New favourite drink

A few months ago, I discovered that Israeli dairies are now selling a low lactose version of chocolate milk; this has 49 calories/100 gram, whereas non-flavoured low lactose milk has 50 calories /100 gram. In other words, the addition of the chocolate does not add calories, as opposed to when I make chocolate milk at home, as the chocolate powder is full of calories.

I started off with a modest two bottles (2 litres) a week but I didn't like rationing myself so I started buying 4 bottles a week. My wife has started drinking it occasionally as well as giving some to the grand-daughters so sometimes even 4 bottles doesn't seem enough. There have been weeks when there was no chocolate flavoured milk on the shelves so I bought the equivalent banana flavoured milk. I thought that I would prefer this but the taste is more synthetic and seems sweeter even though it isn't.

On Friday, which is when I make my weekly purchases, I saw that there weren't enough bottles of chocolate milk on the shelf, but there was one of 'nut choco'. In my naivety, I though that this was 'milk' made from nuts (in the same way that there is almond 'milk') with a chocolate flavour, so I was slightly surprised when I saw that it contained 99% 'real' milk. In other words, it's the same chocolate milk, but with an added nutty flavour. As I find the regular chocolate milk slightly lacking (the initial taste is chocolate, but the after-taste seems thin), this addition is very warmly received. It's now become my favourite cold drink; I wonder whether I will be able to buy another bottle during the week. 

As this flavour comes from a different dairy, its calorific content is slightly different (51 calories/100 gram) but not significantly so. Intriguingly, it's also cheaper; the regular chocolate milk is 136% more expensive than regular low lactose milk (13 NIS as opposed to 5.5 NIS), whereas the nut version (different dairy, remember) is about 100% more expensive. Maybe this is for an introductory period only; I'm going to take full advantage of this.

And by the way, I'm losing weight again. There were two weeks with a negligible 100 g loss, but on Friday I measured 500 g less than the week before, choco or no choco. The heavy walking seems to be paying off finally.

Preparing for the DBA viva

Today I had two video calls in preparation for the viva that will take place in another few days.

The much more important call was with my supervisor; I thought that we were going to have a mock exam but he started off by saying that there is no point in him improvising questions because probably the examiners will ask something else. He then continued to say that the examiners will not be 'out to get me' and will not ask questions such as 'what did you mean by ... on page 32' and similar. Instead, I should think of the exam as a discussion between colleagues. 

One interesting point came out of our discussion today: I feel that I older I get, the more open I am to compromise. There is a lack of 'ego', something that will be very important in the viva, but also in my research itself. I wrote about this in the thesis, albeit in different terms, when I discussed the confirmation bias. Frequently people who 'research' subjects are open only to ideas and statements that strengthen their point of view/beliefs, or as it is commonly put, they only hear things that confirm their original position. In the thesis, I state that I tried to be as free as possible from this bias, in that other people's ideas can strengthen the 'product', whether it is a thesis or an enhancement. The idea is to create the best possible product, utilising everybody's ideas. As I have written sometimes at work, I don't have a monopoly on good ideas. People start from different viewpoints that lead them to differing and sometimes surprising endpoints, and it is often my job to incorporate these various ideas into a whole, introducing a certain amount of synergy.

So, unlike some doctoral candidates (apparently), I am open to whatever suggestions and/or corrections that the examiners may have. We are trying to improve the topic, without regard to who suggests what. I think that anyway one has to lose one's ego to a certain extent when the entire doctoral process begins with the supervisor suggesting various options and changes.

My supervisor advised me to enjoy the experience as it is going to be the only time in which I can talk at great detail about my research with people who are interested in what I have to say. 

I said that I doubt that I am going to feel very nervous about the exam: first of all, I will be in my own home and so the surroundings will not threaten me. Secondly, the fact that I cannot fail removes a great deal of pressure; my supervisor mentioned one student who did fail, but that was because he was not prepared to take anyone's advice, not least the examiners'. I am going to view the viva like a meeting at work, when I try as much as possible (and not necessarily successfully) to lose myself in the subject and not get mired down in my personal agenda. 

The less important call was to the DBA administrator; this was mainly to check that the Teams software (which will be used for the exam itself) that I installed on my computer works properly. We use Teams at work, but that is within a closed user base, whereas here the meeting is a one off. From what I happened, I see that it is best to open Teams (it takes a long time to load completely) before clicking on the link to the meeting instead of doing it the other way around. That's the reason for having this call! 

The administrator closed off by saying that he would see me on Tuesday and that I should try to enjoy the experience as it is going to be the only time in which I can talk at great detail about my research with people who are interested in what I have to say. Does that sound familiar? True, I copied and pasted that sentence, but he did in fact repeat almost word for word what the supervisor said. This must be the party line, in the same way that the text says that 'the doctorate teaches one to become a researcher', and not a world expert in some arcane subject, as public belief would have it.

On to Tuesday! 

Vinyl log #32

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
16	November	1970	Heron	(eponymous)

I've written here and there about Heron, the one penny tour and their first record. Today we can celebrate 50 years since I purchased it.

At the time, there was a company that was selling records by mail order; on every purchase one would receive a certain amount that one could utilise in order to buy more records. Being very young and callow, I thought that I could use this amount at the same time as buying records, but the company said otherwise. I remember that I ordered several records - the three record set of 'Woodstock', 'Watt' by Ten Years After, 'Full house' by Fairport Convention and 'Heron', having just seen them. I don't remember now which record became the free one, but I do have a memory of trudging through snow, meeting the postman and asking whether he had a record for me - quite trusting of him. This was 'Watt'; after listening to it, I was severely disillusioned and never listened to TYA again.

But Heron! My original favourites were 'Harlequin 2' and 'Lord and Master', but the second became unlistenable when my record player had 'an accident' and the record became scratched. These were the days of the stackable record player where one could prepare a few records to play and the autochanger would drop each one down in turn. After I ruined two records in this way (Sandy Denny's 'North star grassman' was another casualty), I stopped using the autochanger.

I found this record captivating, but I don't think that I truly appreciated it until I bought the cd and listened to it via headphones. One of the selling points about the record was that it was recorded in a field and so everything (or nearly everything) is recorded live. I can hear a few overdubs in 'Harlequin 2' but they don't really disturb me. It's so live that when Gerald Moore plays some acoustic lead guitar, he stops singing. That said, I've never figured out which guitarist is playing what on 'Upon reflection'.

For me now, the highlights begin with what was the last song on side one, 'Upon reflection', carrying on through 'Lord and Master' (no scratches now!) and culminating in the sublime 'Little angel', although I have to admit that the lyrics of this latter song leave me scratching my head as they don't seem to make too much sense ("so I won't ever know what it is you've been missing"). I love the way that the three singers trade lines between themselves (now that I think of it, this was a feature of The Band), and once, when writing to Steve Jones their keyboard player, I said that Heron could have been the British equivalent of Crosby, Stills and Nash!

My memories of listening to this record are combined with the winter camp of 1970 about which I will write no more, save to say that they are very happy.

Unfortunately, Heron's second album was a disappointment but I have always treasured this jewel of an album and frequently listen to it even now.

Cold Feet, series 9

This veteran series, which I loved, crept back into our lives two weeks ago with the opening episode of series 9. I wasn't too impressed by that episode, but the second episode that we have just finished watching was something almost extraordinary.

First off was the appearance of the great Sunetra Sarker, better known in our family as Dr Zoe Hanna from Casualty. I wonder how many of the people watching this episode know that this is not the first appearance of Sunetra in CF: she had a brief appearance in series two as a possible one night stand with Adam. Maybe she foresaw her medical career with the statement "I'm not going to kiss those" (referring to Adam's testicles) which were black: Adam was then diagnosed with testicular cancer and if I remember correctly, underwent a partial orchidectomy (such a lovely word, such unpleasant connotations). Presumably she is going to have some form of relationship with David; initially a business relationship, but who knows where it might lead.

Even more surprising was the appearance of a young woman in the local court; just by chance Adam happened to be in the public gallery. She seemed familiar to him and eventually he realised: she was a girl that Adam and then wife Rachel (Helen Baxendale) were going to adopt as they could not conceive. As soon as the adoption went through, Rachel became pregnant (with Matt) and so they had to give up the adoption. We even saw a few images of Rachel - she was the best character in CF. One can assume that Adam will make contact with this woman in an attempt to atone for the fact that he did not adopt her ... and so her life did not improve and she ended up selling drugs, hence her court appearance.

Talking of best character, I have been impressed by the character of Pete. He was always at the butt end of everything: not the smartest, not the wittiest, not the most successful. He really has grown and showed in this episode his attention to other people. David's character has also improved over the years, whereas Adam has stayed near enough the same, if not regressed.

I write about these characters as if they were real people: a sign as to how much they have entered my life.

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Another television series that promises to be more than worthwhile is 'The Undoing'. The series is based on the novel 'You should have known' by Jean Hanff Korelitz. I am reading the book at about the same pace as the series and it is interesting to note that the entire first chapter of the book, which is about Grace's book ('You should have known'), is not referenced in the series, at least not in the first episode. 

Grace is a marriage counsellor/therapist and the (fictional) book is based on her experiences with women who should have seen signs of incompatibility with their future partners but ignored them because they were dazzled by other features, or the fear of being alone was too great (I can understand this from personal experience). Of course, in the book by Korelizt, Grace also should have known various things about her husband. 

I purposely haven't read much more of the book as I want to see the television series unfold, but I have a good idea about what is going to happen.

The backdrop of rich, upper East Side women and social comparisons is somewhat tedious and I hope that this is going to disappear. Also, the book is set against a mild backdrop of Judaism that might cause some readers a degree of non-comprehension; this appears to be dropped in the series, not least because Grace's surname has been changed from Sachs to Fraser.

Date set for doctoral oral defence!!!!

 

The first of a month is never a good day for me as I have several monthly reports to prepare in the morning. But I should be free by 11 am, which is 9 am GMT. 

So it's time to hit the thesis and learn it backwards. I have been looking at it on and off over the past few weeks but I haven't reached the meaty part - the methodology and the results - basically chapters 5-8. My supervisor also received notice so no doubt we will be scheduling a mock exam for next week.

First rain

For the past week, the weather forecast has been predicting heavy rain on Wednesday/Thursday - and they were right! A few drops fell on Tuesday evening but these were just the preliminaries. It started raining, not particularly heavily, on Wednesday morning, but this cleared up after a few hours, and by the time I drove home in the afternoon, one wouldn't have known that there had been rain at all.

At around 7pm, rain started to fall ... and fall ... and fall. When the news wasn't concerned with the US elections, it was showing pictures of two coastal towns that were already suffering from flooding (this happens every year and nothing ever seems to be done about this). There was heavy rain in our area that continued throughout the night.

At about 11:30 pm, I awoke. I'm not sure whether this was due to the sound of the rain falling on a roof or whether it was because I was having difficulty breathing - I think the latter. I took the CPAP mask off my face and then noticed that there was no sound of air rushing out of the mask; the machine didn't light up, either. In other words - a power cut. Typical: there are always problems with the electricity supply whenever it rains. A message then appeared on our mobile phones, saying that the problem was regional: not only was our entire kibbutz without electricity, the neighbouring moshav was without power either.

I tried to fall asleep but it was difficult, what with the noise of the rain outside and a slightly blocked nose. Eventually the power returned at about 1:30 am and I was able to sleep.

The rain had ceased at some time during the night for there was no rain when I went for my morning walk at 5:30 am. True, there were puddles everywhere, but no water running down from the hill behind us. The rain and the power cut conspired to deprive the kibbutz of internet access so I couldn't access my mail. I assume that this is going to be fixed during the day because I have an internet meeting at 15:30 in which I will participate from home.

Presumably the lack of internet access is also preventing the kibbutz secretary from informing us how much rain fell during the night. 

Of course, there will be no more rain for another few weeks.

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Edit: five minutes after writing the above, of course it started raining again....

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Further edit: 44.5 mm rain fell during the last 24 hours on the kibbutz.

Overcoming the 'leading zero' leads to other problems with Excel

Just over a week ago, I detailed how I transfer strings that begin with a leading zero from my Delphi programs to Excel. Unfortunately the transfer mechanism causes problems with a different type of field: dates. Using the 'csv method', dates are passed as strings, so today's date should appear as 03/11/2020 (there's a leading zero here as well, but Excel knows that this isn't a number because of the slashes). The 'varArray method' has to format the columns prior to data being transferred: I use a constant xlDateFormat that is set to 'dd/mm/yyyy'. Surely this is correct as 03/11/2020 is dd/mm/yyyy.

But no: Excel seems to have a bug that causes the month and day to be swapped as long as the day is not greater than 12. So 12/11/2020 would appear as 11/12/2020 (American format) but the following day, 13/11/2020 would appear as 13/11/2020, which is apparently a month before the day that precedes it!

The initial solution was to use a different value for xlDateFormat: d/m/yyyy. This causes today's date to appear as 3/11/2020 which is much better than 11/03/2020 but still not totally correct. Writing this blog entry has caused me to wonder whether there is a better solution (drum rolls, please).

Counter-intuitively, the optimal solution is ... not to format date columns! 03/11/2020 appears as 03/11/2020. I live and learn.