I Had Planned On Popping Out,

but the weather went from bad to worse,

so I saw little point in going out just to get wet, I did not have anything in particular to buy, which was just as well, so a lazy day in for myself after Diana left for work, I just watched a few documentaries and car programs on the television, 

in the evening after my evening meal and Diana had returned from work, it was feet up for this evenings film, Passengers, what a feast if you are into sci-fi special effects, the spacecraft was outstanding, as were all of the space backdrops, not a bad story too, with one or three major flaws, but there it is, well worth watching if you have not had the chance of seeing it before, we rounded the evening off with one more from Westworld as we munched the last of the roasted chestnuts that I had bought in Bromley last week, and with that we were off to bed.

There Are Books,

and big books, but this is the biggest hand made book in the world,

the book measures 4.18m x 3.77m, weighs a total of 1,420 kilograms and features 346 pages printed with information on the local flora and fauna, photograph 24.hu / Neményi Márton, the book is in Szinpetri, a quaint village of around 300 people located in northern Hungary, is mostly known for being home to the world’s largest handmade book, a 1.4-tonne heavy tome bound in the leather of 13 Argentinian cows, 

the world’s largest handmade book was completed in 2010, by father-son duo Bela Varga and Gábor Varga, two masters in the art of traditional paper-making. It was crated using traditional book-binding techniques adjusted to a much larger scale than usual, and is currently on display at the Szinpetri paper mill, where Bela and Gábor Varga show off their paper-making skills to visitors, “It was impossible to make it larger,” 71-year-old Bela Varga recently said. “That’s why the dimensions of the book are 4.18m x 3.77m. I would rather cut one finger than make it smaller by five centimeters, it’s unique not only because of the size but because of the techniques: it was made like ancient codes, with wooden tables from Sweden and with the leather of 13 cows from Argentina,” the paper-maker added,

moving it was not an easy task as the video above shows, creating the Szinpetri book was a huge undertaking. Its five hinges were cut out by a laser, the paper was imported from an Austrian paper mill, and the printing was done on a large industrial printer used to make billboard ads. An industrial crane was used to lower the giant book into position inside the paper mill titled “Our Fragile Natural Heritage”, Bela Varga’s book was the largest book in the world for two years, until a company in Abu Dhabi unveiled a 5-meter-tall behemoth, till the Szinpetri book remains the world’s largest book made by hand, using traditional techniques, as it happens we have featured big books before, also as an aside just turning one Our Fragile Natural Heritage's giant pages requires six people, to avoid accidental tearing, so not an easy read then!

A Quick Question,

how many holes can you make in an eggshell?

for myself I would have though a few hundred, maybe with a ultra fine drill perhaps a thousand, but I was so wrong!, the previous record was a staggering 8,708 holes, held by a Pakistani artist, but now Turkey’s number one egg carving artist, Hamit Hayran, has set a new world record for the most number of holes carved into a single chicken egg, nearly 12,000 holes! photograph Anadolu Agency,

I have enlarged a portion of the first photograph to show some of the nearly 12,000 holes, 62-year-old Hamit Haryran is an expert at it, after becoming disabled in 1988, due to an occupational accident, he dedicated most of his time to egg-shell carving, and has since become one of the most celebrated egg carving artists in the world,

"Now I beat my own record with 11,827 holes," Hamit Hayran told Anadolu Agency, the experienced artist apparently spent a year breaking his own record. Although he didn’t reveal the technique he used to make sure the egg shell didn’t fall apart as he punctured it nearly 12,000 times, Hayran did say that he started out by emptying the contents of the egg with a syringe,unfortunately the above video is not in English, but you will get the basic idea, Hayran was the first Turk in the World Egg Carving Art Encyclopedia, and is also a member of the World Egg Carving Art Foundation, how did he do it? the next time I have boiled eggs for breakfast I will have a try with a piece of shell, no wait a minute I do not have a drill that small!

As Far As I Was Aware,

a burger always came in a bun, 

but not not any more, after some time in February, when the new rice burgers are announced and rolled out, it started when McDonalds Japan had a cryptic tweet earlier this week asking if anyone at SoraNews24 wanted to eat rice, the very next day, the fast food outlet announced their rice burgers,

so how did the burger taste? Find out over at the site at SoraNews24 who also provided the photographs, for myself I do not like fast food, but given the choice I think I will stick with the bun!

Time To Top Up The Aquarium,

and I was low on RO water,

 also time to fill up the car as the Texaco petrol station is at Elmers End, just along the road, we are planing a trip in the next few weeks, and we do not want to pay motorway prices for fuel, so first to Kingfisheries in Croydon Road, Beckenham,

 I had a chat with Graham and Carl, also one of the customers that called into the shop, not that we have room for one, but I had a look at some of the aquariums that are on sale in the shop, the one above a Juwel Rio, the aquarium complete with LED lights, heater, and filter system, all for just £519.00, and if you want it a cabinet to put it on for £210.00,

a little about the aquarium, 

 and for something slightly different, at the same price a bow fronted aquarium,

 a few more details, both available in a number of finishes, but be warned, do not put an aquarium next to a television, you will watch the antics of your fish more than the television!

  there are of course all manner of smaller table top aquariums on offer,

  and plenty of artificial decorations for them, next fill up the car with fuel then home,

  Diana was home from work early, so a sherry for a pre meal tiple,

 for tonight chicken and liver pate,

 'Cheers!',

 we followed that with baked salmon, asparagus and mashed potatoes,

and finally sticky toffee pudding with fresh cream, I had by now finished The Master Builder, the Sequel To The Specialist, by Charles Sale, a quick easy read, but still full of so many tips for businesses and business people to day, as it was when first published in the 1930s, from the book where he is giving a lecture, 'So in closing', I jest want to say that in life, or in any profession or business, it ain't how or where you start that counts-it's where you finish', spelling as in the book, after listening to music, we rounded the evening off with a couple from Westworld, which is getting better with each episode, and with that we we were off to bed.

Making Mistakes Can Be Fun,

if you have a mini volcano at your fingertips,

 like Mount Fuji, with this eraser from Plus Stationary, mistakes can be gently erased,

  each time you get rid of a wrong mark, this office staple gradually will reveal Mount Fuji,

 and if you make just the correct amount of mistakes, this is what you will end up with,

 the blue and red rectangles—which represent the daytime and sunrise and sunset views of the mountain, respectively—feature a white center that when worn down and shaped into a peak,

the erasers are available in a number of different outer wrappers, 

Ah! how sweet, although not available over here you can buy your mini volcano at the Plus Stationary’s site, also if you scroll down on the web site, the company sells a number of Disney themed erasers, who said making mistakes can not be fun?

Have You Ever Filled Your Electric Kettle With Water,

walked away and when returned to make a tea or coffee,

and realised you had not plugged it in? well this is sort of similar, in June of 2019, the city of Roubaix, France, announced with great fanfare that it had acquired 187 solar panels meant to generate part of the electricity required by the local library, the panels were installed by local company Sunretec at a cost of 103,000 euros ($113,000), the 187 solar panels were supposed to produce about a quarter of the energy required by the city library, all seemed well in the sustainability stakes, so much so that a wind turbine designed to produce clean energy as well was connected, and then the penny, sorry euro dropped, with all of the hoo-ha and celebrations, somebody had forgotten to plug the solar panels in! 

photograph eliseobabrera/Pixabay, so for six months the panels didn’t produce any of the electricity consumed by the Roubaix library,  “We realized that this was not the case,” Alexandre Garcin (LREM), deputy mayor of Roubaix, told La Voix du Nord, without going into details about how the blunder occurred, for some reason no one at city hall noticed that the library’s electricity bill hadn’t gone down at all after the panels were installed, note to self, remember to plug in the kettle next time!

I Often Read About Pets,

that have become overweight,

as their owners give them more and more food, with less exercise, and this was thought to be the case of an owl found stranded in a ditch that was initially feared to be injured, but turned out to be merely too fat to fly, The Suffolk Owl Sanctuary said a member of the public reported spotting a possibly injured owl stranded in a ditch a few weeks ago, but rescuers took the female bird for an examination and discovered she wasn't injured, just overweight, the sanctuary said the owl, who they named Plump, weighed 8.6 ounces, about 1/3 heavier than the average weight for a healthy female of her species, officials said they initially suspected Plump may have lived in captivity or received food from humans, but her eating habits at the sanctuary showed she prefers the dark mice she would feast on in the wild, indicating her weight is "an unusual case of natural obesity." the area where Plump was found was discovered by rescuers to have an unusually high population of mice and voles, Plump was put on a two-week diet and lost nearly 1 1/2 ounces, enough to allow her to be released back into the wild, watch out mice and voles in the district, it could be you!

It Was Diana's Day Off,

so into the car,

 and we were away,

 a few traffic hold ups,

 and then we were soon on the open road,

heading towards Margate,

 and this is the sandy beach at Margate,

when my Grandad and Nan with my father and his brother Stanley who I was named after, visited it way back in the 1920s, if you think you have seen these photographs before, we posted them on the Kemp family history page, anyway, Margate, Westgate, Herne Bay et al, all remained great summer favorites for my parents and myself,

we parked in the Dreamland car park, back in the 1950s when we would have our annual holidays here, there would be an enormous firework display every Thursday,

parked up we made our way into town, 

firstly to the seafront,

some of the hotels facing the beachside green,

now this looks worth remembering,

there are lots of business here, but few open, this really is a summer seaside town, with many restaurants and shops closed for the winter season,

over the road to the beach,

the ice cream shop boarded up for the winter,

the thing about coming here in the winter,

you pretty much have the beach to yourself!

did I mention it was cold?

but we were A-OK!

a quick pose,

and look along the almost deserted beach,

the lighthouse at the end of the jetty,

I kept saying,

'a bit closer',

but Diana was not falling for it!

back to the square,

where as it was bitingly cold, we decided on this cafe for a coffee,

it was so much warmer in here, the wind despite having a couple of layers of clothes on, went straight through us,

warmed up we went back outside, 

this Chinese restaurant reminding me of many old public houses with tiled fronts,

a street with an appropriate name, Duke Street,

so named as the 'Grand Old Duke of York' stayed here,

we continued our walk,

into the area selling antiques,

and all manner of bric-a-brac,

this shop,

keeping an eye on things,

many of the buildings here like other towns in the area are flint built,

one of the many tearooms, that in the season will be packed,

the Wig and Pen, I am guessing the pub was a watering hole for the law courts, now with a Thai restaurant upstairs,

one of the squares in the area,

Mr. Simms seems to have sweet shops popping up everywhere,

we made our way back to the beachfront,

to Beano,

for our lunch,

 which consisted of, you guessed it, chips!

and a mug of tea,

well I am driving,

cod and chips for Diana,

and for a change for myself, 2 saveloys, and 2 battered sausages,

back to the car and home,

where we noticed one of the local foxes,

had popped by to eat some of the peanuts we throw out for the birds,

and the crow was not very happy!

the noise it made at the foxes intervention had to be heard to be believed,

I grabbed the small pocket camera, that has a better zoom,

and took a couple of photographs of the fox, the small camera with a completely different color balance,

 after we had our evening snack the door buzzer sounded, we had a late night delivery, all of our pods from Nespresso had arrived with a couple of their coffee cups and saucers,

and on the mat downstairs, a letter to Diana, her provisional driving licence had arrived, so driving lessons to be booked for the future, next it was feet up for a couple from Westworld, and then for us, we were off to bed.