the chateau de cheverny in france
Sleepy Suffolk

Booking Rooms For The Roadtrip

In spite of the Internet being much like God, i.e. ubiquitous, you’d think it would have answers to all questions metaphysical or life-pending.Well, it so happens that booking a hotel (hostel / B&B) room for three proved to be more arduous than one would think. And so, it took me a few calls, hundreds of clicks, patient perusing through the Gîtes de France website before finally spotting a winner.We’d initially planned to stay in or around Saint-Emilion, a famous vineyard but luck has once again its whimsical way about things and put us up in a small village on the shore of the Gironde: Bourg. (33710). We will be staying at the Poissonneaus, Annick & Jean in their small château. When […]

assorted spices on brown wooden table beside red and white textile
Personal, Sleepy Suffolk

Swell Sweets & Suedes

Not so long ago, dearest Amaia, my housemate from Spain, had meddled haggis with Huggies – not a very tasty combination.On her long and winding road to the British Epitome of Cuisine, after having cleared the haggis hurdle, she decided to subdue swedes. No, not the Nordic native. We’re dealing with veggies here – you know one of your infamous ‘five-a-day’ food portions. As Merriam & Webster parsimoniously puts it, it’s chiefly British meaning that the use of swede as a member of the Brassicaceae family (as opposed to a tall strapping blond chap) pertains to the domain of British English, a somewhat obscure subset of the English language which mingles pavements with sidewalks and whatnot.Again, this episode unraveled itself […]

Sleepy Suffolk

Haggis & Huggies Puzzle Amaia

A little while ago, our household was blessed with the return of a fellow Frenchman, Pierre, along with a beret and baguette. Finally, the house balance would tug a wee bit more towards the garlic-grinding French rather than the chorizo-relishing Spaniards. Pierre being a student at Newcastle University, felt very much obliged to bring us the very finest of northern food to our sunny little county of Suffolk. And there is no dish like haggis.Now, for those non-initiated, haggis is a lovely little concoction the Scots crafted centuries ago when for lack of other ingredients they gathered what they could (see inset above left). Actually, according to online sources, this may well be a blatant lie. The Scots would have […]

Sample code screenshot - XML manipulation with XSLT
Identity and Access Management

Replace an XML element value using XSLT

The aim is to take a document, look for a specific element (by local name and URI rather than name including prefix) and replace its value. Let’s have a look at how we can achieve XML manipulation with XSLT. Where is this useful? Imagine a gateway protecting an internal web service. If that web service is WS-A enabled, it therefore has a wsa:From field that contains its internal URI. Obviously the gateway abstracts the internal service from what is seen outside as a ‘virtual’ or ‘logical’ service. One, therefore, needs to update the wsa:From field to reflect an external URI. Sample XML The XSL Other uses for XML manipulation with XSLT XSLT and XML can be be used to translate […]

beer pouring into clear drinking glass on metal surface
Sleepy Suffolk

Stranded In Charleroi

It was late, one of those wet fall evenings where dusk had disappeared into a premature night. As often, our meeting had overrun and by then we were the only ones to go back to central Charleroi. A colleague kindly gave us a lift to the city. But not knowing the street name I had given him let alone the location of our hotel, he dropped us somewhere convenient. And ironically enough it so happened, he left us off right next to Waterloo Underground Station, on the busy eponymous avenue. Coincidence or Belgian sense of humor? Surely my colleague knew I’m French, surely he knows what Waterloo is. A Belgian city? Well… yes.So there we were clueless, helpless, shrouded in […]