Blog in Isolation

There's a radiant darkness upon us

CKC – Eulogy

Charles Kevin Cowling was born on 7th April 1936 in Fulford, York, the second child of William Robert and Nora Cowling (‘Peggy’).

Kevin had an older sister Sheila and ten years later a younger brother Tony arrived.

Kevin didn’t always enjoy looking after his kid brother. Tony had a full head of ginger, curly hair which Peggy was very proud of and would often show him off to friends and neighbours.

On one occasion, Peggy asked Kevin to take Tony for a haircut. Back in the 1950’s barbers offered a basin cut or a crew cut. Tony’s turn in the chair duly arrived so the teenage Kevin sat down and buried his head in the sports section of the newspaper.

When he returned home, Peggy was absolutely horrified to see her youngest son had been brutally shorn of his curly locks. Thinking he had done this deliberately for a cruel joke, Peggy loudly reprimanded Kevin who promptly exited the house only to be chased down the road by his feisty Irish (and very irate) mother.

Kevin excelled at academic subjects and passed the 11 Plus to obtain a place at Archbishops Holgate school. Kevin was also a keen sportsman and played for the school cricket team as a talented batsman.

Kevin’s two closest friends in Fulford were Paul Duffield and Barry Pendergrast. The latter became famous as John Barry, responsible for the ‘Born Free’ film score as well as the famous James Bond theme tune.

Tony recounts going fishing with his older brother with fishing rods strapped to their bicycles. As they returned home, tired and sunburnt without a single fish, Kevin suddenly urged his brother – ‘Cycle fast, get pedalling. Tony ! Faster !’

Kevin had caught sight of John Barry parked up in his immaculate white Rolls Royce and desperately wanted to avoid being embarrassed on his humble bicycle.

John Barry, completely unaffected by his fame and success, spotted his old school friend and yelled: ‘Kevin ! Kevin ! Over here. Come over here ! Let’s have a chat !’

Kevin was a kind, thoughtful, generous man who valued the importance of a good education. After a weekend trip to Blackpool, Tony was very excited to hear Kevin had brought him a present back. However, Tony’s heart sank when Kevin presented his ten year old brother with some 11 Plus revision guides – instead of the traditional pink stick of Blackpool rock.

Kevin performed his National Service in the Royal Air Force. This mainly seemed to consist of cutting the grass with nail scissors and then painting it green. While England didn’t have an air force ready to defend the country in the 1950’s, the airfields must have been absolutely immaculate for any incoming bombers.

Kevin left school after his ‘O’ levels, eager to enter the workforce and start earning money, Kevin joined National Provincial at the bottom of the ladder as a bank clerk.

In 1961, Kevin met his wife Pamela at a dance in York. Pamela was working as a nanny for the Terry family who owned the famous chocolate company.

After a short engagement, Kevin and Pam married in York on 20 January 1962. A son, Andrew, arrived on 20 November 1962 followed by a daughter, Deborah, on 11 April 1966 – just in time for England’s World Cup victory.

Kevin was driven, ambitious and rapidly rose up the ranks at NatWest bank. His job took him from York to Newcastle and then down South to Guildford where he commuted into London.

In 1969, Kevin and Pam moved back up North – but to the wrong side of the Pennines – settling in a leafy suburb in South Manchester.

When he moved to Ramsdale Road, Kevin became an inspector (for the bank, not Greater Manchester Police) which meant a lot of time travelling to bank branches all over England.

And now for a couple of football anecdotes from my Dad…

I inherited Dad’s love of sport, in particular following Manchester United. Dad took me to my first game at Old Trafford back in 1972 – when an ageing United team was in a steep decline.

United were subsequently relegated, then got promoted the following season and I somehow managed to persuade Dad to buy me a precious season ticket.

However, despite this, obtaining tickets to cup semi-finals and FA Cup finals was virtually impossible – unless you were a senior manager at NatWest bank.

Dad managed to secure tickets to the FA Cup semi-finals at Hillsborough in 1976 and 1977. He even managed to get two tickets for the 1977 Cup Final against fierce local rivals Liverpool. The tickets were often for the ‘wrong end’ and mysteriously labelled ‘Rotherham city branch’ on the rear.

For the 1977 final, Dad didn’t fancy driving all the way to London and the train was a little pricey so he had the brilliant idea of getting a coach from Chorlton Street bus station.

So, on 21 May 1977, we silently crept out of the house at 05:00am and drove to Chorlton Street bus station. We boarded the coach and found a pair of seats located three quarters down the aisle.

Most passengers were tired and subdued but quietly excited at the prospect of the day ahead.

At 06:00am precisely, the driver started the engine and the long awaited adventure of my first FA Cup Final was finally underway.

Simultaneously, fifteen lads from Salford seated on the back three rows, cracked open their tins of Carlsberg, started singing ‘Tommy Docherty’s Red and White Army’ and proceeded to regale us with their extensive repertoire of colourful United songs and chants. For four whole hours.

United beat Liverpool 2-1 and lifted the famous trophy but my abiding memory will always be the look on Dad’s face on that coach, which was just priceless.

In 1983, Dad secured tickets for the FA Cup Final against lowly underdogs Brighton and Hove Albion. I was now living in Surrey and Dad caught the train down (not the coach for some reason).

We took our place on the Wembley terraces in the United section well ahead of kick-off. Inevitably, 10 minutes before kick-off, a group of United supporters came and stood immediately behind us and the chanting from the late arrivals commenced.

The teams came out. Someone sang ‘Abide with me’ but was drowned out by our energetic and vociferous neighbours. The teams shook hands with royalty. The two captains tossed a coin and kick-off was finally here.

As was tradition, I turned to Dad to ask him for his prediction. Much to my surprise, he was drowning under a gigantic flag adorned with ‘MUFC – RED ARMY’ and desperately flailing his arms around trying to free himself to actually watch the match.

Later, as we parted ways at Wembley Central, he turned to me and wearily muttered ‘Andrew – I really think this is my last Cup Final’.

[ Pause – indicates Andy’s anecdotes are over ]

Many of you will have visited Larchmere and enjoyed the wonderful views of the pond. However, Kevin’s experience of pond management started many years earlier. At Ramsdale Road, any rainfall that lasted more than 10 minutes resulted in the back garden rapidly flooding to quite dangerous levels.

Kevin consulted the local council, the National Rivers authority and his local MP, all to no avail. He got Dyno-rod out on many occasions and paid for an expensive fibre optic camera trace. The ultimate conclusion was inconclusive so whenever rain started to fall, Kevin would immediately start monitoring the back lawn looking intently for more clues to the source of the problem.

This normally wouldn’t be an issue but this was Manchester where it rains 262 days a year ! The flooding issue did impact family life and tea was often hours late as Pam was constantly busy in the garage constructing a wooden ark.

Debbie was responsible for introducing dogs to the Cowling family. She nagged incessantly for 7 years to get a dog. Eventually, Dad (who had been badly bitten by a dog as a young boy) gave in and we enjoyed the company of Tara, a lovely Golden Retriever for many years.

Little did we know, this decision would launch Debbie into her own successful career, following her passion, training Guide Dogs For The Blind in the UK and later Australia.

Kevin’s experience with Tara converted him to a dog lover. This was just as well as he was then asked if he could look after Debbie’s dog – Tess – just for a couple of years as she was emigrating to Australia. And the two years somehow turned into 13 years.

When Dad retired at 58, after 40 years service at NatWest, he was very active maintaining the garden and pond at Larchmere, shoring up the banks, pulling out reeds, managing the pond overflow and trimming trees.

Kevin often had to chastise fishermen who strayed from the anglers pond looking for the perfect fishing spot, politely advising them it was private land.

On one Sunday afternoon, dozing after a substantial roast dinner, Kevin suddenly leapt out of his chair, sprinting to the patio doors faster than Usain Bolt and ran out shouting:

‘What on earth do you think you’re doing ? This is Private Property and you must have walked past several prominent signs saying so. Please leave now…’

Curious, as to who had incurred Dad’s displeasure, we all joined him on the patio – only to find the target of his irritation was a sheep who had casually wandered in from the adjacent farmer’s field.

Dad enjoyed the freedom of his retirement, going for cottage holidays in the Lakes with long standing and close friends; Susan and Raymond, the Bramhall Banking Mafia, Ron and Christine, Gerry and Mary as well as Bryan and Winnie (‘Voice of an Angel’) Aston.

He also loved planning and going for long 10 mile walks in the Peak District with former neighbour and close friend Mike Biggs (even though he was a City fan).

Kevin enjoyed the company of his grandchildren, Laura and Michael but he also liked his quiet time at the weekend and the two weren’t always compatible.

Laura, aged 5, was like a Duracell bunny on speed. A Saturday with Laura consisted of cartoons on TV from 05:45 followed by breakfast when the family emerged.

Then it was on to painting and colouring, followed by a walk to the play park to enjoy the swings and roundabouts. Back home via Richmond Park just in time for a quick board game before lunch.

After a sandwich, quiet time – just half an hour reading a book while the adults chat.

Dad finally unwrapped The Daily Telegraph, that he’d sneakily popped out for 4 hours earlier, and turned to the Sports section.

Laura promptly put her book down, jumped up onto the sofa next to her Grandad:

‘Grandad, Grandad – what time are we going swimming ? Is it time to go now ?’

‘Oh Laura. You’ll have to ask your Mum about that.’

In more recent times, Mum and Dad celebrated their Diamond 60th Wedding Anniversary in January. Quite an achievement and barely a cross word exchanged in all those years.

Kevin was a master at the declining art of formal letter writing. When Kevin was suing a local builder over shoddy workmanship and missed deadlines, the lawyer was so impressed, he started asking Kevin to proof-read his own letters and legal correspondence. So Kevin was paying a lawyer £200 per hour and doing his work for him.

As a retired bank manager, inevitably Dad’s financial records were immaculately filed in alphabetic and chronological order in four drawers of a fire-proof metal filing cabinet.

Most people check their credit card statement to check the refund on that returned item has been processed. Some people might even cast their eye over each individual transaction.

However, only a retired bank manager would take the trouble to fully reconcile the milkman’s weekly invoice to check he has not paid for 1 Litre of Semi-Skimmed milk that was never delivered.

And so to finally close, a tribute from my Dad to Kevin Cowling

‘Dad – you were a brilliant role model. Thanks for everything’.

BetFair should really be called BetUnfair

I'm not really a betting man. Mainly because I'm a scientist.

On Grand National day, we normally nominate two or three horses each and someone wanders to place our bets at the bookies round the corner. My daughter normally wins.

Also, we might cut up the runners from the Daily Mail supplement and do a lucky dip sweepstake.

I also used to routinely bet on the final score and first scorer in the FA Cup Final to add some interest (if United weren't involved).

I don't do 'Accumulators'. I don't do 'in-match betting' (despite the repeated urgings from Ray Winstone) aired during every single live football match.

I don't buy scratchcards. I don't do the lottery. I have never visited a casino. I don't play poker.

I prefer to gamble any spare money on the stock market or cryptocurrencies.

However, some years ago, a mate was talking about short-term, real-time, matched betting on the General Election outcome and making some money which piqued my interest.

I opened a BetFair account and placed some long term bets about United and the Premiership. I was interested in the possibility of cashing out before the bet expired.

I won two bets and lost three but using the 'FREE MATCHED BET WHEN YOU OPEN AN ACCOUNT', I came out even and forgot about it.

Today, I received an email from BetFair inviting me to 'Verify my account'. Even though, this account has been dormant for two years, they still had to verify it.

I went to login, not to verify my account but to check the balance was zero and then close it.

I'd forgotten my password. No problem. Click the 'Reset password' link but no joy – 'Your account has been suspended pending Verification'

Go to hunt on the Web site for an email address (which is quite rare these days) or a Contact Form (also quite rare) so had to content myself with 'Online Chat'.

15 minutes before an agent responds due to 'Exceptional demand'.

I explain the Catch-22 situation. I want to verify my account but I can't login to verify my account. I can't reset my password until I verify my account.

The customer service agent (eventually) starts to assist me by asking for 'Proof of address' and 'Proof of identify'. This requires a scan of my driving licence and a water bill.

The driving licence fails 'Validation' – presumably because it's the old style 'Classic' paper driving licence and doesn't contain a photo of me at 22 years old.

So I am forced to upload more personal data – a scan of my passport. This is acceptable. Hurrah !

He then sent me a 'Reset Password' link and I have now regained control of my BetFair account.

As I suspected, the account balance is zero so I can go ahead and close it. Look around for 'Close account'. Nothing. Google tells me that 'Contact customer service if you want to close your BetFair account'.

Thankfully, the chat window is still open so I politely ask the gentleman that, instead of loading my account with £100 to bet on tonight's Europa League fixtures, I just want to close my account.

'Yes. I can help you with this but company policy demands that you provide a reason'.

Well, I initiated this process a full 90 minutes ago so I was a little frustrated but it was a background activity so I just replied:

'Sure. 90 minutes to reset my password. The invasive and unnecessary requirements to share personal data over an insecure channel – simply to verify a dormant account to then close it'.

'Thanks'.

'Oh and also add – The fact you can't close your account from the Web site and customers are are forced to contact Customer Service. Imagine if I was a problem gambler struggling with debt and desperately trying to close all my online betting accounts. BetFair deliberately make this hard for me'.

'I am pleased to confirm your account is now closed'.

And all the online betting companies have the gall to post that 'Gamble Aware' logo on their sites and adverts.

[ This post doesn't contain any affiliate links to BetFair as I truly believe the gambling industry is immoral, insidious, untruthful and responsible for a lot of personal heartache, significant debt and in cases, people being driven to despair and ultimately taking their own lives ]

intelligent people doing stupid things

Saturday 18 July

A beautiful, sunny Saturday morning but instead of sitting in a field in Hook Norton, drinking real ale, laughing, chatting rubbish and analysing the football season with my mates, instead we enjoyed a long overdue visit from my wife's hairdresser. She is self-employed and a mobile hairdresser. We opened up the garage door and prepared chairs, black bin liners (to avoid using her capes) and an extension cable for her hairdryer and clippers.

She looked aghast as she entered:

'I honestly thought Norma was joking when she said 'Use the side entrance'.

As we chatted outside, she said 'It's going to be sweltering out here. Can't we just go into the kitchen ?'

It was 10:00am in the shade and perfectly fine.

She didn't want us to wear masks – 'Well I can't cut your hair if you're wearing a mask, can I ?'

Well, actually, you probably could, if we held our masks on by hand when you needed to access the areas around the ears. Or had given the subject any thought whatsoever.

She also steadfastly refused to don a mask. She did pay us the courtesy of donning gloves however but she always did this as she's handling chemical bleaching agents.

I was relatively straightforward and quick – short back and sides but my wife has her hair coloured which takes longer.

As she finished up and was packing away, she told us that her brother lives in Portugal and she was flying out there this week to visit him.

I asked 'Isn't Portugal on the red list ?'

'No, no. My brother said it'll be fine and, anyway, I've got tickets for free using my vouchers'.

'But won't you be asked to self quarantine for 14 days on your return ?'

'No, no, it's fine now'.

Fair enough. I let it go and assumed the guidance had recently changed. I checked later and it hadn't but that won't bother her as if airlines are flying to Porto, ergo, it must be safe.

After leaving us, she was going to visit a 70 year old lady in her home. She had booked and cancelled on multiple occasions because her son had reservations. I nearly asked for her phone number so I could forewarn her.

Later, as we admired our smart new haircuts, my wife quietly said 'I've known Janet for 18 years and I really like her but, if she doesn't change her working practices or the restrictions aren't relaxed before her next visit, I don't think I'll use her again'.

Same evening, two long-standing friends come over for a barbecue. The lady is a primary school teacher and was telling us about the health precautions and detailed measures in place at her school.

Talk turned to the previous day (Friday) which was the last day of term. As is tradition (apparently), the teachers adjourned to a local pub for a bite to eat and cocktails.

The pub landlord sensibly split the large group of 20 teachers into four separate groups on separate tables outside in the beer garden to comply with the guidelines.

'But it didn't matter, when the staff weren't looking, we rotated tables so we could all spend time with each other'.

Long, deep sigh, Long, deep slug on my Stella.

Inevitably, some teachers wanted another drink and visited a tapas bar at the top of our road. The group couldn't be accommodated outside but the owner kindly (or stupidly) offered to seat them all inside.

An older lady in her 60's said 'I'm not comfortable with this so I'm going home'.

The rest sat down in a single group, indoors and gleefully perused the cocktail menu.

Awkward silence. A furtive glance exchanged with the missus. Another long, deep sigh, Another long, deep slug on my Stella.

When our teacher friend first arrived, she insightfully remarked that some parents 'simply don't get and won't ever get it until their Auntie is hospitalised or dies from Covid'. Obviously, her Auntie is still alive and well.

Then to top it all off, her husband who is an intelligent man, double first from Cambridge, worked as a scientist for Shell for 25 years, a man who can lucidly discuss, argue and offer thought provoking ideas about politics, current affairs and anything else.

I don't know if he was embarrassed or couldn't take his alcohol but he baldly stated:

'Yes – of course it was alright because, essentially, they have formed an extended work related bubble'.

I was so stunned I just sat there in silence. I wish I'd been quick witted enough to say (lifted from Stewart Lee's These Days sketch).

'Sorry, you're saying that it's alright to sit indoors in a restaurant in a group of 20. When did this come in ?'

the curious case of the 'More' tag

I am not sure I like this increasing but irritating use of the 'More' or 'Sensitive Content' tag on Mastodon. From a cursory glance, I can't even see how to add it from the Web interface.

I'm not sure whether it's enforced by the Mastodon instance or actively selected by the user. I presume it's the latter. Microblogging to supposed to be short, snappy and spontaneous.

I understand why sensitive media content might merit another key click (to protect the children) but if you're posting about politics, I'd really rather see all the content in one fell swoop and then I would feel free to choose to ignore it.

You really don't need to put introduce your wonderful, world beating, gonna go viral post with tags

#politics #rant

and then take the trouble and waste your time to add a '^L' style teaser

'Show More'

....which when clicked then reveals

I think all lives matter.

...because that is just one line and I have had to waste 0.8 seconds to hit a key to read your banal, trite one liner.

If you truly have a thought provoking rant or have produced a lengthy essay on the current political situation or some new, insightful thoughts on Covid 19, then either write a blog or consider doing a degree in PPE.

That stands for 'Philosophy, Politics and Economics' not 'Personal Protective Equipment' BTW.

Edit: Turns out this is trivial to disable these teasers in the Mastodon Web client simply by setting the preference 'Always show media marked as sensitive'. RTFM.

in praise of MiniDLNA

Five years ago, I purchased a Roberts Digital radio for the kitchen. Mainly to listen to the radio but also this device could play music from Spotify, a USB stick or act as a UPNP client.

As I already had the Plex Media Server set up which had a DLNA option, this looked attractive. The setup worked pretty well apart from one minor glitch.

And, like a dripping water tap, or the endless, harrowing screams of a baby played on a tight loop in an American interrogation facility, any minor technical glitch can't simply be ignored.

The cover art didn't display. I'm not sure why I believed that cover art should be displayed. Maybe it was because it was displayed in other music players or on the glossy Roberts Web site.

I tried everything, well a couple of things, to try to resolve this. I meticulously downloaded cover art for more than 200 albums and uploaded them to the appropriate directory as 'cover.jpg'. Or maybe it had to be 'folder.jpg'. Or 'Folder.jpg'.

No change. Still no cover art. I researched further on the Plex forums and any other DLNA/UPNP site I could access. I think the only solution I discovered was to embed the cover art image in the FLAC file but that was a lot of work, didn't feel right and would bloat the size of the lossless music files needlessly.

No cover art. After a while, I was forced to let it go. The digital radio played my music, the wife was pleased and that was the main thing.

Until yesterday, when I was busy shaving yet another shaggy haired yak and immersing myself deep down in yet another rat-hole that was actually a million miles removed from the original task in hand – to quickly experiment with the i3 tiling window manager.

I wanted to use a dedicated music player for radio and music rather than use a Web browser. Maybe I could even display 'Now playing' on my i3 status bar. VLC could access my music on the Plex Media Server but Rhythmbox (my preferred media player) couldn't. I played around with Music Player Daemon (MPD) and about 57 different GUI and command line MPC clients. While doing so, I noticed that MPD doesn't necessarily need access to local music files as it has a UPNP plugin.

My joy was short-lived as this didn't work. It could see the Plex Media Server (just to get my hopes up) but couldn't stream any music. Just like Rhythmbox. Which started me thinking. Maybe it was the server software not the client. So, I decided to waste a little more time by installing MiniDLNA (now ReadyMedia) which is a simple, lightweight, OpenSource media server on my FreeNAS.

This software was trivial to install on FreeBSD and I had successfully configured it within five minutes. Finally, I was playing music in Rhythmbox using UPNP. Mission accomplished. Pat yourself on the back and finally put the kettle on.

However, when I was in the kitchen, filling up the kettle, I couldn't resist the temptation and tried the Roberts Radio to see if it also recognised the new UPNP server.

Not only did it recognise it, it also manage to rapidly browse my music by Artist, by Album. Probably confirmation bias, but it seemed quicker than Plex.

More importantly, it actually played music – complete with cover art. Golly, I am so happy I have organised a socially distanced dinner party in the garden.

Of course, we won't be eating anything – just sitting around the table gazing at the unadorned beauty of the Roberts Stream 93i and taking turns to choose a song.

Roberts-Radio.jpg

rendezvous with strange man in mask

I anxiously coaxed my wife out of the door to her work trying not to raise her suspicions. My stomach was fluttering as I had an important early morning meeting.

To fully prepare, first, I chose my mask. I had two options; a flesh coloured creation that resembled a one bosom bra or a more sinister black model. I tried the pale pink mask but as it, err, masked my nose, mouth and chin, it made me resemble a burns victim who had endured time consuming and expensive reconstructive surgery which had either failed or was still ongoing.

The black one was much better; when I looked in the mirror I saw Kendo Nagasaki. I felt strong. I felt powerful.

The door-bell chimed. I opened it and was greeted by a middle aged, balding man wearing a pale blue mask and surgical gloves carrying a toolbox.

'Good morning. it's John isn't it ? I know I shouldn't really but would you like a cup of tea from a sterilised mug ?'

'No – thanks. I'd rather just get straight down to business'.

Ah now that what's I was hoping for; firm, dominant and to the point.

'Do most people watch or just leave you to it ?'

'Not bothered. You can watch as long as you're eight feet away ?'

John got down on all fours and got on the job straightaway. There was a lot of puffing and panting.

'Christ – this is a tight fit. Dunno how the last fella managed to fit it in this small gap'.

I said nothing. There was no answer to that.

'Bloody hell, if you had another 2 inches on your red hot pipe, that'd help'.

Slightly rude and I was supposed to be the dominatrix here. After all, I am Kendo Nagasaki clad in the black mask.

More puffing and panting.

'Ere, can you pass me that vaseline ? I may as well lubricate this joint while I'd down here'.

'Here you go. I thought you looked like a doctor in the blue face mask but I didn't think you'd have time to treat my arthritic knee'.

'I must say – your waste outlet is pretty good considering but your cold water pipe has a kink in it'.

Was I paying £60 call-out and £30 per hour to be insulted like this ?

More puffing and expletives

'Ere – pass us a tea towel, will you ? There's something dripping out the end of your pipe'.

'Ooh – sorry about that. Here you go'.

'Nah – it's OK. I've had a lot worse spilled on me in my line of work. Sort of an occupational hazard'.

'Oh – I see'.

There was a strange vibration. Initially, I assumed the batteries in John's sex toy, that he'd surreptitiously taken out of his toolbox, needed replacing.

'Ere – pass me that wrench, will you ? Your front extendable leg needs adjusting slightly'.

Weird as I don't actually have a prosthetic limb. Anywhere.

'Right – that's done. Now, have you got a small load you'd like to give me ?'

Another insult about the size of my manhood. I don't understand it. This chap had excellent reviews on the Web site.

'Do you want me to flush your U-bend while I'm down 'ere ?'

Hmm – colonic irrigation was never mentioned at any point. Would this be extra ?

There's a stilted silence while we stare at each other, waiting for my small load to finish.

We looked at each other in an embarrassed silence. I place £60 on the table which John silently picked up. He grabbed his toolbox and went to leave.

'OK. Thanks for coming so promptly, John'.

'No problem. If you or the missus ever need anything doing again, just give us a ring'.

Although she didn't know it yet, the wife had a new washing machine.

There's nothing worse than yet another lockdown Netflix list.

Sons Of Anarchy

Heard about this series from Linux Outlaws many years ago. Jax Teller is a very handsome man. I am convinced he is the bastard son of Kurt Cobain and Brad Pitt.

A decent series about biker gangs in California that inevitably features gratuitous violence and goes through peaks and troughs (the season when they went to Ireland was very weak).

Tiger King

A slow burner. Almost gave up on it after one episode but this turned out to be worth the hype. A truly bizarre story.

The Innocence Files

Recommended by rpcutts. A sobering reminder of man's inhumanity to man. Prosecutors who steadfastly refuse to admit defeat in the face of scientific DNA evidence. Innocent men locked up for years (sometimes on Death Row) and yet emerge with unbelievable grace and humility.

Fear The Walking Dead

My wife's choice. Eerily, I knew what was coming. Catastrophic event. Zombie apocalypse. Society breaks down.

A group of people find a settlement, encounter zombies on the march, spear zombies with sharp implement, find another settlement, zombies on the march, spear zombies with sharp implement, find another settlement. Rinse and repeat.

One of the most enjoyable elements was Alicia. This actress was just stunning. I don't know if the distance between her eyes, nose, ears, cheekbones and chin all match the perfect ratio but she was strangely compelling.

After Life

It's Ricky Gervais. If you've seen 'Derek', you've seen 'After Life'. Why, he even uses the same actors so you get that comforting sense of familiarity.

Take Us Home

I'm a sucker for football documentaries. I've watched the City one which revealed Pep Guardiola to be a rather intense manager. I hugely enjoyed the Sunderland one with the idiotic, pretentious, self-important marketing manager. This series felt more like a 'David Brent' spinoff than a true David Brent spinoff. And now we move onto the Leeds one. Only two episodes in but, disappointingly, there's little insight into the coaching methods of Marco Biesla.

remembering Ian Curtis

Today is the 18 May 2020 and marks the 40th anniversary of when Ian Curtis took his own life so I was pleased to see that Bernard Sumner and Stephen Morris are remembering the event – 'Moving through Silence'

I grew up in South Manchester and it's hard to describe how important music and football were during my formative years.

I never saw Joy Division play live but some of my schoolmates did ('He did this weird dance'). However, I have visited Curtis' memorial in Macclesfield cemetery.

I've read all the books, avidly watched all the documentaries, seen all the films ('Control') and watched all the YouTube interviews about Joy Division. It's clear Ian Curtis was no angel and he was suffering from a horrible illness and maybe didn't get the best treatment.

The constant, endless bitching between Bernard Sumner and Peter Hook is rather tedious and unsavoury but there's no doubt that, 40 years on, the lyrics of Ian Curtis and his deep baritone on 'Unknown Pleasures' inspired many, many bands and remains quite haunting.

small changes, big improvement

Sometimes, I spend a lot of time on technical tasks that are of seemingly questionable benefit or limited practical use.

For example, I remember converting the format of my 977 blog posts between markup languages and migrating the content to esoteric blogging platforms (more then once). I also wasted an unbelievable amount of time meticulously editing the meta data (YAML front-matter) and writing scripts simply to preserve Disqus comments after a change to the permalink structure.

All for a personal blog that no-one read but me.

Obviously, I choose to spend time on these tasks because I'm technically minded and like a challenge. There's also a stubborn desire to see something through to the bitter end rather than give up half way through. Also, they're fun little tasks that aren't work related.

However, I don't necessarily see this was wasted time. I often say to my son (who is starting out on a career in IT) that 'knowledge is never wasted'. This has been borne out for him as, when he was interviewing last summer, he was often set technical challenges (coding exercises) as part of the screening process.

Having subsequently secured a permanent role, he remarked last week: 'I solved a tricky problem at work today using Python code from that horse racing simulation'.

Anyway, I have made progress on organising my work. I was aware of the Projectile package for Emacs which is very popular. Originally, I didn't think it would be that useful for me as I don't produce code and work in Git all day.

However, after just two days, Projectile has already proved to be immensely useful for me and the way I work. You can easily create a project which can simply be a collection of notes, source code, PDF's, videos etc. Projectile then allows you to switch between projects and all file and buffer operations (open, latest, search, kill) are narrowed to the context of that project.

That sounds like a trivial, simple change but this has proved unbelievably useful for me as the list of files is automatically shrunk to what you are actually interested in. I was staggered how this simple change had such an impact.

My main problem was (and remains) muscle memory and trying to learn the new, modified key bindings for the Projectile variants of the basic Emacs and dired style commands I have used for years.

Each project I am currently working on is now a Projectile project and so is my orgmode directory which is also very useful.

I then did something I should have done years ago and moved all my orgmode notes from their respective project directories to my dedicated directory in '~/orgmode'. This is much more logical and allows me to use the 'deft' package to search content in all my orgmode files as well as the searching functionality provided by Projectile.

Then it was obvious that I needed to merge and consolidate this large, random and unwieldy collection of orgmode files. For now, I have decided to use the following:-

  • projects.org (currently, active work projects)
  • project_archive.org (completed projects, mainly read only)
  • project_tasks.org

Again, this was hardly any work but offered a significant improvement and somehow just felt right – that I was using Emacs and orgmode more logically, closer to the way it was intended. Like everyone else.

I realised that previously, I was bending the tools to fit my mindset of 'Projects must have a dedicated directory and all information and data on a project must reside in that directory'.

Another useful orgmode package, org-projectile, forced me to rethink this and addressed another of my key requirements perfectly.

I often want to be able to record tasks against a project. Often, I would be working on project A and get an email or phone call requiring me to quickly record a ToDo item for project B.

Previously, I would labouriously navigate to the directory for project B, open up the 'notes.org' file and append the ToDo item at the end. This had several issues; ToDo's scattered in multiple files, scattered in multiple places. Lots of context switching, lots of wasted time. It was impossible to have a coherent, unified list of outstanding tasks. Even worse, the important tasks were duplicated or promoted to Thunderbird.

[ Reading this back, I'm almost embarrassed and ashamed to document how ineffectively I used to work but at least I now understand why promotion keeps passing me by. ]

The org-projectile package is blissfully simple and allows you to create a orgmode task for a given project. You simply create a task and org-projectile prompts you for the project (from Projectile's list of projects) and the orgmode ToDo is added to a file in my 'orgmode' directory which now contains all the tasks for all the projects.

orgmode already has support for creating agendas and unified ToDo's from multiple orgmode files so there isn't necessarily a need to separate personal reminders from work related tasks.

Two Emacs packages, just an hour to install and configure, longer to learn and master perhaps but already very satisfying and relatively, simple, quick changes which have improved my productivity significantly.

think of the grandchildren

'Mum, mum. Please calm...'

'You don't understand. I just want to be able to see the grandchildren. I just want to hug them, to hold them, to cuddle them'.

'Yes, Mum. I realise that but this won't...'

'Is it too much to ask to sit out on the patio, drawing and colouring with them ? Is it too much to want to spoil them with toys and treats ? Like any proud Grandma ?'

'Yes, Mum. I know it's a difficult time but...'

'That's all we're asking. It's tearing us up inside. We're cooped up here and they are down there – poor little things. They need to see their Nana and Grandad. They need to know they are loved'.

'Yes, Mum but with the lockdown slowly being lifted...'

'Why can I invite a cleaner into my house (not that I have a cleaner, no-one cleans as well as me) or meet Rita in the park (not that I'd want to mind, she hasn't called me once since this all started) and yet I can't see the two people in the world who mean the most to me. It just isn't fair'.

'Yes, Mum but in the next few weeks...'

'I had bought some them lovely Easter eggs, I'd bought presents for little Alice's birthday and baked a cake. We left them untouched in the vain hope but Dad finally gave in and ate the mini-eggs one afternoon. This pain is unbearable'.

'Yes, Mum but please remember, as soon as this is over...'

'And then there's your Dad, he's a broken man. This is really dragging him down. He never talks. He just sits around all day staring into space like a zombie. All he wants to do is take little Harry fishing. He wants to be a grandfather again. Just for one day. Your Dad did National Service and this is the thanks he gets from this Government. He just wants to take him fishing. He's got maggots in the fridge ready. They were next to the mini-eggs. He loves his fishing...'

'Yes, Mum but there are other grandparents in...'

'Don't talk to me about other grandparents. I saw a car pull up at Rita's house last Wednesday at 11:17 and two little kiddies happily ran up to her door. Who were they then – her landscape gardeners, her cleaners ?'

'Yes, Mum but remember...'

'Stop telling me 'Yes, Mum' and just get in your car and drive up here here right now with my lovely grandchildren !'

'But, Mum. Please remember that David hasn't even got a girlfriend and Emma is quite happy with her partner and her job at the moment.'

'What ? What did you say ?'

'Mum, you haven't got any grandchildren'.