Updates...
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Details of updates and additions to the main pages will be posted here.
October 13 2009 This message posted on the Home and Ron's Blog pages:-
M.E. - A Cause?
A cause, it's been announced, has been found for ME. The news seems to me to have been received with an excess of enthusiasm out of all proportion to its actual importance, and it's widely assumed a cure can't be far behind. This blog post offers a more balanced view.
April 21 2009 Derails of my new powerchair posted here.
December 10 2008 Links to two of my Ron's Rants blog posts added to the home and blog pages, and here:-
If you are chronically sick and disabled, here are two vitally important posts from my blog:-
and
Sick and disabled? You're screwed...
September 1 2009 If you are at all housebound, or just don't get out much, you may well be deficient in Vitamin D3, so check out this page for information on how to remedy that, and the benefits of D3 supplementation.
June 23 2009 An item imported from my blog - the scandal of supermarket money-grubbing at the expense of customer choice, and the reason why Kikkoman soy sauce has vanishd from most supermarkets. Plus your chance to make your displeasure known.
November 27 2008 I've imported a page here on Disability Advice from my blog, Ron's Rants, which I thought might be useful.
October 8 2008 A new section on growing microgreens and sprouting seeds starts at An introduction to micro-greens and seed sprouting.
September 16 2008 New Birding Blog post.
August 12 2008 Blog changes...
As you must have noticed, the blog on this website has been rather neglected of late - there are a number of reasons for this.
My "new" blog at Ron's Rants gets more than double the hits that this one does, and that's not just because it gets the bulk of my output - from the outset, when I ran both blogs side by side, the hit rate of the new one has exceeded the old. There's another, more serious, reason, though.
There is something wrong with my brain - I suspect I'm in the early stages of some form of dementia, but so far I haven't been able to summon up the courage to get it checked out. I have to though, and soon. One of the problems is the detrimental effect on my short-term memory, and the way it affects my blogging.
If, for example, something on the radio news piques my interest, I can go straight to Ron's Rants and write about it (that page is permanently loaded in my browser, and it's only a mouse-click away). Where I to do it in this blog, I'd have to fire up Dreamweaver first, a process that takes an absurdly long time (relatively), and by the time Dreamweaver has loaded there's a good chance I'll have forgotten what I was going to say.
Essentially, then, using Ron's Rants is easier for me and, for whatever reason, I believe I'm writing better there, too. Not that this website, as a whole, is being neglected, I've posted 8 new pages and updated several others since starting the new blog last November, and that will continue with an upcoming page on my return to vegetarianism, complete with my own recipes.
The future of my blog, though, lies primarily with Ron's Rants ** (which, by the way, got to No. 2 in Google's listings for Ron's Rants blogs - there are a hell of a lot of them, something I hadn't realised when I picked the name! - in a mere 2 months. It also allows me to reach out to a wider audience, and many of my posts are reproduced or cited on quite a few websites and blogs across the world. It also gives me feedback from my readers, something which, despite my occasional requests for feedback, just doesn't happen here.
Any specifically ME-related posts will continue to appear here, as well as in Rants, but I have to play to my strengths, and that means focusing mainly on Ron's Rants.
I do appreciate all the time my readers have spent on this website, as a whole, over the past 4 years (2 years for the blog), but progress is inevitable and nothing is forever, I'm afraid.
I really do think, though, that those of you who click through to Ron's Rants (and not many of you bother to do so, for some reason though, of course, I have no idea how many people have Rants in their browser's favourites), will find it a worthwhile experience. My most popular pages are those relating to benefits and health matters (and these are the ones most cited elsewhere), but there are 164 posts to date (I'm often too unwell to post every day, though that's my aim and, of course, there are some days when nothing interests me), on a wide variety of subjects, and I'm sure a rummage through the archives will repay your time (if you click on a previous month, the entire month's posts are displayed), or you can use the search box (top right), something I don't have here, to search for something specific.
So, come to Ron's Rants soon - I look forward to seeing you there...
** Something that might encourage you to come on over is this. If you Google Polish missile crisis you’ll get loads of stuff. The very first item on the list, though (for now, at least – tomorrow it could change), is a WordPress link to a post I wrote yesterday, and it’s the only one on the subject WordPress are plugging (and I know I’m not the only one of their millions of bloggers to write about it). I’m impressed!
Blowing my own trumpet? Yep, damn right, but to get to the top of a Google search means that a lot of people like what I'm writing - you might too...
September 7 2008 This page Mobility Scooter vs. Electric Bike has been posted here so that those who don't click through to my new blog don't miss out. You really should, though!
May 21 2008 New page - the self-explanatory My Favourite Pub.
May 6 2008 My WordPress blog is back - see above - and now called Ron's Rants...
April 28 2008 Birding Blog updated after switching to a digital SLR camera - digiscoping is now a reality.
April 23 2008 Two more posts added to Ron's Ego Trip!
April 16 2008 Three posts added to Ron's Ego Trip! The osteo arthritis one is particularly important if you are affected.
April 15 2008 In accordance with the above Newsflash, I am introducing a new, more mainstream blog - Ron's Ego Trip! - as of today. The reason is that my WordPress blog fell foul of a bunch of psycho wimmin (and that's being very polite), who caused so much aggro the easiest way to get rid of them was to move and rename the blog. Sadly, posting a link to it here would lead the harridans straight back to me, so I shall simply duplicate it in RET! as above, starting with a sort of best-of selection of posts which aren't date sensitive, to give you a taste of it. So that nobody can access it accidentally (and be needlessly mortified!), it will only be accessed from the main blog page, by a link directly below the above caveat.
March 29 2008 Update to the Sausage-making page (scroll down to get to it).
March 24 2008 The Home page has been brought up to date (at last!)
March 24 2008 New Sausage-making page. It's something I've wanted to try for a quite a while, and, as I seem to have way too much time on my hands, this is as good a time as any. Unlike with birdwatching, being stuck at home will actually be beneficial!
March 12 2008 New page on ME-related Quackery.
March 6 2008 Walking aids/Rollator - Corrections and additional info.
And a new petition on the Blog page. Originally posted on February 29, it now has a permanent place where the previous petition was.
March 4 2008 New page - Walking aids/Rollator - I need more help getting around than my crutches provide. Hopefully, a Rollator is the solution, as a manual wheelchair wasn't a success.
February 3 2008 New page - Photography Update - covering new camera and general photography noodlings.
January 26 2008 I don't normally post new Blog entries here, but this one's important - a Warning! about Microsoft's attempts to force Media Player 11 on those of us who are happy with Version 10. Take heed!
January 11 2008 New page, Books 3 reviewing Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's extremely historical novel, The Burning Town. It's notionally science fiction, except there's no science, and it's set 14,000 years in California's past, in an age when gods, magic and monsters where all too real.
January 1 2008 Hit rate for 2007 posted on Home page - the total for the year is 52,285, an increase of 15,051 on 2006.
December 28 2007 New page, The Tarot, added. Well, I need a new interest while I'm stuck at home...
Books 2 - errors and typos corrected. Also updated re the Tarot.
December 19 2007 New page, Books 2, added, devoted to the works of thriller writer John Sandford.
December 11 2007 First instalment of the promised section on Books. This will be very much a work in progress as and when the mood takes me, and will doubtless sprout subsidiary pages fairly quickly, otherwise it will become unwieldy.
November 28 2007 The update today is, unusually, just to this page.
First of all, I've removed the Updated... date from the Blog page, as I felt it might confuse people into thinking it was the date that the blog was last updated.
Also, to maintain interest, I need to add new content to the website fairly regularly. However, this isn't easy, which is why there have been no new pages for a while. What I need are subjects that fit in with my current lifestyle, which is mostly housebound (that's why the Birding Blog has been neglected recently).
Yesterday, having posted links to foodie sites in the Blog, I thought my own food blog might be a good idea. Not just show-off stuff like slow-cooked lamb with apricots, garlic, chillies and cumin (coming in a day or two, when I've made it), but easy stuff for those, like me, who can't always, or even often, spend hours slaving over a hot stove. The lamb, though time-consuming - it starts with a bone-in half leg - will generously reward the effort, and will be portioned and stashed in the freezer, so the amount of effort per meal is actually pretty low.
A section on books has been suggested and, as I read a lot, there'll be plenty of material for that, so that'll come too, once I decide on a format.
Birding and photography will be picked up again once my mobility improves, hopefully in a week or two.
October 28 2007 New entry in Birding Blog today - for those who use a walking stick, or two, a chance to escape from grim grey or boring brown.
October 18 2007 New entry in Birding Blog today (updated October 28).
September 5 2007 I've added an About page. The history of the website, and my personal stuff, is spread over several pages, so in About I've provided a potted history of both, with links to the main pages for those who want to know more.
August 20 2007 Links page checked and updated where necessary.
August 14 2007 New item on the Links page - the Green Metropolis online secondhand bookstore. Well, not really a store, more of a sales facilitator - very affordable.
August 11 2007 Ness Gardens page now revised, with thumbnails linking to full-size images, to make it easier on those still with dial-up. Dreamweaver has the facility to create this sort of thing, but it's massively time-consuming and clunky. My way's easier, and makes little difference to the end result, which to avoid having a large page loading, sluggishly, all at once.
August 9 2007 New page of photos from a visit to Ness Gardens, Wirral.
August 8 2007 I know you'll find this incredibly hard to believe, but I can be a dozy sod at times. About this time last year, I wrote an article floating the idea of a group for people with ME and an interest in camping. I even put an ad in the MEA magazine, but the response was zero. I've just figured out why - I posted the page on the website, but completely forgot to put it in the Main menu. How dumb is that? Anyway, for better or worse, finally, here it is.
August 6 2007 Camera attachment details added to New Scope page and also mentioned in Birding Blog for August 4.
August 4 2007 Birding Blog Post re birding trip to Cubbin's Green, on the Dee. Broken link to battlecry.com (Ron's Blog) fixed. Details regarding fitting a camera added.
Note: The website, for the last few weeks, has been scanned for broken links as soon as I go online each day. If they can be fixed, they will be - most, of course, are outside my control, but details will be posted here.
August 2 2007 Birding Blog Note posted re fault with RSPB website. (Now fixed)
August 1 2007 Nothing much, just a bit of a tidy up.
July 29 2007 I have been highly critical, here, of some members of the Muslim community in Britain, and rightly so. It is, therefore, right that, in the interests of balance, I post this article detailing anti-Muslim crimes by intelligence agencies here and in the US.
July 28 2007 Cock-up correction. I'd posted the link to the Emergencies (flood precautions), page in the wrong blog item - no doubt causing confusion - I've now put that right, and you can also see it here .
New page - the link from my Blog to an online article on the American Thinker website (well worth a visit - it's now up and running again), discussing the question of Islamic religious world domination, a fundamental tenet of Islam, no longer works. I found another version of the article, but as it was clearly dominated and fuelled by Christian fundamentalism, I deemed it unsuitable. After a lot of rummaging around in Google, I gave up and decided the only way forward was to write it myself here.
July 25 2007 Birding Blog updated with test of 1200mm lens combo.
July 23 2007 New page detailing how to get by if floods or their associated chaos disrupt your life.
July 16 2007 The link for Royden Park, in the Birding Blog doesn't work. I've reported this to Wirral Council, whose website it is (all references to Royden Park seem to have been removed), but the useless sods haven't replied.
July 11 2007 New item re new zoom lens on Birding Blog .
July 6 2007 Message re Bad Science website difficulties posted on Index and Blog pages.
July 3 2007 Please note that any links to the Bad Science website (most are in the Electrosensitivity pages), may not work. This is due to server problems and there's nothing I can do. Ultimately - and I don't no how long this will take - the site will migrate to more reliable servers - if the links need to be revised I'll do them as and when. Until then it's pot luck, I'm afraid, and outside my control.
July 1 2007 Just a general tidy-up of the Home and Ron's Blog pages, removing some messages that had outlived their usefulness.
June 30 2007 New page Smoking - the facts and the prejudice...
June 21 2007 A number of older pages are linked to from other pages, and nowhere else. I am now, as time permits, putting them all in the Main Pages menus on the Home and Blog pages, to make them easier to access. Once this project is completed, all pages will be in the Menus, which should make the website much more user-friendly. In the main, the pages in question are old Ron's Realm columns, and some may well be out of date, so the next stage will be to go through them and update them where necessary.
A note for newcomers to the site - it was originally designed purely as an overflow area for the Ron's Realm columns I wrote for the ME Association's magazine, but it's moved on considerably since then. It's from that period that the pages in question come.
June 19 2007 Birding Blog and Camera pages somewhat revised. Nothing really new, just a general tidy up, especially of the Camera page, as much of that was written before I changed my camera. I've now tweaked it to take account of that.
June 17 2007 New page added Electrosensitivity, the facts plus various revisions of other pages in the electrosensitivity group, to improve access.
June 16 2007 Links checked and broken/defunct links removed. Link to old Ron's Realm articles added to Main Pages menus (the old link is still on the Home page, but I've added it to the menu in case people don't scroll down that far).
June 14 2007 Gallery added.
June 12 2007 Birding Revised and brought up to date.
June 12 2007 Birding Blog Revised and updated; new post too.
June 9 2007 Birding Blog New post.