Well here’s a wonderful thing. We moved into the digital TV age several years back now and looked forward to brilliantly clear pictures and no more worries about tuning stations. Until last Wednesday. Now all our digital TV contrivances had been warning us we would need to rescan them on 25 March to be able to continue to watch anything other than four terrestrial analogue channels (We couldn’t get Five on analogue before anyway). I didn’t think it would be too tricky, after all I wrestle with networks of computers and t’Internet on a daily basis. All you have to do is find the right buttons on the remote and it’s pretty automatic.

And so it turned out, kinda. A subtle side effect was that all the favourites that I had laboriously set up on each digital TV thingy so they all matched had been wiped so they had to be recreated from scratch. Now in the scheme of things hardly a disaster I grant you. No-one was injured, no ambulances had to be called and no animals were hurt in the process. However just as every designer thinks they have the best design, demonstrably better than anyone else, so it is that every digital TV appliance designer thinks they have the best way to organise your channels. The idea being that you can shuffle the less than useful channels to the nether regions of your list, only to be seen when you are looking for an obscure radio channel. Well my experience tells me most of them are wrong. Of course I could have paused to read the manual, but that would have sat uncomfortably with my carefully nurtured techie persona, and therefore was effectively a non-option. Still the sense of empowerment after I had got the channels in the order I wanted almost made it worth it.  At least I know how much time to set aside the next time I have to rescan.

Now if that sounds a tad jaundiced, it’s probably because it is. See all the digital channels are transmitted on an analogue channel around 33-34 I think, so when you rescan, that particular channel becomes off-limits to any other gizmo generating a modulated signal. Like a video recorder. Yes I know, but a lot of people still have video recorders because they haven’t broke yet and getting a hard disk or DVD recorder means unplumbing an awful lot of wires in my case. And teaching all other members of household how to use something somewhat different to what they are used to. It will happen, but best left until disaster strikes. Not to say a certain amount of market research hasn’t been done of course, you have to be prepared. So anyway all it looked good on main telly, digital signal looks OK, no significant losses of channels, so I turn the video on to set up a recording and the picture on the TV breaks up.

Now you may recall that when Five was first launched, everyone had to have their videos retuned so they could get the signal. Ours was. Don’t know if it was on a different channel in London to down here ‘cos we were living in London at the time, but it turns out it was placed smack dab in the middle of what is now the new digital channel. Once I had realised that it was a simple case of retuning the output of the video so the picture no longer broke up. And yes I did have to read the manual to do that. Since in common with most we now use the Scart input exclusively, I can probably turn the modulator off completely. But that means I’ll have to read the manual again, so no rush.

It’s not often that ‘Lymington’ and ‘dangerous occupation’ are mentioned in the same sentence. In fact I can’t recall a single such instance. I suppose being the lollipop person on Avenue Road outside the school might count, the interface of children and traffic is always going to be a tad tricky.

But today I came across someone for whom that could be an apt description. Well technically Wife came across them, but anyway. Those with long-ish memories who live in the area may recall that the new Lymington hospital was originally built with a number of ‘green’ aims, possibly highest among them to reduce car usage. The thinking went something like this. If we have 200 parking places for a hospital with staff of 400 and a 4500 projected annual patients then we will be helping to save the planet. And in a remarkable ‘let them eat cake’ moment of clarity, concluded that the local bus service could take the strain and an old single platform station just behind the Somerfields garage could be re-opened to bring patients by train. How glorious to be blessed by such forward-thinking public servants.

Now I don’t know if you can spot any potential holes in the thinking, but here’s one to start off with. The station didn’t re-open. And for some reason sick people, even out-patients find buses a little tricky. So we have the log-jam which is the hospital car-park and return to the previously mentioned hazardous occupation. Viz parking attendant at Lymington Hospital. Wife came out after her blood test to hear an elderly chap berating the parking attendant for the staff cars parked in the disabled spaces. Two things you need for a proper hospital are staff and people who may have limited mobility so bit of a problem really if they need to fill the same space. As Wife left she saw another irate person joining in, and I dare say had she stayed long enough there may have been a pack circling.

Obviously something has to be done.  Our not infrequent visits to see the MiL during her confinements in the hospital have resulted in nil disabled spaces which in turn leads to  a certain amount of circling the Ampress one-way system looking for parking after dropping Wife off. And this is where the whole ‘green’ thing goes wonky. People can’t get to the hospital other than be car, can’t park when they get there, so add considerably to the carbon emissions driving around trying to find a parking space. Fortunately there will be additional staff parking spaces at some point as the planning permission appears to have been granted. You may detect something short of a definitive in the last sentence. Well that’s largely because in my thorough on-line research into this, I came across many, oh so many, pdf files attributed to New Forest District Council committees which I had erroneously assumed were in English. I recognised the bit in the snappily titled CDR04623.pdf which said “Decision: Planning Consent” which I assume means that they decided to give planning consent. Tricky bit after that was entitled “Conditions:” which went thus;

Prior to commencement of works (including site clearance and any other preparatory works) the scheme for the protection of trees in accordance with the submitted Barrell Tree Consultancy Arboricultural Impact Appraisal and Method Statement ref 8352-AIA-AS and plan ref 8352-BT1 dated 30 September 2008 shall be implemented and at least  working days notice shall be given to the Local Planning Authority that it has been erected.

To be perfectly honest I wasn’t sure whether the condition in question was something to be met prior to starting the project or mention of a heretofore only suspected ailment to be known as Bureaucratic Tourettes Syndrome. However I am forced to the conclusion that the parking attendant shouldn’t be breaking open the bubbly quite yet.