Pay and Display …

… in an olive grove? Sometimes things here make no sense ;-)

Just to be clear, the nearest village is about 5 miles away!

Overheard today

Two acquaintances were overheard today bemoaning technology and how it doesn’t do “What It Should”.

Bemoaner1 was telling Bemoaner2 that she could no longer open documents sent to her by a third party. There was some muttering, but little clarity, about .docx files being the problem.

Technical note: Anyone who has moved to Office2007 now creates .docx files by default when they save a Word document. Those files can not be opened by anyone using a earlier version of Office/Word. There’s a very simple solution, save the documents as a regular .doc file rather than the .docx file, but not everyone knows that.

Anyhooo, Bemoaner2 sympathised but went on to explain that they understood what had caused the problem. “It’s because she now has Windows7, and we don’t!”

Windows7 anyone?!?

The old joke about a WordPerfect customer support call comes to mind. For those who don’t remember pre-Windows days WordPerfect was (still is?) what Word is today and being pre-Windows users had to use Dos from time to time.

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Alleged dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee with a caller:

Customer Support: “Ridge Hall computer assistant; may I help you?”

Caller: “Yes, well, I’m having trouble with WordPerfect.”

CS: “What sort of trouble?”

C: “Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away.”

CS: “Went away?”

C: “They disappeared.”

CS: “Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?”

C: “Nothing.”

CS: “Nothing?”

C: “It’s blank; it won’t accept anything when I type.”

CS: “Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?”

C: “How do I tell?”

CS: “Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?”

C: “What’s a sea-prompt?”

CS: “Never mind. Can you move the cursor around on the screen?”

C: “There isn’t any cursor, I told you, it won’t accept anything I type.”

CS: “Does your monitor have a power indicator?”

C: “What’s a monitor?”

CS: “It’s the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV. Does it have a little light that tells you when it’s on?”

C: “I don’t know.”

CS: “Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?”

C: “Yes, I think so.”

CS: “Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it’s plugged into the wall.”

C: “…….Yes, it is.”

CS: “When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?”

C: “No.”

CS: “Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable.”

C: “…….Okay, here it is.”

CS: “Follow it for me, and tell me if it’s plugged securely into the back of your computer.”

“I can’t reach.”

CS: “Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?”

C: “No.”

CS: “Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?”

C: “Oh, it’s not because I don’t have the right angle – it’s because it’s dark.”

CS: “Dark?”

C: “Yes – the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window.”

CS: “Well, turn on the office light then.”

C: “I can’t.”

CS: “No? Why not?”

C: “Because there’s a power outage.”

CS: “A power… A power outage? Ah, Okay, we’ve got it licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?”

C: “Well, yes, I keep them in the closet.”

CS: “Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from.”

C: “Really? Is it that bad?”

CS: “Yes, I’m afraid it is.”

C: “Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?”

CS: “Tell them you’re too stupid to own a computer.”

Profound (but weird) logic

A friend recently had trouble with her internet router. It went, very quickly, from working fine to being non-operational. Having tried the standard re-booting and had no joy she called Cyta, the local phone company. They ran through some diagnostics on the phone and then agreed it was a sickly router and offered to send an engineer out.

Said engineer arrived promptly, listened to the explanation of the problem, ran some more diagnostics and pronounced the router dead and needed to be replaced.

While the swap was taking place she commented to the engineer …

“It was working fine. Then the lights flickered and went out”

His response?

“Yes. Just like with people. Why would it be any different for a router?”

The ‘white van’ equivalent

In England builders are notorious for driving (often badly) in white transit vans. Here in Cyprus they seem to see no need to have anything more than a regular car. Of course that gives much less storage space … but as long as they load carefully that doesn’t seem to be a problem.

One of next door’s builders gives a perfect example ;-)

Who knew that a regular car held so much? How he ever finds anything is quite another question!

Pragmatic Cyprus

There is, often, a pragmatic side to people here and it pops up in the oddest places.

A while back someone sent us a cheque. It was from the Laiki Bank, the second largest bank on the island.

As in the UK the account number, name and the like were printed on the cheque along with the branch name … which is where the pragmatic nature shines through.

The branch in question is in Larnaca, on the ring road that loops around much of town. It’s actually at one of the main junctions – with traffic lights – which is known locally as the Fire Station junction because that’s where the town’s big fire station is located. It’s often used as a landmark when giving directions.

Ok, you know the fire station on the ring road? Well, if you are driving into town from the motorway then turn left at the fire station lights and it’s the first block on your left sort of thing.

So guess what the branch is called. Go on, have a go!

Yep, that branch of Laiki bank is named, by Laiki Bank themselves, as the Fire Station Traffic Lights branch.

De-cluttering

Despite being here for over a year now we still have some de-cluttering to do. While we were still working it was one of those things that just didn’t get done regularly so we accepted that we would end up with things here that we didn’t really need.

We’re now tackling that a little – a shelf, a drawer, a box – at a time.

This morning we unearthed a stash of water bombs. Cypriot ones. Logically we must have bought them while we were here on holiday, taken them back to London with the rest of our luggage, and then shipped them back to Cyprus with the rest of our worldly possessions.

Oh, and there are nine packets of them.

If we were to figure out the number of miles these things had travelled, or worked out the cost of their Cyprus to London and London to Cyprus trips then we might be quite dismayed. Dismayed enough to turn to drink.

Luckily Keo Gin is still cheap and the lemons on next door’s tree are almost ready. Maybe it’s not such a problem after all ;-)

Almost, but not quite

On the road on the way to the beach we drive passed a road sign in Greek and translated into English.

Glancing at the sign, at a distance, it’s clear that there are supposed to be some traffic calming measures ahead. Actually, we’re pretty sure there aren’t any but that’s another issue.

On closer inspection though the English translation just doesn’t work!

Digging the Roads

Here in Cyprus we seem to face pretty much the same problem we did in the UK with a stream of utilities, and others, digging up any given stretch of road in a random fashion. Eventually the surface becomes such a mess of laid and relaid surface that the whole road has to be closed for a complete resurface … and then the merry-go-round starts again.

Needless to say, in Cyprus there is an added nuance – laying a new road around any existing impediments …

A very large senior school is being constructed just up the road from us. Aside from it seeming to include the removal of a zillion cubic metres of hillside and a semi-permanet dust storm it, of course, needs a brand new access road. The pre-existing road, from which the new access road to the school is now built, leads to a major Police Station and a cluster of houses. It is common practice, a bit like the US, for electricity to be supplied via overhead cables on a network of telegraph poles and mini-transformers.

So what do you do if the new road plan says “build it here“, and the local electricity system is in the way?

Well … it’s obvious isn’t it? You build the road around it …