It's been a quiet week in Lake Wobegonethe Gark household.

Actually, that's a lie. Got back from Luxembourg on Tuesday night, fortunately with my luggage this time (made sure that I was checked in for both legs, and that my luggage was marked as priority). Also, to those folk who suggested that I carry everything as hand luggage, I checked the maximum size for carry-on on the LUX->CDG leg, and it was barely large enough for my not-overly-big laptop bag.

As it turns out, losing my luggage was a blessing in disguise. My case turned up while I was at Monday's meeting, so I had clean clothes for Tuesday. Lux Air gave me a nifty overnight bag with such practised ease that I suspect that lost luggage at CDG is commonplace. The bag had pretty much everything you'd need if you'd lost your luggage: shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, shaving cream, deodorant, eau de toilette, razor, hairbrush, cotton buds, cotton wool pads, sanitary towels, spare socks, a t-shirt, laundry powder and an LED keyring. My soon-to-be-departed colleague gave me a bit of a ribbing, and pointed out that he travels light with only carry-on, containing a fresh shirt and clean underwear, the necessary toiletries, and his laptop. Of course, he wasn't laughing quite as heartily when he managed to throw a glass of red wine down his only trousers the night before the formal review. Fortunately, due to my foresight in losing my luggage, I had a convenient sachet of laundry powder...

Realised too late that the terminal at CDG that I like is 2F, not 2E (which is hateful), and that the SOU->CDG flights now go into 2E. I may need to rethink my preferred flights from Southampton, especially since the catering in 2E is abysmal (€3 for a 250ml bottle of water and €6,70 for a sandwich is extortionate, even by airport prices).

Wednesday night was out for drinkies and a rather good Keralan curry with elseware and ex-workmate Jon., who now lives in Bristol. Thursday night saw a flying visit from Neil (who we're seeing quite regularly now that he works in ECS, even if he still lives in Edinburgh), who left us a rather nice-looking bottle of a 14yo single malt from Scapa - I never knew that Scapa had a distillery.

Friday was rather more sombre; Adam Rutherford, one of our first year computer science undergraduates, died suddenly this week, and I attended the funeral with my course leader hat on. Good turn-out from the students which rather overwhelmed his family, who I think were worried that he didn't have any friends at uni (he did - lots of them). Very touching eulogy from his elder sister Claire, also a student at Southampton, and a message from the SOWN folk.

Today was supposed to be productive, but the garklet is down with a stomach bug. Still cheery, except for the bit when he toddled into the kitchen and threw up over my shoes. Hopefully he'll be able to keep some food down today, but it looks likely that we'll have to juggle childcare on Monday rather than send him into the nursery.

Lunch in Southampton. Dinner in Luxembourg. Luggage in Paris.

I had an inkling that things were going slightly pear-shaped when the bloke on the check-in desk at Southampton didn't seem concerned that I only had an hour between one flight landing and the next taking off, and that I had to get from 2E to 2D at Charles de Gaulle *and* check in for the second leg (they couldn't issue boarding passes for the whole route, despite both legs having Air France codes).

I made it to check-in at 2D just as it was closing; my flight landed at 1930, and it took me until 2000 to get to 2D. Of course, it doesn't help that the flight from Southampton spends fifteen minutes taxiing to a remote stand on some far-flung corner of the airport. Checked-in and got through security by 2010, so made it to the gate just as that was closing.

Noticed that my colleague (flying from Manchester to CDG, where we were to meet) was nowhere to be seen. Dropped him a text, and found that he'd been waiting to disembark his flight for the last half hour. Not a chance of him making the flight.

Got to Luxembourg, unlike my luggage, which is still at CDG. I'm wearing a pair of black jeans and a black t-shirt with Richard Stallman on it (in a Che Guevara stylee). My suitcase had in it the elegant linen/silk summer-weight suit that I bought only this afternoon. The daytime temperature tomorrow is predicted to top 27C here.

Oh, did I mention that I've a project review meeting tomorrow morning at 9am?

Oh dear. I suppose that'll be the end of ISIHAC, since I can't see it under someone else's chairmanship. I'm glad that I managed to get o a recording of ISIHAC, though I will still regret passing up the chance to see him and Acker Bilk in concert the year before last.

Some interesting reading this - a computing history PhD thesis from 2005 which does a good job of explaining exactly why X.25 was the protocol used for JANET before TCP/IP, and also talks about Prestel and the various videotex systems that predated the Internet in the UK. My only criticism is that it never really explains the difference between PDH and SDH, but that's just my time at Nokia showing.

State the next item in the list: apple, pear, plum, strawberry, orange

Finish the list

Bonus marks if you can name the source of the list in a comment (can't be bothered to screen, so I'll rely on you all not cheating by sneaking a peek)

So, decided to bunk off the second day of the conference and head up to the in-laws in Portstewart; ias and the garklet were already there, having left for Ulster the day before me. The train ride from Belfast to Coleraine was less picturesque than I'd hoped, the view consisting mostly of boggy ground and assorted sedges. Spent the journey hacking TiddlyWiki instead.

Generally a very relaxing time in Portstewart. sideshow_al made a truly heroic roadtrip up from Dublin to see us, which was dead good. We celebrated by taking him out to Morelli's on the prom (this Morelli's, rather than that one) to watch us feed the garklet his first ice cream. At this point you should go and watch The Simpsons episode 4F13 (title: My Sister, My Sitter) for an idea of the effect that much sugar has on a toddler. Anyway, he seemed to enjoy it, although when the sugar rush really took hold he seemed to lose interest in the ice cream in favour of giggling maniacally and flopping on each parent in turn.

I'm still not sure whether I prefer Morelli's to Rossi's; Morelli's are the older (est. 1911 to Rossi's 1932), and while the prom at Portstewart has the better view, Southend (home of Rossi's) has the better pier (it actually goes as far as the sea, for a start). Rossi's have the better plain vanilla ice cream (effectively a semi-freddo), they do a fantastic morello cherry sundae, and they make the lemon sorbet that's the Proustian madeleine for my childhood summers in Essex. If for no other reason than marital peace, however, I'll declare it a draw.

Other highlights included Alex's first trip on a steam train, on the narrow-gauge Giant's Causeway and Bushmills Railway; he enjoyed the trip, but was a little put out by the locomotive up close, especially the amount of smoke it was producing (I'd guess that they were burning lignite). We've had a couple of walks down to the prom, and one very windy walk on the cliffs overlooking the harbour (windy enough for his pushchair to be blown along), so I seem to have got the best of the weather that week.

Photos when I manage to upload them...

Conference registration: £400

Airline flight: £160

Hotel bill: £340

Discovering that less than ten people have bothered to stay around for your presentation: priceless

No, I'm not impressed. Can you tell?

Also, note the following exchange:

Me

This is our work on a formal model for XXX. I'm not a formal methods person, so I may not be able to answer your questions on those aspects; I'll concentrate on the broader context of our work and refer you to the paper.

Audience member

But what about (highly technical question relating to formal methods)?

Me

*boggles*

On the plus side, the burgers in the Hotel Malmaison are probably the best burgers I've have from hotel room service, or perhaps anywhere.

This has been a pretty good weekend, all things considered. After losing last weekend (and my chance of getting to Eastercon) to an utterly futile assignment for the HE teaching pgcert (I have not the words to explain my complete disdain for the common-sense-dressed-up-with-needless-jargon school of pedagogical theory that seems to be the fashion), I've managed to be quite productive.

Saturday was a massed invasion by marklesuk et famille, plus andre_powell, ruthj and hywel_w. Managed to nip out to B&Q beforehand for timber, about which more below. The garklet had a whale of a time romping with Lottie and Thea, and it was great to catch up with Ruth and Hywel, who we hadn't seen in a while.

To bed, and with one lousy night's sleep (thanks mostly to the garklet, it was time to get on with the DIY.

ias is currently partway through a major programme of work on the garden. Since we demolished the second old shed last summer, she's uprooted the sapling by the herb bed. The end goal is to dig over the space where the shed used to be, cut the herb bed down by half, and use the resulting mega-bed (18' by 6') for vegetables. We've a surfeit of soil, so these will be raised beds (twenty-one 2' by 2' square beds). To do this, we need to move the current compost bin. This has served us marginally well so far; being one of the plastic cones it's actually pretty awkward to turn the compost, so it's not cooking as it should, and we've a bit of an issue with it being too wet. We've a small annex at the end of the megabed, roughly 4' by 3', which used to be the bean patch, and which before that was home to the Palm of Doom. ias had been looking at wooden twin compost bins (for ease of turning), but most of the ones she'd found struck me as a) expensive and b) flimsy. I reckoned that I could custom-build something better, so after a bit of Googling for ideas and some head scratching, I came up with something that I reckoned would suffice.

The cost has been a bit more than I'd originally estimated, coming in at around £120 (still cheaper than the ones ias had been looking at), but this has been mainly due to creeping featurism. We've now got a twin-bin built from 1"x6" timber on 2"x3" posts, with a removable slatted front and a two-part hinged lid. The lid isn't quite finished yet - I need to felt the ply and fix the hinges - but the rest is complete. The big problem is that I built it on the patio (because it's flat), and it's now too heavy to move. I certainly can't move it by myself, and I doubt that ias and I can manage it between us.

It probably would have been cheaper to scrounge pallets, but I would have spent a lot longer faffing around with those than this has taken (besides, where does one scrounge pallets?). What has helped greatly is sideshow_al's mitre saw, which has more than halved the build time. I owe him much beer.

Didn't have time to take photos at the time, so will try and do that tomorrow. If there's any interest, I'll draw up the plans and post them.

Next up, raised beds.

Sad news - the last of the Big Three. I'm going to go and re-read Islands in the Sky.

BBC Obituary

So, fastfwd had this idea:

Today, it was announced that Terry Pratchett has donated half a million pounds to Alzheimer's research. Hearing that, it occurred to me that if half a million of us all donated a pound to Alzheimer's research, we could match his donation and make it an even million.

So whaddaya say, guys? It's a pound. That's about 2 bucks US dollars, give or take a couple of (US) pennies. You can spare that much. Go here and make your donation. Tell them it's in honour of Terry Pratchett.

Let's do it!

I've donated £10 to the Alzheimer's Research Trust, and I'd encourage you to do likewise (if you're a UK taxpayer, remember to tick the Gift Aid box)

I grew up in Upminster, the eastern terminus of the District Line. Depending on my mood, I'll describe myself either as having grown up in London (post-boundary changes, Upminster was in the London Borough of Havering), or in south Essex. For years, I maintained that Upminster was naturally part of London, because it was on the London Underground; lying as we did on the inner edge of the green belt, we naturally looked west into London than east into Essex.

I spent much of the summers of my teenage years pottering around London on the Tube. For the princely sum of about £3.50, I could get a Travelcard that would take me the length and breadth of the network. I took part in the Monopoly Run on two occasions, at least two other Tube-based scavenger hunts, and gave serious consideration to attempting the Tube Challenge (all stations in a single day). I pride myself on knowing some bits of Tube trivia; the mosaic at Tottenham Court Road is by Eduardo Paolozzi, while the patterns at Embankment are by Robyn Denny.

Today, the 3rd March 2008, is the 65th anniversary of the Bethnal Green Station Disaster. There's a full description here, on Wikipedia, on the websites of the BBC and the Guardian. This remains the largest single loss of life on the London Underground; the official report gave a figure of 173 deaths: 27 men, 84 men and 62 children were crushed on the stairs when the crowd descending into the station during an air raid surged forward.

A loss of life on this scale dwarfs all other incidents on the Tube. The Moorgate crash, the largest peacetime disaster, claimed 43 lives. 31 people died in the Kings Cross fire. The total number of peacetime deaths in major incidents on the London Underground, including the 39 that died in the bombings of 7th July 2005, comes to 136. The three WWII bombs that hit Tube stations (at Balham, Marble Arch and Bank) killed a total of 141 people. The closest incident in the UK of a similar nature, the Hillborough crush of 1989, resulted in the deaths of 96 people.

Why am I posting this? Until yesterday, I had never heard of the Bethnal Green Station Disaster, this despite my love of the London Underground. I don't recall Bethnal Green being referenced in the media coverage of the Kings Cross fire (I'm rather too young to remember Moorgate, having been barely two at the time), or of Hillsborough. It wasn't until 1993 that a permanent memorial was installed at the station (the small plaque above the stairs visible here), which was two years after I left home. It's just possible that it wasn't widely known, but I'm quite astonished (and slightly appalled with myself) that I had never heard of it.

There's a charity that's trying to erect a memorial above ground, a task that now has the backing of the PM. I sincerely hope that they manage to persuade LU/TfL and raise the money that they need.

Rather later than hoped (v. busy at work), here are the answers to my book quiz:

The Quotes

Quote 1

Rambling sentences and sheep? It could only be Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) by Thomas Hardy, specifically the passage in which Gabriel Oak loses his shepherding livelihood thanks to an overenthusiastic sheepdog and a cliff.

Quote 2

The alien zoo is on the planet Tralfamadore, which makes this Slaughterhouse 5 (1969) by Kurt Vonnegut. So it goes.

Quote 3

Now, I am not wishing to be casting aspersions, but there is only one fellow who is writing about gangsters and other such persons in the continuous present tense, and that fellow is Damon Runyon. The quote is from Guys and Dolls (1932), a book that demands to be read aloud.

Quote 4

A trick question. It's a quote from a political theory text that's a book within a book. Emmanuel Goldstein's The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism, which is from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four (1948). Doubleplusgood.

Quote 5

It's been a quiet week in Lake Woebegon, as usual. Garrison Keillor doing his homely thing in Lake Woebegon Days (1985). If you're not aware, the Lake Woebegon News is available as a podcast - try looking on iTunes.

Quote 6

Another trick question. The conceited ass is clearly Sherlock Holmes, but the narrator isn't Dr Watson. In this case, it's Brigadier-General Sir Harry Paget Flashman, the bully and notable cad from Tom Brown's Schooldays. The quote is taken from George Macdonald Fraser's Flashman and the Tiger (1999), which also manages to work the Battles at Rorke's Drift and Isandlwana into the story. Highly recommended.

Quote 7

A bit of an easy one. It's a gumshoe evaluating a dame, and with that turn of phrase it could only be Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (1939), eyeing up the delicious Mrs Regan.

Quote 8

Obligatory cultural stereotyping in the sequel to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, the wonderful and little-read Three Men on the Bummel (1900). The unrepentant ignorer of signage is Harris, of course.

Quote 9

The book that launched a thousand stream-of-consciousness travelogues, and which was probably also responsible for the goddamned hippies. Jack Kerouac's semi-autobiographical road novel On the Road (1957). The sharp-eyed amongst you will have noticed that the name of the book appears in the quotation.

Quote 10

Modern Westernised Japanese with obsessive descriptions of food, so it has to be Haruki Murakami's Wind-up Bird Chronicles (1997).

The Scores

And so to the scores. In reverse order:

• nul points, coffeeandtv0 (it's the taking part that counts)
• 3 points, mcnutcase (who fell straight into the Sherlock Holmes trap)
• 5 points, burkesworks (spot on the Vonnegut)
• 8 points, lionsphil (partial credit for some good reasoning)
• 10 points, swisstone (short and sweet)
• 17 points, gothick_matt (good across the board knowledge, and some good guesswork)
• 24 points, steer (glad you enjoyed the quiz)
• and finally, with an uncanny 38 points, blue_condition

Named Awards

The Golden Banana Skin (for falling for the trick question in 6) goes to mcnutcase.

The Broken Chronoclastic Infundibulator (for the highest aggregate wrong guesses at dates) goes to gothick_matt, with an honourable mention to steer for missing the Jerome by sixty years.

The QI Medal of Honour (for the most interesting fact) goes to lionsphil for his trivia about the throat-shot Orwell.

The Amulet of ESP (for guessing a book you haven't read) goes to blue_condition for identifying the Hardy, including the character.

The original posting is now unscreened - thanks for playing.

I may do the film quotes quiz meme that's doing the rounds, but I was rather taken with the book quote quiz that steer treated us to yesterday. Given that I won through a mixture of geekery and guesswork, it's probably beholden on me to post another.

The Rules

(shamelessly cribbed from steer)

The point isn't to show off by guessing the titles of ones you've read, but by showing powers of reasoning to get setting and time and "interesting thing". Googling is expressly forbidden, obviously.

All comments are screened and I'll give out marks on Monday.

Scoring

One point if you can get within twenty five years of when it was written. (Half point for within fifty years).

One point if you can get the genre/setting (so I'm looking for something like "nineteenth century adventure" "near future sci-fi" "contemporary new york" "cod medieval fantasy").

One point for author and/or title or series of books.

If you don't know the actual book/author I will give you a completely unfair discretionary point if you can guess something quite interesting about the book or author just from the text provided (not something obvious like "they start sentences with conjunctions" or "they're inexplicably fond of the Oxford comma". So you can still get full points if you don't know any of the actual books.

Really though, what I'm interested in is why you think what you think about the passages and how you tie them to a place and time. I think for some of them at least, the title should be guessable though. Comments are screened.

The Quotes

...and the Word was "uh-oh".

So much for "mama" or "dada".

Since moving to a Mac a bit over a year ago, I've had only a few reasons to look back (the business with the HP LJ1022 printer being one of them). I'm now rather close to the end of my tether, and the reason is fonts.

As an academic and a computer scientist, I end up writing quite a lot of papers and presentations with maths in them. Like any sensible person, I use LaTeX for typesetting the maths; it's a lot easier to type $\sum_{i=0}^{i=n-1} i^2$ than to wrestle with the equation editor in Word. I've also been using LaTeX for rendering mathematical expressions in lecture slides; there are two tools - LaTeXit and LaTeX Equation Editor - which make putting maths in Powerpoint or KeyNote a drag-and-drop operation.

However, I've spent quite a lot of time over the last week trying to debug a problem with the font rendering of TeX-generated PDF files on OS X. If I wrote a LaTeX file containing the following:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\section{This is a test}
\[e = mc^2 \rightarrow \chi \pi \ldots r^2 \]
\end{document}

then I'd expect it to render something like this:

Preview renders it like that, but not reliably - perhaps one time in eight. The rest of the time, it randomly substitutes a sans serif font for the various Computer Modern fonts. Sometimes it looks like this (missing the italic font):

Sometimes it looks like this (missing the bold and italic fonts):

And sometimes it looks like this (missing the bold and symbol fonts):

It isn't predictable which rendering I get. The problem also isn't limited to CM, but appears whenever you have a subset of a Type1 font embedded in PDF (on my machine, at least); TeX isn't the problem. The problem didn't exist on 10.4. The best guess from the Mac communities is that it's a cache corruption problem with the OS X PDF-rendering component on 10.5 (which would explain why I see the same problem in LaTeXit, LEE and Papers, but not in Acrobat).

I really don't see how Apple could have let a release out of the door with a bug like this - this is surely a critical bug for anyone in publishing.

Edited to add links:

• Apple forums [1] [2] [3]
• Macscoop on 10.5.2 update
• Another report of the problem
• Clearing the font cache

May the birthday bunny bring you monsters destroying New York, and many other things besides.

Also, what is track 7? I've managed to work out/recognise all the rest...

So, we're sitting here watching Losers in SadsvilleWonderland: Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love, and to distract us from the OMGWTFBBQCARCRASH!!?! nature of it all, we've started getting distracted by the incidental music.

nmg: Oooh, I know that tune!

ias: Yes, it's from a film. I know it, but I can't remember what it's called.

nmg: *hums* "We have all the time in the world"?

ias: It's the version used in a Bond film, not sure which one.

nmg: And I recognise this too - it's John Barry, and I think it's from another Bond

ias: Yes?

nmg: It's from You Only Live Twice, Mr Bond

ias: Well, this is about Second Life...

nmg: *groans*

I'm currently lying roughly here. The views from my hotel room this morning were this:

( Monastery hidden in the morning mist )

...and this:

( Mist rising over the castle )

The views this evening were this:

( Sunset over the lake )

...and this:

( More sunset over the lake )

ias, the garklet and I are in Bled; I'm here for an EU project workshop next week, so we've decided to take a short break. We'd never been to Slovenia before (indeed, this is only our second trip to the Balkans, the previous being Sofia the year before last), and we're rather liking what we've seen so far. More detailed writeup to come at a later date.

A word of explanation for the title: the garklet continues to be fascinated by television remote controls, but he's managed to outdo himself this trip by managing to select the hard-core porn channel (in a moment of weakness, we'd let him play with the Device of Power). I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled...

...that I've sat and watched the turgid excrescence that is A.I.. Again.

I want the last hour of my life back. Again.

So, the garklet got a whole bunch of brightly-coloured plastic toys for his birthday and for Christmas, and most of them a) make electronic noises when you press buttons and b) have no off switch. Given that he's attracted to buttons like a wasp to jam (a case in point: I've taped cardboard over the power switch for the television, because he was trying to power cycle it a couple of times a second), we're pretty inured to said noises by now. I've 'fixed' the really objectionable ones with the help of Mr. Screwdriver; he'll get the batteries back in a few years time.

One of the toys is a cement truck (from ELC, I believe) which makes noises when you press the head of the not-Bob-the-Builder-honest figure. It says the following, in order:

• "Where do you want it?"
• "Let's get mixing!"
• "It won't take long to set."
• "Four parts sand, one part cement."

However, I've realised that I've been mentally translating the last phrase as "four parts gin, one part vermouth". My brain is clearly trying to tell me something...

Just a quick reminder that we're having an open house tomorrow from noon until late (our address is here, and the earlier announcement was here).

RSVP if you're coming, so that we can gauge how much food we need to buy.

Now that the garklet's first birthday is out of the way (see ias's journal for an account), we've started putting up the decorations. Himself seems to be rather taken by the tree and its adornments (in his words: dah!), and I've managed to stop himself from electrocuting himself by sucking the fairy lights.

We've decided that our living tree of the past two years is really looking too sorry; it was charmingly crooked when we bought it, now it's charmingly crooked, marginally taller, and rather the worst for wear. Think of it as the Steve Buscemi of the tree world. In a few years it'll have developed enough character to make a statement, at which point we might let it back into the house. For now, we have a young, fresh tree, a bit on the short side, but nonetheless attractive. Think of it as the Thora Birch of the tree world.

Regarding decorations, I thought I'd add a few new ones to those that we've built up over recent years. We didn't have something for the apex of the tree, so I've added a jaunty cameo of a middle-aged Isaac Newton, which I've complemented with these hanging decorations:

For those that are looking for an excuse to escape from their families between Christmas and the New Year, we're offering a retreat from family politics. We're having an open house on Saturday 29th December 2006, from noon until late (our address is in this friends-locked post). Any or all of the following may be involved:

• Eating (including a variety of nibbles, mince pies, and egg-free, garklet-friendly cakes)
• Drinking (including mulled wine, non-alcoholic punch)
• Making merry (obligatory)
• Playing silly games
• Talking nonsense
• garklet-wrangling (optional)

The afternoon is likely to be biased towards our brethren of smaller stature (children, goblins, bonobos, etc), with the evening being less so (adults, trolls, the larger primates).

RSVPing, while not strictly necessary, would help us to order the correct order of magnitude of food.

I'm a bit of a cineaste, albeit one that doesn't get to see many films these days. As a child, I grew up with depictions of World War Two on television every public holiday: Easters and Christmases were filled with Where Eagles Dare, The Battle of the Bulge, A Bridge Too Far and the like. While I still have a bit of a soft spot for these, their depictions of WWII are often close to revisionist in the way that they play fast and loose with the facts. I've come to appreciate the very specific genre of British-made films, and the way that they portray the British experience in WWII. Moreover, I have a specific interest in those films that were made during WWII, when an Allied victory was by no means a certainty. These films are propaganda - I can't deny that - but they speak volumes about contemporary British society through the way that they try to engage with and exhort the British viewing public.

There are number of films about the British experience that have failed to make it onto this list for one reason or another. To my undying shame, I've failed to watch all of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, and I haven't seen any of A Canterbury Tale. Rest assured, both are on my to-see list.

Mrs. Miniver was excluded from the list as a US production, while the marvellous A Matter of Life and Death was released in 1946, one year too late (The Way to the Stars fails by an even narrower margin, being released a scant month after VE Day).

5. Night Train to Munich (1940)

( Still )

This is a bit of a cheat; it isn't strictly speaking a film about the war in Europe (or the war at home, for that matter), but a thriller set against the backdrop of the German invasion of Prague. A Czech scientist and his daughter flee the Nazis, with Rex Harrison playing the hero, Paul Henreid playing the villain (though he makes a better hero than villain, as in Casablanca (1942) for example), and Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne reprising their roles as the cricket-mad English duffers Charters and Caldicott (previously seen in Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes).

I have to admit, Charters and Caldicott are my main reasons for choosing this film. They appeared in two other wartime films: Crook's Tour (1941) and Millions Like Us (1943). I've not seen the latter, unfortunately; by all accounts, it sounds a little like The Gentle Sex (1943) without the (unintentionally) patronising voiceover.

4. The First of the Few (1942)

This is a film with local appeal for me. The First of the Few follows the development of the Spitfire by R.J Mitchell; I live on the northern edge of Southampton, a brisk ten minute walk from the airport from which the Spitfire took its maiden flight. Few also has the distinction of being Leslie Howard's last film; he died in 1943 on the way back from Lisbon when his plane was shot down over the Bay of Biscay

For a film about the Spitfire, it has remarkably few flying scenes (unsurprising, given that the Spitfires were in greater demand in the theatre of war than in the studio). If I wanted something more spectacular in that line, I'd choose the 1969 film Battle of Britain, but not for this top five.

3. The Way Ahead (1944)

( Still )

A fairly standard training tale, directed by Carol Reed and script-written by Peter Ustinov. David Niven as the commander of a unit of new recruits, with William Hartnell as the sergeant trying to turn a mismatched group of civvies into soldiers. Excellent realistic cinematography, with pleasingly unstereotyped performances from the ensemble cast.

2. In Which We Serve (1942)

( Still )

Noel Coward's contribution to wartime morale, supposedly based on the exploits of Lord Louis Mountbatten. Notable for the screen debut of a very young Dickie Attenborough, and a nicely measured role by John Mills (I almost put 1943's We Dive at Dawn in this slot, on the strength of Mills' role there, but Attenborough's presence meant this won out).

1. Went the Day Well? (1942)

Went the Day Well? is a film by the redoubtable Ealing Studio. Based on a story by Graham Greene, it follows the inhabitants of the sleepy village of Bramley End when they are invaded by German paratroopers disguised as British soldiers. It's a genuinely shocking film to those raised on the easy certainties of WWII films of the 1960s and later, and a very effective piece of propaganda; characters are killed without warning, and there are a couple of false starts before the situation is resolved.

In the running, but not placing, were the Powell and Pressburger collaborations One of our Aircraft is Missing (1942) and The Silver Fleet (1943) - embarrassingly, no Powell and Pressburger films have made my list, though A Matter of Life and Death only missed out due to its release date.

I thought I was dead smart, I did.

Screwfix delivered at 1005 last Monday. Unfortunately, I'd had to leave the house for the dentist at 0955. Ended up collecting the parcel from local post office on Saturday morning. Two pairs of boots came in a box large enough to fit the garklet in. Maybe two garklets.

Unfortunately, the box contained only one pair of boots...and one pair of shoes. Typical. Phoned Screwfix, they agreed to dispatch a replacement for the shoes, and arranged collection for the shoes for this morning. New boots turned up on Monday while I was looking after an unwell garklet, and today's parcel was collected successfully while I was out at work.

I've just realised that Screwfix have a trade counter in Southampton. I could have bought the damned things in person and saved the postal hassle.

I'm a creature of habit when it comes to the way I dress. I went through most of my undergraduate years wearing pale blue denim, rollneck sweaters and waistcoats, and for the past ten or eleven years, I've mostly worn black Levi 501s, black t-shirts, boots, and woolen sweaters. Part of the reason is that I just can't bear to waste time trying to work out what to wear each morning; if the choice from my day-to-day wardrobe consists of three identical pairs of jeans, dressing is a task requiring no effort or thought.

(and yes, I'm aware that this is a typical geek justification)

My choice in day-to-day footwear has varied a bit over