Archive for April, 2010

This is a very quick and simple but yummy recipe if you are short of time but a nutritious and tasty meal.

My partner created this recipe for lunch one day when we were clearing out the dining room and preparing it for redecoration. We had been doing physical work all morning and were tired and hungry. This recipe appeared out of the ingredients we happened to have in the fridge.

The preparation time (eg chopping garlic etc) takes 10 minutes and the cooking also takes 10 minutes - so if you multitask, you should be able to sit down to eat in 10-15 minutes.

Ingredients:

Pasta
Olive oil
Cooked and peeled prawns (available that way from most supermarkets)
Courgette
Cherry tomatoes
Garlic
Fresh coriander
Coriander pesto
Fresh lime
Lemongrass puree

What to do:

1. Heat a little olive oil in a wok
2. Stir fry the sliced courgette for a couple of minutes
3. Add the prawns
4. Add a teaspoon of pureed lemongrass (eg Bart’s Lemongrass in sunflower oil)
5. Stir fry for a couple of minutes.
6. Add the halved cherry tomatoes and a bunch of chopped fresh coriander
7. Stir fry for a further few minutes
8. Add chopped garlic just before you take it off the heat.
9. Meanwhile, you’ve been boiling your pasta, which would usually take about 10 minutes.
10. When the pasta is ready, put it in large serving bowl and mix in a tablespoon of olive oil and 3 teaspoons of coriander pesto.
11. Add the stir-fried prawn mixture to the pasta and mix in well.
12. Dish up onto plates or bowls, garnish with fresh coriander and a squeeze of lime juice. Season with black pepper, if required..

In September 1987, a group of four of us cycled the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela. We were four girls who didn’t know much about bicycles or even how to change a flat tyre and who didn’t really think of ourselves as endurance athletes. But we cycled over 500 miles in about 10 days across rugged wilderness and over the Galician mountain ranges to win - what? A certificate in Latin forgiving us of all our sins and a sense of personal satisfaction.

In this episode of my mobile podcast, while laid out on the sofa with a bad cold, I look back at this personal journey and a moment of transition in my life:

You can subscribe to the Fusion View Mobile Podcast by clicking on the “Subscribe with iTunes” button - it’s free and new episodes will be downloaded automatically to your iTunes application.

More about the pilgrim route:

The Caminon del Norte (northern route) that we took

The Confraternity of St James - the society where we obtained our pilgrimage pamphlet

Walk St James’s Way - a holiday company that will arrange your pilgrimage holiday, with or without bag transfer

Photo: thanks to Nick in exsilio from flick.com (CCL)

I’ve updated my How To guide for listening to podcasts as I thought it might be useful for some of you to have a handy reference guide on how to access podcasts - not just my Fusion View Mobile Podcast but also other podcasts available out there.

When I was telling a friend the other day about my podcastes, she asked me, “How do you listen to a podcast?”. On asking around, it turns out quite a number of my “middle youth” friends don’t know how to listen to podcasts and don’t have iTunes or other music / multimedia aggregator installed. Many have been too busy with work and family to fiddle around online to find out how to do it and others just don’t know where to start.

So to help them out - and anyone else who’d like to know how to listen to podcasts, here’s some guidance

Listen from my blog page

You can listen from my blog - on the post which has the podcast, click on the player and the podcast will start. That’s the simplest way to listen but you will need to be at your computer during the whole podcast to listen to all of it.

Note that you’ll need to have your sound speakers on to hear the audio. You’ll also need a broadband connection for best results.

Listen on your iPod or mp3 player

It’s best to listen to podcasts on an iPod or mp3 player which you can take with you wherever you are. Setting it up takes a few steps and once you’ve done that, everything is pretty much automated.

1. The easiest podcast application to use is iTunes - but do note that there are other options. Go to the Apple iTunes store and you’ll see the prominent section to Download iTunes, which will take you a page explaining what iTunes is with instructions. When you’re ready, click the Download Now button on that page and follow the instructions.

2. Once iTunes is downloaded, open it up and go the iTunes Store. You’ll see a virtual store where you can download music, videos, podcasts and audiobooks - some of which are free and some are paid-for.

3. To find the Fusion View Mobile Podcast in the iTunes Store, the easiest thing to do is to go to the Search box in the top right corner and type in Fusion View or Fusion View Mobile Podcast. My podcast will come up - click on that to see the episodes. Click Subscribe and iTunes will download the latest episode. In future, any time you open up iTunes, it will download the latest episode since your last download. (You may see both the Fusion View Podcast and Fusion View Mobile Podcast - the Mobile Podcast is the latest one that is regularly updated so that is the one to subscribe to for current and future episods.)

You can also click on the Subscribe with iTunes button on the podcast posts on my blog - or below:

Clicking on the above button will open up iTunes and subscribe to the Fusion View podcast automatically.

Many other podcasters have this or similar logos on their blogs so clicking on that will automatically subscribe you to their podcasts using iTunes.

4. If you want to get previous episodes on my podcast, go to the Library section of iTunes (left sidebar), click on Podcasts. This will take you to your library of podcasts that you’ve subscribed to. Click on Fusion View Mobile Podcast in the list of your podcasts and you will see a drop down list of previous podcasts in pale grey text to indicate that you haven’t downloaded them yet. Click on the “Get” button alongside whichever episodes you want to download.

5. To transfer podcasts from your iTunes library to your iPod or mp3 player, plug that device into your computer with iTunes open. iTunes should automatically recognise the device and take you through the steps to make the connection and download items from iTunes to the device. The iPod synch should be seamless as it’s an Apple product but you can find more help at the iPod and iTunes FAQ page. For those with mp3 players, there’s more detailed information on the mp3 players and iTunes page.

6. Every time you then plug in your iPod or mp3 player to your computer, iTunes should automatically open up and transfer the latest episodes of podcasts you’ve subscribed to across to your device.

For beginners, there’s more info and help at the New Users Guide to iTunes page.

Again, you’ll get best results for fast downloads via a broadband connection.

There are great podcasts to download from the BBC as well as radio stations in Australia and USA - what I love is that you can listen to them when you choose, not when the broadcaster chooses. There are also really good ones by ordinary people like myself (eg on running, triathlon, gardening, marketing, management, communications, technology etc) and also podcasts of lectures from some of the best universities in the world - check out iTunes U in the iTunes Store (I especially like UC Berkeley’s History and Psychology podcasts). Podcasts have really saved me from boredom and helped me get through tedious activities as I plenty of interesting audio to entertain me when I commute to work or I’m doing the washing up or gardening.

Enjoy!

Here in the UK, we just watched the London Marathon live on broadcast TV yesterday but if you want to watch marathons from other countries or less mainstream sports such as triathlons, it’s much more difficult, if not impossible.

I’ve just discovered* a website where you can watch coverage of sports that don’t usually make it onto terrestrial TV in your area - Universal Sports. Needless to say, it’s American but it seems to cover sports across the world (eg Rotterdam Marathon and Cycling in the Basque Country). You also have to download Microsoft Silverlight but that’s free and takes a couple of minutes.

I’ve just been watching the NYC Half Marathon 2010 to inspire me with my running. I’m up to 6 miles when I do my long run at the weekend and when I think that a Half is just over twice the loop that I do for that run, it doesn’t seem so bad. I reckon I should be able to build my distance to 13+ miles in a little while if that’s just going round that route a second time…

It’s not just wathcing the running that has been inspiring. It’s great to enjoy the scenery as the runners make their way through Central Park and then along the streets of New York. The top competitors are from all over the world, with runners from Africa with among the top athletes - there’s a truly global feel to the sport even while the setting is so local and specific to one city. And marathons are also one of the few sporting events where ordinary people can compete alongside world famous professionals. You may not be right up there in the front with the TV cameras circling around you but you’re testing yourself on the same course under the same conditions as world class runners - and no doubt some ordinary runners have suddenly burst into the forefront through this race to qualify for the Olympics or to become professionals themselves. It’s this “open to all” aspect that I love.

Click on the pic below to go to the Univesal Sports video for the NYC Half 2010.

*Thanks to Dana at the Three Apples Tall podcast who mentioned the site on one of her episodes.

Photo: from the Universal Sports NYC Half Marathon 2010 webpage, with thanks

Gardening is not an easy hobby to get into for me. I like to see instant results for my effort and with gardening, it may take months for there to be any outcome to my hard work. (In some ways, it’s rather like writing a novel!).

Over the autumn, we spent several afternoons in the front garden, clearing away weeds and faded flowers from the summer in order to plant some bulbs. Nothing happened for months over the winter and we were convinced they’d all died from the ice and snow.

But now that spring has come, we have a skip in our step as we walk down the garden path and see all our hard work manifest itself in bright splashes of colour - our tulips have sprung up at last!

However, it’s not all gladness and joy. We also planted loads of allium bulbs but there’ve been no sign of them. Perhaps we didn’t clear the weeds enough around them. Or perhaps the snow and frost got to them even as it spared the tulips. So we’re feeling a little frustrated and fed up on that front even while we’re enjoying our lovely, bright tulips.

I suppose that’s like anything that any of us put our efforts into. We can have the perfect plan and execute it the best way we know how. In the most part, things turn out according to plan but there’s always a margin for imperfection or error. It’s about celebrating the successes and taking the imperfections in our stride.

The recent volcano ash travel crisis has really shown up how dependent we’ve become on fast international travel by air. We do business across continents and holiday in far flung places without a thought for how huge those distances are. We have second or even third homes in different countries that we expect to visit every weekend or so. We conduct relationships with partners, spouses and family who live in other nations as if they all lived in an adjoining neighbourhood. We expect fresh fruit and veg from distant climates such as strawberries and lettuce in winter and newly cut mediterranean flowers in our centrally heated homes. But the natural world is not the kiddies playground that we have to think it is - there’s no rubberized, bouncy ground for us to fall on or health and safety legislation to give us someone to sue if we hurt ourselves by being in places and doing things that put ourselves at risk.

All this came to mind as I read stories of travellers having a horrendous time getting to their destinations by alternative means like ferry, train and coach or car. We expect to be able to fly from southern Europe to the UK in a couple of hours and are devastated and exhausted when it takes us 24 or 48 hours or more by other mechanized means. We’ve forgotten that we’re talking about crossing a continent here. We’ve forgotten how tiny and puny we are without the mechanical, electronic and industrialized extensions of our selves and identity that have been created for us over the last century. We’ve forgotten to respect the vastness of the oceans, the ruggedness of the land mass and the power of the mountains that surround us. When you have to make your way by foot or horse or by sail, you are at the mercy of whatever you encounter - brigands, flood, scorching sun, high winds and storms. In centuries before our time, travel was dangerous and took a long time - and people understood and were in awe of the natural landscapes and forces around them.

That is not to say that I would want us all to go back to those times. But I think this current travel crisis is an opportunity for us all to reflect on how complacent and cossetted - and distanced from the natural power of our world - we have become. It’s no bad thing to have the time suddenly to think about how we’ve set up our lives. Do we really need several homes in several countries? Do we need to fly across continents for a weekend break? Do we need strawberries in winter? I’m no greeny tree hugger and I’m not advocating a puritanical lifestyle but taking the time to question some of our expectations and constructs about what makes a good life, slowing down to become more aware of ourselves and the desires that pull us unsustainably can only be a good thing.

Photo: thanks to Powerhouse Museum from flickr.com (CCL)

While I was out on my run this evening in my local park, I came across a TV crew filming an episode of the long standing kids show Blue Peter. A whizzy young man from Rollerski.co.uk was teaching the “talent” how to rollerski for the cameras - and they were kind enough to smile for my snapshot as I whipped out my Blackberry to capture this moment.

When I used to live in Central London, I’d come across film crews quite often but here in the suburbs, it’s not so glamourous so it was fun to have something unusual to run past as I did my triple circuit…

I’ve had a go at rollerskating but spent most of the time on my bum. I’ve never tried rollerskiing and it looks quite fun - the poles should help you stay upright!

Snapshot is an occasional photoblog series featuring moments or images captured while I’m out and about.

snps

Continuing my exploration of the volcano ash travel crisis, I reflect on the silent skies above the UK this springtime. Podcasting guru Neville Hobson also adds his voicemail, reflecting on a silent London.

There’s also a round up of travelling friends who’ve been posting about being caught up in the air travel chaos on Facebook, including a voicemail report from Ingrid Beazley of Dulwich OnView who is stuck in the US after a museums/ heritage sector conference.

You can subscribe to the Fusion View Mobile Podcast by clicking on the “Subscribe with iTunes” button - it’s free and new episodes will be downloaded automatically to your iTunes application.

Here are links to the articles I discuss on the podcast:

Social Media and Stranded Travellers

Dunkirk-style mission to transport travellers

Also, I mention Dulwich OnView wins an international award

Other resources:

Liftshare.com - social network site for car sharing

My snaps from the park:

I’d love to hear about your experiences of the air travel ban - have you been enjoying the quiet in the skies above your area? Or have been caught up in the chaos, trying to get to your destination? You can send me an email or voicemail via my Contact Page

This is a spectacular view of the powerful forces of nature that we’re up against this week:

Twitter proved invaluable for my cousin who has been caught up in the volcano ash air traffic chaos while on holiday in Malaysia - in this podcast, I share her story and ask: How do you use Twitter to keep in touch, especially in a crisis?

Also, I use Rebtel.com for cheap international calls on my mobile phone so I thought I’d give you a handy tip about this service. I don’t get a commission from them but I just want to tell you about this useful service because I like it.

There is a new Postbag section with readers’ comments and feedback.

And I’ve set up some voicemail lines with a US/ North America as well as a UK telephone line AND a Skype line for you to leave your voicemail to be included in future podcast episodes. You can find all the details on my Contact Page at www.fusionview.co.uk/contact.

You can subscribe to the Fusion View Mobile Podcast by clicking on the “Subscribe with iTunes” button - it’s free and new episodes will be downloaded automatically to your iTunes application.

I’d love to hear how you’ve used Twitter to keep in touch with family and friends or if you have been caught up in the recent air travel crisis - or if you have any comments or thoughts about anything else I’ve discussed in my podcasts or on my blog. Just go to www.fusionview.co.uk/contact to send me an email or voicemail.

Photo: thanks to Danny Choo from flickr.com (CCL)