Is cat food addictive (for cats!)

A friend brought some fancy Felix cat food in sachets when I asked her to pick up a bit of cat food on her way here. My cats are outside cats. Their normal diet is dried cat food once a day with small beasties as they catch them. Just occasionally they get a tin of cat food for a treat. They do well on this diet always looking sleek and shiney.

Anyway they wolfed down the Felix that night and I thought no more about it. Next morning I was mobbed at the door as though they hadn't been fed for days. They spent the whole day at this and finally got their fix in the evening. Next day the same. Thankfully the Felix sachets are finished and their behaviour is returning to normal. What was that about?

Green shoots and old scaffolding boards

Long, long ago I was a great fan of Geoff Hamilton's Gardener's World on the BBC. Geoff was a great man for showing us how to knock up useful garden items from a few old boards and some nails. With the untimely loss of Geoff we moved on to a new generation of presenters who reviewed the range of products we could purchase from our local garden centre and I rather lost interest in the program. Two bits of great news. Monty Don is back presenting Gardener's World, a real gardener and not a bit of garden centre tat in sight. Then, fired with a renewed enthusiasm for gardening programs, I tried RTE's How to Create a Garden and there were the good old scaffolding boards and how to make your own cold frame. Isn't it great to seem some attention given to build your own instead of buy your own!

How I'm going to vote in General Election 2011

I've been struggling with how to vote as I don't feel any of the main parties are looking much beyond the end of their noses in their plans to fix things - or return to a sustainable economy as Fianne Fail puts it!

I want to see fundamental change in how we view the economy, in our use of non-renewable resources and a more imaginative and long term approach to planning for the future. I want to see more power at the local level along with people getting more involved in our own government. I want to a split in the political system between politicians how look after local and individual issues and those that are minding the country. I could go on....

No fundamental change is going to come with the current, well established people and systems of government so I will vote for whichever party will make the most fundamental changes in the way we govern ourselves that give a chance for change to happen AND for the party which makes the most effort to involve women.

I don't believe women make better decisions than men, or that men make better decisions than women, but I do believe that men and women together make better decisions. But for this to happen women must be allowed to be women and not feel we have to play the men's games better than them. Apparently men tend to make decisions that take advantage of the current situation whereas women are more likely to look at the long terms consequences of a decision and judge according. This make perfect sense to me and shows how men and women working together make better balanced decisions. This TED talk makes a similar point:


Now to the research. Any comments on who you think is doing best in this area very welcome!