When a Kings Cross train derailed on its way out of the station, Jarvis were initially adamant that their maintenance regime was not to blame. A short investigation by Network Rail later however, together with the peace of mind that comes from knowing no lives were lost this time, allowed them to admit that, umm OK, it was squarely their fault the points hadn’t been properly restored to operational order.

But at Potters Bar, in which people lost their lives when a carriage derailed and slid across the platform, Jarvis insisted that it was not their fault the bolts were missing from the point blades. No, that was “sabotage” (after all, saboteurs could theoretically strike at Potters Bar and not be witnessed, which is not the case at the busy throat of a major terminal). And I think we can now see just how likely that explanation is.

End of the pier show.

A leaf and a spot of sunlight. I was sitting by the riverside in Worcester when I noticed a simple opportunity that didn’t require moving from my spot.

A quiet corner of Manchester on a sunny day.

When you’re on Bamburgh beach in conditions like this, the shot practically takes itself.

If you followed the post about Performance graphing on Solaris, check back for an updated Orca collection script and more fixes (with patches) for SARGE.

Petteri Sulonen offers the cluestick to camera shops: it’s about the service, dummy.

Round about 1995, I left the University of Wales Aberystwyth, where I had a good wage, academic surroundings, interesting work, sociable students, friends and the chance of a beer almost any night, to take a job near Oxford where I had a better wage and almost none of the rest. I put it down to some kind of mental aberration on my part, the same one that has guided all my smartest decisions (like digging out a foot of soil and laying flags in the front garden on a hot weekend recently - that was another sound idea). Hence I found myself driving back to Aber on as many weekends as I could possibly scab floor space in which to crash.

Every so often, I get bored with the stability of my home PC and, in the absence of Microsoft to break it for me, decide to mix things up a bit by jumping to a newer Red Hat release. The multiple upgrade attempts! The disk corruption! Reconfiguring all the services! Clearing up all those *.rpmnew files! Ah yes, it keeps me entertained for days afterwards and ensures that I have no excuse for doing any real work. Plus, my Glamorous Research Assistant (GRA) is so desperate to get her email back that she lets me work uninterrupted on the computer for hours without complaint.

Arty, that’s me.