Cafe Lumiere gets electric transport

As you will be aware, Café Lumiere takes environmental concerns very seriously and does a reasonable amount to publicise new initiatives to save fuel. It should come as little surprise, therefore, that the café has recently invested in its own electric transport – yes its an electric scooter.

This rather funky little moped can do up to 30 miles and has a range of 20 miles. As a result, it has just enough range to get me to work. I hope to use it regularly both at uni and at home in Sussex. Here are a couple of pictures of this illustrious vehicle. I bought it on ebay and I am pleased to say I got it for a very good price! As it has a free tax disc and costs around 5 p to fill up, it should be economical as well.

In the mean time though, I need to book up something called CBT (compulsory Basic Training) which will enable me to go and ride it on the road; watch this space.

NB the model pictured is the same colour and model as the one I have purchased.

Getting fashionable with French

My younger sister recently produced these wonderful posters as part of her French home work for the holidays. I think they are wonderful and will make an excellent posts. They seek to link French vocabulary with my younger sister's passion for cows.


I find the summer collection and winter pages the most amusing. I especially like the sun specs attached to the rather fashionable cow on the lower left page. The quasi viking cow also merits a closer inspection.

For those of you with an eye to the future, observe the cow in the bottom right of the lower right page. She is wearing scarf, but around her nose, why is this? My sister felt that, cows would wear scarfs on their noses because, this area is mostly likely to get chilly especially after drinking water, or dipping their nose in some snow. Remember, you saw it here first!

Slavery vs petrol

When working today the thought occurred to me that there are obvious parallels between the abolition of the slave trade and the end of the petrol driven car. People in the 18th century recognised that slavery was an awful way to treat fellow human beings, but the important issues which took years to settle was ‘who would pay for an end to the supply of money slavery produced?’ The same question faces humanity today. Companies such as BP and Shell employ thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people. Who will foot the bill if the large petrol companies are wound up? What would governments do if those people enter the labour market over the next ten years?
Even more pressingly for governments, what will they do without the fuel duty? In the UK around 70-80% of the cost of fuel is tax. Just imagine if all UK drivers started using battery cars tomorrow – where would be the money in that? And what if they used solar panels to recharge them? Governments would not even be able to levy a tax on electricity if that happened.
Perhaps the potential lack of revenue from fuel is the reason why the Uk government was so keen to set up a pay as you go system a few months ago. That way, you could still charge people for using roads, even if they drove green cars. What is the answer the average road user?
As a believer in helping the environment, it has to be to go for electric cars as soon as possible as they represent the greenest of the car options available.
Concerning the money, I think other uses for the existing infrastructure as well as changes in our behaviour as a nation could off set the cost. As regards the treasury, perhaps we could have a few less wars, that would go a long way to off setting the reduction in petrol duty – and as for BP – there are two possibilities. Firstly, get them to work in the new solar panel industries and car support roles and also use their infrastructure for retail and office spaces. Think of the number of BP petrol stations there are across the country. Secondly, use BP as a chemical laboratory – where new materials are conceived and tested daily.

How you can eat an organic meal every day for less than 40p.

Given the references in the press and academic studies that heightened levels of pesticides have been linked to raised chances of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, it seems pertinent to describe how you can have at least one organic meal day, just as I do.

It is quite simple, all that is required is to buy some organic breakfast cereal and some milk – et voila! Currently I mainly eat porridge oats. Being a slow release food it is inclined to keep me filled up; and I understand that it can help reduce fat from other parts of the diet. I recommend this start to the day to anyone.

Cost wise, its pretty effective too. I think you can get about one week's worth of food out of a standard large packet of porridge 750g and four pints of milk. Organic milk will cost somewhere between £1-£1.50 for four pints (more than you need probably but we'll be generous) £1.50/7= 21. Oats vary in price, but £1.08 is a figure I have seen quite often at the supermarket I work at. £1.08/7= 15.4, the two together makes 36.4p! Pretty good value I think!

Somtimes, when I don't feel like porridge, I move over to organic bran flakes. Fortunately, both of these meal options are available on the café’s menu.

Room upgrade

You may be pleased to see that one of the rooms in the café has recently received an upgrade. Here is a photograph of my old room, which during the last week of my habitation was looking especially messy.

Now, here is a photograph of my new room. Yes, for the course of the summer at least, yours truly will be living in the nice and new white rooms.

As you can see, it is considerably more spacious than the previous room and the décor has a more contemporary feel to it as well. All in all a real improvement to my living arrangements.

And the personality of the week is…

A little unusually, this week’s personality of the week was by request from a regular reader. I am pleased to say that after due consideration the suggestion was carried forward.

Therefore, I would like to announce Mary Magdalene as Personality of the Week – a cup of free coffee awaits you at the bar.

This aristocratic lady was born some time around 0 AD and is famous today for her role various biblical episodes and the possible mothering of a son of Christ. During the middle ages she was generally considered to be a prostitute who repented of her evil ways and followed the Christian message. A sermon given by Gregory the Great in 591 was influential in forming this belief, but there is in fact little evidence for this suggestion. Magdalene came from an aristocratic house and is therefore unlikely to have needed the money that prostitution would have brought in. Secondly, although a Mary is described by Luke (7: 36-50), this Mary is not identified as Mary of Magdalene, but rather Mary the sinner. Some scholars have suggested that Mary the sinner was Mary of Bethany but not Mary of Magdalene. Given these two pieces of evidence, it is unlikely that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute.

Mary is most famous for her close support of Christ and the disciples. She was a follower of Christ, though not normally counted among the disciples. Feminist historians are keen to point out that it was Mary Magdalene and other women who first saw the resurrected Christ.

Debate surrounds the idea that Magdalene was married to Christ. Against this view, are the traditional arguments about Christ’s emphasis on celibacy and the example of John the Baptist who was known to be holy and a single man by choice. Against this view, are authors such as Elaine Pagels who suggest that the idea of Christ not being married without record in the bible is too surprising to be believed. She reasonably suggests that rabbis in ancient Israel would have been married and expected to be married by their followers. Had this not occurred, it would have been so unprecedented as to require comment. Pagel’s also suggest that the account of Christ’s first miracle at a wedding party was very probably his own wedding, since only someone in the position of groom would have been able to command servants in the way Christ does. Surviving accounts from the Nag Hammadi library also given some support to the view that Mary was married to Christ. However, it is important to remember that many of the sources that do talk about this relationship were written much later than the gospels – the Gospel of Thomas is somewhat of an exception. When coupled with the Gregory the Great Sermon mistake, it is easy to see how some people believe that Christ really was married.

It is too early to say that the marriage between Christ and Mary has been proven, on the other hand it is hard to dismiss it either. I believe it to be true, but can respect others who think it is not.

None of this debate, however, detracts from Mary Magdalene being personality of the week.

(My thanks to wikipedia for the use of the image)

Flashes of blogging

The pleasures of the summer. Currently I am working at a large number of jobs. Those of you who know me will know that this is not unusual. At the moment I am working at a school, offering private tuition and marking exam papers. Somewhere in amongst all of this, I also have to revise for more exams of my own, with the BPS and see about moving rooms on Friday.
Given this, I hope you can understand why blogging has been less fulsome than I would have wished. Still, I expect, as I am doing now a sneeky few minutes can be spent here and there writing about matters of life.
In the mean time, If anyone would like to nominate a personality for the week, I think this would be quite a fun way to make the slot more varied. So, if you feel the urge post a comment and I will consider the personality, or given a good reason why they were not chosen that week.