We flew out from Birmingham International on Saturday night. We landed in Dubai Sunday morning, and took off two hours later for Brisbane. An hour layover and we’re on again, this time to Auckland. It’s nearly 30 hours later, we’ve had about 4 hours sleep and it’s now lunchtime Monday. The brain is no longer working.

Auckland Airport is a marvellous thing. Sure, Dubai terminal 3 is a magnificent structural phenomenon, with walls of glass and two Oases, but Auckland is full of Kiwis. Somehow it’s completely alien and completely at home. I mean, we step off the plane straight into an immigration queue – but it’s efficient. It’s like the twilight zone.

The various officials are happy too. Back in Australia the security staff all looked like they’d had exceptionally bad news and were waiting to take it out on someone (and later on in Birmingham we’d walk into a world full of automatons) but here the immigration guys joked with us about what we were doing. The biosecurity lass was even cooler – we ticked just about all the red boxes we could find on the biosecurity form (food, plant matter, hiking boots, animal contact, living on a farm, smuggling wood) and she cheerfully worked down the list before telling us that we could go on our way.

Free, and into fresh clean New Zealand air. Surprisingly warm air. The Ford Mondeo we hired had air conditioning, so we did the British thing and wound the windows down instead…

20 minutes from the airport was our bed for the first three nights – the Grange Lodge Motel. Now, being British, we’d never been to a motel before and we had no idea what to expect – motels are where Americans live when they get thrown out of their apartments or need somewhere to go brew crystal meth in the coffee pot.

If you find yourself in need of a decent night’s kip in Auckland, give Pat & Bernie a try. A truly friendly welcome, a bloody comfy bed, and a studio style living/dining/cooking area. Most hotels I stay in are either horribly expensive (and not very good) or the predictable boxes of the big chains (and therefore expensive, not very good, and smaller than my room at Uni). This I’d have killed for at Uni. It was probably bigger than our first house…

The next day, we pry ourselves out of bed and go talk to Bernie. The night has been good to us, but apparently we were more travel weary than we felt – we now apparently look 15 years younger. Bernie clarifies a couple of points on NZ’s weird traffic rules and we head off shopping. Since shopping is ultimately boring, we’ll skip on to St Hellier’s beach…

Look at that beach.

Now go back and look at it again.

That’s a sandy beach, on a Tuesday lunchtime, in a high 20s heat. It’s 10 minutes away from the centre of Auckland. So I ask you, “where are all the people?”

It’s actually a question we kept asking ourselves while we were away – why is this beautiful resource, which is readily available to everyone, not jammed solid with students, the unemployed, and the elderly? Can you imagine any beach in the UK being that empty? Now realise that the water is crystal clear instead of the brown sludge that you get on an English beach…

The reason, we realised, is that there are only 4 million Kiwis, so you could spread them evenly across every beautiful location, and there’d still be no-one on that beach. When you put a quarter of the population (of both islands) in Auckland, it leaves no-one else to visit the beauty in the other parts of the country. Except for gawking tourists…

We did what every well adjusted tourist does next – we went shopping.

Auckland CBD (the Central Business District – or city centre) is the busiest in the country and Queen Street is the busiest shopping street in the city. Now, I’ll admit that we were there on a Tuesday afternoon, but I’ve genuinely seen Cambridge busier on a Sunday. It’s partly an illusion because the pavements are nearly as wide as the carriageways and the shops supply welcoming shadows to shelter you from the sun, but you could still have dropped a dozen Oxford Street’s in there and had space to spare.

This is the old Ferry building in the docks. Pretty, isn’t it. I wish I could tell you more about it, but I was hot and tired and just thought it looked nice.

It was time to move on, so we decided to go play in the rush hour traffic – a strange exercise that we would attempt will alarming regularity. What we actually ended up doing was staging the first part of a 13 day torture exercise on our annoying Aussie sat-nav, Karen. Karen, you see, had been told to avoid motorways and u-turns at all costs, so driving the wrong way up a motorway was a surprisingly effective way to drive her insane. That Tuesday’s attempt took us over the harbour bridge to Devonport – the side of the bay that was, until the bridge, only accessible by ferryboat or 2 hour drive.

It’s an area full of nice houses, almost certainly full of well paid execs from the CBD. Cool breezes, big houses, lots of green and a view of the harbour. I wanted to stay there forever.

Sadly, my camera decided that focussing was not something it wanted to do (something connected to the polariser I was using) so the best photo I have is this stunning paparazzi snap of Jean…

We spent an hour or more sat there, staring at the Auckland skyline, watching the ferry bring weary workers home, and wondering how the commuter on a jet-ski would get it off the beach.

Part 2 : Army Bay; driving Karen mad; the Peha Lion; and Fairy Footsteps Falls.

I’ve just spent the last two weeks upside down in the wonderful world that is New Zealand.

Stories, pictures and other excitement will happen in the next couple of weeks but I’m currently shattered and surviving on sugar and chocolate, so here’s a quick rundown…

The great bits

• The countryside is incredible and changes round every corner
• The roads are fantastic and virtually empty
• Everything is dirt cheap compared to the UK (our most expensive night – in an antique filled half a house – was £90)
• The people are ridiculously relaxed and friendly
• OMG cute girls

The less great bits

• The hire car was a gutless automatic Mondeo that took 2 seconds to change gear and convinced me overtaking was better left for other people.
• Random Americanizations. Like eggplant and pants. But not courgettes, which confused the feck out of me.
• That sun is hot…
• Erm… nothing else. If I’m picky, I’d say that the roads are too long and there aren’t enough long boring bits, but that’s like saying that a theme park has too many rollercoasters and not enough park benches.

HEROES DRINKING GAME:

• Drink every time someone is given additional powers to get the writer’s out of a corner.
• Drink every time a major plot line is completely abandoned (Claire’s a lesbian right?)
• Drink every time a character’s consistently evil past is ignored and someone gives them another chance to screw them over.
• Drink every time a Hero could have solved a problem by ACTUALLY USING THEIR SUPER POWERS but chose not to.
• Drink every time Hiro’s brain tumor is cured by a dream (so far this has only happened once).
• Drink every time you get fucking sick of reading ALL of Hiro and Ando’s dialog in subtitles WE TOTALLY GET IT, THEY’RE JAPANESE!!!
• Drink every time Claire seems to forget that her blood cures death in others, so it really doesn’t matter if anyone she cares about dies.
• Drink every time you have no idea who Noah works for any more.
• Drink every time it’s obvious the FX budget has run out and they show a “power” off screen or with simple lighting effects.
• Drink every time a characters actions completely betray any previous character development (WARNING: This is guaranteed to kill you).

Many moons ago, when I was about five or six years old (beds were made with sheets and blankets; my grandmother still had all her marbles; and the Model T was still in production) my grandmother came up to tuck me in to bed.

As part of the tucking in process, she pulled the blankets up said “you’ll catch your death if you don’t have your shoulders covered”.

I spent the next few years terrified to go to sleep, certain in the knowledge that I’d die if my ’soldjers’ weren’t always covered…

I don’t think I’ve ever made two batches that are the same. It’s beans, meat and sauce after all. So… here’s the one that we just spent the last two days eating…

• 1 x 5.5 litre slow cooker
• A huuuge number of beans. Traditionally Haricot beans but the ones we get in the UK are tiny, so…
  • 3 x tins Butter beans (Lima beans?), 260g drained
  • 2 x tins Haricot beans, 290g drained
  • 1 x tins Black beans, 260g drained
• A crapload of meat, preferably fatty. Confit of duck is traditional but expensive, so…
  • 200g paprika spiced sausages (not an air dried Chorizo, but a fresh Chorizo or Merguez type)
  • 700g pork belly rashers
  • 2 big duck breasts (gresingham duck ftw)
• Then some tomato type sauce
  • 2 x 400g tins of tomatoes
  • 4 x tbsp tomato puree
  • 1/2 litre of vegetable stock
  • couple of glasses of wine (red, white, whatever… I tend to use cheap port actually…)
  • couple of teaspoons of paprika (I heart La Chinata smoked paprika)
  • two bundles of bouquet garni
  • a couple of bay leaves

Right…

Brown the sausages. Cut them into 2 inch lengths.

Fry the belly slices fat side down ’til it crisps up a bit, then seal the sides. Cut into 2 inch lengths.

Fry the duck, fat side down ’til it crisps, then seal the sides and cut into 3/4 inch thick slices.

Throw it all into the slow cooker.

Wash all the beans in fresh water. Throw them into the slow cooker.

Take all the sauce items and throw then in too.

Go to bed.

When you wake up, go to the bathroom, get dressed, turn on the slow cooker, go to work.

Come home with a stick of French bread and eat it with hot cassoulet.

The first problem was a recurring issue with dog walkers and our land. The details are long and tedious, but we did have one of the local dog walkers give at 20 minute long speech in which she said “I’m not suggesting you are all corrupt, but…” and then listed things she considered us to be corrupt over.

Later we had to deal with the precept (our chunk of the council tax charge). This year, our precept on a Band-D property is £70.

The problem is that for the last ten years we’ve set the precept too low, so our funds are running much lower than they should do, and we’ve increased our expenses this year. According to our budgetary team, we need a 20% increase in precept to stand still. To build our reserves back up, another councillor proposed (and I seconded) a 25-30% one-off rise in precept for next year. Not one person agreed with us.

The reason seemed to be that the council are worried that people won’t be able to afford it. At the very top end, that would be £1.50 a month extra for a Band-D or 97p for a Band-A. What’s that? A quarter of a packet of smokes? A bottle of knock-off cola?

No, the council instead decided to go for a 15% increase.

I’m sure it’s entirely co-incidental that the entire council is up for election in three months time. I’m sure that no-one would favour a low precept to keep the electorate sweet instead of setting it high enough that we could actually bloody do something…

These were the 27th, and the only photos I liked from a twenty minute session and nearly 60 photos…

15.5oz / 440g can of unsweetened chestnut puree
6oz / 175g unsalted butter
4oz / 115g castor sugar
8oz / 230g plain chocolate (75% works well)
2 tbsp brandy

Melt chocolate over simmering water.

Beat butter in a bowl ’til creamy. Add sugar and beat it ’til light & fluffy. Add chestnut puree and beat it until thoroughly mixed.

Add melted chocolate and brandy. Mix thoroughly.

Get a 2lb loaf tin. Display just enough incompetence that your wife lines the tin with greaseproof and rub with butter.

Pour the whole lot in the tin, put some more paper on top, put some foil over the whole lot and stick it in the fridge for at least 8 hours.

Give the bowl & spatula to wife to clean as apology…

In unrelated news, while searching Flickr for a picture, I discovered this. Why did no-one tell me about this…?

The first I knew of it was when I walked in to the 3 storey Cambridge store to find the place stripped. 80% of the popular stock & 50% of the rest is gone. Everything is discounted by between 20 & 50%.

And that rather explains their disappearance. Even so discounted, everything I wanted was cheaper on Amazon, so I added it to my wishlist instead of buying it instore.

Borders has, to me, always been a fancy library with a coffeeshop and a till for me to pay an “i want it now” premium.

And even then Waterstones had better coffee and a more library-like feel.

They couldn’t keep up their original low prices & they didn’t have great coffee, stock or atmosphere. In fact, the only irreplaceable facet was their superb collection of periodicals…

So, goodbye Borders. You’ll be missed, but you were hardly a Fopp.

Only 50 of these will be made. It’s got a 2 litre V twin engine, weighs just over 200kg and has 183nm of torque. And it looks bloody beautiful. Cory Doctorow would have SteamPunk-gasm…

You’ve got to give it to these crazy foreigners… they have a certain way with stupidly large engines. Yes, we could probably make something similar over here, but it would be like the Japanese version – a 1 litre engine that revs to 20,000 and screams like a banshee. If this doesn’t sound like Godzilla destroying Tokyo I’ll be very, very disappointed…

No idea as to who owns it, other than it is used on this page from The Cool Hunter…

Back on 18th November, my grandmother died – less than 10 months after my grandfather. I’m not the oldest member of our branch of this rather depressing little tree.

There’s my wife and me (who aren’t planning on having kids), my brother is rapidly approaching 30 and yet to settle. Both our parents were single children – mum through adoption. It’s hardly a thicket we’re discussing here.

Going back up the family name, my grandfather’s only brother died during WWII without having kids, and I think their father was the only boy in the family. Our little branch of a relatively rare surname (50 entries in the UK phonebooks) look like it lies just on our shoulders.

Our plans have to change too… there’s no way I can afford to take on the half million pound house that I grew up in, so it’s getting sold off.

One way or another, everything has changed in the last fortnight…

So, after half deafening myself on the way to work this morning, I started thinking about songs that would (if played back to back) lead to the destruction of my speakers. This update is cunningly being written at 11pm so that I can’t turn the music up for fear of upsetting our neighbour (who just happens to be the landlord’s daughter).

For fairly obvious reasons, this list is a little light on ballads. :)

So… in no particular order…

Dire Straits – Money for Nothing (the long version)
There’s just something about that crescendo at the beginning that means it has to be played loud. And then some serious rocking out. :)

Baby D – Let me be your fantasy (the relatively rare original)
I’m a sucker for Happy Hardcore.

Unk vs. Avril Lavigne vs. Toni Basil
Yes, really. Assuming I’m on an open enough road that I don’t feel self concious, this goes up worryingly loud..

Gossip – Careless Whisper
Possibly a bit random as far as most people are concerned, but dear god I love this song. And dear god has Beth Ditto got a set of lungs on her…

The Who – Baba O’riley
Yes, I have something of a weakness for solos and drums…

Nina Simone – Sinnerman
There’s only one rule for this – it has to be the 10 minute version that has a scat breakdown.

TISM – Everyone Else Has Had More Sex Than Me
Australia’s greatest export? Maybe. Especially if we reclaim Colin Hay as our own.

Franka Potente & Thomas D – Believe
From the soundtrack of that wonderfully low budget German movie “Lola rennt”.

The Grid – Swamp Thing
The Grid never really made it in America. I’m not really surprised. Do me a favour and ignore the 90s crazy dance video, eh?

Propellerheads – History Repeating

Touch & Go – Would You…? (Trailermen go to Rio mix)
Some of my love of latin shines through…

DJ Korsakoff – Carmina Burana
Okay… lets get this over and done with. This is the best of a collection of crappy versions of this track. On the plus side, I doubt many of you will last long enough to get to the crappy bit. We’ll just say that this is best left til the end of the night…

And it’s now 12.30, so I think we should stop risking the roof over my head and call it a night…

It’s not just me, is it…?

So, imagine my delight at seeing this on BoingBoing…

Creative Commons picture from flickr user wmjas

There’s one thing that Starbucks has done that will forever benefit the world – it introduced me to the wonders of Chai Lattes. Okay… maybe that doesn’t benefit the entire world…

So, you’ll need:

• 6 cups water
• 6 good quality black tea bags (but nothing ’scented’ like Earl Grey)
• 2tsp ground cinnamon
• a dozen cloves
• ’some’ grated ginger (accurate quantities are for the soft :) )
• 2 bay leaves
• 12 peppercorns
• 10 cardemom pods
• ’some’ honey (Last time I added a frightening 10 tbps of lime blossom honey, which seemed about right)
• 6tbsp vanilla essence (and don’t look at the price label)

Following the tradition of easy ‘recipes’:

• Put the water in a pan and bring to the boil
• Throw the teabags in
• After 5 minutes or so, add everything but the vanilla
• Simmer (and stir) for half an hour
• Hook everything out and add the vanilla
• Leave to cool

Use to taste, but I’ve been adding 3tbsp to a pint of milk for chilled lattes. If you’re making it hot then you may want slightly more syrup, but you may want to cut down on the honey (because cold food tastes less sweet than hot).

Today was a good day.

The cats levered us out of bed just before lunch, demands for breakfast merging with demands for the lunchtime meal that they never get.

For lunch we went off to the incredible King William pub in Heydon. It’s a pub embedded firmly in the past (even it’s website is lingering in the mid 90s). It’s exactly as it was when I first went there 15 years ago – the gloom in the in entrance hall, the beams threatening to brain me, the horse brasses on every wall, the hanging tables and the huge fireplace. The menu is the same too…

I know how dull it is to listen to someone else’s food choices, but this was beyond all descriptions… Beef sashimi with chilli jam; local sausages with bubble and squeak; and a jaffa cake bread and butter pudding. I’ve possibly never eaten any better.

Bread and butter pudding is traditionally a thick stodgy mess or carbs and fat. This horrifically rich sounding version was actually the lightest bread and butter pudding I’ve ever had, almost having the texture of a light but rich moist cake.

And by god, it’s perfect weather for a pint of Adnam’s Bitter to go with it all.

Then over to Wood Green at Heydon to be tempted by cats looking for a home. I can’t say enough good things about Wood Green – they’re everything that the RSPCA should be, but aren’t. They ignore the politics that the RSPCA has embraced, and instead dedicate their time to looking after animals. They went even higher in my estimation when I discovered that they never put down an animal just because they can’t rehome it. They have one pair there who have lived with them for over seven years. They got our yearly anniversary gift this year…

Then, this evening, we travelled in to Cambridge to watch “Cloudy with a chance of meatballs” – a truly wonderful film – and to eat ice cream for dinner.

Who needs to be a grown up…?

Once upon a time, there was a woman who had a horse. So she bought some land off the council and got planning permission to build some stables on it. The council said ‘yes’ but put a restriction on the application which banned use as a business property. She built her stables and rode her horses. All was fine.

8 years later, a new owner comes along and puts their horses on the land. They realise that the stables don’t match the plans, so they apply to the council for retroactive approval on the grounds it has been up for more than 4 years and no-one has noticed. They get a letter back saying the stables are now fine and the old planning permission is null and void.

4 years further on and a local dispute kicks off about the stables. There is much pushing and shoving. Much of it may be relevant, but little looks provable. One of the things that is brought up is that the new owner is now running a livery stables and riding school from the stables. Which is obviously illegal.

Except, it turns out that it isn’t.

When the council voided the old planning permission, they voided the business restriction at the same time, so there are no restrictions on what can happen there.

“Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First fifteen you can recall in no more than 15 minutes”

Well, that’s not going to happen. Partly because I’m a rebel who breaks the rules for the shear damned hell of it, and partly because I’m lying in bed typing thing into my PDA. 60wpm this is not…

1. Mort – Terry Pratchett.
   I think that this was pretty much my first wander off into the fantasy side of SciFi/Fantasy. Before that I’d tended to read ST:TNG books and bad James Bond clones. I really identified with Mort, despite the fact the only thing we had in common was our gender.
2. The BFG – Roald Dahl
   I was about 9 when my grandfather announced that I could either have £1 a week pocket money or a paperback book once a fortnight. Some basic maths proved that £4.99 was more than £2, so I started collecting books. The BFG was the first purchase and possibly my favourite. It rapidly became my favoured ‘bath book’. As the steam and occasional dunkings took their toll, the pages eventually crinkled and fell out like square popadoms… It didn’t matter – I’d memorised the book by then.
3. Freelance Photography – John Morrison
   Yeah… This will be the time i convinced my parents to buy me pornography. We went to Galloway & Porter one day and I found this book. Inside was a picture of some side-boob poking out of a catsuit and a photo of a nude woman in the middle distance of a landscape. Like I said, pornography. At some point I actually read it and started thinking about photographs instead of album snaps.
   I’ve just found the book on the shelves in the study. The nude figure is all of 3/4″ tall and the catsuit is significantly less revealing than an old episode of Dukes of Hazard…
4. Engineering Electromagnetism – Badden Fuller
   This is possibly the most boring book written by the worst lecturer I ever had. This was a man who could put a room full of caffeine fuelled students to sleep in minutes. To make it worse, he loved his (by then out of print) book and had us mark important passages in highlighter. I quickly realised that if you could borrow someone else’s book, you didn’t need to go. So I didn’t. In fact, I forgot about his class until 2 days before the exam. Thankfully his exams were as predictable as his lectures. I memorised 2 past papers and walked a 2.1 grade in the exam. I still don’t know any electromag.
   Rather worryingly, it would appear that the book is back in print. My heart goes out to the new generation of engineering students…
5. An Utterly Impartial History of Britain: (or 2000 Years of Upper Class Idiots in Charge) – John O’Farrell
   I’m re-reading this book at the moment. It’s pretty much the antidote to school history lessons. Just now I’ve been reading about how Pitt was responsible in part for the French Revolution by beating the French in the Americas, and how the main purpose of the Declaration of Independence wasn’t freedom itself, but to get the French involved – a tax squabble was boring. Civil war, however? That they could get behind.
6. LogoLounge2
   This list isn’t going the same way as Liam’s. I’m not sure why, because I do read a lot of fiction. Maybe it’s because I tend to read to unwind and end up reading fluff. Anyway, I bought this because it was cheap and had lots of logos I thought I could steal. As it happened it got me thinking about shapes and colours instead.
7. Death: The High Cost of Living – Neil Gaiman
   Once again, I spent some time wandering aimlessly round Waterstones while my parents were looking for something or other deeply boring. I discovered a ‘comic’. Except it didn’t involve wizzo pranks and fart jokes. It was a rather cute looking interpretation of Death. I was embarrassed to be seen reading a ‘comic’ so stuffed it back on the shelf as soon as my parents reappeared. It took me another ten years to work out what it was… by which time I’d demolished a stack of Gaiman and Moore creations. I still think Death is cute.
8. the Dexter books – Jeff Lindsey
   Another recent discovery, I’ve taken to this character incredibly. The cold detachment from the rest of humanity makes Dexter a wonderful subject of fiction. Lindsay has a knack of writing uncensored thought processes that you find yourself agreeing with so frequently you start wondering if you could be a killer too. Or is that just me? Oh pipe down and hand me that Sabatier.
9. Austin Allegro – Haynes Publishing
   Yes, it’s a bit of a left turn down Vaytay Eff Strasse, but I loved that book. Which was handy considering how often I used it. Haynes manuals are a wonderful world where every car can be fixed by a man with a screwdriver and a beard. A world where every nut comes undone and any issue can be fixed with WD-40 and a mug of PGTips. You could guess that I like the books. My first one taught me that cars aren’t magic boxes full of petrol eating pixies. It was also responsible for the dashboard falling off at 85mph. It was just like ‘Back to the Future’ but with cheaper special effects…
10. Classic Cuban Cuisine – Andy Gravette
    I bought this book just before we went to Cuba for our honeymoon. I’m told (by Cubans and Mexicans) that it is more Mexican than Cuban, but I love this little book. It’s full of chillies, rum and typographical mistakes (don’t add 2 tablespoons of Tabasco to that dish – it will hurt). It’s full of memories & expectations. One day I’ll eat my way through the entire book.
11. A Year in the Merde – Stephen Clarke
    Okay… The general premise is that a Londoner gets snapped up by a French company that wants to create an English tea-shop. What happens next is a random collection of clichés and smart observations of French life. Interestingly, a lot of ex-pats in France hate this book while a lot of the French seem to love it. It’s a strange world.
12. A Year in Provence / Toujours Provence – Peter Mayle
    Despite looking like a cheat, this isn’t actually an attempt to put two books in one slot. No, it’s actually an admission that I don’t remember where the first book ends. The exact opposite of Merde Actually, the Provence books were wonderful escapism. Every year my parents took us down to the south of France for two weeks. Then we spent another 50 weeks staring at rain. This book and its watercolours were a wonderful antidote…
13. A Beginner’s Guide to Acting English – Shappi Khorsandi
    This book is a very strange read for me. Shappi was born just three years before me. While I was living in a town just north of London, she was living in the middle of London. My father was a second rate surveyor. Hers was barred from Iran due to his satiristic writings. The things she writes about are so familiar and yet so completely alien…
14. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind – Chuck Barris
    This is another book that I love for it’s memories as much as for the book itself. I read this laying on the beach in Cuba, gently burning in a wonderfully relaxing 38c. Hot sun but wonderful cool, topped up with an endless supply of Mojitos. It’s burnt into my head because I was halfway through before I realised Barris claims responsibility for killing at least one of Fidel’s revolutionary buddies. That’ll be when I realised that maybe I shouldn’t leave all my books in the resort library…
15. As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela: Underground Adventures in the Arms and Torture Trade – Mark Thomas
    If you don’t already know Mark Thomas, well… erm… 1, 2, 3.
]]> http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/09/15-books-a-meme/feed/ 1 http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/09/university/ http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/09/university/#comments Wed, 09 Sep 2009 13:57:11 +0000 pjm http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/?p=398 It’s strange how one piece of post can change your day.

This morning I was an University drop out who wasn’t getting anywhere fast with the Open University. I had grades at the OU that I was disappointed in and I was looking through the list of level one courses.

Lunchtime I got a letter from my old Uni (Leicester) with a transcript of my grades. A phone call to the OU confirmed that they’d accept up to 240 credits from other sources. Suddenly I had 190 credits towards a 360 credit degree.

Looking back over my OU sheets, the course I was deeply disappointed with was actually a 2.1 (for you forners, UK grades go 1st, 2.1, 2.2, 3rd, fail).

Suddenly I’m at the end of my 2nd year with a 2.1 average and looking at level 3 courses…

As Ladysmith Black Mambazo are currently singing in my ears “Happy day, oh happy day. Happy day, oh happy day. ” (ad nauseum)

]]> http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/09/university/feed/ 1 http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/09/the-day-the-food-came/ http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/09/the-day-the-food-came/#comments Tue, 01 Sep 2009 11:18:46 +0000 pjm http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/?p=389 I’d like to present a short play entitled “The day the food came”…

You can have as many ‘actors’ as you wish, however they fit into four roles: Big Fish; Little Fish; cardboard box; Shrimp; Live Food.

In the première, Big fish was played by Mollies and Platys; Little Fish was played by baby Mollies, baby Platys, Enders Guppies and some tetras; Shrimp were played by some, erm, shrimp; and Live Food was performed by by daphnies and brine shrimp…

Shrimp :
   “The food god is coming. We can feel his presence in the ground”.
BigFish & LittleFish :
   “Food? Food!”
Shrimp :
   “Be patient… the food god doesn’t only bring food. Sometimes he brings death or small ornaments.”
BigFish & LittleFish :
   “Foooooood!”
Shrimp :
   *sigh*

Meanwhile, elsewhere…

LiveFood :
   “It’s got brighter. And warmer. We must be out of the fridge. Wake up guys. Wake up! Ergh – that’s not Bob, that’s an empty shell. Warming up, we’re warming up, we must be about to escape to the great oceans our great * X^⁸⁷⁵⁸⁵ grandfathers told us about!”

Back in the tank…

BigFish & LittleFish :
   “Foooooooooooooooooooooood?”
Shrimp :
   “The ground moves again…”
BigFish & LittleFish :
   “Foooooooooooooooooooooood!”

LiveFood enter stage… top.

LiveFood :
   “We’re free!”
BigFish :
   “More mouths to feed? Damn.”
LittleFish :
   “Hello! Do you want to be friends?”
Shrimp :
   “Oo, these old shells are tasty…”
BigFish & LittleFish :
   “They’re edible? Omnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom”
LiveFood :
   “Nooooooooo…!”
BigFish & LittleFish :
   “Omnomnomnomnomnomnomnomnom”
…
BigFish & LittleFish :
   “Nom?”
…
BigFish & LittleFish :
   “Where’d all the food go?”
Shrimp :
   “Some say the Food God bringeth and he taketh away. Others think you’ve gutsed the lot.”

BigFish :
   “There must be something else to eat…?”
LittleFish :
   “Nooooooooo…!”

]]> http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/09/the-day-the-food-came/feed/ 2 http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/08/family-face-bmw-e-series-saloons-and-coupes/ http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/08/family-face-bmw-e-series-saloons-and-coupes/#comments Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:02:49 +0000 pjm http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/?p=383 BMW New Series (1962 – 1976)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user dave_7 ]

BMW E3/E9 (1968 – 1977)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Gareth & Rebekah ]

BMW E12 (1972 – 1981)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user sweens308 ]

BMW E21 (1975 – 1983)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user shebab ]

BMW E24 (1976 – 1989)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user DocKeR47 ]

BMW E23 (1977 – 1986)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user jesuspark ]

BMW E26 (1978 – 1981)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Toni P1 ]

BMW E28 (1981 – 1988)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user KillerPM ]

BMW E30 (1982 – 1994)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user motoyen ]

BMW E32 (1986 – 1994)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Sherlock77 (James) ]

BMW E34 (1988 – 1996)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user barjack ]

BMW E31 (1989 – 1999)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user volnick1986 ]

BMW E36 (1990 – 2000)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Ham Hock ]

BMW E38 (1994 – 2001)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user timheuer ]

BMW E39 (1995 – 2004)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user the_gorilla ]

BMW E46 (1998 – 2006)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user brigaid ]

BMW E85 (2002 – 2008)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user ]

BMW E65 (2002 – 2008)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user plien ]

BMW E63 (2003 – )

[ creative commons picture from flickr user xrrr ]

BMW E60 (2004 – )

[ creative commons picture from flickr user plien ]

BMW E81/E82 (2004 – 2007)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user wongdood ]

BMW E86 (2006 – 2008)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user rimblas ]

BMW E89 (2009 – )

[ creative commons picture from flickr user k_LAU ]

]]> http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/08/family-face-bmw-e-series-saloons-and-coupes/feed/ 1 http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/canadian-subaru-advert/ http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/canadian-subaru-advert/#comments Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:00:15 +0000 pjm http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/?p=381
]]> http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/canadian-subaru-advert/feed/ 0 http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/annie-mashup/ http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/annie-mashup/#comments Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:34:58 +0000 pjm http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/?p=379 I’m pretty sure that the only Annie Lennox song I know is “Walking on Broken Glass”, but this is seven kinds of cool.

Annie Lennox has given her master tapes over to DJ Earworm and let him go nuts with them. The result is the above linked Backwards Forwards.

It’s a nice little mashup, but it’s much, much cooler that one artist has given another artist the ability to do something cool with her work. Come on musicians – stop hiding behind copyright rules and be creative…!

]]> http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/annie-mashup/feed/ 0 http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/dulche-de-leche-brownies/ http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/dulche-de-leche-brownies/#comments Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:12:04 +0000 pjm http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/?p=375 There are times when I wonder what the hell I’m thinking. Deciding to cook a cake for the first time would be one of those times. Choosing to make it brownies would make it worse. You can guess that using a Portuguese recipe didn’t convince me it was any more sane an idea.

Still, if I can make it work, I’m guessing anyone can…

2/3 cup (115g) butter, chopped
6 ounces (170g) chocolate, chopped (I used a mix of G&B 70% and G&B Butterscotch)
1/4 cup (25g) good quality cocoa powder
3 large eggs
1 cup (200g) sugar (I prefer an unrefined caster or demerara sugar)
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup (140g) plain flour
1 cup Dulce de Leche (or Cajeta)

Heat the oven to 180c.

Line a 8-inch (20 cm) square pan with non-stick baking parchment with two strips at right angles to cover the bottom and sides of the pan.

Use a bain marie to melt the butter and chocolate.

Remove from heat and use an electric whisk to whisk in the cocoa. Then do the same with the eggs, one by one, then stir in the sugar, vanilla, and the flour. [I've been told that I should have used a hand whisk to make them lighter - I have no idea if this is true, but they tasted good attacked by a 'leccie whisk...]

Pour half the tasty gloop in the pan, then drop dollops of the dulche all over the pan. Use a knife to smooth it across pan, not getting too close to the edges. Then pour the rest of the mixture across the top.

Bake for 35 to 40 min.

The brownies are done when the centre has a slight crust and just starts to feel firm. Without letting the brownies cool, use the parchment to lift the brownies out of the pan and onto a cooling rack.

]]> http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/dulche-de-leche-brownies/feed/ 0 http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/family-face-jeep-jeep-wrangler/ http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/family-face-jeep-jeep-wrangler/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:32:03 +0000 pjm http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/?p=372 This time you’re getting no hints since this makes the Land Rover one look complicated… :)

Jeep CJ-2A (1945-1949)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user MrBigDog2k ]

Jeep CJ-3A (1949-1953)

Jeep CJ-5 (1954-1983)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user jacksnell ]

Jeep CJ-7 (1976-1986)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user dave_7 ]

Jeep Wrangler YJ (1987–1995)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Jim Epler ]

Jeep Wranger TJ (1997–2006)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user H-Y-P-E ]

Jeep Wrangler JK (2007–present)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user SandShoes ]

]]> http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/family-face-jeep-jeep-wrangler/feed/ 0 http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/family-face-alfa-romeo/ http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/family-face-alfa-romeo/#comments Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:15:22 +0000 pjm http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/?p=365 Next up, lets take a look at 60 years of Alfa Romeos. We’re looking at the inverted tear drop shape of the grille and the position of the headlights…

Alfa Romeo 1900 (1950–1959)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user HenryFigueroa ]


Alfa Romeo Giulietta (1954–1965)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Count Rushmore ]

Alfa Romeo 2000 (1958–1961)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Count Rushmore ]

Alfa Romeo 2600 (1961–1968)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user daviddaviddaviddaviddavid ]

Alfa Romeo 2000GTV (1971–1977)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user "ANITA.trans - My way of life" ]

Alfa Romeo Alfetta (1976–1980)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Templar1307 ]

Alfa Romeo 75 (1985-1992)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user dave 7 ]

Alfa Romeo 145 (1994–2001)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Pete B Robinson Photography ]

Alfa Romeo 156 (1997–2007)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Ruud Raats ]

Alfa Romeo 147 (2000-present)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user Morphey ]

Alfa Romeo 159 (2005-present)

[ creative commons picture from flickr user sgatto ]

]]> http://sodiumlightsthehorizon.co.uk/cms/2009/07/family-face-alfa-romeo/feed/ 0