If you are happily married and live in Britain then you could be in the minority. Recent statistics from The Office of National Statistics (ONS) have found that nearly half of all British marriages end in divorce. In fact 45% of all marriages end in divorce before a couple’s 50th anniversary and half of these splits occur before couples reach 10 years of marriage. The statistics have also found that less people are getting married with 2006 having the least number of weddings for 110 years.

We met up with some friends last night for a beer tasting evening at Brouge at The Old Goat in Fulwell near Twickenham. It was certainly a slightly different evening. The staff at the pub started by telling us a little bit about some of the beers and we then got to sample some. Apparently they serve over 60 different beers and by the end of evening it felt like we had tried all of them, although in reality I think we had sampled just over a quarter of the beers on offer. We had a honey beer, an apple beer, cherry beer and even champagne beer. They were not all too my taste but I did find a particularly nice ale called De Koninck which I really liked. The food at the restaurant was a mix of burgers, sausages and sea food. It was nice and quite reasonably priced but nothing special. I do recommend going here for the beer though.



Picture showing just some the many beers.




Me with a large glass of beer.

I read this interesting article that suggests you can make quite a difference to the environment just by paying your bills online. The article is based upon a study done in the US and claims that if just one household stopped receiving paper statements and instead paid their bills online it would save 24 square feet of forest every year. This calculation was based on the fact that an average US household receives 19 bills or statements from credit card companies and banks per month and makes seven payments by paper per month. Apparently if just 10% of US households gave up paper bills, it would save 75,469,808 pounds of paper, that’s about 905,638 trees. It would also avoid producing 1.96 million pounds of greenhouse gases which is the equivalent of taking 162,861 cars off the road.

Personally if I won the lottery the first thing I would do is give up work, or at least pay people to run my businesses for me. One man who won the lottery, however, missed his job at McDonalds’s so much that despite quitting, he asked to go back. Despite the fact that he is £1.3 million richer after his lottery win Luke Pittard still gets up every morning and goes to his £5.85 per hour job where he spends his time flipping burgers. Surprisingly he earns more money in interest on his winnings per week than he does from his job. He must really love his work.

This rather sleepy looking fox was found by Terri Strick when she opened her chicken coop to feed her chickens. When she had last opened the chicken coop it contained, chickens, however the fox managed to crawl inside and after consuming all the birds settled down for a well earned nap amongst the remaining feathers.

There are many expenses associated with selling a home but one fairly new cost is the home information pack or HIPs. HIPs have been promoted by the Government as a way to provide key information to buyers and also speed up the purchase of a property. However a recent report from Which? has found that HIPs have little value and that 41% of buyers find the packs make purchasing a new house more difficult. HIPs have also been opposed by estate agent trade bodies, the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the legal profession. The general opinion appears to be that they are simply a waste of money.

New Ofcom proposals could mean that we will soon have more frequent commercial breaks on TV. Currently ITV1, Channel 4 and Five are allowed to show an average of seven minutes of advertising an hour. Advertising is also restricted to one period per half hour programme and two per hour long programme. Under the new proposals these timing restrictions could be dropped meaning you would have two breaks in a half hour show rather than one. You could also have adverts in films every 30 minutes instead of every 45 minutes. I feel there is already enough advertising shown on TV so if these measures are put into place I will simply record everything I want to watch on Sky + and forward through the adverts.

This article suggests that solar powered clothing could be coming to the shops soon. Fujitsu Siemens are working on incorporating flexible solar cells into items of clothing and say the device could only take a year to perfect. The solar cells would work by converting light into energy which would then be used to power devices such as mobile phones or MP3 players. It sounds interesting although as sunlight is required, it might not work so well here in the UK, after all we don’t see the sun very often. It could be a good device to take on holiday though.

Having used a few stink bombs before I know how unpleasant they can be. Saying that, they still wouldn’t be my number one weapon of choice if I wanted to rob a bank. A lady in Austria, felt differently. On entering a bank, she took out a box which she said contained a deadly explosive. She then smashed it on the counter breaking the vials of stink bombs and filling the bank with a dreadful smell before running outside. The staff also quickly retreated outside to escape the horrible smell. It seems her plan failed and she left empty handed, perhaps she should reconsider her choice of weapon before trying again.

I read this article that suggests addiction to the internet is now a recognised illness. Some symptoms of the disorder include excessive use, withdrawal and feelings of anger when the computer is not accessible and the need for better computers and more software. A case study carried out in South Korea found that 10 people have died of blot clots because they remained seated for long periods of time in internet cafes. It also found that around 210,000 children are affected and are in need of treatment. Apparently if you answer yes to five or more of the following questions you could suffer from it.

• Do you feel preoccupied with the internet? (Think about your online activity or anticipate your next online session.)
• Do you need increasing amounts of time on the net in order to achieve satisfaction?
• Have you repeatedly made unsuccessful efforts to control, cut back or stop internet use?
• Do you feel restless, moody, depressed, or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop internet use?
• Do you stay online longer than originally intended?
• Have you jeopardised or risked the loss of a significant relationship, job, educational or career opportunity because of the internet?
• Have you lied to family members, a therapist or others to conceal the extent of your involvement with the internet?
• Do you use it to escape from problems (eg, feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, depression)?

I answered yes to just the fifth question. How many did you answer yes to?