How Can They Get it So Wrong?
This is another story, that would make my father turn in his grave. There is no excuse these days for publishing a book with so many mistakes, as HarperCollins has done for Jonathan Franzen.
My Father Would Turn in His Grave, if He Had One!
I had a good day yesterday, in that I made a video of the Tour of Britain at Clare and successfuly posted it on this blog. But my arm is starting to work a bit better and I’m in less pain. Perhaps, my brain is winning in its battle with my nerves and is understanding them better! If it can’t understand them, the brain says pain!
My computer told me today, that I must get ready for my Warfarin test on Monday. I do it a couple of days early, so that I can find the form that I must take.
The Dreaded Hospital Form/Letter
These letters are a disgrace and the man, who designed them should be dismissed from all his jobs immediately. I would suggest capital punishment, but even for design crimes as heinous as this, I will not ease my stance on the evil death penalty.
So why do I hate these letters so much?
For a start, they are so difficult to open, even for someone like me with only a good right hand! And one that can efficiently wield a pair of scissors. Suppose you were more decrepit than me, with perhaps severe arthritis or a missing hand. You wouldn’t stand a chance of opening the letter without damaging it, so much that it became unreadable.
Then when you have opened it, it refuses to lay flat, so it is not an easy thing to store and retrieve. I usually pin it to a notice board, but as it doesn’t do flat very well, it sometimes manages to force itself to the floor.
Perhaps, the main reason, I hate these letters so much, is that they are in many ways unnecessary. If you need to change your dose, the hospital phones you! If you forget the form, when you have a blood test, then the nurse knows the questions to ask!
But as I said in a previous post, why can’t you be informed by SMS message or e-mail?
So why would my father be spinning? He was a printer, who made a lot of money by designing paper systems that worked. He would have known how to do this form/letter better.
If I had my way, if a letter needs to be sent, then I would send a postcard. I know to some this wouldn’t be confidential, but it certainly doesn’t matter to me, that the world knows my Warfarin dose is 5 mg. a day!
Pouring Petrol on the Fire
I know it’s a very small group of religious nutters, who claim to be Christians, but surely staging a burning of the Koran, as reported here is not a sensible thing to do, given all the problems in Afghanisthan.
I don’t hold any candle for religion at all, but going out of your way to annoy someone, who thinks differently than you is never a good idea! Just think of all the problems there used to be between pairs of football teams in the UK, which could easily be ignited by stupid act by someone who had sawdust for a brain.
I also object to the burning of books, as even if you disagree with what they say, they have generally been put together to with care and thought and sometimes they have been crafted by a proper bookbinder.
But then as my father was a proper printer, I’m biased on the last point.
Another Annoying Keystroke
When I blog, I use a lot of shrieks, as my father would have called them! Or exclamation marks as you would call them!
But if I hit Control-!, I get everything reformatted large. Is this a WordPress or Windows shortcut?
It is so infuriating! Especially as when I hit Control-Z to correct my mistake, I lose everything I have typed.
My typing seems to be getting better though, but it would be nice to have the new keyboard driver.
Why I Don’t Like Paper Blowing About!
Over the last few weeks, we have had it very hot some days and various people felt it was a good idea to open the kitchen door to the garden. I don’t like it, as it tends to blow the odd bits of paper, such as newspapers, shopping lists and part-finished Sudoku that were lying about, all over the place! So now it’s colder, I’m glad to get the door shut again.
I was thinking about this a couple of nights ago.
As regular readers will know, my father was a letterpress printer. Just as photocopiers do it sometimes, printing machines in those days were liable to monumental paper jams. These were much more serious with those machines, as in bad cases they actually damaged the lead type. Paper often went everywhere propelled by the feed mechanisms. They were a time-consuming and dirty thing to sort out. I didn’t do that much machine minding, as he thought that a bit dangerous for a vhild, but say on Sunday mornings, when we were working in Wood Green, I would be called in, if the Thompson had had a major jam.
So perhaps all of that panic and flying paper has left a mark on my mind, and it is better to not let the paper start blowing about.
I don’t like draughts either and abhor the habit some people have of opening windows to let the air through. If I want fresh air, I’ll go out and get it!
Memories of Childhood
I’ve said before that I spent a lot of time as a child in my father’s print works in Wood Green. I used to set all of the handbills for the Dunlop tennis tournaments held all round the UK. But my father did other jobs for Dunlop including their industrial gloves catalogues. These were uprated and reprinted each year and as I got more older and more literate, he sometimes asked me to proof read them. They had gloves for all different purposes.
Last night as I was cooking, I felt that an appropriate glove on my left hand might help. It would offer protection from say a knife, when you were cutting something, a sure grip when you picked something up and as I cook using an AGA, which has lots of hot bits, perhaps it would be insulated.
I can’t be sure, but I think Dunlop had a lightweight industrial glove all those years ago!
But something like that would certainly help!
The Left-Handed Blood Test
As my left arm is the one affected by the stroke and because it was also broken in a bullying incident at school, I generally as for blood tests to be taken from my stronger right arm. Today, Today, I had my weekly Warfarin blood test in the West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St. Edmunds because I was going to Felixstowe and it was more convenient being on the route I would take.
Today though the blood was taken by a nurse who was left-handed. She took it from my right arm as normal and it was very pain-free. Not that I find having blood taken at all troublesome. Because she was the wrong way round did it help?
But I just wonder, if we never think how we take a blood test! But also I might be lucky, in that they never seem to hurt and all I have to show for them a few hours later is a tiny spot. C on the other hand, feared them and had tremendous trouble taking a test.
But it has to be said that some jobs may be better done, by someone who is left or right-handed. For years, my father said that to be a compositor, or someone who sets letterpress type, you had to do it right-handed. But then he hired a temporary comp, who was left-handed. There was nothing wrong with his work at all, but he was just a bit ungainly to my father’s experienced eye.
Value Added Tax
There is talk of value-added tax being raised in the budget today. I feel that a rise to bring us more in line with the higher rates in Europe would not be something that caused too much pain, as most VAT consumers pay is on things like electronic goods, that are imported anyway. Perhaps we need a higher rate on things like that and perhaps a 15% rate on services, such as building work!
VAT to me is a good tax, as the system it replaced, purchase tax, ruined my father’s printing business. In the 1950s, printing work had two rates. On something like an invoice form or a letterhead, that had been printed and you could write on, my Dunlop handbills for their tennis tournaments all over the UK, the tax rate was zero, because it was not designed to be written on. Incidentally, the tax on plain paper was zero. This anomally lives on in that we don’t charge VAT on newspapers and magazines. Why not? A tax on OK, Hello et al would probably mean people read something more intelligent.
The outcome of this crazy tax regime was that more and more large businesses set up their own printing departments, buying plain paper and then using the new offset-litho techniques to create perfect copies of the originals created by craft letterpress printers like my father.
When my father had started up again after the Second World War, there were upwards of forty small printers in the old London borough of Wood Green. When he sold up in the mid-1960s there were just two.
So not having a fair tax system cost hundreds of jobs.
Newcastle Do Apostrophes Different
St. James’ Park, the home of Newcastle United, and St. James’s Park in London spell it differently.
Why?
It was things like that, that used to annoy my father, as everyone had different views on spelling, apostrophes and plurals.
Around the World in 33 Days
Well not quite thirty-three days, but a give or take a night or two, that is how long I’ll take to go round the world.
The purpose includes the following.
- I need a holiday and want to have some fun and relaxation.
- I want to see a few old friends.
- I want to take pictures of any old Heidelberg printing machines, still working.
- I want to talk to various people about my new project management system.
The last reason is probably not as serious as the others, as I don’t need the money and the hassle. But if I can find the model that makes the software sell and get market share, then I’ll go for it like a rat up a drain pipe!
So what is the route?
Stop 1 – Hong Kong – Arrive Wednesday, May 12th at 16:05
I need to break the journey and what better place than Hong Kong. I will probably stay in the Mandarin Oriental. My late wife and I always did and it’s worth every penny.
Stop 2 – Melbourne – Arrive Saturday, May 15th at 06:15
Of all the major cities in the greater south-east of Australia, Melbourne is the only one I haven’t visited. I suppose I haven’t visited Canberra either, but then my Aussie friends say it isn’t worth it.
I also want to play real tennis in the city and see the sights. I’m also going to see some old Metier mates.
Stop 3 – Brisbane – Arrive Tuesday, 18th May at 14:15
Seeing an old mate that I’ve never met! We’ll talk about Artemis, Metier and the new project management system.
Stop 4 – Hawaii – Arrive Friday, 21st May at 09:25
Now I’ve never been to Hawaii, but it looks like a place that is worth a stopover as I make my way across the Pacific. I also want to visit Pearl Harbor. After all, I’ve stood on the dock at Taranto, where the Fleet Air Arm proved the concept for the Japanese. Read the Attack on Taranto by Lowry and Wellham for more details. Note that the book is an American publication.
Stop 5 – San Francisco – Arrive Monday, 24th May at 20:35
I’ll probably spend a day or so in San Francisco and then it will be a mix of trains, plains and automobiles across the United States until I get to the other side at Boston.
The first leg is planned to be a drive to Las Vegas
Stop 6 – Las Vegas – Arrive Thursday, 27th May
I was in the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, when I heard about the massacre at the real Luxor in Egypt. To me it has the ultimate bad-taste that sums up Vegas to me. I don’t gamble, except occasionally on horses, so it will be a short stay.
Stop 7 – Route 66/Grand Canyon – Arrive Friday 28th May
There are places in this area that I want to visit again, like the Hoover Dam, the Grand Canyon, Route 66, the meteor crater at Winslow and the ruins of the pueblas.
Stop 8 – Phoenix – Arrive Saturday 29th May
Phoenix is somewhere I’ve been before but only for a change of flights.
Stop 9 – Houston – Arrive Monday 31st May
This will be a flight from Phoenix, probably getting in around lunchtime.
Stop 10 – New Orleans – Arrive Thursday 3rd June
I’ve never been to New Orleans, so I’ll drive from Houston.
Stop 11 – Washington – Arrive Sunday 6th June
A flight here to the capital.
Stop 12 – New York – Arrive Tuesday 8th June
I’ll probably take the train.
Stop 13 – Boston – Arrive Friday 11th June
I’ll probably drive from New York, going slowly from New York.
Stop 14 – London- Leave Boston on Saturday, 12th June at 21:30
And then it’s back to London.
This will get filled out as the time unfolds.
The Anonymous Widower 