Looking Out To Sea

I’ve had a cracking evening so I thought I’d take a few minutes to show you what I’ve been up to. It’s been a mixture of learning and supplementing the Diagrams package as before.

I’ve started a new repository at to store the test material I’m using. That way I can make it public without cluttering up the package with unnecessary files and commits.

First, I would like to introduce my brother. He will be helping us this evening, in the manner of Debbie McGee. (He will survive, in one piece. It’s just magic folks…) One of the additions I have made to the package is the ability to save on top of another image. Instead of a plain white background, you can load something from disk and put your diagram onto that.

We’ll see it all in action here, with the help of my brother (as mentioned). Excuse me if the code is a bit sloppy. As mentioned this is my scratch pad for developing features, so it’s quite a crufty place to work!

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Does rent control really mean you can get an apartment large enough to film a trendy sitcom in? Will it be a steal? Two old friends are going to New York to find out, and there was a ceilidh at the weekend in their honour. Nick came along too, as there was apparently a surfeit of women and they needed men to even up the numbers. What wasn’t really explained was that most of these women were old ladies or nursing mothers who sat at the side chatting anyway. So actually, in a terrifying first for dance events, there seemed to be significantly more men on the floor than women.

Next day Helen made another Nigella recipe for breakfast. She hasn’t blogged it yet so I won’t reveal more. I didn’t particularly like it. :-( Nick and I returned to Edinburgh mid-afternoon. I was quite impressed with my ability to guide him to the flat by sheer guesswork. Well, this should be the right direction…

I got home on Sunday afternoon and watched Blade Runner (the director’s cut). I’m quite keen to know what Ridley Scott came up with for the recent Final Director’s Cut For Real This Time edition. Also, I’ve never seen the original version with the infamous voice-over. It sounds hilariously bad, and I’ve read quotes from Harrison Ford saying that they kept on dragging him back to record more and more appalling monologue, and every time he would go, kicking and screaming. I have also never seen one with the “happy ending” that Wikipedia mentions.

There was a man on the bus this evening who was furiously scribbling little mathematical notations on a grubby piece of paper. I was so curious to find out what he was doing! He was really going for it — several lines of closely-written squiggles. The only things I could make out properly were the long division lines separating numerator from denominator, and some Σs.

Was it maths? Physics? Engineering? I want to know! :-) It makes such a change from people reading Jackie Collins or talking loudly on their phones.

I got a phone call this afternoon from my aunt and uncle asking if my parents were okay in China. They are fine, though there might be difficulty getting out of the country now? I’m not sure, maybe there is not much disruption. It’s a very large place, after all.

We finally got our mortgage from the building society confirmed today. At last! Luckily it’s open on Saturday, so we’re going out right now to

• Get breakfast at the farmer’s market.
• Pick up exciting debt from the building society.

Meanwhile my parents will have arrived in Xi’an by now to visit my brother. So I’ve got to keep Skype open in case they want to try some international calls!

We went home at the weekend and I had my first play of a Wii, and have an incredibly sore shoulder/arm now. That tube of ibuprofen gel must have been there for a reason. But Helen are now decided — we definitely need a big television. ;-)

This evening we saw Helen’s mum sing with the Garleton Singers at St Cuthbert’s — they did some Brahms love songs, there was a piano duet by Schubert, and then after the interval the all-conquering Carmina Burana. It seems you are allowed to sing about drinking and hot sex in church, as long as you do it in Latin.

I enjoyed this one more than previous trips to see the Garleton Singers. It really helps to know the tunes so we’ve been listening to some of the Brahms in the last couple of days. And of course everyone knows Carl Orff, right? He appears in enough football/car/deoderant adverts.

It was pretty rockin’ anyway, and the reprise of O Fortuna had a little extra excitement because the timpanist’s music kept falling off the stand. But, quite frankly, if you play timpani and don’t know how O Fortuna goes then you’re doing it wrong. She just kept playing through…

Helen cooked liver for tea this evening and, ulp, I didn’t like it. I feel quite ashamed. It was a bit embarrassing because we’d invited my mother for tea as well. Oh well.

The two of them have gone out to watch a Hunting and Gathering — Helen got the book from her at Christmas. Tis a French film (and a French book). I’m trying to catch up on some code that I’ve been writing in dribs and drabs for the last week. It’s moving slowly.

I can hear the grindstone calling.

We saw Equus last night with Helen’s family because it was her father’s birthday. It was a visually impressive and intriguing play, but didn’t have young Mr Radcliffe in it cos this isn’t swanky London. The shows come up here but the famous people are strangely absent. Anyway, I enjoyed it but I am still unsure what it was about.

I could tell you the plot — boy likes horses, boy blinds six horses at a stable where he works, psychiatrist plays detective to work out what happened. That bit is all very obvious. But there was lots of philosophising in a very obtuse way, where people had to ‘account’ for things, where accounting wasn’t really explained. The entire second half seemed to be the psychiatrist having a mid-life crisis of conscience and complaining that he really wanted to go off to see the sights in Greece instead. Also, that he didn’t get on with his wife and couldn’t have kids. And he didn’t think he was helping his patients any.

To which I can only reiterate what his friend said at the time, although not so bluntly: get a grip you big whiner. Watching comfortable people come over all emo isn’t really my idea of a good time.

Before the play we had tea at The Apartment — which seems to have no internet presence at all. It’s suddenly become a lot harder to take it seriously. ;-) Food was very nice though the furniture was a bit too arty for its own good. I was sitting on a wooden square block. Hmm.

This is an official announcement of Helen’s new blog, The Sacred Art of Eating. She’ll be documenting a year’s worth of cooking challenge — to cook everything in Nigella Express before the 31 December.

Go and have a look!

I think Helen’s dad will have to start making his Ruby Chutney in bigger batches. He should start his own business, it’s that good. It tastes fabulous with cheese on toast, made with a mature cheddar and some slices of crusty bloomer, slightly burned at the edges.

I would have taken a photo — really, it deserved a photo — but in the immortal words of teh kitteh, “i eated it”.