Whale of a time.

Is it a genuine interest?  ...fascination?  ..voyeurism? ..concern?
I'm not sure what it is when so many people want updates on the beached whales at Skegness.  Then you have those that decide that writing 'CND' or similar on the carcass is a good idea - good advertising for little cost, although how displaying an anti-war symbol on a dead whale pans out with the general public would be worth analysis.
The local BBC radio station managed to have one of their breakfast show presenters presenting from the beach on the day after it happened - I'd like to know if he stayed out there for full 3 hours of his show, and yesterday morning after the whales had been pushed and winched aboard lorries bound for a landfill in Sheffield, it was announced that we could watch the full ordeal via a link at the radio website.
A few locals were interviewed about their 'thoughts' on the subject.  What a absolute waste of airtime.

What's Cooking?

There was some sort of celebrity bake-off program thing on last night featuring (amongst others) Samantha Cameron, the PM's wife.  I didn't pay too much attention to the program, but evidently she ended up winning all 3 'challenges' and thereby getting overall top baker person award or similar.  It was all for charidee (sport relief or something?) so even though it was a competition, it didn't get anywhere near the competitive nature of the normal Bake-Off, remaining in the 'entertainment' category.
A 'last night's TV' in the Guardian caught my eye, and it was there that I read she had won (see, I told you I was not paying too much attention).  The article was quite neutral, simply reporting the facts for a change, but the number of comments attacking the poor woman (and her husband) was really quite surprising.  I didn't realise she was such a bad person and that David Cameron should be locked up immediately.  How could we have been so blind as to elect this person?

Rib update:  Retired to bed quite late last night, feeling rather sore in the left lower rib area.  Woke up this morning, and could hardly feel it!  Very odd.  Its half way through the day now, and although I can feel that its there, its nowhere near as bad as I expected based on the previous 24hrs.  I'm 7 days into the injury, and actually wondering if it is actually cracked - maybe it's just a bit bruised in which case healing time will be much reduced and I can get back on my bike and/or into my running shoes.

Weighty argument.

It seems that a celebrity endorsement of a product can be quite useful.  Oprah Winfrey is busy pushing Weightwatchers as the diet of choice - 'It really works!'.  Hmmm, sure.
Of course, this is nothing to do with the fact that she owns 10% of the company, and her reputation )in the US, anyway) is enough to send the share price up substantially.  Her latest tweet 'I've lost 26 pounds on Weightwatchers' alone sent it up 20%.  If I were her I'd sell now before she puts on weight.

The broken ribs continue to shout at me, especially so after a coughing fit induced by spluttering over a hot chocolate late yesterday evening and that, coupled with my man-flu even had me contemplating a trip to the doctor.  However, I set my sights slightly lower at the local chemist and bought some cough pastilles.  I shied away from the syrup @ £8.99!  It doesn't hurt that much.

Cough Up.

It's not often I read 'last night's TV' column in any of the papers, but this one stuck out because it mentioned Benidorm in the headline which I happened to stray across that last night.  The problem I have with the show is that it come across as dated, has some really bad story lines that are so well flagged in advance that it's not worth staying for the end, and resort to extreme language to get a laugh too often.  The old lady (can't remember her name - is it Madge?) in the motorised chair constantly dissing the Chinese guy with foul language was funny the first time, but lost it's effect 10 seconds later when she repeated it.
However, there are some genuinely funny moments to cling onto especially from the likes of Johnny Vegas that make it worthwhile watching, and the situational comedy aspects lend themselves to some amusing if not very complicated taxing stories.
So, on balance I should probably have read a book, but for easy Monday evening entertainment it just about got it right. 

I had to stifle a sneeze last night so as not to stress my ribs.  Unfortunately, the stifled sneeze was not stifled sufficiently and jolted my rib cage enough to bring tears to my eyes.  Must try harder next time.  ..and what about coughing?  I never realised how many times I feel like clearing my throat, but now I have to concentrate really hard on stopping the urge to cough and quickly find a drink to sip.

Profitable Loss

The Guardian group aim to break even in 3 years.  If you don't know the background to the Guardians woes, here's a brief synopsis:  They spend money, they don't take much in.
That's it really.  2015 saw them lose £53 million, and with cash reserves getting smaller anyone with any sense should know that it's not sustainable.
The thing is, I rely on news outlets such as The Guardian to give me good, quality journalism for free so I hope they sort themselves out without jettisoning the 'good' or the 'quality'. 
This is the dilemma for consumers - we have been given so much for free for so long, that we will not entertain any payment based system.  The Times have tried it with their paywall model that teases people with partial stories, expecting them to dig into their wallets to open the door to reveal the details.  I notice that the Guardian suggests I become a 'Friend of the Guardian' or similar for a fiver.
In the middle of all this, (through no fault of their own) is the BBC, who are the 'go to' news site for almost any flavour of news.

A very difficult situation to resolve.

In the meantime, my broken ribs keep shouting at me but I'm already wondering if I can get  on my bike rollers in the next few days.

Gruffalo

Ive been doing a bit of research, and it appears that cracked ribs, in keeping with bones in general, will take about 6 weeks to mend.  They are not strapped up, bound or similar to stop them moving, I have to breath after all.  Today is day 4, and I can't say it's any better at all.  I have found, however that if I am sat doing nothing strenuous for a while it's not a problem at all.  A bit like the reason the pollsters got their predictions wrong, it's flipping obvious!  I won't be calling for an enquiry though.

I've remember most times to suppres a cough, but very difficult on some occasions.  I've now developed a gruff throaty rasp to get rid of phlegm in my throat.  

Cracking up

Cracked ribs.  Sounds like a book title, (and might be) but in actual fact it's what I have after slipping on the ice Thursday morning.  It felt pretty bad when I hit the floor (I was on my bike) but got worse over the next 48hrs.  I'm now into day 3 and its maybe not quite as bad, but that could be because I'm  compensating and have adapted by not doing things 'normally'.  I feel like I've aged 20 years, and if it's as bad as this when I get old, I'm not looking forward to it.

Palin by comparison.

The endorsement of Donald Trump by Sarah Palin is a sight to behold.  She's a bit like our own John Prescott, in that she talks nonsense whilst still getting the point across, and is quite like by some, despised by many more.  I'm not sure if it's a good thing for Trump that he has her as a supporter.  Not that I'm that bothered, more intrigued by the political goings on across the pond.
The thing that surprises me the most is that despite all the extreme rants and raves he manages to produce, he's still there - the front runner for the Republican nomination.  What are the others doing?  Nothing, we would assume if we calculate it in column inches.  The only time I read of them is when Trump is giving them some verbal.

Best of Both.

Funerals mean so many things to so many people.  The dictionary tells me it's a ceremony after a person has died.  No mention of religion or format.
I was surprised that when Lemmy died (singer from Motorhead), he had a very public funeral that was actually streamed live in t'internet.  Bit odd that, to me.  It was even in a church.
Conversely, David Bowie has been cremated without any pomp and ceremony, without any family of friends to 'see him off'.  This seems to be equally as odd, but I can see why both of them chose those options.  At least I assume they chose them, you have very little say when you have breathed your last, relying on your wishes being carried out as requested.
I rather like the David Bowie option, some anonymous 'dead person collecting service' simply calling round after a phone call, wrapping you up in a sheet and setting fire to you.  Not at home, obviously.

Mind you, I can understand Lemmy wanting to go with a fanfare, guitar riff or similar.  It was his last chance to make a scene.

I think I would like a low key, understated funeral, but with some memorable bits.

Droning on.

A short description of Derren Brown - 'strange man doing strange things'...and all in the interest of entertainment.  I think.

A couple drone stories caught my eye this week, one of them was a 'drone catcher' where drone B fires a mesh net at drone A, thereby rendering drone A safe.  An announcement from a think-tank somewhere on Monday concluded that drones are a potential terrorist threat, maybe they were sponsored by the drone catching manufacturer.

The other drone story was an 'ambulance drone' called an AirMule.  This is capable of lifting 2 people from e.g. battlefields back to a field hospital.  It's not really a drone in my book, just an unmanned helicopter, but I suppose they are the same thing.

It would have to be a big net to stop that one.

And the best social app goes to....

"A new social network app taking the tech world by storm".  Hmm, I'm not sure.
This is about Peach, a new platform (only available on apple gear) that promises much, but will probably go the same way as most of the others.
It's interesting to ponder when Facebook will die away, or will it live for ever?  I am useless at seeing into the future (or is that guessing the future?), so expect it to go out of fashion in a couple of days.
The thing about Facebook is it's sheer simplicity to do what the users want, whilst managing to sell advertising space at wheat seems a premium., thereby satisfying both the users of the system and the commercial end of things.  My guess is that the overuse of advertising will see it off in the end as we tire of endless pop-ups trying to sell us something we have just bought.

It was the Golden Globe awards at the weekend, and to be honest, I haven't a clue what the difference is between the Oscars and these.  Maybe they should have a unification ceremony where 'Supreme actors' etc are created and drop the myriad of lesser ceremonies around the world.

Money Talks.

The Lotto jackpot has crept up to almost £60 million, and must be won this week.  Evidently there are some rules that determine how many rollovers there are, and if no-one get gets all the numbers, it goes to the next in line (is that 5 balls?) and will probably be shared by a few lucky folk.
The thing is, 60 million quids is a great deal of money, too much for anyone surely?  Camelot's research has led them to reduce the chances of winning (from 1 in 14 million to something like 1 in 40 million) as a way of attracting more sales.  They didn't ask me for my opinion.
Last night's midweek draw - a measly 40 million dragged in ticket sales at 'up to 200 per second' and took the website down at one point, so they must have hit on a good formula to get the punters spending. 
But surely, a 1 million pound win would be good enough for nearly all of use?  I'm not counting the Beckhams, Adele and Sebastian Coe in this of course, but for the rest of us it would pay off all our debts (hopefully!) and give us a more than decent lifestyle.  For me, raising the jackpot (by adding additional numbers and thereby reducing the chances of winning) is less incentive to buying a ticket.
Mind you, what I could do with 60 million....

Chain gang.

They do have some odd things in the 'ole US of A.  For instance, there's some sort of armed gang holed up in some remote government buildings in Oregon who are demanding that the central government stop infringing something or other.  I have no idea what, but I'm sure they think it's worth spending a cold winter trying to get their way, although I doubt they will succeed.  The media call them 'militia', but I thought militia were a sort of civilian army of some sort, when these people seem to be a few disgruntled locals (although I don't think they are actually locals).
The big difference between an unhappy crowd in the UK and an unhappy crowd in the US is that the US folk will have a few guns to make them look like militia.  One more reason to try and restrict gun sales, although that's a tall order on that side of the Atlantic.

Nospaces.

Shad Cab.  Not a taxi with parasol, but Twitter speak for Shadow Cabinet.  I'm not a big Twitter user, but I do occasionally glance at updates if I'm bored with my phone to hand.  You're limited to x characters (cant quite remember how many - is it 94?) so you have to employ some creative linguistic talents to get the message across.  I suppose 'shad cab' is better than SC, and I notice that some twitterers even leave out the space, making it 'shadcab'.  Space averse.
I write this whilst excitedly waiting for the next live update of Labour's shadow cabinet reshuffle.  It wasn't long ago that we had to wait for the 6 o'clock news to update us on these matters, but nowadays it's in your face in real time with 'experts' and Joe Public chipping in at will as events unfold.