Recycling

While you read this you could listen to this extraordinary east meets west collaboration.

Clearing out an office drawer we found many old gadgets and one was a Psion Revo, a sort of pocket organiser. I had never seen it being used and I located all the bits and plugged it in. The battery life was about 10 minutes so it was not in the best of health. I got a couple of solder tagged AAA NiMH cells and set to work.
First the "revo" badge needed to come off. I levered up one edge with a blade enough so that I could slip some floss in.

From Psion Revo

The floss tended to be cut by the badge but it eventually came off. Next the hinge pins could be extracted.

From Psion Revo

These are just rotated and then can slide out.

From Psion Revo

Then the whole hinge mechanism can slide back together with the ribbon cable.

From Psion Revo

It was another very fiddly step to unhook the springs and the rear pins so that the battery could be fully exposed.

From Psion Revo

This is just a peek at the end of the battery after I replaced it. The connector has a red and black wire carrying the power and the blue wires are for the thermistor that controls the charging process.
The Revo is a fun gadget. It is ideal for taking notes and has a surprisingly capable word processor. You just open it and it is alive where you left off last time. You shut the lid and it is off. The touch screen is accurate and you use it instead of a mouse. There are some utilities that can be downloaded. I installed a telnet, piano keyboard, a 3D tank battle game and Pacman. I also found the drawing program, "Sketch" which was designed for the bigger Psion models but worked fine on the Revo.
The other applications are now quite useless now that mobile phones are so powerful. You don't need contacts or a calendar. Neither email or a phonebook. The time is handy but not essential. The calculator comes in handy now and again. But the ability to have a small but usable keyboard to write documents anywhere that you go is really good. Also the ability to sketch using the touch-screen is a bonus for drawing quick diagrams. And the way that it backs up everything to your computer as soon as you plug it in to charge. The backup is good enough to restore the entire machine including all the extra programs even if the battery was changed. And the fact that the battery can last for several days of blogging without needing a charge.

More Merry Walks

Merrywalks is the worst road in Stroud for cyclists and not much fun to walk either. But in this week when I am walking I nominate the worst road for walkers. This accolade has to go to Rowcroft which used to be a row of assorted solicitors until most closed, merged or went away. The bad bit is under the railway bridge.

In the last few years the guttering which used to carry away rainwater from the tracks above has mostly crumbled and it now just drips onto the road and your head. The spikes and wire meshes that act as bird defences have been breeched and it is a busy breeding ground for feral pigeons with consequent hazards for walkers. Truly nasty.

The promised houses by the canal at Cheapside have evaporated. When the site was being cleared the drains were broken and polluted the canal. This seems to have brought the project to an abrupt halt. After a couple of years of inaction the estate office has had the floor reinstated and is now available to let.

From blogpics

And according to the local news, at the end of Rowcroft, the Woolworths shop is going to be a temporary home for art exhibitions. Just what Stroud needed. Yet another place to show art.

Things in trees

While my leg is OK for walking it isn't going to be any use for cycling for a couple of weeks. Walking to work you see things that you can't on a bicycle. Especially when you are heading down a 1 in 8 hill trying to avoid the demon black BMW VU03 UBV pulling out in front of you at the school.

From 2009_02_17Rodborough

First thing that caught my eye was a flag. Why would you put a new flagpole right next to a tree? Rodborough Primary obviously had problems putting it anywhere else. A sad flag that is permanently tangled in the tree.

From 2009_02_17Rodborough

Further down the road a cotswold stone wall had collapsed in the big thaw after all the snow. And a little further down the hill on a slender branch a Squirrel with whole slice of bread was having breakfast. The squirrel got scared and skipped across a few branches but half of the slice tore off and fell into the deep cutting of the former railway.

Parking in Gloucester

In the past people may have parked in the Peel Centre in Gloucester and wandered off into town. This is now a very bad and expensive mistake. Parking is now in the hands of Premier Parking Services UK. This is how the scam works:

The guys from this cowboy outfit sit in their van and watch the people get out of their cars. If the people walk out of the centre instead of into one of the shops they instantly clamp the car and stick a £125 removal notice.

Then the victim has to call the number signposted in the car park to get the clamp removed. This apparently costs £125 to drive the van across the car park to unclamp the car. "The fee of £125 is charged according to the guidelines of The British Parking Association.". These guidelines are available to members only so we have to take their word for it.

Then to add insult to injury they sneak on an extra charge of £100 for the "deployment" of the towing truck which of course is nowhere to be seen.

In the past I'm sure many people went around town and also came back for lunch or a trip around the Peel centre shops. Obey the rules very carefully or get ripped off. Or better still, go shopping in friendlier places.

More Merrywalks and other shops.

The recession marches apace in Stroud. The cornerstone that was Woolworths has gone, and it seems to have taken other traders with it. The baked potato shut place and went a while ago. I always thought that it was a bit expensive for an hot spud anyway. Other traders have been chased out by the rates and rents and have decamped up to the Cornhill Market. The remaining shops cater for the bargain hunters. Merrywalks is looking distinctly cut price these days. For entertainment you can go watch Rosie shoo pigeons out of Three Cooks. At least the greengrocer is still going strong.

Out on the street the clothes shop next to Burger Star is on the way out. Pure appears to have expanded too far and is now closing. The shoe shop says it is closing down. It always seems to have been closing down so lets see if it is true this time.

Since moving to Stroud a lot of the good shops have gone. The tastiest fresh bread used to be sold where Subway is now. The tiny kitchen shop where we got our Cornish Blue is gone. Woolworths where Dad bought our pots and I got cast iron skillets reduced after Christmas is gone. Further up the hill the small chain Burger Star is no more. Despite its dubious appearance it really did a splendid job of burgers and it will be greatly missed. The music shop where I got strings and kazoos from is gone, but at least it was replaced with Riffs. Somerfield wasn't a great store but it had most of what you needed and when I lived in town I could treat it as my deep freeze. The weird shop that sold great but totally useless stuff such as a battery operated hula dancing singing doll is long gone.

One new shop is Tony's the butcher. Expensive but really good so I go there in the hope that he stays in business.

A lot of the pointless shops have gone too. Ecotopia the green lifestyle shop, the dolls house shop and the pound shops. A few estate agents and travel agents too.

The Stroud and Swindon building society shop has relocated to what they call a more convenient location. I'd call it downsizing. They have also relocated my savings interest to a more convenient level.

The mobility shop needs to be given full credit for trying to maximise their earning potential. They advertised 300sq ft of space for a small office or storage. It turns out to be a T shaped corridor so of no use as a photo studio. Also you'd have people going through to the loo or office.

Radio Shack closed down before the millenium but Chris's Shed took up the mantle for electronic bits. The shop has now moved away from the Merrywalks smokers and is in a bright location. The only place where you can get CR2450 batteries and MiniDisks without having to travel to Cheltenham.

Merrywalks?

What is up with the planning in Stroud? When I arrived there was no Macdonalds, Dominos Pizza, Costa Coffee, Subway. What we did have was a bus station. You could shelter from the rain. There was a bus and coach office conveniently located at the corner. Admittedly the back end of the Merrywalks Mall was very ugly and the smokers waiting for their buses made it unpleasant. But at least you could go to one place for a bus. Now the bus station is just a series of halts either side of the road. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/gloucestershire/7866809.stm
Hopes of a new bus station that integrates with the railway seem to have vanished.

The street itself seems to have been named using the rules of Newspeak as Merrywalks is certainly not merry but a doubleplusungood road for anyone but especially bad for the cyclist. Why did they put so many traffic lights in such a small stretch of street? Was there a special offer on at the time? Travelling up the hill I often get stopped and it is tiresome to do hill starts on a bicycle. I could just zoom through like the other cyclists. The bus bays are often illegally stopped in by cars looking for pizza or getting to the cinema. This is hazardous as these cars move in and out as I roll down the hill. The pedestrian crossings are ignored by many people who run across the road when they see their bus. They aren't on the lookout for bikes so I need to travel in the centre of the road to avoid these sorts of people. The traffic is signposted as being 20mph. I can assure you that if drivers can go faster they will. Then there is the busy traffic coming out of Macdonalds, the surgery, the car parks and again I need to stay in the centre of the road to avoid these cars crossing and turning. Finally there is the dreadful road surface with lots of bone jarring holes. Even though these are patched up regularly the heavy traffic seems to gouge them out again.

Unfortunate ride

Today was a bike ride in memorial of Paul Mills who died a year ago. The ride seems to have been jinxed. First, the leader failed to turn up. No word or message from Colin so a new leader was found and we set off. Later Carol M caught a twig in her wheel that tore up her mudguard and sent her flying. Ouch. So we took a short cut to reduce the ride by maybe 10 miles. I took the quiet lanes instead of the more direct main roads. Unfortunately a rabbit confused with myxy went right under Malcolm's bike. Front wheel over his neck and back wheel over his ribs. Somehow the rabbit was still alive but not for long as Peter dispatched it. Slimbridge Wetland Wildfowl centre at Sunday lunchtime is a victim of its own success and the packed cafe was running incredibly slowly. Several of the party decided to go back to the calm haven that is the Black Shed. The ride back was uneventful except for the other Carol getting a flat tyre. And why was former member Peter Smith standing at the bridge over the Stroudwater canal on the Whitminster lane on the way back?

Apart from that it was a very windy and cold but sunny ride. Pity I didn't have any time to take pictures as the low bright wintery sunlight was lovely.