Secret Life of Cats

Sometimes you get just a hint of what they get up to when you are not around...

Boxing Day at the relatives...

Really must try and see them more than once a year...

Internet Security...

Now it is a tricky issue, keeping all your details secure online. There are passwords, numbers, memorable details and other things to remember.

Take the Abbey credit card as an example. To log onto the Internet based service, the user must provide: their 16 digit card number; an 8 digit security number (with no two numbers repeated sequentially); an 8 digit Internet ID; and just to make sure important transactions are safe, there is an additional 8 digit personal password to remember.

Now, one of the basic rules of passwords is to not write them down. But how is anyone supposed to remember all these without writing down at least some of them!

It must be up to the service provide to find the balance between data items that are knowable only to the person using the service, and data items that it is impossible of impractical to memorise.

And it is great to compare this with their telephone service, where to carry out the same transactions, all you need is your name, address, card number and date of birth...!

Separated at Birth...

I just happen to think that Mr Dermot 'X-Factor' O'Leary whilst being one of the best DJs on Radio at the moment looks just a little bit like Mr. Benn without his hat on...

Drives and Linux...

Note to self... to mount a floppy drive:

su
mkdir /mnt/floppy
mount /dev/fd0 /mnt/floppy
umount /mnt/floppy

Political Honeymoon (Part II)...

In the end, we got home exactly as planned: a flight from Krabi to Bangkok, a couple of hours at the airport there, and an onward flight to Heathrow, bags checked all the way there.

So was it worth all the unease, a couple of 20 minute conversations with Eva Air in Taiwan and the contingency plans B, C, D and E that we came up with but never put into play?

Well, we were extremely lucky: there was a huge queue at Bangkok of people hoping to get onto flights home, who we really felt for. We were fortunate that everything was back in operation that day: ours was the first morning flight out from Krabi to Bangkok and if we would have been travelling the day before, we'd have been on the overnight bus. And it was fantastic that the Suvarnabhumi Airport authorities managed to get things back to normal operation so quickly after they gained control of the airport, especially as there had been fears that this could take weeks.

So for us, it all ended well, and we were so glad we managed the complete stay at the last hotel as planned, as it was by far the best of an excellent holiday/ honeymoon...

Political Honeymoon...

We missed getting stuck at Bangkok airport by a matter of hours when the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) overtook it on Tuesday 25th November. Since then we have had an interesting wait whilst we try and find out how and when we could get home.

First all flights were cancelled indefinitely; then some were going from U-Tapeo, a military airbase 150km outside of Bangkok, although we weren't sure if this included ours and thus when we would be able to get home. Now we know our flight is going from Bangkok as planned, but instead of the easy transfer flight from Krabi on the day, we are not sure if we will need to leave a night early and get an overnight bus so that we can make the check-in that is currently taking place at the Bangkok International Trade and Exhibition Centre (BITEC) rather than at the airport.

Theoretically it is great: you get to stay in Thailand indefinitely, a wonderful and beautiful place with huge amounts to see and do. But we have a real life we need to get back to, and not knowing how things will work out means we have had trouble creating alternate plans and working out the when and wheres. This hasn't led to stress exactly, but more to an uneasiness over the last week or so.

We get to make our final decisions on what to do tomorrow morning: a one hour flight or a twelv hour bus ride. It has been an interesting honeymoon at least...

Cycling in the Rain...

The worst thing about cycling in the rain isn't the wet hair, wet shoes or wet trouser hems where they stick from my waterproof trousers. It isn't even the appalling waterproof fashions I have to wear.

For me, it is having to cycle without my glasses: it's either not see as they are covered in rain, or not see as they are safely tucked away in my pocket...

At least it is only a short cycle ride...

ipod #2 (ipod Ginger)...

 

My old, but trusty ipod has finally given up with what looks like a  hard drive fault; there is a lot of noise, but not much going on. So I have decided that a new machine is in order.

My 20Gb machine was full but given that I only listen to a fraction of it, I have decided to be selective and get a sleek new 8Gb solid state ipod Nano which so far, looks superb. The whole 'shake to shuffle' function looks like a bit of a gimmick, but it looks good, sounds good, and I'm looking forward to taking it on holiday...!

A Wash Out...

Interesting coverage of this year's OMM (Original Mountain Marathon) in the press, including the usual finger-pointing exercise to blame someone as the weather in Borrowdale turned truly atrocious.

But there have equally been some excellent retorts. The BBC 'everyone is a journalist so send us your stories' pages contain almost unanimous support of the organisers and and excellent article here argues eloquently that risk is the whole point of the sport. The best quote is this:

'I have yet to speak to a single competitor who felt that he or she had been the victim of an emergency. "You'd have loved it, Richard," one of them told me. "Incredibly violent conditions – but a true test of mountaincraft."'