Yes, it's a very sad-looking Clematis “Edo Murasaki”. But today is literally the middle of winter. It shouldn't
be flowering at all. Does this bode well for the next season?
It's not difficult to see why: the camera had focused on the trellis. I saw it at the time
and thought I had worked past it, but clearly I was mistaken. This was taken with the “T”
layout of focus points that Aaron Harivel had recommended for bird photography. Clearly
it's not good for this kind of photo. Back to single point focus it is:
I'm still working on the new dishwasher, and I've managed to find a programme (“turbo”) that
finishes in acceptable time. Instead of 2:45 hours it finishes in 59 minutes. Or 1:40 if
set to “extra dry”. Today I did it without, and Yvonne, who
take the dishes out, didn't notice any big difference.
But I'm still not much closer to loading the shelves, particularly the top one. Here a
“before” and “after” trying to put one more item into the shelf:
The item was the empty jar in the middle of the shelf, and it required a significant
reorganization of other items in the shelf. Even there the shelf is anything but fully
loaded, but I can't get anything else in: all the distances are too small to add anything
else. The instruction manual is no help: it shows things that I don't use, like stemless
glasses. I must compare with the old Whirlpool machine, which I'm getting to miss more and
more.
Now isn't that clever, hiding the instructions in a fold on the package? Presumably the
image designer never saw the packaging. But basically it translates to “add hot water to
the ingredients and wait 3 minutes”. That most certainly won't give the results in the
image, where at least raw beef and spring onions are included. But I know that from my
phở bò recipe.
What are they? The illustrations could be helpful, but they're difficult to recognize at
normal size. The green one proved to be dried vegetables, the colourless was the broth.
And the other two? The yellow one contained a clear astringent liquid, and the red one a
couple of drops of chili oil. OK, mix them all in, add some beef, spring onions red onion:
And it didn't taste bad. But quite different from my standard recipe, probably to the
detriment of my standard recipe. As I wrote in that recipe,
This paste comes from Por Kwan, a Thai company. I have tried things like their Laksa and
found it wanting. My guess is that the phở paste is also not very authentic.
What have I learnt from the effort? Certainly that I should look further. I made it
exactly as the instructions specified, including 400 ml of water instead of my usual 300 ml.
But it didn't seem too much. Later it occurred to me that most of the additional 100 ml
would have been absorbed by the noodles, which I forgot to weigh.
Clearly I shouldn't have continued. I wonder where it gets that from. Under the
circumstances, and looking at the image, it's clear that the prostitution is really a
particularly boring tasting garlic juice. Google Translate is getting better, but it's
clearly not there yet. Is it any better with a Real Computer? No. The browser
implementation tells me that the colourless sachet contains “JUICE bone GROUND MEAT”, and
the yellow one is “DAMN LOUD”. It's been a long time since I've seen such bad translations,
and it doesn't seem to be related to the clarity of the text.
It's not completely full: there's still space at the front right. But I couldn't get the
contents all into the top shelf of the new dishwasher. Here an attempt:
The bowl is on top of the serving dish to show what won't fit.
What's the problem? The distances are all too small. I can't get anything to the left of
the saucers, and I can't just put the glasses against the side of the basket:
The result is a lot of unused/unusable space. Clearly my crockery doesn't match what the
designer intended, but wouldn't it be possible to offer alternative baskets? For what it's
worth, the Bosch machine has the same problems.
Today I ran it on the “Turbo” programme again, this time with “Extra Dry”, increasing the
time from 49 minutes to 1:40. We couldn't see any difference in the dryness. Presumably
our bowls and cups with the dip in the bottom are also to “blame”. But somehow, unless a
machine can guarantee complete dryness when it's finished, it's not worth the trouble.
Leave the dishes hot and let the human dry out the water. The heat will evaporate the rest.
I have a fair amount of money invested at Macquarie Bank. Today I received a
message from my accountants:
We’re reaching out to let you know about some changes Macquarie is making to how we manage
bulk payments through your Macquarie Cash Management Account (CMA). These updates are
designed to enhance security, reduce fraud risk, and modernise digital processes.
As part of these updates, Macquarie is removing the general withdrawal authority effective
1st August 2025. This means we will no longer be able to transact on your CMA account
without your direct approval via the Macquarie Authenticator app.
Do I understand this correctly? In the name of “security” the bank is requiring me to
install an authentication app on my phone? How would that improve security? In that
connection it's interesting to look further down yesterday's article on mobile phone scams, the section titled “If Ian Williams didn't
do it, who did?”. I've learnt a new term, “Ghost tapping”, which seems just to
be becoming known: theft (and abuse) of mobile phone credentials. It appears to be another
case of the “all eggs in one basket” syndrome that people so encourage.
But what does this have to do with bank transfers? How about nominating specific bank
accounts as recipients of any transfer? I have little hope that Macquarie will think of
something so obvious, so it looks like I'll have to find a new bank.
This page contains (roughly) yesterday's and today's entries. I have
a horror of reverse chronological documents, so
all my diary entries are chronological. This page normally contains the last two days,
but if I fall behind it may contain more. You can find older entries in
the archive. Note that I often update a diary entry
a day or two after I write it.
Do you have a comment about something I have written? This is a diary, not a
“blog”, and there is
deliberately no provision for directly adding comments. It's also not a vehicle
for third-party content. But I welcome feedback and try to
reply to all messages I receive. See the diary overview for more details. If you do
send me a message relating to something I have written, please indicate
whether you'd prefer me not to mention your name. Otherwise
I'll assume that it's OK to do so.
