Nik's Saga

Today's book was Burgess' A Clockwork Orange.

After yesterday's energetics, today has been much slower, mainly due to me feeling tired again. Maybe I used up all of my weekend energy yesterday. :)

So instead I lazed around and read A Clockwork Orange. It is the first in The Independent's series of banned books which they republished earlier this year. I actually ordered a Sunday paper at Redemption just to get my free copy. I saw the film many years ago, having acquired a bootleg copy on video from one of my sister's friends. At the time I was quite surprised that it was still unavailable - certainly the level of violence was less than I'd seen in contemporary films. The psychological aspect didn't worry me unduly either, as I'd come across a fair number of dystopias in my SF reading.

Why, then, did I feel the urge to read the original? It was, I suppose, the classic case of knowing that no book makes it intact to the big screen. And, indeed, this is no exception to that, this time with the reverse Blade Runner problem - the film ends a chapter too early rather than a chapter too late. There was, it seems, a certain controversy about this in that the book was also originally published without its final chapter which is, certainly, something of a twist. In some ways the film ending reminds me of Brazil - everything is back to normal in a strange way. The ending of the book is certainly weakened by the addition of the extra chapter even though the transformation within it is in many ways an obvious way to end the book.

The book was originally published in 1962 and set in the near future. Watching the news recently I have to say that it was quite an accurate prophesy in many ways... if you ignore the final chapter. The language takes a little time to get used to but even if you don't speak Russian you can get a lot of the slang from the context, which impressed me greatly. Now that I think about it I might have to go back and re-read 1984, as I have this suspicion that the two books would complement each other quite nicely.

The one strange image I kept getting was that the Simpsons are going to have to be very careful in future - I could quite see Bart turning into Alex.
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It's only taken me two months, but at last the new bookcase is operational.

Not only did I build one bookcase, but I've also moved another bookcase so as to fit the new bookcase into a sensible location, sorted and rearranged all of my books and emptied several shelves on the DVD bookcase ready to reorganise the DVDs tomorrow. Or maybe later this evening if I suddenly have a bout of enthusiasm. Or energy.

Of course, as I'm mid-reorganise right now the rest of the living room is less than tidy. But then again, it's tidier than it was earlier this afternoon, so that's a start.
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It's Friday again, and I'm looking forward to two days during which I don't need to face the outside world if I don't want to.

This weekend I really want to get the living room sorted out again. I bought a new bookshelf almost two months ago but I still haven't managed to build it and therefore rearrange my small book collection. That is my main aim for the weekend. I've started well by conquering the big pile of washing up and cleaning up the kitchen, so with a bit of luck I'll get a bit more done tomorrow.

Now if only I can work out precisely where I'm going to put the bookcase. Preferably without having to rearrange all of the rest of the furniture.
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And yes, even I danced.

One of the advantages of having a rarely-used gym at the university is that it's easy to book for things like fencing and dance practices. Tonight we had the first of our latest regular activity, the garbed dance practice. We now have about 9 regulars at meetings, plus a couple of irregulars and some folks outside town, although folks' various working hours mean that we don't often get everyone to a meeting. Tonight there were 7 of us - enough that I could sit out of the too-energetic ones like Petit Vriens and act as mechanical mistrel wrangler instead. :) I did do a couple of bransles and Amoroso.

We also did Alenchon and started work on Dance de Cleves (all of these from Eschewynge of Ydelnesse). I quite like the look of Burgundian Basse Dance - it's the dance form I've always associated with mediaeval dance (thank you Hollywood!) and it's the sort of slow and stately dance that I think I could get the hang of. At present, though, I'm calling the dances (sort of) while the more energetic members of the shire learn them.

Not dancing also meant that I could take some photos for the website. Clicking on the photo will take you to the gallery - a small gallery, but a gallery nonetheless.


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Every other Wednesday is an exhausting one.

These are the days when I have morning meetings, afternoon labs and evening lectures. Next time this happens I really must remember to pack something to eat at some point in the day.

Amidst the rest of my running around recently I've had the latest medical update - my blood pressure is also fine, nothing seems to be unduly sensitive, and I don't have swollen ankles, so instead I've now got a steroid inhaler to try to calm my lungs down a bit. I have to say that after a Long Wednesday I don't have much voice left either. And so the saga continues.
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I picked up a magazine today.

It's an Icelandic history magazine called Sagan Öll (which roughly translates as Everyone's Story) which I bought on the grounds that it has an article about Henry VIII which I thought I might share with the rest of the Shire. It was also the case that I thought that I might be able to understand it given that I know the history and hence the context.

It wasn't until I got home and picked it up with the intention of reading some of it that I noticed one of the banner headlines on the cover says We publish pictures of MOHAMMED! - the exclamation mark and capitalisation are theirs. Coming from a slightly more multicultural background than most people here I was a little concerned by this, as I'd rather not see Iceland suddenly suffer a round of suicide bombers in Reykjavík.

In fact the article is a fascinating one on representations of Mohammed in Islamic art. I had no idea that such things existed. Not only are there artworks ranging from the 11th to the 15th centuries, but there are even representations on coins from the 7th century (all of the images are available in this English webpage). It appears that one of the 13th century pieces was included in a book published in 2005 with the face blurred out in order not to offend.

I find myself wondering what would happen if an English-language magazine anywhere in the world or, indeed, a national-language magazine anywhere in the western world were to publish such an article, no matter how intellectually stimulating it might be. It's a very clever move to publish only images in Islamic art, but I fear that wouldn't make much difference in a number of places.

Here's an interesting thought - the documents from which these images are taken are historical artifacts which fall well within the SCA's defined period of interest. Somehow, though, I couldn't see an article on this subject being accepted for any SCA publication in spite of their historical importance.
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I swam through it all.

Thanks to the ongoing illness I hadn't been swimming for almost a month until today, but as I'm no longer as hoarse as I was and am just collapsing in coughing fits from time to time nowadays I decided it was time to return. Actually, I decided that before the weather became truly unpleasantt and was very tempted to chicken out but I eventually made it to the pool (partly thanks to the internal soundtrack which seemed stuck on Roy Castle singing Dedication, mm...mmm, dedication... all the way from the supermarket to the pool and back).

I pretty much had the place to myself. There were two teenage boys there when I first arrived but I think it got too cold, wet and miserable for them so they did a final trip down the slide and made a run for it. The solitude was rather pleasant, as I did my 16 lengths of breaststroke with only the the wind and the rain for company. And Roy Castle singing in my head...

It also became clear that swimming goggles are useful for more than just keeping splashes out of your eyes - they're also extremely good for keeping stinging rain out, which was a definite plus today. Even so, it was very pleasant to get out of the admittedly-quite-warm pool into the hot tub, especially since I had to myself and could float in the tub instead of just sitting there in a suitably prim manner.

The after-effect of all of this exercise seems to be an increased coughing rate and a sore throat. But on the whole I feel rather more relaxed and unwound that I have for a couple of weeks.
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I now have two - two! - working printers.

Yes, I know that sounds like overkill in a one-person household, but in my defence one of them is a photo printer rather than having two normal printers. The photo printer is one that I've had for nine months but haven't actually used before, so in order to create the photo for Ásgeir's card I had to get the thing up and running.

Given that I'd never used it, and that I don't think that Dad had used it for several months before he gave it to me, I suspect that it hadn't actually been used for about a year. So I pull out the driver disk and am delighted to note that it's Mac compatible (I hadn't checked before), although it does seem to have an awful lot of software to be installed. Fine, I install it, plug in the printer, work my way around the software and try to print a photo.

Yeuch. Pale, lacking in certain colours and full of lines. Oh drat. Hmm, maybe if I replace the ink cartridge, as this one has probably dried up. One replacement of cartridge and test print later I have a slightly better but still very poor photo. Time to consult the troubleshooting guide and work out how to do a nozzle clean. In fact it took five cleanings of the nozzles to return the photo printer to its normal operating fitness, but now that I have I even discovered that the old printer cartridge is fine. Seeing as these things are horribly expensive, I've stuck tape over the new one to prevent ink leakage and am back to using the old one.

That was one printer overhauled. My main printer was also in need of at least one new cartridge, so couple of test prints later I'd confirmed that the colour one was indeed in need of replacement. Printing out a lot of Klakavirki stuff had emptied the red cell although yellow and blue were still perfectly okay. Ah well. This time I've written the installation date on the cartridge just to see how long it lasts.

Yes, as you can probably tell, it's not been a particularly inspiring day. At least I now have everything necessary to make the card.
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Somehow today became a day for experimental jewellery-making.

It being almost October, I thought that I should probably start making some Christmas presents. This year I've decided to make jewellery for some friends, so it was also time to do a couple of experiments before I start the gifts themselves.

Beaded jewellery is generally easier, though more time-consuming, than wire-work. I currently subscribe to a couple of beading magazines - a UK one and a US one - and everytime I wonder if it's worth renewing the US subscription they produce a pattern which grabs my imagination and persuades me that I really do want to keep up the subscription even if most of the magazine is made up of US adverts.

This time is was the Sprocket Bracelet. I liked this one so much that I even ordered beads from the US to try it. They arrived last week, at which point I realised that the Icelandic courier 'handling charge' is what is making parcels from Fire Mountain Beads so expensive - the VAT is only 24%, but the extra courier charges are about 75%. I may have to look for a supplier who just used USPS rather than FedEx.

Anyway, so I tried the bangle version of the sprocket pattern, and was sufficiently happy to try the clasp version as well. Construction time is about 2.5 hours each. Once on the wrist they actually look as if they're made of big square gems, which appeals to my inner magpie:



Between making the red one and the blue one I had planned to potter about a bit and clear the table (it's currently full of an assortment of stuff) but this involved picking up a) a coil of wire and b) the round-nose pliers. One thing led to another and... well... I ended up playing about with some spirals. The spirals are fine, but the joints between them are a problem. I think I might do another with untwisted loops and just solder the loops closed instead. Still, it was a good chance to experiment and has given me some ideas.



Of course, this meant that I haven't done any of the other things I was going to do today. Well, there's always tomorrow.
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This morning I went for another blood test.

This afternoon I got the results. Less than 9 hours for 16 tests. I suppose that's the advantage of having a small population but a well-funded health service. I just got a phone call from my doctor to rearrange my next appointment from Monday to Tuesday (no problem for me) and while she was on the phone she thought she'd just check the results in case they were back.

Everything, including the calcium, is fine except for my white cell count. This is a little lower than before but still high. The current thinking is that it must be a virus as the antibiotics last week have clearly had no effect. She's going to contact one of the specialists at the hospital to see if there's a virus doing the rounds which matches my symptoms. We're gradually ruling things out bit by bit. My voice is now probably 75% of normal, but it does still drop out from time to time. The main problems are still the exhaustion and the lack of concentration, both of which are frustrating.

For now, then, I'm going to relax over the weekend. No work for two whole days - hurrah!
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As requested, my recipe for millionaire shortbread.

Millionaire Shortbread
Ingredients
Shortbread base
250g (9 oz) self-raising flour
75g (3 oz) butter
175g (7 oz) sugar (caster or granulated, both work)

Caramel
100g (4 oz) butter
100g (4 oz) light brown sugar
350ml (12 fl. oz) single cream

Topping
250g (12 oz) milk or dark chocolate

Instructions
Pre-heat oven to 180C/350°F/Gas Mark 4 and lightly grease an approximately 30cm (12") by 24cm (8") tin.

Cream butter and sugar together then rub in flour until it forms breadcrumbs. Knead these together until a dough forms, then press the dough into the tin, spreading it evenly. Prick the surface of the shortbread with a fork in order to help the caramel bind to the base. Bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until pale gold and firm to the touch. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Put the light brown sugar, butter and cream in a pan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves. Turn the heat up a little and bring the mixture to the boil. It will eventually darken and thicken. Once it begins to thicken test the consistency by dropping a little of the mixture into cold water - the caramel is ready when the drops form soft balls in the water. Remove from the heat and pour the mixture over the shortbread base. Refrigerate to allow the caramel to set.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl and pour over the shortbread and caramel, spreading it evenly. Refrigerate again to allow the chocolate to set.

Cut into pieces 5cm (2") square and serve. Makes 24 pieces.

I prefer to make the shortbread and caramel one evening and then add the chocolate the next day. Making the shortbread takes about 45 minutes (including baking time) and making the caramel takes 30-40 minutes (I let it cool overnight in the fridge). The chocolate covering takes about 10 minutes and sets in the fridge in about 20 minutes.
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Tonight's A&S meeting was a Silly Hat Night.

This was not because everyone was making silly hats. In fact we had three carboard trebuchets under construction plus a lot of fabric being cut for garb. No, the silly hats were for an official shire Silly Hat Photo:



The reason for this is that our exchequer was involved in a serious motorbike accident a couple of days ago and is currently in hospital in Reykjavík with a fractured skull and serious concussion... and has amazed the doctors that he's alive, never mind far more seriously injured. Fortunately he seems to be recovering well and so, as a shire, then, we're going to send him a get well card.

The original plan was to get a card, sign it and send it. Then I decided to make a more personal one rather than buy one, and while I was trying to decide what sort of card to make it occurred to me to do a photo card with all of the local shire members on it. It would be more personal and, hopefully, more cheering than a normal card.

So I've got the photo, now all I have to do is make up the card and then get everyone to sign it at Tuesday's fencing practice. Something to put on the to-do list for the weekend, I think.

Oh yes - and the millionaire shortbread went down very well. I can now safely transfer the recipe to my recipe book.
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...There was work. It had labs. Then it finished (hurrah!) and I came home.

Yes, another thrilling day in the office, centred around a long afternoon of labs with non-CS students, some of whom are quite pleasant, but others certainly deserve to fail miserably. Unfortunately I have professional ethics and so if the idiots actually work outside of the labs then they won't. This is not going to be a difficult module to pass. I suppose I can live in hope, though.

Wednesday nights are generally quite unproductive as they normally include two longish phone calls back to the UK - one to Dad and the other to an old family friend who used to have a regular Thursday night natter with Mum. When Mum died we started to natter on Wednesday nights instead - less emotionally painful that Thursday would have been.

In spite of this, I am being creative. In the oven even as I type is a tray of shortbread which is going to be transformed into millionaire shortbread in time for tomorrow's A&S meeting. Millionaire shortbread is something else that hasn't made it up here (it seems), as it was new to Martha at Raglan. Comments from other folks last night at fencing when I said I'd make some were also quite positive once I'd explained what it was. The only problem seems to be getting sweetened condensed milk. The little square round tins (as a friend of mine used to describe them) of condensed milk seem to be completely missing from supermarket shelves (like so many other things) so I'm having to improvise and use real cream in the caramel instead.

I'll report tomorrow on how the caramel experiment turns out.
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I am NOT diabetic.

I've just arrived home to a phone call from my doctor to let me know the results of my blood test and to see how my throat is doing. As the throat is still sore I should have phoned her before now, but her phone hours unfortunately clash with my lecturing hours.

It appears that everything is well within the normal range except for my white blood count, which is slightly elevated (not unexpected, given the throat problem). Thyroid is normal, kidneys are normal, blood sugar 5.2 and therefore also normal. Except for the throat and the fact that I'm exhausted and can't concentrate I seem to be in rude health.

I must admit that the blood sugar level had me more worried than the thyroid one. Given my size I'd pretty much resigned myself to the test telling me that I have type II diabetes so I'm quite relieved. I have to go back for more blood tests at the end of the week in order to check that the white blood count is down, but the assumption is now that I'm sufferring from stress. Whether we can do anything about that is, of course, a different matter.

Hmm... I suppose it would be bad form to celebrate not being diabetic by eating a tub of B&Js chocolate fudge cake ice cream, wouldn't it? :)
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No, not the ministry assessment of the faculty - something rather more mundane.

It being Monday I went into work. I managed to give my 10:00 lecture, as it seems that if I project my voice then I can make myself heard, although it still sounds rather odd and leaves it quite sore afterwards. I should have phoned the doctor today, but unfortunately her phone-in time happened to coincide with my lectures today and tomorrow. Ho hum.

The assessment I've just finished is for today's module, the practical computing one. Given that I have about 120 students in the module overall and no MSc/PhD students to act as lab assistants and so forth, I gave in and am doing two of the three assessments using WebCT.

WebCT/Blackboard. Ahhhh. Well. version 6 is better than version 4, but that's not saying much. It took me a lot of wandering around the help system to work out how to set the test up the way I want it to be, and it's probably taken me a good 24 hours of real time to write what should probably be a half-hour quiz - I'm giving them an hour to take the language issue into account. Hmm... maybe I should have a look at the format of the export file - it might be faster to write it in a text editor in the appropriate format rather than try to use that editor again. I might look at that for assessment 3.

At least in future I can just add a few more questions to the pot.
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About ninety seconds ago I discovered how quickly my heating responds.

And it's impressively fast. About three minutes ago I turned it from frost-prevention to 3 (about half-way) and I can already feel a blast of heat coming from the radiator beside the sofa. The decision to turn the heating on has come after a day during which I've watched regular snow showers fail to stick thanks to the damp; it would not surprise me at all if there's a layer of snow on the car tomorrow.

I'm still very tired and my voice has not yet returned to normal, which is frustrating. I'm beginning to get a bit worried. Three weeks of laryngitis is decidedly not normal. I have to phone the doctor tomorrow immediately after my 10:00 lecture... and although I suspect that I still shouldn't be lecturing I can't really let these things pile up much more - there is no-one to give the lectures/labs if I don't (yes, we are that understaffed, and we don't have postgrads to cover lab sessions).

For now, though, I am basking in the heat of the radiator, drinking hot sweet drinks and thinking deeply about labwork and coursework that I need to write soon. And occasionally being distracted by a jaffa cake. :)
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Sometimes there is something deeply unsettling about cooking.

But only when you finished cleaning the kitchen an hour previously and you're now messing the whole thing up again. Even if you're not going to mess it all up. I suspect that it has a lot to do with your mood at the time - at other times cooking in a nice clean kitchen is a good thing.

Still no voice here, which makes it three weeks of laryngitis. Fortunately this hasn't stopped me from doing a fair bit about the flat today. I have a bedroom with visible floor space once more, and an empty laundry basket. Tomorrow I might even get around to cleaning the fridge. Once I've written a spreadsheet lecture, that is.
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I am exceedingly glad that it's Friday.

It has been a long and stressful week. As well as two trips to the doctor's (never high on my list of enjoyable experiences) I'm also having to deal with difficult (oh, how polite I'm being!) distance students and an assortment of other hassles at work. I look forward to a weekend full of opportunities to not talk too much, to do some pre-Christmas organisation and maybe even to relax a little. Unfortunately I have some lectures to write but that's life.

Winter has most definitely arrived... or it has at about 250m. When I got up this morning I found that the white dusting on the mountains the other day had been extended somewhat. In spite of this it has been a bright and sharp winter's day, the sort that makes the contrast between the blue of the sky and the white of the mountains particularly vibrant.



This was the first test of my new camera. I noticed that they had the same model in the camera shop here in town the other day and breathed a silent prayer of thanks to the gods of UK duty-free. It was either that or pass out in shock. The camera is a Canon IXUS 70, which seems to be far more compact and speedier than the one I inherited last year when mine was stolen, and comes with all sorts of shooting modes, some of which I even understand.

One thing that I really didn't understand for several hours occurred this morning. After I took a couple of photos of the other mountains this morning I examined the photos I'd just taken. What confused me was the fact that the camera also contained the three photos I'd taken at Raglan (yes, I got quite carried away :) ). But... but... but... I didn't buy the camera until we were headed back to Iceland! How could the photos have got there? It wasn't until much later that it occurred to me that I'd swapped the 32meg card that was in the new camera for the 128meg in the old one. D'oh!

So here, then, is the best of the three Raglan photos, showing the newbies for whom this was their first Court after being presented by His Majesty with a small token to commemorate the event. Martha and Sveinni are the couple in the magnificent matching Tudor gowns in the middle of the line.


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Now that you have a spare £50 million, how about giving some of it to me?

All of their points docked and a £50 million fine - that's going to hit even McLaren hard. I wonder if that's them out of the game then? At least Hamilton is still in with a chance for the world championship.

In other news, winter has arrived. The snow (which I'm sure the locals would only call sleet, or even heavy rain, but which is snow to me) has been falling all afternoon in pretty blizard patterns, but thanks to the heavy rain which preceded it hasn't stuck. Yet. This is almost certainly the tail end of Tropical Storm Gabrielle. Well, I'd rather be hit by Gabrielle than Xena... except that we're supposed to call 2003 UB313 'Eris' now that it's been officially named and classified as a dwarf planet.

Three days ago we had the first signs of snow on the mountain but it was a faint dusting. That was about two weeks later than last year, although the snowfall is about two weeks earlier than last. What this foretells about the winter I know not. I'll just have to wait and see.
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This morning I went to have a blood sample taken.

On my way up to the top floor of the health centre I pulled out my palm with its English-Icelandic dictionary, only to find that it didn't have the terms for either blood test, prescription or medicine. Unfortunately it's the only one I could find. I may just have to take to carrying a paper dictionary around with me. Nevertheless, with the aid of my created word blóðpróf (blood exam), my fractured Icelandic and a helpful receptionist I got through the reporting-in business. I think that the actual term may be blóðrannsokn or blood-research, but that's only as a result of reading various signs on walls.

The next task was for me to recognise the number 17 when it was called, which was relatively simple. The vampire... sorry, phlebotomist... was very businesslike but didn't say much else when she realised that my Icelandic was weak. I thought that she said something along the lines of so you're not Icelandic then, at which point I told her I was from England. Given the way she looked at me I must have misunderstood her, but I'm sure that the word Islensk was in her original sentence.

Anyway, there was none of the normal swipe with alcohol/local anaesthetic here. A quick swipe with a bit of clean cotton wool, strap around the arm and needle in, that was it. Three small tubes and a larger one were quickly filled and the needle removed, to be replaced by the bit of cotton wool held in place with a strip of tape. It certainly took less than five minutes.

The charge for this was 1000 Ikr, or about £7.50. I misunderstood this at first and was a little shocked, as the Icelandic for 'one' is eitt, which sounds exactly like 'eight', and of course my brain first registered it as 'eight thusand' - eight thousand. It took a few seconds to register properly, at which point I apologised to the slightly-worried-looking receptionist and explained my mistake, which made her smile.

If all goes well I won't get the results until a week on Monday. If there's anything seriously wrong they'll phone and let me know begore then. Of course, if I have to phone next Monday because my voice is still non-existant (as is currently the case) I might hear a little earlier.
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So today I went to see the doctor.

She listened to me (more than my 'official' doctor did), looked at my throat, listened to my chest, commented upon the lesser of my fencing bruises (and looked a bit shocked when I showed her the larger one), wrote me a prescription for antibiotics (500mg of azithromycin a day for the next three days) and arranged for me to have a whole slew of blood tests to see if we can find what's causing everything else.

I'm officially not supposed to talk much until Monday in the hope that the throat will ease, so I've had to cancel lectures for the rest of the week. I suppose I can, at least, write lectures (although I don't relish having to deal with the aftermath of a missed distance lecture with the more obnoxious distance students). Before this, however, I did do tonight's fencing class although I certainly didn't do anywhere near as much physical stuff as usual. Unfortunately this probably meant that I talked more and, as a result, I definitely have a sore throat now.

Ah well. A few days of relative silence should help a little. No lectures, no meetings... that will be nice. Except that I quite like the database lectures and labs. :)
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I've discovered some curious side-effects of laryngitis.

First of all, it appears to be very good at encouraging you to do more physical exercise. This is not the extra effort it takes in making yourself heard, but rather the fact that you have to get up to answer the door because no-one can hear you say 'come in!'. :) I seem to have spent a lot of time answering the door today, as you may have guessed.

It encourages your colleagues to speak quietly around you. Clearly the inability to comfortably speak at a sensible volume is infectious and causes acute short-term laryngitis in those nearby. I'm not sure as yet whether this is accidental or it is supposed to be some form of Icelandic humour with which I'm not familiar.

Students find being lectured to by someone with laryngitis very funny. This I can understand, given that my voice sounded more like Minnie Mouse than me during my lecture this morning. Even I found it funny when I listened to myself.

Health centres (and other people) agree that you sound terribly ill on the phone. I'm trying not to use the phone too much right now, partly because the last three times I've phoned Dad he's decided that I sound far too ill to talk to him. Perhaps I should just stick to text-based communications for a bit.

I've managed to get an appointment with a doctor tomorrow lunch time. I have a suspicion that I'm going to be told to stop using my voice entirely (which would probably mean taking some time off work). At least the coughing and sneezing seems to have calmed down a little, although I'm still coughing up interesting gunk. If it keeps like this I may be able to go swimming again next week (hurrah!), which would be good as I haven't been for over a fortnight now and I'm definitely beginning to miss it.
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My laryngitis is now in excess of two weeks old.

Google-fu tells me that I should either go to the doctor now, or a week ago. Given that I really can't carry on like this indefinitely I'm going to try to make an appointment to see the doctor over the next couple of days. Of course, doing this is likely to make it disappear like magic overnight... Still, I feel grotty enough that I'm going to ask the doc to check my thyroid levels - I know that Mum had thyroid problems for quite a while, and a dodgy thyroid would certainly explain some of the stuff I've been feeling over the past few months apart from the nose/throat/chest stuff.

In other news, my internet is a bit shaky right now. The whole Icelandic net was running very slow on Friday and over the weekend my ADSL TV has been sufferring from regular drop-outs. At least it's giving me a chance to catch up on some DVDs I haven't watched yet.
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As planned, I have done very little today.

Very little has included a bit of reading, a bit of documentary watching, and finishing my beaded billment for my English hood. OK, so I'm a week and a half late, but it's done and I can put the beading stuff away.

The documentary watching was predominantly biblical stuff on National Geographic - stuff about the ark of the covenant, exodus and the book of revelations. I must say that reading Dawkins has made me feel more comfortable about sitting and thinking do these people actually have brains? when I hear some of the American born-again crowd talking about the rapture and the end days.

Other than that... the chest is still full of gunk, the nose is seeping quite drastically and I'm working my way through a pack of lemsip berry and orange soothers. I'm going to have to go into a pharmacy in search of more of these on Monday, as they're not part of the limited selection of pharmaceuticals you can get in the supermarket here. Actually, you have to go into the chemist for most of the things you'd get in the supermarket in the UK. I suppose it keeps the pharmacies in business.
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Over the last three days I've done 14 hours of student contact time.

I know that doesn't sound much, but every hour of contact time also has an hour of preparation time to go with it. A lot of this was due to having to rearrange things after being unable to lecture last week. My voice isn't really any better, but I can't keep postponing and postponing lectures and letting them build up. I am so looking forward to two days where I don't have to talk to anyone and where I can sleep the day through if I want to. And right now I suspect that I might well want to, given that I came home from work today and, just as for the past two days, went to bed.

If this doesn't improve massively over the weekend then I'm going to have to cave in and make an appointment to see the doctor on Monday. At least next week my teaching schedule will be back to normal and I'll be able to make inroads into the administrative backlog.
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OK, joke over. Universe, you may now remove all of this illness from me.

Not content with the dreadful throat and chest problems from which I'm currently suffering, the universe has now dumped a case of very snotty sneezes in my lap (they're quite energetic sneezes). I suspect that I picked this up on the flight back in, but clearly my immune system is running at a very low ebb to have everything pile up on my like this. One of my colleagues at work thinks it may be stress... particularly after I told him how many module-equivalents I'm doing (5 instead of the normal 3).

As a result of this general grottiness I came home from work today and went to bed. I then got up and went to part of the A&S meeting (as I had to deliver the DVD) but came home again once we'd done the run-through of the photos. I suspect that I'll be in bed before the A&S meeting actually ends.
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As I mentioned the other day, the whole sat-nav thing impressed me.

On the Rhaglan trip we opted for the Hertz Neverlost satellite navigation system. It wasn't cheap - over a tenner a day - and it didn't quite live up to its name, but it had a damned good try. It took only a moment or so to mount on the windscreen and another minute to work out that you needed to use your nail or fingertip to select objects rather than the pad of your finger, but once we'd done that it was pretty obvious how to interact with the system.

The system talks to you with the voice of a nice calm Englishwoman, and for the first few turns I found myself thanking it every time it gave me directions. The display was clear, with the extra control buttons placed around the edge where they were visible but did not interfere with the main viewing area. These controls were quite obvious - the normal zoom in / zoom out, plus the main menu button and a couple of others I had no need to try. What particularly impressed me was that the icon which informed you that it might be sensible to take a diversion was one that I'd never seen before but grasped intuitively. This is a machine that you really can take out of the box and use without looking at the manual.

It proved to be a great help going long distance, but less so in the city. The reason for this was that it warns you three times of every turning and then chimes to tell you that you've reached the turning itself. This works well when the turnings are well spaced out but is more of a problem when you have lots of turnings one after another in a built-up area. Thankfully on the several occasions when we did take a wrong turning the system relocated us and recalculated our route quite rapidly. The only other problem it had was where its database wasn't entirely up to date; on several occasions it tried to take us along either bus-only roads, one-way streets or roads that no longer existed. At one point in Bristol city centre we found ourselves off-road as far as the system was concerned!

A couple of other interface tricks appealed to me as well. During the day the background was mid-green (for fields), light green (built-up areas) or blue (coasts). When twilight fell the background changed to black, of which I approved because not only are the surroundings more black than green, but this also reduced the overall luminosity of the device in the dark.

I'd certainly be tempted by one when I return to somewhere that actually has a decent sized road database. Unlike Microsoft Office for Vista, by which I am not at all tempted. I came across it for the first time today during the Practical Computing labs - as we encourage students to use their own laptops wherever possible some of them with new laptops arrived with the new version of Office. All of the university machines have Office 2003, so that's what I've used for the lab notes. I can see that it's going to take a major re-write of the lab notes for next year to take this into account. The new interface is not something upon which a user of the previous version can just sit down and start working productively. I spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to find some of the more fundamental commands for things like headers and footers.

Yet again Microsoft shoots itself in the foot in usability terms. Lots of new features that few people want, while the commands that people need and knew where to find in 2003 are now hidden away from view. Thanks for the assumption that we are all idiots, guys. I'm trying to teach people how to use Word in order to write documents that look like they've been written by an intelligent adult, not an 8-year-old with ADHD. Microsoft is not making my job any easier with its 'upgrade'.
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The main engines of your aircraft lose power on take off.

This is bad, as it causes an abort of the take-off... if it happens soon enough and you're not too far along the runway... which, thankfully, we weren't. I've done a fair bit of flying over the past few years, but this is the first time that anything like that has happened to me. We'd taxied along to the start of the runway and had started our run when, about 5 seconds after the throttles had been opened, the engines cut back to normal rolling idle.

We rolled idly back to the airport, where we disembarked and waited another hour and a bit before they reloaded us and we took off and proceeded to have an uneventful flight north. Curiously enough, this wasn't the only strange thing that happened on the flight. There was a rather strange chap who smelled quite strongly of alcohol spent a lot of time trying to decide whether or not to get onto the flight. He eventually boarded, but shortly afterwards, and before we began the take-off, he walked up to the front of the plan and seemed to discuss something with the pilot and the stewardess. Eventually he got off the plane and we began our abortive take-off attempt.

I'm sure that in the UK or the US that, given what happened minutes later, this chap would right now be getting the third degree from the homeland security people. I wonder what's going to happen to him here in Iceland.
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Via Bristol.

It had been our intention to drive to London today, then split up so that Martha and Sveinni could go shopping and I could meet up with Genvieve and Robert to have a look at the Museum of London. Unfortunately this was scuppered by the Tube strike due to start later in the afternoon. Under no circumstances did I want to get involved with that.

So instead we went via Bristol and stopped in the Broadmead area. This seemed to have enough shopping to keep everyone happy, and I even found bondaweb double-sided fusible interfacing for future banner making. That and a bag which should be usable for future events... or at least the inspiration for me to weave a bag suitable for future events. I didn't actually do a lot of shopping, but ended up having a snooze in the car instead.

The second half of the run to Heathrow was surprisingly clear and we arrived in plenty of time to do a bit of duty-free shopping. Here I made up for my lack of earlier retail therapy and acquired a new camera, new iPod (green nano), new shoes, new pens and three new books. Oops! Fortunately it all fitted in my shoulder bag so I wasn't carrying huge numbers of bags onto the plane.

The plane was only an hour late (not bad for Icelandair at Heathrow) and then, instead of the normal hotel room, we headed off to a flat that Martha had rented for the weekend through her union. It seems that most of the unions have several flats available for union members to rent in Reykjavík. I may well have to investigate this further so that I can spend a few days investigating the museums down there. Or play host to visitors from elsewhere, of course. :)
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I didn't win, but then again I did.

That's my assessment of my fencing performance in the tournament this morning. Naturally I wasn't going to win - even on my best day ever I would have stood a great chance of coming maybe third last - but I set as my goal that I should at least manage to hit a couple of my opponents, which I did (and some of them were even clean hits rather than double kills). So I'm happy enough.

By the time the fencing had finished the event had pretty much come to a close. Given that I didn't have much stuff on site I placed myself and my sat-nav at the disposal of the autocrat and found myself taking people down to the station. It occurred to me that if I attend Rhaglen next year then it might be worth having the sat-nav then too - not only does it help me with the navigation stuff, but it also means that there's a non-local with a car who can do station runs which normally need quite a bit of local knowledge, thus freeing up the local shirefolk to do other things.

Once everything had finally wrapped up we had a bit of time for a shower and a snooze before heading back into Cardiff again; not for shopping this time, but rather for dinner with Gonz and some of the other folks who were still around - the event's Dead Dog Party, as it were. We had a great meal at an indo-asian resteraunt before having a quick wander around by the National Assembly building and a drink in a local bar. Not for architectural or cultural purposes, you understand, but because several of us were sad sci-fi fans who couldn't possibly leave Cardiff without at visit to The Hub.

Sad, but true. :)

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Too much to do, too little time to do it!

Rhaglan Castle is a marvellous site for a fighting event... far superior to Edzell (especially as it has real toilets!) in all respects bar one - there's nowhere nearby to hold a feast. We were not only allowed to fight within the confines of the castle but also within the tower and doorways.

I missed the first couple of melees in the castle managed to make it into armour in time for the bridge and the tower melees, which were great fun. Unfortunately I hadn't had time to make myself a pair of lanyards for my rapier and dagger but there was a spare one so I could fence single rapier over the bridge.

Later in the afternoon we had Mareddud playing his prize for entry to the Drachenwald Academy of Defence. This required him to face three opponents three times each in each of three weapon forms and then hold the field for half an hour. Not only did he acquit himself most honourably, but he also did it wearing some extremely nice armour. :)

I had hoped to get back to the hotel between the prize playing and court in order to shower and change - after all, I didn't want to go up in court to present gifts to His Majesty and the V&V all smelly - but there wasn't time. Which was frustrating on two counts in that I not only had to go up to present the gifts but was also called up to receive the Order of Ffraid, the ID award for service. I was presented with a beautiful scroll created by Robin from Glen Rathlin and, shortly afterwards, the badge of the order; a pewter acorn which the unfailingly courteous Robert of Cantebury gallantly cut from his own hood.

There was no feast in the evening, but rather a torchlit ball. I didn't do any actual dancing but did sit and watch it for a while, until the citronella in the torches forced me to retreat mosquito-like from the emissions. My cough has been getting steadily worse over the last few days and the smoke and citronella really caused problems.

In spite of this I had a very good day. As I suspected, I didn't have time to catch up with anywhere near the number of people I'd have liked to catch up with, but I'll try to get to more of them tomorrow.
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