Rob's Scrapbook

Time Travel in Ireland

2010-07-23T15:27:00.002+01:00

Wow, it's been an awfully long time since I posted, so I've got a fair bit to catch up on. What first...? Well, last month we had a week or so in Ireland, mostly to visit family, but with a couple of days to do some exploring and touristing. Places visited included Cahir Castle (a nice castle on a little island in the river), the Rock of Cashel (spectacular ruined cathedral and other

Improving Meetings

2010-04-23T16:17:00.003+01:00

Based on a conversation at coffee in which a colleague referenced a Guardian article about how most meetings are a waste of time, I have a plan for improving efficiency in our organisation. Put simply, make provision of coffee and biscuits compulsory at all meetings (and charged to the meeting organiser's project). That's it. I am assuming some sort of internal economy where a catering provider

The Adventures of Little Miss Daredevil and the Slide of Doom

2010-04-02T11:54:00.000+01:00

We've been really lucky so far with the health of Miss B. She's been ill a few times and required a trip to the local minor injuries unit to get a bump patched up, but until now we've avoided hospital. In fact, we're still very lucky as this first hospitalisation was a relatively minor injury and some very straightforward treatment. Anyway, to the story... In our garden we have a slide. It's

Some folks like radishes, and some curly kale...

2010-03-22T15:26:00.004Z

So this weekend saw the 2010 Icknield Way Ale, where approaching 100 morris men (yup, an all boys event, this one) from all over the country gathered to dance, sing, eat and maybe have a beer or two. Four casks of ale from the ever reliable West Berkshire Brewery dealt with the drinks element, three vast vats of stew (plus spuds, coleslaw, pickles, cheese, etc.) provided more solid sustenance,

Catching Up 2: Getting Older

2010-02-26T16:30:00.000Z

Time is ticking away since this, but a couple of weeks I had the first real birthday party I have had since, well, I can't remember. Probably the last for just as long too, but as it was one of those things that people label as a landmark birthday, it seemed a good excuse. So <3 hired a nearby village hall, ordered a cask of ale, invited a lot of people, bought a heap of food, and then we

Catching Up: The Kennett Ale

2010-02-23T11:41:00.003Z

Life has actually been pretty busy lately and I figure I have some catching up to do. So, taking events in no particular order, let's get started. This weekend was the Kennett Morris Ale, and my second year of attendance. I rolled in a bit on the late side (well, just as things were getting started rather than in the planned good time) due to getting lost in Bracknell, my planned co-pilot

Getting Jiggy

2010-01-25T20:05:00.006Z

This weekend was pretty full on. I went with a couple of the other Icknield Way men to Nottinghamshire to take part in the Morris Ring's annual jigs instructional weekend. Unfortunately I forgot to take my camera, so no pictures this time. For the uninitiated, a jig in the context of morris is a dance typically performed by one or two dancers, usually with only one of them dancing at a time (

Quick and Random

2009-12-24T13:43:00.002Z

So, we're in the last few days of the year and I am about to leave work for the last time before Xmas, and I figured I'd stick a quick post up. We've been up to loads over the last month or so, but for some reason I just haven't got around to posting anything. We've been to the seaside, got a new freezer, made booze, done morris dancing, learnt new songs (including my first attempt at 4-part

The search for the polos

2009-11-09T08:05:00.002Z

This weekend was our annual pilgrimage to Pembrokeshire for the banquet. We started driving straight after work and after several stops for food, toilet, and getting Miss B into her PJs we made it to our B&B and went straight to bed. This gave us all Saturday to potter around and get ready, so we took Miss B to run around on a windswept beach before going back for a dose of CBeebies and sorting

Frog Racing

2009-10-05T19:07:00.004+01:00

So Miss B. has now had what is, to the best of my knowledge, her first boardgame experience. I had a few coloured plastic frogs salvaged from some random game many years ago, so I drew a simple trail of lilypads leading to a win space (I was uninspired, so it was a star). Her Monkeyship coloured this in, while I stuck coloured stickers onto a spare die. Game rules? Well, they had to be simple

Hissssss... POP!

2009-09-29T08:28:00.002+01:00

So Miss B and I went to the "Antiques, Collectables and Crafts" market in town on Sunday and had a lovely time thanks to the swans ride, the music played by some friends of ours, the hog roast, and the presence of the all-but-ubiquitous (in these parts) Professor Crump. The Prof. was doing his usual cycling around, doing bad jokes and making balloon animals which, of course, got Miss B's

Dancing the Icknield Way

2009-09-18T13:32:00.006+01:00

OK, so this post is long overdue, but better late than never, eh? So, on 5th September 2009, twenty-odd members of Icknield Way Morris Men rounded off the celebrations of their 50th anniversary year by dancing along 50 miles of the Icknield Way, starting at Ivinghoe Beacon, ending at Wantage, and with twelve intermediate stops (not all of which were at pubs!). We didn't walk the whole way (that

Another bank holiday weekend

2009-09-02T09:04:00.003+01:00

Well, we had our annual house/garden party on Saturday and were lucky enough to have good weather and heaps of friends turning up from all sorts of parts of our lives. Quite a lot of ale (and other stuff) got drunk, a great deal of barbecued food (including the fabulous flatbreads) was eaten, and we went into the evening with a nice conservatory tunes session. Win. Monday was fun too, with a

Weekend

2009-08-24T13:10:00.004+01:00

Some of the win from the weekend... We all went to a car boot sale at the donkey sanctuary, so saw the donkeys and bought some tat. We also bought a big bag of plums which got made into some very tasty jam. Would you believe that we had our first barbecue of the year? Well, we've been to a couple but hadn't had one in our own garden. This particular one featured our new speciality: barbecued

Command History

2009-08-04T14:12:00.004+01:00

Spotted on an old post from an abandoned blog out in the geek hinterlands, but I figured I'd have a go. history | awk '{a[$2]++} END{for(i in a){printf "%5d\t%s\n",a[i],i}}' |sort -rn | head Got that? Well, I work on quite a few machines, but there are two major Linux accounts I use: my networked (NIS) account and the separate account on my desktop box. So, desktop first... 110 ssh 76

firefox -no-remote

2009-08-04T13:32:00.004+01:00

While checking out a user query this morning I stumbled across something quite bizarre: I launched Firefox from an (X-forwarded) ssh session on one of our servers, only to have the browser open a window on my desktop machine instead. Yes, I wanted the browser to display on my desktop, but not to actually run there. So, after a heap of mucking about and fruitless web searching I eventually got

Vegelicious

2009-07-12T20:18:00.003+01:00

It's a bit sad. Our broad beans and peas are now just about giving up their last and we are now half way through the spuds. The peas (Feltham First), in particular, have been a spectacular success, providing us with a regular veg portion for something like two months now. I'm leaving the rest of them, along with the broads, to fatten up and dry for either winter pulse supplies or next year's

After the Big Bang

2009-06-10T12:00:00.004+01:00

Outside my office there is an old, faded scientific poster about the history of the universe. Most of the poster is made up of a diagram. In one corner there is a legend which has a kind of poetry to it: Gold region: After inflation, the expansion always slows down. I think we can all identify with that.

Morris and Mortality

2009-05-29T15:12:00.002+01:00

It has been an odd week. Last weekend we were planning to go to Chippenham Folk Festival. Well, the plan was that I would be there for the whole weekend with the morris, camping for two nights, and <3 and the Youngling would be there for Saturday and Monday, and would do somethig different on the Sunday. Plans changed when the Youngling threw up in her bed on Friday night and we decided that a

One Sheet to the Wind

2009-05-10T21:37:00.004+01:00

Another good weekend, including a friend's 40th birthday barbecue on Saturday, and then a trip to Swindon Kite Festival today. <3 and I used to go to a few kite festivals, partly to fly kites, partly (mostly for me) to buy kites and things to make them out of, partly to meet up with friends, and partly to just look at the pretty things in the sky. Since the arrival of the Youngling, however, we

Sumer is acumin in

2009-05-05T10:09:00.005+01:00

According to some of the gents from the team, I have now been officially inducted into the morris, having taken part in my first Oxford May Morning. Up at stupid o'clock we were down outside Magdalen College before 06:00, and shortly afterwards began a couple of hours of dancing at Radcliffe Square followed by 3 other locations around the city. I had my first ale at around 07:15 (well after

Jaunty

2009-04-24T22:06:00.002+01:00

Wow, so I have the latest release (hot off the mirrors) of Ubuntu installed on my home PC, and so far so good apart from the fact that I can't get a Flash plugin to run (apparently it doesn't work under 64 bit — though it used to, and I'm sure I was previously running a 64 bit OS). On the up side, at least I have sound back — I had lost that a week or so back when I upgraded to the previous

A Drop of Nelson's Blood

2009-03-17T09:48:00.004Z

This weekend was a blinder. On Friday night I went up to Bromsgrove with about 20 other guys, mostly morris men (from various sides), for the stag weekend of our side's squire, who is gets wed in a few weeks' time. So Friday night involved a load of driving, increased by the fact that the best man (or rather one of them!) had had a flat tyre, broke his jack, and was stuck in the middle of

Hankies at Dawn

2009-03-08T14:36:00.002Z

So a couple of weeks back I went to my first ale of the year, hosted by the Kennet Morris Men, who organised a stomping evening of pickles, ale, chili, dancing and singing. There was a decent contingent of our side, despite which, I (of all people) was elected to sing on behalf of the side after dinner (the standard etiquette is that each side who has a reasonable turnout provides a song). It

What I Did on My Holiday

2009-03-03T21:30:00.003Z

So I was back at work today after a week off during which the father-in-law was down to install a new bathroom suite for us. It took longer than expected, largely thanks to having to interact with cranky half-century-old plumbing, but after some valiant efforts, it is all plumbed in. We still have tiling and other decorating to do, but the end is in sight and soon we will be able to enjoy a

Angels and Positrons

2009-02-18T15:38:00.003Z

So we will shortly be having another film based on another Dan Brown book: Angels and Demons. I'll say now that I have neither read the book of or seen the film of The Da Vinci Code and have not read Angels and Demons and strongly doubt I will watch the film. Nothing personal, but I only have my allotted span and suspect I would rather avoid spending the requisite hours getting annoyed. Anyway,

Back in the Garden

2009-02-17T09:25:00.005Z

I have a good feeling about the garden this year. 2007 was a dead loss (horticulturally speaking), with a new baby plus an OU course leaving me with precious little time or energy to do anything much outside. 2008 was not much better, having fallen off the wagon the year before what little effort I did put in was in trying to prevent the garden from reverting to Ancient Forest. This year we

Life With Bells On

2009-01-21T16:48:00.003Z

Yeah, I know I have been going on about morris a bit lately, but this film has just come to my attention. The website has a fantastic trailer and the film has Derek Jacobi in it, so what could go wrong? I'm hoping someone puts it on where I can go and see it (it's not exactly on general release), or at least that it gets on to DVD in the not too distant future. Cracking stuff by the looks of

More Morris

2009-01-20T09:52:00.001Z

An update to my last post, the Oxford Mail has now run a piece about us here.

Which one of you is Morris?

2009-01-14T08:26:00.003Z

Okay, so this is last week's news, but the Morris Ring, one of the three umbrella organisations for morris dancing, has been proclaiming the imminent demise of morris (see BBC News). It seems that the morris is too embarassing for youngsters, so they don't join in, leaving only old farts who will all be dead soon. I don't know what the intention of the Ring was with this, I suspect they were

Two Weeks

2009-01-07T08:27:00.002Z

So we had two whole weeks off work thanks to a combination of public holidays, Xmas closures and a little use of annual leave. The plan was to fly to Ireland on the Monday before Xmas to stay with the in-laws for a week, having spent the previous couple of Xmases at home. Unfortunately, the Youngling contracted chickenpox with the impeccable timing required to prevent the trip. (It could have

Dickin Hox?

2008-12-19T16:02:00.003Z

So it's our last day at work before a full fortnight off, during which we were looking forward to a nice trip over to Ireland for Xmas, followed by other fun back in the UK when what happens? The Youngling gets sent home from nursery with chickenpox. While this isn't the worst thing that could happen, it means we're due some extra grumpiness in the lead up to her 2nd birthday, and also that we

The Strangest Plum Puddings That Ever Have Been

2008-11-20T16:19:00.005Z

Last night I played harmonica solo for a morris dance for the first time ever. OK, so it was during a practice session, but a first is a first. This was the Black Joke from Adderbury, a tune I know pretty well and have played plenty of times at home, or in sessions, and even tootling alongside other musicians for dancing, but solo was a whole new experience. I had to learn to start properly:

The first rule of Symposium is... Stuff that, pass more mead!

2008-11-13T19:48:00.004Z

Last weekend was the annual Pembrokeshire banquet and for the first time we went down as a family. The theme was time travelling, so I got kitted out in pirate kit (with many thanks to <3 for providing a great costume), <3 in her Victorian ball gown, and the Youngling dressed up as a little girl who didn't want to wear any of the lovely costume options we had taken along. Oh well. The

Sing Like an Angel

2008-10-27T13:34:00.004Z

So on Friday we tried out Didcot's new and shiney Cornerstone arts centre, with its oh-so-interesting orange and grey boxy architecture (it's tempting to refer to it as EasyArts). It's actually quite a nice venue and really ups Didcot as a place to go, particularly given that they have booked some great acts for their first season, several of which we would like to get to. In the end the one

Cafe Culture

2008-10-22T11:36:00.002+01:00

I've had something stewing in my head for months about taking a small child to cafes and restaurants for food or snacks. This happens quite regularly for both myself and <3 so we seem to be building up a fair bit of experience. Very often we grab a snack or a meal at a supermarket cafe, generally being convenient, decent value, and having the "right" facilities (primarily good baby changing

Ideas Worth Spreading

2008-09-17T13:29:00.003+01:00

Thanks to my father-in-law, who has mentioned this several times over the last year or two, I have become somewhat addicted to TED talks. Basically TED is an annual conference (plus spin-offs) full of very clever and interesting people speaking (or performing) on pretty much anything they want. Browse through the archives and you will find Al Gore telling us how to combat climate change, geeks

The Definite Particle

2008-09-10T09:14:00.006+01:00

Well, we have a beam going all the way around, yay! Looking at the grid monitoring systems our site is still up and running. All good. Actually, not much work is being done here at RAL — there is a big area in one of the other buildings with a couple of screens showing News24, and this is full of people drinking coffee and eating cake. Elsewhere on site, many of the people not down there have

Post-Hectic

2008-08-29T15:51:00.003+01:00

Things are finally settling down after a rather hectic few weeks. First <3 went off to a conference in the USA, then we all piled into the car for the long trip to Cornwall for a cousin's wedding, then I was in London for a week for a course, then we had the bank holiday weekend, which seemed full of things to do (and by this time the Youngling didn't know if she was coming or going). We have

Enter the Babbit

2008-08-11T15:23:00.002+01:00

Yesterday a couple of friends threw a party in honour of the fact that they are about to naff off around the world for a year, partly travelling, site-seeing and visiting overseas friends, and partly to put in a few months of volunteer work around the place. So the Youngling and I went along (<3 is away at the moment) and had a great time for a couple of hours, mostly due to the fact that the

Morris In

2008-07-10T09:19:00.003+01:00

I am so annoyed at myself for not taking my camera with me last night. We (in the morris sense) were dancing out at a couple of pubs in the market town on Faringdon. I was in two minds as to whether to go or not because of the combination of distance (not that great, but a bit of a drive) and inclement weather (it had been persisting down all day). But turn out I did, and met up with a bunch

Babies

2008-06-25T08:30:00.005+01:00

For some reason this has some resonance...

Asylum Seekers

2008-06-23T19:05:00.002+01:00

This one is particularly aimed at my father-in-law. Radio 4 has a weekly program for kids, Go4It, which often tackles some pretty serious issues in a way that does its best to really engage with its audience in a productive way. This week they had a big feature on asylum seekers, which involved quite a challenging bit of roleplay where the kids had to take on the roles of a family being forced

Wimbledon, here we come...

2008-06-05T09:13:00.004+01:00

I got myself a new camera the other day, the excuse being so that I can send pictures of the Youngling to <3 while she is away (as now). It's only a bog standard snappy camera, but it's nice and easy to use. I'm really pleased with this pic of the Youngling getting in preparation to compete for a Wimbledon singles title some time around 2022 or so.

The Bells, The Bells...

2008-04-28T15:40:00.003+01:00

I reckon it's now official: I am a morris man! Saturday saw my first real dance out, first at a local museum and afterwards at a pub in one of the nearby villages. Somewhere on this page you should see photographic proof of this, as you see part of the set that was dancing the Ring o' Bells from Litchfield. I'm the one on the right with the serious face as I realise that with not one but two

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Hadron

2008-04-28T13:11:00.003+01:00

I finally got home from Geneva at about midnight on Friday, after an OK trip — once again BA didn't lose my luggage at T5, although for a while it looks like it had. Just as I was about to go to the enquiries desk, there appeared my little case packed with dirty clothes. The week was interesting, though a lot of the content of the meetings went over my head. Probably the most useful aspect was

Terminals and Hostels

2008-04-20T22:18:00.003+01:00

So, here am I, sitting in a pleasant enough little room in one of the on-site hostels at CERN, the partical physics lab on the edge of Geneva. I've got a week of meetings, seminars and workshops on the grid computing system that is being built to support the Large Hadron Collider when it is turned on later this year. It's quite a big event this, with over 200 of the great and the good from the

Caecilius in horto sedet

2008-04-14T14:08:00.004+01:00

This week's Doctor Who was enjoyable for many reasons, not least of which the fact that I actually got a fairly obscure in-joke. At least I assume it was an in-joke as otherwise it would be too much of a coincidence. You see, when I was about 12 or 13 I had some classics lessons at school, which comprised some very basic Latin lessons and a load of "how the Romans lived" stuff, all through the

Anglos and Ales

2008-04-02T13:16:00.003+01:00

Fun over the last few days... On Saturday I had my first trip out with the morris side to the Icknield Ale. Basically, an ale is a get-together for morris dancers, where there is much dancing, eating, singing and, of course, drinking of ale. Many morris teams host one, generally during the "off-season" and this was the one we hosted. There were nearly 100 men from something over a dozen teams

Virtually Starting

2008-03-28T15:39:00.002Z

So, I have been in my new job (as a Linux system administrator) for almost a month now, but due to holidays, sickness, and continuing to do my previous job part time, I am only slowly getting up to speed. So far so good, though, and as of next week almost all of my time will be dedicated to the new job. It is looking like one of my new specialities is going to be virtualisation, which is one of

The Jon Show

2008-02-28T14:17:00.003Z

One of those rare postings: just a link to something that made me laugh this week. What do you get when you take a well known strip cartoon and take out the title character? Well, it's possible you'll get a load of crud, but in the case of Garfield Minus Garfield you get something very strange and very funny indeed.

Putting "Grid" Onto My CV

2008-02-26T13:26:00.003Z

Big changes are afoot. As of next week I will be working for another part of the organisation and in a higher pay band. The new job is as a Linux system administrator, helping to run the local LCG tier 2 centre. [LCG = LHC Computing Grid. LHC = Large Hadron Collider, the new super particle basher at CERN.] Should be fun and provide me with a lot to learn. The thing is that I am not fully

Chilli Child

2008-02-05T16:41:00.000Z

So there we were at the noodle bar, the Youngling in her highchair and munching through spring rolls, noodles and prawn crackers, when she noticed that <3 and I were dipping prawn crackers into a dish of chilli sauce. Next thing I have a cracker thrust at me with some waving and looks that left me in no doubt that the Youngling wanted it dipped too. Okay, I thought, so I dipped for her and

Not so new any more, but...

2008-01-24T13:16:00.000Z

So, before January is out, a brief review of 2007... The year was, unsurprisingly, mostly about learning to be a parent. It isn't easy sometimes, but I think we haven't had it badly overall and the youngling is a complete star. Latest cute story: having fed the littlun, I left her playing while I sat next to her having my own lunch (which wasn't ready early enough). Next thing I know, she had

I SAID I BET THAT YOU LOOK GOOD ON THE DANCEFLOOR

2008-01-03T13:54:00.000Z

There is a fairly interesting article in Rolling Stone, The Death of High Fidelity, which is full of plenty of "well, duh, we knew that" stuff, but includes some good examples of differences in dynamics between recordings. Coming soon, something to mark the new year, with some thoughts on 2007 and 2008, but probably not today.

Free to every complaining customer...

2007-12-21T14:26:00.000Z

When our conservatory was finished, alongside the final bill there was a feedback questionnaire asking if the installers had followed certain procedures (they had, where appropriate) and asking how satisfied we were and if we would recommend the firm to friends and neighbours. The gist of what we put was that the builders, installers and electricians were courteous, efficient and seemed to do a

More Scores on the Doors

2007-12-13T14:08:00.000Z

And the final result is in: I now have a first class honours degree in IT & Computing. Ph34R my 1337 X4|\/| 5k!lz. This is such a relief and has put a huge grin on my face.

And the scores from the Milton Keynes jury...

2007-12-12T15:54:00.000Z

Holy crap! I got my course result today and somehow I actually managed to scrape a distinction. This is a *lot* better than I was expecting and needless to say I am very happy with this. Now I just have to wait for the letter offering me a degree, which should (I think) arrive before Xmas. I am going to accept the offer, by the way.

One More Couple, Please

2007-12-02T18:27:00.000Z

Last night <3 and I got out for one of our rare nights out thanks to one of her friends stepping up for babysitting duty. So we pottered off to Grove for a ceilidh organised by White Horse Ceilidhs. These guys organise half a dozen or so ceilidhs each year and the one we had been to previously was great fun, so a return visit was always on the cards. This time was every bit as good as last time

Unknown Beneficiaries

2007-11-20T16:37:00.000Z

It turns out that HM Revenue and Customs have given our family's personal details to persons unknown by sending them, along with those of 7 million other families who claim child benefit, on disk, via a courier, who lost them. Nice. Chancellor Alistair Darling has apologised for the security lapse, but apparently there is little danger of identity theft. According to the BBC: The records

And Now, We Wait...

2007-10-12T09:44:00.000+01:00

So that's it. My OU degree is done and dusted. I managed to survive sitting at a small desk for three hours with nothing but a bottle of water and a bar of chocolate for sustenance and only my calculator and reference books for company. The first part went pretty much by the numbers, with the expected questions about ATM cell sizes, CSMA/CD collision domains, and object models. Part 2 was a

A Glimmer of Light Ahead

2007-10-10T08:27:00.000+01:00

So, seven years since I signed up and I have now reached the final hurdle. Yep, tomorrow is my final exam for my OU degree. The course this year has been a struggle (officially this was meant to take about 16 hours per week and I have also been doing a full-time job and trying to do my bit with raising a new baby) and revision has been intermittant, but thanks to <3 covering for me over the last

L'homme qui plantait des arbres

2007-09-07T14:20:00.000+01:00

A few years ago I heard a story, "The Man Who Planted Trees", on the radio and for about 15 minutes I was transfixed. It's just a simple tale of an ordinary person doing an extraordinary thing and something that really caught my imagination and on more than one occasion left me thinking "that is what I want to do with my life. Of course, I'm not really driven enough, but I really do love

Parliament Goes Quack!

2007-08-30T11:22:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Rich for raising this one... A few months ago, one Rudi Vis, MP, raised an early day motion on NHS homeopathic hospitals. Basically, an EDM is a sort of petition used so that matters of interest to individual MPs can be aired without needing to take up a lot of time. This particular one calls on the government to support homeopathic hospitals through the NHS as they have "the

It's a Bird! It's a Microlight! It's...

2007-08-28T11:34:00.000+01:00

On Sunday <3 and I took the Youngling to the White Horse Show near Uffington (just a few miles down the road). The little'un seemed to really enjoy gawping at all the sights and sounds of an English country fair, but there was one thing that really caught my attention as one of the most inspired, bonkers and generally cool things I have ever seen... There is this French fella called Christian

C'mon and shake it on baby

2007-08-14T16:34:00.000+01:00

On Sunday afternoon we had a nice family outing to a folk music session at a local pub. Yep, that's the whole family, including the Youngling. This wasn't actually the first session for the Youngling, but the last one was a few months back and she has grown so much since then. <3 and I were a little on the nervous side abonut how long it would be before we had to get into lots of baby cuddling

Anniversary Binge

2007-08-03T07:59:00.000+01:00

So yesterday was our anniversary and as a friend of <3's had volunteered to babysit for us we managed to celebrate by going out for dinner. The one friend had actually turned into two and they happily spent the evening watching Serenity while the Youngling snoozed happily in her bed. Dinner was at the Yummy Thai restaurant in Wantage, chosen because we both rather like Thai food and have walked

Crowds of People Create Risk Shock

2007-07-26T08:14:00.000+01:00

New in from the department of "Well, Duhh" the startling news that forcing crowds of people to huddle together in compact queueing systems for significant periods of time might actually create new security risks. Yup, the current airport security procedures do, indeed, mean that terrorists are unlikely to have the opportunity to kill themselves in a plane toilet with an explosion barely powerful

2007-06-19T16:54:00.000+01:00

I am pleased to announce that we now have a fully double-glazed house. Over the last couple of days a couple of nice fellas from Zenith Staybrite ripped out the last of our original, thermally rubbish, steel framed windows (plus our rattly, ill-fitting front door) and replaced them with shiny lumps of uPVC. The last bit of the job involved hacking out a chunk of (steel) wall below our dining

It's a Long Way to Tipperary

2007-06-13T21:07:00.000+01:00

...But driving from Wantage to Sligo is also a sizeable journey (about 900 miles on road for the round trip), even when the bit between Fishguard and Rosslare involves sitting on a boat drinking coffee and we stop at Athlone for a couple of nights before doing the rest of the distance. One of <3's cousins was getting married in, so we drove over with the Youngling (who was suffering from a nasty

Autorotation

2007-05-23T08:28:00.000+01:00

I got up this morning to find <3 acting all excited and telling me to watch the youngling, who was wriggling happily on the floor. Right on cue she rolled over onto her tummy (the youngling, that is, not <3, who has been able to do this for some time) and proceeded to lie there looking pleased with herself. So, another little milestone: 20 weeks and 3 days, rolls onto tummy. This is both very

Trust me on the sunscreen

2007-05-01T16:54:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend a friend quoted something at me. I think he said he saw it as graffiti, so I have no idea of the original source, but it made me laugh and I don't want it to be lost... Love like you don't need the money. Dance like you've never been hurt. Work like nobody is watching.

Young, Foolish and Chopping Onions

2007-04-20T08:13:00.000+01:00

Last night <3 and I actually went out for a dose of live music. A friend kindly agreed to babysit for the Youngling and having safely deposited her, we got to Newbury with enough time to spare to get the drinks in. The show was a regular (mostly monthly) one hosted by the Mandolinquents, and is billed as a sort of folk and world music evening. This time, the band, a quartet, was down to 75% of

Play 'Brown Eyed Girl', Mate!

2007-04-10T13:50:00.000+01:00

There was a nice article in the Washington Post t'other day (I don't read it as a matter of course: someone posted a link at The Session) about what happens when you set a world class classical musician to busk at a Metro station at rush hour. Nothing is proven really, but the description of the reactions (or lack thereof) from the general public are interesting, as are the thoughts of the

Grand Unified Theory

2007-04-02T14:06:00.000+01:00

Finally, thanks to Pearls Before Swine, the universe's deepest secrets have been uncovered...

Better Than The Usual Medicine

2007-03-27T10:33:00.000+01:00

Over the weekend I gave the Youngling a bath and, inevitably, we soon had the situation where her butt slipped and I frantically lunged to get a better grip before her head got a lot wetter than intended. What was her reaction? She laughed. I'd heard her laugh a few times before, but that was just a bit of a chuckle, a smile with emphasis. This was a genuine peel of delighted laughter. What

Small, Cute and Smiling

2007-03-20T10:23:00.000Z

I guess it's about time to post a couple of pictures. These were taken a month ago, when the Youngling was 7 weeks old...

English Folk Culture Is Not Dead (it just smells a bit)

2007-03-19T08:50:00.000Z

Friday night was session night down at the "Abby" and saw me experiencing a few firsts. I actually managed to play both of the first two tunes that were started (and, of course, a load more later too) for the first time ever. To enhance this, I don't know the name of the second of these: I must have known this at some point, but on Friday I just played along and was lefte wondering what the

Rhubarb Enhancement

2007-02-26T16:02:00.000Z

So I have now divided my rhubarb. Actually I should have done this some time back, during the winter, but seeing as we haven't really had much of a winter and the plant has been growing pretty much throughout, I don't think it's much of a problem. Having not done this before, I was in for an interesting time. The main thing I hadn't realised was just how much of the plant there would be

Whalesong and Bananas

2007-02-13T08:53:00.000Z

As of the end of last week we have a new Sainsbury's superstore near us and on the opening day staff were handing out maps to help customers find what they were looking for among the many aisles. All well and good until you see how some of the aisles are marked on the map. Sure, plenty of people will be looking for "frozen wellbeing" (who wouldn't?), but I can't remember the last time I went

From Alabama

2007-02-02T11:52:00.000Z

So I've gone and bought myself a new instrument to learn to play. I was given a ukulele for Christmas, which has had me happily learning a few basic chords, and then spotted this on eBay... It was listed as a ukulele, and it's the same size as one, but closer inspection showed that there were double courses for the strings and there were eight tuning pegs, despite the fact that it only had four

But the other one is much more shiny, Sir

2007-01-25T08:56:00.000Z

Last week we regististered the birth of the Youngling, something which must be done within six weeks of the birth. There were a whole load of questions, <3 signed the register, and we were given the birth certificate. We were then told that this was a short certificate and that if we wanted a full certificate (which would be required by the Passport Office and for some other purposes for which

Resolute

2007-01-17T11:33:00.000Z

Last year I made two new year resolutions: to eat some tripe and to smoke my own food. I achieved neither of these, so I guess they continue to be high on my list of Stuff To Do (TM). However, I did learn to play a musical instrument (badly so far, but you have to start somewhere), something which I have been wanting to do since forever (and, thanks to a great Xmas prezzie I am learning a bit

A Late Arrival

2007-01-09T09:31:00.000Z

Well, happy (belated) new year! After a long wait and a Christmas more full of waiting than anything else, baby B., a beautiful little girl, was born on new year's eve, weighing close to the average for a 2-week-late baby. Mother and baby are, as is traditional to say, both doing well, though this is very tiring for all involved. So, what have we learnt? Well, some of the points... The

A Full Weekend

2006-12-18T16:18:00.000Z

That was a good weekend with a remarkable amount crammed into it but still felt reasonably relaxing Friday evening saw a trip to a nearby meeting for a get-together with our antenatal group, which is turning into a really nice little social and support group. We had the earliest due date for our baby, but last weekend we were gazzumped by one of the other couples, who produced something like

A Whole New World

2006-12-15T09:13:00.000Z

Sometimes you just have to love the customer reviews on Amazon. The new Katie and Peter album has spawned some awesome reviews. Probably the top of the heap for my money is the one entitled "Two Monstrous Talents", which is a work of genius. Who can ignore a recommendation like: "How can two monstrous talents such as these, who so shun public exposure, have plucked up the courage to make this

Three Men in a Canal

2006-12-12T12:03:00.000Z

This Sunday's pub session was very quiet, with only myself (with harmonicas), J. with a fiddle, and W. with a concertina (and occasionally whistle and bodhran), though we were later joined by the landlord and the cajon (that's one of those boxes that you sit on and smack with your hands to make nice drumming noises) which had been presented to him by the band which regularly plays there. Despite

Them Pesky Cats

2006-12-11T11:39:00.000Z

This weekend I did something that I have hardly managed to do over the last few weeks: get into the garden during daylight. A few days ago I posted about burglars who apparently used a wheel barrow in their nefarious exploits, and Phillip made the comment that perhaps I should worry more about my wheel barrow than my fish. Well, I looked by the shed where the wheel barrow usually sits and it

Poster Child

2006-12-06T08:31:00.000Z

So I finally submitted my final submission for this year's OU course — a project poster and post mortem discussion on the project as a whole. This year was the toughest yet and I genuinely have no idea if I have passed; it'll be about 3 months until I know, by which time I will be well into the next course, which starts at the beginning of February. If (fingers crossed) I didn't stuff this

Cat Burglars?

2006-11-28T08:51:00.000Z

Yesterday we received a letter from the police looking for information about a burglary in our area. It's worrying that there are burglaries taking place in our area, but it is clear that these villains were highly motivated specialists: "It is at this time believed that the persons responsible for the crime used a wheel barrow to remove a stolen fish tank and transport it along ?????? Road

Two Front Teeth

2006-11-20T11:54:00.000Z

In a conversation with <3 the subject of Christmas presents came up and what we both wanted. To be honest, I've really not been thinking about Christmas this year, and the best present I can think of is a happy and healthy wife and baby. But, just for the sake of greed, I'll point out my running wish list which has some ideas on. It's getting more music (and specifically harmonica) centred

Munchus Maximus

2006-11-08T16:53:00.000Z

That was quite some weekend... Friday after work <3 and I drove to Heathrow to pick up F., then zapped over to Blackwood to crash with I. & E., who welcomed us with a log fire and a big bowl of chicken soup. Saturday morning we set off in convoy to Little Haven, a Pembrokeshire village, nestled in a tiny valley on the coast near Haverfordwest, where we were attending this year's banquet. This

Learning Openly

2006-10-31T16:42:00.000Z

It has been in the pipeline for some time now, but the Open University has now launched OpenLearn, a website which makes OU course materials freely available and provides "state-of-the-art learning support and collaboration tools" to boot. The selection of materials available at the moment is modest, and appears to be suffering from some teething problems (some courses have been noticed

On The Dangers of Having Too Many Legs

2006-10-27T14:33:00.000+01:00

Poor little Forzie, it's not easy being a chicken with four legs, even in New Zealand. He lasted not much more than a month before he "got glugged up" due to complications involving what is usually found between and behind a pair of legs. The picture on the page at the other end of that link is dead cute.

Ryan's Crib

2006-10-24T16:57:00.000+01:00

The last weekend was a good opportunity to unwind and smell the coffee a bit. An old friend of ours came visiting, ostensibly to drop in on Friday's pub session where he wanted to listen to the music and hopefully pick up a tune or two to play on his flute. <3 was too tired to come out with us (less than 2 months until the due date, so no surprise really), so G. and I want to the pub and

Legal Code

2006-10-10T11:45:00.000+01:00

I don't want to lose track of this concise analysis of new US anti-terror legislation. The code looks sensible enough at first glance, but if you know programming in C you may well spot the logical error... if (person = terrorist) { punish_severely(); } else { exit(-1); }

More Hedging

2006-10-05T14:28:00.000+01:00

So I've just submitted another order for plantage from Ashridge Trees. Most of last year's trees that I planted in our proto-hedge have done fairly well, so this order is largely to fill in a few gaps and also run along the bottom of the garden, where there is a bank of pretty much unsupported earth, so a new hedge should help keep our garden from escaping as well as improving our boundaries.

Back to the Bottle

2006-09-22T09:33:00.000+01:00

New toys! A couple of days ago I received my first ever harmonica microphone and amplifier, the much vaunted (and alarmingly cheap for what it is) Bottle O Blues mic along with a dinky little Smokey Amp. The amp is so called because they originally came built into cigarette packs — you can still get them like that, but the one I have is plastic cased, although about the same size, which should

Jigs, Bugs, Ackee, Gonking and Babies

2006-09-18T15:38:00.000+01:00

<3 and I have now been to our first Friday session at the Abingdon Arms. Great fun. The first half of the evening there wasn't much music that I knew, although I was encouraged to start The Butterfly, which didn't go as well as it did when I played it the previous Sunday, but was OK, and <3 even got to join in with her new low D whistle, which has a lovely sound to it. Later on though, as

Hung Short

2006-09-15T10:11:00.000+01:00

Ok, so this is yesterday's news, but much as I broadly agree with Ms Short on this, I still can't work out exactly how one campaigns for a hung parliament. It's not as if there is a box for it on the ballot.