One thing I can never seem to get enough sleep, no matter how much sleep I try to get, I always wake up tired. New research has found that a lack of sleep can double the risk of heart disease. The research showed that people who cut their sleeping patterns from seven to five hours a night showed a doubled risk of fatal cardiovascular disease. On the other hand, the same research also found that people who increased their sleep patterns to eight or more hours are also twice as likely to die but from cancer, depression and psychiatric problems, as opposed to heart disease. The question is, is it is better to get more or less sleep?

You might find the price of your Christmas dinner will be more like year after turkey farmers have announced they will need to increase their prices. The move comes because there has been a huge increase in costs recently, with the price of poultry feed going up from £181 a tonne to £240 a tonne. This increase is likely to put around 10 to 20% extra on the cost of your Christmas turkey.

A flock of sheep in Romania have been attracting attention after they turned green overnight. The sheep had been treated with a solution of limestone to help them get rid of a skin disease. Overnight the sheep had all huddled together to keep warm and by the morning they had all turned green.

A man in Carmarthenshire who got a £60 parking ticket, dropped it on the floor before driving off. He was later given an extra £75 fine for littering after the council tracked him down from his licence plate.

Wii Sports has been nominated for the 2007 British Academy Video Awards. It has been nominated for game of the year, innovation and multiplayer. Personally I love this game, I particularly like the way that it forces you to do some exercise instead of just sitting on your bottom, and the game always goes down great at parties. Wii Sports faces some stiff competition in the form of Gears of War amongst others, but it’s great to see Nintendo back in the game, so to speak.

I read this interesting article the other day about a shortage of school places in the Republic of Ireland. The problem has been caused by the fact that 90% of the schools are Catholic run and will therefore only accept children with Catholic baptismal certificates. The problem has now got so bad that a new school has been opened exclusively for children from non-Irish ethnic backgrounds in the town of Balbriggan, Co Dublin after children could not find a school place for the new term. The school consists of mainly black pupils many of whom are Nigerian and some who are Muslim. The problem of providing children with a place in a school has now been solved to some extent but many are calling the situation a mini apartheid. Personally I think faith schools do tend to lead to more segregation in the community and would prefer to see an school environment that recognises all faiths.

In the wake of the Northern Rock crisis Barclaycard has been reviewing the spending limits for many of their customers. They have also been rejecting more applications for new cards, in what could signal a crackdown on consumer credit. About half of all applications for new Barclaycards are now being rejected. Barclaycard have also seen a 17% fall in profits due to problems with bad debt. I have always thought it much too easy to get things on credit and can see how people can build up huge debts that they can't pay back. I think this seems like a wise move from Barclaycard.

The Liberal Democrats have unveiled a number of new environmental policies at their party conference. The proposals include a ban on petrol powered cars by 2040. Other proposals include so called green mortgages, boosting funding on flood defences and charging lorries to use the UK’s roads.

There are rumours that Sony is going to launch a cut price version of the Playstation 3 for the UK market. Whilst Sony has been playing down the claims as “speculation”, they have not actually denied them. If the claims are true we could see a £299 version of the console in the shops for Christmas. If it is released rumours are that it will be a cut down version of the console that is not backwards compatible. I might consider buying it at £299 but not for a cut down version.

I read this article, complete with "educational video", in which Chuck Missler a creationist successfully (or so he thinks) disproves evolution with a jar of peanut butter. His theory is based upon the idea that the jar of peanut butter contains matter and is exposed to light and heat, but we do not find new life inside the peanut butter unless it is first contaminated by something outside the jar. He says "If I open this jar of peanut butter, maybe not often but on some occasion, I should find new life inside but when we open the jar of peanut butter and look in there, there's no new life." On this assumption he believes he has proven that evolution does not happen. I will leave you to draw your own conclusions and leave your comments. I think that this guy is a few peanut butter sandwiches short of a picnic.

Its time for another cute picture. This is Ollie resting on top of the shed.

A wallaby has been spotted in a garden in St Breward in Cornwall. It is thought it might have escaped from a nearby farm. St Endellion Farm six miles away lost one last week after it escaped, they are now trying to track the fugitive down. Wallabies are good at escaping and it is thought there are currently two breeding colonies living wild in the UK.

A man who managed to clock up the fastest ever speeding offence in the UK was sentenced today. He pleaded guilty nad received a 10 week jail sentence. He was caught doing 172mph in a Porsche along the A420 in Oxfordshire. He will also be banned from driving for three years.

My husband is always moaning about the cost of razor blades which is why I was interested in this infinity razor. It is supposed to stay sharp and not need replacement blades. It comes with a replacement guarantee, so that if you think it is not giving a close shave you can send it back for a replacement. You can also try it for 30 days and if after that time you are unhappy with it, you can return it for a refund. I’m not entirely convinced by the claims made in the advertisement, but I think its worth purchasing one to see if it is as good as the website makes it sound.

If you are trying to eat healthier food but feel you need a bit of help you might want to try mysupermarket.co.uk In addition to their price comparison service they have now launched a service that allows you see nutritional information about your shop including the calories and fat and salt content. It then asks you if you want to switch any of the foods that are high in calories for a lower calorie alternative. They claim that using the service could knock around 4,000 calories off a families consumption.

The cold wet summer in the UK has been bad news for bats. The weather has caused a shortage of the insects they would usually eat and has led to more calls of grounded and injured bats than usual. There have also been many reports of bat abandoning their young due to the fact there is not enough food around to feed them. This is particularly bad news because bats only produce one baby every year.

Tesco are to launch a comparison website called tescocompare.com. The website will allow users to compare insurance from a range of providers. Whilst initially geared towards car insurance, the website will also cover other financial services such as mortgages, homes loans and credit cards in the future.

Fishermen and conservationists in Pembrokeshire are working together on a lobster conservation project. They have just released 130 baby lobsters into an area near Skomer Island. This is as part of an effort to try and sustain the local lobster population. Pembrokeshire has the highest number of lobster fishermen in Wales and lobster and crab fishing makes up around 90% of the county’s commercial fishing. There are also plans to start a lobster hatchery to release more young lobsters in order help replenish stocks taken by fishermen, if this project proves successful.

Traffic has been banned from certain roads in central London for a day. The ban is to enable people to use a car free cycle route which passes several of London's famous landmarks including the London Eye, Westminster and St Paul's Cathedral. More than 30,000 people are expected to use the route which is open from 11am to 4pm today. The event finishes with a festival which includes bike stunt displays and a cycling circus.

There have been a number of incidents regarding Crocs shoes and escalators. The shoes which are known for their flexibility and grip can become caught in the teeth at the bottom or top of an escalator. In one incident mentioned in this article a young boy’s shoes became caught causing the name on his big toe to be nearly ripped off. The Washington Metro has even posted adverts warning riders about wearing such shoes on its moving stairways. In Japan, the government warned consumers last week that it has received 39 reports of sandals mostly Crocs or similar products getting stuck in escalators from late August through early September. There have other reports from other countries of similar incidents most of which have involved young children. It might be better not to let your children wear their Crocs when using the escalator.

My current desktop computer is starting to get a little old and is now a little slow for what I need it for. After my recent positive experience with Dell, and the fact that I already have a rather a good Dell laptop that has served me well for the last few years, I naturally looked there first. I found a really good deal on a desktop machine that comes complete with a 17 inch flat screen monitor, keyboard and mouse for just over £300. It looks like Dell is going to be getting some more of my hard earned cash.

Google is offering $30m prize pot to the first private firms that manage to land a robot rover on the moon. In order the win the money the robot must first reach the moons surface. It must then perform several tasks including shooting a video and roaming for a certain distance. The competition is open until 2012. The top prize of $20m will go to the firm that lands a rover and completes the objectives. There will be a second prize of $5m for the firm that comes second and $5m of bonuses are on offer if the rovers go further than expected. Rovers taking part must be fitted with high-definition video and still cameras. It seems like a good excuse to build a cool robot, but I’m not sure my skills are quite up to the task.

I read this article today about these strange back to front shoes. Looking at them they look really uncomfortable and it’s hard to imagine walking in them. At £330 not only do they seem a little expensive but also not very practical. 

I recently purchased a new colour laser printer from Dell. After much deliberation and looking at several printers including an all in one printer scanner copier, I decided to go with the Dell 1320C. The printer is Dells lowest priced colour laser printer and after I had customised it to be network ready it cost a very reasonable £260. The printer came complete with a pack of high yield toner and a three year warranty. At that price I must admit I was not expecting great things from the machine. However, it has really surprised me. The print quality is excellent, especially when printing photographs. I tested it by printing a picture of Oscar and could see all the individual hairs on the cat. Another thing that amazed me was the speed of the printer. I currently also have a HP laser printer which is designed for large print jobs and is very quick, to my surprise the Dell was just as fast. I tested the two together printing 75 pages and within just over five minutes they had both completed the job within minutes of each other. To sum up this is a really nice printer especially when you take into consideration the price. The only issue I have had, it that the toner does not last very long, as its only designed to print 2000 pages on one set of cartridges. It still works out at around 9p a printed page, so is quite good value for money.

People in Italy are being asked not to eat pasta for a day. The move is part of a protest against rising prices. The price of pasta in Italy is likely to rise for 20% due to the fact that it is becoming more expensive to produce. The problem has arisen due to the fact that fewer farmers are growing durum wheat and are instead concentrating on producing sun flowers which are used to produce bio diesel. Farmers have been actively encouraged to grow sun flowers instead and are rewarded with incentives. The knock on effect is a shortage of durum wheat and the proposed rise in the price of pasta.

I have been getting a lot of apples in my fruit and vegetable box recently, not that I’m complaining. It appears it’s down to a bumper apple crop this year which is a result of the warm string and the summer rain. In fact the apple crop is up 10% on last year. An amazing 8,000 tonnes of Braeburns are due to arrive in supermarkets this week, with around 45,000 tonnes of Cox’s also due to go sale. I quite like apples so am looking forward to happily munching my way through a few of them.

I spend a lot of time reading other peoples blogs, one that I have recently subscribed to is a travel blog called realtravel. A recent article that I found interesting was a two week travel itinerary for China. The suggested itinerary takes you through most of the main attractions as well as suggesting places to stay. It starts off with three days in Beijing before moving onto Xi’an, the home of the Terracotta Warriors and then to Chengdu and the Giant Panda Breeding Research Base.

Another interesting article deals with travelling with children. The article talks about what is the best age for children to travel. It also deals with setting reasonable expectations, for example combining visits to museums and shrines with more entertaining things, like roller coasters and ice cream for the children.

Ahoy there! Today is Talk Like A Pirate Day. Talk Like A Pirate Day was started in 1995 when two friends decided it was great to talk like a pirate and there should be a day when you can do just that. Yarrrr! If you need some tips on how to talk like a pirate you can visit the website for some tips. If on the other hand you would rather look like a pirate, you can head down to The Joke Shop for all things pirate-like Arrr!

I opened a new box of paper the other day and put the old box to one side for recycling. As you can see within a few minutes there was a cat in it.

This story is the first story on this topic I have come across. It has been reported in China that a man has died after playing computer games non-stop for three days. The 30 year man fainted at an internet café where he had been playing an online gambling game. It is thought he succumbed to extreme exhaustion. Paramedics that were called to the scene were unable to revive him and he was declared dead at the scene. China is currently one of the largest markets for online games and now has several clinics to treat what is called “internet addiction”. I like to play computer games and myself have spent a long weekend pretty much doing nothing except playing games, most of the day and night. I am thinking back to when I purchased the last Tombraider game, with its combination of storyline and puzzles, it really got me hooked. Depite the many hours I devoted to completing Tombraider I still can't quite believe that someone could become so addicted to a game that they could die from exhaustion. Even I managed to stop for food and sleep.

Lloyds TSB is the first high street bank to introduce plans to cut overdraft charges. The banks will introduce the new charges on the 2nd of November. They plan to cut the interest rates for unauthorised borrowing by a third as well as reducing the charges for going overdrawn. They will also reduce the charges for bounced cheques. Lloyds say they are reducing charges in response to customer feedback. They will still charge customer £15 a month for going overdrawn and then a daily rate of between £6 and £20 depending on the size of the overdraft. I think the fact that they are reducing charges is a positive step, it will be interesting to see if other high street banks follow suit.

Many things affect the cost of your insurance but the main reason you are paying more could be your post code. I was reading this article that suggests residents in South Norwood pay more than three times as much for building and contents insurance as someone who lives in Barnstaple. The website also provides a post code checker so you can see how the area in which you live affects what you pay. The results show you a typical annual premium for a house in your area, as well as where it ranks in the country. My breakdown was as follows:

Your postcode breakdown:  
•    Your league position: 1365 out of 1659
•    Your premium: £190.25
•    The national average is £169.45

I just opened a bottle of Vashon Estate Cabernet Sauvignon 2006. This is a really fruity full bodies red wine. It has a slightly oak like taste. I thought this was a really nice wine and good for the price of £6.49 a bottle. Slightly strong at 14% volume but it still gets five stars.

Oscar is a funny cat, he loves cuddly toys. He often picks them up in his mouth and carries them around the house whilst howling at the top of his voice. I have not been able to find out why he does this. His latest trick is to gradually transport all of the toys outside, one by one, whilst howling very loudly.

I came across this website that offers a Photo to Canvas Printing service. They can convert any image whether it is from a digital camera, a photograph, 35mm slides and transparencies. They offer photo restoration as part of the service and can correct any imperfections such as red eye. They can also combine several images for you, convert a picture to black and white and restore damaged pictures.
 
If you want to combine a lot of photographs you can choose from several options, one of which is a memory board containing as many as twenty small photographs. I think this option is a really nice idea and would make a really nice personal present. Other options available include a filmstrip effect where you can combine four of five images separated by a film strip.

They offer the prints on a wide range of finishes including art paper, art canvas, photo paper and clear film. A family and friends package is also available so that if you order a main piece of art, you can have an additional two A3 duplicates for an extra £100. All the prints are offered with a full money back guarantee so that if for any reason you are not satisfied they will issue a full refund.

I was chatting to a friend the other day who had been told by an advertising agency that Quark is not compatible between the PC and the Mac. I’m not quite sure where the advertising agency found their information because I have been using Quark successfully between the PC and Mac for around six years now. On one project I spent a lot of time working with style sheets between Quark on a PC and Quark on a Mac. I found with this that as long as the style sheets have all the same names they import perfectly. Saying this you can experience some slight text reflow between the Mac and PC versions of Quark. This is usually caused by the fact that the fonts differ slightly between the two systems. I would be interested to hear from other people that have worked with Quark on cross platform projects.

I have reading with interest the news surrounding Northern Rock and the fact that is has recently had to ask for the Bank of England for emergency funding. As a result its shares have now fallen by 25%. Customers have also been unable to access their accounts on the website to increased demand. There have been reassurances that the business is stable but in some areas worried customers have been queuing outside branches.

If you have to appear in court, I’m sure you would make all the proper preparations, such as wearing a smart suit, making sure you are not driving a stolen car, that sort of thing. One woman who went to court to pay a traffic ticket was arrested after it was found she had driven to the court in a stolen car. Now, that’s just plain stupid.

If there is one thing I can’t stand its sales calls. Usually its people who are quite obviously based in an Indian call centre trying to sell me a mobile phone contract that I don’t need or wanting me to consolidate all my debts into one easy payment. Despite registering with the telephone preferences society I still receive a huge number of these calls.

I have now started to make a game out of it, by generally asking as many stupid questions as I can think of and getting the sales person to repeat the information over and over, until they get bored and hang up. When I see an international number come up on the phone, I often answer with “Battersea Dogs Home, how can I help you”. Pretending you are deaf is always fun, as is asking them to speak slowly so you can write everything down. I have even started trying to sell things to the sales people and now actually look forward to making their life difficult, mean I know, but so is calling me at 8am on a Sunday morning. It seems some companies, have now stopped using real people. Instead of getting a person who you can have fun annoying, there is simply an automated message. These really annoy me, what’s the point in getting sales calls if you can’t have a bit of fun? Bring back real people I say.

Its bad news for farmers who must have thought they were lucky to survive the first foot and mouth outbreak a month ago. It appears foot and mouth is back again, this time in Egham, about five minutes walk from my house. It appears the disease is the same strain that was found in Pirbright, near Guildford last month. So far, it has affected two farms in Egham, with the nearby footpaths being closed off. There is also a noticeable increase in traffic where I live due to the fact that several roads in the area have also been closed. Let’s hope they can contain this latest outbreak quickly before too many farms are affected.

One of the more unlikely stories I have seen in the headlines over the last few days is about Sybil the cat. Sybil was just an ordinary cat but that has now changed. She has recently moved into Number 10 Downing Street with her owner Alistair Darling which makes her about the most famous cat in Britain right now. I'm not really sure the story deserves as much coverage as it has been getting, Sybil seems to be on the front of most newspapers this morning, still she is rather cute.

This is the wine that I purchased on the Virgin Wine auction a few weeks ago. The blurb on the bottle talks about blackberries and chocolate and it certainly is a really nice fruity wine. It is a really smooth velvety red and has a pleasant after taste. I think it’s actually the best wine I have tasted in a long time. You can buy this for around £6.99 a bottle when it’s on offer but I am really pleased with it because I picked it up for just under £3.00 in the auction. I like everything about this wine, and have already worked my way through a good portion of the case. I will definitely buy this again and again. A full five stars.

Mentioning my moggies in a previous post, I thought it was time for another cute cat picture, so here is a picture of Willow and Oscar.

Most of my regular readers will have noticed by now that I love my pussy cats. I came across this website that sells luxury gifts for pets. They have a range for dogs including cute dog apparel and also a range for cats. The cat gifts include superior cat collars that have a rhinestone finish or collars made from leather. They also have a range of luxury cat beds that even the most picky kitty will find appealing. The bed range include cat pillows and mats, cat beds and cat snuggle cats. The only question is are my common moggies posh enough for these luxury items?

This is a pleasant enough Spanish wine with a slight taste of oak. Its not the most exciting wine, I have tried recently, and could almost be called bland. At £8.99 a bottle I think it’s a little overpriced for what is it. I give this one a rather generous four stars, it's pleasant but unexciting.

Police investigating a vandalised building in Cheshire were able to catch the criminal without really needing to do much. The criminal in question had helpfully written Peter Addison was here, on the wall of the vandalised building. He was quickly tracked down and arrested for the crime. This must be the perfect example of what not to do when committing a crime.

We cooked this sea bass on the BBQ recently. It's the first time I have tried it and not being a great lover of fish I had already convinced myself I probably wouldn't like it. Basically all we did was wrap it in foil with a knob of butter a few bay leaves and some herbs and cooked it on the BBQ for about 20 minutes. It was actually really nice and I will definitely be cooking it this way again. The only thing is I liked it so much I forgot to take a picture before I ate it all, but you can get an idea of how it looked from the remains below.

I took these pictures the other day when I was printing out a few letters. As you can see Willow and Oscar found it very exciting.

I’m feeling a bit sorry for myself today because I have a bout of food poisoning. After spending most of the morning being sick, I am still suffering from sharp stabbing pains in my stomach. I’m not quite sure what I ate to cause the problem, but I don’t remember feeling quite this bad since I had food poisoning as a child from eating mint choc chip ice cream. To this day I still can’t touch the stuff.

I just opened a bottle of Trois Calices Vin de Pays de Mont Baudile, 2006. This is a really full and fruity red wine with hints of herbs. It is sweeter than I expected it to be, but still not overly sweet. This is one of the nicest wines; I have tried recently and at £6.99 a bottle, really good value for the price. I give it a full five stars out of five. The only bad thing about this wine, is that it will not last very long.

A man who had his foot run over by a police car when it swerved off the road, could have been forgiven for expecting an apology. Instead they fined him £80 because they said he had dented their car. He was on his way home from a night out with friends when he was rammed from behind, knocked over and had his foot crushed under the wheels of the patrol car. A South Wales Police spokeswoman confirmed that a fixed penalty was issued for criminal damage, adding: 'We have received a complaint from Mr Horne and are looking into it.'

Taking too many painkillers for migraines can actually cause more headaches, suggests a new report. Dr Anne MacGregor, the director of research at the City of London Migraine Clinic said that a fifth of her clients have headaches caused by taking too much medication. The problem is caused by taking too much of a painkiller and the painkiller becoming less effective which then leads sufferers to need a stronger medicine. At the moment, only the strongest painkillers include a warning that over-use can worsen headaches. Aspirin, paracetamol and ibuprofen do not contain any warnings.

A new report has discovered a potential link between deodorants and breast cancer. The research comes because high levels of aluminium have been found in the breast tissue of cancer patients who have had mastectomies. There have been previous warnings that aluminium from deodorants can be absorbed through the skin, especially through shaved armpits. Once it has been absorbed through the body aluminium can mimic the hormone oestrogen and can be involved in the development of breast cancer.

I am getting a bit sick of things biting me, a few weeks ago it was an insect bite on my finger, and since then I have several other nasty insect bites. Now it appears a spider has bitten me. I first noticed the bite on my leg on Sunday morning and since then it has got bigger and bigger. It's different to a normal insect bite, in that it has distinct fang marks surrounded by a large raised red area. It is starting to go down a bit now, but its still very itchy. In some ways I will glad when summer is over, at least all the biting and stinging things will be gone. Still, it could be a lot worse.

A farm in Wales is offering people who stable their horses their, a webcam service so they can check on them. The system will include a night vision camera so that worried owners can be sure their prized ponies are ok twenty four hours a day. Each horse owner will be given a password to access their particular webcam, so they can check up on the horses from anywhere where they have an internet connection.

A rare river dolphin that was thought to have become extinct might have been spotted. The dolphin was thought to be extinct after a team of scientists spent five weeks searching for signs of them, and found nothing. They now have video evidence which confirms a sighting of the rare dolphin. This find has prompted scientists to launch an effort to try and catch the last remaining dolphins so that a breeding programme can be started to save the species.

I took this picture of Oscar the other day and it came out with glowing green eyes.

The recent wet weather in the UK is good news for badgers. The reason is that the wet weather loosens up the soil causing earthworms to come to the surface. As a badgers diet is made up mainly of earthworms, this means they have an abundance of readily available food. Other creatures that are likely to do well this year are hedgehogs, foxes, frogs and birds, all of which eat earthworms and slugs.

Regular readers will notice it is a little late in the day and this is the first blog entry of the day. Just to put your mind at rest I am still alive but have had a rather busy day, mainly due to purchasing a new printer from Dell coupled with all the usual daily tasks. Anyway after many phone calls and emails from the helpful people at Dell my new colour laser printer is now on its way and I will review it here shortly when it arrives.

I just opened a bottle of Araldica d’Aria Pinot Grigio, 2006. This is a really nice fruity white. It has a lovely crisp flavour and is great for drinking on a hot summer’s day. I gave this wine a four star rating out of five, although its possibly a four and half, it really is good and only £5.99 a bottle.

A couple in Ashford in Kent have an unwelcome visitor in their garden. A grass snake they have nicknamed Sid is feasting on their fish. The couple have around 200 goldfish in their pond, but Sid has been visited daily for his fish supper and the number is gradually going down. Grass snakes also eat frogs and newts and are good swimmers so catching their prey is not difficult.