http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums Living in Scotland, UK; I work from home as an editor and petminder. This way of life is not the route to owning a BMW or even a good pension! An Oriental Ticked Tabby cat shares my wobbly existence. en Diddums Diddums Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:30:08 +0100 daily 1 I am moving my blog to WordPress . It will take me a longish time to get all my posts across as I don't think I can export them from here the usual way, especially as the feeds here on Blogigo have vamooshed. If you are curious about Aw Diddum's old posts, you can always wander across to WordPress and see them as they come up... I'm starting from the very first post and moving on up. it's a great opportunity for me to edit the trail of verbiage I left in my wake during the glory days of Blogigo. Presumably I won't be able to transfer visitors' old comments across, though I would if I could. Bummer. I will continue to post any thoughts that come to mind, but not here - not any more. I'll put them on my Emergency Blogspot - that's what it's there for, after all, and it still has a feed! See you there (and eventually here as well!) Happy Christmas and festivities to everybody - it's been grand here on Blogigo but I must move on. Fri, 14 Dec 2007 18:30:08 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Emigrating-At-Long-Last/5679/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Emigrating-At-Long-Last/5679/ Folk are supposed to give honest (but tactful) appraisals of each other's work on an art site I'm on, but that can be a hard thing to do, presumably for the following reasons: "don't want to hurt their feelings" "not sure I know enough to be able to judge" "don't want to get involved; too busy" "don't want to lose my friends" "I'm sure they can see their own mistakes, or will eventually" "someone else will bring it up; I don't have to" "I don't want to end up getting nasty messages" "if I don't like it, silence will tell them all they need to know" Number 8 is the most depressing. I've had my weak moments - in fact, most of the time I'm weak, and either I point out all the best features then shuffle off cravenly, or say nothing at all. But occasionally (usually when I see enough in the picture that I like) I'll stick my head... Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:25:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/A-Hint-of-Humanity-in-the-Darkness/5678/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/A-Hint-of-Humanity-in-the-Darkness/5678/ With his article ...on pimping your browser , Stephen Fry will have prompted a spate of people to try out new 'skins' on their Firefox browsers - including me. I looked at the themes before, in fact only a few days ago, but what always put me off going for any of the Firefox add-ons is the message "unsigned... you should only install software from sources that you trust." My mother...? That rather limits my options! This time I decided if those themes on the Firefox page were fine for Stephen Fry, they were fine for me... (cue all those techy guys to snort even more). If anything goes wrong, though, I won't blame him - I'll blame myself for finally giving way to temptation. I downloaded a bundle of Firefox themes from the Mozilla site and went through them, one by one. Most of them were too grey. What is it about the colour grey?? I don't mind silvery ones if they do have a bit of a shine to them, but flat grey or even pale grey mixed with white has always... Sat, 08 Dec 2007 18:00:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Tempted-by-Stephen-Fry/5677/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Tempted-by-Stephen-Fry/5677/ Some more random notes from the past, found amongst my papers. The following snippet concerned an interview for a book-binding job I attended. The job was based round some really vicious machinery. All my previous editing work has been based around computer databases and filing cabinets: Me: They asked if there was anything about the editing work that bore any relation to the job I was applying for - I couldn't really see any similarity so said no! Mum: Books! Me: Did she manage to put it down? Mum: She's still shaking upstairs. Me: This is the carnivorous café My sister (a vegetarian): Café Carnivore - only well behaved vegetarians permitted. Me (having one of my mini rants): That Oxfam book shop is the worst yet. £2.49 for old/new sci-fi paperbacks. £1.49 for thin kid's paperback. £1.99 for filthy tattered pb of no particular interest. They said "we have more in stock" - I'm not... Fri, 07 Dec 2007 01:36:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Random-Notes-from-the-Past/5676/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Random-Notes-from-the-Past/5676/ This article from The Guardian made my hair stand up on end, I was so angry: Revealed: how UK banks exploit charity tax laws . The worst thing about it is that many of them say they do it because it's normal practice. The same banks who put commercials on the TV about not being sheep, or expecting their clients to be sheep... "follow, don't lead." Quite. Thu, 06 Dec 2007 21:01:03 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Follow-Don-t-Lead/5675/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Follow-Don-t-Lead/5675/ Looking at the Blogger in Draft news for December 4th about Subscription Links, I fell to wondering. At first I thought "oh, new (or updated) feature, got to go and turn that on!" Then I stopped and thought "but I never wanted those things. I never use them on other sites - why would I want them on mine?" The issue is probably not whether I want them, but whether others use them? In my case I have a quick way of subscribing to a blog - it's Bloglines , and I have a 'subscribe with Bloglines' button permanently in my Firefox toolbar. As I know exactly where that button is, it saves me searching round the blog for something that might not be there. My guess is that most other people have got it sorted out as well - they have their own ways of subscribing? I left a poll in the sidebar of my emergency blogspot - hoping for a few votes. It's up till 14th December. Maybe it would only help a new person who was looking to start a feed account somewhere.... Thu, 06 Dec 2007 18:26:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Feed-Options-in-Blogger/5674/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Feed-Options-in-Blogger/5674/ My sister found 'more neighbour wilting stuff' - this one a video clip of Paul Simon and Ladysmith Black Mambazo . It's 'We Are Homeless', if I remember right. My best friend at university hated it - she said it sounded like someone panicking, and it made her panic too. Currently I'm trying to sort through boxes and files of paper and notepads from my house. It's a boring job and I really don't want to do it - except that I keep finding some strange things. There was a tiny hand-made book with mostly blank white pages in it. The names of countries were written at the top of the pages in my neatest tiniest handwriting. Not all of the pages are blank... there's an old Chinese stamp, and three old Indian stamps... all in very poor condition, and all quite old. I'm not a stamp collector and never really fancied the idea, so I was completely stumped. What WAS this? Mum is the stamp collector - she took a look and said they had bits missing and are worthless.... Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:08:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Moonlight-Sleeping-on-a-Midnight-Lake/5673/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Moonlight-Sleeping-on-a-Midnight-Lake/5673/ Something that annoys me about myself is that, when I'm disagreeing with someone's words, it's sometimes not till I take it up and start writing about it, referring back to the original statement, that I realize (1) they weren't saying what I thought they said; (2) they had a perfectly good point. It takes the wind out of my sails and then I can't express my disagreement, and that's so disappointing... Huff. But because I've at least gone back and pored scarily over it, I do get a better hold on what the other person was really saying... I wonder how many people just ignore it and shuffle away, and go to the end of their lives not realizing the unplumbed depths of those unsatisfying conversations. Most likely that's the lot of those who don't want to cause any ripples or unpleasantness by taking up this issue or that. It's a little unfair on those you're being polite to. This thought wasn't sparked off by any blogs I read today,... Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:08:12 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Did-They-Really-Mean-That/5672/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Did-They-Really-Mean-That/5672/ The feeds to my Aw Diddums blog on Blogigo haven't been working ever since that fateful day when I was having the redirect problems - I don't think it's a coincidence. The 'page visits' haven't been working for even longer. I don't know why things remain broken on Blogigo for so long... I don't think there's any blogging platform anywhere that rings all the bells, though. Meanwhile... Iain from Posted Notes directed me to this catchy version of Wimoweh - by Karl Denver. It's striking indeed, though I'm not sure I would have known what it was if I hadn't been told. I like the song and the singers' faces - though it would be better without the dancers! It's as though they're doing the Highland Fling very badly in the background, which is distracting. I looked around, and you must see this: Mbube by a young Miriam Makeba. It's my new Must Listen To Till the Neighbours Wilt. I also found an article on Mbube: Does... Mon, 03 Dec 2007 13:38:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/More-Wimoweh/5671/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/More-Wimoweh/5671/ On YouTube I kept listening to The Lion Sleeps Tonight clip (otherwise known as Wimoweh). With it still ringing in my ears, I went to comment on Goldfish 's latest blog post. The captcha was ihweh . Sat, 01 Dec 2007 22:45:21 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/O-Wim-Ihweh/5670/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/O-Wim-Ihweh/5670/ I edited my Blogger profile so that it's just a tiny bit more interesting. It occurred to me to put my main blog in as 'my web page'. So all is not completely lost. I'm still not happy with the new commenting method. There was something else I was going to say - now, what was it? Oh yes, there's a conversation going on over here at Suburban Oblivion about the Blogger/Google comments. I thought there was still something else. No, it's completely gone... Oh wait!! I doubt if you read my long post Puzzled Blogger about yesterday's trials and tribulations with my main blog, but one of the things I mentioned was that we've always had this problem on Blogigo (not just me) of our profiles saying we all lived in Afghanistan. It didn't matter how often we tried to change that (and yes, we clicked on the 'save changes' button), it completely ignored us. I thought it was a purely Blogigo quirk, so imagine how I felt when I went into the... Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:01:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Grumbling-On/5669/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Grumbling-On/5669/ I got this horoscope today... One good turn deserves another, so do a helpful friend a favour today. Maybe they just need you to hang out with them while they wait for a repairman, or maybe they need you to run a few small errands. Short of giving up one of your vital organs, you should quickly and eagerly give them whatever they want today. Chances are, they just want some of your time. The two of you will make fun out of the chore... Yes... I spent all day yesterday waiting for the repairman for my blog. I would say they got that horoscope inside out. Still - it's time to listen to Wimoweh and remember that nothing matters... Sat, 01 Dec 2007 13:38:08 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/One-Day-Late/5668/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/One-Day-Late/5668/ I've just had the following Awful Experience, which threw me for a loop. 1) In the morning I turned on the computer to check my email and for any blog comments. Everything seemed fine. I wrote a new blog post and posted it. 2) Went away for a coffee. 3) Returned to my blog to make a change... it said 'server not found.' 4) Every so often I tried again... after a while the message changed to: "The page isn't redirecting properly. Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete. This problem can sometimes be caused by disabling or refusing to accept cookies." 5) I tried other blogs and discovered that all the blogigo.co.uk blogs came up with the same error. All blogigo.com, blogigo.de, blogigo.cn and blogigo.at blogs were still accessible. 6) If I went to blogigo.co.uk's home page, everything came up in German. 7) I tried to view my blog in the Safari browser - same sort of... Sat, 01 Dec 2007 02:53:01 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Puzzled-Blogger/5667/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Puzzled-Blogger/5667/ There seems to be some work going on in Blogigo. A few times I have logged out and then tried to go back in for something, only to be faced with a message that everything is being moved to a faster server. Well, that's good. . Perhaps some of the other site glitches will be sorted out as well, in time. That recent problem with new posts not appearing on the home page has already been dealt with. Just now it seems to be the blogigo.co.uk domain that's affected - something to do with a loop of redirects that doesn't work. The other Blogigo blogs (non-UK) are showing up. Maybe there's a reason for it - wish I knew. Just to moan a little, it's frustrating when you post something, spot a typo straight away - and when you go back in to correct it, you can't, because the site is down. It's then a case of 'hold that thought' till it all comes back online again. The typo looms larger and larger in your mind, like a spot on the nose. The thought that nobody... Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:12:43 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Baulked-Blogger/5666/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Baulked-Blogger/5666/ Thailand Gal suggests that everybody answers these 35 questions. Sometimes I think it's easier to give a point of view if you're prompted for it, rather than come out with odd snippets out of the blue... and some of these things are good to own up to. I enjoyed filling this out. Some questions I've answered before (but can still come up with something new), whereas others were quite hard to answer, and made me think. 1. What is your idea of perfect happiness? A more inclusive world with more balanced aims and methods and far fewer control freaks. 2. What is your greatest fear? Being misunderstood, spurned and never fully heard. 3. Which living person do you most admire? I really don't know. I tried to think whose ways I've rather liked recently, and the first to leap to mind was C.J. from the Eggheads. Don't ask me. That was just the first figure to mind. After Stephen Fry. 4. What is the trait you most deplore in yourself? Not... Fri, 30 Nov 2007 01:31:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Who-Which-What-Where/5665/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Who-Which-What-Where/5665/ It's a jolly good thing we did do the Gadget Show broadband test - it was a catalyst for change. I didn't know all that much about the terms of Mum's broadband account (which I'm sharing) so when I said it was advertised on the ISP's site as 'up to 8 Mb', E said “we've both got the 512 Kb package, which means the broadband speed is as good as we can expect.” “Oh,” I said, “I looked on the ISP's site and didn't realize they were selling it in different speeds - mea culpa.” E got suspicious, rootled around, and announced that the packages have been changed and they don't sell different speeds any more - just different download limits. However, Mum (and E) are still stuck on the old 512 Kb packages. Mum is paying £30 a month for hers... which means she could have been getting 'up to 8 Mb' speeds and a capacious download limit of 30 GB for that price - but as far as I'm aware, they didn't tell her. You know, there's... Wed, 28 Nov 2007 17:40:42 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Saving-on-Internet-Accounts/5664/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Saving-on-Internet-Accounts/5664/ Britain's broadband speeds are well behind the rest of Europe's , and the advertising is generally misleading - it's said that nobody gets anything like the speeds they're offered. Big Sister and I have just taken part in the broadband speed test by the Gadget Show on Five. We got the following results: Download speed (mine) 487 kbps. Download speed (sister's) 490 kbps. Upload speed (mine) 17 kbps. We're on the 512kB package anyway, it seems - actually we've been thrown into confusion about that and are trying to find out just what it is we're paying for, as it seems things have changed since we signed up - we're now expecting 'up to 8 Mb' (we are??) but there are other conditions we didn't know about. Meanwhile I'm not sure if that upload speed is par for the course? Tue, 27 Nov 2007 00:18:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Broadband-Speeds/5663/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Broadband-Speeds/5663/ Pieces of Eight meme (edited) pinched from Blue Moon Girl : 8 Things I Am Passionate About 1. For humanity to chill out more 2. Passion? What's that? 8 Things I Say Often 1. Blut 2. Bleep! 3. Drattles 4. Hello, wotchoo bin doing? (to Sharky) 5. D'yoo want some food? (to Sharky) 6. Don't DO that! 7. What I was going to say was... 8. Nooooooooooooooo! (first thing in the morning) 8 Books I’ve Read Recently 1. George Mackay Brown: The Life by Maggie Fergusson 2. Stars of the New Curfew by Ben Okri 3. Starship Voyager: Caretaker by L.A. Graf 4. The Tales of Olga da Polga by Michael Bond 5. The Saint of Dragons by Jason Hightman 6. Ffangs the Vampire Bat and the Kiss of Truth by Ted Hughes 7. The Blue Lion by Robert Lynd 8. Joys of Single Blessedness by George Ade 8 Songs I Could Listen to Over and Over 1. The Lion Sleeps Tonight / Wimoweh (any version) - ANIMATED CLIP 2. Kingston Town by UB40 - CLIP ... Sun, 25 Nov 2007 01:39:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Pieces-of-Eight/5662/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Pieces-of-Eight/5662/ I was telling Snoskred that I don't visit video sites - not for any particular reason; just because I'm usually wasting my time in other ways! My sister seems to enjoy rootling around in YouTube, though, and occasionally sends us links to the clips she finds. Tonight she found some old favourites of ours - Mahnahmahnah by the Muppet Show, Hugga Wugga , and Halfway Down the Stairs . That got me scratching around in the archives when I should have been finishing a letter to a penpal, and I got my own back by sending her the clip for The Lion Sleeps Tonight . That song's an old favourite of mine, ever since I was seven... In the jungle, the mighty jungle, The lion sleeps tonight In the jungle, the quiet jungle, The lion sleeps tonight Ooooooo wimoweh, wimoweh... Actually there's a Wikipedia entry saying 'wimoweh' was a mishearing of 'uyimbube' which means 'you're a lion'. I've watched it three or four times... Sat, 24 Nov 2007 01:35:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Near-the-Village/5661/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Near-the-Village/5661/ I've known from a child that Mum could be inconsistent - it was confusing but I eventually learned that most people swither about a lot of things. Possibly the aspect that most confused me was the confidence and determination with which Mum would state a preference which was later changed. Actually it still confuses me. For instance, we decided to get a new lino for my hall (house to be rented out). My sister said "why not a carpet?" "Oh yes, we could get a carpet for a change, it might be more comfortable," I said, but Mum came up with all sorts of reasons why I should stick with lino. When we discovered lino was not much cheaper, she said a carpet would be the sensible buy. I had only just told her I disliked all the carpets but had seen a nice lino, so I was a bit taken aback. All that had just been brushed aside. I protested that the lino would probably last longer than a cheap pale carpet which had had mud tramped into it by tenants and visitors on wet days.... Fri, 23 Nov 2007 00:12:00 +0100 http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Confuddling-Conflicts/5660/ http://www.blogigo.co.uk/diddums/Confuddling-Conflicts/5660/