Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sponge - Tech, Cosplay, Baking & Podcasts

14 July 2024

Soldier, Painting

Thomas Wilkinson

In which I get ready for Dawi to return to The Old World...

With The Old World bringing back two of my white whales from my childhood in the form of Bretonnians and Dwarfs I’ve had a lot of fun projects this year. I wanted to do a slightly different Dwarf scheme than the old green and gold I remember seeing in White Dwarf as a kid and settled on the old Zhufbar livery of white and light blue. It makes for a striking force on the table top and is relatively speedy to paint up as detailed below!

11 January 2023

Soldier, Painting

Thomas Wilkinson

How to Paint: The Dead of Dunharrow

In which I finally start delivering on the promised painting guides...

I have been sat on a fully constructed Battle of Pelennor Fields box for just about a year after purchasing it as a Christmas present to myself at the tail end of 2021. Having signed up to a few "slay the grey" style challenges in the New Year I thought it was time to start with a nice easy paint job.

21 November 2021

Puddings, Sponge

Thomas Wilkinson

Vegan Christmas Puddings

In which I modify an old family recipe to be vegan friendly...

After successfully turning my hand to vegan Christmas cake I thought it was high time I adapted my old Christmas pudding recipe to be vegan too.

16 May 2021

Tinker, Web, Python

Thomas Wilkinson

Dominant Colour Extraction in Python (for a ...

In which I discuss getting the dominant colour from an image quickly...

I have recently made a Discord bot that searches for online versions of board games to help people find games to play remotely. This link will add it to your server.

Discord embeds have a colour bar down the side that can be manually set. I thought it would be cool to have this display the 'average' (i.e. dominant) colour of the board game box and decided to investigate the best way to do it.

Dominant Colour Extraction in Python (for a Discord Bot)

7 December 2020

Tinker, Productivity

Thomas Wilkinson

The Holiday Do List

In which I plan my holiday tasks…

So it may just be because it is 2020 or perhaps I'm just a bit lazy but I’ve found that I often start holiday breaks with a list of things I’d like to do and by the end of the trip* I’ve not achieved most of them. Whether it’s odd jobs or relaxing activities I wanted to get through I just accidental sit around and don’t do them. This holiday season I decided I needed a to do list and though I’d try out the new Todoist Boards feature.

*Or, let’s be real this year: sitting on the sofa at home.

ASDA

Thomas Wilkinson

19 February 2014

Cake, Sponge

Delayed Christmas Icing & Marzipan Resurrection

Thomas Wilkinson

19 February 2014

Cake, Sponge

In which I finally ice my Christmas Cake...

So I made a Christmas Cake in November and never got round to finishing the icing. Luckily Christmas cake is well known for it's survivability and this one has been well fed with brandy.

Thomas Wilkinson

13 December 2012

Clipper, LaTeX, Reviews, Tea, Tinker, Twinings, Whittard's

The Great British Tea Test 2012

Thomas Wilkinson

13 December 2012

Clipper, LaTeX, Reviews, Tea, Tinker, Twinings, Whittard's

That tea review data in full...

So we set out to try all the major and supermarket brand teas and decide which was the best this year.

The Tea & The Cakes

We tried the following teas:

ASDA red label
Clipper
Lancashire
Marks & Spencer everyday
Morrisons red label
PG Tips
Sainsbury's red label
Tesco red label
Tetley
Twinings
Typhoo
Whittard
Yorkshire