As our reigning Monarch probably wouldn't put it, the week has been a bit of an anus horribilis(1). The week started well with FTP access being granted to a server so I could actually do my job at a decent speed for the first time in three months. A little flurry of work, and then, I thought, leasure to read and remark.

"Ho. Ho. Ho." I can hear you thinking. "Time for a visit from the F**k-up Fairy (who is probably not Cinderbelle, as I don't think she has quite the qualifications for the job).

So, as you have probably anticipated, we had a power failure at work. When I say "we", I mean most of our part of the grid.

"But surely you have your servers on un-interuptable power supplies(3), and emergency generators to take the load." I her you cry.

We did. Half the building disappeared in a plume of smoke as the generators kicked in. The UPS kept the servers up long enough for the generators to take up the load.

So? Well, the comms stuff - being slightly less important - is not on the UPS, so we now have to untangle all the systems that are grumpy because they suddenly couldn't talk to each other. I am not going to suggest that any one piece of software was at fault, but there is a reason we call it B****y S*******e.

The only comfort is that I might be able to squeeze a story out of it...

Add to this that it is my daughter's birthday today (meal tonight, gathering at weekend, mass hysterical gardening last weekend...) and you can imagine what things are like at the moment.

As a result, my participation is more down than usual. Normal service may be resumed next week.


Chris/Manga Shoggoth.



(1) For the sake of people who don't do Latin(2) - canine or otherwise - annus horribilis means "horrible year" - a term coined by our queen to describe 1992, and a reference to annus mirabilis - wonderful year. Obviously anus horribilis doesn't mean quite the same thing...

(2) CSFB!

(3) A fancy term for Batteries.