Who Lights The Flame at Stratford?
I’m not sure, but I’ve heard so much speculation about who it is!
Perhaps Danny Boyle has gone for that superb British institution; a compromise, where perhaps any number of celebrities and/or ordinary people do it together.
He’s certainly got everyone guessing!
When You’re In A Hole Stop Digging
Mormon Mitt seems not only to have a lack of diplomacy, but also the common sense, one needs to avoid trouble. Just read this piece by the respected BBC correspondent, Mark Mardell. Mark also questions whether his wife’s horse will go down well with blue-collar Republicans.
It is safe to say that dressage does not have the same place in the heart of the American blue-collar worker as Nascar racing or baseball.
It would appear though that the wags out there are already having great fun. Just type “moron Mitt” into your preferred search engine.
I particularly liked this one.
The size of the hole gets bigger every minute.
So make sure you’ve got a few hours or even days to spend. It will be an ideal pastime for sport-phobics in the next couple of weeks.
The Red Arrows Across London
The Red Arrows will be crossing London ahead of the Olympic Opening Ceremony at 20:12 tonight. As they are going between Hyde Park and Victoria Park, I would assume they will be flying just south of where I live. There’s more details on their flypast here.
If Mitt Romney Is The Next US President, Diplomacy Goes Out The Window.
Mitt Romney’s comments on the Olympics show that he is no diplomat. Read about it in the Independent here. The fact that he is a Mormon too, doesn’t go down well with me. In fact, being part of a small powerful sect, should disbar one from being Head of State.
i hope the Americans see sense and return Barack Obama for a second term in November. Hopefully, Mormon Mitt, will put his foot in his mouth many times in the next few months.
What I Remember About The Opening Ceremony From Beijing In 2008
As a computer person, I remember the computer screens around the stadium, showing Microsoft’s infamous blue screens of death. I’m not the only person either. Perhaps they hadn’t paid the licence fees.
Let’s hope they use good old-fashioned technology tonight.
Why Not A Standard Hospital Chart?
I’ve been presenting information by computer for forty years and before that my father was a printer, who designed forms for companies for probably fifty years. So to say I have a lot of experience both in my brain and having been taught by several masters, I was surprised when I saw this item about hospital charts, I was initially surprised that it wasn’t already happening.
On the other hand though, when was healthcare anywhere in the world logical?
Every hospital chart and report on a world-wide scale should be the same, so let’s say like I did you go to hospital after an attack in Italy, your GP or British doctor can get a hang of what happened and what drugs you got. So in my case it would have been in Italian, but because everything would be in the same place, a doctor could get the gist of it.
But of course, it would remove the independence of a doctor to do what he or she wanted.
Now Nationwide Drops A Clanger
According to this report on the BBC and a message on their site, Nationwide have processed debit card transactions twice. It didn’t affect me, as I only use a debit card to get money from a cash machine.
This should never happen.
I have said that processing and senior management should be co-located and preferably at the same place where the programmers work.
As in this Nationwide clanger over 700,000 accounts were affected, it is quite likely that several senior managers or their friends would have been effected by the error. If those managers were worth employing, they should have been straight on to those responsible to find out what had happened. Co-location puts the fear of God into operators and programmers. Try doing that if they’re halfway around the world.
But at least in this clanger, Nationwide found out what had happened quickly and rectified it within 48 hours. But how much did the whole incident cost Nationwide and its customers? And as Nationwide is a mutual, how much did it indirectly cost its members?
I always remember Bob, the guy who taught me cost accounting, said that banks had a totally different approach to the way things added up. Perhaps things haven’t changed all that much!
The Big Secret
The Times has a letter today saying that all the thousands of people at the Opening Ceremony rehearsal have kept the secret about what is to be shown.
They were sworn to secrecy and as the letter writer says, isn’t it wonderful, that the secrets have not leaked.
In these days of social media, it is even more surprising.
Perhaps the surprise in the show, talked about by the letter writer is so good, that she doesn’t want to spoil it for everyone else by revealing anything.
I must admit to being a bit cynical about Opening Ceremonies in the past, but I’m actually looking forward to this one.
How To Not Lose A Wallet
I should say that I keep one credit card, my rail passes and my Freedom Pass in a little folder that I keep in my pocket, so I can just pull it out to touch the various Oyster readers on buses, trains and tubes.
On Saturday, I managed to lose the folder on a bus, as my nose was running so much, that I must have dragged it out with a tissue, which I was using every minute or so.
I’d just cancelled the credit card and reported the Freedom Pass as lost, when the bus driver phoned to say, he’d got the folder and would take it to the depot at the end of his shift at 19:00. He had got the number from a card I keep in the folder containing my e-mail address and mobile number.
So I went to the garage at Leyton at the time he said and after a few minutes he turned up and gave me the folder. So job done! Stagecoach didn’t even have a charity box for a reward, but I rectified that on-line to one of the charities I support.
By Monday, my Freedom Pass was reactivated and then yesterday, I got a new AMEX card.
So we may complain about service, but I can’t fault anybody here.
Torch Chasing in North London – Islington Green
I went up to Islington Green to see the Olympic Torch Relay.
The only sad bit, was that the Police seemed to have arrested a drunk.
Is that blue sky real?
The Anonymous Widower 