A minor disaster ... overcome!

On 18 July, just over three months ago, I performed my regular Saturday routine with the CPAP machine: I removed the sponge over the air filter and washed it, then removed the memory card so that I could extract the data stored over the past week then input that data into my CPAP database. But my regular computer wouldn't read the memory card. I tried on another computer, both via USB and via the special port for reading SD cards - the card was unreadable. I tried on a third computer, more out of desperation than hope, and again was told the same thing: the card was unreadable.

So I called the help line of the CPAP machine distributor; I remember that once they replaced the SD card. I received no help from them (I don't recall now what they said). I have a 64 GB card doing nothing on a shelf, so I inserted this card into the machine ... but the machine wouldn't recognise it. I phoned the help line again: eventually I was told that I needed a 4 GB card, not anything larger. I tried buying such a card in a local shop but they laughed at me: they had cards sized 32, 64 or 128 GB, but nothing so small as 4 GB.

So I turned to the internet and found an Israeli distributor of whom I had never heard that purported to sell 4 GB cards. In order to prevent future problems, I ordered three cards; with delivery charges, this came to 100 NIS - a negligible payment. I waited and waited, and when I got in touch with the distributor, I was eventually told that the delivery had been made a few weeks previously. Except of course that I received nothing. I asked them if they had proof of delivery but they didn't.

I looked for another source and found that Ayzeze sells cards of various sizes. Again, I ordered three cards: this time the cost was slightly higher but still not expensive. Despite holding a low TrustScore of 1.5 out of 5 ("Bad") on Trustpilot based on customer reviews, the site seemed to work very well. After maybe two weeks in transit, I was informed a few days ago that the order had been transferred to a local company for delivery. I have had bad experiences with this local company in the past - a few Temu orders were never delivered, or at least they never gave me a delivery code to pick up the orders, which comes to the same thing - but this time I was able to choose where the delivery would be made and even received a delivery code! My wife has picked up the order .. and just after having written those lines, my wife came home with shopping, including the package.

On the left appears the card as shown in the order, and this indeed what was delivered, each card in its own protective case. I extracted one card and with a slightly shaking hand, inserted the card into the machine. Drum roll please: immediately a green light on the machine lit up, signifying that data was being transferred to the card! And now I've inserted the card into the USB reader and transferred the data to my computer for analysis.

The website that analyses the data displays it in a not very easy to use format, and allows time periods of one month, three months and six months. Unfortunately I have to use the six month period to see the data in July, but at least those data are very good. From what I can see, the number of apnea suddenly increased from 20 August, and last night reached a high of 12 central apnea - maybe not an excessive number, but far higher than one or none an hour. I am due a new mask in two weeks that will probably cut down the number of apnea. 

But what changed on 20 August? There's nothing documented, but on 1 September I had my first injection of Ajovy, which means that from the week preceeding this, I had stopped taking Depalept¹, and as I recorded, this medication both reduced the number of apnea and increased the amount of deep sleep per night.

Internal links
[1] 2109

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
106	22/10/2007	Captain Coulston (even more Folktronix)	MIDI, Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Reason, Folktronix
210	22/10/2009	Dollhouse	TV series, Olivia Williams, Dollhouse
643	22/10/2013	Some DBA thoughts	ERP, DBA
892	22/10/2015	Vertigo and ENG	Health
893	22/10/2015	Italian ice cream in Israel	Personal
1085	22/10/2017	A conditional choose-field trigger (for use in a procedure)	Priority tips
1351	22/10/2020	New bass guitar	Musical instruments, Guitars
1845	22/10/2024	Jasmine Myra live in Portugal	Jasmine Myra

Fixing the octave key

Last week's episode¹ on the saxophone included the statement But all that glitters is not gold: at my saxophone lesson, the teacher discovered that the octave key doesn't work. At the same time, I started exploring some of the other keys on the saxophone and discovered how to play G# and low C# (the note produced when no keys are pressed is a high C#). The only missing chromatic note is D# and as yet I haven't had cause to play it. I'm not losing any sleep over this.

I set off for the music shop on Sunday morning; it's situated not far from where my (old) company's offices are in Tel Aviv, so I could have travelled by train to Bnei Brak and either walk or taxi from there, but as my daughter works in the area, I travelled with her: probably slightly faster and my wife didn't need to take me to the local train station. The weather was cool and there was what my late mother would call 'spitting' rain, so I decided to walk. Not a very good decision, as a couple of minutes after starting, the rain got heavier and heavier. When it was too heavy to continue, I found a convenient bus shelter and waited there until the rain eased off a little. I walked another half kilometre before the rain returned so I had another rest in another bus shelter. Eventually I carried on and found the shop which was in a small alley, in an otherwise residential area: a peculiar place for a music shop.

Once in the shop, the salesman (probably the owner) had a look at the saxophone and said that the problem probably arose from how I was attaching the neck to the body. The problem is not with the octave key itself: pressing it causes some levers to move and one of these is supposed to catch on a circle of metal on the neck that causes the octave mechanism to engage. The picture on the left shows this beautifully: pressing the octave key eventually causes the "crook socket" to engage with the "crook key ring". This wasn't happening. The fix is to pull down on the key ring lightly; this fixes the problem.

The salesman then proceeded to insert a mouthpiece of his own into the saxophone and rip off a few minutes of excellent sax playing. There's nothing wrong with the sax; it just has to be handled with care.

While waiting for a taxi to come and pick me up, I had a look around the shop: some very nice Gibson and Fender guitars for sale although I wasn't tempted. 

Today was practice day: again the octave key wouldn't always work, so I pulled the key ring lightly and it now works. The picture comes from this site and explains a question that arose this morning: I noticed that when I played A, B or C with the octave key, the top of the octave "whistle" (that's the little yellow bump on the very top of the saxophone, not labelled; what would be called a "chubchik" in colloquial Hebrew ) would indeed open, but not with the G. The site says the body octave key, which opens for the notes D to G; and the crook (or neck) key, which opens for the notes A and above. The very first saxes had little more than this - in fact they had completely separate octave keys, so when you wanted to move from octave G to A, you had to release the first octave key and switch to the second. This was a royal pain in the...thumb - and it wasn't long before 'automatic' octave mechs were developed, that did the switching for you. I did notice that playing G with the octave key did in fact play a high G even though the "chubchik" appeared to be closed.

I am still not happy with my embouchure; it doesn't seem to be constant and I have to consciously change it in order to play low C (the lowest possible note) properly; that doesn't seem right.

Internal links
[1] 2155

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
58	21/10/2006	Busy morning	Programming, Randy Newman, Paul Simon
642	21/10/2013	Paul Klee	Personal, Bristol Grammar School
1084	21/10/2017	Sumptuous Saturday Seven - baked hake with potatoes and vegetables	Cooking
1681	21/10/2023	Seventh chords	Music theory
1844	21/10/2024	More blog manager tricks	Programming, Blog manager program
2025	21/10/2025	Problems with Whatsapp	Personal, Mobile phone

Hovering over links in the Blog Manager Program

Even though almost all of the access problems (http:// instead of https:// and vice versa, blogspot.co.il, missing target="_blank") have been fixed, there are still occasional problems that arise from bad addresses being stored in the blogs. One was a link to a sort page (I corrected this, so I can't quote it anymore) and who knows what else lies waiting.

So I thought that it would be a good idea if the actual link could be displayed in the form's status bar when the mouse is hovering over the link. This way I could more easily see if the link is correct or needs to be corrected.

I posed this to CoPilot and I was quite surprised that it was doable with the TWebBrowser although it requires defining a "Delphi 7-compatible COM event sink". This CP proceeded to do. The work would have been finished far earlier had I specified displaying the link in a status bar, but originally I wanted to use a 'balloon' (this type of control is used the Management program) and this caused a long and ultimately unfruitful detour.

This is what the browser looks like when the mouse is hovering over the link in the first line ('two years ago') - the status bar shows the address stored in the link.

---

This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
296	18/10/2010	Mocha too goes on holiday	Dog
418	18/10/2011	Dennis Ritchie: The man who created Unix	Obituary, RIP
1179	18/10/2018	Conditional choose-field trigger (2)	Priority tips
1841	18/10/2024	Completing the auxiliary program	Programming, Delphi
2022	18/10/2025	Updates in CoPilot Prolog	Programming, Prolog

Saving album art to mp3 files with VLC / 2

Nearly two years ago¹, I showed how it is possible to save album art to mp3 files so that this art will be displayed when the song is playing in the VLC player. Whilst the instructions that I gave were accurate, they were intended for the song that is currently playing. A quick reminder:

• Tools/media information brings up the required dialog box
• Entering data into one of the fields (eg copyright or encoded by) causes an extra button to appear at the bottom of the dialog box, "save metadata"
• Right clicking the area for the album art and choosing "add cover art from file"
• Choose the album cover 
• Press on "save metadata" then "close"

There's a very similar method that can be used to add the art to songs that aren't currently being played. Instead of clicking tools/media for the currently selected song which is playing, one right clicks another song and chooses 'information' from the popup menu that appears. This causes the same dialog box as above to appear and the same instructions as above hold here as well. 

There are two caveats to this method: (a) the album art won't appear even though it's been selected (one can consider this a bug but it's not that important); (b) ensure that the art is being attached to the correct file!

The only thing that I was unable to do was to attach the same art to several songs at once, although this is implicit in that the dialog box has the name of only one file to be updated, so obviously this mechanism wouldn't allow several files to be updated at once. This is version 3.0.24 Vetinari, by the way, which is the current version.

Internal links
[1] 1877

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
294	17/10/2010	Sweet and sour chicken	Cooking, Slow cooker
295	17/10/2010	Project Management course	MBA, Project management
417	17/10/2011	Getting ready for the Kindle	Kindle, E-book
983	17/10/2016	Who's watching who?	Grandfather
1349	17/10/2020	Completing the story of porting an application to Windows 10/Delphi 10.2	Delphi, Unicode
1840	17/10/2024	Extending the auxiliary program	Programming, Delphi
2021	17/10/2025	YouTuber discovers Nick Drake	Nick Drake, Youtube

Yesterday's papers

Over the past few years, I've been watching YouTube videos made under the Yesterday's Papers aegis. These have titles like 'Cool British singles from January 1965' and 'Ronnie Wood's Early Days in Music (1964-69)'. After having covered cool British singles from the beginning of 1965 until the end of 1968, the new videos are 'The album era: cool albums released in [a month of] 1969'. I was especially awaiting the albums released in October 1969, as I knew one famous example, but I was surprised by some of the other albums released this month. Several of these were played frequently in the youth club that I attended 1970-3.

• King Crimson - In the court of the crimson king. This is the album that I expected and the video started with it, including some footage that I've never seen before with Fripp playing whilst standing.
• Led Zeppelin - II
• Pink Floyd - Ummagumma
• Pentangle - Basket of light
• Free - eponymous
• Frank Zappa - Hot rats

I wrote about the first here¹ and the last here²; funnily enough, 'Hot Rats' was playing in my headphones for this morning's walk. These albums might be 57 years old but they still stand the test of time.

Internal links
[1] 1282
[2] 1285

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
1348	16/10/2020	PrioXRef 3 - insert without parameters	Programming
1538	16/10/2022	Indexing blogs	Programming, Meta-blogging, Blog manager program
1678	16/10/2023	The running grave	Cormoran Strike
1839	16/10/2024	Removing the thread code and finding a different solution	Programming, Delphi, Threads

My own saxophone

Although on the saxophone case appears the name 'Moretti', this is not the manufacturer's name but rather the name of a famous (though not to me) saxophonist called Dan Moretti. I looked for some indication of what the model would be, and although I couldn't find anything, I did see that there was very fine engraving on the bell - something that looks like a flower, or maybe notes going out into the aether. I'm not going to attempt to photograph this as I doubt that the quality of the photo will approach the quality of the engraving.

After telephoning the shop from which the sax was bought, I ascertained that the model is in fact a "Moretti 1001", but an attempt to google this elicited the following information: There is no known historical or mainstream saxophone model named the "Moretti 1001." It is highly likely that this name refers to one of a few online budget brands: "Moretti" is occasionally used as a brand name for generic, entry-level instruments imported and sold on online marketplaces. These budget instruments frequently feature arbitrary four-digit model numbers (like 1001). In fact, the sax looks remarkably like this, a saxophone available from Ali Express. Something similar is available from Temu, although there it is described as a "Professional Alto Saxophone in E". It's not a professional model and I doubt very much that it is "in E" - that should be Eb (although elsewhere it is referred to as Eb). The price varies between 750-1000 NIS, which is more in line for the budget that I mentioned previously¹.

Putting the saxophone together was easier than with my loaner; I didn't have the usual problems with the ligature nor with pushing the mouthpiece onto the neck. When I came to remove the cap from the body of the saxophone in order to attach the neck, I felt like a magician who pulls something from his mouth: instead of a simple cap, there was a multi-coloured brush that came out and out and out. Once the saxophone was ready, I found that I could immediately play notes - only then did I remember that I had forgotten to wet the reed a little. It seems that the combination of the 1.5 mm reed and a new instrument makes it much easier to play.

The page on Ali Express extols the virtues of this saxophone:

• Professional-grade alto saxophone in Eb The 1100SG alto saxophone is crafted in Eb-flat tuning, ideal for musicians seeking authentic jazz and classical tones with precise pitch accuracy and rich resonance.
• Nickel silver plated brass body featuring a durable nickel silver plated brass body, this saxophone delivers excellent sound projection and long-lasting performance, combining strength with superior tonal quality.
• Gold key finish for elegant appearance The gold key design enhances both visual appeal and durability, offering a premium look that stands out on stage or in practice sessions.
• Bakelite mouthpiece for comfortable play equipped with a bakelite head material, this saxophone ensures a smooth, responsive feel and consistent airflow for improved control and comfort during extended playing.
• Includes protective case for safe transport. Comes with a cloth or leather case, providing reliable protection during travel and storage, keeping your instrument safe from damage.

What the above does not say is that there are extra keys on the saxophone. For example, there is definitely an extra "high F#" key and there may be more. I don't understand why there is an F# key but not D and E keys - or maybe there are. With my loaner sax, I had trouble playing a high C - it would often come out flat. On the Moretti, it comes out perfectly in tune.

But all that glitters is not gold: at my saxophone lesson, the teacher discovered that the octave key doesn't work. This means calling the music shop and either asking for a repair or a replacement.

My teacher is concerned, naturally, with technique whereas I am more interested in playing melodies. The exercises that he wants to play are probably worthwhile but to me that sound more like random sets of notes - although most of the time the notes are stepwise, e.g. A - G - A - F and so on. What did I learn in the last lesson:

• It seems as if the teacher wants me to play each note with a separate breath (and so with a separate attack) whereas I tend to play phrases with one breath.
• Apart from having the teeth of the upper jaw pressed tight against the mouthpiece, the lower lip should be pressed tight as well against the bottom of the mouthpiece, something that I wasn't doing. Loose pressure causes notes to sound flat.
• The six playing fingers (three on the left hand, three on the right hand) should be always on their corresponding keys, even when those notes aren't being played. This is very much the opposite of guitar playing. I suggested attaching the fingers with rubber bands to the keys.
• The fingers should be on the middle on each key, not towards the beginning and not overshooting.
• Apply only light pressure on a pressed down key, again the opposite of guitar playing.

Internal links
[1] 2154

---

This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
57	15/10/2006	Algorithms, part 2	Programming
208	15/10/2009	Another day not wasted	Programming, Delphi, Listview, Right-to-left
416	15/10/2011	A new dish makes its debut	Cooking
891	15/10/2015	Intriguing email	DBA
982	15/10/2016	Virtual XP machine running under Windows 8	Computers
1537	15/10/2022	Peter Robinson, RIP	Peter Robinson, Obituary
2020	15/10/2025	After the return of the hostages	Israel

Final retirement party

In 'the good old days' when people spent their entire working life in one company's factory, they would often retire after 30 years and be given a carriage clock as pictured on the left. It seems to me that the abstract idea of rewarding a lifetime's "service" is far greater than the actual physical reward.

Anyway ... back in July¹, I wrote that there will probably be some form of 'party' in Tel Aviv towards the end of August as well as a special celebration for the finance department to which I belong. Fortunately, there was no 'party' in Tel Aviv - I write 'fortunately' as there are several people based there who were primary causes of my wanting to retire - but the special celebration for the finance department took place yesterday in what is supposed to be a high ranking restaurant in Tel Aviv. I was surprised by the functional decor of the restaurant - not what I expected - and the number of diners - it was full - but the menu lived up to the promise. This is a no-meat restaurant thus solving most of the problems with kashrut.

But I don't want to write about the restaurant but rather about my 'carriage clock'. Last Sunday, my manager (pictured with me) phoned me and asked me what I like; she was obviously referring to my present. Maybe a subscription to the opera or the theatre ... I demurred, and at first I didn't have any idea what I would like. Then I reconsidered and suggested maybe an alto saxophone; my hesitation was that this would cost between 2,000 and 2,200 NIS and would be about twice the budget of any present that my manager might have been considering. But after all, we are the finance department and I suspect that the company contributed no small amount to the purchase; in the past, the relevant employees have contributed maybe 50 NIS each.

 

Despite the cost, she took the idea and the next morning phoned me from a shop selling musical instruments not far from our offices in Tel Aviv (I wasn't aware of this shop). I spoke with the salesman a little, ensuring that the instrument was 'normal' and that it would come with thin reeds². I heard no more, but whenever I would think about this, I wondered whether there would be an inscription on the sax thanking me for 37 years of service. To be realistic, there isn't really anywhere on the sax for such an inscription; the only possible place would be on the bell. Also, I can return/replace the sax if there's a problem, so having an inscripted sax is not a good idea!

Thus I was pleasantly surprised to see that the inscription was on the saxophone's case; as opposed to the case for my loaner saxophone which is quite bulky and 'three dimensional' (i.e. there is a bulge on one side for the bell), this case is nice and flat. A rough translation reads: Dear No'am, 37 years of knowledge, genius, devotion, a big heart and loyalty. You have left behind you a melody that will not be forgotten. Continue to create, to play and to enjoy life. With love and respect, we will miss you, the Global family.

Later on today I'll put the pieces together and have my first practice session with the new saxophone.

Internal links
[1] 2121
[2] 2138

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
139	13/10/2008	Fotheringay 2	Sandy Denny, Fotheringay
414	13/10/2011	Kindle	Kindle
640	13/10/2013	Tasks	Programming, Delphi
1265	13/10/2019	Acting like an MBA (a 'suit')	Personal, MBA
1677	13/10/2023	Time out	Personal, Song writing
1837	13/10/2024	Correlations and threads	Programming, Threads
2018	13/10/2025	The happiest day in Israel since 1948	Israel

What's the sign of getting old?

My wife sent me the attached picture which is very apt for me at the moment. I won't trouble your knowledge of Hebrew, so I'll give the translation.

What's the sign of getting old?

• You go to see a play - you fall asleep
• You read the newspaper - you fall asleep
• You watch television - you fall asleep
• When you finally get to bed in order to sleep ... you can't fall asleep.

Since retirement (all of two months), I've been having problems falling asleep  at night. At first, this wasn't too much of a problem as I was swimming almost every day, and swimming relatively long distances, so I was quite tired on those days. But since coming back from Poros (we got home at 4 am) which was followed immediately by Yom Kippur (nothing much to do except rest), I have been having sleep problems. Most evenings I can't fall asleep easily so I've been reaching for the tablets that I bought in Rapallo last year - herbal mixtures for relaxation.

Last week I went to see my GP who prescribed melatonin (my request) and sleeping pills that I cut into four. So far the melatonin hasn't helped so I've been reaching for those sleeping pills; even with the reduced dose, this isn't something that I want to do frequently. But definitely my sleeping patterns are not good: I woke up at 5 am yesterday morning - yes, Saturday morning when most people allow themselves a lie-in. I know that melatonin helps with jet lag but the linked article says research suggests that melatonin might slightly reduce the time it takes to fall asleep [emphasis mine] No wonder my GP wasn't too happy to prescribe the melatonin: this was at my request. I think I'll go back to the herbal mixture until those pills run out.

Apparently the picture was posted on a kibbutz mailing list, and many people said that it described their situation well.

---

This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
207	11/10/2009	This tickled my fancy	Dog
638	11/10/2013	More books	Literature, Tom Clancy
1081	11/10/2017	Research questions	DBA
1346	11/10/2020	Continuing the story of porting an application to Windows 10/Delphi 10.2	Programming, ClientDataSet
1535	11/10/2022	Another DBA update	DBA
1675	11/10/2023	Communal grief (2)	Israel, Obituary, Kibbutz
2016	11/10/2025	Renewing the t-shirt inventory	Personal

Handling links in the Blog Manager Program

Maybe reading the series of blogs about Prolog from last year gave me a sense of nostalgia, programming on Friday afternoons with CoPilot. This caused me to wonder if I could change the target of the links contained within the blogs: at the moment, clicking on a link will cause the chosen blog to be displayed by Internet Explorer, which is somewhat out of date. How could I get the blogs to be displayed in Chrome (or whatever the default browser is)?

CoPilot explained that IE is opened because the TWebBrowser component that I am using in the BPM is an abstraction of part of IE, so of course any link is going to be opened with this program. To change this, I would need to write a message handler that intercepts the link and invokes a different program. True to form with CoPilot, I then spent at least an hour trying to get the interceptor to work with a click on a link with no success. It turned out that CoPilot had given me the wrong message handler, but even when that was corrected, the interceptor still didn't work.

Eventually some rather arcane code was required to get the links to display in Chrome. At some stage in the process, I also realised that it would be good if links to other blog entries would be displayed within the BPM instead of invoking Chrome. This too took some time to make it work correctly; I originally thought that I could use the links on the statusbar¹, but when I actually came to do this, I could see that the address and the statusbar text were not the same. I realised that a simple query would give me the data that I required, and a bit later I realised that I don't need the statusbar nor the code that loads it and catches clicks. So one part of the unit became more complicated and one part became simpler.

I'm showing the interceptor code as I don't know how much of the browser internals are documented.

procedure TShowBlogContent.webNewWindow2(Sender: TObject;
  var ppDisp: IDispatch; var Cancel: WordBool);

var
 linkedblog: integer;
 Doc: IHTMLDocument2;
 Elem: IHTMLElement;
 URL, linkedname: string;

begin
  Cancel:= True;  // stop IE from opening a new window
  Doc:= web.Document as IHTMLDocument2;
  Elem:= Doc.activeElement;

  if Assigned(Elem) then
    URL:= Elem.getAttribute('href', 0);

  if URL <> '' then
   begin
    if pos ('https://nbnewman.blogspot.com', url) = 1 then
     begin
      qLinkedBlog.params[0].asinteger:= blog;
      qLinkedBlog.params[1].asstring:= url;
      qLinkedBlog.open;
      linkedblog:= qLinkedBlog.fields[0].asinteger;
      linkedname:= qLinkedBlog.fields[1].asstring;
      flag:= not qLinkedBlog.isempty;
      qLinkedBlog.close;
      if flag then
       begin
        TShowBlogContent.create (true, linkedblog, linkedname);
        exit
       end;
     end;
    ShellExecute(0, 'open', PChar(URL), nil, nil, SW_SHOWNORMAL);end;
   end;
end;

I've discovered a little bug with the above code - some of the addresses start with https and some with http, without the 's'. The latter kind of link doesn't work, so I'll have to change the expression pos ('https://nbnewman.blogspot.com', url) to pos ('nbnewman.blogspot.com', url). 

Another caveat/bug is that the link has to include 'target="_blank"' for the NewWindow2 event to fire. New blogs have this in their links, old blogs don't. It's easier to add this tag to the blog sources than to try and capture clicks using a different method.

Edit from a few days later: I found another problem with old links. For some reason, the linked address is nbnewman/blogspot.co.il, instead of blogspot.com. I started fixing the links manually, but after a while I realised that I could use StringReplace to ensure the correct link. This replacement has to be done before the 'pos' conditional, as follows

  if URL <> '' then
   begin
    qLinkedBlog.close;
    url:= stringreplace (url, 'blogspot.co.il', 'blogspot.com', []);
    if pos ('nbnewman.blogspot.com', url) > 1 then  // internal link
     begin // the link may start with http: or https: and may have www
      url:= stringreplace (url, 'https://www.', 'https://', []);
      url:= stringreplace (url, 'http://www.', 'http://', []);
      qLinkedBlog.params[0].asinteger:= blog;
      qLinkedBlog.params[1].asstring:= url;
      qLinkedBlog.open;

Internal links
[1] 1810

---

This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
413	10/10/2011	Watching the weight / 2	Diet, Acupuncture
764	10/10/2014	Continuing to watch the weight	TV series, Health, Walking
981	10/10/2016	Pain whilst walking	Walking
1080	10/10/2017	Hersonissos	Holiday, Greece
1263	10/10/2019	Cosmology	Personal, Gateway, Non-fiction books
1345	10/10/2020	Simple baked salmon	Cooking
2015	10/10/2025	How to define the 'sister' relationship/predicate in Prolog?	Programming, Prolog, CoPilot

Copy editing

Possibly in another life, I should have been a proof reader/copy editor as I read many books and often find mistakes. I've mentioned the series of books about DCI Warlow¹ written by Rhys Dylan, and over the past few weeks I've reread all the books. In doing so, I found several mistakes that I pointed out to the author; some of these arise because apparently I have been reading early or library editions, where the errors have been corrected in the final published version. But in one book, 'A word with the dead', I found several errors as noted below.

• In chapter 5, it is written "Warlow took the mountain road back to the town. And though he'd heard of the hospital ... and over the river to an easy to miss easy-to-miss sharp right."
• Chapter 16 ends with the words "I think most couples can say if their honest".
• Chapter 17: "Detective Constable Craig Peters stood in the kitchen" - since when is Craig a DC?

I wonder whether I am wearing out my welcome chez Dylan, but this is what he wrote in response: All good catches that everyone else has missed. Keep polishing that eagle eye! I wonder whether he will send me pre-publication drafts of future books so that I can proof read them.

A few days ago, I watched on TV the film 'Patriot Games' with Harrison Ford as Jack Ryan, so of course I had to return to reading books set in the Ryanverse². I didn't fancy reading 'Patriot Games' so I went to one book that I have read only a few times, "Debt of honor"³ (DOH). I hadn't got very far into the book (the first chapter is confusingly titled 'Acknowlegements', at least in my epub copy) when I came across this sentence: Sally and little Jack were doing well at school  and Kathleen would turn two in another month. There's nothing wrong with that sentence, I hear you say, and indeed there isn't. But the possibility of continuity errors exists if one is writing a series, and the more books there are, the higher is the possibility of continuity errors (eg the example that I quoted above about Detective Constable Craig Peters).

What did I write the last time⁴ that I wrote about Jack Ryan and his books? In the much earlier book "Locked on", Jack Ryan decides to run for president for the second time. His third child, Katie, is reported as being 10 years old and his fourth, Kyle, is aged 8. "Locked on" was written several years after DOH, so that sentence is congruent with DOH - Kyle has yet to be born. Yet in "Act of defiance", Katie and Kyle are now twins (they've been referred to as twins in other books as well). Continuity error.

Internal links
[1] 2117
[2] 1710
[3] 473
[4] 2005

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
206	09/10/2009	Firebird triggers and autoincrements	Programming, Delphi, Firebird
763	09/10/2014	Literature review: getting down to business	DBA
1344	09/10/2020	Converting a Delphi 7 semi-unicode program to Delphi 10	Programming, Delphi, Unicode
1534	09/10/2022	DBA update	DBA, Non-fiction books
2014	09/10/2025	What is Prolog?	Prolog

Ajovy 2

I picked up my second automatic syringe of Ajovy¹ from the pharmacy last Wednesday. When I came to inject, I removed the needle guard but for some reason, I thought that too much of the syringe had been revealed. A moment later, the syringe started squirting its contents over the kitchen table and on the floor. My dose had been wasted.

Fortunately, the next day I had an appointment with my GP on other matters (mainly cleaning up the mess regarding my stomach pains and reducing the dosage of omepradex back to 20 mg daily) and I took with me the syringe so that I could discard it in the clinic's 'sharps' bucket. I told the nurse what happened and she reckoned that I could get a new syringe from the pharmacy; I doubted this as the pharmacy has a special order for me and so there won't be any extra syringes.

I mentioned this to the GP who said that if I phone the pharmaceutical company's service line, I could probably get a replacement syringe. She gave me a new prescription and signed it. When I got through to the support, I explained what happened and eventually was passed on to a nurse who went through all that had happened. She asked for the prescription which I had scanned in the mean time and said that a pharmacy would deliver a new syringe on Sunday. She also wanted to be online with me when I injected, something that I forgot.

The pharmacy got in touch with me on Sunday and said that the earliest that they could deliver was Tuesday (ie today). This morning the dog started barking with apparently no reason, meaning that there was a delivery man outside. He gave me the syringe that had been solidly packed in a cool box and I gave him the paperwork and the old syringe.

When I came to inject, I though that the needle guard was a simple piece of transparent plastic guarding the head, but when I came to remove it, the same part that was removed last week came free. I then pressed the syringe to my belly and I heard the click that meant that the syringe was now working. It looks like the only thing wrong with the original syringe was my expectations. Presumably next month will be much smoother.

Does the medication work? My 'headache log' has three entries for September and in two cases, I noted that rizatriptan didn't seem to make any difference so these headaches might well be 'dehydration headaches' caused by the hot weather. I'll see what happens this month.

Internal links
[1] 2137

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
412	06/10/2011	Rest in peace	RIP
980	06/10/2016	Health update	Health, Theanine, Donating blood
1533	06/10/2022	Weight and bp confirmed	Health
1673	06/10/2023	Belated discovery in Delphi: defining indexes on calculated fields	Delphi, ClientDataSet
2011	06/10/2025	Correcting CoPilot Prolog	Programming, Prolog, CoPilot

The end of the 2026 swimming season

After the debacle of the rechargable counter¹, I decided to order a simple mechanical counter. This may not be waterproof but it should be more successful than its predecessor. Obviously it's not going to arrive before the end of this season; maybe I'll try it out in the shower.

Our swimming pool is never open on Sundays, at least not to members. It's probably a day of cleaning, but it's also a day for outside groups to use the pool. As a result, Monday swims are often more vigorous because of the day of rest. As I had been swimming 40 lengths for the past few days, this Monday I felt that I could not only equal that number but even improve on it, swimming 42 lengths. This is a new record!

After I came home and entered the data into my database, I calculated  how many lengths I would need to swim in order to have an average swim of 26 lengths for the entire season, assuming that there were three more opportunities to swim. The answer was 100 lengths, but I had forgotten that there were actually four more opportunities to swim before the pool closes (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday). Obviously in this case, I needed to swim another 126 lengths, or on average 31.5 lengths per swim.

So on Wednesday I set out to swim at least 32 lengths in order to reduce the target for the remaining swims. I wasn't expecting any trouble as again I had had a day of rest between Monday's record swim and Wednesday. What I hadn't taken into account was the fact that the air temperature had decreased by about 6°C since Monday; the evenings are cool (no more air conditioner) and so the water doesn't warm up during the day. In other words, it was very cold swimming on Wednesday! I forced myself to swim 36 lengths but it was a real struggle from the very beginning. As a result, the target dropped to 90 lengths and 3 swims = 30 lengths/swim. This is definitely possible, even in the cold water. I may forego swimming on one day.

The water wasn't any warmer on Thursday but maybe I was more acclimatised. Without doubt, the cold saps strength from the muscles making it harder to swim. Another 36 lengths, so at this point 1792 lengths have been swum over 69 swims, giving an average of 25.97 lengths/swim.

This left me today (Friday) with a target of 28 lengths. I felt initially as if the swimming were a cricket test match, where 100-150 runs were needed in the fourth innings in order to win the match. Definitely attainable and not too hard. But somewhere between 6 to 10 lenghts, I realised that I still needed   to swim those 28 lengths and so I had better apply myself. As I've probably written several times before, swimming is in no small amount a psychological exercise: I had set myself a target of 28 lengths, and when that target had been reached, I had no interest in swimming any more. I am not going to swim tomorrow.

Here is a breakdown of this year's swimming - the average number of lengths swum per month. It's a bit difficult to make out the legends, but basically the average increased every month (except for October which was a bit less than September but more than August). This year I had a slow start which brought down the average.

And now for the annual data

Year	Number of swims	Total lengths	Average ln/sw
2019	16	438	27.38
2020	24	562	23.42
2022	29	567	19.55
2023	31	561	18.10
2024	34	710	20.88
2025	33	620	18.79
2026	70	1820	26.00

This year's data speaks for itself in comparison to previous years.

Internal links
[1] 2147

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
409	02/10/2011	Holiday cooking	Cooking
1341	02/10/2020	Weight at the beginning of October	Health
1832	02/10/2024	Apples, honey and missiles	Jewish holidays, Israel, Musical group

Refugees

This song was my way into Van der Graaf Generator, the second song on what might have been their debut album but in fact was technically their second, 'The least we can do is wave to each other'. The tune and chord sequence might be simple but it was a song that struck right through the heart. Below appear most of the words to the song, written by Peter Hammill.

North was somewhere years ago and cold:
Ice locked the people's hearts and made them old.
South was birth to pleasant lands, but dry...
I walked the waters' depths and played my mind.
         
East was dawn, coming alive in the golden sun:
the winds came gently, several heads became one
in the summertime, though august people sneered;
we were at peace, and we cheered.
         
We walked along, sometimes hand in hand,
between the thin lines marking sea and sand;
smiling very peacefully,
we began to notice that we could be free,
and we moved together to the West.
         
West is where all days will someday end,
where the colours turn from grey to gold,
and you can be with the friends.
And light flakes the golden clouds above;
West is Mike and Susie,
West is where I love.
         
There we shall spend our final days of our lives,
tell the same old stories... yeah well, at least we tried.
So into the West, smiles on our faces, we'll go;
oh, yes, and our apologies to those
who'll never really know the way.

I'm not quoting the final verse of the song that actually provides the literal meaning of the song: it was about the end of a flat share between Peter, Mike (Maclean) and Susie (Penhaligon). Rather a come down after the idealistic earlier verses.

Three lines resonated within me for a very long time: West is where all days will someday end, where the colours turn from grey to gold, and you can be with the friends. Those lines were intertwined with my friends from Habonim; I truly thought that our days would someday end together, when I would be with the friends. Oh romantic and delusional me.

Why am I writing this now, some 55 years after hearing the song for the first time? Well, Peter Hammill was invited to appear at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the 'Prog Prom'; this concert took place on 18 July 2026. A few days ago, I discovered that a clip of 'Refugees' had been posted to YouTube; as I wrote on the PH mailing list: The music is excellent and makes me wonder how much (or little) an orchestra adds to the original version. But the vocal?? IMHO, not very good. It wouldn't have hurt to have lowered the key a little so PH wouldn't have had to strain for the high notes. YMMV but I won't be downloading this.

I admit that I very often don't like Hammill's vocals on the many live recordings that I have, but this time the vocal was a real travesty. The only thing that it moved me to do was turn it off. Sorry.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
15	30/09/2005	Getting a musical education (2)	The Band
104	30/09/2007	More folktronik	MIDI, Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Folktronix, The mythical man-month
888	30/09/2015	Recommended statistics book	DBA, Statistics
1076	30/09/2017	Relaxing foliage	Ambient music, Home movies
1831	30/09/2024	If John Le Carre were still alive	Israel, John Le Carre
2007	30/09/2025	The 2025 swimming season finishes - this time for real	Swimming, Police procedurals, Michael Dylan

Rechargeable Finger Counter, IPX8 Waterproof Lap Counter

A few weeks ago, I started looking for a device that could store the number of lengths that I swim. By the time I get past 30 lengths, I start getting confused between the number that I am counting and hypothetical future lengths (do I want to swim another two or even four?). So a simple lap counter that has to be waterproof was what I wanted. Smart watches are no good because they measure distance via GPS whereas I am going back and forward over the same distance.

After some perseverance, I found what I was looking for: a rechargeable finger counter, IPX8 waterproof lap counter. I decided not to order from Temu as their deliveries have become erratic and problematic: this is not the fault of Temu, but rather the delivery company who has neglected to send me details of deliveries and so the shops to where the goods have been delivered won't pass the deliveries on. I ordered from Fruugo; this was more expensive than Temu but arrived faster. For some inexplicable reason, the device was delivered to a location about 15 km from where I live; why not somewhere closer?

I picked up the device yesterday (as it happened, I was in the location) and charged it overnight. This morning I fiddled with it a little in order to figure out how to use it - there are no instructions presumably because it is so simple to use, although there is a difference between playing with it and using it underwater. I attached the device to the little finger of my left hand and after every two lengths I would hopefully press the big button.

I wanted to compare the number of lengths that I counted (40! - that's forty, not the factorial of forty) but the device shows nothing on its display. I am charging it again but it looks like it's dead. So much for being waterproof. I am not giving much hope to the future of this device.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
13	24/09/2005	Fortysomething	TV series, Nick Hornby
54	24/09/2006	New song uploaded	MIDI, Obituary, King Crimson, RIP, Soundclick
103	24/09/2007	Soundclick pages	MIDI, Steeleye Span, Fairport Convention, Soundclick, Folktronix
285	24/09/2010	Karlovy Vary	Holiday, John Le Carre, Karlovy Vary
512	24/09/2012	Being a tourist in Israel: Tel Aviv	Israel, Holiday
761	24/09/2014	Happy New Year!	Jewish holidays
1173	24/09/2018	The festival of booths	Jewish holidays, Guitars
1258	24/09/2019	Grand-daughter pictures	Grandfather
1337	24/09/2020	Return to lockdown - keeping myself occupied with new programming projects	Programming, Priority tips, Covid-19
1529	24/09/2022	New Year greetings	Programming, Jewish holidays

Another day of not doing very much

I try to go for a walk after breakfast; as in previous days, I walked up to the food supermarket. A bit further on is the office for the ferry line with which we are travelling back to Piraeus - this is not the same line with which we came and I need to have our tickets printed. The office had yet to open so that was one thing that didn't happen. I wanted to buy a large bottle of water but the supermarket appeared to sell only bundles of four or six bottles and I don't know how well they would have taken it had I opened one of those bundles. I started walking back in the direction of our flat, looking for the shop that had linen shirts in its display. I found the shop but they didn't have a shirt in the correct size. So, 0/3 so far. I walked back to the ferry office that was now open, but the reference numbers that I had written down weren't correct, so I was scoring 0/4. 

Walking back towards our flat, I found a second shop that amongst other items sold linen shirts, and this time I was able to find two large enough for me. One is with short sleeves and one with long sleeves; they're not exactly the colours that I had wanted but I'm prepared to compromise. Very close to our flat I found a shop that sold me a single large bottle of water for only 1€. Back in the flat, I looked at the some of the emails that I had received from the ferry company and this time I found 'better numbers'. I then had a quick cold shower and then we were out of the flat, waiting for the local bus.

I am disappointed to say that the bus ride didn't show us very much of Poros old town; before we knew it, we were back at the first stop near the ferry office which is where we got off. The numbers that I had written down the second time for the ferry were correct so this time I received our printed tickets. After some more purchases in the shops, we started walking 'home' but had a break in the gelateria. Whilst the ice cream is very tasty, it ternds to cause satiety and a lack of will to eat lunch. So when we did get back to the flat, we had another rest before going out at 2:30 pm for a late and light lunch. 

After this, more resting. It may seem that we are not doing very much with our time, which is quite true, but on the other hand, we are simply having a rest. It's also true that these days I don't do that much at home either but then I don't rest with sea views and yachts in the background. Apart from the one day when it was cool, most days are quite hot and walking around in that heat saps the strength.

Tomorrow morning will be devoted to packing up and cleaning, before we catch our ferry back to Piraeus at 4:30 pm (our flight leaves at midnight). Obviously there will be several hours in which we will have little to do so this means more hours of lying around and reading. There will not be a blog tomorrow and in fact I doubt that there will be any blogging in the next few days as Sunday evening and Monday are Yom Kippur. On Tuesday morning we'll pick up the dog who had been having fun in the kennels (we hope).

Something that I have neglected to mention about Poros old city: the houses here are not the typical Greek white and blue houses that one tends to imagine (such as in Santorini). Here the houses are more Italianate, that probably is due to the time when Venice ruled this area.

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
10	9/18/2005	Little criminals	Randy Newman
407	9/18/2011	Continuing the diet	Diet, Acupuncture
757	9/18/2014	Walking with the GPS	Health, Mobile phone
1073	9/18/2017	Literature review - I don't believe this!	ERP, DBA
1169	9/18/2018	Vinyl log #29 - 17 September	Vinyl log, City Boy
1425	9/18/2021	Popup menus: a misconception	Programming, Delphi
1665	9/18/2023	Trident Studios inconsistency (why was 'Ride a white swan' recorded on 8 track?)	Multi-track

Hydra

This morning didn't start off well: there was no internet access, and after 10 am there was no running water in the flat. Fortunately we had tickets for the hovercraft to the island of Hydra, so we weren't too inconvenienced by the lack of water -- although we fervently hoped that the problem would be fixed by the time we came back.

Hydra is a 25 minute trip from Poros, almost due south. I have to admit that I didn't know much about Hydra, apart from the facts that Leonard Cohen was a well known resisdent of the island in the mid 1960s, and that motor vehicles (save those of the fire brigade as well as rubbish collectors) of all types are not allowed on the island -- although we saw two vehicles that should not have been there.

There are many ferries going to the island: in the first hour that we were there, I saw ferries from three different companies arrive along with one small cruise ship (this might have been a day trip from Athens as it wasn't one of those huge ships with cabins). As such, every hour or so there is a new group of people that arrive and overwhelm the small island.

Our first port of call was the Hydra museum, that was small but interesting. Most of the exhibits were concerned with the Greek war of independence period (1820-3) but there were also some artifacts from the second world war. This reminded me slightly of the war museum in Malta¹. One large room was dedicated to the artist Kostas Grammatopoulos with many paintings, wood cuts and lithographs, where generally these were of a faux naif style (but very well done). One wasn't allowed to take photographs within the museum otherwise I would have taken many photos of his works.

Once we finished with the museum, we carried on in the same direction where I ascended a peak lined with cannons - from this position one could see and control a large area of sea. My wife had been going on about 'the sun'; where is the sun, she kept on asking me. I said that it was directly above us as it was noon. No, she said, there is a sculpture of the sun. We carried on walking below the defensive position and eventually came to 'the sun'.

This sculpture is made of two sets of arms; the first is fixed and the second is constantly turning. Fittingly shaped as a giant golden sun, the 9.1 metre wide ‘Apollo Wind Spinner’ that bears the face of the Greek God is just one of artist Jeff Kloon’s newest pieces on display in an exhibition on the Saronic Isle proudly presented by the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art. This was worth the trek in the hot sun.

After the sun, it was back to near where the ferry landed for a very big pizza, even when shared between two. Then we split up, as my wife had had enough walking. I went down into the town by the promenade: like Poros, there were many shops selling tat or dresses. Naturally there were also many bars and restaurants although the range of food was more limited than in Poros. I found  a small monastery tucked away in an alley off this main strip that was very quiet and relaxing.

Eventually we joined up, sat by the ferry landing and swapped pictures. The ferry came, we travelled back to Poros stopping below our flat, then we walked into the flat. One of us turned on a tap ... and water flowed! So I had a cold shower then my wife had one; a cup of tea later we laid down for a rest, and here am I at 9 pm typing this.

A good day, but tiring because of the heat and the walking (almost 10,000 steps). We are undecided about tomorrow - I would like to buy a linen shirt and maybe we will take the local minibus for its trip around the island, the local 'hop on hop off' bus.

Internal links
[1] 290

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This day in blog history:

Blog #	Date	Title	Tags
199	17/09/2009	The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo	Literature, Steig Larsson
977	17/09/2016	Obligatory monthly grandfather picture	Grandfather
1072	17/09/2017	Interface for importing XML files into Priority	Priority tips
1168	17/09/2018	Maartin Allcock, 1957-2018	Obituary, Fairport Convention
1664	17/09/2023	The GI tract and the new guitar	Guitars, Musical group, Nutrition
1822	17/09/2024	Is this the government that we deserve?	Israel
2002	17/09/2025	Robert Redford RIP	Films, Obituary