Sunday Sabbatical

Being trapped indoors by an attack of couldn'tbebotheredness I spent much time looking at this screen.  Having taken words of wisdom from those technically minded amongst us - and Soub - I went ahead with the Windows 10 upgrade.  This took a wee bit off time but appears to have gone through quite well.  Most things have been found and one or two items are a wee bit strange but we will get through.  It has been thought out better than 8.1 and is somewhat reminiscent of XP in my confused mind.  I am not sure why but I think it will work.  One or two quibbles but I will grumble about them later, not that I ever do of course...
Of course, I wait patiently for the updates to follow...

Win 10 worked well enough for me to watch the Championship flag being raised after our promotion last season and then enjoy a thrilling encounter as we trounced an excellent St Johnstone side 4-3.
How wonderful to know that now football is back and we look good enough to be at least mid table.
I compared this game to the Dundee United v Aberdeen game that followed and was surprised by the mediocre performances on view. Tsk!  We can take both if they keep playing like that!

This Lord Sewell fellow, the one from the House of Lords who was caught sniffing coke from a tarts breast, shoving vodka down and discussing the folks around him, then paying for it from his Lords allowances, have you wondered why he was caught?
I realise some tart could have thought there was money in this, but I don't see this as the reason.  The House of Lords, as indeed the House of Commons, is full of prostitute users. kiddie fiddlers, wife/husband beaters, tax dodgers, liars, drunks and the like, so why was this one targeted?
These guys all know who the dubious are, they know the perverts, they can hand them all in if they wish to so why does this one alone get caught?
What does he know, who has he upset that a man unknown to the world should be dumped on this way.  Or am I just a conspiracy theorist perhaps?

Anyway, I'm sick of laptops now but canny put this one down.  I had better take it to bed...



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Computer Stuff Innit?

The Windows 10 upgrade arrived today.  I have yet to upgrade, and the beast is going slow for some unknown reason as it is, and I am in two minds whether to go ahead with this confusing upgrade business.  One thing is clear Microsoft will know everything about us that it does not know already and 'they' will be keeping tabs on us even closer than before.  If only I had brains I could use one of them Unix type browsers.  If I had brains I would of course be living in a warm country, by the sea, with several servants seeing to my every need.  As it is I'm clearly dumb!  
I will await indications from the geeks around us as to whether this new OS works, if I have brains enough to work it, and what are the pitfalls, mistakes and obvious bits Microsoft have forgotten.  I suspect within the week a million updates will be flowing around the ether stopping the hackers enjoying themselves, interfering with peoples private computer worlds is a job for the police and tabloid journalists after all.
One thing, every blog now has that daft cookie message on it but I have not seen it on mine, does it show to others I ask?  I understand the need for this but wonder about going too far with such things.  Surely a small message, whether accepted or not, should suffice?
I have tried to remove things from the laptop today but even that went wrong.  I have placed the info on discs, pictures fill discs, this took time and was well organised I thought.  However as I went to add fotos to these discs they were either full or I could not find the appropriate disc!  Maybe I lost it, deleted it or didn't make one and deleted the previous stuff by mistake, anything is possible here.  Still it filled the morning didn't it?  My technical expertise is limited but today I must confess it was falling apart, I knew I should have eaten better last night, that's the problem!  Something is slowing the beast and with half a brain and the failure of the malware finders to find anything I conclude it must be me.  Bah!  
This is typical of course, work on fixing things in the house is half finished and many half started ideas leave a mark in odd corners,usually wreathed in cobwebs.  My documents folder has many such great ideas I have began and dumped when reality came along, and this desk is awash with books and papers for reasons long forgotten.  The story of my life really.  
I prepare for the kids tomorrow, the bullwhip suggestion has been useful, extra staff laid on, hopefully, and chocolate produced to keep the girls near me.  A useful tip for men failing to attract them, a bag of chocolates produce a response like bees around a honey pot!  If they talk too much give them toffees, that does not fail either as they cannot refuse and then cannot talk, wonderful idea that works! 

Work, Work, Work....

This has been my view for the last 48 hours.  I have been doing a bit for the museum which must be in tomorrow, and it is not nearly finished.  My eyes are looking at one another, my mind does not know where it is and I did not catch up on other things till long past the time they had gone.  I am not used to this work lark these days.  
Writing things, when they have to be accurate and right, is not easy as it means going back over it time and again, fixing the mistakes, wondering where bits have gone to and asking why a paragraph is twice repeated in different places!  This is just the revised draft, and two thirds have still to see a preliminary scribble.  
Here I had no interruptions, except when going back and forward to remove that red line that claims I canny spell.  That takes a lot of time I can tell you.  I would like the machine to auto correct misspelt words (Yankees don't like the word 'spelt' either) but this means I would have to go over every word and take out the things the machine puts in wrongly.  
So tomorrow she will scratch my eyes out and grumble "This is not what I wanted," before reaching for the whip.  Not much change from normal for her then...

He thought it funny to sit there and laugh while I attempted to print some pages off.  Not only did it fail as the black ink had run off.  This required the removal of a thousand items to open the printer so as to insert the new one, which luckily was in the drawer.  This complicated operation, once every thing had been returned almost to its place, went wrong as all the pages printed off instead of just the seven I wanted.  I may need a new cartridge soon!  I think that bird may be a Kookaburra and not a Starling judging by the way he laughed at me.

I shot him!

Stress and Flowers

For two days I have been removing pictures, old programmes and stuff and the brute is still sticking.  Now I am not the complaining type but this would be a perfect opportunity to grumble.
Take Real Player.  I removed this because it introduced 'Real Player Cloud' and I did not wish to possess this.  The 'Cloud' part remains and is impossible to find and remove.  'Wild Tangent Games' are similar still!  Much more space has been found on the hard disc but still I wish to lose these brutes.
I downloaded fotos onto discs.  I had some on two or three different discs, so I deleted/swapped/ amended/changed and so on until I have almost sorted out the pictures but there are still more to go!  I was at this so long yesterday eventually the laptop could take no more and refused to play!  Like me it was too tired to continue.

  
With the sun failing to warm the place at least it lit up the flowers in the organic garden outside.   Quite why the heat fails when the light shines I do not understand, however we should be used to this by now.  
Nothing else has happened, if it did I missed it as I was waiting on a new disc to format!  Through the laptop problems I could hardly catch any of the last football of the season.  Now Mike S. informs me the Heart of Midlothian return to training on Friday!  A close season of five days only!!!  When I was a lad football ended after the Scottish Cup Final followed a week later with the Scotland v England game.  That left the remains of May, all of June, most of July before the new season which started in August or the last week in July.  How I missed the game during that period, it appeared to go on for ever.  Now it almost does not exist!  Those who run the game require to sort things out say!   There is now a cry for summer football - WE ALREADY HAVE IT!  


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Cleaning Laptop

All day I have been at this!  All day, from sunrise, behind the clouds, to dusk, which will be behind the same clouds, I have been attempting to dump stuff from the laptop.  I was 3:38 GB from capacity and now, after removing files, pictures, and anything that moves I have only moved to 7:85GB from capacity!  I still cannot get into the big ones I wish to move, Windows games on Win 7 are non removable, thanks ya greedy ape, and I still cannot get rid off others.  Bah!
I have removed pictures onto discs and each one required formatting, this took seven minutes each time, or was it more?  Choosing which to keep and which to dump takes hours, making, and burning, chicken also takes time, and through all this I have been unable to watch the football properly.  Not that I am one to complain but this really is the last now, in the middle of June!
I canny find anything now, the desk is covered in discs.....

I need to sleep...

Blackbirds & Football

The desk is still untidy, the papers still lie waiting sorting, books remain gathering dust as does everything else and all because of 'WildTangent Games!'  No matter what I tried I cannot get rid of the files deep inside.  Other things like 'Real Cloud' remains also stubbornly refusing to vamoose.  I have gone in here and there, used this and that yet so much claims to be there still.  The hard drive is almost full so something has to come out.  I lost meagre amounts of files, much sweat and my temper, but so much remains.  There was nothing for it but to have lunch and go back to bed.

This scruffy erk was sitting feeling sorry for himself as the Summer rain (note that, Summer rain) was falling.  The Starlings attempt to eat the Suet pellets from the feeder but I shoo them away as they stop the wee birds from feeding.  This young chap may or may not have been feeding but he certainly does not like the weather.  Starlings like to flock together and in the past we had vast numbers of them sitting atop the radio mast behind the police station and flying around in a large group having a ball.  Still a few hundred but numbers have dropped in recent years, maybe it's me!  Charles Dickens wrote of such flocks gathering in the far off suburbs of London, though they were far from suburbs then, at places like Kingston on Thames and gathering together to meet in London's centre.  Thousands would arrive, and still do, and er, do do, all over the place returning home in the morning. Not quite like it was in the 19th century but many still around.

Also unhappy, but probably something to do with her man who has not been feeding the kids or doing his work in the house, is this lass who certainly did not like the rain in her face.  Not a bad picture considering I took it through a window. 

BBC

At last, at long last the final game of the season is actually over.  No more football until, well July I suspect.  I need the rest, I am tired watching football, tired being stressed by it, tired and aching waiting for it to start and tired and aching waiting for it too finish.  Now at Last I have time to get the desk tidied up and...hold on, I think there may be a game tomorrow....

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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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Maudlin Monday

The young nurse (they are all young to me) at the surgery mentioned how lucky I was to be retired. "I'm busier than ever," said I, not letting on that I was lying.  I would be busier if I did all those jobs that need doing however!  So passing me fit and demanding I return in two weeks to prove I am still alive I made my way back to the laptop to continue rewriting the writing that I wrote before.  This indicated many mistakes so it was lucky I did this but not so lucky that any time I moved the format changed and required resetting.  Why must computers behave like women I ask you?  

Sitting here chewing my dried dates, figs and small red things I notice that the healthy 'Sweet Papaya Cubes' are 42% papaya and 58% sugar!  How healthy is that?  Natural sugar is one thing but I wonder... Still I suppose all this is doing me good, oranges, apples, lemons, fish, fish in tins, frozen fish, if I eat any more I will grow fins!  I did manage to pump up the tyres on the bike and soon I will be trundling along on it.  The poor thing has lain still so long it is filthy.  I should clean it first but canny be bothered!  It will work, I hope.

I have the eye of the tiger, the heart of a lion, and a lifetime ban from the zoo.

I ignored the media today for the most part.  Too much propaganda, too much for my brain especially as I had so much that I wasn't doing!  Some got done by the simple means of not trawling through the press to comment on English dickheads sayings.  I even cleaned the sink!  It is a white colour right enough! Tomorrow I will report to the museum, possibly take the laptop to finish what I am writing and spend the rest of the day putting David Cameron clones in their place.  

  

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AAAAAARRRGGHHH!!!!!!!

The morning began in the usual manner.  I sat here at the laptop, switched it on, waited an eon or two while it wormed up and once all was ready I moved my hand over it and accidentally switched the blessed thing off again!  Hmmm this does not look good thought I.
So I decide to take a bath even though Sunday is several days away.  This means twisted the dial on the boiler, pushing the switch and standing back until several little red lights light up one after the other.  I waited, I waited and I waited!  After two had ignited I turned on the tap, rather too early.  No other lights lit up.  I turned of the tap while the tepid water slunk along the bottom off the bath, hmm that needs a clean too.  Eventually the spluttering boiler offered hot water and I was somewhat satisfied.
I returned from the ablutions and switched on the laptop.  The screen went black, light black, then switched off again.  I thought I had touched the button twice and began again.  I again came face to face with a black screen then a light coloured screen and then a small box informing me something had not connected (what did it say?).  I switched off.  I switched on, black screen, light purplish screen for ages and ages, then nothing.  I switched off and dumped it.
For the past few weeks the thing has been overheating.  Strange things have been happening now an again and I suspect the poor thing has been overworked for the past two years.  It is no longer able to cope with the excessive workload.  Sadly I considered a new one that works.  

I switched on again, it worked, it offered me a 'safe screen' but I began normally and it has worked since, but it is somewhat hot still.  So I decided a new one must be obtained.  I searched the Argos catalogue, gulping at the prices and failing to understand what half the words meant, then made a sort off decision.  I checked the alternative shopping places, not many here, and plumped for the best laptop the emergency fund would allow.
After much humming and hawing I got it out of the box.
I kept the old machine running as I was listening to a radio programme there, and began the operation of opening up the brute.  naturally all the plug sockets were taken up, covered in dust and in the most unreachable places.  Coughing and spluttering I sought an extension cable and got the brute to switch on.  I was then led through the many pages taking me into Microsoft's world. Coloured screens with messages telling me things are OK but I want a message that tells me what is really going on.  I want to see the workings.  There were forms to fill, decisions to take, and then I entered my email and passed on to a screen where I entered the code sent to me.   Easy eh?  No, I had to enter a code that I could only get from my Googlemail account. However I had not got into the blessed thing so I could not get into anything to retrieve the code!  Luckily the other machine was still blethering away, and I was missing the programme as my teeth were grinding together loudly and drowning out the sound, but via the other still working machine I got the code and got in, eventually.  For about an hour the screen changed colour while I ate the carpet and a message informed me that they were working, installing APPS (what?) and eventually as my carpet became a rug I was confronted with a 'Start' screen.
WHAT?
What on earth is that?
Windows 8 that's what!
What a shambolic mess appears before me.  What am I to do with this?
Where is Google, how do I get links?  What? Where? Why? and can I borrow a geek please as my fingers require a throat to surround!
Bring back XP I say!  It was simple, clear and not filled with needless childish geek muck!

On top of this my dinner was rubbish!

Bah!  Good job I'm not one to complain.

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Clean up.

The washing has been done, hung up over every suitable space and dried by evening for the most part. The hoover has run about the floor chasing the dust and forcing it to hang about in the air for hours after it was supposed to be sucked up into the depths of the machine.  Good grief even the sinks got themselves cleaned.  How is it something so close to water can be so filthy?  I fail to understand how the water manages to leave behind so much stour!  Well at least that is those jobs done for a few months.  

As the dust returned from whence it had arisen I decided to clean up the laptop and download all those files taking up space and too important to loose.  Such a simple idea but then it goes wrong.  Not that anything went wrong it was just that the discs I use to download stuff onto take forever to format.  I was convinced I had prepared all these beforehand and discovered I had failed to prepare any!  So I began, first I had to check all the previous discs badly field with things in a mixed order.  At least I discovered some pictures hidden for ages past if nothing else, then I discovered that nothing could be deleted from those old discs, which was a pity!    

Hours passed as I removed files of pictures to one disc after another.  Museum files here, picture museum files there, Great War here, other Great War there, on and on and I have hardly started yet.  I also began to clear out the links. Line after line of links I never use even allowing for some being important to hold on to so many might never be used again.  Just why some were kept is now a mystery and so many no longer work, the page long gone as the owner probably has too.  

Added to this I was searching through the Memorial website in an effort to update the info there and this also takes so much time.  However there is a reward in that new details arise and some interesting info comes out.  This however could go on for ever.  

     

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Now I'm not one to complain, but....

So for a while the laptop has been doing strange things, one of which concerns Google.  Normally on Chrome I have the Google UK picture, and on the right hand side a link takes me to the next page where the 'Add-Ons' are found.  Now when I click a tab the Google page that appears is different, and the next page link on Google UK has gone.  The new page is not 'Google UK' but a Google page with no Google mail, images, +You link or indeed the email address as usual.  There is nothing aIong the base either, instead under the sign there are links to places I have been, none of which I use as I don;t trust this, and attempting to use the type an address in the address bar takes over.  What is this? Is there a way of fixing this?  I have run the anti bad guys stuff but none have worked so far.  This irritates me, and I am not one to complain.....

There is the usual fuss in the media concerning this appalling event.  It appears this took place last night when I was busy having a life.  As usual banal, trite melodies offered by perverts and weirdos won the day.  It is long since this vapid bilge ceased to be an opportunity for struggling singers and became a replacement for the psychiatric hospitals Thatcher killed off, but why do people watch it?  This freak show 'entertains two thirds of the European public, yet there is nothing there!  I am more and more convinced the end is nigh, when you see what won can I be wrong?

"You'll never get out of here alive!"

Once again I spent Saturday morning at the museum as nobody was available to work it.  Next week l, off my own free will and kindness, will be there on Saturday again.  You see I am so kind and caring gentle and sweet.  I was also knackered!  I did manage to persuade the boss to make up a short advert looking for volunteers for the museum to fill in the empty spaces, far too many are sick, dying or finding jobs, and sweet as she is this happened.  So I shoved them into three churches letterboxes as there are people there who will be available I am convinced.  As one of the churches has many older "cough" peoples there will be historical knowledge also.  We will see!

Hours I have spent looking for my family.  So far none have been in prison but several have disappeared, if only one or two others would join them?   This has helped with finding dead soldiers but there is so much to do and I have hours of work to do to get through it all.  This and watching the football takes up so much time!  Of course dithering, falling asleep and wandering to the shops to obtain reduced price goods has also been required, the falling asleep bit being most popular.  However uncomplaining I battle on, my day ahead is planned out, nothing will deter my study, rise at six and plod on till midnight!  But I ask, what happened to my man George....?

Musing Wasted.

I sat in the early morning freshness the park offered this morning and mused. This resulted in a wonderful post concerning friendly people, dogs, crows and daisies.  The east wind caused a wee bit of a chill and at eight in the morning the sun had not removed the cloud cover yet leaving what to me was a perfect Edinburgh Summer afternoon.  Up there the folks would be taking their shirts off, putting on dark glasses and asking for sun cream!  Here they wrap up in large coats and mutter about the cold!  Tsk!
Sadly however while I enjoyed the fresh air, especially as I had not really got out yesterday, and I was intending to hide my face behind the laptop today, first to remove the glitch that has arrived and them seek out dead soldiers, things did not turn out right.  The thing is I did manage to work out how to fix the Windows Live Mail, it would not send photos and IE came up by itself and that would not work.  It appears something has been switching things off.  The 'proxy' setting was on, but it ought not to be on! That fixed Windows Live sent pics again.  Little things have been arriving, a strange new 'Google' page for one, yet the defenders claim all is well.  Bah!  The search for dead men got somewhere, a better picture emerges, yet there is such a long way to go, and now I have to meet someone on Saturday to offer information we don't have! Tsk!

The things started well, but after lunch all fell apart.  I fell asleep, diner took for ever, I sauntered out, and once the muck I called dinner was over my sister phoned.  You will of course realise that as she is a woman and has not been on for months she had lots to say!  She did!  Lovely it may be, informative, enjoyable, but my ear burns now!  This means my wonderful erudite post fell from my brain and once again, late, unready, I am filling space waffling contacting the real world via the internet, which may not be wise after all.  Why does the brain function so well at different times. My body gets weary yet my brain offers deep thought late at night, however before that, around now, it is befuddled.  Early in the morning I am either still asleep or desperate to get going, but the brain is not always as sharp as it is late at night, why?  Who knows what state it will be in if I wake at three in the morning.  Bah!

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My Exciting Life!

Giving a revelation of how exciting my life can be I present a picture of a wall. Not just any wall but the wall surrounding a shopping centre.  Not just any shopping centre but one full of clothes the original shops failed to sell, in short rejects!  I suppose I should feel at home here.  The place was quiet, possibly because the kids have not yet left school, they throng this place after leaving adolescents being very concerned with their outfits.  For myself this was like a day out.  Not staring into a laptop hurting my eyes and not finding what I am looking for given a miss for a while.  That job made worse by the machine playing up as they do with things disappearing and suddenly showing up again. I had at one time to use the system restore point and go back a few days thereby finding one or two things missing, not that I can remember what they were of course.  Now everything has to be resigned in, or accepted by the Firewall or whatever.  Good job I am not one to complain that's all I can say.  

There is no complaining about buying three T-shirt, 'XL,' and trying them out at home to realise that after one watch they return to 'L,' as they always do!  Why do Bangladeshi's not understand that we are ever so slightly fatter than they?  I realise that the £5:99 that I paid for these shirts would pay half the wages of the sweatshop but at least they could allow for a stone of ugly fat, surely?  I suspect sadly that the word 'fat,' is meaningless to the majority of the downtrodden in Bangladesh.  The difference between the lives of the workers there and the more expensive shops here is huge.  How lucky we are to be born in the grumbling grasping west.

I have once again resorted to eating less in a vain effort to lose weight. Topping this with a more stressfull active day, clearing up the front of the building, exercising for oooh five minutes, walking the streets looking for dropped coins, and taking the free bus to the glamorous shops. Actually for me there is almost nothing worth looking at there, quite what folks see in it fails me as the bigger town shops are better.

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Now What?

I awoke, early, and rested my tired eyes further listening to liars, the devious and the self seeking on the wireless telling us how wonderful the world is under their government, opinions, ideas and, er, art! As a bleary gray blue light crept slowly into the clouds outside I trudged unwillingly through to the East Wing for a sumptuous healthy breakfast of bacon rolls.  As the bacon burnt sizzled in the pan I started the laptop.  All went well until I attempted to login to the outside world.  No connection!  The bacon fat spat less loudly than I did at this point! "Gosh, golly," I said, "This is inconvenient at this time." So I stuffed my fat face while grease dribbled down me while I watched the mindless Breakfast TV on offer. Why do these people manage to make news so uninspiring?  BBC would rather talk about film stars and bulimic girls while Sky spends the whole time on one story, today the rather sad story of the missing three year old in Edinburgh.  Journalism wherefore art thou mush?  
After breakfast I returned to the laptop wishing I had swallowed some of those tablets women get on TV programmes.  I prayed, then began the brute once again.  Problems on a PC are bad enough, but not getting a connection was like being held incognito, I must however admit I have no idea where incognito actually lies, possibly Italy I imagine! 
According to the Laptop Windows the modem was not connecting.  After some considerable time of fiddling with things I fell back on the old remedy of turning it off and on like windows had told me to. Still no help.  Gulp!  I turned it off and waited longer, and once again (Hooray) it sprang, slowly, to life and allowed me my life back.  It was at this point I decided I must get that old PC fixed!  So now the laptop has served me through the day I make plans for rushing into town tomorrow and visiting PC World. I will find what I need there and get to work immediately, sort off.  This is indeed an emergency and nothing, absolutely nothing, will hold me back!
Late this afternoon an emergency call from the museum means I must go in at ten a.m. tomorrow morning, just when I should be on my bus.  Volunteers, you canny trust them!  At least I can now consider what I am doing on the broken PC properly rather than rush off and buy what looks the right thing.  
My life is so exciting, don't you think.....?

Sunday Weather

The observant will have noted Soub's comment regarding the British weather.  He pointed out that sunshine in one part of the UK is met by rain a mere hundred miles away, something that surprises Americans and others who have more stable weather patterns.  This style of weather is typical.  The Atlantic sends the leftover US storms, Hurricanes and detritus to our shores in the same manner with which English courts used to send convicts to Australia, and look what happened there.  I was musing on this as I wandered about early on, the sun shining, the sky blue, and ever expanding vapour trails appearing high above.  An occasional Spitfire flew noisily above preparing for the many air shows later this year.  The birds sang, dogs tails wagged, women gave me the 'I want you' look.  (One of these three points is erroneous ) This walk took about 20 minutes and was taken while I 'Checkdisked'  the laptop which is running slowly.  I made my way past the screeching kids in the gardens (Hey mum, there is a pond here, take them there!) sat in the sun for ten minutes, and mused that while I enjoyed sunshine Soub would be suffering dark clouds and rain some 150 miles further north.

Indeed while watching the Motherwell v Celtic match the commentator stopped pandering to the Celtic hordes and indicated the dark gray raindrops on the screen were being enlightened by the floodlights coming on.  He added the time is twenty minutes past one o'clock.  It was indeed dark and gray, although on the many occasions in which I have been at Motherwell the town was always dark and gray, but maybe that's just me.  Anyway as I arrived from my short ramble I noted the sky above had changed somewhat.

 It has been getting cloudier ever since, rain to follow, pah! Cumulus are building up to head south from Lanarkshire and Yorkshire and will be here soon. 

David Cameron has said the WMD issue muddies the waters regarding chemical weapons in Syria, indeed it does Dave.  Sharmine and Iona have their opinions on this also.  Politics is indeed a murky game.  Sometimes secrets are rightly kept, sometimes the UK participates in such dealings for the good of us all.  Sometimes we are not so sure.  These girls writing here may well have their own agenda, Sharmine appears to be on Assad's side, maybe not.  The points made are interesting however.

The other day, for no obvious reason this thing has started to go slow.  That is when I log on to a site it takes ages to download, when up till then it came straight through usually.  After I cleaned the cache a week or two back the Facebook certainly became slow in loading, but now almost everything is slow.  I've done the usual clearing out and running checks but so far nothing helps.  Maybe it's just age, like me......

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Morning Sunshine

Just after half past six this morning, when the world was mostly asleep, I pedaled out against the rising sun to continue my building photo project.  Trying this yesterday was a bit silly as far too many people thought they had a right to get in my way.  These thoughtless people dog me everywhere!  Too be honest many were considerate in avoiding me, something those living in London would not understand.  Taking pictures in London is not helped by others, they just get in the way.  Few rise as early as I, even the kids stay indoors to watch the early morning repeat of 'Match of the Day' from the previous evening.  Occasional others walked or cycled past, wrapped up against the still chilly east wind.  A van draws up near the supermarket, the passenger jumps out, rushes to the store door and drops a bundle, newspapers, at the door and returns to the van and they speed off to the nest.  The council driver goes back and forth over the rubbish left from yesterdays market, the brushes under his vehicle sweeping its catch into the machine.  A wet line two feet thick is left after he passes, glinting in the sun.  The sun reflects of his grubby windscreen and the beeping each time he reverses, which he does constantly, echoes around the empty market square.  An unsmiling man saunters past unwillingly, his dog however is evidently enjoying himself as the tail wags and his eyes glint.  The 133 bus noisily passes by, heading near empty for Stansted airport, high above a departing plane leaves Stansted for distant places, another, much higher, cuts the bright blue with a shining white vapour trail. I trundle about the square meanwhile, attempting to picture buildings that refuse to fit themselves into the picture frame.  What a daft place to put buildings!

This tramping around, I took some 85 shots this morning, is good for my fitness I suppose, it must be according to my aches, and it took my mind of the strange events that have afflicted the laptop.  I say laptop but I mean this browser, the others appear untouched by the blip.  The other day I noticed the adverts were appearing on Facebook.  I use Adblock so there ought to be none.  Adblock had gone!  Vanished for no reason.  This was replaced, normality returned.  The next day all was as usual.  However when I logged in during the afternoon I was not presented with 'Google' on the browser, but 'Yahoo!'  Not only but also the bookmarks bar had gone.  The Google warning re email had also disappeared, as had other extensions.  What is going on?  After some fiddling all has returned, bar the email warning, that means I keep forgetting to look for mail the hard way.  I have run all the anti bad guy things but nothing shows.  All seems well now, bar my nerves.

What a strange fountain this is, quite why it was made this way I know not.

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The Shortest Day

At last!  The darkness has descended and the night has begun!  At last the days will begun to stay around that little bit longer.  At last the year is turning and Spring is on the way, after a couple of months of hail, snow, wind and freezing weather of course!  How lovely to think there will be more light, buds on trees, blossoms and gaiety all around once more.  The shortest day celebrated the fact by almost allowing the sun to shine.  The rain fell where it belonged, elsewhere, and when I sauntered around the town the clouds had a bright golden edge to them.  

I wanted to do a post full of insight and significance but the bug has worn me out again.  My little brain is dull tonight, and wasn't much better this morning.  As I did the women's work today, hoovering and such like, I left the front door ajar.  An ambulance paramedic approached enquiring for a shop selling hot food.  When I have a bug the mind often blocks things and as I attempted to send her to the bakers shops for overpriced pies and soup I could not remember the shops name, it has only come to mind now I write this, 'Greggs.'  It has taken all day to arrive, and possibly it has taken the ambulance crew all day to find the shop after my directions!  Why does this 'block' happen I wonder?  I am sure my mother had this, and I suspect it runs in the family, like debt.  

I am worried about my week away over Christmas.  I will not be able to take the laptop as they use Sky and not Talk Talk.  There is growing within me a sensation of desperation here.  A week without fingertapping on this wee keyboard.  A week without emails, a week without anon spamming me, a week without contact with the real world.  A week in which I will have to talk to people!  Oooooh.  I think I am off to bed, I feel giddy.....

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How to be an idiot No 89.

Like debt 'idiocy' runs in our family.  Great Granddad Robert was after all the one who looked down the muzzle of his gun at Ladysmith muttering "I can't see the problem," before getting a close up view of what the problem was.  Granddad also used the term "You and who's army rather loosely," in the 'Red Lion,' before discovering just who's army those Gordon Highlanders belonged to.  My dad cleverly bought my Mum to improve the intellectual gene pool.  She often said she had never had a drink since they met back in 1936 and I begin to wonder why?  Dad of course was famous for going with his mate to enlist in 1925 and finding himself alone in China after his mate was rejected because of 'flat feet!'  He also managed to create me!  


My education in stupidity goes back a long way. Putting my hand into a tape recorder in 1968, to have a feel of the bits inside, while leaving it plugged in and allowing the back of my hand to touch something live was a shock that remains with me to this day. While at primary school I helped my mother clean up after tea by pouring the old chip fat from the chip pan down the sink. It took dad three days to clear that lot. Having watched as the room was decorated in lovely Heart of Midlothian coloured wallpaper I proceeded, as eleven year old's do, to cut open a discarded golf ball to see what was inside. What was inside appeared to be hundreds of tightly woven elastic bands surrounding a small whitish ball. As I stuck the blunt knife in the ball it exploded releasing a stream of white gunk that flew up the newly papered wall. The phrase "I think I am in trouble," arises around this point.

Numerous other instances of idiocy have arisen, the times I have attempted to pick up a tray with bare hands taken straight from the oven, getting on a bus to discover it was going in the wrong direction, indicating to females that their bum is 'blocking the light,' suggesting another should redecorate three days after she had just done so, all these could be construed as idiotic. As does walking home late at night as the Notting Hill Carnival was ending and finding thousands of young black youths coming the other way yet making no attempt to avoid them certainly was a piece of idiot behaviour that startles me yet!

So it was no surprise when, tired as I am from the bug, rising early, and suffering malnutrition from the scraps I scavenge from the back of restaurants, it is no surprise that last night things went haywire. Once more the evening arrived, this time the evening of the 'longest day,' although the clouds and rain made this difficult to verify around here - again! The evening arrived with a promise of European Championship football! Now it has become my habit since obtaining this beastly laptop that hates me to go to bed and watch football in the evenings. The man below gets disturbed by loud noise such as coughing or breathing, and certainly was not happy when I played Lynnard Skynnard that time I thought he was out! So to avoid the axe through the head again I take the beast to bed and watch football in comfort. Very different from the days of long ago when watching football from a damp, cold terracing brought bronchitis and head wounds from flying beer cans, and all that for a poor mid table finish at the end!

The first half of the game went much as some expected. The Czechs made a good start, fell away and Ronaldo spend much time posing for the cameras. "He lifts his eyes to heaven more than the Pope does," said one commentator. However come half time, and after my mug of cocoa, I then decided to publish a quick post. Now the beast does not like watching TV and publishing posts at the same time that much, it strains the memory, so I put up a short but deeply profound post. I decided not to review it as the teams were returning to the field. I posted the profound and found the profound had another of those format problems. That's three in a row. I then went back and fixed it, but found the format had altered another area. This was fixed but not fixed. Time was running out and the game kicking off. Again I fixed the problem and again another fault arose. Grrrrrrrr!

I was of course using only one browser to do two things. One tab had the football (BBC1 iPlayer) and the other had Blogger. Now the BBC website has been getting updated recently, and a fine old mess they have made of this! The iplayer has this week added a large button allowing the viewer to go back to the beginning of the programme, a button that is far too big in my opinion and needs alteration. The laptop keyboard not helping here as the letters are too near one another.  Switching from the mess that now was Blogger to the football to check progress I accidentally touched the return to beginning button. This took me back over an hour and a half to the beginning of the whole show!! So I attempted to 'fast forward' but this only went half way through the first half. By now my language was something akin to Arkkadian! Vile thoughts of retribution on the iplayers designers head filled my mind as I closed the tab, began a new one and fought for the football again, this time succeeding and at the right place. Once more unto Blogger and once more attempt to update and once more (amid much yelling that possibly made my neighbour go out for a walk in the rain) I failed. I decided time was against me and I must delete the whole post! This I did. But I had not done so! Oh no, the professional idiot had deleted the futile post from the day before and had not yet perused the one comment thereon! I deleted the profound, but by now less interesting, post informing the blogger and iplayer geeks what I considered them to be. More gnashing of teeth than even Ronaldo could offer after diving and claiming a penalty was my lot by now! Incidentally my description of the BBC web designer by now would make an ideal experiment in one of those hospitals that specialise in psychotic killers. My consideration for the man who set up the Blogger was along similar lines. Returning once again to the football I found it difficult to concentrate on the shirt pulling hordes as the room was by now filled with steam that had emanated from my ears.

After Portugal scored an excellent goal. making me glad there would not be an extra thirty minutes, my head would not stand that. I lay for an hour and tried to ponder my reactions. Was the tiredness was more than I realised, the bug was a pest right enough, is blogging late was really a good idea, should I have used two browsers, and was it really cocoa I had been drinking?


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Bah!

So I continue the job search, full of zeal and enthusiasm.  Well as much as I can gather these days.  In one agency I used the word 'sedentary,' and was asked what this meant.  I can excuse the young lass as she may have been temping there herself, but she probably had several 'A' levels and some 'O' ones also I guess to get that job.  Yesterday another agency left a message on my ansafone questioning the CV I sent them.  This time the woman must earn around £25,000 a year and she also appeared to wonder what I meant by 'sedentary.'  I might have been the context but I wonder.  Today a different agency questioned my CV.  "I got your letter she said, but you did not attach the CV."  Yes I did dear, it followed after I signed the letter and said c.v enclosed.  It was all one long letter/c.v.  maybe it's just me.  However I do have a cunning plan that I may put into action soon.  Next week, after the long weekend is over and all the days off have passed, I will get the 'Work Programme' folk to actually do something.  I think there is a job but might need their help to worm my way in through a 'placement,' the trendy way to do things today.  I of course have had lot's of 'cunning plans' in the past wee while, and look where they got me......

And another thing, the tips of my fingers, both of them, are suffering from hammering away at this laptop!  I might soon have to wear gloves to type to prevent them becoming blistered and worn!  Bah!

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Hmmmm.....

Around lunchtime I found the laptop to be very slow.  Not for the first time I must say.  This varmint does its best to annoy and irritate me.  That being so I just switched of and went out, grumbling, which is unusual for me.  However while the beast works at proper speed I note I have to sign in to things, and little oddities have arisen.  Hmmmm  have I been hacked?  They cannot steal money, there is only debts!  Or was it just one of those moments such machines develop I wonder?  Running the anti virus stuff made things no clearer.  Ho hum.....

On Saturday the biggest game EVER in the history of the Scottish Cup takes place at Hampden Park Glasgow, and I will not be there!  However all being well I can pick up the pictures on the web, and once again the Heart of Midlothian will defeat the wee team Hibernian to take the cup back home where it belongs.  Sadly (snigger) Hibs have not won the cup since 1902, the year Roosevelt (the first one)  became the first US president to drive around in a car (that's an automobile for our US friends).  It was also the year before man actually flew, before my father was born (1908), before two major wars and countless small ones.  The funny thing is these Hibs folks think tomorrow they will actually win this cup, and this from a side that has just avoided relegation! Ha Ha Ha!!!  

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