Amazing social history. There is a strong relationship between moving people and data and BTFU did all of this. The guy who filmed the amazing Stainmore through the snow clip went on to film Michael Jackson's Thriller movie. So, whilst in the Uk we lost 800,000 public sector public transport employees (and did awful things like extend MAFF/Defra to give them jobs in the rural areas where they were based), luckily many of them actually got to exercise their talents.
Find more British Transport film unit footage - awesome.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00f3pgc/Nation_on_Film_The_British_Transport_Films/
Tuesday 28 October 2008
Tuesday 1 April 2008
What the hell is Amazon up to?
Amazon have been pushing quite heavily their Booksurge product for quite some time now. It's a print on demand service and for a small publisher it is very expensive. However, I looked at it to do the next couple of books, rather than using Lulu, as it seemed sensible to have the titles inside Amazon as fast as possible. However, there are issues. The Booksurge formats are different to those we currently use, our books cannot be put on Amazon.co.uk only the .com, and we have no guarantee about the quality of the printing.
Today, April 1st, and no it is not an April Fool, there is a furore on the Net as Amazon have said that any POD publishers who use other printers than Booksurge will have their buy buttons on Amazon 'switched off'. Unless we all ship 5 books to Amazon for them to hold in their inventory.
I received an order from Amazon inventory yesterday for 1 book, which I have to ship to me first and then add their shipping labels and then ship to them - hardly an environmentally friendly system. Additionally, Amazon take a 60% discount for our books which with all this extra shipping renders it totally non-profitable to sell through Amazon at all.
So, having just got one of our books to potentially show up as 'in stock'; and be sold through Amazon, we are hit with this announcement. Right now, as we have sold 200 times more books through Lulu than Amazon, I guess none of our titles will be available with Amazon in the future unless they reverse this ridiculous decision. Which is a shame.
Today, April 1st, and no it is not an April Fool, there is a furore on the Net as Amazon have said that any POD publishers who use other printers than Booksurge will have their buy buttons on Amazon 'switched off'. Unless we all ship 5 books to Amazon for them to hold in their inventory.
I received an order from Amazon inventory yesterday for 1 book, which I have to ship to me first and then add their shipping labels and then ship to them - hardly an environmentally friendly system. Additionally, Amazon take a 60% discount for our books which with all this extra shipping renders it totally non-profitable to sell through Amazon at all.
So, having just got one of our books to potentially show up as 'in stock'; and be sold through Amazon, we are hit with this announcement. Right now, as we have sold 200 times more books through Lulu than Amazon, I guess none of our titles will be available with Amazon in the future unless they reverse this ridiculous decision. Which is a shame.
Friday 28 March 2008
Gummint
Bored of trying to get womble porn to the top of Google for this blog. April's task is to get top listing for gummint. If I get political, don't mind me!
Tuesday 11 March 2008
The Audi SW Endurance Experience
What a rally! I thought the Lombard was tough, but this was challenging in whole new, unimaginable on Thursday, ways.
It started off reasonably well with the drive down on Thursday, although it took longer than we expected to get to Totnes and Chez Ballantyne (winning nav of last year's Lombard who had kindly offered accommodation), which wasn't helped by my navigational skills leading us in ever decreasing circles to his house! Didn't bode well for Friday.
Friday morning was a glorious, warm, sunny day. The realisation that we were near as dammit in a different country came with the daffs, primroses etc all in bloom. Far cry from the snow in Cumbria at the beginning of the week. Headed to newton Abbot race course and the kerfuffle around scrutineering, signing in etc. I'm sure it becomes obvious the more you do it, but it all seemed a tad overwhelming to start with.
Lots of known faces though from the Lombard which was great - you start to feel like you belong in the community when people come and ask how you are etc. And then the slow ramping up of adrenalin as you get nearer your start time, and are desperately trying to think of everything you can do to prepare, like plotting onto the maps etc in readiness for the event.
Being able to watch the first selectif from the grandstand helped as you don't feel as you are going into it entirely blind, which is what the Lombard was like - dark, at Gaydon, with not a bloody clue what you have let yourself in for. The first two selectifs were round the race course and eased us in to it all again. 73 starters and we were Car 54 so nearly an hour to wait after the first car, and then we're off.
Round the race course, trying to remember how to read code boards as fast as possible, and call corners, chicanes, etc, and next thing you know, we're out on the main road, navigating to the next one. We didn't do too badly on the first two - 23rd and 36th. Not bad for a diesel on what should have been sprints!!
Then on to farm tracks, with a killer 90 right between cones with the most massive ditch if you overcooked it. I don't think anyone did though but I didn't envy the marshall at the next 90 left where we ahd to stop for a signature. He must have been leaping out the way for more than just us! We didn't do too well there, coming 51st and we did even worse on the next one when we almost got lost in a farm yard and went anticlockwise rather than clockwise round a cone, which got us a 10sec penalty and brought us in 52nd. Without the penalty, we'd have been high 20s so you can tell how competitive it was already.
Then back on the road and off, somewhere or other, to Tom's Hill, which was a forest section. We were trying to work out how to call manouevres on the way there, a skill that we had forgotten slightly, but it must have worked as we were 26th on that selectif. Dave's driving on forest sections is excellent, and as long as I can call easily when we have a complex set of cones to get round, we seem to do OK.
On this road section, there was an almighty clunk and as we drove away from a roundabout something metal vanished away bouncing off the underside of the car. We still don't know what it was! But, shortly after, there was an ominous vibration from the front left, near my feet, and finally Dave pulled over to check. Front wheel had come loose! Quick tighten up and off we went again.
The next selectif was forest again, and we had to queue to get in, then were escorted in groups of 10 to the start, and then did our selectif, and out. I don't know why we didn't too well on this, but there were a couple of stages which had got very soft in some of the areas round cones and the Golf doesn't always do brilliantly out of soft stuff, being so heavy. (And 57bhp isn't much!) So we finished this one 52nd. Hmmm.
Then into more forest. The weather was still good, though it was beginning to cloud over, threatening rain, but it held off. The forests were smooth and fast, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. The only problem was that the first selectifs were quite short, so you are just getting into the swing of it, and then you're out and on to the next one, juggling road books, maps, timecards, helmets, pens, stopwatches etc.
I discovered that remembering to start the stopwatch was easy, but stopping it a whole other ballgame. I didn't remember to stop it once on the selectifs all rally! But it hardly matters as that's what the marshalls do. I can imagine that when you get really good and you start querying a second here or a second there to ensure a placing, then it matters, but for now it really is trivial whether or not our time through a selectif is right or wrong. The fact we have completed the selectif is a great start, and finishing the rally and enjoying it is still our top priority!
Anyway, we did great through there, finishing 20th. Dave was getting into his stride now and we were getting a few moments in the queue before each selectif to check for any potentially difficult calls, which as helping.
It was taking longer to get through the selectifs than our timecard showed it should so I was leaping out at every opportunity to get a delay allowance, which I reckon you should get every time there are 4 or more cars in front of you. You never know when you will need it, and I'm sure it helped us on Friday as things started to run later and later and there was little opportunity to make it up on road sections as my crap map reading came to light!
Having been almost babysat with tulips on the Lombard, this plot and bash stuff was a whole new experience between selectifs and I far too frequently got it wrong. Luckily, Dave has some sort of inbuilt compass which tells him when we might be wrong, so my admissions of "Dave, I'm lost" usually accompanied by howls of frustration were taken quite well.
The next stage was Okehampton Camp which reminded me of the Showground stage on the Lombard to start with. ie I bloody dreaded it! Sharp corners through buildings are not my idea of fun at all, and for some reason my brain freezes. It was also a split and merge selectif so you have cars coming at you from all directions! However, after the first time round, when we finally found the car park we had to 90R then hairpin left into to get a stamp from the marshall, I really began to enjoy it, and apparently our back wheels were nowhere near the ground after the split as we came round again. And then, we got to do it all over again, which was brilliant, and I was laughing my head off as we came round. And we knocked 20 secs off our time the second time. But, so must lots of other people, as we only moved from 31st to 30th there. I don't know what cars 34 and 37 did, as they ramped round the first time in 3.10 and 3.21 to win that selectif, and then took 3.55 the second time.
Then back out to find some more forest. By now it was a very grey day, and everything was running late but we managed to pick up another 14 minutes delay allowance, which is always a relief to me. Although this was a short stage, Dave absolutely hammered it, and we came in 17th - much more like it! Maybe the general hilarity on the previous stage had eased the tension caused by me getting us lost so often?
More forest, and a 2mile section that was fairly closely run, with us ending up 38th. For some rason, I was having minor problems getting what the code boards said from my eyes to brain and thence to pen, as tiredness slowly worked its way in to me. And there were lots of code baords on this rally!!! There was a car off here, think it was 7, the Nova in big ditch on a right hander. Saw them again though on Saturday so they must have got out OK and finished the rally. Bit of a shock seeing a car like that though, and was very relieved we didn't follow them.
Straight back into Assycombe out of that one, another almost 2 miles. We did way better through it the second time and were at least managing not to get lost between selectifs when they were only several yards apart! The forests were beginning to get dark now so nav light on, and we ramped through there in 38th place. There was a problem chipping us as we came in right on the arse of someone else - Dave catching the minuteman up!! But when it came to checking the results that night, it all seemed reasonable enough to me, so no query. As if I would anyway. Once it gets to that point of querying every moment, I think I will have ceased to enjoy it as much.
Then a longer stretch of forest, 2.7 miles. I've decided that ignoring the trees is the best option, and weirdly feel safer in forests than on really open selectifs. Especially ones with bloody great ditches at the side! When I added "Rough for 100 yds" at the Racecourse from the amendments, I had no idea how rough. We were climbing a hill and suddenly came across piles of timber, right next to the track, branches strewn across our route, and cones and tape at the side denoting major potholes. That was quite a stretch and pretty hairy. But, we did OK on that too and came in 28th, only 45 secs behind the lead car, which is good going when there was such a hill in it!
Then it was the Time Control and a chance to grab some food. Dave had a few things to check on the car so I walked up the 1/4mile road to the tea room. Part way there, it dawned on me that it was pitch black so I went back for the torch. Then, a little further up, I realised that we would need meal vouchers, so headed back to get them! Back and forth, passing people in the dark, could have been anyone! Met Dave the second time so walked up with him to get food.
Roast beef which was just what the doctor ordered, though by now I could happily have drunk a gallon of tea and the mug of tea never materialised before we had to leave. Gutted! Debated methods for incorporating a teasmade into my office as the tea deprivation is the hardest part of the Endurance!!
managed to get us lost leaving the bloody control, what an idiot, but we finally made it to Bellever 2 and romped round that, 21st this time. There was one car off, fairly spectacular, high up a track, but they seemed fine, although probably pretty miffed. From what I've read on the forums, they holed the sump on a rock in the middle of the track, so it wasn't an off as much as a breakdown.
Then the nightmare began. Regularities. I am going to have to get more experience with these. I can't quite recall how many turnings we missed but having learnt from Andy Ballantyne that NAM means Not as Mapped, and LWR is Long Way Round, I was so pleased that we'd worked out which way to go round the triangle, we missed a bloody code board. Damn! However, on return to HQ, it turned out we were in good company as 34 cars missed it, and only 31 got it. I'm sure it wasn't there......;o)
The timings went completely out the window just trying to find the route, and I was amazed we apparently finished it and only lost 45 secs. To me, that is bordering on miraculous. We were 35th through that one, and then had another one straight on top of it. There must be a way to do these things, as we then dropped a further 62secs on the next one. My insecurity about whether we are going the right way doesn't help Dave in the slightest, so I need to sort this out and learn to read the whites better. The guys who won dropped 9 secs over the whole of the 4 regularities. How do they do that?!! I tried using the stopwatch to time us to checkpoints, but we seemed to be so far out of it, and I was concentrating so hard on just finding the TCs that the stopwatch times went completely out the window. Another learning curve to climb, another time!
By now, exhaustion was beginning to set in, as well as frustration with myself at my seeming inability to read a map correctly. Two forest stages and it would be over for the night. Short section in Langage, where we came 38th, and then a somewhat exuberant push round Cann1 where we completely failed to stop astride, sliding gracefully over it towards the marshalls, grinning our heads off.
We couldn't find our way out of a paperbag by this time and the route to the hotel was only not as circuitous as it could have been because we had explored the whole area at length earlier, failing to find the road up to the forests. A roundabout turned out not to be a roundabout at all, but a block of houses with a road up each side!
Back to HQ. Park up, drink beer. Drink beer. Looked at interim results and we appeared to be standing 26th before penalties. That was impressive as it means our selectif times at the very least are good. Walk to Ibis hotel up the road. Note to self, always stay in HQ, however much it costs!!
Woke up to find we were 36th. Could have been far worse! So, put in a query about the code baord as 15 mins seemed hellish harsh and everyone was talking about it, so did the sheep thing. It was later reduced to 5mins for all of us as that should have been the penalty for a regularity. Whatever, fairly level playing field if 34 of us had got it!!
Saturday is now quite a blur, so I'm going to have to write that some other time. Suffice to say, more cars off, broke engine mounting, strapped up, bust diesel overflow pipe, filled clutch with fuel, smoked a helluva lot over the squaddies at Portreath, got lost in a field we should never have been in on Polish Farm 2, Polish Farm 1 got canned for many of us as the farmer was doing summat, got 62mph down the 1200 straight at Portreath, others were doing 85! Dave spent lunch break sorting out car and cleaning clutch with coca cola, I thought we were out at that point. Must trust my mechanic and the Golf far more!! Dave Walker went out after the Mini had overheating probs again, so did Jeremy Crook, sadly. Phil Bayliss had had a few probs overnight but seemed to be back in the running, and a co-driver, no names mentioned "cheated" by asking about our time on a previous selectif and looking at my codeboard answers! All in good humour though ;o) Missed an 'island' on Penhale to go round, and hence a code board, but found it on Penhale 2! Amazing beach down there.
By 4pm Saturday, could barely think straight, and just wanted it all to end! Couldn't make head nor tail of the diversion on the A38 even though it was simple as hell. Joe reversed into someone's spots in a garage, they'd had a 16 min off in Quidditch Moor or whatever it was called but were back in the running again after a tow out. Dale Glover (seeded 4)hit a tree, bent both axles and had to retire on Dunmere2. Dunmere2 was probably the most exciting bit of forest ever. Freefalllllll!! Rain, major wind, cold, tired. Dave drove Northcombe like a demon and we came 12th! Fucked up on the night nav again, no great surprise and this time lost 4mins on one but only 35secs on the other. And then into Cann 2 and the final bit of forest. Exhausted. Quick run back to the hotel and stupid idiot booked in 3 mins early at the control. That and the missed code board on night navA cost us 11 mins which would have put us 22nd, so lessons learnt as that would be my dream finish. Beer, beer, beer, sleep. Home.
It started off reasonably well with the drive down on Thursday, although it took longer than we expected to get to Totnes and Chez Ballantyne (winning nav of last year's Lombard who had kindly offered accommodation), which wasn't helped by my navigational skills leading us in ever decreasing circles to his house! Didn't bode well for Friday.
Friday morning was a glorious, warm, sunny day. The realisation that we were near as dammit in a different country came with the daffs, primroses etc all in bloom. Far cry from the snow in Cumbria at the beginning of the week. Headed to newton Abbot race course and the kerfuffle around scrutineering, signing in etc. I'm sure it becomes obvious the more you do it, but it all seemed a tad overwhelming to start with.
Lots of known faces though from the Lombard which was great - you start to feel like you belong in the community when people come and ask how you are etc. And then the slow ramping up of adrenalin as you get nearer your start time, and are desperately trying to think of everything you can do to prepare, like plotting onto the maps etc in readiness for the event.
Being able to watch the first selectif from the grandstand helped as you don't feel as you are going into it entirely blind, which is what the Lombard was like - dark, at Gaydon, with not a bloody clue what you have let yourself in for. The first two selectifs were round the race course and eased us in to it all again. 73 starters and we were Car 54 so nearly an hour to wait after the first car, and then we're off.
Round the race course, trying to remember how to read code boards as fast as possible, and call corners, chicanes, etc, and next thing you know, we're out on the main road, navigating to the next one. We didn't do too badly on the first two - 23rd and 36th. Not bad for a diesel on what should have been sprints!!
Then on to farm tracks, with a killer 90 right between cones with the most massive ditch if you overcooked it. I don't think anyone did though but I didn't envy the marshall at the next 90 left where we ahd to stop for a signature. He must have been leaping out the way for more than just us! We didn't do too well there, coming 51st and we did even worse on the next one when we almost got lost in a farm yard and went anticlockwise rather than clockwise round a cone, which got us a 10sec penalty and brought us in 52nd. Without the penalty, we'd have been high 20s so you can tell how competitive it was already.
Then back on the road and off, somewhere or other, to Tom's Hill, which was a forest section. We were trying to work out how to call manouevres on the way there, a skill that we had forgotten slightly, but it must have worked as we were 26th on that selectif. Dave's driving on forest sections is excellent, and as long as I can call easily when we have a complex set of cones to get round, we seem to do OK.
On this road section, there was an almighty clunk and as we drove away from a roundabout something metal vanished away bouncing off the underside of the car. We still don't know what it was! But, shortly after, there was an ominous vibration from the front left, near my feet, and finally Dave pulled over to check. Front wheel had come loose! Quick tighten up and off we went again.
The next selectif was forest again, and we had to queue to get in, then were escorted in groups of 10 to the start, and then did our selectif, and out. I don't know why we didn't too well on this, but there were a couple of stages which had got very soft in some of the areas round cones and the Golf doesn't always do brilliantly out of soft stuff, being so heavy. (And 57bhp isn't much!) So we finished this one 52nd. Hmmm.
Then into more forest. The weather was still good, though it was beginning to cloud over, threatening rain, but it held off. The forests were smooth and fast, and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. The only problem was that the first selectifs were quite short, so you are just getting into the swing of it, and then you're out and on to the next one, juggling road books, maps, timecards, helmets, pens, stopwatches etc.
I discovered that remembering to start the stopwatch was easy, but stopping it a whole other ballgame. I didn't remember to stop it once on the selectifs all rally! But it hardly matters as that's what the marshalls do. I can imagine that when you get really good and you start querying a second here or a second there to ensure a placing, then it matters, but for now it really is trivial whether or not our time through a selectif is right or wrong. The fact we have completed the selectif is a great start, and finishing the rally and enjoying it is still our top priority!
Anyway, we did great through there, finishing 20th. Dave was getting into his stride now and we were getting a few moments in the queue before each selectif to check for any potentially difficult calls, which as helping.
It was taking longer to get through the selectifs than our timecard showed it should so I was leaping out at every opportunity to get a delay allowance, which I reckon you should get every time there are 4 or more cars in front of you. You never know when you will need it, and I'm sure it helped us on Friday as things started to run later and later and there was little opportunity to make it up on road sections as my crap map reading came to light!
Having been almost babysat with tulips on the Lombard, this plot and bash stuff was a whole new experience between selectifs and I far too frequently got it wrong. Luckily, Dave has some sort of inbuilt compass which tells him when we might be wrong, so my admissions of "Dave, I'm lost" usually accompanied by howls of frustration were taken quite well.
The next stage was Okehampton Camp which reminded me of the Showground stage on the Lombard to start with. ie I bloody dreaded it! Sharp corners through buildings are not my idea of fun at all, and for some reason my brain freezes. It was also a split and merge selectif so you have cars coming at you from all directions! However, after the first time round, when we finally found the car park we had to 90R then hairpin left into to get a stamp from the marshall, I really began to enjoy it, and apparently our back wheels were nowhere near the ground after the split as we came round again. And then, we got to do it all over again, which was brilliant, and I was laughing my head off as we came round. And we knocked 20 secs off our time the second time. But, so must lots of other people, as we only moved from 31st to 30th there. I don't know what cars 34 and 37 did, as they ramped round the first time in 3.10 and 3.21 to win that selectif, and then took 3.55 the second time.
Then back out to find some more forest. By now it was a very grey day, and everything was running late but we managed to pick up another 14 minutes delay allowance, which is always a relief to me. Although this was a short stage, Dave absolutely hammered it, and we came in 17th - much more like it! Maybe the general hilarity on the previous stage had eased the tension caused by me getting us lost so often?
More forest, and a 2mile section that was fairly closely run, with us ending up 38th. For some rason, I was having minor problems getting what the code boards said from my eyes to brain and thence to pen, as tiredness slowly worked its way in to me. And there were lots of code baords on this rally!!! There was a car off here, think it was 7, the Nova in big ditch on a right hander. Saw them again though on Saturday so they must have got out OK and finished the rally. Bit of a shock seeing a car like that though, and was very relieved we didn't follow them.
Straight back into Assycombe out of that one, another almost 2 miles. We did way better through it the second time and were at least managing not to get lost between selectifs when they were only several yards apart! The forests were beginning to get dark now so nav light on, and we ramped through there in 38th place. There was a problem chipping us as we came in right on the arse of someone else - Dave catching the minuteman up!! But when it came to checking the results that night, it all seemed reasonable enough to me, so no query. As if I would anyway. Once it gets to that point of querying every moment, I think I will have ceased to enjoy it as much.
Then a longer stretch of forest, 2.7 miles. I've decided that ignoring the trees is the best option, and weirdly feel safer in forests than on really open selectifs. Especially ones with bloody great ditches at the side! When I added "Rough for 100 yds" at the Racecourse from the amendments, I had no idea how rough. We were climbing a hill and suddenly came across piles of timber, right next to the track, branches strewn across our route, and cones and tape at the side denoting major potholes. That was quite a stretch and pretty hairy. But, we did OK on that too and came in 28th, only 45 secs behind the lead car, which is good going when there was such a hill in it!
Then it was the Time Control and a chance to grab some food. Dave had a few things to check on the car so I walked up the 1/4mile road to the tea room. Part way there, it dawned on me that it was pitch black so I went back for the torch. Then, a little further up, I realised that we would need meal vouchers, so headed back to get them! Back and forth, passing people in the dark, could have been anyone! Met Dave the second time so walked up with him to get food.
Roast beef which was just what the doctor ordered, though by now I could happily have drunk a gallon of tea and the mug of tea never materialised before we had to leave. Gutted! Debated methods for incorporating a teasmade into my office as the tea deprivation is the hardest part of the Endurance!!
managed to get us lost leaving the bloody control, what an idiot, but we finally made it to Bellever 2 and romped round that, 21st this time. There was one car off, fairly spectacular, high up a track, but they seemed fine, although probably pretty miffed. From what I've read on the forums, they holed the sump on a rock in the middle of the track, so it wasn't an off as much as a breakdown.
Then the nightmare began. Regularities. I am going to have to get more experience with these. I can't quite recall how many turnings we missed but having learnt from Andy Ballantyne that NAM means Not as Mapped, and LWR is Long Way Round, I was so pleased that we'd worked out which way to go round the triangle, we missed a bloody code board. Damn! However, on return to HQ, it turned out we were in good company as 34 cars missed it, and only 31 got it. I'm sure it wasn't there......;o)
The timings went completely out the window just trying to find the route, and I was amazed we apparently finished it and only lost 45 secs. To me, that is bordering on miraculous. We were 35th through that one, and then had another one straight on top of it. There must be a way to do these things, as we then dropped a further 62secs on the next one. My insecurity about whether we are going the right way doesn't help Dave in the slightest, so I need to sort this out and learn to read the whites better. The guys who won dropped 9 secs over the whole of the 4 regularities. How do they do that?!! I tried using the stopwatch to time us to checkpoints, but we seemed to be so far out of it, and I was concentrating so hard on just finding the TCs that the stopwatch times went completely out the window. Another learning curve to climb, another time!
By now, exhaustion was beginning to set in, as well as frustration with myself at my seeming inability to read a map correctly. Two forest stages and it would be over for the night. Short section in Langage, where we came 38th, and then a somewhat exuberant push round Cann1 where we completely failed to stop astride, sliding gracefully over it towards the marshalls, grinning our heads off.
We couldn't find our way out of a paperbag by this time and the route to the hotel was only not as circuitous as it could have been because we had explored the whole area at length earlier, failing to find the road up to the forests. A roundabout turned out not to be a roundabout at all, but a block of houses with a road up each side!
Back to HQ. Park up, drink beer. Drink beer. Looked at interim results and we appeared to be standing 26th before penalties. That was impressive as it means our selectif times at the very least are good. Walk to Ibis hotel up the road. Note to self, always stay in HQ, however much it costs!!
Woke up to find we were 36th. Could have been far worse! So, put in a query about the code baord as 15 mins seemed hellish harsh and everyone was talking about it, so did the sheep thing. It was later reduced to 5mins for all of us as that should have been the penalty for a regularity. Whatever, fairly level playing field if 34 of us had got it!!
Saturday is now quite a blur, so I'm going to have to write that some other time. Suffice to say, more cars off, broke engine mounting, strapped up, bust diesel overflow pipe, filled clutch with fuel, smoked a helluva lot over the squaddies at Portreath, got lost in a field we should never have been in on Polish Farm 2, Polish Farm 1 got canned for many of us as the farmer was doing summat, got 62mph down the 1200 straight at Portreath, others were doing 85! Dave spent lunch break sorting out car and cleaning clutch with coca cola, I thought we were out at that point. Must trust my mechanic and the Golf far more!! Dave Walker went out after the Mini had overheating probs again, so did Jeremy Crook, sadly. Phil Bayliss had had a few probs overnight but seemed to be back in the running, and a co-driver, no names mentioned "cheated" by asking about our time on a previous selectif and looking at my codeboard answers! All in good humour though ;o) Missed an 'island' on Penhale to go round, and hence a code board, but found it on Penhale 2! Amazing beach down there.
By 4pm Saturday, could barely think straight, and just wanted it all to end! Couldn't make head nor tail of the diversion on the A38 even though it was simple as hell. Joe reversed into someone's spots in a garage, they'd had a 16 min off in Quidditch Moor or whatever it was called but were back in the running again after a tow out. Dale Glover (seeded 4)hit a tree, bent both axles and had to retire on Dunmere2. Dunmere2 was probably the most exciting bit of forest ever. Freefalllllll!! Rain, major wind, cold, tired. Dave drove Northcombe like a demon and we came 12th! Fucked up on the night nav again, no great surprise and this time lost 4mins on one but only 35secs on the other. And then into Cann 2 and the final bit of forest. Exhausted. Quick run back to the hotel and stupid idiot booked in 3 mins early at the control. That and the missed code board on night navA cost us 11 mins which would have put us 22nd, so lessons learnt as that would be my dream finish. Beer, beer, beer, sleep. Home.
The mobile rally office
Well, the Audi South West Endurance Rally has to have a mention because what an event it was!
Having only ever done one rally before, our experience is somewhat limited. My experience of reading maps is minimal, and plotting on the move as we drove through the Dorest, Devon and Cornwall lanes was a task and a half. Yes, we got lost. A lot! But I now feel that mastering plot and bash is a step closer, and am determined to conquer that next now my mobile office running skills are improving substantially. After that, I'm going to learn how to use a stopwatch on the regularities.....!
I was trying to explain to sprog 1 what I have to do in this 'office' and when you talk about it, you realise just what a lot is going on at any one time. And the fact that you are in a 4 point harness so movement is severely restricted, it has taken some working out how to get everything where I can reach it. Let alone climb the very steep learning curve that is endurance rallying.
Aside from the paperwork etc, the most important task has been to work out how to reach behind the driver's seat to get the cheese and onion pasties out in one piece from under the tool rolls, straps, spare parts etc which somehow always end up on top of the grub. Endurance is one thing, but hunger is not permissible.
The pork pies are definitely easier to retrieve in one piece, but you get sick of pork pies for two days solid, and variety in your diet is essential! We always come back with plenty of food that we wish we had remembered during the rally. This time we forgot the grapes and biscuits which had worked their way far under the driver's seat, but we managed to find the bananas. That wasn't so great though as my banana skin ended up in the poti, and once the light was on, it stank of cremated nana!
So, after ensuring we can eat, then there is the paperwork. This includes a road book with pace notes for the each day's selectifs (and sometimes tulips for the routes in between selectifs), a map book given to you by the organisers to try to give you some idea of where you ought to be going, a Philips Navigator atlas which weighs about the same as me, and then the OS maps for the regularity sections or to try and find exactly where you want wrong navigating from the map book or Philips! I can just about fold an OS map in a large room, given half an hour or so. In the front seat of the car, in a harness, it is a skill that is currently avoiding me.
Then there are the time cards which you have to be able to produce at every time control and marshall. All this lot is on your knee, although just occasionally the Philips manages to sneak back into the special shelf built for it under the dash to stop my legs going numb and falling off which would be hellish awkward when I dive out at selectifs to get a delay allowance! On top of that lot is a clipboard, which has on it the results from the previous day, the penalty and timing sections of the regs, our meal tickets, the car papers, and any other info we might need, phone numbers of VW dealers included!
As you can imagine, my legs are getting accustomed to the weight, but finding the right book, card etc at the right moment, when you are also trying to get your helmet off to go back onto a road section and handing your time card out the window to a marshall is taking some practice. The worst thing is when the whole lot ends up on the floor and you lose your pen down the side of the seat as well. And I reckon the Golf has eaten about 10 lighters now as I never seem to have one when a fag break finally presents itself.
Finally, in the paperwork section come the post-it notes, which are used for everything from marking where to open an OS map (but are no use on how to close the damned thing), marking a page in the roadbooks, map books or Philips I need to find easily, and sticking on the dash to mark the next turn off whilst I plot and bash the next stage of the route. They are also useful for reminding me what number we are running that day so I get the right arrival times at selectifs and time control, and which cars should be in front or behind of us so we don't get too much out of synch. By mid-Saturday this time, I could barely have told you my own name so Post-it notes come in very handy as an aide memoir for the very basics too!
Then there are the assortment of pencils, pens, rubbers, marker pens etc which you need. We've solved that with a handy bit of foam from the rollcage, strapped on the vertical roll bar by the door and drilled with holes to stick pens and pencils in - works brilliantly, and has been much admired by several other navigators who have just spent most of a stop searching down the sides of seats trying to retrieve errant pens. However, keeping the pens out of the hands of the sprogs in between rallies seems impossible, so I will have to learn to check that we have a full selection of writing implements before setting off. Marker pens are essential to mark routes as in the dark a thin pencil line on a map can be bordering on impossible to see with tired eyes. It is also hard first thing in the morning after a night in the bar with the Endurance crowd!!
Next we have the trip (a Brantz) which has to be constantly zeroed, checked, frozen (to account for wheel spin), and reversed when we go the wrong way! I can just reach this with my fingertips to zero all settings, and also have a remote button on a cable for zeroing the intermediates. This button however seems to spend most of its time on the floor just out of reach when I need it most! It needs to be where my driver can reach it for when I forget to zero it, which is far too often still so it will probably end up velcroed to the footwell somewhere near the gearstick as it likes it so much down there.
There is the nav light, which is fastened under the trip on the dash, and that constantly, when in use, gets in the way of the maps. But I don't see how that is ever going to change as it is essential and the maps are not going to get any easier to fold. (Although Guy yesterday suggested putting them on a roll like the Torah which bears thinking about!)
And then the poti which is a large, illuminated magnifying 'box' that plugs into the fag lighter, and sits on the maps to try and spot the white road we are supposed to have turned down. That is nearly always on the floor somewhere next to the rally bag, also out of reach!
Then there's the torch to read the code boards in the forest, or to illuminate the way to the marshalls. It is also an essential when trying to go for a pee in some dark forest. I nearly broke my leg on the Lombard as I fell through a hole in a wall and then into a seemingly endlessly deep ditch, which I had to scrabble my way out of, so the torch always comes with me now on those particular excursions!
What else? Some people have helmet nets, but I don't know where those go, so we don't have them yet, despite having acquired an ancient Dryad book on netting to try and make them. So, the helmets live in the chaos known as the back seat with Chas our mascot, and Dave has double jointed arms from being a mechanic and seems to be able to reach those where I can't. I ripped some parcel nets out of a Merc in a scrappie last year to put on the doors to keep stuff in, but we haven't remembered to fit them yet.
On the floor by my feet is the rally bag, which has a plastic folder full of pens etc (unless raided by the kids), travel sickness pills (not this time as they fell out in my car on the way there but luckily I didn't need them), mobile phone, head torch, spare torch, plastic bags to use as bins (or if the pills don't work!), directions to hotels, the way home etc, the full regs for the event, Motorsports licence, Motor Club membership cards, and for some completely unknown reason, a computer dongle.
Round my neck is the stopwatch, which I have never remembered to stop yet, a lanyard with a pen on it, and a lanyard with the entry card, car number, name etc on it.
Above my head is the OK/SOS board, which I have to grab, leap out and display every time we are forced to stop - twice in two rallies for punctures, luckily that is all so far.
In the door are my glasses, which I lose constantly, some crystallised ginger for those iffy moments (it works, I recommend it highly), a duster for cleaning off the door numbers occasionally, a rag for multiple uses, some cable ties, and a few other indefinable bits and bobs that have fallen in there over time, and now live there.
And I think that's pretty much my office. Dave's office is more complicated (and much bigger) as it has all the mechanical stuff in it, but he knows where all that is, and I don't need to. Phew!
Having only ever done one rally before, our experience is somewhat limited. My experience of reading maps is minimal, and plotting on the move as we drove through the Dorest, Devon and Cornwall lanes was a task and a half. Yes, we got lost. A lot! But I now feel that mastering plot and bash is a step closer, and am determined to conquer that next now my mobile office running skills are improving substantially. After that, I'm going to learn how to use a stopwatch on the regularities.....!
I was trying to explain to sprog 1 what I have to do in this 'office' and when you talk about it, you realise just what a lot is going on at any one time. And the fact that you are in a 4 point harness so movement is severely restricted, it has taken some working out how to get everything where I can reach it. Let alone climb the very steep learning curve that is endurance rallying.
Aside from the paperwork etc, the most important task has been to work out how to reach behind the driver's seat to get the cheese and onion pasties out in one piece from under the tool rolls, straps, spare parts etc which somehow always end up on top of the grub. Endurance is one thing, but hunger is not permissible.
The pork pies are definitely easier to retrieve in one piece, but you get sick of pork pies for two days solid, and variety in your diet is essential! We always come back with plenty of food that we wish we had remembered during the rally. This time we forgot the grapes and biscuits which had worked their way far under the driver's seat, but we managed to find the bananas. That wasn't so great though as my banana skin ended up in the poti, and once the light was on, it stank of cremated nana!
So, after ensuring we can eat, then there is the paperwork. This includes a road book with pace notes for the each day's selectifs (and sometimes tulips for the routes in between selectifs), a map book given to you by the organisers to try to give you some idea of where you ought to be going, a Philips Navigator atlas which weighs about the same as me, and then the OS maps for the regularity sections or to try and find exactly where you want wrong navigating from the map book or Philips! I can just about fold an OS map in a large room, given half an hour or so. In the front seat of the car, in a harness, it is a skill that is currently avoiding me.
Then there are the time cards which you have to be able to produce at every time control and marshall. All this lot is on your knee, although just occasionally the Philips manages to sneak back into the special shelf built for it under the dash to stop my legs going numb and falling off which would be hellish awkward when I dive out at selectifs to get a delay allowance! On top of that lot is a clipboard, which has on it the results from the previous day, the penalty and timing sections of the regs, our meal tickets, the car papers, and any other info we might need, phone numbers of VW dealers included!
As you can imagine, my legs are getting accustomed to the weight, but finding the right book, card etc at the right moment, when you are also trying to get your helmet off to go back onto a road section and handing your time card out the window to a marshall is taking some practice. The worst thing is when the whole lot ends up on the floor and you lose your pen down the side of the seat as well. And I reckon the Golf has eaten about 10 lighters now as I never seem to have one when a fag break finally presents itself.
Finally, in the paperwork section come the post-it notes, which are used for everything from marking where to open an OS map (but are no use on how to close the damned thing), marking a page in the roadbooks, map books or Philips I need to find easily, and sticking on the dash to mark the next turn off whilst I plot and bash the next stage of the route. They are also useful for reminding me what number we are running that day so I get the right arrival times at selectifs and time control, and which cars should be in front or behind of us so we don't get too much out of synch. By mid-Saturday this time, I could barely have told you my own name so Post-it notes come in very handy as an aide memoir for the very basics too!
Then there are the assortment of pencils, pens, rubbers, marker pens etc which you need. We've solved that with a handy bit of foam from the rollcage, strapped on the vertical roll bar by the door and drilled with holes to stick pens and pencils in - works brilliantly, and has been much admired by several other navigators who have just spent most of a stop searching down the sides of seats trying to retrieve errant pens. However, keeping the pens out of the hands of the sprogs in between rallies seems impossible, so I will have to learn to check that we have a full selection of writing implements before setting off. Marker pens are essential to mark routes as in the dark a thin pencil line on a map can be bordering on impossible to see with tired eyes. It is also hard first thing in the morning after a night in the bar with the Endurance crowd!!
Next we have the trip (a Brantz) which has to be constantly zeroed, checked, frozen (to account for wheel spin), and reversed when we go the wrong way! I can just reach this with my fingertips to zero all settings, and also have a remote button on a cable for zeroing the intermediates. This button however seems to spend most of its time on the floor just out of reach when I need it most! It needs to be where my driver can reach it for when I forget to zero it, which is far too often still so it will probably end up velcroed to the footwell somewhere near the gearstick as it likes it so much down there.
There is the nav light, which is fastened under the trip on the dash, and that constantly, when in use, gets in the way of the maps. But I don't see how that is ever going to change as it is essential and the maps are not going to get any easier to fold. (Although Guy yesterday suggested putting them on a roll like the Torah which bears thinking about!)
And then the poti which is a large, illuminated magnifying 'box' that plugs into the fag lighter, and sits on the maps to try and spot the white road we are supposed to have turned down. That is nearly always on the floor somewhere next to the rally bag, also out of reach!
Then there's the torch to read the code boards in the forest, or to illuminate the way to the marshalls. It is also an essential when trying to go for a pee in some dark forest. I nearly broke my leg on the Lombard as I fell through a hole in a wall and then into a seemingly endlessly deep ditch, which I had to scrabble my way out of, so the torch always comes with me now on those particular excursions!
What else? Some people have helmet nets, but I don't know where those go, so we don't have them yet, despite having acquired an ancient Dryad book on netting to try and make them. So, the helmets live in the chaos known as the back seat with Chas our mascot, and Dave has double jointed arms from being a mechanic and seems to be able to reach those where I can't. I ripped some parcel nets out of a Merc in a scrappie last year to put on the doors to keep stuff in, but we haven't remembered to fit them yet.
On the floor by my feet is the rally bag, which has a plastic folder full of pens etc (unless raided by the kids), travel sickness pills (not this time as they fell out in my car on the way there but luckily I didn't need them), mobile phone, head torch, spare torch, plastic bags to use as bins (or if the pills don't work!), directions to hotels, the way home etc, the full regs for the event, Motorsports licence, Motor Club membership cards, and for some completely unknown reason, a computer dongle.
Round my neck is the stopwatch, which I have never remembered to stop yet, a lanyard with a pen on it, and a lanyard with the entry card, car number, name etc on it.
Above my head is the OK/SOS board, which I have to grab, leap out and display every time we are forced to stop - twice in two rallies for punctures, luckily that is all so far.
In the door are my glasses, which I lose constantly, some crystallised ginger for those iffy moments (it works, I recommend it highly), a duster for cleaning off the door numbers occasionally, a rag for multiple uses, some cable ties, and a few other indefinable bits and bobs that have fallen in there over time, and now live there.
And I think that's pretty much my office. Dave's office is more complicated (and much bigger) as it has all the mechanical stuff in it, but he knows where all that is, and I don't need to. Phew!
MPs expenses under scrutiny, what about the RDAs???
On the drive back from the Audi SW Endurance, I was listening to File on Four on the radio about RDA expenses.
Stephen Broomhead, who is CEO of the NWDA, was reported to have run up a £51,000 taxi bill last year, which is more than all the MPs put together managed in the same period. I for one object strongly to Mr Broomhead using public funds to pay for a chauffeur driven limo to go to the Rugby Cup Final at Twickenham, in whatever capacity. The fact that he is also vice chairman of Warrington Wolves Rugby League Club and therefore probably wasn't there representing just the NWDA, well, to put it simply, stinks.
There were other examples given of ridiculous sums of money being spent by the RDAs, organisations which seem unfathomably unaccountable to anyone. £191,000 to take 13 RDA bods to Cannes for a property developers 'do' and hold shindigs on yachts was one such use of our money.
Having seen plenty of examples over the years of public money "wastage" by these public bodies, it seems that it is about time they were forced to account for the use of their budgets, not just year on year for the slightly waffy criteria the Govt deems appropriate for them but long term, just as a business needs to. After all, the RDAs are a major part of UK Plc and should be showing 'bang for the buck' in terms of their decisions and actions. Especially as this morning on the news, it is being reported that MPs must now submit receipts for anything over £25. That is as nothing compared to what some civil servants appear to be blowing on fripperies such as attending Rugby Cup Finals at our expense.
The big problem appears to be that the RDAs were 'forced' upon us by the EU. Now, bearing in mind the state of their accounts audits over the last 5 or more years, it is hardly surprising that that culture of unaccountability has spread down into the regions. However, as the money which goes into the coffers of the RDAs is the majority of the spend for the regions, it is time they had to operate in a more business-like manner and PROVE their worth, as well as showing ROI for the spend of this public money.
Claims that x jobs have been generated, or x benefits given to the regional/local economy etc by RDA actions can never shown to be accurate. After all, how can the RDA show how many jobs would have been created/saved/protected/safeguarded if they didn't exist? In some instances, some of their actions have failed abysmally to protect local jobs, in favour of some scheme or other that has then over time been shown to be entirely worthless and often unused.
It is depressing driving through certain towns and seeing large, expensive office blocks with some RDA sign outside proclaiming 'Luxury offices to let' etc which stand empty for months, and occasionally years on end, where perfectly good houses used to stand, or could have stood instead. We see business units empty, or filled with yet more craft shops in rural areas, because the RDA couldn't see fit to encourage high tech industries to locate by putting in high quality, future proofed comms eg a decent leased line or broadband connection. Scotland's incubator units (eg in Crieff) should show them the way....
How anyone can justify yet more small businesses in the craft and tourism industry in rural areas when the leisure economy is floundering, and we need to get into the knowledge economy, I have no idea. Rural areas do not need yet more low paid jobs in crafts, tourism (service jobs) etc at all. I have two kids, who are just beginning to look for work to supplement their meagre pocket money, and waiting on or standing behind a shop counter is not my idea of a valid career or job experience for them. However, it seems it is pretty much all that is on offer in rural Cumbria.
It is beyond me to understand why the RDAs, and Business Link, are given all of this funding for our regions, and yet have to prove to no-one what actual impact they are having over time, in rural economies in particular. If I ever meet someone working for Business Link as a consultant, advising businesses on how to succeed, who is not a failed business person rather than a successful one, I may well eat some item of clothing.
Many of these RDA folks are so lost/entrenched in the civil service culture (and yes, I am one of the many who believe they have entirely forgotten the meaning of the second word in their job description), and are so busy creating jobs for the boys, and spending budgets inefficiently just so they release the following year's funding, that it is no wonder this country is going tits up.
Talking to the RDAs, as we attempted to do on very many occasions over the years about broadband, you learn quite quickly about how this culture operates. And believe me, it is more of a mess than any File on Four programme can even begin to touch upon. The spend of public funds in such an arrogant, disjointed, short-sighted and casual manner, with often little or no reference to those in the regions who will be affected by spending decisions, could almost be called 'obscene'. It is definitely irresponsible.
There is no ombudsman to refer complaints to about RDAs. As one ex-contractor of the NWDA discovered, MPs are on the whole very unwilling to touch complaints about RDAs, and taking it as far as the EU is not just costly, but equally as pointless as they are all lying in the same bed.
The seemingly unshakeable belief of this Government that the RDAs are doing a good job with their budgets is a belief that needs picking up by the tail and rattling so hard that there is a public enquiry into the expenses of RDA officials, just as there has been with MPs. Every single civil servant should be made to account properly for every penny of public funds which passes through their departments, and those accounts should not be attached to some dreamed up criteria, outcomes or anything else intangible that the Govt come up with to justify the continued existence of these quangos.
The Regional Assemblies would have introduced some accountability into the system, but they have been scrapped. After god knows how many millions were spent on setting them up and their continued existence in the abyss they found themselves.
It is little wonder that the electorate of this country holds so little trust in Govt that they cannot be arsed to vote. Instead of seeing themselves implementing change through democracy, many now believe the rot is so inherent in our society, at so many levels, that a vote won't change the culture within, for instance, the civil service. And it is possibly why so many British citizens are planning to move abroad to live and work.
This wastage of, and irresponsiblity with, public money is not being addressed as the tumour that it is, which is causing an haemorraging of public money into pointless and often detrimental projects for our regions. The fact that however crap many of these civil servants' decisions are throughout their careers, they have a guaranteed pension may also be part of the problem.
One of the times when I stood up and spoke out very publicly about the RDAs (to a room of over 400 people, many of whom were civil servants), I managed to piss off someone so entirely within an RDA that he has ever since made sure that I will never ever get any work whatsoever through that RDA, or others he has been able to influence. Nor contribute to projects where they actually could have done with my experience and thinking, and that of my contacts. Sadly, what he missed was that I wasn't interested in earning money from them; I wanted to see implemented the change that would reflect well on the region, and hence his organisation. Had it been about money, maybe the bullying tactics would have forced me to keep my mouth shut in order to earn a crust, as it has with others, but my involvement with broadband was never about money.
And the changes that some of us foresaw for the regions have been well and truly missed because sometimes (not always by any means but often enough to really make an impact), the RDA folk don't have the humility, nous or even intelligence to seek the information they need to make rational decisions. Preferring to keep it all 'in-house' or within the cosy circle of their 'school tie' pals is a distinct part of the culture, and it backfires regularly on them, preventing them from achieving truly beneficial outcomes, outputs etc.
One RDA wasted £20million of public money on supposed broadband connectivity that even in your wildest dreams isn't, others have spent equivalent amounts of money connecting less than 100 people. When are these types of fiascos going to be investigated, and by whom??
Although it may not be politic to speak out, we live in a democracy and are entitled to free speech. The sooner others speak out about the misuse of public funding, and it is addressed, the better. On all issues which the RDAs have, unfortunately, become involved - housing, economic regeneration, communications, training etc etc etc.
Stephen Broomhead, who is CEO of the NWDA, was reported to have run up a £51,000 taxi bill last year, which is more than all the MPs put together managed in the same period. I for one object strongly to Mr Broomhead using public funds to pay for a chauffeur driven limo to go to the Rugby Cup Final at Twickenham, in whatever capacity. The fact that he is also vice chairman of Warrington Wolves Rugby League Club and therefore probably wasn't there representing just the NWDA, well, to put it simply, stinks.
There were other examples given of ridiculous sums of money being spent by the RDAs, organisations which seem unfathomably unaccountable to anyone. £191,000 to take 13 RDA bods to Cannes for a property developers 'do' and hold shindigs on yachts was one such use of our money.
Having seen plenty of examples over the years of public money "wastage" by these public bodies, it seems that it is about time they were forced to account for the use of their budgets, not just year on year for the slightly waffy criteria the Govt deems appropriate for them but long term, just as a business needs to. After all, the RDAs are a major part of UK Plc and should be showing 'bang for the buck' in terms of their decisions and actions. Especially as this morning on the news, it is being reported that MPs must now submit receipts for anything over £25. That is as nothing compared to what some civil servants appear to be blowing on fripperies such as attending Rugby Cup Finals at our expense.
The big problem appears to be that the RDAs were 'forced' upon us by the EU. Now, bearing in mind the state of their accounts audits over the last 5 or more years, it is hardly surprising that that culture of unaccountability has spread down into the regions. However, as the money which goes into the coffers of the RDAs is the majority of the spend for the regions, it is time they had to operate in a more business-like manner and PROVE their worth, as well as showing ROI for the spend of this public money.
Claims that x jobs have been generated, or x benefits given to the regional/local economy etc by RDA actions can never shown to be accurate. After all, how can the RDA show how many jobs would have been created/saved/protected/safeguarded if they didn't exist? In some instances, some of their actions have failed abysmally to protect local jobs, in favour of some scheme or other that has then over time been shown to be entirely worthless and often unused.
It is depressing driving through certain towns and seeing large, expensive office blocks with some RDA sign outside proclaiming 'Luxury offices to let' etc which stand empty for months, and occasionally years on end, where perfectly good houses used to stand, or could have stood instead. We see business units empty, or filled with yet more craft shops in rural areas, because the RDA couldn't see fit to encourage high tech industries to locate by putting in high quality, future proofed comms eg a decent leased line or broadband connection. Scotland's incubator units (eg in Crieff) should show them the way....
How anyone can justify yet more small businesses in the craft and tourism industry in rural areas when the leisure economy is floundering, and we need to get into the knowledge economy, I have no idea. Rural areas do not need yet more low paid jobs in crafts, tourism (service jobs) etc at all. I have two kids, who are just beginning to look for work to supplement their meagre pocket money, and waiting on or standing behind a shop counter is not my idea of a valid career or job experience for them. However, it seems it is pretty much all that is on offer in rural Cumbria.
It is beyond me to understand why the RDAs, and Business Link, are given all of this funding for our regions, and yet have to prove to no-one what actual impact they are having over time, in rural economies in particular. If I ever meet someone working for Business Link as a consultant, advising businesses on how to succeed, who is not a failed business person rather than a successful one, I may well eat some item of clothing.
Many of these RDA folks are so lost/entrenched in the civil service culture (and yes, I am one of the many who believe they have entirely forgotten the meaning of the second word in their job description), and are so busy creating jobs for the boys, and spending budgets inefficiently just so they release the following year's funding, that it is no wonder this country is going tits up.
Talking to the RDAs, as we attempted to do on very many occasions over the years about broadband, you learn quite quickly about how this culture operates. And believe me, it is more of a mess than any File on Four programme can even begin to touch upon. The spend of public funds in such an arrogant, disjointed, short-sighted and casual manner, with often little or no reference to those in the regions who will be affected by spending decisions, could almost be called 'obscene'. It is definitely irresponsible.
There is no ombudsman to refer complaints to about RDAs. As one ex-contractor of the NWDA discovered, MPs are on the whole very unwilling to touch complaints about RDAs, and taking it as far as the EU is not just costly, but equally as pointless as they are all lying in the same bed.
The seemingly unshakeable belief of this Government that the RDAs are doing a good job with their budgets is a belief that needs picking up by the tail and rattling so hard that there is a public enquiry into the expenses of RDA officials, just as there has been with MPs. Every single civil servant should be made to account properly for every penny of public funds which passes through their departments, and those accounts should not be attached to some dreamed up criteria, outcomes or anything else intangible that the Govt come up with to justify the continued existence of these quangos.
The Regional Assemblies would have introduced some accountability into the system, but they have been scrapped. After god knows how many millions were spent on setting them up and their continued existence in the abyss they found themselves.
It is little wonder that the electorate of this country holds so little trust in Govt that they cannot be arsed to vote. Instead of seeing themselves implementing change through democracy, many now believe the rot is so inherent in our society, at so many levels, that a vote won't change the culture within, for instance, the civil service. And it is possibly why so many British citizens are planning to move abroad to live and work.
This wastage of, and irresponsiblity with, public money is not being addressed as the tumour that it is, which is causing an haemorraging of public money into pointless and often detrimental projects for our regions. The fact that however crap many of these civil servants' decisions are throughout their careers, they have a guaranteed pension may also be part of the problem.
One of the times when I stood up and spoke out very publicly about the RDAs (to a room of over 400 people, many of whom were civil servants), I managed to piss off someone so entirely within an RDA that he has ever since made sure that I will never ever get any work whatsoever through that RDA, or others he has been able to influence. Nor contribute to projects where they actually could have done with my experience and thinking, and that of my contacts. Sadly, what he missed was that I wasn't interested in earning money from them; I wanted to see implemented the change that would reflect well on the region, and hence his organisation. Had it been about money, maybe the bullying tactics would have forced me to keep my mouth shut in order to earn a crust, as it has with others, but my involvement with broadband was never about money.
And the changes that some of us foresaw for the regions have been well and truly missed because sometimes (not always by any means but often enough to really make an impact), the RDA folk don't have the humility, nous or even intelligence to seek the information they need to make rational decisions. Preferring to keep it all 'in-house' or within the cosy circle of their 'school tie' pals is a distinct part of the culture, and it backfires regularly on them, preventing them from achieving truly beneficial outcomes, outputs etc.
One RDA wasted £20million of public money on supposed broadband connectivity that even in your wildest dreams isn't, others have spent equivalent amounts of money connecting less than 100 people. When are these types of fiascos going to be investigated, and by whom??
Although it may not be politic to speak out, we live in a democracy and are entitled to free speech. The sooner others speak out about the misuse of public funding, and it is addressed, the better. On all issues which the RDAs have, unfortunately, become involved - housing, economic regeneration, communications, training etc etc etc.
Sunday 24 February 2008
Live a little
Yesterday, in a moment of glory, I nearly threw away all that I am working for with my kids, house etc to get re-involved in broadband. It only took a minor announcement from the DTI (DataBase ERRor as they are now called) about an indie review to think it would be worth getting involved again.
Luckily, my brain has regained some sort of equilibrium and we are back on track.
It's RALLY time.
The VW was here tonight, with my name on the windows, (minus an 'i') and it turns out the first rally of our Endurance Rally Championship is not this weekend but next. YES! This time in a fortnight we will be standing in a bar in Plymouth (with any luck) celebrating the end of the first rally we have partaken in this season. ie the second ever!!!
I cannot wait.
I have even tried to watch the promo Youtube video that South Hams Motor Club have on their site, but of course it must be too far to send it to Cumbria. Can't see it. (Bloody useless thing that they call broadband in this country - still not working. Note to self: do not get distracted.)
It might be a good thing actually, as after my driver has been here tonight, all I can think of is RALLY!
I cannot wait. And having something to live for has actually managed to ram it home that life is for living.
I've wasted well over 10 years of my life pushing for broadband in this god forsaken country, and now I am 40, it really is time to get on with the things in life that pay back. Not financially, obviously, but in FUN. And if there was anything that would ever put a big smile on your face it would be Endurance Rallying.
And I am desperately proud to be involved in the Endurance Rallying World. What a brilliant bunch of people they are.
Live a little. Whatever you want to do, whether it's paragliding - I know a man for that! or rallying, or horse riding or whatever, take the day off work and JFDI!!!
Luckily, my brain has regained some sort of equilibrium and we are back on track.
It's RALLY time.
The VW was here tonight, with my name on the windows, (minus an 'i') and it turns out the first rally of our Endurance Rally Championship is not this weekend but next. YES! This time in a fortnight we will be standing in a bar in Plymouth (with any luck) celebrating the end of the first rally we have partaken in this season. ie the second ever!!!
I cannot wait.
I have even tried to watch the promo Youtube video that South Hams Motor Club have on their site, but of course it must be too far to send it to Cumbria. Can't see it. (Bloody useless thing that they call broadband in this country - still not working. Note to self: do not get distracted.)
It might be a good thing actually, as after my driver has been here tonight, all I can think of is RALLY!
I cannot wait. And having something to live for has actually managed to ram it home that life is for living.
I've wasted well over 10 years of my life pushing for broadband in this god forsaken country, and now I am 40, it really is time to get on with the things in life that pay back. Not financially, obviously, but in FUN. And if there was anything that would ever put a big smile on your face it would be Endurance Rallying.
And I am desperately proud to be involved in the Endurance Rallying World. What a brilliant bunch of people they are.
Live a little. Whatever you want to do, whether it's paragliding - I know a man for that! or rallying, or horse riding or whatever, take the day off work and JFDI!!!
Saturday 23 February 2008
Give and Take
I have to admit to being rather taken with Freecycle. It keeps many useful items away from the national and local landfill lunacy which seems unstoppable, and you get to meet some great people.
However, it is making me wonder whether people are naturally 'givers', 'takers, or whether you can be both?
If you look at the archives, some names never ever occur in Offered, only Wanted, and vice versa.
I had to ask whether anyone had something/ a particular item today, and I had to think about it first. How important is this item that I go public and ask for it? What would I do with it if I get it? Do I really want to put myself out as begging for this item, or loan of it, or should I just bite the bullet and spend over £200 to get one? That was sort of the deciding factor. I couldn't afford one if I wanted, and having looked on Ebay, I am never really going to find one at a price I can afford.
(I know you want to know, so it's an overlocking machine. I bought a jumper from Guru in Darlington, and it doesn't fit. Even if I eat 20 cakes a day for the rest of my life, and grow 4ft taller it is never going to fit, but I love it. It's a South American real wool multi-coloured jumper and all I need to do is take it in with an overlocking machine. This jumper was my annual buy of a new item of clothing for me and it cost £30, which is a bloody fortune, and more than most of the rest of my wardrobe is worth.
The fact it didn't fit was absolutely irrelevant as it was the jumper I wanted, and still want, and will want every day of its life. However, if it fit, it would stop everyone else wingeing about the fact it's too big! And I would actually be happier if it fit me, not some 8ft gorilla in the Andes. Having been there, I can't possibly imagine who they knit it for! And yes, I did try putting it in the washing machine on a hot wash, and through the tumble dryer, and it is still gloriously too big!)
However, my trawl through the Freecycle archives did reveal that there are people on there who (seem to) just want, and people on there who offer. There are very few people who offer and want and give away items better, or better condition, than those they want.
So, tonight, I am wondering. Even in the fab world of Freecycle, is our grabbing, greedy culture still at work? Or do people find when they go to collect an item from a Freecycler that you come away with far more than you expected, and you end up giving these new friends items you don't need but they do?
Is the value of the network hidden?
Because the value I have had from Freecycle so far is far and away beyond what I had expected from an initial advert. The good feeling from giving is actually quadrupled when the person you are giving to suddenly gives something back, unexpectedly. Whether that is a glass of home brew, a promise of some apples later in the year, or 10 mins meeting their kids and a whole new family in your community, that giving from then, unasked for and unexpected, adds the hidden value of the network.
If you could capitalise on it, IMHO, you would break it, because you would break huamn nature. But if you could bottle it, pwoo-ee! I think you'd have something. Watch out for my next ads on Ebay!
Joking aside, I think the real value of networks is in the hidden intricacies of such networks, the little asides that human nature can add. And I think this ties in to my Mechanical Turk post on the Web PR blog yesterday. In a mechanised world, there will always be the 'human touch' that adds a spark, an incandescence, a passion to everything.
And long may it reign!
Let them take, let them give, let me meet the ones who have what I need, and take away what I don't. The trusted and untrustworthy, The friendly, the needy. And Pan, give me an overlocking machine so I can enjoy my jumper to the full!
However, it is making me wonder whether people are naturally 'givers', 'takers, or whether you can be both?
If you look at the archives, some names never ever occur in Offered, only Wanted, and vice versa.
I had to ask whether anyone had something/ a particular item today, and I had to think about it first. How important is this item that I go public and ask for it? What would I do with it if I get it? Do I really want to put myself out as begging for this item, or loan of it, or should I just bite the bullet and spend over £200 to get one? That was sort of the deciding factor. I couldn't afford one if I wanted, and having looked on Ebay, I am never really going to find one at a price I can afford.
(I know you want to know, so it's an overlocking machine. I bought a jumper from Guru in Darlington, and it doesn't fit. Even if I eat 20 cakes a day for the rest of my life, and grow 4ft taller it is never going to fit, but I love it. It's a South American real wool multi-coloured jumper and all I need to do is take it in with an overlocking machine. This jumper was my annual buy of a new item of clothing for me and it cost £30, which is a bloody fortune, and more than most of the rest of my wardrobe is worth.
The fact it didn't fit was absolutely irrelevant as it was the jumper I wanted, and still want, and will want every day of its life. However, if it fit, it would stop everyone else wingeing about the fact it's too big! And I would actually be happier if it fit me, not some 8ft gorilla in the Andes. Having been there, I can't possibly imagine who they knit it for! And yes, I did try putting it in the washing machine on a hot wash, and through the tumble dryer, and it is still gloriously too big!)
However, my trawl through the Freecycle archives did reveal that there are people on there who (seem to) just want, and people on there who offer. There are very few people who offer and want and give away items better, or better condition, than those they want.
So, tonight, I am wondering. Even in the fab world of Freecycle, is our grabbing, greedy culture still at work? Or do people find when they go to collect an item from a Freecycler that you come away with far more than you expected, and you end up giving these new friends items you don't need but they do?
Is the value of the network hidden?
Because the value I have had from Freecycle so far is far and away beyond what I had expected from an initial advert. The good feeling from giving is actually quadrupled when the person you are giving to suddenly gives something back, unexpectedly. Whether that is a glass of home brew, a promise of some apples later in the year, or 10 mins meeting their kids and a whole new family in your community, that giving from then, unasked for and unexpected, adds the hidden value of the network.
If you could capitalise on it, IMHO, you would break it, because you would break huamn nature. But if you could bottle it, pwoo-ee! I think you'd have something. Watch out for my next ads on Ebay!
Joking aside, I think the real value of networks is in the hidden intricacies of such networks, the little asides that human nature can add. And I think this ties in to my Mechanical Turk post on the Web PR blog yesterday. In a mechanised world, there will always be the 'human touch' that adds a spark, an incandescence, a passion to everything.
And long may it reign!
Let them take, let them give, let me meet the ones who have what I need, and take away what I don't. The trusted and untrustworthy, The friendly, the needy. And Pan, give me an overlocking machine so I can enjoy my jumper to the full!
Thursday 21 February 2008
Smart Meters
If you could join up all the dots about me, apart from being one helluva mess, you would notice that the wireless issue crops up over and over again. Not necessarily from a telecoms or technical point of view, but more from a communication point of view.
And smart meters are one area where I just cannot understand what is going on, nor why our utilities etc companies don't get together and get on top of the issues.
What are the issues?
OK, from a utility company POV, there is a need to:
1) Be able to easily access the meters and read them for water, electrickery etc without needing to knock on each house door or business premises
2) Be able to spot leakages or wastage easily - whether this be a burst pipe in a school or a household using more than they can afford to pay for
The easiest way to deal with both of these is to have the meters reporting back in to "HQ". And the easiest way to do that is via wireless, or fibre, or "fiwi". It would not be so great to have a meter plugged in to a telephone line as the amount of spare copper is limited, and the meter does not need to report back constantly so the copper would be underused. As a scarce resource, this is not ideal.
(However, if you were to stop using copper between the street cabs and the homes/businesses for voice and data, it might be a damned good use of the copper rather than pull it out the ground and flog it into a lucrative, profitable marketplace. But that is another discussion!)
For homes and businesses, it would be good if the meter could inform them if they were using above average of the utility compared to say comparable businesses in the region, or their neighbours. This might encourage them to cut down on usage and hence reduce their bills.
There is additionally a major problem in the UKl over this stuff called "broadband". The truth of the matter is that we just don't have it. Not compared to places like Korea, Sweden, Italy, Estonia and even Outer Mongolia. And until someone finds a way of getting the owners of the infrastructure to work together using existing resource eg fibre optics, wireless masts, street cabs and exchanges etc, it is highly likely to stay that way. Particularly for the non honey pot type areas, like most of Britain. Look on a map and see how much green there is? No cities or big urbanisations? That's where there is sod all broadband at all.
And this is where smart meters come in. The EU regulated on smart meters to be introduced in 2007, but it seems the Brits haven't quite noticed that piece of regulation yet. Or those utility companies who can put prices up and annoucne £500 million profits a couple of weeks later are jittery about the potential cost.
Now, imagine if every home and business needed its utility meters replacing. We have electricity and water only, but others have gas too. That would be three new smart meters, all dishing out a wireless signal to be picked up either very locally (eg over Bluetooth or similar) by meter readers who didn't have to get out of their vehicles and just needed to kerb crawl to get a reading, or they would be connected into a larger wireless cloud and feed their data back to a data centre or similar for the utility companies. Latest figures have these costing the consumer, not the utility company, at around £180. Yeah right. I don't think so.
There are however issues with smart meters as they are currently espoused. eg one per utility company.
Firstly, the wireless interference between my three utility metres, next door's, and the rest of my neighbours could be a major issue. Secondly, a ton of people would come out of the woodwork saying they now have a permanent headache, or chilblains year round or something because of the wireless and thirdly, it would cost shedloads of dosh, not just to install said meters but also for the data costs and installing wireless equipment to cover the nation with a wireless cloud.
And therein lies the rub. United Utilities, who deal with our water, also own a telecoms company. It used to be called Your Communications, and is now owned and run by Thus and Kingston Communications. So, these electrickery companies are not foreigners to telco games. Apparently, the top wire on all those enormous pylons you see across the country is a fibre optic telco data cable. Even the water companies have dabbled in the telco markets, and you only need look at the furore around H2) and their plan to stick fibre optic down sewers to see that the water companies are in there too.
The problem with communications infrastructure in our country is that no-one seems to be joining the dots. As wireless needs to become more ubiquitous, the mobile oeprators extend their 3G etc networks to bring data coverage, the telcos faff around, generally, with the likes of The Cloud hotspots, (and stealing the term "wireless broadband" so everyone assumes it is that new box BT has just given them and no more), the utility companies just merge with one another, and the odd telco etc, but no-one is joining the dots.
I am going to try to.
1)The need for broadband speed, accessible and affordable and available to all, everywhere in the UK, and fast as hell. Yes... 1Gbps symmetrical, ta.
2) Supposed scarcity of bandwidth whilst we have unused resource in dark fibre lying all over the country and data costs approaching zero
3) Compliance with EU regulation on smart meters
4)The success of wifi mesh networks
5) The fact that the majority of mobile calls are made in the cell the call orginates from or a neighbouring one
Right, let's put this together.
Into my house, you put a smart meter, that measures electricity, gas and water consumption. On that smart meter is a small wireless antenna. The meter can both transmit and receive information. That meter meshes with the meter in my neighbours' houses, and his with the next house and all others it can see, creating a resilient mesh network throughout our village primarily. In our street cabinet (which I happen to know is one 802.11b 8db antenna hop from most of the houses in the village, and 2 from the top of the village), is another meshbox, and some kit to convert from wireless to fibre.
Every smart meter acts as an access point not just for the utility companies but also to provide internet access. Should you wish to have multiple resilience, the local copper sub-loop can provide back ups. However, should this be needed eg if there was a nuclear magnetic pulse which knocked out the wireless, any survivors of the nuclear bomb could expect reduced internet download and upload speeds for a while over the VDSL link. (If the street cabinet were affected by thermo nuclear activity, they'd be back on ADSL which round here is absolutely appalling. But perhaps that would be the last thing anyone would be concerned about....?)
The upgrade programme on the horizon would then obviously focus on fibre in the core network eg between exchanges, (which is mostly done), and then fibre from the exchanges to the street cabinets. Obviously, this would be best piloted in rural areas first on the principle of disturbing the least amount of people at a time. And on the understanding that the EU or Gummint, or some such body would fund the innovative pilot of FTTcabinet roll out. (Innovative in the UK only, most other countries are already implementing FTTH.) Many of the utility companies may find that they actually own conduit in the vicinity of the proposed rural areas, as well as dark fibre, and decide to avoid the exchanges and street cabs entirely. A simple wayleave payment to impoverished farmers and some backhanders to the planners would no doubt see new utility-owned street cabs replacements and alternative exchanges springing up where cows, sheep and pigs once dwelt. This would no doubt be lucrative for farmers and count as 'farm diversity' and be applauded by the planning authorities too.
There would also have to be subsidies for the smart meters, and a compensation plan for the lunatics who think that wifi (or whichver lump of spectrum was used) is going to damage their health. (There may prove to be some mileage in moving them all up to the Outer Hebrides to live under and work on the windmills needed to power London's exorbitant energy requirements. Potentially the whoomp whoomp of the windmills would drive them truly insane.)
The amount of bandwidth required to transfer data to and from the smart meters
could be charged at exactly the same rate as it currently costs in environmental damage and economics to send out troops of meter readers in vans around the nation. The utility companies would need to buy bandwidth from someone, which presumably will be BT and/or Branson, so that would cut them into the pie and not leave them moaning about their lack of involvement in such an important project - even if it is in rural areas firstly.
However, the local transmission of data would cost the utility companies very little as they own the pipes, and they could retrain a few of the meter readers to maintain the networks. Over the last 20 years or so, it has become apparent that UK Gummint has a policy to keep down the unemployed numbers by taking as many on as possible as civil servants so the Gummint could start a whole new department called "Wireless, Access and Communications Complaints Organisation" - the WACCOs for short who deal with everyone who thinks wireless makes them nauseous or affects their appetite.
Right, so we have a wireless mesh access point smart meter in every home, fibre to at the very least the street cabs and exchanges, a wireless cloud over most of the country, EU regulatory compliance, data being fed from the meters to the utility companies, telcos and utility companies using (up to now) untapped and unused resources such as dark fibre), every home with at the very least a 100Mbps symmetrical wireless connection out to the Net with a VDSL failover on the copper, or the copper being ripped out and flogged on the open market at way more than anyone could ever have dared dream (this also stops it being nicked).
What else? A burgeoning knowledge economy etc in rural areas, geeks from towns travelling out to rural hotspots ie most of the countryside to get a decent connection, which would hopefully encourage the train companies to put on a proper train service, a properly used network infrastructure, a few new people in a new Gummint department, and a lot more people in the Outer Hebrides, which will no doubt get better transport links and services to deal with them. With any luck they will start a campaign against the windmills and force London to switch off a few lights for a change instead of ruining a beautiful (if now somewhat over-populated) area of the British Isles. Plus a bunch of psychiatrists relocating to grab the gummint compensated treatment programmes to treat total eejuts.
Anyway, just a thought. Anyone fancy importaing a few smart meters that are mesh enabled and giving British Gas a call before they spend all that profit?
And smart meters are one area where I just cannot understand what is going on, nor why our utilities etc companies don't get together and get on top of the issues.
What are the issues?
OK, from a utility company POV, there is a need to:
1) Be able to easily access the meters and read them for water, electrickery etc without needing to knock on each house door or business premises
2) Be able to spot leakages or wastage easily - whether this be a burst pipe in a school or a household using more than they can afford to pay for
The easiest way to deal with both of these is to have the meters reporting back in to "HQ". And the easiest way to do that is via wireless, or fibre, or "fiwi". It would not be so great to have a meter plugged in to a telephone line as the amount of spare copper is limited, and the meter does not need to report back constantly so the copper would be underused. As a scarce resource, this is not ideal.
(However, if you were to stop using copper between the street cabs and the homes/businesses for voice and data, it might be a damned good use of the copper rather than pull it out the ground and flog it into a lucrative, profitable marketplace. But that is another discussion!)
For homes and businesses, it would be good if the meter could inform them if they were using above average of the utility compared to say comparable businesses in the region, or their neighbours. This might encourage them to cut down on usage and hence reduce their bills.
There is additionally a major problem in the UKl over this stuff called "broadband". The truth of the matter is that we just don't have it. Not compared to places like Korea, Sweden, Italy, Estonia and even Outer Mongolia. And until someone finds a way of getting the owners of the infrastructure to work together using existing resource eg fibre optics, wireless masts, street cabs and exchanges etc, it is highly likely to stay that way. Particularly for the non honey pot type areas, like most of Britain. Look on a map and see how much green there is? No cities or big urbanisations? That's where there is sod all broadband at all.
And this is where smart meters come in. The EU regulated on smart meters to be introduced in 2007, but it seems the Brits haven't quite noticed that piece of regulation yet. Or those utility companies who can put prices up and annoucne £500 million profits a couple of weeks later are jittery about the potential cost.
Now, imagine if every home and business needed its utility meters replacing. We have electricity and water only, but others have gas too. That would be three new smart meters, all dishing out a wireless signal to be picked up either very locally (eg over Bluetooth or similar) by meter readers who didn't have to get out of their vehicles and just needed to kerb crawl to get a reading, or they would be connected into a larger wireless cloud and feed their data back to a data centre or similar for the utility companies. Latest figures have these costing the consumer, not the utility company, at around £180. Yeah right. I don't think so.
There are however issues with smart meters as they are currently espoused. eg one per utility company.
Firstly, the wireless interference between my three utility metres, next door's, and the rest of my neighbours could be a major issue. Secondly, a ton of people would come out of the woodwork saying they now have a permanent headache, or chilblains year round or something because of the wireless and thirdly, it would cost shedloads of dosh, not just to install said meters but also for the data costs and installing wireless equipment to cover the nation with a wireless cloud.
And therein lies the rub. United Utilities, who deal with our water, also own a telecoms company. It used to be called Your Communications, and is now owned and run by Thus and Kingston Communications. So, these electrickery companies are not foreigners to telco games. Apparently, the top wire on all those enormous pylons you see across the country is a fibre optic telco data cable. Even the water companies have dabbled in the telco markets, and you only need look at the furore around H2) and their plan to stick fibre optic down sewers to see that the water companies are in there too.
The problem with communications infrastructure in our country is that no-one seems to be joining the dots. As wireless needs to become more ubiquitous, the mobile oeprators extend their 3G etc networks to bring data coverage, the telcos faff around, generally, with the likes of The Cloud hotspots, (and stealing the term "wireless broadband" so everyone assumes it is that new box BT has just given them and no more), the utility companies just merge with one another, and the odd telco etc, but no-one is joining the dots.
I am going to try to.
1)The need for broadband speed, accessible and affordable and available to all, everywhere in the UK, and fast as hell. Yes... 1Gbps symmetrical, ta.
2) Supposed scarcity of bandwidth whilst we have unused resource in dark fibre lying all over the country and data costs approaching zero
3) Compliance with EU regulation on smart meters
4)The success of wifi mesh networks
5) The fact that the majority of mobile calls are made in the cell the call orginates from or a neighbouring one
Right, let's put this together.
Into my house, you put a smart meter, that measures electricity, gas and water consumption. On that smart meter is a small wireless antenna. The meter can both transmit and receive information. That meter meshes with the meter in my neighbours' houses, and his with the next house and all others it can see, creating a resilient mesh network throughout our village primarily. In our street cabinet (which I happen to know is one 802.11b 8db antenna hop from most of the houses in the village, and 2 from the top of the village), is another meshbox, and some kit to convert from wireless to fibre.
Every smart meter acts as an access point not just for the utility companies but also to provide internet access. Should you wish to have multiple resilience, the local copper sub-loop can provide back ups. However, should this be needed eg if there was a nuclear magnetic pulse which knocked out the wireless, any survivors of the nuclear bomb could expect reduced internet download and upload speeds for a while over the VDSL link. (If the street cabinet were affected by thermo nuclear activity, they'd be back on ADSL which round here is absolutely appalling. But perhaps that would be the last thing anyone would be concerned about....?)
The upgrade programme on the horizon would then obviously focus on fibre in the core network eg between exchanges, (which is mostly done), and then fibre from the exchanges to the street cabinets. Obviously, this would be best piloted in rural areas first on the principle of disturbing the least amount of people at a time. And on the understanding that the EU or Gummint, or some such body would fund the innovative pilot of FTTcabinet roll out. (Innovative in the UK only, most other countries are already implementing FTTH.) Many of the utility companies may find that they actually own conduit in the vicinity of the proposed rural areas, as well as dark fibre, and decide to avoid the exchanges and street cabs entirely. A simple wayleave payment to impoverished farmers and some backhanders to the planners would no doubt see new utility-owned street cabs replacements and alternative exchanges springing up where cows, sheep and pigs once dwelt. This would no doubt be lucrative for farmers and count as 'farm diversity' and be applauded by the planning authorities too.
There would also have to be subsidies for the smart meters, and a compensation plan for the lunatics who think that wifi (or whichver lump of spectrum was used) is going to damage their health. (There may prove to be some mileage in moving them all up to the Outer Hebrides to live under and work on the windmills needed to power London's exorbitant energy requirements. Potentially the whoomp whoomp of the windmills would drive them truly insane.)
The amount of bandwidth required to transfer data to and from the smart meters
could be charged at exactly the same rate as it currently costs in environmental damage and economics to send out troops of meter readers in vans around the nation. The utility companies would need to buy bandwidth from someone, which presumably will be BT and/or Branson, so that would cut them into the pie and not leave them moaning about their lack of involvement in such an important project - even if it is in rural areas firstly.
However, the local transmission of data would cost the utility companies very little as they own the pipes, and they could retrain a few of the meter readers to maintain the networks. Over the last 20 years or so, it has become apparent that UK Gummint has a policy to keep down the unemployed numbers by taking as many on as possible as civil servants so the Gummint could start a whole new department called "Wireless, Access and Communications Complaints Organisation" - the WACCOs for short who deal with everyone who thinks wireless makes them nauseous or affects their appetite.
Right, so we have a wireless mesh access point smart meter in every home, fibre to at the very least the street cabs and exchanges, a wireless cloud over most of the country, EU regulatory compliance, data being fed from the meters to the utility companies, telcos and utility companies using (up to now) untapped and unused resources such as dark fibre), every home with at the very least a 100Mbps symmetrical wireless connection out to the Net with a VDSL failover on the copper, or the copper being ripped out and flogged on the open market at way more than anyone could ever have dared dream (this also stops it being nicked).
What else? A burgeoning knowledge economy etc in rural areas, geeks from towns travelling out to rural hotspots ie most of the countryside to get a decent connection, which would hopefully encourage the train companies to put on a proper train service, a properly used network infrastructure, a few new people in a new Gummint department, and a lot more people in the Outer Hebrides, which will no doubt get better transport links and services to deal with them. With any luck they will start a campaign against the windmills and force London to switch off a few lights for a change instead of ruining a beautiful (if now somewhat over-populated) area of the British Isles. Plus a bunch of psychiatrists relocating to grab the gummint compensated treatment programmes to treat total eejuts.
Anyway, just a thought. Anyone fancy importaing a few smart meters that are mesh enabled and giving British Gas a call before they spend all that profit?
Pay as you throw vs recycling
Once again, the Gummint's attempts to reduce the amount going to landfill are in the news. This time it is their impoverished and poorly thought out pay as you throw pilot schemes. These would have lasted 3 years, and then been evaluated to decide whther or not to introduce them on a wider, national level.
Talk about too little, too late.
Weirdly, the VT accompanying the story showed diggers etc on a landfill site moving what appeared to be tons of wood amongst the plastic bags etc. One has to wonder what wood is doing making it to a landfill in the 21st century. After all, just because London is a smokeless zone, doesn't mean that the rest of the country is. So, it could be burnt to keep a few OAPs and low income families warm. Or it could be reused, to make MDF or whatever else scrap wood can be used for.
Recently, there was an announcement about how much the blue bags that our council, Eden District, has introduced and the extra tonnage that adds per year to landfill. One would think that the cost of introducing wheelie bins would be substantially less than the cost of producing the blue bags with EDC printed on them, and the fines which are heading their way from the EU for overloading the landfill and making little attempt to reduce the amount going in to landfill.
Eden District Council is a prime example of the gross stupidity being exhibited by our councils, with our money. As I have mentioned before, our local tip used to be run by a guy called Stig. He would keep a keen eye open for what was going into the skips, and make sure that anything that could be potentially reused was rescued and put to one side. Going to the tip inevitably meant you came away with more than you took! But it was generally all useful stuff. Our Belfast sink came from there, as well as many other items that have been reused around the house, and saved us a few quid.
Now, our local tip is run by two 'bouncers' who insist that everything is put into the skips, whether it is potentially useful or not to someone else, and that nothing can be removed. At that point, I was pleased to discover Freecycle, which does allow us to clear the shed of items that are bound to be of some use to someone else and post them on our local Freecycle forum. If only more people knew about Freecycle and groups were in existence across every area of the country. Last week we acquired a washing machine from there (Thanks, Fiona!!) and it's nice to know that 1) we have saved something from landfill that functions brilliantly and 2)we haven't encouraged yet another washing machine to be built by buying a new one.
Our local recycling bank is situated about a mile out of the village, meaning that anyone wishing to dispose of bottles etc has to drive there. Gordon Bennett, how dim are these councillors? How unenvironmentally friendly is having to use petrol every time we want to recycle? Why couldn't they have put it in the village so everyone could easily access it? It's not as if we don't have plenty of places where it could have been put - pick a field!
And I keep hearing stories about recycling banks being closed because they are "too well-used". Arg! Every time I have been to any of our local recycling banks recently, they tend to be overflowing, as more and more people get into recycling as much of their household rubbish as possible. And this is the way it should be. Until the council realise that the people are willing to do all this hard graft for them, and introduce wheelie bins which they empty when they would normally collect the rubbish, we seem to be lumbered with this ludicrous situation. After all, they are going round every household anyway, so why not reduce the amount going to recycling banks by collecting it from our doorsteps in one hit?
And where are the community compost bins? I've noticed that in our blue bags each way, the thing taking up the most space is firstly plastic packaging - we now go to the butcher for most of our meat rather than the supermarket as that is the prime offender - and secondly, food waste. We do have a compost bin, if I could just find it in the chaos of belongings that have resulted from moving house 3 times in 6 months, but how many households don't, and have no garden etc to put the compost on?
Compost generates heat, and I think it is in Nottinghamshire where they have municipal compost heaps which generate heat etc for public buildings. These, as far as I recall, have been in place since the 70s so it's hardly a new idea. Secondly, compost has a resale and reuse value. Considering our local farmers are spreading human shit on the land around the village currently, (and yes, it STINKS!) if the worst came to the worst and it was given to them for free to spread on their land, at least it wouldn't be going in landfill, and it would be putting some good back into the land that grows our food.
As an island, we seem remarkably wasteful of the resources we have. Whether that is overfishing our seas, or ignoring the food that lives wild on our shores, or encouraging a culture where things are obsolete almost before they have been bought, we seem profligate with what we have, and uncaring about what we could have.
The crap attitude in council chambers about dealing with the problems is, I suspect, national. And extends clearly into Westminster. I think that if we dealt with the lights off issue I posted about yesterday, (did I hit publish?!), and the compost and recycling, we'd make far more of an impact than any of the other supposedly good ideas that come out of either Westminster or Brussels to make a difference to waste on this part of our planet.
Why is it so difficult? If some councils can run scrap stores, and give every household and business a wheelie bin (some are divided into 2 or 3 partitions for different recyclable materials), and sort out composting, then why can't that be adopted nationally? It apparently only takes 30 days of doing something each day for it to become a habit, so how long really would it take to retrain this nation to reuse, reduce and recycle??
Talk about too little, too late.
Weirdly, the VT accompanying the story showed diggers etc on a landfill site moving what appeared to be tons of wood amongst the plastic bags etc. One has to wonder what wood is doing making it to a landfill in the 21st century. After all, just because London is a smokeless zone, doesn't mean that the rest of the country is. So, it could be burnt to keep a few OAPs and low income families warm. Or it could be reused, to make MDF or whatever else scrap wood can be used for.
Recently, there was an announcement about how much the blue bags that our council, Eden District, has introduced and the extra tonnage that adds per year to landfill. One would think that the cost of introducing wheelie bins would be substantially less than the cost of producing the blue bags with EDC printed on them, and the fines which are heading their way from the EU for overloading the landfill and making little attempt to reduce the amount going in to landfill.
Eden District Council is a prime example of the gross stupidity being exhibited by our councils, with our money. As I have mentioned before, our local tip used to be run by a guy called Stig. He would keep a keen eye open for what was going into the skips, and make sure that anything that could be potentially reused was rescued and put to one side. Going to the tip inevitably meant you came away with more than you took! But it was generally all useful stuff. Our Belfast sink came from there, as well as many other items that have been reused around the house, and saved us a few quid.
Now, our local tip is run by two 'bouncers' who insist that everything is put into the skips, whether it is potentially useful or not to someone else, and that nothing can be removed. At that point, I was pleased to discover Freecycle, which does allow us to clear the shed of items that are bound to be of some use to someone else and post them on our local Freecycle forum. If only more people knew about Freecycle and groups were in existence across every area of the country. Last week we acquired a washing machine from there (Thanks, Fiona!!) and it's nice to know that 1) we have saved something from landfill that functions brilliantly and 2)we haven't encouraged yet another washing machine to be built by buying a new one.
Our local recycling bank is situated about a mile out of the village, meaning that anyone wishing to dispose of bottles etc has to drive there. Gordon Bennett, how dim are these councillors? How unenvironmentally friendly is having to use petrol every time we want to recycle? Why couldn't they have put it in the village so everyone could easily access it? It's not as if we don't have plenty of places where it could have been put - pick a field!
And I keep hearing stories about recycling banks being closed because they are "too well-used". Arg! Every time I have been to any of our local recycling banks recently, they tend to be overflowing, as more and more people get into recycling as much of their household rubbish as possible. And this is the way it should be. Until the council realise that the people are willing to do all this hard graft for them, and introduce wheelie bins which they empty when they would normally collect the rubbish, we seem to be lumbered with this ludicrous situation. After all, they are going round every household anyway, so why not reduce the amount going to recycling banks by collecting it from our doorsteps in one hit?
And where are the community compost bins? I've noticed that in our blue bags each way, the thing taking up the most space is firstly plastic packaging - we now go to the butcher for most of our meat rather than the supermarket as that is the prime offender - and secondly, food waste. We do have a compost bin, if I could just find it in the chaos of belongings that have resulted from moving house 3 times in 6 months, but how many households don't, and have no garden etc to put the compost on?
Compost generates heat, and I think it is in Nottinghamshire where they have municipal compost heaps which generate heat etc for public buildings. These, as far as I recall, have been in place since the 70s so it's hardly a new idea. Secondly, compost has a resale and reuse value. Considering our local farmers are spreading human shit on the land around the village currently, (and yes, it STINKS!) if the worst came to the worst and it was given to them for free to spread on their land, at least it wouldn't be going in landfill, and it would be putting some good back into the land that grows our food.
As an island, we seem remarkably wasteful of the resources we have. Whether that is overfishing our seas, or ignoring the food that lives wild on our shores, or encouraging a culture where things are obsolete almost before they have been bought, we seem profligate with what we have, and uncaring about what we could have.
The crap attitude in council chambers about dealing with the problems is, I suspect, national. And extends clearly into Westminster. I think that if we dealt with the lights off issue I posted about yesterday, (did I hit publish?!), and the compost and recycling, we'd make far more of an impact than any of the other supposedly good ideas that come out of either Westminster or Brussels to make a difference to waste on this part of our planet.
Why is it so difficult? If some councils can run scrap stores, and give every household and business a wheelie bin (some are divided into 2 or 3 partitions for different recyclable materials), and sort out composting, then why can't that be adopted nationally? It apparently only takes 30 days of doing something each day for it to become a habit, so how long really would it take to retrain this nation to reuse, reduce and recycle??
Wednesday 20 February 2008
Monday 18 February 2008
Fluoride in water
Did you know that fluoridation of water was first explored and implemented by the Nazi gestapo? They used fluroide in the water, seemingly, in the concentration camps to keep the inmates quieter.
The UK Government is proposing to introduce fluoridation far more widely than across the UK currently - are you living in an area that has fluoridation eg Birmingham or Newcastle? Check here
Despite the fact that there is little scientific evidence to back the claims that this will reduce dental caries problems significantly, and historical evidence showing that it can actually have a negative impact, the UK gummint seem determined to go ahead. There are other issues such as the fact that fluoride is of most use when used topically ie swilled around the mouth and spat out, than when it is ingested. Which, of course, would be the result if all drinking water were to have fluoride added. Fluoride is also a toxin so the impact of adding it to a nation's drinking water needs further discussion. Not least by those who will be most affected by such a move. Yet there seems to be very little information available to the electorate from the gummint.
Once again, the nanny state we live in is making decisions that will affect the whole populace and giving us very little choice in the matter. If, for instance, dental problems are most profilic in areas where poverty is also an issue, then surely one way to deal with it would be by firstly ensuring that all such areas have a glut of dentists, including dentists in schools as we had until they were cut by a previous gummint (like we had nit nurses), so that any such teeth problems were caught early on. Additionally, the lack of decent nutritonal education (not helped by removing domestic science etc from schools) means that many children are growing up completely unaware of what they ought to be eating.
The supermarkets also price 'good food' far higher than crap processed food full of salt, sugar, fats etc, thereby putting it out of the reach of the most impoverished. Additionally, the cheapest drinks are not bottled water or real fruit juices, but fizzy drinks full of artifical sweeteners etc which are most definitely not good for your teeth nor health. And because our country is now so full of people, there is little space to encourage allotments etc where even the poorest of the poor could grow wholesome food to supplement their meagre incomes.
I could go on and on about all the different positive policies that could be put in place to begin to attack the reasons for poverty, and supposedly hence dental caries, in this country.
However, one can only guess at the cost for putting in a nationwide fluoridation scheme. And if that fluoride is also put into water in Middle England, where many people do not have dental problems, we are not just wasting money but potentially putting people's health at risk.
Why not issue bottles of fluoride to those who most need it? Teach them to swill their mouths out, and not swallow, and target those who most need it with some one to one advice about nutrition, tooth cleaning, etc. There potentially is about to be yet another generation of parents giving their kids coca cola or similar in their drinks bottles, which is by far one of the most efficient ways to trash your kids teeth.
Educate the masses. Target those who most need this treatment. Encourage people to become dentists and use their dentists. Stop feeding kids crap in schools. Force the supermarkets to bring decent food to affordable prices 9without ripping off the producers and farmers). Get a few celebrities and nutritionists to give those who shop in supermarkets 7 recipes for the week and a full shopping list to suit their budgets. The major religions, like Islam and Judaism, offer support to their followers by advising what to eat and what not to eat, what should be eaten together, and what should not. It is not some foppery, but actually teaches nutrition and common sense.
Our gummint should keep its hands off our drinking water. If it wants to help prevent dental caries etc, then it needs to focus on which of the policies implemented over the last couple of decades have allowed this to happen. And take a long hard look at what they allow food producers and supermarkets to get away with.
The UK Government is proposing to introduce fluoridation far more widely than across the UK currently - are you living in an area that has fluoridation eg Birmingham or Newcastle? Check here
Despite the fact that there is little scientific evidence to back the claims that this will reduce dental caries problems significantly, and historical evidence showing that it can actually have a negative impact, the UK gummint seem determined to go ahead. There are other issues such as the fact that fluoride is of most use when used topically ie swilled around the mouth and spat out, than when it is ingested. Which, of course, would be the result if all drinking water were to have fluoride added. Fluoride is also a toxin so the impact of adding it to a nation's drinking water needs further discussion. Not least by those who will be most affected by such a move. Yet there seems to be very little information available to the electorate from the gummint.
Once again, the nanny state we live in is making decisions that will affect the whole populace and giving us very little choice in the matter. If, for instance, dental problems are most profilic in areas where poverty is also an issue, then surely one way to deal with it would be by firstly ensuring that all such areas have a glut of dentists, including dentists in schools as we had until they were cut by a previous gummint (like we had nit nurses), so that any such teeth problems were caught early on. Additionally, the lack of decent nutritonal education (not helped by removing domestic science etc from schools) means that many children are growing up completely unaware of what they ought to be eating.
The supermarkets also price 'good food' far higher than crap processed food full of salt, sugar, fats etc, thereby putting it out of the reach of the most impoverished. Additionally, the cheapest drinks are not bottled water or real fruit juices, but fizzy drinks full of artifical sweeteners etc which are most definitely not good for your teeth nor health. And because our country is now so full of people, there is little space to encourage allotments etc where even the poorest of the poor could grow wholesome food to supplement their meagre incomes.
I could go on and on about all the different positive policies that could be put in place to begin to attack the reasons for poverty, and supposedly hence dental caries, in this country.
However, one can only guess at the cost for putting in a nationwide fluoridation scheme. And if that fluoride is also put into water in Middle England, where many people do not have dental problems, we are not just wasting money but potentially putting people's health at risk.
Why not issue bottles of fluoride to those who most need it? Teach them to swill their mouths out, and not swallow, and target those who most need it with some one to one advice about nutrition, tooth cleaning, etc. There potentially is about to be yet another generation of parents giving their kids coca cola or similar in their drinks bottles, which is by far one of the most efficient ways to trash your kids teeth.
Educate the masses. Target those who most need this treatment. Encourage people to become dentists and use their dentists. Stop feeding kids crap in schools. Force the supermarkets to bring decent food to affordable prices 9without ripping off the producers and farmers). Get a few celebrities and nutritionists to give those who shop in supermarkets 7 recipes for the week and a full shopping list to suit their budgets. The major religions, like Islam and Judaism, offer support to their followers by advising what to eat and what not to eat, what should be eaten together, and what should not. It is not some foppery, but actually teaches nutrition and common sense.
Our gummint should keep its hands off our drinking water. If it wants to help prevent dental caries etc, then it needs to focus on which of the policies implemented over the last couple of decades have allowed this to happen. And take a long hard look at what they allow food producers and supermarkets to get away with.
Tuesday 12 February 2008
B loody T hieves
Just seen an announcement that BT intend to up the cost of evening calls from 4.5p an hour to 1.5p a minute from 1st April 2008. That's a 1900% increase. And no, I suspect it is not an April fool but it ought to be. And who knows what it will mean for those, like my neighbour, who are reliant on the PCB (phone box) for their telephone calls.
BT's income from calls has been reducing steadily as more people use mobiles, VoIP, email etc to communicate. But this increase is ludicrous. Completely unjustifiable. It costs no more to make a phone call daytime, evening or weekend for 1 sec or an hour because the entire process is automated. BT do not have people plugging in your call at a switchboard any more. Where voice only is being transmitted, there is no additional data cost for BT to bear.
So, what this is about is screwing those who probably can least afford it to no doubt help fund their balls up of a 21st Century Network switchover.
It is more than time that subloop unbundling took place and we could all decide whether we want to replace our lump of ancient and eroded copper to the street cabinet with fibre, and who we buy our telephone services from - if anyone. I'd much rather be using VoIP. And as they are migrating to an all IP core network with 21CN all of these voice calls will be VoIP. Possibly the most expensive VoIP in the world if these charges stand.
BT's income from calls has been reducing steadily as more people use mobiles, VoIP, email etc to communicate. But this increase is ludicrous. Completely unjustifiable. It costs no more to make a phone call daytime, evening or weekend for 1 sec or an hour because the entire process is automated. BT do not have people plugging in your call at a switchboard any more. Where voice only is being transmitted, there is no additional data cost for BT to bear.
So, what this is about is screwing those who probably can least afford it to no doubt help fund their balls up of a 21st Century Network switchover.
It is more than time that subloop unbundling took place and we could all decide whether we want to replace our lump of ancient and eroded copper to the street cabinet with fibre, and who we buy our telephone services from - if anyone. I'd much rather be using VoIP. And as they are migrating to an all IP core network with 21CN all of these voice calls will be VoIP. Possibly the most expensive VoIP in the world if these charges stand.
Post office closures
Today is the day another round of rural Post offices will face closure. The Post Office is scrapping 2500 outlets around the country. This is a severe blow to many rural communities. For Adam Crozier et al who probably don't live anywhere near a rural community, it must be hard to understand just what difference a local Post office makes. Especially when the local bus service is so impoverished it is hard to get even to the next village and back in less than a couple of hours.
I don't think our Post Office is under threat in this round, but rumour in the village has it that the shop is once again under threat, which of course houses the Post Office. Feel I should mobilise the sprogs during half term to poster the village or something - though the likelihood of them getting out of bed before lunchtime is almost zero.
How on earth do we stop essential services in rural areas being closed down? How do you encourage people to shop locally? Or prevent large corporates from slashing the smaller 'outlets' etc, when they are quite easily supported by the larger ones? I know it is all about profits and shareholders, and to me that will continue to be obscene, particularly when it relates to schools, council services, essential services etc.
Recently, I went to Darlington, and needed to get money from the Post Office to finance the latest "wants" of the sprogs. The queue was huge. We waited over half an hour to get served. Presumably everyone in that queue was in the same situation as myself - there was nowhere else to go to get the service they required - be it posting a parcel, getting money from a PO account etc. And this lack of competition in the majority of PO services, this monopoly, has given them leeway to make such cuts as they are today, which have such a phenomenal impact on rural communities - there is nowhere else to go locally to get those services. Sadly, the growth of competition in other services eg who you use for letters and parcels, has shown the failings in the PO to do even the basics well, and so has led to decreased profits.
Going back to how you encourage people to shop locally, it seems to be a modern mindset. Convenience shopping in some numbskull supermarket, 20 miles away because it saves time is surely the most common excuse. The environmental idiocy of this alone beggars belief, let alone the economics. And not jsut the economics for a household budget, but the impact these supermarkets have on farmers etc, which then, in rural areas, affects those who are your neighbours, friends, etc.
Our shop has, of course, a limited choice of items because of space restrictions. However, firstly, you can walk to it so no need to use the car, secondly, if you ask the shop to get something in eg a crate of pomegranate juice, they will, and thirdly, if your bill comes to £20.01, they don't demand the 1p off you. But, people still decide to get in the car and drive to another town and spend the money with a large corporation who often make only minor attempts to improve the local economy. (I think the Co-op is a slightly different fish in that game, but not by that much).
Although the number of rights we have has increased, we haven't introduced RESPONSIBILITY with those rights. So, in my village of approx 400 people, I could probably ask all of them whose responsibility is reporting the broken street light on the corner (flickering now for well over a week), or whose responsiblity is it to use the village amenities such as the village hall etc so they remain open in years to come, whose responsibility is it to ensure that houses in the village are sold to young families so we keep our primary school for another generation, whose responsibility is it that the bus shelter is kept clean and swept of leaves, whose responsiblity is it to make sure the gypsies behave themselves when they are here, or to be friendly to them so they feel a responsiblity to act like responsible citizens and not trash the green .....etc. Would any of them feel that it is their responsibility?
This brings me to whose responsibility is the WELL BEING of our community?
To me, it should fall firmly on each and every one of our shoulders - those of us who live here. In any community, not just ours, surely the responsibility for wellbeing should not fall solely to the council - parish, district or county - or the police, or some quango at the Regional Development Agency. The problem lies in the fact that those mentioned above meddle so thoroughly in our lives (mainly because so many people are employed in the civil service to do precisely that), in so many areas, that we just leave them to it. Assuming in some naive, old fashioned way, that they must know what they are doing. After all, public sector employees get massive wages, compared to our local average wage, a job for life, and a nice fat pension. So, they must be employed on some sort of criteria that they have the expertise for the job. But they don't. They can't understand how my community works unless they live here, can they?
Broadbrush decisions made at County Council level cannot possibly work in both Carlisle and some tiny rural Cumbrian hamlet. Cuts to public spending, or large corporate spending, are always going to affect the smaller communities, shops etc because they are the ones who bring in least profit, and where less people will shout about the problems such cuts cause. And where a large number of citizens or consumers are likely to be affected eg on a national level, we see the government and corporates employing stealth tactics. And as a nation we are remarkably inept at noticing what is going on (mainly due to the media's perverse approach to telling us news), and doing something about it.
Anyway, I'm off to the shop. There's bound to be something I can buy today which will just help add a few pennies to the balance sheet to keep the shop open. After all, it's my responsiblity to the long-term wellbeing of this community I live in to ensure there is a shop there for others in the future. Oh, and then I'll report that street light.....
I don't think our Post Office is under threat in this round, but rumour in the village has it that the shop is once again under threat, which of course houses the Post Office. Feel I should mobilise the sprogs during half term to poster the village or something - though the likelihood of them getting out of bed before lunchtime is almost zero.
How on earth do we stop essential services in rural areas being closed down? How do you encourage people to shop locally? Or prevent large corporates from slashing the smaller 'outlets' etc, when they are quite easily supported by the larger ones? I know it is all about profits and shareholders, and to me that will continue to be obscene, particularly when it relates to schools, council services, essential services etc.
Recently, I went to Darlington, and needed to get money from the Post Office to finance the latest "wants" of the sprogs. The queue was huge. We waited over half an hour to get served. Presumably everyone in that queue was in the same situation as myself - there was nowhere else to go to get the service they required - be it posting a parcel, getting money from a PO account etc. And this lack of competition in the majority of PO services, this monopoly, has given them leeway to make such cuts as they are today, which have such a phenomenal impact on rural communities - there is nowhere else to go locally to get those services. Sadly, the growth of competition in other services eg who you use for letters and parcels, has shown the failings in the PO to do even the basics well, and so has led to decreased profits.
Going back to how you encourage people to shop locally, it seems to be a modern mindset. Convenience shopping in some numbskull supermarket, 20 miles away because it saves time is surely the most common excuse. The environmental idiocy of this alone beggars belief, let alone the economics. And not jsut the economics for a household budget, but the impact these supermarkets have on farmers etc, which then, in rural areas, affects those who are your neighbours, friends, etc.
Our shop has, of course, a limited choice of items because of space restrictions. However, firstly, you can walk to it so no need to use the car, secondly, if you ask the shop to get something in eg a crate of pomegranate juice, they will, and thirdly, if your bill comes to £20.01, they don't demand the 1p off you. But, people still decide to get in the car and drive to another town and spend the money with a large corporation who often make only minor attempts to improve the local economy. (I think the Co-op is a slightly different fish in that game, but not by that much).
Although the number of rights we have has increased, we haven't introduced RESPONSIBILITY with those rights. So, in my village of approx 400 people, I could probably ask all of them whose responsibility is reporting the broken street light on the corner (flickering now for well over a week), or whose responsiblity is it to use the village amenities such as the village hall etc so they remain open in years to come, whose responsibility is it to ensure that houses in the village are sold to young families so we keep our primary school for another generation, whose responsibility is it that the bus shelter is kept clean and swept of leaves, whose responsiblity is it to make sure the gypsies behave themselves when they are here, or to be friendly to them so they feel a responsiblity to act like responsible citizens and not trash the green .....etc. Would any of them feel that it is their responsibility?
This brings me to whose responsibility is the WELL BEING of our community?
To me, it should fall firmly on each and every one of our shoulders - those of us who live here. In any community, not just ours, surely the responsibility for wellbeing should not fall solely to the council - parish, district or county - or the police, or some quango at the Regional Development Agency. The problem lies in the fact that those mentioned above meddle so thoroughly in our lives (mainly because so many people are employed in the civil service to do precisely that), in so many areas, that we just leave them to it. Assuming in some naive, old fashioned way, that they must know what they are doing. After all, public sector employees get massive wages, compared to our local average wage, a job for life, and a nice fat pension. So, they must be employed on some sort of criteria that they have the expertise for the job. But they don't. They can't understand how my community works unless they live here, can they?
Broadbrush decisions made at County Council level cannot possibly work in both Carlisle and some tiny rural Cumbrian hamlet. Cuts to public spending, or large corporate spending, are always going to affect the smaller communities, shops etc because they are the ones who bring in least profit, and where less people will shout about the problems such cuts cause. And where a large number of citizens or consumers are likely to be affected eg on a national level, we see the government and corporates employing stealth tactics. And as a nation we are remarkably inept at noticing what is going on (mainly due to the media's perverse approach to telling us news), and doing something about it.
Anyway, I'm off to the shop. There's bound to be something I can buy today which will just help add a few pennies to the balance sheet to keep the shop open. After all, it's my responsiblity to the long-term wellbeing of this community I live in to ensure there is a shop there for others in the future. Oh, and then I'll report that street light.....
Monday 11 February 2008
Half Term woes
It's worsened as the day has gone on, and the sun has gone down. Now it appears that we are at the start of a sleepover. The house suddenly appears full of people who hopefully aren't planning to spend the night, but who have just dropped round for the crack. These village jungle drums are far too efficient.
Think I may adopt my aunt's habit and ring the speaking clock so that at six o'clock precisely, the wine bottle is opened. 25 mins to go. Why does no-one warn you that sex leads to teenagers?
Think I may adopt my aunt's habit and ring the speaking clock so that at six o'clock precisely, the wine bottle is opened. 25 mins to go. Why does no-one warn you that sex leads to teenagers?
half term
Day 3 of half term and luckily the sun has come out. This has meant that the girls stand to survive another day without perforated ear drums from me shouting at them, or just plain murder. Mainly because they are outside persecuting the ducks in the stream. However, this has led to demands for a dinghy to row up and down the beck. Required because their inflatable armchairs were burst the last time they tried this trick of canoeing to Carlisle. Sadly, they didn't make it downstream that far.
I hate half term. If I could afford boarding school, there they would find themselves. Not that I don't enjoy my kids' company, but I have to admit that when I am trying to work, which I am, I enjoy their company msot when they are asleep.
It seems though, that in order to make the most of their late night sojourns on to Youtube etc now they have laptops, I'm going to have to radically alter my body clock so that I get up at 6am and get almost a full day's work in before they even wake up. That is asking a lot of a body which at times is almost completely 12 hours out of sync with that particular timetable!
And, having done some research into my displacement activity of getting the keywords "womble porn" and my blog higher up Google, I may need to try a different search term. It is likely that no-one ever searches on Anti-terrorist caterpillars so I'm going to see whether I can list number one on such an unlikely key phrase. It's either that or "irradiated radishes" - for which I have very minor competition from some academic papers. So, womble porn has gone, and all the very odd late night thoughts about turning womble porn into some kind of revenue stream!
Time to exercise my vocal chords as child 1 is shouting at me.....
I hate half term. If I could afford boarding school, there they would find themselves. Not that I don't enjoy my kids' company, but I have to admit that when I am trying to work, which I am, I enjoy their company msot when they are asleep.
It seems though, that in order to make the most of their late night sojourns on to Youtube etc now they have laptops, I'm going to have to radically alter my body clock so that I get up at 6am and get almost a full day's work in before they even wake up. That is asking a lot of a body which at times is almost completely 12 hours out of sync with that particular timetable!
And, having done some research into my displacement activity of getting the keywords "womble porn" and my blog higher up Google, I may need to try a different search term. It is likely that no-one ever searches on Anti-terrorist caterpillars so I'm going to see whether I can list number one on such an unlikely key phrase. It's either that or "irradiated radishes" - for which I have very minor competition from some academic papers. So, womble porn has gone, and all the very odd late night thoughts about turning womble porn into some kind of revenue stream!
Time to exercise my vocal chords as child 1 is shouting at me.....
Sunday 10 February 2008
Support Freecycle
Until the school get their act together, I'll support Freecycle in their fundraising bid. So, type your search term in the box and help raise money for Freecycle. The search engine is powered by Ask so you get good results. And raise money for charity.
Freecycle and strapped schools
The last few weeks seem to have seen a deluge of letters from school asking for voluntary and involuntary contributions to the school funds. Firstly, I thought this was what we paid taxes for - to pay for the education of our kids. Secondly, what have Labour been doing with the education budget if our local schools are operating with such major deficits? And thirdly, why the hell can't the school exhibit a tiny bit of ingenuity when demanding money from parents?
This week I have discovered the joys of freecycle, and been reminded of what the average human is capable of thinking up when local councils etc degenerate into landfill lunacy. I went to our local tip today to get rid of real rubbish, and saw inside the skips an absolute mountain of stuff that doesn't belong in landfill. But, we are no longer allowed to take things of use to us, now the council have booted out our beloved Stig. He used to gather together all that was useful and we were allowed to take it away to reduce, reuse or recycle. Now, the two 'bouncers' who guard the skips prevent you from reducing the amount going to landfill. Hence the joy of Freecycle which allows you to post unwanted items, or seek items you need, all for free.
On looking back through the archives I spot a post saying that you can help fundraise for Freecycle using everyclick.com which pays money to the charity of your choice as you use the search engine.
So, why can't our local schools implement this type of fundraising idea? Not only that but maybe create a directory of local businesses to encourage parents, pupils and staff to shop locally? This would surely be an ideal 6th form project, showing them how to approach businesses to ask them to advertise in the directory, create the directory on paper and/or on the web, run accounts for the directory, promote it, encourage local people to use it etc. Tried suggesting this to the school as an alternative to "Every parent must give a tenner to make up the shortage in school funds" letter which they just emailed and sent to us via the sprogs.
That's another thing that is pissing me off. Reduce the amount of paper and admin by emailing letters, rather than printing them - don't do both. All that would seem to have done is create a whole new job for the admin staff who now have to email AND print the letters out.
This week I have discovered the joys of freecycle, and been reminded of what the average human is capable of thinking up when local councils etc degenerate into landfill lunacy. I went to our local tip today to get rid of real rubbish, and saw inside the skips an absolute mountain of stuff that doesn't belong in landfill. But, we are no longer allowed to take things of use to us, now the council have booted out our beloved Stig. He used to gather together all that was useful and we were allowed to take it away to reduce, reuse or recycle. Now, the two 'bouncers' who guard the skips prevent you from reducing the amount going to landfill. Hence the joy of Freecycle which allows you to post unwanted items, or seek items you need, all for free.
On looking back through the archives I spot a post saying that you can help fundraise for Freecycle using everyclick.com which pays money to the charity of your choice as you use the search engine.
So, why can't our local schools implement this type of fundraising idea? Not only that but maybe create a directory of local businesses to encourage parents, pupils and staff to shop locally? This would surely be an ideal 6th form project, showing them how to approach businesses to ask them to advertise in the directory, create the directory on paper and/or on the web, run accounts for the directory, promote it, encourage local people to use it etc. Tried suggesting this to the school as an alternative to "Every parent must give a tenner to make up the shortage in school funds" letter which they just emailed and sent to us via the sprogs.
That's another thing that is pissing me off. Reduce the amount of paper and admin by emailing letters, rather than printing them - don't do both. All that would seem to have done is create a whole new job for the admin staff who now have to email AND print the letters out.
Wednesday 6 February 2008
How to complain to corporates
The dogbomb complaints letters - without a doubt one of the most amusing forum threads I have read in a while.(I know, I must get out more...;o)
Daughter 2 has been trying to start a campaign to bring back the foil wrapper on Kit kats. Who could have imagined that someone could approach Kit Kat on this issue in such a manner as post 55? (Have emailed to sleeping sprog to inspire her during half term!)
After a lengthy conversation yesterday about money being the new god, and the control that corporates have over our lives, this has lightened the load a little about how to deal with them.
Daughter 2 has been trying to start a campaign to bring back the foil wrapper on Kit kats. Who could have imagined that someone could approach Kit Kat on this issue in such a manner as post 55? (Have emailed to sleeping sprog to inspire her during half term!)
After a lengthy conversation yesterday about money being the new god, and the control that corporates have over our lives, this has lightened the load a little about how to deal with them.
Tuesday 5 February 2008
Giving up carbon for Lent
On Radio 2 this afternoon, Chris Evans had a Bishop on saying that we should give up carbon for Lent. I take it this means that my attempts at cookery may have to be somewhat more carefully prepared for the next 40 days, and that perhaps even a new toaster may be in order.
Out of interest, why can't anyone produce a toaster that doesn't cremate one side, or one corner, and leave the rest uncooked? We are doing a fantastic job of warming the planet apparently, so how come we can't evenly toast a single slice of bread? Or one into which a standard slice of bread fits? Can't the bread makers and toaster peeps get together on size of slice? (If anyone knows a good toaster, please recommend one. Preferably one of those old ones which did 4 slices, and had a little wind up timer on the side - they always worked fine).
Anyway, back to the carbon thing. Read an article today about a call to ban patio heaters patio heaters on El Reg. The EU noodles have been sitting in some over-heated, super-lit office in Brussels again pondering how to reduce the carbon footprint of the population of the EU. It seems to me that several of the suggestions made in the comments would have more of an impact on the carbon emissions than turning a few patio heaters off and sending us poor smokers to hospital with hypothermia or pneumonia to add to our woes.
So, here would be my list of things to do to reduce carbon emissions.
1) Tell all Brussels bureaucrats that their expense allowance now includes one flight per year to Brussels and the rest is going to be spent on FTTH across the whole of EU so the buggers can teleconference instead of going on jaunts. As I understand it, FTTx kit is far more energy efficient than DSL kit, or a Boeing 737.
2) Turn off lights in every single unoccupied building and room in the country/world. Especially Govt and commercial ones. Last time I passed the DTi building in London, at 6am in the morning, it looked like the proverbial Xmas tree. In New York, London, Paris etc none of the kids have ever seen the night sky - they have no chance with all those lux deafening the stars.
3) Put over every single street light a metal reflector so the light is reflected downwards. On top of the reflector put a small solar panel. I've seen these in the Canaries, and they work a treat. Not only can you reduce the wattage of the lightbulb required, but the things produce energy to supplement the electricity needed to light streets at 4am.
4) Turn streetlights off after midnight. If we build nightvision into mobile phone cameras, everyone could use those instead. Or eat more carrots if they insist on walking around in the middle of the night.
5) Allow adults to make decisions about smoking. In Spain, when the smoking ban was introduced, it took 4 days for ashtrays to be re-introduced inside bars and pubs, and not much longer to repeal the law and change it so the proprietor of the establishment could decide for him/herself what was best for his business and customers. Why? Because the Spanish (and others), unlike the Brits, don't take nanny state-ism lying down. Most bars over a certain size have more than enough room for a smoking and non-smoking area. Our local pub does and prior to the smoking ban, it was working just fine with the non-smokers in the lounge. However, now, as most of the locals are smokers, we have one or two forlorn non-smokers sitting in the bar alone, whilst everyone else is socialising outside. Next to the patio heater.
Britain is so busy trying to regulate everything and control everyone, we have ceased to teach youngsters (and dim adults) about the responsibility for their actions, and consequences of doing things wrong. Not wrong as in passing a speed camera 4 miles above the speed limit, or skiving school/work occasionally, but wrong as in knifing people, not respecting their elders, causing criminal damage, kicking shit out of people when they've had one too many etc.
Let them climb trees and fall out of them, let them play conkers, let them be kids, so they can learn to be decent adults. And let the adults work out for themselves what is right and correct behaviour for human beings.
Currently, IMHO, the UK deserves nominating for a reverse Darwin award as we seem to be doing a remarkably good job of removing certain people from the gene pool - the good guys. Those who go to try to break up a fight, stop criminal damage being caused by yobs etc and get kicked, knifed, murdered etc. The kids who don't want to join a gang. Those who speak out about Govt insanity and die in suspicious circumstances in woods. We penalise the honourable members of our society, who refuse to pay poll tax for nuclear weapons, and then let off a joyrider who kills someone with a conditional discharge.
No wonder so many people are voting with their feet and leaving this country. You don't see the French or Spanish emigrating in droves. They are in it for the long-term, and fight for the idiocies of politicians who don't live in the real world to be stopped. The British have put up with this domination for 500 years longer than many other nations (since 1066 or thereabouts) and the stiff upper lip needs to start wavering a little.
So, yes, turn your lights off. And every CEO, MP etc should be held personally responsible for any energy wastage in their business premises, and their constituency. Not just through Lent but from now on. What about a flickr site where you can post photos of any building with the lights left on, and the location, name of business, council etc and name and shame the buggers. They are wasting far more than us average human beans, posting to blogs about womble porn and keeping warm whilst we smoke with patio heaters.
Out of interest, why can't anyone produce a toaster that doesn't cremate one side, or one corner, and leave the rest uncooked? We are doing a fantastic job of warming the planet apparently, so how come we can't evenly toast a single slice of bread? Or one into which a standard slice of bread fits? Can't the bread makers and toaster peeps get together on size of slice? (If anyone knows a good toaster, please recommend one. Preferably one of those old ones which did 4 slices, and had a little wind up timer on the side - they always worked fine).
Anyway, back to the carbon thing. Read an article today about a call to ban patio heaters patio heaters on El Reg. The EU noodles have been sitting in some over-heated, super-lit office in Brussels again pondering how to reduce the carbon footprint of the population of the EU. It seems to me that several of the suggestions made in the comments would have more of an impact on the carbon emissions than turning a few patio heaters off and sending us poor smokers to hospital with hypothermia or pneumonia to add to our woes.
So, here would be my list of things to do to reduce carbon emissions.
1) Tell all Brussels bureaucrats that their expense allowance now includes one flight per year to Brussels and the rest is going to be spent on FTTH across the whole of EU so the buggers can teleconference instead of going on jaunts. As I understand it, FTTx kit is far more energy efficient than DSL kit, or a Boeing 737.
2) Turn off lights in every single unoccupied building and room in the country/world. Especially Govt and commercial ones. Last time I passed the DTi building in London, at 6am in the morning, it looked like the proverbial Xmas tree. In New York, London, Paris etc none of the kids have ever seen the night sky - they have no chance with all those lux deafening the stars.
3) Put over every single street light a metal reflector so the light is reflected downwards. On top of the reflector put a small solar panel. I've seen these in the Canaries, and they work a treat. Not only can you reduce the wattage of the lightbulb required, but the things produce energy to supplement the electricity needed to light streets at 4am.
4) Turn streetlights off after midnight. If we build nightvision into mobile phone cameras, everyone could use those instead. Or eat more carrots if they insist on walking around in the middle of the night.
5) Allow adults to make decisions about smoking. In Spain, when the smoking ban was introduced, it took 4 days for ashtrays to be re-introduced inside bars and pubs, and not much longer to repeal the law and change it so the proprietor of the establishment could decide for him/herself what was best for his business and customers. Why? Because the Spanish (and others), unlike the Brits, don't take nanny state-ism lying down. Most bars over a certain size have more than enough room for a smoking and non-smoking area. Our local pub does and prior to the smoking ban, it was working just fine with the non-smokers in the lounge. However, now, as most of the locals are smokers, we have one or two forlorn non-smokers sitting in the bar alone, whilst everyone else is socialising outside. Next to the patio heater.
Britain is so busy trying to regulate everything and control everyone, we have ceased to teach youngsters (and dim adults) about the responsibility for their actions, and consequences of doing things wrong. Not wrong as in passing a speed camera 4 miles above the speed limit, or skiving school/work occasionally, but wrong as in knifing people, not respecting their elders, causing criminal damage, kicking shit out of people when they've had one too many etc.
Let them climb trees and fall out of them, let them play conkers, let them be kids, so they can learn to be decent adults. And let the adults work out for themselves what is right and correct behaviour for human beings.
Currently, IMHO, the UK deserves nominating for a reverse Darwin award as we seem to be doing a remarkably good job of removing certain people from the gene pool - the good guys. Those who go to try to break up a fight, stop criminal damage being caused by yobs etc and get kicked, knifed, murdered etc. The kids who don't want to join a gang. Those who speak out about Govt insanity and die in suspicious circumstances in woods. We penalise the honourable members of our society, who refuse to pay poll tax for nuclear weapons, and then let off a joyrider who kills someone with a conditional discharge.
No wonder so many people are voting with their feet and leaving this country. You don't see the French or Spanish emigrating in droves. They are in it for the long-term, and fight for the idiocies of politicians who don't live in the real world to be stopped. The British have put up with this domination for 500 years longer than many other nations (since 1066 or thereabouts) and the stiff upper lip needs to start wavering a little.
So, yes, turn your lights off. And every CEO, MP etc should be held personally responsible for any energy wastage in their business premises, and their constituency. Not just through Lent but from now on. What about a flickr site where you can post photos of any building with the lights left on, and the location, name of business, council etc and name and shame the buggers. They are wasting far more than us average human beans, posting to blogs about womble porn and keeping warm whilst we smoke with patio heaters.
Monday 4 February 2008
My famileee of eee pcs
I now have three Asus EEE PCs. It's not that I'm greedy or anything. Number 1 - a surprise present from a work colleague and friend, got trashed by a drunken eejut (I think he was enveeeous of the time I was spending with my eee). However, I think with the addition of a small monitor and some gaffer tape, it may be rescuable, so I am considering turning it into an Internet radio for the kitchen. Number 2 is a 2G - a way infeeerior model bought as a replacement, which sort of added insult to injureee, and number 3 was bought as a replacement for number 1 - another 4G.
They are my babeees. I am definitely involved in an eeefair, and I snapped up the 4G on eeeebay and it had an 8Gb memory card thrown in which has turned out to be the biz. I had debated buying an external hard drive but that sort of knackers the portability of the thing.
Enough poor EEE puns meeethinks.
The wifi is pretty canny, picking up signals where a variety of other devices (several mobiles, PCs and even the Mac Mini on occasion) seem to fail.
Now the girls want one to replace their laptops (given as presents at Xmas) because the glamour of those palled the moment the EEE came into their lives. Well, my life as I tend not to allow them near it except to play the Penguin game, or to watch TV in bed with me on it.
I have a couple of issues with it, but these are generally solved by moving onto either a PC in the office or the Mac Mini. However, one of them I am definitely going to have to solve soon. I have a very nice roll up keyboard from the Ipaq days, which is a doddle to type on, whereas the EEE keyboard does quite frequently catch me out. Thing is, the roll up keyboard has a mini USB connector. So, today's task is to find a convertor so I can plug the neat keyboard into the EEE. It also has the benefit of easily fitting into a pocket which means I can keep my space requirements and weight down.
The second problem which is going to take longer to solve is to learn something I am desperately need to know more about if I want the most out of my eee. And that's using the terminal window properly for Linux. Up to now, I have needed to learn very few commands: ping, ipconfig /all and a couple of others being the limit really! So, my personal project to do when I'm not working (see previous post about womble porn etc!) is to learn something useful about terminal commands instead of drifting round the Net looking at sites of interest but not much use!
In fact, a month and a bit late, I think that can be my New Year's resolution for 2008. Better add it to backpack or I'll never remember it tomorrow, let alone for the rest of the year!
If you are as disorganised as I tend to be, with an ever-growing problem of amnesia, and a huge pile of lists on my desk so I don't overlook any work, Backpack is pretty useful. And it emails you when you have a deadline to do something, which is proving fantastically useful in the middle of multiple campaigns etc, as well as an increasingly hectic social life, not mine, the kids.
Oh yes, and Guy helped me set up a great little window timer on the EEE that pops up every 15 mins and asks, "What are you doing?" and then enters your reply in a text file so you can look back and see how little you achieved today. Well, it doesn't yet pop up every 15 mins as I need to work out the 'cron' bit or remind Guy to pass on his notes for eeejuts about cron! Back to Backpack for another reminder on that.
I love the Mac Mini but every time I go anywhere, I have to take that stupid bulky power pack, and the convertors for the monitor I am likely to find at the other end, and I usually take keyboard and mouse as many people don't have spare USB keyboards etc knocking around their office or kitchen.
The other thing about the EEE of course is that if you take it to a client to work on whilst you are there, the first half hour is generally taken up with Oohs and Aahs etc as they fondle it all over, and then another however long trying to find someone who actually has one in stock. (Use the EEE stock checker and save yourself losing work time and pay!)
They are my babeees. I am definitely involved in an eeefair, and I snapped up the 4G on eeeebay and it had an 8Gb memory card thrown in which has turned out to be the biz. I had debated buying an external hard drive but that sort of knackers the portability of the thing.
Enough poor EEE puns meeethinks.
The wifi is pretty canny, picking up signals where a variety of other devices (several mobiles, PCs and even the Mac Mini on occasion) seem to fail.
Now the girls want one to replace their laptops (given as presents at Xmas) because the glamour of those palled the moment the EEE came into their lives. Well, my life as I tend not to allow them near it except to play the Penguin game, or to watch TV in bed with me on it.
I have a couple of issues with it, but these are generally solved by moving onto either a PC in the office or the Mac Mini. However, one of them I am definitely going to have to solve soon. I have a very nice roll up keyboard from the Ipaq days, which is a doddle to type on, whereas the EEE keyboard does quite frequently catch me out. Thing is, the roll up keyboard has a mini USB connector. So, today's task is to find a convertor so I can plug the neat keyboard into the EEE. It also has the benefit of easily fitting into a pocket which means I can keep my space requirements and weight down.
The second problem which is going to take longer to solve is to learn something I am desperately need to know more about if I want the most out of my eee. And that's using the terminal window properly for Linux. Up to now, I have needed to learn very few commands: ping, ipconfig /all and a couple of others being the limit really! So, my personal project to do when I'm not working (see previous post about womble porn etc!) is to learn something useful about terminal commands instead of drifting round the Net looking at sites of interest but not much use!
In fact, a month and a bit late, I think that can be my New Year's resolution for 2008. Better add it to backpack or I'll never remember it tomorrow, let alone for the rest of the year!
If you are as disorganised as I tend to be, with an ever-growing problem of amnesia, and a huge pile of lists on my desk so I don't overlook any work, Backpack is pretty useful. And it emails you when you have a deadline to do something, which is proving fantastically useful in the middle of multiple campaigns etc, as well as an increasingly hectic social life, not mine, the kids.
Oh yes, and Guy helped me set up a great little window timer on the EEE that pops up every 15 mins and asks, "What are you doing?" and then enters your reply in a text file so you can look back and see how little you achieved today. Well, it doesn't yet pop up every 15 mins as I need to work out the 'cron' bit or remind Guy to pass on his notes for eeejuts about cron! Back to Backpack for another reminder on that.
I love the Mac Mini but every time I go anywhere, I have to take that stupid bulky power pack, and the convertors for the monitor I am likely to find at the other end, and I usually take keyboard and mouse as many people don't have spare USB keyboards etc knocking around their office or kitchen.
The other thing about the EEE of course is that if you take it to a client to work on whilst you are there, the first half hour is generally taken up with Oohs and Aahs etc as they fondle it all over, and then another however long trying to find someone who actually has one in stock. (Use the EEE stock checker and save yourself losing work time and pay!)
Womble Porn
Isn't it strange that you promise you are going to get some work done in the evening, and then spend hours on sites that have no relation whatsoever to work you need to do, and include the top search site for the term 'womble porn'?
I have been thinking about this search term over the last half hour or so and decided that it could only occur on a site which also mentions Dave Gorman. However, Jeremy Clarkson recently used the term 'motorway wombles' to describe the police who drive up and down and whose job appears to be to close the motorway or slow traffic down. I am still pondering on the purpose of motorway wombles and why we pay them.
As an owner of a handmade Wellington Womble, I am wondering whether there is any mileage in a series of porn wombles, or even virtual porn wombles as a method of generating income? After all, porn sites make money. They make the most money on the Net and maybe we could start a trend for hard to find porn wombles on Ebay?
This site with womble porn mentioned on it, is the site of a guy who used to work for the BBC (nice to see they don't just employ staid newsreaders with our money), who raised the money for his iPod by asking 500 people to donate 50p each, and who at one point held the Guinness World record for getting around all 275 tube stations in the fastest time. Geofftech for anyone else who is trying to avoid work, and needs to see why anyone would even consider putting the term 'womble porn' on their site/blog.
A marginally pointless post, but I am trying an experiment. How much effort do I need to put in to get the No 1 listing on Google for 'womble porn'. I'm hoping that it won't take much effort as an SEO expert, but I do know that starting a new blog is not all that is required. I will try and list my efforts over the next few days and see how fast I can move this blog up the rankings.
I have been thinking about this search term over the last half hour or so and decided that it could only occur on a site which also mentions Dave Gorman. However, Jeremy Clarkson recently used the term 'motorway wombles' to describe the police who drive up and down and whose job appears to be to close the motorway or slow traffic down. I am still pondering on the purpose of motorway wombles and why we pay them.
As an owner of a handmade Wellington Womble, I am wondering whether there is any mileage in a series of porn wombles, or even virtual porn wombles as a method of generating income? After all, porn sites make money. They make the most money on the Net and maybe we could start a trend for hard to find porn wombles on Ebay?
This site with womble porn mentioned on it, is the site of a guy who used to work for the BBC (nice to see they don't just employ staid newsreaders with our money), who raised the money for his iPod by asking 500 people to donate 50p each, and who at one point held the Guinness World record for getting around all 275 tube stations in the fastest time. Geofftech for anyone else who is trying to avoid work, and needs to see why anyone would even consider putting the term 'womble porn' on their site/blog.
A marginally pointless post, but I am trying an experiment. How much effort do I need to put in to get the No 1 listing on Google for 'womble porn'. I'm hoping that it won't take much effort as an SEO expert, but I do know that starting a new blog is not all that is required. I will try and list my efforts over the next few days and see how fast I can move this blog up the rankings.
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