Blog & White

Just another ale, quite bitter. Made of barley malt.

Marston's Brewery, Burton upon Trent, England. 5.7% alcohol.

Aujourd'hui, c'était Mardi-Gras, alors j'ai fait des churros au bureau (histoire de changer un peu des éternels laskiaispulla finlandais ou des beignets de carnaval français). La recette, je l'ai trouvée dans ce blog. D'après Niko qui a mangé des churros en Espagne il n'y a pas longtemps, le chocolat chaud (dont la recette est à la fin de l'article) devrait être plus épais pour mieux coller au churro. Il faudrait ajouter davantage de fécule ?

Et aussi, faire de la friture dans la cuisine du bureau, c'est le bazar parce qu'il n'y a jamais les bons outils pour nettoyer (déjà que j'ai déplacé la moitié de ma cuisine pour avoir tout le matériel nécessaire, j'ai dû prendre le panier à linge pour tout transporter). Évidemment, si un churro expériemental de calibre 20mm n'avait pas explosé en déversant plein d'huile bouillante sur la plaque de cuisson, le plan de travail et le sol, il y aurait eu moins de choses à nettoyer.

Une chose intéressante à noter, c'est que l'huile après cuisson (que j'ai reversée dans les bouteilles vides pour la jeter à la poubelle) occupait presque le même volume qu'avant. J'en ai déduit que mes churros devaient contenir entre 2 et 5% de matière grasse. C'est pas si lourd que ça finalement ! Mais c'est le chocolat chaud qui m'a tué : 7 heures plus tard, j'ai toujours le ventre plein.

J'ai remplacé les trois ampoules de 40 W (410 lm) du salon par des ampoules basse consommation de 11 W (700 lm) de marque Megaman Liliput Plus. La couleur est un peu différente, mais on s'y habituera. En revanche, vu qu'une ampoule fluocompacte de 11 W équivaut à une ampoule classique de 60 W, on y a gagné en luminosité : 71% de lumière en plus, pour 73% de consommation en moins. J'ai choisi la 11 W plutôt que la 9 W (équivalente à une ampoule classique de 40 W) parce qu'elle était moins longue (bien que plus large) et dépasse moins du lustre.

Évidemment, chaque ampoule basse consommation coûte 14 EUR, mais elles ont une durée de vie annoncée de 15 000 heures (à comparer aux ampoules classiques qui ont une durée de vie de 1 000 heures, c'est à dire environ un an). Au total, mon ampoule me coûte .93 EUR par an, ce qui est légèrement moins que le prix d'une ampoule classique. De plus, à 0,10 EUR du kWh (ils ont augmenté le prix de l'électricité de 20% d'un coup cette année les vaches), mon ampoule basse consommation me coûte 1,10 EUR par an, contre 4 EUR par an pour l'ampoule classique. C'est finalement peu par rapport au budget électricité annuel.

© Imdb.com

A fishing boat saves a man from the sea. The man has two bullets in his back, a small device under his skin which shows a Swiss bank name and account number and no clue about who he is. After reaching the shore, the man spends the night in a public park where he's awoken in the middle of the night by two policemen. Without even thinking about it, he fights them barehanded and flees. The next morning, he goes to the bank in Zürich and finds in his safe a collection of passports, loads of money in various currencies and a gun. He learns that his name is (probably) Jason Bourne. He leaves the gun and goes to the US embassy, just in time to escape the Swiss police. There he is about the be arrested again but manages to escape, with the help of Marie, a girl who had trouble at the embassy. They go to Paris, where Bourne has an appartment. There, they get attacked by an unknown man crashing through the window, but the man dies before Bourne is able to interrogate him. Before the attack, Bourne manages to find a trace of his past: he has spent time in a hotel under another identity, and he is supposed to be dead. Marie manages to get a list of the phone numbers he called when he resided at the hotel, which gives him a clue about what he did in the past: getting interested in a boat owned by a former African dictator, buying diving equipments… During the night, the ex-dictator is assassinated, and Bourne understands that he had been sent by the CIA to kill him (because the man threatened to expose the CIA actions in Africa if they didn't help him to get back to power) but failed. Bourne and Marie then go the morgue to see the body, but it has been taken away already. They then flee together barely escaping the French police. Marie manages to reach a former boyfriend who lives in the countryside, where they find shelter for one night. The next morning, Bourne notices that someone is watching them and will probably try to kill them. He finds and neutralizes the killer, from whom he learns nothing except the name “Threadstone”. He sends Marie to hide with her friend, then uses the mobile phone of the killer, to contacts whoever had ordered him killed and gives him an appointment in Paris. Bourne doesn't show at the appointment, but uses the event to follow the man (his former boss) to a CIA hideout where he almost got killed again. He however learns that he has been specifically trained to be the perfect invisible killer (the Threadstone project), and his memory comes back to him: he was supposed to kill the ex-dictator and put the blame to one of the man's collaborators, but didn't complete his mission because children were present on the scene. Bourne's boss is then eliminated in a CIA attempt to conceal the failure of the Threadstone project. At the end, Bourne finds Marie again somewhere on the Mediterranean coast.

Loads of car chases, fight scenes, stereotypical camera movements, and a disappointing plot. But I really liked the Richard Chamberlain version TV movie when I was a kid.

I ordered on Tuesday morning the first thirteen volumes of Pratchett's Discworld series at amazon.co.uk. I already have them in French, but I wanted to compare Patrick Couton's excellent translation with the original English text.

I got an e-mail at 7pm the same day that the first three ones had been sent using International Mail. Wednesday at 4pm, I got another mail that the remainder of the order had been sent using DHL express. This morning at 8.30am, the DHL guy came to deliver the package, which came from Glasgow. That's faster than light! (on the Disc, of course). Of course, the price of the delivery was accordingly prohibitive, but it seems to have been the lowest possible. The same delivery fees was applied to both halves of my order, even though the second was probably much more expensive than the first.

© eu.art.com

I watched an episode of Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman yesterday evening, were they managed to track back a radio signal (sic) to a point located at 47.55 degrees of latitude and 38.69 degrees of longitude. Thanks to Google Maps, I know now that this place, which according to the series is the headquarters of the Daily Planet in Metropolis, is actually located in Russia, north of the Black Sea, not far from the Ukrainian border, in a region full of fields. Superman is therefore a Mujik.

However, since they didn't mention if the latitude in North or South, nor if the longitude is East or West, I checked the three other possibilities, which all are in the middle of the sea. If Superman is not a Russian farmer, then he's completely soaked.

“… golden colour, clean full malt flavour and crisp hop flower afterstate, created by a skillful blend of pure Scottish water and the finest organically grown ingredients.”

A malty taste, flowery, with a note of rose, only sightly bitter. The emtpy glass smells of honey. Made of malted barley.

Brougthon Ales Limited, Broughton Biggar, Scotland. 6.0% alcohol.

“… essentially a Yorkshire beer with malt tastes slightly more prominent than the hop flavours… note the nutty overtones and the teasing late bitter-sweet sensations. Brewed using quality grains malts from a traditional Yorkshire maltster, a unique yeast strain, full-leafed hops and Yorkshire Dales water. The name Old Legover is the nickname of the Brewery's popular cask ale, originally called Daleside Country Stile.”

Just another ale, but a nice one. Slightly sweet, and only slightly bitter in the aftertaste.

Daleside Brewery, Starbeck, Harrogate, England. 4.1% alcohol.

Un peu de froid c'est bien, mais là, franchement, c'est abusé. Pour ceux qui ont la flemme de cliquer sur l'image pour la voir en grand, le thermomètre indique -36 °C. La photo a été prise ce matin à 8h de la fenêtre de la chambre à coucher. C'est bien d'avoir un thermomètre visible au saut du lit, ça annonce tout de suite la couleur. Mais pas de panique, ça doit remonter dans la journée, avec un pic à -25 °C.

La voiture a à peine réussi à démarrer (après avoir bêtement calé, la première fois c'était plus facile), on a l'impression que l'embrayage est lubrifié avec du goudron et le siège est un cube de glace.

“English malt and English hops combine to make a very English beer. Dry and crisp, with a hint of citrus. 303 A.D. – the year of St George – is the beer of St George.”

Pale and quite bitter, with vaguely flowery taste.

Hook Norton Brewery, Hook Norton, Oxon, England. 4.0% alcohol.

“fruity by nature with a well rounded body and the suggestive echo of Crystal malt… Our traditional Victorian tower brewery … is still powered by a steam engine.”

Vaguely fruity and moderately bitter. Just another ale. Made of malted barley and wheat.

Hook Norton Brewery, Hook Norton, Oxon, England. 4.6% alcohol.