As it is I reloaded all the data from an external hard drive (always keep a copy!) while re-installing software from scratch. The anti-virus was first, then Firefox, Chrome, Spotify, Last.FM, iTunes and PhotoFiltre to download. MS Office was next, which involved downloading and some calls to the MS customer support number to get itactivated. PaintShop Pro and Photoshop Elements were next and surprisingly that was no problem – I have always found Adobe to be fussy about licence keys .

It was all a bit slow, but then thre was a lot of data transfer going on, followed by iTunes and Windows Media Player searching for podcasts and music files respectively and updating their libraries. Actually the WMP library update took forever.

Finally I set up email accounts on Outlook and was quite pleased to find not nearly as much spam as I was expecting.

I’ve got the printer drivers set up but still need to install the software from the Flip and Sony Reader and then whatever other bits and pieces I can think of. For old times’ sake I shall reinstall some of the iRiver software since the trusty old HP120 does still work.

I supppose that now everything is up and running again I should think about actually doing some work before I get tempted to install Age of Empires and Rise of Nations. I’m looking forward to the possibilities of photo editing with two monitors at my disposal.

A portrait of Peter Gabriel, painted 300 years before he was born?

I know it might sound like a lot of money, but if anybody has the odd three million quid to spare I quite fancy getting my hands on the newly-discovered Velazquez painting. Its a real bargain when you consider that there are only 98 known works by Velazquez and £3 million is a mere fraction of what was paid for Damien Hirst’s shark. Come on – I named my cat after Diego Velzquez, I obviously deserve it!

If nobody in the family manages a record-breaking lottery win before the auction I just hope the buyer lets the painting be displayed at the National Gallery or the Prado or somewhere else where the public can see it alongside some of his other paintings.

Apart from its rarity, it looks like a very good piece of work. Maybe not as striking as his portrait of Pope Innocent X and looking in need of a bit of a scrub, but still wonderful.

The subject is unknown, and suspected to be Philip IV’s master of the hunt, but I think we can all see that it is really a portrait of Peter Gabriel.

I can’t really understand why there are so many different types. I only want black trainers. Preferably entirely black. They do exist, but you have to hunt for them amongst all the gaudy coloured shoes. I look at the display, look down at my scuffed and battered footwear, and decide there’s a bit more wear in them yet because not all my toes are poking through.In the past I have bought trainers and decided to keep the old ones for gardening or something like that. The trouble with that is that I see two pairs, one a bit new and stiff, and one moulded to the shape of my feet and I go for the old ones until they are literally unwearable. This time I forced myself to throw the old ones away immediately to remove that temptation.

I went into town today, wearing the new trainers and it was like walking on air!

Maybe next time I will not wait until these shoes get to the point where I can tread on a coin and tell whether it is heads or tails before I replace them.

Back in May I bought an electric fire online after getting thoroughly cheesed off with Homebase.  The fire arrived the next day, I installed it and more or less forgot about it. Recently Jayne has been putting it on – just the fire effect and not the actual heat – to make the room feel cosier. Unfortunately the fire made a high-pitch whistling noise that was unbearable.

This week I dug out the paperwork for it and Jayne called up the customer support number. They said it was not acceptable for us to be unhappy with their product and promised an immediate replacement which arrived the very next day and works perfectly. They are arranging for the old fire to be collected on Friday.

I wasn’t aware when I bought it that the website and retail operation was owned by Adams so in effect we were buying directly from the manufacturer. It made everything very easy because they had proper records of exactly when we bought it even though I forgot to send off the registration card (oops).

It is an old cliche that the aim of a customer services operation is to delight their customers and this helpline certainly did that.

At one point I stopped and looked at the monstrous stereos, full of buttons, holes, displays, protuberances, grilles and lights and had a sudden realisation: I don’t have a stereo!   In fact I haven’t had one for ages.  My old Sony midi system used to be in our old kitchen and then the attic but now Charlie has it.  I sold the turntable, and Frankie had the rest of the separates.  Jayne has a little micro system in the kitchen but I don’t actually have a stereo any more.

Music has always been important to me.  Ever since I left home I always had a stereo.  I had my own place for a year before I thought about getting a TV, and I was very late getting a VCR, but I always had a stereo.  I still listen to music a lot but it is mostly on the PC either from the hard drive or streaming.  If I listen in the bedroom it is by plugging the iRiver or Creative mp3 players into speakers I keep there and if I am gardening, going for a walk or taking the bus or train I will have the Creative with me.  I have a portable DAB radio on my desk (mono) and if I really want to listen to a CD properly, or get the full surround effect on an DACD or DVD-A, I will play in on the DVD player through the AV amp which sorely needs replacing, but I don’t have a dedicated music player any more.

So I was only mildly interested in the stereos.  It might be nice to have one, but I wouldn’t know where to put it.   I didn’t even bother looking at the massed ranks of TVs, HD TVs, 3D TVs and Blu-Rays.  I had a little closer look at PC base units because Jayne reckons she is due an upgrade this year, and had a stab at some of the tablet and touchscreen PCsbut that was it really.  The only toy of real interest was the Kindle on display in PC World.

At first I thought it was just a cardboard dummy display and then realised it was the real thing – that screen really does do a fantastic job of looking like paper.

Even with the fridges I knew there was little point looking.  I love those big American-style fridges with a water and ice dispenser in the door.  When we still had all three kids at home that would have been such a great thing to have, but the old place didn’t have room for one unless we took out a work surface and blocked the window with it.  We could fit one in this place, but such a cavernous device would look pathetic with the small amount of food we now keep – and even less next week when the boy leaves home. Again.

I should have been like a kid in a sweetshop today but instead I was more like a diabetic in a sweetshop.

As a consequence, when I popped in for milk this evening I found myself browsing in the wine aisle and I have to say it was a bit of a shock. I hadn’t realised that wine had got so expensive. I actually felt quite relieved that my new year’s resolution to drink more has failed miserably (about 2 or 3 pints in 2011 so far I think).  I guess it doesn’t help that my favourite wines are not at the bargain basement end of the price structure.  Not that I am into really ridiculously-priced fine wines: just Sancerre, Fleurie, Bourgogne Aligote, Brouilly and stuff like that, but they all seem to start around the £8.50 mark now.

I didn’t dare even look to see if they had any Nuit St Georges.

Fortunately I don’t think I am in any imminent danger of needing to buy wine, unless Auntie Joan ever decides to pay a visit of course.  I think I still have a few bottles in the bin cupboard cellar.

There is now a huge space devoted to electronic gadgets: iPads, PlayStations, iPods, etc. and naturally rafts of expensive accessories for all of them.  It is all very nicely laid out too – low counters with lots of these toys on display where they can be touched and played with.  I was slightly impressed, but there was something wrong that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Then it came to me: isn’t this vast space full of electronic toys where all the music used to be?   Where is all the music?

There is still the few racks of three-for-a-tenner bargains at the front, along with the current chart, but for anything even slightly obscure or for back catalogue there are a few measly racks at the back.  It has almost got to the point where I have more titles on CD at home than HMV have in their shop.

This would not be too bad were it not for the fact that HMV was just about the last chain selling music in any quantity that even pretended to go much beyond the charts and popular ‘greatest hits’ bargains and having seen Our Price fold, WH Smith give up and most independents get forced out of business there really is no other option than Amazon left, which is OK but deprives us of the pleasure of browsing.

HMV might as well just call themselves a DVD shop now.  I can’t even get angry about it since I know that I am as much to blame for this as anybody, and my own purchasing habits have contributed to the demise of the business.

Epson Stylus SX515W

My printer has been playing up a lot lately.  Lots of error messages about the ink system failing, and it would also lock up a lot when scanning.

I did a bit of research on the net and found that it was most likely a hardware fault that could easily be fixed with a couple of 30p components from Maplins – but that would depend on me also getting the special screwdrivers to get at the components, a decent soldering iron, and then not causing more damage soldering componentson the circuit board.

Not being a practical type I decided to get a new printer instead.I went for a Epson for a change – the SX515W.   Previously I have had a variety of different HP printers, so this was a bit of a departure.   There were cheaper machines out there, but I thought I would go for something with a wireless connection so that it is easily shared by everybody else in the house.

First impressions: being black, it looks better than the old HP, which was that beige-y colour that all computers used to be.  I reflected a bit on how complete the change has been over the past few years and now you can’t get a beige computer and yet, at least in the corporate environment, printers are still sticking with that colour scheme.

Had a bit of trouble setting it up because I chose to use the laptop for that and the laptop is Windows 7 but the CD that comes with the printer doesn’t have all the drivers for Windows 7.  I had to download them from the net.  Then I forgot that I had MAC address filtering on the router so would not be able to get the printer working until I added its MAC address to the list of allowed devices.

Got there eventually, and it all seems fine now.   I prefer the paper tray on the old HP, which had a separate tray for photo paper and had the paper tray horizontal underneath the output tray, but I’ll have to get used to feeding paper in from the top.

Jonesy

First attempt at scanning was a pleasure though.  I used the full-auto mode and just threw in a photo of our old snake that had been sitting on the table for ages.

The photo was not only scanned but straightened out and cropped to the right size.  I have been doing all that manually.

Not sure yet how to do a big batch of scans, but its early days yet.  So far it has been easier.

Even better, thanks to our new location Comet is only about 100 metres away as the crow flies so once I decided what I wanted I was able to go out and come back with it in a few minutes.

I think I may be turning shopophobic.  I don’t think there is anything I don’t have that I want badly enough to face that sort of chaos.

They did have part 1 of that season and part 2 separately for something like £40 each.  So every other season was costing from £11 to £25 for a whole season and this one would be £80.  Decided to look on Play.com instead and found that season, complete, for £12.

Could have saved a lot of time by not going out at all.

While I was on there I gave into temptation and treated myself to an early present – Mothership for a fiver.  24 tracks of Led Zeppelin, all remastered for less than the cost of 20 cigs.  Handy for me, because when the last major Led Zep reissue came out – the one with the crop circle thing on front – I bought it on cassette.

Anyway, the DVDs and CDs arrived today safe and sound despite all the postal service disruptions.