TrackBackk on Blogger

Then i wanted to use TrackBack on Blogger, so I went looking for HaloScan. Then I got confused.

Pesky white space at the top of CSS websites

I had a whole bucket of code that I really didn't want to rip apart trying to find what caused the white space at www.europe.cpdinfo.com - so I g'd around a bit and this person really helped me out with a neat trick: http://bytes.com/topic/html-css/answers/764391-css-center-page-no-top-space .

More Than Tomato Canes

I've been experimenting with small-scale bamboo construction recently - the stuff's fantastic - like a cross between steel, GRP, and carbon fibre. Anyone want to play?

clipped from www.ecofriend.org Self-sufficient, eco-friendly bamboo tree house Nishi Roy | Nov 28 2007 Sponsored Links Imagine a bamboo tree house which is not only completely self sufficient, but also manages to produce more power than it needs. Fanciful thinking? No way! Solar hooch- a backyard “Tower of Power” can actually do it. How? Well, high in the air, the hooch rises above the shadows cast upon the ground-from trees and buildings. With an unobstructed southern exposure, the solar hooch catches and stores solar heat through an abundance of south facing windows. The sun shines through upon a unique array of water filled aluminum cans that span the loft. With a days worth of solar thermal energy stored in the water, the bamboo mesh futon can be lowered over the storage for a night of warmth and comfort.

Black Rock by Amanda Smyth

A review from the Independent, Friday March 27 2009:

It is 1950s Tobago, and the protagonist of this coming-of-age novel, Celia, spends her days with her younger cousins, her Aunt Tassi and Aunt Tassi's second husband, the sinister Roman. It is the things that Celia is told that form the basis of her understanding; that her mother died the moment she was born, and that her father lives in Southampton. Celia flees after Roman abuses her, and the novel chronicles her adventures. But her journey away will lead her paradoxically back to a past that has been shrouded in secrecy and lies. Black Rock explores the extent to which one can – and ought – to wriggle free from family ties.

The eponymous rock is given to Celia by a clairvoyant, Mrs Jeremiah, who assures her it "will keep bad luck at bay and save you from the hard life you will make for yourself". These hardships seem to abate when Celia finds herself rescued by an English family in Trinidad and employed in the home of Dr Rodriquez, his wife Helen, and their children. Celia cannot bring herself to love the "ugly" boy William, who is besotted with her, and instead embarks on an affair with the doctor.

Amanda Smyth does not allow her protagonist an easy ride for more than six months. "I escaped one monster to meet a different kind of monster", Celia realises. The imagery of hard, inanimate rock is juxtaposed with the possibilities for tenderness. Smyth is a skilful ventriloquist; the local patois is energetically conjured, and the narrative pace is gripping.

In painterly images, Smyth evocatively shows more than she tells. Not only people but place exerts a powerful force. Helen Rodriguez cannot feel at home in Trinidad, to her a "hell on earth". The knowledge of her husband's infidelity unhinges Helen, who vacillates between seeming a "proper English rose" and a "wandering ghost".

There are echoes of the archetypal "mad woman", if not in an attic then in a marital room in the Caribbean, with scenes reminiscent of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. Smyth ties up her loose ends rather too neatly, but this is a vivid and compelling story, exploring the extent of our control over our destinies. Celia attempts to challenge the assertion of her father: "I believe you follow your life... You don't lead your life".