I had the 330d serviced by Vines of Guildford BMW earlier this month. I was pleased with the £99 cost of the oil service, but less pleased with the advisory notices:

• Front N/S tyre worn on outer edge
• Front N/S brake caliper seized
• Prop shaft coupling worn

This weekend I got down to business to sort all this out. £35 had the tracking sorted (after the usual – tedious – discussions about them not being able to guarantee their work unless I bought new tyres). For £274 I had new discs, pads, front N/S caliper and a propshaft donut delivered from C3BMW (after my usual – tedious – stupidity saw me state my old address on the delivery note).

Here’s the haul:

Looking good at this point! I set to work – in the rain.

Old brakes:

Shiny new brakes!

All the brake work went perfectly (as far as I can tell). I even remembered to undo the disc retention screw before removing the caliper, so with a little help from an assistant on the brake pedal it was easy. I had forgotten to order a pad wear sensor, but a quick blast in the M5 (in the rain!) soon saw one gathered from ECP for £10 (over-priced, but worth it for the M5 wet road journey).

So I moved my attention to the worn prop shaft donut.

Six nuts and bolts. Easy. Except of course, that it wasn’t easy at all. Getting access was quite easy – belly panels off, exhaust down etc. But two of the bolts just weren’t interested in coming out of the end of the prop shaft. And, to make matters worse, the prop shaft just wasn’t coming out of the differential, so I couldn’t remove it from the car. Ben Smith was kind enough to pop over and confirm such on both counts.

That marked the end of Saturday. On Sunday morning, bright and fresh, I tried a number of things. I went to Halfords and bought a three legged puller. Fail. I even tried a vice:

Fail. I got angry and took the angle grinder in. The first bolt soon yielded, and I was jubilant:

Sadly, the second bolt was significantly more stubborn. I chopped both ends off, and drilled a 6mm hole through it (12mm bolts). I was planning on eventually drilling the whole thing out, but by this point it was 4pm on Sunday, and frankly, I was utterly exhausted. There was nothing else for it – I had to make an SOS call. I called A Barden.

Bit unfair of me to resurrect that photo really. On both Alex and of course dear reader, you. Alex offered, extremely kindly, to pop over first thing in the morning to sort it out. From Wales. What a darling.

So at 8am this morning, Alex arrived to find the driveway looking like this – proper pikey.

Alex took my advice and tried to shift the bolt in situ. Then, when I’d left him alone and gone to work, he decided to stop messing around, removed the prop shaft from the diff, and twatted (technical term) the bolt out. He has cleaned up the prop shaft, sorted the connection to the diff, fitted the new donut (loosely, with the four remaining bolts) and left things looking, well, just like the photo above.

Hero.

I have now ordered a complete set of 6 nuts and bolts from BMW which I can collect on Wednesday. Then, I shall attempt to rebuild things in the dark. What luck!

So, this arguably important moment in the internet’s history has been and gone. England’s football team, as ever, did the minimum required when it didn’t matter. And lost.

That aside, what was the viewing experience like?

Well, having selected the ‘HD’ stream, I can report that I experienced a reasonably smooth picture, with no buffering issues at all. I wonder how this was for everyone else? I ran some broadband speed checks during the match and found that my normally stable 19mb connection was running at around 6mb. When the match had ended, with the stream still running I had 16mb, and when I disconnected the stream I had 19mb again.

So this suggests that the stream ‘costs’ about 3mb, which is fine, but more importantly it proves that Virgin certainly does suffer from contention issues. Their fibre might be okay, but the switchgear (or something!) clearly isn’t. I’ll come back to this – let me tell you about the picture quality.

Before kick off, we watched the studio in fullscreen:

No one wants to see Sven in particularly high detail, so this was fine. The picture was however obviously low quality as it had been stretched. Switching to normal view yielded a much better picture, but of course it wasn’t really big enough.

When the match began, it soon became clear that at full screen size, it was completely unwatchable. There’s a 34M clip of fullscreen action here: http://v.mukerji.co.uk/2009/10-10-football/fullscreen.avi

On small screen it all came together a lot more nicely: (19MB) http://v.mukerji.co.uk/2009/10-10-football/fullscreen.avi

The trouble is that football needs to be on a big screen! People watch football together – it just wasn’t possible to get any real atmosphere squinting at a tiny portion of the screen.

In fact, the quality was so poor that it often wasn’t possible to tell who was on the ball. The commentators didn’t help here either. Normally as a team pass the ball around you might hear “Cole, to Gerrard, to Lampard” etc, but there was none of that. Why? Because the commentators weren’t there either. Presumably they had the same miserable picture we did.

I had other issues with this experience. Why was the clock/score bar not tucked further into the top left corner? So often it was squarely in the way. This photo neatly sums up both that problem, and England’s general failure:

A minor point, but throughout the match the service informed us that “Team line-ups will be updated on match day” (see the white pane on the right of the screen).

Definitely irritating was that having paid (per view) for a (very low quality) viewing experience, we were subjected to adverts. It seems Perform really can have their cake and eat it.

Overall then, this experience simply wasn’t good enough. Sure, I still believe it’s the future, but things must improve, and fast. The quality of the feed needs to go up considerably. Before that can happen though, UK broadband providers need to fix the contention issues. There were plenty of complaints on Twitter from people who couldn’t watch it properly. My favourite was from @Prezzer:

GOA….. Buffering… 78%… 85%… 97%… LL!!

Perform – You Must Try Harder. If this had been free, I may have passed it for acceptable.

Virgin Media – once higher definition streams are available, I think you might have to try quite a bit harder too.

England’s soccer fan-base is still rocking from the news that the next competitive match, this Saturday, will not be available to view on the television. Due to the collapse of Setanta, the rights for the match against the Ukraine have been snapped up by a firm called Perform, who will be streaming their live coverage to a million viewers on the internet.

The question is, has this really been thought through? I’m a big fan of internet technologies, and I’m absolutely subscribed to the idea that computers will provide to gateway to future TV style entertainment. BBC’s iPlayer concept is fantastic. I’m aware that Channel 4 got there first, but the BBC now have a significantly more advanced product, and their commitment to formats such as the PS3 has got me hooked. I watch much of my TV just like this – PS3 connected to TV:

Catching up on Question Time is however a completely different kettle of fish to watching an England match live. I have visited www.ukrainevengland.com and checked the ‘HD’ stream. I have a number of issues with the concept:

1) Sport is especially good in HD, and is certainly best on a big screen. This ‘HD’ test stream was about 50% of the size of my 720p display. That’s not HD. 1080p is HD. This is significantly worse than standard telly.

2) Internet video streaming is still a bit ropey. The PS3 is hard wired to my good 20mb network, but I don’t trust it with something like a live competitive sport. If newsnight fails to stream, it’s no biggie. If I’ve got a load of mates around to watch the footie and the feed fails, it matters.

3) I’m a long way from being convinced by England’s broadband capacity. I figure that on Virgin Media’s fibre I stand a pretty good chance compared to those on traditional copper fed DSL, but in both cases, how can we be sure that when it comes to the crunch, the transfer capacity will be there? Gloomy autumnal Saturday afternoons are peak internet traffic zones – add the significant weight of 1,000,000 users, many of whom wouldn’t normally load the internet much at all, loading up on video streams, and I think we’ll hit our biggest contention problem to date.

4) This video stream isn’t technically permitted in pubs. Pubs aren’t well known for internet savvy landlords and big internet connections, so even if it were permitted it would present issues. I know that some pubs will acquire potentially dubious foreign satellite feeds, and while this may not be entirely legal, it makes a lot of sense. For all the reasons listed above, a landlord needs to do whatever it takes to keep punters happy.

5) There will certainly be a lack of community spirit about these matches. The very fact that pubs shouldn’t be showing it means that social football viewing will be decimated, but equally, not many homes have the capability to show internet video on a big screen. Are fans supposed to crowd around tiny computer screens to catch the atmosphere? And worse still, if you’ve got a big computer monitor like my 24″ Dell, at 1920×1200 the apparently ‘HD’ stream looks nothing short of revolting.

All this said, I’ll go into this with an open mind. I’m going to get some friends round, and hope that all the technology works. I’ll need to log in to the site on my PS3 with the details I purchased earlier in the week. The provider’s server will need to be able to support 1,000,000 streams. My internet connection will need to hold up for 2 45 minute periods. The quality of the stream will need to be good enough to reveal the sport correctly when upscaled to a 40″ 720p screen.

This isn’t a big ask. I can watch some premier league matches on ESPN HD on real 1080p HD at no extra cost, where the image is pin sharp. I predict a bit of a fail here, but I’ll let you know. I am certain about one thing though: I’m glad this match isn’t crucial, and that this effective trial will be out of the way before the World Cup Finals. I believe this is the future, but we’re simply not technically or socially ready for it yet.

Diane and I have wanted a dog for a long time, and now that we’ve got a larger abode, it seemed like as good a time as any. After plenty of research, and a few visits to a breeder, today is the today we’ve brought home a male golden retriever puppy: Snoop. Here he is in the back of the 330d as we arrived home.

Surveying the back garden:

Visiting me:

Ready to pounce:

Of course, this huge 15 minutes of effort meant that Snoop passed out pretty quickly!

Really pleased to have such a happy chappy in the house – we’re looking forward to good times ahead!

We had our downstairs ceilings replaced this week. We were supposed to be decorating Di’s office over this bank holiday weekend, but due to a unique blend of laziness, drying plaster, and the need for a  little more work from the plasterer (happening this coming week) we didn’t start that. I can say that I’m really pleased with the new, smooth ceilings. They definitely help me envisage how the house will look when everything is finished, and will certainly play a big part in making our living space more modern.

Here’s the kitchen/diner:

Urgh, those doors! The living room (urgh, that carpet!)

And Di’s office:

A bit dull – hopefully I’ll be able to offer some photos of that office with some colour involved sometime soon! On other matters, you may recall that I cleared out the garage back in June. From that article, note the poor lighting – one strip lamp and a single bulb  at the other end.

This weekend I improved the lighting at the ‘car’ end (and, perhaps more importantly, sorted everything out so that there is now room for either car in there!

Looks pretty minging, but it’s now nice and bright. I’ll upgrade the other end from 1 to 3 strip lamps when I’ve got more cable, a distro box, two more lamp units, and more time. For now, the other end looks like this:

Busy, but navigable. Another improvement I’m really happy with is that I’ve mounted my old Pioneer speakers in the corners.

And rigged together a little hi-fi.

Tunes and bright lighting means a happy and productive Neil in the garage.

Oh and finally (for what I realize is quite a dull post, sorry about that), I’ve replaced the rusty 1978 light switches.

Both Diane and I have kerbed our cars. Needless to say, Diane managed this in a rather mundane way, where I suffered a racing incident at full left lock. In both cases, remedial action was necessary. Tractor’s front left:

And the SS’s rear left – properly kerbed!

I started with the tractor wheel – gave it a good wash and a sanding.

At this point I realised that I needed to go the whole hog and remove the wheel to paint it.

Prepared and ready to go:

Two coats of Titan Silver and a coat of lacquer later, and things were looking much better. Big thanks to Tom Titler for supplying these paints (back in 2006!). While I’m mentioning people, I should also express my apologies to Julian Lockyear, who sold me these wheels in immaculate condition and good faith (that this would never happen to them).

While this was drying, it was time to turn my attention to the M5’s wheel.

I think these wheels are actually made black, and a silver finish is applied to the front. In the above picture, at about 11 o’clock the blackness appeared after I used a bit too much Autosol metal polish. The spray cans soon sorted that!

Both wheels drying on the garage floor:

Ready to put the tractor back together:

And there we go:

Finally, a close up of the M5’s wheel:

Not perfect by any means, but a substantial improvement. Clearly a better option would be to have them professionally refurbished, but that would be more expensive and then I’d be really afraid of further damage. I think the best solution would be not to kerb the wheels in the first place, but sadly this requires more co-ordination than in readily available in our household.

I’ve been asked to document a curry recipe. The thing is, my curries are a bit like snowflakes: each is unique. So I’ve decided to document my curry of the ‘moment’ – I may well revise this to be month/week/day as appropriate later. This then is a recipe for a chicken and vegetable madras or jalfrezi, depending on your view. If it were up to me I’d cook it with prawns, but Diane doesn’t like them so I’ve made it with chicken. Again, normally if forced away from prawns I’d have chicken on the bone, but chose to chop chicken breast to make this recipe more obviously interchangeable with prawns.

So here’s a recipe for a curry for two – fairly hot. It is designed to be relatively healthy – I’m not aiming for the greasy thick curry house sauce tonight.

To start, chop some garlic. I chose three cloves; if you’re a pasty-often-unwell sort I’d advise eating more. If you’ve got a date, probably use less.

Then, peel and chop an onion.

Gently fry this lot up in vegetable/sunflower oil on a low temperature – cooking without colour at this stage.

Get two large spoonfuls of Patak’s madras paste in the mix. Make absolutely sure you buy paste not pre-mixed sauce – the paste is excellent; the sauce atrocious.

Chop 4 small cup mushrooms.

Add mushrooms and chopped cauliflower to the mix.

Now turn the heat right up to fry that veg. In the meantime, chop the chicken (or open the prawns!). Then once the pan is nice and hot, add the meat.

While you’re getting the meat cooked, get a nice big pan of water heating for the rice. Important to have plenty of water to prevent the rice sticking together. Sprinkle some salt in the curry dish, dump an extremely unhealthy portion of salt into the rice water. Also, add a splash of vegetable oil to the rice water. Only use Basmati rice; it’s expensive and absolutely worth it. No other rice will do! Half a pint of rice is about right for two people:

Once the water is boiling, add the rice. Once the meat is cooked, add the can of chopped tomatoes. Don’t let the chicken cook too much if it’s not on the bone – it’ll go all dry and chammy. Stir all this in.

Next, if like me you like it hot, add some chilis. I’ve chosen to top and tail them, and then slice them along their length. This gets all the seeds into the mix, but allows girls to easily remove the greenery.

Next, open the coconut milk and empty almost half the can into the now empty chopped tomato can. Swill that around to mix it all up. Then, slowly (important to prevent separation), add this to the sauce. If you like it hot, add less; if not, add more.

Keep an eye on the rice during all this. If a scum builds up as in the picture below, scoop it off with a spoon. Rice should be gently twirling in the water – not boiling too furiously (too hot), nor stuck at the bottom (too cold).  Rice needs constant attention to get it right.

Repeatedly check the rice – as soon as the grains aren’t hard in the middle, it is ready. Sieve the rice, then roughly chop coriander.

Sprinkle this on the curry.

Then serve and enjoy with a nice bottle of red. Chin chin!

Finally, avoid burning yourself on a pan while adjusting the gas – the injury rather slows down the eating, and then the “writing up”.

So, the day we moved in, Di’s new office looked like this:

Very green and gold! We’ve finally moved all her clutter in, and more importantly, backed the walls off to bare plaster, and changed the light fittings.

On Friday night, the other end of that room looked like this:

It’s been a busy weekend!

We’re waiting on a quote to get the ceilings skimmed, and we’ll get my 30th birthday ‘do’ out of the way before we consider starting the painting process.

Also, Diane has finished varnishing the spice rack Robin has made us, so we’re chuffed to see that in place:

It’s been a while, and I’m sorry car fans but next to naff all has occurred with the vehicles. They’ve both been regularly driven, in the usual style, but nothing to report. Well, I had a good trip in the M5 last Saturday: to Brighton to drop off Di, then to Heathrow to collect Robin – all very civilised.

At home we’ve had a bit of progress. We’ve now got 3 of 5 bedrooms usable which is nice. We’re cracking on nicely with Diane’s office. Preparing the walls for decoration takes ages but we’re getting there. This is the final end that needs doing:

Note the lovely green walls and splendid gold light fittings. The other end of the room, bare, looks rather better!

Decorating is of course rather an undignified process!

Outside matters are a bit more pleasant. We had a breakfast of fresh English garden apples (from our tree), and fresh Californian oranges (from Robin’s garden). How often do you manage that! Completely organic, not a pesticide in sight. Here’s Diane munching some cereal under our apple tree:

Note the minging old BBQ in the background. That’s not a BBQ – THIS is a BBQ!

I’ll be off out to get some gas for that later. On other matters, Robin has constructed this rather fine spice rack for our kitchen. The final job is to varnish it, but exquisite work from the Willis as usual, finely crafting this Californian Red Oak for our English kitchen.

Finally, I got Diane a new lens for her camera for her birthday that makes her look like rather a pro!

In case there’s another summer’s evening this year, I would like to be able to use the garden after dark. The existing lighting arrangements weren’t acceptable.

£70 for 5 lanterns, bulbs and cabling at Wickes, and we were off.

Don’t worry. It’ll be FINE!

Really chuffed with the result – a nicely illuminated garden. Now, where’s that summer’s evening…

Now, what else can I do to avoid unpacking?