November has been quite a month. Being physically present at a friend’s gig was quite an experience a few weeks back (Ocean City Groove), and to round off the month we saw Tim Minchin perform at Plymouth Pavilions. He is an excellent musician and quite the inspirational figure with a truly unique brand of musical comedy fused with societal commentary. If you’re not familiar with his work, look him up, but he’s not for the easily offended. Be prepared to challenge your own beliefs and biases. That’s part of what I particularly enjoy about watching and listening to him – it feels like an intellectual experience while simultaneously being hilarious. One moment he’s singing about an ill chosen key and the next it’s about being accosted by a born again Christian.

Things are heating up in another equally exciting development. The previous owners of our house rather inconveniently removed a radiator and pipes from Evie’s room necessitating a lot of flooring removal to find the central heating pipes and pipe in a new one. The time, cost and general hassle involved in this were somewhat off-putting. Thankfully alternatives exist! I picked up a wall-mounted Ecostrad iQ ceramic radiator from electricradiatorsdirect with WiFi connectivity. I was considering one of their oil-filled designer models but they were more expensive and required installation by an electrician, partially defeating the purpose of picking an electric model in the first place. The iQ ceramic uses a standard UK plug so installation was just a matter of drilling holes for the wall plugs using the template, fitting the supplied brackets and slotting the radiator into place. I was able to tuck the cable under the carpet to make it a bit neater.

Part of the reason I picked this model was compatibility with the Smart Life app which already controls a number of WiFi connected devices in my house including the baby monitor and a number of lamps. If possible I wanted to avoid having to install another app. Once plugged in things were pretty straightforward. The screen is a bit clunky and unresponsive but after clicking through a few screens I managed to enable WiFi. Once that was done, managing the radiator was made much easier through the app. Switching modes, setting the temperature, and configuring programmes was simple and quick. I’m still having some teething problems but it’s helping battle the Autumn chill.

Making the Switch

This is just a short post, but I bought the new OLED Nintendo Switch for Sarah’s birthday along with Pokémon Sword. I’ve played a little bit and found it pretty enjoyable. The games have become considerably easier over time, but there’s now so much additional content and minigames (including but not limited to curry cooking) that I don’t feel too aggrieved by being able to walk over most of the other trainers. We have recently bought the Witcher 3 and I’m curious as to how well it will actually work on a relatively underpowered console.