Who flipped the calendar?

It cannot be March since I last came here! Judging by the dust and mustiness it has been!! Sooo what’s been going on… *scrolls through calendar*…. meetings ….. crocheted a baby blanket…. meetings….. singalong…. meetings…. quiz night at neighbours….. meetings…. argue with hospital….. meetings…. crochet cat blanket…. nominated for an award…. more meetings….. said bye to staff leaving…. Easter raffle, won two Easter eggs ….. meetings ….. argue with hospital again ….. meetings…. shortlisted for a National award ….. meetings ….. meetings ….. got my hair cut and coloured. Yeap, that’s about it.

Back in early February, after BFF’s visit I made a brief little to-do list, okay let’s see……ohhh-errrr

• Book an at home eye test – done, ended up having to go to the opticians in-person anyway, which ended up with eye clinic referral, which ended up…..well that’s another story of broken system incompetence.
• Call for a Dentist appointment – done, booked the taxi, dentist cancelled appointment, made another that was not do-able, so cancelled that, rebooked another and the taxi.
• Start stitching the baby blanket – done and done (for a dog) and done (for a cats outdoor house) and another in slow slow progress
• Spend some time at the desk – done, but will need to do more when new Mac arrives
• Bravely ask for help with some sorting of my junk jobs – can we skip this one, wish my Mary Poppins style click of the fingers worked.

What’s that? Oh, the nomination and shortlisting, you saw that. Well, quite unexpectedly I was approached by the Housing Association who wanted to put my name forward for the annual national “Women In Housing” awards. Flattered and surprised sprung to mind, I’m relatively new to all this and didn’t feel I’d done anything exceptional that warranted such reward but hey ho, who am I to question the wonders of the world. Earlier this month the shortlist was published and bugger me, I’m on it, as Board/Committee Member of the Year. There’s a swanky do in June when the winners will be announced.

May is a month of meetings, there’s a spotlight project drilling down into the nitty gritty of an area to weed out issues and suggest improvements. A few strategic governance meetings so make the bigwigs and contractors squirm a little. A couple of hospital appointments, each will take up the day and result in nothing or something tediously unhelpful.

Still my reward will be a new Mac. My current one is over ten years old, slower than a politician answering a yes/no question and as I get reward points from the Housing Association for meetings and reading, I’ve saved up a years worth to redeem against a new shinny speedy machine.

Curious how life changes, once upon a couple of decades ago I’d be blogging most weeks, now things have shrunk considerably.

I did write a couple of clerihews for April 23rd which I was rather pleased with.

Remarked St George
"I strived to forge,
But those buggers instead
Cut off me head!"

Scribbled The Bard
"All this rhyming is hard
I know what I'll do
Finish Taming Of The Shrew"

Simple pleasures!

 

Lazy Beginnings

Sooooo…… Ummmmm……. Weeelllllll…… Yeah. I’m on the naughty step, procrastinating over my ‘coulda got it done’ list I made a mere three and a bit months ago. To refresh your memories, switch back to Setting Forth! and the three lists.

First, the fun one was to finish the pairs of baby sneakers I was ‘secretly’ stitching for a carer who was about to go on maternity leave, I got some more glow yarn and finished a gear knob ghost for the carer who asked for one. The ‘super secret’ crochet project got finished before the bat was out the bag, a Halloween themed garland of eyeballs, skulls, spiders, ghosts, etc. I haven’t started the Christmas stockings because it has been far too hot and sticky to handle yarn. So three out of four done ✔️✔️✔️

Second was the house list and it had six things, only one of the four desk jobs was done, the pictures are still not on the wall, the wall mounted tv has not been ordered, I did find some trousers and might get some more, I found a couple of tops too, and the website has been updated and backed up, so maybe I’ll give myself ✔️✔️

Then there is the third list. ::sigh:: the bureaucratic nightmare hell one. Neurology took two more phone calls and the threat of official complaint before the referral was actually issued, but someone here forgot to arrange the transport so had to forego the appointment, next attempt 12th Oct 🤞. I haven’t contacted wheelchair services nor Occ Health, I’m taking the ‘let sleeping dogs lay’ attitude. A big fat X on that list.

☹️

I haven’t exactly been doing nothing though. I’m what’s considered an ‘engaged customer’ (the proposal was so romantic, lol) taking part in meetings to voice approval, concerns, question, query etc from the tenant prospective, to hear about what improvements are underway and future business plans. Its incredible the myriad of groups and areas that have this tenant input, whether it’s the wording of a letter or reviewing the Regulator for Social Housing Code Of Practice as per Home Office implementation of the Social Housing Act 2022.

On average I join in two meetings per week, which can be anything from an hour to nearly five. I’m racking up the Love2Shop vouchers, I think there’s a way to convert them to digital Curry’s vouchers which I can then use against getting a new iPad.

Hopefully it won’t be another three months before I have more to report!

 

Scan Ship Sell Easy? (Nope)

We’ve all seen the adverts over the past few years, simply scan your item’s barcode, box it up and the courier chappy with a cheery smile will collect it and ping, money appears into your account. It’s a great way to sustainably handle your unwanted items, it’s easy to use and sounds all very shiny.

Yeah. Right. Now regular readers will know I am highly dubious of anything that describes itself as ‘easy’, ‘simple’, ‘quick’, ‘straightforward’ etc. with my impending move, knowing I will have to be ruthless with the cull, I thought using these options would make disposal of my books, cds and DVD’s reasonably pain free.

I should have trusted my gut 🤦‍♀️

I am already in an emotional turmoil, feeling overwhelmed with all that has to come together before this impending move. While BFF was here we went through my assorted clutter and I downloaded a few apps to use. It was a nightmare! The first hurdle is that the scanner works so quickly, without realising I’d scanned the same thing multiple times because you’re not sure whether the darned thing had scanned the bar code or not (some apps are better than others). Then there are the number of items it rejects because either it doesn’t recognise the barcode or it announces with sniffy attitudes “We are not interested in this item at present”. But by far the most utterly diabolically demoralising aspect of the process was the pittance they offered.

More than half of my collection of media was rejected. What it did accept they were offering prices between 4pence and £1. Out of 70+ items it graciously accepted I had amassed the grand total of less than £15! The potential for insult doesn’t end there, because when you box and send off your goods they then check and ‘adjust’ the offer (downwards) depending on condition. So utterly not worth all the efforts – it’s all going to the local charity shops.

My curiosity got the better of me and went deep diving about the internet. One of my pristine unwrapped DVD’s specials was being sold for £12 and I was offered just 27p……..that’s taking the ‘p’.

I hate all this.

 

Where’s The Catch??

Now I’m a suspicious old cynic, even on a good day. I am wary of anything that preports to be ‘quick’, ‘easy’ or ‘simple’. Offers that scream savings must be combed through for the slightly hidden, mildly expensive add one or the exclusion clauses. I’m sure it’s as a result of being picked on by people one moment and quietly befriend by them later when I was at school. But I am baffled…..stumped…..blind even to this. I just cannot see the catch.

Sky is my broadband and phone provider, I don’t have them for television because I cannot have a dish on my property. Like with all these things it is part of a fixed term contract and my eighteen month contract is due to expire.

As a ‘valued customer’ they emailed me to let me know the contract was up for renewal and whether I would like to resubscribe for another eighteen months and what it would cost using the same package I currently have. It also detailed what it would cost if I do nothing and let the contract expire.

Do I want a new contract at £27 per month (£10 set up + £8pm discount) ….. or ….. no contract at £25 per month (£5pm discount)

Where is the catch ….. if I ‘do nothing’ somehow it’s £2 a month cheaper ….. my suspicion alarm is going mad, wee-warr-woo-ing at mega decibel level, with flashing lights visible to Mars ….. how can that be?

This will require very, very, very careful watching and considering.

 

Spring Like A March Hare

I say spring, more like enthusiastically lurch……. well I say enthusiastically but it’s more like begrudgingly shuffle…….. hmm begrudgingly that’s on point and shuffle, hmm yeah, kind of outch, dawdle, mosey.

Whether it is the decline of my physical abilities, the endless endurance of the shielding lockdown, the cold fingers of winter or a mix of it all, I cannot seem to shake off the shackles of winter oppression and awaken, find the joy in things, the pleasures in purpose, everything feels exhaustingly ::sigh:: As I said to BFF I cannot be bothered to be bothered.

There are the tentative hints of improvement. Doesn’t it make the day seem nicer when there is sunshine? It has an extra energy, almost an optimism. So in that fashion one might dare to tackle a bit of a to-do list.

• Add crochet border to red cat blanket
• Start the Alan Davies book
• Check domain registry dates
• Go through iTunes genre
• File images accumilated

A chunk of that involves my desk, which is dependent on who my carers are and the times they are due here. Plus the sitting position isn’t the most comfortable.

The ‘remote’ app on the iPad that controls iTunes on my Mac is working really well, but as I scroll about trying to decide what I feel like listening to I find I tend to choose a genre and let the device shuffle. When I am at the desk I usually select an album or artist to listen to. As I think I have mentioned before my choice can be influenced by what I am doing, classical while html coding, rock/metal while photo editing, Rhythm/blues while dealing with accounts and numbers, etc. The automated comes-when-you-upload info of a cd can be a little odd, there are a few tweaks I would like to make and there are those with no genre tagged at all. Hardly a vital necessary task but it fills the time, like finding album covers and adding those.

My original iPad (gen1) has been struggling to deal with life for a while. When I purchased my new one I repurposed the old one to the bedroom for iPlayer, radio, audiobook usage, but many of the apps need an operating system it cannot cope with so I was using the browser, but even that struggled. Anywho, I took the decision to buy a refurbished one from MusicMagPie, it came today and so far so good. I’ve spent a couple of hours setting up and logging in, tweaking to my preferences, selecting display images etc.

Must think of more to blog about so it’s not eons again before I text lyrical.

 

As ancient as…

You that feeling when……. you are watching a black & white movie (Carry On Regardless, 1961) and your carer arrives asks what you’re watching and questions “So when did colour tv start?”

I explained that there were colour films shown in cinemas before there was colour tv because colour over black & white was hideously expensive to make. I thought that colour tv was introduced around the late 1960’s (turns out it was a Wimbledon final 1967 on BBC2) before becoming mainstream in early 1970’s.

This branched on to the fact there were (and still are) tv licenses for either a colour tv or a black & white one, this notion seemed quite startling, along with that many homes did not have a colour TV set until the mid/end of the 1970’s.

When I went on to remark that I remember as a child being told to change the channel because there were no remotes, and there were only three channels broadcasting at set times of the day (kids tv about 3pm til shutdown 11pm), and that at close down the BBC would play the National Anthem – well my carer’s jaw dropped to the floor.

When I said channel 4 didn’t start until 1982 and Sky started 1989 she remarked that she found it hard to believe these things happened not that long before she was born (1998).

Talk about feeling ancient!!

 

Small Change, Profound Difference

It is not often I extoll the virtues of technology and it’s even more rare for such to bring a tear to the eye. Let me explain.

Across the decades I have amassed a significant music collection on my Mac, a mixture of uploaded cd’s, downloaded purchases from Amazon/iTunes and independent offerings. If I was to press play and let it run on unabashed it would take a month to get through. When I was spending every morning at my desk I could merrily listen to my tunes, mixing Mozart with Madness, a touch of Mancini mingled with Marmalade, Zakk moshing with ZZ Top, as I whittled some html coding, wrangled a bit of number crunching, wrestled with photo editing and such like. It was entertaining and uplifting, seeing as my brain seems to be mostly filled with lyrics and set to Kareoke mode.

With the loss of my mobility I became separated from this mentally motivating activity and I have so missed it, time spent at my desk has become seriously dwindled. I had considered streaming services but felt resentful at having to pay money to hear music I have already spent monies upon.

I had procrastinated about searching for an answer, I had dawdled over posting on the MacForum for a suggestion. I had hoped Siri could help but my Mac is too old. I started seeing adverts for the new HomePod mini and the sown seed slowly germinated, maybe one of these could access and play my music. It spurred me on to ask on the forum if this could work with my particular kit, I hit publish and waited for a potentially helpful reply.

To my delight and surprise a helpful bod answered my post and introduced me to the app “iTunes Remote” as a potential solution. Google and I spent an evening reading and researching, could this be the answer? Could it really be that straightforward? Well, dear reader, in short, yes!

So yesterday after carer had positioned me at my desk I set to. Slightly pessimistic because things that class themselves as quick or easy rarely are. I followed the instructions with a tingle of anticipatory expectation.

• App Store, download free app iTunes Remote to iPad
• Open app, select manual set up (4-digit code appears)
• Open music app on Mac
• From Devices list select iPad
• Enter iPads 4-digit code
• Done, sorted, connected.

It really was that easy!!!

Okay so far so good…..but…….. now to test the theory. From the iPad app I selected a track and hit play and music sprung forth from my Mac ✅ …… I adjusted the volume, skipped forward and backward. Alright…..but…… I put my Mac to sleep, counted to twenty, opened the app and selected a track and again the swinging piano vibes exuded from my dozing Mac ✅✅. Right then, the big test, shut down and restart both the Mac and the iPad, open app and select a tune, without hesitation the dulcet tones of the lyrical warbler wafted across the room ✅✅✅. Another test, this morning I opened the app and selected a play list annddd it’s playing ✅✅✅✅.

I am reconnected to my music, my smile could not be wider, I’m busting my (sat down) moves, twerking so much I’m gonna give my buttocks whiplash, I have gone from famine to feast ….. so much choice, it’s almost overwhelming. Brain is fizzing as it sings along to tracks it hasn’t heard for years.

 

What cost entertainment

There’s been rumblings again over the cost of the TV License fee, whenever that particular debate rears its noggin I have the same thought. How many of the dissenters could list the areas the BBC covers? This is followed by a second question, how much to the same dissenters pay for other entertainment streams?

Currently the TV Licence fee is £157.50 per annum, which is about £13.13 per month, for thousands of hours of international, national, local news and radio stations, there is sports and nature coverage, funding into natural history and films, commissioning of documentaries, comedy, drama, quiz shows, music shows, buying-in of internationally renowned programmes, some niche series. All the online content on the website, I-player and BBC Sounds. And a heck of a lot more that I’ve forgotten or not found yet.

Back in the dark ages (I think that’s the 1970’s nowadays) we had three channels and none were broadcasting 24/7 (I know, utter deprivation), yet there always seemed to be something worthy of watching. The 1980’s brought a couple more channels and while one was thought to be a tad ‘alternative’ slightly ‘avant- guard’ this expansion still didn’t diminish viewing choice. There have been many changes since then……

So what’s available to us now to broaden our viewing options.

• Sky
• Virgin
• BT Vision
• Netflix
• Amazon Prime
• Apple tv
• Now tv
• Brit Box (how to get people to pay again to watch repeats, classic)

These additional services are not as far reaching, or offer the same degree of entertainment, yet in comparison seem to cost more than the BBC. I guess what the dear old Beeb needs to do, as discussed in W1A, is to “find out what we do best and do less of it, better“!

All the same …. as I scroll up and down the Freeview TV guide and cannot find a thing to watch (that’s a fib, I’m watching Apollo 13, again), I wonder if all this availability has done anything to improve our entertainment access.

 

LockedDownIshKinda

Well here we are, the beginning of another month, not completely sure which one, possibly Octonovdecber. Anywho as we stock pile our loo roll and pasta, try and figure out whether to drink mouthwash or infuse disinfectant, let’s recap on the to-do list.

• Print off business transaction reports – ✅
• Back-up Mac – ✅
• Upgrade OpSys software – general update successful ✅
• Complete Blue Badge renewal – not done ❌
• Purchase tv signal booster + cable – no problems but still might ❌.
• Update website news – ✅
• Finish two cat blankets – ✅
• Make one mouse toy – I made two ✅
• Make one fish toy – I made two or three ✅

I think I might award myself a 🥈 silver medal, I done quite good, all things and apathy taken into account.

One of my too-early-in-the-am cogitations wondered whether I could set up Siri to voice control and thus have access to the hours and hours of accumulated music that’s on my Mac or use Spotify for even more. Using voice control would mean I could shout across the room and not need to be at the desk – wild idea, right? I researched the various technicals, saved a couple of how to pages, noted possible playlists and felt prepared so that after comp was update I could with a flick, swipe and click clear my throat and produce music ….. but I forgot rule #1, anything using words like easy, simply, isn’t. Sadly as my machine (not the upgraded software) predates 2018 voice activated Siri is not possible. Dang, darn and poop.

Back to 1️⃣ (see what I did there, lol). Many moons ago Mac had something called FrontRow, which enabled users to access movies and music on the Mac via a small remote, maybe there is a way to do this using the iPad. More searching, researching and reading to do. I miss music, it is an important feature that I need to reconnect with, for my mental well-being.

I really should factor in one afternoon a week to be at the desk between visits, I enjoy being there, sorting things, creating things, doing those tasks that need the compy. It is all too easy for the apathy to go the easy route and put it off another day or week or more.

Soo, for this coming month, I’m going to dedicate it to communication. Writing emails/messages to people I maybe haven’t been as diligent with keeping in contact with. There isn’t much of note to state, I’m fine, carers are fine, getting grocery delivery slots booked and that’s it. But it’s good to reach out.

Speaking of which there’s an email I need to write to confirm that after eight weeks of chasing I’ve finally had my blood drawn for the tests the Neuro Rehab Consultant wanted.

 

Behind The Screen

This blog is a little different to my usual because it is being written with the intention of adding a link elsewhere to try and explain/highlight what has happened ‘behind the screen’ to bring a web page together.

As some may know I administrate, edit and manage a web site about a particular musician and have done for many many years. It is an on-going, complex, multi-layered learning experience that gathers information into one place. I do it for my own satisfaction, to have a one-stop place that collates his work, for the fans and those interested to visit. Yes, it costs me money, but what hobby doesn’t.

Recently he was interviewed by Dom Familaro for The Sessions Artist Series published to YouTube. If you are interested in the workings of the music industry, the various musicians that back, support, perform with many A-list names, perhaps you play an instrument, these interviews are entertaining and interesting to hear so many peoples different life stories, how music became their profession and where that profession has taken them and things they’ve learnt and experienced on the way. But I digress…..

The website has a few interview transcripts and it occurred to me that even though YouTube has the ‘captions’ option (akin to on the go subtitles in language of your choice), there is still a section of the world wide audience who are missing out, so I decided to transcribe the thirty-eight minute interview and find a way it can be translated, thus broadening it’s reach. Sounds reasonably straightforward, doesn’t it. Ha!

Step 1. Using a mix of shorthand, speed writing and longhand I begin taking down the dialogue. Gone are the days when I could audio-type thanks to my depleted dexterity. So it’s listen intently, stop video, write, reread, rewind and listen again, correct script, add punctuation. Continue to listen, pause it, write it down, check it, relisten to the passage, make corrections and proceed ….. you get the idea. It took a few days, working an hour or two per day.

Step 2. Thanks to my muscle disease rendering my fingers/hands/wrists so weak the easiest way to transcribe the written word is to use dictation, no more confidently typing at between 70-75 wpm for me anymore. I create a fresh document, hit the microphone and speak clearly, deciphering my scrawl as I go. Stopping after a couple of paragraphs to read over the dictation, correct the errors, add the punctuation, capitalise names etc. Hit save and carry on. It takes a couple of days but at the end there are nine pages of crisp type, each paragraph a persons dialogue, all checked, proofed and corrected.

Step 3. Now it gets a little technical because I need to add the HTML tags that make it show on the eventual web page. Each paragraph needs a <p> at the beginning. It makes visual sense to have the interviewers dialogue in a different colour to the interviewees, so I add a font=“colornumber” to those lines. I also have to add the speakers name to each paragraph to make it easier to follow who is saying or asking what. So that’s added, all in capitals for emphasise.

Step 4. Using a specific software program I create the webpage, it’s basic style set to match the myriad of pages already there. I add the techie bit of code to embed the YouTube video, making sure it sits comfortably and is the correct size. I add the tab heading and explanation. Then in chunks I add the coded interview transcription. Crossing my fingers I hit the ‘test’ function to see what it looks like as a web page. I am reasonably pleased with the result except the colour is way way off, neon lime green, the hex code is a shade of red! Hmm……that needs investigating, it works on other pages already published.

Step 5. Thanks to an excellent web site that walks you through, teaches and shows how to grapple with HTML coding I can put together the five or six lines of instruction to add a button to bring up a menu of languages that Google will then translate the whole page. Wow! I add it at the top of the transcription coding and hit ‘test’. It’s there, and what’s more……it works! Victory! By chance it answers my query about the text colour coding, I think the issue is that versions of HTML change things, and that’s what has happened here, the code for changing the font colour is now a script command within the <p> notation, so I will need to put together the new bit of code, then copy and paste it at the beginning of each of the interviewers dialogue.

Step 6. I confidently upload the new page to the server, add the link to the main media page so viewers can get to it and voila….well no, not quite yet, actually. I forgot the special text snaffoo, you see when you type characters like & ( ‘ ) “ and then copy/paste them into a coding page, things go a little bit odd, it turns a ‘ into ’ . So I need to go through the entire transcript and remove the gobbledygook and replace the appropriate punctuation mark.

Next time I am at my desk, I will have to go through the coding, change the font colour code and correct the ‘ (oh I hope the find and replace will help me). That a rough idea of what is involved for just one page. I intend to add the translation script to every page of the site, a mere thirty or so. Like the Forth Bridge, there is always something that needs working on to improve.

Link to the interview ….. The Sessions Artist Interview

Link to the website http://www.stcgibb.com