Partial Progress

I'm making more progress, despite the weather's best attempts. Today I braved the elements to try to lay down a sort of cobble path to extend our old path. The reason for this is pram-related. The pram doesn't fit along the old path so I've put the bamboo border in at a curve to give more space. This has meant that the pram has a load of mud to slosh through - hence, cobble path.

It's not really the ideal solution but should at least keep the worst of it off. First I put down some gravelly soil so it's got something to bite onto and then laid them all out and stamped them into the earth. Naturally, the single bag I bought wasn't quite enough, obviously. SO I bought one more bag, chucked the rest of the cobbles down, tipped out some slate and so on.

After some washing down and scrubbing of path we have:

The back of that bit is going to be a small rockery thing and then it's just a matter of installing a lot of pots etc. *Phew*.

Gardening

This year so far has conspired against me with regards to getting the garden in order. Last year I was only really able to impose a very limited amount of order on the thing, given that it was utterly chaotic. Nevertheless, my ruthless, almost obsessive hunting down of brambles and bamboo finally produced something vaguely workable. By that time, however, the year had near enough run out.

So that left this year - a sort of blank slate (or tabula rasa if you want to be pretentious about it) for me to work on.

First task: KILL THE FRONT GARDEN.
Last year the front garden was the main thing that I had a serious attempt on. The back garden was mainly just clearance - I actually tried to do something with the front. After clearing the excess I turned all the soil over, composted, set up a border with some stone things and planted various bits and pieces including some whole plants and some seeds.

The whole plants sort of survived for the most part, though the ones purchased as 'ground cover' proved a little too effective and drove out the neighbouring heather. The flowers planted survived well and the seeds sprouted some nice poppies and so on. Unfortunately, the latent weeds in the soil I turned over went on a rampage and overran bloody everything. I had some attempts at weeding but with grasses in the mix as well I had no chance.

So this year the plan was to wipe out everything with powerful chemicals, replant and start from scratch. Unfortunately, it kept raining or being crappy weather. Most of the better plant-killers penetrate the leaves of plants and work their way to the roots, destroying the plants metabolism and killing them for good. However, this type gets broken down in soil and will only be taken up by plants carrying out active metabolism. So if it's rainy the stuff gets washed into soil and destroyed and if it's cold or grey the plants don't do very much and the stuff has no effect. This last week has been pretty much the first chance to spray with any hope of being effective. We'll have to see if it's too late to be of much use.

Second task: RIGHT-HAND-SIDE OF BACK GARDEN.
The back garden has been sort of divided into zones. The right-hand side is going to have a border lining it and be covered in broken up slate with pots and planters and so on. This means removing all the stuff that is in the way, making the soil handleable so it can be smoothed off, putting a border in and then laying down the slate.

So so. First thing - massive Buddleia bush has been there for yonks. In the day when it was surrounded by masses of overgrowth it had adopted a strategy of growing up and over and taking on the appearance of a tree. This did mean it took us a long while to identify the thing as we were looking at types of tree, but I digress. The point is that it had to die. I did like it in a way and was sorry to see it go but it just grew like mad and so would have swamped everything.

To get rid of it I initially sawed off all the main branches which left a pretty substantial stump. The stump had sort of grown sideways too before leaping up so it was even fiddlier to deal with. In the end I had to excavate down and down around it, chopping up major roots as I found them to gradually loosen it. I'd done most of them when I discovered a massive, huge taproot going directly underneath it. To get at it I needed to dig down about three feet and even then I couldn't cut into it - it was just too inaccessible and tough. After a long time of heaving and swearing I hit upon the idea of wrecking a chisel on it and was finally able to chop through it to leave a big hole:

Quite difficult to see the contrast on that so just trust me, it's a big hole. And here is my valiant, defeated foe:

Rest in peace you awkward bugger. In preparation we also bought some tree things. There is an olive tree:

which may or may not ever produce olives. Also, a rosemary and lavender:

The ultimate plan is to have lots of herbs and so on.

Once that was done I had to try to level the garden off. The big problem with this, however, is the previous owners having the bright idea of planting a stand of bamboo at the back. They presumably took their panda with them when they left because it'd grown like mad and gotten absolutely everywhere. Last year I dealt with most of it with some chopping and cutting and more swearing but could not clear it all. I hoped that the remainder may have rotted down and be easier to deal with this year - no such luck. The base of it is now quite short bamboo bits sticking out of the soil but below the soil it's a thick, knotted clump of bamboo which is damn near impossible to get through. It's already bent a garden fork. As I don't have a disc cutter or a laser I've decided it can stay there, at least partially. Its growth has formed a sort of mound so I am going to build up a sort of rockery over it to make it look as though the mound is deliberate. Hopefully then it may rot down totally.

Then there was digging down along the path to put these wooden edging things in - they are made of dead bamboo. The only good bamboo. That was hard work in itself as digging down inevitably led me to great clumps of cement that needed chiselling as well as buried house bricks. Got there in the end though.

So then it was just a case of covering the soil with slate. Firstly I laid down some weed sheeting stuff, augmented by the canvas covering off a crappy wardrobe thing. Then; slate. We bought about three bags to see how far it would go - the answer was "not very far". Then bought some more. Still not far enough. Now we have some more and I think it's going to be enough now. Bleeding hope so.

This weekend should see the completion of the right-hand-side. Then it's the madness of the left.

Self-Righteous DVD Purchasing

It's obvious to everyone that every commercial organisation out there is a pack of thieves, monsters and parasites. OR IS IT? Maybe there are companies around that play fair and contribute an appropriate amount to maintain the infrastructure that feeds them. After all, if it wasn't for the NHS there would be a lot fewer people buying Downton Abbey boxsets.

Shops on the high street are a bit of a mixed bag and I'm sure that a fair number of them provide a bit of a contribution to the nation as a whole but there's such a mix of shops that it's difficult to really investigate them. More to the point, I can't do it very well without going outside and I'd rather not do that, thank you.

So for now I'm going to have a quick look at DVD purchasing. In the light of the recent 'Amazon are rotten shits' revelations I started looking for other companies that might sell DVDs online and to see if there are viable alternatives, or even expensive but moral alternatives. Let's see.

First off, we can think of DVD sellers off the top of our head:

• Amazon
• Play.com
• HMV
• Fopp
• WHSmith
• Zavvi

Amazon, obvious shitbags. Play.com, doing the offshore scam (Jersey, etc). HMV, they're at least a proper shop, but their online shop does the offshore scam. Fopp, no online stuff and now part of HMV. Zavvi, offshore scam. WHSmith, don't appear to sell DVDs online.

We'd better cast the net a little wider. SUPERMARKETS!

• Sainsburys
• Tesco
• ASDA
• Morrisons

Sainsburys - offshore thing powered by another company. Tesco (Tesco Direct), not very clear but it's probably a safe bet that the company are doing something dodgy. ASDA, *Walmart*, bound to have an insane corporate structure. Morrisons, no online DVD sales.

Department stores?

• John Lewis
• Debenhams
• Selfridges

None do online DVD sales.

Last resort, let's put a random DVD into Google Shopping Thing and see who else comes up.

http://www.wholesaledvdsales.co.uk - seems to sell Region Free dvds. Curious, sounds dodgy.
base.com - not too clear but apparently they have some sort of arrangement via Switzerland.
hive.co.uk - does free delivery to local independent bookshop. Bears closer investigation.

A post to follow!

http://www.hive.co.uk/faq/

Windoze Phone(y) 8

Yeah, right! Who's with me? Well, not me for a start. Ever since the announcement of the extremely nice-looking Nokia Lumia 920 running Windows Phone 8 I've been very tempted by the idea of switching ecosystems. On the one hand, Android is hugely flexible and allows for all sorts of things like installing custom operating systems, changing your device ID to run whatever apps you fancy trying and a huge selection of apps. On the other hand, I'm a bit bored of Android now and I want to try something a bit more slick.

That isn't Apple, obviously. I'm not a monster.

There a couple of things that are potentially concerning about Windows Phone 8 (WP8 from now on) but the key thing seems to be app availability. I think it's certainly true that there's far fewer apps around for WP but then there's millions of Android apps that are utterly worthless or of no interest to me. With this in mind I thought I'd investigate the applications and apps that I use on a regular or semi-regular basis to see if a switch to WP8 would be painful.

Internet Browsing
Not that much to say on this really - technically it'd be a battle between Internet Explorer and Chrome. That is, if I used Chrome on my phone. The syncing features may well be nice but I find it less pleasant to use than the stock Android browser and I can't see IE being any worse.
Result: Draw

Email
I use a mix of IMAP email and Gmail. IMAP and Gmail (with push notifications) seem to be natively supported by the built-in client so no losses there.
Result: Draw

Calendar
I use Google Calendar for a mix of work things and tracking personal things. The version built in to Android has always been terrible so I'm already using a third-party app to manage this called Jorte (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=jp.co.johospace.jorte) so I figure there would be something suitable for Windows. Looks like the third-party versions haven't been updated for a very long time but that Google Calendars can be synced to the built-in calendar app (http://www.engadget.com/photos/windows-phone-google-calendar-update/#4779250).
Result: Draw - really depends on how the internal client handles things

Reader
Google Reader is something I regularly check for gaming news and so on. I reckoned this would be easy to handle, and while there's no native Google app for it, there's things like Fuse (http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/fuse/8355da61-1ac5-49cd-a753-7f6afed2bb62).
Result: Draw

Tapatalk
Tapatalk (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.quoord.tapatalkpro.activity) is an app for browsing web forums which allows you to have several different forums in the same place and with the same formatting. There's no Tapatalk client and no apparent wish to make one.. There's an alternate called Board Express but it was last updated in 2010 and may no longer even work.
Result: Android

Google Authenticator
Tool for providing two-factor authentication for websites. No official app for Windows but can be done via a third-party tool that pulls from the API (http://www.windowsphone.com/en-us/store/app/authenticator/021dd79f-0598-e011-986b-78e7d1fa76f8).
Result: Draw

Audible
Audiobook reader. Official client available for WP but lags behind on updates and there may be bugs.
Result: Android

DLNA Player
Apps for streaming music and video from local network servers. Support appears pretty patchy and may require a Windows-based server. Potentially a major loss.
Result: Android

Tunein Radio
Official app available, though without the 'pro' version that's on Android.
Result: Draw

Social networks
Oh, these are probably integrated in some way. Not really bothered about going to a webpage as most of the apps are terrible anyway.
Result: Draw

Lightly-used apps
Evernote has an official app, Steam doesn't, Endomondo does, not really anything else I use other than newsy things.

Other points - lack of VPN support and potential wifi issues.

Conclusion - not that much in it but Android still has the edge. Windows may creep forward with the release of more appealing phones but time will tell. I remain undecided.

The End of the World was back then

Other developments have included my involvement in a game of indie pen&paper role-playing game, 'Apocalypse World'. It's basically an end-of-the-world setting with your characters several decades after the apocalypse and with none of them really knowing what had happened. All we know is there's this Psychic Maelstrom thingy - we don't know if it caused the apocalypse, was caused by it or is just a coincidence. And none of us really know what it is either. This means there's a good deal of scope for storytelling and for making stuff up. You don't even have to be right, your character can quite easily be deluded about things.

My character is named Sim after an ancient data storage medium - my family grew up in a Carphone Warehouse. I have a sister named Orange and a brother named Tee-mo. I'm an Angel which is a medical type, and I have some odd religious beliefs that have not been fully entered into. They centre around a concept of balance which is mediated, if not directly controlled, by the psychic maelstrom.

The other three dramatis personae are Bakerloo, Sam and Batman. Bakerloo is a local 'fixer', she makes stuff happen, sorts out problems, mediates deals, all that sort of thing. She's stick-thin to the point of illness and seems to have problems saying no - she's already indebted to an unmanageable number of people. Sam runs the local.. well, scrapyard seems a bit crude, but that's what it is. She's runs all the local machines and had a knack for anything mechanical. Handily, this means she always has work. Batman takes his name from some ancient poster or other, and is a bit of a handful. He's in the employ of the local Hardholder (sort of gangster/king of the area) and spends much of his time... generating storylines.

The game itself is quite open-ended and highly story-driven and isn't very focussed on going to dungeons and killing things. The MC in charge of things has the task of making things difficult for us by screwing us over in various ways - in fact their guide has a chapter entitled Advanced Fuckery. Experience points and levels don't matter too much so really it's about coming up with ideas and stories. Maximum efficiency doesn't matter - if the MC decides to kill you, she can just plant a nuke and kill you all, after all.

I'm not too good about telling a story so I've decided to type up my notes as a substitute. Maybe they'll give some flavour of the last session. Here goes.

Day Two.

head with a biker gang over to Khalid's [neighbouring hardholder] with drugs [I'm manufacturing 'pain medicine] and my 2-stock angel kit [that's the most of my medical kit I can carry around with me]
arrive there and am immediately under suspicion from the locals - after all, i've arrived a day earlier than usual and with a bunch of people i don't usually associate with.
chatted to Sam on the way - she'd seen Orange [my sister] wandering out of town yesterday [I hadn't seen her since the morning before despite her normally working in my infirmary].
I try to get the guards to go and find my usual drug buyers but they aren't particularly co-operative...
Khalid's area seem swanky - lots of large old houses.
Large church in town
They have strange beliefs propogated by Father Monroe - blood, wine and sexual ethics seem key.
There's a small infirmary, I head there to see my usual contact and trade
Medic is there - named Pearce
I collect medical data of recent patients - Dolly was shot, she works for Khalid and has a slight limp now. Not many details.
Left and headed for church [everyone else had headed off the there already]
Bump into Sam - she tells me Orange is inside the church!!
Glance aside and spot Batman heading into a house down the street
I head into the church
I hear a scream! [coming from the house Batman headed into]
I leg it to house
I quiz Batman and head upstairs to see if anyone is hurt
Everyone fine, but shaken
Walk out to see Batman and Bakerloo in a heated discussion
Ignore it and head to the church
Enter the church and greet the father
See Orange and a 15-year-old boy
She's joined the church!
I try to guilt her into going home
Monroe intervenes
I have a heated exchange with him
Shove him to the ground and leave
Take a moment to gather thoughts
Head to confront Khalid
Brace [one of the guards] picks us up and takes us to see Khalid
When I arrive there I see Dolly and quiz her about what she does. She's a guard and a bit sarcastic about letting me know.
Go inside and Bakerloo tries to calm me, explaining that I'm making things worse
Brace leads us inside and gives us five minutes to talk among ourselves
Bakerloo and Sam try to talk me down
Success! I accept what they're saying and agree to keep my cool
Brace leads us into rool with Khalid and two others, one armed
armed man is 'Rum'
Bakerloo schmoozes Rum
Discusses Bruce's beef trading [the day before Bruce was trying to sell beef in our local market despite our boss controlling all the local beef supplies]
Rum seems familiar to Sam - she saw him in a vision
Sam makes pointed comments about what she saw in the vision
I lose patience and yell that it's obvious that Bruce is stealing cows [they had all been trying to talk diplomatically]
Khalid steps in and promises to investigate Bruce
Claims that Rum is just a bodyguard - Batman doesn't believe it and demands to take Rum to Bod [Bod is our local Hardholder and boss]
Khalid agrees that Rum and Bruce can come along to Bod's - along with Chin [he's key in potentially supplying wood to Sam]
I discuss the issue of Monroe with Khalid
It goes poorly and I storm out
Khalid claims to have no control over Monroe and suggests I take him to my town and build him a church if I want my sister back to help in the infirmary
The door slams behind me and the session ends

The Grand Breadxperiment - ASDA Easy Bake Yeast

Well, this may be the final yeast test until I find some more exotic yeasts. I've checked a number of Marks & Spencers but they don't seem to sell the stuff and other supermarket stuff is pretty much the same. That being said, this supermarket stuff ain't the same as others.

ASDA Easy Bake Yeast.

I don't know if I had a bad batch or some sort of localised cold snap that stopped the yeast from working in my microwave warmth chamber but this was really poor indeed. It simply didn't do much - despite being a sachet type that has all the usual 'enhancing' additives. Here goes:

 It frothed up quite nicely during the normal activation phase and so looked fairly promising. Kneading was a bit tricky but looked ok in the end:

 Little bit un-smooth but not terrible. And then after the rise:

 That right there is a seriously weedy rise.

 It didn't do much in the tin either. Finally it baked as a nearly-inediby doughy loaf:

Not sure what I'd trust it for. Maybe fine for crumpets or something.

The Grand Breadxperiment - Hovis Fast Action Bread Yeast

Next up, another one of these sachet jobbies - Hovis Fast Action Bread Yeast:

Six 7g sachets, makes up to 10 loaves. Not too sure how they work that out, perhaps some very precise scales, or you just make ten different-sized loaves - in which case they could say, 'makes up to forty loaves'.

But anyway. It seem to have more additives than other yeasts and so was curious to see what sort of effects these might have. I'm not convinced they are particularly necessary but what the hey.

Foamed up reasonably on activation:

No trouble kneading followed by a pretty decent sort of rise:

The risen dough had a slightly odd structure but that may have been due to me not kneading properly. I did the time but maybe not the quality. Who knows. The shaped and then risen tin:

As you can see, I had trouble making it anything other than wonky. It sprung like crazy in the oven and the sides of the crusts split as a result, making it fiddly to cut:

End result - good soft open texture, pleasant flavour and very nice toasted.