Week of 24th March, 2003

Last Week

Monday, 24th March

The Iraqis are doing their usual uncivilised tricks - interrogating captured Alliance soldiers on TV, in direct contravention of all the conventions on treatment of prisoners. I recollect this happened during Gulf War I, when the crew of an RAF Tornado shot down over Iraq were displayed on Iraqi TV. I will admit that these American troops didn't seem to have been maltreated, but you never know. Western media have not shown the pictures, but Al-Jazeera have.

And they have also shown bodies of alleged captured Alliance soldiers, shot through the head, execution style. They are either supremely confident that, as the winners, they will write the history books, or they're so driven by hatred that they don't care. In either case, they need to be disabused of the notion that such actions are acceptable. How, I don't know - but I'm sure that shooting them will have no effect at all. That would be martyrdom, and Islam says that martyrs go straight to Paradise.

Currently, it seems to be a toss-up about who is most dangerous to the Alliance forces - as of yesterday the body counts from accident or friendly fire were running neck-and-neck with deaths due to Iraqi action.


I've installed and tested Serif MediaPlus, and it does exactly what I want. I can point it at a directory (or a subset of the contents of a directory) and say "print". Up pops a 4-tab settings wizard to allow you to choose the printing style, and then it just does it when you click OK. Very quick, too.

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Tuesday, 25th March

Shopping today. And then the outside tutor run for Katy.

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Wednesday, 26th March

Despite being told "There's no work" this morning we got a small pile of jobs late in the day. Never mind, it'll keep the night man busy - with the war in Iraq the normal overnight record-and-edit has gone away - you can't record and edit a show that isn't transmitted, since the transmitting company has gone over to wall-to-wall War in Iraq reporting.


While I was out waiting for Jenny to finish her guitar lesson, I got the 'phone call from Katy, "Call this number when you get home, to sort out Mummy's 'phone." So I did, and it turns out O2 couldn't collect the monthly call charges over last weekend, due to the attempt being refused by the credit card company - why I don't know. So, rather than tell me by letter, they put Jane's 'phone on intercept, to tell her that there was an outstanding bill. By 4 days. For UKP8 plus change in call charges, the line rental is paid a year in advance.

So I blew my top at the accounts girl - for which I apologise here, in public. I was seriously hacked off - why effectively cut off service, without giving me written notice first? Not content with that, their lobotomised computer then unilaterally cancelled the direct debit that is supposed to pay this bill, and which I had laboriously set up again only last month, after I had to change credit card accounts.

So I paid them, by Switch card, and checked that the direct debit was set up again, and that the 'phone is re-enabled. Both of which should be true, but I'm not guaranteeing it until next month. And if this happens again, O2 can whistle for money - I'll change service providers, which will probably mean that O2 will lose 3 customers, not just one, since Jenny and Sarah will likely be moved as well.

Every time I have to make any change to the billing arrangements with O2, there's about 2 months of utter chaos, until their computer realises what has happened. On the basis of my experience, don't take mobile service from O2 (or Cellnet as they were called, and as I still think of them) It's a standing joke at Semi-Detached Bedlam - "I have to call Cellnet". "Oh, no, not Cellnet..."

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Thursday, 27th March

So I checked with the credit card company - sure enough, O2 hadn't attempted to charge my card - they just put the 'phone on divert. Apparently, the direct debit was flagged as inactive, due to last month's snafu, despite my telling the Customer Services 'phone slave to re-enable it. I had a little fun with this, and succeeded in rendering the O2 accounts girl speechless, despite her training to not let me get a word in edgewise. I think it was the threat to move three accounts (Jane's, Sarah's and Jenny's) to another service provider. While I think of it, there are actually 4 accounts - Sarah has two.

Other than that, the work situation was the same as yesterday - a slow start, followed by a stack of work later. Not to mention an entire series of nature programmes to be ingested for the natural history channel, which runs wholly from server. The other shift will have a busy weekend.

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Friday, 28th March

I was planning to go down to Wales, to visit my Mum, today but due to unnoticed family commitments I can't now go until tomorrow. This won't matter too much, since I can actually stay until Monday morning - I'm on nights next week. Since it's Mothering Sunday this weekend, I feel it important to pay a visit.

So it's collect Sarah and Alan (her boyfriend) from Euston station when they come down for the weekend, and then Katy's second outside tutor lesson of the week in the evening.

Later: It's all been changed - I am going to Wales today, after all. The lesson is cancelled.

Later still: Sarah's train was cancelled, so she caught a later one, arriving at 15:10. I got to Euston about 10 minutes late, since Jane insisted on my typing up a letter for her, and caught Sarah just as she left the station.

On the way back, on the A40(M), there was an almighty thump from the rear of the car. I didn't know what it was, but there seemed to be no untoward effects, so I continued. And then noticed an intermittent groaning noise. When I got home, I took a look, and found the problem.

The thump was caused by driving over a piece of wood, about 3 inches by 1 inch by 8 inches. The front wheel hit it, and flicked it up against the car - that was the thump. The wood got wedged in the narrow gap between the front suspension mounting for the left rear wheel and the car body - which caused the intermittent groaning as the suspension arm moved on the mounting. Removing it cured the groans.

And then I could drive down to Wales - which was a reasonably easy trip, barring the heavy traffic on leaving (an hour to Slough - about 20 miles - on motorway?) and a bit of rain in Wales.

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Saturday, 29th March

And now I have to put two new tyres on Hopalong, since both rears are over-worn. And there's a smell inside the car - exhaust fumes, so Jane thinks, since the exhaust pipe is cracked from grounding on over-enthusiastic speed humps. I've had about 5 'phone calls this morning about it - what can I do at 180 miles range? The impossible I do at once, but this requires a miracle.

But my tame tyre place has no suitable tyres until Monday, so I'll have to do it when I get home. It'll be a rush.

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Sunday, 30th March                      Mothering Sunday

Mum is not well. She's deteriorated noticeably since my last trip - much slower and less steady on her feet, her memory seems to be going, she's constantly breathless, and dozes a lot. This is worrying, since I'm at least 4 hours away if anything goes seriously wrong. Luckily her neighbours are also concerned, and will keep an eye on her, as will her friends.

It might be better if she moved to sheltered accommodation, or even a nursing home, but like most older people, she is fiercely independent. Another option would be for her to move to London, to be with us, but that would take her away from all her friends, which I don't think is a good idea. Best make small changes, if we make changes at all, provided she's looked after properly.


I've just bought some new CD-R blanks - JVC 650MB, a spindle of 50. I could undoubtedly save money by buying unbranded media, but there might be problems with quality and consistency. CD-R blanks are now a commodity item - even these JVCs only cost UKP0.35 per each - so quality control may be skimped. The same problem arose years ago with floppy discs - the which, by the way, I haven't used for at least a year. Katy still does, since she carries work to and from school, but even that doesn't happen too often

I groused about the "all-elbows" nature of Nokia Connection Manager, the part of Nokia's Data Suite that manages the connection to your mobile 'phone. Well, I've found out how to disable it's default presence - it adds a subkey to the "Run" key in the registry (at HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Run) so that it runs on startup. Delete that, and it's gone by default. But if you run it manually, it inserts itself in the System Tray, and stays there until you shut down the machine. At least it doesn't reinsert itself in the registry when you start it manually.


The daynotes home page was getting a bit big, so I've moved previous years (2001 and before) to an archive page. This is only the access links - all the actual files are still in the same places. I also picked up on an error in the calendar - I'd missed out the week beginning 31st March (this one, which is also behind the "next week" link below)

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