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Rail passengers facing 'unnecessary delays'
Train passengers are facing unnecessary delays because Network Rail is not doing its job properly, according to a critical report from the regulator.
The Office of Rail Regulation said the infrastructure company was slipping behind on maintenance and had not done enough to prepare for bad weather.
It comes as commuters face more above-inflation fare rises in the new year.
Network Rail said train performance was still at historically high levels but accepted it could improve.
Punctuality targets
Rail Minister Norman Baker told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that while Network Rail was "delivering upgrades and new infrastructure well", it had taken its "eye off the ball" when it comes to day-to-day maintenance of the network
Mr Baker discussed the report when he met Network Rail's boss on Wednesday and company representatives on Thursday.
Network Rail is in charge of the transport system's infrastructure including tracks and signals.
Drainage is a major issue on the railways because heavy rain can cause havoc, triggering mudslides and signal problems that delay trains.
The report from the Office of Rail Regulation (ORR) said Network Rail was not doing enough to drain water away from tracks, which would help more services run on time.
The rail regulator also talked about a backlog of maintenance.
The ORR claimed the company did not know enough about the condition of its own track, bridges and signals.
As a result key punctuality targets were being missed, it said, which could soon land Network Rail with a multi-million pound fine.
ORR chief executive Richard Price said the company must deal with these problems as a matter of urgency.
'Investing heavily'
"Network Rail has been entrusted with large amounts of public and passengers' money which, if invested well, should deliver the levels of efficiency and punctuality it promised to deliver," he said.
"However, the company is falling short of expectations at the moment. It is facing many problems of its own making having failed to deliver plans to renew Britain's rail network, with delayed works now affecting performance.
"The company must urgently catch up and address the problems which are causing disruption to passengers and target its work as efficiently as possible."
The report examined what Network Rail delivered from the money it spent, as passengers face fare increases of about 4.1% in the coming months.
Mr Baker said he raised his concerns with Network Rail chief executive Sir David Higgins when they met earlier this week.
The minister said: "I am, as I think the rest of the travelling public will be, dismayed to learn that Network Rail is still failing to tackle deterioration in the punctuality and reliability of the network - a matter I have regularly raised with them.
"Fare payers and tax payers are investing heavily in the future of the railways and they need to have the confidence that Network Rail is maximising the impact every pound has."
Mr Baker later told the Today programme that "because you've got twice the number of passengers over the last 15 years on the same network, inevitably that's putting enormous pressure on Network Rail."
He said it is "one of the reasons" infrastructure projects like HS2 are needed.
Last week it was announced that former oil executive Mark Carne would replace Sir David at Network Rail when he steps down next year.


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In less than a month, Microsoft will stop supporting Windows XP, still the second most widely used PC operating system in the world. The company announced the OS's April 8 termination date years ago, but with as many as 500 million XP systems still active last month, not everyone is going to make a move in time.
XP users have vocally protested Microsoft's abandonment of such a popular product. Objections include upgrade costs, application compatibility concerns, and whether customers should be effectively forced to leave a product that they are happy with. Despite Microsoft's increased efforts, which now include daily pop-up notifications on XP systems, almost one in three computers still ran the 12-year-old OS in February, according to web-tracking firm Net Applications. More alarming for Microsoft, Windows XP's market share hasn't decreased since last year and Windows 8.1's has barely grown. Both trends imply the company's escalating messaging has fallen largely on deaf ears.
[Will Microsoft win back users with Windows 8.1 Update 1? Read Microsoft Windows 8.1 Update Surfaces.]
So what will happen when April 8 passes and millions of people are still running Windows XP?
"We're into panic time," Michael Silver, a VP at the research firm Gartner, said in an interview. He said the amount of risk depends to some extent on what XP laggards can accomplish in a hurry.
"The ones we're speaking to now are the ones that have done barely anything." If companies haven't already taken action, Silver said, they probably don't have time to even replace XP systems with virtual machines, let alone migrate their operations to Windows 7. Silver told us many late-comers are removing admin rights, restricting permissions, and otherwise locking down any XP systems that can't be retired.
"The reality is, the absence of patches for Windows XP just exposes companies to risk," Forrester analyst David Johnson said, noting that companies must be mindful, not only of security concerns, but also of compliance obligations.
For its part, Microsoft has been trumpeting for months that Windows XP is six times more likely than Windows 8.1 to contract malware. Some InformationWeek readers labeled the statistics as a scare tactic, pointing out that Microsoft has newer products it wants to sell. This cynicism isn't without merit-- but don't be too quick to label Microsoft a fearmonger. Security experts agree: You stick with XP at your own peril.
"It appears a lot of organizations don't realize or don't care how porous Windows XP will become after it ceases being patched in April. It isn't a war-hardened OS, as some customers believe," Wes Miller, research VP with IT consulting firm Directions on Microsoft, said last fall in a blog post. "XP systems will be ripe for an ass-kicking beginning next spring, and they can, and will, be taken advantage of."
Indeed, zero-day exploits are a major IT headache even today, with Microsoft supplying patches and support. The situation could get worse after April, especially if criminals are stockpiling new exploits in anticipation of the deadline, as some have speculated. Silver warned that attackers might also be able to use future Windows 7 and Windows 8 patches to reverse-engineer

subset: commoncrawl


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Aye-Verb (Of St. Louis) Calls Out Head Ice! "Quit Bein Scared. + Says "Arsonel Your Not That Good" + Spits Some Acapella Bars
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Our Fitness Blog
Need a reason to kick box? Justin Bieber and his posse are waiting...
In case you haven't noticed, Justin Bieber has turned into a holy terror. You never know when he and his body guards are going to strike again. On top of that he is working on his hands with a few of the best ever.
This is just another great reason to try kick boxing.
When I started kick boxing, I was big into power lifting and eating 4000 calories a day to try and pack on as much mass as I could. I thought being in good shape meant that you could dead lift a Kia Rio. Boy was I wrong. By the time I finished my workout I had to crawl out the door. Once I came too out of my post workout haze, I was hooked. On top of that, it's the best stress reliever ever.
There's nothing like having an awful day and then unleashing the fury in the gym. The best workout I ever had came after my dog used the bathroom in the floor, my cat decided my bathroom counter would be an ideal place to throw up, my usual 25 minute trek to work took almost an hour, and it was the day to make my student loan payments.
I had a catharsis on the wrecking ball bag. When I was done, I almost forgot why I had been so stressed when I got there. Besides the day my ducks were born, I rank the end of that workout as one of the greatest moments of my adult life.
Learning how to punch and kick the right way really gives you a whole different level of confidence when you are walking through a dark parking lot frantically searching for your long lost car. It's so much easier to walk through 18 rows of cars when you aren't worried about somebody popping out at you and breaking into "Beat It" by Michael Jackson.
So if you see a ridiculously overpriced car speeding through your neighbor hood with "Baby, baby, baby, ooooo" blaring on the speakers, have no fear. Not only can you tell the Biebs to slow down, but you can go all Keyshawn Johnson on him.


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Skrillex is taking his inspiration from Kanye West these days.
The electronic music DJ and producer spent a little time with West, sharing a plane flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas where each was to perform two years ago, and came away with an invitation to collaborate and an even deeper understanding of the possibilities in front of him.
�It was cool to see Kanye surrounded by all these creative people constantly on computers, approving stuff, coming up with ideas � the constant machine that Kanye was in the middle of,� said Skrillex, whose real name is Sonny Moore. �And it reminded me a lot of my crew. We have so much going on 24-7 and we�re always on our computers, we�re all approving stuff and going back and forth with ideas. And to see him do it on a massive level is really cool. He�s just so involved with every aspect of his career.�
The 26-year-old Grammy Award winner has decided to emulate that model, and has begun building a creative center in downtown Los Angeles he calls The Nest. Eventually the goal is to have a space for friends � musicians and producers and members of his record label, OWSLA, but also other creatives in the visual and fashion world � to use as a hub, much in the way West keeps scores of satellites in orbit around him.
Skrillex�s first official album, �Recess,� released March 18, is one of the most complex examples of this way of thinking. It was recorded as he toured the world and unfettered by corporate rules. His record label, Atlantic Records, had almost no input before it received the album, and is working mainly as a distributor and promoter.
�All the creative comes from us sitting together and vibing out,� Moore said in a phone interview of his collaborators and business partners. �I�m making music and they�re working on other artist stuff and we just kind of have this synergy going on that really bypasses the steps of having to deal with a label and having to clear something through them, and hopefully they�ll get out there and sell the record. It doesn�t have that (old label system) vibe. It�s a whole different way of being. It�s pure, you know?�
Instead of taking a seven-figure advance, Moore recorded �Recess� in much the way he�s produced previous records � on the fly all over the world. As he played shows for a growing number of fans, he�d selectively invite new collaborators to join him as he made stops in New York, Los Angeles, Canada and the United Kingdom.
While in South Korea, he hooked up with G-Dragon and the YG Entertainment crew at the suggestion of Diplo and the result was �Dirty Vibe.� He caught up with old friend Chance the Rapper at a show in Seattle and they banged out �Coast is Clear� overnight with a full band.
�Recess� is the first formal release Moore has put out under the Skrillex moniker since 2011�s �Bangarang� EP. He spent much of 2013 occupied with touring as Skrillex and with his band, Dog Blood. He scored Harmony Korine�s �Spring Breakers� and worked on music obsessively.
�Recess,� it turns out, is just the initial salvo in 2014.
�This album is kind of like the first wave of a lot more stuff to come, just (songs) flying out left and right kind of thing,� he said. �That�s kind of what to expect: spontaneous releases. ... There�s so many other collaborations that I can�t really say yet but that have been left over from the record, that I�m going to release soon that are so dope. I�m excited for the new stuff to come out that no one�s heard yet.�
Skrillex ramps up ambition as he releases first LP
Skrillex is taking his inspiration from Kanye West these days.


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My grandad, Clement Trill, is 4th from right bottom row . This was an engineering firm but I don't know what they were testing. Does anyone know?
Allen West test team 1942
From the private collection of Sue Levy
My grandfather Charles Henry Powell worked at Allen West.
My father Herbert Maurice Martin also worked at Allen West - an electrical firm. He also ran in their sports team. I have photos of colleagues of his. I think he may have left just before the above photo.
My grandad, Albert Jeater, worked for Allen West - they made electrical switch gear for all sorts of things. I once saw an Allen West piece of machinery on a wall in the Speights Brewery in Dunedin, New Zealand!
My wife´s grandad worked at Allen West. His name was Bob Roberts and lived in Southampton St, Brighton. He was the toolfitter and started there in 1954. When I was going out with my wife in 1970, he was always repairing something or down his allotment by the race course growing vegetables.
My late father in law Eddie worked at Allen West for 38 years until his retirement in 1986. I came across switch gear at a tea plantation in Cameron Highlands Malaysia.
I was an electrical apprentice at A Ws, my first job after leaving school in 1957. Whilst wonderful quality heavy duty products (especially for The Steel Company of South Wales) were being manufactured, a handful of employees also found the time and facilities ideal for making small individual items for themselves. I recall motorcycle parts being chromium plated, car wheels sprayed, fishing weights moulded and lots of other things being done during working hours that really shouldn't have been. A manager even had some of us working on fittings for his sailing boat.
Although I was only there a short while, in that time I grew up to appreciate that a few adults could also have failings and my time at A Ws became further education in every sense of the word.
My father Harold Collins is 4th from left behind the crouching man; sadly he passed away in 2007. Unfortunately I do not know what he actually did at that time but he left shortly after to join the RAF and returned after the war to carry on electrical testing.
I was just checking the spelling of Allen West when I saw your photo. I was an apprentice at AW from 1961 to 1965, and came back after university to work on industrial electronics, especially control systems for large dockside and Freightliner cranes (eg 400 HP hoist motor). I would guess the photo was taken in the Lewes Road works (which has now been razed to the ground and forms one of the car parks for Brighton Uni) - opposite the old parade ground (now B&Q etc). And I would guess the men shown were working hard on war orders, including much equipment for the Admiralty. All motors above about 1/3 hp ideally need a 'starter' which protects the motor in case of overload, and the user in case of power failure/re-start. Larger motors rated at 000s HP need much more expensive and complex starting gear, and AW used to boast that no motor was ever too big for them to control. AW also made complete control systems involving lots of motors and valves, eg for powering a gold mine, with big control panels like you see in old industrial movies.
When I worked at AW, the main factory was half way up Moulescombe Way (where Booker Cash and Carry now is). The firm employed about 3000 workers and vied with Creeds in Hollingbury (made teleprinters, or was it cash machines?) as being the biggest employer in Brighton.
And now they are no more, though I'm sure there is a rump company carrying on with some of the old name. I suppose their trouble was an inability to move quickly with the times. OK, our crane controls were really ground breaking technology at the time, but they needed back up and investment and, when the rest of the company is struggling a bit, and overstretched on its building programme, then something has to give.
They were a great firm to work for, and I still keep up with about 8 fellow apprentices from 1958 and subsequently.
To Roy Grant - Hi Roy. Can you remember George Webb from Newick Road, North Moulsecoomb? He was a worker at A Ws living next door to me and told tales of many cigarette lighters being made out of emptied bullet cases after the bullets had been scrounged from the soldiers in Stanmer Park. I had one of the lighters. Well made and efficient!
Can anyone remember my father, Patrick Dowds? He sadly passed away in 1995, but worked there for many yrs; my mum Eileen Dowds also worked there, she sadly passed away Christmas eve 2008.
My Father (George Chaplin) worked at Allen West for some years during 1940s - 1960s. He was deeply involved in the Trade Union movement (Amalgamated Engineering Union) and was shop-steward in 108 Machine shop for many years.
Bridget - I remember your Mum & Dad and your brothers Pat & Tom. I remember you being born as I was a neighbour. I also worked at Allen West working for John Roberts in accounts.
I worked at Allen West in 1970. I was working making switches which were assembled on large thick paxollin panels. The connections were made of thick copper tubing, and I am sure they were used for the QE2, on the turbo engines.
The company is still going now called Allenwest Brighton. It is at Peacehaven and has ten workers still making control panels.
My father Robert 'Bob' Barker started work with Allen West in 1938 and finally retired 40 plus years later in a managerial position. I don't know what his exact title was and can no longer ask him as he passed away on 3/9/09. My grandfather Robert Ryder and uncle Joe Ryder worked in the machine shop. My brother Robert Barker worked in the post room and assembling catalogues. You could say a family loyalty to AW. If anyone has any other information about my family members I'd love to hear about them.
To Mike Wooldridge: I think I remember you from Harrington Road Hostel. I remember some of the names starting with John Smith, Bob Baldwin, Mike Curry (Irish student apprentice), Franz (the German guy), Ginger Woodcote, Roy Bowles, Chris Pelham and his mate Dave, and then there was Cannaugh the apprentice training instructor plus he ran the hostel with his wife. Allen West I hear is no more but the writing was on the wall years ago when they tried to do logic systems sort of plc. I think when I started in 1961 there were 4,500 people working there. 3000 at Moulscome Way and the rest at Lewes Road. The pic above is definitely the Lewes Road section.
Hello bridget. I used to live in Staplefield Drive near your family and was a good friend of your mum Eileen and Tom and Pat. I was very sad to here about your mum and dad. Are you still living at Moulsecoomb?
Re: the Allen West photo and believe I know the dark haired man back row and fourth from the right. Would anyone know if it was Eric Sturgess? He would know me, I am Ken Burt. I worked for many years for A.W. in 108 machine shop on Radial Drills then in the Automatics shop. Leaving early in 1971 to come to Australia.
What year did A.W. finally close down?
To: Ken Burt, Allenwest Brighton Ltd, the MBO in March 2007 has NOT closed down. This was despite the best efforts of Les Kerisson, the chairman up to the MBO date, and his changing of the registered compny and trading names (and transferring the staff) from Allenwest Electrical to Allenwest Systems or Allenwest Standard Products and then to Allenwest Ltd. During his chairmanship, suppliers were not paid and during the period of trading under the registered name of Allenwest Ltd, neither were the staff. We are moving Allenest Brighton Ltd back to Brighton and will be based at Unit 3 Hughes Road from 1st September 2010.
My grandfather, Herbert Alan Jeffries moved down from London to be a foreman at the newly opened branch in 1910. He's third from left in the cloth cap.
My mistake: Grandfather's name was Frederick Alan Jeffries (my father was Herbert!) who eventually opened Jeffries 'sweet and tobacco' shop, South Road, Haywards Heath.
I was "Sister" in the Medical Center, Moulscoomb in 1953. Great experience! Cycled from Sackville Road. Last minute dash to "beat the hooter". Amazed by ladies working on drills (piecework) flying in and out to get fingers taped. Anybody remember George Brown (?dept), Les Voice (Test)or welders who came for eyedrops at the end of shift? Think my bike and later Vespa were well maintained. Thanks to you all! Amused to think we took 100pk cigs to people off sick, long term, (maybe not funny now, but am sure "factory humour" can cope). Am 83 now, but cherish the memories of my first job in the real world away from hospital. Thank you.
Hello to all subscribers. I started at AW in 1942 as an Office Boy in the then Sales office, Managered by Mr John Hall. After promotion to Junior Salesman & Service in the RAF, I returned to AW to a short while in 27 Assy. Lewes Road, then changed to a Junior Draughtsman in Sections under Messrs Jimmy James, Freddy Pearson, 'Bottles' Russell & ended up before early retirement, with Tony Jarvis in Design Dept in Moulscoombe. I knew many of the people mentioned previously, & many more, somewhere I have a compiled list of their names, so I will find this & add these to my comments at a later date. Best regards to all past & present AW's.
Hi Jean, Thank you for the reply. I now live in Swindon, been there for 9 years. I still don't remember you, are you on facebook? Love to hear from you. I am now 44 years old and with 2 girls. I really do miss my mum so much. I wouldn't move back to Brighton, too many memories. Though I do love Brighton.
Hi Bridget, glad to hear you are well. I never knew you but knew your Mum and Dad well as well as Tommy Patrick and the little Margaret and John. I lived at No 14 just along from you but I left Brighton before you were born. So I never saw you. I'm not on facebook but my hubby is. I hope to hear from you.
Hi Bridget. thanks for your reply. I left Brighton before you where born but knew your family well. iIved at no 14. I used to go shopping with your mum- we had some good laughs as well. I hope you are keeping well, love to all your family.
Bridget: it's me Jean - this is my email address: ...firstname.lastname@example.com ...
Hi, wondered if anyone can help? My dad Michael Hall who used to work at Allen West from 1955-1962 approximately would like to find his best mate Danny/Tony Green. He had a wife called June and a daughter. Would appreciate any help. Thanks.
My grandfather Patrick Downes worked at Allen West in the fifties. I believe he was a french polisher - not sure where that fits in.
Does anyone remember my grandad? He was David Eric Smith but was always known as Rober.! He sadly passed away in 1992 but I'm sure he worked at AW during the war years and for many more after. He was in stores/supplies which we always found funny as kids since his shed was also arranged by Bin Numbers. His wife, Doreen (Dolly) recently passed away and I'm trying to get a bit of social history for my family tree. Thanks all
Does anyone remember my grandfather, Stan Foulkes, who was a draughtsman at Allen West for many years? I went into the company as an apprentice in 1956 and worked in No 68 Maintenance Dept in Lewes Road until 1962. My grandfather wished me to join the company but, unhappily, passed away just before I started there. Looking back it was one of the happiest times of my life.
I worked at Allen West between 1970-80. I started as a trainee and worked in various departments until I finished up in the variable speed drive section. I knew a lot of the people mentioned above. Eric and Glad Sturgess both worked in 210 assembly. They lived at Lewes and, sadly, are both deceased now. Bob Barker was manager of the marketing section.
Both my parents worked at AW. My dad, George Elliott, and my mum Veronica (Mona) Pickett. Think she worked with her friend Liz Shipham, both from Moulsecoomb Way. Mum worked in the offices in the early 60s I think, and Dad in the Lecky bit. If anyone remembers the Christmas parties held there, my dad was responsible for the different coloured strip lights.
HI Jean, sorry for slow reply. Please could you tell me your last name. Thank you.
Hi Bridget. My last name is Maratty, before that it was Funnel. I use this email firstname.lastname@example.com it's my husband's.
I worked at Allen West from 1956 to 1995, starting as an apprentice and then in 1961 as a draughtsman. I recognise several faces in the photo as follows. Tom Smith, 2nd left in the front row with a beer in his hand? Ken Tuppen, 2nd right in the back row and possibly Cyril Muxlow to his left. Good to hear from you Dicky Divall. I too have lots of lists. It was me who suggested the name Allen West on the front of Brighton bus number 616. A picture and a brief article appear on Brighton And Hove buses web site.
I worked from 1935 to 1962 in the filing dept - estimating. Married a Canadian soldier in 1942 and went to Canada in 1945, was reunited with husband. Remember me? Would love to hear from someone. My email address is email@example.com
It was announced in the Argus (30/7/2011) that Len Williams passed away this week. Most of us will remember 'Taffy' the voice from the valleys. He was in 240 assembly for years. He was active in the Labour party and was a councillor for years in Pier ward near where I now live.
I am sorry to hear about Eric Sturgess dying, mind you he was a little older than me and I am no youngster. I have a photo of him and his brother Cyril taken in a group when we were all boys and they then lived in Bentham Road.
To Peter Guy: Peter Muxlow here, eldest son of Cyril Muxlow and yes, that is Dad in the photo. He passed away about eleven years ago now. We emigrated to Australia in '65 and Dad continued to work as an electrical engineering draughtsman until he retired. My wife was looking for old pics of him to help me compile some of his exploits in the RAF's Coastal Command, 202 Squadron that I'm writing now. I have found two pictures associated with Catalinas that look a lot like him hence Tina looking for old photos. I'm a bit confused as that photo says 1942 but I thought he was in the RAF then. He certainly was in '44-'45, so he must have left AW and then returned after the war. I'm almost fifty nine now, much older than Dad in that photo. Thanks for sharing; amazing thing, the internet!
My father Peter Brooker and his brother George Brooker worked at Allen West for many years. Peter worked in the Test Team from the mid 50s up to the early 80s. If anyone remembers them I would love to hear from you. I remember walking home from Moulsecoomb Junior School and standing on the wall in front of the factory windows to wave to Dad.
My dad, Frank Read started working at Allen West in the late 1930s and it was there he met my mum, Renee (nee Kendall). Apart from the war years, when he worked as an electrician for another company, he was there until he retired in the mid 70s. He worked on 102 assembly and finished his working life in the office in Moulscoombe Way. My grandfather, Walter Kendall, also worked at the Lewes Road factory where I believe he was on the gate or possibly the nightwatchman. Sadly they are all gone now.My memories of Allen West are of the social club which was very active with children's parties at Christmas, sports days and the annual arts and craft exhibition. My most vivid memory is of the fete which was held to commemorate the Queen's coronation in June 1953. There was a children's fancy dress competition and I was Queen Elizabeth 1 -dressed in crepe paper.
I started work at Allen West in 1959 as an apprentice in their training school. We spent a year in there being trained under the watchful eyes of Mr Robb, Mr Kannugh, and Mr Line then we were thrown to the wolves so to speak, to complete the rest of our four years as apprentices on the shop floor. I have many happy memories of friends I made and time spent at the West. Every year, 15 to 20 apprentices were taken on for training. How we could do with companies like that today.
My grandfather, Ron Anscombe, worked as a draughtsman at Allen West for his entire working life after he was demobbed from the RAF in 1947, when he married my Grandmother Alcie who also worked at Allen West during the war making submarine parts. Ron was also very active with the social club and I loved going along on Saturday nights as a kid. There seemed to be no limits to the resoucefulness of Allen West employees when it came to odd private jobs such as garden tool sharpening and electrical bits for school projects. Ron past away in 1984 and Alice in 1997 both greatly missed.
What a great site. My father, Maurice Blundell, worked at Allen West's Moulscoombe from around 1950 to 1990 when he retired and my brother John was an apprentice there between 1972 and 1976. When I was a child Dad worked in the test department with Clem Trill. I remember Clem because he and his family emigrated to New Zealand in the early 60s - I think they all came back after a year or two - and he sold his children's model railway, a couple of tents and some boxing gloves to Dad just before they left and we had it as our Christmas present that year. I remember visiting Ark Royal at Portsmouth for a careers' visit when at BSTS and seeing AllenWest switchgear - it seemed to confirm the claim that this was "the Rolls Royce" of electrical equipment! There's also something I've wondered about, when I was five or six Dad used to make extended visits to Birmingham and Derby for the firm. AW switches were being tested on new diesel locos, but I've never been able to find out which classes these were. Does anyone know?
David, I think your brother, John, started in 1970 - the same year as me! We both ended in the Variable speed drive operation (VSDO). John left in 1976 to go into teaching. I have not heard of him since. The class of diesels Allen West gear was used on included the Sulzer 'Bo Bo' class. Which entered large scale service in the early sixties.
Hi Richard, yes, it would have been 1970 that John started his apprenticeship. He taught for a couple of years in Tamworth, Staffs and then moved to Derby and has worked for Rolls Royce and Alsthom's. He's working in combustion engineering now and has four grown boys and lots of grandchildren - there are still some engineering careers to be had in the UK! David, thanks for the information on the locos - I'll check them out.
Does anyone remember my dad, Henry Moncur, working at Allen West for 29 years. He was chief engineer. I remember Dicky Divall. My dad is now 86 and still going strong.
My first job was at Allen West 1957 I worked in 108 machine shop for about a year, and learned how to set up and run a capstan lathe. At the time it seemed a vast place, and if you ever had to go in the sheet metal shop you were deafened, and yes many little projects were undertaken in works time.
I would like to thank all the workers at the A&W in Lewes road who had a collection for my uncle George (Potiphar). He was forced to leave A&W to look after my Auntie Dolly who had MS. The workers bought my uncle George a car to help him with the care of my auntie. This kind thought has gone unthanked by the faimily for many years. Unfortunately both my aunt and my uncle Goerge have now passed on. Thank you all for this kind act you all supported.
Vic and Lily Knight nee Maplesden both worked for over 30 yrs at Allen West. I believe they met and married in 1943, at that time they lived in Caledonian Rd with my Grandma and her youngest daughter Nora.
I was an apprentice at Allen West. From 1960 we did a year of training in the training school under Ron Caneau Harry Lime, and Robb in the drawing office. We then went into the factory to learn about the different types of switch gear. It was good fun meeting all the different characters and there were quite a few I remember- Flash Jennings and the Shippam girls. The coil winding dept had a bad reputation.
I don't know any of these men, however my father Ronald Scott worked for Allen West, both before and after WW2. I well remember attending the Christmas Parties in the 1950s. He had a mate called Reg Pellin who lived in Moulsecoomb.
To Maria Moncur-Byrne. Yes I certainly remember your dad, Henry Moncur. He was a great engineer, awe inspiring as far as I was concerned. He gave me great encouragement developing the AW electronic 'constant horsepower' crane drive. I'd like to meet him again, and I expect my fellow ex AW apprentice, David Blakemeore would like to meet him also. I'm contactable via email@example.com. Henry also made a lovely glass of home made beer!
My lovely old Grandad Fred Harrod could well be in this picture. I know he worked for Allen West up until 1960 and believe he worked for them for some years. He lived in Colbourne Avenue with my Nan, my Parents and Brother and Sister, we had moved there from Moulsecoomb Way in 1959, I was born in 1957. I have vivid memories of him cleaning his medals on remembrance Sunday as he was a proud ex-war veteran (1914-18). One day in early January 1961, he went off to work at the Lewes Road factory and when he left at the end of the day he walked up Natal Road in the dark to what I remember being told was a Watch repair shop on the corner of Dewe Road and Natal Road, apparently, he slipped and fell into a trench where some work was being carried out. He unfortunately broke his neck and had to be airlifted a few days later to Stoke Mandeville where he died in 1966. He was paralysed from the chest down and had limited movement in his arms which was a sad sight to see for me as I was only very young. Looking back it must have been even worse for my Nan as she was left isolated in Brighton away from him and we didn't have a phone in those days either. I have a copy of the 'Brighton & Hove Gazette' from the 6th January 1961 and there is a picture on the front of the R.A.F helicopter on Hove lawns with the ambulance next to it. For the next 5 years we travelled up regularly as a family to Stoke Mandeville in our old Vauxhall Victor, 6 of us on a journey that took 8 hours (no big roads then!) It was sad as he was 65 at the time of his accident and nearly retired, I thought I would write this story to see if it would jog any memories or if anyone knew him. From what I have been told, he was a bit of a character and a lovely man, he was affectionately known to us kids as 'Pop'.
I remember Dave Blakemore in the ATS. He was responsible for interviewing apprentices and trainees. I remember him leaving in 1971. I think he joined Link Miles at Lancing. I also remember Dave Macey and remember Ken Line, Ron Canneaux, Wally Streets and Ted Smith who are all sadly deceased.
To Mike Wooldridge. Have just read your message and will speak to my dad, Henry Moncur. I will contact you via email soon. Really touched by your comments. And yes, his beer was legendary!
There is sad news in today's Argus. Tom Budgen (former 210 manager) has died. I remember him in the 1970s. He succeeded Mr. Boulton when he retired.
I worked for Wallacetown Eng.(Switchgear Manufacturers), Ayr, Scotland. The company was bought out/ amalgamated with Allen West around 1976/77. A number or colleagues and I started travelling up and down to Brighton for about a year until I was dangled the GOLDEN CARROT to transfer myself and my family to Allen West. I reconise quite a number of names in the above post and I also think I reconise the man standing bottom right of the photo, although it was taken many years before I joined. I am sure his name was John Paul; I remember he was a cricket fanatic. On my transfer I worked in the Contracts Dept with Maurice ... I recall we had both been offered the same promotion and there was great tooling and frowning for several months by the personnel dept and management to try and sort things out. All the guys I met in these days were all great to work with (with the exception of personnel)and they all made my family and I very welcome. I have kept in touch with one or two, Malcolm Simmons, Dick Gould, and I will always remember Dave Best and the woman that changed the office: Lynne McGinty. She sent the sparks flying, with her, then, foreword thinking about women in the workplace. Happy days. It would be great to hear from anyone that remembers that time. Ian Leslie, Ayr, Scotland.
My grandfather Arthur Best and my mother Marjorie Best both worked at AW. Arthur was the shipping manager and had a special relationship with Brtish Railways who always accommodated the AW directors when they travelled by rail, apparently attaching a special saloon coach to the regular train when necessary. My father, Peter Johnson, followed in his footsteps and it was no small coincidence that my brother and I got to go to London and ride on the footplate of the steam engines in the Bricklayers Arms marshalling yard several times. AW shipped goods all over the world but particularly South Africa and I remember a set of Union Castle Line drinks coasters, dad's pride and joy, being got out when guests came to our house. Dad often talked of 'Mears' who I believe was his boss at one time there. The bane of his life were the 'end of month' figures which caused him to have a nervous breakdown at one time. He recovered, worked at the Moulsecoomb site for a number of years but was made redundant in his late 50s from AW after 38 years service. Sadly he passed away on 4/5/2012 aged 85.
It's great to come across this page because, together with a small team of volunteers, I look after two Stothert and Pitt railway cranes on the Swanage Railway which utilise Allen West DC Crane Control equipment and switchgear built around 1948 to 1952. I am building up a history file of all the companies that had a hand in the design and construction of the cranes and I would be pleased to hear of anything to do with the Allen West contribution.
Hi Fraser, I know the Swanage Railway very well - we have had at least one holiday in Swanage per year since 1999. I have always wondered whether AW switchgear was to be found in equipment and rolling stock at the railway - especially the Cromptons - because my father Maurice Blundell worked at the firm and used to travel away in the early 60s to test equipment on the fleets of diesels that were commissioned by BR to replace steam. Ian - I didn't know that about Dad and the contracts department - although he was very pleased with the promotion!
I lived in Barcombe Road about 1955/56 onwards. My dad used to work at Allen West from then as an electrician. His name was Bill Possee (nick name Lofty) as he could fix things on the ceiling without a ladder, he was so tall. I remember the hooter early in the mornings to beckon the workers to work.
When I asked about my grandfather Stan Foulkes, I forgot to mention that he was a leading light in the model club, exhibiting among other things, a model railway, working harbour and a Lee Enfield 303 rifle made of wood with which he stood guard at Brighton Reservoir during the war. A much loved man. I started as an apprentice in 27 assembly and went into the maintenance dep't with Codger Beech, John Houghton and many others. Our Foreman was Jack Dumbrell.
Both my parents worked at AW for many years, my Dad on assembly and in the early days my lovely Mum in the machine shop - their names were Mary and Alf Gandey. Mum died in 2003, Dad in 2012 aged 103 years. Life can never be the same can it? We lived at Stonecross Road for 45 years; they moved to live with me in Cambridge in the early '80s. The good old days!
My father Carl Sargeant worked at AWs throughout the War; He was in the Radar department working on Naval Radar. At that time there was a Navy Admiral in charge. Did AWs have their own section of the Home Guard? I ask because he told me about doing firewatch at night when in the HG and going to a Home Guard base up Dyke Road. Has anyone any photos of the Home Guard? Also there is a mention above about 'scrounging bullets from the soldiers in Stanmer Park'. I wondered why this was necessary as he was issued with an old 303 rifle and about a couple of dozen live bullets which lived in a jam jar on the top shelf of our hall cupboard in Sussex Square. I remember climbing up the shelves and getting them down to look at them when there wasn't anybody about! The day that the War ended he left to set up in business on his own not even waiting to collect his last week's wages, - much to my mother's annoyance! Other names from the past; Louis De Gasperi from Coldean, retired from AWs about 1960, Guy Austen - Burgess Hill (Test Dept., but not in above photo as I sent him a copy about a year ago. I always said most rejects came from the department my father was in! Later Central Sussex Radio at Burgess Hill. (He is still about) Stuart-Brown from Patcham or Preston also comes to mind, I think he did time clocks later. I think he was involved with my father making lightweight moving coil gramophone pickups, (or maybe had one of the first ones made?) as they were all into wireless in those days. I think the press tool for this may have come out of the 'back door' at AWs as it was very nicely made. I always thought that Mr Goodsell of Goodsells Radio, Dorset Gdns was an ex AWs chap but someone recently told me he was an ex policeman. They all used to come to our house and play chess during the War.
Tim Allen West may well have had their own section of Home Guard; another large Brighton manufacturing company CVA, who like AW were doing war work, had their own section. I do have a photo of the Dyke Road (St Nick's Church) Home Guard, if you want to email me (email@example.com) I will scan and send!
Allen West did have their own Home Guard unit. The C.O. was Major Farmer- the then landlord of the Royal Hussar! I can remember several people talking about it in the 1970s. The training took place on Sunday afternoon at East Brighton Park. During the war overtime was compulsory. You had to work two hours extra Monday to Thursday and all day Saturday and Sunday morning.
Hi Danny Green is well and still living in Brighton you can contact him via Email at .........
Editor's note: Sorry but we do not publish third party contact information.
To Maria Moncur-Byrne: Good to hear that your Dad is still going strong - and yourself, of course! Greetings from Amsterdam
I wonder if anyone remembers Norman Brown? He was my father and worked at Allen West in Brighton from 1955 till around 1980. I think he was Sales Engineer and had previously worked at Metro Vicks Lancashire. I remember him flying to Holland to see clients and also entertaining them at the Old Ship and Metropole. He also had a good friend who worked there, Norman George. I would love to hear from anyone.
Shaun Anscombe, I remember your grandparents very well, they were family friends, my Dad Tom Budgen did exactly the same as Ron served in the RAF until about 1947, and then continued to work at Allen West until his retirement, he passed away in 2013. My mother Margaret (or Midge) also worked at Allen West in the early days. I remember you being born I worked with your great grandmother (Eva I think) at a café in Rottingdean (Cookery Nook) at the time. My Dad was also very involved with the social club, used to love Saturday nights down there. We lived at 20 Foxdown Road. I am just a bit older than Teresa, and left to join the WRAC in 1966, but you may have known some of my siblings.
Hello Richard J. Szypulski, I have just been browsing through this site and noticed your comment about my Father Tom Budgen, so glad to see that he was remembered, he worked at Allen West right up until his retirement. I have many happy memories of the social club and the Christmas parties in the 50s.
Hello Janet, at Allen West I worked in the stores. Therefore we liased with most people in the company. It is sad how work has changed over the years. I started in 1970. In fairness the wages were not great but work was more laid back. People seemed much more sociable and friendly then.
Apprenticed WH Fellinghams, sparks for Allen West at Lewes Rd and EM till RAF National Service 1957. Dad, Dick Thatcher, was in Allen West in '30s till call-up 1940, then toolmaker '59 when I joined DO after 18 months training assembly to test to DO, (making a cannon firing bolts 20 ft into cardboard rolls). A last big project SS Canberra sw/ board. Joined Creeds '63. Both firms out of date. Best bits: Allen West's sociable traditional Brighton. Motor (rally) Club. (Hello Ray, thank you for your posting. We hope that we have understood your shorthand correctly. Please do say if we have not represented what you wanted to say and we will edit. The editing team).
Mary Smith, I do think we are related. I am Nora's youngest and now only living son. I met Lily and Vic when I was all of five during a visit from the States to visit family. Nora married Raymond Gearing before moving to New York around 1953(ish).
Hi all does anybody remember my father a Mr Ted Brown of Queens Park Road? He worked at Allen West for about 21 years up to the time he passed away in 1971.
I owe a huge debt to Allen West as John Knight gave me an apprenticeship which was crucial to establishing a place in the world of 1959. AW gave me, a contemporary of Dave Blakemore, Mike Wooldridge, Craig Baker, and others in this forum, a transition from the unrealistic contemporary school world into adult working life, plus a first-class engineering opportunity which I have built upon for 40 years. I'm convinced that this should still be done today, but times are different.
Sadly my dad, Henry Moncur, passed away on Sunday 11th December. He was 90 years old.
My grandad, Bert Chick. worked at Lewes Road and Moulsecoombe for AW in the 60s, and probably before. I remember going to Christmas parties for the kids at the polytechnic approx 1965-1970. Anyone else remember these?
I am hoping to get in touch with Sue Levy about her photo. I work for Historic England and we have recently disconnected and refurbished a 1943 switchboard made by Allen and West at the English Heritage Site Wrest Park. We are to source images to put in the room with the switchboard and would be interested in using your image. If you can contact me at email@example.com that would be great.
It is a common error (too often used by locals! who should know better) that this firm is called Allen & West, as was stated in the Historic England item above. It was founded by Mr Allen West in 1910. The current firm trades as Allenwest. Never Allen & West please.
My father, Alfred Bernard Cornford, worked at Allen West during the war. Because he had served an apprenticeship at a Brighton garage at the age of 14 years, he was not allowed to join up with his mates in the Territorial Army, where he was a gunner. The recruiting sergeant told him he was more use to the war effort with a spanner in his hand than a rifle! He was a machine operator and tool setter and was responsible for eight machines with female operatives. The lathes were old Warner and Swasey ones. As well as having to work within very fine tolerances, one had to allow for the warped beds!
Allen West was an 'Admiralty factory'. On one occasion a complete control panel was erected which ran through two machine shops. Having been inspected by the naval top brass and engineers, it was dismantled and shipped off - destination unknown. Allen West was well known for its electrical starters.
On one occasion in a Brighton pub, my father was criticised by some soldiers for working in a factory. At which point some sailors stepped forward and made it clear to everyone that their destroyers were fitted with the best starters - Allen West starters. I could go on further as my father told me many stories, some good, some not so good, about working at Allen West during the war. My father died in 2003, aged 91 years.
I served my apprenticeship at Allen West, working in all departments before taking a job in the development labs. When the American General Electric bought into the company I moved into the variable speed department before leaving after eleven years. I spent the next few decades working on factory automation and speed controls before the UK lost most of its large manufacturing plants. Those years at Allen West really set me up for what was to come.
To Janet Hope: Did you live in Chailey Road, Moulsecoomb, next door to a David Osborn?
Hello Maria Moncur-Byrne. I knew and liked your dad and I'm very sorry to hear of his passing. I worked with Henry at Allen West, a first class electrical engineer who did not suffer fools gladly. He was a lecturer at Brighton Technical College and taught and helped me during my ONC and HNC years. I believe I also knew your Mum, didn't she work in the Drawing Office at Allen West and wasn't she related to the Gobeys in Balfour Road, my Mum's next door neighbours?
I was an apprentice along with Al Jeater and Chris Buchanon. I knew many of those mentioned especially Bob Barker who was my first boss in the marketing department. There was also Joe Heaps, Sid Chatfield, and Vicky Claxton among others in the department.
If anyone is interested in some memorabilia from Allen West - formal books mainly - let me know. The Keep at Brighton already had copies and therefore didn't need anymore. I have no familial links to the company, but my step father worked there when he was young (trainee) but was very unhappy at not being given his job back after war service in the Royal Navy.
My grandfather, Fred Pearson, was a senior draftsman and I believe a union rep at AW. Does anyone have memories of him?
To Reg Potter, yes my mum, Bertha Moncur, worked as a tracer at AW. She passed away in December 2015. She was Michael Gobey's cousin. His mum lived in Balfour Rlad for years. Her son, Michael, was my mum's cousin.
My Brighton and Hove > http://www.mybrightonandhove.org.uk/
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After reeling from the collaborative fluff I put together with Scipio the other day (read my part here, and Scipio's here), I decided to go back to being selfish and looking at some of my own stuff.
After watching British 70s classic, Children of the Stones, and listening to this superb Radio 4 documentary about the show by Stewart Lee, I decided to share a bit of Mawdryn related ramblings.
I've been going on about a colossal order of "bitz" for the past week, some of which includes some excellent parts for my Spears of Mawdryn Space Marines (Druid alert), as well as a major helping of bitz for my fledling Imperial Navy Landing Party... my holidays are well and truly sorted. As these have been dispatched to another address, rather than my current one, I'm eagerly looking forward to unwrapping them like a kid at Christmas. For once, this saying is quite timely.
Anyhoo, a couple of months back, I was browsing the various conversion and components sites out there and stumbled across these great resin pieces by Scibor Miniatures. I had been looking for some suitably Celtic shields, and these seemed just right. A good size to boot. I also found these great Celtic decoration plates that I thought could be pressed into service on my "Barrow-Raised Dreadnoughts" and add a little flavour to the few vehicles used by the Chapter. Failing that, they would be great for any building scenery I put together for them.
|Pretty intricate knotwork on pieces so relatively small
|Nice detailing on the reverse side too, more typically fantasy, but more than suitable for Mawdryn
|Assault Marine hastily pressed into service for illustrative purposes...
The "Decorated Plates" are similarly a good size, but the larger ones above may be a little difficult to fit onto a vehicle without trimming. However, I'm sure I may be able to, and if not they won't go to waste
This is supposed to be a review however, and there is a slight flaw with all of these pieces. As intricately beautiful as the knotwork designs are, I'm guessing the moulds are rather shallow and this means that details can be lost on corners and curves in particular. This isn't the end of the world, but worth noting.
|Close to the centre on the middle shield, and on the edges of the left-hand shield the detailing has a tendency to fade
|Similarly, on the corners of these plates it appears that detailing has rubbed away.


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How You Can Prepare For Facebook 'Graph Search'
Facebook's "Graph Search" is slowly rolling out to more Facebook users, giving them the ability to search deeper through Facebook content. What does this mean for user privacy? Matt Lynley reports on Facebook. Photo: Getty Images.
This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.
... the the ... Leigh joins us from the digits blogger Matt ... still you're here to talk about ... Graph Search ... we're talking about little its new search tool that Facebook is slowly rolling out more users ... he's basically giving them the ability to see a lot of things ... photos in particular ... that ... users topping hit ... in the past was that it renders these are things you darn fun and write pages because he had a minor time when business selling a new bull Dyke or so ... he was so so so the answer this is clear so if ... you're you're on your Facebook profile page and any may have ... kinda photo from your profile page and you hinted ... that turns out now that ... if you're still hanging that photo ... you can still appear in Facebook's new ... search results the new search tool in its regret because you never detectors stuff right so you can rent a couple Proms that like the chieftain of the two nd year and so you're still tightening ... this is when you search the grass or state searching for photos the same profit for myself Mandalay ... five-year we don't show up as in the graph search is for blogs being CoreLogic but as a new meme might be some stuff from college or maybe some stuff from ... you know the party and the summoning don't one-on-one the scene in you know when a recruiter to see it ... on and so basically your best bet is one of you wanna jump over to you with this because ... all the activity log hasn't this ... huge list of ... to which all your actions and with even titan fed up ... with the band eyesight and frustrating along those lines and you can adjust ... to see a cop whose issues like to see don't see this was to see those photos ... there's also a full function that lets you set everything to be seen only by Air France now the other tricky things remember ... is that if other people are posting photos of you that have made ... your attack and that they may also be visible to more than just your friends say you're the one in Butte India published into mean if they're taking them and they didn't put him out to the public trade as opposed to just friends for a lot of people it been doing this years ago right ... before Facebook was giving you all these different options and pray I don't know if I ... was in there that was in the public on the default option of bed at a certain point back in ... you know it doesn't set a two dozen eight they've they've done a lot of work to trend and make sure it's very easy to set new year to your phone isn't here to post Labels RB it'll be seen by now ... I'm a bet that prices in essence are still to this one though many were there three or four options the make a lot easier to walk and a lot simpler ... and less comp must come we didn't use to be that but I which is a much what you're talking about ... aam and it seems like a mean it's it seemed very traumatic if you actively kidney stones ... in the past ... he usually when the baby bull in the meantime all the ones that mean the users and if the user hides a photo they think it's written right ... not necessarily because of it as long as they're still technically don't go to your pure bliss defenders and into what use is the repository now it will one thing the biscotti gives in to it that way ... well first of August every year little did Snapchat ... trying to find weeks it seems like the this is a new very very popular app and it basically takes photos that then you send them assuming the disappearance six seconds and a lot of or how much time to set his people think it's for sex the ... break but in fact is it is it really just a reaction to people ... wanting to send photos and ... not going to worry about where they're going precisely because tools like this one from Facebook there's all the while reminding us that there's a will but that's basically what's happened is it's it's of ... the performance excited so you know one of the two of them are the number of flights from a commenter who is going to see a distance it is said to start distilled down to this idea that ... units of sword one-on-one communication to words Facebook has traditionally been for everyone to see it sort of get a chronicling of your of your life your photos ... ok ok and and just says reminder we had we had some stuff up on the screen you can control is ... you can go when your privacy settings ... I'd like to see the photos and then you can go to activity largesse so it's easy to streets here to view love to find in your main privacy settings and then there there is the option basically you can check that everything ... you want when you don't want scene you can report that the fight to beat the tag on my new in Polk de Tagalog a photo just by checking a box and submitting in that'll make him disappear ...


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Lieberman still mum on choice to succeed him
On a day when poll standings for Connecticut's two senator wannabes dominated headlines, the man they hope to replace remained officially neutral.
I attended a ceremony at the Naval Submarine Base Wednesday honoring retiring U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman in part to see whether he might be coaxed into an endorsement of either Republican candidate Linda McMahon or Democrat Chris Murphy.
Lieberman wouldn't take the bait, neither offering an endorsement nor a prediction of who might replace him.
He did, though, admit he is paying close attention.
"I would not be telling the truth if I said I don't follow it," he said with a big smile. "This one looks pretty close."
But after 40 years of electoral politics in Connecticut, the senator said, he is determined to sit this race out.
Lieberman, the Democratic senator who notoriously endorsed Republican John McCain for president in 2008, will evidently remain in his neutrality bunker for the remaining two months of his political career.
Lieberman was at the base Wednesday to receive what Navy Rear Adm. Richard Breckenridge, commander of Submarine Group Two, called a rare honor.
After touring the Submarine Mississippi, the Navy's newest attack submarine, Lieberman was made an honorary submariner in a ceremony that included pinning him with the emblem of the submarine force, a set of dolphins, and a presentation of a Navy cap.
In front of the assembled crew of the Mississippi, Breckenridge thanked the retiring senator for his many years of support of the submarine service, calling him a great American patriot.
"He is something of a father of our undersea forces," Breckenridge said. "He helped get us the capability you take to sea. I wanted you to know that."
In his own remarks to the Mississippi crew, Lieberman, who has served 24 years in the Senate, recalled some of the great political battles over submarines, from the Save the Seawolf campaign at the end of the Cold War to the fight to keep the base in Groton open.
The senator said the single most thrilling day he experienced in all his years in the Senate was when the news broke that the base closure commission had spared the base here.
He added that the battle to preserve submarine funding will continue. Even during the upcoming lame duck session of Congress, the automatic cuts of sequestration will have to be stopped, an immense task with an uncertain outcome, he said.
Lieberman offered a nod to his fellow Democrats in Congress, saying both Sen. Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Rep. Joseph Courtney are prepared to fight for submarine funding.
But he took a subtle swipe at President Obama, who during his last debate made fun of candidate Mitt Romney's criticism that the Navy fleet has fewer ships than it did in 1916.
Yes, we have fewer ships, but the nature of the military is different, Obama told Romney, adding what has become a tagline of this year's election: We also have fewer horses and bayonets.
"Without going into what was in the debate the other night, numbers do count," Lieberman said. "The size of the fleet counts."
This is the opinion of David Collins.
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"Don't mention the war!" is the catch phrase from "The Germans" episode of the British television series Fawlty Towers. I thought of this episode and John Cleese when I prepared a story for GetReligion on the New York Times' and Los Angeles Times' reporting on the Bundestag's vote to protect the religious freedom of Jews and Muslims by forbidding courts to ban the circumcision of infant boys.
The two Times were unable to get past the war in their reporting on this story, and ultimately missed the real story picked up by NBC, which was that German objections to circumcision were not crypto-Nazi prejudices but a consequence of the secularization of German society.
In "The Germans" episode, John Cleese, playing a concussed and bandaged Basil Fawlty, insults a party of German tourists dining at his hotel. Even though he warns his assistant Polly, "don't mention the War", he proceeds to do so with each line taking on a sharper tone. The comedy reaches its zenith when Basil gives an impression of Adolf Hitler and goose-steps round the hotel.
The humor in this episode comes from the interplay between the slightly mad Basil Fawlty's attempts at maintaining bourgeois respectability and his German jokes. The audience also comes to this episode with a common cultural understanding that the Second World War was the fault of the Germans. However, being British, it is impolite to mention it.
This tone of anti-German animus was the topic of this week's Crossroads podcast with host Todd Wilken, along with a quick discussion of British reporting on the appointment of Tim Scott as South Carolina's first African-American senator -- but the meat of our conversation was on the dastardly Hun.
Germans, like Catholics, remain one of the few "safe" topics of Anglo-American humor, and I find national stereotyping amusing. But when ethnic and national stereotypes blind reporters to the true issues at play, it is a problem for journalism.
My argument in this week's Issues, Etc., show was that mentioning the war, e.g., alluding the Nazi past when referring to a court ban on circumcision, clouded the issues. As NBC News' story pointed out, the objections to circumcision arose from the de-Christianized culture of Germany that ascribed no religious significance to the practice, and as such, viewed circumcision as a barbaric cultural practice that should not be permitted in an enlightened European state.
Ignorance of faith, not anti-Semitism, lay behind the circumcision ban. Well, that is what I hoped to have said. Listen -- and let me know what you think.
If I blow this gig, could I try my hand at radio?


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The New Jersey Roadrunners coach, Sandy Pyonin has coached some terrific players over the years and Duke
prospect Kyrie Irving is the latest. Pyonin, one of the best AAU coaches in America, worked with former Duke players Bobby Hurley and Jason Williams.
Irving is a 6-2 guard prospect who plays his high school basketball for traditional power St. Patrick's in New Jersey. The young star has been climbing every recruiting guru's list for the past several months. Irving clearly established himself as a top tier player with his body of work during the Tournament of Champions this past weekend.
Irving put on a show in Cameron Indoor Stadium on Saturday, where he scored 40 points, going 12 of 17 from the field while hitting 4 of 4 from the three point stripe. He was coming off a 23 point, 7 assist performance the night before at the Dean Dome.
Most of the recruiting types missed his Cameron performance that I was fortunate enough to catch. By the time I traveled back to Chapel Hill during this marathon AAU event, the buzz was apparent. Everybody was talking about Irving and many bemoaning the fact they missed his best game.
Irving has become one of the Blue Devils' most important recruiting targets, but they will have some company for his services along the way. One fan held up a sign encouraging Irving to come to Duke, while another yelled "Kyrie Irving come to Duke."
BDN talked to Irving a couple of times this weekend, but it was the chat in Cameron where he opened up about the
recruiting process even more. During that interview, I couldn't help but notice the retired jerseys of #11 Bobby Hurley and #22 Jason Williams in the backdrop, wondering if his would one day hang there, too.
BDN Premium members will hear or read both interviews and comments from his coach this week. BDNP has several interviews, pictures, scouting reports and tidbits from the weekend coming.
Scouting Report on Kyrie Irving - Irving has that rare inside and out game already established going into his senior season. He has a sweet stroke from the three point stripe and hits the shot with consistency. He rarely takes bad shots and almost always has his feet planted. When the ball leaves his fingers he expects it to go in and one cannot help but notice how smooth he looks when releasing the ball. It almost looks effortless for Iriving at times. He has been called a tweener guard but, make no mistake, he can run the point with ease. He gives that role up a lot on a team with little inside depth, but he threads the needle when going past the defense or into the lane. His quickness allows him to get to the basket most any time he wants to. He knows he is the man, so he baits the defense into double teams which frees up his teammates where he hits them on cuts. He is an adept passer, especially when on a break. He plays good on ball defense and stripped the ball four times in one game, scoring on the other end three of those times. There were games where he got off balance from a bump or a slip on the slick floor, but he still made the play, recovering quickly. Irving is not afraid to hit the floor and rises and flushes down dunks with ease. Irving loves to find seams in the defense where he will take the ball to the rack. Irvng is also an extension of the coach on the floor where he tells teammates how to space properly. There are times when he looks unassuming, but he is always in the play and doesn't take a lot of breaks from being in the play at both ends of the court.


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2015 Volkswagen Jetta Repair & Maintenance Costs
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The annual maintenance cost of a 2015 Volkswagen Jetta is $630. Repair and maintenance costs vary depending on age, mileage, location and shop.
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2015 Volkswagen Jetta vehicles have 6 reported problems.The most commonly reported 2015 Volkswagen Jetta problem is: Odor From HVAC Vents
Volkswagen Jetta Repair Costs
The average repair cost for a Volkswagen Jetta is between $567 and $693.
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The Volkswagen Jetta Reliability Rating is 4.0 out of 5.0, which ranks it 24th out of 36 for compact cars. The average annual repair cost is $630 which means it has average ownership costs. The severity of repairs is low while frequency of those issues is average, so major issues are uncommon for the Jetta.
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This is the promised posting about why new software technology finds it so difficult to gain acceptance even when major improvements are likely.
To give you some idea of the scale of the problem, in 1997 Ulf Wiger wrote a paper entitled Four-fold Increase in Productivity and Quality. It described a practical experience with a mature technology (the Erlang language) on a significant new system by a large company.
Now Ulf Wiger is a well known proponent of Erlang, so the uncharitable might suspect some degree of bias and selective reporting. But however skeptical one might be of Ulf Wiger's claims it would be a big stretch to think that he had invented or imagined the whole thing. The most likely explanation is that the reported results are broadly accurate.
So how come we are not all now programming in Erlang? I believe the answer lies in the "hill climbing" approach that most companies take to optimising their behaviour.
If you are lost on a foggy mountain then one way to reach the top is to simply head up hill. You don't need a map or compass to tell which way that is, and eventually you will reach a point where every way is downhill. That is the top. Businesses are very much in this situation. There are lots of things a business could do that might work to increase profits. Some are big steps, others are small. The likely result, especially of big steps, is shrouded in fog. So the best thing is to move up the hill of profitability in small steps. Eventually you get to the top, and then you can rest for a while.
The trouble with this algorithm is that you are likely to have climbed a foothill, and when the fog clears you see that the real mountain is somewhere else.
Here the analogy breaks down because unlike real mountains the business environment keeps changing. Mountains go up and down over millions of years. In business the equivalent happens much faster. In fact many businesses have to run as fast as they can just to keep up with the foothills.
So now what happens when someone claims to have discovered a huge mountain in the distance? Three questions will immediately occur to the managers:
- Is it real?
- Will we survive long enough in the Lowlands of Unprofitability to get there?
- Will it still be there when we arrive?
Is it real?
Managers in the software business are bombarded by sales pitches for things that will make their software faster, cheaper and better. 90 out of 100 of these pitches are for pure snake oil. A further 9 are stuff that will work, but nowhere near as well as advertised. The last 1 will change the world, and possibly make you a fortune if you time it right. The trouble is, how do you find that diamond in all the dross? Each new sales pitch requires a lot of time and effort to evaluate, most of which will give no return on the investment. And in the meantime there are those foothills to keep up with. So managers learn to listen to the sales pitch, nod sagely, and then carry on as before.
I say "managers" because they are usually the ones who make the decisions, and are therefore the target of the sales pitches. Sometimes they can be evaded. The early days of Linux adoption were punctuated by anecdotes of IT managers declaring that Linux was verboten in their shop, only to be gently told that it was already running some piece of key infrastructure.
Will we survive long enough to get there?
At first sight a new programming language looks simple to deploy: just start using it. Unfortunately things are not that simple.
Any significant project is going to require a team of developers, and then on-going maintenance and development of new versions. This means putting a team of people together who all know the language, and then keeping them on the staff. Do you train them? If so how long is it going to take them to get productive? In the days of the great OO paradigm shift it was generally agreed to take months. On the other hand you could hire them, but how many people out there know the language? Probably not very many. Either way, if somebody leaves then replacing them will be problematic.
A software house that has been earning money for a while will have been doing so on the back of some body of software (the exception being pure "body shops" who just write code for customers). This software is the major strategic asset of the company, and in practice most of the development effort in the company is devoted to maintaining and extending existing packages. The only way that you can apply a new programming language to an existing software package is to throw away and rewrite the whole thing. At the very least this is a huge and risky enterprise: revenue from the old legacy will drop off fast if you stop developing it, and in the meantime you just have to hope that the new system gets delivered on time and on budget, because if it doesn't you will go bust. Of course a rewrite of this sort will eventually be necessary, but the sad thing is that by then the company is not in good enough financial shape to take the project on.
Most software companies have diversified and do not depend on one monolithic software asset, so in theory you could do the rewrites one system at a time. This is still expensive and risky, but at least you don't have to bet the company. But typically each major asset has a division looking after it, and from within the division the sums look just the same as for a smaller company with one big asset. So the only people who can make such a decision are the board of directors. I'll come back to this point later.
The last option for a new programming language is a completely new product line. Here you are starting with a clean sheet. You still have training and recruitment issues, not to mention long term support, and you have to put together a whole new toolchain for the developers, but the proposition does at least look sensible.
Will it still be there when we arrive?
New technologies often don't hit the big time. If the suppliers go out of business, or the open source community loses interest, then anyone who adopted the technology early is going to be left high and dry. A previous employer of mine opted for Transputers in a big digital signal processing project. The Transputer was technically ideal, but then INMOS went out of business.
Geoffrey Moore has described a "chasm" between the Innovator market (who will buy anything just because it is new) and the Early Adopters (who make a rational decision to invest in new things). I'm not convinced that there is really a chasm: people seem to have continuous variations rather than discrete types. But either way there is a real obstacle here. In effect everyone is waiting for everyone else to jump first.
So those were the rational reasons why companies tend to avoid new technology. Now for the, err, less rational reasons.
Most of these come down to the fact that companies are not like Hobbe's Leviathan. As described in The Tipping Point, once you get past about 150 people in an organisation the people in it cannot keep track of everyone else. Hence you find lots of people at all levels working hard to optimise their bit, but inadvertently messing up the stuff done by someone else. Bear with me while I take you on a short tour of the theory and practice of management motivation.
Companies try hard to reward people who do the Right Thing (at least, the Right Thing for the company). This generally means short term evaluation on how they are doing at their main task. Sales people, for instance, get paid partly by commission, which is a very direct linkage of short term performance to pay. Other people get annual bonuses if their bosses recommend them for it, and of course promotion happens from time to time. And its backed up by social pressure as well: these people are being rewarded for doing the Right Things, and everyone else takes note.
All of this is absolutely vital for a company to survive: you have to keep your eye on the ball, nose to the grindstone and ear to the ground. However, as Clayton Christensen describes in The Innovator's Dilemma, it also leads to a problem when a "disruptive technology" arrives.
An example of what goes wrong was Xerox PARC. As is well known, the researchers at PARC pretty much invented the modern Office software suite, along with graphical user interfaces, laser printers and ethernet. The usual myth has it that Xerox executives were too dumb to realise what they had, but the real story is more interesting. Xerox did actually go to market with a serious office machine, called Xerox Star. You or I could sit down at one of those things and feel right at home. But when it was launched in 1981 it only sold 25,000 units, which was far too few to make a profit.
The reason (I believe, although I haven't seen this anywhere else) is that Xerox salesmen (and they were almost all men at that time) were experts at selling big photocopiers to big companies. That was the bread-and-butter of Xerox business, and the quarterly bonuses of those salesmen depended on doing that as much as possible. Anything else was a distraction. So when this funny computer thing appeared in their catalog they basically ignored it. If someone specifically asked for some I'm sure that any salesman would be happy to fill the order, but they weren't going to waste valuable face time with corporate buyers trying to explain why a whizzy and very expensive piece of equipment was going to revolutionise everything. So Xerox concluded that there was no market for networked desktop computers and sold the whole concept off to Steve Jobs in exchange for some Apple stock.
Christensen has a number of other examples of this phenomenon, all of which are market based. This is probably because you can observe the market behaviour and success of a company, whereas just about everything else they do tends to be visible only on the inside, and often not even then. But the same logic applies.
Suppose you are a project manager, entrusted with Project X to develop some new software. You have had your plans and associated budget approved by the Committee That Spends Money (every company has one, but the name varies). And then some engineer walks into your office and starts talking about a programming language, ending with "… so if you used this on Project X you could do it for a quarter of the cost".
Now, strange to relate, a project manager will not actually be rewarded for coming in 75% under budget. Instead he (even today it is usually "he") will be told off for not submitting a better estimate. Senior managers do not like padded estimates because it prevents the money being invested more profitably elsewhere. Coming in a bit under your original estimate is OK: it shows you are a good manager. But coming in way under shows you are either bad at estimation or just plain dishonest (managers watch Star Trek too). Besides, you already have approval for your original plan, so why bother changing course now?
But you have also been around a bit longer than this engineer, and have seen some technology changes. So you ask some pertinant questions, like who else has used it, how long it will take the programmers to learn it, and where the support is going to come from. At the end of this you conclude that, even if this technology is as good as claimed, if you use it on Project X you stand a very good chance of blowing your entire budget just teaching your programmers to use it. This will not get you promoted, and might even get you fired for incompetence. So you thank the engineer for bringing this matter to your attention, promise to look into it carefully, and show him the door.
So now the engineer tries going up the ladder. Next stop is the Product Manager, who looks after the product line that Project X will fit into. He can see that there just might be a case for making the investment, but he has already committed to a programme of improvements and updates to the existing product line to keep it competitive. His annual bonus depends on delivering that plan, and this new language will obviously disrupt the important work he has been entrusted with. So he too thanks the engineer and points him out of the door.
Next stop is the Chief Technology Officer. He is vaguely aware of programming languages, but being a wise man he seeks advice from those who understand these issues (most geeks will find this surprising, but very few senior managers got there by being stupid). Meaning, of course, the project and product managers mentioned earlier, possibly with a trusted engineer or two as well.
These engineers know about programming. In fact they owe their position to knowing more about it than anyone else. This new language will make that valuable knowledge obsolete, so they are not well disposed to it. On top of that they find the technical arguments in favour of the new language highly unconvincing. Paul Graham has christened this phenomenon The Blub Paradox. If you haven't already read his essay please do so: it explains this far better than I ever could.
In short, everyone in the company with any interest in the selection of a new programming languge can see a lot of very good reasons why it would be a bad idea. The only people who disagree are the ones who have taken the trouble to learn a new language and understand its power. But they are generally in a minority of one.
And this is true in every company. Every company has a few eccentric engineers who try to explain why this or that new technology would be a great investment. Sometimes they are even right. But they are almost never taken seriously. And so great technologies that could actually save the world a great deal of money on software development (not to mention improve quality a lot as well) languish on the shelf.


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Grand National in Aintree.
Even people usually not betting have a flutter heading to the nearest betting shop or hitting the net. Good news for an online gambling company, mixed news when it comes to the servers that need to cope with a lot more traffic than any other time of the year. Quite a few online gaming companies had problems on the day.
Our servers held and we only load tested one aspect of our system. Here's the story.
About two weeks before the race it was decided that we want our payment section tested after all. Right, plenty of time, better get started. We looked into JMeter, however there's limited knowledge in the team. So we asked some developers for help. After a lot of headscratching it was decided, yes, it can be done within about 3 weeks and 2 devs. So the idea of using JMeter was out of the window. A commercial solution was not feasable due to timescales and some other factors.
We decided, since it was to be something that had to be quick and was to be a one off (we'll worry about next year later), to do an in-house solution. While I was running around, gathering required information, investigating possible pitfalls, etc our automation expert (don't tell him, he will ask for more money) used AutoIT to code the load tool.
Yes, you read right. That's about the most unlikely tool for a performance test that I can think of but I employed most of my team members, I have trust in their abilities so time to put my money where my mouth is.
We knew that we wanted to get 8+ transactions a second to test that our system and our third party payment provider could take the heat. And we wanted that sustained over a period of time, say half an hour before the race is busiest so let's just run it for that time. That's the detailed requirements gathering out of the way...
I won't go into the details of the system for obvious reasons, rather explain how we went about it. We ran a transaction manually and found that it took between 10-25 seconds to complete, including filling out the form again for a second try. We also found that we could fit 8 browser windows on a monitor and show all necessary fields and buttons when setting the window size to 35%.
The idea was then to click "Submit" on all 8 browsers at the same time (or a millisecond apart). That worked fine. So, we could hit the system with 8 transactions. Once.
Ok, no problem, since we needed about 25 seconds for a round trip that was maintainable, we added another 5 seconds in case the system slowed down and then went to hunt down 30 PCs in the office (an experience in itself) to start them a second apart.
After having identified the machines we set all 30 to the same screen resolution (I didn't know how many different monitors we had until that day), deployed our performance tool to each machine and set up the machines. That involved setting the IE homepage to the desired URL, running the setup tool, clicking the necessary buttons and fields so that the correct X/Y coordinates were captured. The AutoIT application would then calculate the relative difference for the other 7 windows.
That was a lot of manual setup but we haven't had the time to code for more. Each machine got it's own ID (set up in the application and post it on the monitor) from 1 to 30 and we coded an editable start time into it. For example, machine with ID 1 would start at 08:30:01, ID 2 would start at 08:30:02, etc and then loop round starting again at 08:30:31.
Quite a bit of thinking and discussion has gone into this bit because we could have let each window just start again after each transaction was finished. Depending on the system response time transaction would have drifted apart though resulting in potentially a lot higher transaction number for some seconds and none at others. I was more concerned about the former as it could have been a theoretical 30*8=240 transactions at the same time which would very likely have created serious problems.
So we had our 8 transactions running for 30 seconds, looping around indefinetely until we stopped them. Setup was completed in the evening after a 13 hour+ day. We also did a small test run just to make sure it would work.
Before starting the next morning we had sys admins and several other people in place to monitor the various system components during the test and in case something went seriously wrong.
Execution threw up some problems, not least some network issues that weren't identified before. Also, some pages threw errors that the application couldn't recover from. Time was running out and people came into the office wanting their PCs to work on, so work was stopped. Two days later, after resolving the issues and having two more days to put some resilience into the AutoIT scripts so that recovery after errors was better we tried again.
This time it worked really well. Some machines had to be started again but overall we put the desired load on the system.
Lessons learnt:
- Regardless how much you ask people for information, there's always something that someone has forgot to mention that will ruin your day. Do a test run and plan for round 2.
- Don't use IE if you don't have a standard company build on all PCs. Use a browser that you install yourself and control so you don't run into configuration issues when you least need it.
- Ask people for help. Running it yourself will only stress you out. I found that once we explained the somewhat mad plan people were happy to assist
- Tell people if you're highjacking their PCs, you may not get a chance to revert all changes. That was done for most but the ones we forgot were understandably miffed that we changed their settings without warning.
- Get a demonstration of what will be monitored and what can be saved for analysis later. Assuming it will all be there can lead to disappointment and repeats of the test.
- Don't ask others to do the boring jobs. Being hands on helps the rest of the team to see that you're serious about making this work.
- It's possible to get the job done, regardless if you're prepared, have the tools or the time. Determination, the belief that the job can be done and trust in others will get you a long way.
Thanks for reading.