Friday, June 13, 2025

Captain America: Brave New World

Once upon a time, we went out to see all the MCU films in the cinema. These days, we've dropped to seeing only a few of them. Which is a shame - I would have liked to see this in the cinema at the time. But, between the need to arrange childcare, and the cost of cinema tickets, and the fact that the MCU just hasn't been the same since "Endgame" and, more than anything else, the fact that films go from the cinema to streaming in a few short months, we just can't justify going all that often.

And so, we came to watch "Captain America: Brave New World" on Disney+ this week.

And it's fine, a perfectly serviceable action film with a coherent plot, good performances, and (mostly) good special effects. (Although, like most modern action films, it does have some truly awful CGI as well. I'm not sure how, but they seem to have gone backwards in recent years.)

They've gone for something of a "Winter Soldier" vibe for this one, which is probably wise as that was probably the best of the MCU films prior to "Endgame". On the other hand, it does invite a comparison that "Brave New World" doesn't necessarily benefit from. Plus, as I've seen noted elsewhere, it kinda feels like it would be better as a Hulk film - so many of the characters and plot points tie back to the "Incredible Hulk" film that it does feel that it wants Banner, not Wilson, at the helm.

But one thing this is definitely not, however, is the bin fire that some parts of the internet have claimed. Unfortunately, there's a noisy minority that will decry any film that doesn't have a straight white man at the helm. And this one in particular, with the passing of the torch from Steve Rodgers to Sam Wilson, was always going to come under attack.

Needless to say, I have no time for such lazy critiques. As a practical matter, if nothing else, we can't have a situation where every story has to center around a straight white man - in addition to the monstrous unfairness that would represent, it would also be deadly boring.

(I do find it rather unfortunate that, too often, Hollywood has taken their efforts at increased representation to mean license to just cast a person of colour or a woman in the lead role, and then just make the same films they've been making for decades, showing nothing at all new. But that doesn't work - neither women nor people of colour are obscure and exotic beings whose mere presence makes for a new and exciting experience. Diversity and representation are good things, and indeed deserved and necessary things, but they're not sufficient by themselves. Basically, if the film wouldn't work with a bog-standard straight white male in the lead, it probably won't work if you simply switch out the lead.

But none of that applies to this film, where one of the key themes of the story is precisely that Sam Wilson is not Steve Rodgers. Not just because one is a person of colour, but in the differences in their characters, the differences in the approaches they bring to the situation, and even in the level of certainty they present in their chosen course of action. There was a part of me that was a little disappointed that Sam never used Steve's comment that "I could do this all day"... but it's actually a good thing that he didn't.)

Anyway...

I thought Anthony Mackie was really great in the lead role, giving a quiet, sensitive, and nuanced portrayal. I thought Harrison Ford did extremely well stepping into the role of Thunderbolt Ross, and I thought the whole thing fit together pretty neatly.

That said, it's not as good as "Winter Soldier". And, sadly, it adds another to the list of post-Endgame MCU films that are fine, but just not hitting the same heights. The whole thing is just starting to feel a bit tired at this point.

My recommendation for this one is pretty straightforward: if you have Disney+, it's worth investing the couple of hours in a watch. I wouldn't recommend subscribing to Disney+ just for this. But, then, I generally do recommend Disney+ - there's just so much good stuff on these.

Tuesday, June 10, 2025

An Horrific Experience

Since I was working from home today, and with it being a nice day, I decided to take Lion out for a walk. And, being of the canine persuasion, about halfway through the walk she decided to stop for a poop. Which is fine.

Of course, one of the less pleasant tasks associated with owning a dog these years is that you are required to pick up said poop in a bag and throw it away responsibly. Which is unpleasant but fair enough really.

Except that I then discovered that the bag containing the poop bags did not, in fact, contain any poop bags.

This led to some frantic and ill-advised improvisation, as I first attempted to lift the poop using some litter a kind person had left (which didn't work), and then using some study-looking leaves (which really didn't work).

And then I wiped my fingers as best I could, and took Lion home, washed, and then returned to the scene of the crime with some poop bags. It's fair to say that that was not the highlight of my day... though it's been the sort of a day when it's not far off.

Another Repair Bill

My car has been in and out of repairs over the last several weeks. This time is was the parking sensors - I had one replaced two weeks ago and another today. Expensive, but not as horrible as I was quoted elsewhere. I'm just hoping that they stay fixed, at least until after the MOT. (Apparently, the sensors themselves aren't cause for an MOT fail. However, the fact that they cause a light to show up on the dashboard is cause for a failure. Which is... unfortunate.)

Anyway, in preparation for this post I looked back to previous posts about cars, and found one talking about some metrics from near the end of the previous car. So, I'll update those: at the time of writing this I have now been driving for almost 32 years, and have owned cars for 27 of those years. In that time, I've owned five cars, at a total cost of approximately £32,000. That works out as an average of one car per 5.4 years, an average of £6,400 per car, and an average of £1,185 per year. That's all pretty good going, although it of course omits the cost of fuel and maintenance.

I'm now coming up to having completed four years with this car, and somewhere in the region of 50,000 miles. I'm hopeful of getting another two years, and another 20,000 miles from it - but that's subject to the various things that have been fixed staying fixed.

For the immediate term, though, it's been an expensive time!

Sunday, June 08, 2025

Experimental Cookery 2025: Upside Down Pizza Bake

This was another one from the Tesco magazine. It's pretty straightforward - add an ingredient and bake, then add an ingredient and bake some more, and so on. The end result was very nice, but too much for the two of us (Funsize and Surprise! opted out), but the leftovers made for a nice enough lunch.

Again, we'll have this one again, probably sooner than the Pepper Steak stir-fry - it can be added to the list of "easy traybake dinners" that are good to reach for when in a lazy mood.

Experimental Cookery 2025: Pepper Steak Stir-Fry

This one comes from the Tesco magazine, and is included for completeness only - it's basically as the name implies, a stir-fry made up of steak and peppers. It's quick and simple to assemble, and was nice enough. It was certainly nice to have a stir-fry that wasn't chicken again.

Other than that there's nothing much to say. We'll have it again, but it's not exactly something we're going to rush to have.

Friday, June 06, 2025

Gala Day Season is Upon Us

This weekend marks the start of the gala day season for this year. This time out we have fewer events than usual - we seem to be heading back into a period where there are fewer gala days again, as happens every few years. We have, however, been lucky that the two we had to cancel last year don't seem to have hurt us, as we have been booked to do both again this year.

Of course, we have just enjoyed a spell of relatively good weather that seems to be coming to a close just as we get into the spell of walking long distances outdoors, but I suppose that's half the fun, isn't it?

My Life in Spreadsheets

I've spent the last little while becoming increasingly obsessed with spreadsheets, and using them to track everything. Which is something of a mixed blessing. On the plus side, it gives me a load of data, most of which is nicely reassuring. On the other hand, it has left me somewhat concerned - for the last six months or so we have consistently spent more than has been coming in, with the obvious effect on our savings. (Of course, that's what savings are for, so even that's not a huge issue.)

The biggest problem right now is the cars, which have been horribly expensive of late. My current car has just always been unlucky, with one thing after another and the latest pair of problems being things that just don't want to stay fixed. Meanwhile, LCs car had a recent issue that does, at least, seem to now be resolved.

Ultimately, if it wasn't for those expenses, we'd have been doing pretty well. As it is, the hope is that this next batch of repairs will be the last for a while and then we can get a couple of 'good' years out of them. But if not, we may need to bite the bullet on one or more replacements rather sooner than might be hoped.

(The other thing that has been quite noticeable is that while headline inflation is down, this year has seen a nasty spike in the Tesco shopping bill, and also a significant hike in both the gas/electric bill and council tax. It's almost like the supposed end of the cost of living crisis (which hasn't actually ended of course) was taken as license to pile on some more misery.)

I'm not really going anywhere with this, of course. And it's important to note that we're in a much better position than many others. It's just a reflection of how things are at the moment.

#14: "Mary: or, the Birth of Frankenstein", by Anne Eekhout (the new frontrunner for book of the year)

Monday, June 02, 2025

Doctor Who 2025

I’m not sure if it was the BBC, or Disney, or RTD, but someone has really messed up the numbering of the series of “Doctor Who” – there are now three bearing the name “season one”. I can’t say I’m a fan of that approach. And so, this post is titled by the year.

The truth is, had I written this post on Friday, after watching “Wish World” but before “The Reality War”, it would have been very different in tone. I hadn’t really enjoyed most of this series, which just about aspired to the level of “okay”, but I found “Wish World” to be a big load of incoherent nonsense.

In particular, the handling of The Rani had been poor – immediately following her first appearance, the biggest rumour was that Mrs Flood was the Rani, so that big reveal just didn’t work. Then Anita Dobson, having put in all the work, was promptly sidelined in favour of Archie Panjabi (who, it must be said, did a great job in the role), and with another instance of the bigeneration nonsense.

But also, at least as far as “Wish World”, it was never actually explained who The Rani was, or why we should care. And where at least I, as a long-term viewer of the show, understood that, new viewers would have had no way of knowing. Plus, while the classic Rani was not just The Master rehashed, this new one was indistinguishable.

So by the end of “Wish World” I was all set to call for RTD’s departure, to drop the show, and to walk away. It was not good.

However, “The Reality War” really surprised me – RTD has a pattern of having a really strong setup to his finales and then having them collapse in a heap, but this time he somehow managed to turn it on its head.

First up, there was the fixing of the problems: this time, The Rani actually had time to explain not only her plan and also the why of it. And, as twisted as it was, it at least made sense – and was not something The Master would have done. So that’s good.

Then there was the resolution of the various strands. Of course, the Doctor defeating Omega was a hugely underwhelming ass-pull, but that was pretty much inevitable. That’s just what RTD does. But having The Rani defeated by her own hubris, and having Conrad undone in the manner that was achieved was very poetic. So that was fine.

But then there was positively an age of wrapping up the plotlines, and in particular the disappearance of Poppy.

I can’t say I was a huge fan of this bit, as it seemed to drag. And, once again, it was all about the slog of getting towards the regeneration that was suddenly inevitable (although why that was wasn’t at all clear to me). But fair enough.

The highlight of this one was actually Thirteen showing up unexpectedly. As I’ve noted before, she’s my least favourite incarnation of the Doctor, so I was surprised at how happy I was to see her again. The only thing that is a shame is that RTD handled that scene so well that I rather wish he’d been running the show for those years. I suspect they’d have gone rather better. A missed opportunity.

And then there’s the whole thing about moving the timeline by “one degree”. Which of course now gives license to change anything they want, depending on how far back they want to claim the original change went. (It clearly covered the whole of this series, but given that Ruby met Poppy in the abysmal “Space Babies”, that suggests it goes back further.) Hopefully, it at least goes back far enough for them to now ditch the ever-so-tedious mavity “joke”.

And then, finally, the regeneration and the appearance of the next Doctor. Maybe. Or maybe not – fir the first time, we were introduced to a new actor but not “as the Doctor”. So maybe she’s someone else. Or something. I’m not sure I care.

At this point, the future of the show is up in the air. Presumably it has a future guaranteed, in at least some form – had the show ended a few seconds before that could be doubted, but that ending demands at least something of a continuation. But there’s a big part of me that hopes what’s next is a passing of the torch to a new team – RTD1 had two Doctors (Nine and Ten), Moffat had two (Eleven and Twelve, with an interlude with War), and now RTD has had two (Fourteen and Fifteen). So an interlude and then handing over may be no bad thing.

Or not. Maybe there’s a grand plan that we just haven’t been told about.


Friday, May 30, 2025

Day 150: Update on Goals

 Time for the third update on goals for the year:

  • Books: By day 150 I should have completed 12.33 books. I've completed 13, with two others in progress, so am currently quite a bit ahead of that target. That's promising, but obviously there's a good way to go yet. My plan is to work through the books in my backlog mostly in order of purchase, but alternating between 'big' books and 'small' books to try to maintain a sensible rate. We'll see how that goes for the next few weeks.
  • Weight: Sadly, this has regressed somewhat since the previous update. Once again, this is proving to be a goal I just can't seem to gain any lasting traction on.
  • Career: No further progress.
  • Church Website: The merest hint of progress on this one - I finally sent out the request for information with which to refresh the website. We'll see what, if anything, I get back.
  • Redecoration: Since the previous update we have arranged with a glazier to have the windows replaced. This should be done in the first week of July, and so should be complete for the next update.
  • Blogging: I think it may be time to admit defeat on the blog - I just don't have many interesting topics to write about, nor time to actually write them anyway. If I had set my usual goal for this year, I would expect to have posted 49 times by now. Given that I'm already well behind that, this seems to be unrecoverable for the year.
  • Home Automation: At the time of the previous update I said I was waiting for a particular device to be reduced to the 'right' price before buying. I'm still waiting - since I'm in no great hurry, I'd prefer to wait longer than pay more.

This has been a somewhat mixed update - some really good progress in one area, some disappointment in another, and a recognition that the blogging non-goal is unachievable. I must confess that I am more disappointed by the shortfalls than satisfied by the successes, which is something to work on for next time.

Wednesday, May 28, 2025

A Somewhat Distressing Milestone

This is the fortieth post on this blog this year, which may not seem like much (and indeed is not), but it does represent the point at which I have posted more often this year than in the whole of last year. Given that we're at the end of May, that's both slightly reassuring but also somewhat damning of the level of output last year. Further, since I'm actually also way behind my normal annual target, I'm not really sure it counts as cause for celebration.

Season's End

For a football season where the main question was a foregone conclusion even in November, it somehow managed to end with a significant amount of interest - Celtic won the league of course, but failed to win the treble that seemed all-but assured; Hibs went from a disastrous start to finishing third; Aberdeen won the Scottish Cup, and therefore gazumped Hibs' guarantee of group-stage European football; both Falkirk and Livingston were promoted.

So, all in all it was actually a surprisingly good season. The big hope for next year, of course, is for things to be rather more competitive at the top end - in particular, it would be good if some of our other teams could improve to get a bit closer to Celtic (more likely, any closing of the gap would probably come about by a reduction in Celtic's quality, which would not be ideal). But I must admit that I'm not terribly hopeful of that; Celtic's dominance is not just on the pitch but in every arena, so by rights they should move further ahead if anything.

Of course, this summer is one of the ones where there is no international football to look forward to. Though with Scotland's recent travails, that may not be the worst thing ever.

Sunday, May 25, 2025

Experimental Cookery 2025: Burmese Prawn Curry over Rice Noodles

This one came from a cookery course I did with work a couple of years ago - it was actually the demonstration dish rather than something we cooked ourselves.

I made up the paste for this one last weekend (which wasn't hard - chop a load of things, put in a blender, and whiz to a paste), after which making up the curry was pretty straightforward, though it did require a 30-minute simmer stage.

The end result was nice. There's not much more to say about it than that - we'll no doubt have this again at some point, but it's not going to become one of our most common "go to" meals.

And that's that, really. A short one this time.

#13: "La Belle Sauvage", by Philip Pullman

Saturday, May 24, 2025

Experimental Cookery 2025: Chicken Burgers

This one comes from Tom Kerridge's "Real Life Recipes", and is pretty much as the title suggests: chicken burgers, with a mustard/Sriracha sauce.

The preparation for this one is dead easy - put the ingredients for the sauce in a bowl and mix thoroughly, marinade the chicken and then coat in flour. Then fry. The only downside was that it was fairly time-consuming, largely because I had to fry the burgers one at a time (and perhaps should have gone for 6 rather than 7 minutes).

But the result was really great. Indeed, LC commented that that was two really good burgers in a week. So that's a winner - the only downside being that it raises expectations. (I was also slightly disappointed that Funsize and Surprise! completely refused to even try them. A shame, as I think they would have liked the burgers, though not the sauce.)

Will we have this again? We'll certainly have that sauce again, but the burgers are a little more doubtful because of the time involved. Perhaps when FS and S! are a little older and more apt to try them...

Thursday, May 22, 2025

Hera

I mentioned a few posts ago that I had finished reading “Hera”, the fourth novel by Jennifer Saint. I’ve read all four of her novels, and mostly enjoyed all four, but this is probably the best (closely followed by “Elektra”, with “Atalanta” and “Ariadne” following some way behind, in that order). It’s also perhaps the best novel I have read so far this year, though “The Labyrinth of the Spirits” runs it close. So, good stuff.

However, I’m distinctly troubled by the recasting of Hera as some sort of feminist hero, or indeed as any kind of a hero at all. The thing is, you don’t need to read far in Greek mythology to conclude that Zeus is a real baddie – a capricious tyrant interested only in his own glory and pleasure, and a menace to women and females of all species. And it’s even more clear, and especially here, that Hera is very much wronged by Zeus – partly by his siring so many children by so many others, and also in some other ways.

But it’s also true, both in the mythological sources and here, that Hera spends vast amounts of her time wreaking her vengeance not on Zeus, but rather on those aforementioned children and the women who bore them – women who were, by and large, themselves victims of Zeus’s actions. A great many of those women were unwilling in one way or another – be that through sex by deception, a supernatural impregnation while in some other form, or indeed outright rape through simple brute force.

So what we have, therefore, is the queen of the gods, the patroness of wronged women, spending her time inflicting punishments on women who were themselves wronged.

(This is, of course, not the only example of this in Greek myth – one of the origins given for Medusa casts her as a priestess of Athena who was raped by Poseidon. Athena then responds to this attack on her priestess by cursing Medusa. I’m not entirely sure that that was a fair assignment of the blame in that case.)

Anyway, it’s just a small burr of annoyance in an otherwise very enjoyable book. Like all her others, this one proceeds along at a pleasant pace, covering a great deal of story efficiently. Good stuff – recommended.

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

Passing the Torch

One thing that struck me somewhat forcefully is that I can no longer in good conscience claim to be Knig of the Ceilidh. This was a shock, but there’s no hiding from the truth.

I must therefore, reluctantly, abdicate my position to a worthy successor. Henceforth, Funsize shall be known as the Qeeun of the Ceilidh.

Unless, of course, I feel compelled to stage a comeback and reclaim my crown...

A Post That Has Been a Long Time Coming

A few weeks ago my youngest brother (who I shall hereafter refer to as G) was married to his wife (who I shall hereafter refer to as E). Since then, LC has been eagerly awaiting this post, so that she knows what happened. This is therefore a post that has been a long time coming, about an event that was even more overdue.

The weekend started on the Friday, with the usual flurry of chaos that marks all our adventures – I finished work to find LC frantically packing for our weekend away. She’d left this to the last minute, having only started packing the week before. Anyway, we gathered everything that was needed, and about a million other things beside, put Funsize in the car, went to collect Surprise!, and we were off!

For the weekend of the weeding we were staying in the Premier Inn in Leith – not too far from home, but a suitable base for the weekend. (Our plan was to stay there, rather than at home, to allow F and S to stay up as late as they can manage, to gain maximum enjoyment from the day. A plan which worked very well.) En route we went into Edinburgh to pick up our kilts for the event.

This, of course, caused all sorts of a commotion, because in the kilt hire shop they had a great many outfits for the weeding party. And with most of them staying in the same Premier Inn, there was a question about whether we should pick them up or not. In the event, we collected some of them – a very confusing arrangement.

Anyway, we then battled through Edinburgh to the Premier Inn, unpacked a million things from the car, and then collapsed. Except that we didn’t – I was due at a weeding rehearsal a scant five minutes later. So a quick message was sent saying that I was running late but on my way, and off I went again.

Crossing back through Edinburgh was a hugely horrible experience. I really don’t like driving there if I can at all avoid it, and this journey took me through the worst possible part of the city at the worst possible time. Still, I got there in time to miss only most of the rehearsal, but to learn what I needed to learn. And then we were off back to the hotel.

We then had a meal with all my brothers and their families (missing only one wing of the family… but that was still a miss). Then we put the kids to bed, and the day was done.

Saturday saw us rising early and going for our Premier Inn breakfast, which was obviously the highlight of our stay. Then back to the rooms to get changed, to help the kids get changed, to help G get changed (in a different room), and then to change location while waiting for our Uber. And then we were off!

The weeding took place at Chalmers Church in Morningside in Edinburgh. My primary role for the day was to play the bagpipes, so once our Uber arrived (only a little late), I tuned up and played. It was fine – by this point playing at a weeding is fairly well-trod ground for me. So the performance was good enough without being exceptional.

It is, of course, the bride’s prerogative to be late, and despite E’s insistence that she would be on time there was indeed a short delay. But only a short one – the weeding car arrived about 5 minutes after the official start time, I played my last tune, and then went inside. I proceeded to bash my head on a staircase – my bagpipes were being stored underneath, a plan that seemed good until I stepped from bright sunlight into a darkened stairwell with light-sensitive transitions lenses on.

The service itself was lovely. Our brother A performed the actual marriage, I signed the register (as a witness, obviously!), G cried a great deal, there were hymns, a very touching poem, and generally a good time.

Also, the dress was white. I remember that distinctly.

We then proceeded back outside into the sunlight for photos, and also there was tea and coffee and cake. Huzzah!

After a short while we all lined up for G&E to run a gauntlet of confetti throwers, before they jumped in a car to go get their official photographs taken. And shortly after that we called another Uber and went on to the reception.

The reception took place in the Biscuit Factory, a former biscuit factory turned event venue. As we gathered there we were offered some very tasty canapes, before being ushered upstairs for the meal. Here, I was once again called on the play – piping in first the top table and then G&E. Then I joined them at the top table.

We then proceeded to the speeches, of which there were four: E’s dad, followed by my dad spilling his drink all over my tablecloth, followed by G as I frantically tried to clean up the mess, followed by the chief bridesmaid, followed by one of the co-best men, R.

I don’t have much to say about the speeches. They were all great, striking different tones, but they were warm, and touching, and funny by turns. Good stuff. I did, of course, note when the microphone’s batteries ran out – internal rechargeable ones are the way to go there… #justsaying.

Then the meal. I had chicken followed by a chocolate brownie, along with copious quantities of wine. It was good.

And then back downstairs for the dance. This kicked off with the traditional first dance, at which I was tasked to partner one of the bridesmaids, and then the ceilidh. For the first ceilidh dance LC rushed off to change her shoes, only to find herself usurped as Funsize demanded a dance. Tee hee.

Funsize proceeded to spend the next several hours on the dancefloor generally having a whale of a time. Surprise!, meanwhile, quickly fell asleep, exhausted by events. I danced a few more dances, though only a few, then enjoyed a bacon roll.

And then the ceilidh ended and the disco began. At this point, children were barred from the dancefloor (apparently to avoid the risk of a crush), and Funsize really started to wind down. So we called an Uber and went back to the hotel. Surprise! woke up en route and was much less than happy, but we managed to get back, get them changed, and get them back to sleep.

Sunday saw us again partaking of a Premier Inn breakfast before driving home, cursing the car as it developed a nasty fault, and then hosting a family BBQ in the afternoon. All in all, a success, but not the focus of the weekend.

And with that, we completed the set – the last of five siblings to be married. Huzzah!


Monday, May 19, 2025

Enjoyably Stupid

A few weeks ago Netflix got “Fast X”, the tenth film in the increasingly daft “Fast & Furious” series. Then, last week, Netflix also got “Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning”, the seventh film in the increasingly daft “Mission: Impossible” series. In both cases, these were billed as the first part of the final part of the series. (As I said, increasingly daft.)

Being a sucker for a suitably daft action film, as well as having seen all the previous films in both their series, I proceeded to watch them. And they are, as might be expected, both enjoyably stupid.

In fairness, I must note that “Fast X” is not the stupidest film in the series. The previous film, “F9” featured a scene where our heroes decided to take a car into space (no, really), and that just can’t be topped for stupidity. Not that they didn’t try – between having an omniscient villain, another nuclear submarine (because one can never be enough), and the return of a character who very definitively died earlier in the series, there’s a lot here to mock.

But I was particularly amused by the scenes in Rome. It’s always more fun watching a place get blown to hell when it’s somewhere you’ve actually been, and so that was great fun. And with the characters playing automotive football with a giant bomb on the streets of Rome (no, really), what could be better?

Seriously, if you like these films, you’ll probably find this one a worthy entry. And if you don’t, the tenth instalment in the series is probably not the place to start.

Meanwhile, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning” is likewise enjoyably daft. By this point there’s a very clear formula to the films, and this one follows it to the letter, with perhaps the fun wrinkle that Ethan goes rogue before he even properly starts his impossible mission. But there’s the usual fakeouts, hijinks, action scenes, and loads of intense looks at the camera. Oh, and of course lots of running. Good stuff.

I had two favourite scenes in this one. Top of the list, in terms of daftness, was when they found themselves once again on a runaway train – our villain set things up by killing the crew, opening the throttle fully, and then destroying the brakes.

On a steam train.

Now, I’m no expert on this, but I’m reasonably sure that the reason steam locomotives have a huge tender of coal, and someone whose job is to shovel that coal into the engine isn’t entirely decorative. That is, if you stop feeding the engine with the fuel that it needs to keep going it is quite likely to, well, stop going. So in short order that runaway train would… not be running away.

But I was particularly amused by the scenes in Rome. It’s always more fun watching a place get blown to hell when it’s somewhere you’ve actually been, and so that was great fun. And with Ethan finding himself handcuffed to another character, and forced to keep moving to ever-smaller cars, what’s not to like.

Seriously, it was highly amusing watching these two films in close proximity, partly because they mostly chased down exactly the same streets and destroyed all the same landmarks in most of the same ways, but also because the films were made at more or less the same time – the people of Rome must have really loved having their city shut down for weeks for one and then the other.

As with “Fast X”, “Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning” is a case where if you enjoyed the previous films you’ll probably like this one. If not, the seventh film in the series is not the place to start. But I enjoyed it, and I look forward to the “final” part of the series.


Experimental Cookery 2025: Peanut Butter Burger with Bacon & Tomato Chilli Jam

I have officially upped my burger game.

When cooking burgers, the target is pretty clear: you want them cooked through, but not overdone - they want to remain suitably juicy for a good mouthfeel. But once you've cracked that, there's not all that much to be done with the burger itself - fundamentally, it's a bit of meat in a roll, and there's only so much to be done there.

This post's recipe comes from "The Handcrafted Burger", a book I've had for a couple of years and have wanted to use for a couple of years... but I've just never quite found the time to do anything with for a couple of years. This is, as it happens, both the first recipe I've taken from the book, and also the first recipe in the book.

Anyway, this one called for the preparation of two components: a peanut butter sauce (dead easy) and a tomato chilli jam (slightly more involved, but also easy). Then it was a case of cooking the appropriate meats on the BBQ, toasting the buns, and assembling: spread the peanut butter sauce on the buns, then layer the bun with the burger, the bacon, gherkins, the jam, and the top.

And the result was a great burger. Surprisingly, the peanut butter sauce didn't make any great difference - it was there, but it was a fairly minor component of the whole. The chilli jam was much more noticeable, and was very nice.

But, oddly, it was the brioche-style bun that made the most difference - suddenly this was something that I could almost see them serving up in a restaurant (except that restaurants tend to avoid nuts except where there's a specific need for them), and indeed could almost see paying £18 for such a burger.

So, yeah, all in all this was a crazy-good burger. A triumph, and we'll definitely be revisiting that book again in the near future.

As for having this burger again... we'll certainly be making use of the chilli jam again, both to use up the leftovers from yesterday, but also simply to use it again. And the other components will appear at various times and places. But the key component, the peanut butter sauce, may be something we use again only rarely, if at all - it's probably not going to become one of our go-to items, and while it's something interesting to lay out for others to try, the presence of nuts means that it's something we'll want to avoid in almost all cases where we might do that. Which is a shame.

#12: "Hera", by Jennifer Saint (probably the current "book of the year")

Tuesday, May 06, 2025

Experimental Cookery 2025: Prawn and Lemon Risotto

File this one under "it's fine, but..."

This is another risotto recipe from the Hairy Bikers, another one from their "One Pot Wonders" book. And it's perfectly fine - an easy cook that gives good, consistent results. And the meal was very nice. All in all, a winner.

But...

With the previous two risottos, we've ended up with significant leftovers which have been ideal for reheating for lunch the next day. With this one, we ended up with significant leftovers that weren't suitable for reheating, which was something of a waste.

So, we'd have this one again, but probably not for just the two of us - this is a meal where you need to cook the right amount for the number of people you have. Otherwise, though, it's good.

#10: "The Phoenix Project", by Gene Kim, Kevin Behr, and George Spafford
#11: "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire", by J.K. Rowling (a book for Funsize)

Thursday, April 17, 2025

Prime Suspect

When we watched "Snowpiercer", I noticed that ITV X now has a load of shows that had previously been reserved for Britbox (a service we had never subscribed to, nor intended to ever try). This was a fairly limited boon, as there's not really a great deal of "classic" TV that I'd really like to revisit, but the one thing I was keen to see was "Prime Suspect".

I missed out on most of "Prime Suspect" first time out as I just wasn't particularly interested. I remembered the end scene, but nothing much leading up to that, and I had no recollection of ever watching any of the sequels (although...). And having missed out, I decided to embark of a watch.

It turns out that ITV X just isn't a good way of watching these things - unless you're willing to pay for the ad-free "premium" service (which isn't worth it), the shows are ruined by multitudes of badly-placed adverts. Still, I persevered.

The original "Prime Suspect" is rightly considered a classic, centred around a towering performance by Helen Mirren. That's probably not news - it's like saying "the Sun's quite big". And it remains as grim and hard-hitting as it ever did. It's basically not something they'd make these days, which in some ways is a shame - in the years since the production values of TV have advanced beyond recognition, but the storytelling has lost something, especially in recent years.

Once past the original, though, there's a marked drop-off. Although the central performance remains strong, it's hampered by the issue that Tennison's colleagues have largely accepted their mistake in the first series - a logical response to being proven wrong, but also a loss of much of the dramatic tension. Plus, it then seemed that they were cycling through the various -isms for their topic: sexism, followed by racism, followed by homophobia (and transphobia).

Oddly, "Prime Suspect 5" is currently missing from the service. Which is a shame, as I think it serves as a conclusion for the 'original' series, with the final two seasons being set much later. Oh well - at this point I'm done with my watch-through, so I don't think I'll seek it out later.

"Prime Suspect 6", then, is interesting in presenting a new side of things, with Tennison coming towards the end of her career and feeling rather overlooked. It's also something of a reset, and regains a lot of the freshness of the early series. It's pretty good; certainly better than two of the standalone episodes in PS4.

But then "Prime Suspect 7" is an odd thing. Here, I found myself remembering various bits of what happened, which is odd - I didn't think I'd seen this previously, but I guess I must have done. But "Prime Suspect 7" suffers a great deal from the issue that Tennison is now no longer presented as a superb detective who has been unjustly held back; by this point she's actually a distinct liability and actually dangerous. Indeed, far from tolerating her various foibles, her colleagues should by rights by arresting and charging her. Which makes for a great performance by Helen Mirren, but a rather sad ending to the series as a whole.

Anyway, that's that. I'm inclined to recommend watching the original, if you missed it at the time (and can bear the adverts), but probably skipping the rest.

Wednesday, April 16, 2025

Challenge Completed

Some years ago I posted that I'd been having some difficulties teaching Funsize to ride her bike. Well, it hasn't been easy - a few months after that post we'd cracked it, but unfortunately she'd grown out of that bike. The new one, purchased for Christmas, was a little too big for her, which led to a long spell where she absolutely refused to try riding it, after which we were back to square one.

Anyway, over the course of this break from work we've been working hard at it, and the good news is that we had a breakthrough on Saturday which was then consolidated yesterday. So that's that job done - Funsize can now officially ride a bike. Just as long as she doesn't forget again...



Getting Caught Up

I've been off work for the past two weeks, and as a consequence of that I've been able to get caught up on my reading. The most recent novels:

The Labyrinth of the Spirits

The final novel in the "Cemetery of Forgotten Books" cycle is a fairly hefty read, and was the volume that led to me being behind in the first place. It's a twisting novel, part detective story, part thriller, part horror, and part something else. It's hard going, but also very rewarding.

Although completely different in style, tone, and content, the series that this one most puts me in mind is the Musketeer novels by Dumas - in both cases the first novel ("The Three Musketeers" and "Shadow of the Wind") stands as one of the very best novels I have ever read. In both cases, I recommend them wholeheartedly.

After that, though, the stories get somewhat harder to get through - "Twenty Years After" is a bit of a slog, to put it mildly, while I found "The Angel's Game" tough to digest. Then there's something of a respite, in the form of the start of "The Vicomte de Bragelonne", or "The Prisoner of Heaven", and then it's the march to the end.

But when that end is finally reached, after thousands of pages of reading, it is triumphant. Indeed, as I came to the end of "The Labyrinth of the Spirits", I found that I genuinely didn't know what one character was going to do... and indeed I genuinely didn't know what I wanted them to do.

All in all, a great read.

A Stroke of the Pen

The lost stories by Terry Pratchett, and the third or fourth "last book" by my late favourite author. This was another collection of twenty short stories culled from his early days writing for newspapers, and it's packed with the usual collection of wit and craziness that is familiar from the other collections. But, alas, it means that I must mourn again that there is nothing more to read.

Hercule Poirot's Silent Night

Speaking of an unexpected read, I had assumed that Sophie Hannah was done with her neo-Christie stories, so it was with some pleasure that I discovered this fifth volume (and, indeed, that there's a sixth coming).

This is the standard Poirot murder-mystery, full of a cast of fairly ghastly characters, a set of clues that eventually come to an unexpected conclusion, with many twists and turns along the way. Good stuff.

#7: "The Labyrinth of the Spirits", by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
#8: "A Stroke of the Pen", by Terry Pratchett
#9: "Hercule Poirot's Silent Night", by Sophie Hannah

Thursday, April 10, 2025

Day 100: Update on Goals

Time for the second update on goals for the year:

  • Books: This is slightly behind - by day 100 I should have completed 8.2 books, so on paper I'm a little behind. However, I have two books well in progress, which combine to cover the shortfall - just. The issue is exactly as I identified last time - I have a good number of very long books to read, which means it's easy to get bogged down.
  • Weight: This is progressing, largely due to the effect of Lent. It is now back on track for the year, while at the same time not as advanced as I'd hoped to be in time for the wedding. Which isn't ideal, given the need to be fit for dancing, but there it is.
  • Career: No further progress.
  • Church Website: No further progress.
  • Redecoration: No further progress. LC did approach our preferred glazier about getting a quote for the windows, but they didn't have capacity to provide one at this time. We're now musing on whether to wait for them (likely) or seek another option.
  • Blogging: This was not set as a goal, but if I had targeted the normal 120 posts for the year, the expectation would have been to hit 33 by now. I'm somewhat behind that, though not disastrously so. Still, I'd like to be back on track for the next update.
  • Home Automation: No further progress. I have identified the final "control" device for the system, but as it is fairly regularly reduced by varying amounts, I'm currently waiting for it to hit the price point I'm happy with before buying. That may mean delaying for Prime Day later in the year.

And that's that. As anticipated last time, most of the goals haven't progressed in the last seven weeks, but that's not a problem. I have slipped a bit behind in some of them, but not too badly - there's nothing that's fallen to unrecoverable levels.

Saturday, March 29, 2025

Eureka!

I didn't get much sleep last night. About 3am I suddenly realised the key to a problem I'd been grappling with for a couple of weeks, which in hindsight is now obvious. Now I just need to find a way to explain that to the relevant people, in the hope that they might actually do something about it.

Which on the one hand is really good, since it means I've actually got a solution to something that had been eluding me; on the other hand, it meant I didn't get enough sleep. And it's going to be a long day.

Thursday, March 27, 2025

Oh Dear

Much to my disgust, I find myself concluding that I preferred Rishi Sunak's disastrous government to the current lot. Yes, they were absolutely awful, but at least they offered the possibility of hope - that the government would one day change and could potentially be better.

Unfortunately, the current government is pretty much the best that could be put together by the shambles that is our current political class. They're to the right of Thatcher, hampered only by there not being any mines to close down (though Grangemouth might compensate somewhat for that), and seem intent on moving further in that direction.

And there's no hope of improvement - the Tories are as bad as ever and are in utter disarray, and they're looking increasingly likely to be overtaken and replaced by Reform who are (or should be) a joke of a party.

Basically, this is the worst government of my lifetime. And I suspect it may be the best government of the rest of my life.


Monday, March 24, 2025

Wilted

After a hard-fought win against Greece on Thursday, Scotland had left themselves in a really strong position to stay in group A of the Nations League - just avoid a defeat in the return leg and they'd do it.

Naturally, I therefore expected them to collapse in a heap, and naturally, they did.

And so, once again, we have the aftermath of another failure by Scotland, another manager having to reflect on what went wrong, and another batch of players failing to live up to their potential.

And none of it is a surprise. Oh well, on to the next false dawn!

Tuesday, March 18, 2025

Star Wars Day Party!

Due to a confluence of events I now find myself hosting a gathering on the 4th of May, better known as Star Wars Day. I have, of course, been waiting for this all my life!

Needless to say, I can't let this opportunity go without taking full advantage, and so there is now a need to make suitable arrangements. But what form will these arrangements take? And will the Jedi or the Sith come into the ascendance?

Time will tell, as it always does.

Wednesday, March 12, 2025

Snowpiercer

Another show we've been watching for a while, and that we've just reached the end of, is "Snowpiercer" - a post-apocalyptic show about a massive train that contains the last remnants of humanity in a frozen world. There are four seasons, the first three of which are on Netflix, and the last is on ITV-X (actually, they're all there now).

Truth is, I almost gave up on "Snowpiercer" in the second episode, when there was almost a scene so horrible I just couldn't continue. Fortunately, they backed off from that one.

But "Snowpiercer" ends up having three great seasons, and then one more season. Season 4 is, unfortunately, rather disjointed and not close to the same standard as the others. But it is an ending, and sometimes that's what matters.

(Incidentally, there's also a movie called "Snowpiercer", which has the same premise but is otherwise significantly different. Both are okay, but I prefer the series.)

Ultimately, I think I recommend watching the first three seasons of this, and then recommend calling it a day - the fourth season just wasn't worth the wait. But then, even knowing what I know now I would have watched that final season, so make of that what you will.

#6: "Nero", by Conn Iggulden

Wednesday, March 05, 2025

Cobra Kai

When we got Netflix, I was pleasantly surprised to find "Cobra Kai" available on the service. This was a show I'd seen some trailers for and being intrigued by, but never expected to get to watch. I therefore raced through the first two seasons, and was not disappointed.

Unfortunately, as time went on the show became more and more convoluted, always trying to top the last twist, and if I'm honest it was all the weaker for that. By the end of the fifth season, my distinct feeling was that it had gone on too long. (That said, the structure they had meant that it couldn't have stopped - every season except the first and maybe the fifth ended in such a manner that you had to know what happened next.)

I've recently finished the sixth and final season. And I'm afraid in many ways it's like the lackluster final season of "Babylon 5" - they've ended up with not quite enough story stretched across too many episodes.

And yet, and yet...

The final season of "Bablyon 5" has five final episodes that are nothing short of outstanding, providing a great and massively cathartic ending for the season - they wrapped everything up in the neatest of possible bows. It is truly one of the great endings in TV history.

And "Cobra Kai" is another, because it also has a final five episodes that twist and turn, and yet somehow manage to bring everything together into an ending that on one hand seems to come out of nowhere... and on the other is obviously how it had to end. The finale, in particular, manages to sum up everything that the show was about.

So... "Cobra Kai": starts great, loses steam a bit, but the ending is great.

One Week Only

Since the start of the year, my commute to and from work has just been awful - it has seemed that every single road has had roadworks on it, with the inevitably lengthy delays. Though I did find one that didn't just after Storm Eowyn - largely by virtue of the roadwork-infested route I would have usually taken being completely closed.

Anyway, last Friday was a banner day, because finally, finally all the key roads on my main route to work were blessedly free of roadworks. Oh the joy of being able to travel to and from work in a less than hellish manner!

Spin forward to today, a scant four commutes later, and the roadworks are back. Because of course they are.

Sunday, March 02, 2025

Free Time

I've recently been finding that free time has been at a serious shortage, and free time with access to a computer even more so. I'm hoping to get caught back up on the blog in the next couple of days, but I guess we'll see - this was probably about the point I started to lose track last year, so it's not impossible that the same is about to happen again.

Saturday, March 01, 2025

Cassandra

My latest TV show has been "Cassandra", a six-part German miniseries on Netflix about a murderous AI/smart home.

Unfortunately, it's not great. The title is very clever, but other than that I'm afraid it's basically a standard "AI gone wrong" sequence of cliches one after another. The final episode in particular, and all the twists therein, were things that I'd seen many times before.

Which is a shame. The trailers looked really good, and some aspects of it were genuinely well-made and sometimes quite disturbing. But, alas, the rest of it didn't live up to the promise.

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Day 50: Update on Goals

2025 is now well underway, so time for the first update on the goals for the year:

  • Books: This is on target - by day 50 I should have completed 4.1 books, and I'm somewhat ahead of that. My only slight concern is that my "to read" list contains a number of doorstop volumes, which may slow me down.
  • Weight: There has been some limited progress in this area, but I'm not on target for the year. There's still plenty of time, but this does need to become a focus.
  • Career: As I said, this can play out in one of two ways, and for the first half of the year I'm focused on the first of these. There were two windows of opportunity here, but the first of those has recently closed, leaving one other. I can't say any more than that.
  • Church Website: I've made a very minor update to the website, clearing out a handful of unused pages. But I need to get some work done on this.
  • Redecoration: No progress as yet. By the next update I intend to at least have a quote for getting the windows done.
  • Blogging: This was not set as a goal, but if I had targeted the normal 120 posts for the year, the expectation would have been to hit 17 by now. As this is indeed the 17th post of the year, that is therefore on target.
  • Home Automation: The other "not a goal" has seen no movement thus far. However, there is now a clear target in place, so I may be able to advance some of it in the next few months.

And that's that. In terms of goals, things are looking okay, but everything is in the early days at this stage. To be honest, I'm not expecting a massive change to anything for the next update, but as long as nothing falls to the "yeah, I can't do this" bucket that's not too bad.

Tuesday, February 18, 2025

The Next Bond: A Proposal

Every so often the news about casting the next James Bond flares up for a while, and then seems to go cold again. A bunch of names are in the frame, and then gradually they all fall out and it starts again. The latest news is that they're apparently looking for someone to fill the role for the next 5ish movies across 15ish years, so they're looking for a male in his early to mid thirties.

I must admit, though, that I think they're making a mistake.

The thing is, "No Time to Die" represented a fairly definitive end to the adventures of James Bond as-was. Whether you consider the Daniel Craig films to be a continuation of the previous continuity or being their own thing, he pretty clearly died. This gives the producers an opportunity to wipe the board clear, and start over.

What I'd be inclined to do, therefore, is to produce a number of standalone, and more experimental, Bond films. Do something unexpected with the character, and see how the audience takes it.

So, for instance, they could cast Idris Elba as an older Bond - if he's only signed for one film, why would his age be a barrier? Or they could see if Dalton would be willing to come back and do a much older Bond, forced back into action by circumstance but forced to contend with the fact that now there are people who can do it better.

Or maybe they could revert back to the 60's and show Bond in his pomp, or even the 1860s and explore how the situation changes if, instead of being an agent of a fading world power, he's an agent of the dominant world power. Or maybe they do a film about Commander Bond of the Royal Navy in WWII - something to do with the Nazis having stolen nuclear secrets, perhaps?

They could even use this as an opportunity to do the "female James Bond" they've been talking about for 20 years. I think it's a terrible idea (on a par with a "male Jane Eyre"), but maybe they just need to get it out of their system?

Anyway, that's how I think I would approach it at this time. And maybe they find something that has real legs, and can turn it into a whole series. Or maybe they do a few, let a decade pass, and then cast someone we haven't heard of yet and start over.

#4: "The Maps of Middle Earth", by J.R.R. Tolkien (sort of)
#5: "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban", by J.K. Rowling (a book for Funsize)

Friday, February 14, 2025

Rebooting Buffy

Every few years there is talk of a reboot, reimagination, or continuation of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", and every time until now it comes to nothing. This time, it does look like the project has legs, helped by the fact that Sarah Michelle Gellar is on board to reprise her role.

Unfortunately, my position on any "Buffy" reboot is the same as my position on any "Firefly" reboot (or "Angel", "Dollhouse", or any of the rest): I'm not interested in any such project that doesn't involve Joss Whedon... and I'm not interested in any project that does.

#3: "So You Want to be a Game Master", by Justin Alexander

Tuesday, February 11, 2025

And Another Thing...

While I'm on the topic of streamers...

Netflix have recently informed me that they're increasing their subscription cost again. But at the same time Netflix are in the unfortunate position that they've already lost many of the shows that I've been watching, cancelled almost all the others that I thought I might want to watch, and now have one of the very few I am waiting for about to drop their final ever episodes.

In other words, I think Netflix may be joining NOW and Paramout+ on the "occasional" subscription list, leaving only Disney+ on the "permanent" list.

Boiling a Frog

I don't generally watch a lot of shows on Amazon Prime - we're mostly subscribed for other things, and most of what I do watch is elsewhere. But as it happens I have recently found myself watching two shows in sequence ("Rings of Power" and then "The Rig" - the latter I recommend, by the way), and the adverts have been bothering me.

For a long time, Amazon Prime didn't have any adverts, and that was good. Then they introduced the adverts, along with a surcharge to get rid of those adverts. But at that time the adverts were few and far between, and often they put the adverts at the start of the show and so once you actually got to watching you could watch without interruption.

And that was fine.

But what has been very obvious while watching these two shows is that things have been getting worse all the time - there are now more adverts, more interruptions, and those interruptions seem to be worse integrated into the show, sometimes even seeming to cut in the middle of a sentence.

I would assume that this is mostly about Amazon really wanting us to pay the surcharge to get rid of the adverts. And I'm quite sure that they do indeed want that money.

Except that I'm reasonably sure that it won't stop there - I fully expect them to start having people sponsor their various shows, meaning they get a dedicated advert before the show starts (or, perhaps, even during the show). And one of the conditions for that sponsorship, and one of the things done with other streamers where you pay to "skip the adverts" is that the sponsorship is not considered an advert, and so can't be skipped.

Basically, they're looking to boil the frog, to gradually turn up the heat to extract the absolute maximum amount of money they can from all sources.

But there comes a point where instead the frog jumps out of the pot. Amazon Prime is one of the weakest of the streamers (as I said, we're subscribed for other reasons), so maybe it's time to let it go.

Thursday, February 06, 2025

Experimental Cookery 2025: Sweet and Sour Prawn Stir-fry

This one comes from Tom Kerridge's "Real Life Recipes", which is one of the recipe books I keep thinking I should make more use of and yet never seem to get around to.

Anyway, this one was quick and easy to put together, although I was rather nervous of the shallow fry stage for the prawns (large amounts of hot oil always make me nervous, and having small children in the house exacerbates the situation). In future, therefore, I think we'll probably skip the batter and the shallow fry.

In any case, the result was very nice, providing exactly the sort of sweet and sour combination we were expecting and hoping for. Like the sweet and sour dish (from the first "Hairy Dieters" book), the sauce is the key to the dish, and is really easy to make. And it was a winner - to the extent that I'm sorely tempted to drop sweet and sour chicken from my takeaway rotation.

All in all, this one was a winner. We'll surely have it again.

Tuesday, February 04, 2025

Something to Thank Trump For

The return of the Trump was always going to be horrible, and in the event it has been even more horrible than was expected. Although in hindsight it's an obvious strategy - change so many things so quickly and create so many outrages that the other side just can't keep up on what their supposed to be responding to now.

But there is one good thing that comes of this.

Trump has launched a number of trade wars, and threatened a number more. He's attacked Canada, the EU, made noises about annexing Greenland, and there's no sign that he's anything other than serious. That is, he's attacking his allies and trade partners.

And what that means is that those allies and trade partners should now be in absolutely no doubt: the US cannot be relied on to act in anything other than its perceived self-interest. That has always been true, but until now we've kidded ourselves on, pretended there's a "special relationship".

And that "special relationship", and the equivalants elsewhere, have been extremely dangerous. The EU is far, far too dependent on the US for its defence against Russia. Greenland hosts US military bases rather than looking to its own defence, Canada's economy and fuel security are intricately tied to the US. And, of course, our Trident system is tied in with US technology and systems.

That really needs to stop. If we cannot rely on the US, we need to look to our own interests and our own defence.

And that's a good thing, because the assumption that the big guy with the stick will only ever use it as we direct is always a faulty one.

Tuesday, January 28, 2025

Entropy

Our kettle died on us on Sunday. On the one hand, this was a mild inconvenience - kettles aren't exactly either very hard to get or very expensive. On the other hand, it's just annoying adding one more job to the list.

And, of course, it's unfortunate having to run out to get a kettle and spend the money just to end up back where we started. Multiply that by, well, everything and it's a constant annoyance of having to maintain everything, all of which gets in the way of making anything better.

Oh well.

In other news, and especially annoying, my car has developed yet another fault - after the type pressure sensors now finally seem to be fixed, it is time for the parking assist mechanism to fail. Another function that I don't make much actual use of, but which is installed and therefore needs to be working.

Sigh.

Monday, January 27, 2025

Lockerbie: A Search for Truth

This was released just before our NOW subscription expired, allowing us to quickly binge-watch it. Which was nice.

"Lockerbie: A Search for Truth" is a 5-part mini-series around the Lockerbie bombing and the aftermath therefore, based primarily on a book written by Jim Swire. Colin Firth plays Swire.

So... where to start.

(Oh, yes, there are spoilers, I guess. But since it's a historical drama, I'm not sure they count.)

Firstly, it's extremely well made, especially the scenes of the disaster itself in the first episode. The cast are very strong, with Firth giving a standout performance. And, more than anything else, it probably bears the closest comparison with "Chernobyl", which I also watched on NOW a few years ago. So that's all to the good.

But...

Somewhere around the middle of the third episode, Swire becomes absolutely convinced that Abdelbaset al-Megrahi is not guilty of the crime for which he is later convicted, and the second half of the mini-series follows on from there. All of which is his prerogative, of course.

Unfortunately, the sequence of events as depicted in the show just doesn't work - as presented, the prosecution case utterly falls apart, with just about every witness shown being extremely unreliable, key details coming to light to show that the conviction cannot be safe, and eventually a climactic moment as Swire attempts to bring the whole thing down.

My key problem being with that being that if things did indeed go down that way, there is absolutely no way the judges who were serving as the jury in the trial could have failed to see the problems. Meaning that the only real explanation is an almighty miscarriage of justice - either rank incompetence by five of our most learned judges or outright corruption. I'm afraid that neither of those sits right with me.

(The other thing is that much is made of the logical contradiction of only Abdelbaset al-Megrahi being convicted for the crime - Swire's argument being that the crime was only possible if both the accused were guilty. There's a key problem there: it just isn't so. Consider this: yes, as described, the Lockerbie bombing could not be the work of Megrahi alone, as he didn't have the required airport access. However, that doesn't mean that it required Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, his co-accused, to provide that access - there were others who could have done so. So the "logical contradiction" is not necessarily anything of the kind - the "jury" could feel that the case against Megrahi was sufficient to convict him while also feeling that Fhimah hadn't been sufficiently identified as the co-conspirator.)

I should make note at this point that I make no criticism of Jim Swire in all this - my strong suspicion is that the relevant scenes were heavily edited for dramatic effect, which worked, but at the cost of losing some of the critical nuance.

Anyway, the upshot of all of this is that the second half of the drama doesn't work anywhere near as well as the first. Which is a shame. Also, barring an intervention by President Trump, I think it's unlikely that we'll ever know the full and unvarnished truth, which is an even bigger shame.

So, do I recommend the show? Hesitantly, I say yes.

#2: "The Ultimate Discworld Companion", by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Briggs


Thursday, January 23, 2025

Rings of Power, Season Two

If I had written this post a week ago, I would have said that RoP was a vast improvement over the first season, provided you accept that it's very much not Tolkien - it's what you might come up with if the only exposure you'd had to "The Lord of the Rings" was from watching the Peter Jackson movies.

Unfortunately, the final three episodes represent a spectacular collapse in quality the like of which I don't think I've ever seen. Fundamentally, I think it's trying really hard to be good, but just doesn't know how.

There are two fundamental problems I can see.

The first is that there are too many characters and too much space, and too little time. This means that some key character disappear for several episodes at a time, and many others get only a handful of minutes of screentime. There's an awful lot of "who's that guy again?"... followed by an awful lot of "you know what, I don't care."

The other is specific to the final episode, which is basically made up of recycled material from older, better sources. We have Aragorn being given Anduril, being re-enacted shot by shot and pose by pose. We have Luke Skywalker giving a little smile before jumping to near-certain doom. Not to mention the Rebel Alliance rallying at the end to look forward to a better future. And there's a lot of sound and fury, and a lot of peril... being endured by characters who we know can't die, or even be seriously injured. (Though, actually, we know that elves sometimes return from the Undying Lands, so maybe they actually should have pulled the trigger. Then again, then we'd just get Galadriel the White.)

Long story short, it's just a mess. And, I'm afraid, it's a mess I'm going to watch no longer. If you haven't started, I'd recommend avoiding.

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Elon's Salute

I can't believe I'm going to have to defend Elon bloody Musk...

At Trump's inauguration there were, of course, all manner of speeches of various tenors, including one by Elon Musk. Following this, he has been accused of giving a "Nazi salute".

He of course did no such thing.

The thing is, the gesture he made is one that has been duplicated by many, many people over centuries, including the last eighty years. Indeed, ever since this madness blew up social media has been awash with images of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Kamala Harris, and various other left-leaning politicians (or what passes for the left, anyway) making identical gestures. Which is really not a surprise - there's a reason the Nazis co-opted it. Context really, really matters.

The thing is, there really are genuine, honest horrors coming. Indeed, we saw some hints of them yesterday. Closer to home, there is suddenly a genuine risk that we could be seeing Prime Minister Farage, with all that that entails. (And, for the avoidance of doubt, no, I'm not joking about that.)

The fight back against those horrors is really not going to be helped by the left-leaning voices in the media torching their credibility by pushing this sort of nonsense - clear hyperbole of this sort (assuming it is hyperbole, and not simply outright lies) really doesn't cut through in the way that they seem to do it.

Please, stop.

Experimental Cookery 2025: Sausage and Red Wine Risotto

A second meal from the final Hairy Bikers book, "Our Family Favourites", like the previous risotto I've made was very simple to put together, but also rather time consuming.

The end result was very tasty, and is something we'll no doubt have again. It feels quite seasonal, though - the sunblush tomato risotto feels quite appropriate for Spring and Summer, while this one is much more suited to Autumn and Winter. Which is no bad thing, of course.

All of which makes for a fairly short entry. But it's good that the second foray into that book made for a rather better experience than the first.

Monday, January 13, 2025

Secret Level

Over the Christmas break I managed to get caught up on some of the shows I'd been watching, one of which was "Secret Level". This is an anthology show with each episode based on a video game (or, occasionally, some other game). The show started with ten episodes, but quickly released a further five.

The show is extremely well made, with a variety of animation and storytelling styles. But, like all anthology shows, it's very much a mixed bag - some of the episodes were really enjoyable, some just fell flat. Though none were really bad, as such. (The kicker, of course, is that the ones that I think fell flat may well be the ones that you enjoy, and vice versa.)

For me, the most interesting episodes were of course the ones for "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Warhammer 40,000". The other one that I found really intriguing was "Pac Man" which was... odd.

Anyway, it's on Amazon Prime, and if you have Prime I'd say it's worth a watch. As with just about everything on Prime, though, it's probably not worth the subscription fee all by itself.

Experimental Cookery 2025: Chicken Enchiladas

This one comes from the latest (and last!) Hairy Bikers book, "Our Family Favourites", and was the one that most jumped out at us as something to try.

The meal here was easy enough to make. It wasn't exactly quick - all in, it takes maybe an hour to prepare. But that's fine, as it just means it's a meal for a weekend rather than a weeknight. There are no particularly complex steps nor any outlandish ingredients.

I made two crucial mistakes when preparing this one:

  • Although I halved the quantities of most of the ingredients, I did not half the onions or peppers. In theory this wasn't too bad, as extra vegetables is fine, but in practice it meant that the ratios were just wrong.
  • There was a gap in the cooking, and I made the mistake of assembling the dish and putting it in the oven on a timer. I should really have stopped with the sauce and chicken prepared, and only assembled immediately before the final cooking step.

Because of those two mistakes, the end result was not terribly inspiring. It was fine but... it was fine.

I do intend to have this again, as I think it's worth another shot, but for now at least this is not our go-to enchiladas recipe.

Wednesday, January 08, 2025

Gladiators Celebrity Special

Of all the festive entertainments we watched over the break, this was, sadly, the weakest. And, unfortunately, the issue was conceptual: in the normal game the competitors are chosen amongst the best amateur athletes available - they're obviously not at the sometimes-Olympic level of the Gladiators, but at least there's something approaching a contest to be had. In the celebrity version, the competitors are chosen from that subset of famous people willing to take part.

The consequence of all of this was that the Gladiators were very obviously not trying very hard. On the one hand, no surprise there - had they played at full force someone would have been humiliated or hurt. But on the other, it meant that the show really had nothing in it.

Assuming that they do want to have another celebrity special (which I'd tend to advise against), they really need to think about who to invite: perhaps recently-retired athletes, or something like that? Of course, the short-lived Sky reboot had a couple of specials where "the legends return", which were actually quite good. Sadly, I think the time for those has now passed - it's one thing for people to come back after a couple of decades; quite another a couple more decades on.

But all of that's a small niggle - I felt that the festive offerings overall weren't too terrible this year, and the BBC in particular did well. So I'm happy with that.

Tuesday, January 07, 2025

Rangers Woes 2024/25

I'm starting to wonder what the point is of having a football season where everything is essentially decided by Christmas. Though it should be noted that that's not Celtic's problem - they're doing to job in front of them as well as they can, and it's really not their problem that that means they easily outclass everyone else.

But it remains the case that the league is deadly dull, and largely pointless. And that's just not going to change until Rangers get their act together.

Right now, it would be easy to blame the management for the problems, and indeed it is likely that the current manager is not the right man for the job, at least in the longer term. But it's also the case that Rangers' players have underperformed under several successive managers; they're not up to the job either. And it's further the case that Rangers don't have the requisite money to fix these problems.

So...

My inclination is now that Rangers need to take a long view of this, and build from the foundations out. That means accepting a hard truth: they are very much the second team in Scotland, and will remain so for a very long time. Indeed, they're pretty much a mid-table team.

The strategy, therefore, should probably be to do enough to retain their second-place standing and do as well as possible in Europe, but not to spend money trying to catch or overhaul Celtic. Instead, let the manager and the more expensive players run out their contracts, and gradually replace them with better players - crucially, don't spend loads of money on compensation for getting rid of them for a quick fix - short of investing tens of millions of pounds that they don't have, no quick fix is available.

Fundamentally, I think we may be back to where we were a few years ago: the ultimate goal is to stop ten-in-a-row.

Which is horrible, but I think it may be that stark.

#1: "Machines Like Me", by Ian McEwan


Wednesday, January 01, 2025

Books of the Year 2024

My target for the year was to read 30 books, but alas that has not happened. Here's the list of books for this year:

  1. "Ariadne", by Jennifer Saint
  2. "Promise of Blood", by Brian McClellan
  3. "Smart Leadership", by Jo Owen
  4. "Why Should Anyone be Led by You?", by Rob Goffee and Gareth Jones
  5. "Atalanta", by Jennifer Saint
  6. "Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life", by Arnold Schwarzenegger
  7. "Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes", by Rob Wilkins
  8. "Sharpe's Command", by Bernard Cornwell
  9. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang", by Ian Fleming *
  10. "Making It So", by Sir Patrick Stewart
  11. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again", by Frank Cottrell-Boyce *
  12. "Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk", by Wizards of the Coast
  13. "Empire", by Conn Iggulden
  14. "A Thousand Splendid Suns", by Khaled Hosseini
  15. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and the Race Against Time", by Frank Cottrell-Boyce *
  16. "Surrounded by Idiots", by Thomas Erikson
  17. "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang over the Moon", by Frank Cottrell-Boyce *
  18. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", by John Le Carré
  19. "Firefly: Coup de Grace", by Una McCormack
  20. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", by J.K. Rowling *
  21. "The Prisoner of Heaven", by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
  22. "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", by J.K. Rowling *

Annoyingly there is, once again, my records got messed up during the year - I recorded "Promise of Blood" twice, and failed to record "Sharpe's Command" and "Phandelver and Below". Those problems have, at least, been corrected.

That gives a total of 22 books. This includes two rereads (Harry Potter), and six books for Funsize/Surprise! The only RPG book this year was "Phandelver and Below", which is a disappointing one to end on.

This year's best book was "A Thousand Splendid Suns", but I'm really not sure I recommend it - I found it almost unreadable at times. I'm not going to list a worst book, as none of them seemed particularly bad.

Unfortunately, despite my best intentions I have ended the year with shelves every bit as full of unread books as I began, with some coming to their third year unread. It is very much my intention to start clearing that backlog in the near future.