Overheard in a Restaurant: Partnered Pulses

"Beans and lentils; together? Where did you get that recipe" , exclaimed the plaintive Frenchwoman"

Films 3x more expensive in London than rest of Europe

The BBC reports that to see a film on Saturday night at a top cinema in Leicester Square costs £17.50 for an adult ticket, while the average cost for a similar show across 10 European capitals is just £4.95, £12.55 less. The cheapest capital is Athens with tickets costing only £4.70.

Beat Rip-Off Britain and save your pennies by watching Hollywood, Independent & Foreign films at the Prince Charles Cinema, also in Leicester Square. Films are no more than £4 and only £1 on Fridays.

However, on Thursdays till 9 November, chick-flicks are free during the Blue Nun season.

Court hears sentences First Web Rage attack case

The BBC reports that an internet user has been found guilty of what police said was Britain's first "web-rage" attack. Paul Gibbons beat up John Jones, after being angered by him in a Yahoo Islam chatroom. He tracked him down as he had used his real name online.

That's why, dear readers, the Iconochasm blog is written anonymously.

Blog for Britain

According to the BBC, the National Trust is giving people the chance to record their diary for 17 October 2006 and it will be stored for posterity at the British Library.

"We want to urge people participating to reflect in their diaries how history itself impacted on them that day – whether it be simply commuting through an historic environment, discussing family history, watching repeats on TV, or listening to mum's incessant 80's pop.

17 October has been chosen deliberately as ‘an ordinary’ Tuesday of no particular significance. We want to record the ordinary lives of citizens and students.

By doing so in vast numbers, everyone will be contributing something valuable to the historic record - a snapshot of everyday life at the beginning of the 21st century."

You can upload your blog entry until 31 October.

High Street goes Green

Following the lead by our trend-setting politicians who appear to be paying more than lip-service to climate change and the need to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels for renewable energy, a high-street retailer stocks renewable energy hardware.

Ken Livingstone has installed solar panels on his roof and David Cameron wants to build a wind turbine on his. Now, you can too as I saw tonight a TV ad where B&Q sells their solar panels and wind turbines.

I wonder when we will be able to pick up a 6.5 m high, 2 m diameter nuclear reactor to power our apartment blocks.

Land of Queues

My time in Bordeaux is over and I'm back in the Land of Queues.

There was a stranded plane at Luton Airport so I was stuck on the tarmac of Bordeaux Airport for an extra 15 minutes whilst the London airport was closed. S was lucky to get on the plane as she left her boarding pass on a chair. Fortunately, A found it.

When we finally landed, it appeared several other planeloads of passengers had just arrived so I was stuck at the back of a long queue. I was travelling with A & J back to London. Whilst they tried to get a train ticket machine to process A's Electron card, I nipped over to the queueless ticket counter and got an Aussie to serve me in double-quick time. I even had time to go to the 2nd nearest ATM as the nearest was out-of-order. This had no queues but the adjoining ATM had a long queue as it had the logo of a well-known bank whereas mine did not. I think everyone else wanted the security of a brand whereas I was happy with a no-name as long as it claimed not to charge me for withdrawals.

By the time I got back, A&J had wised up and bought a ticket from a human being. We went to catch a bus to the train station and were stuck at the back of a long queue. J, being Spanish, said that back home people would be elbowing others out of the way to get on the bus.

By the time the bus arrived at the station, we heard a train was coming and we had to run for it. Fortunately we made it, with seconds to spare.