Terrible news, folks: RiCiCles are being withdrawn from sale. The age old battle between tiger and spaceman has ended in the only way that it could, with the demise of our beloved mascot Captain Ric.
Fortunately, Coco Pops and Frosties remain safe.
For now.
LC and I finally made it out to the "Justice League" film last night, one of four (I think) we're still hoping to see before the end of the year (the others being "The Man Who Invented Christmas", possibly "Coco", and of course "The Last Jedi").
But before that, a word about Vue cinemas: I can't say I'm impressed. There are a number of reasons for this. One is the price, which is significantly higher than Cineworld (which was already getting out of hand). A second is that they're still stuck in the dark ages of charging a booking fee for ordering online (it should be the opposite - if we're booking online, not only are we paying in advance, and for tickets we might end up not even using, but we're also saving you staffing costs). The third is the absence of any sort of Unlimited card - given the above, that would be a major boon.
But my biggest issue is the concessions stand. Now, my understanding is that these days cinemas, even grotesquely overpriced cinemas, actually barely break even on the films, and instead make their money on the drinks, popcorn, etc. So I do generally take the view that if you want those things you should get them (and, in particular, not sneak in your own, reasonably-priced, drinks and snacks). However, the flip side of that is that the cinemas really need their staff to be on the ball - it's no good if you get to the cinema, find there's virtually no queue, and then still have to wait to be served, wait while the staff mess around with something else (in this case, "no milk!"), then have to repeat your order several times, and then eventually get it.
On the plus side, that disappointment prepared me nicely for the film.
"Justice League" is fine. It's far, far better than "Batman v Superman", though not as 'good' as "Wonder Woman" (though that film is also vastly overrated - probably due to a combination of being a DC film that doesn't suck, and also being a female-led superhero film that actually made money). There's nothing much wrong with it: there's a coherent story, with a beginning, middle, and end; the actors do their jobs well enough; there's at least some little hint of levity and humour. Basically, it doesn't suck.
But... there's also not really anything in the film that really demands a viewing, and certainly not at £30 for two tickets plus popcorn.
To be honest, I think the only thing in the film that really made any impression was the music, and in particular the reuse of the old Danny Elfman "Batman" theme and the John Williams "Superman" theme. On the one hand, this was a great move, since those are great themes (and since the latest DC versions don't have good themes for those characters). On the other hand, the biggest effect of this was to remind me of other, older versions of the characters that, frankly, I liked more - it's not that Cavill is doing a bad job as Superman, but he's just not Christopher Reeve; and it's not like Affleck's Batman is bad, as such, but both Bale and Keaton did it better.
So, yeah. "Justice League" is okay. But I have no burning desire to see it again, and frankly I'd recommend going to see "Thor: Ragnarok" a second time instead. Or just watching the "Infinity War" trailer, which packs more greatness in two minutes.
One of the issues caused by the adverts starting Christmas in July is that it means that as we get towards the end of November I invariably find myself starting to worry because I've barely started yet. Indeed, as a matter of principle I won't be starting my 'real' preparations for Christmas until next Sunday, with the ceremonial decorating of the tree. (Though I have purchased a gift - the office are doing "Secret Santa" this year, and so the deadline for that one is rather earlier than the rest.)
That said, my plans are somewhat advanced for this year, notably in that I have an actual plan.
This year represents the start of me getting properly organised for Christmas, per my guide of last year. That being the case, I've set up my Christmas folder, established the three documents I'll need, and thus got the paperwork ready to record the steps. I've also discussed with LC what we'll be doing in general terms - so I know that in addition to the tree we'll be adding some new decorations for the rest of the house; I know I'll be doing a little, but not much, Christmas cooking; and I know that we'll be heading to the Christmas market in the near future.
Of course, the main thing that I have not done, is come up with much of a list of potential Christmas gifts for other people to get me. The big problem is that there's very little I want or need, and of those things that I do need (mostly, replacements for things that have worn out), my needs are very specific - it's all well and good saying I could do with some band kit, but the reality is that I'll need to pick that out for myself to ensure I get the right size/colour/etc.
But that's not a bad starting point for still being a week short of December.
Thanks to the vociferous outrage of the Scottish media, I recently became aware that Alex Salmond has a new show on RT (formerly "Russia Today"). Furthermore, given just how angry the subject made them, I felt I just had to check it out. I'm sure Alex is absolutely gutted at the coverage.
Anyway... it's not great. From the opening credits, which look and feel much like a low-budget equivalent of the Andrew Marr show (lots of Alex walking around, all dramatically shot, but a bit pompous for my taste) through to Alex's presenting style (which I would categorise as "reasonably-good amateur"... which is probably about right), through to their almost determined need to prove they're not Kremlin stooges by calling out Russia/Putin at just about every opportunity.
But...
On the other hand, in the first week the show had an in-depth interview with Carles Puigdemont. Given how poor the media's coverage of the situation in Catalonia, that was most welcome. (And, it should be noted, my opinion on Catalan independence matches that of Alex: I don't have an opinion on whether Catalonia should or should not become independent, but I'm very much of the opinion that that's a matter for the Catalan people to decide.) In the second week, it had a detailed interview with Jackie Stewart that I didn't think would be interesting but which, in the event very much was - his thoughts on both dyslexia and dementia were definitely worth hearing. And despite my distaste for Alastair Campbell, it was worth hearing him stating his case on Brexit (or, rather, the need to call it off).
So, given that, I'm inclined to keep viewing. The presentation of the show isn't great, but hopefully that will improve with time. But the content, which really is the main thing, seems to be well worth seeing.
I guess I should thank the outrage machine of the UK media - if they hadn't spent so much time and effort telling me why I shouldn't watch, I probably wouldn't have known there was something to see.
(One other thing: one of the things I appreciate about the show is that I don't agree with everything that is said. As I said, Alastair Campbell in particular is not my favourite person in the political sphere. The thing is, being exposed to arguments you don't agree with is a good thing - it forces you to justify why you don't agree with them, which helps to refine your thinking.)
This one comes from the "Bake-off Winter Kitchen" cookbook which, it's fair to say, is not one of my most-used tomes. Indeed, it mostly gets used for the tomato sauce for pizzas, which isn't exactly challenging! So this week's experimental cookery was welcome, if for no other reason than that it gave some slight justification for keeping that book - there may need to be another clear-out soon, and a few of the lesser lights will no doubt go at that time.
Being a pasta bake, this meal wasn't exactly hard - there were a few minutes of prep, a few minutes of pre-cooking some of the ingredients, then it all got mixed together and put in a dish, and it went into the oven. Easy.
The resulting meal was also quite enjoyable - it's something I'll probably do again, though it doesn't exactly threaten any of my "nominated nine". My only slight criticism was that the recipe as given resulted in way too much food - even cutting the quantities in half (from 4 servings to 2) left a huge amount over. Still, this wasn't too terrible, as it saved LC from making lunch for the next day.
All in all, I think that was a winner.
#52: "Beren and Luthien", by J.R.R. Tolkien
#53: "Witch Wraith", by Terry Brooks
Just after the Brexit referendum there was a brief spell between David Cameron tendering his resignation to the Queen and Theresa being asked to form a new government. During that time, we technically didn't have a government, and the highest-ranking figure in Downing Street was Larry the Cat.
Any chance we could go back to those halcyon days? Because, frankly, no government is better than a bad government.
#50: "Pathfinder: Into the Shattered Continent", by Robert Brookes
#51: "Bloodfire Quest", by Terry Brooks
As I noted in my previous post, at the weekend I finished the 49th book of this year, "Germinal" by Zola, which is a book from the list. After some consideration, I have decided that it is not the book of the year, but it is very good.
Like "The Grapes of Wrath", I found that it depressed and angered me in equal measure. Angered because of the manifest injustice depicted in the novel (although, it should be noted, it was decidedly, and deliberately, one-sided). Depressed because the novel, despite being more than a hundred years old, could very easily have been written about Thatcher's Britain... and removed from the context of a miners' strike specifically it could have been written about in-work poverty today.
(It also didn't help that it was clear, pretty much from the outset, that those who thought of themselves as the saviours of the strikers were manifestly not suited to the job, whether due to self-interest or simple naivety. Indeed, the person with the clearest vision of how genuine change might come about turned out to be an utter, utter bastard... which, yes, is about right.)
Even the supposedly upbeat ending is pretty depressing - the protagonist walks away hopeful that change is coming, and change did indeed come. Unfortunately, the name for that change was "the Russian Revolution", which didn't go so well.
So, can I recommend it? Well, um... maybe. If you're in the mood for a French novel about a doomed miners' strike, and all the poverty and despair that goes with it, I guess so. But if you like happy books, not so much.
Somewhere in all the excitement of last week, I forgot to write up the latest Experimental Cookery. This was another entry from the Hairy Dieters' third book "Good Eating" (the green cover). By my count, this is the weakest of the books to date, possibly excluding their "Go Veggie" book (which I haven't tried), but it's still not bad - it's just that the one with the Yellow cover takes some beating.
Anyway, this meal was quick and easy to produce - just chop some ingredients, mix them in the right order, stir-fry a bit, and serve. All in all, it took about 30 minutes end to end.
And it tasted fine - this was another one that I'm sure we'll do again, though perhaps not right away. It's a good one to have in the repertoire, but not an everyday staple.
So, that's another win. I'm not sure when the next Experimental Cookery will be - I'm running a little low on inspiration right now. But hopefully not too long...
#49: "Germinal", by Émile Zola (a book from The List)
And so we come to the penultimate update on goals for the year (the final one coming in the end-of-year wash-up):
The latter half of this year has all be a bit of a mess because of everything that has been going on, but I think the news is mostly positive. My expectation is that at the end of the year I will have completed two of the 'main' goals (and discarded a third), while of the "Part Five" goals two are now dealt with and another will be completed in the next month or so.
That leaves two: once again the "weight" goal will fail abysmally, while the work on the house will be advanced but probably not complete by the end of the year.
All in all, I think I can live with that.
#46: "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms", by George R.R. Martin
#47: "The View From the Cheap Seats", by Neil Gaiman
#48: "Wards of Faerie", by Terry Brooks
About a year ago, I posted that I had decided that it was time to get rid of my Region One DVDs, but that there was an issue with some few discs that couldn't be replaced with Region Two equivalents, most notably the series "ReBoot".
Well, the good news is that I have been handed a solution that works out great, and will allow me to keep access to those few discs that can't be replaced. Huzzah!
It's still my plan to replace those discs I had selected for that fate, and also to get rid of the number of discs entirely - although this same solution would work for all the Region One discs, I'm preferring to use it only as necessary, rather than default.
I'm fairly late to the party, but I finally got around to watching the 'new' series of "24" over the weekend. It was interesting, but very flawed.
The big problem, I think, is that "24" basically became its own genre of TV. By which I mean that there are a number of things that have to be in a series of "24", without which the viewer would feel cheated, and the plot largely exists to move the story from one of these things to the next. So, there has to be a mole somewhere in CTU, there has to be at least one section where the main character goes off-book, there have to be political shenanigans. And so on and so forth.
What that means is that "24 Legacy" was pretty much just "24 by numbers" - do the one thing, then the next thing, then the next, and we're done. Add to that the pressure of having to introduce an all-new cast of characters and a reduction from 24 episodes to 12, and you've got problems.
But it's probably also worth noting that what made "24" so compelling, especially in the early years, was that it gave us something genuinely new, at least in TV terms - it was the show that would go to places that other shows just wouldn't. As the series progressed, and it became more and more self-referential, it also lost that edge. And a remake that does "24 by numbers" lacks the edge and, I'm almost shocked to say, becomes actually quite boring in places - you know that this has happened and we're at that part of the story, so what happens next must be...
Anyway, if you're a fan of "24" and liked "Live Another Day", you'll probably like "24 Legacy". If you're a fan of "24" who didn't like "Live Another Day", you probably won't. If you didn't like "24", you probably won't like this. And if you haven't seen "24" but like action series, you probably would like this... but would be better seeking out the original instead.
Given that "24 Legacy" has been cancelled, of course, much of this is moot. But since they're apparently working on a new form for the show, some further thoughts:
That's what I think, anyway.
I should probably apologise for another post about Scottish football so soon, but something has really been bugging me since Sunday's match - specifically, Gordon Strachan's comment that part of the issue is genetic, in that Scottish players are on average smaller than most other Europeans. (Well, except those minnows of the footballing world, Spain, of course. But since they never win a match I guess we can discount them as being irrelevant...)
Bluntly, Scotland's problem isn't a matter of genetics; it's mostly a matter of mindset.
Scotland seems to delight in "glorious failure" - we consistently do almost well enough. And when the inevitable failure comes, it gets chalked up as another glorious failure, a mark of progress. Or, of course, we point to some singular bit of ridiculous bad luck, or a woeful refereeing decision, or something, and blame everything on that.
This applies to football, to rugby... and to most other areas as well. Even our history is littered with glorious failure, even such as William Wallace or the Darien Scheme. (And that's a ridiculously high-level summary.)
(Incidentally, Andy Murray is the exception that proves the rule. I'll get back to that.)
The problem with glorious failure is that it is, ultimately, still failure. And since winning and losing are both habit forming, that's a big problem.
But the genetic argument is nonsense, as evidenced by, yes, Spain. And the argument that we're making progress is likewise nonsense - by that metric, we've made more progress than just about any other country on the planet. Odd that we still keep falling short.
But back to Andy Murray. For years, he was yet another Scot who displayed all the traits associated with glorious failure - he'd keep doing quite well, but then he'd come up against Federer or one of the other big guns, and then he'd lose. Only he wouldn't lose every time. In fact, he was quite capable of beating Federer except when it 'mattered'. But on those occasions... glorious failure.
And then he hired Ivan Landl as his coach, and within a very short time he was Wimbledon champion, and things went from there. Lendl's main impact on Andy Murray's game? It was about the mindset of a champion - Andy Murray already had all the tools he needed to win, he just needed a few tweaks to his game... and a shift to his expectations from "I'll try" to "I will".
(Incidentally, that's why Murray was right that Mauresmo was a perfectly fine choice of coach. No, there wasn't really much she could teach him about the game, but then that was true of just about anyone he could have chosen. But she undoubtedly knew what it took to be champion, and it was that mindset, more than anything else, he needed. Alas, it didn't work out, but that doesn't mean the selection process was wrong.)
So, as I said once before, a long time ago, the problem with Scottish football is that we expect to lose in the big matches. And we grind out draws in the must-win matches, or we otherwise fall short.
Sunday's score against Slovenia was a good result - 2-2 against tough opponents, away from home, where the opposition hadn't conceded a goal on their home soil? Yeah, that's a good result.
The problem was that we needed to win, not draw, and we should never have been in that position to start with - the damage was done much earlier in the competition when we scraped a 1-1 draw against Lithuania at home. That was the must-win match, and we blew it.
For us to make real progress, the mindset has to change. We should treat every match as a must-win match, and when we're playing the supposedly 'lesser' teams, especially at home, we need to deliver that win. Get in the habit of winning, and success will follow. And stop talking about 'progress' when you mean 'failure'.
Incidentally, that's why my threshold for us achieving qualification is independence - not because independence has anything directly to do with football, but because of the question of mindset. A country that does not have the confidence to believe it can run itself is not a country likely to have the confidence to compete on the world stage. And while a lot of people voted against independence for a lot of reasons, the bottom line is that an awful lot of people accepted that we were just too poor to give it a go. There is a positive argument for the union, but that wasn't the argument that won it - "what currency will we use?" was the refrain.
Of course, it's possible for the football team to adopt the winning mentality without the country following suit, but I just don't see it.
Look, I understand that you would like feedback, and don't mind you contacting me with the occasional survey.
But...
When I've been working on your survey for 10 minutes and the status bar says I'm only 22% of the way through, then you're taking the piss. Frankly, if I've been working on your survey for 10 minutes, that's already too long. A survey should be five minutes or less.
In theory, I really like beef stroganoff. But I say "in theory" because all of my attempts to make it have met with abject failure - indeed, to the point of leaving me quite ill at times. Plus, it's not something I get to try very often; being a mushroom-based meal, it's not something LC will even try.
However, LC was late home last night, which meant I was left to fend for myself. And I had recently found yet another take on it, this one from the second "Hairy Dieters" book, so...
As always, the meal was quick and easy to put together, rendered only slightly more awkward because I forgot to put the rice on until late in the process. But that was okay - the sauce also took longer to thicken than I'd expected, which allowed me to bring it all together.
And the result was fine. Not the greatest thing ever, but a massive improvement on previous efforts, and no signs of food poisoning. So that's a win... sort of. That said, I'm not sure I'm really keen to try this again. It was fine, but not exactly the greatest thing ever.
The worst thing about supporting Scotland is the hope. After a very poor start to our qualifying campaign, the team somehow managed to turn it around and get themselves into a position where two wins in the last two games would win them a play-off spot, and then they managed a jammy last-minute winner in the first of those two matches. (Well, I say 'somehow'. But the answer is actually fairly simple: Scott Brown came out of retirement.)
Of course, I've predicted before that we weren't going to the World Cup, and indeed that we won't be going to any major tournament for the foreseeable future. (Well, unless they change the rules and just let everyone in.) But I did kind of expect the team to manage a win - and then get drawn against Italy, pull off a remarkable 0-0 draw in the first (away) leg, and so know that they only needed one heroic performance, at home, to get through... and then be denied at the last gasp in truly outrageous style. Because Scotland specialise in failing in the most painful way possible, and the was about as bad as I could come up with.
But even that was not to be. About a week ago, Scott Brown got injured and had to pull out. Faced with that, and faced with two very tough games, the manager decided to revert to "tried and tested" players - relying on experienced heads to keep it together to see him through.
Just one problem with that: those players had indeed been tried and tested. Unfortunately, in that testing they had been found wanting. If the definition of madness is trying the same things over and over and expecting different results... well. (Of course, he could have gone with young new, in-form players, and we still wouldn't have qualified. See above.)
So, what now?
Well, we try again next time. After all, you have to, don't you? And we'll need a new manager - Strachan did a mostly decent job, and it's hard to see who would do any better, but he's had two attempts and two failures, so we need to try something different.
Mostly, though, the answer is "nothing". I'm sticking with my prediction: unless they change the rules to massively expand the number of teams that qualify, or unless we amalgamate the leagues and the national teams to compete as Team GB (or UK), Scotland won't make it to either a World Cup or a European Championships this side of independence (and if we never become independent, that means never).
#45: "Pathfinder: The Lost Outpost", by Jim Groves
The first Experimental Cookery of the new house is another entry from the second Hairy Dieters book (the one with the yellow cover). As I've noted before, I'm inclined to think this is the best of their diet books, although in fairness I haven't tried their fifth one since the notion of going veggie doesn't really appeal.
The meal itself was quick and easy to prepare, though it does take a while to cook - basically, you gather the ingredients, add them to a pan in several stages, and then simmer for 45 minutes or so. It's not difficult, and you can go do something else during that simmer step, but it's a good idea to start long before you actually want to eat - as we found to our cost.
It's also very tasty, with the preserved lemons making a big difference to the whole. LC also approved, though she doesn't like olives (which is an issue, since I suspect they're actually pretty integral to this meal - I don't think it would work without). I expect we'll have this again.
A decade ago, I had a bit of an issue with Scottish Gas, who messed up my gas bill and gave me a massive runaround trying to get it sorted. I was not best pleased and promptly decided never to give them my custom again. And so, when I bought the flat, it was with no small pleasure that I contacted one of their rivals to set up my account.
But a decade has passed since then, and in particular it was a decade where I had had occasion to make use of some of Scottish Gas' other services, notably their one-off boiler repair. And, having been pleased with that service, I removed them from my "never deal with these people" list.
Guess where this is going!
After signing up to receive gas and electricity from Scottish Gas, I was encouraged to sign up to have a Smart Meter installed. Which was a nice reminder and generally a good thing. And so I promptly did exactly that. That appointment was booked for today.
Being at work, I arranged for my father to house-sit today. Which isn't ideal, of course, since it's a big hassle for him, but it's a necessary consequence of having to work full-time. And so I came to work and waited for some indication that they were on their way...
After lunch, I decided to check the status of the appointment online, only to be met with a note that our boiler isn't suitable for a Smart Meter - they'd be in touch. Uh-oh...
So, I spent several minutes hunting down a way to actually contact them (which wasn't easy), and made the call.
And it turned out that their automated system can't accept bookings to install a Smart Meter within a month of a change of supplier. So it automatically cancelled the appointment and didn't deign to inform me.
I find myself at something of a loss as to how exactly to categorise this new level of incompetence. Is it where the system encourages you to book an appointment before they're able to accept the appointment? Is it that the system cancels the appointment without telling you? Or perhaps it lies in hiding the customer support numbers that you need in order to get any actual, usable information about this?
Incidentally, the automated switchboard informed me that Scottish Gas might call me back to get feedback on my experience today. If that does indeed happen, it will make for a very interesting conversation...
(It's worth noting, of course, that I'm not at all convinced the competition are any better. As far as I can tell, they're all pretty much equivalently shit. Something to do with them all providing the same gas/electricity via the same pipes/wires, and so meaningful competition being essentially impossible.)
#44: "Anne of Green Gables", by L. M. Montgomery (a book from The List)
This morning, for a brief and shining moment, I thought I had achieved the impossible - that I had managed to completely use up a bar of soap!
But, alas, my triumph was punctured almost immediately, when I discovered that I had in fact just dropped the final tiny square. The bar had therefore defeated my efforts to use it up entirely.
Hopefully, that won't prove to be a metaphor for the rest of my day.
A year ago, Jeremy Corbyn was widely hated by the powers-that-be in the Labour party. This year, at conference, those same powers-that-be have been lauding him as the second coming, with their chants of "Oh Jeremy Corbyn", the bearing of the portrait of the sainted one, and other such nonsense. It's turned into a really bizarre cult of personality.
And let's not kid ourselves: this isn't due to some mass conversion to Corbyn's policies. Rather, it's due to one thing only: Labour's election success.
Except...
Labour lost the election. Worse than that, Labour ran the most energised and successful campaign of the last 20 years, were up against the most pathetic Tory campaign for a similar length of time (though, in fairness, it's a toss-up whether Major in '97 or Hague in '01 was worse), and still couldn't win.
Sure, it's a kind of success, but only relative to the utter pounding that they (and I) thought they were going to get. It wasn't an actual success, as indicated by the current inhabitant of No. 10.
So all this business of being on the "threshold of power" is a nonsense. Firstly because there is unlikely to be another election for four years, and it's damn-near certain the Tories won't make the same mistakes again (which isn't to say that they won't make all-new mistakes, of course). Frankly, though, all of this triumphalism feels awfully like the exact same mistake the Tories made earlier this year - that of taking the voters for granted.
So, really, I'm wondering what the Labour party are currently thinking? Is it just sheer relief that they're still in jobs? Or is it perhaps that the country is so screwed that they figure they might as well party before the apocalypse comes?
(And, also, I'm wondering just how to deal with all of this. Within the UK, the only choices are a Tory-led government or a Labour-led one. The thought that this represents our only hope is pretty galling.)
#41: "Pathfinder: Vault of the Onyx Citadel", by Larry Wilhelm
#42: "Go Set a Watchman", by Harper Lee
#43: "Surface Detail", by Iain M. Banks
There's trouble brewing in Spain. The Catalan government has decided to hold a binding referendum on independence, in defiance of the Spanish government and the constitution. The Spanish government have responded by laying charges against Catalan government officials, by shutting down pro-independence websites, sending armed police to seize referendum materials, ordering newspapers not to publish any information about the referendum... and even by sending in tanks.
And on the BBC... nothing. There's nothing on their news homepage, there's nothing on the European news page, and nothing on the TV news. Basically, as far as the BBC is concerned, it's not happening.
Now, I've written before that I consider the question of Catalan independence to be a matter for the Catalan people, and I consider that the Madrid government is making a bad mistake in their handling of the whole matter. But I'll readily acknowledge that other interpretations are entirely valid - and in particular, the argument that the constitution needs to be respected is a strong one.
But regardless of your views on the specific issue, what surely can't be denied is that Barcelona is a popular travel destination for Brits going abroad (even this late in the season), and it's the focal point of this whole great mess. That being the case, surely the BBC have the duty to report the facts of the situation, so that people can make an informed choice if nothing else?
So, BBC: what the hell are you playing at? Why isn't this being properly reported?
