Floody Hell whats going on here?, Bust water main on London Road, Derby.

This was the scene on the morning of Friday 31st July 2009 at the end of London Road where it meets up with the bottom of Bradshaw Way and Traffic Street.
The water was emerging from the ground over a large area, several fountains. It was even comming out of the base of the traffic bollards and the traffic light control Iron cover. Most of the water was comming out of the tarmac near the lights as you can see at 0:15



There was so much water that all the drains were blocked and the water was going all the way down London Road and then down Liversage Road (See 2:25 ), Carrington Street and starting to go up Trinity Street. I left at that point as I don't have a boat and can't swim!

did not have my HD video camera with me so unfortunately the quality is not great as it was done with my old Olympus 5050 camera.

Face off - Derby Cathedral clock faces get a makeover

My photograph here show one of the two clock faces on Derby Cathedral as of 7.15am today.
The clock faces are undergoing a £13,000 revamp, the last renovation was back in 1964.
Both faces had been hand-painted last week and then the gold-leafing of the Roman numeral figures was being done but because of the extreamly poor weather (bucket loads of rain!) it had ruined the finish so they have had to start the task again.
Thats why the clock face looks like this.

The clock is being renovated by Smith of Derby, who also renovated the clock at St Pancras station.

Smiths contacted me a few weeks ago to ask if I had any old photographs of the clock face before the previous restoration as it was believed that the clock faces used to be blue. Unfortunately there are not many photographs in full colour from that era.

Derby Cathedral is part of the Cathedral Quarter.

My photographs in the Cathedral.

Photographs from a Tower Open Day.

Isn’t modern technology amazing – iPod wifi blogging

I grew up in the age of the ZX Spectrum computer, At school we had Commodore Pets and then at college it was BBC Micros, so in this day an age where technology is everywhere it amazes me at how far we have come over the last few years.

For example here I am in a car park near Friar Gate Studios, Derby using a iPod Touch and I am able to surf the internet.

I posted this message using an App called BlogPress which you can buy through the App Store on your Ipod.

The screen here shows an app on the iPod Touch called WifiTrak, Which costs 59p ! This is much better than the wifi settings panel that you find in Settings – Wi-Fi on the iPod Touch. The WifiTrak app can be set to Scan for wifi connections every n seconds and displays all connections using nice coloured icons that show you extra details such as open connections or ones that are open but auto-redirecting connections such as ones to The cloud.

I found while in London that the Maps app on the iPod works ok if you connect to a Cloud connection even if you don’t have an account with them. I guess this is because the app is not a web browser making http requests. So this is quite useful if you need a map but only have a Cloud connection available.

There are lots of unsecured wi-fi connections out there, its only when you have WifiTrak running on an iTouch that you appreciate just how many people have wi-fi connections. On some streets in Derby the iPod screen fills up with a list so long that you have to do a lot of scrolling to see them all !

The connection I used to post this blog was a 5Mb connection, I know that because I ran an app called Speed Test, again available from the App Store for FREE.

Note I don’t have the iPod Touch phone, it’s just a iPod touch so unfortunately I don’t have the option to surf the internet via a 3G connection so I always have to look for a wi-fi connection.


-- Posted From My iTouch

Careers working with animals

This is something we're often asked about, and the truthful answer is that most animal-related work is fairly poorly paid and there is a lot of competition for the available posts. There is now a government-sponsored website: CAVE (Courses in Animal and Veterinary Education) which has been developed as a resource to offer information about courses and careers related to working with animals. If you are thinking of a career working with animals, the section of case studies where a variety of individuals tell their own stories about what their careers really involve may help you to make up your mind.

Rescue Me: My Life with the Battersea Dogs

Rescue Me: by Melissa Wareham is an inside account of working at Battersea Dogs Home. It's extremely readable, and also a very useful explanation of many aspects of animal rescue work which can lead to friction with members of the public. The prospective adopter who was "turned down" after regaling staff with the disaster of her dog owning history (dogs variously lost, confiscated by police etc.). The elderly gentleman with slightly sub-standard housekeeping skills but endless devotion to his dogs who was accepted with open arms. The offended couple who really couldn't in conscience be allowed a Battersea dog because both were at work all day. All of these will be familiar to anyone who has been involved in rehoming dogs, and Melissa Wareham explains why dog rescue organisations make the decisions they do.

Battersea is possibly the only completely open-access rescue centre in England and they manage to combine this with a strict policy that they do not put down dogs unless hopelessly ill, injured or dangerous.

Auto-shutdown of Windows when you want.

I found a very useful bit of free software recently that I have used several times.
I don't like to leave my pc on all the time but often need to render large video files in Sony Vegas that may take a few hours, this ties up my pc for a long time so I wanted a way of leaving the pc on, with a way of getting it to turn off at a given time in a nice controlled manner (i.e. Not a mains switch timer!).
I have also used this utility when leaving my pc to upload a large video to YouTube, works perfectly.

After trying several programs I found one thats very easy and it works.

Visit the shutdownmypc website
As you can see its only 589 KB, it works on Windows XP SP3.
When you click the download link the file is actually 1.81Mb, run this and it self extracts two programs, just delete the repair-pro-setup.exe program. Run the manageshutdown.exe to install it.
(Passes Norton Antivirus, AVG8, Spysweeper, Ad-aware.)

It can actually do lots of different things from the action menu but I only use the shutdown option. If you click the Force Action box then it will kill any apps that have crashed too before shutting down.

If using this to shutdown Sony Vegas, make sure you have saved the project and also ticked the "close this box when done" option in the render panel.

Harry Potter Books at 188 Mill Road

Heffers books generously donated a stock of Harry Potter books to us when they closed their old shop in the Grafton Centre. If you've seen the film and now want to buy the book, why not support us at the same time? If you don't live in Cambridge, you can also buy online.

Drive around Derby inner ring road before it all changes!

Here is a recent video I made of driving around the uncompleted Derby inner ring road.
The missing bit is currently being finished off as I'm sure you know if you use Abbey Street and Ford Street and go any where near the top of Babington Lane.



If you join youtube (its free and easy) then you will be able to leave comments about the video.

My very first blog post.

Hello and welcome to my new blog, I've not tried this before so its all a bit new to me.
What I like about this is the fact that you can post updates and bits of information about what I am doing on my derbyphotos website at any time any where in the world.
Normally I would have to use Dreamweaver and and ftp client to add such things to my website.

So we will see how this goes.
Thanks
Andy

Update on new charity shop - FINALLY!

Claire and I signed the last batch of papers yesterday and Kit transferred the payment over to our solicitors' account so it really looks as though light is finally appearing at the end of the tunnel. The last-minute hitch turns on our potential liability for the rent increase which would have been paid by the people selling the lease during 2008 if the landlord hadn't delayed reviewing the rent until the year end.

It seems crazy, but February 2008 was the review date specified in the terms of the lease, so the tenants are liable to pay the increase for the whole period even though the landlord didn't set the new rent until nearly a year later. If we don't ensure that arrangements have been made before we finally complete the lease purchase we could become liable to pay it.

Fortunately our solicitors seem to be confident that the sellers will lodge the payment with their solicitors without more delay because they're wasting money paying rent all the time that nothing is progressing and they must be as anxious to see an end as we are.

We're now very tentatively thinking of 21st August as the target opening date, and starting to order equipment. The basement at 188 is full-to-bursting with wonderful donated stock, so as soon as we have the keys it will be a frenzy of activity.

The shop will need lots of volunteers to give it a good clean before we can start setting up. If you could spare a few hours in the next month, please email camshop@rspcabookshop.co.uk

Missing Cat

Last seen Tuesday 7th July.

Intact male, Wears a blue collar and red name tag, answers to the name of Dexter and is very vocal. Went missing from Moor Close area of Little Shelford.

Please if you have any information as to his whereabouts or have seen him please call the number below. He is much loved and much missed.

Any information, please email Lorna webbl@rsc.org

Please sign the petition for effective regulation of greyhound racing

We believe that large numbers of racing greyhounds are suffering every year because of a lack of effective regulation. Now we have the chance to protect them for the whole of their lives. But that chance expires in just a few days, on 22nd July.

The RSPCA has set the target to get at least 20,000 people to send a letter to the government by 22nd July to push them to introduce special legislation for racing greyhounds under the Animal Welfare Act. After that, the consultation period closes for good.

Take Action Now and visit www.giveanimalsavoice.org.uk/greyhounds

If we lose the race, so do greyhounds.

Every year at least 10,000 greyhounds are retired from racing. The fate of many of these greyhounds is unknown and huge numbers simply 'disappear'.

Show the Government that people care about greyhounds.

We need the Government to know that the public is unhappy about the uncertainty around racing greyhounds.

We need them to know that thousands of people support legislation that will protect each and every racing greyhound, by law, from cradle to grave.

And we need to let them know by 22nd July so that we don't miss our chance. Please sign the campaign letter now, then forward this email on to other animal lovers so we can reach as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.

Visit www.giveanimalsavoice.org.uk/greyhounds to join the most important greyhound race
of all.

It's the one they can't afford to lose.

Stall at "Summer in the City" Big Weekend

Sat 11 Jul Sun 12 Jul 2009 12 pm - 6pm

Parkers Piece, Cambridge (map)

We'll be having a second-hand book stall on Parkers Piece as part of Cambridge's "Big Weekend"
Please look out for us. Lots of bargains! We also need volunteer helpers. Email camshop@rspcabookshop.co.uk if you might be able to help for a few hours. We particularly need drivers to ferry books from our shop to Parkers Piece and strong people to help with setting up and clearing the stall.