Sunday,

so glad rags on for this week,

 as we are eating out,

 and this where, 

 just around the corner from LK Metro where we parked, the Robin's Nest, in Soi Diana,

 we were joined today by Slim Jim and Mr. Tony who very kindly gave us a lift, Diana ordered a slushy, water for Mr. Tony and Slim Jim, a wine for myself,

Diana went for a Thai meal,

whilst Slim Jim,

ordered a tuna salad which was huge,

Mr. Tony and myself went for the three course carvery which today had asparagus soup as the stater,

with 6 or 7 meats to chose from for the main course,

 and a nice selection of vegetables plus Yorkshire pudding and stuffing,

 there is of course a well stocked bar,

 so it was help yourself,

 just a small point the price of the carvery has risen slightly to 299 baht, which for us is still exceptional value for money,

 'Cheers!',

 for dessert Slim Jim and Mr. Tony went for the apple crumble with ice cream and custard,

Diana was too full to eat any more whilst I went with a scoop each of vanilla, strawberry and chocolate ice cream that was included with the carvery,

 followed by a latte coffee,

after chatting the afternoon away and saying goodbye to Slim Jim we made our way back to the car and home,

 where it was feet up for the Forbidden Planet that Mr. Tony had not seen before,

followed by a couple of comedy classics, By The Sea and The Picnic, after thanking and saying farewell to Mr. Tony we watched a couple of shows on TMN cable then for us we were off to bed.

We Often Like To Feature Street Art,

where an artist,

 or group of people have transformed the side or front of a building,

 normally some anonymous block of apartments,

 or utilitarian building,

so it was a surprise to see this Scottish castle made into street art and not just any old castle, the Kelburn Castle, 35 miles west of Glasgow, has been the family home of the Boyles since its construction in the 13th century, making the castle the oldest in Scotland to have been continuously inhabited by the same family, 

and the street art? this is the story, in 2007, the 10th and current Earl of Glasgow, Patrick Robin Archibald Boyle, was told that he needed to remove a cement render, that had been added to the building in the 1950s, to avoid further damage to the stonework, at the suggestion of his children, Patrick Boyle, agreed to have the cement painted before it was removed, so he invited a group of four Brazilian street artists to adorn the castle’s turret and walls with their unique style of graffiti art,

the work of the Brazilian artists received huge media attention, drawing many tourists from around the world, Historic Scotland, the government agency responsible for preserving the country's historic monuments, had agreed to the project on the understanding that the graffiti was temporary, the artwork was meant to be removed after three years, but seeing the public response, the Earl appealed to Historic Scotland to make the artwork permanent, the agency allowed some leeway allowing the artwork to exist a few more years,

in 2011, the mural was named as one of the world's top 10 examples of street art by author and designer Tristan Manco - on a par with Banksy's work in Los Angeles and the Favela Morro Da Providencia in Rio de Janeiro, then in 2012 the agency made an inspection of the castle and discovered that the cement was severely damaging the original castle walls, and urged the Earl to remove the graffiti, the graffiti was supposed to go by summer 2015, but there are no more updates either from the media or from the castle owners, so if you want to see the mural a quick call to the castle (01475 568 685) might be in order to make sure it is still there!

Turtles Or Tortoises Can Be A Problem,

when they wander on to the tracks,

especially when they get stuck in a part of the switching system,

but luckily for them in Japan this will be a thing of the past, the Suma Aqualife Park is a giant aquarium/beach in Kobe that attracts plenty of tourists and families, most of whom get there by train, however, due to the park’s proximity to the ocean, every year several turtles get stuck in the train tracks and cause delays, malfunctions, or even damage to the trains themselves, so in order to keep both train-riding humans and rail-stuck turtles happy, Japan Railways has implemented this solution, creating escape ditches for the turtles along the rail-road, this new turtle road has been in place since April this year, and from then to August there were 10 turtles observed making use of them to leave the tracks, 10 lives save, 10 potential accidents prevented, I wonder where turtles are causing accidents or delays other railway companies will take Japan's lead?

With Christmas Around The Corner,

here are a couple of Christmas ideas for the man that has everything,

this Backpack Cooler Chair is great for transporting gear and having a seat in the garden, on the beach or just out and about, the chair weighs only 13 lbs., folds to a mere 10" wide, and has two shoulder straps for comfortably carrying the unit as a backpack, the cooler has storage for a picnic of hot or cold food and even has pockets, it also has an integrated two story shelf that can be used for handy storage of books or magazines,

 and how about one of these?

what self respecting man about town would not want a Man Bun?

if only I knew how to use Photoshop I could put one on my head to see if a man bun suited me, I have to say of the above two one I would like but not really use, the other No Way! I could imagine waking up in the middle of the night befuddled as usual and seeing the man bun on the bedside table and trying to kill it, apart from that they would not have one in my shade of grey and no I am not on commission!

We Needed A Few Things,

for tonight's bar-b-q,

 so off to Friendship,

 there were very few customers, so we could see the front of the car park as there were no cars blocking the view,

 it appears that the new wing,

 is having an opening ceremony,

 so in we go,

 on the way back we bought a ice coffee and green tea,

 then as the sunset,

 our evening meal, garlic bread to start,

 followed by chicken and sweetcorn soup,

 with lots of chicken,

 2 huge pork chops for our main course,

 I lit the barby only to encounter the curse of the billowing smoke, same paper, wood and charcoal, but it was just like a 1950s pea souper,

 next a firework display, sparks everywhere, still it brought a laugh from Diana when I sat down, she giggled as she brushed the ashes from my head where some of them had settled,

 but soon the charcoal had caught,

 so it was on with chops,

Diana had also cooked some pork belly in the oven so as well as a baked potato we had lots of crackling, we listen to music until about midnight and then we were off to bed.

Water, Water, Every Where, Nor Any Drop To Drink,

are a couple of lines from a poem,

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner in fact, written by SamuelTaylor Coleridge, it tells of the mariners voyage where he famously shot the albatross, and his lack of water, but if MIT’s Professor Martin Bazant manages to upscale his teams latest work producing fresh water from seawater the mariners fresh water problem would have been solved using Professor Bazant's inexpensive procedure, his team shocks the water sample and has successfully removed over 99 percent of salts while recovering up to 79 percent of the water used in the experiments, they also found it can remove various contaminants such as dirt and bacteria, this how it works, a small electric current is applied across the sintered glass material and the salt ions gather on one side of the flow, in turn creating an ion-rich side and an ion-deficient side, once the current is increased sufficiently, the charged surface of the porous glass essentially generates a shockwave that divides the flowing water into two separate streams, one with desalinated drinking water and the other with salt, the two streams are separated at the centre of the flow, the group published their findings on November 3 in the journal Environmental Science Technology, in a recent press release, the researchers noted that the system they’re working on “opens up a whole range of new possibilities for water desalination, both from seawater and brackish water resources, such as groundwater.” one can only wish the team success when so much of the world needs cheaply produced fresh drinking water.

A Couple Of Days Ago,

we were watching cars race round a track,

and I explained to Diana the use of flags when racing cars or motorbikes, red and yellow = oil, fluid or debris on the track, black flag = return to pit, so I was amused when I saw the above Finnish flag, it might be wrong in this context but it still made me smile.

I Do Not Have A Clue,

about how Photoshop works,

 all of the pictures we publish are straight out of the camera,

having said that we sometimes use Microsoft office 2000 to rotate or crop a picture,

so I am always amazed when I see pictures like these where some one, in this case, Jati Putra Pratama, can manipulate and make such out of this world pictures, and they used to say the camera can never lie!