Happy New Year!

Bonsoir from Paris!

Unfortunately my typing is extremely slow on this French keyboard, with the m, a,w, and . keys in completely the wrong places: so a very short post. It also costs money...

Driving in France (on the right) has been generally easier than we thought, but navigating in Paris from the google maps instructions alone was very challenging. We were very glad that Géraldine and Bernard were able to help guide us yesterday. And we had a beautiful dinner with them (and Andrea) last night. Today we explored a few highlights, although the queue for the Tour Eiffel was approximately 1km long so we didn't try. More chances tomorrow and Tuesday.

Best wishes all for 2008 (or éàà_ ifI don't press the shift key)!

Feast and Followup

Here's a picture of our Christmas table. Christopher has an ambulance on his tray - one of several such additions to his garage. The size of the feast meant that some kind of family exercise was required for Boxing day.

We didn't prevaricate at all, although there was some hint of procrastination. (Are those words ever confused?) But eventually at about 11, we set off for the hamlet of Hollybush, almost at the southern end of the hills, for the Midsummer Hill circuit. Joanna thinks that this has been her favourite walk with the Mums so far, so we joined the happy throng. What else would people do in Malvern?

In the evening, Helen, Stephanie, and I wandered off to the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs pantomime at the Malvern Theatres. It was (as one would expect from the price) well put together, and very entertaining. Helen's favourite quote:
Queen (to Muddles, the jester): You idiot. How stupid can you be!
Muddles: How stupid would you like me to be?

Today has been a reading day for me, trying to join lots of quantum dots together. Well, I shouldn't say it that way, lest I get myself (or those observing this blog) entangled. I'm trying to get myself into a super position to understand quantum computing issues. But having escaped any detailed study of such concepts at uni, I have trouble keeping everything coherent in my mind, and I feel like it will collapse. But really, there's no basis for me carrying on like this - it's not normal. But I want to get some things sorted before we commute to Paris and back for the long weekend.

Hark!

He did come after all. We were convinced that although the girls have behaved fairly well this year, it wasn't enough to deserve presents beyond a Lapland trip. But we've been proven wrong. He came, he delivered, he ate the biscuits.

We had a fun time opening presents this morning, especially with the crazy collection of gifts that Helen and Stephanie had made each other (and us). Chatting with Nanna and Pop and Auntie Sophie in Australia was good too, although we seemed to have problems with audio levels somewhere.

It was a very easy drive to Gloucester Cathedral this morning - hardly anyone about on the roads. There had been some fuss on the radio yesterday about how poor it was that there would be no trains on Christmas Day, and few on Boxing Day. The train operators explained that not only were they doing major engineering work, but also there was almost no demand. It's hard to judge exactly how accurate that is, but there wasn't much bustle around Malvern or Gloucestershire today. Maybe it was because of the lack of trains.

The music at Gloucester was good - making both Matins and Eucharist. We heard Howells Jubilate, Elgar Te Deum, and Mathias A Babe is Born during Matins (sung in the Quire) and then we all joined the procession to the Nave to O Come All Ye Faithful. The only choral Eucharistic music was the Vierne Messe Sollonelle - with the Benedictus and Agnus Dei sung during communion, and the organ postlude was Mulet's Carillon Sortie.



Soon after arriving home, and a brief but diverse and Christmassy chat with Dr Glennn, we went across the common to our Christmas Lunch. It was the sort of lunch which didn't get us home until 4pm. We experienced both traditional Christmas Dinners as well as Indian (being at our closest Indian restaurant, Paprika). They were both very nicely prepared, although we had to bring a good meal's worth home afterwards. It was nice that we won two raffle prizes too: a drawing set (for the girls) and a traction truck (for Christopher). The walk home proceeded a little more sedately on full tummies.

We spent some time trying out the roller shoes, but discovered that some skill is required, and that it's harder than it looks.

Only the smallest seems to require any dinner tonight, although it might be hard to drag his attention away from his new vehicular delights.

While Joanna's waiting for the Boxing Day Test to start, we had a brief look at the Paris map that Santa brought her. We need to get from the North to an Orly airport hotel, and then vaguely NW to near Sceaux (a green circle). I'm not sure that this map will be enough to get us successfully through the spaghetti.

Merry Christmas everyone!

- - -

*It seems that Gareth Perkins, Graham Powell and others have similar experiences - see posts 9 and 10 of this descant discussion. From memory, the culmination is a B minor 7 with flat 5 on "Word" (of the Father...). Oh, and a pet hate in common: having people sing descants on too many verses.

Christmas Eve

Well it's Christmas Eve now, but this entry is really about trying to remember what happened since Friday.

I've spent a few sessions at the gym, which are rather overdue. On Saturday morning, I left home in the foggy seven o'clock darkness and cycled to the top of the Worcestershire Beacon - the highest of the Malvern Hills. It was odd to see the main beam and several side beams of my headlight stabbing through the fog, especially on our road where the streetlights aren't very bright. Even on top of the hill, where the potential visibility is over 20km and perhaps the wind might have helped dispel the mist, I could still only see about 10-20m. I called in at a couple of service stations on the way home, to see if I could top up the tyre pressure - but coins/tokens were required for the air at both places, and they both prohibited use on bicycles. Back to the home pump. There wasn't too much traffic at that time of day.

A little later in the morning, we went to explore the tower at Malvern Priory. As it turned out, this was mostly an opportunity to see the inside of the tower - the bellfry and the ringing room. But that was very interesting, and revived some latent curiosity about campanology, change ringing, and bell acoustics. It wasn't until we heard the 11 o'clock chime that we realised we were late for a girls' play-appointment in the park with Isabel. Although the atmosphere was still a little damp, the girls (and Christopher) had a good time, and we finished off with a hot chocolate at a local café.

Once home, there wasn't much time to fill in before departing for Coventry Cathedral for a performance of Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur. A spur of the moment decision led to travel by train rather than by car. I guessed that I could get from the station to Cathedral in 5 minutes, based on a quick Google Maps check. As it turned out, that wasn't to be: the Birmingham New St - Coventry train was 17 minutes late, so I was about 25 minutes late, and missed the first four méditations. I enjoyed the rest of it though, and have a new goal for next year! I got caught up in a little shopping frenzy of the high street area, before training back to Malvern Link. I enjoy the train experience - it seems very civilised, even if they're sometimes late. So different from Australia, where there's essentially one train a day between Brisbane and Sydney.

We decided that Sunday would be a good day to visit Leicester. The Cathedral had some nice music programmed (Sumsion in F, Vaughan Williams This is the truth sent from above, Palestrina I look from afar), and we enjoyed meeting Dean Vivienne. After a brief exploration of the city centre, we headed off to the National Space Centre for the afternoon. It was quite interesting, with the simulator ride being the highlight. And we nearly missed it! We would like to have visited Taylor's Bell Foundry museum which was nearby, but it was closed for the Christmas break.

On the way home, during some accident-induced motorway congestion, we decided that I should be dropped off at Worcester for the Carol Service, as it would be too late for the others after a long day. I should mention that we heard the Leighton Responses on the radio - they're everywhere! Worcester's choir performed superlatively, with a nice range of newish music: Grieg's Ave Maris Stella, and new arrangements of Adam Lay Ybounden, Past Three O'Clock (Carter), Coventry Carol (Lucas), and Es ist ein Ros entsprungen (Oxley). There was an arrangement of one of Warlock's Capriol Suite movements was sung to Come to Bethlehem, and a section of Bach's Weinachts-Oratorium. The Jacques tune for Away in a Manger was the last piece from the choir. O Come all ye Faithful was, as usual, the last of the congregational carols, and this was exploited with an impressive double-organ rendition of Naji Hakim's Fantasie sur Adeste Fideles. It was a little odd to be at a carol service where people didn't need to fan themselves with their programmes to cope with the heat.

I've missed most of the festivities for Berenice's birthday today. I'll have to have my McDonalds another time. I bought some croissants and jelly babies in preparation for my boss's visit today. He wasn't hungry, so the croissants were a nice lunch just for me. That's the end of my lunch hour, but the office is Marie Celeste, so I'll probably head gymwards shortly. And now it's just ticked over to "Merry Christmas" for those in Australia! The lasses and Christopher went to a Christingle family service at the Priory, and we lit them with the birthday cake for dinner.

Two wines to report. The best French red I've tasted so far has been a Bordeau 2002 Les Abeilles from Saint-Émilion. It was wonderfully rich and complex, with a decent length. That was on Friday night, after I'd visited the Wine Rack to restock. Tonight for the birthday party, we tried a 2005 Alsacian (Alsatian?) Gewurztraminer from Cave de Turckheim with our vaguely oriental/Indian dish (in accordance with the label). We could, as directed, taste the lychees and honeyed ginger, even if it took a small pinch of imagination. There are probably others to try before getting that one again, but I'm keen to get some more bottles of Les Abeilles, unless I can find something in the same family. I'd like to know more about whether the 1855 classification (which divided vineyards & wineries into different classés) is still a reliable indicator, or just a guide about how well things were going back then. Another lesson we'll seek from Géraldine next week.

Do travel agents have a future?

People suggested that the world wide web would mean the end of businesses that had the word "agent" in their name - particularly travel agents. I've been spending a lot of time on the net recently doing travel planning, and I'm sick of it. Joanna did get quotes from an agent, and it's true that we've found cheaper, but maybe not that much better. Anyway, you're all dying to know that we'll be driving (via the Dover-Calais ferry) to Paris on 29 December, and back the following year (2 January).

Snow in Suomi

We're back! It was certainly a wonderfully entertaining time, with lots of new experiences. It's impossible to do justice with words in the blog, and unfortunately, I seem to have been a bit unlucky with the photography. There's a few things I can blame for that - low light, being in a hurry, lack of tripod, cheapish camera, lack of skill...

On Sunday, we left home at 4am, and drove through Bristol to the airport. We arrived at the Airport Tavern EzyPark at 5:30, where after checking the car in, we were driven 5 minutes to the airport terminal itself. The airport was unremarkable, except for the amazingly long queue of people waiting to check-in for EasyJet. This is something we'll need to consider if we're tempted to book cheap flights!

After boarding the European Air Charter 737-200 at 8am, we were given a nice hot breakfast as we flew over the North Sea, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, and into Ivalo. With the 2 hour time difference, we landed at 1:50pm. At the bottom of the steps onto the tarmac, we were greeted by a Sami couple in traditional dress with their reindeer. Inside, as we were collecting bags, we watched as a couple of rogue elves danced on the carousel, stole kids' beanies, and kept us generally entertained. We were allocated to bus "Tinsel", which was to be our transport for the whole trip. On the way to Saariselkä, our tour guide kept us in the festive spirit, with singalongs of Rudolph, We wish you a merry Christmas, Jingle bells, Twelve days of Christmas, and several others. We spotted more mischievous elves at the entry to the village, before disembarking at the Siula shopping centre, where we were given snowsuits, gloves, socks, hats, and boots. There were a few moments to spend on a little toboggan before jumping back on the bus to be taken to the Holiday Club hotel. It was quite dark by 3pm, although the crescent moon was slightly visible through the cloud.

We were asked to be at a welcome brief by 4pm, so that left about 30 minutes to spend in snowball fights and general first-day-in-the-snow activities. This photo is the area just outside our room, that we could see from the window. After changing back into inside clothes and hearing the jure de jour (am I allowed to make up French phrases) such as "The bar is open from 4pm to 4am, but children only permitted until 11pm", we got changed again and headed outside. We found a small toboggan slope in the hotel courtyard, and after a chat with a two-days-older-and-wiser tourist and a 300m walk, found the bottom part of a 1.2km toboggan trail. Only the last 70m or so were lit, so that's all we ventured. There were some tailbone-jarring bumps, but it was still fun. We then headed back to the hotel without getting lost, and indulged in a buffet roast dinner, before going to the very fancy pool - waterfalls, waterslide, whirlpool, spas ("jacuzzi"), and a wave machine. There was a strict "no clothes" rule for the saunas. I don't think the eyelids lasted long once horizontality was attained that night.

Monday was our "Activity Day". We had to be ready for a 9am Tinsel pickup, so breakfast was 7:30. (There was a huge influx at 8am!) With another buffet, so I was able to show off my complete lack of dietary discipline. My seven courses were: fruit salad; cereal; porridge; sliced cheeses and meats; scrambled egg, bacon, and vegetable rösti; toast; and self-cooked waffle. After changing back into outside clothes, we hopped on our Tinsel bus for the 20min ride to the Activity Centre. Again, our guide kept us "in the mood" with more singalong, including "There was a crazy moose", with lyrics slightly altered from the Boy Scout Trail version, to include "He was a good canoer/so he paddled in the sewer" and other slightly less savoury lines - which the kids loved!

At the activity centre, we were given a rides in a one-reindeer open sleigh, a seven-husky open sleigh, and a one-skidoo open sleight. The latter took us on a tour through the woods where, after discovering an upturned sled with presents all over the ground, we spotted a couple of elves who invited us in to see Santa. Of all the coincidences, he just happened to be reading a letter that Stephanie had posted a few days earlier! After some discussion of Christmas spirit and the relative moralities of giving and receiving, Santa and the girls practised these respectively. The packages are still unopened under our tree now.

Other activities included ice sculpture, snow-shoeing, more tobogganing, another husky ride (we were lucky!), occasional visits to the hot-berry-juice and biscuits warming-up-around-the-fireplace hut, and a Sami arctic circle welcome ceremony. It was explained that we are all destined to return at some future time as reindeer, and we have been "marked" to belong to the herd of our welcomer, Maya. Our lunch was a salmon chowder, spaghetti bolognese, and a pancake and jam. We didn't have long after lunch, which didn't matter as the weather was deteriorating - the wind was chilly. We tried some tandem skiing which was disastrous on the now-very-icy surface, and the girls tried the junior snowmobile. Then it was 3pm: time for Tinsel to take us back to the Holiday Club. We headed straight back to the big toboggan slope, which was also rather icy by this stage of the day. Time for another swim, before dressing for the Gala Dinner at 7pm. Although still a buffet, it was much classier, with about 8 cold dishes (including smoked salmon and prawns), and about 8 hot dishes (including salmon and - importantly for the girls - chicken nuggets and chips). Dessert included Christmas puddings, creme brulee, mousse, rice pudding, and cheese platter. The only wine I tried in Finland was a 2005 Peter Lehmann "Wildcard" Shiraz. Then there were various party games and activities (colouring in, etc) for the children, to let the adults relax and chat amongst themselves for a while. We didn't last long on returning to the room that night either!

Tuesday was our last day. We could have signed up for optional snowmobile tours, husky rides, or other such activities. We chose to look into the downhill skiing (as opposed to "normal" skiing), but after the bus dropped us at the slope, we discovered that only the children's lift was running due to the high winds. So we headed back, and undertook some more tobogganing. It was much lighter at 11am than it had been at 4pm, and the surface had been groomed overnight, so we found it more pleasant. It was good exercise, too, before the rather long trip home began at midday. The guide on Tinsel encouraged us to join in with more singing, but perhaps we weren't as enthusiastic on the way home. It was a rather slow wait in the airport, but the Monarch Airlines 757 trip home was good: they gave the children activity books, and we had a Christmas dinner - turkey, sausage, roast potato, and Christmas pudding and custard. After a short wait at Bristol airport to be taken to the car, we made it home in just under 2 hours - by 7:30pm (9:30pm Finnish time).

For the third night in a row, sleep came remarkably easily.

Lapland

We're here. Snow's great, tobogganing is fun, keyboard is weird. No time to talk much - about to explore waterslide, people queueing for computer!

No catchy title today

Well, I suppose I need to apologise for going 4 days without posting. It sounds a bit lame to say that we've been busy at this time of year, since everyone else says the same thing. But Wednesday saw the Carol Service at the Colwall Church, being the Christmas breakup. Joanna and I joined a few of the other Community Choir people helping out with some of the carols etc. Thursday was the work Christmas party at The Nags Head, which was good too. And in the morning, I was inducted into the gym at work. The explanations and program design took some time, so I didn't get any exercise: that meant that the treadmills called me back for Friday morning. Thursday and Friday mornings were frosty - white roads, sometimes sprinkled with salt and grit. Thursday was also playgroup for Christopher in the afternoon.

Today Berenice went for a walk with the Footpath Society, and the rest of us went for a drive to Cirencester. We didn't get a lot done, but found the Corinium Museum rather interesting. Stephanie and Helen took turns trying out Roman soldier accessories. Adults could spend longer, but the combination of 9, 7, and 1 year old didn't have quite the longevity. And I should mention that we didn't really find the Black Horse Inn to be a very good place for lunch - very slow service, and fish fingers and crumbed fish both very overcooked, and peas cold. The worst part was when the barmaid protested she'd warned us that the food would take 40 minutes, when in fact she'd told us 20 minutes. Presumably others will have better reports, but left a bad taste in my mouth (figuratively, at least).

Tomorrow (Sunday) four of us will leave home at 4am to get to Bristol Airport by 6am to fly out at 8am to Saariselkä for our 3-day/2-night Santa Magic experience in Lapland. (Or should it be Lappland?) The laptop isn't coming, so we'll have to save up all the pictures and stories for Tuesday night or afterwards. Anyone have any last minute (final week?) requests for Santa?

I found myself in an interesting discussion yesterday about writing Eclipse plugins - in particular, for extending an ontology editor that's built on top of Eclipse, using the Jena toolkit. Didn't get into any programming, but might one day.

We tried a couple of vins blanc with our salmon cutlets and rice last night. The 2006 Cave des Vignerons Chablis was quite an acceptable Chardonnay: not as much malolactic buttery/peachy characters as I like, but full of flavour nonetheless. The £12 half bottle of 1999 Château Filhot à Sauternes was scrumptious. It didn't have quite the same marmalade flavours as my favourite sticky at home (whose name escapes me just at the moment), but that's not to say it wasn't as good. I'm not sure that I can compare from this distance, but the full citrus flavours in a smooth liquid gold certainly made for a wonderful finish to the dinner. I wonder if there will be any Finnish wines to taste?

Twenty20

And John didn't mention a word about the Australia v New Zealand game in Perth. A victory to Australia variously described as "comprehensive" and "crushing".

Ahhhhh

Yes, ok, I confess, I did it. I hadn't planned to, but, well, I didn't have that much choice really. There I was in the wine shop - the same one I've been in a few times now, looking over the same twenty or so French wines. Some were £3, so I didn't imagine there'd be anything of value there. I've already tried the interesting looking ones. And then it leapt off the shelf, making a desperate bid for freedom. Not an Old Block admittedly, and not even a Blackwell. But it was a 2005 St Hallett Shiraz. Yes, I succumbed and bought an Australian wine for the first time since we've been here.

Normally I would try to have shiraz with a big juicy red steak. Perhaps it's even more important when it's a Barossa shiraz. And we were "only" having pork tonight. (Nothing wrong with the pork - except that it doesn't suit shiraz so well!) The scrambled egg didn't really help either. But there it was. And it took only milliseconds to put my mind at ease: my taste buds haven't been seduced away from the one true wine. That big oaky Barossa body and complexity was evident immediately.

Now I'm not trying to suggest that this is magnificant wine: it was not at all balanced, the acid being far too overpowering. Joanna could hardly drink any. She blamed its youth, but I'm not sure it has much longevity. I don't want to buy any more (although a Blackwell or Old Block might be a different matter). The point is only that there is something remarkably distinctive about big Australian shiraz that nothing I've tried so far even comes close to.

I still want to try more French wines, and I'm looking forward to visiting "La Belle France" at the end of the month, and seeing some of her better wines. If what I see of Australian wines in the UK is any predictor of the quality of Franco-vin, then I shouldn't be too surprised. A work colleague has suggested that French wine is twice the price in the UK as in its native land. So we may have to hire a trailer.

Well I suppose you think I have a one-track mind. But I don't: the Emperor concerto has just appeared (?) on the radio, so I'm off to do some air conducting. And before you draw any conclusions, I only had one glass.

Mindblowing coding guidelines

In their simplest and most common incarnation, coding guidelines seem to be religious dogma about indentation and line spacing.

It's hard to generalise about the über-rational end of the spectrum, because I've only come across one instance. Guidance about choosing variable/function names might typically span a page or two, and discuss capitalisation, word length, etc. Derek M. Jones allocates 90 (out of 1600) to this topic, and discusses memory factors, auditory effects, typing mistaeks, adjective order, and even eye movement during searching vs detailed reading. (Scroll to what Acrobat calls the 712th page, which is near page 304, for a list.) Another interesting discussion about developers, human sciences, probability, decision making, expertise, etc can be found between (Acrobat) pages 90-157, with a particularly interesting "Thatcher Illusion" on page 120.

It's hard to decide whether seeing such a comprehensive discussion is motivating (showing that it can be done) or the opposite (enormous effort required to meet the standard demonstrated). Perhaps it's both.

And now, why not wind down with some programming wit.

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL in w22n51.sys

The old laptop has had a few blue screens of death recently, with the above error message. They seem to occur in situations where there is a lot of parallel network activity. It took much longer than I had hoped to find a solution, which is why I'm writing about it here (although I should also write about it in pages with higher pagerank).

The answer was simple: go to http://downloadcenter.intel.com/ and update the drivers for the wireless networking hardware.

To explore, you might like to look at the device manager (Hold down windows key and press break, choose Hardware, Device Manager), select wireless networking, and drivers. You'd see the w22n51.sys file there. After the update, you'll find that the file is called w22n59.sys.

Decorating, Walking, Nagging, Bombing, Drinking, Bowing.

We didn't accomplish everything scheduled for yesterday - there wasn't much time left for swimming. The puppet show was fun, and the library visit productive. And we did manage to acquire a Christmas Tree with some bonus lights. We thought that the splashing might fit in today (Sunday), but we didn't manage that either.

We did successfully fulfil Stephanie's long held desire that we should all go for a walk along the cross country path near the school. There were showers about, but we didn't get wet while walking - not from above anyway. The track was very muddy, and in some places one had to step very gingerly to avoid boot submergence in the big puddles. We walked up Brockhill Lane, and then up another lane to the right, before taking to the footpaths and stiles. The stream was very babbly, and there were lots of contented sheep, and a cow and two calves enjoying the green green grass. Christopher's backpack weight added a little to the challenge on the way up, and over the stiles, but we all made it back to the school, where we explored the railway tracks and the duck pond, before piling into the car to go home. Hope the mud washes off all the trousers!

As soon as we got home, four of us turned around to go off to the best pub in the UK (no really), which happens to be in our street, just 150m up the hill, for lunch. We hadn't booked, and that was a Bad Thing, but they did say that we could use a table as long as we vacated it by 1:20pm. That was ok, even though there was a "Caution: Slow Food" sign on the wall. Helen's expectations were raised when she heard that sausage and chips may have been available, but dashed when the choice was reduced to roast pork/beef/lamb/veg, or fish pie. We chose one of each meat, and the yorkshire puddings were devoured eagerly - before any of the vegetables and meat, though. The girls didn't quite manage to finish theirs (the time pressure didn't really help), which meant that I had the enormous plate of steamed vegetables almost entirely to myself. It was delicious, but we almost rolled home down the hill.

The afternoon saw children playing on the common (more muddy/wet trousers), and some general relaxation around the house with reading, and then a Monsters Inc showing. I employed Google Maps directions to get myself to Evensong at Coventry Cathedral. The responses weren't Leighton - it was Ayleward tonight, with Howells in G Canticles, Bruckner Locus Iste introit, and a non-Purcellian Rejoice in the Lord Alway for the anthem. (There was no shortage of Howells around the Midlands today, with Collegium Regale at Gloucester's eucharist, and A Spotless Rose at their evensong, and New College service at Hereford's evensong.) Without taking anything away from the delight of the older Cathedrals, it was inspiring to see a twentieth century realisation: clearly not removed from the older themes, but certainly modern, and poignantly integrated with the remains of the older cathedral, damaged in WWII. The organ featured rather dramatically - almost like a concert hall. It was good to be able to repent to the clergy for having stolen an organist.

I can report on the latest wine: Perrin & Fils Côtes du Rhône Villages from Château de Beaucastel. The (50/50) Shiraz Grenache blend was certainly very smooth, and it slipped down very easily (finished the bottle in one sitting) although perhaps a little without being noticed. The acidity was not quite balanced by the fruit and tannins, but I suppose I'd probably be happy to pay the £8.99 again, until I find somewhere better than the local Threshers.

We're now practising Jota in preparation for Steph's performance for her class tomorrow. Perhaps we should have started before this evening!

Choir concert

Last night was the Colwall Community Choir's Christmas Carol Concert. We performed some mostly-Christmassy music in the first half, and audience joined in with Carols afterwards. I've been in various university choirs where drinking is high on people's priority lists. But I don't recall any previous occasion where the performers drank wine and beer before the concert, at interval, and even during the performance! It was rather informal, and I'm sure the select audience enjoyed it all. We're looking forward to the next term already.

The school's annual cross country race was held yesterday too. It seems that the two ballet teachers may have been indulging in a few too many christmas puddings. I'm told that last year they were a pantomime cow, and the previous year saw wetsuits and flippers. The suggestion is that I shouldn't mention any names, classes or subjects to identify these two, lest it affect their future careers... Stephanie ran creditably, even if she didn't enjoy it.

This morning, while Stephanie's at pottery and railway, Helen's visiting classmate Emma for a play. It's not very friendly outside weather - cold blustery showers, but I'm sure they'll find plenty to keep themselves amused.

Helen was an Olive Seller (late-cast, not having been here at term beginning) in the junior Christmas play. Joanna says it was enjoyable, and the kids' reports tend to agree.

Our rainy-day activities for this afternoon look like including the library, the Theatre of Small Convenience, and the Malvern Splash. We are used to swimming in December, you know. We'll also try to acquire a tree for the living room.

Speaking of trees, there's a lot of deciduous bareness. This is from Joanna's Mums Up The Malverns walk on Wednesday in the Gardner's Quarry area. It was rather cool and windy, so all the babies are warmly tucked away into their cocoons.

The lack of decent wine shops is having a noticeable impact on the cellar - it's empty. The Ledbury Wine Cellar is mail order only, and for variety, the Sunday Times seems to be well stocked. But mostly they seem to sell whole dozens, which isn't quite what I'm after. I'll keep looking. We might go exploring Birmingham and/or Coventry tomorrow - perhaps we'll find something there.

Get In Tune

I had some fascinating instruction into the methods of piano tuning today, courtesy of John Bishop from Get In Tune. I had intended to show him the piano and then go back to work leaving him to his, but plans changed. We explored how a broken tape would allow a jack to lean too far forward when the action was replaced, regulating the height of the keys, voicing the hammers, aligning the back checks, seeing how the felt wears in the bushes, nickel pins get loose, and twangs and slaps end up in strings. We saw how more corroded strings sounded (and looked) duller.

Even more intersting was discussion about tuning theory. Equal temperaments, as opposed to well tempered perhaps, requires sharp major thirds, flat minor thirds, listening to the slowing beats with descending major thirds - C-E, B-D#, Bb-D, A-C#, Ab-C, G-B). John tuned one note to a "perfect" major third for me, to demonstrate just how different the sound is from an equal tempered major third. There was one string that showed a detectable beat, even with its peers damped, implying that the string cross-section was probably not uniformly circular. He warned that learning too much about tuning might reveal too much about the imperfections, and that one might never enjoy piano sounds again.

We talked about octave stretching and the reasons for it - inflexible wire means that the harmonic modes don't have a "point" node in the middle - they have something more like a segment of finite length, meaning that the harmonic is the result of a slightly shorter length of string vibrating, so an octave harmonic is slightly sharp - meaning that to line a low note's harmonics up with the notes octaves above, it needs to be tuned flat (and high notes need to be sharper).

John must have detected the engineer in me - unlike just about every other piano tuner I can remember, his attitude was that any serious pianist should have piano tuning gear, and be able to fix up the odd note themselves. He left me a few spare tapes and a lot of encouragement. When his book comes out (in the Haynes series - more well known for DIY car servicing), I'll definitely buy a copy. So if you need a piano tuner in the West Midlands area (or wider), I recommend you Get In Tune.

Needless to say, the 1894 Steinway sounds orders of magnitude better now!

Place names

We all know that there are weird placenames in every country (except perhaps Ghana), and it probably won't be very amazing to hear the small selection that I have here, but I wanted to record them somewhere and tell someone, so here they are: On the way to Tewkesbury from Malvern, one drives past Shuthonger, then Twynings, and then the best of all, Puckrup.

The new laptop is back tonight, but the chequebook is £70 lighter. I've ordered a £10 USB thingy into which I can plug an IDE or SATA hard drive, so perhaps when that comes, I will be able to do the job myself. Of course, after the computer comes back from warranty repairs, I'll never need it, except when I want to recover data from my desktop HDDs. I was a bit grumpy about having to pay the full price, and the waiting around at school and the late night last night didn't help the mood much.

I'm trying to organise clothes etc at work so that I can ride to work, but the forecast for tomorrow includes heavy rain and gales, so I may take a "rain check?" on the riding. Or maybe if I get up early enough, I can go for a purely recreational (rather than functional) ride. But that would probably be a little too decadent.

Advent-ures

We had a home morning today - at least, after I got back from my ride. I'm suffering a bit from lack of exercise, and with my new weather gear, I was able to puff along in the drizzle without concerns about my visibility and vision. There were some rather heavy and blustery showers mid morning.

But we weren't going to stay home all day, when there was a chocolate opportunity. We called into Cadbury World, and had a fun tour of the place. I thought it was very well done, with a variety of presentation styles: some self guided through a spooky rainforest (first picture) reading little signs about Aztecs, listening to Mr Cortez bringing beans back to Spain on his boat fending off pirates, some sitting in theatrettes, some walking along looking at machinery, and a cute little kids train ride through a Cocoa Bean village, with all the beans in their daily life (from which these pictures come).


















We saw some fancy hand-made Christmassy chocolates being made, were able to choose our own mixture of add-ins to try to develop the next world-famous chocolate taste, and learn about the history of the company and the founders' Quaker philosophies. And the girls liked the playground as well. I think I'd recommend this visit to anyone between the ages of 5-12 and for those over twenty-something. The teenagers seemed to rush through without trying to take much in.

As soon as we got home at 5pm, I left for Tewkesbury Abbey, to catch the 6pm Advent Carol Service. I wasn't exactly sure where things were, but it wasn't too hard to find, and the campanologists were providing a wonderful change on the bells to help me find my way from the car park to the Abbey. The service was very well sung, and I'm glad that I have the opportunity (most years!) to participate in such things. For those interested, the program included, amongst the sorts of hymns you might expect:

• I look from afar (Palestrina)
• "O" Antiphons
• This is the truth sent from above (Vaughan Williams)
• The tree of life my soul hath seen (Elizabeth Poston)
  
• Peace be to you (Paul & Ruth Manz)
• Bogoroditse dyevo, raduisya, blagodatnaya Mariye (Rachmaninoff)
  
• Dixit Maria (Hassler)
• The Angel Gabriel from heaven came (trad)
• And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed (Handel)
• Voluntary: Final from Symphony I (Vierne)
  

And now the bad news: My new laptop has died again. It's not exactly the same symptoms as before - in fact they're arguably worse: I don't even get any options about whether to recover or boot safely, it just cycles. But I strongly suspect the same fault. I may ask the nice people at BITS if they can help me again (to save a set of about 15 photos that weren't copied onto the other laptop, and a bunch of downloads and bookmarks that aren't that critical), but even if that doesn't work, I'll action that warranty repair plan that I'd started. Misplaced optimism that it would be a once off - the BITS prediction was that the fault would probably recur. So we may have a slightly reduced blogging/skyping frequency over the next little while.

Eastnor

We did get to Eastnor this afternoon, and all the other things that I mentioned in yesterday. We're just home from the choir dinner, where the food and company were both fine, so I can't stay up too much later. I'll try to add a couple of photos sometime. Christopher found some tractors. I tried to make a seven-photo panaorama, but although they overlapped nicely, the software just wouldn't stitch them together properly. Maybe I'll learn more about it as I go.






But I wanted to mention, while I remember, that I found a proper wine shop: the Ledbury Wine Cellar. They are located next to Eastnor Castle, and they had a small store there, where I saw their catalog. They have it on the web too, so if anyone has any recommendations, let me know!

There were 6 different reds available at The Crown tonight, and I tried two: a Californian 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon "Grey Fox", and a Chilean Merlot (which I found barely drinkable). There are much better Cabernets around, so I don't need to remember too much, but it was ok.

Riding

I took the plunge and took to the pedals today. I've been for a couple of little rides around for amusement, but this time I rode to work. It's not far - about 5km - and flat enough. The traffic wasn't bad, so overall the trip was enjoyable - especially going to work. It meant that the others all went to school, and they were able to stay for assembly, which many parents seem to do. After that, three of them made it to British Camp - one of the Malvern Hills, where they went for a windy windy walk. (Yes, the path wasn't straight, and the air wasn't still.)

Riding home was not unpleasant, but it was dark and wet. I had a jacket, but it wasn't waterproof. (I think "fogproof" is the most complimentary term I should apply!) My jeans weren't waterproof, and neither were my work shoes. I did have lights, although I'm going to get a brighter one for the front. And I'll need some kind of goggles (it's hard for my fingers to type that word with a double g instead of a double o), preferably with wipers! I never went anywhere on my bike in Australia without sunglasses. I don't think it's an option at 5pm in this climate unless you're 106 miles from Chicago.

I'm anticipating a cycling accessories acquisition morning tomorrow. Stephanie's going to her first hobby (pottery), but the second hobby is cancelled, because of the school's Christmas Fayre. Then there's another Fair (Fayre?) at Eastnor Castle, just a few miles SW of here. (The Castle hasn't been open to the public since we've been here, so this will be a stickybeak opportunity.) Then we've another community choir rehearsal (normally they're on Thursday evenings), before we have an choir Christmas dinner at the local (Colwall) pub.

I spent another enjoyable part of the day (between road adventures) trying to come to grips with more quantum stuff, such as Multimode Interference beam splitting, creating entangled photon pairs, and electrically modulating photon polarisation. It mostly sounds believable, but I'd love to understand it all in more detail one day.

We didn't have wine tonight, but I have yet to comment on the 2005 St Emilion. As with so many of the wines, the label for the UK market doesn't give any more details of the pedigree (or should I say provenance - a word that I'm seeing more and more in information assurance circles). It was £11.95 at a local Threshers (where they, like most Malvern wine shops, only had about 20 different French reds), and was probably worth it. Only a Merlot, of course, coming from Bordeaux (see, I'm learning!), so it's behind from the start, but quite ok really. I'm half hoping that I'll start to like these wines, so that when I get back to Australia, I'll really savour those tasty Barossa Shiraz bottles stashed away in my secret, climate-controlled, hiding spot. Mmmm, I'm getting thirsty just thinking of the Rockfords, the Turkey Flat, the Leasingham Classic Clare (ok, not only Barossa), and the Wolf Blass Brown (or now Grey) Label. I'd better stop.

TPM software

Some minor success playing with my TPM this afternoon.

First, I could only get the IBM DAA code to pass the first of its 4 tests - the self-test one. It couldn't connect to the TPM. I didn't look into it too far.

I thought that maybe having an uninitialized TPM might be the problem. Whenever I log in to Vista, I get a bubble from the Infineon Security Platform Solution reporting the TPM status as "uninitialized". But then I found a Microsoft article explaining how to initialize the TPM and turn it on/off and clear it. It involves Running tpm.msc (from the Start ... Run menu as an admin user), and following the prompts. It includes a reboot, where the bios presents a big warning explaining what's about to happen - quite nice. After the reboot, it's initialised, and you can set a password. Or did I type in the password before? Can't remember.

I thought that might fix the DAA code, but no. Same behaviour as before.

The next thing to try was TPM/J. It worked nicely. I can't say I tried everything, but it at least gave different responses according to whether I put the right password in or not. It gives me great optimism for future exploration/exploitation. I wonder if it's worth building a little GUI for it. That could be a good project for an undergraduate. Maybe I'll pass it on...

Oh, a couple of minor things: I was going to play with the Protégé ontology editor as well, but ran out of time. I also came across TimeML, a way of extracting rigorous temporal specifications from natural language (or something like that).

Happy Birthday Helen

It was lots of fun today. Helen enjoyed unwrapping everything, and especially liked her princess dress & tiara, books, Paint Your Own Piggybank, cushion, doll-on-a-swing, and the £10 from the cousins! Emma and Lily enjoyed the afternoon too.