Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Latest fad to hit the health industry Vaginal steam baths!!

Newest trend to hit spas and health resorts vaginal steam bathing.

An ancient Korean tradition and widely available in spas in Korea and Japan, it's being touted as a cure for everything from low energy to infertility. Problem is, there is no evidence it actually works.

Western spas have long been heavily influenced by Asia, both in the style of their treatments and décor, with Thai massage, acupuncture, and Ayurvedic medicine popular trends in spas around the globe.

But now Western spa-goers are willing to pay around €38 to squat over a pot of steaming mugwort tea (blended with wormwood and other herbs) in a treatment known as chai-yok. The woman is usually seated above the pot over an open bench that allows the steam to rise and make contact with the vaginal area.

According to Korean medicine, the steam baths help treat stress, fight infections, clear hemorrhoids, regulate menstrual cycles, and aid infertility. Niki Han Schwartz, owner of Tikkun Holistic Spa in Santa Monica, California, told The Los Angeles Times that vaginal steam baths helped her get pregnant at the age of 45 after only five steams (she'd been trying to conceive for three years).

Dr. Suzanne Gilberg-Lenz, an obstetrician and gynecologist at Women's Care of Beverly Hills Medical Group in the US, says the idea of vaginal steaming the pelvic area is "not insane," and can increase circulation to the region, which can trigger an immune response.

Where can you get one? The treatment is still hard to find, especially outside of Japan, Korea, and major American cities such as New York and Los Angeles, but it is available at a growing number of holistic spas. Tikkun Holistic Spa in Santa Monica, California, offers a 30-minute V-Steam treatment for $50 . (The identical treatment is available for men, to steam the perineal area) "take note hard boiled eggs guys".

Also Daengki Spa in Los Angeles offers a 45-minute V-Herbal Therapy treatment for $20. New Yorkers can steam their privates for $75 for a 30-minute session.
Want to try it at home? A complete setup, including an open-seated stool, boiler, and herbs, can be purchased online at Rakuten.com for R1,203.24

Pork steaks with caramelised pears and blue cheese a South African take on pork and apple sauce

Put a twist on the classic pork and apple combination by using tasty South African pears and blue cheese

Ingredients

1tbsp sunflower oil

3 red onions, roots trimmed and cut into eighths

4 forelle pears, quartered and cored (leave the skin on)

few sprigs rosemary, leaves only

6 x 175g steaks pork, trimmed of excess fat

50 g blue cheese, cubed

Method

1. Season the pork and grill on a medium heat for 15-20 minutes and then
turn over and grill for a further 10 minutes.

2. In the meantime, using two hob rings, heat the oil in a hob-proof roasting
tin, then add the onions, pears, most of the rosemary and seasoning and
caramelise for around 5-10 minutes.

3. Add the steaks to the vegetables and scatter with the remaining rosemary
and the cheese.

4. Place back under the grill until the cheese starts to melt, then serve

Aliens and the french town of Bugarach seem linked to Armageddon

Bugarach an alleged Alien hideout

Mayor Delord has had enough of weirdos creeping around

Bugarach, population 189, is a peaceful farming village in the Aude region, southwestern France and sits at the foot of the Pic de Bugarach, the highest mountain in the Corbières wine-growing area.

But in the past few months, the quiet village has been inundated by groups of esoteric outsiders who believe the peak is an "alien garage".

According to them, extraterrestrials are quietly waiting in a massive cavity beneath the rock for the world to end, at which point they will leave, taking, it is hoped, a lucky few humans with them.

Most believe Armageddon will take place on December 21, 2012, the end date of the ancient Maya calendar, at which point they predict human civilisation will come to an end. Another favourite date mentioned is 12, December, 2012. They see Bugarach as one of perhaps several "sacred mountains" sheltered from the cataclysm.

If tomorrow 10,000 people turn up, as a village of 200 people we will not be able to cope. I have informed the regional authorities of our concerns and want the army to be at hand if necessary come December 2012."

Mr Delord said people had been coming to the village for the past 10 years or so in search of alien life following a post in an UFO review by a local man, who has since died. "He claimed he had seen aliens and heard the humming of their spacecraft under the mountain," he said.

The internet abounds with tales of the late President François Mitterrand being curiously heliported on to the peak, of mysterious digs conducted by the Nazis and later Mossad, the Israeli secret services.

A visit to Bugarach is said to have inspired Steven Spielberg in his film, Close Encounters of the Third Kind – although the actual mountain he used is Devil's Tower in Wyoming. It is also where Jules Verne found the entrance and the inspiration for A Journey to the Centre of the Earth.

Recently, however, interest in the site had skyrocketed, said the mayor, with online UFO websites, many in the US, advising people to seek shelter in Bugarach as the countdown to Armageddon commences.

"Many come and pray on the mountainside. I've even seen one man doing some ritual totally nude up there," said Mr Delord.

Sigrid Benard, who runs the Maison de la Nature guesthouse, said UFO tourists were taking over. "At first, my clientele was 72 per cent ramblers. Today, I have 68 per cent 'esoteric visitors'," he said.

Several "Ufologists" have bought up properties in the small hamlet of Le Linas, in the mountain's shadow for "extortionate" prices, and locals have complained they are being priced out of the market. Strange sect-like courses are held for up to €800 a week. "For this price, you are introduced to a guru, made to go on a procession, offered a christening and other rubbish, all payable in cash," said Mr Delord.

Valerie Austin, a retired Briton from Newcastle who settled in Bugarach 22 years ago who said the alien watchers were spoiling the village atmosphere.

"You can't go for a peaceful walk anymore. It's a beautiful area, but now you find people chanting lying around meditating. Everybody has the right to their own beliefs, but the place no longer feels like ours." She said alien watchers planted strange objects on the mountainside.

Recently she found a black virgin statuette cemented to the rock face.

Although she described the alien claims as "total rubbish", she said there was nevertheless something special about the place.

"It has a magnetic force in the scientific sense of the word. There is a special feeling here, but if I really believed the world were about to end, I'd have a whale of a time over the next two years" rather than look for salvation, she said.

Original post http://www.telegraph.co.uk/2012

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Lifestyle choices at Christmas

This woman is 51.

She is a TV “health guru” advocating a holistic approach to nutrition and ill health, promoting exercise, a pescetarian diet high in organic fruits and vegetables. She recommends detox diets colonic irrigation and supplements, also making statements that yeast is harmful, that the colour of food is nutritionally significant, and about the utility of lingual and faecal examination being of utmost importance


This woman is 50.

She is a TV cook, who eats nothing but meat, butter and decadent deserts.

So forget “joining a gym and eating more celery”. This Christmas, it's food and booze all the way. And the only exercise you need is dancing and shagging.

Merry Christmas! Everybody
and if you happen to overdo it this season then good for you

Monday, December 20, 2010

Ok so for those guys out there who are clueless about woman and there moods get a look at this lot...

OK so if Christmas day comes and your sweetheart has any of these looks.... you will at least know why

 Ah crap no 2 seems quite common in my humble experience

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Aron Ralston an extraordinary story of human courage

Aron Ralston prepares to chop off his own arm to free himself,
 48 hours into his ordeal in a Utah canyon.

For six days, Aron Ralston kept himself alive with fierce self-control and a conviction that only logical thought could let him survive. But the epiphany when the 27-year-old climber realised how he could save his own life came from an explosion of blind rage.

Ralston had been climbing the narrow canyons of Utah alone when a dislodged boulder fell on to his right arm, trapping him against a rock. He was entombed in the wilderness of Bluejohn Canyon, carrying a small rucksack with just one litre of water, two burritos and a few chunks of chocolate. He had headphones and a video camera but no mobile phone – and there was no reception anyway. Most foolishly of all, he had not told anyone where he was going. He eked out his water, futilely chipping away at the 800lb rock and slowly entering a state of delirium, until he was eventually forced to cut off his trapped arm, with the small knife from his cheap multitool kit.

Ralston, who is now 35 and still with the wiry physique of a climber, has just attended the London premiere of 127 Hours, Danny Boyle's film about his extraordinary escape from certain death. The film – like Ralston himself, full of boyish energy – is remarkably true-to-life, says Ralston, talking quickly and waving his arms around animatedly. It does not, however, fully describe his "gruesome" moment of revelation.

When his blunt knife pierced his skin but came to rest against solid bone, Ralston thought there was no chance he could perform the gruesome amputation that would save his life. He brushed some grit from his trapped thumb and a sliver of flesh peeled off "like the skin of boiled milk", he remembers. "I'm like, what the . . . ? I take my knife and I'm poking a bit more and the knife just slips into the meat of my thumb like it's going into room-temperature butter. My hand has almost jellified. The knife tip goes in and, 'pssstt', the gases from decomposition escape and there's this putrid smell. I go into this rage. I'm in this hyper-emotional state after all this regimented discipline to keep it together and in this moment, when I'm trying to rip my arm out from the rock, I feel it bend and it stops me – 'That's it! I can use the boulder to break my bones!'"

It was this moment of high emotion, rather than calm logic, that led to Ralston deliberately snapping the bones in his arm by hurling himself furiously against the boulder, finally enabling him to cut through his limb with a blunt knife. It is hardly surprising that audiences have responded with feeling: fainting in auditoria when they watch the point when Ralston, brilliantly played by James Franco in the film (he has been nominated for a Golden Globe), begins his amputation. Despite what might be considered an unpromising climax for mainstream entertainment, made more unpromising by the fact that most people know exactly what will happen, this moment is compelling, without Boyle being gratuitously gory. And despite retelling the story for what must be the umpteenth time, Ralston is also utterly captivating, completely inhabiting the moment again, miming out what he did by making a brutal stabbing motion with his good arm into what is now a dark grey prosthetic limb.

In the film, Franco's Ralston is at first a hyperactive, overconfident loner who believes he is invincible as he careers around Bluejohn Canyon, shamelessly showing off to a couple of female hikers he meets and, Jackass-like, taking photographs of himself when he falls off his mountain bike. "That's so you, Ralston," friends have told him, but if his portrayal on film was true to his life then, Ralston is certainly much more likable now.

The year before his accident, Ralston quit his job as an engineer with Intel to climb all Colorado's "fourteeners" – its peaks over 14,000ft. In May 2003, he began "canyoneering" in Utah, navigating the narrow passages of Bluejohn with a mixture of free-climbing, daring jumps and climbing with ropes. He was negotiating a 10ft drop in a 3ft-wide canyon listening to his favourite band, Fish, when he dislodged a boulder he thought was stable. "I go from being out on a lark in a beautiful place and just being so happy and carefree to, like, oh shit. I fell a few feet, in slow motion, I look up and the boulder is coming and I put my hands up and try to push myself away and it collides and crushes my right hand." Ralston was pinned in the canyon, his right hand and lower arm crushed by the 800lb rock. "There was this stunned moment of what-?" he laughs. "And it's almost comic."

The next second, the pain struck. "If you've ever crushed your finger in a door accidentally," he says, this was "times 100". In an "adrenalised rage", for 45 minutes he "cursed like a pirate". Then he reached for his water bottle. As he drank, he had to force himself to stop. "I realise this water is the only thing that's going to keep myself alive," he says. Having failed to tell anyone where he was going, he knew he would not be found. "I put the lid back on the water bottle and gathered myself. It was like, all right, brute force isn't going to do it. This is the stop-think-observe-plan phase of rational problem-solving. I have to think my way out of here." As he describes how he thought through his options, he taps his prosthetic arm on his fingers.

He ruled out the most drastic option – suicide – but the next most drastic alternative came to him immediately. "There's this surreal conversation with myself. 'Aron, you're gonna have to cut your arm off.' 'I don't want to cut my arm off!' 'Dude, you're gonna have to cut your arm off.' I said it to myself. That little back-and-forth. Then, 'Wait a minute. Stop. I'm not talking to myself. That's just crazy. You're not talking to yourself, Aron.' Except I would continue to talk to myself in various ways, to remind myself not to pass out."

After two days spent fruitlessly chipping away at the rock with his knife and devising a clever but futile system of pulleys with his climbing clips and ropes to hoist the boulder clear – he was defeated because climbing rope is stretchy and he couldn't obtain the required tension – he put his knife to his arm, only to find it was so blunt he couldn't even cut his body hair. In Boyle's film, when Ralston realises he can use the knife like a dagger rather than a saw, the camera follows the knife's journey into his flesh so the audience can see blade come to rest against bone inside his arm. This scene is "beautiful" to Ralston. He vividly remembers how it felt to have the knife in his arm, touching his bone "because it meant, I'm gonna die. It went from, 'I did it!' to, 'Oh, I'm going to die here.' I could no more chip through that bone than I would be able to excavate the rock to free my hand."

By the fifth day, Ralston had found "peace" in "the knowledge that I am going to die here, this is my grave". In the middle of his final night, hallucinating through hunger, lack of water and 3C temperatures, he had a vision of a small boy. "I see myself in this out-of-body experience playing with him with a handless right arm. I see myself scoop him up and there's this look in his eyes, 'Daddy, can we play now?' That look tells me this is my son, this is in the future, I'm gonna have this experience some day. Now it's like, I am going to get through this night."

The next morning, finally, came the rage and its revelation – that Ralston could fling himself against the boulder to break his own bones. From then, it was easy. The snap of his bones "like, pow!" was a horrifying sound "but to me it was euphoric", he recalls. "The detachment had already happened in my mind – it's rubbish, it's going to kill you, get rid of it Aron. It's an 'it'. It's no longer my arm. As I picked up the knife, I was very cool and collected." It took him an hour to hack through his flesh. "As painful as it all was, the momentum of the euphoria was driving it," he says.

It is striking in Ralston's own book, and in Franco's portrayal in the film, just how curiously unemotional he is about his predicament, which he views not self-pityingly nor self-critically but simply as a series of problems to be solved. When asked why the epiphany that leads to his freedom came through anger and not his more characteristic rational thought, Ralston gives a particularly good answer. "The lesson is that resilience is about flexibility. It's not just about exercising your strengths," he says, flexing his good arm, "it's also about exercising what aren't your strengths." At this point, he flexes his prosthetic arm. "I'm a very analytical and rational person, very mind-centred in my life. And yet here's this way I was very heart-centred, both finding my strength and finding the solution. It didn't have anything to do with logic, it had to do with the sensation, the feeling of the bone just bending in a really weird way. Then it became a thought: 'I can break my bones.'"

In the canyon, Ralston calculated it would take him at least 10 hours to find medical help and he would bleed to death but, using pieces of climbing kit as a tourniquet, he strapped himself up and somehow managed to scale a 65ft cliff to escape the canyon. Exposed to the fierce sun, he was found by three Dutch tourists, who gave him water and helped him stagger on, before he was picked up by a search-and-rescue helicopter dispatched by his family to look for him.

Watching these scenes on film, "that's where I start getting all weepy-eyed," says Ralston, "because when I see that helicopter what I'm seeing is my mom, because she made the rescue happen."

Where Ralston is radically different today, in the flesh, compared with his pre-accident self as portrayed by Franco in the film, is in his recognition that he depends on other people. The love of others, his relationships with his family and friends, kept him alive, he says now. "It was very much a spiritual experience and different from Joe Simpson in Touching The Void. That reinforced his agnosticism – 'I did this all on my own and God doesn't exist because if he did, he would've helped me out, that fucker.' For me it was to go through this and realise, well, God is love, and love is what kept me alive and that love is what got me out of there."

The tool that connected him to other people's love was his camera. "It's like this lifeline to the outer world, to other living beings, to love. That's what kept me alive." He recorded his "last will and testament" in a series of video diaries during his entombment so it is nicely symbolic that his ordeal has been made into a film. Although he played his videos to his parents, he decided he would never allow them to be shown in public. Instead, many of Franco's monologues exactly replicate what Ralston said in his own personal videos.

Boyle shot 127 Hours at the exact spot where Ralston had the accident but added some fictional scenes, such as when he splashes in a secret pool with the women he meets before the accident (the reality – helping them with a few basic climbs – was much more prosaic). Ralston was uncomfortable with these at first but belatedly understood that such changes enabled the audience to "experience it in a truthful way" and did not undermine the "authenticity" promised by Boyle. "The movie is so factually accurate it is as close to a documentary as you can get and still be a drama," he says. "I think it's the best film ever made." He has watched it eight times and cried every time.

The vision that Ralston had during his final night in the canyon has come true. Earlier this year, Ralston's wife, Jessica, gave birth to a baby boy, Leo. Ralston admits to moments of frustration with his prosthetic arm but sees it as his "salvation. It was me getting my life back," he says. After the exhilaration of the rescue, you might expect Ralston to suffer depression. He did not; at least, not immediately. Fearing the loss of "my identity as a self-reliant individual, as an outdoorsman" he "regained all of that": he completed his mission to conquer "the Fourteeners", rowed a boat through the Grand Canyon and is a better climber now than when he had a right hand.

Many people would find this adaptation to disability as inspiring as his escape. But Ralston is honest enough to admit the downside of the fact that this supposedly life-changing experience did not actually change his life as perhaps it should. "What did I do? In the years following my amputation I thought, I won't let it change me, I just want to be the guy I was before and prove that I am still this hard hero. It's almost pathetic to the extent that what I really needed was a humbling and what happened? I just got reinforced – I'm a fucking badass, I just got out of that. Nothing's gonna stop me!" He lowers his voice. "But I was ultimately humbled actually through a relationship – a girl who broke up with me."

It was not the loss of his right arm but this breakup, in 2006, that caused a "really deep depression". He felt "crushed to the core," he says, and began questioning whether he was worth anything if he was not lovable. Belatedly, he realised that it was love and relationships that "leads you to strength and confidence and courage and perseverance and everything that people attribute to this story". In the aftermath of his depression, he met his wife and she challenged him "to implement what I'd learned, that relationships are really very important in life and this is how to transform from being this ego-driven twentysomething into being, if possible, on a path at least to becoming a more mature guy."

Ralston still likes solitude but when he goes out rafting and climbing now he almost always takes his friends. In Bluejohn Canyon, he also has a literal touch-stone, the rock that crushed and trapped him. He still visits it. "I touch it and go back to that place, remembering when I thought about what's important in life, relationships, and this quest to want to get out of there and return to love and relationships," he says, "to return to freedom instead of entrapment."

Original story http://www.guardian.co.uk

Youth Festival a sixty nine million Rand waste of time and money

A group of delegates to the R69-million World Youth and Student Festival spent most of their time playing kissing games under the Pretoria sun.

Workshop and seminar halls were left almost empty at the week-long festival, funded to the tune of R40-million by the National Lotteries Board with an extra R29-million thrown in by the Presidency.

"You run around the circle, pick a guy or girl you would like to kiss, take them to the middle of the circle and indulge for a few seconds," said one foreign delegate who refused to be named.
A delegate from Nepal, who also declined to identify himself seconds after passionately kissing another delegate, said the kiss was "nice". He said he was playing the game to keep himself busy.

The festival, at the Tshwane Events Centre, Pretoria, was ostensibly intended to get thousands of youth delegates from more than 100 countries on six continents to discuss issues such as democracy and imperialism. But it turned out to be more of a social gathering in the sunshine.

Seven or so of yesterday's 18 planned seminars and workshops were cancelled because the sound systems were not working.

Cancelled programme topics included equality between men and women, freeing Africa from "imperialist military bases", blockades, embargoes and sanctions, economic terrorism and the struggle for peace in the African islands.

Events that went ahead included those dealing with public, free, universal access to education, science, culture and information. This session drew only 11 young people. Another seminar room was half-filled.

While the delegates frolicked in the sun, political heavyweights listed as guest speakers at workshops failed to arrive.

Some listed on the programme, which was hastily changed yesterday, included Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula (a former ANC Youth League president), struggle veteran Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, Human Settlements Minister Tokyo Sexwale and Chris Malekane, of Cosatu.

The National Youth Development Agency said the politicians did not confirm their attendance on time and as a result failed to arrive.

Agency chairman Andile Lungisa said it would change the list of speakers depending on their availability.

"We are not married to any personalities in the conference. What we are married to is that the conference must move on very well and there must be people who must speak on behalf of South Africa."

Asked why sessions were delayed or cancelled, Lungisa said: "All the sessions did take place but they were delayed. It was also not easy to transport the large number of delegates from where they stay.

"Buses were struggling to get here on time, we even had to ask the city of Tshwane to assist [and escort buses] so that there can be flexibility on the road."

Lungisa said he could not confirm how many delegates were in the country, but said he was satisfied with how the day went.

"I think we have proceeded so well, at least we don't have any headaches," he said.

student Leziwe Sondake said she was disappointed. Delegates asking for directions were continually sent to the wrong places.

"We just don't know what is going on here. The co-ordinators are not helpful," she said.

"I think they should have printed pamphlets so that they can guide us and tell us what will happen from today, and where."

Vijay Kadam, a delegate from the India Nationalist Student Congress, said everything had gone wrong for him since he arrived on Monday.

"I stay at Muzinda residence and ever since I got here I have not bathed with hot water. The seminars are also disorganised. Some got cancelled. We did not come all the way to South Africa to go through this."

Early yesterday morning, disgraced former national mpolice commissioner Jackie Selebi was sitting on a bench with US citizen Joe Sims, who said they were "good friends".

Asked if he would be a guest speaker at the festival, as the agenda indicated, Selebi said: "For what? I am here to watch the showgrounds."

DA, COPE and AfriForum youth leaders said the festival was a farce.

DA youth leader Gana Makashule said: "The festival itself was organised by the ANC Youth League. Now the taxpayer is being asked to fund it. Now also the Lotteries Board has donated R40-million to the event. If we had participated in the festival, it means that we would also have agreed for taxpayers money to be used in that fashion."

"When the festival ends on Tuesday what would come out of it that would benefit South Africans?"

COPE youth leader Anele Mda said: "We don't understand the logic behind wasting R69-million to host youth from other countries. Our youth are disempowered.

"If you probe all the tenders involved, the people who benefited are ANCYL members or families.

"I'm also ashamed and disgusted about how the lottery could pump money into the ANCYL, while many NGOs' applications for funds have been rejected."

Original story http://www.timeslive.co.za/R69m-for-this

A disgraceful waste of money in a country where poverty is all prevalent and medical facilities are falling apart. How many more of these ill conceived money grabbing disasters do we need have before somebody wakes up to the fact that you and I the public are paying for these screw ups? 

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

One seriously hot little beasty chilli pepper the Dorset Naga

This little devil could blow your head off......

THE world’s hottest chilli pepper does not come from a tropical hot spot where the locals are impervious to its fiery heat but a smallholding in deepest Dorset.

Some chillis are fierce enough to make your eyes water. Anyone foolhardy enough to eat a whole Dorset Naga would almost certainly require hospital treatment.

The pepper, almost twice as hot as the previous record- holder, was grown by Joy and Michael Michaud in a poly- tunnel at their market garden. The couple run a business called Peppers by Post and spent four years developing the Dorset Naga.

They knew the 2cm-long specimens were hot because they had to wear gloves and remove the seeds outdoors when preparing them for drying, but had no idea they had grown a record-breaker.

Some customers complained the peppers were so fiery that even half a small one would make a curry too hot to eat. Others loved them and the Michauds sold a quarter of a million Dorset Nagas last year. At the end of last season Mrs Michaud sent a sample to a laboratory in America out of curiosity. The owner had never tested anything like it.

According to Mrs Michaud, the hottest habañero peppers popular in chilli-eating competitions in the US generally measure about 100,000 units on the standard Scoville scale, named after its inventor, Wilbur Scoville, who developed it in 1912. At first the scale was a subjective taste test but it later developed into the measure of capsaicinoids present. The hottest chilli pepper in The Guinness Book of Records is a Red Savina habañero with a rating of 570,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU).

Mrs Michaud was stunned when the Dorset Naga gave a reading of nearly 900,000SHU. A fresh sample was sent to a lab in New York used by the American Spice Trade Association and recorded a mouth-numbing 923,000SHUs.

Mrs Michaud said: “The man in the first lab was so excited — he’d never had one even half as hot as that. The second lab took a long time because they were checking it carefully as it was so outrageously high.”

The Dorset Naga was grown from a plant that originated in Bangladesh. The Michauds bought their original plant in an oriental store in Bournemouth. Mrs Michaud said: “We weren’t even selecting the peppers for hotness but for shape and flavour. There is an element of machismo in peppers that we aren’t really interested in. When the results of the heat tests came back I was gobsmacked.”

The couple are now seeking Plant Variety Protection from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which will mean that no one else can sell the seeds.

Mrs Michaud, 48, has run the company with her husband at West Bexington, near Dorchester, for ten years. Mr Michaud, 56, has been a regular on the television chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage series, advising on vegetable growing.

Anyone wanting to try the Dorset Naga will have to be patient as chillis are harvested only from July on. In Bangladesh the chillies grow in temperatures of well over 100F (38C) but in Dorset they thrive in polytunnels.

Aktar Miha, from the Indus Bangladeshi restaurant in Bournemouth, said that even in its home country the naga chilli was treated with respect. “It is used in some cooking, mainly with fish curries, but most people don’t cook with it. They hold it by the stalk and just touch their food with it,” he said.

“It has a refreshing smell and a very good taste but you don’t want too much of it. It is a killer chilli and you have to be careful and wash your hands and the cutting board. If you don’t know what you are doing it could blow your head off.”

FROM HOT TO NOT
Scoville Heat Units

Pure capsaicin: 15m to 16m

US Police-grade pepper spray: 5m

Dorset Naga: 923,000

Red Savina habanero: 577,000

Scotch bonnet: 100,000-325,000

Jamaican hot pepper: 100,000-200,000

Cayenne pepper: 30,000-50,000

Jalapeno pepper: 2,500-8,000

Tabasco sauce: 2,500

Pimento: 100 to 500

Bell pepper: 0

Jasmine the dog is truly a friend not only to man but to all animals

Police in Warwickshire , England , opened a garden shed and found a whimpering, cowering dog. 

The dog had been locked in the shed and abandoned.  It was dirty and malnourished, and had quite clearly been abused. In an act of kindness, the police took the dog, which was a female greyhound, to the Nuneaton Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary, which is run by a man named Geoff Grewcock, and known as a haven for animals abandoned, orphaned, or otherwise in need. 

Geoff and the other sanctuary staff went to work with two aims: to restore the dog to full health, and to win her trust.   It took several weeks, but eventually both goals were achieved.  They named her Jasmine, and they started to think about finding her an adoptive home


Geoff relates one of the early incidents.  "We had two puppies that had been abandoned by a nearby railway line.  One was a Lakeland Terrier cross and another was a Jack Russell Doberman cross.  They were tiny when they arrived at the centre, and Jasmine approached them and grabbed one by the scruff of the neck in her mouth and put him on the settee.  Then she fetched the other one and sat down with them, cuddling them."   "But she is like that with all of our animals, even the rabbits. She takes all the stress out of them, and it helps them to not only feel close to her, but to settle into their new surroundings.  She has done the same with the fox and badger cubs, she licks the rabbits and guinea pigs, and even lets the birds perch on the bridge of her nose

Jasmine, however, had other ideas.  No one quite remembers how it came about, but Jasmine started welcoming all animal arrivals at the sanctuary.  It would not matter if it were a puppy, a fox cub, a rabbit or, any other lost or hurting animal.  Jasmine would just peer into the box or cage and, when and where possible, deliver a welcoming lick

Jasmine, the timid, abused, deserted waif, became the animal sanctuary's resident surrogate mother, a role for which she might have been born. The list of orphaned and abandoned youngsters she has cared for comprises five fox cubs, four badger cubs, fifteen chicks, eight guinea pigs, two stray puppies and fifteen rabbits - and one roe deer fawn.  Tiny Bramble, eleven weeks old, was found semi-conscious in a field.  Upon arrival at the sanctuary, Jasmine cuddled up to her to keep her warm, and then went into the full foster-mum role. Jasmine the greyhound showers Bramble the roe deer with affection, and makes sure nothing is matted.

"They are inseparable," says Geoff. "Bramble walks between her legs, and they keep kissing each other. They walk together round the sanctuary. It's a real treat to see them."  


Pictured from the left are: "Toby", a stray Lakeland dog; "Bramble", orphaned roe deer; "Buster", a stray Jack Russell cross; a dumped rabbit; "Sky", an injured barn owl; and "Jasmine", with a mother's heart doing best what a caring mother would do...and such is the order of God's Creation

Monday, December 13, 2010

Drinking and driving is stupid take a look at this new advert

Please don't drink and drive killing Innocent people is no joke



So what are your thoughts????

So who is the South African man wooing Elin Nordegren?

Who is the lucky South African?

Tiger Woods's ex-wife Elin Nordegren is moving on from the shamed sports star - she's dating a new man, according to UK reports.

The couple split last year after news of the sportsman's numerous infidelities hit the headlines, and their divorce was finalised in August this year, with the Swedish former model walking away with an estimated $100 million.

She only spoke to the press once throughout the scandal to reveal her embarrassment over her husband's infidelities and insisting she just wanted to focus on her two children and her studies for a college course in psychology.

And now Nordegren has been linked to a 35-year-old South African she met while studying in Florida.

A source told Britain's The Sun, "There's been kissing and cuddling but I don't know if it's gone further."

Friday, December 10, 2010

Braai Broodjies or BBQ toasted sandwiches another South African delight for the holiday season

A lot of people ask me what i like to eat with my braai or BBQ well that's simple a toasted Sammie but not any old toasted Sammie its a special one. It just seems that hot coals give this toasted baby a whole new pizazz

At the end of doing all your meat there is always just enough heat left in the coals for these crunchy yummy little gems

Ingredients:

•6 slices bread (white or brown)
•Approximately 3 tablespoons softened butter to spread over the bread
•1 onion, raw and finely sliced or
2 to 3 onions, fried until caramelized (see notes below)
•2 tomatoes, sliced
•Sliced or grated cheese
•Salt and ground black pepper to season

Optional flavours to taste to make the sandwich even tastier:

•Chutney and / or mayonnaise
•Fresh herbs such as basil, parsley chives or chopped coriander

Method

1.Spread butter on both sides of the bread slices (butter on the outside of the sandwiches will ensure a crisp, golden crust).

2.Placing tomato and onion slices on half of the slices, season with salt and pepper, or seasoning of your taste, and top with cheese.

3.Add optional sauces such as mayonnaise and chutney.

4.Cover with the remaining slices of bread.

5.Coat a clean grid lightly with Spray and Cook or cooking oil, place the sandwiches inside a barbeque's grid (see notes), and slowly toast them until they are golden brown.

Serve before it cools down.
Notes:

Onion is a must for these sandwiches. While red onion is a bit sweeter than white onion while raw, we prefer to caramelized the sliced onion in a small frying pan: use a little olive oil or butter, and cook it for half an hour over a low heat until it is soft and sweet.

These sandwiches are best roasted after you’ve finished braaing the meat and wors, when the coals from your charcoal fire have cooled down somewhat.

Use a hinged barbeque grid, if you have one, or tie thin string around each sandwich to prevent if from falling apart when you turn it over.

Jacob's box of tricks

Jacob and a Casket………………..

Jacob (Man who makes caskets) was on his way to deliver one of the coffins when his car broke down.

Trying not to be late, he put the coffin on his head and began heading to his destination.

Some policemen saw him and wanted to make some money off him (bribe), so they challenged him:

"Hey!!! What are you carrying and where are you going?!"

Jacob said, "I do not like where I was buried, so I am relocating".

The Policemen ran for their lives ..............

An assortment of funny Xmas cartoons

 Why because it's the season
~~~~~~~~






South African man in a kayak killed by croc

A South African outdoorsman is presumed dead after he was dragged from his kayak by a crocodile while leading a kayaking expedition from the source of the White Nile into Congo.
The body of 35-year-old Hendrik Coetzee, who was living in Uganda, has not been recovered. The stretch of river is notorious for its whitewater and high density of crocodiles and hippos. Two Americans tourists, who watched the incident take place, were "physically unharmed but shaken up".

Eddie Bauer, the trip's sponsor, said: "We are saddened by the tragedy and express our deepest sympathies to Hendrik's family and friends."

In his online blog, Coetzee discussed the importance of trusting instincts and the group's only rule - "nobody panic".

Once again I say Africa is not for the faint hearted it is startlingly beautiful and as startlingly savage but if common sense is adhered to then life is good  

Thursday, December 9, 2010

What the hell get a look at these xxx rated gifts for the Xmas season

Candy Cane "Hide-A-Vibe" Vibrator The box says the Hide-A-Vibe "makes the perfect stocking stuffer," and who are we to argue? One thing's certain: Stockings ain't the only things this little holiday gem will be stuffing.


Chocolate Vagina Stocking Stuffer Your fifteen-year-old son will love you.
Oh boy what have i been a licking



A Big Box of Chocolate Cocks Now you really can give a Dick in the Box for Christmas to your choc or cock mad girl.


Jingle Balls Holiday Cock-Pops What genius came up with this idea?
 Obviously for woman or you seriously gay



Christmas is just so boring when the world is in economic downturn

Santa and his reindeer don't look to enthusiastic
But then again its still early days

Never drive with a bucket of paint on the back seat

Pictures of accident on St Johns Bridge Near Pinetown (Durban) on Thursday.

The ambulance driver who attended the accident wouldn’t let the female paramedic out of the ambulance because she couldn’t stop laughing, he said it wasn’t professional. The people in the blue car had the 25lt bucket
of paint on the back seat.
 

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Peri Peri Chicken Livers another South African favourite

Ingredients:

•2 tbsp vegetable oil
•1 large onion, chopped
•2 garlic cloves, crushed
•2 fresh chilies, deseeded and chopped
•½ teaspoon peri-peri powder or cayenne pepper
•250g chicken livers
•1 tomato, chopped
•60ml dry white wine
•70ml cream
•salt and pepper for seasoning

Method:

1.Heat the oil in a saucepan then add the onion, garlic and chillies and sauté until soft and golden brown.

2.Add the cayenne pepper or peri-peri and mix well.

3.Add the chicken livers and tomatoes and stir-fry over high heat until the livers are just cooked.

4.Season with salt and pepper, add the wine and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes then add cream cook for 2 more minutes and serve. (serves 4)

This deliciously spicy Peri Peri Chicken Livers is best served on buttered bread rolls with a fresh green salad and goes down a treat with a few beers or a good red wine

The case of crabs and a blond air stewardess

A lawyer boarded an airplane in Johannesburg with a box of frozen crabs and asked a blond stewardess to take care of them for him. She took the box and promised to put it in the crew’s refrigerator. He advised her that he was holding her personally responsible for them staying frozen, mentioning in a very stern manner that he was a lawyer, and proceeded to rant at her about what would happen if she let them thaw out.

Needless to say, she was annoyed by his behavior. Shortly before landing in Capetown, she used the intercom to announce to the entire cabin, “Would the lawyer who gave me the crabs, in Johannesburg, please raise your hand.

Not one hand went up …. so she took them home and ate them.

Two lessons here:

1. Lawyers aren’t as smart as they think they are.
2. Blonds aren’t as dumb as most folk think.

The truth will get you so it seems for Shrien Dewani who was implicated in murderer

Shrien Dewani implicated in murder of wife Anni in a staged highjacking. Shrien Dewani, 30, surrendered himself at a police station in Bristol, southwest England, late on Tuesday and was detained by London's Metropolitan Police acting on behalf of the South African authorities.

In South Africa
Taxi driver Zola Tongo was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment after pleading guilty to the murder and claiming that Shrien Dewani had recruited him to find people to assist with a staged hijacking of his wife.

A Mail & Guardian investigation revealed two weeks ago that Shrien Dewani was a suspect in the police investigation. Two highly placed sources close to the investigation said if he returned voluntarily he would be arrested and charged, or else he would have to be extradited.

Tongo said he met the Dewani couple at the Cape Town airport. After dropping the newlyweds at a hotel, Shrien approached him alone and asked him if he knew of anyone that could "have a client taken off the scene".

Tongo, who is a first-time offender and stood to get R1 000 for assisting, then found a friend who put him in touch with the murder accused. The friend said he wanted R5 000 for putting Tongo in touch with Mziwamadoda Qwabe, who was later arrested for the murder.

Tongo and Shrien contrived a plot to simulate a hijacking, said Tongo in his statement.

On the night of the murder, November 13, the plan went awry when the appointed killers were not waiting in Gugulethu as agreed. So they drove out to the Strand and had a meal and made a later arrangement in Gugulethu.

Tongo had agreed with Qwabe and Xolile Mngeni they would get R15 000 for the killing.

Cellphone records and one SMS reveal Shrien's involvement.

In his statement, Tongo said he sent a text to Shrien that he should not forget about the money. He answered by text that the R15 000 was in an envelope in a pouch behind the passenger seat.

'It is torture for us'

"We have been treated well and wish all involved to end this case. It is torture for us," said Hindocha on the steps of the court.

Hindocha had been consulted by the National Prosecuting Authority as it put finishing touches to the plea and sentencing agreement of Tongo.

Sources close to the case said that Hindocha had flown to South Africa to have input into the process. Family members told the Mail & Guardian on Monday night the heartbroken father had missed the memorial service for his daughter on the weekend.

Anni's body was found in Khayelitsha last month. The Dewani couple had taken a late-night detour through Gugulethu on the night of November 13.

Shrien claimed their taxi was hijacked by two armed men and that Tongo was released unharmed. Shrien alleged he was later pushed out of a window of the vehicle. The part-time model's body was found the next day in the back seat of the taxi, with a single bullet wound to her head.

On Monday, the trials of the three men accused of her murder were separated by the court.

The trial of Mngeni and Qwabe has been set down for February 25 next year and their cases are subject to further investigation.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Old adverts that are suspect to say the least!

Yikes this is just wrong
Nasty stuff
~
For your gums my ass
~
Not that time again!

A story of two Catholic parrots

A lady goes to her priest one day and tells him, 'Father, I have a problem.

I have two female parrots,

But they only know to say one thing'

'What do they say?' the priest asked.

They say, 'Hi, we're hookers! Do you want to have some fun?'

'That's obscene!' the priest exclaimed,

Then he thought for a moment.....

'You know,' he said, 'I may have a solution to your problem. I have two male talking parrots, which I have taught to pray and read the Bible...

Bring your two parrots over to my house, and we'll put them in the cage with Francis and Peter.

My parrots can teach your parrots to pray and worship,

And your parrots are sure to stop saying... That phrase... In no time.'

'Thank you,' the woman responded, 'this may very well be the solution.'

The next day, She brought her female parrots to the priest's house.... As he ushered her in,

She saw that his two male parrots

were inside their cage holding rosary beads and praying...

Impressed, She walked over and placed her parrots in with them...

After a few minutes, The female parrots cried out in unison:

Hi, we're hookers! Do you want to have some fun?'

There was stunned silence...

One male parrot looked over at the other male parrot and says,

 'Put the beads away, Frank,

Our prayers have been answered!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Steve Hofmeyr starts a rabid debate but is it racist?

Afrikaans singer Steve Hofmeyr has sparked a racial debate by blaming the "propaganda of entitlement" among black people for the brutal murder of a Free State family.

Writing on his Facebook page in Afrikaans, Hofmeyr last week said: "Blacks (God knows, probably not all of them, but most of those I observe) feel justified and 'entitled' in everything, from quotas/low matric marks to land rights/brutality".

"We must generalise," wrote Hofmeyr. "Most black people I know are not violent but they slurp up the propaganda of entitlement, which gives young killers what they need to justify their brutality."

Hofmeyr was referring to the murder of Attie Potgieter, his wife Wilna and their three-year-old daughter Willemien on their farm in the Free State on Wednesday.

"I don't know how the world thinks we should transform, integrate and let go of our prejudices and stay nice, tolerant Christians when blacks can shoot a three-year-old child in the head," said Hofmeyr.

Willemien and her mother were shot execution-style, whereas Attie was hacked to death with a panga, the Sunday Times reported.

Six men, most of them in their twenties, were arrested and will appear in the Lindley Magistrate's Court today on charges of murder.

Hofmeyr said he was "sorry to emphasise the colour, but I'm struggling to spot the terrible whites who climb over blacks' walls to do that to their children".

In a response to an open letter he wrote to ANC Youth League president Julius Malema earlier this year, Hofmeyr denied that he was a racist but said that blacks such as Malema have "yet to admit to the fact that they have yet to give this continent anything that makes the world sit up".

His latest Facebook comments on the murder sparked a flurry of activity among his fans.

The first comment was liked by 2070 people and attracted 791 comments.

Elna Strydom replied to Hofmeyr, writing: "You are spot on. Then the government says farm murders are not racially motivated. Bulls**t! Of course they are!"

Another fan, Petro Burzler wrote: "Have your say, Steve, you are our spokesman. It's time for the racism card to be burnt because it seems it's the only thing that can be spelt."

Ayesha Kajee, executive director of the Freedom of Expression Institute, said elements of Hofmeyr's comments "might be deemed racist" but they did not constitute hate speech.

"Our constitution doesn't prevent you making discriminatory statements ... it only becomes hate speech when it incites violence against a group of people".

Original Story http://www.timeslive.co.za/race-row

A tall South African Klipdrift brandy story

A Tall Klipdrift Fishing Tale

I went bass fishing this morning at Groendal Dam, but after a while I ran out of bait.

Then I saw a puffadder with a dead lizard in its mouth.
Lizards are good bait for bass.

Knowing the snake couldn't bite me with the lizard in its mouth,

I grabbed it right behind the head, took the lizard,

and put it in my bait bucket.

Now the dilemma was how to release the snake without getting bitten.

So, I grabbed my bottle of Klipdrift and poured a little brandy into its mouth.

His eyes rolled back, and he went limp. I then released him without

incident and carried on fishing, using the lizard as bait.

A little while later, I felt a nudge against my foot.

I looked down and there was that same snake
with two more lizards in its mouth.

Life is good in Africa.