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Joseph D'Lacey's Blood Fugue

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Books are like Christmas Dinners, some you struggle to finish, with those last couple of Brussels Sprouts staring their defiance at you from the dinner plate, while others are gone in the blink of an eye, leaving fond memories of juicy morsels and wondrous tastes. In the case of Joseph D'Lacey's Blood Fugue you are presented with a smorgasbord of horror & are left wanting to lick the plate clean. A potent mix of blood, sex, ancient mythology and sex, it contains scenes that will burn themselves on the retinas of your mind like staring into a nuclear firestorm. Reading Blood Fugue is like watching John Carpenter's The Thing on acid, with a liberal sprinkling of WTF moments along the way. At its heart Blood Fugue is a vampire story, with its main protagonist, James Kerrigan, battling the forces of darkness against insurmountable odds. No easy feat when he's afraid of the dark. But this is Vampirism as its never been done before, and the plot hints at a huge mythos, b...

Scotch Pancakes

Ingredients 115g plain flour sifted 1 medium free range egg 150 ml milk 1/2 tsp cream of tartar 1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda 1 tsp golden caster sugar melted butter for greasing Making the batter Sift the flour, cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda into a bowl and stir in the sugar. Add the egg and slowly stir in the milk. Beat until smooth. Cooking the pancakes Heat up a griddle or frying pan for at least 3 minutes to get hot. Smear with a little melted butter using a paper towel. Pour in 4 lots of a tbsp of the batter mix. After a couple of minutes large bubbles should appear. Flip them over and cook for about another minute. Eating Serve warm with bacon and maple syrup, clotted cream and jam or whatever floats your boat. Yum!

As a rule I take the hint.

 To switch to Oracle's rule based optimiser use the hint /*+ RULE*/. You can include this in PeopleSoft MetaSQL with something along the lines of: - %InsertSelect(XXX_UK007_BOND2, TL_RAPID_TIME R, JOB J, PROCESS_INSTANCE = /*+ RULE*/ DISTINCT %Bind(PROCESS_INSTANCE)

The 100 Best and Absolute Greatest Heavy Metal Albums in the World, Ever.

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As I've just about completed my collection of 100 CDs culled from Jacelyn Bond's damn fine book, and bastard of a charade title, The 100 Best and Absolute Greatest Heavy Metal Albums in the World, Ever , I thought it was about time I blogged the list to aid anyone else who wants to make their world a little heavier. Collecting the albums has been a long strange trip through the annals of rock history and taken me through classics by the likes of Sabbath, AC/DC and Deep Purple to Scandinavian Death Metal. Yes the choices are debateable but the book is a great way of discovering some wonderful music to headbang like a maniac to. It's got some notable omisions too, in particular a certain Black Country band who most would argue are the greatest rock and roll band of all timel and who cast a giant blimp shaped shaddow over the genre. In addition to the 100 albums I've also listed the other albums by the bands concerned that the book says are worth getting, so if any of...