pumpkinstrokemarrow

So off to the high street where two computer repair shops have pronounced it beyond repair, the second one charging me £45 for this bit of news. Probably could not get it to work even if one managed to break through the password challenge - which a quick trawl with Mr. G. had suggested was entirely possible. He added the cheerful rider that I was lucky to get as long as 7 years out of the thing. Not built to last you know. Much better in the bad old days when it was permitted to use lead in their construction. Much better at soaking up the heat than what they have to use now.

So, rather sadly, I have come to the conclusion that, rather than spend any more time or energy on the thing, it is time for a visit to our local waste transfer station. One more link with the world of work broken for ever. But I shall keep the carry bag as a souvenir, it having worn rather better than the thing it was intended to carry.

I might add that at one point along the way I had thought to phone up my late employer and see if I could track down the chap who had done the spring cleaning. An outside chance that he would remember the password. Type in the CJIT address to get one of those chatty "Oops!" messages from Chrome. Ask Mr. G. about CJIT to find that it appears to have been abolished. Nothing about it on the http://frontline.cjsonline.gov.uk/ site to which one is directed. But I did find a bit of a CV from a chap who worked for them briefly. Amused to see what a grand thing he made of his short stay. See http://www.technodot.com/cjit_uk_government.html. I also found something about something called secure email: so what had been the Cinderella of the outfit during my time there, appears to be all that is left of it.

Interesting how CJIT, on which some tens of millions were lavished during its 5-10 year life, perhaps as much as £100 million, seems to have vanished from the Internet. Will all the quangos which Cameron is supposed to be abolishing be similarly consigned to oblivion? What about the feelings of all those hard working, decent people who used to work for these outfits? Couldn't they have a special site for governmental back-numbers where we could read about the stirring deeds we had done in years gone by and contact old colleagues?

I then thought, maybe I can find out how much was spent on CJIT. Maybe there will be a trace of CJIT in the accounts. So off to the HM Treasury website. Easy enough to get at estimates past and present there. But far too broad brush to be useful for present purposes. They suggest going off to the departmental website. Where I completely fail to find anything about how much the Home Office spends in anything other than the current year, despite following the link to the National Archive where back numbers are said to live. Perhaps what I need is a research assistant who can spend quality time on what might think was the simple problem 'How much did CJIT spend in each year of its short existence?'.

Reminding me of a truth I learned very early in my career: it is very easy to ask easy sounding questions which cannot be answered at reasonable cost.