I thought I wasn’t going to name names, but I am fed up with our mobile service from Vodafone. It was ok to good until 14 October, when the signal from the mast (shared with O2) failed.
I have had telecons aplenty with the helpline, reset my phone, turned three times widdershins but all to no avail. From a service with up to 50MBS I now get 0.45MBS rising to 6MBS on occasion. What has been the cause of this problem? Well every time I speak to an advisor, I get a variant on the maintenance story. Routine maintenance or ‘fixing’ a problem — come back in a week. We are escalating to the next level, but a call from a manager has been rescheduled.

Solutions

1. Switch to O2. Unfortunately their service was even worse than Vodafone until today
2. Try ‘Quickline’ again with a promise of 30MBS broadband
3. Pay money to Elon for an expensive satellite link

Watching the dark sky last night and observing the satellites racing across the void, I ask myself why here in the UK we have such a poor service for internet connectivity. I can’t honestly call this a 3rd world service – Rwanda has, I am told, excellent broadband. The Canary Islands are blanketed with fast 5G, even in volcanic national parks

Start spending cash on infrastructure new Labour government before we spiral into decay and poverty

It is that time of the year again when the calendar moves to September and by at least one metric, it is now autumn. Some say that it is still summer, but by calling it autumn, one can pronounce any sunny day as a harbinger of an Indian summer (are we allowed to call it that anymore?)

Here is the Wiki about the origin of the phrase:

Later research showed that the earliest known reference to Indian summer in its current sense occurs in an essay written in the United States around 1778 by J. Hector St. John de Crevecœur, describing the character of autumn and implying the common usage of the expression

Great rains at last replenish the springs, the brooks, the swamp and impregnate the earth. Then a severe frost succeeds which prepares it to receive the voluminous coat of snow which is soon to follow; though it is often preceded by a short interval of smoke and mildness, called the Indian Summer. This is in general the invariable rule: winter is not said properly to begin until those few moderate days & the raising of the water has announced it to Man.

So after the first frost, if we have a few mild days (and statistics should predict this reversion to the norm), then we will have our ‘Indian Summer’

It is a shame that Hattons has decided to close all their operations. Change is happening in the model railway world:

more expensive pieces of kit

more individual models and more choice

the removal of pre-release models at discounts from suppliers such as Hornby

the universal use of the internet in buying models – there is no absolute need for a front end physical store and all internet stores appear to be equal – they really compete only on price (a bit on reputation too)

I don’t think that model railways are a dying hobby – but I suspect that there will be yet more change in suppliers to come

The trigger to start this comparison process started with a concern that leaving my quotes collection in the now defunct Quotebook app was not a sensible decision.

I had of course heard of Obsidian and other note taking apps before, but had not investigated further.

So, on to try them all out

Obsidian

A wee bit too vague and Freeform for what I wanted. Powerful, but would the effort in learning this be justified in benefits gained?

Notion

This was more structured and easier to get to grips with than Craft and indeed I initially transferred my quotes to this app. Some niggles remained. I could not alter/remove the title from templates that were provided. Notion also keeps the data on their servers and if the internet goes down (which it does frequently here) then I would have no access to my data.

I also was aware of concerns on Reddit as to the business model of Notion and whether they would make a profit to enable the app to be supported in the future, or would it fold as so many startups have done

Craft

A little more tricksy to get up and running, but I transferred my quotes across to a nice template and all was well. Better looking and perhaps more functional than with Notion. Data is held locally on my machines.

X-callback URL

This scheme is nicely used by Devonthink. It enables a one click access to files in DT when you paste an item link to a suitable app.

Notion does not support this (I suppose that their model of access to centrally held data by many users does not make sense for them – though there is a roundabout fix using Shortcuts and TinyURL). Obsidian & Craft support this well.

The stimulus to do this was to see if I could link to a pdf of a book I had cut up, scanned in and converted to pdf and to epub. The formatting in epub was awful. The pdf version looked like the paper book (I had spent a lot of time ensuring that this would be a good-looking translation). So, I have set up a books section in Craft with sub folders and nice headers with illustrations and each ‘page’ contains these active links. One click and the book opens for reading in DT. I can also have the same book appear on different pages of the Craft app.

Why not just use DT? I have books arranged in different databases in DT (and DTTG) and need to be aware that these books exist!

If I can have a good looking ‘card’ on a dashboard with all my stuff, then I know what resources I hold in DT. Access to any of these books/articles is now instant. All I need do is to set up the pages and populate them with links.

Oh the hens! They keep disappearing. I had 5 Modelu 00 hens that would mirror the real life hens in our paddock. At this scale (1:76) the models are tiny. I had just finished painting the foxes prior to them being planted next to the church yard to stalk the rabbit. Naturally when one of the hens disappeared I thought of foul play.

It turned up on the carpet just after I found the missing loco lamp of my LNER A5.

She (the hen) is called Matilda. after she had been shown off in her resplendent Bowes Moor Blue plumage, she vanished again.

She will turn up – and so she did – on the floor again. They will need to be permanently planted in position – a breath of air never mind the threat of a fox will lead them into a death plummet onto the floor.

Next figures – the farmers pack.

Off on our family excursion to the North Yorks Moors Railway (NYMR) to join the Santa Train at Pickering. 

Hauled by a J27 in BR livery no 65894, the usual mix of coaches awaited. Impossible to see out of the windows due to condensation until a gloved hand wiped the mist away. Then to open the top window between the arrow marks to avoid a draught and off we went. Wrapped up against the winter chill I did not notice any heating in the coach. The J27 I read later, served in the NE up to 1967, hauling freight ie wagons. I hope that the coaches had heating installed, but suspect that heating would not be coming from an engine designed to pull wagons.

Santa came along with his elves and a good time was had by all. Time for the children to be taken into the engine cab and ‘enjoy’ the smoke.

Many hard up aristocrats have been forced by death duties etc to sell family paintings and precious objects to keep a roof over their head. A similar situation pertains in the UK – we have run out of money but remain asset rich. What about killing two birds with one stone?

We own the Elgin Marbles. Greece wants them back. Everything has a price (even though the marbles are priceless)

Can we not agree to sell some of the ‘family silver’ in this case, transferring ownership of the sculptures to the Greek state for enough money to give the nurses a large pay rise.

Stiles are fun. Much less boring than a field gate.

Step
Squeeze
Clapper
Stone
Ladder
Cornish

Plus a smoot hole for dogs

Who knew that there were so many styles of stiles

The allotted time came and went. Repairs were more tricksie than expected (we have all been there). The power was restored, long enough for the clocks to be updated and timers to be set to quiet and a small number of beeps. The computer was booted up again.

Oh well, the power went off again for 5 minutes. Long enough for me to return to the above paragraph (rinse and repeat).

The internet is back on and I sent yesterday’s blog to this site.

I do wish that it was that easy in Ukraine – that promises were kept.

Fragile human bodies subjected to fragments from shells or mortar bombs (it is a moot point). That is twice, the Russians have lied about safe passage (they have form on this – see Chechnya & Syria). Today, all ‘safe passages’ lead to Russia or Belarus. Ukraine has not agreed to this posturing.

The first intimation of this was that my computer screen would not light up. I pressed the space bar repeatedly but nothing happened. I then noticed that the Drobo’s lights were off.
Next step – the light switch – no power to the lights
Next step – check the main circuit boards – all switches were in the right orientation

Next step – check the 4G signal on my phone – still there
A txt came through from Power Grid – power cut – estimated 12:15 return of power

So that is Sunday lunch ruined if the power does not come back on for the family lunch. A dog walk beckoned. While I was out on ‘walkies’ the power went out on the mobile phone mast. I suspect that it has a battery supply for short outages.

This is occurring perhaps twice a month now – the first and perhaps not the last for March. So inconvenient – computer off, no mobile signal. No TV or HomePods and Apple Music. The central heating is off but the sun is streaming in.
Time to crank up the log fire and have a cup of tea. Unlike the Americans, we Brits use electric kettles (240V). So time to go to the dual supply Rangemaster and put a hob kettle on the gas ring.

We still have power to the local water supply, so toilets flush and we have clean drinking water. It is daylight and we have candles and a portable gas heater. If we place our black Labrador puppy into direct sunlight, then she will act as a heat store for later use!
Time to wrap up, go into the garden, empty out the compost from the wormery and drain out the liquor that will sustain pot plants.

Now imagine you are in Ukraine 🇺🇦
Wrecked houses, no power, no light, no water — just a solid determination not to give in to Russian aggression and murder.