A bag in a bag in a bag. An empty bag.

I flew on British Airways to Lisbon and back this last week.     In a vestigial remnant of providing us with food service, they gave us sandwiches.    To make life easy for cleanup they provided a trash bag.

Or put it this way.

They provided a plastic bag in a plastic bag in a plastic bag.   And the (innermost) bag was empty.  

There was a bag with tissue and stuff in it.   The bag was of course plastic.   Inside this bag one of the items was a small plastic bag.  In that, very neatly folded up, was a plastic trash bag.

So yes, they gave me a plastic bag in a plastic bag in a plastic bag.   And the plastic bag was empty.

Subscriber Trunk Dialling

Rang up Sky to cancel the sports package, since the cricket season is over.    The voice asked me to enter my phone number "including STD code."  I can't remember the last time I heard this phrase.   Rather like Wireless was replaced by Radio over the years, STD has been replaced by Area Code or similar.  

The nice chap from Sky also asked if it was ok to call me Ian, which seemed very polite and nice.  I wish more people would do that kind of thing.    It is fine, but it isn't for all people, and some people want to be called by other names like their second name or a nickname.

My parents' wedding in colour

Hubert Gent married Margaret Luke on July 5th, 1948, the very day the NHS was started.  Though I believe there were no calamities on the day that resulted in the new service being used.  The reception was held at the North British Hotel, much later criminally renamed the Balmoral.    Since my grandfather had bought champagne and didn't like the corkage charge at the hotel, a second reception was held at their house (if I've remembered this right.)

Astonishingly for the time, a friend took a colour film of the event.    A gallery of snapshots from the film is on flickr.

Another thing I hate about the Prius.

I suppose that makes three things now.   The third one is that the displayed MPG calculation is always an overestimate.   It seems to be something like 2-5% over.   I can understand it might be difficult to make an accurate estimate, so I am not complaining about the error rate.  I am complaining that it is always an overestimate.   It should be sometimes optimistic and sometimes pessimistic, and then over the lifetime it would be more accurate.

Also, the only option for mpg display is essentially a tank indicator.  All cars should, imho, have a lifetime indicator and a trip indicator of mpg, trip being since you switched the car on I suppose.    A tank measure would be neat but less important.  

Knave's Dial, but it will 40 minutes later!

Well how about that?   I got out a fresh game so this one will count.  

This game that comes out is number 0210843428856.

I'm going to give you more or less complete instructions for getting this one out.   Take every card you can with a few exceptions.   On the original deal, don't take the last Black Queen you can, or the Black 6, and don't take the first ones that come out on the redeal either.   Also, don't take the last Red 5 or Red King on the first deal.    

I did work this out with a lot of undoing, but it might be (I haven't checked) that you could work this all out analytically on the first run through.   After the first deal is complete the game is open, even though it is not played as such.   It may be that the moves I didn't make (after in fact making them and then unmaking them) could have been seen that way the first time round. 

I suspect this game might be get outable more often than I thought.  I had only three failed games after my last success, which was why it took so little time to get it out.    And I didn't play those through, just gave them up quickly.   If it does come out often, it will be by the kind of analysis (or undoing) that I did this time. 

Quite happy about this one.   I feel like I understand the patience a lot better now, and it may not be completely unbearable to play again. 

Knave's Dial out, but it won't count (either)

I got Knave's Dial out, another ghastly patience and the tenth most rarely solved game in Solsuite.   Like I did with Class Day, I went back to my best unsuccessful game, to see if it came out.    Since it only had 4 cards unplaced, I was not amazed that it did in fact come out.   In fact I just needed to avoid taking one card, (which I did by undoing, in case you think I have some kind of sixth sense), and it came out.   

The game number that comes out is 3163897827515. 

Can you really immolate yourself with vodka?

This post contains a spoiler for the 1980s TV series Tutti Frutti, the one about a Scottish rock band starring Robbie Coltrane and Emma Thompson as two Glaswegians. Yes, Emma Thompson as a Glaswegian.

In the final scene, Vince Diver decides to immolate himself. He pours a bottle of Polish vodka all over himself. Then he goes to play the guitar for a bit, while fumbling with a dodgy lighter. Finally, off screen, he gets himself lit and we see an orange glow reflected in the faces of Emma and Robbie.

So here's the thing. First of all, doesn't alcohol burn blue, not orange? It certainly does on our christmas pudding when we light brandy over it. And second, when we light brandy over pudding, we have to warm it first. Maybe the Polish vodka is higher proof, but still. Third, he pours it mainly over his leather jacket and trousers. Don't little bit of liquids tend to drip off leather? So wouldn't most of the alcohol end up on the floor? And fourth, how much flame would you get from a bottle of vodka? Enough to cause a glow a little way off? And fifth, it's not that the leather would immediately light either, what with it not being terribly flammable.

To put it another way. If I hadn't read the Wikipedia entry in advance, I wouldn't have known what had happened. It wouldn't have occurred to me he'd gone up in flames.