A Householders Guide to Self-defence in the Home

From an invaluable article in the Sunday Telegraph in 2004 and hopefully still relevant - unless the law has changed radically.

If an intruder confronts you in the kitchen:

1. Take the intruder by surprise and seize the initiative from him/her by reacting instantly.  Grab items within your reach - the heavier the better - and hurl them one after the other.
2. Do not throw a kitchen knife - it could be dodged and retrieved by the intruder.
3. If the intruder continues to advance, use a kitchen knife as a defensive weapon.  Take it in your hand and hold it 'upside down', with the blade pointing towards your elbow and the unsharpened edge of the blade pressing against your wrist.  Use it to 'block' the intruder; if he attempts to assault you, the blade's cutting edge will wound and deter him.

Turning a wooden spoon into a lethal weapon:

1. Grip the spoon's handle tightly.  the bowl of the spoon should point towards you; the length of the handle should point away from you, with just an inch of it protruding from your fist.
2. The handle, when wielded forcefully and used as a stabbing tool, is like a stiletto heel: a lot of force concentrated in a small surface area, that can cause a great deal of pain.
3. Aim for the most sensitive 'points', or areas, on the intruder's body,for maximum effect.  These include the eyes, nose, ears, upper lip, throat and solar plexus.

Fighting back with a bunch of  keys:

1. Grab the key fob in the palm of your hand and allow the key=ends to fall between your fingers, to create a spiky 'knuckle duster'.
2. Grip the key fob tightly and wield it as forcefully as you are able.  If the intruder comes close, go straight for his eyes to disable hi.  Or scratch the keys down his face, to distract him.

While you are watching TV:

1. Once again, throw what you have.  In a sitting room, typical missiles are vases, paperweights and the TV remote control.
2. Keep pokers and other fireside irons within reach.
3. If the intruder continues to approach, throw your arms around his neck, pull him to you and do what you can with your teeth.  Bite his ear off.

If an intruder confronts you on the landing:

1. In the absence of a sharp-ended object such as a wooden spoon, poke and jab with your fingers.
2. If you do not know how to punch properly, hit with the ball of your palm for a better result.
3. If he lunges at you or pushes you, step to one side.  It is a chance to put him off-balance - he could even go sprawling.
4. If he falls, or you are able to push him to the floor, pummel him with our elbows, which are sharper than fists.

If an intruder confronts you in your bedroom:

1. Regain the initiative by reacting instantly, and use what is close.  If you keep a torch make sure it has metal ends, not capped with rubber, as this can be wielded with better effect.
2. If you sleep with your arms below the covers, it is easy for an intruder to pin you to the bed.  If this happens, you can use your head to butt and your teeth. Spitting will not do you any harm;it will distract your intruder.

Not sure that I could manage some of these, as a short person, but would certainly be prepared to fling things at an intruder.  Tins sound an especially good idea, or some of my late mother's collection of paperweights!

See also: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-13957587 and http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19886504

Emoticons

These clever little pictures, made from conventional symbols could be considered a sub-genre of text speak, or an art form in themselves.  Even emoticons are subject to the vagaries of nationality - Western emoticons need to be looked at with the head tilted to the left, while the Japanese use emoticoms that can be viewed straight on:

:D
implies great joy

:-(
implies the opposite

:-)
to remind you that something is a joke

:-/
means the sender is sceptical about something

;-)
a nudge-nudge-style wink, meant to soften the impact

B-)
wearing designer sunglasses and therefore cool

8-l
wearing nerdy glasses and therefore uncool

(:3=
is to suggest that the sender is a walrus

@-_-@
Japanese emoticon for Star Wars Princess Leia

<o)))><
Japanese emoticon for a goldfish

Here's a full list from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_emoticons

A few New Year quotations

When snake is alive, snake eats ants.

When snake is dead ants eat snake.
Time can turn at any time.
Don't neglect anyone in your life ...

Never make the same mistake twice,
There are so many new ones, 
Try a different one each day.

A good way to change someone's attitude is to change your own.
Because, the same sun melts butter, also hardens clay!
Life is as we think, so think beautifully.


Life is just like a sea, we are moving without end.
Nothing stays with us.
What remains is just the memories of some people who touched us as waves.

Whenever you want to know how rich you are, never count your currency.
Just try to drop a tear and count how many hands reach out to wipe that - that is true richness.

Never change your originality for the sake of others, 
Because no-one can play your role better than you.
So be yourself, because whatever you are, you are the best.

Baby mosquito came back after first time flying and his dad asked him 'How do you feel?'.  He replied 'It was wonderful, everyone was clapping for me!'.  Now that's positive attitude.

Ten Top Tips for the Last-minute Shopper
(with men in mind ... )

• Rifle through her dressing table and buy refills of cosmetics she is running low on.
• Avoid anti-ageing creams and anything else that smacks of correcting imperfections (tweezers, hair removal lotions, leg waxing packs).  Not so daft as it sounds, once a male friend bought me some dandruff shampoo!
• Massive brownie points if you buy her something she'll actually wear.  Buy too large, though, and you're in big trouble.
• Keep the receipt so she can take backyour gift if it's the wrong colour/absolutely revolting. And don't feel you've failed if she does change it.
• Buy for her, not for you (this includes everything from lingerie to box sets of Arsenal's greatest goals).
• Always say yes, if you assistant offers to gift-wrap your present.
• Think goddess, not domestic: resist the temptation to buy oven mitts, ironing boards or food mixers.  Again not so daft, I knew someone whose husband bought her a microwave for Christmas!
• Feel the quality: cashmere rather than cotton, silk rather than wool.  Avoid nylon nightmares.
• Book and music tokens can work, but airline tickets for a surprise winter break work even better.
• If it's got to be flowers, wrap them in paper you have bought yourself.  The same applies to bottles of booze: remove the tombola/raffle ticket.

From the Daily Telegraph

Playing your cards right

The well-meant festive gesture of exchanging Christmas cards has turned into a social minefield

If you haven't yet written and sent your Christmas cards, then it's probably hanging over you like a chore still to be ticked off, akin to putting the bins out, only much more time-consuming.  That's how many people see it, and of course now that postage has increased  so much (from 36p to 50p second class) it's also an expensive pastime.

The British are expected to send 800 million Christmas cards this year, which is down on the billion we sent in 2005 but still adds up to an awful lot of expenditure.  The average person will send 19 cards this year, up from 15 last year.  Whoever that average person is, I envy them.  I send many more than that, which will cost a small fortune.

We have a Victorian entrepreneur called Henry Cole to thank - or, if you prefer - to blame, for this expensive annual ritual.  Cole conceived the idea of sending greetings cards at Christmas and in 1843 he commissioned an artist, John Callcott Horsley, the brother-in-law of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, to design the first card (see picture above).



Horsley's artwork was controversial; over the message 'A Merry Christmas and a Happy new Year to You' it featured a family, including a young child, drinking wine.  The burgeoning temperance movement was appalled, yet this failed to kill off the Christmas card concept.  Here we are 170 years later, revising the Christmas card list to include the people we met on holiday in Corfu in 2002, who didn't send us a car last year or the year before, but have done so this time.  It's become more of a pantomime than Mother Goose.  However, I enjoy sending Christmas cards to friends I rarely see.

Lovely card but what's the link with Christmas?!

The cards we send say a lot about us - charity cards, pictures of penguins, teddy bears, snow scenes, mail coaches - even ourselves.  Do we want to show people how well we're doing, how prosperous we are?  

Every Christmas, one of those round robin circular-type letters arrives, listing the families manifold achievements over the past 12 months. The other kind of circular letter is the one full of such banalities that you wonder why they bothyered, unless it was perhaps motivated by the very Christiam impulse to make you feel better about yourself and that your life is much more fun.

What does this have to do with Christmas?

That said, it's nice to include a bit of news with your card, but why not a short, personal, handwritten note, unless of course it's the ultimate cliche: 'hope to see you next year'.  Ths glibly conceals what you both know, that you probably won't see them until you bump into each other at an airport, in 2021.

So the whole business is fraught with potential faux-pas, and nobody knows that better that the etiquette adviser at Debrett's who counsels: 'Choose your cards carefully and be cautious of risque humour or strong religious messages'.

Also, alluding to that unexpected late card from the Corfu acquaintances, she points out that 'all too often the days leading up to Christmas can turn into a tit-for-tat scramble of retaliatory card sending'.  Her advice is 'cut your losses - a christmas card that arrives after the big day looks like a tawdry afterthought'.

True enough, and I also wonder what the point is of robotically dishing out cards to people you see every day?  

Perhaps not in the best taste!

It does look rather like a social minefield.  Little did old Henry Cole know, back in 1843, what he was starting. But he can't be faulted for his sentiment.

Debrett's Christmas card Equiquette

• Do handwrite your Christmas cards and envelopes.
• Do include a short personal message if the card is to far-flung friends or relatives.
• Do include your surname if in doubt, using an informal style: 'from John and Mary Smith', rather than 'from Mr and Mrs John Smith'.
• Do hand-deliver cards to your nearest and dearest postage is expensive in these straitened times.
• Do play it safe and keep it traditional; save risque humour for birthday cards.
• Don't Enclose a general round-robin newsletter, or photographs of the family and pets.
• Don't use a franking machine for your personal cards, always use a stamp.
• Don't rely on social networking instead of sending cards, most people (especially more mature recipients) will appreciate written correspondence.
• Don't send out generic e-cards or a group email; it's lazy and impersonal.
• The last posting date before Christmas is 20 Dec for first class letters and 15 Dec for second class (yesterday!).

(from an article in The Sunday Telegraph today)

Free (recycled) fabric for my stash


This week we discovered that one of our electric blankets no longer worked.  It seemed a shame to throw it away.

So I took off the electrical cable controllers and cut around the edge of the blanket itself.  
I then spent quite a long time ripping along all the quilting lines which joined the top cotton fabric, the springy wadding, the electric wires, and then the more substantial wadding.  

Then I pulled apart the three fabrics, took out and threw away the electric wire snaked between the layers of wadding - and now, hey presto, I have two rather large sheets of wadding, ready to upcycle them in the next project!

I've often wondered how to decorate a long narrow room and recently dug out these notes, which you may find illuminating too:

1. Don't treat it as one room: divide, perhaps using a corner arrangement but treat it as one continuous space ...
2. Think of traffic flow and keep traffic to one side
3. Try and avoid sitting looking straight at nearside wall, looking the length of the room will be more satisfying
4. Have a piece of furniture near the end of stop the eye
5. Where is the focal point? It's best not on  the end wall
6. Decorate the long walls with cool light colours
7. lighting - recessed shelving, towards groups of items.
8. small stools, cubes.
9. Put the bookshelves on short walls
10. However, if you do have to have bookshelves on the long walls, start half way up, so floor space seems wider as not all the room is narrowed

See also: http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/how-to-work-a-long-skinny-room1.htm

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/how-to-work-a-long-skinny-room3.htm

http://tlc.howstuffworks.com/home/small-space-design.htm

http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/672823/list/How-to-Arrange-Furniture-in-Long--Narrow-Spaces/