One casino expert opines about the reasoning behind the Krazy Kolors:

According to her, the carpets are deliberately designed to obscure and camouflage gambling chips that have fallen onto the floor. The casinos sweep up a huge number of these every night. So the carpets are just another source of revenue.

Aren’t casinos great?

The idea for Cannabis Catering came to Nesbitt when he learned that his friend’s diabetic mother had been diagnosed with cancer. “I would bring back edibles [from the dispensary], but they’re so high in high-fructose corn syrup that she was high off sugar rather than being medicated,” he says. So Nesbitt began experimenting with his own pot food–starting with mashed potatoes. Now Nesbitt cooks an array of cannabis-laced delectables. A sample menu might include salad, lobster bisque, whiskey tri-tip with a demi-glazed sauce (containing marijuana tincture or ground-up hashish), and an infused Belgian chocolate fountain

It costs about $100 a head and is only available in San Francisco if you have proper documentation (read: a medical marijuana card). Read more here.

When I retire completely I want to move somewhere with a lower living cost and nicer weather. A while back I spent some time in West Texas and fell in love with the small towns around Big Bend National Park. So now I often look at real estate listings to dream on. This house is offered by West Texas Realty and was built approximately 1898. Originally this adobe home was the home of a French family though now it is used as a B & B, it could be converted back to a residence. The main building has 3 main bedrooms, 3 upstairs, each with a private bath. There is a large sitting area that opens out onto a large covered balcony. This balcony was added later on by the present owners. There is a family suite downstairs with a shared bathroom. Outside is an additional room with private shower. Outside there is a private courtyard with an eight-person hot tub, barbeque area & a great place just to relax with a good book. The courtyard enclosure is made from the doors of an old Irish prison. It is on for only £165,000, which seems a hell of a bargain to me!

One of the most difficult aspects of interacting with other people is figuring out how to extricate yourself from a conversation without appearing rude or mentally unstable. You aren’t allowed to just walk away – you need to have a reason to stop talking. And the reason can’t be that you want to stop talking.

Click here to see the full thing. It is amazing.

“It bothers me that people are always touching me and picking me up.”

Here is a little collage I knocked up over the weekend. I love old movie posters almost as much as I like Propaganda Art, and I thought the colours worked really well.

Though there’s reputed to be a mbira (Zimbabwean thumb piano) somewhere in the upbeat mix of guitars and synths, there’s not much Africa in his debut album, Saved. The Afrobeat rhythm on Zambezi, a fictional “memory” of Zimbabwe’s liberation from Rhodesia, is a one-off; elsewhere, the clean lines of western urban pop predominate. His funky voice reminds me a bit of the earliest Macy Gray stuff and his effortless way with melody renders nearly every song absolutely addictive, with the exception of Every Single Day, a corporate-sounding attempt at smoochiness.

Lyrically, he’s a social realist, writing of being:

“19 and looking at a goddam quarter-life crisis
Two GCSEs and a studio flat in Ruislip”

and of how, even in a mundane office job, people still stare:

“at the colour of my skin, the styling of my hair”.

An intriguing introduction.

By the new tunes here Saved – US link/UK link

Sir Terry has a new one out and given his health issues we can only hope that there are many more to come. The new one is called I Shall Wear Midnight – US link/ UK link and features Tiffany Aching the witch from the Chalk.

I haven’t read it yet so most of this is from the publisher’s puff pieces but I have yet to be disappointed by Sir Terry’s work – with the exception of ”Nation” which was pants! This new story is about a man with no eyes. No eyes at all. Two tunnels in his head …It’s not easy being a witch, and it’s certainly not all whizzing about on broomsticks, but Tiffany Aching – teen witch – is doing her best. Until something evil wakes up, something that stirs up all the old stories about nasty old witches, so that just wearing a pointy hat suddenly seems a very bad idea. Worse still, this evil ghost from the past is hunting down one witch in particular. He’s hunting for Tiffany.

And he’s found her…

I Shall Wear Midnight – US link/ UK link is apparently a fabulous new Discworld title filled with witches and magic and told in the inimitable Sir Terry style, “I Shall Wear Midnight” is the fourth Discworld title to feature Tiffany and her tiny, fightin’, boozin’ pictsie friends, the Nac Mac Feegle (aka The Wee Free Men).

On the summit of Leith Hill is an 18th century Gothic tower, with panoramic views northwards to London and the English Channel to the south. Richard Hull of nearby Leith Hill Place (once home to the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams) built “Prospect House” in 1766, later to become known as Leith Hill Tower, with the intention of raising the hill above 1,000 ft (305 m) above sea level.

The tower is 19.5 meters (64 ft) high and consisted of two rooms “neatly furnished”, with a Latin inscription above the door announcing that it had been built for not only his own pleasure, but also for the enjoyment of others. Hull provided visitors with prospect glasses, similar to a small telescope, through which to survey the extensive views towards London and the English Channel, each some 25 miles away, and thirteen counties on a very clear day.

When he died in 1772, at his request he was buried under the tower, however, following his death, the building was stripped of its contents, doors and windows, and fell into ruin. As a result the tower was filled with rubble and concrete, and the entrance bricked up. In 1864, Mr Evelyn of nearby Wotton House decided to reopen it, but the concrete made this difficult, and so the additional turreted side-tower was added to allow access to the top of the tower.

The tower was fully restored by the National Trust in 1984. This restoration included the removal of rubble and concrete, fitting safety features such as a handrail along the narrow staircase and converting the lower portion of the tower into a national trust shop. Leith Hill Tower is open to the public, with a comprehensive display explaining the history of the tower and giving opinions and memories of local people. Unfortunately it closes at 1700 and we were too late so we didn’t manage to ascend the 180 odd steps and instead went to a charming pub in Ockham at the bottom of the hill.