For their benefit, here are some snaps to let them see him in his natural environment:

Slide show





rent a car bulgaria

Kafka’s helpful hint this time can save you money and anxiety!

No. 5: Buying household wares

This is not about big-ticket items, like refrigerators, dishwashers, microwave cookers or tv sets — you need to consider those sorts of purchases very carefully and get expert advice (not from a beagle!).

No, what Kafka is talking about here are smaller items, like cookware, mixers, juicers, irons, or even up to as high as vacuum cleaners. The central idea here is making a trade-off between quality, including durability, and price.

Let’s start with cookware. If you look round the displays in a department store, you can find, for example, saucepans with complex coatings that that are guaranteed non-stick, with prices that range into a couple of hundred dollars or more. These are probably very fine items, that will give you good service, and some even have five-year warranty periods.

Then you can go into a supermarket or variety store and see the same size of pan, with Teflon or similar coatings and nice glass lids, for as little as fifteen or twenty dollars. Of course, they won’t last as long as the expensive brands, but even if you get nine months out of them before they start to fail, why just throw them out (and dispose of them properly for recycling) and get another. This way you can get as many years of service for the same outlay as with the high-price items, and you find out which sizes you really use the most. (In our place, we have a big Dutch oven type of pan that we hardly ever bother to bring out.)

The same sort of logic also works for small electrical appliances, like irons, electric jugs, juicers, and I have even seen very good prices in variety stores for televisions, DVD players and, would you believe, sewing machines. Of course, they mainly come from China, but if you look into it, so do some of the big-name brands.

Have a think about it next time you need to make this sort of purchase.

Best wishes from Kafka,

These next helpful hints from Kafka he worked out by watching me!

(He spends quite a lot of time resting on a sofa behind my desk as I work.)

No. 4: Sitting properly at your computer

There are a number of points to be made about your working position:

• Heights of seat, keyboard, screen
  • Distance from floor to seat

  People can be tall or short, and have long or short legs, so you should pay attention to how your legs are as you sit. Your feet shouldn’t dangle, and you shouldn’t need to stretch out your legs or splay your knees to get comfortable. You can even use a foot-rest in some situations (or improvise by putting your feet on old telephone books).

  • Distance from seat to desk-top

  Some computer desks or workstations have adjustment for height, but even if they are fixed, you can sometimes make adjustments by putting the keyboard and screen on top of something

  • Keyboard and screen

  It is tempting just to take your computer out of its box and put the keyboard and screen on the desktop as they are. But what may be right for the keyboard isn’t necessarily right for the screen. You may have to lift the screen with a stand (or, again, old telephone books).

  • Distance from eyes to screen

  And it is often said that the centre-height of the screen should be about eye-level, and that the distance from eyes to screen should be at about the length of your forearm.

Many people use gas-lift or other adjustable-height chairs, so it should be easy enough to get the height right. But there are two aspects to this:

• Glasses

If you wear glasses (or contacts) it is worthwhile speaking to your optometrist about different options.

Standard bifocals are designed for reading books and papers, held down low, so if you try and use them at the computer, you might find yourself tilting your head back to get the view in the magnifying region. Not good for the neck!

My owner had triple-focus lenses at one time, the top part for distance, the bottom for books, and the middle for the screen. But these were old-technology, carved out of thick glass, and were so heavy they gave him headaches.

The modern graduated-focus lenses seem to be much better, and are probably the best bet.

• Posture
  • Ergonomic requirements

  There are recommendations and rules of thumb (you can look these up); for instance, that your forearms should be about horizontal as you type, and that you should think about a wrist-rest, too.

  If you work for an organization that has a Health and Safety division, you should be able to get expert advice from them, or from an independent occupational therapist.

  • Type of chair

  A lot of people use an office-type swivel chair, and these are generally pretty good, but it is possible to get chairs with more adjustability, for tilt of the seat, and angle of the back-rest, instead of relying on the average values that most chairs are made to.
  An alternative is the kneeling chair; my owner tried one and liked it until it broke! This sort of chair more or less forces you to have better posture, especially for your lower back.

Much of this depends on personal preference, of course, but think seriously about all this, especially if you spend a lot of time in front of your computer.

Best wishes from Kafka,

No. 3: Parking Tips

First of all, Kafka would like to remind you that you should NOT leave pets (or children) in the car when you park, even for only a few minutes — in many places (including Australia) this is illegal. In hot weather especially, they can become seriously dehydrated and/or overheated very quickly. It is also illegal, as well as a bad idea for the ecology, to leave the motor running when parked, even if you want to keep the air conditioning or heating going.

At the mall or shopping centre, it is tempting to try and find a parking spot close to the entrance of the shops, but the problem is that everyone else is thinking this way, so it can be difficult.

A better approach is to look for a spot close to where the shopping trolleys have to be left (assuming that your mall has a parking bay for them). This way, you can cut down on the time and effort of returning the trolley — after all, on other parts of the trip you are either just strolling along, with nothing but an empty bag, or pushing your purchases happily in the trolley. And it also avoids the temptation to just abandon the trolley in amongst the cars, which will annoy other shoppers.

Another thought: when you park at the health club or fitness centre, do you try to park near the entrance? Why would you want to do that? — Kafka thought that the whole idea of going to a place like that is to get some exercise!

Lastly, if it is raining, park your car in the open, not under trees, even if it means you have to use an umbrella. That way you can get a free car wash and you won’t have to pick leaves and twigs out of the ventilation slots. Of course, if hail is likely, you ought to park under cover, but still not under a tree — in storms trees lose branches and could be hit by lightning.

Best wishes from Kafka,

Here are some more of Kafka’s helpful hints; he hopes you will like them!

No. 2: Avoiding Toxic Toothpaste and Shampoo

Toothpaste

Now, I should say first of all, that I don’t use toothpaste myself; as long as I have plenty of bones and hard biscuits to chew, my teeth will stay healthy.

But for you humans who use toothpaste, you should check out the ingredients on the packaging. Some toothpastes contain sugar (which sounds foolish to me, since sugar can cause decay), while others specifically state they don’t, which is a good start. Sodium fluoride is a controversial ingredient; if in your area they don’t fluoridate the drinking water, this might be helpful, but there are those who are doubtful about it.

The toothpaste my owner uses claims that it is based on natural herbal substances, such as aloe vera, fennel, non genetically-modifiled gum and stevia (whatever that is). It also doesn’t contain fluoride, aluminium (aluminum), artificial sweeteners or detergents. (It also has a choice of flavours: mint, lemon or aniseed — the last of these is his choice.)

Shampoo

As for shampoo, there is a fairly simple check — avoid any that have sodium lauryl sulphate (sulfate) or sodium laureth sulphate — those are said to be potentially harmful. You would be well advised to avoid parabens, mineral oils and animal fats, as well as benzoyl peroxide and sodium stearate, so they say.

For me, my owner buys a special animal shampoo that doesn’t even contain soap!

Now I’m just a four-month-old beagle, so you should check elsewhere before taking any of my advice!

Best wishes from Kafka,

Here is the first of Kafka’s helpful hints; he hopes you will like them!

No. 1: Keeping Leftovers

When you can’t eat all your spaghetti bolognese, or chilli con carne, don’t just throw it away, and don’t give it to your pet, because the spices might upset its stomach, and anyway it might make it fat.

So you can freeze it, or simply put it in the refrigerator if you are going to use it the next day.

What we use in our house are these rectangular plastic containers:

This one is about 21 by 14 cm (say, 8 by 6 inches) and holds 900 ml (say 30 fl oz), and, as you may be able to see, has a steam vent on the lid, which means you can just put it straight into the microwave. If there is no vent, you have to loosen the lid, of course.

Best wishes from Kafka,

All I can say is that, what with a stream of editing jobs and acquiring a new beagle puppy (who takes a lot of watching!), I have been rather busy lately.

However, I have brought “Kit and the Beeman” up to Chapter 25.

Keep watching — you never know when I might be inspired next!

Many of the sites are in the US, and they seem to assume that all their customers are too, so they want the number in the US format, e.g., “1 nnn mmmm pppp” (where the “1″ is the country code for the US); and so the site won’t accept anything else.

Now, in Australia, where I live, the numbers go like this: “pppp qqqq” — for calls within the same area code; or “0r pppp qqqq” — to call other area codes, where “0r” is the area code (there are only a few area codes in Australia, so there is always a leading zero); and for international calls “+61 r pppp qqqq”, where 61 is the country code for Australia — note that the leading zero in the area code gets dropped. (The plus sign, “+”, is an indication that you have also to use a special prefix for international calling — some handsets convert the plus automatically. Very few internet sites recognize the plus, so we soon learn not to try it.)

Other countries have different formats again; my relatives live in Poland, and there the phone numbers are like: “48 aa bbbbbbb”, where “48″ is the country code for Poland, “aa” is the city code, and the remaining seven digits are the actual phone number.

While I’m whingeing about this, I might as well have another moan about US assumptions. My wife edits a small Haiku magazine (see the paper wasp website), and people send orders and contributions in by snail mail sometimes, although email is encouraged. You’d be surprised how many of them send self-addressed envelopes for replies with US postage stamps attached, assuming that a US stamp will be accepted anywhere in the world. Well, it isn’t!

So let me make an appeal to those firms and individuals who want to make sales in countries other than their own — make sure that the format of whatever data you are looking for is flexible enough!

However, it seems to be a genuine warning from a reputable source, so I thought I would help to spread this information a little wider.

Aspartame is an artificial sweetener found in diet soft drinks (sodas) and other processed drinks and foods, under several different brand names that you will recognize when you read the linked article.

Read this: Stay away from this stuff…!

And here is another reference.

Makes you think, doesn’t it!

I had just turned six in 1939, when WWII broke out in Europe, and I was twelve when it finished in 1945, so that period was an interesting time of my life. As I have already explained in passing, in my life story, active warfare passed us by for the most part, except for minor things like seeing bombed houses on the way to school, and being attacked by “buzz-bombs” and V2 rockets, as I explained in that story. But there were plenty of less direct effects that did impinge on us.

Gas Masks

Quite early on in the war, the British authorities were convinced that the civilian population would be the target of poison gas attacks, so a program of distributing gas masks was undertaken. There were several different models, all depending on a filter containing activated charcoal that you breathed in through. There was, as I recall, a rubber flap which sealed this off, so your exhaled breath didn’t pass through the filter (otherwise it would have become damp in no time); instead the outflow passed under the edges of the mask, on your cheeks (making satisfying farting noises if you tried hard). We had to carry them with us at all times, in their cardboard boxes, and practice regularly with them, so we could put them on quickly in the event of a gas attack. Needless to say, this never happened!

Look at this article.

Air-Raid Shelters

I have already said something about these, in the same part of my story referenced above, but here is another article.

Rationing

Food rationing started in January 1940, and persisted until 1954 — 9 years after the end of the war! When I first went to University in 1953, I had to hand in my ration-book to the College kitchen — but during that term they were largely discarded, except for one or two items.

The range of rationed foods varied; the list below (from Wikipedia) is typical.

Later clothes were rationed, too, but since I was largely dressed in family hand-me-downs (we were not particularly rich), this didn’t make much of an impression on me.

Food rations
    * 1s 2d (approximately 1 lb 3 oz or 540 g) of meat (offal or sausages weren't rationed[1])
    * 4 oz (113 g) bacon or ham
    * 3 pints (1.7 l) of milk per week or 1 packet of milk powder per month
    * 2 oz (57 g) butter
    * 2 oz (57 g) margarine
    * 2 oz (57 g) fat or lard
    * 2 oz (57 g) loose tea (teabags were not used widely in the UK)
    * 1 egg per week or 1 packet (makes 12 “eggs”) of egg powder per month
    * 2 oz (57 g) jam
    * 3 oz (85 g) sugar
    * 1 oz (28 g) cheese (vegetarians were allowed a bigger cheese ration, as they gave up their meat ration)
    * 3 oz (85 g) sweets
    * 2 lb (907g) onions (onions were only rationed between 1942-1944)
    * plus, 16 "points" per month for tinned and dried food.

As a parallel to rationing, the government introduced a scheme intended to reduce extravagance in a range of goods, including clothing and furniture. This was the Utility scheme. Goods were supposed to be serviceable and durable, but with no frills. As with rationing, this persisted past the end of the war. When I needed to acquire a suit when I was in the RAF, in about 1952, I went to a quite up-market (for those days) gentleman’s outfitters — Simpson’s of Picadilly — and bought a double-breasted three-piece blue suit with a white stripe — and that was a Utility suit. (It was very boring, even for me, so I regretted the purchase afterwards.)

Here is a fascinating page about clothing rationing and the Utility scheme.

Glimpses of the Real War

As I have hinted, for children my age, if you were not actually bombed, or had family or friends killed or injured, you could live in blithe ignorance for the most part. However, there were some incidents or experiences that could have brought it home to us a little.

• Barrage Balloons



Looking south and East from where we lived, there were times when you could see rows of balloons lined up across the sky. These were intended to be an obstacle to enemy planes, of course; they were tethered by steel cables to mobile winches, and indeed, if a plane caught a cable it could be brought down. Or, the balloon could be cut free — I can remember seeing stray balloons drifting higher and higher and being blown down-wind.

• No Trips to the Seaside

The beaches along the South and East coasts were all closed to the public, and barricaded with steel stanchions and barbed wire to deter would-be invading forces (who never arrived).

• Few Swimming Pools

The open-air pools in our area had all been taken over as reservoirs for fire fighting. There were also steel ’static water tanks’ built around the place for the same purpose. I believe that a few children drowned in these while trying to sail their little boats.

• Air Raid Sirens

These were mounted on the tops of high poles and could be heard for miles. The warning of an air raid was a wavering tone, like
this (with a touch of anti-aircraft gunfire — it still gives me the willies, after more than 60 years),
while the “All clear” was a
a steady note.

• Butterfly Bombs



These were anti-personnel bombs that we were warned about at school (they got us to make crude models of them out of dried-milk cans), they had an extending pair of rotors, which allowed them to drop fairly gently; then if anyone moved them they would go off. None of us ever actually saw one.

• Land-mines

The Germans would drop land-mines by parachute, so they would not go off as they hit; after a delay set by some timing mechanism they would become “live”. I actually saw one of these that had come down in a local park. Of course, you would have had to be stupid to go anywhere near them, but they were certainly a danger, especially to the bomb disposal squads.

• Downed Enemy Planes

This was another experience I actually had. A German bomber had been damaged and it was brought down more or less in one piece in a local woodland. We kids went to look at it, of course. It was guarded by a couple of soldiers and a policeman, but they let us go up and peer through the cockpit window. The aircrew, who were injured but still alive, had been taken away by then, and the plane had been checked for unexploded bombs.

Apart from these fairly isolated incidents (air raids were common enough!), life went on for us fairly normally — but we were the lucky ones.

Let’s hear from others of you who might have your own memories!