Council strike suspended
The strike by Birmingham City Council staff planned for tommorrow has been suspended when the council agreed to further talks on issues raised by the unions. Further details on the UNISON Birmingham Branch website.  ¶ 15:52 0 comments

  Phones 4 U Suck

Met my sister this afternoon, straight from work. She had to take a couple of mobile phones back to the shop due to problems.

At the end of September last year she bought three phones on contract (one on Orange for her daughter and two on 3 for herself and her husband) from Phones 4 U (the one at 87-88 High street in Birmingham), she also took out insurance on each phone. The insurance on each one is £10 a month, which is a total rip off (the going rate is £2-3 a month). In the shop they said that it was a great deal, unfortunately my sister tends to trust what she's told rather than realising that the people in the shop are paid according to how well they can lie without getting caught out or saying something that is actually illegal (a good deal, but compared to what? A good deal compared to the bad deal they're also offering? They don't have to compare it to the deals being offered by other retailers). She also bought a hard protective case for each phone to prevent accidental damage.

Her daughter's phone was sold as being new but when they got it home they found that there were already phone numbers stored on it, clearly it was a refurb. they went back tot he shop and were told "That's wierd." At this point I would have demanded a replacement but of course she didn't. Recently the speaker has been playing up (crackly) and the 4 and 5 keys have been sticking. So we take it back to the shop. The guy in the shop (I tried to get his name but he wouldn't give it (ignored the question) and everyone else in the shop denied knowing him) first denied any problem with the speaker (apparently he was the only one who couldn't hear it) and said that the keys shouldn't stick (a lot fo things shouldn't happen, but they sometimes do). Then he started saying that my niece must have dropped it to cause the problems so she'd have to pay for the repairs. Finally he agreed to send it in for a warranty repair (which will take at least 2 weeks) but kept going on about how if they found any evidence that it was dropped then that will be a charged repair. He also said that if they sent it in for repair under the insurance (that good deal that costs only 3-5 times as much as every other deal) then any damage would be repaired but they'd have to pay a £50 excess, and excess they hadn't been told about when they bought the insurance.

The other phone belonged to my sister's husband, the screen had failed and developed cracks. He insisted that this must be accidental damage (although how a screen on a phone inside a hard protective case that is supposed to be designed to protect the screen could be accidental damage is anybody's guess). They're going to have that done as an insurance fix and pay the £50 excess.

The whole time we were there we were subjected to dismissive and negative treatment by the staff of phones for you as if it was we who were running a scam rather than them. Utterly unprofessional.

My sister and my niece now don't have mobile phones (imagine, a 16 year old girl without a mobile! How ever will she survive), my sister has had to pass her mobile on to her husband (hopefully that one won't break as well, it's the same make and model).

I got my first mobile in 1998, I've had several in that time (including work phones), I now have 4 (two contract on Orange and 3, I got the 3 phone because my sister a one of my friend's had switched to that network and it worked out cheaper to get a 3 contract phone than to call them from my Orange phone), one Pay-As-You-Go and one work. I have had to claim on the insurance a few times due to accidental damage and theft. The most I've ever paid for insurance on a phone is £2.90 a month, I have never had to pay any excess for repair or replacement. I've always gone to the network's own shop (first phone was Cellnet, then Orange and finally 3 for my newest phone). Today's experiences have shown, as far as I can tell, that you should never go to Phones 4 U, certainly never the one on the corner of Birmingham High Street and New Street. I hope they go out of business soon.

  ¶ 22:29 0 comments

  UNISON Birmingham Branch gets a website

UNISON Birmingham branch finally has a website. The actual content was written months ago, the hold up has been getting those who hold the login details for the web server to release them, serious case of idiocy and not wanting to release even the smallest bit of power despite not being able to use it.

The layout is a bit crap right now but that's because the person who insisted in it being that way thinking purely in a paper documents. I'm hoping to replace it with something better soon, the important thing was to get something up ahead of the strike next week.

  ¶ 19:32 0 comments

  Dyspraxia

One of my colleagues spoke to me yesterday about a friend of her's who has a 3 year old son with Dyspraxia,a congenital disability that I have. Apparently she had told this person about me and said that I'd talk to her friend and the friend's husband about it and how to deal with it. I emailed this to my colleague to pass on.

This is the link to the Dyspraxia Foundation web site:
http://www.dyspraxiafoundation.org.uk/

Whilst they're often confused (even by medical professionals) and
often listed together Dyspraxia is not like Dyslexia. There is some
overlap of symptoms but they are different. For example a common
symptom of Dyslexia is not being able to read, Dyspraxics also often
have problems with reading but for us the problem is more about
parsing the word and working out what it means (especially if it is
used in a metaphor or it's meaning is shaded) rather than not being
able to read it at all. Different coloured paper, coloured glasses or
a coloured sheet of acetate can help a Dyslexic but won't help a
Dyspraxic any more than it would someone with neither condition.

A literal translation of the word Dyspraxia would be "Can't Do" or
"UnPractical". It's a condition, or rather family of closely related
conditions, that has as a core symptom problems with balance and
co-ordination. On the plus side these symptoms fade with age, it's a
regressive condition. When I was young and through my teens and early
adult years my disability was refered to as purely "Lack of
Co-ordination" or "Poor Hand-Eye Co-ordination", the only recognised
symptoms were problems with co-ordination and balance, my problems
with social skills were put down to my being shy or even 'just being
difficult'.

I first heard the term Dyspraxia when I was 29 and visited my GP for a
review of my hay fever medication and he looked at my notes and said
something like "Ah, you're the one with Dyspraxia. Did you now we
have a support group?" My first response was to say no but he
explained that the condition that I'd thought was called 'Lack of
Co-ordination' was actually properly called Dyspraxia and had a whole
host of other symptoms attached, many of which I hadn't know were
symptoms of my disability and thought were something 'wrong' with me.
I also discovered that it is a lot more common than I'd previously
thought and not restricted to men, I'd previously been told it was
three in every thousand males but from what I've read it could be as
high as one on 10 depending on how tightly one adheres to the strict
definition and, whilst it mostly affects males, does affect both
genders. Whilst there's no 100% proof it does seem that Dyspraxia
does run in families so if a child has it the odds are that one of
their parents, usually the father, will also have it to some degree.

Typical symptoms include:

• Problems with balance, tendancy to trip, especially on moving
  vehicles such as buses (if I have to stand on a bus I have to hold on
  to a pole with each hand). To get an idea of the impact imagine
  getting moderately drunk, say 1.5 to twice the legal limit for
  driving, and trying to stand on a moving bus or walk the wrong way on
  an escalator


• Problems with co-ordination, especially things that require a high
  degree of fine motor control such as writing, may develop 'writer's
  cramp' much more quickly than most people


• Lack of empathy and difficulty 'reading' other people


• Tendancy to interrupt


• Problems using moving stairs (feelings of extreme discomfort,
  falling over, tending to go to extreme lengths to avoid and may 'over
  react' if forced to use them)


• Bad at sports (will go to kick a football and miss, can't catch
  something thrown to them, can't hit a tennis ball with a tennis
  racquet &c)


• Excessive emotional responses, may have fits of anger or frustration
  


• Untidy dress, rumpled clothes and may have problems buttoning a
  shirt (out by one matching buttons to button holes or may skip a
  button or button hole)


• Generally untidy (messy bedroom, untidy work area &c) but
  obsessional about order in specific things (e.g. CDs have to be in a
  specific order or grouping that may seem unfathomable to others and
  have to be put back into the cases as soon as they are removed from
  the player)


• Problems developing physical strength, may be much worse on one side
  than the other


• Problems gripping things, again may be much worse on one side than the
  other


• Tendancy to take things literally and to express oneself literally


• Inability to play a musical instrument


• Difficulty sleeping, both difficult to get to sleep and difficulty
  staying asleep


• Easily distracted


• Can't draw or paint, when try they look like those produced by a
  small child (I'll bring in some of my paintings sometime)


• Problems hearing speech when there's lots of background noise (one
  of the things that M****** does that really drives me up the wall is
  in a meeting he'll start whispering in my ear whilst management are
  talking, if I listen to him I literally cannot hear them and if I
  listen to them I literally cannot hear him)


• Tactile defensiveness. Physical contact with another person can be
  very uncomfortable, this is one of the symptoms I have to a much
  higher degree than most dyspraxics


• Strong dislike for change that can result in extreme frustration and
  even anger, in particular where change has happened when they weren't
  present


• Problems with memory, especially names and instructions (if you give
  me a set of verbal instructions by the time you've reached number 4
  I've probably forgotten number 1)


• Poor posture leading to health problems and pain (back ache,
  shoulder pain, neck pain)

There are many other symptoms as well. It's important to note that
other than the first two on that list the rest can be explained by
labelling a child as 'lazy' or 'rude'. Indeed that's how I was
labelled through most of my life and sometimes still am. Also not all
dyspraxics have all the symptoms or necessarily the same symptoms
(although the ones listed above are very common and the first four are
pretty definitive). For example a fairly common symptom is not being
able to relate a map to the physical world it represents, this is not
something I have ever had major problems with, although I do often
find it easier to navigate a map if I turn it to match the orientation
of the physical area (so if I'm facing south I'll turn the map so it's
upside down), similarly a commonly described symptom of Dyspraxia is
having problems seeing how things fit together (pattern matching
problems, navigating a maze, jigsaws or seeing how the parts of
something fit together to make the whole) but it's not something I've
ever had problems with.

In terms of dealing with it the most important step is the diagnosis.
Because so many of the symptoms can be written off as being the result
of laziness it's important to recognise them for what they are,
symptoms of a disability. As an adult it's a great relief to discover
that some of the more steress causing aspect of your life are finally
explicable.

Once you've identified the particular symptoms of someone with
dyspraxia, in particular a child, there are loads of ways of dealing
with them. Based on what I've read I think something that is
important for someone who doesn't have Dyspraxia dealing with someone
who does is that due to the symptoms relating to perception a person
with Dyspraxia literally does not see the world the way you do, or to
put it another way we see the world literally and without emotional or
other shading. Something I found very hard as a child and still do to
a degree is around time. If someone says they will come and see me at
three o'clock my first reaction is to expect them to show up at three
o'clock, probably not two fifty nine and certainly not three oh one.
Intellectually I know that three o'clock doesn't mean three o'clock
but my subconscious.

The major issues and how you solve them will vary from person to
person. You have to find out what the symptoms are for yourself or
the person you're dealing with and fit to them, a standardised
solution won't work. Below are some possible things, they may work or
they may not.

Some things you just have to live with and tolerate. For example I
have to live with the fact that any contact with another person is
uncomfortable to me but it's going to happen as part of normal life.
Shaking hands can feel like shaking a slimy fish and a 'bone-crusher'
hand shake is absolute agony, a pat on the back feels like punch, a
touch on the arm can feel like either being touched by something slimy
or burn like having an acid or alkali solution poured on. A hug can
feel like being crushed. Those things are going to happen so I just
had to learn to brace myself and deal with it. Avoiding contact or
trying to explain that it's uncomfortable just leads to being seen as
rude/antisocial or makign a fuss over nothing (one of the people on
the NJB insists on giving everyione a huig and kiss goodbye, she may
as well punch me in the face as do that). Also Dyspraxics often have
behaviours that puzzle others, for example you know how when you go to
a cafe or a pub that serves food there's often a little pot on the
table filled with different sorts of sugar/sweetner or sauces, well in
those situations I have a strong compulsion to sort them so that all
of the same are together and they are neatly lined up with similar
colours separated by dis-similar colours (so sachets of chili sauce
and tomato ketchup (both red) have to be separated by, say, mayonaise
(tends to be blue) or horseradish (tends to be very light creamy
brown)).

Other stuff can be accomodated with little effort, e.g. don't change
things around without warning [1] and only make small incremental
changes with time in between to get accustomed to the new environment,
avoid unnecessary metaphor, realise that someone with Dyspraxia might
need a little longer to digest new information, may have difficulty
telling when you're angry/upset/happy and may act inappropriately
because as far as they are aware their action is an appropriate
reaction to the situation &c.

The major issues and how you solve them will vary from person to
person. You have to find out what the symptoms are for yourself or
the person you're dealing with and fit to them, a standardised
solution won't work. Below are some possible things, they may work or
they may not.

Co-ordination problems in things like handwriting can be handled by
allowing extra time and opportunity for frequent breaks, in school the
best thing the teachers could have done for me would be to provide
handouts with the bulk of the text of the class which I could then
annotate rather than expecting me to copy reams of text off the black
board or an OHP. Problems with balance can be addressed by making
sure that in areas where it's likely to be a problem (e.g. on a moving
bus or stairs) they have something to hang on to. Apparently there
are physiotherapies that can help but I doubt that someone with
Dyspraxia (unless it's very mild) could achieve complete normalcy.

Problems with sleep can be handled by allowing for a nap during the
day and a later bed time (so let a kid of an age where you'd normally
expect them to go to bed at say 8pm stay up till 9 or 10 but let them
take a nap at lunch or tea time[2]) and minimising light and noise in
their bedroom (double glazing, thick curtains of a dark material (on
both sides) that extend further around the window frame than normal,
close fitting door &c)

Minimise background noise and avoid situations where two or more
people are talking to a person with dyspraxia at the same time.

Give instructions in writing rather than verbally and break tasks down
into chunks.

Stephen

[1] e.g. When I go to a fast food place (e.g. KFC, Burger King &c) I
always have the exact same thing, only changing when they change the
menu so forcing me to change
[2] There actually a lot of evidence that our pattern of stay up for
16-18 hours straight then sleep 6-8 hours solid is unnatural and what
we should really be doing is sleeping less at night but having a
siesta or two during the day. Far better for our health.

  ¶ 16:00 0 comments

  Lectures
My alma mater just emailed me about a couple of lecture series they're running:



The World Affiars doesn't look that interesting but some of the inaugural lectures do. If it weren't for the distance I'd seriously consider going.  ¶ 15:27 0 comments

  Office suite I'd really like
I was just reading an article on Slashdot about the possibility of a version of Microsoft Office for Linux and it reminded me of something I've been thinking about, off and on, for some time. It first came up whilst I was trying to learn TeX, or rather the LaTeX implmentation of TeX. I got to thinking that what I would find really useful, at work at least, would be a wordprocessor that was entirely styles based and where if you edited a style the change would be automatically propagated to everywhere that style was used (a bit like how CSS is supposed to work, although the ability to 'lock' a document to the current set of styles would be useful although this could be achieved by exporting to PDF). A big problem I've found with styles in current word processors (MS Word, OpenOffice &c) is that if you chage a stle it very often will only change it for new uses of that style, existing text in that style will remain unchanged.

A lot of companies require that all documents be produced with a set set of fonts, sizes and colours to give a corporate standard. A styles based wordprocessor would allow them to create the required styles and provide them to all employees, probably along with document templates for standard corporate documentation. When the management decided they wanted to change the corporate style they could just update the style library and redistribute it, as each document was opened the changed styles would be applied. It would save a lot of hassle having to create the styles yourself and manually change each document when the corporate styles change.

I think that this would get us closer to the intention behind Tex of just getting on with writing the document and not fussing about the look of it. I suspect that it would also help make documents more accessible for people with disabilities as it would make them more readable by automated systems, similarly it would make documents more suited to automatic processing. Styles could be semantic in nature, rather then seeing a block of text which is defined as being "bold, 22pt, Arial Black, centred" the software would see one labelled "ChapterTitle".  ¶ 14:13 0 comments

  Dentally Assaulted
A filling fell out of one of my teeth last week, taking most of the tooth with it. As I don't have a dentist I had to go to the Dental Hospital.

I called in advance and they the only way to get treatment is to show up at 07:30 to get a number then there'd be a minimum two hour wait and I'd get treated, first untruth. I showed up at 06:45 on Friday morning (I booked the day off work) and there was already a queue of 8 people. By the time they opened the doors at 07:40 there was a queue of about 30 people. After the pushing and shoving I was 12th in line and got number 12. I was then told to come back at 13:30 as they would only be treating 10 people that morning and 10 in the afternoon. So if you want treatment there get there for 06:30 and bring something to sit on (that folds up quickly into something that can be used as a weapon) and a book.

I hung around in town for a while, did a bit of shopping and drank far too much coffee.

At about 13:00 I went back to the hospital and took a seat in the ground floor waiting room, as instructed. After about 45 minutes they opened up reception and started to call people through. I noticed that a lot of the people they were calling through didn't have a number and hadn't been there at 07:40, which revealed the second untruth. You don't have to show up early and get a number, you can be referred or even make an apppointment if you've been treated there before.

After about 25 minutes my number was called and I went to the reception desk and gave my details (Name, address, full servicemedical history &c) then was sent to sit down in the waiting area again. Another 15 minutes passed and my name was called. I went into a side room which contained about half a dozen dentists chairs. I was dragged to one where a guy in his 40s (I guess a dentist) took my details including stuff like allegies (including the fact that I'm allergic to latex, i.e. what their examination gloves are made of) then looked in my mouth and confirmed that a large chunk of one of my molars had disapeared and the tooth would have to be pulled (the one positive thing about the dental hospital, they don't try to pad their income by 'saving' a tooth), I could have told them that at 07:40 that morning. I was sent to another waiting room, on the second floor this time.

About 15 minutes later I was called through and was seen by a student dentist who (based on his accent, body langauge and general manner) seemed to be from India, probably the Southern half and probably somewhere quite rural but with access to a large town or city (his English was excellent, better than many native speakers), probably Hindu or non-practicing Sikh (when you live and work in such a multi-ethnic environment as I do you learn to spot these things, I'm only mentioning the races to flesh out the story). He poked and prodded for a while and rattled some instruments around in my mouth, then he called over his supervisor to check his conclusions. His supervisor was a practicing Sikh who (from his turban, accent and body language) seemed to have either been born in the UK (probably London) or in Kenya and moved to the UK at an early age. The supervisor looked and prodded then confirmed what the dentist on the ground floor had said, better to have a secondthirdfourth (remember, I'd said from the get go what the problem was) diagnosis. They then sent me to the first floor to have an X-ray because they wanted to see where the roots went so they'd know if they would need to nick my gum.

I sat in another waiting room for a while then was subjected to a student X-ray tech (East African, I think) ramming his latex covered fingers down my throat (and wondering why I was choking) followed by his supervisor (Sutton Coldfied or Knowle) doing likewise with her fingers and bafflement as they tried to get the film in place. After I fought them off and finished retching I positioned the film (I was, after all, the one who knew for sure where the tooth in question was) and they took the shot. Usual delay for developing and I was looking at an X-ray of my tooth. I went back up to the second floor waiting room and waited.

Five minutes later (at least the waiting times were getting shorter) I was called back through to the treatment room where they told me they'd pull the tooth, they might need to nick my gum but it would be a small nick and they'd be able to sew it up no problems. I had a local aneasthetic (which hurt out of all proportion and tasted awful when it dripped on my tongue) and layed back, I sat up swilled and rinsed then layed back again. The student dentist snapped off the remainder of my tooth above the surface of the gum whilst asking his nurse what the various tools were for. He then called over his supervisor who looked at his work and said they'd have to drill out the rest of the tooth. Much rattling and drilling (interspersed with instructions to mount the burr the correct way around next time) they had removed all but one root and large chunks of the bone of my upper jaw. The supervisor explained that this root was a big one and curved, he also explained that they had to be careful. He then asked the student why they had to be careful. "There's a nerve behind it" the student guessed (wrong), "An artery" he tried again (wrong again). I thought about giving the right answer but the supervisor seemed determined to make this a learnig moment so I lay quietly bleeding into my mouth from the thumping great hole in my gum. Eventually (after the student had worked is way through every organ, bone, nerve, blood vessel and unidentifiable purple wibbly thing known to mankind (and a few known only to grey aliens from Proxima Centauri) except the right one) the supervisor relented and pointed out my sinus cavity, which if pierced would be a bad thing. Realisation dawned. More drilling and burring then some pulling and the root was out along with more hunks of upper jaw. The supervisor put a couple of stiches in then got the student to out some more in. After stiching my gum to my inner cheek then lower lip (also sewing part of my lips together) he eventually got a few stiches where they were supposed to be. I was sent on my way with an instruction to avoid heavy exercise (so not a problem) and to take Neurophen for the pain, not anything with Asprin in as that slows clotting, preferably before the aneasthetic wore off. By the time I got to a chemists (the Dental hospital is right in the jamedoulas so it was a bit of a hike) to buy some Neurophen the anaesthetic had worn off. I bought the pills and some water to take them with then took them and went to the bus stop.

4 days later and I'm still in pain, my gum is still swollen (although less so than it was this morning).

I realise that the dental hospital is used to dealing with indigents, but that's no excuse for poor service and substandard care.  ¶ 07:46 0 comments

  Creating a positive working environment
I attended a short course on Monday on how to create a positive working environment and stress busting. Very interesting. The trainer handed out a printout of a webpage entitled "How to Create a Positive Work Atmosphere". The signs of a negative work environment seems like a spot on description of where I work right now.  ¶ 18:37 0 comments