The Night Before Christmas

I think I’ve had a bit of a turnaround in recent years. From being someone who thoroughly detested Christmas it’s now a time of year I rather enjoy. It might be having kids that does it but in the past years we have tended to go for more of a German Christmas celebration. Partly, this has been because we have been in Germany for several Christmases but also, in our old house, we didn’t have a chimney breast to do the whole Santa-comes-down-the-chimney routine. Instead we have always had Santa visit the house – except for last year when Santa crashed the sledge and I had to go an pick up the presents – in fact it was more a case that it was -15C outside and the Santa costume didn’t bleeding fit anymore.

With us moving to the new house, we can now go for more of a British type of Christmas – or at least the Dickensian type of faery-tale that I have a certain fondness for. Given that we have the high ceilings and Victoriana around the house it seems all the more fitting. The first task was to get a big tree. The thing with Christmas trees is that they have gone very expensive in the last few years. Part of the reason for this is that they are either varieties designed to keep their needles longer or they have been treated specially to retain them. They will all drop their leaves eventually (as they are all, essentially, dead trees) and I have an old trick that works far more effectively which is to leave the tree out in the garden for a few nights so it gets the frost or snowed on or both. My mother in law didn’t do this and the little tree that she bought lost needles like crazy. She tried to move it yesterday to hoover around it and the remaining needles dropped off leaving a naked twig which she then flung out into the back garden in a fit of pique. She has now has a bowl of baubles sitting on the table with some fairy lights arranged over the top: it’s what I like to call “The Emperor’s New Christmas Tree.”

As for our tree, I went for a traditional fir in what I would describe as the biggest, silliest thing I could find. It was described as being a 2.5 metre tree but when I eventually measured it at home it came to a whopping 2.7 metres. I say eventually as it does help to get a 2.7 metre tree home if one remembers to take a 2.7 metre car along to transport it. Anyway, I think it looks rather good and at least looks in proportion against my idiotically huge telly:

  One thing you may have noticed is that there is no star or angel on top. This is because Raymond was entrusted to “make” an angel and this is what he came up with (and which Nina wasn’t having anything to do with):

Well, I suppose Doctor Who is now part of a traditional Christmas. The other thing was to hang the socks in front of the fireplace. This does have the advantage in that we can encourage the children to go to bed early although I did actually struggle to find anything to hang them from:

Now, the fireplace is not fully open and this is why I had my own suspicions about Santa’s modus operandi as a child (we went smokeless and the fire place was blocked up). Anyway, surely Santa is magic and can get around that little problem. It looks like he is more svelte than one would have imagined:

The only downside is that we don’t have snow at Christmas for the first time in years. In fact we have had torrential rain all day. Oh well, Merry Christmas!

Going With The Flow

I commented back in October that I thought raising the motorway speed limit to 80mph would be of little benefit. However, I also commented that that there was little to be gained by driving at 70 over 60mph but that I drive at the higher speed to prevent boredom. I have been down in Liverpool this weekend and, as an experiment, I have actually tried this to see if there is much of a saving to be made by driving more slowly. The aim was to drive down at a steady 70 and back at 60. As I don’t have cruise control I was trying to do this manually and simply speeding up when the speed was below the target speed and slowing down when the speed crept up. It’s a simple enough method but I used the car’s trip computer to calculate average mpg and speed for the journey. Even though this was meant to be a real world test I didn’t exactly have laboratory conditions as when I drove down the weather was clear and dry - driving back, I had torrential  rain and poor visibility: the extra rolling resistance from the wet road as well as the addition of dipped headlights and both sets of wipers permanently on will have had a hit on consumption but I  did, at least have a clear run without delays either way.

The results are quite interesting. Driving down the average speed for the motorway section came in at 66mph which means that the speedometer over-reads by around 4mph. The average fuel consumption for this worked out at 46.5 mpg. On the way back the average speed was 56mph and the fuel consumption 52.5mpg. That’s a reasonable improvement and it is possible that this figure could have been higher if the weather had been better.  The motorway journey took 35 minutes longer and used 2.68 less litres of fuel: about £3.50 worth at current rates. But which was the better journey?

From an environmental point of view, the slower journey was the clear winner: It resulted in 2.68 litres of fuel being unburned which preserves the fuel reserves, reduces the amount of oil needing to be pumped and refined and prevents 6.14 Kg of CO2 being directly emitted from the tail pipe. Additionally, there would be a reduction in wear to tyres and other components with a limited lifespan. Clearly it is a worthwhile exercise environmentally, however, that is not my prime reason for wanting to reduce fuel consumption. Financially, I have saved my £3.50 but it has cost me 35 minutes of my time. This equates to an hourly rate of £6 – considering that this is on taxed income it is more like £9 per hour: well above minimum wage levels but it isn’t that huge that I wouldn’t appreciate a faster journey. I suppose this leads to the next question, which is: is it really worth it?

I don’t particularly enjoy long motorway journeys; I find them rather dull. However, the longer the journey, the more stressful it becomes. This brings up another point which one of my friends pointed out on Sunday night. Driving at roughly 60mph means an awful lot of time sharing road space with HGVs. For the most part they are decent professional drivers but driving near to them is an intimidating experience and there will always be slower vehicles which will necessitate overtaking – this can be quite stressful when the adjacent middle-lane traffic is moving significantly faster. Driving at 70 means that most traffic is travelling at roughly the same speed making overtaking lorries much easier and with only a few vehicles overtaking at higher (and presumably illegal) speeds. My friend’s example was driving down the M6 towards Birmingham. Driving North is easier and the traffic North of Preston is much lighter. When on the M74 it can mean only catching up with a lorry every 5 minutes or so and the middle lane will usually be free at that point. Even so, the whole journey did feel quit a bit more stressful – I suspect it may be easier in a vehicle with cruise control.

It’s an interesting experiment: whilst it clearly shows that travelling at a slower speed will save on fuel, the benefits are not that great to make it the obvious choice for longer journeys. I’d be interested to see the results for similar weather conditions and for the results using a diesel engined car (particularly suited to dull motorway journeys). However, for me the preferable speed is simply to go with the flow. Mind you, I still think that an increase to 80mph is a largely pointless exercise.

Hurricane Bawbag

I woke up at my usual time, 6am, on Thursday only to decide that I would be “Working From Home” that day. I had intended to head back from the office around lunchtime anyway as we had been forecast  inclement weather but as Radio Scotland informed me that we would be suffering very high winds (one gust measured at around 165mph) from around 10:00 I thought it best to stay at home and use the wonders of the internet to carry out an honest day’s work. As it turns out, this was a smart move and the only scars I’ve got to show for it are a partially damaged garage roof and a smashed birdhouse. I also managed to find a real use for Twitter for the first time as I used the trend #scotstorm to get a feed of information about what was happening around the country. However, some (presumably West coast) wag complained that the Americans always get a proper moniker for their crappy weather and promptly named our storm #hurricanebawbag.

For those unfamiliar with the Glasgow patter a Bawbag is the scrotum or, more commonly, a name applied to a wanton dullard or irritant – often affectionately to one’s friends or workmates at a time of particular ineptitude or incompetence. It seems rather a fitting name for some of the most powerful storms in recent years as it rather captures the dark, devil-may-care nature of Scottish humour but, for what was clearly a intended as a throwaway wisecrack, the term trended worldwide: presumably perplexing those overseas as to why a serious meteorological event should be given such a vulgar name. However, I found it quite useful. As I was meant to be supporting the computer systems of many important Scottish based institutions it was very handy being able to follow the progress of #hurricanebawbag and seeing how much of our infrastructure was being affected. This rather raises the question of why we don’t name our natural disasters in the same way that our American cousins do.

In fact, the storm had been given the official name of Friedhelm by the Free University of Berlin. I hadn’t heard of this and, given the usual naming conventions for these things, there must have been a previous five storm names this year. Now, as much as these are of interest to meteorologists, they aren’t particularly of much use to the general public unless they are advertised. Just being told about them on the weather broadcasts or BBC news bulletins should be enough. As it is 100mph gusts are not actually that unusual in Scotland but big storms like Friedhelm/Bawbag can cause great disruption and destruction. I think, for once, some credit has to go to the Scottish Government and Police as they closed schools early and the Police gave an unambiguous “DO NOT TRAVEL between 14:00 and 21:00” warning on the day. As it is, no-one died as a direct result of the storm which is as unusual as it is welcome for an extreme weather event. Anyway, the storm did produce some really rather amazing pictures:

Apparently, there is power in the wind.

This was also on the BBC Scotland website from Troon in Ayrshire.

If you live on a  Scottish housing scheme it is compulsary to have one of these things (don't believe me - try Google Earth)



This was the Clyde - there are meant to be Nuclear Submarines in there somewhere!

It’s all quite breath-taking result but I really do think we should start officially naming extreme weather events. #SnowstormFUBAR, anyone?

Made in Germany

“Here's a daily sample of items recommended for you: Miles Davis – Milestones; Shostakovich - Symphony no 7; Simon and Garfunkel - Bookends; Rammstein – Made in Germany  1995-2011.”

I think I have finally and completely broken Amazon’s search engine although, in fairness, it’s all stuff I like – and look, Rammstein have a new album out. Actually it’s a “Greatest Hits” album of sorts. The problem with these albums is that no two people are ever going to agree on the content. They can be objective by including tracks based on sales or chart placings - or a simple singles collection. Some artists have gone as far as letting their fans choose the listing which is very democratic but may throw up choices which are not the easiest entry point for the casual listener – which is surely the target audience. Many artists will produce an album to promote their latest tour – which is what I believe Rammstein have done here. However, for a fan of the group (I have all six studio albums) I would say it is neither their best nor most accessible material. The question is, what would I pick?

Made in Germany has one new track, Mein Land; this is often a sneaky trick to get die-hard fans to buy the whole album but they have released this as a separate single (£7 for the CD single on Amazon – sod that!) which is decent enough. They have a couple of other singles-only releases in Das Modell (a Kraftwerk cover) and Stripped (the Depeche Mode song) I would have included the latter but they chose neither - I suppose, in fairness, they are both cover versions so it isn’t entirely representative of the band's output. However, they only include one song from their first album, Du Riechst So Gut, inspired by Patrick Süskind's Das Perfum (as was Nirvana's Senseless Apprentice). I've no arguments with that as it's a great track but they have omitted their second single, Seemann - probably my favourite Rammstein song. Other tracks that could have been included are Asche zu Asche and Rammstein but possibly more for historical reasons. There are two tracks included from their second album: Engel and Du Hast. I wouldn't argue with these choices either and I tend to find the Sehnsucht album a bit hard-going lyrically - it lacks the morbidly black humour of later albums whilst still addressing subject matter that is unlikely to make for comfortable dinner party conversation.

Made in Germany takes five tracks from their third album, Mutter. In fairness, I think any of the tracks could have made it to a Best Of album but, inevitably, some tracks would have to be left off. Having said that, it is a great surprise that one of their best known tracks, Feuer Frei!, is missing. Not only was this a UK hit single but also featured as the opening theme music to the Vin Diesel film XXX (admittedly, it was probably the best thing about it). I'm not sure what the rationale was behind it but, if anything, I would have left off the track Mutter in it's place. The next album Reise, Reise lends 4 tracks to the compilation but, whilst I have no issue with Mein Teil or Ohne Dich, I'm not sure why Amerika or Keine Lust were included other than the fact that they were singles (in which case, why no Seemann or Feuer Frei!) In their place I would have included the far superior Moskau, the title track Reise, Reise and, possibly, the unusual acoustic Los.

They only include the title track, Rosenrot, from their fifth album. This a decent enough single based around the Brothers Grimm faery tale but I would have thought the Benzin and Mann Gegen Mann singles should have been included as well. Rosenrot tends to be a rather unloved album but I think it definitely has its plus points and Wo Bis Du (a duet with Texas's Sharleen Spiteri) and the haunting electronica of Ein Lied are pretty decent if a little off track for a greatest hits compilation. However, I found the selection from sixth album, Liebe ist Für Alle da, to be quite strange. For a start, why is the risible Pussy included (probably the worst thing they have done and surely only intended as a stunt.) The other track is the single Haifisch, which is OK, but they miss the excellent Ich Tu Dir Weh and I would have thought Rammlied, Mehr and Wiener Blut are more than worthy of inclusion.

Ultimately, Greatest Hits compilations are not intended for the confirmed fan but the curious casual listener. In that respect, they have covered a reasonable amount of material but I think a straight singles collection would have produced a more rounded album. In fact, for a new listener to the band, I would recommend the Mutter album as a much better starting point altogether. Never mind - that Miles Davis CD looks interesting.