Deprived of a grill

About a week ago, while cooking my evening meal, the electric grill on my otherwise all-gas kitchen cooker failed. The electric element seemed to give an odd spitting noise, and then the hood light (a separate component) went out. As did some other lights around my house. The gas jets burned on, but I immediately turned them off. I didn't want my vegetables ready before my steak. 

The circuit breaker in the consumer unit had detected a power fault, and had cut in. I reset it, and lights came on again. So did all the cooker electrics, apart from the grill. That stayed dead. I relit the gas burners, and popped the half-cooked steak into the frying pan with the mushrooms and tomatoes, and finished it off there. 

It was OK. The meal was saved. But I much preferred grilling my beef and gammon steaks, and my bacon rashers, so a kaput electric grill was bad news.

This was the Belling cooker I bought eight years ago. It was a mid-range model, with a four-burner gas hob, a main gas oven, and a smaller gas oven that also doubled as an electric grill. It had its irritations - the plastic control knobs tended to break - but it cooked well, and had never before given major trouble. Even now, it remained an excellent gas cooker - quite good enough for my needs, anyway - but the grill was now useless. 

So if cooking at home, and grilling something was an absolute necessity, I'd now have to do it using the gas grill in the caravan parked outside. In fact the best cooker I had, the one that could do it all, was now the gas cooker in the caravan! And if I wanted crispy bacon with my breakfast, or a beautifully flame-kissed steak, I'd have to enjoy it on my caravan holidays. I couldn't have the same thing anymore inside my house. 

Had the time come, then, to replace my old cooker? (Although eight years surely didn't make it all that ancient)

I thought about it. With combating Climate Change in mind, the replacement couldn't be a gas cooker. It would have to be some kind of electric cooker. 

Was I ready for that? 

I recalled my experiences with the ceramic hob and electric oven at the Cottage, when I lived there full-time for six months back in 2009. I'd certainly got used to it; I'd cooked good meals with it; but I'd badly missed the instant heat and fine control offered by a gas cooker. Cooking with electricity was clearly viable, it just needed a modified technique. Mind you, I didn't know how you stir-fried with a wok, using electricity. Maybe you couldn't. However, I did enjoy how easy it was to clean an electric cooker. 

What effect would a switch to cooking with electricity have on my household bills? I'd certainly use less gas, so the gas bills would be cut a bit. But on the other hand, my electricity bills would be higher. Overall, more to pay - but would it break the bank? No, of course not. And I'd be helping the planet.

What about installation? It would be a freestanding cooker. Just plug it in? Ah - was there an existing heavy-duty wire from the consumer unit? With the right fuse? 

I checked the archive photos of my kitchen, taken when installing my present cooker in 2013. I'd emptied and cleaned the space it would fit into. I might well have a clear shot of the electric socket. Yes, I did. It looked like an ordinary wall socket that you'd plug a kettle into - and not the substantial kind of socket for a full-blown electric cooker. Well, I could turn off the circuit, and check the wiring and fuse inside that existing socket. But if it was just ordinary wiring, with a standard 13 amp domestic fuse, then I'd have to get an electrician to upgrade my circuitry before buying a new electric cooker. At some expense, of course. 

And what kind of electric cooker? Well, a good make that would last. Otherwise, nothing too fancy. Even so, a quick look on the internet suggested that I'd certainly be paying more than £500. Let's say at least £1,000 altogether to buy and wire up a decent ceramic-hob electric cooker. It was manageable, but not something to approach too soon, nor without a good deal of thought. I'd consult my friends first, as well as carrying-out a lot of research on the internet. A pity the showrooms were all closed because of the current lockdown! I'd want to see shortlisted cookers in the flesh before buying, or at least similar models from the particular maker, to assess quality and ease of operation. This wasn't anything I could rush into then. (Perhaps just as well)

Meanwhile, anything I'd normally grill would have to be cooked some other way. No great hardship; but I'd be even more eager now to get away in the caravan, and use a proper gas grill! 

A discovery! I don't need to buy a new laptop in 2022!

The Microsoft Surface Book I bought in 2016 - named Verity - is an excellent machine, and remains an upmarket device. Stylish, robust, fast and very pleasant to use, with a gorgeous touch-enabled screen. And despite a heavy daily workload, it still looks immaculate. It looks like a laptop you might buy today, in 2021.

It has only one issue. It has just 256GB of on-board storage, which isn't enough for my current purposes. I've always wanted more. But back in 2016 I simply couldn't find the money for more memory, such as 512GB. Even buying a 256GB version, which cost me a whopping £1,609 back then, was taking a gamble on running out of cash if a large car, caravan or household bill cropped up in the months ahead. (As indeed turned out to be the case)

I now have only 52GB of storage left on Verity, even after hiving off as much as possible to three external hard drives and an SSD Flash Drive. 

What is taking up the space?

It's mainly my 'most important photo' collection. These are my best or most personally-significant shots. The shots I look at most often, the ones most likely to illustrate a blog post on any subject I'm likely to write about. Presently there are nearly 41,000 of them, an identical collection on both the laptop and my phone, so that each device is a backup for the other. (NB: Large though 41,000 may seem, this isn't by any means my entire Photo Archive. That's stored elsewhere, and is five times larger) 

The 'most important photo' collection is steadily growing. I think it may - with the annual accumulation of new shots, plus the addition of scanned pictures from old photo prints - devour 10GB in 2021, and another 10GB in 2022. Then, with my scanning programme finished, the growth rate should slow to 7GB per year, which is the amount of space the 3,897 'most important shots' for 2020 have taken up. (I'm using that as a guide)

On the basis of these figures, and if I regard 15GB as the minimum working storage needed for the efficient functioning of the laptop, then I can just about stretch my ongoing use of Verity into 2025. 

I will definitely then need to buy a replacement. In 2025 Verity will be nine years old and even if still working well, and looking good, she will be distinctly outmoded. I will have to stump up the equivalent of £2,500 or more to replace her, if I want to buy a new laptop with significant on-board storage. In fact I'll be wanting 1TB at least, and to buy the best Surface Book 4 (or whatever) I may have to raid my savings to the tune of £3,000. Ouch! But then I should be able to afford that by 2025. 

There was however another reason for wanting a new laptop with a big SSD memory. I wanted to ramp up my backup arrangements. 

Ideally, I wanted to have a large-capacity SSD storage device - say 2TB, or even more, possibly powered - and use it not only as the prime offline location for my massive Photo Archive, brought together into one place, but also for regular routine backups for my laptop and phone. That seemed to imply having a new laptop with a lot more space on it, to accommodate everything included in the backup. I'd want to bring it all together into a single folder - say 'General Backup 2022 0901' - and just set the backup in motion while I got on with other stuff, like washing dishes. Then half an hour later - because everything would go so much faster than now - I would disconnect the SSD storage device from the laptop and get on with my day. Job done. And I could do this at home or on holiday. 

But it's just occurred to me that I don't need to buy a large-memory laptop to make such a backup work. I can leave my photos, music, maps and other files where they are, and just route the backup through the laptop, using it as a connecting device between, say, my phone and the SSD storage device. I have two USB sockets on the laptop. One can be used for the input, one for the output. 

As in this picture, where I was - as an experiment - transferring files directly from my phone (at the end of the cable) to a little USB Flash Drive. 

It worked! I didn't first have to transfer those files into the laptop's memory, temporarily filling it up, then (as a separate procedure) transfer them out and onto the Flash Drive. It could be done directly.

I had no idea that one could do this. I'd never tried doing it before. I could have been making backups this way for years past. It had never occurred to me that the laptop could deal with two plugged-in storage devices at the same time, and act merely as a go-between, its own memory not involved. And nothing slowed down - the process was rapid.

Given that nowadays there are several alternatives to USB-A, I'm now wondering whether a brick plugged into the laptop, with an array of sockets on it, some for USB-A, some for USB-C, and some for other things, would work in just the same way. Why wouldn't it?

Another thought: if I can view my 'most important photo' collection better than ever on my new phone's beautiful screen, is it really necessary to keep a duplicate collection on my laptop? Couldn't it be moved to that SSD storage device I've yet to buy? I could still easily view it on Verity's large screen - and add to it - just by connecting the storage device and the laptop. 

Then the laptop's 256GB memory would be ample for all future use.

Now and then, fog clears from my mind and I see a better way to use what I've already got. 

All I have to do is buy a large-capacity SSD storage device sometime in the next two years. Probably not this year - I hear that there is currently a worldwide shortage of SSD components, which is temporarily driving up prices. But maybe 2022 or 2023. It would surely cost me less than £500.

Meanwhile my savings can just accumulate. Although there is an important domestic purchase I might need to make - next post.

Twelve years of ranting

A friend's Mum has just died. I don't know the details yet, but the lady concerned was very elderly. 

It reminds me very strongly of my own Mum's death on 3rd February 2009, all of twelve years ago now. The nursing home phoned me after letting Dad know. I rushed back to the Cottage, then drove over to Dad's - where I live now - picked him up, and we went to see Mum laid out on her bed. It was the first of two dead bodies I was going to see that spring, Dad following Mum so quickly. 

My first thoughts were for Dad and the need to be practical. There were many things to do, and Dad would need a combination of company and solitude. As an outlet for myself, to ease the feelings surging within, I decided to start this blog. Not to weep and grieve online, but to talk about other things and take myself away from the reality of losing one parent and supporting the other. 

The opening post was published on 5th February 2009. Google says 'May 2011' but they are wrong - maybe that was the date of some major reorganisation, in which Blogger got reset. And yet the cumulative total of viewings didn't get reset. Anyway, I've been writing here for twelve years - 2,355 posts, 2,132,500 words, and 1,042,850 viewings. 

The blog became on ongoing autobiography almost from the start, chronicling the main events following my breakup with M---. Good things as well as bad. 

In fact, I'd say it was twelve years of necessary but life-enlarging change. I embraced the independent life and surely won out. Some might say grew up, although I'm not so sure about that! But certainly, I feel able to cope with most things now; and the ability to make big decisions, and act upon them without delay, has not ebbed away. Above all, I feel entirely responsible for whatever course my future life takes. There's no blaming anybody else if things ever go wrong. But I'm very comfortable with that. 

I've also become used to living without a safety net - although to be fair, I am not short of friends who will offer a helping hand. Surely, concerned and benevolent eyes are constantly upon me. And that must come out in the general tone of my posts, which I think is upbeat and optimistic, even if I do express occasional exasperation and frustration, and sigh rather a lot!

Blogs do not go on for twelve years without a reason. In my own case, the need to divert my mind from Mum's death, and then - soon enough - Dad's as well, evaporated within months. There was so much else happening. I wanted to record it while it was going on. I wanted to state what I thought at the time. And, as fresh experiences made their mark, and I did things I'd never done before, and encountered people I'd never met before, I wanted to discuss my many shifts of perception and how these were modifying my self-view, and my priorities. 

I also discovered that what might seem reasonable to me could irritate or offend other people. And that any public platform is a magnet for trolls. I made mistakes in dealing with such wreckers. But I learned which topics were provocative, and therefore best avoided. Eventually I came around to the present type of post, which sticks to my unfolding life, and whatever attracts my attention, but doesn't go into places where sneering or abusive trolls might lie in wait.

I retain a copy of all the posts I've ever written. But all those published before 2015 were removed from the blog three years ago. I decided that the early posts were either too trivial, or too contentious, or not well enough written, or did not reflect my life as it had become. I wanted the blog to appeal to a general readership. A remit to write posts that might cover a very wide range of subjects would assure the blog's survival. If you confine yourself to just one thing, it's much more likely that 'writer's block' will set in. 

Mind you, there may be those who wish I would pack it all in! But that's not going to happen. I like writing; it can feel very creative; and of course, I can illustrate what I'm talking about with my own photographs. It's very satisfying to produce a lavishly-pictured post about some interesting place I've been to, or some new purchase. 

Would I have ever blogged if Mum hadn't died when she did? 

Its hard to say. Blogging is one of those activities you hear about, but may never personally take part in. I think people in general think it's for 'computer enthusiasts' who own their own website, and are keen on 'computing'. Which used to mean they had programming ability. Of course, the existence of platforms like Blogger and WordPress, and a number of others, meant that you needed no particular 'computer skills' at all. 

But the error in perception persists. I have one friend who is an avid lover of Facebook - a social media platform I will have absolutely nothing to do with - but has never got round to clicking on my blog to see what it's like and what I write about. And I've known her for thirteen years. I believe she thinks that most blog posts are long, boring rants. Some most certainly are! And some of my early ones might have been. But I wish she would give me a try.

Happier news

Things have turned out well for once! 

On the Amazon front, I have had a conversation about the phone I ordered on 15th January still not arriving, and a full refund of the £805.41 is now on its way. That's a great relief. I'm expecting it to reach my credit card account early next week. 

Amazon had in the end acknowledged the likely situation, that the phone had gone AWOL and would never reach me. So, for instance, the delivery status changed to this on 31st January:

As you can see, the definite promise of an eventual refund.

By yesterday morning, that is, 3rd February, the delivery status of my order was this:

It may be lost! I didn't think I would actually see Amazon admitting to that. But now there was the absolute assurance of a refund. So that conversation I'd booked for yesterday morning was actually an easy one, although I still felt a release of tension afterwards. 

It reminded me strongly of how it had been after any difficult but successful meeting with the Other Side, when I'd worked for the Inland Revenue. Especially a meeting to finalise a substantial contract settlement to include tax, interest and penalties, at the end of an important but confrontational investigation. I can think of two big ones in 1990 and 2005 where the modern equivalents of £430,000 and £460,000 were at stake, and things had to go absolutely right at the settlement meeting. I always felt a little light-headed with relief, when sitting back afterwards - the director or proprietor gone, and the contract left behind on the table, signed and dated. Watertight and enforceable. 

I often speculated whether the director or proprietor was laughing or crying as they left the building. If we hadn't found out everything, and their main nest egg was still intact, they'd be laughing. If we'd got lucky, and taken away their retirement pot - their dream of a sunny sunset - they'd be crying, possibly suicidal. The accountant might also be glum: inevitably such a financial catastrophe meant the loss of the client, even if - as was often the way - the client's own pig-headed refusal to come clean had inflated the penalty into a sum that really hurt.  

Sixteen years later, in my own sunny retirement, £805.41 meant every bit as much. I was very glad to get this email from Amazon:

Turning now to the Envirofone front, a quite different but still-satisfactory outcome. 

I was faced with making a choice between accepting a very low revised offer, based on a screen fault I had never noticed and didn't really think was there, or having the phone back to sell on eBay for no guaranteed amount. 

But then, a development! A friend said she'd like to have Tigerlily if I could get her back. The perfect solution. I have now turned down Envirofone's low offer, and Tigerlily is on her way back home. I'll repack her on receipt and post her to the friend, who is looking forward to having a flagship Samsung phone from 2017, plus the main accessories that came in the box, and a spare memory card. 

I'm really cheered by this outcome. Tigerlily will go to a good home, and may enjoy many years of future use. It's like placing a favourite pet you can't keep with a new but caring owner. 

Sequel on Amazon

Gosh, they repaid the money immediately! The £805.41 was credited to my credit card account on the very same day a refund was authorised. Well done, Amazon! My faith in you is restored. (I suppose it would have taken longer to reach a bank account)

Sequel on Envirofone

That came right too. They did the right thing. Tigerlily arrived back as promised, and after checking her over - she was still immaculate - I popped her gently in her original Samsung box, swathed that in bubblewrap, sealed it all in a stout box for posting, and went hotfoot to the local Post Office. The friend will have her very shortly. 

Screenburn

You can count on it, can't you? Things will never go quite as you expect. There's now a glitch in the sale of my old phone to Envirofone. 

Up to yesterday, all looked fine. Their initial offer, subject to inspecting the phone, was £95. I posted it off to them on Thursday 28th January, and today, the following Tuesday, they have sent me an email containing an unexpected surprise.

They say that my old phone, a Samsung Galaxy S8+ bought in April 2017, exhibits something called screenburn. They explain that means icons or images have been burned into the screen. Consequently their offer has been reduced to only £23.75. 

The email invited me to discuss the issue with their Customer Service Department, and so, after reading an online article about screenburn, and studying the many screenshots I'd taken on that phone right up to the moment of its factory reset (all neatly filed away for reference), I phoned them up for more details. 

I had a conversation. I mentioned those many screenshots of mine, and the absence in them of any ghost images that I could see. I was careful to be cautious in what I said, and how I said it. 

The upshot of this is that the person I spoke to offered to email me a picture of what they had discovered. Then we would speak again, very likely tomorrow. 

He seemed to imply that there was perhaps a little room for manoeuvre on the revised offer now made. If there is, then I don't suppose it will be very significant. But you never know. At the moment they are really offering me only basic scrap value. They could come up a bit, and still make a profit. I am prepared to speak very sweetly to get some movement.

I could if I wish have the phone back. If I chose that option, I could then attempt to sell it on eBay. But then honesty would compel me to mention a defect like this, so that the phone might not sell for much. And possibly not at all. 

That on-screen article was on a website called Android Authority - see https://www.androidauthority.com/screen-burn-in-801760/. 

See also the Wikipedia article at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Screen_burn-in#:~:text=Screen%20burn%2Din%2C%20image%20burn,uniform%20use%20of%20the%20pixels. 

It appears that, given enough time, a modern phone - especially one with an OLED screen - may develop a kind of shadow on its screen caused by pixels needing a high electrical current to light them up, and then not being able to revert to a pure white afterwards. I vaguely knew about this, but now I know a little more. 

I prefer using a light theme on my phones, but I have immediately adopted the Dark Theme on my new phone Prudence. This will prevent a lot of pixels needing to be lit, because they will be switched off and entirely black. I used Light Theme all the time on my old phone. 

I have also reduced the Screen Timeout from five minutes to two, so that the whole screen goes blank sooner, if I don't touch it. 

These measures should help protect Prudence's screen in the future.  

Meanwhile, I'll be most interested to see where the screen burn was on my old phone. I'm guessing the top edge, where the Status Bar was; although if that was so, I never noticed it. I don't think it could have been the bottom edge - I didn't use any virtual navigation buttons, preferring gestures. Nor did I use the Always On facility, which would display a clock and other things at all times (although it would shift by a few pixels now and then, to avoid lighting-up a distinct group of pixels for any length of time). 

I can now see a good reason not to hang on to a new phone for too long! Might it be best sell it on while it's still worth something, and before any screenburn becomes apparent? After only two years, say? 

But then that puts paying top whack for the latest phone into a very different light. Getting the latest and greatest, and then keeping it for only two short years, looks like a sure recipe for wasting money. High-end smartphones are so expensive nowadays.

A more sensible notion is to do what I've done this time, and buy last year's phone. And then be prepared to write it off entirely after four or five years, so that a tiny scrap value is of no concern.

Of course, I could go back to a phone-and-SIM contract. But I don't want to be tied again to any mobile service provider, stuck in a series of two-year contracts. I was with Vodafone for a long time, but very glad to escape. I'm now with BT Mobile, on a SIM-only basis: they own the SIM card, but not my phone, and once my SIM-only contract is up in May, I am free to go elsewhere anytime I please. I do like complete freedom. 

Two young men on a path

I have to admit I got quite excited when I heard on the radio this morning (BBC Radio 4) that the anti-coronavirus vaccination programme is going so well that the first cohort of over-65s may get their invitations to be vaccinated as soon as next week. Yippee! That will be me!

Of course, I am taking that tasty bit of good news with a big pinch of salt. They may be talking about those parts of the country where the programme has got well ahead, and not my part. Even so, that letter may come through my front door sometime in the next three weeks, and it will be most welcome when it arrives. I will happily drive a hundred miles, if need be, to get the first of those vital jabs. 

I really wonder why you still hear about people who intend to refuse vaccination. Why? Why would you place yourself at risk of catching an infection with possibly dire consequences? Or if your job is (say) to look after vulnerable patients in care homes? 

I suppose there might be some who can't, on good medical grounds, have the vaccination. But the rest? 

Now that there are several vaccines available, originating in more than one country, and produced by commercial companies not regimes, the theory that it's all part of some US or British government population-control plot seems absurd. And although all these vaccines are the product of just a few months development, they build on long-existing coronavirus research and have been tested on mass population samples: years of testing condensed into a few months. I'm content to risk suffering from some long-term effect, one yet not apparent, in order to have a high degree of safety in the present. If I catch the virus now, in early 2021, I may suffer so badly that I am never the same again. Or I could die. In either case, not getting vaccinated is going to be worse than any likely after-effect. The rational course is clear. 

Meanwhile, it becomes even more essential to take care, and avoid all circumstances in which I could get infected. It would be galling - and potentially tragic - to become infected when so close to vaccination.

But many people I encounter when out and about seem intent on harming me. They are all strangers. They are people who seem oblivious to the ongoing need to practice social distancing. 

You would have thought that after almost of year living with the virus, everyone would know the right thing to do. But no. There are idiots aplenty around who plainly do not know. If I take a walk in any urban area (just now, wet but firm town pavements are preferable to sticky mud on country footpaths) I have to be on my guard against a range of other people who clearly don't care about protecting an obviously older person, who are not going to inconvenience themselves in any way whatever. Family groups coming towards me are the worst. They force me off the pavement and into the road, where I might be hit by a cyclist or a car. The same with a group of teenagers. 

In general, only people on their own show any concern where social distancing is concerned. Some of them do step aside for me. If they do, I make sure to thank them. I am truly grateful. 

Joggers continue to be a hazard. They run fast along the pavement, some of them breathing heavily, spreading whatever infection they may have. I can avoid the ones coming towards me by stepping into the road. But the ones that come up from behind are past me and gone before I can do anything about it. I usually find myself freezing in terror as they pass. An over-reaction? Well, I don't think so. 

It seems to be a thing with jogging that you must never slacken your pace, not for anything. So joggers won't stop to let anyone get by. They clearly think their need to move at an even pace trumps your safety. If you can't get out of their way, they might conceivably barge into you.  

The most considerate joggers are female - they do tend to pass at a safe distance, if necessary by running into the road. For which I thank them. 

Male joggers on the other hand, especially those in their teens or twenties, invariably behave like unstoppable juggernauts. What arrogance! I do not accept that jogging is important, and overrides courtesy and consideration for another person's welfare and peace of mind. A pair of men with a young-professional look to them forced me into the road only yesterday. I gave them a hard stare as they came towards me, and made it quite clear that I was taking evasive action against my will. They took no notice. Bastards.

Ordinary male pedestrians, especially young men, can be just as crass. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was taking my daily exercise walk in Lewes, and at one point found myself on the riverside path between the Tesco superstore and the Phoenix Causeway river bridge. The path is about six feet wide here. On one side, a hedge. On the other, a grassy slope down to the river's edge. 

Two young men were walking towards me. They saw me all right, but made not the slightest move to walk in single file on one side of the path. When they were only a few yards away, and still walking side by side, I had to make a quick decision. I suppose I could have retreated ten yards, and let them pass at a wider point on that path. But it seemed more reasonable to cut off to one side, down that grassy slope. So I did. But it was slippery, and I fell onto my bottom, getting muddy hands and boots. 

The two young men had stopped, astonished. I got up - thankfully uninjured - and climbed up to the path again. As I did so, one of the young men offered his hand to haul me up. What? Was he completely crazy? I said to him, 'You keep your distance! I can manage.' He seemed hurt. 'Only trying to help, love,' he said. 'Well, I wish you had stepped to one side on the path, and let me pass safely,' I snapped back. 

No doubt he and his friend, now walking away, were agreeing that older people were daft, bad-tempered and ungrateful. And would then wipe the incident from their minds. I felt a bit empty, momentarily willing to think that there was no point bothering with anything. If, after so many months, young men like this remained unconcerned and unaware about social distancing - to the extent of actually risking hand-to-hand contact - what could be done? The government messages, the news of infections and deaths - none of it had sunk in. Perhaps they laughed at those things. Perhaps they preferred to look cool above all else. No wonder the number of infections remained stubbornly high. There was a rump of stupid people who were ignorant of the risks, or chose to ignore them. 

And I felt, in a sense, personally assaulted. They had made me feel afraid enough to slither down a slope rather than squeeze between them. Couldn't they see how frightening they had appeared to anybody who felt vulnerable? Why hadn't they automatically signalled that they recognised the need for social distancing, and were immediately taking clear and obvious steps to make our passing encounter a safe one?  

Well, I don't want to regard all young men as arrogant fools or pig-ignorant twits. But experiences like this certainly push me down that path. 

And this was in a small, pleasant town in Sussex, that has hitherto seemed a safe place for a walk. What can it be like in a big city, teeming with people one can't avoid so easily?