Beware the electro-mechanicals

Imagine a DIY job you’ve never tackled before. Most of us would botch it, saying we’d do better next time. But some get it right from scratch – always! A very special talent.

My friend Richard figured in earlier posts and had that talent. So has Graham whom I interviewed this weekend for the local website. It was Graham’s second time under the website’s scrutiny: first for his remarkable skills as a taxidermist, now as a juke box restorer. During the day he services domestic appliances.

RAF national service taught me to distrust electro-mechanicals; in any electrical system they tend to be the weak spot and are often fiendish to repair. Juke boxes, especially those made during the Silver Period prior to 1965, are almost wholly electro-mechanical. Not only the arms that pick out the 78 or 45 rpm records but even the systems that convey the choice of record provided by the push-button.

Graham faced such a moment when renovating a 1957 AMI Model H. In brief when he chose Elvis the ‘box played Bill Haley. These days a quick twiddle with the electronics would sort things. But this AMI had been repaired with parts cannibalised from elsewhere and a spinning disc which selected the correct solenoid from a circle of sixty consistently betrayed the punter. Needless to say Graham worked it out. I’d like to say it would have taken me much longer but I’d never have dared take the back off the thing in the first place.

Interment "at today's prices"

“Pre-arranging your funeral means peace of mind…” Post-arranging it may be tricky, I suppose.

I can’t really justify this post other than to say language is a first step in communications and comms is regularly dealt with here. A weasel argument, I fear.

The quote comes from RIAS (Insurance for the over-fifties) who recently went the extra step by linking up with Dignity (Caring funeral services). Note, uncaring funeral services turn you into a hotpot under the cover of darkness. RIAS guarantees my funeral “at today’s prices” but recognises it’s never easy bringing up the subject of funeral planning. “So if this letter has arrived at an inappropriate time” ( Whoops! The corpse is on trestles in the parlour.) I’m to accept their apologies.

The offer will save me woe since “many funerals do not proceed as the deceased would have wished”. But what about the wishes of the living? Are RIAS and Dignity going to prevent them from getting smashed out of their minds or are they aware this is what I may have planned? For the record (I repeat a disclosure I made to Lucy who will think I’m getting obsessional on the subject), the coffin will be cardboard, the Humanist eulogy will be written by me to ensure correct punctuation, the music will include the trio from Cosi, the list song from Don Giovanni and Kodachrome by the guy what wrote it. To drink: real burgundy (Imagine RIAS’s premium!). To eat: Glasgow mutton pies. Those with good memories may recite prose and/or poetry.

What’s more to pre-arrange?

You are old, Father Bonden

I’ve used Word for Windows and/or MsW for a dozen years now, aware that I’ve only scratched the surface of its vast collection of functions. Where I’ve needed to I’ve (reluctantly) taught myself new tricks. As now.

The MS I’ve been editing for two years (a biography) needs converting into book-page format – chapter titles, page numbers, justified text, etc. Word can do this but you must first learn what keys to press and then remember what you’ve learned. I confess page numbering defeated me and I had to call for more skilled help. I was impressed to find that giving chapter headings a style code causes them to appear as page headers.

The problem – as ever – is that complex software needs regular usage to prevent it from lapsing into a set of forgotten rules. When I was still employed Quark Express was the lingua franca of publishing and even the slowest amongst us eventually picked up this demanding DTP package. The contrast came after retirement when I had to teach myself Dreamweaver in order to create the community website I edit. Dreamweaver is based on HTML which, despite Julia’s kind explanation, always seemed like ten steps backwards and I struggled with it. Even now when I return to the website I need a ten-minute tutorial to remind myself about such things as “named anchors”.

Perhaps septuagenarians exploring software represents hubris in its latest form. We should know our place and lie a’bed reading Trollope.

A rare plus for capitalism

On May 19 2005 I bought a Navman satnav (left) that could be transferred between cars. On January 5 this year, as a belated Christmas present, my wife bought me a similar device by TomTom (right). There’ve been major changes in the technology during the forty-four months between purchases.

Price. Since I wanted mainland European mapping I paid through the nose for the Navman: £691.86. The TomTom has this feature and cost £117.47 or 5.88 times cheaper.

Weight. The lighter the device the easier it is to install securely in the car. The Navman weighs 0.49 kg, the TomTom 0.27 kg.

Operating simplicity. The Navman has a four-way joystick button, two increase/decrease buttons and four other conventional buttons, several of them dual-function depending on the menu. The TomTom is accessed via six icons on a touch-screen.

Display simplicity. The full range of travelling info on the Navman requires the selection of six separate “pages”. Virtually all this appears on the main TomTom page.

Locking on to satellites. The Navman sometimes takes minutes; with the TomTom say three or four seconds.

Speed camera warning. Navman, no; TomTom, yes.

Strange lapse. Under Points of Interest (Places of worship) TomTom would have me believe Hereford lacks a cathedral. This may or may not be the case with the Navman POI system but its complexity has prevented me from finding out.

Spending money to save money

On the pavement (US: sidewalk) this morning there’s an unmistakable shape at my feet: the truncated L of an Allen key. It triggers memories of reassembling Ikea knocked-down furniture, especially to furnish the house in France. I’ll withold the joky stories this topic usually engenders in what Damon Runyon used to call “the blatts”.

I’m struck by the techno-financial equation it represents. Allen-headed screws are I suspect more expensive than conventional slotted and/or cross-head screws, and Ikea is renowned for its parsimony. Yet opting for this design allows flush fixings which aren’t visually disagreeable together with the provision of the cheapest of all screwdrivers – so cheap, in fact, it can be regarded as a disposable. But which does the job perfectly.

I once visited an Ikea warehouse in the midst of rural Sweden. The blue and yellow that seem so garish in this country blended rather better with the conifers and silver birches. But then they are the national colours.

WRITING: CRAFT NOT ART
Eclogue 77. Semi-colon pundits should be required to prove the point.
Example: In 1957 I bought my first car; until then I’d ridden bikes. (Using a full stop would turn the two short sentences into telegrams – remember those?)

Note: Virgil wrote eclogues, or pastoral poems. It must be clear I’m not seeking to compete.

Flaming torches even better

The Daily Express which resembles The Daily Mail but without the necessary hormone treatment has launched a campaign in defence of the incandescent light bulb. In insisting our living-rooms should be lit the same way granny’s was, it snits the government for promoting low-energy bulbs.

Injudiciously the paper quotes technical rather than sentimental reasons, all three of which are wrong. Even incompatibility with dimmer switches has been resolved.

This is said to be little-c conservatism. Were tears shed when outdoor lavs were brought indoors and hundreds of night-soil men were put out of business? Is there always someone who regrets change, however beneficial? Certainly there was when capital punishment was halted. In fact much of that regret is still sharp and ripe.

Such tendencies must make growing older even more of a penance.

WRITING: CRAFT NOT ART

(a) Semi-colon or comma? (b) Semi-colon or full stop?
Eclogues 76a and 76b. (a) Not an option; the comma divides linked items while the semi-colon separates ideas/concepts. (b) For me the judgement is aesthetic since you could, at a pinch, use either. Choosing depends on rhythm and assonance as much as on sense. Do you prefer two complete sentences, or a longer, subtly linked one? Listen to your ear and/or your noggin
Note 1. My formal instruction in English ended when I was 15.
Note 2. I have raised this thorny subject in response to a request from Relucent Reader to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.

Note 3. Eclogue. Wrong again.

Greed: it has powerful after-effects

Those affected by the financial crisis may be divided into three: those who brought it on themselves (banks, financial experts, tax dodgers and lazy-minded manufacturers), ordinary folk advised by experts and who got reamed (the majority of us) and those who did everything possible to avoid the situation (yet still got reamed). A word of sympathy for the latter group.

While I was still working my magazine carried a story researched by my assistant editor about Nissan’s UK operation. How different it seemed from so many British enterprises. A new factory with a parent prepared to accept losses for a decade, huge and continuing investment in technology and systems, management based on weekly if not daily consultation with the workforce, a reward for anyone whose suggestion helped improve efficiency, training that meant something and involvement in the local community.

Yesterday, Nissan UK laid off a quarter of its workforce. I’m gutted for all those who have suffered but as an observer of industry I’m particularly heart-slufted (a special angoisse experienced only in the West Riding) by this one. It’s enough for me to consider – at least for a nano-second – the possibility of compensation in an after-life.

WRITING: CRAFT NOT ART

Eclogue 27e. Distrust adjectives, adverbs, related phrases and excess.
Before: “Please, please,” she said in a voice that carried a note of entreaty, “reconsider your reckless driving and pull into that safe layby.”
After: “Stop!” she implored.
Note: Eclogue still misused.

Applaud the unapplauded

Those who understand the internet and who pass on knowledge are rarely thanked. Instead, their inarticulacy is derided, their whey faces laughed at and they are accused of lacking a life away from the screen. Rarely does anyone mention their altruism.

I am presently setting up a second blog in French. Seemed easy enough until I discovered the new is joined at the hip to the old. Translate the profile in one and it appears in French in the other. Blogger Help says true separation requires an additional email account. But Blogger Group Help – an impromptu service provided by those with the knowhow and, it seems, lots of spare time – has shown me a way of bamboozling setpiece Blogger so I can be a former editor in one and un ancien rédacteur-en-chef in the other.

Not perfect, but a step forward. More fiddling necessary at the ISP end. But it’s those volunteers, hanging around in space, waiting for idiots to call in who fascinate me. When I used a similar service for website designers the raggedy advice I received was forgivable given that it came from the Ukraine. While a tricky DIY problem involving a router invoked the cadences of a Brit used to talking about “two-bi-fours” and “three-inch slaps”.

But who are these people who advise the unadvised? I know little about the internet and what I do know I hold close to my chest. I assist others only where it suits my need for self-aggrandisement. Luckily the virtuals put me to shame. A small prayer should be composed to celebrate the pro-bonos out there.