Oddities etc.

The Sandström-Hartwell Miserable Bastard Scale (MBS)

Sat, 09 Aug 2008 09:03:12 GMT

The Miserable Bastard Scale, or MBS, was originally formulated on sci.military.naval for Usenet use. In view of its naval origins, it is based on the marine version of the Beaufort Scale of wind speeds. The MBS helpfully allows the numeric classification of Miserable Bastards on newsgroups and elsewhere.

0: Calm - Individual is dead, medicated, asleep or otherwise unconscious.

1: Sulk - Individual issues "refuse to answer that" responses when views are challenged.

2: Bristling - The hackles are up, individual takes offence easily but may still be open to listening to others at this point.

3: Grouchy - ability to interact intelligently is impaired, but this considered to be normal state of operation.

4: Sputtering - Monosyllabic, impaired receptiveness to views of others.

5: Fresh Breeze - rises to challenges and often breaks into displays of grouchiness. Expect sudden gusts.

6: Strong Breeze - Long diatribes begin to form. Angry outbursts are widespread. Conversation obscured by undirected ranting.

7: Near Gale - Rants heap up and strong language from breaking grumbles begins to be blown in incoherent streaks across the conversation. Visibility of original subject matter impaired.

8: Gale - Moderately high rant level, diatribes of greater length; Rants are blown in well-defined streaks in several well-defined directions. Visibility of original subject matter severely impaired. Personal attacks imminent.

9: Severe Gale - High rant level. Dense diatribes in multiple well-defined directions. Rants tend to break up under their own force. Speed of furious typing may result in incoherent output. Personal insults beginning to form spray. Visibility affected - Miserable Bastard probably seeing red - original subject matter barely visible.

10: Storm - very high rant level in random directions. Entire conversation affected. Refusal to acknowledge views of others. Heavy spray of personal insults and ad-hominem attacks.

11: Violent Storm - exceptionally high rant levels, insults and personal attacks on all parties, including non-participants. All comments by others sucked in and twisted out of shape.

12: Hurricane - full-blown apoplectic anger in all directions, original subject matter and train of thought long ago lost, no trace of logic or consistency in argument. Others take avoiding action until Hurricane has blown itself out through being ignored.

13: Coronary Imminent

Translating...

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 05:44:44 GMT

Although the perils of software and online translators are well known to those who need to make use of them, even though they have become generally very good, there are the odd occasions where even a very basic knowledge of the translated-to language is a help. I doubt this restaurant actually has this name:

Oops!

One of our computers is missing (not)

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 21:23:02 GMT

We have reception and a training room downstairs at work and offices are upstairs. My admin bod NH came back upstairs tonight to tell me the receptionist had hootered off and left both the outside door and the inner door propped open. NH then vouchsafed that he'd been having to shut the outside door most of last week (thanks for not telling us sooner).

Having gone down to check nowt had been stolen (nothing had) I let my boss know the above. She started writing a pithy email to reception until I said that I was very tempted to dismantle the reception computers etc. and hide them in the training room. Email instantly abandoned and instructions to "Do it!". Well, along with "You're an evil s*d". I was another one when I presented the boss with the copy of the training room key held in reception so they couldn't go hunting for the computers.

It'll be interesting at 9am tomorrow.

Actually, there's a serious side to the decision to hide the computers - it may drive home to the office the fact that security has to taken seriously as the place was close to the Marie Celeste at the time the open doors were reported. There'll be a pithy email sent to the whole of Head Office tomorrow.

What? No staples?

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:49:29 GMT

We got a bit short of staples last week as the stationery order won't arrive until Monday. Ran out in my office on Thursday whilst matching invoices to timesheets so had to go on the scrounge in other departments. Did get some but when I came back, pretended to my admin bod (NH) that we'd totally run out.

NH: Did you get any?

Me: No.

NH: What are you going to do?

Me: Ask your mum to give you a needle and some thread tomorrow morning

NH: Huh?

Me: A needle and a long length of thread.

NH: Why?

Me: So you can stitch the invoices to the timesheets of course.

Expression on his face before he realised I was joking was absolutely priceless.

Been absent, RL intervened

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:53:36 GMT

Sorry I've been absent for a while, a rather large dollop of RL[1] intervened. Can't talk about some of it but I can tell you about mum as she's proud of the fact that getting doddery hasn't meant she is not enjoying life.

It was almost the final straw in a batch of ongoing things that mum was taken into hospital after having three falls in three days - so they whipped her into hospital to find out the cause. Bit of a nightmare doing the daily visiting - leave work, straight to Birkenhead on the train, bus to the hospital, bus back then train home for 11pm, throw some food down my throat then sleep and back to work.

Multiple tests and 3 months later they came to the conclusion that there was nothing wrong with her other than she had got a bit unsteady over the winter - mum was on a solo walking holiday in Slovenia last Sept clocking up 6-7 miles a day so she was initially a bit devastated that it was recommended that she had a zimmer frame.

It is a fairly nifty zimmer - wheels, handlebars and brakes. Once she got used to it (which took about a day!) she is now terrorising the local ASDA whizzing around the aisles doing her shopping.

She has now been on a coach holiday (something she never thought she'd ever contemplate doing) but enjoyed herself and managed to do some walking - so much so she's booked two more coach holidays this year. Also doing some walks on the Wirral where there are no stiles.

In fact she's on a bit of a roll, she's now considering a walking holiday in Austria next year in an area she knows well.

I'm impressed with the way mum has bounced back and has adjusted. As my boss said, and I agree, "she's a tough old bird".

Does show that if you have the right attitude you can approach problems in a positive way and, at least in some circumstances, you can modify your enjoyment of things to match changed circumstances.

Almost as soon as mum was released, I was in hospital for a week - scrapes on my leg had got infected - I do wonder where the infection came from given I was visiting a hospital 7 days a week.

[1] Real Life for those unfamiliar with the abbreviation.

There is a green field far away

Sat, 26 Jul 2008 19:32:22 GMT

Having resurrected some alternative lyrics (down below) to "Don't cry for me Argentina" elsewhere, I was challenged to provide some alternative lyrics, with a couple of feed lines, to the hymn that starts "There is a green field far away".

# There is a green Ford far away
# without a car alarm
# And my dear mum was mortified
# Who found it came to harm.

# We may not know, we cannot tell
# Which Chav it was who stole
# But we do know it was for use
# To nick and carry coal.

# He left the car on a roundabout
# It was there for many hours
# Not seen by passing motorists
# Hid by Council flowers.

# We tried to have it rescued
# When the Police found it
# On arrival it was not there
# It was taken by a twit.

# O, soddit, soddit not again
# Another nicked the motor
# We'll buy a helicopter now
# Hope they don't steal the rotor.

I'll get my coat again...

Fraud Prevention - Part 2

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:18:08 GMT

Well, those who followed the Fraud Prevention problem I've had (that has been ongoing since last October) will no doubt be delighted to know that for the last week or so, having been changed to a different type of bank debit card back in November, I have had absolutely no problem using the card - great, even though it took until issue 5 of the card for it to have had the desired effect.

Issue 1 lasted 8 days, Issue 2 did a little better at 9, Issue 3 was a non starter and Issue 4 lasted 5 days before the inevitable decline and ring to get it authorised.

Issue 5 seems to have done the trick though. Finally found a cheap refurbished laptop to replace the one that died before Christmas when the magic smoke escaped. it was a little more than I wanted to pay but double the spec (Dual core not a Celery, errm Celeron, and 1GB RAM not 512MB). Also comes with Vista Premium and, as I need a Vista machine (don't ask), it was worth the few extra pennies to save dual booting my main machine - that was getting to be a pain in the proverbials.

I have a different problem now though :( Account balance and available balance don't update when a payment by card goes through. Well, actually they do. Both of them update and knock off the amount spent! The day after the money goes out of the account, the available balance gets updated. Doesn't really affect me at the moment but it got me thinking.

A phone call to the helpline confirmed that if I wanted to book an expensive holiday for me, or me and whoever. I now need to be able to pay for it twice. The helpful bod at the other end answered a few hypotheticals - £2000.01 and a £1000 holiday. Before the day the £1000 goes out of the account then Account Balance is £2000.01 and available balance is £1001.01 so I can use my card. Day or two later the money goes out and Account Balance £1001.01 but Available Balance £0.01 and I couldn't use the card until the day after when the £0.01 will revert to the correct £1000.01 !!!

The alternative hypothesis was £1999.99 in the bank and £1000 holiday. Before the money actually goes out then Account Balance £1999.99 and Available Balance £999.99 all well and good so far. Day the money goes out then Actual Balance £999.99 and Available Balance £-0.01 and the helpline bod confirmed the transaction would either be reversed or I'd be hit with an unauthorised overdraft charge which I've have to ring up to get reversed.

What a wunch of bankers as Mrs Malaprop may have been moved to say.

What passes for my mind is currently boggling on all cylinders.

Couple of small bits and pieces

Sun, 04 Nov 2007 19:59:34 GMT

Had to buy a couple of things the other day.

Went into a local shop that's part of a national chain to get a ES fitting light bulb. Discovered that they've got a big display of "Christmas Essentials". Pride of place was given to a 16 pack of loo rolls - with a BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) offer. Either they reckon most people have 32 visitors for more than a week over Xmas or they reckon Xmas cooking is likely to give people diarrhea.

Needed a new phone. Quick shufti in the local shops left me with a choice of 5 quid for corded, 20 quid for cordless or a clearance cordless with ansaphone for 6 quid. Corded was out of the window as I'm fed up of missing calls when in the kitchen etc.

I suppose I'll have difficulty now in claiming I wasn't near the phone as I bought the 6 quid one and it picks up a signal even in the corner shop at the end of the road - as I discovered whilst paying for two limes and a lemon this morning as the handset was in my pocket.

Had a bit of a giggle setting the outgoing messages on the ansaphone. Outgoing message now says I can't pck up the call, my toaster has answered and will burn any messages onto a bit of bread and pop it up, outgoing announcement when the ansaphone is full says I can't pick up the call, my toaster has answered but it's run out of bread so call again later.

Also needed a toner cartridge for my newish Samsung printer. Probably could have sourced one for a few quid less via the 'net but I went down to Microplus in Wrexham. Didn't have one in stock but promised to find out if they could get one and email me the price before going ahead with the order. Email came though first thing following day (it was after 4.30pm when I called in!) and it was ordered on reply.

If you are near enough to Wrexham and needing something computery, ask Mick in Microplus rather than the local PC World. Mick is one a dying breed that'll sell you what you actually need rather than what you think you might want (unless you insist on ignoring advice I suppose) and will try and source things for you if not held in stock - my old Panasonic laser ran out of toner a long while ago & replacements were scarce, Mick eventually had to give up trying to source one but gave me the info of someone who might be able to get one for me. Customer service at its best. Microplus can be found at http://www.micropluscomputers.co.uk No connection with them other than a very satisfied customer.

Another company I can thoroughly recommend are Edge Technology in Flint. They recently built a machine for me, not something I'd lightly give to a third party to do, but knowing I could trust them and the Q6600 bundle was nicely priced with decent flat screen monitor as I needed both another machine here and a flat screen and there isn't enough place on my desk for another CRT it seemed a good option. They still managed to surpass my expectations of getting all the driver and OS disks plus manuals as standard as they all provided every bit of paper that came with the separate bits and presented it in the box that the motherboard was in. Needless to say, it worked straight out of the box.

Bear rescued after falling off a bridge

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 06:17:57 GMT

Somewhere in California recently, a bear crossing a road bridge was scared by passing traffic, dived over the rails and got stuck on one of the bridge supports. There's picures of the rescue here:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_pictures/7020540.stm

The reference to bears reminds me of something that happened in the Czech Republic....

Kazimir Horacek, who lived in an old town in the south of the country called Ceske Budejovice, helped an American professor by the name of Nelson Anderson a number of years previously in translating some books written in an older form of his own language, and quite naturally, having been told he would receive a fee expected to get paid at the end of it.

As the way of professorial research grants go, however, funds had dried up and Nelson was unable to find funds to pay Kazimir and, not to put too fine a point on it, had to prevaricate about the ever increasing delay in sending over the fee.

Over the years, the two men became good friends but Kazimir still kept reminding Nelson of this fee and Nelson had to keep finding new ways of delaying, in the fond hope he would receive another grant to continue this piece of research and eventually pay the fee to his friend.

At the beginning of this month, Nelson came into a little money and, although he could still not pay Kazimir his fee, decided he had just enough money to visit his friend for the first time since their collaboration all those years ago.

Both being keen walkers, they set out the day following their reunion to go walking in the hills to the south east of the town. Kazimir was a small, slight man and Nelson was rather more robust in dimensions so they must have looked an odd pair as they followed the winding track.

Whilst they were walking and talking, Kazimir tentatively broached the question about his long standing fee and Nelson starting pondering his answer to this inevitable question.

Just then, they rounded a corner of the track they were following and walked straight into two of the largest bears either men had ever seen, and perhaps the two largest bears in the whole country.

Nelson turned tail and ran but Kazimir was not so lucky and was grabbed then swallowed whole by the larger of these two enormous bears. Nelson could hear his friend's cries for help from the innards of the bear as he fled down the track.

As it happened, he quickly met an old hunter coming up the track with a rifle and, gasping out his story, the hunter made the offer to try and kill the bears.

Spotting them in the undergrowth the hunter then vouchsafed that he only had one bullet left and wanted to know which bear he should kill.

Of course there was only one answer that could both save his friend's life and answer the question about where the long awaited fee was ...

... "The Czech's in the male".

I won't wait to put my coat on.

Fraud Prevention - Pain in the Proverbials when a bank gets it wrong.

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 15:31:13 GMT

A bit ago the bank replaced my debit card. By my request as it happens as the previous one had managed to remain in a shirt pocket when the shirt went into the washing machine and was somewhat pale and wan compared to its original look. Signature had gone from the back as well.

New card duly arrived. The fourth use of it was with a retailer I deal with rarely (it's not particularly often I need to replace a computer peripheral and a DVD/CD burner even more rarely than not particularly often).

The bank decided this was a potentially fraudulent transaction and summarily blocked the card. Something I found out a little later the same day when I went to the local "hole in the wall" to get out enough cash for the monthly shop and fares to work for the next week and got "transaction declined".

Phoned the bank, went through all the security bits, assured them that the transction was genuine etc, etc and I was promised the block on the card would be lifted. Nope.

That first day I spent a few minutes over 4 hours talking to the bank who kept assuring me that the block had been lifted but they'll reset the card again and I should try again. Every time I tried again I was back on the phone to the bank.

Eventually I managed to get some cash that day after a particularly helpful lady set a special marker. Less helpful that she told me that taking an agreed amount out of agreed ATM would reset the card for good as, guess what, it didn't and the next time I tried to use the card I got yet another "transaction declined".

In the meantime it would just happen that a couple of regular debit transactions set up with the old card and replaced with the details on the new card were due to go through. Yep, they were declined.

The fourth round of talks with the bank finally got me a stop-gap measure - I could ring them up every time I wanted to use the card, pass the security questions and tell the amount and location. So far so good, except they asked exactly the same security questions each time.

Can you just imagine standing in the queue of the local supermarket and giving out my account number, sort code and answers to the security questions in hearing distance of all and sundry and then asking to lift the ban on the card whilst I spent x pounds at location y. Not exactly a fraud prevention measure.

I have eventually managed to get the bank to honour the monthly payments going out on roughly the same day each month to the same two companies but I'm still stuck with phoning each time to get cash out of my account. Hmmm. Actually they didn't pay out so I'm still stuck.

Apparently I can see the Manager at the branch where the account was opened (unpaid day off work as it's a rural branch and not open Saturday) but I have to provide, as one of the forms of ID, a passport less than 2 years old. I could go anywhere in the world for a holiday of a week or two on a 7 year old passort and still be allowed back in the UK but it's not good enough for the bank.

The bank won't replace the card without ID including a passport less than 2 years old and the Passport Office won't replace my passport unless it's "lost, stolen or irretrievably damaged" so it looks like I'm stuck until 2010 into having to phone every time I want to withdraw cash or spend money online like paying my council tax bill or the phone bill or I'm goinfg to have to accidentally drop my passport into an open tin of varnish or shove it the toaster / microwave and turn the power on or something. My favoured option at the moment it to attack with crinkle-cut scissors then claim my pet Meerkat tried to eat it for lunch, not that I have a pet Meerkat of course.

Go to another UK bank? No can do. Tried two so far so I could ditch this lot. Application declined as "there are security markers on your current bank account". Of course there are, my own bank is being a total prannock making me jump through hoops to get at my own money.

Whilst I do applaud the bank for taking action in temporarily stopping the card when they thought that there might be a fraudulent transaction, I am thoroughly unimpressed with the hoops to be jumped through to try and get it re-instated.

The bank have credited me with 50 quid compensation for the hassle. I reckon that'll just about pay for the phone calls for the next three years at this rate.

Edit 21st Oct: Having now spoken to a very helpful lady in Fraud Prevention, my card is working properly again. Yippee!

Edit 22nd Oct: Me: Oh no it's not.

Edit 23rd Oct: Bank: Oh yes it is.

Edit 24th Oct: Me: Oh no it's not.

Has the pantomime season started early?

Edit 29th Oct: finally, finally, all is well (until the next time probably). The Internet bill I've been trying to pay for weeks has now gone through.

Edit 2nd Nov: Next time arrived as I tried to pay my Council Tax which bounced as did the cheque to the Passport Office for the renewal of my passport. Ho hum. Call the bank, there's now a 60 quid a day limit on my account for all transactions, not just via the card, as a fraud prevention measure. Didn't have an answer to my pointed comment about the standing order for the rent that they paid out the same day that was precisely 5 times their imposed daily limit.

Edit 3rd Nov: After another round of muttering to Complaints. Apparently they are now going to give me a different card and lift the bar on the account when I tell them I've received it. Watch this space.

Disgraceful letter from Solicitors

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 04:59:25 GMT

20 months on in dealing with dad's very straightforward will we thought we might be getting somewhere with the solicitors executing it as both my sister Gill and I have been bouncing them off the ceiling for 3 of the last 4 months and they're actually doing summat about it now.

Another month on, so now up to month 21, nowt else has happened except for someone at the solicitors with the IQ of a duvet sending out the most ludicrous, insensitive, stupid, moronic, imbecilic, thoughtless letter possible.

The letter was addressed to dad asking him if he would consider updating his will as his circumstances are likely to have changed in the time since he made the previous one.

Gill and I have both told the solicitors we thought the letter utterly disgraceful, plus other assorted phrases.

Never known my sister to be speechless before but it was about 3 minutes before she could say anything when she was told about the letter. Took me a couple of minutes before I could even say "What?" when I read it.

The eruption of Krakatoan proportions on the Wirral on Friday was me talking to the solicitors.

Mum had a piss poor apology letter and 20 quids worth of M&S vouchers on Saturday. Mum was livid and very upset when she read the original letter. Just livid with the so called letter of apology which looks like it was written by someone with the IQ of a smaller duvet. Translates to "we shouldn't have sent it but it happened and here's 20 quids worth of vouchers to stop you complaining further".

Mum was going to bin both letters but as I was up there Friday anyway I persuaded mum to give them to me so that, when we add it to the formal complaint we are going to issue when everything is done and the bill is presented, we have a bit more written evidence of utter incompetence.

What passes for my mind is still boggling at the letter and, three days later, I've calmed down enough that I am now merely seething about the content.

Flash, Bang, Kaput!

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 21:08:12 GMT

Ho hum. There I was, quietly comtemplating having a very late dinner (I had been rather later in from work as I'd stayed on to help get something essential finished), when there's a huge flash, a rumble of thunder loud enough to rattle the cups and set up standing waves on the top of my mug of coffee. Then all the lights promptly when out.

I knew the circuit breaker must have tripped as it's a rather nervous sensitive soul and quite happily trips even if just a lightbulb blows. Flick it back on. No lights. One spare lightbulb, turned out to be dead. Great! Given recent electric supply problems I was wondering if the floorboards in Fairfield Towers would have to start to come up again just as they were going back down so a quick investigation into what was working (or not as the case may be).

Freezer dead, fridge OK, cooker OK, fans OK, storage heaters OK when tested at 1.30am. Major problem in the computer department. One machine was coaxed back into partial life, the remainder stayed dead as doornails. The power supply, memory and hard drives had all lost their magic smoke as it turned out.

Partial life for the one machine as Windows was very definitely shaky with parts of the OS drive corrupted and some data as well. No problem, restore from backup. Well, it doesn't help when you discover that the magic smoke has also manage to escape from the DVD burner.

Perversely, I could get to Usenet and read/post but FTP and the web generally killed the machine stone dead. One of the corrupted bits of OS I suppose. I could see web pages on my own ISP funnily enough but everywhere outside I'd, at most, usually get a partial page before the blue screen of death intervened if I managed to get anything at all. FTP was the same. Own ISP OK as far as it went (they had a little problem with migrating between servers), outside also might as well not have been there.

Just occasionally though, I could see the outside world. Unfortunately not really long enough to do anything useful as the second request to outside almost invariably killed the machine. Only "almost" as I could keep a reasonable connection to one web forum and to Auran in Australia. Most peculiar.

Anyway, one machine restored with shiny new parts and a full restore done and everything back to normal, another in the process of filling up the hard drive with the important parts. Anything else can wait until next weekend as I'll have two machines on the go again.

Feeling far less grumpy now I've two machines back. Whoever planned the first lightning strike to be that close needs a very good growling at. A nice bit of distant rumbling of thunder and I'd have had time to turn the important stuff off. Harrumph.

That's the three problems over and done with for this year now. I'm now looking forward to at least six months of being disasterless.

I've an important document to get done so that's about it for now.

PtG takes the whole biscuit barrel

Sun, 15 Apr 2007 20:34:06 GMT

- or how to format an 80 gigbyte drive to 7.21 terabytes.

As usual when PtG phones and announces "I have a little problem", I just know that it is going to be, errm, novel and, probably, yet another one-off that will be unparalleled in the annals of previous little problems. On this occasion, at the end of last year, he not only took the biscuit but got the whole barrel.

The year had so far been a little more fraught than most, despite having bullied him into a backup strategy that would be the envy of the most paranoid sysadmin.

On to the story: He bought an 80GB drive at a computer fair and then toddled off home to format it, as is his wont, into a primary partition and 6 logical drives in the extended partition so he could play with Win2K as he needs a later OS than his "Win98 or nothing" for some software he's acquired.

"I told you it [ed: Win2K] doesn't get on with me" he announced on the phone at about 10pm that night. "I've formatted the drives, and bloody slow it was, but Win2K won't install. It says there's an IDE error and FDisk won't let me remove the partitions. The drive must be faulty, I'll have to take it back".

As I'd also bought two (at a tenner for brand new, shrink-wrapped, remaindered stock from a reliable bod it was worth it, useful as spares) and I'd formatted and checked mine without any problem so, yeah, right.

Drive duly dropped off a little later for me to have a look. Hooked it up to a P2 with a 6GB disk that's only formatted as C: and currently only BOINC'd but was stuffed to the gunnels with diagnostic & recovery tools.

Have a look at this screenshot from Partition Magic's Partition Info and weep.

80GB has been formatted to 7.21 Terabytes - just over 92x its real capacity. Not exactly surprising that Win2K wasn't keen to install.

How did he do it?

The pins where you choose master, slave or cable select and the jumper diagram printed on the disk are:-

... .
.....

and |-- . .-- . .-- .
|.... for master, ..... for slave, .--.. for cable select.

He took off the top horizontal one, though it's marked as always needed. Why?

"None of my other drives need to have a jumper there so I thought the diagram was wrong".

Aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

Forthcoming Welsh films

Tue, 03 Apr 2007 19:34:53 GMT

On Sunday 1st April 2007 the National Assembly of Wales announced a major boost to the Welsh film industry following the revival of interest in filming in Wales due to the success of Dr Who, which is mainly filmed in Cardiff. Film production companies such as Universal, Paramount and Warner are to remake a whole series of famous and/or classic films with a Welsh theme.

Titles that have been announced so far include:-

9½ Leeks
Porthcawl of the Wild
Trefforest Gump
Cwmando
The Lost Boyos
Twin Leeks
A Bridgend Too Far
Wild Swansea
The Pembroker
Evan Can Wait
Gowering Inferno
Be Neath the Planet of the Apes
Ystalyfera Baby!
Cerys' Heroes
Huw Green was my Valet
Anglesey with Dirty Faces
Caerphilly Dreaming
The Good, the Bad and Llanelli
An American in Powys
Huw Dares Gwynedd
The Dai who loved me
Rotting Rhyl
The Prisoner of Rhondda

Who Killed Roger Rarebit?
Who Aberdares Wins
Live And Let Dai
The Full Ponty
Dai Hard
Independence Dai
The Wizard of Oswestry
Licence to Rhyl
Crocodile Tondu
My Left Saundersfoot
CasaBlaenau
See Nipples and Dai
In Beddgelert with Madonna
George of the Mumbles
Cool Hand Look You
Look you Bach in Bangor
A Fishguard Called Rhondda
Reservoir Gogs
Sheepless in Seattle
The Eagle has Llandovery
The Magnificent Severn
Haverfordwest Was Won
Dial M4 Merthyr

I know, I know. 2.5 days late with the announcement but there was a slight problem on Sunday just after posting the announcement to a couple of newsgroups.

There's some more alternative film titles on one of my wibble pages.

One Good Turn Deserves Another

Thu, 22 Mar 2007 21:48:04 GMT

The origins of many proverbs lie, in many cases, shrouded in antiquity through having been passed down from generation to generation. Happily, detailed research has managed to find the origins of a few and the proverb "One Good Turn Deserves Another" is one of these and the story dates back to the time of the Jacobite Risings, or Rebellions as the new Government of the time were wont to call them.

The Jacobite Risings were a series of uprisings, rebellions, and wars in the British Isles occurring between 1688 and 1746. The uprisings were aimed at restoring James VII of Scotland and II of England, and later his descendants of the House of Stuart, to the throne after he was deposed by Parliament during the Glorious Revolution. The series of conflicts takes its name from Jacobus, the Latin form of James.

They continued until the last Jacobite Rebellion ("the Forty-Five"), led by Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie), was soundly defeated at the Battle of Culloden in 1746, forever ending any realistic hope of a Stuart restoration. One might have said at the time that the Jacobs' hopes where cream crackered.

One may remember that Flora MacDonald, of Bonnie Prince Charlie and rowing boats to Skye fame, had a son called Arthur who, being a wee laddie, was oft to be found playing on the beaches and feeding the birds. With bread in short supply, it was mainly porridge and haggis that Arthur threw to the birds but the culinary habits of the Scots are not relevant to this tale.

Although not relevant either, I'll also take the time to scotch the rumour that Bonnie Prince Charlie, looking for a flower for the National Emblem for Scotland, could only find a prickly specimen and gave the plant its name by saying "This'll do". It is worth mentioning that nominations for the Order of the Thistle are awarded only after a committee sit on it.

At the time, down in South Wales a bit to the south of Monmouth, there were a lot of terns nesting inland, and one large family with ten children had an Abbey named after them. I refer, of course, to Ten Tern Abbey.

These particular terns were asylum seekers who had previously lived in the Ukraine, in a city where the high population of birds had given the town its name of Ternopil.

Although Ma and Pa Tern did not follow politics and were not aware of the Rebellion, the same could not be said for their offspring of whom nine were politically active at the time.

Of the political terns, four of them would have been, if said personages were around at the time, admirers of Margaret Thatcher or Genghis Khan and were known as the Right Terns.

Another four were more of the Joe Stalin and Michael Foot persuasion and were known as the Left Terns.

The ninth political tern could never really make his mind up as to where he was politically, being swayed to and fro by the sheer rhetoric of the others and was the U Tern.

The tenth sibling wasn't particularly interested in politics and, whilst the others were politicking nine tern to the dozen, was usually found involved in charitable works and was known as the Good Tern.

Over the years, the increase in vandalism at Ten Tern Abbey, and bullying of the terns by deaf Puffins and their Hearing Gulls, became quite bad. On one particular Bank Holiday, local puffins had been picking up pebbles and dropping them down on both Abbey and Terns and no tern had been left unstoned.

Once the political terns had decided that "something had to be done", they thought that perhaps linking up with Charlie might be a good idea to over tern the current Government then this "something" might indeed be possible as he would have to reward them for their support.

Thus they decided to fly up to Scotland and meet up with Charlie to see if there was anything that they could do to help. Not having a road map as they weren't currently members of the AA or RAC, they decided the best way was to fly round the coast and ask someone for directions when they got somewhere up the west coast of Scotland.

After a long fly, they were feeling pretty tired and hungry when they spotted Flora's son throwing food to the birds so they swooped down to join in the feast.

After the food was all gone, they asked for directions as to where to find Charlie and off they flew. Well, the nine political terns did so.

The tenth tern decided that he had had enough of this flying around lark and, anyway, Charlie may tern down their suggestion that he helped them if they helped him so decided to remain with the little boy as he liked someone helping him for a change and thus the proverb mentioned up there came into existence as

"One Good Tern deserves an Arthur".

The British say "Herb" but Americans say "Erb"

Fri, 02 Mar 2007 16:51:37 GMT

Why?

Well, it's not an Herban Myth but quite true and we need to look at early printing in the Colonies to find out the reason why this came about.

As is widely known, the first Printers to establish themselves in the New World were the Cambridge Press, run by the brothers Matthew and Stephen Daye. Like the Puritan Press previously set up in Leyden by William Brewster and Edward Winslow, the intent was to publish puritan tracts and pamphlets without interference from London.

Although it gained some notoriety by publishing Pastor Samuel Danforth's "The Cry Of Sodom Enquired Into" occasioned by the execution of Benjamin Goad after being caught being over-friendly with a mare (he claimed that he had a bad cough and was just feeling a little hoarse), it is more well known for the only major work that it printed around this time – The Eliot Bible.

Incidentally, this is probably a useful place to mention that the use of Initial Capital Letters For Every Word In A Title was common not only in the New World but also in the output of the London printers.

Although the Cambridge Press did not lower itself to printing some of the most commonly required documents of the time - such as Government laws and proclamations, blank forms for law and businesses, etc., they didn't do particularly well in the religious department as most New World authors had their works printed in London.

These document staples were, for the most part, printed by the later establishing Printers, including John Foster, Richard Pierce, William Bradford plus the arrival from London of John Allen and Benjamin Harris whom, having been on the wrong side during the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, were perhaps more looking to save their skins than open up a new market.

Samuel Green, who succeeded the Dayes, was indeed obliged to also seek out other things to do to help support himself and his large family of 19 children by two wives. It didn't help that Samuel Green was widely regarded as the Hyacinth Bucket of his day, not only socially aspiring but much given to 'poshing up' people's names.

Have decided that "something had to be done" as it was becoming a pressing matter to feed his family (his folio of part time jobs wasn’t quite papering over the cracks in his income) and so he needed to get his printing business running again, Samuel looked around and, as Boston was starting to become the spine of the bookselling community, decided to move there, taking over the printing presses of another Samuel, a gent named Samuel Sewall, who had acquired them on the untimely death of John Foster.

Outside the document staples outlined above, the first item that he was asked to print was an agricultural / botanical type book detailing the herbs that would grow easily in the New World and entitled "Herbs And Those That Grow Well In New England”.

Realising that he did not have a suitable typeface with which to print the book, Samuel sailed to London to meet Fosdyke Choke, then one of the main suppliers of foundry type to Printing Houses. Samuel, because of his social propensities already mentioned, didn't pronounce Choke as would be normally expected but pronounced it as "cho-kay".

A fair amount of haggling was done when Samuel picked his typeface over the proportions of each letter of the alphabet and how many capitals of each letter were required. At the final meeting Fosdyke Choke announced that due to financial difficulties there was a problem with the moulds for the final couple of letters, one capital and one lower case, and Fosdyke offered to send them later. Samuel stormed out of the meeting after saying there was no way that he would agree to that.

Fosdyke discovered an unused mould and, remembering Samuel's final words as he stormed out, produced a number of one of the remaining pieces of type, sending it to Samuel, who just assumed that both letters were present as Fosdyke’s note said he had followed Samuel’s instructions to the letter.

On returning to the New World, he found that only one of the letters, a lower case "z", was present and he didn't have a capital “H”. Whilst a plethora of z’s would be ideal for a book for apiarists with lots of bees buzzzzzing around, they’re not much help if you need a capital H for the word "Herb" in the title. Being under a deadline, he produced the book as "Erbs And Those That Grow Well In New England".

So what did Samuel actually say?

Remembering again his pronunciation affectation for surnames, it is quite obvious he said "No Way, Choke" but it would have sounded like "No Way Cho Kay" and the rest is history.

..... Mine's the duffel coat on the end

Why do we say "an" and not "a" before words beginning with "h"?

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:59:59 GMT

The answer to the question is, of course, that the Vikings are directly responsible - read on if you want to find out exactly how and why.

It's a bit of a long tale so are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. If you don't want to read the whole thing then skip to near the end...

Our story starts in the year 793AD when the Vikings first raided Northumbria - specifically Lindisfarne Abbey - and then returned many times from about 800AD of so.

They did that well that they set up Viking War camps where Vikings from different parts of Scandinavia joined together, held exercises and probably had a jolly good time. The camps were Nonnebakken, Fyrkat and Aggersborg in Denmark and Trelleborg in Sweden. The Swedish one was, in recent times, rediscovered near the Trelleborg harbour.

They brought home glass, lengths of cloth, gold, silver and other top quality tat. Much of it of course, especially the gold and silver, were trophies of war that had been pillaged from raids against churches and monasteries. You may recall that the monks of Lindisfarne Abbey had to dig up St. Cuthbert's bones and spirit him away, along with themselves, at a rattling good pace.

However, assorted kings also gave them gold and silver as "danegelds". Nothing to do with removing dangly bits from horses but the name given to the ransom given to the Vikings to prevent them burning down farms and getting frisky with the locals. Just in France it's probable that the Vikings were given about 19500 kg silver and 310 kg gold in danegelds.

In England, King Ethelred the Unready gave the Vikings rather large danegelds too.

Ragnar Lodenbrok led a force of 120 ships and close to 5,000 men to the city of Paris in 845AD. The then alopecia King of France, "Karl the Bald", fled the city before the Vikings reached the city walls. The Vikings took prisoners and killed them outside the city walls - just to show what they were capable of.

Karl the Bald finally paid their ransom of silver and the Vikings left, but the ransom only served to show the Vikings that they could turn a nifty profit on their holidays and returned the following year. "Karl the Bald" was referred to as "Karl the Stupid" in Scandiwegia.

Large parts of France, England, Ireland and Scotland were devastated by the attacks and the folks who lived there weren't too happy either. Gold, silver and land was what many of the Vikings wanted to have - and they got it.

The Vikings travelled further than just the UK and France though - Seville, Lisbon, Sicily, Pisa and the city they believed to be Rome but was, in fact. Luna were all raided.

The Vikings branched into modern-day Russia as well. The Slavs they found there called them "Rus," which meant "rowing-away" in the Old Nordic language and is similar to the Finish word for the Swedes, "ruotsi." The appellation Rus became the name of the ruling dynasty in the 9th century, and eventually led to the name of Russia.

The Vikings spread south into Kyiv in the Ukraine, expanding along the River Dnipr to what is now Dnipropetrovs'k. When the Vikings began to tax the locals however, the revolting Ukrainians chased them out.

After the Viking rulers were gone, that region sort of descended into near anarchy. The nobles sought to end the in-fighting and the Vikings from Rus were invited back. The Vikings formed the Grand Duchy of Kyiv, the first Grand Duchy of Russia. The first capital of the Rus kingdom was in Novgorod. The Vikings then remained in control of the Dnipr region until 1610, when the Romanov dynasty took power.

The Vikings also headed West (not August) and they established thriving communities on Iceland. The slightly lisping Viking called Erik the Red, who suffered from just too much time in the saddle, was exiled in 982AD to Thorsness Thing.

Once he recovered, and after hearing the tales of a storm tossed sailor, he spent three years exploring land to the West, marking out sites for farmsteads etc. On returning to Iceland, he gained support to establish a settlement with a cunning plot of Baldrickian proportions by calling the country Greenland. Is it possible he was referring to the faces of his compatriots after a number of days bobbing round in heavy swells?

The Greenland Vikings continued exploring to the North and to the West. Indeed, cairns built by these Vikings have been found as far North as 79 degrees on Irving Island - one wonders if they were just "Doin' What Comes Natur'lly"?

Whilst it is presently unknown exactly how far to the West they reached, Leif Eriksson, the son of Erik the Red, certainly reached North America and Dr Helge Ingstad, along with his wife Anne, have discovered an early Norse settlement in Newfoundland, at a place called L'anse aux Meadows.

It should be mentioned here that the Icelandic Sagas refer to parts of the New World as Helluland (Stoneland), Markland (Woodland) and Vinland (Wineland) so it would seem likely they, at least, travelled around the American coastline. Rune stones have been found as far afield as Maine, Minnesota and Oklahoma and, although currently unproven, seem to be of Viking origin.

Indeed, there is one theory that the name "America" comes from the Old Norse "omme-rike" or "remotest land" - rike still surviving of course as, amongst others, -rige in Sverige and the Reykja- in Reykjavik and, in German, Reich.

Over in the East meanwhile, those who had settled in the Dnipr region attacked Byzantium (now Istanbul) a number of times and, during the reign of King Basil II, the Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Empire was solely composed of Vikings as Basil was so impressed with their fighting ability and fearlessness.

On the Volga, they travelled at least as far as the bend in the river where stands the City of Bulgar, obviously to trade for wheat. Bulgar is, by the way, at one end of a Silk Route from China. The Arab writer, Ibn Khordo Adbeh, describing them as 'travelling from the Occident to the Orient' and that they had reached "Hind, Sind and China".

Vikings are also known to have reached Baghdad in, as then was, Persia though whether or not they then had the rug pulled out from under them as regards exploring further South is unknown.

That they reached Baghdad is unquestionable as can be evidenced by the fact that more than 90% of all coins found in Europe from Baghdad and its environs have been found in Gotland, Sweden and the archaeological evidence in and around Baghdad.

It is unclear whether the find, during the excavation of a Viking hoard at Helgo in Sweden, of a 6th or 7th Century bronze Buddha from Northern India was plunder, or obtained further North during trading.

We also know the Vikings reached Samarkand and Tashkent in Uzbekistan, cities on the Great Silk Road from Xian to Byzantium. Mummies have been discovered in China that appear to be of a Nordic origin which seems to confirm Ibn Khordo Adbeh that the Vikings did actually reach China. The Vikings do not appear to have travelled any further East, at least there are no known records of them doing so.

To complete our circumnavigation back into America therefore, we have to leave the Vikings behind and join the T'ang Dynasty, which ruled China from 618 to 907 A.D., plus its successors "The Five Dynasties" and the "Northern Sung Dynasty, all of which the Vikings were bound to have heard. We also join a Tungus-Manchu tribe, called the Mohe, whose kingdom of Bohai extended over parts of North East China until they were ousted by those veritable collectors of top quality tat, the Mongol Hoards.

The Chinese and the Mohe had, at this time, contacts with those living in what they called Moo Min Go, the land of the hairy people. Moo Min Go is called, today, the Sakhalin Islands and the people are the Ainu. In fact, as evidenced by archaeological discoveries, the Chinese had at least a few settlements on the Sakhalin Islands.

Interestingly, there is also mention of contacts, and trade, with a people, called the Lyugui, who lived "beyond the Northern Sea". That Northern Sea is, of course, what is we now call the Sea of Okhotsk, which puts the land of the Lyugui as the Kamchatka Peninsula and the Lyugui being one of the Koryak, Tungus, Aleut or Itelmen people - perhaps either, or both, of the last two of these are most likely as the Itelmen were also known as the Lyavit.

This, of course, takes us back into North America as there was brisk trading, across the Bering Sea and Straits, with Alaska.

Thus, as you can see, the Vikings became reknowned throughout their world as great and fearsome fighters who very rarely lost a skirmish or pitched battle and were much in demand by such as the Tsars of Russia, the Emperors of China and King Basil II of Byzantium.

What, I can hear you asking, has this rather potted history of the Vikings and a circumnavigation of the globe got to do with the question, however interesting all of the foregoing might be?

"Richard III" should be the name that springs instantly to your lips!

At the Battle of Bosworth, Richard III was on the losing side (he lost to the Duke of Richmond, who later became Henry VII, as I'm sure you recall) which brings me back to the Vikings, or Norsemen.

Wishing for some more fearsome fighters, the famous words he uttered as the battle was lost were actually "A Norse. A Norse. My kingdom for a Norse". Unfortunately, his chronicler was a bit deaf and wrote it down as "An horse..."

And that is why we use 'an' and not 'a' before words beginning with "h".

..... I'll get me coat.

PtG strikes again

Fri, 19 Jan 2007 15:33:02 GMT

For the benefit of those who haven't seen me mention him before: PtG is my personal bete noire for things computery. He is actually a very nice man (but doesn't work for the AA), it's just that he will fiddle with his computers and he regularly breaks things - whereupon I get a phone call at odd hours of the day and night that begin with "I've got a little problem..." and he never, ever, writes down the error messages so gives the version of what he thought it meant (which 99 times out of a 100 is wrong). If I'm lucky he rings from the phone by the computer, usually I'm not that lucky.

He'd just re-installed Windows 98SE on a machine (he does re-installing a lot, mainly due to the above) and rang with the dreaded "I've got a little problem..." This time he couldn't find one fo the CDs with the installers for some of the stuff he always installs - whether he needs it or not it gets installed "just in case" - and one program was misbehaving.

We started with the misbehaving program - WindowWasher was apparently complaining that his computer was locked so he needed to unlock it. How did he do it? Totally new one on me, he was sure the message said his computer was locked. Having sent him off to run the program and report back the exact message, it turned out it was complaining that one file he wanted to delete was locked!

After another round trip whilst I listened to the silence on the phone line, the file he wanted to delete was IKernel.dll in his temporary folder - that's one of InstallShield's dlls so a quick question of whether he was installing something got the expected answer "yes". He's stopped at one of the screens to run WindowWasher to "clean the system before installing anything else " - this on a shiny new install of Windows! Sheesh!

One down, $DEITY only knows how many to go as I wasn't sure what he wanted me to do about the CD he couldn't find - I half expected him to ask if I knew where it was. No, all he wanted to know was the web addresses to download the programs. AVG was easy - point him at http://www.grisoft.com/ - at which point the phone went quiet and I realised he'd gone off to download it! When he finally came back, I suggested he put the phone down and ring back from the phone by the computer. It was getting on for midnight by now BTW.

We rattled through most of the rest but "Mazola" and "Skynet" had me baffled so we left them to the end and went back to them. PtG claims never to watch films on the haunted fishtank but "Skynet" is the computer network in Terminator and, the night before, what was on the TV? You've guessed correctly - Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines. After a bout of "Twenty Questions" to work out the program, "Skynet" turned out to be "Skype" from http://www.skype.com so all done and dusted bar one.

Mazola is the name for a brand of vegetable oils and I doubted he had been frying his CPU. It's like playing a game of "Twenty Questions" at times Q: which program? A: the one you gave me the latest version recently (good start that) Q: what does it do? A: it's for the Internet (errm, well that doesn't help much more), Q: what do you do with it? A: go to websites (penny drops).

Amidst a fit of the giggles, I did manage to point him to the right place for the download.

Have you worked out the program yet? Firefox http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/ comes from Mozilla!

PtG has taken the biscuit on a number of occasions when he spectacularly outdoes his previous efforts but Mazola? He gets the whole packet this time.

I think I need a lie down.

Strange units and conversions

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 07:55:06 GMT

Apart from the units of length, mass, volume, time etc. in common use such the mile, pound, litre, seconds (says he shamelessly mixing his base units), there are a whole raft of older and / or outlandish sounding units around.

For example: we have the funt - which is a Russian unit of weight which comes from the same latin root as the English pound. (those familiar with ROT13 will realise why it has a merriement value). The perch is a unit of length the same as a rod or a pole, (5.5 yards) or a 24.75 cu. ft. volume of stone. The related French perche is either a length of about 6.394 yards or an area of about 40.889 sq. yards.

Then there's a whole raft of things like the slug, glug, pond, pood and the pud. If you really want to get obscure, you can measure lengths by the spat (not the same as measuring the distance you can spit!), your milk could be delivered in a bottle by the pottle and you could measure the power output of your microwave by the emu of power (which is the abwatt but the former sounds better) not, of course, that you are likely to fit a whole emu into a microwave let alone the 80 trillion that you'd likely need to power one.

All these interesting units do have one benefit. They can provide a whole new depth to giving values for speed, distance travelled etc and, providing that you remember only to convert between units of equal type, also be used in derived units. For example, many will already know the yard as a unit of length and the atmosphere as a unit of pressure. I wonder how many have come across the barn (and, not exactly surprisingly, the smaller shed) as a unit of measurement for area?

Knowing the formula work = force x distance then, by picking suitable units during the calculations, we can discover that one barn yard atmosphere outputs about 9.265 x 10^(-24) J - and you'd need a lot of very smelly barnyards to power the kettle.

On a similar note, we can readily discover that a car that does 40 miles per gallon is very close to 83 rods per perch so the fisherman with that vehicle is not going to catch many fish and the power consumption of a 60W lightbulb is equal to 180 slug furlongs per fortnight.

If you want to try your own hand at turning everyday units into some of the more obscure ones, then take a look at my Unit Conversion pages that will do the calculations for you - remember that you can only convert like with like - you can't turn a length into a unit of mass for example. Not quite complete yet as the units on each side need to be finally sorted but they do work.

Windows Update

Wed, 04 Oct 2006 20:51:17 GMT

Pain In The Proverbials.

Only have W2k on C: on this machine (which has crept up to 3GB out of the 4GB on the partition, sheesh[1]) programs and data are elsewhere. Downloaded an update to Office 2003 (all 100Mb of it) plus a couple of Win2K security fixes and they failed to install. Reason: it had taken up the whole 1GB doing its thing and I had just 512 bytes left. Why the bloody thing won't use my temp folder (X:\junk\ in my case) and insists on doing everything in C: is ridiculous.

Damn thing flatly refused to boot after that, normal ("not enough free space on C:") or safe mode ("cannot find partition" - which really meant not enough free space). Dual boot into Win2K+3 on D: fails.

Recovery Console, Format C:, restore C: from backup, fails, find RC had done FAT32 and I need NTFS, convert to NTFS after hunting for W2K CD, restore C: from backup, move swap file from E: to X:, increase partition to 5.5GB by nicking almost all space from E:, try again, install updates, move GlobalMapper from G: to T:, shrink G: moving up F: and giving space to E:, nick a bit of space back from C: to E:, return 1GB swap file to E:. 2K and 2K+3 both working again. What a palaver.

Minor irritations afterwards like Outcrock was default mail client instead of Turnpike and my locked down (very) Restricted User was back to a default bog standard windows definition of "Restricted User" - a good security update that. I'm sure a few more nitpicks will come out of the woodwork.

[1] and that's even with moving the 'uninstall-the-update' folders to another partition on a regular basis.

Got me wondering though as to how the average user would have coped. I've been around computers since I was let loose on an IBM360 in 198<mumble> so the above was merely a bit of hassle for me. Most people don't delve into the nitty-grittythough...

Photo Album: A few oddities

Wed, 27 Jun 2007 07:40:33 GMT

A few oddities

Funny place for a sign...

Packaging for a Desperate Dan Cow Pie? No, an "own brand" pizza!

Custom List: Interesting sites

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:19:59 GMT

Interesting sites

Custom List: My other pages

Tue, 10 Jul 2007 05:35:24 GMT

My other pages