Recently in Personal Category

How can one begin to describe it? lonelyplanet.com sums up my own experience of the day walking around town.

"Crossing only when it is safe to do so could perch you at the side of the road in perpetuity, but don't imitate the local tendency to cross without looking. The green man at traffic lights does not mean it is safe to cross. Instead, it means it is slightly safer to cross, but you can still be run down by traffic allowed to turn on red lights" - which is what nearly happened to me today!

As for the poor cyclists out there, the advice is

"Remember you will be on the lowliest transportation device in town, and buses, lorries, taxis, cars and scooters will ceaselessly honk at you, in that pecking order (just ignore them). [...] Note that cyclists never use lights at night and Chinese pedestrians favour dark clothing, so eat a lot of carrots and cycle carefully"


Somehow I'm not tempted! And they all seem to go without helmets

On the bright side, I nabbed lunch for a mere 15RMB today - and that's despite the fact I reckon I was overcharged. But then I couldn't read the menu and who can complain about a £1.50 lunch!

Kitchens are the number one place for a fire to start at home. I have an electrical jobs that take a while to start up and I stupidly walked away for no more than a minute while waiting to heat a saucepan. Unfortunately, I'd switched on the wrong hob and a towel touching that hob caught fire. Stupidity! Fortunately, being the calm-headed sort, it wasn't too serious and I learned the following lessons should this happen to anyone else

• Don't panic! The good thing about kitchens is that a small fire won't usually spread. If it is large, you'd better be evacuating anyway. Otherwise, if things burn for another 10 seconds, nothing bad will happen. Stop and take a moment to plan what to do
• Personal safety first. If it is a large fire, your clothes might catch fire or if it is spreading fast, get out of there and get the experts to deal with it.
  
• Wet towels are your friend. You probably don't have a fire extinguisher nearby but every kitchen has a towel. Drench it in water and use it to cover whatever is on fire, including other towels, chip pans etc. (Much better and safer than splashing water about... don't do that). Towels are probably the most effective way of cooling a fire you'll have handy
• Lids and makeshift covers. If wet towels aren't appropriate or you can't immediately get one, put a lid over your burning food or get a pan or wok to cover the fire, the aim being to starve the oxygen. This is easier than getting a wet towel over the target for fire-adverse people but usually isn't as effective as a wet towel unless you can seal off the fire and cut off the air
  
• Switch on the extractor fan. Assuming you've contained the problem, you want to minimize the amount of smoke getting around the place. The smell lingers!
• Prevention is better than cure. Don't leave a hob on unattended is what I've learned. My punishment is to tell the world of my stupidity and if one other person learns something, it is worthwhile =)

Anyway, in my case, one wet towel to cover the burning wet towel meant I suffered no damage other than a stinky flat

I discovered today that my trial has a chance of going beyond the end date of 19th December. This is particularly problematic since I fly out to Hong Kong on the 17th December, as I did tell His Lordship before the trial started.

And I don't call him His Lordship to be pompous, that's really how to address judges. The standard address to a circuit judge in your typical UK criminal court would be "Your Honour" but in the Old Bailey they are one step up and we say "My Lord".

So I have to write a nice little letter to the judge now to plead with him not to cancel my holiday plans! Yes, he does have the power to do that...

References:
It will depend on which How to address a Judge?
Forms of address for the Judiciary

Those who know me personally may be aware that I'm currently on jury service serving at the Central Criminal Court, also known as the "Old Bailey". Being on jury service means you can't talk about your trial at all. Maybe when the trial is over I'll blog about it some day.

I can probably blog about something completely unrelated though. I saw a bunch of kids pass by the court the other day. Lo and behold, it turns out that The Times were reporting on their visit! I won't talk about my experiences but it is interesting to hear about others

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article5149502.ece