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Sep
9thAwesome Sea Monsters
Sea monsters have been creatures of myth and mystery for hundreds and maybe even thousands of years. People telling tales of giant squid or octopus have been around for ages too
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Sep
6thMost High Tech Cars on the Planet
What influences your decision when you look at buying a new car? For me, I do like my gadgets. MP3 player docks, self balancing headlights and electric packs are the basics I look for. It may not be fashionable to admit that these features inform my eventual choice when there are arguably better things like fuel efficiency and green credentials that should rank higher. Small cars, particularly electric cars have a lower running carbon impact than gas guzzlers. Source. Mercedes is often hailed as the leading motor company when it comes to developing new electronic and mechanical features that improve the driver’s experience and safety. Crumple zones, traction control, air-bags and anti-lock brakes have now all been introduced onto modern family cars as standard thanks to Mercedes’ innovations. To be classed as a high tech car, the vehicle has to have more than just a couple of innovative features; it has to be the full package where mechanical and electronic components work in harmony. Mercedes CLS Coupe Ride handling and driver comfort is important for long distance driving. With this in mind it’s small wonder that so many reps drive Mercedes saloons. Night driving has also been improved. With the CLS Coupe’s first ever all-LED active headlights, you can illuminate the road ahead even more clearly than with bi-xenon headlights. On corners the lights change direction to show more of the road ahead than with static lights. For comfort you get the ‘memory package’ which gives you four-way [...]
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Aug
24thTen Photos of Real Hippies
There’s nothing quite like an outdoor gig is there? Mp3s, CDs and vinyl is all very well but seeing your favourite band in public is, after all, the real thing. When it comes to a really big open air musical extravaganza for this year your thoughts will probably turn to Virgin’s very own V Festival 2011.This year sees it held at Weston Park on the 20th August and Hylands Park on the 21st August. Headline acts include the Arctic Monkeys, Rihanna, The Script and the Manic Street Preachers. It stands out as one of the biggest events of the calendar alongside Party in the Park and Glastonbury. The whole al fresco theme of these gigs in years gone by emoted love, peace and harmony and it was Glastonbury and the US’s Woodstock in particular that the hippie culture embraced with open arms. It was in the Sixties that the Hippie movement crossed the Atlantic to our shores with its ideologies of anti-war, free love, psychedelic rock and the freeing of your mind through the use of hallucinogenic drugs like marijuana and LSD. Figureheads of the Hippie subculture include the legendary guitarist, Jimi Hendrix, and singer, Janis Joplin. Bob Dylan and The Grateful Dead were also proponents of the lifestyle. Many modern-day hippies try to eschew the stigma of drug abuse and focus more on the edicts of cultural and religious diversity, a live and let live attitude and goodwill to your fellow man: something that we could certainly do with [...]
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Jul
5thElephant Beauty Pageants
So I’m searching the Internet a few days ago and just having a general browse around when I come across the topic of elephant beauty pageants. That’s right, this event actually exists! It shocked me because firstly, I couldn’t believe that you could rate elephants on their apparent beauty (I mean, don’t they all look pretty much the same?!) and b) I really don’t get the overall idea behind a pageant competition at all. Source So, I know that beauty pageants are a big deal in the USA but in the UK…not so much. It just isn’t heard of over her at all. We would never go through all the hassle of van hire to cart about cases of stuff, preparation like spray tans and practising speeches and talents and then travelling a long way to attend one competition! I’m of the mind that kids have enough on their plates with school. America have the huge Miss World Competition which we think is a bit weird but not too bad an event. I just think it is a little strange to give someone prizes for looking beautiful. It’s like, you were born naturally pretty – here’s a sash! And every girl always acts really fake too with the whole, “I want world peace thing” and juggling as their main talent etc. They just seem like extremely made up Stepford Wives that have all congregated in one place. But you know that behind doors they are just like me and you. [...]
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Jul
6thLargest Car Recalls in History
If you’ve ever been at the receiving end of a letter from your motor manufacturer saying your beloved car needs to be returned due to a model-wide recall then you’ll have experienced the usual despair and shock that many owners go through. Most recently, the high profile problems of Toyota have dominated news headlines and motoring magazines and have led to talk about how reputation damaging a recall can be. Daily coverage with fresh reports of additional troubles from further models adds fuel to the fire but you ay be surprised to learn that Toyota’s recall is only the sixth largest in history. The problems can range from something seemingly innocuous to that of a major design flaw or below-par components. Thankfully most recalls are carried out prior to serious incidents occurring but that is not always the case. Due to the inherent financial cost involved to the company there can be a worrying lack of urgency to rectify faults before a tragedy transpires. I’ve compiled a chronological list of the largest car recalls in history and although statistically it shows that the most successful brands have the worst record, it is because of their popularity and market domination that when a problem occurs it affects so many owners. If you want to safeguard yourself from recalls and the potential for safety risk then my advice would be to wait at least 12 months before committing yourself to a new model; by then any flaws should have made themselves known. [...]
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Aug
24thRidiculously dangerous rituals still practiced today
If I told you that there are some customs in other countries that would, say, involve dropping babies off buildings you would probably think I am nuts. Either that or we live in an odd, barbaric world where stereotypical ‘natives’ carry out atrocious inhuman acts. Well, believe it or not, there are some ridiculously dangerous rituals being practised today that you may find weird or plainly abhorrent. When I go on holiday I tend to stick to countries I’m can speak the lingo, know the rules of the road and a few of their customs. Therefore I will indulge in car hire Spain but you’ll not likely find me hiring a canoe on the Amazon. Rituals come on all shapes and sizes. I’m not talking about obsessive compulsive style ones or those motivational reassurances you give yourself before a big occasion; I’m talking about high risk religious and cultural activities that could cause serious injury or even death. Let’s start with a South American initiation ceremony where a boy becomes a man. Ant Initiation Here, on the Amazon, the boys of this tribe must wear gloves containing bullet ants (Paraponera clavata) for ten minutes at a time and repeat it nineteen times. They must endure many stings, the pain of which is near unbearable, to prove themselves. The ants are so called because the pain their bites inflict are supposedly of the same intensity as a bullet wound. The Schmidt Sting Pain Index rates it as a 4+ and describes [...]
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Jul
28thTiny Wind-Up Cars
I belong to that era where owning a wind-up toy car was part and parcel of childhood. Simple fun, perhaps, but it gave me an insight into mechanics and potential energy. A toy doesn’t have to be explicitly educational to teach. Today we are constantly bombarded with messages of ‘save the planet’ and how owning your own car makes you a defiler of our green and pleasant land. Whether you believe it to be true or not (I do) that us belching out greenhouse gases from our faithful combustion engines is harming the environment, it behoves us to grow up and learn to travel more responsibly. Public transport helps and if you are someone who needs to do a long distance journey to say, the Midlands, then grabbing a train and taking advantage of car hire Leeds will certainly have less impact then taking your own motor there. Getting yourself a small car can help but even better if you can afford an electric vehicle. But could there be an even better way? How about making that childhood wind-up car into a full size vehicle? Well, it’s a fascinating idea and one with probably too many drawbacks to be practical. This chap isn’t really winding his car up, ah the misconceptions of my youth. However, if he was, can you really see many people wanting to do that today? Source You may have heard of regenerative braking, some hybrid cars possess it and some Formula 1 racing cars do too. [...]
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Jul
28thSuper Stacked Carparks
It’s amazing to think that so many people can co-exist in one relatively small place. Consider the fact that the city of London has an estimated population of 7,700,000 people crammed in to 32 boroughs. It’s quite amazing that people manage to live quite happily there. Although one thing’s for sure, I never consider any type of car hire London when I’m in town, the underground is sufficient for me! You would never get anywhere with all the congestion and the charges mean you would sure feel it in your back pocket! But that’s because the city is getting overcrowded. But it’s our ingenuity as humans which has allowed 7,700,000 people to get by. We saw that we had flat ground and that would not provide us enough space so luckily, we came up with the idea to build upwards! If it weren’t for the invention of buildings that are more than one storey, we would not all be able to fit on this planet. By now I’m sure people would have to stop producing yet more people! Buildings come in some spectacular shapes, styles and sizes all over the world. Yet one structure is greatly under appreciated….the car park. The majority are huge, grey concrete eyesores but they serve us a good purpose. However, there are some car parks which look good whilst also fulfilling our need for space in a super stacked way…. 1111 Lincoln Road Source Source Source I never thought the words “parking” and “sexy” could [...]