JAPAN AND THE NUCLEAR DEBATE

Today is exactly a week since the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster happened in the beautiful country of Japan. I have been very impressed by the way the Japanese people have conducted themselves in the face of such a holocaust with orderly lines to get what they need and already the teachers are giving classes to children from tents and doctors are working hard to assist their patients. Japan, has always been a country I have admired for their discipline and exquisite manners. They recovered from the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, when the world thought they would never be able to lift their heads up again, to become over the years the third economic power in the world. It says a lot about the character of these exemplary people who live in a small island, and if anyone is going to overcome and triumph in the face of disaster it is going to be the Japanese nation. Of course, it is bad enough to overcome a tsunami and an earthquake together, events which occurs in nature with an unimaginable devastation and quite another one, to such a man-made disaster as a nuclear plant which the so called experts say is "cheap" energy, I think not; this is not a cheap technology once it fails, and hundreds of lives as well as land will be lost once its deamed unliveable. Our land masses are limited and we cannot afford to have vast areas of land empty for millions of years because of this type of "accidents": what the so called "experts" were saying only a scant few days ago that 'Chernoble cannot happen here' is very quickly turning into the worst nuclear disaster in history, even surpassing Chernoble. General Electric designed these Japanese plants that are now failing, so therefore they have a duty as well as a responsibilty to try and remedy the damage as they have a case to answer in this other hollocaust that they have now created. The excuse of: 'it was just designed for a 6 on the richter scale doesn't wash, this is a technology that cannot be controlled like a pandora's box where no one can predict the horrible devastation where other innocent people will have to live and suffer the consequences. I now hope that the bright bulbs in government will finally wake up to the fact that there are other means to produce greener and safer energy like for example: the hydroelectric technology, which can be harnessed from the rivers or the sea, they should be doing that, since Britain, and Japan are island nations surrounded by water, this technology is more viable and safer to obtain for all our energy needs, not to mention solar energy and to a smaller degree windmills too. Perhaps something good will come out of this disaster and goverments will finally shelve the nuclear nightmare technologies for ever, in favour of other natural fountains of natural energy.

MERIDA, MEXICO

Merida its a peaceful and lovely colonial town, just a walking distance from the hotel where we were staying at, is the Montejo Avenue, lined with grand beautiful houses in different styles, either French or Spanish styles. Merida prospered quite well by growing henequen or Izamal as some call it, after the port of Izamal where they used to export the ropes and bags made out of henequen. Great fortunes were made out of this industry but unfortunatelly the industry floundered with the invention of plastic
However, plastic bags have been found to rot the grains and its not echologically green as it doesn't degrade back into nature, so the Mexicans are beginning to see an answer in this plant to reintroduce it for commerce as the left-over of the henequen has been discovered by the NASA scientists to be more resistant than plastic in intense temperatures as it doesn't melt like plastic does, on top of this, there is a nice liquour that can be extracted from this plant and even though henequen is related to the agave (the plant that produces tequila) the liquour is completely different in taste to tequila. There are plans in Merida to start re-growing henequen again.

Robert, you would perhaps be interested to know that chilli peppers (without the bit that makes them hot) has been found by the Japanese to increase a person's metabolism
and Japan is marketing this discovery in pills to help people reduce weight.

Top Gear & Viva Mexico !!

Thank you, thank you guys for nearly wrecking our holiday in Mexico. The first time I heard about this fiasco was, when the Mexican taxi driver asked Peter and I, 'From where are you visiting us? we said Britain, our driver frowned and said if we had heard about the three idiots who insulted Mexico, from a British motor-show called Top Gear? We hadn't. When we got to our hotel, the British flag was being pulled down from the pole and that same night Mexican T.V. repeated the undiplomatic and ignorant remarks. I must say, it was Richard Hammond who started it all and the other two hyenas just continued the banter. So this picture is for you guys. Here we are.. In Mexico with our Viva Mexico sombreros accompanied by..Richard Hammond our donkey! After that, it was embarrasing to own up where we came from, so for the rest of the Mexican holiday we said we came from Canada. I have heard that Top Gear has since that apologized, although it wasn't quick enough for us over in Mexico. In future, think about your fellow country-men, as you are now infamous in Mexico. The Mexican spirit is a happy one and they will forgive you and they might even invite you to visit their country so that you can sample their hospitality. I recommend Cancun, San Miguel Allende, Guanajuato, Oaxaca and if you like Tequila, you can visit the blue hills where the agave plant grows. After we 'changed' our nationality, things were a lot better for us. Although at the second hotel we stayed at, in Merida, the hotel didn't have the British flag flying either. They had the U.S. flag, the Canadian, French, German and Italian flags but no British flag. Thanks guys!

The ' new ' house

As usual in the Birchwood family household every minute counts and Sunday is no exception. Today we have gone to meet the bedroom furniture designer. It is amazing
the range of things on offer, I got a hydraulic clothes rail so that I no longer have to stretch on tip-toes to get at my clothes. The shoe-rack is designed so that you can pull it out like a drawer so no more blind searching underneath the clothes. Every inch is useful. The inside of the closet doors have hinged mirrors so that I can move the mirrors around. In general, things are looking up. At the moment it has only bare walls as you can see but tomorrow Monday it will be the time when the kitchen furniture will be fitted in, and also the bathroom furniture and shower too. It really is very exciting to see it at this stage, where its no longer plans and dreams but the real thing.

After so much bureaucracy with the council of what nail was allowed and which one wasn't and after intensive renovation from top to bottom of this historical and listed home, the project is finally coming to be completed! in what I estimate would be another two months. Considering it was two years ago when we first started its really wonderful to come to see it at this final stage.

A message for my sweet sister

Patty querida cuenta conmigo con mi amor y carino especial para siempre estas en mi
corazon y mis pensamientos de tu hermana Maria

Heir Hunters, Christmas in Oxford

Today, the series will be shown in the History Channel, Hector will appear tonight at 7 p.m. on an aparthaid case from South Africa. Whilst the new series of Heir Hunters will start on BBC this month or at the beginning of February don't know yet.

Anyway, Christmas in Oxford was absolutely wonderful! we stayed at the Randolph Hotel where they used to film the Inspector Morse T.V. series. The attention was really superb. It is an old fashion hotel where you have to dress up for certain formal evenings and there was live entertainment every night with someone playing the accordeon one night or someone else singing romantic songs the next evening where we could dance and on this particular night, as I was dancing with Peter an 80 year old stopped us at mid dance because she wanted to dance with Peter. Peter and I were stunned! Peter told her that his feet had an ache and that we were just about to sit down. Diplomacy at its best because we had just began to dance. No sooner had we sat down at our table, when a real bold 70 year old woman tried to pull Peter to dance with her, she was tugging his shirt saying that life was too short and he should come and dance with her. I don't know what these ladies had in mind... a toy boy ? I was looking at this scene with real amusement. Again, he made his excuses. Peter was looking quite fetching that night with the clothes I chosen for him which by the way, he didn't particularly wanted to wear, as he is not really fond of dressing up with a tie and suit but it was a formal night and so we both had to make an effort but I think with the pulling power Peter had wearing these clothes he is looking at these clothes with other eyes now and I have to watch out for predatory older women! He was looking at me saying: "can't they see that my wife is ten years younger than me? why would I want to go and dance with a woman that is two decades older than myself? they could be my mother's age, it really was astonishing! I can only speak for myself but I wouldn't dream of asking a man to dance with me, specially if he was with his wife. Oh wow! what a night.

The next day, on boxing day we went to the theater to see a panthomime: 'Cinderella' oh what fun!! I had never been to a panto before and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. The best thing is that it had amusing things for children and adults alike it was just wonderful and really well made too. The clothes, the theater backgrounds, the storyline, the singing everything was really great and it was only two minutes walk from the Raldolph too. Our hotel manager had bought two rows of seats for the guests of the hotel and he made quite sure we were having snacks at the interval as an enormous box with assorted chocolates was passed around. When we left the theater, someone from the hotel was sent over and as he opened the door to let us out of the theater he told us that refreshments were awaiting for us at the tea-room in the hotel. I have to say I have never eaten so much in my life! I had to skip some meals because it was breakfast, lunch, tea-time and then dinner everyday. I don't think anyone could eat all that every day. I have never felt this pampered anywhere I have been to. For instance, one of the staff must have heard that I have trouble sleeping at nights and on that night, I had a spray mist that helps you sleep on my side of the bed, plus a stress-relieving hydrosoak from Molton Brown a really wonderful treat to relax.

We met some really nice couples too, who go there every year and I can see why, the atmosphere is really happy one and traditional too and its sad when its time to leave, a really worthwhile treat.

Operation Mincemeat BBC 2

They forgot to mention the father of forensic science, Sir Bernard Spilsbury who after
viewing many possible cadavers for this mission to be able to deceive the Germans he picked the right body.

Apart from that, the programme was a treat and curiously enough, it demonstrates how
the human mind concentrates in details rather than the overall picture about what was really happening when it comes to deceit. The Germans knew how crucially important it was to control Sicily if they wanted to avoid an allied invasion yet at the last minute and after viewing some purported papers contained in a corpse that appeared from nowhere, as the speculation was that the body may have come out of an airplane crash (but no airplane wreckage nor other corpses were seen nearby) others said it came from a sunken ship but again, there were no signs of a ship being sank there either, nor other bodies to make this tale more believable. I mean.. this is only ONE body that comes from nowhere which has purported 'classified' 'Secret' information which is, by all reasoning too good to be true. ie (plans for an invasion) According to the papers found in the corpse, the allies were going to invade from Greece (a highly improbable proposition to do) as this meant the allies would have had to bypass Sicily first in the narrow stretch of the Mediterranean Sea, where they would have been spotted right away by the Germans from Sicily on their way to Greece and cornered right there. Common sense tells you, there is no way the allies could have made it much further into Greece before being ravaged in Sicily first, yet the Germans moved their troops from their safe strategic position in Sicily to Greece only because they believed the papers that came from a corpse that came from nowhere. Common sense and reasoning should have told them: In whose interest was it to move German troops from Sicily? It wasn't in Germany's interest since this would be leaving the door wide open for an allied invasion from Sicily, which is exactly what happened.