The Shape of Christmas 2026

Now that we've passed the Armistice, I'm into making my plans for Christmas. This will, mostly, follow the same pattern as the last couple of years, so I'm hopeful will be similarly successful. So, here are my thoughts...

One New Thing

As I've mentioned previously, my intention is to try one new thing most years, and this year it is this: we're going to try a real Christmas tree for the first time. This of course means adding a couple of extra steps to the house decoration:

• We need to invest in a suitable stand, and possibly an implement for watering the tree. Oh, and probably some sort of floor covering to catch the needles/protect the floor.
• We need to then go and select and purchase said tree, a couple of days before the decorating is to be done.
• The tree should then be mounted in the garage for a couple of days, to avoid thermal shock (apparently).
• The tree should then be moved into the living room, and then decorated as per normal.

There is also one small tweak I'm hoping to make to the Christmas meal, but that's so minor it doesn't really need mentioned.

The Run to Christmas

The run up to Christmas therefore looks more or less like this:

We have a list of people to whom we send Christmas cards. This includes friends and family, including three couples of friends we don't see or speak to much but don't want to lose contact with (two of whom will be dealt with online; everyone else gets a hand-written card), our neighbours, my elder district, and a handful of 'special' cards since we 'send' those internally. I'm hoping to get all this dealt with by the end of the first weekend in December.

There are likewise Christmas presents to be purchased. By my count I have twelve people to arrange presents for, plus gift ideas for people to give to me. I'm hoping to have the bulk of these purchased by the end of the first weekend in December, and the last few in hand no later than the last weekend before Christmas. As is my wont, I'll aim to wrap these in three batches - my main batch shortly after that first weekend, a second batch once the rest are in hand, and then the inevitable straggler when I've forgotten something.

As noted, we have the tree to select and purchase, ideally on the 27th of November. It should then move into the house on the 29th which, being the first Sunday in Advent, is the designated Day of Decoration. We'll also be wanting to purchase a festive wreath for our front door at about the same time.

The turkey will need ordered from the butcher (probably could do that now...), then picked up just before the day. The Big Shop will probably be on the 21st - it's awkward this year since Christmas falls on a Friday.

(That said, I do also need to remember to purchase the Advent chocolate on Friday the 27th, ready for the train going out on the 29th.)

Finally, I'm hoping to do two batches of Festive Baking: some mince pies on Sunday the 6th, and then a second batch and some other things on a quiet day just before Christmas itself.

Events and Visits

We have a few visits planned, not all of which have their dates locked:

• We intend to visit Mill Farm once again for their Christmas celebration, including a visit to see Santa.
• The Livingston Village Gala Committee have their Christmas Lights Switch On (at which Santa will also be in attendance!).
• LC and I each have a works night out.
• Funsize and Surprise! each have no fewer than three pantos to enjoy.
• At time of writing, I'm not aware of any Christmas events for Funsize's Stage School. I daresay that may change.
• There will probably be Christmas parties for said Stage School, Surprise!'s rugby club, and various other groups. They'll be kept busy!

Christmas Eve

The pattern for Christmas Eve will be fairly familiar: I'll do a significant amount of preparation for the Christmas meal, then take Funsize and Surprise! to my parents' house for a visit while LC makes some secret arrangements in the house, then we'll gather again for "snack dinner", then to the Christingle service at the church, and then to bed. Huzzah!

Christmas Day

Again, the pattern should be fairly familiar to us by now: unpacking stockings in the morning (apparently, I'll be getting coal - Surprise! says I'm on the Naughty List for too many pranks), followed by breakfast, opening presents, and a nice walk if the weather allows. (I'll need to spend a little time before the walk getting the appetiser to the first proving step, but that doesn't take long.)

After the walk, I'll proceed to start cooking the dinner. At some point our guests will start to arrive, with the consequent needs for teas and coffees, the serving of the appetiser, and an exchange of many gifts.

Then the Christmas Dinner.

And then we all relax in a massive food coma. (Traditionally, Funsize and Surprise! have taken Lion and our guests for a nice long walk, while LC and I put the house to rights. Which works really well for all concerned.)

Then we'll watch the Queen's Speech, the Bond film, and off to bed. Or something.

Christmas Dinner

The menu for Christmas Dinner is as follows:

• Appetiser: baked camembert with doughballs.
• Starter: Soup (not made by me).
• Main: Turkey, stuffing (not made by me), pigs in blankets (likewise), roast potatoes two ways, roast carrots and parsnips, red cabbage (the new thing), and gravy (from the butcher)
• Dessert: Christmas baking, if anyone really wants some. Maybe a cheeseboard.

Boxing Day

Finally, we have the traditional visit to my parents' house for Boxing Day, in which all the various wings of the family gather for several hours of absolute madness.

A Day of Forgetting

Yesterday was another Forgetful Day, mostly around the two journeys to and from work...

In the morning I piled the children into the car, added their schoolbags, and away we went. We made it about halfway before I realised they had no jackets with them.

Now, once upon a time Funsize got to school before I realised she had no jacket, an issue I resolved by giving her my jacket for the day (since I didn't really need it). But that doesn't work when there are two children and only one me, and indeed when I'm wearing my winter jacket which is way too big for her.

So back home we went, picked up the jackets, and then back to school. That wasn't too bad.

After dropping the children off, I started for work... and promptly realised I'd left my laptop back in the house, where it wasn't going to do me any good. So I had to go back again.

Anyway, that was the end of the forgetfulness for the morning. Huzzah!

At the end of the day I switched off the PC, grabbed my jacket, and left. (I didn't need the laptop bag.) And all seemed well.

Except that when I got home I made an horrible realisation: I'd left both my book and my lunchbox in the office!

So, anyway, I used another box for today's sandwiches, and have started a second novel. Which is actually quite nice, as I have found the other pretty hard going - it turns out reading about a dystopia is less fun when you're living in the early days of one.

Oh well. Here's hoping for a less forgetful day today!

The Inevitability of IKEA

Last year we had seven people at our Christmas dinner, and just about managed to fit around our dining table. But this year two of the seven have grown noticeably, and there's also a likelihood that we're going up to eight guests. While we've handled this once before by moving Funsize and Surprise! to an overflow table, that's not really good for Christmas where we'd actually all like to be together.

I concluded last week that we should probably therefore get ourselves a new dining table.

And so the secondary conclusion of this came about: with a dread inevitability we found ourselves yesterday visiting IKEA in search of a new dining table. So we packed six weeks of emergency rations, and off we went...

In the event it was less of an ordeal than I had feared. It turned out that they didn't have a suitable table, but Funsize, and especially Surprise! had a good time looking at all the various options for redesigning their rooms. It seems Surprise! wants to convert his room into some sort of gaming cave.

We did purchase a desk for Funsize, which I had the joys of assembling last night. And we got a table somewhere else. It was an expensive day.

Not a Great Sign

I'm playing the piper's lament on Sunday, so I figured I should my pipes out this week to make sure that they're okay, and that I'm okay to play them. So I did so on Monday, and they're broadly fine.

What is of some concern, though, is that this was pretty much the first time I'd played them since the Mid Calder Gala Day in early June. And then, having planned to play them every night this week I failed to do so on Tuesday due to a stinking headache and on Wednesday due to taking Surprise! to rugby. I'm at band practice tonight, so I'll make sure we play the pipes at some time tonight, and then will try to play again tomorrow and Saturday to give myself the best chance.

But it's not a good sign. Especially since it looks like my other annual performance of the lament looks to be cancelled this year, our Christmas events are definitively off (both because the organizing committee doesn't exist any more and because we don't have a band to put out). Which means that the next time I have cause to play them may be as late as next June.

There are, of course, several reasons feeding in to this:

• Simple motivation is a factor. If we're not playing events, there's much less reason to make the effort. And morale at the band has dropped dramatically, so that's even harder.
• It suddenly became much harder to practice at home when Surprise! arrived. Oddly enough, that wasn't the case when Funsize was born, but I think the issue is that two kids really required attention from two adults so much more of the time, where one child allowed more of a tag-team approach. Adding Lion to the mix exacerbated the issue, as she's really not a fan.
• And then there comes the issue of it being a habit - as long as you're practicing daily it's relatively easy to keep practicing daily, but as soon as you stop...

It's all rather troubling, really.

What Now for America?

I see that the American mid-term elections have seen a major victory for the Democrats - they've gained control of both Congress and the Senate. And, based on my reading from Twitter, there seems to have been a significant rejection of Trump even from amongst MAGA.

All of which is good, probably. Except for one thing...

Politicians are remarkably terrible at learning the lessons from election results. And I fear that the Democrats are about to make the classic blunder, actually the same blunder made by Starmer's Labour party a couple of years ago, of reading a rejection of the incumbent as an endorsement of them and their agenda.

As far as I can see, the Republican defeat is largely a combination of three things:

• Democrat voters were motivated to turn out, in order to get rid of Republican incumbents.
• The majority Republican base, who have no great love for Trump but "always" vote Republican, were largely not motivated to go out and vote.
• Trump's own MAGA base are currently really angry. Not because they've rejected Trump's agenda, but rather because they feel betrayed that he hasn't done enough of it. And, in particular, they're angry about the war in Iran, which they don't feel should have happened anyway, and more important (to them) is driving gas prices upwards.

It's not at all clear how Trump will respond to any of this. It seems very unlikely we'll see a repeat of his attempt to overturn his defeat in 2020, for the reason that the various races don't seem to be particularly close - in theory a recount might "find" a couple of hundred extra votes, but not vast numbers. This means that he's going to be a lame duck president for the next two years, stymied by a legislative branch that he doesn't control.

The received wisdom seems to be that, as a deranged narcissist, he will therefore lash out, and double down, and it's all going to be absolutely awful. But maybe not - normally, in this situation he'd just declare bankruptcy, write off all the debts, and start over. I'm not sure what the political equivalent of that is. Maybe it just doesn't matter.

Of much more interest to me now is the question of who the two parties put forward as their candidates, and what they put forward as their agendas, for 2028.

I had assumed that the Republicans would go with J.D. Vance and, basically, more of the same, but Iran and these elections are potentially a game-changer. I think their best play is to stick with the agenda, but they then need to find a new candidate, someone who can credibly say, "no, we're actually going to do it this time." My gut feeling, though, is that they'll probably try to claim that with Vance in harness, and have it all blow up in their faces.

Meanwhile, I have a really hard time seeing who the Democrats can choose as their candidate. My fear, though, is that they'll revert to the exact same agenda as Hillary and Kamala attempted to push, potentially even with Kamala Harris as their candidate once again, and with similar results. (Conversely, I'd recommend finding a more moderate candidate and taking several large steps back towards a centrist position.)

Of course, the consequence of all of that is the I suspect both parties are going to put forward losing candidates paired with an agenda that doesn't work for them. But given that one of them has to win...

So it's going to be interesting, but perhaps a lot more hopeful than it has been for a very long time. Watch this space, I guess.

First Prime, now Picard...

2026 has been a rough year for celebrity deaths. A few days ago, the passing of Walter Koenig was particularly sad, marking the departure of a legend from "Star Trek" and "Babylon 5" - much as Pavel Chekov was a great character, his villainous turn as the Psi-Cop Bester was wonderful.

But then came the news of the passing of Patrick Stewart, the embodiment of Jean-Luc Picard and Professor X. That one hurts.

Of course, he has had many other roles, and brought many great performances: as Claudius opposite David Tennant's Hamlet, as Macbeth, as Number One, the leader of the Stonecutters in "The Simpsons"...

As Charles Xavier, though, and opposite Ian McKellen's Magneto, he served to elevate the material - because of those two and the gravitas they brought, those films weren't just superhero action spectaculars. Rather, they brought through the philosophical differences between the two that meant that they were both friends and deadly rivals.

And then there is Jean-Luc Picard, who alongside Optimus Prime stands as my model for how a leader should operate. His Captain was very different from Shatner's Kirk, and his Next Generation was therefore very different from the Original Series. And it was the better for it - and I say that not as a criticism of TOS, but rather because it made for a companion piece and a different spin, rather than just being a retread.

And so, with the passing of Stewart and Cullen, we see the passing of two great voices that have guided me. With the passing of Stewart and Koenig, we see the passing of two men of Enterprise. And, in all cases, it is terribly sad.

Eight weeks to go. I'm not sure I can take too many more...

Networking (or not)

Getting home from the holiday was the usual fun - drag everything in, unpack all the bags, put the washing in the baskets for the washing fairy to deal with... In addition, this time I had taken the cunning step of powering just about everything in the house off before we left, which meant that things like the heating and the internet needed switched back on. Which was all fine.

Except for one thing: my PC resolutely refused to connect to the internet. Everything else on the network was fine, but not that.

It's been a while since we had PC troubles, but they haven't become any more fun in the interim.

Debugging the problem quickly established that the issue was with both wired and wireless connections, and indeed applied both when using the home network and if I turned my phone into a mobile hotspot. That pointed to a software problem, or just possibly a problem with the motherboard.

Long story short, I finally isolated the problem to Norton Anti-virus, with the advice being to uninstall it and reinstall it. Which was great, except that Norton make it really hard to uninstall - there's a "why do you want to uninstall?" question, after which they send you a suggestion for something to try instead. Presumably, after that there's a "no, I still want to uninstall" option.

But, of course, the key problem with that is that the "suggestion for something to try instead" comes online, which requires that you be connected to the internet. Given that I was trying to uninstall because I couldn't connect to the internet, this was something of a problem.

Fortunately, if you reboot your PC in Safe Mode this then allows for an easier uninstall without those additional hoops to jump through. After which I could reinstall the program and whatever the problem was was cleared.

Still, that seems a really bizarre and annoying weakness in their systems - we'll gate your ability to solve the problem behind the problem!

Anyway, it's done now. Which is nice.

Day 300: Update on Goals

Day 300, so time for one more update on goals. This will be the last before the end-of-year round-up.

• Books: By Day 300 I should basically be at 29.59 books, so despite "The Witchwood Crown" taking an age to get through I'm reasonably far ahead of target. It's now a race to the finish - can I complete the remaining five books before the end of the year?
• Weight: It's now clear that this goal won't be achieved, but my intent is to do as much as I can between now and the end of the year. At the very least, I want to end the year weighing less than at the start, which at the time of writing isn't the case.
• Church Website: I've made a significant update since the previous post, such that this task is now done - I updated the remaining pages, removed our contact form and replaced it with links to Facebook (not ideal, but the best I could do), and generally made sure it was all up-to-date. There will be further updates to the website in future, but as with the garden these won't amount to specific goals.
• Garden: This is now done.
• Blog: Had I set a formal blogging goal, by Day 300 I should be at 98.63 posts. This is post 97, so I'm very slightly behind target, though I do expect to catch up in the next day or so.

Things are looking up from the previous update. Of the four formal goals, I have completed two and am on track to complete a third. The final not-quite-a-goal is also on track to be successful.

#31: "The Book of Lost Tales, Part One", by J.R.R. Tolkien

Experimental Cookery 2026: Loaded Jacket Potatoes (with Sausage Ragu)

Back when I was away in America, LC made up a Simple Sausage Ragu from the Tesco magazine. This was part of their "Cook Once, Eat Twice" feature, so had a reasonable amount of leftovers. Today's post is the second half of that feature, in which I combined the leftover ragu with breadcrumbs and cheese, and used it to fill jacket potatoes.

This was a quick and easy meal to put together, of course, hampered only with wanting to do it all quickly and therefore trying to scoop cooked potato out of fresh-from-the-oven baked potatoes - not a comfortable experience!

The resulting meal was... okay. There was nothing at all offensive about it, it was fine comfort food, but it just didn't really inspire. Which is true of the sausage ragu itself. The upshot, I think, is that we might have this once more (to get rid of the last of the ragu) and then we're unlikely to have either again. But I do have at least one other "loaded jacket potato" method that I might well try.

#30: "J.R.R. Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth: Understanding Middle-Earth", by Bradley Birzer

Scotland's Footballing Woes

I had the misfortune of having an unexpected free hour last night and chose to spend it watching the second half of Scotland's match against Slovenia. Oh dear.

First things first: congratulations to Slovenia who were very deserving winners - they won the match by being the better team, and I see absolutely no grounds for complaint about the defeat. There have been occasions in the past where Scotland have had grounds to complain about opponents diving or dodgy referee decisions, or whatever, but last night that was very much not the case. And it's not even that Scotland played badly (though we did) - Slovenia played the better game.

But regarding Scotland...

Firstly, I quite like the new style that Sébastien Pocognoli has put in place, at least in theory. One of the big problems Scotland had at the last major tournaments was that they played with very little passion and almost entirely defensively, and the new manager has made a big shift away from that. In theory, that's something I like to see.

But there are two big problems with it.

Firstly, it was very evident that the more attacking style is leaving some gaps at the back. That's probably inevitable, and something we'll just need to reckon with. But that means that when you get your chances going forward, you must take them. Scotland had six shots on target last night, but recorded one goal. That's a problem - if you're going to be wasteful at the back, you need to be ruthless up front.

The second problem is rather more worrying, and looks very much like the Wilfried Nancy situation at Celtic - like Pocognoli he had a very distinctive attacking style that, in theory, should have been easy on the eye and fun to watch. But the problem was that even in the few weeks he was here we saw, again and again, his Celtic team would look good in the first half but find themselves contained by an opposition who were good enough to do that for a while, and then over the course of that first half the opposition manager would get to grips with the style, make a couple of tweaks to their own style, and go out and beat it.

My fear with Pocognoli is that this may well be the case again - that Slovenia basically worked out the beating of Scotland in their first match, or in the first half of the second, and so in the second half last night they just cut Scotland open. And we had no reply.

I hope that's not the case, and that Pocognoli just needs a bit more time to get his ideas across and we can go forward. If not, Scotland may prove to be a team that looks good briefly, and is then decisively defeated by canny manangers.

Beyond that... this Nations League campaign was always something of a free hit - we weren't ever going to top the group, nor were we ever in danger of relegation, so we were always going to be in the same section next time. The one quirk was that coming second would have put us in Pot Two for Euro 2028 qualification, while we're now destined for Pot Three.

But that doesn't make a huge amount of difference, because we're co-hosts of Euro 2028.

The way qualification works (roughly) is this: there are 12 groups of 4 teams. The 12 winners and 8 best runners-up will qualify automatically. Then the top two out of England, the Republic of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales who have not already qualified will be given reserved spots, and then there are playoffs for the remaining places.

What that effectively means is that we either need the Republic of Ireland or Wales to grab one of those winner/best runner-up spots (in which case we will definitely get one of the "reserved" spots) or we need to do better than one of those two teams (in which case, again, we'll get a "reserved" spot). (It should be fair to assume that England will top their group and so get qualification that way.)

All of which amounts to saying we'll need to be pretty unlucky to fail to qualify (or just rank rotten). Which is by no means a guarantee, of course, but such is the life of a Scotland fan.

#28: "Forged in Rome", by Conn Iggulden

#29: "Thomas the Tank Engine: The Complete Collection", by Rev. W. Awdry (a book for Surprise!)

Dear Disney...

I find myself more than a little perplexed by your recent actions. The thing is, via LC's subscription we have access to your "ad free" version of Disney+, only you've recently changed the terms and conditions to allow yourselves to show unskippable ads before and between shows. That's really annoying, but not actually what I'm about to talk about...

What I'd really like to know is what is the point of showing me unskippable ads for other things that are bundled into the very same Disney+ subscription that I already have? And, doubly so, what is the point of showing my unskippable ads for things that I have already watched through the very same subscription I already have? As far as I can see there is absolutely no benefit to you in this approach - you're actively annoying me while pushing me towards something that won't make you any more money.

I could, grudgingly, understand it if the adverts were for any of the infinite Disney merch that's out there, or for your upcoming cinema releases, or even for next month's upcoming shows - those all have a purpose that may put some more money into your hands (offensive as it remains to be putting ads in your "ad free" plans at all).

But to force adverts on us that very definitely aren't going to do that? What possible purpose does that serve?

(One other thing: the irony of all of this is that Disney+ was, and actually still is, the best value of all of our subscription services. Amazon Prime is good for everything that isn't Prime Video, while Netflix is rapidly dropping in my estimation. And as for NOW... But these recent shenanigans really put a dent in my appreciation for this particular service.)

"Where Do You See Yourself in Five Years?"

The above is one of the classic interview questions, and a question that people inevitably hate - it's really hard to come up with a good answer, especially one that fits with whatever job it is that you're interviewing for. And yet, it's actually a question you should probably always have an answer for, whether you're in an interview or not - "I don't know" is never great.

But there's a second question that's perhaps more useful to consider, especially since it applies much more specifically, and can be asked of any ongoing task: "What does success look like?"

Sometimes, of course, that's obvious: if you're doing the washing up, success looks like a well cleaned set of dishes, possibly dried if you're showing off, and with the various work surfaces wiped down and good to go again.

Sometimes, it's a lot harder to say. But answering the question is worthwhile, as it gives a clear indication of what you're aiming for, and indeed a clear indication of what you're not aiming for. (Returning to the previous example, when doing the dishes, the aim is to get the cleaned; it's not to also go and deep clean the entire rest of the kitchen. That's absolutely not a bad thing, and may prove to be your next goal, but it's beyond the scope of what you're currently working on.)

The major benefit of stating the goal as clearly and thoroughly as you can is that it then provides shape for the intermediate steps, and probably signposts along the way. It also helps to weed out extraneous tasks, and provides a means to identify when you're off track.

Of course, the depiction of success is not a one-and-done task - at any point, it's only what success looks like from where you are now. Once you move a bit, some things that you intended may prove unrealistic (or trivial!), while you might find that your priorities shift.

And that's all good. Especially if the goal you're setting is for your life or your career - when settling that it really should be what you want, and that doesn't lock you in forever.

So, when an interviewer asks you "Where do you see yourself in five years?" what they're really asking about is The Dream - what's the goal, and in particular, what does success look like?

Oh, and incidentally, if you're interviewing for a fairly junior position, a good answer would most likely be something like "I'm just starting out in a career in <whatever>, so for the next few years I'm looking for opportunities to develop and apply my skills. In the immediate terms, I think this opportunity will allow me to learn to <something>, and we can go from there." And, if nothing else, there's absolutely no harm in saying you want to develop expertise in working in a professional team towards a common goal, and that the longer-term (5-year) goal would be to start leading a team and/or taking the lead in developing the next version of <whatever>.

Running Out of Steam

For the past several months, Surprise! and I have been working through the "Thomas the Tank Engine" stories by Rev A.W. Awdry. They're good stuff, and always fun to revisit the classics, but...

As with when Funsize and I worked through the series, there is very definitely a sense that they become less interesting as they go - he spends more and more time with the old engines, the small railway, and other peripheral characters that just don't have the same charm as Thomas and his friends.

All of which is a shame - the early stories remain classics, and are really good. But starting by the time you get to "The Eight Famous Engines", and definitely by the time you get to "The Twin Engines", the whole venture starts to flag.

Oh well. We have three stories to go, and then "Winnie the Pooh" beckons!

Transformers: the Movie (the apology tour)

On Saturday Surprise! and I went to see "Transformers: the Movie", returned to the cinemas for its 40th anniversary in a glorious new print. (Funsize declined the invitation to join us.)

Before I talk about the movie itself, a few things about the cinema experience this time:

• The Vue in Livingston is currently undergoing a long-overdue refurbishment. This is likely to improve the experience, but in the short term it very much did not.
• There are usually two concession stands in the Vue, the Quick one and the Slow one. Alas, during the course of the refurbishment only the Slow one is currently open. I'm not at all sure what it is about that stand that makes it the Slow one, but it most definitely is very slow indeed - we were close to the point of having to abandon our intended purchases when we were belatedly served.
• We paid a little extra for the comfy seats, this being a special occasion. I don't really think they were worth it, to be honest. The standard seats are absolutely fine.

Anyway, what about the film?

"Transformers: the Movie" is a slightly bizarre one, in that it's one of the big films of my childhood, but it's also one I'd never previously seen in the cinema: the release date didn't quite match up with a birthday, and back then that was a requirement for a cinema trip. And, indeed, because we only had a Betamax player back then, it was some time before I actually saw it, eventually, on VHS. For a good long time, I actually experienced it primarily in graphic novel form.

So finally seeing it up on the big screen was nice. And the new print is suitably impressive - for a very long time the film presentation has amounted to "this was the best that could be done with what they had", while this does seem to be a marked improvement.

Given that it's been a couple of years since I'd seen it, I had also forgotten at least somewhat just how fast the film moves - like a Dan Brown novel it runs at a really fast pace from one event to another, with almost no let up. In fairness, it does seem to slow down somewhat after the opening action set piece and the massacre of the characters, but I think that's actually relative - since you don't care so much about the new generation it just doesn't have the same immediacy.

Which, of course, brings me to that massacre of the characters, the Red Wedding of its day (seriously). This is a really odd one - commercially, it might have seemed sensible to replace one range of toys with another, and wiping out the older generation certainly does that. On the other hand, starting your children's film with the deaths of six beloved heroes and then the demise of the most beloved of them all is a really odd choice. And it really backfired - the release of the movie marks the point where Transformers really goes into decline, partly because there's an obvious drop off in the quality of the toys, partly because it just slipped out of the zeitgeist, but largely because every character that got killed off was somebody's favourite.

And yet... that bloodbath is perhaps the major reason that "Transformers: the Movie" is at all relevant now. There are basically no animated films from the 80's, other than those made by Disney, that are discussed nowadays.

Anyway, it was good to see it. Surprise! enjoyed it too, which is good. But I don't think I'd go again - home viewing is enough at this point.

One other thing that was really good, and which gained a surprising gravitas recently, was the short "Optimus Prime: Awakening" that came after the film, in which the newly-deceased Optimus Prime finds himself at a crossroads, deciding whether to go into the light or to try to go back. It's a curious rumination on mortality, saying goodbye, and indeed the costs that constant warfare inflicts on you, even when on the right side of things. It really surprised me - good stuff.

(Between that and the new print of the film, I suspect I may be purchasing yet another copy of the film on Blu-Ray. Oh well.)

So, that was the centerpiece of my weekend.

#27: "The Witchwood Crown", by Tad Williams

Roll The Credits

After 19 years, the web-comic Darths & Droids has come to its end.

For those who haven't had the pleasure, this was a comedic retelling of the Star Wars films as envisaged as an RPG campaign. It started back in Episode I, and then gradually expanded from there - indeed, I recall a certain frisson of interest as they came to the end of that movie, and then again at the end of Episode III: "will they carry on?"

Well, they did, and now they've come to the end of the series of films.

(Incidentally, it appears that one of the writers of "The Clone Wars" may have had some familiarity with the web-comic: one of the running gags in their version of TPM was a spell called summon bigger fish - something Jar Jar then proceeds to do in the episode "Bombad Jedi".)

Anyway, if you fancy wading through 19 years of Star Wars RPG nonsense, this one is highly recommended!

A Job Done

My big achievement over the weekend was the completion of my "Garden" goal - this weekend that involved fixing the garden stairs and one part of a wall. It wasn't a long, complex, or difficult job, but it was one that had been sitting undone for quite some time. But no more!

In truth, the garden isn't truly complete, and indeed I don't think it ever will be. However, the task that I set for myself at the start of the year is done, and I think from here it turns into just regular maintenance, of the sort that I don't count as a goal as such - it's just something that you have to do.

Anyway, nice to have that ticked off my list!

Masters of the Universe

There were three big box office bombs this summer: "Supergirl", "The Mandalorian and Grogu", and "Masters of the Universe". In all three cases, the reason for this was at least somewhat political, or at least connected with the Culture Wars - they were basically considered too woke, in one way or another, and therefore people stayed away. In two of the cases, I was of the opinion that they weren't the cinematic abomination that I had feared - neither "Supergirl" nor M&G was a masterpiece by any stretch, but both were fairly serviceable in their own rights.

I watched "Masters of the Universe" this weekend... and I'm afraid it's astonishingly awful.

Now, in fairness, there were some things I enjoyed: the music is actually really good (and, if the law that films with a soundtrack by Queen inevitably become cult hits is true, I'd expect this to happen here too: although the soundtrack is not by Queen, it heavily features Brian May's work). The cameo by Dolph Lundgren is likewise pretty cool - although it's a really bad sign when it reminds you of an older, better, film and that film is itself pretty terrible. And having Orko appear at the end to give the moral of the story is a really nice touch - very reminiscent of the source cartoon.

(Oh, and Surprise! has declared that this film is awesome, largely because at the end Adam rides away on his big green tiger. So that's at least one recommendation.)

I guess the other thing that works is that at least the various characters do actually look like they should - the film basically has all the action figures come to life.

Otherwise, though, no. I'm not even going to enumerate the failures - it's all within touching distance of mediocrity, but ultimately falls short, to the extent that despite investing only a couple of hours into it, and despite getting it effectively free as part of my Prime subscription, I still felt short-changed.

Avoid.

The End of Summer

Yesterday was our last BBQ of the year. I still have a task to give both our BBQs a good clean and then get them covered over for the winter, but otherwise the season is now done. (I similarly gave the BBQ at work a clean last week, for the same reason.) In theory there might yet be a day or two suitable for BBQ weather, but it's my policy to draw a line of my own volition, rather than let things drift to nothing. So we're done.

This morning when my alarm went off I staggered out of bed and opened the curtains, only to discover that, for the first time since around Easter, it was still dark outside. The nights are drawing in, and the dawn is getting ever later. Of course, there's an adjustment coming when we collectively decide not to have our clocks lie to us any more at the end of October, but by then it will be dark even at the new corrected 6am.

On Wednesday it will be the 16th of September, a day of little import except for one detail: that marks the point of the 100-day countdown to Christmas. Even that's not a huge milestone, as it's far too soon to be considering the matter in much detail, except for two things: I'll be sounding out the Christmas dinner plans (at least conceptually), and I also want to have a discussion about what our "one new thing" could be this year. I have an idea, but I'm not at all sure it's a good one.

All of which amounts to one big thing: sadly, the long, glorious Summer of 2026 has reached its end.

Experimental Cookery 2026: Cheese and Bacon Burgers

This one comes from "The Handcrafted Burger". It's absolutely lovely, but it also absolutely does not warrant a recipe of its own: make some patties, cook on one side, cover the other with cheese and cook, then add bacon and other bits and pieces. And that's it.

I guess the key thing here is that none of the other options in the book include bacon as a main part (the "everything burger" being a possible exception), so maybe they thought that they needed one?

Fundamentally, while "The Handcrafted Burger" is a remarkably enjoyable book, the truth is that it's not the burgers that are the key - those are generally almost trivial. On the contrary, it's the accompaniments that are the main thing here. And while this time the accompaniment is bacon, which is definitely a worthy choice, it probably doesn't warrant a page all by itself.

All that said, we'll definitely have burgers much like this in future. So that's good.

Charting a Way Forward

Thursday's band practice was interesting in several ways, not least in that it settled in my mind that it's going to be up to me to set a plan going forward - nobody else is going to do it, so that's that.

My view is that the band is not, in the near future, going to recruit a new drum corps or many more pipers, and as a consequence we won't be taking on events. Additionally, the pipe major has other commitments that mean he's frequently absent, and when he is present he has a learner who takes up a fair chunk of his time.

All of which means that whatever we do for our practices we're really doing for us - what do we find gives the most benefit to the most people.

And that means that, when possible, I think I want to get the practices into something like the current structure:

• We should probably spend some time working on fundamentals - there are a couple of sets of tunes that everyone plays and that we collectively know very well, and if we spend some time on those we can work on things like timing, expression, and so on. Hopefully, that will help improve the general standard of play.
• We should likewise probably spend some time on our "known" tunes - the ones that we would play at gala days and other events if we were to ever take one on again. These have become very rusty, so we should correct that. I'll need to dig out the list, and we'll put them on rotation.
• I also want to spend some time on some new tunes. We've learned a few recently, and what's been happening is that we practice them for a bit, kind-of learn them, and then let them fall by the wayside. Which is just a waste. So we'll pick a few and get them moved from the "new" to "known" buckets.
• Finally, we really should commit to getting the pipes out for a while at every practice.

And that's that. I'll try to make a start on it from Thursday, just in time to miss the following week.

The Mandalorian and Grogu

This film has the dubious distinction of being the only "Star Wars" film that I haven't seen in the cinema - even the rather poor "Clone Wars" movie from 2008 isn't on that list. (Incidentally, that film really doesn't hold up, and since it wasn't particularly good even on first viewing that's not terribly good. On the other hand, it's the jumping off point for the outstanding "Clone Wars" TV series, so it's still worth the pain.)

Anyway, LC and I watched M&G over the course of the last week, and my overwhelming conclusion is that, frankly, I'm glad it's one that we skipped.

Don't get me wrong - it's a perfectly serviceable film with a handful of good moments. But more than anything else, it feels like Filoni and Favreau took their plans for a fourth season of "The Mandalorian", dropped the bits featuring Bo Katan, and then mashed the rest together and called it a film. Which is fine, but it all felt remarkably low budget for a "Star Wars" film.

In terms of performances, it's fine, but the film is seriously hampered by having one lead in a face-covering helmet pretty much all the time and the other being a puppet with almost no lines. That said, I enjoyed seeing Zeb in live action, liked Rotta and the other Hutts, enjoyed Scorsese's turn as a street food vendor... and, of course, Sigourney Weaver was excellent as ever - hopefully that's not the last of her we'll see in "Star Wars".

Speaking of Grogu, I had very mixed feelings about the effects there. On the one hand, it was refreshingly quaint to see almost all of that done with puppets and practical effects - there was something very "Labyrinth" or "The Dark Crystal" about it all, which was surprisingly cool; on the other hand, it lacked the slickness we've come to expect from CGI. I guess that was the point. (The same was also true of a couple of guardian droids later in the film - they were pretty cool, but also pretty odd.)

Ultimately, though, my impression of the film was kind of... hollow. It didn't really give us anything in terms of character growth, or much insight into the galaxy, or presented anything we hadn't seen before. Bo Katan was a huge miss, largely because Katee Sackhoff is another actor who it's always good to see in action. Basically, this was all just a bunch of stuff that happened. It was fine, but like "Solo", it was nothing more than fine.

Ah well.

In closing, I'll note that I think that ties into much of my frustration with modern "Star Wars". I'm very much not in the camp who decries everything Disney has done with it, or hailing everything Lucas did as genius. But I'm really frustrated that some of what Disney has done is absolutely brilliant: "Rogue One", much of "Andor", the first two seasons of "The Mandalorian", and almost all of their animated output (notably the final season of "The Clone Wars", "Rebels", "The Bad Batch", and "Maul: Shadow Lord"). But some of it has been utterly forgettable ("Solo" and "The Mandalorian and Grogu"), while some has been outright bad or even worse ("The Last Jedi" and "The Rise of Skywalker" - in particular that last). If it was all terrible at least I could just walk away and have done. But the occasional gems means there's motivation to keep coming back, only to be disappointed most of the time. A shame.

"Upgrade" doesn't mean "Improvement"

We had a small IT crisis earlier this week - it started with some files not being where they should have been and proceeded to evolve into a deep concern about our online security. In the event, it all turned out to be fine (just some expired credentials), but it led to yet another dissatisfaction with an upgrade to an app that has led to a degraded experience.

Which is distressingly common: we keep getting software updates, they keep getting touted as game-changing upgrades... and I can't remember the time one of them actually improved my user experience. Nor, honestly, do I any longer expect that to be the case - at best, companies seem to really not care about these things; at worst, they seem to be actively making things worse in order to try to sell the fix to the problem that they themselves have created.

This is, of course, a bog standard grumble about the progress of modern technology. I do find it increasingly amusing, however, that "The Matrix" seems to have called it absolutely right when they declared that the mid-90s was the peak of our civilisation.

Day 250: Update on Goals

Hard to believe, but we're already at day 250 of the year, and so it's time for the antepenultimate update on goals for the year:

• Books: By Day 250 the on-target progress would see me at 24.66 books. I was going really well until mid-July, when I suddenly hit a problem: I was bogged down in a fantasy doorstep novel and the "backup" novel I was reading in parallel also ran to more than 1,000 pages. That has slowed progress to a crawl, suddenly calling this goal into question. I'm still ahead of the target, but less confident than I was previously - it really depends how the next couple of months go.
• Weight: Between my birthday meal, a trip to the US, and then a family holiday, this one has taken a big step backwards. Although that damage has now been reversed, there is now no meaningful likelihood of achieving this goal - if indeed there ever was much hope.
• Church Website: There was a small update prior to Summer to note that things were largely paused for two months. There has now been a second update to put them back as they were. Which amounts to a bunch of effort to get back to where we started!
• Garden: I had really hoped to be able to declare this one done with this update, but alas it is not to be. There is one more repair needing done, and I was all set to do this on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, it turned out I had purchased the wrong stuff for the job, and so was back to being stuck. But I believe I now have the required equipment, so next time... The garden will then require more effort in future years, though this is unlikely to be considered a formal goal.
• Blog: By rights, by Day 250 I should be at 82.19 posts. I'm therefore pretty much exactly on target, and that despite a somewhat disastrous July. So that's nice.

This is, sadly, an update I find extremely disheartening. Frankly, that seems to fit neatly with the way things are going generally - everything seems to have gone wrong since that trip to the US in mid-July, and I just don't see any way forward where it gets meaningfully better. Which just sucks.

Stage Management

Another week, and another rather frustrating church service: there was an awful lot going on, everyone involved was doing their absolute best, and our minister has some good ideas and good thoughts to share... and yet the whole thing just didn't quite gel.

Partly, the issue is due to simple technical difficulties. Our PC is in desperate need of some attention, as it basically gets switched on once a week for the service, and promptly wants to run Windows Update and its virus scanner, which bring it to a crashing halt. It may also require some more memory, though I'm inclined to spend some time on the software first.

But another issue is that there are just too many moving parts, and people aren't necessarily clear on what needs to be done at what times. Plus, too many things are being organised at the last minute, and by too many individual people. Add to that a last-minute reordering of events because of the aforementioned technical difficulties, and a desire to put a specific verse on screen mid-sermon (because the reading was a different translation, which meant a different interpretation)... as I said, it was rather frustrating.

I'm inclined to think that what's needed is a stage manager - someone to grab all the relevant people a bit before the service and make sure everyone knows what they're needing to do. And someone who will make sure the technology is as well-placed as possible - check the batteries in the mics, check that the correct slideshow has been loaded and it's all present and correct, and so on.

Problem is, it's easy to diagnose the problem, and indeed it's easy to fix that problem... but it's not so easy to fix the problem without being the person who volunteers to do it!

Finally!

It took four weeks, but as of yesterday I can finally hear again. To say that is a relief is a massive understatement, but at least it's now over!

The reason this took so long is largely that every step required someone new involved. As I left things, I'd gone to the GP and gotten something for the infection. Ten days later I was back at the doctor, to find that the infection was indeed gone, and that hopefully it would now clear up by itself. A week after that, with it not having cleared up, I was at another place getting the blockage removed.

And then, suddenly, everything was fine again.

The State of Public Services

It's a fairly common refrain that one of the problems with public service provision is that people in the UK want European levels of service while paying US levels of taxation. Having spent some time in both the EU and the US this year, however, I'd submit that the UK is in a uniquely crap position, and further that the problem is not where received wisdom would have it.

The thing is, in the US public services are a lot more limited than they are here: the government simply does less for people. And that means that the cost of living is higher. (There are other flaws in the system, and the roulette wheel of being bankrupted by a medical emergency is particularly horrible. I don't advocate copying their system whole cloth.) However, tax rates are correspondingly lower in the US than they are here.

However, one big difference in the US is that while tax rates are lower, tax revenues are higher, because average wages in the US are much higher than they are here. 10% of $100,000 is rather more than 20% of £30,000!

The net effect of this is that while the government does less for people, the things that it actually does are individually much better funded.

Conversely, in the EU public services are much more extensive, and tax rates are correspondingly higher to pay for them. The trade-off here is that because public services are extensive and well funded, there's no need, or indeed scope for, things like private education or healthcare. The cost of living, therefore, with the notable exception of taxes, is much lower.

But, again, there's one big difference: average wages are higher, meaning that although the tax rate is higher, the amount of money left over is also correspondingly higher - 50% of €70,000 is rather more than 80% of £30,000!

(This also means that for a UK citizen, travelling abroad becomes horribly expensive - when going to the US there's a need for comprehensive, and therefore expensive, insurances; when travelling to the EU anything you buy, and of course accommodation, is much more expensive due to the taxes involved.)

There are, as far as I can see, two fundamental problems with the provision of public services in the UK:

• Wages are, fundamentally, too low across the board. And, indeed, we seem to have set up our system to discourage people to seek better - the income gap between someone on benefits versus someone on the minimum wage just isn't high enough to justify the time and effort required to get and keep that job, and then at each step up the latter the salary increase is too small compared with the additional time, effort, and stress required. Our economy has been too stagnant for too long, and the jobs ladder has become to compressed.
• Those providing public services are also trying to do too much with just too little money, with the effect that every service people actually interact with is desperately creaking.

And it's going to get worse before it gets better, because our councils (primarily) are almost all desperately struggling under impossible debt repayments and pension commitments, while simultaneously trying to deliver too many services with not enough money. Meaning that year on year they'll have to increase Council Tax as much as they think they can get away with while at the same time degrading every service they are delivering.

There isn't really a solution to much of this. Wage increases are a key driver of inflation, meaning that increasing them will just cause more pain for anyone who doesn't get them, and the notion of councils doing less has the recipients throwing their hands up in horror (and with good reason). So, basically we're just stuck.

And yet, I rather suspect that is exactly what is needed. Well... that and central government clearing the debts incurred by councils, so that they actually have some room to maneuver...

Facing the Hard Truth

When I was preaching a couple of weeks ago, my topic was "Setting His Face to Jerusalem", with my theme being about dealing with the thing you knew you had to do but also didn't really want to do.

Unfortunately, I find myself facing exactly this situation - there's a problem growing that will be absolutely horrible to deal with, but which if left unchecked will fairly soon have catastrophic effects. And so, much as I don't want to, I'm going to have to grasp this thistle.

I can't go into any more detail here. Indeed, there was an earlier version of this post that I took down because it alluded to too much. Suffice it to say, though, that the graph says that "if this doesn't change, then by the time we get here it will get very bad."

Now I just need to persuade everyone else of the problem... and someone has to think of a way out of the mess.

The Weakest One

I've been gradually reading the Strike/Ellacott novels by JK Rowling. The first of these was good but fell apart in the final chapter, while the others have been generally solid, and there have been a couple of really good ones in there. Unfortunately, "The Hallmarked Man" is not one of these.

The eighth book in the series, THM runs to 1050 pages, and could have done with being about 30% shorter. There's too much repetition in the "relationship" chapters of the book, while simultaneously not really moving much of anything forward except right at the very end. Meanwhile, the investigation is long and meandering, where the main problem is not "whodunnit", but rather who was it dun to - once that is clear, everything else falls into place.

But, alas, I clocked the eventual killer pretty much right away. I still didn't quite see why, or even how, but the who was pretty clear.

Unfortunately, along with the repetition in the "relationship" chapters, there was a lot of repetition in motifs for the series - there was another rival investigation company, there was another subcontractor causing trouble, there was a redux of Strike's disastrous relationship from the previous book, and there was a repeated mannerism that gave away the killer. Hopefully the remaining two novels in the series will offer something new, because otherwise this could prove to be a problem.

(I do wonder which way the next novel will go: will she do the "Empire Strikes Back" ending, where everything goes wrong before coming together for an eventual mega-happy ending, or will she end with our heroes seemingly happy, only for the final book to see Strike die some senseless, heroic death? (With Robin somehow miraculously pregnant with his child in order to provide the seed of future happiness...))

Anyway, that's a shame. On the other hand, there was a book I really didn't want to cite as my weakest book of the year, and that's now been escaped. So I guess that's something!

#25: "The Hallmarked Man", by Robert Galbraith (JK Rowling)

You First

For reasons that will forever be a mystery to me, The Algorithm has recently decided to deluge me with coverage of the "return of conscription" in the UK - supposedly something that's coming with the inevitable war with Russia.

Now, to a large extent, this is abject madness - the modern battlefield is one of drones and guided missiles, with very little place for masses of barely-trained and unwilling infantry. Plus, our country has a growing problem with angry young men who are feeling increasingly disenfranchised; the last thing our betters should be doing is training and arming them.

But our government is not exactly renowned either for its intelligence or its sanity, our military is sufficiently antiquated that "HMS Victory" is officially the flagship of the First Sea Lord (and, indeed, we have a First Sea Lord), and our print media, who are the source of this nonsense, are read primarily by people with extreme nostalgia for rationing, the Blitz Spirit, and a war that ended twenty years before they were born.

All of which suggests they might actually float it as a possibility.

In which case, I feel rather fortunate that I'm now too old to be conscripted, and both Funsize and Surprise! are too young. But we have nephews and nieces who are in the age range.

But...

The truth is that, despite our fellow feeling and inherent sense of justice, Ukraine aren't allies towards whom we have treaty obligations, and nor is Russia inherently a nation against whom we have any inherent animosity. The Cold War has been over for decades, and the ideology that supposedly threatened us is gone - Putin is very much not Stalin. So if our leaders choose to antagonise Russia and take us into war, that is a matter of their choice. (Most damningly of all, they would probably be doing so at the behest of the USA - a nation that has displayed through their recent actions that they very much do not have our interests at heart. They are, rightly, motivated by their own interests.)

So if our leaders want to take us to war, and think they want to drag our children into it, my answer is very clear: You first. If you want a war, you pick up a gun and go. And if you are absolutely desperate to send someone's children off to be senselessly slaughtered, start with your own. Can't bear to do that? (Not surprisingly - it's a downright psychotic thing to want to do.) Then stop your warmongering and leave us alone.

'Til All Are One

Peter Cullen, the legendary voice of Venger in the "Dungeons & Dragons" cartoon and Eeyore of Winnie the Pooh fame has died.

And he was the voice of Optimus Prime.

Other than perhaps Gary Gygax, I don't think there's anyone I've never met who has had such an important influence on my life. This had already been a bad, bad week, with the loss of Dolly and Tim, but this is a new and deep blow.

Thank you for everything, and rest in peace.

Poor Pup

Lion has been feeling rather sorry for herself this last week. On Friday, she was super excited when Grandad came around to take her for a walk to pick up Surprise! and Funsize from school, only to come home with a bad cut in her paw. This was cleaned and bandaged, then given a second layer of bandaging as she continued to leave bloody paw prints as she walked around.

Obviously, all of this necessitated a trip to the vet, which in turn meant a set of stitches. And all was well...

For about a day.

On the Saturday it became clear that something wasn't right, as she was again bleeding slightly. So back to the vet, to find that some of the stitches had burst. It was just a horrible situation. Anyway, the second time she was stitched up and comprehensively bandaged, and this time things seemed to be okay.

Yesterday she was back with the vet to have the bandage removed, the wound checked, and then a new bandage applied. It now looks like she's on the mend, we hope.

She has another follow-up tomorrow, when she might have the bandage removed altogether (which is a mixed blessing - on the one hand, that should speed further healing, but increases the risk of reopening the wound again).

Plus, to add indignity on top of injury, she's had to wear the Cone of Shame when being left alone for the last few days!

Ride or Die

We found ourselves in a slight lull, with nothing much banked up in our to-watch bucket, and so we decided to give "Ride or Die" a go. The upshot: it's a fun show, an enjoyable way to fill a few hours, and it's fortunate it's a comedy since all the characters are pretty terrible at their supposed jobs.

I think that's actually all I have to say about that. A second season hasn't yet been confirmed, but looks likely, and we'll almost certainly watch it if it comes.

#23: "Actually, I'm a Murderer", by Terry Deary

#24: "First Prize for the Worst Witch", by Jill Murphy (a book for Funsize, and the last book in that series)

Making a Debut

Over the summer our minister has been away, first on study leave and then on a well-deserved holiday. We have therefore had an eight week period when he has been away (strictly speaking, we've had seven, with one more to go). During that time the preaching duties have been shared: we've had a couple of guests, a couple of our retired ministers have taken a turn, and a couple of our elders have stood in. On Sunday, therefore, I made my debut preaching in the church.

However, as always when I'm presenting something, the story starts quite some time before the event itself - there is always considerable preparation to be done. In this instance, this started with the main sermon itself, and in particular the three points I wanted to cover. (Because, of course, three shall be the number of the points, and the number of the points shall be three. Four shall not be the number of the points, nor indeed shall there be two points, excepting that you proceed immediately to the third. Five is right out.)

While I was thrashing out the sermon, I also picked the hymns. This proved to be pretty easy: one of the great benefits of running the service is that you get to choose all your favourites. So I went for a number of the classics, most of which are really well known; one of which that congregation don't sing terribly often. (Also one that happened to come up three weeks before, but nobody seemed to mind very much.)

That done, there was a children's talk to work out, and then some prayers to compose. Those proved to be the hardest part of the whole, especially the Prayer of Intercession, which I wrote well in advance and so had to modify for events closer to the time.

Fundamentally, the work was all done a couple of weeks in advance - not because I was super-prepared, but because I was going away the week before and so wanted to make sure everything was in place.

Then came the day itself. Everything was prepared, everything was well rehearsed, and so the time had come. On went the traditional black suit (jeans and t-shirt not being quite the thing - I'm the youngest of the elders, but that would be pushing it a bit!), up to the church, a check on the presentation and the audio system, and then the waiting...

I do hate the waiting.

And then, come the appointed moment, on with the show!

It all went pretty well, I thought. At least, I didn't get struck down for saying something blasphemous, though that may be a low bar to clear. But everyone seemed quite positive as they left, I don't think anyone actually fell asleep, and so it's all good.

I guess I'll only really find out when the minister is next away - will I be asked back, or was I successful enough to not get asked back?

Anyway, that was my weekend.

The 'H' Fell Off

A couple of weeks ago we spent some time away as a family to celebrate Dad's birthday. Huzzah! This event therefore saw us returning to the site of family holidays of old, and of course the place where the famous "Squirrel Ballet" joke saw its genesis. I was excited to return there to see the plaque they'd obviously mounted in honour of that monumental event.

Imagine my dismay, therefore, to discover that there was no such plaque! And, indeed, while there were some squirrels in attendance, none of them were willing to converse with me on the topic of ballet. How disappointing!

But, luckily, we did have some excitement with local fauna...

On our first night, after Funsize and Surprise! were abed, I found myself sitting downstairs in our cabin reading my book, when I became aware of a moth flying around. It was a very big moth. Indeed, it was a very, very big moth!

In fact, it turned out that it was no moth at all, but instead a bat! In the cabin! How very exciting!

Anyway, we proceeded to turn off the indoor lights, turn on the lights on the balcony, open the doors, and allowed it to fly away. And that was the end of our adventure with bats.

Or so I thought...

A few days later, I woke relatively early and went into our upstairs bathroom to wash my face. I did not have my glasses on at this point, thus rendering me nearly entirely blind. Indeed, blind as a bat, one might say.

Anyway, as I was washing my face I felt a strange fluttering around my leg. And, glancing down, I again saw a bat, gently flapping away!

At this point I uttered a deeply manly battle cry, opened the window, and beat an heroic retreat out of the bathroom. We never saw the bat again, so I'm presuming it flew away, though perhaps it is still there, biding its time...

But it was only as I left the bathroom that I noticed the key point that explained this odd encounter. It turned out that the 'H' had fallen down...

Not Sounding Too Good

For the past couple of weeks I've been having some trouble with my ears - I woke up one morning with very little hearing on one side and a distinct feeling of being gummed up. I've had this once before, and while it wasn't any fun it did at least clear itself after a few days. No such luck this time.

So, yesterday I had an appointment to hopefully get it seen to, which started well and then stopped. At which point I was advised that I needed to see a GP as there were distinct signs of redness. Luckily, when I phoned the doctor's it turned out they had a same-day appointment, and so I was able to get seen right away. (That did mean my plans for the evening were cancelled, but never mind.)

Anyway, it now seems that there is indeed some sort of infection, actually in both ears, and I've been given a spray to hopefully fight it. Which, sadly, means it's not something that just gets dealt with and is then fixed, but should mean that it does eventually get back to normal.

In the meantime, though, I get to continue to pretend my Shakespearean interpretation of a Roman emperor: "Caesar is turned to hear."

Reciprocity

Around Easter, we spent a week away in Portugal. It was a good holiday. However, customs was a massive pain - being non-EU citizens we were (rightly) shunted into the "other passports" lane, which then proceeded extremely slowly. Given that we had a car booked for a particular time, and that time gradually inched past, this was a real nuisance.

And yet, all of that was entirely reasonable. As I said, we're no longer EU citizens, and so it was appropriate that we were required to use the lane for non-EU passports.

But imagine my annoyance when we returned to the UK, specifically Edinburgh airport, only to find ourselves shunted into a lane for UK passport holders... and also holders of EU passports. And so we again found ourselves in a very long queue as the team there (who were, of course, short staffed) had to deal with all the passports.

A few weeks ago I had a trip to the US. This one was somewhat easier, in that I was traveling on my own, and so was able to make use of e-gates when available.

However, on arrival to the US I was (rightly) shunted into the "other passports" lane, which then proceeded fairly slowly. Given that I was tired and hungry by this point, that wasn't ideal... but, again, it's absolutely right and fair that the US prioritize their citizens.

Flying back to the UK, I was struck by the fact that I was on an absolutely full plane, and was going to b properly shattered by the time we landed - I've never been able to sleep on a plane, so had been awake 25 hours by the time we landed. Still, I consoled myself with the thought that most of the people on the plane were from the US, so at least I'd have a much shorter lane, for UK and EU citizens, waiting for me at passport control.

But no! Because it turns out that, at Edinburgh at least, US citizens can again use exactly the same lane as UK and EU citizens. (And, actually, it was worse even than that, because just as we arrived at passport control a large cadre of passengers from the EU also arrived.)

Oh, and also, Edinburgh does have an "other passports" lane, but there were such a tiny number of people in that category at that time that they sailed through faster than everyone else!

It's fair to say I have found a new pet peeve!

The thing that most annoys me about this is reciprocity, or rather the lack of it. I would very much prefer to be part of the EU, but we're not. Nor are we part of the US. So I have absolutely no problem with them requiring us to use the "other passports" lanes. Though it would be no bad thing for our leaders to agree a mutual deal whereby we can each use a faster lane - that would be really good, with no real downside I can see.

But in the absence of such a deal, surely we should apply the same rules as are imposed on us?

(Having said all that, I was struck, again, how life in the EU is just a better deal than in the UK. And, likewise, life in the US is also a better deal, although in a very different way, than in the UK. So maybe it's appropriate that this aspect of the UK sucks appropriately. But that's a whole other rant...)

Not Sure About That...

I've been reading, and enjoying, the "Edinburgh Nights" series by T.L. Huchu, of which "The Legacy of Arniston House" is the fourth and penultimate volume. They're set in a fairly bleak post-apocalypse Scotland, plus magic and ghosts and all sorts of fun things. The closest equivalent I can think of is the "Rivers of London" series, so if you've read and enjoyed those, you'll probably enjoy these.

But...

The most recent volume expands a significant amount on the lore of the setting, and in particular the timeline of how things came to be as they are - it's now possible to put a reasonably good date on events, which means in turn that when they describe some fairly horrible events visited on particular members of the Royal Family, it's pretty clear that exactly who those people are.

(It also means, incidentally, that the storyline has a missing sister in it. Maybe that will be explained in the final volume, or maybe it will just be glossed over.)

Now, here's the thing: I'm pretty far from being a royalist, and I'm a fairly lukewarm supporter of Scottish independence. But when the story talks about a riled-up group of "separatists" who attack, and ultimately kill, members of the Royal Family, and especially where it's clear who those people have to be, that's where I become rather uncomfortable. There's a good reason why most near-future dystopias tend to gloss over the fine details of just how we got from here to there, and especially in the immediate few decades.

(Incidentally, while I would end the monarchy, the way I would do it would be by closing the lines of succession, actually for both the monarchy and indeed all inherited titles. Meaning that William would still be monarch, then George, and then potentially Charlotte and/or Louis, but their children would never be in a position to succeed. That gives them plenty of time to get used to the idea of their roles ending, and in particular means that they'll know they have to make ready for post-royal careers in a way that those currently in line probably can't. But I digress.)

But what I have no desire to see, and would certainly have no truck with, is any sort of violent resolution to the question, be that the question of monarchy or of independence. Revolution is very much not something to be wished for.

#22: "The Legacy of Arniston House", by T.L. Huchu

Day 200: Update on Goals

Time for the fourth update on goals:

• Books: By Day 200 I would hope to be at 19.73 books completed. At the time of writing I have completed 19, with no fewer than 4 in progress to some extent. So that's actually going really well. However, it's worth noting that that doorstop fantasy novel I mentioned at the previous update is still in progress, so that's a matter of a little concern.
• Weight: No update.
• Church Website: No update.
• Garden: Frustratingly, the holes that I filled in were largely dug up again. We've made another fix, and hopefully the ground will get at least a little chance to recover. We're now in a position where there are just a couple of things needing sorted, so I expect to complete this.
• Blog: The target for this point in the year should be a little over 65 posts. At the time of writing, I need three more entries to reach that, which shouldn't be a problem at all.

The upshot of all of that: things are actually looking good on almost all fronts. Here's hoping that continues!

Experimental Cookery 2026: Roasted Tomato and Gochujang Rigatoni

This one comes from the June issue of the Tesco magazine. It involved roasting some tomatoes and garlic, mixed with a little gochujang paste (which I'd never used before), and then mixing with rigatoni pasta. Basically, there was nothing to it.

The resulting meal was decent. I think the tomatoes needed either a longer roast, or perhaps to be brought up to room temperature before starting, but otherwise it was fine. (Not an all-time favourite either, mind you. It was fine.)

We'd have this again, but I'm not exactly going to rush.

#21: "The Worst Witch and the Wishing Star", by Jill Murphy (a book for Funsize)

Experimental Cookery 2026: Barbecued Prawns with Harissa Mayonnaisse

This was another entry from Tom Kerridge's "The BBQ Book". It's found in his chapter in starters, but we paired these with some crusty bread and a salad, and had it as our dinner - after a recent holiday we're both leaning towards lighter dinners for the time being.

This is quick and easy to put together, but depending on circumstances may require some preparation ahead - the recipe calls for fresh prawns in their shells, while I had frozen without, so I put the prawns in to marinade (in the fridge) in the morning, rather than the suggested 40 minutes.

Otherwise, it was dead quick - 10 mins on the BBQ and we're done.

The end result was fantastic - we'd definitely have these again. Though perhaps as a starter for another meal. Which is useful, as we're shortly going to have plenty of opportunity for BBQing.

 #20: "Unfinished Tales", by J.R.R. Tolkien

Farage's Latest Antic

There is precious little to admire about Nigel Farage. However, his ability to grab the news agenda is undeniable - an announcement that he was going to make a statement at 2pm yesterday proceeded to dominate the agenda for the next several hours. Apparently, he's been suffering terrible unfairnesses and so has decided to resign and trigger a byelection.

A few things about this:

• Apparently, MPs can't actually resign directly - they get elected to serve a fixed term, with the expectation that they serve that term, unless they die. There are two sinecures in place that exist as an exception to this - they have no salary and no duties, but they have a rule that the person holding those posts cannot also be an MP. So the MP who wants to 'resign' applies for one of those posts, and is thus disqualified, and a byelection has to occur. However, I think this gives Rachel Reeves the opportunity for top quality trolling - those two sinecures are (officially at least) in the gift of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, so she could always decline to offer them to Farage.
• That said, all of that is horribly archaic nonsense. Frankly, those two roles should be abolished, with MPs instead being allowed to resign (with a proper notice period)... but barred from standing in the byelection that results. (Because what Farage is doing, like what David Davis did a few years ago, is a pointless and expensive gimmick that really shouldn't be tolerated.)
• The other funniest thing that can happen, of course, is that Farage fails to get re-elected. Apparently, the other parties have declined to stand, in order to take the interest out of this election, so the only other candidate (so far) is Count Binface. Farage took 46% of the vote last time, which is huge in a multi-party contest but not in a two-way race.

But...

• In all of this a few things seem to have been lost, which was probably Farage's intent. The thing is, for all his talk about having done nothing wrong, Farage was under investigation concerning a sizeable donation. Now, it may be that that donation was entirely legitimate. But it may also be the case that he should have declared it and failed to do so. Finally, it's also possible that the investigation itself is politically motivated - that he's being targeted because he's a threat to the establishment. The truth of this, whichever way it lies, matters significantly. If Farage broke the rules, he should face the appropriate sanction, and a byelection win shouldn't allow him to weasel out of that. Conversely, if he is being targeted unfairly, that too is a big problem and needs to be dealt with - while I have no sympathy with Farage, and no agreement with his party or policies, the rules have to be fair for everyone including those we most dislike.
• In his diatribe Farage also made a number of serious allegations about democratic issues - that the rules for the upcoming election for the new Manchester mayor were being changed specifically to disadvantage Reform, that votes were being extended to 16 year olds for specifically party-political reasons, and that the rules for political donations were likewise being changed specifically to harm Reform. Again, the truth of these things matters. And, again, the rules have to be fair for everyone.

Now, that said, I'm of the view that votes for 16 year olds is long overdue... and indeed that Labour are probably slightly too late to gain the benefit that the expect, as the Greens will capitalise instead. And the rules on donating to political parties in this country are not as they should be, especially as regards foreign donors. I do, however, have much more concern about the changes to the rules for the election of the mayor - I find it remarkable that the government of the day just happens to put in place the system that they think will give them the very best outcome, and indeed that they are permitted to do so. These things really should be administered by an independent body.

But all of that is an aside. More important than the specific set of rules is that a fair set of rules is put in place and then applied equally to all, without fear or favour.

Also: Vote Binface!

Congratulations - You're Now Old!

At some point I may post about the celebrations for my 50th birthday. They were good.

Less good is that since then I have found myself suddenly getting a lot of letters and other messages that were clearly triggered by my turning 50 - the NHS have sent me a stick for a poo test, while two of my three pension providers have sent me a "wake up" letter to suggest that I should start thinking about retirement.

Fun times.

At least, for now, Amazon haven't started to offer up walking sticks in their "For You" section of Today's Deals. Though I daresay that that's coming.

No, Scotland. No Party.

This will be the last post about football for a while, I promise...

As of this morning, the pain is over. Thank goodness! It turns out that all the expectations that a win over Haiti and narrow defeats to Morocco and Brazil would be enough - only one team qualified on 3 points, and with a positive goal difference. We weren't going to achieve that.

But that, and my previous statements that this tournament does actually represent progress, does still mean that this tournament ultimately goes down as a failure. We had our best chance to qualify, possibly the best chance we will ever have, and we failed to do so. Worse, we can't claim that we actually played particularly well in any of our games - the one we won was perhaps lucky, and the other two saw some horrible failings in defense.

So, where does it always go wrong?

To be honest, I think a large part of the issue can be boiled down into two words, "England Expects".

Here's the thing: England always goes into these competitions with a desperate hope that this time will be the one when they finally win it (they probably won't, but I digress). However, they also go in with the definite assurance that they will get past the group stages. That may be arrogance, but it's also not unreasonable. A team of England's size and quality should be progressing.

Which is why, in the one occasion recently when they didn't this led to wholesale changes in how they approached their international setup, changes that led them to turn it around and become the (beaten) finalists last time out.

And that means that while they don't dismiss their opponents in the group stages, they also go into those matches with serious assurance that they'll get the job done.

Scotland don't do that.

Now, in fairness we had an absolutely stinking group to get through. Getting anything from Morocco or Brazil was always a really big ask. But in 2024 our group was Germany, Switzerland, and Hungary. Our 2021 group was Croatia, England, and Czechia. Meaning no offense, but neither of those is the same category of task, and both times we utterly collapsed.

So.

It remains to be seen who will be the next Scotland manager. There will be a task of qualifying for the next Euros (maybe - we might get automatic qualification), and certainly for the next World Cup, and there will be a task of refreshing the squad as players age out.

But I think we also need to stop accepting that just getting to these competitions is enough. The Tartan Army travel in too great numbers, and at too great a cost, for that to be acceptable. So we should be making a statement right from the off: barring another absolute horror of a draw, we Expect to qualify from our group stages - if not in 2028 then 2030 at the latest.

Supergirl

"Supergirl" is a female-led superhero movie, and as such the reviews are utterly useless - there's a loud and obnoxious strain of review-bombers who would have you believe this is the greatest insult to filmmaking ever consigned to the screen, and there's a misguided counter-movement who consequently cannot bear to admit any flaw in the piece. It's really quite maddening.

Supergirl is a character who has had several interpretations on the screen (and, like most superheroes, even more in the comics): there's the "female Superman" iteration portrayed by Melissa Benoist and Helen Slater, there's Sasha Calle's brutalised and damaged version from "The Flash", and here we have Millie Alcock's drunken and messy version. (There's also a version in "Smallville", but I didn't get far enough into that show to see it.) My favourite, generally, is Benoist's take... but I do have to note that "female Superman" is a largely redundant character - it's fine if Supergirl is essentially the only Kryptonian in your shared universe, but doesn't work if you're doing a Cinematic Universe centred around Superman himself. You need something different.

Anyway...

There were parts of this version of "Supergirl" that I really enjoyed, and I thought Millie Alcock was very good indeed in the role. I liked the tone of the piece, and I thought that the action sequences were mostly well done.

Sadly, there was also a significant amount that I just didn't care for. I found pretty much all of the rest of the cast largely wasted - even the usually-reliable Jason Momoa was largely forgettable (though I'm guessing Lobo will appear again...). The villains were bland (more on this later), the secondary hero was wasted, and generally it was just a whole lot of people who existed to take up space. A real shame.

I'm now going to have to go into some spoilers, so if you want to avoid, stop reading now!

There were two things in particular I didn't like about the film. Firstly, Supergirl kept finding herself getting caught out and poisoned, or incapacitated, or poisoned and incapacitated. Once was fine, but this kept happening over and over again. After about the fourth time I really started to get bored - let's just get to the end, please!

The other big problem was the villains of the piece, who were frankly all over the place.

They are introduced as raiders come to shake down a blacksmith to steal some swords - the best ever forged. Fair enough. They proceed to slaughter everyone, leaving the daughter, Ruthye, as the sole survivor. An important note: they were clearly aware that she was there, but just left her.

Ruthye then takes up her family blade, swears revenge, and draws Supergirl into the action. Except that Kara is determined not to get involved - unfortunately for her, Krypto is poisoned and she needs to get the antidote.

Later in the film, having stolen these swords, they then made no use of them whatsoever. Instead, their motivations had changed: they're now an all-male species (how?) who capture lots of young women to be their "brides" and propagate their species. Consequently, they're shown as being quite keen to capture both our heroes.

The key problem with that? Ruthye is the very same daughter that they clearly saw, but just as clearly left alone at the outset of the film. So, really, it would have been much, much easier just to take her right at the start. And then none of it happens.

But the whole "brides" thing is problematic in another way - they're another example of characters existing in the film to take up space, rather than in their own right. As mentioned, Supergirl isn't motivated by this obvious and horrible wrong - she wants the antidote for her dog. Ruthye is motivated by her desire for revenge. In terms of story, both of those are perfectly coherent motives, but they fall somewhat short under the circumstances.

Worse than that, none of the "brides" actually exist as characters. There's one who has a couple of lines (because the script required a reason for a sudden but inevitable betrayal), but barely that.

Thinking on it, it feels like the "brides" were probably added to the script quite late, and so don't really fit with the rest - they probably exist simply to show how beastly the raiders are. And that's fair enough, I guess - they deserved a good punching.

Anyway, "Supergirl" is an okay film. It's not the abomination the review-bombers would have you believe, but it's a long way from being a masterpiece. In terms of similar films, I'd consider it much better than the previous "Supergirl", a little better than "The Marvels" or "Wonder Woman 1984", but less good than "Captain Marvel". It's also much less good than "Wonder Woman", which probably remains the best female-led superhero movie (though itself not without it's flaws).

Thunderbolt and Lightning, Very, Very Frightening

I do quite like thunderstorms, especially after a prolonged spell of hot weather and the high pressure that goes with it - it always feels like a big release of tension, and the lightning itself is very impressive.

Sadly, that enjoyment is marred somewhat by having a dog that is absolutely terrified by the loud noises and bright lights, even with her ear protectors in place, and even given my best efforts to comfort her. Lion did not have a good morning on Friday.

A shame, really. Poor dog.

The Traditional Waiting Game

As expected, Scotland managed to be (deservedly) beaten by Morocco, and then beaten by Brazil. Going into that last match we knew that a draw would guarantee qualification, a 1-0 defeat would almost certainly guarantee it, 2-0 would leave us in trouble but probably okay, while a 3-0 defeat would leave us hanging by a thread.

We therefore promptly registered a 3-0 defeat, because of course we did. We now have two teams confirmed in a better third-place than us, with nine groups to play. By my count, there are three groups that are very likely to end with the third place team below us, with several others in the "maybe" bracket. We now really need Australia to beat Paraguay by at least two goals, which doesn't seem likely.

And the sad truth is that if it does end here, it's no more than we deserve. Yes, we were rather unlucky in our draw (having three host nations all in pot one somewhat skewed things), and yes we were rather unlucky not to get a penalty against Morocco, but fundamentally we kinda knew we needed more against Haiti and just didn't get it done, and against both Morocco and Brazil our defense was suspect (to put it mildly).

I still maintain that this group of players have the ability to do better, and I'm not blaming Steve Clarke for this either (though many will). Fundamentally, I think it's still an issue of confidence: in qualifying they proved that they are worthy of being in the competition, but when it comes to the actual big stage they just don't seem to be doing it.

Oh well.

As I said in my previous post on the topic, even an elimination at this point represents progress: we've avoided being the worst team (which shouldn't be a goal, but after the Euros...), we managed to score a goal, and we managed to win a match. So we go again.

 #19: "The Mystery of Dunvegan Castle", by T.L. Huchu

King of the North

So Starmer is out. I'm afraid I'm not at all sorry to see him go - I've long been of the view that he didn't so much win the last election as the Tories very much lost it (in every sense of the word), and he's been deeply unimpressive since.

And it very much looks like Burnham will be the next guy - having been gifted a very safe seat in the recent by-election he's now eligible to become Labour leader, and he has the great virtue of being untainted with the shambles that has gone before. It's a chance for Labour to make a clean break, reinvent itself, and hopefully change direction enough to fend off the threat of Reform.

Except...

I find myself deeply troubled by the democratic legitimacy of this one. At the General Election we were presented with a Labour party led by Kier Starmer and presenting themselves under a specific manifesto. Switching to Burnham and making a clean break means ditching both of those things. Would people have voted as they did under those circumstances? Would they vote that way now?

And this switch is even more outrageous than even the 'normal' changes in Prime Minister that we've had in the last decade - at least then the replacement leader was someone who had been elected at the same time and under the same manifesto as the outgoing leader, so there was at least some sense of continuity. Burnham doesn't have that - indeed, that's the very key to his relative popularity.

Our constitution doesn't require a change of PM to be followed by a General Election. In practice, however, such changes generally have been followed by one in short order: May was crazy enough to call one after Cameron left, Boris called one after he took over from May, and Rishi only had 20 months left in the parliamentary term before he had to call one. (Truss wasn't in office long enough for it to matter.)

And there are usually fairly good reasons to call one: there's always a "new manager bounce" that comes from having someone new at the helm. Gordon Brown made a critical mistake in refusing to call a General Election when he became leader.

But a General Election now can only mean bad things for Labour - at the very least, they'll lose a lot of seats (because the current Commons arithmetic is a quirk of the system, unlikely to be repeated), and may very well usher in the Reform government of our nightmares.

So he's got an unenviable decision to make: call an Election and suffer for it, or refuse and be dogged by attacks that he's even more lacking in democratic mandate that is usual for replacement PMs. Not a good position.

Ultimately, I think it comes down to this: can the Labour government get the economy working again in the next 3 years? We're in a fairly horrible position where for an awful lot of people things have yet to really recover even from the crisis in 2008, with food inflation, in particular, causing real problems. Meanwhile, wage stagnation has meant that for most work just doesn't pay enough to be worthwhile - the gap between benefits and minimum wage, and between each step on the ladder to the next, just isn't enough for the additional effort needed to climb it.

If that can be addressed, Labour have a decent chance in the next election and should hold off. If not, it's likely they'll see a modest improvement in the polls now and then a continued slide, so their best bet of a win, any win, is basically now.

Either way, I don't actually see any chance of there being a General Election any time soon. But if it really is the King in the North, I'm afraid that in this instance I think there really should be.

Ladies First

This is not the absolute worst film I have ever seen, but it's fair to say that it's right up there.

The film has a well-worn premise: a sexist arse finds himself transported into a world where the gender roles have been flipped, and is forced to learn a salutary lesson in order to get home. That done, he's a new man. Huzzah!

The fundamental problem with the film is that it appears that the filmmakers have spent the last fifty (or at the very least the last ten) years in a bubble, completely oblivious to anything that has happened since. The behaviours depicted were not acceptable even when I started work thirty years ago, never mind following Weinstein and "Me Too". It really undercuts the parody when the thing that is being parodied doesn't actually exist, except possibly in some script-writers fevered brain.

In fairness, there are two mildly funny moments in the film.

Ultimately, though, this is one to avoid. We got it bundled as part of our Netflix subscription, and it still felt like being ripped off.