The Best Diplomatic Illness
It is being reported that because of illness to one of the Court staff, the Pistorius trial will be delayed until next Monday.
Hooray for him or her!
Any TV or radio station, that vowed to be a Pistorius-free zone, would get my eyes or ears!
It is not news, it’s a tragedy for all involved.
Did Manchester Force Susanna Reid To Quit?
The BBC’s Breakfast program isn’t what it was since the ill-judged move to the back end of beyond in Manchester.
Now Susanna Reid is leaving To Go To ITV.
I do wonder what the line-up of presenters would be, if the program had stayed in its rightful place in the capital.
If you take today, there has been a couple of interviews with talking heads on important subjects like Ukraine, because obviously getting interviewees to waste time to go to Manchester isn’t possible.
Just think of the fuss if after independence, Scotland decided to put their flagship morning news in Glasgow!
A Domain Name Ending For East Enders Fans
I misread something and I thought that they were talking of domains with an ending of .cotton.
So I thought, that this would of course be good for the fans of East Enders or at least the Dot Cotton Fan Club.
Why Does Everyone Have To Fiddle?
I’ve just returned home and I wanted to get the football on quickly, whilst I put my shopping away.
But some idiot has decided that my Sky box needs updating with yet more features that I will never use.
Whilst I was getting round their unwanted help and demo, a goal was scored.
Luckily it was only scored by that prawn sandwich mob in red from Manchester, but it could have been scored by Aston Villa.
There’s an old adage, that says if it’s not broken, then don’t fix it!
The trouble with updates involving any form of computing or software, is that I’ve only known one person, who never created a bug when writing updates. On the other hand, they never delivered anything on time!
A Sensible Hotel In Biarritz
It was the third time in recent months, that I’d stayed in a Radisson Blu hotel.
It was practical and the bathroom was one where I could have a good bath, without fighting the designers ideas. Not sure on the tile design though!
i could also have taken my ironing, as I don’t have one at home.
I also got gluten-free bread with my meals.
Something, that I couldn’t photo was the television. A normal Samsung, but it had access to every channel possible. I watched the London flavour of BBC1, but all the other regions were available. So even Alex Salmond would have felt at home! If you’d been a Coronation Street fan, ITV was also available.
These days, with satellites and the Internet everywhere, surely a hotel can provide guests with every possible flavour, which has some degree of decency and taste. If I can get hundreds of channels in my house in Hackney for a few hundreds a year, I can’t see the problem.
The Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction
I remember a BBC television comedy series called Citizen Smith, which starred Robert Lindsay as Wolfie Smith. This sums up the theme of the series.
Wolfie is the self-proclaimed leader of the revolutionary Tooting Popular Front (the TPF, merely a small bunch of his friends), the goals of which are “Power to the People” and “Freedom for Tooting”. In reality, he is an unemployed dreamer and petty criminal whose plans fall through because of laziness and disorganisation.
But today, I was watching the BBC News and they were discussing the Lambeth slavery case.
Later in the article on Citizen Smith, this paragraph appears.
The Tooting Popular Front was inspired by the numerous minuscule leftist political groups active in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. One model may have been the then somewhat well-known “Workers’ Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought”, a particularly far-left group led by Aravindan Balakrishnan, who became a suspect in the Lambeth slavery case of 2013.
Sadly John Sullivan, who wrote Only Fools and Horses, in addition to Citizen Smith, died in 2011, so he can’t tell us if his fictional revolutionaries were based on Balakrishnan’s group.
I Finally Get To Watch A Premier League Football Match On BT Sport
I’ve had BT Sport for about three or four months now!
I’m now sitting at my table, typing at my computer and I’m just about to watch the first Premier League football match on the channel.
The reason, is that normally at this time, I’m travelling to see Ipswich Town, and they played last night. I could have seen a previous match, but I wasn’t interested, as it featured Norwich.
Newcastle against Chelski, wouldn’t be my choice of a match, but at least I may have the pleasure of seeing the London side lose.
Dull-As-Ditchwater Television
The BBC has just started broadcasting proceedings in the Court of Appeal.
Judging by the excepts I’ve seen, I shall not be watching. It must surely rank for exciting content with BBC Parliament.
Why is the BBC wasting our licence fees on this dross?
The test card and Cambidge University’s first webcam, were much more interesting.
I did here a rumour that the Security Services wanted this coverage, as it is ideal to show to reluctant suspects. After a few hours of programmes such as this, they usually decide to tell everything.
Replacing A Television
My 32 inch Sony television is now past its best, as it’s been on Radio 5 so much, the phosphor on the plasma screen has been damaged. I originally bought it in John lewis in Cambridge and when I moved, I mounted it on a John Lewis swing mount, so I could watch it in both my living room and the kitchen, when I’m cooking. The system works well and I can link it into any related device with ease to watch films on my laptop or BBC iPlayer.
So it would seem logical to upgrade it with something more modern, that had more than one HDMI port, an LED screen and perhaps some built-in smart technology. My watching habits are fairly simple, in that I never record programs for later viewing, but I do use iPlayer regularly. With the exception of sport, I never watch a channel with adverts. If I could pay a subscription for advert free television, I might watch programs like Downton Abbey. Incidentally, I’ve never seen an episode.
My reasoning suggested that a modern Sony of a maximum of 40 inches from John Lewis, that fitted the current bracket might be a good purchase.
But firstly, the Sony I thought I should buy, would appear to be difficult to fit on a swing mount. Apparently, it needs to go flat on the wall. So I suppose you can’t use it in buildings like lighthouses or windmills.
I then settled on a Samsung, but the John Lewis assistant, then told me, it would have to have a new bracket if they fitted it, despite the fact that the new bracket would be the same as my old one. I know it will be mounted on a very solid brick wall and the new television will be a lot lighter than the old television, but drilling a new set of holes is probably not a good idea.
I did buy the Samsung and I’ll fit it myself.
It does strike me though, that with new technology coming in regularly, many people will want to replace a television and will get rather annoyed, when they find they either can’t fit the obvious one of their favourite make or they need an unnecessary new bracket.
I’ve Given In
I said in this post, that a Sky Satellite dish is so yesterday.
However, as I have received a letter from BT on the subject of broadband, I decided that the best solution would be to get a dish to get reasonable sports on my television.
The letter from BT is a classic, and it is only thanks to my MP that I got a reply.
Here’s one section.
I’ve been in touch with our supplier, Openreach to ask about Mr. Miller’s situation. Unfortunately, he’s currently unable to get fibre broadband as his phone line is routed directly from the exchange to his premises.
Openreach have confirmed that the Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) technology which they have deployed needs a fibre-enabled street cabinet to supply the service. But because Mr. Miller is located very close to the exchange and is fed directly from it, i.e. not via a street cabinet, this unfortunately means that he can’t have the fibre product at present.
So the solution to my fibre broadband problem, is to move further from the telephone exchange.
I am a qualified electrical engineer and do understand the technology, the problem and the solutions. So I can’t help but find their statement mildly amusing.
But I suppose to actually be honest about the problem, as BT has been in the end, after a kicking from my MP, would only chase customers away to other broadband suppliers, who of course because of my local loop problem, can’t actually deliver the product that everybody wants.
In my view, there should be an on-line database that everyone can access, that shows the phone and broadband standard and quality, that is available at every house or business premises in the country. After all, you might find the ideal building for your new offices and it would be prudent to confirm the status of the phones and broadband before you made an offer.
But why stop at phones and broadband, as it would be much better if all the other services were listed as well.
The Anonymous Widower 