Cheery Summer Reading

I've just finished "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", which is a light-hearted romp about grinding poverty, alcoholism, and eventual death, all set in the second decade of the 20th century in Brooklyn. Naturally, given the subject matter, it's a barrel of laughs from start to finish.

Though, oddly, and like "Angela's Ashes" (the novel I'd most compare it to), it is a fairly easy-going read, studded with moments of humour, and told in a sufficiently jovial way as to offset the underlying awfulness. In any event, I very much enjoyed it, and am happy to recommend it.

Perhaps also of note, I'm now down to 25 books remaining on The List. One of these, "Ulysses", appears on both the British and American sides. There are two that appear only on the British side, those being the longest two books left: "A Suitable Boy" (which I will be finishing shortly) and the complete works of Shakespeare. The other 22 are all on the American side.

My expectation, therefore, is to complete the British side of The List some time next year (as the remaining books are all either long or difficult), and then hopefully the American side some time in 2022. But we'll need to see how it actually plays out.

#35: "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn", by Betty Smith (a book from The List, and the new leading contender for Book of the Year)

Hobson's Choice

Here's an odd thought: in the Scottish elections we're not voting for which government we want; we're voting for which type of SNP government we get.

The thing is, there are only three outcomes that are remotely likely. The most likely, per the polls as they stand, is that the SNP will win an outright majority of seats (and, indeed, quite possibly a significant majority). In which case we will, of course, get an SNP government.

The second possibility, and the next most likely, is essentially a rerun of the last election - the SNP fall slightly short of an outright majority, but the Greens gain enough seats as to give a pro-independence majority. In which case we'll get an SNP minority government, backed by the Greens. And things will carry on pretty much as they are.

The third possibility, and the least likely of the three, is that the pro-indepence parties will lose enough seats that the Tories, Labour, and the Lib Dems between them hold a majority of the seats. However, neither the Tories nor Labour will have enough seats to build a government either alone or with the Lib Dems - it would take an alliance of all three to form a government. And there is simply no way that either Boris Johnson or Kier Starmer would countenance such a thing. (Jackson Carlaw and Richard Leonard might, given the perks of the job, but they'd be over-ruled.)

The upshot of that is that either the SNP will then form a government that is then utterly paralysed by the combined opposition, or we'll end up with another set of elections (in which case, see above). There is basically no prospect of anyone else forming a government.

Which really isn't a healthy place for Scotland's politics to be. It's not even as if you could look at either the Tories or Labour and see any viable government in waiting. Quite aside from them having no chance of winning the seats, there just isn't the talent there for it to be anything other than a disaster. The SNP have to have the job since, for all their faults (which are increasingly obvious), they are able to offer governance that is at least marginally competent.

It's shocking that that has become the bar to be aspired to.

Missing Out on Summer

Needless to say, we're not going away for a holiday this summer. We are potentially going to look at going away for the September weekend and the October week (usually we'd only do the latter), though in both cases it is likely to be only a few days, and somewhere within Scotland. At the start of the year I had looked at going to Vienna, but we shelved those plans some months ago - right now, there's no way I'm going anywhere near an airport.

The upshot of that is that, unfortunately, this summer just feels like a big waste.

The other consequence of this is that, other than a day or two here and there, I haven't had a proper holiday since Christmas. Easter was cancelled due to the start of lockdown, Summer has now been cancelled due to the middle of it... I do hope that October won't be cancelled by the second wave, but you never know. Which is far from ideal - there is a limit to how long you can just keep going.

The upshot is that I think I will be taking that week off in October, basically regardless of what happens, because I do now just need a break.

Bang Up To Date

I've never been hugely into video games. Even back in my first year of university it was more a case of one game in particular ("Civilisation II") causing me problems rather than flitting between many such games. Nonetheless, I gradually accumulated a large number of games, most which did at least get installed (albeit not played) on the PC I had at that time.

Naturally, after I gave up on video games following the aforementioned Civ2 incident, I pretty much stopped buying them. This wasn't a complete stop, as I was occasionally tempted by a game, which I then mostly ended up not playing, but it wasn't a particularly huge issue.

When I finally retired that PC and moved to my laptop I decided not to install anything until I actually came to use it, which meant that only one game was installed. That then held true with the move to my current PC.

A couple of years ago, during one of my decluttering phases, I finally got rid of almost all of those games that hadn't been used for years and were just taking up space. I haven't felt their lack. However, I did keep two games - "Icewind Dale II" (which I'd never played but thought I might), and "Neverwinter Nights 2". That last was the game I'd installed on the laptop, got a fairly long way through, and then abandoned. I thought I might give it a go again.

Anyway, those two have been sitting on my shelf taking up space since then. Until Saturday evening, when I finally got around to installing them onto my PC. I still haven't actually played them, of course, but that is at least now an option.

As you can see, I'm bang up to date on PC gaming!

Back to Nursery

Funsize started back at nursery on Friday. They'd been open since the 15th, but we weren't really in a rush to send her - we just wanted to make sure she was eased back into it before LC went back to school next month. So she went, and it seems she had a good day.

I had two concerns prior to the return to nursery. The first was the obvious one about safety, but the truth is that that was always very minor - even before the lockdown her nursery had some fairly significant protective measures in place, and are obviously taking the matter as seriously as possible. Short of us more or less completely isolating ourselves (with all the problems that would bring), there isn't really much more we could be doing on that front.

My other concern was one of socialisation. Being an only child, Funsize has spent the last several months with no other children to play with. And while she's too young to remember all of this once she's grown up, she's not too young for it to have an effect. So, when she returned to nursery, how would she play with other children.

Well, it sounds like she did just fine, which is obviously all to the good. At least, so far so good - she's only done one day so far, so it's possible a meltdown is coming on Wednesday, or perhaps Thursday. But we'll just need to deal with that if it should occur.

Still, that's one more step back to normal life, so that's good.

Overdrafts

A little while ago, our marvellous government decided that banks would no longer be allowed to charge a higher interest rate (or other fees) for unexpected overdrafts than for arranged ones. Which was always a bit of an odd move - I would have thought that that actually was a reasonable place where the charges could vary. Anyway, as a response to this the banks of course introduced new, and much higher, interest rates for all overdrafts. Which wasn't so much an unforseen consequence as one that was totally obvious.

Anyway, on Saturday I received an annoying letter from my bank, explaining that they had been oh-so-good to us, in that as part of their Covid response they had delayed bringing in the new, higher interest rates. However, the time had now come for them to do this.

Well, fair enough. I have had an overdraft facility with them for decades, and apart from one occaision when there might have been a short term dip (depending on the order in which things happened) I've never actually used it. Nor indeed would I intend to - there have always been cheaper ways to get credit.

But what really annoys me about this is the utter and inexcusable unfairness of the system as a whole. Yes, it's right that banks should charge interest on accounts that are overdrawn, but it's a bloody liberty charging punitive interest rates on such accounts when they have a 0% interest rate on credit balances. Indeed, there isn't a bank account out there that pays anything even close to the ~35% rate charged on negative balances. Frankly, I find it utterly and outrageously one-sided.

So that's my rant of the day. It is, of course, not a reason to switch bank (since they're all much of a muchness on that measure). However, it is worth noting that I am now up to two actual reasons for switching banks. I suspect that may be coming sooner rather than later...

#33: "Carte Blanche", by Jeffery Deaver

#34: "The Fall of Gondolin", by J.R.R. Tolkien (which was much better than "Beren and Luthien", which is nice.)

When Adapting a Novel

Neil Gaiman has indicated an interest in doing a second season of "Good Omens". Because as soon as you have a major hit on your hands, of course you want to do more. Never mind that the adaptation used up all of the existing source material, and the only people qualified to write more are Gaiman and Terry Pratchett working as a team. And while Pratchett has been unusually prolific for an ex-writer, this would be ambitious even for him.

Unfortunately, this is another case of falling into the same trap as "A Handmaid's Tale" by Margaret Attwood, or "American Gods" by Neil Gaiman. The first season adapts the book, and does so really well, turning into a big hit. Everyone involved therefore wants more, and that desire wins out over good sense. And then the regret sets in.

So, my new rule of thumb: when adapting a much-loved novel for TV, once you reach the end of the novel it is time to stop.

Pipe Down

For obvious reasons, band practice has been cancelled since mid-March, and the entire pipe band competition season has been cancelled for the year. As things started to unlock, I found myself wondering if and when we'd be able to meet again - I had assumed it would be fairly soon.

Alas, the news does not sound good: https://bagpipe.news/2020/07/03/covid-19-the-game-changer/

Basically, the risks associated with instruments like the bagpipe are particularly severe - one infected player could very easily infect the whole band. And the measures that are proposed to mitigate it sound all but unworkable - protective screens, extensive shielding, and the like. For serious competition bands I suspect they might be a sacrifice that is worthwhile, but for everyone else I doubt it.

The upshot is that I suspect there will be pretty much no pipe band events, of any sort, until a vaccine is found. Certainly, indoor practices on the pipes, and anything involving a parade will be out of the question.

Solo piping, and the use of the practice chanter, should remain possible. But that's about it... and that's rather disappointing.

Day 200: Update on Goals

It's day 200 of the year, so here's the update:

• Books: By day 200 I should have read 32.78 books, so I'm right on target. I'm also up-to-date on all sub-lists, and am making good progress on "A Suitable Boy", which I should finish next month (it's really long!). So everything looks good here.
• Weight: Blah. Progress gets made, progress gets reversed.
• Blogging: I'm a little behind on this blog, but right on target on the Imaginarium. So that's looking promising.
• Work: Sadly, this goal won't be achieved this year, a casualty of the virus. Which is a shame, as otherwise I suspect it would have been done.

And that's that. We're now looking at two goals that will succeed, one that will fail through circumstances beyond my control, and one that's not looking good (again). That's a middling report card, but with some reason to be cheerful.

Prepping for a New Normal - Webcam

One of the features of lockdown has, of course, been extensive use of Zoom and similar tools for video chat. One of the key things that has enabled this is that I brought the entire contents of my desk from work, including a webcam. Said webcam has been doing double duty as a webcam for our home PC. This has been a major boon, but of course there will come a time when I have to return to the office, and the webcam will go with me.

It is my expectation that even after things return to normal, the use of video chat will remain something of a feature - it's just much easier to get people together online than in person. Consequently, I knew fairly early on in lockdown that I would want to invest in a webcam of my own. (Additionally, if I do end up doing more extensive work from home in the new normal, having a camera here would just mean one less thing to have to cart back and forward.)

So I did what I usually do with this sort of thing and spent some time researching the market, narrowed my choices down to a few solid options from reputable suppliers, and then picked an item. And having made my choice, that was it - I try really hard not to agonise over these choices once they're made - even if they're not the best choice, they're typically good enough... and certainly good enough to render any further stress not worthwhile.

The chosen camera was out of stock everywhere, of course. And then, when it did come in stock, there was a Coronavirus premium applied, such that it was way more than it 'should' have been, and certainly way more than I was set to pay when there was no pressing need for it.

Still, it was a pain constantly looking to see if it had come back into stock at any decent price, or being tempted with alternatives at lower prices - most of which, I'm sure, were perfectly adequate for the job I wanted done... they just weren't the chosen item.

Well, the good news is that the item in question finally came back into stock, from a source I hadn't really considered (but am happy to use). So it should arrive later this week. I'll then look to set it up on both PCs, in preparation for returning the current camera back to the office.

#31: "The Broken Sword", by Poul Anderson

#32: "Sharpe's Sword", by Bernard Cornwell

Things Best Left Behind

This post is prompted about the recent events concerning Black Lives Matter, but it's not about Black Lives Matter. Largely because I have very little to say on that topic - of course black lives matter, and I'm frankly stunned and dismayed that it even needs to be said. But, evidently, it does.

However, one of the consequences of recent events is that WotC have started talking about making some changes to D&D and it's associated lore as a result of this, and the consequence of that is that the message boards are full of long and painful threads about the various changes.

This post isn't really about that, either, except tangentially.

The sad fact is that some of the material created for D&D over the past 45 years is indeed problematic in various areas. That's hardly shocking, given the amount of material involved. More troubling is that some of the more problematic areas include some very long-standing material and even some well-loved material. There is even significant debate over the most popular and most lucrative item in the entire setting.

This realisation, and the debates surrounding it prompted some uncomfortable reflections on how it should be dealt with. Because, bluntly, if WotC are serious about dealing with the issue then where there are genuinely problematic areas they will have to take some sort of action. In some cases, the areas affected can be fixed. In others, they just can't, and the offending material will have to be excised. (I should note that I don't necessarily agree on all the areas that have been flagged as 'problematic', and neither do I necessarily agree with whatever actions are proposed. Ultimately, though, that's a question for WotC, and it's also not really the topic of this post.)

But this isn't really about D&D, but culture more widely, be it in the form of films, books, and TV shows; or in the form of the statues we place in our cities; or indeed in the names of some streets.

Ultimately, what I'd like us to aim for is a society as envisaged by Martin Luther King Jr. in his famous "I have a dream..." speech - a world where race ceases to be a problem because we reach a point where it just doesn't matter. Obviously, I'm not so naive as to believe we're anywhere close to there, nor indeed do I think we'll get there in my lifetime, but that's pretty much the goal as I see it.

And the truth is that if we have elements in our culture that stand as an active insult to big parts of the population, we're just never going to get there. Some of these things need to be marked "handle with care", some of them need to be moved to the proper place and context... and some of them just need to go.

And some of the things that need to go may well include things that are very long-standing and much-loved. If we are to collectively enter a better future, there are some elements of our past that we will need to leave in our past.

Which doesn't make it any easier to take, of course. But there it is.