Wednesday 15th October 'Blog Action Day'

I had to get up very early as I had to cycle to the station with all my gear to get a train at 7.40 to Huddersfield, to attend Science Week at Paddock School, where I was performing 3 one-hour 'Professor Fiddlesticks Fun Physics' shows for Key Stage 2 children, with circus tricks being used to explain and demonstrate various maths and science subjects. I did 2 before lunch and one after, they all went brilliantly and the audience/participants were wonderful. We all enjoyed ourselves a lot.

I got driven back to the station and was soon on a train back to York, I tried to read my NewScientist but kept on dozing. I cycled into town to visit Craft Basics on Gillygate to replace my peacock feathers which are getting a little ragged because of all the use they've been getting. I also called in to Country Fresh to pick up compostables, got 2 carrier bags and a large box, somehow balanced these on top of the unicycles on the trailer and took them home.

Gill had done some pasta for tea and we had yesterday's soup on top of it as a sauce. Lovely!


BLOG ACTION DAY
I'd been thinking about a Blog Action Day post for this blog, and although it's not about abject poverty but people on low incomes, I want to tell you about a scam which has been directed at me, as a small business owner.

Many businesses are suffering right now and some might be thinking about taking on some extra advertising to drum up more work and generate more income. But beware, entertainers and perhaps some other businesses are at risk of being taken in by a scam which could mean that you lose money, and at these times, no-one can afford to do that.

About 3 months ago I was phoned by a company offering to place an advert for me in a Child Safety Directory. The concept was that the directory would have a load of info in it about lots of child safety issues, such as roads, online safety, 'stranger danger' etc. I said it sounded like a reasonable idea and I might consider placing an advert in it. I asked them to send me the paperwork, a sample booklet and advertisers rates. Nothing came and I forgot about it. Then a few weeks later, I got another phone call with a persuasive person telling me that I'd agreed to an advert and the options were £399, £299 or £199... and remember they cover the whole country... I was sure I hadn't agreed to anything, especially as I'd not seen anything in writing, and was careful to not agree to anything, as a verbal agreement can be legally binding.

I have been contacted a couple more times and after the last conversation, got the company address and contact name, and I contacted Trading Standards, aka 'Consumer Direct' (telephone 08454 04 05 06) to discuss this issue. They were able to confirm that there have been many similar scams, aimed at ripping off small businesses who are well-meaning, kind and perhaps just a little gullable.... Their website gives good advice about how anyone can avoid being a victim, lose money, experience identity theft and therefore potentially lose even more money.....

Now this experience, even if I had paid for a non-existant advert, would not have landed me in poverty, but it would have reduced my available income, and once someone has been taken in by this type of scam, their details are sold to other scammers who try to take advantage of them as well. So beware, take care, and be careful.

Saturday 17th March 07

Well another good day apart from this is the second time I've tried to type and publish my blog, as I had some major problems with it the first time!

At about 9.30 my boys and I cycled off towards St John's Universtiy (difficult to write it this way because for the entire time I've been in York, I've known it as a College) where the Science Week events are culminating. In a large hall there were a wide range of stalls from different organisations with many aspects of science on display, many of them 'hands-on'. The first thing we saw was from Askham Bryan, a selection of animals including two tortoises, leopard geckoes, a weird flattened hamster and a hermit crab. There were other stalls with animals, including one with jars of grain weevils which you could identify using a computer programme, and the Central Science Laboratory with various pests like aphids and cockroaches. CSL also had some non-food crops including oils from rape and flax (linseed) and biodiesel also soap from calendula. There was insulation made from flax and sheep fleece and plastic made from hemp, maize and sugar beet.

The boys had a go with some circuit boards, making a light go on and a hooter sound, whilst I chatted with a chap involved with a science festival, and I wondered whether he'd be interested in my Professor Fiddlesticks Fun Physics Show. He'll be in touch, I hope. We all had our ears looked into using an endoscope with a camera, and the image put on a monitor for all to see our eardrums and earwax. Lovely! The boys watched a minature railway which demonstrated various dangers (such as playing on the track and I rode a static bicycle and generated enough electricity to light four lightbulbs. Our friend Maria was demonstrating a battery using a piece of fruit. She's about to do a PGCE so she can teach at secondary school.

We cycled back after over two hours, using the cycle track again. However the track is only accessable via roads, so we all cycled on the road from and to the off-road track. I know this is a bit of a risk but I am very keen to teach the kids to use the road and there's only one way to do that, and that's to use the road. They're both gaining confidence quickly and I hope they won't ever be 'pavement cyclists'.

Home for 1pm and I spent bits of the afternoon splitting the logs I cut up recently, some by using the electric hydraulic logsplitter and others with the splitting axe or 'maul' as some call it.

At about 4, we had a visit from a lovely young couple Christiana and Riccardo, who are from Brazil. She takes and collects a child at the school our lads go to, and I often chat to her as she always smiles at me. The child belongs to someone she works for, I think. He is doing a Masters or PHd in a parasitic disease, he's half Italian and she's Oriental. They've been married a year and they are lovely. I invited them round as she had asked what all the logs were and why I delved into the school bins, so I thought a tour would be a good idea as it's difficult to explain, easier to show. I'm sad they're going back in May.

After tea and just after the boys were posted off to bed, our Scrabble-playing friend Will came, with his friend Fiona, who is a Scrabble whizz, apparently. Soon after we got going my new friend Taj came round, bearing the promised bottle of wine. We had a good game of SuperScrabble, with Taj looking on, this time, and contributing to the conversation. I won the game but only just. Fiona is a good player and hopefully we'll see her again. They left on the 11.09 bus as they were all heading to the same area of town.

I spent quite a time after this trying to get my laptop to behave but failed. So the blog I wrote didn't publish and just dissappeared. Got to bed after 1.30 am.