Went to an interesting workshop on EPSRC's LSI programme. One of the interesting things which came out of this, is that most people who actually have LSI funding are not aware of the fact.
I was a bit surprised about this. So were the people in charge of the LSI. However, they later admitted that the main reason for this was probably that they had made a strategic decision not to tell people when they got funding.
Caught an announcement on the radio that the daily service was being moved to make way for the cricket. There is a certain irony that religion is being moved out of the way for sport; having lived just down the road from White Hart Lane, then Maine Road, and now overlooking St. James Park, this makes a certain amount of sense.
I bought some soya mince the other day, mostly for old time sake. Soya mince much like the larger equivalent, soya chunks, are fairly horrible. They tend to be overly chewy, with a slightly unappealing texture. But they are cheap, and about 50% protein. I used to eat lots of this stuff when I was a student and then stopped, because I could afford nicer food. But I saw some the other day, and remembered that I had one dish where it was quite nice. This is it.
1 Red Onion
Handful Soya Mince
Handful Rice
Tomato Puree
2 potatoes
Toast
Garlic Puree
Various Curry Spices
Essentially, this is your basic curry — fry the onions, then add garlic puree. After it's cooked for a while, add some lime juice, then cumin, coriander, tumeric and any other spices you fancy. This makes it pretty dry, so before it burns add tomato paste, and then water. Today, I also washed added some garlic pickle. Milk is good as well. Cook for about 10 minutes. Then add the soya mince.
While this is doing, parboil the potatoes, then add them to the curry. Follow this by part cooking the rice in the same saucepan, and add this to the curry.
The combination of the rice and soya mince will soak up a lot of the moisture. Add a bit more water if needed: there should not be much left by the time everything is finished; it's supposed to be dry.
At this point, it tastes okay, but sort of wish you hadn't added the soya mince. But this is the good bit; make some toast, then spoon the biryani on top of it, and stick the whole lot under the grill for a couple of minutes and serve.
The Semantic Enrichment workshop has left me thinking about the presentation of science. The thesis or long dissertation of post-graduate courses, is surely one of the oddities of the scientific education system. If you read "Origin of the Species", and other literature of the time, with its slow, gentlemanly meanderings, then then, perhaps, it makes sense. But, in this day and age, almost no scientific research is publishing in long-hand, book form. Everything happens in the papers. Even our books are normally a collection of papers.
So, why do we force PhD students to write a thesis? It clearly is not the best training for what is to come after.
Watched Breakfast at Tiffany's today. It was great. It only feels a little aged, mostly in the styles and some of the attitudes, but the core of it remains. Audrey Hepburn is stunning and George Peppard endearing — you want him to succeed — although you keep expecting him to pull out a cigar, smirk at the camera and say "I love it when a plan comes together".
As it happens, he gets the girl, so I guess it does.