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{ Category Archives } Life in General

Student Recipe Book

This page is a set of links to my “student” recipe book. These are Pages documents shared on iWork.com, and can be viewed, downloaded in various formats and printed. The basic idea is to create a collection of student friendly recipes that are nutritious, cheap to make and simple to prepare.

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my bread, Jim Lahey

There’s been a lot of buzz about Jim Lahey’s techniques over the last couple of years.  There’s no doubt that he’s a dedicated baker, and that his approach is worth considering; not least because it’s a set of simple rules that will give more consistent results, and good results, than a novice baker can hope […]

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Supper for a Song, Tamasin Day-Lewis

I wasn’t going to read this book, being acquainted with Ms Day-Lewis’s writing of yore for the Sunday supplements. In my mind I hear a hectoring, strident voice, talking about the fashionable issues: organic, sustainable, seasonal, Aga, farmhouse kitchen; listen to her Amazon video if you’d like to hear exactly what nightmare runs in my […]

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Good Eats: The Early Years, Alton Brown

I am a big fan of the Good Eats show, even though my only access to it is via YouTube, and I have Alton Brown’s three previous books from the series. There are 80 episodes covered in this first installment of three books (not two, as the Product Description claims), each with a short discussion […]

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Getting Online – how hard can it be?

I have a hate/hate relationship with BT Openworld.  Let’s be clear; I have no choice but to use them, as they have access points at all the places I visit and might need a connection.  All the old coffee shop access points in my area have been converted to BT Openworld, taking them at a […]

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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, L Frank Baum

It has taken me some time to get around to reading this book – close to 40 years, if I remember that far back clearly (which mostly I do). I remember seeing the great film classic version when I was young, many times; to be honest, it didn’t really grip me, although the switch into […]

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The Compleat Angler, Isaak Walton

Anglers talk of this book with reverence, or did so when I was in my teens.  Back then I can recall taking a look, and finding it rather impenetrable, written in an archaic style. All of this is still true, but I found it an interesting read none the less.  There is certainly a lot […]

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Bad Science, Ben Goldacre

I picked this up in Waterstones, after a quick browse.  It is more or less a book version of Ben’s blog, which in turn is related to his column in the Guardian.  It’s a reasonably entertaining exposé of newspaper journalism concerning health stories. The main topics covered are: nutritionists, MMR, and homeopathy.  In order: he […]

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A Princess of Mars, Edgar Rice Burroughs

This is the first in a series of posts reviewing books, as I read them.  Older book reviews here are mostly archives of reviews that I have posted to Amazon, some for computing books, others for cookery books. I first read A Princess of Mars in my early teens (I was possibly 12 at the […]

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Café Playlists

Sitting right here in a cafe (Stell’s, Redlands, CA), I have been listening to a play list from the 60s. Ordinarily that would be great – much Neil Young, CSN, Nick Drake, and many tracks that I am familiar with from the first time around (and the cafe owners presumably aren’t). But I was fantasising […]