This one tastes of Christmas

5°C, northerly, clear

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Here is a fine chocolate, there is as much variety in the taste of plain chocolate as there is in Whisky. This one is certainly a single malt: however the Bournville I had in work today wasn’t even an unbranded blend; not sure that stuff even deserves the name ‘chocolate’ to be blunt.
This bar came as a surprise when driving home yesterday- it tastes of Christmas. Each block leaves a cherry-rich soft night-time after-taste. This is the peaty island malt of the chocolate world. Divine and Green & Blacks, you are up against some competition here. I bet many overlook this princely prize with its own-brand name and low price; don’t make that mistake- there are treasures of some depth to experience in this bar.

Now, steal yourself; off you to go the local Co-op to buy some.

Ultrasonic

9°C, has the battery failed in the thermometer? It’s colder than this. 6° probably

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That SW wind blows strongly some more.
Mosquito is a siren (in the UK anyway) that is meant to repel teenagers. Shops and cafes use them to repel loiterers and they are becoming quite commonplace. The claim is that they can’t be heard by older people and selectively annoy ‘youth’ who then go away.
Explain why I can hear them then! I am 45 years old (as of yesterday).
The device makes a sound rather like the sonar effect you hear on tacky WWII submarine films, only the pitch is octaves higher, as high as the sound bats make I’d say.
I ponder…
Had no luck yet finding the frequency that these things peak at, but Pipistrelle bats begin at 15 and range up to 45KHz. Not sure of the physics at play here, but wouldn’t there be harmonics at an octave above and and another below?
None in my tutor group have ever heard a bat- they said today. I had to ask.

Shot in south Wales.

45 plus one

9°C, that some wind, the same temperature but coldness looms

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Look, I have even more chocolate, the sort that keeps me awake at night. Better deploy the self-discipline.

Another birthday

9°C, more SW winds

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This wind has been blowing for two weeks. It’s warm, and riding home is fast & effortless. Bet it changes soon.
Birthday outing soon, pinning hopes that it lightens after a bad day at work. At the time of writing, I have cider in my veins.
I can be confident that it really is my birthday- it has been raining.
This evening, I find I have more Dark Chocolate Halva than in the morning. That’s the way it should go.

Striped pyjamas

9°C, ‘orrible showers.

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The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas: Film about the son of a Concentration Camp commandant. I don’t mind giving key elements of the plot because the film is so bad that I urge you to avoid it. The kid is bored in the house where the Camp’s commandant is posted, he climes out and makes friends with a Jewish kid over the electric fence. Eventually he digs in to try to find the Jewish kid’s father, and ends up in a gas chamber himself. Sentimental, absurd and twee.
Red sky in the morning; you know the rest.

things break

9°C, windy. but fairly dry & warm

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The list of things needing repairs is growing like snow rolling down a hill purportedly does. The bike has a broken wheel + a twisted chain; a drain is blocked, roof leaks on the shed, a sofa needs patching, and other things I can’t be bothered to think about right now.
At least I could ride the bike home, but not risking that wheel again. It’s not even that old, only a few thousand miles and it broke through the rim at a eyeleted spoke hole; they’re not supposed to do that.
….bum!

Piracy

10-13°C. Windy & showers. heavy ones.

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Watched a borrowed DVD last night that turned out to be a pirate copy. This one was filmed in a cinema, you could hear people coughing and sometimes talking. The little parasite must have been sitting near the back with the videocam, because the bassy loud bits drowned out any clarity so that quite a few passages of dialogue were difficult to follow  There was a hollow loss of mid-range sounds that is common in cinemas, but the colour was off key too. At first I considered that the film was shot in a nostalgic desaturated colour-space, with added grain.
Cinemas frequently show videos pleading for people to avoid pirate videos, but I don’t think they need to bother. What I saw last night wasn’t really a proper film, certainly nothing that could compete with the product that film producers are trying to sell. I don’t see any reason to buy a disks from a pirate dealer because the genuine DVDs are don’t cost much anyway.

Flora Britannica

9°C, Dull, dull, dull.

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Richard Maybe: Flora Britannica is my kind of plant book. It covers plants that are largely native to Britain, though some naturalised ones are covered but it’s different. It isn’t a gardening book. It’s got nothing on how to propogate, where to plant or anything like that. this one is about folklore, for want of a better word.

Church & State: interesting story from America, well, the USA anyway. : It seems they do have some people in power who are resisting the dominance of church in US state politics. For the past century, no US president has gained power without openly declaring his Christianity. This is unconstitutional of course if you know anything of the US constitution which aims at removing the inevitable corruption that appears when religious leaders gain political power.

It’s a far cry too

10°C, clearing. Ride 65 miles

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New game: Far Cry 2, driving around in the African savannah.
Real life, cycling around Warwickshire for 65 miles. One of them makes you fit

Hewlet Packard printers

9°C, respite from rain.

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Where have I put my latest P60? I really need to find this startlingly plain document amongst the other plain sheets that I get sent every month.
If anyone knows where it is; please tell me in a comment.

Bessie appears to be searching in this photo, but clearly she has misunderstood the nature of the problem.
Hewlet Packard printers are very economical to use. They use almost no ink, and any paper that it prints out can be recycled. All you do is take the plain white paper that it normally churns out and put it back in the lower tray because, though it does consume ink, none of it gets onto the paper.The only drawback is with this printer, like the Epson I had before, is that it is incapable of doing what printers are supposed to do. But I mustn’t loose sight of the fact that there is no running cost beyond the electricity that it consumes, and the rage that it generates.