Ah well...

...no complaints about being beaten by a better side: Barcelona 2, Manchester United 0 in yesterday evening's Champions' League Final. I missed the first half, because I was collecting P from The Farm. The second half was slightly painful listening, given how obviously Barca were outplaying us.

I mentioned in yesterday's post that I'd added some fan control scripts to the Netbook - the difference is amazing: I wouldn't have said that the fan was loud in the first place (two of the four PCs in the office make a terrific racket), but a truly silent machine is bliss. Of course, there's the concern that by raising the fan's kick-in threshold, it may shorten the machine's life, so you need to factor that into your considerations if you're considering doing this hack, but Intel themselves rate the Atom up to 99°C, whereas I've got the fan programmed to kick in at 65°C, so hopefully it should be OK, and I won't end up with a lapfull of molten plastic...

I finished Fever Crumb, Philip Reeve's prequel to his Mortal Engines quartet. Parts of the story were just dazzling, and it's definitely a worthy addition to the series. I particularly loved the corruption of localities' names in the future: Pickled Eel Circus, Effing Forest, Hampsters Heath, 'bankmentside and so on. And of course the notion that London itself is bordered by the Orbital Moatway. Really really good stuff.

If you haven't read Mortal Engines, you should do so. Give it a chance, because yes, the set-up is mindblowingly surreal, but once you've accepted that framework, it's a spellbinding tale. And although, personally, I felt the story stalled in the telling, slightly, in the third instalment, the fourth volume (A Darkling Plain) proved an epic conclusion.