Monday 1st JUNE 2015 – I’M RELIEVED …

… that it’s not just me who doesn’t do mornings. I had to take Caliburn to the garage to have his brakes fixed, and when I arrived (at 07:50) the garage owner was busy opening up the place. I said hello (or, rather, bonjour) and I was greeted by a series of grunts.

Yes, 07:50. I was up and wide awake by O7:00, which makes a change, and having gathered everything that I needed for today, I was on the road by 07:30 and that’s not like me at all.

Mind you, I couldn’t help a little smile as I left the premises. Here I was, taking Caliburn to a garage to have the rear brakes fixed, and here are the rear brakes on the garage’s van.

It’s certainly true to say that garages always have the worst cars, just as electricians have the worst electrics, and plumbers have the houses with the most leaky pipes.

Seeing as I was much too early for Terry, I walked into town. And my route took me past the abandoned railway station here at St Gervais.

The station and the railway line here were closed suddenly and dramatically when it was announced that a snap inspection of the Viaduc des Fades, the highest railway viaduct in the world when it was built, had discovered that the viaduct was totally unfit to take the weight of trains.

But anyone who came with me on out little walk across the viaduct will have noticed that there was nothing sudden about the state of the viaduct. It had been decaying for years and no-one had bothered to look at it – or, rather, they had put off the work so that it would all need doing at once and that would be a good excuse for closing down the line.

Terry and I went off to Riom and much to our surprise, at the sous-prefecture we were number 48, and they were dealing with number 33. That meant a wait of about an hour, a far cry from when I went to register Caliburn in 2009 and I was number 143 and had to wait until after midday.

It was painless at the sous-prefecture and then we went off to have the number plates made for his new van and for me to deal with a taxation issue at the Tresor Publique.

After lunch it was back to Gerzat for the Radio Arverne sessions, and I didn’t feel much like it due to my early start. Liz and I went shopping afterwards and had a coffee, and it was back to see how Caliburn was doing. They had managed to free off all of the mechanism but they needed some parts, which won’t be here until tomorrow. So Liz ran me home and I crashed out. I can’t last the pace these days.

Sunday 31st May 2015 – LOOKING BACK …

… over a few postings from last year, I see that I was having certain sleeping issues. Not so at the moment (said he, tempting fate) because last night I had another really good sleep. Out like a light and no danger of moving until 09:45 this morning. That’s what I call a decent sleep.

And I was on my travels too. I was in Canada driving a car with half a dozen or so other people, musicians in a rock group and featuring my niece’s husband. What was interesting about this was that even though we were driving on the right, we couldn’t turn right but had to turn left across the traffic and then turn right and right a little further along and then cross the traffic a second time. And when you weren’t on the main highway you had to travel in reverse, and reverse was powered by two engines operated by push-buttons. You had to push them both to travel in a straight line, and either the right or left button to turn right or left. And you went at such a speed backwards too but I did manage not to knock anything over or hit anything. At a Motorway Service area where we stopped for a coffee, there was a customised Harley Davidson, a kind of greeny olive green colour.

Anyway, enough of that. While I was having breakfast I was watching another film off the laptop via the big screen on the AKAI DVD player. That works well enough and I’m quite pleased with that.

After breakfast, I carried on with the radio programmes and I’ve done another pile of text for future programmes. I just need now to do some additional notes and the rock programmes and I’ll be a month ahead, which is where I like to be.

I had another play around with this 3D programme and that’s working just fine now, although I’m still of the opinion that it’s unnecessarily complicated and the file directory system is absolutely hopeless (and there’s no way of altering it either).

I crashed out again this afternoon and awoke with a start to find that I only had half an hour before I needed to go off to see Liz and Terry. But as it was nice, I had a heated shower in the verandah seeing as how there was plenty of hot water in the home-made immersion heater, thanks to the good weather, and now I smell of nice coconut.

Liz and I rehearsed the radio programmes and finished off a few bits and pieces, and then Liz cooked a lovely tea for the three of us.

Now the weekend is over. I have things to do tomorrow, including the radio, and then back to work on Tuesday. High time I cracked on with the bathroom.

-1

Saturday 30th May 2015 – THAT EARLY NIGHT …

… last night did me the world of good. Not only was I up before the alarm went off, I had dashed off another topic and half-completed a second one before midday. Quite a contrast to the last few days when I’ve been struggling to summon up some motivation.

I also had the privilege of watching a film on the big DVD screen via the laptop – one of the old black-and-white ones that I’ve recorded off the internet at archive.org. And that works very well too.

For the rest of the day, I’ve been struggling with this 3D program, setting it up and making it work. When I started at lunchtime, I couldn’t get anything to work. But as the day went on, I managed to get almost everything work; although I can’t find one of the morphs that I use the most and this is going to be something of a problem.

That’s about everything that I’ve done today. I haven’t been outside except for the stats. And tomorrow will be more of the same.

Friday 29th May 2015 – THIS BACKING-UP …

… of my new laptop wasn’t as straightforward as I had thought it might be. And when I finally did go to bed – at 03:45 in the morning, it was far from finished. Mind you, I was. Keeping my eyes open at this time of night was not as easy as it used to be.

And I was up early to – a good few minutes before the alarm clock went off, and I even had time to make myself some breakfast before setting off to Marcillat-en-Combraille and the radio recordings for Radio Anglais.

Everything went according to plan and we were away quite early too. And that was just as well as I had to go to the garage at St Gervais d’Auvergne with Caliburn. Liz ran me back to her house for lunch afterwards and then Terry and I went down to Riom to sort out the tax payments on his van.

THat was quite straightforward too and we even had time for a run out to Lempdes for Terry to buy a new ladder.

It really was a gorgeous day and we made the most of it, sitting outside having a coffee in the sunshine, and then Liz ran me round to the garage to pick up Caliburn.

All of the mechanism on the brakes is working fine, so the problem isn’t there. If I take Caliburn back on Monday they will strip it all down and check to see exactly what is going on, and why the rear brake isn’t doing what it is supposed to.

The good news is, however, that according to them, there is nothing wrong with Caliburn in the grand. I dida sk them to check it over and their opinion is that he is in good condition for his age with nothing to worry about. The conclusion that I have drawn from all of this is that Barrat Ford in Montlucon will not be able to rely on any more of my custom.

Back here, I carried on with the backing-up and the re-installation of my 3d Program. However, I didn’t get very far. It’s 22:00, I can’t keep my eyes open, I haven’t even done the stats and I don’t care. I’m off to bed before I ……. (zzzzzzzzz)

-1

Thursday 28th May 2015 – OHH WOW!

New laptop arrived this morning, all 500GB of it. Yet another tough, resilient Acer Aspire (I hope) but a very much different model. Most of the plugs (USB connections, mains lead, HDMI cable, ethernet plug) go in the back where you can’t see them, and isn’t that going to be a recipe for disaster in a confined space?

It has a British keyboard (so I’ve ordered some keyboard stickers) and a British lead on the power pack; which is what I wanted. But trhe charger isn’t an Acer one, but a cheap aftermarket Chinese one; the kind that you buy for €2:99 off eBay. At least though the lead to the power pack is unpluggable so that one can acquire European and North American leads for it. Unfortunately, it’s not a type of lead that I have around here.

And here’s a thing. Many of you will remember me losing a portable hard drive when I was in Brussels 2 years ago. All of my 3D files – tons of the stuff, much of which can’t now be replaced – went with it and started something of a panic that I have still not quite resolved.

But there I was, cleaning out the drive on the 1st Aspire – the one with the broken scren and smashed keyboard that I’ve been using just now – and Lo! And behold! Here are all of the files, and every last one of them too, in all their glory, sitting in a clearly-labelled “TEMP” directory where I must have assembled them when I copied them to the portable drive. I blame old age myself.

But this series of good nights sleeps continued again. Once more, I was well away with the fairies during the night, doing some shopping at a farm shop, patiently waiting my turn in the queue. Finally, it came to me and as I stepped forward, one of the previous customers pushed her way in, handed the assistant a birthday card and started to chat. I had quite a few words to say on this subject, as you can imagine.

So after my early breakfast, I cracked on with the radio programmes and I’ve finally finished despite the numerous distractions. Terry came round for a chat and to make plans for a future project, someone rang up (and I can’t remember who it was now) and I was having a long chat with someone on the internet.

Not only that, the glorious day today saw 180 amp-hours of surplus solar energy into the home-made 12-volt immersion heater. That took the temperature off the scale (ie over 70°C) and with the water in the solar shower at 33°C, I added 5 litres of hot water (that took it to 39°C) and I had the most glorious solar shower. First for a while and now I’m ready for anything, even Radio Tartasse tomorrow morning.

Now I’m backing up all my files and when it’s finished, I’m off to bed.

-1

Wednesday 27th May 2015 – I HAD YET ANOTHER …

… excellent night’s sleep last night. A reasonably-early night, out like a light until rhe alarm went off. I could have slept through an earthquake.

I was on my travels too during the night on a journey that went on and on and on. I can’t remember all that much of it but one part that does stick in my mind was my mate Terry, who is a big sportsman, wanting to lay all kinds of sports and sending his daughter off to knock on people’s doors to ask them if they fancied a game of something. But it was always Jo who ended up playing, and Terry was out of luck.

I was up and about before the alarm stopped ringing and had a nice leisurely breakfast. Then I carried on with what I was doing yesterday.

This afternoon, I finally found some of my missing motivation an restarted the radio work. But Rosemary phoned up for a chat and knocked me out of my stride.

I’ll have to do much better than this tomorrow.

Tuesday 26th May 2015 – REMEMBER ME TALKING …

… the other day about the incident at Barrat Ford in Montlucon and my enormous estimate for repairs to prepare Caliburn for the controle technique?

So I duly took Caliburn along to St Gervais for his controle technique this morning, and guess what?

Yes, well done that man. Caliburn passed his controle technique with just a comment about the left-hand rear brake.

The two bald tyres on the rear, according to Barrat (€200 plus TVA plus fitting), have 3.5mm of tread according to the MoT examiner.

The bodywork that is rusted through, according to Barrat, is good for another 10 years, according to the MoT examiner

The knocking from the front end, that is the steering rack about to fall apart and needs replacing according to Barrat (€564 + TVA + fitting) is a worn bush on the anti-roll bar (cost €2:50) according to the MoT examiner.

You can draw your own conclusions from all of this. But anyway, I’ve booked Caliburn in to another garage on Friday for a final check, just so I can have yet another opinion.

With all that was going on, I was wide awake by 06:00 and up and about long before the alarm went off. After a good wash I was on my way and was early at the controle technique.

I had time for a coffee with Liz too. She had come up to St Gervais to run some errands and so we met up. And then I went off for some shopping.

I spoke to Terry too. We’ve agreed to go on Friday afternoon to tax his new van, and on Monday morning to go and register it.

I’m going to be busy these next few days then.

Monday 25th May 2015 – IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that yesterday was bad, today was even worse. For long periods the internet connection wasn’t giving me any more than 20kbs and for long periods I wasn’t even getting anything at all. It wasn’t until quite late that things took off again and I was back at the 250 Kbs again – far too late for the football.

I didn’t have the same sleep last night either. I was awake in the middle of the night and struggled to get back off to sleep again. And by about 08:45 I’d had enough and was up and about.

To continue my day of rest I read a book and caught up with some work of my own that needed attention. There’s still plenty of time for the radio programmes. And I also had to help Liz design a form for a receipt for a product that she’s dealing with.

So that’s my day of rest over. For the second day in succession I’ve only put my foot outside to take the stats.

But I need to be up early tomorrow – it’s Caliburn’s controle technique.

-1

Sunday 24th May 2015 – WASN’T THAT A NICE …

… sleep last night?

I had a reasonably early night and went out like a light. And then I remember absolutely nothing until about 09:30 this morning. It’s a long time since I’ve had a good sleep like that.

A nice leisurely breakfast and then I sat down to carry on with the radio programmes, but I didn’t get far. I’m easily sidetracked, especially on a Bank Holiday weekend, and I ended up cutting my hair. it really did need doing too.

My experiments for watching the internet-streamed football on the laptop via the medium of the big screen on the DVD player were not so successful. But that wasn’t the fault of the screen.

In fact the screen worked very well, once I remembered that I could enlarge the web browser to fill the screen with the image, it worked quite well. But where it all fell apart was in the streaming.

Orange promise me between 2 and 8 Mbs, and according to the meter on their website, I’m receiving about 2.13 Mb. I don’t know where it’s all going though, because according to the meter that I have on my laptop, I’ve never had more than 280 Kbs and on Sunday we were having about 60 Kbs. That’s with everything else switched off and a very downgraded Google Chrome browser running just the one page.

Clearly something isn’t right.

-1

Saturday 23rd May 2015 – I DIDN’T …

… finish what I planned to do today. Not the least reason being that I …err … didn’t pay too much attention to the alarm clock this morning, and then I crashed out for an hour or so this afternoon.

I’m clearly working far too hard (said he, modestly).

Although I made some progress, I spent most of the day doing other things. Nothing very much of course, but I’m entitled to have a day of rest every so often.

I did manage to make it out to the Intermarche at ionsat to get the fresh food for next week though, but I wasn’t out for long.

This idea of running the laptop through the DVD player works in spades too. For the first time since I don’t know when, I was able to see a football match in something like a reasonable resolution, although the internet connection still isn’t fast enough to stream it properly.

Friday 22nd May 2015 – I HAD A REALLY …

… good night’s sleep last night, just for a change.

Admittedly I went to bed late and I was up early with the alarm, but in between time I didn’t feel a thing.

After breakfast I finished off the notes for the rock music programmes, and also made up a sound file for my “studio guests”, something that I had forgotten to do.

Once I’d done that, I started on the rest of the radio programmes and had a good go at that, and that’s all that I’ve done today. I’ve only been outside to take the stats.

Tomorrow I’ll finish this off and my plan for the afternoon is to watch a football match. I want to see how this idea of running the laptop through the TV screen works for a streamed footy match.

In other news, you’ll remember the farce that was last season at Bangor City where the team, the best-supported in the WPL, struggled against relegation for most of the season.

The club has published its retained list of players from this season just ended, and they have announced 14 of the players who failed so spectacularly will be staying with the club. This means a place for about 5 or 6 new players, and that’s nowhere near enough to resolve the difficulties.

So it looks as if next seaso will be more of the same. What kind of joke is this?

Thursday 22nd May 2015 – OUCH!

Yes, just picked Caliburn up from the Ford garage in Montlucon. He’s had his service but anything needed for the Controle Technique has not been done because, according to the garage, there’s “so much that needs to be done” and they’ve given me the kind of written estimate that has noughts all across the page.

And for a start, four of the things that they mention don’t need doing at all and I know that for definite. And as for Caliburn being rusted right through underneath, I’ve never seen so much rubbish in all my life. There’s a small spot on the nearside sill, but that’s not gone through at all and the rest of it is just stone-chip damage, and I did the worst (such as it was) the other day as I’m sure that you remember.

And there’s a lump out of the passenger door that certainly wasn’t there when I left him.

Consequently I’m going to take him for the controle technique “as is”, get a failure slip and then go to chat to someone else. I shall certainly eat Humble Pie if it is as bad as the Ford Garage suggests, and even if it is, I shan’t be paying anything like what the Ford garage wants.

But it will be a cold day in Hell before I ever go to the Ford garage in Montlucon again.

So that’s them off the list. And the Ford garage at Riom came off the list ages ago, and the one at Brussels came off the list after the dismal attempt at fixing the brakes last year as you remember.

There isn’t anyone left now.

Liz kindly took me into Montlucon this afternoon and we had several coffees and a chat, and then after I had rescued Caliburn I went off to do my shopping in the Auchan and in Brico Depot where I bought my bathroom sink and taps.

This morning though, with the new improved workstation, I mixed and engineered the live concert for the next month, and its come out quite well. Just two joints that aren’t quite right and having studied the waveforms, I can say that that’s a fault of the original mixing and there’s not much I can do about that.

As for the rest of it, it either merges in or overlaps perfectly and that was what I was hoping to do. You certainly can’t hear the joins there.

So tomorrow I’ll do the text for the rock programmes, and then start on the rest.

And last night’s temperature? A mere 2°C

-1

Wednesday 20th May 2015 – I’VE SOLVED …

… the question of the damaged computer screen on the old laptop – and I’ve solved it in spades too.

This morning I made a start on the radio programmes and in particular the rock programmes for the next edition of the Radio Anglais programmes that we will be doing.

Using a variety of sources (the SD card out of Caliburn, the music stored on a couple of mobile phones and the music on the memory stick in the Canadian travel bag) I’ve recovered more than enough music to have a good go at a few radio programmes to keep me going.

I’ve done the “miscellaneous” programme, but there’s an add-on missing from the program that I use for making up the live concerts and I’ve no idea where that might be.

But needing to use Audacity led me to require a full screen, and that started me thinking, which is always dangerous.

Ages ago, Terry gave me a cable with an HDMI plug on one end and a USB plug on the other. And both the laptop and the 12-volt DVD player with its impressive 18-inch screen have the aforementioned.

But no matter which way round I plugged the cable in, it wouldn’t carry the signal from the laptop to the screen. Even jury-rigging an ad-hoc USB cable didn’t work either.

However, when I was at Montlucon this afternoon, I purchased the correct cable and – wha-hey! Not only do I have a most-impressive computer screen, I have the most astonishing stereo sound coming out of the speakers of the DVD player.

This is an exciting discovery and I’ll be actively pursuing this avenue in the future.

I took Caliburn into the Ford main agents for his annual service, but here’s a thing. They don’t have a rolling road there so they can’t balance out the brakes. That surely must be a first.

I had to walk into town afterwards and it’s been quite a while since I’ve done that journey.

My route took me past the site of the old Canal du Berry. Montlucon used to have a huge steel industry and in the days before the arrival, everything came in and out by canal.

This last 5 years or so, they’ve built over the bed of the canal and as I keep on saying, I woder how long it will be before they regret doing that.

Montlucon is a old Medieval walled city, although you might not think so if you have only ever see the outskirts of the place.

Liz was working until 18:30 and so that gave me plenty of opportunity to go for a wander around and see what was going on, as well as grabbing something to eat

This is believed to be one of the oldest buildings in the town, dating from the 14th Century, and it certainly looks it too.

There are several other old buildings in the immediate vicinity, noe of which is as old as this but well-worth a look all the same.

This though is my favourite building in Montlucon, but what lets it down is its immediate surroudings. Everything has been “redeveloped” with modern concrete slab construction.

It’s not clear whether it was the Mayor or the RAF that was responsible for the demolition in the immediate vicinity, but it’s far enough away from any major centre of any military importance to have been the RAF.

At least when they rebuilt the city, they had the good sense to leave a large open space all the way from the railway station to the chateau so that there’s this most impressive view, and the fountain sets it all off nicely.

But I really cannot think what must have gone through the minds of the mayor and the town council to have rebuilt thiese dreadful concrete monstrosities.

Talking of the railway station, there has been some “talk” about the lack of resolution of the French in resisting the German invaders during World War II.

This part of France was only occupied for two years, and this is a memorial to the railway employees of the Montlucon railway depot who lost their lives due to “war-related incidents” during the war.

I’m not sure how many people worked at the depot, but there are 28 names on the list, all of them civilians. It doesn’t say how each of the people died, but I bet that it wasn’t peacefully in bed.

Tuesday 19th May 2015 – SO HERE I AM …

… sitting at home with a laptop with a failed hard drive that doesn’t work.

And am I downhearted? No!!!!

Because I have another laptop with half a screen and half a keyboard to keep me going. And this just shows the beauty of a little program like Note Tab, where you can create your own library of regularly-used text and click on the library entry with the mouse to insert it in the text that you are writing.

So once you have set up your own alphabet library, using copy-paste from work that you have done before, you can type all kinds of lengthy documents using just a mouse (and if your mouse packs up, you can plug in an external one).

As for the cracked screen, then an old external screen from a desktop machine works fine, although by manoeuvring your work around to good bits of the screen, even that is not essential. And that’s how I’m working even as we speak

So you see, we’re still here and still churning out the rubbish. It’ll take more than a mere damaged computer to put a stop to me.

What did however put a stop to me was the phone, so at least I know that that is now working again. Terry is stuck for a cement mixer and seeing as how the one that I have is his old one, he wanted to know if he could borrow it. Well, I’m not likely to be using it for quite a while yet, so he came round to pick it up and we had quite a chat.

Then I went back and cracked on with the work.

And until about midnight, that’s exactly what I did too. All of the blog is now up-to-date and tomorrow, once I’ve taken Caliburn for his annual check-up, I’ll start on the radio programmes.

Shame that I lost them in my hard-drive crash, but there you go.

-1

Monday 18th May 2015 – AS YOU MIGHT EXPECT …

… we had something of a slow start this morning. After my long drive of yesterday and my bad night’s sleep thanks to the Swiss Highway Patrol, I was in no mood for an early start.

Nevertheless, I did heave myself out of my stinking pit at something like a reasonable hour and after breakfast I set to work.

And the result of today’s efforts is, quite frankly, in the words of the old poem three-fifths of five-eights of … errr … badger all.

Anyone reading this rubbish will recall that the laptop that packed up on my voyage is my second Acer Aspire. The first one has a broken screen and a smashed keyboard where something fell on it (but despite that, this is what I’m using regardless, with “cut-and-paste” for the missing letters and manoeuvring the workspace around the screen, which shows you just how resilient they are, not to mention the five hours battery life) so the idea was quite simple – two identical machines so just swap the hard drives over.

After about two hours, during which time I realised that despite the outer casing being identical, they are far from identical inside and not even the batteries will swap over. Moving the disks produces the error message “No bootable device detected” even though the disks are both being picked up by the BIOS.

Acer’s technical help was interesting too. On their live chat system, I had a brief discussion with a “technician” who then copy-pasted a huge long screed about “you need to send your machine in for repair. Please send us £50-odd to open a file for you, and then we will send you instructions”.

So much for that.

The ultimate solution to the problem is a new machine. And there was an Acer Aspire – a more up-to-date version of mine – for £219 which by the time I’ve added the £50 for the file, the cost of a new hard drive, the labour for the installation and the postage and packing is mere peanuts.

So that is that. Meanwhile, any tips for hacking the information out of the old failed drive would be much appreciated.

On that note I went down to the Intermarche in Pionsat to buy some food seeing as how there is nothing here to eat. But badger that for a moment – here’s something exciting.

You can tell by the louvred bonnet that this is one of the earliest Citroen 2CV’s, and the deckchair interior goes to prove it too.

And while I was having a good look around, the owner came out. None other than Marianne’s friend Francois Legay, who has quite an interesting collection of old vehicles.

This Citroen is a 1952 model and is about 98% original. The seat material, the cooling fan and one or two other bits and bobs have been replaced, mainly due to the difficulty of resourcing the original parts.

There’s a 375cc engine in there, air-cooled of course, and flat-out, downhill with a following wind the car might just manage 70kph.

So that cheered me up somewhat, and I went off quite happily to do my shopping.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality