Fun Friday

Having got fed up with BT constantly upping the price for things I have changed over to Plusnet, halved the cost, lost BTSport, and hopefully still have a decent service.  Speed this morning is slightly slower, 43 instead of 50, by 1:30 it was up to 57 which is very good for this area.
Fiddling with the wires, removing the old BT cables now covered with a thick layer of dust, scrambling on the floor choking on dust changing plugs in unreachable places, then struggling to start the thing as filters were added that were not required.  All in all it took half an hour before I woke up and worked out how to get it going.  Now I am conscious I need to get the hoover out and get under the desk once again...

You will be aware of the fuss over this.  At Mansion House while the Chancellor was spouting half truths this woman decided to make a protest regarding climate change.  Mark Field, a large Tory MP grabbed her and chucked her out.
A fuss has ensued!
Loud yells from women concerning 'dangerous precedent' and anguish from opposition spokesmen.
Much space filled by the chattering media.
I have no sympathy.
There is a time to protest, the one in Hong Kong is an example, but disturbing speeches and blocking streets as has been attempted recently annoying folks going about their life, is not the way to do it.
Climate change is here and requires action, this is not the way to do it.  This is more attention seeking than protest.  I winder if she would protest for the homeless or the local foodbank?  I wonder indeed.
Of course had it been a man thrown out no fuss would be seen, no comment on TV, no bleeding hearts from 'spokeswomen,' no papers sold and TV and radio time filled.  Women sell papers.

      
Twice this week I have had to work!  Not just Tuesday morning, which was busy again, but Thursday afternoon also.  This I was told was a quiet day, it wasn't!  People came in!  On top of this we had climbed the castle on Monday, I had to iron all my shirts on Wednesday and clean the house and do other important jobs at home.  It has been one of those weeks where I have been constantly busy.  I am not used to this.  

This could soon be your next Prime Minister.

Think about that!

My BT Problem, Rugby Problems

This contained my BT problem.  This little box and the wire connected to it prevented me from receiving calls from people offering me tax refunds, changing bank accounts and allowing me to buy anti-virus supported by Microsoft.  All this, plus one or two nuisance calls - the family - because one wire was frayed and required replacing.
The new building next door has been awaiting connection to the mainline for some time but nothing could happen until the new telegraph pole (telegraph, what's that?) was installed.  That occurred Sunday and today the BT Outreach man arrived to plug them in.  Last night my great nephew contacted me via facebook, he is now an outreach engineer and he checked the line confirming a fault.  How he did this from near Edinburgh I did not ask as technology is beyond me.
Today I mentioned the fault to the engineer, made an online fault report, and almost immediately everything went dead!
You canny say they are not fast!
Within a short while all returned including the dead phone.
The men had installed the new line next door, found the corrupted wire, replaced this with new wire and all is well.  All in a mornings work.  Well done Outreach.
The internet and the football it contains, sorry I mean contact with friends and family it contains is important.  My life is lived through the web these days.  For instance when it went dead I had just found on Twitter a new relevant to the museum site concerning this area, the web is great for that.
So many good things but while it was down I was so lost I almost cleaned the fridge!
How sad can one get?
Of course now all is well I am not using the phone until tomorrow, when it is free for an hour...

Discrimination is rife in the world of Rugby Union Football.  One Australian player made a, somewhat rough, statement regarding the end for gays, atheists, liars, drunks and others when they die and meet Christ Jesus, reject the offer of life in Christ Jesus and Hell awaits.  This was a simple biblical statement certainly made in a 'straightforward' manner and has naturally brought upon his head the opposition of the gay lobby and the politically correct fear of the rugby authorities who do not wish anyone to attack them.  Israel Folau an Australian  rugby union international may well lose his position as the nations most important player because of his opinion.  In the rush to be seen as innocent of all charges his own team bosses are 'making enquiries' as to the matter.  I short washing their hands Pilate like.  Rugby is a man's game, especially in Australia, what a shame so few men lead the organisation running it and appear to be in charge of his own club.  
Folau has made it clear he will oppose any attempt to fire him from his rugby international contract, quite rightly, and we must now wait and see if the brave men running the game there will stand up for him and his right to free speech or run from the gay lobby and dump him.  
In England, Billy Vunipola, another rugby playing Christian, has defended Folau's right to speak.  He too now finds himself up before the authorities for offering biblical truth to the world led by the gay lobby that would reject truth.
We now live in a world in which biblical truth is pushed aside for 'political correctness,' that is the social pressure led by the gay lobby forcing the people to accept their demand to be accepted as they are, though no Christian has not done so, and bullying anyone, especially Christians who continue to point out God's views on the subject.  We are corralled into accepting their opinion and afraid to speak out against it.  Hitler's Germany had a similar approach to opposition.

What is the biblical view?
All men and women are born sinners, no-one will be saved on the day we face Christ Jesus, not one!
Therefore as we are totally lost God himself came down to earth in human form, lived some 30 years or so on earth facing the same problems we face, never sinned and gave up his own life after being hounded, arrested, beaten, ridiculed, scourged, and crucified, always offering forgiveness to his enemies, and dying on the cross as the price to pay for our, yours and mine, sin.  Our nature put him on the cross, only a perfect man can stand and none exist, Jesus, fully man and fully God took our punishment, was separated from his father, and the Father from him, so you and I could have an opportunity of salvation.
On the third day he rose again, he being sinless could not remain there, our sin could.
When he rose he offered 'repentance' the chance to change our ways and follow him and receive forgiveness and then by his grace the Holy Spirit who will lead us into a new life.  His life is hard but in the end glorious.  Even now it has its moments.  Nothing compares with knowing Christ Jesus, the living God!
Those who ignore or reject this offer then stand alone before God on that day that comes to us all, only their perfection will enable them to stand, and none are perfect.  One sin rejects us, how many have you?    
The chance of a new life is available, Folau and Vinipola have found this life and will suffer for it, all Christians do.  One day God will receive them through Jesus sacrifice, they wish all others, gays, drunks, liars, even politicians, to be save also, we have one life let us make the correct choice.

Fault!

I saw a lot of this on Sunday.  I chose to walk home from church, having rejected the offer of a lift as I needed the exercise.  Naturally the rain started soon after and I was fair drookit by the time I got home.  This mood was not eased when shortly after shovelling what passed for lunch down my throat the internet went!
This of course is a disaster, for one I was watching German football and for another it keeps falling out.  On the occasions it returns I find I have had a fault cleared but it keeps coming back, the phone line is also dead and they (that is BT) claim I have an 'Open Fault' while claiming service in my area is OK.  I will therefore have to spend time going through the system to check my end to find it is their end, but will things work?
I did try yesterday to check but this killed the internet for hours as I am wary of intervening until tomorrow or later when I can spend time shouting at it.  It is probably this end but I fail to see how.  The phone matters not as I only use it at weekends and rarely do I get calls but from scammers.  So that can wait but the web must stay alive or I have to actually meet people!  That will never do!

   
Tonight I must rest, tomorrow is museum day with the Easter holidays upon us.  This means the attraction of parrots and other 'exotic' creatures will bring in hundreds of little ones and bring us to our knees by lunchtime.  I may be back by Wednesday...

Mist Again

The mist hung over everything this morning, damp streets and glistening leaves, those that remained on the trees that is, greeted early risers.  The sound, not that Sunday morning has much sound, the sound of distant rumbling traffic was deadened by the mist.  Even the birds appeared to have remained at home unable to see danger more than fifty yards away.   
Funny how mist changes everything.  Suddenly we are almost blind, not quite as bad as the mist mixed with chimney smoke in days gone by giving us Smog.  Now that was thick.  In Edinburgh during the last great smog buses were abandoned on the wrong sides of the road as drivers had lost their bearing the dark adding to the problems, all traffic ceased.  Smokeless zones dealt with that and now just mist by itself hangs round us.  
Wind blows things around, sometimes knocking down trees and houses, rain drenches us and floods the streets but mist just hangs there leaving us trapped according to the thickness it wishes to offer.  The valleys lie thick under its veil while above the sun begins to lessen the grip of the mist and by the time I had raced from bed, much later than when I first noted the mist, it had begun to dissipate.
I raced from bed as I was late.  I had to prepare to go out and time was short, soon I was almost ready, just breakfast, such as it was to take, and then I glanced at the laptop to see what is going on.   
It was then I noticed a strange thing, the clock had a differing time to that on the laptop.  Why?  I wondered if the problems since changing to fibre had affected the machine when I realised the clocks had gone back last night and I had not changed them.  I was not running late, I had an hour to spare!  I then spent most of that hour changing clocks. 
One laptop yesterday gave me up to 56 mph speed, very good however this one, on which almost everything resides slowed to 1.98.  Today however when I returned I fiddled and found it offered 47 mph as it ought.  Hooray!
Tonight as I worked hard at nothing at all it returned to the slow speed for no reason at all.
I am now walking in the dark awaiting the mist descending as that to me will be a lot clearer than the workings of the internet and fibre.

First World Problems Arise Again

My Fibre Broadband is up and working, in theory giving me much faster speeds and hopefully better images.  Of course this did not work in a straight forward manner.  Oh no, it failed! 
I set up the 'Hub' (BT call routers 'Hubs' for no good reason) and all worked well on the old Broadband.  However when the call came informing me in that broken 'one word at a time falling over itself' robotic voice that Broadband had been set up and was going I soon discovered it was not.
The Hub lit up, shone green, flashing orange, flashing purple, steady orange.....and continued steady orange indicating a fault.  I followed the instructions and kept strangely calm and at around 7:30 called the BT 0800 number.  A message thanked me for calling and asked "Button 1, Button 2" and having hit the wrong button I had to start again.  "Welcome,Button 1..." Ring tone, "Thanks for calling, we are very busy at the moment and the wait could be 10 or 20 minutes."  Button 1, or Button 2 or Button 3... ring tone, the first of FIFTEEN messages informed me "Thank you for waiting, All our call handlers are very busy at the moment, I apologise for the delay." Ring tone, message, ring tone message, etc ..." are very busy at the moment" until just before eight on the clock a human being answered!  
This man was very good and tested the line, checked this and checked that and so on, you have been there have you not?  By 8:30 he had decided it was not me, it was not the line so he must send an engineer out.  He came back after a while having arranged an engineer to call between 8 am and 1 pm tomorrow, being today!  What's more he arrived at 8:10 this morning!  The engineer was good.  Very effective, hard working tea drinker, he spent some time running tests and decided it was definitely the 'Box,' that green box that BT have standing in various parts of towns and cities. 
So off he travels to the box and forty minutes later he is back, plays around with high tech equipment again and now my Fibre Provider is providing.  Still sticks a bit but I guess that is it settling in?  Two hours off that mans life was taken up listening to me, hold on what I mean ...oh never mind. Two hours he spent fixing this and the complicated computerisation of it all amazes me.  In days of old we pressed Button 'B' and got our four pennies back, today he presses buttons and masses of complicated (much for security in these days of hackers) goes off around the planet fixing lines and bringing billions of calls together.  I was told about 10 years ago that one fibre cable could take around 15000 calls at one time!  For old people like me this is magic!
Right, what football is on tonight....

I woke at 5:30 this morning and was determined to get up at seven to ensure I was awake just in case the engineer called early.  So I slept fitfully until just after six having one or two strange dreams and wondering why we have noticeable dreams when we sleep for only a few minutes?  Is it because we wake when still so near a deep sleep or what?  Most interesting dream where an old woman in a block of flats asks me to ensure her door is locked and secure.  No idea who she was, never been in that building but it was all so real for a short while.  I hope I dream I have a bath early tomorrow morning so I need not have one when I wake.  The engineer stopped me doing anything else today as I had to put the house back together, the phone point is just behind the desk, and all the clutter was moved to make room.  The only action was taking a picture of the sodden leaves knocked down by last nights rain and taking that from the window as I could not be bothered stumbling up and down the stairs.   Summer time ended the other day (Gosh!) and Autumn leaves are annoying those who have to sweep them off the paths.  The golden colour has not come out in the picture but you can imagine what it is like.  Lovely colours but I still prefer Spring!

Trapped Happily by DPD

Trapped all day I have been although I was not too despondent about this.  For one, I was waiting on a parcel being delivered and for another the weather was too hot for my weary bulk.  
I got an e-mail informing me my latest expensive buy (£2 each) was on it's way and that by just downloading the 'app' I could follow the van drivers progress.  This interested me as I recall the days sitting in the van driving around London (before today's van driver was born) using the high tech available at the time, namely one sheet of grubby paper with deliveries written thereon and a pen, unless that had been nicked by a comrade.  Today, they said, the 'app' allows you to trace the van as it reaches each delivery (I was 29 in the list and he would arrive between 12:06 and 13:06) and I considered this a marvellous idea remembering just how many times we arrived at closed doors.  Our best advice was the driver working out his route and scribbling whether we would be 'a.m.' or 'p.m.'  If traffic occurred, as it did do in London, then we could be late.  
There is a problem here however, I attempted to download said 'app' and discovered that 'DPD' doing their best omitted to generate an 'app' that worked on laptops.  Being a mere grumbling pensioner I canny afford a mobile phone costing £300, especially as I have no friends to call, and lose out on such things.  However I e-mailed back to DPD and within a short time the display arrived on my screen.  I strongly suspect that this was clear enough on their website but daftie here could not see it.  So I relaxed as I made my lentil soup, with far too much cayenne pepper, did some (for some read 'little') work on one of my projects and generally lazed around in the heat.
In the cool of the day the temperature is still in the 80's, that is around 27 to those of you out of kilter with the real world.  It was much higher when I opened the door to the van driver at precisely 12:06 would you believe.   I am much impressed with this system I must say, well done DPD.  
Global warming is no myth, in spite of what the naysayers naysay it is real, the temperature and the weather in general is shifting whatever the reason.   I sat here exposing my beer belly to the windows, er no I mean sat here working near the windows to get what air there was as it circled around.  It was too hot for me, much as I like this, but once the parcel had been opened and satisfied my desire for shiny things I remained happy to sleep rather than walk the streets.

   
i did spend some time on a thing called 'USwitch' trying to find cheaper energy.  I also looked at the cheaper smaller energy companies and was not impressed much.  To save a few pounds here you lose a few there.  Unless you catch a special offer I could not see much advantage in changing from one company to another, not for me at any rate.  How they rip us off!  
However the council has a place in a nationwide scheme where they say energy companies will make us an offer, possibly cheaper than that we now have.  The only thing is to register and await their offer which arrives sometime in October!  Ah well, my name is down I now await.
I also had a look at the ISP broadband and fibre packages and am interested in one or two of those.  Just what the catch is I am unsure but I am now paying £45 for this and even with BT Sport this is too much.  All BTS wish to do is watch Rangers and Celtic, I want Scottish football on my laptop not the bigot brothers.  I can watch the games on those chancer streams instead.  I don't want to do this but BT force me to.

Sleepy Wednesday

After I trudged my weary way home yesterday (56 kids almost all at once!) I followed the normal procedure of laying my head on the desk and switching on the laptop.  It didn't work!  I picked my head up and pushed this and touched that, internet dead totally dead.  The laptop worked as always but the web was unreached.  No matter what I did nothing would work until I was so fearful of the silence I turned on the TV and left the machine to stew.  Fifty channels on pap so I ended up with the 24 BBC news where I discovered the while of BT's output was damaged by an 'outage!'  Some outage as most of the UK was outaged!  When the internet returned it was about seven in the evening and I was beginning to see spiders crawling up the wall!  I was also worried I would miss the football and a cold sweat was running down my back.
Once again I had that strange feeling of silence.  Not a chosen silence but an internet lost silence.  The world seems suddenly to be dull, life empty and having the TV on to fill the gap does not help, especially when it is full of pap.  How did we live before the internet?  How did we follow football?  How did we keep in touch with people or things?  Some folks were out overnight and some of those run businesses what a hindrance for them this must have been.  I suffered also and now I await my compensation, 72 pence for loss of web and £600,000 for emotional hurt. 

In spite of a chill in the wind that appears to have been kept in the fridge the daffs have come out all over the land.  The council ones have broken through about two months early and when Spring arrives there will be none left.  The birds are confused by the mild weather just as we are.  Still I prefer this to the snow we had before.
It was much better on Monday when I had to crawl into the museum to aid 74 children in their shopping.  This was fun as both days kids were all six year olds and had no idea about the counting business.   With our advice however most managed to get something they liked and some managed to get at least four things for their £3.  It is quite hard having to break their hearts when telling them three things worth £4:99 are out of their league and they must choose to drop one, this can take time.  The teachers on both days were good which helps and all went off happy.
I have been asleep three times today to recover...

Outage Outrage

How I suffered!
Yesterday the Internet started to play up.  The laptop has been slow for a wee while so I cleaned and deleted, made use of CC Cleaner, ran this and ran that but it was slower than ever.  Late on my email would not work, no matter how hard I hit the laptop it did not improve.  The GMail stopped also, in fact neither could be contacted and Google would no work either. 
I checked both laptops and both struggled.  Even my pictures would not work, they just disappeared.  I switched it off and on, did all the usual things, shouted and swore, kicked it about the floor but nothing worked. 
I decided it was their fault and left it till this morning intending to fix things before I went out.
Lo and behold it worked normally!
I have since discovered BT had an outage which affected the whole of East Anglia, much of the Midlands and bits of London.  Screaming peoples were to be found in a million or two homes last night, no longer concerned for IS terrorists more interested in fixing the computers. 
How important the internet has become.
Kids could not do homework or play games, businesses and those working from home could not work, Blog workers could not blog nor could half the nation check their emails, all because of an unknown fault somewhere in BT.
Terrorists have it wrong.  Shooting people is spectacular and in our society brings out the emotional responses that we see today (pity they are less emotional for the seven million babies killed by abortion), it would be much more efficient and a lot less dangerous to just plant a few small bombs in electric sub stations blocking out the entire nation.  Devastation everywhere, industry brought to a halt, millions of porn sites blocked, blogs unwritten, and despair and unhappiness abroad.  No suicides required although a few may occur but a much better way to spite an enemy today.  
Tonight however all is well and I am able to connect with my spam.  I can now sleep knowing all is well with the world and not fear having to talk to real people while I fight the laptop, for without the laptop the world stops.  


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Everything Works, Well Almost...

So the BT equipment arrived this morning.  It was well explained, simple to adapt and after my siesta I discovered the switchover had occurred and soon all was working as normal.  The only slight problem was signing in to My BT as it were.  I had to re-input my details, get confirmation and carry on.  Now I try to sign in to BTSport and it tells me I am not signed in.  Typical.  Small gremlins which will soon be worked out....hopefully.  However all works otherwise and comments still come through, even if the transatlantic cable is dodgy!  

That apart it has been difficult typing while sitting with feet on the radiator and fingers numb with cold. The heating goes off and several minutes later the feet join the fingers.  I look forward to tomorrow when I can sit in the museum and enjoy the free heat there.  A few days cold weather and the gas man is laughing his head off as we all tun up the heating to avoid hypothermia.  The millions salted away by those (mostly foreign) shareholders will not make them happy I tell thee.  By cutting the price they can however make me happy!  Oh to suffer in Australia, Uganda, Mumbai or some other warm place.  

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Stats and Changeover

As I am moving to BT Sport tomorrow, if it works, I have been wandering about amending email addresses removing the Pipex one that ceases tomorrow and inserting a workable email.  This as you will know is a never ending task.  At least I will lose much of the spam that has followed me for umpteen years.  

One problem is the electricity people.  They will not allow me to change the address unless I give them a mobile number.  I do not use a mobile, well I carry one but only for emergency's, as only people with friends require mobile phones.  Therefore the electric folks will not allow me to alter my email, at least their on screen robot won't.  They may have to shout then.

Statcounter however was not a problem and for the first time in ages I wandered about their site looking into who visits me.  How interesting to see people arriving for short visits arriving for anything from 'Old Troopships' to 'Oor Wullie.'  People pop in from Portugal to California, strangers passing by and not stopping.  Someone in Russia was impressed with a cartoon, this one:-

So impressed that his mate a few hundred miles away soon came on to see it too.  Folks in Germany, Portugal, many US states and much of Europe pop in and ignore me.  Few I noticed hang around for long.  I suppose only the more intellectual types would do that.

As I said, tomorrow is the big change over.  Sometime or other Talk talk will switch off and immediately (or later) BT will turn on.  If there is silence for a while it means there is the usual BT interminable delay or I have everything I require except the wherewithal to make it work, which is most likely.   

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Monday Meandering

In light of the Islamist extremist lot that bothers society so much our government, through cabinet minister Eric Pickles, wrote to all the Imams and Mosques asking (telling?) them to stand up against the extremists.  What the letter actually said I did not bother to read but the Imams and Muslim leaders were not very happy.  In their eyes they were being blamed for extremist action and this they did not like.  Now we know some mosques have indeed seen speakers who ought not to have been allowed but the tactlessness of the letter shows a lack of understanding of the Muslims among us.

The PM has of course stood up and supported Pickles letter (after all he probably thought of it) and finds it difficult to accept the objections.  Could this be he does not understand where most Muslims are coming from?  Could it be that Teresa May, the Home secretary, announcing to a Jewish meeting that this country needs Jews to remain here and not run off to Israel, has a part?  A cynic, and I am no cynic as you know, might read all this as a 'telling off for the Muslims' to get the Jewish vote, and the Jewish vote in North west London is huge!  Tsk!  Imagine the PM playing politics with Muslims who mostly vote Labour.  Who would have thought?

So loud announcement from British Gas that they will reduce their prices by 5 percent.  Brilliant!
Of course this will happen at the end of February when the cold weather ends. Brilliant piece of theatre from the lying money grabbing crooks that they are.  I particularly liked the stone faced spokeswoman who when asked why not reduce prices straight away like EON did last week she immediately talked about the overall average reduction and ignored the question.  
We must nationalise these energy companies, no matter what!  We are being ripped off, the energy world is a mess and the public suffer.  There is no other way than nationalisation, but this will never happen!   

So I got a message today from BT on the ansafone about my account.  I had to phone them and undergo a female Scots voice giving me the runaround for a while before there were no staff available to take my call.  I decided to call later.  I called later, and after one failed attempt got through to a charming chap who told me the thing needed reordering.  This he did and on Feb the second it will all change.  Talk Talk will be out and legal Scots football will be in!  
Unless something goes wrong!

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Administration Day

I am ending the year with some administration.  Paperwork long left lying about has been put to use, calls made and services amended.  Among them is the change from 'TalkTalk' to 'BT Sport' so I can watch Scottish football legally and with a clearer picture than before.
The need to phone Mumbai to speak to someone who does not speak clear English is a nuisance no matter how well educated and willing they may be. Several times I failed to understand her speech, and she sounded irked by this, I know why as I often have that trouble with the folks here.  Still all went through and within the next month bit 'TalkTalk' and 'BT' will work together to cut me off from the web for a long period of time!  Quite when this will be I know not, but it will happen, won't it?
I have run several devices to clean up the laptop and it actually worked! Several things run faster and I suspect I have also mislaid one or two things on the way. I certainly pressed 'block' on one item when I meant to press 'allow' and now I canny unblock the thing!  I can look at email when half the page is missing I suppose.  
Now I note a new calendar lies awaiting my touch.  This one has those old pictures with word balloons added, you know, "I want to open a joint bank account." "Who with?"  "Whoever has lots of money."  It is a woman asking by the way.  Now I must go through this marking in all the birthdays, especially the ones I forgot last time.   Checking carefully to see just how many of these scurvy knaves have given me two dates for their birthday.  That has happened before.  
This calendar is OK in many ways but has two irritating aspects.  One is the unfortunate habit of beginning the week on a Monday, I always begin on Sunday.  The other is the holidays, they are all US! Who needs to know about 'Independence Day?'   Bah!  However with the birthdays marked in I can now forget about them until the time.
The thing about birthdays is the demand to send a card.  So when I can I buy a bundle of suitable cards and store them for the day.  On the day naturally none of them fit the recipient.  They are either all for girlies or all for men of action, the word 'action' need not be taken literally.  So once again I trek round the three or four places to find cheap cards and by the end of the year I have a bundle unused in the desk.  Mind you I have been known to reuse Christmas cards for birthdays, if I am not fussy why should they be I reckon?
The citizens of Edinburgh will be well into their midwinter celebrations by this time, even though midnight is still hours away.  Hogmany will be a big party for many and I suspect somewhere in Leith Mr S. is handing out the households cash via the bar of the 'Sarry Heid.'  In this dark land the area quietens, until the fireworks at midnight that cause so must pain to the town's animals, then a few drunks will despoil the place but most will remain quiet, apart from the ones punching one another 'up the throat,' an activity that has become commonplace after closing time these days.  The reason is simple, there are too few police now, the Tories have cut them and late night revels and punch ups are left to the idiots to sort themselves.  
I am heading for bed come what may.  In the past we went round folks houses having a drink and a party, today Hogmany appears more concerned with drink than party.  The ability to drink without endangering yourself or others is noted less and less it seems to me.  The 'First footing,' the whisky, the 'Black Bun' was all part of things then.  It still is but it appears to me listening to folks that life has changed greatly in the last twenty years.  The days of yore saw parties, conversation and much laughter, although the Latvian's amongst us could not half knock back vodka!  Not me, then or now! I reckon that is the stuff that has kept them going well into their eighties.  Ban it and they might disintegrate. The harder edge to the world has lost much at this time. 
The outside world has gone strangely quiet.  Few cars pass, no one walks, no talk, no cries from the brats in the park, nothing.  They must be rushing home to watch sad TV or are filling the pubs, and few will 'first foot' as they have no idea what that is here.  That reminds me, I musts secure that door...
   

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Up The Pole

For a change I removed my bulk from the chair and wandered the streets looking for unusual things to photograph.  The sun is out, the weather delicious, the sky blue and having sat in the park studying the near naked mothers with their brats book on local history I took with me I was not in need of lounging around again.  Not if they react like this mornings mums did anyway!  So I strolled around and became captivated once again by the manner in which BT keep the phone lines operating in this country.  The simple elegant manner in which the operators sling wires over the road is a wonder to see.  Whether these lines reach the correct phone is not revealed from here but that van containing the perplexed BT man is often working around this area.  Still the confused wires against the blue of the sky captivate my eye.  One wire in the wrong place could lead to people speaking to the lamp instead of course.

As I sat ogling pondering this morning I considered the reaction to the election.  UKIP, The United Kingdom Independence Party, scored many victories in parts of white England that finds itself crowded with East Europeans.  Lincolnshire in particular took them to its heart.  Overall the idea of UKIP as a contender does not now appears likely but their use as a 'protest vote' mostly against Cameron's Conservatives has been successful.  Poor Dave is now so worried he appears on screen totally calm and happily accepting he cannot just insult UKIP, as indeed he has been doing.  Indoors he will be seeking directorships with which to line his pockets after the next General Election.  He has many friends in the City of course.  UKIP won a few seats here, but not ours.  The Labour man came second by a mere 31 votes, and UKIP were 150 behind.  However in South Shields, where the Labour Party were bound to win the By-Election the Lib-Dems came so low as to gain less votes than the BNP, the British National Party!  The other side of town gave their man here 36 votes, which shows how big his family and friend reach appears to be.  The nation is shaken, although only one in four bothered to vote here, and the three out of four who didn't will no doubt be the first to whine.  

Sunshine planned for the weekend, a bank holiday with sunshine, it has never been known!
 
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Life Returns

After another two calls to Mumbai this morning, I cut the call off by accident myself the first time, I was convinced by a pretty young Indian lass that all would be well. Yet again this was an operator who had to stick to the script!  She did very well and was only perturbed when I asked where she was.  "India," she replied somewhat confused as people are not supposed to leave the script and she was more troubled when I indicated 'India' was a big place. Possibly she thought I might visit, fat chance, however she was somewhere I didn't quite catch, near Mumbai. Lunchtime and the Internet ceased once again and a noise outside forced my nose to the window.  There I beheld, and almost enfolded in my arms, the man from BT fixing the wires on the telegraph pole outside my window. Later, with one or two blips as he played around with the connection back at the exchange, I was left with the normal slow speeds that I have come to expect from 'Pipex,' or 'TalkTalk' as we must call them now. I checked my mobile phone for cost.  I have £3:62 left on the phone, (Virgin, 'Pay as you go') and I reckon there was about £16 in it to begin with, but cannot be sure!  Whatever, today's calls cast about £7 in themselves. Good job that phone was filled up some time ago when rich! Maybe I will once again compare prices of these ISP's. Still, all is well now and I no longer have to go outside and talk to real people.  



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