Category: Local (To Me !!!)

It Makes You Wonder …. ?


The company that I work for has a fancy telephone system. One of those that you have to log into using a password of 8 characters or more. You know the sort. The ones that cannot have any repeated characters, cannot be spurious i.e. cannot be people’s names or obvious like birthdays etc. etc. Oh and they are changed every 60 days or so.  Woe betide you if you forget your password and that is exactly what I did. Came back from holiday and tried what I thought was my password. Tried too many times and was eventually locked out.

Since I work from home fairly frequently I wasn’t too worried but I did note that some messages had been left in the message centre ….. Voicemail. So I thought I’d get my password reset and see if any of these messages were important. So I contacted the help line who were very helpful and provided me with a web link to a site that they assured me would sort everything out. I duly followed the link, completed the various drop downs and sat back and waited for a temporary password to be sent via email.

After an hour or so an email arrived informing me that a problem ticket had been raised and pointing out that if the solution they had provided didn’t work that I could respond via the problem ticket. Another email followed informing me that the link I had followed was only to be used for IP phones. I don’t have an IP phone so I had been directed to a dead end.

Back to the first email and that problem ticket to which I responded and I sat back and waited to be contacted again.

Nothing happened.

So I started the process over again. This time I enforced the point that I did not have an IP phone. Having twice been placed on hold for several minutes the operator informed me that they didn’t support our phone system and that I would have to contact a different help desk and provided me with the number.

I contacted the new help desk and was greeted by a very friendly individual who knew exactly what I needed to do. Within the hour I had a temporary password and also I was provided with a direct dial number that would let me access my voicemail from home. So not just a problem resolution but also a bonus too.

So yesterday I was able to access my voicemail.

Remember the original problem ticket that was raised. The one that they said I could respond to and did. The one that I did not receive a reply to. Well the fourth message in my voicemail was from the lady  from the help desk asking me if my problem had been resolved.

How on earth did they think I was going to hear that message ???

Surely a big clue would have been the introductory message that she would have heard which includes the date when I set it.

View From The Conservatory


Just a brief note as I’m working here this evening.

Just looked up from my laptop and there is a gorgeous yellow moon blazing through the trees. Sort of spooky with the branches silhouetted against the moon.

Temperature, according to the puter is 1degC but it felt colder than that a short while ago when I was outside.

Charles Dickens Born 7th February, 1812 – 200 Today


English novelist Charles John Huffam Dickens was born on this day, 200 years ago, in Landport, Portsmouth.

Happy birthday Chas and good luck to Pompey as they kick off their year-long celebrations.

Residents join the debate to improve Waterlooville


Councillor Buckley, hailed the Waterlooville Community Board meeting a success.

On what basis ?

Over 40 people turned up, 40 people out of a population in excess of 10000 residents. Not such a success from my view point.

Where the hell was the meeting of the Waterlooville Community Board advertised ? Surely a leaflet drop was in order to all residential homes.

I have lived in Waterlooville for 26 years and am thoroughly disgusted at the steady decline of the town centre. A decline that has been accelerated by the poor planning decisions that have been made over the years. I would have loved to have the opportunity to join in discussions about Waterloovilles future but was denied the opportunity due to lack of publicity.

Residents join the debate to improve Waterlooville – East Hampshire – The News.

Have You Noticed ……


…… how, once you have a tooth pulled, everything you eat heads for the empty socket.

I had a wisdom tooth pulled at lunchtime today. Six hours later I am trying to eat something that requires no real chewing, minced beef in gravy served in a jacket potato. I think every granule of the minced beef found its way into the open socket. No matter how I tried to keep everything over to the right, somehow those little meaty critters snuck around my remaining teeth and leapt into the gaping maw.

Fire hits metal recycling centre in Portsmouth


That explains what all the smoke was when I was driving into town earlier today.

Fire hits metal recycling centre in Portsmouth – East Hampshire – The News.

Suited and booted, daredevil sailor Alex rides keel of yacht


You have to ask the question – Why ?

I think the aspect of this, that is more impressive than Alex riding the keel, is the angle at which the yacht is heeling over and not capsizing.

Suited and booted, daredevil sailor Alex rides keel of yacht – East Hampshire – The News.

Vascular surgery to stay at Portsmouth’s Queen Alexandra Hospital


Its been a long time coming but finally common sense has won through.

Well done to the News for their steady campaigning.

Vascular surgery to stay at Portsmouth’s Queen Alexandra Hospital – News – The News.

‘Ouses, ‘Ouses, ‘Ouses – “Makes me prostrate with dismal”


I’m thinking that this track / song is likely to become the theme tune for the planners in the Waterlooville area.

I know that the song is based around Saltdean and the South Downs, home to the Copper Family, who are based in Rottingdean and Peacehaven also in Sussex. The track  features reminiscences of their family.

However, the sentiment is fitting for almost anywhere in the UK these days as the planners clamber over themselves to fill in all the open green areas with ‘Ouses, ‘Ouses, ‘Ouses

Take a listen ….’Ouses, ‘Ouses, ‘Ouses – John Copper & Sheila Chandra

It makes me “prostrate with dismal” too.

View From The Conservatory


I haven’t done one of these for a while. Mainly because I’ve been tied down with work when I have been sitting here. So here I am with a little break.

Whats happening in the garden ?

Well right now we are inundated with tits and pigeons. With temperatures only just rising to zero at noon the poor little birds are busy raiding the feeders. It’s nice to watch them flitting from bush to feeder to tree and back again.

Mind you the pigeons are just like vacuum cleaners. Once they get on the bird table they just fill up on seed and don’t let anything else get a look in. So every once in a while I just stand up. The pigeons are so twitchy, that is all it takes to cause them to fly off and give the rest of the bird kingdom a chance.

Have you noticed how much static you can build up during these crisp, dry, cold spells ?

Got myself one hell of a belt from my laptop this morning. Or maybe I gave it one. Even so the crack that sounded was impressive.

What am I listening to at the moment ?

Well I finally got my Streamium talking to the internet again. Had to plumb it in using an ethernet cable. Not ideal but at least my Soundbridge is back in the lounge attached to the HiFi. The Streamium is still not talking to my PC, YET !!! So I can only listen to my CD/MP3 collection when I am sat close to the PC but I will prevail.

So right now I am listening to Radio Lewes Why ? Well mainly because it appeared on the Streamium as “popular” but also because I used to live in Lewes and felt some distant allegiance. Distant because I was only seven when I moved away.

What do I think of the station ? Well it was worth a listen. No annoying DJ chatter. They play an eclectic mix of musical styles including Penguin Cafe Orchestra, Elvis Costello, Amy Winehouse, Little Boots and…. well you see what I mean.

It’s great music to have playing while I am transferring all my files to my new works laptop. In their inimitable way they, work, have given me a great piece of kit with all the basic apps that everyone needs. However, in my role there are a number of specialised apps that are unique and so I have to install them myself. And there are the innumerable files that I have created over the last two or three years. That in itself is a voyage of discovery. There is an app supplied that does the transfer. I ran that last night, took around two hours. Trouble is it hid the files on the new machine because Microsoft has changed the file/folder names between Windows XP and Windows 7.

Kate Rusby on Radio Lewes, what a fabulous voice she has. Really tears at the heart strings.

Time to go and get something to eat. I hear eggy butties calling.