• Sapphire Systems Mail Order - 20m outdoor cable
  Cat5e network cable rated for outdoor use.
  (tags: networking cable)
• dabs.com - Hawking Wireless-G Range Extender (HWREG1)
  Repeater for 802.11b/g wireless systems
  (tags: networking wireless repeater)
• Nanaca Crash
  I have no idea what is going on in this game - it is a bit like those polar bear and penguin games, except you are a girl in a short skirt who rides into a bloke on your bike, sending him flying. Mad and Japanese, naturally. My record is 3470.20 metres.
  (tags: flash game)
• Virus 2 Game
  simple puzzle game, found via Tom Coates.
  (tags: flash game)
• BBC News - Mark Mardell’s Europe diary: Children speak out
  Comparing Dutch and British children
  (tags: news children Netherlands)

Yes.

Oh sorry, were you expecting more? Well, if you insist.

I’ve noticed a similar trend on a few other blogs - the old style of posting a very short entry with a link and short comment (sometimes no comment at all) gives way to a (more-or-less) daily digest of links, most usually with some sort of explanatory note or comment. On the plus side, it means that I am tending to post more links here, which is probably a good thing, but I’m not sure that the links that I’m posting are necessarily that interesting to readers as I tend to use del.icio.us to bookmark things that are of interest to me as well as those that might interest or amuse you. As it is, it possibly renders the “amusing links” category virtually obsolete as I now tend to put those links in via del.icio.us (bl.ood.y d.ot.s!).

Whether it means that I will actually write more longer posts to provide something relatively interesting to read between the link lists is another matter. I do seem to be writing a little more here at the moment, which I think is a good thing (though you may not agree). I may even write something interesting one day, although those of you who have been foolish to hang around for the better part of seven years waiting for that to happen don’t seem to have learned your lesson yet.

I’ve also wondered what del.icio.us and other similar sites might mean for the traditional linklog site. At the moment, sites like Darren’s continue to use the familiar linklog format, with Darren having a link to his del.icio.us feed in the sidebar. But will the social bookmark sites change or even eventually kill off the linklog? Couldn’t Darren simply feed his del.icio.us output into LMG? Or have I missed something?

UPDATE: I should add that I like and admire LMG and would hate for it to die a horrible death. The same goes for Darren.

• La Table d’Anjou
  Restaurant in Tiercé. Locally famous after Nicolas Sarkozy had dinner there. Now even more famous after we had dinner there.
  (tags: restaurant Tierce France)

The LibDems want to introduce a tax on homes worth more than £1million.

So, aside from it being a tax on aspiration as well as a tax levied on those whose home has increased in value without them moving house, what’s to stop the über-rich at whom this headline-grabbing proposal is aimed from renting a home in the UK and actually having their main home (and, presumably, their principal tax liability) in some other country? Remember Mick Jagger in the Seventies? He moved abroad primarily to escape the punitive taxes on the rich, taking much of his money with him - and money held overseas can not be taxed in the UK, so the Treasury actually loses out, not gains, from such a policy.

• Bed and Breakfast Nederland
  Bed and breakfasts throughout the Netherlands
  (tags: Netherlands accomodation)

• MediaWiki
  Wiki software that drives Wikipedia, amongst others. Uses MySQL.
  (tags: software wiki)
• DokuWiki
  Wiki software that works without a database.
  (tags: software wiki)
• TWiki - Enterprise Wiki & Collaboration Platform
  Wiki software that works without a databse.
  (tags: software wiki)
• WikiMatrix
  Wiki engine comparison site
  (tags: wiki software)

One in the eye for Lewes DC.

Hmm. Is it odd that I should read this news article and ponder what impact it might have on property prices? And I’m not sure about the Belgian idea of logging foreign number plates, as it is likely I will be driving along the roads between Maastricht and Tongeren and Lanaken complete with GB sticker.

An EU study says that businesses are losing thousands of euro of business due to poor language skills. Not surprising, really, although I have to say that I’ve found it to be exceptional that a business I’ve dealt with has not had a fluent English speaker (and I’ve dealt with thirteen of the 27 nations), except in Spain which seemed stuck in the dark ages when I visited last year. Having said that, it is presumptuous and perhaps short-sighted of UK-based businesses to rely on the superior education systems that exist elsewhere and that give most Europeans educated in the last twenty years at least a basic grasp of English.

• NIS News Bulletin - Dutch daily news and headlines
  English language output from Dutch news agency ANP.
  (tags: Netherlands news)

• Herb Spelt Pizza Dough - Dave’s Cave
  recipe for pizza dough using spelt flour
  (tags: recipe cooking pizza spelt)
• Spelt bread - fooddownunder.com
  spelt bread recipe for use with a bread machine
  (tags: recipe cooking bread spelt)
• Recipes at Food Down Under Recipe Database
  database of nearly a quarter of a million recipes
  (tags: cooking recipe)

• TRAVELPorter Hamburg
  Shuttle service between Hamburg airport and city
  (tags: transport Hamburg Germany airport)
• St.Pauli Tourist Office
  St Pauli is the trendy district of Hamburg.
  (tags: travel Hamburg St_Pauli Germany accommodation)
• Pension Martinez - Your home in Hamburg
  Bed and breakfast and apartments in St Pauli, Hamburg
  (tags: St_Pauli Hamburg Germany accommodation)
• Hamburg: Pension Ferienwohnung Privatzimmer Übernachtung
  bed and breakfast and pensions in Hamburg
  (tags: accommodation Hamburg Germany)

• Researcher’s Mobility Portal - The Netherlands
  Designed to assist researchers moving from country to country within the EU, this site also contains a lot of practical information applicable to anyone moving to the Netherlands. Part of an EU initiative to encourage worker mobility.
  (tags: Netherlands jobs migration)

Should record companies still charge the same price for an album even when it only lasts 33 minutes? Island Records, I’m looking at you and your Amy Winehouse CD.

If, when using WordPress, you get error messages that look like this:

WordPress database error: [Can’t open file: ‘wp_comments.MYI’ (errno: 145)]

…then your database has become corrupted. Don’t panic. Either contact your hosting provider or go to PHPMyAdmin and repair it yourself.

I learnt this today.

Hels has been trying to cut down, or even cut out, wheat consumption as it seems to have a funny effect on her.

However, we love bread and pizza and other wheaty things, so we have been casting around for a suitable substitute. I have to say that most wheat-free products are pretty awful. Exceptions that we have discovered include Waitrose German rye bread and Dr Karg’s spelt crackers - wheat-free they may be, but they are also tasty.

One piece of kitchen equipment which hasn’t been used so much lately is our lovely bread maker. Hels recently purchased a pack of wholemeal spelt flour and set me the task of making wheat-free pizzas. I searched numerous internet recipe databases (the bread maker recipe book offers no guidance on this) and eventually found a recipe which I modified as follows:

• 1 tsp dried yeast
• 4 cups spelt flour
• 9⅓ fl oz water
• ⅔ tsp salt
• ⅔ tsp sugar
• 1 tsp dried mixed herbs
• 1½ fl oz olive oil

Put the ingredients in the bread maker in the order suggested by the manufacturer (usually yeast first, then the other dry ingredients and finally the oil and water) and run the pizza dough programme. You could, or course, use a food processor or mix by hand, but I prefer the bread maker as it warms the dough as it goes and therefore accelerates the proving process. It must be said that this makes a heavy dough which was right at the upper limit of what our machine could cope with. Although our machine has a capacity of 600g (and four cups is roughly 450g), I don’t think it would be wise to put that much in for fear of damaging the motor.

The dough that comes out is not pretty and I really thought that it would turn out pretty bad when I looked at it. But once I tipped it out of the tin and got my hands to it, I was pleased to find that it had a lovely stretchy quality and was actually good to handle.

You definitely need to make a fairly thin base with this mixture. I spread it across our large roasting sheet (roughly 30 x 40cm) and then put it in a only-slightly-warm oven for fifteen minutes to prove. After that, and with an all-over pricking with a fork, I blind-baked it for ten minutes or so before topping it and cooking it through. The recipes I found online all suggested blind baking to ensure some crispiness and avoid sogginess.

It turned out pretty well. The base turned out to be quite flavoursome in its own right, so I recommend a good strongly-flavoured topping (we had tomato purée, basil, red pepper, chorizo, mozarella, thinly sliced shallots, grated strong cheddar - but I think it would be great with anchovies, capers, olives). It also seemed to stick to the pan more than our conventional wheat-based recipe, so be sure to thoroughly grease your pan before cooking (I’ll pay more attention to this next time so that Hels doesn’t need a hammer and chisel when washing up).

The next challenge is to find a spelt bread recipe that works. Watch this space.

• DICEWARS - flash game
  interesting variation on a theme, and quite infuriating too.
  (tags: flash game)
• Balls!
  One of those simple but addictive games.
  (tags: flash game)

Not interested in football? Look away now.

Dick Knight furious over Benitez comments about reserve football. Brighton has long had a strong reserve team that has been an important proving ground for new players and a good place for seasoned players to gain experience or get match time when, for example, returning from injury. Brighton also has strong youth teams too and uses the entire structure to develop new talent, which is useful when the purse for buying-in talent is small (both in terms of saving money by "growing your own" and by earning money by selling players on). Maybe Rafa needs to come and spend some time with some of the smaller clubs and see what real-world sport is about, and perhaps remember Liverpool’s history of transferring talented players developed by lower teams (think Mark Lawrenson).

• Peston’s Picks - small company ouch
  Analysis (fairly superficial) of the impact on small business of the Budget - which further encourages me to move abroad.
  (tags: news tax BBC UK)

The EU is fifty years old today. The BBC has some good coverage of the celebrations and the history.

• Neighbourhood Fix-It
  Report neighbourhood “problems” such as graffiti, potholes, litter, fly-tipping, etc.
  (tags: neighbourhood council community social UK)

• moo | we love to print
  Business cards with your own images on them. If only they offered a full-size card as well as the half-size ones.
  (tags: cards photographs businesscards printing business)

• ID card for foreigners, Expatica news item
  all legal resident foreigners should be eligible for ID cards, which should save having to cart around one’s passport
  (tags: news Netherlands ID bureaucracy expat law migration)

With all the problems that Brighton and Hove Albion have had in securing a decent home for their team and fans in recent years, you’d think that the authorities in Brighton would have learned that they need to give more support to their local sports teams.

But it seems that that is not the case. Sussex County Cricket Club, a championship-winning team that is very active in the community, is having problems seeking permission to redevelop its Hove ground. Only the circumstances this time are slightly different. In the case of the football team, an asset-stripping owner and management sold off the family silver and nearly consigned the club to oblivion, leaving them desperate to obtain consent for a new out-of-town venue. In the case of the cricket club, the management are clearly keen to stay at their historic home in the centre of Hove, convenient for locals and public transport and an important part of the community. And yet the council seems reluctant to support them in this.

Ultimately, I think it quite possible that the cricket club will leave Hove. There has been talk of them moving to Crawley, which would certainly put them closer to visiting fans from Surrey, north Kent and Middlesex, whilst still being handy for trains from Brighton and Hove. Sale of the site in Hove would raise an enormous sum (and lead to not just redevelopment of part of the ground, but the entire ground). A new stadium in Crawley would be good for the club, but there would be one big loser - the city of Brighton and Hove.

It is time for the authorities to realise this and support their local sport teams.