Happily Imperfect February 2006

Fool to myself

Reading time: 2 mins

Regular readers will be bored silly of my repeated assertions of just How Busy I Am, and how I’ve been trying To Get More Organised.

So, rather than harp on again, I’ll just preface any posts that may, or may not, appear this week with the disclaimer of I Am Busy.

There, now I can post willy-nilly on all matter of silly subjects, pepper my posts with poor punctuation, and leave my spelling to the mercy of the gods of entymology (not even sure if I spelled that right, don’t care either). The latter point may seem lazy but I’m always assured that someone (he of the recent shave) will be a worser speller than I.

I’d love to blog about the news in more depth, so many fun topics to be had at the moment. Gordon Brown assuring us that it’s OK for the Chancellor to be talking about ID cards in depth, whereas I’d say it’s more a job for the Home Secretary. On the other hand I’d probably have to guess who the Home Secretary was (Clarke?) so maybe it’s more a PR issue than a ‘honing my skills to become PM’ exercise by Mr. Brown. I do follow politics but not the people involved in it. Obviously.

The Winter Games are boring me so not much to cover there, with the exception and expectation of the start of the curling. G’wan yerself Rhona!

Leo Sayer back at the Top of the Pops is also making news, although the only reason he is there is because of a remix of a track of his. Nevertheless I’m sure he’ll claim some credit even if it was probably quicker to use his vocals than have then re-recorded. And no, I’ve not heard it.

Saddam back in court, and he’s beginning to both annoy and raise a few smiles. That is one smart man but I wonder how long this mockery of a trial will continue (forever?).

Snow is the dish of the day in New York, or at least I presume it is as they’ve just received a rather large batch of it. National disaster is soon to be declared, if you believe some reports, yet most of the bloggers in the area are still at the “cool, check out all the snow! [dude]” stage. If ever there was a chance for the largest snowball fight in history, this is it. Everyone in New York, be in Times Square at 6pm. Bring snowballs. The rest of us will watch (although the available views are kinda rubbish).

And finally it was good to have 24 back on our screens last night. As the reviewer in this mornings Metro said, the minute the opening “beep… boop… beep… boop…” credits start, your sense of disbelief rolls its eyes and disappears behind the sofa but it’s still a great show. Ten minutes in and my jaw had hit the floor twice, and already the “who is a baddie?” discussions have begun. Jack’s back, baby. Jack’s back.

Time flies

Reading time: 2 mins

Didn’t venture over the door yesterday, not even to put the bins out. Awful weather, cold wind, driving rain, yeuch.

So we stayed in, Louise made some cards, I hacked on with a mockup of a site (one of two on the go at the moment), and gave a little more thought to the seminar on Blogging and Communities I’ve been asked to present at. The initial nerves have subsided and whilst previously I’d been worrying that I wouldn’t be able to fill the 45 minute slot, my main concern now is that 45 minutes may not be long enough!!

Ohh and lest I forget, I’d like to thank mike for his generous help, very much appreciated indeed. I may already have thanked him but if that’s the case, better to thank twice than not at all!

Louise made a very interesting comment the other night, concerning my current employers. She said that I must be enjoying things there because I was working later than usual. And she’s right. Partly because we have a new toy in our department – AuthorIT, a single source publishing tool – and partly because I’m finally getting into the new (upcoming) version of our core product and actually learning new things. Previously I’d been ‘stuck’ on updates to the current, released, products which was proving less than challenging, and more than boring. All’s good now though, our new stuff is bloody smart… but enough of that. I don’t talk about that here!

Rugby yesterday and I thought the Italians were going to do it… until England clicked up a gear and predictability returned. However the game itself wasn’t particularly enthralling, unlike the try-fest that was France vs Ireland. I’m so glad I watched the second half though, as the first half was awful and at times made it hard to believe this was international rugby I was watching.

It’s all looking nicely setup for what could be the deciding game of the tournament – France vs England. Hard one to call for, as ever, if the French get their running game going early then I think England will be in trouble as they are still a little too reliant on their front rows. Then again Wales showed that if you try and go around the front rows, England just drop back and offer a sold white line through which it’s bloody hard to break. Intriguing though it may sound, I’d be less than surprised if the game itself is a boring kick-a-thon. Isn’t it always the way?

Well a long week stretches ahead of me, I’m hoping to get a couple of things out of the road as soon as possible as I’m currently breaking my own rule of “one job at a time”. On the other hand there are opportunities to which you just can’t say no, it’s just unfortunate they’ve all come at the one time. Not that I’m complaining. Honest.

How’s your weekend?

UPDATE: What a cracking game of rugby, open, free-flowing and full of passion. Well done to Wales for a professional performance and well done to the Scotland team for playing with such heart and passion.

Attention All Shipping

Reading time: 3 mins

Attention All Shipping by Charlie Connelly

Received as a birthday present last year this was an ideal “train” book as it’s automatically broken into chunks for, as it says on the front cover, this book is “a journey round the shipping forecast”. It also holds a tiny bit of extra importance for me as the journey in question starts and ends on my birthday! (I’m certain my Dad knew that when he bought the book.. right Dad??)

Before I continue, I’ll ask you to stop reading and name as many areas in the shipping forecast as you can. Malin, Dogger, Fastnet, Trafalgar…. um …. Irish Sea?… erm… harder than it sounds, isn’t it. Well it was for me having never actually (knowingly) heard the shipping forecast itself. I did know of it mind you, although I’m not sure how. Osmosis is a wonderful thing. It was with this slightly befuddled, and somewhat sketchy, knowledge that I started reading.

The opening chapter of the book outlines a little of the history of the forecast, and the place it holds in the hearts of those who grew up with its weird and wonderful language. Of course the forecast is crucial for many but for us landlubbers.. well it’s all a bit odd, isn’t it, I mean what does “south-westerly veering north five or six, decreasing four” actually mean? Well, having read the book, I COULD tell you but that’d spoil all the fun.

The format of the book is fairly straightforward and has the author, Charlie Connelly, endeavouring to travel to each zone of the forecast within one calendar year. He takes us with him on a Bryson-esque look at the people and cultures that lie within the various shipping zones. From Spain to Iceland, from uninhabited rocks to inhabited metal turrets in the sea, he reveals the large variety of life held within the forecast area as he flits his away around it armed with little else than a dogged determination and the canny knack of always arriving at the airport several hours before his flight. Ohhh, he also travels on boats, which is just as well as it would have been a bit of a cheat, given the title of the book, to do it all by air.

Connelly comes across a likeable ~~sole~~ soul with a nice turn of phrase, he peppers the pages with an excellent mix of history, anthropology, and snippets of wonderfully quirky information; with historical names that include Chatsworth Musters and Sir Cloudesley Shovell he has plenty of “quirk” from which to choose. In fact, whilst we are on the topic of history, I’d like to apologise to the people of Barra for the way Lieutenant-Colonel John Gordon (for I presume he is related) manhandled them out of their homes. Appalling behaviour. I do hope his actions don’t preclude me from ever visiting Barra, although I’m pretty sure he is related on the ‘other’ side of the family, and distantly at that (hopefully my surname will throw them off the scent).

Attention All Shipping was a wonderful book to dip into, never failing to offer the reader something to ponder, and written in a welcoming, homely, style. Any man who can use the phrase “royster-doystering”, not once but twice, in a book surely deserves a glance, if not a thorough reading. He even manages to impart a lot of wisdom without ever patronising or boring, quite a talent indeed.

Comparisons with Bill Bryson are obvious – this is a travel journal, and Connelly has a similar gentle wit and easy way with words – so I’ll avoid them. Suffice to say that this is a well written, informative book that managed to illicit several chuckles from me (which in turn brought a few inquisitive looks from my fellow commuters).

Attention All Shipping, heartily recommended if you are looking for a change of pace, a change of scenery and change from a tenner.

RSS This

Reading time: < 1 min

I’ve updated the feeds available from this site (and one day I’ll figure a nice clean way to present the choices, for now this is all you get).

The main site feed now includes a daily cull of my del.icio.us links. Thanks largely to the lazy sheep bookmarklet, I’m using del.icio.us a lot more these days, and when I spotted that FeedBurner could grab and combine links from there as well I thought “why not?”.

Finally I’d like to introduce the new Super-Duper Trough of Information^tm feed. Powered by Suprglu (where you can also see the information displayed on a web page) it pulls in content from my blog, the overflow, del.icio.us, haloscan, flickr, and last.fm. Blimey.

One thing to note is that the Super-Duper Trough of Information^tm seems to take a wee while to notice the most recent post, but if you want an entire view of my online shenanigans, it’s the one to choose. And yes I did originally create the Super-Duper Trough of Information^tm for my own personal use, my ego isn’t THAT big.

So you now have a choice of feeds:

Right. If you would like anything else added, or removed let me know. Hopefully there are options enough to satisfy all 100 or so of you who actually use the damn things.

Seamonkey

Reading time: 2 mins

I mentioned the SeaMonkey project last week. It’s a package from Mozilla which includes “a state-of-the-art web browser and powerful email client, as well as a WYSIWYG web page composer and a feature-rich IRC chat client”. Having downloaded it, installed it, and tried to break it for the last few days I can unreservedly state that you shouldn’t bother with it. Well, most of you shouldn’t bother with it, it may appeal to some.

The clue, that I missed, is right there on the Mozilla page. It states that:

“The SeaMonkey project is a community effort to deliver production-quality releases of code derived from the application formerly known as “Mozilla Application Suite”.

To a lot of people these days, Mozilla means Firefox. Back in the day (when Polos were only 7p a pack) Mozilla meant Netscape so imagine my horror, and the swift checking of my calendar when, lo and behold, the browser that opened was Netscape. Well, technically, it wasn’t but it sure looked that way.

There is nothing startlingly clever about any of the applications included in the package, this is both it’s downfall and it’s selling point. If you are web savvy I’d suggest you steer clear as you undoubtedly already have applications that meet your needs, I know I do and none of the applications on offer here better, or come close to bettering, what I already have.

If you are new to the web, then give it a go. It does exactly what it says on the tin and is a good way to get up to speed quickly, using a fairly stable, if somewhat pedestrian, set of products. Bear in mind, however, that for every application in the SeaMonkey package there is a better alternative, usually free as well.

SeaMonkey is a good idea, in theory, however I don’t know why it doesn’t use the “new” Mozilla products… maybe it will in the future. For now it’s either further ahead of its time than I can predict, or has already (possibly even in the time it’s taken you to read this post) lost some more ground to the sleeker standalone products offered by the other side of the Mozilla organisation.

OINK

Reading time: 2 mins

Popped into our local Lidl the other night – I always find the food tastier, it seems to be made for the ‘continental palate’? – to pick up some basics, tuna, juice, cold meat, milk, mayonnaise and so on. The shop was pretty quiet so we were the only people at the till as we paid.

Just as we turned to walk away the girl at the checkout said that there were some items behind us that were going to go out, so why not help ourselves. Now, I guess that one reason that Lidl food tastes better is because it has a shorter shelf life (less preservatives?), so we turned to see a couple of boxes of food items. Most of one box was chilled items, coleslaw, fresh sandwich spreads, and some fruit. The other box contained nothing but bacon.

We wandered over, inspected a few items when Louise noticed that the date on the bacon was the 24th February, 2006. We glanced at each other and I jokingly suggested that we just take it all.

Next thing I know she’s grabbed the box and I’m legging it out of the store after her!

So, we now have 24 packs of bacon in our freezer, um, make that 23 as we had a celebratory dinner with one pack. It’s medallions so not as much fat (good for the heart, bad for the flavour) but hey, it was free! We presume that someone made a mistake, and it’s only now that I’m wondering if we’ve nabbed something that someone else paid for… oh well, their fault for leaving it next to the ‘help yourself’ items.

What we need now is some good inventive recipes for bacon, other than slapping some between some bread, smothered in HP or ketchup of course, or adding some to a stirfry I’m a bit lost. The Danish bacon company has a few yummy suggestions – bacon with apple and pickle, and potato carbonara catch the eye – but we could do with some more.

So it’s over to you, we can manage the basic “scrambled egg and bacon” type dishes but I’d love to try something fairly inventive. We have pretty good stock cupboard and I don’t mind buying in special ingredients if a recipe warrants it, so the more original the better. Any other ‘bacon inspired’ tips are welcome.