Experimental Cookery 2019: Vietnamese Chicken

This one comes from the Hairy Biker's "Great Curries"... sort of. The truth is that the bulk of that one is about creating a marinade, and instead I used some of a paste I was given for Christmas last year. I feel this is important to note because the results were pretty disastrous - despite being quick and easy to make, this one tasted pretty terrible. It was all heat and no taste, which is obviously not what is wanted.

I'll have to try again, actually making the marinade as described. However, yesterday's experiment definitely goes down as a failure, and entirely on my part.

An Anecdote

I've had a productive morning - there was a new issue raised late yesterday that I spent some time digging into, and was able to pinpoint. Such was my success that I went to get a coffee, congratulating myself on my cleverness (since somebody has to do it, obviously).

So I went and made my coffee, in the course of which I finished the carton of milk. I therefore rinsed this out, and went into the main office to put it in the recycling bin. As you do.

I then went back out into the hall area, and patiently waited for the kettle to boil. Patience being a virtue, and all that.

Of course, patience isn't quite such a virtue when you've already made your coffee, and someone else is boiling the kettle for their use!

Gutted

I've just had a look, and the fridge freezer I've had my eye on has recently been reduced by £200 by Currys, and has a further £80 off for Black Friday... and is out of stock!

(There are other suppliers, of course. But they're either also out of stock or they're considerably more expensive. All of which is a bit of a shame, really.)

#53: "Not Wanted on the Voyage", by Timothy Findley (a book from The List)
#54: "The Mystery of the Three Quarters", by Sophie Hannah

What The Hell Were the BBC Thinking?

Here's an unpleasant fact to start: at the time of writing, Harvey Weinstein has not been convicted of any crime. I say this not as any sort of a defence of Weinstein (as I have no interest in doing so - frankly, it's a disgrace that this didn't come to trial long ago). It's merely a statement of fact.

But... can you imagine the BBC giving Harvey Weinstein airtime to put his side of the story, with no right of reply for his accusers, and with the possibility of prejudicing not only a trial, but indeed any potential investigation?

Surely not! Weinstein has basically been persona non grata ever since the allegations came to light, with even people who once named him a friend taking pains to distance themselves from him. The notion of the BBC giving him that opportunity is crazy.

Here's another unpleasant fact: the allegations made against Prince Andrew are every bit as heinous as those made against Harvey Weinstein. I say that not as any comment on his innocence or guilt (I've never even been to the Pizza Express in Woking), but again merely as a statement of fact.

So what the hell were the BBC thinking, setting Prince Andrew up with a PR opportunity to get out there, set out his story, and play for the sympathy of the public? Surely this is a matter for the proper authorities - the police, and possibly the courts?

(And, yes, I know that the effect of this interview has been that the Prince has managed to dig himself even deeper into the mess. He strikes me as a profoundly stupid individual (which I again feel I must highlight is not the same as 'innocent' or 'guilty'). But the BBC couldn't know that at the time they commissioned the interview. They should not have taken that risk.)

Oh, one other thing. My view is two-fold. Firstly, when serious allegations are made, like those against both Weinstein and the Prince, they must be taken seriously, and must be investigated thoroughly. Both those who are victims of crimes and those who are falsely accused need that - justice for the former, but also a confident exoneration for the latter. The current situation, where too many such crimes just aren't properly investigated, fails far too many people.

However, I also believe that the Presumption of Innocence is an absolutely vital part of our legal framework and must be upheld. And that applies even in cases where it seems obvious that the accused is guilty. Because we don't know and don't have all the facts. I have no problem with punishing those found guilty of crimes, and those found guilty of serious crimes should face very serious punishments. But let's actually find them guilty first, please.

My "Rise of Skywalker" Theory

When the title was announced, the internet collectively decided that there clearly must be a successor order to the Jedi and that "Skywalker" must either be the name of the organisation or the title of the Grand Master. Of course, since that was the obvious interpretation, it must surely be wrong.

My working theory is that "Skywalker" refers to something else.

Basically, at the end of the film I expect them to conclude that the war will never end, and that the galaxy will always be in strife. So they load up R2-D2 with the records of their exploits, and then he and C-3P0 are bundled up in a glorified intergalactic escape pod. Thus the series ends where it begins, with those two going on a great walk through the sky.

Of course, after a long time R2 makes it all the way from a galaxy far far away, to end up crash landing on an unremarkable green-blue planet in the outer spiral arm of another galaxy. There, he is found by a young man, the son of a stationary store owner, named "George". The film, and the series, ends with R2 telling him all of the stories from a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

(They'll get bonus points if they can somehow work a way to cast James Earl Jones as some family friend. A beloved 'uncle' Ben, perhaps?)

I should note: if it does all end like that, I'll get up and walk out.

Bogged Down

I haven't finished a book in ages. This is largely due to getting bogged down really badly in "Not Wanted on the Voyage" - I had assumed that since it was only 350 pages I could get it read in about a week, but I'm paralysed by really not wanting to read it. Unfortunately, I also have "The Count of Monte Cristo" on hold, so I don't want to pause another book at this time.

The upshot of that is that I'm now doubtful of hitting my target of 60 books for the year - I'm still very slightly ahead of schedule, but slipping day by day...

#52: "Babe, the Sheep-Pig", by Dick King-Smith (a book for Funsize)

X-Men: Dark Phoenix

We skipped this one at the cinema due to pressures of time, and were all set to skip it on blu-ray too - there was nothing about it that particularly attracted our attention. However, a colleague of mine loaned us the DVD, and so we were able to sneak a watch.

It's okay, but the entire film can be summed up in a single line, delivered by Magneto about two-third through: "You're always sorry, Charles, and there's always a speech, but nobody cares anymore."

The film basically goes through all the beats, everything is present and correct... but it's all been done before, better. In fact, it's pretty much a remake of the pretty bad "X-Men 3: The Last Stand", and while it is indeed better on a technical level, the truth is that I enjoy the earlier film more. Frankly, that's all down to the cast.

In terms of my ratings, I'm placing this one third from the bottom - it's better than "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" and "X-Men 3: The Last Stand", but not as good as "The Wolverine." And I can't see myself ever bothering to watch it again.

All of which is a shame, but not really a surprise. Turns out it's a good time to wrap this one up and reboot into the MCU. (Or, actually, not reboot - maybe give the X-Men a long rest, and have another crack at the Fantastic Four again?)

The Run to Christmas

Normally, I take the view that I'll start Christmas on the first Sunday of Advent or on the first of December, whichever comes first. However, this year I'm going to bring it forward, for two reasons:

• I'm crazy busy, and likely to remain crazy busy right through to the 20th of December. So I really need a bit more time to make sure everything gets done.
  
• I've heard there is a postal strike coming, and with so much of my Christmas shopping being done online, that's a bit of an issue

Fortunately, Christmas doesn't look too tough this year - by my count I have about a dozen presents to buy, I have a tree to put up (that will be in December), and my "one new thing" for this year is some Christmas baking, which should be a matter of a couple of afternoons.

Anyway, six weeks to go...

Breathing Space

Things have been rather quiet on the blog front lately, largely because they've been absolutely mental at work. That's the nature of the job - sometimes it's calm, sometimes it's busy, and sometimes it's just crazy (though hopefully not for too long).

The upshot has been that I haven't really had time to post about anything. Nor have I had much that has inspired me to post. The good news is that I seem to have a little time free, so I can maybe fill in some of the gaps...

How To Vote This Time (in Scotland)

In Scotland, the upcoming election is actually pretty straightforward: most people have three meaningful choices, depending on the answers to two questions. There are just a couple of wrinkles in one scenario. I'll get to that.

If you want Brexit... In this case, it's pretty simple - vote Tory. The Brexit party (and UKIP) don't have any meaningful chance in any seat in Scotland, so that would be a wasted vote, and the SNP, Lib Dems, and Labour are all in favour of a second referendum, and thus stopping it. So if you want Brexit, you have one choice.

If you want Independence... Again, a very simple case - vote SNP. The Greens have no meaningful chance in any seat in Scotland, and everyone else is opposed.

If you want both... This is now actually a pretty small group - about a third of people who voted Yes in 2014 did so because they really wanted to be out of the EU, and now that the UK is heading that way most of them no longer actually want independence. But if you do want both, decide which you want more (or want first), and vote according to the questions above.

If you don't want either... This is the more complex case, and depends on who currently holds your constituency.

• If your seat is currently held by a Labour or Lib Dem MP, it's easy - vote for the party that holds the seat.
  
• If your seat is currently held by an SNP MP, the choice is slightly tricky. Basically, you should vote for whichever of Labour or the Lib Dems did better last time, except for two caveats. If you are absolutely determined to avoid Brexit and willing to sacrifice independence to achieve that, your best bet is to vote SNP. Alternately, if you're absolutely determined to avoid independence and are willing to sacrifice Brexit to achieve that, and the Tories came second last time, then you should vote Tory.
  
• If your seat is currently held by a Tory MP, you unfortunately don't really have any good choices - neither the Lib Dems or Labour party have any real chance of taking any of those seats, so you're stuck. If you're absolutely determined to avoid one of the two, and are willing to sacrifice the other to achieve it, then hold your nose and vote accordingly. If not, I guess you should vote for whoever came third last time, and accept your vote is probably wasted.

And that's it. For me, it's an easy choice - I'm still opposed to Brexit, still in favour of independence, and live in an SNP-held constituency. Furthermore, my current MP is also both pretty formidable in the Commons and also a good representative for the constituency. So that's an easy vote to cast... this time. That said, I'm rapidly losing confidence that the SNP are actually able to achieve independence, and even confidence that they even really want it. And given that their domestic record is mediocre at best, I'm very strongly considering coming to the view that this will be my last vote.

Leaving Narnia

After seven months, Funsize and I have completed our read-through of "The Chronicles of Narnia". I had, of course, read these before, but it was a long time ago - I read all but LWW back in high school, and then read LWW a few years ago. (I skipped LWW in high school because I was extremely familiar with the story thanks to TV and stage adaptations.)

My general feeling with the novels is that they're patchy in quality - some bits are very good indeed (I especially liked the underworld in "The Silver Chair"), but some bits are pretty dull. "The Last Battle", in particular, seems to be about waiting for the Deus Ex Machina to come up and fix everything, and then duly watching as it does exactly that. (Of course, several of the books feature Deus Ex Machina endings, but given the nature of the series that's not a valid complaint, as it would in other cases.) I also can't really see myself revisiting the series again any time soon, and certainly not on my own behalf.

The other thing to say is that the books were perhaps a poor choice for Funsize - after a bit of this she seemed to lose interest, so I found myself mostly reading them aloud while she happened to be there, rather than necessarily reading them to her. But that may well not be a feature of the books, so much of the stage she's at - she doesn't really seem to want any storybooks read to her these days; her attention just about runs to "Pip the Puppy" rather than even "Zog" or his kin. The current book doesn't really seem to have proven any more successful, despite a significant change in topic, and I don't expect much from the next one either.

And that's all I have to say about that.

A Missed Opportunity

An opportunity has popped up at work that would have been ideal if:

• It had come up a year from now, and
  
• I hadn't moved project a year ago.

As it is, it's just not a good fit, so I'll need to let it go. Which is a damn shame, because I'd finally hit on an answer to "where do you see yourself in five years?"

#50: "The Last Battle", by C.S. Lewis (a book for Funsize; and this completes "The Chronicles of Narnia", which is a book from The List)
#51: "Nightflyers", by George R.R. Martin

Day 300: Update on Goals

Edit: Somehow, this got posted prematurely. As it happens, everything in the post is up-to-date and accurate, but it's still annoying. I expect this will sort itself out over the next few days...

Day 300, so time for the penultimate update on my goals for the year...

• Books: By day 300 I should have read 49.31 books. Despite a very significant slowdown in the last couple of months, I remain ahead of that target, if just barely. The current estimate remains that I'll end up slightly over the 60 books for the year, but that I'll fail to finish off the British part of The List.
  
• Weight: Nothing to report. I have however had a meeting at the gym to revise my exercise routine, with the hope that this will allow me to make better progress with this in future. We'll see - I'm not hugely hopeful.
  
• Blogging: This remains on target for the Imaginarium, but I have slipped slightly behind over here. I expect to rectify that in the next week or two.
  
• Redecorate the Study: Done.
  
• The To-Do List: Done.

Another short update this time. Two items are now complete, one remains on target, and a fourth is close to the target. The final item remains an embuggerance, but there is at least the hint of some movement.

Boris Is Right

Much as I hate to admit it, Boris Johnson is right about the need for a General Election.

The simple fact is that his government clearly doesn't have a stable majority with which to get their agenda through the House. Were it not for Labour playing silly buggers, they should be laying a Motion of No Confidence, forcing the issue and bringing down the government. And yet it's also true that nobody else has the numbers to form a government - Corbyn won't get the support of the Lib Dems or the former Tories, and so can't do it, while nobody else has the support of Labour and can't do it. And so, since there's no alternative government available, it should be a General Election.

The only reason Labour haven't pulled the trigger is, bluntly, that they're sure they'll lose... but that's not an acceptable reason for them not doing their jobs. The country needs a government, and to get that we need an election.

(Incidentally, it's worth noting that Boris Johnson shouldn't even have been appointed Prime Minister. When she tendered her resignation, the outgoing Prime Minister was required to recommend her successor, but that successor had to be someone who could command the confidence of the House. That was the standard that needed to be applied, not "who has been elected leader of the Tories" or even "who has been elected leader of the biggest party." Given that Boris manifestly does not command a majority, and indeed never did, he should not have been recommended in that manner. And, indeed, since Theresa May could not actually recommend anyone who could command that majority, she should have been required to stay in post. But never mind.)

What's unfortunate is that I'm convinced that the Tories will win a comfortable majority in the election, whenever it happens, which will allow them to push aside any opposition to Boris' deal and bring about their hard Brexit. The SNP will probably make gains, but it will avail them nothing - Boris won't be minded to grant a Section 30 order, there's no way to compel him to do so, and the SNP refuse to contemplate any Plan B. So I'm finding it really hard to see any hope in politics right now.

More IT Musings

I've run out of hard drive space on my PC. That is actually not a surprise nor indeed is it particularly a problem - hard discs are fairly inexpensive these days and installing an additional drive into the PC isn't impossible.

However, I'm back to considering whether it's really worth it. There are a few things going on:

Firstly, there's still a question of how long the PC will realistically last. My latest check on the state of the art suggests that it's still not hugely behind, at least for the tasks that I make use of it for. Of course, if I used it for games or video editing, that would not be true... but I don't. However, there's always the risk of a catastrophic failure hitting the machine, at which point there's a need for a new one. (Then again, that doesn't negate the benefit of adding an additional drive, since it could just be extracted and moved to the replacement PC... probably - see below.)

Secondly, there's a question of whether what the PC really wants is a second, high-capacity drive, or whether I should install a smaller solid state drive, move the contents of the C partition across, and thus free up about a terabyte of space on the existing drive. That would have the advantage of giving a significant performance boost as well as adding more capacity, but is one step less portable when the time comes to completely replace the machine. (And it's worth noting that the existing hard drive is one of the components most likely to fail and thus force that move. And any new PC would have an SSD already installed, so that wouldn't be coming with.)

But, thirdly, I'm also leaning towards the benefits of setting up a NAS device, and thus moving all of our data storage off the PC almost entirely. The effect of this is that the existing hard drive on the machine would suddenly become much more open, and the need for a second hard drive (of any sort) would disappear. The only real problem there is that that is also by far the most expensive approach in the short term.

Finally, I find myself considering what our long-term computing needs really are. At present, we have a desktop PC (nominally my PC) and a laptop PC (nominally LC's). I really quite like this arrangement, in that it covers all of our bases, gives a lot of flexibility and, crucially, gives us access to a big, fixed monitor for long-term work. (I was never particularly happy working with a laptop.) However, at work we have now been issued with very powerful desktop-replacement laptops, complete with docking stations that allow us unfettered access to external monitors, keyboards, and mice. In effect, it's very much the best of both worlds.

Based on that, part of me considers that when the time comes for a replacement, what we'll actually want to do will be to replace both computers at the same time, with two identical, powerful laptops. And then invest in a docking station and all the kit to allow one of these to be plugged into the workstation in the study, giving access to everything else.

Which is an even better approach than what we have now. But with two downsides: firstly, sufficiently powerful laptops are necessarily expensive, where it would be considerably cheaper to instead go with a good, but less powerful, laptop and a fairly powerful desktop. Secondly, switching to the two-laptop approach would mean that any second hard drive I purchased now (whether the high-capacity one in the first approach or the SSD in the second) would immediately cease to be useful.

So, it's a tricky one, with lots of options to consider.

The upshot is that I'm thinking that the way to go is to add the NAS device. That gives us plenty of storage and also has the advantage of giving us the most flexibility when considering future upgrades. Given the expense, though, it will be a while yet before any purchase is made... unless the storage issue becomes urgent in the meantime.

The Purple Room Returns!

Well, the redecoration is done, and we once again have an official Purple Room. The various steps proceeded mostly as I outlined in my previous post on the topic, and were performed mostly over the course of four days (day one to empty the room, day two for the ceiling and starting the walls, day three for finishing the walls and doing the gloss, and then day four to put everything back).

We ordered the new computer desk shortly after starting, and were rather surprised when it arrived on the next day. We've therefore been able to assemble it, though I haven't yet had chance to take the other to the tip. We've also rearranged the room, which gives a bit more space for the various bookshelves, and actually leaves the room feeling a bit more, well, roomy. However, the working area for the computer does seem a little cramped. There may be something we can do about that - certainly, there are a couple of adjustments that need to be made, after which there may be scope for some shuffling of contents.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with that as a good job well done. And I'm especially happy that we've now completed the last of the tasks that we identified as wanting done as soon as we moved in.

#49: "The Amber Enchantress", by Troy Denning

Heating Woes

One thing that has never been quite right in the house is the heating. It seems we can get it "far too hot" easily enough, and we can get it "far too cold" easily enough, but Goldilocks is just not for visiting.

I'm really not sure why that is. I'm not sure if it's that the thermostat is badly placed, or if it's just bad. Or maybe the individual radiator thermostats are badly set up, or just bad. Or maybe the insulation just isn't what it should be. Or maybe the heating program really needs revisited - it comes on too late in the morning and goes off too early at night.

(There's also the issue that the radiator in the spare room is set to a much lower temperature than the rest of the house. Which is fine, since that room is seldom used, and not at night... but it only works if the room to that door is kept closed, which is not reliably the case.)

Part of me would quite like to have someone come and inspect the system and make some recommendations. Unfortunately, the cynical part of me thinks that any such visit would just happen to conclude that what's needed is the special package of upgrades that they happen to have on offer at that particular time.

Anyway, it's a frustration. I think the upshot is that I'm going to have a go at refreshing all the settings in the system again to get that back to where they 'should' be, and at some point, probably next year, we'll have to look into upgrades, probably to one of the "smart home" systems.

How Things Work

I use a lot of software, mostly for work although also for entertainment purposes. But I'm not a particular fan of software. I'm especially not a fan of the tendency towards "the new hotness" - the tendency for some fields to see a constant ongoing churn of new tools doing almost exactly the same as the old, but that people jump onto en masse because it's new.

My preference, frankly, is to use a much smaller set of tools, but to use them well. That in turn requires stability in the toolset - ideally, you should choose one tool for each job, and then stick with it until and unless something comes along that demands that you change.

(That "something" is of course subjective. You might find that a tool that was previously free starts charging and so requires a change. Or maybe the tool simply stops being supported. Or perhaps the new tool has some killer feature that means it's vastly superior to the old, to the extent that the change is warranted. But simply being newer is, for me, not sufficient, and neither is simply being presented with a marketing brief that has a few more check-boxes filled out. New features are only worth anything if you're actually going to use them, and if you're constantly switching from one tool to the next, you're never going to make good use of anything but the basic features.)

Funnily enough, two examples of the benefit of this approach have cropped up quite recently. Yesterday there was some discussion of how to use a particular feature of Excel, which is a tool that I'm definitely not expert in using, but it's also a tool that I've used basically forever and expect to continue using forever. So there was value in digging through various guides and tutorials to find the answer, and thus expanding the set of things I can now do with Excel. If we were in the habit of replacing our spreadsheet program every six months, it would not have made sense to do that. (And, equally, it's likely that the knowledge of how to do it wouldn't have been so easily available.)

The second concerns one of the uses of our build tool. This one is new (to us), but it's also a tool we'll be using very heavily, and it's also a tool we'll continue to use for the lifetime of the product (probably five years or more). So, again, it make sense to keep learning the intricacies of the tool with a view to getting really good with it.

Badminton Again

Many years ago, a number of my colleagues and I played badminton occasionally on a lunchtime. We haven't had occasion to play for several years now, which is a real shame - not least since my gym have various courts available for use, and they're free for members. So there's a golden opportunity there, and we've been missing it.

Until today that is. This lunchtime four of us went over and played badminton. It was a lot of fun, even if I didn't play at all well. Hopefully that will change over the next few months as we play a bit more... assuming we do, indeed, play a bit more, of course.

Microsoft's Worst Decision

I use a lot of Microsoft software. I don't, however, consider myself either a fan or a hater - they're just tools provided by a company, some of which are good, some of which are not so good, and some of which are good but not really worth the money. And, in fairness to them, those tools have generally, very slowly, been getting better.

However, there is one boneheaded decision, made some years ago, that still drives me mental every time I hit it. Specifically, they decided that PCs should be much more like any other appliance, and hide as much of the internals from the user as possible. And, in particular, they should hide all the BIOS feedback during startup.

That's all well and good, until you get to the point where the PC is busy doing something and gives absolutely no feedback as to what that "something" is - I see the HD light blinking on and off, but there's nothing at all on the screen, no response from the input devices... is it busy working on a task that's just taking a long time, or has it crashed and needs me to take action.

For goodness sake, tell us what's going on, and give an indication that progress is actually being made! And I don't mean showing us the spinny dots - all that indicates is that the UI thread is running, but it may well not be connected to anything else. That way, I don't need to either leave a PC that might be stuck sitting indefinitely, nor do I need to take a punt on a power-cycle that might do more harm than good.