Tag Archives: HDMI cable

Saturday 13th January 2018 – ISN’T IT NICE …

NEW TELEVISION place d'armes granville manche normandy france… to be able to watch the football on the big screen?

Unfortunately the laptop with the broken screen didn’t work – it’s quite an old laptop of course and the software in it won’t run the video plug-in for the browser.

But the laptop that I’ve been using as a media centre up until recently did the business, that’s for sure, and I was able to watch the first half of Cefn Druids v Llandudno in perfect comfort.

Unfortunately it wasn’t such a perfectly comfortable night? I was awake in the middle of the night and took a while to go back to sleep again. But I was dead to the world when the alarm went off and it was a struggle to leave the bed. How I’m looking forward to a nice lie-in tomorrow!

After breakfast I had a shower, a good clean-up and change of clothes, and then off to the shops, where I spent another pile of money.

LIDL had some hand towels of the type that I bought the other day so a pack of three disappeared into Caliburn, as did a battery charger. All of mine are back at the farm and in any case are over 30 years old. A little hi-tech modern one will do much better when I might need it.

At Mr Bricolage I bought a knob for my saucepan lid – the one on which I broke the handle the other day, and NOZ came up with the usual stuff.

Centrakor provided a new washing-up bolw of the correct size (so my wok and my pizza platter will fit into it), a few other bits and pieces and a box with a tight-fitting lid – just the thing in which to keep my socks and undies.

At LeClerc I went to look at the HDMI cables because the one-metre cable that I have isn’t really long enough for what I need. And with -metre ones on offer at just €9:99, that’s long enough for just about everything.

LeClerc was also having a sale on suitcases. And a small cabin-sized one on wheels at just €15:99 – just the thing for my trips to Leuven – also ended up in the back of Caliburn.

And I’m glad that I had bought that TV last weel, because there wasn’t a cheap one anywhere to be seen in the shop.

After fuelling up, I came back home, made myself some soup and then … errr … had a little rest for half an hour. And then cracked on with organising the shopping and sorting out another pile of papers. There’s actually some room in the drawers here now, and isn’t that astonishing?

At the end of the football I had to leave.

football us cerencaise us mouettes de donville cerences manche normandy franceCaliburn and I went off to Cérences where we were the other week.

It’s the nearest Saturday night match and the home side were playing the Mouettes of Donville.

The first half was all one-way traffic towards the Donville goal. But the Donville keeper put in a performance that neither he nor I will ever forget, including a magnificent “Banks” reverse save. It was the performance of a lifetime and I don’t think that I’ve seen better.

At the start of the second half Donville made two substitutions and the two players that came on, playing down the left, changed the balance of the game and we had a much more even contest.

However it didn’t last. The new left winger had clearly unsettled the defenders and after about 25 minutes he was on the receiving end of a bad challenge and limped off the field. We then went back to the one-sided match that we had in the first half.

The Donville keeper was finally beaten with just 10 minutes to go – a long-range shot that dipped and curled out of his reach and in underneath the angle of the post and crossbar – but he still made a couple more top-class saves to make the result look a lot closer than it deserved.

But there was a lot of naughty stuff going on in this game about which the referee didn’t seem at all concerned. One Cérences player made two tackles in as many minutes, either of which merited a red card in my opinion but nothing was given. And so a minute or two later a Donville player exacted his own retribution by giving him a kick that would have felled an ox. No card for that either.

And that’s just a couple of examples. There were many more.

So, frozen to the marrow, I drove back here and now I’m going to bed.

A nice lie-in, I hope. I deserve it.

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Monday 8th January 2018 – I’M CRACKING …

… on with the arrangements in here, I’ll tell you.

I had a closer look at the TV today. there’s a USB socket that, surprisingly, can be used to record TV programmes (not that this concerns me of course) but it’s also a data input socket.

And so Brain of Britain had a marvellous idea. He found a USB memory stick and copied a pile of black and white films onto it, and then inserted it into the USB socket.

Making the TV read the memory stick wasn’t the work of five minutes though, but eventually I managed to make it function, and there on the menu were all of my films.

The problem is, however, that the format of most of them isn’t supported by the television and that was something of a disappointment.

But not to be outdone. Where there’s a will there are relatives, so the old saying goes.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I have an old laptop that runs perfectly well, apart from the smashed screen and keyboard. And it has come in useful at times too in the past.

But it’s having a dramatic lease of life right now. Because regular readers of this rubbish will recall that a few weeks ago I bought an HDMI cable in the NOZ for €1:99. And there’s a HDMI socket on the laptop and two on the television.

And so I connected the one to the other via the third, and spent the next considerable while trying to make the TV read the signal from the laptop.

It was easy once I’d figured it out, and then I had the delightful pleasure of not only watching all of my films, but a slideshow of my photographs and also some Youtube videos in full glorious technicolour.

Not only that, I reckon that the streamed football matches that I watch at weekend can be picked up on the old laptop and I’ll be able to watch them on the TV too and maybe even, if I can configure it properly, to record them too.

But I need a much longer HDMI cable. At the moment I’m having to make do with an old cordless mouse to control the laptop – or I would if I had any batteries. I must sort this out.

Yes, it’s all systems go here – even if it did take much of the day to sort it out.

For one reason or another I still had the alarm set at 07:30 this morning. But I did manage to beat it out of bed.

After breakfast and doing some paperwork and watching a couple of miscellaneous itemsfor which I was bidding (and winning) on an on-line auction site, I began my marathon odyssey with the television.

We had an interruption for lunch when I finished off the soup from Saturday, and another one when I went for a walk around the headland – first time for quite a while. And yet another when I stopped for half an hour on the guitar, during which I … errr … fell asleep.

Just for a change I managed a third meal tonight too. Baked potatoes with cheese stuck in the cuts and baked beans. The cheese melted nicely in the microwave and it was all delicious.

When the washing-up was finished I went for a walk around the city walls. And that’s the first for quite a while too. But that proved to be a little too much and it was something of a struggle over the last 400 metres.

So now I’m sitting listening to Led Zeppelin on my new hi-fi, with which I’m even more impressed that I am with my galvanised steel dustbin, and I’ll be off for a well-earned sleep in early course.

I really can’t stand the pace these days.

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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.

collection of input output sockets AKAI DVD player France may 2015Ages 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.

canal du berry montlucon allier France may 2015My 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.

medieval centre montlucon allier France may 2015Montlucon 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

medieval centre montlucon allier France may 2015This 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.

medieval centre montlucon allier France may 2015This 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.

modern montlucon allier France may 2015At 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.

memorial to SNCF railway employees died in World War II montlucon allier France may 2015Talking 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.

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