A garden for everyone

The B&Q (the largest home improvement and garden centre retailer in the UK) vertical garden is prepared for the 2011 Chelsea Flower Show. It is a glass box of five stories. Each floor can fit two or three people at a time. It is the image ‘of a sustainable high-rise ‘concept garden’ for an age of climate change and austerity’. At the Chelsea Flower Show, many exhibits compete with each other. Triton UK sells garden ornaments in the price range of £1,250 to a full-scale gothic temple at £29,900. When you love gold, you can spend £70,000 on a ceramic Golden Cypress sculpture, covered in gold. The head of Triton UK says recession is hitting everyone.

Chelsea Flower Show: 'vertical garden' hints at UK's gardening future http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/may/23/chelsea-flower-show-vertical-garden

I don’t care one bit about the rather expensive ornaments that can be found at the Chelsea Flower Show. (If you sell them and nobody is buying them because of the bad economic times; I am sorry.) I just want to express my surprise and enthusiasm for the vertical garden! How wonderful to create more gardens by using vertical space. Gardens (plants and trees) do not only produce oxygen, clean the air by letting dust cling, but also add to the mental wellbeing of people. Another positive aspect of vertical gardens is that we create new living areas for our birds and insects. (Spiders forbidden.)

Get a grip

Some water companies say that households could pay more for their water during summer. Wessex Water noticed that water consumption fell by 6% when it charged £2.25 for 1,000 litres in the summer, instead of £1.90. The message that water companies want to deliver is that there is a limit to the supply of water. A spokesman for Water UK But said seasonal tariffs would need a higher level of metering. Metering now stands at about 30-40%. Anglian Water think that it is better to inform households about the value of water as well as help them to reduce water use through metering and the installation of water-saving devices.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13502486 Water prices could rise in summer with seasonal tariffs

Water prices could rise in summer with seasonal tariffs I was surprised to read that there is no overall water metering in the UK. It seems a normal thing to meter the use of water, but it is probably Dutch to think that way. We (I) do not want to pay more than the absolute necessary. Every year, when I get the overview of the amount of water I used, I am happy to find out that I have managed to use less than the year before. It does help me not to waste water. When that is the message, I think the introduction of seasonal tariffs is a good solution. We should be modest especially as children in developing countries have to walk an average of 6 kilometers for clean water.

It is all in the mind

Alternative medicine is booming business. It is largely unregulated and therefor it is hard to offer reliable statistics. Edzard Ernst, professor of complementary medicine, has pioneered the study of everything from acupuncture and crystal healing to Reiki channeling and herbal remedies. He has run clinical trials and published over 160 meta-analyses of other studies. He has found that almost all of the treatments in all alternative fields are statistically indistinguishable from placebo treatment. Ernst believes that a regular doctor can learn that the therapeutic value of the placebo effect can be valuable. A pretend painkiller can reduce the amount of pain! The expectation influences the potency of the effect. It appears that practitioners of alternative medicine often are very good at harnessing the placebo effect.

http://www.economist.com/node/18710090 

Think yourself better

I believe that a person can have some effect on his or her own health. Try waking up feeling a bit ill and keep telling yourself that you are really, really ill. What will happen? You actually will become ill. This also works the other way around. The way practitioners of alternative medicine take time to listen to you and try to work out who you are as a person as a whole, not just the physical part, is very attractive to me. I would be careful though, not to stretch it. If you are sure that you have a serious illness, then go to the hospital and bring that positive thinking along.

By all means

The Metropolitan police have bought a security programme that maps every move of suspects and their allies. These moves can be found and gathered in social networking sites, satellite navigation equipment, mobile phones, financial transactions etc.  Police do not want to rule out that it will use it in investigating public order disturbances. A few academics have applauded this development because the software can be very useful in fighting terrorist groups and organized crime. The purchase has immediately called for objections from civil liberties groups. The programme can built a detailed picture of somebody and this could be used for the benefit of commercial gain. Therefor it is important to decide how this software will be used.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/may/11/police-software-maps-digital-movements

The use of this security programme by the Dutch police would make me feel slightly uncomfortable. Though I feel that everything should be done to protect us from terrorism or other crime, the fact that it would be possible to follow everything I do, does not feel right. I would like to have some privacy, although I do not have any secrets. The article refers to the movie Minority Report in which policemen can look into the future and can imprison criminals before they have even done anything. When I first saw it I thought it was a surreal story, but now it has almost become true. The next step will be a chip in your arm for ‘medical purposes’. Meanwhile Big Brother can also check how many times you buy your peanut butter at the Aldi.

Knowledge is power

Across the UK, many pupils are revising for GCSEs, which means learning of by heart many facts. Neil Hallows would like to know if learning by heart is still a valued skill. It perhaps does not really matter any longer as this is the information age. We do not need to know everything because it is all on a phone or a computer. Black-cab drivers in London learn over 300 routes by heart and all the landmarks and interesting places at the same time. Their knowledge contains details about an area of a six-mile radius of Charing Cross Station. A cab driver knowing the routes by heart is already on his way, when a cab driver with a navigation system is still punching in an address. It does give a person some power, knowing facts by heart.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13333117

The article does not satisfy me. I do not find a convincing answer to the question why we should still learn things by heart. I do believe we should learn facts, but in my opinion these facts should me be folded intopractical use of this knowledge. When I was a younger student, I did not get much practice in applying the facts I learned by heart. These facts did not integrate in my existing knowledge. I think that should be learned as well, next to learning facts by heart. The most beautiful aspect of learning by heart is that in difficult times you can get comfort from a poem, psalm or other text which you once learned by heart.

Who do you want to serve?

The UK government is scaling back plans to use the private sector to deliver public services, such as benefit payments, tax collection or even the provision of driving licenses. To outsource all public services would be unacceptable, is its recent opinion. The government does want to use more charities or social enterprises. In its old plans, the outsourcing would be limited to joint ventures with not-for-profit groups. It is now inviting the private sector to deliver great public services. Supporters of outsourcing claim that it improves quality and reduces costs of public services. The ones opposing outsourcing fear that workers’ conditions, pay and pensions would be hit.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13273932 Plans to outsource public services 'scaled back'

In my opinion it is a good thing that the government does not control too many services and the outsourcing of services such as civil service administration or providing driving licenses is good thing. One advantage of letting the private sector deliver public services can be the reduction of prices of services. Companies will have to compete for the customer becoming their customer. There are disadvantages to outsourcing as well. One of them is that prices of services can become higher, as there could not be too many companies to do the job. This would create a monopoly position or can result in cartels, which could cause higher prices.

Seriously, are you being serious?

The author of the article, a woman, shares with her readers her rituals minutes before leaving her flat. She takes a look at her teeth and her hair. Then she tells us that 77% of all women would feel sexier if they would feel that their underarms were looking good. Also the majority of 500 women told Dove that they think that their armpits are not looking attractive. So we should improve our underarms and to get better-looking armpits, we can use a new deodorant of Dove. Dove does not explain what a better-looking underarm should look like. Another aspect of our body we should be more considerate of is the pubic area. This area should be vajazzled.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/29/underams-beauty-industry How sexy are your underarms? 

Apparently, there is a new piece of your body you should be very worried about. As a woman. It is your underarms. When I first read the first couple of lines of the article I thought the author was writing about the part of your arm that connects your hands to your arms. I could actually almost agree; it is nice to have a pair of sexy underarms. I was clearly mistaken, because that part of your body is your forearm. So what was she talking about? She was talking about your armpits and was calling them their less vulgar name, underarms. I laughed out loud when understanding the word! In all honesty; why worry about something under your arms, barely visible! I will not say anything about the rest of the article, because it would take much more than 100 words.