Dame Vera Lynn

Astonishing that Vera Lynn, at 92 years of age, has reached number one in the CD albums charts this week. The Old Bat bought a copy today when she was doing the weekly shop, so maybe we will have helped keep it at the top.

I'm not sure why I've done it, but I have signed up to Facebook. The trouble is, I'm having to puzzle out how to use the site. It doesn't seem as intuitive as, say, Blogger. And anyway, why would I want yet another place to inflict my thoughts upon the unsuspecting (and uninterested) world?

First Lady

Another book I thoroughly enjoyed - First Lady by Michael Dobbs. I still recall the television adaptation of his excellent House of Cards and I have now read most of his books, the most recent (apart from First Lady) being The Lords' Day. Great stuff.

Inspiration needed - again

I need to have Jungle Jottings ready before next Saturday so that I can get it out as soon as we get back from France the following weekend, but I am completely lacking in inspiration. At the moment I have just four pages, and that includes a couple of large white spaces! This could be a tough few days.

Updating the update

Phew, what a relief. Having let the machine rest for 24 hours, I switched on this morning and it went through the automatic repair program, so all is up and working again. I do back up all my files to a stand-alone hard disc and thought that by plugging that into the laptop I would be able to access them easily. Not so. The automatic back-up only backs up new or altered files each day, so tracking down a file that was last used when? is not easy. I'm changing the system and will make a diary note to do a complete back-up on a weekly basis so I shouldn't have that problem again in the future - provided I stick to the plan.

Update - and then...

So that all went pretty well. Madam Mayor took tea with a few of the Lions, then met our oldest resident in her flat (she - the resident - was thrilled) and we went on to another of the developments whcich the M had never visited before. She specifically asked for an invitation to see the rest at a later date. She also expressed great interest in the Message in a Bottle scheme and we are to set up a press photo op of us presenting her with a bottle in the Mayor's parlour or something.

But this morning everything went pear-shaped. Well, perhaps not everything. When I switched off the computer yesterday it had auto-updates. They load down and the computer automatically switches itself off when they are finished. Switch on again this morning and stages 1 & 2 configure, but stage 3 starts, and then the computer reboots itself - and stage 3 starts configuring all over again. Then the computer reboots and so on. I tried pulling the plug, I tried starting in safe mode, I practically threw the damn thing out of the window ...

Fortunately I have the laptop, but the work I want is on the other machine!!!

Hey ho

Time to don the glad rags, the best bib and tucker, my Sunday-go-to-meeting suit. The Right Worshipful the Mayor of the City of Brighton and Hove is to visit the Lions Housing Society this afternoon to see a couple of our developments, and as the chairman is unavailable it will be up to (or down to) me to escort her.