The Failmaster

- Happy Christmas
- God Jul
- Hyvää Joulua

...depending on where you happen to be from.

Someone likes their sky-lanterns: I've just watched fifteen of them drift over the rooftops. Still, York's not quite Pingxi yet...

When I get my first supertanker, I'm going to register it with the Mongolia Ship Registry.

Now, aside from the unlikelihood of me ever owning any ocean-going vessel, can anyone else spot what's wrong with the above statement?

( Cut for nerdy rant about PC graphics-cards... )

It's not often I see contemporary dance and think "Wow, that's so cool!". On this occasion I did:

Weightless

Being an uncultured, knuckle-dragging troglodyte with no sense of how his own life fits into the grand scheme of history has the unexpected advantage that I can still see Shakespeare plays without knowing a priori how they are going to end. Tonight I spent a very pleasant evening sitting on the grass at the open-air theatre in Rowntree Park enjoying a picnic in good company watching the above-mentioned Bardic work.

The performance was polished and it's impressive how many of the jokes are still funny 400 years after they were penned, but I did find myself a little disappointed at how easily the 'shrew' was tamed, and bemused at how readily Baptista accepts the fact he has been lied to and deceived into allowing Bianca to marry someone who is, to him, a complete stranger.

Anyway, the pervading moral of the story seems to be: Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen.

There were a few "technical difficulties" at the weekend in making the DIY clarinet produce non goose-being-eaten-by-walrus type noises (I think the mouthpiece subtly changed shape between putting it down on Thursday evening and picking it up on Friday evening). This was rectified by some sanding and re-shaping of the mouthpiece, followed by a crash-course in clarinet embouchure technique. You can hear the result here (provided you can play MP3s - and let's face it, who can't!).

You'll have to excuse the poor playing technique. For the record, being in tune was never a design goal, however sounding a bit like a clarinet was (an in that regard I'm quite pleased with the results!)

Construction details to follow in a few days, for the morbidly curious... =)

( ...I built a clarinet )

Well, the sourdough experiment went okay (in as much as I didn't poison myself). The loaf rose, but it didn't really have that distinctive sourdough flavour, and (as a friend so eloquently put it) was a bit of a duck-sinker. =)

Still, they say sourdough starter improves with age. I'll have to put that to the test - the jar in the fridge certainly has a much stronger smell now than it did when I baked this.

( For people who like looking at photos of loaves. )

Some of you may remember that in February last year I was attempting to build myself an octave mandola. In the end it didn't ( go entirely to plan... )