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In the Northeast Journal newspaper today, vet Neil Murdock wrote “When animals are ill they are often seen by several vetinary surgeons throughout the course of their treatment, which can be highly unsettling for both them and their owners”.

Well, I’m not convinced our cats could give two hoots who they see but of course this is something we just accept as people in the British National Health system. What worries me more than seeing different doctors – is being treated by doctors with WILDLY varying skills and the total lack of continuity caused by this practice.

I’m in my early 50s now and when I was in my late 20s, having worked in engineering for many years, I teamed up with a fellow who became a business partner and is now a good friend. I’d been into electronics for some years as an amateur but just then moved into it professionally. We were in the middle of a project with a lot of construction in it – and took a break to go to an “amateur radio show” in Leeds.

Half way through I had a horrendous pain in my right eye – as if it were full of sand. Over a short space of time, the eye got worse and the turned bright red. Seeing there was a problem, the guys insisted I go to the hospital – where they gave me some drops and recommended a trip to my doctor.

I went to my doctor who said I needed a specialist. I went to the Newcastle hospital to see the specialist (all the time my eye was bright red and painful) and he said I had “euvitis” – an inflamation of the eye. I ended up with steroids and a derivative of deadly nightshade to freeze the eye muscles. A week later I was fine – but not without blurred vision throughout and I’m convinced a minor but measureable drop in eyesight performance every time.

This re-occurred every 6 months or so and before long I knew what to look for – and how to handle it – for the first few times I saw specialists – a couple of times this led to an injection straight into the eye – other times drops. The purpose of the drops was two-fold – reduce inflamation- freeze the eye to stop further agro. Leave it too long and…. the needle! Not nice.

On one occasion a female doctor took a look and insisted I wear an eye-patch for 2 weeks – apparently no-one told her they stopped doing that in the dark ages. I insisted on drops – sorted the problem.

I got so disillusioned with the variation in doctors – after a couple of years I simply asked one of my “family doctors” if I could have a repeat subscription for the same stuff I knew worked – from there on I could solve the problem on my own.

One time when my wife and I were in Northern America my eye flared up – and the doctors there were great – they spotted the condition immediately for the first time ever insisted on a complete bank of tests to find out what caused it – the UK doctors had NEVER attempted to do this. Sadly I was only there for a couple of days and there was no time.

Around the year 2000, I stopped doing manual work in electronics – our incompetent civil servants and their passion for regulation made it too much like hard work to produce small numbers of prototypes of the kind of work I used to do – so I moved onto my other passion – software.. and lo and behold, no more eye problems. It occurred to me with a little research that it was the solder flux from spending a good amount of time with soldering irons that was the cause. In 8 years I’ve had no problems of any kind.

Now in all those years you would think that ONE doctor, somewhere would have twigged – but because I got a different doctor almost every time – and because they seem to be pre-occupied with a quick fix rather than finding out what’s wrong with your lifestyle – it never happened. I had to stumble across the cure myself after 20-odd years of suffering.

Life for many could be so much better if we could just get our national health act together! I wonder to this date, had I stayed in the USA a little longer – if they’d have narrowed the problem down.

Another un-eventful day on National Express. The current ad floating about on the trains says “National Express – Same Seats – only Cheaper” – depicting a very relaxed customer who USED to pay £14.75 from London to York NOW paying a mere £10.00 for the privilage – what a bargain!

I’m writing this in notepad as the crappy wi-fi only works when it wants to and never for more than a few minutes at a time. You have to wonder why, on the main line from Newcastle to London they can’t get their act together. It’s not as if the line is new and they haven’t had time to get it working yet!! NOT that you can get much serious work done on the train because they insist on blasting the Tannoy every 5 minutes to tell you about having the right tickets, to apologise for the delay due to fluff on the line, remind you that the meal service is running at half mast due to problems with the air conditioning and how you should respect the quiet coach and turn your phone off – not that mobile phones are even REMOTELY as annoying as the constant announcements on the tannoy. I complained to the ticket collector about the constant dribble coming from the Tannoy and he finds it annoying too!!

After leaving a meeting slightly earlier than expected I got on the 1.30pm from Lonon to Newcastle. Seemed like a good time for lunch so rather than buy some inflated-cost pastry at the station I thought I’d have an inflated-cost sandwich on the train. The £10 offer it transpires is only on a good day, with the wind, booked in advance. My one-way ticket to Newcastle cost a wopping £175 – enough for 2 or 3 round trips to France…. anyway, for all that, they were out of the only decent sandwich they do. If that was the service in first class, Lord help coach A !!! I settled for a packet of crisps. Gone are the hand-made-by-grannies crisps of GNER and in with Walkers lacklustre varieties – I handed over £1 and I heard the attendant mutter something about 5p, which I thought was ridiculously cheap for a packet of crisps – of course that was the change. 95p for a packet of crisps!! No wonder they can offer the WIFI for free – they should through in a massage!!

Signed, grumpy old man. Of course it could be said that if we were all a little less forgiving, rail companies would not get away with this crap.

Attention train crew…. disabled passenger alert….

Attention train crew…. disabled passenger alert….

Attention train crew…. disabled .

According to the British Chamber of Commerce website, a report published by the University of Durham revealed that students may be more likely to choose to study ‘easier’ subjects, and not opt to study science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects that are desperately needed by employers.

Surely the answer is simple? Why on EARTH are we stupid enough to finance courses that this country doesn’t need? Microsoft technology courses cost the earth and I’m sure many courses in science and techn ology do also (unless of course you’re a no-hoper in which case they’re likely to be free). Surely the solution is to make science, technology, engineering and math courses extremely cheap or free (after all Britain PLC will benefit in the end) and charge the earth for courses that people take out of personal preference and which we don’t actually need.

Technology books are very expensive and yet I don’t ever recall seeing ways to get subsidies for these.

As far as I’m concerned we screwed our educational system the minute we went comprehensive back in the 70s and we’ve been going downhill ever since. Our position in the world stage pretty much reflects this.

In the future, with permanently rising fuel prices and intense competition from overseas, we will increasingly need people who can innovate, manage and sell hi-tech, advanced solutions to the many problems facing us. Less talk, more action and a desperate need for the left to stop trying to smother our potential best at birth.

I sat and watched “Politics today” at lunchtime and listened to the most appalling drivel about public transport as some gentleman living in cloud cuckoo land told us how the motorist should be paying to improve public transport.

HERE’S A THOUGHT, BUDDY – how about the people who USE public transport paying for it!! We’re too busy paying for FUEL!!!

We hear this nonsense all the time – get the trains on time and motorists will move out of their cars.

Here’s why I dislike public transport:

1. The plane
Since 9-11 the situation with planes has gotten worse and worse. The authorities insist on the ridiculous assumption that everyone, including middle-aged indigenous Brits are potential terrorists.

I ask you – when was the last time a middle aged indigenous Brit blew up or hijacked a plane? Even more so… when was the last time an indigenous British female hijacked a plane?Every insurance company on the planet works on statistics – which is why young males now get hammered for insurance – they’re the ones who have the most accidents – common sense as we all had less experience when we were younger! So why do we all get treated like criminals, resulting in boarding times of up to 2 hours or more, when only a tiny minority of people fit the profile of those who are likely to cause problems? I used to be able to rush to the airport half an hour before takeoff and sail through.

Flying used to be a joy – now it’s a chore. I fly only when necessary.

2. The train
I don’t think charging 180 quid for a one-way ticket to London is even remotely realistic – yet that or WORSE is the cost of a first class ticket to London from Newcastle. And what do you get for that? More room, free coffee and some nuts! I take the train to London – I drive everywhere else. I take the train because parking in London is a nightmare and I don’t like driving for 5 or 6 hours. There is no WAY ON EARTH driving would cost anywhere near that.

Why do I take first class? Because I don’t agree that in the main, second class is anywhere near acceptable. Those who DO take second class are either unfortunate enough not to be able to afford fist class – OR they seem to think it’s ok to sit in a closed room with no ability to open windows and enjoy the stink of alcohol as our friends from up North start drinking in London and keep doing so all the way up – if you you think that’s stereotyping – you don’t travel on that line. As for comfort I’m not partial to crowding so tightly you hardly have room to read a book never mind get some work done. There are times at peak hours when you have to spend the journey or part of it standing up as there are no seats – this is in a vehicle travelling at 130mph – imagine how much jelly you would become in an accident. No, not what I call acceptable travel.

If I want to spend my sober hours smelling alcohol I can easily do that by pouring some beer on the carpet in the car. I prefer to travel with the smell of fresh air and if I want to live dangerously I can just leave my seat belt unfastened and drive at 90mph on the hard shoulder.

Public transport should be safe, comfortable, cheap and free of the smell of alcohol, smoke and airborne germs. Today’s trains cannot manage this combination at all.

Regardless of which class you take, trains are invariably late. Of my last 3 trips, one was on time, one was 20 minutes late, one was 45 minutes late. Only the last one qualified for any kind of compensation and even then, not realistic compensation considering the potential hassle of ongoing connections etc.

3. Buses
I have not had the common cold or flu for years. There’s a reason for that! I drive from home to Newcastle all the time – it takes around 40 minutes – the bus would take half the day.

Our local rental property is sold, so now we start looking at the larger items we need to populate our cave in Spain.

It appears that electrical items are pretty expensive over there, so we’re shipping stuff, like a new hot tub and we’re taking a decent bed over that was at the rental property. We have a shipping company that does quite a reasonable job of getting stuff over there cheaply so that’ll include all sorts of furniture, tools etc. Maureen is doing Spanish lessons on Wednesday nights. I’m using recordings. We’re both still very much at the holiday phrases level – I guess it’s old age but they go in one ear and out of the other for me. I guess I’ll feel differently when I’m stuck in a lawyer’s office over there sorting papers in Spanish.

Meanwhile I’m concentrating on the technology. Because the place is so new there are no phone lines and unlikely to be any for some time so I looked at 3G, satellite etc but firstly I figured I’d do some tests here. I took my Vodafone 3G dongle out into the countryside in Northumberland, along with a router, laptop and Voip phone – it was a nice weekend so it was partly an excuse to get some sunshine. The verdict.. not a chance – 3G is sketchy here as it will be in Spain and without a 100% signal there is no way to make reliable phone calls. Next off was satellite – well, that’s out – a year’s contract whether you use it or not (we’re only going there for breaks) and the monthly rates are exorbitant – not to mention setup costs.

I then revisited a suggestion about “rural broadband” initially presented to me by the guy we met in Spain – turns out this is NOT satellite but a series of transmitters scattered about all over Spain. You have a small unit that sits on your wall – that talks to the transmitters. No setup charges, fair monthly rent, 500k in both directions. Not ideal but it’ll do! 39 euros a month. Not cheap but not a bank-breaker either.

Finally there was the issue of a phone – well, keeping a laptop on all the time is not really the answer… and I also was hankering for something for the plane – as my laptop is simply too large to open up in pheasant class – the way we usually travel… and then there are the Spanish lessons – I bought a little MP3 player but it’s too small to operate in the car so that’s off to Ebay.

Anyway, I didn’t want to spend a lot and I wanted something that’s easy to update. I stumbled across this little fellow – the Nokia 800. Wifi, Bluetooth, hi-res touch screen, large pocket size – Linux based and it has SKYPE and a camera (though SKYPE doesn’t yet support the camera – that will come) – what more could you want. There is already freely available 2008 software for it, I’ve installed it and it works a treat. The only thing it doesn’t have that it’s successor does is a Satnav and I already have a pocket one of those… so it’ll do my Spanish lessons, it’ll act as a phone and photo-viewer over there – and handy for flights as it’s small but not tiny like a phone. Oh, and it does streaming media so that’s “Riviera Radio” taken care of.

With the ability to handle up to 16gig of memory cards, I should just about be able to manage my music, lessons, some podcasts (I like to listen to the SETI podcasts when travelling) and still find room for a movie or two!! 4GB in use now, 16GB on the way tomorrow.

There was a time once when the nearest I would get to awards was to win one (very rarely I might add) – but it seems these days I spend a lot more time judging them.

A few weeks ago I was one of the judges on the Northeast’s first Digital Awards – the award dinner is coming up in a day or two so I won’t give the game away. It’ll be all over the Northeast press no doubt in a couple of days. As I write this I’m in a hotel in Cheshire for tomorrow’s judging of the “National Business Awards” – Small business section… and in a few weeks I’ll be taking up my (by now) customary role helping to judge Computing magazine’s Annual Awards. I’ve also done the same for the BCS and other organisations.

All of this takes some considerable effort and most of the judges do this for nothing (some, usually in the public sector actually get paid by their companies for their time) and sometimes in the heat of it all I’ve been known to think “what am I doing”… but of course the reality is that these awards help promote British business – they highlight the best in our up and coming entrepeneurs – and that has to be good – we should shout about our successes from the rooftops.

So often it seems that all innovation comes from a sweatshop in China or “somewhere in California”- it’s good to know that our own guys are beavering away and making a success of it – and even better to know that there are people out there arranging to ensure that their endeavours get the acknowledgement they deserve…

Anyone in the mood for some really DEEP stuff? If so, read on. I’ve always been pretty keen on the big bang theory, though I never could get my head around how you could get something out of nothing – as it goes against all the laws of physics which have worked so well for us in practice. The expansion I can handle – it’s the stuff popping out of no-where I’ve never really been comfortable with – of course if you’re happy with the notion of multiple dimensions it’s all very simple – our universe appearing as a constantly expanding bubble to us – is merely a manifestation of a universe with more dimensions.

Ok, where does that come from – the usual way to picture this is – picture a flat, 2 dimensional man on a flat, 2 dimentional universe – ie a piece of paper – he can see across in any direction but not up or down – so – if a large ball smashes through his piece of paper and managed to do that cleanly – what will he see? He’ll see nothing turn into a point and then into a line that gets wider and wider…. and then gets narrower and narrower – and disappears.

That’s kind of how I pictured the big bang – assuming we’ve always been here – and that we’re part of a larger picture we can’t see as we’re only capable of operating in 3 dimensions (4 if you include time).

Ok, kiddies version I know but with limited time to think about these things – that’s where I was heading until now.

My OTHER problem has always been the sun – how come it’s hotter above the surface than it is on the surface – and how come sun spots are cool!! If the sun is a huge nuclear reactor – surely when it spurts bits out they should be hotter and brighter than the surface and above??

Sadly as one gets older there seem to be less and less people to talk to about this stuff – but there is always the web.

Ok, so then recently I was sitting playing with STUMBLEOPON and I hit a theory of the universe from an electrical perspective… and BOY do things change.

If you’re interested in this stuff you REALLY should take a look at this video.

http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=4773590301316220374