Blue Witch

Driving madness: two true stories from the last 24 hours

Scene: driving down a B-road (ie a comparatively minor road, but larger than a country lane), in Mi1dred, this afternoon in the freezing (literally) cold sunshine, while checking out a pre-planned route for a mid-summer run for Mi1dred and her cousins (yes, we seem to have been coerced into that role...).

Characters:

Us, driving at Mi1dred's safe maximum, particuarly in the conditions, of just over 30mph. A couple of cars were stacked up behind us, and we were driving down the main road, about 300m from a major crossroads.

Pink sports car, waiting to turn left out of the right-hand (as we were driving) road at the crossroads.

Black large/high car, about about 3 cars back.

Plot:

Huge black vehicle decides it can't wait another second and pulls out to overtake the couple of cars in front of it, with us at the front of the queue. Pink sports car, having checked right and found no traffic, begins to pull out to turn left onto the main road. Something must have made pink sportscar man look left at the last minute and he braked, which just allowed the large black overtaking vehicle to squeeze between it and us.

And I mean just. We're so nearly not here to tell the tale.

One of the main things one learns when undertaking motorcycle training is not to ever think about overtaking (even with the manoeuvrability of a motorcycle, and even when the road is apparently completely clear) where there is a junction joining the main road, on either side. That and always checking in every direction several times before pulling out. Clearly neither Mr Black Gas Guzzler nor Mr Pink Sportscar had done motorcycle training. Or had any common sense...

Come the day of the BW Party, all motorists will have to learn to ride a motorcycle. I know it made me a better, and safer, car driver.

**********************************

Scene: driving down a narrow (but with room for two vehicles to safely pass), muddy, country lane late yesterday afternoon.

Characters:

Me, driving along in a normal road position (but not in the edge, with its hidden potholes and mud made by HGVs and 4 WDs from what used to be the verges), but leaving plenty of space for another normal/similarly-sized vehicle to pass,

Early 30s Nouveau Riche Male in white new BMW 11-series (or whatever is the biggest number they're up to these days), driving along, much faster than me, smack bang in the middle of the road.

We both stop. He winds down his window and leans out, shouting and gesturing. I lock my doors, raise my eyebrows, and shake my head slowly from side to side.

Dialogue:

Him: Oy! You'll have to reverse, my car is white and new!

Me: [ignores him]

Him: OY! YOU DEAF? YOU HAVE TO GO BACK, MY CAR IS NEW AND WHITE!

Me: [sitting nonchalantly, ignoring him]

He inched forward, pulling more onto his side of the road, until his window was almost level with mine.

Him: OY! I SAID, YOU NEED TO GO BACK!

Me: [pressing button to lower electric window slightly, very calmy, and very slowly] Yes, I know, YOUR car is new and white, and mine is old and dirty, so *I* must therefore be a lesser person, and so need to reverse because YOU don't want to pull into the edge in your MUCH LARGER vehicle, so we can pass easily. YOUR car may be new and white, but mine is driven by someone with a BRAIN at the top of their neck and NOT A PENIS. [dramatic pause] So [smiling in a sickeningly sweet manner] if YOU are in a hurry I suggest, YOU find reverse gear in your new large white car and exhibit a few manners, eh?

After about 10 seconds of BW hard stare and fixed smile and full eye contact he slammed his white extension into reverse and went back a few yards to where the road widened slightly. I drove past him, very slowly, rotating my hand even more slowly in a Queen-type gesture. He was bright red, and, had I chosen to look more carefully than I did, probably shaking with rage. I was totally calm.

Him and his ilk drive down our lane, with its much-battled-for 40mph limit, at about 70mph, all the time. I love forcing them into submission occasionally.

***********************

It seems to me that more and more vehicles are driving in the middle of the road, too fast, and with absolutely no regard for other road users. And as for safety, well, large modern cars breed complacency methinks.

The Friday Question

I've found some newish research on handedness, so, let's try it out. I'll put in a link to the original research early next week.

Imagine you are at the theatre or cinema, and you have free choice of seating. The room slopes gently up from the front to the back, in the normal manner. It is divided into four, with a horizontal gangway half-way up/down, and a vertical gangway centrally from front to rear (ie it's like an England flag, with the red cross being the gangways).

Using your left/right as you are sitting looking at the stage or screen, and assuming the room is otherwise almost empty, where do you choose to sit? Please give your top two choices, and your own handedness.

I'd go for front row of rear left quadrant, next to the right-hand gangway, then back row of the front left quadrant, again next to the right-hand gangway. I am right handed.

Update: As promised, the original report:

"Right-handers sit to the right of the movie screen to optimise neural processing of the film

Although our bodies appear largely symmetrical on the outside, the way our brains are organised and wired is rather more lop-sided. This is obvious to us in relation to handedness, whereby the brain is better at controlling one hand than the other. The idea that, for many of us, the left-hemisphere is dominant for language is also widely known. However, functional asymmetry between the brain hemispheres also affects our behaviour in more subtle ways that are still being explored. The latest example of this comes from Japan where Matia Okubo has shown that right-handers have a preference for sitting to the right of the cinema screen, but only when they are motivated to watch the film. The finding is consistent with the idea that in right-handers, the right-hemisphere is dominant for processing visual and emotional input. By sitting to the right of the screen, the film is predominantly processed by the right-hemisphere and the suggestion is that, without necessarily realising it, right-handers are choosing to sit in an optimal position for their brain to digest the movie.

Okubo presented 200 students with a grid showing the seats available in a cinema (a central area was shown as occupied; the screen was at the top of the grid). In the first experiment, all the students were told that the film was enjoyed by friends and critics, with half also told that the story was sad and depressing and to imagine that they'd rather avoid seeing it. For students who only heard the recommendation, the right-handers were far more likely to choose a seat to the right of the screen (74 per cent did so), whereas the left-handers and mixed-handers didn't show a bias for one side or the other.

For the students who were put off the film, none showed a preference for the right-hand seats, regardless of their handedness. This suggests that we only choose an optimal seat for our brain organisation when we're motivated to watch the film. Left-handers and mixed-handers are known to have a more balanced distribution of function across their hemispheres so this could explain why they didn't show the opposite bias to the right-handers.

A second experiment was nearly identical, but this time half the students were told the film was excellent and depressing, whereas the other students were simply told they wouldn't enjoy it. Again, when they were motivated to watch the film, even a depressing one, the right-handers showed a bias for seats to the right of the screen. 'People tend to adopt the most effective manner in which their hemispheric functions can be utilised,' Okubo said, adding that: 'It is tempting to think that some other undiscovered behavioural asymmetries can also be discovered through this approach'.

This new research comes after a past study showed that adults with a more artistic, less analytic thinking style (associated with the right hemisphere) were more likely to sit on the right-hand side of the classroom; and another that showed people are more likely to exhibit the left side of their face (controlled by the right hemisphere) when asked to express emotion in a family photo, but to show their right profile when asked to pose as a scientist.

Okubo, M. (2010). Right movies on the right seat: Laterality and seat choice. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24 (1), 90-99 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/acp.1556

Author weblink: http://www3.psy.senshu-u.ac.jp/~mokubo/matiaE.html"

From the outset I didn't think I agreed with the research, and your comments (although comparatively few in number) also suggest that it is flawed. There seems to be at least one uncontrolled variable acting here, which, as Ham points out in the comments, could be the side of the road people drive on.

Please make some effort

Mr BW is currently interviewing for a new member of his team.

The second candidate who turned up today had his shirt top button undone under his tie, jacket pockets bulging with seemingly half his worldly possessions, and was generally scruffy and unkempt.

A fundamental requirement for the role is to be well presented, well organised, and an excellent communicator. Part of the test for the candidates is to correct a written statement for readability, grammar etc.

Mr BW emailed me the result of this candidate's test:

The companies current telephone system urgently needs replacing and this project has been given a high pryority. There are still outstanding problems with the [brand] link between the [x]s & [y]s sites.. This makes the requirement for new and improved tellephone system’s even more urgent!

I think there are more errors in there than there were in the original piece provided for correction.

Now, this isn't a junior role, for an inexperienced person. It is a job that will pay around one-and-a-half times national average wage, with commensurate expectations and responsibilities.

I thought there was currently a shortage of jobs?

And does anyone actually have a CV that is truthful any more? With more and more employers refusing to give ex-employees even oral references these days, it seems to me that a fundamental requirement to get on is to be a good and convincing liar. If no-one is going to be able to confirm or deny the Grimm's Fairy Tales you write in an application, why wouldn't you pretend you'd been a section manager when you actually only ever made the tea? And there are now so many different qualifications around that even *I* can't keep up (lots more new ones and replacement ones coming on-stream in the next few years too), and I've worked in education all my life, for the last 21 in an assessment, training, inspectorial, intervention and advisory role, so what hope have employers got?

The Wisdom of the Ages

I don't know how old you have to be before you realise that you don't have to take nonsense from the rest of the world.

Today I refused to sit all day in a village hall that was smelly, through being half-painted and filthy, because the local supermarket's charity team had messed up their repainting project (largely, I suspect, because they weren't supervised at all by the Village Big-Wigs who'd asked for their free services). Paint is one of the things to which I have developed a hyper-sensitiivity, and I didn't see why I should end up in bed for several days because of it. As it was, one of the other class members offered use of her local home to us, but the person in charge of bookings was rather upset when I told her we wouldn't be paying for the session, and expected the next session for free as recompense, if she wanted our regular booking to continue.

One of the same group of Texti1e Ladies told how her planned move had fallen through last Thursday as they were meant to be moving on the Friday. It cost her £1200 in wasted solicitors' and removers' fees. The writing had been on the wall for several weeks before (purchaser messing about asking really stupid questions), but they had ignored it, not wishing to give the purchaser an 'exchange or lose it' ultimatum, 'Because it will upset him.'

Last week I told a texti1e tutor that she shouldn't be trying to cater for 21 students (plus 4 spectators) when she'd been engaged (and paid) for a one-off session to teach 9. She was so unassertive and disorganised that I ended up saving (largely teaching and re-organising) the session for her. I'm not sure why I bothered, mind, because she cheefully took the money and hasn't even bothered to phone me or drop me a line to thank me for saving her bacon. But, given that one of today's Texti1e Ladies had heard the story, I think I made my point.

I'm forever hearing stories from my wide circle of acquaintances of this workman or that workman, or this company or that company, not meeting expectations. OK, so, if they don't, why pay them, or continue doing business with them? And why not then use The Power of the Internet to let other people know? (Aside: for those of you wondering, I've not heard any more from the weirdo a couple of weeks ago...)

A work colleague rang me this evening to seek sympathy, saying that she'd invested 30 hours in planning for a course, only to be told two days before that it was no longer required. She hadn't taken any money up front, and had not put any written T&Cs in place for such an eventuality.

Why do people let themselves be abused in these ways?

Maybe one learns from experience? Maybe I'm just mistrusting? Or old?

Or just hard and realistic?

Today

The sun came out for the first time in what seems like (and probably is) weeks. Bright but cold.

I noticed pink blossom just breaking on the viburnum. No snowdrops yet though.

The fictional figures seem to say that UK GDP has increased by 0.1% after six quarters in the red, so the Governmint are patting themselves on the back and saying what a wonderful job they've done in getting us out of this recession. I beg to differ.

I came to the conclusion that the very worst food for me is Scotch egg. Meat, wheat and battery-farmed egg. I've realised that I have a lifetime of eating garnishes off plates of unsuitable buffet food ahead of me.

And, a whole month on, I still haven't found my close work glasses.

This is an entry for The Most Boring and Pointless Blog Award.

Have your say

I generally despair of online petitions, consultations, surveys, polls and their ilk. They are usually badly conceived, badly constructed, and often totally pointless as one knows that no notice whatsoever will be taken of them.

Occasionally something vaguely reasonable comes along. The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority are currently consulting on MPs expenses

I completed it when I first discovered it (via), and don't recall a section on MPs resettlement allowances - which, news at the end of last week showed could be as high as £65,000. How one needs 'resettling' when one has had two houses, and built up enough high-level contacts to have a cushy-ever-after lifestyle (directorships, speakers' circuit etc) I have no idea. I can't find a list of military resettlement allowances, but I know they're only a small fraction of that... I do recall a section in the questionnaire for 'any other comments', so, if you complete it, maybe you could add something on the subject of the necessity (or otherwise) of such huge resettlement payments.

The survey is here.

Anyone else learn a new word while completing it?

And I'm concerned about the placement of the apostrophe in the phrase "MPs' expenses." While it is a plural, it is the 'Members' that is the plural - turning it around the other way - always the best way of working out the correct placement of an apostrophe - gives, "The expenses of Members of Parliament", which would give, in full, "Members of Parliament's expenses," or "MP's expenses." Or perhaps there is a different rule in such circumstances? I'm not sure. And nor is Google. Such a thorny issue.

But, do complete it. Your views might just make a difference. At least you'll have tried...

I know my limitations

So, I have two questions for those of you who are better technologically informed than me.

1. Can one capture streamed audio, in order to play it later on an MP3 device? The site in question offers audio MP3s on a CD-mail-out service, or streamed on demand. It seems a good resource, but I can't quite understand why it's being done in this way. I want to recommend its use, but it won't work in the context I need it to if it can't be easily downloaded to a portable device.

2 I'm thinking that Mr BW needs some wireless headphones in order to watch TV when I am asleep or heading that way. I've been thinking this for a while, and did look at some before the FOTCR™ but got totally confused about what sockets one would need on the TV in order to make them work. I'm not terribly worried about price: but good sound quality and comfort are essential.

The Friday Question

(The question's at the bottom; if you want to skip to it; I got a bit carried away with catching up on myself...)

The week has passed in a blur of coughing, spluttering and sneezing.

Mr BW had to go back to work yesterday, after 6 days, but before he should have, because he had a new team member starting/transferring, whose presence needed explaining to the others. Somewhere in the middle of it all I succumbed to the worst cold I've had for ages - no doubt acquired during last Friday's trip into Das Kapital. Public transport is dangerous. And full of weirdoes. Or perhaps I attract them?

I had to go into Londinium again yesterday. Twice in one week, what is the world coming to? To visit one of the Fame-style schools. A most fascinating experience, but I couldn't help thinking that meeting the entertainment world's stars of tomorrow was so totally wasted on me. I'm still recovering from what Shakespeare might refer to as the size of the skimpy leotard-clad male dance tutors' codpieces. I'm not the sort of Witch who generally goes around looking at such things, but, my oh my, there was just no way of avoiding it. Them. Whatever.

Isn't the Metropolitan Line disgusting? Or perhaps I just got on the same filthy, greasy, worn out, graffiti covered train on each of the three occasions I used it. I think if I had to use it regularly I'd have to get some of those disposable coveralls that you see on crime programmes on TV. The ones that I refused to wear during my brief stint as a DHSS Supp Ben Visiting Officer in the 1980s.

I was distressed that the refit of the University of London Library has destroyed my fond memories of three years of early-morning and late-night study in the quietest mustiest corner at the top of the tower. Well, destroyed the physical relivable version of the fond memories anyway. My wonderful old wooden card-index box has gone too. Relocated to a skip, during the renovations and relocations apparently. "If only we'd known you wanted it!" the librarian said. By amazing Witchy coincidence, I saw my inspirational undergraduate tutor in the new [subject] library. Well, he peered, from several angles before asking if it was me; he said I've hardly changed, and we haven't seen each other for probably seven or eight years.

He's ever hopeful that I might be returning to academia. I'm ever hopeful that one day he might give up on the idea and stop nagging me. "I've given up cutting up rats' brains!" he told me, remembering how I used to vociferously vocally protest at this small part of his research activities. I guess he thought I'd be delighted. "Oh good. By contrast, I've started poisoning rats. It's either that or they attack my hens and spread diseases!" "Hens?" he said. "Hens," I said firmly, "and b33s, and D'Oves, and p@tchwork quilt5, and felting, and painting, and dyelng and 5plnnlng, and other creative texti1ey things, and vegetable growing, jam-making and, well, lots of other Green and Good Life things."

"P@tchwork quilt5, you?" His little ratty face was a picture. "Well, erm, more p@tchwork cushions actually, I don't really have the patience or eyesight for large projects." "That's more like it!" He smiled, "All is not lost after all! You were always an ideas person. A perfectionist. An inspiration to those who liked long slogs, but not one to engage in them yourself. An asker of difficult questions, and a challenger of answers. Especially if they weren't what you thought they should be." And he didn't even teach the personality theory courses :) And it was all just 3 years that finished nearly 26 years ago, although I have been involved in various projects and societies with him since. I'm amazed, but also deeply touched, that I'm that memorable. And possibly delighted that I haven't fundamentally changed.

So... where was I. Ah, yes, The Friday Question.

I find it very hard when Mr BW is ill, because he is the sort of person who can never be still, and always has to be doing something. If I'm ill, I curl up in my bed and sleep in the soothing comfortable silence until I'm well. By contrast, he either lies in bed, or sprawls in a reclining chair watching junk TV and channel hopping endlessly, a habit that I cannot abide, let alone tolerate. I can't process that much unnecessary information, especially when I'm unwell.

After he'd finished watching his stash of previously recorded episodes of the likes of CSI, in which I have almost zero interest, he discovered wall-to-wall episodes of Star Trek on Virgin 1. Or maybe that should be galaxy-to-galaxy? As a Small Witch I loved the original Star Trek, as it fitted in with my desire to be an astronaut, which was soon scuppered by the knowledge that poor eyesight and space exploration didn't mix. Let alone sex. Or rather, gender. I quite like TNG, and Voyager, in moderation (for instance, perhaps one episode a month), but DSN was beyond my comprehension. A million anoraky internet pages or so tell me that there have been other variants since, but, I don't know what they may be. We visited The Star Trek Experience in Las Vegas - which I see closed in September 2008 - and, I seem to recall, the Star Trek Exhibition at Marble Arch a few years back, but they weren't included.

And so, finally, the Friday Question asks: Can you order the various Star Trek series from your most favourite to your least favourite?

My order is: Original (for nostalgia, not acting), Voyager, TNG, and then I lose interest.

Healthcare 'Services'

Up until recently, the nearest NHS walk-in centre was 26 miles from here. Last week, while doing some recycling, I happened to notice that a new one had opened that was half that distance away from us, and open 12 hours a day, 365 days a year. Being a factoholic, and the sort of person that people come to for answers to their difficult questions, I stored the information away in the filing drawer in my brain marked, "In case of emergency".

Given that Mr BW has not needed to go to a doctor for going on for 5 years, I had not envisaged needing to use it quite so soon as yesterday. Mr BW woke me up coughing and coughing and eventually told me that he couldn't breathe and he felt like his lungs were full of fluid. Now, chest or other major organ pains, fluid in lungs, eye or ear problems, and actual physical injuries, are the only things that would make me think about needing to consult a doctor. So, I bundled him into the car.

Given that Mr BW has been registered with our current GP practice for nearly 17 years, I did not envisage that he would be as invisible to an electronic numbering system as an illegal immigrant.

As we were only people in the place at 8.15am, and as there were two doctors and a nursing sister wandering about making coffee and talking, I did not envisage having to wait 15 minutes while Mr BW nearly choked to death coughing, while the receptionists decided they couldn't locate Mr BW on their screen, but that they would see him, if I undertook to phone in his NHS number before 2pm.

At 8.40am, 10 minutes of prodding and poking later, came the verdict that he really was quite ill: his right lung did indeed have fluid in it, and he had a high temperature and pulse, but normal blood pressure. We emerged, clutching two prescriptions, one for horse-strength antibiotics and one for an inhaler (apparently they routinely use asthma inhalers for non-stop coughing these days; no wonder the statistics show there are so many new asthmatics *sighs*).

I expected the receptionists to know where there was a duty pharmacy. "Try the supermarket, or Boots down the road," they said. "But the supermarket won't be open until 10am as it's Sunday..." I replied. "Oh, try Boots, then..." I reckoned that they wouldn't be open until 10am either, but decided to go that way home. Actually they didn't open until 11am. I expected there to be a 'duty pharmacists' paper rota in the window. There wasn't. I went to two other pharmacies that I knew used to do duty rotas. Neither was open, and neither had a paper duty roster visible, as they always did in days of old.

I tried to get Mr BW to use his portable internet to Google "duty pharmacies [town]" but, he wasn't really compos mentis enough to use it, and I have no idea how to even switch it on, let alone what the password is. So, nothing helpful came up, and the pages were taking forever to load, and those that would weren't optimised for use on mobile devices, so were totally useless.

So, I took Mr BW home, put him in bed, made him a drink, stuffed more Witchy Potions down his throat, and had a quick Google myself. It wasn't easy to find the information I needed. There *is* an NHS database, but it doesn't come high up a search, and you have to click several pages before getting the opening hours of pharmacies near you. Typical governmint website: written by developers who can't get a job elsewhere, so know just marginally more than I do about the subject, so can't make easy-to-use websites.

I was fairly annoyed to find that there had, in fact, been two pharmacies, 2 and 3 miles from the walk-in centre, that could have dispensed Mr BW's prescriptions at 9am, had the centre staff bothered to have a list, or look it up.

As it was, I went into Local Small Town at 10am. By the time I got home, I'd done nearly 40 miles, just to get an ill person to a doctor and get the required medications. How would someone without a car cope? Probably ring an ambulance...

Neither of us are high users of the NHS. I gave up on general practitioners three years ago, and, if I were to need a new referral to a specialist, I'd go to a local private GP, and pay my £60 for the magic piece of paper for the insurance company. I wouldn't bother going for anything minor, because I can't bear the noise, lights, and number of people squashed in the waiting room, or the length of time one always has to wait after the allocated appointment time.

But, there is a gap in the market. If one is ill in the evenings or weekends, one has to use a system that does not work.

If I were to phone our own GP practice after 6.00pm, the calls are transferred to somewhere in the Midlands, where call centre operatives, who (I'm told by Nice Ladies who've used the service) aren't medically trained, and simply take contact details and get someone medically trained to call you back (and I've been told that it often takes upwards of half an hour). Unless you are dying (in which case, one would be better off ringing an ambulance in the first place), you then have to drive 10 miles in order to see the emergency out-of-hours doctor at a community health centre. If you can't get yourself to a centre, they simply ring an ambulance to take you to A&E. The doctors from this service don't make house calls. I don't need NHS Direct as I suspect I'm more able to diagnose problems than they are, and I keep a very well stocked medicine cupboard that can meet all but the worst emergencies.

I just don't think the out-of-hours medical care system works these days. If one believes the governmint figures, billions of extra pounds have been poured into medical services in this country in the last 12 years. The services I occasionally need to use have got worse. Much worse. This is progress?

Mr BW isn't any worse today, but I wouldn't say he was improving greatly. Back to my Nurse BW duties then...

Take IT or leave IT

I went to the BETT (British Education and Training Technology) exhibition) at Olympia in London yesterday. It's been running since 1985, and, in the early days, I understood exactly what was going on. I felt ahead of the game. There were a few years in the late 80s and early 90s when I didn't go, but I've been for most of the last ten or so years.

Yesterday's offerings just made me wonder how I'm going to cope with the future, and whether our world is too visually and virtually out of control. A complete bombardment of information that one is not seeking. Nothing permanent, nothing tangible, everything stored inside little boxes. I'm sure that information overload and intrusion is already the cause of so many of the mental health issues in our society.

Surveillance in schools is beginning to bother me a lot. I was going to write something about it, but find that this piece from The Guardian makes me redundant.

But, I got to wondering why Aurora's Face recognition system (faceREGISTER), is being used in schools and colleges, but (according to the chap on the stand, to whom I had a long chat/demonstration) not even looked into as a solution at airports. Students stand in front of a post-like machine, enter their PIN, the machine takes their photo using infra-red flash and compares it against the data held on file. The whole process takes 4 or 5 seconds, and makes paper-based registration redundant, and accounting for students' attendance, and presence in cases of fire or disaster, simple.

An acquaintance of mine is a senior immigration officer at a major UK airport and tells me that upwards of half of people (especially racial groups different to an officer's own) are totally unidentifiable from their passports, so there's no real wonder that illegal immigration happens. Forget whole body scanners and all the other 'theatre' of airport security, this has got to be the answer to many, many problems of identification, in many, many situations. It does not require you to give DNA, a fingerprint, or an iris scan, or constantly carry an ID card. You register on the system once, and you've always got a quick and easy way of identifying yourself. Using a whole-face approach somehow feels a much more comfortable process than the controversial ID card system which has swallowed so many of our tax pounds over the last decade (somewhere between £5Bn and £20Bn depending on whose figures you believe).

I was tired and sat down on a bench, and found myself listening to a very slick presentation by two blokes from Microsoft (who now seem to have adopted Sainsbury's ditched 'bright orange' as their corporate colour) who looked like they were techie guys having a natter (but, who Mr BW assures me, having seen similar performances at rehearsal stage at many shows he's attended as an exhibitor over the years, were professional presenters, practised to theatre-style perfection) about the upcoming Sharepoint 2010 software. Seriously scary connecting/tracking stuff. Well, to me, who likes to choose what to reveal to people, in real life, or online. To those of you who love Facebook and Twitter, and don't care about the accuracy (reliability/validity) of your factual information, you'll adore it.

And one last point while on the subject of technology - there seems to be a current spate of hacking of Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo accounts, by spammers cracking passwords. I've already had two contacts of mine apparently sending me emails telling me where they've bought amazing products that they want to share with me.

I saw some good advice on the subject of passwords earlier, which I reproduce below:

The attacks are carried out by automatic programs that rapidly try thousands of common or easily guessed passwords, and words that appear in dictionaries, until they get into the account. They then collect e-mail addresses from the contacts list, inbox and sent folder, and send spam mail to them, which appears to come from the account holder's address.

Colleagues with webmail accounts should make sure their login password to one that is very hard to guess. It should not be a name, a word that appears in a dictionary, or a sequence of consecutive keys on the keyboard. Instead, you could, for example, use the initial letters of the words from a line in your favourite song, or from a familiar line of poetry (e.g "And I say to myself what a wonderful world" becomes "AIstmwaww".)

An unexpected mixture of upper case and lower case letters is good; and adding a post code or part of a familiar phone number (not your own), and some unexpected punctuation marks, increases the security even more.

For example, using the line from the song as above, and the post code CB7 3HU, thus: AIstmwawwCB73HU%

Such passwords are extremely difficult to crack by the sort of 'brute force' attack commonly used, but are relatively easy for you to remember. And there is, increasingly, a school of thought among security professionals that it is OK to write down a 'difficult' strong password, and carry it in your wallet or purse (being careful not to leave it lying about, of course). If your purse is lost or stolen, you at least know that you must change your password.

Oh, and, I hope you've noticed I've finally reversed the snow spell. 4 weeks and 2 days it took me. But not a flake left here. A few last night, when Mr BW had to get out of his (very) sick bed to pick me up from the train station at 9pm, but, all gone this morning.

The Friday question

Fiction books or non-fiction books?

A nice soothing picture

But where?

How to win friends and influence people

Long term readers may recall that, almost 4 years ago, Mr BW took our least favourite supermarket to task over the fact that they considered it was quite appropriate for vegetarian products to contain fish.

He got palmed off.

It caused quite a stir at the time, and lots of you supported the cause by sending your own emails to various people.

Today, at 11.46am, totally out of the blue, I received the following email (note, the bolding is mine):

Hi there.

Please see the email I forwarded to your web hosting company, 34SP.

I won’t repeat much what I’ve said there as you can see the email in its entirety.

You need to understand that my mother, who you’ve named (her full name) is quite distressed. You need to understand that she only works for Tesco and the views that you received back in a customer service request are not her views, but those of Tesco themselves. We actually agree with some of what you’ve said, they are too big for their boots, and our family (including my mother) don’t even shop there!

We have no problem with the article itself, just that you’ve named my mother.

I ask very kindly, will you remove her name (and edit any direct references to her) from the site completely?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards,

Scott

*******************************

From: Scott McAndrew
Sent: 13 January 2010 11:40
To: 'support@34sp.com'
Subject: Complaint about content of website blue-witch.co.uk
Importance: High

Hi there.

I spoke with an agent a few moments ago regarding a complaint I wish to make about the content of a web site hosted by your company.

The domain name is: blue-witch.co.uk

The page in question’s URL is: http://www.blue-witch.co.uk/2006_04.html

It’s in regards to my mother. She works for Tesco as a customer service agent, and the author of the website had a dispute with Tesco regarding a product. Tesco require (quite disgustingly) that their agents include their full name in correspondence; even though the responses are non-personal and standard. The author has launched almost a personal attack on her and provided her full name quite a few times along with slanderous remarks.

My mother’s name is Susan McAndrew.

I must request that the author of the web site remove her name fully.

Please can you assist me as she has become quite distressed? This site comes in near the top of web searches and so is very apparent. The owner needs to realise she just does her job, what Tesco asks her to do; without her personal bias coming in as a factor. I would be over the moon to be able to tell her that her name has been taken off.

I appreciate your time, and I very much look forward to hearing from you.

Kind Regards,

Scott McAndrew

Now, there are clearly lots of issues inherent in this.

Not least, whether the person writing is who they say they are, or have any 'authority' to act.

But, taking it at face value, if you wanted the author of a personal blog to change a perfectly factually correct item they'd written four years ago, how would you do it?

Would you attempt to bully them into changing it by contacting their ISP and copying them the email telling them that they 'had to understand...', or would you, in the first instance, drop them a friendly email of polite request?

It seems that (what I consider to be) the bullying tactics of T$£co rubs off on its employees' sons (assuming they are who they say they are).

And as for the 'slanderous remarks' accusation, can anyone enlighten me? (the thread starts here and continues up the page)

Just think, all this could have been avoided if Susan McAndrew had just said to Mr BW, something along the lines of, "I'm terribly sorry, T£$co seem to have made a mistake. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention, I will pass this on to the manager of the labelling department to investigate further and respond to you."

I don't respond to bullying or attempts at censorship.

But, what do you think? (but, do please read the intial posts before commenting)

Thought for the day

"I joined Facebook lat week. I now feel like I've got a second job. It's stopping me doing my first job properly."

- A colleague of mine, during lunch yesterday

Thought for the day

Whatever's written in your heart, that's all that matters.

- Gerry Rafferty

Thought for the day

One reason why birds and horses are happy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.

- Dale Carnegie

Now, there's something about this that isn't quite right, isn't there?

Dear Barclays

Thank you for sending us your patronising leaflet entitled, "Five tips to help you winter-proof your finances."

Please note that the, "What it means for you:" section is grammatically incorrect. You have written, "A more comfortable winter, with a few less worries about your finances."

It should be either,

(a) "A more comfortable winter, with less worry about your finances."

or

(b) "A more comfortable winter, with fewer worries about your finances."

It would seem to me that your copywriter isn't very good at English, and was hedging his/her bets, as s/he didn't know whether to use few or less. Which just makes you look stupid. Mind you, I'm probably the only person who's bothered to read the 'document', and it's not as if I have need to, is it?

It made me laugh though.

Yours faithfully

Blue Witch
Upholder of all things English, especially English

Thought for the day

Confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence.

- Vince Lombardi

Snowed in. Day 1

Yesterday's 5 inches of settled snow now frozen solid and more just started to fall. Softly but heavily. There's more snow than we've ever had in the nearly 15 years we've been here.

We are completely snowed in. Cleaner BW can't get in, and Mr BW can't get out. And therefore nor can I, so this snow will cost me £650 in lost income this week.

I have just discovered that I don't have another pack of Earl Grey, despite what I thought, so I'm down to my last 19 tea bags. There are plenty of other sorts (several hundred teabags actually), but I currently prefer Earl Grey. Therefore, would anyone who knows my address kindly put a few in the post. Ah, no, there's a problem there isn't there... the post won't be able to get in either.

Overhead power lines are very susceptible to the weight of snow, and (*tempts fate*) I'm amazed we still have supply. Luckily we have a generator and enough petrol to keep it running for quite a while, and a woodpile that would burn for probably 6 months non-stop, if needed, in case the power does go off.

Our county council may be bragging on BBC News that they have 188 gritters on the road and that we have enough grit/salt for weeks, so may have to lend some to other areas less prepared (shame other areas can't 'lend' us water in summers where there are shortages...), but it's a pity they don't get some onto the roads rather than stockpiling it. Neither I nor anyone I know is aware that any roads outside large towns have been treated, meaning that most of the rural parts are now cut off. It's all very well for them to tell people not to go out, or to use public transport, but these rural parts don't have public transport anywhere near them at the best of times!

I've emailed Highways three times since December 18th now, but all one gets after three or four days is an email reply attaching a personalised standard bullshit letter saying they are fulfilling their contracted services as far as they are able in the extreme conditions. They're not answering the phones.

Sales of 4WDs may have plummeted in recent times, but, after this charade of mismanagement by highways authorities around the country, I think sales will be picking up again. Green or safe? I'd go for safe(r) every time, and green is fast becoming a total con anyway.

Now, let's see if we can make a list of other people who will do well out of this cold snap: plumbers, heating engineeers, plant nurseries (but not until the spring when people find hardy plants weren't), chiropractors, osteopaths, physiotherapists, energy suppliers (why has heating oil gone up 7p per litre in a week, I'm sure the market price of crude hasn't gone up 20%?)...

(Apologies for the comments speed/double posting that some of you are noticing - they're groaning under weight of numbers - MT just can't cope with large databases, here or elsewhere, and although the spam widget is catching the huge amount of current spam, it is slowing the whole thing down.)

I mis-read the spell book

I couldn't work out where all this white stuff is coming from. I thought I'd finally successfully reversed my Snow For WitchDay spell, and it had gone for a while. I've just re-read my spell book. It said, "Add one pure snow-white Ove feather per country where snow is required." I put in one per county, and a few extra for luck as some of them were a bit grubby on the tips, given the mud we had a few weeks back. So, it must be my fault. Oh dear.

We went to bed and there was no snow. Just the white permafrost of days past. There was a good dusting by 2am, and an inch or so by 7am, although it wasn't snowing then.

Around 8.15am it started doing very fine, but crisp, flakes. The sky was grey and heavy with snow-to-come. Good friend BW and I talked and decided we weren't going to meet up for pursuits crafty today. Just not worth the risk of travelling the three miles. By 9.45am it was doing larger, crisp, flake types. Now it has slowed again, just drifting down really, but there are at least three inches (probably what most people would call '6 inches'), settled on never-thawed ground.

It's never been this cold for so long in the nearly 15 years we've lived here, and some of the (now very large, but bought as 3" tiddlers) koi carp in the formal pond, and some of the larger goldfish, were looking so unwell yesterday afternoon (balancing on their noses and being totally upside down at the bottom of the pond isn't normal, and suggested swim bladder malfunction due to cold, which I think proved correct, as they did warm their little poikilothermic - one of my favourite words, that - bodies up by moving around, and assume more normal positions, when I carefully nudged them around for half an hour or so with a long stick) that Mr BW had to come home early to find a way to get more new water into their pond in an attempt to raise the water level back to the three feet of depth they need to survive continual cold. The hoses were all frozen, and all the external taps that will turn off were turned off 'Mr BW tight', so I couldn't have budged them. I don't know why the water level in the pond dropped so suddenly. The butyl liner is meant to be good for 25 years and it's not even half of that yet. There doesn't seem to be any obvious deterioration, holes or cracks, and there was very little ice on the surface due to the filtration and air systems still working. And what use are 25 year guarantees anyway? "Oh, send it back to us and we'll let our experts look at it, and replace it within 28 days if it proves to be faulty!" they'll say. Erm, yes, and what am I going to do with the thousands of gallons of water, plants, and the equivalent of 3 baths piled full of huge fish, in the meantime?

And still people are driving at normal speed, and people are bicycling, walking, walking dogs and riding horses down the lane. Yesterday a woman was walking a dog while pushing a child in a buggy down the middle of the road. Why? Do these people not understand the fragility of life and how vulnerable they are? Surely nothing is so important that it warrants risking being killed or injured, or killing or injuring someone?

I've just been speaking to someone cancelling an appointment with me later, due to the weather conditions. She lives on a large new housing estate very near a supermarket. "They've already sold out of all milk and all bread and cakes!" she said. "They've shut the car park as it's too dangerous, so people are just parking on the roads in, irrespective of double yellow lines (you can't see them, or the signs, but everyone knows they're there) or whether they are blocking residents' driveways. One woman just knocked on my door and asked to use my toilet as the queue for the ones in the supermarket was so long!"

Whatever happened to planning? Technology and communication, and advance weather forecasting are all better than they have ever been and yet people don't think ahead and stock up until it's too late.

Right: snow check: what's the situation where you are?

Boiling madness

I'm sick of the electioneering already, and it only started yesterday.

"All political parties are saying that there will be spending cuts after the election!" the media is wailing.

Given that the election is up to 5 months away, *why* isn't Goldfish Brown (he's doing 'The Goldfish' between words, and not just between sentences, now, have you noticed?) being rather more prudent now?

I'm talking about ditching schemes that cost lots of money, benefit few people, aren't means tested, and haven't started yet. Like, for instance, the boiler scrappage scheme which dear Goldfish has been launching this morning.

"Replacing 125,000 of the least efficient boilers could cut about 140,000 tonnes of CO2 a year - the equivalent of taking 45,000 cars off the road - and the households taking part could see their fuel bills cut by at least 15 per cent a year."

Now, given that one has to apply through the same organisation that 'administers' the funding for renewable energy schemes, the main people to benefit from the scheme will not be householders, but tradesmen who pay large sums of money to become one of the recommended installers. Even *with* a grant, householders using the scheme will almost certainly pay more for their new boiler than they would if they find a personally recommended local tradesman to complete the work.

I haven't read the small print, but there's probably a hole in there that allows property developers to make use of the scheme...

Replacing a boiler every x years is part of the cost of living in a house in a country that is cold for half of the year, surely? It's something that one budgets/saves for, surely? Why should *I* have to pay for someone else's boiler renewal? Particularly if they are better off than me...

The sooner we tip Goldfish out of his glass bowl the better. It's just a shame we have to put up with 5 months of people tapping on the glass before he goes. Although... continual tapping on the glass sides of goldfish tanks can cause premature death to fish, can't it? Alas, one has to remember that Goldfish's wife has one of the largest Twitter followings in this country (sarahbrown10 if you didn't know). And, if one looks at the general profile of her followers, they are a fairly gullible/stressed sector methinks, who could well vote Labour because they like her, not because they understand the policies or pitfalls.

Ho ho, hi ho...

...it's back to work you all go...

It's too cold to get up.

It's too dangerous to go out. The roads round here and the pavements in towns and villages have *still* not been gritted/salted at all: I'm about to make a FoE request to the county council find out how much is being spent (cf previous years and cf the budgetary whole) and why they're not providing the service on anything but M and A roads. I suspect it's bacause if they do it and people have accidents, the people can sue - oh America, look what you have done to us - but if they don't do anything, they have no legal liability.

Since 18th December when we came back from Chichester, I have been out precisely twice on my own (FOTCR™ Eve as I had a large cheque that needed to be paid into the bank, and 30th just to Local Small Town as we'd all but run out of milk and orange juice) and twice with Mr BW (28th to buy Mummy Mr BW a new computer and to see Nan Mr BW, and on 1st to see Mi1dred's friends).

And, ten days on, I've still not found my close work glasses. Given that they are for close work only - I can't see beyond about six feet with them - and that have a -6.50 bit in with the +2.75, those of you who understand optics will see why it's necessary for me to stay in bed today.

*snuggles up warmly*
*wonders whether cats can be trained to make and bring tea*

A taxing question

Anyone seen any evidence of the VAT increase in prices yet?

Especially from those shops that didn't take it off in the first place (hint: those with prices still ending in 99p where a correction wasn't made at the tills for the 13 months the governmint dropped the VAT rate from 17.5% to 15%).

Some shops are saying they'll hold back the increase in some way. Some (guess who? Hint: suffocating supermarket chain, with unsound moral and ethical business practices, beginning with 'T') pushed up prices last week so they could say they were holding VAT at 15%. Others, like TalkTalk, are putting up the price of their 'essentials' broadband service from £6.49 to £6.99 as a result of the VAT increase. A 50p increase when the VAT should be 13 or 14p? Hmmmmm.

Twill be very interesting to see what happens to inflation this quarter, as a result of the 2p per pound (or maybe 3p?) price hike on many things...

New Year's Day

I don't know what time I went to sleep, but it was several hours before midnight.

A text message, presumably delayed from the midnight hour, woke me up at 1.20am.

I peered out of the windows. The moon was bright, there was an eerie blue glow everywhere, and there was an icing sugar dusting of snow.

At 4.15am I crept to the fridge and had a midnight feast, delayed from the midnight hour, of half the cold brussel sprouts from the evening before. The rest I had later, when we got back from taking Mi1dred out to see her friends, at 2pm. I did offer Mr BW one, but he prefers chocolate. He's eaten the whole of a Quality Street large jar in the last week. As far as chocolates go, I consider 'Quality' Street is against the Trade Descriptions Act.

Mr BW got Mi1dred out at 9.40am, and by 10.00 she was warm enough to leave.

We arrived at the annual rendezvous duck pond, and while the locals stared and oooed at the cars in the now traditional way, we were in their church quaffing mulled wine.

Or praying for trouble-free motoring, depending on your point of view.

Some people didn't pray hard enough and one of Mi1dred's relatives broke down, and one had a puncture, before we set off on our 26 mile jaunt through the lanes, and another had another puncture along the way. We were right behind them. We stopped, politely, enquired whether they had a jack, which they did, didn't enquire whether they knew how to use it, and were on our way again.

As we left, Mi1dred whispered, "Shall I go straight on, rather than follow the road round to the right, and take out the one with the [unspeakable] bag?" but, it being the first of the year, and a gloriously sunny, if zero degree, day, I decided to let her live another day.

After lots of very narrow lanes, covered in snow and ice, we arrived at a hostelry, where, despite having been told that there wold be 50 or 60 people, the owners had decided not to allow pre-ordering, and to only put one miserable old cow behind the bar.

So, we eventually got a cider, a beer and two packets of crisps (which nevertheless came to almost eight quid), and fed the reindeer before going home.

I then fell asleep in front of the fire for the rest of the afternoon.

What did you do?

Thought for the new decade

You start off rebellious, a teenager in a band, but you end up being part of the establishment.

- Francis Rossi