View on the bay with an old landing place

Unfortunately I couldn't go to the countryside with Ingrid and Gert (two dutch working on the European Project as well), because I had to work... grrr. Later more about my work in Cardiff. First some Cardiff impressions.

Norwegian church

In the past Cardiff had one of the biggest ports in the UK and a lot of foreigners in the city. And this was especially built for the Norwegians.

Wales Millenium Center: a great theater building with an impressive facade: metal looking covering with huge letters cut in that are lighted at night. Unfortunately I couldn't take a nighttime photo.

And something that really surprised me ... shops are open on Sunday in Cardiff. That is why I could have a look into this tiny little ladies stuff shop. It's full of glinting handbags, jewelry, boxes and decoration stuff. Lovely!

And last but not least. A word or two on the hotel I stays in. Walking by this hotel and after talking to the owner during my last trip to Cardiff I booked a room in this gorgeous small (only 6 rooms) hotel with really nice staff called Jolyon's Boutique Hotel. Mostly you talk to the owner himself called Jolyon.  The whole hotel is furnished with a mixture of old furniture, design and art. Really nice. See a picture of one of the rooms. It was not exactly my bed. Mine was even better: a canopy bed (for the German readers: Himmelbett). I felt like a princess!!

PS: You should try the Gin and raspery drink in the Cwytch (strange word, seems to be welsh) bar in the celar!!! I recommend it!

Oh ...another Cardiff tip! Go to Gourmet Burger Kitchen (in the bay area as well). Great burgers for those who eat meat and for vegetarians like me as well. I had an aubergine at goat cheese buger. Delicious!!

pics from Barbara, Marsupialia

I’m sure I wasn’t the only to expect a NUJ meeting to be the doom and gloom brigade, nay-saying about poor pay, job cuts and being replaced by citizen-journalism-robots, and that, children, is why we all need the NUJ.

And Martin Shipman and his colleagues did say that, to certain extent, but they also stressed with lovely grins on their faces that the reason we do this, and the reason we’ve worked for a pittance and even for free is because we love it, and it’s "bloody good fun".

Apparently, that’s absolutely true. It is bloody good fun. These professional journalists, who are witnessing the print apocalypse first hand, told us. And that was the best thing they could possibly have said.

It made me think again about my Online Journalism training. As complicated as things like Twitter and Dipity and Sprout and all these endless widgets may seem, they’re fun, and they’re there to be played with. I just spent two hours making this blog look pretty when it probably would have taken someone vaguely competent around five minutes. But what the hell? It was fun!

If we play around with these tools and learn how to integrate them into the way we think about news, we might just hit on a brilliant way to tell a story.

However i feel that the world needs to know how you can end up with a medical bill you could have walked away from and how not to be treated by a Dr.

This blog is not about who owes who for what, its about a how even with medical insurance you can find your self in the nightmare situation, where after all the checks are made and all the confirmations are correct.

Yet the insurance company even after saying all that, then goes and backdates everything, so you are left with a bill that you would never have run up, if your insurance company had either told you were not going to be covered before the procedure took place or at least told the hospital. This was after all a BUPA hospital...

This is how it happened as told to me..
The dd payments for the Bupa medical insurance were due on the 1st of the Month paid through a business account, however this DD bounced on the 1st so they retried on the 5th it bounced again..

Bupa in the mean time did nothing, they did not inform anyone of this not the hospital not the surgeon not the defendant in the case, bearing in mind the procedure was on the 12th of January 2005, they had plenty of time to do so.

So lets recap firstly of all if my information is correct, after being told almost a year after the event that the defendant in the case was not covered at the time of the procedure, (even though all the pre authorisation were in place and the hospital itself checking with Bupa)

In his claim Dr Graham then accuses the defendant of acting Fraudulently (not true as proven by the court) blatantly telling lies by and i quote "Prior to the operation Bupa informed her the policy was lapsing.. and therefore gained admission to the hopsital fraudlently (Bupa did no such thing)

I leave it to you to make your own mind up

All difficult things have their origin in that which is easy, and great things in that which is small.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. 

- Lao-Tzu

My husband has decided that he would like to try the Three Peaks Challenge next June. With that in mind he wants to get significantly fitter, and so we started off gently today by going for an after dinner (short) hike through the woodlands near Castell Coch to the north of Cardiff.

I bought him a couple of books listing local walks and hikes, and we chose this walk as our first. It was a truly lovely autumn day, with clear blue skies and beautiful colours in the foliage of the trees which surrounded us.

We parked in the car park of Castell Coch, where the trail listed in the book began. It took us up a fairly sharp hill until we met the Taff Trail, a route that runs from Cardiff Bay up to Brecon. We walked along this for a while until we reached the edge of the Fforest Fawr car park. We then doubled back and headed down the hill through the forest until we arrived back at Castell Coch.

The walk only took about an hour, but it was really lovely to be out in the freah air and getting some exercise. My mother in law looked after our children for us so that we could walk on at a good pace. In future though we do look forward to taking the boys with us as there are plenty of rambles within easy reach of Cardiff that are more than achievable for their short legs!

I was really impressed with the fitness exhibited by the cyclists who passed us going up and down the steep hillsides around Castell Coch. It was all we could do to get up the hills without crawling, let alone being able to propel a bicycle up the inclines!

I'm looking forward now to some of the walks that we will be doing (subject to the weather, of course!) over the coming months in order to help my husband train for his challenge next summer. I'm especially looking forward to taking the opportunity to see more of this beautiful country in which I live.

En décadas anteriores, todo equipo amateur por el simple hecho de estar federado, ya tenía plaza directa para disputar la Copa, lo que responde al espíritu de una competición en la que todos deben estar al mismo nivel. Así es como ocurre en Inglaterra, con rondas iniciales en las que incluso se pueden inscribir equipos aficionados. Ya luego el fútbol se encarga de poner a cada uno en su sitio. Pero aquí en España es la Federación la que se encarga de meter a todos los "primeras" en dieciseisavos, dándo oportunidad como mucho a los campeones de Tercera y a los seis primeros de Segunda B, de forma meramente testimonial.

Todo esto responde al interés de las televisiones. Antes que una competición están los ingresos que esta genera, y ahí no tienen sitio los más humildes. Lo peor de todo, es que ellos mismos están contentos con el sistema, porque si pasan dos o tres rondas (según el caso) y se meten en el corral con los grandes, un sorteo que en principio sería malévolo deportivamente se convierte en el gordo de Navidad. Prefieren caer en 1/16 de final contra un Barcelona y hacer taquillazo, que pasar ante un equipo inferior y empezar a soñar al menos con hacer historia.

En Inglaterra, la FA Cup mete a todos en el mismo saco desde el comienzo. Si Liverpool y Chelsea se tienen que enfrentar en primera ronda, para delante, aunque otro partido lo disputen Chesterfield y Milton Keynes, por ejemplo.

Pero no es todo cosa de las televisiones, federaciones y clubes. La afición española y su bipartidismo también tienen gran parte de culpa, y eso no está necesariamente relacionado con la Copa. En España, al contrario que en las islas británcas, la gente es aficionada por lo general del equipo grande que aspira a ganar títulos, no del de su tierra con el que tienen que sufrir domingo tras domingo. Así, son pocas las ciudades en las que no son mayoría azulgranas y merengones. Quizás Sevilla, Bilbao y Valencia son las únicas ciudades españolas que se salvan de esta estadística. Así, es imposible que los pequeños hagan fuerza, porque no tienen a nadie detrás. En la liga inglesa, cada playoff de ascenso a las 3 primeras divisiones se disputan siempre en Wembley. Equipos jugándose el ascenso a Segunda en un estadio para 90.000 personas. Sin ir más lejos, la final de la FA Cup de la temporada pasada la disputaron Cardiff City y Portsmouth. Clasificatoriamente en España se podría comparar con un Racing de Santander - Castellón. Pues ese de ahí arriba era el aspecto de Wembley, muy lejano al de la foto de arriba (dieciseisavos de la pasada edición copera entre Deportivo y Espanyol). Y claro, llegaron ambos porque los Manchester y Chelsea no empezaron 4 rondas más tarde. Allí se trata a todos por igual.

No me extraña que por esto, la Copa sea cada vez una competición más devaluada, que sólo despierta interés en el partido final. Habría que dejar de lado las pretensiones económicas, puesto que estas llegarían solas si se da un poco de prioridad a lo deportivo, la emoción y las sorpresas, lo que hace del fútbol el deporte más espectacular del mundo.

E la ragazza dovette aspettare otto anni, un pomeriggio grigio d’ottobre, una citta’ piena di veno, un Paese che non era il suo. Dovette aspettare che i fotogrammi svolgessero parole e immagini, quelle stesse parole e quelle stesse immagini che tempo prima le avevano sfigurato il cuore: tanto simili al dolore piu’ crudo, alla normalita’ piu’ inacettabile. Troppo simili, soprattutto, ai giorni in cui gli aquiloni s’incastrano tra gli alberi. Ritornarono, quel pomeriggio, i denti stretti, una morsa per trattenere sofferenza a ritagli sghembi: inutile otto anni prima, spezzata quel giorno d’ottobre. Perche’ in fondo – la ragazza lo sapeva – non era vero nient’altro che questo: nient’altro che cicatrici molli forse mai chiuse per davvero, le radici pulsanti di un’essere stati e d’un aver vissuto, l’inevitabilita’ delle conclusioni, dell’appartenenza, dei lutti. I lutti: un giorno la cortina d’amore s’era trafitta sola. E le mancanze, allora, aveva inasprito aria e odori, mostrando tutto l’ingombro del pianto, quando ci si ostina a voler essere forti.

Simon Turner of Energy Recruitment Solutions Ltd ("ERS") advises that ERS has been appointed by HSE to assist in the appointment of Nuclear Installation Inspectors for the UK's Nuclear Sites. Health and Safety Executive

Major Nuclear sites in Great Britain

ERS can be contacted on 01454 203 460, or via e-mail to info@energyrs.co.uk

Further details are available at http://www.Nuclear-Energy.co.uk and details of positions available via ERS are available at http://www.ERSJobs.co.uk

http://www.HSENuclear.com

Nuclear Installations Inspectorate Jobs

Energy Recruitment Solutions Ltd ("ERS") has been appointed by HSE to assist in the appointment of Nuclear Installation Inspectors for the UK's Nuclear Sites. Health and Safety Executive

Major Nuclear sites in Great Britain

The NII inspectors are and will be based in HSE’s Redgrave Court complex in Bootle, Merseyside the Headquarters of NII and will cover:

Dounreay, Rosyth, Torness, Hartlepool, Hunterston, Chapelcross, Windscale, Calder, Halland, Sellafield, Barrow in-Furness, Springfields, Heysham, Capenhurst, Bootle, Wylfa, Cardiff, Trawsfynydd, Derby, Bradwell, Harwell, Amersham, Aldermaston, Burghfield, Imperial College, Berkeley, Oldbury, Sizewell, Dungeness, Hinkley Point, Winfrith, Devonport. (locations of current major Nuclear licensed sites).

ERS can be contacted on 01454 203 460, or via e-mail to info@energyrs.co.uk

Further details are available at http://www.Nuclear-Energy.co.uk and details of positions available via ERS are available at http://www.ERSJobs.co.uk

But I am also developping new contacts for our new business. Yesterday evening I was at the launch event of the Cardiff Design Festival and thanks to Darragh and Gisele (an irish guy and his bresilian wife working for PDR and DesignWales) I made two interesting contacts to two welsh companies.

I chatted with Ange from 'Nomad and Nest'. A small company here in Wales that produces bags and accessories out of fabric waste from furniture production.

As well I met a textile designer working for 'Melin Tregwynt', a welsh company as well that produces bags, blankets, cushions... made of sheep wool.

So probably you will be able to buy some of their products in our shop!

Instructions:
a) Answer the questions below, do a Google Image search with your answer, take a picture from the first page of results, and do it with minimal words of explanation.

b) Tag 5 other people to do the same once you’ve finished answering every question.

Edit: if you hover your cursor over a photo, the alt-text will explain its meaning. It took me long enough to get those texts in so you better appreciate them now you know they're there!

1. The age you’ll be on your next birthday 

 2. A place you’d like to travel to 

This is Trondheim, in Norway. I don't necessarily want to go there when it's snowing, just so long as I get to go there.

3. Your favourite place 

4. Your favourite food

  5. Your favourite pet

  6. Your favourite colour combination 

 7. Your favourite piece of clothing 

I can't paste the photo, and it's not strictly clothes, and I know it's not from the first Google results page but I thought I'd continue yesterday's theme with the most amazing photo ever. Well. Possibly not, but still.

http://www.dreadheadhq.com/dreadpics/viewer.php and put this number in the Picture ID box: 0065_001

If she has a blue hairband it's the right one. If not, I'm a technical eejit.

 8. Your favourite TV show 

9. First name of your significant other

Yes, it's his real name. Hm. I don't think I'll leave this photo up for long because the name is so unusual; so if you're looking at the original (seven letters, starts with T) consider yourself privileged. And, of course, you don't have to be posh to be - God I hate that stupid advert!

10. The town in which you live 

Slightly torn as I don't strictly live in the above city. I live about midway between that and the one below... so choose the one you like best and just stick me there.

11. Your first job 

12. Your dream job 

 13. A bad habit you have 

14. Your worst fear 

 15. What you’d like to do before you die

The end! And I am going to tag Hannah, la, Amazing Lexie, The Razzler, and Kate, but it doesn't mean you actually have to do it.

Personally speaking I would be loathed to give up my car or motorbike, simply because there isnt a viable alternative for me. I live in Cardiff/ Bristol in the Uk and find public transport to be lacking, especially when compared to countries such as Germany, Denmark or indeed the rest of Scandinavia. There is a much greater use of public transport, perhaps because it is so interconnected, and perhaps because it is easier to buy a ticket! Here in Cardiff you have to pay with the exact change, too bad if you only have 2 pound coins and the fare is £1.30, you lose. In Copenhagen you have a 'clip card' ticket system, which you buy more or less anywhere, tobacconists, etc. Each card has 10 trips on it, and there are various zones. Dead easy - you keep one in your wallet and when you need to jump on a bus, or a train (since the card works on both systems) you dont need to worry about finding the right change.

Encouraging people to take up public transport starts with making it so easy, almost too easy to buy a ticket - you'd have to be a fool not to be able to get around on it. I have no idea where to get a bus pass, it always used to be a grotty little office in the centre of town alongside the bus station...yeah right...make it easy for people.

Perhaps because the train and busses are owned and run by the government that it seems to work - public transports costs a lot of money to run, it isnt ever going to make a profit, and for the very nature of it i think it is foolish to even think that a profit should be made. I am a capatilist at heart, but i recognise that a great public transport system is something that has to be paid for by the tax payer, but having a great transport system actually helps people, and therefore assets move around the whole system more easily, therefore making a capatilist system more profitable in the long run.

Oh, and bus drivers with attitudes dont tend to exist, certainly not for other road users, and here i mean cyclists...as the bus drivers themselves will more than likely have cycled to work. See my next post on cycling here in the UK.

[caption id="attachment_939" align="aligncenter" width="497" caption="UK: The place of deep truths at unexpected places..."][/caption]

Even though I tend to dislike explaining the meaning of my photos for visitors of my site, because I believe that the photographer is only the medium and that each viewer should extract the message the way they feel, this time I will make an exception for once.

The reason is to it is very prosaic. After editing some of the stuff that I took during the last week when walking around the centre of Cardiff and Cardiff Bay, I started to see some broader connotations of my work and its connection to the state of society and cultural values in today’s world.

Usually when shooting, I know exactly what the story is and what I’m trying to say through my photos, but this time I used a different mechanism that is a bit more intuitive. I was just shooting everything that I felt was worth capturing and waited for the story to come out itself later in the process.

As a media studies major, I have very close to cultural studies and semiology, and as a starting photographer I naturally tend to position myself as an observer. With a strong passion for people watching and trying to tell their life stories through the way of their acting, I love putting things in a broader context and see what story could images say about them...

Here's one of the essays that I shot in front of one of the shopping centres downtown Cardiff. I attempted to incorporate the  nearby standing statue representing the traditional family in the pictures and so try to find out what the liaison between consumerism, modern architecture, and urban style of life vs. traditional family values would be.

Trying to propose more of a reflexive thought about the relation between today's model of traditional family in the UK and the life heavily driven by consumerism, this photo essay is aiming more on independent thinking process of each of the viewers.

If you have some interesting input, and would like to say how you feel about this issue, or would just like to send a feedback, please do so in the comments section. Feedback is always welcome as it enables people to compare their own thoughts and the way they personally see things with perception of others, which can sometimes be very enriching!

[gallery]

I happened upon these two little boys while walking towards Mermaid Quay in Cardiff.

What reeled me in was their dispositions - The taunting from the brother on the left had been going on for awhile, and in typical kiddie fashion, probably continued after I walked away.

]]> http://mariusostrowski.wordpress.com/?p=706 Sat, 27 Sep 2008 13:08:52 +0000 Marius Ostrowski http://mariusostrowski.nl.wordpress.com/2008/09/27/english-democracy/ I've been mulling over the issue of the Union between England and the other nations in the UK for some time, and have finally decided to throw in my $0.02 about it after reading this article on the ever-thorough 'Little Man in a Toque'. Just to give you a bit of background (read: so I can squeeze in a few more links!), and as it's been a while since I've tackled anything overtly political, I've been wrestling with the conflict between my libertarian and paternalist inclinations and with my stauch if increasingly idealistic Europhilia, the interim results of which I've separated out into this post. I've made greater reference to the post off 'Devil's Kitchen' entitled "The Plan" on my other post, but I've attached it here just because I agree with much of it in principle and would recommend everyone to read it.

I should start by saying that I don't consider myself remotely British. Yes, sure, a big factor in this would be that I don't hold a UK passport (what one I do hold is frankly irrelevant, but there are enough not-so-subtle clues dotted around my blog that you should be able to guess), but even so, my English is good enough that most people I meet (here, or abroad) instantly assume I'm from somewhere vaguely within a 200km radius of London. But if they ask me, then my answer is always "I'm from England". Why? Well, two reasons. First, when I used to answer "Britain", I'd usually get (foreign, obviously) people asking "which bit?", to which I'd answer (without thinking) "near London". 'England' would simply get leapfrogged in the geopolitical hierarchy, as if it were something to be hidden away or forgotten about. In stark contrast, hear a foreigner ask a Welshman, Scotsman or Northern Irishman the same question, and I can guarantee you the answer would NEVER be "Britain", but always "Wales", "Scotland", "[not always 'Northern'] Ireland". Perhaps accentuated by the recent aggressive devolution of governmental power to the Celtic fringe without any similar measures being introduced in England, hundreds of years of tension between England and the other three has led to instinctive assertion of individuality and implicit denial of the Act of Union from the Celtic nations, and the precise reverse from the English. Unfair, to say the least.

The second reason, which carries on from the first, is that, despite the considerable respect and admiration I have for the (to us huge, but to many foreigners minuscule) cultural differences between the Scottish, Welsh, Irish and English sections of the British Isles, I cannot bring myself to identify with the Scots tartan or the Welsh eisteddfods or the Irish ceilidhs anywhere near as much as with quintessentially English cultural features. But what are these 'English cultural features'? It is more than a little embarrassing to note that everything that comes to mind - cricket, afternoon tea, public schools, Wimbledon, Shakespeare, a legal code based on precedent, Darwin, the Beatles - has over time been subsumed into a (to me, artificial) 'British' cultural identity, when the origin of all these features, if not their subsequent predominant usage, was English to the core. Try telling a Scotsman or a Welshman that Robert Burns and Owain Glyndwr were British, and you'll be lucky if they don't try and beat you over the head with a thistle/leek screaming "He's Scottish/Welsh, damn you!" or something along those lines. Again, unfair.

So yes, I've grown up in England and, as Liam Byrne selectively argues, yes, this has worked its way inextricably into what constitutes me as a person. But unlike Mr Byrne, I don't feel remotely inclined to hush it up. Rather, it's brought me to the opinion that Englishness is something that should be celebrated as an identity distinct from all the others present in the UK - and yes, I am alluding in part to the increased neutering of the concept of Englishness through excessive pushing of the multicultural agenda, to paraphrase what Dominic Grieve said earlier today.

Which brings me to my main point in writing this post - my support for the idea of an English Parliament. Though I am a Conservative and as yet unsure of my ability (again, for passport reasons) to actually participate in any future UK general election, I've checked out the English Democrats and liked what I saw. Apart from the withdrawal from the EU, but that's too much of a tangent to explore here. For me, the so-called 'West Lothian Question' (whereby Scottish MPs can vote on matters that affect England, but only Scottish MSPs can vote on matters affecting Scotland, and similarly for Wales and N.Ireland) is by far the most irritating outcome of the manipulations of the national distribution of power under NuLabour during Blair's first term. The list of laws for England that were only passed due to the support of MPs from the Celtic fringe (the Scots for university top-up fees, the N.Irish for 42-day detention without trial) is getting ever longer, and thankfully, the 'ordinary hard-working people' have started to notice this trend. My answer to this? Simple and brutal, but doubtless effective. Just throw out the Scottish, Welsh and N.Irish MPs from the House of Commons. Turn the UK Parliament into the English Parliament. Devolve what remains of Westminster's power in Scotland, Wales and N.Ireland to Holyrood, Cardiff and Stormont. Would definitely save the taxpayer a tidy bit of money, not having to build a whole new over-budget ugly pile of concrete in Manchester or somewhere housing yet more self-interested politicians.

I know this sounds radical, but I'm not exactly expecting it to happen overnight. Still, I can guess what the naysayers would say to me: "But what about Britain? You'll tear apart the UK!" Oh, so you want another layer of red-tape-ridden bureaucracy on top of what we have already? Town, county, national parliament, Westminster, Brussels, is that it? And haven't you noticed the Scots et al. want out of the Act of Union (god knows why, since we're propping up their economies)? Why not give them what they want? Throw in a few boundary changes to bring the English constituencies up to date, and one of the main problems of the House of Commons is solved straight off. Not that I can see any of the main parties backing this any time soon, so... English Democrats anyone?

Ho davanti questo poster, comprato oggi, un venerdì pieno di sole.

L’ho appeso arrampicandomi sul letto: è la Poet’s Walk, a NY, fotografata da Henri Silberman. Forse l’essenza non deve avere per forza spessore: lo intuisco nella notte quieta di Roath, Cardiff, guardando questa fotografia e scorgendo un John Fante appoggiato sulla scrivania, la copertina appena sgualcita da un lungo viaggio in borsa, mentre camminavo per la baia.

E mi sento libera.