Week of 25th June, 2001

Last Week

Monday, 25th June

Early shift today, and not much work on the shelves, so we're working at a slower rate than normally required.

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Tuesday, 26th June

I'm enjoying the lack of pressure at work - trouble is, it's the calm before the storm...


Tux has started throwing irrecoverable errors on hard disk access. Must rescue the files before he goes totally pear-shaped, and won't boot.

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Wednesday, 27th June

I'm taking my Mum home to Wales today, just a quick shuttle trip. I'll be back tomorrow, with Welsh goodies I hope.

I checked Jane's Mum's car in for service this morning, before leaving for Wales. They will 'phone me if there are problems.

5 p.m. Came the 'phone call. Nothing major - the car had passed the test, but the tester thought that the front shock-absorbers (really hydraulic dampers, but never mind...) were not long for this world. Replacement would be UKP120, so I got approval from Jane's parents (whose car it is, remember) and authorised the repair. The car will be fixed for my return to London tomorrow.

A very lazy evening - and a good night's sleep.

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Thursday, 28th June

The return trip was easy, just warm and humid. I'd have preferred dry heat.

When I got back, I had to go and collect Jane's Mum's car (BLC, and how do you make a nickname out of that?) No problem, but when I checked the paperwork, preparatory to taxing the car (the licence to "keep and use a motor vehicle on the public highway") I discovered that the insurance certificate was two years old, i.e. out-of-date, especially since it listed a different car. No valid insurance for the vehicle, no tax. Oops.

Never mind, this made me get up and organise Sarah as an authorised driver on Jane's Parents' insurance. This took two attempts, since the insurer requires the policyholder to authorise such changes, and Dad wasn't present the first time I tried. Success at the second attempt - Sarah can now take driving practice in BLC, starting tomorrow.

Apropos car insurance, my insurers wanted UKP50 for a full year of cover for Sarah on my car, Dad's insurers wanted UKP280 for 7 months cover (that's UKP360 or thereabouts for the year) Why the difference? Remember the cars are the same, except mine is 2 years older.


I managed to get Tux to start up for long enough to rescue all my data, none of it vital, but nice to recover. Celery is running a CD burn as I write this to keep it all safe.

The symptom of Tux's problem is random unrecoverable errors on his root filesystem - luckily he boots and runs Samba, so I could rescue the files. It looks as though the Connor 2.1GB hard disk is on it's way out. I'll reinstall him, and let him run for a while, before I say for certain that I need a new hard disk.

Mark you, there's a problem... Tux is quite old, and his BIOS, although capable of autotyping ATAPI drives, is subject to the 8.4GB limit. Can I find 8GB drives? Nope, the smallest is 10GB, and E-Smith won't boot off a 10GB drive. I suspect partitioning problems - on older BIOSes, if the boot partition is not within the first 1024 cylinders, LILO hangs, displaying "LI...", which is exactly what I saw when I tried the 10GB Seagate in Tux. I think I'll abandon E-Smith, and try Progeny, taking care with the partitions.

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Friday, 29th June

I'm doing a favour for a workmate this weekend, so I'm on a 10 o'clock start for all three days, while he's doing my early shifts. I actually prefer 10's to earlies, I'm not an early bird (6 o'clock in the morning ought not to be allowed...)


This weekend at work, we are having to do the regular electrical safety checks on the electrical distribution boards. Such checks must happen every few years, by law, and anywhere but a 24-hour TV station there would be no problem. As it is, we've had to lay on an extra emergency generator, since the fixed one won't be available for the duration - it's switchgear is among that which has to be tested. That generator is a containerised, approximately 500kVA unit, parked in the back car park, just-in-case. If we do lose mains electricity, there will be some rapid rewiring, to enable us to stay on air - the big UPS that supports the transmission load has about 15 minutes of battery capacity at full drain.

Over and above all this, all non-technical power will be off - no catering, no vending machines, no office computers (although the file servers and PABX switch are UPS-backed). The catering is the biggest problem - no hot food for the duration, and we're at least a 10 minute walk from any shops. I will admit, though, that the coffee machine will be on - that's a relief.

As of 9 p.m. nothing had happened, although all the vending machines were empty - I suspect that the building will be dark tomorrow.


Early in the evening, I got the 'phone call - "Jenny's bike has been stolen from outside the Tennis club" Great - even though it was chained up. Someone must be pinching bikes on an industrial scale, using a pair of bolt-cutters or equivalent to cut bike chains. Assuming, of course, that she did chain it up. Jenny is notoriously absent-minded. Past experience suggests that I may be maligning her - in the past, when I've driven over to collect her and bike, it has been chained up.

So, after work, I had to attend the local police station to report the theft, and get a crime number for the insurance claim.

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Saturday, 30th June

More quiet at work - only 7 things missing for tomorrow, all of which I had.

The big power-down was a success, and power was restored early in the afternoon, not before I found that the coffee machine wouldn't start up again after being shifted to maintained power - no-one knows what keypad fugue you play to get it out of the setup mode it enters on startup.

And the pop machine had been emptied for the powerdown, and wasn't refilled after the power came back.

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Sunday, 1st July

Still no coffee or pop machines - the one won't start up, the other is empty.

Later they managed to start up the coffee machine - what a relief. Television, in my experience, runs on coffee and cigarettes - I don't smoke, so I need my coffee.

Tomorrow's schedule is a disaster - all the new pop videos were not available to be prepped for air Monday, starting at lunchtime. That's 13 items, each 3 or 4 minutes long, perhaps more. No way will the other shift be able to get that lot ready for air - mind you, we couldn't either. Someone should get shot for this - par for the course will be that they try to blame us, but if the material isn't there we can't do anything with it. It will be interesting to see the fallout on Wednesday.

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