Country Life
Apr. 29th, 2008 11:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
peterbirks"Why have we stopped?" enquired I of Jan, as we halted on a country lane from I know not where to I know not where.
"To let the horses by without frightening them", she said, pointing to two large brown quadrupeds which, because of my extensive experience of betting shops all over London, I immediately identified as being of the horse breed. They were being ridden by two considerably smaller bipeds of, I suspect a roughly similar age to the animals which they were astride.
"If the cars in London stopped like that every time a horse was around, nothing would ever move", said I. "I suspect that they don't scare so easily in London".
"Perhaps", nodded Jan, who is wise in the country ways, "but my mum is an experienced horsewoman, and she's been thrown by rearing horses a couple of times".
"I can honestly say that I have never been thrown by a horse", I said, proudly.
"Have you ever been on a horse, Pete?"
"Of course. Woodside Bay, Isle of Wight, 1970. I was 14. It trotted. I didn't like it. That was the last time I rode a horse.".
By this time the horses had ambled by, and the car could resume its place as rightful owner of the road. If God had meant us to ride horses instead of drive cars, surely he would have made our bums a different shape?
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The broadband came back on at 1pm on Saturday, having involved a replaced socket (I now have an external filter, that I had to pay for. Thanks BT) and a reset. So, if one thing positive has come out of this, it's that I know how to set up the Belkin after a hard reset. I must get round to setting up some kind of security on it one day. The tech-number supplied on the Belkin box doesn't work any more, btw — another example of companies doing things now that are of no guarantee for the future -- an important thing to remember when you make any deal with a company that involves a "promise" from them of a future service (e.g., the British gas fifteen quid a month in the vague hope that, when something goes wrong, they will send someone round pronto. Why should they? They've got your money, sucker.) Companies renege on promises all the time, and it's interesting to talk to salesmen to ask them what the situatioj would be if the company selling the product went into administration "because you had heard on the grapevine that it could happen any day now". That gets them worried about their already-obtained-commission rather than about selling to you.
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"To let the horses by without frightening them", she said, pointing to two large brown quadrupeds which, because of my extensive experience of betting shops all over London, I immediately identified as being of the horse breed. They were being ridden by two considerably smaller bipeds of, I suspect a roughly similar age to the animals which they were astride.
"If the cars in London stopped like that every time a horse was around, nothing would ever move", said I. "I suspect that they don't scare so easily in London".
"Perhaps", nodded Jan, who is wise in the country ways, "but my mum is an experienced horsewoman, and she's been thrown by rearing horses a couple of times".
"I can honestly say that I have never been thrown by a horse", I said, proudly.
"Have you ever been on a horse, Pete?"
"Of course. Woodside Bay, Isle of Wight, 1970. I was 14. It trotted. I didn't like it. That was the last time I rode a horse.".
By this time the horses had ambled by, and the car could resume its place as rightful owner of the road. If God had meant us to ride horses instead of drive cars, surely he would have made our bums a different shape?
++++++++
The broadband came back on at 1pm on Saturday, having involved a replaced socket (I now have an external filter, that I had to pay for. Thanks BT) and a reset. So, if one thing positive has come out of this, it's that I know how to set up the Belkin after a hard reset. I must get round to setting up some kind of security on it one day. The tech-number supplied on the Belkin box doesn't work any more, btw — another example of companies doing things now that are of no guarantee for the future -- an important thing to remember when you make any deal with a company that involves a "promise" from them of a future service (e.g., the British gas fifteen quid a month in the vague hope that, when something goes wrong, they will send someone round pronto. Why should they? They've got your money, sucker.) Companies renege on promises all the time, and it's interesting to talk to salesmen to ask them what the situatioj would be if the company selling the product went into administration "because you had heard on the grapevine that it could happen any day now". That gets them worried about their already-obtained-commission rather than about selling to you.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-29 12:43 pm (UTC)You and Harrington.
Me and Siggins on the other hand...Nope!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-29 03:01 pm (UTC)Your particular breed of Homo Urbanis make me chuckle and then cry and then laugh out loud.
Why bother leaving London when you have evolved such useless traits that make you unable to cope outside (in the real world / of the real world)?
A car is indeed master of the metalled road but it won't take much for the weeds to start pushing through and you to be hailing a Hansom cab.
One of us is a dinosaur. Either warp drives and transporter beams are just around the corner and there is a universe of plenty for you to gorge yourself upon or I will have types like you begging on my doorstep.
Guess where my money is?
Butler.
Try McDonalds
Date: 2008-05-01 01:33 pm (UTC)Oddly enough, I too have been having broadband problems of late. Tuesday morning, for instance, when the results of BP and Royal Dutch Shell were out (two buggers to cover so I was glad to have an excuse not to do so) I had a recurrence of the ever useful "No association with access point" message, which meant that although I was picking up the signal from my wireless router, it was not giving me an internet connection.
Plugging directly into the router was no better. I've had this problem on or off for a few weeks, with the line dropping, and I have no idea whether it is the router, the modem part of the modem/router, the lead connecting the modem router to the wall socket, the BT line or my ISP. So, I bought a new modem/router. It seems to be working well, but then so was the old modem/router at the time I replaced it with the new one; sod's law dictates that the thing only drops the line when internet access is urgently required.
Anyway, luckily I have a McDonald's not three minutes' drive from where I live. That's not a phrase I ever imagined typing but there you go, things change. McD's offers free wi-fi access to all customers so now whenever I am working from home and I lose the signal, I scoot off to McD's, get an egg mcmuffin and coffee, park myself in a corner and tap away on the laptop for two hours, undisturbed by the white-van drivers and single parent families who comprise the core McDonald's customer base at 7 in the morning.
Of course, as it is a drive-through restaurant, I could, theoretically, sit in the car park and ponce bandwidth while working in the car but I don't consider £2.99 for two hours internet access plus breakfast roll & coffee to be too bad a deal. Plus the internet response is faster at McDonald's than it is at home, so I really should consider using it all the time in preference to my PC at home. Even the music they play is tolerable in a sort of eclectic background pop sort of way.
Talking of my PC at home, I recently "upgraded" to a 21" widescreen LCD monitor. The picture is really sharp but I don't like widescreen and I miss my old 4x3 21" CRT monster. Widescreen is not great for working on documents; I want depth, not width. I should have chosen one of those monitors that pivots into portrait orientation.
Johnny H.