End of the March for Banks

March of the Honest Man!

I have hundreds of things to post, so much seems to be happening at the moment." NO BAILOUT", "Kevin got robbed", "my trip to Bristol", "The passing of someone cool on a social network", "The The Commandments of Twitter" and "Runcasts". These are all potential topics but instead I have chosen to post another Video. I have a million things to blog and it seems like I havent got the time to digest and submit. 

I have instead decided to post another video clip from You Tube. If you decide to watch this please stick with it, I am not a fan of Di Vitio and I have know Idea who the other guy is but I trusted the source. Watched it and it was awesome...I totally understand exactly its point.I must send  thanks to @frebro, my pal from Twitter.  All I ask is that if anyone does watch this and likes it follow him and and a cool thing would be to tweet the word  "props" to @frebro.  

:)

MARCH OF THE VIDEOBLOG or Vlog, Vilog or Vidog!

I am going to be very lazy and post a clip from my second favorite new website called Seesmic. I see so much potential with Seesmic  therefore I have decided to post this as a teaser to tempt people onto the site for to view the spectacle for themselves. The video clip describes an event taking place on Thursday, I have no idea what will happen but I think this is a example of the cool types of things that are going on at the website.

Check out the clip and if your not shy then sign up, its the next step on the march of our social evolution. 

TimeFrame Exhibition on Seesmichttp://www.christinielsen.com/html/events.html

Fuel for the March- Oatcakes

What ever your sport, mission or purpose you need the fuel to get the maximum output from the Human body you have been blessed with.  As part of this blog I will from time to time post a recipe, snack or a meal that has made it into my repertoire of culinary cuisine, I am going to start with "Oatcakes" (thanks Kelownagirl for asking the question).

What are Oatcakes?    

Wikipedia says : An oatcake is a type of cracker or pancake, made from oatmeal, and sometimes flour as well. Oatcakes are cooked on a griddle.

Oatcakes may be more familiar to Americans in the form of their cousin, the Johnnycake, made of cornmeal, often cooked on a board, shovel, or even stones, just as the Scottish did in the past.

Oatcakes are widely considered to be the national bread of Scotland, and have held that position for many centuries. They are made almost entirely of oats, the only cereal to flourish in northern Scotland. Traditionally, each community had its own mill to grind oats from local crofts and supply oatmeal for every household. These oats formed the Highlanders' staple diet of porridge and oatcakes.

Scottish soldiers in the 14th Century carried a metal plate and a sack of oatmeal. According to contemporary accounts, one would heat the plate over fire, moisten a bit of oatmeal and make a cake to"comfort his stomach. Hence it is no marvel that the Scots should be able to make longer marches than other men."

We also have some other types of Oatcake here in the UK but personally I dont bother with these, I just like the Scottish type. My Favorite are the ready made type by a company called Nairns and if you can buy a pack I would recommend you do so their link is nairns-oatcakes.com. If you cant gethold of these dont fear I have dug up this old Scottish Recipe, its apparently the same used  to keep the soldiers moving whilst marching in the Scottish Highlands (...serves two Soldiers).

Ingredients:

» 60g/2oz/one quarter cup medium oatmeal, plus extra for sprinkling in step 6. 
» 60g//2oz/one quarter cup wholemeal (whole wheat) flour.
» ½ teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda.
» A pinch of salt.
» A tablespoon of lard.
» 5 tablespoons of boiling water.

Method: 

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C or 400°F or Gas Mark 6.

2. Grease a baking tray and line with greaseproof paper.

3. Melt a tablespoon of lard over a medium heat until it has completely melted.

4. Place all the dry ingredients into a bowl and add a tablespoon of melted lard and five tablespoons of boiling water.

5. Mix together using a round bladed knife until a dough forms.

6. Sprinkle a surface with oatmeal and place the dough on it.

7. Cut the dough in two and place one piece aside.

8. Shape the half into a round and roll it out using a rolling pin until it is about half a centimetre thick.

9. Cut as many oatcakes as the shape allows and place them on the baking tray.

10. Place the offcuts aside and repeat steps 8 and 9 with the other half.

11. Mould all the offcuts into a ball and repeat steps 8 and 9 once more.

12. Place the oatcakes into the hot oven for 10 minutes or until the edges are golden brown.

13. Remove the oatcakes from the oven and place them on a cooling rack.

Thats it; quite simple really, you can top them with what ever topping you want or eat them naked, its up to you. 

Looking for the 10 Commandments of Twitter..have you seen them!

I have been reading a book called the "Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell. In it he describes how trends go from ideas to epidemics, its a great book and well worth a read if you get a chance. 

One of the ideas that he throws out is the concept of "150" max for a social group. He says that if a crowd becomes bigger than this then it stops functioning due to the complexity. I am currently following around 140 people on Twitter and I am now starting to struggle, yet not all of them are active.

If I had 140 active uses I would probably sink under all the tweets, therfore this week I am going to investigate my Twitter crowd and hopefully next week I will have a meaning full post on the subject.

My aim is to find out, if anyone else has posted anything regarding guidelines on Twitter usage, and hopefully create a 10 commandments of Twitter post. If you have any ideas I would love to hear them.

Breather...

"I am breaking down, physically, mentally and economically" .  

My overtrained body has kicked in its defenses, I lost just under 12 lbs in 4 weeks by ramping up my training, cutting back on alcohol and restricting carbohydrate intake after 6pm. It seemed to work for a while but the last few days I have been grounded and now I have stopped my muscles seem to have given up. Stiff joints, cramps that wake me up from my restless sleep and now the most annoying pain in the neck (I know where the old cliche gets its fame).

As well as all this I have noticed that dramatically cutting down on the Carbs causes your mind to play tricks on you. I have been plagued by  a "Doom Cloud" as the world seems to have gone crazy and I cant for the life of me work out if its real or a manifestation of carb starvation.  

Therefore I have decided to get a grip and chill out, its time to take a breather. My individual March has come to a brief stop, to give myself to take stock. I will reduce my running back to 4.5 miles, re-introduce a small quantity of Carbs to my main dinner and may even have a glass of wine with my dinner! 

Therefore as I feel I have reached my lowest ebb, and as the world seems to be doing the same I have decided to conclude this post by bringing your attenion to a video from the artist Sean Williams. This is a collaboration track with NIN artist Trent Reznor and they are coverering the classic U2 track "Sunday Bloody Sunday", within its frames they have captured a small whisp of the "Doom Cloud". 

Anyhow I am of to get jacked up on rice pudding (the new Prozac), catch you later.

   

 

 

Continuation of a theme!

I woke up this morning and realized I had spent the night dreaming about funny white humanoid characters, I think - induced by yesterdays late night blog post. Now these types of dreams are not a new thing, my dreams are usually very very surreal. Therefore because of this I quickly dismissed these thoughts and chose instead to go to work.

On route I decided to play a few songs on my Ipod,  and one song was by the amazing british band UNKLE. It was at this point that I remembered the video for "Eye for an Eye" which seem to match the content of my dream perfectly. Now this was either a case of synchronistic or my subconscious passing on some sort of message. 

Therfore because this revelation had bubbled its way from the depths of my mind it therefore seemed a waste use it for todays post, especially as it seems to fit well with the theme of the last post and in keeping with the overall persona I want this blog to have.

Enjoy