Florence log 2 - Siena

First of all, some updates from yesterday.

I apologise whole-heartedly to the hotel for having written that there is no hot water available for drinking. I discovered in the evening - after having written the blog - that in the breakfast room there is a jug of water and a jug of coffee on a hot plate. There are tea bags and sugar there but no milk. This service is available from 3pm.

For supper yesterday, I went into the supermarket which is just across the road. The front is extremely unassuming but inside it's like the Tardis: very large and a huge selection. I bought only rolls and sliced cheese, but it occurred to me later that I could have bought a wider selection of goods. Today we bought fruit, milk, more rolls and smoked salmon. A feast fit for a king.

As usual, I woke at around 5:30am; immediately fully awake, I decided to go to the Duomo. It took me six minutes to walk there, which means that it's about 0.75km away. As expected, there was almost nobody there (apart from a few sanitation trucks) cleaning so I could take as many pictures as I wanted without anyone getting in the way. Unfortunately there was a metal grill in front of the gates of paradise, which meant that photographing them was problematic. Maybe I'll get a better shot during the Segway trip on Sunday evening.

Today's activity was an organised trip to Siena and San Gimignano. This involved a drive of about an hour and a half to Siena, which is situated about 60km south of Florence. Depending on one's point of view, the Tuscan countryside can be beautiful, but to me it seems like Britain - green fields and forests. Once in Siena, we were handed over to a local guide who told us at length about the various wards into which the city is divided. This was interesting to a certain amount, but possibly overdone. She took us to one of the ward's museums, which is in a basement underneath a church.

Whilst walking around the old city of Siena through its many alleyways, I was reminded of Robert Silverberg's comic novel, 'Up the line', which is about a tourist guide who takes groups around Istanbul - only in the past. He (and other guides) visit the same sites several times but due to the paradoxes of time travel, they have to disguise themselves and ignore previous versions of themselves; each time they have to find a new approach to their tour. Today, there were very many tour groups, and each guide had to find a different route and a different ward museum to show before descending en masse to the Piazza del Campo. 

As a result, the first part of the visit was very interesting, but the huge piazza, in which are held horse races between the wards, was packed with people. To make things worse, there was also some kind of vintage motor car rally, 1000 miglia, which also drew the crowds. The top of the piazza is filled with restaurants and stalls all selling the same souvenirs. The phrase which describes today is "More of the same". We picked a restaurant at random and shared a pizza.

After leaving Siena, we drove part of the way back to Florence before stopping in the medieval town of San Gimignano. Unfortunately, this too was filled with tourist groups, and because the options are much fewer than in Siena, it seemed totally over-run. Nevertheless, we had an interesting talk about the history of the town in the museum, reserved only for our group, then had free time to spend. We had a well deserved cup of tea in an outside restaurant, and had the piazza not been so full, this would have been delightful. We had to pass up the chance of tasting 'the best ice cream in the world', as one gelateria titled itself as we had a long walk back to the bus.

I am sure that I would have enjoyed the trip more had the sites been less crowded.

Florence log 1 - Getting to know you

This morning, I awoke early, and unable to get back to sleep, I decided to film the streets of Florence at 5:30am. At first, they were fairly empty - there were a few people wandering around, pulling suitcases behind them - so there was little to distract. I filmed mainly streets although I did pay quite some attention to the church Santa Maria Novella, not least because we probably won't be going there at all. Wandering around, I stumbled on the conference centre, which is only about 100m from the hotel, straight down one road.

Returning to the hotel, we had breakfast then went out for a short walk. I wanted to buy credit for the Italian mobile phones which I bought last year in Sorrento; the local TIM shop is a two minute walk from the hotel. Also next to the shop is one of the outside markets of Florence, Mercato Centrale; there is an outside market, full of stalls selling leather bags and belts, football shirts and souvenirs, and there is an inside market (where we didn't go) which apparently sells food and other items.

From there, we walked to the Duomo, which would take me about ten minutes (if that) on my own but took about twice the time with my wife, who doesn't walk at my pace. I knew it was close but I didn't realise it was that close. Although the streets were still fairly empty (thus making it relatively easy to take photographs without extraneous heads), I knew that we couldn't stay as we had to get to the Uffizi Gallery - we had tickets for 10:45 am. The walk from the Duomo to the Uffizi was slightly further from the hotel to the Duomo.

Once at the Uffizi, I was somewhat taken aback when I saw the lines waiting to enter. I had pre-booked tickets and was told by an attendant to join the queue at a building opposite the main entrance. There we joined other people who had also pre-booked; they were queuing to obtain their tickets before joining an even longer queue to enter the gallery. Everyone at least took the wait in good spirits. I should mention that the weather was suitable - between 18-20 degrees. Sometimes there were even spots of rain. Much better to wait in weather like this than in sweltering heat with no relief from the sun.

Once in the Uffizi, we spent about two hours walking around and absorbing the pictures. My wife had studied Renaissance painting whilst at school so she was in seventh heaven, looking at all the pictures. She even forgot about most of the pains in her legs while walking around.

After the Uffizi, we split a pizza in a restaurant just behind the Uffizi - I had my favourite Italian drink, lemon soda - then continued on to the Ponte Vecchio. I had been looking forward to this, but the reality was far from the dream: all the shops belonged to jewellers and they were very expensive. While we were taking pictures, I was 'accosted' by a lady in white face who, without words, insisted that we have our picture taken together. I gave her two euro for the pleasure.

Continuing back to the Duomo, we stopped at a few shops which we had skipped earlier in our haste to get to the Uffizi in time, leaving more than a few euros behind. The clothes and shoes look so beautiful in the shop windows; I told my wife that we should regard them as art and not as clothing. We resisted the temptation to have a cup of tea for 7 euro each in a prime location opposite the Duomo, instead electing to walk most of the way back to the hotel before stopping at a local watering hole opposite the Italian War of Independence (1820-1822) war memorial, where a cup of tea (actually two cups for the price of one) cost only 4 euro.

This reminds me that a review of our hotel stated that there were always hot drinks on hand in the hotel lobby and so I decided not to bring the small traveling kettle which I bought in the aftermath of Sorrento. No kettle and also no hot drinks in the lobby. Oops.

Once in the hotel, I resumed my Internet browsing from the early morning, looking for the photographic supplies shop which is supposed to be nearby. I noted the address and saw approximately how to get there; the shop is outside the tourist area of Florence, but then we are on the edge of that area so it took me only a few minutes to walk there. Fortunately there was another sports camera on sale (about 430 euro) so at least the staff knew what was required. The booklet which came with the camera mentioned an FT card, but the salesman knew that a micro-SD card was the required item. I had the choice of 16 or 32GB and plumped for the latter, at the cost of 45 euro (too much?). The salesman placed the card in the slot provided, I turned on the camera and a blue light came on. I thought that this showed that the camera was working.

On the way back from the shop, I turned the camera on again and even wore the camera (probably looking like a Cyborg), filming a little of the streets. When I came back to the hotel, I used the supplied USB cable to connect the camera to the computer, located the directory where the files would be ... and discovered that nothing had been filmed. Disappointed, I read the 'manual'; here I discovered that supplying power to the camera is not sufficient; there is an extra button on the camera which has to be pressed. I experimented with this a little, creating a few AVI files which I immediately deleted. I don't see how this button can easily be pressed when the camera is being worn and how one can actually check that the camera is working (the blue light blinks when it is filming). Probably I shall start filming before attaching the camera to the helmet; this prefix can later be trimmed.

Outside, it is raining; there was a brief thunderstorm, but already it seems that the rain has stopped. We may go out for supper or I may go to one of the many cafes to buy sandwiches.

All in all, a good day.

Florence log 0

Thursday, 14 May: the beginning of our trip to Italy to participate in an academic conference in Florence.

When I came home on Wednesday, I discovered in my (physical) post box a note that a package had arrived for me which I assumed that this was the headband camera. Had I been living in a town, there would have been no possibility of collecting the package before leaving, but as I live on a kibbutz, all I had to do was telephone the person who deals the post and explain the situation. I was told to come to her house and collect the keys to the office so that I could open up and retrieve the parcel - which I did swiftly.

Once I opened the package, I discovered that the camera requires a memory card, and not just any card but something called a TF card. DX sells many of these but the chance of ordering one today from China and having it arrive in Italy before Sunday are zero. I hoped that I would be able to buy a suitable card at the duty free in Tel Aviv but they too did not have one.

My next step was to start browsing on the Internet, looking for a suitable place in Italy. I found one online shop but I couldn't find what I was looking for. A quick visit to Trip Advisor cleaned the address of a good shop in Florence, so I sent them an email, hoping for the best. Their reply (which I read in the evening) was also negative.

So: a day of traveling. We thought that it would be good to fly at 10:30 am as opposed to the more usual 7am, but I'm not so sure. We weren't hurried in the airport (which is why I had the time to send the email), but otherwise.... As opposed to most flights in Tel Aviv, where one simply walks onto the plane via a tunnel, we had to ride in a bus to where the airplane was parked. This time, we were one of the first on the plane so we didn't have the usual problem of walking down the aisle with a heavy case.

The flight to Rome passed without incident. When in Rome (do as the Romans do), we missed the sign for connecting flights and so found ourselves in baggage collection after passing passport control. Someone directed us from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1, which is where the internal flights leave. After walking ten minutes outside, we arrived; we would have had to have walked this anyway, but inside the airport. Here we showed our boarding passes (which we had been issued in Tel Aviv - hurray! Last time we had to pick them up in Rome), went through security then found our departure gate - next to one for a flight leaving for Naples, signs of deja vu. As always, this flight was delayed for about half an hour, so we were already losing interest.

The flight itself to Florence was mercifully brief; we were met at the airport and taken to our hotel by two youngish people with poor English. The hotel itself is within a small courtyard off a main street, which is why some people (on Trip Advisor) say that it is hard to find. Once we reached our room, we discovered that we were very tired and very hungry, so we changed our normal routine: left the suitcases unpacked and went across the road to a Chinese restaurant. The youngsters in the car had recommended us one restaurant and the receptionist in the hotel had recommended another, both close by, but we decided that we would save those recommendations for when we would appreciate them more. 

Once revitalised, we returned to the hotel and started unpacking. The internet problem took some time to be resolved, but eventually I was able to connect all mobile phones and computers. I then went out for a short walk ostensibly to buy a large bottle of water but also to check out the neighbourhood. We are situated very well, being only about 200m from the main train station, on the edge of the old city. There are several alley ways here, which remind me of Sorrento and Palermo, although here they are more crowded (very crowded). There is even a laundromat. I will film this area one evening.

As I wrote above, the hotel is in a courtyard off one of the main streets and is an oasis of quiet. The room is fine, we have a little balcony overlooking an empty courtyard, and the shower is powerful and hot (not like ours at home!). I look forward to breakfast.

I am still on Israel time, waking at what was for me 5am (here 4am). Hopefully my internal clock will adjust to waking at a more suitable time - although of course, I do have time for updating my blog and connecting to work!

Traditional Yemenite pre-wedding ceremony

The twin brother of my son-in-law is getting married next week, to a girl of Yemenite extraction. Unfortunately, the date clashes with the date of my conference (and 'lecture') in Florence, so we had to decline the invitation. We were able, however, to attend the traditional Yemenite pre-wedding ceremony, which is known as a 'hina' party (henna, in English).

As described at Wikipedia, in Israel, Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish women sometimes choose to have a hennah party about a week before the wedding. The hennah party is smaller than the wedding, as only closer friends and family members are invited. The bride and groom wear traditional costumes as do some of the main guests. There is much dancing and music, especially when the hennah is brought out. The hennah is usually presented in a deep dish with lit candles in it and carried by the grandmother. She applies the hennah onto the palms of the bride and groom and they are blessed. Subsequently, guests stain their palms with hennah as well. There are variations in customs and dress between the different Jewish communities (Yemenite, Moroccan, Indian, etc.).

The evening was produced by a family of 'professional Yemenites' - apart from compering, singing and dancing, they also provide traditional costumes: obviously for the bride and groom, but also for anyone else who wishes to dress as a Yemenite. They also provide props, such as a well (from which water would be drawn if it were a real well), pots to carry the 'water', a wedding canopy and sundry other accessories.

The evening was very well produced and I did enjoy myself to a certain extent; at one stage, I was sufficiently moved to join in the dancing, between the groom and my son-in-law. I expect that this turned a few heads. Here is a picture of the bride and groom.

Unfortunately the evening was too long and far too loud. There were many people smoking inside the hall which gave me a stomach ache, which I still have. Maybe it's just as well that we're not going to the wedding as it will also be too long, too loud and too smoky.

Serendipity strikes again

Wednesday was my final day at work before going on holiday, which I spent in our offices in Tel Aviv. Many times during the day I had to warn people that I would not be at work the following week, which led to the following series of questions: where are you going? (Florence), how long for (just over a week), what will you do (attend an academic conference). Most people were very impressed by this; some even asked whether I was ready for the conference and I could assure them that I had prepared my presentation (one person even read it in full, another saw the conclusion).

Towards the end of the day, I got a call asking me to meet someone. This person turned out to be an architect who works for one of Israel's smaller banks and uses Priority. I explained to him the basis of my research and he was all too happy to help. It turns out that his wife is also a doctoral candidate (in cancer research) so he is aware of the problems that candidates have once they finish the theoretical part of their work and turn to the practical.

He promised to complete the questionnaire and to involve as many of his colleagues as possible. This kindness overwhelmed me. In the evening, after getting everything ready for a trip, I sent him an email with all the various documents and questionnaires, and hopefully by the time that we return, I will have more data for my database and can at least complete the pilot study.

As it happens, that same morning I saw an advert for a Priority Users conference. Normally when I am using a browser, I don't pay any attention to adverts so this one passed me by until I had moved off the page with the advert. Then I realised what I had seen, but returning to the same page didn't display the same advert. It took a little time of mindless surfing to redisplay the advert; it turns out that there will be a day long meeting with presentations on 1 June. This isn't a very good date as far as I am concerned but that's what there is. I registered as a user. 

A bit later on, it registered with me that I had been waiting for this opportunity: I would have at least a hundred Priority system managers under one roof! Obviously there would be no opportunity to give a talk about my research - the timetable has already been set in stone - but this will enable me to set up a table near the registration process, hand out introductory letters and talk to whoever is interested. This will require personal skills which I don't really have but it is a golden opportunity.

Vinyl log 10 - 13 May

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
13	May	1977	Spirit	Future games

This one presumably was bought in 'Our Price Records' in Golders Green, which had become my usual record shop. I bought the album because I had been impressed by the previous offering by Spirit, "From the time zone - spirit of 76", which confusingly had been released in 1975. I received this double album in my guise as record reviewer for the university magazine, but by this time, I was no longer writing for them.

Anyway - I was sufficiently moved to buy the followup album. In retrospect, I wish I hadn't. I don't have this on cd and haven't heard the songs since 1978.

What I saw on this morning's walk

Sometimes, when I'm in detective-novel mode, I fantasize that I will find a dead body on my early morning walk with the dog. This scenario has happened a few times in the DCI Banks novels, but fortunately has yet to happen to me. I once phoned in a suspicious object found on a street in Tel Aviv, but there's been no further involvement with the police. Until this morning ....

Our early morning walk takes us to the car park of the local secondary school (and normally, into the school premises through a gate which is unlocked, but today it was locked). There was a car in the car park; whilst one might say that this is the purpose of a car park, it's unusual to see something there at 5:40 am. This car was different.

Someone had driven this car to the car park then torched it. One side of the car looks fairly normal whereas the other side is toast. I considered phoning it in, but it wasn't urgent and I didn't fancy waiting around until the police arrive. Let the school headmaster call the police.

By 2:30pm, the wreck had disappeared, leaving only carbon on the ground.

Madam Secretary

Three months ago, I wrote about the American TV series, "Madam Secretary". I have now seen 16 episodes ( I understand that there are only one or two more), whereas my original blog was written on the basis of the first two episodes. During that time, a great deal has changed about the series. What started as a one minute background thread in the pilot has blossomed into an all-consuming plot in later episodes. Along the way, the superficial diplomatic solutions which so frustrated me initially have all but disappeared, leaving a much more interesting show to be broadcast. 

The episodes are still somewhat superficial and a great deal of suspension of belief is required - would the secretary of state really get her hands as dirty as shown? - but the tension and depth of involvement has definitely increased.

Whilst I have recorded all the episodes (bar three, due to an accident), I have passed them on onto a friend, so I can't watch them again, even if I had the time to do so. Probably they will all be shown again, and no doubt these will work in the same way that reruns of "The West Wing" helped me understand the story and deepen my appreciation.

Investment fund manager

The kibbutz, being a collective, decided years ago to take out insurance for what Google Translate coyly calls LTC - long term care. This is for members who are unable - at various levels - to take care of their bodily needs. The idea is that every month, everybody pays a small premium, and should the time come, the insurance company will pay a monthly stipend to help cover costs (mainly for nursing).

At the end of 2013, the overseer for insurance decided that such collective insurances were problematic and risky for the insurance companies as the ratio between premium and stipend was far too low. He decided that there should only be personal insurance programs. A wise person (no irony intended) on the kibbutz examined the situation and saw that for members aged over 50, the required monthly premium would be too high. Enter the kibbutz solution: create our own "insurance company" (hereinafter 'fund'), which takes premiums from the members and pays stipends, should the need arise.

I was asked whether I was interested to serve on the management committee of this fund about six or seven months ago; it took a long time for the subject to come to ballot. When it did come, about three months ago, my name had inadvertently been deleted from the names proposed (four chosen out of six), so the election had to be postponed for another month. Two months ago, I was elected, and on Thursday night we had our first meeting.

The meeting was mainly taken up with the kibbutz secretary (who serves as a de facto member) explaining the charter of the fund. The explanation might have gone faster had not one person slowed down the pace with worries about members deciding to opt out (reasonable if one already has suitable insurance) then dropping their external insurance and demanding that the kibbutz treat them. I won't discuss such matters here as they don't interest me - I'm probably too naive.

The committee has to elect itself a chairman; towards the very end of the meeting, the secretary asked "No'am?" and I agreed. No one said anything. Such is the old fashioned way of accepting responsibility on kibbutz. I don't know whether I will be an effective chairman but I certainly hope to be an effective fund manager; this position allows me to utilise some of my talents, which unfortunately have been totally under-used by the kibbutz. 

Incidentally, we're talking about annual premiums of around 700,000 NIS (around $210,000); a monthly stipend is fixed at 2500 NIS (both premiums and stipends are inflation linked), and no stipends will be paid in the first three years of the fund's existence, thus allowing capital to be built up. I made a quick calculation which shows that if the number of paying members is between 200-250, then about 20-23 stipends can be paid without touching the acquired capital. Hopefully, the number of stipends will be much less.

After the meeting, various ideas popped into my head. I am listing them here for I won't be able to discuss them for some time (because of the trip to Florence):

• Most of the money paid into the fund will be invested; should that investment be maintained by means of a bank or by a private investment company? Whilst I am capable of managing the investments themselves, they have to be stored somewhere. This is basically a matter of charges: there will be a monthly or quarterly charge for simply storing the investments (this charge is very annoying) and another charge every time an investment is bought or sold. I shall hold meetings with a few organisations to see which is cheaper.
• Should the book-keeping be done with a separate database within the kibbutz's Priority program or should I write a simple book-keeping program? Using Priority is overkill, there are problems of security and access for me to the program. On the other hand, the authorities may require a certified accounting program, and Priority will also aid external auditing.
• An investment policy has be established. Whilst the charter states that the fund may invest only in solid investments with a fixed and known rate of interest, this is a problem in these days of minimal rates of interest. As no stipends will be paid for the first three years (one has already passed), all the incoming money is candidate for investment. So for the first three years, liquidity will not be a requirement which means that the idea of commercial bonds and similar can be entertained. Once the three years of grace have been completed, the monthly income should still exceed the monthly expenditure.
• How democratic is the management going to be? Obviously there will be a need to two signatories but is every decision going to be debated or just the policies? I doubt that the other three elected members have much knowledge of finance and investments (even I lack practical experience at this level); I may have to give a short lecture about the market. Fortunately, there should only be a few decisions to made, especially now. Obviously there will need to be two signatories to the account, which makes me wonder how internet investing can work when two people have to sign an order.
• How will the fund be audited? Obviously, I intend after three months of activity to present some form of annual balance sheet with an eye to the future, but I could be less honest that I actually am.

Preparing for Florence (2)

In the week since I last wrote on this subject, more preparations have been completed.

• It seems certain that the extra battery for the video camera will not arrive in time, if at all. I received an email two days ago stating that my order has failed to pass the airline security check as it contains lithium batteries/knives or products that contain liquid which are now under extra scrutiny in world air cargo services. We therefore have switched it to another delivery channel to ensure the order is sent to you as soon as possible. The concept "a slow boat to China" comes to mind.
• I am beginning to suspect that the headband camera won't arrive in time, either. Maybe I'll be able to find one at the Israeli airport.
• The conference organisers sent an email a few days ago about travel arrangements. It seems that they can meet us at Florence Airport and transport us to our hotel for 8 euro, despite the fact that we are arriving four or five days before the conference starts. A taxi would cost 20 euro whereas two bus tickets would cost about 16 euro (I don't remember exactly).
• Yesterday I booked tickets for the Uffizi gallery, which is the recommended thing to do. Although I asked for a 10am entrance, I see that the tickets show 10:45am. For the cost conscious, the price for two full price tickets was 43 euro; we don't qualify for any discounts. 
• I considered buying on-line tickets for the Guggenheim collection in Venice which has been recommended to us. Apparently the demand for entry is less here so there is less need to book in advance. Tickets are 16 euro each. The Guggenheim is full of 20th century art, which I like and my wife doesn't, as opposed to the Uffizi, which is Renaissance art.
• I have booked the day trip to Siena and the evening Florence tour by Segway. All the prepayments mentioned here were accomplished via PayPal. I have had problems in the past getting authorisation for payments made directly with a credit card (for reasons which I won't go into) whereas PayPal is hassle free.
• The small shoulder bag which I generally use is sufficient when all I have to take with me is the Kindle, some papers and reading glasses, but it's very difficult to squeeze in a video camera and a water bottle together. Hence yesterday I bought a larger and roomier bag. More expensive than I expected; I could have waited to buy something in the markets of Florence but again, this might not be what I want. When discussing this a few days ago, my wife made a very funny Freudian slip - she said that I could buy an "Armenian" bag (in Hebrew, Armeni) when in fact she meant Armani. There probably are knock-off bags with the Armeni (or Gocchi or Gucchi) tags, but according to WikiTravel, it is illegal to buy these from street vendors in Italy.
• I dug out the Italian mobile phones. I am debating whether to take them with their boxes or without.
• I have been thinking vaguely about preparing a PowerPoint presentation for the conference next week. I shall try and start work on that today. Knowing myself and the material, it probably won't take long once I actually get started.

[SO: 3889; 3, 16, 37]

Vinyl log 9 - 7 May

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
7	May	1977	10cc	Deceptive bends

Like many other records which I have written about, I have no actual memory of buying this. It is, however, connected in my mind with a specific event, so I'll write about that. 

It was the time of the Queen's Silver Jubilee and there was a long public holiday. A few of my friends and I decided to go for a walking trip in the area of Hindhead, staying in youth hostels. I still had my youth hostel membership card (bought for Habonim), and in those days, a group needed to have at least one member in order to use the facilities. We traveled to the Hindhead railway station, then walked from there to a small hostel. The only guests were the four of us and a group of three girls, but no mingling took place (and that's not a euphemism!).

The next day we walked a fair distance, around the Devil's Punch Bowl, to a larger hostel, only to find that the girls had also arrived. That evening, we reverted to our youth leader personae and ran a series of the silly games that we knew so well. I had my eye on one of the girls and managed to orchestrate a solo meeting during on of those games, but nothing came of this.

On the third day, we walked (without the girls) to yet another hostel. This was more anonymous; we arrived, unpacked, ate and went to bed without interfacing with anyone. After we returned to London, I found myself at a loose end on the Sunday and walked down to Swiss Cottage to see (once again)  "A touch of class".

What is the connection? The fifth 10cc album, the first without Godley and Creme, had just been released and we had seen a video of "Good morning, Judge" on television. We spent a fair amount of the trip singing this somewhat stupid song. I now see that in fact the Jubilee was on June 6, a month after having purchased this record! The tricks of memory: the events of the youth hosteling certainly occurred as I described them, but the link between them and the album is tenuous at best.

It wasn't a very good record. The best song was probably "The things we do for love", which would have been considered merely average had it been included on earlier records. What can I say? I preferred Godley and Creme to Stewart and Gouldman; the latter duo were more than competent but they were 'professional' and lacking the manic tendencies of the first duo. I wrote a little about this record a few years ago.

Losing the grouping

This morning, the Vice President of Furniture Sales called me about a problem with a report, which lists all the orders of parts which have been made from a specific catalogue. He mentioned a certain order and gave me to understand that the order does not appear in the report.

I ran the report and the order appeared. It turns out that I misunderstood him: the problem was that the order was not appearing with the correct price. In the report which I created via Priority, each of the three lines appeared with its total; following these lines was a total for the order. I looked at the order itself and the totals matched. So what was the problem?

Then the penny dropped: the VP had created the report from Priority but had displayed it in Excel. When one does this, all the grouping which exists in the native report gets lost, so he saw only three rows, without the total of the order. This is not a problem of Excel per se but rather a problem in the Priority/Excel interface, about which many people seem not to be aware.

Below is what the data might look like in Priority

Order	KL151234	Customer name	Apple	Total
P123	Tables	3	2,000	6,000
P456	Chairs	12	1,000	1,2000
P789	Accessories	10	250	2,500
Total				20,500

And this is what is looks like in Excel:

KL151234	Apple	P123	Tables	3	2,000	6,000
KL151234	Apple	P456	Chairs	12	1,000	12,000
KL151234	Apple	P789	Accessories	10	250	2,500

The VP saw the order number and assumed that the first line represented the entire order, whose value had suddenly dropped to 6,000 only.

This is another reason why I don't like to display Priority reports in Excel.

Preparing for Florence

As I have written earlier, I am attending in two weeks time an academic conference which is being held in Florence.  This is a good excuse for a holiday. As we visited Italy last year, I hadn't originally intended to return again this year (I was hoping to attend a conference in Greece) but that's the way the chips fall. 

I have been in Florence before: in 2001, we went on an eight day tour of Italy which included 24 hours in Florence. We arrived in the early afternoon and went straight to the Duomo. The next day, we started off early by visiting a park outside of Florence which has splendid views of the city, then descended into the city to see Michaelangelo's "David" along with other examples of the Medici financed Renaissance. At some stage we also went to the Santa Croce church - I don't remember at what stage this occurred. This is where Galileo is buried, along with a few more dignitaries from earlier days. The facade of the church includes a Star of David, which surprised me. I remember asking the guide as to what this meant, and he replied that the church's architect was Jewish; he was allowed to include the star.

That visit was very brief and didn't allow any time for stretching out. Hopefully, this visit will be different. Apart from the conference, we have a day trip to Siena and an evening tour of Florence on a Segway scooter lined up; I also hope that we will get to Cinqua Terra. 

After nearly a week in Florence, we will then travel by train to Venice where we will stay for a few more days. After having difficulty in finding a suitable hotel (there are so many to pick from but they all seem so expensive), we plumped for a self catering flat on the island of Giudecca. Again, we were in Venice for a day during that 2001 trip and again, we were too rushed to enjoy it to the full. This time will be more relaxed. I have a mental image of us strolling on the Giudecca shore line with the sights of Venice visible across the water - the reality will probably be less picturesque.

Whilst working on the home movies, some ideas presented themselves as necessary preparations for this trip. The first idea was buying a 'head band' camera - a simple movie camera which is worn as a head band. This will be ideal for the Segway trip. The camera is quoted as creating an AVI file; I don't know whether this can be included as is or whether it has to be converted first to WMV.

The second idea is even simpler, and I'm surprised that it took so long for the penny to drop: buy another battery for the video camera. I even remarked here that there was a lack of footage from our 2013 trip (and some surprising omissions from Sorrento 2014) which was probably due to the battery run down; the obvious solution is to pack another charged battery. My wife films a certain amount of video with her smartphone and I intend to take mine as a last resort camera (it won't be receiving calls). I have even started planning (in my head) various shots which will later be incorporated into the movie. I wonder how I will get footage of my talk in the conference.

I ordered the head camera and battery from Deal Extreme and I hope that both items arrive before we depart. One problem with the battery is that it can only be charged whilst in the camera - there doesn't seem to be an external charger.

I also have to dig out the telephones that we bought last year. Obviously we will have to top them up when we get to Florence, but they will be useful there for local calls.

On Independence Day, a documentary channel showed several programmes made about Israeli Nobel Prize winners. The most interesting for me was the one on psychologist Daniel Kahneman; I have read some of his books and am familiar with his theory of loss aversion, which was developed with the late Amos Tversky. The connection with this blog is that he talked a bit about people making memories by photographing.

I am trying to develop a philosophy of photography: not simply "videoing" everything that I see but trying to concentrate on the interesting parts. The resulting movie should work on two levels: on the simple level, one has a visual record of places one has visited (and as it happens, when a neighbour came round, wanting to hear about Amalfi, I could lend her our movie so that she can see for herself what it's like); on a higher level, one has personal memories which get triggered by the visual record. Of course, there are the occasional events which get recorded - like my degree ceremony or my talk - but these are fairly rare and don't happen on a regular holiday.

Vinyl log 8 - 1 May

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
1	May	1972	Various artists	Clogs
1	May	1980	Peter Hammill	ph7

"Clogs" was a compilation of folk artists who recorded for the B&C label, notably the Steeleye Span 'family' - there were a few tracks by Steeleye as well as Tim Hart and Maddy Prior as a duo, and Martin Carthy. It also included the astounding "Murder of Maria Marten", which came from Shirley Collins' "No roses" album, which was one of the contenders for the "Son of Liege and Lief" title.

This record must have been bought in Bristol when I was fair and square in my early 'folkie' period. A friend bought the "No roses" album probably on the basis of this compilation (which is why such compilations exist) so I was familiar with it. Unfortunately, no other song reached the heights of "Maria", so I didn't purchase it myself. Many many years later I was to buy this album on cd.

The compilation also included "Rod's song", by Shelagh McDonald, who at the time was considered to be a possible successor to Sandy Denny. The song was interesting but not sufficiently so to investigate further. Shelagh McDonald disappeared from public view after a bad trip; she re-emerged in 2005.

---

I have no idea how I acquired Peter Hammill's last album for Charisma, "ph7" (which was actually his eighth solo album). The date corresponds with the first phase of my army service, which rules out any possibility of me having bought the record in a shop (either in Israel or even on a visit to Britain). I have a suspicion that I ordered it directly from PH, although I have no way of confirming this and I also have a counter-suspicion that his mail order service had yet to start. Either way, I have never liked this album very much.

It contains a version of "Mirror Images" which might be better than the one on the last VdGG album, "Vital", but which is curiously stilted. A typical VdGG song (if there is such a thing) which never received the recording it deserved.

Vinyl log 7 - 28 April

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
28	April	1972	The Bunch	Rock on

I don't have any memory of buying this, but I think that by April 1972, Virgin Records had opened a branch in Bristol. My vague memory places the shop about a mile from my school, but in the wrong direction from my home, so coming home would have been longer. There were two advantages in buying from this shop - it was cheaper and the bags had a certain social value. 

For years I had thought that The Bunch (i.e. various members of Fairport and Fotheringay) were allowed to make the record in order to test the facilities of the first residential studio in Britain, The Manor. In the recently published Sandy Denny biography, writer Mick Houghton draws attention to this fallacy. Apparently, the first record to be made at the Manor was by the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band ("Let's make up and be friendly").

As for the record itself - being several years younger than the people who made the record, I didn't have the same fondness for songs recorded between 1958-1962. That said, there were some interesting songs: Richard Thompson singing Dion's "My little girl in the summertime", Ashley Hutchings drawling Chuck Berry's "Nadine" and the duet between Sandy Denny and Linda Peters (as she was then), "When will I be loved?".

I don't know whether this record was ever issued as a cd. I have a cd-r copy somewhere which someone made for me, but I haven't listened to it in years (I'm not even too sure where it is).

Easy walking

My power walks for the past few days have been cut short by pains in my right leg; maybe I was simply out of condition after not walking for a few days. The pains came before the problems with the phone battery so I can't even use that for an excuse.

But maybe those days were training me, getting me back into condition. Today I walked 5.17 km with nary a hint of pain. Using my new technique with the mobile phone, the battery capacity was reduced from 100% to 92% - negligible.

I'm fairly happy.

[SO: 3889; 3, 16, 37]

Vinyl log 6 - 26 April

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
26	April	1975	Richard and Linda Thompson	I want to see the bright lights tonight

I wrote about buying this record a few months ago; I see that I even wrote that I bought it from 'a short lived record shop in West Hampstead'. I don't know whether the part of the road where the shop was sited was already  West End Lane or still Fortune Green Road, but it was opposite the fire station. The past two times when I have been in London (2004 and 2012), I've stayed at a bed and breakfast a bit further down West End Lane, and it's always a pleasure to revisit the stamping grounds of my youth.

That shop opened at the beginning of 1975; I recall that they had some big display for 'The electric muse' 4 lp set which came out at around that time. During the autumn term of 1974, I walked down Fortune Green Road and West End Lane twice a day on my way to the West Hampstead underground station, from there to travel via the Bakerloo line to my university near the Elephant and Castle. But in the spring and summer terms of 1975, I transferred my allegiance to the Golders Green station and the Northern line. It might have been a slightly longer walk but the trains were less crowded in the mornings.

So now I wonder how I knew about this record shop. Maybe they opened in December 1974. 

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Funnily enough, in that blog from January, I wrote about walking. What I didn't mention was that a walk lasting 50+ minutes whilst running a program ('MapMyWalk') on the mobile phone would frequently end with an empty battery. It's happened more than a few times in the past two weeks that the phone has turned itself off before I've completed my walk, which means that my records are somewhat incomplete.

I think that I've found the solution to the battery problem: I can start the GPS and MapMyWalk, then remove them from the display (I don't know what this functionality is called). MMW continues working in the background but doesn't continually update the display. This should save a great deal of battery power. I am going to try this out tonight.

More home movies

Emboldened by the success of the 2014 Italian movie, I started work on creating a movie from the 2013 footage, which was shot in Barcelona, London and Edinburgh. There isn't that much footage from Barcelona, which puzzled me until I remembered that at this time I only had the original battery for the camera, which limited the amount that could be filmed each day. I bought a second battery in London.

I was fairly ruthless with the footage, cutting out a great number of repetitive shots; this was most apparent in filming from the London Eye or on the bus trip around the Edinburgh centre. 

The holiday ended with the MBA ceremony; whilst my wife filmed bits of this, I also have the professionally filmed version. I have decided to discard almost all of what my wife filmed and instead use sections from the professional version. But - and there is always a 'but' - the program which I am using to extract portions from the dvd creates a vob file, which is the native format of dvds. Such files, of course, are not suitable for Microsoft Movie Maker, which wants WMV files. I found an internet site which performs the conversion online (albeit slowly), so after extracting the most important minute from the dvd, I sent it to this site, then later was able to import the new file into the movie.

I have also discovered that one can import static pictures into the movie and also define how long each picture is displayed, although I get the feeling that this time setting is for the entire movie and not on a per-picture basis. I would also like to crossfade between pictures, but I haven't been successful in doing so yet, although I have only experimented for a few minutes with this functionality.

I don't have any more time at the moment to play with movies as I am very busy, both at work and at home, and making movies is at a very low priority.

Today is the 37th anniversary of Sandy Denny's death.

Making a movie

As I wrote yesterday, I started putting together a movie of our Italian holiday from 2014 in Microsoft Movie Maker 2.6. The project is almost completed so it's time to document what I did, probably as a guide for myself in the future but also in order to help anyone else in the same position.

Step One: converting MOD files to MWV

The raw footage in the camera is in MOD format, which is viewable on its own but not suitable for MMM. So all the clips have to be converted to a different format, WMV, which MMM can use. I found a program, Wondershare video converter, which performs the necessary conversion (it can handle a variety of formats). This program - at least, on the mobile computer - can convert four files at once, which makes converting all the files in a directory very easy. 

The video camera creates one directory per day (with 'useful' names like PRG001, PRG00A, etc); each video clip is saved into the day's directory with sequential names MOV0001.MOD, etc. The files are numbered in hexadecimal which isn't a problem for me but might cause a neophyte to scratch her head - MOV000F comes before MOV0010. Whilst this organisation is helpful, it also causes problems. 

This is important after the converter does its work as all the converted files end up in the same directory; there would be name clashes (i.e. MOV0001 from directory PRG001 and MOV0001 from PRG002 have the same name, which causes the latter to become MOV0001(1).WMV) which can be distracting. I once wrote a program to rename files, replacing a constant part of the file name (such as MOV00) with a new prefix; I think it time to find that program and to ensure that it works in the new situation.

Step Two: importing the files into Movie Maker

Once the files have been converted, it's time to introduce them to MMM. The converter stores all the converted files in one directory, but I moved them from there to another, project specific, directory. Apart from anything else, this will make backing up easier. The files - or clips, as MMM calls them - have to be imported into MMM; this doesn't create a new copy of each clip, but rather creates references within MMM to the files. 

MMM has two ways of ordering the sequence of clips: timeline and storyboard. Storyboard is a more abstract method, but it's better to use this at first. Several clips can be dragged into the storyboard at one go, saving time. The clips can then be organised according to subject matter. This is very useful as one might have footage of the same subject spread over several days; an establishing shot might be out of sequence with the footage that it is establishing. 

MMM allows one to split existing clips - this is useful if the beginning - or more frequently, the end - of a clip is unnecessary. There were one or two clips which petered out into an out of focus sky; I split these clips and removed the unnecessary parts. This way, only the interesting parts of the clips remain.

Another advantage of storyboard - and a valuable function of MMM - is that transitions between clips can be added easily. The most useful transition is what is called in music terms a cross-fade - film makers call it a dissolve. Simply put, the end of one clip fades away and is replaced by the beginning of the next clip. Scenery clips are not staged scenes of acting, so there is no natural beginning or end; a dissolve works very well. MMM has about twenty different types of dissolve, so whilst it's natural to use 'fade' most of the time, the other types have their uses.

Once all the clips have been set up in the storyboard, it's time to move to the timeline

Step Three: titles and fades

MMM allows one to introduce title cards into the flow of clips. There is one at the beginning of the movie and one before each section, explaining to the viewer what they are about to see. The timeline allows one to fade clips in and out (as opposed to cross-fading). I used this when I had a title card: the clip before the title card would fade out to black, and the clip after the title card would fade in from black. This makes the transitions smooth.

Step Four: sound

Some of the clips had natural sound: for example, when we were in the bus, traveling around the Amalfi coast, the guide was talking for most of the time and this narration was recorded cleanly. There is also a clip in a limoncello 'brewery' where someone is explaining how they create the drink. 

But there are also clips filmed from the top of an open air bus which have a great deal of extraneous and distracting noise. Obviously, I want to keep the sound in some cases and I want to lose it in other cases. It took me some time to discover that MMM - when viewed by timeline - allows one to set the volume on a per clip basis. I decided to mute every clip, then remove the mute on selected clips. So all the Sorrento footage is silent whereas the Amalfi footage has narration.

Step Five: music

Obviously, I'm not going to leave huge parts of the movie silent. MMM has an audio track which is intended both for music and post-production narration; I ignored the possibility of the latter. I allowed myself some humour in selecting music for the soundtrack: most of the footage of Capri is set to two different versions of 'The Isle of Capri', one sung by Frank Sinatra and the other by Al Bowlly. Most of the footage in Palermo has tunes from 'The Godfather' soundtrack. There are two short clips of Sorrento in the rain: here I used a song which we have on a disc with the approximate name 'Melancholy in September'.

For the rest of the movie, I found some generic Italian music on YouTube ('Guiseppe plays romantic music from Venice') - a long file which is an instrumental medley of various tunes. All of them sound 'Italian', but I don't know most of them. I cut this file up into various sections, dependent of the lengths required, then slotted them into the audio timeline.

The audio tracks can be split and faded in the same manner as the video clips. I only used this functionality once as I edited the tracks outside of MMM, but this would be useful for someone who isn't used to editing music.

Step Six: finalising and burning

Once everything is correct in the movie, it has to be finalised. Basically, this creates one long WMV file from all the parts. This takes about 25 minutes on my mobile, for a movie lasting 64 minutes.

The resulting WMV file can then be watched with a video player program. Doing so was useful, as I discovered a few mistakes in the movie (a missed transition and an extraneous clip were the major errors). But it's not enough: a dvd can't be burnt from such a file.

Enter DVD mastering software. This program takes a WMV file and creates an ISO image file which can then be burnt onto disc. This program also inserts chapter breaks (every five minutes), allowing easy navigation within the movie. I would prefer that the chapter breaks be logical, according to the subject matter, but I haven't figured out how to do this yet.

To be honest, I haven't actually succeeding in creating a dvd either. In my next attempt, I'm going to create an ISO file and burn this via Nero instead of allowing the mastering program to burn the DVD - my previous attempt failed with some mysterious error message.

Update:
I successfully created an ISO file with the DVD mastering software - this took about twenty minutes. Then I copied the resulting 3GB file to my thumb drive - another thirty minutes. Strangely enough, it only took four minutes to copy the file from the thumb drive to my home computer. Then I burnt the disk image onto dvd - and now I watching the result on television! It seems that the mobile computer is very slow at copying onto external media.

Ken Kesey and home films

I once wrote about finding Tom Wolfe's book about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters ("The electric kool aid acid test"). That period in history has always intrigued me, so I was very pleased to see that a documentary television channel was screening a film comprised of footage shot in 1964 when the Merry Pranksters drove from California to New York. Naturally I recorded this.

Whilst Wolfe describes the trip fairly accurately, the film reveals details of which I hadn't been previously aware. Here's an example: Jane Burton, someone who appears in the early days, was a professor of philosophy at Stanford University and was also pregnant at the time of the trip. 

As one might expect from a film made by people stoned out of their gourd with hand held cameras (and no sync between the video and the audio), some of the footage is hard to watch. Fortunately, the film's producers made a wise decision and included archive footage from other sources, including Kesey talking about his first acid trips; these inserts make the film easier on the eyes and brain.

Talking of home movies, I installed Microsoft Movie Maker 2.6 on my new computer; although this is not the latest version of the program, it's the one which works best with Windows 8.1 (so I read). The raw video footage which we took in Sorrento is in .MOD format, which does not show in WMM, but once the clips were converted to WMV format, I could import them and start making a film.

Some parts of the holiday have too much footage - especially the trip down the Amalfi coast - but other parts are lacking. Whilst we were on holiday, I backed up my wife's mobile phone onto the computer, so I had immediate access to the videos which she filmed; these extended the available footage. Whilst we had a good deal of footage around the hotel and Marina Grande, it turns out that we have almost no footage of the Sorrento streets and market. 

I resolved that when we are next on holiday, I will save and review the footage each evening, thus giving a chance to film local places which I neglected to film previously. I've always found that after the holiday, I prefer watching the environment (the hotel/apartment and streets) where we stayed as opposed to the 'attractions'. This might be because the attractions are generally covered in guide books and commercial dvds, but of course, no one else filmed our hotel.

[SO: 3889; 3,15,36]

Vinyl log 5 - 16 April

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
16	April	1970	Blodwyn Pig	Getting to this

I presume that this album was also purchased from the strange shop at the bottom of Christmas Steps, although I imagine that by now I had discovered that records were sold in other places. I and my colleagues frequented a shop which might well have been part of a department store which was very close to my school; most of the records purchased in Bristol came from there.

I have written about this record at greater length here, so I'm not going to repeat myself. Instead, I'm going to write about a related record: "Stand Up", by Jethro Tull. Let us not forget that Mick Abrahams was part of Jethro Tull for their first album, then left to form BP.  

From 1970 until 1973, I used to go to a youth club which met in rooms connected with a local church. Despite the apparent religious problems of this for me, there was actually very little connection between the church and the club. It might well have been that there was a chaperone but I seem to have edited this out of my memory. What we did was talk, play table tennis and listen to records (lots and lots of records). I was introduced to this club by my former scout leader, Andy Vowles (not the Andy Vowles of Bristol group Massive Attack, who was only a toddler at the time of these events). Most of the boys went to direct grant grammar schools like me, although only a few went to BGS. Again, most of the girls attended the girls only direct grant schools in the city.

Sometime in the spring of 1970, I bought the sheet music album for "Stand Up"; I would have been familiar with Tull's contribution to the "Nice enough to eat" compilation which was compulsory listening at the time. At some unknown stage, I bought a copy of SU, although I doubt whether I bought it new. I didn't care for it that much as I probably sold it shortly afterwards. I do remember a picture of me taken in my bedroom with the cut outs standing up, but I haven't seen that picture in years.

I did go and see Tull when they came to Bristol in September or October 1970, touring "Benefit", but my interest in them waned. It wasn't until the early 1990s when Tull came to Israel that I saw them again - this time, Daves Pegg and Mattacks were in the group, so I was able to score a free backstage pass due to the Fairport Connection.

Vinyl log 4 - 14 April

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
14	April	1971	Soft Machine	Fourth
14	April	1976	Van der Graaf Generator	Still life

My concert diary shows that on 1 April 1971, I attended a concert by the Soft Machine at the Royal Festival Hall in London. My memory is not clear as to where I had heard SM - presumably on the radio - but I do recall that I was staying in London for a few days with my friend Jeremy and I arranged beforehand to buy tickets for this concert. My friend Robert joined us for the show.

All I remember about the concert is the plush seats of the hall. Obviously I must have been sufficiently impressed to buy their album. Every now and then I still listen to it - I preferred the second side with its four part 'Virtually' as opposed to the first side. I was chuffed with myself when I realised many years later that most of the first two parts of 'Virtually' are in 7/4 time.

I saw Soft Machine a few months later in Bristol. I must have been enamoured with them as I remember securing seats in one of the first few rows. By that time, Robert Wyatt (the drummer) had been sacked from the group and had been replaced by John Marshall. He was the opposite of a laid back drummer - he played all over the music and hit the drums very hard. I regretted sitting so close to the stage as all I heard was drums and cymbals

I suspect that I bought the VdGG album whilst on a Passover break at my parents' house in Cardiff as I remember leaving a message for the same Jeremy on the phone, telling him that the track "Childhood's end" was indeed influenced by the Arthur C. Clarke novel of the same name. 

We didn't know at the time that two of the tracks, the opening "Pilgrims" (possibly the quintessential VdGG song) and "La Rossa" had been recorded at the "Godbluff" sessions some time previously but held over. I did note that they seem to be more integrated, but I had that down to the erroneous 'fact' that the band had been playing them for longer.

The title track has the curious distinction of being the only song that I know whose lyrics contain the word 'defecation'. In context, it makes sense.

For some reason, I didn't connect with the opening track on side two, "My room" for about a year. It wasn't until a concert in February 1977 (IIRC) without Hugh Banton and David Jackson that they played the song and suddenly it made sense. The final verse has, over the years, become a key text for me

Dreams, hopes and promises, fragments out of time,
all of these things have been spoken.
Still you don't understand how it feels when I'm
waiting for them to be broken.

Keen readers of this blog will have known that I recorded a cover version of "Pilgrims".

Vinyl log 3 - 13 April

Day	Month	Year	Artist	Title
13	April	1979	Richard and Linda Thompson	First light

In or around January 1979, I read about the release of this record in 'Rolling Stone' magazine, a copy of which I picked up in the old central bus station in Rehovot whilst waiting for a bus to take me to my kibbutz. I think that I was surprised at reading this as I had the impression by the time of my emigration in September 1978 that the Thompsons had seemed to have given up music. I wasn't to know that around the same time, Joe Boyd convinced Richard to contribute on a record fronted by Julie Covington (who was a hot name that year, having sung the lead part in 'Evita') and then continue to record a duo album with Linda, backed by some of the musicians who also contributed to Covington's record.

In those days, there was no possibility (or maybe I never considered the possibility) of purchasing the record in Israel. There would have been no local pressing and there were few specialist record shops in Israel which would have stocked an imported copy of an obscure British act. I had to wait a few months until my father came to visit me, bringing with him the record.

Unlike most of the Thompson genre, this record is heavily produced, but I think that the production actually helps some of the songs. From what I have read, I seem to hold a minority point of view regarding the production. There are several songs which have made their way onto the Thompson compilation stored on my mp3 player so I hear them frequently. It's very interesting to hear 'Died for love', along with its many instrumental parts (recalling the coda to 'When I get to the border'); it's even more interesting (at least, to me) to consider how the American rhythm section (Willie Weeks, Andy Newmark and Neil Larson) handle what sounds like classic British folk rock.

Years later I was able to identify the oboe played on 'Strange affair'; at the time, I thought that it was the guitar synthesizer that Richard was credited with as playing. Of course, this track went on to become the title of a DCI Banks novel (which was very good).

How not to display data in graphs

A few months ago, I wrote about how I discovered a website which helps people to communicate with numbers - although most of the time, the site gives examples of how not to communicate. I wrote that I came across an example of a graph whose bars had no relationship whatsoever with the data that they represented.

Finally that graph has been published here along with a few other examples of how not to display data in graphs. Fittingly, the graph was published on 1st April.