Week of 13th January, 2003

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Monday, 13th January

I hate burglars!!!!!

When Jane went out this morning to get Jenny's bike out of the garage so that she could cycle to school, she saw that the garage door was already open and Jenny's safety helmet was lying in the drive. Sure enough, Katy's bike and Jenny's had disappeared. So I had to go into Ealing to report the crime to the police, so that I could get a "crime number" so that the insurance company can check the details I give them against the details given when I reported the crime - discrepancies might very well cause the claim to be disallowed, as would not reporting it to the police within 24 hours.

Then I had to fight the insurance company. And a fight it was... First they tried to deny the claim since I'd already claimed for one bike - 18 months ago, the bike chained up at the tennis club, later found to be gone, but the chain still there, in two pieces. Then they tried to refuse the claim because the bikes weren't chained to an immovable object inside the (locked) garage - I kid you not. Then they reduced the payout because of "wear and tear". None of these are in our policy documents, and we'd not heard of them before.

However, we prevailed, finally. Although there was another example of idiocy, perpetrated by a misunderstanding - the 'phone slave tried to tell us that Jenny's violin would be subject to the "wear and tear" clause if stolen. A violin? Stringed instrument? Nigel Kennedy, Vanessa Mae, Stradivarius? Are we talking about the same thing here? Turned out we weren't - the 'phone slave thought we were discussing a bicycle of make "violin".

Did I mention I hate insurers, too? I'm not naming names, since they're all the same, they will all try to screw you out of monies you are entitled to under the terms of your policy.

Then we had to prepare another bike for Jenny to use. Sarah's mountain bike was the preferred machine, but that had a puncture in the back tyre, and a broken spoke on the same wheel, so that was out. Jane's mountain bike was next up, and was OK. So we fitted the new light set we'd bought today, to replace the one stolen on Jenny's bike, and all was sorted, for tomorrow, anyway. Today, she had to walk.

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Tuesday, 14th January

The damaged wheel for Sarah's bike is being repaired even as I type - ready tomorrow afternoon, so I understand. The insurers will send us a cheque made out to the bike shop, so we'll just have to cover the difference between the actual cost and the insurance payout.

While I was in Ealing yesterday, reporting the theft - actually it was a burglary, the previous claim was a theft - I dropped into the HMV shop. They are having a sale, and I found a couple of DVDs I wanted, cheap - "The Abyss, special edition" and the recent TV adaptation of Frank Herbert's "Dune", made with mostly European money, and shot in Eastern Europe with a mostly local cast. It stars John Hurt as Duke Leto Atreides and Saskia Reeves as his concubine Jessica, and the rest of the cast are previously unknown to me. UKP14.99 for a 3-DVD set, officially priced at UKP39.99.

This afternoon, I made time to watch some of Season 1 of "Babylon 5" from my new DVDs. And very good it was, too. I refreshed my memory of the "Babylon 5 mantra" as recited by Susan Ivanova in "A Voice In The Wilderness Part 1", but I haven't yet found her famous Russian pessimist comment, "No BOOM. No Boom, today... Boom Tomorrow, there's always Boom tomorrow", but I will.

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Wednesday, 15th January

Not too busy a day - enough work, but not too much.

When I got home, Jane told me that we'd had the rest of the bikes stolen. Suspecting a wind-up, I went, "?" and then learned that someone had tried to break into the garage - this is the second time in as many days. They didn't succeed, however - on being verbally accosted, they (two teenage boys) legged it. Luckily, two of our neighbours were watching, and proceeded to follow the miscreants.

Meanwhile, we had called the police. They attended, only to be called away to apprehend a couple of suspects. This was at about 5 p.m. (I got back about 6:30 p.m.)

After all this, Jane had to spend most of the evening at the local police station, giving a statement about what had happened. At the end, a policeman wheeled in a bike, to be greeted with the words, "That's my bike!" from Katy, who was also there, as a witness. The bike had been found in the possession of one of the suspects I mentioned above.

Net result - we've recovered one bike, the naughty boys who stole it are in custody, pending legal disposition, we can tell the insurance company that the insured loss is smaller than we thought, and Katy is displeased. The reason for the last is simple - she had her heart set on a new bike. We may yet recover the second bike - depends on the results of searches at the naughty boys' homes.

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Thursday, 16th January

Another relatively quiet day today. Work trickled in in niggardly fashion, just enough to keep us busy without overloading, although we could use another audio compressor, to tame the audio peaks on Channel X material. The language dubbing houses have insufficiently good control of peak audio levels for our taste, due I suspect to their habit of using VU meters, rather than our PPMs, which means that they don't see momentary peaks that have us reaching for the level controls. Besides that, Channel X's language seems to be a dynamic one, with a high peak-to-mean ratio, or else the actors rendering the translated lines are not trained to restrict their voice dynamics while not seeming to do so. Net result, we like to keep a peak limiter in the audio chain to stop occasional emphasis from redlining the metering.

But there's no capital budget for new equipment, so we'll have to struggle along with the one compressor/limiter.


A quick Google search this evening brought up a site which has a link to Susan Ivanova's "Boom tomorrow" speech. It's apparently in the Babylon 5 Season 1 episode "Grail", which I will now check.
Sunday: It is in the episode "Grail", right at the end, just before the end credits.

Meanwhile, try this search string, and look at the first hit. It's at Geocities, so you'll get pop-up advertising, unless you use a pop-up stopper, as I do.


Reading the Pompous Git's daily Journal (read the posts for Thursday, Friday and Saturday on the page) led me to investigate blogging software, particularly Moveable Type. I can't use it in it's intended fashion - Demon do not allow custom CGI scripts on personal Homepages, like this one, and MT requires Perl running on your Web server.

However, I could host it locally (on, say, King) and publish from here to Demon. I'd lose the ability to post from anywhere in the world where there is Internet access, but I can live with that - it's no worse than what I have now.

The Git makes good points, but there's a lot of work involved, and the payoff (for me) is minor. What do you think, gentle readers? Answers to the feedback address, please.

I may yet do it, I'd gain a lot of flexibility, but "If it ain't broke, don't mend it", and my present routines ain't broke... Nor do they cost me much time, over and above that required to think out what I'm going to say, and actually get it typed up.

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Friday, 17th January

The cheque from the insurance company arrived this morning. It is, of course, outdated, after the events of Wednesday, but I spent some time on the 'phone, and it has been agreed that I will return the present cheque, and they will issue another one, plus a further payment when we know how much it will cost to fettle Katy's bike - replace missing bits (the lights, pump, D-lock, etc., and repair the scratches and other signs of maltreatment.

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Saturday, 18th January

One of the ladies who runs (with Jane) the Friday Night Youth Club at the Abbey was given a surprise tonight - her birthday was a few days ago, and she was expecting a small dinner in a local Italian restaurant.

Secretly, it had been arranged as a get-together for about 40 friends and family. And a fine time was had by all, including yours truly. Fine food, fine wine, and an over-loud music centre afterwards to prompt dancing. All fine, except the music.

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Sunday, 19th January

Today, Katy produced an advertisement for a cycle shop sited some distance around the North Circular Road - namely Cycle City - where there are many bargains to be found. And they are running a sale. So nothing would do but that we (Katy and I) should go there forthwith.

And we found the next model up of Katy's stolen (and recovered!) bike - this one has front suspension, 18 speeds, grip shifts and all the rest. Not an insurance replacement, so she paid for it, and necessary accessories.

When we got back, I refitted the repaired wheel to Sarah's mountain bike, and Jenny and Katy took a cycle outing. Great fun, I gather.

Meanwhile, Jane and I perused the new Terms and Conditions booklet for the insurance. And there are several ambiguities in there that a language lawyer like Jane will have fun with. As far as I'm concerned, the most obvious one is the clause that the insurers tried to use to deny the claim - bikes must be chained up when unattended. The way that clause is written, it could be read as requiring the bike to be secured to an immovable object even if within the house, as the most-used bikes currently are - which is a nonsense.

The new bike shop will also service older bikes, for fee - even the old Raleigh Caprice Shopper (of which we have two) The only problem there is if the Sturmey Archer 3-speed hub is broken - it's not economic to fix that, not at about UKP50 for a refurbished unit. We will get the old bikes fettled, before selling (or otherwise disposing of) them.


I upgraded the adware definitions for Ad-Aware this evening, in the process noting that the last update was dated September, 2002, and Version 5.83 (the one I'm running) was still current. This seems a long time to wait for an upgrade, so I may switch to Spybot Search And Destroy, which is also freeware and seems to be more frequently updated. More when I know more.

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