Geoff Coupe's Blog

Reflections on life at “De Witte Wand”…

Year: 2019

  • Swirling in a Human Cesspit

    Sir Cyril James Anderton, when he was the chief constable of Greater Manchester, came up with the supremely irritating statement in 1986 that homosexuals, drug addicts and prostitutes who had HIV/AIDS were “swirling in a human cesspit of their own making”. It received widespread and justified criticism at the time, but I have to concede that it is a very powerful image.

    Now, what with the antics over Brexit, and Theresa May’s disastrous decision to invite Trump on a state visit to the UK, that image has been resurrected into my consciousness, with the current crop of Conservative politicians in place of Anderton’s targets.

    Judging by the record of his actions, Trump is well-placed to play the role of the cesspit directly.

    A slightly more genteel view of the current shenanigans is given by First Dog on the Moon today. The final panel contains a well-placed barb at all concerned.

    Addendum: John Crace gives us an insight into the stream of what passes for consciousness in Donald Trump’s cranium; although I suspect that Trump wouldn’t know the meaning of “existential dread” if it stood up and bit him.

  • All animals are equal…

    But clearly, some are still more equal than others…

    A walk from the Westerbork Nazi transit camp to Groningen as part of the “Night of the Refugee” fundraising activities has been cancelled after the organisers faced death threats and intimidation.

    What really galls is that Thierry Baudet described the sponsored walk as “scandalous”, and Esther Voet, the editor of the Jewish newspaper Nieuw Israelietische Weekblad said it was “Tasteless”.

    Perhaps Baudet and Voet should be reminded of the poem written by Martin Niemöller: “First they came…”

  • There and Back Again

    We went away at Easter. The impetus for the weekend away was the fact that a good friend of ours was celebrating his 80th birthday in Brighton, and we thought, why not celebrate with him?

    We put the dogs into the tender care of our local kennels, and travelled to London by train. That meant travelling two hours from home to Amsterdam, boarding the Thalys to Brussels, and then changing to the Eurostar to London St. Pancras. All told, the outward journey took eight hours. Coming back, we could travel direct from London to Amsterdam on the Eurostar, which made the inbound journey a mere six hours. Whilst flying would have been quicker and cheaper, it wouldn’t be that much shorter, and I feel that we’ve done our bit to counter climate change. So pardon my smugness. I like travelling by train as well.

    So, Friday night in London, travel to Brighton on the Saturday for the party (by train, of course), back to London on the Sunday (ditto), and then back to the Netherlands on Monday.

    Everything went according to plan. We ticked off a trip on the London Eye from the bucket list, met friends for a pub lunch, had a great time in Brighton, visited the British Museum on Sunday (where I bought yet another book), had a very good meal at Indian Accent (recommended by a Foodie friend), slept at the St. Pancras Hotel on Sunday night, and tumbled out of bed onto the train to Amsterdam on Monday morning. We collected the dogs on Tuesday, who seemed pleased to see us, and now it’s back to work in the garden.

  • Wherefore By Their Fruits Shall Ye Know Them…

    Back in January, I blogged about the fact that my Internet Service Provider, XS4ALL, was going to be swallowed up by its parent company KPN. XS4ALL customers were not happy about this – over 50,000 of them (including me) signed a petition to keep the XS4ALL brand alive.

    KPN naturally claimed that we would not notice any change in quality:

    “With the focus on the KPN-brand we are going to extend the KPN service with the best elements of the individual brands, such as the highest rated service by XS4ALL, the affordable advantage services of Telfort and the personal service and expert business advice from Yes Telecom”

    Well, pardon me for being sceptical, but the words “quality”and “KPN service” have not usually been used in the same sentence, judging by the experience of many of their customers.

    And now, I have another piece of evidence of my own to add to that dossier.

    Since 2017, to get increased speed alongside the slow ADSL connection of XS4ALL, I have been subscribing to a KPN service: Sneller Internet Buitengebied 4G (faster internet for the countryside 4G). It uses the KPN 4G mobile network to deliver internet connectivity to routers in the home.

    There were some problems when I first started using it, web pages would frequently would not load, slow response, and loss of internet connectivity. However, after some discussions in the KPN user forum, the solution was found: the Access Point Name (the gateway between the internet and KPN’s Mobile Network) had to be given as “advancedinternet”. The other APNs were designed for mobile phones, and did not work well with the 4G router supplied by KPN for its Sneller Internet Buitengebied 4G service.

    I suppose that I should have heard a bell ringing by the fact that the problem was not solved by KPN staff in the forum, but by other customers. Be that as it may, the problem was solved, and I was a happy bunny.

    Fast forward to two weeks ago, and all the old problems had returned, even though I was still using the advancedinternet APN. At the same time, customers started complaining on the forum that the port-forwarding function of the service had stopped working. Port-forwarding is necessary for customers who require to connect to their systems remotely – for example to check their security cameras when travelling.

    After two days, the forum moderator eventually discovered that KPN had pulled the plug on the advancedinternet APN, and all traffic was now being routed through the basicinternet APN. This had three consequences:

    • Port-forwarding was no longer possible
    • The old problem of web pages not loading, slow response and internet connectivity problems was back – with a vengeance.
    • A speed cap of 30 Mbps download and 15 Mbps upload was imposed.

    Forum moderators scrambled, and produced a link (to a hitherto unseen – by the customers – internal KPN document) – a FAQ that stated that port-forwarding was not supported on the service. This despite the fact that it had been happily working since 2017, and despite the fact that the service had been recommended by KPN salespeople to certain customers precisely because it supported port-forwarding.

    So two weeks later, we still have a crappy service – for which I am paying €41.50 monthly. The forum moderators tell us that KPN is investigating what can be done – but we knew two years ago that this would happen.

    Frankly, I think KPN would rather that we all go to their new 4G service for internet at home. Unfortunately, this requires an ADSL connection supplied by KPN, which many of the existing customers (including me) do not have, and I have no intention of being tied to a year-long contract. I shall just have to put up with KPN’s crappy service until our fibre-optic service arrives in a few month’s time.

    As someone said on a forum:

    Adjust the subscriptions so that existing customers lose features without informing the customers? The KPN manager who has thought that this would be a good idea urgently needs to be on a customer friendliness course. I will summarize what this manager is going to learn there: for existing customers you keep everything as is, for new customers offer new services. If you want a simple, unambiguous information structure, you make it attractive for existing customers to switch but you do not force them. And you do nothing at all without informing the customers!

  • Apocalypse Now?

    The Guardian review of “The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells has the subtitle “Enough to induce a panic attack…”

    I can attest to that. I started reading the book today on the train to Amsterdam, and got thoroughly depressed. Considering that I was on my way to attend the birthday party of two friends, it probably wasn’t the best choice of reading material. Nonetheless, it’s an important book, delivering a wake-up call as solid as a punch to the solar plexus.

    I think the most salutary lesson that comes through is that the effects of climate change are already with us, and that the scale will only ratchet up. The best we can hope for is to take action to ameliorate the extent; we cannot hope to reverse it and you can abandon all hope of stopping it.

    And with his calm recitation of the facts of recent events – hurricanes, droughts, floods and the like – he makes it abundantly clear that we are not heading for an apocalypse, we are already living in its opening chapters.

  • Put it to the People…

    A nice selection of placards from the anti-Brexit march today…

  • We’ve got troubles of our own…

    And at the same time that I’m shaking my head in despair over Brexit, here in the Netherlands, we’ve just had elections for the Provinces. And it appears as though populism is rearing its ugly head here as well. The Forum for Democracy (FvD) party has (according to the exit polls) made substantial gains.

    While it wears a gentler face than Geert Wilders’ PVV party, at its heart it seems to embrace the same sort of worrying ideals. As Wikipedia says:

    The party opposes the European Union and campaigns for a referendum on Dutch EU membership. It also adopts a nationalist viewpoint in which the Dutch culture should be protected; the party is in favor of reinstating border controls and ending what it perceives as mass immigration. It campaigns against unchecked immigration, and says it would introduce a “Dutch Values Protection Act” and wants to ban Islamic face veils and other face coverings.

    A Dutch Values Protection Act… Oh dear. I’m reminded of the song and the scene in Cabaret: “Tomorrow Belongs To Me”.

  • Pathetic, incoherent, chaotic…

    Apparently that’s Europe’s verdict on the Brexit shambles, as reported in today’s Guardian. It pains me to say it, but I think Europe has got it exactly right. Indeed, I think we have a clear case of omnishambles here.

    The cherry on the top of this (Eton) mess is likely to be that Boris Johnson will replace Theresa May as Prime Minister. Out of the frying pan…

  • RIP Magenta

    Sad to hear that Magenta Devine has died at what, to me, is the young age of 61. She co-presented an impressive series of Rough Guide travelogues on BBC television in the late 1980s. The woman had style and wit. She was also the neighbour of my best friend who was living in a London Mews at the the time. I’m sorry I never had the opportunity to meet her in real life, but I’d probably have been too tongue-tied and star-struck anyway.

    Magenta Devine

    Addendum: a nice tribute to Magenta, written by an ex-partner of hers is here.

  • Microsoft Health – Life Support Withdrawn

    I see that Microsoft has announced that it is pulling the plug on the Microsoft Health Dashboard applications and services. I can’t say I’m surprised; the writing has been on the wall ever since Microsoft dropped the Microsoft Band two years ago.

    When the first version of the Microsoft Band was introduced in 2014, I thought that the most interesting thing was the backend services of Microsoft Health. The combination of Big Data and AI could have been game-changing, and as recently as a year ago Microsoft made a series of announcements to push this further.

    It may well be that these cloud-based initiatives in conjunction with the medical industries will continue, and all that is now being killed off is the consumer-facing tier of products and services.

    Still, I regret the demise of the Microsoft Band and its application services. Although the device was flawed physically (wristbands split all too easily and could not be replaced), the design of the functionality was very good. I eventually replaced my (third) Microsoft Band 2 with a FitBit Ionic smartwatch, and frankly, it’s not a patch on what the Band offered me.

  • Just Dropping In…

    We’ve noticed a new visitor in the field next to our house in the past few days; a Great Egret…

    20190219-1516-38

    It’s probably looking for a mate, but I think it’s going to be out of luck around these parts.

  • “A Special Place In Hell”

    Donald Tusk hits the nail on the head. The Nigel Farages, Jacob Rees-Moggs and Boris Johnsons of this world deserve nothing less. It is they who have betrayed the British people, not the EU.

  • “A Terrible Failure of Common Sense”

    In recent years, the UK Home Office has increasingly seemed to be driven by checklists, rather than any understanding of the people they are dealing with.

    Here’s just the latest example in a very long list: a man, 90 years old, is being told to fly to the US to get a visa so that he can stay in the UK with his wife.

    Apparently, a Home Office spokesperson has said:

    “All UK visa applications are considered on their individual merits, on the basis of the evidence available and in line with UK immigration rules.”

    As a good friend of mine has said on many an occasion: “Just what is wrong with these people?”.

     

  • Half and Half

    Someone asked me last night how long I had been living here in the Netherlands, and I replied: “35 years”.

    “So, for half your life?” he asked. And up until that moment I had not thought about it, but he’s right: for the first 35 years of my life, I lived in the UK (even though, technically speaking, the country of my birth, the Isle of Man is a Crown Dependency and not part of the UK) and now I’ve been living for 35 years in the Netherlands.

    It gave me pause.

  • Seder Masochism

    Nina Paley has finished her magnum opus and released it to the world.

    Seder-Masochism.png

    Deceptively simple, yet raises uncomfortable questions. Worth watching.

  • The Wall

    In these dark times, god knows, I need a little cheering up. And Randy Rainbow continues to deliver and prick presidential pretensions.

  • Bohemian Gravity

    I know I’m very late to this, but I’ve just come across this via a link in another online forum. Worth a listen…

  • Killing the goose that lays golden eggs

    Here in the Netherlands we have a number of internet service providers (ISPs) to choose from. One of the oldest is XS4ALL, and it has been offering internet access to private individuals since 1993. It’s been my ISP since 1994. Although it was sold to KPN in 1998, it has remained as an independent subsidiary. At least, it has up until now.

    Yesterday, KPN announced its intention to phase out the XS4ALL brand (and selected other subsidiary brands) and continue operations solely under the KPN brand. According to KPN:

    “With the focus on the KPN-brand we are going to extend the KPN service with the best elements of the individual brands, such as the highest rated service by XS4ALL, the affordable advantage services of Telfort and the personal service and expert business advice from Yes Telecom “

    This has not gone down well with XS4ALL customers (including me). A petition to request the continuation of the XS4ALL brand has already been started. The issue is that XS4ALL scores consistently the highest in customer satisfaction and service as measured by the Dutch consumer organisation. It also has a wider range of products and services on offer than the parent KPN. So the fear is that those aspects that marked out XS4ALL from the rest of the pack will be lost in the mediocrity that is the oft-perceived hallmark of KPN.

    XS4ALL has a strong brand image and is well-liked; it seems strange that KPN would seek to kill the goose that has been laying golden eggs for them.

    I note that as a result of the (negative) reaction, a KPN spokesperson has now said that it’s not yet certain when the change is going to happen and in what stages…

    For me, it will be shortly be irrelevant anyway. That’s because we should be getting a new fibre-optic network in the neighbourhood by mid-2019, and KPN (and hence XS4ALL) refuse to offer their services over it. I will have to switch over to a new ISP, and I have chosen for Solcon. The irony is that Solcon also happens to be a subsidiary of KPN since 2017, but KPN, for some reason best known to themselves, are letting the Solcon brand continue…