Back in the land of chips with vinegar

Back from a week in snowy rural Belgium. I have a vague feeling I should be giving enlightening snapshots of our adventures in foreign climes, but in fact Northern Europe is so far from exotic these days that my only remotely surprising discoveries are:
a) Belgian baby rice comes with added vanilla flavour - rather nice.
b) The sheep at the bottom of the garden made a noise exactly like a man saying "Baa" (very reminiscent of the Secret Cow Level on Diablo 2 which was worth finding purely for the world's cheapest sound effects - clearly everyone who happened to be in the office on the day was asked to say "Moo" into a microphone).
c) Singularity Sky by Charles Stross is not a bad book exactly, but it does make me want to slap the author, for all sorts of reasons.