Regarding "Queen Consort"

It's fair to say that I'm not a fan of a monarchy. In fact, I'd abolish the whole institution given the opportunity. And I definitely think King Charles needs to be taking decisive action to push Andrew into a well-deserved obscurity.

But I'm also very much not a fan of this "Queen Consort" thing.

Now, technically, Queen Consort is a correct title - it differentiates someone who is Queen because they're married to the King (Camilla, or the old Queen Mother) versus the Queen Regnant, who is Queen in her own right (Elizabeth, Victoria, Elizabeth). But the truth is that the 'consort' bit is usually omitted - it is being used this time in deference to Diana and her enduring popularity.

But here's the thing: Diana has been dead for twenty-five years. And while she was horribly mistreated, including by Charles, it's also the case tha Charles was likewise mistreated in being forced to marry an 'appropriate' wife. (Indeed, one of the reasons I'm in favour of abolition is exactly that ongoing mistreatment of younger members of the family. A gilded cage is still a cage.)

It's also the case that Charles has been married to Camilla for longer now than he was married to Diana. He's obviously considerably happier with Camilla than he was with Diana.

And, as far as I can tell, in the last two decades Camilla has done nothing wrong. She is tarred, permanently, as "the other woman" - but she was the other woman in a relationship that was clearly disfunctional by the end and was probably doomed from the start.

So I'm very much not a fan of this Queen Consort business. In my opinion, she should just be Queen.

'Tis Better to Give than Receive

This one is a bit of a belated Christmas post.

One of my least-favourite bits of the run-up to Christmas is dealing with presents. And I do mean specifically the run-up to Christmas - that bit of the day itself is all good, I quite enjoy the giving of presents, and certainly don't mind the receiving (and even moreso the reception by Funsize and Surprise!). But in the run-up to Christmas, dealing with the presents is rather a hassle - there is the list of people who you're obliged to buy presents for, most of whom have so much stuff that you basically have to ask them what they want and then get that (so why bother?). Then there are the people who want to buy you a present, but again you have so much stuff that they ask what you want and you have to rack your brain for a suitable item in a suitable price range (which you could have bought for yourself, so why bother?)

So that's that.

But last year for the first time, I went "off book". In addition to the various obligations I bought two other 'surprise' presents - presents for people who weren't on the list, and who therefore weren't expecting to receive anything.

And that worked really well - the surprise of getting a gift, the surprise of what it was. All in all, it was a no lose proposition. Those two were the presents with which I was most happy last year, either the ones I gave or that I received. I call that a win.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is that it really is true: it's better to give than to receive. I recommend trying it.

Clearing the Backlog

One of my rules when counting books is that I don't include graphic novels. Which makes some sense, since they tend to be rather too slight - although some of the things that I do count as books are almost trivial, I don't for instance count the books I read to Funsize each night.

However, last year as I fell behind in my reading, my desire to "catch up" meant that any and all extraneous reading was dropped - if it didn't count to the total, it didn't happen.

The upshot of that is that the three graphic novels that I received as Christmas gifts in 2021 never got read.

Now that we're into a new year and the total is reset, and especially since the goal has been utterly revised, I'm now taking a different approach, and will prioritize getting those three off of the backlog. To be followed by all the other books I have waiting.

(Oh, and just in case there was any doubt: the target of 60 books a year is very definitely not happening this year. Any notion that it might has been spectacularly debunked by January.)

#3: "Dragons of Stormwreck Isle", by Wizards of the Coast.

Hey Duggee Live Tour

LC and I took the children to see "Hey Duggee" at the Festival Theatre on Saturday. As I've said before, I consider Duggee to be one of the genuine greats of CBeebies, but with these adaptations there is always the risk of having the life sucked out of them, so how does Duggee fit on the scale of painful experiences?

Well, the children thoroughly enjoyed it. As the lights went down, Surprise! had a little cry. However as soon as the narrator came on stage he was immediately transfixed. And from there he was bouncing around, dancing along, clapping and laughing throughout. Funsize also enjoyed it in much the same way.

The show itself was essentially a compilation of "best bits" from the show - throughout you could basically see where this bit, and that bit, came from. But that's fine. They clearly knew their audience and gave them what they wanted. One thing that was very clever was that when we entered the children were each given a sheet of stickers, and at various parts Duggie gave the Squirrels a badge - and the audience were encouraged to find and wear their matching sticker.

The show was about an hour of fun and puppetry. We had the Acapella Badge, the Choregraphy Badge, the Costume Badge, the Egg Badge, the Singing Badge, the Space Badge, all building up to the Theatre Badge. There were numerous songs, lots of audience participation, and all sorts of fun.

And it was great fun. I actually very much enjoyed it, partly because the kids were having such a good time, and partly in its own right.

Well done to those involved - you've earned your Live Tour Badge!

A Good Job Done

I started the Christmas break with a list of seven things I would like to get done. On Saturday I finally completed the fifth of these (and one of them was actually done by LC on my behalf). My available free time is painfully limited these days.

Anyway, the task in question was a repair of one of our 'kitchen' units (actually in the utility room) -  more or less since we first moved in it has gradually been collapsing, and although it was still usable it had increasingly been bugging me.

The fix was reasonably easy - empty the unit and clear all weight from the counter above it, then remove the door. Then I put a fairly liberal coating of wood glue on the two bits that should be joined, and hammered the unit back together. And then, to provide some additional support I drove four nails into the wood where it joined.

The unit was then left overnight, before having the door re-hung and the contents replaced. Job done!

Money's Worth?

Almost exactly three months ago, LC and I took an offer for 3 months of subscription to NOW TV. We mostly got this so that we could watch "House of the Dragon", though since we finished that I've used it to watch a few other things:

• I watched the first season of "Star Trek: Prodigy", which was okay to start with but got much stronger as it went on.
• We watched "Christmas Carole" together, mostly because of the feature in the Radio Times. The truth is that the bits with the Eric and Ernie tributes were by far the best in the show. They were definitely wise to put those front and center in the marketing. I wouldn't particularly recommend it otherwise.
• I then watched the two seasons of "Avenue 5", which I finished last night. I very much enjoyed that, and in particular Hugh Laurie's performance.

My general feeling is that NOW TV is the least good of the subscriptions we've had so far - it seems to have the fewest "must watch" items, it suffers from having adverts, it doesn't include the movie package (which is standard for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+), and it's not particularly cheap. So I won't be renewing. We may pick it up again later in the year for the second season of "House of the Dragon", but that may be contingent on getting another deal.

That said, I don't particularly regret paying the money - there was enough there to justify the cost given the deal that was offered. We got our money's worth.

#1: "The Fountainhead", by Ayn Rand (a book from The List; two to go)
#2: "Tome of Beasts 3", by Kobold Publishing

His Dark Materials

LC and I finished the third and final season of "His Dark Materials" last week, and it's... fine. As with the books, the series seemed to get weaker and weaker as it went on - season two is largely forgettable, and then season three starts with four filler episodes in a row.

It's well made and well acted, and the gap in production enforced by Covid really helped in some ways (especially with the ages of the child stars). But I must admit that it made me increasingly uncomfortable as it went - the material was a fairly naked attack on Catholicism in particular, and on Christianity in the round. So we're maybe not the best people to be objective about it.

Do I recommend it? Yes, mostly, but not wholeheartedly. I suspect it may now be better now that you can binge the whole thing, so the only real question is whether you can stomach the content.

And that's that, I think.

Experimental Cookery 2023: Pepperoni Chicken Bake

We were due for a disaster. We aren't any longer.

This one came from Tom Kerridge's "Real Life Recipes" book, which was one of two new cookbooks I received for Christmas. It was quick and easy to put together, and was made up of nice, cheap ingredients. That was all to the good.

Unfortunately, it all went horribly wrong when we plated up and started to eat - the chicken was still raw in the middle! The meal was therefore discarded and replaced with a pizza. That was nice, at least.

I think the issue here was that I made up the sauce, browned the chicken, the placed it into the fridge for some time - this meant the meat went into the oven cooler than expected and so didn't cook through. But I'm not really sure. In any case, I'm going to take the blame for this one.

That said, I think we're unlikely to try it again.

Books of the Year 2022

This year we have a much shorter list of books read than normal. But here it is...

1. "Sly Flourish's The Lazy Dungeon Master", by Michael E. Shea
2. "The Nature of Middle Earth", by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. "Wildtrack", by Bernard Cornwell
4. "The Thorn Birds", by Colleen McCullough *
5. "The Wandering Fire", by Guy Gavriel Kay
6. "Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master", by Michael E. Shea
7. "The Looking Glass War", by John Le Carré
8. "The Power of One", by Bryce Courtenay *
9. "Sea Lord", by Bernard Cornwell
10. "The Outsiders", by S.E. Hinton *
11. "Protector", by Conn Iggulden
12. ??
13. "Crackdown", by Bernard Cornwell
14. "The Darkest Road", by Guy Gavriel Kay
15. "The Stand", by Stephen King *
16. "Death on the Nile", by Agatha Christie
17. "Library of the Dead", by T.L. Huchu
18. "Foxglove Summer", by Ben Aaronovitch
19. "The Gates of Firestorm Peak", by Bruce Cordell
20. "Kobold Guide to Monsters", by Kobold Press
21. "Sharpe's Assassin", by Bernard Cornwell
22. "Level Up: Adventurer's Guide", by E.N. Publishing
23. "The Angel's Game", by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
24. "Trials & Treasures", by E. N. Publishing
25. "Memories of Holdenshire", by Andrew Engelbrite, Sen. H.H.S, and Savannah Broadway
26. "Stormchild", by Bernard Cornwell
27. "Mythological Figures, Maleficent Monsters", by Mike Myler and Russ Morrisey
28. "Monstrous Menagerie", by E.N. Publishing
29. "Firefly: Life Signs", by James Lovegrove
30. "The Dungeon Delver's Guide", by E.N. Publishing
31. "Shogun", by James Clavell  *
32. "Scoundrel", by Bernard Cornwell
33. "Adventures in Zeitgeist", by Ryan Nock

Unfortunately, there were some gaps in the blog where I should have recorded books read, and while I was able to backfill most of them, I cannot for the life of me remember what book 12 was! I'm sure I read a book in there, but for the life of me I can't think what it was. So I'm going to have to discount it.

That means that there are a meagre 32 books for the year. This includes no rereads, and no books for Funsize/Surprise! - it's not that I haven't been reading to them; there just hasn't been anything of sufficient significance to make the list. There are eleven RPG related books, which for an already short list is quite a lot.

The best book of the year is a toss-up between "The Angel's Game" and "Shogun". On balance, I think "The Angel's Game" just shades it, but both are recommended. There haven't been any particularly poor books this year, despite the utterly forgettable #12, so I'll not nominate one for that dishonour.

I'm ending the year two two books in progress. That's not because I've been bogged down; it's just that I haven't found as much time to read recently as I would like.

Finally of note, I'm now in a position where there are a grand total of three books remaining on The List. Which is a really nice place to be. And, given how little reading I have managed this year, my target for next year is simply to complete those books - any other reading beyond that is a bonus.