Life in United Kingdom

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Showing posts from October, 2008

Halloween Jokes

Q. Why can't skeletons play music in church?
A. Because they have no organs!

Q. Why don't skeletons like parties?
A. Because they have no body to go with!

Q What do you call someone who puts poison in a person's corn flakes?
A. A cereal killer!

Q. Where do ghosts go on holiday?
A. Mali-Boo!

Q. Why do witches use brooms to fly on?
A. Because vacuum cleaners are too heavy!

Q. What is a Mummy's favorite type of music?
A. Wrap!

Q. How do spiders travel round the world?
A. Using the world wide web!

England's Winter

Yellow leaves, red fruits, white fruits, sweet corn field after harvest.

Friar Gate, City of Derby

I walked to Chung Wah Chinese Supermarket to buy soy sauce, passing Friar Gate.

When you walk or even pass by quickly in a bus, you can feel the historical heaviness, and I learned that Friar gate is Derby's 'Georgian' street and is brimming with history. Because I have no idea about the difference between Georgian and Victorian, although Pickford's House is one of the finest Georgian houses in the country, which is now a museum of Georgian and Victorian life, I just passed by without noticing it. I promise myself to visit that house later.

The name of Friar Gate derives from the existence of a Dominican Friary which thrived here until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. This is also a big lesson to learn, what's Dominican? and why did Henry VIII dissolute the monasteries, I hope I have time to borrow some history books and read it.

Friary Gate was the place for the rich and famous to live, and today, Friar gate is the place to be for young professional…

The Meaning of Derby City Council Logo

The logo of Derby City Council looks quite abstract and modern. I wonder what's the meaning of it? The lower-left part of the logo looks like a snail (or the initial letter D in Derby?), the upper-right part seems a river, (Derwent river?) these two parts are connected by a straight line at the bottom.

I did some searches on the web trying to find out the true meaning of Derby City Council logo, but without success. So, I wrote to tourist information, and got the answer from Michael:
The Logo is a representation of two of Derby's oldest emblems, one being a ram the other a buck (deer). Obviously the logo is a modern interpretation of these two figures so it is not obvious unless you know what to look for. Most people do seem to agree with you that it looks like a snail however.
Ram! the curly horn of ram looks like a snail indeed. The ram and the deer are from coat of arms of City of Derby,
In this coats of arms, we can see the deers both in shield (arms) and supporter, but the…

GM Free and Synthetic Chemical Pesticides Free

Among all the infant formula milk, HiPP Organic Infant milk is the cheapest one. But my baby seems to cope better with HiPP than SMA, because she has "nice yellow" poo, feeding with HiPP seems less chances of getting green poo than feeding with SMA.

Nowadays, people worry about the genetically modified food and synthetic chemical pesticides, but according to the exclamation, HiPP Organic contains no GM ingredients, it "is made using the finest organic milk which in accordance with strict production standards comes exclusively from GM free feeding." "All the organic ingredients used in HiPP Organic Infant milk have been produced without the use of synthetic chemical pesticides."

Recently, melamine Contaminated Sanlu baby milk formula has made thousands of infants ill in China, and two baby died. Melamine is a toxin found in fertilisers and cleaning products, and is blamed for causing kidney stones in the sick infants. SMA tastes very fishy, no nice at all. B…

Sainsbury's remove free carrier bags at checkouts

We went shopping this Friday, and found that Sainsbury's has removed free carrier bags from all of its checkouts "to encourage its customers to re-use bags".

The checkout cashier always asks me if I need help packing, It takes me a long time to get used to this question. Now she has another question, asking me if I need any free bags.

Customers can still ask single-use free bags, but are encouraged to re-use their bags by rewarding extra loyalty points through the Nectar card scheme, one point for one bag. But the checkout lady seems always to be confused by my large Debenhams' shopping bag, because different checkout lady rewards me different numbers of points, from 0 to 9 points.

Derby City Center

In Derby city center, the great screen, the water fall, the Guildhall. It's monday morning, very quiet.

Derby West Indian Community Association

I went to baby clinic today, and brought back a bunch of leaflets and booklets. One of these booklets is a collection of poems. These poems were written by some of Derby's children from the Derby West Indian Community Association's Saturday and summer schools. Both schools are partly funded by the BBC Children in Need and Derby City Council.

Those poems are written to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. Although slavery has been abolished for 200 years, but racism still exists in this world, mental slavery may be exist as long as human being exists. How to fight with racism, and liberate ourselves from mental slavery, here is the poem Nobody said life was easy, written by Amoy Johnson:

When we are at school
Sometimes it can be cool.
Racism comes in,
Peer pressure comes in,
Sometimes we are bullied.

Look at our ancestors
Less we forget
They went through an awful lot
But yet they made it.
So let us loose our minds from mental slavery
Life isn't always ea…

Top con tricks

You may know one of Andersen's most popular the fairy tale - 'The Emperor's New Clothes'. In this tale, an emperor who cares too much about clothes hires two swindlers who promise him the finest suit of clothes from the most beautiful cloth. This cloth, they tell him, is invisible to anyone who was either stupid or unfit for his position. The Emperor cannot see the (non-existent) cloth, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing stupid; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they dress him in mime. The Emperor then goes on a procession through the capital showing off his new "clothes". During the course of the procession, a small child cries out, "But he has nothing on!" The crowd realizes the child is telling the truth. The Emperor, however, holds his head high and continues the procession.

Reality is sometimes more vivid than fairy tales. In the 1840s the British government were always looking for new we…

Baby's stools are green

My little one has green poo. I suspect that she may be overfed.

She is on SMA baby formula, I wonder if there are too much lactose (the natural sugar found in milk), because her sister has lactose intolerance problems.

There are other reasons that may cause a green poo, if a baby is on breastfeeding, but she feeds often, but doesn't get the rich milk at the end of the feed to fill her up. It may also be caused by overfeeding or underfeeding, or is a sign that your baby has a stomach bug.

Milk Spots or allergic to Baby formula?

My little one started getting small spots on her face, most of those are red pointy, some are milky white, I wonder if those are milk spots.

Yesterday, Our friend came to visit, and she told us that her daughter got milk spots when she was fed on SMA baby formula, but those milk spots disappeared after she changed to Cow & Gate.

Was my baby allergic to SMA or just some milk spots which every baby may get, and will clear itself up in several weeks?

Harvest Festival

One item in my daughter's School Newsletter on Monday 5th October is about "Harvest Festival":

We managed to send a whopping 57 bags of food to the Padley centre
following our Harvest celebration. Thank you on behalf of the Padley Centre for
your generous support.

Padley centre is a Derby-based charity for people with complex needs. Those people are the most socially excluded people in the local community, such as: homelessness, mental health issues, learning disabilities,drug or alcohol addiction, long-term unemployment, ex-offenders, and other people whose needs related to rebuilding a shattered life.

Harvest festival seems a remote and strange thing to me, since I left our village in south China more than thirty years ago, and moved from one city to another. Citizens don't sow for harvest, what does a harvest festival mean to us?

In my memory, we had "taste new" rituals at the beginning of autumn harvest season (the eighth month of lunar calendar), my mum made…

Four free energy saving light bulbs again from British Gas

British Gas keeps bribing it customer by sending out a total of 52 million light bulbs. Of course we are happy seeing a package of four energy saving light bulbs sitting quietly outside our door steps, and I wonder if British Gas is a fool, or even a charity, because we use both their electricity and Gas, if British Gas keeps sending out energy saving light bulbs, its customers will use less electricity, and it will make less money. Look at these facts British Gas gives:

Theses four light bulbs could save you around £18.50 a year. And if every one of our customers used them, enough energy would be saved to power over 150,000 homes for a year.
But wait a minute, these light bulbs help reduce our bills and carbon footprint, this also means British Gas will lose 150,000 homes a year?

But British Gas has very good reason to send out light bulbs without compromising its profit.

Many other salesman knock our door to persuade us to switch to other suppliers. But if I keeps receiving those light…

Tesco Gift Card for Neighbour

We bought a Tesco Gift Card and a thank-you card for our neighbour for looking after our daughter. All midwives and doctors said we had very good neighbour when they learned that our elder daughter was being looked after by our neighbour.

Our neighbour is Indian, strictly speaking, they are Tamil, come from Sri Lanka. But we normally call all those people Indo-pakistanian. I am quite surprised that they are vegetarian, even no fish and egg, strictly speaking, they are vegan. But they face doesn't show any vegetable colour, they looks very healthy and even a little bit overweight. This might be the reason why they couldn't get along with my daughter, because she is a meat-eater, no vegetables.

I couldn't found £50 face value Sainsbury's gift card, choose from 3 denomination £5, £10, and £20. But Tesco gift card is not pre-designed without a fixed value, I can load a specific value onto a Gift Card.

It is reported that Sainsbury's was launching a new Gift Card programme…

Little Wonders Straight Baby Feeding Bottles

I went to Co-op shop to pay council tax, total £85. The Co-op shop was used to take credit card. but asked for debit card this time. I wonder if this is the effect of credit crunch?

Then I went to Dean & Smedley pharmacist, there is often some cheap stuffs in pharmacist shop. I bought a pack of razor for only 99 pence before. I found the cheap feeding bottle, it's called "Little Wonders Straight Bottles", which are made with FDA approved food grade polycarbonate and come complete with latex medium flow teat and sealing disc. The Straight Bottle has a capacity of 250ml/8ox per bottle, and really offers value for money.

But recently, there are recent press reports from Canada and the USA , regarding the concerns of an ingredient called Bisphenol A (BPA) used in the manufacture of the polymer Polycaronate , which is used to make baby feeding bottles. I don't know what's wrong with thin material. But anyway, Polycarbonate as a raw material has been used in the manu…

All schools have places for Parent Governors on their Governing Bodies

In United Kingdom, all schools have places for Parent Governors on their Governing Bodies. Parents have an influence over the education the school provides for all its children. Governors make decisions about many aspects of the school including the curriculum, staffing and school's finances.

There is also a vital role for Parent Governors in providing a link between the school and parents. The Parent Governor will be expected to attend at least six full meetings of the School Governing Body each year and also other meetings of Committees of the Governing Body. They will take an active interest in the school and the children and help promote the parental view at meetings of the School Governing Body.
All people who have parental responsibility for a child at the school are eligible to stand for election as a Parent Governor.
If there are more nominations than vacancies, an election is held. The election will be organised by the Head Teacher of the school and every parent of a pupil i…

Welcome to the world!

You come with a thunderous shocking,
Because of you, your mother went through most horrible night.
You have fewer hair, higher nose-bridge, and bigger appetite,
But you are as cute as your sibling.