Year: 2017

Listening to books, part IV

by

It’s time for another update on the audiobooks that I’ve been listening to, this time since December.

Bossypants

Continuing my trend for listening to memoirs by female comedians, I spent December listening to Bossypants by Tina Fey (Amazon link – sponsored). Fey is a comedian and actress for whom I’m broadly familiar with – particularly her Sarah Palin impressions. Alas, having not watched 30 Rock, I missed some of the references in the book. This perhaps ruined my enjoyment of it slightly.

Fey’s advice on improvisation is something that has stuck with me – the ‘Yes, and…’ response when asked a question. It’s a key part of keeping improv sketches moving, but can be applied to many other situations too.

The book is now six years old and it sort-of shows. But it’s enjoyable and I recommend it.

Where am I now?

Growing up, I was a fan of Roald Dahl’s books, and enjoyed Danny DeVito’s film adaption of Matilda. The starring role in that film was Mara Wilson, and Where am I now? (Amazon link – sponsored) is her story.

Mara isn’t so well-known nowadays. As a child actor, she was in a string of well-known films, but she wasn’t able to continue this fame into adulthood. The book covers how she never quite fitted in, her battles with mental health and her sometimes difficult family life. It’s a charming book that will take you through many emotions, both happy and sad.

After listening, I bought this book as a Christmas present for Christine, as many of Wilson’s life experiences mirrored hers. That, and it’s a book that I really enjoyed.

Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies

I’m not a lady, but this book by Guardian journalist Hadley Freeman was recommended to me. Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies (Amazon link – sponsored) is part-memoir, part advice column, and partly an opportunity to rant about patriarchal oppression and the rubbish that modern women have to put up with.

Freeman’s wit livens up a book that I’d otherwise have stopped listening to partway through. Again, a lack of familiarity with the many TV series that Freeman references in the book made it hard to follow in places. And like her columns, this is a very light-hearted read that shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

As with Lindy West’s audiobook Shrill that I reviewed last time, Freeman isn’t the best person to speak her own work. This is especially noticeable at the beginning when her performance isn’t great. Again, I put this down to Freeman (and West) being journalists rather than actors and performers.

Update (May 2025): I wouldn’t now recommend this book due to Freeman’s transphobic views.

Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions

Making computer algorithms both interesting and relevant to the wider public is a hard task, but this book does it well Algorithms to Live By: The Computer Science of Human Decisions (Amazon link – sponsored) is by Brian Christian and Tom Griffiths, and Christian himself reads the audiobook. It takes the concepts of various common algorithms and shows how these can be applied to real life. The collision detection algorithms used in computer networking are a good example. We use the concept naturally when talking in a group, to ensure that we don’t speak over others.

Because computers follow every instruction explicitly, the book shows how actions that we humans take for granted have to be unpacked for a computer, and how we can learn from this process.

Some of the concepts can be a little hard to get your head around, and having a background in computer science definitely helped me. Whilst it’s not your typical self-improvement book, I picked up a few tips for dealing with real life situations based on this book’s concepts.

In addition to these books, I’ve been listening to some fiction books, which I’ll write about later. Next up, is Steve Coogan’s Easily Distracted.

Planning a London trip

by
Westminster

In a couple of months time, Christine, our one-year-old and I are off down to that there London for three nights. Typically, we go to London once or twice a year.

Travelling down

Our last visit was in October, and we travelled down by car for the first time. This was because we went via Oxford, but also because of the logistics of managing a 10-month old baby on a train for three hours each way was daunting. Especially when you add in all of the extra paraphernalia that you need to haul around with a small baby. Last time, we had to take plenty of food, changes of clothes, nappies etc.

This time, our toddler will be approaching 18 months old, and so we’re going to attempt the train. We’ll do without a pushchair, as our toddler should still be small enough to carry in a sling, and can walk short distances now. And, apart from a few snacks, our toddler doesn’t need their own food, as they’re happy eating from regular menus now.

It’ll also be cheaper. Fuel and parking cost us around £60 last time, plus the pressure of driving. Christine hasn’t passed her test yet and I can’t supervise her, so I have to do all of the driving. By contrast, two standard class adult returns with a Two Together Railcard booked last month cost us just £41. And, we’ve accumulated enough Nectar points to get two £20 Virgin Trains East Coast vouchers, so we actually only paid £1. That’s cheaper than the Megabus.

Staying over

Booking well in advance also ensured a cheap hotel stay. When booking accommodation, my usual tactic is to check the major budget hotel chains one by one, and then an aggregator like Expedia or Lastminute.com (which are often not the cheapest). Typically, we end up staying in a hotel in the IHG group, as I’m an IHG Rewards member, but they didn’t come out cheapest this time.

As usual, we’re not staying in central London. London’s public transport is really good, and the cost of travelling a bit further out is usually much less than the price of a more central hotel room. This time, we’re staying near Kew, in south-west London.

London attractions

The hotel is handy for the London Museum of Water & Steam, which I’ve not heard of before but it looks interesting. It’s in an old pumping station, and now tells the history of London’s water supply. This will be the second London pumping station that we’ve visited, after going to Crossness in 2015. It looks like it’ll be good for kids – especially if it’s a nice day where Lizzie can play outside.

The Musical Museum is also nearby and we may visit, depending on time.

Further away is the Museum of London Docklands. We popped in for about an hour on our last visit, but were only able to see the gallery on the top floor, about slavery and the history of the area. So we’d like the see the rest of the museum, but also the special exhibition on the archaeology of Crossrail that runs until November.

The Hunterian Museum has been on our to-do list for some time. Sadly, it closes next month for a three year refurbishment, so it’ll be shut when we visit.

Seeing friends

We try to make time to see friends when we’re in London, and so, in addition to the above, we’ll plan to meet up if we can. There’s a lot to fit in to a three night stay but we’ll do our best.

PPE – the degree that runs Britain

by
A photo of George Osborne, a PPE graduate, wearing PPE in a factory

If I mentioned the abbreviation ‘PPE’, you may think that I’m talking about ‘personal protective equipment’ – equipment that you wear when working in environments with potential health and safety risks.

But PPE can also mean ‘Philosophy, Politics and Economics‘, and specifically a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Oxford. Oxford’s PPE course is notable because a significant number of British politicians, journalists and experts studied the course. Prospective students see it as a major stepping stone into a career in politics.

Last month, The Guardian’s Long Read featured PPE. It starts by naming many of its alumni, which included the then leaders of Britain’s two largest political parties along with MPs from others. The course has strong heritage, having run at Oxford for almost 100 years, and with a glittering list of well-known graduates. As well as British politicians, it has attracted those from other countries and former US president Bill Clinton, former Pakistani president Benazir Bhutto, and Burmese political campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi are among its many international graduates.

Getting into the course, like any degree at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, is an achievement in itself. (Note: I work in admissions at a rival UK university). Applicants are expected to achieve at least three straight A grades in their A-levels, though this can be from any three subjects and doesn’t need to include Philosophy, Economics or Politics. There’s also an admissions test called the Thinking Skills Assessment, and an interview, so academic ability alone is not enough to get admitted.

With so many of our politicians having graduated from a single course at a single university – and one that is attended by a large proportion of privately-educated students – it’s easy to see why there are accusations that Britain is ruled by an ‘elite’. I agree that it attracts those who plan to be career politicians, although I’m conflicted about whether that’s necessarily a bad thing. Certainly, you have to be intelligent and articulate to pass an interview and get a place on the course. Michael Gove claimed last year that we’ve had enough of experts; Gove is not a PPE graduate but studied English at Oxford. But personally, I’d rather have experts running the country, in the same way that you wouldn’t want your mate Dave from down the pub performing your keyhole surgery. Unless Dave was a qualified surgeon.

Which brings me to the point I’m trying to make. PPE at Oxford has become a de facto qualification for a high-level political qualification in Britain. We don’t have a kind-of ‘General Political Council’ to regulate politicians and ensure that our MPs and councillors are sufficiently qualified to stand for office. Nor do we have a ‘Chartered Institute’ that accredits degree courses. Whether we should is another matter – there have been many perfectly good MPs who are not career politicians, and who have switched to politics following careers in other industries. But it’s an interesting idea, and perhaps the reason why there are so many successful politicians who are PPE graduates, is because it’s such a good preparation for a political career.

Finally, you may enjoy the PPE in PPE Twitter account, which combines both definitions and shows PPE graduates posing for photographs whilst wearing PPE.

Contemplating Apple’s updated iPad range

by

Yesterday, Apple quietly updated its iPad and iPhone product range. The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are now available in red, supporting Product (RED), and the budget iPhone SE is available with more built-in storage.

As for Apple’s tablets, there’s a new iPad Air, but with the ‘Air’ moniker dropped. It’s now just known as the iPad, but uses the same form factor as the iPad Air. Externally it looks the same, but the chip has been bumped up from an A8X to an A9, which brings better performance. It’s available with either 32 or 128 gigabytes of storage, and the cheapest model is £339. This is a significant price cut from the £379 iPad Air 2 that it replaces.

The iPad Mini remains at version 4, and, interestingly, is now only available with 128 gigabytes of storage. Consequently, the cheapest iPad Mini is £419, which is only £10 cheaper than the new 128 GB iPad; back in 2014, the difference was £80 between the equivalent 16 GB models. I suspect that Apple plans to stop selling small form-factor tablets in the near future, which would be a shame as I think it’s a nice size.

Replacing my iPad

My current tablet is a 16 GB iPad Mini 2, which was a present for my 30th birthday in 2014. I use it daily, both at home and at work. At home, it’s effectively my primary computer. I use it far more than my Mac, which, being a desktop, is fixed in one place. Being able to use it anywhere in the house is a major advantage when looking after a small child.

At work, it’s useful in meetings as I don’t need to print off reams of documents beforehand. I also find it handy at events, for checking information whilst away from my desk. And it provides entertainment whilst travelling; I can read Pocket articles or magazines whilst commuting to work.

However, its screen is badly cracked. The screen has already been repaired once, for which I paid about £40 to a shop in Bradford. The workmanship wasn’t great and the home button sticks sometimes. In any case, I broke the screen again literally only a few weeks later. A decent repair job on the screen is likely to cost around £100, or around a third of the cost of a new iPad.

Advantages and disadvantages

There would be several advantages of buying a new, standard-sized iPad:

  • Larger screen, which would suit me as I read a number of digital magazines.
  • Touch ID.
  • Being able to use two apps in split-screen mode (my iPad Mini 2 only supports slide-over).
  • Faster processor.
  • More storage, as I often run out of space with only 16 GB.
  • Being eligible for continued iOS updates, as I suspect Apple may drop support for the iPad Mini 2 after iOS 11.

And some disadvantages:

  • I like the smaller size and lighter weight of the iPad Mini.
  • A new case would be needed – Christine hand-made my current one, but I doubt she will have time to make a new one for me.
  • I would also need a new Bluetooth keyboard, although as Lizzie likes playing with my current one I’m sure she would like to keep it as a toy.

Although the large crack on my iPad’s screen is unsightly, I’m seriously considering holding out with it, until I can afford to buy a new model. Right now, money is tight, and I can’t really justify paying for repairs to my existing model, or for buying a new one.

I could, of course, consider an Android tablet, which may be cheaper. But I’m worried that I would then have the additional expense of buying replacement apps again and getting used to an unfamiliar operating system. The current best Android tablets cost around the same as an iPad, and a cheaper model may not be any better than what I already have.

I’ll revisit this in the summer, when I’ll hopefully have some more money. By then, we will hopefully know more about iOS 11, and which devices it will support. That could sway my decision further.

Fitbit-less

by
A photo of a Fitbit Charge HR which is stuck on a firmware update

I’m currently without my Fitbit, as it seems to have died. It looks like a firmware update failed, leaving it basically bricked. I spent about an hour on Sunday chatting to a very helpful support agent called Ulises, and despite trying several methods to get it to reboot correctly, we weren’t able to.

Thankfully, the kind people at Fitbit offered me either a free replacement, or 30% off a new model. I decided to go for the former; though the new models are better, right now I can’t afford the 70% balance that I’d need to pay. Hopefully it’ll arrive soon.

Frustratingly, I had managed to reach my 10,000 step goal every day for the previous 57 days, up to and including Saturday. This beat a record of 32 days that I set in April last year. Reaching 10,000 steps is relatively easy on weekdays; my commute involves around 45 minutes of walking. But weekends can be a challenge, and keeping it up for so long required some forward planning.

Even though I haven’t been wearing a fitness tracker for the past couple of days, I’m still following similar habits. This includes not standing still if I can avoid it, such as waiting for a train. When at work, I still go to a set of toilets a little further away from my desk, and I try to move around at least once every hour.

Since getting my Fitbit in September 2015, I’ve lost around 9 kilos in weight. That’s almost 20 lb, or nearly 1 1/2 stone, if you use old-fashioned measurements. Whilst I am also eating better, having a Fitbit motivates me to do just a little more exercise every day, and it seems to be making a difference. It’s brought my Body-Mass Index (BMI) down to 23.3, which is well within the ‘healthy’ zone; previously, I was straying into being ‘overweight’. And whilst BMI is a very crude measurement, it’s used as a kind-of ready-reckoner by a lot of health professionals.

I’ll be looking forward to my replacement Fitbit arriving, not at least because I don’t currently have a working watch. Let’s see if I can beat my 57 day record, and manage to walk 10,000 steps for a whole two months.

Askham Bryan Wildlife & Conservation Park

by
Lizard

York, the city I was born in, now has yet another tourist attraction – the Askham Bryan Wildlife and Conservation Park. Located on the edge of the city by the ring road, it’s on the site of Askham Bryan College, one of the largest agricultural colleges in the UK. It’s been open just over a week, and I visited with Christine and Lizzie yesterday.

Fish and reptiles

The visit starts inside the visitor centre, with a look at fish and reptiles. Sadly the fish tank had broken already, and so was empty. To make up for it, visitors were allowed behind the scenes to one of the back rooms. Here, there were many more small aquatic and amphibious animals that were not normally on show to the public. Plus, students from the college were on-hand to answer questions.

It’s worth noting here that the wildlife park isn’t just a tourist attraction, but is part of Askham Bryan College itself. Many of the keepers are also students of the college, who are doing courses in animal management. The courses range right from basic level 1 qualifications in land-based studies all the way through to degrees. The wildlife park therefore gives the students practical experience as an integrated part of their course, without the need to go elsewhere.

After the reptiles, there’s a nocturnal animals section with dimmed lights. The animals here included a civet, a sugar glider, an armadillo and several chinchillas. All apart from the chinchillas were active when we first arrived in the morning, but were nowhere to be seen in the afternoon. The chinchillas seemed to be asleep the whole time.

The visitor centre also includes an ‘Education Pod’, and we went to two handling sessions during the day. One focused on reptiles, with the opportunity to stroke a snake, a bearded dragon and a tortoise, and the other on bugs – stick insects and cockroaches.

Mongoose

Meerkats and farm animals

Outside, there’s a meerkat and mongoose enclosure, with two gangs of meerkats in separate areas. The Yorkshire Wildlife Park, a few miles south near Doncaster, also mixes its meerkats and mongooses (not ‘mongeese’) and this is because the two species often share burrows in the wild. There were a couple of talks about the meerkats during the day, and we stayed for the second talk in the afternoon.

Next is a farm enclosure, home to seven goats, spanning three species, and three alpacas. Again, there was a ‘Meet a goat’ talk, where kids got chance to pet a large goat called Steve.

Skunk

Arboretum

The rest of the site is in what used to be Askham Bryan College’s arboretum. There’s a wide variety of trees and plants, with the same information boards as the animals. Some of the trees, like the animals, are endangered, and so it was interesting to read about them.

The next set of enclosures housed lemurs, raccoons and skunks. The lemurs were quite active but we didn’t get to see a raccoon until the afternoon, and even then it was asleep. American readers may wonder why an animal that is considered a pest is in a zoo in Britain, but they’re not native here. Interestingly though, it will shortly become illegal in the EU to breed raccoons, as they’re classed as an invasive species.

As for the skunks, we only got to see them at feeding time in the afternoon. They’re nocturnal, so this isn’t so surprising.

Wallaby

Wallabies and birds

There are six wallabies at Askham Bryan, one of which is a joey. The joey is a few months old, but it doesn’t yet have a name as it’s still in its mother’s pouch. Next to that were two monkey enclosures, home to some marmosets and tamarins – the latter had only been at the zoo for a few weeks.

Further on is an aviary with a variety of parrots. Unfortunately, issues with avian flu meant that the aviary was closed, although you could hear the birds. Finally, visitors can access York Falconry at the far end of the site, for a small additional fee – £2 for adults, cash only. York Falconry is home to several birds of prey – owls, hawks, and some ferrets. When we went, there was an opportunity to hold a Little Owl. Despite the small extra cost, this end of the zoo was very quiet and we saw several groups turn back when they realised there was an additional charge, which is a shame.

Bearded dragon

Work in progress

The wildlife park is, of course, brand new, and so there were some areas that weren’t ready. There’s a wetland area with a pond that was open, but with nothing to see. And an enclosure for some Scottish wildcats was being finished, ready to open soon.

Without attending the talks, we could have done the park in less than two hours, as it’s not very big and certainly on a much smaller scale than many other zoos in the UK. The talks were good, although some of the students delivering the talks seemed a bit unsure of what they were saying. The cafe in the visitor centre was rather underwhelming, and just offered drinks, pre-packed sandwiches and cakes. The sole member of staff was clearly overworked with patrons, and it wasn’t even lunchtime. So there’s room to improve.

I also think it would be good to see more of the behind the scenes areas. We were lucky to be able to see one of them, but this won’t normally be open, which is a shame – it was good to see how the park was run, and could be a good recruitment tool for the college’s courses.

Opening times

Unlike most zoos, which are open almost every day of the year, Askham Bryan’s wildlife park is normally only open on weekends. Exceptions are school holidays, when it’s open throughout the week, and bank holidays. At £7 for adults and £5 for children, it is considerably cheaper than most other zoos. And, whilst there isn’t a lot to see right now, what they do have so far is good. It’s also worth mentioning that, at present, you have to pre-book your tickets online and print them out. You’ll also need to bring cash if you want to see the falconry. I hope that, in future, there’ll be an option to include the falconry in the entry tariff on the door, or at least a way of buying a voucher with a credit card.

Askham Bryan is very close to where my parents live, and I imagine that when Lizzie stays with them she’ll be a regular visitor. Certainly, had this existed 30 years ago, I think my parents would have taken me there regularly. And whilst York isn’t short of tourist attractions, it’s an interesting and unique addition.

As usual, photos of my visit are on Flickr.

Travel ban-dango

by
Flight home

I’m really worried about the on-off-on-off travel ban that’s the subject of ongoing legal action in America. To summarise: President Trump (urgh) enacted an Executive Order stopping anyone arriving from Iraq, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen from entering the US for 90 days, and suspending the US’s refugee programme. Right now, the ban has been temporarily lifted by the courts, but I expect this to go back an forth for some time.

I’m not from any of those countries, nor am I related to anyone from that region or have been to any of those countries. But I have been to the middle-east region for work, including to Amman in Jordan, which is around an hour from the border with Syria. My passport, valid for several more years, carries visas for Oman and Jordan.

And I’ve heard stories where those arriving at US airports are being asked to show their social media profiles, or asked about their opinions about the new US president. My opinions are hardly favourable. I think Trump is a disaster for America and the world, and have shared a number of anti-Trump statuses on Facebook and Twitter.

When even the former Prime Minister of Norway is pulled aside for additional questioning over a 2014 visit to Iran, it makes me worried that I will be allowed into America in the current climate. Especially if the legal challenges against this ban fail. I hope they won’t.

I’ve never been to America but have always wanted to go. Christine has family out there, and her uncle recently gained American citizenship. Whilst he has met our one-year-old on a recent visit to Britain, the rest of Christine’s relatives haven’t yet had the chance.

Of course, the main factor stopping us from getting to America is money – getting across the Atlantic is going to be expensive, and we have a lot of other things that we also need to spend money on. But I don’t want to be in a situation where we’ve spent hundreds of pounds on flights, to then be turned away at the border, or lose several hours whilst being interrogated by immigration officials. Nor do I want to be forced to keep quiet on social media about issues I feel strongly about.

A return visit to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park

by
Lion

Having visited last Valentines Day, we made a return visit to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park near Doncaster at the weekend. We really enjoyed it last time, but our visit was cut short when the weather turned. Saturday was a cold but dry day, so we headed over for another visit.

Getting there was a little easier this time, thanks to the opening of the Great Yorkshire Way. This links the M18 – the motorway that bypasses Doncaster to the south – with the A638, the road that feeds the wildlife park and nearby Robin Hood Airport. A second phase, due to start construction shortly, will see the road make it all of the way to the airport. But even the first phase cut our travelling time by at least 10 minutes each way.

The main attraction that we missed last time was the lions, so we went there first. The lions were rescued from a run-down zoo in Romania, and flown to the UK on a specially-adapted Jet2 plane. Their new enclosure is as big as the whole of the zoo that they called their home previously. Indeed, one thing I like about the Yorkshire Wildlife Park is that the enclosures are big, and designed so that visitors can see in over the fencing in many cases. On both visits, my Canon EOS 600D DSLR camera has seemed almost amateur compared to some of the specialist photography kit that other visitors have brought, and it’s easy to see why.

We also got to see one of the leopards; last time, none of them fancied making an appearance. And we saw a stoat – not one of the zoo’s animals, but it was on an area of rough ground near the polar bears that has yet to be developed.

As usual, I have uploaded the better photos that I took to Flickr.

How to: fix wrong location on iPhone

by
A screenshot showing how to reset settings on iOS 16

Over the Christmas break, my iPhone would randomly decide that I was in my office. I’d have an app open that used my location, but instead of showing me where I actually was, it’d suggest that I was in Bradford. Which isn’t so useful when, in reality, you’re at home, or in York.

It caused particular problems when using Google Maps for directions, as it’d randomly jump to Bradford and then back again. Swarm was basically unusable. And it completely broke the ‘Track Exercise’ function of the Fitbit app. I had to actually uninstall and reinstall the Fitbit app a couple of times because it wouldn’t let me stop the exercise. This was even after restarting the app.

Turning Wifi off helped. Apple’s iPhones, and indeed many other devices, use the SSIDs of available Wifi networks to approximate your location. This is done by querying a web service, which means that you can still get an approximate location even when indoors, and out of view of GPS satellites. But turning off Wifi was hardly a long term solution.

How to actually fix the location problem

A bit of Googling uncovered this article about fixing your location. It offers several solutions, depending on whether the issue affects just one application, or all. In my case, it was all applications, and the solution that worked was the fifth on the list. This involves resetting your phone’s location and privacy settings.

To do this, open Settings, and choose General. Then, scroll right down to the bottom and choose Reset, then select ‘Reset Location & Privacy’ – on iOS 10.2, this is the last option. Your device will ask you for your unlock password – pop this in, confirm, and hopefully your device will get the location correct from now on.

There is a drawback to doing this, however. You’ll have noted that this resets both your location and privacy settings. This means that any apps that you have granted access to your contacts, photos, calendars, camera, microphone, media library and so on will need to request them again. Although, oddly, apps will retain their location permissions, along with any permissions regarding background app refresh, notifications or mobile data access.

Despite these issues, it was a relief to fix the problem.

This blog post was updated in November 2023 with an updated screenshot, but the instructions are broadly the same.

Google Chromecast review

by
A photo of a Google Chromecast

There were only a couple of presents that I specifically asked for Christmas this year, and one of these was a Google Chromecast. At £30, it’s a cheap and easy way of getting internet content onto your TV.

Roku versus Chromecast

If you’ve read my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’ve had a Roku 2 XS since summer 2014. I wanted a Chromecast to complement it, and alleviate some of the Roku’s shortcomings.

The Roku is good little device, especially as it now supports almost all streaming media services in the UK with the recent additions of Rakuten’s Wuaki.tv and Amazon Prime Instant Video. And it’s easy to use, since it comes with a remote control – unlike the Chromecast. The main issues I’ve been having are:

  • Speed – apps such as BBC iPlayer are very slow. You can press pause, and the Roku will take several seconds before it actually responds in any way. I imagine newer Roku devices (the third and fourth series) are much faster; the Roku 2 series was on its way out when I bought it in 2014. That being said, it’s still receiving software updates which is good.
  • Stability – sometimes the Roku crashes, and has to reboot. I’ve had particular problems with the YouTube app causing this.
  • Netflix – the Netflix app on the Roku (second series at least) is poor. It doesn’t support multiple user profiles per account, so whatever you watch goes on the viewing history of the main profile. And parental controls don’t work, so you can’t watch any shows on the Roku which require a parental control PIN.
  • Spotify – Roku has a Spotify app, but you need to be a Premium subscriber to use it – that means paying £10 per month. I’m on Spotify’s £5 per month ‘Unlimited’ plan, which suits me but doesn’t work with the Roku.

Where the Chromecast excels

Setting up the Chromecast is quite easy – it took around 10 minutes which included installing a software update. And installation is as simple as plugging it into a spare HDMI socket, and then connecting the USB cable to a spare socket (a mains adaptor is included if required).

To ‘cast’ something, you just need to open an app on your Android or iOS mobile device, and look for the cast icon. Whatever you’re streaming will then appear on your TV, and you use your device to control it – playing, pausing etc. And, it only casts the content that you’re streaming, so your TV won’t flash up any notifications for example. This is a big advantage over simple Bluetooth speaker systems, for example, which simply broadcast all of the sounds that your device makes.

Compared with the Roku 2, the Chromecast is very fast. Tapping the cast icon in an app registers almost straightaway on the Chromecast and the only delays seem to be caused by buffering, rather than the device itself being slow.

Netflix works as well as it would do on a mobile device, so we can watch more adult things when our one-year-old isn’t about, but also ensure that their profile doesn’t show them. And Spotify streaming via Chromecast is available to all users – even those with free accounts.

There’s also a guest mode, which lets anyone who doesn’t have your Wifi password to cast to your Chromecast – provided that they have the PIN code displayed on the home screen. The PIN changes at least once a day.

…and some pitfalls

I’ve already mentioned the lack of a remote. But this problem is exacerbated, in my view, because you have to go into the app to access the controls to play and pause. On iOS, at least, the controls don’t appear on your device’s lock screen. You can lock your device and the content will still play, but pausing when the phone rings (for example) is a bit more involved. It’d be nice if there was an iOS widget that could pause whatever is playing, but I don’t know if that’s possible.

Not all apps support Chromecast. The big one that’s missing is Amazon Prime Instant Video, although there is a relatively easy workaround. The other app that I miss is UKTV Play, which is the only way that we can watch shows on Dave, like the new series of Red Dwarf. Living in a valley prevents us from receiving Dave via Freeview, we can’t get Virgin Media, it’s not on Freesat and we’re too cheap to pay for Sky.

I was also hoping that my favourite Podcast app, Overcast, would work, but apparently not. A tweet from the developer suggests that it would not be trivial to add this in future. And you’ll need to use an app such as AllCast if you want to view photos and videos from Dropbox on your Chromecast. I had mixed results with this in my testing.

Also, none of the built-in apps on iOS support Chromecast. This isn’t surprising – Apple sells a rival device, the Apple TV, and has a rival protocol called AirPlay. AirPlay is, in my view, more basic than the Chromecast protocol. With AirPlay, your mobile device acts as an intermediary – it receives the content stream, decodes it, and then sends it via AirPlay to your Apple TV. The Chromecast, instead, streams directly from the content provider – your device merely sends some instructions. The main benefit is that it won’t drain your device’s battery.

Sadly, I also had some stability issues when using the NextUp Comedy app with the Chromecast. Like with the Roku, these caused the Chromecast to lock up and restart. However, at least my device remembered where it was, so I could pick it up again easily after a restart.

Putting Chrome into Chromecast

There’s a reason for the Chromecast having such a name, and that’s because you can cast web pages from the Google Chrome web browser on the desktop. This is how you can get the aforementioned Amazon Prime and UKTV Play onto your Chromecast, but it does mean that you’ll have to play and pause playback using your computer. Which isn’t ideal when your computer is in a different room to your TV, like it is in our house.

Overall

The Chromecast isn’t perfect and has some key pitfalls as mentioned. But it’s great value for £30, and relatively simple for a moderately tech-minded person to use.