Powershell to show extentions for Azure VM’s
Get-AzVM | select -expand Extensions | select @{L='ComputerName'; E={$_.id.split('/')[-3]}}, @{L='Extension'; E={$_.id.split('/')[-1]}}
Nice bit about chalk figures
The Guardian - On the shoulders of giants: roaming among England’s famous chalk figures
Port Vale coming to Stamford Bridge embodies the romance of the FA Cup. Jumpers for goalposts, Corinthian spirit, and all that
Still hoping to hear “You’ve had you day out, now ‘go’ off home” early in the first half, though
⚽ #ChelseaFC #cfc
Death on the Nile is on telly atm. Is this the most starry cast ever?
The novel was adapted into a 1978 feature film, Death on the Nile, starring Peter Ustinov for the first of his six appearances as Poirot. Others in the all-star cast included Bette Davis (Miss Van Schuyler), Mia Farrow (Jacqueline de Bellefort), Maggie Smith (Miss Bowers), Lois Chiles (Linnet Doyle), Simon MacCorkindale (Simon Doyle), Jon Finch (Mr Ferguson), Olivia Hussey (Rosalie Otterbourne), Angela Lansbury (Mrs Otterbourne), Jane Birkin (Louise), George Kennedy (Mr Pennington), Jack Warden (Dr Bessner), I. S. Johar (Mr Choudhury) and David Niven (Colonel Race).
A nice little video thing from the Beeb
My Crucial Track for 02 April 2026 - “Joy Division Oven Gloves” by Half Man Half Biscuit
A song by a band whose merchandise you’ve bought - what was the merchandise
This song came out in 2005. I think sometime after that various enterprising entrepreneurs made the Joy Division Oven Glove a reality.
I bought some last month as a birthday present for an aging indie kid who is very keen on cooking.
(Joy Division were a great Manchester indie band. They became New Order after the death of their singer.
The picture is a doodle from my diary. The real thing is a lot more Joy Division-y)
“Joy Division Oven Gloves” by Half Man Half Biscuit on Apple Music
This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.
The Salisbury Wetherspoons has a Green Man near the door, and, last time I was in there, Guinness at £3.79 a pint. I like both of these things.
Podcast episodes I liked last month - Cecil the lion, Disney, Shakespeare, E.E. Nesbit, Rasputin, the Fast Show, the Rector of Stiffkey, Hadrian's Wall, 15-minute cities, David Seaman, Lincoln and the Spice Girls
These are the podcast episodes that I particularly enjoyed last month.
Episodes I’ve enjoyed previously are on the podcast pages for this year, for 2025, for 2024, 2023, and for 2022
Cecil the lion - Witness History - the bloke who shot Cecil paid $50,000 for a hunters license. As they say in the podcast, this would have bought a lot of nature reserve land
Where There’s a Will: Finding Shakespeare Episode 8: Faith And Wonder - Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement ends when three stars are visible in the night sky. Also “Exit, pursued by a bear” comes from A Winters Tale.
The Rest is History - Walt Disney: The Great American Storyteller - Marge Champion was the ‘model’ for Disney’s Snow White. She married one of the lead animators, Art Babbett
Great Lives - Katherine Rundell on E.E. Nesbitt E.E. Nesbitt, who wrote the Railway Children and Five Children and It, was a founding member of the Fabian Society
Short History of….. Rasputin - the main source for the description of Rasputin’s assassination is similar to a death in Dostoevsky’s the Landlady
How The Fast Show and Cold Feet defined ’90s Telly with John Thomson - John Thompson describes the music in his parody music show as “fire in a pet shop jazz”. Nice.
The Lion, the Priest and the Parlourmaids: A 1930s Sex Scandal - The Rest Is History - Siegmund Freud visited Blackpool more than once, but I imagine the dates wouldn’t work for him to have seen the ex-Rector of Stiffkey in his barrel
Short History of….female spies in World War Two - the life expectancy of SOE radio operators after deployment was six weeks
Dan Snow’s History Hit - Folk Christmas: Yule, Solstice and Ancient English Traditions - in, I think, the early 20th century, ‘holly trains’ used to run to transport freshly cut Holly from the New Forest to London
Short History….of Hadrian’s Wall - during the Roman invasion of Britain, the Emperor Claudius turned up on an elephant
Origin Story: 15-Minute Cities – How Urban Design Entered the Culture War - the phrase ‘15 minute city’ was coined by a chap called Carlos Moreno in 2015. It seems to me like the daftest of culture wars.
Museum of Pop Culture with Josh Widdicombe: The Spice Girls (Part 4) - Geri wrote that
Ashley Blaker’s Hyperfixations - Professional Wrestling - Big Daddy had been previously known as ‘the Battling Guardsman’. The name ‘Big Daddy’ came from Tennessee Williams' Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
How To Win The World Cup: David Seaman on the importance of squad harmony - in one match the police came into the Arsenal dressing room at half time after an altercation between Ian Wright, Seaman and a policeman
The Rest is History - The Assassination Of Abraham Lincoln - just after the Civil War, Lincoln read this speech from Macbeth to his travelling companions “Duncan is in his grave; After life’s fitful fever he sleeps well; Treason has done his worst: nor steel, nor poison, Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing; Can touch him further. . .”
Cautionary Tales – Captain Coward and the Blame Game - one of the causes of the Costa Concordia tragedy was a tradition that ships sail closer to the coast when passing a senior crew members home. The maitre d' on the Concordia came from Isola del Giglio in Tuscany, where the ship hit rocks
BBC - You’re Dead to Me, Emma of Normandy - Emma of Normandy was twice queen of England. First as wife of Æthelred the Unready, then as wife of Canute. The ‘unready’ in ‘Æthelred the Unready’ is a pun on his first name, but ‘ræd’ means ‘advice’, so unready means something like ill-advised. His first wife was called Ælfgifu, which means gift of the elves. When Æthelred married Emma he renamed her Ælfgifu too
Hannibal: Roman Bloodbath at Cannae (Part 4) - this episode is pretty grim, but I was interested to learn that the podcast has about the same number of premium subscribers as the capacity of Villa Park. Villa Park holds 43,205. Multiplied by 7.99 subscription per month, The Rest is History would be earning £345207.95 per month, plus advertising. The guys must be comparatively well-paid historians. Good for them.
The Rest is Entertainment - Tim Davie on BAFTA, Mistakes and the BBC’s Future - Tim Davie says that the BBC has 300 employees who can’t return to their home countries, because they would be arrested
Short History Of…, C.S. Lewis - the Lewis family’s wardrobe is now in the Wade Center at Wheaton College in Illinois
McCartney: A Life in Lyrics - Let It Be - McCartney says that his mother, Mary, came to him in a dream and told him to ‘Let it be’
You’re dead tomorrow me - Old Norse Literature - the goddess Freyr had a chariot pulled by cats
The Book Club: 6. The Secret History: Dark Academia, Greek Myth, and Murder - I’d forgotten that the twins in The Secret History were called Charles and Camilla
My Crucial Track for 31 March 2026 - “Summer Hill” by Damien O’Kane
Post one of your favorite relaxing songs.
Damien O’Kane is one of the musicians I’ve seen most often…but in a sense I’ve only seen him once.
He’s married to Kate Rusby, and I’ve seen him in her band about a zillion times, but I’ve only seen him once doing a solo show. This is a shame, because although I enjoy the Rusby gigs, O’Kane was also marvellous
I’m not entirely sure this is exactly relaxing, but it’s a nice ballad. Kate sings on it, too.
“Summer Hill” by Damien O’Kane on Apple Music
This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.
Turning on ‘Format on save’
I’d forgotten about this
Got to settings
Turn on ‘Editor: Format on save’
….and set ‘Editor: Format on save mode’ to ‘file’
It works nicely with the Powershell extension installed - I haven’t tried it with anything else I don’t think
My Crucial Track for 29th March - The Turkish Song of the Damned by the Pogues
Some albums have a good opening track, but the 2nd track is totally killer. What’s your favorite 2nd track song?
Another Pogues track, and another trivial anecdote.
When I was at the LSE, in the early ’80s, I vaguely knew a German chap who ran a fanzine that, he said, was mainly about the Pogues and the Damned. I don’t remember his name and we never kept in contact, but I do remember talking to him, both because punk-iness wasn’t a huge thing on campus, and because I thought the Damned and the Pogues was kind of an odd combination.
Anyway, some time later, after the Pogues third LP came out, I read that this song was
“inspired by a German fan’s muddled attempts to converse with him [Shane MacGowan] about “The Turkey Song” by the Damned”.
Since then, whenever I hear the song I wonder if it was the same slightly nerd-y, very serious and earnest German guy, and I try to imagine the conversation between him and MacGowan.
My Crucial Track for 27 March 2026 - “Creep (Live)” by Pretenders
Share a track by your favorite vocalist of all-time.
One of my favourite vocalists, anyway. Chrissie Hynde of the Pretenders singing the Radiohead song.
“Creep (Live)” by Pretenders on Apple Music
This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.
Very sad - Iran players hold school bags in memory of girls killed in tribute.
Comparing bubblegum to power pop, Mojo writer Dawn Eden said: “Power pop aims for your heart and your feet. Bubblegum aims for any part of your body it can get, as long as you buy the damn record.”
I’m starting to think that Napoleon’s thing about generals is also true of goalkeepers
⚽ #ChelseaFC #cfc
Day 3 after the half marathon, and I now feel like I’ve been hit by a car rather than by a truck
So that’s progress
My Crucial Track for 24 March 2026 - “Hurt so Good” by Susan Cadogan
Post a cover that’s done in a different style than the original version.
“Hurt so Good” by Susan Cadogan
Maybe one of the classic reggae cover versions. This was originally a Bee Gees song - their version is great too.
“Hurt so Good” by Susan Cadogan on Apple Music
This is from Crucial Tracks. My profile is here.
I quite enjoyed Conclave. It’s a bit bonkers, but there’s good things about it. There was a bit at the end I found moving.
My weekend.... football, basketball, curry, low alcohol stout, the wonders of Woking, the spookiness of silver birches, and Seamus gets a new medal
A mixed weekend
-
Saturday’s football and basketball were disappointing. To be fair we never do well at Everton
-
vegetable dansak at the Jaipur in Woking was lovely, if not over-cheap
-
I discovered that I quite like Guinness 0.0
-
the Surrey half marathon was lovely. Half rural-suburban, half properly rural…it made a change from running around Bath and London (with cheaper hotels than either)
-
there was an avenue/patchy forest of silver birches
-
I love a silver birch, but en masse they felt a bit spooky
-
got a reasonable time - 5th fastest of my 16 attempts. Still slow AF, though :)
-
the Arsenal and Totteringham both mucking up made Sunday’s football both amazing and great
-
listened to another Fags, Mags and Bags (hence ‘both amazing and great’). Love that show
-
Seamus was pleased with his new medal
My Crucial Track for 18 March 2026 - “All Along the Wild Atlantic Way” by Aoife Scott
What’s your favorite song to listen to while cooking?
This is top of my ‘Kitchen Irish’ playlist. A couple of reasons. It’s a great song. It’s upbeat and cheerful, and it reminds me of a couple of trips to the west coast of Ireland…to Lahinch, and the Cliffs of Moher, and the Burren, and the sea.
Much as I like the place where I live, it’s nice to have these things in my minds eye while I’m sorting out my tea
“All Along the Wild Atlantic Way” by Aoife Scott on Apple Music
This is fromCrucial Tracks. My profile is here.
Today is Saint Cyril’s Day, among others. I feel a bit sorry for the saints whose day is the day after Saint Patrick’s Day.
Powershell to get current certificates in the servers store
invoke-command -ComputerName $ComputerName -command {
Get-ChildItem Cert:\LocalMachine\My |
where-object subject -like "*sh*" |
where-object notafter -gt $(get-date)
} |
select pscomputername,
@{l='path';e={$_.psparentpath.replace('Microsoft.PowerShell.Security\Certificate::','')}},
thumbprint,
subject,
notafter,
name
Lovely. It’s like what you’d expect a programme with Michael Palin and Mackenzie Crook to be like, albeit they aren’t the stars of the show.
Watched: Small Prophets Season 1 🍿
