Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy — The Edits

If I’ve ever talked to you about about Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy before, it has probably gone a little like this:

  • First, I’ll launch into a grand diatribe about how it’s quite likely the best English language drama serial ever made, with an over-long segue in which I point out yes I do mean that, and I specifically target the so-called “Golden Age”, AKA “the Americans finally work out how to make good television”. And yes, I’m including The Wire. Shut up.

  • Secondly, if you haven’t backed away or found the nearest exit yet, I’ll tell you to watch it with the admonishment “But you must watch the seven episode UK version. The US edit only has six episodes and is obviously inferior!”

  • Thirdly, these days, I’ll continue the rant by defending the cultural impact of the BBC and how pathetic little wastrels are doing their best to eliminate that from our lives in favour of a Netflix subscription.

And for many years, ever really since I found out about the two different versions, that was my brief. After all, seven episodes versus six — there’s an entire episode missing! What I never really did was examine what was missing in the US edit. During my first 2021 re-watch (I do it at least once a year, obviously), I announced to the world, or at least my Twitter followers, that 2021 was to be the year where I finally went through them and decided once and for all what was in and what was out.

You’ll notice that it’s 2022 now. I spent months of 2021 seeing this on my to-do list, carried forward every week. There was always something else, or I felt the weather was too good (TTSS really needs to be watched on a cold, drizzly day for the best effect), or any other number of excuses. But, over the Christmas break, I finally broke out GridPlayer and did side-by-side comparison, along with answering a mystery about Operation Testify that you may not even have wondered about. So let’s begin!

The Glasses

Episode 1

My original plan was to tackle an episode a week, stretching the feature out into the thinnest gruel to bulk out my posting in 2022. That plan disintegrated as soon as I watched the first episode, as there doesn’t seem to be any difference between the UK and US versions at all. Which seems to be completely at odds with my memory of things, but there you go.

(if you look at the running times of the episodes, they are different, but I think that’s basically explained by the difference in PAL and NTSC frame rates).

Anyway, love to Ann!

Love To Ann Everybody’s Love To Ann!

Episode 2

Recaps

🇬🇧[0:00-0:43]: Ricky Tarr ready to start his story of his time in Lisbon.

🇺🇸[0:00-0:44]: Ricky Tarr ready to start his story of his time in Lisbon. Exactly the same as the UK, as you’d expect at this point!

We get our promised differences early on. At 🇬🇧[5:47-6:40], there’s an extra scene in the nightclub where Ricky Tarr is keeping an eye on Boris as her drinks vodka alone in the corner. Instead of this, we have a quick establishing shot of the next morning as Ricky heads towards Tufty’s office for debriefing at 🇺🇸[6:08-6:09].

Later, when Irina is heading to her meeting with Tarr, there’s a long shot of Irina walking up some stairs at 🇬🇧[13:09] which is missing from the US edit.

As Smiley moves into the Islay Hotel, his unpacking scene is extended at 🇬🇧[44:35-44:45], showing him checking the cupboards in the room, and there’s an extra scene with the hotel manager and Mendel about incoming post at 🇬🇧[45:17-45:52], which includes a repeated use of his “you’ve known me long enough” catchphrase (which, as he used it in the previous scene, likely made this ripe for editing). The US version replaces it at 🇺🇸[45:46] by an exterior shot of the Islay Hotel sign — an establishing shot that you’ll be seeing a lot of during the run.

At 🇬🇧[46:54], the episode ends, but the Americans are not finished yet by a long shot. Instead of ending with Smiley asking Guillam to head to the Circus, 🇺🇸[46:49-51:52] follows Peter into MI6 as he attempts to obtain the file on Tarr’s cables. This could be a way of ramping up the tension at the end of the episode instead of the UK’s flatter ending…or it could just be filling the hour (or it could be a way of not having Episode 2 end the same was as Episode 3 as we’ll see later).

Episode 3

Recaps

🇬🇧[0:00-0:59] - Smiley asking Guillam to steal documents from the Circus.

🇺🇸[[0:00-1:26]: As well as a shorter version of the scene above in the Islay Hotel, the recap also includes a condensed version of Guillam playing “Burglar Bill” in the Circus.

Now things start to get wild. After the titles, 🇬🇧[2:20] starts us off with the Circus jaunt that was at the end of the previous episode in America. There’s an extra scene at 🇬🇧[3:00-3:25] where Guillam operates the squeaky lift to get to the top floor.

At 🇬🇧[5:58], Smiley walks out onto Broad Street in Oxford. Note that Peter still hasn’t got to the duty log yet! But, as he’s got it in the US, we open the US episode with Smiley in Oxford to see Connie Sachs at 🇺🇸[2:22] in the US. Once both episodes are done talking about ‘halcyon days’, the UK episode turns back to Peter, with an additional tiny scene at 🇬🇧[14:43-15:01] where he actually goes into the toilets which wasn’t present in the previous US episode’s telling of the event. There’s also an additional flick-through of another log book at 🇬🇧[16:12-16:20].

At 🇬🇧[29:12-29:50], Hayden and Smiley are talking in the corridor about the upcoming meeting — skipped in the US (for now, anyhow). This is followed by a scene in Control’s reception at 🇬🇧[29:51-30:50] where Smiley tries to find out why Control has cancelled all meetings and gone to ground before Smiley heads off to Hong Kong.

This is absent in the US edit, which instead comes crashing in medias res at 🇺🇸[24:46] (🇬🇧[31:01]) where Control is ranting about Witchcraft.

The UK edit gives up at 🇬🇧[44:08], basically on the same note as episode 2, with Smiley asking Peter to steal more documents from the Circus, this time on Operation Testify. And again in the US, we see Peter back at the Circus again rather than waiting until the next episode, with an establishing Circus shot at 🇺🇸[38:13] (previously seen at the start of episode 1) and then into the Testify Caper itself. The episode ends at 🇺🇸[50:41-54:23] with George and Peter in the car on the way to see Tarr, finishing on the detail that Karla is feeding information to the Circus.

Episode 4

Recaps

🇬🇧[00:0-0:55]: Back at the Islay Hotel, summing up Control’s downfall and Smiley asking Guillam to go back to the Circus to get more information on Operation Testify.

🇺🇸[0:00-1:25]: Replay of the Circus interrogation scene, this time including the Hayden huddle talk before cutting to the car with Peter and George, with Peter yelling at slow cars that wasn’t present in the last American episode, but is present in this UK episode’s telling of the scene when the British catch up with the narrative.

Once we get into the UK episode, we’re back at the Circus, 🇬🇧[02:14-2:26] but instead of an establishing shot of the London exterior, we start in the Circus library instead, complete with an extra cut-away back to the librarian in comparison to the US section in the previous episode. The UK edit continues its obsession with lifts with an extra scene again at 🇬🇧[07:30-07:59] where Peter talks to Toby and Paul about martial arts training.

At 🇬🇧[15:01] , the scene is extended as Hayden huddles with Bland and Peter as Peter is signing the Witchcraft form, and at 🇬🇧[15:31-15:40], there’s little bit more of Peter explaining to George in the car about the form he signed before yelling about Tarr. Once you get to 🇬🇧[16:28], we’ve caught back up with the end of the previous US episode.

Let’s have a stern picture of Patrick Stewart doing his cheapest role. Two series, not one word.

Karla

Incidentally, at 🇺🇸[21:45] or 🇬🇧[34:41] is likely where Smiley works out who Gerald is - the UK version gives us a longer in this scene at 🇬🇧[35:40-35:49] to have Smiley stand up in the hotel bedroom and ponder a little more than he does in the US edit.

At 🇬🇧[40:14], the UK episode ends with the news that Prideaux has been traced and is working as a teacher…but the US still has half its running time left, so at 🇺🇸[27:21] cuts over to Prideaux at the school. It still has even longer to run, so at 🇺🇸[36:18] we’re off to talk to Sam Collins about the night of Operation Testify (🇺🇸[51:33] - is your first flashing alarm about who the mole is) before ending at 🇺🇸[51:50].

Episode 5

Recaps

🇬🇧[0:00-0:46]: The UK loves the Islay Hotel. Summing up of where they are on Testify and that they’ve found Prideaux.

🇺🇸[0:00-2:54]: Retelling of Sam Collins and Hayden on the night of Operation Testify. Then, back in the present, Collins and Smiley wrapping up their conversation.

The UK episode opens with the adventures of Jumbo and the Alvis as seen in the previous US episode. Aside from the two edits being at completely different places in the narrative, there’s not a huge amount of additional material here in the British version. At 🇬🇧[25:35-25:44] there’s a couple of extra shots of Prideaux walking through the woods to meet up with Smiley, and at 🇬🇧[32:46-33:09], Prideaux comes out of the hotel bathroom and demands to go somewhere they can breathe. And finally at 🇬🇧[42:16], there’s a tiny extra portion of footage with Smiley driving off in the darkness which isn’t in the US edit.

The material in the UK edit only takes the US up to 🇺🇸[21:00], so it’s Joss Ackland time!

Joss Ackland Stealing The Show

I know The Honourable Schoolboy is problematic due to the Hong Kong location being central to the plot and it not being all that great of a book anyhow, but we were totally robbed of a Grand Jerry Westerby Adventure when they skipped it in favour of Smiley’s People.

(I’ve also just found out that they merged him with Collins in the 2011 film and I am outraged all over again)

Episode 6/7

Recaps

🇬🇧[0:00-1:16]: Prideaux and Smiley finishing up their conversation at night outside the school. 🇺🇸[0:00-3:31]: Prideaux and Smiley talking at night and the confrontation with Toby Esterhase. 🇬🇧[0:00-0:52]: Our final visit to the Islay Hotel, and Tarr holding up the Paris Embassy.

Episode 6 in the UK is so so short - 41 minutes and that’s with titles!

At 🇬🇧[32:08-32:09], there’s an extra second or so of footage of Smiley waiting by the door after Peter says he’ll join up at Sussex Gardens. The episode ends for viewers in Britain at 🇬🇧[38:33], which includes a little bit more of Ricky Tarr walking along the ferry and looking out to see, for those of you that really get into that smouldering Hywel Bennett action.

We’re now into episode 7 (but still 6 in the US), and there’s just a smidgen more of the setup at Lock Gardens, with 🇬🇧[2:09-2:10] including a little more of Guillam fiddling with wiring before Gerald comes a-calling. But otherwise, the two edits play out exactly the same.

Back At The Circus

Perhaps the most surprising outcome of the exercise is that there’s actually not much difference between the two edits at all, completely contrary to what I remembered and have been telling people for years. The six/seven episode structure really does make you think that you’re missing a lot in the US edit…but it turns out you’re really not.

So why are they so different? shrugs My speculation, for what it’s worth, is that the seven episode edit is what the director intended. I’ve looked through the Radio Times entries for the initial broadcast on BBC2 and I can’t see any real reason that the programme would have been chopped up — if the episode runs to fill a 50-minute slot, then Horizon follows at 21:50. If there’s only enough for a 45-minute slot, then Horizon is on at 21:45. I don’t think that would be acceptable in the US, though. Even back in the early 80s, WGBH would have to have formatted the show for broadcast on the PBS network, and each episode would have to be roughly consistent for scheduling purposes. And you can see that in the run-time differences; there’s only 2:55s separating the shortest and longest US edits, whereas the UK version is basically inventing Netflix variable runtimes 35 years early with a massive 8:10s.

I also wonder if there was a conscious decision in the US edit to change the ends of episodes 2 and 3 to prevent them both ending with Smiley asking Guillam to steal documents from the Circus, as this really is the only point of the two versions that messes around with the narrative.

Anyhow, returning to the original question, which should you watch? Well, I’m still biased towards the UK edit, I’m afraid. Yes, there’s not much difference in the end, but the more leisurely pace afforded by the extra shots here and there and the episode breakpoints feels better to me. Take the introduction to Prideaux at the school — the scene with Jumbo and the Alvis feels like it belongs at the start of an episode, introducing us to a new world within the story and it just breathes so much better there than slap-bang in the middle of the US’s episode. And although I can think of good reasons above why they messed with the narrative in episodes 2 and 3, I think the UK’s extended version of the Circus visit interleaved with the visit to Connie Sachs works better from a storytelling perspective than doing them serially.

But having said all that, I probably won’t yell at people demanding they watch the UK version any more, so consider yourselves all lucky.

Bonus: When Did Operation Testify Take Place?

But before we leave, one last thing. Inspired by @mumoss’s amazing work over at Dirty Feed, I wondered if we could actually pin down the date that Operation Testify actually took place. The smoking gun is Sam Collins’ retelling of the night in question; while he’s drinking the cans that eventually get him fired, he’s watching a football game.

I’m not exactly a huge football fan, but I am a British person of a certain age, and I can definitely recognize Barry Davies’ voice when I hear it. So that means it’s Match of the Day, and his commentary mentions a few players, one in particular being Paul Mariner. One search later, and we discover that one side is Ipswich Town.

If we assume that the filming dates on IMDB are correct (which is normally dangerous, but hear me out for a bit), then filming took place between October 1978 and March 1979. While we shouldn’t rely on those dates, given that it was broadcast in September 1979 we can probably say that filming likely took place during the 78-79 football season.

If only we had a site that lists Match of the Day matches with commentators and even YouTube clips. You know, even in these terrible days of grifters and web3, the Internet can still be amazing sometimes.

After looking through the list, we’ve narrowed it down to the four Ipswich Town matches Barry Davies provided commentary for (after checking 77-78 as well, just to be certain that we’re not trusting the IMDB):

  • 17/09/77 (Ipswich v. Liverpool)
  • 04/11/78 (Arsenal v. Ipswich)
  • 25/11/78 (Man. City v. Ipswich)
  • 03/03/79 (Ipswich v. Nottingham Forest)

Can we go even further? I think so. Firstly, we have a video clip of Arsenal vs. Ipswich, and Ipswich are playing in blue, when they’re clearly playing in their white away kit in Tinker, Tailor. I think we can eliminate the Forest as well for the same reason, as we can see in the highlights.. And here’s a programme of the Liverpool game that also says Ipswich were playing in blue.

We’re down to only one real date. And I think there’s even more evidence. Take a look at this screenshot from the episode itself.

[The TV]

From the commentary and what we can see of the two different kits, this is clearly showing the captain of the other team. He’s wearing a number 5 shirt, and if we have a look at the programme for the Man. City v. Ipswich game, we can see that their captain was indeed wearing 5 that night.

[City Ipswich Programme]

Operation Testify took place on the night of the 25th November, 1978.

We found a bar with the Maytals on

Ten years ago this week, I was rather sad with myself and my lot in Santa Monica. And then I heard a song as I was getting ready to walk to Activision. Suddenly, the day was not quite so bad. And my concern about whether the sentiment expressed at 2:28 applied to me so perfectly…well, it turned out to be ‘no’, on both questions.

I’ve been ill most of the week; mainly cold symptoms (tested negative twice), but also with a brain fog that I last remember settling in when I was 17 years old. Let’s…not do that again, shall we? At least I have the privilege of a four-day weekend to try and shake it off.

Meanwhile, at work, we’ve announced our new SaaS platform! All hail Springboard. The Data Science team that I’m part of will be bringing a lot of fancy NLP-based features to it as the year goes on. And maybe even some things you wouldn’t necessarily expect! makes mysterious noises

The Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy article should finally go up tomorrow. Other projects continue, but this upcoming week will be one of resting a little more…

Progress

Week 1 of 2022 down! And we’re making progress, aren’t we?

stares at a bunch of graphs going vertical

But leaving the outside world behind for now, there is progress of other sorts! Look at our escape room taking shape!

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I’m starting to think long-term about the space in the basement and I think putting dry-wall up to create four or so rooms down there is entirely feasible and scarily they would all be sizeable rooms (only one being smaller than my childhood bedroom in my head. And that’s the entry hall to the backdoor)

And progress on other things too:

  • [REDACTED ONE, or: “Morning After Pill”]: While I didn’t do any actual work on it this weekend, I did do some meta-work that is encouraging. I’m hoping to reveal what this is in February, once it’s in more of a ready state.
  • [REDACTED TWO or “Camouflage”]: I extended more of OpenAI’s code and hooked in support for features that should allow for a lot more training data to be generated. Will probably work on the website a little more this week — definitely looking like it’ll be ready for April.
  • Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: The Edits: This is about 65% done, and I’m hoping, hoping, that it’ll be up next weekend. I want to add a few video clips and make it all hang together properly.
  • [REDACTED THREE or “There Are Listed Buildings”]: This popped into my head around 7pm on Saturday night and just won’t leave. It is completely ridiculous and I love it. Expect more on that soon, though it does require building materials.

(also, no, 2022 won’t just be blog posts talking vaguely about things, but January is a month for slow starts, okay?)

Oh, we did have a little adventure this week, which brought home that we are old. It was a $600M week on Powerball, and we decided to get some tickets. There’s also a petrol station just across the road, so it’d be easy to get $10 worth of tickets one evening and come back.

Imagine, if you will, two 40-something-year-olds huddled around a ticket kiosk trying to work out why the buttons weren’t working, having to be rescued by the station attendant, who pointed out that the kiosk wasn’t working properly but they could do the tickets at the counter. But we’d already put money in the machine and it didn’t give refunds. So our planned $10 trip turned into a $25 adventure with Powerball tickets and scratch cards from the kiosk.

But this is a redemption story! No, we didn’t win the Powerball…but one of the scratchcards we ended up buying won $25, so we ended up breaking even at least…

Wrapping Up 2021

Well what a Christmas that was, eh, readers? As we barrel into year three of our global nightmare and the upcoming possibility of running out of letters in the Greek alphabet, I’m grateful that we managed to have our first family Christmas since 2019, even if it was a little different than normal, with presents under a different tree and a Christmas dinner cooked by cobbling together what we could from American suppliers. Jungle Jim’s, as ever, helped out a lot by selling ‘proper’ bacon and sausages, but even they failed us on the stuffing front. But we had crackers with the proper snap, silly hats, and matching pyjamas!

(and a cat that was very confused about what was going on:

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)

And yes, a bunch of desserts happened. A much slimmed-down list than I originally planned, but I did get my latest iteration of Black Forest Gateau out there:

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I find it amusing that my BFG has long since become far more complicated than the Heston Blumenthal version from long ago. I still don’t quite understand the appeal of a large chunk of Aero in his take on the idea, but maybe next year, I will finally get around to adding an aerated namelaka filling that I’ve been threatening for a few years now. And adding a train and village to the increasingly-complicated diorama.

So, yes, it was a very different American holiday for my family, with a lot more remaining indoors than they’re used to, but I think everybody had fun and they went home with a few presents in their suitcases!

Traditionally, I fill the Christmas holiday with a large set of plans that get junked on Day 2. And while I have thrown out a few things this time around as well, I have for once actually made some real progress. Firstly, I fixed a computing issue I’ve been struggling with for almost two years now, which means that my plans for April 2022 will happen! (it’s still under wraps for now, but if you want a hint, it does involve reinforcement learning)

I also spent Wednesday watching all the episodes of the US and UK edits of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy side-by-side so I now have copious notes about the differences between the two versions, and while I’ve failed in getting that article out in 2021 like I promised, it should happen in January, plus there’s a little bonus detective work thrown in there to go with the edit discussion. And finally, I have continued work on the [REDACTED] project, which likewise I hope to get out in 2022.

2022 might be a busy year for all number of reasons. Hopefully one of those is that we can go outside again.

Christmas Sunday Fun (Reading 2021)

A longer, perhaps more involved Christmas update next week (or, I forget about it and we go into 2021 with broken promises from the off, which sounds more likely), but as a Boxing Day Christmas Sunday special, here’s a list of the books I read in 2021. Well, most of them. Things without ISBN numbers aren’t included, and you can mentally add “almost everything John Smith did at 2000AD, plus a bunch of other comics” as well.

Highlights of the list? As you can probably tell, I went deep on M. John Harrison’s work this year — I’d definitely recommend the Settling The World collection of short stories, or the post-Brexit The Sunken Land Begins To Rise Again novel as starting points - much easier to get hold of than some of the out-of-print books I’ve spent the year tracking down. Eliza Clark’s Boy Parts was so compelling that I stayed up until 3am one night finishing it (always a great idea). And the finale of David Peace’s Tokyo Trilogy was so long in coming that it was a complete surprise to be a pretty straight-forward affair, with only a few echoes of “At home, at Anfield” in the text1. Now, if only he’d finish UKDK.

(and there are a few classics that I should have read many years ago. At least I understood this week’s Necromancer discourse on Twitter having finally knocked that one out)

Hope you all had a great Christmas, and see you back here later in the week2!


  1. see Red or Dead for just the most amazing list of football fixtures you’re likely to see in novel form. ↩︎

  2. Honest! ↩︎

Just Like Christmas

Travel right now does seem like a bad idea, and maybe we’re being a little irresponsible, but it appears that my family made it onto a plane this morning to escape Plague Island and they’re on their way here for a different type of Christmas. And, I guess, a different type of American holiday, where we mainly Remain Indoors and go through my stash of LFTs. I swear, when they become reimbursable next month (whyyyyy so long???), I’m going to start buying 10-packs.

Anyway, the house is mostly ready for them — I find it amusing that I have relegated myself to the smallest bedroom and I will be again the only person in the house without a TV in their room. Just Like Christmas indeed. Plus it’s also full of cardboard boxes and an old mattress, so expect to see me on Duvet Know It’s Christmas later in the week.

I also started on the Christmas viewing! Yes, Knowing Me, Knowing Yule, but can you also believe I watched two films on Friday night, and they were both released in 2021? Amazing scenes. Admittedly, Giddy Stratospheres is set in the 2000s and Last Night In Soho has a large 60s element, but still, for me? I have never been so up-to-date!

(Giddy Stratospheres made me miss The Luminaire a lot. Just look at this:

Lucky Soul

Such a great little venue. And of course, it’s now a bunch of tiny little flats. God, how depressing they look)

Steel yourselves for more dessert pictures over the next week. The holidays are coming…

Four Days Left (Goodbye, 2021!)

Just four more work days of 2021. Not the best time for the biggest exploit in computing for years to drop…so an interesting final week at work, I guess?

Otherwise, not really an interesting week, to be honest; I’m just hoping that every goes okay in the next seven days and that my family is able to get on the plane next Sunday! Otherwise there’s going to be a lot of solo baking and I’ll have to eat my way through a forest (a chocolate one, obviously).

Now, though, it’s time to go clean the kitchen again…

The Drill That Pierces The Heavens

I’m supposed to be going to see Chvrches tonight. The first concert of the year, tickets but sometime back in or May or so. Even before Omicron landed, I wasn’t feeling it, but despite being double-vaccinated and about a month out from my booster shot…yeah, there’s absolutely no way I’m hanging out with a thousand other dancing people in close-quarters right now, even if I really like the band and don’t know when they’ll come this way again. But right now, I’d rather not let anything possibly get in the way of my family’s visit (at least the bits I can have some control over).

Also, if you’re 42, I suggest you don’t get the idea in your head to re-watch all of Gurren Lagann at a time that means you’ll finish it at 2:30am in the morning. I do love to re-watch it every couple of years, but ooof, that led to a rather tired Friday. Which probably had a hand in me picking a random old BBC drama at random on Friday night and being very surprised at seeing a lot more of Anna Friel than I was expecting. It went out on a Sunday, so I imagine we were all in the Slem’s Bar at the time it was originally broadcast back in 1998. The boomer / Gen X rivalry that underpins the film is somewhat amusing when considered from today. But boomers are always the enemy, naturally.

Finally, I’d just like to endorse this tweet with everything I have.

Christmas playlist? You mean Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody” ad nauseum for the next 21 days?

— Chloe Maveal (@PunkRokMomJeans) December 4, 2021

They Thought It Was Over — But This Was A Fantasy

The final(ish) update to But This Was A Fantasy is now up. This includes The Power of Nightmares, The Trap, All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, and HyperNormalisation. With that, I’m done encoding all the series that I was planning — I’m skipping Bitter Lake because it tends to be the most graphic of all his work and unless there’s a great clamour for it, I don’t fancy adding it.

It’s pretty much done now, with filtering set up for each series and whatnot. I may return to it over the Christmas holiday to have a little bit of experimentation with the underlying FAISS index, as we’re at the point where the flat index is starting to become a bit of a bottleneck for start up and searching in general. But otherwise, a 2021 project has made it to completion! I will celebrate by not looking at the long list of things I didn’t do.

Thanksgiving 2021

Another Thanksgiving down. Perhaps a little less crazy than in previous years (only about 10 desserts, and we skipped a roast dinner this time), but I think a good time was had by all. We now move on to Christmas, which has the potential to breach 30 different puddings by the time the Advent Calendars are all open…

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