Day: September 10, 2009

I call Bullshit!

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Last night, I, like 3 million other losers, stayed up late to watch the broadcast of Derren Brown’s latest stunt of “guessing” the lottery numbers before they were drawn by the National Lottery. We’d been talking about it all week – as expected from the massive hype generated by the publicity campaign. I was, in a word, unimpressed. I can think of three ways right off the bat how the stunt could have been pulled off.

If he’d said, plainly and without any jibba-jabba, I predict numbers X-Y-Z-A-B-C and that’s what came up from the draw, *then* I’d have been impressed. This BS of “we can’t legally show the numbers because BBC1 has the legal right to announce the numbers first” is just a flimsy excuse to buy time to make a grand revelation after the event. So yeah. I call bullshit and won’t watch the rest of the events.

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The end of an era

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Hail to the chief! It was Lennart’s last day at the office yesterday. Even though he’s only leaving next week for Belgium, he’s on holiday from today to use up the last of his leave time. It’s going to be weird without him at the office. I’m happy for him though – a full tenured professorship and senior lecturer and he’s only 33. That’s impressive, and it’s also an offer he couldn’t refuse. As a gag-ish gift, we bought him a tweed jacket and had leather patches sewn on the elbows, as now befitting to his stature ;) Getting people to sign the card was a nightmare though. Between holidays, sickness, conferences and general not-being-at-the-officeness, it was a cast iron PITA to get hold of people.

On a professional note, the office is going to be rudderless for the next 6 months – at least – until we can hire his replacement and that person comes in and gets a feel for things. I can only hope that it’s somebody with a decent head on their shoulders and that will fight for us, not against us. Said person will have mighty big shoes to fill. I have to say that we’re all a bit anxious about the state of things to come.

On a personal note, I’m saddened that a friend is leaving. I don’t have many of those in the UK and I’m going to miss him and his various zen koans and happy demeanour.

I shall take inspiration from his greatness :)

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[Recipe] Fish cakes

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We had leftover veg from making food for the beastie so I decided to get creative.

I mixed the mashed root veg (potatoes, carrots, swede) with a tin of flaked tuna, some grated mature cheddar, a bit of tabasco, some parsley, onion salt, pepper, and some breadcrumbs to thicken the mix. After forming into patties, dredging in egg wash and coating with breadcrumbs seasoned with paprika, I pan fried on both sides to color the cakes then finished them in the oven for 15 minutes at 220. Very nummy indeed!

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