Dear FA...

So, England are effectively out of the World Cup. Granted, it's still mathematically possible for them to go through (if Italy win both their matches, and England beat Costa Rica, and the goal difference goes for them), but take it from a Scotsman - hoping for the "mathematically possible" is folly.

Anyway, in light of last night's defeat, the media have gone into immediate post-mortem mode, trying to find someone to blame and some way forward. And it would appear that the expectation is that Roy Hodgson will be identified as the scapegoat and either resign or be sacked.

This would be a mistake.

There are two things that really should be borne in mind here:

Firstly, the draw for this World Cup has thrown up some groups that are dominated by a single big team (for example, it looks likely that both France and Argentina will easily win their groups, and in fact will just glide into the quarter finals without issue), and some groups that are hugely difficult. England are in one of the latter sort. And if you're in a really tough group, it's not hugely surprising if you don't get through it - someone has to lose.

Secondly, it was always known that Roy Hodgson had a significant rebuilding job to do. With the gradual retirement of the so-called (and over-rated) "Golden Generation" there was always going to be a need to bring through lots of new players, establish a new defence and attack, and generally bring the team forward. That process has begun, but it's not done yet, and not by a long way.

For the two reasons above, most of the informed analysts were suggesting that England would face a difficult time and would likely fail to progress from their group. That being the case, given that England have faced a difficult time and likely failed to progress, why the surprise? Why the outrage? "Meets expectations" isn't good enough, but it's no reason to panic.

And it's not as if England were roundly thrashed or played particularly badly. (Well, at least against Italy - against Uruguay they did get caught out at the back at least once when they really couldn't afford it, and they never really looked like equalising a second time.) There are some good players there, the performances were (mostly) disciplined, and there's reason for hope.

The thing to do at this point is simply: Keep Calm and Carry On. Don't change the manager, don't try to overhaul the playing staff radically... just wait. Two years from now, the 'kids' who are just breaking into the side will be markedly better. The team will be more used to playing together. They'll just naturally do that bit better - not well enough to win, right enough, but then there's probably no manager and no possible England team that could be fielded that would win.

Longer term, achieving that win would require the production of a large number of new, top-quality players. It's not a matter of finding 11 world-beaters, or even 25 to make up a squad; it's a matter of getting together 50 with a mix of youth and experience. You don't get that in 2 years. It's a decade-long project at best. And, for reasons I've posted before, it's probably never going to happen. Sorry.

But for now, it's really just a matter of beating Costa Rica (not to qualify, but to salvage some pride), and then looking forward to the next one. Panicking is the wrong response, and really won't help.

Don't Say It Too Loud...

... but I'm rather hoping for an England win tonight. Despite the defeat, I felt they played very well against Italy, and the truth is that the World Cup will just be much more interesting with England than it will be once they're out. So, provided they play well again, a deserved win would be a nice result.

I can't see them progressing beyond the next round, though.

On a mostly-unrelated note, I'm really enjoying this World Cup. The timings of the matches are pretty much ideal (what with kick off of the first match coming just as I finish work), and the matches themselves have mostly been fun, with some really good ones out there. Thus far, it has of course been Holland and Germany who have most impressed me, though I sense both Brazil and Argentina are still to show us what they can really do.

And the demise of Spain was most interesting. It seems teams now have the beating of them; it felt a bit like the end of an era, like when Federer suddenly ceased to be invincible.

#27: "Raising Steam", by Terry Pratchett (great book, as always, though not quite a contender for Book of the Year.)

How to Fix Westminster

Warning: this is a tedious 'politics' post. Feel free to skip it! (Also, I promise not to do another one until the World Cup is over - I'll talk about football instead.)

I've mentioned before that my reason for voting "Yes" in September is largely due to my belief that politics in the UK is unfixably broken. That raises an obvious question: what would a fix look like?

(After all, "unfixably broken" really isn't a helpful definition. By defining what I would consider a fix, though, that should give some scope of the issue, and explain why I don't think it's realistic to expect change.)

So, what would a fix look like? Well, the first thing is that I believe we need approximately 650 new MPs. Assuming the front benches on the government and opposition sides represent the cream of the crop, I feel confident in declaring that they're just not fit for purpose.

However, my issues are more to do with how MPs are selected and how they operate, rather than the specifics of the people we currently have there. I therefore have a further eight general points, and then one further point specific to the Labour party. So, in time-honoured 'list' format...

1. MPs should be required to maintain their primary residence in their constituency, and to have lived there for 5 years prior to seeking selection. This one is quite straightforward - an MP should be there to represent his/her constituency in Westminster, not to represent Westminster to his/her constituency. Some random bod dropped in from Oxbridge because it's a safe Labour seat really can't do that.
2. MPs should be selected by the local party without interference from central office. Again, that's a simple one - local people should be the ones to choose who they want to represent them. I understand what Harriet Harman is trying to do with all-women short-lists, but she's wrong - it's anti-democratic. (And, yes, that does mean that if the local party is racist, sexist, or homophobic then they might select a horror as candidate. That's where you hope the electorate are smart enough to vote otherwise and/or the other parties are at least remotely competent in highlighting the fact.)
3. Remove party alliegance from the ballot paper. Firstly, because we (at least in theory) elect a person to represent us, not a party. But it's also because this forces the parties to get the name of the candidate out there in order to win votes; they have to campaign in all constituencies, not just the thirty or so 'swing' constituencies in the South East of England. (Despite being reasonably politically-aware, I know next to nothing about Eric Joyce, my MP, and I knew literally nothing about the SNP guy I voted for last time - not even his name. That's really not healthy.)
4. We need a proper right of recall. The current government have introduced something, which is to the good, but it doesn't go far enough. I suggest the following: 10% of the electorate in the event of any conviction, any meaningful breach of their code, if they are stripped or the party whip, or if they choose to leave their party. Or if 40% of the turnout demand a recall, they should be able to do so unconditionally once in the term of the parliament. (For example, Falkirk has approx 82,000 voters, of whom 62% voted at the last election. Under my proposal, Eric Joyce would have faced recall when he was stripped of the Labour whip provided 8,200 voters demanded it (10%), or unconditionally if 20,336 voters demanded it (40% of the 62% turn out). That's still a very high threshold, but it does at least provide the option.) Oh, and we should have an (at least theoretical) ability to demand the dissolution of parliament entirely, and thus force a General Election.
5. We need minimum attendance requirements for MPs, both in the House and in their constituencies.
6. Manifesto commitments need to be made legally binding. Otherwise, how are we supposed to know what we're voting for? (Plus, that eliminates one of my biggest outrages - first Labour campaigned that they wouldn't introduce top-up fees, and then did exactly that; then the Lib Dems made personal pledges to work to eliminate fees, and then voted to increase them to £9k a year. The Tories are the only party I can trust on the topic of tuition fees, which is horrible.)
7. MPs' pattern of work needs radically changed. This involves both dramatically reducing the number of holidays they have per year and dramatically reducing the hours they work when they are there. At the moment, MPs seem to be bone-idle half the time and half-dead with exhaustion the other. Neither is conducive to good governance.
8. Likewise, MP pay should be significantly increased, but their access to expenses vastly curtailed. I don't have a problem with MPs being well paid for what they do. If parliament works, they're actually worth it. But expanses are still a problem. Basically, we've built a system which encourages corruption, and that's really not healthy.

So, those are my 'general' suggestions. As I said, I have one further point which applies specifically to the Labour party:

I don't know what you stand for any more. See, with the Tories it's pretty clear - I don't like what they believe in, but at least I can understand it enough to reject it. But the Labour party talks about being the party of the working class, of being the ones to stand up for the little guy against the bosses, and all that stuff. But, in practice, it's just not so. The current Labour party is further to the right than the Tories were pre-Thatcher. Hell, in some ways the Labour party are further to the right than Thatcher. You're not the party you claim to be; at best, you're marginally better than the Tories. And yes, if my choices are to be punched or to be stabbed, then I'll take the punch. But, frankly, I'd much rather opt-out entirely.

So go back to your founding principles. That way, we at least get a choice. And I don't mind losing an election where I have a real choice but the other guys got more votes.

But if the only real difference between the parties is the one lot wear red rosettes and the other wear blue rosettes, that does me no good whatsoever. Red Dwarf did that joke in 1988 - the hats are supposed to be green.

So there it is.

I'm not actually sure that would be enough - I haven't even touched on things like equal constituency sizes, the House of Lords, or the ability to force referenda on key constitutional issues (the voting system, the monarchy, independence for Scotland/Wales/NI, or EU membership). But it would be a start at least. And I think those are all (except maybe #3) required changes.

So, how many of them do you think are even on the agenda, never mind things that might potentially be addressed before September? Hence "unfixably broken".

Experimental Cookery 2014: Sausages and Rich Onion Gravy

It has been a while since I've done one of these, though they may be a few more coming up fairly soon. LC has finally grown bored with the previous cycle of the various curries, chilli, spaghetti bolognese, and similar that had been the staple for the past couple of years, so now we're searching for another set of favourites. (Ideally, this would include some "freezer foods" that we can cook in batches and freeze and also some "quick cooks" for weeknights.)

This one was taken from the second "Hairy Dieters" book, and was nice and simple to prepare - as they indicated it was about 10 minutes prep followed by 20 minutes of cooking, none of it terribly difficult. So, an ideal "quick cook", at least in theory.

I felt that it was nice, but it hadn't quite worked - the gravy was over-thickened, and the mash had picked up little shavings of non-stickiness from the pan (will need to get some 'stick' saucepans for occasional use, I guess). But I liked the sausages, and felt that the gravy tasted fine.

LC, alas, found she didn't enjoy it. Apparently, she doesn't care for 'posh' sausages. (I was using up the remnants we had in the freezer, so we had 2 Tesco Finest sausages with bramley apple and 3 with herbs.) Which was a shame.

Would I try this again? I'm going to go for a cautious 'yes', I think - one more try with the appropriate lessons applied. In the meantime, I need to come up with some more ideas.

Where It All Went Wrong

Colin Baker is generally regarded as the weakest of the Doctors (Paul McGann usually being exempt from the comparison by virtue of his role as "the longest and the shortest"). Personally, I would place him marginally ahead of Sylvester McCoy, but in both cases I would apply the caveat that I don't think it was the actor's fault in any sense (and that's true of McGann as well) - they did what was asked of them; it's not their fault that the material wasn't all that might be hoped.

With the Colin Baker era, I think there were four problems, none of which were Baker's fault:

1. By that point, the show was just tired. Ironically, for a show that could literally go anywhere and do anything, it had become very formulaic and repetitive. Most stories followed a pattern that varied only slightly, and the show had become very self-referential. Much as I hate to admit it, it really was time for a rest. (It will also be interesting to see what happens to New Who in a few years, as any show that lasts as long as it has runs the same risk.)
2. The costume. Oh dear, the costume. I guess they were going for something truly unique, in a bid to capture the Tom Baker 'scarf'. But they failed rather spectacularly, an in going so they really messed up the tone of this Doctor's adventures. That said, I think they could perhaps have recovered from this, except that...
3. The decision to make this Doctor loud, and arrogant, and overbearing, and, really, not very nice, was an interesting one, and it might just have worked were it not for the other problems. After all, it was something genuinely new. But a big problem with that was that this new, darker, Doctor was quite at odds with the comical costume choice. So, the tone of the whole thing was badly off. Either go for the 'darker' Doctor with a darker outfit (see the Ninth Doctor for a good example), or go for a louder, comic Doctor with the clown-suit. Either could have worked (maybe). But there was one other problem that they just couldn't recover from...
4. In the Sixth Doctor's first episode ("The Twin Dilemma", part one), and in fact in his second or third scene, immediately after picking out the clown-suit, we have an extremely troubling scene where the new Doctor has a "funny turn" during which he is really, genuinely nasty to poor Peri and then tries to kill her. That scene, by itself, consigns the new Doctor to the scrapheap. There's no coming back from that.

It's all such a missed opportunity. Creatively, the notion of having the Doctor's regeneration being unstable and him being a bit 'off' for a while is a very interesting one. And it does indeed fit given the circumstances of that regeneration. But there's a huge gap between "a bit off" and him being nasty, and especially with him attacking his companion. Combine that with him being not-very-friendly, even after that story, and with the clown-suit, and you've got a disaster.

Likewise, having the new Doctor be rather abrasive, arrogant, and generally not-very-nice is also an interesting choice and could have worked well. But not with that costume, and not when you're also dealing with the "unstable regeneration" angle. (And, probably, not immediately after the Davison era, when that Doctor was generally pleasant.)

And none of it is Colin Baker's fault, even though the powers-that-be blamed him for it.

(It should also perhaps be noted that Colin Baker's era does feature some great material. "Revelation of the Daleks" is one of the great stories, close to the level of "Genesis of the Daleks" in quality, while the "Trial of a Time Lord" season is also very very strong. So there's good stuff there, despite the problems.)

Anyway...

June being the month of the Sixth Doctor, I found myself reading the short story "Something Borrowed" by Richelle Mead and the novel "Players" by Terrance Dicks. Both featured the Sixth Doctor and Peri.

Alas, "Something Borrowed" isn't terribly good. Remember how I said that many of the stories by the Sixth Doctor's tenure had become very formulaic? Well, the same is true here, probably as a consequence of the very limited page count. The story features the son of a friend of the Doctor being married to a mysterious woman of a different species. Surprise! It turns out she's up to no good. Surprise! It turns out Peri gets captured. Surprise! There's a rescue. Surprise! The Doctor turns the tables on his foe.

It's something of a shame, because the underlying premise is actually quite good; adapted for the TV show this could actually make for a good episode. And although this is a recurring villain, she's not one who has been as over-used as certain others I could mention.

By contrast, "Players" is fantastic. I suspect this has something to do with the author's huge familiarity with the show - Terrance Dicks was, of course, the guy who wrote a huge number of the novelisations, so he knows his stuff. Plus, he's taken an interesting premise, an interesting segment of history, and some interesting figures from that segment of history and woven together a fun tale. This is, by some ways, the best of the six novels to date.

Next month is, of course, the month of the Seventh Doctor, who seems to have been the Doctor that the BBC deliberately sabotaged - I missed half of one season and all of the other simply because the BBC never bothered to let us know it was on, and then it was dropped due to lack of viewers. (Though, as I said above, the show was getting really tired by that point, so maybe it was for the best, heretical as that sounds.) Unfortunately, next month's novel is merely the adaptation of "Remembrance of the Daleks", which was an okay story, but I would have preferred something else. Still, I suppose we had to have Daleks in there somewhere!

#26: "Players", by Terrance Dicks

The British Pipe Band Championships 2014

Yesterday was the first major of the new season, and also a gloriously sunny day. This combination made for an interesting day...

Starting last year, the RSPBA rearranged the calendar of events. This happens every so often, as the licenses to host the Championships come up for renewal and sometimes go to different venues. So, instead of the Scottish Championships being the first Major, instead the first is now the British Championships, and those are held in Bathgate. This is particularly nice because they're just a short hour in the bus.

As a consequence of this, I got the extreme luxury of a lie in until 8 (8!) on Saturday morning. Then a short walk to the bus, a short ride to the park, a short tune-up, and we played. It was probably our best performance of the year so far, which is nice.

I then spent most of the rest of the day sitting on the bus reading the latest Pathfinder, which is not the best use for a day, but isn't too bad. I found myself growing increasingly tired, and also feeling increasingly unwell due to a really bad headache - this is a consequence of IBS and there was really nothing I could do to shake it.

(At one point, I did make time to see some of the Novice Juvenile bands play - if we set up the Development Band next year then these are going to be our competition. Which is a bit worrying - the standard I saw was very high. Still, since the goal would be just to get our learners some experience, I'm not going to worry about that. Much.)

The march-past was pretty late, but reasonably enjoyable, what with it being a nice day. The chieftain was Susan Boyle, which provided three surprises: firstly, she kept her "response" down to a mere four sentences (which is much appreciated after a long day); secondly, she proved to be a much better chieftain than Sylvester McCoy; and thirdly, she got not one, but two genuine cheers from the assembled bandsmen - normally, it's just some fairly muted polite applause.

We came 10th out of 15 bands - 14th and 10th for piping, 9th for drumming, and 10th for ensemble. Not great, but much better than the previous two outings. We also beat three of the bands who beat us at Dunbar, as that's promising. That said, there's still a long way to go. (It's also worth noting that we're going to miss the UK Championships, so whatever happens there is little chance we'd be up for promotion, so it's largely academic.)

And that was that. I eventually got home at 8:30, which made it a very long day. But probably the best of the three competitions this year.

#23: "The Lovely Bones", by Alice Sebold (A book from The List, and also the new candidate for Book of the Year.)
#24: "Pathfinder: Shifting Sands", by Richard Pett

Update on Goals

So, day 150 of the year (already!), so time for another update.

• Weight: This has been an odd one, but I'm essentially back where I was before the 'blip' I mentioned last time. I do need to refocus some attention on this, but it's difficult, because...
• Work: Work is good, but sooo busy. There constantly seems to be a deadline looming, and no end in sight for the tasks needing done. That's good on some levels, but is has the downside that it tends to dominate everything else.
• Books: I've read 22 books, putting me three behind my target for this point in the year. However, that's perhaps a false picture, since I'm likely to finish book 23 tonight and may well tackle book 24 in its entirety either tomorrow or, at the very least, over the weekend. One of the big advantages to being in Competition Season is that it gives me chance to catch up on my reading. (Incidentally, the three that I'm 'behind' are two books from The List, one of which is book 22, and this month's Pathfinder volume which arrived yesterday.)
• Games: "Star Wars: Imperial Fist" actually wrapped up two sessions early, concluding just after the previous update. The ending, although abridged, was actually extremely satisfying, so that went well. I cancelled but have since rescheduled one of the two one-shot sessions I had planned for the year, and am actively considering running a three-part "Firefly" game at some point (this taking the place of the 'missing' one-shot from earlier in the year). And I'm scheduled for the third "Numenera" game next month, which completes my target for sessions as a player (with at least one more due to come).
• Maintenance: Disappointingly, there has been no progress on this at all. In fact, it has regressed slightly, in that my car once again needs some work (but that's okay - it was due for a service anyway). It would be good to get that done by the end of June, though how realistic that is, I don't know.
• Computer: One word: done. I'm actually not writing this update on the new machine, but I could if I wanted - it's all set up, the software is all installed, and even the emails have been sorted through right back to 2009.
• Money: This is basically done, too. There are still three payments to make, but these are automated, so I don't need to think about them.

And that's where we stand. Things are in much better health than they were last time, and the prospect looks quite bright, but there is still work to be done.

The next update is due on the 19th of July, but as that's the day of the Paisley Highland Games it is unlikely to be made on that day. That will be just after our holiday to Barcelona, so I fear the weight goal may not be doing so well, and I expect the work goal to have very little to report. Conversely, I expect the books goal to be back on target, or nearly so (should be at 33 books read), and I hope also that the maintenance goal will finally be done.

Fantastic!

I was going to do an epic rant about the political adverts shown before "X-Men: Days of Future Past", and especially the lies in the "Vote No Borders" adverts, but it turns out there's no need - following a deluge of complaints (including from me), Cineworld (and other cinemas in Scotland) have elected to remove all political adverts from before films.

Huzzah!

(And, incidentally, I'm glad the decision has been taken to pull all the adverts. I may support "Yes", but when I'm enjoying a night out at the cinema I'd rather leave the stresses of the day behind - and the referendum is one of those stresses. I'd rather not be force-fed propaganda, even by my own 'side'.)

X-Men: Days of Future Past

A year ago, I was more than a little uncertain about going to see "The Wolverine", largely because "X-Men: The Last Stand" and "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" were both pretty poor. I'd heard good things about "First Class", but I don't think I'd actually seen it by then (turns out it's a good one), so I'd more or less decided to give it a miss.

Only I found myself in the US on a business trip, with a free evening with not much to do, and a nearby cinema. So I went, and I rather enjoyed it. But what I enjoyed more than anything was the 'stinger' at the end of the film, and suddenly I was very excited to see the next film, "Days of Future Past".

So, LC and I went to the cinema on Saturday to see the film, and I was not disappointed. The film rather neatly blends the 'classic' and "First Class" casts through the medium of time travel, everyone fills their roles admirably, and the whole thing moves at a decent clip. There is one face-palm moment, but even that's suitably in-character - the character in question has form for messing things up at key moments.

In my opinion, it's the best X-Men film since the second one (which for a long time was the best superhero film since "Superman 2". Of course, the title of "best superhero film ever" was eventually taken by "The Dark Knight", and then by "The Avengers").

So, yeah, go and see it. Unless you don't like superhero films, of course.

And now, a spoiler:

Possibly the best outcome of this film is that it serves as a "semi-reboot" in the same way that the time-travel aspect did for "Star Trek". This means that, going forward, the writers can use as much, or as little, of the 'existing' film continuity as they want. In particular, this means that some of the mistakes of "The Last Stand" and "Wolverine" can be essentially ignored. This is probably a good thing, as it gives them a better platform for progressing.

#22: "The Redemption Engine", by James L. Sutter

(Surprisingly, this novel has toppled "The Hundred Days" as my current "book of the year". I say 'surprisingly' because it's game-related fiction, which is notoriously awful. But this was surprisingly good. That said, it's not going to last long - it's about to be superseded itself by my current novel...)

Digging Through The Archive

When I set up my new PC, I took advantage of the opportunity to 'properly' synchronise the Outlook email folders with the webmail versions used by my providers. This had the effect that Outlook promptly downloaded every email I had received in those accounts, going right back to 2009. It was something of a shock to suddenly have 5,000+ emails to dig through, the vast majority of which are spam emails from one company or another.

Since then, I've been gradually going through the painstaking process of sorting all those emails, deleting the junk and filing the rest away into a more ordered set of folders. I'm now down to having a mere 1,000 emails to go through, from July 2011 back to January 2010. So with a lot of luck I'll have that job done soon.

What has been quite strange, though, has been reading through all those emails. Because I started with the most recent ones and worked backwards (excepting the three months of 2009 that were covered), it has essentially been a process of walking backwards through time - seeing the confirmation emails for Christmas presents, film tickets, and holidays; seeing the emails associated with the wedding cropping up (in reverse) and then subsiding; seeing the band have exactly the same discussions four years ago as we had in January (to do with school lets). It was quite odd seeing weekly spam emails from various companies gradually disappearing, presumably from the point where someone sold them my address. (In some cases, there was the oddity of the emails appearing, persisting for a while, and then disappearing again. I guess if you shop there once, and then not again for three years, they might lose interest.)

I was also somewhat perplexed for a while about an invoice from Premier Inn. Why did I have a one-night stay in London in November of 2011, I wondered? And then, a few 'months' earlier I found the answer - Lady Chocolat had been in Kenya, and that was when I went down to London to meet her return flight. Ahah!

But what has surprised me most, though, was the record of just when we'd seen various films in the cinema. Constantly, I was surprised at just how long ago it was since these films came out. (I was also surprised at just how many really bad films we'd been to see, but I probably shouldn't have been - after all, I was there at the time!)

(Oh, and what's also odd is not so much what's there as what's missing. There have obviously been some significant events over the past five years - several births, marriages, and a significant death - and some of these generated not a single email. Yet "Prometheus" gets two. Strange.)

The Star Trek Film I'd Like to See Next

I like "Star Trek", but I'm not an obsessive fan. Whereas "The Phantom Menace" and "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" were crushing disappointments, "Star Trek: Nemesis" was just a bad film, and not particularly a terrible thing. That being said, I'd much rather see a good "Star Trek" film than a bad one, for reasons that should be obvious.

I think they're on to a good start. While I felt "Star Trek" itself was rather patchy, I felt they'd managed to assemble a great cast and laid a strong foundation for the future. And, although it's becoming something of a minority opinion these days, I liked, and still like, "Star Trek: Into Darkness". Of course, with JJ Abrams leaving to do "Star Wars", things are a bit up in the air, but there's no reason they shouldn't make it work.

One thing I would really like to see is something different. "Wrath of Khan" is a great film, make no mistake, but one of the big mistakes that has been made with pretty much every "Star Trek" film since then is that every one has been in some way a reaction to, or a clone of, "Wrath of Khan". And so we get our Shakespeare-quoting Klingon in "Undiscovered Country" (instead of the Melville-quoting Khan), we get direct quotes of "Moby Dick" in "First Contact", we get an attempt at a new Khan in "Nemesis" (and, actually, "Search for Spock", "Undiscovered Country", "Generations", "First Contact", "Insurrection", "Nemesis", and "Star Trek"), and then we get a literal Khan in "Into Darkness".

Enough.

Now, having said that, the "Star Trek" movies have indeed been at their best when they've liberally taken material from elsewhere - "Wrath of Khan" being essentially "Moby Dick", and "Into Darkness" being essentially "Wrath of Khan". So, something different that lifts a plot from somewhere else...

So: "Star Trek: Search for the Wa'maH-maqtagh Doq"

Which is a terrible name, of course, because the Klingon doesn't translate very well. If fact, they'd probably do better to show the name using the Klingon characters, which is much more concise (and which I daresay the fans would appreciate).

A quick plot:

The movie opens, as in "Into Darkness", with the Enterprise on some mission going horribly wrong. This is some harebrained scheme Kirk has come up with, ideally featuring commentary by McCoy/Uhura/Scotty about how they miss Spock and that he'd clearly talk Kirk out of it.

It turns out that Spock has been seconded back to Star Fleet to do some research of something he's not allowed to talk about. On his return to the Enterprise, therefore, he and Kirk naturally butt heads on this topic.

But then the Enterprise continues its mission on the edges of the Federation, in a sector close to the Neutral Zone with the Klingon Empire. And then they start picking up strange readings, and get diverted by Star Fleet to go check it out.

Anyway, it turns out there's a new, highly experimental, Klingon warship out there, and it's making its way towards Federation space. Its mission is, of course, unknown. Kirk is tasked with finding it and destroying it before it can slip past and launch an attack.

Except that Spock's classified research was into exactly the type of cloaking device used by the new warship, so he knows that the ship should be undetectable and yet isn't. Plus, Uhura has studied the career of the commander of this vessel (let's assume her linguistics training also covered cultural and political studies, which makes sense and also neatly expands her role beyond just repeating what the computer says). Bottom line: they suspect that the commander may not be going to attack; he's going to defect.

Basically, it's "The Hunt for Red October", but in space.

Anyway, it's just a thought...

M(a)y Doctor

Fascinating fact: although for a very long time there have been two Bakers amongst the actors to play the Doctor, until last year there had never been a repeated first name (at least in the main series). And then two came along at once: a second John (or Jon) and a second Peter.

Okay, maybe it's not 'fascinating'. But it is a fact.

May, being the fifth month, is the month of the Fifth Doctor, as portrayed by Peter Davison. Who is, as I've mentioned before "my Doctor". I just barely remember seeing the last little bit of Tom Baker's run (I think), which means I was around for Peter Davison's run. And, indeed, Tegan, Peri, and Adric are all characters I remember seeing live.

And yet... I find memory is not wholly reliable, because I have no real idea who Nyssa is, and Turlough is also something of a void (despite my knowing I watched "The Five Doctors" when it was first on). I guess they just didn't make any real impression. (On the other hand, Tegan is memorable for being one of the longest-serving companions of all time, while Peri was both the last companion of the Fifth Doctor and the main companion for almost all of the Sixth Doctor's run. And Adric is perhaps memorable for the wrong reasons...)

This month's short story was "Tip of the Tongue", by Patrick Ness. This one features the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa, presumably in the brief gap while Tegan was off the TARDIS. That said, both Doctor and companion only actually feature in the story very briefly - it reads like one of those episodes in recent years when one of the main actors has been given the week off so they've done a Doctor-light episode such as "Blink" or "Turn Left". Which is fine, as it makes for an interesting approach.

And the story is okay. It's not a stand-out like, well, "Blink" or "Turn Left", but it's a decent story with attractive characters and some fun along the way. Plus, it doesn't feature the Master, which is probably something of a boon for this anthology (since both the Second and Third Doctor stories did feature that opponent). So, good stuff.

The novel, which I finished on Saturday, was "Fear of the Dark", by Trevor Baxendale. This was a strange one, as I know I'd never read it before (I haven't read any for the Past Doctor novels before the 50th Anniversary collection) and yet I had the strongest feeling that I had. That's, probably, mostly a good thing - the author had obviously managed to capture the spirit of the show, the characters, and the many stories I have read pretty accurately. And reading it I found myself agreeing - yep, that was my Doctor, and it was Tegan. All good.

But it had a big down-side as well. I hadn't read that story before, but I've read (and seen) ones just like it any number of times. It was pretty much a bunch of secondary characters running around a quarry being picked off by an unseen menace, at least for most of the time. So, it was all rather predictable, which was a shame.

Still, not to worry. I started it one Saturday, about tea-time, while huddled behind some seats (on a bus rather than a sofa, but it counts), and I finished it the next Saturday while huddled behind some seats (another bus), so it was all positively nostalgic. Good stuff.

Next up is the Sixth Doctor, widely regarded as the worst Doctor. I feel that's somewhat unfair, for various reasons I'll get into next month, but I'm definitely hoping that the novel and story will play on certain aspects of that Doctor and leave certain others in the background. I guess we'll see next month.

Dunbar Highland Games

Just a quick update on our second competition of the season.

Saturday was a much more satisfactory day than the previous week. Our pipe major is now properly registered with the band, and between him and two others who weren't available last week we had a considerably stronger band this week than last. Additionally, we were blessed with good weather, which always helps.

Once again, we played twice, in both Grade 4 and Grade 4MSR competitions. Both times, we left the field reasonably pleased with our performance. And, come the end of the day, this was somewhat vindicated: we came fourth in the Grade 4 contest (out of 9). So, this is our first 'real' prize of the season (last week's marching & discipline doesn't really count).

However, we did come sixth (and last) in the MSR. Given that that's our real grade, this isn't really a good sign.

The next competition is the British Championships in Bathgate a week on Saturday, the first Major of the season. So, lots of work to do for that. (On the plus side, we're only playing once, and in the early afternoon. So, no need to get up at 6am for that one!)

Also of note this weekend was that two of my students were competing in the Stirling Mod, a solo piping competition. They were in the 10-12 Solo Chanter contest, where there were some 17 competitors.

And we won! Well, actually, one of my students came first in the competition, while the other must have been just outside the top three. So that was quite a result.

All in all, a pretty successful weekend.

#21: "Fear of the Dark", by Trevor Baxendale

Votes for 16-Year-Olds

Somehow, and somewhat surprisingly, the Guardian's "Comment is Free" section managed to have an article that I almost managed to agree with. (Mostly, it's a bastion of sloppy thinking and inanity, which is a real shame, since I should agree with most of the positions taken.)

Anyway, the article argues that we (that is, the UK) should give votes to 16- and 17-year-olds, and that way they'll be more engaged with politics.

Now, some time ago, I posted to the effect that 16- and 17-year-olds should not be given the vote in the Scottish Referendum, for the simple reason that they don't get the vote in General Elections, Scottish Elections, Local Elections, or European Elections. However, in the same post I also noted that there was a wider debate about that that we should have, and indeed that it is wrong that a 16-year-old can work, and thus be required to pay taxes, but not have the vote. (Because the Americans were absolutely right about "no taxation without representation".)

Anyway, one of the consequences of giving the vote to that group for the referendum is that, rather interestingly, we actually do now seem to have a fairly politics-savvy and involved group of teenagers in this country. When last the band played in Falkirk town centre, the Yes campaign were being represented (on that day) by their youth team, who were both articulate and informed. And the younger members of the band, who I heard talking on that day were likewise engaged in the debate, mostly on the other side.

(Incidentally, I'm frequently amused by some of the discussion around this. It seems to be a widely held belief that the SNP extended the franchise for this referendum because of a belief that our teens would be swayed by a romantic Braveheart-esque notion of "Freedom!", and also that this is a gambit that has badly backfired. This neglects that it has been SNP policy for decades to extend the franchise, it was a manifesto commitment, and that this is the first time they've been able to implement their pledge.)

However, I said in the first paragraph that I only almost agreed with the article.

The thing is, as far as I can tell, the reason that Scottish teens are engaged in the referendum debate is that, fundamentally, it matters. One way or another, this is a big decision, with a direct and lasting effect on all our lives.

Conversely, as far as I can tell, the reason so many 18- to 24-year-olds aren't engaged in mainstream UK politics (and nobody is very engaged in European election politics) is that, frankly, it doesn't matter. Both the Labour and Conservative parties are now dominated by a particular breed of career politicians, who were educated at exclusive schools and then Oxbridge, did internships arranged for them by Daddy (or Mummy), and then got safe seats somewhere. Worse, the two parties are both signed up for very slight variations on the same package of austerity-cuts/EU-sceptic/business-first measures. So, whoever you vote for, the government wins.

Faced with that, it's no wonder so many people really don't care. And, faced with that, there's no reason 16- and 17-year-olds would be any different.

So, I do indeed agree with extending the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds. If they're old enough to have children, and if they're old enough to work and pay taxes, then they're old enough to vote. But if you expect that, by itself, to lead to them being engaged with politics you are bound to be disappointed. For that, we need some new politicians - 650, by my count.

An Interesting Possibility...

It's funny how opportunities work. Just as I was carefully considering my position within the band, a possible vision of the future opens up.

As you know, since August I've been helping out teaching the youngsters in the band, largely due to our inheriting more learner pipers than we really know what to do with. In fact, we have five learners who all started at the same time and who are all now just, or just about, starting on the bagpipes (as opposed to the practice chanter).

So, I had been contemplating the question of just how we were going to fit these extra five pipers into our pipe corps. It struck me that next year, or perhaps the year after, we'd have more pipers than we know what to do with.

However, last night I had a chat with our pipe major, and he mentioned that five pipers, plus an adult pipe major, is the makings of a Novice Juvenile pipe corps. Add two snare drummers and a bass drummer (which, at the moment, we don't have), and you've got a band.

So then, I think my best plan may be as follows:

• See out the rest of this season, while continuing to teach the youngsters.
• Try to recuit some new drummers for the band, specifically learner drummers. (Granted, that's probably not me, but it's a prerequisite for the next step.)
• Revive the "Development Band", this time at the Novice Juvenile grade. In particular, I'll nominate myself for the role of Pipe Major.
• Retire from competition with the 'main' band. The registration can remain active, and I'll stay current on the tunes just in case, but I'll focus on working with the Development Band instead.

I think that sounds like a plan. The reason the Development Band failed last time was that the then Pipe Major moved on to bigger and better things (and rightly so), which I can ensure doesn't happen again. Taking this step allows me to gracefully step out of the stresses associated with competition with the 'main' band, while simultaneously allowing me to focus more of my attention on building the future of the band (which I prefer more anyway).

All in all, it sounds like a plan. Now, if we can just find some drummers...

Competition Season Starts: Kinross Highland Games

There are lots of things I like about playing in a pipe band. I like the practices (mostly); I like the performances at gala days, weddings, and the like; I really enjoy the teaching of the youngsters. I do not like competing, the competition scene or, really, anything associated with that aspect of it. Unfortunately, I don't know how to disassociate the two - in order to be halfway decent, a band pretty much has to compete; without the edge that that gives to proceedings, they just drift, lose players, and aren't really worth the effort.

Saturday was our first competition of the season, and my first competition for eighteen months. The bus was scheduled to leave at 6:15, so I staggered out of bed at 5, made myself ready, and walked down to the meeting point. And then on to Kinross!

Unfortunately, there was a miscalculation of our travel times. We were due to play at 9:45, which meant we really needed to be there about 8:15. This meant that the pickup should probably have been at 7am, or even after. In the event, what it meant was that we got to the competition... and then had to wait an hour for anyone else to show up. Great.

Anyway, we waited, and then we made ready to play, and it was all okay. There was some rain, but it wasn't too heavy, and it stopped before the competition started. Hurrah. Of course, the pipe major wasn't happy, but that's his job. Though what was less than ideal was that, due to a mix-up with the bureaucracy, he wasn't actually registered with us in time, so didn't get to play. But no matter - I'm sure that will be sorted out soon.

Where things really started to go wrong was about 5 minutes before the performance. With the rain having stopped, we decided to go on without capes, as generally gives a better performance. Only when we took our capes off, it emerged that one person had left his jacket on the bus, so at this point we all had to ditch our jackets as well, and that made for a very cold event.

So, we went on, we played, and it was awful. Truly, a woeful performance. Even from the start it was obvious we'd stunk, with a chanter sounding early, which by itself is enough to mean you might as well not bother with the rest. And it got worse from there. Oh dear, it was terrible.

Anyway, we came off, and the pipe major was justly angry.

We had another performance, this one about 11am. Unfortunately, with this one we messed up our preparations the other way - just as we were starting to get ready an adjutant appeared and said we should move to "final tuning". Oops. Though we actually weren't far off ready when we started, so that was okay.

The second performance was better, but still not good by any stretch. In fact, the start was even worse, due to another early chanter. But the rest of it was generally better across the board.

After this, and the inevitable dressing down from the PM, I returned to the bus to wait and to read. But my overwhelming thought was, "you know, I've got better things to do with my summer than to spend it in muddy fields getting shouted at."

Wisely, the organisers at Kinross had the good sense to time their Highland Games to coincide with a local half marathon. So, the bands were bussed down to the 'town' centre, where we were asked to play to send the runners off, and then play again in a short parade along the main street. Which was good for all involved - it gave us something to do in the hours of waiting, and it gave them cheap access to several bands. The parade actually went really well, I thought.

And then there was more waiting for the March Past. At which, to our rather great surprise, we won the very first prize of the day - third in the "marching & discipline" for the parade. (Though it's important to note: I think that was third out of five bands who played the parade! Still, a result.)

That was our one success of the day. We came last in both competitions, and deservedly so. Rather worryingly, there's a suggestion also that one of our settings may not actually be valid in our competition grade (which would be a disaster, since it's really too late to change it). So, we'll need to go back to the drawing board at tonight's practice.

There are two tiny crumbs of comfort that we can take from this. The first is that our performances genuinely were terrible, and egregiously so - it's not as if we'd played well and just been poor; we played truly horribly. On another day, even without major surgery, it wouldn't be so bad. The second is that for most bands the symbolic start of the season is at Dunbar, which is next weekend. This was really something of a pre-season run out. So, in theory, it doesn't really 'count'. In that regard, better to make the mistakes now, and correct them now, rather than next week when things are more serious.

But those really are just crumbs. Mostly, it was a really bad day, and we'll need to do much, much better.

Also, I have better things to do with my summer than to spend it in muddy fields being shouted at.

Tick (sort of)

So, I got my new PC. Actually, it turned out to be more of an adventure than was first anticipated: as soon as the laptop died, I got onto the PC World website (yes, I know...) and identified the likely replacement, and then headed off to the branch round the corner. However, it was out of stock. There was then a debate about whether the touch-screen was really necessary, and then off to another branch in the hope of picking it up. No joy. So I instead ordered it for next-day delivery, only to discover to my horror that the "next day" from Sunday was, in fact, Tuesday. Disaster!

Anyway, I picked up the PC on Tuesday, and all was well. It then sat in its box until Friday.

After all this, the PC didn't actually get switched on for the first time until Saturday evening (I took it out of its box on Friday, but that's all). And then the set-up began.

It was horrible. Although surprisingly, and with one exception, the problem wasn't Windows 8.1. Instead, the bulk of the problem lies with our WiFi network, which seems determined not to work - although the laptop had no problems connecting to our router, the new desktop refuses. It can connect to our network extender, and so can get online mostly. Mostly. But I'm going to have to figure out why the system just isn't working as it really should - as things stand the internet is both unreliable and desperately slow, and given the main uses for the machine, neither is acceptable.

But we're getting there. I estimate that the setup is now about 75% done - there are still a handful of programs to install, some documents and lots of emails to sort through, and no doubt a few other bits and pieces, but it's definitely getting there.

#19: "The Final, Unfinished Voyage of Jack Aubrey", by Patrick O'Brian
#20: "Little Women & Good Wives", by Louisa May Alcott (a book from The List)

Unfortunate Timing

I didn't have a good weekend. There was a sweary rant on Friday (aimed at me by some random bloke), then a bout of feeling not at all well on Saturday.

Then, on Sunday I woke up to find my PC dead. It was showing the infamous Blue Screen of Death (itself unusual in post-XP versions of Windows), and when rebooted it just didn't come back at all - the screen was lit but blank.

This precipitated something of a panic. Although I had been planning to replace the PC at the end of the month anyway, I had hoped to have it up and active for the upgrade. And although I was in the habit of regular backups, for reasons unknown Vista decided that this would stop working late in January. Provided the last backup was still good, I wouldn't have lost much, but you're never 100% sure...

There is good news on that front, at least: I got a suitable hard disk enclosure, and have verified that the HD on the laptop was not the cause of the problem (I suspect the display driver), so everything remains intact - I just have to copy it across.

So, what this really means is that my plan to get a new PC had to be brought forward by a few weeks, and also conducted with rather more dispatch than was intended. (Even that may be a good thing, since it means I need a good PC now, rather than having the luxury of waiting for the perfect PC. And since "the perfect PC" is a mythical beast, that saves me what could be a long process of deliberation.)

Of course, the other part of upgrading a PC is the process of setting it up for use, which in this case will mean getting used to the new OS layout, sorting out which settings can be set back to a classic mode and which cannot, and also installing the required software on the new machine. To an extent, even that's a blessing, since it automatically means getting back to a reasonably clean slate - I can install only those handful of applications I actually use, and leave the rest behind.

(I'm intending also to take this opportunity to upgrade the handful of applications I do use to their latest versions. Which means a bit more expense, and a bit more of a lead-time, but this is the best time to do that - otherwise, I'd be installing the old versions only to remove and replace them later.)

So, anyway, that's where we are on the PC front.

#18: "Pathfinder: Empty Graves", by Crystal Frasier

Climate Change

So, yesterday my grandfather asked me how I thought the 'pollution' issue would be dealt with (by which he meant the emissions causing climate change). Of course, being my grandfather he proceeded to tell me the answer, but that wasn't expected. Still, it's worth thinking about.

Firstly, I should note that I am almost but not absolutely convinced that man-made climate change is a reality and is a very serious issue. Though I'm not sure that that "man-made" bit is all that important - the climate is definitely changing, and it definitely does seem to be a bad thing. So, whether we're responsible or not, we probably want to think what we're going to do about it.

Where I differ from the consensus is in this, though: if your answer is any variation on "we all need to cut emissions", I think you can forget it - we've lost already.

The reality of the situation is that China and India will not meaningfully cut emissions until they've overtaken the US as the biggest economies. And the US will not do anything that risks them being overtaken. (And, if one or both do overtake the US, you can be sure the US will do whatever it takes to catch back up.)

I'm pretty much certain that that is the reality of it - people can propose whatever measures they want, they can paint as apocalyptic a scenario as they wish (and they may well be right), but there is no prospect of the US, India, or China meaningfully reducing emissions. Sorry.

Of course, if those three, the three biggest players in the field, won't meaningfully take action, then there's little point in the rest of us doing so - we could cut our emissions to zero and it still wouldn't be enough.

The consequence of this is that this topic is one of very few where I think George W. Bush actually got it right: the solution to this problem will lie in new technologies - either we find ways to adapt to the changed environment, or we develop some sort of atmospheric scrubber to eliminate our emissions, or we reseed the oceans with algae to do essentially the same thing, or, well, something.

Update on Goals

Somehow, I managed to badly mis-count the number of days, posting my "50 day" update on the fortieth day of the year. Oops. I therefore decided to compensate by posting my "100 day" update late. Because that's sensible. It's nothing to do with just not having time, oh no...

Anyway, time for an update. So:

• Weight: Oh dear. My trip to Ireland (more on this later) followed by my trip down South has played havoc with this one. So, we're back where we started.
• Work: This one has been very mixed. I don't want to say much more (what with my whole "no work talk" policy), but things went wrong a bit in Feb and March, but went very well in the first half of April. So, that's looking pretty good.
• Books: I'm a bit behind, due to the "Wheel of Time". But it's not too bad - I hope to be at 18ish by the end of the month, and get caught up in May or June.
• Games: This has gone horribly wrong. I'll be wrapping up "Imperial Fist" in the next few sessions, and may well cancel one of the two remaining one-shots. I'm just not enthused by the notion of running games at the moment. On the other hand, the player-side games have gone very well, so I'll easily make that part of the target.
• Maintenance: This proved to be an ordeal, but is now mostly done. I want to have another (third) go at the bathroom ceiling, and the carpets still need done, but otherwise things are okay.
• Computer: This is deferred until my annual bonus comes through, which should hopefully be either this month or next. So, with a bit of luck my next 'update' will be written on a new PC.
• Money: This is basically done - everything that remains is now automated, so will complete by itself. Huzzah!

And that's where we are 100 days into 2014. My hope is that the next update will see the 'weight' and 'books' goals back on track, the 'maintenance' and 'computer' goals done, and everything else well in hand. I'm not sure how realistic that really is.

Scarves, Jelly Babies, and a Robot Dog!

So, April is the month of the Fourth Doctor, the longest-serving incarnation of the Time Lord, and consistently the one voted the best. Tom Baker is also the first Doctor I remember, although I'm a little confused by that - he regenerated out of the post in 1981, which was back when I was all of five. Which means either they are my oldest memories, or I saw some repeats later that has slipped into place into my memory, or perhaps my mind is just inventing things to fill in some gaps? It's a mystery.

This month's short story is "The Roots of Evil", by Philip Reeve, and it's very good - easily the best of the four to date. It features the Doctor arriving in a living space station, part of a terraforming device, where the inhabitants promptly capture him and prepare him for execution for his great misdeeds in the past. The only problem is that he can't remember any such misdeeds, for a reason that becomes obvious when it is mentioned that his face isn't as the ancients depicted...

Anyway, the story is pretty simple from there, with the revelation being largely expected (although there's one question I'm not going to answer... Who?). But it's quite amusing, especially the Doctor's line about gravel pits, and also his reaction to his future self's wardrobe choices. I'm very glad to be able to recommend this one, as the anthology had been a bit weak to date.

The novel is "Festival of Death" by Jonathan Norris. This one features Romana (II, I think), K-9, and the Doctor. And, again, the story nicely captures this Doctor's quirks - he notes that he's usually captured and put in a cell some time in the first 22 minutes after arriving in a new place, he runs out of Jelly Babies (horror!), and on and so forth.

Curiously, this one also has a complex, timey-wimey plot, featuring the Doctor crossing over his own time-stream (although, this time, only this same incarnation). It takes a bit of unpicking, which is no bad thing. There is one thing that I don't think quite works, but that's not bad for such a complex storyline.

And, in both cases, it definitely felt like a Fourth Doctor story - in the same way that the Third Doctor stories captured the distinctive 'voice' of their incarnation, so too did this one capture Baker's unique mannerisms. So, yay!

Next month is the month of 'my' Doctor. I definitely watched "The Five Doctors" live, and remember distinctly the excitement around the regeneration to the Sixth, so this is most definitely where I came in. But the big question is: does my Doctor still hold up?

Give you joy of your flag, Jack

Having finished the "Wheel of Time", my next book was "Blue at the Mizzen", the last complete Aubrey/Maturin novel by Patrick O'Brian. (There is one more, incomplete, book which I shall read next month, but there's very little to that.) And so, twenty months after it began, my adventure on Jack's ocean comes to an end.

The series began at a nice, clean threshold - Lieutenant Jack Aubrey is promoted to "Master and Commander", and thus given his first command. In the first chapter he also makes the acquaintance of a fellow music-lover, an Irish doctor named Maturin. And so it begins.

The series then follows the ups and downs of these two fast friends across the years, as they serve in Britain's wars against Napoleon's France, against the US in the War of 1812, and, in the last volume, in the post-war period after Waterloo.

And they're great. It's hard to encapsulate just how great the series is - the movie is good enough in itself (and was the reason I read the series), but it pales before the novels - with both the extremely-human protagonists, their friendship, their fallings-out, their strengths, and their weaknesses; the depiction of the world that is at once very different from ours, and yet utterly relatable; and, of course, the simple adventure of it all.

And then, the series ends at a nice, clean threshold - Commodore Jack Aubrey is promoted to "Rear Admiral of the Blue Squadron", the culmination of his career, and the fulfilment of the ambition he had expressed right in the first book. It's almost perfect in its symmetry.

I can't recommend the series enough.

There's just one problem: I'm done now. So, what now?

Experimental Cookery 2014: Stewed Venison with Juniper and Bay

A colleague of Lady Chocolat was good enough to give us some venison recently. This was much appreciated, but did leave a little quandary as I had no idea how to cook it. Fortunately, Hugh came to the rescue with a recipe from "River Cottage Every Day".

The preparation was all rather easy - brown the meat, chop the veg, bring to a low simmer, and wait. We paired the stew with some mashed potatoes.

The end result was... okay. The venison was nice enough, but the stew itself was very watery. We'd had an issue with the quantities, as there wasn't as much venison as the recipe really demanded, while the cooking time was unchanged and so required plenty of liquid. This was fine, but I suspect affected the flavour quite badly. So the whole thing just didn't quite work. A shame.

Would we have this again? I think the answer is a hesitant "yes" - but only if we could rebalance the quantities of ingredients, meaning more venison for the pot. Without that, I don't think the whole will really work.

#14: "Blue at the Mizzen", by Patrick O'Brian
#15: "Festival of Death", by Jonathan Morris
#16: "Skinwalkers", by Wendy N. Wagner

And so, it ends...

This afternoon I finally finished "A Memory of Light", the final book in "The Wheel of Time". It was a fitting end, I suppose, but I stick with my earlier recommendation: if you haven't yet started the series, don't - it's just not worth wading through volumes 8-11 to get back to the 'good' stuff.

The series is also really not helped by the fact that fantasy works have just moved on since it began. "Game of Thrones" has really mixed things up, and so the tolerance for a mega-happy ending is fairly limited. And yet, that's pretty much what we got.

Still... It's done now. Finally, it is done. Now, if only George R.R. Martin can be convinced to finish up "Game of Thrones" in a timely manner, and if J.V. Jones will ever publish the last volume of "Sword of Shadows", that would be just dandy.

And next time I consider embarking on another long-winded fantasy epic, could someone please remind me to check that the final volume is out before I start?

#13: "A Memory of Light", by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson

Exactly for This Sort of Thing

So, today I suffered another Great Yoghurt Crisis. It's been a while since I had one, so such a traumatic and significant event demanded a blog post.

As you know, I always have two yoghurts a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. So, the time came to have this morning's yoghurt, I opened my lunch-box to rescue the requisite spoon and, to my horror, I found no spoon waiting! Of course, it goes without saying that this is the worst thing that has ever happened.

(And, obviously, this sort of thing would simply never happen in the independent state of Stevonia which, being a land flowing with milk and honey, would necessarily maintain an adequate supply of spoons at all times.)

Fortunately, my horror at this terrible oversight was short-lived, for I quickly realised that my desk drawer actually contains a pack of plastic spoons, a supply laid up for exactly this sort of emergency. So I had yoghurt after all.

Truly, today is a blessed day.

"No" Show

Okay, now I'm getting scared.

Some time during last weekend, I realised that I'd stopped thinking about what would happen if Scotland became independent, and instead was thinking about what would happen when Scotland becomes independent.

This was something of a surprise. Previously, I'd made the calculation that there was no chance of "Yes" winning, because there were some really big uncertainties, some of them that are completely unanswerable, and without these being answered it was impossible for "Yes" to make a winning case. (The big unanswerables being over the currency and also over the EU. The latter being something that nobody is able to definitively answer - there's no precedent and no clear process either way.)

But something happened a couple of months back, and it appears the wheels have just fallen off the "No" bus.

It started when George Osborne popped up to tell us, in no uncertain terms, that there absolutely, positively, would not be a currency union. And, of course, he was backed in this by Ed Balls and Danny Alexander. So, that's pretty definitive then, since all three parties were unanimous.

Then Mr Barroso popped up to tell us, in no uncertain terms, that Scotland would be out of the EU and would find it "very difficult" to get back in. Then David Cameron got involved, Gordon Brown, Ming Campbell...

And with every statement, support for "Yes" grew, and quite sharply. Suddenly, a 70/30 split is looking more like a 55/45 split. If the polls continue to narrow at the same rate, they will, of course, cross over.

In August.

What was really bizarre, though, was watching this unfold. I have never seen professional politicians act so spectacularly against their own stated interests. Someone should have advised George Osborne that anything he said would have the opposite effect to that intended - in his case, it's not the message that's the problem, it's the messenger.

And, actually, that's a big problem for the "No" campaign - there's nobody who can present the message. The Tories have very effectively (albeit very unfairly) pushed all the blame for the economy only to Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, meaning anything else they say is automatically suspect. Meanwhile, the Tories are themselves hated up here (and the Lib Dems worse), so they're out. Which means that the strongest remaining figure on the "No" side is Johann Lamont.

But worse was to come, because on Friday the Guardian (who cannot, by any stretch, be described as pro-independence) published a government minister saying that a currency union was indeed still an option. (That this was the case wasn't a surprise, since a union is "eminently sensible" according to one A. Darling. What was a shock was that someone would be silly enough to say it, at least this side of the referendum.) Apparently, George Osborne had been doing to stick with his, rather more sensible, line that it was very unlikely, but was advised (by one A. Darling) to rule it out in a bid to kill off the independence debate permanently.

Oops.

It is, frankly, hard to see how they could have screwed this up any worse. And now they're left with an utter shambles to try to clear up, a lot of blamestorming to do... and a campaign that suddenly looks like it's going to snatch defeat from, well, not even "the jaws of victory" - they seem intent on losing from an unassailable position.

Which brings us to Saturday.

The band were out fund-raising on Saturday in Falkirk town centre (which went well, but that's not the point right now). Prior to us going out, one of my concerns is that Saturday was intended to be one of the "big push" weekends for both the "Yes" and "No" campaigns - and this was a concern because our band is constitutionally politically neutral. Regardless of any views I, our pipe major, or anyone else might have, we don't get involved.

Of course, a pipe band in a town centre in the midst of a campaign about an independent Scotland (or not) is a mobile photo-op. And I really didn't want to have to measure out an equi-distant location between the two camps.

It turns out that I didn't need to worry, at least not about that - the "No" camp didn't show up.

What really bothers me about all this, though, is that there is no case for the Union being made. "Better Together" is a shambles, Scottish Labour are an embarrassment, and there's no grass-roots campaign in evidence. On one hand we have a bright, optimistic, vibrant "Yes" campaign; on the other, we have... nothing.

I kinda feel I should be happier about this than I am. I decided to vote "Yes" quite some time ago. (And, again, it's nothing to do with England; unfortunately, the government in Westminster is not fit for purpose and I see no way to fix it.) So, shouldn't I be happy that it suddenly looks like we might win?

But the reason I'm not so happy is this: this is the single most important political decision the people in Scotland will ever have to make. Yes or No, it is a question of vital importance that will affect the rest of our lives, the lives of our children, and the lives of generations to come. It will probably never come again.

So the case needs to be made. Actually, both cases need to be made. The "Yes" campaign are doing that. The "No" campaign are utterly failing; they're failing not just to win the argument; they're failing even to make the argument.

The great philosopher of our times, Homer J. Simpson, once said that "de fault" are the two sweetest words in the English language. On this topic, at least, he's wrong. I do genuinely feel Scotland would be better off away from Westminster, but the last thing I want is for Scotland to choose that because nobody spoke for the alternative. That's seeming like a real possibility now, and that's what scares me.

#12: "Pathfinder: the Half-dead City", by Jim Groves

(I'm still about halfway through the last volume of the "Wheel of Time", so it may be a while before I list another book.)

300: Rise of an Empire

File this one under "I watch it so you don't have to." I've seen worse films, but I'm really not sure when; it even gives "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" a run for its money. (Though, actually, now I think about it - "A Good Day to Die Hard" is worse.)

(One thing that does amuse me, though, is the title. It's called "Rise of an Empire", presumably referring to the Persian Empire... but that's an empire that is defeated in the film, and also an empire that has already passed its peak before the start of the film. Definitely a carefully chosen title there!)

(On the arithmetic front, we're now down to one outstanding item - I got LC's car back this morning, so all that remains is to get the carpets cleaned. Which I'll be leaving until my holiday next month, I think.)

A Delicious Crisis

As I said, I made bread again this weekend, which apart from one small problem was absolutely great. In particular, I've had it as the basis for my sandwiches the last two days. This led to the realisation that this bread was so much nicer than the stuff we buy from Tesco that it really doesn't bear comparison. I mean, the stuff we get is okay, but it's a bit insipid. Especially since we're now back on the white bread, which is even less characterful than the brown.

Still, I consoled myself with the notion that store-bought bread is cheaper than homemade. After all, it's £1 (ish) for a loaf of halfway-decent bread, whereas you need to buy flour (£1.50 for 3 loaves), and yeast (£1 for 6 loaves), and salt and oil (negligible), and a bag of mixed seeds (not sure how much, but they're optional anyway)... which all works out at...

Oh dear.

(In fairness, the homemade loaves are a bit smaller than store-bought, and we also don't currently have a good was to slice them thinly, so it would probably work out about the same.)

Problem is that I really don't have time to make bread three times a week, or once a week, or even more than once in a while.

So now I am sad.

Still, on the other hand, it makes for a good reason to bake bread more often, and that in turn justifies experimenting a bit more.

Over-proved

It was a weekend of bread and bread products.

On Friday, I cooked up a rather nice lamp Rogan Josh (which I'm sure wasn't at all authentic, but was good all the same). And, to go with it, I did nann bread for the third time. Which, again, was rather nice. Sadly, I burned my finger, but not too badly. Success!

Then on Sunday morning I made another brown loaf, that having been my most successful bread to-date, and because I now have a brand new loaf tin that I wanted to try out.

The result of this one was also very good, with one caveat. As one of my cunning plans, I did the trick with the baking paper to help lifting the loaf out of the tin. This worked great, right up until I found the paper had stuck to the bottom of the loaf. Oops. Still, it was a really nice loaf, be it dipped in soup, eaten as toast, and indeed as my sandwich for lunch today. And, best of all, I think there's probably enough left for tomorrow's sandwich also. Huzzah!

And then, yesterday afternoon, I made up a batch of calzone. These are a bit of a hassle, taking several hours start-to-finish (but part of that is just the proving steps, when you can do other things, of course). And, given that we were going out to my parents' house for dinner, time did not really permit. So, I took the calzone as far as the second proving step and then left them until we got back.

Sadly, this turned out to be a mistake - the fillling (which is great) soaked through the dough, and the whole mess was over-proved. The net effect is that the calzone are more like a pie with a pizza-base topping. Which I'm sure will be very nice, but wasn't quite what I'd intended. Honestly, I expected Paul Hollywood to pop in at any moment to harrangue me for over-proving the dough.

Still, I can't really complain. The calzone may not be perfect, but they'll still provide LC and I the better part of six meals each, which is a significant win.

And that was basically my weekend. I think I'm happy to call that a success.

(Two. The kitchen light took me about half an hour to replace, and is now considerably better than it ever was before. LC's car is going for its service and MOT tomorrow, and then there will just be the carpets to get done. I don't think I'll bother with any further updates unless and until something significant changes.)

(Also, it may be a while before I add another book to my reading list - the current one is the last volume of the "Wheel of Time", which is taking a while.)

The Musketeers vs Feminism

"The Musketeers" is a pretty terrible show, what with its desecration of classic literature, its attempt to be all 'adult' and 'racy' (and, worse, it's abject failure to do so), and its evident desire to be something else. I sometimes wonder if they knew while filming it that they were producing a terrible show, or if they really thought they were making something good and it has just gone horribly wrong?

This week's episode was a case in point. On the face of it, it may have seemed a good idea - it had all the elements needed: a seeming attack on the King, the Musketeers investigating a politically-dangerous woman, intrigue, and assassination attempt, Athos falling in love... There was even an opportunity to make a social point about the education of women, ticking the BBC's political correctness card. Huzzah!

But it sucked, because the needs of the political correctness card meant that it had to play out a certain way: the "politically-dangerous woman" had to be idealistic but, ultimately, innocent of any wrong-doing. Yet, despite being a "strong, powerful woman", she had to run into trouble and need the noble Hero (Athos) to rescue her.

And that point about "education of women" ultimately had no impact, because all that could be done is for the makers to preach at us: in the UK, it's not a question whether women should be educated or not. Indeed, merely considering it makes me feel dumb: of course women should be educated. I get that that's not a universally-accepted conclusion around the world, and that's really unfortunate (and needs changed), but a light-entertainment programme from the UK (especially a bad one) isn't going to change that.

Now, if they'd really wanted to do something edgy on the topic, how about a single, simple change: instead of our feminist educator being an innocent unjustly accused of witchcraft, how about making her a true radical - her agenda is not merely the education of women (again, a Good Thing), but to go beyond that: the abolition of the monarchy, and the removal of the patriarchal church from power in the land. (And before you say 'anachronism', let me just note that "The Musketeers" doesn't have even the faintest claim to historical accuracy, or indeed accuracy of any sort.)

That way, you have a much more ambiguous story. In "The Musketeers", the King, despite being an ill-tempered teenager, actually isn't a terribly bad sort. The Queen, certainly, doesn't deserve the sort of treatment that a revolution would bring. And even Richelieu is a rather ambiguous figure in many respects - sure, he's the bad guy, but he's also clearly shown to be Good For France. Making that change would also mess with our Heroes' abilities to pick a side, since they are sworn agents of the very power structure she then opposes, and Aramis is (nominally at least) still destined for the church, while Athos and Porthos could go either way. That's actually got some interest built in.

But, alas, no. Instead, we get this oh-so-terrible bogeywoman thrown up (Oh, horrors! Women might become educated!!!), then some running around, and then (surprise!) it turns out that the feminist is right all along. Well, yes, she is. I didn't need you to take an hour to tell me that, though.

Anyway, I believe there are three episodes to go: this week's D'Artagnan-centric episode, then presumably one about Porthos, and then the series finale in which, and I'm just guessing here, D'Artagnan gets to become a Musketeer after all in a surprising but inevitable plot twist. Huzzah!

(Also, on the subject of subtraction, we're now down to 3. The flat electrics are done, and I'm hoping to get the kitchen light done this weekend. Watch this space.)

Kingdom of the Self-Service Checkout

Unlike a lot of people, I'm actually a fan of self-service checkouts. They're faster, more efficient, and they therefore cut down on queues. Provided, that is:

1. You don't have anything that doesn't have a barcode
2. You don't have anything that needs weighed
3. You don't have anything that needs authorisation or other assistance (DVDs, wine, scissors, medicines...)
4. You only have a very few items in total.

If any of those conditions don't apply, they're much harder to use, and the whole process slows right down. So while having self-service checkouts in addition to the regular ones is a good thing, we really can't switch to them as the sole means of checkout.

As we know, Monday is Tesco night, just after band practice. Unfortunately, what wasn't quite so well known is that the shift change in Tesco occurs at 10pm, at which point all regular checkouts close for ten minutes or so until the new shift can take over.

As it happened, items #1 and #'2 from my list were still true. Item #3 should have been true, but unfortunately the system fails when item #4 doesn't hold - the bagging area wasn't big enough for all the bags I needed, which meant things kept needing moved around, that kept triggering the "please seek assistance" prompt.

Now, I do understand that they need that prompt, because the self-service checkouts have to work according to the weight of items. Fair enough. And I also get that supermarkets really don't want to pay for checkout staff to do nothing. That's also fair enough.

But as a practical matter the weekly shop cannot be sensibly put through on a self-service checkout. It just doesn't work - too much hassle, too much need for intervention from the staff, and too much annoyance. It would have been better, for all concerned, for them to open up a checkout, run through that shop, and then close the checkout again.

Gah!

(On another topic, and for those keeping track of my arithmetic woes: 4 - 1 = still 4. My car is now fixed, and LC's car is booked in to be fixed. And, if I'm really lucky, the flat electrics are in the process of being fixed now. However, one of the bulbs in the kitchen light has blown, and it appears that the fitting has been damaged such that the bulb can't be replaced - I'll need to replace the entire light. Sometimes, this all feels like the trials of Sisyphus.)

Ooh, Culture!

When sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions. - Hamlet

(Okay, that's the culture bit. The rest is just me moaning.)

It has been a tough weekend. Remember how last weekend I did a post about how 3 - 2 = 5? Well, it turns out that 5 - 2 = 4...

We got our hot water fixed last week. This wasn't too bad - there was a part replaced, there was a note that the boiler is now End of Life (which will limit the availability of parts in future), but it could have been much worse. And on Saturday I spent some more time on the bathroom ceiling, stripping again and repainting, and it's now much better. So, that's good.

But on Saturday morning there was The Smell. A rather disturbing stench coming from somewhere in the appartment, the smell of something unpleasant burning. To be fair, I'd noticed this before, but had convinced myself it was LC's hairdryer or straighteners, or somesuch. But on Saturday that excuse didn't exist - The Smell was there and neither of these things had been used.

Well, after some investigations we identified that it's coming from our main "fuse box" (I'm not sure what the correct term is, since instead of fuses it actually houses several circuit breakers), the smell was definitely of burning plastic, and the box became warm to the touch when certain appliances were on.

Now, for obvious reasons there was very little to be done thereafter. I was able to identify that the problems seem associated with one particular breaker (because it was worst when the shower and/or the tumble drier were on, and they share a breaker), but of course I didn't open the box to see what was wrong. My gut feeling is that that breaker has worn out, a short circuit has probably developed, and that that's the problem, but of course I might be wrong.

So, I contacted the guy who does the regular safety inspections on the box. Or, rather, I tried to - it turns out he doesn't work weekends (and fair enough). The last few days have been a bit stressful. Obviously, that's something I want fixed Right Now, but time doesn't always work like that.

In addition to this, LC hit problems with our computers this weekend... but I won't go into that. Except to note that it's seldom that one thing that causes the problem - it's that one thing on top of all the other things. Oh well.

The upshot of all of this is that this week, which was already going to be awfully busy and horrendously expensive, is now going to be even more busy and expensive. I just hope that, if we can endure, this will be the end of the problems.

Anyway... after finally getting through the weekend, we retired to bed. Only to find that neither of us slept at all well - I think we each managed about four hours in fits and starts through the night. Not good. (A combination of worry, not feeling terribly well, and there being a clear barrier between discrete zones of "too hot" and "too cold".)

I dropped my car off to be looked at this morning. That, at least, went okay. And then, on my way to work, I hit a huge traffic jam and lost another hour or so. Gah!

But then I phoned up and paid for the repair to our boiler and then phoned someone else and arranged to have the "fuse box" looked at. It would be nice to think that the worst is now behind us.

Onward!

#11: "Pathfinder: City of Locusts", by Richard Pett

March of the Third Doctor

The Third Doctor novel was "Last of the Gadarene", which I read last year. It was a fine novel - not the book of the year, but satisfying enough for all that. That meant that this month I had only a very little reading to do, specifically the short story "Spear of Destiny", starring the Third Doctor. It was okay, but remarkable mostly for introducing me to the trivia that the Vikings had a dedicated bath-day. Well, that, and another plot from The Master, who in his original incarnation was always a favourite of mine. (I'm not so keen on his appearances since the TV movie, although Derek Jacobi was good of course.)

With the Third Doctor, though, we're really getting to the point where I'm familiar with the character. Although I never saw any of his episodes live, I was familiar with the Third Doctor from "The Five Doctors", in which he is most definitely one of the star turns. I also once saw him in the Doctor Who stage play, many many years ago (he was later replaced in that by Colin Baker). And, like Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor, the Third Doctor had an incredibly recognisable voice. This makes reading his stories very easy, since you get a clear mental image whenever he speaks.

So... "Spear of Destiny" really wasn't great, much like the other two short stories thus far. "Last of the Gadarene", though, was a very solid read, probably just pipping "Dreams of Empire" as my favourite to date.

Next month we have the Fourth Doctor, at which point I've just about caught up with where I came in. Though it's not until May, and the Fifth, that we really hit 'my' Doctor.

#10: "The Hundred Days", by Patrick O'Brian (book of the year so far)

For Once, Good Timing

About six months ago, in the run up to our Centenary, the band were contacted by the granddaughter of our first pipe major. She and her mum visited the band, and at that time they also presented us with some music written by our first pipe major, two out of three tunes that he had written for his three daughters. However, due to an injury sustained in the Great War, he had never been able to play the tunes. Consequently our guest, the final surviving daughter, had never heard the tunes her father wrote for her and her sisters. They asked if someone from the band could learn the tunes so that they could come back and hear them played - and that task fell to me.

The return visit was planned for last Thursday, but unfortunately it had to be cancelled due to ill health. This was unfortunate, but not entirely unexpected given the age of the lady in question.

So far, so ordinary.

But it occurred to me on Friday that perhaps waiting to reschedule the visit wasn't the best possible option. After all, you never know...

Besides, it had always been my intention to record the tunes and present our guests with a CD, memory stick, or similar device with the audio file. Indeed, I had such a recording already, although the quality wasn't great - my pipes had had a new chanter and new drone reeds in the last week, and the recording was with the older, less good, set.

So I rerecorded the tunes last night, put the file somewhere public, and sent a link along. No big deal, or so I thought.

It turns out that the lady in question turns 86 this Friday, and so hearing the tunes for the first time will make for a fine present for her.

It turns out that, just sometimes, my timing isn't entirely awful. Huzzah!

#9: "The Wind in the Willows", by Kenneth Grahame (A book from The List)

3 - 2 = 5??

How is it that you can start the year with three maintenance tasks to do around the place, spend some time working really hard to clear two of them, and end up with five? And how does that five manage to include all three of those original tasks?

Gah!

In case you were wondering, here are the five...

1. Bathroom ceiling. This has been an eyesore for a long time, so last weekend I spent some time stripping down the affected areas, re-plastered them, and painted them. It's now much better than it was. Unfortunately, though, when the paint dried it also contracted, and thus has cracked. Basically, it needs re-done. Which was pretty devastating after all the work I did last weekend.
2. LC's car. This went in to get fixed, a process taking three days. But it was done, and finished. Until, that is, we received a courtesy call from the people who sold us the car trying to offer us an MOT and service, which are now due.
3. The carpets need cleaned properly.
4. My car has now developed a worrying rattle.
5. And the latest annoyance in my life: something has gone wrong with our boiler. We still have heating, thank goodness, but no hot water.

It's all just annoying, and frankly this latest problem was the last thing I needed after a fairly rotten week.

Pet Peeve: Selfies

Okay, leaving aside for the moment that 'seflie' is itself an abomination of a term, and yet another sign of the degeneracy of modern society, the thing that really annoys me even more about it is misuse of the term.

A 'selfie' is a photograph that you take of yourself - either directly, or in a mirror. Other people and other things can appear in a selfie, but those two rules apply - you must appear in the photo, and you must take the photo yourself. (I'm sure there's a clue there in the name, but I'm not entirely sure what it is...)

If someone else takes a photo of you, that is not a selfie - that is a photograph. I know it's a shocking concept, but there it is. Likewise, the only way to get a "food selfie" is if you're a cannibal and your food is really underdone. Otherwise, it's just you taking a photo of your food - which may or may not be an horrible and pretentious habit, but it's not a selfie.

Gah!

#8: "The Dagger of Trust", by Chris Willrich

Dear Insurance Companies...

If you send me a renewal notice saying that you believe the most appropriate provider for me gives a quote of £X a year and I phone to cancel saying I've got a much better quote (as I had), please don't put me on hold while you rustle up a mysterious 'new' quote at £Y per year for the same service. I'm not, despite appearances, a complete idiot - so, by all means, consider that £X-Y an "apathy tax"... just don't be surprised if I elect not to pay it.

(It was especially insulting this time, as I happened to have not one but two much better quotes for the insurance, one of which was actually that same £Y quote from the same provider. It just happened that I'd been quoted as new business rather than as a renewal.)

Actually, this whole episode makes me feel really quite distressed, precisely because it's not, at all, a surprise. It's well known that companies delight in offering "introductory discounts" and other such things in order to get your business, and then ramp up the costs on renewal. In effect, you'll always be better off moving your gas/electricity/internet from your current supplier to someone else.

It's especially bad with insurance, which is supposed to be marketed based on actuarial assessment; that is, based on a calculation of the risk involved. But, as I've said before, if it were really done based on a purely actuarial basis, it should always be cheaper to renew with the same company than it is to move, because the new company has actual rather, than estimated, data which reduces the unknown factors, and hence the risk. And yet it is always cheaper to move elsewhere... or at least to say you're going to move elsewhere.

I do hate it when things just don't work the way they really should.

Update on Goals

We're now 50 days into the new year, and so it is time for an update on my progress at my goals. So:

• Weight: This started pretty brightly, but has now hit a plateau, which is a pain. The big problem is the weekends, where something seems to have gotten in the way every time, be it a birthday, a restaurant visit, or just sheer laziness. Oh well.
• Work: Likewise, this has started well.
• Books: I've read seven books to date, which means I am once again slightly ahead of target for this year. Which is good.
• Games: "Imperial Fist" is ongoing. We've lost one player and gained another, and also switched the dates to better balance my weeks. Unfortunately, it looks like the first of the three proposed one-shots will need to be cancelled, which will mean the goal will fall short. Oh well. By contrast, I have two of the three 'player' games scheduled, so that aspect is going well.
• Maintenance: This is a bit behind schedule. One of the three parts is done, but the other two remain as they were with no great sign of motion. The fundamental problem is that I can't really be bothered.
• Computer: Deferred.
• Money: This is actually well in hand. The payback of the loan is automated, so will sort itself out. The rest of the clean-up is mostly done, with only two calls to make to finish that off. I would like to rebuild some savings, though.

And that's where we are 50 days into 2014. By the time of the next update, I would like to have broken through the weight plateau, read 16 books, and completed the "maintenance" goal. I suspect two out of those three is a more likely outcome.

The Clown Before the Dandy

February is the month of the Second Doctor. As I said last month, I have no great experience with the Second Doctor - I've seen both "The Five Doctors" and "The Two Doctors", but neither of these was really a story about that that Doctor. (The "The Two Doctors", in particular, was rather poor, in part because Patrick Troughton wasn't really up to the demands of the role at the time.)

So, it was with some trepidation that I approached this month's story, "The Nameless City", and novel, "Dreams of Empire".

But I needn't have worried. Where the First Doctor is a significant shift away from what I was used to, it seems the Second was much more familiar - he fits pretty much perfectly alongside the Third and Fourth that I barely remember, and alongside the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh that I watched far more regularly. So, it really did read like a new incarnation of the well-known character.

That said, the short story was, it must be said, a little odd - the combination of the fundamentally optimistic Doctor Who and the fundamentally nihilistic Cthulhu mythos doesn't really work, for obvious reasons.

But the novel is far more satisfying, to the extent that I actually read it across three days instead of the planned week. This one was a sort-of-Julius Caesar story set in space with lots of chess metaphors. And I must admit, it managed to surprise me: I had figured out all but one of the plot twists some way in advance, but I missed a big one. Which was good, really.

So, that's that. March is the month of the Third Doctor, although I've already read the novel, "Last of the Gaderene", so there won't be too much to do. Fortunately, I'm much more familiar with the Dandy, so that should be a good one...

Experimental Cookery 2014: Thai Red Beef Curry with Jasmine Rice

This one came from Lorraine's "Fast, Fresh, and Easy Food". It was certainly fast!

This was a very nice curry, but blimey it was a hot one! So hot, in fact, that Lady Chocolat was forced to concede defeat. I made it through to the end, but am not entirely sure that was the best choice. But, apart from the extreme heat, it was pretty excellent.

#6: "The Yellow Admiral", by Patrick O'Brian
#7: "Dreams of Empire", by Justin Richards

Brocolli!

I have a new nemesis, which is probably a good thing since the others were becoming worn-out through overuse - a bit like the Borg, really.

Anyway, there are certain foodstuffs that I have to avoid, or tread carefully around. Dominos pizza, for example, or at least the stuffed-crust variety, always causes me problems, as does deep-fried chicken. (Conversely, Shredded Wheat, although deeply unpleasant to eat, does me considerable good.) But, in both cases, it's really obvious that I shouldn't be eating those things anyway - they're hugely and obviously bad for you. Frankly, complaining about that would be like complaining that a diet entirely from McDonalds or composed of deep-fried Mars bars wasn't the best.

But brocolli is supposed to be healthy. I mean, it's even green, and as we know no foodstuff that is green could possibly be bad for you - clearly, the horrendous taste of such things is inversely proportionate to its life-giving qualities. (Plus, it has the electrolytes that plants crave!)

Not so much, it turns out. It seems brocolli is a traitor veg, lying in wait to pounce on the unwary eater and leave them feeling rotten for days afterwards.

And so now I find myself paranoid, at any time expecting an attack by my foul new nemesis. Which probably explains the strange looks I was receiving in Tesco last night. But, frankly, it's justified: vegetables are masters of stealth - have you ever seen one attacking?

No, I thought not.

Experimental Cookery 2014: Spicy Sausage and Bean Casserole

Huzzah! This one was a rousing success.

This particular meal was taken from the "Great British Bake Off Winter Kitchen", by Lizzie Kamenetzky, one of the two new books I got for Christmas. That book has proven to be one that is better in the dreaming than the practice, I've found - I really like the idea of a lot of the things, but doubt I'll ever make too many of them.

Still, this one was good. It was simple, too - mix up a sauce, bake to thicken, fry the sausages, combine the lot, bake again, and serve. I paired it with some lovely mash, and my best bread to date - another seeded loaf, this one made with one-third white and two-thirds stoneground flour. So it was a big meal, but a hugely satisfying one. And we've got four more portions, and half a loaf, left for later use, too.

As I said, a rousing success!

#4: "David Copperfield", by Charles Dickens (a book from The List)
#5: "Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth", by Wolfgang Baur