Soap and Water

I seem to be suffering from a strange sort of Stockholm syndrome with the gasman.

After failing to fix the boiler yesterday we had been promised a 10:00 till 12:00 appointment, but there was no sign of said gasman and I called up the helpline twice before he finally arrived over half an hour past the stated deadline. Still, he worked his magic and replaced another part and we finally have hot water again after three days of washing with soap and flannel. Bliss. I was so pathetically grateful for this simple modern luxury that I quite forgot to be cross.

In other news, I have done about half of my T175 end of course assessment today, and I reckon that another day of work will break the back of it tomorrow. Ironically enough, I was looking at a question regarding smart homes and networked controllers for things like central heating systems. It's all very well having an app on the iPhone to set the temperature if you haven't even got a working boiler ...

After finishing work, I had a nap, read a couple of chapters of Richard Herrings' book 'How Not to Grow Up' which is satisfactorily chucklesome, took the dog for a walk in the sun dappled woods and mowed the lawn before setting to some of the weeds in the patio with the strimmer. I reckon that I will have earned my mojito with Doctor Who tonight.

As for Alan Wake, my first impressions are that the human faces suffer badly from a bad case of uncanny valley with the rendering looking quite disturbing. However, when the sun goes down and the night time sections start it's a very different story. Nightmarish and spooky with some very effective scares. I was particularly impressed with the use of light and shade in the foggy gloom, and the way that the torch beam swings around wildly as you try to run to the next safe haven. Good stuff.