Every so often, amid the debate of if a green bum bag is better than an orange bum bag between a group of German people, the debate of eating human flesh comes up (if it comes up more than once every five years then I suggest you seriously think about who you make friends with). I am talking about the great film ‘Alive’, of course. This debate always intrigues me, mainly for two reasons: 1) It never ceases to amaze me how many people say “I couldn’t do that” before biting in to some animal flesh—essentially the same thing we are made of, whether you like it or not. 2) How surprised people are when I say “I’d do it, I wouldn’t even think twice”. The party usually then goes very quiet. Lots of nervous laughter and the sliding of chairs on floor—in any direction which is not mine.

But I have thought a lot about it on occasion, and I have come to the conclusion that in reality you do what you have to do. Because that’s the basic rule which drives our survival instinct: the fact that we drive cars, buy our food in the shops and watch TV doesn’t mean we are any less screwed when we get stranded.

I suppose it makes you stand out if you admit that you’d do it ‘no problem’, and most people don’t want to be expose their ideas to be so grim. From what I know about people—and this is all from comparatively my experience as one—they don’t much like you to think bad things about them, as that might mean you think other bad things about them too.

"Would you rather be pretty or clever?” That was the question my female friend posed to me the other week. I was about to open my big fat male mouth without speaking when I chose, instead, to say “Hmm, good question, let me think–”

Ten minutes later she asked if I was done thinking. I said, “not really, give me five?” Five minutes was, obviously, not nearly enough time. First I was confronted with the problem that, in my opinion, it depends on the culture around you and whether you have ovaries or a penis, then I had to give thought to the pros and cons of being pretty or clever. The conclusion I came to (which, when it arrived half an hour later, was met with little interest–) was that I thought it would be better to be a pretty woman than a clever woman, and that by being a pretty man you weren’t necessarily granted the same special powers as what good-looking women were. By that I mean that men—and let’s not get all upset, because it is, unfortunately, a fact—still largely rule the world and that even a good-looking man can get it in the neck: after all, how many times do you hear people say “this guy had the most amazing body and botox injections, and guess what? Yes! He was clever with it!” I think you catch my drift. The thing is, no matter what sex you are and where you live and how you look, there are draw-backs to being both clever and pretty. Thinking about it, the debate in my mind is still open–

For a long time, at various points in history, we wondered where technology would take us—how it would affect the way we live even the simplest parts of our lives, as well as govern how we ran our businesses. Although some of the inventions seen in sci-fi films are still a long way off from becoming reality (such as the hover boards in Back To The Future), many more have gone from writings in books such as 1984 to real life with almost flawless transition.

This is discussed over at the Enigin blog. If you are a fan of the latest gadgets and advances in technology, you may well want to take a look.

Look at email phones for example—not to mention consoles capable of playing games, texting, calling and connecting with people in the farthest reaches of the planet. Even the most basic of modern phones now has at least some kind of GPS function, while the top-of-the-line Blackberry is more than capable in ways that seem to defy common sense and logic: while shopping you can check and answer emails at will for little expense, while a number of other applications allow you to calculate, book films at the cinema and even choose the most suitable wine for a specific meal. It really is something else.

As a result of all this new technology come new degrees which allow students to study it and compare it to that of times gone by. It’s all pretty impressive really, when you consider that ten to fifteen years ago computers were jerky, slow, and difficult to use without bashing your headed repeatedly against a brick wall.

Back in the day when proper milk was put on proper concrete / brick door-steps (not these daft ones that try and look like part of some magnificent palace) by proper milk-men (who wore white coats and running shoes moving with the grace and speed that would embarrass a ninja), tea was something beyond dreams: something which people would put above their children, marriages, and funerals that weren’t for a particularly close friend but someone they quite liked but not that much. Nowadays tea is loosing out and it is tragic. Milk is obviously to blame, as well as human-beings’ bizarre ability to forget the best customary things—where are battered Mars bars now?!—and replace these things with new-fangled things that seem like a good idea, but are actually horrendous for the body and the environment. Brilliant. The world is in dire straits and who will bring us out of it?

Tea is what! Tea will bring us out of it. But we need YOUR help. Just like the infamous Rubik’s Cube brought some foreign-land—Google it, I don’t have time—out of a recession, Tea could be it! It could be responsible for turning our world around. But to stress a point, you’ll need to get behind me people. I drink ten to seventeen cups a day but without actually killing myself—it really is dangerous to, my doctor says so—I can’t do any more. If you drink the same then the effect might be enough, so don’t forget it. Pass the word around: and the word is actually two, of course. It’s DRINK TEA!

My alternative, if the people do not get behind me, is to start a door-to-door campaign. So don’t make me do it, because I will. If I have to, driving around the world with a kettle and mugs is something I WILL DO!

When you think about it, seriously, how weird is it that lights exist? I mean, the Sun. It’s massive, hotter than anything we can imagine, and produces enough energy every second to more than do the job in terms of meeting the Earth’s energy requirements. Alright, it isn’t everlasting—one day, as with everything, the Sun will slowly shut down and that’ll be that—but that’s not for a bit. It’s a safe bet, looking at modern statistics, to say that we won’t be around to see it when that happens. Which is a good thing. You think Scandinavia is dark (not to mention deepest-darkest Scotland in the depths of–well–all but a few days in August) try imagining a world without the Sun!

But strangely, we do need lighting. Because as big and powerful as the Sun is, it needs to take a break too. And who can blame it? It’s not as if it doesn’t have its work cut out. It’s not only responsible for heat, it’s responsible for gravity. Without the Sun the universe would literally fall apart. Planets banging into one another. It’d look quite amusing, yes, but we wouldn’t benefit much from it.

Check the link out; it’s all about lighting and how Enigin uses it effectively.

Enigin are one of the few companies who, as they state, ‘really can boast’. They have all kinds of solutions for every kind of lighting—and it’s not all super-expensive. Whatever it is, there’s a way to get around it. If you go to the right people.