Friday, September 16, 2005
Spammy, spammy, spammy

A curious thing has been happening in the world of spam and its intersection with my blog. I've gone through the standard blog growing pains of dealing with comment spam a while ago (also trackback spam, but this has been only a very minor problem thanks to the dasblog upgrade). For those few who don't know, comment spam is when someone places an advertising comment on a blog (intending to have it displayed to other readers who read the comments and possibly follow their links, also possibly trying to gain better listings from search engines). I suddenly started getting a lot of comment spam, which was easily stopped by requiring commenters to recognize and type in distorted letters (captcha) in order to make a comment. Only one spammer has made it through to leave comment spam since then (related to construction services in Philadelphia, and entered [by hand I assume] on this comment which I suppose is loosely related).

The real problem (and it's only a problem behind the scenes) is referral spam. As is the case for most blogs, mine keeps details of who is visiting my site (what links they clicked to get here, what sort of browser they are using, when comments were added, etc.). Referral spam abuses this system, making it look like visitors have come to a blog from a commercial site (at least for my site, almost entirely related to poker and/or diet pills, the names of which I have intentionally included in this post without munging them in order to see whether this post attracts undue attention). Some blogs (like this one for example [it hasn't been updated in a while, and has various other problems to boot]) display an automatically-generated list of the top referrers, which is probably why this sort of referral spam has caught on (I doubt Mr. Max [former contestant on the UK version of the reality TV program "The Apprentice" {Alan Sugar instead of Donald Trump?!?}] is actually getting loads of referrals related to phentermine, norwegion cruises [sic], ringtone, cheap calls, cialis, jackpots, virtual slots, etc.). But on my blog, referrals are not displayed anywhere but to me (when I look at the logs). In fact, the updated version of dasBlog goes some ways to prevent referral spam. But my logs remain full of blocked referrals (something like 30 today so far, nearly all blocked because of texas-holdem, free-online-poker and the like, although once in a while a referral spam will make it past the block. But it doesn't matter because I don't display referrers anywhere). Like buses they come all at once: a single spam site "refers" to one of my entries, then quick as a wink they troll through various other entries with their false referrals (I really appreciate real referrals, by the way, like this one). But it seems like almost always the same entry is the one they start with: Cowes to Lymington and back again. How and why they started with this entry, I have no idea. Other entries of mine are far more popular in gaining visitors who get here through search engines. This is my only entry about sailing (unless I mentioned the 1980 Olympics in one of my Tallinn posts), perhaps spammers are looking for sailors? Perhaps I'll write an entry about boxers and see whether spammers are following the lead of Nina Hamnett.
meta
Friday, September 16, 2005 9:37:21 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Classic scam letters

I haven't made any progress on yesterday's etymology questions but instead have come across some interesting letters which have been scanned and posted online. From 1914, one of the letters begins with a very familiar tone to those of us who have been reading massive heaps of scam letters rather than simply discarding them unread (as any sensible person would do).

Dear Sir,
Although I know you only from good references of your honesty, my sad situation compels me to reveal to you an important affair in which you can procure a modest fortune, saving at the same time that of my darling daughter.

Before being imprisoned here, I was established as a Banker in Russia as you will see by the enclosed article about me of many English newspapers which have published my arrest in London. I beseech you to help me to obtain a sum of 480.000 dollars I have in America and to come here to raise the seizure of my baggage, paying to the Registrar of the Court the expenses of my trial, and recover my portmanteau containing a secret pocket where I have hidden the document indispensable to recover the said sum. As a reward, I will give up to you the third part, viz. 160.000 dollars. I cannot receive your answer in the prison, but you must send a cablegram to a person of my confidence who will deliver it to me.

Awaiting your cable, to instruct you in all my secret. I am Sir, ....

Here is a scan of the original letter, and just like modern scam emails which are recycled and reused, here is a variant of the same letter. More details are presented at samizdat.com (including scans of faked newspaper articles, reports from others who have found similar letters, analysis of the writing) and makes quite a good read. Lots of the same techniques are being used in the so-called 419 scam, some perpetrators of which are apparently reverting to targeting their victims by postal mail once again. If you get a scam letter in the post (rather than by fax or email), I'd love to see a copy!
Wednesday, September 14, 2005 12:36:20 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Linguistically kicked to the curb

On my recent trip to Belgium I met up with my cousin, a Kentucky Colonel biding his time in the Low Countries until the revolution takes place. Among the bits of witty banter he set me a pair of etymological challenges, which I took up, confident in my ability to provide quick and easy answers for both. Yet instead I must report only disappointment at this stage as I have been so far completely unable to find even speculative answers for either one. I'm continuing for now to keep my eyes open, but here are the puzzling terms (their relative obscurity being a testament to the Colonel's character, I am certain):

1. ingham. From the horse's mouth, "The term for the rope that is used to support the tympan and frisket when printing with common wood presses or Washington-style presses.", and pictured here (Colonel points out 'the "ingham" is pictured on the left and is partly obscured by the typman (lower part) and frisket (upper part)'). For readers unfamiliar with traditional printing methods, I should point out that a frisket is " A thin iron frame hinged to the tympan, having tapes or paper strips stretched across it, for keeping the sheet in position while printing." (OED, from French "frisquette", origin unknown). The tympan of course is "An appliance in a printing-press, interposed between the platen or impression-cylinder and the sheet to be printed, in order to soften and equalize the pressure; in a hand press consisting of two frames (outer and inner tympan) with sheets of parchment or strong linen stretched upon them, and inclosing a packing either of blanket, rubber, or other soft substance, or sheets of paper, cardboard, cloth, or other harder material, according to the nature of the work to be printed." (OED again, from the Latin "tympanum", drum, wheel for raising weights, etc.). Ingham, however, does not appear in the OED (nor any of the other dictionaries I consulted). It's a relatively common surname, a place in Michigan, even the name of a printing company (but I suspect the company name postdates the term). There was a family of Inghams involved in the printing business after the Civil War (Sullivan County, PA), but no mention of any devices bearing their names. Not knowing much about the workings of such presses, I am led to wonder when the rope ("Ingham") may have come into use. But without answers at this moment. Perhaps consulting some dead trees about the development of printing presses might reveal the answer (or at least give some clues) but that will have to wait until I'm in the library for some legitimate reason.

2. Maut (mott? maught? mought? mawt? møt?). Spelled phonetically, this was a term of insult, directed at the Colonel at a young age. According to his post-hoc analysis, the term depicts a position on the scale of nerdhood somewhere below a "spaz", i.e., extreme social ineptitude, grossness in physical appearance and manner, and certain unsuitability for dating purposes. I had never heard this term, and thought perhaps it could be of local origin (South Bend, IN or surrounding areas). Perhaps coming from one of the dominant language groups in the area (Polish? German? [No, "maut" means "duty" in German]. Other North European?). Looking up various spellings (coupled with other terms like nerd, geek, spaz) didn't give any real insight (I saw the Scrabble 4-letter-word list quite a few times, but nothing useful). I was severely hampered by my ignorance of the correct spelling of this term, but learned a few interesting things. Did you know that the MAUT Scholarship (McGill Association of University Teachers) was established in memory of 14 women murdered at the Ecole Polytechnic in December 1989 because they were women, and is intended to encourage women to enter the Faculty of Engineering? The term "motley" and its connection to fools also occurred to me ("motley" is listed by the OED as an obsolete term used for fools), but I'm not aware of any such terms derived from "motley" out there. Perhaps it's a reference to Mott the Hoople? The image sort of fits:


Anyway, I am left without a good answer to this one too. Suggestions or ideas most welcome.
language
Tuesday, September 13, 2005 11:56:08 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [4]  | 
 Monday, September 12, 2005
Visiting Tallinn 3

Well, after a long delay it's time for me to walk back down memory lane and fill in the last section of my description of our trip to Tallinn. On the third day we started reasonably early, as we needed to catch a local bus out to the Open Air Museum. None of our touristy materials had a transport map, but we knew the correct bus number, and in a triumph of information gathering skills, I found a bus map in the telephone book in our room. I didn't tear out the page (I'm always irritated when I find missing pages in hotel phone books, after all you never know when a future guest may have an urgent need for an escort, liquor and/or pornography [or a restaurant, rental car or other hotel listings]), but instead committed the bus map to memory. Or something like memory (I did not bother showing the map to Mrs. Dunce as I was supremely confident -- can you see where this is going?). The #21 bus leaves from somewhere right near the very-underused train station, although it's a little unclear from the map whether its terminus is at the train station proper, or "just a little further down" (As it turns out, it was the former). We made a quick pass by (many of) the bus stops at the station and didn't see any indication of #21, so I advised a walk in the direction I (vaguely) remembered from the map. We walked a while in the hot sun. Walked some more, past a couple of bus stops that did clearly not serve the #21, but following the vague path the bus should take. Of course we were walking up a one-way street upon which our desired bus could only possibly be heading back towards the train station, but I was sure we'd eventually catch up with whichever road went in the right direction. On the way we saw some very nice examples of ramshackle buildings collapsing under their own weight, lots of locals going about their daily business, and definitely no other tourists or business establishments aimed at tourists. After, oh, call it between 30 and 45 minutes, we finally found a suitable bus stop (yes, indeed the two one-way streets eventually made their way into a single two-way street) and joined the masses on the bus heading towards the open air museum.

As it turned out nearly everyone was headed either (a) to the zoo, or (b) to a big shopping mall with carnival rides in the parking lot. You guess which one was more popular. We got off the bus with an older American couple (although we were not "with" them as no words were ever exchanged between us) and headed into the Open Air Museum. It's a large collection of historic buildings moved from different parts of Estonia (ranging from 18th-20th centuries), clustered into a dozen or so different homesteads which illustrated life in the different regions. It was quite empty, obviously more of a weekend destination, but there were a few people hanging around in traditional costume at some of the homesteads. I was pleased that they didn't approach us, I am not entirely comfortable with costumed interpreters even when my vocabulary has more than a solitary word ("please" = "palun"). It seems they were mainly there to provide a small amount of security for those buildings that were open to visitors (mind your head going through the doors, even Mrs. Dunce had to duck. I guess the winters are really brutal, especially in the Estonian islands, so doors and windows were really, really small). It was a really nice afternoon visit, and the bus journey home was quite uneventful as we got on at the very same bus stop. It headed further out, past some very large, newly-built homes until it finally turned around, taking on a massive crowd of locals headed for the mall.



Estonian farmhouses, photo by Mrs Dunce

We wandered around town a little more, seeing some more of the sights, then took a short rest before dinner, which was at the Russian restaurant Troika. Featuring various sorts of live music, occasional dancing girls, and set in the basement of another nice merchant hall on the town square (we may not have gone far off the beaten track, but everywhere we went was quite good). We started with a "grandmother's special" (pickles, honey and sour cream) along with some vodka (but not much, as our tastes tend to run [fast] in the opposite direction from vodka shots), and I also had a starter of herring done the usual way (with eggs, onion, sour cream, dill.... there may have also been potatoes involved). Mrs. Dunce had a shockingly huge blini (Boyar's blini, no less) which was well beyond anything we'd seen before bearing the same name. As for the mains, I had some sort of seafood (salmon perhaps?) but the memorable bit was Mrs. Dunce's Vladivostok catfish, breaded and fried as catfish is meant to be eaten.

After dinner we wandered back to the Hele Hunt for a leisurely pint or two. Or such was our plan, but we found ourselves seated across from two young Irish lads on a whirlwind tour of Scandinavia and the Baltics, and found ourselves in for quite an evening of conversation and a few more drinks than we had planned (it was near 3am when we finally left). As in our previous visit the pub never filled up (by British standards of vertical drinking, anyway), although there was one particularly noxious group of British men hanging around the bar in the company of a local gentleman who was obviously their guide to the city. Mrs. Dunce overheard some classy advice, which I pass on to any readers for whom this information might be useful: "Go with the Estonian girls, because the Russian girls will charge you an extra hundred." Are the Estonian girls (compared to the Russian girls) really so ignorant of the capitalist system that they fail to charge what the market will bear? Or are the Russian girls that much better at whatever it is that they do? Or is it a supply/demand thing, Russian girls being exotic and unobtainable while Estonian girls are a dime a dozen? Or more likely, RUSSIA=BAD, ESTONIA=GOOD, and the guy was just doing his part for independence.

And then it was a stagger to bed and a long lie-in (we didn't even partake in the free breakfast, that's how tired we were). Lunchtime came quickly (after a buzz through the Town Hall) and we splashed out on sushi. Suprisingly it was really good (even with a few strange digressions from the familiar... blue cheese & creme fraiche roll, anyone?) and while we gobbled the last few shreds of pickled ginger, the skies opened, and buckets upon buckets of water poured down on the crowds of tourists (the tourist population seemed to [at least] double every day, and this was Friday). Fortunately we are in training to become English so were equipped with umbrellas. We still got drenched from the waist down, but made our way to the Museum of Occupation. This was a very interesting concept for a museum: built with a central theme around a fairly recent period in history (starting about 1940 and going until independence in 1991). As the museum's site points out, it deals with a period about which we have incomplete information - an epoch characterised by totalitarian power and mass repression - and there is a plan to create a memorial complex, to remember those who did not return to their homeland. As such the physical exhibits are fairly limited: assorted physical objects, organized by date, which illustrate important facets of life but specifically pertaining to the occupation, first by the Nazis and then by the Soviet Union (it was very interesting to see some parts of this from the perspective "The Nazis weren't so bad"). Each display from a particular period, however, featured a documentary of the events of that time, shown on a screen at the top of the display case. I would have liked to watch them all (I still could, through the film clips linked here, at least if their server ever goes faster than 4KB/sec), but as each of the seven lasted about 25-30 minutes, and the screens were set in a position which caused a lot of painful neck-craning, I think we only lasted through the first four. It was really interesting to see the Soviet period documented in this manner from the inside.

Our last dinner in town was at an Estonian restaurant outside the old town, but I'm sorry to say I don't remember many of the details (perhaps because it had its unmemorable aspects, perhaps because we were approaching exhaustion at the end of the trip, perhaps because so much time has passed since we were actually there). It was a large, multi-roomed place, but very empty. Food came quickly and was dispatched just as quickly. As I recall it was quite tasty, but at the moment all I remember is the ambience which wasn't exactly thrilling. And then it was off to bed (and our last dose of German TV). Come morning we had just enough time for breakfast, then a super-cheap cab ride to the airport (70EEK, barely half of what we paid for our cab ride in the other direction). And home sweet home.
travel
Monday, September 12, 2005 3:10:44 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
 Friday, September 09, 2005
It's not just the promises that are broken

I guess I should not have been so clear about our travel plans, as an overzealous blog reader took advantage of the inside information that we would be away for a certain designated period, and took the opportunity for a quick unguided tour of our house. OK maybe it was not a blog reader, but in a very unpleasant turn of events our house was broken into while we were in Belgium. A friend of ours is currently staying in the spare room (don't worry, the Landlord is fully aware of our propensity to take in Lodgers, first the cat and now a human), so she was there to see the carnage first-hand.

Note: italicized sections have now been edited to disguise our "most valuable" items.

It seems that under cover of darkness, someone took a crowbar to one of the front windows, jerking it upward hard enough to break the lock. He went straight upstairs (right past the Mona Lisa/hyperbaric chamber/gold-plated easy chair) and emptied the contents of our bedside tables and Mrs. Dunce's jewelry box in search of valuables. The most attractive items (Betamax, "Get Out of Jail Card, Compliments of Michael Dukakis", assorted baubles) were placed on the bed, and the crook apparently found the most interesting item to be our LCD monitor, as he picked it up and carried it into The Lodger's room. Where, unfortunately for the Lodger, he found a more desirable item: her laptop. So he left the monitor on her bed (I guess "bed" is a staging area) and high-tailed it out, laptop in hand (or case, as he took the case with him too. But not the shoulder strap [????]). Fortunately the entire contents of the laptop had been backed up very recently, but unfortunately her laptop is now gone, and only the cat saw anything (and she's not talking).

Lodger's Boy was first on the scene and found that the intruder had put the chain on the door (I guess to give advance warning if someone came home). He came through the (open) window and saw immediately that there had been a break-in. The police were called and then us (3am Belgium time). We thought of various items that could have been missing (our collection of fine wines, medieval paintings, my diamond dentures, mink stoles, ruby slippers and other fancy items of various kinds; it's amazing how many possibly-valuable things you can think of while lying awake in a hotel bed at 4am, knowing that your home has just been burgled), but as it turned out the one and only item to be stolen was the laptop (OK, there were other items missing. The outdoor sensor for our indoor-outdoor thermometer, and a US$1 bill in Mrs. Dunce's jewelry box). Although I am pleased that no other items were taken, I am curiously insulted that I would have nothing worth stealing (OK, the burglar missed lots of goodies, including $30 or so in US$ in a hiding place, and other valuables I won't mention in case the burglar is actually a blog reader). Except books, and what sort of idiot would steal books? It's also probably a good thing that we were traveling, as we had various valuable things in hand (instead of in the house).

The police dusted the place for prints (Dear Heloise, Do you have any suggestions for removing fingerprint dust from household surfaces?), but apparently the intruder(s) wore gloves. There have apparently been a few very similar instances in the past month on our street. Quite likely a local (perhaps young, as the valuable item from an adult perspective wasn't taken), who has probably been watching the place for a while to get a sense of our routine. I'm definitely watching passersby from our window with a more jaded eye these days; it's a very nerve-racking experience to go through.

The window isn't really broken, but the lock is. So in the next day or two, the Landlord and I will embark on a security mission that will make Fort Knox look like an Absorbubble (TM). Or at least, improving the security of our front windows so that the situation will not be repeated any time soon.

Can you blame me for not writing the last Tallinn entry? Or an entry about our trip to Belgium (memo to all potential conference organizers: do not schedule a free beer reception on the first night of the conference. Especially when the local beer is very strong. Attendance at the second day may suffer)? Anyway I'm back, and I will be at home all day, every day, for the forseeable future (in case you're thinking of visiting my house with a crowbar, don't bother. I've got a small cat and I'm not afraid to use her against intruders).

consume
Friday, September 09, 2005 1:35:56 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [3]  | 
 Thursday, September 01, 2005
Sarah & Marc in love

I have to break my one-a-day habit if I'm ever going to finish my travel posts before I'm off traveling again (heading to a conference in Belgium on Saturday where I will be presenting a little of this and a little of that.). But I had to say something about our TV experience in Tallinn. Previous trips have taught us that we enjoy watching TV in other countries as a good way to chill out while traveling and at the same time getting a different take on things, especially commercials which can be especially hilarious (e.g. Japanese commercial which showed a young man choking down massive amounts of noodles, with a message something like "Cook them in 3 minutes, eat them in 3 minutes") and/or mystifying (it can be incredibly hard to figure out just what's being sold if you don't know the language or the popular brands).

As I mentioned in a previous entry, we got a good variety of channels from different countries, but were drawn to the German telly from the start (perhaps because the Finnish edition of Big Brother hadn't quite started). Perhaps because we both understand a certain amount of German, but I like to think the content had something to do with it.

DISCLAIMER: My interest in the following has nothing to do with any relatives living in Kentucky, or any relatives-in-law living in the Carolinas

First, there seemed to be an inordinate amount of coverage of Forbidden Love, ja, the Liebe between an Inzest-Mutter and an Inzest-Vater, and featuring plenty of images of the resulting Inzest-Baby (the latter with pixilated eyes as appears to be the custom in German images of young children). I'll summarize from a nice Austrian report. Susan (21) and Patrick (28) are brother and sister from Zwenkau (Saxony) who have now had four children together at an impressive rate of just over one per year. Patrick is imprisoned at the moment (on charges related to the first few), and the big issue now is whether Susan will be locked up as well. Every news report contained more developments (The lawyer speaks. Then a parents' rights advocate speaks. Then we hear from child services. Then an angry mother. The only thing we didn't get was a German version of I'm My Own Grandpa), and believe me it's difficult to keep a straight face hearing "das Inzest-Baby" again and again.

But wait, there's more. During the programs there was constant reference to "Sarah & Marc in love", including brief clips of these characters. She, a blonde German girl. He, a dumb dark-haired American guy. And then suddenly, the reality program commenced. They're apparently both pop stars (she, he) who have fallen in love just like America's favorite newlyweds [sic]. Perhaps the situation is quite parallel, as her music career seems to be a bit more advanced than his (she has not one but two English-language sites, he doesn't seem to have any. They also have a son, Tyler [who had pixilated eyes on the series] who does not seem to have any musical career at the moment). I'd never heard of either of them, but perhaps in Hasselhoff-land they are household names. Anyway, the program was following them up to their DREAM WEDDING which happened while we had access to German TV. We saw a couple of episodes, which revealed one important thing: despite being a German pop star, poor Mr. Terenzi seems to have a very minimal amount of ability in the German language. Which caused him great difficulty as he tried to understand and produce German while being followed by cameras shooting a documentary for the German market. Both Mrs. Dunce and I learned German in the midwest, and there was a great similarity between his attempts at German, and our duller classmates in, say, the first year of instruction. Even speaking directly to camera, his German was limited to the most basic sorts of words and phrases and slipped back to English at the drop of a hat (e.g. Sarah ist, erm, sehr schell, erm, about the wedding. [I think he meant to say that she's stressed, upset, nervous, but probably not "fast"]). Conversations in German went on around him, not the most difficult but he gave an impression of understanding nearly nothing.

The wedding happened on a sunny beach in Barcelona (apparently they occupied a public beach and tried to turn away the public, requiring the Spanish police to get involved. And "Frank" the wedding planner left some of the gifts behind in rainy Germany by mistake, so she wouldn't speak to him for most of the wedding day). Mrs. Dunce applauded the choice of a beach wedding as Sarah was able to be barefoot, reducing her severe height advantage over poor Marc. And most romantic of all, he sang his new single to her at the wedding (available now for purchase, imagine that!). Their vows were in English, fortunately for him (She did not suffer from the American Second Language Syndrome; her English was flawless, and I am sure this is not just from rehearsing the vows).

A strange and mysterious television world indeed. But now we have to leave them behind as none of our channels seem to be interested in covering their daily activities. Thank goodness for the comprehensive Official Site which offers plenty of photos, music, even the details to hire Frank to plan your own wedding!
teevee | travel
Thursday, September 01, 2005 4:34:54 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
Visiting Tallinn 2

Our second day in Tallinn started with breakfast. A fairly standard northern European hotel breakfast: cheese, sliced meat, boiled eggs and various kinds of bread (in Estonia, as in Germany, the bread is a big deal), assorted cereal products, and some sort of fishy dish (I'd place my bet on herring). I would say it was good but nothing to write home about, except here I am, writing home (and beyond) about it. On our way out we stopped by the hotel desk to buy our Tallinn Cards. Talk about a useful resource for tourists: it permits free admission to pretty much every museum and tourist site in town, free public transport, and loads of other offers we didn't take advantage of. Plus a handy little guidebook explaining how to get to each participating site. We went for the longest-lasting one, the 72-hour version (350EEK each) which covered us right up to our departure time (they are also available down to a six-hour one for 90EEK, if you're on a blitzkrieg tour of Tallinn [errr, on the other hand perhaps "blitzkrieg" isn't quite the appropriate term as the Estonian counterpart came from the other direction. More on that later too]).

Then it was time to get moving and squeeze all the possible use out of our Tallinn Card in the 72 hours remaining; after all, the clock was ticking! I'm afraid I'll have to skip some of the sights as this entry will otherwise turn into a massive effort and I have plenty of other things to work on. We started with the Niguliste Museum & Concert Hall (set in a former church built in 1230, with substantial renovations after severe damage in 1944). Featuring religious art from 13-18th centuries, some of which was particularly impressive. Mrs. Dunce may be a bit of a fanatic when it comes to medieval art, and how could anyone not appreciate images like the Dance Macabre:

(Death dancing with the Emperor & Empress with the houses of Lübeck in the background, see this site)

Or the altarpiece of St. Nicholas, commissioned by the wealthy Brotherhood of Blackheads (a high-flying guild of bachelor merchants founded in 1399, active only in Estonia and Latvia, and which lasted until the 1940s). As was the custom, it featured a whole set of Blackhead Brothers as pictured below:


We then headed up to Toompea, the upper walled town and the site of many government buildings, embassies and the like. On our way up we visited Kiek in de Kök (supposedly "once the most powerful tower along the Baltic shores", now a museum of (mostly) military history of the area, and then proceeded into the Alexander Nevsky Cathedral. Built at the end of the 19th century as part of the rush to Russify the Baltics, it's apparently a bit of irritation to Estonians when its image is used to illustrate Tallinn. But it's quite impressive, and here's my own picture to illustrate it:


Unfortunately we chose to visit the cathedral at the same time as hordes of loud, obnoxious tour groups (mostly older adults, just off cruises I would guess) were visiting, bustling, jostling, chattering, and so on. We had to wait for a while as one group streamed out of the entrance, then choose a gap and scurry in before the next group's exit. Of course other groups were crowding in at the same time for their allocated three minutes (or so it seemed, such was the rush).

After Toompea it was time for lunch (as I am writing this it's time for my lunch as well, suggesting to me that I should hurry up with this entry for goodness' sake). Due to incredible advance planning (some obsessive-compulsive tendencies on our parts), and the excellent availability of Tallinn restaurant websites, we had dinner reservations for all four nights. But there were many more than four interesting restaurants, so some of them had to be relegated to lunchtime. Balthasar was one such restaurant: Estonia's first garlic restaurant (founded in 1999, so there's been a gap in the market for centuries), set in a medieval building (of course!). We had our lunch in a lovely courtyard (my photo didn't come out well, perhaps Mrs Dunce will post a better one over on our photo site). We had garlic in everything (a mozzarella salad with sun dried tomatoes and pickled garlic, fish-garlic soup with mixed seafood, and snails with cheese and garlic butter). Thus fortified we set out for another museum, the Tallinn City Museum (one of the few websites that isn't in English). Set in a medieval merchant's house, it covers the history of the city (hint: trade, trade, trade) from the 13th century to modern times. Near the end was a section dedicated to life under Soviet rule and subsequent declaration of independence in 1989 which I particularly enjoyed. Especially the video footage of "Hands Across the Baltics" in the summer of 1989 in which a chain of people held hands through Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in a public demonstration of solidarity (the footage was much more moving than what I remember about Hands Across America. I had to look it up to remember why that was done, and the impact of the Baltic version certainly appears to have been greater). At some point here (as well as the previous day which I have neglected entirely) we took a wander down some craft/art workshops of various kinds (in which the workshop and shop are one and the same). Mrs. Dunce ended up with a couple of very nice baubles, but I can't do them justice at all.

We went back to the room and watched some German TV to take a break before dinner. Again, I'll come back to this as it was especially memorably. For now all I can say is

(graffiti in Stamford Hill, north London)

Dinner was at Mõõkala, a swish seafood restaurant located in the town executioner's house (fortunately he was no longer living or practicing there). It was another excellent meal of the fishy sort: I had a pike-perch in some sort of extremely tasty creamy sauce, deeeeelicious. It was still early so we stopped by the Estonian pub (Hele Hunt) on our way home. They had their own line of beers, plus a large variety of imports (including not only Lithuanian, Latvian and Russian specialties, but also German, Belgian, English, even American beers), at quite reasonable prices (EEK25-30 for a half-liter, that's about £1.20 or so). A small sign on one of the pillars informed visitors that stag parties were not welcome, although there was quite an English presence at the moment at which we arrived (the Arsenal match was being shown on the big screen, although most of the Arsenal shirts were being worn by Scandinavian sorts). One thing quite different from British pubs is that there was almost no "vertical drinking": nearly everyone present was sitting down to drink: people would come in, see that there were no seats available, and go elsewhere rather than enjoying their drinks in a large, standing crowd (perhaps using the crowded environment to provide much-needed balance). And then we headed back to the hotel to catch up on the news from Germany. (Cliff-hanger alert).
travel
Thursday, September 01, 2005 11:14:57 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Wednesday, August 31, 2005
Visiting Tallinn

Well, our trip to Tallinn was fantastic, and a lot more Hanseatic than Lager-Loutish. This week I'll write a series of posts about the trip; it's too much for just a single post.

We got up bright and early (4:15am taxi arrival) to catch our 6:45 flight from "London" Stansted airport to Tallinn. A relatively painless 2.5 hour flight and a short taxi ride (apparently we were overcharged, paying 130 Estonian kroons for a ride from the airport to the old town. But as the total fare came to less than £6, we can hardly complain) later, we were at our hotel. The Meriton Old Town Hotel is built into the old city walls at the northernmost tip of the old town, and was a welcome sight indeed as we were desperate for a nap.


Our hotel, the Meriton Old Town Hotel, viewed from above

A few z's later we were ready to hit the old town. And what better than Oleviste Kirik (St. Olaf's church)? I should have paid more attention to the guidebook which pointed out that it was once considered the tallest building in Europe (until the Eiffel Tower was built), but no. In our still slightly-befuddled post-nap state, we wandered in and paid a nominal fee which we thought was an admission charge. It was indeed an admission charge, but to the tower rather than the church itself (free, donations encouraged). OK, we thought (and said), a few stairs aren't so bad. Stairs, stairs, stairs. Many narrow, medieval stairs later we finally reached the summit: a rather narrow viewing platform that gave impressive views of the city, and especially the old town. Did I mention it was a nice, warm day? So we stood up there sweating and panting (or at least I did), admiring the view (the picture of our hotel above was taken from the platform) and steeling ourselves for the trip down (always fun to try to pass someone in such a narrow passage). Some pictures:


Tallinn's old town, viewed from the tower


A view of the ferry port on the Baltic Sea. Our hotel room was the closest we got to the harbor.


Mrs. Dunce, who did not jump.


(Very soon there will be a full photo gallery at our photo site).

After such an effort we wandered down to the town square where lo and behold we found ourselves outside a fine establishment with the curious (Estonian?) name of Beer House. Tallinn's only microbrewery (or so they say), but if you wander inside it's anything but micro. A cavernous beer hall, with the classiest of German beer drinking songs ringing out, and a few grizzled locals propping up the bar (come to think of it, they looked rather English). Loads and loads of outdoor seating, so we found ourselves a nice spot, a couple of frosty mugs, some fried cheese, and the first of many herring-based snacks (herring, potatoes, sour cream, onion and dill). MMMmmmm good. As one is meant to do, we loitered for a while, watching people pass and trying to guess their nationality (Not easy unless you hear them speak, and even then it's quite difficult).

And then it was time to go back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. OK, it was more an excuse to check out the local television channels. Local? Hardly! There were English channels (BBC), German channels (we'll come back to the German TV...), Finnish channels (lots of dubbed American programs), Estonian channels (more dubbed programs from various places), a Russian channel (strangely, they seemed to show an awful lot of Mexican soap operas dubbed into Russian). But before we knew it, it was dinner time and perhaps the highlight of the whole trip.

How touristy can you get? How about a restaurant with a medieval theme? Sure thing, that's where we were headed, to the Olde Hansa. A restaurant "established to honour the Hanseatic League... a journey to Tallinn's golden age.... Studying medieval times with the Olde Hansa Guild and the Medieval Choirs helps us to come into contact with the Hanseatic world of centuries ago." Yes, indeed, not only of a medieval theme, but apparantly serving historically accurate medieval victuals (somehow I think it's not quite the same as the US equivalent). The place was decorated with medieval-style wall paintings, (almost) entirely lit with candles, staff were dressed in medieval costume (tights? check. pointy shoes? check.), and a hip young three-piece band were playing some swingin' jazz, daddy-o (OK, not really. They were playing medieval songs on instruments like pipes, drums and the nyckleharpa). Special dishes are a little heavy on the meaty side (Bear, Marinated in rare spices and cooked over a fire in honour of Waldemar II, the brave King of Denmark, EEK 650; Grandmerchant von Wehren's hunting company's wonderful Rabbit roast; EEK 255), but the bounty of the sea was well represented as well (dishes for fasting days, of course). We both had dishes for fasting days (Mrs Dunce a smoke-grilled salmon, and me a grilled salmon with forest mushrooms, both of which were excellent indeed). Drinks were also traditional; we enjoyed a couple of "Dark strong beers with herbs" and a "Light cinnamon beer", served in medieval-style earthenware tankards. Water glasses were nice too, slightly irregularly-shaped green glass (We took home a pair of tankards and a pair of glasses, but don't worry, we paid for them). And surely that was enough for our first day in town!
travel
Wednesday, August 31, 2005 2:58:47 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Monday, August 22, 2005
They got me comin and goin

Gentle readers, please do not be dismayed at the lack of recent updates. I'm scrambling to get some (non-blog) things written before we depart tomorrow for our summer holiday. I'm hoping our trip is more Hanseatic League and less, errrr, lowbrow. Expect a trip report or three upon our return.
travel
Monday, August 22, 2005 12:39:23 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [1]  | 
 Thursday, August 18, 2005
Real blogs and spamblogs

An awful lot of the blogs I read on a regular or semi-regular basis are on Blogspot (now run by Google). One of them features a "Random blog" link which sends the clicker off to a mystery blog selected (apparently) at random from the whole mess. And mess it is: I followed it a couple of times and was a bit disturbed to find so many "spam blogs" among them.

They're quite easy to spot; their typical content is something like this:

Art And Craft Ideas Corks -

Art And Craft Ideas Corks Your ultimate art and craft ideas corks resource. Craft - Art And Craft Ideas Corks Sponsors Search the Directory: Results For 'art and craft ideas corks' Add Your Site Directory Listings1.Arts and Crafts IdeasRequest your free issue of Creative Home Arts Magazine today. Packed with creative arts and craft ideas, scrapbooking tips and projects from cover to cover. No st..

posted by *****fazscom at 8:46 AM 0 comments
Craft Ideas Corks -

Craft Ideas Corks Your ultimate craft ideas corks resource. Craft - Craft Ideas Corks Sponsors Search the Directory: Results For 'craft ideas corks' Add Your Site Directory Listings1.Craft Ideas - Bargain PricesShop fast. Buy smart. Shopzilla for Craft Ideas at over 50,000 Online Stores. Every product from every store means you get a Bargain Price. Don't just shop, Shopzilla.www.shopzilla.com2.C..

posted by *****fazscom at 8:31 AM 0 comments

Their names often contain random letter stings (e.g. fazscom), and/or product names (e.g. towelsite), and/or numbers, usually have no customization, and the default links still appear:
* Google News
* Edit-Me
* Edit-Me

These spamblogs are (I guess) intended to boost Google rankings of their underlying site (see this article for an interesting analysis and comment-discussion), perhaps in a nigritude ultramarine sort of way, or else trick browsers into visiting their site. To a large extent they seem automatically generated (although I guess human intervention is now required in order to create a blog). I wondered how common such blogs are within the Blogspot sphere, so I did a little experiment with the random blog link. I clicked it 100 times to see what came up (discounting any repetitions that occurred, if any). Of course I have no way of knowing that the sample is random, but this gives an impression of the proportion of spamblogs out there.

Of the 100 tests, 39 of them were spamblogs (including the following "themes": Adult, Ammunition, Australia travel, Belts, Broker Mortgage, Cells, Christian dating, College, Cosmetic x2, Craft, Credit, Diaper, Disease sites, Fashion, Football, Healthcare products, Home Builder, Laser hair removal, Line of credit, Mortgage x2, Notes, Paris travel, Pasadena travel, Plus size, Pottery, Reality TV, Recipe, Sports Supplement, Stock, Tennessee, Tools, Transportation, Used treadmills, plus four miscellaneous junk sites with various content but clearly of a spam blog type).

The 61 "real" blogs were of various quality (including 10 blogs with only a single post more than a month old, but which were noticeably written by humans. Usually to say "Like everyone else I know, I am going to start blogging now, and this is my blog"). But this gives me a rough estimate of the proportion of blogspot blogs that are spammy, call it 40%. Is this a problem? I'm not sure, as the only way I come across them is by the random search, or occasionally they will turn up when I search blogs using Technorati (but it's quite clear that they are spammy; I need not follow a link to "Weight Loss Plans Weight Loss Plans Information About Weight Loss Plans click on this link to discover how good nutrition can help with dieting and weight lossNutrition advice Atkins Diet Best Fat Burners Cabbage Soup Diet Calories Counting Calories Diabetes Diet Diabetic Diet Diet Pills Diet Pill" when I am looking for a [real] blog that discusses "cabbage soup" [I somehow doubt I would take this route, however, with Epicurious just around the corner]). Surely they must be useful in some way to the designers; I'm just not sure how.

Although I didn't spend any time reading the "real" blogs that jumped out at me, I have to mention the blog of celticwanderlust, whose last entry happened to refer to our next holiday destination (just a few days): No, the Germans haven't bombed London again. It's much, much worse. The British have invaded Tallinn!!! Stag parties are terrorising this town, holding it hostage with there need to to be drunk, naked and loud all at the same time! I became used to this when the british invaded dublin (as if 900 years wasn't enough) and destroyed our pub and club culture....

We'll have to see if we manage to avoid the invasion; we're mostly after history and food (and definitely not being simultaneously drunk, naked and loud).
read
Thursday, August 18, 2005 9:51:06 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  | 
 Wednesday, August 17, 2005
More ideal US locations

The various locations that findyourspot have generated for various individuals certainly makes me wonder about issues of payola. What is it that makes Little Rock and Sheboygan appear on the list of self-proclaimed urban culture buffs in search of the finer (blue) things in life, but not places like New York City and Seattle (I do notice with some shame that My Brother The Thief has managed to cleverly select his answers in a way that brings Seattle into his list, perhaps just to rub my nose in it). So a few moments to see just what could be making Little Rock and Sheboygan so desirable for the Dunce family (and other individuals perhaps of my acguaintancedave), although I should note that Tulsa also came unexpectedly onto the "desirable" list for others (exhibit A, B, C).

First we start with Little Rock, Arkansas. According to the official website the city motto is "City Limitless" (a bit of a linguistic abomination, at least according to the icky feeling in my stomach). Like all other cities in the world, Little Rock offers "a wealth of unique sightseeing, day trip and tour opportunities", but even beyond the unique is the "one-of-a-kind [attraction] like the new William J. Clinton Presidential Center & Park." Little Rock is also home to the minor league baseball team (sigh!) the Arkansas Travelers (just to give you an idea, they blew their most recent game because one of their players forgot to touch third base [this is not a euphemism]). It's also the headquarters of the Arkansas Cattlemen's Association (get your Cattlemen's vanity license plate here[PDF]), and has street gangs if we want to join right in (Sensible street gang members, too, as indicated by this quote which led the article linked above: A Little Rock gang member, asked by a judge why he shot two men, had a two-word answer -- "Bad decision.' That's my sort of gangbanger.). But finally I found the answer, just what it is that makes Little Rock an ideal hometown. Like the gangbanger's answer, it comes in two words: books and banjos (conference site). We love books and don't mind the sounds of banjos, so Little Rock could be the home for us.


Now we turn to the puzzling question of Sheboygan. The Chamber of Commerce calls it "a great place to live, raise a family, retire, golf and is a world-class manufacturing community.". The things to see and do page gives a clear indication of priorities: five entries for "Arts", six for "Bowling/Billiards". Not wishing to endorse stereotypical views of Wisconsin in general I should also quote the Chamber of Commerce site again: "When people think of Sheboygan County, the first things that come to mind are golf and fishing." (apparently good for record-size brown trout, but that has to be a euphemism), It also seems popular for hunting as well (never mind that there were quiz options related to golf, hunting and fishing, and I can't see the Dunces [or the otherdave] being especially positive about any of these). Hate crimes? Check. Meth labs? Check. Porn ring? Ummm, maybe I'd better stop. I think I'd prefer Little Rock.

When I completed the quiz, I went back and did it a second time to see what my least suitable US locations might be. I did this by answering the opposite polarity for every question for which I expressed a preference ("neutral" items remained neutral), and selected the least desirable option when given choices. I'm sorry to report that the Gulf Coast featured extremely heavily on my no-go list (Mrs. Dunce's mother lives in Pensacola, which at least does not appear specifically on the list). But it makes sense as I am a major whiner when it comes to hot places, especially when they're also humid.

1. Melbourne FL
2. Fort Myers-Cape Coral FL
3. Mobile AL
4. Biloxi-Gulfport MS
5. Savannah GA
6. Yuma AZ
7. Coral Springs FL
8. Ocala FL
9. Dothan AL
10.Beaumont TX
11.Port Arthur TX
12.Wilmington NC
13.Delray Beach FL
14.Boca Raton FL
15.Galveston TX
16.Tyler TX
17.Scottsdale AZ
18.Jackson MS
19.St. Petersburg FL
20.Lakeland-Winter Haven FL
21.Corpus Christi TX
22.Killeen TX
23.Athens GA
24.Tuscaloosa AL

Ummmm, looking a little closer it looks like my no-go list is heavily overlapping with the real list of Mrs. My Brother The Thief. Don't worry, I'll still come and visit (perhaps hiding inside air-conditioned buildings).
travel
Wednesday, August 17, 2005 9:14:46 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  | 
 Monday, August 15, 2005
My ideal US location

I'm not usually one to jump on web quizzes, blog memes and the like, but today I came across one that sounded genuinuely interesting and I couldn't resist. It came my way from des petits moments and goes a little something like this.

The site Find Your Spot offers a "relocation quiz" as a hook for their relocation services: We'll instantly provide you with a tailored list of the best cities and small towns that fit YOU. Compare the perfect hometowns and undiscovered havens that match your interests. Dig deeper with colorful reports, job listings, and more. So how could I not? WARNING You cannot get your results without registering on their site, so you may wish to use a less-valuable email address in case they load your inbox with junk.

Unlike "Ayzair" whose "best" list was heavy on the Carolinas, Tennessucky and Virginia, my recommended locations are all over the place (rhyme? reason?). Of course this only includes US cities so it may not be very accurate.... In order of "desirability", here they are.

1. Worcester MA
2. Hartford CT
3. Milwaukee WI
4. Providence RI
5. New Haven CT
6. Boston MA
7. Portland OR
8. Chicago IL
9. San Francisco CA
10.San Jose CA
11.Washington DC
12.Baltimore MD
13.Honolulu HI
14.Sacramento CA
15.Little Rock AR
16.Baton Rouge LA
17.New Orleans LA
18.Santa Fe NM
19.Medford OR
20.Las Vegas NV
21.Oakland CA
22.Sheboygan WI
23.Danbury CT
24.San Diego CA

Although I didn't specify any particular regional preference, the South (especially the southeast) barely featured on my list (OK, Little Rock made a token appearance for some odd reason). Looking for rhyme or reason, obviously my choice for city life and its associated activities (live music, public transport and the like) skewed the list towards population centers (but this was not strictly the case: as Sheboygan doesn't come to [my] mind as a happening urban center). There are quite a few university towns on the list, but not entirely (Sheboygan? Maybe not the best well-known university around, maybe they should fix their web site). The top three seem to be united in minor-league ice hockey, but the only really reliable indicator seems to be "Red vs. Blue": considering the 2004 Presidential election returns, in terms of whether a state voted Republican or Democrat. Of the top 24 locations, only five were in "red states", and the highest rated of these was Little Rock at #15 (Before anyone asks, there were not any Bill Clinton-specific questions on the list).

The biggest mystery is why Sheboygan made the list (there were no questions about bratwurst, and I didn't indicate a desire to retire and/or play golf). I guess I won't be moving to any of these places anytime soon.
travel
Monday, August 15, 2005 10:36:09 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [5]  | 
 Thursday, August 11, 2005
Actress in Entertainment Program Shocker!
It's all over the news today (or at least all over the "news"): there is some concern that one of the final four contestants on the UK's sixth season of Big Brother1 is not really a genuine, ordinary member of the public! As everyone's favorite best-selling newspaper in the UK put it,

Big Brother bosses Endemol have some urgent questions to answer over contestant Makosi Musambasi.

Makosi is revealed to be an actress who won her place on the show with the help of a slick, professional audition video.



That firm is said to have invoiced Endemol for £600. But Endemol deny payment and say they did not know Makosi was with an agency.

Reality TV is supposed to be about ORDINARY people impressing the producers at auditions to win their chance of fame....

 (wonky line breaks and emphasis courtesy of the original article, which by the way appeared as the main front page article). So let me get this straight. One of the contestants on this television entertainment program is revealed to be an actor?! In the strange world of reality television, that seems as real as you can possibly get, after all, other housemates from this season have included (from the official Big Brother site) an "entertainment entrepreneur", model and runner-up as Miss Northern Ireland (1999), "Promotions Girl", "Most Handsome Man in Italy" (1996). A plain old wannabe actress is plenty "real" in this context. Anyway, when did "they" decide that reality television was supposed to be about the ORDINARY? As far as I know, most ORDINARY people are not quite so desperate for fame (or at least the low-grade fame that some contestants manage to achieve) Or maybe I'm just jealous that they didn't want ME to be in ANY OF their shows. But perhaps that's because I am not ORDINARY but only SUB-ORDINARY.

1Big Brother is still hugely popular in the UK: evictions are still decided (mostly) by public vote, daily programs are quite highly rated, and extensive coverage appears even in the most legitimate of news sources (Times, Guardian).



EDITED: Quick denial by everyone involved (SOURCE): "Nothing untoward has gone on and Makosi went through the same audition process as anyone else," a spokesperson for Endemol insisted.

A rep for Envenio admitted that Makosi was on their books after signing up through the company's website but denied that the invoice related to her.

"As far as we know, Makosi is not an actress," Envenio chief executive Paul Booth told the BBC. "She signed up for our new faces section, which is for members of the public who aspire to be involved in the business. She put her details on our website. We emailed Makosi details of the Big Brother auditions, just like we emailed a lot of our members... it is no different to a company walking down the street looking for people....

A statement from Channel 4 read: "Makosi went through the same audition process as every other housemate and was not fast-tracked in any way."

Not that I'm keeping track or anything.
teevee
Thursday, August 11, 2005 10:57:04 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  | 
 Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Route planning
As a bit of a map obessive I have been a big fan of Google Maps, and especially all the clever ways people have integrated other data into Google maps (e.g. Recent earthquakes, Traffic alerts, Find a taco truck in Seattle). Perhaps my favorite at the moment is the Google Maps Pedometer which uses Google Maps to plot, display, and calculate distances for any routes mapped by Google. The author developed it for running, but it applies just as well to cycling. Here is the route I photographed on my recent blog entry (my usual route, give or take a few back streets where I have choices). The distance is 5.40 miles (OK, perhaps the pedometer gives an excessively precise measure of 5.403858529828216 miles, the last ten or twelve digits of which should be considered highly suspect), almost entirely on side streets and taking somewhere in the vicinity of 22 minutes. Today I took a more direct route, illustrated here. It follows major bus routes until the last quarter mile or so, and is only 5.03 miles (5.032665737759287 if you want to be needlessly precise). You might think it should be faster -- I'm forced to ride at a quicker pace to flow with the traffic, and there's no joy in dawdling. But in fact it's consistently slower: today it took me about 28 minutes despite getting lucky with the traffic lights for the first half of the ride (8 traffic lights, compared to exactly zero in the first half of my preferred choice). The route is more direct and the running pace is quicker, so this is all about stopping and starting. I don't think I'll repeat the heavy-traffic route any time soon.
bike | travel
Wednesday, August 10, 2005 10:28:08 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  | 
 Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Following the Blackberry craze
Once again I've ended up following the fad. Last time it was the novel Trilby, and now I've joined up with the Blackberry users. I didn't mean to, it just sort of happened. Kind of like this....

On Saturday morning I went to our local fruit and veg establishment to pick up a few chili peppers (and perhaps an impulse purchase of some locally-produced snacks of some kind). Having obtained the peppers (hot as blazes, by the way) and aforementioned locally-produced snacks (Japanese-style peanut crackers), I proceeded to the till where I saw another opportunity for impulse purchasing: plastic punnets of blackberries. Why not, I thought to myself, and asked for the price. "One pound" was the answer. A little steep, perhaps, but they looked really tasty, so I started to take one. "No, one pound for all of them." The carton of punnets was full and contained perhaps a dozen of them, each punnet perhaps 250g of the largest blackberries I'd ever seen, perhaps very near their sell-by date but how could I resist several pounds of blackberries for a pound? We sorted them out into "perfect" (say 30% of them), "fine for cooking" (squishy, but fine; perhaps another 60%), and "icky" (moldy or completely squished, the remaining 10%). A sudden influx of ready-to-go-bad fruit calls for desperate measures; fortunately we have several cookbooks by our near-neighbor Nigel Slater who is clearly obsessed with the summer fruits and has published a good number of recipes for the disposal of such. Here's where they went (aside from the sizable proportion that were eaten on their own):

"Perfect" berries went into a little fruit salad with some sliced-up green melon somewhere between a cantaloupe and a honeydew (which by coincidence we had already prepared).

Some of the less-than-perfect berries made their way into corn muffins (made by Mrs. Dunce), modified from a cherry and orange corn muffin recipe (instead of orange juice we used a tropical juice blend which did just fine). I had to chop the blackberries into quarters or sixths (or eighths for the largest of the blackberry gang) but they didn't disintegrate (surprisingly). Mmmmmmmmm.

And finally for Sunday breakfast I prepared a blackberry crumble without the crumble: put the rest of the berries into the bottom of a shallow pan, covered them completely with Greek-style plain yogurt (one of the staple ingredients in our home), then covered the top with a few tablespoons sugar. Popped the whole thing in the oven under a grill set as hot as it would go, and waited for a bit of carmelization. Can I say again, mmmmmmmmmmmm.

And just like that, they were gone (except for the muffins which we are carefully rationing out at a rate of one per person per day). I understand the craze although I couldn't figure out how to check my email (my fingers turned purple trying to compose a message, and I gave up).
consume
Tuesday, August 09, 2005 9:46:32 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [6]  | 
 Monday, August 08, 2005
Great British Beer Festival
Friday evening Mrs. Dunce and I took a little trip to lovely Kensington Olympia for this year's Great British Beer Festival (the largest beer festival in the UK). Friday night is perhaps the worst time to attend such a large festival as it was mobbed (and I mean mobbed) with after-work punters. The queue for entry stretched down the block -- I don't know exactly how far as we swanned in the CAMRA members' entrance1. The festival is set up geographically (but not properly corresponding to British geography), with beers from different regions grouped together (exceptions: "big brewers" were set up right at the front; bottled real ale was available at a separate bar; foreign beers in another; cider and perry in their own section as well [well, all the perry was sold out by the time we got there, as the festival had been going on since Tuesday]. Oh yeah, there was also a separate Wetherspoon bar.). I was rather impressed by the large number of mild ales on offer. It's difficult to get a handle on the hundreds of beers on offer; the question is always where to start. Mrs. Dunce chose to start with the award winners, while I followed a simpler path (targeting beers with "hoppy" in the flavor descriptions, for the most part, or else because the pump clip had a picture of a cute kitty on it2). As I've left our tasting notes at home, I'll save the beer ratings for another entry.

As I mentioned before, Friday night is the worst time to attend as it was unpleasantly crowded, and there were some tendencies for obnoxious people to shove their way to the front of the beer queues (beer is served by a relatively small number of volunteers, not all of whom have an experienced bartender's eye for "who's next"). There were, however, many individuals of the female persuasion present, far more than previous festivals we have attended (the Dunces' first festival as a couple featured what seemed like fewer than ten (10) women and a whole mess of men). Presumably this is a good thing for real ale which is fighting against a bit of a stereotype (beards, sandals, beer bellies): a couple years ago it was all the news that Madonna was a fan of real ale, but additional endorsements from famous women have not exactly been pouring in.

We forgot about the CAMRA members' lounge which offers the opportunity for card-carrying CAMRA members to quaff in the relatively uncrowded company of other sandal-wearing beardies with bellies, which would have allowed us to be a little less distressed by the crowds. There was no shortage of merchandise for sale, but we limited ourselves to a book on pub architecture (and were pleased to note that the Salisbury, the site of our wedding reception, featured quite prominently). OK we also donated a few pounds to the tombola (supporting historic pubs) but won a couple of glasses, a 2003 Good Beer Guide and a couple of badges for our trouble. After a few different beers we decided to leave before the very end (a little after 10pm) and joined a crowded train full of post-festival revelers, heading for home.

1Beer festivals do have a certain importance in the Dunce household. Our first proper date was the Pig's Ear beer festival, and our membership card for the Campaign for Real Ale was the first official document to bear Mrs. Dunce's married name.

2OK, I did pick one beer with a cute kitty on the pump clip, but I had already decided upon it on the basis of its description.
consume
Monday, August 08, 2005 11:17:23 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [0]  |