My new Printer

I have brought a new printer for my computer as the old one - after six years loyal seervice finally gave up the ghost - no big deal - except of course it is a huge deal when it comes to installing it. Forget 'Plug and Play' - when I try to make anything work it is more   'Plug and throw a Tantrum' - I am now on Day 2 of trying to get my top of the range HPofficejet 7500A to actually communicate with my computer and print something  and it obstinately refuses to play - telling me that the USB is not connected when it bloody well is. I have often thought that I ought to be employed by firms like HP to actually write an 'idiots' guide to their machine. The mistake manufacturers all make is employing people who understand the bit of kit too actually write the manual - when the person who ought to be writing it is either me - or if you really want a complete technological illiterate - my wife.

Linkedin

I am a member of this network site but I cannot remember how I joined - I can though remember why, it was in the hope that by doing so some freelance writing work might come my way - fat chance- and to date- nothing. I admit I never look at my site and that frankly I doubt its effectiveness but obviously those in the know know different as how else can you explain how this nonentity of a business can suddenly be worth $10.1 billion on the NYSE just a week after floating- I must be missing something.  So I have resolved to be more proactive on Linkedin to try to discover where the value in the site lies for idle freelance journalists like me.       

Wellington College school library

I can't walk past a bookshop without going in for a browse, but my principal addiction is second hand bookshops.  I can happily spend hours roaming narrow corridors of bookshelves and pulling the odd volume out, here and there, because either the title or the binding hits some inner cord and causes my hand to shoot out and size its spine.  Now I am not against the wonder of the electronic book readers such as Kindle, and if I was a squaddie in Afghanistan I would have one in my Bergen, but I think those, like the headmaster of Wellington College, who think the days of the printed book are numbered and is thus planning throw out 80%  of the books and re order the Library to be 'relevant to the electronic age' or some such rubbish -are wrong.

I just don't think people will 'browse' an electronic library like they browse a normal bookshop or library.  and it is by 'browsing' that you suddenly come across a new author or new subject which catches your imagination or interest and opens up, over time, a whole new world.  For an educational establishment  to cull  it's library so ferociously is not only therefore criminal, it is far worse, it is gross stupidity.

Bye bye Scotland and good riddance

So with an SNP majority North of the Border the prospect of a Scottish referendum being held on leaving the United Kingdom is a real possibility.  Now what Scottish Nationalists don't know is that I am an ardent supporter of there's, what's more I am not alone, in fact, doing a straw pole I have yet to find anyone down here in Devon who isn't a closet SNP supporter.  Why is this? Well, of course, we are bored with whining, whinging Scots bleating on about how hard done by they are, when in reality they sit up there, North of the border, guzzling down English subsidies and doing absolutely sod all work. This is not all their fault of course.  It was the great Dr. Johnson who said; "the noblest prospect which a Scotsman ever sees, is the high road which leads to England."

Not just England actually, in the 19th century every Scotsman with 'get up and go' got up and went, much to benefit of America and the British Empire generally but sadly, the result of all this emigration of the best of the Scots, was to diminish the 'gene pool' and as what was left behind was , by and large, the idle and the feckless, and as any farmer or horse breeder will tell you, if you breed from rubbish you get rubbish, that is the result. 

But seriously if our Dave is serious about campaigning vigorously to 'save the Union' then he has got his tactics all wrong. Most Scots are under the illusion that most English actually want the Union to continue, that we actually enjoy paying far more in taxes than we need in order to subsidise the Scots.  As long as they continue to believe this they will continue to press for Independence.  So if Dave really wants the Union to continue he must vigorously campaign against the Union. In fact he ought to have a referendum in England asking us to vote to abolish it, and once every one understood, that if we got rid of the spongers North of the border we halve the income tax rate, I think the result would not be in question.