I was reading this article the other day about a man called Arthur Boyt who has a novel idea for what to do with road kill. He thinks the best thing to with it is to make a casserole. One of his favourite recipes is badger casserole made using a roadkill badger, broccoli, parsnips, potatoes, tomatoes and wild mushrooms. He has also tried fox, sparrow, horseshoe bat and even porcupine. Needless to say his wife is a vegetarian.

I watched a documentary last night about a new type of doll called a Reborn. The dolls are highly customised to make them look as close to a real baby as possible even down to features such as veins and scratches. They weigh about the same as a real baby and have rooted hair and even manicured nails. The result is a doll like the one below.


The documentary which was shown on Channel 4 last night followed a lady who customises these dolls in order to make them look as real as she can. Personally I find the dolls more than a little disturbing but what I found more disturbing was some of the people that purchase them.

The programme centred on a few individuals, one lady who has converted a room in her house into a nursery. She owned several dolls and spent her time buying them expensive clothes, changing their nappies and styling their hair. She even went as far as to take them out shopping with her in a pram. The programme went onto to show her excitement at going to the US specifically to pick up her new “baby”, only to find it was not perfect and she would need to leave it behind, despite the fact she had already bonded with it.

Another lady featured in the documentary wanted a baby as a substitute grandson. Her grandson Harry had lived with her for the first few years of his life, when his mother had met a new partner and emigrated leaving the grandmother, missing the baby. Her solution was to visit the doll maker who made her a “Harry baby” which she appeared to adore. Her husband, however, was not so enthusiastic bout the new addition to the family. Personally I felt this lady would have benefitted from either spending some time with her real grandson or seeking some help to get over her feeling of loss.

You can view some of the clips from the documentary here but I think most people will agree there is something slightly odd about a grown woman pushing a doll around a shopping centre in a pram. As for the dolls themselves I’m not sure why but they remind me a little bit of Childs Play, maybe I’m missing the point? Either way the programme made interesting viewing.

2007 seemed to go past so fast for me, mainly because I have had a very busy year with work. As I work from home I tend to find I not only work during the day but also spend most of the evening and even weekends working. The result is that I feel constantly tired and stressed. With the New Year I aim to do two things. The first is to try and switch off my laptop in the evening to make more time for me and the second is to go the gym at least twice a week. If I manage to do both hopefully in 2008 I will not only be healthier but should have more time and energy to enjoy life a bit more.

I played Resident Evil on the Wii for the first time today and unfortunately for me it is likely to be the last time I play it. The reason has nothing to do the game itself, it is as promised full of cool features and has lots of zombies to kill. However after an hour of game play I started to feel very ill and soon had all the symptoms of motion sickness. Whilst I have played some games before that bring on a migraine the next day this is the first game that has ever made me physically sick. Cool as the game is I won’t be risking another go and will have to be content with watching my husband play instead. I would be interested to know if anyone else has experienced similar problems.

I came across this article about a multibird roast that costs £665 and feeds up to 125 people. It is made up of 12 birds making it one of the biggest multibird meals in the country. It consists of a turkey on the outside, goose, chicken, pheasant, three ducks, poussin, guinea fowl, partridge, pigeon squab and quail and is so heavy it takes two people to lift it. The roast would take around 10 hours to cook. It looks very nice but it might be a little too big to fit into my oven.

I have always thought that clowns are scary so was not surprised when I came across this article. It suggests that hospitals should not decorate wards with pictures of clowns because children are upset by them. In fact a survey of more than 250 children showed that they all disliked clowns and even teenagers found them scary. The fear of clowns, known as coulrophobia, can cause panic attacks, shortness of breath, irregular heartbeat, sweating, nausea and feelings of dread. Clowns are Evil.

I read this article about a 56 year old toaster that was purchased in 1951 and surprisingly still works today. Mrs Lopes purchased the toaster as a present for her parent’s silver wedding anniversary for £4 4s. Since then it has been put to regular use and is still in perfect working order. It seems that appliances used to be built to last whereas these days items are often cheaply made and tend to only last a few years if you are lucky.

I read this article about a website that has been set up to reunite people with their lost gloves. The website was set up by Jennifer Gooch and so far has reunited four gloves with their owners. She is now working on four similar sites for other cities as well as a book which will show the gloves she has found.

We have just got back from Sevenoaks where we spent a few days with my family, hence the lack of blog posts. On Christmas day we met my Aunt Shelia, Uncle Les, my Mum and Dad, my brother Kevin, cousins Jeremy, Martin and Simon, Jeremy's wife Michelle and Simons fiancee Lucy at the Halfway House for a drink before going to Shelia’s for dinner. Dinner was a turkey and a ham with all the trimmings followed by Christmas pudding. As always I ate too much and left feeling rather fat. On Boxing Day my parents and my brother came to us and we cooked prawns with a chilli sauce, a lovely joint of lamb with mixed vegetables and a cake for dessert. It was really nice for me to spend Christmas with all my family this year as it has been about 9 years since my last big family Christmas. Being with family made this Christmas all the more special.

I find that the Christmas break is a good time to catch up on a lot of those of jobs that tend to get neglected. I have just spent most to the day working my way through a huge pile of documents that require shredding. It’s a very boring and time consuming task, especially when you let the documents build up. I have managed to do about half of it, despite the fact that my little shredder frequently overheats causing the motor to cut out. I think its time to purchase something a little more meaty.

I think I am just about ready for Christmas, I have brought all the presents and we had our first Christmas meal yesterday. Our good friend Panos was kind enough to invite us around to his house. He cooked an impressive meal of turkey, mashed potato, roasted parsnips, glazed carrots and prawn salad. We also had a selection of three different sorts of cake for dessert. Needless to say I ate far too much and still have a fat tummy today. In just a few days we will doing it all again with Christmas dinner at my Aunts house. In the meantime I will eating salad for the next few days to give my stomach a bit of a rest.