Crimperman.org

Not as much as some would have us believe it seems.

The blue whale model - 30m long

Recently I visited the Natural History Museum in London with my family. We’ve been before and so this time skipped the long queues for the dinosaur exhibit and went direct to the mammals and particularly the aquatic mammal exhibit. You see I remembered going as a kid and being awed by the sheer size of the full-scale model of a blue whale they have there. I hoped my children would be similarly impressed. My hopes were fulfilled as they stood and gaped at the room-filling model and the real blue whale skeleton next to it.

What then interested me and Mrs C further was the information around the room. They have a skeleton of a sperm whale including a mock up of the spermiceti organs in it’s head. This is what gives the sperm whale its characteristic shape and name. As other aquatic mammals don’t possess this feature we wondered what it might be for. The refreshingly honest answer on the panel was “we don’t know”. It might be to aid buoyancy and swift asc/descendency, it might be used as a kind of weapon during inter-male fights and it might be used to aid echolocation (finding your way around in the dark using sounds) but the scientists just don’t know. Then we moved to the panel about whale communication and we found out that as whales have no vocal chords, the science community is still unclear exactly how they make noises. It’s possible it’s through cavities in their upper head but again the real answer is “we don’t know”. By the time we got to the narwhal exhibit we were looking for the “we don’t know” part. In this case it was the purpose of the spectacular tusk on the male’s head. Could it be for fighting again? Perhaps it’s the aquatic equivalent of the peacock’s tail or the Lion’s mane? Again nobody really knows for sure.

This is all fine and I applaud the honesty in putting a simple “we don’t know” where applicable (if only Christians would do the same instead of spouting off about “why” something happened the way it did) but what bothers me is the way in which science is often reported. Yes this is not the scientists fault but plenty of amateur scientists and media reports often spout scientific theory as fact. I find this concerning. If science can’t determine the role or function of a part of a living creature, why do we so often hear theory about the behaviour and fate of extinct species portrayed as fact? My five-year-old recently told me about the colours, skin and even feathers of certain dinosaur species – basing his statements on what he had seen and read. That’s fine, he is five after all, but what bothers me is the way so many adults will blindly accept the same “evidence” as a basis of their own belief (and that is what it is by the way). Worse, many of those same adults will scoff at those who believe in God as creator because there is “no evidence”.

I appreciate I am getting into dangerous territory here for a Christian….but here’s the thing. I happen to believe in God, I believe he is all powerful and that he created the earth and everything in it. Can I say the exact process through which he did that? No, I wasn’t there and the only account I have to go by is somewhat poetic and was written sometime after the fact by a human trying to express things which are probably way beyond his or my capacity of understanding. Do I believe God is capable of creating the “heavens and the earth” in 6 days? Absolutely. Could he do it by simply speaking? I believe so. Can I prove it? No. Do I know whether it was six periods of 24 hours or (as some recent theories suggest) six longer periods? No I don’t know. Does it matter that much to me? No.

Now some would read the paragraph above and mock me for the holes in it. I know this because others have done so in the past. Yet those that mock, it seems often base their own belief on similar holes. The difference between the two is that I believe God knows the answers and I am happy to accept that right now finding out the scientific process by which a Narwhal came to have a tusk and what it is for is not really going to affect my life greatly nor the lives of any human that I know of. Those promoting the scientific viewpoint (not necessarily the scientific community themselves) seem to imply we should be uneasy with holes in our beliefs.

Perhaps being content to hold less-tightly to the things we don’t understand is part of the contentment in all situations that the apostle Paul wrote of. I don’t know but I do know that I absolutely love the Natural History Museum and the fact that much of it is arranged to promote a theory that I don’t subscribe to doesn’t bother me at all – particularly because it is a theory with at least as many holes and gaps as the belief I hold to of how creation/nature got here. The NHM is a great place, particularly if you have younger children – just get there early and be prepared to queue for some time to to see the dinosaur exhibit.

These were not made by me but mine are pretty similar

Welsh cakes, sometimes called “bakestones” or as my family calls them – “plank-cooks”, are something I’ve anjoyed cooking and eating since I was small. I’ve made them for friends and colleagues to a warm reception. Many have asked for the recipe so here it is. There are lots of welsh cake variations, usually regional. I don’t claim these are the best or easiest they are just the ones that four generations of my family have made.

This makes about 30. Preparation takes around 30 mins. Cooking takes about 45 mins and you need to be there for all of it.

Ingredients

• 1lb/450g Self-raising flour
• ½lb/225g Butter
• 6oz/170g Caster sugar
• 12oz/340g Currants
• 3 Eggs
• drop of milk

Alternatives

• I’ve given both imperial (UK) and metric but in reality I’ve always measured this is imperial so the metric is an approximation.
• You can use Margarine in place of butter but make sure it’s a suitable for baking one (e.g. not Flora light!).
• You can use Sultanas in place of the currants. Raisins will do at a push but can go bitter at the cooking stage.
• I’ve made a sugar-free version (for diabetics) using granular Canderel – use ¾oz/20g in place of all the sugar.

Method

1. Sift the flour ( not strictly required but makes for a smoother mix)
2. Rub the butter into the flour until it is like breadcrumbs
3. Add the fruit and sugar and mix together
4. Add the eggs and mix well
5. Add the milk very gradually while mixing. The consistency you are looking for is like sticky pastry. Not too dry or it will break up when cooking but too sticky will make it hard to roll out.
6. Roll out the mix on a floured surface. Roll it until it is about ¼” / ½ cm thick.
7. Cut into 2½” / 7cm rounds. I use a pastry cutter but my Nan always used the same teacup!
8. Cook on a greased (with butter) smooth griddle or heavy frying pan. They usually take about 30 seconds on each side – until they are brown but not burned. Flip them once and leave to cool.
9. Dust with caster or icing sugar.

Serving

Best served slightly warm with a bit of butter and cup of tea! They are not usually accompanied by jam or cream. if you want that make scones.

Storing

They will keep in an air-tight container for a few days without drying out. You can freeze them when they have cooled properly. Defrost at room temperature and enjoy.

Notes

Don’t be tempted to cook them for too long or they burn. If the inside seems less cooked when you take them off that’s fine. It continues to cook slightly and if you leave them on too long the outside burns and that tastes horrible. My Nan taught me to flip them using my hands (careful though). She said if you could lift them and the underside was stiff they were ready to turn , if they bend too much then you need to leave them a bit.

You can also freeze the dough once it is made and defrost it before cooking but in my experience the best ones are made from fresh dough. In a similar way some recipes recommend chilling the dough for a couple of hours before cooking but that’s not something I was ever taught to do or have tried (habit I guess).

Traditionally they are baked on a smooth griddle – often called a plank or stone. A heavy or thick frying pan will do but some of the more modern frying pans transmit the heat too quickly and the cakes burn. DO NOT use oil on the griddle/pan – instead grease it with butter.

Occasionally I wander over to bash.org to view the IRC quotes[1]. I found this one in the top 100 and it was too good not to repeat.

# Rabidplaybunny87: Okay, so my neighbors officially hate me
# GarbageStan23: why?
# Rabidplaybunny87: Well, me, david and andrew were having a bonfire in the backyard, and we were making s’mores and all… and suddenly we here sirens, and see a firetruck turn into the street in front of us.
# Rabidplaybunny87: So we all went running to see what was up, and our neigbor’s house was on fire!
# GarbageStan23: oh ****!
# Rabidplaybunny87: Yeah, and when we got there, the wife was crying into her husbands arms, and we were just kinda standing there, and then she saw us, and then like for 10 seconds, gave us the dirtiest look ever
# Rabidplaybunny87: Turns out, we were still holding our sticks with marshmallows on it, watching the fire….
# Rabidplaybunny87: talk about bad timing…

Original quote on bash.org

[1] For those who don’t know, IRC = Internet Relay Chat, so these are quotes from various chat rooms around the Internet.

Crimperman.org has been around in some form or other since 1996. When it started this was my only web presence and I was able to give it quite a bit of time. As time has gone by, other things have taken more time and so this site has suffered. I don’t want to drop it as I like having a personal – as opposed to professional – space to write. So welcome to the new Crimperman.org.

What’s changed

The site is now really a blog. I’ve moved the whole thing over to the excellent Wordpress which is of course free software. This means more of the site will be what used to be the writing section. I’ve removed the downloads section altogether as it was largely Scripture Reminder and that product has now been discontinued. I may resurrect it in the future but I think there are plenty of better ways to get a daily scripture – er – reminder online. You can even get them sent to your mobile phone so the need for a small pop-up when your computer starts is minimal. The wallpapers are still there but the desktop themes have gone. Both the themes and Scripture Reminder were designed for Windows 98 and I’ve not used Windows much myself since then so I’ve never gotten around to reworking them for later version of Windows. The wallpapers will work on pretty much any system. Noah & Sons is also still here and will continue to do so. You’ll find both that and the wallpapers in the artwork section.

Comments

One thing that is new is that you can comment on the posts now. If something you see here stirs up a comment, feel free to add it.

Change in licencing

Everything on this site used to be released under a Charityware licence. I’ve now changed that to Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike licence for the text and Attribution-Share-Alike-Non Commercial for all the artwork. See the legal page for full details.

You may have gathered from other posts that I am a Londoner. You will probably also be aware of the bombings in London on 7 July 2005. Although, fortunately, not in any of the trains or the bus that exploded I was affected and this is my account – for what it is worth.

On that day, I was travelling to work on the Central Line, scheduled to arrive at my destination Liverpool Street Station around 9:00 am (running a little late). At 8:50(ish) my tube driver anounced that Liverpool Street was closed because of a “security alert” and Bank was closed due to a “localised power failure”. Nobody panicked on my carriage, instead there was a general raising of the eyebrows and shaking of the head at yet another delay to our journey. For over thirty years Tube users have become accostmed to stations closing because of security alerts, only to then re-open thirty minutes later when the security alert was discovered to be a touristwho had left their suitcase unattended. Like many others, when I heard this anouncement I simply did a mental calculation of my revised journey into work. Get off at Stratford anf catch a Mainline train into Liverpool Street. We arrived at Stratford with no further information – the driver made the same announcements at each intermediate stop. There was some stopping in the tunnel which which is normal for security alerts. I got off just as a mainline (ONE) train pulled into the adjoining platform. I got on that and the train pulled off. Ten minutes later we pulled into Liverpool Street Station. It was now around 9:20am – half an hour after the Liverpool Street Bomb, after both the other Tube bombs but before the bus. At the same time several other trains pulled in. Thousands of passengers were greeted by a small but calm group of British transport Police officers who waved us toward the exits with the words “Could you please exit the station this way – thank you”. The underground was closed (confirming what my Tube driver had said) so I left the station along my usual route and walked to work. The only people I saw in any kind of quandry were three people who had just got off the Stansted Express – direct from Stansted Airport – and who were unsure where the bus terminus was. Everybody else seemed calm – if not a little peeved at the delay. I arrived at work around 9:40 – there were crowds on the street but again this is normal if a tube station or two in closed. Passing through Old Street Subway (in which is housed the Tube station) I saw the Northern line was closed because of “power failures”. Again my driver was confirmed. Upon arriving at work I got my first real inkling of what had happened. A small band of my colleagues stood in reception and said things like “Thank God” and “Did you see anything?” Things had been so calmy and matter of factly dealt with on my journey that at first I refuted claims of bombs as being media hysterics. Surely I would have heard something of it during my journey? But no I hadn’t and for that reason I was able to keep calm on my journey. Liverpool Street is a large area. The bomb exploded in a tunnel halfway to the next station. There was consequently no indication of the atrocity that had happened was given.

In the aftermath and flurry of news reports the London travelling public were praised for the calm way they had handled the situation. I would cetainly say that evryone I saw as calm. Personally I think this is down to two things. 1. We have dealt with so many security alerts and station closures that finding alternative routes to work becomes almost second nature. 2. The calmness of Tube and Rail staff and of the Police gave none of us any reason to think it was anything else. I’ve seen a lot of praise for them for their bravery and hard work. I would like to add to that a commendation for the calm they brought to the situation. Both those on the ground and those in command of the services managed themselves in a way which did more than anything else to bring a sense of calm to what could have been a much bigger tragedy.

I decide to sit it out at work rather than try to get home immediately. I was offered a sofa for the night if required by a colleague who lives near work. I rang my wife and my parents to reassure them and sat it out. Eventually I heard that Liverpool Street mainline trains were running again and got home around 5:30pm. Actually my journey home was quicker and easier than my usual one – mostly because I got to the station just as the first trains were running and hardly anyone had heard about it.

So to be honest I had a fairly uneventful day but it is still one I wil never forget. As an example, I have been on leave until today and travelling in this morning my tube driver announced – at the same spot as last time – that Bank station was closed due to a security alert. This time I shuddered momentarily – concerned that more people would lose their lives. I glanced around and saw a similar concerned look on other faces. The bombs affected everyone who travels on the Tube. In reality only a small percentage were directly affected by the attacks but their effect is clear on all of us now.

London is and will continue to survive this attack. The actions of the Police and transport staff will continue to bring calm to travellers in moments like these and London commuters will continue to raise their eyebrows at security alerts and find alternative routes. We’re not especially brave (except those who were directly involved and now still have to get back on tubes and buses), it’s not a conscious “blitz spirit” that keeps us going, it’s just that’s what we’re good at – we keep going. In the absence of definite information the Spirit of London is to just get on with what we were doing anyway. We’ll complain to high heaven about rip-off prices and the poor services and yet still use them. We’ll moan about the grime but still drop litter. We’ll watch out for suspect parcels or people but need to be really sure before we pull an emergency cord. If London needs a motto – I suggest “Getting on with it”.

I am immensley proud to be a Londoner – more so after the bombings. My heart and prayers go out to those who lost loved ones or who were injured. My thoughts are with the security services as they go through the terribly difficult task of sifting through the evidence at the scenes and as they try to track down those responsible. But my heart is with London. I know of no other place that would have dealt with this in this way, not with public outrage or grief – not our style, but with quiet dignity and reverence to those gone.

London – Getting on with it.

There’s been an interesting post on Slashdot (a regular visit for me) recently regarding the use of Blogs as spam.

When somebody commented that they like to see a Google feature that filters out blogs a discussion ensued which included some comments about how asking people not to blog was against human rights (free speech) and also the First Amendment of the US Bill of Rights.

The US Bill of Rights aside (like much of the web I am not American and have never read it so I can’t really comment) as a human and a (very occasional) blogger I thought I’d comment on the idea that blogging is a human right (that of free speech).

Much seems to be made and held of certain (to use the US term) “inalienable” human rights we apprently have. These I am lead to believe include things like the right to life, freedom from tyrrany, freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom of religion (or not accordingly).

The problem I see with this idea of human rights is that the idea is worthless on it’s own. I can bang on to my heart’s content about my freedom to life but if someone runs me over my “right” is worthless. Okay so governments can protect against such a thing but only in theory. They could enconse in law the right to life and punish my killer but that would not actually ensure I get my right to life.

Now if we talk about Human Responsibility in place of human rights then it starts to make more sense.

• Instead of a right to life we have the responsibility to protect and care for it.
• Instead of a right to freedom we have the reponsibility to allow it.
• Instead of a right to freedom of speech we have the responsibility to listen and engage in dialogue.
• Instead of a right to freedom of religion we have the responsibility to respect other’s faith (or deliberate absence thereof) but live out our own.
• Instead of a right to blog we have a responsibility to blog respectfully.
• Instead of a right to have blgos exlcuded from our searches, we have a responsibility to exclude them (thus implying the search engines have a responsibility to give us this functionality, much as Google does with it’s safe-searching facility now).

And human responsibility can be legislated for just as much (if not better than) human rights. Murder is the deliberate choice to avoid the responsibility to protect and care for life.

I am a Christian and throughout my life I have heard that the Bible promotes human rights. This is generally because of passages that speak of social care for the ostracised. But by my reading those passages refer to a responsibility on the part of those that have to aid those that have not. There is no mention of a widow or orhpan’s “right” to be looked after. There is mention of the responsibility of the rest of us to do so. There is no mention of a mugged man’s “right” to a Samritan’s aid, there is mention of the responsibility of us all to help those in need.

One final big difference between human rights and human responsibility. It is possible to infringe on other people’s human rights without realising or meaning it. It is almost impossible to ignore your human responsibility by accident – you have to mean to do so.

Following my first time parents post in November, I am pleased to announce that we are now second time parents. My daughter was born in May and is very healthy and beautiful.

When I posted the original stuff about how first time parents can be overwhelming for those around them, I figured that second time parents were less so. Now we have our little girl I am afraid this is wrong. I have a feeling that all those emotions that go with having a child – the inability to keep your mouth shut, the grins and the regular updating your colleagues of every new “advancement” the little one makes – are just as valid for a second child. In fact it’s worse because now I find myself comparing “how he was at that age”!!

I imagine I must be very boring – if so why are you still here??

My experiment in blogging is now …let’s see…163 days old and I have posted a grand total of nine posts (incuding this one). Not what you’d call prolific is it?

I have to say that I find the concept of blogging intriguing. Most personal websites in the late 90’s consisted of minimal interest stuff like people’s cats or what they get up to at weekends. Come to think of it there’s a lot that are like that now. Blogging seems to be a way to manage that sort of content very well – the way you can add a new article without uploading etc. is great.

One “problem” I seem to have with blogging is that I just don’t get the time to add anything regularly. So my blogs are on average 18 days apart but in reality there’s three months between this and the previous one.

Is this a problem? I suppose not and it actually may suit my Crimperman.org site quite well – particularly the writings section as I could add some musings at lunch from work without having to wait until I get home to ftp them. The idea of something more dynamic (to create as well as use) appeals to me.

So here we have a mystery.. blogging appeals to me, the format appears to suit at least one of my purposes. Yet I find it tedious and almost a drag at times. Why? I don’t know, it’s a mystery!

They’re like buses these posts….

In an earlier post I mentioned that MakingContact.org was up for some awards. Well, we won best secure e-mail servcie from the Telephone Helpline Association and were shortlisted finalists for the Guardian Public Service awards and the Community Care awards.

To be honest I pretty chuffed with all of these as we didn’t set out to win awards just to make a good service. So recognition like this is good stuff. I know that pretty much everyone who loses something says that it’s a privilege just to be nominated etc. but in this case we’re a small-medium Charity with a big remit and a small budget. This project was developed for peanuts and yet it has won awards. That’s why I’m pleased we won the THA award and got nominated for the others.

So if you have or know someone with a disability, speical need or medical condition and you think the situation would benefit from contacting others in a similar boat – get over to MakingContact.org. It’s free to join, use and be contacted by others (even replying to them is free). There’s a nominal annual charge if you want to initiate contact other people. We have listings for over 2000 medical conditions and special needs and over 400 members in the first 5 months with new members signing up at a rate of 10’s per week.

back after Christmas – been a bit quiet lately on the blog front but there you go…

I thought I’d note down – for posterity – what I am reading right now..

I was given a copy of the Bourne Trilogy by Robert Ludlum so I am currently working my way through them. I always had an interest in the spy/thriller books: Tom Clancy, Craig Thomas etc. But for some reason never got round to these. The recent films sparked my interest and so now I have the books. I’m on The Bourne Supremacy right now (2nd book) and I have to say that the films, though excellent in their own right, do no justice to the excellent story of the books. Much of the plot from the books seems to have been dropped with only a few character names remaining. There may be good reasons for this – for example when the first book was written Carlos the Jackal had not been caught so Ludlum could use him as a character – by the time the film was made , Carlos was behind bars and I guess to set the film in modern times and still include him would have been silly.

I’m an Open Source afficianado and always look for stuff that promotes freedom of use . Recently I cam across the Creative Commons licence for publishing and through that I found Cory Doctorow’s books. I’ve read the first novel, Down and Out in the magic kingdom and loved it. I’m now on the second novel, Eastern Standard Tribe, which is just as good. These novels are science fiction but not in the spaceships and aliens sense. They are set in the reachable future and Doctorow writes by seemingly taking aspects of today’s world and following them to a point in the future. The great thing about them is the licence. It means you can download them for free, pass them around, copy them and transfer them to any device or format you like. You can buy them and – this may seem odd – but the books sell really weel, even though he’s giving away the text as well. If you like sci-fi or even just a good story, get these books now.