This pleases me wildly.

As of 5pm this evening, I ceased working for NewsCorp. Tomorrow will be my last NewsCorp payday. I’ve been a Murdoch minion since early 2010, when Leckie & Leckie was bought by HarperCollins.

I’ve left mostly because I’m sick of commuting and hence often not getting home until 8pm – I will miss being involved in educational publishing and, had Leckie remained in Edinburgh, I imagine I’d still be there.

So what next? A month of sorting things at Servants’ Quarters and on Arran, then this. So I will end up with an actual qualification in IT rather than just being a dilettante.

Comments

ggreig
Good luck with it! My conversion course was a good thing for me.

silverwhistle
Well done! And well done for escaping the declining Evil Empire!

Thoughts on drinking my first tin of Irn Bru just after midnight last night – I was inexorably reminded of an old advertising jingle:

Plink-plink! Fizz-fizz!
Oh what a relief it is!

Just in case you missed the bold type here, please do not mention my medical conditions in anything my parents might read, such as comments as in a non-restricted blog post. They don’t need to know, they’re both old and quite frail and they will only worry needlessly if they learn that I have diabetes.

If you see no indication that a blog entry is friends-locked, you should assume it isn’t.

Thank you for your co-operation.

Only an hour to go before the restricted diet ends – and what have we learnt?

In no particular order

• It’s much to write blog entries using a real client (Xjournal) rather than the basic web interface.
• The Clash’s London Calling is brilliant accompaniment for kneading chapatti dough and then rolling out chapattis – in fact, to me, it’s brilliant full stop. The Fall’s Dragnet isn’t.
• We’ve had plenty to eat, most of which has been ok. I can’t say I’m fond of porridge made with water – and my hostess doesn’t like porridge anyway – but the various lentil concoctions (caramelised onions and garlic, red lentils and stock) with rice and chapattis have been very enjoyable and filling.
• My hostess has most missed tea and coffee. I’ve missed tea and the 20 or so tins of Irn Bru or Dr Pepper I’d drink in a normal week. (We both thought that hot water was better than black tea. I usually loathe coffee – the mere thought of it can make me feel sick.)
• Our final food bill was
  

  Item	Amount	Cost	proportion used
  Tesco Scottish porridge oats	1 kg	£0·99	about half
  Tesco Value long grain rice	1 kg	£0·49	all
  Tesco Value penne	1 * 500 g	£0·09	only 1 of the 2 bags we bought
  Tesco value veg stock cubes	2 packs of 10 cubes	£0·20	only 2 of the 5 packs we bought
  Tesco market value brown onions	2 kg	£1·18	19 of the 22 onions in the bag
  Indus red split lentils	2 kg	£2·69	around 1·75 kg
  Tesco plain white flour	1·5 kg	£0·52	around 0·9 kg
  Tesco swede	600 g	£0·70	all
  Tesco market value carrots	600 g	£0·76	500 g
  Tesco pure vegetable oil	225 ml (remnant of a 1 litre bottle)	£0·32 (22·5% of £1·44)	about 50 ml
  apples, oranges, garlic	varying amounts	£1·39	all
  salt	a few pinches	£0·10	all but a few grains thrown over our left shoulders
  Total		£9·43

• It takes ages to knead chapatti and aeons to roll them all out. Fortunately, the kneading can be done while onions are caramelising – they only need stirring occasionally. (In general cooking from scratch takes longer than I’d normally have in an evening. How did our parents do it while working full-time too? I begin to understand why convenient foods cost so much, even though they’re churned out by mostly production lines.)
• There’s lot’s more washing up too!
• I don’t have the knack of rolling chapattis out round. How is it done?
• I wish I’d lived like this as a student – my overdrafts would have been much smaller (or maybe I’d have spend the same amount on other enjoyments!)
• We’ve not suffered physically apart from me having some headaches which could easily be due to early mornings and commuting – and not wearing the right glasses on Tuesday. In fact today we’ve done an amount of heavy lifting – humping a new-ish dishwasher AARRGGHH!! and freezer into the flat.
• My hostess likes driving white vans!

13 minutes to go – I can hear the Irn Bru in the larder calling.

Reposted…

My rice cooker’s non-stick coating lived up to its name – it didn’t stick around. So rice tends to stick to the bottom of the pan. Cleaning it is a pain – you need to soak the pan for quite a while to soften the rice enough to remove it.

This evening I was making soup for tomorrow’s lunch when I had a mini-brainwave Normally we thicken soup by adding a lot of grated carrot and maybe a few red lentils. This evening I made the stock in the rice-cooker pan, allowing the hot water to soften the coated rice. So when I added the stock to the vegetables, it was enhanced with extra thickener in the form of rice-starch – and the rice-cooker pan was ready to be washed without any effort.

We’re at the end of day 2 of living below the line. My hostess is missing her caffeine but surprisingly I’m not. I am missing fruit but I think we might swap the teabags we’ve bought but not used for some apples. I had a foul headache yesterday afternoon and evening but I think that was due to not being able to find my current glasses, wearing an old pair and staring at a screen all afternoon.

Currently I’m reliving my lost alternative youth with a CD of a 1976 Sex Pistols gig – wonderful stuff!

This evening’s shopping in italics:

I tend to be easily-led, it seems. The latest wheeze my hostess has gotten me into, albeit perfectly willingly, is this. (The website is apparently a little clunky to navigate.)

Here’s most of what we’ll survive on for 5 days:

And here’s what it cost:

No doubt our abdominal rumblings and flatulence will be audible in Fife. You have been warned!

As well as being my afflicted by various bodily woes, the IT in Servants’ Quarters has been troublesome:

• SURGE has been flaky since March. A full reinstall didn’t help, nor did replacing the supposedly dying hard disk. SURGE still refuses to acknowledge that he has an AirPort (wireless) card, while just about all core apps (including Time Machine) will not start. My guesses are a faulty logic board and/or airport card, corrupt installs and maybe a failing optical drive – it took several goes to install the OS.Before I sent SURGE away for diagnosis and repair, I attempted an emergency manual back-up of all my data to one of the HDs in Guffaw. It failed (see below) but the Time Machine/Time Capsule backups lasted long enough…
• Hexie behaves OK except that since the update to MacOS 10·6·4 and Safari 5 she freezes on being connected to my VGA monitor. (The monitor appears to work OK with my Xserve so I blame the software update.) With only 1 GB of RAM, a 1·8 GHz Intel Atom processor and currently no way to attach her to my big DVI monitor, Hexie isn’t really a replacement for SURGE although she can run anything that SURGE did, and so is OK for use away from home.
• XServalan was bought about a year ago so that I could begin to teach myself about servers. He cost very little because he had a hardware fault that prevented him from staying on for more than 5 minutes but I gambled that he could be fixed for less than the difference between buying him and a fully-functional Xserve. The gamble paid off when SURGE started flaking seriously: all that was needed was a new power supply unit.However, with only one 80GB HD, Xservalan doesn’t have enough capacity for all our data. Also, the original 512 MB of RAM precluded installing Leopard Server OS so he’s currently running vanilla Leopard. I’ve just received and installed six 256 MB sticks so I’ll try installing Leopard Server later. With some expenditure on hard disks, the potential to add another processor and some work on reducing the effect of his noisiness, he’ll eventually become a nice wee server. For now he’s an acceptable stand-in for SURGE, apart from the fan-noise.
• Guffaw won’t fly Leopard and so can’t do Time Machine backups. However, she had three 180GB hard disks, and hence had plenty of space for secondary and emergency back-ups of other macs. Such a shame that the disk I used for SURGE’s pre-operative emergency back-up died, and that this was the HD containing the OS and apps too! Having extracted this disk and reinstalled the OS and apps onto another disk, Guffaw is back to normal. However, she’s not really powerful enough to be a main computer and, because she’s a bit noisy and power-hungry, she’s not really suited to being a web-server. So she’s edging towards the transfer list.
• TC (500 GB 2008 model) allowed me to retrieve and copy back all my data when SURGE’s new disk was installed. It also allowed access to this data while SURGE was being ‘fixed’. However TC has just suffered capacitor burn-out, so I’ve lost
  1. primary back-up system , including access to old backups
  2. primary wireless network router
  3. 3-port gigabit ethernet hub.

  I think the hard disk will still be OK so the backups haven’t been lost irretrievably.

  To get around these issues

  1. I‘ve set all our Leopard and SnowLeopard macs’ Time Machines to back up to a 2GB NAS bought when Guffaw and SURGE both went down. It’s also where I’m keeping the working copies of my data until SURGE is properly fixed or replaced. However keeping actual work and back-ups on the same medium is hardly a good long-term plan, so here’s hoping that TC can be fixed soon.
  2. I’m using an AirportExpress (whose primary function is to pipe music from the macs to the hifi) as a wireless router.
  3. I’m using an 8-port gigabit ethernet switch, swapping ethernet cables as needed gigabit ports without TC. See here for why.

  I’m waiting on a reply from someone who can replace the burnt-out capacitors and install a large cooling fan. Failing that, I’ll need to get another gigabit ethernet switch, continue to use the AirportExpress for wireless networking and buy a NAS enclosure for TC’s hard disk.

The only computer I have which isn’t noisy, has a display large enough for useful work and just keeps on going is Pismo, a 10-year-old, 400 MHz G3 laptop which I use as a webserver. At a push, he will run older versions of Creative Suite. I’ve upgraded him a lot (maximum RAM, maximum hard disk, DVD-RW, PC card to connect it to DVI monitors). I could give him a processor upgrade (500 MHz G4 or 900 MHz G3) but this would be very expensive and still wouldn’t enable Pismo to run more modern software. Having said that, I love this highly adaptable, solid and curvy wee laptop and will keep him for playing Carmageddon even if all his other uses evaporate.

It’s possible that I’ve been conspicuously absent from LJ since the end of May. Whether or not I’m being big-headed here is for readers to comment on. However, here are my reasons and excuses, in as near to chronological order as I can manage. Some of the following is rather gross and personal.

• • March to May
    I was almost permanently thirsty. The amount I was drinking caused me to wake frequently during the night to urinate. You can guess what was coming, can’t you?
  • 3 May
    I realised I had thrush. Over the counter medication (Canestan Duo) didn’t shift it and the thirst/urination-interrupted sleep was still present, so I eventually decided to check with my GP.
  • Monday 24 May, 4pm
    My GP prescribed stronger antibiotics and topical cream for the thrush.
  • Thursday 27 May, 3pm
    A blood sample was taken.
  • 28-31 May
    My hostess and I were in Worcester, clearing my mountain of stuff from my parents’ loft. I was reunited with my vinyl, my books, more old mac kit than I realised I had and clothing I’d not seen or worn for at least 5 years. Yeehah!
  • Monday 31 May
    This is the bit that must never reach my parents: Having a blood sugar reading of 17 mmol per litre, I had officially joined the ranks of diabetics. Because my mother had become diabetic at around the age I am now, I’d been vaguely expecting it. I recall that at the time I wasn’t upset – I had an explanation for the thirst and urination, even the thrush. (Diabetics are more prone to skin infections anyway, and the amount of sugar in my urine must have provided an ideal home for the yeast!) I just had a condition that needed to be managed with diet and possibly some pills.
  • Later the same day
    It felt as if I’d strained a sphincter muscle during a bowel movement. If only …!
  • Tuesday 1 June
    The pain in my backside remained but I went to work as normal.
  • Wednesday 2 June
    The pain in my backside had increased to the point of near immobility. My GP told me that I had an abcess on the inside of my right cheek. I was prescribed antibiotics (amoxicillin plus clavulanic acid) and told to provide a fresh blood sample the next day.
  • Later the same day
    My hostess and I learned that I dear friend had died today. No further comment is possible just now.
  • Thursday 3 June
    Between bouts of physical pain and sadness, I completed my sister’s tax return on-line. In the afternoon, my cuddly pig and I staggered to the phlebotomist through a haze of pre-phlebotomy fasting and feverishness. I’d booked a taxi but managed to sleep through the doorbell-ring.
  • Later the same day
    Other friends announce ‘Alice Jean was born today She is a beauty!!!!’
  • Friday 4 June to Monday 7 June
    Bouts of pain interspersed with lucidity and co-codamol-induced dizziness. In the middle of Monday morning, I woke from nurofen-sleep to find the pain had gone – the abcess had burst, leaving a few teaspoons of cold runny custard in my underwear. I went to an appointment with my GP (originally arranged to discuss my diabetes) but was told that I needed to go to hospital to get the wound investigated.
  • Monday 7 June to Wednesday 9 June
    Examination under general anaesthetic, morphine dreams, hospital food totally unsuitable for a diabetic vegan, even though my dietary preferences and needs had been asked about! Blood sugar in mid-20s, but apparently surgical wards don’t worry about this. (That’s what I was told!)
  • Tuesday 15 June to Saturday 19 June
    Back to relatively normal routine, including work, apart from not cycling and having the wound redressed daily by the practice nurse for the first few days.
  • Sunday 20 June
    Pain in my backside recurred. I assumed it was just the would sealing itself up so, with my GP’s tentative agreement, I went to work on Monday.
  • Monday 21 June
    After a couple of hours at work, I felt dampness down below. It turned out I was bleeding. I took myself back to the Western General Hospital and learned that I most likely had a fistula. This was confirmed during another examination under anesthetic, so the surgeons put in a seton suture. During that afternoon after the surgery, my blood sugar became crazily high (over 27 units at one point) so I was attached to an insulin pump. Hourly blood-sugar readings, pain and weakness that prevented me from moving to a less on comfortable position made Monday night the low-point of this period of my life. Hospital food was much more suitable this time around.
  • Tuesday 22nd June
    Discharged in the early evening with gliclazide and paracetamol and a suture that is to remain in my arse for at least 6 weeks

I need to say here that life could be a huge amount worse. Colleagues, friends and my hostess have been incredibly supportive and of course I’ve benefitted from modern medicine and the NHS. So here’s looking forward to the end of my arse-invasion, learning how to manage my diabetes (diabetes-school starts on 7th July) and being as near to my version normal as can be managed.

One more thing… I’m not telling my parents about my diabetes because they don’t need the extra worry. They have health problems and other worries, so they just don’t need anything else to worry about, especially when they can’t do anything about it. They couldn’t help but hear about my abcess- and fistula-induced hospital visits but that’s enough.