“Bull in a China Shop”

For a badge (it’s almost always for a badge these days), I have made a mosaic using broken china.

I didn’t actually have any unwanted china to break up into pieces so I put out a call on Freegle which a local lady kindly answered. The china didn’t have much colour contrast so I toured the local charity shops for more. The first shop manager sold me two green side plates for just 50p once I explained what I was after (i.e. stuff to smash). The pattern wall plate was £3.50 from Oxfam.

Freegle collection

Charity shopping addition

Time to convert the collection to usable fragments.

The vase turned out to be unusable, being made of glass with a plastic coating on it to hold the little leaf shapes. The coloured glass leaves would have been useful except removing them from the plastic also stripped off their colour backing, making them transparent. There was more than enough of the china, though.

Checking I have adhesive and grout to stick the fragments down. Ah, the pot in the loft seems to have been there quite a while and the contents are now unusable. I do, though, have a couple of unopened tubes of decorators caulk (for some reason) which I will pretend are an ideal replacement.

Ooh! Found some adhesive grout in the loft!

Ah, it’s rock-solid

Ooh! Found some caulk in the loft!

Next, I built a frame round a board to ensure the work had a fancy edge.

After some thought, I decided to go for a fish and played with the pieces without any adhesive. Sue thought the hook facing away from the fish didn’t look right so I took some plyers to the cup fragment so that it would sit flat the other way round.

dav

Removing the pieces, I slathered the board with a layer of decorators caulk and went to work. I soon found out I didn’t have enough usable green for the sea water so took the hammer to the remaining larger lumps to get more fragments. Cherry on the cake, was a ‘borrowed’ marble from Sue’s collection.

The fish doesn’t look as defined as it did on a plain board background. The hook would have been better replaced with something like pieces from a cut-up coke can. But all good experience.

Eurovision 2024

This year I’ve taken more of an interest (as there is a Rebel badge for it) and decided to have a small Eurovision ‘watch party’ for the family with themed food and score sheets.

First up was a shopping trip to Waitrose for supplies.

Spain – Paella

UK – Coronation chicken in crispy cups (mini Croustades from Sweden)

Italy – garlic and mozzarella flatbread; pizza

Israel – Falafels (admittedly “Moroccan style”)

Ukraine – Beetroot quiche; (out-of-shot) chicken Kievs)

Greece – cheese and spinach muffins

I think everything was yellow-stickered (apart from the Croustades which were already in the cupboard).

Coronation chicken and spring onion in crispy cups

Chicken Kiev with cheese and spinach muffins.

The pre-printed score sheets listed the 26 entrants (although that number had already dropped to 25) with columns to assess the “Song & Performance” and “Staging & Presentation”, both out of 10 giving a score out of 20. This was to help us decide which countries received the points from the Woodley Judges. (I’ve just noticed that the sheet had 12 spaces for “1 point” through “12 points” when it should really have had only 10 spaces as “9 points” and “11 points” are not awarded.)

Country	Judge Samantha	Judge Sue	Judge John	Total
Croatia	12	10	12	34
Switzerland	7	12	8	27
Ukraine	2	4	10	16
Finland	5	8	1	14
Spain	1	5	7	13
Estonia	8		5	13
Germany	10	2		12
France		7	3	10
Ireland			6	6
Norway	6			6
Armenia		6		6
Austria		1	4	5
Israel	4			4
Italy	3			3
Serbia		3		3
United Kingdom			2	2

The points from the Woodley judges…

Interesting that, just like in the real voting, we put Croatia and Switzerland way ahead of the rest. Of course, we then had Finland/Spain/Estonia in 4th/5th/6th instead of the actual 19th/22nd/20th. I’m not sure how much the actual Ukraine and Israel positions were distorted by real world events.

So my top 5 were:

The music isn’t really for me and a lot of it sounded the same but that’s okay as obviously so many people do enjoy it. Instead, the best part of the evening for me was the comedy (not all intentional).

I expect we’ll reconvene next year to watch the Swiss-hosted event.

Finally, to sign off, here are my top 3 winning songs from previous years:

• 3rd – 1995 – Norway – “Nocturne” – Secret Garden
• 2nd – 1997 – UK – “Love Shine a Light” – Katrina and the Waves
• 1st – 2006 – Finland – “Hard Rock Hallelujah” – Lordi

Katrina at GuilFest (2014)

Lordi at Reading’s Sub 89 Stadium (2015)

Woodley Parkrun #527

The weather was lovely today and my legs felt fine but I had not been running since April 18th. No non-stop mile today. In fact the jogging parts seemed so few and far between that I was expecting a terrible time. In the end, 40 minutes 11 seconds was the official time so still faster than my first four parkruns but a good minute and a half behind my personal best.

Had a nice chat with a fellow Wolves fan just before the start. Whilst jogging around, had to go past an aging ManU fan sitting on a bench near the war memorial who thought I was wearing a Watford top. Hopefully wolves will show him how to properly play Crystal Palace tonight.

Protecting my head from sunburn

Lots of stop-start jogging for a few hundred metres at a time:

Historic Boycotts of Eurovision

Eurovision can be a bit political at times and countries, or the corresponding TV companies, can decide to boycott the event. Quite a few absences, though, have simply been down to lack of funds or public disinterest; for example, Luxembourg was relegated in 1993 and stayed away for 30 years, mainly for reasons of cost.

The longest running boycott is by the Arab States. It is believed that the eligible Arab States do not participate due to the presence of Israel in the competition. Obstacles include the requirement to broadcast the Eurovision competition in full in a country where the law doesn’t allow the transmission of content that recognises the country of Israel.

Other boycotts of note:

1967
Denmark withdraw for 11 years after a bad result in 1966, having to wait for the Danish TV head of entertainment to eventually be replaced before returning.

1969
Austria boycotted the Madrid-based event as a protest against Franco regime in Spain. Austria had, though, given Spain two points in the previous year’s event.

1970
Finland, Norway, Portugal, Sweden and Austria all boycotted the 1970 edition because they felt that the contest marginalised smaller countries and was no longer good television entertainment. It is also thought that this was additionally/alternatively in protest at there being four countries winning in 1969 (as no tiebreaker rules in place)

1975
Greece protests the Turkish invasion of Cyprus

1981
Italy drops out for the first of many times, initially citing lack of public interest. Over the next 30 years, they attend only 11 times.

1982
France dropped out for a year because “The absence of talent and the mediocrity of the songs were where annoyance set in. Eurovision is a monument to drivel”.

2006
Austria dropped out for several years, arguing that the musical talent of the performers was no longer the determining factor in success at the event.

2009
With the event being hosted in Moscow, Georgia refused to compete in a “country that violates human rights and international laws”. Their song – ‘We Don’t Wanna Put In‘ – was seen as a direct reference to the 2009 Russo-Georgian armed conflict and was rejected by the EBU.

2013
Turkey leaves the competition and hasn’t returned. Initially this was due to changes in the voting system which would probably mean their entries being less successful; later they added to their list of reasons “someone like the bearded Austrian who wore a skirt” so I can’t see Turkey returning any time soon.

2020
It is speculated that Hungary didn’t enter from 2020 onwards as Eurovision is regarded as “too gay” for the taste of the country’s far-right government.

2021
Belarus are disqualified for submitting two songs which broke the rules and were subsequently ejected from the EBU. More a case of Eurovision boycotting Belarus.

2022
After being excluded for invading Ukraine, Russia suspend their membership of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

Spicey Sausage and Pineapple soup

Having a little clear-out. The frozen pineapple chunks are going as a recent blood test (Pineapple RAST test) showed an allergic reaction to the fruit. Sue queried why I was eating them at all if I was allergic as she could have had them instead. I replied that I wanted to see what happened in a controlled scientific experiment and, as the BBE date was a year ago, she had had long enough to eat them herself.

• Pineapple chunks
• 3 pork and red onion sausages (previously cooked)
• One block of fine egg noodles
• 4 tomato and basil ‘cup-a-soup’ sachets
• Taco marinade (pineapple, garlic, cumin)
• 1 litre of water

The taco marinade was, unsurprisingly, also yellow-stickered.

Fabulous and filling. Five stars.

Week 5 may take a while

Couch-to-5k has come to a halt. After the parkrun on Saturday, I walked the mile home – actually, hobbled would be more appropriate – with outer knee pain in the right leg. The knee felt better by Monday when I had to cycle to Reading and back at lunchtime but jogging round the lake in the evening was determined to not be a good idea. Thursday rolls around and I feel it’s time to get my jogging shoes back on and repeat the routine for week 5 day 2. Unfortunately, half way through the first of two 8-minute runs, I start to feel some hints from the back of my right calf that maybe I should have stayed at home. Seven minutes through, I decide not to continue risking making anything worse. Hopefully, will be okay for Saturday’s parkrun.

“If the human brain were so simple that we could understand it, we would be so simple that we couldn’t.”

[[Quote by Emerson M. Pugh]]

The Brain Games badge needs you to, unsurprisingly, play brain games – that is, games that stimulate your brain. I’m not a huge fan of the idea behind the name, especially when it’s linked to brain training, because you don’t stimulate the brain. As a ‘Nature’ article discussed, all you’re doing is improving the brain’s ability at whatever task you’re doing. If the game involves looking for ways to make rows or shapes on a grid then all you’re doing with the practice is getting better at Candy Crush. Your IQ, cognition and memory will be unaffected. As there is a badge to be obtained, though, I’ll temporarily ignore the pseudoscientific aspect.

The brain games I play regularly on my phone are Candy Crush Saga and Worldle.

Candy Crush Saga

Worldle

What is that 16th neighbour?!?

Sue and I have a go at Crosswords together whilst I tackle the Sudoku.

Teamwork comes in handy for completing jigsaws.

I did look around for some new brain games and played a couple from the Ken Ken Puzzles website – the KenKen daily challenge (Sudoku with maths) and Challenge 2048 (sliding and combining numbers).

Woodley Parkrun #523

I seem to be averaging two Parkruns in every three. I didn’t exactly leap out of bed with the 8am alarm this morning but I did still keep going and not just go back to sleep after looking out of the window to check the weather.

Getting ready to start

I should really be up with the people on the far side of the field.

I think the Couch-to-5k sessions are helping as I managed to complete a lap at jogging speed without too much mental resistance. When MapMyRun announced I had reached a mile, I decided that was far enough to mark some achievement. The rest of the Parkrun was a mix of jogging and walking to maintain my position amongst the other athletes. I’m starting to think that, one day, it may be possible to complete the run without walking. Main obstacle will be convincing myself – whilst I am actually there – that there is a good reason to do so. Currently, the main motivation is the Rebel Runner badge but what happens after that’s been achieved?

Woodley Parkrun #515	distance 4.90 km	time 43:04
Woodley Parkrun #517	distance 4.96 km	time 42:51
Woodley Parkrun #518	distance 4.95 km	time 42:50
Woodley Parkrun #519	distance 4.83 km	time 41:25
Woodley Parkrun #521	distance 4.92 km	time 41:10
Woodley Parkrun #523	distance 4.87 km	time 39:17

Stats from MapMyRun

Book reading 2024 #6 – “Non-Coloring Book” – George Hrab

One from the pile of books that I’m sure I started but never finished first time round and need to start over.

Published in 2007, so it’s from George’s mid-30s period and the same year that he launched the Geologic podcast. I’ve listened to nearly all of his 850+ podcasts – there’s always a lag of several episodes as he’s in a queue behind the “Skeptics Guide to the Universe” and “No Such thing as a Fish” – and we’ve both aged significantly in the process. I wonder if he looks back on the content in the same way I do at my own ‘humorous’ fanzine output. Judging from the ‘thankyou’ email sent out to book purchasers (for me, 2018), I don’t think so.

It’s a nicely written, thoughtful, at times sad, and occasionally baffling 150-page book of short essays, anecdotes and absurd humour. For example:

Mwah ha ha ha ha ha! [maniacal laughter]
Zbv nh jonm ysts. [maniacal typing]

Back to RIG

Late arrival at RIG tonight as I had spent time getting ready for tomorrow’s trip to London so missed “Codenames”. Instead joined “That’s a Question!“, the game where on the box lid a squirrel offers you the choice of a blue pill and a red pill. The premise is that player A asks player B to choose between two options while players C, D, E & F predict what player B will pick. For example, “which would you miss more if it ceased to exist – Boardgames or Fresh Fruit?” Didn’t like the board as the pieces were too large and the spaces too small for accurate points tracking. There was also discussion about the flow of the game – who asks the next question of whom, etc. So the concept was simple and potentially fun but the delivery not so much.

Was surprised to see “Kittens In A Blender” where the point of the game is to put the kittens of other players into a food blender. You’d think cat lovers would avoid this game but not Laura.

I spent some time refreshing my knowledge of the rules of “Grass“, which I don’t think I have played since the late 1980s/early 1990s. Couldn’t get enough players that wanted to indulge in the game due to the theme. Maybe another time.

Did manage to run a session of “Keltis“. Scored appallingly, but was fun to teach a game to people.