This isn’t the blog you were looking for!

Tomorrow is May 4th, or as we call it, Star Wars day (May the 4th be with you). It’s also the birthday of one our sons. We resisted the temptation to call him Luke.

The first film they made was great, a sort of fairy tale set in space complete with a princess that needed rescuing and a happy ending. The next two films they made were also quite good, then the whole franchise went rapidly downhill.

Star Wars is now part of our cultural heritage. You can tell something is part of our cultural heritage when it gets referenced in other films and everyone understands the reference (“I am your father!”,).

I love the line from the film when Obi-Wan says ‘These aren’t the droids you’re looking for’

Continuing to declutter

We (my wife and I) continue to try and declutter our house. It’s a big enough house, but there still doesn’t seem to be enough room to store all the junk we hang onto, or at least not in a satisfactory way.

Part of this decluttering is an attempt to live a simpler life. We recently sorted out quite a few books that we never look at, or are dated (but not dated enough to be of historical interest) or that are never going to be read again. Also, if they go to a charity shop it will a) make some money for a good cause and b) the books will bring someone else pleasure.

Plenty of people have suggested various principles for decided whether you should actually keep something or not. In the end these really all come down to one rule – “Have I got a reason to keep this item?” Any other rules are just elaborating on what valid reasons there might be, and what are not valid reasons. 

Royal Mail

We had one of those cards delivered with our post today – the one that says they wouldn’t deliver a parcel because it didn’t have enough postage on. It was 19p short, so now they want to charge an extra £1.19 for it (ie over 400% more than the amount it was short by), and either we have to collect it or if they deliver it we may have to wait up to 5 days, and we don’t even know who the parcel is from.

I don’t think we get a good service from the Royal Mail. Our post isn’t delivered until mid-afternoon, and I’m sure the postman or post woman used to knock and collect any money to pay if the postage was incorrect so you could at least see if you wanted to accept the delivery.

Building a police box

I’ve started to build a Metropoliltan Police Box, of the type designed by Mackenzie Trench and still commonly found on streets in London (but not usually in junk yards) in the early 1960s.

I’ve got most of the measurements and pictures to help me build it from http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?board=128.0

I’m building my police box from wood rather than casting it in concrete. I don’t intend it to be a permanent structure that would need planning permission. I’m also not worried about what it looks like on the inside.

As I have no money for this project I’m building the box using any scraps of wood I can find. This is going to be a challenge and take quite some time. I’m also taking a top down approach, that is, I’m starting with the roof (although I’ll have to source a lamp later). I figure the roof is the most difficult part to build, calculating the angles for the different sections of roof.

As soon as I’ve something to show I’ll start posting up some pictures. 

An acrostic for Monday

Mostly sun and wind today
On the line the washing dries
Now it’s time to grab some lunch then
Dishes washed and put away
And when I come to write my blog
Yet again, nothing to say

Curry

There is one curry I make fairly regularly. The recipe is one that is adapted from a recipe books that I own.

Ingredients

3 tablespoons oil
2 onions finely chopped
1 sweet potato cut into small cubes (the original recipe uses a white potato)
1 packet of paneer cut into cubes (optional)
Some sliced mushrooms (optional)

¼ pint water
2 tablespoons tomato puree
1 teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon hot chilli powder
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon cumin
1½ teaspoons garam masala
1½ teaspoons turmeric
1½ teaspoons salt
3 cloves garlic finely chopped or crushed

400g washed and ready to cook fresh spinach

Method

Fry the onion, sweet potato, paneer and mushrooms gently in the oil until the onions are soft.

Add the tomato puree, spices, salt and garlic to the water and mix well. Add these to the onions and fry for a few minutes.

Add the fresh spinach, mix in well, cover and simmer for 25 minutes.

Serve with naan bread or rice (or both!)

 

The Old Grey Whistle Test

It’s ten minutes past midnight so I’m actually writing Saturday’s post on Sunday. You see, what happened was my wife and I were playing Beatles Rock Band on the Wii earlier today (or rather yesterday). Now when you play a game on the Wii it creates a message to tell you how long you were on for, and when there is a new unread message on the Wii it flashes a blue light. All the way through Doctor Who and then Arne Dahl the blue light was flashing behind the TV (seems rather appropriate for both in different ways, and can anyone explain the significance of the caretaker in Arne Dahl to me?).

So after Arne Dahl I switched the TV on in order to read the message on the Wii and so stop the blue flashing light, only the last channel we’d watched was BBC4 and just starting was music from The Old Grey Whistle Test.

For anyone who doesn’t know, The Old Grey Whistle Test was a late night TV music programme that ran throughout the 70s in the UK. You can tell it was a UK show from the spelling of ‘grey’ (and also because it was a programme, not a prorgram). The best time to watch The Old Grey Whistle Test is late at night (in fact it seems to be the only time to watch it).

Included in the show I just watched were performances by Elton John, David Bowie, Steppenwolf, Roxy Music, Bob Marley and the Wailers, Dr Feelgood, Patti Smith, Blondie, The Jam and the Specials (to name just some of the acts).

So that’s why this posting is so late. And it turned out that the blue flashing light was not a message but the receivers for the Rock Band guitar and drums plugged into the back of the Wii.

Multitasking

I’m I man, which I think means I don’t multitask. That’s not strictly true, at any time I may be doing several things at once, like breathing, walking, thinking, seeing, listening (or at least hearing, even if I don’t consciously process what I’m hearing) etc

My computer also multitasks. At any time several processes will be running at the same time. Some will be programs I’ve launched, such as the web browser, others will be processes that run in the background, for example the antivirus.

It’s all very clever, but I wish someone would come up with an operating system that multitasked more intelligently than Windows 7 does. I want the process I’ve launched, and am actively using to take priority over any other task, and if I’m using a browser I want the data I’ve requested to be downloaded before any Windows updates or other data. 

I’d be happy for these background tasks to run when the processor isn’t busy with the task I’ve asked it to do. But that doesn’t seem to be how it works. When I switch on the computer I seem to have to wait 10 minutes while the antivirus updates it permissions before I can even start the web browser. If I’m watching a film, my computer sometimes freezes completely while some background task, probably a Windows update downloading and installing itself, takes all the computer’s resources.

I’m glad Microsoft don’t design cars.

Limerick

A blogger decided one night
That he had no idea what to write
Then he had an idea
Just like Edward Lear
A limerick would be just right

Free Parking

You might get free parking on a Monopoly board, but not at many NHS hospitals in the UK. 

People don’t usually go to hospitals for a fun day out, the hospital isn’t a place you’d choose to go to for pleasure. If you drive a car to a hospital it’s either because you work there, have an appointment with someone who works there, are giving a lift to someone who has an appointment or visiting someone who is having to stay in hospital.

Our local hospital does not have enough parking spaces for all the people that visit by car. The hospital isn’t particularly close to any shopping centre or visitor attraction, so all the people that park there need to be there, asking people to pay doesn’t decrease the number of visitors, it just makes money from them and adds to the stress of the visit. It’s over 20 miles away from where we live to the hospital. Too far to walk, expensive to take a taxi, and very difficult to reach by public transport. Because of the lack of parking space, which is probably made worse by the number of services that are no longer provided by the much smaller and more local hospital, visiting the hospital is made much more stressful than it needs to be. I’m sure stress isn’t good for people’s health.