Secret Invasion

There is no MCU TV series that I have looked forward to more than "Secret Invasion". I'm a big fan both of Nick Fury and Samuel L. Jackson, and so a series starring both was almost perfect for me. Plus, the notion of a spy thriller within the MCU, and especially one involving shapeshifting aliens who can look like anyone, with all the tension and paranoia that that implies, is just great.

There is no MCU project that has left me more disappointed than "Secret Invasion". After three really slow episodes of build-up, the series then did very well with episodes four and five, or so I thought, only to blow it with the final episode.

Ultimately, I'm afraid this takes its place as yet another underwhelming MCU project, a tag that applies to most things post-Endgame. It seems that the big plan just came to an end, they've been left with a load of ideas and dangling plot threads, but ultimately they just haven't had any vision for how to build to another climax. Add to that a real-life tragedy that derailed "Black Panther" and a real-life scandal that has left them with huge issues with their new Big Bad, and they have problems.

Sadly, with Lucasfilm also having big failures on all fronts, Pixar largely seeming to have gone cold, and Disney seemingly more interested in dire live-action remakes than in producing the animation they're famed for, it suddenly looks like Disney+ may not be the juggernaut it seemed just a few months ago.

Time for Phone #6

Smartphones have many great advantages, which isn't exactly a surprise - who would have thought carrying around an extremely powerful web-enabled computer at all times would be a definite boon? However, they do have one distinct disadvantage, which is that like PCs they become less useful with time. This takes three forms: the same general slowdown that computers suffer as they are patched and repatched successively, a degradation in the battery life between charges, and storage that becomes increasingly and unavoidably full. All of which means that a smartphone probably doesn't last as long as a non-smart mobile, nor indeed as long as a PC (at least in my hands).

The upshot of all of this is that I've now reached the point where it is time to upgrade my phone again. The previous one has lasted six years after all, which is a good run by any standard, but it has now basically had its day.

Obviously getting a new phone is now much like getting a new PC (though perhaps less confusing, since there's very little by way of an upgrade path once the phone is bought - just the possibility of a Micro-SD card to provide more memory). Which means that having the new phone will be great, since it will represent a significant improvement in performance, but it also means a fairly long and annoying process of getting the new phone set up.

On the plus side, I'm keeping the same SIM, number, and contract, so much of the basic functionality should just carry over. On the downside, I have no idea what my Whatsapp login details are...

Day 200: Update on Goals

Time for the latest update:

• Books: I have recently finished the second of three books from the List. I haven't yet started on the final book, but should still finish by the end of the year (just barely). As anticipated, I have read very few other books this year.
• Blogging: By day 200 I should have completed 67 posts here, plus a further 33 or so on The Imaginarium. I was quite a bit behind at the last update, but managed to catch up in between. I'm now a little behind again, but not by a great deal - with luck I'll be up to date in both places by the end of the month.
• Redecorating: No progress here. I did have to make another small repair job on Funsize's wall, but that doesn't really count.
• Other stuff: Nothing to report here.

I remain optimistic about completing the three goals by the end of the year. The most doubtful, I think, is the redecoration, which we'll know about by the end of October.

For Our Fallen Gondorians

 Back in April, while doomscrolling on Twitter, I saw someone joking that they'd changed their band's signature tune to "For Our Fallen Gondorians". The bagpipe sheet music for this was included in the tweet.

Since then I've never been able to find this sheet music again, no matter how I searched.

Until today. It turns out that my phone quietly saved the file in a secret location, and when I found my phone once again slowing down due to a critical lack of storage, and thus began a purge of old data, I happened to find it.

Which is nice. Now I just need to learn it, remember it, and contrive a good time to sneak it past someone as a lament...

Oops!

I was speaking to a pollster a few minutes ago, and one of the questions I was asked concerned the most pressing burning political issues at the present time. I gave two answers that I thought were fairly non-controversial (the economy and Brexit), then gave a third... and promptly had to clarify what I meant.

Because the third answer I gave was "immigration", at which point I immediately realised that (I think) most people who give than answer mean stopping immigration, which is certainly not what I meant.

On the contrary, I think the way this country is treating people who want to build their lives here, and especially those unfortunates who come here desperately seeking refuge is shameful and is (or should be) damaging to our standing on the world stage.

Indeed, one of the biggest problems we have as a country is that no senior politician (at UK level) is brave enough to stand up and say clearly that immigration is a good thing. Not just because of all the necessary jobs that immigrants appear to be willing to do and nobody else is, not just because they pay in far more to our economy than they collectively take out, but simply in terms of being here.

Diversity is a good thing. It's a shame our politicians can't acknowledge that.

(And if my answer ends up getting lumped in to some Daily Mail headline about immigration being one of the big concerns of British people, I am truly sorry. I should have thought more before I spoke.)

#9: "A Woman of Substance", by Barbara Taylor Bradford (a book from The List - one more to go!)

Minor Annoyances II

Our council are in the process of changing the day for our bin collections, which is absolutely fine. This has, however, led to a big gap between the final "general" bin collection of the old cadence and the first "general" bin collection of the new cadence. That's rather more tricky, as the council have deliberately set the picks ups right on the edge of what people can manage. Still, since it's a necessary change, we could probably be a bit clever and thus cope - it's only another five days wait.

Except...

The council wrote to us offering an additional pick up of the "general" waste bin last week - just put it out, leave it out, and it would be collected. We therefore put our bin out. The council therefore did not collect it.

And that, of course, means that we didn't carefully adjust our behaviours to stretch the additional five days, and now have a bin that is absolutely rammed with almost a week to go before it is collected.

It's fair to say this is a minor annoyance at worst. But those are the worst kind.

Experimental Cookery 2023: Five-spice Chicken Wings

My Birthday BBQ was on Saturday, and in addition to the usual burgers and sausages, this year's flourish was these chicken wings. The method came from Tom Kerridge's "Real Life Recipes" - a book I've used once before with disastrous results.

The good news is that this was a much more successful effort. The chicken just needed put into a bowl with a quickly-assembled marinade, well rubbed, and then left overnight for the flavours to develop. Then a reasonably short time in the oven, turn, another short time in the oven, then five minutes on the BBQ to finish. Oh, and the application of some sesame seeds to complete.

And the chicken was excellent - well cooked, full of flavour, and just generally nice.

The BBQ as a whole was a great success, despite being madly over-catered (I'm not actually sure how that happened - I think some people must just have not eaten as much as expected). We were even lucky with the weather, which had featured showers earlier in the day, rain later in the day, but a dry spell just when it was needed.

All in all, that was a big success. We'll definitely be having these again. (Probably not at the same time as the Firecracker Chicken we've had before, which was also excellent, but there may now be a chicken dish as a mainstay of BBQs for the future.)

Minor Annoyances

A couple of the tyres on my car are slowly losing pressure. That's annoying, but not particularly surprising.

However, the reason I know that two of the tyres are losing pressure is that the screen periodically pops up with the message indicating this. It knows that that is the case because there are pressure sensors on the tyres. And, of course, it is able to detect each time any of the tyres loses pressure, so it is able to check each of the sensors individually.

Which means that the system has everything it would need to tell me which of the four tyres had dropped in pressure, thus saving me the effort of having to check each of the tyres individually.

But, of course, it doesn't do that. Because that would just make things too easy.

(I suspect the real reason is that there's a patent floating around out there which means that Vauxhall can do it on LC's car, but Ford can't on mine. Because some patents are just absurd.)

Anyway, it's a minor annoyance. But those are the worst ones.

Progress on the To Do List

Before the Christmas holiday I made a To Do list with several items on it. I completed very few of these during the holiday, but did eventually complete all but one item.

Before the February break I made another To Do list with several items on it. This time I made a bit more progress, but did eventually complete all but one item - the same item as was outstanding after Christmas.

Before the Easter break I made yet another To Do list. As of this morning I have completed all but one item on it. And, you guessed it, that one outstanding item is the same one as from Christmas.

Still, that's some progress, I guess. I wonder how I'll get on over the Summer holiday?

(Though, funnily enough, that one might actually be completed - due to the nature of that break I won't be inserting that one item on that list. It will still exist on a more general list of things I want to do, but not the list of the holiday specifically. So we'll see...)

Back to School?

Funsize finishes up P1 next Friday, which is fun and exciting - her first ever Summer holidays!

Meanwhile, Tesco's seasonal aisle has, for the past four weeks, been festooned with their "Back to School" range - lots of new and exciting school uniforms that we should buy now to beat the rush (in nice time for her to thoroughly outgrow them for actually going back).

Much as the creeping advancement of Christmas through the calendar annoys me, in truth this is significantly worse. Not only do kinds not even get to enjoy getting to their holidays before being reminded that they're going back soon, but the items on sale become increasingly useless the earlier they are purchased!

The Path Not Taken

One of the more interesting blogs I read has been arguing since day one that the SNP have made a terrible mistake in electing Humza Yousaf, and has been adamant in his belief that they need to replace him with Kate Forbes at the earliest opportunity. One of his arguments recently is that Forbes is apparently the most popular senior politician in Scotland.

Which is true, but...

The fundamental problem is that Kate Forbes represents the path not taken. So as time goes on, and the SNP's problems deepen almost daily, Humza Yousaf looks increasingly like that mistake (in some ways fairly; in others, not so much), and Kate Forbes looks that much better by comparison. "Oh, this is horrible! If only we'd gone for her instead..."

But would the reality of Kate Forbes as First Minister actually be any better? I have my doubts.

There are two reasons for this. The first is that a sizeable number of SNP parliamentarians (in Holyrood and Westminster) are part of the LGBTQ+ community, or allies thereof, and were not unreasonable in their objections to some of the views she expressed in her leadership bid. (I think those questions were largely posed to her as an intentional trap, but that doesn't negate the issue that her answers did represent a genuine statement of her views. All of them, including the statement that she has no interest in rolling back rights, but nonetheless it's not a surprise that people were less than thrilled.) That would make it extremely difficult for her to command the party discipline needed to be an effective leader.

But the second issue concerns the alliance with the Greens. Probably the biggest problem that the SNP government currently has is that everything the Greens touch falls to pieces. Bluntly, the SNP really need to end their alliance with the Greens. That's something Kate Forbes might well do; it's something Humza Yousaf will never do.

The problem is that ending that alliance means returning to minority government. And to run an effective minority government you need allies, or at least people willing to vote for individual measures in order to carry on. In the current climate, that won't be any of the unionist parties - at this stage, and especially with the potential to bring down the government, they're not going to play ball.

And that leaves the Greens as the only option. Break the alliance, and it may well be that the government falls in short order.

While it is looking increasingly like Humza Yousaf is leading the SNP to a relative disaster, at the General Election if not in the Scottish Election, I'm far from convinced that Kate Forbes is the answer. Indeed, I'm increasingly minded to think that there is no answer.

The Worst Gala Day of All Time

Until this weekend, the very worst gala day of all time I'd attended was in a place called Black... something - a tiny village near Greengairs where we'd had a terrible experience. The parade started in one field, passed along a road then to another field, and although there was light rain when we started it rapidly got much heavier. By the time we reached the second field we were wading in mud, and the whole thing had to be abandoned.

Which was a shame, but which pales into insignificance with Saturday's event.

This event is the longest parade we do. The village in question doesn't have much to it - two housing estates separated by the main road - so the parade meets at one end, proceeds down the road and around the other estate, then back up the road and around the first, ending where it started up. It was a hot and sticky day, of the sort that one might mistakenly believe makes for a pleasant piping experience (but really, really doesn't).

But none of that was a problem.

We happened to be there in really good time, and were tuned and ready to go twenty minutes before the start time. And we were second in the parade, behind an ancient open-top "wedding" car, where every time it moved we enjoyed a miasma of fumes.

But none of that was the problem.

While we were waiting, the car would occasionally move forward a bit, and we were asked to move forward to close the gap. After a while, our Pipe Major got bored with this and decided to play a bit to pass the time. So we started - we played "Scotland the Brave" and the first half of "Rowan Tree". The rest of the parade, on hearing us starting, decided that it must be time to GO! This then prompted a panic from the police, and the event organisers, and it all went a bit haywire.

However, that all got sorted out. And we waited another ten minutes, and then it really was time to GO! So off we went - we played "Scotland the Brave" and the first half of "Rowan Tree", got to the top of the street where we were to turn right... and then it all came to a halt.

There was then a lot of frantic discussion, and a fairly long delay. Eventually, word came that we were rerouting the parade, and going to do the last bit first. So off we went. But because of the way the parade was set up, we kept leaving the back of the parade behind, and so had to keep stopping to let them catch up. Then, about two-thirds of the way around the estate, while we were engaged in one of these waits, the wedding car stalled. And the driver couldn't get it going again.

At length, they got some of the local youths to push the car, got it going again, and we completed that circuit. We got back to the top of the first street (where we were supposed to turn right), and then we stopped. And there was a really long delay.

And none of that was the problem. Frankly, the whole situation was very, very funny.

Until suddenly, it wasn't.

Because it turned out that the reason for all of the delays was that the Gala Queen's Mum had collapsed in the street and the paramedics were desperately trying to revive her. She didn't make it.

In the end we completed the parade. The people there very carefully didn't tell the Queen until such time as there was finally no avoiding it, on the grounds that there was nothing to be done, so they let her enjoy her day as much as she could for as long as she possibly could.

But it's fair to say that the second half of the parade was a very different experience to the first.

It's Worse Than That

This afternoon the Commons are going to have a vote on the sanction recommended by the Privileges Committee against Boris Johnson for his many lies over Partygate. It is, frankly, a rather toothless and pointless sanction under the circumstances, but given that it's all that is available, it's welcome.

There is a great deal of anger at what Boris did: that he partied while people died.

But, actually, it's much worse than that.

Because what those many parties at CPHQ and No.10 show is that those involved simply were not taking the threat seriously. And anyone working there who was taking it seriously will have found their work impeded by those who were not.

It's not that Boris partied while people died. People died because Boris partied.

There is no sanction adequate for that man.

The Vacancy Party

Right now our politics is in such a mess that I've realised that those constituencies held by Sinn Fein are actually the best-represented in the country.

And the fundamental problem is that someone has to win the election: I don't particularly like some of the things our current MP has said, and she represents a party that currently makes the Titanic look sea-worthy (even in its current state), but replacing her just means putting into position someone worse from an even worse party.

And that's pretty much universally true everywhere: somehow, they're all worse than each other.

So what I think we need is a new party, the Vacancy Party. They would have no policies, and make only one promise: if elected, their representative would do as Sinn Fein famously do and refuse to take up the seat. Leave it vacant for five years, and force the parties to get their acts together.

Of course, I dread to think what would happen if the Vacancy Party won a majority. Which, given how abysmal things are in our politics right now, wouldn't entirely surprise me.

How Did They Get That So Wrong?

Spoilers for "The Flash" ahead. If you don't want to know, skip this post!

The best superhero movie I've ever seen is probably "The Dark Knight" (though "The Winter Soldier" comes close). The superhero who has been in the most good movies is probably Iron Man. But if you ask me to name a superhero, my first go-to will always be Superman. And the most iconic of all Supermen is Christopher Reeve. Indeed, so iconic was his portrayal that the entire look of Superman changed.

So I presume that the decision to include a cameo of Reeve's Superman in "The Flash" was made for people just like me.

But having seen it, it is an horrific thing. It just looks bad.

And here's the thing: I'm actually not inherently opposed to CGI cameos of characters played by dead actors - I quite enjoyed seeing Tarkin appear in "Rogue One", for instance. But they have to be done well, and this one wasn't.

In addition to the look of the thing, there's another thing that bugs me: in the cameo Superman's entire world is about to be wiped out... and he stands there and watches. I'm sorry, but that's not Superman. Frankly, the ludicrous cameo by the Nic Cage Superman and the giant spider (which is hilarious in its stupidity) is better than this mess.

I still haven't seen "The Flash" as a whole. It had put me in a bind: on the one hand the trailers looked really good; on another the DC films have largely failed to live up to their promise (the first "Wonder Woman" and "Aquaman" were okay); on a third, there were the star's well-publicised issues.

I guess this one makes it quite easy for me: I'll watch it in a few years when (if) it makes it to Prime.

I Suppose It's Never Not a Bad Time

I have a cold. It started with a scratchy throat yesterday, and has rapidly progressed from there. In hindsight, attending the gala day was probably a really poor decision.

Unfortunately, this has come right on top of an already sucky time, and also at a time I really can't afford to be sick. Hopefully it will prove to be a 24-hour thing, or something close to it. (Or, failing that, at least it could have the decency to incapacitate me for a day or two into the new week...)

Capitulation

I see that Pepsi have quietly reformulated their main drink to remove about half the sugar and replace it with artificial sweeteners. This is rather unfortunate, as it now leaves me stuck - up until now, wherever we went they would serve either Coke or Pepsi products, but that always left at least one option to avoid sweeteners. We're now at a point where half the time there will be no option available that avoids them.

The upshot of all of this is that I'm going to have to admit defeat. And, although I very much dislike the sweeteners, and although they don't really agree with me, I think I'm just going to have to get used to them.

On the plus side, that does mean Irn Bru can come back onto the menu (the 1901 stuff was just too expensive to be more than an occasional purchase, and so eventually just dropped off my radar).

Or this could be the time to stop having these drinks entirely. But that's probably crazy talk.

The Sharp Pencil Conundrum

I have a not-quite-serious theory: those in greatest need of a sharp pencil are those least likely to have one to hand.

Back when I was at high school and exam time came upon us, there were a number of my peers who would immediately spring into action: they'd develop a lovely and detailed study plan, giving adequate time to all the subjects, with all sorts of elaborate schemes and divisions, carefully coloured and decorated. It was a thing of beauty. And then they would organise all their materials, making sure everything was carefully to hand and well prepared.

And then they would carefully sharpen all their pencils to a needlelike point and all to the exact same length.

Meanwhile, a few of us would sketch out the briefest possible plan ("I'll study Chemistry this morning and Maths this afternoon...") and get on with it.

By the end of the day it was likely that the people in the first group had put in an awful lot more effort. But that's not the same thing as actually studying.

The sharpening of the pencils is an especially absurd step: although there is a large extent to which you should, of course, take good care of your tools, pencils naturally lose their sharpness over time if left unused. So the optimum approach with those is to pick a reasonably good one when needed and sharpen it then. Then use it, put it aside, and repeat when you next need a pencil.

Since school, I've seen that pattern repeat over and over again. Basically, in almost every organisation I've seen there are some people who can be relied upon to get things done and some people who can be relied upon to put in a lot of effort.

And those are not the same thing.

Gala Day Season 2023 Begins

The band played their first gala day of the year this afternoon, at Mid Calder. It was fine - the usual two-mile parade followed by lunch, followed by playing around a couple of the pubs. I made my exit at this point, but I think some parts of the band continued their pub crawl afterwards.

The day featured glorious sunshine, which always makes these events more enjoyable - for all that I don't like wearing sunblock, it's far preferable to being soaked by rain. And nobody comes out in the rain, rather defeating the purpose of the exercise.

In terms of playing, the band were okay. We're in a very slightly better position than we were a year ago, having lost the sharpness we gained over the course of the season last year. Having observed attendances at practices over the year, that was inevitable - it's also now clear that this will always be the case, so I've made my peace with it.

And that's basically that. Next week is Uphall Station, while Funsize is in the parade at Livingston Village. Shame I can't be in two places at once.

The Two-Plate System

The BBQ at work yesterday was a great success, but there's some optimization that I'm keen to make in future endeavors. Specifically, this concerns the serving of the food.

The BBQ we have has a rather large cooking area, and then also has an elevated rack for cooked food, intended to keep it warm. However, in practice this has the weakness that food on that rack continues to cook. This is fine if it is taken away promptly, but if things stay there for any length of time they inevitably burn to a cinder. This happened to most of the chicken I had carefully prepared for the day.

The upshot of that is that I'm now planning to abandon the use of this elevated rack almost entirely (indeed, I'm eve considering just removing it, to give easier access to more of the cooking area. Instead, the food will be transferred away to a serving area from which people can collect their own food. This will be done using a two-plate system. (Well, sort of...)

The idea is that the serving area will have all the cooked food on a plate. The second plate will be beside me at the BBQ. As foods finish cooking they will be moved to 'my' plate. Then, as the plate fills up and/or opportunity presents itself, the contents will be moved to the serving plate for consumption.

(In reality, it will be a four-plate system, I think - one serving plate for vegetarian food, one for pork and beef, and one for other meats. That's due to the audience I'm serving, meaning that those are the three divisions needed. I'm not proposing to maintain several BBQ plates, however - that will mostly be handled by segregating items by cook-time.)

That's the theory, anyway...

Day 150: Update on Goals

We're getting towards the halfway point though 2023, so time for another update on goals...

• Books: I'm making really slow progress through the second of the three books from The List - I'm 175 pages in, out of 870ish. I have picked up the pace recently, though since that was from "stopped", I'm not sure that really counts. I still hope to finish the three books this year, but probably very few others, if any.
• Blogging: I should really have completed 49 posts by this point in the year, so I'm still somewhat behind. However, I'm pretty much on target at The Imaginarium, so the catchup is underway.
• Redecorating: No progress here, but I remain somewhat hopeful.
• Other stuff: Nothing much to report on that I haven't mentioned already. We're now well into the long days of summer, which in theory means a bit more daylight in which to do stuff. I'm afraid I'm doubtful of that!

My best guess is that I'll complete the three goals, but only just. Which is somewhat pathetic, really.

Despite that, life actually remains mostly positive. Mostly.

One Conclusion, One Beginning

We had a BBQ yesterday, for the first time since I fitted the new regulator and hose. As I mentioned before, I had had some trepidation about this fix, and so approached the cooking with some small measure of fear. But I'm still here, which suggests that it was probably okay. So I'm calling that job done.

At work I'm now preparing for our first BBQ of the year. (For complex and confusing reasons, I'm the resident grill-master.) I therefore spent quite a bit of time this morning getting the BBQ out of storage, giving it a thorough clean, putting the grill plates back in position, and turning it on to make sure everything is in working order (it is).

So now I'm in meal planning mode, both for the work BBQ on Thursday and also for my birthday BBQ at the end of the month. In both cases, I'm hoping to surprise people with something they didn't expect. But what, that is the question...

Chickens Come Home to Roost

The latest polling evidence makes for grim reading for the SNP. If the seats fall as this poll suggests, they'll lose 23 seats (technically 20 plus three others that were won by SNP candidates but are currently held by ex-SNP MPs). My own MP falls into that group.

Now, on the one hand, that's somewhat unfortunate, as our current MP is one of the more effective SNP MPs. On the other hand, given some of the things that she has expressed, I won't be particularly sorry to see her go. (Funnily enough, I'm not keen on outright misandry.) But on the other, other hand, the prospect of replacing a largely-useless SNP MP with a totally-useless Labour one isn't exactly thrilling.

But, fundamentally, the issue isn't really a swing from the SNP to Labour. The issue is that people who voted SNP last time are going to stay home, while everyone else votes tactically to replace them with Unionist candidates. 45% of the electorate will give you a landslide, but only if that 45% is motivated to turn out.

And therein lies the rub. The SNP are, frankly, not giving anyone a reason to bother voting for them. They're not going to be in government, so whatever policies they put forward, on just about anything, are irrelevant. (Plus, of course, if they were relevant then they'd need to be judged on their record in Holyrood, which in recent times is abysmal.)

That leaves the constitutional matter. Now, their "de facto referendum" could have been a foolhardy move, and there's a very real chance that had it succeeded it still wouldn't have made any difference. But it would at least have motivated the 45%. But they're not going for that. Instead, they're asking for a mandate to ask, yet again, for a Section 30 order for a second referendum.

Well, let's not bother with that. We know the answer already. If the Tories win the election, the answer is "no". If Labour win the election, the answer is "no". If there's a hung parliament in which either the Lib Dems or DUP hold the balance of power, the SNP will be locked out, and the answer is "no".

There's a tiny chance that we might end up with a hung parliament in which the SNP hold the balance of power. But here's a thing: Labour will never do a deal with the SNP to take power. Even if the 'deal' is "do whatever you want, and we'll vote for it, and ask nothing at all in return", Labour still wouldn't take it. They'd let the Tories back into power first, since the alternative is five years of the right-wing media saying "See?! We told you so!", followed by them being wiped out at the next and subsequent elections. So even if that tiny chance did pay out, Labour would let the Tories take power... and the answer is "no".

A Section 30 Order for a new referendum is long since dead. If that's what you're asking for, you're saying you've given up on independence. Which means that the 45% have no inbuilt reason to bother voting for you.

And so I'm left with no reason to bother with them. They've failed us for too long. The chickens have come home to roost.

Ever-Smaller Roads

In theory, the main road on my commute is the M8. That's the busiest moterway in Scotland, it's a big, serious road, and it's also nice and direct.

Except that the M8 is horribly busy, so actually it's really not the road to take. The best way to work is to use an alternative route that is similarly direct but which is much smaller, has a lower speed limit, more traffic lights and roundabouts, and is generally the lesser option - in theory.

Except that that road is currently ravaged with massive, long-term roadworks. Which means that the best way to work is currently to divert off that road and into a bunch of small, winding roads through a couple of villages, across a level crossing, and then onto some narrow country roads.

I noticed this morning that there are now some roadworks on one of those roads. I dread to think what the next step is.

Something I Don't Understand

There are many things that perplex me about the Tory government, not least how 17% of people can still think of voting for them. (Seriously, I can just about understand the mindset that leads someone to vote Tory. But to vote for these Tories, when in addition to everything else they're fundamentally bad even at being Tories...) However, there is one thing that particularly confuses the hell out of me:

As we know, the most valuable natural resource of the future is going to be clean water. ("Quantum of Solace" is not a good Bond movie, but on that point it was absolutely bang on the money - and that was fifteen years ago.) This isn't a controversial opinion, or some bizarre eco-hippy shit; it's a very simple and clear fact.

Why then are the Tories allowing, even encouraging, the privitised water companies to turn all of England's waterways into open sewers? Why are they actively destroying the very resource that is going to become so incredibly valuable?

As I said, they're really really bad even at being Tories.

It Was Nice While It Lasted

I see that Summer has been and gone. It was an unusually good one this year - it lasted almost all of Friday!

Not Helping

Some stuff is happening at work that is intended to improve things. At least, that's the stated intent, and I choose to believe it. Sadly, that stuff is raking up everything that has happened over the last two years, some of which it turns out was better left buried.

Right now is not a good time.

Snooze

I've always tried to resist the use of the snooze function on my alarm - I've generally been of the view that I'd rather build the extra few minutes into my sleep, and get up straight away with a later alarm. (Plus, my understanding is that this gives better sleep overall anyway.) Granted, there have been times the snooze alarm has gone off, but that's been because I've not stopped the alarm properly for one reason or another.

Until this week.

On Tuesday, to my lasting shame, when my alarm went off I just couldn't face getting up. So the snooze went on, and I snoozed indeed.

Granted, that had been after a difficult night in which Surprise! had gotten me out of bed for an hour about 3am, and when I returned I found that Funsize had evicted me (and so I slept the rest of the night in her bed). But still.

Anyway, we survived this great horror. This time.

Worryingly Fixed

After a few failed attempts, I managed to fix our BBQ at the weekend - I'd sourced and purchased a new regulator and hose some time ago, but found that actually fitting the hose was remarkably difficult. But after several attempts, the application of washing up liquid and boiling water, and the strategic use of a glove, I managed to get it into place. Then the clips were appropriately tightened, and the job was done!

At this point, per the advice I'd seen about doing the job I checked for leaks using an officially-branded product for this task. (It was actually just "bubble goo" - the very same stuff that the kids use for blowing bubbles. But since the consistency of these things varies, I was somewhat comforted by getting an official product just to be sure.)

So, anyway, I checked. No bubbles. Then I checked again, just to be extra sure. It really, really doesn't have any leaks.

And yet...

I find that there's a tiny part of me that would rather that the repair had definitively failed. That would have forced the purchase of a new BBQ, which isn't something I want to do, but could be preferable.

Because there's a tiny part of me that just won't be happy with this one until I've actually used the BBQ to actually cook some food. I'm absolutely certain that the parts used are good, I'm absolutely certain that the fitting is correct, and I'm absolutely certain that there aren't any leaks. So there's no reasonable doubt as to the efficacy of the fix. But there is still an unreasonable doubt to contend with.

Some Thoughts on the Coronation

I'm of the view that spending a quarter of a billion pounds of scarce public money on giving a rich old guy a new hat is not a particularly worthwhile use of resources at the best of times. To do so while in the midst of a cost of living crisis is bordering on the obscene. And to pay for it, in part, by diverting funds away from foodbanks is frankly indefensible.

That said, if you absolutely must do such a monstrous thing, I guess it's better that it's done well. And, looked at purely as a demonstration of Britain's absurd obsession with pageantry and dressing up, it was certainly done well. The hat went on, and stayed on, with scarcely a wobble. What more could you possibly ask for?

So... yay, I guess?

Oh, one more thing: the right wing press are now positively glowing about Penny Mordant's performance, and have now declared her to be the favourite to become the next Tory leader. Apparently, strange women distributing swords is a suitable basis for a system of government in Brexit Britain.

Roll Over

We've hit a fun new phase.

Surprise! is still not quite at the stage where he will sleep through the night. He seems to be getting better, but it remains the case that at some point in the night he will start crying and come into bed with us.

However, in the last couple of weeks Funsize seems to have also started to suffer from disturbed sleep, and in particular from nightmares. As a consequence of this, she wakes up and comes through to us as well. (Plus, I rather suspect she's milking it somewhat - her brother comes through, so she wants to as well.) The upshot of all of this is that quite often we've ended up with all four of us in our bed, and while it's a big bed it's really not big enough.

Unfortunately, this has left me trying to sleep while balanced on the edge of the bed or, more recently, simply giving up and retreating into Funsize's bedroom, switching off the unicorn nightlight, and trying to get some sleep. It's not ideal, but when they all roll over, one falls out.

Experimental Cookery 2023: Venison Haunch Steaks

For the past several months we have had a couple of venison steaks sitting in our freezer waiting for us to decide what to do with them. We finally used them up today - any notion of turning them into tacos or otherwise chopping them up was discarded, and they instead were seared and then served. I took the opportunity to make 'real' chips to have with them, but otherwise it was all fairly simple.

And that was a winning meal. Really, we should have done it much sooner. Alas, I have no idea when, or even if, we might do these again. Still, good stuff.

Invitation Declined

I see that we're being invited to personally swear allegiance to our beloved new monarch at the coronation next week.

Personally, I'm quite glad of this. Because up to now it was possible to argue that we'd been represented by various people - by our MPs, by our MSPs, by Humza Yousaf as First Minister and by Rishi Sunak as Prime Minister, by the heads of the churches and universities, and so on and so forth.

But if we're being invited to individually swear allegiance that all disappears. And an invitation to swear allegiance is also, by extension, an invitation to decline to swear that allegiance.

It will be very interesting to see what fraction of the country actually care about this pantomime, versus merely having to pay for it.

Risking It

For the first time in about nine months, I'm going to leave my work laptop in the office. It's a risk, but one I've decided to take - I could really do with having a couple of days completely away from it.

In other news, it has been a tough week.

Under Consideration

A few weeks ago I was approached about the possibility of becoming an Elder in the church. Apparently, they're keen to get a younger insight!

Anyway, I have since been considering the matter carefully.

On the one hand:

• Someone has to do the job, and the truth is that the existing Kirk Session is only getting older. The ability of others to carry it is likely to diminish, and so it's somewhat incumbent on those of us who can to help out.
• I'm also conscious that you need to be in the meetings to have a voice. This goes back to an incident in my first church many years ago, when the then Kirk Session put out a statement on a controversial topic that I very much disagreed with (to the extent that had it gone beyond a simple statement and into actual policy, I would have had to consider walking away). I felt that the wider congregation should really have been consulted, but the truth is that the Kirk Session was acting within their remit. In which case, being on that body would be a good thing.

But...

• I'm very much the sort of person who will either commit to something fully, or not at all. I'm not keen on doing something in a half-hearted manner, and I really dislike dropping the ball. And it's fair to say that I'm already somewhat stretched in my commitments. In which case, do I have the time to take something new on?

It's a tough one. Especially as it is by no means guaranteed that the opportunity would come again...

#8: "Eldership", by various authors

D&D: Honour Among Thieves

I had a window of opportunity on Monday, and so made my way out to see the new D&D movie. I was lucky to catch it - it had already left our local cinema, and none of the other nearby ones had shows I could catch. Luckily the one near my parents' had a couple of showings, which meant I stepped back in time. That said, they've refitted their screens with reclining chairs for all customers, which was a pleasant surprise. And so, I sat down in an almost deserted cinema to watch the film.

And it's okay. It's a perfectly fine film, a diverting way to spend a couple of hours, with the same blend of action and comedy one might expect from a "Guardians of the Galaxy" or recent "Thor" film. The cast were all pretty good, the pacing was good. It was all good.

And almost completely unmemorable. Indeed, almost all of the best bits of the film had already been released, in the form of the trailers, TV spots, and other promotions. What was left was the connecting tissue, which was all fine but was mostly just... there.

Ultimately, my view is... yeah, it's okay.

On the plus side, it isn't the cinematic abomination that was the previous films, so that's a positive. On the other hand, that's not exactly a high bar to reach. And I'm struggling to find a reason to watch this one over, say, watching "Guardians of the Galaxy" again (which is funnier, more action packed, and just generally a bit better on every metric).

Make of that what you will, I guess.

#7: "Flying Scotsman and the Best Birthday Ever", by Michael Morpurgo (a book for Surprise!)

Picard Season Three

As I've mentioned before, I rather enjoyed the first season of Picard, but for a rather disappointing finale. I thought the second season started extremely well, but then collapsed into an awful mess. So I came to the third season with seriously mixed feelings.

The good news is that having finished it this morning, I found it to be thoroughly enjoyable. Yes, there were details here and there I didn't care for, and some of the fan service was rather extreme, but I felt it told a good story, told it well, and gave the Next Generation crew the send off that Nemesis really failed to give them.

I'll not say any more than that, due to the risk of spoilers, but I will note that the show ends by setting up a potential successor series that I would very much like to see. Which is great!

A Case of Bad Timing

As often happens, we had a few days of good weather during the Easter holiday. So I took the opportunity to bring the BBQ into use for the year. This involved giving it a good clean, and purchasing a new canister of gas to use with it. This proved to be more of a challenge than expected, but was eventually successful.

When I turned the BBQ on, part of the level on the valve then broke off in my hand. We were still able to use the BBQ for that meal and then switch if off again to make it safe, but can't now use it again until the valve has been replaced.

This was something of an annoyance in itself, but otherwise unremarkable except for one detail: for some time I have been considering replacing that BBQ with a new one, and any new purchase was going to be a charcoal BBQ. Unfortunately, the time to make that purchase is not immediately after buying a new gas canister!

Still, it could have been a lot worse, I guess. So that's a win at least.

The Emergency Alert Test

There is to be a test of the Emergency Alert system on Sunday, and the right wing commentariat seem to have lost their minds over it. A couple of quick thoughts:

• If you're going to have an Emergency Alert system, it really does need tested occasionally, for the same reason all our employers have to have periodic fire drills - it's not enough to assume that these things work, or even to show that they work in theory. If they're important enough then they need to be tested, in real life, before we find ourselves having to rely on them.
• The reason for the Emergency Alert system itself should really be one that that right wing commentariat should be able to appreciate: it's basically a replacement for the old air raid sirens from their beloved Blitz. Basically, if we find ourselves in a situation where something is liable to go wrong at short and unpredicatable notice (such as, heaven forbid, we are once again subject to bombing raids), we will probably appreciate having an alert system in place.

Of course, I stand ready to revise my opinion if the government of the day decides to start misusing it (sending alerts for any and all nonsense at their whim). But if that does happen, it's easy enough to switch off.

As it is, having a one-off test of the system is quite a good idea, really.

The Twilight Zone

A controversial statement to start: Celtic could do with drawing their next game.

My reasoning is as follows: As things stand, Rangers are on 79 points with six games to play - the maximum total they could achieve is 97 points. Celtic are on 91 points, with an insurmountable goal difference. What that means is that if Celtic win their next two days they will have won the league... in every sense but the strictly mathematical. (By which I mean that strictly speaking it's not impossible for Rangers to oerturn it, but it's just not going to happen.)

The upshot of that is that if they win their next two games, Celtic fans will find themselves in a weird twilight zone - do they celebrate the league win when it's not quite done, do they wait for the next game when it's a formality, or (most likely) do they have a mix where some people do one and some the other and it turn into a bit of a mess?

Far cleaner is if they draw the next match, then win two, jump from 95 to 98 points, and put it beyond even strict mathmatical doubt in one step.

(Not that it really matters all that much - the league is long since done. The only remaining questions are just when do they cross the line, and what is their final points tally?)

On the other hand, as far as I can tell, the highest-ever points tally in Scottish football is 106 (though I might be wrong - I haven't checked every single season!). If Celtic win all six of their remaining matches, they could hit 109. Which also provides a compelling reason to keep going!

The Endless To-Do List

Over the course of this holiday I finally made some progress on my To-Do List: I managed to complete the second-last item on the list from the Christmas holiday! (I also managed to complete all but one item, coincidentally the same item, from the February break's list.)

Alas, the To-Do List for this holiday has a couple more undone items at this point, though one of them was something of a "how long is a piece of string" task - I was never actually going to get properly caught up on the blog, so just making some progress was something.

Still, that To-Do List remains a serious frustration, especially as I'm not really in a position to simply delete anything from the list. All the remaining items are either things I must get done or are things that I really want to get done, in preference to other potential items.

So we'll see. I don't think there's any prospect of making progress at my next holiday, so the next little while will need to see me trying to deal with the list while not on holiday...

Day 100: Update on Goals

100 days into 2023, so here's the latest update:

• Books: I have now read six books this year, having completed exactly one since the previous update (and that one was in progress when 2023 started!). It's fair to say I won't be reaching 60 books this year! I have started the second of the three books from The List, but am making really slow progress. Still, there's time enough to think this goal should be completed by the end of the year.
• Blogging: I should really have completed 32 posts by this point in the year, so I'm a good bit behind. I'm also rather behind at the Imaginarium also. That said, I did make up some ground in March, so it's not impossible that I'll catch up. We'll see.
• Redecorating: A very small amount of progress here - I changed Surprise!'s cot into a bed yesterday. The rest of the task remains as it was, but that's not a massive problem, I think. That said, we'll need to figure out when we're going to do any of the other parts, since I have absolutely no free time, and all my holidays are long since assigned.
• Other stuff: The main home PC died a rather spectacular death and has now been replaced (as recounted at length elsewhere). LC's laptop has also been consigned to the past, with a replacement due imminently. This was unfortunate, as I wasn't sure what the budget for a replacement was, so we've taken a best guess. I'm now enjoying my Easter break, which I'll probably blog about more once I get back. The Summer holiday is now mostly booked, with only two things I'm aware of needing locked down (and a big bill to pay).

I remain confident that all three goals will complete by the end of the year, but I'm very glad I didn't set any others, because even this rather unambitious set is proving challenging.

A Suggestion

For the benefit of Google, Amazon and the like: if I spend some time searching for some big-ticket item (a BBQ for instance) and then I stop searching for said item, that's probably a decent indicator that I've made a purchase. Indeed, there's a very good chance that you know I've made that purchase, especially if you're Amazon.

In that case, it's probably not such a good idea to spend the next several months pushing adverts for BBQs (or whatever) into my feed - there is no world in which I need more than one. Can I humbly suggest that a better approach, if you absolutely must, would be to send me adverts for BBQ accessories? Because while having your adverts foisted upon me is inherently annoying, at least they're marginally less annoying that way.

Ticking Off a Job

Ever since the New Year, I have had "fix car" sitting on my to-do list - it got scraped when we were going to soft play late last year, and paying to have it put right looked like being inordinately expensive, so it fell to me. Anyway, I've finally managed to find some time, and some decent weather, and now the job is done.

Huzzah!

(Well, almost. There is one final step required, after the paint has had four hours to dry. But that's a matter of a few minutes' work, so I'm not counting that.)

Religion in Bute House

On his first night as First Minister, Humza Yousaf posted a picture on social media of him leading his family in prayer as they broke their fast (it being Ramadan, and he and his family being Muslim). Which, frankly, is entirely fine, and normal, and in a multicultural society is to be celebrated.

Of course, this was then met by wailing and gnashing of teeth from certain quarters on social media. Often, the refrain was "if Kate Forbes had won, and posted a picture of a Christian prayer meeting, would the response have been the same?"

Well, leaving aside the fact that she would have been unlikely to do so, two quick things:

1. There's no actual evidence to suggest that the response wouldn't have been broadly supportive. Granted, there would be some people on social media taking umbrage at the whole thing... but then, that's no different either.
2. Even if the response had been wildly different, though, that's not a valid criticism of Humza Yousaf - it's a reflection of the intolerance of some sections of our society, and especially on social media.

Hopefully, this extremely intolerant focus on the religious convictions, or lack thereof, of the two highest-profile candidates in the recent contest will prove to be a very short-lived thing. Because if we really are the tolerant and inclusive society that we like to think we are, it really shouldn't matter.

Of all the things Humza Yousaf has done in his time in politics, that is one of the least worthy of remark.

Finally Finished

At the weekend I finally reached the end of "Cytonic", the third, but not final, book in Brandon Sanderson's Skyward 'trilogy' - as with many of these series, it has grown somewhat in scope since he began. (And, in fairness, it's a setting and a story that can bear a little expansion, so that's not too bad.)

This novel has had the unfortunate distinction of being one that I've been reading since last year. It has just taken me a veritable age to get through. Although, in fairness, that has very little to do with the quality of the book (which is fine, though it's very much a bridge between the start of the series and its end), and more to do with just not finding time to do any reading at the moment.

Anyway, with that done I'm hoping to pick up the pace rather - I'm still hopeful of finishing off the two remaining books from The List this year, and have a massive backlog of books to get through!

Honestly

Congratulations to Humza Yousaf on becoming the SNP leader, and soon the next First Minister of Scotland. He wouldn't have been my choice, but maybe I've misjudged him. He certainly deserves every chance to prove me wrong.

And I do sincerely hope that I'm wrong.

#6: "Cytonic", by Brandon Sanderson

Backup Plans

After a lucky escape with the hard drive from my old PC, we've been hit with a not-so-lucky event - the portable hard drive the LC uses for her work failed. Unfortunately, much of the content of that drive wasn't copied elsewhere, and although much of the drive was salvageable it certainly wasn't all.

Which is all a bit of a disaster, really.

The key lesson to learn from this one is quite simple: backup early and often, and try never to have a single copy of anything that's really important. And, ideally, set up your systems so that those backups are made automatically on a regular basis so you don't have to remember.

Which is an expensive lesson to have to learn again, but I suppose it could have been worse.

Never Simple

The task of setting up the new PC never seems to end.

We were extremely lucky to find that the hard drive on the old PC remained intact, which means that we didn't lose any data in the move. I've now copied everything across to the new PC, though for the moment it's all in a dumping ground folder - I still have a task to sort it into some sort of order and get rid of any files that truly are obsolete. (That's not as big a job as it may sound - I did a massive digital declutter a few years ago, so there are only a few stragglers to sort out.)

However, this has meant that the list of jobs to do for the new PC has dropped from 3 to, er, 4:

1. I have to set up a recovery image. Annoyingly, the advice I saw said this needed to be at least 16GB, with 32GB recommended, so I duly bought a 32GB drive, only to have it turn out that 32GB is the minimum and, worse, that "32GB" drive was effectively just very slightly smaller than that.
2. I have the aforementioned reorganisation to do.
3. Once that reorganisation is done, I need to install Dropbox - I want to do this near the end so that the file locations dovetail properly.
4. I need to switch the anti-virus software from the (perfectly good) version installed to the (also perfectly good) version we've been using for years.

I'm hoping to get all this done by the end of the weekend. But I'm not entirely hopeful - these tasks just seem to be growing arms and legs constantly.

Going to the Polls

The polls open for the SNP leadership contest today. The winner will be both SNP leader and, barring an absurd shock, the next First Minister of Scotland, so while I don't have a vote (not being a member of any political party), I obviously have an interest.

There are three candidates: Kate Forbes, Ash Regan, and Humza Yousaf. But, realistically, there are only actually two - Ash Regan is the least well-known of the three, she has had virtually no media coverage, and so regardless of any other factors she's not going to win. (In the same way that the Lib Dems aren't actually going to win the next General Election.)

The problem with that is that there isn't really a great choice available. On the one hand, Humza Yousaf is undeniably the more experienced of the two, having held almost all the big roles in Sturgeon's government at one time or another. Unfortunately, he's made a mess of all of them. And he seems extremely cold on the topic of Independence - the de facto referendum notion would be off the table, being replaced by, well, nothing. Which means that a Humza Yousaf-led SNP wouldn't be getting my vote - I wouldn't be voting on the competence of the government, and neither would I hold my nose and vote for independence.

On the other hand, we have Kate Forbes. She's much less experienced, but in the big job that she has had she has done very well (and, indeed, did well at extremely short notice). She also presents far better than Yousaf, and has made no bones about identifying that the SNP government has been slipping for a long time. She might just make for an SNP government that I wouldn't have to hold my nose to vote for.

But...

There are two big negatives with a Kate Forbes-led SNP. The first is that she's also very cold on independence, dropping the de facto referendum plan. Her replacement plan is slightly more credible than Yousaf's, but not meaningfully so.

The other one, though, is her social conservatism. As I noted before, I don't agree with many of her views. The truth is, though that they wouldn't be a block on my voting for her - but that's the nature of the privilege I enjoy. For those more directly affected, I can well understand that those views would make for a much more significant problem - and that might be an absolute block on her running the type of government that we really need.

It's fair to say that it's a tricky one.

Only, not really. Because as I've indicated, a Humza Yousaf-led SNP is almost certainly not one I could vote for; a Kate Forbes-led one probably is. So while I'll readily accept that others may come to a different conclusion, and while I understand entirely why, my support, caveated and wavering as it is, basically has to go to Kate Forbes.

Her Two Front Teeth

Funsize has her first wobbly tooth, scant days after her final birthday party. The tooth fairy has been contacted and is on standby.

I'm surprised by this development, as it feels awfully early. Bluntly, I'm not ready for her to have her permanent teeth, and all the pressure that goes with that. But that's academic now - apparently, five years old is on the early end of the 'normal' range, and therefore nothing to worry about, and so onward we go.

Still, it's a pain. There I was thinking things were settling down for a bit (especially as Surprise! is no longer moaning about being taken to nursery), and now it's all change again.

Expensive!

I've just received my credit card bill for the month, and ouch it's expensive! It's not unexpectedly so, given that in the past couple of months we've bought a dishwasher, a new PC, paid for a holiday and started booking another holiday, and Funsize somehow managed to arrange to have multiple birthday parties all of which had cost associated with them.

And, luckily, we have reserves in place for precisely a circumstance like this.

Still, it has been rather a shock. We'll need to make sure to cut back on the expenses for the next couple of months. Which will be tricky, since there's the other part of that second holiday to book.

The Setup Games

When I ordered our latest PC, I was advised it would be available around mid-March - later than I'd hoped, but I figured it was worth the wait. Plus, it was coming on a Monday, so it shouldn't be too much of a hassle for LC to arrange to be in for the delivery. But on Wednesday there was 'good' news - the PC was coming on Saturday! This was a bit more of a hassle, as we were busy entertaining on Saturday, but at least we'd be around for the delivery...

Then on Friday, just as I was walking out the door to head to work, I received a text telling me it was coming between 12.20 and 13.20 that day. Um, great... I think? Anyway, I had to hastily switch to working from home on Friday in order to take the delivery - I neither wanted to have to wait for the inevitable rescheduled delivery (which no doubt would be a hassle anyway), nor did I want to risk them leaving it in a 'safe' place.

So the new PC arrived on Friday at 11.30. Which is almost one of the times they said.

The PC then sat in its box until Saturday, when I dug it out, connected it up, and got started. And inevitably found that I didn't like it - Microsoft have, in their wisdom, decided to change the desktop layout again and don't provide a handy "put it back the way we like it" option. Sigh.

The requisite moan about that out of the way, I then got started with installing the various bits of software: a replacement browser, the office suite, PDF and ZIP tools, and so on and so forth. It really does feel like there should be an easier way to do all of this, but unfortunately right now it looks like there's just an easier way to do some of this.

So we're now more or less set up. As far as I can see there remain three things to do: recover as much of the data from my old PC as possible (we have backups, but I'm hoping that the hard drive remains intact so I can get the definitive most up-to-date version of everything), reinstall Dropbox (which is best done after getting the data, so the folder can be set up easily), and switch the anti-virus software (from the installed free trial to the one we've been paying for).

It's funny how getting a new and better PC still involves hours upon hours of work getting it ready.

Willow

I was rather surprised, but actually rather glad, when Disney announced a TV series continuation of "Willow" - although it's not the absolute best film in the world it was a lot of fun, and if everything else is getting a revival then why not? We finally sat down to watch it over the past few weeks and... it's not the best show, but it's fun.

The truth is that "Willow", like "Wheel of Time" and "Rings of Power", is pretty much just "fantasy lands of generica" - a mismatched fellowship of characters gather for some quest, have some adventures, and then there's a big showdown at the end. You've seen it before.

What sets "Willow" apart from the other two is that this one doesn't really take itself too seriously - yes, there's a world-ending menace out there, but it's not the po faced doomscape that we've come to know and 'love'. That's a good thing.

That said, "Willow" does start rather badly and then gets better as it goes (although the very best episode is at the halfway point). So I'd suggest trying to stick it out for those first few episodes before passing judgement.

And that, I think, is all I have to say about that. Except to note that we'll watch a second season if there is one, which isn't the case for "Wheel of Time".

Freeze!

After eight and a half years of sterling service, my home PC has finally failed on us - for the past few months it has sporadically suffered from random freezes, which finally reached the point where it would consistently freeze while booting up. Frustratingly, I saw this coming just a little bit too late to get a really good backup of everything from the main PC - although we have multiple backups, there's one I don't entirely trust and another that is 3 months old. (Which isn't actually all that bad, given the way that PC is used - worst case scenario is that we've lost a year's worth of photos, mostly photos of randomness taken by Funsize.)

I have a new PC on order, which should arrive at the weekend. Once it gets here, and I've reconfigured the machine to my liking and installed the five key bits of software, I'll try attaching the old hard drive to see what can be recovered. With luck, it will just work and I can recover everything.

But it has been a frustrating couple of weeks, having to manage without the PC, but also kicking myself for not grabbing a definitive backup in the final day, and also having made several failed attempts to repair the machine (to enable that backup).

Then again, it has been time for a new PC for quite a while, and it should represent a significant improvement in performance.

The Sticking Point

I should preface what I'm about to say by stating that I disagree with just about everything Kate Forbes said at the start of this week. I do believe that the GRR bill is fatally flawed, but that's a matter of detail rather than intention. (I do also think, though am not certain, that the UK government it legally in the right with their challenge, but that's another matter.) However, I'm inclined to the view that legislating for equal marriage was one of the very few good things that David Cameron actually did in office, and that the corresponding law in Scotland was equally good. And so on and so forth.

However, the treatment that has been meted out to Kate Forbes as a result of that has been disgraceful. And make no mistake, despite John Swinney's claims to the contrary it was entirely about her Christian beliefs - if Forbes wasn't the candidate then none of this would even have been raised, and the media simply wouldn't dare to grill Humza Yousaf over his Muslim faith in anything like the same terms as they've handled Forbes.

The upshot of all of that is this: there is now, I have no doubt, significant pressure being applied to Kate Forbes to 'persuade' her to drop out of the race. I have no doubt that there is equally significant pressure being applied to those who might back her to withdraw their nominations.

But here's the thing: If Kate Forbes is forced out of the race due to her Christian beliefs, the SNP will never again see another vote from me.

If she stands and loses, then that's absolutely fine - that's democracy in action. But she needs to be allowed to stand.

And that goes for voting for independence, too. I want no part of a modern, tolerant, inclusive Scotland in which every religious minority is welcome, except one. And where we only throw Christians to metaphorical lions.

Day 51: Update on Goals

We're already more than 50 days into the new year, so it's time for an update:

• Books: I have managed all of five books this year, which would be a fairly poor showing (especially as almost all of them are RPG books), except that that isn't a stated goal this year. Maybe next year... Of the stated goal, I have completed one of the three books that were outstanding at the turn of the year. Even that isn't an unalloyed win - that book was well in progress at the start of the year. Still, I am just about on target for this goal.
• Blogging: By rights, this should be the sixteenth or seventeenth post of the year, rather than the tenth. Needless to say, I'm already well behind. Luckily, there isn't much going on that's blog-worthy, he said with a wry chuckle. I'll need to do some work to catch up on this one. On the plus-side, the Imaginarium has eight posts, which is surprisingly good.
• Redecorating: No progress to report, except that we had a dishwasher fitted last week. The main takeaway from that is that we should have bought one five years ago. I think I have now settled on a specific set of tasks for this one: get the hall carpet replaced, hang some more pictures in the hallway, break Surprise!'s cot down into a bed for him, and repaint the parts of the two bathrooms that are actually painted. That's not a huge amount, but it's also the right set, I think.
• Other stuff: It's looking very much like our planned refresh of all our IT kit won't wait until Summer as had been planned - the PC on which I'm typing this is very much on its last legs, while LC's laptop is becoming ever-more creaky. So those may well be updated in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, we've been in the process of booking our holidays for Easter and Summer - one is all done, the other is in progress. So those are two things to look forward to.

My expectation is that all three goals will complete at, or close to, target. Largely because they're not a hugely ambitious set. But we'll see.

#4: "Tome of Beasts III Lairs", from Kobold Press
#5: "Paranormal Power", by Rachel Williamson

Regarding "Queen Consort"

It's fair to say that I'm not a fan of a monarchy. In fact, I'd abolish the whole institution given the opportunity. And I definitely think King Charles needs to be taking decisive action to push Andrew into a well-deserved obscurity.

But I'm also very much not a fan of this "Queen Consort" thing.

Now, technically, Queen Consort is a correct title - it differentiates someone who is Queen because they're married to the King (Camilla, or the old Queen Mother) versus the Queen Regnant, who is Queen in her own right (Elizabeth, Victoria, Elizabeth). But the truth is that the 'consort' bit is usually omitted - it is being used this time in deference to Diana and her enduring popularity.

But here's the thing: Diana has been dead for twenty-five years. And while she was horribly mistreated, including by Charles, it's also the case tha Charles was likewise mistreated in being forced to marry an 'appropriate' wife. (Indeed, one of the reasons I'm in favour of abolition is exactly that ongoing mistreatment of younger members of the family. A gilded cage is still a cage.)

It's also the case that Charles has been married to Camilla for longer now than he was married to Diana. He's obviously considerably happier with Camilla than he was with Diana.

And, as far as I can tell, in the last two decades Camilla has done nothing wrong. She is tarred, permanently, as "the other woman" - but she was the other woman in a relationship that was clearly disfunctional by the end and was probably doomed from the start.

So I'm very much not a fan of this Queen Consort business. In my opinion, she should just be Queen.

'Tis Better to Give than Receive

This one is a bit of a belated Christmas post.

One of my least-favourite bits of the run-up to Christmas is dealing with presents. And I do mean specifically the run-up to Christmas - that bit of the day itself is all good, I quite enjoy the giving of presents, and certainly don't mind the receiving (and even moreso the reception by Funsize and Surprise!). But in the run-up to Christmas, dealing with the presents is rather a hassle - there is the list of people who you're obliged to buy presents for, most of whom have so much stuff that you basically have to ask them what they want and then get that (so why bother?). Then there are the people who want to buy you a present, but again you have so much stuff that they ask what you want and you have to rack your brain for a suitable item in a suitable price range (which you could have bought for yourself, so why bother?)

So that's that.

But last year for the first time, I went "off book". In addition to the various obligations I bought two other 'surprise' presents - presents for people who weren't on the list, and who therefore weren't expecting to receive anything.

And that worked really well - the surprise of getting a gift, the surprise of what it was. All in all, it was a no lose proposition. Those two were the presents with which I was most happy last year, either the ones I gave or that I received. I call that a win.

Ultimately, what I'm saying is that it really is true: it's better to give than to receive. I recommend trying it.

Clearing the Backlog

One of my rules when counting books is that I don't include graphic novels. Which makes some sense, since they tend to be rather too slight - although some of the things that I do count as books are almost trivial, I don't for instance count the books I read to Funsize each night.

However, last year as I fell behind in my reading, my desire to "catch up" meant that any and all extraneous reading was dropped - if it didn't count to the total, it didn't happen.

The upshot of that is that the three graphic novels that I received as Christmas gifts in 2021 never got read.

Now that we're into a new year and the total is reset, and especially since the goal has been utterly revised, I'm now taking a different approach, and will prioritize getting those three off of the backlog. To be followed by all the other books I have waiting.

(Oh, and just in case there was any doubt: the target of 60 books a year is very definitely not happening this year. Any notion that it might has been spectacularly debunked by January.)

#3: "Dragons of Stormwreck Isle", by Wizards of the Coast.

Hey Duggee Live Tour

LC and I took the children to see "Hey Duggee" at the Festival Theatre on Saturday. As I've said before, I consider Duggee to be one of the genuine greats of CBeebies, but with these adaptations there is always the risk of having the life sucked out of them, so how does Duggee fit on the scale of painful experiences?

Well, the children thoroughly enjoyed it. As the lights went down, Surprise! had a little cry. However as soon as the narrator came on stage he was immediately transfixed. And from there he was bouncing around, dancing along, clapping and laughing throughout. Funsize also enjoyed it in much the same way.

The show itself was essentially a compilation of "best bits" from the show - throughout you could basically see where this bit, and that bit, came from. But that's fine. They clearly knew their audience and gave them what they wanted. One thing that was very clever was that when we entered the children were each given a sheet of stickers, and at various parts Duggie gave the Squirrels a badge - and the audience were encouraged to find and wear their matching sticker.

The show was about an hour of fun and puppetry. We had the Acapella Badge, the Choregraphy Badge, the Costume Badge, the Egg Badge, the Singing Badge, the Space Badge, all building up to the Theatre Badge. There were numerous songs, lots of audience participation, and all sorts of fun.

And it was great fun. I actually very much enjoyed it, partly because the kids were having such a good time, and partly in its own right.

Well done to those involved - you've earned your Live Tour Badge!

A Good Job Done

I started the Christmas break with a list of seven things I would like to get done. On Saturday I finally completed the fifth of these (and one of them was actually done by LC on my behalf). My available free time is painfully limited these days.

Anyway, the task in question was a repair of one of our 'kitchen' units (actually in the utility room) -  more or less since we first moved in it has gradually been collapsing, and although it was still usable it had increasingly been bugging me.

The fix was reasonably easy - empty the unit and clear all weight from the counter above it, then remove the door. Then I put a fairly liberal coating of wood glue on the two bits that should be joined, and hammered the unit back together. And then, to provide some additional support I drove four nails into the wood where it joined.

The unit was then left overnight, before having the door re-hung and the contents replaced. Job done!

Money's Worth?

Almost exactly three months ago, LC and I took an offer for 3 months of subscription to NOW TV. We mostly got this so that we could watch "House of the Dragon", though since we finished that I've used it to watch a few other things:

• I watched the first season of "Star Trek: Prodigy", which was okay to start with but got much stronger as it went on.
• We watched "Christmas Carole" together, mostly because of the feature in the Radio Times. The truth is that the bits with the Eric and Ernie tributes were by far the best in the show. They were definitely wise to put those front and center in the marketing. I wouldn't particularly recommend it otherwise.
• I then watched the two seasons of "Avenue 5", which I finished last night. I very much enjoyed that, and in particular Hugh Laurie's performance.

My general feeling is that NOW TV is the least good of the subscriptions we've had so far - it seems to have the fewest "must watch" items, it suffers from having adverts, it doesn't include the movie package (which is standard for Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Disney+), and it's not particularly cheap. So I won't be renewing. We may pick it up again later in the year for the second season of "House of the Dragon", but that may be contingent on getting another deal.

That said, I don't particularly regret paying the money - there was enough there to justify the cost given the deal that was offered. We got our money's worth.

#1: "The Fountainhead", by Ayn Rand (a book from The List; two to go)
#2: "Tome of Beasts 3", by Kobold Publishing

His Dark Materials

LC and I finished the third and final season of "His Dark Materials" last week, and it's... fine. As with the books, the series seemed to get weaker and weaker as it went on - season two is largely forgettable, and then season three starts with four filler episodes in a row.

It's well made and well acted, and the gap in production enforced by Covid really helped in some ways (especially with the ages of the child stars). But I must admit that it made me increasingly uncomfortable as it went - the material was a fairly naked attack on Catholicism in particular, and on Christianity in the round. So we're maybe not the best people to be objective about it.

Do I recommend it? Yes, mostly, but not wholeheartedly. I suspect it may now be better now that you can binge the whole thing, so the only real question is whether you can stomach the content.

And that's that, I think.

Experimental Cookery 2023: Pepperoni Chicken Bake

We were due for a disaster. We aren't any longer.

This one came from Tom Kerridge's "Real Life Recipes" book, which was one of two new cookbooks I received for Christmas. It was quick and easy to put together, and was made up of nice, cheap ingredients. That was all to the good.

Unfortunately, it all went horribly wrong when we plated up and started to eat - the chicken was still raw in the middle! The meal was therefore discarded and replaced with a pizza. That was nice, at least.

I think the issue here was that I made up the sauce, browned the chicken, the placed it into the fridge for some time - this meant the meat went into the oven cooler than expected and so didn't cook through. But I'm not really sure. In any case, I'm going to take the blame for this one.

That said, I think we're unlikely to try it again.

Books of the Year 2022

This year we have a much shorter list of books read than normal. But here it is...

1. "Sly Flourish's The Lazy Dungeon Master", by Michael E. Shea
2. "The Nature of Middle Earth", by J.R.R. Tolkien
3. "Wildtrack", by Bernard Cornwell
4. "The Thorn Birds", by Colleen McCullough *
5. "The Wandering Fire", by Guy Gavriel Kay
6. "Sly Flourish's Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master", by Michael E. Shea
7. "The Looking Glass War", by John Le Carré
8. "The Power of One", by Bryce Courtenay *
9. "Sea Lord", by Bernard Cornwell
10. "The Outsiders", by S.E. Hinton *
11. "Protector", by Conn Iggulden
12. ??
13. "Crackdown", by Bernard Cornwell
14. "The Darkest Road", by Guy Gavriel Kay
15. "The Stand", by Stephen King *
16. "Death on the Nile", by Agatha Christie
17. "Library of the Dead", by T.L. Huchu
18. "Foxglove Summer", by Ben Aaronovitch
19. "The Gates of Firestorm Peak", by Bruce Cordell
20. "Kobold Guide to Monsters", by Kobold Press
21. "Sharpe's Assassin", by Bernard Cornwell
22. "Level Up: Adventurer's Guide", by E.N. Publishing
23. "The Angel's Game", by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
24. "Trials & Treasures", by E. N. Publishing
25. "Memories of Holdenshire", by Andrew Engelbrite, Sen. H.H.S, and Savannah Broadway
26. "Stormchild", by Bernard Cornwell
27. "Mythological Figures, Maleficent Monsters", by Mike Myler and Russ Morrisey
28. "Monstrous Menagerie", by E.N. Publishing
29. "Firefly: Life Signs", by James Lovegrove
30. "The Dungeon Delver's Guide", by E.N. Publishing
31. "Shogun", by James Clavell  *
32. "Scoundrel", by Bernard Cornwell
33. "Adventures in Zeitgeist", by Ryan Nock

Unfortunately, there were some gaps in the blog where I should have recorded books read, and while I was able to backfill most of them, I cannot for the life of me remember what book 12 was! I'm sure I read a book in there, but for the life of me I can't think what it was. So I'm going to have to discount it.

That means that there are a meagre 32 books for the year. This includes no rereads, and no books for Funsize/Surprise! - it's not that I haven't been reading to them; there just hasn't been anything of sufficient significance to make the list. There are eleven RPG related books, which for an already short list is quite a lot.

The best book of the year is a toss-up between "The Angel's Game" and "Shogun". On balance, I think "The Angel's Game" just shades it, but both are recommended. There haven't been any particularly poor books this year, despite the utterly forgettable #12, so I'll not nominate one for that dishonour.

I'm ending the year two two books in progress. That's not because I've been bogged down; it's just that I haven't found as much time to read recently as I would like.

Finally of note, I'm now in a position where there are a grand total of three books remaining on The List. Which is a really nice place to be. And, given how little reading I have managed this year, my target for next year is simply to complete those books - any other reading beyond that is a bonus.

My Year in 2022

We've had a bad run - 2020 was a bad year and ended badly, 2021 was worse but with one massive bright side, but then 2022 was worse again. Thank goodness it's over!

My Year in... Blogging 

I've managed both 120 posts here and 60 on the Imaginarium, so that's good. I'm not convinced of the quality of the output, but that's another question!

My Year in... Work

This one has been a very mixed bag. I'm really not sure what to make of it overall - it feels like there could be a big step forward in the offing, but then I thought that before and it all turned to ash. So for the moment I'll just try to remain optimistic.

The other thing of note is that we have now returned to the office. This has been massively negative for me, as it essentially takes 5 hours out of my week in order to travel to an office where I do all the same things I could at home. This has also had the effect of vastly reducing my contact time with Funsize and Surprise!, which sucks, and has effectly eliminated all of my free time, which sucks more. Unfortunately, it is also the best thing for the team, and so I have to live with it.

My Year in... Health

I was ill twice in 2022, once with Covid and once with some sort of vomiting bug. LC has also had a brush with Covid, while Surprise! in particular has been forced to battle repeatedly with vomiting bugs in the last two months. But we're all still here and all still in mostly good health, so that's all good.

My Year in... Gaming

I wrapped up my two ongoing campaigns in the middle of the year, and then started a new campaign, "Isles of Dread". That's going well, but it is very definitely the final campaign with the current group. It also looks increasingly like it will be my final campaign ever; I'm less than thrilled by what I've seen of the 2024 D&D revision, so am thinking this is a good time to step off.

My Year in... Band

Band resumed again early in the year and has been fairly consistent since then. The band also had a fairly full Gala Day Season, and managed to improve significantly over the course of said season - I put that down to some fool leaving me in charge for a while. We ended the year with one Christmas lights switch-on, which was much more pleasant than the same event last year.

So that's all pretty good, really.

My Year in... Resolutions

As always, the wrap-up of annual goals, and setting of goals for next year, are handled in another post. Unfortunately, it doesn't make for particularly pleasant reading.

My Year in... Travel

This was another year spent entirely in the UK. We had three trips: to Legoland in Easter to celebrate our 10th anniversary, to Fort William in the summer, and then to Alnwick. These were all fine, but I do find I miss the Sun.

Hopefully next year will see us being able to venture abroad again; it has been too long.

My Year in... Faith

Well, we're still there, still going along, and it's all more or less okay.

My main takeaway from this year is a feeling of low-level guilt, if I'm honest - I'm supposed to be responsible for the church website, and the truth is that I've really dropped the ball on that for most of the year. I just haven't had the bandwidth to deal with these things as I would hope.

My Year in... Sadness

This was a big one. In January of this year my gran died, representing the fourth and final passing of one of my grandparents. That generation is therefore now ended. That in itself wasn't too terrible, as it wasn't hugely unexpected and because she had had a fairly horrible last few years.

What was horrible, though, is the effect that this had on the extended family. Those ties were already fraying, and there is now essentially no prospect of there ever being a reconciliation - there's just no real motivation for it. Additionally, there has been another falling out (for reasons that are not at all clear to me) between one sibling and a cousin, which represents another wedge.

It's a shame... but it is what it is.

Also of note was the unexpected and tragic death of one of my former students. That one was devastating, largely because it was so unexpected and so unfair.

My Year in... Love

LC and I celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary in April of this year! It's bizarre - it really doesn't feel like it was that long ago, and yet in that time we've moved house (after a massive ordeal), LC has established herself in her career, and we now have two children. Which all seems fairly crazy.

Parenthood remains a fairly tough challenge, and is at least three times as difficult with two than it was with one - it seems that as soon as Surprise! has recovered from whatever illness he has, he has passed it on to Funsize. She then plays with it for a while before handing it back. And the task of getting them out of the door and delivered to nursery and school before I head to work is the hardest thing in the whole entire world!

Speaking of which, Funsize has now started school, and continues to thrive. That's lovely to see.

So, yeah, that's all good.

My Year... Overall

This has been an incredibly tough year. Reading back, this post really doesn't capture the source of my malaise, nor the grinding slog that I've felt much of it to be. But perhaps that's no bad thing - perhaps it is better to focus on the highlights and try to leave the bad stuff behind. But 2023 really needs to be better, and I just don't see how that is likely to be.

I'm going to sign off for the year now. So, as usual, I shall wish you a Happy New Year!

End of Year Update on Goals

As part of the end-of-year wrap-up, here is the closing update on my goals for the year:

• Books: There will be a separate post about the books of the year, but the headline figure is that I fell well short of my goal of 60 books - in the end I completed little more than half that number. I had also hoped to complete The List this year, but that didn't happen either. That's not too bad, though, as I fully expect to finish next year.
• Weight: There has been no movement on this one. I won't be carrying this goal through to next year.
• Blogging: The traditional "My Year In..." post will complete the goal for this year. Additionally, I have posted a full 60 times on the Imaginarium, so this goal has been the shining light of the year.
• Redecorating the Hallway: This one is done, sort of. We got the hallway redecorated, but never got around to replacing the carpet or hanging suitable new pictures. I'm reasonably happy with the outcome, but I do expect that we'll spend some time next year finishing it up.
• Super Secret Goal: I abandoned this goal midway through the year. I'm still not sure whether this was the right thing to do.

So that's that: one resounding success, one middling success, one abandoned, and two abject failures. That's not a great result for the year - it suggests either something went wrong or I simply had the wrong goals set.

My goals for 2023 are somewhat similar:

• Books: My goal for the year is both fairly simple and fairly trivial: I want to finish up The List. Any books read beyond that will be a bonus.
• Blogging: Once again, I'd like to post 120 times in the year. I'm still not setting a goal for The Imaginarium.
• Redecoration: Our refresh of the house remains a long-term goal. In the next year we hope to tackle the painted sections of the bathrooms/toilets in the house. That's not a big job, but it will be good to have it done. We'll also aim to finish up the left over bits of the hallway - the new carpet, and getting some pictures up.

And that's that.

An Alien Mindset

I have, slowly but inescapably, been coming to the conclusion that I am rather weird. The latest evidence for this came while reading the introduction to one of my new cookbooks, in which Tom Kerridge made a comment about most people "going to the supermarket once a week to pick up some essentials" - the upshot being that each day they then look in their fridge/pantry and try to decide what they can make, and what they would like to make, with what they have in stock.

Conversely, my shopping list starts by making a list of the main meals we're going to have, looking up the required ingredients, and then getting those. There aren't very many days when we don't know exactly what we're having for dinner. (Although on some occasions the board says "takeaway" - but that doesn't really count.)

I must admit that I find the other approach really quite strange. Firstly because it must surely lead to times where there really isn't much, if anything, that the person is both able to make and would like to eat. Secondly, because it must surely lead to greater food waste - once bought, a lot of these 'essentials' start to go off, which means either a race to get them used up, or a failure to do so. (Then again, we have our own battles with food waste, largely because dairy, in particular, comes in certain sizes and our recipes call for certain other sizes.)

But I guess that's the point: people think in different ways. And, crucially, it's not that people have different opinions, where they analyse the facts and come to a different conclusion. Rather, people think in completely different patterns, meaning that even if they come to the same conclusion there is no guarantee that they could explain their thinking to one another.

Of course, that's not a new conclusion - diversity has been a big thing, especially in tech, for at least a decade now, largely because of exactly that same reasoning.

"Legend Tells Us..."

Funsize and I were playing a variant of Hide and Seek, where one of us hides a doll and then the other seeks. It's not really blog-worthy, which is why I haven't mentioned it until now.

Except that this time Funsize had a new wrinkle for the game - she had found a wicker mat that LC uses for crafts, and was using it as a map, to provide useful clues. But it was the nature of the clues that amused me, and which provided the title of this blog.

For Funsize unrolled the map, adopted her best Dungeon Master voice, and intoned... "Legend tells us..."

There then followed an entire story with multiple clues and steps, all leading to a villainous mermaid who had stolen the doll and hidden it in her tail.

I have never been more proud.

A Good Christmas

I hope everyone had a good Christmas, or as good as circumstances allow.

For us, it turned out to be our best Christmas for some years. Surprise! was a little overwhelmed by it all, and heartily sick of the whole thing by the time we'd unwrapped even only the presents Santa had brought (never mind the deluge at the two sets of grandparents'), but otherwise it was a nice restful time.

One of the key things that made for a better experience was that we elected not to head to my parents too early - instead we spent the morning at home, then went there after lunch (arriving just as they were finishing up). Then we headed to LC's parents in time for the big Christmas dinner.

(One thing is that that's still too late for the kids, but that should ease in future years, as Surprise! becomes less dependent on routine.)

Then we watched the "Ghosts" Christmas special, and that was basically that. A good day.

Boxing Day was also pretty good, doing most of the same things in reverse. But Boxing Day is always a day of chaos, and we've come to accept that.

The Curse of Soft Play

I do not have a happy relationship with soft play.

At the tail-end of the pandemic I attempted to take Funsize to soft play, only to be ripped off - they refused Funsize entry despite her having a valid ticket and then absolutely refused to refund that ticket. Needless to say, I won't be going back there again.

Then, in August, while Lady Chocolat was on an inservice day I attempted to take Funsize and Surprise! to soft play (a different one), only to find that they were absolutely full. There was another session, but that was too late. And so there were tears and recriminations.

Today we took Funsize and Surprise! to the same soft play. This time we had pre-booked tickets and timed our arrival to coincide with the session starting. Huzzah! Except that I've managed to get my car badly scraped all along one side.

That said, it may be that it's that car that's cursed - since I got it, indeed since before I actually got it, it has had one problem after another.

And that said, today has just been a rank rotten day from start to finish. So maybe it's that.

Funny Thing...

Over the few days I have received a couple of emails titled "Royal Mail has your parcel from YOUR ONLINE RETAILER", complete with the mail's trade dress and a bunch of dodgy-looking links for tracking purposes.

So, naturally, I thought to myself, "obvious scam is obvious", not least because I couldn't think of any parcel I was expecting. So I deleted them without going near the links.

Today the postman rang the bell and gave me my parcel. It turned out to be some coffee that I was getting as a freebie after ordering something else entirely.

Useless Days

I find myself in an odd position at work: I finished a big piece of work late last week, I then spent a couple of days on book-keeping of various sorts, and now I have about two days to go... with no clear idea of what to do. It's not that there isn't plenty needing my attention, but it falls into three categories: things that are very much not a priority, big pieces of work (that I don't want to start just before taking two weeks off), and things I can't work on effectively for one reason or another.

Which is a fairly rotten place to end up. But there it is - I guess I'll aim to find something to do, and just hope for the best.

Endlessly Rowing the Boat

It is now taking an increasingly long time to put Funsize to bed. The issue is that, when it comes to the singing of the songs, I have been collecting/devising new verses for "Row Row Row Your Boat", and I'm now up to eleven. As you can imagine, that's a lot of rowing!

(That obviously doesn't include the version from "Blackadder Goes Forth". And it turns out that Wikipedia also has a few variants I haven't considered.)

My favourite so far is:

Row row row your boat, while the weather's fine,
If you see a dinosaur, you've gone back in time.

Though I do confess it's a bit silly. But I like it!