iblog

Rushda: The wait is on for the final installment in the Harry Potter series of books, and Royal Mail have decided to mark the occasion by producing millions of stamps with pictures of covers from all seven of the books. The stamps will be available on 17th July, four days before the release of the final book, Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows. Well, as anticipated the excitement is building up even more. J.K Rowling is so lucky - as ever she is one of the highest women on this year’s new UK’s rich list, and I only wonder how much richer she’ll get with the sales and surrounding publicity of her new book.

Rushda: Apparently doctors and other health professionals know very little about allergies. This is worrying considering over 6,000 people a year in England are admitted to hospital because of them each year, a quarter involving life-threatening anaphylaxis. Even when the patients are being diagnosed, many GPs are said to not really know where to send them as there are limited allergy clinics.

Personally, I can see where all this is coming from. I myself suffer serious allergies to common foods such as nuts and I still haven’t been diagnosed or told what to do even though I’ve had the allergies all my life! Once when I had a huge reaction I had to sit in A+E for well over an hour before I was even seen - which is very risky considering I could have had an anaphylactic attack. It is pleasing to know that Allergy UK is trying its best to raise awarenes, for example by setting up a website for health professionals which informs them about allergies and their common symptoms.

Caroline: Friends and family agree that it is totally out of character but since taking delivery of my new steam-cleaner on Thurs I have been cleaning like a woman possessed. With dodgy wrists and elbows I have not been able to have a good old clean for ages but with my new toy I am catching up on all the spring-cleaning that should have been done years ago. So far it has proved itself great for windows, kitchen floors, wall tiles, shower cubicles, taps, lime scale on baths and spots on carpets. It comes with an impressive array of attachments and is easy and light to use. I even took it to my son’s flat today where it proved equal to the task of some tough cleaning. It cost almost ninety pounds but so far it seems to be worth it, especially considering how much cleaners charge. There is a hand held model in the same make but I have heard that it is not terribly effective. It’s even good for the “green” conscience as you don’t need any chemicals. All I have used so far is some vinegar to get rid of some stubborn limescale. I’m not usually one for gadgets but as you can tell I am feeling positively evangelical about it. I’d better not mention the make in case I am accused of advertising but if you have a look on Amazon you can’t miss it as it is bright yellow!

Caroline: Two TV programmes this week have had me wondering what we mean by being shy or embarrassed. First there was Virgin School, where 26 year old virgin James was sent to Amsterdam to lose his virginity with the aid of three mature Dutch ladies. He attended three days per fortnight for four months and I am pleased to report that by the end of his tutoring, the mission was accomplished. Part of James’ problem was apparently shyness and low self-esteem. It therefore seemed extraordinary that he had the guts (note the careful choice of word) to bare his soul and every other part to provide primetime entertainment. Equally extraordinary was the fact that James wears two pairs of underpants, possibly related to the fact that he shops for his undies with his grandmother. The next programme was on Thurs, Embarrassing Illnesses, and I couldn’t help wondering why these people who had been too shy to approach their GP with their ailments (some thirty odd years in the case of the man with piles) were suddenly willing to air their problems to the TV viewing public. Perhaps it’s all to do with us seeking our five minutes of fame but if these are the shy ones I dread to think what the more confident amongst us might reveal.

Anna: I have a penchant for soothing fruit smoothies, especially for breakfast. They used to be a staple part of my lunch when I worked in London, so who knows how much I paid into the coffers of Innocent Drinks? With a turnover of £100 million a year, and sales of 2 million drinks a day, Innocent Drinks certainly seem to have got the formula right. But for those of us without a nearby stockist, or lacking a bottomless wallet, I propose an alternative! You see, there’s nothing complicated about making a smoothie, you just bung some fruit in a blender and then pour it into a glass. If you were to buy a smoothie every day, it would probably cost you over £600 a year. Shell out £30 for a blender and buy whatever fruit is going cheaply on the market or the bargain counter at the supermarket, however, and you could be whizzing up a saving of about £300! Sure, you will have to do a bit of washing up, but think of all the plastic bottles you will save and the fun you can have dreaming up new combinations. The Sunday special in this household today was blackcurrant, banana and pear - delicious!

Anna: Why does booking a train ticket require detective skills? Splitting your journey, booking singles rather than returns and a host of other tricks all mean it can take hours to find the cheapest deal. I was pleased to hear GNER had recently relaunched their site, surely making the ticket searching a little easier. But having just visited the site, it’s obviously part of the Trainline/qjump family, and is as infuriating as ever. Surely there’s a gap in the market for a website allowing members of the public to find cheap tickets? In an ideal world, I would like a site where I could enter my start and end points and the day and be presented with the cheapest options. I wouldn’t mind if it took half an hour to chunter through all the possible journeys, as long as I could get on with something else while it worked its magic. Nor would I mind paying a commission to the website. So come on, you tecchie undergrads - how about working on the concept over the summer vacation?!

Rushda: I think it’s about time another reputable company apart from Apple have their own music download store, so it was quite interesting to see that Amazon are about to open their own music store “later this year”. And what’ll make it better than ITunes is the fact that the tunes it’ll sell will be without copy protection. DRM will be absent from every track up for sale. This is brilliant news. As much as I love iTunes I’m always feeling like the tunes I’ve just bought aren’t really “mine” because I can’t copy them at will to more than a couple of specially authorised machines. I’ll happily go to Amazon if their stock and pricing is comparable - in fact, I really hope it’s even better! I also think such ventures will help towards the bid to combat music piracy.

Rushda: About a week ago Mars announced that it would change its recipes and start using animal products in its chocolates - thereby making the famous chocolate bar (and others such as Twix and Snickers) unsuitable for vegetarians. Apparently this decision was due to its “methods of food sourcing” and it was an unfortunate but reasoned decision they had to make. As you can imagine, the protest was enormous - indeed the company received more than 6,000 complaints in just one week. As a result, Mars has now stepped down from the decision and apologise deeply for their obvious mistake.

Not being a vegetarian myself, even I was shocked at the initial decision, especially considering Mars even made a point of mentioning that the current products have a best before date till October. What did they expect everyone to do? Start going on a Mars Bar buying frenzy before the new products came in? And then eat greedily until October only to wave goodbye to their favourite chocolate bar forever? Sounds terribly tragic to me and I’m glad Mars came to its senses!

Alex: I posted a few weeks ago about my excitement concerning the BBC’s upcoming release of their Iplayer, which allow licsence fee payers the ability to download programmes up to a week after they are broadcast and keep them on their harddrives for almost a month. It now looks like the BBC have hired a former Microsoft executive to handle their digital rights management for this, the very software that allows users to retain the files for a period of time, but for no longer, and prevents the files being further shared across the P2P networks. Is this a good move for the Beeb? Or will it mean for the kind of consumer lock-in that many users have found detrimental in Microsoft’s Media Player and make the whole service somewhat of a washout?

Anna: I went to a smallholders show today in Mid Wales and, no, everyone wasn’t wearing barbour jackets and green wellies. There was a certain amount of tradition, stereotypicial country bumpkin behaviour and ceremony on show though. What was also on show was a fine collection of camelids - alpacas and llamas to be precise. The scrunchy-faced, over-woolly alpacas seemed very sweet but a little overawed by the occasion. The llamas though, rose to the challenge, and perfected their haughty gaze and “am I bovvered?” stance whenever any member of the show-going public dared to glance at them. I’ve always liked llamas, especially since I visited Peru, where they were fleecing tourists (with the help of human accomplices) by posing for photos in exchange for cash at Machu Picchu. The American visitors seemed especially gullible, which cemented the Anna-llama friendship further still. The llamas today, despite being quite accustomed to handling, thought the “assault course” of straw bales and slalom of willow branches was completely beneath them and put on a fine display of spitting, rearing and backing off. One even broke free from its handler and cantered off to the far end of the show ground. Llamas were, the head handler honcho assured everyone, placid, long-lived animals which were ideally suited to the UK. I’m quite tempted to get a few sometime in the future when I have a house with a field attached! Anyone who is intrigued should check out the website of the British Camelids Association.