Two days without WiFi

The Drawing Board, just now

It feels as though I've been living without a limb for two days. Actually, it's more like a sensory organ is missing. I have been living without WiFi for two whole days.

A massive electrical storm woke me very suddenly in the early hours of Sunday morning. I imagine there was a bang or a crack from very close by, perhaps inside the house. I listened to the thunder and watched the windows light up - it was probably the loudest storm I've every experienced. It passed. I went back to sleep.

On Sunday morning I couldn't make the radio turn on. This sometimes happens - it's an early DAB model and it sometimes gets confused. As for so many things nowadays, the remedy is to turn it off and on again. At that point I noticed that there was no power to the radio. Nor to the bedside light.

OK, adding two and two together, I bumbled down to the fuse box. I'm so glad that the old one was replaced (three and a half years ago already!) because three or four of the switches were tripped. This usually happens when light bulbs blow and it's just a matter of switching it all back on, but the kitchen circuits didn't return. Then I remembered that they'd installed a subsidiary fuse box in the new kitchen extension, and that had tripped as well, but unlike the main board it wouldn't reset itself. With everything turned off I could reset it, and switching things on one at a time it became clear that the problem was with the washing machine.

At that point I was simply relieved that the fridge freezer was working and that I could still boil the kettle and cook breakfast. I haven't yet got round to pulling the washing machine out to try and trace the fault, because after breakfast it became clear that there was no Internet. I can replace the three blown light bulbs and go to the launderette if necessary, but no Internet! Looking at the router it appeared dead, no lights coming on at all. No Internet! I couldn't find an alternative power supply to try, but I found an old router - I just wasn't sure it would be compatible with the new ISP and couldn't face the effort of trying it out. I could still get online via the data plan on my phone, and I had planned to spend the day at an event at the Birmingham Buddhist Centre, so that's what I did.

It turns out that I can manage for about two days without WiFi. Considering I've only just started using the new TV I was surprised to miss the facilities it provides, particularly BBC iPlayer for TV and Spotify for music (but I've got films on DVD and the old hifi for CDs so it's been fine). I didn't need the Internet for dressmaking so at last I've made a start on Lola's dress, although very soon afterwards I managed to break the fancy needle that I need for stretch fabric so that has to wait until the shops open again.

I listened to audio books, did a bit of work in the garden, replaced all the blown light bulbs, and went out to look at new lawn mowers. I inherited the mower from the previous owners of Lola Towers which makes it at least 15 years old, and although the motor seems fine, I don't think the blade has been replaced in all that time. Then I realised that I could just replace the blade - I don't know why I hadn't thought of it before. I turned the mower over to have a look at the blade. It is held on by a large bolt, and I don't have any spanners. Perhaps there's a tool? If there is, where would it be?

I'm not sure I can convey how astonished I was firstly to find within seconds the very tool I was looking for, and then actually managing to undo the bolt with it. I took the old blade down to the local DIY store but they didn't have anything that matched it. Using the magic of the Internet (thank you phone data plan) I have now ordered the exact part. I can hardly believe how well this is going so far and feel certain that there will be some insurmountable barrier to success when the new blade arrives. We'll see.

So  buoyed by success, I finally felt mentally tough enough to phone the ISP about the dead router. And it was fine! The nice man working in the call centre on a Bank Holiday immediately identified the moment when it died on Sunday morning, and asked me about the storm, but didn't raise any issues. He not only arranged for a new router to be sent out, but also encouraged me to contact them when it arrives so my days without Internet can be reimbursed.

That's when I decided it was time to seek out some WiFi. So I went to Pub Next Door and asked for a half of Saddleback and the WiFi password. Which was when I discovered that their Internet had been destroyed at the same time as mine. The beer was very tasty but my quest continued, and I have now been settled for a couple of hours at the second best pub in Leamington. They expressed the right amount of horror at my plight and have been very hospitable. I have bonded with the bar staff over an obscure track by The Cat Empire and with other customers over the Blue Peter annuals on the pub bookshelves.

So despite the WiFi calamity it's been quite a good weekend so far. I've got tomorrow off as well so still time to replace the fancy sewing machine needle and do a bit more dressmaking before going back to work.

Trouble under the sink

Düsseldorf, November 2017

Notable events over the last week or so have been scarce. There was a bank holiday weekend, when I journeyed south for dad's 85th birthday celebration - we pay so little attention to birthdays that one of the guests didn't actually know it was a birthday celebration at all. Briefly, there were candles.

I went to a gig, which was good. I watched some DVDs on my huge screen, including a Blu-Ray DVD, but I'm not sure that I could tell the difference between this and an ordinary DVD. I went to the dentist, where they sweetly complimented me on my efficient brushing while despairing of my continuing decrepitude. I reassured them that on the whole I'm in pretty good nick, but if they want a culprit they can blame my genetic heritage.

On Saturday I started considering the tiling situation for the kitchen, and spent more than three hours in two shops (although about half an hour of that was on the phone to Lola II). The best advice of the whole day was that rather than looking at the traditional glass splashback behind the hob for somewhere between £150 and £250, I could just buy a single 60x60 cm tile costing a tenner. A lovely tiler visited and has sent me a quote.

I have reconnoitred a local car boot sale on the advice of a badminton-playing friend who regularly sells his plants there. It takes place every Sunday between May and September, and cars start queueing for the best spots from 6 a.m. Alongside the big house clearance vans there are people sitting at single tables with just the sort of thing I'd like to get rid of. It costs £10 for a place as a seller and most of the junk isn't worth more than 50p or a pound, so I'll have to gather absolutely everything and hope to make my money back in one hit because there's no way I'm going to do it more than once.

In badminton news, I was invited to go to a session on Sunday to try out with the Warwickshire County Veterans, which sounds more impressive than it actually was. There wasn't any element of selection because they seemed desperate for players (although I'm sure if I'd been awful it would have been different), but the standard was a bit higher than mine and I had to work hard. I'm not sure I want to make the commitment - all the matches will be on Sundays and there's usually a good deal of travel seeing as it's a county league. I did meet a lovely lady whom I hadn't seen for six years since I left the club where she plays, but I also met one of the people who were the reason I left that club.

So it was on Sunday afternoon after all this effort that I noticed the skirting board in the utility room was stained. Pulling the plinth board away from under the sink, I found A LOT of water and a significant drip from a pipe in the most inaccessible place in the whole house (i.e where the stopcock is inside the stupid narrow cupboard). Shutting down the stopcock didn't stop the drip and I contacted the plumber who'd installed the whole affair just a few months ago. Given that it was clear this had been going on for some time I decided not to treat it as an emergency, but the plumber did turn up on Monday and diagnose the problem as a failure of the fancy valve that was supposed to mean I don't have to reach the stopcock itself to turn off the water. We'll have to wait for it to dry out a bit before putting it all back together again.

A long and tedious post about modern audiovisual technology

October 2017

Since the visit from Mr and Mrs MXF and the Revelation of what technology is capable of, I am now experiencing it in real life.

Before The Revelation

Broadband brings the internet to Lola Towers along wires as far as the router, and from there onwards we have wifi, which nowadays forms the backbone linking everything together. Some of my gadgets were already making use of the wifi - the laptop I'm typing on, the tablet I mainly used to play my chosen radio programmes on BBC iPlayer, and my phone.

In contrast, my old iPod has to hook up to the laptop to suck up all my music, podcasts and audiobooks through a wire. I can listen to the iPod through earphones, but I also have a speaker for it in the kitchen. I love the iPod because its battery lasts for ever, and it fits in my pocket, and as well as listening on the kitchen speaker I can plug it into the car stereo and listen to my music and podcasts and audiobooks, and it remembers what I've listened to and starts up exactly where I stopped, and it holds every single CD and audiobook I've ever bought and is still very much less than half full. But neither the iPod nor its speaker is wifi enabled, and neither was the television, and neither is my ancient hifi system in the living room which can play records, CDs, analogue radio and cassettes (except I found out last week it can't play cassettes any more).

Then the television expired, and it was time to think about what the modern world can offer. I'm not actually interested in broadcast TV - the few programmes that interest me might be available via the Internet, and I don't care if they aren't. What I wanted in the kitchen and living room was the option to play audio directly from the Internet as well as all the stuff I've bought over the years, and I wanted a new television in my future 'Screening Room' where I hope to stage the Gulloebl Film Festival (Midlands franchise).

After The Revelation:

1. Spotify - brilliant
2. Chromecast Audio - not a success so far
3. What you can do with a television these days - amazing
4. Sound bar - magic
5. Wifi extender - does what it says on the tin
6. What's next?

1. Spotify

Spotify is an Internet repository for all the music in the world. Actually, as I have delved deeper I have discovered some of the more obscure music that I have acquired over the years is not to be found in Spotify, but 99.9% of all the music in the world is there. Using the phone app or the web player I can play individual tracks and albums, and create playlists of my own or listen to those compiled by other people. If I want, Spotify will play me music that it thinks I will like based on my previous choices, and so far it has been broadly correct in its assumptions. And all of this can be sucked off the Internet to my wifi-enabled speaker of choice, for free if I'm prepared to listen to a 30-second advert every half an hour or for a monthly subscription if not. I don't have to own any of the music to listen to it as long as my speakers can hook up to the Internet via wifi. I may never have to buy music ever again. I hope the artists get a cut from Spotify or we will have no more musicians able to make a living.

2. Chromecast Audio

I bought a gadget from Google whose function is 'Chromecast Audio'. When plugged into the old kitchen speaker and configured via a website it connected the speaker to my wifi, so I could play anything from Spotify on my kitchen speaker. Unfortunately the ancient living room hifi didn't have a spare line-in socket, although now I plan to investigate whether I can make use of the line-in socket so recently vacated by the cassette player. Then (see below) I installed a wifi extender and the kitchen speaker option disappeared. Then I switched broadband supplier and eventually I bullied it into appearing on the network but I can't use it as a speaker. To be honest I almost lost the will to live with the Chromecast Audio and ended up actually shouting at it and then I broke the tablet by hitting it in frustration. So I'll save that problem for later.

3. Television

Television used to be delivered by a broadcaster via an analogue aerial plugged into the back of a large cathode ray tube that allowed you to watch what they chose to broadcast at the time they chose to broadcast it. Then the number of channels increased dramatically, satellite and cable transmission options were introduced, everything went digital, and now you can watch all sorts of things any time you like within certain constraints. Despite all this flexibility, or perhaps because of it, I stopped watching television programmes some time ago. But I carried on using my old cathode ray tube to watch DVDs until it died.

Mr MXF helped me choose a suitable TV which arrived a couple of weeks ago. It is enormous, but weighs less than the set that it replaces. The most interesting thing I have realised is that the fundamental function of a television in the 'olden days' (to watch television programmes as they are broadcast) is the only function that I can no longer use it for, because it isn't connected to an aerial, satellite dish or cable. My new 65-inch television screen is, in reality, a huge but stupid computer screen without a keyboard. It connects to my wifi and will play music from Spotify as well as television programmes and other stuff streamed from the Internet, most of the time. There are still a few things I haven't managed to stream, such as BBC radio.

Many people don't even use a DVD player any more because they watch films streamed or downloaded from the Internet, but I am still using the DVD subscription service because they have the films I want and Netflix and Amazon don't. But this new television will play Blu-Ray and Ultra High Definition movies, which Mr MXF wholeheartedly endorses. My DVD player can cope with Blu-Ray, but I'd need a new one for UHD. Due to 'heritage' issues I haven't yet watched a Blu-Ray film, but one should arrive pretty soon.

4. Sound bar

This is a bit of kit that hooks up to the TV and/or wifi to produce directional sound, i.e. makes your ears think there is sound coming from all around. It comes with a nice sub-woofer for super bass noise too. I got it for films really, and it will sit in front of the TV most of the time, but I've also tried it out separately in the living room for streamed music (e.g. Spotify) and it works OK as long as the music is actually being picked up by the TV and sent to the sound bar via an HDMI cable or wifi. It's just a bit of a nuisance having to carry the bar and speaker from room to room.

5. Wifi extender

While Mr and Mrs MXF were here it became clearer that the kitchen is a bit far from the router and the wifi signal was quite weak. The gadget to fix this plugs into an ordinary power socket and boosts the signal, and should be as straightforward as that, but it seemed to disrupt the connection to the Chromecast Audio gadget until the new broadband came into play, and maybe it doesn't now. More investigation is needed. But the kitchen wifi signal is now excellent.

6. What's next?

So now I have a super huge high definition screen, great sound from DVDs or streamed from the Internet on the TV in the Screening Room, or in the living room if I physically move the sound bar and sub-woofer (which aren't intended to be portable), and the old hi-fi in the living room to listen to CDs (and analogue radio and vinyl but not digital radio or cassettes). I'm still able to use the iPod for music, podcasts and audiobooks but only on the kitchen speaker. It would be nice to be able to listen to all those things through the sound bar, but it looks as though I need one more item to connect my laptop to the TV (an HDMI to DVI cable). Then I could think about either trying to link the old hifi to the Chromecast Audio gadget so I can play digital sounds through my old amp, or I could get new wifi speakers.

But first, I really ought to finish the kitchen. Just the tiling left to do.

What I've been reading

Greenbanks
by Dorothy Whipple

"Ambrose went on talking, but she did not listen. He gave her, more and more frequently, the same flat exhausted feeling she had when she tried to carry a mattress downstairs unaided."

I was given this book by Sister D when I mentioned that I find modern books to be a bit disappointing. It was written in 1932 and I really enjoyed it, despite many of the characters being unpleasant types - all of the men were horrible, and all but two of the women. This isn't Sister D's favourite book by this author but it was one she was happy to give to me, so I'll seek out a few of her other recommendations.

The Far Pavilions
by M. M. Kaye

narrated by Vikas Adam

"A story of 19th Century India, when the thin patina of English rule held down dangerously turbulent undercurrents. It is about an English man brought up as a Hindu, and his passionate, but dangerous love for an Indian princess. It's a story of divided loyalties, of tender camaraderie, of greedy imperialism and of the clash between east and west."

What a marathon saga - more than 48 hours of audio narration, some truly dodgy Scots and Irish accents, but on the whole a thumping tale of India under the Raj with an excursion into Afghanistan at the end. The final battle took hours; I could have managed with a little less detail before the hero and his love rode off into the sunset.