a chirurgical miscellany
All things must pass
All things fade. Only the living repairs and renews itself. Some signs need to be updated and renewed1. Others can be safely left to fall apart.
Should they be removed or allowed to moulder?
Unfortunately the signs warning of the hazard wear less well than the antipersonnel mines. They are exposed to the wind, rain and especially the sun. The mines are cocooned in peat and may last for many generations to come ↩
Hidden Gems
We blithely pass on our way, eyes sweeping over familiar objects. Turning the corner, a feature on a lamp post1 jarred a memory. There was an almost obscured crest on the post. The details have been painted over again and again until little evidence remains. Under all this clogging of paint, the old Seal Crest of the Falkands peers through.
Time to find out what else I have missed in my hurry around the town
Iconic lamp posts with a boat apparently passing through the substance of the concrete. The six lamp posts were designed by the Colonial Engineer Col Woodgate
(An Historical Scrapbook of Stanley by John Smith 2013) ↩
The only traffic lights in Stanley
Quite possibly, the only ones in the Falklands 1
You know what they say about new roads attracting the traffic — well, it's true. The blacktop beckoned; 300 metres of smooth unblemished tarmac. Unfortunately, I was condemned to wait on the whim of the baleful red eye that glared from the works traffic lights. Nothing was coming at me, so the road was clear ahead. In fact, there was no traffic at all along Ross Road West, past the golf course. But I am thoroughly disciplined and only on the yellow did I release the brake. The Pajero surged forward, fishtailing on the loose chippings and then I was at last on the open highway. Heavy treaded tyres, thrumming on the hardtop, I cruised along. All too soon, I was back onto gravel just past the last of the new houses. I had to repeat that drive! A quick 3 point turn pointed my bonnet east, back into town.
I bumped up the ramp onto the new road and then there was that red light again …
I'm not too sure about that as I really don't know the military base at Mount Pleasant. They probably have a few, and roundabouts as well. ↩
Before the war here, communications were by radio and telephone. The system in the settlements was of a series of coded rings. If you heard your code, then would pick up the phone and hear the words broadcast along the telegraph wires. The radio messages were broadcast so anyone could listen in; the doctors surgery hour made this compulsory listening for all. Privacy before the Google era was also not an option.
Mobiles are now in every pocket and hand. Telegraph poles, once vital, lean drunkenly with their old ceramic isolators, and sad trailing wires. This infrastructure, once so cutting edge, has gone. I will miss the song of the wind in the wires and I wonder, where will the little birds perch in the future.
The internet speeds increase every year, but they are still oh so slow. 2Mbs is the fastest, but like car fuel consumption, this is a fairy story. BBC iPlayer does not work for me — even with a VPN1
You have to prepare for the cost — 10-20 times that of the UK for 5% of the speed.
TV here has come on leaps and bounds. You can choose BBC or ITV with a time delay, so that the One Show is on at 7pm here ie 3-4 hours after it has been broadcast in the UK. Unfortunately, there is no Channel 4 so there was no tv coverage of the Grand National2
In addition to this, there is Falklands Islands TV— you must catch this. If you miss the program which has 2 editions per week, then you can buy the DVD.
We have Sky News; broadcast live. There are no adverts on this; instead, it cuts to the weather forecast around the world.
This is good value (it is free) but suffers from British Forces Broadcasting Services cutting into the schedule for half hourly news bulletins. The BFBS news is interesting, but I do wish we had the choice of deciding to continue with Sky or BFBS.
No Sky commercial channels here (I am told that importation of satellite decoder boxes is illegal here3
The infrastructure must be improved for the commercial prosperity of these islands. The way forward has to be a big fat pipe of fibreoptic cable between here and Montevideo — all you can eat internet, fast upload and download, and streaming video services such as Netflix have to be the way forward4
Virtual Private Network — you will need this to fool the server that you are in fact in the UK as you route your internet through the node in Manchester or London. This does slow the connection down even further to a glacial pace. ↩
You might think that is a good thing — no Big Brother or other car crash programs that are prurient or just out to shock by their grossness. ↩
Some might say that this is to preserve the monopoly of the present supplier of AV services to the islands ↩
Not a new thing for the islands. A submarine cable served to keep shipping firms updated with news of traffic around Cape Horn and functioned until obsolescence brought about by radio reared its head. ↩
A species on the risk list — endangered
A farming community that has seen its population of humans crash after the 1982 war. The population of Camp has fallen drastically and continues to haemorrhage people. Fewer and fewer people are supported by farming. Sheep are the main crop, but the land is bare. It can only support livestock when spread over many hectares. The grasses are nibbled down to crewcut length and the bones of the earth gleam through. The tussock has mostly gone. The wild life still remains — seabirds and sea mammals. The small birds, so evident on Carcass are fewer and live in the Diddle dee.
The species at risk on this island — Man.
The new prosperity of Pebble must lie with its main resource — wildlife. Rewilding of part of this island and increased visitors who will pay for a high quality experience must be the future
Going back in time
The basis of the prosperity of the Falklands has always affected life here. Originally based on wild cattle which were landed from passing,ships, the first crest depicted Captain John Davis’s ship Desire and a wild steer.
The crest was later changed perhaps to reflect the importance of harvesting the abundant wildlife and a Sealion appears together with the Desire. A further change in the crest in 1948 from a sealion to a sheep was made, to reflect the new source prosperity and the dominance of the wool industry on these islands A good choice then, but it sends the wrong message now. Tourism is a growing business. Sheep are harming not just the land of the Falklands but also its image. Man made fibres are preeminent in the clothing industry for sporting and leisure wear. Wool will be in the future reserved for the premium market — this will be in the form of fine wools such as Merino. From a staple of clothing for centuries, wool will be a luxury item. Synthetic breathable microfibre synthetics are cheaper lighter and perform better 1
If the main business of theses lands is to be reflected on the flag then it should change to include a fish or a squid on the crest now. Maybe in future years an oil rig should take pride of place.
Go back to your roots and celebrate the gift of nature that the Falklands have been granted.
No one wants to visit the Falklands to see the sheep! 2
I say bring back the Sealion crest from the 1920’s. The sheep has had its day.
Ebooks and DRM vexes me. I originally thought that DRM or Digital Rights Management was all about copy protection. Wrong. It seems to be about locking your purchases into the one eco system. Most of us move around over the years; in my case from IBM to Acorn BBC B to Acorn Risc, then to Vaio PC then to Mac and now iThingy with IOS. I cannot read the first ebooks I bought on the PC. They are lost to me. Some sort of garbling of the words occurred in the files and then the proprietary software would ungarble it. Sadly, Microsoft dropped Reader and as my PC is long trashed, my books that I paid good money for are just garbage.
A better system used by another company was to use my credit card number as the password. I have been able to retrieve these files and now have removed the DRM. So I can now read my old books.
DRM is also present on Kindle books. Amazon uses a proprietary format that is not used by any other firm. They say that there is an app for all machines but you are still beholden to this company for access in the future. I thought that I owned the books I bought — is that the case?
You cannot sell, lend etc etc an ebook; you can with paper books
Amazon also deleted a copy of a book that people had bought from their Kindles. Did they ask for permission — no.
There are programs to get rid of DRM from .azw files (the Kindle format)
You then have control over your books. Catalogue them with Calibre, add metadata, change the cover, select short passages to allow quotes. You now own them, can make backups, add them to collections and if you like to collect authors' signatures, you can use Skitch to obtain them and replace the cover with the personalised variant.
Sadly, the way around DRM on iBooks no longer works.
This means that I cannot read my iBooks on the fantastic Marvin.
I like to organise my books the way that pleases me. I wish to have all my books on the one app. Why should I have books scattered around my ipad?
I have also gone off iBooks as my go to standard eBook reader. Why?
I made an error in setting the wrong synch parameter between my ipad and itunes while away from home. iTunes then promptly deleted all the books from my iPad; 1000+ .
I still had the files on my portable hard drive, but then had to resynch them back to the iPad. Guess what? Some covers and metadata did not transfer; my preferred order of books in the bookcase was lost and I lost (yet again) my highlights and annotations in my books.
Enough was enough. My frustrations were similar (but of a lower level) to those that prompted my move from PC to Mac. So I jumped to Marvin (the name must come from Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy) — it has a brain the size of a planet! 1
My workflow:
The days of running out of books on holiday are long gone. If you read all the books on your ipad then the Kindle store is just a few clicks away.
Come on Apple, get rid of DRM as you did for songs.
