WPBlogger for Windows Phone 7

BT Home Hub manager - Home

or Why do they do this to us?

It seems that we are constantly subject to the vagaries of BT Openreach when we sign up to a broadband package over BT’s ‘last mile’.

Suffice to say – an agreement to call between 15:00 and 17:00 was only notable for the brief missed call which rang once and died.

BT Openreach -  ‘providers of fair and equal access to the network for CPs’ seem to have a strange method for resolving connectivity problems. Over the last several days my broadband quality has been in decline. Finally I’d had enough and initiated a call to BT Broadband’s help line. My broadband connection was resetting the Home Hub 2 every 3 to 5 minutes making BBC iPlayer on the satellite box impossible – I’m glad I’m not a £20 a month BT Vision customer. The prospect of doing a bit of out of hours work over VPN and a Remote Desktop session from home was a non-starter.

Some weeks ago I’d had my line connection upgraded from the ‘up to 8Mb‘ to the advertised ‘up to 20Mb’ on my Unlimited Total Broadband Option 3 package. Since I live only 400m from the exchange I had been getting just over 7Mb download speed which is good by anyone's standard so following the upgrade I was able to brag to  a friend that I was now getting 19Mb download speed.

Openreach have now clocked my connection down to:

Downstream 11,356 Kbps

Upstream 440 Kbps

…and its just gone again…

Needless to say  I’ll be back on the phone this morning stumbling my way through the switching system ‘til I reach India, to be told that I can book a time when they can call me!!

BT Home Hub manager - Home

The Star Inn's 8th Annual Cornish Beer Festival 2011

Yet again by a happy coincidence (thanks Paul) The Star Inn's Cornish Beer Festival falls on the same weekend as my birthday celebrations.

The Star Inn, Bath

Here is the date - it starts on Thursday 14th July and runs until the ale runs out. Last year a 9 gallon barrel of Spingo lasted less than 90 minutes from first pint to last pint. If you have a particular favourite then you need to be there when it's ready because it won't last long.
Further details will follow as they are gleaned.
Cheers Paul, I'm looking forward to it.

St Pauls Carnival Bristol

Fingers still sticky with Hot Sauce, a haze of ganja and scorched Jerk Spice hangs heavy in the sound and humidity.

St Pauls Carnival 2011

What an amazing day - the constant sound of ever changing beats and rhythms preceded us we walked down from Stokes Croft through Portland Square and down to the bottom of Grosvenor Road. Where every other house in the street was either banging out another track from another deck through another stack of speakers, selling Jerk Chicken Rice 'n' Peas or cans of cold Red Stripe from their front gardens. Truly an assault on all the senses coming smothered in smiles.
Thank you St Pauls.

The Plainest of Plain White Loaves

'ere 'tis for those that have asked.

This recipe is for Bread Making Machines and the ingredients are added to the pan in the order listed. As a rule I try to do as much measuring with the pan on a set of those electronic scales, that you can set back to zero after adding each ingredient.

18g Rapeseed Oil
290g Water
1tsp Salt
3 tsp Golden Caster Sugar (the unbleached stuff)
450g Doves Farm Organic Strong White Bread Flour (http://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/)
1½tsp Packet Dried Yeast (the fast stuff)

Use the normal program (#1 on my Kenwood BM256) and set the weight for a 750g loaf and the crust of your choice.

Enjoy.

A Fine Day for a Picture

I woke yesterday, barely remembering that there was a Venice Simplon Orient Express (VSOE) outing due through Bath Spa on its way to Bristol. This is important to me because I like steam engines and also because one of the carriages is called Zena.
After a brisk walk to the end of Hampton Row through the centre of Bath, up the Warminster Road and along the canal tow path I reached the proposed shooting location to find so much over growth I had to scramble through a hedge and set up the camera in the corner of a field.
Anyway here's the picture of the train from London Victoria pulled by engine number 35028 - Clan Line, a preserved Merchant Navy Class locomotive built in 1948.

and Zena, an original Pullman coach built in 1928.

3 Thirds Loaf

I have finally settled on a combination of ingredients to produce a reasonably consistent and tasty loaf of bread from my machine. As requested, this is how it goes (in order of addition to the pan):-

20g Rapeseed Oil
290g Water
1 tsp Sea Salt
3 tsp Golden Caster Sugar
150g Wholegrain Spelt Flour
150g Strong White Bread Flour
150g Wholemeal Bread Flour
1½ tsp Dried Yeast (Suitable for bread makers!!)

With a Kenwood Bread Maker, I use the Wholemeal Loaf programme which takes three and tree quarters of an hour when set for a 750g loaf with a moedium crust. The flour is usually Doves Farm Organic and everything else is Sainsbury's.

Enjoy.