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Computers are wonderful – until they stop working

On the evening of Friday 20^th June, after a very interesting but busy week about which I hope to write more here in due course, I returned home just after 10 pm and turned on my laptop computer. I wanted to pick up any new email, deal with new comments on this blog, look at the BBC News website to catch up on the day’s news, and visit Facebook.

I duly typed in my password but, instead of my desktop with icons appearing, I was greeted with the message, ‘The user profile service failed the logon. User profile cannot be loaded’. Several further attempts to logon just resulted in the same message appearing. I was completely locked out of my laptop and feeling totally helpless.

I had this same problem a year ago. On that occasion, it happened on a weekday and a nearby computer business called ‘Hardware Software Services’ (despite being a Czech company 🙂 ), kindly resolved the issue that same day. But they are only open for business 10.00 – 18.00 Monday to Friday, so I immediately realised that this time, I was going to be without access to email, the internet or any of the material stored on the laptop, for at least three full days.

I did console myself that it could have been worse. The next morning, Saturday 21^st June, I had to officiate at a difficult funeral – only the fourth funeral I’ve conducted since moving to Prague nearly six years ago – a reflection of the relatively young age of most of the English-speaking expat community here. I was grateful that I had already prepared and printed everything I needed for that service.

Whilst I didn’t need to write a sermon as we had a guest preacher on Sunday morning, I had set Saturday afternoon aside to do all my other preparatory work ready for worship on Sunday. Most notably, this meant drafting the ‘Weekly Bulletin’ containing the text of the Biblical readings, hymn numbers, titles and tunes, together with notices of forthcoming activities & the contact details for me and the members of the Church Council. Not only did I not have a functioning computer on which to do this, all the relevant information I needed was also completely inaccessible.

I am quite proud of myself that, despite these difficulties, I did eventually manage to produce a ‘Weekly Bulletin’. I did so by using someone else’s computer, creating a new template, before copying and pasting the Biblical readings from a CD. I then printed off one master copy, leaving the back page of a folded A4 sheet, blank. Before photocopying copies from the master copy, I place a copy of the back of the previous week’s edition over the blank page, as the information contained was virtually unchanged.

My greatest problem was bringing to mind the four hymns I’d chosen a few days earlier. I’d sent the details by email, to the musical director of the choir of St. Chad’s College, Durham, who were singing at our service, as their choir organist was going to play for the whole of our worship. But the only record of my chosen hymns was in that email, which was sitting in a file called ‘Sent items’, on an inaccessible laptop computer. Fortunately, by re-reading the Biblical readings, all four eventually came back to my mind.

On the morning of Monday 23^rd June, I arrived with laptop in hand, at the premises of Hardware Software Services, within a few minutes of them being open for business. By late afternoon, I once more had a working laptop computer with no loss of any data. I was kindly informed that what had happened was ‘a known Windows 7 problem’ and that mine wasn’t the first one that they had fixed. At the very reasonable cost of CZK 600 (just under £20.00), I was reconnected to ‘my world’ 🙂 Arriving home and connected once again to the internet, I downloaded fifty-eight emails and nineteen comments on this blog. Sadly, all the comments were spam 🙁

This whole experience last weekend, brought home to me once again how dependant I am upon one laptop computer, together with instant access to the internet. Suddenly, I could not carry out many everyday aspects of my job. My laptop computer is such a wonderful tool, storing an amazing variety of information and giving me almost instant communication with others – that is, so long as it works! And it isn’t just my expectations – last Sunday morning I had to apologise to the congregation, that if any of them had written me an email during the previous two days, I hadn’t seen it, yet alone been able to reply to it. Even emails that were slightly older which I had seen, I was presently unable to write a reply to any of them.

There is an interesting postscript to this whole business. The computer engineer at Hardware Software Services explained that, as part of resolving my computer access problem, they had de-installed and then reinstalled my anti virus protection but that everything else was in order. However, a couple of days later, I was unable to carry out an internet banking transaction with a message saying that this was because my internet browser was not ‘Javascript enabled’.

I returned to Hardware Software Services where the computer engineer agreed to look at the problem. He discovered that for some reason, I now had an older version of Mozilla Firefox and he went online to download the newest version. Being Czech, though fluent English-speaking, he promptly downloaded the Czech version of Firefox, something I only discovered when I got home. The simple solution is for me to download the English version of Firefox myself. But to do so, I have to follow instructions in Czech, because of currently having the Czech version of Firefox 🙁

Forty years on – how the world has changed

Do you recognise this man? Yes, believe it or not, it is Yours Truly – the photograph being the one that appears in my first-ever British passport, issued to me forty years ago in 1974, by the British High Commission in Canberra, Australia. It dates from the days when you were actually encouraged to smile and show your teeth in a passport photograph, something that is now no longer acceptable or allowed 🙁

It was with this passport, that in 1975, I travelled from Australia, where I had lived for the previous four and a half years, back to my country of birth, the United Kingdom. After flying from Sydney, to Kathmandu in Nepal, the rest of that journey was overland, taking a period of two and a half months.

It is amazing to think how much the world has changed since I made that journey. I travelled through three countries that no westerner in their right mind, would currently seek to visit – Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran. For at that time, there were no Taliban in northern Pakistan, the Soviet Union was yet to invade Afghanistan, and the Shah still ruled in Iran.

I also travelled the length of a country which has since ceased to exist – Yugoslavia. This does create problems when I’m asked how many countries I’ve visited. Do I count Yugoslavia as one country or as seven 🙂 To be fair, I usually ignore Yugoslavia in my calculations, but include Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Serbia, as I’ve visited all five of them since they became independent nations. But in 1975, I did also pass through what are now Macedonia and Kosovo, but have not been back there since then.

Whilst I am saddened by what has happened since 1975 in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, as I have fond memories of my time spent there, including attending an Easter Day Communion Service in a little chapel of the Episcopal Church of Iran in Isfahan, the last forty years has also seen one massive change for the better that I never, ever expected to see in my lifetime – the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989. As a result, I now live in a country which was once part of the Soviet Warsaw Pact. I still smile and pinch myself when travelling by tram past the headquarters of the Czech Ministry of Defence and see the NATO flag flying on top of the building.

That dramatic change has, since moving to live in Prague in September 2008, allowed me both to explore the Czech Republic, but also to at least briefly visit, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Poland. And visiting the Baltic States and properly exploring both Poland and Slovakia, is firmly on my agenda during the next three years. Until twenty-five years ago, freely being able to visit any of these countries was well nigh impossible.

Finally for this post, any intelligent individual reading this and wondering how on earth I managed to travel to Australia, without previously holding a passport, the answer is that I travelled on a ‘Document of Identity’, valid for a single journey to travel to Australia as an approved migrant. The photograph of me on that item of paperwork is so awful that I’m surprised the Australian authorities ever let me into their country 🙂 I have no intention of reproducing that photograph here, without a generous donation first being given to support the work of St. Clement’s Anglican Episcopal Church, Prague 😀

The Pilgrim is on her way

Sybille about to set off on pilgrimage © Ricky Yates — Sybille about to set off on her pilgrimage © Ricky Yates

This morning, my wife Sybille set out from the front door of the Chaplaincy Flat, to begin her long distance pilgrimage, walking from Prague to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. I took this photograph just before giving her a long kiss and hug, as if all goes to plan, I will not see her again for about two months.

Sybille started out this morning at 05.30, wanting to take full advantage of the cooler hours of the day whilst we are experiencing a Central European heatwave with temperatures rising to well over 30 degrees Celsius in the afternoon. Her main aim today is to successfully walk out of Prague, hoping to reach a campsite between Zbraslav and Radotin, adjacent a short part of the route that we walked together last November.

If you want to know more about Sybille’s pilgrimage, her motivation, proposed route and much more, then do visit her Prague-Santiago website. There is also a link in the right-hand side bar of this blog. She is hoping to post an update roughly once a week, dependent on time and wifi access. There is provision on her website for you to sign up to receive an email each time she does post an update.

I’ve been promised a text message update each day, whilst Sybille is walking within the Czech Republic as the cost of a text between two Czech mobiles is minimal. Once she reaches Germany, more specifically Freistaat Bayern, then I’m informed that contact will be less frequent 🙁

In early August, I will be taking some of my annual leave and the plan is for me to walk with Sybille for a couple of weeks, provided I can get Šárek cared for and find a willing plant ‘waterer’. Where that will be we don’t yet know. It will depend on Sybille’s walking speed which will only become clearer once she has been on pilgrimage for some weeks. However, we think it will be somewhere in France. Readers can be sure of a blogpost about it here in due course.

A little bit of family history

I spent the weekend following my attendance at the ICS Chaplains and Families Conference, visiting my two adult children. Then, having met up with my nephew Tim in Leamington, I spent a couple of nights in South Wales, reconnecting with two friends from my time at University in Lampeter during the mid 1970s. I then drove from South Wales to the south coast of England, to spend my last two nights on British soil, staying with my sister June and brother-in-law Garry, at their home in Bournemouth.

On the last stage of my journey, I decided to make a short detour from the the A338 between Salisbury and Bournemouth, to visit the small village of Woodgreen on the edge of the New Forest. I wanted to once more see the unique murals painted on the walls of the village hall, in which my mother, aunt and uncle all appear.

Woodgreen Village Hall was built between 1930-31. Over a period of eighteen months in 1932-33, two students from the Royal College of Art in London, Robert Baker and Edward Payne, created a series of murals covering the interior walls of the hall, depicting village life at the time. One of the scenes depicts a group of country dancers and it is in this mural that my mother and her sister and brother are all depicted.

This photograph shows the left half of the country dancing mural. The young lady in the pink dress standing in the centre of the circle created by the other three dancers, is my mother Elsie Cutler. At the time this was painted she was either sixteen or seventeen years old. The young lady in the green dress on the left of the photograph, (on my mother’s right), is her older sister Edith Cutler, always known to me as my Auntie Edie.

Below is a photograph of the complete mural. The young man on the left of the dancing circle on the right side of the mural, is my Uncle Cecil John Cutler.

Strictly speaking, my mother and her sister and brother, did not live in Woodgreen. They lived at Godshill Wood Farm, located halfway between Woodgreen and the neighbouring village of Godshill to the south. However, as the country dancing team was based in the village of Woodgreen, they were included in the mural painting.

Last year, the Woodgreen Village Hall Management Committee organised a party to celebrate the eightieth anniversary of the murals to which those who are featured in them who are still alive, were invited, along with the descendants of those now deceased. There is a report here, which includes a link to photographs of the event.

Unfortunately, neither my sisters and I, nor my cousin David, son of my Auntie Edie, were invited to attend. My Uncle Cecil John never married and had no offspring. The reason we were not invited was due to none of us having the surname ‘Cutler’, because of our respective mothers marrying and taking the surname of their husbands. Another cousin who does have the surname ‘Cutler’, was asked if he was a direct descendant. He rightly said that he wasn’t but didn’t have the common sense to give the organisers our details, even though he knew them 🙁

However, when I called at the home of the village hall caretaker, to ask if I could see the murals as my mother appeared in them, she freely let me have the key to gain access, hence I was able to take these photographs. My sister June has since told me that they now do have our contact details. Therefore, if there is to be a ninetieth birthday party, hopefully we may be invited.

On Thursday 22^nd May, my sister June and I travelled as foot passengers on the ferry from Lymington, to Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight, where we were met by our sister Jenny who lives on the island. We had a most enjoyable day together, during which I took this photograph of the two of them.

My two sisters - June on the left & Jenny on the right © Ricky Yates — My two sisters – June on the left & Jenny on the right © Ricky Yates

A Memorial to Czechoslovak heroes of the Second World War

Fountain memorial commemorating the Czechoslovak airmen who assassinated Reinhard Heydrich © Ricky Yates

During my recent visit to the UK, I met up with my nephew Tim in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, so we could have lunch together. Before our lunch, Tim took me on a short walking tour through Jephson Gardens, an attractive park in the town centre, in order to show me this memorial fountain commemorating the seven Czechoslovak airmen responsible for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most senior figures in the Nazi Third Reich.

In January 1942, Heydrich chaired the infamous Wannsee Conference, which set out plans for the enslavement and murder of 8 million European Jews. The Slavs, according to Heydrich’s plans, would have been next. At the time of his assassination, Heydrich was the acting Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, the present-day Czech Republic.

The seven Czechoslovak airmen were based just outside Leamington Spa and were parachuted into their homeland by the RAF, in a covert action called ‘Operation Anthropoid’. Seventy-two years ago on 27^th May 1942, two of the seven carried out the assassination, though not everything went to plan as is explained in this BBC News report marking the seventieth anniversary of the event in 2012. As the report also explains, sadly all seven also lost their lives.

The memorial fountain is in the shape of a parachute around the edge of which the names of the seven are inscribed. The water dripping of the edges of the structure is meant to illustrate the strings of a parachute. Behind the fountain is this commemorative plaque.

On the base of the fountain is a double tailed rampant lion, the Czech national symbol, and superimposed on it is a shield with a double cross, the Slovak national symbol. I am most grateful to Tim for showing me this fascinating link between Warwickshire, the county of my birth, and the Czech Republic, the country where it has been my privilege to live for the past nearly six years.

Czech & Slovak national symbols © Ricky Yates