Theme of the Month: Wrap Up

We're now pretty much at the end of the month, and so it's time to consider how I did on my theme of the month, which this time was "catch up".

It actually went pretty well:

• On the topic of weight loss, there's some good news for a change - at the last weigh-in I had actually managed to hit my nominal target for this point in the year. Huzzah!
  
• Likewise, on the topic of work the rot has been stopped and I'm now back where I would like to be.
  
• And on this blog, and also on the Imaginarium, I'm essentially back on target.
  
• The one area that isn't so good is the reading target. For one brief, shining moment I was actually bang on target... but that lasted all of 24 hours before I was behind again. Basically, "Heroes" by Stephen Fry took me much longer to get through than expected (as, incidentally, did "Mythos"). "The Stone Diaries" is likewise proving a challenge. So I'm likely to end the month further behind than I started, which is unfortunate.

Still, I'm actually pretty happy with progress from this month - one goal may have slipped, but I'm in a much better position on all the others.

Cooking in the Crisis

Perhaps foolishly, I thought I'd have more free time as a result of this lockdown - since I'm not commuting to work, I figured that would give me an hour a day, and since I'm now not able to go out to band, to chuch, or to see family, that should clear huge swathes of time. But it hasn't been the case - because I'm still working full-time (albeit from home), LC has been stuck with the lion's share of looking after FS, and as a consequence of that most of the times when I'm not working I'm trying to provide as much support as I can.

The other thing about all this that I find remarkable is how we've managed to accidentally be about as well prepared for this as I think we could be. I should note immediately that I'm not pretending any special genius here, but I find it strange that a couple of weeks either way could have seen us enter lockdown with empty shelves, where as it happens we'd restocked just before things got hard to find.

I am conscious, however, that the lockdown is very likely to be extended beyond the three weeks initially set, and that the supply situation is likely to get worse before it gets better. (Although maybe not too bad - both because the supermarkets seem to think their underlying supply chains are still working, and because we're now moving into spring when our farms start to become more productive. Plus, if the panic buying calms down, and the supermarkets start rationing supplies, we may actually be okay. I guess we'll know in a few weeks.) As a consequence of that, I've been trying not to eat into our stores too much, by continuing to include several freshly made meals each week. Luckily (again), I am equipped with a multitude of useful cookbooks, including one specifically on the use of leftovers.

The one thing that has been a bit tricky when planning meals is knowing what I will be able to pick up at the supermarket. Thus far lamb mince and tinned tomatoes have eluded me (the latter being a bigger loss than the former), while I was able to pick up baked beans last week but not this.

(I should note at this point that both Jack Monroe and Jamie Oliver have been producing advice on how to make use of whatever you have when cooking. For those unfamiliar with Jack Monroe, she was a single mother who went through some really hard times, and therefore knows a great deal about making do with what you have. She's probably the expert to consult. I mention Jamie mostly because several of the things he's shown us are actually things I would happily eat even in normal times. But the truth is that his show is probably less about actually cooking, and more about getting a friendly, reassuring, and, crucially, familiar face on screens to avoid people losing their minds. Not that that's a bad thing.)

Being a software architect rather than a professional chef (or pandemic expert), I'm not going to offer a lot of advice here. Generally speaking, it's better to find actual experts and listen to them. But two things that I think are worth noting:

• I would recommend going through your cupboards, fridge, and freezer and making an inventory of everything that you have in the house that is edible, including use-by dates. (That's use by, not "best before". The distinction may matter.) That way you know what you've got, what key gaps you need to fill, and have a decent idea of how to maximise it. (I should also note that that one comes to me by way of the aforementioned Jack Monroe.)
  
• The Sunday roast has been a real friend to us. Last week we had a roast chicken, from which we then harvested meat for a second dinner in midweek and a couple of lunches. This week I picked up a shoulder of lamb, which we'll be having tonight. We haven't been having any difficulties getting hold of root vegetables, so this has been a very efficient way to cook meat for the week.

I guess I should note something about my shopping list - normally, I would plan out a week's meals and then assemble a shopping list to suit. The last couple of weeks, I have noted things like "roasting joint", and then picked up whatever they have. Hence the chicken, then the lamb. I've also noticed that Tesco always had plenty of ham joints left, so maybe that's next. From next week, I think it will probably include a "look for..." section, where I'll try to source things like tinned tomatoes without having a specific plan for them - I can't assume I'll get them, so they won't feature in the meal plan... but if I do get them then we can plan to use them the week after.

Anyway, that's the update. For the moment, we are all well. Long may that continue. I hope things remain well with you, or as well as can be hoped. Good luck!

The Doctors, re-rated

Some time ago I rated the various Doctors. This post provides an updated list, so that I have a single point of reference...

Note: I'm not going to repeat everything from the previous post, so this list may seem a bit bare-bones.

1. The Fourth Doctor: Tom Baker: The obvious choice, and still the best.
   
2. The Tenth Doctor: David Tennant: Another obvious choice, and the best of the 'new' Doctors.
   
3. The Eleventh: Matt Smith: I know he wasn't everyone's favourite, but I liked him. I was especially impressed with his first season.
   
4. The Fifth: Peter Davison: He's my Doctor, so he's always going to be high on the list.
   
5. The Twelfth: Peter Capaldi: Started poorly, but ended strong. He's probably the best actor ever to hold the role, but unfortunately the Moffat era was losing steam by the time he took over. But he benefited enormously by being able to play off against Missy.
   
6. The Ninth: Christopher Eccleston: First of the 'new' Doctors, this was another one who ended much better than he started. Probably the single worst feature of the new series is that we didn't get enough from this Doctor. But then, Eccleston saying "no" gave us first David Tennant and then William Hurt, so it's not all bad.
   
7. The Third: Jon Pertwee: Another classic.
   
8. "Doctor Ruth": Jo Martin: The first of the "Doctors with Potential", I do like what Jo Martin has done with the role, and would like to see more. That said, I have a big problem with her placement in the canon, which is a bit of an issue. But that's a problem with the material, not the performance.
   
9. The Eighth: Paul McGann: Bad TV movie, good short appearance later. Another Doctor I would very much have liked to see more of.
   
10. The War Doctor: John Hurt: Another one I would very much have liked to see more of. Alas, it was not to be, and now the chance is gone.
    
11. The Sixth: Colin Baker: A spectacularly misjudged first episode and a terrible costume relegates what could have been a good performance towards the bottom of the list. A shame - I felt he was poorly served.
    
12. The Seventh: Sylvester McCoy: The man who really brought the curtain down on the classic era, he's mostly at the bottom of the list of 'old' Doctors because somebody has to be.
    
13. The Thirteenth: Jodie Whittaker: My view is that, more than anything, she's just really badly served with the material. Unfortunately, the performance that she's being asked to give really grates. So unless the next series is stellar, I'm hard pressed to believe she'll be climbing the list.

As before, I haven't included the First or the Second on the list. One day I may take out a subscription to Britbox and watch the stories (or borrow some DVDs or something), but until then I don't have enough familiarity with the extant material to fairly judge them.

And that's that... until next time.

Thirteen's Second Outing

LC and I finished the most recent season of "Doctor Who" last night. We had been in the practice of watching it as we went, but then stopped after five episodes (three of which had been dire, one was pretty good, and one was good but didn't match the hype). We then banked up the second half of the series, and have now completed it.

It's very much a mixed bag.

As noted, the first half of the series pretty much sucked. To the point where I strongly considered giving up completely, was all set to declare that everyone involved in this travesty needed sacked, and indeed considering that maybe it was time for another hiatus.

The first two episodes back were slightly better, but then the next two were generally excellent. The finale was... okay. (Though I hated the big revelation. The only good side to it is that there's a massive amount of wiggle room, so that the next guy can treat that like the revelation that the Doctor is half human (from the TV movie) - basically, that it never happened.)

Some more detailed thoughts:

• Unfortunately, Jodie Whittaker is now rooted right to the bottom of my list of favourite Doctors. I don't think she's terrible in the role, but she's being really badly served with material. And, unfortunately, much of that material presents the character as an enthusiastic but overwhelmed supply teacher. Sorry.
  
• The three Companions are likewise a weak spot, especially the idiocy of refering to them as "fam". Even Graham, who was the high point last time, doesn't hit the spot this year. Time for them all to go. (And that's a shame, because at least two of the actors are clearly very good. That's the material again.)
  
• There's too much bloody talking, most especially in the form of the Doctor talking to herself. That's particularly galling because the purpose of the Companion is to ask the stupid questions so the Doctor can inform the audience, but they've dropped the ball on that one. Instead, the Doctor has to ask herself all the stupid questions, gurn a bit, and then we get to see a lightbulb gradually come on.
  
• Too little tension. This is the thing that made the difference between episodes 8&9 and the rest - previously, the characters would talk and talk and talk, and then eventually something might happen. In the good episodes, things zip along at a pleasant speed. The worst offender was episode 5, which as I've mentioned before had a literal ticking clock which then expired... and then an age more talking.
  
• I do need to give a great deal of credit to Sacha Dhawan (the Master), Jo Martin (the Doctor), and Patrick O'Kane (the lone Cyberman). All three guest stars were good in their roles (though the Master, again, was somewhat let down by the material). To the extent that I think I'd actually much rather be watching Doctor Ruth squaring off against the Lone Cyberman in a series than the one that actually aired.

And that's basically that. I obviously have no idea when "Doctor Who" will be returning, nor do I know what we're likely to see when it does come back. When it does, I'll give it a go, but it does remain very much on the brink of abandonment. Which is not something I thought I'd say, even back when Peter Capaldi's first season failed to impress me.

Each Night I Dream of Home

A few years ago I posted about how the situation with Brexit reminded me very much of the end of "Babylon 5", and especially the fall of Centauri Prime.

"Babylon 5" had a spin-off, "Crusade", the premise of which was... interesting. In revenge for their defeat in the Shadow War, the Drakh launch an attack on Earth. Being defeated, they then launch one final assault - seeding the planet with a plague that proceeds to become a pandemic. And so the people of Earth batten down the hatches and desperately try to ride out the storm, while the experimental ship Excalibur and a crack team of experts race to try to find a cure.

Which is all depressingly familiar.

Unfortunately, there's another sting in this tale: the answer to "what happens next?" is not a happy one. "Crusade" failed almost completely, and as a consequence was cancelled after thirteen episodes. So either I don't know... or worse.

Community Spirit

It's funny, but we've had more contact with our neighbours in the last few weeks than in the two years prior to that. Before you panic, I should note that that has been from a distance - we have of course been taking the necessary steps to reduce risks, both to ourselves and to others.

But about a week ago LC took round notes to the near neighbours giving out contact details and offering assistance in case of need. As a result of that we were invited to the neighbourhood Facebook group, and things have gone from there.

Last night, as part of the morale-boosting efforts, I was asked to play "Flower of Scotland" on the pipes at 8pm. Which was nice.

Of course, we're not the only people to be doing things like this - videos have circulated of people in Edinburgh singing "Sunshine on Leith", Italians belting out "Nessun Dorma", and so on. Suddenly, it does seem that we've started to step back from a very atomised society towards something more resembling communities again.

Even a pandemic, it seems, has a silver lining or two.

#13: "Heroes", by Stephen Fry

Too Much Speculation

For the most part, the 24-hour news cycle is actually quite a good thing - people can dip in to the news when they want, get a quick update on everything, and drop back out again. That's during normal times, of course.

During extraordinary times, though, there's a problem - everyone is focussed on one topic, everyone is desperate for information, but there isn't actually anything to report. The news stations can't really report on much else, because of their audience's monomaniacal focus on that one topic, but they have to fill 24 hours with nothing.

And as a consequence, they proceed to fill the airwaves with lots of experts of various stripes who proceed to speculate at some length about what might happen. The problem being that one of two things is true: (1) either they're not privy to what is going to happen, in which case their expertise is limited in the key area of interest; or (2) they are privy to the next steps but aren't able to reveal that information ahead of time, in which case they can't comment on the key area of interest.

Meanwhile, of course, there are all the other talking heads that the media channels get on because the actual experts aren't available. And so we have the madness of Nigel Farage, or Caprice, or Stanley Johnson being asked to opine on a topic that they know bugger all about.

Finally, starved of real information, social media and informal networks of course rush in to fill the void - but they can't actually fill it with real information, so what you get (if you're lucky) is people's well-meaning best guesses.

The upshot of all of this is that it is really easy to just let yourself saturate in nonsense, misinformation, and endless speculation. Which can be really unhealthy.

All of which is a long-winded way to say I won't be commenting on how I foresee any of this to go, I won't be commenting on the political responses (either from Boris or Nicola, nor even Donald), and so on. I probably will comment on how we're getting on, but it will almost entirely be focused on the past tense - even locally, the future is too unclear to comment sensibly.

Lockdown

After a few weeks of speculation, we finally received the instruction that the office was closing. We're to work from home for the foreseeable future. (They've said until the end of April, but the reality is that that's likely to change.)

Funnily enough, I'm not sure that that will affect me all that much. Work have put a great deal of money into providing us with powerful tools for remote working, so this should just be a case of actually using them. In which case, the major impact will be that I won't have to commute each morning.

(In practice, it won't be just so easy: on the days when LC and FS are at home, being able to isolate myself in order to work will be a challenge. And I'm far from convinced that the schools and/or nursery are going to remain open. But given how fast everything is changing, there's not much benefit in speculating.)

Anyway, it's something of a relief to have the decision finally made - it's been a case of knowing that this was coming, but not knowing exactly when. Now that it's done, we can start to adapt.

How to Resolve the Season - My Proposal

The SPFL announced yesterday that football was suspended until further notice. I think they are hoping to resume in just a few weeks, run into the slot vacated by the sure-to-be-cancelled Euro 2020 competition, and thus complete the season a little late. I think that's wildly optimistic - the peak of this thing is estimated to be 10-14 weeks away, so I'd expect them to be shut down for months.

That raises the question of what to do about the season, if it cannot be concluded in any reasonable time-frame. Do they just conclude it as-is, declare Celtic the champions and Hearts relegated? Or do they declare the season void, and start afresh with things as they stand?

The problem is that there is no fair solution. And for Dundee United and Hearts, in particular, any decision that is taken will have profound financial implications - relegation for one means promotion for the other, and vice versa.

So here's what I propose:

1. Whenever it is considered safe and appropriate to resume football, pick up the league season as it stands, no matter how long that takes. Play out the final dozen or so matches with all reasonable speed, and thus complete the season.

2. As soon as it becomes apparent that the league cannot be completed by the start of June (when contracts tend to expire) open a transfer window, to run until the season resumes. Yes, this means that the squads that come back are not the ones who have played so far, but I think we just have to accept that. (Besides, technically there's nothing to stop a team recruiting an entirely new squad in January, so that's a possibility anyway.) They might want to put a spending limit on clubs for this window.

3. While the season remains paused, suspend any and all penalties associated with entering administration, provided the club has come back out by the time the season resumes.

4. However, in the unfortunate case where clubs simply fold in the interim, treat this as would be the case anyway - they're assumed to lose all remaining matches by some known scoreline (3-0, I think?), and that's that. That really sucks, I know, but we'll just have to deal with it.

Then, once the current season has run to a completion, have a fairly short close-season, and then set up for the next season of competitions.

However, for that season, depending on the time that needs to be made up, either contract or extend the season to suit. (For instance, if they need to make up a month, they could have everyone play each other twice, then have the split, then have two sets of post-split matches. Or they could remove all cup replays. Or whatever.)

The benefit of that is two-fold: firstly, it means there's no need for a ruling that will massively impact either Hearts or Dundee United (and also both gives Celtic the benefit of the lead they have deservedly built up without putting a big asterisk beside their 9-in-a-row). Secondly, by deferring any compromises until next season they allow everyone to play on with a level playing field, because the rules are agreed before they take effect.

At least, that's what I'd do.

#12: "Sharpe's Eagle", by Bernard Cornwell

New Mini-list

I'm a big fan of Bernard Cornwell, and over the years I've read most of the novels that he has published. But there has always been one massive gap: I haven't really tackled many of his Sharpe novels, despite these being his most famous works. The reason for this is that my experience of "Sharpe's Waterloo" was not terribly good - it all felt just a bit too close to the TV episode of the same name.

However, I have been struggling for new series to read for some time, and so following a happier encounter with "Sharpe's Rifles" I have now settled on that series of novels as one of my mini-lists for 2020 (and into 2021).

According to Wikipedia there are 21 novels in all, plus three short stories. Of these, I have now read five. That means that I should finish the series around June next year, which is pretty good.

(That said, I am somewhat mindful of the possibility that I might find the next few too close to the series again, in which case I'll rethink my approach. But here's hoping that "Waterloo" was something of an outlier - I have reason to think that that might well be the case.)

#11: "Sharpe's Havoc", by Bernard Cornwell

Time To Let Go?

I've been on a bit of a "Firefly" kick since the start of the year, reading through three of the new graphic novels by Boom! Studios and the first of the new "Firefly" novels, "Big Damn Hero". And for the most part I've been enjoying them - they do a decent job capturing the spirit of the show and the various characters, the plots move on at a decent clip, and while they're not exactly high literature they are at least entertaining.

But I can't help but consider that "Firefly" was a show that ran for a single season in 2002-03, which was then followed by the film "Serenity" in 2005. That's now fifteen years ago, or more than a third of my life.

(Of course, in that time we have had persistent but unrealised rumours that there was going to be a continuation of some form. I've long thought that that would be a bad idea, especially following the death of Ron Glass. If they're to bring it back, my preference would be for a complete reboot - leave the original to stand as it is, and see if the concept has legs. But that's just me.)

The upshot of this is that I'm thinking maybe it's better to just let "Firefly" go. It was good, it's done, move on...

#10: "Firefly: Big Damn Hero", by James Lovegrove

The Evil Algebra Trap

Last night as I was going to bed, I chanced to see something that LC had left open on the PC. It was a simple puzzle, that boiled down to three simultaneous equations to be solved for x.

Alas, just like Admiral Ackbar, I realised too late: it's a trap!

I found myself unable to sleep, with this puzzle left unsolved. How annoying. After several minutes of this, I proceeded to get up, go and solve the puzzle (£2.50), and then returned to bed. The problem solved, I had no difficulty going to sleep... well, no more than usual anyway.

And that is the tale of the Evil Algebra Trap.

His Dark Materials

It has taken a while, but LC and I finished up the first series of "His Dark Materials" at the weekend. This is the start of an adaptation of the trilogy by the same name by Philip Pullman, covering the first novel and parts of the second.

For the most part I very much enjoyed it. I did feel that the first three episodes took a long time to get going, but then episodes four to seven were very good indeed. Unfortunately, the final episode was a nonsense of sound and fury, and therefore nowhere near as good as what went before, but it was still okay - and the final twist somehow still managed to surprise me. I guess it's just been a very long time since I read the trilogy.

I should note that I thought the decision to move some of the second novel into the first series was a very wise choice. Otherwise, the sudden and total shift in emphasis would likely have been quite jarring when we go into the second series. As it stands, much of the groundwork has been laid, allowing them to push on with some of the meatier story aspects sooner. All in all, a good choice.

And that's that. How nice to be able to actually be positive about something on the BBC for once!

Theme of the Month: Catch-up

As I said in my most recent update on goals, I've fallen behind on almost every front over the past few weeks. I've actually slipped a little further still since then.

So the theme for March is to catch up - to make up ground on my reading target, on the blog, and on the work front also. Let's see if that's any more successful than January's theme was...

Just a Thought

Could we maybe tell Boris that Scotland is pregnant, and we think that the baby might be his? We'd be independent within days!

#9: "Fall on Your Knees", by Ann-Marie MacDonald (a book from The List)