Blog

A new look for 2026.

This website, along with probably 25% of websites, is created using an open-source hosting platform called WordPress. It’s good – very good in fact – enabling a quite impressive looking website, with a unified appearance, to be created relatively easily. Once you’ve learned to live with it’s quirks, or course.

And the problem with this is it leads to a great temptation to tinker with things; you know, mend things that aren’t actually broken.

So dispite having a good look a few years ago, I tinkered a bit….. and it went wrong, and I ended up with a different look that I hated but really couldn’t raise the enthusiasm to fix.

….until now. I’ve switched to a new theme called ‘twenty sixteen’. I like it and I hope you do too.

I’m working on some new content at the moment, so stay tuned……

Amazon returns…

Like, I suspect, most people I have mixed views regarding Amazon. On the one hand you can have practically anything you wish for delivered to your home, often the next day, with ‘free’ delivery. To make it even better, within 30 days you can return it, no questions asked. It’s a really good service.

On the other hand there is the issue of the amount of tax Amazon actually pay in this country. It’s not good – they have clever accountants! For example their European base is in Luxembourg, where different rules apply.

But what happens if the widget you’ve bought from them breaks after the 30 day period? (As happened to me recently).

Well on the face of it, the service is very poor. There’s really nothing on the website to help much; you very quickly find yourself going round in circles and getting increasingly angry and frustrated. Very often, as obviously intended, the customer gives up.

What you really want is someone to talk to. The phone number of a real person, perhaps. Well, it’s not obvious, but it can be done. The following worked for me.

  1. Find the customer service page. This gives a range of options for things you might like help with. These simply take you to other web pages – not a lot of help.
  2. Click on the ‘Something Else’ box. This brings up some more links, including a ‘Contact Us’ link.
  3. Click on the ‘Contact Us’ link; this brings up a Text Chat window.
  4. Write something like ‘I want to talk to a real person’.
  5. Eventually it gives you the option to ‘Talk to a Customer Service Associate’. Click on this and you can request a phone call. They ask for a phone number – which they probably have anyway – and they ring you back.

By doing this I found myself talking to a very helpful Pakistani gentlemen who sorted out the problem, and arranged for a refund and a collection of the faulty item by courier the next day.

Excellent – result.

Careful on that ladder…

I read recently that people over 50 shouldn’t be allowed to use ladders. Nonsense I say – we’re the most sensible of all people – we’ve been around a bit, we’re confident, experienced and have survived long enough to not do anything stupid. In my case I’ve done lots of rock climbing, external DIY, up and down ladders, all those things that make you a reliable, capable person who doesn’t do stupid. Heights – no problem, the key is to never forget where you are. Lean too far – NO! that’s what the foolhardy do.

The trouble is, it’s all to easy to get it wrong.  And as I just found out, you go from being this capable, sensible person, into being a complete dork into the blink of an eye. 

It all went wrong about 4 weeks ago whilst cutting my hedge. I’d done most of it, and was actually feeling quite pleased with my self. Finally, I’d done the garden chores for the spring and I could get back onto fun things. There was just that final top bit – slightly out of reach, but OK – everything was stable, ladder fine, etc. No problem. Except, it wasn’t… I felt the ladder tip a bit, backed off, but suddenly I had the choice of riding the ladder down, or jumping off…. I jumped.

Actually, it was probably the best choice, but we’ll never know.

So I’m now lying in a heap on the grass. I could still wiggle my toes, which seemed to be a good thing and overall, I didn’t feel too bad… But it wasn’t right. I could feel it – It didn’t actually hurt much, but I knew this was SERIOUS. I’d had this before – a minor injury, like stubbing your toe, hurts. A serious one feels more… elemental, deeper, worse. I could feel the cold, clammy feeling of shock coming over me. Not good.

No phone, it was indoors – stupid! So I can’t call for help. So I crawled on my hands and knees about 10 yards across the grass to the patio. Eventually I found a piece of wood to use as a crutch. I could put some weight on my heel, but anything else was very painful. I staggered as far as the kitchen and found my phone. Hard work – this is really not good.

So now I had a dilemma – my lovely wife had a social meeting after work with some former, and much missed colleagues. If I’d rung her, she’d have missed out on this, and I’d have felt bad. So, I rang my next friend, S___, to scrounge a lift to casualty in Heath Road. She’s a former nurse, and was characteristically blunt. RING FOR AN AMBULANCE – YOU SOUND TERRIBLE! I didn’t argue, she was right – I did feel terrible. So I did as I was told and was they said it might be an hour or two.

Behind the scenes though, she was quietly playing a blinder! One by one friends in the village began to arrive. First there was St___ and his lovely wife, then D__ from next door, M___ from down the road, then S__ herself. Wonderful – I was feeling a little better and we could have had a very nice afternoon garden party under different circumstances.

Eventually the ambulance estimate became 3 hours, and Stuart offered me a lift, which I gratefully accepted.

The wait in casualty at Ipswich wasn’t too bad, and eventually an excellent nurse-practitioner stepped in and we were sorted. Heidi arrived, not impressed that I’d not told her earlier (you really can’t win, can you!!), but lovely as usual. Everybody was lovely, with the exception of the radiologist, who was horrible. Eventually everything fell into place and I was diagnosed with a ‘spiral fracture of the right fibula’.

PHUQ! I thought – as you would…. They sent me home with a temporary plaster and an appointment card for fracture clinic the next morning.

It got sillier when we got home though… We’d had a power cut, and everything was dark. So eventually, after finding a torch, we sat down at the kitchen table by candlelight and sat there with a glass of wine each, laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.

The next day at the fracture clinic I was fitted with a walker boot – a wonder of plastic and velcro – and was told probably six weeks to get back on your feet.

I’ll take that, under the circumstances. But what a bloody idiot!

So a big thankyou to all those who helped, both on the day and subsequently. We’ll fire up the barbecue and pizza oven later when I can move around a bit better, and the drinks are on us!

More fun with ChatGPT.

So, what do you do when waiting for ages in casualty with only a smartphone for company?

Well I’ll tell you. You think of that new car you’re longing to buy, and then mull over the future of Ipswich Town football. But you’re also a bit grumpy.  You’ve also still got the ChatGPT App installed, so ask it when following:

“Compare the Mazda MX-5 with the MGB Roadster in a sarcastic style with reference to Ipswich town football”.

This is the answer:

“Ah, the Mazda MX-5 vs. the MGB Roadster — a battle of British nostalgia and Japanese precision — with a generous sprinkle of Ipswich Town Football Club misery to tie it all together. Let’s do this.

Design and Heritage
The MGB Roadster: A British icon. It leaks oil, rusts for fun, and handles like a shopping trolley with a hangover — but my God, it looks like it should be driven to Portman Road with a flat cap and high hopes of a 1-0 win over Barnsley. Much like Ipswich in the early 2000s — charming, historically significant, and absolutely not up to modern standards.

The Mazda MX-5: Built by the Japanese after they looked at the MGB and said, “Let’s make this, but you know… actually work.” It’s like giving Ipswich Town the infrastructure of Manchester City — the soul’s still stuck in League One, but at least everything functions.

Reliability
The MGB: Owning one is a bit like supporting Ipswich through the Championship years. It might start, it might get you where you’re going, but you’ll need therapy either way. Engine lights are more decorative than informative. You learn patience. And grief.

The MX-5: Starts every time. Handles every time. Doesn’t complain. It’s like Ipswich finally signing a striker who can score more than three goals a season — shocking at first, but deeply satisfying once you believe it’s real.

Driving Experience
The MGB: Raw, unfiltered, and utterly terrifying at speed. You don’t drive it so much as plead with it. Like watching Ipswich try to play out from the back — thrilling if you enjoy pain.

The MX-5: Balanced, tight, and joyful. A car that corners like Ipswich fans hoping this is the promotion season. It’s built for fun, not breakdowns.

Conclusion
If the MGB is Ipswich Town in 1992 — all nostalgia, dubious performance, and clinging to past glories — then the MX-5 is Ipswich under Kieran McKenna: reliable, surprisingly competent, and possibly even modern. But don’t worry, the ghosts of mechanical failures and mid-table finishes still haunt both.

In short:
MGB = Ipswich Town’s glorious but unreliable past
MX-5 = A version of Ipswich you might actually trust to get you to the playoffs without bursting into flames

Want it to sound even more like a pub argument outside Portman Road? Just say the word”.

Ode to Aldeburgh

For Poppy, Rose, Ruby and Bonnie.

I want to be a seagull,
A seagull by the sea.
I’d eat discarded fish and chips
And happy I would be.
Much easier than catching sprats
Much tastier than brill
I’d feast upon the batter
Until I’d had my fill.

The local bylaws ban it,
The fine’s a million quid
But still some kindly tourist
Would drop some chips, if bid.
I’d squawk around their ear holes,
Dive-bomb and buzz their dish
I’d generate some panic
Then fly off with their fish!

Or maybe I could be a pigeon
By the boating lake
I’d strut and pose for tourists
When photographs they take.
The little children sail their boats
While parents take a nap
I’d mount their heads so quietly
And there I’d take a c**p.

A good role model might be ‘Snooks’
Atop his concrete plinth
I’d get the latest knitwear
And never move an inch.
I’d have to sit so very still
There’s many pros and cons
I’m out there in all weathers
Good job I’m made of bronze!

By: Peter Hughes






 

In praise of the Canterbury Fork.

From the ergonomic point of view the traditional British garden fork and spade are a bit of a disaster. Just think about it: to turn over your vegetable patch you have to drive in the fork by standing in it, physically lift up the clod of earth, break it up, extract any perennial weed roots, and then replace it upside down – all whilst bending over. You then have to do it again, and again and again…..  At the end, if you’re lucky you’ll simply have a sore back, unlucky and you’ll be incapacitated for a few days.

This is where digging hoes – or adzes – have a major advantage. The blade is at right angles to the shaft, so you can use gravity to drive it in – rather like using an axe. You can then use the considerable leverage the shaft provides to turn over the clod of earth. All whilst keeping your back straight. They’re really good, and this sort of tool is used all over the world with good reason.

But, I hear you say, doesn’t that simply chop up all the weed roots into smaller pieces and multiply the amount of couch grass you have to deal with when summer comes?

You’re right, of course, which is why you need that wonderful tool, the CANTERBURY FORK.

What it does is combine a three pronged fork with a digging hoe to make a unique tool that is part fork, part hoe, part rake, as shown in the featured image above. So if you have some neglected land to conquer, full of brambles, nettles, and god knows what else, it’s the only tool you need.  You wack it in, loosen the ground, pull out the intact roots and flip the earth over.  It’s brilliant. I bought one about a decade ago when we had an allotment, and it rapidly became my favourite tool.  So much so that when I eventually broke the handle the other day, all work stopped until I could find a new one.

Drawbacks? Well yes, a few.  First it’s not a precision tool, so neat lines are unlikely unless you can swing accurately. Second, it does lend itself to a pulling action; thus you tend to end up with a pile of earth at your feet, just where you need to stand to attack the next bit.

Anyway, that’s my top gardening tip for you, just at the time you need it for this year’s garden prep.   They’re available online from Chillington tools. You won’t regret it, I promise!

Digging hoe and Canterbury Fork, resplendent with new handles.
This area was formerly a mess of brambles, ivy and weeds, all removed using a Canterbury Fork.

Who governs Britain?

For better or worse it looks like Rachel from Accounts is living on borrowed time – or at least that’s what the right-wing press are saying, and I tend to agree. The crux of the matter seems to be the UK government have been playing to the UK audience, but forgetting that the rest of the world can hear them too. They have a large majority and can’t be removed from office via the ballot box until 2029, so they probably felt safe no matter how things went. BUT, as Liz Truss discovered to her cost, the people who really run the country are not the politicians, but the international money markets. And their impact can be much more immediate – and brutal.

The problem is this: every year, in order to run the country, the Government needs to raise enormous sums of money – a lot more than can be raised through basic taxation. So to make up the gap they have to borrow additional cash in loans from other countries. These loans are in the form of Bonds, with the interest rate (called the Yield) payable on the bond being fixed when the bond is purchased. The yield is negotiable between the lender and the Government. If the lender has a high degree of confidence they’ll get the money back, then the yield will be low – say 1%. On the other hand, if the lender has a few doubts they’ll want more in return – say 5% – for what they perceive is a higher risk. This yield is important since it has a direct impact on things like the interest rates everybody pays, including mortgage rates and the government has to find even more money to cover loan costs.

So in the case of Liz Truss, with her unfunded tax cuts, they all set a very high yield and the rest of her MPs kicked her out in favour of somebody a little more sensible. (Actually it was a little more complicated than that, but not much).

Fast-forward to summer 2024. In the run-up to the July election the Labour Party made a number of statements and assurances to the public that they wouldn’t raise public spending by very much, that they’d not increase income tax, VAT or NS contributions, and a key policy was to grow the economy. The public believed them, as did the money markets, and they were duly elected with a large majority.

Unfortunately, once in power that’s not what they actually did.

  1. After winning they then spent much of summer 2024 saying what a bad state the economy was in after the previous government. This included the claimed £22bn ‘black hole’ in the finances, which may, or may not have really been the true figure.
    Serious point: it’s generally a bad idea to talk yourself down in this way. People tend to believe things are worse than they are.
  2. They then awarded large pay rises to various groups in the public sector.
    Oops – they’re raising public spending already.
  3. It then became clear that the Chancellor had been a bit careless with her CV, and had nothing like the economic experience she claimed to have.
    Oh dear – the driver is a novice.
  4. Then they increased the employer national insurance contributions. Everybody still seems to be arguing whether this actually broke their manifesto commitments, but either way it’s a LOT of money to extract from the taxpayers and it makes employing people more expensive.
    This is a strange way to grow the economy!
  5. Then they made family business and family farms subject to inheritance tax.
    In fact, there may be a case for some redistribution of land, but this seems to be ill thought through, driven by dogma rather than by pragmatism.
  6. The removal of the winter fuel allowance for state pensioners and the adding of VAT to private schools were not manifesto commitments and in practice are unlikely to raise much money, despite having a negative impact on children and old people.
    Again this appears primarily driven by dogma and is badly thought out.

All of this tends to give the impression that the UK might not be a particularly safe place to invest money in. What they want to see is a well run economy with a government on top of things. Unfortunately this government doesn’t do what it said it would do, is driven by dogma and then it looks like the Chancellor doesn’t have very much experience.

Bond yields are now well above the Liz Truss level, and still climbing. This is really not good, and strongly suspect Mrs Reeves will be toast very soon!

So all this begs the question, who governs Britain?

Predicting the future.

It’s said, with some degree of accuracy I think, that those who don’t study history are bound to repeat its mistakes. Perhaps a corollary of that is that those who fail to adapt flexibly to changes in the world are in danger of ceasing to exist. A good example of the latter is the state of the once massive Eastman Kodak Company.

Usually just referred to as ‘Kodak’, the company formed in the US 1888 and quickly grew to dominate the world of photography, producing cameras (including the famous ‘Brownie’ box camera), and more importantly, photographic film – including the excellent ‘Kodachrome’. Unfortunately, the company completely failed to make the transition to modern digital photography, dispite actually making the first digital camera in 1975. In fact, in 1979 one of their employees predicted a complete shift to digital photography would occur by 2010. He was not taken too seriously at the time, and the rest is history. Once they realised the magnitude of their mistakes the company belatedly tried to adapt, but had lost so much market to the likes of Canon, Sony, etc that they couldn’t recover and the company filed for bankruptcy in 2009. Nowadays, if you ask one of the young generation about Kodak, you’ll receive a very blank look.

With this in mind, nowadays all technology companies now try to keep an eye on the future. My old employer, BT, used to have a small ‘Futurology’ team whose job was to make educated guesses about how the world might look 5, 10, 20 or more years ahead. Sometimes they made some really interesting observations, other times you wondered what on earth they were talking about – or even what they’d been smoking.

Looking through my old files recently I stumbled across the list of predictions they made in the 2002 edition of their ‘Technology Timeline’. That’s 22 years ago, a long time in the high-tek world, and it’s fascinating reading to see what they got right – or wrong!

For example here are the predictions for the world of Telecommunications, just one of many sections covering all areas of technology. Each ‘prediction’ is essentially a significant achievement and the date by which it was expected to happen. Remember, these predictions were made in Autumn 2001, and sometimes the terminology used is a little archaic.

  • Cordless home networks using Bluetooth, Piano or Jini 2001
  • Photonic crystal fibre 2001
  • Go-anywhere personal numbering 2002
  • 70M European computers connected to Internet 2002
  • Use of passive picocell 2003
  • 1 billion cellular users worldwide 2003
  • 10 Terabit/s on single fibre 2003
  • ANT based services 2003
  • Home intranet 2003
  • Global terabit network 2003
  • UMTS (3G) launch in U.K. 2003
  • 1 Gbyte optical fibre loop memory 2005
  • Video download over network at 10 x normal speed 2005
  • Global broadband fibre based network 2005
  • ANT based network management 2005
  • Intranets dominate over Internet 2005
  • Neighbourhood intranets 2005
  • 1 billion mobile communication devices worldwide 2005
  • Video surveillance built into phone boxes 2005
  • 60% of internet accesses from mobile devices 2005
  • 50% of traffic on mobile networks will be data 2005
  • Domestic demand reaches 100Mbit/s per home 2010
  • 90% of calls tetherless 2010
  • All optic integrated logic, switching below 1 ps 2010
  • Use of high density wavelength multiplexing for trunk 2010
  • Use of WDM in local access 2015
  • Internet achieves 75% penetration in UK 2015
  • Electronic ATM switches largely obsolete & replaced by photonic versions 2020
  • Simultaneous data delivery in the City 2020
  • Cyberspace covers 75% of developed world 2020

There’s a whole lot more in the full document – it’s fascinating reading for all technology nerds!  Download it from the following link. Technically it’s copyright BT, but I’m sure nobody will mind!

Technology Timeline:Download

The best jam in the world!

The above title is, of course, simply clickbait, since  everyone knows the best jam in the world is actually produced in Megan Markle’s kitchen over in Montecito in California, and marketed under the, “American Riviera Orchard” label. How do we know this? Well partly because she’s told us so, but mostly from empirical evidence: demand appears to be so high it’s simply impossible to buy a jar anywhere!

At the other end of the spectrum, there is probably a lot of competition for the worst jam in the world. A strong contender might be Ticklers “Plum and Apple” jam which was produced in large quantities for the British Army during WW1 and allegedly didn’t contain any of either fruit.  However, we won that particular conflict, so it can’t have been that bad, and anyway it’s not available now. So this leaves the really budget jams from the supermarkets, the cheapest of which, from Aldi, retails at about 39p a jar and seem to be basically thickened cheap fruit juice. It’s probably briefly worth considering if you’re running the household on a tight budget, but ideally you’d want something better for your kids. What you might call ‘basic’ supermarket jam (Tesco) retails for 89p a jar, which is better, but at that price must be a loss-leader.

This rather raises the question of what a jar of jam should cost. Those of us who have tried making our own using fresh fruit know that it can taste so wonderful that the big question becomes, what do the commercial manufacturers do with all the flavour after they’ve taken it all out? We also know it turns out to be somewhat expensive with PYO fruit prices being something north of £11/kg. Thus a jar will usually work out at a little over £3.00.

So this got me thinking:  Can we make a high quality low cost jam? 

Well, the answer is, Yes, you can!

The solution is frozen fruit from the supermarket.  Frozen raspberries retail at about £7.50/kg, so add 1kg of sugar and for £8.60 you can make excellent Raspberry Jam for about £2.15 a jar (allowing for evaporation).   Ok, that’s still expensive. But there are several lower cost alternatives, all of which work well – mixed summer fruits, or Black Forrest mix.

But I recently discovered Tesco sell 1kg bags of so called, “Imperfect fruit”, a mix of blackcurrants, redcurrants, blackberries and strawberries, for the princely sum of £2.99.    Yup, under £3 per kg… and it makes a beautiful mixed fruit jam!  It’s also full of pectin, so there’s no need to add any – any sugar will do. Honestly, I couldn’t believe how good it was.  This is the recipe:

  • 1kg bags imperfect frozen fruit (£2.99)
  • 1kg granulated sugar (£1.09)
  • 1 lemon (use zest and juice) (35p).

Method: defrost fruit in microwave oven, add sugar, lemon juice and zest. Boil until it reaches setting point (104c), breaking up the fruit a bit using the potato masher if necessary. Cool and put into sterilised jars.

Makes 4x 380g jars. Cost per jar, £4.43/4 = £1.11. A bargain!

The only question remaining is where do you get empty jam jars from? Well obviously you can save them, or buy them from Hobbycraft for about £10/doz. That’s quite an overhead, but it’s much cheaper to buy the 39p a jar of jam from Aldi and dispose of the contents – lets face it, at that price they can’t have much food value anyway!

Live music.

We took a trip to Bury St Edmunds on Friday, and happened upon this little band busking outside Marks and Spencer. Nothing too fancy – just 4 clearly competent musicians doing their thing in the winter sunshine. We only had time to stop for a few minutes while they played their opening number, Johnny Cash’s “Fulsome Prison Blues”. No vocalist on this occasion, but it was live and joyous and everybody was happy. They were called “The High Points” – click for their website. I suspect they’d put on a good evenings entertainment.

But here’s the important thing: It was LIVE! No backing tapes, no tricks, just music.  Unlike an awful lot of modern performances. 

Now I’ve long suspected the concert going public are being fooled with technology.  We have singers who appear to sing well whilst dancing, but are then obviously out of breath when introducing the next song (Madonna), bands with members obviously absent (Sheniah Twain performing at Glastonbury without a bass player on stage), remarkably perfect renditions of well known songs (Dua Lipa, also at Glastonbury this year).  Not to mention hip-hop, rap and techno performers who obviously have no band at all.  

I’m not alone in this view, of course, and there’s increasing concern about this by industry insiders. A good example is the “Wings of Pegasus” channel on YouTube, run by ‘Fil’, who is not only a very talented guitarist and singer but also a whiz at musical and recording analysis. Significantly, he doesn’t necessarily set out to unmask the culprits – he simply analyzes videos people request him to take a look at, and reports what he finds. Over the last few months, he’s demonstrated convincingly that overproduction and excessive reliance on technology are absolutely rife.

In live performances there are a number of ‘tricks’ employed: 

  1. Miming to backing tracks. This has been going on for years of course – Top of the Pops on TV, for example, though that was always an open secret. But you don’t expect it in a so-called ‘live’ performance you’ve paid money to watch.  Today they get a bit more sophisticated, maybe adding a little live vocals into the mix in order to give the impression that it’s all live.
  2. Partial use of backing tracks which are mixed-in to ‘perform’ the tricky parts of a song
  3. Singer really singing, but to a backing track, with the band on view simply miming.
  4. Band really playing, but the singer is miming.
  5. Singers making extensive use of technology such as ‘auto-tune’, which automatically adjusts the pitch of individual notes if the singer sings a bum note.

So who are the culprits?   Well list the included some big names. Here are just four

  1. Taylor Swift – lots of backing tracks in the ‘Eras’ tour and extensive use of auto-tune.
  2. Maria Carey – partial use of backing tracks
  3. The Eagles – singing clearly not live in recent tours
  4. Celine Dion – appears to be using partial backing tracks.

The silly thing is, these people CAN sing – they’ve proved that in their careers. But when doing it live they feel the need, possibly under pressure from managers, promoters, record companies, to enhance the performance using technology.It’s not good. 

If you can’t do it live, don’t call it live!

But here are a few performers who definitely are performing live:

  • U2
  • Rolling Stones
  • Pink
  • The High Points

So to summarise, if you want to see a girl dancing around the stage in a sparkly swimming costume, go to a Taylor Swift gig.   On the other hand, if you want to see some live music, go shopping in Bury St. Edmunds.