Tag Archives: technology

Another Blogger Returns

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Duck – Arnot Hill Park

It must be he season for it. After all the recent returnees arlingwoman turned up out of the blue and the word “lagomorph” re-entered my vocabulary.

It’s a bit like Highlander – all the old bloggers are gathering, though we will be carrying pens rather than swords and the Queen soundtrack is likely to be drowned out by clicking joints, though that might just be me. I also doubt that anyone will get their head cut off. In fact, now i come to think of it, it’s not a great analogy. However, it was interesting reading about it and looking at the alternative casting possibilities and reviews. As a piece of prose that last paragraph is, I admit, lacklustre, but as procrastination it offered many fine lagomorph burrows.

It has suddenly turned warmer and the winter weight duvet seemed a bit much last night. However, according to the forecast it will be colder by the end of he day so there is no point risking a change of bedding.

Fox – Arnot Hill

So,  a blogger returns, an old word reappears, I muse on a cult film and I mention the weather. I was excited to see an old friend and look at lagomorphs but after that it was all down hill. Is there any wonder that I find myself questioning the meaning of life?

Looking forward, what does the day hold? Breakfast. It’s going to be cereal again. Possibly some writing, because I’m feeling brighter and more active. Julia and my sister are going to see an exhibition in the Cathedral this afternoon and are dropping me off to have an X-Ray on the way. I’m having a foot looked at.

Not sure why, but I expect all will be revealed. It’s the sort of thing I try to avoid as it will take hours, involve waiting in a room full of sick people and will most likely produce no useful result. And I’m going to end up getting a taxi home. I don’t like being ill, but I really hate spending money.

Sculptures at Arnot Hill

It’s a bit like several other things I have avoided over the years. The NHS has more equipment than it knows what to do with and they keep trying to use it on me because they think I have nothing better to do than arrange my life around an endless carousel of scans and tests and X-Rays. And when you get the results they usually come in a letter telling you that this result applies only to the instant of the test and you may already be terminally ill with something really nasty but it isn’t their fault.

I made the mistake of using one of the NHS services last night. It pinged me with an appointment time and asked if I wanted to download the letter. I don’t usually work this sort of thing from my phone but I decided to give it a try. I pressed “yes” and it was ten minutes and 360 downloads before it stopped downloading things dredged out of my computer. It had never occurred to me that the two things had linked up, or that one would empty itself into the other. I’m actually quite perturbed that pressing a button on an NHS app can result in a massive transfer of files I’ve never agreed to. It’s probably the Chinese or the CIA, so somewhere at the end of the world (geographically speaking rather than Armageddon) there’s an intelligence analyst trying to make sense out of 300 pictures of medallions and 60 articles on writing poetry.

Female Marsh Harrier – Blacktoft Sands

This is too much to cope with. I am going straight back to the nineteenth century as soon as I have had breakfast.

Todays pictures will be plucked from random February shots.

It was so warm yesterday Julia saw a Brimstone flying.

Little Grebe (Dabchick)

 

 

 

50!

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So, last time I mentioned acceptances, I was on 48 and saying that 50 was no big deal as it was just a number and didn’t reflect on the quality of the poetry. Fifty is still just a number, but after two more acceptances, it’s now a number I have reached. I’m now looking at the list and wondering what the chances are of me hitting 55. It won’t make me a better writer, but it will be a bigger number. What makes it even better was that the two acceptances were from a magazine that has previously been  a bit hard to get into. I won’t count too many chickens before they hatch – an acceptance is a momentary thing. In a couple of months they may well be hard to get into again. However, it does give me faith in the power of practice and persistence.

The downside is that I have looked at the haibun they accepted and I can see a major flaw in it. I hate it when that happens. However, when I tried to think of ways to get rid of the flaw I introduced others, so it will have to do.

I’m currently looking for someone to put a new roof on the conservatory. It was built by a company who went conveniently bankrupt and it has never really been satisfactory. They say that things like bereavement, divorce and moving house are stressful life events. Is it a coincidence that they all involve the legal profession? I wonder. Anyway, they never seem to include finding decent builders in these lists, and I can tell you I find that quite stressful. We will have to see how that goes.

My new batteries arrived yesterday so I can start baking again. That’s a new problem for me. We had multiple sets of scales on the farm so always had a set available. Now, on my own, a flat battery (and inability to find the spare which I know is somewhere around, renders me unable to weigh things. I’m sure I still have the old set somewhere around. They aren’t quite as accurate or convenient, but they work without batteries. This is something I should have considered before moving over to technology.

A Grumpy Old Man of the Neo-Carolingian Period

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Pigeon

I thought about using a title such as Sun, Sea, Sand and Samphire, but as there is no sea, no sand and very little sun, it seemed cynical and unfair. To be honest, apart from a rumination on why we eat samphire (salty, bitter and woody are three of the kinder words I would use) there wouldn’t be much about samphire either. I once ate foraged samphire while I was wild camping (or ate samphire while I was camping, if you remove the 21st century vocabulary, which tends to over-complicate quite simple things).  I had no kitchen facilities and didn’t wash it well, so you can add gritty to my lexicon of samphire stories. In other words I eat it when it is free or a couple of times a year when I feel I should add some variety to our lives.

Yesterday was (First World) Hell. having been ill and managed my time badly, I struggled to make seven of my nine planned submissions. Oh, the struggles of a poet. It’s not a very artistic way to go about my art, but if I didn’t impose targets I’d probably be writing about writer’s block instead. It’s all about regular practice, and the phenomenon where having ideas brings out new ideas. One editor actually used the word “brilliant” about one of my submissions a few months ago. Another used the word “greetings card” a few months before that, just to preserve a sense of balance. However, I do feel that regular writing is the key to success, and setting targets makes me write poetry. Left to myself I would just write about coins, medallions and history. And civil servants, technology and the disappointing nature of my life compared to my dreams and the projections of 1960s sci-fi programmes.

Greylag Goose Arnot Hill Park Arnold

Note the addition of (First World) above. I am well-fed, not in danger of being bombed and can can walk down the street (as can my neighbours) without fear of being picked up by masked bounty hunters and sent “home” due to a minor mistake in my paperwork. My children had access to food and healthcare and grew up in a world largely free from violence. I’m actually beginning to feel a little guilty about how easy my life is compared to other people around the world.

When that mythical 22nd Century PHD student, to whom I often refer, starts to read my blog as part of his thesis on Grumpy Old Men of the Neo-Carolingian Period  I wonder what he will make of my concerns.  Of course, by that time he may actually be wearing furs to protect himself from a nuclear winter and making tools by chipping bits of flint as the wolves circle his camp. In that case I would be torn (assuming that I had mastered the art of time travel, which is unlikely, as I struggle with keeping track of keys and maintaining my keyboard in crumb-free condition) between being sad to see what a mess we had made of it, or happy at being right about the mess we had made of it of it.

Arnot Hill – Alder Tree

 

 

 

Erratic Service Ahead

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Robin – Ready for Action

I’ve not been very structured over the last few weeks, with a poor record of reading blogs and many missed days of writing. Sorry about that, but the move, the cold and  planning/researching of articles has been soaking up my time.

I now have some poetry to write for the end of the month and a little more for December. At the back of my mind I’m sure there should be more, but it’s not on the list and I’m not going to search for more work at the moment.

It would be lovely to be one of those people who had a routine or a plan, or both, and I sometimes seem to get to that point. It never lasts. Generally as soon as i start to think I have acquired some good habits, it all falls apart.

Guinea Fowl

At the moment I am still looking for an internet service provider for the bungalow.  It is an area filled with deals and bargains and enticement and, particularly, with claims of high speeds. I checked our speed yesterday. It is satisfactory. If the various claims are to be believed I can get the same speed cheaper at the new place, or I can get more capability for the same money. We probably don’t need that, because two pensioners (one of whom would be happy to live in the age of steam and canals) with a couple of laptops and a digital TV don’t need a lot of capacity. I don’t even have my phone set up for emails, so most modern technology is wasted on me. If people want me they can ring me. That’s what a telephone is for. If they can’t be bothered to ring, it isn’t important.

Wren at Rufford Abbey

The ideal date for me to have lived would be about the 1860s or 1870s. We had mainly got rid of cholera and typhoid, we had trains and the telegraph, postal services were efficient and it only took 28 minutes to send a message from London to India. Unfortunately, balancing these advances were a number of signs that the country was going soft – you could no longer set mantraps in your grounds, transportation of criminals would cease in 1868 and even the power to imprison people for debt would be restricted after 1869.  Still, no time in history is perfect, is it?

Yellowhammer – Dearne Valley

Photos are from march 2017 – some spring birds.

Pigs & Poppies

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Pig Gate Guard

Julia went for a walk yesterday. She came back with potato samosas and vegetable pakora from a vegan stall at the food market they hold monthly in Sherwood. That’s Sherwood, the Nottingham suburb where we live, rather than Sherwood the semi-mythical Forest where Robin Hood lived. The Wiki entry sells us a bit short – the churches section should include a synagogue and a mosque and we used to have two cinemas (the one from around 1912 is still standing) and a cigarette factory.

She stopped on the way back to add a Paneer Saag Wala and a lovely fluffy naan bread from a local takeaway. The Paneer Saag Wala was only pureed spinach, garlic and paneer but it was extremely good. I could have eaten more, and you don’t generally hear me say that about vegetarian food. I am going to look at ways of making something similar. I’m not sure I have the equip,emt for pureeing spinach, but will have to see.

Group effort at Lemon and Poppy seed biscuits in the shape of Scottish Poppies. The seed scattering technique varied in success. The poppy cutters were purchased from the Scottish Poppy Appeal – they are a different shape from the English ones which have a two-lobed design. The British legion, who attend to the English and Welsh Poppy Appeal, don’t do a cutter.

I also had trouble with my keyboard. I could still use the laptop keyboard but the other one stopped working. It has been giving trouble for a few days. The reason is that I have had to use an adaptor to give me extra USB slots. I have been charging camera batteries and the new charger works off a USB socket. As with so many cheap electricals, it has a hit and miss approach to working.

Perhaps, to be more accurate, I should say I have been using an adaptor because I’m lazy. It was on my desk so it was easier to use it than go and find a plug that would allow me to use a mains socket.

As I wrote adaptor for the first time in this piece, the new, irritating, spellchecker leapt into life.  Apparently, it’s wrong, so I looked it up. I always thought that adaptor was a piece of electrical equipment and adapter, not that I’ve ever felt to need the word adapter before today, was someone who adapted something. It isn’t. Nor is it just an American/British English thing, because adapter is the more commonly used word in both languages. Not that it means anything because the whole nation has had its education neglected for so long, and has watched so much American TV, that our entire lexicon has become corrupted.

Salt dough Poppies. We painted them for display. The cutter is plastic so it is OK for salt dough. The ordinary cutters, as we found, rusted after being used for salt dough shapes.

It appears that the Guardian style guide sides with me, though Fowler adopts his usual eay-going approach and is easy about such things.

I’m not sure whether that falls under “irritations in modern life” or “new things I learned today”. Whichever it is, the new spellchecker definitely come under “irritations in modern life”.

It also falls into the category of “poor educational standards in the Uk”. When I was taught English grammar teaching was considered a sin, I have grown up able to write grammatically because I have read good books and because i (unwillingly) did Latin. For some reason Latin grammar was fine, English was out.

Photos are more shots from past Septembers. Top one is a pig made from a silage bale – you can get coloured wraps, and Julia and the group applied a appendages.

Poppies on the windowsill – this one is from November – which is why we started them in September.

 

 

Julia the Explorer

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Mute Swan at Orton Mere

By the time I’d been to work and hacked away at the keyboard constructing my slideshow for Monday, I was so tired I went to bed instead of blogging. This morning when I got up I had a cooked breakfast provided by Julia and managed to fritter a good deal of the day away watching Murder She Wrote and talking about Julia’s trip to Peterborough yesterday.

Starting from the end of the road we will be living in, she and my sister walked round all the local amenities – chip shop, Chinese takeaway, library, lakes, shops, gyms and bus routes. That is my order, she has a slightly different view of what is important.  They walked over 11 miles. She did tell me what it was in steps, but it was a big number and I forgot it. She has a watch that tells her this sort of stuff. I have a watch that tells me approximately what time it is, but I only wear it if I have an appointment.

Orton Mere – Dramatic filter

I always have to issue a warning with Julia and the number of steps she takes, because my sister and Number One Son, when walking with her, always do fewer steps. It’s because she has tiny little legs, and she has to take a lot more steps.  When walking with the kids she has been known to break into a trot to keep up.

The facilities. she says, are fine and she is now  lot more relaxed about moving.

Meanwhile, after reading the blog back to myself I am worried about my family. Where did all this reliance on watches come from? And why do you need a watch to tell you how far you have walked or whether you slept well the previous night? Admittedly, I measure  my walking in very small numbers these days, but I tell the time by how hungry I am and if I don’t yawn I know I slept well. Eventually, I’m convinced, the human race will die out because solar flares knock out the internet and nobody knows what to do without their gadgets.

Edward VII pillar box – Orton Longueville. From the days when we were happy to write a letter and wait, rather than email and then stare at the screen.

The Letter Between “H” and “J”

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Warning: it sounds like it could be one of those posts about teambuilding (there is no I in team, etc) but it isn’t. What you see is what you get with me. No subtlety, no metaphor, just a blog post about a missing letter. And how bad technology is – but most of my posts eventually get round to that anyway.

Churchill once talked about Russia being “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. Computers are the same for me. I first used one when I was 29 and less than a year later finished my computer education, such as it was. Eventually I bought an Amstrad word processor then, after a few false starts, what now seems like a massive desktop computer. I never did learn how to use one properly.

Last night I read some blog posts and tried to leave a comment on one by LA. It went OK but I noticed the “i” wasn’t working. So I didn’t leave a comment and changed keyboards. Still no “i”.

Missing letters are a constant hazard in my typing because I use a home-made docking arrangement for my laptop since the desktop froze up on me.   Unlike those sophisticated set-ups you see on Amazon, mine uses several yards of USB cables, a keyboard balanced on a tupperware box and a scattering of junk. This often causes what I call “differential pressure” on the keys. Or in other words, it wobbles.

If you subscribe to the view that a cluttered workspace is a sign of high intelligence (I know this is true because I read it on the internet) I assure you that my workspace is close to genius. However, if you believe in order and cleanliness and self-discipline you will be deeply alarmed by what you see. Best just to gloss over this and move on.

For those of you with nothing better to do than look at badly taken pictures of untidy desks (the lighting is “all wrong” as we professionals say) I have enclosed a shot at the bottom of the post.  The top shot is Cromer Pier, which is tidier and more sophisticated.

I checked it out on Google, and found that I was able to write “i” in the search box. So I tried Open Office, and writing a post on WP. They all allowed me the use of the “i”.

This morning, reading a post by Paol Soren, I found I was still unable to type “i” in the comments. As you can tell, I have no difficulty in writing it once I get back into my post.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Does anyone have any idea how to fix it?

That’s a slightly sanitised view – I removed the pile of letters from bank, and NHS as they warn you about displaying this sort of stuff online. OK, and the screwed up food wrappers. But apart from that and the fact that this is just, like an iceberg of chaos, the tip, it is a fairly accurate picture. 

Technology Troubles

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Two in one day – I am spoiling you.

I see there’s a button on the bar above my writing which promises “Distraction-free Writing Mode”. I just pressed it but the kids next door are still shouting so it is obviously another WP lie. I was hoping for a flash of lightning followed by silence.

Looking at the row of buttons, I’ve just realised I don’t know what most of them do. Even worse, from the point of view of the perpetually curious child that used to live in my head, I don’t care. I have more technology than I need. This is a sad day for me.

However, having realised this, I think I may stop writing and do some cookery. Pasta bake beckons. It’s nutritious, easy, cheap and can contain both salmon (which I have) and cheese (which I like). Actually, I will reheat the salmon fillet and let Julia have it all. I will stick to pasta bake without salmon. it’s not unselfish of me, I just don’t like salmon that much and would rather have vegetables. On the other hand, it’s been there a few days now and if it poisons her I will look bad. I might have to share it just to give myself an alibi. Life is full of difficult choices.

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

I’ve actually been looking at the idea of taking Omega 3 pills. It’s the option for  man who wants Omega 3 but doesn’t really like fish. But, I ask myself, do I want Omega 3 so much that I’m willing to buy pills. Probably not.

Anyway, I have enough pill problems at the moment. My INR shot up according to my latest result and I’ve been told to miss a day before starting Warfarin again. This will be the effect of the steroid I have been taking, which is very annoying. Having to make a choice between breathing or bleeding is very difficult.

My phone just stopped working. It happened yesterday but I didn’t realise, just switched to using the shop landline and assumed it was a temporary glitch. Today it still wouldn’t connect, and we now have no landline.Yes, it was time for our old friend “switch it off then switch it back on again”. I never had to do that with my old Nokia. Bloody technology!

Photo by Anna Shvets on Pexels.com

Monday Miscellany

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Julia as Lifeguard – Britannia Pier, Great Yarmouth

I knew I had some photos of Julia sticking her head through the hole of a “stick your head through a hole in a board with a humorous design” board. I’m sure they have a slightly crisper name but I can’t think of it.

We have some with the board she designed herself – the farmer from Quercus Community, but I can find them at the moment.

And another one. 

I managed to finish my paper flag display and it looked quite reasonable. Unfortunately the speaker had brought so much stuff, in an attempt to sell his book and postcard stock, that there wasn’t much room for member displays. I had several people look, and at the end a couple asked if I could bring it back next time, as there had been so much to see this time that they hadn’t been able to have a good look.

And again . . .

The talk was quite interesting, being a “Then and Now” look at various sites round Nottingham, comparing the modern view with the Edwardian view. Some of the “Now” photos were cunningly shot and it had clearly taken a lot of effort to track down some of the views. My particular favourites were two pubs by the riverside. In Edwardian times they ran ferries and all the Edwardian photographer did was to take the ferry across, take the shot and take the ferry back. Using public footpaths, the modern journey to the correct viewpoint was a lot more onerous in 2022. One railway station, long closed and demolished, remains as a piece of waste ground. It is only accessible these days by taking a train and photographing on the move.

Southwold Pier

The main talking point of the evening will be the breakdown of technology. The flat screen we use wouldn’t take the presentation. We suspect it cannot cope with all the images. It would show one or two then close down and restart. Forrtunately, the speaker had seven copies of the book with him so we sat round in small huddles looking at the pictures in the books as he talked us through it.

Sometimes you don’t need all that technology.

Pictures are of Julia, as mentioned. Apart from the poppy brooch. And the stomp. The brooch is made from safety pins and beads.

Poppy Brooch – beads and safety pins

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My New Phone (I Hate Technology)

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Yes, I got a new phone. The old one was going wrong after many years of faithful service so I contacted Tesco, asked about a  free upgrade and spent forty minutes on the phone typing a conversation that would have been a lot easier, and quicker, if we’d spoken. Having badly underestimated the time needed to do this I had to hand the conversation over to Julia because I was due at the doctor. Having allowed 15-20 minutes, I ws surprised it took over 40 minutes just to arrange an upgrade.

It arrived a day later, which was brilliant service. I opened it, and that was where everything went wrong.

Bee on Red Valerian

I couldn’t get the card out of my old phone. I couldn’t find any way to get the back off so I resorted to the internet. There were several You Tube videos about it, but none of them were quite right. Finally I found a video from seven years ago and that told me. It involves a great deal of brute force. And that was just the start . . .

My phone seems to have gone wrong because the maker withdrew support from it, which explains my trouble with texts. On a planet full of electronic waste, they are selling phones and then deciding when it will become obsolete . Without the intervention of Motorola, it would have lasted for years..

Then I found I needed to be linked to the internet to do anything, and needed a Google account and a Microsoft subscription.

Marmalade Hoverfly

Marmalade Hoverfly

It’s like a tightening net. You pay for a phone, but someone else switches it off. You just want to make calls but you have to sell your soul to corporate America and tether your life to the Internet by a data umbilical. So far I have resisted but it comes at a cost of multiple messages about finishing setting the phone up. I’m also having to enter all my phone numbers manually. I am not going to live my life as an appendage of the internet just because everyone else does. One day I’m sure I’ll wake up and find that most of the rest of the world has been taken over by zombified users of so-called smart phones.

Julia, Sutton-on-Sea

And just about finally, I rang Julia this afternoon. I didn’t get hr but a message came up on my phone  screen about signing up for video calling. It must be the worse thing in the world. I don’t want people ringing and having a look at the clothes I wear when relaxing at home, or the woeful state of the housework. Anyway, I still hold my phone to the side of my head,  all the caller will see is a section of moving beard. Or my ear. Neither is a great view.

My new phone case arrives tomorrow. I’ve been walking round all day with it wrapped in bubble wrap as it is  big delicate screen. You never had any fear of breakage with a Nokia.

And did I mention it took me over 24 hours to even find the clock?

Pictures are selected because they cheer me up.

Seal at Donna Nook.