Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Car pain now computer pain
Not only having to grapple with failing cooling systems in our not very old vehicle, as two of the three computer screens in our house are starting to misbehave. Is it a coincidence that the two in question come from the late lamented Evesham Computers? Did they go bust over selling dodgy screens? The cathode ray screen is going through odd patches of displaying in odd colours. The basic picture is OK but with a red tint or something. Then it clicks back to normal. The laptop screen is starting to have strange red patterns - perhaps a 1 centimetre band of pink pattern across a more or less idle portion of screen. Or perhaps a pink circle about 5 centimetres across. I suppose if I was in the world of work I would junk the thing. But as it is I shall soldier on and perhaps lose a few hours work at some point when the screen gives up altogether. The recession is making me feel mean!
On which topic, got a Guardian for the first time for a while yesterday. We also had a DT so the comparison was interesting. The Guardian, presumably the newspaper of choice of the public sector salariat, is fairly relaxed about the whole situation. Such salaries get paid whatever, and while promotion prospects might be a bit dented, redundancies are rare. The meltdown of tests for 14 year olds is a lot more important than the meltdown of banks for grown ups. This last is the subject of reflective peices on business cycles and the inevitability of banks going over the top from time to time. Starting with our own Edward the something reneging on his Florentine loans back in the middle ages, triggering the banking crisis of his time. Through the Dutch tulip crisis, the South Sea Bubble and so on. Whereas, back at the DT, panic headlines continue, although their height (or is point the proper word?) is not quite what it was at the height of the crisis. Presumably the newspaper of choice of enterprising and share-holding folk who do care about the state of the financial world. Will HBOS pull in that loan I took out to finance the new organic yoghourt factory? Will there be moves to repatriate all those Balinese virgins I hired to stroke the fermenting yoghourt?
The Guardian continues with its rather po-faced series of enclosures. Yesterday was the turn of some poster about people of colour. All worthy stuff but I remain irritated that part of the purchase price goes on it. I am buying a newspaper not a home improvement pack. It also continues with its splendid series of public sector job advertisements. Always good fun to play spot the silliest job description. One even wonders if some of them are not a bit tongue in cheek. Some clerk having a pop at his or her most PC masters. I could, for example, be a multi-systemic therapist in Barnsley. And some health outfit, I presume one of these now all-powerful primary care trusts, is wanting three senior officials - the £50,000 a year sort - to worry about various aspects of patient safety. Or I could be the (service development manager (self directed support(adults))). Whatever that might be. I guess not knowing means I am not qualified. And I am invited to help build pride in Cumbria. This last looking to be something to do with working with troubled youth.
On a more serious note, the trip to Florence stimulated a re-read of Romola, a book I found a bit heavy going on the first time around. But its Florentine setting certainly helped to pull me through the second time around. One scene, for example, involving the Porta San Gallo, the termination of the Via San Gallo, just off of which was to be found our hotel. We were walking up and down said Via most days. (Oddly, San Gallo does not seem to be a saint. Rather the name of a famous family of Florentine builders. At least, that is what Mr G seems to think). Romola suffers a bit from being a book with an agenda. That is to say, one gets the impression that George got her theme - the growth of evil in a person through habit and laziness - and then built a charectar around the theme. Rather than letting the theme emerge from the charectar. But who is to say which is the right way around? I also get the impression that George is also interested in rich, bossy, educated and rather difficult old men who want to keep an iron grip on some younger protege (doesn't look the same without its accents but I have yet to learn how to do that here). We have one such in Middlemarch and no less than two in this book. Maybe she suffered in the grip of one herself. Must turn up Haight again and check my theory. All in all, a much better read this time around. Apart from higher endeavours, I now feel I know a lot more about the life and times of late 15 century Florentines than I did before. Perhaps an easier trick to pull off in a book than in a film. In which connection, I find the ancient block busters like 'Ben Hur' oddly more compelling than the moderns who have a go at ancient times. These last suffer, perhaps, from too much information.
On which topic, got a Guardian for the first time for a while yesterday. We also had a DT so the comparison was interesting. The Guardian, presumably the newspaper of choice of the public sector salariat, is fairly relaxed about the whole situation. Such salaries get paid whatever, and while promotion prospects might be a bit dented, redundancies are rare. The meltdown of tests for 14 year olds is a lot more important than the meltdown of banks for grown ups. This last is the subject of reflective peices on business cycles and the inevitability of banks going over the top from time to time. Starting with our own Edward the something reneging on his Florentine loans back in the middle ages, triggering the banking crisis of his time. Through the Dutch tulip crisis, the South Sea Bubble and so on. Whereas, back at the DT, panic headlines continue, although their height (or is point the proper word?) is not quite what it was at the height of the crisis. Presumably the newspaper of choice of enterprising and share-holding folk who do care about the state of the financial world. Will HBOS pull in that loan I took out to finance the new organic yoghourt factory? Will there be moves to repatriate all those Balinese virgins I hired to stroke the fermenting yoghourt?
The Guardian continues with its rather po-faced series of enclosures. Yesterday was the turn of some poster about people of colour. All worthy stuff but I remain irritated that part of the purchase price goes on it. I am buying a newspaper not a home improvement pack. It also continues with its splendid series of public sector job advertisements. Always good fun to play spot the silliest job description. One even wonders if some of them are not a bit tongue in cheek. Some clerk having a pop at his or her most PC masters. I could, for example, be a multi-systemic therapist in Barnsley. And some health outfit, I presume one of these now all-powerful primary care trusts, is wanting three senior officials - the £50,000 a year sort - to worry about various aspects of patient safety. Or I could be the (service development manager (self directed support(adults))). Whatever that might be. I guess not knowing means I am not qualified. And I am invited to help build pride in Cumbria. This last looking to be something to do with working with troubled youth.
On a more serious note, the trip to Florence stimulated a re-read of Romola, a book I found a bit heavy going on the first time around. But its Florentine setting certainly helped to pull me through the second time around. One scene, for example, involving the Porta San Gallo, the termination of the Via San Gallo, just off of which was to be found our hotel. We were walking up and down said Via most days. (Oddly, San Gallo does not seem to be a saint. Rather the name of a famous family of Florentine builders. At least, that is what Mr G seems to think). Romola suffers a bit from being a book with an agenda. That is to say, one gets the impression that George got her theme - the growth of evil in a person through habit and laziness - and then built a charectar around the theme. Rather than letting the theme emerge from the charectar. But who is to say which is the right way around? I also get the impression that George is also interested in rich, bossy, educated and rather difficult old men who want to keep an iron grip on some younger protege (doesn't look the same without its accents but I have yet to learn how to do that here). We have one such in Middlemarch and no less than two in this book. Maybe she suffered in the grip of one herself. Must turn up Haight again and check my theory. All in all, a much better read this time around. Apart from higher endeavours, I now feel I know a lot more about the life and times of late 15 century Florentines than I did before. Perhaps an easier trick to pull off in a book than in a film. In which connection, I find the ancient block busters like 'Ben Hur' oddly more compelling than the moderns who have a go at ancient times. These last suffer, perhaps, from too much information.
# posted by Jim @ 11:30 PM 
