Sunday 26 June, 2005

Right, that’s me off to Australia. You could say I am quite excited.

I’d best get some packing done…

Monday 20 June, 2005

One thing that I didn't mention yesterday about my trip to Invergordon was that I'd gone all the way up there without realising that my digital camera had run out of batteries. I nipped into a shop and bought the cheapest I could find, which was 99p for four Panasonic AAs. I've never quite understood why batteries come in the same classifications as bras, but never mind. Anyway, when I tried my camera again, it simply froze on me after taking one photo of the QM2 (added below). It opened the lens and just wouldn't close. I was very annoyed.Today, I popped into the store where I bought it, only to find that I was past my warranty, and they could do nothing for me except make me wait 6 to 8 weeks. That was the response of another camera shop in town too, which was not what I wanted to hear exactly a week short of my trip to Australia. When I got back to the office, I phoned a few more places that I found on the web (one even in Colchester) only to get the same response. Desperate, I texted 63336, the Any Questions Answered people. For a pound, they told me of a place in town that could do repairs. Not only was the number wrong, but when I eventually tracked the right number down and called them it transpired they didn't do repairs at all.

Somewhat upset at the thought of having to buy another digital camera, or even worse go without photos, another websearch directed me to All Experts, a web-based and free version of AQA. Within a few hours of me writing to a camera expert with the problem, I'd received back a warm and friendly email with a jardon-free diagnosis: it was more than likely the batteries. It seemed, he explained, that some batteries aren't powerful to make a certain strength of motor work. The very nice man even comiserated with me on my dilemma and reassured me that getting a new camera would be better than missing out on capturing all my Australian memories. So, on my way home from work I bought some Duracell batteries, put them in, and the camera now works perfectly.

And so the moral of today's blog is:

All Experts	1-0	Any Questions Answered
Duracell	1-0	Panasonic

Sunday 19 June, 2005

Today I have been in the town of Invergordon, to the north of Inverness, to see the cruise liner, Queen Mary 2. Coincidentally, this was the place I spent the first year of my life and have only been back a couple of times since. It's a small town, just a couple of thousand, although relatively pretty and with beautiful views of the Cromarty Firth and the dramatic line-up of oil platforms that rest just off-shore while undergoing repairs and maintenance. The QM2 dwarfed the whole village, and looked very dramatic up close, with the arrival of a couple of thousand rich Americans (or whoever) for a couple of days generating quite a stir in the town. It was like a carnival atmosphere, with street entertainers, craft stalls, all the shops open, and ice-cream vans keeping the mix of locals, tourists and cruisers cool on what has been a lovely warm day.

I went up with a group of friends from church, after all deciding that we would go up to have a look after the morning service today (yes, going to church turns you into that sort of radical, zany, drop-everything, spur-of-the-moment, sort of creature). We had a great time moseying around, and it was quite incredible to see the small town so busy. It's amazing, really – the crowds the boat pulled, you'd think that nothing ever happens in the highlands.

Or maybe just nothing ever happens in Invergordon. Not since I left it 25 years ago, anyway.

In other news, I have five work-days left before going to Australia. I am very excited indeed.

Sunday 12 June, 2005

Computers are so bleedin' complicated. I bought a laptop recently, which arrived just the other day. My objective was to be able to do funky things like support an iPod and lots of music files, perhaps try out Skype, a sort of internet telephone voice thingy, and do various other things that my current PC could not manage. Like cope with more than two applications without getting constipated and crashing on me. It is very old, very decrepit, and can barely cope with life any longer – it's at the stage where it needs to be taken out the back, patted on the head, and shot.So I bought a snazzy, powerful and all-singing and all-dancing laptop. I also bought a wireless router, with the aim of being able to use the internet without being fixed in one place – effectively so I could be online in the next door room, or even in the garden.

All sounds simple and straightforward, you'd think. Well, there have been so many problems I do not know where to start. The router I got couldn't interact with my modem, so I had to replace them both with an all in one router-modem, and getting my internet service through my laptop took me ages. As did protecting my wireless access so not just anyone could use it. Well, more accurately, it all took my friend and computer expert Mike the best part of today to wrestle with it. It's great having friends who know about this sort of thing!

I'm now online with it, but all my software and files, such as my photos, Word documents, saved Championshop Manager games, these webpages, and the programme I use to publish online, are all still on the hard-drive of my old PC. And the old PC is too old to be able to cope with a memory stick (so I can transfer files from it to the laptop), and too old to cope with a driver that you need to be able to run the memory stick. It also can't handle a network cable so I can't "pipe" the files directly on to the laptop.

Leaving me with the rather awful job of emailing groups of my files to myself on the old PC, and then going online with the laptop, opening the emails, and saving the files onto the laptop's hard drive. I have 560MB of files on my old computer. I don't know if that is a lot or not, but my email can only cope with attachments of 10MB at a time. Meaning it looks like I will have to send myself (at least) 56 separate emails, all of which will take ages to go through because of the huge attachments, and of course the fact my computer is old, slow and generally dribbling its existence away in a rocking chair by the window.

There's got to be a better way than this. I thought computers were meant to make life easier…

Wednesday 1 June, 2005

I was fascinatinated to read this article on BBC news online about a new town planned for the Highlands.The city of Inverness has been growing rapidly in recent years. It's all part of the supposed Highland Renaissance, where there is a growing strength in highland culture, the local economy, and the general atmosphere of the region. 2007 is earmarked as the Year of Highland Culture and is the year that those nice people who pay my salary aim to become a University.

Quite what is fuelling this growth is unclear – there are no major private sector companies relocating here, no areas of local industry that are booming for any discernable reason, and no particularly convincing explanation as to why the Highlands is suddenly the "place to be" all of a sudden.

I can only assume it's something to do with the fact that I now live here. It's certainly not the fine weather or liberal licensing laws…

Anyway, whatever it is that is making Inverness so high profile, it is sending the housing market booming and bringing all sorts of new shops into the city centre. The population of around 60,000 is growing rapidly (an estimated 30,000 more in the next 30 years) with people relocating from all over the country and beyond, and the local football team has reached the top flight and stayed there beyond all expectations this season. There is a real confidence in the town. Sorry, city.

To cope with the boom there are now plans, it seems from the above article, for a new town – provisionally called Castle Stuart – which will be located in between Inverness and Nairn near the airport on the so-called A96 corridor. This is an area that is ripe for development, with new houses, new industrial estates and a possible new university campus planned, with aspirations to dual-carriageway the main road and install at least two new railway stations en route. Inverness's centre of gravity is shifting east along this corridor, and the city is spreading not so slowly-but-surely.

It has just occurred to me that there will soon be a name given to the conurbation to succeed the rather bland "A96 corridor". I'd therefore like to get bagsies on the term "the Northern Belt".

Give it a few years, but remember – you heard it here first!