'Be more British week'

This is my new idea. Ever since the Shirehall in Shrewsbury took down the Union Jack incase it offended ethnic minorities living in the town¹, I've felt a bit distressed by the fact that it seems like the only people it's OK to have a go at are the British². Of course, that makes me a conservative, which in turn makes me suicidal.
There are many aspects to Britain that I dislike. Birmigham New Street station, Football fans³, people who think bus shelters are the place to be on a friday night and the rest. But there are so many things we should be proud of and so many great traditions we should keep going. So in 'be more British week' (and I say British to please the European Union, because really I'd like it to be 'be more English week') I propose we spend a little while doing things we often forget. Drink tea hot, with milk. Spend an hour digging in the vegetable garden or cut the lawn. Talk to someone about the weather, or queue for a bus. Make a sarcastic comment, or satirical joke about Tony Blair. Say something quaint like 'goodness me', or drop something and exclaim 'oh sugar!'. Have your umbrella turned inside out.

Do it all safe in the knowledge that the world will be, in a small way, a more British place.

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1. An idiotic suggestion, because Shrewsbury is the whitest town in Shropshire, which is in turn the whitest county in England. This isn't because of racism on our part you see. Put simply, it has few charms and plenty of downsides which you can only really ignore if you were brought up with them.
2. Especially the Welsh. If you must call them a people.
3. Who I witnessed in full voice at aforementioned station, singing the opening riff of Ring of Fire in a way that would make Johnny Cash depressed and thus combining two evils into a single, more vile offence.

Reasons they should never give me power

Three inventions that I think they should have;

Google Maps on airplane windows. I was flying from Austin, TX to Chicago a few weeks ago in the evening, and I wanted to see where we were. I didn't know, cause everything was lit up the same (ie, with those lovely sodium lights). It was terrible. I think that they should transpose the names of roads and towns on the windows. It'd make the process of flying more interesting.

Salt licks. I like salt. We need more of these. Cows and deer have them. Clearly we have the technology to make them - there's no difficulty in manufacturing them. Why can't I go to the supermarket and buy a stick of salt? I'm gonna blame Big Dave for this one.

Air dryers for bathrooms. Like the hand ones, but for me when I get out of the shower. I can't think of anything more unpleasant than stepping out of a warm shower onto a cold floor with cold air. So.... if you have a big vent on either side blowing warm air at you, then you dry off pleasantly. It's a win-win situation^1,2.

I have a whole bunch of other inventions, but they're not as good as these. Unless you count the one that I thought was brilliant and amazing, but promptly forgot the next day. Shame.

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¹Unless you have to worry about doing your hair. But that's not a problem for me.
²And unless you count the environment. Then it's a win-win-lose. And I'm not quite sure who the second win is for. Maybe manufacturers.

Adam and Eve on the Galapagos islands.

Those of you following the creation vs. evolution debate in the US might find the following interesting:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/programmes/heart_and_soul.shtml

(Apologies for my dismal ability to link properly, I know that Uncle Nathan is hanging his head in disappointment.)

Though I'd call myself a historical critic of the bible, and do not embrace a creationist standpoint, it is nice to hear a creationist asking intelligently phrased questions, for once. Whilst it is fun to ridicule the oemega sized brains of the Christian right, an intelligent discussion of a tendentious matter, really, for the religious, is a welcome addition to the debate. Also, it is interesting to note that in the original hebrew, the creation story is much more metaphorical than the literal rendering that creationists assume is an account of the actual creation of the world, and is treated as such by the rabbis. But then, the King James Bible came down from heaven on a cloud, G-d spoke English, and Jesus was aryan. Silly me.

Sparta hates freedom

The number of Americanised illicit references to 'freedom' in the film 300 (which, by the way, isn't anywhere near as bad as I wanted it to be) made me want to remember more about the battle of Thermopylae. So I hunted down my copy of Herodotus' histories and found the following - The three hundred were pretty famous and yes, they were all Spartan warriors. But at Platea, the Spartan army numbered 45,000. Of those, 5,000 were Spartan warriors. So who were the other 40,000?

Well who'd have though it. Slaves and peasants!

FREEDOM!

Pox Americana

Some doctors and researchers believed that Edgar Allen Poe was a carrier of Tuberculosis. Nearly everyone he had sustained, intimate contact with contracted the illness, and all of them died.

Like Poe, a cruel disease follows my path, spreading to my housemates and eventually killing them. This disease is Mononucleosis, known to your people as Glandular Fever. Last year, Andrew Lynch was lost to us; he fought valiantly, but in time the illness tore the life from his body. And now Gabe, my current roommate, is suffering the same fate. When will the bloodshed end? When will the agony stop?

I just can't fathom it.

Is this a good idea?

The 'learn all of the capital cities of all of the countries in the world' challenge.

Pretty self explanatory. Why? Because then you can convince people how cool you are by telling them you know the capital city of every country in the world and then getting them to ask you.¹

Rules:

1) Countries only. None of this dependent territories crap.
2) The unerring and unquestionable authority on this is Wikipedia.
3) Where at all possible, try to learn some kind of funny fact about the country/capital in question².
4) Use your new found powers for good, not evil.

I'm as far as Andorra. Capital city: Andorra la vella. This is going to be well easy.

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1. Failing that, if you ever need to be diagnosed as being autistic, this is a sure fire way.
2. For example, Astana (Capital of Kazakhstan) literally translates as "Capital City". Most people would tell you the capital city of Kazakhstan is Almaty, but they'd be wrong. It used to be, but they changed it to purpose built Astana. Probably because Almaty means something ridiculous about apples. ('Father apple', or 'The apple that provides for us'.)