Monday February 28, 2005

Product of the week the English crumpet

The English crumpet. A traditionally breakfast dish but one that can be enjoyed at anytime. My wife puts Marmite on hers I do not understand why.. I prefer just margarine. Simple and delicous.

The Verve

The Verve , I first heard about them on the BBC news when it was announced they were splitting up. While visiting friends in Wigan soon afterwards (which is where they started) they played us the album Urban Hymms.

Urban Hymms is perhaps one of the best Rock albums of its time. I would not dream of comparing it to the likes of the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd etc they are like chalk and cheese. Thw whole album is excellent but the tracks that are mega awsome are "Bitter Sweet Symphony", "Sonnet", "The drugs don't work", "Space and Time" and "Lucky Man". It is one of the few albums I play in the car and press the repeat button on the cd player to hear a track again.

It puzzles me that I find 'modern' bands like the Verve by accident and feel there are a lot more like them with stuff I'd like to hear. But I do not listen to the radio and only hear of such bands by accident.

A walk around Littlewick Green

As I was on my own again Saturday, after a few domestic chores I went for a five mile walk starting at Littlewick Green a small village just off the busy A4 road. The village is loop of road that leaves and rejoins the A4 so is pleasantly quiet. I passed the home of Ivor Novello known as RedRoofs. I walked south, across a field over the Paddington Westbound railway line. At the most southerly point of the walk I passed Shottesbrooke House home of Sir John Smith the first freeman of the new Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead and founder in 1965 of the Landmark Trust . I then walked through the churchyard of this church.

The church has a legend which is the architect climbed to the top of the spire to toast his work, fell and was buried on the spot ! Either way the church is meant to be a small version of Salisbury cathedral. After the churchyard by a field was what we call a Ha-Ha (below). As can be seen it is a ditch with a fench at the bottom of it. Landowners desperate not to spoil the views from their houses employed Ha-ha's to keep the animals in the field but not ruining the view.

I then walked back to Littlewick Green in a Northerly direction across the railway again. I crossed a field with turnips in it where a load of sheep were graving on them. Usually the sheep are kept to a restricted part of such winter food so they do not gorge themselves on it. I could see an electric fence so perhaps the sheep had found a gap in it or the battery powering the fence had failed.

On returning to Littlewick Green I went to the pub and had a nice prawn and marie rose sauce ciabatta with salad and crisps. On leaving the pub it was raining so the walk was timed to perfection.

Friday February 25, 2005

Stereophonics

I came across The Stereophonics by acccident when a sample cd was attached to a copy of the Sunday Times magazine . I played it, liked it and got hooked.

Tracks that I especially like are "Billy Daveys daughter" off my least favourite album "Word Gets Around", "Lying in the sun", "Have a nice day", "Nice to be out" and "Rooftop" off the album "Just enough education to perform". The album "Performance and cocktails" has the excellent "Roll up and shine", "Hurry up and wait" , "I wouldn't believe your radio" and "A minute longer". The last album I have is my favourite "You gotta go there to come back", which is all brilliant. The fact that I seem to like the latest stuff more means I hope to be able to look forward to their forthcoming new album "Language. Sex. Violence. Other?" released on 14th March 2005.

UK TV news being dummed down ?

I am of the opinion that the UK TV news is being dummed down. We tend to watch the early evening news either on BBC, or ITV if we get home late. Last week during the Sinn Fein/IRA behind the bank robbery story the ITV news ran an interview with Martin McGuinness. The question was "Are you a member of the IRA ?" - or something similar. Answer "No." "Is Gerry Adams a member of the IRA ?" Answer "No." In fact McGuinness was slightly more intelligent than the interviewer, he said it would be political suicide for anyone in Sinn Fein to be involved in terrorism or the IRA. So in fact he answered the question that should have been asked "how can you prove or indicate to our viewers that you are not involved in the IRA?"

For me I think if they want to sort this mess out there is only one way. We all know the IRA has influence and knowledge of the criminal underworld. Find the people who really did this robbery. Naive proposal perhaps as people could be fitted up. But at least cooperate with the authorities if you really were not involved.

First job in the computer industry

I thought it might be interesting to mention my first experience in the computer industry. I had no formal training and all I knew I had gleaned from my BBC B computer and reading DEC hardware manuals borrowed from friend who worked for them.

So I started at CIS software a subsiduary of Computervision. I worked in their Swavesey office in Cambridgeshire. The company wrote CAD/CAM software, the most famous portion being called Medusa . I was to be a computer operator and do other stuff like configuring the graphics terminals they used and so on. I loved it. I learnt how to do the backups onto 1/2" tape on Pr1me [sic], Vax ( nothing sucks like a vax !) and Sun computers. I setup new terminals for the computer programmers who mostly used vdus. I had my own Sun for a while until someone needed it. I also learnt how to put vampire taps on the yellow ethernet cable watching out for the "ethernet jammed" messages appearing when some of the foil was left in the hole I had just made.

The Sun machines were made by CV under license so parts of the hardware including the chassis was made by them. CV also tinkered with Sun Unix and had their own version. The Vaxes were linked with decnet and used software from Wollongong to talk TCP/IP to the Sun machines. The Pr1mes did not even have ethernet - yet. The graphics were run on several graphics devices; Tektronix , Westward and many more I cannot remember the name of. The software could use a tablet to allow theuse of menus for easy access to CAD/CAM facilities.

I learnt the most when we moved to Harston. A brand new building. We still used terminals but an ever increasing number of engineers were realising the benefits of working under a window system and source development was starting to be done on Sun machines then ported to the other two platforms. We had a big switch to allow engineers to select what machine they wanted to connect to - a Gandalf I think they called it. We setup a Vaxcluster and the number of Sun machines increased and we also started to get Vanilla ones. I graduated to more complicated work installing and configuring machines and learnt more about each platform we used.

The disks that were state of the art at the time; 800MB on the Vax, smaller on the CV Sun boxes. The Pr1mes originally had the 300MB CDC removable packs I used to hate it when the heads plunged into the pack when they spun up. Always ready for a head crash I was...

On the Sun side I remember starting to use NIS and the first time I could mount stuff over NFS. Naturally enough without the automounter engineers let themselves in for "nfs server not responding..." Cross mounting anything in sight. I remember the first Sparc Sun box a Sun 4/260 ? It was as fast as our Vax 8500 and at a fraction of the price. Amazing box. I left soon afterwards to then concentrate on administering a network of mainly Sun boxes at another company. More on that another day..

Thursday February 24, 2005

F1 season preview

As the first race is nearly upon us I though I would do my own team review. Below is my ranked ordering of the teams.

Ferrari have to be the favourites again. Team and driver continuity and although they are delaying their new car till later in the season I think it will not hurt them much. Reliability is fantastic and you can never bet against Schumi snr. Bridgstone also look after them very well.

McLaren I think are going to be back on form. I think the driving pairing is going to be awsome and already the team are finding Kimi is pushing harder to keep ahead of the Monster. I also think they will have settled down in their new home now and also the team are in a stable state in regard to personel.

I think Renault will take third spot. Two more excellent drivers, Fishi will keep Alonso honest and they have always managed to develop a very tidy package with good traction and their starts are always amazing. Being French ( sort of) I think they have a special relationship with Michelin.

BAR will be fourth I think. Not such a strong driver lineup , Sato a bit of a loose cannon. Loosing the good DR will not help, he really did focus the team around results and teamwork. Honda have good engines but reliability is always a question mark with them. Willis is a great technical director. His new wing could spring a few surprises. Expect it to be copied.

Williams come next. I think they have a lot of work to do. Last years aero team made a mess of things with the tusky wing and two new drivers are going to need to settle in. With Head now in the back seat and Sam Michael taking over they have a lot of ground to catch up.

Sauber have to be next with the best wind tunnel, good engines from Ferrari and a switch to Michelin which is already paying dividends. The driver pairing is the only concern I have.

Toyota will be next perhaps beating Sauber if neither Schumi jnr or Trulli throw their toys out of the pram. I think this is the year they have to make progress else the Yen may dry up, podiums are being demanded. With Gasgoine as technical director in his first 'full' year they ought to progress.

Red Bull. Having rescued Jaguar a lot of team folks have left and this will be a year to stabilise and build up for next year. The car is late, underpowered engines but DC should help guide them down the straight and narrow if they listen to him.

Jordan. Another team which has a new owner. Next year they will be using a Dallara chassis and matched to Toyota engines that should be promising. The driver lineup is very suspect.

Minardi. Stody must be hoping Jordan's current problems can help push him off the back of the grid but I think it is a tall order. Any regs changes always hurts these F1 minnows more as they have less money to spend to react to them.

So new regulations, strange qualifying born out of the events in Japan last year and several driver changes, but really everyone is just waiting to see when Schumi snr retires. That is when things will really change.

Product of the week the Cornish pasty

How many times have you walked around a town or village smelt the aroma of a pasty, gone into the shop, bought the pasty, bitten into and ugghhhh ! Terrible !

It has to be said that too often these can fail to live up to our expectations. The Ginsters ones are not bad for a mass produced item. As can be seen the product has the Cornish flag proudly displayed. I would suggest if you are visiting Cornwall and you want a good pasty ask a local where the best are to be found. I know the best I had was a lamb and mint one, not traditional at all but my wife had half of it and we ended up going back for a second one.

Wednesday February 23, 2005

Eats shoots and leaves

Finished reading this book by Lynn Truss last week. The story of the Panda and the suspect punctuation, which is being fixed by the bear on the front cover of the book is well known I am sure. The Panda is painting out a comma in the title (in red paint of course) that reads "Eats, Shoots & Leaves".

I liken the book to a rant sandwich. Unkind perhaps but if you read this book ignore the first and last chapters and read them later on. It is also not a useful reference book to punctuation, Lynn Truss indicates in her text and in the bibliography more suitable titles to use. However the book is well written and she tell us about the historical development of our punctuation and how it is heading. The examples are clear and well thought out. There are plenty of quotes from people and books which are amusing and interesting. The book's chapters deal with often used and abused common punctuation in order of popularity the comma, apostrophe, quotes then the ! , ? brackets etc.

The story on the back of the book is worth repeating:

A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots into the air.

"Why?" asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panada produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.

"I'm a panda" he says, at the door. "Look it up."

The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.

"Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."

So did I learn anything? Yes I did. But I think I have to do some work on my speeling [sic] first as those errors are usually more obvious. Any suggestions ?

Curses no extra bank holiday this year

Now the queen has decided she cannot give herself a day off to attend the wedding of the year that means she won't give us a day off to celebrate too. I was looking forward to the extra day off, parties in streets, waving Union Jack flags etc etc.

How hedges should look in winter

During a recent walk I took this picture. It is a work of art. Years ago during specific intervals hedges in the UK would be subjected to this treatment. It looks a bit drastic but it is exactly how to maintain a good hedge with built in strength and also encouraging new growth from the ground. Nowadays it is a rare sight with hedges being given the flail trimmer treatment which eventually leads to them becoming an unsightly mess which the farmer may or may not pull up. Of course a proper hedge is a excellent place for birds to live and breed. I am of the opinon that if farmers want their set aside money they should maintain the hedges around the field and in dry stone wall areas maintain those walls . Yes it is labour intensive. But you should not get something for nothing.

Tuesday February 22, 2005

Growing seeds in a propagator

I purchased an electric propagator as my seedlings are now banned from the house. Seed trays do make a mess however careful you are in the house. So this years leeks are now in the propagator that uses the same electric current as a household bulb. It sits in the greenhouse which is kept above freezing by an electric heater. I have used half sized seed trays and one of them has this years chrysanthemums in it. The lid has vents so you can keep out excess moisture. I also purchased some copper fungicide useful in many applications but for the seeds this is to avoid them damping off. After sowing the seeds you mix the powder with water and then water the soil. If the propagator works I will buy a second one for flowers. It cost abouts thirty pounds.

A lean roast

Unlike years ago most UK folks do not have a Sunday roast every week. We go for Curries or other exotic meals nowadays. But once a month I do like a roast dinner and I usually cook it. We have leg of lamb or a chicken usually. Last weekend I did chicken.

I cooked the chicken on a simple metal tray with foil covering it. I usually season the chicken and put a bit of butter on the thighs to keep them moist. Twenty minutes a pound plus twenty over at ~ 180 degrees C. You should be prepared to pour off excess juices from the tray every so often. After it is done you are meant to take it out and let it 'relax' I think the idea is to get the juices in the meat to redistribute themselves evenly again. Of course you must make sure it is cooked, I use a skewer pricking into the meat to ensure the juices run clear - no blood.

Delia Smith would tell you to baste the meat during cooking to keep it moist, Nigella Lawson turns her poultry upside down so the juices from the fatty area drip over the thighs. Another way is to use a deeper tray with a rack and put water in the tray. This has the effect of steaming the meat, keeping it moist. You also then have a good base for a gravy later on.

You cannot have a sunday roast without roast potatoes. I cook mine in water until they are just going soft on the outside. I then take a tray ( fairly deep) and put some oil in it. Drain the potatoes, put the lid on the saucepan and shake them up and then put onto the tray ( which you have preheated in the oven - now turned up a bit). Be careful when you do this as the potatoes (wet) will spit when they hit the hot oil. With a spoon ladle the oil over each potato. Pop in the oven. After thirty minutes turn each potato over and ladle oil over each one again. Put them back for another thirty minutes.They should be crisp and when done pop them on a grill pan with kitchen towel spread over it to soak up the excesss oil.

Other vegetables we have are sauteed leeks, carrots and peas which go well with this. We do not make our own gravy I am afraid we are a Bisto household , looks like you can even get it in the US.

When the East wind doth blow we shall have snow

The above picture is of our garden on tuesday morning. Not much snow has fallen so far but we are promised heavier downfalls today and later in the week. The kids will have to wait before they have enough of the stuff to have snowball fights...

Meanwhile now the promised snow has finally arrived and Britain is plunged into the usual chaos I was reminded of a weekend many years ago when we stayed in this pub , The New Inn, Coln St-Aldwyns in the Cotswolds for my birthday in January.

We did a nice walk during the day across to Bourton on the water . In the evening as I sipped my pint of beer and studied what to eat for dinner the white stuff started started to fall. By the time we had finished eating there were several inches of snow. It transformed the landscape. Rumours of closed roads spread around the pub and any remaining rooms were quickly taken. We of course had already planned to stay overnight.

The following day as I took our case out to the car and removed as much of the snow as I could, I looked up the hill behind the pub. Loads of children were on the hill sledging and generally having loads of fun. As I went back to the pub I met someone who had also stayed overnight. He was putting his case in the car. He said "this is going to be a fun journey, this is one day when I would rather not own a Porsche". I knew what he meant. Keeping the Porsche on the road with that amount of horsepower was going to be a challenge.

As I said Britain and extreme weather conditions. Instant chaos.

Monday February 21, 2005

The car purchase

I said when I made my mind up on my car purchase that if all went well I would say from who purchased the car. Well as I have had the car for two weeks now and ( hastily touches wood) as is well I can now tell you how I chose where to buy it from.

I used Drive the deal You basically fill in the car you want, add the options and they tell you what the current price is. If you then want to go ahead you provide further details and the next thing is the dealer contacts you. My car came from Aberdeen in Scotland on the back of a lorry. Hopefully it did not fall off it. Drive the deal guarantee the car is brand new , not already licenced, direct from the factory and not an import. As I have said before they clearly use dealers who are struggling to sell their quota of cars.