Airstream Shows Off Its Latest Deluxe Land Yacht Concept...

This is Airstream's latest concept for the 'discerning' buyer. By discerning, do they mean the person who has everything and now wants something else. I don't know, but this is their latest offering for the Getaway From It All market who wants to have all the comforts of home with them wherever they go.
It's probable that not many of today's version of Eddie Bauer's original are likely to ever go near the great outdoors and that's a shame.
This very latest Airstream Land Yacht is indeed beautiful and so it should be.
It's been designed in partnership with Mauro Micheli, the long-time designer for Riva Yachts.
There's more about this lovely Airstream here.
While the Airstream has always been the classic caravan or trailer that others have tried to emulate, somehow the 'discerning' buyer is missing out on so much by insisting on hi tech this and hi tech that.
Remember when life was simple and with back to basics there was so much less to go wrong and break down.
And less to go wrong made whatever you wanted to do, so much more enjoyable.
And the simple life was better than good...

Rose George Talks Crap...

It's 2013 and there are seven billion people, living, some subsisting, on this planet.
2.5 billion of the earths human inhabitants don't have access to a toilet. So says Journalist Rose George in this humorous and enlightening presentation on TED that you can see here.
Where there's no loo. Where do you poo?
The Flush Toilet was voted The Best Medical Advance in the last two hundred years by the British Medical Journal ahead of The Pill, Anesthesia and Surgery.
Our thanks go to John Harrington who invented the flushing toilet in 1596.
A plumber was for many years credited with the invention, and was later knighted by King Edward for his services to other sanitation and sewerage systems.
He was Sir Thomas Crapper...

The Mir Diamond Mine In Russia Is The World's Second Biggest Manmade Hole...

The disused Mir Diamond Mine in Russia's Eastern Siberia is 525 metres deep and 1.2 kilometres wide. There's restricted airspace above it because helicopters get sucked in by the enormous downdraft.
It's the second biggest manmade hole in the world.
The world's biggest manmade hole is the Bingham Canyon Mine in Utah USA. It's 970 metres deep and 4 kilometres wide.
Four kilometres wide!
Because the Mir hole is empty and abandoned and as I dislike waste, I thought the hole would be a good choice to accommodate all the world's dysfunctional, untrustworthy, dictatorial, greedy, egotistical, self-serving, incompetent, did I mention stupid, bureaucrats and politicians if we were to drop them all in it.
But this hole may not big enough, perhaps the Bingham Mine would be better...

Me And Renee. My First Love. Sixty Two Years Ago...

The year was 1951. I was born seven years earlier and Renee was five.
She was my first girlfriend.  My first love.
It was a pretty serious relationship.
Obviously we would have been married if life hadn't intervened and we'd forgotten all about each other.
I hadn't seen her or known anything about her until a few days ago.
She'd been advised to look at The Flying Tortoise blog as she and her husband had just bought their first housetruck.
She emailed me.
You won't remember me I expect. 
I was five or six and you were a couple of years older. Our mothers were good friends when we were children back in Eastbourne. Here's some photos of you and I at my parent's place in Totora Street.
Remember her! My first love!
As though it was yesterday...

Maslow's Hierarchy Of Needs. Updated 2013...

Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is a theory in psychology proposed in his 1943 paper titled A Theory Of Human Motivation.
How things have changed...

Lest We Forget...

New Zealand commemorated Anzac Day today.
Thousands of people gathered for dawn parades at venues all around the country to pay their respect and give thanks to the many who fought and died in too many wars.
So we might have freedom.
In the words of John F Kennedy,
Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind.
When will the world listen...

A Vision Of The Future. A City In A Building...

It's quite a concept. And it's not a new one.
The idea of a futuristic city contained inside a single gigantic building housing a million or more people is nearing reality.
It's not something I'd wish to be part of but in a few year's time, in many parts of the world, the only space available to live will be up above.
Way up above.
There's from the top,
Buckmaster Fuller's Triton Floating City, 1960.
Vertical Urban Sprawl by Jake Murray 2010. Norman Foster's Crystal Island, designed for Moscow, 2007. Roadtown by Edgar Chambless in 1910. The Shimizu Mega-City Pyramid for Tokyo by Dante Bini and David Dimitrie in 2003.
King Gillette's Metropolis Project for the Niagara Falls area, 1894. The Broad Sustainable Building in Hunan, China, due for completion in 2013. And Grant Hamilton's What Are We Coming To concept in 1895.
In case you're thinking of buying some real estate in the future and going up in the world, have a look here and here...

Hair Today And Hopefully Still There Tomorrow...

Hair's to creativity and the freedom of self expression.
Hair's to the individuals in this world who don't take life too seriously.
Hair's to those who can laugh and delight in themselves.
Hair's to the right to choose...

Two Simply Beautiful Bicycles...

Two beautiful bicycles.
Both simply stunning in their design.
The top one is by Pietro Russomanno whose mainframe skeleton is crafted in plywood with inert rubber gaskets sandwiched between.
The rider of this machine can raise or lower the seat with the touch of a button.
The front wheel has a dynamo attached which provides energy to a smartphone dock on the handlebars.
The sculptured machine below by Japanese designer Yojiro Oshima is a head turner and completely hand made.
There's more about both these beautiful bicycles here and here.
I could look at them all day...