Nicholas Booth Dot Com

• A warm home made beer, sitting in the sun on the front doorstep. Feels like Summer is here already. #
• Daughter willingly doing her piano practice. What's happened? #
• O2 website says my Joggler s/b delivered today. Hope DHL actually do the deed – the package won't track on their site, though. #
• Joggler hacked – telnet & some 3rd party apps added. What a nice bit of kit – wish I'd ordered two! Maybe try Ubuntu on it tomorrow eve. #
• Fuzz manning speedtrap near Fourwents Pond this morning. Thanks to the lady that warned about it. #
• Toad in the Hole now in the oven for Sunday Lunch. #

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• The stars strike me as being somewhat pink. Crescent moon also has a pinkish shade to it . #
• Starting estimate for work left to do to get Movable Type completely set up for the business we sold so they can be independent of us. #
• Completed an estimate for Movable Type work required. Orginally told they had the expertise to implement and manage a system. They don't. #
• Hacking the Wii and trying to get daughter to bed at the same time = stress #
• A few lonely wiggly vapour trails in a bright blue sky this morning. #
• Time to leave the office and drive back to what I hope will still be sunny Dorking. #
• Web team here discussing the collecive noun for DBAs; is it a "Select" of DBAs or a "Cluster"? #
• Just back from a fantastic meal for SWMBO's birthday at La Barbe, Reigate. Mmmmmmm. #
• Free-cycle sourced acquisition of an old sewing machine now working after tweaking – sort of mechanical hacking, I s'pose. Grace pleased. #
• Daughter happily playing my SCUMM Indiana Jones FoA on the Wii. All the Wii games disks now on a USB Hard Drive. Nice & Tidy. #

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• Just mended a little chineese am/fm radio. Hope the rest of the soldering is better than the blob they used used for the aerial wire! #
• Nice bunch of LandyWaves on the way home tonight. It's lovely how much Landy owners love their motors and are so friendly. #
• Just ordered some small kits from Sparkfun, including a metronome one to help Grace's piano playing (and mine too, probably!). #
• This looks like it might be an interesting project (once all the rest are done! and I get a round Tuit). #
• Possies of cyclists all over the place today. Perhaps they are all pilots when the planes are flying normally. #
• Sitting in the cinema waiting for Nanny McPhee to start. #
• No BBQ tonight: Danger lurks. Need to retrieve the jet wash and spray liberally before it may be considered safe to cook on. #

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With no aircraft in the sky over the UK, it’s a pretty weird place. Usually I can go out of the house, back or front, and spot at least four planes floating about the sky. That’s possibly a side effect of living on the line between London Heathrow and Gatwick airports. But this afternoon – none. It’s not particularly quieter, but the birds do seem to be a little louder – surely my imagination though. The sunset, although expected to be spectacular really did nothing for me, either.

Having spent the best part of a couple of days this week working on a Movable Type installation that needs to be migrated for a business RBI sold recently, I’m getting more than a little frustrated. Months ago I specified the MT version they needed, and then about 5 weeks ago provided them with a back-up file to test with. Looks like they did nothing with all that – until this week – and now it’s absolutely crucial that they get this productionised NOW!! I’ve almost completely rebuilt their installation to something a little bit sane, but they still have problems with imports – I did two just fine today – and there are some horrible problems with the content which looks like it’s been badly constructed with absolute links for pictures and other assets. It’s enough to make one weep! I’m wondering if I should offer to do this freelance for them at the weekend – a good rate to charge might be what the Landrover garage charge for working on the car. Might make them think, though. Perhaps I should sell them hosting as well!

• Wandering around Drusillas zoo #
• Busy day been to Brighton; walked on the pier and spent fortune.Then to Devil's Dyke and now at 6 bells #
• Just home from Birthday Dinner for Mother at the Peking restaurant in Dorking. Very nice meal with pleasant surprise at the end. Well done. #

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• Wrestling with poorly documented plugins. Grrr. #
• RT @TelegraphNews Classic Land Rover http://bit.ly/chzixn #
• Spring: Had to dodge about a dozen ducklings racing around in the road by the village pond on my way to work today. #
• Too many blogs – we just ran out of disk space! #
• Fish and chips for supper. #
• Wow! That was the biggest piece of haddock I've ever seen – maybe it was really a great white shark? #
• Daugter has new bicycle. Maybe she'll stay in a good mood for the rest of the day. #
• Making Hot Cross Buns #
• At my sister's house: feels like chaos. Looking forward to trying the HCBs later. #

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• Great page with hacks for the Chumby: http://tinyurl.com/35qw7c I should have known I could SSH into it and that it had a web browser! #
• One very persistent problem solved. #
• About to see Dave Gorman at the Dorking Halls. Meal later #
• Been to Brighton this morning to collect an antique radio for the collection. #
• Just acquired two chimney pots for the garden #
• My beard has been plaited #

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• About to trot off to a big IT Group mtg so we know what's happening in the company and where IT fits in the future #
• Experimental bread baking in progress. #
• Bread was far too salty. Recipe needs some adjustment. Rest of dough into the bin. Will try again when I can get some more flour. #
• On train to London to visit the good people at New Scientist. #
• Grace requested "eggy bread" for breakfast. Wish granted. #
• Up at 6am today to switch on the oven; bread result was far better this time. Very munchy. #
• Grilled aubergine for lunch http://tinyurl.com/ybwkxte @clareyldavies does have some nice and quick recipies to try. #

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A few days ago I wrote about the not quite such good bread that I made using a five minute recipe – which ended up a bit salty. Well, Grace and I made a new batch and we adjusted the salt amount by about one third. We made a double quantity, and while it was rising the dough had to be separated into two containers, and even then it threatened to flow all over the kitchen!

This morning we cooked it all up, and made something like a plaited loaf (illustrated) as well a pierre gros and a couple of smaller, rather cute rolls.

The results this time were far better, and we’ve all just eaten a lovely breakfast of bread and jam.