The brighter side of lockdown

Towards the end of a 5 hour (yes 5 long, tedious hours) meeting on Teams, I got rather frustrated by one attendee who kept asking stupid questions in an attempt to impress some senior managers who were also on the call.

I had tried to mute said person to no avail but then I discovered that there is a magic button called "remove from meeting" and it magically removed said person without notifying them nor telling them who had activated the button.

After three removals said person didn't ask any more questions and the briefing finished only 15 minutes late.

 

If only it was as easy as that in 'real life' meetings.

 

My problem was students also realised this was an option and spent the entire lesson kicking each other out!

There are ways around it...

 

Nice if a little muddy canal towpath walk to here from Norbury this morning.

 

That must be north of Norbury? We sometimes walk to the pub there along the canal but I've never seen that.

 

It's where the A519 crosses the canal just Newport side of Woodeaves.

The telegraph pole in the middle of the arch intrigued me.
.

 

And the fact they've added the arch to house it.

 

I suspect the under arch is a form of buttress due to the height of the bridge.

 

Think that was on a TV show last Monday/Tuesday on BBC. Not sure what it was called but essentially it was a bloke travelling on a canal boat during the summer. Surprisingly interesting

 

That's lovely.
Many's the time I've walked under there on my way to the Anchor.

 

Presumably from telegraph wires alongside canals just as they were alongside railway lines.

 

The programme was Canal Boat Diaries, at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000q9z0/
He suggested the telegraph pole was originally for telegraph/telegrams, and then re-used for phone wires.

 

It was on Wednesday at 19.30 I think and I posted on the what are you watching thread that it was on then I got distracted doing something else and missed it.

 

That looks like the one. I'll watch it when I get the time.

 

There are quite a few Telco's fibre cables laid along canal tow paths as well.

 

We were still boating when they started putting that. Travelling gently along a canal talking to one of the workmen involved in laying the cables as he walked along the towpath. An Irishman pushing a wheelbarrow with a pick & shovel in it. Ah, the advances of technology.

 

Yes project was called fibre-way we installed fibre optic along canal tow paths covering uk in figure of eight fashion easier to dig up a canal tow path than the high street environment

 

When I worked for BT in 1988 I was seconded for a couple of weeks to accompany a fibre optic surveyor covering the route from Rugely to the Potteries. I drove and climbed down into duct spaces while he pushed the wheel along the London Road and then up through Hilderstone. What amazed me was all the extra ducting space that had been put in by the Post Office many years before. Clearly somebody had allowed for a lot of expansion long before fibre optics were even thought of (they were reasonably new in 1988.) Many runs had four ducts, three of them empty, with pull strings fitted.
I often wonder if BT allowed for that sort of expansion when they were putting in new infrastructure. At that time I was working for BT on three month temporary contracts of which I did four. When they offered me a permanent job, I disappeared over the horizon toward the darkness of Cheltenham.

 

I love Cheltenham. When the current excitement is finally behind, us a weekend in Cheltenham at the Hôtel du Vin is in my top 10 of nice things to do.

 

But you can't tell us too much about GCHQ ?