15 September 2008: The Great Gig In The Sky

Pink Floyd founder member Richard Wright has died, aged 65.

He played at Live8 three years ago, although he was very subdued that day, presumably because Roger Waters was back (they didn't like each other much) and he didn't get a microphone. Still, he went touring with Dave Gilmour a lot in the last few years and always had some interesting chord changes up his sleeve. His earlier stuff - probably most famously 'The Great Gig In The Sky' from Dark Side of the Moon - was always musically very interesting and atmospheric, almost descriptive at times. His more recent output often featured two or three sets of voices singing at once, melding it all to create atmosphere. As much as Gilmour's guitar solos were all about shape, Wright's keyboard, organ, piano and general songwriting were about creating an atmosphere, a landscape on which the others (mainly Gilmour) could paint the foreground. He did some collaboration with Waters, judging by the sleeve notes, but not often and Roger was obviously the better, more talented songwriter. Wright was probably more of a composer.

Anyway, so two years after Syd departs, now Rick heads off to his gig in the sky. I liked his stuff more than I realised for a long time - kind of like George Harrison's stuff with the Beatles, although without the Buddhist overtones. And his collaborations with Gilmour on The Division Bell are still, in my opinion, highly underrated.

Hmm, maybe I can find that old Nurofen advert on YouTube...

Postscript: Found it.

13 September 2008: Clotted

Doesn't feel like Devon here really. Possibly because it isn't.

The TV is on the 'Weather Channel' right now, as they continue their thoroughly excited coverage of hurricane Ike, complete with flashy graphics and waterproofed-up meteorologists getting blown over in Houston. The projected track of Ike, interestingly, has it turning north-eastward fairly rapidly and making a beeline for Kokomo, where it's expected to arrive sometime Sunday evening. Of course,by that stage it'll be little more than a heavy shower, having been tracking across Missouri and Illinois for several hours and become thoroughly bored in the process. Probably won't even match the thunderstorm we had last night.

Still, it's different from Devon. Saturday morning here, yet only an hour (from when I write this) until Plymouth Argyle are playing. And that means, give or take the somewhat immediate need to return the rental car, that I'll be heading to the Pasoti chat room to keep up with the Norwich game and find out how the new players are doing. And, of course, discuss with other Plymouth exiles (usually located in Ottawa, North Carolina and New Zealand) the fact that you can't get decent pasties and clotted cream in such places, unless you go to Texas and visit Central Market. And so, you have to make these things yourself.

As readers with bovine interests might recall, earlier this year we discovered a local-ish farm that specialises in Swiss dairy cows, feeding them nothing but organic grass and allowing anyone to view the entire process, from grazing through to buying the cream-rich minimally-pasteurized and, importantly, non-homogenized milk in their shop. So, Gloria dropped in there and got about four pints.

And then we (well, to be precise, Gloria did almost all of it...) made clotted cream.

And now, thanks to reading this blog, so can you. Here's how you do it:

1. Go to Traderspoint and buy some cream-rich milk. OK, you may not be living near Indianapolis. Umm... well, if you're in the UK, go to Sainsbury or Waitrose etc and buy some Gold Top milk. All the biggies stock it. Of course, they also all stock clotted cream, but that's beside the point. Otherwise, just get the best, richest milk you can. It's hard in the US to find milk that hasn't been homogenized, but look hard and try the organic shops. Jersey or Guernsey cow milk is traditionally the best, however we found that Swiss cow milk is very good too.
2. Also buy - and here's part of the key - some cream. Double cream in the UK, heavy whipping cream in the US. Again, get the best you can, but cream isn't homogenized so it's less of an issue. This boosts the cream amount of the mix, and keeps the price down.
3. Put the milk in a bowl. Add the cream. How much? Well, we used roughly a 1:4 ratio of cream:milk, but with better, richer milk you probably need less cream.
4. Put the bowl the fridge for 12 hours. We did this bit overnight. Then...
   
5. Several ways to do the next bit, but here's what we did and it worked: put the milk bowl over a pot containing warm water. The water must be warm but not boiling - our hob involved putting it on a setting between 'low' and '2' (doesn't have a '1', just like TV channels over here - I guess they don't like that number in this country). The milk must get warm but not boil.
   
6. After about an hour and a half, the top will get crusty and, in our case, slightly cracked. This is because the cream is being pushed to the top by the heat. To me, it seemed a little thin, but then we got much more cream than I thought we would so don't worry if it seems very little. The longer you leave it, the better: we did three or four hours in the end for this stage.
7. When you're bored with the waiting, prepare a tray of ice water. Cold cold cold. Put the milk bowl into the ice water. Leave it for a couple of minutes, so it cools. Then, as soon as it's cool enough, put the bowl back in the fridge. As before, leave it for a while - a few hours was sufficient for us.
8. Skim off the clotted cream from the top using a big spoon. Put it in a bowl (see photo at top of page). If a little liquid comes with it, that's good, it will be soaked up into the cream. Bowl into fridge again, just to firm up, then make your scones, get out the triple berry jam and off you go.

So that's it - you can make your own clotted cream. It's a little expensive because of the quality of the milk you need, but it's still - generally - cheaper than buying it, even in the UK, because of the amount you get (we got the equivalent of one of those big tubs from Langage and that was just using two pints of milk).

And what to do with the whey - the left-over milk in the bowl? Well, whatever you want: effectively, what you've now got is reasonably skimmed milk. So, have it on your cereal, cook with it, whatever you like. The Rodda people dry it and sell it as skim-milk powder: in fact, I read that the majority of skim-milk powder in the UK comes from clotted cream production.

And the key question: was it any good? Oh yes!

Now, let's see how Argyle are going to do today...

Postscript: Let's not see how Argyle did today.

11 September 2008: Theo

Becky requests more blogs.

OK.

Actually, the issue tends to be a lack of desire to hunker down over a keyboard at the beginning or end of an on-site day. And there have been several of those recently - indeed I write this from a hotel in Cincinnati, coming to the end of another couple of weeks in Ohio. But partly as a result of Becky's request, and partly as a result of the result against Croatia, it's time to blog again. And hopefully - and I make no higher commitment than that - it will be able to become a regular item again.

So what to talk about? There's the US election, which continues to bemuse me although I'm getting pretty bored of it all (it's rapidly turning into a sports fan contest). Still, there's a blog in there about the relative and absolute political spectra: a wise professor at Southampton Uni once told me, as a long-haired (ha!) politics undergrad, that the UK Conservative party exists at about the same place on the political spectrum as the US Democratic party. Yes, you read that correctly. Listen to some of Obama's policies: Cameron, Major and in many cases even Thatcher would approve. It's interesting, to say the least.

Or how about the latest Argyle signings? A Belgian international?! Mpenza will make his debut against Norwich on the weekend and by the sounds of it, season ticket sales have re-taken off despite the season already being underway. Let's hope it's not another Rufus Brevett moment. Or Taribo West. Or (gulp) Peter Swan.

Hurricane Ike? About to hit Texas, it's become enormous (700 miles wide) rather than powerful, which is a good thing if you live in Galveston but less good if you live in the wider vicinity. Still, oil prices are still hovering around a hundred dollars a barrel without spiking, and the dollar continues to strengthen against the pound... the dollar-converter says 1.7559, down from two dollars about six weeks ago. Which is good news for me and bad news for anyone reading this in the UK who wants to come and visit our ridiculous apartment.

And then there's clotted cream, Willow Creek, Saints continuing to hemorrhage a million a month and Lance Armstrong coming out of retirement to raise cancer awareness. So many choices (unlike the number of TV channels offered by the hotel of the week) but there's only one word I need to mention, really.

Theo.

If you don't know who Theo is, read this. Actually, if you don't know who Theo is, that probably won't mean much to you either. Sufficed to say, many commentators are today offering variations on the following statement:
"Well, that's the end of David Beckham's international career."

First saw Theo for the Saints reserves against Eastleigh in pre-season over four years ago. He came on during the second half, around the time that Neil McCan't and Kenwyne Jones (playing in midfield, of course!) were tiring. This little fifteen-year-old came on to the pitch, playing right wing, immensely quick and keen to run the Eastleigh defence ragged (Eastleigh keeper Wayne Shaw was too busy being chubby to notice). The buzz went around the small crowd: "Who is this guy?" He's too small to be Nathan Dyer." "Theo Who?" "Well, he's quicker than Telfer."

Saints went down that season, and Theo didn't play. Come the following season, first game of the year, he was in the team against Wolves (I think it was Wolves? Kev - correct me if I'm wrong). And he was quick, he was skillful, but we've seen that before: Nathan Dyer was already doing that and was two years older. Plenty of pointless wingers have come and gone and we've barely noticed, and that's because they did the following:

Get ball on halfway line from lazy right-back. Run very fast at opposition left-back. Fake inside, go outside. Head towards corner flag. Have opposition left-back and central defender rapidly close in. Attempt skillful Cruyff-type move. End up on ground or, frequently, in row AA.

Saw it coming a mile off with Theo. He got the ball, ran wildly at the opposition defence, headed for the corner flag, in came not two but three defenders, big crush in the corner... and suddenly, brilliantly, out came Theo from the melee with the ball, which he proceeded to cross in for Leon Best or someone to hopelessly screw up a relatively good chance.

Buzz around the ground: "Didn't know he could do that." "Better than Prutton." "Saw him play at Eastleigh once, you know."

Over the weeks that followed, Theo started scoring, continued to run defences ragged and sometimes produced fairly crazy bits of skill that made people wonder not whether he would make it as a professional, but which Premiership giant would come in and snap him up, and how much Saints would get for him. Saw him against Plymouth Argyle with Gloria and my mum present and I remember pointing him out in the warm-up and saying "the little guy there is the best young player I've ever seen in twenty-odd years of watching football. He's even better than Garry Monk. He'll play for England, no question."

So, Arsenal bought him, and I think I remember a news story about Saints recently re-negotiating the deal for cash-now-and-fewer-appearance-based-fees-later. Still, twelve-point-five-million looks pretty much a bargain for a player who is now the youngest ever player to score a hat-trick for England. He's good - the comparison generally given is Thierry Henry, although I think Theo may be a more natural finisher - and he's getting better.

And it's pretty sudden: he played on Saturday (saw it on the internet, and he did pretty well) but at the full-time whistle yesterday I did a Google news search on 'Theo Walcott' and came up with about three thousand hits. As I write this - 24 hours later - I do the same search and the number is 7, 257.

So, whether he has the skill and ability to prove that his game is more than just pace (Tony Daley never quite became what he should have become, did he?) is a question that can only be answered by time. But it's fair to say he's energised the England football world rather like Sarah Palin (who?) seems to be shaking up the election over here.

Difference is, she's not scored a hat-trick for Alaska, has she?

20 August 2008: Box

So a little over four years ago I blogged about a magic toaster that was going to revolutionise the world. While that hasn't quite happened yet - although the 1/4 terabyte 'WD Passport' drive currently USB'd to my work laptop might disagree - there's another box that just came into my life which promises far less and delivers a much more useful service.

It doesn't store photos, or videos, or cricket statistics, and it doesn't give off smoke. At least not yet. What it does, silently and effectively, is takes electricity from our American socket at 110 volts and outputs electricity into our British equipment at 240 volts, provided said British equipment doesn't want to draw more than 6 amps or so in the process (very few things do). Meaning not only do we now have a printer again (hurrah!) but our glorious region-free DVD player and sound system will now stop dropping out the audio from time to time, and it also makes us sort-of wish we hadn't given away the old John Lewis waffle iron (although it went to a very good, if blog-deficient, home).

The best feature might well be that it will also perform the reverse operation as required, meaning essentially any equipment purchased in any country with either voltage rating is now usable in the other, just in case any such moves are required in the future.

Meantime I'm investigating Oracle-Stellent-UCM-thing's new replacement for Verity, which is hard enough to find and even harder to use. Not only is it not on Metalink (like they said it would be) but it also only works on an Oracle 11g database. Your Content Server can sit on any other DB if you like, but to use OracleTextSearch you need 11g, and if it isn't your core DB, then you have to install it just for this component. Your alternatives? Full-text DB indexing, perhaps some unsupported Verity, FAST-it-yourself and maybe even Google (*cough*).

The features look good - stemming, thesaurus use, the usual suspects - but when the first attempt (loading onto an existing Content Server running on 11g) failed with a confusing-looking Oracle error, I decided it might be safer just to try it on a brand new installation. And that means installing Oracle database 11g, standard edition, with Spatial tagged on in case I want to do some RDFing at any point. And how long does it take to install this thing? Currently two hours in and only at 52%. Even after this, who's to say whether the component will work or just crash like before?

Makes a Windows re-install look almost inviting. Maybe that's why they've not put it on Metalink yet.

Addendum: The Lincolnshire Poacher seems to be no more. I noticed this about a month ago when I saw the Wikipedia article now referred to it in the past tense. After viewing the 'spooks' website though, I realised I probably have more reason to be worried about the Poacher's trackers rather than the mysterious counting sources themselves. Do these folks really have nothing better to do?

16 August 2008: Paula

Minor respite from travelling means a little blog energy. And for the nth time this summer, this was the view from our living room window early this evening. (n > 4 I think). On this occasion, Kokomo's downtown square was filled with a festival called 'A Taste of Kokomo' where local restaurants (for some reason including chains such as Ruby Tuesday and Cracker Barrel) show up and offer a particularly small selection of their wares (usually including pulled pork) for slightly over-the-odds prices.

Three dollars to get in, and we were honest and did actually leave our place by the rear door, walk round the side of the building and pay the fee at the entrance, rather than just walking out our front door as we could have done, right into the midst of it all.

And it wasn't too bad, albeit not enormously distinguishable from the other various town-square festivals we've either seen or missed during the summer. The food was ok, particularly the freshly-barbecued corn-on-the-cob from a local catering company, the worst (comfortably) being the raspberry lemonade from Ruby Tuesday. The local bands were as loud as ever, and keen to give shout-outs to the in-town radio stations that occasionally play their MP3s. Overall a good feeling to the thing, although after an hour and three times around the square, it was pretty much a done deal for us.

We went back in through our front door. No shame in that.

And upstairs to watch the TV and see the ladies running the marathon. First Olympics I've actually seen so far, and I thought it might be a good chance to see Paula win, or at least do something dramatic (it's never boring with Paula, whether it's tears or pee-pee around the twenty mile mark). The 2004 Olympic ladies marathon was what first got me interested in running such dumb distances: watching Paula just gradually slow up made me shout things at the television screen, typically: "oh just RUN will you, how difficult can it be?" (Answer: very difficult, especially with dodgy knees.)

But as I write this, watching it on NBC - and can I just say, by the way, that whatever criticism the BBC may get in the UK, at least they don't keep interrupting the marathon coverage with (1) adverts, (2) pointless re-runs of men's 100m race from previous day and (3) pictures of Tony Blair meeting swimmers, and THEN saying "continuous uninterrupted live coverage of the marathon continues here, but first..." - where was I? Yes. Watching it on NBC I've seen some Romanian lady charge out in front, taking smelling salts it looks like, and right now she's being chased down by a small group headed by a tiny Chinese lady.

At least I think that's happening right now, because as I write this what they're actually showing is a trailer for "America's Got Talent" (featuring Piers Bleddy Morgan) and something about buying a 4-hour DVD of the opening ceremonies. Presumably with the advert breaks removed?

Oh, and Paula? She faded away about 30 minutes ago, just drifted off the back of the chase group. Boring.

For the first time ever, Paula Radcliffe is being boring. Maybe she's just getting old or something.

Postscript: I'm not going to talk about the football. Except to say, for the first time, I'm actually starting to think Rupert might get his wish and Saints might, actually, not make it to the end of the season. At least Argyle have some kind of hope and can afford to pay wages.

15 July 2008: D

From time to time I miss a few things, and I'm about a week late with this one.

Delirious last week announced they're finishing at the end of 2009.

For those who don't know, they're a Christian rock band based in Littlehampton on the south coast of rainy ol' England, and since going full-time in 1996 (I still have the insert in a Cutting Edge CD saying "New for '96! The Cutting Edge band are now Deliriou5?") they've produced a wide-ranging set of albums, some of which did pretty well on the mainstream chart (highest UK singles chart position of 16, highest UK album chart position of 13), some of which was overtly worship-based music that was generally regarded as being their "better stuff". While they did a great deal to raise the profile of Christian music in the UK - and raise the vision of those wishing to make an impact in that country - their biggest success can be seen over here in the US.

Not just because the Christian music industry is bigger here, either. In fact, if you look at what the 'mainstream' Christian music stations over here have been playing over the last ten years, there's a noticeable shift. Ten and fifteen years ago it was dominated by songs you listened to: Michael W. Smith, Steven Curtis Chapman, the Newsboys, DC Talk. Then along came Delirious and suddenly "I could sing of your love forever" was on the radio as well as in the churches. Maybe it's coincidence, but it was almost exactly the same time that Delirious became big in the Christian music sub-culture over here that that same sub-culture itself began to shift from "stuff you listen to" to "stuff you sing". By 2002, Michael W Smith, Rebecca St James, Third Day, the Newsboys and even Amy Grant were busily producing worship albums rather than straight CCM songs. Hillsong became not only played on CCM radio but also had their songs covered by CCM artists. Chris Tomlin and Matt Redman became radio favourites and indeed still are. And all that without mentioning Audio Adrenaline, SonicFlood and the rest.

So whether that's the biggest legacy of Delirious, or if their impact in the UK is more important, I don't know. Last time I saw them was the re-opening of Central Hall in Southampton, which was incidentally the first place I saw them, back in 1994 when 'Cutting Edge' started up. A lot has changed in that time (Martin's hair was one of the first things to change), but it's a little sad to hear they're closing this chapter.

Meantime I'd better start checking out the tour dates in 2009 before it's all over.

24 June 2008: Rottingham

What? A new blog entry? But I was enjoying looking at that orange commercial on YouTube every day!

Yes, it's true, I've not scribbled anything here since before there was jam in doughnuts, and it's time for that to change. Partly because I've now got a little time to write some things, but mainly because three different people have asked within the last couple of days as to why I've not been blogging.

If your name isn't Jonathan, you'll guess it's the usual excuse for such a blog hiatus: work. A week in Cincinnati (about which more anon) was followed by a few days back in sunny Kokomo, then on to Willoughby Hills, Ohio, which is just the other side of Cleveland, reached by what can officially be classed the world's most boring five-and-a-half-hour drive, which I did every weekend for about a month. Such journeys have a way of making me tired, no matter how exciting NPR's news programme can get (and with the Democratic selection process reaching its conclusion, NPR was at fever pitch, even mentioning the China earthquake from time to time, to its credit), so the evenings and weekends were filled with sleep, curry and sleep.

However, following the conclusion of the Cleveland travelling and before we head to the UK for eleven days of Big George's fish'n'chips, Dewdney pasties and Dandelion & Burdock, there's a little time for some catch-up news from downtown Kokomo.

Key points:

1. Back bacon has been found, and not just from the link given there. Imported from Ireland, it can be purchased, frozen, by the half-pound from a giant shop called 'Jungle Jim's' on the outskirts of Cincinnati. Also there you can find anything you want that you might get from Sainsbury's or Waitrose, including Alpen, Golden Syrup and, quite bizarrely, bath-related products such as Radox shower gel, despite the fact that almost-identical products are freely available over here. Most disappointing were the sausages picked up from next to the bacon. Marked 'Irish Bangers', they looked the real deal, especially as the bacon was imported. Closer inspection, some time after purchase, revealed they were made in Chicago (by Irish immigrants, presumably?). They were rubbish.
2. Runner beans are growing in a tub on the flat roof out the back. Found one solitary packet earlier in the spring, containing twelve seeds, of which seven germinated. Six-foot canes are currently erected and the flowers are just starting. It may prove to be too hot, but we'll see how they do.
3. Rupert Lowe is back at Saints, bizarrely alongside Michael Wilde, and they are currently dismantling the family woodwork to sell off (having already sold off any family silver in his previous time in charge). News today reached us that twelve-year club stalwart Claus Lundekvam was told by the new management that if he wanted his promised testimonial, he would personally have to pay for it, including fees for Celtic to come down and to have the pitch relaid. Total amount: £600,000. Not that Claus needs the money from the testimonial, but still, as I stated on the Saints Forum earlier today, it's just plain weird.
4. Atlanta Braves have successfully managed to lose Smoltz, Hampton, Soriano, Moylan and now probably Glavine to long-term injuries. And all this before their usual June slump. I remember when they used to win things. Weird thing is, player for player, they're a pretty decent team, probably better than some of the division-winning sides of recent years.
5. Plymouth Argyle released Paul Wotton because he wasn't good enough for the Championship. He just couldn't get in the team. Saints this week snapped him up. Apparently, he's a contender to be the new captain. Seriously.
6. Jonathan and Bill inform me that pasties are not only well-known over here, but actually considered a specific delicacy of northern Michigan. All due to Cornish miners moving over, it seems. I've yet to try one.
7. I know it's old news now, but Boris Johnson is still Mayor of London. How embarrassing is that?

Biggest news story though goes to the extended weekend back in Texas a week or so ago. Gloria's sister runs Camp Change, a kid's camp largely attended by Baptist churches from all over north-central Texas (and, for some reason, a random church from down near Houston). Protocol dictates the family turn up en masse and help out, and this year that meant me for the first time (last year's camp clashing a little with PhD graduation).

So off we flew down to DFW, and onwards to the Riverbend retreat centre in the middle of nowhere (actually close-ish to a town called Glen Rose, but since that means little to you we can safely call it 'the middle of nowhere'). Flo Jr, the sometimes wacky GPS system, actually kept her head for a change and seemed to know even the tiny roads running through the enclosed camp site, which was impressive.

Of course it's called a camp, but the kids don't actually stay in tents. It's more dorms-and-chalets than poles-and-canvas, more Spring Harvest than Soul Survivor. Still, it gave a tremendous sense of being outdoors (right down to the rumours of rattlesnakes in the woods) and overall proved to be a fantastic facility. The kids had main meetings in the big auditorium (happily air-conditioned in the 100 degree Fahrenheit afternoons), lunch in the giant dining facility, and played games on the courts and fields around the site, including a new one on them this year: "English dodgeball", where I got to be like Mr Copley at Cornwood Primary school and mercilessly chuck balls at close range against the scampering legs of nine-year-olds.

Highlights for me: 'Camp Live' in the mornings, where four or five of us would do 'Whose Line Is It Anyway' on stage for a couple of hours (best moment: miming taking a number-one loo break on the stage, which I believe was a first for Camp Change), and then, of course, there was The Race.

So there were three race drivers. Me, Chris and Vince. Each of us displayed a character flaw which didn't fit with Micah 6:8 (mercy, justice and humility respectively), and by the end of the week, and the race itself, we were to resolve these issues. We had a scripted (or sometimes unscripted) sketch in a couple of the meetings each day, building up to the race, and the race itself took place on the final evening, and saw us racing round tracks and through the main auditorium on highly-decorated golf buggies. Photos to follow once we get them off the camera and onto computer. Final lap: Chris and Vince crash, I zoom past mercilessly... then show mercy by getting out and helping my competitors, and we all cross the line together, character flaws corrected and declared joint winners.

Didn't entirely work as planned, of course. The problem partly came from how our flaws were presented: as the mean-spirited Duke of Rottingham, I was scripted to tell the folks that I'd run over a grandmother and her grandson, and had only been upset by it because of the damage it did to my car. The worst crime of Mr Unjust (Chris Gibson, playing a frighteningly-accurate Mexican character) was to bribe border guards with sopapillas. Mr Vain's crime was looking at himself in the mirror too much. So: all flaws, yes, and all in need of correction... but I'll give you three guesses who ended up as the pantomime villain. Ah well.

Still, a fantastic week and one I'd highly recommend to anyone in Texas in mid-June. Next summer the theme is 'Superheroes': what's the betting I end up as 'Captain Evil'?

Meantime, it's time to pack up and prepare to visit the old country. Let's see if I can still remember how to drive on the left.