April Showers

My goodness, how quickly the weather can change. It's sod's law that as soon as we have a hosepipe ban, it rains. It had rained pretty much constantly  the last week. We have a drought and reservoirs are less than half-full. Though despite the heavy rain, we are told we need at least three month's continuous rain before reserves can return to anything near normal. So, I continue to catch as much rainwater as I can. My water butt is full and every bucket and vessel large enough is in the garden catching rainfall. I've even applied for a free water saving kit and entered a competition for a free water butt with Anglian Water. They're giving away 5,000 apparently.

I've begun recording an audio blog.  It's something I've wanted to do for some time and I'm hoping it will provide a daily journal of sorts in addition to my written musings.  I had originally planned to use Podbean but discovered after a few postings that there is a monthly usage limit of 100mb, which is frankly useless. So I've decided to use my own site at pcknowledge.co.uk
I've been trying to do something practical with the site as I've done nothing with it for years, despite paying for the ownership and hosting. I'm no expert on websites and I suppose it should be full of stuff computer-related, but to be honest, I could never fully commit myself to keeping it maintained. So I expect it will just be kept as a personal site for now. That is of course unless I get a good offer for it :-)
I will certainly continue to write about my experiences of depression and how it affects me on a daily basis. I already write openly via this blog and will continue to do so, but I wonder if I might dedicate a small section of my site to the subject.

I've lamented previously on the loss of analogue TV across the UK in favor of crisp clean digital. Last week saw London make the switch to digital and the conversion of the Crystal Palace transmitter. This has a level of significance for me as I used to live in South London, under the gaze of the Crystal Palace transmitter, and I recall with fondness the hours spent tuning my TV and the attempts to obtain a good picture. Quite often I would fiddle about until I got a good picture on ITV only to find that the BBC channels were covered in 'snow' or 'ghosting'. Although there are many who question why the switch to digital was made, it is clear the conversion has gone extremely well. The advantages are obvious to anyone who takes an interest in this sort of thing and the increased number of channels provide a level of choice previously impossible under analogue.

The Bahrain Grand Prix has been in the news this last week. There have been calls for the race to be canceled due to criticism of the government and its treatment of protesters and opposition groups. It is clear to me that given the evidence appearing on the Internet, the government are certainly guilty of using extreme measures to control and put down any attempts at protest and this should rightly be condemned. It is also my opinion that the race should be canceled as a sign of our disapproval. Unfortunately though, where there is money to be made, justice and liberty take second place and as our own government have so much invested in this dictatorship, I suspect nothing will be done apart from the odd low-level rebuke.

I am worried about my father. He has recently had several moles removed from his body including his face and is due to have some stitches removed tomorrow. The hospital have been sufficiently concerned to remove anything they consider to be suspect and this has frankly left him resembling the victim of a road accident. I was quite shocked to see the dressings do find myself worrying as to whether this may be the prelude to something more serious. I am more convinced than ever that years spent gardening and working on his allotment in blazing sunshine has been the root cause and that the presence of moles has provided the environment for cancer cells to develop. This is a dreadful lesson and one that isn't sadly learned early enough. It is only when it is too late that the lesson is learned and it serves as a reminder that what we do in our former years can have a significant and sometimes devastating effect later on. I am hopeful that everything has been caught and removed in good time, but I know my father. He will not make a fuss if he feels unwell. He very rarely discusses his health and if there was something more seriously wrong, I fear he wouldn't mention it, not even to my mum. This worries me deeply.

My Mobile History

For as long as I can remember, I've always had a mobile phone. I'm not a heavy user and never have been. I've sent probably two or three texts and hardly ever receive any calls. I remember very well how in the early 1990's, the mobile phone began to emerge as a must-have executive toy, much like the laptop did. I recall my manager at work getting one and seeing it forever in his hand and placed in front of him at team meetings. It was a status symbol, much like a badge of rank. Marketing people did a similar thing with laptops. They simply had to have one and it would be carried everywhere - to lunch, to meetings and to exhibitions. But seldom were they ever used - or even charged come to that - I know that from experience.
Back then of course, phones were relatively bulky but soon began to get smaller and being in one of the UK's largest companies at the time, we were amongst the first recipients, our mobile contract anxious to sell us the latest models. I remember quite well my first mobile phone. Back then there were only two networks and coverage was by no means anywhere near 100%. It wasn't even 50%. If you got a signal, you were lucky. I joined a network that wasn't truly digital. It was called CellNet and run at the time by BT. I had an analogue mobile phone. I recall it well, a Bosch with a flip open microphone and antenna you pulled out. It was smart and spoke 'Star Trek' every time I used it. How sad I was then to have left it on top of my car and driven off only for it to fall onto the road behind me and under the wheels of a truck. It was a short union sadly, and I miss my first phone deeply. Nothing since has managed to come close to its appeal.
Nowadays of course, mobile phones are akin to mini computers. The phone element of the device has been pushed to oneside making room for HD video, games and 10 mega pixel photography. How amazing it is that in just a few years, these devices have been transformed. Yet despite my fascination with these devices, I am not under their influence unlike much of the population it seems. I can happily be apart from my phone and though it goes with me when I leave the house, I would only ever think of using it in an emergency. I must frustrate my mobile network provider enormously. I have the same number I had way back then, insisting I keep it for use on my pay as you go tariff. It's one of the original numbers and I'm more attached to it than the phone. Yet it's seldom ever used. The love affair with the mobile phone never really took off, and probably never will. I'd much prefer a pager. I used to have one at work years ago and still have a couple knocking round the house. I preferred them as you could respond as soon as it was convenient rather than feeling compelled to answer there and then. It didn't cause you to swerve across the road as you fumbled to answer it. You could simply read the message on the display when you reached your destination or pulled over. But those days are gone, sadly.

A secret analogue user

Well it seems now that we are a totally digital household. Radio, music and TV - it's all delivered digitally in crystal clear sound and vision. Everything is so convenient as a result. We watch what we want to when we want to, we listen to the music we like and tune in to radio stations from all over the UK, and the World. OK, 'digital' has its advantages but I do long for good old analogue. I don't want to let go. It's not that I was dragged kicking and screaming into the digital age. I tok to it quite well. I knew it was coming and knew of the benefits it would provide. For my parents, the transition has been long and hard. I do understand the calls for things to remain as they were. What was wrong with analogue? The truth is, nothing. It worked and has served us well. But more is better it seems. We have a plethora of TV channels but I still find myself watching the same things. The availibility of radio stations from all over the UK has provided me with 24 hour phone-ins and music of a thousand genres. LBC 'London's Biggest Conversation' is possibly my favourite station. I remember it from when I was very young. Back then it was just an FM station broadcasting to London and Kent. My nan and grandad listened to it and it would play constantly on the transistor radio they had in their kitchen. BBC Radio 5 is good at night. Again lively phone-ins provide bedtime entertainment and these too can be quite lively, sometimes harling back to the days of James Whale.
But I still find myself longing for cassettes and vinyl. I love seeing a physical tape working and a vinyl record spinning on a record deck. I love the crackle and hiss, and I miss it. MP3 has a cold crispness to it. Yes the quality is excellent, but it's missing something, almost as if it isn't alive.
It seems though that we are stuck with digital. It'll never go away, just get faster, clearer and more available. But all the while analogue remains available to us, albeit pushed aside and confined to the darkest recesses of lofts and cupboards all over the land, we should enjoy it while we can. I fell I didn't really have a chance to say goodbye properly to the analogue TV signal. It deserved much more than just a switch being thrown somewhere in Yorkshire. It had served us well and will be remembered with fondness.
So in this new digital age, where everything is clear and sharp, I'm quite happy being a 'secret analogue user'.

Goodbye Analogue, I'll miss you...

So that's it. Analogue TV signals were turned off last night in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. We are now a digital only area... well apart from analogue radio of course, which I don't think will ever disappear.
No longer will I be asked to tune my parents TV or video recorder. I will miss the fuzzy pictures, the ghosting and the interference from the fridge compressor.
Now we have clean, crisp digital, where either it is or it isn't. No fuzziness, we know what pixels look like, pictures are made up like a jigsaw. The red button now means something to so many more people who up to now regarded it as a thing of the rich, the privileged or 'those with a satellite'.
But we now have a TV that does nothing. It's in the kitchen but it's not connected to the roof aerial and it doesn't have a digital tuner. I wonder how many more TV's now sit redundant across the country awaiting an uncertain fate...