The Anonymous Widower

I’ve Got Myself A Blackberry

Not a fruit, but one of those new-fangled phones.

Quite frankly I’m not impressed!

March 31, 2012 Posted by | Computing, World | , | 4 Comments

Typing With One Hand

I’ve now acquired a new Sony VAIO laptop with a wide 17.3 inch screen. I mainly bought it, as my old HP  machine is getting rather tired and I was fimding I made the odd mistakes on the keyboard. As the keys were more widely spaced on the Sony, I thought this might improve my typing and a brief test showed that it appeared to be better.

I’ve now got the new Sony and this video shows me typing.

Not how I span with my right hand to work the shift and control keys.

It is my left arm and hand that is bad, as I said here. But the computer would probably work equally well with someone, who had right hand problems.

March 31, 2012 Posted by | Computing, World | , | Leave a comment

Allergic To Corned Beef

In the repeat of Dad’s Army this evening, Private Fraser.said that he got out of sevig in the vArmy, because he was allergic to corned beef.

This must be one of the first references to allergies in fiction.

I wonder why it was included

March 31, 2012 Posted by | Food, World | , , | 12 Comments

Call That A Bin?

I was watching the Apprentice on BBC1 and one team came up with a bin design.

It may be arrogant to say it, but my bin design of a couple of years ago is better.

March 28, 2012 Posted by | Business, World | | Leave a comment

The Olympic Legacy

Everybody seems to be complaining that there won’t be any Olympic Legacy. I’ve just had this e-mail read out on Radio 5.

Just compare Manchester after the Commonwealth Games,  Sheffield after the World Student Games and Liverpool after the City of Culture with Athens after the Olympics and Montreal after the Olympics.

 You can’t say  we don’t do legacy.  We do it very well!

I could have added, where’s the legacy in Atlanta and my physio from Queensland, doesn’t think there was much legacy after Sydney.

London’s biggest legacy will be the Olympic Park.  And no-one who’s ever been over just a few of the UK’s big parks, could not agree that we do parks well. So just as Victoria Park and Hampstead Heath became London’s lungs nearly two centuries ago, the Olympic Park will be London’s park for the 22nd Century.

It’s a pity though London  has got no superlambananas or equivalent. They may be rather trivial, but Liverpudlians love them.

March 28, 2012 Posted by | Sport, World | , , , | Leave a comment

I’m Now on Lasix

Or a generic form of furosemide, which is the drug known as Lasix.  As it helps stop racehorses from nose-bleeding, I wonder if it will affect my nose-bleeds.  But then I haven’t had any in the last week or so.

Lasix is banned for racehorses in the UK, but it is allowed freely in a lot of states in the US.

Let’s hope it helps me go a bit faster and further.

 

March 27, 2012 Posted by | Sport, World | , | Leave a comment

Decimalisation

On Drive on BBC Radio 5 Live, they got talking about decimalisation. I sent them my four pennies-worth

My eldest son was in the births in The Times for the 20th July 1969, the day Apollo 11  landed on the moon.  Incidentally, that day the paper carried a report on decimalisation, which would happen on February 15th 1971 and metrication, which was to be completed by 1984. The first happened on time and I’m still waiting for the second.

I suspect I’ll be long dead before we do the sane and sensible thing and metricate.

March 27, 2012 Posted by | News, World | , | Leave a comment

The Moon and the Planets

I was standing outside Carluccio’s in Upper Street tonight, watching a glorious moon with the planet Venus alongside.

A few minutes later, I was outside my house and they had been joined by Jupiter lower down.

Never in my life have I seen all of these heavenly bodies together.

March 26, 2012 Posted by | World | | 1 Comment

Bank Transfers Not Happening

I tried a couple of times make a couple of on-line payments this morning and my son also tried to send me something.  But nothing went through.

My only thoughts is that they are setting up so many ISAs, that the system is creaking.

March 26, 2012 Posted by | Finance & Investment, World | | Leave a comment

Sir Roger Bannister and the Affect of Heat and Humidity

I didn’t realise that one of the first papers that Sir Roger produced was about the affect of heat and humidity on people. He did his research in Aden in 1957.

I couldn’t find the paper, but I did find him quoted in a Powerpoint presentation on the subject, written Col. John Gardner, MD for the United States Army or Marines.

The notion that courage and esprit de corps can somehow defeat the principles of physiology is not only wrong but dangerously wrong. 

I don’t know what the temperatures and humidity are like in Afghanistan are like, but do the British and American forces take note of the doctor.

March 26, 2012 Posted by | Health, World | , , | Leave a comment