Well, that's an improvement

Given ongoing computer shenanigans I finally dug out my old laptop and powered it up earlier, and it's actually working better than it was when I stopped using it in early pandemic. It still needs a new keyboard, but it has at least stopped sending out spurious characters at random and a plug in keyboard works fine. As my plan if it was still imitating an infinite number of monkeys was to unscrew everything in sight and physically disconnect the keyboard, this is a bit of a relief (of course sod's law says that I happen to have the version with the most complicated disassembly in the whole range).

I've also relocated it to my computer desk as sitting cross-legged on my bed all afternoon has not done my hips any favours. Ow.

So hopefully I'm now safe (I'll give this one a day or two just to confirm it's working reliably) to sort out the profile issue on the other laptop, and then use one or the other to get back to the disc recovery for the desktop I was trying to do way back in October.

In other news, I finished Katherine Addison's Witness for the Dead last nigtht (which I picked up for a ridiculous £0.99 during Black Friday), and OMG, so good! Celehar, the Witness Vel Ama who had a minor but vital role in The Goblin Emperor is now back out among the people and doing the job he trained for as a priest and witness for the dead, but has two thorny problems, a burial a family member thinks might have been a murder, but he where can't find the grave, and the second a body pulled from the river, which his ability to witness tells him was definitely a murder. The two cases intertwine through the book, as does a messy case of 'but papa said I was to inherit' among one of the wealthier families of the city. I was a bit worried the story was flying off at a tangent mid-book, but Addison wove that thread neatly back into the main story.

I just ordered a book for my mother she wants as a present for my sister. I wasn't sure what it was about, some piece of local history and my mother apparently knows the author, but having now seen the tag line I'd definitely have given it a second look "Shabby Wedding : the true story of Mary Jane Dodds, married twice, buried twice, and both her husbands hung". That's definitely an interesting opening!

Well Grrr.....

Guess who managed to break the NHS Covid booking system and isn't getting his booster tomorrow?

OTOH I did manage to rebook for Tuesday, so that's not too catastrophic. Though I think I did get the last available slot - 7:25PM was the only one offered.

My GPs are really good about sending out a reminder the day before for any kind of appointment, and when I didn't get one by close of play today  I first thought I'd ring to check in the morning and then wondered if I could check things online. It turns out you can check or change your appointment - just scroll down past the booking option, and when I gave the NHS booking system my NHS number it took me straight through to booking instead. So nope, no appointment tomorrow.

The problem when I booked ten days ago was that when I opted for a confirmation of the booking it kept objecting that my email address wasn't valid, even though it was visibly correct, but when I added my mobile number as well (the other option for a confirmation), it seemed to finish the process with no problem, it just failed to then send me the confirmation. But as far as I was concerned I was already booked by that point, it was just the optional confirmation that had failed.

Only that's not what's supposed to happen.

When I went through this time and again clicked for a confirmation (I wasn't thinking, I should have opted not to get one) it objected to my email address again. But this time I poked around a bit more, rather than sticking my mobile number in, and it turns out that the copy of my email address my phone was offering for me as a shortcut has a space on the end. Which is of course impossible to spot unless you deliberately go back to edit the line rather than saying "but that's right".

And when you correct that trailing space you get a whole extra screenful of information with a confirmation of where and when and a booking number that 'you must take with you' (and your phone going biddleboop because the email just arrived). But first time through I saw nothing to indicate I should be expecting to see that extra screenful. Errors that drop you out without indicating the booking hasn't been made, which really should be considered safety critical given the situation, are really not acceptable. Failing the entire booking over an optional informational email is equally poor systems design.

And why we have to take a booking number along when they're also running walk-in clinics is another good systems engineering question!

Grrr!!!