My friend Ali’s fuel-price finding app made it onto Radio 4 last weekend (last 10 mins). I didn’t know Ali had an app, but was pleased for him that it got some profile (and apparently lots of new downloads), and even more pleased that it seems useful – it helps you find cheap petrol based on reports from other app users. Hampshire seems pretty well covered by Fuelsmart’s users so it’s going to be bought soon.
More info in this helpful review or on the website.
Regular readers and friends know that I am quite a connected person. I use the Internet in more ways than people think it should be possible to use the Internet and so one of the principal aspects of living in the countryside (other than distance from friends and the commute) that I struggle with is the broadband connectivity. I went from a 20meg line in W2 to a 2.5meg line in Hampshire – a mere 60 miles apart, as the crow flies.
I had therefore been hotly anticipating coming out of contract with O2 Broadband so I could stump up the extra cash for BT Infinity, BT’s new vDSL service that – via fibre to the street and a VDSL link, I believe – delivers up to 40 meg download speeds. For me, it’d be a mere 22meg (with 6 meg uploads!), but still – a massive improvement on what I have now.
My contract is due to expire in September so I had planed to hit go this month to get things moving. On looking into it, however, my friends at O2 – which does have really quite excellent customer service and I’ve had no problems with otherwise – have offered me six months free broadband if I renew with them for another year. Which puts the total cost of my broadband service for the year at £75 – given that I already have an O2 mobile as well.
BT’s equivalent Infinity service, whilst obviously seven or eight times faster, therefore costs four times as much! At £28 per month, even with the three months free offer they’re doing – I’ll be facing a charge of £250 for the year. I’d expected a 100% premium, but O2’s promotion has made it significantly more.
I suspect I’ll relent – occasionally working from home helps the self-rationalization, as faster broadband is needed for effective VPN-ning in, not to mention the fact I’ll be able to get iPlayer HD again (I miss it, I do) and get a more reliable Skype Video and FaceTime calling service out of the house.
Does anyone out there have BT Infinity? My previous experiences of BT’s broadband service – admittedly quite out of date – was that it was expensive, has unreachable customer service, and that it hardly ever delivers what it promises. I’d be wedded to their hardware too, as I suspect that vDSL modems are not the sort of thing you can buy from Dabs.com (disclaimer: agency client. And actually, you can, but they cost a fortune).
I’m not in a Virgin cable area so BT have me right where they want me. I wonder how long before someone rules that choice in Next Generation Access is a right of the British citizen and forces BT to open up the market or take its prices down… C’mon Ofcom, rear your regulatory head.
Those who have any interest in my regular produce updates might think it is (figuratively speaking) all a garden of roses. But there have been some failures, too.
Specifically: a whole crop of rocket fell victim to a weird creeping weed, as did half a crop of carrot seedlings. I don’t know what these things are but they’re small and insidious to begin with but as they grow they dominate and choke the life out of the other plants. Both those patches have had the equivalent of a gardening carpet bomb dropped on them – total rakeover.
Yesterday, our – to date quite successful – courgette plant (pictured) said its last farewell. Whilst it had done well for a time, something was afflicting it: it had stopped flowering and all its leaves were sprouting and growing out withered and filled with holes. No idea what the problem was… But as luck would have it, we had a second courgette seedling that had been sitting in its pot in the greenhouse awaiting a planting opportunity, which it duly got last night. We’ll see what happens.
There are also a couple of plants that I don’t think will come to (literal) fruition this summer. The chilli plants I think just went in too late – whilst the four or five we have are doing rather well, there’s no sign of flower or fruiting. The aubergine plant has been sitting sad and sullen in its greenhouse bag all summer and still only stands at about four inches tall. And whilst the pepper plant does have a fruit on it, we think it might be the only one. Its hard to say on the squash and the pumpkin – whilst the plants are doing very well, we planted them very late and they may simply not have time to get to where they need to.
Still, successful tomatoes, cucumbers, rhubarb, carrots, garlic, strawberries, blueberries, apples, plums, courgettes, potatoes (not to mention chives, sage, parsley, coriander, mint, oregano) is not a bad crop for a first summer of gardening…
Summer commuting has been significantly more tolerable. Whether its because everyone’s on vacation or people are leaving later, the journey into work at least is less crowded, less anti-social, and comes with a guaranteed seat. The journey home is more or less the usual scramble, but when you’re travelling for 2.5 hours per day, you’ve got to count your blessings where they come…
I’ll keep this spoiler free, don’t worry. Just a quick not to say: I’m absolutely loving the latest book. Totally worth the wait (admittedly I only read the other Song of Ice and Fire books last year, but still…) Mr R R Martin’s story has such incredible scope, action, intrigue, convolutions and resolutions – it’s an amazingly satisfying read. Creating the tableau of the Seven Kingdoms was complicated enough, but delivering such a wide range of characters which the readers can find themselves invested in (who thought anyone would care what would happen to Theon Greyjoy after the events of the previous books?) is a truly remarkable feat.
I tip my proverbial hat to you sir.
As I get to within the last couple of hundred pages (yes, it’s a long book) my only worry is what to read next to take away the pain of the wait until volume six comes out…
My cousin Sumisha, studying in Australia, writes a fascinating piece on dual citizenship for her student union paper – dual citizenship is illegal in Malaysia, Iran and 58 other countries, apparently. As someone that holds a different passport to his wife and daughter this is an issue close to my heart, and, apart from the pride in seeing my cousin write such an insightful and interesting article, there are some really interesting questions raised in this piece.
Questions like – what would your perception of your Nationality be if you had dual citizenship? Which would you give up if you were forced to? Should dual citizenship be legal everywhere? These are asked and answered by Sumisha’s interviewees. In both cases, if forced to choose, they would choose their adoptive countries (less repressive and more wealthy regimes) over their birth nations, although their sense of personal identity seems to lie with the countries they grew up in.
For me, my links to Malaysia may never completely fade, but they are not ones I’m particularly proud of, as you’ll know if you’ve read my relatively recent posts on Sarawak, on the obedience club, on Bersih and beyond. My "national" identity stems more from my family than the Nation of my birth and I hold more ‘loyalty’ to the country I live in now than Malaysia (although National loyalty is rarely a thing that is tested beyond choosing which team to support at football friendlies). And indeed, many of the good things in Malaysia remain the legacy of British colonization.
Although perhaps the judicial and governmental systems they left us were too mature for our leaders, who seem to prefer autocracy and corruption.
Anyway, go read my cousin’s article. Sumisha, mate, good one. This is the best shrimp on the barbie yet. Too easy.
As an afterthought, I give you this music video – almost from down under too:
My Rumblers ‘Pots of Love’ arrived this week, following a pitch by email from their marketing team. The review samples (which I didn’t pay for) arrived in a refrigerated box at work, which was a pleasant surprise and was appropriately dramatic.
The pots, which were targeted at me following my Moma review, are a slightly different portable breakfast proposition. They’re essentially a pot of granola with a separate live yoghurt pot which you shake up and pour over. Whilst it may be a bit wasteful on the packaging front, soggy granola is no granola worth eating, so I’m in favour of the innovation. They are “oatally delicious”, and as you all know, I love a good pun.
Tastewise, I was braced for the sourness of bio-live yoghurt, but the sweetness of the granola and the accompanying fillings (I’ve been sent Belgian chocolate and a variety of berry flavours) totally take the edge of this and leave you with a breakfast that has a satisfying crunch but a good amount of yoghurt goodness too. In short, very yummy. Of the two I’ve tasted so far, Belgian choc is my favourite – large chunks of believably Belgian chocolate – although the strawberry one is pretty delicious too.
Healthwise, there are all sorts of fantastic claims on the Rumblers website:
…are packed full of wholemeal fibre, cholesterol reducing oats and the natural goodness of low-fat probiotic yogurt. With no artificial colours or flavourings and no added salt or vegetable fat, these pots of nutritional goodness not only pack an energy boosting punch but they taste like a little bit of heaven.
By my principle measure – a caloric one – they are better than Moma but still on the high side for a not-that-substantial breakfast bowl – about 280KCal per pot. Given that we’re dealing with granola (oat flakes sugared or honeyed into crunchy clumps) and yoghurt instead of milk, I guess its unsurprising that its a bit more dense in calories than a bigger bowl of cereal. But I’m not entirely convinced that it works to keep you full for quite as long as a couple of Weetabix, for example (although it tastes a damn sight better).
I have struggled to find these pots in shops. You see them every now and then in a service station, but their official retail distribution partners in the UK – Asda and Morissons – don’t have them listed on their websites, so I guess you’d need to find them in store. I have no idea on the RRP – I’m guessing they’ll be around the £2 mark, although I’d be happier paying £1.50 for a pot. (Update: Wow, it’s £1.35 per pot. Awesome value)
In short, recommended if you’re not starving and fancy a sweet, crunchy breakfast on the move. Just make sure you have space to chuck all the spare packaging as you construct your meal.
We finally got around to buying our new (second hand) car. It took a while as the specific model we were looking for was relatively rare second hand and we were waiting for one with sensible mileage to turn up at a dealership within easy driving range of us.
Was astonished, in the process, to discover the difference an ‘official’ second hand dealer made. The car we were looking at – a relatively recent (automatic transmission, hence rarity) Golf – had dropped a disproportionately small amount from its ‘as new’ price as far as I could tell. I paused to be astonished at the second-hand value of VWs.
The moment one of our target cars turned up at an independent dealer, a further 10% off the original retail price vanished – for a car with lower mileage than the ones I’d been looking at. I’m avoiding ‘official’ dealers like the plague in the future, although with our current car portfolio we won’t be buying anything for a long while, unless we happen to win the lottery…
Emily got a new friend on the Isle of Wight – George the elephant hand puppet. He’s a jovial chap.
Because her dad can’t make elephant trumpeting noises, a ‘brrrrrrrrrrb’ style raspberry has been introduced to Em as the sound that George makes.
And amazingly, reaching new heights of cuteness, Em’s been repeating the noise, blowing a raspberry right back at me. I know this is probably a perfectly normal stage of development, but her progress into a little person is moving so quickly now its absolutely gobsmacking. It’s cool being a dad.
We watched episode two of Torchwood: Miracle Day on Sunday (still behind, I know, sorry!) and have noted the negative comments appearing on my last post. I’m not sure how fair some of these are – most of them coming from disgruntled longtime fans. Fans: please bear in mind that reinventing a show for a new country, new audience, new production regime, new cast – this is a Hard Thing to do, and I think Russell T Davies et al have been pretty bold with setting up the single premise.
Granted, I’m only two episodes in so don’t know quite how well it’ll sustain itself – the one criticism I thought sounded fair was the idea that the plot of the season might well have washed out happily in a couple of eps – but it feels like its building nicely to me.
Exposition in the early days of a lot of new television series is often slightly painful (it doesn’t need to be but its hard to avoid). The premise needs playing out, the characters need developing, the universe needs staging. It’s understandably frustrating seeing this happen with a show you already know, characters you’ve followed for years. This is one of the reasons that novel adaptations are often (not always) regarded as inferior to the original – they are necessarily different to meet the demands of the new medium – and I think American TV does count as a new medium in some respects.
If we cast our minds back to the early seasons of Torchwood, if we’re being fair, we’ll remember that it was a pretty dire thing that the Beeb had made. And yet it matured by season three into a thing with millions of fans. We’re only up to episode three of the new series – give it a chance, it feels like it’ll weather well.
That said, none of the negative comments indicate people are going to stop watching, so perhaps you are all giving it a chance – just needing a place to vent and lament the passing of the Torchwood of old. To you, I say, if you wanted it to stay made in Britain, you should have been willing to pay a bigger license fee! The BBC couldn’t afford to produce a show like this by itself; heck, even Dr Who only got 1.5 seasons worth of television this year. Auntie is hurting, and admittedly it is a slightly bureaucratic mess at times, but its output is remarkable and I’ll be sad if its star wanes with the cuts we have ahead of us.
FWIW, I’m loving the Beeb’s co-production strategy. I think change is good, if unsettling, and we’ll see a whole new breed of television that works in a way we simply couldn’t manage if we were left to our own devices.