Finally, an article in the press expressing an opinion in tune with how I feel about the recent fuss over social work:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/sH8Ac_DVd3sAPSkOd_cicLg/view.m?id=359156&tid=120787&cat=Politics

Travelling back from London again. This time I'm hooked up to the wireless network on the train and can therefore blog from my netbook. Interesting process for doing this. I had to su to root, and then change the entry for wlan0 in /etc/rc.conf to 'ifconfig_wlan0="DHCP"' and then run dhclient from the command line. That said, the process wasn't too onerous and once I'd figured out what to do I was up and running in no time. The main delay was figuring out dhclient - I have static routing set up at home for my FreeBSD boxes. Anyway, the short story is that it was nowhere near as difficult as I was expecting it to be - I've never really done wireless networking outside of home before, except with the Windows Mobile (gakh) 'phone.

Coming into Crewe now, so should be back in Lime Street shortly. There was a brief scare at Euston when the alarms went off and they evacuated the station. I thought I was either going to get blown up, or be very delayed in getting home. But whether it was some sort of mistake or not I don't know - they called us all back in within 5 minutes. No delays and everything's been fine so far thank goodness.

Still trying to learn C programming. I'm not finding this easy (although I'm probably making this harder than it needs to be ny using K&R). Perl still feels like a very 'natural' language to me. The main reason for learning C is so that I can learn to use GTK and program a speech app for Alex to do his homework with using Festival. Yes, I know I could do this in Perl, but the opportunity to learn C seemed like the motivation I needed to finally get off my bum and do it.

All reasonably well at home, I just need the weather to turn around so that we can get out of the house a bit more at the weekend. The looming battle over Alex's secondary school is still just far enough over the horizon for me to stay in denial for a little while longer at least.

And I haven't even mentioned the fiasco on Mother's Day when I undercooked the pork for Deb's Mum and Dad, and had to be rescued by Deb!

Still back into Elvis after going to the show a week or so ago. Relistening to 'Artist of the Century' (which, if you remember, I bought from the Amazon marketplace for one pound). More and more interested in the 70's work.

Leaving Crewe now, so will get back to reading K&R (maybe).

Another good article by Polly Toynbee in today's Guardian:

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gmg/op/s7E9ouII5y435iLRAfqL-dQ/view.m?id=350713&tid=120787&cat=Politics

PCS are on strike. I can't help thinking that striking at a time like this really isn't going to work - even though I agree with the sentiments behind the strike. Why do the government want to change the terms for redundancy payments now? The only plausible answer is that they are considering mass redundancies over the coming years. I don't support the argument that it is appropriate to bring the civil service into line with the private sector either. Conditions in the civil service are different - pay at the lower ends is generally poorer, but is by and large tolerated because some of the other benefits - pensions, flexible working - are good. Start to strip away the benefits and the case for putting basic pay in line with the private sector becomes stronger. And yet the civil service is facing zero pay rise next year (after years of pay increases around 1% when the private sector was getting 5%).

So the cause is justified, but the strike is still misguided. Public perception of civil servants is dreadful at the best of times. Striking over conditions at this time is not the way to win it over.

Mark Serwotka it seems to me is overly bellicose, enjoying the power of "everybody out!" far more than taking practical steps to protect his members.

So in the end nobody wins. Certainly not the civil servants who lose 2 days pay, and a lot of public sympathy, as well as their redundancy rights.

A very poor picture of Elvis at the "Elvis Presley in Concert" show last night. Picked up a spare ticket at the last minute from an old friend.

Fabulous show. It did really rather a good job of evoking the atmosphere of a concert, even though the lead singer wasn't actually there. The band was good, if a little old now (artists who had worked with Elvis in the 70's).

Stand out moments were 'How Great Thou Art', 'Heartbreak Hotel', and 'Suspicious Minds'.

The crowd was a little odd though - quite a few jump suits and wigs...

Doing quite a lot of work in Visual Basic at the moment, which is distressing. I've done quite a bit with this using VBA for Excel in work (still going on that too). But I've now downloaded VB 2008 Express Edition from Microsoft and installed it on Alex's computer. Starting toying with it to develop a timer for when Alex switches it on - to try to make him turn if off after a certain amount of time. I've managed to get quite far with it in not too long at all really - to the point of being able to make the computer switch off after a specified time, while displaying a progress bar counting the time down. The plan eventually is to make it play a sound file telling Alex it's time to turn off. I may even post it here when it's done.

This really made me laugh:

http://xkcd.com/705/

Alex wanted a barbecue today so...19th February and first barbecue of the year!. Freezing cold and a disposable tray, but the sausages tasted great!

Right then, here are the URL's for my little Perl blogging things:

http://freespace.virgin.net/four.harrisons/beelog/beelog
http://freespace.virgin.net/four.harrisons/beelog/Blogging.pm

Feedback welcome!

Psellos book 3:

"...the sea beyond the pillars of Hercules was explored..."

Long distance trade with the west? The Franks? Britain?