Not a good morning

We had a good sleep-in this morning and got up to find two anonymous notes in our letterbox complaining about our selfish slamming of doors. This followed one we had recieved last week, also anonymous. Given that we hadn't opened the door since getting home the previous day we were a bit miffed. You can imagine that we weren't happy with gutless anonymous notes, so we have posted our (named and signed) reply on the downstairs door. Our neighbour opposite made the effort to say hello and tell us they hadn't noticed any particularly noisy door shutting, so we can rule them out. 8-) Actually we are virtually certain it is the two downstairs - one an elderly lady, the other unseen - who seem to have got bees in their bonnet. I was tempted just to tell them to F-off, but instead asked them to come and talk to us. We'll see if that happens, but if they want a war they'll get one!

I managed to slice my finger quite deeply this morning so that's bandaged up and causing problems typing.

Oh, yes. To add to the great morning, we got a letter from our ISP saying that we'd gone over our 'fair use' allowance and would have our connection throttled back to dial-up speed next month in punishment. I've appealed, but if you are expecting any large attachments from me next month, you shouldn't hold your breath. We had been watching on-line video (having no TV) and this seems to have swallowed our allowance and then some. Unfortunately the warning letter arrived today but advised us that we had to cut our usage in the month up to Sept 30th to avoid the punishment - rather difficult if we are already over!

Earlier in the week we had the dreadful news that one of my colleagues at OGHS, and a flatmate for a time (KYg), has been diagnosed with lung cancer. Our thoughts are with her.

The economic news continues to be bad and I can't help thinking that this is how people must have felt as the Wall Street crash loomed in 1929. The timing could not possibly have been worse with American elections crippling any reasonable response for fear of picking the wrong 'side'. Who'd've thought we'd hear George Bush and the multi-millionaire CEO of one of the biggest finance companies in the world being accused of being socialist! I had thought that lessons had been learnt from the Great Depression and that controls in place would prevent anything similar happening again. So too had politicians and financial gurus I guess, so everyone has had a nasty shock. Could this be the end of capitalism as we have known it, to match the apparent defeat of world socialism over the past 20 years? Or will the world markets continue to be driven by those only interested in profit once the dust has settled (like Chinese milk product manufacturers and their ethically confused NZ shareholders)? JP Morgan Chase seem set to continue for one, having picked up some bargain basement competitors. I hope those teaching 'Origins of WW2' are milking the parallels in their classes.

Regardless, my job continues in its inevitably boring fashion. We have completed the Scottish pipes in Phase I of this project and started the Southern (English) pipes yesterday. The landmark was celebrated with cake and drinks and a "thank you" from the boss. NOT. The first escapee appears to have been settled though, with Noni heading off to a programming job next week, subject to reference checks. Hooray! One up for the escape committee. A shame though as she was one of the faster working amoung us. I accomplished little yesterday, as for many pipes I couldn't even find the street, let alone the pipe! I feel a field trip to Lambeth (also home of the IWM) would be nice, but I think I'll struggle to convince the powers that be...

On that boring note I shall sign off...

A weekend away

We got away for the weekend as you will have read in J's blog. We toodled up through Perth to Forfar via a couple of castles and so on. There is no shortage of the former in the area, that's for sure. We didn't actually stop in Perth and will do that some other day as there is a great castle there - Stirling - which also houses the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders Museum and Archive, and the Black Watch museum is also in the vicinity.

Instead we saw a few little castles on the Saturday and a big one - Glamis - on the Sunday. The latter was where the Queen Mum was born and often lived. It was a good example of a lived-in castle, but it's all just a reminder of the huge gap between the classes over here. Sometimes the overwhelming feeling wasn't to be impressed, but rather faintly disgusted.

On the way back we saw some Pictish carved stones. These were the predecessors of the Scots, at least in the east of (present) Scotland. They were Christians so the carvings were combinations of Christian and pagan symbolism, some of them pretty gruesome. We finished the trip by driving over the impressive Tay bridge at Dundee and visiting 'Scotland's Secret Bunker' which isn't so much a secret any more. The latter was built during the Cold War as an early warning radar site originally, then converted later into a command bunker where a regional government could survive nuclear attack. It was surprisingly large and quite impressive for that, though the equipment now looks antiquated.

The economy continues to create headlines. LloydsTSB has bought out Halifax-Bank of Scotland, which was a bit of a shock here as HBOS was the largest bank in the country. Predictions are that thousands will lose their jobs as branches and offices are closed/combined, and of course ripple on effects can't help our own situation.

The jobs continue in their mind-numbingly boring fashion. Today one of my colleagues made the error of asking the bureaucrats whether they would like more paperwork, and surprise, surprise, they said "yes". Now a job that was taking perhaps 2 minutes a pipe will take 5. What the hell was she thinking? Sigh.

On Monday we started badminton at a local school. It was a good run around, and we weren't too bad for almost beginners. I did find that sometimes the shuttlecock went straight through my racket, but I'm sure it won't do that as often when I get my eye in.

All Blacks rule, OK?

We've settled into our routines now that we are both working, which is probably a bad thing. J still makes sure we get out and about though, and today's walk was to the cemetery to plant some heather in front of her relies' grave and thence to the botanical gardens. We followed a sign for a Wild Foods event in the exhibition hall where we found one table and an enthusiastic botanist. Rather underwhelming I thought, and hardly worth their advertising! We were expecting something like the West Coast WFF, on a smaller scale, but not that small.

The wargame was closer than it should have been - I don't think W was paying attention at the end 'cos he should have kicked my butt. Still, we were both rusty from so long not playing, so next time we'll both make fewer mistakes. J didn't like the late nights required with the time difference, so we'll have to give it a break for a week or two before we start anything else.

J and I got to see our first rugby since the World Cup, and this time the world was as it should be, with the ABs at the top. Still, it was a close run thing which kept us engrossed until the end. We are trying to get to the Test at Murrayfield but haven't found any seats left together. We'll keep trying though.

The Large Hadron Collider cranked up the other day, and there were doomsayers aplenty. People were genuinely convinced that it was the end of the world as we know it. Much of the scaremongering was by a 'scientist' whose calculations proved that a black hole would be created into which the whole earth would be sucked within a week. I suppose I might have to eat my words next Friday, (but of course would not be in a position to do so...), but I find it a little hard to credit as he is a chemist with no background in physics at all. BTW, Dad went to see the LHC when he was over last year.

The economy is in a bigger black hole though - it sucks to be frank - and the latest news is the crash of another travel group who left 65000 stranded. A company that J didn't go to work for in Bristol also went bust last week, leaving hundreds of Hens and Stags without a party. Perhaps she could have saved it? We'll never know.

It's definitely autumn here and the days are getting rapidly and noticeably shorter. I guess by mid-winter we'll be having lunch in the sunshine and the rest of the 'day' in darkness. At least J will escape it for a while, but I'll be experiencing a real Scottish winter for its duration.

Fireworks

I know more about laying pipes than I ever thought I would, though that's still not much at all. Actually the bigger lesson is how a database can fill with crap unless you have some tight controls on what goes into it. I've instituted some 'efficiencies' already, but the biggest hold-up is still the slow connection to the server. Today I hit my target of 23 investigations. Well, not really as we aren't making the changes we've recommended until our supervisors have checked our work, and that doesn't seem to have started yet.

The wargame is not going well. The Japs had a good Pearl Harbour raid but then I (as the Yanks & Allies) made a serious error and am trying to claw my way back from it. We're raiding the Japanese homeland (as Doolittle did historically) so we'll see how that goes. Meanwhile the Japs have cut off Samoa and blocked the trade route from the US to Australia. It'll take some effort to get that reopened...

J is settling in to work (see her blog from link to right -->) but it is a steep learning curve. I'm hoping she will bring home drugs to test on me.

We went to the end of Edinburgh Festival fireworks on Sunday, and they were quite spectacular. Click here to go and see some more pics.