Create Angela's Alphabet With Cutlery, Cocktail sticks, and Toothpicks in restaurants and on flights

 

I tried making curved letters using the lids of miniature jam pots which you get in hotels. That did not work well. The O worked. I have seen business logos where the O in the business name was turned into a solid disc pattern, sometimes to respresent something they are selling.

I had already broken a cocktail stick in half for the entre horizontal line of the letter E.

But a G with half cocktail sticks, from a cocktail stick broken in half, with the horizontal alone, or a horixontal half stick with the other half hanging down from the tip was not easily recognizable as a G.

Then I started looking at alphabets and realised that you can make a squared alphabet.

You have a choice. For example, the letter E can be made with the three full size cocktail sticks for the horizontals, needing four sticks altogether.

At Home

At home I have a complete  set of a cylinder of cocktail sticks, bought from a hardware store. You can buy them in many supermarkets. 

In Restaurants

In a restaurant you would need to collect several. Either a container with several. Or unused ones if everybody at your table has been given one. 

On Planes

On a plane, you might be given one wrapped toothpick per person per meal.

With a family of three, such as two parents and one child, you would get three per meal, six if you saved them on a two leg outward journey, or six if you savved them from the first journey for the return journey. 

You could even use them still in their paper wrappers so that they can be returned to each person for use as a toothpick.

It might be simpler to use the metal or plastic cutlery. Or ask the server if they had any spare toothpicks. Or ask other passengers if they have unwanted wrapped toothpicks.

Have fun. Lots of fun for adults and children. Amuse and amaze your family, friends and colleagues.

My previous posts give more details and pictures of creating names with cutlery, and cocktail sticks.

Please share links to this post with your family and friends.

Odd and Excellent Objects and Ideas I found when Travelling

 I lived on and off in Singapore for about thirty years. I was there in the British winter, back in the UK for summer. Singapore changed and improved a lot with many useful changes to streets and homes.

Covered Pedestrian Ways

When I first went there the old town areas had the five foot ways which were wide covered pavements, a bit like the cloisters in England's Oxford and Cambridge colleges. Shelter from the rain. Also shelter from the hot sun.

Later, the suburbs filled with apartment blocks, HDB (ssate housing estates) and local schools. In the last decade the new town planning system was to build covered ways between the new (and old) underground railway stations and the local housing estates and schools.

This was to protect pedestrians children, the elderly, those who did not drive. And it encouraged those who had a choice to leave the car at home and take the trains on the new lines.

Rebuilding Plans

Major rebuilding will be necessary around the world. 

Due to Wartime 

Ukraine. Russia. Gaza. Beirut and the Lebanon. Israel, kibbutzim and cities. Maybe more countries. I was shocked to read that the kibbutzim have safe rooms and bunkers,.Yet they cannot keep out assailants.

American cities have bunkers in major buildings and hotels. 

Singapore railway stations have signs about the stations containing safe areas. Buildings are on stilts with a void deck to cope with flooding.

Natural Disasters and Climate Changes

For example, flooding in Florida in the USA.  Earthquakes in California in the USA. Indonesia. Volvanoes. Tsunamis. 

Flooding by rivers, seas and oceans.

Prevention - Balcony Falls

Fires in High Rises

The UK has to fund a major progrmme of replacing cladding. 

In Canada years ago Haabitat was built stepped like a pyramid so that jumping off a blcony took you no further than one floof below.

Grenfell in London, England.

Prevention - portable fire escapes, folding rope ladders for travellers to keep in their luggage in cars, when staying in skyscrapers instead of ground floor motel bedrooms. 

Balconies

So many people falling off balconies. Climbing on balconies. Cats falling off balconies. Children falling out of windos.Cleaning is done from professionals on the outside, not maids or home owners leaning out.

Lessons Learned

What lessons have been learned?

The Titanic taught us tht ships need lifeboats with enough places for everybody. But a chip titlted on its side might not have usable, launchable lifeboats. That's why you don't wait until the last moment before evaluating.  Women and children who are less agile are evacuated first.

Life boats need to be stocked with food, drink and a fishing line, first aid, a spare life vest. Flares for signalling to ships. Maybe even a line for nearby swimmers to cling to, without clambering into the boat and upending it. 

Survival. Surely survival including first aid, cooking, weather watching basics (sun rises in the east shadows, and so on, safe and unpleasant plants, repairing shoes, surviving, town planning, growing and grafting plants.should be taught not just to scouts but to all schoolchildren. The Japanese teach children to clean their classroooms and school.

Califormian hotels have windows which cannot open so you cannot fall out. 

Hotel and Plane and Train Evacuation

I sit in an aisle seat. Quickest way to toilets. And exits. If I want a photo from the window, I ask somebody near the window to take a photo for me.

Different countries have different minimum heights for 

Basements and Candles

I don't like to be in basements with candles. New Year's Eve. Disco disasters and wedding disasters from giant flames and flammable decorations. Tables blocking the route to exits. 

We have electricity. Battery candles for birthday cakes. Electric imitation candles.  

Safer Roads

We have Belisha beacons, zebra crossings, bleeping pedestrian lights. traffic lights. Pedstrian barriers.  Stopping lines a few yards before the pedestrian or trafic light. Pedestrian bridges 

Singapore and Cats

Caat flaps can be conveient for cats. 

Cat Repellent

In London, a woman was afraid of cats and her neighbours got two cats and often let them out. The.husband of the woman who was afraid bought a cat repellent device which he installed outside his balcony door. Would be pet owners must put metal bars across balconies before acquiring a cat.

Useful Websites

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Fire_escapes#/media/File:Il_balcone_%C3%A8_la_mia_casa_-_Flickr_-_-ErWin.jpg

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13940963/cat-cheats-death-falling-seventh-floor.html#newcomment

https://thecatpeople.sg/cat-safety-with-cat-proof-balconies/

pistbye cat repellent on Amazon

Please share links to your favourite posts

How do you supervise children when travelling?

Problem
Children want attention. They want to move about. They want to make a noise. They want to touch and move objects. They want to enter places which might be unsafe.
The same applies to toddlers, teenagers, and adults. What sort of trouble can be caused?
1 Toddlers screaming in supermarkets.
2 Childen running around No commenting on this case. However, some thoughts came into my mind.

Basic rule one should be taught to children and adults in every home and school:
Rule 1
Do you not touch other people's property without permission.
Rule 2
(From Princess Diana's mother)
Leave a room as you found it.
Rule 3:
Do not enter somebody else's property without their permission.
Rule 4
 Do not touch unless you are buying.
If every child and adult obeyed these simple rules: advantages:
Rule 5
Use objects for the purpose for which they were intended. Do not use them for other purposes unless you have done a safety check. Remember not all surfaces can support the weight of you standing or sitting.
Rule 6:
Ask yourself, would responsible teachers, parents, owners of a property do this.
Rule 7:
Look and think before you move.
Rule 8:
Look at everybody who is around you. Look at everything around you. Consider how your action could affect them.

Advantages:
1 No theft.
 2 No distress to parents and grandparents when other children 'hide' all or part of valuable' birthday presents.
3 No mess.
4 Shopkeepers would not have to watch that children or adults are not taking something.
5 Your fingerprints are not on stolen items.
6 Other people do not have to supervise your unaccompanied children.
7 Guests and customers would always be welcome.
8 This would save children from falling through the roof of derelict buildings or factory buildings.
9 Every shopping mall should have a free play area to distract children from shops.


Parents should specify what children can and cannot do:
1 No screaming nor shouting in public places. No kicking the seat in front on a plane. Minimize the amount of banging anybody else's chair back, headrest, pocket in the back of an airplane seat. Look back before you recline and apologise in advance.
2 Be polite.
3 If somebody is annoyed, apologise.
4 Take a toy or activity which keeps people occupied.
5 Make friends of people before you touch their property or ask for help.

Let me give you some examples of disaster and successes.

DISASTERS
1 My son at school is given a computer as a birthday present. Children at school take part of it so he can not use it. When His granny ask how he is getting on with it, he says he cant use it. She is very upset. Mother wants to complain to the school. Child says not to do so because that will make him unpopular.

For years I have wished I had written to the school. What effect has this long term?

Parents and grandparents were very stressed. I was stressed meeting staff. I was not listening to them. I was always wanting to discuss this matter but never had the courage to do so.

I didn't and still don't trust any of my child's school friends.

Whenever I get an appeal to donate money to the school I tear it up and throw it in the bin.

SUCCESS
An air hostess stops and kneels down beside a fretful child. The child stops writhing and moaning and is happily distracted by a new person giving attention.
Children on a plane are absorbed in the films and drawings in colouring boxes and little quizzes and games.

Most airports and cities have take away children's meals including a toy. Restaurants have play mats if you ask.

I worry about whether it will annoy another person if I put my property on the middle seat. I chat to the other person and ask the other person if they want to share the middle seat and they tell me, 'No, you can use it all. Go ahead. I don't need it. My stuff's in the overhead locker. I'm just going to watch a film and go to sleep.' So I have goodwill and need not worry.

A friend who visits me for major events such as parties always organises a clear-up group when only half a dozen of us are left, both at his own home and when visiting mine. He has done this since he was a student. I have remained friends for life. It is just one example of how he instantly shows he is a responsible person, trustworthy, no trouble. always helpful. and thinks of others.

An active child can be taken to a park or a run before going somewhere they need to sit or stand quietly.

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Quiet, child-free zones and pre-ordered meals on airlines

IniGo airline has introduced a quiet zone, which is child-free, aimed at the business traveller. IndiGo is an Indian budget airline
https://www.ttgmedia.com/news/news/airline-creates-child-free-zones

A Ukraine airline has introduced pre-order meals.

I expect that these ideas will spread to other airlines.
the Ukrainian airline website also tells you about the past of tomato juice on flights. They claim it keeps its taste better and is a favourite.

http://www.flyuia.com/eng/pre-order-food.html

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.