Fun Packed Friday

I have spent much of the day attempting to get this old laptop to speed up.  Whatever I try it makes no difference.  I suspect that having done all the usual recommended things I need to get a geek to look at the innards and check things like clock speed and whatever else inside is appropriate.  I would look inside myself but have no idea what I am looking at nor what anything there does.  That would then lead to a worse situation.  I want to use this as a spare laptop, for when the proper one goes down as they do, yet this one has always been slow, much too slow in my opinion and I wonder if something inside is responsible.  Hopefully a geek will appear one day.

There are lots of forgotten photos on here mind.  I am not sure how old but one or two are OK.  There is very little else however I did have the joy of awaiting the Microsoft update download, it took so long I took to doing the ironing while I waited!  In fact so many items I run took so long I hoovered the place, finished the Christmas cards, and generally tidied the place after a weeks sloth.  
Searching through old pictures is at least something interesting but this leaves me wondering why I have not dumped most of them.  Still as I have not got out much, my knees ache from last weeks running around and Tuesdays fun, so not much has been done nor have I wished to go anywhere bar the shops.  Having only one gift card to buy, possibly one or two wee things for one or two kids, and no more cards required I appear to be finished my Christmas shop before November! Maybe that is not so bad after all?

There will be a great many mums giving a sigh of relief tonight.  The half term holiday week has ended, Monday brings the cheery children trudging back to imprisonment in school, happy days - for us!  No more wandering through Tesco with hundreds of brats filling the place, screaming, running or, even worse, being helpful to mum.  The mums I saw were somewhat overcome with the help they were receiving.  
The Welsh holidays begin this week I now understand, the Scots hols were the week before, on the one hand local arrangements are best but some consider something more unified would be better.  On the other hand Scots are not going to tale hols to suit English needs, and have always noticed the TV planners cared only for English requirements not Scots, and I imagine Wales finds he same.  On the other hand too many places on holiday at the same time leads to crowds, and price increases, however after Brexit there will only be home holidays and no-one will be able to cross the channel, not that they will have the cash to do so anyway!

It's Goodbye to Her...

Mirror

 

Now here is a novelty.  A Conservative Party cabinet minister has been caught out lying and has resigned, that is something that does not happen every day.  If it was there are several others, Gove, Johnson, Fox etc who ought also to walk.  Oh hold on, this is not a surprise, this is the FOURTH cabinet minister to depart Theresa May's government!  It appears she has been taking lessons from that nice Donald Trump after all.  
In 1982 the Argentinians stupidly invaded the Falkland Islands in an attempt to turn their peoples attention away from their economic problems and ended up in a war.  Lord Carrington, then Foreign Minister, immediately resigned on the grounds that his attention had been elsewhere and he had failed.  Margaret Thatcher attempted to persuade him to stay on, as he could have done, but he felt he ought to go and he did.  This was the last time a Conservative Minister resigned with dignity, since then all others have had to be pushed and some of them were far from dignified in their going.   Of course some of the opposition members have also fallen foul but mostly it now appears the Conservative policy to never resign whatever the fault, lying, deceiving, cheating in government or at home all should be shrugged off and keep the party together no matter what.
The keeping the party together is of course the real problem.  In the 19th century Sir Robert Peel took a brave stand for the sake of the nations economy and ended the Corn Law that protected some and increased bread prices for the majority, this broke his party in two and they were out of office for thirty years after that.  In 1867 Disraeli brought in a Reform Act that gave a million men the right to vote, not that he wanted to but he worked with Conservative MPs that did not wish an election in case they lost their seat and radicals who he despised just for spite against William Gladstone and pushed through a radical reform act he did not really want.  Theresa and her colleagues are involved in similar games now, either break the nation or break the party, she has chosen the party as have they and soon they will all lead us to destruction, and then they too will be destroyed.  Amber (Who calls their daughter 'Amber?') has lost out to save Theresa, but she will be back.
What a mess.

The latests April shower has blown a gale since last night and limited my opportunities for travel.  
So I did the laundry instead...
Sitting here watching the rain lash against the window I am cogitating on those who cannot get out at any time.  Folks in hospital for months, those trapped in old folks homes, the sick and the old.  What must it be like to be trapped all day indoors let out only when a friend or family member arrives to aid you, and what if there are no such people?  How lucky I am that I can get out and about, how grateful I am not in a wheelchair or sick and in pain.  How grateful for the good life God has given such a man as I.  

I have spent some time attempting to sort my files.  This means switching from one to another via the laptop, dumping some (usually deliberately) and trying to work out what others actually are.  Scandisk could make it better by the brutes not switching themselves off constantly.  This of course could be the fault of this laptop, the cursor slides too easily, even after amending the thing, and slips past where it ought to go and sits where it ought not.  I wish I had just stuck to the laundry...

Friday Frustration

Much of the day has been spent attempting to find speed on a very slow laptop.  While mine has problems speed is no longer one of them, this older laptop is however very slow.  Running the normal clean up items has not worked so I have been indulging in deep cleaning today, not of myself you might guess, and at the moment the brute is 'scanning and repairing drive (C)' it claims.  So far 10% has been attended to and I suspect another few hours will pass before 100% is reached, that is if the thing doesn't close down again like it did earlier.
It is in my mind to dump this slower machine on my sister one day, she has trouble working 'tablets' and this might be easier for her though I see not how.  The speed of the brute is a problem however, the speed is much slower than it ought to be and has always been frustrating, she will not cope with that!  Passers-by might also object to laptops bouncing of their nuts as they pass the house.
I have run all the cleaners, the anti-virus, the anti-malware, the anti macasser, Disc clean up and defragment and an AVG Tune up system and now I await the slow ponderous machine slowly working through then drive, this might not be finished by morning.

Still I can keep going for hours, I have plenty of this stuff to see me through the night, that can't be bad...

  

Troubles and irritants

This is my latest laptop, an HP job and on the whole it is quite good one considering I got it half price.  There are however one or two niggles that are beginning to annoy. 
The first one is the speakers.  You will note you canny see them, this is because these are placed underneath, near the front.  Quite what went through the head of the designers to make them consider such a daft placing is hard to imagine.  I suspect it was a female, who else would think that hiding the speakers underneath would improve the sound quality?  Clearly she thought this would improve the image but image is less important than whether the thing works properly and having the speakers positioned this does not improve the Quality!  With headphones the sound is perfectly acceptable to me but without it is deadened by being underneath and limited by whatever the brute is standing on.  Daft place to put speakers.
Another thing is the cursor.  This jumps around with a mind of its own.  I have played with the controls, touching this and changing that but I need to do so again as the thing likes to move where it will especially when I do not wish it to do so.  I find I am writing on one line and suddenly the brute is writing on another!  On occasions it is writing on something at the edge of the screen for no good reason.  It remains better than the curor on the Toshiba model, those appear to have a bad and I found well deserved reputation, which required constant fiddling.  I expected better from HP.
The keys!  The keys on the old machine were comfortable and I am used to them, these however are not so prominent, do not always click when touched and I am left with missing letters in words, ee what I mean?  Maybe it's just me not yet being used to this machine, maybe I'm just ham fisted?  Clearly the keys do not work as on the old model, I suspect this is how they all fit these days.
One thing I find is that it appears to halt for no reason all to often, possibly to file things away on cloud, photos or on my criminal charge sheet that lies waiting in the FBI/CIA/KGB filing cabinet.  This may only be for a few seconds but it is annoying when busy, more so when on facebook and someone places yet more needless videos of course.  I must look into how to stop the brute hanging like this but Microsoft have linked everything so that mortals like us canny control our laptops.  There is more than enough power in the thing, hardly anything on it, it ought to be faster in my voew.  Anyway I have to use this machine come what may as the old one is passing out.  So I am off to send lots of begging emails in answer to the begging emails I receive daily.

 

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still not working, still now working, still not working....

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!

(old picture...)

AAURGH Continued!

Having contacted Microsoft the chap helpfully offered a link that would reinstall Win 10.
This however needed to be downloaded to a memory stick of at least 5GB, naturally the only blank (and it had to be blank) stick I had was 4GB.  A slow trudge to Tesco led to another £7 leaving my pocket, I smiled at this, and returned to spend hours downloading (quick) the relevant link and then applying (slow, oh so slow) the link to the hurt laptop.
 Hours passed.
Eventually after many false starts the start screen appeared, I logged in and waited.
It didn't work.
I lunched badly, siesta'd well, then started again.
This time I amended things slightly and waited.
Hours passed.
The machine trudged to a finish, I needed to shave again by this time, and the result appeared, 
no difference, it still didn't work.
Tomorrow, with less hair and a very frightened neighbour, I will try again one more time with a couple of different ideas.
I'm not one to complain...

Outside the sun is shining.
Inside is darkness and gloom.
Outside pretty girls skip past half naked.
Sadly so do men who ought not.
I sit by laptop urging a response, to the laptop, not the girls.

Friday Faffle

Yes indeed the election is well under way.  For the most part I have avoided it but all hours of the day are filled with talk, mostly gibberish, from all sides.  Promises abound but not so much as lies do, fingers are pointed over there while ignoring the fingers pointed at themselves, and the great mass of the population take to social media to spout ignorant twaddle, which you are now reading.
We have the local election for County Councillors (which will be won by Tories) and a month later this election (which here will be won by Tories) and then we have no more - until the next time.  I wonder how many will vote?  The County council one will be poor regarding turnout, however I expect large numbers for the real election which is a shame as the closed minds here will vote for the Tories unthinkingly or indeed the rump of the UKIP lot.  How I wish there was more choice around here.

 
I have spent much time engrossed in transferring stuff between laptops.  All relevant things must be placed on this new bright shiny one and the museum stuff left on the aged old one as there is too many links to change.  Naturally hours have been wasted going from one to another and back again while forgetting if I was going or coming half the time.  So many photos, and this does not have the photo gadget I have on the other laptop, this has ceased according to Microsoft.  The new Photo app I am not sure about.
I did however take the opportunity to send emails to many people.  There were so many to answer, which is unusual, and all required a little thought, a little thought as you know is something I can manage easily.  Much of the morning was wasted in this manner.  I cared not and enjoyed myself.  The afternoon was a flurry of housework, a flurry not seen for many a day I can tell you.

This hard work is interfering with my book reading.  I seem to be getting nowhere with that.  The books I am into are just not nearing the end as I plough through them intermittently while doing so many other things (and suffering sloth of course).  There really needs to be another day added just so I can sit and read books.   Possibly you say it could be me being slow?  Well certainly I note how slow I am these days, in fact only the other day I was overtaken by a walking funeral in the main street of this town.  I was a bit miffed when the leader asked if I wanted a lift...
I'm slow at getting up, slow at breakfast, slow and wondering what to do, slow at rescuing burnt things from ovens, slow at everything these days.  In days of yore I was never fast but at least I could move, run on occasions, and get around town avoiding the crush but now I just slog along slower than old men with zimmer frames.  Maybe I ought to borrow one...?

This Thing...

This thing has taken all my attention today.  Adding things, swapping from one to another, working out what went wrong and why, then attempting to put it all back together again.  I am just glad I did not buy one of those expensive laptops, some approaching £1900!  This was vastly cheaper and I obtained a discount to make it almost bearable, almost.  

Because of the busy day, I also had to eat and sleep, I dd not venture out into the blazing hot sun.  Instead I remained trapped indoors.  Occasionally I looked at the park and there, at great distance, I managed to capture a reasonable shot of this Thrush looking and listening for worms and beasties rummaging through the undergrowth, or is that underground?  The birds are fattening up and soon eggs will appear.  Already my feeders are emptying quicker than usual and soon it will be filling them daily I expect.  Of course as I have been in when the sun shone it will rain tomorrow when I am in the museum with hundreds of kids/mums and others.  Half term brings them out and rain brings them in!

 

The other day our boy Trump walked out of a  meeting forgetting to sign the Bill he went there to sign.  The next day we read he might resign because of testimony regarding Russia that a man is willing to offer, today we read he is instead going to nuke North Korea or share a hamburger with the Dear Leader, or is it Young Leader?  Every day is something new, never safe but certainly new.
Theresa May, the imitation Thatcher but without the intellect, has once again been cunning with the
EU people.  She first threatened to use EU nationals as bargaining chips then run from that one, next she threatened to withhold security information, and that was put down, yesterday Lord Howard ('Something of the night about him') one time failed leader of the Conservative Party blustered about Theresa 'Going to war with Spain over Gibraltar like Maggie did with the Falklands.'  Good grief!  Clearly this has come from No 10 yet it is so daft as to make you wonder what is happening to world leaders.
Putin the gangster is dangerous and mad, Trump is innocently madder, Theresa knows we need the EU yet rushes into leaving it with no plan, the French have a liar and a fascist as potential leaders, the only sane one in Germany has overstepped the mark and suffers for it, and who really knows what is going on elsewhere?  I really am beginning to see the end in sight.  Judgement is falling by allowing such as this to lead us.  Return to morals stability before it is too late and elect proper politicians who rule for the sake of the people and not the lunatics I say!

 

Busy

Life in the pre Brexit world has been busy.  
On Saturday I spent the full day at the museum and much enjoyed being on my feet all day. 
My knees are now informing me of their opinion on this.
It was busy and I had spent the days before this running around.
One deed was to buy a new laptop, the old one giving too much trouble, slowing down, bits beginning to fall off, and other glitches that annoy.  It is a few years old now and I suspect unable to get the best out of updated software.
So on Friday morning I spent much time installing things.
The wi-fi would not connect, the plug fell out, the wrong connection appeared, I mistook another for the right connection and spent several long minutes fighting with it before I realised my mistake.  Eventually I got connected and had to follow the Microsoft blue pages asking if I wished to be kept private or be connected direct to the FBI/CIA?/Special Branch/Scotland Yard etc.  After a short lifetime I got things going and now slowly I am converting it for my use.  Sadly some things, such as 'Live.com' are no longer available and I used their gallery for my pictures.  Now I need another way to connect the camera to the laptop without using their phot thingy.  No doubt other problems will arise.
So I have one suitable picture on here, taken in 1844 from Edinburgh Castle looking east.  The new Walter Scott Memorial can be seen sticking up into the sky, gleaming white stone, now somewhat blacker ebven though cleaned in the 70's.  On the hill in the distance Nelson's Monument, an upside down telescope you notice, standing high above on Calton Hill.  In the foreground the early Waverley Station takes shape, the buildings under the camera soon to be destroyed, I wonder how rotten they were by then.
Today I made it to St P's, had a good time, wandered back to watch the Heart of Midlothian lose to Celtic and fell asleep.  The Spring sunshine tempts me outside, well the evening aor now does that, but sleep will be a better idea.  You may be surprised to know that I need my beauty sleep.
Day off tomorrow, I may just sleep on...

 

 I was sent this....

Another Sunday Night

The beginning of another week.
Last week left me having a near death experience on Wednesday.  Having walked my knees into the ground, and the rest of me also, I spent the day eating and sleeping, I was so tired!  That over I avoided doing anything after that only leaving to visit Sainburys of Friday morning.  The weather was not conducive to wandering the streets either much of the time and I have been frustrated by my inability to go anywhere interesting.
Today I toddled of to St Paul's finding nothing but sky to photograph.  How the clouds change as minutes pass by.  However the number of telephone wires crossing the streets round here make it difficult to picture even good skies as they occur when the view is blocked.  Have these people no thought?
I am sitting here resting my knees, already telling me not to move, as tomorrow I am back at St P's and then work on Tuesday.  I am already looking forward to sleeping all day Wednesday.  I will however be thinking of friends at a family funeral that day, one led by a humanist.  Hmmm...

I have spent much of the day removing photos from this laptop onto an off laptop storage.  Already one GB has been saved and I am only half way down!  So many old pictures which get copied into several places for some reason, I wonder who does that?  I reckon there is more that a GB still to be filed away somewhere.  This old machine is slowing down so I will clean it up but maybe it needs replaced?  Could someone send £500 for a new one?  What...Oh!

Time Flies

Where does time go?
Intending to be at St P's for noon today I rose with plenty of time to spare, ate dressed washed and all reading done I happily awaited the hour of departure.
Why therefore with all things done and careful planning completed did I find myself suddenly rushing for the door?  At one point there was an hour before I left the next minute I was racing to get out on time!
Who stole those minutes? 

Switch the laptop on and watch it warm up and almost half an hour will pass before it is ready for work.  Switch it on and go make a cup of tea taking only two minutes and the brute is wondering where you have been and switched itself off again!  How does time work in such situations?
Waiting for a dentist to finish pulling teeth can take hours but a fanciful delight of whatever sort lasts only seconds, how come?
I am reminded of the tombstone which read:-

"Harry Smith the inventor of time travel.  

          Died 3rd February 2317."

This old laptop is quite good however a year or two ago I bought a second one as this was overheating and playing up.  Once I obtained a new one this brute began to play nice again!  The newer one has more power, more ram, more GB space and is slower than this one!  I am annoyed as I cannot figure out why.  
I have done all the usual things, increased ram, run the anti this and anti that, cleaned out this and that and having done all the usual things the beast still reacts slower than this old one.  Possibly Cortana that needless use of space might be responsible, it is off on the old one but keeps appearing unwanted on the newer.  I have tried closing it down as per usual methods but it keeps reappearing.  None of the recommended tricks work.
Possibly that is not the problem but I cannot work things out as to why it is slower, it ought to be faster than this.
A bit like me really, very fast for my age...  what?  Oh!

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.

Laptop Shaped Eyes

Having spent most of the day typing the wrong words into the laptop I am not willing to type many more.  Pictures, yes, moving images, yes, line after line of words, no!
Once I shook of the early morning lethargy, around ten, I began scribbling away.  Naturally I had no idea what I was talking about (The Somme and our local men's involvement) and all the links I looked for turned out to be useless!  My ever helpful array of books did not have the information I wished, the Google search was fruitless much of the time but eventually I found the lost links and got what I required.  
I was writing about five dead men killed under a hail of bullet and shell, why do I grumble when little things go wrong and nothing makes sense?  
Anyway I wandered away to address other problems and returned to the by now switched off laptop.  Coming back to life it went haywire and I found myself with my old 'Word' asking which saved copy I wished.  Neither were the one I was working on, that had disappeared.
I chose the best, returned to rewriting the whole thing and by long after the curfew I managed to scramble something together that will not do at all when she sees it in the morning.  
Muttering things of the top of my enormous head here is one thing, writing for others who can read and think at the same time with no understanding of my mental outlook is quite another.  When I enter the premisis tomorrow I expect blank looks and rude words for my efforts.

An almost twenty year old picture there, but the weather has not changed much, except for getting worse of course.  How can I excercise when the wind outside is so strong it blows my bike back the way I have come?  Worse on a hill!
So instead I exercised inside today as I hoped this woudl stimulate the brain.  
It failed but it did stimulate several muscles to screech blue murder as I did so.  Now other areas are indicating they did not like such efforts either.  It's not as if I did much is it?  Yet I fear for the morning as it will be rougher when I wake.

Technology and I are Strangers

The other day the boss spoke of an attack of 'ransomware' malware.  In his case this beast attacked one or two files on his work computer  and he was advised by the company IT geeks to wipe the hard  drive completely.  This he could do as the IT has copies of all files so nothing was lost but time and effort.
Therefore I decided to obtain a flash drive and store lots of things thereon and be ready with the most important items, or as many as possible, that matter in times of such attack or any other problem.  It seemed good to take all the pictures amassed on many disks and collect them, in better order, on the 'stick.'
So of I totter to the shops to gaze at things very different from when I last gazed at them some time back.  It was clear prices were not as I'd hoped so after thought I went to E-Bay.  Here I found one for £3:99 and within a week it arrived.
Quickly I placed on the 32 GB monster one very large file.
It worked!
I added another.
It didn't!
In the end the files I added disappeared and the original turned into gobbledygook.     
That one lies over there where it landed.
A second, more expensive, one soon arrived.
This one worked, indeed it worked so well, once I had strained my little mind on the instructions, that by late last night I had transferred over a thousand pictures onto the disk with masses of space remaining. 
Marvellous, and feeling very happy I looked into various other parts of this device and noted some things that arrived when i first used the stick wrongly earlier that day.  I deleted them, that should fix it thought I.
When I went for the pictures collected and already on the stick I discovered they had disappeared as I had by mistake deleted everything.
Now I have to start again and once more go through the long arduous job.
The instructions on such technological items ought to have a warning on the top.

"Do not use if you are an idiot!

Bored, Tired Ramblings

One of the many tasks I had to do today included swapping things from one laptop to another to create space.  Tomorrow I have decided to visit Tesco and see if they have a large flash drive and I will download a lot of stuff just in case things go wrong with the brute.  My boss had a 'ransomware attack' on his work machine and luckily it only affected one or two places but it still was dangerous.  The IT people have of course everything backed up and stopped the virus spreading.  However he had to wipe the drive to remove the beast!  Ransom ware is unbeatable otherwise.  This however was not my problem I was merely editing stuff.  One of the joys was to discover old pictures unseen since the last time I had to download pictures.  Not all were worth it of course, many were deleted today that ought never have happened in the first place but it was enjoyable.  The difficulty began when one laptop would not let me format discs so I was swapping thngs to the other to place on discs and this went well.  The CD and DVD discs on the TV recorder do not format properly and whether this is cheap Tesco fault or something else I know not. 
This was much more fun than noting a burning smell from the hoover that was failing to remove the dust from the floor, looks like money might need to be spent again.  It cannot be two years old yet my floor has beaten it, mind you it was probably made in a sweat shop in China by badly paid labourers who had little reason to care. 

The world continues on its way.  Much fuss over the EU and some dead singer drowning out the problems in Iraq that have dropped from the news sheets recently.  Wars sell but not when a singer dies.  Many are worrying that secret plans have been made to assassinate celebrities, my worry is that not enarly enough of them will be assassinated!  Coincidence turned into a drama sells papers and fills social media.  Maybe they will turn on the media barons and improve that I wonder?

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.  


.

Slow Sunday

It has been a slow Sunday indeed today.  Rising early for breakfast I retreated to bed to finish my sleep awakening only in time for the football.  Since then much time has been taken up with attempting to fix the other laptop (again) and downloading slowly things required which then do not work.  I have tried several times to buy memory for the beast from 'Crucial' but although I have changed the password they will not let me in!  Grrrrr!  Not a lot has happened elsewhere I suspect as the cloud overhead has blanketed the world and a dreich day has resulted.  Tomorrow is the bank holiday Monday and you bet this cloud will stay hanging around.

This reminds me of the two or three years I spent in a somewhat larger version of this van happily wandering all over London.  The drivers I worked with were on the whole a decent lot, not that all of them liked work of course, and when the sun shone I could sit back while he struggled with the traffic and I enjoyed the view.  I got to know a great deal of London, bar the north east part which for reasons unclear we were not allowed to deliver in.  The furniture vans certainly went there, why not us we did not ask as we preferred the better class areas anyway.
When living in the centre it was always good on a Tuesday or Thursday to find ourselves so far out of town that we could occasionally find potato fields.  I must say the one we did drive into was a wrong turning, but I blame the driver!  On one occasion while in an aged green van used as an emergency backup we missed a turning of the A3, that is a main duel carriageway this driver carrying billions of vehicles in and out of town.  The simple answer was to drive to the next roundabout and return but no, this lad stopped the van and reversed back the way we had come!  There was an opening in the road designed for the turning, one we had missed, and eventually we arrived there and turned into it.  However the van stuck out a wee bit into the outer of the two lanes, that is the fast lane, and while awaiting a break in the traffic on the other side we heard the approaching screeeeeeeeeech of brakes.  This interesting sound continued for what appeared to be an awful long time and eventually a Lancia car, containing a red faced man waving towards us appeared to our left.  Maybe he was the man we were delivering to I wondered, but then we moved on.
This driver was generally capable which was more than could be said for the temp one who parked the van in Kensington High Street, one of the busiest of streets, in a bus lane, on a no parking area, and went for lunch.  When he returned the van had been removed by the police and an almighty fine was awaiting payment.  The lad returned to work the next day but was shown the door before the boss upstairs came down and found him.
One man was a bookmaker and his life was horse racing, or at least the bets to go with this.  A good man who was forced by a wife to earn money he stopped off at various places to either borrow money, repay money, lay bets with friends, cash in bets with friends or on Mondays stop of at a bookies (owned by a man called Stallion) for a coffee early on.  This bookie by the way informed us of a man with a gun trying to rob him not long after he had opened.  It took a wee bit of persuasion  to get the robber to remove himself and "come back later when we have taken some money."  We came down Balham High Street on our homeward journey one afternoon and stopped at the lights.  I glanced around me as we stood in the long line of traffic and suddenly realised the driver had disappeared!  I looked all around the van but he had vanished.  he had noted a bookmakers shop over the road and ran in to check the results!
One of the best was a Spanish chap called Joe.  He and I worked well together for some time especially so as he was friends with a man in a restaurant who provided us with large slices of apple pie and coffee at the start of the day.  Well we had a large round up through St John's Wood and Golders Green etc.  There we encountered many Jews, mostly women, all neurotic to some degree, some of whom had seven or eight locks on the doors.  Many had originated in Austria and Germany and seen sights we would not wish to see and possibly lost relatives shortly after.
On that round another driver and I encountered a man from a competitors shop.  He had a better van but never smiled.  Day after day it became a thing with us to get a greeting from him, something other drivers never failed to offer, but this one never answered and never smiled.  Each time we passed our greetings got louder and more obvious until one day a tired response brought cheers.  That was a day of a Jewish feast which meant lots of chocolates, flowers and fruit baskets were being sent round to folks everywhere in the normal Jewish manner.  The vans were overloaded and he was on his own, how we greeted him and how we laughed.  He must have hated us!
All good things come to an end eventually however. 

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Tuesday Thoughts

When sorting out the shop early this morning I noticed the lass stopping and looking in a mirror.  This surprised me as we know how rarely women do this.  However it suddenly came to my mind that the said mirror was not there on Saturday so where did it come from?  While pondering this I myself came into view.  This was not a good sight.  My new shirt appeared somewhat tight and as I looked into a glass darkly I saw a sight reminiscent of the advert above.  I hung over my belt far too much.  Later a mum dropping off her kid mentioned she had ten weeks to go and I was bigger than she was!  My diet has restarted.
I had pie and chips tonight with sliced cabbage and tomato with mayonnaise.  
I see a problem looming.

Brutus switched off the wi-fi tonight again.  It returned but I may have sorted that as it had a choice of two connections, this one and the old one that no longer works.  I am hoping it has been attempting to connect with the old one and have closed that avenue.  Growing pains I say, and if they are this will be some size soon.  Otherwise it appears to be working acceptably.

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GRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!

Having mentioned the successful download of Windows 10 naturally enough I happily spent some time trying to work out what had gone wrong and what had been fine and dandy.  While doing this connection with the world was lost, wi-fi ceased, this however returned within a minute indicating this was one of the BT people mucking about with the lines somewhere I bet.  It is not the first time this has occurred.  
Later I went to switch the beast off, this on Win 10 means clicking the 'Start' button and closing down.  It did not work.  Nothing moved.  Hmmmm.  I right clicked and there was the opportunity to shut down, this I did.  
Later I attempted to open up and this appeared:-

 GRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!
Sign out it said, so I did, several times and back in again to see if it worked.
It didn't.
I opened the other laptop that does not work right, indeed never has.  Some bad boy got in there and I am not sure he has completely gone yet.  I download Spy-bot and anti Malware and they say the file in corrupted!  Hmmm.
Anyway I have managed to get him sort of working, Windows Live Mail went on OK today so some of it works, but the bad boy may still be there.  While playing with him and searching for a variety of good advice re Win 10, "open start button" they say but it will not open!!!  I searched around and this was a common fault in the early beta modules.  
I tried again and LO!  Win 10 began to update, and then updated again, and now appears to work properly.   Hmmm, how long before the next update doctor....?

Actually I find the screen size a wee bit bigger, I adjusted it and went back to default as it suits my eyes, but it still is not quite right to me.

Windows Media Player however did not bring over the music I had on there.  I cannot say about videos as I had downloaded or dumped all mine the other day to make space, none were worth keeping.  On my music folder however the music there has come over.  I had some radio programmes and they have disappeared (or I may have forgotten I downloaded them) and I wonder if copyright is involved here?

Oh and to make everything seem better Selfridges have opened the Christmas store!


7:40 the brutes doing it again!
The start will not start so I canny shut down.  If I do I canny get back in.
One suggestion was on offer online, but it invles entering that I like item on the keyboard.  A straight up and down line sharing the key with two other things I never use.  I canny get this to work! Grrrr!
I'm not happy.