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)