Week of 7th May, 2018

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Monday, 7th May

Early May Bank Holiday

This used to be called the Mayday bank holiday, a Socialist observance - was it something to do with the early days of Russian Communism? Before that, there was the Whitsun bank holiday, a Church observance, 7 weeks after Easter, and which is still celebrated, just not under that name, this year on the 21st of this month.

Be that as it may, banks and government are closed. Shops should be, as well, but with the increasing commercialisation of the country, that has gone by the board.

Jane and Katy have excursed to, I think, the Westfield Shopping Mall, in Shepherd's Bush. What they are shopping for is unknown to me, but may well include goodies for Katy's new flat - which appears to be progressing well. Contract exchange in some few weeks, it seems. Katy was hoping for completion by half-term, but that appears to not be possible. Pity, it would have made the move easier.

Later: Jane and Katy didn't have shopping in mind: it was an excursion to reconnoitre a school trip tomorrow. Meanwhile, it's a lovely day, so I decided to excurse to check out, and if required photograph, the current roof display  at the storage place on the Western Avenue.

Their current display is a World War 1 tank. There are 4 types that it might be, one of Mark I, II, IV or V, I'm currently unsure which. All Allied tanks of WW1 were built in "male" and "female" versions, with, respectively, 2no 6 pounder guns or 4no Vickers machine guns. The Vanguard tank is a male, with one 6 pounder gun in a sponson on each side. One of the two guns is well-seen in the photo.

WW1 Tank @Vanguard Removals

Per the Vanguard website, Edwin is a replica Mk. IV male tank, built by SVC Displays, Ltd., Guildford. It is named after the uncle of the firm's founder, who was killed at the Battle of Messines Ridge, on June 7th, 1917.

In this 100th year since the Armistice of 1918, it is appropriate, I think, to cite the words that were displayed with Edwin on its first appearance in 2014.

Lest We Forget

Rest in Peace, Edwin McCullagh, and all your comrades, wherever you may be.

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Tuesday, 8th May

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Wednesday, 9th May

Today, I decided that enough was enough - I got my hair cut. It's been several months, so it's time, and past time.

Having done that, I decided a trip to the local big shops was indicated. While I was in Smiths the stationers and newsagents, I got the phone call. It was Jane, "Help! I've forgotten my keys." And she had Filip with her - oops! On discovering where I was, and how recently I'd arrived, she decided to see if Jenny, who works in one of the local shops, had a spare keyset. In hindsight - always 20/20, of course - I should have just dropped what I was doing, and returned home to let her in. But I didn't.

Boy! When I got home, my name was mud... Extremely gooey, sticky mud... The upshot was, "Get your own lunch." And just before she left for the afternoon school run, she suggested banana sandwiches. So I did.

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Thursday, 10th May

Today was Android upgrade time. Both Nexi got upgrades to the May 5th security patch level on 8.1.0, the Gemini is up-to-date with the 2018-01-30 image, which is Android 7.1.1 with the November 2017 security patches, and I'm currently updating the nVidia Shield tablet to 5.4 Full, which includes the Spectre mitigation patches, and Android patches to January 2018. That last is a 750-odd MB download, and it's slow. Then I'll need to do app updates - 27 of them. But they will happen in background, once I've done the OS. I don't normally carry the nVidia now, but it's still current hardware, so it behooves me to keep it up-to-date.

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Friday, 11th May

Today is the last day to chooose which BBC Proms concerts you wish to attend. Once you have done this, you can enter the actual booking queue, which opens at 09:00 tomorrow morning. And I do mean queue - by 09:00:15 there are several thousand people waiting to book. Book, in this case means "Buy the tickets you requested beforehand". And pay booking fees through the nose, over and above the actual ticket prices. 

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Saturday, 12th May

The BBC Proms booking frenzy opens at 09:00 this morning, and Jane was there, kvetching about booking fees all the way. But she succeeded in booking all the concerts she wanted, and can attend, due to other committments - like a Guides/Brownies trip to Switzerland, and her usual, preferred holiday cottage break to get away from childminding. This will be likely with Jenny, and thus will involve steam trains.

Meanwhile, I was checking the weather forecast. It's the local May Day celebration today (the 112th anniversary of the first, although there were hiatuses during the Wars) with a procession around the streets, and maypole dancing. It works best, obviously, with sunny weather, or at least no rain. But the forecast was not good - rain at lunchtime. The festivities start at 14:30, when the procession leaves the social club venue.

I was on site, with a car full of electronics, just after midday, and if the weather had been good, I would have set up immediately. But there was heavy cloud, so I waited. Setup takes at least an hour.

And sure enough, at about 13:00, the rain started. And it kept going. By 14:15 the ground in the dancing field was wet enough that there was a danger of dancers slipping on the grass, so we bailed to the reserve venue, a local church - the actual church, not the attached church hall.

Setup was complete by 15:00, when the procession arrived, and entered to the strains of Elgar (his "Pomp and Circumstance" Marches, including No. 1, known, despite Elgar's dislike of the title, as "Land of Hope and Glory") as is traditional for this observance.

I made a mistake in not running out a second microphone for the May Queen, but managed to repair that lack in time, and all went quite well, considering that I've never set up the current kit in the church, and I was plagued with howlround until I got the levels sorted. And of course, the doting parents wanted their pictures of their little darlings dancing, and kept pushing in where they were not supposed to be, due to the trip hazards associated with loose cables on the floor, despite chairs strategically placed. What part of "This access is blocked for a reason" do you not understand?

Sorry about that. Can you tell I'm a bit irritated? I pride myself on providing an uninterrrupted service, and these people might have pulled a cable loose, or worse, tripped and injured themselves. Don't laugh, cables pulled loose has happened.

Once the dancing was accomplished, and the children had processed off to the marquee erected for the purpose at the social club, I could derig all the kit and pack it back into the car, in the continuing rain, before driving back to the marquee to get me lid of tea and me bun, and conversation with the rest of the organising committee, as is customary.

And after all had dispersed, I drove back to my storage site, to put all the gear away until next year. This bout of rain has convinced me that using the original cardboard boxes to store and transport kit is contraindicated in the wet, so I'll repack everything into various size Really Useful Boxes, suitably labelled, so that it will be easier to write my "bus book", otherwise known as "How to do sound for May Day, if Geoff has fallen under a bus". And that will make disposition of the kit easier as well. I can just say "Give all the kit described in this how-to to the May Day Committee". Some of it is theirs anyway - such as the speakers, stands and cables that we bought a couple of years ago - I'll just donate it all to the Committee.

So a curate's egg of a day - "good in (most) parts"

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Sunday, 13th May

And, of course, as is frequently the way, today was fine and sunny. But the May Day celebration is always on the second Saturday in May, for reasons that are unknown to me. I make no doubt that tradition is one of them, but there are undoubtedly others. I have a repeating event in my calendar for the occasion, so there's no danger of me forgetting.

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