All is far from well, good and dandy at Redfellow Hovel.
For reasons closely connected with the Lady in Malcolm’s Life demanding spring-clean tidiness, Malcolm’s command position has been evicted. He now has to retreat to a distant corner, the farthest point in the Hovel from his wi-fi source.
That works, up to a point. Then the Pert Young Piece signed herself up for on-demand movies, delivered, of course, through wi-fi.
Worse still: the Lady in Malcolm’s Life has just acquired a new Mac Mini, and a 22-inch monitor. Very nice, too. Except that this requires long hours of “catching up” with numerous TV dramas, all delivered to the Point of her Presence by … that same cable modem and wi-fi link.
Since the Hovel currently houses two Mac set-ups, three lap-tops, three iPads (one each of those latter two disappear transAtlantic this weekend) even a 60Mb Virginmedia link is a bit stretched.
The matter is further complicated by the way the Norf Lunnun bourgeoises have all discovered wi-fi. As Malcolm sits here he can count at least a dozen other wi-fi set-ups intruding onto his personal space.
Result: at some points of the day reception deteriorates through the intolerable to the impossible, from the frustrating to the futile.
Aaaaaaargh!
There’s yet more grief.
Why is it that the Bluetooth signal from next door shows up as “not connected” while the trackpad, inches from the Mac, doesn’t raise even a peep?
These wee mannikins (left) are one of the seventeen illustrations in the Waterford Charter Roll and are, O’Toole says they are:
the earliest image … of the medieval mayors of Dublin, Waterford, Cork and Limerick.
Adding a neat analogy:
Eamonn McEneaney of Waterford City Museum calls the charter roll “the mediaeval equivalent of a PowerPoint presentation”, designed to “flatter the king, add weight to the legal arguments and keep those listening to the mayor’s presentation focused on the facts being elaborated”. As an exercise in verbal and visual persuasion, the roll is a brilliant early example of targeted advertising. It did the trick: the king restored Waterford’s shipping monopoly.
Extra kudos there for the “a” in what even the OED prefers as “medieval”. Doubles all round had the compositor managed “æ” (on a Mac key-board it’s option+apostrophe).
But that’s not all …
The daily dose of info-amusement comes on the main editorial page in the form of An Irishman’s Diary (except, of course, when it’s just as happily An Irishwoman’s Diary). This is always essential reading — Malcolm has a couple of acquaintances who start here, then knock off the Crosaire crossword, before proceeding to the “real” news.
Good as it consistently is, the Diary reaches a new level when Frank McNally has the by-line. As yesterday:
What are ye coin reading this tripe for? Get ye onto that hotlink straightaway!
An’ sure enough, if ye had, ye’d have been enjoying something of a gentle brain-teaser as you tried to spot the source of many of them. Apart from the commonplaces, you’d have got:
23. Are ye right there, Michael?
25. Captain Boyle: An’ as it blowed an’ blowed, I ofen looked up at the sky an’ assed meself the question – what is the stars, what is the stars?
26. Joxer: Ah, that’s the question, that’s the question – what is the stars?
27. Boyle: An’ then, I’d have another look, an’ I’d ass meself – what is the moon?
28. Joxer: Ah, that’s the question – what is the moon, what is the moon?
As well as (by Malcolm’s quick count) three from Yeats, the same from De Valera, two from Percy French (you got the easier one above), one from Christy Brown (the predictable County Clare one) and many more. So, Frank, which version of How Are Things in Glocca Morra? runs in your head — Dick Haymes? the Broadway cast album? Petula Clark (the 1968 movie)? even Sonny Rollins (though that was pure instrumental genius)?
Ray Houghton’s goals feature strongly (and properly: UEFA 1988 — England 0, Ireland 1; 1994 World Cup — Ireland 1, Italy o). The Offaly goal in the dying seconds of the 1982 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship is there, too, if you know where to find it. For Malcolm, though, the gem is either:
24. Is it about a bicycle?
or
69. How do Jacobs get the figs into the fig-rolls?
Somewhere in between is the essence of Dublin, and of Malcolm’s addiction, into its sixth decade, to the Irish Times.
That’s “Jerry” (Jack Lemmon) watching “Sugar” walking the station platform. Or, in full:
Will you look at that! Look how she moves! It’s like Jell-O on springs. Must have some sort of built-in motor or something. I tell you, it’s a whole different sex!
Technical analysts said the break of $1.5716 had triggered a double-bottom reversal pattern which would target a potential move towards $1.6160.
Childe-Freeman said if sterling closed above $1.5590, the 23.6 percent retracement of the Aug. 19 – Oct. 6 fall from above $1.66 to $1.5270, it would be a strong signal for a more bullish environment.
So, can Malcolm — none the wiser, and resenting having to pack the whole works to go transAtlantic — afford an iPad?
For the first time since the site launched, Malcolm has been able to access Dale & Co.
Whoopie do!
In the past every attempt to access had been blocked. Malcolm’s browser froze solid. The PowerBook overheated (the CPU sweating its megaherzian socks off). Eventually the browser (anyone of the three installed) would call it a day and clock off.
Now the Dale & Co. site comes through clean and clear, currently with four — count them! — great grey empty boxy spaces (see above and right) where the Flash crap has been blocked.
Malcolm used to have similar problems with Dale’s previous site. That one would come through eventually, if only because it generally ran just the one Flash ad, usually a spin-out from Paul Staines’s propaganda factory.
So here’s the issue:
Like it or notMr Dale et al., thinking, creative types are just the decile of the market place to which you and your stat-porn aspire.
Such are just the sort who sit in Starbucks and places where they slurp with those fancy, showy, high-end Macs.
Macs don’t like Flash.
Yet, as Malcolm knows from a past previous brush, Dale couldn’t be arsed about such a trivial matter. If the platform can’t cope, change the platform seemed to be his theme. It’s a PC world out here, ducky, come and share the duck-pond. Which probably amounts to: I’ve spent a wallet-load on this web-designer, and I can’t afford to get him to do the job properly.
Which seems cutting off one’s beak to save one’s face.
If there is one blot on the cyberscape it is Adobe Flash.
Malcolm loaths and detests Flash with most fibres of his being.
When a web-page hangs, and the browser eventually crashes, it seems inevitable that Flash is at the root of the problem.
Malcolm has just spent half-an-hour struggling to format a post (which may transpire in due course). WordPress seemed unduly sluggish to accept any entries other than plain text.
Exasperated, Malcolm saved the draft and went to refill in coffee mug. As soon as he had closed the Wordpress window, guess what?
Indeed, lurking behind was a further window, with a rotating Flash advert pointlessly occupying bandwidth and taking up precious processing power.
However “popular” and “universal” Flash may be, it doesn’t work well in a Mac environment.
Kill! Kill! Kill!
[The headline quotation misrepresents Susan Sontag on photographs as the epitome of memory.]
Malcolm, at least when he is possession of a wallet (for which see previous post), is a sucker for the magazine shelves of his local WH Smug. A couple of glossies play vicariously to his wanderlust, so he rarely misses issues of Coast and Lonely Planet Magazine.
The latest issue of Lonely Planethas an ”Awards” feature. Thus Malcolm found (page 62) the Most incredible journey was the Trans-Siberian Railway. Listed as the last of the “runners-up” was:
5: Driving the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco
This prompted Malcolm’s objection: Why would anyone do it in that direction?
Go north, if one must, on the eighteen-wheeler hell that is Highway 101.
Don’t forget to crank the CD/iPod to max for the “Ventura Highway” stretch:
America (the ’70s group, bonehead!) at full blast is as essential mood-music for this stretch as “Tales from the Vienna Woods” is for that last stretch of the E60/A1/West-Autobahn from Kirchstetten into Vienna:
Now, Malcolm offers that notion for free as the basis for an article: music to match roads to. Sponsored cover CD an optional extra.
OK, we’ve survived 101.
Turn off at Salinas, and take the better part of half a day to do the National Steinbeck Center (actually, well worth it), then take 68 back to the coast, which drops us nicely back on to Highway 1 at Monterey. There must be many teachers of EngLit who (like Malcolm) came away with the iconic T-shirt listing of Steinbeck’s works on the back, and, afront and to affront the philistines:
Time for food. The Aquarium, on the site of the Hovden Cannery, is as much as the average stomachs can take of the kitsch that is now Cannery Row, but which has to be traipsed to reach Fisherman’s Wharf.
So, with Monterey done and dusted, we head south. It’s worth the fee to do the Pebble Beach 17-mile Drive (in fact, a bit under ten miles) and we get to view that iconic tree (right).
Onwards! To the main event!
Coming south, one has the sea immediately to the passenger side: since the Lady in his Life is doing the driving bit, that means Malcolm gets the beer and the thrill-ride. And that’s why Malcolm fails to grasp Lonely Planet magazine‘s sense of direction.
As Malcolm understand the “official” definition, only bits of State Highway 1 are designated as “Pacific Coast Highway”. The particular bit to which Lonely Planet magazine refers runs between Monterey and Morro Bay. That takes in:
Carmel-by-the-Sea (foggy and pricey: only do the Hog’s Breath if you must, there’s no chance the boss will be in, but everybody asks),
Nepenthe (a sure stop and snacking point: who remembers it was Orson Welles’s/Rita Hayworth’s intended hideaway, but they never got there?),
then the glorious rocky stretch down to Ragged Point,
after which the PCH runs through grass pastureland,
book ahead for a tour of San Simeon (we’ll be back again: just believe the decadence, as right),
then Cambria (nice, but walk Moonstoone Beach: we might actually find some),
Harmony (blink and we miss it: but we are now entering serious wine country),
to end in sight of Morro Rock (between the late Fall and early Spring, we look for eucalyptus trees to find monarch butterflies).
The definition of “Pacific Coast Highway” seems to extend beyond that. To take an example: Malibu Pier is 23017 Pacific Coast Highway (and, in Santa Monica the addresses seem to run south-to-north). Malcolm suspects PCH addresses run all the way to the Airport, at least: by which time one has really reached the pits.
But you knew all of that.
Malcolm was already, thanks to the depredations of those Romas, was prepared to be easily irritated. It rankled that Lonely Planet had missed the great bits further north.
One year the Lady in his Life and Malcolm had intended the whole caboodle, from Vancouver to LA. It didn’t work out that way, and the expedition had to be severely abbreviated. They made Crater Lake (right) the weekend before it shut for the season. The previous day had brought them to Sisters, where morning frost had warned the location was a thousand metres in altitude and it was getting late in the year.
Since the lodges were not taking guests, they overnighted at Grant’s Pass (making sure to buy anything pricey, which included a MacBook, before leaving no-sales-tax Oregon). Then onto 199 and the Redwoods Highway.
Along here, there are 10 and 15 mph speed limits at certain points: suddenly, pulling aside for an oncoming vehicle (which is definitely ignoring any speed limit), with a wheel already in the roadside scuffle, an inch from a long drop, the limits seem over generous. After the descent through Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park, 199 brings us onto 101 (far tamer than the bit heading up from LA) at Crescent City.
Plough on!
There are some good bits, for example across the Klamath River, but the next stopover should be Arcata, the “greenest” town in the US, and home of Humboldt University. The town gets lively, loud and (ahem!) aromatic on a Friday evening in term time.
After that, it’s stick to 101: nice country, up and down, but not a lot to note. At Leggett — if we’ve entered the town we’vwe gone too far — we take the signposted right onto Highway 1. That brings us down, via a couple of highly enjoyable (at least for passenger Malcolm, trusting the Lady’s driving) hairpins , to Shoreline Drive (which promptly kinks inland and away from any sight of shore).
Have faith: we get back to the sea shortly, and there are some spectacular beaches (all deserted: the sea here is cold) until we reach Fort Bragg. This, of course, is not the Fort Bragg of US Army Special Forces fame (that’s in South Carolina). This is a decent small town, full of retirement homes, yachties and the like: and several decent cheap motels. Fort Bragg has two quite different attractions: Glass Beach (effectively the old town dump rendered down by wave-action) and the Skunk Train (40 miles inland to Willitts, and then back again because that’s about it, in restored equipment from the 1920s).
Back in Fort Bragg, you’re not far from the next place of real note: Mendocino.
This wooden town has gone through more names than any con-man: Buldam to the Pomo Indians, Big River, Meiggstown after the railway speculator who tried to make this an alternative to the Bay Area, Mendocino City, and a stand-in for Monterey (in East of Eden) and “Cabot Cove, Maine” (in Murder, She Wrote).
Pretty well the whole burg is now a listed building: book into the Mendocino Hotel overlooking the Bay and damn the expense. Watch the sunset, though. Next door is the wine store, where Malcolm had an intensive course on the virtues of Cabernet Sauvignon at the cost of buying a small supply of excellent Big Yellow Cab.
Should you see a t-shirt advertising that brand, perambulating Muswell Hill, North London accost and greet Malcolm.
After Mendocino, Highway 1 lives up to its alias, Coast Highway, until Bodega Bay, after which we can cut inland to 101 or dog-leg back onto 1 (now Shoreline Highway) past Point Reyes. Either route lands us back at the Golden Gate Bridge, with the SF skyline in the background; which was where Lonely Planet‘s original thought also ended.
Malcolm sincerely apologises is any or all of that was introducing Granny to her soft-boiled egg.
It used to be easy. It was “watching paint dry”. Or “glacial”.
Then along came that quick-dry paint (“touch-dry in just one hour!” — just don’t breath while using it). And the glaciers keep retreating at Usain Bolt’s forward speed.
So, how does one now define “teeth-grindingly, boringly slow”?
Watch the bottom of the browser screen and try to count the various up-loads, all that froth of advertising, before the meat course arrives.
It’s somewhat improved since the lantern-jawed FOREST ad for smoking in pubs was dropped: smoke-filed pubs — there’s a nostalgic hark-back with a real yeukkk-factor.
Yesterday, out of sheer frustration, Malcolm set the stop-watch on it. From click-the-link (which Malcolm keeps under “Usual Suspects”) to the end of the MacOs spinning beach-ball-of-death was 73.5 secs. That seemed a fair average recent performance. What makes it worse is that it locks up the browser solid for the duration.
And that is on a 10Mb cable broadband (yes: Malcolm’s tested it, and VirginMedia’s claim is not an outrageous estimate).
King C. Gillette invented the safety razor (“safety” because it left you bloody but unbowed), then gave the handle away for free, but charged for the patent blades — and made a fortune.
Proctor & Gamble (who now own the Gillette name) pursue the same method to the present day.
This came to Malcolm’s butterfly mind when his copy of MacFormat arrived, and included a review of six “budget-priced” (i.e. bottom-end) printers. Consider:
Canon PIXMA iP2600, quoted price £35, cost of set of ink cartridges £22
Epson Sylus S21, quoted price £50, cost of set of ink cartridges £21.50
HP Deskjet D1560, quoted price £30, cost of set of ink cartridges £22
HP Photosmart D5460, quoted price £78, cost of set of ink cartridges £29
Lexmark Z320, quoted price £40, cost of set of ink cartridges £35
Lexmark Z2490, quoted price £35, cost of set of ink cartridges £49.
There’s nothing there that any printer owner does not recognise. It does not apply only to ink-jets. Those low-priced laser printers are sold on the same principle: Amazon will happily sell you a Samsung mono laser printer for £50.78: the replacement toner cartridge is priced, again on Amazon, at £42.45 (or, alternatively, £55.95 — the difference is less than immediately clear).
In any event, your first trip in search of replacement cartridges is going to be quite soon: those originally-supplied are generally underfilled.
Nik Rawlinson, writing his editorial for the recent MacUser, is aggrieved by a similar gripe:
How would you feel about your tumble drier if it went on strike because you refused to use a particular powder in your washing machine? Or if your freezer spontaneously defrosted because you had drunk all the milk in your fridge? What about your car refusing to start because you’ve never bought (and never intend to buy) a caravan? It would be pretty outrageous, wouldn’t it.
But what about your scanner? Would it be reasonable if your scanner manufacturer put it out of action because you’ve run out of ink in your printer? Not really, but it happens.
That cri-de-coeur is inspired by his all-in-one, in need of a cartridge, blanking him in his need to scan. That’s blackmail (or possibly cyan-mail or magenta-mail …). It’s simply not fair and it’s not funny.
We are working towards an industry-standard for deciding the battery life of laptops.
We have, finally and with a bit of EU arm-twisting, got a standard for the connectors on mobile phone chargers.
Cars come with agreed fuel-economy figures.
We have energy-efficiency standards for domestic appliances and even the houses in which we live.
Is it too much to ask for printers to come with a reasonable estimate of running costs?
Good, too, to see him coming to terms with the real world and going for the best: he has acquired an iPod Nano.
Inevitably, as with all MicroSerfs, he has to quibble:
My problem is the iTunes software. I am at a loss as to why some parts of it are counter intuitive ? Why did it refuse to recognise my iPod all afternoon until I went through several lengthy procedures in order to reset parts of the system until it again recognised my iPod ? It’s not a great problem overall for me to work out a way around some of the problems. But for anyone not PC savvy, it would have been a nightmare and Apple’s support both in terms of printed instructions and web support is not that impressive.
That’s the trouble: the “PC savvy” can never believe that the Mac and iWorks and iLife combo can be s-o-o straightforward. Such is the digitally-retarded fate of those accustomed to the over-complex, rather than the Occam’s Razor of computing life.
It reminds Malcolm of the legend:
Rich Daddy knew the psychological make-up of his twin children.
On Christmas Eve he deposited in one bedroom a cubic metre of horse manure. In the other, a saddle and all the associated tack.
On Christmas morning he found one child looking gloomily at the saddle and tack: there had to be a catch in it. Meanwhile, the other twin was chucking the manure all round the bedroom, whooping, “With all this shit, there’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere!”.
As for poor Nich’s need for a hand to hold, one day, someday, Norwich may get its own, its very own Apple Store. And in that Apple Store he will find those estimable Geniuses:
Meanwhile, search engines exist. Properly addressed, they lead to a wealth of experience and advice, including the workings of Macs and iPods. Much of this info is as good as the “official” version, and often includes the bits the “officials” aren’t allowed to confide in you.
It’s Leopard day, and Malcolm is starry-eyed and on his way to the MacExpo, armed with credit card.
At least it stops him bemoaning that he didn’t, in the late 90s, buy Apple shares at $13 (at a time when Apple had the equivalent of $13 a share tucked under the mattress). They closed last night at $182.78: down $3.15 on the day. Ah, he muses, the wisdom of the Market.
It used to be easy. It was “watching paint dry”. Or “glacial”.
