The Charge of the Tech Brigade

Assumptions & Horrors Navigating A Modern World

In June 2024 I replaced my six year old mobile phone, having nursed it through about nine months having major charging issues. The battery though still charging very quickly, lost its power far quicker than before. Charging it became more problematic, frayed cables, new ones still not working; throwing up the questions, is the new cable a transfer only type OR is the issue with the C port? Yet, the C port still charged the unit and transferred data from it! In the end I had to put it down to simply old age. It got me thinking on how much I loathe the way things are today, and how stressful I find navigating the ever growing demands made by a never-ending changing high tech world. Technology can be wonderful when it works, but oh-boy, you are in trouble when it fails, ESPECIALLY if you can’t work your way through to a solution.

Just Going Out

Going out in general, and even more so going away from home for some time, brings a unique nightmare to mind. Before packing any of the usual stuff for a trip, I had to have my mobile, the original mobile charger AND a travel charger AND a charger for the travel one! Cables for each often did not have the same port to port configuration; USB mini or micro, port A or C? This scenario inspired the title for this blog.

I love going to the theatre, and long for the days when I trotted up to the local theatre booking office. Having studied the season’s shows, I had made my choices and had seat numbers in mind, as I know the theatre well. I would buy a job lot of tickets, they were printed off there and then, tickets went in a security box, dates went into a paper diary and the event was made sacrosanct. Now I have to physically and mentally psyche myself up to go online to consider booking anything.

Tickets for Entertainment/Travel

Online ordering is often a necessity, as theatre booking offices tend to only be open on show days for the hour before a performance (many open all day pre-Covid). If phone lines are available to help booking, they can come with a nasty costly sting in the tail, because they are never a short call, with the waiting in line and the protracted explanations of what you want. Assumption: Everyone has the means to book online, the computer and/or smart phone with appropriate apps, and a secure stable internet service. Result: Many of the older generation (and younger people) who are maybe less tech savvy and on limited income are frozen out.

Then what type of ticket do you have? Sent in the post, sent by email 24hours before the event, instant e-ticket attached to your booking confirmation to print at home? But some of us (me included) will have travelled at least 24 hours in advance of the event, so are not at home to print ticket off. I’ve seen the advice “oh get your hotel to print it off for you”, no way that will happen in a less pricey hotel. And even when I was at home, I had three tickets with different ways of accessing the bloody things, before I could even try to print anything. Feeling tearful and literally on the edge trying to achieve this feat of technological wizardry, is NOT FUN! Gives the whole process a nightmarish quality I’d prefer not to have. If you can’t manage to have a physical copy of your ticket, you rely on a mobile phone that is smart enough with its tech hardware and app software, to display the QR code for any ticket you have. Trying to ensure your phone has enough charge for the display to be readable is very stressful.

Theatre Membership

I had a major issue with my membership for over a year, which gave “no fee tickets” as one of the benefits. Although I was getting all the information of events by email, trying to book online ALWAYS added fees, regardless of what I tried to remedy the situation. I booked a couple of tickets for “must see” shows and choked down the injustice of the fees. Afterwards, I vowed not to buy any more until I had resolution. I went to my local theatre on an afternoon matinee day and made enquiries. The problem seemed to be my two email addresses, and only my lesser used one recognised my membership. The ticket desk changed the email information and put my new address in as well, and I managed to book several tickets (without fees) AND got paper tickets too (they were using up their stock). I was delighted, but when I tried a few days later, the “paying fees” problem had returned. I found a FAQ section online and began a laborious process of trying to find out what was going on. Eventually my membership account information was reset once more to my Gmail account (I couldn’t do this myself online). All was not well however, as I discovered at the paying end trying to purchase tickets for a London show.  My address had reverted back to the old one, which didn’t correlate to my payment card, so the process was denied. Cursing I had to navigate my way through the membership website, change my address (thankfully something I could do online) and restart the buying attempt again. And each individual show has a separate process, and after a few times it became grating on the nerves.

Public Transport

I don’t drive, so am reliant on using public transport. My bank cards don’t “bing” though I activated both of them correctly. My bank has no idea why this has happened, and I know of others who have had the same problem/bank reply. So it’s not just me. My fit-bit watch has a payment wallet option, which I’ve never used thank goodness. Since around October 23 my model suddenly and inexplicably started losing charge within a couple of hours rather than days, black screen, freezing etc. These issues have been reported worldwide, and many believe it’s a software glitch from an update. But the company refuse to say that’s the issue or offer any fix to the problem. Any advice I’ve seen, I’ve tried but the problem persists. Some people were given a free replacement as their watches were within the 2 year warranty (the expected lifetime of a Fit-bit watch apparently). Mine went wrong a couple of months before its second birthday, but I thought I’d just messed up the settings somehow and persevered. It was only around March this year I started searching online to see if others had the same problems. They did, and it seems the replacements went the same way too. I’m thoroughly fed up with my watch now, but it is obvious to me a similar model (I don’t think the one I have is being sold by Fit-bit anymore-telling!!!) or a more expensive type is worth it.

So between my elderly mobile phone, and my temperamental Fit-bit watch, I couldn’t rely on either to pay for bus tickets from a virtual wallet, or my phone to have enough charge at the end of the day to display the ticket for scanning. So it is a must for me to depend on having hard cash in coins (no change beyond a £5 note). But there are far fewer cash machines around to get hard cash, to buy something to have the change. The whole saga is enough to put you off going out at all, unless you know you can walk to your destination.

In conclusion to my rant (sorry folks this has built up over a LONG time), it feels like the global technology giants are deliberately engineering things, to ensure the general masses become totally reliant on their technology. For us all to be umbilically tethered   to our tech gadgets, because that’s the only way we can get a lot of things done these days. I also think it is a way the global technology machine and the powers behind them can monitor us, as an act of keeping the people under permanent surveillance. Otherwise, a dystopian nightmare!

Barry Manilow Magic

Wednesday Night (June 5^th 2024) at the London Palladium

Barry Manilow celebrated his 81^st birthday on June 17^th 2024, having just completed his concert residency at the iconic London Palladium. His name has been a familiar one to me since his first UK hit “Mandy” in 1975, the year I turned five and began my schooling. Though his albums did not grace my childhood home, his distinctive voice and catchy melodies were often background “noise” growing up. So when I spotted his “The Last Last  UK Concerts tour”, I just had to get a ticket. And although it was the cheapest available (£57.50 only a handful left when I booked) I had a wonderful seat (Grand Circle G8) and view of the stage. The only thing I couldn’t see was the top half of the back stage video screen.

I had a nice but not overly expensive hotel booked in a part of London I’m familiar with, and before leaving home I made up lunch/dinner/interval snack packs to reduce costs further.  I used Google Maps view to do a virtual walk between the hotel and venue, so I wouldn’t get lost and didn’t need to use the London Tube.

The show began with Jimmy Tarbuck as the warm up act, a stalwart British comedian of the old school variety, a man who knows the venue very well.  For 20 minutes his stand up comedy routine was nostalgic, funny, a mix of old and new gags, with a sing-a-long as well (Do-Re-Mi). He kept us laughing in a good clean fun way, and it was lovely to see him up close for the first time. Jimmy (age 84) is a name I know from early childhood, and I felt this lovely warm glow inside as I chuckled at his jokes. He left the stage with us wanting more, and put everyone in a great mood to see Barry. Later on Jimmy was encouraged by Barry to reappear on stage, so he could accept both his and the audience’s appreciation.  

I enjoyed a mini Mars bar and a mixer can of Coca Cola during the interval. It was essential that my two soft team kidz and I were energised before the headline act took to the stage.

Barry Manilow immaculately dressed, not a hair out of place, owned the stage for at least an hour and a half. He looked and sounded amazing, and I noticed moments of humbleness, self depreciation, and genuine gratefulness for his success and the fans that made it all possible. He acknowledged his Grandfather as the one who recognised a latent musical potential in him, and gave encouragement by paying for a 25cent record; a treasured family heirloom played for the audience; featuring young Barry and Grandpa.  Manilow’s catalogue of original music penmanship is astonishing, far more than I thought, as many of his early songs were given to other artists, before someone suggested Barry should maybe perform his own work!!! The rest as they say is history.

The concert was absolutely brilliant, and OMG Barry’s singing voice was incredible, it was so powerful, and the longevity of his high notes. WOW! He was a tour-de-force on stage, only leaving for brief moments to change from a pink jacket to white then a black one, before finishing in a blue frilly shirt for the “Copacabana” finale. His piano playing is sublime, and his acapella beginning to “I Made It Through The Rain” was spine tingling. I’ve always thought a fine lyricist is a poet, and if they have musicianship as well they can literally make the words sing by themselves. Barry Manilow has that quality, as does Neil Diamond (also a Brooklyn boy). The words go straight to your heart where they are wrapped up by the music, which then plays havoc with all your emotions. That’s what happened to me when Barry was singing “I Write The Songs”, I was blinking back the tears the emotion overwhelming. And though I love that song, I’d never had that experience with it before that moment. It’s the kind of reaction I normally have to “One Voice” which sadly seemed to be missed out in my show (unless it was hidden in a medley somewhere).

Barry exuded energy on stage of a much younger man, as did his singing voice with a power and clarity defying the years. Of course his moves were a bit more measured and thought out, hinting at the fifty plus year career. And with many older people, I’ve picked up a certain timbre in their speaking voice that tells me their age is a bit move advanced. I noticed it with Barry and also with Dionne Warwick on her farewell tour recently. A few years ago I heard a radio documentary explaining how the human voice, both male and female, changes over a lifetime.  It was fascinating, and validated a lot of my thinking on the subject.

There were some songs I didn’t recognise at all, so a bit of Google searching was called for back in my hotel, before I forgot a key phrase or bit of a tune. It helped that some people had posted video clips from their own shows which helped a lot. Speaking of video clips, two people seated in the row behind me, dropped their phones doing this, and caused a right kerfuffle. Although I had a terrific view, I’d only just taken charge of a new mobile phone with an even better camera than my old model. However, the fear of dropping such an investment kept me from taking it out of my small bag, slung round my shoulder. This was a good thing, because my seating neighbour endured having her back and seat soaked by a spilled drink! The edge of my jacket got wet, but my bag with phone and my two companions were on the opposite side. Phew!

So the songs I know Barry performed (in no order): It’s a Miracle; Could It Be Magic; Mandy; Copacabana; I Write The Songs; Bermuda Triangle; Weekend In New England; I Made It Through The Rain; Can’t Smile Without You.  Research suggests: I Wanna Do It With You; Looks Like We Made It; Stay; Somewhere In The Night; This One’s For You & I Don’t Wanna Walk Without You?   About three of the unknowns came from a “Barry’s Wheel” game for audience participation, but I couldn’t see or read the names on the wheel.

It was a wonderful evening of entertainment, my first and only Barry Manilow show, and I bought a tasteful T-shirt and baseball cap as a reminder. I truly believe when you have a song in your heart you are never alone. And since the show, Barry has been ever present with me, humming a tune, singing a song, and smiling at the memories. Thank you Barry you were magical.

Teddy Bruno & Snowball Rabbit Manilow Memories. Image credit abmj

Hear Here 7: My First Ever Radio

World Radio Day is celebrated on February 13^th and I’ve been an avid radio listener from a very young age. I previously blogged about my radio journey in 2020 and the link is here:

Hear Here 6: World Radio Day

This year (2024) I’m celebrating being reunited with my first ever personally owned radio, well, a relative at least! My panda shaped radio was a gift from an Auntie around Xmas 74, not long before I turned five in January. He was much loved, and I delighted in tuning into different  stations to hear music and chatter. For years Panda sat on my dressing table, only to disappear without any explanation, whilst I was at school. I was gutted.

Feeling in a reflective mood recently, I tapped panda shaped radio into Goggle which directed me towards Ebay. There was my wee radio, and a very much nostalgic purchase was made. The reunion was a happy one, and Panda came with a battery included, and my first switch on took me right back to childhood. Panda works, though with being well over forty, his volume is somewhat diminished. However, I was chuffed to softly hear a Spanish football discussion. You see, I managed to pick up some foreign sport coverage with this as a kid too. It brought back such memories. Later on, when I inherited a radio cassette player with a SW radio band, my listening range and options increased (see above post).  But it was my very own Panda radio that first brought the world audibly into my bedroom.

Panda My First Radio. Image credit abmj70

Hearing that faint foreign language football broadcast, reminded me of being an official FA fan blogger for the World Cup in South Africa in 2010. One of my missives had the subtitle “Shortwave Radio Is GaGa  Over The Beautiful Game”, where I gave an overview of my radio listening experience during the tournament. This is what I reported at the time:

23^rd June 2010 Radio Sweden broadcasting in Swedish. So a nation who didn’t qualify for the World Cup was covering the event anyway. This confirms how globally popular football really is. Later the same morning I found Radio Prague from the Czech Republic broadcasting in English, where the short sports report covered items relative to their own nation. The World Cup wasn’t mentioned maybe because Slovakia had qualified instead! That evening as I settled to watch a game I switched on the radio again, curious to see what I might find. As I turned the dial the unmistakable sound of vuvuzelas penetrated through the interference. I had stumbled upon the French speaking Radio France Internationale broadcast to the Central African region of the Nigeria v. South Korea game. They were obviously in the stadium and lamenting the poor state of French football before the kickoff.

25^th June 2010 I came across another stadium broadcast with vuvuzela soundtrack, this time the BBC World Service English broadcast to the West Africa region of the North Korea v. Ivory Coast game. The reception was poor but I could discern enough to pin it down. That evening I was delighted to find Radio Exterior De Espana broadcasting in Spanish the Chile v. Spain match. The reception was good enough for me to listen to the entire commentary whilst watching the ITV footage. Not lost in translation was the sheer enthusiasm exuded from the stadium team. The national anthems, crowd sounds and vuvuzelas were all there. It added extra value to the whole experience, as I sipped a glass of Chilean wine and tucked into Spanish paella.

25^th and 29^th June 2010   I had superb reception of the Radio Japan (NHK World) English broadcast, and on both days World Cup football was discussed. An interesting report on the psychology of the different continents, related to their tournament performance, highlighted many views I myself had already expressed. The second report was on the day of Japan’s last sixteen game. The reporter said that the coach and team had been slammed before the tournament because of poor performances, and now fans were apologising publically through the internet!

On other days I have come across World Cup reports on Radio Mediterranee Internationale (Arabic/French) from Morocco, China Radio International (English) and RDP Portugal (Portuguese). Evidently the tournament has captured a truly global audience.

As you can see, radio has been an absolute joy to me, bringing talk, music, sport, news, and multi subject discussions, into my life. It has expanded my horizons, and enabled me to broadcast programs on hospital radio too. In doing so, I hope to spread a little of the joy I have experienced myself as a radio listener.

Happy World Radio Day, and Keep Listening!

Elementally Yours

Celebrating the National Periodic Table Day

I recently discovered that since 2016, the 7th of February has been celebrated as the National Periodic Table Day (at least in the US anyway). This iconic table of elements was 150 years old back in 2019, known as the International Year of the Periodic Table.

I’m a science and arts graduate, with a lifelong love for geography and music (not my degree subjects though), and have been a volunteer hospital radio presenter for over two decades. So in 2019, I poured all my love, energy, and knowledge into creating three shows, total duration just under 6.5 hours, to celebrate the chemical elements. I had a blast, and my inner geekdom was fully satisfied. The notes I compiled are fondly known as my IYPT lab book, and for my final show I also added photograhs too.

Obviously my music playlists initially began to take shape using artists and song titles, with element references eg. Iron Maiden and Freddie Mercury and songs Silver Lady and Lithium. Then when I looked into the background reasons for how the elements were named, I discovered many were named after places, some people, and others heavenly bodies. Here are a couple of examples:

BEATLES with ACROSS THE UNIVERSE (2 He-Helium for Helios Greek for Sun, 34 Se-Selenium from Selene Greek for the moon, 46 Pd-Palladium for Pallas an asteroid, 58 Ce-Cerium for dwarf planet Ceres, 80 Hg-Mercury-the swift Roman God rather than the planet, 92 U-Uranium for planet Uranus, 93 Np-Neptunium for Neptune, 94 Pu-Plutonium for dwarf planet Pluto.

AVICII with SOMEWHERE IN STOCKHOLM (67 Ho-Holmium from Latin Holmia for Stockholm) NOTE: Not far from Stockholm the village of Ytterby has named four elements: 39 Y-Yttrium, 65 Tb-Terbium, 68 Er-Erbium, , 70 Yb-Ytterbium,. Six other rare-earth elements were discovered in the village 21 Sc-Scandium, 64 Gd-Gadolinium,66 Dy-Dysprosium, 67 Holmium, 69 Tm-Thulium, and 71 Lutetium.

With my geography radar fired up, my final show was a musical odyssey around the globe, taking in the seven continents, with a jaunt into outer space to take in some stellar areas, that helped name a few elements. That’s where photos of my globe came in, and I managed to track my musical journey around the world! It was a new trick I learned at the time, and as I write this I can only vaguely recall how I did this. My lab book tells me that my worldwide mileage was about 69886.8 miles (using Google overland car/sea routes) and the universe mileage roughly 9.165 billion miles (using average proximity to Earth for the planets).

I made up a game I called Elemental Scrabble, where I tried to get as many element symbols out of artists names. Here are two artists who were very rewarding:

LUCIANO PAVAROTTI with NESSUM DORMA (Lu-LUTETIUM 71, C-CARBON 6, I-IODINE 53, At-ASTATINE 85, N-NITROGEN 7, O-OXYGEN 8, Pa-PROTACTINIUM 91, V-VANADIUM 23, Ar-ARGON 18, Ti-TITANIUM 22)

NANA MOUSKOURI with MOON DANCE
(Na-SODIUM 11, Mo-MOLYBDENUM 42, U-URANIUM 92, S-SULPHUR 16, K-POTASSIUM 19, O-OXYGEN 8, I-IODINE 9)

Other artists who were excellent in my game were Rufus Wainwright, Frank Sinatra, and Paul Anka, all offering options of elements depending on how you divided the letters. It was great fun to do this, and made you realise that not all letters stand alone in the periodic table (eg. A, D, E, G, no J’s at all, L, M, no Q’s at all, R, T, X, or Z).

The shows are in my own personal hospital radio archive, and are now in the station archive too. I’m very proud of my Periodic Table shows, that encompass not only a miriad of chemistry elemental references and historical background, but a wide and varied selection of music, that aimed to entertain patients. For each show I joked they were in for a double period of science lessons, but hoped the mixed bag of audio delights and my enthusiasm would make it an enjoyable experience.

Happy National Periodic Table Day! It’s worth celebrating.