Thursday, December 29, 2016

Is 2016 an exceptional year for celebrity death?

As the year closes in these last few days it certainly feels like it, but I don’t think so. Celebrity on the scale we have in the 21st Century is new. Celebrity itself has existed in one form or another since time immemorial, but the current century has taken it to new levels – society can now make people famous for as little as being nothing more than being especially dim or ignorant.
So, what’s happening?
In my opinion we are reaping the inevitable outcome of the post war years. From the late 50’s to the late 70’s there was an explosion in popular culture – films, pop music, television and sport. This also coincided with a wider culture of “medicinal” products that were widely experienced and used (and indeed made a significant contribution to that explosion – Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds anyone?).
So, 60 to 40 years ago, there was a massive increase in celebrity. Although there was a wider age range, the bulk of the people coming through then were in their 20’s. Therefore, they are now in their 60’s-80’s. And guess what – they die. For those that abused their systems with drugs legal (and illegal) they may be dying younger, but even those who looked after themselves they are reaching the end of their natural lives. And that doesn’t even take into account reduced mortality due to cancer, heart disease etc. – which remains with us in significant quantities.
Therefore I think 2016 is perhaps the beginning of a new norm. Celebrities have always died, but with a growing pool of celebrity and the amplification of social media, 2016 is perhaps a pre-cursor of even “worse” years. For those of us who are 1st wave prog rock fans – the coming years are going to be miserable as band after band (who by now are nearly all in their 70’s) shuffle off this mortal coil.
We're going to have to get used to it.
Happy New Year!
 

Saturday, September 17, 2016

Are you tech support for your family & friends using #outlook with #outlook.com or #Hotmail? Watch out!


Especially if the Outlook version is not up to date (Outlook 2010 and older).  You may get a support call soon.

I got my support call earlier this week as email stopped working on both the laptop and desktop (although the phone was OK – in fact that’s how it was reported to me – My email’s not working anymore except on my phone – help!!)

Recalling the migration of the platforms to Microsoft Office 365 I wondered if that was the cause.  But first logged in remotely, checked things were broken as reported (there was some confusion between OneDrive and Outlook not working) – always check the problem is as described!

It was definitely broken, and reporting connection errors.  Inspecting the Account settings the accounts were connected by MAPI (the old method).

Anyway, creating a test outlook profile proved that this was the issue.  However, you cannot change the source of the account in the existing profile.  So for this support problem, I added the original accounts (there were two here, outlook and Hotmail .com) and then changed the default account, and then deleted the old ones.

Of course at this point the OST files with all the email go, and you are back to downloading the entire account history from the backend servers.  Fortunately in this case the connection was fast and took a couple of hours across both computers.

Conclusion 1:
It’s a bit of a shame that Microsoft didn’t email account holders with a notice to say that the underlying account was being migrated to say the least.  A warning email should really have been possible with (say) 4,2, and 1 week to go.  Instead it just suddenly breaks.

Conclusion 2:
It’s also worth checking the recovery account details – in one instance the recovery was to an old email account that was from a cancelled ISP account.  That was swiftly sorted !  Go to “account settings” (under the avatar for your account top right on the web page), “security & privacy” and “more security settings” and look for:

Observation 1:
Also – note that according to https://www.howto-outlook.com/howto/outlookcommigrationinfo.htm#outlook2013-2016 it is still advisable to change your email settings, even if you are on the latest and greatest (at least it carries on working though).

Monday, June 13, 2016

Summary of the week

 
Oh and it reached the high 20’s with low winds so I’m a tad brown in places!
 

Friday, June 10, 2016

Thursday, June 09, 2016

Day 4 - Ceremony time

 

 

At the Chemin Des Dames memorial in the blistering heat after a 2 mile climb.

Aaaaaannnnnnnndddddd relax

Day 3 - time for new cleats

After a cleating "incident" on a roundabout

 

Wednesday, June 08, 2016

Day 3 - complete

A long day (although fewer miles than yesterday), and I'm pretty drained.

 

It's gone well though, so I think it's the after effects of working so hard yesterday to do the extra miles during the day to get to all my fallen family.

 

A longer day tomorrow and it threatens to be warmer and sunnier so the extra expensive sun protection I got(having lost my cheap Sainsbury's one) will probably be necessary.

 

Not only is mileage up, but we shall now be ascending throughout the day.  Blimey! For a fenbois this is going to be a challenge....

Day 3 - canal du nord

 

 

Geld by the Worcesters 45 against100+. March 1918

Day 2 - DA Bryant

 

 

 

Day 2 Thiepval

 

 

Day 2 - E Cartman

 

Day 2 - AG Bryant

 

Tuesday, June 07, 2016

Day 1 - taken by a pro!

Arthur Edwards (look him up!)  is with us for the ride this week, so this is a) a pro shot, b) the closest you'll get to seeing my face!

 

I wore this shirt to respect the Canadians with whom we rode in 2012. It seemed the right thing to do 😊.

Day 1 - Vimy Ridge

 

 

 

If you've not been, go. Photos don't do it justice, but it's here anyway.  (a bit like the grand canyon in that respect).

 

I was given the honour of reciting the exhortation here today.

Day 1 - Memorial to the tunnelers.

 

Day 1 - a typical Battlefield Guided stop

The GBG volunteers see simply amazing. Their research is meticulous, and the presentations are very real.

 

A nice day helps..

 

Day 1 - Neuve Chappelle

The Indian Memorial

Day 1 - water stop

And lots (I mean lots) of refuelling

Day 1 - The off!

 

Day 1 - T Cartman

 
This this is the approximate location of the trench in which private Tom Cartman was gassed in late April 1918. I don't know the precise location, but this is as good as we can work out. He died a fortnight later in Brighton and is buried in Ripon, Yorkshire.

Monday, June 06, 2016

Saturday, June 04, 2016

Spotted on London Transport

Ah, the old signage...

Another in an occasional series...

Confident builders.

 

To all who sponsored me

For Help for Heroes cycling this year and since 2012.

 

THANK YOU

 

And I'm on my way again to the continent to cycle the Western Front from Ypres to Verdun.

 

I hope to blog during the week, see you kn the