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Prostate in the Back Seat

Posted on by John Curd Posted in Prostate cancer — 2 Comments ↓

About five years ago work gave up on me – as in, my position was no longer required and I was offered the chance to seek alternative opportunities elsewhere. Work wasn’t the only thing giving up on me. In my last year at work, I thought I detected what might best be described as “a dropping off in urinary pressure”. I could no longer take part in youthful games trying to pee on the top bar of a 5-bar gate and expect to succeed. Actually, the fourth bar was pretty much out of reach, too. Not wishing to be paranoid – I was only 52, for Darwin’s sake – I eventually trotted along to our GP surgery to ask for a PSA level check.

Receptionist: “You can’t just have a blood test for your PSA level unless you have certain symptoms.”

You’ll notice that no clues were offered as to the nature of the certain symptoms. She wasn’t about to give me any help – I had to be medically savvy enough to know already.

Me: “¿Que? OK, well I do have certain symptoms so please make me an appointment with the doctor to discuss them.”

What a contrast my experience was to the way ladies are treated by our medical system. Ladies are given appointments for mammograms to screen for breast cancer every two years. Depending on the postcode lottery, ladies are also given cervical smear tests to check for cervical cancer every three to five years. [Ed: Experts have apparently recommended that smear tests be carried out every 3 years.] Does a woman have to detect a scary lump in her breast herself? No, she is given help. No certain symptoms are required.

In my case the demeanour of our surgery’s receptionist appeared decidedly chilly and felt designed to keep me away. I must confess that, during one of my discussions with my doctor, he told me that not even male doctors schedule themselves for PSA checks “because it isn’t a particularly reliable test”. That’s as maybe but in my opinion it’s the best we have. There is, of course, the so-called “digital exam” – the doctor’s finger up one’s bum rummaging around to check for any enlargement of or abnormal feel to ones prostate. However, my hospital consultant seemed quite disparaging about a GP’s expertise at carrying out that test:

Me: “My GP couldn’t feel anything abnormal about my prostate.”

Consultant: “He’s just a GP and I’ve felt thousands more prostates than him.”

or words to that effect, as near as I can remember.

prostate_logo What’s going on here in the UK? Ladies get two regular cancer screening tests. Where’s the male cancer screening?

Cancer: Breast versus Prostate

Posted on by John Curd Posted in Prostate cancer — No Comments ↓

Fear not, I am not about to compare breast cancer and prostate cancer. Let’s face it, non of the many forms of cancer are welcome companions on our journeys through life. I am, however, interested in comparing the two awareness campaigns for the two diseases because it strikes me that one is vastly more successful than the other. Having touched on this disparity yesterday, another thought has occurred to me.

Have a quick butchers [Ed: “butchers hook” = “look” in Cockney rhyming slang, for the Amerispeakers] at Wear it Pink, the breast cancer awareness campaign website. Give it a few seconds and the second image that will hit you between the eyes is of two guys wrapped in a startlingly pink feather boa – they are promoting the breast cancer campaign’s photo competition. The point is that wearing something pink is universally doable. For years now, men have been happy to join in and help promote the awareness of breast cancer by wearing something pink. Whilst I’m not about to wander down the street wearing a pink boa, I myself have a pink ribbon fastened to my camera rucksack.

Now take a shufti [Ed: “shufti” = “look around”, military slang from North African service] at Movember,  the UK chapter of the prostate cancer awareness campaign. Where’s the female support? Come on girls, play fair. We’re prepared to don pink ribbons in support of breast cancer, after all. What do you mean, you can’t grow a moustache? [Ed: Yes, I know, there are a few exceptions to any rule.]

It must be said that there is a slight difference here in that men can actually suffer from breast cancer themselves, though I suspect that this fact is little known. It is also mercifully very rare for men to get breast cancer. Clearly our delightful ladies are not about to suffer from prostate cancer since they completely lack the essential organ. However, it does strike me that an awareness campaign available to every member of society would have been a better move than one restricted to males.

prostate_logo There is, however, a very neat little “real man” symbol, the prostate cancer equivalent of the universally recognized pink ribbon, that can be worn by anybody. Here he is playing the part of a “T” in the prostate cancer charity symbol. Marks and Spencer is quite prominent in prostate cancer support and, some years ago I had a nice “real man” pin badge from them. Sadly, somewhere along the line, my “real man” fell off my camera rucksack which does, it must be said, take a bit of a bashing. I miss him. However, all is not lost, I can buy another one (£1.50 inc. p&p) from here.

I’m going to get one for Carol as well, just because she can’t grow a moustache. 😆

Prostate Cancer Awareness Awareness

Posted on by John Curd Posted in Prostate cancer — 1 Comment ↓

Alternatively, I suppose, Prostate Cancer Awareness2. [Ed: Well, it gave me a chance to use the superscript HTML tag.]

When we were enjoying Guernsey last week thanks to the hospitality of our friends, Steve & Rosemary, on Friday morning Carol appeared for breakfast wearing a white T-shirt emblazoned with a large pink ribbon. Almost everybody must be aware of the pink ribbon symbol and knows that it represents support for and/or awareness of breast cancer issues. Even most men know that the pink ribbon is associated with breast cancer.

Resplendent in her pink-ribboned T-shirt, directed more at Rosemary than Steve and I, Carol announced:

It’s Wear it Pink Day – are you going to wear something pink?

Carol had been aware of the impending Wear it Pink Day prior to our trip to Guernsey and had packed accordingly. Wonderful! The pink ribbon symbol together with the campaign to increase awareness of breast cancer have been staggeringly successful.

There is something of a stark contrast, IMHO, concerning the awareness of prostate cancer.  Upon our return from Guernsey and as someone with a recently established vested interest, I did a swift Internet search (where would we be without it?) and came up with this:

November is Movember – grow a Mo for prostate cancer.

Yes, there is an prostate cancer awareness campaign, though I had not been aware of the awareness campaign. It seems much more low-key than the campaign to increase awareness of breast cancer and, good grief, it’s hardly a catchy tagline, is it? It was certainly entirely new to me though I must admit I am far from a regular reader of newspapers. According to Wikipedia, the Movember campaign began in the Antipodes in 2004 and was launched over here in 2007, so it’s still relatively new, I guess. The Mo in question is a moustache, the idea being that supporters of the cause should grow a moustache in November to demonstrate their support for prostate cancer awareness. Not the sort of thing one can do at the drop of a hat, is it? Neither, given the relatively frequent occurrence of moustaches within the male community as a whole, is growing a moustache a particularly noticeable act. Men, such as myself, who already sport moustaches are encouraged to shave them off, I believe. Either way, messing around with the hirsuteness of one’s top lip would be noticeable only to those who are familiar with one. It certainly isn’t something that’s as universally noticeable as displaying a pink ribbon which is obvious to both acquaintances and complete strangers alike.

Personally, even though coloured ribbons have become somewhat clichéd due to the success of the breast cancer campaign, I’d prefer something more overtly obvious along these lines:

November is Mauvember – wear a mauve ribbon for someone’s prostate.

Be that as it may, November is Movember seems to be the official prostate cancer awareness campaign and richly deserves to be supported so I’m not about to start a Mauvember splinter group. 😉

Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in males. Every year in the UK some 36,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer. This year that’s me plus about 35,999 others sharing the same boat. Even though it may make me look a little younger (nah!), I don’t plan to shave off my moustache for the relatively few people who would notice. However, since I will now be waiting throughout Movember November for a hospital admission on 1st December, I will certainly write anything that seems relevant about my thoughts and experiences in the hope that I may reach a wider audience than would my moustache in an attempt to help with the awareness of prostate cancer.

It may not be as striking as the Wear it Pink website but here is the Prostate Cancer Charity website containing a whole bunch of information.

Guernsey, 2010

Posted on by John Curd Posted in Guernsey, 2010 — No Comments ↓

Back at home resting after a very enjoyable week of walking accompanied by intense eating, drinking and being wind-battered on Guernsey. Our entertainment came courtesy of our very kind friends, Steve & Rosemary, who invited us to share their annual timeshare week at Vazon Bay on the west coast of the island. The weather was, shall we say, interestingly mixed, the most constant feature being wind.

IMG_9203_Guernsey IMG_9197_Guernsey Vazon Bay faces pretty much north-west and catches waves after their largely uninterrupted journeys across the Atlantic. It comes as no surprise, therefore, that Vazon Bay also acts as a  magnet for those keen on surfing, themselves trying to catch the very same waves. To the uninitiated (i.e. me), surfing appears to consist of paddling out a long way on a surf board, sitting for some time nattering with others doing very little, then, when a good looking wave turns up, paddling back towards shore like fury whilst attempting to stand up on said board as it climbs the roller. Assuming one gets stood up and remains that way, it is then necessary to bail out before being dashed onto the rocks that fill the bay. Assuming one is still alive, one turns around and paddles back out again. Great fun! In order to protect the shore from the now pebble- and surfer-ridden Atlantic rollers, there are some very interestingly eroded wooden breakwaters which you can see here. [Ed: Do not adjust your sets, one of these shots really is monochrome.]

Guernsey is essentially a six mile by six mile triangle, the western hypotenuse being about nine miles long. Being retired, I’ll leave you to do the precise maths. The maximum speed on the island is 35mph with many roads being restricted to 25 mph. Quite why rich folks living on such a small, restricted island spend their dosh on vehicles like Porsches, Aston Martins, Ferraris and AC Cobras is completely beyond me. However, many do. On one day of our visit, though, the stretch of coast road passing our Vazon Bay accommodation had been closed to regular traffic to act as an all limits removed charity drag strip. In favour of a good cause, all the island’s expensive, normally restrained vehicles were being given their head. So was a Vanden Plas Allegro, presumably in the funny car category.

IMG_7928_Guernsey IMG_9304_Guernsey On the opposite side of Guernsey from Vazon Bay, facing the French Cotentin peninsula, lies the capital, St Peter Port. St. Peter Port seems to be known simply as “town”, at least by the bus drivers. The island has an excellent, very reasonably priced bus service and much of our time was spent riding buses either to or from one end of a walk or another. Sometimes it was necessary to combine bus routes through the “town” terminus but that was fine because it enabled us to buy some excellent local fresh fish from the excellent local fresh fish monger which overlooks St. Peter Port harbour. In contrast to the monochrome view of Vazon Bay above, here is a very vivid view looking back over the harbour to “town” itself. Many of the aforementioned buses (mostly green and yellow) can be seen at the “town” terminus beyond the harbour. Further out beyond the fishmongers lies Castle Cornet and  a modest lighthouse with the occasionally less than modest wave as can be seen right.

IMG_7798_Guernsey IMG_9062_Guernsey IMG_7897_Guernsey Linking Vazon Bay in the west and St. Peter Port in the East, much of the coast of Guernsey resembles Cornwall but in miniature. The seascapes can be by degrees both appealing and/or spectacular be it in sunny, settled weather or in less than settled conditions. A few contrasting examples from three of our walks are presented here.

We had a great time. How lucky we are to have such gracious friends. Thank you so much!

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Modern Mumbo-Jumbo

Posted on by John Curd Posted in Life@Home — 1 Comment ↓

It maybe  a development of the Eddie (Eddie Stobart) spotting fad of many years ago but I find reading the sides of trucks to be quite entertaining on a journey. Sad, I know. Some years ago most of the transport companies became logistics companies, I noticed. Presumably, delivery drivers metamorphosed into logistics operatives.

Now it seems that most of the trucks or vans I follow have become solutions. Everything is now a solution. a few weeks ago I was trying to figure out what a “vehicle solutions” company might be. It turned out to be a car rental company. Now that, I understand. Recently I noticed a van emblazoned with “LAMPS – Lighting And Mains Power Solutions”. An electrician, maybe? Who knows – I certainly don’t. I’m sure that there must be something out there that is a logistics solution.

It’s not just trucks, either. Whilst visiting my friendly optician I parked in a car park where a large wheelie bin declared itself as, “Shanks – waste solutions”. I always thought a waste solution was dirty washing up water.

In an idle moment I investigated a little and came up with this delightful piece of modern marketing mumbo-jumbo from Knorr:

Knorr Total Soup Solutions systems enable you to capitalise on the growing popularity of soup by making soups available, visible and attractive to consumers … together with complementary toppings to customise your soup.

Ye Gods! Now we’ve got a “total soup solution” dispensing customised soup! I don’t know that I want customised soup at all, and particularly not dehydrated customised soup.

Incidentally, I wondered if customised should be customized so I leapt into the dictionaries. I couldn’t find it, either in Chambers or in a thumping big Websters. Curious!

Charity Overload

Posted on by John Curd Posted in Life@Home — 1 Comment ↓

It is said that charity begins at home. I don’t know who it was that said that but several people have certainly taken it at face value. At least, several people think that charity begins at our home and, presumably, those of our neighbours, too.

Four or five days ago a collection bag for the “Extra Care Charitable Trust” fell onto our door mat. It wants, “bric-a-brac, books, jewellery, quality clothing, shoes and accessories”. [Ed: what exactly IS bric-a-brac, anyway?]

The following day a second collection bag, this time for the “Little Treasures Children’s Trust”, followed the first charity collection bag through our door. These folks are more selective; it seems they just want clothing.

Today a third collection bag on behalf of the NSPCC, again just wanting clothes, tried to land on our door mat. I say “tried” because it couldn’t land on our doormat which was already buried by other charitable collection bags.

Now, in addition to my back door being constantly snowed under with food packaging and the like waiting to be washed up before it can be recycled, my front door is obstructed by a plethora of charity collection bags which, doubtless, will not be collected because the driver can’t “see them from the road” and will end up in the same recycle bin as our sparklingly clean garbage.

Toy 2 Story: Light Dawns

Posted on by John Curd Posted in Life@Home — 2 Comments ↓

As a result of having some fun and games with a Brennan JB7 recently, I have been in communication with another Brennan customer. I don’t believe his problems are the same as ours but, “it’s good to talk”, as they say. Part of my communication has been to keep him up to date on developments (see Toy 2 Story: The Sequel), a quick synopsis of which follows.

Brennan had emailed me a software update – a file attachment called “jb1hex”. The included installation instructions were:

To install the file onto your Brennan simply save the file (don’t open it) onto your USB stick, making sure there are no other files on there. Insert the USB stick into your unit, select USB functions and scroll through the menu until you reach ‘SW upgrade’. Select this option and let the file upload; it could take a few hours to process.

Upon complying, this happened …

  1. My JB7 said “No jb1.hex” (note the dot in that name).
  2. True, it was “jb1hex” (no dot)! Thinking my attached “jb1hex” to be a simple naming error, I renamed the file to “jb1.hex” (inserting the missing dot).
  3. This time my JB7 happily read in the file and asked me to “turn off & on”. (I did so.)
  4. My JB7 died completely – no menu, no nothing.

My new acquaintance, the other JB7 customer, emailed me to say that he, too, had been waiting for a software update. He went on to say:

I’m not technical but they said something about unpacking it before installing it. I didn’t know how to do that but they pointed me at a piece of software to do it.

WHAT?

With a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach as suspicions rose and light began to dawn, I threw my original 228K “jb1hex” file at 7-Zip and, lo and behold, out popped a 1599K file called (surprise, surprise) “jb1.hex”.

ARGH!

Small wonder that plugging a zipped file into the JB7 killed it completely. I understand why a file attachment cannot be called blah.zip – email systems are particularly concerned about security issues when it comes to zip files – but ‘t would have been nice to know it was a zip file before cancelling my order.

Back at square #1 still looking for a “music solution”.

Toy 2 Story, The Sequel

Posted on by John Curd Posted in Life@Home — No Comments ↓

[The original Toy 2 Story.]

Late last week our new Brennan JB7 had been returned to have some life breathed back into it after a software update, intended to fix an occasional problem with noise on playback, created a second problem by killing it completely. We hadn’t heard anything so I thought it was time to pick up the old technology land line telephone to see what the position was with our returned unit. I called at around 10:00 AM.

Though we may not have had any feedback, they do seem to have an online tracking system. Our JB7 had arrived with them on Friday. The very pleasant and helpful lady at Brennan’s end of the phone checked their tracking system for us. On Monday an engineer had entered into the tracking system:

“tried a firmware update but that didn’t work”. [Ed: I know that feeling.]

Monday’s was the last/only entry in the tracking system. The very pleasant and helpful lady said she’d get in touch with the workshop (it’s at a different address) to try and find out what was happening. She took my number and said she’d call me back. She was true to her word:

“I got in touch with an administrator at the workshop who is going to try to find out the latest.” [Ed: OK, good] “It might take a couple of hours because obviously there are quite a lot of units down there.” [Ed: Really? A little worrying for new kit].

By 4:00 PM I called and spoke to Brennan again – a helpful gentleman, this time. The conversation went something like this:

“We can’t get in touch with our workshop at the moment”. [Ed: Curious] “Did you actually want it repaired as opposed to exchanged?”

“Not necessarily but I wasn’t originally given that option.”

“We could exchange it but there would be another wait ‘cos we don’t have any left in stock.”

“Yes, I know, I had to wait about 6 weeks for that unit to arrive.”

“We usually quote 2 weeks on repairs. The main man …” [Ed: my phrase] “… is off until Monday so I can’t chase it until then.”

“Tell you what, how about you keep it and give me my money back – I can buy a decent CD player for less than £200.”

“OK, yes, I can do that.”

After about two months and now being back at square #1, a few observations, for what they are worth.

  1. I must say that the people on the phone at Brennan are very friendly, responsive and helpful.
  2. A £400 piece of hardware is delivered well-packaged but with no paperwork whatsoever – absolutely nothing in the way of an invoice or receipt such as might be useful for insurance purposes. This seems a very curious omission. Upon phoning to request a receipt they do email one very quickly but it seems a weird way to go about what I would regard as standard and essential.
  3. As advised by Brennan, it doesn’t quite end with the £400 ‘cos, having spent several weeks ripping in one’s CD collection, it really is advisable to purchase an external hard-drive to back it up. If the Brennan workshop really does contain many units for repair, backup is clearly not to be regarded as an optional extra. If the unit fails in certain ways, Brennan will try to salvage the contents of the internal hard-drive but … hard-drives have been known to crash.
  4. Whilst (eventually) having one’s entire CD collection searchable in a relatively compact package seems quite neat, I suspect that it is actually considerably quicker to select a physical CD and load it into a traditional CD deck than it is to use the JB7’s control panel menu system entering a character at a time and searching.
  5. Given a mixed and varied music collection, “random” play is pretty much useless. Generally one is in the mood for certain types of music; ‘t would be particularly jarring IMHO to jump “randomly” between Led Zeppelin, Ludwig van Beethoven and John Lee Hooker. A Brennan JB7 for each genre may be a solution, albeit a little pricey.

Until recently, my beloved Arcam Delta CD deck performed faultlessly for getting on for 20 years. The CDs themselves are sufficient backup. Does one benefit from anything more complex?

In a Rut

Posted on by John Curd Posted in Life@Home — No Comments ↓

[Yes, I know it’s a very obvious title but sometimes the obvious just has to be done.]

Monday dawned with the promise a very fine day in prospect. Let’s face it, no fine day in the UK should be wasted and particularly not as we face the onset of winter. So, after a very effective piece of advertising by Kate Humble on the first of this year’s BBC Autumn Watch programmes, Carol came up with the whiz-bang idea of visiting Richmond Park to see if we could witness a little of the annual autumnal spectacle for which Richmond Park is famed, the Red Deer rut. Neither of us being very familiar with the suburbs of London, it was also a good opportunity to try out recently acquired new toy #1, our Garmin satnav, to get us there and back.

Nerves only slightly on edge, we arrived by negotiating some of London’s suburbs where the satnav certainly paid dividends. It dutifully navigated us to the road we requested. Unfortunately, the ex-entrance on this road was now closed off but that was not the satnav’s fault. Navigation Officer took control with a trusty old paper map and fixed the issue by finding one of the correct ways into the Royal Park.

IMG_9019 IMG_8942 IMG_9012_Richmond_Park Despite the suburbs that surround it being pretty depressing, Richmond Park itself is quite an impressive location; it looks like both a great place to cycle, which many folks were doing, and an enjoyable place to walk, which even more folks were doing. We first found a plantation complete with ponds and a few late-season dragonflies, though they weren’t suitably positioned for the camera. However, with an uncharacteristically clear blue sky, the unfiltered sunlight did give us some early autumn colours to click away at.

IMG_7700_Ring-necked_Parakeet As we began wandering about looking for our primary target, Red Deer, we became aware of what were, to us, unfamiliar bird noises in some of the trees. Eventually Carol spotted the green shape of one of the culprits flying between trees. The only green bird with which I’m familiar is a Green Woodpecker which this was decidedly not – the tail was much longer. Chunks of London and the southeast have been colonized by Ring-necked Parakeets and here they were in all their green plumaged, red-beaked glory. Originally an escapee, the Ring-necked Parakeet is now a successfully established exotic species. According to Autumn Watch, the Peregrine Falcon seems to have developed a taste for this southern Asian/central African meal. Now here’s something with which you really could make a green curry. Being green, they are darn difficult to spot in trees but, since it’s our first sighting, here is one, albeit a decidedly average picture.

IMG_8973_Egyptian_Goose IMG_7723_Tufted_Duck IMG_7722_Tufted_Duck Still searching for deer, our next distraction was a lake full (well, perhaps not full) of water fowl. The most interesting inhabitants were Tufted Duck and a goose that we didn’t recognize. The goose (left – Carol’s spot) with the eye-patch and necklace turned out to be an Egyptian Goose. While Carol was snapping the geese, I snapped a couple of Tufted Duck shots (right) and only once back at home base did I notice an interesting feature. Ducks have a third eyelid which is clear. This eyelid occasionally flicks across the eye and cleans it. One of my shots had coincidentally caught this eyelid in mid flick. Compare the duck’s eye in the two shots on the right.

IMG_8985 IMG_7749_Red_Deer IMG_7740_Red_Deer Finally, wandering off from the lake to investigate a rise in the ground, we spotted several people standing stationary in bracken and watching. Shortly, the tell-tale throaty boom of a Red Deer stag protecting his harem of hinds drifted across the bracken. The other give-away was that some of the spectators were dressed in camouflage gear, as were some of their longer camera lenses. Given how used to Joe Public the deer in Richmond Park have become, I’m not convinced that the camo gear was necessary but it certainly looks the part. Our stag had a harem of about 10 hinds and performed quite regularly for the cameras as we watched and clicked for half an hour or so. In retrospect, given the number of shots I’ve discarded  due to an unwanted bright blue or bright red shirt wandering across shot aboard its owner, I think I’ll change my original stance on the camo gear – it’s great and everyone should wear it. 🙂

IMG_7769_Red_Deer Naturally, not all stags are yet strong enough or successful enough to win harems in the rutting battles. The younger stags’ turns may eventually come but for now they wander about the park looking vaguely dejected. They are still v. impressive animals, though, and, as we returned to our car, a few wandered across our track just in front of us. The contre jour lighting makes the result quite ethereal, I think.

OK, that’s quite enough thinking!

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Toy 2 Story

Posted on by John Curd Posted in Life@Home — 2 Comments ↓

[Ed: what is that, a pun? Anyway, I hope it isn’t lost on anyone.]

Computer technology can be very useful. From years of bitter experience, though, I well know that one of the biggest drags in going from an “old technology” solution to a computer technology solution is getting the original data into the  the new computer system. There is hardly ever any getting away from a nasty manual effort entering the existing data.

In the case of our new Brennan JB7, data entry equates to laboriously “ripping” in one’s entire collection of CDs. This is not unusual for a computer solution: one has to go through the same process with iTunes unless, of course, one just purchases mp3 files from the iTunes store. Each CD takes about 3 minutes to rip. We have a relatively modest collection of between 300 and 400 CDs to load. Let’s face it, there aren’t that many people making music worth listening to, far less buying. You can do the maths yourselves. Over the space of about four days of intermittent ripping, we had ripped about 30%. of our collection.

One nice feature of the Brennan JB7 is that you can listen to previously loaded music while ripping more. Each day we had used it on playback, at some point a track had suffered what I can best describe as interference: noise over the top of the music. Stopping playback and restarting cleared the noise. One day it took over two hours to occur, another day it happened on the second track. Stopping and starting cleared it. The noise was controllable but irritating – I ended up waiting for it to happen.

I phoned Brennan, firstly for a receipt (for insurance purposes) which their “system does not provide for” (curious for a computer specialist) and secondly to mention the occasional noise on playback. Apparently, Martin (Brennan) had written a software update to “address some playback issues”. Sounded promising. They immediately emailed me both a receipt and a software update file.

I filed the receipt. The email said the software update “could take a few hours”. Strewth, the file is only 228Kb! I was to load it onto an otherwise empty USB stick, plug the otherwise empty USB stick into the front of the Brennan JB7, select “Update S/W” from the menu system and follow instructions. This I did.

  1. “No jb1.hex”, said the menu system.
  2. “True, it was called jb1hex”, I thought.
  3. I unplugged the USB, renamed the file to “jb1.hex” and tried again.
  4. This time the USB light flashed as the now correctly named file was read in to the Brennan JB7.
  5. “Turn off & on”, said the menu system.
  6. I dutifully turned the Brennan JB7 off and back on.
  7. Nothing happened – as in the menu panel was completely devoid of life.
  8. Nothing continued to happen for half an hour or so.

Mindful of the warning that the update “could take several hours”, I nonetheless called Brennan back. They didn’t think a completely blank display panel/menu system was right.

“Are you sure the unit has power?”

“Certainly, I can hear the disk spinning up but the display panel is blank.”

We left it on overnight. Continuing large amounts of blankness greeted us in the morning.

I told Brenan. Brennan told Parcel Force to collect the recalcitrant Brennan JB7 which I was to repackage. It is now back at the repair centre.

There are times when making a piece of carbon isotope vibrate in a profiled groove carved in plastic seems like a good idea, especially if a horn instead of an amplifier is involved. All that can go wrong with that “music solution” is that the rubber band spinning the turntable snaps.

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