I was set a challenge at Christmas through the gift of a pizza dish and cutter, so I decided to take on this challenge yesterday, making a pizza from scratch. Here’s how:

Ingredients

For the Dough (Makes a lot of pizza bases, but I wanted to prepare some to keep in the freezer for later)

Method

• Mix the flour and salt together in a very large mixing bowl.
• Mix the sugar, oil, yeast, warm (not hot!) water in a large jug.
• Fold the flour mixture and warm (not hot!) water in the mixing bowl.
• Use your hands and get in there! knead until the dough is rubbery.
• Have a cup of coffee and read the paper.
• Lo and behold! The dough has risen! Now beat the air out of it – you don’t want bready pizza!
• Use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to the right size for your pizza tray/ right thickness for your tastes. I don’t have a rolling pin, so a beer bottle did the trick.
• In the meantime, heat the passata and squirt in a good helping of tomato puree. Simmer it down to get lots of the water out and spread over the pizza.
• Sprinkle the cheese and toppings over the pizza
• Put it in the over for a bit at a hot temperature (the reason I’m not specific is because my oven is rubbish and barely hits 175C), but 200C for 20 minutes should do.
• Serve hot with beer and a movie!

The finished result was more like a pizza loaf, being rather thick, but still delicious!

Enjoy the health it brings you!

]]> http://www.hanway.co.uk/2012/01/03/pizza-new-year/feed 1 http://www.hanway.co.uk/2011/12/15/new-pc-build http://www.hanway.co.uk/2011/12/15/new-pc-build#comments Thu, 15 Dec 2011 17:06:13 +0000 ciaran http://www.hanway.co.uk/?p=970 It’s that time again. The time to buy the bits, bite the bullet and build a new PC. I’ve been building my own PCs for the last 10 years or so, and wouldn’t buy one off the shelf (laptops excepted, obviously). I like to have control over the specifications of the machine, know exactly what’s going into the system, and know how to fix it myself. Plus, it’s a lot of fun!

My aim was to build a PC that would be fast, stable and quiet; would let me do my usual productivity stuff quickly and also allow me to go loose on a bit of good gaming occasionally. Having done my research, I plumped for the following components:

• Intel i5 2500k - This runs at a stock 3.30GHz, but the “k” denotes that the multiplier is unlocked so it can be overclocked to 4.5GHz fairly easily even on an air-cooled system.
• ASRock Extreme3 Gen3 Motherboard - Choosing the motherboard was tricky. I just wanted a good solid performer that would overclock easily, but there appear to have been no duff boards in the running this time around. When I built my Barton-based system in 2003, there was a really stand-out board in the form of the ABit NF7-S. There were no such standouts this time around, so I picked this board more on a hunch, really.
• Antec Kúhler H2O 920 - My first experiment with watercooling. This replaces the fan on the processor with a radiator and pump system. It’s a bit like a fridge. I wanted a nice quiet system that would handle the overclock I might subject it to, but I didn’t want to have to worry about the intricate maintenance you have to schedule in with self-built watercooling. The unit is pre-filled, so there’s only a tiny likelihood there’ll be a leak.
• 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR-1600 RAM - 16GB is perhaps excessive, but when it’s cheap, why not? I was planning to run Windows7 64-bit, so I knew it would be addressable by the Operating System.
• Corsair TX650M 850W Power Supply - Again, a little bit of overkill on the PSU. However, I wanted a lot of headroom for future expansion, as well as the safety margin of not stressing out the PSU. I’ve had power supplies blow before and it’s not a lot of fun at all.
• Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB SSD Drive - Solid State drives, although relatively new, have reached that point in the innovation lifecycle where they’re becoming ubiquitous in high-end systems. They’re well supported by Windows 7 and have a couple of big advantages over standard hard drives. Firstly, they are super-fast with high seek- and transfer times – they make a perfect disk for the operating system. Secondly, if they do fail, they can still be read, unlike standard hard drives. This means your data won’t be lost, you’ll just have to get a new drive. The downside is that they are expensive for their size (about 12 times the cost, per GB of storage) – for that reason it makes a lot of sense to buy a second, standard drive for data:
• Seagate Barracuda 1TB Hard Drive - This monster is there to hold almost everything apart from the OS and what’s on my desktop.
• MSI ATI Radeon HD 6950 Twin FrozR III Power Edition 2048MB - Like a lot of computer gear, it’ makes sense to aim for the non leading-edge stuff where possible. For perhaps double the price of this card, I could have bought a card that would have given me approximately 10% more power. That isn’t sensible, let alone economical.
• Anidees AI6 Case - A brand-new design on the market. Lovely styling and excellent functional design: good airflow, good cable management, and enough space for my fat fingers to work in.

So, that’s most of the components. On with the build!

Here’s a view of the CPU socket (Socket 1155), ready for the PU to be installed. Lining it up is a little fiddly and actually installing it is rather scary. You hear all these stories about static from your body blowing the chip or even some people forcing the processor into place and bending the pins. The trick is to get the balance of delicacy and force just right: some force is needed to get the locking plate in place.

Here’s the CPU locking plate in place. At this point I have no idea if the damn thing will work. Oh well! Note, for point of reference in later shots, the memory slots on the right hand side of the CPU socket.

The next stage was installing the CPU cooler. Having installed air coolers before, this was going to be the main divergent point in this build. The cooler in question is the Antec Kúhler H2O 920. It was easily th hardest part of the whole installation process and took well over 30 mins to do. The instructions were appallingly written and had very little poor visual clues as to how to install the thing. Thankfully, I had this great video on YouTube to learn from, by Kevin Cozma. In the video, he pretty much scratches his head at the same things I was wondering about and it gave me confidence that I was fitting everything correctly. This confidence was essential given that at some stage I would have to use adhesive and wouldn’t be able to easily undo any mistakes. In the photo below, you can see the pump assembly (mounted over the CPU) with rubber hoses leading to a radiator and fans on the left hand side. The unit runs very quietly and cools brilliantly.

Here’s the finished build side on. To the left of the photo is the back of the case, to the right is the front of the case. The MSI graphics card in the middle of the chassis is a beast as you can see, and this reflects the emphasis on graphics nowadays. To the right of the card are two hard drives and below them the SSD. Look at how huge the radiator is on the left hand side of the picture (mounted into the back of the case)!

A lot of the cabling is tucked behind motherboard to encourage good airflow and make things look neat in the main compartment. The main issue for me was what to do with the unused cables from the Corsair Power Supply. For now, I’ve just bundled them at the bottom of the case. It looks a little messy, but it works. You can also see on this side of the case they’ve thoughtfully cut out the back of the motherboard panel so that you can access the back of the CPU. This was very useful when mounting the cooler bracket.

Here are the initial results from the build. I’ll be looking into overclocking the processor at some point to get its full potential, but happy to use my time elsewhere for now. I’m very close to perfect scores (7.9 is perfect) across the board on this system. If I get the inclination and time later, I’ll pull together other performance stats like 3DMark. The PC runs like a beast: it takes 18 seconds to power on and be ready to use Windows, and everything runs very snappily.

Today, at 2am local time, Police raided and evicted the protesters. Unconfirmed reports say that:

• The first thing the police did was remove the press “for their own protection”
• The airspace was locked down to prevent news helicopters from reporting
• Legal monitors were prohibited from witnessing the serving of any papers
• Sonic Weapons have been deployed.

I had one of those English summer days the other day. It was a comfortably hot day and I’d arranged a boozy steak lunch with Duncan and Lee at the Gaucho Grill in Fitzrovia. We had a very pimping white leather booth and between us sank a lot off wine and about 2.5 kilos of excellent Argentinian beef.

The lunch moved on to a lovely summer pint on a sunny street corner in Charlotte Street. As we said our goodbyes in the late afternoon, I was quite sad that the day had to end.

I decided to browse in a shop for a little while before going home. Duncan ran back into the shop, “I’ve just had a pass out! Let’s do something!”.

We decided to hit the road on Boris Bikes. We swooped in on a book signing by Alan Moore and caught a glimpse of the top of his head through the crowds. We headed down to the South Bank through Parliament Square and St. James’ Park and soaked in the hustle and bustle around the South Bank Centre and watched the sun set over Parliament.

We recently took delivery of a pair of kittens from the cat rescue charity that we support. A woman walking her dog spotted a car stop in a country lane and dump a cat with these two. They were rescued and are now staying with us! At nine weeks, these are the youngest cats we’ve looked after, and compared to the adult cats we’ve looked after, they’re utterly fearless. Oh – and very naughty.

They love following us around the house and either watching or sitting on what we’re doing. I’ve been trying to work this weekend and it’s been pretty difficult to get anything done because my train of thought keeps getting disturbed by a paw on the keyboard now and then…

They spend all their time together playing, eating, napping and pooping. We hope they get adopted together as we think they’ll be quite sad to be separated.

It was bin collection day and the dog was ripping open some bin bags in the street, trying to find food. It was a good natured dog, but it was in terrible shape; it’s fur was in a state: matted and stinking. The dog was kind enough to pose for a photograph next to the bin liners – you can see for yourself.

I approached the dog. It seemed friendly enough. Thankfully, it had a collar on, with a phone number. So far so good.

I dialled the number. A woman answered, “You calling about my dog?”

“Yes. I’m standing with him now. He’s been eating out of rubbish bags.”, I replied.

“It’s a ‘she’. Where is she?”

I told her that I’d found the dog tearing open bin liners and gave her the name of the street.

“I haven’t given her her breakfast, so she’s hungry. I’ll be there in a minute.”

I waited a good 10-15 minutes. In the meantime, the occupier of the house that had produced the rubbish for the dog to feast upon opened the door and confronted me. His big, imposing form almost completely blocked the doorway: a woman stood behind him holding an infant.

“What are you doing outside my house? Why are you taking photos of my rubbish?”

This was a serious allegation. An Englishman’s home is his castle. His rubbish, fair game to council spies. Was I a member of the dreaded Bin Gestapo? Was this a serious enough transgression to warrant violence on his part? Would I be limping into my morning presentation? The stakes were high.

I told him the truth: I thought this was interesting. I tried to distract the brute by talking about foxes. He seemed to calm down and went back indoors, murmuring an apology.

Presently, the woman I’d spoken with on the ‘phone arrived and took charge of the dog. It was almost as if I wasn’t there. As if others exist to look after her dog like some errant child.

Something about her arrogance. Something about the way she carried herself, and something about her accent led to a dawning realisation that this was the same woman who was incredibly rude to me and Rebecca last year. Our cat had strayed and we were leafleting and knocking on doors – we were worried that the cat had been locked in someone’s shed, or worse (thankfully there was a happy ending). She and her partner accused us of not doing enough to save the cat. Did we really care enough about the cat? Why hadn’t we leafleted 800 homes by now? Were we stupid?

Now the tables were turned. Somehow, she’d let her malnourished, filthy dog escape from the confines of her house and in its desperate hunger, fill the street with shredded detritus.

“Well that bin bag shouldn’t be in the street anyway”, she said.

That bitch shouldn’t be running loose, I thought.

So much has happened in the year since we lost him – so much that he would have wanted to see, so much that he could have shared with us, so much that we could have laughed together about. Of course, there are also regrets – so many things I wish I’d hurried up and done with him before he died.

It’s been a busy year, a year where we’ve all learned new things about ourselves through the pain of loss; a year where we learned a few things about Dad, especially how much people loved him and miss him.

Only yesterday, I was contacted through Twitter by an old friend of Dad’s who found out that he had died through this blog.

And on the weekend, Dinah (Rebecca’s sister) gave me the photos from an old mobile ‘phone I’d lent her, which had some old pictures of me and Dad on our travels or just messing about. This first one is from a trip to Prague:

And this second one is from a slightly tipsy Saturday afternoon, post-pub, when we had decided to go get some munchies together before heading home. I think he thought my obsession with taking pictures on my ‘phone a little daft, so he stuck his nose into the lens – I still remember his weird giggle at the time:

Today, we’ve already received cards and text messages of support – it’s not just me, Rebecca and Mum who are thinking of Dad one year on. That means a lot to us.

To find out more about Dad, please have a look here: My Father, My Teacher, My Friend and Dad’s Memorial Lunch.

This post is about something only slightly less depressing: the state of my garden. I’ve nursing an injury and want to avoid any heavy lifting where possible. I’ve not made any effort to protect the garden over the winter and I’m not planning anything remotely ambitious this year. The flowers in the basket and pot are a mess of weeds and there’s something green growing in a tomato planter. I’m tempted to see if anything edible turns up.

Oddly enough, the strawberries have survived the winter so perhaps we’ll get some of them before the army of snails descend.

So what should I plant in my limited terraced garden that gets almost no sunshine, that I can eat, and won’t be hard to lift? Suggestions are welcome!

The polls are not looking good. Tomorrow’s once in a generation opportunity to make a small progressive step is set to be lost in the face of distortions. I was handed a postcard at the station today from the “No” campaign, which claimed that Labour and Conservative voters would have 1 vote under AV, but the BNP would have 6. This is false.

So let’s have one last review of the falsehoods spread by the campaign and put them to rest:

AV will not result in more coalitions

AV does not cost more

AV does not give more votes to some

AV is not about Clegg/ Cameron/ Miliband – it’s about you

AV will not deliver weak governments – it will deliver stronger mandates than FPTP

A vote for AV is a vote to increase your power!

This referendum matters – get out and vote!

Democracy is one person one vote!

That’s one of the “No” slogans. The implication is that, under AV, some voters have more than one vote, whilst others do not. This video is from the “No” campaign:

(That’s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Nz1R8NZrJ0 for facebook pals)

It would, of course, be terribly unfair if some people were given more votes than the next, but this is not what happens.

What does happen is that some people’s second (or lower) preferences are taken into account and other people’s are not. This is because their first preferences are knocked out in the first round(s).

Is this a bad thing for the people whose second preferences are not taken into account? In short: No.

The NO2AV camp says that supporters of unpopular parties get more votes. What they actually get is more opportunities to change their vote. Their vote changes according to the preferences they put on the ballot. Because each change is from a higher preference to a lower preference, changing one’s vote is a compromise.

To put it another way:

Having your second preference counted is not an advantage over first preference voters – it’s a disadvantage!

No voter has an unfair advantage over any other voter — and supporters of unpopular parties are the worst off.

AV gives one person, one vote. AV is democratic.