16 July 2010 (Friday) - Laundry, Diary..

What with packing to go to Brighton kite festival, being away all last weekend, and then some rather awful weather, I’ve been rather skimping on the laundry front lately. My pile of grubby smalls has been getting somewhat out of control, so with a dry day forecast today I set the washing machine to “overload”, and stepped back. Being on a late start gave me some spare time, so in between sorting out wash loads I had a look at the “Dates for the Diary” section of the blog. With the year now more than half-way over it’s almost time to start thinking “bonfire parade” – I’ve pencilled in dates for three of those, as well as all sorts of other things including some kiting and an Xmas party(!) Perhaps it’s taking forward planning a tad too far, but I find that if I don’t write these dates down, I only forget them and find myself agreeing to do conflicting events, like I have on 14 August.

I heard something on the radio which made me smile today. Heralded as the saviours of the environment, electric cars are actually dangerous things. Because they are so quiet, unsuspecting pedestrians don’t hear them coming, and so get run over. To combat this, electric cars are being given artificial engine noises so the unwary can hear them coming, and there are plans afoot for future models to have customisable sounds, in much the way my mobile phone has. Apparently focus groups have already established that many of the sound effects from “Star Trek” would be popular “car-tones”. Me – I’d have the sound of an ice-cream van; if only to wind up the kiddies...