Week 134, Encryption begins, IT illiteracy continues, bluebell ends

The IT systems failures at the end of last week has handed the Tories a stick to beat the NHS with.  Journalists who should have access to expert analysis found themselves either unable to locate experts, or unable to understand the experts they had located.

It appears that the Tories don't understand the cause of the problems, or if they do they are taking advantage of widespread ignorance to pass the buck.  It is obvious that the journalists don't understand the cause of the problems and are failing to hold the Tories to account.


Summary of events:

• The Tories cut the NHS budget.
• Replacement for NHS software systems that only run on Windows XP cannot be funded.
• Windows XP goes out of general support.
• The Tories cut funding of Microsoft extended support for NHS Windows XP systems.
• NHS systems inevitably and predictably get infected with malware due to a security vulnerability of Windows XP.
• The Tories (specifically Amber Rudd) say the NHS "must learn" from this and upgrade its IT systems.

It was Theresa May who was responsible for cancelling the extended support for Windows XP from Microsoft when she was Home Secretary, a post with responsibility for cyber security.  Support which would have meant patches would have been available for many out of date systems run by the NHS.

Why weren't NHS systems updated to newer versions?  Reasons why that might be are: lack of availability of software; lack of technical staff with the right skills; contracted-out services with no interest in improving systems; complexity of the process.  All of the reasons are directly attributable to the lack of available funding to pay for the process.

I didn't hear a single journalist ask what the reasons were.  I heard one expert mention software applications being unavailable for newer versions of Windows, but the journalist failed to recognise the point being made.


Why hadn't the various NHS trusts upgraded from Windows XP where they could, surely the NHS has an Enterprise Licensing agreement with Microsoft?

In 2010 David Cameron's Tory government cancelled the Enterprise Licensing agreement that the NHS had with Microsoft after deciding that there was no business case or budget to renew it.  The decision to scrap the licensing agreement pushed the burden of software licensing onto individual NHS trusts, these Trusts would have been ill placed to manage such agreements.  

Cancelling an Enterprise Agreement required every single license covered by that agreement to be recalculated - every computer desktop, every application, every desktop which connects to a server, all of this involves interpreting individual license types of Byzantine complexity for each use case type.  The cost of recalculating the licensing will have cost the NHS a fortune, and mistakes would have been made, and during this process Microsoft also targeted NHS Trusts with audits.  Individual license agreements made by the NHS Trusts with Microsoft would have been in totality more expensive than the original Enterprise Agreement covering the entire NHS, before the additional cost of managing the agreements.


When Amber Rudd says that the NHS "must learn" from this and upgrade IT systems she is demonstrating her ignorance and being disingenuous.  And to suggest that the NHS hasn't learned from this is outrageous when they have raised the issue of risk repeatedly.  It is clear to see from this however that the Tories have successfully managed to pass the buck for a massive cock up which should lie squarely at their door and instead have blamed the victims.

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Week 133, Home to roast

As the storm blows in, so does the roast.  Fresh from the North African fjords, carrying herbs and spices under their contour feathers for warmth, the Fustiers Ink duck comes ready seasoned.*

Easy to spot with their bright yellow plumage, they glide in on the lightest breeze.

Some say these ducks were part of a collection owned by Jimi Hendrix, others that they were released after no longer being needed for the big budget Hollywood epic The Beak and I.**  All we really know now is that they are very easy to catch and that they are reported to be very chewy whichever way they are cooked.

Not currently available, due to the unseasonably pleasant weather, meat eaters will have to satisfy themselves with something else for gourmet night this weekend.  Duck's off.***

* Floatees
** Kingston parakeets
*** FawltyTowers

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Week 132, Racking my brains

Racking.

Heroic mental efforts are in play at the sporting event taking place at The Crucible Theatre in Sheffield.

Now nearing the end of the competition.

And with nerves fraught, and brains frazzled, almost anything could happen.

Within the bounds of either Higgins or Selby winning, obviously.

'The angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection.'

One of the laws of physics becoming bent out of shape depending on how hard the ball strikes the cushion.

Here I present my artistic contribution as a tribute to these seventeen days of excellence.

Actually they look more like pickled walnuts.

Everybody sing - "Snooker loopy, nuts are we..."

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Week 131, The Big Cheese

Why pretend otherwise, everyone loves cheese - even the lactose intolerant, they're just lying.

And cheese is even better when partnered with super-hot red and green chillies.

Everyone likes those too - if anyone says otherwise they are just being contrary for the sake of it.

We are all the same.

There is no room for difference.

And if you are different then you can just bugger off.

- - - - - - - -

Fortunately not everyone takes the above points of view.

As I recall the Iron Lady saying, "You kip if you want to, this lady's not for kipping."

Mad as a badger and creator of terrible inequality, Mrs T could still recognise complete fruit bats on occasion.

As well as the benefits of partnership rather than isolation.

So...

...to improve palatability, why not partner your super-hot chilli cheese on toast with a reduced tomato jus.*

It is a delight.


* You know it's Heinz Tomato Ketchup.

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Week 130, Clean eating, clean drinking

This Blackbird isn't bothered about any of our human based food-fads.

Happy to drink from this bucket of leaf soup.

Along with the foxes and the squirrels.

Clean eating?

Clean drinking?

"Bollocks!" they bark, yap, squeak and cheep in unison.

Animals often have a lot more sense than humans, and are rarely quite so precious.

Although I'm not going to be taking much nutritional advice from wildlife, not until after 'the event'* at least.**

* After 'the event' remain indoors.
** DO NOT THINK ABOUT 'THE EVENT' - 'the event' has already happened.

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Week 129, Compost face

It is our shared duty to compost.

It is also the duty of some of us to empty the compost bucket into the compost bin.

And on the morning of February 22nd this year that is what I was preparing to do.

That is until I saw this...

A face staring back out me out of one of the departmental compost buckets.

7:45am was not the time to face this sort of departure from routine.

I haven't been back to work since and am now on strong medication.*

* I have been to work every day since and any strong medication has been of the IPA variety.

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Week 128, Aesthete Parking Only

Our roads are becoming more filled with vehicles, delays are becoming longer, and motorists are becoming more frustrated.

Due to this increasing road congestion there is an EU proposal designed to take a radically different approach to address the problem.  Drawing on the experience of cities which have used other traffic reducing exercises - traffic reduction exercises such as determining whether a vehicle is entitled out on the road based on odd or even license plate endings or odd or even years of vehicle registration or alternate alphabetical letter license plates - the new directive aims to cut down the amount of activity on our highways.

The proposal is simple and consists of two points.  Firstly, rather than drawing on the characteristics of the vehicle the new measure bestows the entitlement based on the characteristics of the driver.  Secondly, the entitlement is one of being allowed to park the vehicle rather than drive the vehicle.  A vehicle found to be parked anywhere other than in a designated parking space or on private land, and not owned by a driver possessing the correct characteristic, will be removed and crushed.

The first characteristic revealed in the directive is that of 'aesthete'.  The characteristic will be changed frequently and regularly.  Questions have been raised about how this characteristic will be quantified, but this has already been established and can be discovered if one cares to examine the original ratification.  I've summarised some of the quantifying rules below.  

To determine whether there is entitlement due to fulfilling the criteria of 'aesthete' a panel will be assembled which consists of Turner prize judges and former Masterchef finalists.  This panel will review the lifestyle of the applicant and issue notification of parking allowance or alternatively enforcement of non-vehicular use.

That all seems pretty sensible and straightforward, who would not want to be considered a person of taste and culture and be allowed to park on that basis.

Unless I've underestimated the audience it should be obvious this is made up.

Alternatively if this was published in the Daily Express, The Telegraph, The Daily Mail or The Sun it would immediately be believed by those untroubled by the need to find out facts - I'm talking about you, brexiters.*

* These four newspaper groups are responsible for over 40 years of lies and misinformation on the subject of the EU.  These papers are all owned by billionaires, members of the elite who fund and sponsor right wing lobbying groups and organisations such as UKIP.  These people would probably paraphrase these words misattributed to Hermann Goering and say, "whenever I hear the word culture, I reach for my Browning!"

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