Week 137, British Electric

Let's go back in time.  Back to when homes had as many as two electrical appliances, both of them lightbulbs, to the decades before Tricity ovens drove an upsurge in demand for the supply of electricity.

In 1910 only 2% of British homes had electricity, by the start of the 1920's this was still under 10%.

In the early years of the last century The British Electric Transformer Co. were contracted to provide a quantity of these transformers in the South of England and another quantity of them for the North West.

Generally it was the more well-off that could afford to run electricity, although not all of these transformers are in prosperous areas.  Whether these area were prosperous a century ago is another matter.  The one pictured below however is in the Sheffield suburb of Ranmoor, one of the most affluent areas in the country, and almost directly next to the substantially sized Ranmoor Hall.  Ranmoor Hall having many rooms, and probably more than two lightbulbs, was almost certainly part of the reason why there is one of these transformers at the end of their road.

Standardisation of voltage and frequency, and the National Grid, did for these charming pillars what sticking your head in the oven did for town gas.

There are three of these boxes in Sheffield, one in Audenshaw, two in Surrey and one in Wimbledon.  All are Grade II listed.  There are possibly more lurking within the pages of the Historic England listings and out on the streets but I have yet to locate them.

Here are links to the Historic England listings. 

And here are some fusty old ceramic and copper relics inside.

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Week 136, Leg o' Lamb

I've no idea why this leg of lamb, wrapped up and all the way form New Zealand, ended up resting on the grass behind the office.  Apparently these things cost a lot of money, I have no idea, I haven't eaten lamb since before The Darling Buds of May* was on TV and don't recall ever having bought any.

It is no surprise that a meat thing should be so pricey, this one was the size of a small car.  And while it lay in the blazing sun it was picking up a few passengers keen to make use of a mass of free protein.

When I returned to dispose of it later it was gone.

Taken by a fox? - Surely too large for that.

Taken by one of the late night garden revellers who leave their detritus? - If they like their meat 'ripe' then perhaps, but surely not.

Taken by the carnivorous grass? - This is obviously what happened, the earth absorbed it and next week the bone will be regurgitated and wrapped in the shredded plastic like a land-based owl pellet.

* This is purely here as a navigational aid to indicate the year as roughly 1990/91.

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Week 135, The bees are all mine

Or they would be if they were a type of miner bee.

I'll go out on six tiny limbs and say that these are probably Bombus terrestris, a variety of bumble bee.

They certainly look like bumble bees rather than mining bees - mining bees are a much different beast.

The bees aren't mine, other than by default due to living in a cavity underground next to a wall in my garden.

They are welcome, and more power to their minuscule elbows.

Each time one comes out of the ground I cry - up the workers!

ISO 6400 shutter speed 1/1250th and the wings are still blurred, super fast bee.

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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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