Is Putting Chilli Flakes Into A Shepherd’s Pie A Good Idea?
I made a pair of shepherd’s pies tonight; one for the stomach and one for the weekend. It’ll probably be Saturday after the football or Sunday evening, when the second one gets eaten.
As an experiment I modified the recipe, by adding a few chilli flakes.
Perhaps, it wasn’t for the purists, but it did impart an interesting flavour.
Bland it wasn’t!
Next time though, and there’ll be a next time, I’ll use a few less.
Who Called His Daughter Orienta?
It was Julian Lloyd Webber, as he is a massive Leyton Orient fan.
The Lawyers Did Very Well Here!
This case, reported in the Daily Mail is well summed up by the headline.
The £40,000 battle of the wheelie bins: Homeowner slapped with massive legal bill after row with neighbour ends up in court
When will people ever learn, that a quick way to lose lots of money, is to send a trivial dispute that could be settled over a cup or glass of something to the lawyers.
The only winners here are the lawyers, who walked away with bulging trousers.
Susanna Reid Makes A Confession
Susanna Reid on BBC Breakfast this morning confessed that she has a shopping trolley. I didn’t realise she was either obese or over sixty!
But she did say it was full of plastic bags!
Ronnie Biggs
His death is definitely not news!
London Shows Contactless Cards Work On Buses
This article on Finextra, shows that what the Dismal Jimmies predicted when you could use your contactless cards for bus travel didn’t happen. Here’s the two paragraphs.
Transport for London is celebrating a successful one-year anniversary of the use of contactless payments cards on the capital’s buses, as it prepares to extend the technology to the entire transit network in 2014.
Since it was launched on Thursday 13 December 2012 when 2,061 customers made 2,586 journeys, more than 6.5 million journeys have now been made using an American Express, MasterCard or Visa Europe contactless payment card.
So now we have another good thing, that the banks have done for us in addition to the cash machine.
I hope, I’m young enough to be able to use my contactkess bank card on public transport all over the world. It would certainly have helped in Bilbao and a lot of other places I’ve visited this year.
Are Google And ARM Holdings Forming An Alliance On Servers?
There has been a couple of reports on the Internet about a link-up between ARM Holdings and Google forming an alliance to create low energy use and high power servers. The Register bills it as Chipzilla versus The Chocolate Factory, in this article.
The last paragraph of the article, wich refers to the reports, is significant.
Such a scenario would be far worse news for Intel than merely losing a few million CPU sales each year.
So has Intel finally met its match in a small Cambridge company?
I think the answer is yes and we must make sure that this amazing UK company stays independent.
Another Advantage Of My New Plumbing
I’ve just read the meter readings for the switchover to Ovo.
Before the new plumbing was installed, the electricity meter was half hidden behind the washing machine and to be read properly needed a step ladder.
Now I just walk into the cupboard, switch the light on and read the meter at eye level.
How did Jerry manage to get so many things wrong?
The readings I’ve submitted are 33235 and 0778257 for electricity and gas respectively.
Incidentally, this supplier changeover seems to be taking forever. I assume this has been designed into the system, to discourage people from changing. After all, if you could change instantly, that would drive prices down. I said why here.
Why Does Everyone Have To Fiddle?
I’ve just returned home and I wanted to get the football on quickly, whilst I put my shopping away.
But some idiot has decided that my Sky box needs updating with yet more features that I will never use.
Whilst I was getting round their unwanted help and demo, a goal was scored.
Luckily it was only scored by that prawn sandwich mob in red from Manchester, but it could have been scored by Aston Villa.
There’s an old adage, that says if it’s not broken, then don’t fix it!
The trouble with updates involving any form of computing or software, is that I’ve only known one person, who never created a bug when writing updates. On the other hand, they never delivered anything on time!
I’m Suffering From Mandela Fatigue
No matter what you thought of him and I liked him, the obsessive media coverage of the death of Nelson Mandela is now boring me stiff.
It was the same with Princess Diana’s tragic death. We were on holiday at the time of the funeral in Northumberland and I deliberately chose to go and sit on the beach by myself on Holy Island, to get away from it all.
Death is a personal thing and we all have our own ways of coping with grief.
I just get on with life, as there is no other positive thing to do.
I shall go for a walk by the river, have some lunch and then bring my shopping home and watch the football all afternoon.
I dread to think what fuss, we’re going to see, when some of the great and good of this world die. They’ll all be out to outdo South Africa’s borefest for Mandela.
The Anonymous Widower 