My Year in 2019

As we get to the end of 2019, I find myself not quite sure what to make of it. It has felt like a bit of an "in between" year - 2018 saw some big beginnings and endings, and we know that there are further big transitions coming, probably in 2020, but 2019 seemed mostly to be about anticipation. It's been an odd one.

Anyway, time for the traditional round-up...

My Year in... Blogging

In 2019 I formalised my sort-of goals from 2017 and 2018, and set myself a target of posting 120 times here and 60 times on the Imaginarium. I achieved that, so am fairly happy with it. However, I did find at times I was posting mostly for the sake of building a post count - the topics could perhaps have been a bit more inspired.

My Year in... Work

2019 had a really rocky start, to the extent that I seriously considered quitting several times in February. However, I eventually got to grips with my new project and the new technology (well, new to me), and was able to start making some significant impact, to the extent that the year has ended exceptionally well, and the year overall counts as a major success.

Which, if you had told me in February, I would not have believed, but am very glad of.

My Year in... Health

There has been no change here, so that's good.

My Year in... Gaming

Sadly, 2019 has been a let down on the gaming front. The work game continues apace, which is quite nice, and just enough to keep me in touch with the hobby, but it really doesn't scratch the itch. I can't see any prospect of 2020 being any better, for various reasons, but I'm inclined to consider 2021 to be a crucial year - if I don't get some 'real' gaming in by then it's probably time to consider that hobby ended.

My Year in... Band

This has been fine, but somewhat uninspiring. It does what I need it to do, but it doesn't do anything more than that.

My Year in... Resolutions

As always, the wrap-up of annual goals, and setting of goals for next year, are handled in another post.

My Year in... Travel

Unusually, we started this year in another country, celebrating Mum's birthday in France. We then added a second trip to France, for a week in the summer. That was nice, especially seeing Funsize spending time with her cousins.

My other ventures abroad were with work - a day trip to Amsterdam and back and a two-day trip to Copenhagen.

As a family, we took a few days holiday in Banff, and then made another trip to England - we spent a few days in Alnwick, just in time for it to get flooded, and then travelled further south for a belated 40th birthday party.

The major thing I wanted in most of 2019 was to avoid getting on a plane - 2018 had been crazy, and the start of 2019 was likewise quite busy, so I was keen not to go too far. But the last few months have given me a little cabin fever, so I'm keen to venture further afield at some point in 2020. Mostly, I want to see the sun!

My Year in... Faith

There's very little to report here. We've continued to settle in our new church. I had to turn down an opportunity to join one of the committees, as I felt I just didn't have the time. Funsize continues to be made extremely welcome.

I do find myself a little concerned about the numbers in the congregation, which seem to have dropped recently, and also about youth work, which is a permanent problem for much of the Church of Scotland. Though it is a fairly academic concern, since I really don't have the means to actually do anything to change it.

My Year in... Sadness

When Grandad passed in 2018, there was a glimmer of hope that this might give Grandma a hint of more life - so much of her life had been bound up in the care of his last days, so there was a hope it might be a burden lifted. Sadly, it was not to be, and Grandma fairly quickly went downhill quite steeply. That has been difficult to watch, even from afar, with no prospect of meaningful improvement.

My Year... Overall

As I said, this has felt very much like an "in between" year. We've moved forward from the big changes of 2018, but we also know that there are further big changes to come, so we've been kind of stuck. 2020 looks like it will probably be the year when those various changes actually come about, and so I expect it to be another very busy year. But, hopefully, it will be a good one.

As always, this will be my final post on this blog for the year, so I'll take the opportunity now to wish anyone still reading a very Happy New Year when it comes. Thanks for sticking with me!

End of Year Update on Goals

At the end of last year I set myself four goals. This was then complemented with a To Do List that in time became, effectively, a fifth goal. As we near the end of the year, then, how did those shape up?

• Books: I completed book 60 with three days to spare, and have read 13 books from The List this year. However, many of those 13 are re-reads, and I did not complete the British part of The List as I had intended. That's a mixed fortune, but I'm not too despondent about it - The List now contains 33 unread entries, 4 from the British side, 31 from the American (and 2 on both).
  
• Weight: This is failed, but... I'm now set up with a fairly aggressive schedule at the gym, so I'm hopeful of getting this moving in the new year. Maybe - I've been saying that for years.
  
• Blogging: This is a clear success - I completed 60 posts exactly on The Imaginarium, and passed my target here with a little to spare.
  
• Redecorate the Study: This was completed in October. I would quite like to get a new curtain for the room, but it's not urgent - we never close it anyway, so it would be purely decorative. A second clear success!
  
• The To-Do List: This was likewise completed. Further, I reached a point where I didn't really have any major tasks to add, never mind several in order to warrant a list. So that was good.

So that's four goals completed, albeit one with a significant caveat, and one failed utterly. That's not terrible, though the fact that it's that same goal that's falling short year after year is annoying. For 2020 I'm going to set four goals again, though I can only really talk about three of them (and the fourth is largely beyond my control anyway...) So here goes:

• Books: The goal for 2020 is the traditional 60 books for the year. I'm not going to set myself a specific goal as regards The List, though where I find myself without a clear next choice I'll prioritize those books over others. I'm also not going to be setting up sublists for this year, as I've basically run out of ideas on that front.
  
• Weight: Again, the goal is the same - to end the year 20 pounds lighter than I started.
  
• Blogging: And, again, the goal is the same: 120 posts here, plus 60 on The Imaginarium.
  
• Work: This is the goal I can't talk about.

And that's it. Three fairly routine goals, and one that may well be beyond my ability to influence anyway. As with last year, I'd quite like to sort out something gaming-related, outside of the work game, but my feeling is that 2020 is not going to be the year for getting that done.

Experimental Cookery 2019: Roast Dinner Soup

For reasons of family drama (long story), I was compelled to cook a roast beef dinner last night. Naturally, there was too much, and therefore there was a significant quantity of leftovers. Fortunately, I've picked up Hugh's "Love Your Leftovers" book, which provided the source for today's lunch.

This was quick and easy - basically, put everything into a pot, cover with stock, and simmer for a bit. I actually added yet more stuff, effectively making it a "whatever's in the fridge" soup, which was fine.

The soup was okay - a good way to use stuff up, without necessarily being something I'd generate leftovers specifically so I can have it again. Though it did suffer the indignity of a double rejection - Funsize first refused the roast beef yesterday, and then the soup today. I'm also making a noodly beef lunch tomorrow, and so running the risk of the dreaded triple rejection...

And that's that. This will, of course, be the final Experimental Cookery of 2019. I hope it was worth it!

The Rise of Skywalker

LC and I saw this on Friday. Given that it has been out of a week, I'll keep this short. There are no spoilers below.

I thought this was a good film, easily the best of the sequel trilogy. By my count it is therefore the fifth best "Star Wars" film, after the original trilogy and then "Rogue One". Though it is a long way behind "Rogue One", largely because it only works in the context of the previous two, and they serve as a significant drag factor on this film.

I felt that the various decisions that were made in this film were about the best they could be, given the constraints they had to work with - Carrie Fisher's death meant that her role had to be built using pre-recorded material taken out of context, while "The Last Jedi" had left a real mess for this one to clear up.

And that's the big problem both with this film and with the sequel trilogy as a whole: they set up several mysteries in "The Force Awakens" but didn't plan out the trilogy with all the answers. This left the team who wrote "The Last Jedi" with free rein to take all of those mysteries and just chuck them in the bin... and left "The Rise of Skywalker" to pick up the pieces. Maybe they should instead have decided on the answers beforehand?

(Actually, there's no 'maybe' about that. They absolutely should have worked out the answers before they wrote word one of "The Force Awakens". Doing that would have allowed them to actually foreshadow the revelations: "Luke's just not a farmer Owen. He has too much of his father in him," "That's what I'm afraid of.")

But that's spilled milk, and "The Rise of Skywalker" does its very best to clear it up. And it mostly does a good job. A decent end to the trilogy, and a decent end to the saga. And, much like "The Force Awakens" and "Rogue One" before it, a film that leaves me keen to get back into some version of the "Star Wars" RPG, which is another win in my book.

A Winterval Dirge

The BBC's "A Christmas Carol" starts with a scene of a young man pissing on a grave. This is entirely appropriate, as it then spends three hours pissing all over a classic.

The second most infuriating thing about this abomination is that it is genuinely well made - the cast are excellent and play their parts well, the staging is very good, and the effects are well done. They've actually done what they set out to do very well.

And the most infuriating thing about it is that the concept is actually sound. This was sold to me as a spooky retelling of "A Christmas Carol", which is entirely appropriate - "A Christmas Carol" was the culmination of an old tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas, and it was only as a result of that story that the new tradition of the Christmas story (and later the Christmas movie) came about. So doing a retelling focussing on the terror invoked by the ghosts is a really good idea.

But the problem is that this isn't a retelling of "A Christmas Carol", or even an adaptation of the novella, any more than was the "Doctor Who" episode of the same name - yes, there are characters in all the same places, and the archetypes are more or less present, but none of those characters are the ones taken from the novella, the plot is mangled beyond recognition, and the theme is utterly different.

Digging into some specifics, the heart of the story, and the heart of the problems of this mini-series, is Scrooge. The problem here is that they've ramped up his evil enormously, which I'm sure seemed a good idea at the time. But the material isn't actually served by making Scrooge a monster. Dickens made him a skinflint, but not much different from the businessmen and moneylenders of his day, and for good reason - the more recognisable he is to being one of us, the more powerful he is. Make him a monster, and he's not one of us, and then there's nothing we can learn from his story; make him one of us, and the lesson for him becomes a lesson for us.

Worse, not only is Scrooge a monster, he's also an imbecile. In the worst section of the mini-series, he decides to strip Mrs Cratchitt of her dignity and her agency, humiliating her in return for money for a life-saving operation for her son. He talks, at tedious length, about seeking to find some sort of "moral exchange rate" - how much money is her dignity worth? But the stupidity here is that she told him why she was doing what she was doing, and it was that that set the rate - her price was £30 because that was the cost of the operation; if the operation had been £50 the price would have been higher, or for £20 it would have been lower. So we have a deeply offensive scene built on the assumption that Scrooge is an idiot.

(And, worse, the show had already established that Scrooge understood circumstantial motivations very well, in the scene where he and Marely engaged in a bit of disaster capitalism with the mill owner. So it's not even consistent in its idiocy.)

Mentioning that scene of course brings up another big problem with the mini-series - its handling of women. There are already precious few female characters of note in "A Christmas Carol". Therefore, the mini-series of course decided to drop one. This then leaves us two: one who is dead to begin with, and Mrs Cratchitt. Yay!

Actually, I have no real objection to the handling of Scrooge's sister, either as his rescuer or as the Ghost of Christmas Present. Yes, the bit with the gun was utter nonsense, but it was a tiny flaw on an otherwise disastrous work, so I'll let it slide.

But the handling of Mrs Cratchitt was a disgrace. Not only for the stripping of her dignity and agency that I've already mentioned, but then her declaration that as a woman she could summon spirits for revenge. Because, of course, all women are witches.

Then, finally, we come to the end. "A Christmas Carol" is, of course, hugely sentimental - Scrooge is redeemed through grace, and is immediately and obviously restored back into right company.

But this is a story crafted by secularists for a post-Christian age. Which means there can be no grace, and since there was nothing done to earn it there can be no redemption. And that in turn means there can be no hope - Scrooge remains a pariah to all, with his promises to make things right being treated with nothing but scorn.

(And it's worse than that. Scrooge promises to close down his business, but what isn't mentioned is that large numbers of people depend on that business for their homes and their employment. In the best case things will be sold on as going concerns, to other businessmen who are marginally better. In the worst case, he's just made hundreds of people unemployed and/or homeless. Merry Christmas! What he should have done was keep the business going but actually made the investments he'd avoided - making his apartments safe and comfortable and charging fair rents; making his businesses safe as well as profitable, and paying fair wages. As it stands, the moral of this story is that making money is evil, and we should all live in hovels, cold and starving. Ho ho ho!)

So that's that. For the second time this year, the BBC have been roundly outclassed by a silly musical, this time by a literal bunch of Muppets. (The other was "Les Mis".) And with this they bring to an end a truly awful year in the history of the Corporation. For the first time, I'm really finding it hard to justify the license fee - "Still Game" is finished, "Doctor Who" has been poor at best for two years now, and their adaptations of classic works have fallen flat. Yes, they produce some good dramas, but this is the golden age of TV, so there are plenty of others who do that. Worse than that, their news is not to be trusted, they've had a truly disastrous election, and their political editor is awful (although, damningly, a marked improvement over her predecessor). And so I find myself hard pressed to answer the question: why am I forced to pay for the BBC as a condition for watching any TV?

#60: "The Bourne Identity", by Robert Ludlum (a book from The List)

Experimental Cookery 2019: Paul Hollywood's Mince Pies

Due to the stresses at work, my Christmas baking ended up being deferred until this week, and was reduced to only a single item. Which was not ideal, especially since LC doesn't like mince pies, Funsize is too young, and I can't possibly eat 18 of them by myself. Oh, and we can't even give them to the church or other group due to strict food hygiene requirements (they're fine, but I can't absolutely guarantee which allergens are present in the mincemeat).

It's possible I haven't chosen the very best item to cook!

Anyway, these turned out to be a mix of easy and frustrating - the pastry came together nice and easily, as did the enhanced mincemeat (which is regular mincemeat with the added apple and orange). But putting it together proved awkward - at first I hadn't left the pastry to chill for long enough, so had to put it back into a ball and chill again. This meant that it ended up over-worked, which seemed appropriate but was a little disappointing. Then the quantities were off - I had enough pastry for 18 pies and enough mincemeat for 24 or more, which was a sad waste. Plus, I really need a bigger cutter for the deep-fill pies.

But they turned out pretty well:

I should note that those aren't at all burnt - they were over-filled somewhat so the brown bits are where the filling has flowed out. Which makes for a fairly awful washing-up job!

They actually taste pretty good, although as noted the pastry was over-worked. But next time...

And that's basically that. I'm reasonably happy with the way these turned out, but slightly dismayed at how pathetic my Christmas baking turned out to be. But it's a start, so I guess that's okay.

Success!

I've just ordered my final present for Christmas! This took considerably longer than I would have hoped, and meant I was cutting it a lot finer than I would have liked, but it was a success nonetheless. All I need to do now is wait for it to arrive and wrap it suitably, and that will be the Christmas preparations done (except for that one thing that I've forgotten, of course!).

The present-buying this year has been a bit of a funny beast - the people who are usually tricky to buy for turned out to be remarkably easy, while the two people who are usually easiest (one by virtue of providing a detailed list; the other being easy to please) proved to be extremely difficult. More than that I can't say at this time.

I'm particularly pleased with three of the gifts that have been picked out. Whether the recipients will be similarly pleased remains to be seen, of course.

Tasks for the Holiday

I don't have a huge amount I want to do over the Christmas break. In fact, I'm actively trying to avoid getting too much to do - I mostly just want to rest for a while. That said, there are a few things I'd like to do:

• Deep-clean the kitchen. This is something that hasn't been done in rather too long, and it's therefore something I want to tackle early in the holiday (indeed, ideally before Christmas Day). Basically, it's a case of moving everything off the work surfaces and cleaning those, then cleaning the appliances and putting them back, cleaning the oven and the microwave, and then giving the floor a good scrub. It's probably a couple of hours of work, which isn't too bad, but it does need that effort applied.
  
• Restock the freezer. We have a few things in stock, but I'd like to spend some time building those supplies - making up some chilli, a number of curries, some pizzas, and maybe a shepherd's pie. This isn't too tough a job, since it can be spread across many days, but it's worth getting done to make January that bit easier. (This will also help determine whether we go back to our two-freezer approach, or can fit everything in one.)
  
• Get new kitchen bins, maybe. LC has identified a good solution to our bin problem, depending on the sizes working. So we'll need to measure the area involved, and if suitable we'll order the new bins and fit them.
  
• See Star Wars. This may or may not qualify as a task, depending on how badly they've screwed it up. I'll let you know.

And that's it. Four things - one for before Christmas, one (probably) for the 27th, one for some time in the next two weeks, and one longer-term task. Should all be manageable. #58: "Fantasy Mapmaker", by Jared Blando #59: "Shiang", by C.F. Iggulden

Crumbs of Comfort

Last night was an almost unmitigated disaster, with much worse still to come. However, I am clinging to a few very small crumbs of comfort...

1. Corbyn will be going, and Swinson has already gone. Their utter inability to agree an interim PM meant there could be no vote of no confidence to remove Boris, delay Brexit, and have a second referendum. That chance is now gone. Their inability to cooperate during the election meant a split Remain vote, and led to more seats for the Tories (that might not be the decisive factor, but it certainly didn't help). So good riddance to both.
   
2. Thankfully, the SNP had a good night. Had they stood still or, worse, actually lost seats, the narrative would have been that there is no appetite for independence. Given the government that is now in place, and what we fear they may bring, it is absolutely vital that Scotland retain at least the option of escape.
   
3. As things stand, 2024 stands to be a very good year - Boris in May, and then Donald in November. (And, yes, I'm writing off 2020. Sorry.)

And that's all I've got.

Irn Bru 1901

This has been out for a couple of weeks now, but I've only just been able to track down a couple of bottles. I'd started to think that reports of its existence were yet more of the fake news that has so come to plague our existences.

There's a lot of fake news surrounding Irn Bru. But I've ranted about that before, so I'll not repeat it again.

But it is a truly remarkable coincidence that, just as Barr's have been forced to issue a profit warning, they just happen to find a handwritten copy of the 'original' recipe, and it just happens to be close to, but not quite the same as, the old version. Gosh, that was lucky!

Anyway.

This 'new' product is a horrible, even disgusting, price gouge. The RRP is £2 for a 750ml bottle of the stuff. This is made worse by the painfully limited availability - I actually paid £4.98 for two bottles. By way of contrast, Coke costs £3 for 3 litres in Tesco. (Technically, Coke should cost more than that. But Tesco has it on a near-permanent reduced price offer - either two 1.5 litre bottles for £3, or 1 litre bottles for £1. It's extremely unusual for neither of those offers to be running.)

Still, I felt I had to pay it when I had the chance. But that's too much for it to be more than a very occasional indulgence.

Upon getting home, I gave it a try. It's fizzier than the old stuff, the main effect of which is that it takes longer to pour. But that's fine. And then came the taste...

It's okay. It's certainly better than the new "full fat" Irn Bru.

But it's not as good as the old version. As with the new "full fat" version, it tastes like it's missing... something. However, I'm not able to pinpoint what that is - the "full fat" version is very obviously missing sugar, with the artificial sweeteners very clearly providing a hollowness in its place. But that criticism can't be levelled at the 1901 version, which actually has more sugar even than the old version. I would suggest caffeine as the missing link, but I'm not sure.

There is one other thing of note. A lot of the cheap Iron Brew (and, indeed, Sugar Free Irn Bru) substitues tend to have a fairly nasty metallic aftertaste. I had assumed that that was caused by their own use of artificial sweeteners. However, that theory can now be discounted, because it's present here, too. It's very muted, to the point of almost not being noticeable at all, but it is there.

The upshot: I miss the old version. As a substitute, this is better than nothing, but it's not a match. And it's far too expensive. I will have it again, though as I said it will be an occasional indulgence rather than a regular drink, but I'm still waiting for the real thing.

Experimental Cookery 2019: Comforting Sausage Bake

This will be short but sweet:

This meal came from Jamie's "5 Ingredients" book. It was quick and easy to put together - took about 10 minutes to get into the oven, and then was just a matter of waiting 45 minutes for it to cook. And the result was good.

It was a winner, and something we'll surely have again. But it's also not something that's going to feature on my "best ever" lists. It's just a good, solid option, which is always a nice thing to have.

The Snow Queen

Alphabetically speaking, the first tag in this blog is 'ballet', and I haven't done a post on the topic for ages. So there was clearly a need to do something about that, and so LC and I went out to see "The Snow Queen" at the Festival Theatre in Edinburgh on Saturday. (Or something. There might have been some other reason, but what could it have been?)

Anyway.

We arrived at the theatre nice and early, in plenty of time to find our seats and to pre-order our interval drinks. (That last is a particularly nice idea - it meant that at the interval it took us all of 20 seconds to get our drinks rather than waiting in a lengthy queue.)

The performance itself seemed to fly by. I made the mistake of not reading the plot summary from the programme before it started, which meant that while I got the basic plot, some of the finer details were lost on me. Plus, it didn't help that none of the characters had names.

Still, it was a well-staged performance, with good music, good dancing, and a third thing to complete my list.

And that's more or less that. The only other things of note are not really anything to do with the performance - Scotrail managed to let us down again, which meant I had to endure the horrors of driving both into and out of Edinburgh; and Funsize actually slept right through the night on Saturday, which both meant that we were able to get some sleep... and also that Nana and Grandad did something different when putting her to bed that made all the difference. Still, it proves that it is possible.

Cool

We took possession of our new fridge freezer on Saturday. It's an absolutely huge, grey lump that takes up considerable space in our kitchen, but is also has the massive advantages of providing large amounts of storage space and being much more efficient than our existing fridges. Basically, it's a massive upgrade.

The consequence of that is that we've now reverted to a primitive single-fridge existence - everything from the existing fridges has been moved to the new fridge, one of those fridges has been taken away for recycling, and the other has been switched off. At some point we'll probably have it removed, and a dishwasher installed in its place, but that's a decision for 2020.

We're not currently sure what we're going to do about freezers - I moved everything from our existing freezers into the big one, but that took up all of the available space. Part of me wants to consolidate down to the single unit, and use the space freed up for something else instead (not sure what). On the other hand, I can see significant advantages in retaining the second unit for the extra storage that gives us. So we'll need to think on this. (In the immediate term, we've switched it off and will allow it to defrost before giving it a really good clean. And then... who knows?)

Of course, with any new device there's a period of getting used to it. In the case of a fridge freezer, that mostly amounts to finding the best way to use the space, so that things that are used together are kept together, the most-used items are kept easily accessible, and so on. But I'm sure we'll figure that out.

In the meantime, though... it's pretty nice.

#45: "A Legacy of Spies", by John Le Carré (somehow it got missed at the time)
#57: "The Cerulean Storm", by Troy Denning

War of the Worlds

It's starting to feel like the chances of the BBC successfully adapting any classic novel are a million to one against. They did an okay job on "War and Peace" (despite their insistence on pushing a barely-there incest subplot front and centre), but they made a mess of "Watership Down", and their "Les Miserables" was an epic failure. And now this.

As far as I can see, there are three big problems with "The War of the Worlds".

The first is that the first half of episode one is spent on a massive diversion from the book, establishing a petty domestic drama surrounding George and Amy and how monstrously unfair it obviously is that they have to live in 'exile' in Woking. (Presumably, this was chosen because the trendy media types at the BBC could think of no fate worse than having to live so far from the centre of their universe. It's such a shame that their timing is so lousy, given the role of Woking in recent events.)

In theory, this is fine. It allows the audience to find their feet and identify with the various characters, so that they actually care when those characters start dealing with the Martian terror.

Unfortunately, that immediately runs into the second problem: the characters are all awful. There's the standard-issue 21st Century feminist, the sexually ambiguous atheist doctor, the caricature of a Christian priest, and the drippy liberal journalist. Oh, and the British Empire apparently runs half the world while being governed by nitwits and defended by fools. Yay! They're all so fundamentally dull and unlikeable that by the time the Martians got around to actually doing something, I'd decided I was on their side; the sooner these muppets got wiped out, the better.

The third problem came in the second and third episodes, where it turned out we were 'enjoying' flash-forwards to eight years after the main action. This mostly seemed to be providing an elaborate setup to series two; and as far as I'm aware there is and never was any intention to produce such a thing.

The upshot of all of that was that there was a curious lack of tension throughout. About the only interest I could find was in trying to pinpoint when the various entirely predictable deaths were going to occur.

Oh, and I suppose I was bitterly amused by the fact that they very obviously ran out of story ten minutes before the end of the final episode, and therefore we were treated to them desperately trying to pad it out.

But mostly what I don't understand is why, if you're going to do a period adaptation of "The War of the Worlds" you'd bother to semi-accurately adapt the time period (albeit the wrong period, by about a decade), and then throw out almost everything from the book. Did the writers only have access to the Speilberg/Cruise version or something?

It's yet another real shame. When I heard the BBC were doing another version of "War of the Worlds", I found myself really looking forward to it. When I heard it was being done as a period piece, that was even better. And when it was then delayed a year, that further ramped up my anticipation. But it looks like the reason it was so delayed is that somebody realised they'd really messed it up.

And now it's on to "A Christmas Carol", which I should be looking forward to...

Experimental Cookery 2019: Slow-cooker Lasagne

It's important that I provide proper attribution for this one: this meal was made by LC rather than me. It comes from the BBC Good Food website.

The slow cooker lasagne is fairly quick and easy to made - there was an initial stage of making up the filling, then it was a case of layering them in the slow cooker, and then it was just a case of letting it do the work. Which, really, is the big advantage of a slow cooker. This was definitely a boon - which lasagne is not terribly difficult to make, it is very time consuming; this one was much less so.

The results were pretty good. I had to eat mine reheated after my band performance, so I probably didn't get it at its best, but it was a nice, filling meal. Coupled with plenty of garlic bread and a huge salad, it made for a very satisfying dinner. Basically, I liked it, is what I'm saying.

It is probably worth noting that this will not dislodge my current lasagne method of choice (which comes from Lorraine Pascale), but this is definitely a nice option to have available as a low-hassle alternative.

Torchlit Processions 2019

Last night I attended Pumpherston Torchlit Procession, being the second of these events for the year. My band attend two of these every year, and LC and I then attend a third in Livingston Village.

The events so far this year have been a bit odd. The first, in Uphall Station, was on the 22nd of November, an felt way too early. I think the crowd felt much the same - there were very few people present, nobody really seemed in the Christmas mood, and the whole thing was just a bit of a damp squib. I felt really quite sorry for the organisers.

The event in Pumpherston was marred by the lack of a road closure license, which meant that the Torchlit Procession did not actually feature a procession. Instead, we played at the meeting point, they played again at the tree, but walked directly between the two rather than parading through the streets.

On the one hand, I was quite glad not to have to walk all the distance - Pumpherston is usually a very long one. On the other hand, it was very cold. For some reason, they had decided not to use the school for the first part of the event this year, which meant we met outside, stood around for a while getting very cold, then tuned up, waited some more, then played. All in sub-zero temperatures. It's fair to say it wasn't a vintage performance.

(Fortunately, the kilt is actually surprisingly warm. But that doesn't stop fingers, toes, noses, and ears from getting extremely cold.)

The Livingston Village event is this Friday. As noted, my band don't perform at that one, so it should be a rather more relaxed event, at least for me. Anyway, I'm now feeling properly in the Christmas spirit, so I'm rather looking forward to it.

#55: "The Obsidian Oracle", by Troy Denning
#56: "Children of God Storybook Bible", by Archbishop Desmond Tutu (a book for Funsize)

Experimental Cookery 2019: Vietnamese Chicken

This one comes from the Hairy Biker's "Great Curries"... sort of. The truth is that the bulk of that one is about creating a marinade, and instead I used some of a paste I was given for Christmas last year. I feel this is important to note because the results were pretty disastrous - despite being quick and easy to make, this one tasted pretty terrible. It was all heat and no taste, which is obviously not what is wanted.

I'll have to try again, actually making the marinade as described. However, yesterday's experiment definitely goes down as a failure, and entirely on my part.

An Anecdote

I've had a productive morning - there was a new issue raised late yesterday that I spent some time digging into, and was able to pinpoint. Such was my success that I went to get a coffee, congratulating myself on my cleverness (since somebody has to do it, obviously).

So I went and made my coffee, in the course of which I finished the carton of milk. I therefore rinsed this out, and went into the main office to put it in the recycling bin. As you do.

I then went back out into the hall area, and patiently waited for the kettle to boil. Patience being a virtue, and all that.

Of course, patience isn't quite such a virtue when you've already made your coffee, and someone else is boiling the kettle for their use!

Gutted

I've just had a look, and the fridge freezer I've had my eye on has recently been reduced by £200 by Currys, and has a further £80 off for Black Friday... and is out of stock!

(There are other suppliers, of course. But they're either also out of stock or they're considerably more expensive. All of which is a bit of a shame, really.)

#53: "Not Wanted on the Voyage", by Timothy Findley (a book from The List)
#54: "The Mystery of the Three Quarters", by Sophie Hannah

What The Hell Were the BBC Thinking?

Here's an unpleasant fact to start: at the time of writing, Harvey Weinstein has not been convicted of any crime. I say this not as any sort of a defence of Weinstein (as I have no interest in doing so - frankly, it's a disgrace that this didn't come to trial long ago). It's merely a statement of fact.

But... can you imagine the BBC giving Harvey Weinstein airtime to put his side of the story, with no right of reply for his accusers, and with the possibility of prejudicing not only a trial, but indeed any potential investigation?

Surely not! Weinstein has basically been persona non grata ever since the allegations came to light, with even people who once named him a friend taking pains to distance themselves from him. The notion of the BBC giving him that opportunity is crazy.

Here's another unpleasant fact: the allegations made against Prince Andrew are every bit as heinous as those made against Harvey Weinstein. I say that not as any comment on his innocence or guilt (I've never even been to the Pizza Express in Woking), but again merely as a statement of fact.

So what the hell were the BBC thinking, setting Prince Andrew up with a PR opportunity to get out there, set out his story, and play for the sympathy of the public? Surely this is a matter for the proper authorities - the police, and possibly the courts?

(And, yes, I know that the effect of this interview has been that the Prince has managed to dig himself even deeper into the mess. He strikes me as a profoundly stupid individual (which I again feel I must highlight is not the same as 'innocent' or 'guilty'). But the BBC couldn't know that at the time they commissioned the interview. They should not have taken that risk.)

Oh, one other thing. My view is two-fold. Firstly, when serious allegations are made, like those against both Weinstein and the Prince, they must be taken seriously, and must be investigated thoroughly. Both those who are victims of crimes and those who are falsely accused need that - justice for the former, but also a confident exoneration for the latter. The current situation, where too many such crimes just aren't properly investigated, fails far too many people.

However, I also believe that the Presumption of Innocence is an absolutely vital part of our legal framework and must be upheld. And that applies even in cases where it seems obvious that the accused is guilty. Because we don't know and don't have all the facts. I have no problem with punishing those found guilty of crimes, and those found guilty of serious crimes should face very serious punishments. But let's actually find them guilty first, please.

My "Rise of Skywalker" Theory

When the title was announced, the internet collectively decided that there clearly must be a successor order to the Jedi and that "Skywalker" must either be the name of the organisation or the title of the Grand Master. Of course, since that was the obvious interpretation, it must surely be wrong.

My working theory is that "Skywalker" refers to something else.

Basically, at the end of the film I expect them to conclude that the war will never end, and that the galaxy will always be in strife. So they load up R2-D2 with the records of their exploits, and then he and C-3P0 are bundled up in a glorified intergalactic escape pod. Thus the series ends where it begins, with those two going on a great walk through the sky.

Of course, after a long time R2 makes it all the way from a galaxy far far away, to end up crash landing on an unremarkable green-blue planet in the outer spiral arm of another galaxy. There, he is found by a young man, the son of a stationary store owner, named "George". The film, and the series, ends with R2 telling him all of the stories from a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

(They'll get bonus points if they can somehow work a way to cast James Earl Jones as some family friend. A beloved 'uncle' Ben, perhaps?)

I should note: if it does all end like that, I'll get up and walk out.

Bogged Down

I haven't finished a book in ages. This is largely due to getting bogged down really badly in "Not Wanted on the Voyage" - I had assumed that since it was only 350 pages I could get it read in about a week, but I'm paralysed by really not wanting to read it. Unfortunately, I also have "The Count of Monte Cristo" on hold, so I don't want to pause another book at this time.

The upshot of that is that I'm now doubtful of hitting my target of 60 books for the year - I'm still very slightly ahead of schedule, but slipping day by day...

#52: "Babe, the Sheep-Pig", by Dick King-Smith (a book for Funsize)

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

We skipped this one at the cinema due to pressures of time, and were all set to skip it on blu-ray too - there was nothing about it that particularly attracted our attention. However, a colleague of mine loaned us the DVD, and so we were able to sneak a watch.

It's okay, but the entire film can be summed up in a single line, delivered by Magneto about two-third through: "You're always sorry, Charles, and there's always a speech, but nobody cares anymore."

The film basically goes through all the beats, everything is present and correct... but it's all been done before, better. In fact, it's pretty much a remake of the pretty bad "X-Men 3: The Last Stand", and while it is indeed better on a technical level, the truth is that I enjoy the earlier film more. Frankly, that's all down to the cast.

In terms of my ratings, I'm placing this one third from the bottom - it's better than "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and "X-Men 3: The Last Stand", but not as good as "The Wolverine." And I can't see myself ever bothering to watch it again.

All of which is a shame, but not really a surprise. Turns out it's a good time to wrap this one up and reboot into the MCU. (Or, actually, not reboot - maybe give the X-Men a long rest, and have another crack at the Fantastic Four again?)

The Run to Christmas

Normally, I take the view that I'll start Christmas on the first Sunday of Advent or on the first of December, whichever comes first. However, this year I'm going to bring it forward, for two reasons:

• I'm crazy busy, and likely to remain crazy busy right through to the 20th of December. So I really need a bit more time to make sure everything gets done.
  
• I've heard there is a postal strike coming, and with so much of my Christmas shopping being done online, that's a bit of an issue

Fortunately, Christmas doesn't look too tough this year - by my count I have about a dozen presents to buy, I have a tree to put up (that will be in December), and my "one new thing" for this year is some Christmas baking, which should be a matter of a couple of afternoons.

Anyway, six weeks to go...

Breathing Space

Things have been rather quiet on the blog front lately, largely because they've been absolutely mental at work. That's the nature of the job - sometimes it's calm, sometimes it's busy, and sometimes it's just crazy (though hopefully not for too long).

The upshot has been that I haven't really had time to post about anything. Nor have I had much that has inspired me to post. The good news is that I seem to have a little time free, so I can maybe fill in some of the gaps...

How To Vote This Time (in Scotland)

In Scotland, the upcoming election is actually pretty straightforward: most people have three meaningful choices, depending on the answers to two questions. There are just a couple of wrinkles in one scenario. I'll get to that.

If you want Brexit... In this case, it's pretty simple - vote Tory. The Brexit party (and UKIP) don't have any meaningful chance in any seat in Scotland, so that would be a wasted vote, and the SNP, Lib Dems, and Labour are all in favour of a second referendum, and thus stopping it. So if you want Brexit, you have one choice.

If you want Independence... Again, a very simple case - vote SNP. The Greens have no meaningful chance in any seat in Scotland, and everyone else is opposed.

If you want both... This is now actually a pretty small group - about a third of people who voted Yes in 2014 did so because they really wanted to be out of the EU, and now that the UK is heading that way most of them no longer actually want independence. But if you do want both, decide which you want more (or want first), and vote according to the questions above.

If you don't want either... This is the more complex case, and depends on who currently holds your constituency.

• If your seat is currently held by a Labour or Lib Dem MP, it's easy - vote for the party that holds the seat.
  
• If your seat is currently held by an SNP MP, the choice is slightly tricky. Basically, you should vote for whichever of Labour or the Lib Dems did better last time, except for two caveats. If you are absolutely determined to avoid Brexit and willing to sacrifice independence to achieve that, your best bet is to vote SNP. Alternately, if you're absolutely determined to avoid independence and are willing to sacrifice Brexit to achieve that, and the Tories came second last time, then you should vote Tory.
  
• If your seat is currently held by a Tory MP, you unfortunately don't really have any good choices - neither the Lib Dems or Labour party have any real chance of taking any of those seats, so you're stuck. If you're absolutely determined to avoid one of the two, and are willing to sacrifice the other to achieve it, then hold your nose and vote accordingly. If not, I guess you should vote for whoever came third last time, and accept your vote is probably wasted.

And that's it. For me, it's an easy choice - I'm still opposed to Brexit, still in favour of independence, and live in an SNP-held constituency. Furthermore, my current MP is also both pretty formidable in the Commons and also a good representative for the constituency. So that's an easy vote to cast... this time. That said, I'm rapidly losing confidence that the SNP are actually able to achieve independence, and even confidence that they even really want it. And given that their domestic record is mediocre at best, I'm very strongly considering coming to the view that this will be my last vote.

Leaving Narnia

After seven months, Funsize and I have completed our read-through of "The Chronicles of Narnia". I had, of course, read these before, but it was a long time ago - I read all but LWW back in high school, and then read LWW a few years ago. (I skipped LWW in high school because I was extremely familiar with the story thanks to TV and stage adaptations.)

My general feeling with the novels is that they're patchy in quality - some bits are very good indeed (I especially liked the underworld in "The Silver Chair"), but some bits are pretty dull. "The Last Battle", in particular, seems to be about waiting for the Deus Ex Machina to come up and fix everything, and then duly watching as it does exactly that. (Of course, several of the books feature Deus Ex Machina endings, but given the nature of the series that's not a valid complaint, as it would in other cases.) I also can't really see myself revisiting the series again any time soon, and certainly not on my own behalf.

The other thing to say is that the books were perhaps a poor choice for Funsize - after a bit of this she seemed to lose interest, so I found myself mostly reading them aloud while she happened to be there, rather than necessarily reading them to her. But that may well not be a feature of the books, so much of the stage she's at - she doesn't really seem to want any storybooks read to her these days; her attention just about runs to "Pip the Puppy" rather than even "Zog" or his kin. The current book doesn't really seem to have proven any more successful, despite a significant change in topic, and I don't expect much from the next one either.

And that's all I have to say about that.

A Missed Opportunity

An opportunity has popped up at work that would have been ideal if:

• It had come up a year from now, and
  
• I hadn't moved project a year ago.

As it is, it's just not a good fit, so I'll need to let it go. Which is a damn shame, because I'd finally hit on an answer to "where do you see yourself in five years?"

#50: "The Last Battle", by C.S. Lewis (a book for Funsize; and this completes "The Chronicles of Narnia", which is a book from The List)
#51: "Nightflyers", by George R.R. Martin

Day 300: Update on Goals

Edit: Somehow, this got posted prematurely. As it happens, everything in the post is up-to-date and accurate, but it's still annoying. I expect this will sort itself out over the next few days...

Day 300, so time for the penultimate update on my goals for the year...

• Books: By day 300 I should have read 49.31 books. Despite a very significant slowdown in the last couple of months, I remain ahead of that target, if just barely. The current estimate remains that I'll end up slightly over the 60 books for the year, but that I'll fail to finish off the British part of The List.
  
• Weight: Nothing to report. I have however had a meeting at the gym to revise my exercise routine, with the hope that this will allow me to make better progress with this in future. We'll see - I'm not hugely hopeful.
  
• Blogging: This remains on target for the Imaginarium, but I have slipped slightly behind over here. I expect to rectify that in the next week or two.
  
• Redecorate the Study: Done.
  
• The To-Do List: Done.

Another short update this time. Two items are now complete, one remains on target, and a fourth is close to the target. The final item remains an embuggerance, but there is at least the hint of some movement.

Boris Is Right

Much as I hate to admit it, Boris Johnson is right about the need for a General Election.

The simple fact is that his government clearly doesn't have a stable majority with which to get their agenda through the House. Were it not for Labour playing silly buggers, they should be laying a Motion of No Confidence, forcing the issue and bringing down the government. And yet it's also true that nobody else has the numbers to form a government - Corbyn won't get the support of the Lib Dems or the former Tories, and so can't do it, while nobody else has the support of Labour and can't do it. And so, since there's no alternative government available, it should be a General Election.

The only reason Labour haven't pulled the trigger is, bluntly, that they're sure they'll lose... but that's not an acceptable reason for them not doing their jobs. The country needs a government, and to get that we need an election.

(Incidentally, it's worth noting that Boris Johnson shouldn't even have been appointed Prime Minister. When she tendered her resignation, the outgoing Prime Minister was required to recommend her successor, but that successor had to be someone who could command the confidence of the House. That was the standard that needed to be applied, not "who has been elected leader of the Tories" or even "who has been elected leader of the biggest party." Given that Boris manifestly does not command a majority, and indeed never did, he should not have been recommended in that manner. And, indeed, since Theresa May could not actually recommend anyone who could command that majority, she should have been required to stay in post. But never mind.)

What's unfortunate is that I'm convinced that the Tories will win a comfortable majority in the election, whenever it happens, which will allow them to push aside any opposition to Boris' deal and bring about their hard Brexit. The SNP will probably make gains, but it will avail them nothing - Boris won't be minded to grant a Section 30 order, there's no way to compel him to do so, and the SNP refuse to contemplate any Plan B. So I'm finding it really hard to see any hope in politics right now.

More IT Musings

I've run out of hard drive space on my PC. That is actually not a surprise nor indeed is it particularly a problem - hard discs are fairly inexpensive these days and installing an additional drive into the PC isn't impossible.

However, I'm back to considering whether it's really worth it. There are a few things going on:

Firstly, there's still a question of how long the PC will realistically last. My latest check on the state of the art suggests that it's still not hugely behind, at least for the tasks that I make use of it for. Of course, if I used it for games or video editing, that would not be true... but I don't. However, there's always the risk of a catastrophic failure hitting the machine, at which point there's a need for a new one. (Then again, that doesn't negate the benefit of adding an additional drive, since it could just be extracted and moved to the replacement PC... probably - see below.)

Secondly, there's a question of whether what the PC really wants is a second, high-capacity drive, or whether I should install a smaller solid state drive, move the contents of the C partition across, and thus free up about a terabyte of space on the existing drive. That would have the advantage of giving a significant performance boost as well as adding more capacity, but is one step less portable when the time comes to completely replace the machine. (And it's worth noting that the existing hard drive is one of the components most likely to fail and thus force that move. And any new PC would have an SSD already installed, so that wouldn't be coming with.)

But, thirdly, I'm also leaning towards the benefits of setting up a NAS device, and thus moving all of our data storage off the PC almost entirely. The effect of this is that the existing hard drive on the machine would suddenly become much more open, and the need for a second hard drive (of any sort) would disappear. The only real problem there is that that is also by far the most expensive approach in the short term.

Finally, I find myself considering what our long-term computing needs really are. At present, we have a desktop PC (nominally my PC) and a laptop PC (nominally LC's). I really quite like this arrangement, in that it covers all of our bases, gives a lot of flexibility and, crucially, gives us access to a big, fixed monitor for long-term work. (I was never particularly happy working with a laptop.) However, at work we have now been issued with very powerful desktop-replacement laptops, complete with docking stations that allow us unfettered access to external monitors, keyboards, and mice. In effect, it's very much the best of both worlds.

Based on that, part of me considers that when the time comes for a replacement, what we'll actually want to do will be to replace both computers at the same time, with two identical, powerful laptops. And then invest in a docking station and all the kit to allow one of these to be plugged into the workstation in the study, giving access to everything else.

Which is an even better approach than what we have now. But with two downsides: firstly, sufficiently powerful laptops are necessarily expensive, where it would be considerably cheaper to instead go with a good, but less powerful, laptop and a fairly powerful desktop. Secondly, switching to the two-laptop approach would mean that any second hard drive I purchased now (whether the high-capacity one in the first approach or the SSD in the second) would immediately cease to be useful.

So, it's a tricky one, with lots of options to consider.

The upshot is that I'm thinking that the way to go is to add the NAS device. That gives us plenty of storage and also has the advantage of giving us the most flexibility when considering future upgrades. Given the expense, though, it will be a while yet before any purchase is made... unless the storage issue becomes urgent in the meantime.

The Purple Room Returns!

Well, the redecoration is done, and we once again have an official Purple Room. The various steps proceeded mostly as I outlined in my previous post on the topic, and were performed mostly over the course of four days (day one to empty the room, day two for the ceiling and starting the walls, day three for finishing the walls and doing the gloss, and then day four to put everything back).

We ordered the new computer desk shortly after starting, and were rather surprised when it arrived on the next day. We've therefore been able to assemble it, though I haven't yet had chance to take the other to the tip. We've also rearranged the room, which gives a bit more space for the various bookshelves, and actually leaves the room feeling a bit more, well, roomy. However, the working area for the computer does seem a little cramped. There may be something we can do about that - certainly, there are a couple of adjustments that need to be made, after which there may be scope for some shuffling of contents.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with that as a good job well done. And I'm especially happy that we've now completed the last of the tasks that we identified as wanting done as soon as we moved in.

#49: "The Amber Enchantress", by Troy Denning

Heating Woes

One thing that has never been quite right in the house is the heating. It seems we can get it "far too hot" easily enough, and we can get it "far too cold" easily enough, but Goldilocks is just not for visiting.

I'm really not sure why that is. I'm not sure if it's that the thermostat is badly placed, or if it's just bad. Or maybe the individual radiator thermostats are badly set up, or just bad. Or maybe the insulation just isn't what it should be. Or maybe the heating program really needs revisited - it comes on too late in the morning and goes off too early at night.

(There's also the issue that the radiator in the spare room is set to a much lower temperature than the rest of the house. Which is fine, since that room is seldom used, and not at night... but it only works if the room to that door is kept closed, which is not reliably the case.)

Part of me would quite like to have someone come and inspect the system and make some recommendations. Unfortunately, the cynical part of me thinks that any such visit would just happen to conclude that what's needed is the special package of upgrades that they happen to have on offer at that particular time.

Anyway, it's a frustration. I think the upshot is that I'm going to have a go at refreshing all the settings in the system again to get that back to where they 'should' be, and at some point, probably next year, we'll have to look into upgrades, probably to one of the "smart home" systems.

How Things Work

I use a lot of software, mostly for work although also for entertainment purposes. But I'm not a particular fan of software. I'm especially not a fan of the tendency towards "the new hotness" - the tendency for some fields to see a constant ongoing churn of new tools doing almost exactly the same as the old, but that people jump onto en masse because it's new.

My preference, frankly, is to use a much smaller set of tools, but to use them well. That in turn requires stability in the toolset - ideally, you should choose one tool for each job, and then stick with it until and unless something comes along that demands that you change.

(That "something" is of course subjective. You might find that a tool that was previously free starts charging and so requires a change. Or maybe the tool simply stops being supported. Or perhaps the new tool has some killer feature that means it's vastly superior to the old, to the extent that the change is warranted. But simply being newer is, for me, not sufficient, and neither is simply being presented with a marketing brief that has a few more check-boxes filled out. New features are only worth anything if you're actually going to use them, and if you're constantly switching from one tool to the next, you're never going to make good use of anything but the basic features.)

Funnily enough, two examples of the benefit of this approach have cropped up quite recently. Yesterday there was some discussion of how to use a particular feature of Excel, which is a tool that I'm definitely not expert in using, but it's also a tool that I've used basically forever and expect to continue using forever. So there was value in digging through various guides and tutorials to find the answer, and thus expanding the set of things I can now do with Excel. If we were in the habit of replacing our spreadsheet program every six months, it would not have made sense to do that. (And, equally, it's likely that the knowledge of how to do it wouldn't have been so easily available.)

The second concerns one of the uses of our build tool. This one is new (to us), but it's also a tool we'll be using very heavily, and it's also a tool we'll continue to use for the lifetime of the product (probably five years or more). So, again, it make sense to keep learning the intricacies of the tool with a view to getting really good with it.

Badminton Again

Many years ago, a number of my colleagues and I played badminton occasionally on a lunchtime. We haven't had occasion to play for several years now, which is a real shame - not least since my gym have various courts available for use, and they're free for members. So there's a golden opportunity there, and we've been missing it.

Until today that is. This lunchtime four of us went over and played badminton. It was a lot of fun, even if I didn't play at all well. Hopefully that will change over the next few months as we play a bit more... assuming we do, indeed, play a bit more, of course.

Microsoft's Worst Decision

I use a lot of Microsoft software. I don't, however, consider myself either a fan or a hater - they're just tools provided by a company, some of which are good, some of which are not so good, and some of which are good but not really worth the money. And, in fairness to them, those tools have generally, very slowly, been getting better.

However, there is one boneheaded decision, made some years ago, that still drives me mental every time I hit it. Specifically, they decided that PCs should be much more like any other appliance, and hide as much of the internals from the user as possible. And, in particular, they should hide all the BIOS feedback during startup.

That's all well and good, until you get to the point where the PC is busy doing something and gives absolutely no feedback as to what that "something" is - I see the HD light blinking on and off, but there's nothing at all on the screen, no response from the input devices... is it busy working on a task that's just taking a long time, or has it crashed and needs me to take action.

For goodness sake, tell us what's going on, and give an indication that progress is actually being made! And I don't mean showing us the spinny dots - all that indicates is that the UI thread is running, but it may well not be connected to anything else. That way, I don't need to either leave a PC that might be stuck sitting indefinitely, nor do I need to take a punt on a power-cycle that might do more harm than good.

Season's End

On Saturday the band played at the Queensferry Folk Festival, bringing to an end my second season with the band. In the event, we only played about half a dozen events, and I missed a couple of those. However, it was enough to keep me practicing, which is the key consideration at this time.

I've been enjoying my time with the band, with the one caveat that I'm not really being stretched at all - I knew almost all the tunes when I started, I learned the remainder very quickly, and we've learned virtually nothing new since then. But that's the nature of the beast. If you want challenge, you probably need to be competing.

I'm now going to take a week off of practice (almost entirely - I'll still go on Thursday, but will probably only take my practice chanter). In the meantime, I've stripped my pipes down to let them dry, and will then rehemp all the joints so that they're ready for the winter ahead. I also need to get my kilt, waistcoat, and jacket dry cleaned, so that they're also ready. Basically, there's some maintenance that has fallen somewhat by the wayside, and it's time to get that sorted.

(Come to think of it, that sentiment applies just as well to a number of other things...)

Slugs. Why did it have to be slugs?

I hate slugs. Not as much as I used to - they used to totally freak me out, but now it is at least a case of extreme dislike rather than abject terror. However, the recent development that we have a slug invasion in the house is most definitely not welcome.

It also started a few nights ago, when we spotted a slug in the kitchen. I therefore gathered it up in a bit of kitchen roll, strode to the back door, and unceremoniously ejected the creature. (This is actually not the very first slug we've seen there, but it was the first for a long time.) Then, a few nights later we had no fewer than three slugs all at once. And then one more.

Ultimately, I think this is caused by two things. The first is the drop in temperature, which makes the indoors that much more appealing. The second is that there must be a tiny little hole that they can squeeze through and thus get in. Alas, my fear is that that hole will be somewhere horribly inaccessible. Sigh.

(It's also possible that they've recently been stirred up by us covering up the BBQ and/or getting rid of a tree root that was sitting in the garden, thus disturbing their hibernation. In which case, maybe we've seen the last of them for a while. That would be nice.)

My other consideration, of course, is how all this affects Funsize. Fears can be contagious, so if a child sees a parent totally incapacitated by the sight of some creepy crawly, they're very likely to pick up on that. And so it is incumbent on my to just get on and deal with these things, despite the obvious and very real threat to life and limb.

Or something. I'm still going to eject them with great relish.

The Final Task

The final item from my old to-do list, and one of my goals for the year, is to repaint the study. Initially we had hoped to do that during the Easter holiday, but it quickly became apparent that that was a non-starter - we also had to repaint the dining room, which was a higher-priority task, and couldn't fit both in the allotted time.

There are actually several steps involved in the repaint, which means that the study is a considerably more involved task than the dining room. Specifically:

1. Empty the study. This involves shifting huge numbers of books and other paraphenalia, then the bookshelves, the PC, and the PC desk. Hopefully, all of this will fit in the spare room for the required few days.
   
2. Rip out a few mounting sockets from one of the walls, and patch the resulting holes.
   
3. Paint the ceiling.
   
4. Paint the walls.
   
5. Paint the walls again (since we're changing the colour, two coats will be required).
   
6. Paint the skirting boards and door frame.
   
7. Leave to dry overnight.
   
8. Hoover.
   
9. Bring back the bookshelves, the books, and assorted paraphenalia. I think these are all basically going back where they came from.
   
10. Assemble a new computer desk (assuming it has been purchased in time).
    
11. Bring back the PC.

Obviously, that's a lot of steps for a small room! However, the individual steps should themselves me small. Indeed, the biggest parts of the task are probably clearing the room and then putting everything back. The actual decoration, given the size of the room and that it will hopefully be empty, should be very quick. We still have two preparatory tasks to do: the first is to finalise our choice of paint and then acquire it; the second is the purchase the new computer desk. Neither is particularly huge... but both are a case of actually getting on and doing it!

#47: "War of the Wolf", by Bernard Cornwell
#48: "The Silver Chair", by C.S. Lewis

Penny Dreadful

After five months, we've now cancelled Now TV - we'd reached a point where we'd watched almost everything we wanted to from the service, and it wasn't worth paying the subscription for the last two episodes of "L.A.'s Finest" (which, frankly, was just about worth investing the time to watch, and no more than that).

We actually got a fair amount of value from those five months - in addition to the final season of "Game of Thrones", I watched the third season of "Supergirl" (not great; it's been getting steadily worse since the start), the "Deadwood" wrap-up movie (which was good), "Chernobyl" (which was excellent, but somewhat flexible with the truth; ironically so, given the show's most-quoted line), the aforementioned "L.A.'s Finest", and "Penny Dreadful".

That last was one of those shows that I'd heard about but never had the opportunity to watch - a sort of alternate take on the "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" concept, where the various characters from classic horror stories come together in an interlocking plot. It was good stuff, rather uncomfortable to watch at times, all underpinned by a great performance by Eva Green.

Of the three seasons, I felt that the first was the most solid. After that first season I got the impression that they knew the characters still had a lot of potential, but didn't have a clear idea quite how best to use them. The third season was maybe a step up from the first, but suffered very significantly from splitting up the core cast - at times it felt more like watching three separate shows than a single coherent whole.

I was also a little dismayed by the ending. The main plot all came together really nicely, but the two side plots just seemed to... stop. They didn't really go anywhere, and indeed one of them ended by pretty much just undoing everything that it had been building up to. That's a bit of a shame, especially since it seems the end was planned, rather than being an unexpected cancellation.

Still, it was a good show, and well worth the time we invested in it. I doubt I would watch it again, but then the days of my rewatching TV are largely coming to a close - there's already too much that's new that I want to watch, and way too little time.
#46: "The Crimson Legion", by Troy Denning

Day 250: Update on Goals

Somehow, it feels like ages since I did one of these...

Anyway, we've now reached day 250, so time for another update on goals.

• Books: By day 250 I should have read 41.10 books. I'm now well ahead of that target, which is good. The current estimate is that I'll end up slightly over the 60 books for the year, but that I'll fail to finish off the British part of The List.
  
• Weight: Nothing to report.
  
• Blogging: Nothing much to say - this remains right on target in both blogs.
  
• Redecorate the Study: This will probably be the big change between now and the next update. We think we've picked out the rough colour for the walls (but will need to narrow it to a specific shade), and have picked out the replacement computer desk. So it's just a case of actually doing the work, which I hope to do during the October break. Watch this space.
  
• The To-Do List: This was completed some weeks ago. I've decided not to put together a new to-do list, so from the next update I'll remove this from the report entirely,

And that's that. Another short-but-sweet report, with one done and three well in hand. There's only the one permanent fly in the ointment to worry about, which is annoying but just not something I'm getting a handle on.

Hardly Worth The Effort

According to this blog, last year I packed the BBQ up for the winter at the end of September. However, that was delayed from my original plan by not having a suitable cover until the last minute. With the start of September the temperature seems to have dropped significantly, such that even the nice days have a noticable chill to them.

That being the case, I think I'll pack up our BBQ for the winter over this weekend.

The upshot of that, given that my birthday BBQ didn't really happen, is that it was used exactly once in 2019, to cook a couple of burgers as a test to verify that it was in fact still working after the winter. Frankly, it was barely worth the effort of unpacking the thing.

(Meanwhile at work I will continue to look out for a chance to have one more BBQ in the year. But that's less of an issue, both since it can happen at short notice if we do have a good day, but primarily because the work BBQ doesn't really have that same "packing up" ritual - the equivalent is just a matter of not getting it out for use.)

Ah, Very Clever

Scenario One: The Tory rebels chicken out, and don't back the motion for parliament to seize control over the process, or don't back the proposed law to block No Deal. Boris remains in control, and we get his version of Brexit on October 31st.

Scenario Two: The Tory rebels don't chicken out, and a law is put in place to block No Deal. The Tories therefore remove the whip from those rebels, and then call an election - campaigning under the banner that the only way to see Brexit protected is to vote Tory. It's very likely that Boris would win that election. Furthermore, the former-Tory rebels, having lost the whip, cannot stand as Tory candidates, and therefore will almost certainly lose their seats to new, loyal Tories. Boris thus emerges with an actual majority and a much more united Tory party. Then then repeal the law blocking No Deal, and proceed as before.

(That assumes Boris wins the election, of course. But frankly there are only two chances of Corbyn winning: fat chance and nae chance. Theresa May ran the worst campaign I can recall and still beat him.)

Two other thoughts:

If there is an election, expect to see the remnants of Change UK (and their spin-offs) urgently seeking to join the Lib Dems. Or, just possibly, not supporting the rebellion and seeking readmission to the Tories. Any who don't will almost certainly lose their seats, so...

If there is a General Election the SNP will have a difficult choice to make: do their campaign on a "stop Brexit" platform, or do they campaign on an "Indyref 2" platform. If they go for "stop Brexit" they'll probably get more seats, but then can't claim those seats as a mandate for independence. Alternately, if they go for "Indyref 2" they won't win as many seats (though still a majority of the seats in Scotland and probably more than they have currently). Of course, that also weakens their anti-Brexit mandate. I'm not sure that matters.

The upshot: yeah, it's still a No Deal Brexit (regardless of whether a law is passed to block it or not), followed by years of Tory rule. Joy.

The Mug in the Microwave

As of this weekend we now keep a mug of water in our microwave. This is not quite as daft as it seems.

The thing is, Funsize has reached a height where she can just about reach some of the buttons on the microwave, and said microwave has a really convenient feature where, with the press of a single button, you can switch it on for 30 seconds at full power.

But running a microwave with nothing in it is a bad idea - basically, you've got a load of energy being pumped into a reflective chamber with nowhere to go. (Normally, whatever you're cooking absorbs much of that energy, which is why it gets hot. And yes, that's a vast simplification.)

And so, we now have a mug of water in the microwave. That way, if FS pushes the button, we'll end up with slightly warmed water. Which isn't the perfect solution, but is probably something we can live with.

A Broken Habit

After a rather frustrating summer, the gym is now almost back to normal - the boys' club that had block-booked one of the changing rooms has ended, the other changing room has reopened (cue the inevitable joke about waiting for a bus...), and the gym itself has reopened after its own renovation.

Unfortunately, my habit of actually going to the gym seemed to have been fairly comprehensively broken - I've made it along three times in the last couple of weeks (and plan to go again today), but each time I've found the whole process annoying, boring and, frankly, pointless. Basically, the good habit that I had painstakingly established over eighteen months has been comprehensively broken by my enforced absence.

I'm now finding myself unsure of what to do next. What I should do is request an induction on all the new machines, and to have one of the trainers compile a new exercise routine, and effectively begin again. What I'll probably do is soldier on as things are for a while, getting increasingly annoyed, and possibly then drift away from it. And what I'm strongly considering, given that the annual renewal is coming up soon, is just cancelling.

All of which is yet another reminder of just how hard it is to build and maintain good habits, and how easy it is to slip back into bad ones.

#43: "The Verdant Passage", by Troy Denning
#44: "The Voyage of the Dawn Treader", by C.S. Lewis (a book for Funsize)

Dad's Army - the Lost Episodes

By virtue of still having Now TV, LC and I were able to watch the first of three "lost episodes" of "Dad's Army". (The story goes that the BBC wiped the tapes containing three of the six episodes of the second series of DA. UK Gold have now remade them with a modern cast.)

My verdict: yeah, it's good. But it falls short of greatness, largely because you're forever comparing the performances of the modern cast with their counterparts from the original, and while none of them are bad, none of them are the same. (It maybe also doesn't help that the first of these was clearly not a vintage episode - had it not been deleted it probably wouldn't make anyone's "best of" lists. That may well change with the other two.)

The upshot is that I'm glad we watched it, and we'll watch the other two episodes when time permits, and we'll probably enjoy them. I'd also recommend them if opportunity allows, but I wouldn't recommend subscribing to Now TV (or buying a DVD, or otherwise spending money) specifically to get them - they're a nice bonus but don't justify a purchase all by themselves.

Also, I do hope that the bright sparks at UK Gold don't decide that what's really needed now is to commission someone to write six new scripts and jump-start a remake/continuation of the series as a whole. Nostalgia always works best in small doses.

Gala Day Season Ends

On Saturday my band played at the Broxburn gala day, thus bringing to an end our summer. We have a couple of events late next month, and then a couple at Christmas, but the bulk of our year's programme of events is now complete.

Broxburn itself was about as good as a gala day can be: we got really nice weather, the crowds were out in force, and the parade took about an hour and we played for almost all of it - getting through our repertoire of marching tunes roughly twice (we didn't play one set at all, played one set only once, and played a few sets three times). I always prefer events were we play a lot - the time just passes much more quickly, and although it's a lot more effort, just marching along in silence gets really boring. If we're there to play, let's do that!

For the rest of it, there's not much to say: my time in the band continues to do what I wanted it to do, which is to give me motivation to keep practicing and so stay sharp (ish). I'm very glad not to have the pressure or time commitment of competition to deal with. And while I do feel I could be stretched a bit more and we could do a bit more learning of new tunes, and while I do miss teaching students, I'm disinclined to try to change either of these things.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Despair

While all the madness of Brexit is going on, something really important is happening in US politics. I don't mean Trump's ridiculous notion of buying Greenland, or his petulant response when told that it's a ridiculous notion, but rather the ongoing Democrat primaries. That is, the process by which they select their candidate to go up against Trump in the upcoming election.

Or, as it appears, their selection of a candidate to lose to Trump in the upcoming election.

Unfortunately, the Democrats seem to be fighting this primary as if it were for any other election: a whole bunch of candidates have come forward, many of whom are complete unknowns and will rapidly drop out, most of the rest are offering tired variations on the same old policies that lost last time, and then there's one outlier who has a small but vocal online support... but who ultimately has no more chance of winning than Rory Stewart did in the Tory leadership.

Almost certainly, the nomination will go to Joe Biden, as the safe, obvious choice. Unfortunately, he's even less inspiring a choice that John Kerry was, and we all know how well that turned out. (And if you're reaction to the name John Kerry is, "who?" that rather proves my point. He was the guy who lost to George W. Bush when he ran for his second term. I never thought I'd be nostalgic for that presidency.)

The sad truth is that this is not going to be an election like any other, and the Democrats need to acknowledge that and act accordingly. And that being the case, there should be one and only one criterion for getting the nod: who is the person with the best chance of beating Trump?

Forget the search for the 'perfect' candidate in amongst the sea of minor variants. Forget the outlier candidate, who inspires his core but has no hope in the nation. Forget every other consideration except this: who is most likely to win? That's who you need to nominate, it's the person you all need to get behind, and you need to then provide them with the most compelling message you can.

Or just settle in for another four years of Trump.

Ten Weeks (again)

So, we're back to the point where, unless something changes, we'll be leaving the EU. At present, a catastrophic No Deal exit is looking by far the most likely outcome.

Unlike last time I posted "Ten Weeks", this time I am actually confident that there is a government with an actual plan in place for what they want to do. Unfortunately, their plan seems to be to drive off the cliff as fast as possible, in the hope that when we hit the ground we'll have enough momentum to break right on through to the other side.

And, unfortunately, I can't see any prospect of it being stopped. I suspect we're at the point where the avalanche has already begun. It's too late for the pebbles to vote.

Congratulations to Them

On Saturday it was the World Pipe Band Championships. I didn't go.

However, in the evening while looking after Funsize, I did switch on the BBC's handy web-stream long enough to watch a key part of the prize-giving - specifically the Grade 4B results.

Camelon and District Pipe Band, my former band, came 3rd on the day, but also won the Grade 4B Champion of Champion awards, bring to an end their best season in living memory. So a great many congratulations to them.

Of course, it's somewhat galling that the moment I left was also the moment that they got really good. I wish I could say I believed that was entirely coincidental.

#41: "The Secret Life of Bees", by Sue Monk Kidd (a book from The List)
#42: "Pathfinder: The Emerald Spire Superdungeon", from Paizo Publishing

Shouldn't They Be Polling 15 Year Olds Too?

The big (but, of course, unreported) news from yesterday was that in the latest opinion poll support for Scottish independence has increased to 52% (once Don't Knows are removed), marking the first time in a very long time that there has been a poll showing a majority in favour. (There was one rogue poll just after the Brexit referendum, which is best ignored, and apart from that you're more or less back to a week before the 2014 vote.)

So, yeah, big news.

In among all of the (premature) jubilation in the pro-Independence camp, there has been one criticism pointed at the poll: it doesn't seem to include any polling of EU citizens (who were strongly No last time and would be expected to be strongly Yes next time), and it doesn't seem to include any polling of 16-17 year olds (who are expected to break very slightly in favour of Yes). That being the case, the suggestion is that those figures should probably be ever-so-slightly higher for Yes.

Except...

The polling was conducted under the assumption that "if there was a referendum tomorrow..." The problem with that is that there won't be a referendum tomorrow. Indeed, there's unlikely to be a referendum for several years - Westminster are likely to delay indefinitely, and if Holyrood try to take unilateral action there absolutely will be a legal challenge to the legislation. At the very least, it's near-certain that the earliest another referendum may occur will be in a year's time.

In which case today's 15 year olds will then be 16, and therefore be eligible to vote. Should they, as well as EU (and indeed non-EU) citizens, as well as today's 16-17 year olds not be being polled also? That is, shouldn't the polling really be across the whole of the relevant electorate?

Not that it really matters all that much. This is, after all, one poll. It's also one poll just after Boris Johnson became PM, and it's dealing with a very-much-hypothetical situation. Jubilation on the part of the Yes movement is very much premature... there's a long way to go, and things can change very quickly. Plus, of course, as we've seen from the Brexit referendum, wafer-thin majorities either way are a pretty bad thing. Although the stated conditions for the referendum will necessarily be that 50% + 1 vote is enough for the win, the target really should be an outright majority of the electorate - if independence is to happen, it really should carry with it the settled will of the people.

Admitting Defeat

Over the past several weeks, I've spent a reasonable amount of time searching for a kit of parts with which to fix our damaged wardrobe. WIth such a kit, the fix would be near-trivial, but without it it will be excessively difficult.

Although I've found several options that are reasonably close, in every case they've been close but not close enough. The parts that need replaced appear to be of a non-standard size, and therefore the parts that I've been able to find have invariably been just too big either to fit in the available space or to interface with the other components.

The upshot of this is that I've decided to admit defeat on this repair task. When I get a chance I'll reinstall the damaged lower runner, mostly because it's needed to fill some space, remove the other broken part entirely, and call it a day at that. In the unlikely event that we happen upon matching parts (or if it suddenly turns out that our neighbours get rid of their identical wardrobes) I'll take action then, but otherwise I'm calling it a loss.

And with that I'm bringing the To Do List to a conclusion. There is one job remaining (painting the study), but as discussed previously this will be considered a goal in its own right. And there is one other job that needs done again (mounting the pin board), but I'm not going to maintain a list just for that!

Experimental Cookery 2019: Roasted Wild Rabbit and Bacon with Lone, Thyme, and Parsley Stuffing

I'd never had rabbit before. Indeed, when I mentioned that I was giving this a go on Saturday, both my parents independently launched into their tales of trauma and woe where rabbit was concerned. Which, obviously, was the ideal backdrop to this meal!

The recipe for this one comes from Delia. I got it from her website, so have no idea which book, if any, it comes from. The rabbit itself came from Tebay.

The meal was quick and easy to prepare, involving a fairly large number of ingredients but few that we didn't have in stock anyway (and most of those were for the stuffing). Eventually, it would up in the oven for about 40 minutes, giving a total of almost exactly 100 minutes from start to finish. I could probably cut that down if I did it again.

When the time came to eat the meal, though, it proved to be slightly less enjoyable. Our overall impression was that it was quite nice, but rather too much effort to be worthwhile - getting the meat off the bones proved to be a task in itself. (For what it's worth, the accompaniments were very much the highlight of the meal - the stuffing in particular was a winner. The one thing that really didn't work for me was the sauce for the rabbit.)

(I was also struck by the similarity in flavour between rabbit and venison, despite being significantly different animals. I find myself wondering if that is due to a commonality in the diets or if it is to do with the muscles being well worked. Anyway, it was interesting enough to mention, I thought, even if it didn't really fit anywhere in the post.)

My bottom line was that I'd be willing to have rabbit again, but probably in a pie or similar form, and that I probably won't cook it myself - basically, if I can get someone else to deal with the hassle of taking it off the bones, that'll do me.

#40: "Pathfinder: Midwives to Death", by John Compton

Coasting

Getting a good night's sleep has always been a challenge. Even on holiday it was difficult, as the heat made it difficult for Funsize, which in turn made it difficult for LC and I. Our first night back in the UK was good (thanks, Premier Inn!), but after that it was a matter of struggling through to the weekend, and then beyond. It wasn't until Monday night that I finally got what felt like enough sleep.

As a consequence of that, dinner for the past week has basically been a matter of digging something out of the freezer, letting it defrost, and then reheating it. Pretty much the low-effort approach to keeping people fed.

But, of course, that's exactly the purpose of having a freezer stocked up with pre-cooked (or easy-cook) meals ready for this use. We'd carefully built up a bank of foods for later use and then, when there was a need to take things a bit more easily for a while, you just dip into those reserves and call it good.

That, of course, isn't new, and even if it was would barely qualify as a revelation. Still, it's worth noting the benefits when they pay off, as a reminder that good practices are indeed good.

Of course, the upshot of this is that our reserves are rather less extensive than they might normally be. (Although, awkwardly, we're also short on space in the freezer - there is a lot of food left over from the birthday BBQ and quite a lot of dead space due to poor organisation. So there will need to be some correction there.) The upshot is that over the next few weeks I'll have to cook up some new meals: various curries, chilli, bolognese sauce, maybe a lasagne... oh, and I'll want to make up a couple of batches of burgers for later use. But that's okay - I'll do it in all my free time.

#38: "Prince Caspian" by C.S. Lewis
#39: "The Falcon of Sparta", by Conn Iggulden (probably the new candidate for book of the year)

Finally!

We had the broken washing machine collected yesterday, meaning that the task of clearing the garage is now complete. It has only taken two years, but it's done!

In other news, we managed to get LC's car fixed yesterday, which means we don't have quite the same need for having the garage cleared as we did about a week ago. Still, it's good to know we at least have the option of getting a car in there if we need to.

One of my tasks for the weekend, then, is to put the rest of the things that were in the garage back into the garage, and also to rearrange the garage somewhat so that things that can be stored on the shelves are stored on the shelves - that way, if we ever do need to put a car in again it won't be quite such a challenge.

(I'm also now inclined to accept the wisdom of LC's argument that we should probably invest in a small shed, and store things like the lawnmower in that rather than in the garage. But don't tell LC that...)

Good Omens

"Good Omens" by Pratchett and Gaiman is probably my favourite novel of all time. (Which isn't quite the same as being the best novel I've ever read, which is probably Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath" - much as "Star Wars" is my favourite film but "Schindler's List" is probably the best I've seen.) It's one of very few novels I've read on more than one occasion, and one of a vanishingly small number, mostly by Pratchett, that I've read thrice. The combination of two great, but very different, authors writing at the height of their powers, combined with the subject matter, is pretty much made for me.

So it was with some concern that I anticipated the TV adaptation because, as it is written, the book is always better. The fact that it was written by Neil Gaiman, who is now an accomplished scriptwriter, and that he was doing it pretty much as a last request by Terry, helped a little. And the casting of David Tennant and Martin Sheen as the odd couple at the heart of the story, helped too. But could it really do the novel justice?

The answer, surprisingly, is "yes". Mostly. The book is still better, but the series is very good.

(LC and I happened to be in a position to watch this due to our recently getting a Prime subscription. That's a whole other topic, as I'm not terribly happy at doing business with Amazon - I'm very much not a fan of the way they treat their staff or their tax arrangements, or the fact that they pretty much killed off my FLGS and are bringing death to book shops across the country; they're basically the least ethical country I'll still to business with. But, as I said, that's another rant.)

Anyway, Good Omens.

As expected, the central pairing of Tennant and Sheen are very good. The surrounding cast are likewise excellent. I also approved a great deal of taking large sections of the prose from the novel and putting it into the 'mouth' of the narrator - this brings one of the great strengths of the book across to the adaptation and gives the whole thing a "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" feel (no bad thing).

I was a little dismayed that all three of my top-three moments from the book were missing from the adaptation, but I guess they had to cut something. And there's enough there that those three are probably amongst the least-painful cuts they could have made (from a storytelling, rather than personal, point of view). So there's that.

One of my colleagues has noted that he really didn't like the last episode because the climax all felt a bit low-budget and, well, crap. I tend to disagree with that assessment - yes, it did seem a bit low-budget but I think that's the point: this isn't a glossy American production with an endless CGI budget; this is what happens when the End of the World happens in Nowhere, England and is just a bit, um, quaint.

Oh yes, and I'm very glad that the end of this series appears to be The End. No need to spin this one out to a second and subsequent series, thank you very much!

And that's that. Do I recommend it? Yes, absolutely. Is it as good as the book? Well, no, but it wasn't going to be. But it's as good as it probably can be.

100 Days to Halloween...

... and here comes the scary clown to make sure that this one is a real nightmare.

End of an (Ice) Age

When I first moved into the flat in Yeovil, way back at the start of Part Two, one of the very first things I purchased was, of course, a fridge freezer. That fridge then came with me back up the road to the first flat in Falkirk, where it spent three years tucked away in the kitchen. (That also marked the start of my pioneering two-fridge approach!) It came with me to the second flat in Falkirk, where the two-fridge approach continued, and then came with us to the house in Livingston, where not only do we have two fridges, but we have two freezers also!

However, during the most recent house move it became very apparent that the fridge was coming to the end of its useful life - it has been making odd and disturbing noises for quite some time, and the back of the fridge was absolutely manky. Over the last few months, the secondary fridge (that came with the house) has also started to groan ominously.

And so we find ourselves coming to the end of an age - it is getting towards time to finally retire and replace the fridge that has done me good service lo these thirteen long years. At the same time, we'll likewise retire the secondary fridge, and return to a more primitive one-fridged lifestyle. (That said, I have my eye on a huge fridge freezer to replace all the existing units and increase our storage space. Plus, the new one is considerably more efficient, which is always a good thing. Ironically, keeping all these things cool is probably our #2 contribution to global warming (after driving).)

Anyway, it's not quite certain yet - we'll need to measure the space into which the new fridge is to live, to make sure it will actually fit without being an impossible disruption; there's been a small issue with the financing of the purchase (barely worth mentioning); and there's the general hassle of actually making the purchase, getting it installed, etc.

Of course, the other big advantage of going to a one-fridge solution is that it frees up a spot right next to the sink, which is ideally suited for adding a dishwasher. Huzzah! (And if we also retire the extra freezer, that then creates a spot that could be used for almost anything...) But that's a consideration for another day...