My Life on this planet.

Potatoes, not my favourite food unless fried in oil or butter or smashed or in a gratin as I describe here. Ingredients : Potatoes Butternut Onion Mushrooms Peanuts Garlic (Hot peppers) Herbs such as pepper, dry basil, ... First, I cut the potatoes in relatively thin layers before boiling them although not too much as they will continue cooking in the oven. All the next frying is done in olive oil although also other oils or butter can provide a great taste to the food. While the potatoes are boiling, I cut part of the butternut in small pieces and fry them in oil so they become slightly soft without being overcooked while they get a nice slightly brown outside. Halfway the cooking, I add some herbs and garlic (this can change according to taste). Next I slightly fry some pieces of mushrooms and afterwards some peanuts and pieces of onion, while I add some herbs and garlic halfway through so they get a lovely flavour (don't need to be the same

The third largest bank of the UK, Barclays, is going to make redundant (equals "is going to get rid of") up to 12,000 employees (this is about 9% of the employees) because the bank has to lower its costs while it will do everything to try to avoid the European cap on bonuses so the bank can pay even higher bonuses than before to its top people (thus effectively increasing its costs). But also other banks are doing their best to find ways of avoiding the cap so they can pay themselves more. That is what I described before as bad leaders : firing between 10,000 and 12,000 people to be able to pay yourself even more than the previous year by trying to find ways to avoid breaking laws, even when they are European and thus disliked in the UK. Good employers will be happy their business grow and thus need to employ more employees while companies that are not doing very well need to cut the numbers of employees and this will sadden good leaders who may even sacrifise some of t

Marius, the Giraffe Over the weekend, a beautiful 18-month old male animal has been killed in Denmark: Marius the giraffe . The zoo where the animal was born explained why: to avoid inbreeding. Other zoos offered to take the animal to save its life but the zoo refused their offer, arguing it would still risk future inbreeding as the animal's genes are already widespread among other giraffes in European zoos. And a second may follow his fate . I don't agree and will argue why. Thus, it seems that we have reached a point that, after some conservationist groups , also zoos think they have to kill animals to preserve them. Because, in order to preserve animals, zoos exchange animals for breeding. As a result, almost all species involved in breeding schemes in zoos will probably be related with each other. And thus these schemes may result in more animals being killed to avoid inbreeding until happens what is happening in the wild: only a few if any may be left. B

The UK, being battered with one storm after another since more than one month. I feel sorry for the people as some areas are flooded for months while certain parts of the country already disappeared under the waves and as a result quite a number of people had to leave their house. And still there is no end to these storms with more predicted to come, beating the coastline day after day, while the inland areas are soaked, making the land softer and weaker and thus even more vulnerable for the power of the oceans. Recently, land under railways were washed away and houses close to the oceans needed to be evacuated as waves larger than houses splash against the land. Let us hope the storms will stop. But as I mentioned in another article, I think that as long as the extreme cold weather continues in North-America while temperatures in Europe are to high for this time of year (winter), these destructive storms may continue. Prince Charles visited the affected region as one expec

In Spain, over the weekend there were major protest and they probably will continue over the coming weeks and months because the Spanish government intends to change the abortion laws that were introduced by the previous Socialist government (partly because the current government wants to reverse policies introduced by Socialists). There were even protest in other countries such as Belgium because the changes will reduce women's right as mainly men will vote for the changes. One may wonder why these people (mainly women but some men) protest because, according to articles in the Guardian , abortion will still be allowed in the case of rape or when there is a serious mental or physical health risk to the mother (two doctors will have to decide) while young girls (less than 18 years old) need permission from their parents (this may increase the relation between parents and daughters when they thrust each other while if young girls have an abortion without talking first with their

It is already just over one year since the shooting in Newton, Connecticut, USA where 20 children and some adults were killed at a school. In the meanwhile there were other killings, among them a shooting at a Washington DC navy yard where 12 people died. Even as recently as a few weekends ago when a 4-year old girl killed her 4-year old cousin after she found a loaded gun under her grandfather's bed. And although President Obama called for changes in the law, not much happened although it seems that 43 gun control laws have passed (in some states) compared to 93 laws that expand gun rights. If the death of 20 children can't result in tougher gun control laws, then we may forget any new legislation soon. USA The journalist Henry Porter even called in the Observer for an intervention by the international community to stop even more death amongst Americans and foreigners due to the increasing numbers of weapons (although he may not be serious, it shows the desperation