To me, most fleeces look pretty similar. So I was surprised when browsing in a shop in St. David’s, finding some fleeces from Seasalt of Cornwall. At first they looked ordinary enough, until you saw the tag on it proclaiming “I’m made from plastic bottles!“. So nifty I thought I better encourage them and invest in one

I’ve just finished The Righteous Men. I’m sure Jonathan Freedland or his publisher chose the Sam Bourne pseudonym because it’s structurally similar to Dan Brown, and allows for a similar style on the front cover. He can make you turn the pages in the same way that Brown does, and he’s picked a religious myth theme. But thankfully, the writing style is superior to Brown’s with more believable characters, and (ISTM) built on a much stronger set of facts, rather than than fiction-as-facts of The Da Vinci Code. The one thing that did jar was part of the ending which seemed a coincidence too far.

I really enjoyed it, and it’s been good to relax with a thriller again over the last month. Thanks, Dad, for the loan You got any others by him?

Time for a facelift for this blog. (Does that make it a bloglift?) Hope you like the new freicurv theme.

Maggi Dawn writes in a post called “Facebook. Tried it, didn’t like it.”:

Honestly, I have a life already. You wanna say something? Just send me an email or ring me up like you did before.

She’s definitely not the only one saying this. So I’m not going to get started with it either, and I’ll stick to the current options …

In a nice link (I hope) from my previous post about Religion, I’m writing this on board a Virgin Atlantic flight to the US. It has a rather superior seat-back entertainment system than the British Airways flight I last took. That had to be rebooted three times before it would work, which thankfully the Virgin one didn’t suffer from. It has a rather more interesting map display, amongst which it tells me the direction of Mecca relative to my seat, and exactly how far away it is (currently 11292km)!

Another thing BA could learn from Virgin: have lights in the loos that gradually get brighter, rather than suddenly coming on full when you lock the door. It makes quite a difference when all’s dark in the cabin.

The fog brought on by the fireworks and bonfires had an unexpected benefit …

Two excellent films: The History Boys (on video) and Atonement (in the cinemas still). The first is written by Alan Bennett and “sparkles with wit and charm”, not to mention much discussion of complex male sexuality. The second adapted from Ian McEwan’s novel, has straightforward sexuality, but an excellent exploration of false testimony, guilt and attempted atonement. It also has the most amazing tracking shot I’ve ever seen - a full 10 minutes where the camera and the leading actors must have travelled over half a mile on foot.

We celebrated early in Edinburgh with a fine meal out at [Mamma Roma's](http://www.mamma-roma.net/). Their steaks are to be recommended

Our Edinburgh mini-tournament: 352-250 saw Martha handsomely beat me in the first game, despite having pretty well balanced tiles. The next day I had a more narrow 310-282 victory, also with matched tiles. Our combined average is still just on 600. We need to start bingoing (playing all 7 tiles in a single go) to move beyond this level.

Was it just me, or did a milk float go past at 4am this morning, making 2 stops near us? If so, years since I’ve heard the distinctive whirr of that part of the dawn chorus.