Thursday 31 December 2009

Hopes for the new decade

First of all a Happy New Year to you all and of course Happy New Decade as well.

I had a CT scan at Maidstone Hospital on December 21st and have to see the consultant for the result on January 5th. As I have been told several times that I only have months to live you can imagine that Christmas was rather a worrying time, and as it gets nearer to January 5th I am becoming more aprehensive. At the moment I feel perfectly well but I am preparing myself for the worst possible result. Lets just hope its not as grim as I fear.

I would also like to say a big THANKYOU to all my friends for there support during the last 12 months and to a very special friend whose friendship and support has meant the world to me, I am so happy that you have found happiness.

Andy

Friday 18 December 2009

Defeated

Well the weather won today. There were no trains from Maidstone and the roads that were not blocked were gridlocked. So I missed my appointment at the Royal Marsden. Fortunately have been able to rebook it for January 15th.
Andy

Sunday 6 December 2009

So much for digital!

As you are probably aware the UK government wants us all to switch to digital broadcasting in the next few years and drastically reduce the amount of broadcasting on FM.

I have had a DAB radio for the last couple of years and to be honest the quality is only as good as FM. This morning I tried to tune in to one of my favourite radio stations Jazz FM which despite its title is only on DAB and on line. The only stations that i could pick up were the BBC national ones which are broadcast from there own multiplex. Even the BBC locals were off air (still on FM though) which is rather a disturbing thought as it is these stations that we rely on in an emergency, this is what happened in the recent floods when BBC Cumbria slaughtered the comercial opposition with there news and information.

After about an hour DAB came back, the reason being that there had been a failure with the UBS line at the Croydon multiplex causing loss of DAB throughout the South of England.

In this instance UPS stands for unbreakable power supply! What would happen if there was an emergency as in Cumbria and there was no AM/FM backup? I think someone somewhere needs to do a rethink!

Andy