Three Beautiful Things

I've often passed the ice cream stand in the bottom of the Royal Victoria Place, but I've always had shopping on my mind and a baby in my arms... but today, I had a voucher, as well as a husband to carry the baby (and any shopping that might arise), so I grabbed the chance to sample Joe Delucci's wares. The first thing I learnt was that it's not ice cream -- it's gelato. I had a cone of coffee (grown-up and bitter) and nocciolata (which tasted of chocolate, and of nuts without the usual soggy, tooth gumming clumps of nut), while Nick went for a tub containing one scoop of stracciatella (snow white, generously studded with chocolate chips) and one of toffee (caramelly). All the flavours were dense and creamy and not too sweet -- apparently this denseness of flavour is because gelato is not served as cold as regular ice cream; and also it has less air beaten into it. I was an idiot to wait so long to try Joe Delucci's gelato, because it's delicious. I am ...

If I happened to win £40,000  -- Paypal is calling it a year's salary, but I reckon I could make it stretch further than that, as it's way more than I could ever hope to earn in a year, even in my wildest dreams -- I would use it to stretch out my maternity leave for another year so I could hang out with Baby Badger and watch him or her discover this world full of beautiful things without worrying about paying the bills. Children grow up so quickly, and you only get one chance to enjoy each stage of their lives. If you think you could use £40,000, just use PayPal for some on-line shopping --  Find out more . Anyway -- with Baby Badger due any day now, and Christmas looming, there are still a few bits and pieces on my shopping lists, so I can think of lots of ways to enter this competition. From Boots : I could do with a  Grobag Night Light  for those small hour feeding sessions; and the hollow-eyed new parents who visited our NCT class had one thing ...

In Catcher in the Rye , the hero talks evocatively about visiting his city's museum on a rainy afternoon. When I was younger, if we were out shopping, my mother would sometimes leave us to amuse ourselves in the town museum -- it was (and still is) free, and warm and out of the rain. She would come back 20 minutes later and we would still be crouched by the first case, entranced by the animals marching two-by-two into Noah's Ark. We also discovered that if you trod on a certain place on the floor, a single piece of meat in the toy butcher's shop would swing. The next room was set aside for natural history. We would stand and stare at the case of drooping privet leaves, hoping to see a stick insect move -- or at least some stick insect poo falling to the floor. The village where I grew up had a museum, too -- and for us children, the most talked-about item was a mummified rat that someone had found while restoring their house. In my memory, it is the size of a small cat, ...

One of the things that made me smile during my travels in Asia is the way drivers use horns. Getting ready to turn? Peep-peep! Greeting a friend? Peep-peep! Wondering what's causing this traffic jam? Peep-peep! Need to get past that beautifully painted lorry? Peep-peep! Goats in the road? Peep-peep! Here in the UK, however, horns are used mainly in anger -- Baaaaaaaarp! "What are you doing you idiot?" The sound of a UK carhorn makes me jump -- and it makes me feel as if I'm doing something wrong (even if I'm not the target). AXA Car Insurance has recently carried out research into the effects on car horns , measuring the mental stress caused by some of the UK's most popular car makes. The Fiat Punto came out as the most evil. Of course a car horn needs to pull a careless roaduser up short, but is it acceptable to distract everyone else on the scene to that degree? On a more positive note, visitors to the Respect on the Road site can vote for their favourite ...

What would you do if you won a year's worth of hotel nights to be used in cities across Europe, the Middle East and Africa over the next five years? Radisson Blu , the international hotel group is offering just that as a prize in a new competition called The Greatest Holiday in the World . For my part, the thought of a free room at London's Radison Blu Portman Hotel is very tempting -- the last train back to Tunbridge Wells is rather early, which usually means a night at the theatre ends with a crazy sprint to Charing Cross, and we don't always get pudding if we go out to dinner. But I quite like the look of this hotel with its giant fish tank -- I wonder where it is? It's really easy to enter: you write a short statement saying why you deserve to win this prize, and then persuade people to vote for you. I reckon that a short, sharp paragraph would serve you best. Make it inspiring, and perhaps go for the sympathy vote! The current leader says that he will share hi...

If you are hoping your blog will bring in a little extra income by way of that ugly word monetisation , selling advertising is one way to go about it. But it's hard for us mere mortals to get access to the people who are actually willing to pay up. Ebuzzing is a platform that has just launched in the UK. It gives bloggers an 'in' with big business advertisers who are keen to promote on blogs. The promotion takes the form of blog posts -- clearly marked 'sponsored' -- and videos both in dedicated players and in banners (again, marked with the name of the advertiser). Here's a video campaign in a banner -- the set-up appears similar to Adsense, and it seems as if it might be a good alternative. It's free to register on ebuzzing.com -- it took me minutes (I had my stats handy, though), and 3BT was approved within the hour. You then sign up for a campaign that appeals, read the brief and write a post. Your text is looked over by Ebuzzing and once approved...