Journal Entries
Bad Morning - Good Afternoon
Posted Aug 22, 2014
You know how the old blues number goes...
Woke up this morning,
Turned on the PC
Nothing happened
Remembered I had done some updates last night, out with the boot stick and undo them.
No dice one of the disks has decided to fall off it's perch.
this is a bad news / good news situation, bad it happened, good the drive concerned is only the system drive all my data is on another disk.
Rummage in bits box
Suitable disk found, installed, formatted... disk check
Bugger errors on drive. 
Worse, whats that smell, warm dust, and PC shuts down 
Having taken the covers off to change the drive the fans are no longer forcing air over the cpu so it has decided to go on strike.
I cleaned the fan and cleaned out the parts of the heat sink which are accessible only a couple of months ago.
Looks into heat sink, there's a load of dust at the bottom and fan not spinning, not good at all.
Off to Maplins
Heat sink is not in stock, but they have got a replacement fan of the right size and mountings.
So new fan
A new can of expensive air.
eyewateringly expensive Thermal grease, (they must be trying to be reassuringly expensive) £10 for 3g 
And they have a special offer on solid sate drives.
Right that's emptied the wallet.
So this afternoon has been spent stripping the desktop machine.
Removing the heat sink
attacking it with a toothbrush, the vacuum cleaner and a tin of air to get the grot out.
Then fitting it with a replacement fan, only to find that has a different plug to my motherboard, soldering iron time again...
Put it back together and fitted new SSD.
Powered on and it hasn't let the magic smoke out
Processor temp looks OK
The good news, that's the fastest I've ever done a full Linux re-install (under 15 minutes with a full set of KDE and applications)
Now do I start doing what I was going to do today or it's Poets?
Well I know which one I'm doing 
Poets wins every time even though I'm not working.
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Latest reply: Aug 22, 2014
Up the District and accross the river.
Posted Jul 15, 2014
Today in my quest to get some exercise, without actually doing anything labelled as exercise, a trip round Fulham Palace and No I didn't wander along to Craven Cottage which is next door.
Fulham Palace was one of the residences of the Bishops of London, it is now looked after by the council and volunteer groups. The Bish moved out when the extent of repairs became too much.
The old part is Tudor (Late 14xx) formed of 4 ranges including the great hall around a central courtyard, originally the Tudor part was moated but this was filled in in the 1920's.
A newer range building from the 1700's sits on the north and east sides of the Tudor ranges containing some fine rooms the building has been altered, extended and repaired many times since then including some alterations by the German air force in the 1940's resulting in the chapel being rebuilt after the war.
A lot of the palace rooms are not open to the public as the space is rented out as offices to a variety of businesses. but the main ones can normally be seen on organized tours.
The grounds have a collection of fine trees including a few which may be 500 years old, so were around when the Palace was relatively new.
On a sunny day like today it is a great space to lounge around in and as a plus point the Cafe in the palace seems reasonably priced by comparison with other tourist spots.
The walled Vegetable garden is being restored and re-planted
The green houses have already been restored, one of their future aims is to be able to sell fruit and veg from the garden to visitors.
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Latest reply: Jul 15, 2014
A bridge in 2 halves
Posted Jul 13, 2014
The final visiting point today was Tower Bridge, I've been there before but that was some years ago and since it is the 120th anniversary of the bridge they have added some exhibits.
Final point in favour of doing was a discount on the tickets if you book both the Monument and Tower Bridge in one ticket it costs a quid more than Tower Bridge on its own, so being a sucker for saving a couple of quid I though why not.
This of course was before the 311 steps...
To be honest the new exhibits are outclassed by the Bridge and the Engine House, if I had gone solely because of the 120th anniversary exhibition I would have been disappointed.
I still think they could make better use of the space in the towers for additional exhibits much of which they bypass with the lifts and they seem to have suffered a dose of shiny signage rather than solid information but such is the way of many museums these days.
Anyway the Bridge and the engine room a superb and well worth a visit even if the new displays don't really add to them.
And so to the Vault bar (under the south end of the Bridge) for a 
to clear my thirst followed by an 
.
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Latest reply: Jul 13, 2014
The 311 steps
Posted Jul 13, 2014
Since I was in the area and had never bothered before, I ventured to the Monument.
For those that don't already know The monument commemorates the start of the great fire of London in 1666 and was designed by Christopher Wren and Robert Hooke.
It is on the site of the first church destroyed by the fire and it's height 202ft is the distance from there to the bakers shop in pudding lane where the fire started.
Because there wasn't a queue I thought why not, so paid my money and set off up...
Flaming hell by half way I was out of breath and cursing Wren and Hooke for not building it closer to the scene, that is 311 very long steps up a spiral staircase.
By the time I got to the top I was also cursing them for not supplying a bar up there as I could have really done with a pint at that point.
The view of course is amazing, even today you can see over a lot of the office blocks in the area and fortunately for me the weather stayed dry after earlier rain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monument_to_the_Great_Fire_of_London
Of course the Wiki article mentions the Golden Boy of Pye Corner where the fire was stopped, so now I will have to go and visit that on another day.
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Latest reply: Jul 13, 2014
A bath by the Thames
Posted Jul 13, 2014
Having started logging the various places of Interest I visit I may as well continue.
Today's not quite on the beaten track event, was Visiting the Billingsgate Roman House and Baths.
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/london-wall/whats-on/events-calendar/event-details/?eventID=6346
http://archive.museumoflondon.org.uk/Londinium/Today/vizrom/07+baths.htm
The remains (Foundations and floors) of a high status house and private bath house, are hidden beneath a modern office block on Lower Thames street, just along from London Bridge.
This house would have been right on the riverbank in Roman times and would have been in a prime position according to roman estate agents.
The fact that it is only occasionally accessible and the access and viewing areas are of basic construction (bare concrete and scaffolding), in my opinion gives more of the feel of an actual dig than a cleaned up and fully accessible museum piece ever would.
Well worth a visit if you are in the area on one of the days when it is open.
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Latest reply: Jul 13, 2014
Bald Bloke
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