So, Facebook's Turn

After my rant about Google last week, I think it's only fair to have a go at Facebook. The founder of FB, Mark Zuckerberg, has been in the news this week after being forced by public outcry to roll back the privacy settings for FB users. Apparently a new, simpler to use system is being released to users over the next few weeks (why not all at once? I have no idea).

Anyway, I thought I'd check my account to see whether I have the new system yet. I don't think I do. What I've got is a series of pages to wade through. For each thing there's a dropdown list of options of who you want to see your stuff (usually 'Everybody', 'Friends Of Friends', 'Friends Only', and 'Customise'). Customise is usually the one you want, and that contains the 'Only Me' option. The whole process of going through every page and changing what I wanted to took about half an hour. Not exactly user-friendly. There were a few nasty surprises in there where FB had opted me into new features ("Instant Personalisation Pilot Program") without asking or telling me. There's more info here, and I especially like the comment from Sean.

I think the basic idea of FB is a good one. Many more people use it than have blogs, and it is a way of keeping in touch with people without necessarily interacting with them. But you may keep the games, the gifts, the fortune cookies and other malarkey. What does worry me is that FB now has data on 500 million people. I'm pretty careful about what personal info I put online, but others are much less so. And it seems that once you've given FB your phone number, address, blood type, whatever, even if you subsequently choose to hide it, that data is not deleted. And apparently it's almost impossible to get FB to delete your record even if you choose to leave.

This mountain of data is in the hands of some kids in California, who apparently have no understanding of privacy. If that doesn't send a chill down your spine, then it should.

Mind you, Google has a stack more of my stuff, including several thousand emails that they are happy to analyze to find out what kind of stuff they might be able to sell me, and that scares me too.

Do No Evil

I used to admire Google as an innovative opponent to the lovely Microsoft. I especially liked their motto: Do No Evil. Sadly, they seem to have forgotten about that motto. Either that or they can't tell right from wrong. I suspect the latter is the reason for some of the things they have done / are doing / will continue to do until somebody stops them. They've been accused of being 'autistic' when it comes to communicating with the public, and I think there's some truth in that: they really don't seem to dig certain ideas. Like, the reality that intellectual property always bilong someone - you just cannot scan every book you can find, stick it up on the Interwebz and then say that anyone who thinks they own the rights to any of this stuff should get in touch with them (by the way, have you ever tried to contact a real person at Google?).

So this little story caught my interest. Google's Street View cars 'accidentally' capturing data from unsecured wifi networks they happened to drive by. Hello? The cars have a camera tree on the roof. For what reason would they also have doohickeys to steal data? Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, an old dude they brought in to communicate with the real world on their behalf (because that's where he lives, whereas the founders live on Planet Chocolate), immediately said it was a mistake, or not company policy, or some other bollocks of that ilk. I hope they're paying him a ton of money to be the acceptable humanoid face of this increasingly dodgy outfit.

Now, let's see how long it takes The Googleplex to shut down this blog, which they very kindly host for free on the basis that they can steal anything I write on here.

Oh, and I hate Facebook too. Even more, actually.

Spice!

Having moved to Spain from the Miggle East, I do find the availability and prices of herbs and spices to be a bit of a problem. For sure, there's a short list of stuff you can get in any supermarket for almost nothing, and there are herbalarios that sell the same things and a few others at a somewhat higher price. And anything else you want, you get it when you're in England or order it from some dodgy dudes on the Interwebz. In Dubai, you could go to the Spice Soukh, or even a supermarket, and they would have sacks full of everything and they'd sell you a bit of it for virtually nothing.

But hey, The Secret Pie Company got its First Order today (even though it wasn't planning to), and has almost run out of sage (even though this grows like wildfire all over the hills and mountains, it's almost impossible to find in a shop: and the hills and mountains are too bloody far away for me go and pick my own) and allspice (pimiento de Jamaica) which I've never, ever, seen in a shop in Spain.

The First Order (which will be framed, by the way, and treasured in the boardroom of The Secret Pie Company in decades to come) requires these substances, and I quietly mentioned this factoid to my companion, who told me about a new spice shop that had opened recently a few streets away from where we were.

I went to the shop ('Spicy Yuli' on Calle de Valverde, near 'The Quiet Man' boozah). It's a bit cool, as required by its location, and sells exotic teas and pretty much any spice you can think of. Allspice was no problem at all - they have it whole or powdered. And oh, always a plus for me, the proprietor speaks English. It's not exactly cheap, but they do give you a free sample of the tea of your choice.



Lovely packaging, by the way. And the Secret Pie Company also has to make some sample pies and things next week because it's being interviewed by a local English-language paper. And there's a plan to get more sales by the end of the week. Ooh, err. All a bit exciting, innit.

Spanish Health Service

I posted a couple of weeks ago about a visit or two to my doctor. This eventually resulted in a referral to a specialist medical centre up the road. The appointment was for this morning, and I put the previous horrible experience out of my mind. My positive approach worked: a young lady came out of the consulting room and told us who was who in the queue. I was actually seen at the appointed time, and the consultant spoke English! Brilliant. He didn't actually do anything much, though, just gave me some forms. One for a hospital appointment, and another for a follow-up with him where he would tell me the results.

Things took a turn for the worse after that. The appointments room was packed solid with people, and it took me five minutes to work out there was a ticket system in operation, and another five minutes to actually locate the ticket dispenser (it wasn't actually in the room, it was about ten metres away down the corridor outside). I was horrified to see I was number 818. The display was currently showing 702. I stood waiting for a few minutes to see how fast people were being dealt with. The answer was 'not very', so I went for a long walk. When I got back, the queue had advanced by about thirty. I went and did some shopping - the queues in the supermarket are normally fairly long and slow, but today I just whizzed through the checkout.

Back at the medical centre, there were still fifty-odd people ahead of me, so I went walking again. The display had just reached 800 when I got back, and the crowd was thinning out so I managed to get a seat. But I still had my positive little attitude on me. It would soon be my turn and then I would find out how Spanish hospital waiting lists would compare to British ones. I felt sure they'd be much shorter. Finally, after only one and a half hours of waiting, it was my turn.

The lady at the counter looked at my appointment request, looked at the computer, looked a bit puzzled, and picked up the phone. It seems the department in question is fully booked until the end of July.

'And after that?'

'Vacacciones.'

But surely they still operate the service? Buggered if I know. Try again in a couple of weeks, I think she said. And she very helpfully gave me the number for the free appointments phone line, which, of course, I am never going to use. Annoyed doesn't begin to describe how I'm feeling right now.

UPDATE: to be fair, I've just looked at the stack of papers they gave me, and the hospital appointment sheet has 3 boxes the doc can tick to indicate priority. It goes from urgent, in which case you should be seen within fourteen day, medium, a month, and non-urgent, three months. Guess which one is ticked on my form?

A Luvverly Day

Like most of the slobs on this planet, I am quite capable of staying in bed until noon or beyond on a Sunday. But this morning was different. I was awake at five a.m., and began thinking about my new project. In my head, I was designing the workflow for the production facility, and even had an idea for how the façade should look. Then I moved on to directing the CGI animated TV commercial. Sleep was avoiding me, so I gave in and got up at seven. MamaDuck showed no signs of stirring, so rather than disturb her I got dressed and went out in search of a coffee.

On a triple holiday (Sunday / Dos de Mayo / Mother's Day), most cafés were resolutely closed (okay, it was also a tad early for most of them), and I was about 2km from home by the time I found an open one. I had a chat with a couple of young Spanish guys who were rounding off their night out with a couple more beers (I kid you not), and when I left the café, the sun was giving a bit of warmth to the day and I didn't feel like going home.

I had an idea. I would do something MamaDuck has repeatedly tried to get me to do previously, i.e. go to the Rastro. The Rastro is a huge flea market that takes place in the La Latino / Embajadores areas in the south of the city. It's more or less over by one or two in the afternoon, and I don't really like it because of the crowds. But I thought if I got there early enough it wouldn't be too bad.

Unfortunately, I'd left my sense of direction at home, and I soon found myself in Argüelles and then Moncloa, which are in the west end of Madrid. So I started heading east, and ended up in good old Chueca. I headed west again, along Gran Vía / Princesa before realising that what I should really try to do was head south a bit. And so it was that when my phone rang at about nine, I was outside the Palacio Real. I told MamaDuck I was on my way to the Rastro, and invited her to meet me there.

'Who are you, and what have you done with my husband?' she demanded. Anyway, she said she would come. And I realised that the top end of the Rastro (it's actually on a very long, straight, steep street) was somewhere near Plaza Mayor, so I headed up there. I stopped at a café for a thirst-quenching caña (small beer), and tootled down the hill to Calle de Toledo, which, if you proceed in the right direction, takes you to the Rastro. I realised the crowds were going the opposite way to me, so I turned round and followed them, and pretty soon was at the bar outside La Latina Metro station where we'd agreed to meet. She wasn't there, so I sneaked another quick caña and went outside to find a bench to sit on - that particular bar is all counter and no seats, and my little legs were a bit weary from all the walking. I soon spotted the boss and we went to another caff where we could sit outside and have a bit of breakfast.

We mooched through the Rastro - it was fairly busy, but not unpleasantly so, and about halfway down the hill I spotted an inviting-looking archway. We went through it and found ourselves in a marvellous Italianate courtyard with antique shops at ground level and lining the gallery above (I can't remember the name - it was Galerias de something) - I'll go back there one day with my camera.

The Rastro, with its infinite array of tat of all descriptions, didn't have anything we wanted to buy, so we carried on to the bottom of the hill, fought our way through the crowds on the Ronda de Toledo, and then escaped up into Lavapiés where a couple of cool drinks were waiting for us on a pavement table. The Spanish Air Force kindly put on a couple of fly-bys for us, and finally we made our way to Retiro Park to look at trees and ducks and swans, and consume a bit more beer and a sandwich.

The sky was turning cloudy at this point, and it was half past three, so we went and found a bus and came home. Perfect day, really. And I reckon I'll sleep okay tonight.

This Election Thing

Next Thursday is the General Election in the UK, and for the first time in decades, I don't think anyone can reliably predict the result. If I was voting in it, I would normally vote for Labour, or tactically, LibDemSDP or whatever they were called on the day (which I did a few times when I lived in Weybridge in Surrey, where a vote for Labour was a wasted one). Basically, anything to keep the Tories out.

I hate what NuLabor did to their ideology, almost as much as I hated most of what La Thatcher did to British society (abolished it, basically, which I blame for the current dysfunction that Britain is suffering from). I hate the fact that Blair and Brown had this deal whereby Brown got to be Prime Minister without anyone voting for him. And I hate the fact that Labour didn't have the balls to get rid of Brown when they had the chance a year ago, after he'd proved he had the leadership qualities of an overcooked cabbage.  Now he's a total liability. Everybody knows it, but it's too bloody late now. Labour can not win this election.

Tory leader David Cameron is a tw*t. End of.

And Clegg looks like he's no worse than the others. A credible alternative, actually. But nobody seems to think the LibDems can win outright (don't they have enough candidates?), so they'll probably end up in a mess of a coalition Government. And, as Bank of England boss Mervyn King has said, whoever wins this election will have to do some deeply unpopular stuff that will keep them out of Government for a generation. I don't think that's entirely true - the electorate aren't that dumb, are they? They know the Brit economy is in the shite (thank you Gordon, so kind of you to give away all the gold and throw every penny we had at the thieving bankers), but once the new Gov is in place, there will be severe belt-tightening. So, on that basis, I might not mind too much if the Tories win this time. In any case, whoever gets to form the next Government, I don't think it will last more than two or three years.

Biting political analysis by Keefieboy. Bwuhahaha.

UPDATE: Just came across this - the Grauniad supporting LibDems.

The New Pi

You know my pork pies are fabulous (because I keep telling you they are), but just for a change, last night I invented the chicken and ham pie, and, oh my God, it is stupendous! Really, unbelievably fab. It's not the sloppy beige mush in pastry that you'd get from your local bakers. My chicken and ham is alternate layers of solid meat, seasoned with black pepper and fresh cilantro (coriander). Stuffed into a raised hot-water pastry case, surrounded by savoury jelly and designed to be eaten cold. Drool. I'm starting to sound like a marketing dude, but hey, these pies really are something else.



First of all, make the pastry and put it in the fridge to rest. Then prepare the filling - here I've packed it into glasses that are the same diameter as my glass mould. Press the meat down as much as you can (it won't stick together at this stage - that happens as the meat cooks and also the jellied stock helps to bind it).



Assemble the cases. Notice, I now put a tinfoil collar around the outside of the case - this stops the pies bulging too much during cooking, and also makes it much easier to release the glass former. I remove the collars about twenty minutes before the end of cooking.



Stick the lids on, paint with beaten egg, bake for an hour and a bit at 210 C. When cool, spoon the liquid jelly stock through the hole in the top. Chill in the fridge, and eat slowly. This is the best pie you're ever going to get (well, actually, sorry, you're not going to get one unless you come to Madrid and beg).

It's Sausage Day!

MamaDuck rushed home from her knitting group last Friday night and hid in the bedroom. Ten minutes later she emerged with a bright orange-gift-wrapped parcel with my name on it! It was about the right size to be a pair of cowboy boots, but she wouldn't let me open it till the next morning.

[The following is unsuitable for vegetarians - but if you want to send cowboy boots: size 44 (UK 8.5)].

Next morning came (and being basically a kid, I'd hardly slept), and I opened the package. Woot! A meat grinder / sausage stuffer! So I rushed up to the market, got me a kilo of pork shoulder and asked the guy for some tripas para hacer salchichon (casings for to make sausage). He said he didn't have, but pointed me to an offal stall. The lady there did indeed have tripas, but these were the whole things (chitterlings, in English - bleucch), not the skins. Dang. So I traipsed round every butcher in the market, a butcher's shop nearby, and finally a sausage shop near our house. Nada.

Not to worry. I'd been talking to a friend about my banger-making ambitions, and she said she sometimes makes them. She got her tripas from the butcher across the road from her flat in Malasaña, so I went there. No joy. But I remembered seeing a place mentioned on the blog of two guys who make their own bangers in Madrid (thepropersausage.blogspot.com). Sadly, I couldn't remember the address or even the area, so I abandoned the search and went home.

Yesterday I assembled the meat/rusk/herb/spice mix, and this morning I went to the shop (c/Atocha 95, if you're interested). They wouldn't sell me less than 25m (€6), but apparently it'll keep for a year or two in the fridge.

I don't know quite what I was expecting, but I was surprised to see I'd apparently bought a bag of dead worms. It was a plain bag - no branding, no info, no nuffin. I opened it and pulled out this hank of shrivelled guts packed in rock salt. I pulled out a couple of metres of it (not unlike unravelling a skein of wool, but a bit smellier, obviously), and put it in lukewarm water to soak.



I've seen a YouTube video where somebody rinses water through it, so I tried that and it worked!



After a couple more hours of soaking, I steeled my nerves, assembled the equipment (half of which had spent the last 30 minutes in the freezer because colder is better for this kind of work), and threaded the casing onto the nozzle of the machine. Then I popped some of the meat mixture into the tray, switched on the machine, pushed with the pestle and waited for stuff to emerge. It took a while, but eventually, sausage extrusion began to occur, and I tried to ease the casing off the nozzle while manipulating the sausage into a regular shape. I stopped the machine after a bit, because the first eight inches were just way too thick. I cut that off, tried to twist it into two links, and broke the skin. Ho hum, try again.



This time I got the sausage down to a reasonable diameter, squeezing, teasing and coiling as I went. When all the meat mix had gone through the machine, I twisted the coil into links, and made nine fat juicy bangers. Looking at the original two, I decided to scrap them and try again. I pulled the casing off the nozzle much faster this time, and finished up with six narrow-gauge sausages. For a first attempt, I am pretty damn chuffed, and I know they're going to taste great because I fried off a bit of the meat mix this morning and had it in a sandwich for my breakfast.



Nomnomnom.

UPDATE: Guess what we had for tea? Bangers 'n' mash. MamaDuck cut into a sausage and took a bite. 'My God! It's so meaty!' she said. Yep. Absolutely fabulous.

Doctor, Doctor

I haven't been to see a doctor since we arrived in Spain, but MamaDuck and I have decided well (well, okay, she told me) that I need to have a checkup and see if they can do anything about my nocturnal nasal conciertos (being on the wagon doesn't actually make much difference, so we're prolly looking at a bit of surgery in the sinus department).

So yesterday, I went and registered at our local clinic - I was chuffed that I managed it entirely in Spanish without a single 'que' or 'no entiende' from either side, and that I had managed to bring the two bits of documentation required (tarjeta sanitaria (health card) and empadronomiento (don't ask, but see other posts)). She asked me if I wanted a morning doctor or an afternoon doctor. I said it didn't matter, I just wanted the one who spoke the best English. She said none of them spoke any English (and why should they? How many English doctors speak Spanish?), so I opted for a morning one.

After that I went home and made myself an appointment online to see my new doctor. 10.40 this morning, no problem.

Got to the clinic this morning, sat outside his room, and was surprised not to hear my name called at any point. At eleven, the doctor emerged from his room, switched off the light and locked the door. I stood up and asked him if he was Dr Xxx. Yes, he said. Well, I have an appointment. With a sigh, he opened the door and got his list. He showed it to me, and I'm not on it.

¡Joder!

Buggered if I know what happened, but I did think it a bit odd that the online system didn't send me a confirmation email or give me a chance to print anything out. Hmm. Got another appointment for tomorrow morning.

Lost In Translation

Patatas Bravas is a fairly common dish in Madrid. It consists of chunks of fried potato topped with a spicy tomato-based sauce. We've been to the café that claims to have invented them, but nobody seems to know why they bear this name ('brave potatoes'). Sometimes, you'll see patatas written as papas. Papa also means father, and there's a Holy Father in the Vatican who is known as El Papa.

So I couldn't resist a little giggle the other day when I read a menu that had English translations. The translation of papas bravas was 'brave Popes'.

Semana Santa in Ocentejo

We're just coming to the end of Semana Santa - Holy Week in Spain. The week leading up to Easter is as important as Easter itself, and MamaDuck had a week off work. We were invited to spend the week with some friends of ours at their place in Ocentejo, a tiny village (permanent population 25, but weekend and holiday population somewhat larger) about 150 kms north of Madrid. We've been there several times, but usually only for an overnighter, and usually as passengers in someone else's car. This time, our friends were already there, so we took the twice-daily coach as far as Cifuentes, about half-an-hour from Ocentejo, and they picked us up from there.



With spring teetering on the verge of sprunging, there is a lot of work to be done in the garden, and MamaDuck was eager to do some of it. I had been enlisted to make pork pies for general nibbling through the week, and a big steak and kidney pie to share with the family of José-Luis (the chef/owner of the only bar/restaurant in the village), and Espe, who just happened to be around. I spent a very happy morning in the kitchen constructing these pies, and they were a great success.

The pattern of our days at the house goes something like this: get up some time between 9 and 10, sort yourself out with breakfast, then get down to thinking about writing a new novel / actual work / dig the garden / make pies / go for a walk / paint the walls of the living room / try to draw a picture or do whatever it is you want to do. Sometimes there's a mid-morning coffee at the bar. At about 2.30, we knock off and go for an aperitivo at the bar. José-Luis is very canny, and will appear with a superb bit of food just as we look to be on the point of going back to the house for lunch. As we're eating this, we will of course order another round of drinks, and on more than one occasion we would be too full of J-L's creations to actually have or need any lunch. Some of the things he made for us: codornices (quails); migas (a southern Spanish dish of breadcrumbs and meat with a chopped-up fried egg stirred in - it sounds weird, but José-Luis makes the best migas I've ever had); beans (not Heinz); red peppers stuffed with a cheesy cod sauce; lomo (pork loin); patatas bravas (sauteed chunks of potato with a hot sauce); and many other goodies.

Then, back to the house for lunch (or not), usually followed by a snooze, and then whatever was planned for the evening. One night this involved trooping down to the Mayor's* house to watch Atléti vs Real Madrid (el Derbi, and a truly crap match it was), and a few days later a drive to the next village, Sacecorbo, to watch Atléti vs Valencia. The reason for all this mooching around to watch footie is that Castilla La Mancha switched off their analogue TV broadcasts last weekend. Now, this has been planned for years, and everyone now has a TDT (Terrestrial Digital Television) adapter. But Ocentejo (actually, the beloved Mayor of Ocentejo, who is the only person in the village who has satellite TV), forgot / didn't bother to tell the authorities they would like to have whatever doohickey is required to transmit digital signals. So, blank screens in Ocentejo.

And then back to the house for a nightcap, and sometimes staying up talking till stupid o'clock.

Sigüenza Cathedral

Some days we'd have a trip out of the village - MamaDuck and lady friend went to a garden centre in Guadalajara one day. We all went to Siguenza a few days later - it's quite a pretty place with an astounding cathedral and a castle that has been restored and is now a Parador.

Castle / Parador

And finally, the culmination of Semana Santa - el viernes Santo (Good Friday). There were lots of events organised by the village, starting with a competition to see who could make the best torrijas (a bit like a cross between French toast and bread-and-butter pudding). MamaDuck and I had been co-opted onto the judging panel, along with one of our friends and the mayor's wife. After that there was a concert of classical music given by a violinist and a guitarist, followed by the church-goers parading their little statue of Christ on the cross around the village. And then a bonfire in the square, which was supposed to be accompanied by roast potatoes. But they didn't put the spuds in until about 11pm, and by midnight they were still not ready, it had turned seriously cold, and us poor little Brits buggered off to bed.

Yesterday our pals gave as a lift into Guadalajara and we caught the train back to Madrid, where it promptly started to rain. But it was such a pleasure to be out of Madrid and plunged into a proper little Spanish pueblo where, of course, almost nobody speaks English and so you absolutely have to inflict your appalling Spanish on them.

*It's always amazed me that such a tiny village as Ocentejo has a Mayor and a town hall, but it turns out that the municipality is actually the largest in Castilla La Mancha in terms of land area. 

Media Overload

MamaDuck returned from The Land That May Contains Nuts last Friday. Bearing gifts, she was, including a bunch of DVDs. She brought two serieseses of The Mighty Boosh, the first series of Spaced (are there any more?), and a couple of Doctor Whos.

And the following day she bought me 'And Another Thing' - the sixth instalment in the HitchHiker's Guide To The Galaxy, by Eoin Colfer, and 'Unseen Academicals' by Pterry Pratchett.

So that's my reading and viewing sorted out for a while.