Day 150: Update on... Stuff

The past several weeks have been a huge improvement over those before that. A combination of no longer having to wait for Surprise! to arrive, lockdown being significantly eased, and the weather improving has had a hugely beneficial effect. Additionally, finally receiving the vaccine, and some other aches and pains clearing up has been good. All in all, things are in a much happier place now than they were.

• Books: By Day 150 I should expect to have completed 24.65 books. Having already finished book 25, I'm a good way ahead of that target. Additionally, I'm well advanced in my read-through of Shakespeare, which remains on target to conclude in early July.
• Weight: No change.
• Blogging: By this point I would have hoped to have posted 49 times here and 24 or so over on the Imaginarium. Unfortunately I fell a long way behind in April, and have not yet caught up - I expect to have rectified that by the next update, but we'll see.
• Redecorating the Spare Room: All remaining items have now been completed. This is done.
• Tadpole #2: Surprise! arrived two weeks after the previous update. Despite a rather more exciting birth than we might have preferred, the main thing was that everyone came through safe and well, which was indeed the case. This is done.

And that's that - two done, one ahead of plan, one behind but catching up, and one that's behind with no progress to speak of. I'm actually reasonably sanguine about all of that, largely because I deliberately didn't set any goals for the year!

Not Enough Letters

When you get right down to it, English is just a rubbish language.

Here's the problem: one of the single biggest innovations in the development of language was hit upon by the Phoenicians, and it was the notion of using letters to depict sounds, rather than using pictures to depict things. And with that it was suddenly possible to write the word for anything using a combination of only a few distinct letters. (Of course, that's also where we derive the word phonetic, and the idea of "sounding it out" when learnign unfamiliar words.)

So far, so good.

But then you get English, which is an utter nonsense of a language: we have letters where the sounds are modified by other nearby letters ('ch' rather than 'c' and 'h'; or pretty much any word ending in an 'e'); we have a set of mad rules with all manner of exceptions ('i' before 'e', except after 'c'... which is just weird); we have silent letters everywhere...

Fundamentally, we just have too few letters.

(Of course, the downside of that rant is that it also implicitly accepts that Americans are right with their policy of dropping the unnecessary 'u' in words like honour and armour, and replacing 's' with 'z' in words like organisation.)

Anyway, that's my rant for today.

#25: "Baptism of Fire", by Andrez Sapkowski

Fixing "The Rise of Skywalker"

The Star Wars sequel trilogy have not aged well. By my book, "The Rise of Skywalker" remains the best of the bunch, but that's largely because "The Force Awakens" is a Greatest Hits compilation of older films, while "The Last Jedi" is just a mess. Still, "The Rise of Skywalker" has very significant weaknesses.

I've been giving some thought to this, and I have a proposed fix. Though, naturally, it's largely useless - there's no more prospect of this film being redone than the final season of "Game of Thrones".

In my opinion, there are three big problems with "The Rise of Skywalker". The first is the revelation that Rey's parents aren't "nobody" after all, but rather that they all tie into Palpatine's plans... but in a frankly ham-fisted way. Secondly, there's the issue that our heroes' big plan at the end is to send a message calling for help from the galaxy... which they did in "The Last Jedi" and received no response. Finally, there's the problem that Finn basically has nothing to do - apparently, he's Force Sensitive, but this is handled so badly it reads as an unrequited crush on Rey, and even that goes nowhere.

So...

My solution to the Rey thing is actually pretty simple: have her parents be, almost literally, nobody. More specifically, we know that Anakin was conceived through the Force and therefore had no father - it would be easy enough to have Palpatine repeat the same trick to conceive a new child into which he planned to pass his consciousness. Indeed, it would be a fairly small step for him to combine that with Kaminoan cloning techno-magic and eliminate both parents entirely. And thus, instead of being a previously-unmentioned son, all we need is for Rey's 'parents' to be researchers who absconded with the child, and that all ties together.

Regarding the other two issues...

One of the big themes of Star Wars, in all the films, is that complacency kills. The Jedi are brought down because their arrogance blinds them to the danger of Palpatine. Tarkin dies because he doesn't recognise the danger the Rebels pose to the Death Star. The Empire is ultimately undone by the Ewoks.

One of the plot points of the sequel trilogy is the use of child soldiers by the First Order - they have abducted masses of children from the galaxy (apparently including Lando's child, though they neglected to actually mention that in the film), indoctrinate them, give them guns, and call it good. And, to a large extent, those troops are held in place by the force of Phasma's personality - Phasma being dead as of "The Last Jedi".

So...

I would have thought that the solution to both the final plan and to Finn having nothing to do would be for Finn to lead the First Order's Stormtroopers in their own rebellion against Palpatine - and thus the First Order is brought down by its complacency about its own troops.

And this would actually be easy to arrange with minor tweaks to the film: there's a scene early on where the First Order agree to step up their "recruitment" - step one is to add a comment to the effect of "are you sure? We've been seeing many more defections now that Phasma is dead..."

Step two is to reveal that the informant is actually legion - lots of Stormtroopers are leaking information under a single codename (Fulcrum). Then, when Finn and Poe are captured and set for execution, rather than Hux shooting the Stormtroopers, it is they who shoot him in the leg, reveal themselves to be Fulcrum, and then they all flee together. (And then Hux gets shot as the informer without a chance to explain himself, followed by the same arrogant "I've found the leak" statement by Pryde as in the film...)

And that way you get a well-established indication that the Stormtroopers are fit to rebel, and so in goes Finn, back in armour, together with the ex-Stormtroopers from earlier in the film and Jannah and her troupe.

(If they wanted, they could even still have that whole "there are more of us..." scene - there's no reason Lando and Chewie couldn't take the Falcon to try to gather allies. It just shouldn't be something they rely on.)

And that's more or less it - the rest is details. For instance, I would be inclined to name the Final Order flagship "Skywalker", thus making the Rise both literal (in that it is seen rising from Exegol) and thematic (as it rises from captivity back to the light). The Sith dagger shouldn't point to the ruins of the Second Death Star (much less a singular location within that ruin) - you need some other, less contrived, path to that. And, frankly, there should be a massed battle between Jedi and Sith Force Ghosts at the end - with Vader and Anakin being the last two standing.

Or something like that, anyway.

Histories: Done

As of this afternoon I have now completed my read-through of Shakespeare's histories. I now have nine of the tragedies, plus Pericles, still to read, with my hope being that I'll finish up in early July. In the immediate future I'm going to take a couple of days off before starting the next play.

I found the histories rather more interesting than the comedies, largely because the comedies were very formulaic. That said, both the first (King John) and last (Henry VIII) were less enjoyable than any part of the two tetralogies.

However, I do remain convinced of my two previous conclusions:

• Shakespeare very definitely has a small number of "greatest hits" and a lot of lesser works, and those lesser works are generally lesser for a good reason.
• As I've said many times, these are plays and best enjoyed by watching rather than reading. Were it not for its place as the final entry on the UK side of The List, I wouldn't be tackling Shakespeare in this manner, and it's not something I can recommend.

Kane and Abel

As I've mentioned before, one of the great things about The List is that every so often I come across a book that I wouldn't otherwise have read but that I very much enjoyed. "Kane and Abel" is the latest such novel.

The reasons I wouldn't have considered it are probably pretty obvious - being written by a Tory and being about two unabashed capitalists, it was never likely to appeal!

And yet I enjoyed it a great deal. It covers a great sweep of history, moves at a good clip, and has two mostly-sympathic, albeit very definitely flawed, main characters. Granted, it waxes rather nostalgic about the American Dream in a manner that is charmingly naive, but that can be mostly forgiven. Yes, parts of it are a nonsense (albeit much more now than when it was published), but the fantasy wish-fulfilment can probably be excused for the good of the plot.

But what makes the novel work is the parallel tracks of the two main characters and the conflicts between them.

At present, it stands as the candidate for book of the year. Recommended!

#24: "Kane and Abel", by Jeffrey Archer (a book from The List - fourteen to go)

50 Years of Mr Men

Given the avatar I use on this blog, I can hardly let such a prestigious anniversary pass unremarked, can I?

The Mr Men were amongst the books of my early childhood (alongside Thomas, of course). And now they are part, albeit a relatively smaller part, of the childhood of my daughter. That's a win in my book.

Vaccination Day

I had my first dose of the Astrazenica vaccine this morning. So far, so good - my arm is a little sore, but otherwise fine.

I'm extremely glad to have reached this point - it seemed to take an age for the vaccine programme to get to me, but it has at last. Not that it makes a huge difference, as I was always in a low-risk group (due to working from home), and because I'm obviously still bound by the various restrictions. Still, getting the vaccine takes us all that little bit closer to herd immunity and therefore freedom, so it's all to the good.

#23: "A Murder of Quality", by John Le Carré

Aftermath

My after-the-election post - this one has been delayed solely because I wasn't able to find the time to write it. The truth is that I don't think the Scottish election mattered all that much anyway - the by-election in Hartlepool had rather more importance.

Anyway, some thoughts:

The Result: The result was pretty much as expected - the SNP falling just short of a majority, but backed by a slightly-increased Green contingent. Actually, given the voting system and the tactical voting on both constituencies (by unionists) and on the list (by nationalists), it's pretty much certain that this is what we're going to get, give or take a seat or two.

(If you could somehow ban tactical voting, and enforce it - which you shouldn't and can't, respectively - we'd probably see an SNP majority based on the constituencies alone, a much smaller, or even non-existent Green group, and the other three parties slightly diminished. Conversely, a purely proportional system would give us an almost even Yes/No split, with the SNP being almost all of the Yes side, a few Greens, a couple from Alba, and the three unionist parties sharing the remaining seats.)

Anyway, given the rules of the game, the only people who can really feel aggrieved at the result are the Greens - it looks like they should have gained two more seats, but for a bizarre decision by the Electoral Commission. Oh well.

For the parties: The SNP will be quite happy. The Greens will be very happy, apart from the above. The Tories will likewise be quite happy. The Labour party will probably be disappointed, but they never really had a chance to increase their share, and will probably stay pretty much constant for the foreseeable future.

The Lib Dems will be gutted - losing one seat isn't too bad, but it does mean they're no longer considered a party grouping, which has various technical effects. It will be very interesting to see if they feature in the debates next time. If Alba doesn't qualify (and that's probably rightly so), the Lib Dems probably shouldn't either.

For Alba: I think the game is done. They may stick around, but I really can't see them going anywhere now. Come the General Election they'll lose their MPs, come the local elections they'll probably lose their councillors, and it's really hard to see where they go from there.

The only thing that concerns me about that is that it does mean it is effectively impossible to start a new party in Scotland and be successful. That means you now have a five-way choice for your vote, and if you don't agree with any of those five, you're politically homeless... and denied even the hope of representation. (And since there are a great many topics on which all five agree, there's a reasonable chance you may simply be out of luck.)

For me: As I said in my previous post, this was probably my last vote.

The mandate for a second independence referendum: It's actually very simple. We are a representative democracy, and mandates are determined by seats. If a majority of MSPs vote for something that, and that alone, constitutes a mandate.

So the SNP and Greens absolutely have a mandate to attempt to bring about a second independence referendum. (And let's be honest, if it was any other topic, we wouldn't even be having this discussion.)

Of course, the key word there is 'attempt'...

For independence: The dream is dead. This is where Hartlepool comes in.

Regardless of whether it was an SNP majority or a pro-independence majority, the sequence of events was always going to be the same: at some point Nicola Sturgeon will ask for a Section 30 order for a second referendum, and Boris Johnson will say "no". He pretty much has to say no - if he says yes there's a decent chance he'll lose, an then he goes down in history as the PM who lost the union, instead of as the man who delivered Brexit and guided us through the Pandemic. He's not going to do that.

So the key question is what happens then. Now, the last twice this has happened, the answer has been "nothing" - there has been a lot of huffing and puffing, but no election and no real move towards independence. My best guess is that that will happen again - and will always happen again.

But if the Scottish government does try to force the issue, they're still scuppered. Firstly, there will absolutely be a court challenge, which they may well lose. Secondly, even if that doesn't happen, the Westminster government can easily amend the Scotland Act to outlaw any referendum without a Section 30 Order (putting the matter to bed). Thirdly, if they don't want to do that, they can just repeal whatever law it is Holyrood has passed to bring it about - Westminster have retained the right to make whatever changes they want. Either of those latter two options can be done with emergency legislation, taking about a day.

Or Boris could simply shut down Holyrood completely. With any other PM that might be unthinkable, but with Boris...

The thing is, the Tories won Hartlepool, and didn't just win Hartlepool but won it with an outright majority of the vote. Despite everything - the disaster that is Brexit, the horrible death toll from the pandemic, the naked corruption of all that money passed to their cronies, the Arcuri affair, still they voted for Boris.

And it would be deeply disrespectful to suggest that voters didn't know all those things when they voted.

No. Whether it was due to the success of the vaccination programme, or they were grateful for the furlough scheme, or simple loathing of Labour, the fact is that the people of Hartlepool voted Tory in vast, vast numbers.

What that means is that Boris has a large (indeed, expanded) majority in the Commons. And, despite everything, he's still a vote winner. That means that the Tories will back him, and that means he can do basically whatever he wants.

Coupled with that, there's actually very little for him to lose in shutting Holyrood. Sure, 31 Tory MSPs would lose their jobs, but they're not exactly the shining lights of the party. He's not going to lose many votes in Scotland - and even if he does, Scotland is frankly an irrelevance in General Elections (and even moreso if we insist on voting SNP). Given that he's on record as considering devolution to be a disaster, if Holyrood starts to be a real nuisance, he might well just pull the plug.

The bottom line: There won't be another independence referendum in the next five years. There may well not be another set of elections five years from now, but even if there are, they'll be fought on exactly the same issue (singular) with almost exactly the same result.

The whole thing is just profoundly depressing.

#20: "Time of Contempt", by Andrzej Sapkowski
#21: "Sharpe's Triumph", by Bernard Cornwell
#22: "Firefly: The Ghost Machine", by James Lovegrove

Can't Say I Enjoyed That

This morning I dropped Funsize off at nursery and then went in to the polling place and voted. And, for the first time ever, I found myself feeling bad about doing so - although I came to bitterly regret my vote for Labour in 1997, that wasn't until some years later; today I regretted my vote even as I cast it.

Unfortunately, I find myself in a position where I object strongly to at least something being proposed by all of the parties that have any chance of being elected, which meant either wasting my vote or finding a least-worst option. And so, since there is one thing I definitely do want, and I can see only one way that that might happen, that's where the vote went.

Sadly, I can't help the feeling that my chosen government if (when) elected will then proceed to kick the thing I do want into the long grass, and instead focus on all of the things that I find so objectionable. And, of course, they'll use my vote as justification for exactly that. All of which sucks.

We'll see, I guess.

As of right now, though, today was my last vote. The game's a bogey.

Surprise!

I haven't really had any time for blogging in the last week, so this is a rather belated post about a rather belated delivery. You wouldn't expect an overdue baby could end up being a massive surprise, but there it is.

It all started the evening I finished work. It was the weekend, and because of when LC was booked in to be induced we already knew I wasn't going to be back. That evening we had LC's parents over for dinner - a rather nice BBQ (our second of the year). LC was feeling rather uncomfortable, but at this point there was no real indication of what was coming, and so after the meal LC's parents went home, and we got started on our evening routine - LC took Funsize for a bath, while I started with the clean up and washing up.

The washing up was interrupted by LC crying out in pain. At which point I suggested she call the labour ward while I took over Funsize's bath. The advice was that things might be starting to happen, but we should stay home for now.

Next, Funsize was put in front of the TV while LC had a both to try to help with the pain, and I finished the washing up. Oh, and I called LC's parents to come back and collect Funsize "as a precaution at this time".

By the time the washing up was done, LC was out of the bath, but was crying out in considerable pain. I went upstairs to find that her waters had broken. What to do, what to do? (At this point LC snapped at me. Understandably, given the circumstances...)

The assumption at this point was still that we had plenty of time - last time there were hours between the waters breaking and the birth. Still, there was a need to be ready. So I headed downstairs, got Funsize into her shoes and jacket and made sure she had everything she needed. I also, crucially, unlocked the front door.

But I wasn't liking what I was hearing from upstairs, so now I called the Labour Ward...

As I was going through the routine "who are you" questions, I was heading upstairs and put on the speaker phone, whereupon the midwife noted that LC was already pushing, and asked if anything could be seen. "The head!" LC exclaimed.

The midwife then said two terrifying things. Firstly, that the baby was going to be born at home, and secondly that she was going to call an ambulance. Oh, and could I go get some cloths, towels, or similar?

So I did. Meanwhile, LC got down on all fours, and it was time for the midwife to talk us through the birth...

The next few minutes were not something I ever expected to experience. First the top of the head appeared. With the next contraction, the baby had a forehead and some eyes. Then a mouth and chin. "Your next contraction should be your last," said the midwife on the phone. Meanwhile, I was worried - the baby was a distinct purple colour...

At this point an unfamiliar voice came from downstairs. "Hello?" The ambulance had arrived!

I shouted, and up they came, and with enormous relief I moved out of the way to let the professional take my place. And seconds later, our son was born.

Once that was done, everything slowed right down. The ambulance crew moved on to helping LC, and our son was handed to me for some warmth (and to get us out of the way).

I'm not sure whether it was immediately before or immediately after the birth, but LC's parents had arrived by the time I went downstairs. Which had the nice consequence that they, but more importantly Funsize, were able to meet the new arrival right away. (There is a photo, but it's not the best - the baby is cute; me, not so much.)

And then it was off to the hospital. LC's parents took charge of Funsize, but also spent quite a lot of time collecting towels, clearing up, and generally putting the house back in order - by the time I got back home, it was all spotless.

From there, it was all remarkably calm. LC required some stitches, but was in remarkably good health. The baby was likewise entirely healthy (apparently, they're just that colour when first born), and big - 10 pounds, 8 ounces, and a bit. (And she did that with no pain control at all!) One day later, and we were all home.

A few things remain to be said: This was not at all how I expected to spend a Friday night, but it all worked out okay. Funnily enough, while it was all going on I actually found that I wasn't scared - there basically just wasn't time. I just had to do the next thing, then the next, and so on. But I was enormously relieved when the ambulance crew arrived. (When LC went for her bath, I very nearly joked about "The Worst-Case Survival Handbook" having a section on how to deliver a baby. I'm kind of glad I skipped that particular joke!)

I must also, of course, pay tribute to LC, who achieved something remarkable - to deliver at home, without any pain control, to such a large baby, and to come recover so well is extra-ordinary.

And I must also, once again, thank the medical staff involved - the midwifes in the hospital, and especially the one on the phone, and also the ambulance crew. All were brilliant, just when they were needed. Lots of people have congratulated me for my part in all of this, but the truth is that all I actually did was make one phone call at just the right time (and remembered to leave the front door unlocked). In the big picture, that's basically nothing.

Finally, of course, is that the new arrival needs a blog-name. I had been planning to go with Button, on the grounds that there aren't many types of chocolate smaller than a funsize. But under the circumstances another name seems more appropriate. Henceforth, he shall be Kinder Surprise, or just Surprise! (and KS for short).

Welcome to the world wee man!

Experimental Cookery 2021: Quick Chicken Tacos

This is another one from the Tesco magazine (which, oddly, have two nearly identical versions of this in the current issue). The big claims here were that it was quick and simple, and also that it was not an expensive meal.

Sure enough, the preparation was quick and simple - a few minutes to get the chicken in to marinade, and then the next day a little chopping and slicing, and quite a lot of relaxed frying. Then bring it to the table, and watch it very quickly disappear.

This was a great meal, and is likely to become a new favourite. It really was that good.

One thing I will particularly note is that this involved making a quick pickle out of a red onion. That was especially, and surprisingly, nice - I'm inclined to add that as one of the sides should my birthday BBQ take place (which looks promising).

And that's about that.