The Befouled Weakly News
22 July 2007

As many/most of you will know, I tend to be somewhat dubious about the accuracy or otherwise of the BBC weather forecasts ever since their predictions this past winter of severe weather with mountainous snowfalls and drifts of Himalayan proportions turned out to be about an inch of snow which had melted by lunchtime. So, I have to concede that, although my scepticism concerning their forecast on Thursday evening of monsoon weather was well-founded, in the end it turned out to be everything they had promised, and more. The weatherman on Thursday evening, when delivering the forecast, had quipped, “So, if you haven’t yet finished building your Ark, you may have left it too late.”

Now, that was my joke and I am contemplating taking the BBC to court for copyright infringement. In short, apparently we had a month’s worth of rain in 24 hours and I can testify that the raindrops were, at various times during the day, roughly the size of grapefruit. Ms Playchute ventured into Banbury in the morning for a swim and an aerobics class and apparently was able to watch the river rise steadily throughout the class and also reported lids of storm drains being tossed aside by the storm and fountains of water gushing forth. (And that’s not to mention the sewerage amongst the storm water because we would not wish to mention such things in a family publication such as this).

Mind you, we’ve not had anything like they have had in the north of the country where this latest storm was merely the third time homes in York had been flooded this summer. Poor sods had just about cleaned up from the previous two.

So, having written the preceding about lunchtime on Friday (as the rain was sheeting down, as we say), I reckoned that would be the end of it. Until about 2.30, that is. It was then we got the phone call from Pen’s folks to say that the water from the stream which runs at the end of their garden was rapidly rising and was within a few inches of their back door. So, off we set, buckets in hand, to see what we could do. In the five minutes between receiving the phone call and our arrival at their cottage, the water had indeed invaded the kitchen and was rapidly approaching the dining room carpet. So, all hands to the pump, as it were, except that there was, unfortunately, no pump. And the water kept rising.

Into the dining room as we scrambled to move the furniture into the lounge (which is at a slightly higher level). Within minutes the carpet in the dining room was floating (never having been in a flooded house I was completely unprepared for the manner in which a carpet floats – most bizarre; walking around trying to move furniture was an adventure). The kitchen is ruined, the carpet in the dining room is ruined, the electrics will take some time to dry out, the fridge, freezer, washing machine and stove may also be ruined and so on. So, after moving furniture for about an hour or so we instructed them to pack their bags and move in with us until it’s all dried out (or until they go back to Australia in November, whichever comes first).

Beryl comtemplating the colour of the new carpet

Oz wonders about new kitchen cabinets

Pen, amazed that the fridge floats!

The back garden after all Judi's hard work

(Just watching the news – apparently we received a days’ rain in an hour and they are predicting four inches of rain over the coming 24 hour period. I will never question the accuracy of the BBC weather forecasts again – well, not until the next time they get it disastrously wrong, of course).

Sunday
You’ll be pleased to know that although the weather bar on my browser continues to say Rain, Rain, Rain at the moment we are actually dry and there is a bit of sun. The waters have receded so that now Beryl and Oz’s place is covered in a thin film of mud and what looks like a thin layer of oil, probably from the road, I guess. Having had no experience in these matters, I wonder how long it takes a house to dry out, particularly things like the electrics since the sockets were underwater – we’ll let you know.

Spotted this in the news earlier this week – aren’t we all delighted that some people enjoy launching viruses:

Computer virus celebrates 25th birthday

All fun and games until someone loses a bank account
Ian Williams, vnunet.com 16 Jul 2007

The first microcomputer virus to appear in the wild, i.e. outside the single computer or lab where it was created, is celebrating its 25th birthday.

'Elk Cloner' was created in 1982 and is credited to Richard Skrenta, a high-school student from Pittsburgh.

The virus was originally added to a game propagated between Apple II computers via floppy disk. The game was set to play normally 49 times, but to release the virus on the 50th time of starting the game.

'Elk Cloner' would display a blank screen with a poem about the virus which read as follows:

It will get on all your disks.
It will infiltrate your chips.
Yes it's Cloner!
It will stick to you like glue.
It will modify RAM too.
Send in the Cloner!

The virus was originally developed as a joke, but it set the theme for a stream of annoying pieces of malware which popped up on the screens of Apple II, BBC Micro and, later, early PC users' screens.

"Back then it was just a prank, a bit of fun. Today's malware is frequently malevolent and coded by criminals and/or hackers," said Phil Higgins, a senior partner at secure networking firm Brookcourt Solutions.

"These people are intent on extracting money from, and destroying the data of, innocent computer users and the organisations they work for.

"It is always nice to remember an anniversary, but this is one date that business and PC users should use to galvanise themselves into raising the bar on information security and ensuring that malware does not get through their security screens."

Although considered by most to be the first virus spread on microcomputers, 'Elk Cloner' was not the first virus ever created.

The first ever malware can be traced back to the early 1970s or even the late 1960s when programs called 'the rabbit' periodically appeared on mainframe computers.

Usually created as a prank by students, these programs cloned themselves and occupied system resources, thus lowering the productivity of the system.

There are also tales of a virus called 'Pervading Animal' which appeared in 1975 on the Univax 1108 system. This virus merged itself to the end of executable files, in much the same way as many modern viruses.

Yours looking for the repair pack for the inflatable dinghy,

Greg

My boss is without peer when it comes to the rules and regulations that customs officials must follow. But when it comes to the law, well, that's a different story.

We were attending a court case in which we were prosecuting a smuggler. The judge asked the court, "Who is making these allegations?"

My boss stood up and proclaimed, "I am the alligator, your honor."

I’ve seen several of these in other guises so I suspect they are largely apocryphal. Still amusing though:

Recently, a magazine ran a contest. They were looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life managers. Here are some of the submissions:

As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday and employees will receive their cards in two weeks. (This was the winning quote from Fred Dales at Microsoft Corp in Redmond, WA.)

What I need is a list of specific unknown problems we will encounter. (Lykes Lines Shipping)

E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business (Accounting manager, Electric Boat Company)

This project is so important, we can't let things that are more important interfere with it. (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel Service)

Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule. No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now, go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them. (R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)

Quote from the Boss: "Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say." (Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

We recently received a memo from senior management saying: "This is to inform you that a memo will be issued today regarding the subject mentioned above." (Microsoft, Legal Affairs Division)

One day my Boss asked for a status report concerning a project I was working on. I asked him if tomorrow would be soon enough. He said "If I wanted it tomorrow, I would have waited until tomorrow to ask for it!" (New business manager, Hallmark Greeting Cards.)

An old lady tottered into a lawyer's office and asked for help in arranging a divorce. "A divorce?" asked the unbelieving lawyer. "Tell me, how old are you?"

"I'm eighty-four," answered the old lady.

"Eighty-four! And how old is your husband?"

"My husband is eighty-seven."

"My, my," said the lawyer, "and how long have you been married?"

"Next September will be sixty-two years."

"Married sixty-two years?! Why would you want a divorce now?"

"Because," the woman answered calmly, "enough is enough."

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