2011 has been, for me, a very dull year which all I have done is to be clinically depressed which non-activity affords little note or even blog worthy. Before I make myself more miserable by dwelling on misery, I’ll luxuriate in the memory of the high point which was the honour of giving m daughter’s hand in marriage at her wedding to Alex Othold , 5th September in Bromham, Wiltshire. You had to have been there of course but pictures do tell a story. As is the modern way, Becca and Alex have published their photographs for all to see at their website http://otholdedwards.co.uk/photos.aspx. Alex is in the business – he is one of the four creators and owners of http://www.adido-digital.co.uk/, a company which flourishes despite the dire economic conditions. Becca continues her academic career at Southampton University as Research Fellow at http://www.tsrc.ac.uk/, research needed evermore as the UK goes through a cynical phase of knee-jerk reaction to public opinion from rags such as The Daily Fail which has always been right-wing in a sort putrid snivelling “ain’t it awful?” sort of way but has become downright nasty since Cameron became Prime Minster of a coalition government that behaves as it has been mandated to make the rich richer and the poor even poorer.

Apart from the wedding of the year/decade/lifetime there is little to report beyond a litany of trials with all sorts of anti-depressants. I was involved with the creation of a new charity called 5 Quid for Life http://5quidforlife.org.uk/ which aims to provide emergency funds for those mentalists hammered into the poverty trap with no food or heating, a source of help that will become ever more necessary as the full effects of the Government’s cuts is felt. Mental health services, despite a guarantee of ring-fencing, are once again the very poor relation of the NHS which is particularly cruel at a time when policies are increasing rather than generating demands for help. Housing is in a dreadful state and the New Year will bring more homelessness as the buy-to-let market becomes ever more greedy. Does anyone really believe the assertion that forcing down Housing Benefit and sentencing the young to bedsits will somehow make anything better. The new Peter Rahmans are already with us and will be lauded as entrepreneurs except perhaps any that are found to be of foreign and, dare I say it, Jewish origin. Anyone living in the Bournemouth area will be well aware of
Dave Wells, such an entrepreneur will surely be regard as the sort of business the government promotes as a solution to all social ills.

Apart from that I’ve done little apart from pratt around with elderly confusers and trial all sorts of operating systems The current favourite by a mile is something called Pear OS Linux Panther v3.0 from http://pear-os-linux.fr/ , the other light OS I’ve found is Lubuntu a cut down version of Ubuntu. The names don’t matter, I am not nerdily dogmatic about anything – I just want something that works without imposing itself between me and my life. Windows 7 Professional upwards (Windows anything Home is best avoided or upgraded) is perhaps the best Microsoft OS to date but it demands more hardware than I can afford.