Optimising and safeguarding my computer

"Most teachers are part-time IT pros at their schools so I expect you are pretty experienced in optimising and safeguarding PCs."

Thus spake Trevor Hare as a comment on the end of a previous post.

I have looked up adding 2GB of memory to my operating system, using the Crucial UK System scanner tool. I will do this soon. At present it is running on 256 Mb., so will multiply by 8.

I have downloaded the Acronis True Image system on a 15 day trial to provide me with a back up system.

I have downloaded the Mozilla browser although, out of laziness, still tend to use Internet Explorer.

The defragmenting software has been downloaded and is in use.

Norton 360 regularly scans my system and provides a firewall.

I am impressed by the Dell Latitude D630 laptop but am also struck by a Toshiba model.

A cable broadband and a wireless network join two computers at present but we have the capacity to include a laptop for working downstairs or in the garden.

Googlemail is my free email service, as well as using my ntlworld and frostymarsh email servers.

I was lucky enough at school to work alongside Steve Long, a very gifted ICT technician, and before him, the lovely Lynne Tandy. I learned a lot from both but want to thank Trevor for all the advice given. I have learned even more in these past few days.

The aftermath

The week after a show goes down tends to feel rather flat and anti climactic, especially after the adrenalin rush of the previous week. Certainly "Attempts On Her Life" prompted more adrenalin rushes than most shows I have been in.

I have started work as movement director on "Bronte", the next Bench production, which opens on April 24th. However I will keep you up to date with how that goes on my companion blog, "Bench Hamlet 2008".

The Penroses, Best Beloved and I went to see Sondheim's "Merrily We Roll Along" on Thursday for a matinee at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury. Again this is reviewed on my companion blog. I have realised I have lots of Sondheim compilations and am enamoured of favourite pieces by favourite artistes such as Mandy Patinkin and Maria Friedman but don't have many of his musicals on CD. This is because I have a magnificent collection of musicals on tape, which cost me hundreds to gather and haven't yet replaced them with CD versions. I can see another project arising.

The Bench Club Night was fun as the Best Beloved led a session on "Bronte" and it reminded everyone that Club night have become a bit sedentary. We have tended to sit around a lot and talk about future productions, rather than get up and do something. I was a bit "giddy" and silly and owe apologies for embarrassing behaviour all around. I did start a post about embarrassing behaviour to which I am prone but decided to abort it as it was too navel gazing even for me.

This week has also seen me looking at the Internet in a more organised way to see what i can get out of it rather than just idly surfing aimlessly. I have updated various aspects of my computer but am still appalled at how slow it is. I have plenty of storage memory but the operating system slowly grinds its way through tasks. I am now back online with Messenger but have only two people on my contact list. I like the idea of video calling but obviously need more contacts to make it worthwhile.

Today is a sporting day with Pompey taking on Man U at lunchtime in Old Trafford, followed by England tackling Scotland in the Rugby Calcutta Cup at teatime. The family is attending the wedding of Damon and Vicky ( he was director of Bare Bards' "Measure for Measure" in November 2007) and the Best Beloved and I are going to the evening reception. We wish the young couple the very best in their married life together.

The Best Beloved has an operation lined up on Tuesday and will then be out of action for five or six weeks recuperation thereafter. I will be her nurse and housekeeper. I have all the skills necessary but am unreliable if I get stuck into my own activities. The Firstborn and Cat will relieve me on occasions and will no doubt keep me up to the mark if they observe any slacking on my part. I have observed many times in the past a genetic tone of voice that the female members of my family possess when they find it necessary to reprimand me. If the Best Beloved is not there to take charge herself, the Firstborn sounds remarkable like her as does Cat if the other two aren't around. To my ear it sounds like the Best Beloved has never left the building. I am reluctant to get my greyhound, "Rosie", because I think this phenomenon would only confuse her. She would have to rely solely on the voice of her master to know whether she was coming or going.

In recompense the details of our canal boat holiday in June, our extension building in the summer and our nephew's wedding in September in Italy are beginning to firm up beautifully.

This has been posting for the sake of posting but I do have plans afoot for revitalising my blog so patient reader please stay with me. I must go now, someone has signed in on Messenger. I wonder if they will talk to me? "Rosie", heel, girl!

In Memoriam

Michael John Patrick Corrigan
born 9th January 1943
died 13th September 1943
aged 8 months.

First son of James Patrick and Nellie Corrigan.

Elder brother of Peter John and Andrew Patrick.

The Jokes Circuit

I am a sucker for jokes. I can never remember the punch lines and roar with ill-contained mirth at the same jokes over and over again.
I am therefore a recipient of lots of these email circulated jokes from a number of sources and in the main I enjoy them. I am sometimes caught out when someone on the distribution list says, "Wasn't that joke about Viagra funny?". I simply cannot remember the joke! It must appear at times that I am displaying prudism but generally the dirtier the joke the more I laugh. However it does not improve my remembrance of said joke one iota. The similarity of lots of these jokes do make them merge one with another. I am also an Einstein disciple. When asked why he didn't remember his phone number, he replied that it was written down somewhere in a book. He didn't need to waste valuable memory space on such trivia. I like that explanation.
I read the jokes and then pass them on to other distribution lists of people I think will enjoy them. So I am a culpable and involved participant in such email rubbish. I wouldn't dream of passing them on to such a discerning person as you , dear reader, although occasionally one or two do slip on to the pages of my blog.
I have recently been included on a distribution list of someone in the rehab class. The sheer amount of distributed material is overwhelming and I need to indicate clearly what I like and what I don't. Amongst the material is a great deal of what I can only describe as invective aimed at immigration and immigrants. I am distressed that such material exists, which runs counter to my personal and political stance. I am really upset though that anyone who knew me would think that I would endorse this material in any way. We are not allowed to discuss sex, politics or religion during rehab classes as these are subjects which invariably lead to heated debate at least. In a band of recovering males, who are beginning to rediscover themselves after a traumatic physical experience, led by a very fit young woman, the first one of the banned subjects may not be too overt but is there in the sub text constantly. The last two subjects are frowned upon. However one of the warm down exercises is to perform a series of prescribed activities to the numbers, one to ten. One is raise left arm, three is clap hands, eight is stand on right leg with left leg in air, etc. Debbie decide to change the routine by introducing the numbers in another language - so far we have done French and German. The numbers 1 - 10 in a number of languages is well within the scope of an ex primary school teacher (although I cannot comment on the accuracy of the pronunciation). In the event the number of other people in the group who knew these numbers in German surprised Debbie. When the idea was broached, Debbie approached me for the numbers in German (she can see a parallel in what she does with what I did professionally), and there was comment from the list distributors. I explained that I was a pro-European and, despite some subsequent scoffing, felt a glow inside. I had stood up - oh I know in a very minor way - for one of my political ideals and, you know what, it feels good.

Bits and pieces

Over on my "Bench Hamlet 2008" blog, I am writing a personalised review of "Attempts On Her Life", last week's production of the Bench Theatre at Havant Arts Centre. I might send an edited version to go on the rehearsal blog of the show and perhaps to the Benchpress.
Here, I just wanted to vent my spleen at a couple of things that caught my eye this week. Both were to do with education, which still clings to me like an old familiar smell.
Firstly there was the Tesco CEO banging on about education standards of school leavers not being good enough. I am not sure what educational level is expected of a store replenishment assistant but what takes the biscuit as far as I am concerned is that this comes from a company, which like many others of its ilk, is finding ways to avoid paying tax in this country. Once upon a time tax avoidance was the domain of giant multi nationals but now even companies of the size of Tesco are doing the same. One figure I have seen quoted for the amount of tax thus avoided is £12 billion. That would be enough to build 50 new hospitals and would certainly be enough to invest in state education. The CEO will probably claim he is paying his own personal tax but companies like his are directing money away from this country. In education I constantly heard the expression, "you can't solve a problem by throwing money at it." You could solve a number of problems by looking closely at what the problems actually are and investing wisely to overcome them. Over 300 secondary schools are under-performing and there are probably as many reasons as there are schools. However there must be some generic problems.
Based on personal professional experience, a school with difficulties usually finds itself militated against. The inspection team arrives and identifies the fairly obvious faults in the system prevalent in the school. They report on these faults and publicise them. They then move on to the next school in the system. The school management and staff in the affected school are virtually left to drag themselves out of the trouble they are in. Wouldn't it be better if a team of dedicated specialist teachers (if such things exist?) moved in alongside the existing staff until such time as the school recovered to the standard expected? It may also be necessary to axe some of the current staff and replace them with more capable staff on a higher pay scale. The number of staff should be deliberately increased to improve immediately the chances of the children currently at the school. This would reduce the numbers in teaching groups and give the teachers more preparation time working alongside more experienced qualified staff. What usually happens in reality of course is that the inspection report causes an abandonment of the school by those parents and children who can move. This reduces the numbers on roll and staff is reduced accordingly as they are made redundant. It doesn't take much imagination to see that the ones who move voluntarily are the ones that can. None of this works in a free market capitalism based education system but it could if that £12 billion was used to improve buildings, resources and staffing because that is what the common good needs, not what the market demands.
The other point was exclusions. Apparently if a child is excluded from a private school, the fees are retained by the school as part of the contract entered into between the parent and the educational establishment. In the state system, if a child is excluded from a school, the funding for that child must be forwarded back to the local authority or on to the next school receiving that child. The original school is therefore penalised all the way round for excluding a child. I am not advocating that it should be made easy for children to be excluded, but rather it is usually followed by a lot of bureaucratic hand and arm waving in the air, accompanied by tutting noises, and basically total inaction. This helps neither the individual child or the school. The blame for the inaction usually is laid at the door of inadequate budgets provided for thos in authority. I did wonder again if some of that £12 billion in avoided taxes could have been used to take an excluded child from a state school and that the state then invests in a private education for that child. It might be cheaper for the state to do that in the long run, it would then have an investment platform in the "much better" private education system and the child would be given a true new start in life. Of course there are lots of flaws in this idea and perhaps the most glaring one is that unscrupulous parents might encourage their state educated children to misbehave in order to attain this "new start". As if parents have any responsibility for the behaviour of their children in school! What a socialist idea that is!
I read in the letters published in my local paper that we have a "socialist government". Which country do they live in and which century?

Family history

The Kid Brother, who is the family historian, having traced back the family tree some distance at least on my mother's side, has intervened to correct some information I put out in an earlier post. I claimed my father was the sire of two sons but in fact he had three sons. Unfortunately my older brother,Michael Patrick, caught pneumonia at the age of six months and did not survive. When I caught pneumonia at six months and nearly died (perhaps a reason for my smaller lung capacity?), except for the persistence of my mother against medical complacency, in the days when that sort of thing was not expected of working class mothers, I was given the saint name of John rather than Patrick. My mother did not want to name another child after St Patrick, a saint who failed to look after her firstborn. She must have relented when my Kid Brother was born, as he was named Andrew Patrick, a name already in currency in the family as one of my father's brothers was also named Andrew Patrick.

My Kid Brother also texted me this week to report that he was awoken at 1.00 a.m. by his bed shaking and his roof timbers creaking. It was the Market Rasen earthquake. The epicentre was also in Wombwell, which is a name from our family past.

The Kitten referred me to an episode of "Lark Rise to Candleford", so I watched it, wondering why she thought I would find it interesting. I found it intriguing as it seemed to revolve around a young couple with family and the husband, susceptible to drink, had given his wife a black eye. The wife of the local Liberal workman had taken an interest in their case and he utters the immortal line, "Now I begin to understand what it must be like for you to be married to me." I wasn't sure what I was supposed to get out of the episode. Kitten replied that the drunken married couple (not a reflection of her mother and I fortunately) had made her think of "Nelly and Patrick". Now these are the names of her paternal grandparents and shows that my stories of family history have made an impact on our younger daughter. The strange thing was I failed to recognise "Nelly and Patrick" in her description.

There are two reasons for this. Firstly, I never referred ever to my Mam as Nelly. I knew that was her Christian name and heard other adults call her that. However to me she was Mam. In Alan Bennet''s wonderful "Untold Stories", he recounts a moment when he heard his parents call each other by their Christian names. He realised then that he had only ever heard them refer to themselves as Mam and Dad, and rarely by their Christian name. Parenthood is a strange occupation and surprisingly time consuming.

Secondly, my Da was never referred to as Patrick because all the men in the family could claim that name as their own as well. His brothers, sisters and sisters in law called him Seamus. Aunt Lucy, the Mrs Corrigan, being married to the eldest brother, called him James, which sounded like an admonishment. Everyone else called him Jim or Jimmy, even the Bradford police. He was Big Jim or Big Jimmy, although in stature he was not much bigger than my brother or I are now. However he was a man who talked with both fists to make his points. Big Jim was a mark of respect from those who had felt those points being made on them. Jimmy was the epithet of those who wanted the fists behind them or who had reason to call Da a friend.