There was an intriguing email in this morning. It was from a reporter at a television station of which I had never heard and she was asking me to call her as soon as possible to set up an interview about Brighton Lions' fireworks display.
After a little scratching around on the Internet, I learned that a license had been granted for a local television station in Brighton and it went on the air at the end of August. Somehow this had completely slipped past me, although the fact that I don't buy the local newspaper may have some bearing on my ignorance.
Anyway, I duly called the young lady and fixed up for her to come round this afternoon at two - I didn't fancy the difficulty of parking anywhere near the television studios in the centre of the city. Hiving done that, I went downstairs and turned on the television to see if I could find this unheard of channel - channel 8 on Freeview, I understood. But that is BBC 3.
More research was called for.
Checking online, I find that there is no mention of Latest TV being broadcast through any of the local (-ish) transmitters. We are tuned to one 50 miles away on the Isle of Wight, but the nearest transmitter (Patcham) doesn't have this station on its list. The other main Brighton transmitter (Whitehawk Hill) does have dozens more channels than the Patcham transmitter - but not Latest TV. So I shan't be able to watch myself on the telly after all.
Tuesday, 7 October 2014
Monday, 6 October 2014
Why do they do it?
There has been something niggling away at the back of my mind for quite some time now. Over the weekend, and more especially today, events have conspired to force it to the front. Today, in particular, it was reading Sarah's blog that did it for me. Then there was a report in the newspaper about an on-line troll.
I quite frequently drop by the web site of our local newspaper and occasionally scan through the comments left by readers. What has both puzzled me and saddened me is the number of times people leaving comments find it necessary to resort to insulting others who hold different views. Why can they not say simply, "I disagree with you" and then go on to explain why they disagree. Instead, we are treated to comments (and I shall moderate the language in the presence of ladies) along the lines of, "Of course you can't do that, you blithering idiot!" with no explanation.
It is now more than seven years since Madeleine McCann disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal. Quite why anybody would want to post abusive tweets about Madeleine's parents is something I cannot begin to understand. Tweets from the @sweepyface account had said that the McCanns should suffer “for the rest of their miserable, evil, conniving lives”. A newspaper reporter managed to find out just who was so twisted and this morning's papers report her death in an hotel. Reading between the lines, it looks as though she committed suicide.
And talking of suicide, what about those sick people who goad teenagers into killing themselves?
Can anybody really find pleasure in acting in this way (or these ways)? I can, at a pinch, almost excuse some of the newspaper commenters on the basis that their education is sadly lacking. They simply do not have the vocabulary or the linguistic skills to put together a rational argument. But to send abusive messages to the parents of a missing child or to encourage a vulnerable youngster to commit suicide, that really is beyond the pale as far as I am concerned.
And to think that this is going on in our own free, liberal, democratic country while we condemn the barbaric acts of Islamic State . . . Words just fail me. I really do worry about the world my grandchildren are growing into.
I quite frequently drop by the web site of our local newspaper and occasionally scan through the comments left by readers. What has both puzzled me and saddened me is the number of times people leaving comments find it necessary to resort to insulting others who hold different views. Why can they not say simply, "I disagree with you" and then go on to explain why they disagree. Instead, we are treated to comments (and I shall moderate the language in the presence of ladies) along the lines of, "Of course you can't do that, you blithering idiot!" with no explanation.
It is now more than seven years since Madeleine McCann disappeared from her family's holiday apartment in Portugal. Quite why anybody would want to post abusive tweets about Madeleine's parents is something I cannot begin to understand. Tweets from the @sweepyface account had said that the McCanns should suffer “for the rest of their miserable, evil, conniving lives”. A newspaper reporter managed to find out just who was so twisted and this morning's papers report her death in an hotel. Reading between the lines, it looks as though she committed suicide.
And talking of suicide, what about those sick people who goad teenagers into killing themselves?
Can anybody really find pleasure in acting in this way (or these ways)? I can, at a pinch, almost excuse some of the newspaper commenters on the basis that their education is sadly lacking. They simply do not have the vocabulary or the linguistic skills to put together a rational argument. But to send abusive messages to the parents of a missing child or to encourage a vulnerable youngster to commit suicide, that really is beyond the pale as far as I am concerned.
And to think that this is going on in our own free, liberal, democratic country while we condemn the barbaric acts of Islamic State . . . Words just fail me. I really do worry about the world my grandchildren are growing into.
Sunday, 5 October 2014
You can't fix stupid
I have been known, from time to time, to complain about the misuse of our magnificent language. For some reason, many of the practices to which I object seem to have originated across the pond - not that I am blaming any Americans that I know for their deplorable habits. My latest gripe, coincidentally, comes courtesy of an American company.
Many employers have, over the last few years at least, been known to deplore the falling educational standards of prospective employees. Complaints have been made, primarily, about numeracy and literacy. It seems a pity, then, that a multi-national company such as Coca Cola should display an equally low standard of literacy in its choice of slogan in the current advertising campaign in the national press.
Many employers have, over the last few years at least, been known to deplore the falling educational standards of prospective employees. Complaints have been made, primarily, about numeracy and literacy. It seems a pity, then, that a multi-national company such as Coca Cola should display an equally low standard of literacy in its choice of slogan in the current advertising campaign in the national press.
More choice, less calories
The phrase should read, "More choice, fewer calories". The word "less", to indicate a reduction in quantity, should be used only for something that cannot be quantified numerically or that does not have a plural, such as milk, sand or oxygen. In the case of items that can be counted, such as apples, trees or cars, the word to indicate a reduction in quantity is "fewer".
I'm tempted to write to the company.
I'm tempted to write to the company.
I mentioned yesterday that our local paper had run a piece about the Lions having difficulty in finding a venue for our biggest fund-raiser, the annual fireworks display. The paper's web site has received several comments and suggestions, such as use the beach so that people can see the display free of charge, or give the money we would have spent on fireworks to charity.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Saturday, 4 October 2014
A tale of two
The other day - Wednesday, it was - I telephoned one of my fellow Lions only to hear a recorded message telling me to redial, inserting the area code 01273 before the number. The next day it happened again, with a different local number. Then I learned the reason. Brighton, along with three other towns, is running out of telephone numbers and likely to be out completely sometime between next year and the year after. Or maybe the year after that; not that the exact date is germane to this. Apparently, by adding the 01273 when we all make local calls from other numbers on that exchange, the number of numbers available is increased.
Now that seems quite illogical to me. Let's take a very simple example. The series from zero to nine (0 to 9) comprises just 10 numbers. OK so far? Now lets add a prefix. Say, 33. We now have a range from 330 to 339. But that's still just ten numbers. By extension, if telephone numbers range from 200000 to 999999 (I know they don't, but i don't know the lowest and highest phone numbers on the Brighton exchange), simply adding the area code 01273 at the front of them makes no difference to the total numbers available.
Or is there something I'm missing?
The second tale concerns Facebook, Brighton Lions Club and our local newspaper, The Argus. I have confessed to using F/b for the Lions and I posted a piece a few days ago about not being able to use our regular venue for our annual fireworks display. To my surprise, I received a phone call yesterday from a reporter on the local paper asking me a few questions - just out of interest, it seemed. Later, he called again asking even more questions. He had, he told me, mentioned this to the editor and they proposed to run a story.
Given that we have always found it extremely difficult to get the local paper to publish anything, I was astonished and delighted to receive an email this morning from somebody who had read the article - which appeared today.
Now that seems quite illogical to me. Let's take a very simple example. The series from zero to nine (0 to 9) comprises just 10 numbers. OK so far? Now lets add a prefix. Say, 33. We now have a range from 330 to 339. But that's still just ten numbers. By extension, if telephone numbers range from 200000 to 999999 (I know they don't, but i don't know the lowest and highest phone numbers on the Brighton exchange), simply adding the area code 01273 at the front of them makes no difference to the total numbers available.
Or is there something I'm missing?
The second tale concerns Facebook, Brighton Lions Club and our local newspaper, The Argus. I have confessed to using F/b for the Lions and I posted a piece a few days ago about not being able to use our regular venue for our annual fireworks display. To my surprise, I received a phone call yesterday from a reporter on the local paper asking me a few questions - just out of interest, it seemed. Later, he called again asking even more questions. He had, he told me, mentioned this to the editor and they proposed to run a story.
Given that we have always found it extremely difficult to get the local paper to publish anything, I was astonished and delighted to receive an email this morning from somebody who had read the article - which appeared today.
Friday, 3 October 2014
Confession time
I announced yesterday that I am a bumbling DIYer. Actually, it's often worse than that. Rather than simply bumbling, I am frequently incompetent. I console myself with the thought that nobody can be good at everything. Well, almost nobody, as there are maybe one or two exceptions around. But yesterday counted as a success. For me. I was doing electrical work and I neither blew the whole fuse board nor electrocuted myself. And when I had finished, the new outside light really did work!
Consider this. I attempted to change a washer on a kitchen tap. On a Sunday afternoon. I ended up calling out a 24-hour plumber at enormous expense - and the bottom of the cupboard under the sink is still badly warped as a result of the flood. I had to throw away the shelf and cobble together something new.
I screwed down a squeaky floorboard on the landing, and screwed straight into a water pipe for the heating system. That was on a Saturday evening and the heating was on. The emergency plumber had no microbore piping in the van so the heating - and the water - had to be switched off until Monday.
Another time I attempted to change the light fitting in the toilet. And had to call out an acquaintance (not really a friend) to turn the electricity back on.
See what I mean about incompetent? And that's just the bit of the iceberg above the water. My poor. late father-in-law would be turning in his grave if he hadn't been cremated. He was a stickler for accuracy and perfection in DIY. Everything, but everything had to be just so. Exactly vertical or horizontal. No brush strokes showing in paintwork. And as for hairs of the paint brush being left behind!!! He tried to tell me that preparation is 90% of redecoration. I know that. I accept that. But I'm too impatient.
Anyway, yesterday. It seems like eons ago that I installed a light beside the front door to illuminate the steep drive and steps down from the road. We never used it often, just when we were expecting guests to arrive or leave after dark. If that light was switched on six times in the course of a year I would be surprised. I switched it on last week for the ambulance crew who were bringing the Old Bat back from the hospital. But by the time they arrived, it had gone out. Presumably the bulb had blown.
I eventually dug out some old bulbs - that lamp was so old that I still had spare bulbs from pre-history - and attempted to remove the lamp cover to change the bulb. I started with fingers, moved on to a medium size screwdriver, and ended with the largest screwdriver whose blade would fit in the slot. Nothing, absolutely nothing would budge. In the end, I decided that the lamp was really pretty decrepit - all those years of salt in the rain had done it no good - and I might as well buy a new one. So that's what I did on Wednesday. It had to be Wednesday because that's the day the DIY store gives 10% discount to old gits and even if I was buying the cheapest outside lamp in the store - and I was - I still wanted my discount. All £1 of it! Oh, and I had to buy a bulb as well, so the discount came to £1.20.
I have to confess here that removing the old lamp was a matter of brute force and ignorance. I couldn't wait for the rust-eating oil to work. Naturally, the screws fixing the new lamp to the wall had to be in different places to the old one. I marked the spots with a pencil, only to find that there was a particularly hard bit of brick at one point so the drill moved up and to the right. Luckily, it was still close enough for me to fix the back plate to the wall, even if one side is a little higher than the other. But, as my mother would have said, a blind man would be pleased to see it.
When I finished the job and switched on, it was like the lighting of Blackpool illuminations or the Oxford Street Christmas lights!
But, boy! Was my shoulder playing up by the time I went to bed. Arthritis is the curse of old age.
Consider this. I attempted to change a washer on a kitchen tap. On a Sunday afternoon. I ended up calling out a 24-hour plumber at enormous expense - and the bottom of the cupboard under the sink is still badly warped as a result of the flood. I had to throw away the shelf and cobble together something new.
I screwed down a squeaky floorboard on the landing, and screwed straight into a water pipe for the heating system. That was on a Saturday evening and the heating was on. The emergency plumber had no microbore piping in the van so the heating - and the water - had to be switched off until Monday.
Another time I attempted to change the light fitting in the toilet. And had to call out an acquaintance (not really a friend) to turn the electricity back on.
See what I mean about incompetent? And that's just the bit of the iceberg above the water. My poor. late father-in-law would be turning in his grave if he hadn't been cremated. He was a stickler for accuracy and perfection in DIY. Everything, but everything had to be just so. Exactly vertical or horizontal. No brush strokes showing in paintwork. And as for hairs of the paint brush being left behind!!! He tried to tell me that preparation is 90% of redecoration. I know that. I accept that. But I'm too impatient.
Anyway, yesterday. It seems like eons ago that I installed a light beside the front door to illuminate the steep drive and steps down from the road. We never used it often, just when we were expecting guests to arrive or leave after dark. If that light was switched on six times in the course of a year I would be surprised. I switched it on last week for the ambulance crew who were bringing the Old Bat back from the hospital. But by the time they arrived, it had gone out. Presumably the bulb had blown.
I eventually dug out some old bulbs - that lamp was so old that I still had spare bulbs from pre-history - and attempted to remove the lamp cover to change the bulb. I started with fingers, moved on to a medium size screwdriver, and ended with the largest screwdriver whose blade would fit in the slot. Nothing, absolutely nothing would budge. In the end, I decided that the lamp was really pretty decrepit - all those years of salt in the rain had done it no good - and I might as well buy a new one. So that's what I did on Wednesday. It had to be Wednesday because that's the day the DIY store gives 10% discount to old gits and even if I was buying the cheapest outside lamp in the store - and I was - I still wanted my discount. All £1 of it! Oh, and I had to buy a bulb as well, so the discount came to £1.20.
I have to confess here that removing the old lamp was a matter of brute force and ignorance. I couldn't wait for the rust-eating oil to work. Naturally, the screws fixing the new lamp to the wall had to be in different places to the old one. I marked the spots with a pencil, only to find that there was a particularly hard bit of brick at one point so the drill moved up and to the right. Luckily, it was still close enough for me to fix the back plate to the wall, even if one side is a little higher than the other. But, as my mother would have said, a blind man would be pleased to see it.
When I finished the job and switched on, it was like the lighting of Blackpool illuminations or the Oxford Street Christmas lights!
But, boy! Was my shoulder playing up by the time I went to bed. Arthritis is the curse of old age.
Thursday, 2 October 2014
Confessions of a bumbling DIYer
I have heard it said that confession is good for the soul. I'm not entirely sure I agree with the idea but, well, it might just amuse a bear with very little brain. But before I do bare my soul (this is starting to get confusing) I really should clear up what seems to be a misunderstanding arising from my burblings yesterday. Perhaps I should also go on to finish what I started.
I did not mean to imply (as some people might have inferred) that neither Mr Clooney nor his marriage are unromantic. Nor was I saying that I am unromantic - although that is true. I failed to make clear that it was the city of Venice that I found unromantic, despite the assertion of a friend that it is the most romantic city in the world. Not for me, it isn't. But then, nor is Paris, which many people would rate highly for romance. I have strolled the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in both daylight and lamplight. I have wandered along the bank of the Seine, visited the Place de Théatre in Montmartre and done all the usual things - or most of them - but none struck me as being any more romantic than London or New York. And even Detroit has its river walk!
Venice, I think, is a city of crumbling palazzos with rip-'em-off restaurants along the Grand Canal.. Paris has grand, imposing architecture. But Amsterdam . . . Wander along the tree-lined canals by lamplight, canals crossed sometimes by narrow bridges, the merchants' houses neither crumbling nor grandiose but built on a much more intimate scale than the buildings of either Venice or Paris. Amsterdam, a city much more romantic then either Venice or Paris.
And now I haven't got time to start on my confessions. I've got to go and do some DIY while there are still several hours of daylight - just in case, you understand. Maybe I'll tell you about it tomorrow, assuming I haven't electrocuted myself by then.
I did not mean to imply (as some people might have inferred) that neither Mr Clooney nor his marriage are unromantic. Nor was I saying that I am unromantic - although that is true. I failed to make clear that it was the city of Venice that I found unromantic, despite the assertion of a friend that it is the most romantic city in the world. Not for me, it isn't. But then, nor is Paris, which many people would rate highly for romance. I have strolled the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in both daylight and lamplight. I have wandered along the bank of the Seine, visited the Place de Théatre in Montmartre and done all the usual things - or most of them - but none struck me as being any more romantic than London or New York. And even Detroit has its river walk!
Venice, I think, is a city of crumbling palazzos with rip-'em-off restaurants along the Grand Canal.. Paris has grand, imposing architecture. But Amsterdam . . . Wander along the tree-lined canals by lamplight, canals crossed sometimes by narrow bridges, the merchants' houses neither crumbling nor grandiose but built on a much more intimate scale than the buildings of either Venice or Paris. Amsterdam, a city much more romantic then either Venice or Paris.
And now I haven't got time to start on my confessions. I've got to go and do some DIY while there are still several hours of daylight - just in case, you understand. Maybe I'll tell you about it tomorrow, assuming I haven't electrocuted myself by then.
Wednesday, 1 October 2014
Romantic? I don't think so.
It may not have escaped your notice that a certain Mr Clooney got married this week. Heck, even my relatively staid morning broadsheet has printed picture after picture the last three days so if this world-shattering (ha!) event has passed you by, you must be living in a cave. Frankly, the whole circus - for that is what it seems to have been - is of no interest to me whatsoever. Quite why such a large proportion of the female population has been oohing and aahing is way beyond my understanding. After all, what has the said Mr Clooney got that I haven't? Apart from a few millions, that is. But I suppose there are those who might think him a little better looking than me. . .
His wedding was a far cry from my own, fifty years ago this coming Friday. (And yes, I have bought her a card, possibly the first time I have ever done that for a wedding anniversary.) We were married in the red-brick church almost opposite the Young Bat's family home, the reception was in a room over a pub, and our honeymoon was in Somerset.
I did take to Old Bat to Venice once. In conversation with a fellow Lion before we went, he told us that Venice is the most romantic city in the world. I'm sure he hasn't visited all of them just to check, but in any case I disagree. I didn't really find the city that romantic. Granted, the Grand Canal has a certain charm and the fact that there are no roads makes the place interesting, but I thought it run down, almost falling into the water, and there was way too much graffiti.
It perhaps didn't help that St Mark's square was flooded when we got there. This was part of the queu to go into the cathedral. We didn't bother but went for a coffee in Café Florian.
His wedding was a far cry from my own, fifty years ago this coming Friday. (And yes, I have bought her a card, possibly the first time I have ever done that for a wedding anniversary.) We were married in the red-brick church almost opposite the Young Bat's family home, the reception was in a room over a pub, and our honeymoon was in Somerset.
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| The Grand Canal |
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| A little less romantic! |
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