The Starbucks Incident

I'm not a fan of Starbucks on several levels. However, in this case, my issue is not with them...

I was traveling to Barcelona from Edinburgh, and due to a combination of travel times and company policy, I was using BA flights with a stopover at Heathrow. Which was fine - arrive at the first airport at silly o'clock, fly to Heathrow for a tight-but-doable transfer (I had an hour, and they claimed I needed an hour), and then to Barcelona just after lunch. And, it being a BA flight I could reasonably assume I would get something to eat, and maybe a coffee, on the flight...

Silly me.

I got to Edinburgh at silly o'clock and got onto the flight. So far, so good. And then the pilot came on to announce that we were delayed by ten minutes... That was far from ideal, but there should still be time. Then I discovered that BA no longer provide any meaningful food or coffee on their "short" flights - I received a tiny flapjack and a small bottle of water.

Never mind - I didn't actually choose them for the food.

At Heathrow it transpired that we had a little more time than was expected, and so by the time I had found my transfer gate and visited the toilets I had all of a few minutes before having to board. So I visited Starbucks and bought a croissant and a medium coffee. Said coffee was almost thermo-nuclear in temperature, but never mind as it would cool down on the plane.

Oh, and the croissant was very dry, but would also be fine with the coffee to wash it down.

Oh, and it was stupidly expensive, being a Starbucks not only in an airport but in Heathrow Terminal 5.

Anyway, never mind - that was me sorted for something to eat and drink on the second flight, which would tide me over until a late lunch in Barcelona. Huzzah!

Then I went downstairs to board my plane, only to be met by an instruction that we were boarding using a bus and that no hot drinks were allowed on the bus.

And so I now found myself, having very grudgingly spent over-the-odds on a mediocre coffee that was currently burning my fingers through the cup, having to throw almost all of it into the bin because I couldn't take it onto their bus. I then found myself having to eat a fairly dry croissant without the coffee to wash it down that would make it palatable. And then on the second flight I was given two small biscuits and a small bottle of water as the 'food' offering.

All in all, that was just a rubbish experience. And I absolutely blame Heathrow for this one - at no point is there a sign saying "by the way, you can't take your coffee on your plane". I consider the whole thing an horrible, and deliberate, rip-off of customers.

(And yet, somehow, the food offering was still better than the flight back, which was a "BA" flight operated by one of their partners, and where for three hours there was nothing at all. It's fair to say I have very little intention of using them, or Heathrow, any more than I absolutely have to in future.)

#5: "The Specimens", by Mairi Kidd

Basking

I spent the second half of last week in Barcelona, at the ISE trade show. This was a fun trip, albeit made up of three very long days. It featured a new and exciting way for the airports to rip customers off, which I may or may not post about separately.

But one thing that was really nice came on the last day, when Barcelona enjoyed 18 degrees and bright sunshine. Which meant that just as I left ISE for the last time, before getting on the metro to the airport, I spent a minute just standing, basking in the sunshine.

It's funny how you don't notice how much you miss it until the sunshine is back.

#4: "And the Mountains Echoed", by Khaled Hosseini (the current candidate for book of the year, though I'd be surprised if it stays there. It's very good, but not quite as good, though also not as desperately sad, as "A Thousand Splendid Suns")

Experimental Cookery 2026: Malaysian Chicken

Our first Experimental Cookery of the year comes from the Hairy Bikers "Great Curries" - a book I love in theory but have made depressingly little actual use of. This one has a lengthy ingredient list, almost all of which then get chopped up and turned into the curry paste before the others are added.

Some years ago, I took a cookery class (with work!) which led to me purchasing a small food processor that I use only for curry pastes. Or, at least, I do in theory - I've used it on a total of two days for a total of three things (with this representing the second day of use). So it was good to have a pretext for making use of this again.

Anyway, the meal was quick and easy to prepare: gather the ingredients, chop and then blend the ones for the paste, then cook that along with some spices to make the base of the curry. Add the chicken, then the vegetables, and simmer.

The results were very nice, but extremely hot (that will be the 10 chillis in the sauce). But the potatoes were a nice touch, and I'm sure we'll have this again.

One thing I think I would do differently would be to use either chicken thighs or chicken drumsticks, rather that getting chicken legs and breaking them up - I'm far from convinced the mixture added anything to the overall meal and I didn't enjoy that bit of the task.

The other thing that I'm inclined to do, time permitting, is to start making up some of these curry pastes in advance and freezing them - that then should make a lot of future meal prep a lot easier when the time comes. Of course, that "time permitting" is always a big question...

To the Moon!

A couple of days ago I learned that NASA are in the process of putting together a crewed mission back to the Moon - the intent this time is simply to orbit and then come back, rather than landing, but presumably that's a next step towards returning there.

I'm rather surprised by the lack of media attention on this one, and equally glad that America has brought their space programme back online in a big way. And, much as I don't like giving him credit, that it one of the definite good things of Trump's presidency - returning to the Moon, with a view to setting up an actual Moonbase, and longer term looking to Mars is the sort of big, bold strategy that we just haven't had for some decades.

It's also worth noting that all of this, especially Mars, is one of Elon Musk's particular obsessions as well. And it's easy to mock, but he is actually right - on a universal scale human life is incredibly vulnerable. It's only a matter of time before something happens to render the Earth uninhabitable (for us), so for the species to survive long-term we really do have to become first multi-planetary and then multi-stellar.

Of course, that "matter of time" may well be measured in centuries or millennia, so perhaps it's not the most urgent thing. But given the other things they're working on, it may be no bad thing to keep Trump and Musk focused on the skies...

That Rarest of Things

Somehow, the Guardian managed to publish that rarest of things: an actually astute article on Scottish and Welsh independence in a unionist-leaning paper. It takes as its central thesis that it's likely that the upcoming Scottish and Welsh elections are predicted to lead to pro-independence majorities, while the largest party in the Northern Ireland Assembly is already in favour of leaving the UK. It then argues that this should serve as a major wake-up call to Westminster that things need to be done differently.

It won't, of course, but never mind.

Probably the key statement, though, and one that seems to have sailed blissfully behind the commentators (who are rehearsing the usual pro- and anti-independence talking points), is this: "This doesn’t work for Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, but it also doesn’t work for many parts of England." (emphasis mine)

That is, the UK fundamentally isn't working for any part of the UK.

I've spoken about this before, more than a decade ago, and it's even more true now: for a very long time, voters in the UK have had the choice of a Labour (or Labour-led) government, or a Tory (or Tory-led) government. Worse, the Labour and Tory parties actually agree on the vast majority of their policies, disagreeing in a fairly narrow range of areas and on some implementation details.

This has manifested itself in a massively-unpopular Tory government getting voted out and replaced with a Labour landslide that has collapsed to even worse levels of unpopularity in an unprecedentedly short period of time.

Look to the future and the next election has one of three possible outcomes: either Labour somehow manage to turn this around and get a second term and we get more of the same (as far as I can see this is the least-worst option, but I really can't see it happening), or the Tories somehow manage to recover in the polls and come back into power and we get more of the same, or (horror of horrors) we end up with a Reform government, probably elected on a fairly narrow subset of the electorate.

That's a horrifying prospect, and it's probably just as horrifying for a great many people in England, just as it is in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

The only real difference? Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland have (at least in theory) the option of leaving the UK. England don't have that option - in theory, they could eject the rest of us, but that still leaves them with the same broken Westminster system of government.

So what is the solution?

The answer to that is actually the same, whether the question is now to stop the rise of Reform or countering the pro-independence parties in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland: make the UK actually work for the people of the UK.

That includes, but is not limited to, a better voting system, a better caliber of MPs (of all parties), an end to the cozy consensus that leads to all our parties agreeing on almost everything. And it mean finding a way to improve the economy... but not just "the economy" (which typically measures things that are only important to the very rich) but the economy as it is felt by regular people - jobs, wages, inflation (especially food inflation)... we need to find a way to end the dependence of so many on food banks (it's good that they're there, but they should also be a mark of shame for a supposedly-rich country).

And all of which needs done before the next election. Which means two things: firstly, the timescale is absurdly unrealistic such that it's almost certainly too late.

Secondly, it means that only Labour can stop Reform. Not as an election slogan (which is almost certainly will be), but because they're currently the only ones with the power to actually do anything.

My Most-read Book

I very rarely read a novel twice, and even less often read one three times: I've read "The Lord of the Rings" on two occasions, the "Red Dwarf" novels at least twice each (and mostly three times), and "Good Omens" three times, but that's about it.

Until yesterday I'd never read a novel four times, but "The Hobbit" has broken new ground in that regard. (Actually, nearly five times - we were studying it in first year at high school, got as far as the death of Smaug, and then the teacher left and the new guy had no interest in concluding it.)

I still don't think this really qualifies it as my favourite book of all time, which remains "Good Omens", though I doubt I'll ever read that again at this point.

Anyway, this is all prelude to another re-read of "The Lord of the Rings" coming later this year - I purchased a good quality hardback set of the books late last year and am keen to revisit them.

#3: "The Hobbit", by J.R.R. Tolkien

Fawlty Towers: The Play

For his birthday, we bought my father tickets to the "Fawlty Towers" play, and yesterday was the day for going to see it. This involved a comedy of errors as I managed to miss my stop (there seems to be one advertised that doesn't actually exist) and get another train back, but then on to the show.

There's actually not all that much to say about it - it's an adaptation of three of the episodes of the TV series, woven together into a combined show, with some new material. The characters are all present and correct, and uncannily like their TV personas.

The performances, and the production as a whole are great, with the caveat that you've probably seen all of it before - indeed, some of the reviews have noted an odd phenomenon whereby the audiences will laugh before the corresponding joke. A comedy of anticipation, if you will.

The one bit that's new is the very end of the show, which fits in with the general chaos that has gone before while not quite matching any of the actual shows. And... it's fine, but it's also the weakest part of the show. Not that they could have done any better, given the number of moving parts.

Basically, it's recommended for fans of the TV show. If you didn't like the show, you almost certainly won't like this any more. And if you haven't seen the show, it's probably not for you - it's a particular type of retro comedy that they just don't make any more... but maybe watch a bit of the show and see what you think? (It's not like it's hard to get ahold of these days.)

Plus, on the way home I was able to finish my second book of the year, so that was nice, too.

#2: "The City of Mist", by Carlos Ruiz Zafón