Time zone snafu

It's still cold, but at least it's been sunny and dry today, something for which I was especially grateful as I had a trip to Western Cemetery for a burial after driving to St Luke's to take this morning's funeral, very much a local affair. One of the funeral directors' men and the cemetery worker supervising grave digging had been contemporaries with the deceased in secondary school. Unusually, the family decided to organise their own live stream of the service for one of their members in prison. Covid safety measures would not allow an inmate to attend in the company of a prison guard, (something I've witnessed occasionally over the years), but the authorities were willing to arrange an exclusive live video link from church to be arranged. Credit is due to the prison governor for agreeing to this.

I returned home just before two o'clock for my Safeguardng training session on Zoom, only to find that the session had been running already for an hour in Central European time. When I was contacted about the session I explained that there was a slight risk of traffic delay which might make me late, but that I did expect to be back by two. I don't know if the person I was in contact with arranging this was in London, where the Euro-diocesan Safeguarding team is based, or in Brussels. I said I was in Cardiff and would be back by two, but this had evidently not registered, otherwise I wouldn't have been booked in for the session, allowing someone else to take my place. 

It was rather embarrassing, as I got a brief impression that the session was for serving chaplains not locums, whose experience of working in a chaplaincy isn't quite the same. If the Zoom was organised on behalf of the London office by someone in Brussels for people in the dioceses, this was just a simple communications error, neither of us picked up on. But, I'm now wondering if the fact of my being a locum in the UK was taken into account at all. Ah well, I have let the organiser know of the mistake. That's all I can do for the moment.

As this gave me a couple of free hours in the afternoon, I walked into the city centre and enjoyed being out in the streets and shopping centre along with lots of other people, out looking for bargains on the first day all shops are open again for the first time since Christmas Eve. I went to the Camera Centre to investigate a possible lens purchase for my little Olympus, and because I thought of it bought a clamp to use to attach my mobile phone to a tripod while making a video. Because of its shape it's called a 'dog'. Clare was quite bewildered when I told her I'd bought a dog for ten quid! 

I went into John Lewis' store which has also reopened and has huge stocks of discounted goods, especially tempting tech bargains. The top floor is like an Aladdin's cave of red ticket items. Possibly goods from some of the JLP stores nationally that have closed recently have been shipped to stores remaining open. Much temptation. I did buy a box of three cordless phones. Ours are ancient and their batteries are dying. Clare says they are the wrong sort, a health risk. I don't really know what this means. Why would they be on sale if they were?

Questionable security ethics

At last this morning, a response from the funeral director in Barnstaple about the proposed Memorial Memorial service the day before we go on holiday. It'll be a full funeral in the presence of the ashes of the deceased, after private cremation over there, and scattering them will follow in a rose-bed after the service. I was given the phone number of the next of kin, and made contact for a preliminary chat before starting to prepare the service.

Then, at midday I was collected by car to go to St John's to take a funeral. About a hundred mourners attended - not surprising for a woman of 85 with twenty great-grandchildren, twelve grandchildren, and five children of her own. I read a fond humorous tribute written by her sister, whose husband's funeral was taking place in Spain at exactly the same time. This was followed by burial in Western Cemetery. Thankfully there was a break in the showers of rain punctuating the day, and the sun shone while we stood around the grave.

I noticed as we were waiting for the hearse to arrive that the re-opened grave was back to back with that of a man called Peter Brito, who died three years ago aged 92. This was such a coincidence, as I'd first met Peter in 1967 when I was training at St Mike's, and became a night shift volunteer with Cardiff Samaritans. I believe he was one of the Deputy Directors at the time. He was a member of the serving team at St Mary's Parish Church in Bute Street, so we met there too, when I attended Mass on a solemn festival day. He was also an early Community Relations Officer in Cardiff, having come from a small island Caribbean family. He always spoke with a proper Kerdiff accent, with no trace of the Lesser Antilles I wonder if he grew up here? If so his parents may have come over after the First World War.

Tonight I watched the last episode of 'The Capture' on BBC One. It's been a little difficult to follow on times, and maybe the sense of confusion generated was intentional, as disinformation was a major thread running throughout. The story highlights the development of highly sophisticated video editing technology which forges video footage, so that the recorded activities of one person are made to show another instead. This technique is already being deployed by superpowers in efforts to blackmail individuals, or to fabricate evidence to warrant military or political action it has been alleged recently. Old nuclear arms race arguments are dusted off in the interests of security to justify being a party to such questionable activities.

What is discussed in this drama is whether such tools can or should be used to entrap terrorists, or other law enforcement actions. It's an extreme instance of cynical pragmatism based on 'the end justifies the means', and 'greater good for the greater number' thinking.  Frankly, I found it disturbing to think about.
  

Future travel prospects

Another wet morning. I was collected at ten for a funeral service in Pidgeon's chapel, and this was followed by burial at Western Cemetery. Light rain persisted throughout. I felt sorry for the small band of mourners at the graveside, huddled under umbrellas on waterlogged clay terrain. The water table on this site is a couple of meters below ground, but in wet weather, open graves frequently flood giving undertakers problems and mourners additional distress. It's not always possible to pump all the water out of a grave beforehand, and water can seep in again within fifteen to twenty minutes.

I was home and dry again by noon. After lunch I paid the balance over the phone on our Rhine cruise in May. I couldn't get the web payment facility on the website accept a card transaction, but a lady on the end of the Riviera Travel enquiry line was able to put it through, and it didn't take any longer. We're both looking forward to this greatly.

Then I did some more long drawn out Windows 10 computer updates, as each of mine at different times comes to the top of its particular queue. I also updated Libre Office on all my machines, the least onerous of tasks. Each new update brings improvements, some of them take a while to discover if you don't look at the published change-log. Improvements in speed however, are immediately noticeable and welcome every time. It's rarer and rarer that I ever have to use MS Word these days. 

This weekend I bought a copy of Linux Format magazine fro the first time in several years, as it had an up to date Linux Mint 18.1 distribution disk with it. These days I find that less and less of the technical content of the magazine is material I can understand. There's much about web computing and content management I have not kept abreast with, and have become less interested in how to do new things than I am in issues like user friendliness, or the social and cultural impact of media on life today. I still can and do troubleshoot computer problems for ordinary users, but that's now the limit of my expertise.

I whiled away a little time trying to run the live Mint distribution CD on a laptop with UEFI boot software, but without success. I am so nervous of making an irreversible change, which requires me to find and pay a real expert to put right. Progress, if it is progress, is leaving me behind, I admit.

By late afternoon the rain stopped and the sun shone, so I went for a walk to Pontcanna Fields before cooking supper, collecting a dozen pieces of litter on my way. So far, rough mental calculation still indicates that I pick up an average of half a dozen for each kilometre I walk. There's more than this on the ground for sure, but sometimes after rain, it's difficult to retrieve.

Just as I was getting ready for bed, I had an email from a churchwarden at St John's Montreux asking if I was available at the end of the summer. That's when I next have free time so I emailed my availability to her, and found myself quite excited at the prospect of an all new assignment, as I attempted to relax into sleep. I can hardly believe that it's nearly five years since we last visited Switzerland. My focus has been mainly on Spain since then, so the prospect of returning to a familiar and much loved part of Europe as a locum, and bringing my French back into use is going to be another challenge.