Value for money

Another glorious warm sunny day to enjoy after a good night's sleep. Clare's study group members arrived and before going into town to bank the fee cheque received yesterday, I renewed our TV license on-line. It's now £169, and nowadays the only age concession is for those on pension credit, whatever that is, I've never needed to find out thankfully. We'll lose the Winter Fuel allowance this year for the same reason, but that's fair enough when public finances are so grievously stretched. 

The TV license is one subscription I don't begrudge paying for, given the phenomenal amount of content delivered and consumed by us in the course of a year. Less and less on the telly itself, more and more on phone and laptop. The one constant is radio. Listening to a reliable source of daily news, informative and entertaining programmes is the sound track to our lives. Well worth paying for. in its own right, and all we had when I was a kid. Channels supported by advertising offer ad free subscription services, with speedier media consumption as a result. Ad repetition is boring often annoying, but programme breaks are a cue for exercise, a trip to the kitchen or toilet. What's not to like about that?

I walked to Cowbridge Road and picked up a late running 61 bus which arrived just after me. I saw two outbound 61 buses following each other as I walked, a common sight early morning and mid afternoon when schools are in session, but symptomatic of scheduling dysfunction at other times and not uncommon with drivers off sick or arriving late, and the occasional bus breakdown. On the return trip, after banking the cheque, I saw another pair of 61 buses in tandem heading for the new bus station. The bus information display at the Westgate Street stop wasn't working, and the one o'clock bus was nearly ten minutes late. The city has invested a huge amount in new electric buses and upgraded some of its legacy diesel powered fleet, but it seems to be harder than building and running a team of drivers to maintain a reliable schedule. Fortunately, I reached home just as Clare was putting lunch on the table.

After lunch I recorded and edited next Thursday's Morning Prayer, then went out for a walk in Llandaff Fields, then down to Tesco's for a couple of grocery items not on the regular shopping list. After supper another short walk around the park, taking a few photos of groups on the grass enjoying the evening sun. With nothing new worth watching, I returned to watching a couple of episodes of 'Bones'. Whilst there's variety in cases investigated, the general formula is much the same, incorporating a liberal dose of sexual politics. Like NCIS with its conservative patriotic flavouring, both series feel dated, no matter how much excitement they try to generate.   

The eye of the beholder

After rising early, my annoying start to the day with Google Blogger was made more annoying by receiving a text message purporting to be a Pay Pal security alert, saying my account was blocked and needed unblocking with a clickable link to a URL to follow through. The text message header gave a full UK mobile number from which it originated, like the alert, most likely a fake, or else a number used to harvest phone numbers from people wanting to check it out. If spam text messages are sent to randomly generated phone numbers, harvesting responses is a way of finding out which numbers out of the random set generated are actually in use. Information that can be sold to other scammers. Either that or some cyber scammer has my mobile number, siphoned off in a hack attack on a website containing my mobile number - probably TalkTalk - at some time or another, but when? 

Only recently I set up a Pay Pal account, but didn't get as far as adding bank details to it. I've had almost daily nags to do so ever since. Enough to make me ask - do I really need this extra convenient financial facility? Isn't it just going to be one more set of emails I don't need, another area of cyber vulnerability I can well do without? So I closed the new account. I wonder how long it will take the email nags from Pay Pay to dry up?

In the mail today an envelope from the TV licensing authority telling us that we have to re-apply for a TV license: i.e. pay up in full within two months or else. It's only four months ago when I reached 75 that I became eligible for a free license and was refunded eight months worth of subscription money paid out in December last. The new license will expire end of July 2021. Well, I had four months for free, and never minded having to afford the license fee payment, because of the invaluable content and web services the Beeb provides, which we use every day. I greatly resent the government starving the Corporation of funds, and resulting cutbacks in content. It will in my opinion contribute further to the decline of British influence in the world. Just like brexit.

Clare and I cooked and ate lunch together, then I went out to the local shops for a few items, before a walk in the park. Clare went out to a meditation group at six, so we ate supper later than usual when she got back. We watched a fascinating hour long programme in Welsh 'Cefn Gwlad' (Back Country in English) about a very traditional Snowdonia sheep farm showing a shepherd's work around the year in great detail. 

The programme must have been made about twenty five years ago. The screen aspect ratio was 3:2 and the colour cast wasn't nearly as vivid  and saturated as prevalent nowadays. It made me wonder if it had been filmed rather than videoed on VHS. It made a pleasant and restful change from today's over bright, hyper-real HD screen colours. A resurgence of interest in 35mm film cameras and photography suggests a dissatisfaction with the digital given, as it seems un-natural, hard on the eyes. Nature's colours are far more varied and subtle than human attempts to emulate them digitally.

True fiction or fictional truth?

Sad to see the offspring depart at lunchtime today for a visit to Bristol to see Amanda and James, and then the journey home. The weather wasn't up to much, so I indulged in some more binge watching of TV series on iPlayer, started a couple of nights ago, when I was too wound up to go straight to sleep. This time, 'Line of Duty', another acclaimed cop drama series I've never heard of because I don't take any notice of media hype, but as the whole of Series 2 was available to watch, I thought I'd give it a try and found it compelling if tough watching. 

Everyone with a role in the action seems to be lying and deceiving about something, or has a history of having done so. Even the ostensible 'goodies' seem to have a darker side to them. The series portrays a Professional Standards team's anti-corruption investigations, and paints a bleak picture, inviting the audience to believe there is moral chaos at the heart of UK law enforcement behind the facade of due diligence and political correctness. Understandably, the Police didn't play any part in the creation of this series, although anyonmous bloggers and retired officers are said to have done so. 

Whether fact or fiction, or a mixture of both, it makes for uncomfortable watching, and makes me wonder how far this kind of drama does paint an authentic picture of life in post-Christian Britain.