While the Tories and the press have got us all looking at some not-very-damaging revelations about David Cameron's tax affairs, who or what have they got us all not looking at?
(Bear in mind that the Tories are all about power, and that they have a playbook going right back to the English Civil War. David Cameron is just the latest figurehead - and ever since he announced he was stepping down his main use has been as a blame magnet.)
#19: "The Long Utopia", by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Today is Day 100 of the year, which means it's time for another update on goals. And so, without further ado:
And so, this is much the same as last time - two going well and two less hopeful. The three "not really goals" are a bit more positive - two done and one well in hand - but those are, of course, not really goals.
All in all, that's okay, but it's a little disappointing compared with where I had hoped we would be. Oh well.
#18: "Wars of the Roses: Bloodline", by Conn Iggulden
One of the benefits of the internet is that it has occasionally allowed me to track down a book that I've been keen to read that has been unusually obscure, long out of print, or both. Which is rather nice, really.
Many moons ago, TSR published a six volume series called "The Cloakmaster Cycle" set in their Spelljammer universe. I read the first two of these when they came out, and they were okay. I then read the next two when they came out, and they were much better. Then, finally, some years later I chanced to find volume five in a Virgin Megastore in Oxford (that places the event 23 years ago, since I've been to Oxford exactly once). The fifth volume was okay, but not great, but it did end on a cliffhanger.
And that was that; I never found volume six, which was apparently only published in very small numbers, and never reprinted.
As noted, the internet makes tracking down this last volume relatively easy. However, unlike those other books I've mentioned, "The Ultimate Helm" is regarded as being fairly poor, even by the standards of game fiction, and there's a fairly significant mark-up in the price due to the rarity of this particular book. Plus, I would have to reread the other five volumes before tackling this one, as it has been half a lifetime since I read them.
On the other hand, it would finally get me to the end of that series, and resolve a cliffhanger that has been stuck there for a very long time.
And so the question is obvious: do I buy this last book to complete the set and resolve the cliffhanger (and, of course, satisfy my sense of neatness), or do I simply let it go and leave the story unfinished?
Had the vote in September 2014 gone the other way, today was the expected day that Scotland would have become independent. I felt I couldn't let the day pass without at least some marker.
So here it is.
At present, I have no desire to see a repeat of the referendum - the evidence is pretty strong that a second referendum would result in another "No", so there's no point. However, if there were another referendum at this point, I'd still vote "Yes", because none of the reasons I cast that vote have changed. (Things could have been different, but they're not. If anything, things are worse now than they were.)
I do think another referendum, eventually, is inevitable. And, actually, I do think independence itself is also inevitable, unless the EU becomes a genuine state first (with the consequent abolition of France, Germany, and the UK). Though I'm far from certain that that latter will result from the second independence referendum. Indeed, I'm not absolutely certain it will result from a referendum at all.
But in terms of the eventual second referendum, I think there are two possibilities. If the UK votes to leave the EU and Scotland votes to stay, I think that will essentially force the SNP to hold a second referendum. (I couldn't possibly predict the result of that - the polls are almost exactly neck-and-neck now, and it is thought that Brexit would give a ~6% swing towards independence. But there's usually a late swing back towards the status quo, so even that wouldn't normally be enough... except that Brexit would mean the status quo actually wasn't on offer.)
The other possibility, I think, is that the second referendum is likely in 2021, when the UK is 'enjoying' a third term of Tory governance under the glorious leadership of either George or Boris, and Labour are busily engaged in their next round of civil war. And, honestly, that's probably around the right time frame for a second referendum anyway, since it will mean there are a lot of voters who were too young to vote in 2014 but would be old enough by 2021. (And, also, 7 years matches the precedent in the Good Friday agreement in NI.)
(For those in the media who seem confused by the SNP's support for a Remain vote for the EU, given that Brexit would lead to an early referendum, there's a really easy explanation: the SNP leadership don't want to have a second referendum; they want to win one. If they feel that waiting longer and, crucially, picking their moment gives them the better chance of winning, of course they'll favour that!)
And that's pretty much that. Other than to say that in honour of this not-event I'll not be putting up bunting tonight, won't be letting off fireworks, and won't be eating cake.
Somehow, the old argument about prize money for women's tennis has cropped up again, with some rather unfortunate comments being made.
My position on this is pretty simple: the winners in women's tennis should absolutely be paid the same as their male equivalents. However, they should also equalise the number of sets played by men and women at the Grand Slams (and the Olympics). I would prefer this to mean that women should play best of five sets, but it works equally well if men play only best of three.
The reason for saying prize money should be equal should be obvious. The reason for equalising the number of sets is that as long as it is unequal, there is a fig leaf of respectability for suggestions women should be paid less - they're doing less 'work'. Best to remove that fig leaf.
It's fair to say I'm not a fan of Jamie Oliver's Sugar Tax - I don't like the government trying to engineer society in this manner, especially in an area where personal responsibility should apply. That said, I'll concede that this is probably a tax that's come, and also that there is a fairly serious issue with obesity in the country that public health initiatives have simply failed to touch.
So, fair enough, I guess. Paying an extra 8 pence for a can of Irn Bru isn't going to kill me.
That said, I do have a fairly serious concern about the likely response to this, in that I foresee the soft drinks manufacturers reformulating their drinks to lower the sugar content... and doing so by replacing it with artificial sweeteners.
I'll admit that my reasons for this are entirely selfish: I was advised some time ago to avoid artificial sweeteners as they cause problems for my digestion, something I was more than happy to do since I don't like them anyway. (I suspect the GP who thus advised me would probably also advise skipping the soft drinks altogether, but that's not happening...)
Since I was given that advice, Coca Cola have actually done both a good and a bad thing (from my point of view) in their product lines.
The good thing was the introduction of Coca Cola Life (the green bottle) - a drink that claims to taste the same as regular Coca Cola, but which replaces most or all of the sugar with Stevia. Now, I have no idea whether it actually tastes the same, or whether it's at all pleasant or not, since I haven't tried it. It's just one more option for me to ignore, which is a good thing.
The bad thing was the reformulation of Sprite to replace the sugar with Stevia - the same process, but instead of being another option it was a replacement. The consequence of this move is that I can no longer drink Sprite. Not a good thing.
In fact, the list of soft drinks I can have is fairly limited: pretty much everything other than Coke, Pepsi, 7-Up, and Irn Bru is on the barred list. Which is fine - four options is plenty. (I could even drop to three, losing either Coke or Pepsi, except that bars and restaurants never stock both. Meaning that 50% of such places would then be problematic.)
(The awkward thing there, of course, is that the stated purpose of the Sugar Tax is precisely to encourage manufacturers to reformulate to get rid of the sugar. I suspect George's real reason is actually just to get more money, but that's another matter.)
So, I'm not terribly happy about the Sugar Tax, but it's not too terrible and I'm willing to pay it. And if the manufacturers respond by introducing new options for low-sugar versions of their drinks, then that's fine too (good, even). But I really hope they don't do so while removing the four remaining soft drinks that I actually can have.
#17: "William Shakespeare's Star Wars: The Tragedy of the Sith's Revenge", by Ian Doescher
I've been meaning to watch this for some time, and with the 2-for-1 offer currently available on Disney DVDs we took the opportunity to pick up "Big Hero 6" and "Inside Out" at the weekend. And so we watched Disney's follow-up to "Frozen" last night.
I enjoyed it, a great deal. I'm a little torn over whether I prefer this or "Wreck It Ralph" - I think, on balance, I prefer the earlier film, but it's a close one. I mean, really, it's all robots and superheroes; what more could you want?
Of particular note, I especially enjoy the short films that Pixar and now Disney package with their features - "Paperman" with Ralph, "Lava" with "Inside Out", and "Feast" here - they're such a good way for them to try out new tricks and new technologies, to develop their staff, and also to practice their storytelling. Plus, they're good fun in their own right.
So, yeah, good stuff. Disney (and Pixar, Marvel, and Lucasfilm) seem to really be on a roll right now.
#13: "Trigger Warning", by Neil Gaiman
#14: "Brideshead Revisited", by Evelyn Waugh (a book from The List)
#15: "Pathfinder: The Hellfire Compact", by F. Wesley Schneider
#16: "Doctor Who: Time Lord Fairy Tales", by Justin Richards
Being something of a bookworm, I thought it might be worth answering the questions I saw posed on Kezzie's blog for myself. (She in turn "borrowed" it from someone else, who it seems "borrowed" it in turn. Perhaps, one day, an inquisitive soul will track this back to its originator, at which point they will declare that they would have gotten away with it...)
1. Read only trilogies or stand alones?
Standalones. I've read more good books that get everything wrapped up on one volume than I have good trilogies. (And I've ranted about the open-ended fantasy epic before...)
2. Read only male or female authors?
Like Kezzie, I genuinely don't care either way. However, if I absolutely had to choose, I'd choose male authors, but only because there are more men than women working in my favourite genre (fantasy) and Bernard Cornwell, Neil Gaiman, and Conn Iggulden (my three favourite living authors) are all men. But I sure would miss Robert Galbraith's work, or finding out how J.V. Jones finished her series.
3. Shop at a book shop or Amazon?
Amazon. These days I tend to find it hard to find the books I want in a real shop - because so much of what I want is fairly obscure, or is Part N of a long series, or because I'm looking for a very specific title, the odds of it being in stock at any given store at any given time are quite small. Amazon, for all their faults, basically have everything.
4. All books become films or TV shows?
Ick. Neither, really - the book is better. But, again, if I absolutely had to choose then I'd go for TV. Film is good for mediorce novels or good short stories, but is a poor format for translating a good full-length novel.
5. Read five pages a day or five books a week?
Ouch, this is a difficult one! I'd have to go for five pages a day, as I simply don't have time to read five books a week. But five pages a day is nowhere near enough.
6. Be a professional reviewer or author?
Author. Actually, if I were to win the lottery, that's what I'd do with my time. (But I have no illusions that I could actually make a living at it, and I don't have time to try my hand at it in addition to everything else.)
Of course, since I don't actually play the lottery, that's all rather unlikely.
7. Only read your top 20 books or only ever read new books?
I assume that by "new books" it means "new to me"? In any case, since I very very rarely re-read a book (and, indeed, have reread fewer than 20 books ever), I'd have to go for new books, every time. It would be a shame to never again revisit Middle Earth or Discworld, but I would regret never visiting other places even more.
8. Be a librarian or book seller?
To be honest, neither really appeals. But if I had to choose, I guess librarian. Ook!
9. Only read you favourite genre, or read every genre except your favourite?
Every genre except my favourite. Despite fantasy being my favourite genres, almost all the best books I have read have not been fantasies.
10. Only read physical books or only read e-books.
Physical. No contest.
A few months ago, I saw that McDonalds were attempting to spawn a 'viral' marketing campaign - they posed a question and tried to encourage people to tweet back an answer. I expect that this failed abysmally, as I really hope people have better things to do with their time, but it did lead me to put a name to something I'd been pondering for some time.
The question was whether or not people liked having gherkins on the Big Mac.
My theory is that even for people who don't like gherkins having them on the Big Mac improves the experience.
Now, before I go any further, I should note that this applies only in the case where the gherkin is the only thing the person doesn't like about the Big Mac - if you don't like the gherkins and the salad and the sauce, then the Gherkin Theory doesn't apply... and what you want is a different burger. (Oh, and of course, I'm only talking about people who don't like gherkins. A person with an actual intolerance or allergy to them is entirely a different matter!)
Anyway, on to the theory itself...
I learned some time ago that when people make up perfumes, they can't just take a bunch of nice scents and blend them together. If they do that, the resulting perfume is invariably sickly-sweet and will be rejected by the vast majority of people. Therefore, they always include one (and almost always only one) less-than-pleasant scent in amongst the selection. This single "off note" is subtle enough not to be consciously detected by the potential customer, but is just enough to cut through the sweetness of the others, and gives a more mature, more rounded, and more satisfying whole.
(The same applies in cookery, too, of course, where by pairing foods you can improve the whole. In particular, using lemon juice to cut through the sweetness of many fruits is a common trick.)
So, when we come to the Big Mac, we have three rough groups of people (at least, as far as relevance to this discussion is concerned): people who like the gherkin on the Big Mac, people who mildly dislike the gherkin, and people who really hate the gherkin.
Now, for the people who like the gherkin, there is little further discussion required. The likelihood is that the reason they like the gherkin is precisely because of the contrast that it brings to the other components - in effect, they're already applying what I've mentioned above.
For the people who dislike the gherkin, the benefit of them being present is as I've outlined above - by including that single "off note", the other flavours are brought together. Huzzah!
Now, for the people who hate the gherkin, how can I possibly argue that their experience is improved by having the gherkin present? Well, it's in this: by getting the Big Mac with gherkins present, they then get the great joy of removing and discarding those gherkins prior to eating the burger. Which gives them a victory over their hated enemy - they've now taken action that has directly (albeit almost trivially) improved their lives. (And the value of small victories shouldn't be overlooked - some days, those are the only victories you might get, and be all the sweeter for it.)
(Of course, one might argue that having the gherkin on the Big Mac even for a few moments somehow contaminates the rest of the burger. Which sounds like a reasonable argument, but it has two flaws: (1) your palate is almost certainly not sensitive enough to detect such a tiny trace, and (2) if it is, then you surely wouldn't be eating at McDonalds.)
Anyway, that's the gherkin theory. It is, of course, largely nonsense. But it has a name, which makes it better. (But that's "Name Theory". I may come back to that.)
Incidentally, the wider implication of Gherkin Theory (which I was discussing with Captain Ric at the wedding on Saturday, which inspired this post), is actually that being exposed to, and indeed appreciating, the minor imperfections in life is a good thing. Otherwise, you'll spend your life constantly striving for a perfection that is simply unattainable, and so becoming frustrated. But if you're used to, and indeed content with, things that are almost perfect, life is that bit sweeter - you can focus on all the many things that are right, and not focus on the one or two things that are just not quite what you would have wanted.
But that's all rather philosophical for a silly little post about gherkins, isn't it?
(I could, of course, have equally named my theory "Sprout Theory", "Minor Imperfection Theory"... or "Ewok Theory". The latter not to be confused with "Jar Jar Theory", which is what happens when that minor imperfection is over-exaggerated.)
As a rule, I don't like playing the bagpipes for money. I take the view that I have a job and that I'd therefore rather keep my hobbies as hobbies, without the expectations that come with making money from them. (Plus, it's worth noting that playing for money has tax implications, and it's really not worth adding a second, very small, income stream as doing so is more hassle than benefit.) So, for the most part, if someone asks me to play at an event, it will be a friend or a family member, and I'll donate my time rather than charge for it.
That said, every so often I do get asked to play at an event by someone I don't really know. In which case, my first impulse is to pass it on to someone else - there are people in the band who do play for money, and for whom it represents a decent portion of their income, and so are glad of the extra work. But if that's not possible, then I'll do the event is possible. Because if someone asks, presumably it's because they'd rather like to have a piper.
There are three types of events where a person will typically ask a piper to play. Two of these are 'happy' events - weddings and Burns' Nights. In both cases, people are celebrating some event, they're generally happy events, and if the piper can add something to the event then that's all to the good.
But the third of these is the one I really don't like playing at: funerals.
I actually don't mind funerals in general, because every funeral is different - most of the admittedly few I have attended have been markers of the end of a long life well lived. They've been quiet affairs that served to bring a conclusion, and to celebrate a life.
But the concern when playing the bagpipes at a funeral is that you just don't know how things are going to play out. You're inevitably playing for people who are hurting, even in the best of circumstances, and in both of the cases where I've played at a funeral it has been for people I didn't know well. And you can't know how people will react if you play the wrong, or perhaps right, piece of music. It's just difficult.
(And the worst thing of all is dealing with the money. Which really sucks, because the last thing you want to do is ask someone who is in the midst of grieving for the payment that's been arranged, but given that it has been arranged... A useful note for anyone in that position: when confirming the booking, ask the client to give the payment in an envelope to the funeral director. They're used to handling such things, and are good for maintaining a professional distance.)
So it's fair to say that playing at funerals isn't exactly my favourite thing in the world.
(There's an obvious reason I'm mentioning this now: on Friday I played at my second funeral. The lady involved was actually the last of the three daughters of the founder of my pipe band, who I had first met during our centenary celebrations - her father had composed three tunes, one for each of his daughters, but she'd never actually heard them played. So I learned the tunes and played them for her. And so, with her passing, we were asked again if a piper from the band could go and play at the funeral. Naturally, we made sure that someone, specifically me, did just that.)
#12: "William Shakespeare's Star Wars: The Clone Army Attacketh", by Ian Doescher
Yes, it's true - tonight I did my first Experimental Cookery of 2016. For Christmas, LC's parents got me a box containing three curry pastes - an Indonesian paste, a Balti paste, and a Thai Green curry paste. As the one of the three that I'd never tried before, the Indonesian paste was selected for tonight's meal.
Not being entirely sure what to do with this paste, I adapted Jamie's Korma recipe - the chickpeas and dessicated coconut came out, and lime leaves went in instead, but the base was the standard onions, ginger and chilli. It was a quick and easy meal to make, about an hour from end to end, and served with rice (and haggis pakora, since we're Scots).
I'm sure it wasn't even remotely authentic, but I'm largely unconcerned with such things - what was important was that the curry tasted very nice. And, as an added bonus, we now have three additional portions tucked away in the freezer for later use. Huzzah!
The one thing I think was perhaps a mistake was that I attempted to use half of the jar but misjudged it and ended up using closer to three quarters. This leaves us with a little left over - maybe just enough to do a meal for two at some later point. In hindsight, I should have added a little more chicken, used the whole jar, and gone for eight portions instead of five. Oh well, I'll know for next time.
And that, pretty much, is that.
#10: "Pathfinder: Breaking the Bones of Hell", by Amber E. Scott
#11: "Pirate's Prophecy", by Chris A. Jackson
LC and I went to see this on Saturday. We were a little surprised to find that it was already reduced to only one showing a night, and in pretty much the smallest screen the cinema had available. Still, I guess with both "Deadpool" and "Zoolander 2" starting, they probably needed the screens.
Anyway, it's a pretty enjoyable film, though not necessarily what I'd describe as a "good" film - it's a light-hearted romp that does what it sets out to do but doesn't exactly stretch itself. Which, if I'm being honest, probably sums up Jane Austen's oeuvre, so I guess that fits.
The two leads, Lily James and Sam Riley, were both fine in the roles of Elizabeth and Fitzwilliam, though they were upstaged rather by Tywin and Cersei... I mean Charles Dance and Lena Headey (as Mr Bennet and Lady Catherine respectively). And the highlight was Matt Smith as Mr Collins (Parson Collins) who was amusing throughout. (That said, I was struck once again by just how much of Lily James' acting technique boils down to breathing in and out. I'm not sure that's a recommendation.)
And that's pretty much all there is to say about that, really. Except to note that I really should read the book. Oh, and indeed that I find the notion of a Regency + Zombies RPG quite intriguing...
A few weeks ago, the family were drafted in to help one of my brothers move home. It was a fairly miserable day, especially due to fairly heavy snow. As is my wont, I listened to the coverage of football that afternoon, which saw a lot of games cancelled due to the weather, and some games start only to be abandoned. And, as always happens when that occurs, the major debate of the day was about whether Scottish football should have a mid-season break in January to prevent matches being called off.
The problem with that strategy, though, and the one that always gets brought up when this is debated, is that the weather in Scotland is fairly unpredictable - there may be heavy snow in January and matches may be called off... or January may be fine and February be marked with terrible weather. We just don't know from one year to the next. So scheduling a mid-season break is problematic.
But I would have thought something can be done. Specifically:
It's crazy, but it just might work!
Somehow, we're already 50 days into 2016. I'm rather shocked at this, but simultaneously quite glad that we're coming out of the worst of winter. It's been grim. Anyway, it's time for an update on goals for the year:
And that, basically, is that. Two goals well in hand, one that's ongoing but very stressful, and one that has no report. Things otherwise are proceeding apace. All in all, that's not too bad.
As we near the end of David Cameron's farcical 'renegotiation' process and it becomes apparent that he's not going to come away with any new powers, and may well come away with nothing at all, it's been interesting watching the Guardian and the BBC gradually filling with stories about how Britain will be bit with disaster if we decide to leave the EU. Which leaves me despairing at the idiocy on show.
Here's the thing: if and when the referendum comes, I fully intend to vote "Remain", because I think that's the best way forward for the UK. Actually, I'd go further than that, and advocate that even our current position of being in the club, but only just, is a mistake and that actually we should be getting right in there. But never mind.
But when I read stories about how the UK won't survive leaving the EU, we'll never be able to trade with anyone ever again, or we're going to lose all our maternity/paternity leave or right to paid holidays, I find myself reminded of the oh-so-successful "Project Fear" (their name, not mine) that the UK-OK campaign used in the Scottish Independence referendum. Where, again, we had such delights as being told that Scotland, uniquely of all nations in the world, could never survive independence, that we'd never be able to trade with anyone ever again, and even that we'd find ourselves vulnerable to attacks from space (no, really).
The problem is that the powers-that-be seem to have mistaken the victory for the "No" vote in that referendum for a sign that "Project Fear" was a successful campaign. But it wasn't - Project Fear managed to turn a 70/30 lead two years before the referendum into a nail-biting 55/45 result. What's more, by failing to win hearts and minds, it has left independence very much a live issue in Scotland. We voted "No"... but only with very strong reservations.
"Project Fear" was a terrible campaign. To see it being repeated already in the EU campaign leaves me extremely worried - it's a losing proposition even if you start with an overwhelming majority (which "Remain" don't) and if you have the media overwhelmingly on your side (which "Remain" don't).
And the more extreme the claims, the more outlandish the nonsense, the more counter-productive they are. See, when we were told that an independent Scotland would be vulnerable to attack from space (no, really), the reaction was not "oh well, better vote "no" then", it was to immediately discard that as abject nonsense and also to disregard anything else that person had to say in future. And so all the big names in the "no" camp were gradually discredited - Theresa May when she said England may have to bomb our airports, Ed Miliband when he talked about putting up a big wall along the border, Jim Murphy every time he said anything... and the BBC as they uncritically reported every bit of nonsense. The "no" camp were very, very lucky that Gordon Brown had kept his powder dry and had just enough of a reputation left that he was able to sell the Vow... and that now wouldn't work again.
So, to the "Remain" campaign, I say this: please, please don't take anything from the "Project Fear" playbook unless it is to use it as an example of how things should not be done. There's still time to end this madness... but not much time.
For Lent I have given up Irn Bru (and all related fizzy drinks), chocolate, and alcohol. For the most part it's no big deal, except when eating out (because it's surprisingly difficult to get a drink that isn't either alcoholic or carbonated), and indeed barely worth mentioning. Though I'll be glad once Lent is over and normal service can resume.
It turned out that there was one more problem with this plan, though, in that because Easter is so early this year, Valentine's Day fell within the period of Lent. Which meant that the plan to produce a three-course meal and to consume it with a nice bottle of wine was endangered.
Fortunately, there's a loophole...
One of the key origins of Lent is tied up with the forty days Christ spent in the wilderness (see Luke 4), and so for a similar time before Easter Christians will symbolically fast, typically giving something up that they otherwise enjoy. (Ideally, it actually shouldn't be a bad habit or vice - if something is a bad habit or vice one should really just give that up permanently!)
But Lent runs from Ash Wednesday (Feb 10th this year) through to Easter Sunday (March 27th this year) - a period of 46 days. The reason for this discrepancy is that Lent is a period of 40 days that are symbolically set aside. But since Sundays are already symbolically set aside (being Sundays), they don't count towards the total. And so the six Sundays (Feb 14, 21, and 28; and March 6, 13, and 20 this year) aren't part of the 40 days of Lent.
Which was rather lucky - this year Valentine's Day just happened to fall on a Sunday, allowing the exception to trigger just as it was needed. Huzzah!
At least, that's my excuse, and I'm sticking with it! (I won't be making an exception for the other five Sundays, though, so it's fair to note that I'm not entirely convinced it's a good excuse.)
Anyway, Valentine's dinner this year was started with "Truly Tomato" soup (essentially, a homemade cream of tomato) with rolls (store bought), followed by Chicken Balmoral with mashed potato and whisky sauce (all homemade), and with strawberry ice cream (homemade) and shortbread (bought) for dessert. To drink we had champagne, and later we had a few Valentine's chocolates while watching "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D."
All in all, it was rather a success... though rather a lot to eat!
#8: "The SHepherd's Crown", by Terry Pratchett
#9: "Doctor Who: Shada", by Gareth Roberts
As always seems to be the case, my PC has chosen to act up just as I'm facing up to an already-busy weekend. It's going to have to wait - there are things I simply must do this weekend, so annoying as the PC fault is I can't deal with it right now.
But the fact that this has happened is really annoying for two reasons:
So much for Windows 10 being a good one. Sigh.
#7: "Pathfinder: The Kintargo Contract", by Jim Groves
Some time ago, I half heard a snippet from some radio commentator of football, the gist of which was that when someone tuned in to the show, most likely part-way through the match, that person would actively resent every word that the commentator said until he got around to repeating the score. Which makes sense - it's the single most important factlet regarding the match, and so it's the one that you most want to know when you tune in.
Of course, the big problem with this is that a person who has been listening to the show throughout won't need a constant reminder of the score, and would be quickly annoyed if it were repeated every sentence or so. And so the solution must be to repeat the score reasonably often, but not necessarily all the time, and also to try to repeat it in a 'natural' way - "the attack dies out, and so the match remains poised at 1-1", or whatever.
When travelling to and from work in the last few days, I've been suffering a similar phenomenon with regard to the travel report. It's been fairly important for the last couple of weeks, and so I've felt compelled to listen out for it. And yet, the radio stations that have the traffic reports I need also don't have the music I want to listen to. (I could listen to a CD, but the stations in question are decidedly unreliable in their use of the "Travel Advisory" capability - usually, by the time they've activated it, they've already dealt with the bit of the travel I'm actually interested in. So that doesn't work.)
And so, I've been getting in the car, tuning to Forth One, and then resenting every single thing that is on the radio until a traffic report comes on. After which I change channel, since by then I know what I need to know.
Driving in to work this morning, then, I thought to myself, "I wonder why nobody has started a Traffic Channel, that plays nothing but repeated traffic reports?" At which point I quickly answered myself - there's no money in it since people would only ever tune in for five minutes, hear the report, and then tune out, so there's no value for advertisers, and so no funding.
So, really, whoever did such a thing would have to do so as a public service, with no intention of ever making any money from it. And where, in the whole of the UK, could we possibly find a public service broadcaster?
It really would be very helpful - a channel (actually, lots of regional channels) that broadcasts nothing but traffic reports, and maybe news and weather, on a permanent loop. They don't even need presenters as such; just use pre-recorded reports that change when the situation changes. Ideally, these channels would run in parallel to the existing programming on other stations, but if need be I'd be happy to sacrifice "Good Morning Scotland" on BBC Scotland for (a) something actually useful and (b) something that doesn't actively make me angry.
Just a thought...
(Oh, and another thought: Could someone at Classic FM please consider that having a single traffic report for the whole of the UK is completely useless? It's just not possible to cover the whole of the country in both a reasonable time and in enough detail to be useful - it really needs to be a local report to be useful. And, actually, that shouldn't be impossible, since I'm reasonably sure you already have regional advertising, so the technology needed already exists.)
#5: "Bloodbound", by F. Wesley Schneider
#6: "The Five People You Meet in Heaven", by Mitch Albom (a book from The List, and the first real candidate for Book of the Year for 2016 - it's going to take some beating!)
On Saturday LC and I got rid of my sofa. This was the one that I bought while living in Yeovil but didn't actually take possession of until I moved to Falkirk. For the first few years it was extremely comfortable, but as time went on it became more and more broken down.
Eventually, LC positively insisted that we had to get a new one (and rightly so). I in turn said we should wait until after we'd moved (again, I think that's right - we should select a sofa to match the new house, rather than pick the house to match the sofa). This delaying gambit led to us being offered, and gratefully accepting, a sofa from LC's parents (that I think they were in the process of getting rid of anyway). So far, so good.
Now, in hindsight we should really have gotten rid of my sofa at that time, when it would have been easy to do so. Instead, we made the mistake of keeping it in the living room to provide additional seating from guests. The folly of this approach became apparent when the Christmas Tree went up - it had to go where the sofa was, which meant that the sofa needed to be elsewhere, which meant "in the spare room". And the spare room didn't actually have space, and so has been insanely cramped for about six weeks (and since that's where the computer is, that wasn't good).
So the sofa had to go. At which point the plan was to donate it to a charity shop. After all, it's a bit beaten up but it's still a useable sofa that someone might benefit from. Arrangements were made, with only one condition: the sofa had to have the fire tags attached, without which they couldn't take it - not only could they not sell a sofa without, they couldn't even give it away. No problem... or so we thought.
It turned out that the fire label had long since been removed. I don't remember doing this, but obviously I must have done so. Anyway, the sofa couldn't be donated. And so, on Saturday, we borrowed my dad's car (which is just big enough) and took it to the dump. It's gone, done, and we have space again. Huzzah!
So, the important discovery is this: never take the fire tags off a sofa, even if you're sure you'll be keeping it until it dies on you. Because you never know.
#4: "A Confederacy of Dunces", by John Kennedy Toole (a book from The List)
Yes, it's true. After 10 short years, I have decided that the time has come to switch to a new template. It's mostly the same as the old one, except for the bits that are different.
The main thing that has prompted this mad rush to modernity is that the archive of posts had become unmanageable - with 10 years of posts, the list of months was running to close to 120 entries, which was just crazy. Hopefully, this new format should be easier to navigate. Plus, I should be better able to track my productivity, since each month will now tell me how many times I've posted. Which is good.
In other news, a couple of weeks ago I was phoned to make a fairly important appointment for tomorrow, which necessitated moving some other stuff out of the way. Specifically, the thing I had been planning for tomorrow got moved to next week. I've just phoned back to confirm the details, only to learn that they screwed up and actually made the appointment for next week. Gah!
Today is my grand-parents 70th (!) wedding anniversary. So many congratulations to them.
In honour of this achievement, LC made a card for them, and I was tasked with providing the message. And so, I spent some not-inconsiderable time coming up with an inspired and literary message, one that encapsulates the true greatness of the achievement while at the same time not becoming overly pretentious in its scope. Or something.
However, LC said I shouldn't do this, and instead should write something that came from the heart.
So I just wrote "arteries".
(Yes, it's a pun. It's been a while.)
I finished reading "The Man in the Iron Mask" yesterday, this being the third volume in the third part of the Musketeers trilogy. Which was great, being full of intrigue and incident, and which proved to be a very fitting end to that saga. Except...
It turned out not to be a venture for the faint of heart. After nearly 2,000 pages of comings and goings, intrigues and schemes, swashbuckling and derring-do, suddenly there was a chapter entitled "The Last Farewell", where Aramis, Porthos, and Athos finally come together for the first time in the novel... and suddenly it's clear that this novel isn't going to have a happy ending.
And it gets grimmer and grimmer from there, as it becomes apparent that Aramis has over-reached himself, d'Argtanian has been outflanked on all sides, and Porthos... ah, Porthos...
What's perhaps most interesting about the novel is that it is so unlike "The Three Musketeers", and that it's all the better for that - the four are now old men, they're all enmeshed in their own agendas, and they've grown apart in loyalty and temperament. And yet, when d'Argtanian is really pushed to choose between his king and his friends...
So, any time you've got a spare few months, I recommend the trilogy. (You can't really read this one without reading "The Three Musketeers" and "Twenty Years After" first, and you really can't read "The Man in the Iron Mask" without having read "The Vicomte de Bragelonne" and "Louise de la Valliere" first! But since the shortest of these volumes is some 600 pages of fairly dense text, that might take a while.)
So, good fun, but rather harrowing!
#3: "The Man in the Iron Mask", by Alexandre Dumas
I saw in the Herald today an article about a proposed new Act of Union which a cross-party group is putting forward. The plan is to replace the existing devolution settlement with a new federal structure, with the hope that this will end talk of Scottish independence.
It's actually a somewhat interesting idea. I'd vote for it, and indeed I'd take that settlement over actual independence. (Though I do think we need some other reforms as well - including a total replacement of the House of Lords. Note that that's 'replacement', not 'reform' - it's now past the point of no return.)
However, it's rather a moot point - it won't ever happen.
The article suggests that any such revised structure would need to be agreed by all four component nations, and further suggests that Holyrood might reject it on behalf of Scotland. But that's actually not the issue. This proposal wouldn't even get that far - it's doomed to be rejected by Westminster on behalf of the UK long before then. This may be a nice idea, but sucessive governments in Westminster have shown they have no interest in making sweeping Constitutional changes to the UK - every step towards greater devolution, and indeed devolution itself, has been as a result of outside pressure, and has been an exercise in giving away the minimum power they think they can get away with.
Which leads me to wonder why this has popped up now, and why the Herald thinks the incomplete thoughts of someone who isn't a member of the government should be front-page news. I'm sure it's nothing whatsoever with us having some important elections coming up...
I have a pen-tidy on my desk in the office, which for some years has contained seven items: my favourite work-pen, a backup favourite pen that I got from some random training course, two blue pens and one red pen that I acquired when I left my first job, and two pencils (broken). This was of course the ideal steady state for the universe, marred only slightly by the fact that I don't actually like my backup favourite pen, which has the single virtue of actually working, but isn't actually very comfortable to use.
Alas, about a week before Christmas I broke my favourite work-pen. Something to do with using it to pierce the tape on a package from Amazon, which isn't exactly the intended use for a pen. Silly me. It was as a consequence of this breakage that I discovered an horrific truth: somewhere in the thirteen years since I left my first job, the three pens I acquired there had dried up and were no longer usable!
Luckily, the torment that resulted from this was short-lived, as for Christmas I received three new pens: one red, one blue, and one black, thus covering all possibly pen-related needs. Huzzah! (I should perhaps note that these were not my main gift.)
And so I was able to restore my pen-tidy to a new and exciting steady state: it now contains six items, being my backup favourite pen the I got from some random training course, two pencils (broken), and a new and shiny pen of each of the three allowed colours. Huzzah!
(Some people may argue that green pens are also acceptable. The proof that this is a silly notion is left as an exercise for the reader, and will therefore not be addressed further here.)
The pen-tidy crisis averted, the world returned to spinning on its axis, most people blissfully unaware of the horror that had so nearly unfolded.
Until, that is, a card was passed around the office, inviting the addition of an inspirational message and a signature. Aha! A chance to use one of the new and exciting pens, and in an approved colour also! And so I picked up my new and shiny blue pen and proceeded to write, " ".
To my great horror, the new and exciting pen wrote nothing! Woe and calamity!
So I tried the usual remedy of warming the pen between my hands, but to no avail. I even tested it on the emergency Post-it note, and it in fact worked. But on the card... nothing. Bizarre. At this point, driven the greatest extremity, I switched to my shiny new black pen instead, and proceeded to write, " ".
So I tried the usual remedy of warming the pen between my hands, but to no avail. I even tested it on the emergency Post-it note, and it in fact worked. But on the card... nothing. Truly bizarre.
At this point, I found myself stuck. Obviously, the red pen could not be used, as this is intended for correction and denunciation only - it would render my message not so much inspirational as terrifying. (Of course, if I'd had a green pen... but that's just crazy talk.)
Fortunately, the story has a suitably anti-climactic ending, as the black pen elected to work after a while. Apparently, it was just teasing me. So I wrote a message of suitable profundity and wit on the card ("Good luck"), and returned the pens to the pen-tidy. Once again, all was well with the universe.
But, as I'm sure you understand, I remain traumatised by this most harrowing of experiences. For, truly, what can be worse than the discovery that not one but two new pens are selectively not working?
#1: "Pathfinder: A Song of Silver", by James Jacobs
#2: "Fifth Edition Foes", by Necromancer Games
And so we come to the end of 2015.
Here's the list:
So, that's 60 books, including the expected twelve from The List. Of these, there are twenty-one RPG books, and one re-read - the fourth and final (and weakest) book in the "Red Dwarf" series. All in all, I'm happy with that.
The book of the year thus far is "Captain Corelli's Mandolin". There's not much more to say - I enjoyed it, but it doesn't come close to either "Grapes of Wrath" or "Tale of Two Cities" in my estimation. This has been a year devoid of any truly great reads, though it's had plenty of good ones. (Both "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and "Love in the Time of Cholera" were also very good, with the former being the better. But I enjoyed "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" a little more than either.)
The weakest book of the year, I'm afraid to say, was "The Frood". It's not a bad book, I suppose, but it just didn't grab me. I guess much of the issue is that while I enjoyed HHGttG, it's not one of my particular obsessions.
Next year I'm aiming to again reach 60 books. Three of the sub-series will continue unchanged: the Pathfinder (12), Pathfinder Tales (6), and Books from The List (12) series will remain intact. Beyond that it's considerably messier than this year, as there are no obvious sub-series to adopt. I suspect the rest will therefore be something of a grab-bag of titles with no particular theme. We'll see - perhaps I'll find a new series to dig in to.
2015 barely seemed to get here, and now it is at an end. Which seems really strange, but I guess that's just the way of it. Actually, it has been a bit of a strange year, in that I'm left wondering just where the time went.
Anyway, time for another end-of-year round-up. And, as usual, we have the headings...
My Year in... Work
Work has been hard-going this year, but mostly successful. Not the heady heights of late 2013, but little cause to complain, at least for most of the year. Alas, it didn't end well, for reasons I can't go into here. Hopefully, the issue will resolve itself early in the new year. Oh, and there was no call to travel, again.
Probably of more note have been the developments with LC's work. She has spent 2015 working at a high school near Stirling on a year-long contract, which was generally been good. However, at the end of November she managed to get a permanent position near Edinburgh, which is excellent news. So congratulations to her!
My Year in... Health
A middling year, in that the IBS continues to annoy, my neck is never quite as good as perhaps might be hoped, and now my teeth have decided to be a worry (though it's entirely possible that some or all of these are bound up together - the IBS in particular seems to delight in coming up with new effects that leave me wondering "what fresh hell is this?"). But there hasn't been anything serious, which is good news.
The aim of losing weight was slightly more successful than last year, but still not going well. Sigh.
My Year in... Gaming
2015 has been a mixed year for gaming as well. I've run a good few games that have been mostly successful, but I've also had a couple of disappointments. Sticking to the positive, though, I've been very much enjoying my "Firefly: the Lost Episodes" games, and look forward to continuing them into the next year.
On the playing front, this year has been particularly poor, though - I basically haven't managed to get to the other side of the screen, which is a shame.
I'm also a little disappointed that both of the games I play have almost entirely ceased publication. But then, I'm not actually sure that more books really improves things. And anyway, there's always Pathfinder.
For 2016, it's hard to see what will happen - this will depend on where we end up living. So it might prove to be more of the same, with both the "Firefly: the Lost Episodes" and "Eberron: Dust to Dust" campaigns carrying on (and in which case it would be nice to play a session or two on the other side of the screen). Or next year may well see me playing my last, which would be a shame.
My Year in... Band
Band has actually been quite enjoyable this year, mostly, despite a very disappointing competition season. And although we've been downgraded, and lost a number of people as a result, there's a sudden optimism that we'll be able to promote our learners and that things are looking up. Which is odd, but definitely good.
My Year in... Resolutions
As always, the wrap-up of annual goals, and setting of goals for next year, are handled in another post.
My Year in... Travel
There have been several trips this year, taking in no fewer than four countries (or three if you only including independent countries).
In April, LC and I took our annual spring break, heading up to Banff for our anniversary. Which was a good trip, if a long way to travel.
In June, we spent a weekend in the Republic of Ireland, helping out at a church weekend for one of our partner churches (or 'helping' in my case). That was another good trip, but a strange one - it seemed no sooner had we arrived than it was time to pack up and come away. It was also odd driving home, when we crossed the border to Northern Ireland and I suddenly discovered that the hire car's speedometer was marked in metric only!
July saw us spending just over a week in France. Six days of this were spent in La Tranche Sur Mer with my family, and then three days were spent in Paris. Again, my biggest take-away from this one was to do with driving - I really didn't enjoy driving the hire car around the outskirts of Paris. But apart from that it was a really good holiday. The highlight was probably the day we spent at "Puy du Fou", which was great.
Almost immediately thereafter, we found ourselves heading to England for Grandad's birthday party - 90 years old!
And just a few more weeks after that, there was our trip down to Bridgnorth for Bex's birthday party. Another long drive for a fairly short visit, but good to see the extended family again.
Finally, in the recent October break, LC and I spent a few days in a parallel dimension, having driven up to Fort William. That was again a good trip, blessed with really great weather and a steam train.
So 2015 has been a rather busy year, really!
My Year in... Faith
There's not too much to tell, except that this year saw me asked to lead an occasional Bible study - the result of the normal leader being called away for much of the time due to work commitments. That went well, but felt a little odd.
2016 will see me tackling the second volume of Don Carson's "For the Love of God", and consequently going for another read-through of the whole Bible.
Otherwise, there's not much to tell. Things are proceeding much as they have done this last age.
My Year in... Love
2015 has been one of those quiet years where there's not a huge amount to say. LC has been rather stressed out by work, and I think we've both come to find the flat rather oppressive (though perhaps for different reasons). 2016 will see significant changes in both these areas, which means hopefully we'll be able to find a better equilibrium.
My Year in... Departures
This year has, however, been marked with some sadness. We lost Leonard, and we lost Terry, and we lost Christopher...
And then we lost Jack. The passing of LC's Grandfather was one of those devastatingly sad things that you can know is coming and yet you can't actually be prepared for. At the end, though, he passed as well as maybe can be hoped - he fell asleep and never woke up again, with LC's parents with him so he didn't pass alone. I did think the funeral hit exactly the right note, with the minister's observation that we had to say two things: thank you, and goodbye.
Adieu, Jack. You are missed.
My Year... Overall
2015 has been a good year, for the most part, but also tough at times. In particular, the last couple of months have been difficult, and I've felt an increasing discontent with things generally. There's been nothing I've been able to point to as being the issue, but everything has just been... not quite right. I think a lot of that has been down to a combination of generally crappy weather (which has had a greater impact than it really should) and an impatience to just get on with things, and the house move in general. In reality, it's a good thing that this has taken longer than was hoped, in that LC's new job may change our analysis of what's the right next move. But it has been frustrating nonetheless.
It's fair to say 2015 hasn't been as good a year as 2014, but it's also important to note that despite that this was still a good year. 2016 looks hopeful, despite the uncertainties. A lot will become clearer once we've decided where to move, and even moreso once we've actually moved.
As with last year, this will be my last post of this year, so I'll end off by wishing anyone who still reads my nonsense a very happy New Year, and all the best for 2016.
With the year rapidly coming to an end, it's time for the end-of-year wrap-up. And so my first post on the topic is the update on my goals for the year:
So, that's six goals completed, one failed, and one ongoing. I'm happy with that, though a little concerned at the repeated failure.
I'm going to set a much more restricted set of goals for next year, and so am able to do that now. I'm dropping the Experimental Cookery goal - I'll continue with the series, but I'm not going to attempt one a week, nor even number the entries in 2016. Likewise, I'm not going to set a goal for the band, nor for work (that wasn't a good goal anyway). And the Imaginarium will, I think, take care of itself, so no need for a formal goal there.
So...
And that's it. The goals for next year are probably a bit trivial, but given the difficulties I've faced with the first for the last several years and given the upheaval represented by the last, I think that's enough to be going on with.
I also need to note that the Gaming goal is provisional, based on the results of the house move. If we remains within the Falkirk area, it can continue unchanged. If we end up moving further afield, however, this goal may cease to be relevant and so will be dropped.
For Christmas I received a new cook book, "The Hairy Bikers' Complete Mum's Know Best". I also received a new pot suitable for cooking many things. And so, for the final EC2015, I made use of my new book to cook something in my new pot. The chosen meal was a very hot, very dry curry.
The recipe was quick and easy to make, though it did remind me again that we really should get a spice grinder - there was really too much to do with a mortar and pestle. But once the paste was made up, it then became just a case of adding things to the pot in order, which isn't exactly challenging!
The resulting meal was very nice, but near-nuclear in heat. Seriously, my mouth was burning for twenty minutes after eating! So, that's not entirely ideal. LC felt also that it needed more of a sauce, rather than being the very dry curry that resulted. I can't say I disagree.
And that's that - the last experimental cookery of 2015. I'll still do some in 2016, but I'll not be numbering them, nor will I aim for one a week. It's a fun series, but it's also a bit of a hassle coming up with something new every week.
#60: "Dune", by Frank Herbert (a book from The List, and also the book that sees me complete that goal as well! This may also be the last book of this year, though there's a possibility that this month's Pathfinder may yet arrive in time to be read before Friday. We'll see.)
LC and I went to see the new Star Wars film last Thursday at midnight. I've held off on doing a review since then, as it's one that I do think should be watched un-spoiled if at all possible. That said, a week on we're now past the statute of limitations for spoilers, so here we go.
Seriously, if you want to see it unspoiled, you should probably stop reading now.
...
I thoroughly enjoyed the new Star Wars film, which felt much closer to the original trilogy than any of the prequels. Indeed, I watched all seven Star Wars films over the course of eight days (in a really odd order: I, VI, V, VI, VII, II, III), and AotC and RotS are actually quite painful in places - they're just so bad. TFA isn't - it's at least as good as RotJ. (Not as good as either SW or ESB, but then nothing could be.)
Having said that...
TFA very much feels like a "Star Wars Greatest Hits" compilation - we have another desert-dwelling kid who turns out to be powerful in the Force, we have another plucky droid with a secret message to deliver, we have a desperate escape from a planet in the Millennium Falcon, we have another attack on a Death Star-like superweapon, we have X-Wings and TIE Fighters, we have the shocking death of a mentor-figure, we have parental angst, we have a Jedi master - hidden on some remote world he is, hmm? - we have a new rebellion (sorry, Resistance) against a new empire (sorry, First Order)...
And so it goes. This actually works out quite well for anyone seeking to run an RPG in this new era - there's almost no need for any official support, since virtually everything already exists, even for the ancient d6 system. So that's cool.
The other thing that I didn't like about the film was that Captain Phasma has joined Boba Fett, Darth Maul, and General Grievous on the list of characters who look cool, are heavily-hyped, and then turn out to be a waste of screen-time. I felt this character was not only a wasted opportunity, but was actively mis-handled - apply just a hint of pressure and she folds like an umbrella? Lame.
But I liked the three new leads (Rey, Finn, and Poe - I'm assuming the last will be a bigger character in VIII). I liked the new droid BB8. And I thought the direction they took the new Darth (okay, "Knight of Ren") was particularly interesting. Plus, it was good to see Luke, Leia, and Chewie again - I thought they were in the film just enough to anchor it to the originals, without over-shadowing the new heroes. So that's cool.
I have much more mixed feelings about Han, though. On the one hand, I was very happy to see him "going back to what he does best" - the EU applied way too much hyperbole to Han Solo (and the Falcon), making him the best of the best of the best, and I much preferred him as the cynical smuggler made good, and by extension as the solely-wounded failed 'husband' and father ('husband' because it's not clear is he and Leia married or were simply lovers). And while I thought he was a little too prominent in the film, that made a lot of sense in light of his death. Which was cool.
And so, that's that. I'm hoping to see it again once more in the cinema, probably in glorious 2D this time, and then will certainly get it on blu-ray some time around May. And now I'm looking forward to "Rogue One" and also to Episode VIII, rather more than I have looked forward to a new Star Wars film for some time. Well done, Disney - as with Marvel, you've treated it right.
Though the 20th Century Fox fanfare was a miss.
The penultimate Experimental Cookery of the year was another entry from "The Hairy Bikers' Asian Adventure". Once again, it was very nice but very unhealthy - breaded pork steaks shallow-fried, and served with a sauce. The sauce, in particular, was very nice, and I may well make that again even without the steaks.
There's not much more to say, really. It did what it said, it was very nice, I'll probably make it again, but it doesn't make the top nine. The end.
I don't know what the final EC2015 entry will be, but I'm determined that there will be one more, and indeed that there will be one more. I'm hoping to tackle it this weekend, if only to get it done.
#59: "Red Dwarf: Last Human", by Doug Naylor
(I'm still working my way through "Dune", which I should get finished by the end of the year. But even that's now looking a bit doubtful! I still haven't received the Pathfinder for this month, so may or may not get to read that. We'll see.)
I had to abandon my initial version of this one - it turned into an entirely different rant than I'd expected and intended. Sometimes that happens, as my thoughts disappear down a rabbit hole.
Anyway...
'tis the season to go shopping, and as a consequence of this there has been a great deal of swapping of wish-lists. Because at this point most Christmas gift shopping now boils down to asking the person what they want, going on to Amazon, and buying that exact thing. Which isn't exactly the stuff great Christmas songs are made of, I'll grant you.
But there's a growing problem even with the Christmas list. We're increasingly moving towards a world where everything has become a digital download. Want a book? It's very likely you want it on Kindle. Want some music? That'll be MP3s, then; CDs are pretty much obsolete. Want a video-game? That'll be a "season pass" for a download. A movie? Well, we're not there yet, but we're not all that far away from DVDs and Blu-rays being a thing of the past. (Indeed, blu-rays were already yesterday's technology before they even came out. We just haven't caught up yet.)
All of which rather sucks for the whole "need something to unwrap" thing. Which isn't exactly ideal - and it's not going to change. In fact, I think we may be coming to a point where, beyond the age of ten or so, the giving of actual presents will just become a thing of the past. Which is a shame.
(As a consequence of this, one of my gifts this year is going to be a nice, shiny USB thumb drive - 32GB, if I recall correctly. Which isn't actually the gift at all, although it's a generally useful thing to have. But, instead, it's going to become a useful physical token which I can reuse as a gift at each Christmas and birthday - load it with the appropriate digital downloads, wrap it up, and there's at least something there to be handed over. Of course, it's still a bit of a cheat, but it's as close as I have to a solution.)
Another quick and easy Asian Adventure from the Hairy Bikers, this one was pretty much a matter of marinating thinly-sliced steak in soy sauce overnight, and then frying it for a few minutes. The results were extremely tasty, especially given how easy the meal was to produce.
And so #50 in this series was a resounding success. Two more to go!
Last night I reached episode 100 in my re-watch of 24. Obviously enough, this means I've now completed the first four series plus four episodes of the fifth.
Thus far, it remains much as I remembered - it's a really, really good show, if rather far-fetched at times. And thus far I remain of the opinion that the third season was the best, though that may change. Certainly, I had forgotten just how good series four was!
Of course, the worst thing about revisiting a show of the calibre of 24 is the cruel reminder that it has ended, and that we just don't have anything that quite hits the same spot. For a while there, it looked like "Homeland" might be it, but that turned out not to be the case. Still, better to have a show that shows us just what television can do, rather than not have one at all.
"The Force Awakens" opens in the cinemas tonight, and LC and I have tickets to a midnight showing. Which is all rather exciting - as is so often the case, it seemed ages away when it was first announced, then it gradually crept closer, then the tickets went on sale, and then it was suddenly here.
This will be the fourth Star Wars film I've seen on opening day: I was too young for the first three, but in 1999 I left work early to see "The Phantom Menace" as soon as possible, I went to a midnight showing for "Attack of the Clones", and then just went to a regular evening showing for "Revenge of the Sith". (I've also only been to two midnight showings before: AotC as mentioned, plus the first "Spiderman", which I actually saw in an advance screening, which was nice.)
Part of the reason for going so soon is simple impatience - I want to see it as soon as possible, and anyway my next viable opportunity would be Saturday which is a veritable age away. But part of it is also a desire to avoid spoilers, which will become increasingly difficult as time goes on.
Indeed, I've even avoided reading any of the reviews of the film for this reason - one of the reviews of AotC dropped a massive spoiler in the text with no preamble, about which I was not best pleased. But the other part is that I don't trust the reviews to be accurate anyway - as with any J.K. Rowling novel, or a new season of Game of Thrones, or similar, I suspect many of the reviewers are reviewing the name "Star Wars" and not the merits of the movie itself. Indeed, they could probably have written their reviews without bothering to see the film.
Today is in many ways like that day back in 1999 - a new Star Wars trilogy is beginning, a new hope that this time they might have gotten it right. And, if only for a brief moment I'll be back to those Saturday mornings where, week after week, we'd get up early to watch the first film (on Betamax no less!). It's going to be weird having the Disney logo instead of the 20th Century Fox fanfare that nature intended, but then we'll be off on the adventure...
But, mostly, I still trying desperately not to get my hopes up. After the crushing disappointments of the Star Wars prequels, and "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", and the Lord of the Rings prequels, and SPECTRE, I've found it's best just to assume everything will suck until I've seen it.
Which is probably wise, but I can't imagine it will survive once the text "A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away..." appears on the screen. And we'll be back to 1999 all over again.
Please don't suck...
This was great, but oh-so unhealthy. It was the second recipe taken from "The Hairy Bikers' Asian Adventure", and was a nice, simple meal to prepare - bread some chicken and then shallow-fry for a few minutes on each side. And, of course, make up a curry sauce and some rice to have with it.
The result was extremely tasty, and the whole meal was pretty quick and easy. But we won't be having it too often - it's just far too unhealthy! And in future I think I'll use the deep fryer instead, as that's a bit more controlled and rather safer than a precarious frying pan.
But I'm well pleased with this week's meal. Next week should be another exploration of the same book; I'm sure there's something that we can find to tempt us.
Last night featured a brief respite from the crushing normality of life. Due to a complete lack of other things to do, I found myself watching Reporting Scotland, and there was a feature on the search for someone for the new £10 note. Apparently, they wanted someone who was a Scottish historical figure and who had made a noteworthy contribution to science or innovation.
"Huzzah!" I thought. "It could be me!"
So I rushed through to the Spare Room to fill out my application form online, only to have LC crush my latest life's ambition. She feels I'm just not historic enough to qualify, by virtue of not being dead.
How disappointing.
#58: "The Frood: The Authorised and Very Official History of Douglas Adams & The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy", by Jem Roberts
This week's Experimental Cookery sees us returning to "Jamie's Fifteen Minute Meals". There aren't too many things in that book left that I'm inclined to try, but this was a good one. Quick and easy, and it tasted nice. The dressing was especially nice, with the combination of strips of ginger and the heat from the chilli. The salad was also okay, although there was a bit too much of it!
I do have two criticisms of the meal: there wasn't enough steak relative to the rest, and the noodles weren't terribly pleasant. In future, I think I'll forego draining them, and thus leave them warm.
Otherwise, this was a success. We'll no doubt try it again, although I think we'll mix up the selection of vegetables a bit in future!
I have no idea what's on the menu for next week. I do want to fit one more cake in before the end of the year, but other than that I'm flexible.
This is actually the third time I've done chow mein as an experimental cookery, but the first time involving pork rather than chicken. The recipe comes from "The Hairy Bikers' Asian Adventure", which was a fun series and is a lovely book - but is also a book I really don't envisage using terribly often. Unfortunately, it seems to rely quite a bit on fairly obscure ingredients, and I'm not hugely inspired to go hunt them out. A shame.
Still, last night's meal was a joy - quick and simple to put together, and both filling and flavourful in the eating. Which is pretty much ideal, really. I definitely enjoyed the switch of meat, as I've become a little bored of having chicken in everything! I'm quite certain we'll be having this again.
On Tuesday I'm planning a return to Jamie's "Fifteen Minute Meals" for one week only, and them I'm hoping to harvest at least a few entries from the "Asian Adventure". We'll see. Anyway, there are now five more entries to come in this series this year, at least one of which I hope will be another cake of some description.
This week's "Doctor Who" was well made, well scripted, and well acted. And I hated it.
The reason I hated it was very little to do with the show, and much more to do with spoilers. (Oh, yeah, there are going to be some spoilers in this post. If you don't want to know, skip to the end.)
For the past week, there have been interviews everywhere about Clara's exit from the show, about how she definitely won't be returning, and detailing the sequence of emotions we were supposed to feel during her departure. Many of which were right there in the headlines, so it wasn't as if I could choose not to read them - by the time I knew the article was about DW, I'd already read the spoiler. And, indeed, there was a whopping great spoiler right before the show started.
The net effect of all of this publicity was that the show itself left me completely cold. Oh, she's going to die. Oh, it's going to happen like that. Oh, they're emoting all over the place. Oh, I don't care.
Gee, thanks.
The thing is, some people like spoilers, and more power to them. And some people don't mind spoilers, and that's their prerogative, too. But some people like to avoid spoilers, because knowing this stuff reduces their enjoyment of the show - they like the surprise that's just been ruined.
Now, it is fair enough that complaining about spoilers needs to be time-limited. If I complain because someone says, "Darth Vader is Luke's father!", then I'm going to look rather foolish. Indeed, complaining about being spoiled on the most recent series of "Game of Thrones" would be a bit much - yes, I haven't seen it, but I've had adequate opportunity to do so; if it really matters to me to see it "clean", I really need to take responsibility for doing so promptly. Because people will discuss it, and it's not practical to expect them not to.
But at the same time, there's a limit to how soon it's reasonable to expect people to have seen it - there's a difference between discussing the plot details of a film the week after it is released versus doing so immediately after the first showing.
And, of course, in this case we're talking about spoilers for a show that hadn't aired yet. That is, spoilers for something I couldn't have seen "clean". Thanks, BBC.
(There's a bit more, but I'm not going to comment further right now, because Spoilers!)
#56: "Waterloo", by Bernard Cornwell
#57: "Dragons at Crumbling Castle", by Terry Pratchett
Help! There's a big scary yellow thing in the sky. I don't know what it is, but I'm sure I don't like it!
Alas, this one was a disaster. It just didn't work at all. Which was a real shame, since I'd had high hopes.
This recipe came from the "Hairy Dieters: Eat For Life" (the yellow cover), and seemed pretty easy - slice and then lightly fry some leeks, grate some courgette, then mix those with turkey mince, salt, and pepper, and you've got the basis for some tasty burgers.
It turned out that I had a mucky pink sludge. There was way too much moisture in the thing, and it just wasn't pleasant at all. I cooked up two of the burgers... and the binned the whole lot. Not only did it look nothing like the picture in the book, it was just nasty.
The chips were nice, though.
I was genuinely scared by the cover of the Daily Mail this morning, with the picture of the 'robocop' police officer. And not just because of their idiotic labelling of a human woman as 'robocop', which is about what I'd come to expect from the Daily Mail, but rather what the picture represents.
I actually don't have any issue with the new "shoot to kill" policy with regard to ongoing terrorist activities. Nor, indeed, do I have any great issue with the increased prevalence of police armed with firearms while on routine patrols - I would very much prefer not to see this, but I broadly trust that these weapons will only be issued to people properly trained to use them, and I broadly trust them to only use those weapons where it is genuinely appropriate.
But what does worry me a great deal is the increased militarisation of our police forces, which is most easily seen by a quick glance at that newspaper this morning - that's not a picture of a policewoman; it's a picture of a soldier.
Though, actually, the problems started quite some time before that, the moment the first member of the police referred to 'civilians' meaning not the police.
The thing is, it's actually vitally important that the police are civilians. They're not, and must never become, a body apart. It's actually difficult, perhaps impossible, to over-state just how incredibly important that principle is - because the moment the police are a body apart is the moment we're under martial law. And that's a Very Bad Thing.
It is, of course, appropriate that the police maintain some special units for dealing with terrorism, and that those units be appropriately armed. It's also appropriate that in areas of heightened security (such as airports and, yes, Wembley stadium last night) such units be deployed visibly.
But that must be the exception, not the norm. The creeping militarisation of the police must be resisted. And this practice of using the word 'civilians' to set the rest of us apart from the police must stop.
#55: "The Long Mars", by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
And so Wednesday rolled around, and it was once again time for an Experimental Cookery. This week's recipe was a return to "Jamie's Fifteen Minute Meals", and to one of the recipes he did on the TV show of the same name.
As I've come to expect from this book, the meal was quick and easy but took considerably longer than fifteen minutes to make. Just getting out the ingredients and washing those that needed it took several minutes, which is always a bit of a cheat. But no matter - it was still quick enough for a weeknight meal.
The end result was fine. I think it had a little too much balsamic vinegar, but that was my issue. But Jamie's trick with the poppadoms and the microwave just doesn't work for me at all. Oh, and there was an awful lot of it!
But the meal tasted nice, and it certainly hit the spot. I'm not sure I'll make this again, though - I'm not sure why not, but it didn't quite grab me as much as some others from this book. But you never know, I guess.
#54: "One Hundred Years of Solitude", by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (A Book from the List)
This week, in my ongoing quest to prove Sheldon wrong, I made half a cake - as you may recall, it was his contention that one couldn't make half a sandwich but rather that it should be a "small sandwich", but...
This recipe came from the BBC website, and was in fact Tamal's own recipe from his final Showstopper in the GBBO. I was certainly tempted by that particular cake, and especially when the judges said he'd basically created a new classic. Plus, I definitely thought "I could do that", so... (Though not the decorations. I'm not entirely crazy!)
So on Tuesday evening I gathered my ingredients and set to work. This involved chopping lots of fruit (seriously, lots of fruit), coating it in flour, then mixing up a cake batter, combining fruit with cake, and then baking in the oven for an hour or so. Easy enough, if rather time consuming.
So it came out of the oven, and it was a thing of beauty - my best cake to date. So I started in on the caramel sauce for the topping while the cake cooled a bit, and then it was time to transfer it to the cooling rack.
And then disaster struck. Because as I was transferring the cake, I managed to drop it a bit. Fortunately, it went on the work surface and not the floor, but less fortunately it hit the surface and exploded. And suddenly my cake resembled the second Death Star more than the first.
My exclamation of despair attracted the attention of Lady Chocolat, who abandoned her work to see what had proved this Vader-esque cry. So great was her sympathy that she proceeded to take a picture and post it on the internet. Which was much appreciated.
Anyway, I recovered from my despair. I reassembled the battered cake somewhat, and completed the task - cool it, cut it in half, spread the caramel sauce, then re-sandwich. Then, I left it all to cool overnight, before spreading the rest of the caramel in the morning.
And it worked. It still tasted great - he really has hit on something there - and although half of the cake was rather battered, it was still edible. And, really, who cares when you're about to chew it up anyway?
That said, the cake had been intended for consumption by other people. And so I proceeded to cut the good half from the battered remnants, and took only the assembled half-cake with me. And that's how I made half a cake.
But I think I might be giving up cakes. That's two in a row that have gone wrong, which is just sad. Either that, or I'll have to make lots of them, until I master the art...
So, two weeks after TalkTalk get hacked by a bunch of teenagers, our wonderful government decide it's a good idea to require ISPs to store our entire browsing history for a full year.
I feel safer already.
I really must learn: never look forward to anything, assume everything will suck. Because the lower your expectations the better than chance you won't be disappointed.
Lady Chocolat and I went to see "SPECTRE" on Friday. I had, indeed, been looking forward to this film a great deal, after enjoying "Skyfall" immensely. I hadn't bothered to read the reviews going, and have now done so, and they raise a question: did the reviewers see the same film as I did?
There will be spoilers from here on out. So if you don't want to know, you should probably skip to the end, where I list two more books I've finished.
The film starts very well, with a lovely action sequence in Mexico City followed by a very impressive opening sequence - I particularly enjoyed the nods to the previous Daniel Craig films here. Good stuff.
And then the film continues very well, the Bond being grounded by 'M' for his antics in Mexico, then the revelation that he has a hidden agenda (which was great), and then he's off to Rome. And Monica Belluci is great, too, for all of the ten seconds she's on-screen (or so it seems).
And then Bond is off to the grant meeting of the ultra-secret Secret Evil Organisation. In a secret location. Secretly.
Indeed, it's so secret that they film the evil bad guy in the shadows, so we totally can't see that it's Doctor Evil. Though the effect is somewhat ruined by an appearance by Frau Farbissina.
Anyway, the Secret Evil Organisation's main order of business is the selection of a secret assassin to kill "The Pale King" (ooh, mysterious!), and then it turns out Doctor Evil knew Bond was spying on them all along. And so we have an Exciting Chase!
The next bit is actually quite good again - the film starts to bring together lots of threads from the previous Craig films, weaving them into a coherent whole. Good stuff. And, yeah, some of it doesn't quite work, but it's not particularly objectionable.
Except...
After following the plot for a good long time, and dealing with the Secret Evil Organisation's deadly WWE assassin, Bond and his latest love interest complete their train journey. They've tracked Doctor Evil to his hidden lair, and are all set to confront him.
The big problem with this is that it's an obvious trap and Bond equally obviously has no plan beyond "go in and get captured". Seriously, that is the full extent of his cunning approach. Basically, it's exactly the same problem as in Skyfall, except that this time it's Bond, rather than Silva, who gets himself captured for no reason.
But worse is to come. Because, in a rather spectacular show of self-parody, Doctor Evil proceeds to explain his Evil Scheme to Bond. He then places Bond in a deadly-and-yet-inexplicably-easy-to-escape situation. And then the BIG revelation. Actually, two of them: it turns out that Doctor Evil is secretly Bond's (adopted) brother all along! And, further, it turns out that although Doctor Evil has been going by one name all along, he's actually chosen to go by another. Yes, he's Khan!
Anyway, Bond escapes using the gadget that Q gave him way back at the start of the film. And, somehow, this causes the hidden lair the explode in a huge fireball. I can only assume it was secretly a Volcano Lair in disguise. And Bond and his love interest head back to good old Blighty for tea and biscuits. Good show!
(Oh, yes, one more thing: during the gratuitous torture scene, Doctor Evil declares that this will damage Bond's sight, hearing, and balance; while that will destroy his ability to recognise faces. In the event, both of those things do precisely nothing. Are we to assume, then, that Bond is actually made of rubber, like most modern action heroes? Or is it just that his mojo is so concentrated as to be beyond parody?)
So, we head to London for the final showdown, complete with obligatory bad-guy-falling-off-things, love-interest-in-peril, and buildings-exploding. It's all very exciting, I'm sure, though by this point I'd lost interest - the whole last hour seemed like something tacked on to the end of a better film.
And then it ends. Bond rides off into the night in his newly-restored Connery-era car with his love interest, with Doctor Evil safely stored for the next sequel. The end.
What's most annoying about "SPECTRE", in my opinion, is that most of it was a good film. Up until Bond gets off the train, I was actually enjoying it - lots of good spy stuff, lots of good action sequences, and fairly solid characterisations. Good, good stuff.
But that last hour was just half-baked. Indeed, it was pretty much "Quantum of Solace" all over again - they had part of a good script but it needed another few passes to make sense. Only where QoS has the excuse of the writer's strike meaning they couldn't get that extra work done (and is blessedly short), "SPECTRE" had every advantage lavished on it. It should have been better.
Oh yes, and one more thing: I'm now really sick of the movie approach of calling the villain one thing only to reveal them as another - as done with Khan in "Star Trek: Into Darkness", and again here with Doctor Evil. It's really not as clever as the writers seem to feel, especially when that big reveal was known over a year ago.
Anyway, that's that. And now I'm off to ruthlessly crush any optimism I have for the new "Star Wars" - it's critically important that I go into that one expecting "Attack of the Clones" all over again...
#52: "Louise de la Vallière", by Alexandre Dumas
#53: "Pathfinder: Dance of the Damned", by Richard Pett
