One for the “Bucket List”

Posted on 5 May 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google
0311 7D 2169
Camera: Canon EOS 550D | Lens: EF-S17-85mm f/4-5.6 IS USM | Date: 25-03-2011 20:59 | ISO: 1600 | Exp. bias: -2/3 EV | Exp. Time: 1/60s | Aperture: 5.0 | Focal Length: 30.0mm (~48.6mm) | Lens: Canon EF-S 17-85mm f4-5.6 IS USM

As part of my 50th birthday celebrations I was privileged to go for dinner at Heston Blumenthal’s restaurant the Fat Duck in Bray. I don’t know what Frances did to get the reservation, but I suspect threats of physical violence were involved 🙂

It’s a remarkable experience: each course is carefully designed to stimulate the senses – not just taste, sight and smell, but in some cases touch and hearing too. For example the “fish course” was laid out on a layer of tapioca “sand” and egg white “foam”, and was enjoyed while listening to the sound of gently lapping waves provided from an MP3 player secreted in a conch shell.

The surprise and delight factor is very high: the aperitifs came in the form of meringue-like foam poached in liquid nitrogen, which were then consumed in a single bite evaporating in the mouth to leave you “steaming” like a slightly damp dragon. The “Mad Hatter’s Tea Party” included mock turtle soup creating by dissolving a gold watch in a cup of hot water.

The above shot shows the presentation of the jelly of quail, chicken liver parfait and truffle, which came on a bed of oak moss complete with dry ice “mist” gently wafting woodland smells over the table.

Heston’s ingenuity at capturing tastes and smells is remarkable. One of the sweet courses was a set of “whisky gums”, which successfully condensed the different tastes of five different Scotch and American whisk(e)ys into tiny gum sweets, ranging from a smooth Glenlivet to a fully peaty Laphroaig.

At the risk of being slightly coarse, I must share my favourite Heston quote. Something disagreed with several diners a couple of years ago, and the press interviewed some of those who had been affected. This included the boxing promoter Frank Warren. The hapless journalist asked the innocent question “did you notice anything unusual?”. His reply: “What a stupid question. It’s Heston bloody Blumenthal. It was all ****ing unusual!”

It’s not cheap, and getting a reservation is a challenge in its own right, but if you have the opportunity grab it with both hands and enjoy!

View featured image in Album
Posted in Personal News, Reviews | Leave a comment

Ask A P’liceman

Posted on 2 May 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

I think it was Will Hay who popularised the notion of added value timekeeping and navigational services from the forces of law and order. This doesn’t always work.

On Barbados recently, we were trying without much success to find Fisher Ponds Great House, a widely-recommended ex plantation house, now dining experience. This was not well signposted, and although we knew we were probably less than a mile away, we were getting progressively more lost.

Deciding to swallow my male pride, I spotted a police car heading towards us, and flagged it down. My request for directions drew an unusual reply: “sorry sir, I’m looking for that myself”. 🙂

Fortunately at this point Tonto rode to the rescue, in the form of a young lad on a bicycle, who when asked did know the way. So I followed the lad, and the cop followed us. At least, he did up to the point where he saw a sign and took the initiative. We followed the youngster, who directed us to the proper gate and earned $2. We were amused to see the policeman waiting at the locked back gate.

So if you want to know the way, don’t ask a p’liceman – find a bright lad on a bike!

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Beachy Head Dr,Bel Air,Barbados

Posted in Travel | Leave a comment

Review: The Eden Legacy

An Adventure That Will Rewrite History, By Will Adams

Posted on 29 April 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Cracking yarn, even if slightly derivative

At face value, this is very much a clone of a Clive Cussler story, right down to a hero who is also in the marine salvage / archaeology business, who gets tangled up in current crimes which tie into extraordinary historical discoveries. Like Clive Cussler’s novels, it’s also well-written with a level of detail which neither patronises nor overly challenges the reader.

Where it differs from Cussler is that most of the protagonists are troubled, damaged people, and Adams takes pains to explain their state of mind and how they arrived there. This makes a refreshing change from the two dimensional “supermen” heroes too common nowadays, but takes a little getting used to in an otherwise quite lightweight yarn.

Read the full review

Categories: Reviews. Content Types: Adventure, Book, and Fiction.
Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Compact Camera Alienation?

Posted on 25 April 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Are compact and cellphone cameras fundamentally unsuited to a significant subset of the population?

I am short sighted. With an SLR I look through the viewfinder at an image focused at the optical equivalent of about 1m, maybe a bit less with “diopter adjustment” applied, so I can view it fairly easily regardless of whether I need my glasses for the scene or not. With a compact camera I hold it at my natural reading distance of about 40cm (a bit less than 18″), which is both optically comfortable and a good distance at which to hold and operate the camera. The same will be true for those with normal sight.

This is not true for those who are long sighted, which includes a majority of those in middle age or older. These people will be comfortable looking at longer-range subjects without glasses, but will need them for shorter-range subjects.

The SLR, or even an “electronic viewfinder” camera with diopter adjustment, should be fine. As long as the effective optical distance of the focusing screen is 1m or more it should be viewable with glasses off if that’s correct for the target scene, and because it’s viewed inside a dark “tunnel” the effective distance is not an issue.

But a compact camera can be a real challenge. The user has to either hold it inside their comfortable viewing distance, and accept a blurred image and other display data, or hold it so far away that both camera shake and incident light become issues, or try switching between glasses to view the camera and none for the scene itself. None of these is a good option. The result is a camera which is effectively unusable by that person.

I saw this in action myself yesterday. I was sitting in a restaurant with Frances, and she had a good view of a potential photo, but I didn’t. Thinking it would be easiest, I handed her my little Canon Powershot S95. Useless. Eventually I rummaged under the table for the “big lump” (Canon 7D and 15-85 lens, all 1.6kg of it ;)). No problem.

I do wonder if the move to fewer and fewer small cameras having optical viewfinders is a wise one, or if it will alienate a significant proportion of potential photographers.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Posted in Photography, Thoughts on the World | 2 Comments

Review: Blasphemy

By Douglas Preston

Posted on 23 April 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

A great thriller, which probes uncomfortable ideas at the boundaries of science and religion

Basically, this is an adventure thriller set against a “big science” background, with Whyman Ford sent to investigate problems at what’s effectively the US version of CERN, albeit with a handful of staff and Cheyenne Mountain levels of security.

The real meat of the tale, however, is an exploration of how religion interacts with science, politics and society, and how religious extremism of any kind can sponsor the very worst in human hatred and violence, just as much as more moderate spirituality can drive good behaviour. For a change the religious extremists are not Muslims, but American extreme right-wing “Christians”, while the moderates are mainly Navajos, both Christians and those who follow the old ways. I haven’t previously seen this portrayed in the same way in other fiction.

Read the full review

Categories: Reviews. Content Types: Fiction and Science Fiction.
Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Review: Prophecy

By S J Parris

Posted on 23 April 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Murky murder mysteries and complex catholic conspiracies

I thoroughly enjoyed S J Parris’ first novel, Heresy, likening it to a Tudor Inspector Morse tale, and was delighted to be offered the chance to review a pre-publication copy of this second story starring the same protagonists.

In this story the heretical monk, Giordano Bruno, is back at the French Embassy in Elizabethan London, where he is drawn rapidly into both a catholic conspiracy to invade England, and a related murder mystery when two of the queen’s ladies in waiting meet very sticky ends.

Read the full review

Categories: Reviews. Content Types: Book, Crime / mystery, Fiction, and Historical novel.
Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Book Review Restructuring

Posted on 20 April 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

I’m in the process of restructuring my book reviews, integrating them better with my blog. Please bear with me if posts or old reviews appear to move or are replaced as I complete this process.

Update 13th May: the restructuring is complete, and you should see new reviews more fully integrated than previously. The process was non-trivial, and may spawn a blog post at some stage.
Thanks
Andrew

Posted in Website & Blog | Leave a comment

Review: My Early Life

By Winston Churchill

Posted on 20 April 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

A stirring, inspiring and very funny autobiography by Britain's greatest leader

What surprised me most about this book was the humour. I expected the familiar story of our greatest leader’s early life, I expected an insightful account of Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I expected a stirring tale of a young man who was a practical adventurer just as much as politician and author. I didn’t expect to laugh out loud regularly for much of the story.

Read the full review

Categories: Reviews. Content Types: Biography & Endeavour, Book, and History.
Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Review: The Nemesis List

By R J Frith

Posted on 17 April 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Covers light years, but goes nowhere

I used to read a lot of what was known as “hard” science fiction, but gave up around the time that Asimov and Heinlein died, as a lot of what was on offer was getting too clever for it’s own good, with science and adventure both taking a back seat.

When this book came up on the Amazon Vine review system, I had hopes that it might offer something akin to the Foundation stories, or even Star Trek DS9. Sadly although there might be superficial resemblances to both, this book is just not well enough structured to engage my imagination the way they do.

Read the full review

Categories: Reviews. Content Types: Book, Fiction, and Science Fiction.
Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Review: Thirty Four

The inspriring true story of Albert Goering, By William Hastings Burke

Posted on 17 April 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

An inspiring true tale of a very unexpected hero

Imagine you are a wealthy industrialist, but also a humanitarian with a keen sense of justice. Imagine you live in a brutal totalitarian regime which is waging war over half the world and subjecting those under its control to acts or repression and genocide the like of which the world has never seen.

OK? Now imagine that your brother is one of your country’s top military and political leaders. He’s Hermann Goering, and you are his younger brother Albert. Read the full review

Categories: Reviews. Content Types: Book and History.
Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

IPad – Balanced Scorecard

Posted on 12 April 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Observations on the iPad’s ability to work as a general entertainment device for the duration of a 9.5 hour flight:
– battery charge (an impressive 35% charge remaining): 10/10
– screen (looked like someone had cooked breakfast on it): 2/10

Oh well…

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Beachy Head Dr,Bel Air,Barbados

Posted in iPad | Leave a comment

On the Cusp

Posted on 30 March 2011 by Andrew - Please share: All Addthis servicesTweet thisFacebook thisLink thisYam thisShare on Google

Or, “What’s a cwt, Uncle Andrew?”

I was visiting my mother last weekend and picked up a science book which I read as a teenager, but which originally belonged to my grandfather. It’s a brilliant discussion of materials science by Sir William Bragg, based on some Royal Institution lectures he did. I was thinking of passing it on to the next generation, but then I read the following sentence:

“The weight of air in the Royal Institution lecture theatre is about 15 cwt; the weight of argon is about 18 lbs”

I realised that this might be a bit of a puzzle for a current youngster, but I was intrigued to find out how far such dreadful ignorance extends. I therefore conducted a moderately scientific test, by asking a group of friends, relatives and colleagues the following: “Who can, without cheating (e.g. Google, scientific calculators etc.), tell me what percentage argon is by weight on this basis?” The victims were all bright boys and girls, but represented a wide spread of ages (19-65) and educational and ethnic backgrounds.

I knew the answer, but I had to think about it.

What surprised me was that I only got one other correct answer. From Ken, who is “about 60”. None of my other respondents had a clue, even those who are slightly older than myself.

So I appear to be pretty much the last of a breed who can work with a system of units based on 12, 14 and 16 as well as 10. Does this bode ill for our mental agility?

If you’re interested in the answer, I’ll post it as a comment, so you can have a go without cheating!

Posted in Thoughts on the World | Tagged | 1 Comment