations to the Theatre Royal of blasphemy etc etc are when the Da Vinci Code is released. I suspect they wont even bother the UCI or any other place and simply let it get on. Why is that do you think?

Kitchen Update

Well, we are still living out of my mother in laws, but we should be done next week.
That does not mean we are moving in. We have now decided to resand all the floors, rewax them. We are also going to line the walls with lining paper and repaint the living room. Where it stops nobody knows.

Here are a couple of pictures of the kitchen currently. Tiles need grouting still and as you can see the fridge aint gone back, so there are still things needed to be done.

Also, we decided, what the heck, lets get the bathroom redone at the same time.
So we have had it retiled and floored with bathroom floor tiles

Hopefully this will all be done next year, sorry, next week. Champion

Statue Of Liberty

The next day after arrival we headed down to Battery Park in South Manhattan. Here you can get boats out to the Statue of Liberty.

When we arrived there were massive queues and the response was , "Oh, lets come down first thing tommorow instead". But we asked a park ranger there and he said queueing time was only an hour. One boat would leave every half an hour taking 900 people, which is astounding.

Here is a group of pictures from that trip that I took:

Empire State Building

Some pictures of the empire state building below.
Basically our hotel was the Hotel Metro (http://www.hotelmetronyc.com/index.asp).
This was a 13 floor building, with the 13th floor having an open penthouse bar. The following image is a reduced quality picture from the bar. Great view.

New York Pics

In a previous post I said I would go to the following:

Empire State Building.
Statue of Liberty
Central Park
UN Building
Grand Central Station
Brooklyn Bridge

In the next series of posts I will put some images I captured on here.

Champion.

New York

Came back from New York yesterday and had a great time with my dad.
Here are some thoughts and observations...

1. Cleanliness - seemed to be clean everywhere we went.
2. Friendliness - people were very genuine at times trying to help.
3. Cars - cars on the road seemed oddly quiet.
4. Safe - At no point was I worried at all, everything seemed safe.
5. Food - food was great but not as cheap as I would have thought.
6. Travel - incredibly easy to get around Manhattan by Metro (and cheap).

We also managed to get recorded for posterity on a webcam (yes it was deliberate). Even my mum managed to see us although we stood like planks for ages.

You can see the picture by going here:

http://www.earthcam.com/usa/newyork/timessquare/

Select archives in the window.
Select Sunday 7th May. You will see me and my dad unmissible in the picture.

Here is a picture of the webcam, just for silliness

New York

Well, I fly off to New York in a couple of days time and I cannot wait.
Should be great. Thinking about all the places I want to go and see like:

Empire State Building.
Statue of Liberty
Central Park
UN Building
Grand Central Station
Brooklyn Bridge

And many others.

Wahoooo