Reflections - An interview with SPVR

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Avoiding big, nasty clouds

I had not expected to find myself tweeting a picture of snow falling on Banffshire yesterday. And yet it was, and I did. This morning there is a little snow lying on my car and on our roof. It was sufficiently intermittent to allow me to leave the house and start my daily walk. Within twenty minutes it was on again. I opened my mouth to freshen my palate and lo, a great surprise, the snow tasted of salt. Then I lifted my head and looked out to the North East where the Moray Firth could be seen. That was the direction from which the big, actually a bit smaller than usual, black cumulonimbus cloud from which the snow was being deposited had travelled. I could see another one a few miles away, awaiting me later in my walk but on arrival choosing to fire pellets of hail at me, rather than snowflakes, when it reached me. The cumulonimbus clouds were quite central to the meteorology part of my pilot's training some thirty years ago. In the international standards for aviation wea...

Genealogy Series: Betsy (or Elizabeth) Esplin Bell (1858-1930).

Betsy (or Elizabeth) Esplin Bell (1858-1930). She had a long criminal record driven by her addiction to drink, but was she her husband’s victim? by Stewart Stevenson. Betsy was born on 26 th January 1858 in Dundee to David Bell, a carpenter, and his wife, Agnes Sandeman. i Father registered the birth, but is recorded as “Not Present”. George T Bisset-Smith, the Registration Examiner, published his book “Vital Registration”, the manual for Scottish Registrars in 1907. ii In it he states that a “liberal interpretation” should be given to the word “Present” in this context but also states that “Not Present” must not be used. I suspect that leaves most genealogists, me included, little the wiser as to what “Present” was actually supposed to mean. So let’s pass on to the story. Betsy’s parents married in 1856, iii with her mother Agnes making her mark, an ”X”, rather than signing the registration record, indicating that she was illiterate. Her husband David signed. ...

Unwelcome disruption

In the first hours of the new week - it's 0700 and I have been at the computer since 0545 - it's as well to check whether all the assets required are in place for a successful week. The Ofcom broadband checker is a good place to start ( https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/broadband-test - seems to be blocked on some internal networks such as that in Parliament). Today shows my non-fibred rural connection ticking along at 8.5 megabits per second. That's pretty much good enough for our online activity. But the data delay (us techies might prefer the term latency) is 41.1 milliseconds. That's less encouraging. It essentially means that you have to wait until the data starts flowing. In my Edinburgh accommodation, it's about 11 milliseconds. But as ever the upload speed is a mere 0.5 megabits per second. The Ofcom checker puts an "Amber" against using such a speed for video calling. They say that means "This service should work but you may experience proble...

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