Road 38 is brought into the 21th century!

Until about six years ago, every morning I would drive out of the kibbutz gates at about 6:45 am, continue about 1 km to the junction between our side road and Road 38, and then take my chances with the heavy traffic for about 3.5 km until I got to the turn off which leads to the industrial region where my factory is situated. Even at this early hour, the road would be congested; there was one place where three lanes of traffic converge into one, which was always a bottleneck. Although I could alleviate this somewhat by driving on the road's shoulder (after all, I am riding a motorbike), the ride was seriously unpleasant. The turn off to the industrial region was to the left, meaning that I had to wait for a break in the opposing traffic before turning - another surge of adrenaline and probably cortisone. Coming back was slightly easier, as the two left turns had now become right turns, but frequently I got caught by a train entering the station at about 16:40 (I had to negotiate two level crossings).

On 18/10/11 (I remember this date well because it was the day that Gil'ad Shalit was released from captivity), a back road was opened which meandered through areas set aside for new industrial areas, before connecting to an entrance to the regional school, which is very close to my house. I immediately adopted this route as no one else seemed to know about it. It was very quiet, shorter and generally stress-free. It also avoided the train. At the end of 2013, I wrote about this route, although neglected to add that a few months later, I discovered that I had indeed fractured my thumb. The surface of the road has gotten worse over the years and is now full of potholes and other things to avoid, which made the journey uncomfortable. One section - albeit only a few hundred metres - required extreme concentration.

Over the years, the industrial areas have filled out and traffic on the back road has gotten heavier. At the same time, huge improvements have been planned and implemented on Road 38. The final stage - as far was we were concerned - was completed on Thursday. This followed a few days of almost complete chaos and very heavy traffic on what should be a country lane.

On Thursday afternoon, I returned home on the new road: even better than before, there is now a turn-off before the one to the kibbutz, which connects to part of my previous route. Obviously the new road, but also the part of the old road which leads to the regional school is in good condition, so the journey was a pleasure. This morning I repeated the experience: barely another car did I see, and of course I was able to travel reasonably fast as I didn't have to dodge holes and whatever on the road.

I think that the journey has shortened slightly: it appears to be slightly less than the previous 4.5 km. I'll measure it again today. Fuel efficiency may also be increased, but the main thing is that the ride has ceased to be stress inducing, and is now invigorating.

I imagine that all other users of Road 38 are also very happy.

One second of fame

A few weeks ago, two youngsters from the kibbutz came into our flat with a strange request: they wanted to film us separately singing a phrase from a popular Israeli song, acapella. It took a few minutes for this to sink in, but eventually my wife was filmed singing one phrase, and I was filmed singing another. Afterwards, they explained that they were going to make a montage of all the people singing, so that there would be a complete song. The things people do to make publicity for our local pub (hangout of the under-thirties).

Yesterday everyone on the kibbutz was sent a message, saying that the film had been uploaded to YouTube. I tried watching it on my phone, but it was very difficult to make anything out. Today I watched it on my computer, of course looking out for myself. I can be found at about 1:51, in the middle; if you watch and see a cow in the middle, then go back a second and you will see me there, wearing a pale green shirt.

Here is my one second of fame.

Friend leaving work

I have always felt ambivalent about someone leaving 'the framework' - if it was the youth movement, the kibbutz or the company. Obviously, there have been many cases of people leaving which have not had any effect on me, and some cases where I have been pleased that the person has left, but there have been those cases where someone close to me has left.

A colleague - and one of my few personal friends at work - is leaving today, after 11 years. We have worked together closely during most of those years and I would like to think that we advanced the company a great deal. We complemented each other's talents and that synergy is what fueled the advances.

Naturally, I am ambivalent about his leaving: on the one hand, I understand that he has to do what is the correct thing for him (i.e. he has to put himself first). On the other hand, I fear that those who will replace him lack the knowledge and foresight to truly replace him, and so I don't want him to go. Obviously I wish him luck.

I don't know how I will feel in a month's time (or more): I suspect that there will be a lack of technical advance, which will be a shame, but is not particularly my problem. I also suspect that there will be a weakening of my ties to the company.

---

The new package of Theanine arrived yesterday; as I expected, I had very vivid dreams during the night, and today I've been yawning all the time (although this may also be due to a lack of general activity). Coincidentally or not, I was dreaming about going to Fairport's Cropredy Festival, which happens to start today. I have to admit that that most of the dream was quite different from the reality, although the general theme of the dream was about the festival. A real coincidence is that the music accompanying my morning walk came from The Albion Band's "Battle of the field" album, on which play three Fairporters. Not a total coincidence, but close enough.

Dealing with angry people shouting at me on the telephone

Unfortunately, I sometimes have to deal with angry people shouting at me on the telephone. I understand that their anger probably is due to frustration with Priority, when they are apparently unable to perform some function. I get the feeling that my usual reaction - that there is no real problem - only increases their frustration. Whilst I am good at solving problems in Priority, I am not so good at calming people down, and I tend to begin shouting back at them ... which solves nothing.

I often tell these people to send me an email, telling me what the problem is, along with full details. Sometimes this is sufficient, but frequently those who shout at me tend not to be able to write very well - which is why they phoned me in the first place.

I lack the tools to deal with these people on the phone. Should I let them rant at length until they get tired, and then ask a pertinent question? It is my experience that these people don't answer the question that I ask, but continue ranting.

Obviously, I had a case like this today. Someone (a Russian) called me, full of frustration, saying that he couldn't update a warehouse transfer. As I was in the middle of something when he called, I asked him to send me the number of the transfer. About ten minutes later, I received his email and checked the transfer: it was at a status which allows updates, and I even changed a few values to be certain that there was no other problem (I changed them back to their original values). I wrote and told him this. 

A few minutes later, he calls me back, even more enraged. I try to ask him something - more rage. I try to explain (not being very successful in holding back my own rage) that it would be better if I ask questions and try and help on the basis of the answers to those questions. He reluctantly agrees, but after I ask my next question, he continues ranting. I don't bother answering; I hang up - which should be inexcusable, but seems to be the only thing that I can do.

I then send another letter, explaining again that the transfer is editable, and that he should cite the part number which is giving him problems. I have yet to receive an answer (this was several hours ago). I would like to think that he tried to update the transfer and discover that he was able to, and so felt no need to communicate with me further. I should point out that this is someone with whom I have very little contact and is geographically remote from me.

It often happens that people say to me (calmly!) that they have a problem; when I talk them through whatever they are doing, the problem magically goes away. I call this the 'white coat syndrome', after the strange effect that a doctor's white coat has on patients' blood pressure. Practically, it comes down to paying more attention when doing something. But the frustration often causes less attention, which leads to more problems....

Again, my problem is how to calm these people down sufficiently in order to talk them through what needs to be done. I inflame their anger instead of dousing it. Maybe I would be better at this if I had more practice! I should ask someone to make angry phone calls to me every day ... but then of course, if the anger is faked, then my attempts to defuse the situation will be ignored.

Theanine again

I have written a few times about the food supplement theanine. What I apparently have not mentioned is that I have been buying it from the online shop iHerb, along with stinging nettle tea, mint chocolate and peanut butter. Normally this shop supplies orders very quickly, but my last order - from the end of May - went missing. After waiting and waiting and waiting, I eventually got in contact with the shop and told them about the non-delivery; they credited me with the cost. Of course, a week later, the small parcel turned up! In the interim, I have bought stinging nettle tea from the local health shop (who didn't stock it for several months) and so don't feel any burning need to order anything from iHerb.

I have run out of theanine and have yet to re-order; I have been wondering for some time whether I would feel any effects of not taking this supplement. Based on my experiences of the past few days, theanine definitely makes a difference. I wrote ten months ago I've noticed that during my morning walk with the dog, I have lost the feeling of despondency which used to accompany me - this is the anti-anxiety aspect of theanine working. I wouldn't describe my current feeling as despondent, but I have definitely been feeling stressed out in the past few days and under a great deal of pressure. Little things - like the wording of some people's emails - are enough to annoy me, with that feeling persisting for several hours.

So it would seem that I definitely need theanine! 

I wonder whether I should increase the daily intake from 150mg to 200mg. The picture above shows what I have been buying until now; this has a good balance between price per capsule and number of capsules (the fewer the capsules, the more frequently I have to order thus paying more shipping costs). All of the other options show only 60 capsules per bottle, which means ordering once every two months.  I think I will 'splash out' and buy a bottle with 120 capsules, each containing 200mg - then I won't have to order for four months. This would definitely be cheaper than buying two bottles of 60 capsules of 200mg. I may be concerned about my health but I'm also concerned about my pocket.

Donating blood (3)

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Mobile CPAP

This is more of a memo to myself for future reference rather than recording an experience.

I saw today in the paper an advert for a mobile CPAP machine. It's strange that I even noticed this as normally I skip over all the adverts without looking at them. The machine is a Transcend EZEX miniCPAP™ machine, which apparently is only slightly larger than a soft drink can. In America, one can purchase it for $480, whereas in Israel it would cost 4900 NIS - a ridiculous rate of exchange! On the other hand, medical insurance would pay 75% of the cost, meaning that I would have to pay 1225 NIS, which is about $300. 

This machine is meant for people who travel around and don't have access to electricity (it can run either from the mains or from an internal battery). I don't go on camping trips so this is not an advantage for me. The only reason that I can think of for buying this machine is that I don't have to take my heavy and bulky machine with me when I go on holiday. If I were to fly low-cost to Naples for a weekend in Sorrento (EasyJet are now adding such flights) or even to Edinburgh, then I wouldn't have to sacrifice space and weight for the machine - I could just pop this in my pocket. Of course, the hose is still the same size.

Reviews are mixed. It would be good as a spare machine if I traveled more. At the moment, this doesn't sound like a good argument. Also, medical insurance would only pay for one machine and I don't think that I would want this as my sole support of night time breathing.

Sing Street (2) - A few more observations

A few more observations which I forgot the first time around.

As the excellent quality of the music irks me, so does the fact that the group's videos are supposedly filmed with a hand-held super 8 camera (such devices are hard to find now). Hand-held - but no shaking; edits - exactly how are they achieved? Too much nit-picking on my behalf.

The excellent tv tropes site lists one of its tropes "Gilligan cut" as basically when someone says that they're not going to do something, and then the next moment shows them do exactly what they said they wouldn't do. There are two nice examples in the film, which strangely enough to not appear on the tropes page for this film: at the beginning when Conor meets Eamon, they're having tea but decide to move to the shed for further discussion. Eamon's mother says "Remember: no smoking", and Eamon says that he's told her that he doesn't smoke. Cut to shed, where Eamon, Damon and Conor are all puffing away. 

There's an almost Gilligan cut later on when Conor shows Eamon an A4 sheet advertising the end-of-term dance, with 'DJ and Lights'. "We could do a short set", says Conor. Eamon disagrees, mentioning that he has to revise for exams. "Will there be girls?", he asks. Conor say yes, then Eamon says "Then we're playing". Cut to exam room: all six members of the group, along with Barry, their nemesis, appear to be totally lost when they see the exam paper.

With regard to smoking, the first half has almost everybody in the film smoking, although this tapers off towards the end. But strangely for this kind of Irish film, nobody swears (except for exactly one example)! The Commitments swear more than they smoke, and they smoke more than they drink.

I really enjoy this film when I allow myself to let reality slip a little.

Final trivia: as noted before, the group is named after a pun on the name of the school they attend which is named after Irish playwright J. M. Synge. Quote: Walsh-Peelo's [Conor] father attended the actual Christian Brothers School on Synge Street, as did creator John Carney. To fully square the circle, the real school was used as a film location. Carney has stated that he needed to get it as it's too famous in Ireland to believably double.

Sing Street

Several years ago, I saw the film 'Once', directed by John Carney: I found it enjoyable and very realistic. To quote the very short description on IMDB, "A modern-day musical about a busker and an immigrant and their eventful week in Dublin, as they write, rehearse and record songs that tell their love story". Apart from anything else, the film stars Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, otherwise known as The Swell Season. A song from the film, "Falling slowly" won the Oscar for best song! I don't think it's that good, but never mind. I wrote about the film here.

A few years ago, I turned on the television and saw a film which had already started; the first line which I heard was something about Randy Newman. Of course, I had to watch the rest of the film then record it properly when it was shown again. This was 'Begin again', directed by John Carney: I found this also very enjoyable but slightly less realistic. "A chance encounter between a disgraced music-business executive and a young singer-songwriter, new to Manhattan, turns into a promising collaboration between the two talents". This film presumably had a much larger budget as it features 'name' actors such as Mark Ruffalo (the music producer), Keira Knightley (the songwriter - she doesn't consider herself a performer at first), Catherine Keeler, James Corden and Hailee Steinfeld. I don't seem to have written about this film before [Edit from a few years later: actually I did mention this film two years prior to this blog].

A few days ago, I was perusing the listings for what is to be shown on television (after missing the beginning of an interesting film, 'God help the girl') and discovered that a new film by John Carney would be shown. In Hebrew, it's called something like 'The 80s club', but its real name is 'Sing Street'. Once again quoting IMDB, "A boy growing up in Dublin during the 1980s escapes his strained family life by starting a band to impress the mysterious girl he likes". Once again, enjoyable, but the least realistic of all three films. Six teenagers - supposedly aged 14-15 - get together to form a band with the eponymous name, which is actually a pun on the name of the school they attend - Synge Street. Some of them look their (onscreen) age whereas some ... don't. The 'mysterious' girl is supposed to be 16 (the actress was born in 1994 - and is actually American! - so she would have been about 20 when filming); sometimes she looks that age and sometimes looks much older. The little guy with carrot coloured hair on the far right of the picture below was born in 2000, so he was playing his own age.

Apart from the various anachronisms pointed out at IMDB (which don't really distract from the film), what really irks me is the quality of the songs that this group produce, in terms of both songwriting and performance. 'They' are really good and hold their own against 'real' songs which appear on the soundtrack (Duran Duran, The Cure, Hall and Oates, Joe Jackson) - totally unrealistic. No feedback, no missed cues, no out of time playing (although their very first recording has an appropriate and bad ending), everything mixed perfectly. The film takes place in about 1984/5, and the recordings are supposedly made with a simple cassette recorder! In 1974, I had a stereo tape deck with external microphones which could record better, but there were still plenty of extraneous noises.

The lead character (Conor) is somewhat chameleon-like, changing appearance to match whomever he is listening to at the time (there's one sequence where he starts looking like Robert Smith of The Cure). In the above picture, he's the one looking like Dracula, naturally at the front. The Lennon to this character's McCartney is called Eamon: he looks like John Lennon probably looked thirty years earlier although musically he's McCartney (plays many instruments). Actually, he looks more like Robert Fripp would have looked like when RF was 15 (blue suit, standing to the left of the girl).

Guitar corner

We've seen this corner of the music room before, but that was before the 12 string guitar was hung on the wall. Left to right  are the Ovation Applause, Washburn HB-25 and Fender 12-string. Actually there is a fourth guitar in this picture: below the Ovation is a picture of me playing my first good guitar (bought in Cardiff, 1973). Judging by the length and colour of my hair, this picture was taken in the early 1990s, but I can't be sure.

The piece of wood attached to the wall underneath the 12 string is a fold-up shelf on which can be placed my laptop computer: ideal for recording.

I have noticed that several photos which I have taken with my mobile phone indoors have strange colouring; this picture originally wasn't too bad (the white wall came out bluish), but one picture which I took in Rodos seemed entirely black. I use a comparatively simple program called IrfanView as a picture editor: this has a function called 'auto adjust colors' which radically improves these pictures. I don't know on what basis the colours are adjusted, but the final results are very good and are much closer to what the eye sees in the original scene.

Sleeping in the ground

Whilst mooching around the Kindle store, buying the book about "Rubber soul", I checked whether the new Peter Robinson book was available. Indeed it is, so I swiftly downloaded it and began reading.

As has been his habit over the past few years, Peter Robinson's latest book, "Sleeping in the ground", is named after a song - in this case, by Blind Faith. There seems to be no connection whatsoever between the song and the novel.*

A very brief description of the beginning (not written by me): It's a beautiful day for a wedding. But suddenly shots are fired and both wedding party members as well as guests are left dead and bleeding. It takes the police as well as emergency vehicles longer than normal to get to the dying, bleeding and wounded. By the time they do ... the shooter is gone ... there is no sign of him anywhere. Inspector Banks ... on his way home from a funeral ... ends up at the crime scene where there is confusion as well as chaos. No one has seen any sign of the shooter except perhaps a youth staying at a hostel. But a conversation with him leads Inspector Banks and his team nowhere. Please, no longer Inspector Banks (that should be Chief Inspector) but rather Superintendent Banks.

I don't want to write about the story very much, for fear of giving away the plot and whatever surprises it holds. Instead, I'll write about the cast. DS Winsome Jackson is 'disposed' of, right from the start: she's one of the people who are shot at the wedding, but not seriously injured. She goes home to Jamaica to recover and so doesn't really appear in the novel. Annie Cabbot appears but doesn't get much internal dialogue, if at all. Alan Banks has plenty of internal dialogue, but it's about an old girl-friend who, to the best of my knowledge, has never been referenced in any of the books. His poet friend from the last book, Linda Palmer, makes only a brief appearance [I didn't notice this before, but Linda Palmer is the name a good friend of mine used during her first marriage]. 

One interesting character is Ray Cabbot, Annie's father, who has decided to move to the area and buy a cottage. He stays with Alan Banks, as Annie's cottage is very small. He doesn't really add anything to the story, but makes the background more interesting. If anything, he functions more like Alan's wife, preparing food which other characters then eat. There is some reference to his artistic ability (in fact, he makes a key drawing, saving a police artist from doing so), but he could easily have been dropped from the book.

Psychologist Jenny Fuller returns: she appeared in many of the early books, providing extra-marital temptation for Alan Banks (which is never fulfilled). I don't remember exactly when she disappeared from the cast, but I think it was shortly after Annie appeared. Temptation once again rears its ugly head, but it seems that this time Banks and Fuller are prepared to let bygones be bygones and not get involved. A few senior superintendents also make appearances but they are peripheral to the story.

The star this time is DC Gerry Masterson, who makes most of the running. The final chapters belong to her, she has most of the insights and even delivers a briefing. She also betrays her inexperience in a similar manner to Winsome in "Abattoir Blues". One description of her reveals a new fact: she's six foot tall. I don't remember her height being mentioned in any of her earlier appearances.

It's a good book but not outstanding. Most of the time the police are wandering about, unable to find any lead to whoever the shooter is. After a great deal of patience and some good ideas, they finally get some leads, and only then does the pace escalate. So I suppose one needs a great deal of patience to read this book. Faint but damning praise.

There's a mention of a girl singing Richard Thompson's "Farewell, farewell" in memory of those killed at the wedding; Sandy Denny is referenced. Otherwise, all of the music seems to be classical (certainly no Blind Faith, despite the presence of Ray).

I admit that I am sorely tempted to create a chart of which characters appear in which books, but that won't help me appreciate the series any more than I currently do.

* [Edit from 17/06/23] Blind Faith played this song at their Hyde Park concert; it is a generic 12 bar blues, a 12/8 shuffle, the sort of music that turns me off.
I have created a database program for charting which characters appear in which books but this entails rereading all the books.

[End of edit]

This Bird Has Flown: The Enduring Beauty of Rubber Soul

A few years ago, I bought from the Kindle Store a book about the Beatles' album, "Revolver" ("Revolver: how the Beatles re-imagined Rock'n'Roll", by Robert Rodrigues). The book is divided into three parts: a description of the period into which "Revolver" was introduced, descriptions of all the songs (including the 'scoop' that the bass on "She said, she said" was played by George Harrison after Paul McCartney walked out of the session) and the reaction to "Revolver". I found this book fascinating as it contained many details which aren't in any of my other Beatles books.

On this basis, it is easy to understand why I ordered the book "This bird has flown" yesterday after I came across it on the Internet, looking at the Wiki entry for "Norwegian Wood" (which is a song which I have been playing frequently in the past few days with my new 12-string guitar). As always, I am amazed at the speed and ease of buying a book for the Kindle. The book cost $10.99, which is quite expensive for what might be considered a vanity book.

I read about half of the book yesterday and gave up in frustration: instead of the neat ordering of the "Revolver" book and the critical facilities displayed by its author, this one was all over the place. There is confusion as to whether the book is referencing the British or American versions of "Rubber Soul" (probably both); there is very little about the period preceding "Rubber Soul", but there are all kinds of references to events which happened much later (for example, the sniping between Lennon and McCartney at the time of the latter's "Ram" album). 

It seems that there is very little about "Rubber Soul" itself, but rather a hodge-podge consisting of well-known facts and lesser known suppositions about the Beatles. Descriptions and writings about the songs themselves - which is why I bought the book - are conspicuously lacking, being replaced by other material (for example, why Eric Clapton plays on "Why my guitar gently weeps").

I cannot recommend this book to anyone. So why did I buy it? Because the preface - which is available for reading on the Amazon site - seemed reasonably interesting. I will be posting a negative review there in the next few days.

Back to the beginning

After a long period of waiting, it has been decided by the powers that be that I have to be returned to the beginning of the DBA process. Obviously I don't have to resit exams, but I do have to submit a research proposal, have it accepted, then submit an intermediate submission etc. I am not very happy about this although I can understand the reasons for this decision. 

As I've already done a fair amount of the work required for the intermediate submission in April, it wasn't too difficult to sit down for a few hours and take what is needed in order to create a research proposal. I went over it very closely a few times today, deleting material which is irrelevant and rearranging what is not. I imagine that I will be assigned a new mentor for the research proposal (my previous mentor is probably sick and tired of me) and then hopefully I can submit the proposal within a few weeks.

One used to be able to see when the research committee meetings are, but the university's website appears to have been redesigned and I can't find that information. It will be my luck to have the proposal in a form ready for submission only to discover that I have to wait another six weeks. Actually, that isn't very likely to happen as the mentor will tell me when the next committee will be.

Just to recap, here is the abstract. Existing literature shows that there are gaps between the standard functionality provided by Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems and the specific functionality required by implementing organisations. These gaps, known as misfits, are closed by means of enhancements – changes enabled in the system beyond the initial implementation configuration. As business is dynamic, the longer a company is in the post-implementation phase, the greater the need for further enhancements which were not envisaged during the initial implementation. These enhancements can vary in complexity from innovative uses of existing functionality through to the addition of complete, bespoke, modules. Each enhancement should produce a benefit which can ultimately be translated into monetary savings. This research is aimed at Small/Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and is restricted to those using the Priority ERP system. This research utilises the case study approach, being based on interviews with managers and users from multiple companies.

12 string guitar: the basics

In conversation with my family, I realised that they don't know what a 12 string guitar is and what makes it special. On this basis, I imagine that most of my readership doesn't know either, so I have decided to write a few words of explanation.

A regular six string guitar with standard tuning is tuned (from bottom to top) E - A - D - G - B - E. Apart from the G-B gap, all the strings are tuned in fourths. Questions have been asked on the Internet as to why the intervals are fourths, except for one; the explanation seems to be that this tuning was settled on after decades of trials, as it allows for the easy formation of chords. Tuning the top two strings a semitone higher (thus preserving intervals of fourths over the entire guitar) apparently makes for very difficult chord shapes. A bass guitar has only four strings: these are tuned as the same as the bottom four strings on a guitar but an octave lower.

Since the early 1960s, people have experimented with alternative tunings, such as 'DADGAD', dropped D and open G (Keith Richards). Robert Fripp developed a 'new standard tuning' which is fifths. Joni Mitchell rarely played in standard tuning (as a side effect of the polio from which she suffered as a child) and so developed special tunings: almost every one of her songs has a different tuning.

A mandolin has eight strings: two 'courses' of four strings, which are tuned (from bottom to top) G - D - A - E, which are intervals of fifths. Each string is doubled, which gives the mandolin its special sound; frequently the two strings for each note are slightly out of tune, which gives a chorus effect. One of the bazoukis which I was shown in Rodos has six strings, two courses of three, tuned A - D - A.

After that lengthy introduction, we can now turn to the twelve string guitar. Like the mandolin and the bazouki, this guitar has its strings doubled (that's why there are twelve strings and not six). But instead of tuning the strings in unison (mandolin and bazouki), the bottom four strings are tuned in octaves (the top two are in unison). This is what gives the twelve string its characteristic sound, and is why I wrote yesterday that I will have to learn how to play single note parts on the lower strings.

Where can the twelve string be heard? As a child of the 60s, I instinctively think of the "A Hard Day's Night" album, where George Harrison can clearly be heard  playing a twelve string. The nascent Byrds saw the film and heard the music; they turned the twelve string into the dominant sound of their earlier songs. The first line up of Genesis used acoustic twelve strings. Apparently Tom Petty uses a twelve string guitar but I am not familiar with his work. Fairport used a twelve string occasionally, played by Simon Nicol: the opening riff on "Come all ye" and "Run, Johnny, Run" spring to mind. In fact, Simon used to claim that the reason that he was asked to join Fairport in 1967 was that he had a twelve string guitar!

The deed is done (12 string guitar)

The deed is done, the purchase has been made. After a few months of dreaming and a few weeks of planning, the stars aligned, allowing us to drive to the guitar shop near Modi'in (about half an hour away) and purchase the Fender CD-160SE 12-String V-2 which we saw at the end of May. 

As opposed to last time, I played the guitar for quite some time, and discovered that this guitar requires a different technique from what I am used to. Whilst the guitar is very comfortable, it's hard on the left hand, pressing on all the strings. My right hand technique also has to change: I would like to finger-pick, but that doesn't work too well; it's easier with a plectrum. The problem is to pick the first string of each pair, which is the octave string; this way, one achieves the characteristic sound of the 12 string. And finally: for solo note playing (lead guitar), it is better to concentrate on the lower four strings (which have the octaves) as opposed to the top two strings (which are in unison).

I have been reading and listening about the 12 string over the past few weeks, getting prepared - which is why the first thing that I played was the riff to the Byrds' version of 'Mr Tambourine Man'. Apparently McGuinn's 12-string was recorded with compression (there's also a story about Steven Still's guitar being compressed for the CS&N record) so I was interested in hearing what this actually sounds like. To be honest, there didn't seem to be much of a difference, except for a strange sounding attack, so I decided not to buy a compression pedal.

I took along my Dia violin bass as this requires repair work. The shop salesman (Adam) took the bass and played happily for several minutes: as opposed to my previous attempts, the electrics worked, although at the end we discovered that there is indeed a loose wire inside which causes the pickups to disconnect intermittently. Adam was very taken with the bass - especially the dampener - and said that he was prepared to buy it; my wife refused politely. As I may have written before, part of the binding is missing and so the back of the bass is separating from the body. Although I had been told that the shop takes repair work, it transpires that they handle only goods which have been purchased from the shop. I was given the address of a luthier in Tel Aviv; I will try and send him pictures via email or WhatsApp before going there, as it may well be that the cost of repair is more than the guitar is worth.

It turns out that the owner of the shop knew us: he spent time on our previous kibbutz in the mid-80s as part of his army service. He also knows the person who gave me the bass during that time. His knowing us (or having known us) may have suggested to him to discount the price - or throw in a freebee.

I took the opportunity to try out a few other, iconic, guitars which were in easy reach of where I was sitting. Behind me on a stand was a stratocaster (barely visible in the photograph on the right hand side); I found this quite difficult to play, although of course I am an acoustic guitarist who plays primarily rhythm. I also tried out the telecaster (just above my right elbow in the picture): I have always belittled this guitar, partially because of its look and partially because everyone seems to play it (in other words, non-professional reasons). When I picked it up, I was surprised at its light weight, and as opposed to the strat, it was very comfortable to play. I can now understand its ubiquity. 

I also picked up the Gibson SG (directly above my head in the picture) and showed it to my wife, asking if it looked familiar. She recognised that I have a copy of this guitar in the music room, and asked how it could be that guitar makers can produce a blatant copy of an expensive guitar. I don't know whether the penny has dropped about the bass guitar and Paul McCartney's iconic Hofner violin bass, but then, she isn't interested in guitars.

The bottom line of these last two paragraphs is that most electric guitars don't feel comfortable in my hands - although I wouldn't refuse the tele - and so I don't have any intentions of buying any more guitars. Just as well as there is no free wall space!

Room hiring service design

Giving a small glance into one facet of the work which I perform, I was approached to design a database for a room hiring service, to be implemented in Priority. At first glance, this appears to be the same as a hotel management system: there are rooms which are booked from date until date, each room with its own price. This is fairly standard, although the date handling can be tricky. But what makes this system stand out is the fact that whilst some rooms are 'private', other rooms are 'communal' - a big room could hold fifty workstations, where someone can hire a workstation for a few days. Thus an order for such a workstation would leave the room 'vacant', and other people can hire a workstation in the same room for the same dates. A field will need to be added to the 'parts' table to represent this (1 would indicate 'private', whereas any other value would indicate the number of workstations in the room).

Based on the constraint that the implementation will be in Priority (which simplifies certain things but forces one to work within the framework of Priority), my first decision is that 'each room is a part'. This allows us to use the standard 'orders' screen in Priority, along with the 'order items' screen. Let's see what functionality exists, what has to be added, and where there are problems.

Assuming that there is a part with catalogue number 'ROOM01', a customer can hire this room, stating the period during which the room is to be hired. The 'orderitems' table has a field called duedate, which can represent the date the room is to be vacated, but a field has to be added to represent the starting date (it's definitely not equal to the date the order is opened!). Checking whether the room is vacant during this period is not as easy as it sounds. One approach would be to check whether there exists a record in the orderitems table for this room which straddles the starting date - if there is such a record, then the room cannot be hired. If the starting date is free, then the vacating date has to be checked in the same manner. Unfortunately this check would ignore the possibility that the room has been ordered for a smaller period, falling between the start and end date of this request. I'll leave this aside for the moment.

The room has its default price, so the total price for this line would be this default price times the number of days, which would be 1 + (the leaving date less the arrival date). The number of days would be stored in the quantity field, allowing the total price to be calculated automatically. This last statement implies that the quantity field should be read-only, which is not the case of the standard order items screen.

Priority does not allow fields to be set as read-only at run time, dependent on other fields. While the status of this field could be set in advance, it will be problematic if the user wants to use this screen to insert customer orders for items which are not rooms. As this standard capability should be left as it is, I am tending to suggest that a customised order items screen be used for room ordering, which implies that the order should have a specific type: an error message will be displayed if the user tries to enter the standard order items screen when the order type is 'Rooms', and vice versa.

The owners want to have a daily price, a weekly price and a monthly price. Priority allows multiple prices for the same part, based on a minimum quantity, so three rows can be entered for each part, with prices for quantity 1 (e.g. $50), 8 ($45) and 29 ($40). The appropriate price will appear automatically in the order line dependent on the number of days. Whilst this seems very good, there are two overwhelming problems with it, one internal and one external. The external problem can be phrased as 'what about weekends?' - how many days is it if one orders a room for two weeks? Is this from Monday 17 July 2017 until Friday 28 July 2017? What about the weekend 22-23 July? Is a week seven days or five days? Maybe some people work on Saturdays but not on Sundays. I call this an external problem because its solution is not dependent on Priority per se, but rather a management issue. Weekends can be handled by a series of flags, which will reduce the number of days, but this is messy.

The internal problem is that all the above relates to a room as if it is a whole, and not a room with workstations which can be hired separately. This relates to the quantity: how would a order show that the customer wants to rent 2 workstations for 5 days? The first solution appears to be separating the number of days from the quantity: if the room is defined as 'single hire' (and this has to be added somehow to the parts table), then the quantity will be 1, whereas if the room is defined as 'multiple hire', then the quantity will be however many workstations are required. The mechanism which calculates the total price will have to be amended (it's good that a customised screen will be used!) to calculate 'number of workstations' times 'number of days' times 'default price'. Unfortunately, this means that the multiple prices entered into the price list will not work, as the quantity is the number of workstations and not days.

I think that it would be better not to use the standard price list mechanism, but instead use a discounting system, which would state provide a discount per number of hiring days, for example 5% discount for a minimum hire of 8 days and 10% for a minimum hire of 29 days. This system can be implemented at three different levels: on a global basis (all rooms have the same discount policy); on a 'room type' basis (all rooms of a given type have the same policy), or each room has its own policy. The discount - by whatever means it is calculated - would be inserted into the discount field of the order line. So now the total price for a given room would be: 'number of workstations' times 'number of days' times 'room price' times (100 less discount) times 0.01. Management will have to decide at which level the discounting system will work - probably all three!

Although theoretically a check should be made whilst booking a workstation that there is a free workstation within the room during the given period, I have been told to ignore this possibility. Management is happy to rent 120 workstations a day in a room which holds only 100 workstations. Fortunately, in the first paragraph of this blog, I mentioned the need to add a field to the 'parts' table which allows differentiation between 'single' and 'multiple' hires, so this field would be checked prior to the complicated vacancy check, which is to follow.

Here is the vacancy check problem: someone wants to book ROOM01 for the period 17 - 28 July (this room is a 'single' hire). As it happens, someone has already booked this room for the period 19 - 25 July. How does the program 'see' that the room is unavailable and that the request has to be denied? A naive way of doing this is as follows: after a room has been successfully booked, a series of entries is made into a 'booked room' table, where each row has a room and a date. Thus given the above, this table would have the following entries

Room number	Date
Room01	19/07/17
Room01	20/07/17
Room01	21/07/17
Room01	22/07/17
Room01	23/07/17
Room01	24/07/17
Room01	25/07/17

The check would start from the day before the first required date (16 July) in a loop as follows (the flag has to be set initially to 'failure'):

1. increment date
2. if there is an entry for this date and room in the 'booked room' table, then go to label 99
3. loop until the current date is the same as the vacating date (28 July)
4. set flag to 'success'
5. label 99

Whilst this solution would work, it requires inserting values into a table, which is going to grow indefinitely. This table is not really needed, as the dates already exist in the order items table, which looks as follows

Room number	From date	Till date
Room01	19/07/17	25/07/17

The only difference between the code needed for these data as opposed to the earlier data is the second step, which would have to check whether the current date is in any given range. There is no particular advantage in this checking code, but the requirement to build the 'booked room' table has been obviated: a very big saving!

Maybe you want to be a bass guitarist when you grow up?

Before we went to Rodos, Shaked (the grand-daughter) was taking her first hesitant steps, but now she's walking further and longer. Her parents have yet to buy her shoes. She'll be celebrating 14 months in a few days for those who are interested in calibrating her progress.

One side effect of her walking is that there are fewer still pictures of her; these days she gets filmed walking and it's not so easy (nor interesting) to upload such video. 

The bass in the picture is very interesting: it's obviously a copy of a Hofner violin bass, but there are a few noticeable differences. The Hofner does not have f-holes whereas this bass does; the Hofner has its controls mounted on a plate whereas this one doesn't. The most intriguing modification is the bridge; there's a lever on the top (left hand) side of the bridge (it is barely visible here) which when depressed will damp the strings. All of the hits returned for 'guitar string dampener' show something which is connected to the neck, not to the bridge. I can't imagine what this system is meant to do.

The bass was made by a company called Dia, of which I have never heard. I've tried searching for this company but have not made any headway. I doubt whether the bass is worth very much, but even so, this morning I wrote to a vintage guitar site, enclosing a picture of the bass and asking whether they have any information. 

It can't be seen in the picture, but the bass needs a little work: there's a place on the back where there is no binding, and so the back has parted company slightly with the body. I tried playing the bass through an amplifier a few days ago and the sound was very crackly, so the electrics should be looked at. Mind you, this bass has been in storage since about 1983, when someone gave it to me.

Hidden screens and permissions

A few days ago, I wrote a procedure which invokes a screen (form) from which data is collected, then handled in later stages of the procedure. I wrote about something similar here; this time, there was no need to define a file parameter. The twist this time is that the form has a sub-form from which the data is collected. It took me a while to wrap my head around this, but eventually I figured out how to make the form do what I wanted it to do.

Flushed with success, I added the procedure to menu A (this allowing other people to use it) and told a colleague where to find it. The colleague telephoned me in short order, saying that he could see the top-level form, but not the sub-form. As the sub-form is key to the procedure, this was quite a blow.

Normally it is enough that a person has permission to run a procedure; that permission will cover everything included in the procedure. Apparently not so in this case. The problem was originally solved by adding the top-level form to menu B and giving the user permission to use it; this is not ideal, but isn't too bad as for reasons which are not relevant, running the form outside of the procedure does nothing.

Still, the permission problem bugged me. The consultants who support my company came up with an idea: don't change any permissions, but instead remove the form  from menu B. This way, the permissions table might be tricked into keeping the permission. And indeed this works. Strange but true.

Good days for insights

Good days for insights have nothing to do with stunning breakthroughs or grand victories. The key turns out to be having small wins — minor innovations and troubling problems solved — on concrete steps toward a larger goal. Creative insights flow best when people have clear goals but also freedom in how they reach them.

From "Focus - The hidden driver of excellence", by Daniel Goleman, 2013. I have changed the tense of the quoted text from the past ('Good days for insights had nothing') to the present, as it reads better, in my opinion.

Bumpers

Following my attempts at finding songs which I loved as a youth, I turned my attention to the third Island Records sampler, 'Bumpers', which was released towards the end of 1970. Almost all of the acts who appeared on 'Nice enough to eat' returned to this album, but as several acts had spawned offspring, Island now had enough acts to fill a double album. I was familiar with most of the groups who appeared here, but there were some curiosities which I enjoyed but never followed up on (probably because of budgetary reasons although also as these groups didn't perform in Bristol and I was turning towards folk music).

Whilst researching this blog entry, I came across someone else's blog which covers the entire double album, giving a certain amount of information about every track along with lyrics. There wasn't much information which was new to me, but it's always interesting to read another take on the same record. The collected lyrics are worthy. I remember that the Blodwyn Pig track had a different vocal mix to the one found on its parent album; this factoid is not mentioned.

The first song which I tracked down is "Island", by Renaissance; it quite amused me at the time that they had a song referencing their record company. This group also recorded a song called 'The sea', which possesses the same name as a song by Sandy Denny on the contemporary Fotheringay album: two different songs with the same name. I was able to find the entire album as well as various histories of this group: after their eponymous debut album from which this song is taken, the group split and the name laid dormant for a year or so until another line-up formed and eventually became quite successful. I've been listening on and off to the album over the past few weeks but can't say that I find it compelling.

The other track which caught my interest was "Reaching out on all sides" by jazz-rock group If. The riff of this song stuck in my memory and I often used to play it in order to check the tuning of my guitar. It took me many years to realise that the riff is in 7/4 time. Youtube has the entire album available; again, after listening to it on and off for some weeks, this opening track is the only one which I like to hear. This is a masterpiece of dynamics: maintaining the 7/4 rhythm throughout, the arrangement moves though various sections, highlighting different instruments in the group.

The Bumpers blog contains the following description of the song (which is attributed to Jim Newsom; I read it elsewhere on the Internet but can't find the original at the moment): The song opens quietly, a lone guitar playing a gentle, bluesy intro that becomes a repeating riff in 7/4 time. Hodkinson's vocal arrives, with the first couple of verses accompanied only by the electric guitar floating atop barely audible organ chords. The saxophones appear playing a complementary pattern as the bass guitar and drums sneak into the mix. The song builds for a couple of minutes, the odd-metered rhythm becoming more insistent. Then the guitarist's riff turns into a sizzling two-minute solo flight over smoldering organ, bass and drums. When the horns reemerge to resume their earlier pattern, vocalist Hodkinson returns to take the song to its lyrical climax. Saxophones, organ and guitar build to a climax, until guitarist Smith is left alone for the denouement. I especially like the short passage between the second and third verses.

So, in retrospect, it's just as well that I didn't follow up on these songs then as I wouldn't have enjoyed their parent albums.

Bonus material: I was listening to 'Reaching out on all sides' whilst writing this. When it finished, Youtube then played a song called 'Listen' by Chicago. I have no recollection whatsoever of ever having heard this song, although I do recall that someone at my youth club had a copy of their first album (when they were still called 'Chicago Transit Authority'). The bass line of this song is identical to the tune of a very early song of mine, which was never written down. Did I 'quote' this bass line? I have no idea.

Business rules with functions (2)

I wrote a few months ago about an undocumented way to write complex business rules in Priority. Whilst I was copy editing my thesis again this morning, finding a few errors, I had a minor epiphany when reading the section about form triggers. I have always believed that it is not possible to write a business rule which compares two fields in the form (e.g. display an error message when the production date of a customer order is greater than the date that the customer wants to receive the order) and so have always handled such cases with a trigger.

This morning it occurred to me that it is possible to write a business rule which will compare two fields. In my previous blog, I showed an example which can be read as "Display an error message if the value in the 'towarhsname' field differs from the expression (:$.TOWARHSNAME IN ('23', '999') ? :$.TOWARHSNAME : '!!!'). Ignoring the technical aspects of this, I was using the same variable name in the expression as in the rule part. This doesn't have to be so! It would be very easy to write a rule which states "Display an error message if the value in the 'promised customer date' is less than", with the expression being the screen name for the field containing the production date (:$.TEC_DUEDATE). 

From a meta-programming view, this is another case of being blinkered: originally I was concentrating on how to define a rule which checked two non-contiguous values of one field, that I never considered the possibility of defining a rule which compares two fields.

[SO: 4502; 5, 21, 43

MPP: 812; 1, 4, 6

ELL: 964; 0, 2, 7]

DVD recorder problems

According to the invoice which I found today, I purchased my current DVD recorder in 2011 - six years ago. The machine has done sterling service, recording myriad films and tv series. But a few days before we went on holiday, I started having problems with it: I would start recording something and after a minute, the machine would automatically start formatting what it had recorded. This is normally the sign of a bad disc, but after trying several non-consecutive blank discs, I came to the reluctant conclusion that maybe the recorder had reached the end of its life and that it needed to be replaced.

I tried looking for a dvd recorder in the electrical shops nearby but without any luck. The duty free electrical shop in the airport also didn't have one.

Today I turned the dvd machine back on, set it up for long play (maybe that was the problem) and tried to record something. There was no sound coming from the tv when fed from the dvd recorder, but at least the machine did not try to format the disc before time. When I played back what I had recorded, the picture was fine but the audio was one long screech. I put a prerecorded disc in the machine and played this back: again, the picture was fine but not the audio.

I then started disconnecting all the cables and reconnecting. This didn't help, but I did notice that for one cable, the RCA plug had left its male connector in the appropriate connector in the dvd machine. I tried to extract the piece of metal but with no luck. In the next few days, I'll disconnect the dvd machine totally, clean it up and shake it - hopefully the connector will fall out. I may even open the machine up and see whether I can push the connector out.

Failing that, I will have to take the machine to some laboratory for repairs, which is going to be a tedious experience.

Rodos log 6: The Jewish Quarter

I woke up early this morning, so I went for a walk through the old city, which as one can imagine, is deserted at 5:30 am. I was able to repeat some of the video shots which I tried to film a few days previously, which had been slightly ruined by the crowds. Later on, we set off for the Jewish Quarter which is towards the south east part of the city; I thought it would be easier to get there by walking around the city walls from the outside, then entering by the closest gate and walking to the area. This route allowed us to see empty streets which the average tourist does not see. The detailed map which I had was actually rather misleading, as the distances were much smaller in reality than they seemed on the map, so we actually overshot our target. Eventually we found the Kahal Shalom synagogue; I checked the opening times and discovered that we had arrived exactly five minutes before opening.

The synagogue is fairly small, but beautifully upkept. It was exceedingly sad to walk around the synagogue and the accompanying museum, as almost the entire Jewish community of Rodos (then numbering about 4,000 souls) was destroyed by the Nazis in April 1944. A few survivors managed to find their way back to Rodos, but now there are only a handful of Jews living there. We feel an obligation to visit sites of our heritage and honour those who were killed for no reason except their being Jewish. We bought a few items in the gift shop; these were more expensive than their counterparts elsewhere, but the profits go to maintaining the synagogue.

After leaving the synagogue, we were astounded to discover that we were less than 100 metres away from the cafe where we drank the infamous milkshake on the first day. This is another example of the map implying distances which are much less on the ground. Now we knew exactly where we were; we walked back to the seahorse fountain, which is also a Holocaust memorial, carried on a bit more to the fountain which is pictured here, then took the left turn - as opposed to how we entered last week. This was the bottom of Socratous Street; we had been at the top a few days previously.

As opposed to our previous visits to the old city, the streets were much less crowded, which made strolling in them much more palatable. When we remarked on this to a few stallholders, we were told that this is because today is Sunday, which is when many holiday makers return home, to be replaced by new ones. So there are fewer to walk around. Some shops don't bother opening on Sundays.

We stopped in a gift shop where we bought a wide selection of jams, soap, ouzo and sweets. The shop is called Natura Greca and the manager told me that one can order items (though not olive oil, jam or honey) from the website. We were attended to by a very nice sales assistant (well, she must be nice as she laughed at all my jokes) who no doubt steered my wife to spend a bit more than she intended. Thinking about it, there were several shop assistants available, which is not the normal practice. There was also a collection of items carved from olive wood, but these were quite expensive and we declined to buy any. I am sure that the goods on sale are available in one form or another at several other shops.

From there, we continued northwards, in effect taking our evening stroll from a few days ago in reverse. We stopped to talk to one of the stallholders, from whom we had bought linen and dresses for our grand-daughter.

The sharp of eye will have noticed that there is a day missing from this holiday log: yesterday we had nothing planned, which is just as well as we woke up late. This was partially due to the exertions of Symi and partially to the amount of noise (mainly the wind) that night, which made it difficult for me to fall asleep. The only action of note was going to have a massage at the Anesis massage wellness center, which is next to the Blue Sky hotel.

Rodos log 5: Symi

Today we upped anchor and sailed to Symi, an island 41 km north-northwest from Rhodes. Originally I had considered going there by commercial ferry but changed my mind and booked a trip with a tour operator. This would save hassle - especially as we would be picked up and returned to our regular pickup point at the Blue Sky hotel - but we also received the services of a tour guide, who explained to us no small amount of material.

The wiki article states that the island has become a haven for tourists from abroad, especially British and Italians, and is now the permanent home of about 120 non-Greek residents, some 50 of whom are British. The influx of tourists has led to the restoration of a great number of homes (many of which were destroyed during World War II); these restorations, by law, have to conform to "guidelines laid down by the Greek culture ministry's Archaeological Service." Between 1998 and 2006, it is estimated that the price of a "ruin" on Symi increased five-fold. The growing population of British and other expatriates has led to demographic as well as political changes, since EU citizens are allowed to vote in local elections and have attempted to exert influence on the island's politics. Opinions on whether this is a sign of growing integration differ. Our guide told a slightly different story: there is no new building, and as several rich Americans (including George Bush Jnr, if my ears heard correctly) have bought houses, housing prices have risen dramatically, making it very difficult for many locals to afford to live in Symi anymore. Apparently the average age of the town in 55! There are many houses which are unoccupied, due to the high cost of living.

There is a statue in the harbour, which according to our guide, is a tribute to a boy who in the 1950s tried to kill a shark who entered the harbour. This episode did not go well for the boy, and over-reacting, the government prohibited fishing. This was the major source of income for the island in those days, so the prohibition was very serious. The ban might have been expected to last a year or two, but apparently it lasted for 25 years, during which the skill of fishing had almost completely been lost.

As a result, the economy of the island was ruined, and now the only real source of income is tourism. In common with many Greek islands, there is no fresh water available on the island, meaning that almost all forms of agriculture are out. Aside from tourism, the islanders make some money from sponges and spices.

The harbour area is seriously gorgeous and the pictures don't really do justice: the italianate facades are beautiful. But aligned with this beauty is the sad story of the economy and the demographics - a population of 25,000 has dwindled to 2,500 in the summer, and virtually zero in the winter. There is one school with 250 pupils, from grades 1 to 12; as there are very few teachers, it often happens that a class is attended by 8 year olds along with 15 year olds.

After spending several hours in the eponymous town (and being gouged by the restaurant where we ate - the Aris Tavern), we set sail for the opposite end of the island in order to visit the Panormitis Monastery. For some reason, our guide disappeared (I saw him disembark but none of the English speakers found him on the promenade), so I don't know anything about this area. Again, there is a natural harbour, although less closed than the main one. The non-appearance of the guide had one advantage: I could go into the monastery and take pictures before anyone else. We were allocated an hour at this stop, although I was back on the boat after about 20 minutes.

From there, it was sailing back to Rhodos and a minibus to take us home. Very strong winds were blowing, which caused the waves to be very agitated on the west coast by the Blue Sky hotel: no evening swimming. We normally open windows in our little flat in order to allow ventilation and cooling from three directions, but the strong winds prevent this tonight - I could barely close the bathroom door because of the wind. I hope that tomorrow will be back to normal.

A very strong recommendation for this trip!