The Best Plumbers Know This Science All Too Well!

My forays into plumbing have been pretty limited.  A bathroom rebuild, a kitchen refit and a few plumbed in appliances are about it!  What’ll be keeping our plumbers exercised this winter will be the consequences of  the good old frozen pipes.  As we all probably know, it’s not the freezing spell that gives the biggest headache, it’s the thaw that that unleashes all the water over your best furniture and carpets.  Where I live now, is a nicely insulated little semi that escaped any real problems last winter.  This coming winter though…  the weathermen seem to be predicting gloomy cold times. In a previous lifetime, I was a Science teacher at one of the local secondary schools.  I was a little infamous for bangs, smells and shocks!  One of...

SEO Chemistry; a Periodic Table of Search Engine Ranking Factors

Chemistry and SEO Ranking Factors? I bet chemistry isn’t the first thing that springs to mind when an Internet Marketing Expert starts discussing SEO!  However Search Engine Land, the guys at the forefront of ethical SEO research and knowledge, have just published a chart which they describe as the periodic table of Search Engine Ranking Factors. What is a Search Engine Ranking Factor? Search Engine Ranking Factors are those signals and attributes which the search engines seem to give weight to and which are found to affect the ranking of individual web page in the search engine results.  There is a growing body of experience and commercial results which say that SEO is an essential ingredient in anybody’s marketing mix.  What makes understanding of...

A Short Winter Climb to Revive Jaded Spirits

After a night out in Penrith and with winter still having its icy grip on the Lake District; what better way to take advantage of a low pressure day than to grab a quick trip up one of the classic little ice climbs around Thirlmere.  I couldn’t track down anyone to come out to play, so it had to be something fairly easy going and quick to access.  This was clearly the excuse I needed to have a look at Launchy Ghyll.  This is one of those under rated mini classics that I’ve been meaning to get round to for years, but had always been tempted by higher places. Launchy Ghyll is rated grade III but is one of those amenable climbs that lulls you into thinking it will be perfectly OK for a quick morning solo.  As Launchy is an SSSI (Site of Special...

A Very Different Kind of Challenge for 2010 – The Great Climb

The Previous Challenge was all about marketing and making an impact within your chosen niche, not a huge chance of tearing skin muscle and bone.  In life there are many kinds of challenge.  How do you fancy the chance to tackle an overhanging (150 ft in 600 ft) cliff of Lewisian gneiss in the bonny Western Isles on a typical full on Scottish summer rainstorm? That’s the invitation that Dave McLeod and Tim Emmet received from BBC Scotland about a year and a half ago!  The brief was simple; find a line on the most overhanging part of Sron Ulladale on the Isle of Harris and do a trad first ascent of the line in the 5 1/2 hour live broadcast slot, no matter what the weather throws at you. The result has been the most absorbing TV adventure epic I have ever had...

Santiago de Compostela- The End of Heather’s Camino

After 780km of walking, Heather has arrived at journey’s end.  The final day of the Camino was sadly let down by the weather.  After all the heat and the dust, just when you’d like a bright and colourful day; what does it do?  Tries to do an English Summer’s day!  Now that’s no way to treat a lady! Santiago and this is the last – probably! Well, I suppose you want me to write that there were bells, trumpets, full orchestra, banners, flags, dancing when I arrived in Santiago, don´t you! Let us first go the night which was OK apart from an Italian man a) snoring b) leaving his foot smell to waft around and c) already having got my back up by tending to the weedy female he was with who kept meeowing, a bit like a baby.  That is when she...