The Old Farmhouse Door.

When we bought the old Gozo farmhouse back in 2003 it was in one hell of a state, the restoration of the old house did take the best part of two years to complete. One of the questions we were keen to ask is how old is the place, we were told it was built around1795 - 1800 so I think we can assume it has stood the test of time. We were keen to keep as many of the original features as possible, and those that were beyond restoration we had made new but to the old specification where possible. The windows and the main front door was about all we could salvage from the front of the house, the back of the house was completely beyond help in the way of doors and windows anyway.

So we had the doors and windows stripped back to the original 200+ year old wood, restored and refitted, thing is I was never really happy with the finish, so I have just taken on the job of finishing the doors to a standard that pleases fussy old me (check out the picture). I am pleased with the finished job, still bears the scars of time and yet, easy on the eye. What do you think?

Then I got to thinking (dangerous), what was going on in the world when these doors and windows were fitted first time around?

• 1795 The 11th Amendment to the United States Constitution is passed.

• 1801: Tsar Paul I of Russia demands the return of Malta to the Knights.

• 1803 England declares war on France, (again).

• 1805 Lord Nelson defeats the Spanish and the French at the Battle of Trafalgar.

I am sure Admiral Horatio Nelson would approve, if he were here to see the door for himself.

"History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives". Abba Eban.

Music, Rock, Blues and Last FM.

I have this insatiable need to listen to music, it does not matter where I am or what I am doing I need music, in the car, the house, working on the computer, I do like to have some music playing. If you listen to music a lot you need either a massive music collection or be happy to listen to the same tracks over and over.

Enter Last FM. You simply give the search engine an example of your taste in music, either a music track, group or style of music , and Last FM comes up with a selection of music based on your taste, streamed straight to your PC, you then either reject or confirm the tracks that Last FM comes up and they will continuously tweak your preferred style of music. I think it is a great idea, I was a bit suspicious as to how effective it would be when I heard about it, but I have to say it works really well.

For example I told Last FM to search for music in the style of the Eagles and it has come up with Chicago, The Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, not groups that I would normally listen to but hey, something new, and variety is the spice of life after all.

New music is uploaded to Last FM every day, get some variety, all you have to do is register with them. And it's legal honestly. Thank's Tony for pointing it out to me.

"To me, boxing is like a ballet, except there's no music, no choreography, and the dancers hit each other". Jack Handey

Malta and Gozo and why Competition is Good.

When we arrived here in the Maltese Island it was late spring early summer, we had driven here from London UK. It was around the same time that fuel prices around the world went through the roof. The countries that we had driven through included UK of course, France and Italy, throughout our journey we did see a range of fuel prices, also keep in mind that the euro against the UK pound is and was very strong.

We found that the UK had the most expensive fuel in Europe by quite a margin. £1.08 a litre (unleaded) in London in April and peaking at around £1.22 in July, (I am not going to bore you with all the prices across Europe). France was the next most expensive followed by Italy and then Malta. When I put fuel in my car on arrival here in Malta, I paid around €0.95c per litre, I thought 'petrol is cheap here'.

The difference is the amount of tax collected by the relevant governments, (85% of the cost of a litre of fuel in the UK is tax) but it also depends on how tough the competition is.

Around the world since the end of July oil prices have been plummeting. This has been reflected across Europe as competition from rival companies to continuously undercut one another, to the extent that petrol prices are falling sometimes 1 or 2 times a week in the UK as the world oil price falls. The competition for customers is fierce, there is a bottom line that they can go to but you can bet that the price is as good as it can get. As the big oil companies and the supermarkets battle for our custom, great for us, the consumer.

Enemalta supplies all fuel here on the Maltese Islands, sets the price and decides when prices should go up or down, because there is no competition Enemalta can set prices as and when they like.

Petrol compared to the rest of Europe is still cheap here, it is interesting to note that fuel prices here seem to have stuck at just below €1.20 per litre and have been this price for the last three weeks. For example unleaded petrol in the UK has tumbled in the last three weeks to £1.06 (sterling) (€1.33).

I conclude that whilst Malta is still cheap for fuel compared to the rest of Europe if you had competition from other oil companies, an open market, and rival companies were to set up here so that you would have brands like Esso, Repsol, Texaco and how about an independent Maltese brand, all competing for our custom, the competition would help the price of fuel change as the world oil price changes, and not as and when Enemalta decides that it perhaps really should think about it. Petrol here on the Maltese Islands is cheap, but it could be cheaper. Competition is good for the economy and good for the customer.......Competition is good.

"Competition is a painful thing, but it produces great results". Jerry Flint

Would Giant Kites be preferential to wind farms for the Islands of Malta & Gozo?

The quest for renewable energy that every modern nation on the planet is trying to harness, for the greater good, the benefit of our wallets and most important of all the benefit of the environment, Malta and Gozo are no different.

One particular path that is being pursued here is wind energy, and the same arguments are coming up here as they did in the UK. The benefits of wind farms and monster wind turbines destroying the landscape views, and you would need so many to make a significant difference. Could kites be the answer?

While deciding how to capture wind energy, scientists from the Netherlands went out and flew a giant kite. The 10-sq-meter kite was attached to a generator and managed to produce 10 kW of power. With the success of this kite, they’re planning to test a 50 kW version of the kite, dubbed Laddermill, and if that succeeds, they’re proposing a multi-kite version that could get as much as 100 MW - enough for 100,000 homes.

The kite generates energy by pulling on its string on the way up. When it gets to the end of the string, it’s pulled back down and then sent back up for another flight. The amount of energy captured is maximized by flying the kite in figure eights, and bringing it down in a fall like a glider.

Considering how easily the kite takes off in the strong wind – no running, jumping, or Peter-Pan-wishful-thinking involved – I can imagine that a whole lot of power could be generated. Google thinks so too, having invested $10 million in a US kite project last year.

The Dutch scientists believe they could generate power comparable to the price of coal, and 50% cheaper than wind turbines. Now, like most renewable energy endeavors, all these researchers need, is the funding to back the project.

"The goal of life is living in agreement with nature". Zeno

London Fire Brigade Finale. 2005 - 2008.

In 2003 I was offered the opportunity to get involved in the legal side of the fire service, helping to police fire safety law and legislation in the London Borough of Barnet. In any job that I have been involved in I have always been an outside man and very active, to take on this job would mean spending 60% of my time behind a desk and I thought 'will I manage to cope being stuck behind a desk and away from the day to day action that is the operational side of the London Fire Brigade'. I bit the bullet and went for it, it was after all only on a trial basis I was always going to be returning to operational duty in a few months.

Let me explain more about what Fire Safety teams do or what the role of a fire safety officer is.

My role would be to enforce the relevant fire legislation and to help educate businesses, and where legislation was not being followed to the required standards to advise or prosecute with the help of the London Fire Brigades legal team. Prosecution could vary from a warning or a fine and in the more serious cases, a prison sentence.

In summary, the primary focus of fire safety is to ensure public safety from fire and its effects, in places used for commercial, business and leisure activities, and that the law is complied with. (Sound like a text book.)

I remained in Fire Safety for 9 months and thoroughly enjoyed every minute. During my 9 months in the team I took every qualification that I could and attended every course that was available to me, I shadowed more experienced officers to learn the trade. Fire Safety is viewed as a kind of black art within the London Fire Brigade because the only people that fully understand it are those that have been involved with it, and this applies from the lowest ranks right to the very top.

After 9 months I returned to station and got straight back into the old routine, it was as if I had never been away, nine to five was gone and back to shifts, nights, weekend and public holiday working.

In 2005 I was offered a position in the Soho Fire Safety team, probably the busiest and most challenging team in London, the job would include promotion and yet more courses and qualifications, I jumped at the chance and I was in. On top of the previously described responsibilities I would also be given the task of consulting with Westminster City Council's building control, I would also consult with planners and architects on fire safety systems in buildings offer general advise to the business community where necessary. We all had specialist roles within the team and I dealt with premises holding a gambling licence, so clubs and casinos. The Soho area of London is a great place to work and I enjoyed my final years with Soho team.

And so in a nut shell that was my working life with the London Fire Brigade, 30 years and 2 months service, how will they continue without me!!

You can find out more about the Soho area of London here.

You can find out more about Fire Safety at work here

"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere". Frank A Clark.

Internet Explorer and Sitemeter Fallout.

I have been getting an increasing number of browser errors recently, I thought it was a problem with IE7. I also use Firefox it depends on the task I am doing which browser I use. So if I ever have a problem like many I Google it and this is what I found.

Traffic measuring tool Sitemeter is blocking users of Internet Explorer from accessing sites using the service.
According to a number of web reports, the problem happens when anybody using Internet Explorer tries to open any sites with the Site Meter code present, and thousands of websites/blogs have been shut off from IE users.
Users of Internet Explorer receive the following message when visiting any site with Site Meter installed:

Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site http://www.nameofsite.comOperation aborted

A search using Google Blog Search found that the issue is widespread, and the only known solution at this time being to remove the SiteMeter embed code from the website or blog. Notably users of Firefox, Safari and other browsers are not affected by the issue.
So far, Sitemeter has made no official statement.

And yes you guessed it, I use sitemeter to keep track of the traffic visiting my blog.

While we are on the techie stuff some of Google's staff have left the company and started a new improved version designed to compete with Google, its called http://www.cuil.com/ it seems pretty good so far although the different layout is awkward. I think they will have an uphill task knocking Google of it's perch.

"It's a well known fact that computing devices such as the abacus were invented thousands of years ago. But it's not well known that the first use of a common computer protocol occured in the Old Testament. This, of course, was when Moses aborted the Egyptians' process with a control-sea..." Tom Galloway