back of a spreadsheet; back of the net

The Captain was busily engaged with his own social life this weekend (watching Scotland vs Germany with his mates on Friday and a birthday sleep over on Saturday) so MLW and I set out to enjoy some food and drink in each other's company.

Friday to the local wine bar for post work drink before some fish and chips on the way home. I watched the Scotland Germany game. MLW did something else. The wine bar is a sort of deli come cafe come wine merchant come wine bar in the evenings. It has some nice wine. It is the closest licenced premise to the flat. We basically popped to the local for drink and a chat.

The football was poor. Scotland were so far from the sort of performance that has become common that I think either there has been an outbreak of dysentery in the camp or else Germany are nailed on winners. Or both.

Saturday the Captain headed off to his pal's birthday and MLW and I headed to Leith to visit the Port of Leith Distillery. This is Edinburgh's third new distillery since 2019 for a tour and some food.


https://crabbiewhisky.com/bonnington-distillery/

https://holyrooddistillery.co.uk/

https://www.leithdistillery.com/

The tour was interesting. The building is 8 floor or 40m tall and sits right on the waterfront in Leith harbour, right next to the Royal Yacht Britannia. Britannia has about half a million visitors a year and the tram stops about 2 minutes away. I well understand why the owners built a tall narrow building there rather than a more standard building anywhere else in Edinburgh . Port of Leith, like Holyrood are experimenting with different barley and yeasts. Partly because the owners of both find it interesting and partly because, if you don't have 200 year's of quaint history to help sell your whisky you need to do something interesting. Not sure that the verticality of the distillery does anything interesting but the building is really striking both inside and out. Fantastic views from the bar on the 8th floor. Nice food in the restaurant. Nice drinks.

They don't actually have any whisky yet as they only started producing spirit in January. However, they are owned by one of Scotland's largest independent gin distillers and the bar and tours will probably keep them cashflow positive for a while.

Home after a dinner of bits and pieces.

We got home pretty early on Saturday evening as MLW was singing on Sunday.

Folks may have seen some coverage of the Church of Scotland's property sell off. MLW is right in the middle of that as one of the churches being merged is the one the she sings at.

Caught up on the cricket to discover that England had beaten Oman by scoring about 40 runs with a single hit of the ball and that despite rain they had also beaten Namibia. Scotland had lost to Australia by 2 runs and were out of the T20 World Cup. Which is a shame but not unexpected.

Sunday was Father's Day. The Captain and I laboured like Trojans to re-organise the kitchen, disposing of a variety of thing that we don't use e.g. two of the three sets of small bowls on a tray for serving nibbles. spoike to Bluebird about her new house and the sort of leaks you create when you drill through an unexpected water pipe. Then the Captain, MLW and I we went to Harajuku Kitchen for an early dinner of delicious Japanese food before two of us went round to my dad's to watch the England game which was tense and gave me the opportunity to explore once again with the Captain the intersection of football and politics.

Lovely food and drink. Less awesome sports.

It's been a busy old weekend.

Mum arrived on Wednesday for a long weekend. Bluebird on Friday. Bluebird had her flatmate visting on Sunday. We also had our USian xenos for dinner on Friday and Sunday, along with her friend from home on Friday.

I had Friday off. Mum and I went to the drama workshop to work on the set for All About My Mother. I ended up not quite getting everything I wanted to do done as a) our workshop is a shambles, b) what looked like many useful bits of wood turned out to be flawed, and c) many of our tools are missing. I want to buy pallent racking for the storage areas. The workshop is unsafe and inefficient. Mum very excited by the work and delighted with my drama pal who came to help. "Hasn't he got steady hands? and such a methodical way of working, so efficient." I feel I have become 5th favourite of my mother's 4 children.

The rest of Friday was spent welcoming Bluebird for the weekend and preparing two feasts. I made Drunken Chicken on Friday for 6 and kleftiko for 7 on Sunday. Both delicious. Other dinners included Chinese on Saturday and brunch at dad's on Saturday. My mum was grumpy that she wasn't getting three roast dinners. I managed to marinade the lamb for the kleftiko for 48 hours but I think next time I'll do more and cook it for 7 hours not 5.

Saturday saw the Captain off to football with MLW. I stayed at home to prepare for the family expedition to Murrayfield after brunch at dad's. I got noised up by an old uni mate and this prompted an impromtu dinner date on Saturday night, at home with a takeaway.

The rugby was entertaining. Not an appalling result. I think we could have won the game given a little more thought or a bit of luck but 26-20 was probably a fair result. The light show before the match was  very impressive. Mum had a great time and is now a confirmed rugby enthuasist. She wants to come to Murrayfield in 2020 to watch England play.

Sunday saw MLW singing and me and mum helping load set in at the Roxy for All About My Mother. I don't think I'll get to see the show asd MLW has a concert this weekend along with singing duties elsewhere. The Captain and I had rugby, a game against Melrose. My overly disciplinarian refering saw me make an eight-year old cry after I warned him (rather sharply) about high tackles. I'm sure he'll get over it before I do.

Home for dinner, kleftiko and Greek salads and then Doctor Who. I quite enjoyed the episode but I'd have enjoyed it more if an economist had been involved in the writing. MLW had friends round for Mrs Pockets prep and I took mum to the pub.

BB home on Sunday evening. Mum off to Bristol to see my sister this morning.

Today has been busy.

Well that weekend went okay.

An interesting evening on Friday with widget_fox and Z, the daughter of a famiy friend who is studying in Edinburgh. We went to a panel discussion on peace-making in the 21st century. It was part of the Festival of Politicas at the Scottish Parliament. It was an interesting discussion with some practical considerations for my own work on deliberative democracy and a new constitution for the UK. The Parliament was looking very handsome. Nice to be back and to see the Festival of Politics doing so well and also to buy a pint in the bar that I helped build.

Up early on Saturday morning to fly down to London for a UD meeting. Good disucssion on our New Constitution campaign and some useful steps forward on a review of our governance structures (not exciting but necessary). Less good news on the demographics of our supporters. Basically I am the leader of Guardian readers of the 1980's.

Quick pint afterwards then up to Newcastle to see Bluebird. Very nice Italian dinner near her flat. She seemed on good form. Suffering from a cough. Very excited about her dissertation on the dehuminsation of muslims. Earlyish bed. Brunch on Sunday, then some shopping. I bought a new fleece and a new exercise top and then quite a lot of board games. (Monopoly Roald Dahl edition - pretty but still Monopoly; Viticulture and two expansions - very excited about that; The White Box game design pack; Small Worlds - family friendly fantasy themed risk, Flash Point - family friendly co-operative game, Power Grid expansion.) Flash Point and Small Worlds will operate as Christmas presents. As might Viticulture.

The Captain and I will be visiting in about two weeks time. I think we will go to Segundum and also the Seven Stories children's literature museum.

Toddled home after lunch, got back at about 4. In time to present Roald Dahl Monopoly and start a game before it was time for Doctor Who and Strictly.

Doctor Who felt a bit smug.

I had watched Strictly on Saturday on the train in iPlayer. This worked very well. I thought it was perhaps the best pre-Blackpool Strictly I'd ever seen.

Much mulling over of the Seann and Katya Snoggate. They seem not to have been too adversely affected by the publicity. Mid-table is a dangerous place to be if you are unpopular. Katya's choreography was expansive and they danced well. Some people whose opinion I respect are uncomfortable with the BBC rallying round someone who has treated his girlfriend badly and worries that Katya will suffer professionally if she is associated too closely with a scandal and with Seann Walsh. I am more sanguine. I think the scandal will blow over so long as they don't lock lips again.

I was sad to see Katie Piper leave. I think she's a remarkable person and very brave. She also seemed to be begining to enjoy the dancing. She was never going to win but I'd have liked her to have had another couple of weeks.

I'm not sure why Charles is doing so badly. I think he's a fine dancer and I'd expect an actor from a popular contining drama to have some public backing.

Finalist predictions are Ashley, Faye, Joe and Stacey. I think Ashley is probably going to win.

Watched a couple of episodes of Killling Eve and then to bed in preparation for an early start today for the gym.

My weekend involved more adventure that I really wanted. Or needed.

In fact I'd have paid some good money in order to avoid some of the adventure.

Friday - MLW and the Captain were still in Porto, expected home on Sunday with a stop off in Harrogate on Saturday night. I was travelling to London on Saturday and had pondered the idea of stopping off in Harrogate on the way home but dismissed it as too much of a faff. Oh, how the Gods laugh at the plans of mortals, and yet how Fate laughs at those of the Gods.

Anyhow - the weekend all started well enough with a presentation at work from a former colleague, now PhD student on the use of Generative Adversarial Networks in the production of synthetic video footage based on audio track. Basically turning some spoken words in to a convincing video of someone saying those words. Either a made up person, or a specific individual. The video generation process worked very well and very quickly. Not quite undetectable by an untutored human being but approaching that level of quality. Which when you consider that turning a script into a convincing voice track is just about trivially easy should make you consider the veractiy of any video you see of someone talking.

Very interesting and there was beer.

Got away early, met Andy for a drink and a chat (it is lovely to see him so delighted with fatherhood, a genuine joy) met up with Dad and decided to head out with him for a pub dinner and a few drinks in the Abbey. That was a nice pub. Lively, with decent food and beer. Early finish because...

... On Saturday I was travelling to London for the first UD board meeting of the new term. An induction and team working session in the morning, a short meeting with a light agenda in the afternoon. Really good to see plans for a full on campaign on a codified constitution and a citizen lead constitutional convention. I'm genuinely excited about that. I've been working to lead the organisation to that for the last 3 years and I'm really, really pleased to see UD starting work on it.

The meeting was marred by a bit of ill-discipline by one of my fellow board members which is going to involve me in some (sadly, now very necessary) remedial work. The person involved should not have done what they did. I will deal with it appropriately. I do, however, very much regret the lost time and energy it will cause to me and to other colleagues. I am grateful to my colleagues in the senior leadership team for there active championing of good standards of conduct.

And this is the point where things started to go sideways. I had planned to catch the 17.00 train from Kings Cross rather my usual 18.00 train. This meant foregoing a pint after the meeting but I thought that was worth doing as I'd be able to get home early, do a quick tidy up of the flat, still have an early night and then an undisturbed lie-in on Sunday morning before toddling off to my rehearsal.

The train was hit by multiple delays. Firstly, just north of Durham, some poor kids had been playing on the line and been hit and killed by the train in front of us. This meant we had to reverse southwards, change trains, head further south in order to divert on to a longer, slower line to Newcastle. Everything was a mess so we got held at Newcastle as well and then became the de facto last train to Edinburgh which involved stopping at every mainline station between Newcastle and Edinburgh (usually, each train stops at Berwick and one of Morpetch, Alnmouth, Dunbar et al, but we got them all). The final delay was a power line failure between Dunbar and Edinburgh. We retreated to Dunbar station, arriving at about 2 am. The conductor (who was very good through out) basically told us that it was going to be a long wait, but he couldn't say how long. he was going to open the doors and if anyone could get a taxi to Edinburgh he had cleared it with his controller to re-emburse people for the taxi fare. There are not many taxis to be had in Dunbar at 2am on a Sunday morning. I eventually got a lift in someone else's taxi and arrived home at 3.33am - some six hours late. I had left the flat at 5.30am on Saturday morning.

(The most badly affected people I noticed were two kids, perhaps 15, perhaps 19) who had slept through their stop to change for a train to Hartlepool and then found themselves stranded on Dunbar station at two in the morning.)


On Sunday I took myself out to Soderburgh for some lunch and ate Swedish bread rolls and an omlette in the fresh air until I felt awake enough to try acting. The acting went well. I only forgot one line. Sadly, it is the best line in the play. (Anyone wondering why my Facebook profile picture is a series of notably black people - it is because I am trying to remind myself that of the line I keep missing.) Good rehearsal but I sloped off after my bit and tidied the flat before popping to to Dad's to see him and my "uncle" and watch the golf until MLW and the Captain returned.

It was lovely to see them. I had missed them whilst they were away and we enjoyed a tender family reunion before I collapsed in to bed.

I had the gym this morning. Pretty good session considering the mental and physical state I was in. Lifted a 100 kgs. Still working myself back in to a post holiday state. Now at work - feelling decidely less than sharp.

I am feeling defiant and also, regular readers will be delighted to know that there was beer and voting over the weekend but, if it were up to me, I'd have less (or perhaps more) beer and voted to be home on time.

Some sort of weekend seems to have happened inside all the haar.

On Friday I was working Front of House for my drama club's production of MacBeth. I was epecting to have to stay until 10.30 but managed to effect and early exit. Spent a few hours chatting with one of my drama pals which was nice. Managed to catch up with another friend between work and starting FoH. Home in time for an episode of City and the City.

Saturday was the usual football in the morning. The Captain had a play date on Saturday afternoon so MLW and I did some gardening. Nothing exciting, a bit of prunning and tidying up then the haar arrived. MLW and I watched the rest of The City and The City.

Sunday was the rugby club fun day, which involved lots of getting parents to join in with things. We had a drink at the club house afterwards and bought the Captain a scrum cap for £5.

I managed to miss all the sport, including the first Test between England and Pakistan, the English Premiership and Pro-14 finals and the Champions League final.

The Captain has been a bit emotional this weekend. Some combination of being tired and needing more food for his relentless growing.

Edinburgh has been under a haar for about 48 hours now. It is cold and damp and grey.

Now I am here.

So, I accidentally did a five kilometer run. I say run, perhaps amble is a better word. Over obstacles.

The Captain saw the set up for the annual Gung Ho 5k run in the Meadows on Friday afternoon on his way back from school. By 3pm he and I had signed up for a slot on Saturday at 12.30pm for the bargain price of £48.

Saturday morning saw us attending football and then preparing for our run with bacon and eggs. We bumped in to a rugby friend at the start. They were in the wave behind us. 12.30 brought a warm up and then we were off - 5k around the meadows and over 10 very large inflatable obstacles. It was fun. The Captain and I jogged a bit, walked a bit, jogged a bit. Apart from the occassional queue to get on to one of the obstacles we kept moving all the way round and did the course in 53 minutes - including several minutes wait to get on to the last obstacles. MLW accompanied us around the course taking photographs and keeping us company. The Captain and I had a joyous time in each other's company. He chatted to me all the way round.

I have done literally no preparation for a 5k run. It's by no means a long distance but I have not run that far since I was doing cross country running in PE. It's the furthest the Captain has ever run. I could probably have gone round faster. Whilst I do go to the gym twice a week I'm mostly focused on balance, strength and the sort of short burst cardio that supports playing touch rugby.

I think we'll sign up again next year.

We were invited to a barbeque at the house of some friends of Jack's. It was really nice. We'd already eaten all the Chinese crispy duck before we were invited but it was lovely sitting in the sun, drinking a little red wine and watching the children play.

We watched Eurovision on Saturday night. The Captain stayed up late to watch most of the singing. It was a pretty standard Eurovision. A few nice songs. A few songs that were novelty acts. A few songs I wouldn't give ear room to outside of the Eurovision voting structure, the usual plucky British attempt to not finish last. The voting was the usual hilarious scattergun of different musical taste, cultural alliances and nationalist rivalry. For a little while I thought we would finish last or that the hosts would finish last.

Sunday saw me lead a P3 rugby training session. We focused on attack and straight running and support play. It went okay - my fellow coaches doing an excellent job of translating my high level vision in to actual kids actually running. Next week we have a joint training session and a game against Linlithgow and the week after is the end of season fun day and BBQ. Then I'm off to be trained up as an SRU level 1 coach.

The rest of Sunday was drama. Committee meeting followed by prompting for one of our current productions. Sadly, one of other current productions is going a bit awry and it sounds like it's an unhappy experience for eveyone involved.

The Captain was a bit unwell on Sunday. He was complaining about his tummy and looked a bit washed out. I think this is probably just the after effects of lots of exercise on Saturday and Sunday. They were hot sunny days and he might be a bit dehydrated. We'll see.

A successful weekend all things considered.

Friday involved a surprise family dinner of chilli on nachos. This is one of my favourite easy family dinners. MLW makes a very nice chilli. Friday's edition had a little more spicing than the Captain usually takes (read some) and was therefore even better than usual. Chipotle sauce for the win. It was a surprise in that I thought MLW was going out for dinner with a friend but in fact she was just going out for drinks. So we had family dinner together.

We also had a surprise notification that BB was going to visit after the weekend. She's up overnight on Tuesday to see her aunt.

 All very cheering.

I had purchased from Waitrose the makings of an Indian feast plus beer. MLW has also bought beer. Some interesting beer including a mango IPA which was very nice.  My salted caramal milk stout was less of a success. A gift for my sister I think. Genuinely, she asked for it.

MLW went out. I put the Captain to bed and then watched the last few episodes of Brooklyn 99 Season Three as prelude to watching Season 4 with MLW over the next few weeks. I'm sure other things happened.

MLW returned somewhat later than I expected and in a very cheerful mood, so we opened a bottle of Quinta da Novel tawny port which we'd brough back from Porto when were there. It is still delicious. We had more than we ought to have had. We'll finish the bottle at dad's on Tuesday.  MLW was not looking forward to Saturday.

No football or rugby training this weekend as it is half term. Just as well. It's very, very cold.

The Captain awoke early on Saturday. He was expecting deliveries and wanted to know if the post had come. At 5.45am. It had not. Not had it come a 6.05, 6.15. 6.30, 6.45 etc.

By the time I got up the Captain had taken delivery of a PlayStation 4 game called Knack 2. Knack 2 is, I am told, a quite pleasant but easy and standard platformer. The story is about a sort of golem that can change size saving the world. There is a two player mode. The Captain and I spent Saturday playing Knack 2 with brief breaks to watch the rugby (me) or to read (the Captain) some the Horrible Histories books in the twenty volume bumper fun pack which he also had just taken delivery of. MLW pottered about singing.

We also spent Sunday morning, from 5.45, playing Knack 2. Until it was time to go to Murrayfield.

I liked Knack 2. Playing it with the Captain was fun. He's better at computer games than I am. This is probably the natural state of the world. My MLW pretty much refuses to join in. I think she is still smarting from her 64-0 drubbing on Madden. I don't think I have anything to add on the subject of Knack 2. It was fun. I like playing with the Captain. That's about it.

Other than that it was surprisingly tiring and surprisingly engaging. I genuinely looked at my clock at 6.30 on Sunday morning and then next realised the time at 8.30.

We watched the rugby on Saturday on the television. I worry for Italy. They are getting better but not as quickly as the other Northern Hemisphere teams are getting better. Except France perhaps. It can't be much fun being the designated last place for twenty years. I thought Wales were a bit unlucky against England. Had their disallowed try been allowed I think they would have sneaked a narrow win with a late penalty or drop goal. This would have amused me. Also I am begining to lose patience with my English Friend who keeps noising my up when England do well but sulks when e.g. a mediocre Australia side hand them a 4-0 Ashes beating. If he keeps it up I'm afraid I may lose my rag and remind him that my country didn't vote for Brexit.

Saturday tea was the curry from Waitrose. It was good. MLW and I watched Brooklyn 99. Season 4 is sillier than the previous seasons. I hope it gets better.

On Sunday we went to the rugby at Murrayfield. MLW, the Captain, the Captain's Particular Friend, his father, an old school friend of mine, her husband, their son and me. Sadly, no Helen Mirren in a hat.

It was cold. I was slightly under-dressed having on my very light water-proof jacket and my second warmest fleece. It was very cold. The threatened snow had not materialised. We drove to the ground. MLW pulled of the best bit of parking in the history of parking by finding and getting in to a narrow space about 5 cars in on the road to the back gate to Murrayfield. The perfect location.

I was apprehensive about the game. The first 15 minutes looked like a repeat of Cardiff might be on but the team responded very well, kept calm, kept running, kept in touch and basically wore the French out with the pace of their play until they could win enough penalties to win. The French winger Teddy Thomas is rather good but I suspect will be less good after a couple of large Maori's have tackled him to touch for an afternoon. it turned out okay. I still question us kicking from hand with a 6 point lead in the 77th minute of the game. The Captain pointed out that rugby is a difficult game. I conceeded this but noted to myself that some of us playing rugby are seven and some of us  playing rugby are full Scotland internationals playing in perhaps the best Scotland team ever. 

I didn't get much of a chance to catch up with my school friend. She's a touch deaf and talks very, very quickly so carrying on a conversation with her at in a crowded sport's stadium is difficult. She looks well.

The son of a friend of MLW did not win his first Scotland cap. That was a small blemish on the day.

Anyway, it turned out alright. I would not say I was confident we would win but after about minute 20 I was confident that we would at least come close. We are back at Murrayfield in two weeks for the England game.

After the rugby the three of us we went to a Chinese buffet restaurant and had some tea. It was nice. Just the job after a long, cold afternoon of watching sport. Then round to my dad's to greet my aunt and her partner who are visiting for a view days. My step-mum was surprisingly jolly about the rugby. I was too emotionally exhausted to join in with her jubilation as much I feel I ought. We had a few drinks with them. The Captain was charming. Absolutely charming. He talked about the Horrible History books and Knack 2. Said a few things about the rugby. Was thoughtful and calm and pleased to see everyone.

Home with the Captain asleep by 9pm. MLW and I watched the Scotland France game on iPlayer.

The quality of the commentary on ITV is awful. It's only when you compare the BBC and ITV in close proximity that you realise how bad ITV is or how good the BBC is. The ITV commentary had been 90 minutes of cliche but without much appreciation of why the cliche was a cliche. It conveyed no information about the game that one could not gather from the team sheet.

In bed with my book about Ireland before 11. Up for the gym at 6.10am this morning. I am lifting weights. I am noticiably stronger than I was two years ago. Still a bit portly round the middle.

In other news I have pretty much given up coffee.