Sulkyblue's Blog

October was a pretty strange month, I started off embracing my unemployed status, throwing myself into sorting out my room and throwing away or gifting to charity vast amounts of stuff (mostly clothes I no longer fit in – in a good way!) and making it once again usable as somewhere to sit and work in. Then by the end of it I was back at work, seemingly in a job as close to my dreams as I've really allowed myself to hope (as I explained to someone on twitter, I'm a project manager, we dream within deliverable tolerances).

I hold the rather glamourous title of Portfolio Performance Manager in the Project Management Office at the BBC. That basically means that I collate reports and do some analysis of the critical programmes running at the BBC, which were described to me as the "biggest, hairiest" projects. I'm still settling in of course, but thus far it's fascinating to be looking at projects that are at least one order of magnitude larger than anything I've worked on before. It's nice to be a step removed and looking at the projects from more of an assurance point of view than a delivery one, but I'm getting to bring a lot of my experience in as well to keep things as practical as possible. Also the commute is about half hour door to door, the people are incredibly smart and lovely and it's the freakin' BBC! The picture on the right is where we had our team away day!

Baking
A housemate's birthday gave me an excuse to try something that I've wanted to give a go for a while – an opera cake. I based it on this recipe, but swapped the raspberries for cherries and used kirsch to make it more blackforest gateaux. It was my first attempt at a joconde sponge, which didn't do too badly, although could've been a bit thicker, and also at French buttercream which was a lot easier than expected and I think may turn into my go-to frosting. Overall I was very pleased with the result even though it took me well over 5 hours to make and used every bowl I own at least twice.

Another first this month was making soufflé. An early dinner presented time to make a pudding and I decided to give these a go. I was actually surprised at how well they came out for a first attempt with three out of five rising and only two collapsing in a sad but tasty heap. I did chase down lots of "top tips for perfect soufflés" online (completely coat the dishes in butter and sugar, wipe around the rim of the bowl, eat immediately).

A third first was trying éclairs, inspired by the Great British Bake Off. These were probably the least successful new thing, mostly because the recipe I followed turned out to be for mini-eclairs without really making that clear. I got bored filling and chocolating them, so turned most of them into a sort of Eton mess, very tasty, but not what I'd planned.

I'm falling in love with hot water crust pastry, it's so easy to make and handle and turns out really impressive pies. I did a layered pie with stuffing on the bottom to absorb moisture, then pork, red cabbage and apple sauce and it was amazing.
Finally, I succumbed to these dinosaur moulds from Lakeland and made little sponge dinosaurs. How could I resist?



Books
Starting a new job put rather a dent in my reading towards the end of the month, putting me 143 pages down on my month's target and pretty much wiping out the buffer that I had built up at the beginning of the year. It also means that I've only got 3 books to report back on. The Incrementalists by Steven Brust and Skyler White was really disappointing to this Brust lover. It had a very interesting idea, but it was so complicated that the whole book turned into a giant piece of exposition. On the other hand, the second in Richard Kadrey's Sandman Slim Series, Kill the Dead was as entertaining as the first, although I kind of wish the story wasn't moving so fast so I could relish each phase a bit more before it all changes again. One non fiction for the month and it was a good ‘un. Hatchet Job: Love Movies, Hate Critics by Mark Kermode is a great book for anyone who loves film or has ever tried to write a review of anything. It's very well thought out and also a lot of fun to read, full of self-deprecating anecdotes and a huge love of film.

Films
Four cinema trips for three very different films! Lucy was a very satisfying little sci-fi film, that bounded along with enough ideas to keep it interesting and enough action to keep it bouncing along, not revolutionary, but a lot of fun. Before I Go to Sleep is a very good adaption of the book and given that I'd forgotten the various twists, it really pulled me in and kept me guessing. The casting is excellent! Pride is a wonderfully heart-warming film that ha me laughing and crying. I will say however that I don't think it's the masterpiece that others do as it fell down in some critical, practical issues of storytelling, but that didn't stop me thoroughly enjoying it. Boyhood was an incredible piece of film making and was a fascinating idea, but ultimately I didn't think the content of the film quite lived up to the concept. The characters were all complex and well played, and watching them develop was interesting, but I didn't really like spending time with them and was often bored by individual segments.

Three more Disney films, all on the older end of the spectrum. Dumbo was lovely, bringing all the building blocks of music, story, characters and message together very neatly. Lady and the Tramp
was sweet, but ultimately forgettable, ultimately feeling like a draft run at The Aristocats. The 1940 Fantasia (1940)
on the other hand though was far better than the 2000 version with some absolutely classic pieces of animation.

• Cloud Atlas - Truly awful, I gave up after less than an hour.


• The Colour Purple


• Her - another great scifi film, taking a concept and fully exploring it. A little heavy on whimsy at time, but excellent performances.


• Nebraska - dull. And pretentious. And REALLY dull.


• Cuban Fury - a sweet and funny film utterly spoiled by Chris O'Dowd's pantomime villain.


• Die Hard - dated, but still the quintessential action film.


• 10 Years - great idea and impressive ensemble, but the balance of time spent on individuals wasn't quite right so some bits dragged and other bits were under-developed.


• Dr Zhivago - utterly gripping despite its ridiculous run-time.


• Marvellous - reviews itself. Sweet, funny, charming and just plain lovely.

TV
Following the timings of the American television year, I did my wrap up posts of the year's new shows and the shows that I watched full seasons of. I seem to have watched 26 American pilots (roughly 50% of all new dramas) and 30 full series, which is actually down on previous years. I don't think 2013-14 was a particularly amazing year for television in general, there were very few things, and no new shows that really made me sit up and pay attention is. On the plus side though, it's certainly a glorious time for women in television, on both sides of the pond, with many of the most memorable and impressive performances coming from women.

I caught up on a lot of last year's pilot reviews which I grouped together and included The Night Shift (bit rubbish, but good fun, I watched through the rest of the season in a couple of days). Intelligence (solid, but not remarkable), Chicago PD (quintessential police procedural), Rake (refreshing and fun), Black Sails (daft but entertaining), Crisis (nice idea, well put together), Legends (weak) and Halt and Catch Fire (fine, left me uninspired). Finally I reviewed a couple of new shows that recently started in the UK, both about disease outbreaks - The Last Ship and The Strain. The former is a lot of fun which is a long way from smart, but isn't quite as dumb as it seems; the latter thought it was smarter than it really was and fell apart under its own contrivances. The only full series I reviewed in September was the utterly excellent House of Cards: Season 2 which I highly recommend.