Off to Portsmouth
I know the match isn’t until Saturday, but soon, I’m off to London, where I’m spending two nights, before going to the match.
Cambridge to Get Two New Platrforms
According to the Cambridge Evening News, Cambridge is set to get two new platforms.
About time too! And let’s hope they use the extra capacity to improve the Cambridge to Ipswich service I use so much!
trueCall and Daisy
I couldn’t resist taking my call records from trueCall and putting them in Daisy.
After a minute or so, I was able to draw a simple Daisy chart.
A Daisy Chart of trueCall Data
Obviously, this doesn’t show that much, as only a few records were used to draw the chart.
On the other hand, charts such as this could be used to show perhaps that a particular nuisance call tends to happen between 21:00 and 23:00 on a Wednesday night. Years ago, a chart such as this, drawn of all phone box fraud in Wales, led to the arrest and conviction of one of the Principality’s biggest drug dealers.
A Possible Solution to Nuisance Calls
A couple of days ago, I was plagued by a boiler room scam, that decided to ring me every minute. I reported it in this post.
It is now three days later and they are still trying occasionally, but I might have found the solution to criminals like these.
It is called trueCall and effectively screens every call that it doesn’t recognise. All those Unavailable and International calls that are just a waste of your time are challenged and the caller is asked to identify themselves with their name before they are put through. Obviously, the time wasters don’t do this, so the system hangs up on them and asks them to leave a message. I suspect they never will!
The system did cost £99.99 including VAT, but it was just a plug-in to install, as this picture shows.
trueCall Installation
But it was ever so easy to install and it comes with all sorts of features to be valued.
- It simply learns who your friends and enemies are, if you follow a few set of simple rules.
- It has a fully-functioning built-in answering machine.
- You can look at all your incoming and outcoming calls on the Internet.
I shall certainly keep it in place to innoculate me from scammers and time-wasters.
The Jigsaw Starts to Fit Together!
Oxford University has today published findings, that show that cocktails of various vitamin B’s might actually help in the treatment of Alzeimher’s.
I’ve covered this sort of work before in Keeping the Brain Healthy.
I’m no medic, but the more you delve into this subject, the more it seems that the B vitamins are more and more important.
Areas Worst Placed to Survive the Recession
The BBC has made a list of how areas of the UK can survive the recession.
It would appear that Middlesbrough is at the bottom of the list. And no wonder!
I went there to see Ipswich play their first match of the season and although I enjoyed the visit, I got the impression, that the town was doing little to pull itself up by its bootstraps. I was an occassional tourist and I think that they don’t believe they have anything to offer visitors and that Government must do more to help. As an example, the Tall Ships Race was on at Hartlepool across the river and if I’d known then I’d have stayed another day. But it wasn’t mentioned on either the town or the football club’s website, so I didn’t go! There were no posters either! I suspect that certain football clubs would have got in on the act if it had been local to them, by perhaps introducing some of the foreign sailors before the match. If nothing, it would have been good publicity.
Either they learn to live without subsidy from the rest of the UK, or it will get a lot worse! But how do you wean areas like Middlesbrough off their addiction to subsidy?
If they don’t manage it, then towns like Middlesbrough will suffer the same fate as large parts of the former East Germany. There anybody with skills have moved on and it has got to such a state, that the birth-rate has declined to almost zero, as young women just can’t see any point in bringing up children in such an environment.
Middlesbrough has a lot to offer, but it is doing a very bad job in selling itself to the rest of the UK, except by handing out a begging bowl for more subsidy!
Remember, one man’s subsidy is somebody else’s tax! Certain politician’s will always argue that you can tax the rich, but then many in the higher wealth levels can easily move to other countries to live or work!
Now I’ve Got A Gammy Knee!
Over the last couple of days, I’ve had a minor difficulty getting up from a chair. I was just getting a bit of pain in my right knee. I had to see the GP yesterday and she looked at it. I had thought it might be something to do with the stroke, but it was just a touch of arthritis. As I was seeing the physio after the GP, she had something else to do and she gave it some therapy. It’s a lot better this morning.
The gastroenterologist I saw on Friday last week told me that I had some sort of bio-chemical problem and this was resulting in my poor nails. They took some blood to check what it was.
Now before I was diagnosed as a coeliac, I had lots of problems and pain in my left knee. These had started when I was about 25 and one doctor in those days, suggested I had an operation. When we moved to Suffolk in 1975, a new doctor, recommended some exercises and except for the odd stickiness when I got up from the floor, I never had any more problems.
All of these knee problems got a lot better with a gluten-free diet.
So now it’s the other knee!
Ever since I’ve had the stroke, I’ve worried that something is wrong with the bio-chemistry of my body. I’ll laugh like a drain if I’m low on vitamin B12!
But what do I know about medicine! Not a lot! But I do know my body!
In addition to the knee and nails, I’ve also got a certain amount of the runs and I am sleeping a lot and very well. The latter is probably due to the body needing time to recover.
The Anonymous Widower 