Dressing for the Theatre

On Friday night I went up to London for Dinner and A Show!

Now, I'm one of those people who never win anything. Well, I certainly used to be. However, recently I don't seem to be able to make this claim anymore.

Last summer, squealing with delight that, "I don't win things, you know!" I was informed of my success in a prize draw at the Lush shop in Basingstoke. The girls and I had visited the previous Sunday, very late, because I'd wanted to buy a reasonable map of Europe for our forthcoming trip to Germany. After buying the map, we'd thought to pop into Lush for a couple of bath bombs, and had been persuaded to enter our names into their prize draw, the top prize being the huge Golden Box of Goodies.

Then last winter, at the Hawley Place Christmas Spectacular with Fireworks, I had my raffle numbers come up no less than 3 times during the draw! On the third time, embarrassed, I asked them to draw again for someone else to win.

And so on to the big one.

For the last I-can't-remember-how-long, I've been an avid reader of Empire magazine. I flirted briefly with Total Film, because they have a weekly film trivia quiz, but ultimately Empire is a more grown-up magazine (despite the fact that it appears to be written by young boys, for young boys). For a few years now I've been on their mailing list, receiving weekly updates on the film world in an email which includes links to their competitions page. And each week I have entered 1 or more competition, hoping to win nothing more than a DVD. So you can imagine my surprise to receive a call while supporting a classroom computer, telling me I'd won a prize.

And what a prize! I'd inadvertently entered their "Shawshank Redemption" competition, and my name had come up. I say inadvertently, because I tended to avoid entering the competitions which required that I be somewhere for a performance - what if I'd won tickets to the premier of a show in the US? However, not reading the competition details properly, I'd thought it was a special showing of the film, and since it's one of my favourite films, I thought I'd enter. As it happens, I was completely wrong.

The Prize I'd won, said the voice on the phone, was 2 top-price tickets to see The Shawshank Redemption at the Wyndham Theatre, with a pre-theatre dinner at the Bloomsbury Hotel, and a stop in the hotel after the show! I didn't even know they'd decided to make a stage play of the movie.

You can imagine how excited were the girls and I, as we prepared for the big day. Discussions of make-up, dresses, hair, jewellery and even finger nails were held in high, girlish voices all over the house. As you can imagine, my main concern was;- should I take my netbook and blog the evening on the spot, or just take a camera and do the business later? Remembering how my mother is about technology (this is why I'm not asking her for a Roomba for Christmas!) I decided that my mobile phone and N810 should be sufficient. In an attempt to make myself feel a little better about the lack of technology, I took the ultra-slim folding keyboard...

However, on the dress front, I decided on my own LBD - I'd bought this about a year and a half ago from eBay, a pretty thing, all black, with a lovely shape. A simple, and not too short, Little Black Dress. I bought some tights with which to wear it, and finally decided on my black cardigan with the sparkly bits and crochet - trust me, it looks a whole lot better than it sounds. Anyway, I looked gorgeous!

And so the big day arrived. Choosing my long, camel coat, we waited on the station for the 15:53 out of Fleet. As we'd arrived so early, and the 15:39 had arrived, and the weather was so totally pants, we decided we'd be as well off arriving in London a little later on the stopping train, so we got on. We didn't care - that just gave us more time in the warmth of the train, and more time to gossip. We can't have been more than 10 minutes later arriving in London anyway. To my delight, the Bloomsbury hotel is just round the corner from Tottenham Court Road station, so a quick trip up the Northern Line was sufficient to get us to the hotel in minutes!

Our pre-theatre dinner was booked for 18:00, leaving us only 50 minutes to get ready before we had to be downstairs for the meal. So I dressed! I got all dolled up, and we ambled down for the dinner. Now, it's got to be said, the pre-theatre menu is a little limited, but the food is very fine. I started with the smoked salmon (the options were smoked salmon, lobster bisque and warm goats cheese salad), and continued with the burger (some veggie option involving aubergine and breadcrumbs, battered Sea Bass fillet, minced steak burger and something else were the options for the main course), which was delicious. I have to say that the serving platters made me laugh, as the burger arrived on a chunk of wood, with the chips in a pseudo deep fat fryer basket. I finished off with the selection of sorbets, which I shared with mum.

Stuffed and happy we started on our way to the theatre, which turned out to be just outside the tube at Leicester Square.

And this is where it all started to go subtly wrong. We found our seats, fairly centrally located in the stalls, and decided that we'd sit straight away - mum's a bit out of shape at the moment, and was tired out from the stairs in the tubes. I was pleased we were so close to the centre, because this meant that fewer people would be squeezing past us to get to their seats. And unlike my favourite cinema in Basingstoke, it's not possible for people to sidle past while you're still sitting. As it happens, only 2 people needed to pass, but both of them smelled as if washing was an old fashioned idea to which I am the sole subscriber. It's surprisingly distracting, watching a play, to have the odd waft of nasty coming up. But astoundingly, it wasn't the smells which upset me most. It was the fact that all the effort into which I'd put choosing my outfit, and putting it on (and those control top tights are NOT easy to get into!) was completely wasted. I was the only person who seemed to have bothered to dress for the theatre.

It's just possible I'm now hopelessly out of date with regard to an evening out in London, but it's unusual for me to feel vastly overdressed like that. I've always felt that there are few situations in which wearing a pretty dress makes you feel overdressed. Well, I suppose wearing a ball gown to a beach party might be considered a little over the top, but come on! I think I'd draw the line at smelly jeans to the theatre. I suspect I was more annoyed about the smelly couple because they started necking as soon as they sat down, and I was jealous!

But let's take a higher ground, and review the show. It was fantastic. I find myself continually amazed by the theatre, because they manage to create something out of virtually nothing. Unlike a film, with a multi-million dollar budget, a theatre production relies on few props and no CGI. The abilities of the actors and director to harness my own imagination are what make a stage show magical - well, unless you're Andrew Lloyd Webber, in which case your set is going to be spectacular and move around like a peripatetic toddler. I kept asking myself before the show, how on earth they were going to make me believe this was set in a prison, but I needn't have worried. I was mesmerised through the whole performance. Characters who, in the film, had been fairly minor (probably due to not wanting to make too much of the whole buttsecks issue) were almost the stars of the stage - while the actors playing Andy and Red did receive the biggest applause, the actor playing Bogs (yes, the one who did "that" to our hero) came in a very close third! He played the character with a barely suppressed (and at times, completely unsuppressed) menace which clearly won him fans.

But I'm not here just to review the play, but to bore you about my fabulous trip.

D'you know, I loved my trip up to London. In fact, I was pathetically grateful for the time away from home, and the chance to live as myself, not just someone's mum. Even though our proposed trip to the British Museum (less than 500 yards from the hotel) was a bust when we discovered that we couldn't take our suitcase into the museum, I really felt, as I climbed onto the waiting train at Waterloo, I'd had a hugely satisfying trip.

School Software

This has been on my mind for a while, so in lieu of an appology, I'm going to have a rant about educational software.

You all know I work in a school, and it's a job I really enjoy. Although my abhorence of children should make me an unfit candidate for a position like this, I'd still say that it's been one of my most enjoyable jobs. After all, I rarely have to teach - only if my boss, the ICT teacher and academic deputy head, is busy (certain times of the year I do a lot of classes). So you can see, I really do enjoy this work. I've learned a whole load about network support within a very nurturing environment. I've also changed more printer cartridges than seems reasonable, but I guess you've got to take the rough with the smooth.

One thing, however, which has moved me to swearing more often than the children is that software designed for schools is dreadful.

Oh sure, there are some damn good programs out there (and I have to give a mention to my friends at Heinemann who have come up with some excellent software). I also have to give a shout to Sherston, who have supported some rather old pieces of software with a virtual smile. What I'm talking about, though, is the REALLY important software for gathering data.

As a school, there are certain pieces of information required to be sent to The Powers That Be - we have to report back on every child, and their progress every year. And this is a complete fag. So when a piece of software arrives, ostensibly to "help" with the gathering of such data, one can't help but be excited. Until one starts to install the software and realises certain things...

1. The software can only be installed on a single computer.

2. The software needs to be used with the CD in the drive - come ON! This is 2009!

3. The software allows NO configuration for storing the data input in a central (and thus backed up) location. So it's stored on the PC on which you have installed the software.

4. The software is completely non-intuitive for the average user. And in this day and age, that's inexcusable.

5. The software cost an arm and a bloody leg!

I bet you can't yet see why I'm so upset about this. The point is that we run fat clients here - I'd love to be able to call them slim, but I do install a hell of a lot of software locally.. I install a number of standard programs on these - you know, the programs everyone uses on a regular basis. But essentially, ALL our data is stored centrally, and if a machine plays up, gets horribly infected with a virus, or just needs a bit of TLC, all I have to do is roll out a new image. Just recently, helping a friend clear up a rather nasty infection, I was reminded how lucky I am that I have this option. It took us 5 days to get the PC to the point where we were happy it was no longer infected.

So here it is - we're coming up to the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, and people are still writing bloody awful software and fobbing it off on schools.

And even if the software is not bloody awful, I find the charging structure of companies writing for schools preposterous! We have a piece of software called Ranger, which is supposed to do what Group Policies does, but in a nice, easy, friendly way. I can happily say that it does, but the pricing structure!! Dear God!

I had a problem about a year and a half ago, resulting in the need to phone the Ranger people to ask if they'd even heard about this problem happening before. I didn't want them to solve it, I just wanted to know if they'd seen it. You know the sort of thing - you want to eliminate bits of software, and talking to people at the company usually provides a wealth of information if they've come across it, or a simple no if they haven't. There may be an online database of information, helpfully detailing how to solve the problems. I was told that they couldn't even discuss it with me because I didn't have a support contract. So I spoke to my boss, who informed me we DO have a support contract with them, and if we don't, what the hell are we paying hundreds of pounds each year to these people for? As it happens, the money (literally hundreds of pounds each year) is for "Upgrade Protection". Yes, I thought that too! Take off the word Upgrade, and you're much closer to the mark! I was told that unless the problem pertained to the installation of a new version (which I could download because I have my "Upgrade Protection"), they couldn't help me. So when I DID find a problem to do with the installation of the product, about 3 months after I'd downloaded the newer version, I shot off an email, demanding my support - only to be told that it was a bit late for me to be asking for support. In the end, not only did I solve the problem myself, I sent them an email telling how I'd fixed their problem for them.

There are other pieces of software which are actually helpful, useful pieces of work. But the vendors see fit to "sell" them to us with a very limited licence. So we "buy" the software, and a year later it stops working. I've got 3 like this I can think of immediately. Once again, 2 of those can only collect the data locally, and need a new licence number each year to operate. So there I am, having to make special arrangements for these machines any time we need to change things. And the other software is a teaching resource. Apparently it's a rather good one, so, on returning to school this autumn, having a slew of teachers asking to have the software re-installed because it's not working any more was a bit of a blow - THEN I found out they want £300 for a one year licence!

You know - I have to revise my opinion of Microsoft. People keep on about how they're charging the earth for software, and the number of variations of the software is confusing and bewildering - neither of which claim I can refute - but at least once you've made up your mind, and you've paid for the software, it's yours. Maybe not in quite the way a book is yours, but nonetheless, you can install it on your PC, and as long as your PC still works, the software will still work. And the MS software is sufficiently grounded in the 21st century that if you WANT to store your data somewhere else other than the default place, you can do that too - a quick trip to Google will assist with that.

Perhaps I should take that trip to Google, and search out some open source software for my school.

2 Bloody Minutes!?

That's right - that's how long you have to wait after your washing machine has turned itself off before you can open the door.

So, there you are - the load you were washing has taken quite a bit longer than you were anticipating anyway, and you've now only got 15 minutes to get that dressing gown dry before your daughter goes off for her Girls Night In* at the school, and you've got to wait another 2 whole minutes before you even start the drying process. This is 2 minutes of potential drying time, being wasted while I wait for the drum, which stopped spinning quite some time ago, to stop spinning.

Does anyone know why this seemingly arbitrary number has been chosen? Has ANYONE ever seen a washing machine drum continue spinning for more than, what, 30 seconds after the power's been cut? Anyone? Nope - didn't think so. I remember back when I had my first washing machine I could open the door after a scant 1 minute. Yep, I could have been drying that dressing gown a whole minute earlier, instead of getting cramps in my knees as I crouched, waiting for the door catch to unlock. Well, I could have, had the Nanny State not dictated that we're all complete morons, and we might hurt ourselves if we manage to open the washing machine while it's still spinning.

That, along with the beeping noises, is all part of a government conspiracy to drive me to drink - I'm still resisting!

*Girls Night In - a great idea involving a bunch of year 7 girls in pyjamas, with bean-bags, popcorn and other snacks, all congregating in the school hall to watch a video - Twilight! At least they're all in the same place for the girly squealing.

Sleep

The school term is three weeks in. Despite having managed to clear the system-wide virus we caught just before the end of the summer term, the beginning of the new term has brought with it its own slew of new problems. This, along with the eternal struggle of trying to persuade children to sit down and actually DO their homework has meant that any "me" time I get (and we're told we have to make time for ME now) is well after 9pm. Thus my bed time has been moving relentlessly towards midnight.

Whilst the rock songs of my youth may have suggested that we can party while we're alive, and sleep when we're dead, you begin to realise that this may just be a fallacy, so I'm going off to have a bit of a nap now.

Finding a Proper Job (and an Au Pair!)

I'm sure many of you reading my random thoughts are all too well aware of my current set of goals - I want little in life, but right now, I'd like to be able to get a proper job and an Au Pair. Nothing kinky, you understand - a female au pair to help round the house and help look after the girls should I wish to have an actual social life. Many people, on hearing the news that I want an au pair make the (not entirely unnatural) assumption that I want a male au pair for, well, I'm sure you've got your own perverted imagination!

So, in order to move closer to the realisation of the first of those goals, I've started a college course at Farnborough College of Technology - Managing and Maintaining a Windows Server 2003 Environment. I reasoned that I had been doing pretty much that for the last nearly 6 years, so it's not going to stretch me too much. Since this is my first foray back into the educational arena since I totally failed to get back into University having flunked after year 1, I was somewhat nervous and had to get my mum to come with me to sign up for it. As it happens, far from knowing all about Windows Server 2003, I find myself in the position of knowing some small amount of what is available. I've discovered enough to do my job, but I have no idea whether I'm using the most efficient/elegant solution. Although I was worried that, since I have been doing this job for nearly 6 years, I might find myself on one of those courses where ones knowledge far outstrips that of the rest of the class (and even the course), I'm truly delighted to say that this is not the case. Indeed, in only the second week, I was made aware of a utility I've used before, but this time in a completely different way. I was also made aware of the scope of the "run as" command which has always been used to run commands as the administrator. I'd never really given thought to this command being useful to run something as a limited user from an administrator account - I've always logged out as the power user, and logged back in as the limited user for my testing.

So, 3 weeks into the course, and I'm genuinely learning a lot of new things. This then, brings goal number 1 closer.

But! And this is actually quite a big but (aren't all of mine?) When I finally attain this Nirvana, this perfect, proper job (I have very high hopes!), will I enjoy it? Because the college is not just teaching me about Windows Server - indeed no! Our teacher, probably quite a high up person, and certainly in possession of the local Administrator password, cannot assist with the reset of my user account, disabled because I took too long to effect my first login.

In my current job, I am the KING! Well, probably Queen, in my case, but definitely some kind of computer Royalty/Deity. Indeed, this term I have been signing my emails "Sian Day, IT Goddess". I have access to every file and subdirectory on every server on my domain (OK, it's not that big, but I have 6 servers). I can deny the logon of anyone foolish enough to think they can play me. I can, and do, restrict access to the internet based on whomsoever is daft enough to attempt to play games during lessons. If there's a computer based task out there, and it's available in our school, well then, I have the authority to do it. I have a level of autonomy which would be envied the world over, and I have the time to learn whatever is needed to accomplish the job. I have a boss who's one of the most wonderful people on the planet, and always encourages learning. He never fails to thank me for a)fixing computer problems or b)teaching his class when he's unable to make it. And he doesn't sugar coat it if I do something wrong. Oh, and in case you hadn't worked it out, I LOVE my job.

There are, of course, drawbacks. For starters I've been hired as a teaching assistant. TA's are traditionally women who want a bit of pin money, and who usually have a child in the school at which they're employed. They're not trained to teach, and thus are denied the not-actually-that-shabby salary offered to teachers. In short, TA's are paid a McWage. This is grumble number 1.

I have to change printer cartridges. For crying out loud - I'm the network administrator and I have to change printer cartridges!!

Our IT budget is pretty limited (for an IT budget, not for a School IT Budget), and it can become quite troublesome when things get old, die and or need to be replaced. Last year it was failing projectors - now we've had these projectors since well before I joined the school at the end of 2003, and I was not of the opinion that they owed us a whole lot. What was a problem was that 9 of them developed the same problem within a few months - it was almost as if they were programmed to self-destruct after a certain number of lamp hours! This year, to my horror, it's PC's. Motherboards, to be strictly specific, and a nasty known problem pertaining to capacitors, which has only just started to show itself in a batch of older (5 years old) PC's.

So when you look at it, there's much more in my job to enjoy than there is to hate. Which is why I'm not sure that Goal Number 1 is something I'm going to enjoy when I do get out there. Where else am I going to find myself right at the top of the food chain, while simultaneously being right at the bottom?

Things I've learned about Japan from reading Manga and watching Anime and J-Dorama

I'm sure that my education is still incomplete, but having spent quite some time watching Anime, and then moving on to Manga, and more recently watching J-Dorama (they say Drama in much the way I say Dwarf), I've gleaned much knowledge. In the interests of sharing, here's what I've found.

1. There are a hell of a lot of car accidents in Japan. I'm fairly convinced that this is the most effective form of population control, because in almost every Manga, Anime or Drama I've seen, the parents were conveniently removed due to a car accident. This, of course, leaves many grieving teenagers in situations where they would otherwise be grounded because of their demonstrably anti-social behaviour. These teenagers are often left in charge of their younger siblings who, in the UK at the very least, would have been taken into care, and already well on their way to being a complete social misfit. However, these teenagers are loving and kind to their younger siblings (the aforementioned anti-social behaviour is only shown to others, not family), and no one ever reports them to the social for working unsuitable jobs or having charge of the youngster with no adult supervision.
2. Ladies shoes are very badly made, Manolo and Jimmy having no, um, foothold in Tokyo. I can't believe how many, apparently new, shoes are so badly stuck together that it takes nothing more than a slip down a step for the heel to detach almost completely from the sole of the shoe. I'm also surprised at how often these shoes have been shown to be very expensive. This leads us on, quite nicely to:
3. Ladies are very proud. Having taken a (often shoe-related) tumble in Japan, it's de rigeur always to collect ones belongings, stand up proudly and walk off, usually limping because of the previous point. I rarely see so much as a trembling lower lip, so I applaud these ladies for their bravery!
4. School girls are uniformly bitchy. Damn! This is a huge point. As far as I can work out, if a boy is particularly attractive, he appears to be considered "class property", and no one is allowed to date him. This strikes me as peculiarly unfair, especially to the boy in question, but apparently he doesn't get a vote. If you're a cute, new girl in a school, and you start dating this handsome hunk, you're stuffed. You might as well just throw in the towel right now, and transfer out of there, because no one will back you up, as the rest of the girls in the school find ways to humiliate you (usually involving shredding your expensive and exclusive uniform or shoes), and all the boys will try to get into your underpants and detach you from your beau.
5. Keeping, if I may, on the school theme: Girls can disguise themselves as boys, and will remain undetected for months, while her class-mates are more likely to question their own sexuality than hers. Apparently boys can do the same, leading me to believe that the Japanese are quite androgynous. This leads to many "comic" misunderstandings, which could be cleared up by someone just asking a question - for example, "Isn't your Adam's apple quite large for a girl?" Or, "Haven't you got rather a large arse for a bloke?" However...
6. People just don't like to ask embarrassing questions. Apparently it's impolite, or something. This is an area requiring more research.
7. Love/Like. You can't just like someone. If you like someone, you love them. Maybe it's the translations. This leads me to question how you tell your mate that you like him/her, without the inevitable "You're so gay!" riposte.
8. Firsto Kisso. Yes, that's how they say it. This is quite perplexing to a Westerner, but it would appear that Japanese boys and girls save up their first kiss (this is first lip kiss) until they're in their mid-teens. I'm not sure if parents are allowed to kiss their children on the lips, or whether this is discounted as a firsto kisso, due to it being unavoidable.

Well, I hope my insights into modern Japan have been helpful to you, and that you'll send me a postcard when you next visit Tokyo!

Constitutionally incapable of making up my mind

OK - after the horror that was online dating, I've decided to move on to my first love - gadgets. Sure, men have their uses, and I'll probably pursue that avenue later, but at the moment, I've no time for dating, because the gadgets are calling...

I remember, some years ago, writing an email to PC Pro, telling them what I wanted, and asking why someone hadn't developed it yet. What I wanted at that time, was, essentially, a Palm, but with the ability to phone people on it, and also browse the web. I seem to remember my friend, Martin, telling me to wait 6 months, because he thought Palm were going to announce something which would seem to be what I was waiting for. Well, in the absence of any actual cashy money, I waited, and Palm, in due course, announced the Palm W. I do believe the W stood for wireless, and it's possible that it would connect to a wifi network. I'm not sure, because the reviews were not good, so I didn't look too far into it. And anyway, it didn't have a phone. I think I remember that you could get a "sled" for it which would allow you to shove a sim into it, and use it as a phone. The whole thing, then, would look rather like the mobile phone "bricks" from back in the 90's. The word "sled" was what I remember finding on a search of the interwebz for this device and its accessories.

I found this new device annoyingly underwhelming, especially as Palm had been so brilliant in the PDA market previously. And people like Sony had produced the P900, which, while expensive, seemed to have all that I wanted. So, the all in one device waited a bit.

Now, about two and a half years ago, I bought, at great expense, from eBay, a Sony Clié PDA. This second hand device cost me £150, which was at the top end of what they were selling for. Had I been more inclined (and less susceptible to the ghastly panic at the end of the auction) I might have waited it out, and managed to get something similar, but it would have cost maybe £30 less. The whole package, at the time, seemed like a pretty good deal. It did include the GPS receiver and all the necessary software for installing GPS on the palm, along with the car-cradle in which it would sit whilst you were driving. After all, I've got to be the only person in the whole Universe who doesn't have a GPS! OK - maybe there's a tiny bit of exaggeration there... But still no phone. However, it would pair nicely with my Nokia 8310 (using IR), and it had wifi built in. And yet Nirvana seemed just beyond my paupers fingers...

Moving on to 2009. There are at least 15 million devices out there which will do it all. Although they're usually phones which will allow a limited web browsing experience, there seems to be a bit of a trend to try to make this a less limited deal. Look at the Nokia N97. Although the reviews of it are less than glowing, it's certainly providing the all-in-one experience. The HTC phones are providing a similarly checked list of features (although I gather their keyboards are a little nicer to use). In fact, since I started this post, Nokia have been outed, with a large and embarrassing leak about the new Internet Tablet, which also doubles as a phone - so they had to announce it early. It's called the N900, and is, apparently, AWESOME! However, it's also going to cost upwards of £500 unless you get a contract for it. Not, I suppose, that this is such a bad thing - I've been pleased with the contract on my N78.

But I've rambled long enough. About 2 weeks ago I purchased, for a ridiculously small sum, a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet. How ridiculously small, I hear you ask? Well, both Play.com and Amazon UK have the device available for just short of £130. Pennies short, I'll concede, but DAMN, how cheap is that?

So, the device arrived. I thought; it'll be just like a palm, it's got wifi but no phone, but maybe it'll browse the sites I haven't been able to get to on the Clié.

Turns out I was wrong. Oh, sure, I can browse the sites I couldn't reach on the Clié, and no, it doesn't have a phone. But it's NOTHING like the palm. Everything works. No messing, it just works. No installing interesting third-party drivers which cost a fortune, and aren't necessarily guaranteed to work, it just works.

This device (and the new N900) come with an OS called Maemo. Dumb name! But that's where the stupid stops. This is a little Linux distro, and thus you can write your own programs for it. Give me some time, and I'll borrow my brother's "Programming In Python for Dummies" manual, and knock you up a killer app. Assuming I can think of one which doesn't already exist.

Because this is where the stupid steps in again. Nobody knows that this device and OS exist, except a bunch of geeks who don't seem to mind it being a secret. Nokia, apparently, didn't advertise the Internet Tablets very much, and anyway, since Nokia make phones, I'd been perplexed as to why these tablets came with no sim socket. After all, there's not THAT much wifi available in the UK. I wasn't, clearly, the only one perplexed at this omission. These are some of the reasons I was able to get my fantastic new toy at such a great price.

So, the device here, fully charged, connected to my wifi and browsing the web. I'd asked my brother (also has an N810) which apps he'd recommend for download, and he'd started me off with FBReader - "Google it!" he ordered. And then, without meaning to, I'd clicked a link on the desktop of the gadget, and found myself at a site called Maemo.org - Wonderland! It was like discovering that the last 7 years of Palm idiocy had all been a dream, and I'd woken up to find that they were still the leaders of the PDA world (you guessed - I'm a bit of a Palm fan). I browsed through their catalog of, as far as I can work out, completely free apps, written by the fans for the N800 series, and downloaded a handful of applications which seemed interesting.

Oh, there I go, rushing ahead of myself! I'd connected the keyboard to the N810 with the same ease with which it had connected to the N78. In fact, the N78 connected with ease to the N810, allowing me to use the 3G capability of the phone, should a wireless lan be unavailable (as so often happens in my brother's house!) This is why the tablet didn't need to be able to connect to the internet via it's own 3G - you can just use your own phone. Yeah, early adopters would have found this a rather expensive route, but since I've had my phone for a year, and the N810 was so incredibly cheap, it's proven a sound financial move. Well, sound in as much as any gadget I want to buy will no doubt have my mother's eyes rolling, and her favourite phrase popping out "You don't need it!"

Favourite applications for Maemo? I think, at this point it would have to be a combination of Nokia 770 Video Converter (on the PC), teamed up with mPlayer on the tablet. Then there's Numpty Physics, a frustrating game I can't work out how it's supposed to be played. I did get a copy of something very close to Bejewelled, a sudoku game and a minesweeper game. Oh, and visit garage.maemo.org, too.

And do you know what? This wonderful experience has shown me that I don't really want an all in one device after all. I love the portability of my phone - it'll tuck into bits of my clothing (although not quite as invisibly as the 8310), and I love the huge screen of the N810. While the N900 looks like a really exciting machine and the internet buzz being so enthusiastic, it's a chunky beast and so I think I'll stick to my duo. It's a far cry from connecting the Palm and the 8310 with infrared and using a GPRS connection to send emails!

Real Security Online

I'm really pleased that my girls are both quite security concious. So when Lottie asked me, "Do I trust this?", I bimbled over to her PC to take a look.

I did suggest the password she gave over...

The conversation went something like this.

» do you want a free makeover?

» i just need your password. u can trust me, i wont HACK you i know what its like. tell ur mum i wont hack you.

« lol u want my passwod??? It's "GET ORF MOI LAWN!!!"
« lol
» what?
« i can't answer im laughing so hard!!
« Come on, what do you think I'm 11?
« Oh, hang on...

» what?
» i'm 14
« I'm having fun!! You asked me for my PASSWORD!? Do u think i'm stupid?!

The Shift key, and all its uses, many and varied.

I'm sorry - it's been quite some time since I popped online to rant at you, and I'd have to forgive you for thinking that I've fallen off a cliff or joined a bizarre religious sect.

Neither of those things could be farther from the truth, as it happens. I've been busy, and anyway, nothing has popped up on which I felt passionate enough to have a go at. Oh, that's not, strictly speaking, true. I did start a couple of posts, but got rather side tracked, and they ended up going nowhere. That was pretty bizarre in itself - it's odd to lose momentum halfway through a piece, and realise you've lost track of where it's supposed to be going.

However, digression over.

I joined an online dating site. I wondered if it was possible to find a similar geeky person, so about 36 hours ago I put myself out there (plentyoffish, if you want to go and have a peek at my profile...) and joined up. You know what I'm looking for. I want a geek; someone who shares a fair few interests with me, but maybe has some of his own. I'd like to be able to have a regular movie partner and someone to talk gadgets and Manga/Anime with. I figured it wouldn't be too hard to find someone geeky on the net - after all, it's where we all hang out.

Within the last 36 hours I've already had one proposition, and meet a nice man with a GT550. Sadly he's put down that he's an occasional smoker, so the girls have rejected him. I've had a ping from an accountant with absolutely nothing in common, who wants to meet. And the number of profiles I've read where even the most rudimentary grammar has been completely ignored is ridiculous.

Would someone please tell me why it's SO difficult to remember to press the shift key at the beginning of a sentence? There seem to be a huge number of men (I didn't check out any of the female profiles - if it's not Nigella, I'm not interested) who don't know where the shift key is, and can't find the full stop or comma keys. They're completely ignorant of what the apostrophe key is for, and probably don't know where to find it anyway. And how many people tell me they've got a degree of some sort, and still can't work out the difference between your, you're and yore (OK, I'm exaggerating - no one has used any sentence in which yore would be correct). But I think the most appalling thing is the inability to properly capitalise.

Now, while I can understand that you might leave off capitals when you're chatting online with someone (after all, unless you're a touch typist, you're probably picking over the keys with a couple of index fingers) and you're in a hurry, I find it a lot more difficult to understand writing your whole profile in lower case, with incorrect/no punctuation. While I find it quite difficult to forgive the inability to differentiate between your and you're, I can understand it.

And the saddest part is that I read a profile of a guy who said all this, but he came across as an arrogant son-of-a-bitch who I didn't want to contact! Actually, I decided I didn't want to contact him because he detailed a couple of unsuccessful dates - who does that? If it's unsuccessful, move on and try to leave the poor girl with some semblance of dignity. Just because you found her a scrap overweight, it's rather insensitive to put it up online.

Easter Traditions

At the Hawley Place Easter Garden Design competition, open to all year groups, I think I've found the winner.

Please note the use of two different colours of heather, sturdy evergreens, and not forgetting the traditional Easter dinosaur.

Snow Days!

A few weeks ago I woke to find the world had turned white overnight.  Much of the South of England was covered with the deepest snow I could remember since my childhood.

Quickly phoning the girls school, I discovered that the headmaster, Mr Pipe, had already been up, and left a new message on the school's answer phone, telling us that the school was closed for the day.  It took me a bit longer to find out from my boss that our school was also closed for the day, but then the girls and I got into the serious business of enjoying our day.

We walked over to King George V playing field, because it's the nearest public area with a good slope, and tobogganed for an hour or so.  Since I didn't want to drive in the snow, we walked everywhere that day, and fell into bed, exhausted, in the evening.

Only to discover, upon waking, that another Snow Day had been declared!

After 2 glorious Snow Days, it was quite a disappointment to return to school, and see the, once pristine, snow melting, greyly in the carpark.  However, I was cheered and amused to read in my free computer magazine, later that week, that many people had been able to work from home due to the advances of modern technology.

Do you know, not once during my 2 enjoyable days out of the office did it even begin to cross my mind to occur to me to log in from home and even take a peek at the server!

Prince Caspian

My neighbours, enticed by the promise of a roaring fire and chocolate, came over the other night, with a film from their DVD rental place.  They've given up on Blockbuster because of the surfeit of scratched and damaged DVD's, and have started renting from Tesco.  The DVD's come by post, and they can rent as many during each month as they want, on condition that they have no more than 3 out at any one time.

Which is why, just a couple of weeks ago, we settled down in front of the afforementioned fire, to watch Prince Caspian.

And now I'll tell you just why Disney decided to drop the Narnia series like a hot brick.  Their official reasons contain the words "budgetary and logistical reasons", but that's complete horsefeathers!

When I was young, I loved the Narnia Chronicles.  I didn't actually get into them until I was into two figures, but once there I stayed, reading and re-reading the books for years.  I remember the sense of wonder I would get with each new book, which would remain with me for many of those re-reads.  I haven't forgotten the feeling of despair I experienced when I read the last page of The Last Battle, knowing there would never be any more, and all I could do to recapture the magic was to read the chronicles again.  I remember my intense conviction that if I could only find the right door/wardrobe, I, too, could visit Narnia.  The enchantment of the books has never left me, even though, when I try to read them to my children, I find that, in comparison to modern children's literature, they're are, in some places, quite stodgy and slow moving.  

Take, for example, the begining of Prince Caspian.  The story starts, quite well, with a chapter about the Prince and his upbringing.  The cousin is born, and Caspian's life is suddenly in danger, and there's a midnight escape.  So far, so good.  We cut to the children in England, returning, rather downheartedly, to school, about to take separate trains from a small station in the country, when they are suddenly "pulled" back into Narnia.  While it takes them little time to realise that they are, once again, in the land they ruled over for so many years, it's quite some time later that they begin to suspect that they've arrived back in Narnia a very long time after they left, and that things have changed a lot in that time.  This confirmed, they set out to find out why they were drawn into the land, while also trying to find some civilistation and proper food!  Again, excellent story telling.  And then it gets rather awkward.  Having rescued a dwarf from the Telmarines, he proceeds to tell them the story of Prince C, and how he was given, and blew, Susan's trumpet in order to summon help in his time of Greatest Need.  So the exciting story of how Caspian came to blow the trumpet is reduced to a second hand tale.  Despite that, it's still a very good story.

So will someone tell me how Disney managed to make it into an unnecessarily long pile of poop?  I'll let them get away with making Caspian a dark haired man, because the Telmarines were mostly dark haired in the book, and it wasn't illogical.  But why on earth did they have to insert a completely unwritten section about an attack on King Miraz's castle?  There's quite enough material in the book for it to have been an utterly charming, if somewhat shorter, film.

And there's the crux of the matter.  The film is 150 minutes long.  And to translate that, it's just 10 minutes shy of 3 hours.  I complain about my girls' inability to sit still for a whole film, but because the flow of the movie was so turgid, I felt myself becoming restless, as looks lengthened needlessly.  Certain scenes were drawn out far too long, telegraphing the plot just in case we blinked.  Remember the part where the river raises up and breaks the bridge?  Just how many "meaningful" looks can we exchange with Lucy?  All that build up would have given the Telmarines plenty of time to evacuate the bridge before it became match-stick soup.

I know, since The Lord of The Rings was made into 3 superb 3-hour films, that longer movies have become somehow de-rigeur.  But there's a reason the Harry Potter and LOTR films have reached such lengths - the source material is incredibly long to start with.  There's a lot to be said for a tight little 90 minute film.  Especially if you're going to aim it at children.

I'm quite prepared to have a numb bum if the material demands, but with the best will in the world, none of the Narnia Chronicles can scrape together enough raw source to feed such a lengthy film.  People thought it was boring (Caspian notwithstanding) at the cinema, so they're not going to bother buying the DVD - after all, many films go on to become so called "cult" classics after a poor showing at the box office (remember Serenity?), but word on the interwebz isn't going to help Prince Caspian.  Thus a really expensive film (apparently it cost in the region of $225 million!!) is just not going to make back the costs, causing the studio to back out on the deal to make further films.

So THAT'S why Disney aren't going to make the rest of the Narnia Chronicles.

Mmmm - Bacon

Yesterday, as I was stumbling round the internet, I came across a gorgeous looking recipe on the Jamie Oliver web site, of red cabbage braised with apple, bacon and balsamic vinegar. It looked so delicious that I resolved at once to try it in the evening.

With that in mind, I persuaded the girls to go with me to the big Tesco in order to buy a red cabbage, in the sincere belief that I had a packet of bacon in the freezer.

When, on returning home and opening the freezer, I discovered the sad truth, I said, with some frustration, "Oh, I've got no bacon."

To which Lizzy replied, "Why don't you just use fish fingers?"

Racism in the workplace

Yesterday was my first day back in school after the Christmas holidays. This isn't as horrible as it sounds, because I really enjoy my job. I have even discovered, recently, that I quite like a little bit of teaching. I've long noted that someone with such an abhorrence of children should, under no circumstances, ever be placed in charge of a classroom full of students. My boss, on the other hand, thinks it's character-building. Why, only last term I actually wrote a lesson plan, and delivered the lesson. OK - the results were mixed. I aimed my little seminar at year 5, who had been playing a game called The Wizard's Apprentice, an educational piece of software from Sherston, in which the children learned to use the "Magic Tablet" to perform calculations. In case you can't guess, the "magic tablet" is, in fact, a spreadsheet. But perhaps this is a story for another day. The crux of the matter is that teachers were back in school yesterday for the traditional "Training Day".

Usually, as the IT person in the school, there is no specific training for me, and even if the training is general enough to expand beyond teachers, I can usually wriggle my way out of it - if only they'd provide serious computing training at the beginning of term - I'd be there with knobs on then! Sadly for my wriggling skills, yesterday's training was obligatory for ALL staff, so I wended my way over to our Studio, a cold building, smelling slightly of damp, for my session. It was fire safety training.

Remembering my last fire safety training session, many years ago shortly after I'd joined the Institute of Aviation Medicine, I was nervous and slightly apprehensive, when the trainer announced that he'd be showing us some scary videos. My mind flashed back to that earlier training session, when I was shown an extremely scary video of a fire in a high-rise building in Brazil (someone suggested that this was a 1974 fire), the footage showing people leaping out of the building. I'm sure it showed something else - like how fast a fire spreads - but I don't remember that. I'm sure you can imagine the nightmares which followed for quite a few weeks. In actual fact, the videos our trainer showed yesterday were nothing like as traumatic. The main one was the Bradford football stadium fire in 1985, used to show how fast fire can get going. While I gather over 50 people lost their lives in this horrific fire, I was grateful that we weren't shown that.

But there I go, digressing again.

Our trainer, as he pointed out to us, has been in firefighting for many years. As such, I imagine that much of the humour has been squeezed out of him, due to dealing with the aftermath of many fires, and the apparent idiocy of the human race. So while he tried to lighten the training session with a few jokes, these fell slightly flat, leaving us with a feeling of mild irritation. My moment of intense irritaition arrived when the morning tea/coffee arrived from the kitchen, and having poked her head round the door, the person bringing the tea backed out, concerned that she'd interrupted our training session (she had, I was grateful!). At this point, our instructor, in another attempt to lighten the mood, leapt for the door, flung it open, and stepped back quickly, muttering to us all - "Oh dear, I was about to yell "Kato!"" It turned out that the person who'd brought the tea was Asian. If possible, this little aside to us was more racist than actually yelling "Kato!" as he'd intended. I'm sure she'd have no idea what he was talking about, and it might actually have been funny for the rest of us (well, those of us old enough to understand the reference).

I know I'm probably making a fuss over nothing, but I'm starting to dislike this chuckle-behind-your-hand-while-offering-a-bit-of-a slur type of humour. I'm beginning to find it way more offensive than I should. This, to my mind, is real racism. The perpetrator is bringing attention to the race of the person, while pretending to be being sensitive about it.

I'll never forget, many years ago, being told I was being a bit racist. I'd been asked, by a colleague where they would find a certain person. I'd spent some time trying to describe exactly where, in the faceless, open-plan office on the floor above, this person was located, all the while my colleague was clearly trying to mentally navigate the area. In the end, in order to shorten this process (and avoid having to walk up stairs and physically point), I rounded off with "He's the only black person up there - you can't miss him." At which point another colleague said "Isn't that a bit racist?"

Well, is it? I was using a physical attribute in order to locate someone. As I pointed out to the second colleague, I'd locate him by telling someone that he was the grouchy red-head in the computing department. Calling him white would have been redundant, as the only people in the computing department were white. But drawing attention to his hair colour is perfectly valid, because he was the only person with red hair. I might have been located by someone suggesting they look for the only girl in the computing department, although it's possible that this might have been regarded as sexist!

I think that the difference was that I was calling attention to a person's race in order to point someone in the right direction. The trainer yesterday was calling attention to a person's race to gain a laugh.

D'you think I'm being over sensitive?