14 May 2015 (Thursday) - End of an Era...?

After a surprisingly busy night shift I listened to the radio on the drive home. Occasionally (just occasionally) the news of the day boils my piss. A few such story raised the temperature of that volatile fluid today.

The local police are no longer going to dirty their hands dealing with lost property. Apparently if I find anything which seems to be valuable it's now up to me to try to find the owner. The use of social media was advocated (!)

Something else which rather annoyed me was the publication of the "Black Spider" memos.  Prince Charles has over the years written to various ministers expressing his concerns on a range of issues. These letters have been published for no apparent reason other than to stir up bad feeling towards our future King.

Prince Charles is in a no-win position. If he does nothing but open supermarkets and hospitals whilst blathering platitudes he is lambasted as a vacuous windbag. If he expresses opinion he is accused of wielding unfair influence.

However it seems that Charlie had valid points and concerns which were expressed politely and respectfully, and the machinations of the Republicans have been thwarted.

And the pundits were up in arms about Facebook's news feed. They *really* didn't like this; because of its automated nature it was using algorithms to determine what news items it would display. Apparently this is terrible because the pundits who present the news want to be able to choose which news items to blow out of all proportion, and which ones to quietly ignore. Letting a machine do this would be the thin end of the wedge. Apparently.

I came home and took my dog for a walk. He had some fun games with other dogs, and got bashed up by a small thing which took exception to having his tennis ball stolen. Perhaps Fudge will learn the error of his ways.

With our walk done I thne spent much of the rest of the day in bed; such is the down side of a night shift. Mind you it rained pretty much all day so I didn't miss much.

Thursday is saxophone lesson day, and so I went to the music school. For the last time. I've decided to give up the lessons. Realistically whilst my saxing isn't bad, it's not getting any better. I'm struggling to find time to practice, re-arranging shifts to allow for the lessons is a pain, and giving them up will give me fifty quid a month which I can squander on something else.

Saxophoning was fun, but the novelty has worn off. I wonder what I can do next...