Parsley

Sow: Indoors from February to March for later planting out. Outdoors from April to May in pots or direct in soil (needs warm soil to germinate). Can make further sowings until August. Germination can take 2 weeks. Always use fresh seed and keep soil moist.

Aspect: Prefers damp soil in partial shade.

Care: Hardy but best to protect foliage against frost for better leaves. Is a biennial plant but often grown as an annual; leaves will be coarser in the second year.

Water: As needed.

Harvest: As needed.

Related plant: Par-cel or celery leaf - looks similar to parsley and is grown in the same way. Pick the leaves as needed for celery flavour (easier to grow than actual celery) but does not produce edible stalks.

Hot Laptop

If your laptop is very hot and the fan is always on the go, you can have problems. When it overheats, not only does your computer slow down to protect itself, but you actually damage the parts inside - over time this can reduce the life of your computer by a year.

Use your laptop on a table instead of your lap as clothing can restrict the fan. And leaving your laptop on for days on end is also a bad idea - it needs a rest.

Glamour, June 2014

Link Checker

If you have a lot of links on your website, it takes forever to manually check that each one is still current.

Xenu Link Checker is a bit of software which will do this for you.  Get this from http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html.

Contact Lenses

Avoid swimming or showering in contact lenses. An amoeba that lives in tap water feeds on bacteria found on lenses and can go on to colonise the cornea of the eye, causing painful infections and even blindness.

Internet Hoaxes

Hoax Slayer: This useful website keeps track of the thousands of hoaxes circulating around the internet at any particular moment. It includes a separate section on those that appear on Facebook. Before falling for a hoax, or passing one on, check this site first.

Urban Myths: There are loads of urban myths out there (e.g. a cursed mummy on the Titanic). To check out whether the story you've been told is true, visit the Snopes website (www.snopes.com); it's a marvellous source for quickly sorting out these stories.

Phil Bradley in CILIP Update (various dates)