Finding peace amongst the frenzy

Sunrise on the Ides of March

Working at my window, I see the miracle of the sun moving from pole to pole as the year progresses. In winter it rises well to the right of the neighbouring house, hiding for a few weeks behind the house as the year progresses. Today, near the Spring Equinox, it comes suddenly rising half-way along its track in a sky pale blue clear, before progressing  to the left of the left most tree at mid-summer. The trees still carry their winter gauntness against the sky, but already are abud and soon will be heavy with leaf. In the field below I see boxing hares, and against the distant woods a herd of wild deer. Here, England lies at quiet peace amidst the turmoil of the world.

Trump has just announced he's cancelling all flights to USA from Europe mainland. People are fearful of Covid-19 and hiding in their homes. I have another hospital appointment this morning, ironically at the chest clinic to check on my breathlessness and the shadow on my lung. I shall take our little bottle of hand-sanitiser, and hope I don't come back worse than I go in.

At the hospital, it is remarkably quiet; there are plenty of places in a normally crowded carpark, and the corridors are quiet. It feels very much like the lull before the storm, and seeing the figures in Italy, it will be a tornado when it hits. A test centre for infection has been set up behind the carpark, but separate from public access, and still quiet. I had to go for another blood test; normally the room is crowded with a waiting time of up to one and a half hours; this morning, there were two other people waiting and I was seen within ten minutes. Yesterday too, I had an eye test in Haverhill, and there too the carpark was empty and the streets quiet. At the funeral on Monday the atmosphere was remarkably upbeat. Few there were in the vulnerable 'elderly' category, and even the younger ones were greeting with elbow bumps, foot bumps or waves and avoiding hugs or handshakes. We have enough food for two weeks if we're confined to the house; perhaps that should be when for the tsunami is surely coming.

Remembering three deaths

Trees of Dunwich join the lost city

We visited the lost city of Dunwich last week, now a small village but once the capital of East Anglia and in size rivalling London in the 14th century, until the sea claimed it. The shoreline continues to erode inwards, now exposing the roots of the cliff-top trees, until the dead lumbar slides down the cliff toward the lost city.

The shingle beach carries on for miles here, exposed and raw, and we walked the dogs on Sizewell beach under the twin shadows of the new, clean, white dome reactor of Sizewell B, and the old concrete corpse monstrosity of Sizewell A, looking derelict and unwanted as it awaits decommissioning. The villages round about are peppered with notices protesting the coming of a third reactor, Sizewell C. I am sure it will be safe enough, but it will bring massive new roads and car parks and general disruption.

Today was the funeral of John, the brother of my sister-in-law (see a week of mixed fortunes). We stayed with Chris and Richard overnight before an early start for the chapel service. The cortege then moved at slow pace to the large cemetery in Coventry where my own mother and father are buried. John was the youngest of our generation, only 65, yet went before us. I was surprised when Richard told me today that John was a keen reader of this blog; I did not know he knew about it, but it seems he loved to read of real events, and certainly nothing is more real than the events I relate, including now his own demise!

Corona is approaching

The Corona virus seems to be moving very slowly, with only four new UK cases today. Yet people are panicking about it as if it were the plague itself. At Ono Pharma in London when I went down last week, they were already refusing to shake hands although no one in London was suspected of having the virus. Edwin and Andre have booked a weekend in Venice, but Italy of course is bad. Andre has been warned by his bosses that anyone travelling to North Italy will be automatically quarantined on their return, so I guess he and Edwin will not be going.

Creating pottery at Centre Parcs

We had a lovely weekend at Centre Parcs with the two boys, MA, Sam and the girls. It was interesting to note that when we went into the on-site shop on Friday night, they still had a few bottles of hand sanitiser available. Next morning, it was an empty shelf. We all tried our hand at creating masterpieces of design in the pottery decorating group, then back at the apartment we played Secret Hitler, described as "a dramatic game of political intrigue and betrayal set in 1930s Germany." It involves a lot of bluffing and lying which seemed to suit everyone. It is surprising how much inner character can be revealed by these games, especially the relish displayed by some when they have to shoot someone!

Looking for new work

Anniversary Snow

Yesterday we celebrated our wedding anniversary, driving through the first snow of winter. Our wedding too was held in snow, making it a natural white wedding, so the weather is entirely appropriate.

I left Ann at the Stratford Shopping Centre to meet her friend, Sylvia, while I went into London for my last day with Ono to sign off papers and say goodbye and drop off the computer.

By one of those happy chances, the car phone rang as we were driving down. It was a new agency contact, offering an interview with another company and inviting me to call in their office for a chat. Harry was a young man, with a young man's enthusiasm, and we had a lively talk about the job, the industry in general, and recruitment issues in particular. He is going to send details of the position and the interviewers to prepare me, and has arranged for a preliminary telephone interview this afternoon. If my voice fits, things could move quickly.

Rosie's spread in a selfie  

We visited Rosie and Matthew in King's Lynn at the weekend for a meal. When I talk of a meal, I refer to the food prepared by a chef who's worked in a top London hotel - it was a wholly delicious soup, followed by a wondrous preparation of vegetables (for us) and pork (for our two hosts). Rosie could take a job in any kitchen, and they would produce a great menu and draw the crowds in. But she would love to have her own market-garden shop, selling the produce they have grown, and supplemented by a small cafe with home-cooked food. We all wish them well, and we will certainly be among the first to shop and eat there!

A tale of two Sillies

The dogs' injections were due, so we duly took them to our local vets. It is a branch surgery and seems to employ a different foreign vet each time we go. This one was a petite dark-haired Polish woman whose English was heavily accented. She came to me first as I held Bronte while Ann sat with Byron, and proceeded to give Bronte a thorough medical check before giving the injection, which didn't worry Bronte at all. She then tried to give the nose drops for kennel-cough. Last year, Bronte squirmed so much that the first batch ended up in the fur of her nose, so this year I held her head tightly between my knees and my hands and between us we succeeded.

Ann and I then swapped dogs so I could do the same with Byron. Somehow, the vet didn't notice we'd swapped, so put her stethoscope in and turned to listen to Bronte's heart and chest. She continued to palpate her abdomen and check her teeth still with the stethoscope in, so couldn't hear Ann and I repeating, "that's Bronte - you've already examined her!". Finally, the vet advanced on poor Bronte to stick the rectal thermometer up for a second time! Luckily, she removed the earpieces in time and heard our pleas to leave the poor dog be, or Bronte might have got two lots of injections and nose drops.

We seemed to have acquired a large collection of bottles in the box by the back gate. I'm sure we could never have drunk so much wine between the two of us, so perhaps they were left from our last wine and cheese party. Be that as it may, we were going to Sainsbury's so I put the box in the back of the car with the dogs to take to the bottle bank. It was heavy with the many jammed-in bottles, and half full of water from the recent rainstorms. Unfortunately, at the first roundabout I was distracted by stray thoughts and touched the accelerator too hard to take a gap in the traffic. I knew the box had tipped over when there was an almighty clatter of glass, so stopped at the first chance to clear it up. Luckily none had broken, but bottles were rolling between the dogs' legs and the smelly water had soaked into the dogs' blankets which were saturated. We put the bottles back in their box and cleared up the mess as best we could. The dogs looked most disgruntled, but nothing much seems to surprise them these days.

They are listening...

A new message has been mailed from Google:

"Your service provider and data controller is now Google LLC: 

Because the UK is leaving the EU, we’ve updated our Terms so that a United States based company, Google LLC, is now your service provider instead of Google Ireland Limited.

Google LLC will … become the data controller responsible for your information and complying with applicable privacy laws. We’re making similar changes to … YouTube … and Google Play."

 We all know Google is the world's most powerful collector of data. This new message, coming so soon after we officially left the EU, suggests a deep and worrying undermining of our privacy by one of the world's most powerful data companies. Not only do they monitor everything we have ever looked up, now they are transferring the right to use and store such data from stringent EU rules to the much more lax US, where it can be shared round and sold on far more freely.

All this has suddenly resonated in light of grandson Luke's story that an unexpected message from Google had suddenly popped up on his computer, noting that he had a deep interest in coding and was young enough to want to go for an interview with Google.

Many of us now have voice assistants such as Amazon's Echo and Google Home. We might assume they only respond to the trigger words, such as 'Alexa' and 'OK, Google'. But we would be wrong: digital assistants are ‘awake’ even when users think they aren’t listening, and both companies have filed patents revealing the devices can be used as surveillance equipment for massive information collection and intrusive digital advertising.

Amazon is working to use Alexa to build profiles on anyone in the room to sell them goods. Future versions of the device will identify statements of interest, such as ‘Where shall we go on holiday? to target related advertising. Indeed, Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, has confessed that he unplugs his Alexa if he is discussing confidential information.

A Google patent application describes using its smart Home system to monitor and control everything, from what is watched on TV and hygiene habits, to meal and travel schedules and other activities. As part of its Street View, Google collected data from Wi-Fi servers in private homes to accurately pinpoint just where our servers were located. Even more worrying, Google was also able to download a lot of information just from the servers as it drove past them on Street View, including emails and passwords, medical histories, sexual preference, religion, and evidence of marital infidelity [evidence to Federal Communications Commission, 2012].

 Beware! I am now using a different (non-Chrome) browser and independent search engine to try and stop all my information being in the hands of one company.

A wet Sunday in Cromer

With Mary Ann

 A happy day in Cromer meeting up with son Ben, Kaz and Luke who have taken a cottage for the week. Kaz won the chance of the cottage as second prize in a competition she entered. First prize would have been to stay in a mansion, but he cottage was so perfect I don't think they'd have enjoyed it more. It was an old flint-stoned fisherman's cottage, modernised but still a two-up-two-down, though with its extensions larger than a hundred years ago.

Byron and Bronte await their next command

Beside recently winning with his project in the British Physics Olympiad, Luke had more good news. He was researching something on Google for a computer project when a personal message suddenly popped up inviting him to enter a competition writing Java code. The winner will get a chance to be interviewed by Google. Luke is thrilled, and says his teacher, who has been programming for years, was jealous that he never had such an offer!

A selfie of Five Come to Cromer Beach

After a good lunch, we walked down to the beach. It was a fair trek, and the cliffs there are moderately high leaving me worried about walking back up them. The beach was moderately busy, but Luke and Ben took turns to run with the dogs - literally, and a long way. To Ben's surprise (though probably not anyone else's), the dogs just wanted more, for he couldn't tire them. One of the boats was called Mary Ann, so we couldn't resist a picture with it.

The rain came on and we settled for coffee at the end of the pier, then set off back to the cottage. Encouragingly, I could walk back up the cliff comfortably, so I must be getting stronger. At the cottage, Ben lit a log burning stove in the centre of the room. The fire blazed hypnotically and effectively, and the whole room was suddenly warm.

An unexpected message via LinkedIn invited me to be available for professional consultations with a company called GuidePoint - a large US company that provides expertise in all fields to firms wanting some professional input. It is hopeful that there may still be a future for work out in the big world. I have completed the application form; now I shall see if anyone is interested in my particular expertise. Today, also, I got a request from lastminute dot con to complete a satisfaction survey for my booking with them. This was the only opportunity to complain about my lost flight to Leiden, so they did not get a high rating. It will be interesting to see if they moderate my comment!