May Bank Holiday Weekend

I received a letter in the post  on Friday. It is from Lincolnshire NHS asking me to become an NHS Volunteer. There is a form I need to complete and details regarding an interview, induction and training to take place in Sleaford. That's all rather good. I am very keen to do more, particularly in the area of mental health and stroke recovery. I haven't completed the form yet, I need to be in the right frame of mind and currently my head is full of things such as content for my blog and my review of the Amazon Kindle Touch. Once I've off-loaded this, I will be able to concentrate fully on another task. I expect I'll do it tomorrow.
Deep down, I'm hoping very much that my involvement will eventually lead to a paying role. I know one of the questions asked is whether I have any skills I feel would be appropriate to bring to the role. In answer to this, I would suggest my experience in caring for and providing assistance to a stroke sufferer, my experience of anxiety and depression and my more than sixteen years in IT and computing. I have already suggested that a chaperon should be provided for new members of our support group. I know how daunting it can be to be thrust into a group of people, alien to you and anxious to know all about you. I've been there. It can be very difficult and any help in overcoming that 'first hurdle' can often prove invaluable and an enormous sense of comfort to the person involved. So this is something I hope I will be able to provide. I also wouldn't mind getting back into computer tutoring. It's something I used to do a few years ago through a local college, and I enjoyed it very much. So we'll see how that develops.

I've mentioned my new Kindle and I intend to write a full review about it on my PC Knowledge Blog. I was rather sceptical at first regarding its benefits. But having played with it for a few days, I have now managed to find a niche for it in as much as it provides my daily newspapers. These are downloaded automatically each morning and appear on the device ready for me to read. I do like to stay in touch with news and current affairs from home and abroad and the Kindle provides an up to the minute source of news which is easy to read and navigate my way through.
Books take second place strangely. I do enjoy books and I have downloaded a few to the device. These happen to be rather old books of ghost stories and creepy tales, rather a penchant of mine. They appear on the device in their original print format together with the cover and other illustrations. I've also sourced a number of books for my son, again with illustrations though my wife has yet to download any. There is an inbuilt text to speech facility allowing for books to be read to you. This works rather well though I am anxious to see if the default male and female voices can be changed. I understand there are people out there looking at this though a way has yet to be found.
All in all, I'm rather impressed with it. It's by no means perfect - there are a number of things I will be suggesting to Amazon - but as a book reader and news reader, it does what it says on the tin. It's also surprisingly easy to use. The appearance of text on-screen is as good if not better than printed text. It is incredibly clear and the ability to adjust font size and spacing is very useful. Though the screen approximately 6 x 4 inches, the device does appear small but it is surprising just how much text can be displayed.
I'll write more in my technical blog, but my overall impression of the Kindle Touch is a positive one and I certainly recommend it. It by no means replaces books, it merely makes books more accessible.

I see that our beloved Weetabix, so long a staple of the British breakfast table, has been majority bought by a China owned company, Bright Food. It is of course the latest in a long line of UK brands to be bought or majority owned by foreign owned companies. I did see a tweet asking if 'Weetabix would now come with a set of free chopsticks in every box'... I doubt it, but an interesting image nevertheless.

There is a wonderful series on BBC2 looking back and documenting the 1970's. It's appropriately called 'The 70's' and is presented rather well by Dominic Sandbrook, a historian and new face to TV. I have found the series so far quite fascinating, made all the more so due to the fact that I grew up during the period. Yet, I actually recall very little and certainly nothing of the events that shaped the decade. I was quite shocked to discover just how difficult life was during the period and how much of it was spent without the guarantee of running water, electricity, fuel and food. The conflict between miners and the government of the day threatened on more than one occasion to bring the country to its knees and the Pound came very close to collapsing, making our current troubles pale into insignificance in comparison.
Women's rights was something else that surprised me and the fact that equal rights for women has been a relatively recent consideration says something of the madness of our society back then. There were even shops in London where women were not served. I find it incredible that this sort of thing even went on, and if it wasn't for our well documented history, I doubt whether future generations would believe it.

Lastly, I have stumbled across some audio-visual gems from a bygone age when we as a country were proud of what we did and how we did it - and didn't mind shouting about it. The films can be found at the website of the British Council and can be watched online in all their glory. I understand the films were made for a foreign audience and used to sell the country to overseas nations. As such, most if not all the films have never been seen before but they do each provide a wonderful glimpse of how life used to be and the pride we once had in our country and the people who ran it. I dare say a great many lessons could be learnt from these films. I thoroughly recommend a visit.

School Years - Memories of PE

I have been prompted to recollect my memories of physical education during my school years in the 1980's. There was an excellent piece on BBC Radio 5 Live this morning inviting people to call in to discuss their memories of being taught PE and how, in some cases, this has affected their outlook on physical exercise and sport in general. For some, it was a wonderful experience but for the majority, the experience was frankly horrific and has literally scarred them for life.
My own experience is one of being forced to do something I didn't want to do. I hated sport. I was always amongst the last to be chosen for teams and though I wasn't in any way overweight, it was my skills with a ball that were obviously lacking. I wasn't part of the 'gang' either so this relegated me to the lower ranks and if I was chosen it was more to do with making up numbers.
PE was a humiliating experience. We invariably ended up running round a freezing cold field or were forced to play football or rugby. I didn't understand how to play either nor did I have any interest in learning. If the ball did happen to pass my way, I would panic and hope that I was kicking it in the right direction. It was important to keep moving though as this was the only way to keep warm.
We would be made to do indoor PE if the weather was particularly bad. More often than not this would involve climbing ropes or jumping over padded boxes. I remember well the green rubber backed mats we would fall onto and the course surface that could easily remove skin. I remember the smell. I can smell it now as I type this. The equipment we used was standard school issue and found in any educational establishment at the time, no doubt descended from an army design. Used properly, they were fine. But make a mistake or land awkwardly and my goodness, they could do serious damage to a teenage body.
The changing room filled me with dread. There was no privacy and the benches were squashed and lacked any comfort. Keeping your clothes together was essential else you could spend the remainder of the day with just one sock or perhaps none at all. You needed your wits about you.
Showering was compulsory. Mr Jennings or Mr Matthews would herd us in one end and after a couple of minutes usher us out the other end. Avoiding the shower was done at your peril. If your hair was dry, you got dragged in. It wasn't very nice.
Staying dry was the main objective though this was made almost impossible by the person next to you dripping all over your clothes. Invariably I would leave the place wet, my school uniform covered in wet patches. But I was free, and that was the most important thing.
Before long, it would become normal to escape PE at any cost. I tried to get out of it every week and when I was diagnosed with an irregular heart beat at around the age of 14, this came as a Godsend. I now had a valid excuse to miss all PE sessions. It was wonderful. I remember well sitting out the period in the hall with a handful of others in this 'special group'. We would pretend to study or swat for tests. This was the norm for a very long time.
Bullying was rife. It always had been. The bullying wasn't just amongst the boys, it was also systemic amongst the teachers. They could be very nasty. One teacher got into trouble for it after a pupil made an official complaint. Another was sent to prison after being reported for paying 'innapropriate' attention to boys at the school. I had witnessed and been a victim of this during my time at school. Yet my parents, then as now, remain ignorant to what had been going on.
I remember a music lesson run by this particular teacher who for some reason insisted on all of stripping to our underwear and one by one walking up to him so he could check the see the label inside our pants. None of us at the time thought one moment to question what was happening or why he was doing this. It's only really now that I look back at the utter madness of the whole thing and wonder why nothing was done.
Did our parents have any idea of what things were like and what went on? No. They either didn't want to know or were completely ignorant, that's my conclusion.
Swimming lessons are another example of where things went badly wrong. I recall that I wasn't as fearful as others and I soon learnt it was better to show as little fear as possible. If you showed fear, you were picked on - by the instructor no less - and thrown into the water. No regard was given to whether or not you were able to swim, you were simply thrown it. I witnessed this and soon decided it was better for me to put my own head under the surface than to provoke the instructor to do it. I hated it, and to an extent it has had a long lasting effect on me and something I always revisit in my mind whenever we go swimming as a family.
Luckily, my PE 'horror' was relatively short lived, thanks to my medical 'excuse' and being signed-off all future sessions. But I did endure enough of it to turn me completely off sport of any kind. If things had been different, then maybe I may have warmed to it a little more. I will always associate sport with my experiences at school during the 1980's, and sadly I will always fear a little for my son. I am hopeful that things are different nowadays and that the mistakes made during my time at school simply cannot be repeated. My memories will never go away. If anything, they become clearer and thanks to this blog, more permanent than ever.

Getting More Involved

We have a new member at our Tuesday Depression Support Group. Her name is Emma and she has joined as a volunteer and sufferer. It's really nice to have someone new in the group and her input will be very welcome. In addition to this, I was asked if I would volunteer to support the group and help to bring new members into the group. I had given thought to this previously but was uncertain as to whether I would be able to commit. But I've decided that this is really something I would like to do and I'm hopeful that it may in time develop into something more permanent. I do like talking with people and my own experiences of depression and anxiety should help with providing support and an understanding ear to anyone needing assistance.
As if to start me off on my new role, I was asked if I would make contact with a possible new member of the group by introducing myself and suggesting they attend next Tuesday. I didn't quite know what to expect but the chap was very friendly and dare I say it very pleased to receive my call. I suggested he attend next Tuesday and explained a little about what we do. I also suggested that he asks for me when he arrives and I'll come to collect him so we can join the group together. My thoughts are that by doing this the whole thing should be less daunting and will go some way to 'breaking the ice'. So that's all good.
So it looks as if I may be able to turn my experiences of anxiety and depression into something that may benefit others, and I feel good about that. I like spending time with people and discussing their problems. I already spend a lot of time each week with my close friend who became paralysed following a stroke. Frankly if I can do anything that makes someone feel better then that's great.

The keyboard for the laptop I've been repairing arrived today and in a couple of minutes I had it fitted and working as it should, all keys fully functional. I gave it a good clean and buff and its owner came and collected it earlier this evening. I made £10 for the job which is better than nothing and is frankly the first work I have done in over two years. It did make me feel good though. It's a good feeling. The chap collecting the computer did ask if I could put Excel on another machine he wants me to have a look at. I had to tell him provided he had a licensed copy then of course I could. I did though get the distinct impression he wanted me to provide a 'dodgy' unlicensed copy, which of course I will not do. So I think I made myself clear there... The fact that he didn't take the laptop back to be repaired under warranty spoke volumes, so we'll leave it at that.

A good day all in all. I feel purposeful and of use. It'll be nice if things can develop into something more substantial and meaningful. We'll see...

Boycotting the Post & In Praise of the Kindle

Today, my Royal Mail boycott has begun. I am really not happy at all with the increase in postage cost and I refuse to pay 60p for a 1st Class stamp. If I do need to send anything to anyone, it will be scanned and e-mailed or faxed. The only occasion on which it will be posted will be if there is a a Freepost address or if the postage is prepaid.

I have spent some of this afternoon tinkering with my friend's new Kindle and helping them to connect it to their WiFi. The network settings are hidden away in a sub menu and it took a while to get it all setup. Next came the job of getting a book onto the device. This can be achieved in several ways though in the end we plumped for the USB connection. It is possible to download books on the move using either the WiFi or 3G connectivity.
From what I've seen of it, I'm actually very impressed with the Kindle. There is far more to it than meets the eye including the ability to interface with Facebook and Twitter. E-mails can be sent directly to the device and it also has a web browser. Something else I found very useful is the MP3 compatibility and the ability to listen to music and audio books. Add to this a battery that lasts three months, and you have a very clever device. So, it's all good. What's even better is the fact that I will have my own Kindle very soon. My dear friends have very kindly bought me one and I am absolutely delighted. I will use it for catching up on news whereas my son can use it to help with his reading and my wife can download her favourite books. It will certainly be used and I will write more about it over the coming weeks.

What a difference a day makes... today's weather has been wonderful - the complete opposite to what we had to endure yesterday. Here by the Wash we've had blue skies and bright sunshine for most of the day, and it was mild enough for me to get a lot done in the garden and the conservatory, including planting some more seeds for herb and tomato plants.

A Little Job & Olympic Worries

I've had a couple of small jobs come my way this week. A work colleague of my mum-in-law has a laptop with a faulty keyboard. It's a strange one this, as all the keys work except for J,K and L. I've taken the keyboard out and taken a closer look but unlike laptops of old, there is literally nothing that's serviceable. They keys do come off, but that's it apart from the contact sheet underneath. So I've recommended a replacement which to my surprise will cost just £25 to procure. Computer spares must be the only things that have actually decreased in price over the years. The same customer has a tower unit which 'blue screens' on starting which could frankly be a number of different things so I'll be taking a look at it once the laptop is repaired.
So that's all very good. I do love fixing things especially computers and if I can earn a little by doing it, then happy days.

Weather, oh weather. It has been nothing short of horrible for the last two weeks. It all came to a peak last night when we had very heavy rain and strong winds, which persisted well into today and have only really eased in the last hour or so. There are flood warnings almost everywhere at the moment and there are rivers where their banks have already burst, such as in York. Yet we are told we still have a drought. So why not try to collect some of this water, the same way I am in my garden, but on an industrial scale?

In the news we've had the Leveson Inquiry and the furore surrounding the Culture, Media and Sport Minister Jeremy Hunt. I've certainly been glued to the coverage surrounding this and I firmly believe that there remain many questions to be answered and I believe there are rough times ahead for the current government. I could spend an hour or more writing about my thoughts on this subject, but I won't. Suffice to say that I believe not one word of what we are told by our government or Mr Murdoch, regardless of how plausible their explanations and excuses may seem. They may think we were all born yesterday but I for one am not going to be taken in by it, not a single word of it.

Twitter. I've written on numerous occasions regarding the power of Twitter and its influence on our society is clear given the media coverage it has received lately. Admittedly, the coverage has been for the wrong reasons and unfortunately, it is all too often used as a weapon to offend or humiliate.
But I do see it very much as a tool for making comment and observation, and on many occasions over the last week, I have received replies and even had my tweets read out on radio. I already have over 100 followers, to my surprise and how many of these read my tweets, I do not know. But the fact that my tweets regarding electricity providers were picked up by Eon and NPower and my tweet regarding the mis-treatment of Christopher Tappin was read out on-air by LBC, it does make me feel good about using this relatively new medium. What started out just a couple of years ago as an Internet SMS service has grown into perhaps the most powerful tool of communication and opinion in the World today.

No week would be complete without a crisis and this time it was a flat tyre. I had spotted it just before my wife was due to leave for work. Of course it was all too much for her but we managed to get someone to come and collect her. I managed to get some air into the tyre and drove gingerly to the local garage. Within half an hour they had located the puncture and repaired it. Wonderful, and all for just £20. A huge relief given the fact I was expecting to pay £40 for a new tyre. So a major crisis was averted thank goodness.

There is concern at the moment regarding the ability of our immigration control services to cope come the Olympics and the predicted hundreds of thousands of extra visitors. This has arisen after complaints by entering passengers who had to queue for up to 3 hours at Heathrow. Mobile phone footage showed long queues of disgruntled passengers and I can't help but imagine the scene in three months from now when Olympic devotees begin descending on the capital.
We are being assured that the airports are prepared for the influx, buy haven't we heard all thins before? Do they really know how many people are expected? I doubt it. I fully expect to see huge queues at our airports, caused in part by delays in processing passports and in the inability of our transport system to transfer the masses to the Olympic site.
Somewhat amazingly, there is discussion at the moment regarding the siting of ground to air missiles and the surreal suggestion to place missile batteries on top of apartment blocks and other tall buildings. We are being assured a complete no fly zone will be enforced over London during the Games, but mistakes do happen and I could easily see a situation where a plane or other airborne object could stray and a missile be launched in response. The results of this would be catastrophic for anyone below.
And of course there's the hoaxer and the chaos that would ensue following any warning deemed credible.
Of course, there's every possibility the whole thing will pass without incident, and I hope it does. But I do have serious doubts as to whether the current infrastructure will cope under the additional strain and I seriously doubt our preparedness. Time will of course tell.

Still the Rain Falls - Mid-Week Update

It is still raining and there is no sign of it letting-up, except for a brief glimpse of the sun now and then. It is raining as I type this. Everything I can use as a container in the garden is now full of rainwater. My water butt is overflowing and as soon as I empty something to water my plants, it fills straight back up again. I'm by no means moaning, but I do find it slightly ironic given the fact that it wasn't so many days ago that we were beginning to panic and worry about water restrictions and a prolonged drought.

I have spent a worrying amount of time following the Levison Enquiry on TV. They have been questioning James and Rupert Murdoch in light of the phone hacking scandal and press ethics. One advantage of being a 'stay at home' dad is that I get to watch things like this. Though to be honest, if I was at work, I would be stealing myself away to watch TV via the Internet. I do find these things fascinating and I am grateful we live in an open society where these things are public. It wasn't so long ago that inquiries such as this would have been conducted behind closed doors.

I have a little job. My mother-in-law is giving me a laptop to repair. It belongs to one of her work colleagues and it sounds as if the keyboard has become damaged as some of the keys have stopped working. I'm pretty confident I'll be able to fix it. I'll remove the keyboard and remove any liquids and give it a thoroughly good clean. I do enjoy things like that, fixing faults and getting things working again. It was pretty much all I did with my little company a few years ago. The problem was two fold - I didn't charge enough and what I did charge, people didn't want to pay. So in the end, it was costing me money so I had to stop doing it. Shame really as I did enjoy working for myself.

My father had his dressings removed from his face and neck on Monday. He also received the 'all clear' meaning they had removed everything they needed to. He has been told to exercise extreme care from now on and told that on no account should he spend any time in direct sunlight. This is a shock. He loves the sun and always has, perhaps a little too much. He spends all of his spare time in his garden and it shows. Nothing will change this, but he must heed advice and cover up. He's had a scare, we all have, and he must follow the advice he has been given.

My wife is at home today. She woke up feeling poorly and I called her boss to let her know this morning. It's quite unusual for my wife to have any time off work. She's normally very healthy, despite suffering with Asthma. Tiredness is perhaps her main problem, which is no wonder given the hours each week she spends on her feet. She seldom ever gets time for lunch or even a coffee break. It's rather odd to have her at home. I am conscious of her being here and I do feel a little as if I'm under her watchful gaze, eager to know what I get up to when she's not about. The truth is, I actually get up to very little. I try to keep to a routine - breakfast, job hunt, lunch etc. I've pretty much kept to this routine punctuated by frequent checks to see how my wife is feeling and whether I can bring her a cup of tea.

I have given some thought as to whether I can sustain both a written and spoken blog. The truth is that I do find the addition of a daily audio journal very difficult to maintain and wonder whether a weekly version would be more appropriate. The main problem is committing to a regular schedule of recording the journal, particularly when I need to take about 10-15 minutes out of each day alone with my recorder. This is frequently easier said than done. A written journal provides the ability to record my thoughts more easily I feel and without the same level of fuss.

I have a joke. I don't take the credit for it as I stumbled across it on Twitter. It goes like this;
'I bought a dog from an Ironmonger the other day. As soon as I got it home, it made a bolt for the door. '

I'll get my coat...

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.