Author Archives: Alan

I suppose it was only ever going to be a matter of time before I made the switch from a PC at home to a Mac.  I’ve been flirting with Apple fandom for a number of years – perhaps following the classic route of iPhone/iPod – then graduating to iPad before finally taking the plunge this week and – after a spell of saving I might add – getting my grubby mits on a Macbook Air.

To say it’s pretty and lovely and a delight to behold and use kinda goes without saying – but it has actually been a steeper learning curve than I expected given the legendary “so simple to use” rhetoric that follows OS X around with it.

I’m a pretty experience Windows user, I’ve dabbled with Linux too – whilst not an uber-geek, I do know my way around computer systems.  Command line exercises don’t scare me, and I do quite like getting under the skin of things to make them work (within reason, and less so these days compared to when I was a bit younger and perhaps more time rich).  So to be honest, I didn’t think I’d have too much trouble getting to grips with my new toy.

In truth, it’s not been that tough – in fact, the only serious hacking I’ve needed to do has been hacking into my router to make a change to the samba configuration to make sure that my Mac can both read AND write to the NAS (which is in NTFS format).  Since we have Windows machines at home too we need the NAS to co-exist with them too.

A bit of preparation time before getting the Mac saw me move my iTunes library to the NAS, so transferring this over has been a doodle – keeping my playlists and play counts intact.  Moving my iPhone and iPad backups over was painless too – both are now merrily associated with the new machine, the old Windows laptop reauthorised and awaiting some new function I’ve yet to decide.  Currently the iPod – newly Macintosh formatted – is having the entire music library copied to it – surprisingly quickly!

The biggest learning curve for me I think will be the assorted gestures and keyboard shortcuts – for somebody who is used to trackpads with assorted buttons and maybe the option to tap it, the idea of just a blank pad was a bit daunting – until you realise you can scroll with two fingers, drag with three, pinch like on an iPhone to zoom in/out as well as a myriad of other commands.  Little things like having no delete key are a headfuck at first, then you realise fn and backspace does that – and you do kinda thing, you know what? That makes sense!

I do think I’m going to enjoy the transition – if nothing else, the sloooooow syncing from the Windows laptop with the iTunes library on the network is no more, it’s a speedy process now.  Job one was sorting out iTunes and my assorted iOS devices – now it’s a case of acclimatising and learning the nifty shortcuts that I suspect are lauded as intuitive because once you do become accustomed to them they become second-nature.

That’s okay though, I spend a lot of time fiddling around online so I’m sure I can develop those skills – although I remain unconvinced of the claims I’ve heard that things are so intuitive that even a complete computer novice could get themselves up and running in no time.  Maybe that’s because I’m so engrained in the world of Windows in its various recent iterations?

Interesting mix of things… on Friday I found out I could potentially save someone’s life – which is a bit of a no-brainer really, isn’t it?

Back in May last year our local BBC ran a feature where a young lad called Joel Picker Spence had been taking the mic and presenting. It was quite heartwarming to hear a precocious and articulate 6 year old do such a great jib whilst I was driving to work.

It wasn’t until later it transpired that Joel had died back in 2008 – taken by Leukaemia – a suitable donor had been found to help him, but too late – meaning he never reached his seventh birthday. A really moving and brilliant piece of broadcasting from the local BBC team.

Tagged on to this was an appeal in Joel’s name to register as a donor with the Anthony Nolan trust – with a sign-up session in Nottingham’s council house. I duly went along, as did 127 other people, and signed up. I felt good to have done so, but must admit that it had passed from my mind.

Until Friday. I had an email informing me I’m a likely match for a patient – I obviously got back in touch to initiate the next steps, and the Anthony Nolan team have sent me a kit to take to the Queens Medical Centre a week on Monday. This basically gives them suitable samples of my blood to absolutely confirm a match.

In semi-amateur style I then get my blood back to put in a special delivery envelope and post back to the Trust – which is no problem, but you’d kinda expect the hospital to process it wouldn’t you? So fingers crossed the match turns out to be positive. If you read this, click here and get registered on it too.

The rest of the weekend has involved me grappling to get my iTunes library to be hosted on our NAS – my laptop’s secondary partition has been a little bit dodgy of late, and pending a bit of saving up I am planning on replacing it, so this step will stop the intermittent short- term problems I’ve been having, and hopefully make the eventual switch-over a little less painful. It’s proven a complete faff so far, though!!

Also popped to see The Terminal Five Experience – one of whom is my colleague, Simon. They played a cracking set including newly-added Cult and Dandy Warhols numbers which went down well with the Sherwood crowd. They’ve got a few gigs coming up so look ’em up on Facebook if you like a nit of eclectic cover versions!

Next week we’re off to take part in our company’s annual charity-partner event.  This year we undertake (as an organisation – not individually) a walk from Castle Cary, which festival aficionados will know as the nearest train station to the Glastonbury festival, to Nottingham.  Our team are part of the ‘first leg’ – so will be taking on the first 18 miles of the journey.

Well, some of us will – there’s a shorter canal-side walk for folks two whom 18 miles of very rural walking has proven a barrier, and there’s a contingent cycling a really long distance (then back again – to get to their minibus!).

It’s not a random selection of places either – the starting point is where Douglas Macmillan comes from.  Douglas Macmillan of course is the founder of the charity Macmillan Cancer Support – our charity partner of choice.  I spent quite some time mixing him up with Duncan Macmillan, the name used to rebrand Mapperley Hospital whilst I was doing some summer work there one year!  Nottingham is where Jesse Boot hails from – so we are literally linking our two organisations.

A nice idea – an overt altruist connected with a businessman who certainly participated in more than his fair share of philanthropy!  I’m a big fan of charity activities, as I’m sure anyone who knows me will know, but this one feels a bit corporate which is part of the reason – as well as the fact that I already bombard my friends and colleagues with charity requests – that I’ve not hammered the donation page at all.  It’s all a bit enforced participation.

Having said all that,  I do like the opportunity to get out in the countryside and take in some exercise – but I’m not looking forward to leaving Nottingham at 6am and getting home probably gone 10pm.  If it weren’t for the fact that the timing means I miss a game of football and the chance to see an Evening with Mark Crossley at The Approach it might just have paid off.

Regardless, Macmillan Cancer Care is a fantastic charity – it really is – and not giving people an opportunity to make a donation because I’m a bit grumpy about logistics would be cold-hearted of me.  So should you wish to support us in our trekking quest then you can do so by clicking here.  I work in the Insights part of the labyrinthine description on that site.

So whilst I’m not sure that a bunch of office-softened numpties such as myself participating in a glorified ramble is particularly worthy of merit – if it gives people the impetus to back what is a tremendous cause that lends so much support to so many people who really need it, then really, that’s all that counts isn’t it?

I’m trying to think of a suitable portmanteau word for ‘grumpy’ or ‘reluctant’ and ‘evangelist’… evangelumpy?  evanluctant?   Whatever it is, that’s how I feel about the whole situation – I passionately support the cause, but have reservations about the means.  I’ll also be taking the reins of the corporate Twitter account for the day (I can’t remember the ID of it at present), so I need to get my corporate head on I guess…

Ho hum!

I finally got around to sorting old pictures out so that I could sync them with my iPad. This one was part of a selection of daftness Dan and I used to work on with our fledgling Photoshop skills. It evokes memories of times when life seemed less complicated and I had time to arse about with images in Photoshop!

Ah, fun. I bet back then I used to hark back to the past with false memories too. Cool picture though, I remember Dan being chuffed with his efforts. Indeed, he might even have used Paintshop Pro.

This is what happens when I nod off for an hour or two in front of the telly and can’t sleep as a result!

England has gone mad.  What started ostensibly as a protest against a police shooting in a specific locale has spiraled into a nationwide spate of unrest, rioting and looting.  What is more worrying though are the vultures circling to attach their own agendas to events, and of course the dithering idiots in government who procrastinate and leave the police to deal with events as they can.

The prevalence of lazy racial slurs is predictable from more right-leaners, but from the numerous ‘shop a looter’ photos doing the rounds my impression is of a much more multi-cultural brand of yob at large across the UK, I don’t suppose that will detract from racist organisations like the BNP or the EDL trying to rally support from people who struggle to think for themselves on the back of these events.

This wave of behaviour from youngsters bereft of any notion of consequences for their actions has not just glossed over, it’s completely drowned whatever root there might be to these alarming events.  Firstly, rioting even as part of a protest that may have credibility (I’m not judging that) is unjustifiable – but could well be the act of a section of society so marginalised, so detached from the rest – that they feel they literally have nothing to lose.

Of course, this has been diluted to nothing thanks to hordes of opportunists seeing it as an opportunity to rob some new trainers or just generally misbehave.  In Nottingham, oddly, there seems to have been – after an initial foray to break into the Victoria Centre – a forgoing of the chance to go looting, and instead local hoodlums instead opted to (a) dance about on the roof of the Nottingham High School and (b) firebomb five local police stations (and I’m sure many other things).

It’s perplexing, and worrying – and whilst I admittedly had little faith in Cameron and Co. anyway, they’ve not done much to try to win any further credibility – and of course, because of the mass dilution thanks to an idiot minority taking cues from the catalyst to this, they probably won’t be held to account for their policy decisions that will undoubtedly have contributed to society literally falling apart in some areas.

On the policing I can only comment locally – but Nottinghamshire Police have really shone in their communications and handling of events locally.  Whilst over 1,000 calls were made to them – on an evening where a game between Forest and County went ahead (without incident, I might add), they’ve done a good job in a really difficult circumstance.  Any Nottinghamians I’d recommend following @nottspolice on Twitter to keep up to date with any potential ongoing problems.

Whilst Blackberry Messenger and Twitter had the accusatory finger pointed towards them, it’s brilliant to see the same mechanisms are being used for good by decent society-minded people (who, much like the rioters – are also multi-cultural!) to spark clean-up operations and support for individuals and businesses impacted by this loutish behaviour – which, at its’ worse, has cost three people their lives in Birmingham.

There needs to be decisive direction from on high to tackle this – because whilst the police are doing an admirable job, it wouldn’t be too far a stretch to imagine a spate of vigilante action which – whilst might seem justifiable in some instances – isn’t really a good idea.  Mob rule doesn’t result in justice, and there is always likely to be innocents caught in the crossfire.

On the way down from Snowdon, before it all went wrong to me..

There was an Englishman, an Irishman, a Welshman and a Scotsman… it sounds like the start to a tedious joke, doesn’t it? But it’s actually a description of our team who guided us on our Three Peaks Challenge.  Danny, Brian, Garath and Ian were awesome in their roles as guides, entertainment and chauffeurs in what has been a rather gruelling weekend for all concerned!  If you fancy a top challenge, check out what More Adventure offer, I can thoroughly recommend them.

It started for us in a carpark in Wales, meeting up with the crew.  Our group was myself, Rich, Em, Chris, Ade, Pete and Rog – and we were joined by what proved to be the super-human Nicky.  We met Brian and Danny, picked up Garath en route and got in a minibus to head to the start of the Snowdon trail.

Having got ourselves and our kit sorted out we duly set off – now none of the three peaks are the preserve of the fittest people in the world – however, to have achieved the challenge you have to ascend and descend all three in thirteen hours (allowing eleven for transport).  That’s four hours up and down Snowdon, the same for Scafell Pike and then five hours to get up and down Ben Nevis at the end.  Of course, sometimes people do them in reverse order to that.

That means basically you need to get up at not far off your normal walking pace – which, on an incline and on uneven ground, is fecking hard work!  It is a really hard trog for someone like me who is in reasonable shape but hardly a fine example of the human form.  Indeed, it was relatively early that Pete was struggling to keep up – the guides have mental waypoints which they time us to reach – and Pete dropped out, the pace a bit too much.

A considerable portion of my psyche envied him immensely, I had a few ‘moments’ on the way up – although each time I hit ‘the wall’ my recovery time was diminished – and once we reached the peak it was a real sense of achievement.  Photos taken, packs off for a few moments, a snack and a drink and we were on the way down.  And with gravity assistance it’s so much easier – and you notice the beautiful views you are afforded that you hadn’t noticed on the way up.

There was a chance to wish farewell to Pete who – with car in locale – headed on homeward.  Disappointing for him – although I can say from personal experience that it was probably for the best for something to go wrong on peak number one, Scafell Pike was up next for us.  “This is the toughest psychologically, because nobody really thinks about it” said Ian.

He’s kinda right – it’s the smallest peak, and it doesn’t enjoy the psychological boost of being the first or the last – stuck in the middle.  That said, it started well for us, it’s a much much constant uphill trek early doors, we reached a river crossing in 20 minutes – the guides’ “cut off point” was 30 minutes for this stage, so we were doing really good time.  As before, ‘the burn’ was hard, but recovery time was pretty good – I was finding it tough but also feeling reasonably confident.

Over-confidence can be risky though, and taking a foothold on what I thought was a sturdy rock saw it drop beneath me, turning my ankle and jarring my knee.  I hobbled on a while, paused and let the others pass, I tried Ian’s walking poles to take the pressure off, but – whilst it wasn’t a serious strain or twist – it was bad enough to not want to risk on the increasingly uneven ground to come.  Nobody wants to have to end up with a mountain rescue situation.

Brian led me back down the ‘hill’ as he kept soul-destroyingly calling it and back to the minibus, I was gutted.  It was fascinating listening to the guides though – Garath had decided to utilise his time off from guiding to climb another nearby mountain whilst Danny was on standby with the bus.  Brian was ready to catch up with the rest of the group (he could probably have made it up and down any of the mountains in half the time we could!), but in the end opted to stay.

Eventually the rest of the posse signalled via radio they’d made it to the peak – and once we’d clocked them completing the descent they had probably bought themselves a good half hour in time savings to transfer to the Ben Nevis balance.  On to the minibus and a whopping six hour journey to Scotland saw us sleep as best we could – but it certainly wasn’t comfortable!

Not so bad for me, it had been decided for me that I wasn’t to risk Ben Nevis, so I would have a good five hours of catching-up-on-sleep-time whilst the others went with Danny and Brian to tackle the biggest of the three peaks – setting off at around 3:30am.  Ian and Garath had arranged beds in the nearby youth hostel leaving me with custody of the minibus – I duly found a comfy position and slept.

Until about 5:30am that was (I think), when a knock on the window scared the shit out of me initially – it was Brian who, bless him, wasn’t to get to the top of any peak this weekend – he’d chaperoned Rich and Emma back down the mountain.  Through either a bug, food poisoning or simply over-exertion Rich wasn’t able to stop vomiting, which brought out a similar reaction in Em.  Brian was all set to play catch-up but Danny told him no on the radio, so he was stuck in the minibus with us.

Thankfully the remaining four made it to the top of Ben Nevis amidst some horrible weather (the hot weather we endured for Snowdon and Scafell didn’t help with our endurance efforts it has to be said!), and descended inside the overall thirteen hour time to see them deservedly awarded with certificates to confirm their status as three-peakers!

It was then a marathon drive back home from Ian ’til his drop off point in the north of England, before Garath took over and got us back to Wales.  A really slick operation from the organisers, it has to be said.  We were back in Wales for about 6:30 and thankfully we’d booked a night in a nearby hotel (where Edmund Hillary had stayed during his Everest training in the 50’s), and managed to get ourselves a booking for dinner too.

There was just time for a bath (possibly old enough to have been used by Edmund himself) before a rather splendid three course meal in what was a spectacularly old skool style of hotel – with dinner being a fixed time and announced by a gong (as was breakfast!).  In the meantime, a lot of sleeping and enforced foot elevation to try to fit my legs in a minibus has had a positive effect on my ankle, so I’ll be testing it out at football tomorrow.

Our birdie soap opera has kicked into egg mode again. Frankie, the lead actress in this saga, has just laid the second of her latest clutch of eggs. It’s probably about the fourth or fifth round of eggs we have had from her. Earlier in her would-be mothering career she would be the picture of dutiful momma bird.

Momma Frankie

This would involve her incubating her increasing-by-one-every-two-days clutch in a surprisingly well poised manner. Cockatiels don’t poo in their ‘nest’, so she would gratefully emerge from the cage of a morning to unleash what can only be described as a power dump, having a wing-stretch and returning to duty. At this time we would pop her in a different cage from the other two.

Whilst Frankie was distracted by toilet matters and getting a fly her fascinated room mates would steal into her new cage and attempt to juggle the eggs under them. Cockatiels are apparently likely to sit on each other’s eggs – quite sweet really. That said, both Lloyd and Phoebe are incredibly clumsy at this act, so it’s a good job they are unfertilised!

Egg production is an energy intensive business, naturally we researched and there were two schools of thought on how to deal with the situation. One was what we’d been doing – leaving her with the clutch until she realises they won’t hatch and abandon them. Quite sad. The other was to whip the eggs out as quick as possible after they arrive, which we’ve now adopted.

It seems to have had an interesting effect – the first time I was gutted to take them away, I’d wait for the ‘poop flight’ before sneaking the eggs away, only to find her return and look confused. Quite heartbreaking really. Over time though she’s increasingly lost interest in her eggs – this latest round of laying has seen her prepare her spot a few days before, then when the time comes pop down to the floor of the cage and squeeze the egg out.

Aunty Phoebe

The only reason I have noticed this recent two was because ‘aunty Phoebe’ was scrabbling around trying to look after the egg. Meanwhile, Frankie is sitting chilled out on one of the top perches with little or no interest in the younger monster giving her prospective chicks brain damage. So I can easily enough nick the egg out the cage and then await potential sequels usually almost bang on 48 hours later.

Lloyd, meanwhile, just ignores the whole situation in his own (okay, her own!) self-centred little world!

Sleepy ‘Uncle’ Lloyd

It wasn’t until I picked up an email from the organiser that I fully realised quite how soon the Three Peaks Challenge is. A week tomorrow in fact will see our intrepid group head off to Welsh Wales to start our challenge with Snowdon, then on to Scalfel Pike and ever onward to Ben Nevis.

Ideally this should all be completed within 24 hours before we get to get back into the mini bus and go back to Wales to be reunited with our transport home!

The email in question was a reminder of kit we needed – so I’ve acquired a head torch which means I can pretend I’m a member of Orbital or the Chemical Brothers! Also acquired were liner socks for my walking boots, a waterproof liner for my rucksack and a water carrier complete with straw for hassle free hydration.

All that remains is to pick up some compeed or other blister related remedies and I’m pretty much sorted I think. I might chuck the iPod in the change of clothes bag to utilise as a cunning distract-from-noise mechanism for sleeping on the mini-bus. Not that I generally have much issue with sleeping whilst travelling!

So, why do this crazy challenge? Partly to say I have done – as people will know me will know, I quite like getting up to shenanigans, and also to raise money for The Parrot Zoo. I’m a big fan of the place, and since Rich is doing the challenge in his parrot suit, I’m happy enough to back his cause.

Those of you who feel compelled to be generous enough to sponsor us can find the details they need here: Three Beaks Challenge. We’ve paid our own costs so all donations go straight to helping our feathered friends.

On another note, after a few minutes of using an iPad, then flicking to your iPhone for a minute if a text arrives, looking at the smaller screen makes you feel like a giant!

A drawing of Phoebe I rattled off on SketchBook Pro on my iPad

I’d got into a bit of a roll on the blogging front, so I’m going to try to not let it slide too much.

Last week was Grandad’s funeral – aside from the suspiciously inebriated priest with a real penchant for the story of Lazarus (and how the Jews were a bit worried about how much influence Jesus was amassing so decided to have him killed) – it was a nice affair.  Tiring for Granny, but despite the circumstance it was great to catch up with not as oft seen family and friends.

The day before Grandad’s funeral was the day that the iPad entered my life.  Not for any particular purpose beyond “WANT!” – but it’s a fun new toy, one I’ve only really scratched the surface of it – so to speak.  Currently I’m writing this whilst enjoying a mix of famous music intros thanks to the App that Radio Soulwax have put together.  It’s really rather good.

What else? In further Geekery I’ve been getting to grips (a bit) with Google+ – if it’s something you’ve been playing with too then you can find my profile here.  It certainly shows some promise, people talking of ditching the omnipresent Facebook through I think are perhaps a bit premature – whether people are ready to switch yet from something that has become so ubiquitous remains to be seen.

I do like the clean interface and the flexibility of ‘circles’ – you can have people in your circles that might not be in yours – and vice versa, rather than the tied “You are my friend” relationship in Facebook; I’ve lost count of how many people in my ‘friend’ list who I’ve never met and – in truth – I’m not sure exactly who they are.  Of course using other Google offerings such as Gmail and Calendars means there’s a degree of integration there.

Second visit to see the excellent Derren Brown’s Svengali tour – as ever, no spoilers – it was interesting for me as it was my second visit to this particular show, and to note the slight differences – some due to presumable tweaks he decided along the course of the show’s run, and others because of the not entirely predictable nature of individuals picked from the crowd.

Needless to say, he remains a bamboozlement – and that’s all I can really say without posting spoilers which I’m not about to do.  I would most certainly recommend a visit to see the show though – I think it might be about to finish for 2011 but will resume next year.

Finally Saturday saw a trip to Warsop to see Ferocious Dog who were supporting Miles Hunt (of The Wonder Stuff fame) and Erica Nockalls – current violinist for the band, and acoustic partner for Miles.  Accompanying me was Chris who’s a huge fan of Miles, it was touching to get him the chance to meet him and get a photo at the end of the show – which had far fewer people than it should have done, because it was excellent.

After a combination of holiday and bereavement time it’s back to work full time – and the 3 Peaks Challenge is looming ever larger on the horizon.  Eep!