We're having our mulled wine party early this year. On Saturday to be precise. We got caught up with the office party season last year with the result that two sets of neighbours couldn't make it. Not this time.
So we want the house to look Christmassy and even though we wouldn't normally put the tree up this early, I fetched it down from the attic this evening and assembled it. The idea is it will get decorated sometime this week, leaving us with plenty of time on Saturday for the other party preparations.
The tree, which we bought last year after we moved in having decided to abandon "real" trees for not completely environmental reasons, is a clever design where a central trunk accepts rows of branches into little plastic slots. Each row is colour coded, with a band of tape on the trunk and corresponding bands on the branches. Assembly takes quite some time, but at least having had the experience of last year, I didn't make the mistake of slotting all the branches in before spreading the twigs out. Even so, I was above half way when I realised I'd missed out an entire row of branches. Luckily the "needles" are sufficiently plentiful to mean that it's impossible to notice the gap. I couldn't have reached between the other branches to fit the missing row and I certainly wasn't going to take it back down.
So now our tree sits in the hall waiting patiently for its decorations. Well, I put the fairy on. You have to.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Bookless & Feckless
No book review this month, because I didn't read it. It was "We Need to Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver. Out of all the books I've missed reading, this is probably the one I should have read. The conversation was one of the most stimulating the club has had, and I sat on the periphery thinking it all sounded very interesting.
Next month it's The Life of Pi. Christmas intervenes and there's no club meeting until January, so I might actually get round to reading it given I have twice as long as usual.
I had a phone call from Mother before I went out to the club gathering. She phoned to apologise for being "off" last time we visited (the weekend before my birthday). It was one of those visits where Nikki has to keep kicking me to remind me not to rise to the provocation. In one respect it becomes increasingly difficult not to react - as the conversations become ever more bizarre with her recollections of what has actually happened gradually leaving reality behind in the same way a plane gradually climbs to its cruising altitude - but in another way it gets easier. The more it happens and the more extreme the example, the easier it is to realise she can't help it and indeed doesn't even know it's happening. This particular visit was the most surreal so far, all the more so since the topic at the heart of the argument (or what would have been an argument had I not been kicked almost to death) was such a fundamental and long-standing part of our visits.
Being creatures of habit, we generally have the same thing for lunch each time we visit my Mum: corned beef, oven chips, and mushy peas. She gave up cooking anything more involved than a can of soup or a ready meal many years ago, so we take care of the chips and peas, but this has been a staple of weekend visits to my Mum's for a long time. Five years, easily. Probably longer.
So this particular day, when we'd arrived a little earlier than usual if anything and had been looking forward to the usual banquet, we were surprised to find she'd just eaten. A late breakfast, we assumed, and so we left it rather later than usual to mention lunch. By the time it got to 2 o'clock we were both being deafened by the protestations of our stomachs, so I ventured "you've already eaten then, have you?" in a kind of non-committal way.
"Well, you said you didn't want anything," was the (rather accusatory) reply.
I stood with what I thought was a bemused look on my face. At least, it should have been. I was, after all, bemused. Mum interpreted it as the look I give her when I know she's ... misremembered ... something. I was treated to standard phrase #15: "Don't look at me like that. I know I forget some things but I'm right about this."
Let me draw you aside for one moment to explain how many times I've been accused of doing something, or saying something, that there is no Earthly way I would ever have done or said; how many heated arguments such accusations have led to; and how many of those arguments have ended with something being said that triggers the right memory, resulting in standard phrase #16: "Oh yes, I remember now. You're right John." I can't count the first or second number, but the third is "all of them."
So, egged on by the kicking, I didn't rise to the bait but instead waited for the off-the-wall explanation. It came. Apparently I'd phoned to say we wouldn't be wanting the regular corned beef meal as we planned to stop somewhere en-route and eat before we got there. This was clearly fixed in my Mother's mind, and she believed it was as true as the fact that we were in the room with her right then. But it never happened. I bit my tongue, and mashed a cup of tea to silence the rumbling of our stomachs.
As is usually the way with my Mother, we returned to the subject several times that afternoon. When she knows I don't agree with her she'll try to convince me she's right. Sadly the process for this isn't to bring any additional information into the discussion, or look at things from a different perspective. No, she thinks I'll change my mind if she simply repeats what she's already said on the subject. Which she did. Several times. Pretty soon my right leg, the one nearest Nikki, was swollen to twice its normal size, but I never rose to the extreme provocation. We left early, with the incontrovertible excuse that we had to stop off on the way home to eat.
The theory of clouds and silver linings was given added credence by the fact that we chose, at Nikki's suggestion, to stop at the Dog & Partridge on the A628 just past the Flouch. We walked in to this delightful haven of warmth and hospitality and all the frustrations of the day fell away. They had a roaring fire in the grate, a well-stocked bar from which we chose two different pints of locally brewed ale (both delicious) and a kitchen that served pub food of a standard I have not enjoyed for many, many years. We will definitely be returning, and arrived home relaxed and satisfied.
And so to tonight's phonecall from Mother. "I hope you didn't think I was awful not having any food in, but I've had to defrost my freezer because I can't bend down to clean it any more, so I didn't have your usual chips."
I reassured her that it was fine, but there was more. "I told John [next-door neighbour] you were coming and he said 'corned beef, chips and mushy peas?' [we're something close to a national institution] but I had to tell him I wouldn't be able to do it because the freezer was off."
Discovering the real reason behind the lunch fiasco was, I guess, some comfort. Obviously there was no recollection on Mum's part of the conversations we'd had the Saturday before. Thinking about it later, we decided she'd become confused with an earlier visit, when although we had in fact eaten lunch, we'd later declined dinner because we were eating out with friends in celebration of another 50th birthday. You have to laugh though. Standard phrase #9 is "Thank God I've still got all my marbles. My body might be packing up but at least I've still got my mind." Something tells me I'll be using the "irony" tag on this post.
Next month it's The Life of Pi. Christmas intervenes and there's no club meeting until January, so I might actually get round to reading it given I have twice as long as usual.
I had a phone call from Mother before I went out to the club gathering. She phoned to apologise for being "off" last time we visited (the weekend before my birthday). It was one of those visits where Nikki has to keep kicking me to remind me not to rise to the provocation. In one respect it becomes increasingly difficult not to react - as the conversations become ever more bizarre with her recollections of what has actually happened gradually leaving reality behind in the same way a plane gradually climbs to its cruising altitude - but in another way it gets easier. The more it happens and the more extreme the example, the easier it is to realise she can't help it and indeed doesn't even know it's happening. This particular visit was the most surreal so far, all the more so since the topic at the heart of the argument (or what would have been an argument had I not been kicked almost to death) was such a fundamental and long-standing part of our visits.
Being creatures of habit, we generally have the same thing for lunch each time we visit my Mum: corned beef, oven chips, and mushy peas. She gave up cooking anything more involved than a can of soup or a ready meal many years ago, so we take care of the chips and peas, but this has been a staple of weekend visits to my Mum's for a long time. Five years, easily. Probably longer.
So this particular day, when we'd arrived a little earlier than usual if anything and had been looking forward to the usual banquet, we were surprised to find she'd just eaten. A late breakfast, we assumed, and so we left it rather later than usual to mention lunch. By the time it got to 2 o'clock we were both being deafened by the protestations of our stomachs, so I ventured "you've already eaten then, have you?" in a kind of non-committal way.
"Well, you said you didn't want anything," was the (rather accusatory) reply.
I stood with what I thought was a bemused look on my face. At least, it should have been. I was, after all, bemused. Mum interpreted it as the look I give her when I know she's ... misremembered ... something. I was treated to standard phrase #15: "Don't look at me like that. I know I forget some things but I'm right about this."
Let me draw you aside for one moment to explain how many times I've been accused of doing something, or saying something, that there is no Earthly way I would ever have done or said; how many heated arguments such accusations have led to; and how many of those arguments have ended with something being said that triggers the right memory, resulting in standard phrase #16: "Oh yes, I remember now. You're right John." I can't count the first or second number, but the third is "all of them."
So, egged on by the kicking, I didn't rise to the bait but instead waited for the off-the-wall explanation. It came. Apparently I'd phoned to say we wouldn't be wanting the regular corned beef meal as we planned to stop somewhere en-route and eat before we got there. This was clearly fixed in my Mother's mind, and she believed it was as true as the fact that we were in the room with her right then. But it never happened. I bit my tongue, and mashed a cup of tea to silence the rumbling of our stomachs.
As is usually the way with my Mother, we returned to the subject several times that afternoon. When she knows I don't agree with her she'll try to convince me she's right. Sadly the process for this isn't to bring any additional information into the discussion, or look at things from a different perspective. No, she thinks I'll change my mind if she simply repeats what she's already said on the subject. Which she did. Several times. Pretty soon my right leg, the one nearest Nikki, was swollen to twice its normal size, but I never rose to the extreme provocation. We left early, with the incontrovertible excuse that we had to stop off on the way home to eat.
The theory of clouds and silver linings was given added credence by the fact that we chose, at Nikki's suggestion, to stop at the Dog & Partridge on the A628 just past the Flouch. We walked in to this delightful haven of warmth and hospitality and all the frustrations of the day fell away. They had a roaring fire in the grate, a well-stocked bar from which we chose two different pints of locally brewed ale (both delicious) and a kitchen that served pub food of a standard I have not enjoyed for many, many years. We will definitely be returning, and arrived home relaxed and satisfied.
And so to tonight's phonecall from Mother. "I hope you didn't think I was awful not having any food in, but I've had to defrost my freezer because I can't bend down to clean it any more, so I didn't have your usual chips."
I reassured her that it was fine, but there was more. "I told John [next-door neighbour] you were coming and he said 'corned beef, chips and mushy peas?' [we're something close to a national institution] but I had to tell him I wouldn't be able to do it because the freezer was off."
Discovering the real reason behind the lunch fiasco was, I guess, some comfort. Obviously there was no recollection on Mum's part of the conversations we'd had the Saturday before. Thinking about it later, we decided she'd become confused with an earlier visit, when although we had in fact eaten lunch, we'd later declined dinner because we were eating out with friends in celebration of another 50th birthday. You have to laugh though. Standard phrase #9 is "Thank God I've still got all my marbles. My body might be packing up but at least I've still got my mind." Something tells me I'll be using the "irony" tag on this post.
Sunday, November 25, 2007
Going on a RoadTrip
Having spent most of yesterday putting music on my new iPod, today was my first chance to try out the RoadTrip device in the car which, if you remember, was my main reason for getting the iPod in the first place.
Opening the package I was struck by how much bigger it looked than the ones Phil & Ian had demonstrated to me at the lighthouse. Whereas theirs had clipped onto the docking port, with this one the iPod sat inside a kind of cradle, which then had a cigar-shaped jointed tube with which to connect it to the cigarette lighter for power. To be honest my first thought was "that's never going to stay upright" and as it turned out I wasn't far wrong.
The connector fitted into the lighter socket just fine, but the combined weight of the iPod and its cradle made it lean forward, or left, or right, any of which occasionally resulted in the connector popping out of the socket. The package had included an extension tube, so I tried this but as you might have expected if you know anything about turning moments and angular momentum, it just made things worse.
I finally found a position, with the shorter tube, where I could wedge the iPod against the passenger seat and it seemed fairly stable. Tuning the radio and the RoadTrip to a common frequency with no existing broadcast, I was treated to a track from Genesis' "Calling All Stations" through the car speakers. Top! Experiment complete, I removed all the kit and eagerly awaited the evening trip to Yorkshire. I shouldn't have been so keen.
Put simply, pretty much any bump in the road or sharply taken corner would see the RoadTrip pop out of the socket. Once the power was discontinued, the FM broadcaster switched off and the music died. I found the whole experience very frustrating, not to mention dangerous, as I was forced to wiggle the connector back into its socket while driving along. This must have happened at least a dozen times on the 20-mile journey.
On my return home I did some (more careful) Internet research and discovered I'd bought the wrong device. What I really needed, and expected, was the iTrip Auto. That's the one that clips directly onto the iPod and comes with a flexible power cable to connect up to the car. Using this, I'd be able to rest the iPod on the small shelf under the radio and all would be well. Tomorrow's job: contact the supplier and find out how to arrange an exchange or refund. >sigh<
Opening the package I was struck by how much bigger it looked than the ones Phil & Ian had demonstrated to me at the lighthouse. Whereas theirs had clipped onto the docking port, with this one the iPod sat inside a kind of cradle, which then had a cigar-shaped jointed tube with which to connect it to the cigarette lighter for power. To be honest my first thought was "that's never going to stay upright" and as it turned out I wasn't far wrong.
The connector fitted into the lighter socket just fine, but the combined weight of the iPod and its cradle made it lean forward, or left, or right, any of which occasionally resulted in the connector popping out of the socket. The package had included an extension tube, so I tried this but as you might have expected if you know anything about turning moments and angular momentum, it just made things worse.
I finally found a position, with the shorter tube, where I could wedge the iPod against the passenger seat and it seemed fairly stable. Tuning the radio and the RoadTrip to a common frequency with no existing broadcast, I was treated to a track from Genesis' "Calling All Stations" through the car speakers. Top! Experiment complete, I removed all the kit and eagerly awaited the evening trip to Yorkshire. I shouldn't have been so keen.
Put simply, pretty much any bump in the road or sharply taken corner would see the RoadTrip pop out of the socket. Once the power was discontinued, the FM broadcaster switched off and the music died. I found the whole experience very frustrating, not to mention dangerous, as I was forced to wiggle the connector back into its socket while driving along. This must have happened at least a dozen times on the 20-mile journey.
On my return home I did some (more careful) Internet research and discovered I'd bought the wrong device. What I really needed, and expected, was the iTrip Auto. That's the one that clips directly onto the iPod and comes with a flexible power cable to connect up to the car. Using this, I'd be able to rest the iPod on the small shelf under the radio and all would be well. Tomorrow's job: contact the supplier and find out how to arrange an exchange or refund. >sigh<
Saturday, November 24, 2007
I Pod therefore I am
I finally succumbed to fashion and bought an iPod - a 160GB Classic to be precise.
I don't normally listen to music on the move unless I'm driving, and recently the CD player in the car has been playing up (haha!) and either refusing to play a CD at all, or requiring several tries to get it to start. On top of that it's been exhibiting various strange behaviours including skipping tracks, returning to the start of the CD whenever I tried to legitimately skip a track, and starting to fast-forward its way through tracks without any provocation.
So I was intrigued when a couple of my mates opted for a solution based on connecting a small FM radio broadcaster to their iPods and tuning the car radio to that. The prospect of carrying my entire music collection with me rather than the dozen or so CDs that would fit in the glovebox was attractive, as was the ability to also carry every photograph I've ever taken, so I bit the bullet.
The device arrived yesterday, and I spent most of the daylight hours of my birthday getting it set up. The initial installation wasn't a problem - I downloaded iTunes from the Apple website and installed it in a few minutes - but then it set off trawling my hard drive for music files, video files, podcasts and pictures. This took almost half an hour, mainly because it found over a thousand of the small wav files we used to play in the Coronation Street chat room. I'd forgotten I even had these, tucked away in a corner of my PC I no longer visit, but the fact they'd been found meant I then had to select them all for removal from the list so they wouldn't be copied over to the iPod. I'm sure there would have been an option to stop it looking for wav files, but the process kicked itself off before I'd even had chance to look.
The second issue to bite me was that I'd ripped the majority of our music to my PC in WMA format. A few minutes research had convinced me this was a better format than MP3 when space wasn't an issue, so fully 80% of our CDs were represented this way. Naturally, owing to the continuing animosity between Apple and Microsoft, iPods do not play WMA files natively. The files have to be converted to either AAV or MP3. iTunes does help out in this process - it will do the conversion automatically if you attempt to copy WMA files over - but it can't help with the elapsed time penalty you incur.
I started off with the entire set of WMAs selected (about 3,000) and let iTunes off the leash. After a couple of hours I extrapolated its progress, which gave me an estimate of 21 hours to complete the conversion!
I was just bemoaning the rate of conversion to Nikki when my machine blue-screened, thus introducing me to the third issue: iTunes does not maintain any progress records connected with the conversion. When I switched it to the list of WMAs for a second time and let it go, it started again from the beginning, writing duplicate AAV files to my disc with slightly different names from those it had created the first time round. Doh!
I stopped the process as soon as I realised what it was doing, and deleted the duplicates. Rather than try to work out how far it had progressed, I decided the sensible alternative was to decided exactly what music I wanted on the iPod and convert only that to start with. I also decided it might be more realistic to perform the conversions in bite-sized chunks, so I selected 4-5 albums for it to be going on with and also started the synchronisation process off in parallel to copy over the ones that had already been converted.
Once the sync was complete I disconnected the iPod and tripped over the fourth issue of the day. Selecting "Eject iPod" from iTunes is NOT the same as doing a "safely remove hardware." We have a long-standing issue with our NetGear USB wireless dongles, where if you pull out another USB device that would normally behave itself (like a memory stick) then the wireless transceivers lock up. I realised this may have been at the heart of my earlier blue-screen, since the freeze occasionally renders the driver corrupt and crashes the whole machine. From now one I'm going to have to be extremely careful when disconnecting the iPod if I'm to avoid needing to reboot every time!
Eight hours, four problems, and less than half the music collection sync'd over. All in all a surprisingly frustrating experience for such a "leading edge" technology device and subconscious confirmation that I was right to avoid it as long as I did (I assume earlier versions were even worse!).
I don't normally listen to music on the move unless I'm driving, and recently the CD player in the car has been playing up (haha!) and either refusing to play a CD at all, or requiring several tries to get it to start. On top of that it's been exhibiting various strange behaviours including skipping tracks, returning to the start of the CD whenever I tried to legitimately skip a track, and starting to fast-forward its way through tracks without any provocation.
So I was intrigued when a couple of my mates opted for a solution based on connecting a small FM radio broadcaster to their iPods and tuning the car radio to that. The prospect of carrying my entire music collection with me rather than the dozen or so CDs that would fit in the glovebox was attractive, as was the ability to also carry every photograph I've ever taken, so I bit the bullet.
The device arrived yesterday, and I spent most of the daylight hours of my birthday getting it set up. The initial installation wasn't a problem - I downloaded iTunes from the Apple website and installed it in a few minutes - but then it set off trawling my hard drive for music files, video files, podcasts and pictures. This took almost half an hour, mainly because it found over a thousand of the small wav files we used to play in the Coronation Street chat room. I'd forgotten I even had these, tucked away in a corner of my PC I no longer visit, but the fact they'd been found meant I then had to select them all for removal from the list so they wouldn't be copied over to the iPod. I'm sure there would have been an option to stop it looking for wav files, but the process kicked itself off before I'd even had chance to look.
The second issue to bite me was that I'd ripped the majority of our music to my PC in WMA format. A few minutes research had convinced me this was a better format than MP3 when space wasn't an issue, so fully 80% of our CDs were represented this way. Naturally, owing to the continuing animosity between Apple and Microsoft, iPods do not play WMA files natively. The files have to be converted to either AAV or MP3. iTunes does help out in this process - it will do the conversion automatically if you attempt to copy WMA files over - but it can't help with the elapsed time penalty you incur.
I started off with the entire set of WMAs selected (about 3,000) and let iTunes off the leash. After a couple of hours I extrapolated its progress, which gave me an estimate of 21 hours to complete the conversion!
I was just bemoaning the rate of conversion to Nikki when my machine blue-screened, thus introducing me to the third issue: iTunes does not maintain any progress records connected with the conversion. When I switched it to the list of WMAs for a second time and let it go, it started again from the beginning, writing duplicate AAV files to my disc with slightly different names from those it had created the first time round. Doh!
I stopped the process as soon as I realised what it was doing, and deleted the duplicates. Rather than try to work out how far it had progressed, I decided the sensible alternative was to decided exactly what music I wanted on the iPod and convert only that to start with. I also decided it might be more realistic to perform the conversions in bite-sized chunks, so I selected 4-5 albums for it to be going on with and also started the synchronisation process off in parallel to copy over the ones that had already been converted.
Once the sync was complete I disconnected the iPod and tripped over the fourth issue of the day. Selecting "Eject iPod" from iTunes is NOT the same as doing a "safely remove hardware." We have a long-standing issue with our NetGear USB wireless dongles, where if you pull out another USB device that would normally behave itself (like a memory stick) then the wireless transceivers lock up. I realised this may have been at the heart of my earlier blue-screen, since the freeze occasionally renders the driver corrupt and crashes the whole machine. From now one I'm going to have to be extremely careful when disconnecting the iPod if I'm to avoid needing to reboot every time!
Eight hours, four problems, and less than half the music collection sync'd over. All in all a surprisingly frustrating experience for such a "leading edge" technology device and subconscious confirmation that I was right to avoid it as long as I did (I assume earlier versions were even worse!).
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Safety first
Found myself with a little time on my hands this afternoon, so I thought it would be worth opening one of the packages of Roman blinds we brought home from Ikea from the Lighthouse weekend. After the experience with the curtain poles, I didn't want to arrive at the point of putting them up only to find something essential for the fitting is missing.
I needn't have worried. There's a cute little plastic bag attached to the blinds containing everything necessary, along with a warning message that had me laughing out loud.
WARNING:
Accidental strangulation by dangling Venetian or Roman blind cords can be prevented.
Well, that's reassuring to know ain't it? I'd hate to think it was a foregone conclusion.
I needn't have worried. There's a cute little plastic bag attached to the blinds containing everything necessary, along with a warning message that had me laughing out loud.
WARNING:
Accidental strangulation by dangling Venetian or Roman blind cords can be prevented.
Well, that's reassuring to know ain't it? I'd hate to think it was a foregone conclusion.
Monday, November 19, 2007
A whole new world
We were leafletted the other day to inform us that a new branch of Slimming World was starting to meet at the social club just around the corner from us. Now I've never been one for "organised slimming." My Mum went to Weightwatchers years ago and I have to admit it was her most successful dieting experience ever, until she reached the age where her appetite said cheerio and headed off over the hill never to return - now she never stops bragging about how slim she is, despite the fact that it's not due to any herculean effort on her part.
But the thought of a roomful of women (because let's be honest, at least 95% of them would be) clapping each other as their new weights were read out has been enough to keep me away...until now.
Having been on an upward trend weight-wise for the past 15 years or so (you might even say for the past 50 lol), and having watched a similar "improvement" in Nikki since we got together, we came to the mutual conclusion that it might be worth a punt and so, at 7pm on the dot, we made the long walk around the corner (it's about 300 yards) to the parish centre and poked our noses through the door.
A large circle of chairs had been put out in the function room, surrounding a table laden with books and magazines featuring people like Gloria, who had lost 4 stone. She looked very happy about it, which is more than could be said for the people occupying the first ten or so chairs in the circle. We took our seats and then spotted a coffee bar. Unfortunately, the urn ran out of hot water just as I reached the head of the queue, but as I didn't have any other pressing engagements, I waited while the urn was refilled and reboiled. Well, partially boiled, which was fine for Nikki as she was having coffee. My tea tasted like warm water that had passed through an oily rag and I made a mental note to also have coffee in the event we should ever return.
Turned out that the meeting was being run by a new girl. A very popular new girl, since she seemed to know most of the twenty people who were now occupying seats, but she needs to learn something about starting a meeting on time. 7pm it said on the flyer and we didn't really get into our stride until 8. One of her assistants handed out members' packs and invited us to fill in our details (we held fire), after which we got started. The leader read from the info pack, telling us all about green days and "original" days (I'm sure they used to be called red days - maybe that's too political for them now, but if that's the case they should have come up with another name for green days too), healthy extras, syns and all sorts of other stuff that blurred into one as I became more and more desperate to leave.
My estimate of the male-to-female ratio had been bang on (there was one other bloke there, and he was, how shall I put it, not exactly "blokey") and when we got to the part where the regulars started having their weight loss shouted out, and each result was greeted with a resounding round of applause, I turned to Nikki in utter despair. Luckily I could see she'd come to the same conclusion, and at the earliest opportunity we beat a hasty retreat.
Don't get the wrong impression though - we're determined to do it. We just don't want to put ourselves through that every week, and have to pay for the privilege! No, uber-researcher that she is, within a couple of milliseconds Nikki had already found, bid and won all the SW resources we could ever need off eBay (she even found someone who was selling the SW website password each week for £1.50 a pop - she only has to sell it three times to cover her membership fee!) and had downloaded a slew of recipes.
The next few weeks will tell if we have the staying power to "go it alone." Just the thought of possibly having to admit defeat and return to that awful meeting will be enough for me, I'm certain!
But the thought of a roomful of women (because let's be honest, at least 95% of them would be) clapping each other as their new weights were read out has been enough to keep me away...until now.
Having been on an upward trend weight-wise for the past 15 years or so (you might even say for the past 50 lol), and having watched a similar "improvement" in Nikki since we got together, we came to the mutual conclusion that it might be worth a punt and so, at 7pm on the dot, we made the long walk around the corner (it's about 300 yards) to the parish centre and poked our noses through the door.
A large circle of chairs had been put out in the function room, surrounding a table laden with books and magazines featuring people like Gloria, who had lost 4 stone. She looked very happy about it, which is more than could be said for the people occupying the first ten or so chairs in the circle. We took our seats and then spotted a coffee bar. Unfortunately, the urn ran out of hot water just as I reached the head of the queue, but as I didn't have any other pressing engagements, I waited while the urn was refilled and reboiled. Well, partially boiled, which was fine for Nikki as she was having coffee. My tea tasted like warm water that had passed through an oily rag and I made a mental note to also have coffee in the event we should ever return.
Turned out that the meeting was being run by a new girl. A very popular new girl, since she seemed to know most of the twenty people who were now occupying seats, but she needs to learn something about starting a meeting on time. 7pm it said on the flyer and we didn't really get into our stride until 8. One of her assistants handed out members' packs and invited us to fill in our details (we held fire), after which we got started. The leader read from the info pack, telling us all about green days and "original" days (I'm sure they used to be called red days - maybe that's too political for them now, but if that's the case they should have come up with another name for green days too), healthy extras, syns and all sorts of other stuff that blurred into one as I became more and more desperate to leave.
My estimate of the male-to-female ratio had been bang on (there was one other bloke there, and he was, how shall I put it, not exactly "blokey") and when we got to the part where the regulars started having their weight loss shouted out, and each result was greeted with a resounding round of applause, I turned to Nikki in utter despair. Luckily I could see she'd come to the same conclusion, and at the earliest opportunity we beat a hasty retreat.
Don't get the wrong impression though - we're determined to do it. We just don't want to put ourselves through that every week, and have to pay for the privilege! No, uber-researcher that she is, within a couple of milliseconds Nikki had already found, bid and won all the SW resources we could ever need off eBay (she even found someone who was selling the SW website password each week for £1.50 a pop - she only has to sell it three times to cover her membership fee!) and had downloaded a slew of recipes.
The next few weeks will tell if we have the staying power to "go it alone." Just the thought of possibly having to admit defeat and return to that awful meeting will be enough for me, I'm certain!
Sunday, November 18, 2007
I can't believe it's not curtains
You know how it is when you put off a job you really don't want to do? I told you a month ago it was curtains and it still isn't really - they've been sitting in their packets on the study floor since we bought them, and we've each been struggling to see our screens on those sunny afternoons when the low sun streams in through the still-uncurtained windows.
Finally, I could stand it no longer and went in search of the curtain poles we took down before the replastering. We didn't really like them, we didn't want to put them back up, but we couldn't find anything we did like and regretfully decided we'd have to refit them as a temporary measure. I hated the idea of drilling our pristine new walls, especially when I knew we'd eventually find something else and in swapping them over there'd probably be filling and patch-painting to do.
I needn't have worried. Fate took a hand. My window, being double-width, had two separate poles joined in the middle with a ... um ... joint. A wooden ring into which the two ends, left and right, fitted and which was originally screwed to the central pillar between the two windows. I found the poles. I found the ring. But the fitting into which the ring slotted, and which took the screws to fit it to the pillar? Gone. How tragic.
The curtains still aren't fitted. We went and watched Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix instead. Much more agreeable.
Finally, I could stand it no longer and went in search of the curtain poles we took down before the replastering. We didn't really like them, we didn't want to put them back up, but we couldn't find anything we did like and regretfully decided we'd have to refit them as a temporary measure. I hated the idea of drilling our pristine new walls, especially when I knew we'd eventually find something else and in swapping them over there'd probably be filling and patch-painting to do.
I needn't have worried. Fate took a hand. My window, being double-width, had two separate poles joined in the middle with a ... um ... joint. A wooden ring into which the two ends, left and right, fitted and which was originally screwed to the central pillar between the two windows. I found the poles. I found the ring. But the fitting into which the ring slotted, and which took the screws to fit it to the pillar? Gone. How tragic.
The curtains still aren't fitted. We went and watched Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix instead. Much more agreeable.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
A place for everything...
When we moved back into the study after the extended decorating saga the objective uppermost in our minds was to clear all the junk out of the other rooms. We'd been shuffling and edging past it for months and we just wanted our space back. We took a few things up into the attic and obviously we set up the desks and the PCs the way we wanted them, but pretty much everything else got dumped in piles all over the study.
And not even logical piles. Simply the piles they'd been in during the refurb, and some of them were consolidated during the move back.
Today was the day we agreed we'd left it long enough. Those "few precious weeks" of relaxation that I referred to the day we moved back in have become seven weeks and it's time to tidy up!
We didn't finish, but in the end I was pleased with progress. All of the piles of paper have gone from the floor, as have all the boxes except those containing CDs (there's a reason they are being left behind). There's been much throwing away, a deal of sorting, and some more carrying up into the attic. The wireless printer is now in its permanent home atop the filing cabinet and we're down to a single table's worth of sorting and filing.
We both would have made more progress today had it not been for our mutual distraction with the contents of two small boxes left over from the house move. The contents of our bedside tables. Sorting through these was like a walk back through the memories of the last few years. Programmes from the Royal Exchange, tickets from concerts, birthday, Christmas, and Father's Day cards going back to when Natalie had only just learned to write her name, and several large piles of cards from Nikki, from the days when we lived apart. Still smelling faintly of her perfume (we used to spray them before sending them) and still holding their secret messages. Those two small boxes - one each - took us more than half the day to sort through, but the rediscovered memories made it time well spent and our smiles stayed with us the rest of the weekend.
And not even logical piles. Simply the piles they'd been in during the refurb, and some of them were consolidated during the move back.
Today was the day we agreed we'd left it long enough. Those "few precious weeks" of relaxation that I referred to the day we moved back in have become seven weeks and it's time to tidy up!
We didn't finish, but in the end I was pleased with progress. All of the piles of paper have gone from the floor, as have all the boxes except those containing CDs (there's a reason they are being left behind). There's been much throwing away, a deal of sorting, and some more carrying up into the attic. The wireless printer is now in its permanent home atop the filing cabinet and we're down to a single table's worth of sorting and filing.
We both would have made more progress today had it not been for our mutual distraction with the contents of two small boxes left over from the house move. The contents of our bedside tables. Sorting through these was like a walk back through the memories of the last few years. Programmes from the Royal Exchange, tickets from concerts, birthday, Christmas, and Father's Day cards going back to when Natalie had only just learned to write her name, and several large piles of cards from Nikki, from the days when we lived apart. Still smelling faintly of her perfume (we used to spray them before sending them) and still holding their secret messages. Those two small boxes - one each - took us more than half the day to sort through, but the rediscovered memories made it time well spent and our smiles stayed with us the rest of the weekend.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
How's it swinging?
After my audition last week, I wondered how long it would take Dave to make his decision. I was in Bracknell today for a morning meeting, so when I turned my phone back on afterward I'd had a message from him.
Ever the gentleman, he apologised for leaving "bad news" in a voicemail, but said he'd decided on balance to stick with a female vocalist. Can't say I was surprised after the conversations we'd had last week. It would have been a lot of work for him to transpose all those arrangements - judging from the pile of music they all carry around with them there must be over a hundred numbers in their repertoire - and as I said before there's always the glamour angle to consider.
He was gracious enough to say that if they hadn't had a female interested they would definitely have gone with me. You might think that coming second out of two is not such a great result, but I took some comfort from his words, although I really wasn't bothered either way. In fact on reflection I think it is the right result. If I'm honest I could see myself getting bored with very quickly. Swing isn't really my genre, the Friday factor would have come into play too, and it would have been wrong to put the band to all the trouble of learning new arrangements only for me to walk away after a few weeks.
Ever the gentleman, he apologised for leaving "bad news" in a voicemail, but said he'd decided on balance to stick with a female vocalist. Can't say I was surprised after the conversations we'd had last week. It would have been a lot of work for him to transpose all those arrangements - judging from the pile of music they all carry around with them there must be over a hundred numbers in their repertoire - and as I said before there's always the glamour angle to consider.
He was gracious enough to say that if they hadn't had a female interested they would definitely have gone with me. You might think that coming second out of two is not such a great result, but I took some comfort from his words, although I really wasn't bothered either way. In fact on reflection I think it is the right result. If I'm honest I could see myself getting bored with very quickly. Swing isn't really my genre, the Friday factor would have come into play too, and it would have been wrong to put the band to all the trouble of learning new arrangements only for me to walk away after a few weeks.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Disconnected
It's nice to have friends. Friends have a lot of good qualities. They share your good times and bad, help you out in times of need, bring qualities to "the party" that complement your own, give you an alternative perspective on the world in general and today's problem in particular, turn up and trash your wireless network an hour before you have to go out to a bonfire party.
Huh?
Yes, well, you know. Shit happens. When we had the Mexican night a few weeks ago, we'd intended to seek out a Mexican radio station on Shoutcast to play some mood music when it was our leg, but we couldn't get through to the server. Casting around to test out some other connectivity, we found we couldn't reach our other PCs on the home network either, so we assumed the XBox's wireless bridge was at fault. I began to wonder whether we'd configured it when we were using WPA-PSK. I'd had to downgrade the encryption standard to WEP to allow my old laptop to connect, and thought maybe the bridge was failing to connect on account of that.
Anyway the problem became more serious when we wanted to start watching Series 2 of Heroes, so I called in the friend (names have been changed to spare embarrassment) who had initially set the bridge up to check it out. With hindsight I could just as easily have gone to the manufacturer's website and dl'd the manual myself, but ... you know ... I was feeling lazy.
So yesterday was not only the day of the bonfire party, it was the Day The Wireless Bridge Got Sorted. Only it didn't. With remarkable (I could say whirlwind) speed and staccato throwaway comments like "you shouldn't have it set up like that," and "oh, no, you don't do it that way," our fully functional wireless-network-and-Internet-access was trashed to the point where no computers could see the Internet, none could see each other, my work laptop couldn't see the bridge it was plugged directly into, and the wireless router was refusing to reset.
And all because we had two DHCP servers (one on the Internet facing DSL router and one on the wireless router). They were on different subnets, so they weren't interfering with each other, but it wasn't "right" so we had to have it changed. For some reason I never did quite fathom, we didn't get a vote about whether it was changed or not, but in simple terms the situation can be described as "our way=works fine; friend's way=nothing works at all."
So I methodically put everything back the way it was and got it working again (took me an extra couple of hours to get my work laptop back to the point where it would actually connect to work, which had me worried for a while) and spent a few minutes contemplating the relative merits of asking for "help." The irony was that the bridge had been set up just fine. The problem with Shoutcast was Shoutcast's fault, and the problem with the access to the home network was that I was using the wrong Samba sharepoint. Ho hum.
What was even more annoying...when we sat down to watch Heroes we had the same problem as last year. The wireless signal in the lounge just isn't strong enough to carry a video signal and after a few minutes we start getting lengthy pauses in the playback while the XBox does some buffering. The only recourse is to FTP the files down to the box, which meant we couldn't watch any episodes today.
Still, in the midst of all this, it's important to remember that without said friend, we wouldn't have the Heroes files in the first place, so it's all swings and roundabouts really. We all make mistakes. Live and learn. Forgive and forget. You have to laugh. Etc.
Huh?
Yes, well, you know. Shit happens. When we had the Mexican night a few weeks ago, we'd intended to seek out a Mexican radio station on Shoutcast to play some mood music when it was our leg, but we couldn't get through to the server. Casting around to test out some other connectivity, we found we couldn't reach our other PCs on the home network either, so we assumed the XBox's wireless bridge was at fault. I began to wonder whether we'd configured it when we were using WPA-PSK. I'd had to downgrade the encryption standard to WEP to allow my old laptop to connect, and thought maybe the bridge was failing to connect on account of that.
Anyway the problem became more serious when we wanted to start watching Series 2 of Heroes, so I called in the friend (names have been changed to spare embarrassment) who had initially set the bridge up to check it out. With hindsight I could just as easily have gone to the manufacturer's website and dl'd the manual myself, but ... you know ... I was feeling lazy.
So yesterday was not only the day of the bonfire party, it was the Day The Wireless Bridge Got Sorted. Only it didn't. With remarkable (I could say whirlwind) speed and staccato throwaway comments like "you shouldn't have it set up like that," and "oh, no, you don't do it that way," our fully functional wireless-network-and-Internet-access was trashed to the point where no computers could see the Internet, none could see each other, my work laptop couldn't see the bridge it was plugged directly into, and the wireless router was refusing to reset.
And all because we had two DHCP servers (one on the Internet facing DSL router and one on the wireless router). They were on different subnets, so they weren't interfering with each other, but it wasn't "right" so we had to have it changed. For some reason I never did quite fathom, we didn't get a vote about whether it was changed or not, but in simple terms the situation can be described as "our way=works fine; friend's way=nothing works at all."
So I methodically put everything back the way it was and got it working again (took me an extra couple of hours to get my work laptop back to the point where it would actually connect to work, which had me worried for a while) and spent a few minutes contemplating the relative merits of asking for "help." The irony was that the bridge had been set up just fine. The problem with Shoutcast was Shoutcast's fault, and the problem with the access to the home network was that I was using the wrong Samba sharepoint. Ho hum.
What was even more annoying...when we sat down to watch Heroes we had the same problem as last year. The wireless signal in the lounge just isn't strong enough to carry a video signal and after a few minutes we start getting lengthy pauses in the playback while the XBox does some buffering. The only recourse is to FTP the files down to the box, which meant we couldn't watch any episodes today.
Still, in the midst of all this, it's important to remember that without said friend, we wouldn't have the Heroes files in the first place, so it's all swings and roundabouts really. We all make mistakes. Live and learn. Forgive and forget. You have to laugh. Etc.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Belated Bonfire night
We were invited to a bonfire party tonight. Not sure of the protocol, but thinking that perhaps it would be polite to turn up with a few additions to the fireworks supply as well as something to drink (I've been doing BYOB for years, so why not BYOF?), I stepped into a fireworks shop for the first time in over 30 years.
I say "fireworks shop" - in reality it was the first newsagents I drove past in Chorlton that sported a fireworks sign in the window. I'd just picked Natalie up from halls and, glad of the moral support and second opinion even though she's even more inexperienced at buying bangers than I am, we crossed the road and entered the establishment with some trepidation.
Being the weekend after bonfire night I wasn't really expecting to have much choice, but on the other hand I was fairly convinced there would still be a few stragglers in the bonfire party stakes this weekend, so there was a chance some stock would remain. I needn't have worried. The shopkeeper, an extremely friendly and helpful Asian guy, pulled out a bewildering array of boxes of various sizes and covered his counter-top with them.
Bear in mind that the last time I bought fireworks, roman candles came in ones. Single tubes about the diameter of two fingers held together and anything from 10cm to 60cm long. You stuck them in the earth, or a sand bucket, "lit the blue touchpaper and retired immediately." Now, the standard seems to be the size of at least twelve such tubes, all stuck together in a cube and wrapped in a free-standing package. Not only that, but "blue touchpaper" technology - always a bit hit-and-miss at the best of times - seems to have been uniformly replaced with proper fuses, protected from damage by being separately wrapped and taped to the side of the main "bomb".
One of the largest such packages we saw was a Screaming Demon. About 18" (45cm) long and 4" (10cm) wide, this held THREE HUNDRED fireworks and, we presumed, made a lot of noise! That was an easy choice, and we selected one other box-shaped thing and a packet of four rockets. These were a revelation too. Again the rockets I'm familiar with were just like roman candles on a stick. These were more like tins of baked beans on a stick, and came with their own launching tube.
When we arrived at the party (early, owing to a mix-up on their part with the invites) I was quite gratified to see that our firework offering made up about 25% of the total display. You never know exactly how much to bring to these things, do you? Well, I don't. It's a fine line between looking cheap and looking like Guy Fawkes' distant relation, but I think we hit that line dead on. Their firework pile was heavy on the rockets too, so we'd done well to bring two "boxes" and I think our offering was gratefully accepted (I didn't see anyone else bringing any contribution to the show).
The weather held off for the most part - we interrupted the show for a short sharp shower around 8pm but it wasn't enough to put the fire out. The Screaming Demon really did scream - three hundred times - especially near the end where about a quarter of the charges went off all at once. Great fun, and bonfire toffee to boot.
I say "fireworks shop" - in reality it was the first newsagents I drove past in Chorlton that sported a fireworks sign in the window. I'd just picked Natalie up from halls and, glad of the moral support and second opinion even though she's even more inexperienced at buying bangers than I am, we crossed the road and entered the establishment with some trepidation.
Being the weekend after bonfire night I wasn't really expecting to have much choice, but on the other hand I was fairly convinced there would still be a few stragglers in the bonfire party stakes this weekend, so there was a chance some stock would remain. I needn't have worried. The shopkeeper, an extremely friendly and helpful Asian guy, pulled out a bewildering array of boxes of various sizes and covered his counter-top with them.
Bear in mind that the last time I bought fireworks, roman candles came in ones. Single tubes about the diameter of two fingers held together and anything from 10cm to 60cm long. You stuck them in the earth, or a sand bucket, "lit the blue touchpaper and retired immediately." Now, the standard seems to be the size of at least twelve such tubes, all stuck together in a cube and wrapped in a free-standing package. Not only that, but "blue touchpaper" technology - always a bit hit-and-miss at the best of times - seems to have been uniformly replaced with proper fuses, protected from damage by being separately wrapped and taped to the side of the main "bomb".
One of the largest such packages we saw was a Screaming Demon. About 18" (45cm) long and 4" (10cm) wide, this held THREE HUNDRED fireworks and, we presumed, made a lot of noise! That was an easy choice, and we selected one other box-shaped thing and a packet of four rockets. These were a revelation too. Again the rockets I'm familiar with were just like roman candles on a stick. These were more like tins of baked beans on a stick, and came with their own launching tube.
When we arrived at the party (early, owing to a mix-up on their part with the invites) I was quite gratified to see that our firework offering made up about 25% of the total display. You never know exactly how much to bring to these things, do you? Well, I don't. It's a fine line between looking cheap and looking like Guy Fawkes' distant relation, but I think we hit that line dead on. Their firework pile was heavy on the rockets too, so we'd done well to bring two "boxes" and I think our offering was gratefully accepted (I didn't see anyone else bringing any contribution to the show).
The weather held off for the most part - we interrupted the show for a short sharp shower around 8pm but it wasn't enough to put the fire out. The Screaming Demon really did scream - three hundred times - especially near the end where about a quarter of the charges went off all at once. Great fun, and bonfire toffee to boot.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Friday Five and the Swing's alive!
So I had this email the other day from the guy who sits opposite me at work. He knows I enjoy singing and had spotted a request on the company Intranet for a replacement singer to join the staff Swing Band. These guys (and the occasional gal) have been playing together for so long that the name of the band reflects a part of the city where our company no longer has offices. They must have decided it would be too confusing to change the name, or maybe they're just a bunch of nostalgia freaks.
I umm'd and ahh'd for a couple of days before applying. Swing really isn't my favourite genre (although their example tracks mentioned in the advert - Fly Me To The Moon and I've Got You Under My Skin - are familiar enough) and on top of that their rehearsals generally take place on Friday lunchtimes between 12 and 1pm - one of my favourite days for working at home.
In the end I decided there was nothing to lose by auditioning. I didn't expect anything to come of it, and when the organiser - a guy I've worked with on and off for over 25 years - called me to discuss things my expectations sunk even lower. Their regular singer, who's leaving the company, is a woman and Dave was at pains to point out that not only were all the arrangements written up for a female vocal, he would actually prefer to stick with a lady. He probably thinks it brings a touch of glamour to the party. So I was on a loser from the start really. Nevertheless being a fair bloke, he wanted to give anyone who was interested a hearing, and we arranged that I'd attend today and give it a try.
I walked in on rehearsals towards the end, as Dave had intended to ask me to sing with just him accompanying me on piano - mainly so he could transpose the key to suit my voice. However, as roughly 50% of the band were known to me, he felt moved to ask me if I'd like to try singing with them, which I agreed to. We did a few bars of Fly Me To The Moon, which went alright, and then went on to Under My Skin, which proved that I didn't know the song as well as I'd thought!
Practice over, the band packed up and left while Dave stayed behind to try a few more numbers on piano and work out my vocal range so he'd have an idea how much work would be involved in rearranging their pieces. I think the main thing that impressed him was my voice is powerful enough to be heard even over the loudest passages when the brass section is in full flow. Whether or not this will be enough to overcome his preference for the only other candidate - who just happens to be a woman - we'll have to wait to find out.
And so to the Five for this Friday:
1. Who do you owe?
Financially? The mortgage company.
Socially? Everyone whose company I enjoy.
Emotionally? Nikki. For rescuing me.
2. What do you wait for?
A time, which I hope will be before retirement age, when I can give up work. The day job that is, not the "real work" that I love doing.
3. What do you disguise?
Weeping over sad movies (yes, I'm an old softie at heart).
4. Tell us a lie:
What you see is what you get.
5. Friday fill-in:
I can't get enough of ___.
your love, I can't get enough of your love, I can't get enough of your love (Copr. Bad Company)
I umm'd and ahh'd for a couple of days before applying. Swing really isn't my favourite genre (although their example tracks mentioned in the advert - Fly Me To The Moon and I've Got You Under My Skin - are familiar enough) and on top of that their rehearsals generally take place on Friday lunchtimes between 12 and 1pm - one of my favourite days for working at home.
In the end I decided there was nothing to lose by auditioning. I didn't expect anything to come of it, and when the organiser - a guy I've worked with on and off for over 25 years - called me to discuss things my expectations sunk even lower. Their regular singer, who's leaving the company, is a woman and Dave was at pains to point out that not only were all the arrangements written up for a female vocal, he would actually prefer to stick with a lady. He probably thinks it brings a touch of glamour to the party. So I was on a loser from the start really. Nevertheless being a fair bloke, he wanted to give anyone who was interested a hearing, and we arranged that I'd attend today and give it a try.
I walked in on rehearsals towards the end, as Dave had intended to ask me to sing with just him accompanying me on piano - mainly so he could transpose the key to suit my voice. However, as roughly 50% of the band were known to me, he felt moved to ask me if I'd like to try singing with them, which I agreed to. We did a few bars of Fly Me To The Moon, which went alright, and then went on to Under My Skin, which proved that I didn't know the song as well as I'd thought!
Practice over, the band packed up and left while Dave stayed behind to try a few more numbers on piano and work out my vocal range so he'd have an idea how much work would be involved in rearranging their pieces. I think the main thing that impressed him was my voice is powerful enough to be heard even over the loudest passages when the brass section is in full flow. Whether or not this will be enough to overcome his preference for the only other candidate - who just happens to be a woman - we'll have to wait to find out.
And so to the Five for this Friday:
1. Who do you owe?
Financially? The mortgage company.
Socially? Everyone whose company I enjoy.
Emotionally? Nikki. For rescuing me.
2. What do you wait for?
A time, which I hope will be before retirement age, when I can give up work. The day job that is, not the "real work" that I love doing.
3. What do you disguise?
Weeping over sad movies (yes, I'm an old softie at heart).
4. Tell us a lie:
What you see is what you get.
5. Friday fill-in:
I can't get enough of ___.
your love, I can't get enough of your love, I can't get enough of your love (Copr. Bad Company)
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Pick one that looks like you
I've mentioned before in the context of things going publicly wrong the importance of following procedure, and the difficulties that arise when trying to persuade people (in general, but unskilled workers in particular) of the importance of following procedure even in the face of compelling forces operating in directions opposite to those recommended.
I was reminded of this today on hearing a news bulletin about the issue of security passes to airport workers in the US. Following 9-11 security procedures were drastically tightened and steps put in place to perform detailed background checks on anyone applying to work in areas where the safety and security of airline passengers could be compromised. You might ask why such procedures were not in place before 9-11, but (a) I don't have an answer to that and (b) if I did it would probably be too long to type in here, so I'll concentrate on the topic at hand.
The trouble is, these procedures are designed by people who have never run an airport, or tried to recruit anyone, or even tried to follow the procedures they themselves have written. When you're a low-paid supervisor, and your manager asks you why the shift hasn't been filled, it won't cut any ice to say "because I'm waiting for the background checks to be done on these five candidates."
So I wasn't surprised (although more than a little disturbed) to hear that new recruits to the ground staff at Chicago's O'Hare airport are shown a box full of old security passes belonging to previous employees and told "pick one that looks like you."
I was reminded of this today on hearing a news bulletin about the issue of security passes to airport workers in the US. Following 9-11 security procedures were drastically tightened and steps put in place to perform detailed background checks on anyone applying to work in areas where the safety and security of airline passengers could be compromised. You might ask why such procedures were not in place before 9-11, but (a) I don't have an answer to that and (b) if I did it would probably be too long to type in here, so I'll concentrate on the topic at hand.
The trouble is, these procedures are designed by people who have never run an airport, or tried to recruit anyone, or even tried to follow the procedures they themselves have written. When you're a low-paid supervisor, and your manager asks you why the shift hasn't been filled, it won't cut any ice to say "because I'm waiting for the background checks to be done on these five candidates."
So I wasn't surprised (although more than a little disturbed) to hear that new recruits to the ground staff at Chicago's O'Hare airport are shown a box full of old security passes belonging to previous employees and told "pick one that looks like you."
Sunday, November 04, 2007
Return to the Great Orme Lighthouse
Another "mates' weekend" this weekend, and a return visit to the Lighthouse on the Great Orme where we spend such a fabulous three days last year. This year the return visit included our fourth couple who were unable to make it last year, so the gang was complete and a thoroughly fab time was had by all.
Read the full story on my travelogue page.
Read the full story on my travelogue page.
Friday, November 02, 2007
Friday Five
We're off to the lighthouse on the Great Orme again this afternoon for another long weekend - a reprise of last year's trip. So it's an early Friday Five this week and then a break in transmission until at least Sunday!
1. What is sweet?
When someone pays you a compliment unexpectedly.
2. What hours do you work?
Irregular. If I'm in the office I usually get in around 8.45 and leave around 4.45 in time to pick Nikki up. Then I may have extra stuff to do in the evening. If I'm travelling to meetings then it's not unusual for me to have to leave the house at 4.45am to catch the 5.20 train, and not get back until after 9pm. I try to avoid working weekends though (and am almost always successful!)
3. When do you relax?
The question implies I'm not relaxed when I'm working, which isn't always true. It also implies a lack of activity, which only ever happens when I'm watching TV or sleeping. I "relax" by doing something I enjoy doing, rather than doing something I have to do. So I'm usually "on the go" with something - writing, marking, researching, housework (cooking, washing up, the usual stuff), decorating, planning, etc, but I rarely feel like I don't have "time to relax."
4. How did you learn about the birds and the bees?
I found a Ladybird book on the bookshelf in a junior school classroom when I was 9 that covered the essentials in a kind of "Janet & John" way. A couple of years later I subscribed to a magazine on human biology that went into much greater detail. Then when I was 17 I found a tutor ;o)
5. Friday fill-in:
The good vibes flow ____.
between Friday at 5pm and Sunday shortly after bedtime.
1. What is sweet?
When someone pays you a compliment unexpectedly.
2. What hours do you work?
Irregular. If I'm in the office I usually get in around 8.45 and leave around 4.45 in time to pick Nikki up. Then I may have extra stuff to do in the evening. If I'm travelling to meetings then it's not unusual for me to have to leave the house at 4.45am to catch the 5.20 train, and not get back until after 9pm. I try to avoid working weekends though (and am almost always successful!)
3. When do you relax?
The question implies I'm not relaxed when I'm working, which isn't always true. It also implies a lack of activity, which only ever happens when I'm watching TV or sleeping. I "relax" by doing something I enjoy doing, rather than doing something I have to do. So I'm usually "on the go" with something - writing, marking, researching, housework (cooking, washing up, the usual stuff), decorating, planning, etc, but I rarely feel like I don't have "time to relax."
4. How did you learn about the birds and the bees?
I found a Ladybird book on the bookshelf in a junior school classroom when I was 9 that covered the essentials in a kind of "Janet & John" way. A couple of years later I subscribed to a magazine on human biology that went into much greater detail. Then when I was 17 I found a tutor ;o)
5. Friday fill-in:
The good vibes flow ____.
between Friday at 5pm and Sunday shortly after bedtime.
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