Yearly Archives: 2006

Day One of the “you will eat a freakishly large amount of fruit for breakfast” diet

Bowl of fruit for breakfast - click to see bigger and notes on Flickr Day One of the “you will eat a freakishly large amount of fruit for breakfast” diet.
For breakfast today: one banana, one clementine, one golden delicious.

First impressions? Do I eat this with a spoon, with a fork, with my fingers, with chopsticks?! What’s good form? I’m currently in a no-mans land between fork and fingers. Mainly because I am surfing at the same time and I don’t want to get the keyboard all mussy.

I actually quite like banana. I have held off eating them for years – ever since I was old enough to be allowed an opinion about what I ate – for the simple reason that I can’t bite into a whole banana without gagging. There is a reason for this slightly bizarre response. When much, much younger, there was a rule in our house that you had to clear your plate before you left the table. After several tearful altercations between Baby Cas and Curly Durly, it was deemed less hassle for all if Baby Cas wasn’t forced to eat bananas. The people that tell you your childhood can’t scar you for life are lying. Ever since then, it’s been a pavlovian response – deep in my brain, something goes “Ack, banana! We don’t want this!” I have decided however that, approaching my mid twenties, I really need to get over myself, so when I braved the greengrocers yesterday, a bunch of bananas were forced into my basket. I can’t quite face munching on a whole banana yet, but chopped up they are actually rather pleasant, and go surprisingly well with clementine.

Conversely, I do not like golden delicious apples. Apples as a whole are another fruit I have had troubled relationships with in the past. I expect most kids who had braces growing up feel much the same way. I have vivid memories of the time I bit into an apple and felt my teeth move a little bit… Even though my teeth are now all shiny and straight (with not a single filling I am proud to reveal) and have no marked tendency to wobble, I still baulk at chomping on a whole apple a la Eve. So they are also sliced up into the bowl. Not liking golden delicious though. They seem a bit floury with no real taste. Good thing I only bought a handful – what variety should I try next?

Whether this lot will keep me going till lunch remains to be seen. Two pieces of toast used to do the trick, but I’ve just finished the bowl and don’t exactly feel full :S

Well, it’s an experience, if nothing else 🙂

AutoDiscover Tags

I’ve just changed the autodiscover tags on the blog to show the FeedBurner feed and not the default WP one (lots of reasons for this, can’t be bothered to explain). It all seems to be working happily for me, but if you find a problem YELL! and I’ll do my best to sort it.

Name and Shame

fruit basket picture on flickr - click to see notes I made the rather unpleasant discovery the other day that the past three months of a totally sedentary lifestyle, leaving the flat only to go grocery shopping and occasionally to the cinema, and regularly eating chocolate and biscuits, have had a detrimental affect on my waistline.

Long term readers of the blog might recall my gym exploits of 2005. Well, I am ashamed to admit that I haven’t stepped foot in the gym since the middle of September when the whole thesis issue started to go down the pan. I haven’t even renewed my membership which lapsed in October.

*hangs head in shame*

Now, I haven’t completely lost all the ground I had gained in the first three quarters of 2005, but there has been definite slippage. I hadn’t realised/admitted this till I tried on my favourite (only) dress the other day and, whilst it still fitted, had to face a few bulges where previously bulges had been eliminated. Said weight gain would also explain the slight (but noticeable) cleavage increase, which means that, once again, expensive bras that fitted when purchased six months ago, no longer fit quite as well. Whilst there haven’t been any complaints about bigger breasts, I can’t afford new and roomier enclosures for the animals, so drastic measures need to be taken.

Time, I feel, to face facts and admit that I am lazy bum who needs to shed a few pounds. To this end, I have decided the only way to do this is to name and shame. The way I figure it, if I publically humiliate myself on this blog, it will give me that added impetus to actually stick to the plan.

Part one of the plan went into action today. See the basket of fruit picture at the top of the post? That’s what my new and healthy breakfast will consist of.

The following are my commandments. Whilst death will not follow if I do not follow them, disappointment in my self will, and I hate myself enough already thank you very much!

  • I will resist the temptation to buy chocolate, biscuits, ice cream, and other snack foods from the supermarket, on the principle that, if it’s not in the house, I can’t eat it (I have no self control).
  • I will eat a proper lunch and not snack between meals.
  • If I really want to snack, I’ll have a cup of tea.
  • If a cup of tea doesn’t do the trick, then I will eat a piece of fruit. I am not starving, even though my stomach might feel like my throat has been cut.
  • At the same time, I will not starve myself, and will eat sensibly. Not eating leads to low blood sugar, which leads to Cas randomly fainting, which leads to much embarrassment and unnecessary trips to A&E.
  • I will take the time and actually cook proper meals in the evening (with fresh vegetables).
  • I will go to the gym three times a week, minimum and (when I have bought a costume) go swimming regularly.
  • I will only take the lift up to the flat when I am in danger of bodily harm if I climb the stairs. Such circumstances include when carrying heavy items such as furniture. They do not include when I am feeling a bit tired after a hard days shopping or my legs feel a bit wobbly when I’ve come back from the gym.
  • I will not buy any new clothes till I can once again wear my one dress and not see bulges.
  • I will post regular updates on the blog. Not because I think my readers are interested, but because if I don’t and fail in my goals, Moose and the CC are the only ones going to be looking disapprovingly at me, and they no longer scare me.

I will make one more thing clear – my goal is to tone up, not to loose x number of pounds. I am never going to be skinny, I’m just not built that way, but the curves I do have need to be tamed some. With this ‘get fit’ goal in mind, not the ‘loose weight’ goal, I am aiming to do the Race for Life again this year and to run most of it, rather than fast-walk with short bursts of running like I did last year.

Oh, one last commandment:
I will not arbitrarily stop this program when I think I’ve got back to where I was in early September, I will keep going.

You, my blog minions, are here-by drafted to be my Diet Nazi’s and cheerleaders. Wish me luck!

Review of John Wyndham: assorted works

John Wyndham
The Kraken Wakes
The Chrysalids
The Midwich Cuckoos
The Trouble With Lichen
[rate 5]

I’ve said over and over how great John Wyndham is an an author, which is why it saddened me so much when I reviewed “Stowawy to Mars” and it left such a very bad taste in my mouth. So, in order to restore the balance, I bring you Wyndham at his best: “The Kraken Wakes“, “The Chrysalids“, “The Midwich Cuckoos“, and “The Trouble With Lichen“. I’d also bring you “Day of the Triffids” but I seem to have mislaid my copy so haven’t read it recently enough to feel sure of reviewing it.

The Kraken Wakes:
The ostensible plot, of aliens trying to take over the world from deep under the sea, can be more or less put to one side, if not ignored in its entirety. Wyndham follows Wells in “War Of the Worlds” and never explicitly reveals where the ‘alien’ threat has come from, leaving you to make up your own mind, as it should be. Moving away from the alien causation, you have here an allegory for global warming, and a biting comment on the idiocy of the Cold War, and weapons of mass destruction. Themes include, but aren’t limited to the traditional Wyndham cannon of ‘fear of the other’, apocalypse, and benign military.

The Chrysalids:
The plot lays the ground for that of “A Canticle For Liebowitz“, and many others. You have, once more, the post-apocalyptic world, fear of the unknown, religious fanaticism, and racial tensions (the only black people are only found on an island of ‘deviants’). This is one of the more overtly sci-fi books that Wyndham wrote. It is set in the unidentified future (most of the other are in the near-present) in a post-apocalyptic world gone to hell in a hand-cart, where ‘mankind’ survives in a few small pockets including Newfoundland. Any genetic deviations are a sin against God, and destroyed the instant they appear, even children. So what happens when the deviations don’t have any physical manifestations, but are purely mental? Their scripture doesn’t define what is normal for the mind so, is telepathy a gift or a curse?

The Midwich Cuckoos:
Most people know this story from the film “Village of the Damned“. A small rural town suffers a ‘day out’ and wakes to find all the women folk impregnated… Nine months later lots of golden eyed children are born and start to cause all kinds of mayhem.

The Trouble With Lichen:
Immortality is just around the corner, apparently, as the result of a rare lichen. This is one Wyndham’s books that doesn’t resort to aliens in order to get the plot off the ground. Based totally in believable (at least believable in 1960) science this novel addresses how mankind my cope if they were faced with the possibility of immortality, or at least a vastly extended lifespan. One of the first books, to my knowledge, that addresses what might happen if people really could live to 300 and the social upheaval that would ensue. Asimov does similar, at around the same time, with his Robot Series (Caves of Steel, The Naked Sun, Robots of Dawn etc, leading to the Foundation series) but sets it firmly in the fantastical future.

Some general points:
Love Wyndham. Always will, hence the five mug rating for all of them. Here are few random observations I’ve made on this latest read through.

There is a repeat plot device of the outsider-reporter to whom events don’t totally happen. They are invariably reports from after the events (looking back, hindsight), and attempts to assume the authority of historical narrative. A way of gaining our trust as an impartial observer, but at same time displaying the unique knowledge of the insider. Yes, as a device it is fairly obvious, but it works for him.

Women are, if not the main character (as in “The Trouble With Lichen“), then married to the main character, and shape what happens. Very much a partnership. In Kraken, it is the wife who realises that they may need to quit London in a hurry and lays in supplies. In Cuckoos, it is the wife who manages to keep the village calm. The women don’t seek the fame, and frequently outsiders assume that it is the men who have done the work, but the men themselves don’t claim any of the glory, and make it quite clear to the people that matter that it was the women who did good.

The theme of the military as good, there to help. Undoubtedly a relic of WW2. Quite a marked difference to the sinister and evil overtones that the military is painted with in most modern literature.

As an aside, there is also at least one Holmes reference in each book. More a little nod to Connan Doyle‘s creation.

Amazing that on page 187 of Cuckoos, Wyndham in 1957 basically summarizes the plot of Independence Day and every other major sci-fi book and film since. Not sure if that’s a sign of how visionary he is, or how little pulp sci-fi has changed in the last fifty years.

Review John C. Wright: The Golden Age

The Golden AgeJohn C. Wright
The Golden Age
The Phoenix Exultant (The Golden Age volume 2)
[rate 3] and [rate 2] A great start, sadly disapointing end

These were another impulse loan from the library. Basically I am working my way through the sci-fi/fantasy shelves and these were next. I found book one, The Golden Age mind-blowing. Original and full of new ideas. His take on the digital future is one that, whilst not brand-spanking new (rather similar in tone to Appleseed by John Clute, though not quite so brain-strainingly odd) is still different and fresh. It defines a futuristic civilization almost parochial in its outlook, being one of the few X-Century novels where the Einstein’s light-speed barrier has not been circumvented, leaving humanity constantly looking inward, trapped within their own minds as much as the solar system.

Throughout The Golden Age you follow the fate of Phaethon (still not worked out how to pronounce it) as he realises the reality his living in is false, the result of a culture-wide amnesia, springing from some unspeakable deed he had done in the past. You struggle, as he does, to make sense of events, and to fit his fractured reality into what really happened. But, as you progress further in, you come to realise that perhaps what ‘really’ happened will never be known. You are forced to confront the nature of subjective and objective reality. It really does feel like a body-blow when you discover, along with Phaethon that everything he believes about his life is false.

The end of The Golden Age left me wanting more, so I straight away started on The Phoenix Exultant, which was possibly a mistake. It just doesn’t fulfill the promise of the first book. Perhaps because I know there’s another whole book to go after this one, or whether the central premise of not trusting your own perceptions is now well established, but this has nothing new for me in it. Instead of rooting for Phaethon, you want to bash him about the head with a baseball bat for being so stupid. The one (yes one) female character is about much use as a chocolate teapot. And she’s supposed to be the strong version of one of the characters (characters can exist in multiple versions and bodies at the same time). The rest of the society is patriarchal and misogynistic to a fault. The threat of an external civilization seems shoe-horned in to give the author a reason to write book three. All in all, a huge disappointment. It is blatantly obvious that Phaethon is going to overcome the odds and be reinstated as the hero he feels himself to be, so why drag it out so long?

I haven’t been able to find book three (The Golden Transcendence) at the library and I am not going to even spend 70p on requesting it from another library.