The end of BST (British Summer Time)

Today was the first day in work after the end of summer time, grim doesn't do the change justice, and why, what is the point. Summer time was invented to make the most of daylight when the world revolved around agriculture done with ox and cart, but in today's world its the electric light that determines our waking hours, not the sun. So why not let us have the daylight at the end of the day when we can use it instead of at the beginning of the day when all it does is illuminate the start of another drudge in the office/school/... The only amusing bit about today was when my boss said that the reason he hated the clock change was because his journey home would take twice as long, and to make the misery complete, it would start drizzling just after sunset. Well I'm not sure about the commute home bit as I only had to drive 1/2 mile to the hotel, but it was drizzling.

Lets all shout at the radio

Today as I drove up to Solihull someone was being interviewed on the Today programme in relation to the record number of prisoners currently being locked up in British Jails. The < think libel laws> nice person </think libel laws> being interviewed expressed concerns that the state were locking up even more people than before despite the fact that crime figures were falling. I could only yell at the top of my voice "No sh*t Sherlock, maybe its cos all the eff'ing crimbos are behind bars!" Sadly the interviewer didn't hear me, and didn't pick up on the obvious line of attack. Who said the beeb isn't full of loopy loony left wing liberals ?

After Autumn

After Autumn

Snow man blows ice from the east.
Whittling bones to needles.
Hide if you can from the Russian day.
Dark dark, light, dark.

Crystals glint solar tears,
Milky blue in mood.
Crying in the shimmering stillness.
Silence where once water danced.

And forlorn fowl mourn,
Their lost liquid warm.
Black as dots on glass.
Not too thin to risk.

No surprise then that perfection is marred,
By wolf ways that crimson frost.
Leaving nothing but feathers and quacks.
To be borne by the wind for a while.

And all about spin drifts,
But nothing moves.
Save for the cackles and their crows
Picking at the whittles,
Left in the snow.



By Neil Britton,
Oct 2005.

Autumn is in the air

The days are getting shorter but at least there is the consolation of those stunning autumn colours. The drive back home yesterday, past flaming red and bright yellow woods underneath a clear sky was simply beautiful. Typically though today is dull and damp, but hopefully once all the chores are done I'll be able to go for a walk down by the canal. Its either that, or going into town to by some new trousers and shirts, maybe I'll do that tomorrow.

More mid-west meetings

I've just come back from a trip to one of the great lake states where I had to try and placate one of our customers who has been suffering from a software bug that up until a few days ago had baffled us for the last five months. The problem was simply that we could not reproduce it, and bugs without replication steps are near on impossible to fix.

The "lucky" breakthrough came about because I finally got to do something that I had wanted, no demanded to do, for at least the last three months, and that something was simply to talk with the users to find out what they were actually doing. All it took was an hour or so of questioning the right people, and hey presto, the path was illuminated. Twenty four hours later we understood the cause, and had a fix.

Why the customers IT people were unable to get this information from their own people just baffles and angers me.

The odd thing is that I thought that their IT department had done a superb job in rolling out the software to the users. They first recruited popular IT literate people from the user group and got them involved with the acceptance testing so that they could understand what the software was to do, and how to use it. They then used these people to spread the good word about the system, and explain to sometimes sceptical recipients how it would make their jobs easier; after all, its one thing for a business manager to say "its good, so use it", its quite another thing if that same message comes from one of your own boys or girls. Once the system was rolled out, these people then became the first point of help for the new users. In short this is about as good as it could be, so what went wrong? Well I know, but liable is such a nasty thing, so I'm keeping shtum.

The sad part is that those who left last week when our office closed really, really, really wanted to have this problem fixed before they left; so I suppose its typical that the cause should have been found only a few days after they went.

Of course I will be letting them know.

And so the office closes

The last day of the office came and went. There were no tears from anyone, just promises to keep in touch, and lots of good wishes to those yet to find another job.

In some ways Friday was quite miserable. The removal men came in and started gutting the place before we had left, underlining the sense of loss that I was feeling, but at least just about everyone made it in to say goodbye, so that was good.

Some I guess I'll never see again, as they've moved to new jobs many miles away, others already live too far away for anything other than the most well planned of get togethers. A few will be joining me at the other office, but it won't be the same; the camaraderie, the sense of controlled anarchy, and the laid back non-conformity have all now gone. The thing that it feels most like is my last day at university. I guess its time to grow up.