pumpkinstrokemarrow

Friday saw a meeting of the Breadmakers' Consultative Committee at Wetherspoons. I reported that I had given up on trying to make the sort of white bread which is suitable for making bacon and egg sandwiches. Commercial bakers - such as the chap at Cheam - must have secrets or equipment that I cannot aspire to. Instead, I have opted for a more artisanal sort of bread. Fat free (except for the lard on the tins), slow matured, quite chewy. Oddly, it has now got to the point where I actually quite like the stuff - which would probably not have been true had an identical product been made or procured by the BH. To the point where a few days ago I bought some bread which I might have quite liked a few weeks ago - and found it very insipid. Various points were made in discussion; sadly all lost in the mists of something called 'Wandle'. One of the funny beers that Wetherspoons seem to specialise in these days. This one actually quite potable. But I do remember a discussion about the excess consumption of McFlurrys by the female sector of the bar staff. A sugar fix sold as ice cream by the nearby McDonalds.

Second, we have completed the census form and sealed it in the envelope provided. Too be posted as close to midnight as we can manage, as per instructions. We wonder what arrangements have been made to deal with the glut of such envelopes in small suburban post boxes. Are the curious marking on the outside of the envelope indicative of mechanical opening and scanning? We wonder what arrangements have been made to cope with peak loading at about the same time on whatever server farm supports the online version. How do they make any kind of an estimate as to what the peak loading might be? How easy it is to buy significant computer capacity which you are only going to need for a few days?

The form itself was easier to complete than I had expected; not as nosey as I had expected. A few infelicities in the questions. For example, having one question asking for your job title immediately followed by another which asked what you did. Everybody knows - except it seems the census people - that a job title says what you do. I put the same phrase into the answer box for both questions. Pleased to see that the first option for religion was 'none'; hopefully reflecting the expectation that that will be the most common answer.

Not so pleased that I have no recollection at all of the last census, a mere 10 years ago. Beyond the negative recollection that it was not done by post. Quite convinced, for some reason, that this is the first time the thing has been done by post. But how do they know where we all are? In the olden days - when, I should say, I used to work for the people who, at that time, did the census - there was a small army of people responsible for making sure that every household, caravan, bivouac and residential cardboard box got a census form. A making sure which involved a fair amount of tramping and snooping about. How can we trust the Royal Mail to accomplish the same trick?

PS: another irritating pop-up yesterday from some product which I knew nothing about which claimed to have discovered 117 things wrong with my registry. Click here to register and have them sorted out. I smelt a get out the plastic occasion and closed the dialog box without going further. Another unwanted gift from HP.