About "The Worst Witch"

My record of books read today adds "The Worst Witch Saves the Day", which is the fifth book in that series. I have not previously recorded the previous volumes. So, what's going on?

The answer to that is that each night for the last several years I read to one or both of Funsize and Surprise!. The plan was that Funsize and I would finish the "Harry Potter" series and then LC and I would switch, and I'd read to Surprise! while she read to Funsize. It seemed like a good idea, but has met with a certain amount of resistance.

Anyway, in addition to my reading to Funsize, for a while we had an arrangement where she read to me - a few pages a day, which quickly builds up. We seem to have moved beyond that, as she's now reading more and more books at school so doesn't need the practice in the same way.

The first such book she read was "The Worst Witch", which was then followed by "The Worst Witch Strikes Again", and then "A Bad Spell for the Worst Witch". She then started the fourth book in the series, "The Worst Witch All at Sea" before we completed "Harry Potter", and I then finished it off.

We've now started book six, "The Worst Witch to the Rescue", and will no doubt complete the sequence at some point. Meanwhile, Surprise! and I are most of the way through the "Thomas the Tank Engine" stories, which are fun to revisit, after which I think we'll be tackling "Winnie the Pooh".

#15: "The Worst Witch Saves the Day", by Jill Murphy (a book for Funsize)

Rangers Management Woes 2026 (part one?)

The Scottish title race is now suddenly down from a three-horse race to two-horse. And Celtic are probably now favourites - unless they happen to drop points to Motherwell on Wednesday, they'll go into the final match knowing a win will secure the title and will thus probably get that win.

But the big losers out of this are Rangers, who were looking strong a few short weeks ago, then collapsed to three defeats out of three. And, frankly, it is by no means certain that the pain is finished - they may yet lose to Hibs and/or Falkirk. They've also lost out on Champions League football next year, and may even find themselves looking at the Conference League (depending on the Scottish Cup result).

This all leaves Danny Röhl in a sticky position: suddenly he's gone from being the hero of the hour to hearing a clamour of Rangers fans wanting him gone.

My thoughts?

Well, first up, the last few games have been pretty much disastrous. And he has indeed been largely to blame. But prior to that he was doing a decent job, and there are hints that given time things could improve. Perhaps.

And, of course, there's an awful lot of the blame that needs to go to the players who have, frankly, been shocking.

Ultimately, I don't have a specific conclusion on his position at this time. In some ways, it's a shame that the rumours about the Wolfsburg job had no merit: that would have allowed for a very clean exit with plenty of plausible deniability on all sides. Oh well.

I think the Rangers upper management need to make a choice: either pull the trigger now and replace him, or decide to stick with him.

But whichever way they go, they really should make a commitment that the manager they start next season will be the same manager they end next season with. Rangers can't keep replacing managers every six months, not just because it's very expensive but because it's a reset back to the start of the project every time. They need to make a commitment and then see it through.

The other thing I'll note is that both Rangers and Celtic seem to have serious problems with their scouting systems - they're spending huge amounts of money, and really not getting the benefits they should from it. Hearts and Motherwell have much smaller budgets, and have been flying high this season. And, of course, when Rangers and Celtic enter European competition they find themselves up against teams that again have much smaller budgets, against teams against who they should (on paper) have no real problem with. And yet they struggle again and again.

I think the issue here is that they're operating as though they're English clubs (which I think also find themselves underperforming relative to the money they pay out). The difference is that English clubs are swimming in money, so when they pay over the odds they still get top-tier players; Rangers and Celtic are not, and so they're paying over the odds for, frankly, fairly mediocre players. In terms of money paid out, they've very much punching below their weight.

So, for Rangers, they need to make a decision and then maybe find a new manager. Celtic need to find a new manager (Martin O'Neill has been fantastic, but he's surely not going to go on for another season?). And both of them should look to their scouting systems, and become a lot more efficient.

Well, Thank Goodness That's Over

The Scottish elections are finally done. Thank goodness!

Unfortunately, it was a fairly unedifying choice. There were a huge array of no-hope micro-parties, but of those actually able to win at least one seat the choices were grim: evil, very evil, mostly useless, almost completely useless, completely useless, and legitimately insane.

Even before it all kicked off, there were really only two questions of interest:

• Would the SNP somehow get a majority? The odds were spectacularly against it, but stranger things have happened, and if it had happened then the consequences could have been interesting.
• Just how many seats would Reform win, and at whose expense?

In the event, the answer to the first was the expected "no". In fact, the SNP lost both seats and vote share. We've ended up with a mostly-balanced parliament otherwise, with a nominal pro-independence majority, but with the minority SNP government able to pass legislation if they can gain support from any other party.

The answer to the other question was a fairly depressing 17, though these came almost entirely at the expense of the Tories. So not great, but not seismic. (It's perhaps worth noting that I don't approve of the other parties now closing ranks to try to isolate Reform in the chamber. Firstly because I think it will be counter-productive - people voted Reform largely in protest at our MSPs refusing to listen to them; doubling down on this will only strengthen Reform. Secondly, though, is that those people who voted Reform are entitled to representation. I don't like how they've voted, but that is beside the point.)

Anyway, the upshot of this is that everything will basically carry on as they have been: the SNP will form a minority government, Swinney will ask for an independence referendum for form's sake, Starmer will say "no", and then we'll have five years of not much happening. And then we go again.

(Incidentally, Starmer has significant justification for that "no" - the SNP made clear that an SNP single-party majority would be the mandate for a referendum, and they didn't get that; in fact they lost both seats and vote share. But, of course, that entire argument is nonsense - in a representative democracy the mandate for something is that a majority of elected representatives vote for it. The real justification is rather more stark: the constitution is a reserved matter, and Starmer says "no". How you square that against the right of Scottish, and Welsh, people for self-determination is a topic for another day.)

One last thought: In the Scottish election Labour once again lost both seats and vote share. It is deeply unpopular here. In Wales, Labour have lost control of the Senedd for the first time ever. Labour have never had any presence in Northern Ireland (where, again, a party in favour of leaving the UK is in government). And in England Labour have just taken a major kicking due to their huge unpopularity.  There's no part of the UK where Labour are actually popular. And yet, Labour have a huge majority in the Commons, a consequence of a voting system that doesn't really work. That's not a good situation to be in in a representative democracy - in what sense does parliament represent the wishes of the people?

#14: "Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments", by T.L. Huchu

Experimental Cookery 2026: All-in-One Lamb Dhansak

This one comes from the Hairy Bikers "Great Curries". It was dead easy to put together, but did have a couple of long steps - an hour in the oven followed by another 45 minutes in the oven. But, as noted, the oven did all the work there, so once it was settled I was able to go off and do other things.

The end result was very nice - it's quite different from the other lamb curries we've had, not carrying anything like the same heat, but had a nice combination of lamb, lentils, and butternut squash. All in all, that's a win - we'll have this again.

But there's not really anything more to say about it than that.

#13: "The Return of the King", by J.R.R. Tolkien

Young Sherlock

I don't have much to say about this one. I very much enjoyed it - I wasn't so keen in the final episode, which seemed to rush an awful lot of things through to a conclusion, but everything leading up to that point was really good.

All in all, I'm looking forward to the next season. This one gets an unalloyed recommendation.

(Though it's still in my usual category: if you're subscribed to Prime, it's worth the watch; it's probably not worth the subscription all by itself.)

Dear Political Parties...

Yesterday I received an election communication from Reform. Amusingly, it came in an envelope - I can only assume they were worried that if they sent these things out without they would somehow get 'lost' along the way.

Anyway...

At the outset, I need to note that there is no world in which I was ever going to vote for Reform, so I barely glanced at the card before dropping it in the "to shred" pile. But that glance was enough to catch my eye.

Because the headline on the thing was something along the lines of "only Reform can stop the SNP". In other words, exactly the same claim every other party is making - you need to vote for us, not because of any virtue we might claim or any policy we have to propose, but because you want to stop them (whoever "them" are).

It's hard to think of a more dispiriting approach to politics. Every party, it seems, has given up on actually arguing why we should vote for them. Instead, they're all more concerned about stopping the other guy.

I suppose that makes sense. In terms of policy, none of the big four have any meaningful differences. Labour and the SNP, in particular, are functionally identical - the only difference is on the topic of independence, where Labour are opposed (of course), and the SNP are in favour (in the same way as I'm in favour of becoming a billionaire - it's never going to happen, I have no power to make it happen, and I'm not going to take any meaningful action to make it happen). Basically, Labour just want to do exactly the same things in exactly the same way, but somehow better and with different names on all the people. The Lib Dems are slightly different, but not so you'd actually notice, while the Tories are slightly different in the other direction - mostly wanting all the same stuff but with lower taxes that they won't deliver.

Since there's so little between them, and essentially no difference in terms of the quality of their candidates (or, really, the lack thereof), I can well understand why they're just focusing on stopping one another - it's all they have.

But Reform are actually proposing something that's actually different. It's awful, hateful nonsense, of course, but it does in theory mean they have something to advocate. And yet they choose exactly the same pointless attack - only we (a party who have never won a seat in a Holyrood election) can stop the SNP (who will almost inevitably form the next government).

In fact, the only party that I give any credit in this utter mess of an election are the Greens, who at least are proposing some actual policies and suggesting any reason why we should actually vote for them. It's just a shame that they're utterly insane... but even that's a step up from hateful. So, small mercies, I guess.

(The summary for those who can't be bothered to read the preceding: stop telling us we should vote against the other lot. Tell us why we should vote for you. And if you've got nothing, go away and have a long think about why that is, and then change it.)

Bad Boys: Ride or Die

This is an interesting one, because it really should be an awful film, and yet somehow manages to be pretty okay.

As I mentioned in my review for "Bad Boys For Life", I think the first "Bad Boys" film is actually a very good action film, the second has aged really badly, and the third is better than it really should be - and, indeed, is better than the second.

The fourth film really shouldn't work, not least because the premise is that their beloved captain is being framed for crimes he didn't commit and they have to help him... except that he died in the third film. So that's weak to start with.

Still, I suppose the premise of a film doesn't actually need to be stellar - especially a dumb action film, it's really just about kicking off the action and then you go from there. And the action in this one, while being exactly what you'd expect from this type of film and nothing more, is still well handled.

The upshot of all of that is that "Bad Boys: Ride or Die" is somehow a step up on the okay-ish "Bad Boys For Life", and a big step up from "Bad Boys 2". It's not as good as the first film, but that's not a surprise.

(This does mean that "Bad Boys" is now joining "Mission: Impossible" and "The Fast and The Furious" in being a series that seems to be getting better as it goes on - and, in all three cases, after a very weak second instalment. Though I think they may have left it a bit too late between the second and third films for it to have the legs for a long run, unless they can find a way to pass the torch on.)

Anyway, as regards this film my recommendation is the same as for the third: if you enjoyed "Bad Boys" you'll probably enjoy this; if you didn't you almost certainly won't. And if you have a subscription to the appropriate service (currently Netflix - I don't know if that's their permanent home) then it's worth a watch. But, as always, I wouldn't subscribe just for this.

Lean and Hungry

About nine months ago I made a mistake - following some significant gains of the year before I decided to take a year to consolidate those gains, with a view to then striking out again from a position of strength. That seemed like a sensible approach, not least because the previous few years had been fairly punishing.

Unfortunately, the big problem is that those months have basically just drifted, with nothing much being achieved, and that "position of strength" just hasn't materialised - frankly, it feels like I'm if anything worse off than I was a year ago.

Still, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

So, time to reset, shake off the dust of the last year, and get back in train.

How To Do The Big Shop

Over the weekend the Algorithm saw fit to inflict on me several instances of an awful video by an influencer (female) complaining about another awful video by an influencer (male) talking about doing the Big Shop. I'm reasonably sure that the latter of these was either a parody, or perhaps someone advocating for deploying weaponized incompetence, while the former was a rant about the horrors of the mental load.

Anyway, as someone who is well-versed in the arts of the Big Shop, I thought I'd offer my advice.

Step One: Plan the Meals

The first step in the Big Shop is actually nothing to do with shopping, and is instead a matter of deciding what you're going to eat in the time covered by said Big Shop (in our case, that's the next week, but your timing may vary). This includes four things: breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks of various sorts.

(I should note at this point that for us three of those are pretty straightforward - we maintain supplies of some staples for breakfasts, lunches, and snacks, and add only a few "specials"; that is, maybe a different breakfast for one weekend morning, or something for a lunch, or whatever. The only thing I really need to note is which days I need to make sandwiches for packed lunches.)

By and large, the person who is going to actually do the cooking should take the lead on this. Ideally, they should review their choices with the others in the household, just in case everyone is sick of pizza every night.

Step Two: Prepare the List

Now that you have the meals decided, the next step is to prepare the list for the Big Shop. Mostly, this involves working around the key rooms in the house and seeing what's coming to an end: if you're on your last tube of toothpaste, add that to the list; if you have plenty of mouthwash, maybe skip it this week. And so on and so forth.

I generally start upstairs with the bathrooms, then work through the cleaning products downstairs, and then add foodstuffs last. When it comes to the meals decided on in the previous step, dig out the list of ingredients, check what you have, and add anything you're missing.

Once complete, double-check the list. Then it's quite important to review it with others: firstly, with the person who is doing the cooking (as above), in case there's some implied accompaniment you've forgotten, and also with the other adults in the house. That extra check is definitely worthwhile: there's a good chance you've forgotten something, and there are potentially other things that need bought that you might not know about (I don't, for example, keep track of when LC is going to run out of shampoo and conditioner).

This is also the time for people to express any key preferences that they have: if there's a particular brand of toilet paper that they simply have to have, or they would like green apples instead of red this week, or whatever else, now is the time to say! (And if you're not going to be able to remember, write these preferences on the list!)

Quite important: The person who is actually going to do the Big Shop should also be the person who takes the lead on putting together the list. (Just as the person who does the cooking should usually be the person who cleans up afterwards...) That feels counter-intuitive, as people naturally want to split the labour, and this seems like a good place, but trust me on this one - as I mentioned above, there's a good chance you've forgotten something, and there's also a good chance that the review won't catch it. But there's a decent chance that you'll see the item when going around the shop and realize you need it... and that only works if you were the person who made the list.

(The reason for the cooking/clean-up thing is that it encourages efficiency - if you know you're going to have to do the clean-up, this provides incentive to only use those utensils you actually need and to clean as you go. Lacking that incentive the "occasional cook" is likely to leave a disaster area.)

Optional: Reordering the List

Having done the Big Shop a few times you should have the layout of the store memorised. So take a few minutes to rewrite the list in the order in which you'll find them in the shop. Especially if you have the list in an electronic format, this will save a disproportionate amount of time in the shop.

(That said, there's an even higher level of mastery where you transcend the need to do even that, and can simply mentally reorder the list as you go.)

Step Three: Shop

So, you've made a list, you've checked it twice, and so it's time to go to the shop.

This is actually the easiest bit of the job: go, put the things in the trolley, check you've got everything from each zone before you move to the next (to minimise backtracking), and once you've got everything, you're done.

Now, here's the bit that those two awful influencers got themselves in a mess with: supermarkets have a wide range of products, so how do you decide which of the dozen types of apples is the right one, or which of the fifty bottles of fabric softener is just right?

Here's the answer: either at the review at the end of Step Two, or perhaps at some time in the past, a strong preference may have been expressed on exactly what is wanted - as noted, it may be green apples this week; it may always be crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth. If so, that's the thing to get.

If there is no expressed preference, or said preference can't be fulfilled (because they don't have crunchy peanut butter), the person doing the Big Shop makes the choice. That may mean getting an alternative (a small jar of smooth peanut butter, or the store's own brand instead of the "good stuff", or whatever), or it might mean not getting anything ('cos you'll manage without, or pick it up somewhere else later).

Step Four: Take it Home

Once you've got all the stuff, paid for it, and packed it, it's time to take it home. You then get the joys of unpacking and putting it away. All of which is pretty easy: it's just work.

Responsibility of the Other Person

Where it seemed to go wrong for both of our awful influencers was a set of unreasonable expectations: on the one hand, the male influencer was apparently heading to the shop with a list, but also with a knowledge that his partner expected each and every item to be exactly the preferred one, necessitating a constant cycle of phoning home to check every decision. Meanwhile, the female influencer was complaining that their partner didn't have that exact list of preferences memorised - she objected to the mental load of having to maintain that knowledge.

Which, in both cases, is fairly idiotic.

In a sensible environment, here's how it works: where there are a reasonably small number of Important Preferences, the person doing the shopping should be able to memorise and apply those. Or, failing that, get them written down somewhere so they can be checked. If you partner hates Chardonnay, it's reasonable to expect that you'll know that and shop accordingly (I make no comment on how reasonable, or otherwise, that preference is - people are allowed to like or dislike things).

Beyond that reasonably small number of known preferences, it needs to not matter - if the choice of diluting juice isn't one of the Important Preferences, then when faced with the choice between "Summer Fruits" and "Apple & Blackcurrant" the person doing the shop should just make a choice (because it doesn't matter), and when they get back that choice shouldn't even warrant a comment (because it doesn't matter). Chances are the difference won't even be noticed.

However... If it is actually the case that one person have a large set of Important Preferences (because they must have green apples, and they must have "Apple & Blackcurrant" juice, and they must have a particular type of cheese, and and and...) then the solution is this: that person must be the one to do the Big Shop.

In short, then, the main responsibilities of the person who is not doing the job are to clearly express their Important Preferences beforehand, and then afterwards to accept that the person who is doing the job will then act independently on everything else.

(And, incidentally, that applies to just about everything else. The way I pack the dishwasher won't be exactly the same as the way you pack the dishwasher. Or batch clothes up for the washing machine, or wash the car, or whatever else the task is. But as long as the job gets done, the finer detail over preference doesn't really matter... and indeed needs to not matter. If for some reason it does really matter to one or the other, then that person needs to be the one doing that job.)

Two Last Notes:

1. I feel the need to reiterate that this post is entirely motivated by the two awful videos I referenced at the outset. Funnily enough, we more or less manage to get the Big Shop done without LC and I passive-aggressively sniping at one another. (Basically, I'm hoping that this will clear a bit of headspace that those videos have been filling over the past couple of days.)
2. Yes, pretty much everything here is, or should be, the bleeding obvious. I do hope that at least one of those videos was intended as a joke, because I'm increasingly finding myself wondering how supposed adults actually manage to get through the day.

Optimus Prime's Weakness of Leadership

Through a slightly bizarre sequence of events, that I'm not going to elaborate on, I found myself thinking once more about my great role-models for leadership. There are several of these, but two stand head and shoulders over the others: Jean-Luc Picard and, of course, Optimus Prime. Each of these has many fine qualities that tend towards exceptional leadership, including the ability to motivate and direct a diverse team so that they become more than the sum of their parts.

However, last time I found myself musing on Optimus Prime's leadership technique I found myself unavoidably recognizing one key weakness (and it's one I was reminded of again today). Ironically, it's something that I suspect the writers included thinking it showed the character's strength as a leader, not realizing it was the opposite.

Specifically, there are a number of times when Optimus is absent or unavailable: he gets injured, or captured, or dies, and at these times suddenly the team starts to unravel - there's no clear direction, everyone starts pulling in different directions, and nothing much gets done. Then Optimus (or in one case Rodimus) steps in and pulls things back together and all is well again.

I think that's supposed to show just how important the good leader is to the team. And it's true - a good leader is of huge importance to a team and can indeed cause the team to become more than the sum of its parts.

But...

It's also the case that there will be times when the team has to function in the absence of that leader, and one of the attributes of a good leader is that they will have prepared for exactly that eventuality. I can demonstrate this most effectively by referencing the other paragon on my list: in "Best of Both Worlds" Jean-Luc Picard is captured and assimilated by the Borg, and the crew of the Enterprise have to manage in his absence.

And so what happens is that Riker, the nominated First Officer, steps up and assumes command. And for the remainder of the story he provides the direction and leadership. But even there, it's not quite as simple as one person replacing another - prior to that event Picard has established a clear culture within the crew such that everyone knows their role, everyone knows the expectations of how things need to be done, and so when Picard isn't there things just click into place.

Having a good leader in place is invaluable. But a big part of that is how they prepare the team for their absence. And, unfortunately, that was a weakness I was forced to recognize in my hero.

Experimental Cookery 2026: Chicken, Tomato, and Chickpea Stew

This one came from the Tesco magazine. It was dead easy to put together, although I made a crucial mistake by buying chicken drumsticks instead of drumstick fillets - this necessitated a fairly long bake instead of a fairly short simmer.

The end result was very nice, but would have been better without the bones and without the greens - I always like the idea of these, but they never live up to their promise (not to mention making me ill to at least some extent).

All in all, a success, and one we'll have again (albeit with the modifications mentioned above).

Two To-Dos

As I mentioned in my previous post, two of my goals are to update the church website and to sort out our garden. Each of these is a task with several subtasks, and as I may have a window of opportunity for dealing with some of these, here is the current state of affairs:

For the Church Website

I left this with the church calendar and sidebar up-to-date and the pages for discontinued groups disabled (meaning that at least there is no superfluous information on the site). My next steps are as follows:

1. Generate shell pages for all the new groups that don't currently have one.
2. Clean up the site menu - for some reason this is now not accepting updates, so I may need to generate an entirely new menu and insert that instead.
3. Clean up the "contact us" form and possible the maps.
4. Reach out to the various groups to get information to properly populate the individual pages.

For the Garden

This is the more likely to see progress in the near future. The steps for this one:

1. Dispose of the old gas canister. Since switching to the new charcoal BBQ, this is now superfluous.
2. Dispose of the old kids slide and seesaw - Funsize and Surprise! are too big for these now, and they've seen better days, so it's time to get rid.
3. Fix the stairs at the side of the house. The top step, in particular, needs properly fixed back in place.
4. Remove the lawn leading from the patio to the aforementioned steps, and replace with stones to provide better grip and/or drainage.
5. Fill to two holes Lion has recently dug into the lawn.
6. Fix the huge hole we dug for Lion's sandpit - this was a disaster that now needs undone. This requires laying a mesh, then a layer of small stones, then successive layers of soil until it's properly filled.
7. Reseed the lawn so it has actual grass rather than various versions of mud.

The BBQ will also need cleaned, and there's a certain amount of weeding and of cleaning up the borders, but I'm not capturing those are distinct steps - they're just general maintenance.

#11: "The Autumn Republic", by Brian McClellan

#12: "The Fox and the Ghost King", by Michael Morpurgo

Day 100: Update on Goals

Day 100, so time for the second update of the year. I should note that this is being written quite a ways in advance, and so may need an edit after the fact. Anyway, here goes:

• Books: The on-track target for day 100 is 9.86 books. I'm somewhat ahead of target on this, and so am pretty happy with it, all in all.
• Weight: There has been something of a reversal since the last update, and then a reversal of the reversal. All in all, not great but not terrible.
• Church Website: Eh. I've made an update or two to the website, but can't say I'm noticeably closer to completing this goal.
• Garden: The new goal for the year, this hasn't seen any tangible progress, but I do more or less have a plan on how to tackle it. So that's good, I think. Obviously, with the weather improving (hopefully), I'd expect to deal with this in the next six months, with the goal being complete before the clocks go back. We'll see if that happens.
• Blog: By day 100, I would expect to have posted approximately 33 times. I'm a bit behind target here, but expect to catch up in the next few days.

So that's that. Basically, everything is going nice and steadily. Can't complain... but no huge breakthroughs either.

Wonder Man

This was weird. I enjoyed it, but it was certainly weird.

"Wonder Man" is an 8-part Disney+ series about a super-powered actor trying to hide his powers in order to have a career (for insurance reasons, super-powered individuals cannot work in Hollywood), and Trevor Slattery trying to get past his previous role as The Mandarin. And the basis of the show is that unlikely friendship between the two actors.

I didn't care for the first episode. After that, however, it very rapidly found a groove, built largely on the chemistry between the two leads (Ben Kingsley, in particular, is always reliable). Though the single funniest part is an extended cameo by Josh Gadd in a flashback episode.

All in all, I recommend this. Though my usual caveat applies: if you have Disney+ then check it out; if not, don't subscribe just for this.

I'm also not entirely won over by the notion of a second season. The ending of this one suggests to me that any second season would be sufficiently different as to lose something crucial. I might be wrong, but...

#10: "Until August", by Gabriel García Márquez (apparently, the author concluded that this one didn't really work, and should be buried rather than published. While I don't necessarily agree with the second part of that, I'm afraid I do agree with the first)

The Last Voyage of the Demeter

This is a film I'd been wanting to see for some time, and we finally took the opportunity this weekend. It's a bit of a frustrating film - I enjoyed it, but also have to acknowledge that it could clearly have been a lot better.

Apparently, the film spent a lot of time in development hell, suffering multipel rewrites, changes of director and cast, and general messing around. And, sadly, it shows - it feels like it could have done with either one more, or several fewer, rewrites, a bit of tightening up. Oh, and some humour, at least in the first section.

The other thing to note is that we already know going in that this is a doomed voyage - even for the occasional viewer unfamiliar with "Dracula", the title of the film gives that away. So the film might as well lean right into that. It's a feature, not a bug, so perhaps the crew should acknowledge their fate a whole lot earlier and start making plans based on that fatalism. But that doesn't quite happen.

I don't really have much more to say than that. As I said, I enjoyed it, and it could have been better. Given the chance to view it as part of an existing subscription, I would recommend it as a decent use of two hours, but I wouldn't recommend subscribing just to get this film.

#9: "The Two Towers", by J.R.R. Tolkien

How to Create a Shortage

Here we go again: with the US attacks on Iran we now have the Strait of Hormuz closed, and some disruption to the global supply chain for fuel. And so now we have rumours of petrol shortages, which will no doubt be followed up with panic buying, actual shortages, and all the troubles that that entails.

And, as usual, there's no need for it. We actually have plenty of fuel (for now, at least), so if people just keep calm and carry on things will sort themselves out. (Now, if the disruption carries on too long, that would no longer be the case. But that's a longer-term problem.)

But of course, that's not what's happening. Instead the media are playing up that fear (since it's the story), which means everyone needs to act (because you can't afford to be the one person who runs out), which means that there's a run on petrol, which means there's now a shortage.

Which is really frustrating - the issue isn't a lack, but rather that the rate at which people consume is faster than the rate at which the pumps can be restocked, and so we run out. At least for a while. And then there will come a period where the pumps are restocked and everyone has a full tank and egg on their faces.

In the meantime, though, we're still stuck. As I said, you can't afford to be the one person who runs out, so you need to play the game the same as everyone else. And so we create a shortage. Great.

Paging the Tooth Fairy

Rather shockingly, Surprise! announced to us on Monday that he had a wobbly tooth. This morning, he announced that he no longer had a wobbly tooth.

This is even more of a shock than when Funsize announced the same three years ago - it all feels rather too early for us to be at this stage, though he is very close to his fifth birthday. Anyway, the upshot of this is that we'll once again have to call on the services of the tooth fairy.

Thanks Donald

Two years ago, we found ourselves coming to the end of our fixed mortgage deal just as there was a spike in interest rates. So we took our a two-year fix, in the hope that they'd come down again in that time. And that was fine.

And, indeed, the plan looked really good until about two weeks ago - the base rate had dropped to 3.75% with a further reduction expected this week and then, hopefully, at least one more in the months to come. Which would have been good.

Right on cue, therefore, this situation with Iran kicked off. Which has of course disrupted the oil supplies, leading to an immediate spike in prices, and in turn a rise in inflation. So the expected rate reduction didn't come, any prospect of further increases has evaporated, and indeed it's likely that the Bank of England may well start raising the rate again (because of course the thing to do in an impending cost of living crisis is to pile on a load more misery - that'll teach the plebs to want such fripperies as petrol to commute and food to eat).

And, just for fun, we're also coming to the end of our current deal on gas and electricity...

Oh well, I guess things could be a lot worse.

The Drift

It has been a frustrating week. On the face of things, it's all okay - things are just proceeding onwards, there was an issue but there's a workaround, and there are things to do but no immediate crisis. And yet... it all just feels like a big drift. There's a bunch of stuff I'm waiting on, and no signs of anything much happening until then.

Which all feels a bit odd, but it all does definitely feel like it's waiting for something to happen.

Reboot Whack-a-Mole

It has been an odd weekend for news on the reboot front - late on Saturday I saw the news that the "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" reboot is now not going ahead, and then yesterday came the news that "Firefly" is restarting, with an animated series set between the show and the film, reuniting all the surviving cast members.

I must admit, I was actually rather glad of the first news, and have deeply mixed feelings about the second. Because while "Buffy" and (in particular) "Firefly" are prime material for a reboot in some form, any such reboot has to grapple with the Joss Whedon problem: he has been cancelled for fairly good reason, but he's also pretty much essential to the success of those properties.

The upshot of that is that I find it extremely hard to muster any enthusiasm for any reboot that doesn't involve Joss Whedon, and have no enthusiasm for one that does. As I said before, I'm afraid it's time for those IP to die.

(And yet, all that said, if the "Firefly" show does actually happen, I inevitably will end up watching it, because I can't claim to be entirely consistent.)

#8: "Tyrant", by Conn Iggulden