A new dongle and a culinary co-incidence

Sarah spent today in the St David's centre main office, meeting with security workers to sign them up and issuing them with 'need-to-know' documents about confidential information sharing. In turn, her efforts fed me with couple of new dozen email addresses to add to our DISC intranet reporting system. Sarah is good at enthusing people, and I anticipate a good influx of useful information in coming months.

British Telecom has now issued me with a new mobile internet dongle to permit internet access working away from home or office. This was vital in the wilds of coastal Pembrokeshire last summer, even if signal reception was weak and patchy, and only out in a country lane, would it work. 

When I acquired a Windows 8 computer however, the software installation led to error messages, not finding a signal. Hence the new dongle, identical in brand name and number to the previous one, but inscribed with different serial number in tiny letters. Software installation on Windows 8 machine was flawless and the old SIM continues to work. I imagine there's been a minor firmware upgrade to the electronic circuitry in the dongle, as well as new software, but there's nothing on the packaging or in the instruction booklet to indicate the new dongle is good for Windows 8. Black mark BT! A Windows 8 sticker on the box or dongle could prevent confusion between superficially identical pieces of kit, and who knows, reduce help line calls.

After several weeks of forgetting, I went to Wally's deli in the Royal Arcade to pick up a kilo of Asturian rice. Funnily enough I was in there two days ago, bought some pimenton, but forgot the arroz redondo that soaks up flavour and makes paella what it's meant to be. I arrived home to discover that Clare had also remembered to visit Wally's and came home with a kilo of the same rice and a kilo of Italian risotto rice as well. I'm so sad that we lost to weevils the kilos of red and black Thai rice given us by Claudine last time we met, a year ago in Switzerland. How we enjoy the different varieties!