Thursday thus far

First up, I have brought one of the coasters that snorkel_maiden and tjrobinson bought me for my birthday into work. It has a mug of coffee on it and a coffee ring under it.¹ I don’t think the cleaners have found me since we sardine flexed.

I left the house a little earlier today and was pleased to find myself catching a Morden via Bank train. These allow me to switch to the Victoria Line at Euston with minimal effort. I was less pleased to have the Victoria Line train fill with people and then sit in the tunnel while we slowly broiled in our own juices because of a signal failure at Brixton. I am still a few minutes earlier than usual, but as usual, the Tube buggers up when I make the effort so there is no spectacular earliness to impress my co-workers. It happens every time; this is why I rarely bother to try to get in to the office earlier than usual.

In the words of (I think) WC Fields, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it".

I see that this organ has received its first visit from the southern hemisphere is quite some time: "hello" then, to my one-off South African reader, and "welcome and bien venue" to the person in the Republic of China who came my way. I’ve had a repeat visit from Delhi and one person from Korea – presumably South Korea. Truly this is a multinational and multicultural journal: Guten Tag to you all.

Before I sign off and go to do some work, I should just like to add that my iPhone has just received an email offering me tickets to see the Pet Shop Boys at the O2 Arena. I wasn’t expecting that when I upgraded to OS 3.0…

¹I wonder if this constitutes ‘taking ownership’ of the desk: a complete no-no in the New Order?

Thursday thus far

First up, I have brought one of the coasters that snorkel_maiden and tjrobinson bought me for my birthday into work. It has a mug of coffee on it and a coffee ring under it.¹ I don’t think the cleaners have found me since we sardine flexed.

I left the house a little earlier today and was pleased to find myself catching a Morden via Bank train. These allow me to switch to the Victoria Line at Euston with minimal effort. I was less pleased to have the Victoria Line train fill with people and then sit in the tunnel while we slowly broiled in our own juices because of a signal failure at Brixton. I am still a few minutes earlier than usual, but as usual, the Tube buggers up when I make the effort so there is no spectacular earliness to impress my co-workers. It happens every time; this is why I rarely bother to try to get in to the office earlier than usual.

In the words of (I think) WC Fields, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. No use being a damn fool about it".

I see that this organ has received its first visit from the southern hemisphere is quite some time: "hello" then, to my one-off South African reader, and "welcome and bien venue" to the person in the Republic of China who came my way. I’ve had a repeat visit from Delhi and one person from Korea – presumably South Korea. Truly this is a multinational and multicultural journal: Guten Tag to you all.

Before I sign off and go to do some work, I should just like to add that my iPhone has just received an email offering me tickets to see the Pet Shop Boys at the O2 Arena. I wasn’t expecting that when I upgraded to OS 3.0…

¹I wonder if this constitutes ‘taking ownership’ of the desk: a complete no-no in the New Order?

Now look here...

I remember, back in my days in Marsham Street, when the then Department of Environment was contemplating the move to this building, we were told that we should only have certain printers, faxes and other office machines. At that time, back in 1995 or 1996, office IT was a mish-mash of different equipment from a variety of suppliers and each division had its own budget. I was pooh-poohed by a snooty little dwarf of a bloke when I said it was no way to run an IT operation and that even if every other budget was devolved to division level, IT was one that should stay central, even though the risk there was that we would end up with an entire Department stocked with rubbish kit. Since then of course, I have been proven right – we have central IT and we have universally poor equipment, but I still believe the principle is right.

Anyway, I digress.

Some of the printers we had back then were huge flatbed things made by Brother. They weren’t bad pieces of kit for the time, but they were big and they did kick out a fair amount of heat. We were told that following the move over to this building, these printers would be scrapped because the air conditioning couldn’t possibly cope with that amount of heat being generated. We were sold marvellous mental images of clouds forming in the atrium and our own little tropical micro climate, complete with rainfall. I for one thought this was great and we should have gone with it: our own little environmental bubble, a clerical Eden Project for civil servants.

It’s clear that I have been here too long. I don’t think people are supposed to remember that far back. The troubles on the eighth floor, with 30+ degrees and rank fumes are part of it. Colleagues here are beginning to grumble about the temperatures on the first floor now and half of it is empty, being fitted out to get even more people in. Now given that each living body is the equivalent of a single bar electric fire, what’s that going to do to the building’s air conditioning? I am hopeful that we will have our own little rain forest developing in the next eighteen months or so. I hope I can have a fan, though, or some punka wallahs.

Now look here...

I remember, back in my days in Marsham Street, when the then Department of Environment was contemplating the move to this building, we were told that we should only have certain printers, faxes and other office machines. At that time, back in 1995 or 1996, office IT was a mish-mash of different equipment from a variety of suppliers and each division had its own budget. I was pooh-poohed by a snooty little dwarf of a bloke when I said it was no way to run an IT operation and that even if every other budget was devolved to division level, IT was one that should stay central, even though the risk there was that we would end up with an entire Department stocked with rubbish kit. Since then of course, I have been proven right – we have central IT and we have universally poor equipment, but I still believe the principle is right.

Anyway, I digress.

Some of the printers we had back then were huge flatbed things made by Brother. They weren’t bad pieces of kit for the time, but they were big and they did kick out a fair amount of heat. We were told that following the move over to this building, these printers would be scrapped because the air conditioning couldn’t possibly cope with that amount of heat being generated. We were sold marvellous mental images of clouds forming in the atrium and our own little tropical micro climate, complete with rainfall. I for one thought this was great and we should have gone with it: our own little environmental bubble, a clerical Eden Project for civil servants.

It’s clear that I have been here too long. I don’t think people are supposed to remember that far back. The troubles on the eighth floor, with 30+ degrees and rank fumes are part of it. Colleagues here are beginning to grumble about the temperatures on the first floor now and half of it is empty, being fitted out to get even more people in. Now given that each living body is the equivalent of a single bar electric fire, what’s that going to do to the building’s air conditioning? I am hopeful that we will have our own little rain forest developing in the next eighteen months or so. I hope I can have a fan, though, or some punka wallahs.

Calling iPhone junkies out there!

IPhone Apps.

Is there an easy, sane way of getting them from one screen to another, so I can group them by category, or am I doomed to struggle with them. I know they can be moved between screens; I’ve done it, but by crackey, it isn’t easy.

Unless there’s a simple method that has so far eluded me.

And I still can’t get anywhere with iTunes and ringtones.

Calling iPhone junkies out there!

IPhone Apps.

Is there an easy, sane way of getting them from one screen to another, so I can group them by category, or am I doomed to struggle with them. I know they can be moved between screens; I’ve done it, but by crackey, it isn’t easy.

Unless there’s a simple method that has so far eluded me.

And I still can’t get anywhere with iTunes and ringtones.

Today in Iran

Today in Iran