Spring has Won

Britain has been in a perpetual Narnia-like state of winter for the past, oh, six months. But it seems that spring is finally winning the battle to emerge and reign supreme. The sun is out, skies are blue and flowers are blooming (tentatively, but still, we’ll take whatever we can get).

The Versatile Blogger Award

The rules for this award are as follows:

• Thank the person who gave you this award.
• Include a link to their blog.
• Select 15 blogs/bloggers that you’ve recently discovered or follow regularly.
• Nominate those 15 bloggers for the Versatile Blogger Award.
• Finally, tell the person who nominated you 7 things about yourself.

So here goes. BIG thanks to The Peckish Kiwi who nominated me for this award – and at the same time set me a subtle challenge to blog more (now, I’m just got to step up to that challenge!).

Now, for the 15 blogger/blogs that I would like to nominate for this award:

- Querido Rafa

- A Blonde’s Point of View

- A Leek Writes

- Bibek Journal

- Two Black Doggies

- Little London Observationist

- An Aussie Eye on American Sport

- Just in Time Travels

- An Observant Mind

- Miss Interpreting

- Jody-Lan Castle

- Raising My Rainbow

- Ms Elena Levon on Travelling

- Cee’s Photography

- Emmas Random Thoughts

Seven things about me…

1. I have endless lists (on my phone, on my laptop, on paper) of books that I want to read one day.

2. The reason I started watching tennis (and the day I fell in love with the sport) was the Men’s Singles Final at Wimbledon, 2008. Yip that final between Nadal & Federer.

3. I can count to ten in Maori, Japanese, French and Italian.

4. I don’t speak Maori, Japanese, French or Italian.

5. If I won the lottery (big-money lottery, not £50) I would spend most of it on travelling around the world, ticking things off my bucket list.

6. Until two years ago I had never been to a concert before. Now I’ve been to, two.

7. I believe whole-heartedly that pineapple lumps, orange chocolate-chip icecream, Tim Tams, mint slices and sour-cream-and-chives chips are the best foods in the world. You should try them (not all together, that might be gross).

Down Under, Bill Bryson

I’m about 13 years too late to jump on the fandom bandwagon over Bill Bryson’s ‘Down Under’. But who cares, I’m on it now.

Searching for something to read a couple weeks back, I found this tucked away in a bookshelf. I’d heard a lot about it (a lot of good things actually), so I figured I’d give it a try. And boy am I glad I did.

Press regulations: freedom of the press; protection for victims

A decision on what form the new press regulation will take has been reached between the country’s three major political parties.

Announced earlier this week, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour agreed that an independent body will be set up by royal charter, and will have the powers to impose fines of up to £1million. The body will have regulation over newspapers, magazines and news-related websites, although it will not extend to opinion and commentary blogs.

Why we shouldn’t be afraid to fail

I recently went to a Hacks/Hackers event about ways of funding new, innovative news. While that may have been what the event was about, that wasn’t what I got out of it.

The first speaker, John Bracken who created the Knight Foundation, said that we should “fail early, fail often”.

There’s No Place Like Home

Dorothy got it right when she said ‘there’s no place like home’.

Teenage Curfews – Right? Fair? Effective?

The imposition of a curfew is dreaded by all teenagers. A fixed time when they have to be home by, curtailing hanging out with their friends. It’s the cause of friction between many young adults and their parents. But a host of towns throughout Switzerland have taken the idea of curfews to a whole other level – by local councils.