ON THE FIRST DAY..

"The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day', and the darkness he called 'night'. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day."

Or so says Genesis 1:2-5.

Polko says bullshit. But lights there are. And plenty of them! Here are a few of my current favourites:

This is called Once (In The Blue) and made by Flos of Italy. It has two bulbs inside a 1m x 2m resin and aluminium asymmetric ball. One is a white halogen for traditional lighting, the other a black light that gives a fantastic effect at night. Big and beautiful.

This is Ari Grande by Axo Light. In a single line as here, or clustered together in a block or circle. Mmmmmm.

Blò IC, designed by Roberto Pamio for Oty Light, a smallish single halogen plasterboard fixed clear glass unit. With rough beaten steel backsplash panels behind work surfaces I think these are among the best kitchen designs ever.. unfortunately, we have nine halogen points in our kitchen and so the total cost would add to over 1,300 euros..

And then, my big favourite.. Campari Light by Ingo Maurer, one of the finest and quirkiest lighting designers of the moment.. Real Campari in bottles, suspended by an adjustable Campari bottle crown. Too much to buy at 240 euros but I reckon I can do something similar for a room I'm currently finishing at home!.. though I do like Campari so may have to resort to coloured water?!

A FEW POSTS AGO..

..I commented on the Thai resistance to their government, and in particular the Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat. Today they have left the airport lounges that have been their bedrooms and main political platform for the past 8 days and allowed passengers and the country to start to regain some form of normality.

The mass sit-in of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) appears to have worked for the time being, with Somchat now being banned from politics by a Court ruling and a new set of parties forming to start the new government. They have left with a warning that they will return if the new government turns out like the last.

Anyone with me on a sit-in at Heathrow to depose our leader and his failed New Labour cronies?

No, I didn't think so.

Unfortunately.

POLKO'S CHRISTMAS LIST

Slightly tongue in cheek, but since it's December I thought I'd post up my Christmas wishes.. apart from good will to all men, peace on Earth and that type of stuff..

This Christmas 2008/09 Polko would like:

1. a bluetooth headset - like this
2. a Range Rover (Vogue and in green or dark blue of course!)
3. chocolate - dark, white, milk it's all the same to me
4. Two Polish girls!
5. And, most of all, a relaxing time of it all with plenty bottles of Bordeaux

There. Now the world knows. Here's counting the days...

THE BENEFITS OF SLOWING DOWN..

Benefit #1
So, today I have woken up to snow all around and the sight of my neghbours trying to get to work on a snowbound, 1-in-3 hill with bends! This makes me very happy that Polko and Mrs Polko decided to sloooow the f*ck down a few years ago, get sensible and restructure the way we lived (moving from town to country and working from home). Once they've all slivered their way down and off to their various concrete towers of babel to chatter incessantly into telephones about things that don't really matter to them we will have a whole hillside and dozens of acres to go out and have a massive snowball fight in. Cool.

Benefit #2
The slowdown has reduced our new work flow (though not ceased it altogether happily). So, the phones are not ringing so often and emails arriving at a slightly reduced pace. Giving me the time to get on my PS3 and Call of Duty: World At War having bought it and played it intensively for a week then finding myself swapping back to Call of Duty: Modern Warfare online - hits the mark with me more than stomping around Russia or Japan as part of the WWII effort!

Benefit #3
Related to the time I currently have - there are now signs that NASN television may well be starting to feature some of the better NHL team games on their channel, having attempted to buy in cheaper games by lesser teams than the Montreal Canadiens, NY Rangers and Islanders, Toronto Mapleleafs etc. So, I have more quality ice hockey to watch... and soon they promise they will even put Hockey Night in Canada back on each week. yay-hey!

Benefit #4
This came in the BBC News home page load-up this morning: Sales growth slows down at Tesco!

What a wonderful piece of news! Apparently like for like (which means they strip out the effects of opening new stores and extending existing ones in the last year) quarterly sales have grown by only 2% against 4.8% in the same period last year. Tesco are relatively exposed to swings in demand as they sell not only staple foodstuffs but also a large range of 'other items', luxury and spur of the moment purchases such as electronics, DVDs and clothing.

Factor in the effects that Woolworths keeping hold of their vast stocks of DVDs/CDs and other media to sell off at whatever price they can get for them this year (Woolworths are the largest distributors of said products to the supermarket chains and their administrators know that this stock is going to help them maximise cash in their winding up process) and things might just test the management Board at Tesco and the like a little more than they have been doing for the past five/six years or more. My guess is that some Directors of larger companies may well be asking themselves if slowing their life a little is in order in the coming few months. My advice would be: take the bonuses and golden pay-off's and get the hell out, learn to grow your own food, keep your own animals, reduce your consumption a little and regain some basic skills of being human. Anyone with a manual can operate a Blackberry, not everyone can grow them or make a Blackberry Trifle.

Which final thought reminds me of one of my favourite lines in a Braintax rap, when talking about a future world where energy lines break down and people are forced back into a simpler and more skilled way of living..

..holed up in the woods with my trusty rifle,
the rains rusted it up,
so now I'm living on snow and berry trifle.

Which then moves my mind onto Survivors - on TV tonight at 9p.m. Yay-hey times ten!