Stairway to Heaven

Arte y Pico Award

Nunyaa has paid my a great honor by awarding me with the Art y Pico award. Now I have to choose five other bloggers to pass this onto. Always a difficult choice because everyone in my sidebar deserves one that is why they are there ;-)

Anyway I shall avoid the same people that Nunyaa chose so that the award gets spread further! I based my choices on sites with art and photography. In no particular order:

Denise from Mrs Nesbitt's Place for photographs, poetry,crafts and wonderful scenery from Yorkshire. What more could you want?

Liz from Finding Life Hard providing us with daily tidbits, local scenery and most especially George and his escapades.

Sally from Sally in Norfolk with her lovely countryside walks, food and fun Meme's.

Richard from Havering On shares such wonderful scenery and Owls.

Helena from Creating a Likeness shares lovely photographs and artwork. Guess what? I found some owls here too.

RULES
1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award, creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogger community, no matter what language.
2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3) Each award-winning, has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the ward itself.
4) Award-winning and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.
5) To show these rules.

B is for Biddulph Grange Garden

I would like to share Biddulph Grange gardens with you. These are a unique series of gardens designed by James Bateman around 150 years ago. They feature a Chinese Garden enclosed within its very own Great Wall of China, Italian Terraces, Egyptian Court and so many other curious features.

I am struggling to choose which photographs to show you, I haven't even included that beautiful Maple tree...

A gallery of my other faves can be viewed here ;-)

Cross posted @ ABC Wednesday

Zimbabwe & Freedom of Speech

Thank You JHL for reminding me that the postponed trial for Lovemore and Wellington is due to be heard tomorrow. They were arrested on the 8th May and accused of "spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the State".

My earlier post gives more details on the issues involved. This post is in solidarity and support of my fellow trade union members plight!

Defence Training in the Balance

In a recent post I noted what the book "Squandered" had to say about Public Finance Initiatives (PFI). The latest edition of Private Eye, in its own satirical way, reports on the changes to fiscal rules and how the rules were used to hide PFI deals valued at around £200bn of future spending in order to balance the books.

"As the old rules retire, expect plenty of guff about how they have served the economy well but now's time for a change. Their real legacy will be to have forced around £200bn of future spending into private finance initiatives just so commitments could be kept off the books. Enormous waste and hare-brained ideas such as privatising defence training are the result."

The full article can be viewed here.

This leads nicely to another Private Eye article that reports on how the Ministry of Defence is getting cold feet over their plans to privatise military training. The PFI deal worth £11bn is with the Metrix consortium whose members include Qinetiq, EDS and Raytheon.

A statement regarding the Metrix negotiation was expected before the parliamentary recess but, due to there being a question mark over the affordability of the project, the Armed Forces Minister Bob Ainsworth decided a written parliamentary statement would not be appropriate at this time. This follows the recent admission by him that the credit crunch may make the project unaffordable.

""Cost growth and the implications of the credit crunch on borrowing have been a significant factor," admitted Bob Ainsworth. "The department has been working jointly with Metrix to drive the price down to seek to eliminate the affordability gap without materially affecting the scope of the project."

The figures always were marginal but with Metrix's borrowing costs likely to rise and the deal dependent on selling land in a depressed property market, the hare-brained privatisation plan could soon be pulled or drastically reined-in."

The full article can be viewed here.

The Baronial Staircase

D asked me to share my newly painted staircase. It still needs some pictures on the walls. James suggested this one and it has the seal of approval by my design adviser and will be present over the bookcase on the landing!

You know how much I love board games, so I really need to share part of my board game collection with you ;-)

PhotoHunt - Hanging

It might be stretching the point but it looks like the Pampas Grass is hanging to me!

Bed in Summer
"In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?"
Robert Louis Stevenson

For more PhotoHunt pictures check out tnchick.