Networking (or not)

Getting home from the holiday was the usual fun - drag everything in, unpack all the bags, put the washing in the baskets for the washing fairy to deal with... In addition, this time I had taken the cunning step of powering just about everything in the house off before we left, which meant that things like the heating and the internet needed switched back on. Which was all fine.

Except for one thing: my PC resolutely refused to connect to the internet. Everything else on the network was fine, but not that.

It's been a while since we had PC troubles, but they haven't become any more fun in the interim.

Debugging the problem quickly established that the issue was with both wired and wireless connections, and indeed applied both when using the home network and if I turned my phone into a mobile hotspot. That pointed to a software problem, or just possibly a problem with the motherboard.

Long story short, I finally isolated the problem to Norton Anti-virus, with the advice being to uninstall it and reinstall it. Which was great, except that Norton make it really hard to uninstall - there's a "why do you want to uninstall?" question, after which they send you a suggestion for something to try instead. Presumably, after that there's a "no, I still want to uninstall" option.

But, of course, the key problem with that is that the "suggestion for something to try instead" comes online, which requires that you be connected to the internet. Given that I was trying to uninstall because I couldn't connect to the internet, this was something of a problem.

Fortunately, if you reboot your PC in Safe Mode this then allows for an easier uninstall without those additional hoops to jump through. After which I could reinstall the program and whatever the problem was was cleared.

Still, that seems a really bizarre and annoying weakness in their systems - we'll gate your ability to solve the problem behind the problem!

Anyway, it's done now. Which is nice.

Day 300: Update on Goals

Day 300, so time for one more update on goals. This will be the last before the end-of-year round-up.

• Books: By Day 300 I should basically be at 29.59 books, so despite "The Witchwood Crown" taking an age to get through I'm reasonably far ahead of target. It's now a race to the finish - can I complete the remaining five books before the end of the year?
• Weight: It's now clear that this goal won't be achieved, but my intent is to do as much as I can between now and the end of the year. At the very least, I want to end the year weighing less than at the start, which at the time of writing isn't the case.
• Church Website: I've made a significant update since the previous post, such that this task is now done - I updated the remaining pages, removed our contact form and replaced it with links to Facebook (not ideal, but the best I could do), and generally made sure it was all up-to-date. There will be further updates to the website in future, but as with the garden these won't amount to specific goals.
• Garden: This is now done.
• Blog: Had I set a formal blogging goal, by Day 300 I should be at 98.63 posts. This is post 97, so I'm very slightly behind target, though I do expect to catch up in the next day or so.

Things are looking up from the previous update. Of the four formal goals, I have completed two and am on track to complete a third. The final not-quite-a-goal is also on track to be successful.

#31: "The Book of Lost Tales, Part One", by J.R.R. Tolkien

Experimental Cookery 2026: Loaded Jacket Potatoes (with Sausage Ragu)

Back when I was away in America, LC made up a Simple Sausage Ragu from the Tesco magazine. This was part of their "Cook Once, Eat Twice" feature, so had a reasonable amount of leftovers. Today's post is the second half of that feature, in which I combined the leftover ragu with breadcrumbs and cheese, and used it to fill jacket potatoes.

This was a quick and easy meal to put together, of course, hampered only with wanting to do it all quickly and therefore trying to scoop cooked potato out of fresh-from-the-oven baked potatoes - not a comfortable experience!

The resulting meal was... okay. There was nothing at all offensive about it, it was fine comfort food, but it just didn't really inspire. Which is true of the sausage ragu itself. The upshot, I think, is that we might have this once more (to get rid of the last of the ragu) and then we're unlikely to have either again. But I do have at least one other "loaded jacket potato" method that I might well try.

#30: "J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth", by Bradley Birzer

Scotland's Footballing Woes

I had the misfortune of having an unexpected free hour last night and chose to spend it watching the second half of Scotland's match against Slovenia. Oh dear.

First things first: congratulations to Slovenia who were very deserving winners - they won the match by being the better team, and I see absolutely no grounds for complaint about the defeat. There have been occasions in the past where Scotland have had grounds to complain about opponents diving or dodgy referee decisions, or whatever, but last night that was very much not the case. And it's not even that Scotland played badly (though we did) - Slovenia played the better game.

But regarding Scotland...

Firstly, I quite like the new style that Sébastien Pocognoli has put in place, at least in theory. One of the big problems Scotland had at the last major tournaments was that they played with very little passion and almost entirely defensively, and the new manager has made a big shift away from that. In theory, that's something I like to see.

But there are two big problems with it.

Firstly, it was very evident that the more attacking style is leaving some gaps at the back. That's probably inevitable, and something we'll just need to reckon with. But that means that when you get your chances going forward, you must take them. Scotland had six shots on target last night, but recorded one goal. That's a problem - if you're going to be wasteful at the back, you need to be ruthless up front.

The second problem is rather more worrying, and looks very much like the Wilfried Nancy situation at Celtic - like Pocognoli he had a very distinctive attacking style that, in theory, should have been easy on the eye and fun to watch. But the problem was that even in the few weeks he was here we saw, again and again, his Celtic team would look good in the first half but find themselves contained by an opposition who were good enough to do that for a while, and then over the course of that first half the opposition manager would get to grips with the style, make a couple of tweaks to their own style, and go out and beat it.

My fear with Pocognoli is that this may well be the case again - that Slovenia basically worked out the beating of Scotland in their first match, or in the first half of the second, and so in the second half last night they just cut Scotland open. And we had no reply.

I hope that's not the case, and that Pocognoli just needs a bit more time to get his ideas across and we can go forward. If not, Scotland may prove to be a team that looks good briefly, and is then decisively defeated by canny manangers.

Beyond that... this Nations League campaign was always something of a free hit - we weren't ever going to top the group, nor were we ever in danger of relegation, so we were always going to be in the same section next time. The one quirk was that coming second would have put us in Pot Two for Euro 2028 qualification, while we're now destined for Pot Three.

But that doesn't make a huge amount of difference, because we're co-hosts of Euro 2028.

The way qualification works (roughly) is this: there are 12 groups of 4 teams. The 12 winners and 8 best runners-up will qualify automatically. Then the top two out of England, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales who have not already qualified will be given reserved spots, and then there are playoffs for the remaining places.

What that effectively means is that we either need the Republic of Ireland or Wales to grab one of those winner/best runner-up spots (in which case we will definitely get one of the "reserved" spots) or we need to do better than one of those two teams (in which case, again, we'll get a "reserved" spot). (It should be fair to assume that England will top their group and so get qualification that way.)

All of which amounts to saying we'll need to be pretty unlucky to fail to qualify (or just rank rotten). Which is by no means a guarantee, of course, but such is the life of a Scotland fan.

#28: "Forged in Rome", by Conn Iggulden

#29: "Thomas the Tank Engine: The Complete Collection", by Rev. W. Awdry (a book for Surprise!)

Dear Disney...

I find myself more than a little perplexed by your recent actions. The thing is, via LC's subscription we have access to your "ad free" version of Disney+, only you've recently changed the terms and conditions to allow yourselves to show unskippable ads before and between shows. That's really annoying, but not actually what I'm about to talk about...

What I'd really like to know is what is the point of showing me unskippable ads for other things that are bundled into the very same Disney+ subscription that I already have? And, doubly so, what is the point of showing my unskippable ads for things that I have already watched through the very same subscription I already have? As far as I can see there is absolutely no benefit to you in this approach - you're actively annoying me while pushing me towards something that won't make you any more money.

I could, grudgingly, understand it if the adverts were for any of the infinite Disney merch that's out there, or for your upcoming cinema releases, or even for next month's upcoming shows - those all have a purpose that may put some more money into your hands (offensive as it remains to be putting ads in your "ad free" plans at all).

But to force adverts on us that very definitely aren't going to do that? What possible purpose does that serve?

(One other thing: the irony of all of this is that Disney+ was, and actually still is, the best value of all of our subscription services. Amazon Prime is good for everything that isn't Prime Video, while Netflix is rapidly dropping in my estimation. And as for NOW... But these recent shenanigans really put a dent in my appreciation for this particular service.)

"Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?"

The above is one of the classic interview questions, and a question that people inevitably hate - it's really hard to come up with a good answer, especially one that fits with whatever job it is that you're interviewing for. And yet, it's actually a question you should probably always have an answer for, whether you're in an interview or not - "I don't know" is never great.

But there's a second question that's perhaps more useful to consider, especially since it applies much more specifically, and can be asked of any ongoing task: "What does success look like?"

Sometimes, of course, that's obvious: if you're doing the washing up, success looks like a well cleaned set of dishes, possibly dried if you're showing off, and with the various work surfaces wiped down and good to go again.

Sometimes, it's a lot harder to say. But answering the question is worthwhile, as it gives a clear indication of what you're aiming for, and indeed a clear indication of what you're not aiming for. (Returning to the previous example, when doing the dishes, the aim is to get the cleaned; it's not to also go and deep clean the entire rest of the kitchen. That's absolutely not a bad thing, and may prove to be your next goal, but it's beyond the scope of what you're currently working on.)

The major benefit of stating the goal as clearly and thoroughly as you can is that it then provides shape for the intermediate steps, and probably signposts along the way. It also helps to weed out extraneous tasks, and provides a means to identify when you're off track.

Of course, the depiction of success is not a one-and-done task - at any point, it's only what success looks like from where you are now. Once you move a bit, some things that you intended may prove unrealistic (or trivial!), while you might find that your priorities shift.

And that's all good. Especially if the goal you're setting is for your life or your career - when settling that it really should be what you want, and that doesn't lock you in forever.

So, when an interviewer asks you "Where do you see yourself in five years?" what they're really asking about is The Dream - what's the goal, and in particular, what does success look like?

Oh, and incidentally, if you're interviewing for a fairly junior position, a good answer would most likely be something like "I'm just starting out in a career in <whatever>, so for the next few years I'm looking for opportunities to develop and apply my skills. In the immediate terms, I think this opportunity will allow me to learn to <something>, and we can go from there." And, if nothing else, there's absolutely no harm in saying you want to develop expertise in working in a professional team towards a common goal, and that the longer-term (5-year) goal would be to start leading a team and/or taking the lead in developing the next version of <whatever>.

Running Out of Steam

For the past several months, Surprise! and I have been working through the "Thomas the Tank Engine" stories by Rev A.W. Awdry. They're good stuff, and always fun to revisit the classics, but...

As with when Funsize and I worked through the series, there is very definitely a sense that they become less interesting as they go - he spends more and more time with the old engines, the small railway, and other peripheral characters that just don't have the same charm as Thomas and his friends.

All of which is a shame - the early stories remain classics, and are really good. But starting by the time you get to "The Eight Famous Engines", and definitely by the time you get to "The Twin Engines", the whole venture starts to flag.

Oh well. We have three stories to go, and then "Winnie the Pooh" beckons!

Transformers: the Movie (the apology tour)

On Saturday Surprise! and I went to see "Transformers: the Movie", returned to the cinemas for its 40th anniversary in a glorious new print. (Funsize declined the invitation to join us.)

Before I talk about the movie itself, a few things about the cinema experience this time:

• The Vue in Livingston is currently undergoing a long-overdue refurbishment. This is likely to improve the experience, but in the short term it very much did not.
• There are usually two concession stands in the Vue, the Quick one and the Slow one. Alas, during the course of the refurbishment only the Slow one is currently open. I'm not at all sure what it is about that stand that makes it the Slow one, but it most definitely is very slow indeed - we were close to the point of having to abandon our intended purchases when we were belatedly served.
• We paid a little extra for the comfy seats, this being a special occasion. I don't really think they were worth it, to be honest. The standard seats are absolutely fine.

Anyway, what about the film?

"Transformers: the Movie" is a slightly bizarre one, in that it's one of the big films of my childhood, but it's also one I'd never previously seen in the cinema: the release date didn't quite match up with a birthday, and back then that was a requirement for a cinema trip. And, indeed, because we only had a Betamax player back then, it was some time before I actually saw it, eventually, on VHS. For a good long time, I actually experienced it primarily in graphic novel form.

So finally seeing it up on the big screen was nice. And the new print is suitably impressive - for a very long time the film presentation has amounted to "this was the best that could be done with what they had", while this does seem to be a marked improvement.

Given that it's been a couple of years since I'd seen it, I had also forgotten at least somewhat just how fast the film moves - like a Dan Brown novel it runs at a really fast pace from one event to another, with almost no let up. In fairness, it does seem to slow down somewhat after the opening action set piece and the massacre of the characters, but I think that's actually relative - since you don't care so much about the new generation it just doesn't have the same immediacy.

Which, of course, brings me to that massacre of the characters, the Red Wedding of its day (seriously). This is a really odd one - commercially, it might have seemed sensible to replace one range of toys with another, and wiping out the older generation certainly does that. On the other hand, starting your children's film with the deaths of six beloved heroes and then the demise of the most beloved of them all is a really odd choice. And it really backfired - the release of the movie marks the point where Transformers really goes into decline, partly because there's an obvious drop off in the quality of the toys, partly because it just slipped out of the zeitgeist, but largely because every character that got killed off was somebody's favourite.

And yet... that bloodbath is perhaps the major reason that "Transformers: the Movie" is at all relevant now. There are basically no animated films from the 80's, other than those made by Disney, that are discussed nowadays.

Anyway, it was good to see it. Surprise! enjoyed it too, which is good. But I don't think I'd go again - home viewing is enough at this point.

One other thing that was really good, and which gained a surprising gravitas recently, was the short "Optimus Prime: Awakening" that came after the film, in which the newly-deceased Optimus Prime finds himself at a crossroads, deciding whether to go into the light or to try to go back. It's a curious rumination on mortality, saying goodbye, and indeed the costs that constant warfare inflicts on you, even when on the right side of things. It really surprised me - good stuff.

(Between that and the new print of the film, I suspect I may be purchasing yet another copy of the film on Blu-Ray. Oh well.)

So, that was the centerpiece of my weekend.

#27: "The Witchwood Crown", by Tad Williams