Is it 2015 already?

I had my car serviced today, in an odd experience they emailed me a video of my car being inspected including a breakdown of the many expensive fixes it needs. Sign new Brakes, callipers and disk sigh just what I need after Christmas.

Kath was here for nearly two weeks over Christmas. She arrived on Boxing day at Liverpool. On the 27th we had redux of the Christmas meal with my parents. They made the full works again, from turkey to cranberry sauce to sausage meat and sprouts.

We had an awesome time together. Kath got me a new camera lens for Christmas, 70-300mm. We took some really nice photos whilst on walks to Poynton Canal, Lyme Park and Macclesfield forest. It was a great present, took great photos and memories.

Apart from walking we managed to catch up with as many people as possible. Including a lovely meal out at Sam's Chop house with Andy, Tilly, Ian, Helen, Dave, Claire, Will, Tracey and Macca. We also had a couple of Japanese style meals thanks to the sushi set Bruce and Nina got us. We made a meal for Jo and Holly one evening and had enough to make another for Phil and Caroline the next day.

Making the Japanese food was both fun and stressful, somehow we managed to have an argument about measures of water for the sushi rice. On a positive note I don't think I will forget how to season the rice. After the hiccups we managed to make up and in the end prepare some great food which I think Jo and Holly enjoyed very much.

On New Years eve we were invited to Matt and Christelle. She made a lovely meal and we all had a great evening chatting drinking and eating large amounts of food.

Christmas 2014

Last night was fun, a group of us met up in the Victorian in Bramhall. Nick Charlotte Helen Ian and Myself. As we arrived to a very packed bar, I saw one of the weirdest sights I have ever witnessed while stood at a bar. A young and very drunk young lad stood behind us guzzling a takeaway including shovelling a pie into his face and a cup of peas, it was very entertaining.

The Victorian was very very packed, and very humid so we decided to switch the venues. Mark and Helen joined us and we strolled over to Beluga. Unfortunately it was ticket only so we ended up sat outside Nappa. Eventually the cold had us move back inside.

Bruce, Wooller and Andy Bruce joined us in there. Bruce was in a great mood, still waiting on Nina to give birth. It was nice to see everyone chat and catch up.

I cadged a lift home with Bruce, and we exchanged our presents.

Today I went to my parents for Christmas dinner, they made the full works turkey stuffing sausage meat. It was delicious, and there is plenty more to have with Kath when she arrives. Kath bought me a new lens for my camera which is awesome. Wanda got me a gorilla tripod, cant wait to get out and try them.

Kath arrives from Poland tomorrow I cant wait to see her, that is the best Christmas present.

It was the night before Christmas

Nearly Christmas, next year I will be spending it with Kath, this year Christmas Day will be at my parents.

I had to work this morning, leaving at lunch in time to get my presents wrapped. I tok my parents theirs round, finding Jono and my aunty there. Was nice to say hello and merry Christmas. Next stop was Phil and Caroline, I dropped off their presents and saw his mum there. We had a quick chat and a coffee before I headed home for dinner and a change.

I am waiting for Ian to pick me up with Helen, we are planning an evening in Bramhall with Nick and Charlotte and maybe a few others.

Using Keybase.io to secure communications

I has been over a year since Edward Snowden first started releasing information on how the American secret service along with the "five eyes" (USA, Britain, New Zealand, Canada and Australia) have been monitoring email, and network traffic of millions of people across the world. Including harvesting private pictures of peoples instant messenger chats and maybe even paying private companies to deliberately reduce security of encryption technology.

In the post Snoden era it pays to secure some of our communications to ensure rouge elements are not snooping.

I have used PGP in the past, however it has always been a  real pain to manage the keys and identities.  Finally it looks as though there is a solution. A new service called Keybase.io enables you to link Social accounts and emails to a PGP key. Basically making sending secure encrypted communications simple. It is well worth signing up, I have associated my twitter and github accounts.

If anyone fancies an account I have some invitations, tweet me a private message to @cookiesworld.

All for the best

Friend or foe?

Wearables or technology that you can wear have become a big thing of the last few years. This is set to accelerate with he launch of the Apple watch next year. From the simple pedometers these devices have evolved to recorded detailed information about sleep, movement and even heart rate. Combined with mobile phones they can track a large amount of objective information.

These devices generally collect information to the cloud, held on third party servers. Now lawyers have cottoned on to the fact  a wealth of information is available. A case in the USA is using data from a Fitbit account in a personal injury case to demonstrate the objective and measured changes to the plaintiff's lifestyle.

I myself own a Fitbit  I use it to monitor my activity, it certainly has helped me walk more and be a little more active. It is disturbing to me to realise that lawyers could request this information. I imagine the intelligence authorities are or will be attempting to access this data soon, does elevated hear-rate mean somebody is running a marathon or, maybe planning a terror attack?

Waves

This time last week I was arriving in Poland, after an early morning wake up, a short flight and queuing for what felt like an eternity at Modlin border control I met Kath and we boarded the coach bound for Bialystok.

That afternoon Kath, Wojciech and myself headed out to the Alpha department store to watch a Gone Girl at the cinema there. I had very much enjoyed reading the book and wondered how it would transfer to film. I really enjoyed what they did with the film, it lost a few details of the book but the characters really shined, especially Neil Patrick Harris as the creepy ex and Rosamund Pike.

We were a little speechless after the film, its pretty dark and asks a lot of questions so we went for a walk through the park to  get some Sushi at Tanoshii. We had an excellent platter of Sushi and some Japanese beer.

On Sunday Kath and I decided to have a lazy morning watching TV and enjoying each others company. We don't get enough time together so it was really nice. In the afternoon we went for a walk around Bialystok from her flat to the little Zoo. The wildcats and bears were out. I really enjoyed the wildcats, one of them was stalking round the cat like an more angry, less fluffy version of Coco, with a black harry potter lightning marking on his back.

The bears were being fed as we arrived so we only saw them for a few minutes as they headed into there home for dinner.

In the evening went for drinks, starting at Sherlock Holmes pub then onto Castle, then to a few more before taking a kebab back to the flat. Originally we had planned to meet up with some people but we ended up spending the evening together.

Tuesday was my last day in Poland. We had breakfast at Kaffka bistro, it was excellent fresh eggs delicately fried with bacon sausages with salad and fresh coffee. It filled me up until the evening. After breakfast we had a wonder round the park and took some papers Kath needed to the Polish GMC. Before boarding the coach for the long drive to Modlin before the flight home. Modlin airport is tiny, its a modern building but its overstretched supporting Ryanair. The gates were too small to hold the number of passengers getting on we flowed out into the next gate. After being hurried through by dire warnings over tannoy. I stood in a mass of people waiting, first we were let outside to stand under bus shelter type contraption while watching the passengers from another flight disembark.

I was fortunate with the weather while there was a storm in the UK Poland enjoyed a gorgeous Autumn day, I must have flown over the storm as when I arrived back in the UK there was no wind left but plenty of tree branches blown off.

R.I.P iPod

Wired are reporting Apple have killed off the iPod. It had been on the fall every since the iPhone had been introduced. Oddly phones back then could play mp3, I remember my Nokia could, the problem was it was clunky, the Apple iPod was a thing of beauty, Jonny Ives industrial design. It did only one job playing music, but it did that very well.

A decade ago, I bought my first iPod, a 3rd generation, before they came up with the click wheel. I felt so excited getting it out of the box. Apple were far more generous back then, my 20GB iPod came complete with a dock, a combined USB and Firewire cable for super quick transfer of files.

In those days Apple were on the resurgence, they were cool but not popular in the way they are today. They were not the first company to have an MP3 player, but the iPod was simply better than the other players out there. I remember Bruce had bought a Creative DAP jukebox. It held a lot of music but it was large, clunky and took forever to load music thanks to the slow usb 1 interface. I steadfastly hung on to my sony mini disk player, which while it had better sound quality thanks to the Sony ATRACK compression only held an hour worth of music.

Buying an iPod considered with my second trip to Australia, I remember sitting on the flight playing what track is this with Danny, and listening to music in Paul's apartment in Kings Cross Sydney. I am sad to see iPod disappear, even if I didn't own one for years it  is linked to some special memories for me.

Holiday in Sicily: Taormina

After braving Etna we decided to go and visit the Greek / Roman amphitheatre in Taormina. It was a slightly longer drive than to Catania, again taking us onto the autostrada.
This time I failed to understand the signs and ended up taking the wrong lane and missing picking up a ticket for the autostrada. That meant when exiting at the super busy Taormina exit I had a problem. At first I had visions of a huge fine, fortunately playing the dumb tourist paid off and after serval minutes talking via intercom we paid the 1.60 euro fare.

Making the mistake of setting the sat nav to search for the amphitheatre we drove into Taormina, around and up up up way into the hills on narrow steep and scary roads with nowhere to turn. After about 40 minutes driving up down round and through the pedestrian zone we gave up and parked, parking was a ruinous 3 euro per hour but after the ups and downs I would have paid any price to get out of the car.

After a strong coffee, we found the the theatre is in the pedestrian part of town which we hadn't driven around. It was however worth all the effort, the views were spectacular, and the amphitheatre its self is incredible. Build by the Greeks then extended by the Romans perched with views over the Ionian coast. It must have been a thing of true wonder when it was build, they still do concerts there now, indeed they were setting up for an event. I think Philip would have been impressed.
After having a good look round and taking many pictures we headed back into Taormina for a wonder around the town. It is much more touristy than Acireale, indeed there were plenty of English tourists. We bought some souvenirs and had a walk. It is a picturesque and nice town but not so impressive as Dubrovnik was last year.

Holiday in Sicily: Etna

What holiday in Sicily would be complete without a trip to Etna, one of the most active volcanoes in Europe. We decided to take one of the excursions in offered by Geo explorer after seeing their brochure in our hotel, and have it recommended to us by the receptionist.

Our guide picked us up from the hotel at 9.30am. Getting into the back of the 4x4 Landrover it was a little bit of a tight squeeze in the back with three other couples. The trip cost 50 Euro each plus 5 Euro shoe hire. I certainly would recommend the show hire as the scree could be difficult to negotiate in light shoes.

Our tour guide drove us up to the Etna park stopping first to the park a view inside a cave formed after a lava flow, a walk around an old crater at 2000M and a snack.

After the cave we headed further up Etna, looking at some of the past lava flows. The next stop was a basalt quarry, it was interesting to see how the lava cools, and where all the stone for the roads and buildings come from.

The trip then took us further up the Etna, first to a rest stop then on to the highest point of the trip the Silvestri Craters. These were old craters forming a line, one of which we walked round. The guide explained the process of their formation and pointed out some of the features like the rocks ejected out of the volcano. The views up there were nothing short of spectacular, though it was very crowded.

The final part of the trip was an excursion to a viewing point on the Southern side of Etna, here there were less lava flows but sometimes you can get a glimpse of the active area, this time we did not. The views were stunning though.

Finally we were taken down to the village of Zafferana for a snack. The snack was Arancini, a Sicilian delicacy. They are basically rice balls stuffed with ragu coated with breadcrumbs and fried.

I thought that the trip was a good value, especially considering the excellent context given by the guide and the lunch. I don't feel I would have appreciated some of this had we taken the trip alone. We did not get to see the active area, nor to the higher part above 2000 meters.

Holiday in Sicily: Catania

After several relaxing days we decided to venture from the Hotel and see some more of Sicily. We decided to start with Catania. A tourist and student hub Catania was destroyed by earthquake and volcanic eruptions in the 17th century and rebuilt in the baroque style.  Etna is still a visible presence on the horizon.

The drive to Catania was my second attempt at driving on the right. Again it made me curse Italian drivers for the total lack of empathy. They seem intent of barging through the smallest of gaps only to sit in traffic, honking their horns and gesticulating from behind the wheel.

Stall on the Catania fish market

We made the trip parking a short walk from the centre. Heading first to the fish market, we were pleasantly surprised to find a vibrant market with all sorts of fish from swordfish stake to sea urchins.

After absorbing the sights and smells of the market we stopped for a granita and a coffee in the centre of the town, the Fontana dell'Elefante. An impressive centre flanked by the Cathedral, the centre of which is taken by a rather odd looking statue of a smiling elephant topped with an Egyptian obelisk.

Bellini Theatre

We took a walk around Catania taking in the Cathedral, and the Bellini Theatre. As with Acireale there were many boutique shops. The outsides are sometimes scruffy but looking inside they are often incredible displays, almost art like in there objectification of the wares.

Holiday in Sicily

After arriving we spent a couple of lazy days enjoying relaxing by the pool. I read The Impossible Dead on my new Kindle Paperwhite.

The pool area was lovely, from the pool area you could see out to the sea. The pool itself was a good size if a little oddly shaped, we divided our time between the sun loungers, and the pool itself. Taking lunch al fresco on the terrace. The lunch menu consisted of either salad or a sandwich and a tall glass of Italian beer.

We did also find time to explore the town of Acireale. It is essentially a small compact town full of Churches. It is a popular place to get married and we witnessed a wedding virtually every day we walked around. Similarly to Spain the Sicilians take a siesta during the warmest part of the day, the shops close for this and reopen in the evening.

The architecture is particular to the region a mix of baroque, building are limestone with added basalt lifted from the many volcanic outpourings of Etna. This black and white effect has a pleasing effect and the buildings can be pretty.

There were a few decent restaurants in the town our favourite was Vecchia Aci. They commandeered a strip of park next to the Basilica creating a lovely outdoor area. There was took a bottle of Wine and a pizza, enjoying cool of the evening after a hot day.

Oddly we found in many of the places the starter before pizza is a plate of chips or crisps!

Holiday In Sicily: Arrival

Saint Sebastian Basilica

Kath and I decided to take our summer holidays in Siciliy this year. Neither of us had ever visited this part of Italy before, and the climate though hot being an Island was more hospitable than mainland Italy.

We left on Sunday morning flying form Manchester Airport Terminal 1, via EasyJet to Catania, Sicily. The flight was a brief 3 hour jaunt, slightly elongated by a delay leaving. This was thanks to the security at the airport.  They were really being thorough checking us in the security crewe, much more throughly than I remembered.

This year we decide to hire a car, I have never driven on the right side of the road before, and the car we were given was an automatic, another new experience. There followed a hair raising 45 minute drive, during which I learned, Italians don't follow any sort of traffic rules, Red light appear to be optional and right of way is determined by who gives first. We drove part of the way on the autostrada, a kind of low rent motorway which requires a toll. The toll from Acireale was 1.60 though the collection desk was closed so we didn't pay.

Fortunately we made it to the hotel safe and sound in spite of the super tight roads, my driving Kath's navigation managed to get us safely to the hotel.

The hotel was small and welcoming. We strolled passed the pool area to the desk and picked up the key. After a short siesta we headed out into the town to find some dinner. We stopped at a restaurant opposite the Saint Sebastian Basilica. I ate seafood pasta and Kath had a ravioli with spinach and ricotta in fish stew. It was a great way to start the holiday.

Uptight downtown

Mr Storm having a rest

Yesterday I dog sat Storm for my parents; they were going on a day out to Chester. Storm didn't seem too enthusiastic to start with. I took him for two walks one in the morning and one later before his tea time. He is getting old now only managed a couple of throws before he wanted to head back home. On the way back from the second walk he flopped down half way to have a rest.

Yesterday evening I met up with Bruce, he was showing off his new car; an Toyota Hilux. It is very awesome, leather seats aluminium lined trailer, I was very impressed.

Bruce myself and Jono went for a drink at the Unicorn, Bruce drove so we could have a ride in the beast.

The Unicorn was quiet, I wonder in contrast to the Bulls Head which was very busy.

Today is Kaths' birthday. Unfortunately I could not make it to Poland to visit as the flights are currently very expensive. Instead I surprised her with gifts I had her brother intercept, and with a bouquet of flowers. She seemed very happy, so win for husband.

Bendy Man

Last night in an attempt to help improve my posture and flexibility I went to a Yoga class. I found BendyYoga via google.  I liked that this was a drop in class, mixed ability and open for all. I wanted to avoid making a block booking as required by yoga Bramhall. Just in case I didn't enjoy the class.

Last time I went to a Yoga class it was with Martina back in 2007, that class was in Cheadle on a Wednesday night. It was mostly middle aged women so I didn't feel like heading there on my own. Also given the instructor Julia was a friend of Martina, and the way Martina and I fell out with each other I decided there were too many reasons against.

There were about 9 people in the class plus the instructor. He started by working through some basic stretches, then more complex ones. Moving on the posture then finally meditation.

I found 80 minutes doing various poses was very challenging, I am anything but flexible. I knew my hamstrings were tight, however I had not realised how tight my arms and shoulders were. The room was very warm thanks to the day being hot. In spite of the heat thought I felt much better at the end.

Falling down

Last night Bruce came round last night. We watched the classic 1980s film falling down. Starring Michael Douglas as D-Fens a man struggling to cope with what he sees as flaws 1980s society.

The film opens with D-Fens sat in his overheating car, a fly buzzing round his head. Something snaps inside and gets out of the car and starts a long walk towards his home. During the walk he passes through the latino, and affluent areas.

It is an excellent, and complex film. The main character is D-Fens, a man who thinks of himself as the hero, on his way home to his family. On the way we learn more about D-Fens life and why he ended up so angry.

Oddly its one of the first films I can remember where the central character is so much of an anti hero, even if he doesn't know it. I also liked that there were good back stories for the cop on his last day came out from behind his desk to track down the man in the suit. The final scene in which the cop confronts d-fens suggesting that he always knew that he was on his way to kill his family and then himself; point of no return.

My favourite scene is in the burger joint where, firstly he in 5 minutes late so they wont sell breakfast, then after pulling a gun on the manager the burger he is given looks nothing like that image behind the counter delivers a speech about the ills of America to the terrified diners.

The sense of place and time was palpable, the phones booths, huge mobile phones graffiti, strong colours.

I think that the depiction of gangland were naive, the 80s was a time when the city was a dark and dangerous place crumbling while people escaped to the suburbs. Over my lifetime that has changed. Cities cleaned up there acts, now the city centre is a place people want to live and work.

Overall its a classic, well acted well shot and despite what be modern standard (think the wire ) has a naive portrayal of the Latin Americans is a great watch.

Influence

I have just finished reading Influence: The Psychology of Persuasionby Dr. Robert Cialdini. I picked up this book after hearing it talked about on Radio 4 a good read picked by Daniel Finkelstein, Associate Editor, columnist and leader writer for The Times, was also an adviser to John Major and William Hague.

In Influence Cialdini writes about the power of persuasion. Using examples drawn both from his own life and psychological studies he examines some common themes which lead us to be manipulated (or to manipulate). Each chapter is about a particular method including;

• Reciprocation
• Commitment
• Social Proof
• Liking
• Authority
• Scarcity 

Each method is a unique example of how people in groups or as individuals react in certain circumstances. He gives specific example of how marketeers use this tactics, sometimes they do so even sub consciously to make us buy, buy more or give references. He also tells us how we can realise when specific methods are being used on us and to say no. I find it quite hard going their are a lot of psychological terms. It was however incredibly rewarding illustrating perfectly moments I have exactly felt. The chapter on commitment and consistency was particularly interesting to me as I have certainly been taken in. Hoisted by my own words by a clever salesman, getting me to commit and have my own words used against me, so much so I felt like I could not back out of the sale.

I would recommend to anyone who has an interest in marketing, or wow has ever felt powerless to salesmen or charity people.

Planning

I

I went for a walk yesterday evening to get out of the house. My back is getting better at least now it more discomfort than pain.

As I walked to Tesco I saw an official looking sign indicating that the footpath is planned to move. Looking at the planning website it appears they want to turn the current footpath into road access to coppice way.

Bye bye Orkut

Time moves fast on the internet, remember back in 2006? It wasn't that long ago really. Facebook was still a niche player only really open to specific universities and schools in the US. I stumbled upon a social network called Orkut. It was at the time quite unique, it allowed user created communities, and you could rate friends as Cool or Trustworthy. Facebook didn't really let you do photos beyond profile pictures properly until 2007, remember having to link to use sites like photobucket?

Communities were most like GeoCities allowing people with share interest to comment post and share. Nothing really replaced this until Facebook beefed up groups and twitter appeared.

I joined up on Orkut amused met a couple of people, used it for a while, migrated first to Myspace then to Facebook, twitter and google+.

Today I got an email informing me that on the 30 September 2014 Orkut will be closing. I hadn't logged in since 2011 so its no real lose, it does go to show how quickly a site can go from popular to zero in internet land.

Paradise Circus

I managed to injure my back while doing deadlifts with my trainer at the gym last week. I have spent the week in pain mostly laid in bed unable to walk much further than the bathroom.

It rather changed the plans I had made given Kath was visiting last weekend. We were supposed to visit Phil house for a house warming bbq, however I had to cancel that and a meet up with Ian on Sunday. It was a shame because I was really looking forward to meeting Helen.

I got some strong pain meds from the doctor, however they wont do anything else for six weeks. I decided to try an alternative and went to see the Osteopath on Wednesday. He immediately suggested that my part of my back was twisted. He did some manipulation after which I felt in pain but somehow more free in moment.

While laid up I have managed to do a couple of things. I caught up on American Horror, a series exploring the darker side of human nature, and luther the title track of which I am obsessed with. The series itself was good, I watched 1 & 2 on Netflix. I read also two books Mindfulness: Be Mindful. Live in the Moment. and The Son.

Mindfulness is a very interesting book which explains some strategies to be more in the moment, calmer collected. It reminded me of a book Paul lent me ages ago called the power of now. Though while the power of Now seemed (at least to me) fairly cultish Mindfulness has some excellent practical strategies to be deal with modern life, improve work life and cope with change. The point of the advice is to be more in the moment, let go of the past and don't focus too much on the future.

The Son is a Jo Nesbo standalone book about a Son who has thrown his life away after his father a believed mole committed suicide. As usual Nesbo paints a compelling set of interlocking stories, well paced and full of intrigue. It was a really enjoyable crime novel, though while it is more confidently written I still prefer his Harry Hole Novels especially the Oslo Trilogy. Having read so many of Nesbos' books I actually feel like I know Oslo pretty well, hope to visit one day.

On point

I had an unusual evening. My back has been causing me problems for a few weeks so I decided to go and visit the osteopath. He was in a very good mood, since I last visited him we have both got married.

On the subject of marriage congratulations to Ian whom got engaged to Helen, romantically proposing in Time square. Congratulations to them!

On the way home from Hartford, my route took me through Knutsford. I saw a women walking down the street clutching a bottle of Champaign, it makes a change form Wild n' White cider ;) Going through Wilmslow I was sat behind a World War two Troop transport with a few burley looking guys in the back (not in military fatigues though). Hopefully they aren't part of a paramilitary group planning to take over Manchester.

I decided to go for a walk after dinner, the days are pretty long now, and the sun is out which is perfect for my solar panels. I decided to walk round Handforth Dean, past Tesco there are a few empty industrial lots mostly populated by rabbits.

I have generated close to 1000 units of power, and on average more 50% of my electricity usage is covered by solar. Its looking like it will pay off pretty well, though I wont know for sure for about a year (as the generation is cyclic).