Little Storping-in-the-Swuff

The marrow season is more or less at an end.  Marrows are not generally held in high regard, but a couple of people have been kind enough to say they misjudged the vegetable after tasting one I’d stuffed.  So I’ve put one of my recipes on the wiki.  Amateur gardeners often forget to pick their courgettes (I’ve aquired a few marrows this way) or you can buy them for a pound or so at a market.

I had some better marrow pics on my iBook (which I dropped) so this photo of a marrow, stuffed and ready for the oven, will have to do for now (at least until I work out how to get pics into the wiki).

A colleague gave me some quinces and the last of my pears were going very soft, so I boiled them down and made a quince and pear tart.

I’ve added the recipe to the wiki but I can’t get images to work within the wiki, so here’s another pic: served with creme fraiche.

“CSI: Cardiff, now I’d like to see that.” And so you shall.

It’s a dangerous game, name checking another TV show when you’ve ripped off its trademark aerial establishing shots. It’s one of a number of strangely alienating devices in Torchwood’s opener, like pointing out that a man pretending to be a weavil by wearing a mask looks like, well, a man pretending to be a weaving by wearing a mask. Or explaining away an alien invasion that occured in another TV show…

After all the waiting for the transmission, it was three days before I found time to actually watch it, but it was still worth the wait, though it’s not quite sure if it’s CSI with Aliens or Doctor Who for adults.

CSI: Aliens

When it was first announced, it was described as dark and sexy, This Life meets The X-Files. Furthermore Captain Jack was the kind of character who deserved his own series, and needed it too, he could never achieve his full potential in the Doctor’s shadow. The series looked to be great.

But I was apprehensive at the hammering of the Torchwood theme in Doctor Who. I originally assumed it was just unsubtle plugging, but rammed into so many scenarios that it seemed to loose its definition; then Torchwood appeared. The high rent Canary Wharf offices were not dark or gritty. Hell, even the warehouse was gleaming white. And it wasn’t Cardiff.

Well Torchwood is darker than its parent; it never seems to rain in Doctor Who but the weather in Torchwood is distinctly Welsh. There are night shots and lots of underground scenes and the hub is more like a disused underground station that those pricey London lawyers offices. The staff is smaller, too, just Jack’s CSI style team. It’s all very successful (although the team will need some developing).

Retcon

Russell T. Davies, usually so careful about new viewers and continuity for some reason feels the need to try and reconcile with the events in Doctor Who and so there’s a contrived explaining away of the fact that Earth has, rather publicly, been invaded by aliens three times in as many years. This only serves to alienate (ahem, sorry) the viewer who is reminded this isn’t out universe (at least I don’t remember those invasions). And that’s a pity, because it’s a fun conceit that such covert outfits could exist, it was one of the most enjoyable things about The X-Files. But then maybe Davies has let his guard down; letting the word retcon appear in the script is an odd slip given that (as far as I’m aware) it’s only used by TV show fans…

There’s plenty of continuity to be explored: Jack’s past, Gwen’s connection with The Unquiet Dead’s Gwyneth, Toshiko’s previous encounter with the Doctor, etc. and more subtle touches (the Doctor’s hand, the rift and the chamelon circuit etc.) and I’m looking forward to that; but I hope Torchwood can stand as a show in its own right.

The New Rose

In other respects, Davies is careful to show Torchwood through unfamiliar eyes, those of PC Gwen Cooper in fact, in the same way he reintroduced the Doctor after the 9 year gap through the eyes of Rose Tyler in Rose. The structure of the show is similar in many ways, right down to the rather rushed (although the show is 5 minutes longer) and unsatisfying climax. That puts Jack in the role of the mysterious stranger; a role that suits him very well. The best scene in the episode sees Jack welcome Gwen to the hub, enjoying showing it off to her, before taking her out for a drink, enjoying her company, then letting her know he’s drugged her and she will have forgotten him when she wakes. He’s charming, and friendly, but keeps his distance (just like a certain Time Lord). Let’s see how long he can stay unattached…

The Double Bill

It worried me that they showed two episodes back to back; I thought it must be because the BBC had lost confidence in the show. In the event, it seems that the reason is because the second episode is outstandingly good. Anyone left feeling luke warm about the show will surely have been hooked by a story that sees that good old Doctor Who staple alien possession given a thoroughly adult spin. More please.

If you fancy it, and you’re free on Friday night, you’re in luck.  There happens to be one such unused in the centre of Bristol, and as I passed it yesterday I saw there will be a dinner dance thrown by the Institute of Civil Engineers this week.

Well, as widely predicted the MacBook Pro was updated today, with FW800 and dual layer DVD writing, as well as the Core2Duo processor. But any hope I had that they’d do the whole laptop range at once has been eliminated.

I shall cling on to the hope that, as with the original MacBook release, the budget version will follow after a mere three weeks.

I’d forgotten how much I loath this stuff. It catches on everything.

Anyway, it may not be elegant, but ’tis done, so come on leaves, do your worst.

Still no sign of fish.

This last crop brings the this year’s total to well over 100!

Not all the pears were harvested. Because of the bumper crop I’ve been picky, and chucked the blemished pears away, I’ve also been slow in getting to the ripe pears.

The pond-works completed this year have put the feeder pond right under the tree, and all the land now rolls down to the water, with the consequence that many of the pears that I hadn’t yet got to dropped in the water and immediately begun to rot.

It’s been good for the water snails, but not for the pond. There’s scum on the surface and it smells bad; I haven’t seen fish to know if they’ve survived, but I’m off now to get a large net to try and protect it all from the next threat to oxygen levels: rotting leaves.

It would appear that I was over optimistic in suggesting that smashing my iBook on the floor had not impaired vital functions.  The hard drive has started making a sound like maracas.

It would be tempting to blame the upgrade to 10.4.8, or Apple’s crummy SyncServices, for bringing the machine to a rattling, clacking halt.  It did work fine for 24 hours after the incident, after all.  But what with the noises and the fact it won’t boot FC5 either, I think that so soon after a massive impact I can’t really ignore the possibility that this was maybe the cause of physical HD damage.

One things is clear: whilst I try to hold out for the new MacBooks, this morning life without OSX begins…

“Access Denied” no longer.

Magsafe.

Like backup software, one of those things you don’t realise the value of until disaster strikes.

Last night my foot caught on my iBook’s power cord. Only for a second, but giving the iBook enough of a tug to send it spinning onto the concrete floor, leaving its screen hanging off the hinge.

Fortunately the iBook was rugged enough to survive the fall with no impairment of vital functions. But using the machine as a portable is impossible: closing the lid (once a two second one finger job) now takes two hands with great care. I suspect I can only do this maybe a dozen times before the screen’s end of life. Fortunately, once I have aquired a new laptop, the iBook’s destiny is to function as my file/web/iTunes/TV server for which the screen is not a requirement, and FC5 is already installed.

But now I need Apple to bring out the Merom MacBook all the more urgently. I can’t wait much longer (already I’ll have been beaten to owning the first MacBook in the family).

COME ON APPLE, give us the Merom MacBook! I need a new computer now, and I can’t wait much longer!