The Blog of Adrian Hollister

We've recently gone through planning for our house, to convert something run down into something useful to the community and hopefully attract families back into the village. Families help keep open the local schools, clubs and other facilities - something that is lost when childless and older people retire to villages. The planning process worked well, with the local typical nutty tory NIMBY's failing on their attempt of character assignation and intimidation of my girls (how brave they were picking on girls).

What surprised me is the value that has been added to the house as a building plot. It's a huge amount of money and we've had a large number of builders that want to buy the land and hope that they can build two or more properties. It's tempting to take the money and run - with the increase in value we could certainly buy a very nice house and we would leave the NIMBY's living next to a building plot.

Food for thought I think.

BT Infinity 2 installed and working. What an amazingly quick service. Now if only BT could roll this out to rural locations...

Another batch of face painting this weekend. Hands stained in red paint now - not too professional for work Monday. Still good fun though and made loads of money for charity. Weather is good, so that always helps.

Looks like West Berks Environmental Health people have stood up to the challenge of the sewage leaking from The Crab on the B4494 Newbury to Wantage road and have helped them to fix their problems. Many thanks to West Berkshire Environmental Health - great job!

"Good morning Mr Hollister

The Crab employed a drainage engineer who appears to have resolved the drainage issue. I visited the restaurant yesterday and the side of the road had no ponding water/effluent and has been dry for about a week. Hopefully that is the end of the matter.

Regards

Tony McEvoy

Senior Environmental Health Officer
Commercial Team
West Berkshire and Wokingham Environmental Health and Licensing Service"

Had a bit of fun face painting for Brightwalton School today. Not sure how much I raised this time, but it was very busy and lots of people turned up (despite the snow). First time I've had to face paint whilst wearing wellies and many layers of clothes, but clearly the kids of the downlands here are made of sturdy stuff as none complained about the cold. Sprog 3 also won the Easter Bonnet competition - well done to her.



One the way back I snapped a nice picture of the church - snow melting fast but still looking amazing.

Planning is progressing for the changes to our family home in Brightwalton. There were a couple of objections, but most were boiler plate from the same person; so I hope they are all counted as a single issue. We are one of four original bungalows. At one end of the row we have a house that has been converted to a massive house. We are at the other end but the the house next door to us is in effect three stories high from our ground level so they won’t be impacted by any change.

We knew it was always going to be difficult to get planning in Brightwalton especially as were told a member of the parish council next door who has a propensity to complain about any change and anything modern. So surprise surprise, the parish councillor and the parish council were objectors with almost word for word the same points. Loss of objectivity I think there, especially as other parish councillors get their planning approved immediately. The old boys club is alive and well in what some would describe as a horridly corrupt quango.

It’s amazing to see how many people are stuck in the past – locked in the cycle of remembering better times. If they were being honest with themselves they would recognise that the past was not better, just different. There also seem to be groups that move to villages to die and are happy to watch the villages die around them. Personally I prefer change. It’s invigorating, an opportunity to do things better, and an opportunity to clear out the cobwebs from our collective failed past.

Good news is that the planning people and vast majority in the village approve of the plans. Let’s hope we can get this approved soon and start the building works… time to read a bit more on sustainable housing and building techniques.

It's been what seems like well over a year now since raw sewage smelling water is running from outside the Crab at Chieveley. It seems to have started from a drain directly outside with a foul smelling puddle on the road, to now where the whole road both lanes are covered in disgusting effluent. There is a distinctly cease pit smell to the water and the stench for passing cars is disgusting. There must be a health hazard here for anyone subject to direct spray - cyclists, walkers or motor bike riders; let alone the unaware motorist with any windows open. I can't quite understand how this clear health hazard has been allowed to continue for so long.

I am sure that if this was me I would be horrified and would seek to resolve the problem however I could immediately. The business that must be lost to the Crab at Chieveley by the smell must be massive. I would hope that no one gets ill from the effluent. In these days of no-win-no-fee I'm sure there would be potentially huge financial claims.

West Berkshire Council Public Health: http://www.westberks.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=3964
WBC Public Health Team email address: EHadvice@westberks.gov.uk

If, like me, you have poor reception in certain areas of your home, you could look to the so called Range Extender's to boost your existing network coverage. But my problem is not always boosting my own signal, but boosting local BTWiFi networks. I often work away from home and I am always disappointed with the range and reception of the BT Wireless offering that is often bundled free with BT broadband and other packages. I end up squeezing my laptop or iPad onto window sills that give me the best reception. What a nightmare.

Step in the range extender's. They are simple wireless hubs that exclude some of the features required by your main hub - dhcp, firewall, etc. Some are so simple to set up and use, they need no manual, just a bit of common sense and a power socket. The TP-Link TL-WA730RE is one of the easiest wireless hubs that I have ever touched. Maplin are selling these hubs for about £30 quid, but they are cheaper on amazon and other on-line retailers if you can wait for delivery. So they are cheap, easy to get hold of and easy to use, but just how easy?

Set up of the TP-Link device for unsecured wireless networks (such as BTWiFi or BTWiFi-with-FON) is as follows:
1. Plug in power
2. Wait for lights to show the device is ready
3. Push the 'Range Extender' button on the back
4. Job done

Ok, you do need to put it in a place where it can receive signals from the network your interested in, but as it's repeating the wireless network you don't need to be too fussy with this (window sills are a good place from my experience). There is a wired port Ethernet in the back too if you want to use a cable, but I'm going for convenience.

It does get a little more complex if you have lots of unencrypted networks in your area, but all you do is put a disk into a Windows machine plug in the Ethernet cable and run a simple set up program. A few next, next, next steps and you can choose the network you would like to connect to. You will also need to use this set up program if you want to connect to a secured / encrypted wireless network where you will need to select the network name and put in the network password.

Light and low power the TP-Link TL-WA730RE has a three year warranty in the UK with 24x7 support available too. The spec is not top end, but with Wireless N 150Mbps and such a simple range extender function (something essential for extending BT free WiFi service BTWiFi), it is amazing value that I would be happy to recommend to anyone.

Nice chunk of snow arrives in West Berkshire. Most roads have been cleared to a good enough standard, but a few drivers continue to drive at insane speeds. Loads of kids out on sledges and having great fun. My dogs are enjoying the snow too

Frustrating to see that yet another Conservative is so insensitive to the people in this country - this time it's about poverty and food banks. Chris Steward a councillor for York shows just how out of touch these people are. In their own little private well funded world. I don't wish ill on anyone, but it would be good for Chris Steward and other Conservatives to live in poverty, not just for days, but for years. This would give them a little perspective and an understanding of how their view's mismatch the needs of the people in this country.

Just to be clear though, in West Berkshire the Green Party do not agree with his words. He is at best an uninformed fool and worst a publicity seeking Toff. Food banks provide an amazing service in one of the great gaps in our welfare system. We should be praising the people and companies that provide food and people for their time helping others. If I had my magic wand I would change the welfare system and our working system - a move to a living wage, training, etc. A caring, cooperative and inclusive Green society would provide everyone with opportunities to do valuable work, pursue their interests, interact with their community, keep learning and enjoy nature.


'Dear Richard Benyon,

A few days ago, Conservative councillor for York Chris Steward told the York Press: "The fact some give food to food banks, merely enables people who can’t budget (an issue where schools should do much more and I have said the council should) or don’t want to, to have more money to spend on alcohol, cigarettes etc.

"There is certainly no need for food banks; no-one in the UK is starving and I think food banks insult the one billion in the world that go to bed hungry every day."

In my opinion this shows a lack of empathy and a serious gap in the Conservative Parties understanding of poverty and the causes of poverty.

Do you share his option, agree with his membership of the Conservative Party and will you be sharing your opinion with the Prime Minister?

Yours sincerely,

Adrian Hollister.'

This is an example of how to type and what to do when you are trying to look busy. There is nothing else to do at the moment, but to show how these things are allowed to develop, but you never know what happens when you just start typing stuff into the computer. Some times there are examples of how things can just be written without thinking about stuff. I would like to think that I can type fast and well without looking at the screen, but it just doesn't happen too quickly.

This is another paragraph of text and looks to fill up with page with some more text. Nothing much to say, but at least it adds to the material and makes it look like there is more here than meets the eye. Who knows what the heck they are thinking about when they read this. Who knows who they are exactly. Perhaps they are just kids, browsing the web with nothing else to do. Perhaps they are old people, sat a home with a laptop on their knee browsing the web with slight fear and a bit of wonder. Perhaps though they have just hit this page because a search engine has pointed them in this direction.

Do I care though who's looking at this junk page? Not really. It just marks words on a web site in no real order and with no real intention. No political stuff in this blog entry, no real meaning either. Just some words, some sentences and nothing in any real order. I would like to think it makes sense, but I know it won't.

So what am I writing about? Nothing, just nothing. Well OK, not nothing, but nothing of any meaning or purpose. Well OK perhaps a purpose, the purpose is of course to add some text to a web blog entry because, well, because I can. Perhaps I can add some odd stuff to the page. Let's see how it goes. I've a yellow Ethernet cable at the moment. Yellow because the other ones have slowly been taken at work. Taken by people I'm guessing who have forgotten theirs and need one badly. Yellow it seems is a deterrent. Not quite as good as the bright pink one I used to have, but that's gone beyond the end of it's standard working life and had to be ditched.

There must be a market out there for a personalised Ethernet cable. Perhaps name printing or some 'don't nick me' stripes on the cable to show personalisation, and personalisation generally stops people in your own office 'borrowing' it. Mind you, what the heck would you do if you noticed your personalised Ethernet cable on your boss's desk. Would you burst into the office and claim back your item? Perhaps you could stay late and sneak into the office and reposes your precious Ethernet cable - of course they may have taken it home, so now is clearly the time to get it back. Time to take some lessons in tact and perhaps dish out a lesson in humility to the boss. In I charge. 'Sorry I just borrowed it' came from the office before a potentially nasty confrontation. Perhaps the look on my face was enough to show I meant business. Perhaps though it was angry body language. Who cares, I have my cable back. For now.

See, I thought this ramble would go somewhere. Though perhaps not where it was originally intended. Or who knows, perhaps through some divine power, or perhaps through some unknown entity writing through my fingers into the keyboard the story formed? Or perhaps it's just a bunch of junk put together by my own mad scrambled mind.

That Ethernet cable is bothering me again now. Why are they always too long or too short? They either take up too much space in your bag, or they are just not enough to reach from the nearest socket to where you want to work. Perhaps it's a great cable conspiracy or perhaps the health and safety loonies in organisations make the sockets accessible only to placed you don't want to work. I like the thought of a great covert body of health and safety executives planning world wide conspiracies to increase the sales of Ethernet cables, where they own a 60% stake. But more likely this ramble is just searching for another paragraph ending.

Perhaps then what I should be seeking is just the end of this random assortment of words

Have a great Christmas break people and a great year ahead.

Further heavy rain today has deepened the floods in Devon and Cornwall. The train line services from Newbury are limited as much of the service run's from London Paddington to Exeter or Plymouth - both areas heavily damaged by floods. Newbury to Plymouth is a journey that I do on a regular basis. It's lucky I don't have to travel this way for a few weeks now, but feel sorry for anyone stuck - there is no rail diversion route and at best a long bus journey awaits those stuck. But this minor travel disruption for us should be in context: Pictures of the flooding in Devon are shocking - many of the places deep under water I have walked with the dogs and it's difficult to understand from the picture just how deep and fast flowing the water must be in places. I hope that everyone in Devon and Cornwall have a great Christmas break and manage to stay dry and safe.

Local News Links:
-Newbury Today web site
-BBC News web site